Agnidev continued to be the carrier of offerings…

When the fire-God, thus, withdrew his glow from the universe, the main three kinds of fires – the ritualistic fire, the homely fire and the fire that burns during the activities pertaining to one’s fathers and fore-fathers – stopped burning and all the activities were stalled all of a sudden and it was chaos all over.

All the sages in the hermitages and all the common family men in their homes were astonished to witness the sudden change that took place. As fear gripped them, they all ran to Brahmadev.

Brahmadev understood all that happened consequent to the curse spoken against Agnidev by the sage Bhrigu and called Agni to his presence and said:

prakaTita bhūta saMtatiki bhartavu nīva, charāchara pravR
ttiki mari hētubhūtuDavu, dēvamukhuMDavu niica, lōkapā
vakuDavu nīva; yiTTi yanavadya guNuMDavu nīku viSvabhā
raka! bhuvanapravartana parānmukha bhāvamu boMda bāDiyē?
(from Andhra Mahābhāratami, Ādi prrvamu)

చ. ప్రకటిత భూత సంతతికి భర్తవు నీవ, చరాచర ప్రవృ
     త్తికి మఱి హేతుభూతుఁడవు, దేవముఖుండవు నీవ, లోకపా
     వకుఁడవు నీవ; యిట్టి యనవద్య గుణుండవు నీకు విశ్వభా
     రక! భువనప్రవర్తన పరాఙ్ముఖభావముఁ బొందఁ బాడియే?
(ఆంధ్రమహాభారతము, ఆదిపర్వం, ప్రథమాశ్వాసం, 142)

You act as the bearer of all beings present themselves on earth;
you are responsible for all manifestations of things static, non-static;
you act as the face of all Gods on earth; you purify all on earth;
Oh Bearer of the universe! does it suit you to turn indifferent?

Though cursing in nature, since the words uttered by the great sage Bhrigu were permanent and could not be summarily made non-effective, Brahmadev prayed to Agni….

“As per his curse you could be all devouring, but no impurity would result from that act and you would remain the purest among the pure, you would be the first among the Gods to be worshipped during all Vedic rituals. You would remain the carrier of all presentations and offerings to the Gods made by men during the rituals that are performed strictly following the principles laid down in Vedic texts. You would continue to assist the performers of all the Vedic rituals. Therefore please continue to bear the burden of managing the affairs of the universe as you were doing before!”

Brahma thus resolved the unfortunate occurence and saw to it that words and deeds of both Bhrigu and Agni were properly established.

Fire-God’s withdrawal from the world…

There was a great sage named Bhrigu. Puloma was his wife. She was in advanced stage of pregnancy and was expecting her child very soon. Both were living in a jungle in their hermitage built with thatch and straw.

One day the sage Bhrigu, while going to have bath in the nearby river, asked his wife Puloma to collect some firewood and make the fire ready for him to perform the daily ritual. While Puloma was engaged in preparing and lighting the fire in the ritual place in their abode, a queer demon named Pulomu came there and saw Puloma. He asked the fire-God present in the burning ritual-fire about Puloma. The fire-God, fearing that telling a lie would harm him, told Pulomu the fact that she was the sage Bhrigu’s wife.

On hearing that, Pulomu realised that Puloma was the woman he was once about to marry but latter was married by the sage Bhrigu. He immediately changed into a wild boar, grabbed Puloma and placed her on his back and started running away from the sage Bhrigu’s place. After going some distance, Puloma started to struggle very badly and started crying in pain. Not able to run any further with Puloma in that bad stage, Pulomu stopped. Puloma gave birth to a male child. His name was Chyavana. Pulomu looked at the boy in amazement. But the power inherited from his father Bhrigu was so great that Pulomu was burnt down to a heap of ashes on mere looking at Chyavana.

The trouble created by Pulomu had thus disappeared. Carrying the boy in her hands, Puloma returned to their hermitage. Bhrigu was already there looking for Puloma. On seeing him, she explained to him all that happened and shown the newly born child, Chyavana. Bhrigu asked her to tell him who revealed her identity to the demon Pulomu. She told him that it was the fire-God residing in the ritual fire that revealed her name to Pulomu.

On listening to this, Bhrigu immediately in anger cursed the fire-God “From now on, you become too cruel and an all-eating-one!”

The fire-God was pained to receive the curse almost for no reason from the sage Bhrigu and said to him in anguish…

tana yerigina yarthaM boru
Danaghā! yidi yeTlu seppumani yaDigina je
ppanivāDunu satyamu se
ppanivāDunu ghōra naraka paMkamuna baDun.
(from Andhra Mahabhāratam, Ādi parvam)

క. తన యెఱిఁగిన యర్థం బొరుఁ
డనఘా! యిది యెట్లు సెప్పుమని యడిగినఁ జె
ప్పనివాఁడును సత్యము సె
ప్పనివాఁడును ఘోరనరక పంకమునఁ బడున్.
(ఆంధ్రమహాభారతం, ఆదిపర్వం, ప్రథమాశ్వాసం, 136)

One who doesn’t tell when someone asks
To kindly reveal the fact one is readily aware,
And the one who does not tell at all times
the truth, will fall into the hell of horrible mire.

The fire-God took shelter under the above law of virtue – of always telling the truth – and told to Bhrigu that, himself being the witnesser of all things that happen in the entire universe, he had no other option than to reveal the truth to Pulomu. He also said to Bhrigu “without thinking even a moment about the good and bad consequences of what you are doing, you have handed over me a great curse which will do more damage to the world”. Saying that to the sage Bhrigu, the fire-God, fearing contamination that would result from the sage Bhrigu’s curse of devouring anything and everything, irrespective of pious and non-pious things, he withdrew his glow, that was spread all over the world and left.

Stories from the Telugu poetic work ‘mūrtitrayōpākhyānamu’ – 1

Protectors of the four directions…

When the Lotus-born Brahmadev came into existence, he was the only one he could see in the places where ever the sight of his eight eyes reached. In the whole universe there was nothing but only water and in the midst of water he was the only one with his four faces facing towards the four directions. He kept on looking amazed in all the four directions for finding something that could become his accomplice. But, He could find nothing. Spending time lonely thus, he got perturbed for the purposelessness of his existence and with concern and uneasiness he thought about the all-powerful Supreme-being, the Almighty who is considered the single embodiment of the three main characteristics –satva, rajas and tamas – and when the Almighty appeared before him, Brahma asked the Supreme-being to reveal the actual reason for his coming into existence. The Almighty replied to Brahma that he was none other than the embodiment of the characteristic of ‘rajas’ and so his job was to start creating the many different worlds in the universe and populate them, so that the universe would start functioning with different living and non-living things created by the Brahmadev.

Having his work clearly emphasized by the Supreme-being, Brahmadev first created from his thinking mind four sons – Sanaka, Sananda, Sanatkumara, Sanassujata and asked them to immediately bring into existence their own progeny.

However, all the four sons of Brahmadev got disheartened by their father’s wish towards them and confronted him with the question that how could he suggest them to follow the worldly ways of having family and progeny, leaving the desirable path of practicing brahmacharya for life, attain the final salvation and enter the realm of the Almighty at the end. They denied to do as their father Brahmadev wished and said that they would instead gain salvation by following the dejection path after invoking the pious feeling of detachment from within themselves. In the words of ‘dantulūri bāpakavi‘, in his poetic work ‘mūrthitrayōpākhyānamu‘ the reply of the four sons of Brahmadev was as under:

sāravidūraMbagu saM
sāramu mēmolla mātmasaMjanita mahā
vairāgyamucē mukti
dvāramu jēreda maTaMcu vāralu palukan.
(mūrtitrayōpākhyānamu, 2nd canto)

క. సారవిదూరంబగు సం
    సారము మే మొల్ల మాత్మసంజనిత మహా
    వైరాగ్యముచే ముక్తి
    ద్వారముఁ జేరెద మటంచు వారలు పలుకన్.
                             (ద్వితీయాశ్వాసము, 63)

We do not wish to be part of the world that is devoid
of meaning worthwhile; we consciously grow instead
and nurture the feeling of detachment that is good
to find the gate of salvation at God’s abode, they said.

His sons’ reply angered Brahmadev to such an extent that great waves of fire emanated from his four faces and surrounded them with such ferocity that all the four were terrified, became enlightened and submitted themselves to Brahmadev’s order. He then despatched them with great force to the ends of the four directions and made them the protectors and reigning deities of the four directions, holding the pellet-drum Damaruka in one hand and the Trident in the other.