Śiśupāla Moksha
This account is about one ātmā that was born three times and slain each time by Bhagavān Vishṇu. It is told in the Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, in the Chaturthāṃśa, Chapters 14 and 15. The ātmā was born as Hiraṇyakaśipu, then as Rāvaṇa, and last as Śiśupāla. Only in the third birth did it reach final moksha (liberation) of the kind called sāyujya, in which the ātmā joins Brahman. The account teaches what state of mind at the time of death decides the result. Śiśupāla hated Kṛshṇa so fiercely that he kept Kṛshṇa’s form before his mind at all times, in sleep, in anger and in daily work. This constant meditation, even through hatred, gave him the vijñāna-yoga that led him to merge in Brahman.
First birth: Hiraṇyakaśipu
Hiraṇyakaśipu was the great king of the daityas. He terrified the three worlds. His own son Prahlāda was the greatest bhakta (devotee) of Bhagavān Vishṇu. Bhagavān Vishṇu took the Nṛsiṃha avatāra just to slay him.
The Vishṇu Purāṇa points out one key matter. At the moment of death, Hiraṇyakaśipu did not know that the one who was destroying him was Vishṇu. His mind was taken wholly by the strangeness of the form, the wonderful half-man and half-lion, and by his own rage and shock. He did not hold the thought “this is Vishṇu” in his mind at death. His ekāgratā (one-pointed mind) was not on Bhagavān Vishṇu.
So he was given a most exalted rebirth, as Rāvaṇa, king of Laṅkā, whose splendour was greater than that of the devas. But he did not reach moksha. Being near Nṛsiṃha at death gave him very great puṇya-phala (the fruit of merit from nearness to Bhagavān Vishṇu), but not moksha.
Second birth: Rāvaṇa
Rāvaṇa lived in great glory. He conquered the devas and ruled over all the lokas. He held more divine weapons than could be counted. The puṇya he had gained from his nearness to Nṛsiṃha bore fruit in this great rule.
Yet in his second birth too, moksha did not come to him. He was slain by Bhagavān Rāma, the avatāra of the Ikshvāku Solar dynasty. But at the moment of death Rāvaṇa’s mind was not fixed on the nature of Bhagavān Rāma as Brahman. He saw only “Rāma, the son of Daśaratha”, a man, a warrior, a king. At death he took Rāma to be a human being, and not the ananta (endless one), the acyuta (the one who never falls), the parātpara (higher than the highest). Also, all through his life he had been taken up with his attachment to Sītā. It was this very attachment, his mind turned toward Jānakī, that brought him to his end.
Again the result was very great, but it was not moksha.
Third birth: Śiśupāla
Śiśupāla was born as the son of Damaghosha, the king of Cedi. He was the enemy of Kṛshṇa from childhood. He was born with three eyes and four arms. These signs made his mother mean to leave him. But a divine voice told her that the one who would kill him would take these signs away. When Kṛshṇa lifted the baby, the extra eye and the extra arms vanished. This showed that Kṛshṇa was Śiśupāla’s fated slayer.
What made Śiśupāla’s case special was the kind of his hatred. His hatred of Kṛshṇa was not ordinary political enmity. It was all-filling and never stopped. He spoke the names of Vishṇu again and again, but always to put them down and make light of them. He mocked them, denied them and challenged them, and in doing so he said them without end. The Vishṇu Purāṇa explains this with a sharp eye for the mind:
“In this birth, Śiśupāla became the vehicle for all of the names of Bhagavān Vishṇu, uttered in hostility (tvaṃkāra), but uttered. Because of this, his mind, which through many lifetimes had gathered intense hatred, became through the very utterance of those names (even in enmity) more and more fixed on the one form: the four-armed, blue-robed, kairiṭa-keyūra-adorned, śaṅkha-cakra-gadā-bearing beautiful form of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa. In sleep, in waking, in eating, in sitting, his mind could go nowhere else.”
The Sudarśana Cakra of Kṛshṇa slew Śiśupāla in the Rājasūya sabhā. At the moment of death, his mind was fixed on the blazing, never-failing splendour (akshaya-tejas-svarūpa) of the cakra of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, and at the same time on the form of Kṛshṇa. This was the vijñāna that Hiraṇyakaśipu and Rāvaṇa had lacked. All his gathered doshas (faults) were burned away by this unbroken nāma-smaraṇa (remembering of the Name), even though it came in the form of hatred. His ātmā merged wholly into Brahman: sāyujya-mukti.
What the three births teach
The Vishṇu Purāṇa states the point plainly. Bhagavān Vishṇu is so supremely powerful that even hatred turned toward him works as a kind of yoga, when it is complete and unbroken. Śiśupāla’s dvesha (hostility) gave the same one-pointed mind that the love (prīti) of a great bhakta gives. In both cases the mind is wholly fixed on the form of Bhagavān Vishṇu, cannot leave it, and returns to it in every state.
The three births differ in the state of mind at the time of meeting Bhagavān Vishṇu:
- Hiraṇyakaśipu: Bhagavān Vishṇu was not known as Vishṇu. Great puṇya, but no mukti.
- Rāvaṇa: Bhagavān Rāma was known only as a human warrior. Great puṇya, but no mukti.
- Śiśupāla: Bhagavān Kṛshṇa was known as the one form that filled all his mind, in every state, at the moment of death. Sāyujya-mukti.
The text ends: “Bhagavān Vishṇu, even when praised in hostility or hatred, gives the priceless fruit that the suras and asuras cannot easily gain. For true devotees, the gift is beyond words.”
Sources
- Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Chaturthāṃśa, Chapter 14
- Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Chaturthāṃśa, Chapter 15