Vishvamitra

From king to brahmarshi

In the Valmiki Ramayana (Bala Kanda, sargas 51-65) Shatananda, Janaka’s priest, tells Rama the whole story of Vishvamitra. King Vishvamitra could not carry off Vasishtha’s wish-giving cow Shabala by force, and all his weapons failed before Vasishtha’s staff; then he said that true strength lies in tapas (sarga 56). The Mahabharata (Adi Parva, Chaitraratha sub-parva) tells the same story, naming the cow Nandini, and ends by saying that by tapas he became a brahmin.

According to the Ramayana, after a thousand years of tapas Brahma called him a rajarshi, a royal sage (sarga 57), and after more tapas a rishi (sarga 63). When ten years went by with the apsara Menaka at Pushkara, he took up tapas again in remorse and was called a maharshi (sarga 63). After cursing Rambha, sent by Indra, in anger, he again felt remorse and vowed to conquer anger by keeping silence (sarga 64). After a thousand years of silent tapas the gods called him a brahmarshi, and at his wish Vasishtha too acknowledged him as a brahmarshi and made friends with him (sarga 65). The Bhagavata (9.16.28) also says that by tapas he went beyond his kshatriya state and won brahminhood.

Trishanku and Shunahshepa

The Ikshvaku king Trishanku wished to go to heaven in his body. According to the Ramayana (Bala Kanda, sargas 57-60), Vasishtha and then his sons refused, and the sons’ curse made the king an outcast. Vishvamitra performed the yajna for him and by his tapas sent him to heaven; when the gods sent him back down, Vishvamitra created a new circle of stars in the southern sky, where Trishanku stays among the stars, head downward. The Vishnu Purana (4.3) and the Bhagavata (9.7.5-6) also say that Trishanku went to heaven in his body by the power of Vishvamitra’s tapas.

The story of Shunahshepa is first found in the Aitareya Brahmana (7.13-18): Shunahshepa, son of Ajigarta, bought as the victim for King Harishchandra’s sacrifice, praised the gods and his bonds fell away; Vishvamitra was the hotri priest at that sacrifice, and he took him as his son under the name Devarata (7.16-17). The Bhagavata (9.16.30-36) says the same and tells how Vishvamitra asked his sons to treat him as their eldest brother. In the Ramayana (Bala Kanda, sargas 61-62) the sacrifice is King Ambarisha’s and Shunahshepa is a son of Richika; Vishvamitra teaches him verses to save himself.

Teacher of Rama and Lakshmana

In the Valmiki Ramayana (Bala Kanda, sargas 18-22) Vishvamitra comes to Ayodhya and tells Dasharatha that two rakshasas, Maricha and Subahu, spoil his yajna, and asks for Rama for the ten days of the rite. Dasharatha hesitated, but on Vasishtha’s advice he sent Rama and Lakshmana with him. On the way Vishvamitra taught Rama the lore called Bala and Atibala (sarga 22); at his word Rama slew Tataka (sarga 26); and, pleased, Vishvamitra gave him divine weapons and taught him their use (sargas 27-28). At Siddhashrama Rama guarded the yajna (sarga 30), and then Vishvamitra took the two brothers to Janaka’s yajna at Mithila (sarga 31), where at his word Shiva’s bow was shown to Rama and Rama broke it (sarga 67).

Where the sources differ

• Gadhi’s father: Kushamba in the Vishnu Purana (4.7) and the Bhagavata (9.15.4, Tagare’s translation); Kushanabha in the Ramayana (Bala Kanda, sarga 34). The Vishnu Purana adds that Indra, alarmed by Kushamba’s tapas, was himself born as Gadhi.
• Why Trishanku became an outcast: the curse of Vasishtha’s sons in the Ramayana (sarga 58); his father’s curse in the Bhagavata (9.7.5-6). According to the Vishnu Purana (4.3), Vishvamitra raised him to heaven because during a twelve-year famine Trishanku had fed Vishvamitra’s wife and children.
• The feud with Vasishtha: according to Griffith’s note, the Rigveda alludes to a rivalry between the two, and the later stories may rest on a Vedic tradition that King Sudas, with Vasishtha as his priest, also let Vishvamitra officiate. The scholar Michael Witzel holds that Vishvamitra was Sudas’s priest first; Stephanie Jamison finds no evidence of a feud in the Rigveda (Wikipedia). A note by Tagare, translator of the Bhagavata (on 9.16), suggests that the Puranas may have merged stories of several Vishvamitras of different ages into one person.

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