Sāmba

Sāmba is the son of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa and his queen Jāmbavatī. Jāmbavatī was the daughter of Jāmbavān, the great bear-king and devotee of Bhagavān Rāma. The Bhaviṣya Purāṇa praises Sāmba as a great devotee of Bhagavān Sūrya Nārāyaṇa. His tapas (austerity) and worship led to the founding of the famous Sūrya kṣetra (holy place) at Chandrabhāgā. It is also called Sāmbapura or Mitravanā, and it is placed in the Multan region of ancient Sindhu.

Character

Sāmba was very handsome and very strong. He was proud of his youth, his beauty and his power. The Bhaviṣya Purāṇa says that the śāpa (curse) he suffered came from this pride. The text shows how humbling and tapas changed a vain young prince into a great devotee of Bhagavān Sūrya.

The śāpa of Durvāsa

Durvāsa Muni was an avatāra of Rudra. He had great tapas and a quick, fierce anger. He came to Dvārakā. All who knew him bowed low before him. Sāmba did not know who the muni was. He saw his strange looks and walk, and in his vanity he began to copy him. He twisted his face and walk to mock the muni.

Durvāsa saw the mockery and his anger blazed. He gave a terrible śāpa. Sāmba would suffer a dreadful skin disease that could not be cured, called śvitrakuṣṭha, a white-leprosy type of illness. No physician could cure it and no medicine could touch it. Sāmba’s fine body was ruined.

The Bhaviṣya Purāṇa draws a plain lesson. Later the Yādavas as a group also mocked the same Durvāsa, and this made the whole Yādava race produce the iron musala (club) that destroyed them. The Purāṇa then says: “Therefore worship the devas, the gurus and the brāhmaṇas, or at least leave them alone. To mock or dishonour them is supremely dangerous (pramādakara).”

Hearing the Sūrya Māhātmya from Nārada

After he fell ill, Sāmba heard the māhātmya (greatness) of Bhagavān Sūrya Nārāyaṇa from Nārada Maharṣi, who happened to visit Dvārakā. This good company (satsaṅga) filled Sāmba with devotion to Bhagavān Sūrya. He went humbly to his father, Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa, and asked leave to go to the forest for tapas and upāsanā (worship) of Bhagavān Sūrya.

Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa blessed his son and sent him on his way.

Tapas at Chandrabhāgā

Sāmba went to the Chandrabhāgā tīrtha in the northern part of Sindhu, to the place called Mitravanā. It was a Sūrya kṣetra already famous across the world. There he began very hard tapas. He lived on air alone and gave himself wholly to the worship of Bhagavān Sūrya. His tapas was so fierce that at one point only his bones were left, because the fire of his austerity had burned away all his flesh.

Each day he recited the Stava-rāja, a secret (guhya) stotra. In it he praised Bhagavān Sūrya as the Ādirūpa (first form) of all beings, the eye of the three worlds, the Paramātman, Prajāpati, Viṣṇu, Brahmā, Rudra, Indra, all the elements and all the devas. He called him the one Great Puruṣa blazing in the circle of the Ādityas. The stotra asks for Bhagavān Sūrya’s compassion on those who suffer. It asks that his mere sight cure leprosy, blindness, deafness, lameness and poverty.

Bhagavān Sūrya appears

Bhagavān Sūrya was moved by Sāmba’s hard tapas and sincere praise. He appeared before the thin prince and said:

“O son of Jāmbavatī! I am pleased with your hard tapas and your praise. Ask whatever you wish.”

Sāmba first asked for steady devotion at the feet of Bhagavān Sūrya. Bhagavān Sūrya asked him to ask for more. Then Sāmba asked that his disease be removed and his body be made pure and whole again.

As Bhagavān Sūrya spoke the words of assent, Sāmba’s disease vanished completely. His body filled with light, beauty and strength. He fell at the feet of Bhagavān Sūrya, so full of thanks that he could not rise.

Bhagavān Sūrya then gave more vara (boons). The place of Sāmba’s tapas would always be known as Sāmbapura. His fame would never end. Bhagavān Sūrya himself would live there for ever in his Mitra form, the twelfth of his twelve divine forms.

The twenty-one sacred names

Later, in a dream, Bhagavān Sūrya appeared to Sāmba. He gave him twenty-one very secret names (ati-śaya gopanīya) as a short form of the Stava-rāja. This was easier for devotees than the full sahasranāma (thousand names). Bhagavān Sūrya said:

“I love these names greatly. This Stava-rāja is famed as the highest praise. It makes the body free of disease and increases wealth and fame. For those who recite it with a bow at my dawn and dusk, all pāpa (sin) of mind, speech and body is destroyed. This alone is my japa, homa, sandhyopāsana, bali, mantra, arghya and dhūpa, all of them in one.”

Sāmba woke with the names fixed in his memory by the grace of Bhagavān Sūrya. He spent the rest of his life reciting them in happy devotion.

Finding the pratimā

After receiving the vara of Bhagavān Sūrya, Sāmba went with other tapasvis (ascetics) to bathe in the Chandrabhāgā. As he bathed, he meditated deeply on the round disc of Bhagavān Sūrya. In his heart he prayed: “How shall I get a pratimā (sacred image) of Bhagavān Sūrya Nārāyaṇa? Where shall I set it up?” At that moment a brightly shining pratimā appeared on the surface of the river, floating towards him. Sāmba knew at once what it was. He lifted it out and later set it up with full rites at Mitravanā.

Sāmba asked the image: “Who made you? Your form is very beautiful.” The pratimā spoke:

“In ancient times my form blazed with a light too fierce to bear. The devas prayed for a gentler form. At my command the great Viśvakarmā turned my radiance through a lathe at Śākadvīpa. He made this pratimā from the wood of the Kalpavṛkṣa and sent it to you through the Chandrabhāgā. My presence here at Mitravanā is constant at all times. Elsewhere I am present only at certain times.”

Building the temple

Nārada came when Sāmba called him. He gave full instructions for building the Sūrya temple at Sāmbapura. He told Sāmba the building plans, the materials for the pratimā and the result of each, and the details of the form of the image. The temple faces east. The main shrine, the bathing room and the yajñaśāla (hall for fire rituals) each have their proper place.

This is the beginning of one of the most famous ancient Sūrya temples. Later tradition links it with the city of Mūlasthāna (Multan) in the Sindhu region.

The Mausala Parva: the cursed muṣala and death at Prabhāsa

In the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Yudhiṣṭhira, the Vṛṣṇi youths, led by Sāraṇa, dressed Sāmba as a pregnant woman. They brought him in mockery before the ṛṣis Viśvāmitra, Kaṇva and Nārada, who had come to Dvārakā. They asked the ṛṣis to say what child “she” would bear. The ṛṣis were angry at the trick. They gave a śāpa that Sāmba would bring forth a terrible iron muṣala (pestle), and that it would destroy the Vṛṣṇis and Andhakas.

The next day Sāmba did bear an iron pestle, as dreadful as a servant of Yama. It was reported to the king. By the order of Āhuka it was ground to powder and thrown into the sea. So Sāmba became the appointed source of the cursed weapon through which Kāla and the brāhmaṇa śāpa worked the ruin of his people.

When the Yādavas gathered at Prabhāsa, their drinking festival turned into mutual slaughter, the Yādava destruction. Sāmba fell among the foremost of the slain, together with Cārudeṣṇa, Pradyumna and Aniruddha. When Kṛṣṇa saw these sons dead, he was moved to finish the destruction of what was left of the line.

Return to the Viśvedevas

In the Svargārohaṇa Parva, Sāmba, the son of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa, is named among the great souls who entered the Viśvedevas when their karma was spent. With the other Yādava heroes they were taken back into that class of devas.

Sources

• Bhaviṣya Mahā Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapters 72–73, 127–128, 129, 133
• Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 14
• Mahābhārata, Mausala Parva, Chapters 1, 3
• Mahābhārata, Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapter 5