Vāmadeva and the Brahmarākshasa

Vāmadeva was a yogī devoted to Bhagavān Śiva. He walked by chance into the dreadful Krauñcāraṇya forest and met a brahmarākshasa, a terrible being who had been born in many animal forms. The touch of the bhasma (sacred ash) on Vāmadeva’s body cleared the brahmarākshasa’s mind and gave back the memory of his past lives. Vāmadeva then told him how Bhagavān Śiva taught Sanatkumāra the Tripuṇḍra, the three lines of ash on the forehead. The brahmarākshasa put on the Tripuṇḍra and was freed. This account is from the Skanda Mahā Purāṇa.

Vāmadeva, the Śiva yogī

Vāmadeva was a yogī of the highest attainment. His body was covered with sacred ash. His hair was matted, he wore a garment of bark and an antelope skin, and he took only alms as food. He was nirdvandva (beyond the pairs of opposites), nirguṇa (beyond qualities), śānta (at peace) and nisaṅga (unattached). He moved freely through the world, lost in the nature of Bhagavān Śiva, and saw all beings alike (samadarśana).

He entered the Krauñcāraṇya, a vast and dreadful forest with no people in it. He came there by chance, without any plan.

The earlier births of the brahmarākshasa

Deep in the forest Vāmadeva met a brahmarākshasa. The being had a huge body and a terrible face, and he was tormented by constant hunger and thirst. He sprang at Vāmadeva to kill and eat him.

The moment the brahmarākshasa touched Vāmadeva’s body, which was covered with bhasma, all his dark karma was dissolved. He gained memory of his past lives (pūrvajanma-smṛti) and at once fell at Vāmadeva’s feet.

Then the brahmarākshasa told his own history.

Long ago he had been Durjaya, king of the Yavana country. He was powerful, greedy for pleasure and without mercy. He seized women of every varṇa (class) from many kingdoms: brahmin, kshatriya, vaiśya, śūdra, chaṇḍāla and others. He had them brought to his palace for his pleasure and then threw them away. He drank wine, he was cruel, and he kept no dharma and no restraint.

He died young of disease (rāja-yakshman and others). He had no son, and his ministers and servants had left him.

After death he was taken to the realm of Yama and thrown into a terrible naraka (hell) for thirty thousand years. After that he was born in these forms, one after another:

1. piśāca
2. tiger
3. serpent
4. wolf
5. boar, feeding on filth (mala-bhakshī)
6. iguana
7. dog
8. jackal
9. gavaya
10. deer
11. monkey
12. vulture
13. mongoose
14. crow
15. owl (guḍḍelugu)
16. forest fowl
17. donkey
18. cat
19. frog
20. tortoise
21. scorpion
22. rat
23. owl again
24. forest elephant
25. brahmarākshasa

In his last birth, as a brahmarākshasa, he had starved in the Krauñcāraṇya forest for an age. In his birth as a king he had once given a Śiva bhakta a piece of land with fruit trees. That one act kept a small part of his puṇya (merit) alive. Yama himself had foretold:

“In the twenty-fifth birth you will meet a yogī and be freed.”

That word had now come true.

The bhasma and the dog

The brahmarākshasa asked how the mere touch of Vāmadeva’s body, and the bhasma on it, had cleansed him so completely. Vāmadeva told him this account.

In a Draviḍa country lived a brahmin who had fallen from his duties and lived as a thief. A śūdra killed him at night. His body was thrown outside the village, and no funeral rites were done. A dog with bhasma on its paws had been walking near the place where a Śiva bhakta had put on the ash. By chance the dog touched the unburied body.

At that moment the messengers of Yama came for the brahmin’s life. Bhagavān Śiva’s own messengers met them and pointed to the bhasma that had touched the body. They said:

“This man has been touched by the bhasma that marks Śiva’s own instrument. We have come by Śiva’s command. You cannot take him.”

The messengers of Bhagavān Śiva took the brahmin to Śiva’s shining realm, though Yama’s agents protested.

Vāmadeva said that the bhasma is Bhagavān Śiva’s own substance. He also said:

“Even Mahādeva himself does not know the full power of bhasma. How then can anyone else?”

Śiva teaches Sanatkumāra the Tripuṇḍra

The brahmarākshasa then asked Vāmadeva to teach him how to put on the bhasma: its mantra, its places and its form. Vāmadeva told him the teaching that Bhagavān Śiva himself gave at Mandara mountain.

At Mandara mountain Bhagavān Śiva sat among countless devas, gaṇas, ṛshis and divine beings of every form. Sanatkumāra, the foremost of the sons of Brahmā, came and asked him:

“Of all dharmas, which is the one supreme, simple dharma that gives liberation at once? Tell me the most secret thing.”

Bhagavān Śiva answered:

“The most secret, the one supreme among all dharmas, is wearing the Tripuṇḍra.”

The Tripuṇḍra is three horizontal lines of bhasma drawn on the forehead. These are its details.

• Material. Bhasma made from burnt gomaya (cow dung). It is called Āgneya (fire-born) bhasma.
• Mantras. The Brahma-mantras beginning with Sadyojāta are used to make the bhasma holy. Manastoka is used to put it on. The Tryambaka mantra is used for placing it on the head. The Tryāyushādi mantras are used for the two shoulders. Then it is put on the forehead with the mantra given for that.
• The three lines. Each line is drawn with the middle, ring and index fingers, moving in descending order. Each runs from between the eyebrows to the outer end of the eyebrows. The three lines are parallel.
• The nine devatās of the three lines.

Bhagavān Śiva gave the fruit (phala) of wearing it. A brahmin, kshatriya, vaiśya or śūdra, a man or a woman, a brahmacārī, gṛhastha or vānaprastha, is freed by it from all mahāpātakas (great sins) and upapātakas (lesser sins), including the killing of a cow, the killing of a brahmin and many more. Even a person who knows neither the mantra nor its meaning is freed from all pāpa (sin) by putting the three lines on the forehead.

One who wears the Tripuṇḍra is equal to Rudra himself. All beings should honour him. He gains the fruit of bathing in all tīrthas (holy places). He gains the same fruit as one who has repeated all the Śiva mantras, from the Pañcākshara up to the seven crore mahāmantras. He frees a thousand of his ancestors before him and a thousand of his descendants after him.

The freeing of the brahmarākshasa

After hearing this teaching, the brahmarākshasa was full of deep regret and asked to be freed. Vāmadeva made the bhasma holy with the right mantras and gave it to him. The brahmarākshasa put the Tripuṇḍra on his forehead.

At once his brahmarākshasa body fell away. He rose in a shining divine form, boarded a divine vimāna (a divine chariot) and left for the holy lokas. Vāmadeva went on with his wandering, moving through the world as the light of Bhagavān Śiva.

Sources

• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Dharmāraṇya Khaṇḍa, Uttarārdha, Chapter 15 (Vāmadeva, the brahmarākshasa’s births, the bhasma and the dog)
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Dharmāraṇya Khaṇḍa, Uttarārdha, Chapter 16 (the Tripuṇḍra teaching at Mandara mountain, the freeing of the brahmarākshasa)