Kākabhuśuṇḍi

Kākabhuśuṇḍi · kāka-bhuśuṇḍi

Kākabhuśuṇḍi is an immortal crow-ṛshi of very great age. He is a supreme devotee of Bhagavān Rāma. He lives at the Nīlādri āśrama (a forest dwelling of a ṛshi) and has lived there in the form of a crow for about twenty kalpas (long ages of the world).

Day after day he tells the Rāmacaritamānasa, the story of Bhagavān Rāma, to a gathering of haṃsas (swans) and other birds. Though he has a crow’s body, he is a sarvajña (one who knows all things at all times). He is also a paramatattvajña, one who knows the highest truth. By the grace of Bhagavān Rāma he knows Parabrahman directly.

Who he is and where he lives

Kākabhuśuṇḍi lives at the Nīlādri āśrama, a holy mountain in the north. Its nearness removes māyā (the power of illusion) from every seeker who comes close. He sits under a great vaṭa (banyan) tree and tells the whole Rāmacaritamānasa without a pause. The haṃsas and other birds gather before him with faith and devotion. He has lived at this āśrama for about twenty kalpas.

In every Rāmāvatāra (every coming of Bhagavān Rāma to the earth) across countless cycles he has seen the birth and childhood play of Bhagavān Rāma.

The frame of the narration

The Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa is told in a chain of narrations placed one inside another. The innermost one is Kākabhuśuṇḍi’s telling of the Rāma kathā to Garuḍa, the divine eagle. Garuḍa had come to Nīlādri with a doubt that rose from the war at Laṅkā. Kākabhuśuṇḍi removed the doubt by telling the whole Rāmāyaṇa and by teaching Garuḍa about the nature of Bhagavān Rāma.

Bhagavān Śiva had come to Nīlādri after the death of Satī, and he heard this talk. Later Bhagavān Śiva told it to Pārvatī. From Pārvatī it reached Yājñavalkya, who told it to Bharadvāja at Prayāga. Tulasīdāsa received it through this line.

Pūrva-gātha: the birth as a śūdra

Pūrva-gātha means the story of his earlier life. In an earlier kalpa, in Kali Yuga, Kākabhuśuṇḍi was born as a śūdra in Ayodhyā, the city of Bhagavān Rāma. He was an ardent devotee of Bhagavān Śiva. But he looked down on Bhagavān Vishṇu and on all the devotees of Hari, and he spoke against them openly.

In a famine he moved to Ujjayinī. There a kind brāhmaṇa guru took him as a disciple. This guru was a paramatattvajña and loved both Bhagavān Śiva and Bhagavān Rāma. He gave the young man the Śiva-mantra as dīkshā (initiation). Again and again he told him: “The true mark of devotion to Śiva is that love for Śrī Rāma arises.”

The student heard this with rage inside, while he kept a calm face outside. He was like a snake that is fed and still keeps its poison.

Guru-droha and Śiva’s śāpa

One day the śūdra student sat in the Śiva temple, doing japa (silent repetition) of the name of Bhagavān Śiva. His guru came in. The student saw him but, out of pride, did not rise or bow. He sat still like a python (ajagaravat).

Then the voice of Bhagavān Śiva spoke from within the liṅga as an ākāśavāṇī (a voice from the sky): “O self-conceited one! O wretched one! Your guru has won over anger and has a kind heart. But I cannot forgive you. So I give you this śāpa (a curse): the one who wrongs his guru must be born in low births for ten thousand lives. You sat still like a python in your pride. Therefore you shall be a serpent and take a low birth.”

The guru was heartbroken. He at once raised both hands and sang the eight-verse Rudrāshṭakam, praying earnestly for his student. Bhagavān Śiva was moved and softened the śāpa. The śūdra would keep his earlier knowledge through all his births. He would be free from the pain of birth and death. And because he was born in the city of Bhagavān Rāma and served Bhagavān Śiva with bhakti (devotion), he would grow a supreme devotion to Śrī Rāma.

Many births, from serpent to brāhmaṇa

After the śāpa, Kākabhuśuṇḍi was born as a serpent in the Vindhyā region. Then he passed through many more births in other kinds of creatures. In each birth he kept his earlier knowledge and served Bhagavān Rāma with steady devotion.

At last, after this long journey, he was born in a brāhmaṇa family. Even as a child he never forgot Bhagavān Rāma. His only wish was to see Bhagavān Rāma with his own eyes. After his parents died he wandered through forests and āśramas. He listened to the stories of Bhagavān Rāma’s qualities wherever he could find them, and he asked the munis where Bhagavān Rāma could be found. When the munis tried to teach him about nirguṇa brahman (Brahman without form or qualities), his mind would not accept it. Saguṇa Rāma, Rāma with form and qualities, was his only love.

The meeting with Lomaśa and the crow śāpa

In this longing he met Lomaśa Maharshi, who sat under a great banyan tree on Mount Meru. He asked Lomaśa to teach him saguṇa-brahma-upāsanā, the worship of Brahman with form. Lomaśa began to speak of the glory of Bhagavān Rāma, but then turned to nirguṇa-tattva (the truth of Brahman without form).

The student pushed back: “As a fish cannot leave water, my mind cannot leave the truth of saguṇa.” The argument grew hot. The student argued for saguṇa so strongly that Lomaśa became angry and gave him a śāpa: “O fool! You refused the truth of Brahman and stood against me with stubbornness. So take the low birth of a crow and roam!”

Kākabhuśuṇḍi took the śāpa without any disturbance. With a peaceful mind, repeating the name of Bhagavān Rāma, he bowed at Lomaśa’s feet and calmly went away.

Lomaśa’s varas

Lomaśa Maharshi saw the depth of Kākabhuśuṇḍi’s bhakti and how fully calm he had stayed when he took the śāpa. He concluded that it was Bhagavān Rāma’s own saṅkalpa (resolve) that had used him to test the student. Then Lomaśa gave him great varas (boons).

Lomaśa said: “O best of crows (Vāyasottama)! I will now tell you the Rāmacaritamānasa-kathā, which I received from Śaṃkara.” He taught him the sacred Rāma-mantra. He taught him to meditate on the form of Bāla Rāma, the child Rāma, which became Kākabhuśuṇḍi’s eternal ishṭa-deva (the chosen form of Bhagavān Rāma to love). Then he told him the whole Rāmacaritamānasa.

Lomaśa also blessed him with firm devotion to Bhagavān Rāma, the power to take any form at will, death at a time of his own choosing, freedom from māyā within a yojana of his āśrama, and freedom from the pull of all pleasures and pains.

At that moment the ākāśavāṇī of Bhagavān Rāma himself confirmed: “Kākabhuśuṇḍi is truly my supreme devotee. May your words to him surely bear fruit!”

The vision inside Bhagavān Rāma’s belly

In every Rāmāvatāra, Kākabhuśuṇḍi goes to Ayodhyā as a small crow to watch the childhood play of Bāla Rāma. Once he was watching the child play and was eating the food that the child had tossed aside, as prasāda (food offered to Bhagavān Rāma). A doubt arose in him: “Is this truly Parabrahman?”

At once the māyā of Bhagavān Rāma came down on him. A wild chase began. Kākabhuśuṇḍi flew upward, and the small hand of Bhagavān Rāma stayed always two finger-widths behind him, all the way past the seven coverings of the brahmāṇḍa (the egg of the universe). He closed his eyes in fear. When he opened them he was back in Ayodhyā, and he was drawn through the smiling open mouth of Bhagavān Rāma into his belly.

Inside he saw countless brahmāṇḍas, with billions of Brahmās and Śivas, and all the worlds and all creation. He wandered from one brahmāṇḍa to the next, a hundred years in each, a hundred kalpas in all. In every brahmāṇḍa there was its own Ayodhyā, its own Sītā and its own Lakshmaṇa. Yet Bhagavān Rāma was everywhere the same one Rāma, with no second.

When the vastness overwhelmed him and his mind began to waver, Bhagavān Rāma smiled and let him go. All of this had taken only two ghaṭikās (one hour) of outside time.

The vara of bhakti from Bhagavān Rāma

Bhagavān Rāma laid his hand of fearlessness (abhaya-hasta) on Kākabhuśuṇḍi’s head and offered him any vara. He named the eight siddhis (powers), the nine nidhis (treasures), moksha (liberation), jñāna (knowledge) and vijñāna (deep realisation).

Kākabhuśuṇḍi answered: “You have named every kind of wealth, yet you did not name bhakti, and I find this strange. What use is moksha without bhakti? It is like a curry made without salt. That highest thing, which yogīs and munis strive for without rest, which the Vedas praise without end, that alone is what I ask.”

Bhagavān Rāma smiled and gave the vara: “So be it. From this day all the secrets of bhakti, jñāna and vairāgya (detachment) will be fully known to you. Māyā and moha (delusion) will no longer touch you. A Parameshṭhi without bhakti is less dear to me than a pañcama who loves me and is like my very life. Worship my form with purity of mind, speech and body (trikaraṇa-śuddhi). May you live long, for countless ages.”

Teaching on bhakti and jñāna

In the Garuḍa–Kākabhuśuṇḍi saṃvāda (dialogue), after he had told the whole Rāmāyaṇa, Kākabhuśuṇḍi gave Garuḍa a long talk comparing bhakti and jñāna. The main teaching is this: “Between bhakti and jñāna there is no great difference. Both destroy the pain of saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death). But jñāna is an asidhārā-vrata, a vow like walking a sword’s edge: with the least carelessness one falls. Māyā is like a dancer (nāṭyakattē), and even the greatest jñānīs are shaken by her. But bhakti is so dear to Bhagavān Rāma that māyā is afraid to come near it. A devotee of Bhagavān Rāma is safe from māyā.”

He ended with these words: “Even a mosquito can become Brahmā through the grace of Bhagavān Rāma. Without that grace, Brahmā himself falls lower than a mosquito.”

Why he does not leave the crow body

Garuḍa asked why a ṛshi of such realisation stayed in a crow’s body. Kākabhuśuṇḍi answered: “In many earlier births I did japa, tapas, yoga and good deeds. But in none of those births did I find the joy and fulfilment that I have in this birth. This crow body has been the means through which devotion to Bhagavān Rāma arose in me. As we love the silkworm because it gives silk, so I love this body because it gave me the darśana (sight) of Bhagavān Rāma. In no birth was I as fulfilled as in this one.”

Seeing the birth of Bhagavān Rāma

In the Rāmāvatāra, Kākabhuśuṇḍi was moved by the great joy of the birth celebrations of Bhagavān Rāma in Ayodhyā. He went there in human form to see them for himself. Bhagavān Śiva himself went with him. Kākabhuśuṇḍi told Garuḍa that the sight of the whole city of Ayodhyā shining with joy, music and decoration at the birth of Rāmacandra was greater than anything the three worlds had ever seen.

Sources

• Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa, Bāla Kāṇḍa: Kākabhuśuṇḍi Rāma Kathā; Śrī Rāma Janana
• Tulasī Rāmāyaṇa, Uttara Kāṇḍa: Śiva’s Curse; Kali Yuga Effects; Lomaśa Maharshi’s Curse; Varadāna from Lomaśa; The Devotee’s Foolishness and Bhagavān Rāma’s Grace; The Importance of Bhakti; Garuḍa–Kākabhuśuṇḍi Meeting; Śiva Narrating to Pārvatī; Bhūśuṇḍi’s Teaching on Bhakti and Jñāna; Bhakti Is Supreme; Bhūśuṇḍi’s Past Lives