A Heaven of His Own Making

Burning with the memory of his defeat, Viśvāmitra went south with his queen and practised fierce austerity, and sons were born to him there, Haviṣyanda, Madhuṣyanda, Dṛḍhanetra and Mahāratha. When a thousand years had passed, Brahmā came to him and said, You have won the worlds of the royal sages by your austerity. We know you as a royal sage. And Brahmā went back to heaven. Viśvāmitra hung his head a little in shame and said, All that austerity, and the gods and seers know me only as a royal sage. My austerity has borne no fruit. And he went back to his austerities, harder than before.

At that time a king of Ikṣvāku's line named Triśaṅku, truthful and master of himself, made up his mind to perform a sacrifice and go in his own body to the highest world of the gods. Vasiṣṭha, his priest, told him plainly, It cannot be done. Vasiṣṭha's hundred sons refused him too, and when he said he would go another way, the seer's sons cursed him in their fury: You will become a caṇḍāla. When the night had passed, Triśaṅku had become a caṇḍāla, an outcast, dark and rough, dressed in dark clothes, his hair dishevelled, garlanded from the cremation ground, wearing iron ornaments, and his ministers and his people left him. Then he went to Viśvāmitra.

Viśvāmitra felt pity for the king in that form. Welcome, child of Ikṣvāku's line, he said. I know how firm you are in dharma. I will be your refuge. Do not be afraid. Triśaṅku told him how he had been refused. I have never told a lie, he said, even in hardship. I have sacrificed and ruled by dharma and pleased my teachers, and still they will not help me. I think fate is everything and a man's effort is nothing. I have no other refuge but you. Turn back fate by your effort. And Viśvāmitra said, In this very body and in this very form you shall go to heaven. I count heaven as good as in your hand, since you have come for refuge to Kauśika.

He sent his disciples to call all the sages to the sacrifice, and they came from every quarter. Only Vasiṣṭha's hundred sons, with the sage Mahodaya, refused to come, and sent back harsh words: How could gods and seers eat at a sacrifice where a kṣatriya is the priest and a caṇḍāla is the one who sacrifices? Viśvāmitra's eyes went red with anger at their words. He turned to the sages and asked them to begin the rite, and the sages, knowing how quick his anger was and that whatever he said came true, agreed, for fear that he would curse them.

Viśvāmitra served as the chief priest, and for a long time the rites went on as the rules required. Then he called the gods to come and take their shares, and not one of them came. In a rage he raised the sacrificial ladle and said to Triśaṅku, See the power of the austerity I have earned myself. By my own power I will carry you to heaven in your body. Go up, king. And the king rose to heaven in his body while the sages watched.

But Indra, king of the gods, and all the gods with him said to him, Go back, Triśaṅku. There is no place for you in heaven. You were struck by the curse of your teacher's sons, you fool. Fall headlong to the earth. And Triśaṅku fell, crying, Save me! Viśvāmitra heard him and called out, Stop! Stay there! And in his fury, like a second Brahmā, he made in the southern sky another Seven Seers, the seven stars that bear the seers' name, and a new garland of stars, and he began to make other gods as well. I will make another Indra, he said, or the world will have no Indra.

The gods and seers and demons were filled with alarm and pleaded with him. This king has been ruined by the curse of his teacher's sons, they said. He is not fit to go to heaven in his body. Viśvāmitra answered, I promised this king he would go to heaven in his body, and I will not make my word false. Let him have an everlasting heaven in his body, and let all the stars I have made stay fixed as long as the worlds last. The gods agreed. Let these stars stay in the sky outside the path of the sun, they said, and let Triśaṅku shine among them like a god, head downward, and let them circle him as if he were in heaven. So be it, said Viśvāmitra, and the sacrifice ended.