Upamanyu

Upamanyu

Upamanyu is a great brāhmaṇa ṛshi and a lifelong devotee of Bhagavān Śiva. His āśrama (hermitage) in the Himālayas became a supreme centre of Śiva-upāsanā (the practice of devotion to Śiva).

In the Kūrma Mahā Purāṇa he is the guru who initiated Bhagavān Kṛshṇa into pāśupata-yoga and Śiva-upāsanā. He taught Kṛshṇa how to gain the darśana (sight) of Parameśvara Śiva. His āśrama by the Gaṅgā is described as a holy meeting place of countless siddhas, brahmarshis and Śiva-bhaktas. Vāsudeva Kṛshṇa himself came there in the form of an ardent disciple.

Several texts tell of Upamanyu. These are the Kūrma Mahā Purāṇa, the Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa, the Śata Rudra Saṃhitā of the Śiva Purāṇa, the Vāyavīya Saṃhitā and the Anuśāsana Parva of the Mahābhārata. The Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa names his father as Vītamanyu, a brāhmaṇa of the line of Atri, and his mother as Dharmaśīlā, and tells how, as a poor child longing for milk, he worshipped Virūpāksha at his mother’s word and was given milk-food.

The āśrama in the Himālayas

Upamanyu’s āśrama stands in the Himālayas, on the bank of the sacred Gaṅgā. The Kūrma Purāṇa describes it in great detail as a place of rare beauty and power. It has many trees and creepers and many kinds of birds. It is surrounded by the hermitages of ṛshis and is full of the sound of Vedic mantras. Lions, bears, śarabhas, tigers and elephants live there, and there are pure and pleasing lakes.

It has divine gardens, auspicious temple shrines (devatā-mandiras), and ṛshis with their sons. Its munis are skilled in vedādhyayana (study of the Veda), devoted to the daily agnihotra, absorbed in yoga, steady in samādhi, and deeply realised in the highest truth (paratattva).

All who lived in the āśrama were bhaktas of Parameśvara. Their bodies were covered with bhasma (sacred ash). They did rudramantra-japa (repeating the mantras of Rudra), wore matted hair (jaṭā) and bark garments (nārabhaṭṭa), and were pure, with tufts of hair (śikhā). Vedāntins and brahma-vādins served the āśrama at all times.

The place was known for four things:

• Vāsishṭha did great tapas there and received yogavidyā (the knowledge of yoga) from Maheśvara.
• The divine Kṛshṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa himself had the darśana of Parameśvara there.
• Sāvarṇa worshipped Mahādeva there and gained the highest yoga-siddhi.
• Kāpeya Śāṃśapāyana composed there a Purāṇa saṃhitā of twelve thousand ślokas.

Above all, Śiva himself dwells in this āśrama for ever, with Pārvatī, at play. He is surrounded by the bhūtagaṇas and the yogīs. He is described as Vṛshabhadhvaja, with Umā, in his Ardhanārīśvara form.

Character and spiritual stature

The Kūrma Purāṇa calls Upamanyu a mahātmā and a supreme muni. He is a yogīśvara and a tattva-vettā (knower of the highest truth). He is covered in bhasma, wears matted hair and bark garments, and is perfectly śānta (peaceful).

The munis of the āśrama knew Bhagavān Kṛshṇa as the sākshāt Ādideva (the first deva, in person), the unmanifest one, the form of the supreme Brahman, and the cause of creation and dissolution. When he came to the āśrama, Upamanyu received him as an honoured guest and as a teacher. He knew his divine identity, yet he received him with the proper dignity of guru and disciple. Upamanyu said:

“We know you as the one who is the cause of all words, the supreme abode, beyond the reach of the senses, the master of all senses. You are welcome. Our tapas are fulfilled. The very Vishṇu, the form of the whole world, has come to our home.”

The initiation of Śrī Kṛshṇa

Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa is himself the source and ground of all creation. Yet he chose to perform tapas in this world, to obtain a son and to show dharma to humankind. He came to Upamanyu’s āśrama to ask how to gain the darśana of Parameśvara Śiva. He came in full humility, as a disciple. He bowed before the muni and said:

“Mahātmā, I wish to have the darśana of Śiva, the skin-clad Girīśa. By what means is Parameśvara to be seen? Where shall I soon see Umāpati? Instruct me, O revered muni.”

Upamanyu told him that Parameśvara is reached only through bhakti and intense tapas. He said that this very place is where such darśana happens, because Śiva is always present here with Pārvatī. He then gave Kṛshṇa three things needed for the sādhana (spiritual practice):

1. Jñāna, the knowledge of the truth (tattva).
2. Niyama, regulated discipline.
3. Pāśupata-yoga, the supreme yoga of Śiva-sādhana.

Taught in this way, Kṛshṇa, the Madhusūdana, did intense tapas at the āśrama. He covered his body with bhasma, shaved his hair, wore bark garments, fixed his mind wholly on Śiva, and repeated Śiva’s name without pause. After a long time, Bhagavān Śiva appeared to Kṛshṇa through the sky, together with Devī Pārvatī.

Upamanyu after Kṛshṇa’s tapas

When Kṛshṇa‘s tapas was complete, he had received Śiva‘s darśana and the vara (boon) of a son. He then stayed a long time at Kailāsa with Śiva. When Kṛshṇa at last left, Garuḍa came looking for him. Garuḍa found the āśrama without Kṛshṇa, and the Purāṇa names Upamanyu as the one he bowed to.

Upamanyu’s āśrama stands as one of the foremost Śiva-kshetras (holy places of Śiva) in the Kūrma Purāṇa‘s sacred geography. It is a place where the divine and the human meet and the highest upāsanā is practised. Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, who is Vishṇu, came there as a devoted disciple to receive the grace of Parameśvara Śiva.

The Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa account

The Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa mentions a separate episode with Upamanyu. Chapter 56 tells how Śiva gave the Sudarśana cakra to Bhagavān Vishṇu. Nārada Maharshi asked Pulastya Maharshi why Bhagavān Śiva gave the cakra to Vishṇu, the Lokanātha, and Pulastya answered with the account of Upamanyu’s childhood, in which his own mother urges him to worship Virūpāksha (Śiva). Virūpāksha is the form that came forth after the Sudarśana had divided Śiva’s body into three.

His parents and the rice-water

Once there lived a learned brāhmaṇa householder named Vītamanyu, of the line of Atri. His wife Dharmaśīlā was a pativratā (a wife devoted to her husband), of good conduct, who held her husband as her very life. To them was born Upamanyu, a blessed and radiant child. They were poor, and every day Dharmaśīlā gave her son water mixed with rice flour, telling him it was milk. The boy did not know the taste of milk, and he drank it.

One day he went with his father to a meal at a brāhmaṇa’s house, and there they were served sweet kshīrānna (rice cooked in milk). He drank that pāyasa to his fill. The next day he would not drink the rice-water his mother gave him, and he cried for milk. He refused everything else and waited for milk, like the cātaka bird for a drop of the Svāti rain.

His mother’s teaching

Pained by the child’s crying, Dharmaśīlā said, her voice choked: “Child! Where Śaṅkara, Umāpati, Paśupati, the bearer of the śūla, Virūpāksha, is not pleased, where can milk come from? If you truly want milk, worship that Virūpāksha who holds the triśūla, my son. If he who is the whole world, the giver of every good, is pleased, you may drink not only milk but amṛta itself.”

The boy asked: “Mother! Who is this Virūpāksha you tell me to worship? Tell me what he is like.” Then Dharmaśīlā told him the account of Śrīdāma and the Sudarśana. The fearsome rākshasa Śrīdāma had conquered the three worlds and carried off Lakshmī Devī, so that all the worlds were left without Śrī, and he meant to steal even the Śrīvatsa of Vāsudeva. Janārdana went to Maheśvara, who was seated as Yogamūrti on a tableland of the Himācala, and stood on the big toe of one foot for a thousand years in tapas. Bhagavān Śiva gave him the divine Sudarśana cakra, with its twelve spokes, six naves and two axles, made of all the devas. To know that it never failed, Śrī Hari released it on Śiva himself, at Śiva’s own command, and it cut Śiva’s body into three: Viśveśvara, Yajñeśvara and Yājaka. Vishṇu fell at his feet. Bhava looked at him with love and told him to rise: his true form cannot be cut or burned, and the three pieces would be famed as Hiraṇyāksha, Suvarṇāksha and Virūpāksha, givers of puṇya to men. With the cakra Vishṇu cut off Śrīdāma’s head on Mount Meru; then he worshipped Śiva Virūpāksha and went with the Sudarśana to the Kshīrasāgara.

“Son Upamanyu!” she ended. “That is Prabhu Virūpāksha, the three-eyed. If you worship him, you will have the meal of milk-rice you want.”

The milk-food

Pleased with his mother’s words, the boy set his mind firmly on Virūpāksha deva. Upamanyu followed this and performed the Virūpāksha ārādhana with devotion, and the food was given to him: he obtained kshīra-bhojana, food of milk.

This episode belongs to Upamanyu’s childhood.

The Śata Rudra Saṃhitā account: the childhood tapas and the Sureśvara Avatāra

Early life

The Śata Rudra Saṃhitā gives the fullest account of Upamanyu’s early life. He is the son of Vyāghrapāda, a great ṛshi whose name means “tiger-footed”. He had gained siddhi in an earlier birth before he was born as a muni’s son.

By the turns of fate, Upamanyu lived with his mother at his mother’s brother’s house from childhood. The family was very poor. Only a little milk was to be had in that house, and the child Upamanyu was given very little.

One day Upamanyu asked his mother lovingly for milk. His mother was a devoted tapasvinī. She went inside and found nothing to give. She ground some grain she had gathered by uñchavṛtti (gleaning fallen grain), mixed the flour with water, and gave it to her son in place of milk. The child drank it, knew at once that it was not milk, and began to weep again. His mother’s heart broke and she could not hold back her own grief. Then she told him the truth:

“For those of us who live in the forest, where is milk to come from? Without Śaṃbhu’s grace, milk cannot be had. Whatever tapas for Śiva you did in your earlier birth, only that much is yours in this birth. This is certain.”

Hearing this, the young Upamanyu made up his mind with full confidence. He said, “If Mahādeva is there, all will be plentiful. Let mother not grieve. I will gain an ocean of milk through Śiva‘s grace.” He bowed to his mother and left.

Tapas in the Himālayas

Upamanyu went to the Himālayas. There he built a small shrine of eight bricks and shaped a liṅga from clay. Then he began his pūjā. He lived on wind alone, with a one-pointed mind. He invited Śiva with Pārvatī into the liṅga and offered whatever leaves and flowers the forest gave. He chanted the Pañcāksharī mantra without pause. He meditated on Śiva and Pārvatī together in unbroken dhyāna. His tapas was so intense that the whole world, moving and unmoving, was lit by its glow.

Indra’s false test

Śiva was pleased with this remarkable child-devotee and wished to test his devotion. He took the form of Indra. Pārvatī became Śacī, the gaṇas became devas, Nandīśvara became Airāvata, and the whole company of Indra’s court was copied. In this form Indra-Śiva came to Upamanyu’s āśrama. He said to the child: “I am pleased with your tapas. Ask a vara. I am Indra, lord of the three worlds, and I will give you all you desire. Give up this pūjā of the nirguṇa Rudra. He has been cast out from the company of the devas. He is a ghost.”

Upamanyu was chanting the Pañcāksharī mantra steadily. He saw that the visitor was a disturber of his dharma, and he answered without a pause:

“You speak of Rudra as nirguṇa and a piśāca. But Rudra is the father of Brahmā, Vishṇu and Maheśvara. He is the form of cause and effect. He is both the manifest world and the unmanifest Prakṛti. He is eternal, one without a second, and of many forms. This is what the knowers of Brahman declare. I seek my vara from Rudra alone. I will not seek it from you, nor from Brahmā, nor from Vishṇu, nor from any other deva. There is no philosophy in this. My resolve is fixed: only from Śiva.”

He then said: “I have heard Śiva-nindā (abuse of Śiva) from your mouth. One who hears Śiva-nindā should at once give up that body, and so reach Śivaloka.” He called up the Aghorāstra with bhasma from the base of the liṅga and hurled it at Indra. At the same time he got ready to burn his own body with the Āgneyāstra, rather than go on living after hearing such words.

Śiva’s revelation and the vara

Śiva at once showed his true form, and the test was over. Nandī stopped the Aghorāstra at Nandīśvara’s command. Śiva himself put out the fire of the Āgneyāstra by returning to his own form. Upamanyu now stood before Śiva in full glory, with Pārvatī, seated on Nandī, attended by all the leaders of the gaṇas, and holding the triśūla. Flowers rained from the sky and divine drums sounded. Vishṇu, Brahmā, Indra and all the devas came in a vast gathering.

Śiva smiled, called Upamanyu to him, kissed his forehead, and said: “I am satisfied with your supreme devotion. Receive your varas.” He declared Upamanyu his own son and Pārvatī his eternal mother. Śiva gave these varas:

• The whole ocean of milk (kshīra), made solid and tangible, as Upamanyu’s never-ending food.
• Immortality and freedom from old age, and eternal joy without grief.
• Eternal gaṇādhipatya, lordship over all the gaṇas.
• The pāśupata-vrata and the jñāna-yoga by which Īśvara can be known.
• The power of pravacana (teaching), and Śiva’s own dhāma (abode).
• Śiva’s constant dwelling in Upamanyu’s āśrama for all time.

Pārvatī laid her lotus hand on his head and declared him her eternal son.

Upamanyu’s own requests were turned inward. He asked for unshaken bhakti to Śiva at all times, śraddhā (faith) toward Śiva’s devotees, Śiva-dāsya (the joy of being Śiva’s servant), the pure friendship of Śiva, and Śiva’s constant presence (sānnidhya). Śiva granted all this and added: “You will be free of old age and death at all times. All your kin, your lineage and your gotra will be imperishable. Your bhakti to me will be eternal.”

Having received the varas, Upamanyu went back to his mother and told her everything. She was filled with great joy.

This account of Upamanyu’s childhood tapas is called the Sureśvara Avatāra of Śiva. Śiva came in the form of Indra (Sureśvara) to test the child’s devotion before showing himself.

The Vāyavīya Saṃhitā account: the chief teacher of the Uttarakhaṇḍa

The Vāyavīya Saṃhitā (Pūrvakhaṇḍa and Uttarakhaṇḍa) presents Upamanyu as the greatest Śaiva teacher of his age. Through him the whole Śaiva teaching of the Uttarakhaṇḍa was handed on.

The milk-vrata from childhood

The Vāyavīya stresses that Upamanyu’s kshīra-vrata (the vow of living on milk alone) was his basic practice from the very start. Even the milk he got by begging was not enough. He then drank the water in which rice had been washed, the humblest of all foods. He did so without complaint and without leaving his sādhana. This great simplicity is shown as the outer sign of his complete turning to Śiva. In the words of the text: “Śiva alone is my nourishment; I require nothing else.”

Indra’s test in the Vāyavīya

In the Vāyavīya, Indra disguised himself as Śiva and tried to turn Upamanyu’s devotion aside. Upamanyu saw through the pretence at once and would not be moved. Indra showed his true form, praised Upamanyu, and left. The Vāyavīya shows Upamanyu’s viveka (discerning wisdom) as much as his bhakti. He could know the real Śiva even when a deva in a perfect disguise stood before him.

The full teaching to Kṛshṇa

The most special part of the Vāyavīya is that it shows Upamanyu as the teacher of the whole forty-chapter Uttarakhaṇḍa to Śrī Kṛshṇa. Kṛshṇa came to Upamanyu’s āśrama asking for Śiva’s grace to have children. Upamanyu gave him the whole ordered Śaiva teaching:

• The paśu-pāśa-pati teaching, the framework of Śaiva Siddhānta.
• The pañcabrahma, Śiva’s fivefold manifestation in creation.
• The nature of Śiva as Āditya, the form of the sun.
• The twenty-eight yogācārya avatāras of Śiva in the present manvantara.
• The pañcākshara mantra, with its philosophy, its japa-vidhi (rules of repetition) and its puraścaraṇa (the full course of repetition).
• The three kinds of dīkshā (initiation) and the shaḍadhva-śodhana (purification of the six paths).
• The full system of pañcāvaraṇa-pūjā.
• The method of śivaliṅga-pratishṭhā (installing a Śiva liṅga).
• The full ashṭāṅga-yoga of the Śaiva tradition.

After this teaching, Upamanyu formally initiated Kṛshṇa into the pañcākshara and the pāśupata-vrata. He sent him to Śvetadvīpa to receive Śiva’s own blessing.

Place in the line of teachers

The Vāyavīya gives Upamanyu’s place in the line through which the teaching of the whole Vāyavīya Saṃhitā came down:

Śiva → Upamanyu → Kṛshṇa → Sanatkumāra → Vyāsa → Sūta → the ṛshis of Naimisha

Upamanyu is the link that cannot be left out. He received Śiva’s direct teaching and passed it on in a form that could enter the human world.

The Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva account: son of Vyāghrapāda, the milk-vow, and Kṛshṇa’s Śiva-dīkshā

The Anuśāsana Parva of the Mahābhārata gives a fourth account, full of detail. It stands as the opening narrative before the Śiva Sahasranāma (the thousand names of Śiva). Here Upamanyu is the son of the great ṛshi Vyāghrapāda, who had mastered the Veda and the Vedāṅgas. This text says that Dhaumya was Upamanyu’s younger brother.

In the Ādi Parva (Pauloma Parva, Chapters 3–5), Dhaumya is Upamanyu’s guru. He tests him through the cattle-herding, the blindness from eating ākra leaves, and the healing by the Aśvins.

The taste of milk and the mother’s teaching

As a small child playing with Dhaumya, Upamanyu once tasted the milk of a forest ṛshi’s cow and found it as sweet as amṛta. Earlier he had tasted milk from the divine cow Surabhi at a rich man’s yajña, to which his father had taken him.

His mother was grieving. When she could give him only flour mixed with water instead of milk-rice, he refused it. She then explained at length that ascetics of the forest who have no cows of their own cannot get milk. She told him that the only true refuge for every wish, milk included, is Bhagavān Śaṅkara (Śiva).

She then taught him at length about Śiva’s strange nature. He has no form, yet appears in every form: deva, beast, bird, ascetic, king and elemental being. He is beyond the mind and the senses, yet he is the inner self (antarātman) of every being. He alone knows the inner wish of every devotee. This teaching lit in the child Upamanyu an ekānta-bhakti (single-minded devotion) to Śiva that never wavered afterward.

A thousand years of tapas and Indra’s test as Airāvata

Upamanyu did tapas for a thousand years, standing on one leg. His food grew less step by step, from fruit to fallen leaves to water, and at last to air alone. To test his single devotion, Śiva came disguised as Indra, seated on Airāvata, and offered any vara Upamanyu might want.

Upamanyu refused everything except devotion to Rudra. He said he would rather be born again as an insect, a dog or a tree, at Śiva’s will, than take the rule of the three worlds without Śiva.

The false Indra then challenged him to prove that Śiva is the final cause of the universe. Upamanyu gave the liṅga-yoni argument. Every being in creation bears only the male or the female mark of generation. None bears the lotus of Brahmā, the cakra of Vishṇu or the vajra of Indra. So all beings must come from Śiva and Pārvatī alone.

Only then did Airāvata change into the bull Nandin, and “Indra” show himself as Mahādeva, seated with Pārvatī. Brahmā, Nārāyaṇa, Kumārasvāmī and Nandikeśvara attended him. He had eighteen arms, and among his weapons were the Pināka, the Pāśupatāstra, the triśūla and the paraśu. Upamanyu then sang a long stotra to this vision of Śiva. The varas of immortality, unfading youth and Śiva’s constant presence followed.

Guru to Kṛshṇa and the list of earlier devotees

Before Kṛshṇa‘s own tapas, Upamanyu told him of a long list of earlier beings who received varas through Śiva-bhakti. They included Hiraṇyakaśipu and his son, Yājñavalkya, Vyāsa, the Vālakhilya ṛshis, Anasūyā, Indra and Nārada.

Upamanyu then initiated Kṛshṇa himself with a mantra. After six months of tapas this led to Kṛshṇa’s own darśana of Śiva and Pārvatī, and to sixteen varas.

Finally, Upamanyu told the account of the ṛshi Taṇḍi, to explain how the Śiva Sahasranāma came to him. Brahmā had first given it to Taṇḍi. Upamanyu then recited it in full to Kṛshṇa.

Sources

• Kūrma Mahā Purāṇa, Pūrvārdha, Chapter 25
• Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa, Chapter 56
• Śiva Purāṇa, Śata Rudra Saṃhitā, Chapter 32
• Vāyavīya Saṃhitā (Pūrvakhaṇḍa and Uttarakhaṇḍa)
• Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapters 14–16
• Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, Pauloma Parva, Chapters 3–5