Ikshvāku

Ikshvāku was a king of the solar dynasty (Sūryavaṃśa) of Kośala, with his capital at Ayodhyā. He was the son of Manu. He is a central figure in the account of the great hunt in the Bhūmi Khaṇḍa of the Padma Mahā Purāṇa. That account is part of the Sukala-caritra, in Chapters 41–47.

Ikshvāku led a large royal hunt and met a herd of śūkaras (boars). The herd was the family of the gandharva Raṅgavidyādhara, who had been born as a vārāha (boar) because of a śāpa (a curse) from Pulastya. The male vārāha fought with great vīra-dharma (the duty of a hero) and died in battle. Ikshvāku himself struck the last blow. The devas came down with flowers, and the vārāha was freed from his animal birth and rose as the gandharva Raṅgavidyādhara in a divine form. Ikshvāku’s queen Sudevā then showed kindness to the wounded female boar, and this began the next part of the account.

Who Ikshvāku was

The Bhūmi Khaṇḍa calls Ikshvāku manu-putra, the son of Manu. He is the first king of the Ikshvāku solar dynasty, the line into which Rāma was later born. He is described as a great warrior, dhīra (steady), and as having the valor (parākrama) of Bhagavān Vishṇu. He is the king of Kośala, and his capital is Ayodhyā.

The hunt in which the gandharva was freed was the hunt of this king. A hunt led by a king of dharma, carried out with full martial courage, became the way for a trapped soul to be freed. The Padma Mahā Purāṇa tells this in the Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapter 41.

The great hunt

Ikshvāku went hunting with thousands of hunters, horses and elephants, and with the equipment of an army. In a dense forest the hunt met the herd of boars, and a long, fierce battle began. The male vārāha was the leader of the herd. He was in fact the gandharva Raṅgavidyādhara in animal form. He drove back the whole hunting force with his tusks and hooves, and with the fury of a divine being who was trapped. His son joined the battle too. During the fight the vārāha spoke words of dharma to his female companion about dying in battle.

Ikshvāku saw the great strength of the vārāha and suspected that this was no ordinary boar. He asked himself whether it was a daitya in the form of a boar. After all the other hunters had tried and failed, Ikshvāku met the vārāha himself, first on horseback and then on a chariot. At last he struck the blow that killed it. At that moment the devas rained flowers on the body of the vārāha, which showed his divine nature. The account is told in the Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapters 41–44.

The meeting with the female boar

After the vārāha had been slain and had gone to svarga (heaven), his companion, the śūkarī (female boar), kept fighting until a hunter wounded her. Ikshvāku would not kill her. He said that it is pāpa (sin) to kill a female, even among animals.

Queen Sudevā took care of the śūkarī, and the animal began to speak in Sanskrit. Ikshvāku told Sudevā to question her, and he listened to the wonderful account that followed. The śūkarī was herself a woman named Sudevā, the first wife of Śivaśarma. She had been reborn in animal form because she had failed in pātivratya (devotion to her husband). Through this meeting the account of Śivaśarma’s two wives, Sudevā and Maṅgalā, was told in full. This part is in the Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapters 45–47.

Sources

• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapters 41–47 (the Sukala-caritra)