Trishanku

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Indra prevents Trishanku from his ascent (book illustration from the Mughal period , around 1600)

Trishanku ( Sanskrit त्रिशङ्कु triśaṅku ) in Indian mythology is a king of Ayodhya from the Suryavamsha , the sun dynasty , father of Harishchandra , who wanted to physically ascend to heaven with the help of the Rishi Vishvamitra . The father of Trishanku's father was Trayyaruna ( त्रय्यारुण trayyāruṇa ). His wife was Satyaratha ( सत्यरथा satyarathā ), a princess of the Kekaya family .

Surname

According to the Vishnu Purana , the name of Trishanku, which means something like "threefold sinner", is actually Satyavrata ( सत्यव्रत ), which denotes a person who has made an oath to absolute truthfulness. According to the Harivamsa , the Rishi Vasishtha is said to have given him the name Trishanku when Satyavrata was guilty of three major sins: first he had broken food regulations, then he had tried to kidnap the fiancée of a subject. Because of these acts, he was banished by his father. The father soon regretted having cast his son away, and he went on a search. Because of this tenderness, inadequate for a king, Indra stopped raining and the land was famine for 12 years. During this time of great hunger, Satyvrata killed the Kamadhenu , the divine, wish- fulfilling cow of Vasishtha, and ate of its meat. That was his third sin.

Another traditional name of Trishanku is Vedas ( वेधस् vedhas ).

Ascent to heaven

In Bala Kanda , the 1st book of the classic epic Ramayana , the legend of Trishanku is told as part of the extensive dispute between Vishvamitra and his rival Vasishtha. According to this, Trishanku was a pious and just king who made numerous costly sacrifices. Therefore, he came to the conclusion that it was his place to ascend physically to heaven, and he turned to the priest of the royal family, the Vasishtha mentioned. But he flatly refused the request and declared the project to be completely impossible. Trishanku did not allow himself to be dissuaded by this information, but went south, where the hundred sons of Vasishtha lived, and humbly explained his request to them, while at the same time complaining about their father, whose duty as priest of the house of Ikshvakus it was after all, all the spiritual desires of the ruler have to be fulfilled, however high they may be. But the sons also rejected the suggestion: How can the king expect from the branches of the tree what the trunk cannot or will not do?

The king, however, persisted in his plan, wished the sons of Vasishtha a good day and announced that he would seek help elsewhere. The sons were extremely angry about this, on the one hand because of the disregard expressed and on the other hand, because they feared the consequences, should such a crime - the ascent of a person in his mortal body into the sphere of the gods - somehow be carried out. Therefore they cast a curse on the king, which caused him to assume the form of a chandala , those despised untouchables who perform their base services on the smashana , the place of the cremation, polluted with ashes of the dead. The king's clothes were now dark-colored rags, his hair was now short, his body was smeared with ashes and instead of gold jewelry he was now wearing iron rings. All his ministers and subjects fled in horror from the king so transformed.

However, according to the rule that the enemy of the enemy is probably a friend, he turned to the great sage Vishvamitra, the arch-rival Vasishthas, who, through monstrous penances ( tapas ), had accumulated such powers that nothing was impossible for him. The latter listened to the cursed king's presumptuous request and was inclined to comply. On the one hand, there was a welcome opportunity here to prove one's own superiority over the Vasishtha, on the other hand, the Chandala king had helped the Vishvamitra family a lot in times of famine, namely, he had given them pieces of game - only untouchable hunted - and so that the relatives of Vishvamitra would not have to contaminate themselves through contact with him, he had hung the meat in the branches of a fig tree on the bank of the Ganges . Similarly, the Harivamsa says that Satyavrata-Trishanku gave the sons of Vishvamitra to eat Kamadhenu from the meat of the cow he killed.

Vishvamitra sent messengers in all directions and asked all brahmins to participate in the rite to be performed. All Brahmins, except for the sons of Vasishtha, who scornfully refused to take part in such an unnatural performance, came to a sacrificial rite performed by a Kshatriya for the benefit of a Chandala. Vishvamitra belonged in origin to the warrior caste of the Kshatriyas, not to the priest caste of the Brahmins. And precisely this was Vishvamitra's sensitive point, whose highest aspiration was not only to become Rajarshi ("royal rishi"), but to attain the highest level of seerhood and become a Brahmarshi, i.e. a Rishi who has perfect knowledge in Brahmajnana has reached. After hearing this contemptible information from the sons of Vasishtha of his emissaries, seized the great ascetic Vishwamitra adequate anger and bloodshot eye he cursed the sons of Vasishtha that they burn to ashes and 700 cycles of rebirth as malformed Leichenfledderer and dog meat eater ( Mustika s ) to live through.

After Vishvamitra had shown how he was ready to deal with opposition, the Brahmins who had gathered in the meantime forgot any scruples they might have about carrying out the questionable ritual. But all efforts of the sacrificing Brahmins, who, under the guidance of Vishvamitra, had sung all the necessary chants, said mantras and slaughtered sacrificial animals, remained in vain. The gods refused to appear and again Vishvamitra was seized with violent anger and said: “Now see, Trishanku, what I can do! Only through my strength acquired through tapas will I lift you to the heaven of Indra. ”And Trishanku actually began to rise into heaven. But Indra ordered the stop and let Trishanku fall back to the ground upside down. Then the anger overcame Vishvamitra and he began, because Indra refused to give him his heaven, to create a new heaven in the south, first a counterpart to the constellation of the Saptarishi , then the other constellations and constellations, whereby he exclaimed: “And I will either be a new one Create Indra or a world without Indra! ”The inhabitants of heaven, all heavenly and all saints, were appalled by this display of power and determination, and humbly explained to the angry ascetic that Trishanku could not go to heaven. He replied that he had sworn to the king that he would take him to heaven, so he would at least remain visible in the sky forever. So it happened and the king striving for heaven does not live forever in heaven and no longer on earth, but in an intermediate realm , the "heaven of Trishanku" ( triśaṅku svarga ), a proverbial term in India for a precarious state which it neither goes back nor forwards.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Triśaṅku . In: Monier Monier-Williams : Sanskrit-English Dictionary . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1899, p. 460, col. 3 .
  2. ↑ a b Harivamsa 12-13
  3. ↑ a b Vishnu Purana IV, 3
  4. ↑ Ramayana I, 57-60
  5. ^ Robert P. Goldman (trans.): The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki: an epic of ancient India . Vol. 1. Delhi 2007, note 20, p. 377f
  6. ↑ Known as the Big Dipper in Western astronomy .