A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.783

c5.783

KALMĀSHA-PĀDA. A king of the Solar race, son of Su-dāsa (hence he is called Saudāsa), and a descendant of Ikshwāku. His legend, as told in the Mahā-bhārata, relates that while hunting in the forest he encountered Saktri, the eldest son of Vasisṭhha, and as this sage refused to get out of his way, he struck him with his whip. The incensed sage cursed him to become a cannibal. This curse was heard by Viswāmitra, the rival of Vasisṭhha, and he so contrived that the body of the king became possessed by a man-eating Rākshasa. In this condition he caused human flesh to be served up to a Brāhman named Mitrasaha, who discovered what it was, and intensified the curse of Saktri by a new imprecation. One of Kalmāsha-pada’s first victims was Saktri himself, and all the hundred sons of Vasisṭhha fell a prey to his disordered appetite. After remaining twelve years in this state, he was restored to his natural condition by Vasistha. The Vishnu Purāna tells the story differently. The king went out to hunt and found two destructive tigers. He killed one of them, but as it expired it was changed into a Rākshasa. The other tiger disappeared threatening vengeance. Kalmāsha-pāda celebrated a sacrifice at which Vasistha officiated. When it was over and Vasistha went out, the Rākshasa assumed his appearance, and proposed that food should be served. Then the Rākshasa transformed himself into a cook, and, preparing human flesh, he served it to Vasistha on his return. The indignant sage cursed the king that henceforth his appetite should be excited only by similar food. A wrangle ensued, and Vasistha having found out the truth, limited the duration of his curse to twelve years. The angry king took water in his hands to pronounce, in his turn, a curse upon Vasistha, but was dissuaded from his purpose by his wife, Madayantī. “Unwilling to cast the water on the ground, lest it should wither up the grain, and equally reluctant to throw it up into the air, lest it should blast the clouds and dry up their contents, he threw it upon his own feet,” and they were so scalded by it that they became black and white, and so gained for him the name of Kalmāsha-pāda, ‘spotted feet.’ Every day for twelve years, at the sixth watch of the day, he gave way to his cannibal appetite, “and devoured multitudes of men.” On one occasion he devoured a Brāhman in the midst of his connubial happiness, and the Brāhman’s wife passed upon him a curse that he should die whenever he associated with his wife. At the expiration of Vasistha’s curse, the king returned home, but, mindful of the Brāhmanī’s imprecation, he abstained from conjugal intercourse. By the interposition of Vasistha, his wife, Madayantī, became pregnant, and bore a child in her womb for seven years, when she performed the Cæsarean operation with a sharp stone, and a child came forth who was called Asmaka (from Asman, ‘a stone’).