Chitraketu

An abridged retelling from J. M. Sanyal's English translation of the Srimad Bhagavatam

King Parikshit asked the sage Shuka how it was that Vritra, a fierce demon who delighted in battle, could yet have been a devoted worshipper of Lord Narayana. Shuka answered that he would tell what he had heard from Vyasa, Narada and Devala, the story of a king named Chitraketu.

The king without a child

In the country of Surasena there reigned an emperor named Chitraketu. The earth gave him everything he desired. He had a crore of wives and the strength to father children, yet none of them bore him a child. He was handsome, learned, wealthy and high-born, and in the midst of all this he was troubled by one thought. Neither his empire, nor his riches, nor the eyes of his queens could bring him happiness.

One day the sage Angira, wandering the world without any purpose, came to his palace. The king received him with every honour. Seeing the king's pale face, Angira asked whether all was well with him, and whether some wish of his was unfulfilled.

Chitraketu answered that nothing is hidden from sages like Angira. Perfumes and garlands, he said, cannot delight a man who is hungry and thirsty, and in the same way his kingdom could not delight him while he was childless. He begged the sage to bless him with a child, so that he and his ancestors might be saved.

Angira cooked an offering of rice in milk for the god Tvashta, and gave the remains of it to the eldest queen, Kritadyuti. "You will have a son," he told the king, "who will be the cause of both your joy and your sorrow." Then the sage departed.

The son

Kritadyuti conceived, and in time a son was born. The whole country of Surasena rejoiced. The king bathed and dressed himself and had the Brahmanas perform the birth ceremonies. He gave them gold, silver, fine cloth, villages, horses, elephants and six billion cows.

Chitraketu's love for his hard-won son grew day by day, like a poor man's fondness for money he has earned with great labour. Kritadyuti's love grew with it. The king's other wives, who were childless, saw that he now rarely came to them. They grew bitter, and said among themselves that a childless wife is no better than the slave of a slave. The king stopped their allowances, and their jealousy hardened into cruelty. One day, in a blind rage, they gave the child poison.

Kritadyuti went into the nursery, saw the child lying still, and thought he was deeply asleep. She went away. After a while she asked the nurse to bring her son. The nurse found the boy with his eyes turned upward, and cried out that she was ruined. The queen rushed in, beat her breast, and fell senseless to the floor. Even the women who had done the deed came weeping, pretending to share her sorrow.

When Chitraketu heard, he lost his sight for a moment. He staggered to the room with his hair loose and his garments falling off, and dropped at his dead son's feet. His voice was choked with grief and he could not speak.

The queen cried out against the Creator, who lets the old burn on while taking the young. She spoke to her child: "Wake, my son. Your playmates are calling you. You have slept too long. Come and eat, and drink at your mother's breast. Why do I not hear your little voice?" The king wept with her, and all the household wept, until everyone fell senseless from grief.

Angira and Narada

At that hour the sage Angira came, with the divine sage Narada. They found the king lying near his son like a body without life, and they spoke to him.

"Who is this to you, for whom you weep? And who are you to him? Who were your kin before, who are they now, and who will they be? As sand in a river-bed is gathered and scattered by the current, so beings are joined and parted by Time. As one seed grows from another, so one body arises from another. The soul within is not born and does not die."

Chitraketu wiped his tears and asked who these two were, who spoke so greatly. "Perhaps you are sages who go about in disguise to wake fools like me," he said. "Light a lamp in my dark mind, for I am sinking."

Angira answered: "I am the Angira who gave you a son, and this is the divine sage Narada, Brahma's son. We saw you sunk in sorrow and came to you out of kindness. When I first came, I found your mind fixed on other things, so I gave you a child. Now you know the pain that comes with children, and with wives, wealth and houses as well."

Then Narada said that he would give the king a sacred mantra of the Upanishad, and that by holding it Chitraketu would see the Lord Sankarshana within seven nights.

The spirit of the child

Narada called back the spirit of the dead boy and showed it to the weeping family. "Rest in peace," he said to it. "Look, your mother and father are before you. Enter your body again, sit on the throne and enjoy the rest of your years."

The spirit replied: "In which of my births were these my parents? Living beings pass from one body to another as coins pass from one hand to another. Every creature is at some time friend or stranger or foe to every other. The bond between us lasts only as long as the body lasts." Having said this, the spirit vanished.

The kinsmen were astonished, and their grief loosened. They carried the body to the cremation ground and performed the last rites. The queens who had poisoned the child went to the banks of the Yamuna and did the penances the Brahmanas prescribed. The king bathed in the Yamuna too, and offered water to his ancestors.

The vision of Sesha

Narada gave the king the holy text, which begins: "Salutations unto Thee, O Lord Vasudeva; let us meditate on Thee. Salutations unto Thee, who art Pradyumna, Aniruddha and Sankarshana."

For seven days Chitraketu lived on water alone and contemplated what Narada had taught him. At the end of the seven nights he received the sovereignty of the Vidyadharas, and a few days later he came into the presence of Lord Sesha. The Lord sat among the chiefs of the Siddhas, in blue garments, with a bright crown and bracelets. His complexion was as fair as a blooming lotus, his face smiling and his eyes faintly reddened.

At the sight, Chitraketu's heart became clear and calm. He fell at the Lord's feet with tears in his eyes and the hairs of his body standing on end, and for a while he could not speak for love. When he found his voice, he praised the Lord: "Though unconquerable, O Lord, Thou art conquered by those devotees who are free from desire. Creation, preservation and destruction are Thine alone; the other gods are only portions of Thy portions."

Lord Sesha was pleased and answered him. "You are indeed freed, for you have seen me, and you know what Narada and Angira taught you. I am all beings, and their soul and protector." He told the king to remember these words with care, and then disappeared before his eyes.

The laugh

Chitraketu bowed toward the place where the Lord had vanished, and set out to travel the skies in the shining car that Vishnu had given him. For thousands upon thousands of years he roamed the slopes of the Kulachala mountain, and the Siddhas and Charanas sang his praises. Often he had the wives of the Vidyadharas sing the glories of Hari.

One day, in his car, he came upon Shiva seated among sages, Siddhas and Charanas, with the goddess Bhavani on his lap and his arm around her. Chitraketu laughed aloud and said, "Is this the teacher of the whole world, sitting before an assembly with his wife on his lap? Even ordinary men keep such things to a private place."

Shiva smiled and said nothing, and the assembly said nothing either. But the goddess grew angry. "This man thinks himself a ruler who can punish the wise. He is proud and has not the wisdom to see whom he insults. May you be born in the womb of the Asuras, so that you may never again speak ill of the great."

Chitraketu came down from his car and bowed his head. "O Mother, I accept your curse with folded hands. What the gods say to mortals is our destiny. Happiness and sorrow, blessing and curse, are not made by any one of us; it is only the ignorant who think so. I do not ask you to undo it. I ask only pardon for the words I spoke." Then he rose into his car and went away, while all those gathered there watched him go.

Shiva's words to Parvati

Shiva turned to his wife and spoke before the gathered sages. "Did you see the greatness of the servants of Hari? Those who love Narayana fear nothing. Heaven, hell and liberation look the same to them. This Chitraketu is a peaceful, even-minded man, and a dear follower of Achyuta, and so am I. You should not wonder at what such a one does."

Parvati was satisfied, and her doubts left her. Chitraketu, who might himself have cursed her in return, had instead taken her curse upon his own head. Then he was born as a Danava from the sacrificial fire of the sage Tvashta, and was called Vritra. He kept the knowledge he had won, and the love of the Lord.

Shuka said that whoever hears this history of Chitraketu, and recites it each morning with the Lord in mind, is freed from the chains of worldly life.