Vṛndā, Wife of Jalandhara

Vṛndā was the pativratā (devoted wife) of the asura king Jalandhara. She was of apsarā (celestial dancer) lineage, born to the apsarā Svarṇā through the grace of Krauñca. Her complete devotion to her husband was the base of Jalandhara’s invincibility. No power in creation could harm him while her purity stayed whole.

The devas could not defeat Jalandhara in battle. So Bhagavān Viṣṇu used a deception. He came as the ṛṣi Devaśarman, showed Vṛndā a false vision of her husband’s death, and then deceived her into union with a false Jalandhara. This broke her purity. When she found out, Vṛndā cursed Bhagavān Viṣṇu that his own wife would be taken by a disguised ascetic. The Padma Mahā Purāṇa links the fulfilment of this curse to the Rāmāyaṇa. Vṛndā then gave up her body in fire. The Tulasī plant arose from her sweat or her ashes. The forest near Govardhana, where she had done tapas (austerity), became the sacred forest of Vṛndāvana.

Birth and lineage

Vṛndā was of apsarā lineage. She was born to the apsarā Svarṇā through the favour of Krauñca, who is described as a mountain or a divine being linked with this grace.

Śukrācārya was Jalandhara’s guru. He gave Vṛndā in marriage to Jalandhara and arranged the union. From her marriage Vṛndā gave herself wholly to her husband. This was more than ordinary wifely faithfulness. It was pātivratya dharma, the sacred power that comes to a woman whose devotion to her husband is complete and unbroken. (Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapters 4–5)

Pātivratya as a shield

The Uttara Khaṇḍa says that Jalandhara’s invincibility rested on two things. One was the vara (boon) of invincibility given by Brahmā. The other was the steady, protecting power of Vṛndā’s unbroken devotion. Together these two shields made him impossible to defeat by any direct means.

The devas knew this. So they decided to act against Vṛndā. They did not mean to harm her body. They meant to use a deception that would break the unbroken line of her devotion. The Purāṇa teaches that pātivratya is more than a household virtue: it is a power that can outlast any weapon. (Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapters 5–15)

The tapas in the forest

Jalandhara fought great wars against the devas, and at last against Bhagavān Śiva himself. During this time Vṛndā did tapas in the forest near Govardhana, for her husband’s victory and safe return. Her tapas added to the power of her pātivratya. In this forest, while she was in deep austerity and prayer, Bhagavān Viṣṇu found her and carried out his deception. (Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapters 15–16)

The deception by Bhagavān Viṣṇu

Bhagavān Viṣṇu came to Vṛndā in the forest as the ṛṣi Devaśarman, son of Bhāradvāja. Śeṣa came with him in a disguised form. First Bhagavān Viṣṇu showed Vṛndā an illusion: the cut-off head of Jalandhara, as if her husband had been killed. Vṛndā was overcome with grief at the sight. She wept, and her concentration was shaken.

Then Bhagavān Viṣṇu created a second illusion. Jalandhara appeared alive and well, and embraced her. Vṛndā believed that her husband had come back, and she received the false Jalandhara. The union took place.

With this, the unbroken thread of Vṛndā’s purity was cut. The shield that it gave to Jalandhara fell. Without that second shield, Jalandhara could be destroyed. The battle began again, and Bhagavān Śiva destroyed him with the Sudarśana disc. (Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapters 15–16)

The discovery and the curse

After this, Vṛndā learned the truth. The one she had received was not her husband but Bhagavān Viṣṇu in disguise. She was filled with deep grief and anger. She turned to Bhagavān Viṣṇu and spoke a śāpa (a curse):

“As you came to me disguised as an ascetic to take my husband’s life through deception, so too shall a disguised ascetic take your wife from you.”

The Uttara Khaṇḍa says this curse was fulfilled in the Rāmāyaṇa. Rāvaṇa disguised himself as a wandering ascetic (sannyāsī) and carried off Sītā, the consort of Bhagavān Rāma, from the forest of Daṇḍakāraṇya. The Uttara Khaṇḍa joins the central event of the Rāmāyaṇa to the curse of Vṛndā. It presents Bhagavān Rāma’s exile and the abduction of Sītā as following from the act of deception that undid Jalandhara. (Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 16)

The Tulasī plant and Vṛndāvana

After cursing Bhagavān Viṣṇu, Vṛndā chose to leave her body. She entered the fire together with her friend Smaradūtī. The Uttara Khaṇḍa says that the Tulasī plant arose from Vṛndā’s sweat in one account, or from her ashes in another. Their ashes were cast into the Mandākinī.

The forest near Mount Govardhana, where Vṛndā had done tapas and where these events took place, was named Vṛndāvana in her memory. The name means “Vṛndā’s forest”. This is the same Vṛndāvana where Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa would later play his childhood līlā (divine play). (Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapters 15–16)

In the Uttara Khaṇḍa account, the Tulasī plant comes from Vṛndā’s grief and her self-immolation. (Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapters 14–16)

The Skanda Purāṇa account

The Skanda Mahā Purāṇa tells Vṛndā’s story as part of the war between Jalandhara and Bhagavān Śiva.

While Jalandhara fought Bhagavān Śiva, Vṛndā had terrible dreams of warning. She saw her husband sitting naked on a buffalo, wearing black flowers, with flesh-eating animals around him and his head fully shaved, going south. She saw her city sunk in the sea and wrapped in darkness. She woke in great distress and walked through the city park, but found no peace. There she met two terrifying Rākṣasas with lion faces and curved teeth. She fled from them and saw a calm, silent ascetic with a disciple. In terror she clasped the ascetic’s neck and begged for protection. With a single hum he drove the Rākṣasas away. Then she asked him about her husband in the battle.

The ascetic was Bhagavān Viṣṇu in disguise. He sent two monkeys to the battlefield. They came back holding Jalandhara’s cut-off head, his hands and his headless trunk. Vṛndā knew them as her husband’s and fell unconscious. The ṛṣi sprinkled her with water from his pot and comforted her. Then he gave life again to Jalandhara’s form. Vṛndā believed her husband was alive, and she spent many days with him in the forest in joy. At the end of their union she saw him in the form of Bhagavān Viṣṇu. She understood the deception and cried: “Fie upon your conduct, O Hari, you commit adultery! I know you are a fake ascetic.”

In the Skanda account, Vṛndā’s curse on Bhagavān Viṣṇu is this: the two gatekeepers whom he showed her as Rākṣasas will be born as Rākṣasas. They will carry off his wife. He will wander in the forest, wretched from the loss of his wife, together with Śeṣa, the king of serpents, who is now his disciple. After this curse she entered the fire, though Bhagavān Viṣṇu tried to stop her.

Bhagavān Viṣṇu stood grief-stricken, covered with her ashes. Even when the devas and Siddhas comforted him, he could find no peace. The curse was fulfilled in the Rāmāyaṇa. His own gatekeepers, Jaya and Vijaya, took birth as Rākṣasas, as Rāvaṇa and Kumbhakarṇa, and Rāvaṇa carried off Sītā. Bhagavān Rāma wandered in misery with Lakṣmaṇa, who was Śeṣa born again as his disciple. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaiṣṇava Khaṇḍa, Kārtika Māsa Māhātmya, Chapter 21)

The Skanda account says that Bhagavān Viṣṇu was covered with the ashes to which Vṛndā was reduced, and that he stood there unable to find peace. From the place where he mourned, three plants grew from seeds given by three devīs. These were Tulasī, from the seed of Gaurī, Dhātrī, from the seed of the Earth, and Mālatī. Bhagavān Viṣṇu was comforted by Tulasī and Dhātrī, and he went to Vaikuṇṭha with them. (Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaiṣṇava Khaṇḍa, Kārtika Māsa Māhātmya, Chapter 23)

Sources

• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapters 4–5
• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapters 5–15
• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapters 14–16
• Skanda Mahā Purāṇa, Vaiṣṇava Khaṇḍa, Kārtika Māsa Māhātmya, Chapters 21 and 23