Ṛshis

Ṛshi, “the seers”

A Ṛshi (Sanskrit: ऋषि, ṛshi) is a mantra-drashṭā, “one who sees the mantras”. The Vedas are apaurusheya, not made by any person; the Ṛshis did not compose them but saw and heard them (śruti) in deep samādhi, when tapas had made their minds pure enough to receive them. Through that vision they laid down the dharma of the householder and the renunciant, kept the Vedas alive from teacher to student, and gave the world yoga, yajña, Āyurveda and jyotisha. Every family in the Vedic fold traces its line to a Ṛshi through its gotra.

Ṛshis are of several classes. A Brahmarshi, the highest, has realised Brahman (Vasishṭha is the example); a Devarshi is a ṛshi of divine rank who moves between the worlds (Nārada); a Rājarshi is a king who became a ṛshi by tapas (Viśvāmitra); and a Maharshi is a “great ṛshi” who has mastered the mysteries of the self and the cosmos. The seven Saptarshis guard the Vedas in each manvantara.

Each ṛshi below has his or her own full page on this site. This page is a guide to them: it gives a short account of every ṛshi, grouped by family and by the texts in which they appear, with a link to the full page. The two pages in the first group tell what a ṛshi is and what the Purāṇas say of the ṛshis as a class. The list of all the pages is at the end.

What a ṛshi is, and the ṛshis as a class

Who the Ṛshis Are tells what a Ṛshi is: a mantra-drashṭā, “one who sees the mantras”, through whom the unauthored Vedas were revealed, not composed but heard in deep samādhi by minds refined through tapas. The Ṛshis are the custodians of Śruti, the architects of the dharma of householder and renunciant, and the founders of the gotras; they are classed as Brahmarshi, Devarshi, Rājarshi and Maharshi; and they gave the world yoga, yajña, Āyurveda and jyotisha. The page also lists the Saptarshis of the present age.

The Ṛshis in the Vāmana and Agni Purāṇas gathers what these two Purāṇas say of the ṛshis as a class. In the Vāmana Purāṇa the maharshis of Magadha teach the rākshasa king Sukeśī that dharma alone gives happiness and that the dharma of the ṛshis is brahmacarya, measured eating, japa and jñāna; the ṛshis are given freedom from fear by Bhagavān Vishṇu at Daksha‘s yajña, give five gaṇas to Skanda, praise Śrī Hari after Gajendra‘s release and rejoice at Bali‘s yajña. In the Agni Purāṇa they have their own tithi, ekādaśī, and their own letters, the ta-varga, and are called on at a king’s abhisheka and before medicine is given.

The Bhavishya Purāṇa too speaks of the ṛshis as a class. When the ṛshis came to King Śatānīka they would not speak the śāstra in the presence of Vyāsa, for a disciple cannot speak before his guru. Brahmā taught the maharshis the kaivalya yoga of restraining all the movements of the mind, for the ārādhana of Bhagavān Sūrya. They asked him for a means without toil, a raft to cross saṃsāra, and they composed the yoga śāstras devoted to Kriyā Yoga. In the Uttara Parva, crores of munis performed tapas in the Satya Yuga on the peak Ṭaṇṭāvi in holy Jambūmārga, wishing for the darśana of Bhagavān Śaṅkara, and when a tiger frightened a cow with her calf they, in anger, rang the terrible-sounding bell obtained from Brahmā. The ṛshis stand in the pores of the hair of Bhagavān Sūrya in his Viśvarūpa. They eat at midday, and through the brāhmaṇa’s mouth.

Brahmā’s mind-born sons, the Prajāpatis and the great companies of ṛshis

The Saptarshis are the seven great ṛshis, mind-born sons of Brahmā and Prajāpatis, who guide each manvantara and spread the Veda on the earth. The Vāmana Purāṇa names them Kaśyapa, Vasishṭha, Atri, Viśvāmitra, Gautama, Bharadvāja and Aṅgiras, with Arundhatī beside them; the seven of the present age are also given as Atri, Vasishṭha, Kaśyapa, Gautama, Jamadagni, Bharadvāja and Viśvāmitra. Bhagavān Śiva sent them to Himavān to ask for Umā, and they fixed the muhūrta of the wedding; together they made the Brahmodumbara tīrtha at Kurukshetra. The Agni Purāṇa tells how they rode out the pralaya with Manu in the Matsya‘s boat, how Vishṇu set Dhruva before them, and names the Saptarshis of all fourteen manvantaras.

The Prajāpatis are the lords of created beings, Daksha and the others. The Vāmana Purāṇa tells that at the Sannihita tīrtha, while Śiva lay in tapas under the waters, the creator Brahmā had brought forth by his will made all beings and the Prajāpatis, who divided all beings into four kinds. Brahmā is chief among them and Kaśyapa the best; they worship Brahmā in his sabhā, their radiance became the teeth of Kātyāyanī Devī, and they dwell in the Sudarśana cakra and were seen in the universal form of Bhagavān Vāmana.

Marīci is a Prajāpati of the first creation, the mind-born son of Brahmā and the father of Kaśyapa, from whom the devas and much of creation descend. The Agni Purāṇa names him first of the seven Brahmās and tells how he married Dharmavratā, daughter of Dharma, and when she left his service to honour Brahmā pronounced the śāpa that made her the holy rock of Gayā; the Brahma Purāṇa was first told to him. In the Vāmana Purāṇa he serves in Brahmā’s sabhā and gives the young Vāmana his staff at his upanayana.

Kratu is one of the seven mind-born sons of Brahmā, called the seven Brahmās, who carried out the creation of beings. By his wife Sannati, a daughter of Daksha, he became the father of the sixty thousand Vālakhilyas, each the size of a thumb-joint. He receives water in the daily ṛshi-tarpaṇa with the mantra oṃ hāṃ kratave namaḥ, and the abhisheka of a king calls on him to protect the king (Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 17, 20, 72).

The Vālakhilyas are munis born of Brahmā, devoted to tapas and Veda study; the Agni Purāṇa says sixty thousand of them, each the size of a thumb-joint, were born to Kratu by Sannati. In the Vāmana Purāṇa they did tapas for a thousand divine years in the Devadāruvana, but kāma and krodha were still in their minds; when Śiva came among them as a sky-clad bhikshu they struck him and his liṅga fell, and after Brahmā’s teaching it was set up at Kurukshetra as Sthāṇu. They installed a koṭi of liṅgas east of it, up to the Saṃnihita lake.

Pulaha is one of the prajāpatis who worship Brahmā in his sabhā and one of the seven mind-born sons of Brahmā called the seven Brahmās. His wife Kshamā bore him three sons, Sahishṇu, Krama and Pādaka (Agni Purāṇa). The Vāmana Purāṇa names him in the morning suprabhāta stotra and the svastivācana for Skanda, and among the ṛshis who gave the young Vāmana his gifts at the upanayana, the sacred thread in one account and a seat in the other.

Pulastya Maharshi came forth from Brahmā’s ears with Pulaha and is one of the seven Brahmās. By Havirbhū, daughter of Kardama, he was the father of Agastya, and by the daughter of Tṛṇabindu of Viśravas, father of Kubera and Rāvaṇa, so the rākshasas come from his line. He freed Rāvaṇa from Kārtavīryārjuna‘s prison, turned Parāśara from his yajña against the rākshasas, taught Bhīshma tīrtha-sevā and is the author of the Pulastya-smṛti. Above all he is the teller of the whole Vāmana Purāṇa, answering Nārada‘s questions through sixty-nine chapters.

Nidāgha, son of Pulastya, lived in Vīranagara on the Devikā and was the disciple of Ṛbhu, a son of Brahmā. Ṛbhu came to him twice after vast spans of time; on the second visit, through the question of which was the king and which the elephant, Nidāgha came to see that there is no “I” and “you”, held firmly to non-duality and reached moksha (Vishṇu Purāṇa, Dvitīyāṃśa, Chapter 15). The Agni Purāṇa tells the same account with the teacher named Ṛtu (Chapter 380).

Ṛbhu is a mind-born son of Brahmā, born knowing the truth of non-dual Brahman. He took Nidāgha, son of Pulastya, as his disciple, taught him advaita, and came back twice after long spans of time to see whether it had taken root; the second time, with the riddle of the elephant and the king, Nidāgha reached firm advaita and release (Vishṇu Purāṇa, Dvitīyāṃśa, Chapter 15). The Agni Purāṇa calls him Ṛtu in this account, and names Ṛbhu among the munis who receive tarpaṇa with Sanaka and his brothers.

The Sanakādi are the four Kumāras, Sanaka, Sananda, Sanatkumāra and Sanatsujāta, mind-born sons of Brahmā who chose lifelong brahmacarya at the moment of their birth and roam all the worlds as naked children holding the deepest knowledge. In the Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa they visit Bhagavān Rāma in his garden at Ayodhyā and sing his praise. The Vāmana Purāṇa also calls them the four sons of Dharma and Ahiṃsā and remembers them in the morning stotra; the Agni Purāṇa places them in Janaloka, gives them tarpaṇa, and gives Sanaka’s teaching that when desire is given up the supreme state comes.

Sanatkumāra is one of the four Kumāras, who refused Brahmā’s call to create and stays for ever a child-ṛshi of the highest wisdom; the page tells of him in the Varāha, Bhāgavata (the Jaya-Vijaya episode at Vaikuṇṭha), Brahma Vaivarta and Śiva Purāṇas. In the Vāmana Purāṇa he receives from Brahmā the secret Vāsudeva tattva and the yoga of the twelve leaves, and at the Sthāṇuvaṭa in Kurukshetra, at Mārkaṇḍeya‘s request, tells the Saro Māhātmya, the ātmā as the true tīrtha and the glory of the Sthāṇu tīrtha, with which the whole Purāṇa ends. The Agni Purāṇa says Brahmā created him from his arm.

Sanatkumāra in the Kūrma Purāṇa is sent by Bhagavān Vishṇu himself to the city of Virocana, the righteous asura king, son of Prahlāda and father of Bali. Praising Virocana’s dharma as rare in the three worlds, he teaches him at his request the most secret dharma, the knowledge of the ātmā, after which Virocana gives his kingdom to Bali.

Sanatsujāta is one of the four eternal Kumāras. In the Udyoga Parva, when Dhṛtarāshṭra asks whether death truly exists, Vidura says the question belongs to brahmavidyā and calls Sanatsujāta, who comes as a shining child of five. His discourse, the Sanatsujātīya, teaches that heedlessness (pramāda) is itself death, and speaks of silence and of the twelve faults.

Nārada Maharshi is the devarshi born of Brahmā, master of music, who learned the science of music from Sarasvatī and drew the seven svaras from his vīṇā Mahatī. Because he would not marry and create, Brahmā’s śāpa made him be born as the gandharva Upaparvaṇa and again as the son of Kalāvatī; by Daksha’s śāpa he wanders the three worlds without rest, singing the name of Śrī Hari. He taught the unborn Prahlāda, gave Dhruva his mantra, turned Vyāsa to the bhakti from which the Bhāgavata was born, and counselled kings and ṛshis without number. The whole Vāmana Purāṇa is told to him by Pulastya, and the Agni Purāṇa makes him the one who told the Rāmāyaṇa to Vālmīki.

Nārada’s Origin gathers the Purāṇic accounts of Nārada’s earlier births and how he came to his present form. In the Varāha Purāṇa he tells King Priyavrata how at Śvetadvīpa a glance of Sāvitrī, mother of the Vedas, took away all his learning until he bathed in the Veda-lake, and how in an earlier Kṛtayuga he was the brāhmaṇa Sārasvata. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa tells of his birth as Upabarhaṇa and through Kalāvatī, the Bhāgavata of his counsel to Vyāsa, and the Śiva Purāṇa of his pride, the māyā city and the svayaṃvara, and Vishṇu’s teaching on Śiva-bhakti.

Daksha is one of the greatest Prajāpatis, and his story spans two cycles of creation. In the first he is the father of many daughters, among them Satī, whom he gave to Bhagavān Śiva; his enmity toward Śiva led to the Daksha Yajña, where Satī gave up her body, Vīrabhadra destroyed the yajña and Daksha was revived with a goat’s head. In the second he was born of Mārishā as the son of the ten Pracetasas, and Brahmā made him lord of all the Prajāpatis. The Vāmana Purāṇa sets his yajña at Kanakhala, and the Agni Purāṇa tells how his daughters, given to Dharma, Kaśyapa, Soma and the ṛshis, became the mothers of all beings.

Kardama Maharshi was asked by Brahmā at the start of a Kṛta yuga to fill the empty earth with beings once more. After a long tapas he remembered Hari, who appeared at once and granted his wish unasked. The page tells of Devahūti‘s tapas and patient service, the birth of Kapila, and Kardama’s renunciation and moksha.

Kardama Prajāpati is one of the ten great prajāpatis whom Brahmā made to carry on creation; the Bhāgavata Purāṇa says he was born from Brahmā’s shadow. After ten thousand years of tapas at Bindu-sara on the Sarasvatī he saw Bhagavān Vishṇu on Garuḍa and praised him in the Kardama-stotra. He married Devahūti, daughter of Svāyambhuva Manu, had nine daughters who became the wives of great ṛshis, and then Bhagavān Kapila as his son; after Kapila’s birth he took sannyāsa and became a jīvanmukta.

The Pracetasas are the ten sons of King Prācīnabarhish, all with one name, one nature and one dharma. On their way to the ocean Śiva came out of a lake and taught them the Rudra Gīta; they did tapas for ten thousand years in the ocean, and Śrī Hari appeared and praised their love for one another. When they began to burn the forests that covered the earth, King Soma calmed them and gave them Mārishā, daughter of Kaṇḍu and Pramlocā, from whom Daksha was born; they received the rank of prajāpati and at last moksha (Bhāgavata Purāṇa; Agni Purāṇa).

Kaṇḍu Maharshi was a ṛshi of great tapas with an āśrama on the Gautamī. Indra sent the apsarā Pramlocā to break his tapas, and from their long union was born Mārishā, whom King Soma gave to the ten Pracetasas; so Kaṇḍu is the grandfather of Daksha Prajāpati, as the Agni Purāṇa tells. Other texts tell of his son and the burned forest, and of his tapas at Pushkarakshetra, where Bhagavān Vishṇu appeared to him and declared him a jīvanmukta.

Nara-Nārāyaṇa Maharshis are the twin ṛshi sons of Dharma, the fourth of the chief avatāras of Śrī Mahāvishṇu, who did tapas for ten thousand years at Badarikāśrama for the welfare of the worlds; Bhagavān Vishṇu declares that this tapas is his own. When Indra sent Manmatha and the apsarās, Nārāyaṇa made Urvaśī from a flower on his thigh. The Vāmana Purāṇa names them in its very first words and tells how Prahlāda, taking them for false ascetics, fought them for a thousand divine years, until he learned that they are conquered by bhakti alone and received from Nārāyaṇa the vara of unbroken bhakti.

Nārāyaṇa Muni is the great muni of Badarikāśrama, Nara’s twin, where by the power of his tapas even lions and tigers live in peace, and he sits on a crystal throne repeating the names of Kṛshṇa. In the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa (Brahma Khaṇḍa, Chapters 29–30) he receives Nārada, coming from Kailāsa, and teaches him meditation on Kṛshṇa’s feet, the cosmic nature of Kṛshṇa, whose every hair-pore holds whole universes, and the relation of Prakṛti and Purusha.

Ruci (Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa) is a Prajāpati of great tapas who had no child. His pitṛs appeared and told him that until the debt to the ancestors is paid by a son who performs śrāddha, tapas alone cannot free them. Moved, he offered the Pitṛ Stotra naming thirty-one groups of pitṛs, married Mālinī, daughter of the apsarā Pramlocā, and became the father of Raucya, the thirteenth Manu (Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, Chapters 92–95).

Ruci Prajāpati (Garuḍa Purāṇa) tells the same brahmarshi, born of Brahmā, who had given up the agnihotra and the householder’s life and wandered alone, eating once a day. His Pitṛ-devatās persuaded him to marry; he composed the Pitṛ-Stotra, which brings the pitṛs in person and satisfies them for twelve years when recited at a śrāddha, married Mālinī, daughter of Pramlocā and the ṛshi Pushkara, and became the father of Raucya Manu. He is not the Ruci of the Svāyambhuva manvantara, father of Yajña.

Tvashṭā, also Tvashṭṛ, is the divine craftsman among the twelve Ādityas, who made Indra’s thunderbolt and shaped the forms of the devas and all beings. When Indra killed his three-headed son Triśiras, he made a yajña of revenge from which Vṛtrāsura was born, beginning the chain of Indra’s guilt, his hiding and the rise and fall of Nahusha (Udyoga Parva). The Vāmana Purāṇa tells of his gift of two attendants to Skanda; the Agni Purāṇa makes him father of Viśvarūpa and of Saṃjñā, wife of Vivasvān.

Viśvarūpa, son of Tvashṭā, was a brāhmaṇa of tapas and self-control, a knower of Brahman. When Indra had insulted Bṛhaspati and the asuras overran the devas, Brahmā sent the devas to him, and he became their purohita and taught Indra the Nārāyaṇa Kavaca. But he secretly gave part of the yajña share to the asuras, and Indra killed him, after which Tvashṭā made Vṛtrāsura (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 6; Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 18).

Vasishṭha and his family

Vasishṭha is the son of Brahmā and of Mitra and Varuṇa, foremost in sattva and free of rajas and anger, the kula-guru of the Ikshvākus, husband of Arundhatī and one of the Saptarshis. He lost his body by the śāpa of King Nimi and was born again from a pot; he bore the long rivalry of Viśvāmitra, against whose power his brahma-daṇḍa held firm; he grieved for his hundred sons killed by Kalmāshapāda, and calmed his grandson Parāśara. In the Vāmana Purāṇa he brings Tapatī from the Sun to be King Saṃvaraṇa‘s wife, and the Sarasvatī carries and hides him from Viśvāmitra. The whole Agni Purāṇa is Agni Deva’s teaching to Vasishṭha.

Arundhatī is the wife of Vasishṭha Maharshi and the first of all pativratās, whose name stands for a wife’s faithfulness. In the Anuśāsana Parva she wanders the earth with the seven ṛshis in a great famine, refuses King Vṛshādarbhi‘s wealth as unfit for those who do tapas, and answers the rākshasī Kṛtyā with the meaning of her own name; she also teaches a secret dharma to Citragupta. In the Vāmana Purāṇa she goes with the Saptarshis to Himavān, takes the bride Kālī on her lap, and becomes worthy of worship for all women by keeping the Nakshatra Purusha vrata.

Śakti was the eldest of the hundred sons of Vasishṭha and the father of Parāśara. Meeting King Kalmāshapāda on a narrow forest path, he refused to step aside, and when the king struck him he pronounced a śāpa that he become a man-eating rākshasa; Viśvāmitra sent a rākshasa into the king, who devoured Śakti and then all Vasishṭha’s sons. His wife Adṛśyantī was carrying Parāśara (Ādi Parva). The Vāmana Purāṇa names him the first teacher of the Śaiva śāstra of Śiva-pūjā, whose disciple was Gopāyana.

Adṛśyantī was the wife of Śakti, the eldest son of Vasishṭha, and was carrying Parāśara when the possessed King Kalmāshapāda devoured her husband. She stayed with Vasishṭha through twelve years of grief, while he tried again and again to end his life. When she heard her unborn son chanting the Vedas and told Vasishṭha, he knew Śakti’s voice in the child and found the will to live again. Her son Parāśara became a great ṛshi and the father of Vyāsa (Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva).

Parāśara Maharshi, son of Śakti and Adṛśyantī and grandson of Vasishṭha, was born already versed in the Vedas. When he heard that his father had been killed by King Kalmāshapāda he resolved to burn the worlds with his tapas, until Vasishṭha calmed him; he began a sattra to destroy the rākshasas and at the ṛshis’ word set its fire down on the Himālaya, where Pulastya taught him the Purāṇas. By Satyavatī on the Yamunā he became the father of Vyāsa. He taught Janaka and Maitreya, gave the Parāśara Smṛti, the dharma-śāstra for Kali Yuga, and the Agni Purāṇa says he composed the Vishṇu Purāṇa.

Bhṛgu and the Bhārgavas

Bhṛgu Maharshi is one of the great Prajāpatis born of Brahmā and the father of the Bhārgava line of Cyavana, Śukrācārya, Jamadagni, Dadhīci and Paraśurāma, through his wives Khyāti, Uśanā and Pulomā. Chosen by the ṛshis on the Sarasvatī to test the Trimūrti, he declared Mahāvishṇu supreme; he restored Jamadagni to life, guided Paraśurāma, and explained creation and tapas to Bharadvāja, and the Bhṛgu Sūtras and Bhṛgu Nāḍī bear his name. The Agni Purāṇa makes him the father of Lakshmī by Khyāti, and the Vāmana Purāṇa gives him charge of the mantras at Daksha‘s yajña.

Śukrācārya, also called Uśanas, Kavi and Bhārgava, is the ācārya of the asuras and the master of the Saṃjīvanī vidyā that restores the dead, the great strength of the asuras in their wars with the devas. He is the father of Devayānī, wife of Yayāti, and did a thousand years of tapas on one foot living on smoke. In the Vāmana Purāṇa he is purohita of Andhaka, Bali and Dhundhu; Bhagavān Śiva swallowed him and he came forth as Śiva’s son, named Śukra; and when Vāmana came to Bali’s yajña he read the portents and counselled Bali to give nothing. He is also the graha Śukra.

Cyavana Maharshi of the Bhṛgu line was born when his mother Pulomā was carried off by a rākshasa, and “fell” (cyuta) from her womb; his glance burned the rākshasa to ashes. Married to Sukanyā, he regained his youth through the Aśvinī Kumāras and in return won them a share of Soma. He tested King Kuśanābha, which led to the birth of Viśvāmitra, and he is linked with the births of Dadhīci, Jamadagni and Paraśurāma. The Vāmana Purāṇa tells how a serpent drew him down to Pātāla, where he taught Prahlāda the three chief tīrthas.

Dadhīci Maharshi, son of Cyavana and Sukanyā, did tapas on the Sarasvatī that led to the birth of his son Sārasvata, and became a guru of countless disciples. He quarrelled with King Kshupa, stood by Bhagavān Śiva at Daksha’s yajña, and kept the devas’ weapons within his body. At last he gave up his body so that the Vajra could be made from his bones to slay Vṛtra; his wife Suvarcas followed him, giving birth to Pippalāda as she died.

Gabhastinī, also called Vāḍavā, was the wife of Dadhīci and the sister of Lopāmudrā. In the Gautamī Māhātmya of the Brahma Purāṇa she warned her husband not to keep the devas’ weapons, foreseeing that it would make enemies of both devas and asuras. When Dadhīci gave up his body and the devas took his bones, she took her unborn son Pippalāda from her womb, left him in the care of the pippala trees and entered her husband’s funeral fire; she is remembered at the Cakreśvara tīrtha on the Gautamī.

Pippalāda Maharshi is the son of Dadhīci. After Dadhīci gave his bones to the devas, his widow, resolved to follow him, cast her unborn son aside under a pippala tree and entered the fire, and the child, named for the tree, grew up in the care of the forest. Learning how the devas had treated his parents, he set out to punish them, until Rudra came to him and calmed him, and he saw his parents in pitṛloka. The Padma and Śiva Purāṇas also tell of his marriage to Padmā, the test of Dharma, his teaching on creation and the life-forces, and his instruction to Śaunaka.

Sārasvata Ṛshi is the son of Dadhīca and the river Sarasvatī, who carried his father’s seed and brought the child to him. In a twelve-year drought, when all the other ṛshis scattered and lost their recitation of the Vedas, Sārasvata stayed by the river, fed with fish by his mother, and never broke his daily study. When the drought ended he taught the Vedas to sixty thousand ṛshis and so restored the tradition, and the Sārasvata-tīrtha keeps his name (Mahābhārata).

Aurva Maharshi of the Bhṛgu line was born from his mother Ṛci’s thigh, where she hid him from the Haihaya kings, and he blazed with tejas from birth. The fire of his anger at the Haihayas became the Aurvānala, the fire under the ocean. He sheltered and trained Sagara, by his grace Sagara had sixty thousand sons, and he taught Sagara dharma and bhakti to Vishṇu. The page also tells of his daughter Kandalī and Durvāsa Maharshi.

Ṛcīka, son of Cyavana and grandson of Bhṛgu, wished to marry Satyavatī, daughter of King Gādhi, who asked a price of a thousand dark horses each with one white ear. Ṛcīka had Varuṇa bring them out of the Gaṅgā at the place later called Aśvatīrtha. He prepared two caru dishes, one for a brāhmaṇa son and one for a kshatriya son, and when they were exchanged, Jamadagni, father of Paraśurāma, was born of Satyavatī (Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa; Anuśāsana Parva).

Jamadagni Maharshi, son of Ṛcīka and Satyavatī, was born of the brāhmaṇa caru that his mother ate in place of hers, while her mother bore Viśvāmitra. He married Reṇukā and had five sons, the youngest Paraśurāma, the avatāra of Vishṇu. His śāpa fell on Sūrya until Brahmā made peace; he punished Reṇukā for a moment’s lapse and restored her by the vara he gave Paraśurāma; he refused his Kāmadhenu to Kārtavīryārjuna and was killed by the king’s sons, which led to Paraśurāma’s war on the kshatriyas. He is one of the Saptarshis of the present manvantara.

Mṛkaṇḍu was a ṛshi of tapas and dharma who longed for a son who would be a great ṛshi in his own right. His tapas pleased Brahmā, who gave him that vara, and the son was Mārkaṇḍeya, whom the Saptarshis and Brahmā blessed at birth with a life lasting to the end of the kalpa (Padma Purāṇa, Sṛshṭi Khaṇḍa, Chapter 33).

Mṛkaṇḍu Maharshi is a ṛshi of the Bhṛgu line, the son of Vidhātā and grandson of Bhṛgu and Khyāti, as the Agni and Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇas tell. He did ten thousand years of foodless tapas at Śālagrāma, so strong that the devas were alarmed, but Nārāyaṇa told them that this good man would never harm anyone. Bhagavān Vishṇu appeared and promised to be born as his son, and the promise was kept in the birth of Mārkaṇḍeya (Nārada Purāṇa).

Mārkaṇḍeya Maharshi, son of Mṛkaṇḍu and Manasvī in the line of Bhṛgu, is a cirañjīva. Born with a span of only sixteen years, he clung to the liṅga when Yama came for him, Bhagavān Śiva came forth to protect him, and he conquered death. He saw the dissolution of the worlds and the divine child on the banyan leaf, taught dharma to Yudhishṭhira in the forest, and sent Jaimini to the wise birds whose answers became the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa. In the Vāmana Purāṇa he leads the Sarasvatī into Kurukshetra, and his questions to Sanatkumāra bring forth the Saro Māhātmya.

Ruru, son of Pramati and grandson of Cyavana, was betrothed to Pramadvarā, daughter of Menakā and the gandharva Viśvāvasu, raised by the tapasvī Sthūlakeśa. When a snake killed her just before the wedding, Ruru gave half of his own life to bring her back, and they were married. Then he vowed to kill every serpent he met, which led to his meeting with the Ḍuṇḍubha snake (Devī Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2; Ādi Parva, Chapters 8–12).

Akṛtavraṇa was the faithful disciple of Paraśurāma, who stayed with him through his years of war and on Mahendra Parvata. In the Mahābhārata’s Vana Parva he tells the Pāṇḍavas the story of Paraśurāma: Kārtavīrya’s vara from Dattātreya, the theft of Jamadagni’s kāmadhenu, the murder of Jamadagni and the twenty-one destructions of the kshatriyas. In the Udyoga Parva he brings Ambā‘s appeal to Paraśurāma and witnesses the whole twenty-three-day battle with Bhīshma at Kurukshetra.

Aṅgiras and the Āṅgirasas

Aṅgiras is one of the first ṛshis. The Vāyu Purāṇa says he was born from the embers (aṅgāra) of Brahmā‘s yajña-fire, and Agni claimed him as his son; he is the father of the Āṅgirasa line, from which came Gautama, Bṛhaspati, Bharadvāja and the deva-Āṅgirasas. In the Padma Purāṇa he tells King Māndhatā the cause of a three-year drought and has him keep the Padmā Ekādaśī. The Mahābhārata tells of his wife Subhā, his seven sons and eight daughters and his teachings on fasting, and the Vāmana Purāṇa makes him the eldest of the Saptarshis who asked Himavān for the hand of Kālī.

Subhā, Wife of Aṅgiras is named in the Āṅgirasopākhyāna of the Vana Parva (Chapters 217–222) as the mother of Aṅgiras’s seven sons, Bṛhatkīrti, Bṛhajjyoti, Bṛhadbrahma, Bṛhanmanas, Bṛhanmantra, Bṛhadbhāsa and Bṛhaspati, and of his eight daughters, among them Bhānumatī, Sinīvālī and Kuhū.

Aṅgirasa Maharshi is the same great mind-born son of Brahmā, told here through many more texts: a maharshi and pitṛ-devatā of great tapas whose line shaped many gotras and whose teaching runs through the Atharvaveda and the Upanishads. This page tells how he once outshone Agni and restored the sacred fire, how he consoled King Citraketu over the loss of his son, and how his teaching to Śaunaka in the Muṇḍaka Upanishad divides knowledge into the lower and the higher. In the Agni Purāṇa he is one of the seven Brahmās, the father of Bṛhaspati and of the daughters Sinīvālī, Kuhū, Rākā and Anumati, and the devatā of the eighteenth syllable of the Gāyatrī.

Bṛhaspati, son of Aṅgiras, is the guru and purohita of the devas and the presiding deva of the planet Guru (Jupiter) and of Thursday. The Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa tells that he was born by a vara of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa. When Soma carried off his wife Tārā the Tārakāmaya war followed, and Budha was born; he won back Indra‘s kingdom from the sons of Raji, defeated Śukrācārya by the power of counsel and taught Indra the Vishṇu-pañjara stotra (Agni Purāṇa). The Mahābhārata gives his teachings on saṃsāra and his rivalry with Saṃvarta, and in the Vāmana Purāṇa he gives the young Vāmana a kamaṇḍalu and shows him the way to Bali‘s yajña.

Kaca, son of Bṛhaspati, was sent by the devas to learn the Saṃjīvanī vidyā, which brings the dead to life, from Śukrācārya, the guru of the asuras. The asuras killed him three times, the last time mixing his ashes into Śukra’s wine, and Śukra found him alive inside his own body; by his guru’s grace Kaca came out with the vidyā. He refused to marry Śukra’s daughter Devayānī because she was his guru’s daughter, and the śāpas they spoke in turn began the story of Yayāti (Matsya Purāṇa, Chapter 25).

Saṃvarta Muni, son of Bṛhaspati, was a siddha-yogī who hid his greatness, living naked and smeared with dirt in Vārāṇasī on begged food, absorbed in the japa of Oṃ. He called outer ritual without inner realisation lifeless, and fled the Mahīsāgara Saṃgama to escape King Marutta, who wanted him as his priest. In the Kaumārika Khaṇḍa he sends Indradyumna, Mārkaṇḍeya and their companions to the Mahīsāgara Saṃgama and tells them of Bhartṛyajña; the Mahābhārata’s Aśvamedhika Parva also tells of him, and the Agni Purāṇa names him among the teachers of dharma.

Bharadvāja Maharshi is one of the great Vedic maharshis. In the Rāmāyaṇa he is the chief disciple of Vālmīki, the first to receive the story of Rāma, and he hosts Rāma at Prayāga and feasts Bharata’s army; in the Mahābhārata he is the father of Droṇa and the teacher of King Śatruṃjaya; in the Nārada Purāṇa he questions Bhṛgu on the jīva and the ātmā. The Agni Purāṇa names him one of the Saptarshis and tells how the Maruts gave him, the son of Bṛhaspati, to King Bharata as Vitatha. In the Vāmana Purāṇa he is the guru of Bhagavān Vāmana, who performed his upanayana, taught him the Sāmaveda and went with him to Bali’s yajña.

Utathya is a brahmarshi of the Āṅgirasa gotra and the teacher of the Utathya Gītā (Śānti Parva, Chapters 90–91). He taught the emperor Māndhātā that the king exists for dharma and not for his pleasure: all beings rest in dharma and dharma rests in the king, so when the king fails the whole chain fails. He explains rājan as “where dharma reigns” and vṛshala as “he who destroys dharma”, and warns against envy and complacency.

Dīrghatamas, son of Uśija (Ucathya) and Mamatā, was born blind by a śāpa of Bṛhaspati, and his name means “sunk in long darkness”. In his old age his own family set him adrift on a raft, and King Bali of the east found him and made him the family guru. By Bali’s queen Sudeshṇā he fathered the founders of Aṅga, Vaṅga, Suhma, Kaliṅga and Puṇḍra, and by her maid the ṛshi Kakshīvān; a celestial cow cured his blindness and he took the name Gautama (Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 74).

Kakshīvanta is a ṛshi of the line of Dīrghatamas, praised in the Ṛgveda as Kakshīvān. In the Setu Māhātmya of the Skanda Purāṇa (Chapter 16) he bathed at the Agastya Tīrtha on Gandhamādana, and a white four-tusked elephant rose from the water and carried him through the air to the court of King Svanayana. There the princess Manoramā chose him at her svayaṃvara, and the ṛshi Udaṅka performed the wedding.

Gautama Maharshi is one of the Saptarshis and the husband of Ahalyā, whom Brahmā made as the ideal of beauty. His word never failed: his śāpa fell on the brāhmaṇas who slandered him, on Indra and Ahalyā, and on King Brahmadatta, and his grace freed each in time, Ahalyā by Śrī Rāma; by his prayer the Godāvarī came back and is called Gautamī. His children were Śatānanda, Añjanā the mother of Hanumān, and the wife of Uttaṅka. He gave the world the Gautama Dharma-sūtras and the nyāya-śāstra, and the Agni Purāṇa, calling him Śaradvān, makes him the ancestor of Kṛpa and Kṛpī.

Śatānanda is the son of Ahalyā and Gautama (Śaradvān). At King Janaka‘s yajña in Mithilā, when Rāma came with Viśvāmitra, he told Rāma of Viśvāmitra’s greatness, before Rāma broke the great bow and won Sītā. His son was Satyadhṛk, father of the twins Kṛpa and Kṛpī (Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 5, 278).

Atri, Kaśyapa, Agastya, Viśvāmitra and their families

Atri Maharshi was born of Brahmā‘s tapas, one of his seven mind-born sons, and is one of the Saptarshis of the present manvantara. His tapas condensed into Soma, the Moon, and with his wife Anasūyā, whose purity the Trimūrti tested, he became the father of Soma, Durvāsa and Dattātreya; through Soma he heads the lunar line of kings. He welcomed Rāma, Sītā and Lakshmaṇa to his āśrama in their exile, and the Atri Saṃhitā, Atri Smṛti and Ātreya Dharmaśāstra carry his teaching on worship, prāyaścitta and dharma.

Durvāsa Maharshi, son of Atri and Anasūyā, was born with the essence of Rudra, a ṛshi of boundless tapas known for the fire of his śāpa and the fullness of his blessing. His śāpa on Indra took away the fortune of the devas until the churning of the ocean brought Lakshmī back. He tested King Ambarīsha at the end of his Ekādaśī fast and fled from the Sudarśana cakra, gave Kuntī the mantra by which Karṇa was born, came as a guest to Kṛshṇa, Rukmiṇī and Satyabhāmā at Dvārakā, tested the Pāṇḍavas in the forest and came to Ayodhyā in Rāma’s time. He married Kandalī, the daughter of Aurva, and taught the Rudra-kavaca.

Nimi, Son of Dattātreya, grandson of Atri, was a man of great tapas whose son Śrīmanta died after a thousand years of tapas. In his grief Nimi arranged on his own an offering of food to seven brāhmaṇas for his son, then feared he had done wrong; he meditated on Atri, who appeared, comforted him and taught him the whole rule of the śrāddha, and so the śrāddha first came to the human world (Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 91). He is not King Nimi of Videha.

Agastya Maharshi, born from a pot and so called Kumbhaja, is the son of Mitra and Varuṇa and the husband of Lopāmudrā, whom he married to free his pitṛs. He digested the rākshasa Vātāpi, drank up the ocean so that the devas could slay the Kālakeyas, made the Vindhya mountain bow low, cast Nahusha down by his śāpa, and received Śrī Rāma in the Daṇḍaka forest and taught him the Ādityahṛdaya. The Agni Purāṇa calls him Bhagavān Vishṇu‘s own form and gives the rite of arghya to him and Lopāmudrā; the Vāmana Purāṇa names him the best among tapasvīs. Tamil tradition holds him as the first teacher of its culture, and many sacred places across Bhārata keep his memory.

Lopāmudrā, daughter of the king of Vidarbha, is the wife of Agastya and one of the most learned women of her age. The Vāmana Purāṇa places her in Agastya’s golden-arched āśrama in the southern sky after he brought down the Vindhya, and the Agni Purāṇa gives her her own arghya in Agastya’s pūjā. In the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa she meets Sītā at Kurukshetra at a solar eclipse, hears the whole Rāmāyaṇa from her, and asks why Rāma built the Setu; Sītā’s five-part answer leaves her silent, and they part in warmth. The Vana Parva also tells her story.

Kaśyapa, son of Marīci and best of the Prajāpatis, is the husband of Aditi, Diti, Danu and other daughters of Daksha, and the Agni Purāṇa says the whole world was born from him: the Ādityas, the daityas, the birds, Garuḍa and Vivasvān, from whom the Ikshvāku line comes. The Vāmana Purāṇa calls him the first guru of the devas; when the devas lost svarga to Bali he led them to Brahmā, kept a thousand-year vrata and praised Nārāyaṇa, who was born in his house through Aditi as Vāmana. He is one of the Saptarshis, and Paraśurāma gave the whole earth to him.

Kāśyapa Maharshi was a ṛshi born in the line of Kaśyapa Prajāpati who did tapas for the good of the world to lessen the serpents that tormented it, and set down the means to revive those bitten by snakes. When he heard that Parīkshit would die of Takshaka‘s bite, he set out to save the king, but Takshaka met him on the way in the guise of an old brāhmaṇa. The page goes on to his darśana of a siddha, the siddha’s teaching on yoga and the mind, and how he became a brahmarshi.

Kaṇva Maharshi was born in the line of Kaśyapa Prajāpati and lived from childhood in tapas and strict celibacy. The essence of the Sāmaveda rose within him in his tapas; taking a cat’s sneeze as a sign that it was time to bring it out, he became the ṛshi of many Sāma mantras and set down how, where and why each is to be used. The Kaṇva lineage and the Kaṇva Śākhā come from him; the page also tells of Śakuntalā and Dushyanta and of Kaṇva as a teacher of dharma.

Kaṇva Maharshi in the Mahābhārata appears twice in the epic. In the Udyoga Parva he sits in the Kaurava sabhā when Kṛshṇa comes as the Pāṇḍavas’ messenger and tells the Mātali Upākhyāna, the story of Indra’s charioteer and his daughter Guṇakeśī. In the Mausala Parva he is one of the three ṛshis, with Viśvāmitra and Nārada, who gave the śāpa that Sāmba would bear an iron club for the ruin of the Vṛshṇis and Andhakas.

Viśvāmitra, of the royal line of Gādhi, was a just king who, defeated by Vasishṭha‘s spiritual power, turned to tapas and rose from king to rājarshi, maharshi and at last brahmarshi, acknowledged by Brahmā and finally by Vasishṭha himself. He sent Triśaṅku to svarga in his body and made a new svarga when the devas cast him down, adopted Śunaḥśepa, became the father of Śakuntalā by Menakā, tested King Hariścandra to the utmost and gave his astras to Śrī Rāma. He is the ṛshi of the Gāyatrī mantra and one of the seven ṛshis of this manvantara; the Vāmana Purāṇa tells of his enmity with Vasishṭha and the Viśvāmitra tīrtha at Kurukshetra.

Kautsa was a devoted disciple of Viśvāmitra who pressed his teacher so often to name a fee that Viśvāmitra asked for fourteen crore gold coins. Kautsa went to King Raghu of Ayodhyā, who had just given away his whole treasury in the Viśvadigjaya Yajña; Raghu’s resolve led Kubera to shower gold on Ayodhyā. Kautsa took only what he needed and blessed the king, a model of a ṛshi’s right conduct (Skanda Purāṇa).

Vyāsa, his disciples and the tellers of the Purāṇas

Apāntaratama was born of Sarasvatī at the command of Nārāyaṇa at the start of the seventh kalpa. Nārāyaṇa gave him the work of dividing the one Veda into its parts and śākhās, which he did in the Svāyambhuva Manvantara. Nārāyaṇa then told him that he would come again in the present Vaivasvata Manvantara as Kṛshṇadvaipāyana Vyāsa, born in the line of Vasishṭha, Śakti and Parāśara. Vyāsa tells this of himself to his disciples in the Mahābhārata (Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 349).

Vyāsa, Śrī Kṛshṇa Dvaipāyana, is the Jagadguru who arranged the Vedas and composed the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas, son of Parāśara and Satyavatī and grandson of Vasishṭha. He gave the four Vedas to Paila, Vaiśampāyana, Jaimini and Sumantu, gained his son Śuka by the grace of Śiva, and as a trikāla-vedī who sees past, present and future stood beside the Kuru family through every turn: he warned Dhṛtarāshṭra, guided the Pāṇḍavas, gave divine sight to Sañjaya and after the war brought the fallen before their families. Guru Pūrṇimā is kept in his honour. The Agni Purāṇa says Śrī Mahāvishṇu descends as Vyāsa in each Dvāpara yuga, and that the Agni Purāṇa came to the world through him.

Veda Vyāsa, also called Kṛshṇa Dvaipāyana, was born of Parāśara and Satyavatī on an island in the Yamunā as a partial avatāra of Bhagavān Vishṇu. Seeing that minds would weaken in the Kali Yuga, he divided the Veda into four for Paila, Jaimini, Vaiśampāyana and Sumantu, gave the Itihāsa-Purāṇa to Romaharshaṇa, and composed the Mahābhārata for all; guided by Nārada he composed the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. The page also tells of his tīrtha-yātrā and the Vyāseśvara liṅga, and the Vāmana Purāṇa bows to him at its opening and tells of his deeds at Kurukshetra.

Śuka, son of Vyāsa, was born by the vara of Paramaśiva as a jīvanmukta and master of yoga. He studied the Vedas under Bṛhaspati and Sāṅkhya and Yoga from his father, was sent to King Janaka, who saw that he was already free, and wandered the earth as an avadhūta. He told the Bhāgavata to Parīkshit in the seven days before the king’s death, and at the last went beyond the elements, so that when Vyāsa called his name the elements answered “Oṃ”. The Agni Purāṇa names him with the Sūta and Paila among the first hearers of that Purāṇa.

Śukadeva, also called Śuka Maharshi, is the chief narrator of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, said to have known the ātmā in his mother’s womb and to have refused to be born for twelve years. He wandered without upanayana or home, and when Vyāsa called “O son!” the trees answered; bathing apsarās did not cover themselves before him, for his gaze saw only the ātmā. He told the whole Bhāgavata to the dying Parīkshit on the Gaṅgā. The page also gives his birth from the araṇi in the Nārada Purāṇa, his marriage to Pīvarī and moksha from Kailāsa in the Devī Bhāgavata, and the Mahābhārata’s Śuka-Janaka dialogue.

Maitreya Maharshi was born in the line of Atri through Candra, Budha and Divodāsa; the Agni Purāṇa makes him the son of Divodāsa, twin of Ahalyā. He became the disciple of Parāśara and learned all he had to teach, and the whole Vishṇu Purāṇa is Parāśara’s answer to his questions. On his tīrtha-yātrā he counselled Dhṛtarāshṭra, and he taught Vidura the secret of Kṛshṇa’s avatāra, as the Bhāgavata Purāṇa tells.

Paila is the first disciple of Vyāsa and the master of the Ṛgveda, who held it when Vyāsa divided the one Veda into four. The Agni Purāṇa names him with Sūta and Śuka among those who went to Vyāsa at Badarikāśrama to ask for the essence of all knowledge, and so among the first hearers of the Agni Purāṇa; at its close Vyāsa tells Sūta to contemplate it with Śuka, Paila and the others (Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 1, 150).

Vaiśampāyana is the disciple of Vyāsa who received the Yajurveda and taught it to twenty-seven disciples, among them Yājñavalkya; he is the founder of the Taittirīya tradition of the Kṛshṇa Yajurveda, which the page connects with the story of a brahmahatyā and Yājñavalkya’s Śukla Yajurveda. He was the first to recite the whole Mahābhārata in public, at Janamejaya‘s serpent yajña, and is the voice of its last parvas (Vishṇu Purāṇa; Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 150).

Jaimini Maharshi is the disciple of Veda Vyāsa who received the Sāmaveda when Vyāsa divided the Veda into four; the Agni Purāṇa says he made the branches of the Sāmaveda, and he handed it on to his son Sumantu. He is honoured as the founder of the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, the darśana that inquires into dharma and Vedic karma. His page tells of his questions on the Mahābhārata to Mārkaṇḍeya and to the four learned birds, his teaching on dāna to King Subāhu, and his telling of the Aśvamedha to Janamejaya.

Sumantu is the disciple of Vyāsa through whom the Atharvaveda was handed down. The Agni Purāṇa tells that when Vyāsa divided the Veda, Sumantu made a śākhā of the Atharvaveda and taught it to thousands of disciples, Paippalāda first; it also names him with Sukarmā as composers of saṃhitās in the line of the Sāmaveda, and first among the ṛshis who began the śākhās of the Atharvaveda (Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 150, 271).

Paippalāda is the founder of the Paippalāda śākhā of the Atharvaveda, a recension with mantras not found in the Śaunaka recension. In the Mahābhārata he is the father of Kauśika, who did japa for a thousand years. The Agni Purāṇa makes him the first of the thousands of disciples to whom Sumantu, Vyāsa’s disciple, taught the Atharvaveda, and names him among the ṛshis who began its śākhās (Chapters 150, 271).

Yājñavalkya is the great brāhmaṇa of the Yajurveda who studied under Vaiśampāyana, gave back the Yajus mantras to his guru, and by worshipping Sūrya received the Śukla Yajurveda and founded the Vājasaneyī śākhā. He won the debate at King Janaka‘s yajña, married Kātyāyanī and Maitreyī and taught them before his renunciation, and is the teacher of the Yājñavalkya Smṛti and of yoga. The Agni Purāṇa names him among the teachers of dharma and says he will be the purohita of Kalki at the end of the Kali Yuga.

Śaunaka is the great ṛshi who presides over the twelve-year sattra at Naimishāraṇya, a kula-guru of the Ṛgveda and a householder of the highest kind. In the Skanda Purāṇa his questions to the Sūta Romaharshaṇa open the whole Kedāra Khaṇḍa; in the Mahābhārata he counsels Yudhishṭhira and is the listener to whom the epic is told; in the Vāmana Purāṇa his question brings the Sarasvatī to the ṛshis’ sattra. In the Agni Purāṇa the maharshis led by Śaunaka ask the Sūta for the essence of all essences, and at its close they attain Bhagavān Vishṇu.

Lomaharshaṇa was a Sūta, one of the bards who keep the histories of kings and sacred events, and one of the chief disciples through whom Veda Vyāsa gave the Purāṇas to the world; his name means “he whose telling makes the hair stand on end”. The Agni Purāṇa says he received the Purāṇas from Vyāsa, names his six disciples, and tells that he heard the Agni Purāṇa from Vyāsa at Badarikāśrama and told it to Śaunaka and the ṛshis at Naimishāraṇya. He is the father of Ugraśravā Sauti, who told the Mahābhārata.

Romaharshaṇa Sūta, also called Lomaharshaṇa, was a direct disciple of Vyāsa and the foremost Sūta of the present manvantara. He told the Vāyu Purāṇa to Śaunaka and the ṛshis gathered at Naimishāraṇya for a twelve-year satra. In the Vāmana Purāṇa he is the narrator of the Saro Māhātmya, seated in Kurujāṅgala between the Sarasvatī and the Dṛshadvatī, telling the glory of the lake of Kurukshetra, the avatāra of Vāmana, the birth of the Sarasvatī and the tīrthas one by one; his hearers call him “best of paurāṇikas”.

Sūta Romaharshaṇa is the foremost narrator of the Purāṇas, Vyāsa’s disciple, whose telling made the listeners’ hair stand on end with devotion. He is the narrator of the Śiva Purāṇa, received through the line Śiva, Nandīśvara, Sanatkumāra, Vyāsa, and of the Skanda and other Purāṇas, told to the ṛshis at Naimishāraṇya. In the Agni Purāṇa he comes to Śaunaka’s yajña and tells them that Bhagavān Śrī Mahāvishṇu is the essence of all essences.

Ugraśravā Sauti, son of the Sūta Lomaharshaṇa, is the wandering narrator whose telling of the Mahābhārata forms the outer frame of the epic. Having heard Vaiśampāyana recite it at Janamejaya’s serpent yajña at Takshaśilā, he came to Naimishāraṇya during Śaunaka’s twelve-year satra, and at the ṛshis’ request told it again, from the Ādi Parva to the close in the Svargārohaṇa Parva.

The Dharma-Pakshīs are the four bird-born sons of the brāhmaṇa Mandapāla, the eldest named Jaritāri, born on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. The bird Tārkshī saved their eggs by covering them with a fallen elephant bell; Śamīka Maharshi found and raised them, and Indra gave them the highest knowledge. Settled on the Vindhya near the Revā, they knew the Vedas, the dharmaśāstra, the Purāṇas and the itihāsa, and Mārkaṇḍeya sent Jaimini to them to have his four questions on the Mahābhārata answered (Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa).

Ṛshis of the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata

Dhaumya was an ācārya who tested his disciples Āruṇi, Upamanyu and Veda each with a hard task of service, gave no further word, and when each had come through, wept with joy and gave him full knowledge; these are the best-known stories of devotion to the guru in the Mahābhārata. He later became the purohita of the Pāṇḍavas, led their departure from Hastināpura, guided them through the forest years, taught them how to serve a king before they entered Virāṭa‘s court, and described Meru to them on Gandhamādana.

Āruṇi Udbhāsaka was a disciple of the ācārya Dhaumya, sent to mend a breach in the bank of an irrigation field in the rainy season. When earth, stones and grass would not hold, he lay down in the breach and stopped the water with his own body through the night. At dawn Dhaumya embraced him, praised him before all the disciples and named him Udbhāsaka, “one who has lit himself up”. His story is one of three stories of service to the guru at the start of the Mahābhārata (Ādi Parva, Chapter 3).

Veda, Disciple of Dhaumya was the third of Dhaumya’s disciples in the Ādi Parva, after Āruṇi and Upamanyu. His trial was the longest: years of endless household work in every season, cooking, cleaning, tending cattle and serving guests, with no teaching in words and no word of praise. He bore it all without complaint, and when Dhaumya at last released him, he gained complete knowledge of the Vedas and dharmaśāstra by his guru’s grace.

Uddālaka appears in four texts. In the Vana Parva he is a great Vedic teacher whose disciple Kahoḍa married his daughter; when Kahoḍa was defeated by Vandi at Janaka‘s court and drowned, Uddālaka raised the boy Ashṭāvakra. In the Chāndogya Upanishad he teaches his son Śvetaketu “tat tvam asi”. In the Padma Purāṇa Bhagavān Vishṇu gives Alakshmī, Lakshmī‘s elder sister, into his keeping, and in the Vāmana Purāṇa the Sarasvatī comes to Uttara Kośala at his meditation as Manoharā.

Kahoḍa is named in two places. The Padma Purāṇa makes him the son of Pippalāda, a ṛshi of the Śābhramatī who by his tapas raised a Kṛtyā that killed the asura Kolāsura, and who freed the preta of King Kukardama by telling it to do śrāddha at the river. The Mahābhārata (Vana Parva, Chapters 132–134) tells of a Kahoḍa, disciple and son-in-law of Uddālaka, who in shame and anger pronounced a śāpa on his unborn son for correcting his recitation, so that Ashṭāvakra was born bent in eight places.

Ashṭāvakra Maharshi was the son of Ekapāda and Sujātā. He questioned his father’s teaching from the womb and was born bent in eight places by his father’s śāpa, yet he knew the Vedas fully. As a boy he defeated the scholar Vaṇḍin in King Janaka‘s court and freed his father; later his deformities were removed by his father’s blessing, he journeyed to Kubera‘s city and Kailāsa, and he married Suprabhā. His teaching is kept in the Ashṭāvakra Saṃhitā, and he reached moksha at the feet of Śrī Kṛshṇa in the Dvāpara Yuga.

Śvetaketu, son of Uddālaka and uncle of Ashṭāvakra, went with the young Ashṭāvakra to King Janaka’s court in the Vana Parva (Chapter 133). In the sixth chapter of the Chāndogya Upanishad he comes home proud of his learning, and his father, with the examples of salt in water, the seed in the fruit and the rivers in the ocean, leads him to the great saying “tat tvam asi”, “thou art that”.

Vadānya is the father of Suprabhā, whom Ashṭāvakra wished to marry. He agreed on condition that Ashṭāvakra first travel north beyond Kubera’s Alakāpurī to serve a tapasvinī near Kailāsa; she proved to be Uttarā Diś, the devatā of the northern quarter, whom Vadānya had asked to test his steadiness of mind. When Ashṭāvakra withstood her night of temptation, he married Suprabhā (Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 19).

Raibhya is the name of three ṛshis. The Raibhya of Gaṅgādvāra in the Varāha Purāṇa did tapas for ten thousand years and asked nothing for himself but that Bhagavān Vishṇu, who had appeared in a bent mango tree, should stay there for all who came after; so the holy place Kubja-āmraka arose. The Raibhya of the Himāvan in the Skanda Purāṇa pronounced a śāpa on the apsarā Urvaśī. The Raibhya of the Mahābhārata is the father of Arvāvasu and Parāvasu.

Arvāvasu was a son of the ṛshi Raibhya. His brother Parāvasu killed their father in the dark forest, taking him for a wild animal, and then blamed Arvāvasu, who was driven out of the yajña in disgrace. Arvāvasu took no revenge; he did tapas for Indra, and when offered a vara he asked only that Raibhya, Yavakrīta and Bharadvāja be brought back to life, which was granted (Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapters 135–138).

Bharadvāja, Father of Yavakrīta is not the famous Bharadvāja who fathered Droṇa. He was the friend and neighbour of the ṛshi Raibhya in the Vana Parva (Chapters 135–138). When his son Yavakrīta was killed through Raibhya’s śāpa, he pronounced a śāpa that Raibhya would be killed by his own son, and then entered the fire; his words came true when Parāvasu killed Raibhya by mistake.

Parāvasu, son of Raibhya, was coming home through the dark forest when he killed a shape in a deer-skin, taking it for a wild animal; it was his father. Instead of telling the truth, he accused his innocent brother Arvāvasu, who was driven from the yajña in disgrace, until Arvāvasu’s tapas won Raibhya back to life and the truth came out (Vana Parva, Chapters 135–138).

Yavakrīta, son of Bharadvāja, would not spend long years in study and did tapas to Indra to receive the Vedas as a gift; Indra warned him that knowledge won without a teacher would lead to ruin, but gave it. Proud and without the discipline of study, he wronged the daughter-in-law of Raibhya, and Raibhya’s anger brought forth a rākshasa that killed him, which led to the deaths of Bharadvāja and Raibhya (Vana Parva, Chapters 135–138, told by Lomaśa).

Ārshṭisheṇa was a ṛshi whose āśrama stood in the high forests of Gandhamādana. In the Mahābhārata’s Vana Parva (Chapters 143–145) the Pāṇḍavas reached it on their journey north toward Badarikāśrama, after a storm in which Draupadī fainted and Ghaṭotkaca carried them through the air. They received guidance and hospitality there before going on to the high peaks.

Baka Dālbhya is a great ṛshi of the Dālbhya line who had lived more than a lakh of years by the power of his tapas, a cirañjīvin and a friend of Indra. In the Vana Parva (Chapter 193) Indra visits his peaceful āśrama after a war of the devas and asuras and asks him about long life. Baka speaks of its sorrows, outliving all loved ones, watching fortunes turn and needing others, and of the joy of simple, self-reliant living and hospitality. He is not the Baka whom Bhīma killed.

Baka Dālbhya of Avākīrṇa kept his āśrama at the Avākīrṇa tīrtha on the Sarasvatī. In the Śalya Parva (Chapter 44) he teaches the Pañcāla king Dhṛtarāshṭra just kingship by showing him a cow and her calf: each sustains the other, and a king who takes too much destroys the source. Per the Vāmana Purāṇa’s Saro Māhātmya, when the king answered his request for the dakshiṇā of the Naimisha ṛshis with an untruth, Baka began a fire-rite against him, offering flesh from his own thigh, and the kingdom wasted away until Dhṛtarāshṭra came to him for refuge.

Bakadālbhya is an ancient ṛshi named in the Tīrtha Māhātmya of the Vana Parva (Chapter 25), where Dhaumya and Pulastya describe the holy places to Yudhishṭhira. His story is given as an example of the power of tīrtha-yātrā: one tīrtha visited with faith gives merit equal to the greatest yajñas.

Bakadālbhya Maharshi is the son of Dalbha, born by Bhagavān Vishṇu’s vara as a cirañjīvin, and named Baka because he was as soft as the filaments of the baku flower. He was raised by the ṛshi-couple Mitra and Glāva, and so is also called Dvyāmushāyaṇa and Glāva-Maitrīya. He did tapas at Naimishāraṇya, saw Vishṇu as Vaṭapatraśāyī in the pralaya, met the Pāṇḍavas in Dvaitavana, presided over Dharmarāja‘s Aśvamedha, consoled the wives of Kṛshṇa after his passing and humbled King Dhṛtarāshṭra at the Avakīrṇa tīrtha, as the Padma and Vāmana Purāṇas tell.

Jaratkāru was a ṛshi who wandered among the tīrthas in hard tapas, his body worn almost to nothing, and had vowed never to marry. When he saw his pitṛs hanging over a pit from a single blade of grass that a rat was gnawing, because he had no son to offer them śrāddha, he agreed to marry, but only a woman with his own name who was offered to him freely. So he married Jaratkāru-nāgī, the sister of Vāsuki, and became the father of Āstīka (Devī Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 12; Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva).

Āstīka is the son of the ṛshi Jaratkāru and the nāga Jaratkāru, sister of Vāsuki. The nāgas lay under Kadrū‘s śāpa to die in Janamejaya‘s Sarpa-yāga, and Brahmā told them that a son of this marriage would save them. Āstīka came to the sacrifice as an eloquent young brāhmaṇa, won Janamejaya’s favour with his praise, and used it to stop the yāga, as the Mahābhārata and the Devī Bhāgavata Purāṇa tell.

Droṇācārya, son of the ṛshi Bharadvāja, was born from a pot (droṇa) and learned all weapons and divine astras from Paraśurāma. When his boyhood friend King Drupada turned him away with contempt, he became the teacher of the Kuru and Pāṇḍava princes at Hastināpura and through them repaid the insult; he made Arjuna the greatest archer of the age and asked Ekalavya for his thumb. In the Kurukshetra war he commanded the Kaurava army, built the Cakravyūha in which Abhimanyu died, and was slain by Dhṛshṭadyumna; the Mahābhārata later reveals him as a part of Bṛhaspati.

Kṛpācārya, also called Kṛpa or Śāradvata, was born with his twin sister Kṛpī from the seed of the archer-ṛshi Śaradvān, son of Gautama, and was raised by King Śantanu; the Agni Purāṇa makes the twins children of Satyadhṛk, grandson of Gautama. He taught the Kuru princes weapons before Droṇa came, and stayed on as co-teacher; at the display of arms he asked Karṇa‘s lineage. He is one of the cirajīvins, one of the three on the Kaurava side who came alive out of the war, and later the teacher of Parīkshit.

Kṛpī, Kṛpa’s twin sister and daughter of Śaradvān, was found with him by King Śāntanu and raised in the palace of Hastināpura. She married Droṇācārya and bore him Aśvatthāmā. In the Strī Parva (Chapter 23) Gāndhārī sees her beside Droṇa’s body with matted hair, fallen on the earth in grief, performing the rites for her husband.

Ekata and Dvita, “the first” and “the second”, are two of three ancient ṛshi brothers. In the Trita-kūpa Upākhyāna (Mahābhārata, Śalya Parva, Chapter 37), when the journey grew hard they pushed their youngest brother Trita into a well and left him there. Trita was freed through the yajña he performed in the well, which became the Trita-kūpa tīrtha on the Sarasvatī.

Trita was the youngest of the three ṛshi brothers Ekata, Dvita and Trita. Thrown into a well by his brothers, he did a yajña there with what he could find, plants for soma, thorns for darbha and well water for ghee, with exact mantras; the devas accepted it and he was freed, and the well became the Trita-kūpa tīrtha on the Sarasvatī (Śalya Parva, Chapter 37). The Ṛgveda knows Trita Āptya, linked with Indra and the slaying of Vṛtra.

Kuṇirgarga was a ṛshi of great strength and fame who by the power of his tapas created a daughter with no mother. Content when he saw her, he left his body for svarga and left her in his āśrama; she grew old in tapas and became known as Vṛddha-kanyā, “the old maiden”, whose story is told at the Vṛddha-kanyā tīrtha on the Sarasvatī (Śalya Parva, Chapter 52).

Śṛṅgavanta, son of Gālava, was the only ṛshi who came forward when the aged Vṛddha-kanyā, daughter of Kuṇirgarga, offered half her tapas to anyone who would marry her. He agreed on condition that the marriage last one night; that night she became young and beautiful again, and at dawn she left her body. Śṛṅgavanta received half her tapas, grieved for her long, and in the end reached the world where she had gone (Śalya Parva, Chapter 52).

Mahodara Muni had a human skull stuck in his leg that no means could remove, until the waters of the Kapālamocana tīrtha on the Sarasvatī, also called Auśanasa, set him free; the tīrtha, “release from the skull”, is named for this (Śalya Parva). The Vāmana Purāṇa’s Saro Māhātmya calls him Rahodara and tells how it happened: Śrī Rāma cut off the head of a rākshasa in the Daṇḍaka forest, and it flew off and pierced the thigh of the muni as he wandered there on pilgrimage.

Rushaṅku kept his āśrama at Pṛthodaka on the Sarasvatī, a tīrtha that Balarāma visited on his pilgrimage, and there reached the highest state by steady tapas. Pṛthodaka is also linked with Sindhudvīpa, Devāpi, Viśvāmitra and Ārjisheṇa, who rose from kshatriya to brahmarshi there (Śalya Parva, Chapter 41).

Mandapāla was a ṛshi of dharma who was refused svarga after death because he had left no children. He was born again as a śāraṅgaka bird, married the bird Jaritā and had four sons, Jaritāri, Sārisṛkka, Stambamitra and Droṇa, then left them for another bird, Lapitā. When the Khāṇḍava forest burned he begged Agni to spare his sons, and Agni spared the nest when Droṇa sang a stotra to him (Ādi Parva, Chapters 228–231).

Kiṃdama was a ṛshi who, with his wife, had taken the form of deer in the forest when King Pāṇḍu shot them. Dying, he took back his human form and pronounced a śāpa that Pāṇḍu would die the moment he approached a woman with desire. The śāpa turned Pāṇḍu into a forest ascetic and led to the birth of the Pāṇḍavas by divine invocation (Ādi Parva, Chapters 118–119).

Kauśika the Brāhmaṇa was a student of the Veda who killed a cāṭaka bird with an angry glance, and so learned how destructive anger is. A pativratā knew what he had done without being told and taught him that true dharma is the selfless doing of one’s own duty, then sent him to the Dharma-Vyādha, a meat-seller of Mithilā who was a knower of truth. After the Vyādha’s long teaching on dharma and karma, Kauśika went home to serve his parents (Vana Parva, Chapters 205–216).

Māṇḍavya was a ṛshi in deep samādhi at Gaṅgādvāra when thieves hid stolen royal horses near his āśrama; the soldiers took his silence for guilt and he was impaled on a stake, where his tapas kept him alive. When he asked Dharma why, and heard it was for a childhood act, he found the punishment too great and pronounced a śāpa that Dharma be born as a śūdra, and Dharma was born as Vidura. The Mahābhārata also shows him learning from King Janaka and receiving the grace of Bhagavān Śiva.

Lomaśa is an ancient ṛshi who loses one hair with each kalpa, so long has he lived. In the Padma Purāṇa he finds the past-life cause of King Mahijit’s childlessness and gives the Putradā Ekādaśī; in the Skanda Purāṇa he is the speaker of the Kedāra Khaṇḍa, and in the Kaumārika Khaṇḍa he teaches Indradyumna on impermanence and dāna and tells of his own past life as a poor śūdra who worshipped Śiva. In the Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa he meets Kākabhuśuṇḍi, and in the Mahābhārata he guides the Pāṇḍavas on their tīrtha-yātrā (Vana Parva, Chapters 101–163).

Mataṅga Maharshi was born to a brāhmaṇa of the Gautama line. Sent to serve as priest at a yajña, he struck a donkey’s foal for no reason and heard its mother say he was cruel by nature from a past birth; shaken, he learned from his father the truth of his birth and set out to change it. The page tells of his encounters with Indra, his life as a householder, the śāpa of Priyamvada, and his later births and legacy.

Uttaṅka is a maharshi of the Purāṇas and the Mahābhārata. In the Nārada Purāṇa, moved by the power of the water from Śrī Hari’s feet, he praised Vishṇu as Paramātman and Nirguṇa Brahman, and when Vishṇu appeared asked only for unwavering devotion. In the Vana Parva he asks for protection from the asura Dhundhu, and in the Aśvamedhika Parva the Uttaṅkopākhyāna tells of his service to his guru, his quest for the earrings and his meeting with Bhagavān Kṛshṇa.

Mudgala lived by gleaning grain left in the fields and ate once a fortnight, yet fed every guest. Durvāsa came six times just as the family was about to eat and ate everything, and Mudgala‘s mind was never troubled; when Indra then sent a chariot to take him to svarga, he asked its faults, heard that merit runs out and one falls, and chose moksha instead (Vana Parva, Chapters 260–261). In the Padma Purāṇa he is taken to Yama‘s realm while alive and comes back to tell Mahādeva what he saw, and the Vāmana Purāṇa names him as the reader of Nandayantī‘s horoscope and the father of the muni Kośakāra.

Śaikhāvatya was a forest ascetic whose āśrama lay on Ambā‘s path in her long search for a champion against Bhīshma. Akṛtavraṇa, the disciple of Paraśurāma, came to the āśrama while Śaikhāvatya was there, and this meeting led Ambā at last to Paraśurāma (Udyoga Parva, Ambopākhyāna Parva).

Parvata is a great ṛshi who came with Nārada and Devala to see Dhṛtarāshṭra at his forest āśrama near Kurukshetra, where Vyāsa and the rājarshi Śatayūpa also came. He was in the gathering when Nārada told of the kings who had reached svarga by tapas in that forest and foretold the destinies of Dhṛtarāshṭra, Kuntī, Vidura and Sañjaya (Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapter 20).

Śamīka was a brahmarshi of the Āṅgiras line, deep in yoga, and the father of Śṛṅgi. When King Parīkshit, faint with thirst, got no answer from him in samādhi and hung a dead serpent round his neck, Śṛṅgi pronounced a śāpa that Takshaka would kill the king in seven days. Śamīka, waking, did not grieve for the insult to himself but blamed his son, saying the punishment was far too heavy for a rājarshi who upholds dharma (Ādi Parva).

Śṛṅgi, the young son of Śamīka Maharshi, heard from his friends that King Parīkshit had hung a dead serpent round his father’s neck while he sat in samādhi. In anger, after sipping water at the Kauśikī, he pronounced a śāpa that the serpent Takshaka would kill the king on the seventh day, then came home and wept to see the serpent on his father. Śamīka called it a great wrong, for the punishment was far greater than the offence (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 1, Chapter 18; Ādi Parva).

Vālmīki is the Ādi Kavi, the first poet, who composed the Rāmāyaṇa and taught it to Kuśa and Lava. The Bhavishya Purāṇa tells that he was once the robber Ayyadhama, turned by the Saptarshis when his family refused to share his pāpa, who sat repeating the name of Rāma until an anthill (valmīka) grew over him. In the Rāmāyaṇa, after Nārada’s short account of Rāma, the first śloka was born of his grief, and by Brahmā’s word he saw and composed the whole story; he sheltered Sītā and raised her sons. The Agni Purāṇa says he heard Rāma’s story from Nārada.

Vibhāṇḍaka, son of Kaśyapa, was a brahmarshi of such tapas that the devas grew uneasy. His seed fell into forest waters and a doe conceived, and he raised their son Ṛshyaśṛṅga with love and fierce care, far from the world and from all women. When courtesans drew the boy away to Aṅga, Vibhāṇḍaka followed in anger, but King Romapāda received him with honour and showed him his son married to Śāntā, and he blessed them (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Bāla Kāṇḍa, Chapter 9; Vana Parva, Chapters 110–112).

Ṛshyaśṛṅga, son of the ṛshi Vibhāṇḍaka, was born of a doe that drank water holding his father’s seed, and bore a deer’s horn on his forehead. He grew up in the forest without ever seeing a woman, until he was brought to the drought-struck kingdom of Aṅga and the rain came with him. He married Śāntā and was the priest of Daśaratha‘s Putrakāmeshṭi, from which came the births of Rāma and his brothers (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Bāla Kāṇḍa; Vana Parva, Chapters 110–113; Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa).

Śarabhaṅga was a great maharshi of the Daṇḍaka forest, of the Gautama gotra, whose tapas had earned him Brahmaloka, but who chose to wait for the darśana of Bhagavān Rāma. Indra had come in his chariot to take him and withdrew when Rāma came near. Śarabhaṅga received Rāma, Sītā and Lakshmaṇa with joy, then entered the fire and rose as a radiant youth to Brahmaloka (Vālmīki and Tulasī Rāmāyaṇas, Araṇya Kāṇḍa; Agni Purāṇa).

Sutīkshṇa was a disciple of Agastya and a devotee of Bhagavān Rāma. The Skanda Purāṇa shows him in tapas at Rāmatīrtha in the Setu-kshetra, chanting the six-syllable Rāma mantra five thousand times a day and composing the Sutīkshṇa-Rāma-stotra. The Vālmīki and Tulasī Rāmāyaṇas tell how he received Rāma, Sītā and Lakshmaṇa in the Daṇḍaka forest, overcome with love, and spoke with Rāma of tapas and dharma; the Agni Purāṇa names him among the ṛshis to whom Rāma bowed.

Māṇḍakarṇi was a tapasvin of the Daṇḍaka forest who lived on wind and water alone for ten thousand years. The alarmed devas sent five apsarās to distract him, but all five were won over and became his wives. The lake by his āśrama became the Pañcāpsaras tīrtha, which Rāma visited (Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, Araṇya Kāṇḍa, Chapter 11).

Kumbhodara is a muni of the Ānanda Rāmāyaṇa. After Rāma’s coronation he came to the court and told him plainly that, ruler of the seven dvīpas though he was, he had not yet gone on tīrtha-yātrā, and Rāma at once set out on the great pilgrimage. When he came later to Rāma’s Aśvamedha, the servants feared him, but Rāma walked five steps to meet him and bowed at his feet; Kumbhodara explained that his challenge had been for Rāma’s good and the teaching of the world, and recited the 108 names of Rāma (Yātrā and Yāga Khaṇḍas).

Nala Vānara is the vānara son of Viśvakarman, the builder of the devas, who had his father’s skill. Bhagavān Rāma made him the chief builder of Rāmasetu, the bridge of a hundred yojanas from Devīpattana to Laṅkā, and the Setu Māhātmya says he set the nava-pāshāṇa, nine floating stones that kept the bridge steady (Skanda Purāṇa, Brahma Khaṇḍa, Setu Māhātmya, Chapters 2, 7).

Teachers of dharma and moksha in the Mahābhārata

Arishṭanemi is a ṛshi of the Kaśyapa gotra who teaches King Sagara the way to moksha in the Mahābhārata‘s Mokshadharma Parva (Chapter 288). He teaches in stages: once the sons are grown and married and the wife can look after herself, what holds a man to the house is attachment, not dharma; karma decides every outcome; and only the freedom of the ātmā lasts. His teaching starts from ordinary family bonds, not from abstract thought.

Asita Devala was a householder maharshi of perfect evenness of mind, with an āśrama near the Āditya-tīrtha on the Sarasvatī. When the silent yogin Jaigīshavya stayed with him, Devala followed him through many worlds and found him everywhere ahead of him; humbled, he asked for teaching and learned mokshadharma (Mahābhārata, Śalya Parva, Chapter 50). He appears in other parvas too, in dialogues with Jaigīshavya and Nārada, and as a witness at Bhīshma‘s departure and at Dhṛtarāshṭra’s forest āśrama.

Devala Maharshi is a ṛshi of tapas, jñāna and yoga and a teacher of Dharmaśāstra, the elder son of Pratyūsha, one of the eight Vasus. He hosted the silent Jaigīshavya, was one of those who passed on Vyāsa‘s Mahābhārata, and kept up his tapas even after he had realised the self. The page tells of his part in the story of Gajendra through the gandharva Hūhū, his lesson to the apsarā Rambhā on inner beauty, the svayaṃvara of his daughter Suvarcalā, and his teaching that giving up all undertakings brings happiness.

Jaigīshavya is a great yogin-ṛshi of the Mahābhārata. In the Śalya Parva (Chapter 50) Asita Devala finds his yoga power present in every world and asks him for the teaching of mokshadharma; in the Mokshadharma Parva (Chapter 229) he tells Devala the seven marks of a mahātmā (great one), who takes insult as nectar and honour as poison. In the Yama-gītā of the Agni Purāṇa his teaching is that the karma of the Vedas, done as duty without attachment, brings the highest good.

Jaigīshavya Ṛshi tells the same Śalya Parva account more fully: the silent bhikshu in Devala’s āśrama whom Devala found ahead of him in the ocean, devaloka, pitṛloka, the worlds of those who perform every kind of yajña, and at last Brahmaloka. The devas said that no being in any world could match him in power, tejas, tapas or yoga. The Anuśāsana Parva adds that he won his siddhis by worshipping Bhagavān Śiva at Kāśī.

Āruṇi Maharshi, also known as Uddālaka (some sources make him Uddālaka’s father), did severe tapas in his āśrama on the river Devikā. A cruel nishāda who stopped him on his way to bathe was changed by his silent gaze, served him, and was later initiated and blessed by Durvāsa Maharshi. He is also the father of Śvetaketu, whom he humbled and taught, and he appears in the Chāndogya Upanishad.

Kapila Maharshi is the avatāra of Nārāyaṇa born to Kardama Prajāpati and Devahūti after their nine daughters. He gave the world the Sāṅkhya darśana and taught his mother bhakti and Sāṅkhya-yoga, by which she merged into Śrī Hari. He taught Syūmaraśmi, King Puṇḍarīka and King Aśvaśirās, humbled Rāvaṇa with his universal form, and when the sixty thousand sons of Sagara rushed at him in Pātāla, the fire of his glance reduced them to ash until Bhagīratha brought the Gaṅgā. In the Vāmana Purāṇa Bhagavān Vāmana says that in Janaloka his form is Kapila-deva.

Kapila Maharshi in the Mokshadharma Parva is the chief speaker of the Goka-pilīyam (Śānti Parva, Chapters 268–270), a debate on yajña and ahiṃsā. Seeing a cow led to slaughter to welcome Nahusha, he cried “Hā Veda!”, while saying that he never speaks against the Vedas; Syūmaraśmi, entering the cow’s body, argued with him. Kapila taught that all four āśramas reach Brahman by their own inner disciplines, with no need for animal sacrifice.

Syūmaraśmi is the ṛshi of the Goka-pilīyam who entered the body of the cow being led to slaughter for Nahusha’s guest and spoke to Kapila from within her. He defended Vedic yajña: the Vedas are one whole authority, the out-breath of the Paramātmā, and cannot be taken in part; the paths of action and of withdrawal are one graded teaching, not two opposed ones (Mokshadharma Parva).

Āsuri is a ṛshi who knew Sāṅkhya. The Vāmana Purāṇa names him with Kapila, Voḍhu and Pañcaśikha as the knowers of Sāṅkhya when Pulastya tells Nārada of the four sons of Dharma, and calls on him with Piṅgaḷa, after the four Kumāras, in the morning stotra of Śaṅkara (Chapters 14, 34).

Pañcaśikha is an ancient teacher of Sāṃkhya who teaches King Janaka in the Mokshadharma Parva (Chapter 319) that old age and death come to every being and that no wealth, fame or power can stop them. All beings are carried along in the river of time; freedom is not escape from death but no longer taking oneself to be what dies, and equal vision is the path.

Pañcaśikha Maharshi, also called Kāpileya or Kāpila because Kāpilī nursed him, is the foremost disciple of Āsuri and so heir to the Sāṃkhya of Kapila. The Nārada Purāṇa calls him a cirañjīvī who came among humans by his own will and taught moksha-dharma to Janaka at Mithilā; in the Mahābhārata he answers the Lokāyata and Bauddha views. The Vāmana Purāṇa names him with Kapila, Voḍhu and Āsuri as the knowers of Sāṅkhya, and in the Agni Purāṇa’s Yama-gītā his teaching is equal vision, freedom from “mine” and non-attachment.

Bodhya is a master of detachment who teaches King Janaka in the Bodhya-Gīta of the Mokshadharma Parva (Chapter 178). His calm, he says, comes from six gurus of the natural world: Piṅgalā, who found peace when she gave up hope; the bird that is attacked until it drops its grain; the homeless snake; the bee that drains no single flower; the arrow-maker who does not see a royal procession pass; and the maiden with bangles.

Cirakārī, son of Gautama Maharshi, was mocked as dull because he thought long before every act. When Gautama in a rage ordered him to kill his mother and went off into the forest, Cirakārī weighed a father’s command against the great pāpa of killing one’s mother and did not act. His father came back full of regret and praised him, and his slowness saved his mother’s life (Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 266).

Gārgya Ṛshi gives a secret teaching on household dharma in the Rahasya-Dharma cycle of the Anuśāsana Parva: serve guests, keep a lamp burning in the house, do not sleep by day, keep away from meat, never harm cows or brāhmaṇas, and stay devoted to the Pushkara tīrthas. He calls this better than a hundred yajñas, because its merit never grows less, and gives the remedy when an offering at a śrāddha or pūjā has been made impure. He is not the Gārgya of the Vishṇu Purāṇa whose tapas led to the birth of Kālayavana.

Hārīta Maharshi is the ṛshi of the Hārīta-Gītā, which Bhīshma quotes to Yudhishṭhira in the Mokshadharma Parva (Chapter 278). It sets out the whole discipline of the wandering renunciant: to leave home only after giving fearlessness to all beings, to master the six impulses of speech, mind, anger, violence, hunger and sex, to seek alms only when the household has eaten, to sleep in a new place each night, to be calm before praise and blame, and to keep up the japa of Oṃ.

Indrota, a ṛshi of the Śaunaka-gotra, took up the case of King Janamejaya, who had killed a brāhmaṇa without knowing it, when all other brāhmaṇas refused (Mahābhārata, Āpaddharma Parva, Chapters 150–152). He first rebuked the king harshly, then gave him a full expiation: the five purifying acts of yajña, giving, kindness, Veda study and truth; a round of tīrthas with the Aghamarshaṇa bath; and at last an Aśvamedha, at which Indrota himself was the priest.

Jābali Maharshi of the Mokshadharma did such hard tapas at the seashore that birds nested in his matted hair and raised their young there while he stood still. When they flew away he cried that he had reached the highest dharma, but a voice from the sky sent him to the merchant Tulādhāra of Vārāṇasī, who taught him that ahiṃsā, not tapas, is the highest dharma, and the birds themselves confirmed it. He is not Daśaratha‘s purohita Jābāli, nor the Jābāli of Mandara.

Kālakavṛkshīya is a muni of the Śānti Parva who knew both the path of renunciation and the practical rules of government. In Chapter 82 he is cited on how a king should treat ministers who honestly report a theft from the treasury. In Chapters 104–106 he teaches Kshemadarśī, the prince of Kosala who had lost his kingdom, first that no kingdom lasts and then that he should rebuild by serving King Janaka of Videha, and he himself makes peace between the two.

Kauśika Jāpaka, son of Paippalāda, is the central figure of the Jāpakopākhyāna (Mokshadharma Parva, Chapters 196–200). Having mastered the four Vedas and their limbs, he did japa without a break for a thousand years until his mind was purified and he entered samādhi; King Ikshvāku saw its fruit. In a debate with followers of other practices, the account shows japa to be the highest path to moksha. He is not the Kauśika of the Vana Parva.

Maṅkī (Mokshadharma) is a brāhmaṇa of the Maṅkī-Gītā (Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 177) who lost his bulls, and then a camel, each time he tried to replace them. He saw that worldly gain comes by chance, “like a crow and a palm fruit”, and spoke to kāma itself: “I know your root; you are born of saṃkalpa, and I will not conceive you again.” Giving up all outward pursuit, he resolved to enter the city of Brahman in the heart, taking Śuka as his example.

Śampāka is a poor brāhmaṇa tapasvin of the Mokshadharma Parva (Chapter 176). Asked by a king whether poverty is a hardship, he answers in the Śampāka-Gīta that poverty is better than wealth, for the poor man has nothing to guard or lose and detachment grows in him, while the rich man is bound by anxiety; and that without giving up all desire there is neither happiness nor moksha.

Medhāvī Brāhmaṇa is the young son in the dialogue of father and son (Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 277). His father, devoted to Veda study but unskilled in the dharma of moksha, told him to follow the four āśramas in order; Medhāvī answered that every night shortens life like water sinking under a fish, that death seizes a man as a wolf seizes a lamb, and that “what is to be done tomorrow, do today”, for death does not wait. He vows himself to ahiṃsā and the search for moksha at once.

Ṛshabha Muni is a brahmarshi of the Nara-Nārāyaṇa āśrama and the teacher of the Ṛshabha Gītā (Śānti Parva, Chapters 125–128), which Bhīshma tells to Yudhishṭhira, who had hoped again and again in Duryodhana. Through nested accounts of King Sumitrā, who lives on the hope of regaining his kingdom, and King Vīradyumna, searching for his lost son, Ṛshabha, appearing as the thin muni Kṛśa, teaches the kinds of hope, the most wretched being hope in a cruel and ungrateful person.

Samaṅga is a ṛshi whose peace was untouched by gain or loss, past or future. When Nārada asked him its source, he taught that what was, is and will be all pass away by the same karma that brings them, so that longing for the pleasant and fear of the unpleasant both loosen, and spoke of the knowledge “like amṛta” that frees one from all fear (Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 286).

Sulabhā is a woman sannyāsinī, perfect in yoga, who wandered alone carrying the triple staff. Hearing that King Dharmadhvaja Janaka had gained the full fruit of knowledge while living as a king, she went to Mithilā and by yoga entered his mind to see for herself. She found a trace of pride in his knowledge, answered each of his objections, and taught him of the field and the knower of the field, so that the renunciate woman is the teacher and the famous king the one taught (Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 320).

Suvarṇa Tapasvin was a golden-hued tapasvin of noble family and great Vedic learning. Sitting with Svāyambhuva Manu on a golden peak of Meru, he asked how the worship of the devas with flowers began and what its fruit is; Manu answered with the old dialogue of Bali and Śukrācārya. Suvarṇa passed the teaching on flowers, incense and lamps to Nārada, and Nārada to Bhīshma (Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 98).

Taṇḍi was a ṛshi of the Kṛta Yuga who after ten thousand years of tapas in samādhi saw Mahādeva Śiva and praised him as the seven adhi-levels of existence, the eight natures and the five final goals. Śiva and Umā made him undying and gave him a son who would found a school, which the tradition links with the Tāṇḍya śākhā of the Sāmaveda. Brahmā taught Taṇḍi the thousand names of Śiva; Taṇḍi taught them to Upamanyu, and Upamanyu to Bhagavān Kṛshṇa (Anuśāsana Parva).

Upamanyu is a brāhmaṇa ṛshi and lifelong devotee of Bhagavān Śiva, whose āśrama on the Gaṅgā in the Himālaya was a great centre of Śiva-worship. In the Kūrma Purāṇa and the Anuśāsana Parva he is the guru who initiated Bhagavān Kṛshṇa into Śiva-upāsanā and pāśupata-yoga. As a poor child longing for milk he did tapas to Śiva at his mother’s word, passed Indra‘s false test, and received milk and a vara; the Vāmana Purāṇa names his parents as Vītamanyu of the line of Atri and Dharmaśīlā.

Ṛshis and brāhmaṇas of the Purāṇic tales and tīrthas

Ananta Muni is a brāhmaṇa of the Kalki Purāṇa, son of the muni Vidrumuḍu and Soma of Purī. He was born a napuṃsaka and was given manhood by Śiva in answer to his father’s prayer. Later, in a single sea-bath, he lived a whole second life and so saw the power of Vishṇumāyā for himself. He told this story to the kings and ṛshis gathered with Kalki and Padmāvatī at Siṃhala Dvīpa, in answer to their question about womanhood and manhood (Kalki Purāṇa, Dvitīyāṃśa, Chapters 4–5).

Bābhravya was a brāhmaṇa of the Hārīta family and a close companion of Nārada at the Mahīsāgara Saṃgama. When Arjuna asked why a muni so calm and wise was always stirring quarrels, Nārada only looked at Bābhravya, who told Arjuna what he had heard from Bhagavān Kṛshṇa himself about Nārada, including Daksha‘s two śāpas and Kṛshṇa’s daily hymn to Nārada (Kaumārika Khaṇḍa).

Devaśarman was a muni of great self-control who did śrāddha for his ancestors at the Gaṅgāsāgara Saṃgama every new moon, so faithfully that his pitṛs appeared and spoke with him. Taken to pitṛ-loka, he saw that the ancestors of the muni Subhadra were fed far more richly than his own, and in shame went to the Mahīsāgara Saṃgama, where Bhṛgu and Nārada found him weeping. Subhadra comforted him and offered an exchange: each would do tarpaṇa for the other’s ancestors at his own tīrtha, sealed by the gift of a quarter of Devaśarman’s merit (Skanda Purāṇa, Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa).

Bhādraśīla was the son of Gālava Maharshi, born on the Narmadā with memory of his past life and devotion to Bhagavān Vishṇu. As a child he made clay images of Śrī Hari and taught his playmates to keep Ekādaśī. He told his father that he had been Dharmakīrti, a fallen king of the lunar line who once kept an Ekādaśī fast by chance on a hunt and went straight to Vishṇu-loka; his story is the main example of the greatness of the Ekādaśī vrata in the Nārada Purāṇa.

Bhartṛyajña was the rebirth of Yājñavalkya, who had been sent by a mongoose’s śāpa to a birth in a family of low standing because he spoke of it with scorn. Born remembering his past life, he went to the Mahīsāgara Saṅgama and worshipped the self-manifested Mahākāla liṅga there until he shed the śāpa “as a snake sheds its skin”. When Indradyumna, Mārkaṇḍeya and the four cursed animals came there, he taught them the greatness of the tīrtha and of the Śataraudrīya liṅgas.

Bhrūśuṇḍī was a muni of the Daṇḍaka forest in whom a trunk grew between the brows after years of meditation on the elephant form of Bhagavān Gaṇeśa. When Mahotkaṭa came through the forest in the Kṛta yuga, Bhrūśuṇḍī knew him at once, and their meeting gave Gaṇeśa the names Āśāpūraka, “the fulfiller of hopes”, and Gajānana, “the elephant-faced” (Gaṇeśa Purāṇa, Krīḍā Khaṇḍa, Chapters 16–17).

Dālbya Ṛshi was a ṛshi of great tapas who met the sixteen thousand wives of Kṛshṇa after dacoits had carried them off. He told them that in an earlier life they had been fire-born apsarās whom Nārada’s śāpa had parted from Nārāyaṇa, and that what had happened was the working out of karma. He taught them the Veśyā-vrata and promised that, kept faithfully, it would bring them to Vishṇuloka (Padma Purāṇa, Sṛshṭi Khaṇḍa, Chapter 23).

Devala (Vāmana Purāṇa) is the ṛshi whose śāpa turned the gandharva Hūhū into a makara after Hūhū behaved improperly while Devala bathed. On Trikūṭa the makara seized Gajendra by the leg; Gajendra, holding a golden lotus in his trunk, took refuge in Keśava, and Bhagavān Vishṇu came on Garuḍa, cut the makara’s throat with the Sudarśana cakra and freed both. So Hūhū was released from Devala’s śāpa and went to svarga (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 58).

Gālava at Hāṭakeśvara tells of Gālava, a tapasvī devoted to Śiva, in the Vāmana Purāṇa (Chapters 37–40). At Śrīkaṇṭheśvara on the Yamunā he met two maidens, the yaksha girl Nandayantī and the asura girl Devavatī, who were worshipping the liṅga, and took them with him to Pushkara for Kārtika Pūrṇimā; there a fish under the water spoke of him as one who goes about with maidens, and in shame he stayed beneath the water. Later, at the Hāṭakeśvara kshetra on the Sapta-Godāvarī, he served as ṛtvij at the weddings of four maidens before Indra and the devas.

Gālava Maharshi is honoured in the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa for his part in the life of King Ṛtadhvaja. The asura Pātālaketu kept disturbing his āśrama in the forms of wild beasts, but Gālava would not spend his tapas on a śāpa; a celestial horse, Kuvalaya, came down from the sky, and with it Ṛtadhvaja, son of King Śatrujit, drove the asura away. The Vāmana Purāṇa adds that Pātālaketu came as a boar and fled when struck by an arrow, and tells of Gālava’s journey with two maidens to Pushkara and his office as ṛtvij at the four weddings at Hāṭakeśvara.

Ṛtadhvaja, Father of Jābāli is a Pāśupata tapasvī and follower of the Sāmaveda of Puronmattapura in the Vāmana Purāṇa (Chapters 37–39), who worshipped daily at Śrīkaṇṭheśvara on the Yamunā. His śāpa turned Viśvakarmā into a vānara for forsaking his daughter Citrāṅgadā; when the vānara bound Ṛtadhvaja’s son Jābāli to a banyan by his own matted locks, he brought Prince Śakuni to free him, and taught that no one kills anyone, for each is bound by his own karma. At last he ended the śāpa and blessed the four weddings at Hāṭakeśvara.

Gauramukha at Naimiśa was a brāhmaṇa ṛshi of the Bhṛgu line in the Varāha Purāṇa. When King Durjaya camped five akshauhiṇīs near his āśrama, Gauramukha fed them all by a stotra to Bhagavān Vishṇu; when the king greedily tried to take the gem that had fed them, Vishṇu’s Sudarśana cakra destroyed his army, and the forest was named Naimishāraṇya. Gauramukha later learned the rites for the ancestors from Mārkaṇḍeya, was shown his past births and in the end reached moksha.

Gauramukha Maharshi is a ṛshi of the early Kali Yuga, called a disciple or a son of Śamīka. When Śṛṅgi pronounced the śāpa on King Parīkshit, Śamīka sent Gauramukha to tell the king that he had seven days left and to counsel him to seek moksha. The page also tells, from the Varāha Purāṇa, how he fed King Durjaya’s army with a gem from Bhagavān Vishṇu and how Mārkaṇḍeya taught him of the pitṛs.

Gautama of Tryambaka was a devotee of Bhagavān Śiva whose āśrama stood at Tryambaka near the source of the Godāvarī, where he worshipped Śiva with song and dance. The Padma Purāṇa tells of the great events at his āśrama, when Śiva and Vishṇu came there together and Hanumān sang before Śiva, and of Gautama being seen at last in a divine vimāna. The Śiva Purāṇa tells how, after a drought and a false charge of killing a cow, he brought the Godāvarī to the Deccan.

Śivaśarma of Dvārakā was a brāhmaṇa of dharma and Vishṇu-bhakti whose story opens the Bhūmi Khaṇḍa of the Padma Purāṇa (Chapters 1–5). Before leaving the world he tested his five sons, Yajñaśarma, Vedaśarma, Dharmaśarma, Vishṇuśarma and Somaśarma, each in a different way for devotion to their father, and all rose to Vishṇuloka; one of them was later born as Prahlāda. The Sukala-caritra (Chapters 35–38) tells of his two wives, Sudevā, who failed in her duty, and Maṅgalā, a great pativratā.

Yajñaśarma, eldest son of Śivaśarma of Dvārakā, passed the first test of devotion to his father: shown what looked like his mother’s dead body and told to carry it away, he obeyed at once without grief or question. Then the trick was revealed and his mother was unharmed, and he later rose to Vishṇuloka with three of his brothers (Padma Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapter 1).

Vedaśarma is the second of the five sons of Śivaśarma of Dvārakā. His test of devotion to his father was the hardest: when a woman, sent by his father’s plan, asked for his life in his father’s honour, he cut off his own head without hesitation. His brother Dharmaśarma won his life back from Yama, and he later rose to Vishṇuloka with his brothers (Padma Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapters 1–5).

Dharmaśarma is the third of the five sons of Śivaśarma of Dvārakā in the Bhūmi Khaṇḍa of the Padma Purāṇa. When his brother Vedaśarma died in the tests of devotion to their father, Dharmaśarma did hard tapas until Yama appeared. He asked first for steady devotion to his father and only then for his brother’s life, and Yama gave both; later he rose to Vishṇuloka with his brothers.

Vishṇuśarma is the fourth son of Śivaśarma of Dvārakā, whose test came through tapas. Indra sent Menakā to break his meditation, but he stayed completely still and finished his tapas; Indra then gave him amṛta as its fruit, and he rose to Vishṇuloka with his brothers (Padma Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapters 3–4).

Somaśarma was a learned but poor and childless brāhmaṇa at the Revā tīrtha near Amarakaṇṭaka, whose wife Sumanā taught him the ten limbs of dharma. Vasishṭha told him that in his last birth he had been a greedy śūdra who once fasted on Ekādaśī by chance in a devotee’s company, which raised him to a brāhmaṇa birth while his old pāpa showed as poverty. He and Sumanā did tapas at Revā, Bhagavān Vishṇu gave them a son, Suvrata, and when Kṛshṇa later took Suvrata to Vishṇuloka his parents rose with him (Padma Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapters 11–12).

Gṛtsamada is the chief ṛshi of the second maṇḍala of the Ṛgveda. In the Gaṇeśa Purāṇa he worships Bhagavān Gaṇeśa for a long time with śamī leaves, then gives all the merit of that worship to the poisoned child Kshipraprasādana at the court of King Priyavrata of Madra, who comes back to life; he also tells the Śamī Māhātmya himself. The Anuśāsana Parva tells a very different account, in which a śāpa at Indra’s thousand-year sattra turned him into a beast until Bhagavān Śiva set him free.

Hārita was an old ṛshi who carried the conch and discus of Bhagavān Vishṇu, marks of a Vaishṇava. When King Dilīpa met him on pilgrimage and spoke of his longing for spiritual knowledge, Hārita did not teach him himself but sent him to Vasishṭha, and so the whole Māgha Māhātmya came to be told (Padma Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 125).

Hārita of Maulisthāna was a brāhmaṇa master of the Vedas who, with his wife Līlāvatī, did tapas for twenty-one yugas at Maulisthāna, wishing for Bhagavān Nṛsiṃha as their son. Nṛsiṃha appeared and said that, being eternal, he could not stay in a womb, but he promised to dwell at Maulisthāna for ever for his devotees. So Maulisthāna became a great Nṛsiṃha-kshetra, linked with the Nṛsiṃha Caturdaśī vow (Padma Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 174).

Ikshvāku the Brāhmaṇa was a learned man who never did any yajña, pūjā, charity or vrata, and had spoken with disrespect of the Śiva liṅga. When he died, Yama sent him back with ten days to live and an order to go to the ṛshi Jābāli on Mount Mandara. Jābāli taught him to worship the liṅga with the flowers of the forest; he worshipped for eight or nine days, and at his death Śiva’s messenger Vahnimukha led him to the abode of Bhagavān Śiva (Padma Purāṇa, Pātāla Khaṇḍa).

Jābāli Maharshi is the ṛshi whose teaching is the basis of the Jābāli Upanishad on vibhūti and rudrāksha, and one of the teachers chosen by Daśaratha. He was born to the maiden Jābālā and is also called Satyakāma Jābāli for his truthfulness; his mother took him to the ṛshi Haridrumata Gautama, who taught him brahma-vidyā. The page tells of his stillness and humility, his settling at Citrakūṭa and worship of Subrahmaṇya, his teaching to Pippalāda, and his meeting with Śrī Rāma at Citrakūṭa.

Jada Maharshi was a ṛshi of the Bhārgava line, not the Jaḍa Bharata of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. As a boy he stood silent and smiling while his father taught him the duties of a householder, and then said that he had followed that path for five thousand lives and was still being taught the same thing. His teaching on karma and freedom follows, and the page also tells of the wisdom of Madālasā and Alarka.

Jānanti Maharshi lived at the āśrama of Nara and Nārāyaṇa and was learned in the teaching on moksha. When the brāhmaṇa Vedamāli, who had lived all his life by wrong means, came there in his old age, Jānanti taught him the nature of the ātman beyond the body, the māyā that binds the jīva, devotion to Bhagavān Vishṇu, and how even a lifetime of wrongdoing can be overcome by turning to Vishṇu (Nārada Purāṇa, Pūrvārdha, Chapter 35).

Kākabhuśuṇḍi is the immortal crow-ṛshi and supreme devotee of Bhagavān Rāma, who has lived at the Nīlādri āśrama for about twenty kalpas and tells the story of Rāma to the birds under a great banyan tree. In the Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa he removes Garuḍa’s doubt by telling him the whole Rāma kathā, which Bhagavān Śiva heard and passed on to Pārvatī. In an earlier kalpa he was a śūdra of Ayodhyā who scorned the devotees of Hari, and after many births and a śāpa of Lomaśa he took the crow body, which he keeps out of devotion.

Kauṇḍinya had his āśrama at the Saṅgameśvara tīrtha, where the Hastimatī meets the Śābhramatī. When the floods came again and again over his āśrama, he grew weary and pronounced a śāpa on the Hastimatī that it would run dry in the Kali Yuga (Padma Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 145).

Maṅki of the Śābhramatī, son of the ṛshi Kaupitaka, did tapas on the bank of the Śābhramatī for fourteen years without a break, wishing for sons, and his wish was granted. The place of his tapas became the Maṅkitīrtha (Padma Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 143).

Krauñca was a gandharva whom a śāpa turned into a mouse. The Gaṇeśa Purāṇa gives two causes: he stepped on the ṛshi Vāmadeva in Indra’s sabhā, or he attacked Manomayī, the wife of the ṛshi Saubhari. As a mouse he did great damage in the āśrama of Pārāśara, where the infant Gajānana was being raised; Gajānana caught him with his noose, Krauñca surrendered with a stotra, and became Gaṇeśa’s vāhana for ever, and so attained moksha.

Pippala, a son of Kaśyapa, did tapas for three thousand years in Daśāraṇya, living on air while his body became an anthill and snakes that bit him grew calm. The devas made him a vidyādhara with the whole world under his control, and at once he grew proud. A sārasa bird by a lake, Brahmā in disguise, told him that the young brāhmaṇa Sukarma of Kurukshetra had more power than he did, from devotion to his parents alone, and sent him to learn from Sukarma (Padma Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapter 61).

Sukarma, son of Kuṇḍala, was a young brāhmaṇa of Kurukshetra who had done no tapas, yajña or pilgrimage, but served his aged parents every day with complete devotion. By that alone he could call Indra and all the devas before him, and when the proud Pippala came to learn from him, he asked the devas only that his devotion stay firm and that his parents reach Vishṇuloka. He then taught Pippala the meaning of pārācīna and arvācīna (Padma Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapters 61–62).

Kuṇḍala was an old brāhmaṇa of Kurukshetra and the father of Sukarma, whose daily service to his parents gave him more power than three thousand years of Pippala’s tapas. When Sukarma was offered a vara, he asked that his devotion should never waver and that Kuṇḍala and his wife should go to Vishṇuloka, and so they did, without tapas, yajña or tīrtha of their own; the Bhūmi Khaṇḍa teaches that the parents are the highest tīrtha (Padma Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapters 61–63).

Maṅkaṇaka was a devotee of Bhagavān Śiva who did tapas with the five-syllable mantra at the Saptasārasvata tīrtha. When a thorn pierced his hand and plant sap flowed out instead of blood, he danced for joy until Śiva showed him sacred ash flowing from his own thumb, and humbled him; in the Kūrma Purāṇa Śiva also showed him his universal form and taught him the three tattvas. The Vāmana Purāṇa calls him Maṅkaṇa, a mind-born son of Kaśyapa, who drew the Sarasvatīs to Kurukshetra and from whose seed the seven Maruts were born.

Medhasa is the ṛshi of a peaceful forest āśrama, a school of many generations, where even tigers and lions did no harm to smaller animals. When King Suratha, who had lost his kingdom, and the merchant Samādhi came to him troubled by attachments they could not explain, he taught them of Mahāmāyā, the Śakti of Parabrahman, and told the whole cycle of the Devī: the birth of Mahākālī, the slaying of Mahishāsura, the wars with Śumbha and Niśumbha and the slaying of Durgama (Umā Saṃhitā, Chapters 45–50).

Medhāvin was a brahmarshi of great tapas who stayed with the apsarā Mañjughoshā for fifty-seven years, thinking only a day or two had passed, while his tapas wore away. When he saw it, he pronounced a śāpa that she would be a piśācī for seven years, but then taught her the Pāpamocanī Ekādaśī of the dark fortnight of Caitra, by which she was freed (Padma Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 46).

The Nava Yogīśvaras are the nine royal sons of Ṛshabhadeva, brothers of Bharata, who gave up their kingdoms young and wandered as avadhūtas: Kavi, Hari, Antarīksha, Prabuddha, Pippalāyana, Āvirhotra, Drumila, Camasa and Karabhājana. At the yajña of King Nimi of Videha they answered his nine questions on bhakti, the avatāras, the dharma of each yuga and the nature of Bhagavān Vishṇu; Karabhājana told of the three levels of devotee and of Kali Yuga, when singing Vishṇu’s names alone is enough for moksha (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11).

Puṇḍarīka the Brāhmaṇa was a young brāhmaṇa of learning and self-control who left his family and a fortune “like that of Indra” as if they were blades of grass. He walked the holy rivers and tīrthas of Bhārata and settled at Sālagrāma, where he did tapas with a single mind on Bhagavān Vishṇu. Vishṇu sent Nārada to teach him, then appeared himself and took him to Vaikuṇṭha on Garuḍa (Padma Purāṇa, Uttara Khaṇḍa, Chapter 80).

Sāmbharāyaṇī is a learned brāhmaṇī and siddha who won a lasting home in svarga by keeping the Māsa-Nakshatra vrata perfectly for seven years. When Indra wished to hear of all the Indras before him and Bṛhaspati could not tell of those before his own time, the two went to her; she told them the histories of the manvantaras from Svāyambhuva onward, among them that of the daitya Śaṅkukarṇa, who sat on Indra’s throne and came down to embrace Bhagavān Vishṇu (Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva).

Satya-tapas is a ṛshi of the Varāha Purāṇa who in an earlier life was a brāhmaṇa of the Bhṛgu line, fell by bad company to a hunter’s birth and rose again by the company of ṛshis and Durvāsa‘s teaching. He did tapas by the Pushpabhadrā under the banyan Bhadramahāvaṭa, and when he cut his finger only ash came out and the finger joined again. Tested by Bhagavān Vishṇu as Varāha and by Indra, he passed by perfect truthfulness, asked for mukti and went to Nārāyaṇa’s realm with his guru Āruṇi.

Saubhari was a teacher of the Ṛgveda who did tapas for many years in the waters of the Yamunā, until the sight of a fish with its mate stirred desire in him. Old as he was, he made himself beautiful by his tapas, married all fifty daughters of the emperor Māndhātā and built them a palace richer than the emperor’s. At last he saw that the pleasure of the senses is empty, gave up everything and reached moksha by tapas in the forest, and his wives followed him.

Śāṇḍilya was the family priest of Nanda at Gokula, who knew the secret of Vraja and of Kṛshṇa’s play, and went on living there after Kṛshṇa left the world. When Vajranābha, Kṛshṇa’s great-grandson and new king of Mathurā, grieved over the empty land, Parīkshit called Śāṇḍilya, who taught them that Vraja is the Supreme Brahman, that Kṛshṇa’s play is of two kinds, that Rādhā is Kṛshṇa’s own Ātman, and that three kinds of people lived in the holy land.

Śaṅkukarṇa was a tapasvin at the Kapardīśvara tīrtha in Kāśī. When a piśāca brāhmaṇa came there seeking release, Śaṅkukarṇa sent him to bathe in the Piśācamocana kuṇḍa, telling how a deer killed near the liṅga had risen at once to Śiva’s gaṇas; the piśāca was freed and rose to the sun’s sphere. Śaṅkukarṇa then praised Kapardīśvara with the Brahma-pāra stotra and his ātman merged into a liṅga of knowledge and bliss (Padma Purāṇa, Svarga Khaṇḍa, Chapter 35; Kūrma Purāṇa).

Śilāda is the ṛshi who wanted a son not born of a womb and free from death. Indra told him that only Parameśvara could grant such a son, and Śilāda did tapas to Śiva for a thousand divine years until only his skeleton stood; Śiva touched him, made him whole and promised to be born as his son. At the start of the yajña Śilāda then performed, the child Nandī rose from the yajña ground, and so Śilāda became the one mortal who called Bhagavān Śiva his son (Liṅga, Kūrma, Śiva and Vāmana Purāṇas).

Śveta Muni was a devotee of Bhagavān Śiva near the Dāruvana, fixed in constant japa of the Mṛtyuñjaya mantra. When Yama came for him he stood without fear, and Yama could not bind him; then Śiva came out of the nearby liṅga and struck Yama down with his triśūla, and afterwards revived him by his grace (Liṅga Purāṇa).

Śivaśarman of Mathurā was a brāhmaṇa learned in the Vedas, the śāstras, the arts and even foreign scripts, who lived a full and successful worldly life. When grey hair came he was seized with fear, seeing that he had never worshipped, given gifts or built a temple. He set out for the seven moksha-purīs, and after his death the merit of that pilgrimage carried him through all the worlds in turn to moksha; his story is the Kāśī Khaṇḍa‘s chief teaching on tīrtha-yātrā (Skanda Purāṇa, Kāśī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 7).

Sutanu was a brāhmaṇa boy of the holy village of Kalāpagrāma, “a child who was not a child”, for he was a knower of the Self. When Nārada put twelve hard questions to the quarrelling brāhmaṇas of the village, they sent him to Sutanu, the youngest, who answered them all: the fifty-two mātṛkā letters, the house of fives, the greatest crocodile, the eight kinds of brāhmaṇa, the yugādi and manvantarādi days, Ratha-Saptamī and the two paths after death (Skanda Purāṇa, Kaumārika Khaṇḍa).

Utathya Satyavrata was a brāhmaṇa of Kośala, called Satyavrata for his vow never to lie, who was born dull by Gobhila‘s śāpa on his father Devadatta at a yajña for a son. For fifteen years he lived in the forest knowing no mantra, until, out of pity for a wounded boar, he spoke the syllable “Ai”, the seed-mantra of Sarasvatī, without having learned it. In that moment the Parāśakti gave him all learning and he became a great poet (Devī Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3).

Vāmadeva is a great jñānī who knew the oneness of the ātman with Brahman while still in the womb, in the Rathantara Kalpa. In the Kailāsa Saṃhitā of the Śiva Purāṇa he goes to Kumāraśikhara on Meru and becomes the chief student of Kumārasvāmi; in the Nārada Purāṇa he is the royal guru of King Rukmāṅgada; in the Padma Purāṇa his consecration gives Candrabhāgā a divine body; and in the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa he is one of Daśaratha‘s four purohitas. The Mahābhārata gives his teaching on rājadharma in the Vāmadeva Gītā.

Vāsu the Purohita was the royal priest of King Rukmāṅgada of Śrāvastī, a brāhmaṇa who knew all the Purāṇas. When Śrī Hari had taken Rukmāṅgada and his family to Vaikuṇṭha, Vāsu’s śāpa burned Mohinī to ash; when Vishṇu revived her and she sought cleansing, Vāsu told her the greatness of the holy places of Bhārata, Gaṅgā, Gayā, Kāśī and the rest, in Chapters 38–82 of the Uttarārdha of the Nārada Purāṇa, and at the end saw the coming Kṛshṇa-avatāra.

Ṛshis of the śāstras and sciences

Brahmamitra was a teacher who mastered the thirteenth part of the Atharva Veda and the eight sections of Āyurveda. When he refused to teach the gandharva prince Indīvarāksha, the prince hid and learned everything in secret over eight months, then laughed aloud in pride. Brahmamitra pronounced a śāpa that he would become a rākshasa within seven days, but out of mercy told him he would regain his true form after facing a powerful astra.

Pālakāpya is the ṛshi who taught the Gaja-Āyurveda, the Āyurveda of elephants, to Lomapāda, king of Aṅga. The Agni Purāṇa names him with Śālihotra, teacher of the science of horses, and gives his teaching: the seven good marks of an elephant (colour, spirit, strength, form, lustre, a compact body and speed), the treatment of each disease, and the food and care that keep a king’s elephants strong in battle (Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 286–292).

Śālihotra is the ṛshi who taught the Aśva-Āyurveda, the Āyurveda of horses, to Suśruta. In the Agni Purāṇa he speaks to Suśruta for three chapters: the marks of good and bad horses and their whorls, the medicines for each of their diseases, their drinks in each season, their food and stabling, and the śānti rites that remove the diseases of horses and of elephants (Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 288–292).

Suśruta is the disciple to whom Dhanvantari taught the Āyurveda. The Agni Purāṇa gives its whole Āyurveda section as that teaching: medicines for every disease, the doshas and the seasons, the making of medicines, the Āyurveda of trees and the remedies that give long life (Chapters 279–283). He also learned the proven formulas of Ātreya, and from Śālihotra the Āyurveda of horses.

Kātyāyana is a maharshi learned in dharma and in the science of language. The Agni Purāṇa names him three times: as the maharshi who told the munis the Śrāddha-kalpa, the full rite of śrāddha for the pitṛs, from the invitation of the brāhmaṇas to the piṇḍas and the blessing; as one of the teachers of dharma; and as the listener to whom Skanda taught vyākaraṇa “for the knowledge of children”.

Garga Maharshi was the family priest and guru of the Yadu dynasty, descended from Bharadvāja through Vitatha, and a devotee of Śiva, who taught him all the sacred sciences. He went to Gokula, told Yaśodā that the child in her lap was the son of Vasudeva and Śrī Mahāvishṇu himself, and named Kṛshṇa and Balarāma, explaining their many names and forms. The page also tells of his guidance to Kārtavīryārjuna, his part in the story of Kālayavana, his works on dharma and jyotisha, and the Garga Saṃhitā.

Gargācārya is the astronomer-ṛshi and founder of the Gārgya jyotisha tradition. The Vishṇu Purāṇa tells that he went down into the pātāla worlds and received the science of jyotisha from Śesha-nāga himself, which is what makes his system authoritative; other Purāṇas know him as the Yādava priest who named Kṛshṇa and Balarāma. The Agni Purāṇa uses his jyotiśśāstra to reckon the income and expenditure of a house from its measures.

Garga Jyotishī is the astronomer-ṛshi called upon at the wedding of Bhagavān Śiva and Pārvatī in Himavān‘s palace, as the foremost master of reckoning among those present. He worked out the positions of the stars and planets and the tithi and announced the exact muhūrta for the pāṇigrahaṇa, the taking of the bride’s hand (Śiva Purāṇa, Rudra Saṃhitā, Pārvatī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 47).

Gargācārya in the Vishṇu Dharmottara Purāṇa is the teacher of the science of omens (utpāta-śāstra) and the śānti rites that answer them. On the banks of the Sarasvatī he teaches Atri about omens of images, fire, trees, rain, water, births, animals and birds, the signs that a king will fall, the duties of a king and festivals such as the Śakradhvaja. This teaching fills Chapters 134–165 of the Dvitīya Khaṇḍa, told by Pushkara to Paraśurāma.

Pāṇini was a grandson of the brāhmaṇa Pitṛśarman of Mathurā and one of four scholar-brothers, who held that the highest dharma is to worship Śabda-brahma through grammar. After losing a debate to the disciples of Kaṇāda he went in shame on a long pilgrimage, and at Kedāra prayed to Śiva, who gave him the opening sūtras beginning “Aiuṇ”, the Māheśvara Sūtras, seed of the Ashṭādhyāyī (Bhavishya Purāṇa, Pratisarga Parva, Khaṇḍa 2).

Kāmandaka teaches King Āṅgarishṭha the trivarga in the Śānti Parva (Chapter 89): dharma, artha and kāma fit together only when dharma is the base, for wealth won by adharma does not last and desire that breaks dharma brings sorrow. Put in the right order, the three help one another. The later tradition names him as the author of the Kāmandakīya Nītisāra, a chief text on the science of government.

Pushkara, Son of Varuṇa is the teacher of the Dvitīya Khaṇḍa of the Vishṇu Dharmottara Purāṇa. When Paraśurāma came to Varuṇaloka and asked for rājadharma, Varuṇa called his son Pushkara, who had learned it from Indra, and Pushkara taught him the whole of it in 183 chapters: government, law, medicine for people and animals, purification, marriage and daily conduct. In the Agni Purāṇa too he teaches Paraśurāma the dharma of the varṇas and āśramas, prāyaścitta, the whole rāja-dharma, the ritual uses of the four Vedas and the rites of peace.

Śaṅkha and Likhita were ṛshi brothers born after their parents’ tapas on the Bāhudā river, who lived in separate āśramas and never spoke an untruth. When Likhita ate two mangoes from his brother’s āśrama without asking, Śaṅkha sent him to King Sudyumna for punishment; Likhita accepted the loss of his hands gladly, and they were restored when he bathed in the river. Both wrote Smṛtis, the codes of dharma, and the Agni Purāṇa names them among the twenty teachers of dharma.

Sources

• Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 4, 9, 11, 31, 58, 65, 69
• Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 10
• Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 33, 111, 132, 167, 280, 292
• Bhavishya Purāṇa, Brahma Parva, Chapters 1, 61, 133; Uttara Parva, Chapters 69, 96–97, 148–150
• For each ṛshi, the sources are listed on his or her own page.

Read more about the biographies of various Ṛshis