Ramayana Simplified: Part 17: Satyavratha gets named Trishanku
Forest gets hit by famine
The forest in which Satyavratha was living started getting affected by drought and famine. There was no way to bring food as everything started getting destroyed. So, Satyavratha could no longer bring food to maharishi Vishwamitra’s family as he used to do earlier.
Once, at a distance, he saw a village which was filled with greenery and cows. He was surprised to see the village in that condition as the rest of the places had already got devastated. He learned that it was maharishi Vasishta’s ashram (Note that maharishi Vasishta was in charge of ruling the kingdom after Satyavratha’s father withdrew from the post of the king). To prevent a family from going on the verge of death again, Satyavratha stole one of the cows from maharishi Vasishta. He killed the cow and put it for selling and with that money bought food for maharishi Vishwamitra’s family as he did every time.
Satyavratha gets cursed
Maharishi Vasishta came to know of this and became very furious. He thought of the papa (sins) Satyavratha did: he gave trouble to his father, he took away a girl who was supposed to be the bride of another person, now he has killed a cow. Due to the three papas he committed, the maharishi cursed him so that these three papas get drilled within him. Thus Satyavratha came to be known as Trishanku. Satyavratha came to know of the curse. He planned to get into another forest and decided to die by falling into the fire. But he also thought about the condition of maharishi Vishwamitra’s wife and children if he leaves. By then, it started raining and everything started slowly falling on the right track.
Trishanku, now thought that the family would be able to manage now without him as the conditions had improved. He thus left to the deep forest with a mind full of guilt thinking about the mistakes he did towards his father. He was about to die by falling into the fire, but then he felt as if someone was calling him. It was maharishi Naradha. The maharishi said that he was released from all the papa (sins) he already did. The maharishi advised him that there was no need to jump into the fire. The maharishi also advised him to return back to Ayodhya and take back the throne. Trishanku asked if the curse of maharishi Vasishta would affect him. The maharishi said that he already had a conversation with maharishi Vasishta and that he had taken back his curse as the devas from the devaloka had already excused Trishanku. Thus Satyavratha/Trishanku took the throne, married the princess of Kekaya kingdom called Satyavathi and the kingdom flourished day by day under the powerful rule of Satyavratha.
Few Insights…
Is the activities done by Satyavratha like stealing and killing a cow justified here as the devas were ready to take back his sins?
Robbery is never justified here, but it is the condition of maharishi Vishwamitra’s family which prompts him to do this robbery. The killing of a cow (Gohatya) is a big papa (sin) according to the Indian tradition. Traditionally, no one in India was engaged in killing cows specifically because of the position given to a cow. The cow is regarded as ‘Gau mata’ with the equivalent position of a mother. Sanathana dharma has left to us to find out if something was dharma/adharma based on the situations. Here, the activities which Satyavratha did, like stealing and gohatya (killing of a cow) were basically considered to be adharma, but otherwise the maharishi’s family would have died out of hunger, so it is completely up to us to decide the dharma and adharma in different situations.
