Citralekhā

Citralekhā was the friend and companion of Ushā, the daughter of Bāṇāsura. She was the daughter of Kumbhāṇḍa, one of Bāṇāsura’s ministers. The Yuddha Khaṇḍa of the Śiva Purāṇa tells her story. She had two great gifts. She could draw the portrait of any being in the three worlds with perfect accuracy. She also had tāmasayoga, the yogic power to travel unseen through the sky and to carry others with her.

The portraits

Ushā had seen a visitor in a dream. Citralekhā found out who he was by drawing the beings of creation one after another. She drew the devas, then the gandharvas, then the dānavas, then the nāgas, then humans. At last Ushā pointed to the face of Aniruddha and knew him as the one she had seen.

The flight to Dvārakā

On Jyeshṭha Kṛshṇa Caturdaśī (the fourteenth day of the dark half of the month of Jyeshṭha), just before sunrise, Citralekhā flew to Dvārakā. She took Aniruddha while he slept and brought him to Śoṇitapura. With her power of flying through the sky she crossed from Śoṇitapura to Dvārakā and back in a single night. Aniruddha did not wake.

Her father Kumbhāṇḍa

Kumbhāṇḍa took a wise and calming part in the events that followed. He advised Bāṇāsura not to kill Aniruddha. He knew that killing the grandson of Kṛshṇa would bring terrible punishment. Citralekhā brought the two together, and her father held back an immediate disaster.

Sources

• Śiva Purāṇa, Rudra Saṃhitā, Yuddha Khaṇḍa, Chapters 51–52