Tripura Vadha
This is the account of Tripura Vadha in the Bhavishya Parva of the Harivaṃśa. Tripura means “three cities”. They were three cities of gold that flew through the sky. They belonged to two asuras named Sūrya and Candra. The devas went to Brahmā, and Brahmā sent them to Bhagavān Śiva. Bhagavān Śiva destroyed the three cities with one shot, and Bhagavān Vishṇu took the form of a bull to move his chariot.
Tripura, the three flying cities
The asuras Sūrya and Candra had received a vara (a boon) from Brahmā that made them very powerful. With this vara they built three great cities, called Tripura, that moved freely through the sky. The cities were made of gold. They had tall towers set with gems on every side and great gateways studded with jewels. They shimmered like a gandharva-nagara (a city of the gandharvas seen floating in the sky). Horses of divine speed carried them, and they crossed all three worlds as they pleased.
The asuras trouble the worlds
Sūrya and Candra, with their daitya forces, attacked from their moving forts in the sky. They broke the roads to the deva-loka (the world of the devas) and the pitṛ-loka (the world of the ancestors). By these roads through the sky the offerings of the yajña (fire ritual) reached the devas, and the dead reached the world of the ancestors. Now the roads could not be crossed. The devas were cut off from the offerings that were their due, and they grew weak. The beings of all three worlds suffered.
The devas go to Brahmā, then to Śiva
The devas came to Brahmā with pale and tired faces and told him what the asuras had done. They asked for an upāya (a way) to end this terror. Brahmā thought it over and told them plainly that only Śiva could destroy Tripura. The vara the asuras held was such that only Bhagavān Maheśvara had the power to pierce all three cities at once.
The devas, with the Rudra-gaṇas, came down to the earth and looked for Bhagavān Śiva. They found him sitting on a seat of darbha grass, shining in his deerskin (mṛga-carma) and calm in his mastery. They bowed before him and asked him to act.
Śiva prepares for battle
Bhagavān Śiva saw that the time had come, for the destruction of Tripura was decreed by kāla (time). He agreed to act. He told the devas to arm themselves and get ready for battle. The devas put on their armour and climbed into their chariots, blazing like fires in the night sky. The Rudra-gaṇas also took up weapons and put on divine crowns. The Viśvedeva-gaṇas took up their arms. The army of the devas gathered around Bhagavān Śiva as he climbed onto his great chariot.
The great battle
The army of the devas, under the command of Bhagavān Śiva, attacked the daitya forces that guarded Tripura. The battle was fierce. The daityas used weapons of every kind: spears, arrows and magic weapons. Some devas lost limbs, and some fell. But the arrows of Bhagavān Śiva cut down the daitya forces like fire cutting through dry grass. Struck by the fire of Bhagavān Śiva’s bow, the daityas fell like mountains in an earthquake. The Rudra-gaṇas and the devas pushed forward. Night began to fall, and the daityas gained some advantage in the dark. The battle stood at a turning point.
Vishṇu as the bull moves the chariot
At this moment the great chariot of Bhagavān Śiva could not be moved. It carried all the power needed to destroy Tripura, and it was too heavy for ordinary force. The trees had fallen and the oceans were stirred, but nothing could set the chariot moving.
Then Bhagavān Vishṇu, the mahāyogin (great yogī), took the form of a great bull, a vṛshabha of divine size. With the devas beside him, he put his strength to the chariot. With a great roar the chariot moved.
The destruction of Tripura
With the chariot moving and all things in place, Bhagavān Śiva set three great weapons on his bow at the same time: the Brahmāstra, the Agnibāṇa (fire-arrow) and the Brahmadaṇḍa. He loosed the three in a single shot at the three flying cities. The gold towers, the gem-studded gates and the horse-borne forts of the sky were all struck at once and broken into a million pieces. The three cities that had troubled all the worlds fell into ash and silence.
The deva-patha (the road of the devas) was open again. The pitṛ-mārga (the road of the ancestors) was free. The three worlds breathed again, and the devas rejoiced. The great brahmarshis proclaimed that Bhagavān Śiva was none other than the great yogī Bhagavān Vishṇu himself, and that Hara and Hari are one.
Sources
- Harivaṃśa (Hari Vaṃśa Purāṇa), Bhavishya Parva, Chapter 134