Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c9.1832

c9.1832

Śikhidhvaja and Cūḍālā began practising jñānayoga (communion through knowledge). It was Cūḍālā, who gained Siddhis first. Though the king was pleased with the achievements of his wife he felt sorry about his failure or drawbacks. Cūḍālā had attained the Siddhi to travel even in air. Though she told her husband emphatically that he could practise jñānayoga living in the palace itself, he quitted the city for the forest and began performing tapas there. Then on one day, she went to the presence of the king in the forest in the guise of a brahmin boy and stood there without touching the earth with her feet. The king treated the boy with honour and respect taking him for some Deva. Then she revealed her actual form, and the king agreed to return with her to the palace and practise jñānayoga there. At that juncture Cūḍālā created by her soul-power celestial women like Urvaśī and also Indra and lined them up before her husband. This was to test whether the king yielded to any of the temptations by the celestial women or by Indra and Cūḍālā returned with the king to the kingdom.