Andhaka and Gaurī
Andhaka is a daitya king, the grandson of Prahlāda. In Chapter 33 of the Vāmana Purāṇa he climbs Mount Mandara and sees Gaurī with her companions. He ignores Prahlāda’s warning and attacks. Nandīśvara fights him and is knocked senseless. Gaurī then makes a hundred forms of herself, and Andhaka is struck down. He goes back to Pātāla, where he can think of nothing but her.
Andhaka on Mandara
This follows Chapters 7 and 8 of the Vāmana Purāṇa, where Prahlāda fights Nara, gives himself up and gives up his rule. Prahlāda himself made Andhaka king of the asuras. The name Andhaka means “the blind one”, or one who gropes in the dark. Andhaka was Prahlāda’s grandson and ruled the world of the asuras from Pātāla with great power.
In the course of his doings Andhaka climbed Mount Mandara, one of the great peaks of the world. There he came upon Gaurī, who is Pārvatī, with her sakhīs (companions and attendants).
Prahlāda’s warning
Prahlāda spoke to Andhaka plainly. The woman he was looking at was no ordinary being. She was the wife of Bhagavān Śiva, the Mahādeva, whose power was greater than that of all three worlds together. To go near Gaurī with any thought but pure respect would be folly and would lead only to ruin. Prahlāda knew this from his own long bhakti (devotion) to Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa Vishṇu and from his meeting with Nara. But Andhaka was true to his name. He was blind to this, and he did not listen.
Andhaka attacks and Nandīśvara answers
When Andhaka moved against Gaurī, the first to stand in his way was Nandīśvara. Nandī is the great bull, the gatekeeper of Bhagavān Śiva and one of the chief lords of his gaṇas (attendants). Nandīśvara faced Andhaka with his vajra (thunderbolt weapon), and a fierce fight began. But Andhaka struck Nandīśvara so hard that the great lord of the gaṇas fell senseless to the ground. The most trusted guard of Bhagavān Śiva was beaten, and for a moment the way to Gaurī was open.
Gaurī makes a hundred forms
Gaurī did not run away or simply bear the attack. She showed her own divine power. She made a hundred forms of herself, all alike, each one fully holding her divine presence. Suddenly Andhaka faced not one Gaurī but a hundred, all around him.
Andhaka is confused
True to his name, Andhaka could not see which of the hundred was the real Gaurī. The many forms played on the very blindness that was his nature. He turned this way and that and could not tell which was his target. He was lost among many divine forms that all looked equally real and equally divine. His strength of arms and weapons was of no use against such a spread of appearances.
Andhaka is knocked down
All hundred forms of Gaurī turned on Andhaka together and struck him at the same time. The joint force of a hundred forms of Pārvatī’s power threw Andhaka flat on the ground. He had foolishly tried to seize divine śakti (power), and he was beaten by that same śakti multiplied. He lay powerless.
Back to Pātāla, caught by his longing for Gaurī
Andhaka left Mandara and went back to Pātāla, his own realm. But the meeting had not cleansed his desire. From then on, day and night, he was taken over by his longing for Gaurī. He could think of nothing else and wanted nothing else, and this longing drove all that he did afterwards. The Vāmana Purāṇa shows Andhaka’s desire for Gaurī as the main fault of his character, the blindness that his name always pointed to.
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa (Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa), Chapter 33
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 7 and 8 (the earlier events of Prahlāda and Nara, named as the background)