Sage Jamadagni By Pt Vvidhushekhor Pandey &Aaadietya Pandey- PART 2- FORWARD\
Continuing from part 1 4 Thebeheading of Renuka and her coming back to life: In course of time, Jamadagni and Renuka got fivesons, Rushunvantha, Sushena, Vasu, Viswavasu and Rama (Parasurama). They weregrowing up nicely. It was the habit ofRenuka (a temple and a pond in her honor –Renuka ji is on the way from Ambalato Simla in Himachal Pradesh and is a picturesque spot) to go daily to river and bring water in an earthenpot. Once when the pot slipped fromher hands, she just scooped some river sand and shaped it into a pot by her hands, and that held water because ofher spiritual powers. (Asimilar story is told about Shri Sai Baba of Shirdi in Shri Sai Satcharitra that He was wateringthe plants using raw earthen potssupplied by a disciple named Vaman Tatya and at the end of each day the potswere breaking up and fresh pots were being supplied every day). One day, asfate would have it, she saw a Gandharva king named Chitraradha sporting with his many wives in the river.She stood watchingthe sport and though at the consciouslevel she was unaffected, at the subconscious level her mental equilibrium was disturbed (the purer once aura is, the easier it is for it to get affected. Thewearing of white robes is to remindoneself of utmost care in all the planes of consciousness). That day the moist sand wasnot getting shaped as pot and she had to return empty handed to the ashram.She realized her error and though she wanted to end her life then and there, as a pativrata, she felt that she hadno individual rights over her body, mindand soul and returned to the ashram toallow her husband, her Swami, her Master to deal with the situation as he pleased. That is true egolessness, truesurrender, true paativratya. (A similarstory of a washerman who was serving Sri Guru (Sri Pada Vallabha) at Kurupuramwatching a muslim nawab sporting with his queens in the river and thus gettingthe seeds of desire to enjoy similar pleasures, being blessed by Sri Guru to be born as a muslimruler in next birth comes tomind. There Sri Guru tells us that seeds of desireshould either be burnt off or allowedto grow and fructify. Karma is done with mind, speech and actions and karmic fruits have to be enjoyedtill one reaches that stage of truedetachment.). Renukahad to ‘enjoy’ the bitter fruits of her aura contamination because of the seeds of latent desire as we shall seebelow. Jamadagni saw with his divine sight what happenedand asked his sons to behead her aspunishment. Byaccepting the punishment, one gets purified. The higher the status, the greaterthe punishment was the rule. The rishis had to set examples for others to follow andhence did not allow themselves theslightest benefit of doubt or lenience. The first four sons refused because they could not see throughthe egoistic filters the true intentionsand the powers of their father. The youngest one, Rama obeyed the father’s command and killed hismother and again at the father’s commandhis brothers too for the sin of disobeying their father’s command. Thus we see that both Ramas (Parasurama andDasaradha Rama) were great in obeyingthe commands of father, mother and preceptor. Obeying Guru is the best yagna, best tapas and best sadhana.Obeying Guru (father is the Guru inthis case) is the supreme dharma as brought out in Sri Guru Charitra, Sri Sai Satcharitra, Sri Gita and SriRamayana etc. Jamadagni waspleased with the obedience of Rama and offered him a boon. Rama asked his father tobring back his mother and brothers to life and the sage obliged. That was the power of the sages in those ages!Their tapas gave them that power! The beheaded body of Renuka isworshipped as a Goddess by name Chinna Masta (without head), who is shownholding her own head with her left handand three streams of blood shooting up representing the three nadis, ida, pingala and sushumna. 5 The deathof Jamadagni: The mightyking Kartaviryarjuna of Haihaya clan was born with two short and weak hands. The cause ofthat deformity is another interesting story. Sudarsana Chakra became rather proud ofhis own powers once and SriMaha Vishnu cursed Sudarsana to take birth as a human with weak hands.When Sudarsana realized his error(that is the benefit of a curse, to show the ego its error, thus the curses were meant as boons indirectly), Vishnu assured him that he will rejoin Him soon andwill become famous. Thus Kartaviryarjunawas born as a cripple but became a great devotee of Sri Dattatreya (the wonderfulform of the Trinity in One) and got many boons from Him. He became one of the mightiest kings on earth and punishedthe mighty Ravana once and Ravana’sgrandfather Pulastya had to visit Kartavirya and intercede on Ravana’s behalf. One of the boons that Kartavirya got was that when the endcomes (anything which has a beginning has to have an end), it should be in the hands of a worthy opponent.To fulfil that boonand as promised to Sudarsana, Sri Maha Vishnu took birth as Parasurama to Jamadagni. Let us now enjoythat story. Jamadagni had a Kamadhenu named Surabhi (there weresimilar cows in many other ashramsand of course Indra had it in heaven. The cow was capable of fulfilling all thedesires and was being treated with love and respect. Once King Kartaviryarjuna visited the ashram of sageJamadagni along with his retinue (it was the custom of the kings to go hunting andvisit the ashrams of various sageswho were living in the forest). The sages used to play host as per theircapacity. When the king visited sage Jamadagni, the whole retinue was treatedlavishly with sumptuous food by the grace of Surabhi. The king was impressed and requestedthe sage to give the holy cow Surabhito him. The sage refused. The king was angry and ordered his army to capturethe cow by force. At a glance from thesage Jamadagni, Surabhi created a counter army and in the fight that ensued, the king’s army wasdefeated. This game went on for twenty times and each time, the divine armycreated by Surabhi was victorious. The king lost his patience and killed the sage Jamadagni (so that the divine power of Surabhi is reduced)and started searching for Surabhi, butShe was to be seen nowhere. She vanished and went back to heaven. Renuka wanted to accompany Sage Jamadagni on thefuneral pyre. Sage Bhrigu (grandfatherof Jamadagni) stopped her and brought her back to life along with the Sage Jamadagni. Parasuramawas very angry at the turn of events and killed the king Kartaviryarjuna in battle (as per the boon given by Lord Dattatreya). When Parasuramareturned from the battle and told his illustrious father about it, the sage told him that it was wrong to kill the king of the land (the king isconsidered to be an amsa of Vishnu and killingthe king and exposing the kingdom to anarchy is a sin) and asked his son to go for tirthayatra (a visit tosacred places) for an year to achieve purification. Obeying the order of hisfather, Parasurama set off on apilgrimage. Seizing this opportunity, the sons of Kartaviryarjuna killed Jamadagni. Renuka called out to herdivine son twenty one times to protect his father. As per the destiny and as per Sun God’s curse, the mother’s calls toher son went unanswered and the sage Jamadagni met his end. 6Jamadagnibeing cursed by Pitru Devatas: There is yetanother interesting story about sage Jamadagni. After death, he took birth as amongoose and this was caused by a curse from his Pitru Devatas. Let us now enjoy that story sincethese stories are not only entertaining but are highly educative too. As ordained in the scriptures, sage Jamadagni wasperforming the annual ceremonies for his ancestors and in those ages, they weremanifesting before the person indivine forms and were accepting the offerings. As a part of preparation for the ceremony, Jamadagnicollected a pot of pure cow milk andkept it aside. The Krodha Devatha (Goddess in charge of Anger), heard that the sages in the lineage ofBhrigu were rather short tempered(though their anger was always directed at world welfare similar to that of sage Durvasa, another great sage,the son of sage Atri), wanted to testsage Jamadagni and took a human form and under the pretext of doing some service in the ashram, caused thepot of milk to overturn. The sage did not get angry and remained calm.Jamadagni was personification of truesatvik energies. (It is interesting to relate this to what Lord Sri Krishna tells Sri Arjuna in His Gita: Krodha is born from Kama.Anger is born out of desire, i.e. ifdesires are not fulfilled, anger arises. Sage Jamadagni was known for his tranquilityand that shows that he was unaffected byKama). The annual ceremony went off albeit with theminor lapse of non-availability of cowmilk. The manes (the ancestors) of Jamadagni appeared to him and admonished him that what he did waswrong (not getting angry at a lapse ofothers that affected his performance of duties). They thusimparted a very important lesson that anger also is a useful tool if used properly and that the sixinternal enemies are enemies only for aweak mind and are good slaves in the case of a true Master. The PitruDevatas advised sage Bhrigu that he should atone that lapse by taking birth asa Nakula (a mongoose and a person who has no Kula, no clan, no ancestry in another sense). Whenrequested for forgiveness, they relented and gave the lifting of the curse to coincide with themongoose contradicting the dharmicsayings of many Brahmins (the dharma like modern day law is complicated and the nuances arebrought out through such stories). As per their curse and blessing, sage Jamadagni takes birth as a mongoose and gets release from that at theend of the Aswamedha Yaga performed byYudhishtira in Maha Bharatha. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1585697574.1077926.1648559691857%40mail.yahoo.com.
