Śaśidhvaja

Śaśidhvaja was the king of Bhallāṭanagara at the time of Bhagavān Kalki’s digvijaya (march of conquest). He was a warrior of great power, a deeply learned man and a pure devotee of Bhagavān Viṣṇu. He knew Bhagavān Kalki as an avatāra of Bhagavān Viṣṇu before the battle began, and still he chose to fight. He told his wife Suśānta that fighting with Bhagavān Kalki was a form of yajña and of kṣatriya-sevā (the service of a kṣatriya). In the battle he struck Bhagavān Kalki unconscious and carried him to his palace. Suśānta’s stotra (hymn of praise) woke Bhagavān Kalki there. Śaśidhvaja then gave his daughter Ramā, an avatāra of Satyabhāmā, in marriage to Bhagavān Kalki. He told the story of his past life as a vulture that died on a Śālagrāma stone, and taught about bhakti and kṣatriya-dharma. He also told that he had been Satrājit in the time of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa. With the blessing of Bhagavān Kalki he left with Suśānta to do tapas, sang the Māyāstava at Kōkāmukha tīrtha, and reached mokṣa through the Sudarśana Cakra.

Who he was

Śaśidhvaja ruled Bhallāṭanagara, a powerful kingdom that Bhagavān Kalki met in the course of the great digvijaya. The Kalki Purāṇa calls him buddhimān (of great intelligence), tejassaṃpanna (full of bright energy) and balaprakramavanta (full of bodily strength and courage). He was a warrior in the fullest sense of a kṣatriya, able to answer Bhagavān Kalki weapon for weapon and fist for fist.

His inner life was just as remarkable. He was a devotee of Bhagavān Viṣṇu with deep conviction, a student of Vedic philosophy, and a man who had carried the memory of contact with Bhagavān Viṣṇu through many lives. He could speak from his own experience about bhakti, about the way of progress through saṃsāra (the round of birth and death), and about sādhana (spiritual practice), for he had lived it and not merely studied it.

The decision to fight

When the army of Bhagavān Kalki came near Bhallāṭanagara, Śaśidhvaja knew the avatāra at once. He armed himself and drew up his forces. His wife Suśānta asked him: “How can you fight Bhagavān Kalki himself?” His answer was a full statement of dharma:

“On the battlefield all are equal: teacher, pupil, even Hari. This is the highest dharma laid down by Prajāpati. The kṣatriya who comes back alive from battle enjoys its fruits. The one who falls in battle reaches svarga (heaven). Both are joyful for us. Those whose only aim is the service of the feet of Bhagavān Viṣṇu have no interest in these results. That is true. But we follow the path of the Vedas, of Manu and of the great ṛṣis. On that Vedic path the yajña of war is itself the service of Bhagavān Viṣṇu. I go with the name of Hari on my lips.”

Suśānta accepted this. Śaśidhvaja embraced her and went, like a devotee going to meet Bhagavān Kalki.

The battle

Śaśidhvaja fought on many fronts. He sent his son Sūryaketu against Maru, and Sūryaketu defeated Maru and left him unconscious. He sent his younger son Bṛhatketu against Devāpi, but in the end Devāpi seized Bṛhatketu with crushing force. Śaśidhvaja himself fought Viśākhayūpa.

He also fought Bhagavān Kalki directly. He asked for this fight out of longing and not out of pride. When he at last stood before Bhagavān Kalki in the confusion of the battle, he called out: “O Paramātmā! Come, strike my heart! Enter me, where I will hold you, for I fear that otherwise your arrows may touch me.”

The duel went through the whole range of astras (divine weapons): Brahmāstra against Brahmāstra, Vāyavyāstra against Parvatāstra, Āgneyāstra against Parjanyāstra, Nāgāstra against Garuḍāstra. Then came kicks, blows to the head and fist fighting. In this last stage of fighting with bare hands, Śaśidhvaja struck Bhagavān Kalki with a force like the vajra (thunderbolt), and Bhagavān Kalki fell unconscious.

Carrying Bhagavān Kalki to the palace

Śaśidhvaja did not treat the unconscious Bhagavān Kalki as a prisoner or a beaten enemy. He acted as a devotee would. He took Bhagavān Kalki under one arm. He took Dharma and Kṛtayuga, who had come to carry Bhagavān Kalki away, under the other arm. He called back all his sons from the battle. Then he walked home, carrying Bhagavān Kalki himself.

He found Suśānta singing the praises of Bhagavān Viṣṇu in the shrine room of Bhagavān Viṣṇu. He told her plainly: “Bhagavān Kalki has come here in the form of one who is unconscious. This is his māyā (power of illusion), so that he may see your bhakti. Receive all three of them and worship them.”

The assembly and the teaching on bhakti

After the great wedding of Bhagavān Kalki and Ramā, the kings who were there asked Śaśidhvaja to explain what bhakti is and how such devotion had risen in him. He answered. He spoke from what he had seen in Brahmaloka, in the talk between Sanaka and Nārada. His teaching included these points:

• The devotee controls the five organs of sense and the mind, and lays them at the feet of the guru.
• The highest mantra is the joining of Oṃkāra and Nārāyaṇa (Oṃ namaḥ svāhā).
• The ṣoḍaśopacāra pūjā (worship with sixteen offerings) of Vāsudeva is the main daily practice.
• The devotee meditates on Nārāyaṇa in the heart, offering him all faculties: word, mind, intellect and senses.
• “Kṛṣṇa is the one served; I am the servant; all beings are forms of the ātmā of Kṛṣṇa.” This is the pure sātvika sense of oneness with the service of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa.
• The devotee dances, weeps, laughs and wanders as if mad with divine love (unmatta-vat).
• Bhakti is eternal. It is itself the wealth of Brahman (brahma-sampada) and is higher than the Vedas.

He also answered the question of the kings on why he had fought. He said that the Vedic path requires a kṣatriya to kill what ought to be killed, and that failing to do so is itself pāpa (sin). The yajña of war and the true yajña are both service of Bhagavān Viṣṇu for those who stand rightly. He said: “When all is full of Viṣṇu, who kills? Who is killed? Yet the Veda lays down the act in the setting of the yajña.”

The past life: the vulture and the Śālagrāma

The source of the bhakti of Śaśidhvaja was shown in the story of his past life. In an ancient time, at the end of a thousand yugas, he and Suśānta were vultures. A fowler caught them and brought them to the bank of the river Gaṇḍakī. There their skulls were struck against a Śālagrāma śilā, the stone that bears the marks of the cakra of Bhagavān Viṣṇu. Death on the Śālagrāma stone changed them at once. They received divine four-armed forms, rose in a vimāna and went to Vaikuṇṭha for one hundred yugas. Then they spent five hundred yugas in Brahmaloka and four hundred yugas in Svargaloka. Then they were born as humans, and the memory of that contact stayed fixed in their ātmās. It gave rise to the bhakti that marked their present lives.

Śaśidhvaja said: “If a mere death in touch with the Śālagrāma stone gives such a fruit, what must be the fruit of a whole life of service to Vāsudeva?”

The connection with Satrājit

At the end Śaśidhvaja told Bhagavān Kalki and the assembly the deepest link of karma in his life. He had been Satrājit in the avatāra of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa. Prasena was killed by a lion, and the lion was killed by Jāmbavān. Satrājit then blamed Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa unjustly for the loss of the Syamantaka jewel. Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa found the jewel in the cave of Jāmbavān after a battle of twenty-one days and returned it to Satrājit. Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa received Jāmbavatī, the daughter of Jāmbavān. Satrājit, now ashamed, gave Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa Satyabhāmā and the jewel again. But the stain of the false charge (kalaṅka) kept Satrājit from full mokṣa in that birth.

In his birth as Śaśidhvaja, his daughter Ramā was an avatāra of Satyabhāmā. The gift of Ramā to Bhagavān Kalki, who is Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa himself, completed the fulfilment of his karma (karmapūraṇa). The fight, and the surrender at the feet of Bhagavān Kalki, wiped out the old stain. For this reason Bhagavān Kalki, remembering the story of Satrājit, had bowed his head in shame when Śaśidhvaja spoke of it.

Departure and mokṣa

Śaśidhvaja had finished his work. He had given Ramā in marriage, taught about bhakti and made his last confession. He then asked the leave of Bhagavān Kalki to go to the forest. He placed his sons under the care of Bhagavān Kalki and left with Suśānta for Haridvāra to do tapas. On the way he recited the Māyāstava, a deep hymn to the power of Māyā, at Kōkāmukha tīrtha. There he reached mokṣa through the Sudarśana Cakra, and rose to Vaikuṇṭha.

Sources

• Kalki Purāṇa, Tṛtīyāṃśa, Chapters 8–15 (his character and the decision to fight in Chapter 8; the battle in Chapters 8–9; carrying Bhagavān Kalki to the palace in Chapter 9; the teaching on bhakti in Chapters 11–12; the past life in Chapter 11; the link with Satrājit in Chapter 13; the departure and mokṣa in Chapters 13–15)