Viśvakarmā

Viśvakarmā · viśva-karmā, “the maker of all”

Viśvakarmā is the divine architect and master craftsman of the three worlds. He designs and builds the cities, vimānas (aerial vehicles and palaces) and weapons of the devas, and he makes their ornaments. He is the presiding deva of all artisans (śilpins), and human craftsmen take their craft from him.

The Vāyu Mahā Purāṇa tells of his birth and his work. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa tells how a śāpa (a curse) between Viśvakarmā and the apsarā Ghṛtācī gave him a human birth and led to nine artisan communities.

The Vāmana Purāṇa calls him the deva-śilpī and the sura-śilpī, the craftsman of the devas, a knower of all dharma and a master of the śilpa-śāstra (the science of building and craft). He serves Brahmā in his sabhā. For Bhagavān Śiva he built a palace of pure gold on Mandara, and for the daitya king Bali a mansion of diamonds and pearls in Rasātala; to Devī Kātyāyanī he gave the paraśu (battle-axe). The same Purāṇa tells at length of his daughter Citrāṅgadā: how he pronounced a śāpa on her when she gave herself to King Suratha on her own, how the tapasvī Ṛtadhvaja in turn made him live as a vānara (monkey), and how his monkey form ended when Ghṛtācī bore him a son, Nala, at the Sapta-Godāvarī tīrtha, so that he could see his daughter wedded in his own form. His day is the Aśūnya-śayana Dvitīyā, the kaṇṭakī tree arose from him, and at Kurukshetra a great liṅga he set up grants siddhi to those who see it.

Birth and parents

The Vāyu Mahā Purāṇa says Viśvakarmā is the son of Prabhāsa, the eighth of the eight Vasus, who are sons of Dharma through Vasu. His mother is the sister of Bṛhaspati. She is a brahmacāriṇī (a woman who keeps celibacy) who wanders all the worlds without attachment. She is a yogasiddha, a woman perfected in yoga, and of the highest virtue. Through his father he belongs to the Vasu line of Dharma, and through his mother to the Āṅgirasa line of Bṛhaspati.

Some accounts list him among the sons of Brahmā, and some as a son of Prabhāsa, one of the eight Vasus.

His work

The Vāyu Mahā Purāṇa names him as the śilpin who makes all the divine tools of the devas and keeps the devas going through his craft. It gives him three main tasks:

1. Śilpin of the devas. He designs and builds the vimānas, the vehicles and palaces, of every class of devas.
2. Maker of divine ornaments. All the bhūshaṇas, the ornaments and jewels worn by the devas, are his work.
3. Model for human artisans. The crafts that people practise in all three worlds follow the patterns (ādarśa) that Viśvakarmā set. He is the first master who shows the forms, and human craftsmen come after him.

He is also the one who makes the instruments of yajña, the palaces of the devas and their weapons.

Other accounts call him the architect of Svarga, of Laṅkā, and of Dvārakā. The Agni Purāṇa says he built Dvārakā at the request of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa.

The golden palace of Bhagavān Śiva. The Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 28, tells that while Hara dwelt with Devī Pārvatī on the mountain Mandara, he called Viśvakarmā and told him to build him a house. Viśvakarmā built a mansion of pure gold on the svastika plan, sixty-four yojanas in extent. Its toraṇas (arches) were of ivory, its windows and doorways were set with pearls, it had rows of crystal steps and pictures made of vaidūrya gems, seven wide halls, and every comfort and thing of enjoyment; it surpassed everything. Entering it, the Devadeva performed the yajña fit for householders, following the way of the ancestors, and dwelt there a long time with Pārvatī.

Bali‘s mansion in Rasātala. When Bali went down to Rasātala, he built a city with steps of pure crystal, and in its middle he lived with his queen Vindhyāvalī in a vast mansion built by Viśvakarmā, with platforms of diamonds and doorways with arches of pearls (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 67).

The paraśu of Kātyāyanī Devī. When Kātyāyanī Devī came forth from the tejas (radiance) of the devas to destroy the dānava Mahisha, each deva gave her a divine weapon or ornament: Śiva the triśūla, Śrī Hari the cakra, Vāyu the bow, Indra the vajra, and Viśvakarmā the paraśu, the battle-axe (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 19).

His day, his tree and his liṅga

The Aśūnya-śayana Dvitīyā. The Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 17, gives the order in which the devas go to sleep in Śrāvaṇa, when Sūrya enters Karkaṭa and Dakshiṇāyana, the night of the devas, begins: Viriñci (Brahmā) on the pāḍyami (first day), Viśvakarmā, the deva-śilpī, on the dvitīyā (second day), Devī Pārvatī on the tṛtīyā, and so on. The dvitīyā on which Prajāpati Viśvakarmā sleeps is called the holy Aśūnya-śayana Dvitīyā, “the second day of the bed never empty”. On that day one places the four-armed Mahāvishṇu, who bears the Śrīvatsa mark, with Mahālakshmī on a bed, worships him with fragrances and flowers, places fragrant fruits on the bed, and prays to Madhusūdana: “O Trivikrama, Ananta, Jagannivāsa! As you remain with Lakshmī and never leave her even for a moment, so by your grace may our beds too never be empty.” That night one eats food without oil and salt; the next day one gives a fruit to a brāhmaṇa with dakshiṇā. The vrata is kept so through the four months until Sūrya enters Vṛścika and the devatās wake, and on the dvitīyā one gives away the image of Lakshmī-Nārāyaṇa with its bed. One who performs it never in life suffers separation from anyone.

The kaṇṭakī tree. In the month of Āśvayuja, when the lotus was born from the navel of Jagannātha, the devas too brought forth their own trees and flowers. From Viśvakarmā arose the kaṇṭakī, a thorny tree, and it is dear to him (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 18).

In Brahmā’s sabhā. When Kaśyapa came with the devas to the sabhā of Brahmā, Pitāmaha of the worlds, he saw Brahmā served there by the prajāpatis and the ṛshis, by the elements and the Vedas, by the grahas, the Maruts, the Vasus, Sūrya and Candra, the days, the months and the seasons; and among them Viśvakarmā (Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 3).

His liṅga at Kurukshetra. East of the Sthāṇuvaṭa, the sacred banyan of the Sthāṇu tīrtha at Kurukshetra, stands the great liṅga set up by Viśvakarmā. One who has darśana (sacred sight) of it gains siddhi. At the same place is Sarasvatī Devī in the form of a liṅga; one who bows to her with bhakti gains intellect and the power of memory (Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 25).

The meeting at Pushkara

The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 10, tells this account. Viśvakarmā met the apsarā Ghṛtācī at Pushkara-tīrtha and was drawn to her. She refused him. She said the day belonged to Manmatha, so she could not be with him, and he should see her as equal to a guru’s wife (guru-patnī-tulya).

Viśvakarmā gave a śāpa: Ghṛtācī would be born as a śūdra woman. She answered with a śāpa of her own: he would be born as a human being.

Human birth and the nine sons

Both śāpas took effect. In their human births, Viśvakarmā and Ghṛtācī met again at Gaṅgā-Prayāga. They went to the Malaya mountain and were united there.

Nine sons were born to them. They became the fathers of nine artisan communities. The account names these: Mālakaras, Karmakāras, Śaṅkhakāras, Kuvindakas, Kumbhakāras, Sūtrakāras, Svarṇakāras and Citrakāras, and then says “one more”. Three of the sons later became patita (fallen) through a brahma-śāpa, a curse of a brāhmaṇa.

Citrāṅgadā and the śāpa of Ṛtadhvaja

The Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 37–39, tells this account within the Purāṇa that Pulastya Maharshi tells Nārada. Prahlāda, warning Andhaka, tells of King Daṇḍa of the Ikshvāku line, who desired Arajā, the daughter of Śukrācārya. To win her, Daṇḍa told her what Citrāṅgadā, the daughter of Viśvakarmā, had done long ago in the Deva-yuga, and Arajā answered with what followed.

His śāpa on his daughter

Citrāṅgadā, foremost in form, youth and loveliness, was the daughter of Viśvakarmā. Once she went with her friends to Naimishāraṇya to bathe in the Kāñcanākshī Sarasvatī. King Suratha saw her there and was overcome by desire. Her friends held her back: “You have no freedom to give yourself while your father lives, who knows all dharma and is master of the śilpa-śāstra.” Yet she gave herself to the king.

When Viśvakarmā heard that his daughter had acted on her own, he pronounced a śāpa on her: “Foolish girl! Leaving the path of dharma, you have given yourself to a man. So you shall have no marriage. You shall not have the joy of a husband or a husband’s love. Nor shall you have sons.” As the words of the śāpa came out, the river Sarasvatī carried Suratha away thirteen yojanas in her current. Citrāṅgadā fainted; her friends, thinking her dead, went off to bring wood and fire for her cremation. She woke alone, wept, and fell into the Sarasvatī, which carried her into the Gomatī, and the Gomatī cast her into a great forest full of lions and tigers.

The śāpa of Ṛtadhvaja

The yaksha Añjana, passing along the sky-path, comforted her and sent her to Śrīkaṇṭheśvara on the southern bank of the Yamunā. There Ṛtadhvaja, a great tapasvī, a Sāmavedī and a Pāśupata ācārya, came at midday to bathe and have darśana, and she told him her whole account. Hearing it, Ṛtadhvaja, in great anger, pronounced a śāpa on the śilpī: “That wicked one, who did not give his daughter to a fitting husband and kept her from her husband, let him become monkey-formed!” Then he sent Citrāṅgadā to worship Hāṭakeśvara at the Sapta-Godāvarī kshetra, and wrote on the temple of Śrīkaṇṭheśvara a verse: “There is no deva, no asura, no yaksha, no man and no night-wanderer who by his valour can take away the sorrow of this doe-eyed one.” (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 37)

Viśvakarmā as a vānara

By the muni’s śāpa Viśvakarmā became a vānara of fearsome form and fell from the peak of Meru to the earth, on the bank of the river Śālūkinī near the mountain Śālveya, in a terrible forest. There he lived for many years on roots, bulbs and fruits.

Devavatī. Once Kandara, best of the daityas, came there with his daughter Devavatī. The vānara carried her off by force. When Kandara pursued him with drawn sword, he fled to Himācala and left the maiden in an empty āśrama on the Yamunā, close to Śrīkaṇṭheśvara, and then, while Kandara watched, he sank into the waters of the Kālindī. Kandara, thinking both had drowned, went back to pātāla. The Kālindī carried the vānara to the land of Śivi, the abode of good people, and he set off back to where he had left Devavatī.

Nandayantī. On the way he saw the yaksha Añjana with his daughter Nandayantī. Taking her for Devavatī, he leapt to seize her, and she fell in fear into the river Hiraṇvatī, which carried her to Kośala.

Jābāli bound. There Nandayantī found, at the top of a great banyan, a five-year-old boy tied to the branch by his own jaṭās (matted locks): Jābāli, the son of Ṛtadhvaja. He told her: “A most wicked kapi bound me here. When I was walking to the Hiraṇvatī for my bath, he cried, ‘Fool! Where are you going, taking away Devavatī, whom I left in the great āśrama?’ He seized me and tied me to this tree with my own jaṭās, and so that I would not fall he bound me on every side with creepers and ropes, a machine of creepers, and went away to the Amara mountain. I live only by the power of tapas.” Ṛtadhvaja, learning this, went to Ayodhyā, and Prince Śakuni, son of the Ikshvāku king, cut the creepers with his arrows after five hundred years, built a pavilion of arrows and cut the branch into three pieces. Jābāli came down, but the knots of his jaṭās, with the pieces of the branch, stayed on his head. (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 38)

The end of the śāpa

Vedavatī. On Meru the vānara saw the gandharva maiden Vedavatī, daughter of Parjanya and Ghṛtācī, and called to her: “O Devavatī! Who brought you here from the āśrama on earth where I left you?” She said, “My name is Vedavatī, not Devavatī,” but he would not listen and chased her. She climbed a tall bandhujīva tree; he broke it with a fierce blow and hurled it towards the ocean, with Vedavatī clinging to a branch. Vāyu carried her to Pushkara.

Ghṛtācī. Ghṛtācī, searching for her daughter on Udayagiri, met the vānara and asked whether he had seen a maiden. He told her of the maiden Devavatī he had left in an āśrama on the Kālindī, opposite the temple of Śrīkaṇṭheśvara. “Her name is Vedavatī,” she said. “Come, let us go there.” With long strides he brought her to the river Kauśikī.

At the Kauśikī. There Ṛtadhvaja, Jābāli, Śakuni, King Indradyumna and Suratha had come to bathe. Jābāli saw the vānara and cried: “Father! There is the wicked vānara who tied my jaṭās to the branch!” Śakuni, blazing with anger, asked leave to bring him down with a single arrow. But Ṛtadhvaja, full of compassion for all beings, stopped him: “In this world no one kills anyone. Deaths and bondages come only according to each one’s own karma.” He called the vānara, who joined his hands, bowed and asked, “O Brahmarshi, what must I do?” “For ten thousand years this child has carried the weight of the branch you tied to his head. Untie those knots.” Slowly, slowly the vānara undid the tangled knots and set Jābāli wholly free.

Viśvakarmā reveals himself. Pleased, Ṛtadhvaja offered him a vara (a boon). Then the mahātejasvī Viśvakarmā, in the form of a vānara, said: “O holy one, if you would give me a vara, withdraw the very harsh śāpa you once gave me. O tapodhana, I am the unfortunate Viśvakarmā, the deva-śilpī, the father of Citrāṅgadā, on whom you pronounced the śāpa that made me a vānara. Through the fickleness of a monkey I have done many pāpas. Destroy them all and be gracious to me.” Ṛtadhvaja declared the end of the śāpa: “On the day you beget a mighty son by Ghṛtācī, on that day your monkeyhood will end.” Rejoicing, the vānara bathed in the river. Ghṛtācī flew up into the path of the sky, and the vānara followed her; she recognised him as Viśvakarmā and desired him, and the two dwelt together in the caves of the Kolāhala mountain and, after a long time, came to the Vindhya.

The birth of Nala and the weddings

At the Sapta-Godāvarī kshetra Ṛtadhvaja and his companions found Citrāṅgadā, Devavatī and Nandayantī singing before Hāṭakeśvara, and Vedavatī with them. Then the vānara came with Ghṛtācī, bathed in the Godāvarī and entered the temple for darśana of Hāṭakeśvara, and mother and daughter embraced. Ṛtadhvaja sent the vānara to bring the maidens’ fathers. Valorous as Vāyu, with the speed of the wind he called Añjana from Añjanādri, went to Amaragiri and told Parjanya to come, went down to pātāla and told Kandaramālī, and found Gālava Maharshi near Māhishmatī and brought him by the sky-path to Sapta-Godāvara.

When the three fathers had embraced their daughters, Citrāṅgadā wept that only her own father was not there. Ṛtadhvaja told her: “Daughter, do not grieve. This best of kapis is your father.” Ashamed, she wished to give up her body: “I am the slayer of my father; because of me alone he has fallen into this plight.” The muni comforted her: “No one can escape what is destined. As soon as this kapi has a son by Ghṛtācī, the śāpa will end and he will regain his former form.” Ghṛtācī promised: “In ten months a son of his own body will be born to your father through me.” Wishing to marry in her father’s presence, Citrāṅgadā waited, and the other three maidens put off their weddings to marry with her.

After ten months Ghṛtācī gave birth, at that same Godāvarī tīrtha, to a son named Nala. As soon as the son was born, Viśvakarmā left the monkey form and, in his own former form, embraced his dear daughter. Then the sura-śilpī remembered in his mind Devarāja Indra, the suras and the kinnaras, and at once Śakra came to the Hāṭakeśvara kshetra with the Maruts, the suras and the Rudra-gaṇas, as Viśvakarmā wished. Gālava Muni served as ṛtvij (officiating priest) and performed the wedding homas while the gandharvas sang. Jābāli took the hand of Devavatī, Indradyumna of Vedavatī, Śakuni of Nandayantī, and Suratha of Citrāṅgadā, the daughter of Viśvakarmā. Ṛtadhvaja told Indra and the devas that it is best to dwell in the holy Sapta-Godāvarī tīrtha, above all in the month of Vaiśākha, and they did so. (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 39)

Sources

• Vāyu Mahā Purāṇa, Uttarārdha, Chapter 5
• Brahma Vaivarta Mahā Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa (Chapter 10)
• Agni Purāṇa (the building of Dvārakā; no chapter given)
• Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 17–19, 28, 37–39, 67
• Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapters 3, 25