The Rivers That Would Not Drown Him

Vasiṣṭha threw himself from a peak of Mount Meru, and his head struck the rock as if it had fallen on a heap of cotton, and he did not die. He kindled a fire in a great forest and walked into it, and the blazing fire would not burn him; it was cool. He went to the sea, tied a heavy stone to his neck and threw himself in, and the waves of the sea set him down on dry land. Worn out, he went back to his hermitage.

He saw the hermitage empty of his sons, and in his misery he went out again. He saw a river in flood in the rains, carrying trees that grew on its banks, and thought, I will drown myself in this. He bound himself tight with cords and sank into the water. The river cut the cords and set him on the bank again, unbound, and he named that river Vipāśā, the unbinder. He could not stay in one place in his grief. He went among mountains and rivers and lakes, and he saw a river coming down from the Himālaya, full of fierce crocodiles, and threw himself into its current. The river, feeling the seer to be like fire, fled from him in a hundred streams, and so it is called Śatadru, the river of a hundred courses. Finding himself on dry land again, he said, It is not possible for me to die, and he turned back toward his hermitage.

His daughter-in-law Adṛśyantī, Śakti's wife, was following him. As he walked back towards his hermitage, he heard behind him the sound of the Veda being recited, with all its six limbs, the six sciences that serve it, clear and complete. Who is following me? he said. It is I, Adṛśyantī, the wife of Śakti, said his daughter-in-law. Daughter, whose is this voice reciting the Veda with its limbs? said Vasiṣṭha. I heard the Veda recited like that once before, by Śakti. Śakti's child is in my womb, she said, your son's child. He has been reciting the Vedas in my womb for twelve years.

When he heard that, Vasiṣṭha rejoiced. My line will go on, he said, and he turned back from death.