Tulasī and Śaṅkhacūḍa: Origin of Tulasī

This is the account of Tulasī, the sacred plant that Bhagavān Vishṇu loves most, and of Śaṅkhacūḍa, the dānava king who was her husband. In an earlier life Śaṅkhacūḍa was Sudāma, a cowherd companion of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa in Goloka. After one mortal birth he returned to Goloka. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa tells it in Chapters 13 to 22 of the Prakriti Khaṇḍa.

The account tells how Tulasī was born, how she did tapas (austerity) to win Bhagavān Vishṇu as her husband, how she married Śaṅkhacūḍa, how he was brought down, and how she became the plant that stands at the centre of Vaishṇava pūjā.

Background: Vṛshadhvaja, Sūrya’s śāpa and Dharmadhvaja’s line

The background is a śāpa (a curse) that began with King Vṛshadhvaja, a devotee of Mahādeva. He would not honour any deva except Śiva. This angered Sūrya, who pronounced a śāpa on Vṛshadhvaja’s family. Over many generations this śāpa worked its way through the family until it reached Dharmadhvaja, a pious king in whose line the birth of Tulasī was meant to happen.

Dharmadhvaja’s wife was Mādhavī. Through her strong tapas and the grace of Mahālakshmī, a daughter was born who was an aṃśa (a part) of Lakshmī herself. This daughter was Tulasī. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 13)

Vedavatī, the daughter of Kuśadhvaja

A closely linked account is set in here. Kuśadhvaja was a learned brāhmaṇa, strong in tapas, born in Dharmadhvaja’s line. He had a daughter named Vedavatī, a young woman of great beauty and spiritual power. She had given herself to the aim of winning Śrī Vishṇu as her husband.

Vedavatī was doing tapas in a holy forest when Rāvaṇa met her. Overcome by desire, he tried to dishonour her. Vedavatī would not let her pātivratya (faithfulness to her husband) be broken. She entered the fire and gave up her body. As she did so, she declared that she would be born again to cause Rāvaṇa’s end.

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa tells of her later births. She was born as Sītā in the house of Janaka, that is, the māyā-Sītā who was placed in Rāvaṇa’s Laṅkā in the Rāmāyaṇa. Her next birth after that was as Draupadī in the Mahābhārata. This line of births of one devoted soul across the great itihāsas is told as a teaching on the power of tapas and the long course of divine justice. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 14)

Tulasī’s tapas at Badarikāśrama

Tulasī was brought up with great devotion. In time she went to Badarikāśrama, the Himālaya retreat of Nara-Nārāyaṇa, to do tapas. Her aim was to have Śrī Vishṇu, who is also Śrī Kṛshṇa, as her husband.

For ten thousand years she stood on one leg.
For further thousands of years she lived on fallen leaves alone.
For still more thousands of years she lived on water alone.
For the last period she stood in the Gaṅgā with no support at all.

Brahmā appeared before her and offered her a vara (a boon). But he told her that in this birth she could not at once have Śrī Kṛshṇa or Nārāyaṇa as her husband. First she must take a dānava husband, Śaṅkhacūḍa, and live with him for a full manvantara (one era of the cosmos). Only after that union would she be free to reach Nārāyaṇa.

Then Brahmā told her who Śaṅkhacūḍa was. He was Sudāma, a dear gopa (cowherd companion) of Śrī Kṛshṇa in Goloka. Rādhā had pronounced a śāpa on him, and now he was born on earth as a dānava. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 15)

Śaṅkhacūḍa, the gopa of Goloka under a śāpa

In his earlier life Śaṅkhacūḍa was Sudāma, one of the eight closest cowherd companions of Śrī Kṛshṇa in Goloka. His exile came about like this.

Once Śrī Kṛshṇa was enjoying the rāsa dance in secret with Virajā, a gopikā (cowherd girl), away from Rādhā. A companion told Rādhā, and she came to the place. Kṛshṇa and Virajā both vanished. Rādhā’s grief and anger did not ease. She went back to the inner rooms and found Kṛshṇa speaking with Sudāma. Kṛshṇa stayed silent while she blamed him, but Sudāma spoke up in his defence and rebuked Rādhā.

In her anger Rādhā said to Sudāma: “Become a dānava and take birth in the world of mortals!” Sudāma accepted the śāpa calmly. Kṛshṇa comforted Rādhā and the other gopas and gopikās. He promised that Sudāma would return to Goloka within one moment of divine time, which is one manvantara of time on earth. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 16)

On earth Sudāma was born as the son of Dambha. Dambha was a dānava, but a devotee of Kṛshṇa, and he had received a great vara from Brahmā after one lakh years of tapas. So Śaṅkhacūḍa brought his love for Kṛshṇa into his dānava birth. He wore the Śrī Kṛshṇa kavaca (divine armour). He had been given the Kṛshṇa mantra at Pushkara. He had received the blessing of both Brahmā and Śiva that none could defeat him. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 16)

The meeting at Badarikāśrama and the gāndharva marriage

Śaṅkhacūḍa came to the forest of Badarikāśrama on Brahmā’s word. Tulasī was resting in her hermitage. Manamathadeva, the deva of desire, struck Tulasī with his five arrows, and she was filled with longing.

Śaṅkhacūḍa arrived. He was as handsome as ten thousand moons. He wore a white campaka garland, his body shone like a white campaka flower, and his eyes were like autumn lotuses. Tulasī at first kept her modesty and spoke of the faults of attachment for his good, but inwardly she was moved.

Śaṅkhacūḍa spoke with full openness. He said that he was Sudāma. He told of Rādhā’s śāpa. He spoke of Tulasī’s earlier tie with Vaikuṇṭha. He made clear that Brahmā had sent him to marry her by the gāndharva method.

Then Brahmā himself came and blessed them. He urged Tulasī not to hold back. He named the divine couples: Lakshmī with Vishṇu, Rādhā with Kṛshṇa, Sāvitrī with Brahmā, Pārvatī with Śiva. Śaṅkhacūḍa’s love for Tulasī, he said, was of the same kind of perfect union. He also promised Tulasī that after Śaṅkhacūḍa left this world she would reach Śrī Kṛshṇa, who is Śrī Nārāyaṇa.

The two were joined in gāndharva marriage, while the devas showered flowers from the sky. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 16)

Śaṅkhacūḍa’s rule

After the marriage Śaṅkhacūḍa and Tulasī lived together in great happiness. Their love was deep and whole. They lived together for a manvantara.

Śaṅkhacūḍa was protected by the Kṛshṇa kavaca and by Tulasī’s pātivratya, and no one could defeat him. He conquered the three worlds. He drove the devas from their places and took their armies, weapons and yajña shares. He left them wandering without purpose.

The devas went to Brahmā, who took them to Kailāsa. Bhagavān Śiva joined them. Together they all went to Vaikuṇṭha and laid their complaint before Śrī Hari. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 17)

The plan of Śrī Hari

In Vaikuṇṭha, in the great hall of Śrī Hari, Lakshmī served at his feet and Gaṅgā fanned him with a cāmara (a fly-whisk). The hall shone with jewels, and gandharva music filled the air. Brahmā put the matter before him. Śrī Hari received them with great love and told them of the plan he had already begun.

He told the whole account of Sudāma, who was Śaṅkhacūḍa, of Rādhā’s śāpa, and of the time of the manvantara. Śaṅkhacūḍa could not be killed by ordinary means. His Śrī Kṛshṇa kavaca made him safe from all weapons, and Tulasī’s unbroken pātivratya was a second shield that nothing could pierce.

To remove both shields, Śrī Hari himself would go as an old brāhmaṇa and ask for the kavaca as dāna (a gift). Then, wearing the form of Śaṅkhacūḍa, he would go to Tulasī and break her pātivratya. When both shields were gone, Bhagavān Śiva could use his triśūla (trident). Śrī Hari gave Śiva the triśūla for this work. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 17)

The war: Bhagavān Śiva and Śaṅkhacūḍa

Bhagavān Śiva sent a gandharva named Pushpadanta to Śaṅkhacūḍa as his messenger. He offered Śaṅkhacūḍa a choice: give back the devas’ kingdom in peace, or fight.

Śaṅkhacūḍa spoke with Tulasī and heard her fears of what was coming. He then spoke to her with great clarity. He said that all things are ruled by Kāla (time). Joy and sorrow, victory and loss, come from the same divine will. Śrī Kṛshṇa is the supreme mūlapurusha (original person) who commands even Brahmā, Vishṇu, Śiva and Yama. She must not grieve, he said, for he would return to Goloka and she would reach Nārāyaṇa.

He then put his affairs in order. He made his son Sucandra king, gave his wealth to brāhmaṇas, and placed Tulasī in the care of the household. Then he went to war. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 18)

Before the battle Bhagavān Śiva and Śaṅkhacūḍa spoke together. Bhagavān Śiva urged him to give back the devas’ realm, and spoke of dharma and of how all power passes. Śaṅkhacūḍa answered that he had won his rule by his own effort (purushakāra) and by the merit of his tapas. He said that the devas and the dānavas were all sons of Kaśyapa and had always fought over who comes first. He said that a balance of power for a time should not be taken as a lasting law of the cosmos. He would not give way, and he chose battle over peace. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 18)

The battle of Kālikā

In the great war that followed, the devas suffered badly. At last Bhagavān Śiva sent Bhagavatī Kālikā into the battle. Kālikā was fierce. She drank the blood of the dānava armies, swallowed hundreds of thousands of elephants and horses, roared terribly, and danced with joy on the field. Yet she could not destroy Śaṅkhacūḍa.

When she tried to use the pāśupata weapon on him, a voice from no body (aśarīravāṇī) stopped her. It said: “Śaṅkhacūḍa’s death does not come from the pāśupata weapon. As long as the Śrī Kṛshṇa kavaca is at his throat and his wife’s pātivratya is whole, neither old age nor death can touch him.”

Kālikā had beaten his whole army but could not kill him. She went back to Bhagavān Śiva and told him. Śaṅkhacūḍa, for his part, had always refused to strike Kālikā with weapons, honouring her as a mother. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 19)

The kavaca and the disguise

The deadlock lasted a full year. Then Śrī Mahāvishṇu, the master of māyā, came to the battlefield as a very old brāhmaṇa, weak, hungry and in need of charity. He went up to Śaṅkhacūḍa and said: “Give me whatever is in your heart to give.” Śaṅkhacūḍa never refused a gift to a brāhmaṇa, and he agreed. The old brāhmaṇa asked for the kavaca at his throat.

Śaṅkhacūḍa took off the Śrī Kṛshṇa kavaca, the divine armour that had guarded him in every battle, and put it in the brāhmaṇa’s hand.

Śrī Hari then took the exact form and dress of Śaṅkhacūḍa and went to Tulasī’s home. He came shouting “Jaya!” to announce his victory. Tulasī was full of joy and relief. She welcomed him as her husband returning, washed his feet, offered him tāmbūla (betel), and received him with all the love and honour of a wife welcoming her victorious husband.

He told her a false account of the battle. He said that peace had been made through Brahmā’s mediation, that the devas’ kingdom had been given back, and that Bhagavān Śiva had gone back to Śivaloka. Then he lay with her.

But Tulasī was a sādhvī (a virtuous wife) of the highest kind. She felt that something was wrong in their closeness and she challenged him: “Who are you, O māyāvī? You have deceived me. You have broken my pātivratya. I will pronounce a śāpa on you now.”

Śrī Hari showed his true form. He was dark as a rain-cloud, with eyes like autumn lotuses, adorned with jewelled ornaments, and dressed in yellow silk. Tulasī saw Devadeva himself before her and fainted. When she woke, she spoke in grief and anger:

“You who are called the ocean of compassion, you are hard as stone. You had my husband killed by deceit, though he had done no wrong. Because you came to me with a heart of stone, let stone be your form! You shall become pāshāṇa (stone) in the world of mortals!”

(Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 20)

Śaṅkhacūḍa’s last moment and return to Goloka

The moment Tulasī’s pātivratya was broken, Bhagavān Śiva let fly the triśūla that Śrī Hari had given him. In this triśūla Vishṇu lived at the tip, Brahmā in the middle, Bhagavān Śiva himself at the base, and Kāla at the grip. It blazed with the light of a hundred suns and could destroy the whole brahmāṇḍa (cosmic egg).

By then Śaṅkhacūḍa had put down his bow and sat in yogāsana, meditating on the lotus feet of Śrī Kṛshṇa. He met death with full calm, lost in the memory of Kṛshṇa. When the triśūla struck, his body was turned to ash at once.

In the same moment his own eternal form, Sudāma, rose up. He was adorned as a cowherd, held his murali (flute), and was surrounded by fair cowherd companions. He went up to Goloka. There Rādhā and Mādhava received him at their lotus feet and welcomed him back after the manvantara of his exile. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 20)

The origin of the śaṅkha

After the battle Bhagavān Śiva took the bones (asthi) of Śaṅkhacūḍa and mixed them into the salt ocean (lavaṇa samudra). From these bones came the many kinds of śaṅkha (conch shell). This is why:

The śaṅkha is the first in every form of devapūjā.
The water held in a śaṅkha (śaṅkha-toya) is dear to all the devas.
Wherever the sound of the śaṅkha is heard, Lakshmī lives.
Bathing at the tīrtha linked with the śaṅkha gives the puṇya (merit) of bathing in all holy tīrthas.

(Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 20)

Tulasī’s change of form

Śrī Hari then comforted Tulasī. He honoured her tapas and agreed that her śāpa was just. He said he would indeed become the Śālagrāma stone in the Gaṇḍakī river, with vajra-kīṭas (diamond-like worms) boring the marks of the cakra into him. He also gave her his promises:

Her mortal body (pārthiva-śarīra) would become the Gaṇḍakī river, the sacred river of Nepal and northern Bhārata, which would purify all who touch it.
Her hair (keśa) would become the tulasī plant (tulasī vṛksha), the most sacred plant in the cosmos.
In her divine form (divya-rūpa) she would live in Vaikuṇṭha at the side of Śrī Hari, honoured equally with Lakshmī.

Tulasī then gave up her mortal body and took her divine form. She took her place at the chest of Śrī Hari, with Lakshmī, Gaṅgā and Sarasvatī, the four great consorts of Nārāyaṇa. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapters 20–21)

Tulasī Māhātmya

The twenty-second chapter of the Prakriti Khaṇḍa tells the glory (māhātmya) of Tulasī at length. Śrī Hari himself praises Tulasī in a stotra (a hymn of praise) that gives her eight names and explains each.

Tulasī: she has no equal (tulā) in all the worlds. Nothing can be set in the scales against her.
Vṛndā: from vṛnda (a multitude). She is the devī of all the tulasī plants that grow in the vṛndāvanas everywhere.
Vṛndāvanī: she who comes from Vṛndāvana, where tulasī plants grow in great numbers.
Viśvapūjitā: she who is honoured in all the worlds.
Viśvapāvanī: she who purifies all the worlds.
Nandinī: she who brings joy to all. Through her people find joy in Bhagavat-sevā (devoted service).
Kṛshṇajīvanī: the life-breath of Kṛshṇa. She is as needed by Kṛshṇa as prāṇa (the breath of life).
Tulasī: said again to close the stotra, as the highest name.

The main rules of Tulasī pūjā given in this chapter are these.

Tulasī leaves must not be plucked on Paurṇamī, Amāvāsyā, Dvādaśī or Saṃkrānti, at night, at the saṃdhyā times, or when one is impure.
A Tulasī leaf (patra) offered to Śrī Hari for three days stays fit for pūjā even after it falls to the ground. It may be washed and used again.
One who touches Tulasī and then swears a false oath is sent to naraka (hell) for the span of fourteen Indras.
One who plucks Tulasī with a Śālagrāma nearby, using a śaṅkha vessel, will suffer disease for seven births.

The good results are these.

Giving Tulasī to Śrī Hari every day equals one lakh aśvamedha yajñas.
Wearing a tulasī mālā (garland of tulasī beads) gives the merit of countless yajñas.
One who dies holding Tulasī at a holy tīrtha reaches Vaikuṇṭha.
Tulasī tīrtha (water) given to a dying person frees the soul from all pāpa (sin).

(Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 22)

Tulasī and Śālagrāma together

The account ends with the lasting pairing that rules the daily pūjā of the Vaishṇavas. Tulasī, the plant dearest to Vishṇu, and Śālagrāma, the stone form of Vishṇu that came from Tulasī’s own śāpa, are honoured together. Their joint place on the pūjā altar is the same as the presence of Vishṇu and Lakshmī themselves. One who honours them together gains the highest jñāna (knowledge) and becomes one of the dearest bhaktas (devotees) of Śrī Hari. (Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapter 21)

Sources

Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Prakriti Khaṇḍa, Chapters 13–22