Legend of Vishwamitra : Kaamdhenu

In my last blog, I promised to elaborate the legend of Vishwamitra soon and so here we are today. The Baal Kaand of Ramayan is loaded with his anecdotes and after knowing them we will know as why and how he qualified to mentor Shri Ram.

In this post and the forthcoming posts we will learn about his legend covering his transformation from a Kshatriya King to a Brahmmrishi.

He was born to King Gaadhi, a legendary king of Kannauj.

After succeeding his father, Vishwamitra attained kingship and ruled his kingdom gloriously. His eminence was widespread around the world and his peers bowed against his suppressive warfare strategics and amazing accomplishments in archery. As a king, there was nothing that was out of his reach, he had achieved everything that a king aspires.

Now the amazing starts:

Once the great king along with his gargantuan army was wandering towards his kingdoms falling under his sovereignty. There, he came across to sage Vashishth’s hermitage. Though he was a king and there was nothing in the hermitage compared to his kingly pleasure, yet, he was spellbound looking at the hermitage that was blessed with nature's beauty. There were all kinds of trees and flowers as well as animals at one place in parity.

Sage Vashishth welcomed the great king whole heartedly. Pleased with his conduct, the sage expressed his wish to host the king along with his family and army. With the king's agreement, the sage summoned Kaamdhenu, the miraculous cow and directed her to create various delicacies desired by the king and his people.

Kaamdhenu was a divine celestial cow. She was blessed with powers to grant any wish that one desires. She was vested with powers to create anything that existed in the universe.

Kaamdhenu fulfilled every individual’s wish, starting from the king to the queens as well as the ministers and the soldiers. They all were deeply contented with never ending range of delicacies.

Vishwamitra was amazed with the wondrous cow, such a gem deserved to be in his palace. He requested Vashishth for the cow and in return offered lots of cows and treasure.

Kaamdhenu was just not a cow but the basis of Vashisht's hermitage, his ascesis. He humbly denied the king's plea. The king was not habitual of listening to a no, after being denied again and again he took hold of the cow and started dragging her.

The sage asked Kaamdhenu to generate an enormous army that included warriors of different breeds viz.; yavans, shaks, kambojs and others. Yes you heard it right, no you read it right, we will know about them later.

Kamdhenu screamed aloud and created such army that gave a tough fight to Vishwamitra. The king, with his sons excelled over the army, then Vashishth decided to intervene. The moment Vishwamitra's sons attacked, they were all burned to death with fire that was invoked by a furious roar by Vashishth.

Humiliated and defeated, Vishwamitra decided to avenge his defeat and his sons' death. He crowned his last son and left for penancing. Soon Bhagwan Shiv appeared in front of him and blessed him with thorough knowledge of archery as requested by the king.

Vishwamitra again went to Vashisht's hermitage and vehemently attacked whosoever came in his way. Vashishth soon came to know about the torment, he challenged Vishwamitra and defeated him with his 'brahmmdand' or baton single handed. All the divyastras of Vishwamitrs went in vain and he was again left embarrassed.

‘Kshatriya-dharm is worthless, I lost everything against the sage with his single brahmdand, I shall now perform ascecis to attain brahmmanatv.’

That moment, a new Vishwamitra was born.

We will continue his legend in the next blog and witness his journey farther.