Visvamitra, long harbouring a silent feud against his preceptor Vasiṣṭha, conceived a dark design to wound him through the house of Ikṣvāku. Among that royal line was Kalmāṣapāda, and Visvamitra sought to make him his unwitting instrument. One day the king, weary from the chase, turned aside to rest at Vasiṣṭha’s hermitage. On the forest path, he met Śakti, the eldest son of the sage, a youth of fierce austerity and inward light.
The king, impatient and imperious, commanded the sage’s son to move aside. Śakti replied with the calm authority of the twice-born: “Monarchs themselves yield the way to Brahmins and speak with reverence; such is the ancient law. I walk upon the righteous path—why should I stand aside for thee?”
king’s pride flared; in blind wrath, he struck the young ascetic. Angered yet composed, Śakti pronounced his dread malediction: “For thy wanton insult, become a man-eating Rākṣasa!” In that instant, the king felt the curse burn through his soul. When he learned that Śakti was Vasiṣṭha’s son, remorse seized him, and he fell at the sage’s feet seeking release.
As the king pleaded, Visvamitra, hidden and unseen, sent forth a demon named Kiṅkara to enter the monarch’s mind in subtle form. Thenceforth Kalmāṣapāda ruled only when the fiend withdrew; when the demon held sway, a dark appetite mastered him. One night a Vedic scholar, a guest of the court, requested flesh for his meal.
The king promised, but forgetting the pledge, retired. At midnight, the memory returned; he ordered the cook to bring meat at once. The cook protested that no mutton could be had at such an hour. Then the demon rose within the king and whispered cruelty: “Serve him human flesh.” The cook, trembling, took what lay upon the sacrificial altar, prepared it, and set it before the guest. The seer, by his inner vision, knew the abomination and, in righteous fury, cursed the king to live henceforth as a monster who feeds upon mankind.
Thus transformed, Kalmāṣapāda roamed the wilds. Maddened and insatiable, he came upon Śakti and cried, “Thou art the author of my doom—taste first its fruit!” and devoured him. At Visvamitra’s urging, he slew all the hundred sons of Vasiṣṭha. The great sage, though firm in yoga, was plunged into an ocean of grief. Suicide tempted him, yet knowing it a sin, he sought annihilation in nature’s fury.
He entered a vast forest fire, but the flames, awed by his radiance, turned cool and harmless. He leapt into the sea with a stone bound to his body; the ocean-lord, fearful of his power, lifted him gently and laid him on the shore. He climbed the heights of Mount Meru and hurled himself downward, but his aura bore him lightly like a tuft of cotton.
Still yearning for release, he waded into a river thronged with crocodiles; the waters recoiled, divided their course, and left their bed dry—since that day the stream is called Śatadru, the river of a hundred channels. He cast himself into another river, but it too, revering his holiness, untied his bonds and set him safely ashore; hence it is known as Vipāśā, the river of deliverance.
Defeated in his quest for death, the sage returned at last to his silent hermitage. There he beheld his daughter-in-law Adṛśyantī, and from within her womb came the unearthly music of Vedic hymns—his unborn grandson Parāśara, the golden embryo, chanting the eternal word. The sound, like nectar to his ears, stilled his despair. He resolved to await the child and to forswear self-destruction.
Not long after, the demon-king came again to the hermitage. Vasiṣṭha, undaunted, commanded him to halt and sprinkled him with sanctified water. The curse was broken; the fiendish form fell away and Kalmāṣapāda stood once more a man. Prostrating himself, he said, “Great sage, by thy grace I am delivered.” Vasiṣṭha blessed him: “Rule thy people in reverence to sages and Brahmins.” The king, repentant, returned with him to his capital.
Yet during his monstrous wandering, he had slain a hermit whose wife, the ascetic Aṅgirasī, in her grief pronounced a further doom: “The moment thou approachest woman, thou shalt die. Nevertheless, by Vasiṣṭha’s grace, a son shall be born to thee.” Then she entered the fire and was no more. When the king heard this from his queen Madayant,ī he despaired of offspring. But Vasiṣṭha’s blessing bore fruit: Madayantī carried her child twelve long years. At last, wearied of her burden, she cut open her womb with a sharp blade, and from her was born the royal sage Aśmaka.
Meanwhile, Adṛśyantī brought forth Parāśara, whom Vasiṣṭha himself reared in wisdom and the lore of the Vedas. When the boy learned that his father Śakti had been devoured by the demon-king, wrath like a storm rose within him; he vowed to burn the world with the fire of his penance. But Vasiṣṭha restrained him and told a tale of ancient days.
Once, a king of the Kṛtavīrya race, served by priests of the Bhṛgu lineage, performed countless sacrifices and gave away vast wealth before ascending to heaven. After his passing, the Bhṛgus, fearful of misfortune, hid the treasures—some they spent in pious works, some they returned to the royal kin, and some they buried in the earth.
The Kṛtavīrya kinsmen, seeking their lost riches, fell upon the Bhṛgus, slaying men and women so that the remnant fled to the Himalayas. Among the fugitives, a single boy was born, radiant with penance, and came to be known as Aurva. His spiritual energy blazed so fiercely that the Kṛtavīryas were struck blind. Their wives sought the Bhṛgu matron and begged for mercy. “I gave you not this blindness,” she said, “but the boy whose soul burns like the sun is wroth for the slaughter of his forebears. Entreat him and he will relent.”
They approached the child-sage with humble prayers. Aurva, moved by their supplication, restored their sight. Yet the grief for his murdered kin still consumed him; he embarked upon a penance so terrible that its sacred heat shook the worlds. The very ancestors, alarmed in their celestial abodes, descended to dissuade him, lest his wrath overwhelm creation and turn his fiery tapas to universal ruin, and to guide his power toward the welfare of all beings.
