The Staff

When Vasiṣṭha would not give her, Viśvāmitra had the cow dragged away. Śabalā went weeping, thinking, Has the great Vasiṣṭha abandoned me? What have I done to him, that he lets me be carried off by the king's men, though I am innocent and devoted to him? She sighed again and again, and then shook off the king's men by the hundred and ran back to him swift as the wind, and stood before him crying out with a voice like a drum. Lord, have you abandoned me, that the king's men are taking me away?

Vasiṣṭha spoke to her as to a grieving sister. I have not abandoned you, Śabalā, and you have done me no wrong. This mighty king is taking you by force. My strength is not equal to his: he is a kṣatriya and lord of the earth, and he has a whole army of horses and chariots and elephants.

Śabalā answered him, and spoke of the strength of Brahman, the holy power a brahmin carries. A kṣatriya's might is not true strength, she said. A brahmin is stronger. The strength of Brahman is divine, and greater than a kṣatriya's. Your strength is without measure. Viśvāmitra is mighty, but your power cannot be withstood. Command me, filled with your strength, and I will break the pride of this wicked man.

Create an army, said Vasiṣṭha. And from the cow's lowing sprang warriors of the Pahlava people by the hundred, who destroyed Viśvāmitra's army while he watched. Viśvāmitra, furious, drove at them in his chariot and cut them down with his weapons. Then the cow brought forth warriors of the Śakas and the Yavanas, armed with long swords and spears, bright as golden filaments, and they burned up his army like fire. Viśvāmitra loosed his divine weapons and threw them into confusion, and Vasiṣṭha told the cow to create again, and from every part of her came warriors of many peoples, Kāmbojas bright as the sun, Pahlavas with weapons in their hands, Yavanas, Śakas, Mlecchas and Kirātas, and in a moment Viśvāmitra's whole army was destroyed, foot soldiers, elephants, horses and chariots.

A hundred of Viśvāmitra's sons rushed at Vasiṣṭha with weapons in their hands, and with a single sound, hum, the seer burned them to ashes. Viśvāmitra was left like a sea without waves, a snake with broken fangs, a sun in eclipse, a bird with clipped wings, his pride and his strength gone. He set one son to rule the kingdom, went to the Himālaya, and did austerities to win the favour of the god Śiva, until Śiva appeared and asked him what he wanted. Give me the science of arms with all its secrets, said Viśvāmitra, and every weapon known to the gods and the demons, the great seers, the gandharvas, yakṣas and rākṣasas. Śiva granted it.

Full of pride, Viśvāmitra came back and loosed his weapons on Vasiṣṭha's hermitage, and the whole grove of austerity burned. The sages fled by the hundred in every direction, and Vasiṣṭha's disciples and the deer and the birds fled in terror, and for a moment the hermitage stood silent and empty as a desert. Do not be afraid, Vasiṣṭha called to them again and again. I will destroy the son of Gādhi as the sun destroys the mist. Then he said to Viśvāmitra, You have destroyed a hermitage that has grown for so long. You are wicked and foolish, and you will not survive this. And he raised his staff.

Viśvāmitra raised the fire weapon and cried, Stand, stand! Vasiṣṭha raised the staff of Brahman like a second staff of death and said, Here I stand, you disgrace to the kṣatriyas. Show me what strength you have. Today I will destroy your pride and your weapons. What is a kṣatriya's strength beside the great strength of Brahman? See the divine strength of Brahman, you shame of your kind.

The fire weapon was quenched by the staff as fire is quenched by water. Then Viśvāmitra threw at him, one after another, the weapons of Varuṇa and Rudra and Indra and Paśupati, the weapons that bewilder and that put to sleep, that make men yawn and that madden, that dry up and that split, the thunderbolt, the nooses of Brahmā and of Time and of Varuṇa, the weapon of Pināka, the discs of Dharma and of Time and of Viṣṇu, the trident and the skull and the rest. It was a wonder to see: Vasiṣṭha swallowed every one of them with his staff. Last of all Viśvāmitra loosed the weapon of Brahmā itself, and the gods and the seers and the gandharvas and the serpents were terrified, and the three worlds trembled. And Vasiṣṭha swallowed that too, all of it, with the staff of Brahman.

As he swallowed it, his form became terrible enough to stun the three worlds. Flames with smoke in them shot from every pore of his body, and the staff blazed in his raised hand like the fire at the end of time. The sages praised him. Your strength is beyond measure, brahmin, they said. Hold your power back with your power. You have subdued the great Viśvāmitra. Be calm, so that the worlds may be free from fear. And the great ascetic grew calm.

Viśvāmitra, humbled, sighed and said, Shame on a kṣatriya's strength. The strength of a brahmin's power is strength. With one staff of Brahman all my weapons have been destroyed. Seeing this, I will take up great austerity, the kind that makes a brahmin.