Encouraged by your response to last week’s Jataka, I am tempted to share two other stories from scripture that similarly serve as stark cautionary tales. The story of King Saudasa is from Chapter 65 of the Uttara Kandam of the Valmiki Ramayana. This seventh section of the Valmiki Ramayana is held to have been added later by someone else.
The story goes that Sri Rama’s youngest brother, Prince Shatrughna, was out leading his army on an expedition. On his way, he arrived at the hermitage of Sage Valmiki. The sage welcomed him with fruit and water. Refreshed, Shatrughna looked around and asked who the fertile lands east of the hermitage belonged to. Valmiki told him a strange story that made even the brave warrior prince’s hair stand on end.
“O Shatrughna, hear to whom this region formerly belonged,” said the rishi. “One of your ancestors was King Saudasa who was valiant and virtuous. One day, while out hunting he saw two tigers killing and eating antelopes.”
Forgetting the laws of nature and that he himself was out hunting to kill, Saudasa was furious and killed one of the tigers with his arrow. The dying tiger turned into a rakshasa. The surviving rakshasa wept in grief and rage. “King, you have killed my friend, who did you no harm. One day, I shall take my revenge,” he snarled, and vanished.
In due course, Saudasa’s son, the good, brave prince Mitrasaha, was to come to the throne. Before that, Saudasa undertook the Ashwamedha sacrifice on his son’s behalf near Valmiki’s ashram, with Sage Vasishta as the officiating priest.
At the close of the rites, the vengeful rakshasa, invisibly tracking Saudasa all these years, took on the appearance of Sage Vasishta and demanded an offering of meat from Saudasa. The king told his cooks, “Quickly prepare the Havis (any offering cooked in ghee) and a tasty meat dish to please my guru.”
The rakshasa then assumed the form of the head cook and prepared a savoury dish of human flesh.
When Saudasa and his queen, Madayanti, humbly offered this dish to the real Sage Vasishta, he saw through his yogic insight that it was human flesh and was enraged. He cursed Saudasa, saying, “Since it has pleased you to offer me this, this will become your food.”
Thereupon Saudasa, incensed in turn, took water in his hand and was about to curse Vasishtha when his wife restrained him, saying, “Don’t do this to your guru. It is wrong on many counts.”
So Saudasa poured away the power-charged water and some splashed on his feet, staining them, by which he was called ‘Kalmashapada’ or spotted feet. Saudasa realized whose doing it was, and told Vasistha all about the rakshasa who played this foul trick.
Vasishta relented at once and promised the king that though his words could not go in vain, the king would return to normal in 12 years and not remember a thing about that time. So, as promised by Vasishta, after having suffered the consequences of the curse, Saudasa recovered his kingdom and ruled justly over his subjects.
“This fertile land is the site of the Ashwamedha sacrifice performed by Kalmashapada,” said Valmiki to Shatrughna.
Having heard this dreadful, unknown story about his ancestor, Shatrughna saluted the rishi and left with much to think about.
Another tale we ironically neglect is that of Utanka’s error in the Mahabharata’s Aashwamedhika Parva, which you may or may not recall from this column in July. I don’t blame you if you don’t, as the saga of the Pandavas and Kauravas wholly throws this powerful story into the shade. However, I find worth retelling for its strong message.
Returning to Dwaraka in his chariot, Sri Krishna passed through “a desert ill-supplied with water”, where he chanced on a wandering ascetic, Utanka, described ominously by Vyasa as “the foremost of the learned”.
Krishna and Utanka exchanged fond greetings. Utanka asked for news. He was devastated to hear about Kurukshetra and wanted to curse Krishna for letting it happen. Krishna patiently explained his avatar’s purpose of restoring dharmic balance and Utanka was pacified.
He begged to see the visvarupa. And Krishna actually let him. So, besides Arjuna at Kurukshetra and partly Yashoda when she looked into Krishna’s open mouth, it’s Utanka who beheld “Vasudeva’s universal form, endowed with mighty arms, blazing with the fire of a thousand suns, filling all space, with faces on every side”. Overcome, Utanka said, “O You, whose handiwork is the universe, I bow to You. O parent of all things, You fill the firmament.”
Krishna granted Utanka a parting boon that he would always find water when thirsty, if he thought of Him. Desperately thirsty soon after, Utanka called to Krishna, but no sparkling fountain manifested. Instead, a chandala (‘outcaste’) appeared, who invited Utanka to quench his thirst from his gourd. Outraged, Utanka refused. Despite many pleas by the Chandala, Utanka furiously said no, so finally the apparition shrugged and vanished.
Alas, it was none but Indra, lord of the celestials, who, when asked by Krishna to give Utanka a drink of amrita, the nectar of immortality, insisted Utanka be first put to an appropriate test.
“Your fault has been great,” said Krishna to the weeping Utanka, who, understanding nothing, not even the significance of visvarupa-darshan, had let Krishna down badly. “However,” said Krishna, “I will keep my word. Sudden clouds will shower water in the desert. They shall be called ‘Utanka-clouds’.” And they are—a stark reminder to transcend false divisions.
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)
Renuka Narayanan