Tripurāsura Upākhyāna (Matsya Purāṇa)

The Tripurāsura Upākhyāna is the account of the three great dānava cities, called Tripura. The dānava architect Maya built them after receiving a vara (boon) from Brahmā. The dānavas lived there first in righteousness, and then fell into adharma. In the end Bhagavān Śiva destroyed all three cities with a single arrow. This is the seventh of the twelve Deva-Asura wars told in the Matsya Mahā Purāṇa. The account runs from Chapter 127 to Chapter 139.

Background: the Tāraka war and the defeat of the dānavas (Chapter 127)

The Tripura episode follows the sixth great Deva-Asura war, the war with Tārakāsura. In that war the devas under Kumāra beat the dānava armies. Maya, the great architect of the dānavas, and the dānava chiefs Tārakāksha and Vidyunmāli lived through it. They were determined to protect their people and rebuild their strength, and they withdrew into tapas (austerity).

The tapas of the three dānavas and Brahmā’s boon (Chapter 127)

The three dānavas were Maya the master-craftsman, Tārakāksha the hero and Vidyunmāli the mighty. They did tapas of great severity. Like the three sacred fires, they blazed and scorched the directions, and their heat left the three worlds dim and in distress. In winter they stood in water. In summer they sat between five fires. In the rains they stood in the open sky with no cover. Their bodies wasted to veins and bones, yet their tejas (radiance) only grew. Agni and Sūrya grew dim under the pressure of their joined tapas-fire. Drawn by their unbroken austerity, Brahmā appeared in the middle of the three. The dānavas bowed to him and praised him.

Brahmā asked them to name their boon. Maya spoke for all three: “In the Tāraka war our people were cut down and scattered. We want to build a fortress that nothing can break: not magic rites, not water, not fire, not the weapons of the devas. Only one being should be able to destroy it, and only with a single arrow, a single release.”

Brahmā laughed gently and said to Maya: “I cannot give complete deathlessness. But I grant what you ask. The fortress shall be as you say. It can be destroyed only by one arrow, from one being, at one particular moment.” With these words Brahmā vanished, like wealth glimpsed in a dream.

The three dānavas went away. They were bold now, both from their tapas and from the terms of the boon, and they already reckoned that no single warrior could meet the conditions they had set.

The building of the Tripura (Chapter 128)

Maya, the master-builder of the dānava world, planned the Tripura with all his skill. He said: “I will build three cities, each one hundred yojanas (a measure of distance) long and wide. They will be built so that a single arrow can destroy them only during the Pushya yoga, when all three are in line. Between each city there will be a gap of a hundred yojanas. Only then can one shaft pass through all three at once.”

He built:

• The iron city (Kṛshṇāyas-pura) on the surface of the earth, given to Tārakāksha.
• The silver city (Rajata-pura) in the middle sky, shining like the moon, given to Vidyunmāli.
• The golden city (Sauvarṇa-pura) highest in the sky, given to Maya himself.

The cities were built at the Pushya yoga, so that they would come into line again only at another Pushya yoga. Each city was a wonder. It had wide royal roads lined with palaces, pleasure gardens, lotus-pools, āśramas (hermitages), temples of Bhagavān Śiva, markets and granaries. It had inner rooms where anklets rang, parks sweet with jasmine and campaka flowers, rivers and lakes, and towers that could be seen from far away. Crores of dānava householders, with their wives, children, weapons and wealth, filled the three cities. The Tripura shone in the sky like three fires.

Righteous life in the Tripura (Chapter 129)

In the first period of their life there, the dānavas of the Tripura lived well. They honoured brāhmaṇas. They offered pūjā to Bhagavān Śiva in the temples that Maya had built. They kept peace in their families, studied dharma, artha and kāma in right balance, and kept their bodies and conduct pure. The Purāṇa records this time of righteousness in detail. Husbands and wives served each other faithfully. There were no quarrels. The sound of Vedic recitation and of blessings filled the streets. The three cities had all the splendour of Svarga itself.

No adharma and no untruth were found among them. At that time the dānavas were more righteous than the very devas whom they had defeated. It seemed as if the world had forgotten that these were enemies of the order.

The coming of Kali and the moral fall (Chapter 129)

As time passed and the hour of their destined end came near, a quiet change took place. Lobha (greed), krodha (anger) and the force of Kali (strife) entered the Tripura one evening at twilight, like a sickness entering a body, and began to spread through the three cities.

Maya had a terrible nightmare. Six fearful figures, three men blazing with anger and three women of dreadful look, entered the Tripura in broad daylight and took over the bodies of its people. When he woke, Maya called an assembly and told them of the omens. He urged the dānavas to give up kāma and krodha, to worship Mahādeva, and to keep righteous conduct. He said: “From the omens I have seen, it seems the three-eyed one himself has turned against us. Let us try to calm him.”

But the dānavas were by then already under the influence of the moral poison that had entered them. They did not follow Maya’s advice. They looked at him with red eyes and brushed his words aside. From that day everything turned the other way:

• They stopped offering pūjā in the temples of Bhagavān Śiva that they had built themselves.
• They began to despise brāhmaṇas and spoke harshly to them.
• They dishonoured their elders and their teachers (upādhyāyas).
• They quarrelled among themselves all the time.
• They ate and drank impure things at forbidden hours.
• They slept with their heads covered by cloth, which is not auspicious.
• They failed to keep the rules of śauca (purity) and the āgama observances.
• Wives abused their husbands, and husbands became cruel.
• They destroyed the sacred groves and tapo-vanas (tapas-forests) of the ṛshis.
• They pulled down the Vedic yajña posts and the flags of the temples.

What had been a realm of dharma became a realm of adharma in a short time. The fortress that was meant to protect them from enemies became the walls that shut them in with their own vices and led to their own ruin.

The devas go to Śiva (Chapter 130)

The devas, that is the Ādityas, Vasus, Sādhyas, Pitṛs and the Marut-gaṇas, found their sacred groves burned, their āśramas torn down and their yajña posts broken. Their women had been carried off, their elephants and horses stolen, and their own lives were no longer safe. In fear they went to Brahmā on his lotus seat and told him of the ruin.

Brahmā said: “The time for their destruction is near. I gave the boon that they can be destroyed only by a single arrow from one being, and that being is Parameśvara alone. None of you can do it.”

The devas went to Bhagavān Śiva. Umā and Nandī were with him. He was blazing like a thousand fires and moons together. They saw Ambikāpati (the husband of Ambikā), the three-eyed one, he who rides the bull (Vṛshabhavāhana), the master of yoga. They praised him with the Mātṛkā-saṃkhyāka stotra. It has fifty-one names, matching the fifty-one letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, so that it is praise with the whole of śabdabrahman (Brahman as sound). Bhagavān Śiva received their praise warmly and said: “The enemies of my devotees are my enemies. What you ask shall be done.” He told the devas to prepare his chariot.

The cosmic chariot (Chapter 131)

The devas built Bhagavān Śiva’s chariot (ratha). Every part of it was a part of the cosmos.

The Pramaṇas, the Gaṇas and the attendant devas stood around the chariot on every side, like clouds around a mountain peak. With a sound like thunder, the cosmic chariot of Bhagavān Śiva moved forward.

Nārada visits the Tripura (Chapter 132)

As Bhagavān Śiva’s chariot moved toward the Tripura, the ṛshi Nārada came down from the higher regions and flew to the Tripura. Although the dānavas had fallen in conduct, they still rose and honoured the great ṛshi, because the coming of Nārada is always auspicious. Maya offered arghya, pādya and madhuparka (the water and honey offerings for a guest) with great respect and seated Nārada on a golden throne. The dānavas listened to Nārada’s teaching.

The amṛta-vāpī and Vishṇu’s step (Chapters 133–135)

Inside the Tripura, Maya had made a divine pool, the amṛta-vāpī, by his māyā-power. Any dānava who fell in battle, however badly wounded, could be thrown into this pool and would rise again fully healed, with new strength. This made the dānava forces nearly unbeatable. Their fallen warriors were simply brought back to life and sent back to battle.

The devas could not keep any advantage. They killed a thousand dānavas, only to see them rise again from the pool. Bhagavān Vishṇu decided to take this advantage away. He came down in the form of a great bull (vṛshabha), went to the pool, and drank its waters dry. That took away the means of bringing the dānavas back to life. With the amṛta-vāpī gone, the dānavas could die in battle again.

The battles: Tārakāksha and Vidyunmāli slain (Chapters 136–138)

In the battles before the final destruction, the dānava warrior Tārakāksha, lord of the iron city, was slain by Nandīśvara, the great attendant and commander of Bhagavān Śiva. Vidyunmāli, lord of the silver city, was also slain in the fighting.

The destruction of the Tripura (Chapter 139)

The decisive moment came when the Pushya yoga arrived, the exact alignment at which the three cities moved into a single line. Bhagavān Śiva sat in his cosmic chariot, with Brahmā as his charioteer. He drew the cosmic bow, the Saṃvatsara, whose bowstring was Umā in her form as Kālarātri. He took the single arrow, the joined tejas of Vishṇu, Soma and Agni, its tip deadly with the venom of Vāsuki. With one release (eka-śara-prahāra) he shot it through all three lined-up cities at once.

The arrow, blazing with the joined light of the three great devas, pierced the iron city, the silver city and the golden city in one instant and turned all three to ash. The three cities fell in flames. Their towers, gates and temples were burned, and their people were destroyed. The dānavas had built so grand a world through tapas and skill, and had then thrown it away through adharma. They were no more.

From this act Bhagavān Śiva received the lasting names Purārī (the enemy of the cities) and Tripurāntaka (the ender of the triple fortress).

The phalaśruti (Chapter 139)

The Matsya Mahā Purāṇa ends this upākhyāna with its phalaśruti (the verses on the fruit of hearing). It says that reciting or hearing this account of Tripurāsura at śrāddha-tarpana occasions (the offerings to the ancestors) gives the puṇya (merit) of performing all yajñas (fire rituals). It is called one of the most auspicious (svastayana) narratives, equal in its power to purify to a puṃsavana rite. The one who hears or reads it reaches Rudraloka.

Sources

• Matsya Mahā Purāṇa, Chapters 127–139
• Chapter 127: the background; the tapas of the three dānavas; Brahmā’s boon
• Chapter 128: the building of the Tripura
• Chapter 129: righteous life in the Tripura; the coming of Kali and the moral fall
• Chapter 130: the devas go to Brahmā and Bhagavān Śiva; the Mātṛkā-saṃkhyāka stotra
• Chapter 131: the cosmic chariot
• Chapter 132: Nārada visits the Tripura
• Chapters 133–135: the amṛta-vāpī and Bhagavān Vishṇu
• Chapters 136–138: Tārakāksha and Vidyunmāli slain
• Chapter 139: the destruction of the Tripura; the phalaśruti