The Tiger of Kāśī

Diti's grief

Sanatkumāra tells this story to Vyāsa. When Viṣṇu killed Hiraṇyākṣa, the mighty son of Diti, his mother was sunk in sorrow. A daitya named Dundubhinirhrāda — the Purāṇa calls him the maternal uncle of Prahlāda, a tormentor of the gods and a master of illusion — came to her and steadied her with comforting words.

Having consoled her, he turned to his real concern. The gods, he thought bitterly, had used Viṣṇu to have the great asura Hiraṇyākṣa and his brother killed by deceit. How could they be defeated?

The daitya's reasoning

He asked himself three questions: what is the gods' strength, what is their food, what do they rest on? He turned it over many times and arrived at one answer — the brahmins.

His reasoning ran like this. The gods live on what is offered in sacrifice. Sacrifices come from the Vedas. The Vedas rest on the brahmins. So the brahmins are the strength of the gods; all the Vedas, and Indra and the rest, stand on them. If the brahmins perish, the Vedas perish of themselves; with the Vedas gone the sacrifices end; and the gods, left without food, grow weak and are easily conquered.

“Then,” he thought, “I alone shall be honoured in the three worlds. I shall carry off the gods' inexhaustible wealth and enjoy a kingdom with no thorn in it.”

Next he asked where brahmins were most numerous — men bright with sacred power, students of the Veda, full of tapas. The answer was plain: Kāśī. He would take that city first, then go on to the other holy places, and devour the brahmins of every tīrtha and every hermitage.

The hidden killer of Kāśī

So he came to Kāśī and began to kill. When brahmins went into the forest to gather firewood and kuśa grass, he ate them there. So that no one should know him, he lived in the woods as a forest creature and in the ponds as a water creature. Even the gods could not detect him.

By day he sat among the sages as a sage, seemingly absorbed in meditation, and watched who went in and out of the leaf huts. By night he became a tiger and ate brahmins in great numbers — fearlessly, and so completely that not even the bones were left. In this way he killed very many.

The night of Śivarātri

One Śivarātri a devotee of Śiva worshipped the God of gods in his hut and then sank into meditation. Dundubhinirhrāda, proud of his strength, took the tiger's form and meant to eat him.

He could not. The devotee's mind was fixed firmly on the vision of Śiva, and he had set the protective astra-mantras about himself. The tiger was unable to devour him.

Śiva, who is everywhere, knew what the daitya intended and resolved to kill him. At the moment the tiger moved to seize the devotee, the three-eyed Lord — the jewel that guards the world, skilled in protecting his own — appeared, coming out of the very liṅga the devotee had worshipped.

The fist

Seeing Śiva emerge from the liṅga, the daitya, still in the tiger's shape, swelled until he was as large as a mountain. He looked at the all-knowing Lord with contempt and sprang.

Śiva caught him in mid-leap, clamped him in his armpit, and struck the tiger on the head with a fist harder than a thunderbolt.

Crushed in that grip and broken by the blow, the tiger died, filling earth and sky with a tremendous roar. The ascetics of the place, shaken by the sound, followed it through the night and came to the spot. There they saw Śiva holding the great beast under his arm. They bowed, cried “Victory!” and praised him.

Vyāghreśvara

“Teacher of the world, Lord, protect us from this terrible affliction,” the brahmins said. “Have mercy and stay here. Remain in this very form, under the name Vyāghreśa, and guard this place called Jyeṣṭha. Lord of Gaurī, destroy the wicked, protect us who live at this tīrtha from every kind of harm, and give your devotees freedom from fear.”

Śiva said, “So be it,” and added: “Whoever sees me here in this form with faith — I will surely remove that person's sorrow. And whoever hears this deed of mine and goes into battle holding this liṅga in the heart will win without doubt.”

Just then Indra and all the gods arrived, rejoicing and shouting victory. With joined palms and bowed shoulders they praised him: “Lord of the gods, remover of the grief of those who bow to you, by killing Dundubhinirhrāda you have saved us. Always protect your devotees and destroy the wicked.” Śiva answered, “It shall be so,” and, pleased, entered the liṅga again. The gods went home astonished, and the brahmins went their ways in great joy.

The fruit of hearing

The Purāṇa ends the chapter with its promise. Whoever hears or tells, reads or teaches this account of Vyāghreśvara obtains every wish, is freed from all sorrow and reaches liberation. It calls the story heavenly, a giver of fame, of sons and grandsons, of deep devotion and of the highest knowledge, dear to Śiva and a remover of the mind's many disorders.