Kosala
Kosala
Punarvasu has other meanings too: see all meanings of Punarvasu. Yoga has other meanings too: see all meanings of Yoga. Satyā has other meanings too: see all meanings of Satyā.
Kosala is the country of Śrī Rāma, with Ayodhyā as its capital. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa calls Śrī Rāma the master of Kosala, tells how the people of Uttara Kosala danced for joy at his return and how all of Kosala who saw and followed him reached the abode of the yogīs. In the age of Śrī Kṛshṇa, the righteous King Nagnajit ruled Kosala from Ayodhyā, and Śrī Kṛshṇa, taming his seven bulls in seven forms, married his daughter Satyā. The kings of Kosala stood with the Pāṇḍavas and the Yādavas at the great gatherings of that time.
The country of Śrī Rāma
Śuka tells Parīkshit the life of Śrī Rāma, and as he tells of the setu and the fall of Rāvaṇa he prays: “May that Śrī Rāma, master of Kosala, protect us!” When Śrī Rāma came back to Ayodhyā after the war with Rāvaṇa, Bharata placed the pādukās before him and the two brothers embraced, and the people of the Uttara Kosala land, seeing Śrī Rāma Prabhu after so long, danced in joy, waving their upper cloths and scattering flowers.
Hanumān, praising Śrī Rāma in Kimpurusha varsha, says that Śrī Rāma kept in memory even a small help done to him, and that he granted svarga to the dwellers of the Uttara Kosala country. And Śuka gives this phala: all those of the Kosala land who touched Śrī Rāma, or looked at him closely, or lived in his company, or walked behind him, reached the abode that the yogīs reach. The closing summary of the Purāṇa recalls that its Ninth Skandha tells the life of Śrī Rāma, master of the Kosala country, who removes pāpas.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 19; Skandha 9, Chapters 10–11; Skandha 12, Chapter 12
Hiraṇyanābha and Yājñavalkya
In the line of Śrī Rāma’s son Kuśa, the king Hiraṇyanābha, son of Vidhṛti, was a disciple of Jaimini and a yogācārya. Yājñavalkya Maharshi, a dweller of the Kosala land, studied adhyātma-yoga from him, the yoga that gives the seeker great rising and cuts the knot of ajñāna in the heart. When Sūta tells how the Vedas were divided, he names Hiraṇyanābha of the Kosala country, with Paushyañji and Āvantya, among the best of the knowers of the Veda who became disciples of Sukarma and received the saṃhitās of the Sāmaveda; Kṛta, the disciple of Hiraṇyanābha, taught twenty-four saṃhitās to his own disciples.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 9, Chapter 12; Skandha 12, Chapter 6
Nagnajit and the marriage of Satyā
Śuka tells Parīkshit that a greatly righteous king named Nagnajit was lord of the Kosala country. His daughter was Satyā Devī, famed as Nāgnajitī. Nagnajit had seven proud bulls with sharp horns that could not bear even the smell of heroes, and Satyā would marry only the one who tamed them; the kings who tried could not do it. Śrī Kṛshṇa, protector of his bhaktas, heard of this and went with a great army to Ayodhyā, the capital of Kosala. Nagnajit went out joyfully to meet him and honoured him with a seat, arghya and the rest.
Seeing Śrī Kṛshṇa, Satyā loved him as the groom she had longed for, and she prayed in her heart that, if she had held him there with vows and discipline, he would become her husband; for Lakshmī Devī, Brahmā and Bhagavān Śiva with the lokapālas bear on their heads the dust of his feet. Nagnajit worshipped Śrī Kṛshṇa: “O Nārāyaṇa, you are Jagannātha, full with the bliss of the ātmā. What can I, a small one, do for you?” Śrī Kṛshṇa, smiling, in a voice like the thunder of clouds, asked for his daughter, wishing for kinship with him, and said that the Yādavas do not pay a bride-price. Nagnajit answered that no one could want a better groom than him, in whom Lakshmī Devī dwells for ever; but he had set a rule to test the valour of suitors, and many princes had broken their limbs on the bulls.
Śrī Kṛshṇa tightened his waist-band, made himself into seven forms and brought the seven bulls under control with ease. He broke their pride, tied them with ropes and dragged them as a child drags toys of wood. Filled with joy and wonder, the king gave him his daughter, and Śrī Kṛshṇa took her hand by the rite. The queens held a great festival; conches, bherīs and drums sounded with songs and the blessings of the knowers of the Veda. As dowry Nagnajit gave ten thousand cows, three thousand maidservants in necklaces and fine clothes, nine thousand elephants, a hundred times as many chariots, a hundred times as many horses as chariots and a hundred times as many soldiers as horses. Then, his heart wet with love, the lord of Kosala set the couple on a chariot and sent them off with a great army. On the road the kings whose valour the Yādavas and the bulls had broken blocked their way with showers of arrows, and Arjuna, bearer of the Gāṇḍīva, drove them off as a lion drives off small animals.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapter 58
Kosala in the time of Śrī Kṛshṇa
When Kaṃsa set about the destruction of the Yādavas, many of them, oppressed, fled to Kuru, Pañcāla, Kekaya, Śālva, Vidarbha, Nishadha, Videha and Kosala. At the avabhṛtha bath that closed Yudhishṭhira‘s Rājasūya, as the kings of the Yadu, Sṛñjaya, Kāmboja, Kuru, Kekaya and Kosala lands went with their armies behind Dharmarāja, the earth shook. At Samantapañcaka, where the Yādavas went for the total eclipse of the sun, the kings of Kosala were among the kings of many lands they met, and at the yajña Vasudeva performed there he honoured his kinsmen and the kings of Vidarbha, Kosala, Kuru, Kāśi, Kekaya and Sṛñjaya. When Śrī Kṛshṇa went slowly with the maharshis to Videha, the men and women of Kosala were among the peoples who drank in his lotus-like face with their eyes.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 10, Chapters 2, 75, 82, 84, 86
The kings to come
In the account of the kings of the Kali age, Śuka tells that seven of the Bāhlika line will be lords of the Āndhra country and seven of the Kosala country, and that the same line will also rule Vidūra and Nishadha, all of them at the same time.
Source: Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 12, Chapter 1
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 19; Skandha 9, Chapters 10–12; Skandha 10, Chapters 2, 58, 75, 82, 84, 86; Skandha 12, Chapters 1, 6, 12