Vidarbha
Vidarbha
Vidarbha is a kingdom that the Vāmana Purāṇa names twice: Lopāmudrā, the wife of Agastya Maharshi, is the daughter of the king of Vidarbha; and Suratha, the truthful and wise king who loved Citrāṅgadā, the daughter of Viśvakarmā, is the king of Vidarbha. Separated from her by Viśvakarmā’s śāpa (curse), Suratha performed severe tapas at Badarī until the rājarshi Indradyumna found him, and at last he married Citrāṅgadā at the Hāṭakeśvara kshetra on the Sapta-Godāvarī, with the devas present.
The Agni Purāṇa names Vidarbha as the land of Lalitā, the princess who, in a former birth as a mouse, kept a lamp alight in a temple of Śrī Mahāvishṇu and by the puṇya of that lamp became the chief of a great king’s hundred queens; and as the land of the princess in whom Pradyumna begot Aniruddha.
Lopāmudrā, daughter of the king of Vidarbha
When the Vindhya mountain grew along the length of the sky and blocked the course of Sūrya, Agastya Maharshi asked the mountain to bend and give him a way, and commanded it to lie low until he returned. Then he went by the path of the sky to the southern direction and settled there. He set up a lovely āśrama with golden toraṇas (arches), left there his wife Lopāmudrā, the daughter of the king of Vidarbha, and went to his own āśrama. In every season, at the parva times, the Maharshi stays in that āśrama in the sky; at other times he goes to his own āśrama in Daṇḍakāraṇya.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 19
Suratha, king of Vidarbha
Pulastya Maharshi tells Nārada Maharshi how Prahlāda counselled Andhaka with the account of King Daṇḍa; and King Daṇḍa and Arajā, the daughter of Śukrācārya, tell this account between them. Long ago, in the Deva-yuga, Citrāṅgadā, the daughter of Viśvakarmā, went with her friends to Naimishāraṇya to bathe in the Kāñcanākshī Sarasvatī. A king named Suratha, son of Kusudeva, came there, saw her and was overcome by desire. Though her friends forbade her, she gave herself to him. Arajā takes up the account: hearing of it, Viśvakarmā pronounced a śāpa on his daughter, and at once the river Sarasvatī carried Suratha off thirteen yojanas in her current. Citrāṅgadā, parted from him, wandered by way of Śrīkaṇṭha and the Sapta-Godāvarī to Pushkara, and there she told the gandharva maiden Vedavatī: “Suratha, king of Vidarbha, who had come there, saw me.” Among all the people at Pushkara she had not found her husband.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 37, 39
The rājarshi Indradyumna, lord of Śākala, searching the earth with the ṛshis Ṛtadhvaja and Jābāli and with Śakuni, came to the Badarī āśrama. There they found a young tapasvī, burning in severe tapas, his jaṭās covered with dust, so thin that he drew breath with great difficulty. Indradyumna told him: “Child, do not give up your body. You are my brother’s son. Come, let us search for your beloved.” Ṛtadhvaja said that it was he who had left Citrāṅgadā at the Sapta-Godāvarī tīrtha, and for the sake of Sudeva‘s son they all set out for the Sapta-Godāvarī.
There, when Viśvakarmā had regained his own form and Indra had come with the Maruts, the suras and the Rudra-gaṇas, Indradyumna proposed four marriages: “Suratha will marry the daughter of Viśvakarmā.” Gālava Muni served as ṛtvij and performed the wedding homas, the gandharvas sang auspicious songs, and Suratha took the hand of Citrāṅgadā. Afterwards the kings went to their own cities with their wives and lived in every happiness.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 39
Per Agni Purāṇa
Lalitā, princess of Vidarbha
Agni Deva taught Vasishṭha Maharshi the dīpadāna vrata, the vow of giving lamps, which gives bhukti (enjoyment) and mukti (release). One who gives lamps for a year in a temple or in a brāhmaṇa’s house gains all his desires; one who gives lamps in Cāturmāsya goes to Vishṇuloka, and one who gives them in the month of Kārtika goes to svarga. “There was no vrata greater than the gift of lamps before, there is none now, and there will be none.”
Lalitā, a princess of Vidarbha, by the puṇya of the gift of lamps alone became the wife of a great king and the chief among his hundred queens. That pativratā once gave a thousand lamps in a temple of Vishṇu. Her co-wives asked her about the greatness of the gift of lamps, and she told them her former birth. Long ago Maitreya, the purohita of the king of Sauvīra, built a temple of Śrī Mahāvishṇu on the bank of the river Devikā and gave lamps there in the month of Kārtika. A female mouse, running from a cat, pushed up the wick of one lamp with the tip of her mouth, and the lamp, which was about to go out, blazed up again. “That mouse was I,” Lalitā said. “Without intending it, I am enjoying the fruit of the puṇya of pushing up the wick of a lamp in a temple of Vishṇu, and from it I gained the memory of my former birth. That is why I always give lamps.” All her co-wives heard her account, and by the power of the gift of lamps they reached svarga.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 200
The princess of Vidarbha, mother of Aniruddha
In the account of the avatāra of Śrī Kṛshṇa, Agni Deva tells that Pradyumna and others were born to Śrī Kṛshṇa in Rukmiṇī, and that to Pradyumna, in the princess of Vidarbha, was born Aniruddha, who loved battle. To Aniruddha were born Vajra and others.
Source: Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 276
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 19, 37–39
- Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 200, 276