Citriṇī

Citriṇī

Citriṇī is the daughter of Kāmasena, a king of the south. She worshipped Bhagavān Sūrya with faith to win the brāhmaṇa Mitraśarman as her husband, and with him she lived a life filled with the divine and attained sāmīpya with Bhagavān Sūrya. Sūta tells the ṛshis this account as Bṛhaspati told it, in the Pratisarga Parva of the Bhavishya Purāṇa.

At the great festival at Haridvāra, when Bṛhaspati entered Kumbha rāśi, many kings came, and with them Citriṇī, twelve years old. Mitraśarman of Māyāvatī looked at her with great attention, and love for him arose in Citriṇī’s heart too. Returning home, she began daily, with faith, to worship Bhagavān Bhāskara in order to win him. Mitraśarman too, in Vaiśākha, recited the Āditya Hṛdaya Stotra standing in the Gaṅgā, and after one month Bhagavān Sūrya granted him his wish. Citriṇī received from Bhagavān Bhāskara a husband to her heart’s wish, for Bhagavān Sūrya told King Kāmasena in a dream to give his daughter to Mitraśarman, and the king did so.

After the marriage both kept a vrata of Bhagavān Sūrya daily. They drew a Sūrya yantra on a copper vessel and worshipped it every day with red flowers, with faith and bhakti. They lived about a hundred years free of illness, and their life became filled with the divine. After death they attained sāmīpya with Bhagavān Sūrya. As their son, in Kānyakubja in the house of the brāhmaṇa Devala, Bhagavān Sūrya took avatāra, famous in Kāśī as Rāmānanda.

Sources

• Bhavishya Purāṇa, Pratisarga Parva, Khaṇḍa 4, Chapter 7