Origin of the Kṛshṇā and Veṇī Rivers

In the age of Cākshusha Manu, Bhagavān Brahmā held a great yajña on the Sahya peak. A śāpa (a curse) spoken at that yajña turned the devas into rivers. The Padma Mahā Purāṇa tells this in Chapter 111 of the Uttara Khaṇḍa. Bhagavān Vishṇu became the Kṛshṇā, Bhagavān Śiva became the Veṇī, and Brahmā became the Sahya-Gaṅgā.

The yajña on Sahya peak

This was the sixth Manvantara, the age of Cākshusha Manu. Bhagavān Brahmā performed a great yajña (fire ritual) on the peak of the Sahya mountain. This is the Western Ghats, also called the Sahyādri. All the devas came to the yajña and took their places. Brahmā’s wife Svarā was delayed. She did not arrive in time to sit beside him as the yajña began.

Gāyatrī sits in Svarā’s place

A yajña cannot go on without the wife of the one who offers it. She is called the patnī, and she must take part in the rite. So another seat-holder was sought. Gāyatrī is the devī who is the supreme Vedic mantra in person. She was asked to take the seat. She agreed and sat beside Brahmā, and the yajña went on.

Svarā arrives and curses the devas

Svarā arrived and saw another woman in her own place beside her husband. She was filled with anger. Brahmā had allowed this instead of waiting for her, and all the devas present had accepted it. So Svarā spoke a śāpa over all of them. Every deva at the yajña would become a river and flow across the earth.

The devas were alarmed at a śāpa from the wife of Brahmā. Each one looked for relief.

Gāyatrī’s counter-curse

Gāyatrī had sat in Svarā’s seat, and she had power of her own. She answered with a śāpa on Svarā: Svarā too would take the form of a river. So the one who had cursed the devas would share the same fate.

The śāpa is softened

The devas begged for their condition to be changed. By the grace of Bhagavān Vishṇu the śāpas were softened. The devas would become rivers and live on the earth for the good of all beings. They would carry their divine nature into the land and keep their own identity. In this way the change was a gift as well as a punishment.

The rivers born from the devas

• Bhagavān Vishṇu became the river Kṛshṇā. It flows east from the Sahyādri to the Bay of Bengal. Because Vishṇu himself is the river, the Kṛshṇā carries his divine nature in its water along its whole course.
• Bhagavān Śiva became the river Veṇī. It joins the Kṛshṇā at their holy meeting place, the saṅgama. So the Kṛshṇā-Veṇī saṅgama is the meeting of Vishṇu and Śiva in the form of water.
• Brahmā became the Sahya-Gaṅgā. This is a Gaṅgā that flows from the Sahya mountain itself. It is not the Bhāgīrathī, which is born in the Himālaya.
• Gāyatrī and Svarā together became the river Sāvitrī. It flows west from the Sahyādri to the sea, the Arabian Sea. Both had been caught in the śāpa and counter-śāpa, so they joined into one river that flows west.
• Other devas also took the form of rivers across the Deccan.

Why the confluence is holy

The Kṛshṇā is Bhagavān Vishṇu himself and the Veṇī is Bhagavān Śiva himself. So the Kṛshṇā-Veṇī saṅgama is a very holy place, where two forms of the Supreme meet in flowing water. The account explains why this saṅgama was the place where Dharmadatta met the spirit Kalahā in the chapters next to this one. The power of the saṅgama to free a long-suffering spirit comes from the presence of Bhagavān Vishṇu and Bhagavān Śiva in its waters.

Sources

• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 111