The Seduction of Shiva: Tales of Life and Love (6 page)

The woman noticed Kundamalika’s ascetic’s clothing and said, ‘Holy one, you must be very simple or crooked not to have heard about his infamous misdeeds. But you will need to learn of them from others, for someone as timid as I can say nothing.’

And, even as she spoke, a proclamation could be heard in the town to the beat of drums. ‘The king decrees that any citizen who reports the whereabouts of Buddhavarma’a daughter-in-law will be rewarded, but anyone who foolishly hides her will lose his wealth and be put to death mercilessly with saws.’

On hearing this, the old brahman woman was content, laughing as well as crying, her face bathed in tears. ‘Is it a surprise that the people of Ujjayini will not let themselves be cheated by such rogues?’ she cried. ‘Well
done, Kundamalika! You are clever as well as praiseworthy for having tricked the wicked Buddhavarma and his hunchbacked son. May you live happily with Yajnagupta, my girl, as you should, in Rajagriha.’

‘Here is a second mother who will hide me,’ thought Kundamalika, and she quickly told that woman about all that had happened. The old lady hugged her lovingly and took her inside the cottage where she had her take off the skull-bearer’s garb, massaged her limbs wearied by its weight, and washed them with pleasantly warm water. She then had her lie down on her bed and covered her with a quilt.

The next morning Kundamalika put on the kapalika’s hideous chain of bones and went back to the town where people were running about excitedly. ‘Why are they so agitated?’ she asked someone, who replied, ‘A greedy brahman rogue, who is also a eunuch, got himself married and then gave away his wife to Ugly, the son of Buddhavarma who is the chief merchant here.
The man is as deformed as his name would suggest, and the woman left him last evening, going off to look for the brahman. Hence this excitement.’

Kundamalika smiled to herself. ‘Good sir,’ she said to her informant, ‘can you please take me quickly to that brahman eunuch’s house?’ Won over by her politeness, he accompanied her to Yajnagupta’s home which resonated with sacred chants. There she saw the brahman sitting before the fire sanctuary with students, absorbed in giving them a lecture.

Putting down her skull-staff, she too sat down cross-legged at the class. ‘What is the text you are commenting on?’ she asked the brahman aggressively.

‘Holy one,’ he replied, ‘this is Manu’s dissertation on dharma, describing the fourfold castes and stages of life.’

‘Why lie?’ she retorted. ‘This is no dissertation on dharma. I think it is on atheistic materialism which is dear to immoral people. How can it be
on dharma, against which you act yourself? A physician who knows his science will not eat meat if he has leprosy. You, a brahman lecturing on Manu’s code, violated your own caste duty while marrying your bride. She was surrendered by a healthy, handsome, talented man to a stupid, one-eyed bug. Why did you commit this transgression, I ask you, a devotee of the great god? If it was proper, say so.’

‘Proper or not,’ he responded, ‘let that be, holy one. Those who serve need to obey the master’s order as it is. Just as Parashurama
⁸
cut off his mother’s head on his father’s unquestionable command. What do you say to that?’

‘Divine deeds cannot be examples for ordinary people,’ she retorted. ‘Just as Rudra’s drinking wine is not an example that brahmans ought to follow. And wise people will not do everything their master says. What can’t he say when moved by grief, anger and suchlike? If a father with a bad headache tells his son to cut off his head, should he do that? As for
Parashurama, if he decapitated his mother at his father’s word, he also possessed the power to rejoin her immediately. You did something wrong at your father’s word, but have no divine power yourself. How can you undo it? What’s done is done and now, sir, you just have to stay married to that dear girl.’

The unexceptionable statement left Yajnagupta speechless. Kundamalika sat there till noon when she took leave on the pretext of going to beg for alms. ‘Eat here, holy one, this house is yours,’ said the brahman.

‘Even kapalikas are forbidden food from an atheist like you, sir,’ she said with a laugh. ‘But it is permissible from a person rehabilitated with due penance, even after some great sin.’ Returning then to the old woman’s abode, she took off the skull-bearer garb and had a bath. Donning it once again, she went back at dusk to Yajnagupta’s house and spent the rest of the evening there.

Kundamalika did this for several days: meals
and nights at the old woman’s dwelling and the rest of the time at Yajnagupta’s. ‘This man did the impermissible because of greed,’ she concluded finally. ‘By inciting it I too may be able to lead him.’ She then had the old woman sell her string of pearls and purchase some gold and silver for its price. This she put into a pair of copper pots which she buried at the village boundary.

On the following day, after a long discussion with Yajnagupta about the location of buried treasures, she told him that she knew the secret science of Mahakala on the subject and had seen clear signs of such a treasure while wandering at the forest’s edge. ‘If you like me,’ she said, ‘please accept it. Contacts with good men are always fruitful.’

Yajnagupta went with her and dug out what she had buried. Taking it home, he apprised his father about the kapalika’s knowledge of the secret science. ‘Abandon your study of the Vedas!’ said the older man. ‘They are worthless. Study the Mahakala science with this great ascetic.
Propitiate him as if he were Mahakala himself.’

Encouraged by his greedy father, Yajnagupta asked Kundamalika to take him along on the pilgrimage she planned to make to the temple of Mahakala in Ujjayini.

They went first to Varanasi and then to Naimisha, to the Kuru country and to Pushkara where they spent the monsoon months. ‘I will now go to the capital of Avanti,’ she told him one day. ‘But the sin you committed in Ujjayini makes it as difficult for you to enter that city as it is for a slayer of brahmans to enter heaven. So, return to your parents.’

‘This great soul is pleased with me!’ Yajnagupta thought. ‘I have served him long and he does not care for himself. So why indeed will he not give the Mahakala science to me? Ah! That science is now within my reach. As for the sin I committed on my father’s behest, there is an easy way to conceal it: in dark, tattered garments and with dirty unkempt hair, I will lurk in the temple’s corners where none will notice me.’ Deciding on
this course, he told Kundamalika, ‘Is it proper for pupils to leave their teacher in a difficult situation? Wherever you go, sir, so will I. The full moon’s blemishes will always stay with it.’ Delighted by his words, the girl in the kapalika disguise permitted him to come with her.

Eventually they reached Ujjayini. ‘It has been a tiring journey,’ the girl said to Yajnagupta. ‘Rest under this fine banyan tree till I return after locating some buried treasure.’ Then she proceeded with a group of local mendicants to her father’s seven-gated mansion, full of all that one could desire. ‘Give me alms!’ she cried at the door of her mother’s bedchamber. A maid came out with an offering. She looked the visitor over from head to toe, recognized her after some time, and went back to her mistress, beating her own chest and head. ‘You are ruined!’ she whispered. ‘The daughter that you held to your breast is standing at your door in the disreputable dress of a kapalika. See for yourself!’

The mother came out, saw her girl as
described, but did not care because she loved her. She tore off the feathered band from her daughter’s head, smashed the skull she carried with her begging bowl, conch shell and crystal, and took her inside for a bath of purification. ‘Speak freely, child,’ she demanded. ‘What is this?’

‘Nothing that should upset you, mother,’ the girl told her. ‘Could your chaste daughter ever become a kapalika? One whom even unchaste women disdain? But let that story wait. Call father. I have an important task and he can get it done.’

She was then seen by Sagaradatta. ‘What is this? How can it be?’ he thought with agitation as he recoiled in despair.

Kundamalika remained unruffled. Saluting him with a smile and reassuring him with a hug, she said, ‘Your son-in-law is at the banyan tree near the hermitage. Please send his brothers-in-law to fetch him.’

Ordered by their father, the brothers-in-
law seized Yajnagupta. ‘You are caught, child-snatcher!’ they said harshly, and continued with a smile. ‘What are you up to? Get up rogue, and come to town. The king has summoned you.’

Recognizing them and thinking of his own execution or imprisonment, the brahman muttered some incantations for his protection as he knotted his hair. ‘Please wait for a moment,’ he pleaded, ‘till my kapalika friend comes back.’

At this they laughed aloud. ‘The friend you await has gone ahead,’ they said, ‘it was he who bade us catch you. Even fast friends and honest well-wishers become disenchanted with rogues like you.’ And with joyful shouts they took that sad and silent man to their house which was now filled with many happy relatives.

The brahman’s spirit revived when Sagaradatta, his skin tingling with pleasure, embraced his son-in-law. After a ceremonial welcome and dinner, Yajnagupta was invited to recline on a great bed in a beautiful pavilion, while his parents-in-law,
their families and leading citizens sat around him. Then came the merchant’s daughter, like a swan from the autumn sky. She greeted her elders with a bow, her equals with some words, and Yajnagupta with a dark glance of passion. Sitting down on a lower seat before her parents, she then recounted all that had happened after her wedding.

‘A curse on my useless talents,’ Yajnagupta said to himself. ‘I have been tricked by the limited mind of a well-bred girl. Or is it a clever woman who has done this to the limited mind of a man like me? Amazing above all is her astuteness in changing her appearance and gait, even her way of speaking. In any case, she has freed me today from that which I did at my father’s word.’

The king of Avanti was pleased to hear this story. He had Kundamalika come to the palace with her spouse and gave much land and gold to Yajnagupta. To her, he said with a smile, ‘My girl, you must so arrange things that your
husband no more neglects his work as a twice-born brahman.’

This she did, and they lived happily.

From
Brihatkathāślokasaṃgraha
, 22.1–130

Lopamudra was a princess of the land of Vidarbha. A noble-minded girl, she gratified her parents and her family by her conduct and surpassed even the nymphs of heaven in her beauty. Seeing her in the bloom of youth, her father wondered to whom she could be given in marriage. Meanwhile the sage Agastya determined that she would be capable of managing his household. So he went to the king of Vidarbha and spoke to that ruler. ‘O monarch,’ he said, ‘I wish to get married in order to have a son, and have chosen your daughter Lopamudra for this. Give her to me.’

The sage’s words left the king speechless. Though unable to refuse, he also did not want to
agree. ‘This holy man is very powerful,’ he told his wife, ‘if he gets angry he can incinerate me in the fire of his curses.’

Seeing them so worried and unhappy, Lopamudra went up to her parents. ‘It is not worth suffering so for my sake,’ she said to them. ‘Protect yourself through me, father, and give me away to the sage.’

At the behest of his daughter, the king then gave her away in marriage with due ceremony to Agastya. Having got her as his wife, the sage told Lopamudra that her ornaments and dress were too luxurious and should be discarded. That wide-eyed girl with lovely legs promptly took off those fine and highly valued garments and jewellery, and she put on rags of birch bark and deerskin instead, adopting the same mode of living as her acetic husband.

The great sage went with his faithful wife to Ganga’s Gate, where the river enters the plains, and immersed himself in fierce austerities there. Lopamudra looked after her husband happily
and served him with immense respect. He too loved her greatly. Much time passed thus. One day the sage gazed at her just as she had bathed after her period and was radiant with her own austerities. Pleased by her service, her purity and restraint, and the splendour of her beauty, he invited her to have sex.

The charming girl clasped her hands together in salutation as if abashed, and replied to the sage most lovingly. ‘There is no doubt that my husband chose me as his wife for the purpose of progeny,’ she said. ‘But you should also do as I would like you to do. You should approach me on a bed of the kind I had in my father’s palace. I would like you to be adorned with garlands and ornaments, and sport beautiful jewellery myself to enjoy our intercourse to the utmost. I will not sleep with you wearing these rags which may embellish ascetics but cannot be polluted!’

‘My good and pretty Lopamudra!’ the sage observed, ‘neither you nor I have the kind of wealth your father has.’

‘But you are the lord of everything by virtue of your austerities,’ she responded. ‘Whatever wealth there is in this world, you can invoke it within a moment.’

‘That is so,’ the sage agreed. ‘But doing so will deplete my ascetic power. Tell me of a way by which it will not be lost.’

‘Ascetic lord,’ she said, ‘only a little time is left of my fertile period. And there is no other way I would want to sleep with you. Nor do I wish your spiritual treasure depleted in any manner. So, bear that in mind and do what you think best.’

‘Well, good lady,’ the sage then replied, ‘if you have made up your mind, then I will go out to look for wealth.’

The adventures of Agastya while collecting the needed wealth are another story. Suffice it to say that he soon came back in a golden horse-drawn chariot with all that was needed to fulfil Lopamudra’s wishes.

‘Lord,’ she then told him, ‘you have done
all that I wanted. Now get me to bear a really strong son.’

‘So be it,’ the sage promised his spouse, one who was both faithful and of the same disposition as him. And he impregnated her at the appropriate time before going back into the forest for his austerities. As for Lopamudra, the child within her womb grew inside for seven years. Then she birthed a splendid boy, glorious like a flame. He was named Dridhasyu and soon mastered the scriptures all by himself. From childhood he would bear the weight of firewood at his father’s home, and came to be known as the ‘wood carrier’. He was also recognized as a great scholar, and the sage was delighted to see that a fine son had been born to him and his wife.

From Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Tirthayatra, 96.29–30; 97.1–123; 98.1–18