Sudharma (king of Vidarbha)

Sudharma

Śravaṇa has other meanings too: see all meanings of Śravaṇa. Kāśī has other meanings too: see all meanings of Kāśī.

Sudharma is a prince, and later the king, of Vidarbha. He married Suśīlā, daughter of the king of Kāśī, who was Nārada Maharshi in the form he took within the māyā of Bhagavān Vishṇu, and he fell in war with the king of Kāśī. He is a different person from Sudharmā the merchant.

The munis ask Vyāsa by what means bhakti to Vishṇu arises, and Vyāsa tells them of the ṛshi Sutapas, who asked Bhagavān Vishṇu to show him the truth of his māyā. Bhagavān Vishṇu told him that long ago Nārada had asked the same vara and would not be turned from it. “If you plunge into the water, you will know my māyā,” Bhagavān Vishṇu told him. Nārada plunged into the water and rose up as Suśīlā, daughter of the king of Kāśī.

When she reached youth, the king of Kāśī gave her in marriage to Sudharma, the prince of Vidarbha, and Sudharma lived with her in the joys of married life. After his father went to svarga, the valiant Sudharma became ruler of Vidarbha and lived happily with sons and grandsons. Then war broke out between the king of Kāśī and Sudharma, and both perished, together with their sons and grandsons. Suśīlā went to the battlefield and grieved there a long while; then she built a great pyre for her father, her husband and all their sons and grandsons, and entered the fire crying “Alas, my son!” At once she became Nārada again, and the fire became a cool, clear lake. Bhagavān Vishṇu stood before him, laughing aloud, and asked: “Maharshi, who is your son? For whom are you grieving?” Such, Bhagavān Vishṇu said, is his māyā, which even Brahmā, Rudra and Mahendra do not know.

Source: Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 229

Sources

• Brahma Purāṇa, Chapter 229