The Seven Hunters and the Verse That Woke a King

A teaching passed from hand to hand

Śaunaka has just heard the line of the Sun, who is called the god of śrāddha, and he asks Sūta to explain: what is the greatness of śrāddha, what is its fruit, and how did the Pitṛs, the ancestors, come to be? Sūta answers with something Bhīṣma said as he lay on the bed of arrows, when Yudhiṣṭhira asked him how a person comes to thrive and what keeps one from sorrow.

Those who perform śrāddha with love, Bhīṣma said, find everything made whole by the grace of the ancestors. People offer piṇḍas to three — father, grandfather and great-grandfather — and the Pitṛs, pleased, give dharma to those who want dharma, children to those who want children, and well-being to those who want that. Yudhiṣṭhira pressed him. Some ancestors are in heaven and some in hell, and each being's fruit is fixed by its own deeds; how then does the offering reach them, and how can they give anything back? And is it true that even the gods worship the Pitṛs?

Bhīṣma answered from his own life. Once, when he was offering piṇḍas, his dead father Śantanu broke through the earth and held out his hand to receive the offering. Bhīṣma judged that the rite knows no such way of giving, and laid the piṇḍa on the kuśa grass as the rule requires. Śantanu was delighted. I was testing you, he said; as a king acts, so his people act, and you have acted by the Veda. He gave his son the boon that death would have no power over him until he himself allowed it, and then answered his questions with what he had once heard from the sage Mārkaṇḍeya.

Mārkaṇḍeya, in turn, had seen a great aerial car come out of the mountain, and on a couch in it a being no bigger than a thumb, blazing like fire set within fire. This was Sanatkumāra, the son of Brahmā, who remains just as he was born and so is called Kumāra. He had come because of the sage's tapas, and Mārkaṇḍeya asked him how the Pitṛs first arose.

Sanatkumāra told him that Brahmā once created the gods and asked them to worship him, but they, wanting the fruit for themselves, turned away, and he cursed them to lose their understanding. When they begged for mercy he sent them to learn from their own sons. The sons taught them and, in doing so, addressed them as “sons”. Puzzled, the gods went back to Brahmā, who told them the word was rightly spoken: you are the gods, and those who gave you knowledge are your fathers. So gods and Pitṛs are father and son to each other, and should worship each other. The Pitṛs then gave their promise: the moon, satisfied by śrāddha, will satisfy the whole moving and unmoving world, and whoever offers three piṇḍas with name and lineage will have his wishes fulfilled.

There are seven groups of Pitṛs in heaven, Sanatkumāra added, four with form and three without, and an offering made to them in silver, or in a vessel touched with silver, with the word svadhā, pleases them. The work done for the ancestors is counted above the work done for the gods; even yoga does not lead where devotion to the ancestors leads. Saying this, he gave Mārkaṇḍeya an inner sight that even the gods find hard to win, and was gone. What follows is what Mārkaṇḍeya then told.

The guru's cow

There were once seven brahmins, sons of Bharadvāja, who practised the discipline of yoga but slipped into wrong conduct and fell from it. Their names were Vāgduṣṭa, Krodhana, Hiṃsra, Piśuna, Kavi, Khasṛma and Pitṛvartī, and the Purāṇa remarks that each behaved as his name suggests — foul of speech, quick to anger, violent, slanderous and so on.

In their next birth they were the sons of Kauśika and the pupils of Garga. Their father died and they lived away from home, with their teacher. One day, at his word, they took his tawny milch cow and her calf out to graze.

On the way, tormented by hunger and clouded by folly, they formed the cruel thought of killing her. Kavi and Khasṛma pleaded for the cow, but the others would not give way, and the two could not save her from their brothers.

Then Pitṛvartī spoke. He was the one who performed śrāddha every day, and he was angry. If you are set on killing her, he said, then do it in the name of the ancestors, and perform their śrāddha with care. In that way the cow will come to dharma, and we, having honoured the Pitṛs rightly, will not be touched by the wrong.

They did as he said. They sprinkled the cow in consecration, killed her, performed the śrāddha of the ancestors with her, and then ate.

Afterwards they went to their guru and told him that a lion had killed the cow; here is the calf, they said, take it. The simple-hearted brahmin took the calf and believed them. And for that false dealing, the Purāṇa says, the sin of cow-killing did cling to them.

Hunters in Daśārṇa, deer on Kālañjara

In time their lives ran out and all seven died. Because of the cruel deed, the killing and their unworthy conduct towards their teacher, they were born as the seven sons of a hunter in the Daśārṇa country — fierce by nature and living by violence, yet strong, thoughtful and skilled in their own dharma.

Keeping to that dharma they died again, and were born as deer on the lovely mountain of Kālañjara. Here something had changed. They remembered their former births. Uneasy at what they had done and free of delusion, they roamed the forest without quarrel, without possessions, forgiving, holding in mind the dharma they had once heard in their teachers' houses and wishing only to turn away from the round of the world.

As ascetics in the bodies of deer they ate only what came to them, and there on the mountain they gave up their lives. The places where they fell, Mārkaṇḍeya tells Bhīṣma, can still be seen on Kālañjara. By this good act they were freed from both their merit and their fault.

The cakravākas of Śaradvīpa

The seven were born next as cakravāka birds, living on the water in the holy region of Śaradvīpa. Though cakravākas live in pairs, these put that way of life aside and lived like sages, devoted to dharma and to celibacy, always together in one place and untroubled by change. The Purāṇa gives their names in this birth twice. First they are Niḥsaṅga, Nirmama, Śānta, Nirdvandva, Niṣparigraha, Nivṛtti and Nirvṛta — names that all speak of detachment and peace. A little later they are Sumanā, Suvāk, Śuddha, Pañcama, Chidradarśaka, Svatantra and Suyajña.

The text stops to explain how the two halves of their deed worked themselves out. For the false and faulty dealing with their guru in the brahmin birth, they became birds. But because they had performed śrāddha, carefully and to please the Pitṛs, the strength of knowledge stayed with them, and step by step they gained better birth and better understanding. What they had learned in their teachers' houses in earlier lives remained theirs — and so, the Purāṇa adds, everyone should keep up the practice of knowledge.

One bird's wish

One day the splendid and powerful king of the Nīpa country came to that forest with the women of his household. The bird named Svatantra saw him, at ease and bright with royal fortune, and a wish rose in him. I am worn thin by this unmoving tapas and endless fasting, he thought. If I have any merit, any tapas, any discipline, let its whole fruit make me the owner of good fortune like his.

Two of his companions spoke at once: when you are king, let us be your ministers, dear to you and wishing you well. So be it, he said — and with that their course was set.

Another of the birds rebuked them. You had reached the dharma of yoga, and this is the boon you want? You are speaking of karma. Then hear me: you will be king in the fine city of Kāmpilya, and these two, fallen from yoga, will be your ministers. After that the other four would not speak to the three who had hungered for a kingdom.

The three turned to them and begged for kindness, and the bird called Sumanā relented. Your curse will come to an end, he said, and you will gain yoga again. Svatantra will understand the speech of all creatures. And the merit of the ancestors' favour is still yours, because you consecrated that cow and offered śrāddha for the Pitṛs. As for how our knowledge will become the cause of your yoga: one day you will hear from some man a verse that we have spoken. When you hear it, yoga will return to you. Then Sumanā fell silent.

Swans on Lake Mānasa

The seven lived on as birds of Lake Mānasa — the verse to come calls them swans — given to yoga, taking only air and water and letting their bodies waste away.

The king of Nīpa, having enjoyed himself in that forest like Indra in Nandana, went home with his queen. He had a deeply righteous son named Aṇuha. He set Aṇuha on the throne, went back to the forest where the seven companions lived, and did tapas there, fasting and living on air. Lit up by his presence, the forest became known as Vaibhrāja, a place that grants success in yoga.

There the four birds who had kept to yoga, and the three who had fallen from it, left their bodies.

Kāmpilya

All seven were born in the city of Kāmpilya. Four of them kept the memory of their former lives. Three had lost it, and were sunk in forgetfulness.

Svatantra was born as Brahmadatta, the son of the mighty Aṇuha. The two who had asked to be his ministers were born in the same city as the sons of a learned brahmin, masters of the Veda and its limbs: Pañcāla, a Ṛgvedin who served as a teacher, and Puṇḍarīka, who knew two Vedas, a singer of the chants and an adhvaryu priest. When Aṇuha saw that his son was without fault he consecrated him king and went to the highest state; the father of Pañcāla and Puṇḍarīka likewise made his sons the king's ministers and went to the forest. Brahmadatta's wife was named Sannati, and her heart was given to her husband alone.

The other four were born in that same Kāmpilya as the sons of a poor brahmin. Their names were Dhṛtimān, Sumahātmā, Tattvadarśī and Nirutsuka. They were accomplished in the Veda and saw clearly the faults of worldly life.

The verse

One day these four, already perfected in yoga, talked it over among themselves, bowed to the lotus feet of Śiva, and made ready to leave. To their father they said: we are arranging a livelihood for you, enough to live on. Go to the sinless King Brahmadatta when his ministers are with him, and recite this verse to him; it is full of meaning. He will be so glad that he will give you villages and every kind of comfort. They honoured their father, took to the dharma of yoga, and found the highest peace. He learned the verse and felt his life fulfilled.

He went to the king and recited it before him and the ministers. Its sense is this: Those who were seven hunters in Daśārṇa, seven deer on Mount Kālañjara, seven cakravākas in Śaradvīpa and seven swans on Lake Mānasa were then born in Kurukṣetra as brahmins who knew the Veda. Four have finished their road. You three who remain — why are you still wandering on the hard path of this world?

The moment he heard it King Brahmadatta was overcome, and with him his ministers Pañcāla and Puṇḍarīka. They remembered Lake Mānasa — and with that memory yoga came back to them.

The three set free

Brahmadatta gave the brahmin chariots, comforts and great wealth. He consecrated his son Viṣvaksena, a destroyer of enemies, as king, went to the forest with his wife, and by the power of yoga reached the highest state.

The righteous Puṇḍarīka attained the highest Sāṃkhya-yoga and through its practice became pure and perfected. The great ascetic Pañcāla composed the Krama recitation of the Veda and the Śikṣā, won lasting fame, and reached the state of a master of yoga.

Mārkaṇḍeya ends with the fruit of the telling. Those who long for freedom should meditate on the lotus feet of Sadāśiva and so destroy their sin. This story should be recited with faith and devotion to wear away wrongs done in body, mind and speech. And the name of Śiva should be repeated again and again: when it is spoken, sin dissolves the way an unbaked clay pot falls apart when it is filled with water. Whoever reads or hears this chapter, the Purāṇa says, is released from all sins and attains liberation.