Mṛga and Mṛgī

Mṛga and Mṛgī are a deer and a doe who came before Bhagavān Paraśurāma at Pushkara. In earlier births they were a brahmin and his wife from Draviḍa deśa. The Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa tells how they were freed from their animal births and reached Vaikuṇṭha, the eternal abode of Bhagavān Vishṇu. The account is in the Madhyama Bhāga, Chapters 34 and 36.

The meeting at Pushkara

Paraśurāma was doing a hundred-year sādhana (spiritual practice) at Pushkara. He was deep in meditation and tapas (austerity). A deer and a doe came before him. They did not act like ordinary deer. When they met the eyes of Paraśurāma, he saw through his yogic vision that they were beings with an unusual spiritual past. He paused his sādhana and asked them about themselves.

Their past lives

The deer and the doe told their story. They had been a brahmin and his wife, living in Draviḍa deśa in the far south. The brahmin belonged to the Kauśika gotra (family line) and had four brothers. He and his wife lived a life of Vedic learning and steady dharma.

One day they were walking in the forest. They found a doe that had been struck by an arrow and was dying. The brahmin was full of compassion. He sat beside the dying doe, and in the strength of his grief for her pain, he fixed his mind wholly on her. At the moment of his own death, his last breath, his mind was filled with the image of the deer.

The law of karma makes the last thought at death decide the next birth. So he was born again as a deer. His wife did not want to be parted from him. At her own death she fixed her mind on him, and she was born as a doe. So the two wandered together in the forest of Pushkara. They were still tied to each other by love. They still carried the memory and the puṇya (merit) of their brahmin lives. They were still waiting to be freed.

The teaching on the last thought

This account becomes the occasion for the Purāṇa’s teaching on antya-citta, the last thought at the moment of death. The state of being that a person remembers when leaving the body is the state that person reaches. The text cites this principle from the Bhagavad-gītā.

The brahmin’s compassion for the dying doe turned into strong attachment at the last moment. That attachment outweighed the puṇya of his brahmin life and gave him an animal birth. The teaching shows how important abhyāsa (steady practice) is through the whole of life. Then, at the hour of death, the mind rests naturally on the divine and on no created form.

The teaching on three kinds of bhakti

The meeting with the deer and the doe leads to a longer teaching on three kinds of bhakti (devotion). This is the main teaching of Chapter 34.

• Uttama-bhakti, the highest devotion. It is complete, selfless and natural surrender to the divine, with no mixture of personal wish or fear. The examples given are Śiva himself as the supremely devoted one, Nārada, Śuka, Ambarīsha, Rantideva, Hanumān, Bali, Vibhīshaṇa, Prahlāda and the Gopikās. For such beings the last thought is always the divine, and their moksha is certain.
• Madhyama-bhakti, the middle devotion. It is sincere and disciplined, shaped by knowledge, ritual and family line. The examples are Vasishṭha and the ṛshis of the Manu line. Their devotion works through form, ritual and understanding. The Purāṇa names Paraśurāma himself as one of madhyama-bhakti.
• Kanishtha-bhakti, the lowest devotion. It is devotion that comes from wanting personal gain, safety or a place in society. This is the devotion of most ordinary people. All bhakti has puṇya, and this kind needs to grow toward the higher kinds.

Moksha through the Kṛshṇāmṛta-stava

After hearing about the deer and the doe, Paraśurāma went to the āśrama (hermitage) of Agastya. There he received the Kṛshṇāmṛta-stava from the ṛshi. This stotra (hymn of praise) holds the 108 names of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa.

The deer and the doe had followed Paraśurāma to the āśrama. Their old spiritual instinct drew them. The stotra was recited in their presence. Its power reached their animal minds and woke the full memory of their former lives as brahmins.

Several things came together at that moment: the puṇya of their earlier lives, the power of Pushkara, Paraśurāma’s compassion, and the names of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa. The deer and the doe then left their animal bodies. They rose to Vaikuṇṭha, the eternal abode of Bhagavān Vishṇu, in divine forms. They were freed from birth and death.

Sources

• Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapters 34, 36