Raudraketu

Raudraketu was an asura king. The ṛṣi Nārada gave him the Pañcākṣarī mantra of Bhagavān Śiva as dīkṣā (initiation). He was the father of two great asuras, Devāntaka and Narāntaka. They were the enemies of Mahōtkaṭa, the Kṛta-yuga avatāra (descent) of Bhagavān Gaṇeśa. When Mahōtkaṭa killed Narāntaka, Raudraketu performed a fierce tāntric rite to bring Devāntaka back with new power. In its last offering he beheaded his own son.

The Pañcākṣarī dīkṣā

The ṛṣi Nārada moves freely through all three worlds. He came to Raudraketu and gave him the Pañcākṣarī mantra as dīkṣā. This is Na-ma-śi-vā-ya, the mantra of five syllables that belongs to Bhagavān Śiva. Raudraketu received the initiation with śraddhā (faith). The Gaṇeśa Purāṇa tells this in the Krīḍā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 1.

The Pañcākṣarī is among the most powerful and sacred mantras of the Śaiva tradition. It is Bhagavān Śiva himself in the form of a mantra.

His wife Śāradā and his sons

Raudraketu’s wife was Śāradā. They had two sons, Narāntaka, the elder, and Devāntaka, the younger. Both sons did tapas (austerity) for 10,000 years. Bhagavān Śiva gave them a vara (boon) that no ordinary kind of being could defeat them (Krīḍā Khaṇḍa, Chapters 1–2).

Grief at Narāntaka’s death

Mahōtkaṭa killed Narāntaka in the great war at Kāśī. Narāntaka’s cut-off head fell in Raudraketu’s courtyard. The sight of his elder son’s head struck Raudraketu and Śāradā with terrible grief (Krīḍā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 62).

The tāntric rite for Devāntaka

Devāntaka was beaten in his first attack on Kāśī and came home in shame. Raudraketu did not tell him to give up. He gave him two things. One was the Aghora mahāmantra of Bhagavān Śiva, one of the most powerful and dangerous mantras of Śiva. The other was the method for a supreme tāntric rite (Krīḍā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 66).

The rite was done on a five-preta āsana, a seat built on five corpses, the well-known tāntric seat of the left-hand path. The offering material was the flesh of the one performing the rite. In the last act, the pūrṇāhuti (the full offering that completes the rite), Raudraketu beheaded his own son Devāntaka and put the head in the sacred fire as the final offering.

Bhagavān Śiva saw how fierce this act of offering was. He appeared and revived Devāntaka, giving him new power beyond the human. A divine black horse came out of the fire, and Devāntaka rode it back to the war.

The māyā-Aditi trick

In the second part of Devāntaka’s war, Raudraketu used a trick against Mahōtkaṭa’s mind. He made a māyā-Aditi, a false likeness of Aditi, Mahōtkaṭa’s mother, and put it in Devāntaka’s hand. He hoped that the sight of Mahōtkaṭa’s beloved mother held by the enemy would unsettle him. An ākāśavāṇī (voice from the sky) told Mahōtkaṭa that it was a deception (Krīḍā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 68).

Sources

• Gaṇeśa Purāṇa, Krīḍā Khaṇḍa, Chapters 1–2, 62, 66–68