Secondary Tales of the Two Great Epics

Author(s): Rajendra I Nanavati
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 76

The Tales in Rāmāyaṇa
Saudāsa Kalmāșapāda, who thereby, wben cursed by Śakti - the son of Vasistha – to become a cândala, devours him only as his first victim.162 These tales of Viśvāmitra's irreconcilable vengeance are omitted in BK. Secondly, a particular care has been taken to show Viśvāmitra in good relations with the Ikşvāku kings of Ayodhyā. When Trišanku is repelled by his own priest Vasiştha and the Vāsișthas, Viśvāmitra stands by him and does his best to help him. Again when King Ambarışa's sacrificial animal is stolen, he instructs Sunahấepa in such a way that gods may release him but may also give the king the fruit of his sacrifice.
The reasons for observing these precautions are not difficult to imagine. The teacher-preceptor of the hero of RM should not be unreasonably haughty, particularly against Vasiştha, the very family-priest of the Solar kings themselves. Again, it is not Rāma only whom Viśvāmitra has favoured. Even in the past Solar kings have been helped by Viśvāmitra, particularly when their family-priest Vasiştha spurned them.
The Viśvāmitra-story-group has been studied illuminatingly by H. L. Hariyappa in his well-known work 'Rgvedic Legends through the Ages'163 and we can hardly better him. Hariyappa, after considering the evidence of MBh-stories also, remarks in the last chapter of his work “Vasiştha and Viśvāmitra' as follows:
''(a) Vasiştha and Viśvāmitra had a long life of activity before they were elevated to be among the chosen seven i. e. the Saptarşis.
"(b) Vasistha was born great, all saintliness and virtue were natural to him, he was the embodiment of patience, of the quality of Sattva. His passive resistence when attacked by the enemy appears exemplary. His attempt at self-immolation in his bereavement is somewhat strange and savours of being too commonplace. His eminence, however, as saint and priest of kings (purohita) is undoubted.
"(c) Viśyāmitra achieved greatness. Son of a king, he perfected himself in the qualities and attaiments of a rājanya; an embodiment of the quality of Rajas, he was. But seeing that the quality of Sattva had more enduring features, determined to acquire it (sic). The chief thing was to conquer passion and anger; this he did achieve by penance by patient but steadfast endeavour (puruşakāra).
"(d) The Vasiştha-Viśvāmitra feud reveals itself as a thing of the ancient past even in the age of the MBh. Tradition, at any rate, believed that the two sages were once upon a time enemies of each other. The events connected therewith were remembered not because it was a quarrel between two great personalities but because it would serve as a beacon light of righteousness on the one hand and effective human endeavour on the other.
"(e) x x x The MBh. age conceives the sage as equally respectable; there was no question of their relative superiority. On the other hand, a word should be said to the
162 Adip. 166, particularly slokas 16 ft. 163 Pub. Deccan College, Poona, 1953.