Kalmāshapāda
Kalmāshapāda was a king of the Solar dynasty. He was born as Saudāsa, and he is also called Mitrasaha. He is named Kalmāshapāda because of his spotted feet (kalmāsha means spotted).
He was the victim of a rākshasa’s careful trick. Vasishṭha Maharshi gave him a śāpa (a curse) that made him a rākshasa for twelve years. In that time he caused terror in the forests and on the banks of the Narmadā. His feet became spotted when he poured the water meant for a counter-śāpa over himself. At last a single drop of Gaṅgā water set him free. He got his human form back, with a clear mind.
Names and lineage
Saudāsa is also called Mitrasaha and Kalmāshapāda, after his spotted feet. He comes from the line of Bhagīratha in the Solar dynasty. So he is a distant relative of the line of Śrī Rāma.
The rākshasa’s revenge
The Nārada Mahā Purāṇa tells this account. Saudāsa once killed a tigress while hunting on the bank of the river Revā. Her husband was a Vyāgharākshasa (a tiger-rākshasa). He promised to take revenge.
Long afterwards, Saudāsa performed an Aśvamedha yāga (a horse ritual, a kind of yajña) with Vasishṭha as his purohita (family priest). The Vyāgharākshasa took the form of Vasishṭha and asked for nara-māṃsa (human flesh) as food. Then he took the form of the royal cook, prepared the flesh and served it.
The real Vasishṭha received the dish. His divya-jñāna (divine knowledge) showed him what it was. In anger he gave Saudāsa a śāpa: “You fed me human flesh, so you will become a rākshasa who eats human flesh.” Saudāsa tried to explain the trick. Vasishṭha again saw the truth through his divine knowledge. He could not take back the śāpa, but he limited it to twelve years.
The spotted feet
When Vasishṭha gave the śāpa, Saudāsa was so angry that he lifted water to give a śāpa in return. His queen Madayantī wisely stopped him. She said, “He who gives a śāpa to his own guru falls into terrible darkness.”
Saudāsa could not let the water go anywhere else without destroying something. So he poured it on his own feet. The water burned them and left them dark-spotted. From that day he was known as Kalmāshapāda, “the one with spotted feet.”
Twelve years as a rākshasa
In his rākshasa form, Kalmāshapāda wandered the forests. He ate animals, humans, serpents, birds and monkeys. His body was thin and terrible, with a huge bony frame, reddish hair and a fearful face. He covered a hundred yojanas in six months and then moved to new forests.
On the banks of the Narmadā he met a brāhmaṇa and his wife. The brāhmaṇī wept and begged, but he ate her husband. She gave him two śāpas. The first was that he would die if he ever came near a woman in love, because he had broken in on her husband during their love. The second was that his state as a rākshasa would last forever.
Kalmāshapāda was furious at getting two śāpas for one fault. He gave her a śāpa in return: she and her son would become piśācas (flesh-eating spirits). The brāhmaṇī at once became a piśācī.
Meeting the brahmarākshasa Somadatta
The rākshasa and the piśācī walked on together. In a great forest they came to a brahmarākshasa (a brāhmaṇa who has become a rākshasa) who lived in a dry tree. This was Somadatta, a learned brāhmaṇa of Magadha. He had fallen into the state of a brahmarākshasa because he had shown disrespect to his guru.
The three spoke about how each had fallen. Somadatta taught about the guru, and this became an important lesson of dharma in the narrative.
Redemption
After twelve years, as Vasishṭha had promised, a drop of Gaṅgā water touched Kalmāshapāda. His rākshasa body dissolved. He got back his own form and was filled with clarity and jñāna (knowledge). He went back to Vasishṭha in humility and was forgiven. For the rest of his life he ruled as a righteous king, devoted to Bhagavān Hari.
The Ādi Parva account
The Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, gives a different account of how the possession began and what followed.
Kalmāshapāda was coming back from a hunt along a narrow forest path. He met Śakti, the eldest son of Vasishṭha, coming from the other side. Neither would step aside. Kalmāshapāda struck Śakti with his whip. Śakti gave the king a śāpa: he would become a man-eating rākshasa.
Viśvāmitra used this moment. He ordered a kiṅkara rākshasa (a servant rākshasa) to enter the king’s body and set the śāpa working. Possessed in this way, Kalmāshapāda ate Śakti and then all one hundred sons of Vasishṭha, one by one. Vasishṭha was deep in grief.
In this account too, a brāhmaṇa woman gave the king a śāpa after he ate her husband: he would die if he went near any woman with desire. And in this account too, Vasishṭha in the end freed him.
After he was freed, Vasishṭha himself performed niyoga (union to give an heir) with Adṛśyantī, the king’s queen. The śāpa stopped Kalmāshapāda from fathering children himself. The pregnancy lasted twelve years. Adṛśyantī struck her womb with a stone to bring the child out. The child was named Aśmaka, from aśman, stone.
As Purushāda in the Aśvamedhika Parva
The Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, speaks of Kalmāshapāda during his twelve years as a rākshasa. Here he is called by the name purushāda (man-eater), and by his names Saudāsa and Mitrasaha.
The ṛshi Uttaṅka met him in a deserted forest. Uttaṅka wanted the divine jewelled earrings (maṇi-kuṇḍala) of Kalmāshapāda’s queen Madayantī. He wanted them as guru-dakshiṇā (a gift to a teacher) for the wife of his guru Gautama, Ahalyā.
Kalmāshapāda was hungry, and it was the fixed hour of his meal. Still, he let Uttaṅka go because of a promise they made to each other. He sent Uttaṅka to Madayantī with a verse as a token of proof. When Uttaṅka came back to keep their agreement, Kalmāshapāda freed him from it completely. He told Uttaṅka never to return, because death would surely follow.
Kalmāshapāda explained this by his own teaching on the relation of a king to the brāhmaṇa jāti (community). He said that a person who stands against brāhmaṇas can find no gati (way, destination) in this world or the next.
In the teaching on daiva and purushakāra
In the Anuśāsana Parva, Bhīshma teaches Yudhishṭhira about daiva (fate) and purushakāra (human effort). He names Saudāsa of Kosala as an example. Saudāsa performed great yajñas, including the Aśvamedha. Yet he became a man-eating rākshasa through the śāpa of Vasishṭha Maharshi. Bhīshma offers this as proof that even a great store of puṇya (merit) cannot protect a person from the result of one wrong act against a brāhmaṇa.
Sources
- Nārada Mahā Purāṇa, Pūrvārdha, Chapters 9–13
- Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva
- Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 6
- Mahābhārata, Aśvamedhika Parva, Chapters 56–58