Guṇavatī and the Kārtika Vow

The Padma Mahā Purāṇa tells how Satyabhāmā, the dearest wife of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, asked him why she had such good fortune. Kṛshṇa answered by telling her of her former birth. In that life she was Guṇavatī, the daughter of a brāhmaṇa of the city of Māyāpurī. She kept the Kārtika vow and the Ekādaśī vow from her birth until her death, and she reached Vaikuṇṭha.

This account comes from Chapters 88 and 89 of the Uttara Khaṇḍa. The Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa also tells of Guṇavatī, and that account is given at the end.

The Pārijāta flowers

Once Nārada came to Dvārakā carrying divine flowers from the Pārijāta, the tree of Indra’s svarga that gives whatever is wished for. Kṛshṇa welcomed him with due honour and took the flowers. He shared them among his sixteen thousand wives, but he forgot Satyabhāmā. Satyabhāmā saw that she had been passed over and went into the anger-chamber.

Kṛshṇa knew this. He went to her, brought her out, and called Garuḍa to mind. He mounted Garuḍa with Satyabhāmā and flew to Indra’s svarga. There he asked for the Pārijāta tree itself. Indra refused, so Kṛshṇa pulled the tree out by its root.

Indra was angry and struck Garuḍa with his thunderbolt. To honour the thunderbolt, Garuḍa let one feather fall. From that feather came the peacock, the mongoose and the blue jay. Kṛshṇa went back to Dvārakā and planted the Pārijāta tree in Satyabhāmā’s courtyard.

The tulāpurusha

Nārada came again, and Satyabhāmā honoured him greatly. She asked him how she could have such a tree, and such a husband, in every birth. Nārada told her that Kṛshṇa could be won through the tulāpurusha, which is the gift of gold equal to the weight of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa himself.

Satyabhāmā then followed the rite as laid down. She weighed Kṛshṇa and gave Nārada everything that equalled his weight, together with the Pārijāta tree. Nārada then left for svarga.

Satyabhāmā’s question

After Nārada had gone, Satyabhāmā sat with Kṛshṇa under the Pārijāta tree, her face bright with joy. She said to him:

“I am blessed; I am fortunate. My existence is fruitful. O Madhusūdana, I desire to ask you something. Formerly, in my previous existence, which gift did I give, which vow did I observe, or which tapas did I practise, that I — a mortal — have become like Pārvatī in this mortal world? Tell me what auspicious act I did in the other existence, what character I had, and whose daughter I was.”

Kṛshṇa smiled and took her hand. He told his attendants not to follow, and went with her to the foot of the Pārijāta tree.

The account of Guṇavatī

Kṛshṇa then told her of her former birth.

At the end of the Kṛta age, in the city of Māyāpurī, there lived an excellent brāhmaṇa of the family of Atri, named Devaśarman. He was a master of the Vedas and Vedāṅgas. He was kind to guests, kept the sacred fire, and was greatly devoted to the vow of Bhagavān Sūrya. Each day he honoured Sūrya, and he was like a second Sūrya himself. This old man had a daughter named Guṇavatī.

He had no son, so he gave his daughter in marriage to his own disciple, Candraśarman, and treated him as a son. Candraśarman had his passions under control and looked on his teacher as his father.

One day the two men, Devaśarman and Candraśarman, went into a forest at the foot of the Himālaya to gather kuśa grass and sacred fuel. There they met an asura of a dreadful form, like Death. They were afraid and could not run away, and the asura killed them both.

The attendants of Bhagavān Vishṇu, who move with him, took the two men to Vaikuṇṭha. They went there because of the holy power of the place where they had gone, the foot of the Himālaya, and because of their own devotion, for all their lives they had honoured Bhagavān Sūrya. Kṛshṇa says: “I was very much pleased with them by virtue of just that act, that as long as they were alive, they worshipped the Sun. As the rain water goes to the ocean, the followers of Śiva, the Sun, Gaṇeśa, Vishṇu, and the worshippers of Śakti all come to me only.”

Guṇavatī’s grief and her vow

News came that the asura had killed her father and her husband, and Guṇavatī was overcome with grief. She cried out: “O lord, O father, where have you gone leaving me? Today without you what should I, a young helpless girl, do? I am unlucky; my happiness is destroyed; my lord is killed; my life is doomed.”

She fell to the ground like a plantain tree struck by a storm. When she came to herself, she carried out all the rites after death for the two men, and she sold all the things in her house to pay for them. Then she went on living in that city. She was calm, truthful and pure, she kept her senses in control, and she was greatly devoted to Bhagavān Vishṇu.

From her birth until the day she died, Guṇavatī kept two vows in the right way: the Ekādaśī and the Kārtika vow. Kṛshṇa says: “O dear one, this couple of vows is very dear to me. It properly brings about pleasures and salvation, and sons and wealth.” (Here “salvation” is moksha.) Each year she spent in service to the followers of Vishṇu, with her mind fixed on him.

Guṇavatī goes to Vaikuṇṭha

In time Guṇavatī grew old and thin, and she was burning with fever. She made her way slowly to the Gaṅgā to bathe. When she entered the water she shook with cold, and she saw an aircraft coming down from the sky. It was attended by beings who had the form of Bhagavān Vishṇu himself. They carried conches, discs and maces, and their banners bore the eagle.

She entered the aircraft, and apsarās (nymphs) of svarga fanned her. The attendants of Vishṇu took her to Vaikuṇṭha. Like the flame of a blazing fire, she came near to Vishṇu through the puṇya (merit) of the Kārtika vow.

Who was reborn as whom

Kṛshṇa named the rebirths:

• Guṇavatī was reborn as Satyabhāmā, the daughter of Satrājit.
• Candraśarman was reborn as Akrūra.
• Devaśarman, her father, was reborn as Satrājit, her father in this present birth.

Kṛshṇa then explained that the gifts Satyabhāmā enjoyed came from what Guṇavatī had done:

• The Pārijāta tree grew in her courtyard because in her former life she had made a Tulasī grove at the door of Kṛshṇa.
• Lakshmī stayed steady in her house because she had lit lamps in Kārtika.
• She became Kṛshṇa’s wife because she offered all her vows to Vishṇu in the form of her husband.
• She would never be parted from Kṛshṇa, by the power of the Kārtika vow kept from birth to death.

Kṛshṇa told her: “Due to that vow only which you formerly observed in Kārtika, from birth till death, you will never be separated from me.”

The worth of the Kārtika vow

Kṛshṇa also says: “Those men performing yajñas, giving gifts, observing vows, practising tapas do not indeed get even a portion of the merit which one gets by the Kārtika vow.” (Here “merit” means puṇya.)

The Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa account

The Vilāsa Khaṇḍa of the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, in Chapter 7, tells of Guṇavatī in another way. It adds an episode in which Bhagavān Rāma speaks to her himself.

After she lost her father and her husband, Guṇavatī heard a reciter of the Purāṇas say that a bath in the month of Caitra at Rāma-tīrtha in Ayodhyā is the highest means to kaivalya (final freedom). She travelled to Ayodhyā and came to the sandy bank of the Sarayū, where Rāma and Sītā were resting. She went in with respect and bowed to Rāma. She asked only to be counted among his maidservants.

Rāma told her, face to face, that she would be born in the Dvāpara age as Satyabhāmā, his beloved wife. He told her that her father Devāśarmā would be born again as Satrājit, and that her husband Candru would be born again as Akrūra. She went to Haridvāra and lived there in devotion. She then took birth as Satyabhāmā.

Sources

• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 88 (the Pārijāta flowers, the tulāpurusha, Satyabhāmā’s question, the death of Devaśarman and Candraśarman)
• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 89 (Guṇavatī’s vows, her ascent to Vaikuṇṭha, the rebirths, the worth of the Kārtika vow)
• Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa, Vilāsa Khaṇḍa, Chapter 7