Vol. 3 · pages 411–415

398 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Brahma, Kala (Time), and Varuna, the discuss of Vishnu, and the trident of Shiva, were hurled by Vishvamitra at his antagonist, but the son of Brahma swallowed them up in his all-devouring mace. Finally, to the intense consternation of all the gods, the warrior shot off the terrific weapon of Brahma; but this was equally ineffectual against the Brahmanical sage. Vashishtha had now assumed a direful appearance. “Jets of fire mingled with smoke darted from the pores of his body; the Brahmanical mace blazed in his hand like a smokeless mundane conflagration, or a second sceptre of Yama.” Being appeased, however, by the munis, who proclaimed his superiority to his rival, the sage stayed his vengeance; and Vishvamitra exclaimed with a groan: “Shame on a Kshatriya’s strength: the strength of a Brahman’s might alone is strength; by the single Brahmanical mace all my weapons have been destroyed.” No alternative now remains to the humilated monarch, but either to acquiesce in this help less inferiority, or to work out his own elevation to the Brahmanical order. He embraces the latter alternative: “Having pondered well this defeat, I shall betake myself, with composed senses and mind, to strenuous austere fervour, which shall exalt me to the rank of a Brahman.” Intensely vexed and mortified, groaning and full of hatred against his enemy, he travelled with his queen to the south, and carried his resolution into effect. At the end of a thousand years Brahma appeared, and announced that he had conquered the heaven of royal sages (rajarshis): and, in consequence of his austere fervour, he was recognised as having attained that rank.” The conflict seems to have begun in the reign of King Sudas who belonged to the line of Ikshavaku. Vashishtha was the hereditary priest of King Sudas. For some reason which is not very clearly stated Sudas appointed Vishvamitra as his family priest. This brought about a conflict between Vishvamitra and Vashishtha. This conflict once started raged on for a long time. The conflict between the two took a peculiar turn. If Vishvamitra was involved in a dispute Vashishtha came into the fray and sided with his opponent. If Vishvamitra was involved in dispute Vashishtha entered into fray and sided with Vishvamitra as opponent. It was a case of one persecuting the other. The first such episode is that of Satyavrata otherwise called Trishanku. The story as told in the Harivamsha is as follows: “1Meanwhile Vashishtha, from the relation subsisting between the King (Satyavrata’s father) and himself, a disciple and spiritual 1 Muir Vol. I. pp. 177-378.

399 BRAHMINS VERSUS KSHATRIYAS preceptor, governed the city of Ayodhya, the country, and the interior apartments of the royal palace. But Satyavrata, whether through folly or the force of destiny, cherished constantly an increased indignation against Vashishtha, who for a (proper) reason had not interposed to prevent his exclusion from the royal power by his father. ‘The formulas of the marriage ceremonial are only binding,’ said Satyavrata, ‘when the seventh step has been taken, and this had not been done when I seized the damsel: still Vashishtha, who knows the precepts of the law, does not come to my aid.’ Thus Satyavrata was incensed in his mind against Vashishtha, who however, had acted from a sense of what was right. Nor did Satyavrata understand (he propriety of) that silent penance imposed upon him by his father…….. When he had supported this arduous rite, (the supposed that) he had redeemed his family position. The venerable muni Vashishtha did not, however, (as has been said) prevent his father from setting him aside, but resolved to install his son as King. When the powerful prince Satyavrata had endured the penance for twelve years, he beheld, when he was without flesh to eat, the milch cow of Vashishtha which yielded all objects of desire; and under the influence of anger; delusion, and exhaustion, distressed by hunger, and failing in the ten duties he slew……. and both partook of her flesh himself, and gave it to Vishvamitra’s sons to eat. Vashishtha hearing of this, became incensed against him”, and imposed on his the name of Trisanku as he had committed three sins. On his return home, Vishvamitra was gratified by the support which his wife had received, and offered Trisanku the choice of a boon. When this proposal was made, Trisanku chose the boon of ascending bodily to heaven. All apprehension from the twelve year’s drought being now at an end, the muni (Vishvamitra) installed Trisanku in his father’s kingdom, and offered sacrifice on his behalf. The mighty Kaustka then, in spite of the resistance of the gods and of Vashishtha, 1 exalted the king alive to heaven.” 2. As stated in the Harivamsa: “2In consequence of the wickedness which had been committed, Indra did not rain for a period of twelve years. At that time Vishvamitra had left his wife and children and gone to practise austerities on the sea-shore. His wife, driven to extremity by want, was on the point of selling her second son for a hundred cows, in 1 As stated in another place in the Harivamsa Trisanku had been expelled from his home by his father for the offence of carrying off the young wife of one of the citizens under the influence of a criminal passion and Vashishtha did not interfere to prevent his banishment. It is to this that the text refers. 2 Muir Vol. I. pp. 376-77.

400 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES order to support the others; but this arrangement was stopped by the interventions of Satyavrata, who liberated the son when bound, and maintained the family by providing them with the flesh of wild animals; and according to his father’s injunction, consecrated himself for the performance of a silent penance for twelve years.” The next episode in which they appear on opposite sides is that of Harishchandra the son of Trisanku. The story is told in the Vishnu Purana and in the Markendeya Purana. This is how the story runs: “On one occasion, when hunting the king heard a sound of female lamentation which proceeded, it appears, from the sciences who were becoming mastered by the austerely fervid sage Vishvamitra, in a way they had never been before by anyone else; and were consequently crying out in alarm at his superiority. In fulfilment of his duty as a Kshatriya to defend the weak, and inspired by the god Ganesha, who had entered into him, Harishchandra exclaimed, “What sinner is this who is binding fire in the hem of his garment, white, I, his lord, am present, resplendent with force and fiery vigour?’ He shall to-day enter on his long sleep, pierced in all his limbs by arrows, which, by their discharge from my bow, illuminate all the quarters of the firmament.” Vishvamitra was provoked by this address. In consequence of his wrath the Sciences instantly perished, and Harishchandra, trembling like the leaf of an Asvattha tree, submissively represented that he had merely done his duty as a king, which he defined as consisting in the bestowl of gifts on eminent Brahmins and other persons of slender means, the protection of the timid, and war against enemies. Vishvamitra hereupon demands a gift as a Brahman intent upon receiving one. The. king offers him whatsoever he may ask: Gold, his own son, wife, body, like kingdom, good fortune. The saint first requires the present for the Rajasuya sacrifice. On this being promised, and still more offered, he asks for the empire of the whole earth, including everything but Harishchandra himself, his wife and son, and his virtue which follows its posses or wherever he goes.” “Harishchandra joyfully agrees. Vishvamitra then requires him to strip off all his ornaments, to clothe himself in the bark of trees, and to quit the kingdom with his wife Saviya (Taramati) and his son. When he is departing the sage stops him and demands payment of his yet unpaid sacrificial fee. The king replies that he has only the persons of his wife, his son, and himself left. Vishvamitra insists that he must nevertheless pay; and that “unfulfilled promises of gifts to Brahmans bring destruction.” The unfortunate prince, after being threatened with a curse, engages to make the payment in a month;

401 BRAHMINS VERSUS KSHATRIYAS and commences his journey with a wife unused to such fatigues, amid the universal lamentations of his subjects. While he lingers, listening to their affectionate remonstrances against his desertion of his kingdom, Vishvamitra, comes up and being incensed at the delay and the King’s apparent hesitation, strikes the queen with his staff, as she is dragged on by her husband. Harishchandra then proceeded with his wife and little son to Benares, imagining that this divine city, as the special property of Siva, could not be possessed by any mortal. Here he found the relentless Vishvamitra waiting for him, and ready to press his demand for the payment of his sacrificial gift, even before the expiration of the full period of grace. In this extremity Saivya the queen suggests with a sobbing voice that her husband should sell her. On hearing this proposal Harishchandra swoons, then recovers, utters lamentations, and swoons again, and his wife, seeing his said condition, swoon also. While they are in a state of unconsciousness, their famished child exclaims in distress, “O father, father, give me bread; O mother, mother give me food: hunger overpowers me and my tongue is parched.” At this moment Vishvamitra returns, and after recalling Harishchandra to consciousness by spinkling water over him, again urges payment of the present. The king again swoons, and is again restored. The sag threatens to curse him if his engagement is not fulfilled by sunset. Being now pressed by his wife, the King agrees to sell her ading, however, “If my voice can utter such a wicked word, I do not what the most inhuman wretches cannot perpetrate.” He then goes into the city and in selfacusing language offers his queen for sale as a slave. A rich old Brahman offers to buy her at a price corresponding to her value, to do his household work. Seeing his mother dragged away, the child ran after her, his eyes dimmed with tears, and crying ‘mother’. The Brahman purchaser kicked him when he came up; but he would not let his mother go, and continued crying ‘mother, mother.’ The queen then said to the Brahman, “Be so kind, my master, as to but also this child, as without him I shall prove to thee but a useless purchase. Be thus merciful to me in my wretchedness, unite me with my son, like a cow to her calf.” The Brahman agrees: “Take this money and give me the boy.” After the Brahman had gone out of sight with his purchases, Vishvamitra again appeared and renewed his demands; and when the afflicted Harishchanda offered him the small sum he had obtained by the sale of his wife and son, he angrily replied, “If, miserable Kshatriya, thou thinkest this a sacrificial gift befitting my deserts, thou shalt soon beheld the transcendent power of my ardent austere fervour, of my spotless

402 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Brahmanhood of my terrible majesty, and of my holy study. Harishchandra promises an additional gift, and Vishvamitra allows him the remaining quarter of the day for its liquidation. On the terrified and afflicted prince offering himself for sale, in order to gain the mean of meeting this cruel demand, Dharma (Righteousness) appears in the form of a hideous and offensive Chandala, and agrees to buy him at his own price, large or small. Harishchandra declines such a degrading servitude, and declares that he would rather be consumed by the fire of his persecutor’s curse than submit to such a fate. Vishvamitra however again comes on the scene, asks why he does not accept the large sum offered by the Chandala; and, when he pleads in excuse his descent from the solar race, threatens to fulminate a curse against him if he does not accept that method of meeting his liability. Harishchandra implores that he may be spared this extreme of degradation, and offers to become Vishvamitra’s slave in payment of the residue of his debt; whereupon the sage rejoins, “If thou art my slave, then I sell thee as such to the Chandala for a hundred millions of money.” “The Chandala, delighted, pays down the money, and carries off Harishchandra, bound beaten, confused and afflicted, to his own place of abode. Harishchandra is sent by the Chandala to steal grave clothes in a cemetary and is told that he will receive two-sixths goind to his masters, and one-sixth to the King. In this horrid spot, and in this degrading occupation, he spent in great misery, twelve months, which seemed to him like a hundred years. He then falls asleep and has a series of dreams suggested by the life he had been leading. After he awoke, his wife came to the cemetary to perform the obsequies of their son, who had died from the bite of a serpent. At first the husband and wife did not recognize each other, from the change in appearance which had been brought upon them by their miseries. Harishchandra however, soon discovered from the tenor of her lamentations that it is his wife, and falls into a swoon; as the queen does also when she recognizes her husband. When consciousness returns, they both break out into lamentations, the father bewailing in a touching strain the loss of his son, and the wife the degradation of the King. She then falls on his neck, embraces him, and asks “whether all this is a dream, or a reality, as she is utterly be wildered”, and adds, that “if it be a reality, then righteousness is unvailing to those who practise it.” After hesitating to devote himself to death on his son’s funeral pyre without receiving his master’s leave, Harishchandra resolves to do so, braving all the consequences, and consoling himself with the hopeful