Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c4.2499

c4.2499

12) *Brahmā and the giantess Karkaṭī.* In days of old, a ferocious giantess named Karkaṭī lived on the northern side of the Himālayas. Because of the hugeness of her body and the scarcity of food she became famished. She began to do penance for the alleviation of her hunger and thirst. She stood on one leg in the Himālaya Mountain, fixing her eyes on the sun in the day and on the Moon in the night, and the severe penance continued for a thousand years. Then Brahmā appeared before her and told her that she could ask for any boon. She said “I wish to become a Sūcī (Needle) as hard as iron, having the form of disease. This is the boon I pray for, Brahmā”. Brahmā blessed her and said, “Let it be so, my daughter, you shall be a sūcikā (needle) with the prefix ‘V’ that is Viśūcikā (Spasmodic cholera) You can eat those who eat stale food, those who are wicked, those who sit in places where they ought not to sit and those who are hard-hearted. Enter into their bodies and affect their hearts, spleens and life-breaths. Thus carry out the work of destruction? You can affect both the good and the bad. But good people should not be killed. So to save them from death, you can use this mantra (spell).