Aurva Upākhyāna

The Aurva Upākhyāna is an account inside the Chaitraratha Parva of the Ādi Parva of the Mahābhārata. It tells of the ṛshi (seer) Aurva. He was born from the thigh of his mother, to answer the killing of the Bhṛgu family by kshatriya kings. The fire of his anger was cast into the ocean, and it burns there as the vaḍavāgni, the fire under the sea. The account also tells how Parāśara began a yajña (fire ritual) to destroy the rākshasas, and how Vasishṭha and Pulastya stopped it.

The Bhṛgu massacre

In an earlier age, the Bhṛgu family had gathered great wealth through their yajñas and through gifts from generous kings who honoured them. When those kings died, their descendants lost power and wealth. They turned against the Bhṛgus. They said that all the wealth of their fathers had gone to the brāhmaṇas, and that the Bhṛgus must be keeping it.

The kshatriyas began to kill the Bhṛgu family. They killed the men. Then they searched even the wombs of pregnant Bhṛgu women, looking for any male child who might live.

One Bhṛgu woman hid her unborn child in her thigh (ūru). She kept walking among the kshatriya soldiers. The soldiers cut open the wombs of other Bhṛgu women they found, but they did not think of looking in her thigh. (Ādi Parva, Chapter 178)

The birth of Aurva

When the time came, the child burst out of his mother’s thigh. A flash of light came with him, so bright and so fierce that it blinded the armies of the kshatriyas standing around. Warriors fell to the ground. They could not see, and they groped about in the sudden darkness of his tejas (radiant power).

The child stood up at the moment of birth, blazing with anger. He had the power of a ṛshi who had spent his whole time in the womb in righteous rage. He was named Aurva, from ūru (thigh): the one born of the thigh. (Ādi Parva, Chapter 178)

The fire of anger

Aurva’s anger at the destruction of his family did not fade quickly. He performed fierce tapas (austerity) and said that he meant to destroy the whole kshatriya race in return. The fire of his gathered anger had no place to rest. It threatened to burn up the world.

The pitṛs (ancestors) of the Bhṛgu line, the departed Bhṛgus themselves, came down from their world to meet him. They told him not to destroy the world. They said that the kshatriyas who had killed the Bhṛgus had done so because of their own karma. They also said that the Bhṛgus themselves had kept wealth beyond what was proper, and so had played a part in their own destruction. The debt of revenge, they told him, was not his to collect.

Aurva listened. He was not easily calmed, but he understood dharma. He agreed not to destroy the world. Then he said to the ancestors: “This fire has grown out of my anger over ages. I cannot simply put it out. It must go somewhere.” (Ādi Parva, Chapter 179)

The fire cast into the ocean

The fire of Aurva’s anger was cast into the ocean, the great sea that surrounds the earth. There it became the vaḍavāgni (also called bāḍaba-agni), the fire under the sea. It burns at the bottom of the ocean and keeps consuming the waters. Its flames rise as jets of hot water and steam from the depths. The ocean is kept in balance partly by this fire. The fire stops the sea from overflowing its shores, and it also stops the sea from ever drying up completely.

This fire burns beneath the oceans to this day. It waits for the end of the kalpa (the age of the world), when it will come out and join in the dissolution of everything. (Ādi Parva, Chapters 179–180)

Parāśara’s rākshasa yajña

The account goes on to young Parāśara. He was the grandson of Vasishṭha and the son of Śakti. Śakti had been killed by the rākshasa that had entered the body of Kalmāshapāda. When Parāśara learned of his father’s death, he decided to perform a rākshasa-satra: a yajña made to destroy the whole race of rākshasas.

Parāśara’s fire blazed fiercely and burned rākshasas in great numbers. Then the ṛshi Pulastya came to him. Pulastya is the grandfather of the rākshasas and one of the great Prajāpatis (the fathers of living beings). He spoke to Parāśara with kindness and wisdom. He said that the rākshasas as a whole were not guilty of Parāśara’s father’s death. To destroy a whole race for the act of one was not dharma. He said that Parāśara’s tapas would be better used for jñāna (knowledge) than for destruction.

Vasishṭha also came and joined Pulastya in holding back the young ṛshi. Between them, they persuaded Parāśara to stop the satra. The yajña ended without burning up the whole race of rākshasas. (Ādi Parva, Chapter 181)

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, Chaitraratha Parva, Chapters 178–181