Vāyu and Kārtavīrya Arjuna

The dialogue of Vāyu (Pavana) and Kārtavīrya Arjuna is told in the Anuśāsana Parva of the Mahābhārata, Chapters 152 to 157. Vāyu calls himself the messenger (dūta) of the devas. Kārtavīrya Arjuna is the thousand-armed king of the Haihayas, ruler of Māhishmatī and son of Kṛtavīrya. In answer to the question whether brāhmaṇas or kshatriyas hold the higher rank, Vāyu tells a chain of itihāsas (accounts of what happened).

This Kārtavīrya Arjuna is not Arjuna the Pāṇḍava. He lived many generations earlier, in the Haihaya branch of the Yadu line, and he is the same king whom Paraśurāma kills in other accounts.

Kārtavīrya Arjuna is proud of the four varas (boons) he received from Dattātreya, and he boasts that no being, human or divine, is his equal. Vāyu answers him with a series of accounts that show brāhmaṇas overturning devas, oceans, kings and the order of the world by the force of tapas (austerity) and speech. The king loses the argument at every step and agrees that brāhmaṇas are supreme. Vāyu leaves with a last warning: a terror from the Bhṛgu line still waits for him.

The setting and the boast

Bhīshma tells Yudhishṭhira that this is a purātana itihāsa (an old account) about why brāhmaṇas must be honoured.

Kārtavīrya Arjuna had a thousand arms. He was lord of the whole earth, “clothed in her oceans and dvīpas” (islands or continents), and he was of the Haihaya line. Once, out of kshatra-dharma (a king’s duty), humility and learning, he gave all his wealth to Dattātreya. The ṛshi was pleased and offered him vara. Kārtavīrya Arjuna, son of Kṛtavīrya, asked for four:

1. A thousand arms that his armies would see in battle, though at home he would look like an ordinary man.
2. The power to win the whole earth by his own valour.
3. The ability to rule that earth with dharma and with care.
4. In a request put with unusual humility: that good men (sat-purushas) would set right any false or wrong conduct (mithyā-pravṛtti) he might fall into through his own excess.

Dattātreya gave him all four.

Kārtavīrya Arjuna rode in a chariot bright as Agni and Sūrya, and he was drunk on his own strength (vīrya). He cried out: “Who is my equal in courage, strength, fame, bravery, valour and power?” The moment the words left his mouth, a bodiless voice (aśarīravāṇī) spoke from the sky. The voice is named here as Sarasvatī or Gāyatrī, and is called niśācarī, “she who moves unseen”. It said: “Fool! Do you not know that the brāhmaṇa is higher than the kshatriya? Only together with the brāhmaṇa does the kshatriya rule his people at all.”

Kārtavīrya Arjuna answered with defiance. If he was pleased, he said, he could create beings, and if he was angry, he could destroy them for the smallest fault. What dvija (twice-born) could equal him in deed, mind or word? He argued that “the brāhmaṇa is supreme” is only a pūrva-paksha (a first position that can be refuted), and that the true siddhānta (settled conclusion) is that the kshatriya is supreme. The kshatriya protects the people, he said, while the brāhmaṇa, under the cover of brahma, lives on the kshatriya’s protection and begs for his food. Brāhmaṇas are “chief”, he said, only in being the first to beg. He claimed to hold under his control all such self-important brāhmaṇas, who wear only hides and have no power over their own lives. He mocked the “child” Gāyatrī standing in the sky and spoke untruths: he would defeat every hide-clad brāhmaṇa in the three worlds, no being, human or divine, could drive him out of his kingdom, and he would remake the world so that kshatra (the power of rulers), and not brahma, stood highest. The unseen voice fell silent in fear.

Vāyu’s rebuke

Then Vāyu spoke from the sky and took up the argument. “Give up this evil state of mind (pāpa-bhāva). Bow to brāhmaṇas with humility. One who wrongs them brings trouble on his own kingdom, and the brāhmaṇas themselves, or their wounded energy, will throw you out of your realm.”

Kārtavīrya Arjuna asked who was speaking. Vāyu said: “I am Vāyu, messenger of the devas, and I speak for your good.”

The king was not persuaded. He asked how a brāhmaṇa could equal Vāyu himself, or water, or fire, or Sūrya, or the sky. Vāyu answered over the next chapters with a series of proofs.

1. Kaśyapa and the Earth (Chapters 153–154)

King Aṅga once decided, out of rivalry with the Earth herself, to give the whole of Bhūmi as dakshiṇā (a priest’s fee) to brāhmaṇas. Bhūmi was terrified of losing her own earth-nature and of having a new master. She fled and said she would rather give up her form as earth and go to Brahmaloka than be owned in this way.

As she fled, Kaśyapa, in full control of his senses, at once left his own body and entered her. He held her up himself for three thousand divine years without tiring. Grass, grain and dharma came back to the earth in plenty, and her fear was gone. Afterward Bhūmi came to Kaśyapa, bowed and became his daughter. From then on she was known as Kāśyapī.

Vāyu asks: name one kshatriya greater than this brāhmaṇa Kaśyapa, who became the earth itself to save her. Kārtavīrya Arjuna had no answer.

2. Utathya, Bhadrā and Varuṇa (Chapter 154)

Utathya, of the Aṅgirasa line, married Bhadrā, the daughter of Candra, who was without equal in beauty. She was given to him through the help of Atri, with the full rite of the śāstras. But Varuṇa, lord of the waters, had wanted her first. He took her away from the forest where Utathya lived and brought her to his own city of six hundred thousand pools, finer than any other, full of apsarās and divine wonders. There he amused himself with her.

Utathya learned of this through Nārada, whom he sent as his messenger. Varuṇa refused Nārada’s demand to let her go. Utathya, burning with anger, drank the whole ocean dry by the power of his tapas alone. Still not satisfied, he filled the land instead. Vāyu says that he himself ran away in fear of Utathya’s anger and hid for a long time in the agni-hotra fire.

Utathya then ordered the land, and the river there, the Sarasvatī, called bhīrū (the fearful one), to vanish and flee to the desert. He gave that land a śāpa (a curse) that it would be forever without puṇya (merit). Varuṇa saw his kingdom laid waste. He brought Bhadrā back himself, gave her to Utathya and begged his pardon. With his wife back, Utathya’s good nature returned. He set the world and Varuṇa free from this sorrow, and then said plainly to Varuṇa: “I got her back by tapas alone, while you and all your people wept.”

Vāyu asks again: name a kshatriya greater than this.

In the same breath Vāyu adds that it was likewise by a brāhmaṇa’s śāpa that the ocean became undrinkable for ever. He adds that Agni himself was once golden, free of smoke, with his flame always leaping upward, and that he lost these very qualities under Aṅgirasa’s śāpa.

3. Kapila and the sons of Sagara (Chapter 154)

Vāyu points to the great ocean and to the ashes of Sagara’s sons within it. Kapila, a twice-born, shining in the fair colour proper to a brāhmaṇa, burned them to ash at once by his anger. Kārtavīrya Arjuna is told plainly: you are not equal to brāhmaṇas, so know what is truly good for you.

Vāyu adds that even one who rules all is said to bow in the womb to a brāhmaṇa. A brāhmaṇa alone destroyed the great kingdom of Daṇḍaka. The mighty kshatriya Tālajaṅgha was destroyed by Aurva alone. Kārtavīrya Arjuna’s own kingdom, strength, dharma and knowledge of the śāstras all come only from Dattātreya’s grace.

Vāyu asks why the king worships Agni every day, since Agni himself is a brāhmaṇa who carries the offerings (havya) of all the lokas, if not as a silent admission of this truth.

Vāyu also speaks of Brahmā. Brahmā is unmanifest (avyakta) and does not change his form, yet he made this whole world of moving and unmoving things. To say, as some unlearned people do, that he was “born from an egg” is a mistake of kind. Brahmā is aja (unborn). By his own will (saṅkalpa) he made the egg-shaped sky, and he himself became the ahaṃkāra (the sense of “I”) seated within all radiance. Kārtavīrya Arjuna heard that “there is no egg, only Brahma”, and fell silent, unable to answer.

4. Agastya and the dānavas (Chapter 155)

Once the asuras had beaten the devas in war. They spoiled the devas’ yajñas and disturbed the svadhā (offering) of the ancestors and the rites of men. The devas lost their power and wandered the earth. They came upon Agastya Maharshi, bright as Āditya, and begged him to save them from fear.

At this news Agastya blazed with a tejas like the fire at the end of time. By that mass of light alone, thousands of dānavas fell dead from the sky. The daityas who were left fled from the sky and from the earth to the southern quarter. Bali Cakravartī, however, reached the earth and there performed an aśvamedha-yajña, and so escaped the fire.

The devas asked Agastya to finish off the rest, but he refused: “I cannot burn those who have reached the earth. My tapas would be used up.” Even so, the daityas who remained were burned by his tejas alone. Vāyu ends: name a kshatriya greater than Agastya.

5. Vasishṭha and the Khalin rākshasas (Chapter 155)

The devas once honoured Vasishṭha. Keeping him in their hearts, they held a sattra-yajña (a long yajña) at Mānasa-sarovara. Mountain-bodied rākshasas called the Khalins saw that the devas were thin from their dīkshā (vow of consecration) and decided to kill them. Near by was a lake blessed by Brahmā, in which slain dānavas came back to life when they fell in.

Ten thousand Khalins hurled mountains, clubs and trees and drove the devas off. The devas ran to Indra, and Indra ran to Vasishṭha. Bhagavān Vasishṭha gave them freedom from fear. Then, moved by their suffering, he burned the Khalins without effort by his tejas alone.

He then brought the Gaṅgā down from Kailāsa into that same lake. Where the Gaṅgā met the lake and split it, the river that formed became the Sarayū. In this way Vasishṭha alone protected those who live in svarga, and the daityas who had Brahmā’s vara were also killed by this one great soul. Vāyu says: name a kshatriya greater than Vasishṭha.

6. Atri becomes the Moon and the Sun (Chapter 156)

In a war of devas and asuras fought in terrible darkness, Rāhu struck both Candra and Sūrya with arrows. The total darkness that followed let the dānavas beat the devas at will. The devas, their life-breath failing, went to Atri Maharshi, who was deep in tapas, and begged him for peace.

Atri asked how he alone could save them. They said: “Become the moon. Become the sun that drives away this darkness. Become the one who kills these dasyus (raiders) for us.”

Atri became Candra, gentle and lovely to look at, cutting through the gloom. By the power of his tapas alone he lit the battlefield with great light and drove the world’s darkness away, and by his tejas he beat the enemy hosts. Sūrya shone again. The rākshasas were killed and the devas were saved. All of this was done by Atri, a man of tapas, with fire as his helper, given to japa, clothed in hides and living on fallen fruit alone. Vāyu asks: name a kshatriya greater than Atri.

7. Cyavana and the asura Mada (Chapters 156–157)

Cyavana once promised the Aśvins that he would make them drinkers of soma (somapāyin) among the devas. When he told Indra to give them their share, Indra refused outright: “They are physicians, not equals of the devas. How could they drink soma?” Cyavana insisted that it would be for the good of the devas themselves. Indra declared flatly that he would never drink soma beside the Aśvins, and that the other devas could do as they pleased.

Cyavana began the yajña-karma (the yajña rite) for the Aśvins all the same. His mantras alone left the devas overpowered. Indra, enraged, seized a mountain and, with his eyes rolling in anger, threw himself at Cyavana with the vajra in his hand. But the Maharshi sprinkled water, and Indra froze in mid-leap, mountain, vajra and all.

Cyavana then made from his own tapas the asura Mada. His mouth gaped. He had a thousand teeth, each a hundred yojanas long, and fangs two hundred yojanas long. His feet were on the earth and his face touched the sky. He was so huge that the devas, Indra among them, looked like fish caught at the tip of the tongue of a timi whale inside his jaws.

The devas were terrified. They agreed among themselves to let the Aśvins drink soma after all, without further fear. Indra, fully humbled, bowed to Cyavana. Only then did Cyavana give the Aśvins their somapāna (drinking of soma) and withdraw the rite he had begun.

Cyavana then divided Mada’s terrible essence into four parts and placed it for good in dice-play (dyūta), hunting (mṛgayā), drink (madya-pāna) and women (strī). Vāyu says these are the four vices by which men are ruined without fail to this day. Once more he asks: name a kshatriya equal to Cyavana.

8. The brāhmaṇas destroy the Kapas (Chapter 157)

The devas had been overpowered in Mada’s jaws together with Indra, and in that same moment Cyavana had taken their whole share of Bhūmi for himself. The devas, having lost both lokas, wept and took refuge in Brahmā. Brahmā told them to go at once to the brāhmaṇas for shelter, and they would get both lokas back as before.

The devas came to the brāhmaṇas and asked whom they should defeat. The brāhmaṇas answered: “Tell us whom we shall defeat for you.” The devas said: “The Kapas have taken dyaus (the sky world).” The brāhmaṇas decided: “We shall defeat those who have come to the earth.”

The Kapas heard of this and sent a messenger named Dhani to the brāhmaṇas, who argued that the Kapas were their equals. He said the Kapas are fully learned in the Vedas, wise, performers of yajña, firm in their vows of truth, equal to the maharshis, wealthy and steady in keeping their wealth. They never join with their wives without need and never eat meat without need. They always tend the blazing agni-hotra, obey their gurus and share generously with children. They move gently together and harm no one. They never go near a woman in her rajasvalā (monthly) period. They walk the road to svarga and do good deeds. They never eat before the pregnant and the old have eaten, never gamble in the forenoon and never sleep by day.

“How,” Dhani asked, “will you defeat such beings? Turn back. That alone is your happiness.”

The brāhmaṇas answered simply: “The devas have remembered us. We shall defeat the Kapas, for they are fit to be slain. Dhani, go back the way you came.” Dhani went back and told the Kapas: “The viprāḥ (learned brāhmaṇas) mean you no good.”

The Kapas raised their banners and charged the brāhmaṇas with all their force. The brāhmaṇas in turn let loose the sanātana agnis (the eternal fires), fires that can destroy life itself. These fires, sent out by the brāhmaṇas, killed the Kapas and blazed in the sky like storm clouds.

Nārada came and told the devas, who were gathered after their own battle with the dānavas, how the great brāhmaṇas had destroyed the Kapas by their tejas alone. The devas were delighted. They praised at length the famous twice-born, who were rich in knowledge of Brahma. From that day the devas’ own tejas, power and deathlessness were honoured in all three lokas.

Kārtavīrya Arjuna agrees, and Vāyu’s warning

Kārtavīrya Arjuna listened to all this with a purified mind and at last spoke: “O Vāyu, I live for brāhmaṇas alone, in every way and at all times. I am always good to brāhmaṇas and I bow to them daily. All this strength is the grace Dattātreya gave me. Through it I won great fame in the world and did great dharma. O Māruta, I have heard everything you have told me of the deeds of brāhmaṇas, with a mind wholly purified.”

Vāyu answered: “O king, rule over brāhmaṇas with kshatra-dharma, and hold your senses in check as well. A dreadful fear from the Bhṛgu line waits for you, and it will come in its time.”

Elsewhere in the Mahābhārata, Paraśurāma of the Bhṛgu line is the one who kills Kārtavīrya Arjuna, after the king seizes Jamadagni’s Kāmadhenu.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapters 152–157