Kalahā and Dharmadatta

Kalahā was a preta (a hungry spirit of the dead). She had been a quarrelsome woman, and her life after life led to this state. Dharmadatta, a brāhmaṇa of Karavīra devoted to Bhagavān Vishṇu, met her at the meeting of the rivers Kṛshṇā and Veṇī. He gave her half his puṇya (merit) from keeping the month of Kārtika, and she was freed and taken to Vaikuṇṭha. The Padma Mahā Purāṇa tells this in the Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapters 106–107, and the Skanda Mahā Purāṇa tells it in the Kārtika Māsa Māhātmya, Chapters 24–25.

The Padma Purāṇa account

Dharmadatta and the Kārtika vigil

In the city of Karavīra, on the Sahyādri (the Western Ghats), lived a brāhmaṇa named Dharmadatta. He was deeply devoted to Bhagavān Vishṇu and faithful in his duties. Every year he kept the whole month of Kārtika with strict care. He bathed at dawn, worshipped Bhagavān Vishṇu, lit lamps near the Tulasī plant and kept night vigils (jāgaraṇa). During one such vigil, at the holy meeting of the rivers Kṛshṇā and Veṇī, Dharmadatta met a being whose look showed deep suffering.

Kalahā and her past lives

The being was Kalahā, a rākshasī-like preta who had come to this state through wrong conduct over many lives. In her last life as a human she was the wife of a brāhmaṇa named Bhikshu in Saurāshṭra. She was always quarrelsome and bad-tempered, so she was called Kalahā, which means “quarrel”. She often scolded and abused her husband and lived against all pātivratya dharma (the duty of a wife to her husband).

In the end her own restless nature overwhelmed her, and she killed herself. She was left with a heavy load of karma and with no puṇya to take her to a good place. She then passed through low births: first a cockroach, then a pig, then a cat, and at last a preta without a body. As a preta she haunted the meeting of the Kṛshṇā and the Veṇī, and she lived in misery on the subtle essence of the offerings made there.

The meeting and the gift of puṇya

Kalahā came before Dharmadatta during his vigil in a pitiful state. Her body was thin, her face was twisted by hunger and pain, and she was crying in her misery. Dharmadatta knew her to be a preta and asked her about her state. Kalahā told him the long chain of her low births and the quarrelsome nature that had caused them, and she asked him for help.

Dharmadatta was moved by compassion and knew dharma. He gave her half of all the puṇya he had gathered by his Kārtika observances: his early baths, his lamps, his worship of Tulasī and his night vigils through the month. He also sprinkled Kalahā with water in which Tulasī leaves had been soaked. The Tulasī water made the preta pure at once.

Kalahā is freed

The gift of puṇya and the Tulasī water worked at once. Kalahā left her terrible body and rose in a shining divine form. The attendants of Bhagavān Vishṇu came down from Vaikuṇṭha in a vimāna (a flying chariot), received her and took her straight to Vaikuṇṭha. She had spent life after life in quarrels, in killing herself and in low births. Through one act of grace at a Kārtika vigil she was taken to the highest abode of Bhagavān Vishṇu.

What was foretold for Dharmadatta

After Kalahā was freed, the attendants of Bhagavān Vishṇu spoke to Dharmadatta about his own future. They said that the Kārtika puṇya he had gathered through years of faithful keeping had been strong enough to free a being caught in low births. It would bear fruit in his next life. He would be born as Daśaratha, the famous king of the Solar dynasty and the father of Bhagavān Rāma.

The Skanda Purāṇa account

Dharmadatta meets a Rākshasī

In the Skanda Mahā Purāṇa the account is set in Karavīra (today’s Kolhapur), in the land around the Sahya mountain. Dharmadatta was a brāhmaṇa who kept all the vows of Bhagavān Vishṇu and was always busy in his proper worship. Once, in the month of Kārtika, he went before dawn to the temple of Hari for a Hari Jāgaraṇa, a night spent awake in prayer to Bhagavān Vishṇu. He carried all the things for worship and holy water with a Tulasī leaf. On the way he met a Rākshasī of dreadful look. He was afraid and threw all the worship things and the holy water over her. The moment the Tulasī water touched her, while the names of Bhagavān Vishṇu were being remembered, her pāpa (sin) was destroyed. She remembered her past karma and bowed down before the brāhmaṇa. (Chapter 24)

Kalahā tells her story

Kalahā told her story: “Before, I was Kalahā, the wife of a brāhmaṇa named Bhikshu in a city of Saurāshṭra. I was very cruel. I never did any good rite when my husband asked. I never gave him sweet food, and I loved to quarrel. My husband wanted to marry another woman. I took poison and died. Citragupta told Yama my deeds. I used to eat sweet food and give nothing to my husband. I looked down on him. So these births were given to me: a bat (to eat her own dung), a sow, a cat (eating her own young), and last a preta in a dead body. After five hundred years as a preta, I came to the meeting of the rivers Kṛshṇā and Veṇī. There the attendants of Bhagavān Śiva and Bhagavān Vishṇu dragged me out of the merchant’s body I was living in. Then I saw you.” (Chapter 24)

The gift and the freedom

Dharmadatta felt sorry for her misery. He said: “I shall give you half of the puṇya I have earned in my whole life from the Kārtika Vrata.” He sprinkled her with Tulasī water and said the twelve-syllable mantra:

oṃ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

It praises Bhagavān Vāsudeva, that is, Bhagavān Vishṇu. At once she was freed from being a preta. She took a divine form, as beautiful as Indirā.

At that moment a flying chariot came down from the sky. In it were attendants with the form of Bhagavān Vishṇu himself. They were Puṇyaśīla and Suśīla, the gatekeepers of Vaikuṇṭha. They helped Kalahā into the chariot and spoke to Dharmadatta: “Well done, O best of brāhmaṇas. Your puṇya has doubled. You gave away half, and the act of giving has made the rest grow. All the pāpa of your hundreds of births is destroyed. This woman has reached sārūpya (a form like that of Bhagavān Vishṇu) through the puṇya of Hari Jāgaraṇa and the lamp offering that you gave her.”

They also told him that at the end of this birth he would go to Vaikuṇṭha together with both his wives and reach sārūpya with Bhagavān Vishṇu. And they said: “You will become the famous king Daśaratha in the Solar line. These two wives will be your wives then also. And there Bhagavān Vishṇu will come to you as your son, for the work of the devas.”

Dharmadatta bowed in wonder. The chariot rose with Kalahā to Vaikuṇṭha. (Chapter 25)

Sources

• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapters 106–107
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaishṇava Khaṇḍa, Kārtika Māsa Māhātmya, Chapters 24–25