The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c18.6

v2.c18.6

**Story of Samba.** The *Kapila Saṃhitā* devotes to this place barely two pages and they filled with an abstract of an ancient legend which occurs at length only in the *Sāmba Purāṇa*. References to this legend are to be met with in some medieval works on pilgrimages, but nowhere in any details. According to the *Sāmba Purāṇa*, Sāmba, the son of Kṛṣṇa by Jāmbavatī, was the handsomest youth of his race and very proud and wayward withal. In the hey-day of his youth and beauty he showed very little respect for age and wisdom and was foremost in every wicked play. While every other member of the Yādava race, including Kṛṣṇa, the head of the tribe, and his aged sire Vasudeva, evinced the most profound veneration for Nārada, the great sage of the time, he could only ridicule and mimic him. The sage, who loved mischief quite as much as the youth and was by nature irascible, could not brook his discourteous conduct and failing to check the youth by gentle means, adopted a highly reprehensible and unsaintly scheme to punish him. On one occasion going up to Kṛṣṇa, the sage insinuated that Sāmba was more familiar with the 1,600 wives of Kṛṣṇa than was becoming and that his extraordinary personal charms were dangerous to the purity of the ladies. Kṛṣṇa, however, scouted the idea and told the saint that he was sadly mistaken. ‘How is it possible’, said he, ‘that one so young, so beautiful and so good as Sāmba could behave improperly towards his own step-mothers?’ ‘You may not believe it now’, returned the sage, ‘but I shall have occasion to call your attention to it again’. A short time after, when Kṛṣṇa had [**146**] gone on an excursion to the Raivataka hill, Nārada called on Sāmba and told him forthwith to repair to Raivataka, where his father wished to see him. Sāmba obeyed the instruction and on the hill found his step-mothers excessively flushed with wine and indulging in throwing water upon each other in a tank. The ladies saw him and were very much smitten by his beauty. Nārada had followed him very closely and, going up to Kṛṣṇa, called his attention to the presence of Sāmba where the ladies in dishabille were engaged in bathing. Kṛṣṇa was greatly incensed and cursed the youth to be afflicted by leprosy, which would totally destroy his personal charms. Sāmba proved that he was innocent; but the curse, once pronounced, could not be withdrawn and he had, by the advice of Nārada, to retire to the Maitra Forest and there abide for twelve years to cure his foul disease. The *Kapila Saṃhitā* does not refer to Nārada and directly charges the youth with jilting with his step-mothers and sends him to the forest by order of his father; but as its account is avowedly an abstract, the omission may be due solely to a desire for condensation.