Sage Jamadagni By Pt Vvidhushekhor Pandey & Aaadietya Pandey- PART 1- FORWARD
Sai Ram. Let us take up the story of Sage Jamadagni this month. Readersof this series of Stories of Sages willremember this sage from the first two,Sage Chyavana and Sage Bhrigu. For the sake of completion, we will present the relevant portion here. 1.The lineage of Bhrigu: The lineage of sage Bhrigu is indeed illustrious: Chyavana, Jamadagni, Parasurama etc. The sage Bhrigu got Chyavana through Puloma and Chyavana begot a son Rucheeka, who married Satyavathi, daughter ofGadhi, son of King Kusika. We havean interesting story about this marriage. When sage Rucheeka approached KingGadhi for the hand of Satyavathi, the king put a condition to the sage, that he would give his daughterin marriage if the sage gives him athousand horses white in body color but with dark ears. The concept of Kanya Sulkam (a tax for giving one’sdaughter) probably started that time! Itmay be that the king wanted to test the powers of the sage and wanted to seewhether the sage can take care of his daughter after the marriage. In any case,sage Rucheeka accepted the challenge and prayed to Varuna, who obliged the sage readily.Thus the condition was met and the marriage took place. It may be noted that the concepts of Kanya Dan and Kanya Sulka gotdegraded in the later ages due to the Yuga Dharma. The original concepts were with a lot of insight. 2 Birth of Jamadagni: Sage Rucheeka took his wife Satyavathi and went to his ashram. When Satyavathi wanted children, sage Rucheekatold her that he would create a divinerice pudding, which would give her a child. Satyavathi requested her husband tohelp her mother too (Gadhi did not have a son and the life and marriage is considered incomplete withouta male child). So, Rucheeka meditated on Para Brahma (The Ultimate Principle)and created two vessels with divine ricepreparation. He showedher the two vessels and told her thatone of them is brahmyam (full of the brahminic energies, Satva guna) and thesecond Kshatram (full of the fighting warrior clan’s energies, rajo guna).He tells her that after bath, she and her mother should hug a fig tree and an Aswattha tree respectivelyand then they should consume the respective rice puddings. However, due to destiny, the two vessels got interchanged and Satyavathi atethe pudding bearing kshatriya energies and her mother the brahminic one. There is another variant tothe story that the mother of Satyavathi interchanged the vessels deliberately because she felt that SageRucheeka would give the ‘better’ childto his own wife. Thus jealousy played the part ofdestiny! Rucheeka saw with his divine vision about the mix up and told his wifethat she was bearing a cruel kshatriya foetus in her womb and not a brahminic one. Satyavathi wassaddened and prayed to her husband toprevent the calamity through his yogic powers. He agreed and with his yogic powers transferred the change to hisgrandson (to the next generation). Sai Ram. On one hand, we are told that destiny is inviolableand on the other hand, we are given suchinstances where the destiny is changed. We come across a wonderful story in Sri GuruCharitra of a Brahmin boy being restored to life after dying from tuberculosis.When questioned about it, Sri Guru showsthe questioner the wonderful incident where a part of the life span in the nextbirth is transferred to the present birth. The story of Markandeya is anotherexample. How to reconcile these two points of view? It may be that destiny is indeedinviolable but since destiny is the Will of God and no individual knows thesame fully, one should do one’s duty and leave the result to God. The sages getsome divine perceptions and do what isneeded as per that. Sai Baba also showed many such miracles where He could modify the destiny of severaldevotees including Bhimaji Patil. Sai Ram. Let us now revert back to the story. Thus a brahminic sage Jamadagni was born to Rucheeka and thekshatriya energies took shape whenJamadagni got a son Rama in due course of time (Who becomes famous as Bhargava Rama and as Parashu Rama since Hewas carrying a divine Axe as Hisweapon). Satyavathi’s mother gave birth to a wonderful child who was full of brahma teja (satvik qualities). Thus,though born as a king, Kusika’s grandson, variously known as Gadheya, Kausikaand Viswamitra became world famous for his qualities as a Brahmarshi. We willlearn more about him when we take up his story in detail. 3 The curse of Sun God: Jamadagni married Renuka and was leading a happy married life. He was aswell read as his illustrious father and forefathers in all Vedas and Shastras and he acquired enormous powersbecause of his penance. Once he went tothe bank of river Narmada along with his wife Renuka and as fate would have it,felt the desire to have sexual relationship with her in the day time. Since thearea was uninhabited, the sage felt that there is no problem for his privacy. When the couple was thussporting, the Sun God (who is alsocalled as Karma Sakshi, the witness to all our actions) came in human form as a Brahmin and told the sagethat what he was doing is not dharma(and especially a learned sage like him should set an example to others). Renuka felt shy at the sight of a brahmin as she was naked and thus thewhole mood was spoilt. (A similar story is there about Siva and Parvathi and in that case, resulted in acurse that whoever enters that area willbecome a woman!) The sage was angry at the interruption (that act is also notdharma, one should notinterrupt a person in sleep, in the act of eating, sex, and other naturalfunctions) and cursed Sun God to beafflicted by Rahu (the Surya Grahana has its origin in this curse). The Sun God in turn cursed the sage to meet humiliation and death at thehands of a king. In those times, the sages were beyond death because of their great tapas and were free from disease. Theywere honored and respected by allothers, esp. the kshatriyas. This curse planted the seeds for the death of Jamadagni at the hands ofKartaviryarjuna and then later again at the hands of that king’s sons. It also led to Parasu Rama slaughtering all the kshatriya kings on the earth. We willlearn more of that later. Sage Jamadagni gave a furthercurse to Sun God that He will be considered as a Paapi (malefic) and Lord Brahma came andintervened and pacified both of them. He modified the curses of sage Jamadagniso that the splendor of Sun God is unaffected (except temporarily like whencovered by clouds and at a few othertimes). This story has a lot of esoteric significance and also has significancefrom the angle of astrology. It is explained nicely by Sadguru Sivanandamurthy in his excellent book,Margadarsakulu Maharshulu (sages asseers and as guides). 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