Satrajit and Trivikrama Vrata

This narrative is told in the Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, chapter 116. A great king named Satrajit, a devotee of Bhagavān Sūrya Nārāyaṇa, asks how he came to have so much wealth. The learned Parāvasu shows him his past life. The narrative is also the place where the teaching of the Trivikrama vrata (vow) is given.

Satrajit, the great devotee of Sūrya

In the line of Mahārāja Yayāti there arose a very powerful cakravartī (ruler of all the earth) named Satrajit. His rule reached as far as the sun rises and sets. The whole earth with its seven dvīpas (continents) was his kingdom, which was called Satrajit-kshetra. He was full of brightness (tejas), full of patience (kshamā), and gentle in nature (sattvic). He was famous in the three worlds. Even the devas marvelled at his unmatched wealth.

Satrajit was a great devotee (paramabhakta) of Sūrya Nārāyaṇa. His four ministers were also great devotees of Sūrya, and their brilliance and wisdom amazed even the king. His queen Vimalāvatī was his ideal partner and a faithful wife (pativratā).

One day, looking at his vast wealth, Satrajit wondered: what did I do in a former life to deserve all this? And how can I make sure that such ṛddhi (prosperity) goes on in the next life? He called together great paṇḍitas (scholars) and asked them to tell him the truth.

The queen’s question

Mahārāṇī Vimalāvatī was also present and asked her own form of the same question. She had heard of many kings but never of one with such wealth. What great deeds had she herself done to be born as the wife of such a man? What was the source of the great love between them?

Satrajit was moved by her question. He told her to ask first, since it was his duty to clear his wife’s doubts before his own.

Parāvasu’s vision

Among the scholars was Parāvasu, a great devotee of Sūrya who knew dharma. With the agreement of the other paṇḍitas, Parāvasu entered the deep stillness of yoga (yoga-samādhi) to reach the knowledge of their past lives. When he came out of it, he said:

“Mahārāja! In your former birth you were born as a śūdra of very cruel nature, hard-hearted and violent. At one point you were struck by kushṭha-roga (leprosy). Even then the same woman was your wife. She was so great a faithful wife that, however much you tormented her, she gave her mind and body to your service without rest. Your whole family left you. Your inherited wealth was gone. You tried farming, but that too came to nothing by the will of fate. You fell into the worst misery and served others to stay alive.”

The service at Kanyākubja

Parāvasu went on. In this state of complete poverty the couple made their way to Kanyākubja. There they settled near a Sūrya mandira (temple) and began to serve it with perfect and devoted care. Every day they did these things:

• They swept and cleaned the mandira.
• They washed and purified it.
• They listened to the recitation of Purāṇas in the mandira with great bhakti (devotion) and śraddhā (faith).

Vimalāvatī gave her father’s precious ring to the reciter of the Purāṇa, out of pure devotion. When the mandira had no oil for its lamps, the two gave the oil they had set aside for cooking. When there were no wicks, they tore strips from their own clothes to make them.

Parāvasu said: “The mandira took over your minds completely. Day and night you thought of nothing but how to keep that Sūrya mandira cleaner, purer and more beautiful. You spent several years there. Thought of Sūrya without any wish for reward (nishkāma Sūrya-cintana) became your whole life. Through this all your pāpas (sins) were destroyed.”

Then a great king named Kuvalāśva arrived with a splendid retinue. Seeing the royal couple’s vaibhava (grandeur), a wish rose in Satrajit: “May we be born as king and queen in the next life.” Soon after, that birth came to an end.

Parāvasu said: “The service of Sūrya (sevā) and the hearing of the Purāṇa (śravaṇa), done with faith and devotion, made you a king and made her a queen. Your matchless tejas in this life also came from that. The lamps you kept burning in the mandira with your own oil and cloth gave you the tejas that even the devas marvel at today.”

The teaching of Satrajit’s case

Parāvasu said: “The wealth, splendour, majesty and tejas you enjoy are all the fruit of good deeds (satkarma) in a former life. Even the poorest person, if he pleases Sūrya with bhakti, becomes like Kubera. The wealth of one who is not a devotee cannot last.”

Satrajit was filled with joyful understanding. He said: “The darkness in my mind has been driven away by the light of your words. Now I understand clearly that all this wealth is the fruit of good deeds from a former birth (pūrva-janma sukṛta), and that nishkāma Sūrya-upāsanā (the ārādhanā of Sūrya without wish for reward) is the root and the means.”

The Trivikrama vrata

Parāvasu then gave the king a course of continued Sūrya pūjā that would win the same prosperity in future lives.

Kārtika month

• Do Sūrya pūjā every day of the month.
• Feed brāhmaṇas every day (brāhmaṇa-bhojana).
• The devotee himself eats only one meal a day.
• Fruit: it destroys all pāpa done in childhood, the stage of ignorance.

Mārgaśīra month

• Keep the same practice.
• Also give an emerald (marakata-maṇi) to a brāhmaṇa, husband and wife together.
• Fruit: it destroys all pāpa done in youth and adult life.

Pushya month

• Keep the same practice.
• Fruit: it destroys all pāpa done in old age.

If this vrata is kept for three years in a row, three months each year, it dissolves even the heaviest pāpa that has piled up. This includes the laghupātaka, the upapātaka and the mahāpātaka (the light, the secondary and the great grave faults), and the threefold pāpa of the outer world (ādhibhautika), of the devas (ādhidaivika) and of the self (ādhyātmika). Every wished-for aim is fulfilled.

This vrata is called the Trivikrama Vrata, after the three strides of Bhagavān Vāmana, who is also called Trivikrama.

What Sūrya loves most

In the same narrative Bhagavān Sūrya himself, speaking to Aruṇa on Mount Udaya, tells what pleases him most.

Flowers and offerings (upacāra) most dear to him

• Karavīra (oleander) flowers
• Rakta-candana (red sandalwood)
• Guggula dhūpa (guggul incense)
• Ghī dīpas (lamps of clarified butter)
• Modaka and similar naivedya (food offerings)

Among devotees

• Brāhmaṇas who recite the Purāṇas (paurāṇika)
• The bhojakas, his priests of Sūrya
• Song (gīta), music (vādya) and teaching from the Purāṇas (Purāṇa pravacana) bring him joy. But Purāṇa pravacana pleases him more than anything else.

Sources

• Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, chapter 116