Sarasvatī, Viśvāmitra and Vasishṭha

This account is from Chapter 19 of the Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa, in the section called Saro Māhātmya. It tells how the ṛshi Viśvāmitra ordered the river Sarasvatī to bring the ṛshi Vasishṭha to him, and what followed.

The conflict

Viśvāmitra and Vasishṭha were rivals, and their long quarrel runs through the Vedic and Purāṇic texts. This episode takes place in the holy land of Kurukshetra, where the Sarasvatī flows. The Saro Māhātmya sets it within the wider contest between the two ṛshis for the highest place.

Viśvāmitra ordered the river Sarasvatī to flow to the place where Vasishṭha was, and to carry Vasishṭha to him, so that he could be destroyed. The Sarasvatī was a sacred river, and she was now asked to be a tool of violence against a great brahmarshi. (Chapter 19)

Sarasvatī’s choice

Sarasvatī was torn between the order of the ṛshi and her pity for Vasishṭha. She found a middle way. She made Vasishṭha sink into her own current in mid-flow. In this way she did carry him, but he stayed safe inside her waters and was not handed over to harm. This was her gentle trick: she seemed to obey while she protected him.

This made Viśvāmitra even angrier. He saw it as Sarasvatī refusing his order by shielding Vasishṭha. (Chapter 19)

Viśvāmitra’s curse

Viśvāmitra spoke a śāpa (a curse) on Sarasvatī. For one full year her water would flow as blood (rakta) and not as pure water. This was a heavy blow. The Sarasvatī was the sacred river of yajña. Her waters were needed for ritual purity, for the tīrthas of Kurukshetra, and for the spiritual life of the ṛshis who lived on her banks. A river of blood would not only be unclean. It would pollute, the very opposite of what the river is for.

During that year the Sarasvatī did flow with blood. A crowd of rākshasas came, drawn by the blood. They drank from the river all through the year and lived on the blood-waters. (Chapter 19)

The cleansing by the Aruṇā

When the year of the curse ended, the waters of the river Aruṇā flowed into the Sarasvatī and made her pure. The Aruṇā is itself a sacred stream in the Kurukshetra region. Its waters took the stain of the curse from the Sarasvatī, and she became bright and pure again.

The rākshasas had drunk the blood-waters all that year. Their touch with the Sarasvatī, even in her cursed state, became the means of their own freedom. When the Sarasvatī was made pure, the rākshasas were released from their rākshasa birth and reached moksha. So the rākshasas who drank her, even as blood, were cleansed and set free. (Chapter 19)

Sources

• Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 19