Skandapurana 3.1.8
English (machine translation) 3.1.8
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The seers said:
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O venerable Sūta, omniscient one, dear to Kṛṣṇadvaipāyana,
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having heard stories from your mouth that shower nectar into our ears, // 1
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satisfaction does not arise in us, who drink the nectar of your speech.
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Therefore, speak further auspicious stories to us who are eager to listen. // 2
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To the south of Cakratīrtha there is [a tīrtha] named Vetālavarada;
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"there is a most holy sacred ford," so you said previously. // 3
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How did the name Vetālavarada come to this sacred ford?
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And what is the power of that sacred ford? You ought to tell us this. // 4
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Glorious Sūta said:
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Indeed, you have asked well, O chiefs of sages, about an extremely secret matter.
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Listen with [attentive] mind; I shall tell a most wondrous story, // 5
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hearing which auspicious story even the lowest people rejoice.
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And this most holy story was told long ago on Mount Kailāsa, // 6
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during playful moments, by Śambhu to Pārvatī, O twice-born ones.
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I shall tell you this exceedingly wonderful story. // 7
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Long ago, a great seer named Gālava, truthful of speech and pure,
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meditating on the supreme Brahman, performed austerity in his own hermitage. // 8
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His highly fortunate daughter, endowed with beauty and youth,
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a young girl named Kāntimatī, moved about near her father. // 9
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Bringing flowers for that sage's offering,
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sweeping the sacrificial altar and gathering firewood, // 10
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the maiden served her father properly.
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Once, set upon gathering flowers for the offering, // 11
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Kāntimatī went very far into that forest.
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Having collected delightful flowers there in a basket, // 12
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the girl, devoted to serving her father, quickly turned back.
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As that maiden was returning, two young Vidyādharas // 13
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named Sudarśana and Sukarṇa, standing in an aerial chariot, saw [her].
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Seeing Gālava's daughter endowed with beauty and youth, // 14
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like Kāma's charming wife Rati in bodily form,
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the elder young Vidyādhara named Sudarśana, // 15
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his eyes wide open with joy, was bewildered by passion and desired her.
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Gazing repeatedly at her whose face was like the full moon, // 16
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wishing to sport with her, he descended from the front of the aerial chariot.
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Approaching the sage's daughter, Sudarśana spoke as follows: // 17
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Sudarśana said:
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Who are you, fair one? Whose daughter are you, endowed with beauty and youth?
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For this peerless beauty delights my mind. // 18
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Seeing you resemble Rati, love torments me.
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I am the son of the lord of the Vidyādharas named Sukaṇṭha, // 19
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endowed with beauty, and named Sudarśana.
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Accept me, fair one, and protect me with a compassionate glance. // 20
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Having attained me as your husband, you will obtain all pleasures.
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Having heard those words of the son of the Vidyādhara, // 21
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Kāntimatī then spoke words accordant with righteousness:
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O fortunate Sudarśana, son of the lord of the Vidyādharas! // 22
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Know me to be the daughter of the high-souled Gālava.
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And I am an unmarried girl devoted to the service of my father. // 23
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I came to gather flowers for my father's offering,
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and while I was gathering the flowers, a watch of the day has elapsed. // 24
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Because of my delay, that sage, intent on worshipping the deities,
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that ascetic, best among sages, will surely become angry. // 25
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Therefore, I must go quickly now; the flowers have also been gathered by me.
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Maidens are dependent on their father and never independent. // 26
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If you desire me, ask my father.
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Having spoken thus to the son of the Vidyādhara at that time, // 27
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Kāntimatī, apprehensive about her father, prepared to go quickly to the hermitage.
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Seeing her walking away, the young Vidyādhara,
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afflicted by desire, ran quickly and seized her by the hair.
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Seeing him approaching and seizing her hair,
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the sage's daughter suddenly cried aloud like an osprey:
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"Save me, father, O lord, from this son of a Vidyādhara!
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Today the wicked-minded son of a Vidyādhara is seizing me by force!"
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Thus she cried out loudly, not very far from their hermitage.
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Hearing that cry, the dwellers of Gandhamādana,
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the sages, placing Gālava, the foremost of sages, at their head,
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came quickly to that place to find out what had happened.
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Arriving at that place, all those foremost seers
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saw the maiden daughter of the sage seized by the Vidyādhara,
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and the other Vidyādhara youth standing nearby.
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Seeing this, the great ascetic Gālava, foremost of sages,
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fell slightly under the sway of anger and cursed that wicked soul:
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"Because you have committed such a deed, O vilest of Vidyādharas,
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therefore go into a human womb, the fruit of your own evil action!
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Having attained a human birth filled with much suffering,
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in a short time, in that very birth,
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you shall enter the state of a vetāla, censured even by men.
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You shall constantly feed on flesh and blood.
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Vetālas, like rākṣasas, seize women by force.
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Therefore, having become human, you shall attain the state of a vetāla.
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Your younger brother, who assented to your evil deed,
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known as Sukarṇa, he too shall become a human.
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However, since he did not directly perform such an act,
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he shall have merely the human state, but no state of a vetāla.
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When this younger [brother] of yours sees the lord of the Vidyādharas
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named Vijñaptikautuka, then he shall be released from the curse.
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But you, the perpetrator of such a deed of great sin,
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having attained human existence, in that very birth,
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having obtained birth as a vetāla, shall wander long in the world."
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Having spoken thus, Gālava, taking his daughter along with the sages,
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and having cursed the two Vidyādhara youths, departed toward his own hermitage.
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Then, when that exalted one, the foremost among sages, had departed,
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the two sons of the lord of the Vidyādharas, named Sudarśana and Sukarṇa,
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tormented by grief due to the sage's curse, deliberated deeply.
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Having decided what was to be done, those two, Sudarśana and Sukarṇa,
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chose as father a brahmin named Govindasvāmin,
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an inhabitant of the bank of the Yamunā and endowed with virtuous conduct;
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casting off their own forms, they were born as his two sons.
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They became his two sons named Vijayadatta and Aśokadatta.
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The elder, Sudarśana, was born as the son named Vijayadatta,
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and the younger, Sukarṇa, was indeed named Aśokadatta.
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Vijayadatta and Aśokadatta in due course reached youth.
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At that very time, on the auspicious bank of the Yamunā,
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because of drought there arose a twelve-year famine.
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The brahmin named Govindasvāmin, a master of the Vedas,
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seeing his own town afflicted by famine at that time,
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set out for the city of Kāśī with his sons and his wife.
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Having reached Prayāga and seen the great banyan tree,
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he saw before him an ascetic adorned with a garland of skulls.
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He, the one named Govindasvāmin, bowed down to that sage.
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The sage bestowed blessings upon him with his sons and his wife,
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and spoke these words to Govindasvāmin:
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"Now, O best of brahmins, your separation
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from this eldest son, Vijayadatta, will happen soon."
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Hearing his word, the one named Govindasvāmin,
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after the sun had set there and he had finished his evening rites,
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the brahmin, with his wife and sons, exhausted from the very long journey,
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he stayed for that night in a deserted temple.
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Then Aśokadatta and the brahmin woman, both exhausted,
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spread out a cloth on the ground and fell asleep during the night.
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Then Vijayadatta, however, from traversing a long road,
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became completely exhausted and severely afflicted with a cold fever.
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Although he was held tightly in an embrace by his father, Govindasvāmin,
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in order to dispel the distress of the cold, he could not shake off the tormenting cold.
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"Father, a cold fever torments me excessively right now.
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To remove this distress, bring fire without delay!"
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Hearing these words of his son, he searched everywhere for fire;
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unable to find fire, he approached his son again and said:
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"Son, I find no fire, though I have searched everywhere.
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Since it is the middle of the night and the doors are shut,
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the townsfolk, overcome by sleep, will certainly not give fire."
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Thus addressed by his father, Vijayadatta, sick with fever,
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begged his father again for fire in a pitiful voice:
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"Afflicted as I am by the tormenting cold arisen from this ague,
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the wind laden with icy mist torments me doubly today.
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Father, you spoke falsely indeed when you said fire was not found!
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Straight ahead in the distance, crowned with a mass of flames,
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a fire is seen licking the sky with its crests—look!
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Quickly bring that fire, father, to dispel this cold!"
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To his son who spoke thus, the father replied:
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"I do not speak untruth, my son; today I speak only the truth.
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That place with fire is seen only from afar.
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Know, son, that it is the place of the ancestral forest [the cremation ground].
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The fire that burns ahead, its flames scraping the sky,
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know that, my son, to be the terrifying fire of a funeral pyre.
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It is inauspicious and must not be used, this pyre fire corrupted by touch.
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The lifespan of one who resorts to the fire of a pyre diminishes.
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Therefore, son, thinking, 'Let there be no loss of your lifespan,'
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I did not fetch this pyre fire, inauspicious and [unfit] to touch."
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To his father who spoke thus, the miserable [son] replied:
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"Let it be a corpse-fire or let it be a sacrificial fire;
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bring it by all means, otherwise I will die!"
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Then, overwhelmed by affection for his son, to fetch the pyre fire,
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he named Govindasvāmin quickly went to the cremation ground.
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When Govindasvāmin had gone to fetch the pyre fire,
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Vijayadatta also hurriedly followed behind him as he went.
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Reaching the vicinity of the heat, the funeral pyre fire strewn with bones,
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as if embracing it anxiously, he gradually obtained relief.
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Then he said to his father: "What is this circular thing,
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shining brightly in the fire, resembling a red lotus?"
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Hearing these words of his son, that best of brahmins,
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having examined it closely, spoke these words in reply:
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Govindasvāmin said:
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"This is a skull, rounded by the ring of flames of the fire,
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rich in marrow, bone, and flesh, resembling a red lotus."
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Hearing this, the brahmin's son struck it with the tip of a piece of wood,
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whereby his mouth was drenched with marrow discharged from its bursting.
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Licking repeatedly with his tongue the blood that smeared his mouth
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upon striking the skull, he tasted that blood.
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Having thus tasted it, taking up that skull agitatedly,
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and drinking the marrow, he became gigantic in body and terrifying.
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Immediately, that night, he turned into a vetāla with sharp fangs.
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With the sound of his burst of wild laughter, the quarters and intermediate directions,
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heaven, the intermediate space, and the earth seemed to burst apart everywhere.
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As he rushed impetuously, dragging his father to kill him,
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a voice appeared in the sky, saying, "Do not commit such violence!"
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Hearing that divine voice, that terrifying vetāla...
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Leaving his father, endowed with great speed,
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he swiftly entered the sky and departed with unhindered flight.
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Having traveled a great distance, he joined with the vetālas.
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Seeing him arrive, all those vetālas,
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since he had attained vetālahood through the bursting of a skull,
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then addressed him by the name Kapālasphoṭana.
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Then that Kapālasphoṭa, surrounded on all sides by vetālas,
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endowed with great strength, swiftly reached the presence of the king of the vetālas,
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who was named Narāsthibhūṣaṇa.
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And Narāsthibhūṣaṇa appointed him commander of the army.
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Once, a powerful gandharva named Citrasena
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slew Narāsthibhūṣaṇa in battle, and he died.
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When Narāsthibhūṣaṇa was killed by the gandharva in combat,
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then that Kapālasphoṭa obtained his position.
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Sudarśana, the son of the lord of vidyādharas, having first gone to the human state,
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and then attained vetālahood because of the great seer's curse, gradually became the lord of the vetālas.
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Thus ends the eighth chapter, titled 'Description of Sudarśana’s Attainment of the State of a Vetāla', in the Praise of the Vetālavarada Tīrtha, in the Setumāhātmya, in the third Brahmakhaṇḍa, in the glorious Skanda Mahāpurāṇa of eighty-one thousand verses.
Linked texts (1)
- Skandapurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit