Indradyumna

Indradyumna, simply known as Indradyumna, Sanskrit: इन्द्रद्युम्न, Telugu: ఇంద్రద్యుమ్నుడు, Hindi: इंद्रद्युम्न.

Indradyumna is the name of several kings in the Purāṇas. The best known is the celebrated king of the Pāṇḍya dynasty of the Draviḍa country. He was firmly devoted to Bhagavān Vishṇu and renowned for his arcana (worship) of Śrī Hari. The ṛshi Agastya laid a śāpa (a curse) on him, and he was reborn as Gajendra, the great elephant king. The strength of his lifetime of devotion did not leave him even in an animal birth. When a crocodile seized him and death was near, the Gajendra-stotra rose in him by itself from the impressions (saṃskāras) of his earlier devotion. Bhagavān Śrī Hari freed him, and he went back to the four-armed divine form of Bhagavān Vishṇu’s own attendants. This is one of the most celebrated examples of how the saṃskāras of bhakti (devotion) carry the jīva (the living being) across births.

Below are also two other kings of the same name from the Skanda Mahā Purāṇa.

Pāṇḍya king and devotee

Indradyumna was a king of the Pāṇḍya line from the Draviḍa country, one of the ancient Tamil kingdoms. The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa shows him as a man of deep upāsanā (devotion) to Bhagavān Vishṇu. He was firm in the arcana of Śrī Hari, and his mind was always turned to Bhagavān Vishṇu. At one time in his practice he took a maunavrata, a vow of silence, and was absorbed in the ārādhana of Śrī Hari.

Agastya’s śāpa

Indradyumna was deep in his upāsanā and bound by the maunavrata when the great ṛshi Agastya came to the royal palace with his group of disciples. Custom asked the king to rise, offer arghya (water of welcome) and speak words of welcome. But he was held by his vow of silence and lost in meditation, and he could not rise to receive the ṛshi. Agastya took this as a serious insult and spoke a śāpa:

“This man whose understanding is as dull as an elephant’s: let him become an elephant and enter the thick darkness of ajñāna (ignorance).”

The king accepted the śāpa as daiva, the ordering of Īśvara himself.

Birth as Gajendra

In his birth as Gajendra, the king lost human speech, human reason and human powers. The full weight of saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death) came down on him. Yet the Bhāgavatam says plainly what did not leave him: the saṃskāras of his lifetime of arcana of Śrī Hari. These deep impressions lay hidden in the jīva, while the elephant lived through countless seasons in the forest and did not know they were there.

The test came when the crocodile seized him. For a thousand years he struggled in vain. When every earthly help was gone, Gajendra came to complete surrender. In that moment his old sādhana (practice) awoke. The Gajendra-stotra rose in his mind without effort. It was the same stotra (hymn of praise) he had practised in his earlier birth. The Bhāgavatam says:

“That he remembered the Hari-stotra while an elephant was entirely the effect of the Hari-arcana he had performed in his previous birth.”

Liberation and his own form again

Bhagavān Śrī Hari came down on Garuḍa and cut off the crocodile’s mouth with the Sudarśana cakra. The moment his touch reached Gajendra, the knot of ajñāna-bandha (the bond of ignorance) was cut. The elephant body fell away, and Gajendra, now Indradyumna again, stood in a four-armed, gold-clad divine form like that of Bhagavān Vishṇu’s own attendants. He had won more than escape from the crocodile. He had won moksha (liberation), freedom from the cycle of birth.

What the account teaches

The Bhāgavatam stresses a clear teaching in the account of Indradyumna as Gajendra. The saṃskāras of bhakti cannot be destroyed across births. No śāpa, no animal body and no loss of human powers can wipe out what real upāsanā of Bhagavān Vishṇu has built. The jīva carries these impressions, and they rise exactly when they are needed most, when every other help has failed. So Indradyumna stands in the Bhāgavatam as the proof that bhakti lasts, and that anugraha (grace) rules over the workings of birth and rebirth.

The Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa: another Indradyumna

The Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa of the Skanda Mahā Purāṇa tells of another king of the same name. He was a great king of ancient times who performed a yajña of enormous reach. It was so strong that it heated the earth to a depth of two aṅgulas (finger-breadths) and made all the tīrtha waters of the world rush out of the earth’s body and form the river Mahī. His kīrti (fame) filled the three worlds. But so much time passed after his death that no living being remembered him.

His place in the higher worlds became unsafe because his kīrti had been lost. He came down to earth with his devoted companion Mārkaṇḍeya Muni. Together they looked for ancient beings who live through many kalpas and might still remember him:

• the crane Nāḍījaṅgha, who lives fourteen kalpas
• the owl Prākārakarṇa, who lives twenty-eight kalpas
• the Garuḍa Kuśadhvaja, who lives fifty-six kalpas
• the tortoise Jayadata in the form of a kūrma, at Mānasasarovara

The tortoise’s memory held the record of the king’s yajña, for its back still carried the scorched marks of Indradyumna’s yajña fires. This witness gave back the king’s kīrti, and a divine vimāna (aerial chariot) came down for him.

Indradyumna refused the vimāna and the return to svarga (heaven). He said he wanted a guru who could show him the far shore of saṃsāra, and he wished instead for śivagaṇatva, the state of being one of the gaṇas (attendants) of Bhagavān Śiva. His friend Mārkaṇḍeya promised to enter the fire with him if he did not reach his goal. In time the group was sent to Saṃvarta Muni in Vārāṇasī, and then to the Mahīsāgara Saṃgama. There Bhagavān Śiva appeared and gave each of them what he wished. Indradyumna set up the Indradyumneśvara liṅga at the saṃgama and became one of the gaṇas of Bhagavān Śiva. This is told in the Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Māheśvara Khaṇḍa, Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa, Chapters 7–13.

The Vaishṇava Khaṇḍa: builder of Jagannātha’s prāsāda

The Vaishṇava Khaṇḍa of the Skanda Mahā Purāṇa tells of one more Indradyumna, a king of the solar dynasty (Sūryavaṃśa). His devotion to Bhagavān Vishṇu and his great tapas (austerity) made him the means by which the eternal worship of Jagannātha’s wooden mūrti (the dāru-mūrti) was set up at Purushottama Kshetra. This Indradyumna is different from the Pāṇḍya king of the Bhāgavatam and from the king of the Māheśvara Khaṇḍa.

Finding Nīla Mādhava

Indradyumna heard of a form of Bhagavān Vishṇu that was kept in secret among the Śabara people of Utkala. He sent his trusted brāhmaṇa messenger Vidyāpati to find it. Vidyāpati kept up his search with great effort, even marrying the daughter of Viśvāvasu, the Śabara keeper of the mūrti. He was taken blindfolded to Rohiṇī Kuṇḍa, where Nīla Mādhava was worshipped in secret. But when Indradyumna came to have darśana, the form had gone of its own will and lay buried under golden sand. A bodiless voice (aśarīra-vāṇī) said that the time had come for the dāru-mūrti to appear.

One thousand aśvamedha yāgas

Indradyumna was told to build a prāsāda (temple) and wait for the dāru-mūrti. He performed one thousand aśvamedha yāgas at Purushottama Kshetra. The avabhṛtha-snāna waters (the bath at the end of the yajña) from these yāgas made the sacred lake called the Indradyumna Sarovara.

Receiving and setting up the dāru-mūrti

A huge divine tree trunk was seen floating in the ocean. The voice of Svāmi told Indradyumna to pull it from the ocean, cover it for fifteen days, and let an aged carpenter work alone inside a sealed enclosure. Viśvakarmā came, disguised as the carpenter. When the enclosure was opened, four fully formed mūrtis had appeared from the one trunk: Jagannātha, Balabhadra, Subhadrā and Sudarśana.

The journey to Brahmaloka and the return

Indradyumna travelled to Brahmaloka to invite Brahmā to perform the pratishṭhā (the rite of setting up the mūrtis). In Brahmā’s assembly time ran differently. What felt like a short visit was one manvantara (seventy-one mahāyugas) on earth. When Indradyumna came back, the world was wholly changed, but the prāsāda still stood, kept safe by the grace of Jagannātha himself. Brahmā came down from Satyaloka in a vimāna drawn by a hundred golden haṃsas (swans) to perform the setting up.

Brahmā’s pratishṭhā and the blessings of Jagannātha

The pratishṭhā was performed on the ashṭamī (eighth day) of the bright fortnight of Vaiśākha, under the Pushya nakshatra, on a Thursday (Guruvāra). After the pratishṭhā, Jagannātha spoke to Indradyumna himself and gave him lasting varas (boons). The prāsāda would never be abandoned. Whoever rebuilt it would gain glory in the name of Indradyumna. The yearly Guṇḍicā Yātrā and Jyeshṭha Snāna would be kept for ever.

The Indradyumna Sarovara bears his name for all time. His place as the founder and patron of the Jagannātha temple is kept for ever by the declaration of Svāmi himself.

The Vaishṇava Khaṇḍa tells this in its Purushottama Kshetra Māhātmya: Chapters 7–10 for the finding of Nīla Mādhava, Chapters 14–17 for the aśvamedha yāgas, Chapters 18–19 for the mūrtis, Chapters 22–26 for Brahmaloka, and Chapters 27 and 29 for the pratishṭhā and the blessings.

Sources

• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 8th Skandha, Chapter 4
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Māheśvara Khaṇḍa, Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa, Chapters 7–13
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaishṇava Khaṇḍa, Purushottama Kshetra Māhātmya, Chapters 7–10, 14–17, 18–19, 22–26, 27 and 29