The Curse of Dakṣa

Dakṣa, the lord of creatures, had ten thousand sons, the Haryaśvas, and told them to bring forth creatures. They went to the west, to the lake of Nārāyaṇa where the Sindhu meets the sea, and the mere touch of its water cleansed their hearts. Still, held by their father's word, they began fierce austerities to multiply the world. There Nārada saw them.

How will you bring forth creatures, Haryaśvas, he asked, when you have not seen the end of the earth? And he set them a string of riddles: a kingdom with one man in it, a hole whose exit no one has seen, a woman of many forms, a river that flows both ways, a house of five times five wonders, a swan, a razor's edge that turns by itself. The Haryaśvas, wise from birth, turned the riddles over in their minds and understood them. The earth was the body that has bound the soul from time without beginning. The one man in the kingdom was the Lord, who stands alone in himself. The hole with no way out was the place from which those who reach it never return. The woman of many forms was the soul's own understanding, changing with the three strands of nature, goodness, passion and darkness. The river that flows both ways was māyā, which sends the world out and draws it back. The house of five times five wonders was the twenty-five principles that make up all that is, with the Self as the wonderful mirror in which they show. The swan was the Lord's teaching, which weighs bondage and freedom. The razor's edge that turns by itself was time, whose sharp wheel wears the whole world away. Without knowing these, they saw, to multiply the world would be useless. They walked around Nārada, gave up the world, and took the road that leads to the Highest, from which there is no coming back. When Dakṣa had a thousand more sons, the Śabalāśvas, and they went to the same lake to do the same, Nārada said to them only, Sons of Dakṣa, you who love your brothers, follow the road your brothers took, and they too went that way and never returned.

Dakṣa, wild with grief for his sons, found Nārada and spoke to him with trembling lips. You wicked man, he said, wearing the marks of the good, you have shown my innocent boys the road of the beggar before they were free of the three debts every man owes: to the sages, paid by study; to the gods, by sacrifice; and to his ancestors, by sons. You go about among the Lord's own, breaking the minds of children. Detachment does not come by cutting the cords of affection from outside; a man has to know the things of the senses before he tires of them. Once I bore what you did. You have done it a second time. So you will never have a place to stay anywhere in the worlds as you wander. Nārada, honoured by the good, accepted the curse and said, So be it. That is the way of the good: they have the power to answer back, and they bear it.