Stories from India, mostly Bengal, some new , some old, re-told by Babu here for all to enjoy : Story of Harishchandra

King Harishchandra in the Devi Bhagavata Purana

In continuation of the Harishchandra story, I am sharing here what the Devi Bhagavata Purana says about Harishchandra. This is in reference to my post of the story of Harishchandra, as told in the Ramayana of Krittibas.

Trishanku

The story of Harishchandra in the Seventh Skandha (Section) begins with his father, Trishanku. Trishanku, a monarch of the Ikshvaku or Solar Dynasty, harboured the unorthodox desire to ascend to the heavens in his physical body. When Vashistha, the royal preceptor, deemed this desire a violation of natural law, Trishanku turned to Rishi Vishwamitra, who saw the king’s request as an opportunity to challenge Vashistha’s authority.

Vishwamitra’s attempt to propel Trishanku to heaven resulted in a celestial stalemate. Rejected by Indra and the Devas for his lack of sufficient merit and inappropriate form, Trishanku began to fall back to earth, only to be suspended mid-air by Vishwamitra’s command. The Rishi then began the creation of a parallel universe. The resulting compromise—the existence of Trishanku Swarga—left Trishanku in a state of mid-air suspension and cemented Vishwamitra’s obsession with the Solar Dynasty. Harishchandra inherited a kingdom stabilized by his father’s past, but he also inherited the attention of a Rishi whose ego had been challenged by Vashistha.

Upon ascending the throne of Ayodhya, Harishchandra proved to be an exemplary ruler, governing with justice and ensuring the prosperity of his subjects. However, his personal life was marked by the sorrow of being childless. Despite having one hundred wives, including his chief queen Shaivya, no heir was born to the throne. The king sought the guidance of Rishi Vashistha, who suggested that the monarch perform penance and worship Varuna, the deity of the waters.

Acting on the advice of Narada, Harishchandra prayed to Varuna, promising that if he were granted a son, he would sacrifice that very child back to the deity. Varuna granted the boon, and a son named Rohita (or Rohitashva) was born. The birth of the prince brought immediate joy to the kingdom, but it also triggered the inevitable arrival of Varuna, who appeared in the form of a Brahmana to demand the fulfilment of the king’s promise.

Harishchandra’s struggle is characterized by a "conflict of dharmas." On one hand, he was bound by his word; on the other, he was gripped by the natural affection of a father and the responsibility to protect his heir. The Devi Bhagavata details a series of clever justifications used by the king to delay the sacrifice, each of which Varuna, in his divine patience, accepted.

These delays stretched across eleven years. When Rohita reached the age for the Upanayana (Sacred thread), the prince realized the dark purpose behind his upbringing and fled to the forest to escape his fate. Harishchandra’s inability to fulfil the vow led to a severe divine repercussion: Varuna cursed the king with Mahodara (dropsy), a condition that caused his abdomen to swell with fluid, bringing him agonizing pain and physical ruin.

Vashistha advised the king that the sacrifice could be completed using a substitute victim—a boy purchased from another family. Harishchandra’s ministers located a starving Brahmana who agreed to sell his middle son, Sunahshepa, for one hundred cows.

It was at this juncture that Vishwamitra intervened. Seeing the child’s cries, Vishwamitra taught him a secret mantra to appease Varuna. Through the chanting of this mantra, the boy, Sunahshepa, was freed, and Harishchandra was cured of his dropsy. However, Vishwamitra’s personal ire was now focused on the king for his adherence to Vashistha’s advice and for what the Rishi perceived as the king's lack of integrity.

The second major phase of Harishchandra’s trials began with a direct confrontation orchestrated by Vishwamitra. While the king was hunting in the forest, he heard the distressing cries of women. As a ruler, his primary duty was protecting the distressed. He rushed towards the sound, unaware that the cries were an illusion created by Vighnaraja, the Lord of Obstacles. Vighnaraja sought to disturb Vishwamitra’s meditation to prevent him from acquiring more spiritual power; by luring Harishchandra into the Rishi’s ashram, Vighnaraja ensured the king would bear the brunt of the Rishi's wrath.

When Harishchandra inadvertently interrupted Vishwamitra’s tapas, the Rishi flew into an uncharacteristic rage. To appease the Rishi, the king offered to grant him anything he desired. Vishwamitra demanded the king’s entire kingdom, including the treasury, the army, and all royal possessions. Bound by his word, Harishchandra surrendered everything, leaving him with only his wife Shaivya, his son Rohita, and the clothes they wore.

A gift (Dana) to a Brahmana is considered incomplete and even sinful if it is not accompanied by a sacrificial fee (Dakshina). Having given away his entire kingdom, Harishchandra literally had no wealth with which to pay the Dakshina for the very kingdom he had just donated. Vishwamitra, acting as a rigorous—and some would say cruel—examiner of the king's soul, demanded the Dakshina immediately. The king begged for a month to find the funds, to which the Rishi agreed, but not before subjecting the royal family to physical and verbal abuse.

As the family left Ayodhya, the subjects followed them, lamenting the loss of their beloved king. Vishwamitra, seeing this, cursed the king for taking away the subjects who were now technically the Rishi's property. To hasten their departure and prevent the king from lingering, the Rishi struck Queen Shaivya with a stick—an act so egregious that the five guardian deities of the directions cried out in condemnation. Vishwamitra, in his ascetic power, cursed these deities to be born as mortals, who later became the five sons of Draupadi in the Mahabharata.

The family travelled toward Kashi (Varanasi). Because Kashi is said to rest on the trident of Lord Shiva, it is considered "outside the earth," meaning that by staying there, Harishchandra was not violating his promise to leave the kingdom he had donated to Vishwamitra.

The arrival in Kashi marked the nadir of the king's physical existence. As the one-month deadline approached, Vishwamitra appeared at the city gates, demanding the gold. Harishchandra, exhausted and bewildered, contemplated the dire consequences of failing his word—believing that a broken promise would lead to rebirth as a worm or a ghost (Preta). It was in this moment of total desperation that Queen Shaivya made a supreme sacrifice: she urged the king to sell her into slavery to raise the money.

An elderly Brahmana bought Shaivya to be a domestic servant. When the Brahmana began to drag her away, the young prince Rohita clung to his mother’s clothes, weeping. To keep the child with his mother, Harishchandra sold the boy to the same Brahmana for a pittance.

The money from this sale was still insufficient to satisfy Vishwamitra’s demand for the Dakshina. To pay the remainder, Harishchandra sold himself to a man who appeared as a Chandala named Kalu. This represented the ultimate social and ritual degradation for a Kshatriya king: he became the property of one who handled the dead, tasked with the menial and ritually polluting duty of collecting cremation fees.

For a period of twelve months, Harishchandra lived at the cremation ground, dressed in rags, his body covered in the ashes of the dead, performing his duties with meticulous honesty. He never kept a coin for himself and never allowed his personal grief to interfere with his master’s taxes. During this time, he often dreamed of his past lives, realizing that his current suffering was the result of the complex interplay of karma and divine test.

The trial reached its most agonizing point when Rohita, while plucking flowers for his master’s worship, was bitten by a venomous snake and died. Shaivya, now a broken and destitute servant, carried her son’s cold body to the cremation ground in the middle of a dark, stormy night. In the gloom of the funeral pyres, the husband and wife encountered each other, but so ravaged were they by their respective ordeals that they did not recognize one another until the queen’s lamentations revealed her identity.

The king was devastated to see his only son dead. He decided to burn himself in the pyre. As the couple prepared to enter the funeral pyre themselves, unable to bear the weight of their grief and yet unwilling to deviate from their duty, Harishchandra entered a state of meditation on the goddess in the form of Satakshi.

King Harishchandra and Queen Shaibya by a funeral pyre. Their young son lies dead on the logs under a stormy night sky with lightning. From the rising smoke of the pyre, the blue-hued Goddess Satakshi appears with eyes covering her form

At this moment, the entire celestial assembly, led by Indra, Vishnu, and Dharma, appeared at the cremation ground. Vishwamitra also appeared, his anger finally cooled, desiring to grant the king the fruits of his unprecedented forbearance. Indra sprinkled nectar over the body of the prince, restoring him to life with a radiant and beautiful form. Harishchandra and Shaivya were relieved of their rags and restored to their royal appearance, adorned with divine ornaments and garments. Kalu, the Chandala master, revealed his true identity as Yama Dharmaraja. He explained that the entire ordeal—from the loss of the kingdom to the snakebite—was a test of the king’s patience, forbearance, and control of the senses. Even when offered immediate entry to heaven, Harishchandra hesitated. He argued that he could not leave without the formal permission of his master, and furthermore, he could not leave his subjects who had suffered because of his absence. He refused to accept heaven if his people were to remain in misery. He made an unprecedented offer: he would donate all the spiritual merit (Punya) he had acquired through his suffering to the citizens of Ayodhya, so that they might accompany him to the celestial realms.

The gods, moved by this supreme act of charity, agreed to the request. The entire population of Ayodhya ascended to the heavens with Harishchandra. Rohita was installed on the throne to continue the dynasty, ensuring the lineage of the Solar kings on earth, while Harishchandra achieved a status in the heavens that was rare even for the gods.

Chronology in the Seventh Skandha

For more details on the chapter wise break-up for the story of Harishchandra from Devi Bhagavata Purana, here are the details (https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/devi-bhagavata-purana).

The chapters of the Seventh Skandha -

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Story of Harishchandra - as told in The Devi Bhagavata Purana

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