Ūrmilā, Śyāmalā and the Seven Locked Rooms
Ūrmilā Śyāmalā Upākhyāna · ūrmilā śyāmalā upa-ākhyāna, “the account of Ūrmilā and Śyāmalā”
Nimi has other meanings too: see all meanings of Nimi. Dharmarāja has other meanings too: see all meanings of Dharmarāja.
Ūrmilā, Śyāmalā and the Seven Locked Rooms is an account told by Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa to Mahārāja Yudhishṭhira in the Uttara Parva of the Bhavishya Purāṇa, Chapter 54, to show the glory of the Budhāshṭamī vrata. Ūrmilā, the widowed queen of King Nimi of Mithilā, lost her kingdom and went with her two children to Avanti, where she worked in a brāhmaṇa’s house. Moved by her children’s hunger, she stole a little of the wheat she was grinding and fed them. She died, and for that act she suffered in naraka.
Her daughter Śyāmalā became the queen of Dharmarāja, king of Avanti, who forbade her seven locked places. She opened them one by one, and in each she saw her mother in torment at the hands of the Yamadūtas. Dharmarāja told her the cause, and the great pāpa of taking a brāhmaṇa’s wealth. Then he told her that seven births before she had kept the Budhāshṭamī vrata as a brāhmaṇī. Śyāmalā gave the fruit of that vrata to her mother with a saṅkalpa (a solemn resolve), and at that very moment Ūrmilā took a divine body and rose in a vimāna to Svargaloka with her husband.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 54
The setting
Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa teaches the Budhāshṭamī vrata to Mahārāja Yudhishṭhira, saying that one who performs it never sees the face of naraka. He first tells the account of Ila and Budha, from which the day takes its honour. Then he says: “Rājan, now I tell you another account.”
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 54
Ūrmilā and the stolen wheat
In Mithilā, the city of the Videha kings, there was a king named Nimi. Enemies killed him on the battlefield. His wife’s name was Ūrmilā.
Fallen from the kingdom and without shelter, Ūrmilā wandered here and there. Taking her boy and her girl, she went to the Avanti country, and there she lived by working in a brāhmaṇa’s house. Misfortune pressed hard on her. While grinding wheat she would steal a little and keep it, and with it she fed her children, who were suffering from hunger.
After some time Ūrmilā died. Her son grew up, came from Avanti to Mithilā, regained his father’s kingdom and ruled.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 54
Śyāmalā and the command of Dharmarāja
His sister Śyāmalā reached the age of marriage, and she was exceedingly beautiful. Dharmarāja, king of the Avanti country, heard of her beauty and made her his queen.
One day Dharmarāja said to his beloved Śyāmalā, calling her Vaidehi-nandinī: “Do all other things as you wish, but these seven places that are locked, never go into them.” Śyāmalā said “Very well” and accepted her husband’s word, but curiosity stayed in her mind.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 54
The seven rooms
One day, when Dharmarāja was busy with some work, Śyāmalā opened the lock of one chamber. What she saw there, and in each room after it, was this:
- The first room. Terrible Yamadūtas were binding her mother Ūrmilā and throwing her again and again into a cauldron of hot oil. Ashamed, Śyāmalā shut that room.
- The second room. Yamadūtas had laid her mother on a stone and were crushing her, and her mother was crying out.
- The third room. Yamadūtas were driving iron nails into her mother’s head.
- The fourth room. Terrible dogs were devouring her.
- The fifth room. They were tormenting her with iron tongs.
- The sixth room. She was being pressed in an oil-press like sugarcane.
- The seventh room. Thousands of worms were devouring her mother, who was drenched in blood.
Śyāmalā thought: “What pāpa did my mother commit, to come to this state?” She told the whole matter to her husband Dharmarāja.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 54
The teaching of Dharmarāja
Dharmarāja said: “Beloved, this is why I told you never to open these seven locks, or you would repent. Your mother stole a brāhmaṇa’s wheat out of love for her children. Do you not know this, that you ask me? All this is the fruit of that karma.”
He went on: if one consumes a brāhmaṇa’s wealth even out of affection, seven generations go downward; and if one steals and eats it, there is no rescue from naraka as long as the moon and stars last. “The very wheat she stole has become the worms that are eating her.”
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 54
The rescue by the fruit of Budhāshṭamī
Śyāmalā said: “Mahārāja, I know all that my mother did before. Even so, tell me some means by which my mother may be rescued from naraka.”
Dharmarāja reflected for some time and said: “Beloved, seven births ago from now you were a brāhmaṇī. At that time, with your friends, you performed the Budhāshṭamī vrata. If you give its fruit to your mother with a saṅkalpa, she will be freed from this affliction.”
On hearing this Śyāmalā bathed and gave the puṇya of her vrata to her mother with a saṅkalpa. By the power of the vrata’s fruit her mother, at that very moment, took a divine body and sat in a vimāna. She went with her husband to Svargaloka, and came to stay near the planet Budha.
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 54
The phalaśruti of Budhāshṭamī
Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa says that one who performs Budhāshṭamī never sees the face of naraka. One who performs it by its rite remembers his past births for seven births. Having gained wealth, grain, sons, grandsons, long life, aiśvarya (lordly prosperity) and all the things of the world, he gives up his prāṇa at the end of life in a tīrtha, remembering Nārāyaṇa, and dwells in svarga until the pralaya. One who hears this rite is also freed from pāpas beginning with brahmahatyā (the killing of a brāhmaṇa).
Source: Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 54
Sources
- Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 54