Vyādhis

Vyādhi, “disease”

The Vyādhis are the diseases in person. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa names them the sons of Mṛtyukanyā, the maiden Death, whose husband is Kāla; with Yama, Kāla and Mṛtyukanyā they take beings only when their time has come, by the command of Īśvara. Sauti tells their part in the account of Mālāvatī to Śaunaka.

Mālāvatī’s śāpa

When the gandharva Upabarhaṇa left his body by yoga, his eldest wife Mālāvatī lamented and threatened to pronounce a śāpa on the devas, on Brahmā, Śiva, Dharma, Yama, Kāla and Mṛtyukanyā. But because her husband had not died of disease or of old age, she spared Jarā, old age, and the Vyādhis from her śāpa.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 13

Before Mālāvatī

Bhagavān Vishṇu came to her in the form of a brāhmaṇa physician and said that he could bind Mṛtyu, Yama, Kāla and Vyādhi as a hunter ties an animal, and bring them before her. In the assembly Mālāvatī saw Mṛtyukanyā, dark and six-armed, with her sons on the left side of her husband Kāla, and then the hosts of diseases, exceedingly old, behaving like little children beside their mother Mṛtyukanyā.

Yama told Mālāvatī that no one dies before the time of death: “I, Kāla, Mṛtyukanyā and these Vyādhis take only those whose time has come, and only by the command of Īśvara.” Mṛtyukanyā said that Brahmā had appointed her to the work of death, and that it is by the prompting of her husband Kāla that she and her sons, the Vyādhis, do this work; in it there is not the least fault of her sons.

Source: Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Chapter 15

Sources

• Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Chapters 13, 15