Aṅga
Aṅga is a rājarshi, a king with the inner qualities of a ṛshi. He comes from the line of Dhruva and was the son of Ulmuka by his wife Pushkariṇī. He was very pious and devoted to the Vedas. His life was darkened by an evil son, Vena, born of his wife Sunīthā, the daughter of Mṛtyu. After a putra-kāmēshṭi (a ritual for a son) to Śrī Hari, Vena was born, and he grew into a tyrant. Broken by grief, Aṅga left his palace and kingdom silently in the middle of the night and gave up the world for ever. His line was saved when the ṛshis later churned Vena’s arms and brought forth Pṛthu, the first emperor of the world.
Lineage
Aṅga belongs to the line of Dhruva. Dhruva’s son Utkala was a jñānī (a knower of the truth) from the moment of his birth. His ministers judged him unfit to be king, and the throne went to Vatsara, the son of Bhrami. Aṅga was born in this other branch of the line of Dhruva, as the son of Ulmuka by his wife Pushkariṇī. The Bhāgavata gives this in the 4th Skandha, Chapter 13.
Character and reign
Aṅga Mahārāja was a man of noble character. He was pure in conduct, generous, devoted to the learned, and large-hearted. The Bhāgavata speaks of his devotion to yajña (fire ritual), his respect for those who know the Vedas, and his uprightness. He was a true rājarshi, who held the office of a king and the inner qualities of a ṛshi together.
The Aśvamedha and the question of children
Aṅga began a great Aśvamedha yajña. When the priests (ṛtviks) made the offerings into the fire (homa), the devas did not come to take their shares. The puzzled priests told Aṅga, “We find no fault in our mantras or our method. The devas simply do not appear.”
After asking, the ṛshis who had gathered told him the reason. A fault (dosha) from a past birth had left Aṅga without children in this life. The remedy was a putra-kāmēshṭi, a ritual to ask for a son, offered to Yajñeśvara Śrī Hari.
The priests did the ritual. A radiant purusha rose from the fire holding a golden vessel of pāyasa (sweet milk rice). With his priests’ leave, Aṅga took the pāyasa and gave it to his wife Sunīthā. She conceived.
Sunīthā and the birth of Vena
Sunīthā was the daughter of Mṛtyu, Death himself. The son born to her was Vena. From his infancy he followed the nature of his mother’s father. The Bhāgavata says that Vena was born “following Mṛtyu’s path always.” He tormented animals and beat his playmates cruelly. Nothing Aṅga did to correct him had any effect.
Aṅga gives up the world
Aṅga’s grief over his son was the grief of any parent burdened with an evil child. The Bhāgavata stops to speak of this. Wicked children bring shame, adharma, enmity and endless pain to their parents. Yet even this grief can lead to vairāgya (detachment). A good child’s death brings pain. An evil child’s presence, in one sense, is better, because it breaks the belief that the home is anything other than a place of ignorance, and so it leads a person to give up the world and so toward moksha (liberation).
This wisdom moved Aṅga. One night, while Vena and Sunīthā slept, he rose quietly, left his splendid palace and walked out of the city. The ministers, the citizens and the attendants searched the whole country. They found no trace of the king. He had vanished completely into the stream of those who give up the world.
What Aṅga left behind
Aṅga disappears from the account, but his line went on in two ways.
- After Vena failed and died, the ṛshis churned Vena’s arms and brought forth Pṛthu. Pṛthu was a partial avatāra of Śrī Hari and the first king to truly arrange the earth into settled places to live. Pṛthu himself later said to the assembly, “Our grandfather Aṅga was among those who accepted Śrī Hari as the one controlling principle of dharma.”
- When the bards sang of Pṛthu’s coming glory at his crowning, they said, “Even Vena, killed by the śāpa (curse) of the ṛshis, escaped naraka (hell) through the puṇya (merit) of his son Pṛthu.” This is in the 4th Skandha, Chapter 21.
Sources
- Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skandha, Chapters 13–14
- Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 4th Skandha, Chapter 21