Chitraketu in Srimad Bhaagavatamu

In the past, there was a king by name Chitraketu. People were happy under his rule. Justice was available in full to all. Chitraketu had several wives, but had no children.

Manassu (i.e. heart and mind combined), which produces various and surprising thoughts, feelings and pictures, is nothing but the name of king Chitraketu. In it all sorts of thoughts, pictures, etc. continue to appear, move and go away all through. Along with possessing various boons and fortunes Chitraketu, has the sorrow of being childless. Thus Manassu can have discontentment and sorrow even while having all comforts and fortunes.

One day, the great sage, Maharshi Angirasa, came to Chitraketu’s house. Chitraketu extended honours and services to the Maharshi. After the sage had his food and sat on a befitting seat, Chitraketu. sat on the ground near him and then the sage said to him, “Oh King! Are you well? Are your wives, ministers, people and servants keeping well? If the mind is stable, life acquires stability. It does not seem that you have peace in your heart. Yon are looking like one disappointed due to failure in the fulfillment of one’s most important desire of the heart. Your face indicates some emptiness and I think it reflects the present feelings of your heart.”

Having heard Angirasa, Chitraketu spoke, “You are a great sage. You understand everything. In obedience and with your permission, I place before you (Oh father!), my anxiety and frustration. I have all fortunes except having children. I have no son who can assure me of future progress and a proper place in the other world. This is the cause of my frustration. All fortunes and riches of my kingdom are like chandana-tambulam given to one, without first giving food when hungry. The various comforts and bounties of kingdom do not give any happiness in the absence of children. Oh! Great sage! Please do tell us what we should do to beget a son.”

Angirasa Maharishi on learning the appeal of Chitraketu was moved by it, made him perform Putrakamesti sacrifice and gave the fruits of it to the senior most and good-natured wife, Kritadyuti, and blessed her. He said that she would give birth to a son and on account of him they will have to experience joy and sorrow. Having stated so, the sage left.

Kritadyuti conceived and she gave birth to a son on an auspicious day. Chitraketu experienced immense joy. After completion of conventional ceremonies the child’s horoscope was drawn. He made generous donations to the pandits.

The child grew up well and fast which provided immense joy to its parents. The joy of mother, Kritadyuti, had no bounds. Chitraketu, felt that he received a great blessing in life. He took extraordinary care in bringing up the child. Like the growing attachment and love of a poor man towards his earnings for hard work, his love for child born after a long wait had been growing day by day.

King Chitraketu.’s love for his queen, Kritadyuti, who gave birth to their only son and thereby provided him with immense happiness, had greatly increased. This gave rise to jealousy in the other queens. They were afflicted by heart-burning at their remaining childless while the senior queen gave birth to a child. This increased jealousy in them and they hatched a wicked plot. Unable to bear the indifference of the king towards them, they gave poison to the small baby.

The child was lying in the cradle. Though he slept very long, he did not wake up. Kritadyuti thought the child was in deep slumber, but had not imagined that it was dead. She asked a servant to go and get the child from the cradle. The servant noticed that the child was looking abnormal. In sorrow and shock, she kept beating her chest, fell down and swooned. Having heard and seen the servant’s condition, Kritadyuti ran to the cradle and saw rhe child lying lifeless. In unbearable sorrow, she too swooned. Others in the palace gathered there and started weeping. The other queens too joined them though their sorrow was not genuine.

Hearing about the sudden death of his son, Chitraketu was grief stricken. Incapacitated by sorrow, he walked towards the lifeless body of his child, fell over it and kept weeping. Kritadyuti found it unbearable to see her husband in deep sorrow with his head at the feet of their lifeless child. “Oh destiny! What a disaster have you thrown to my lot! The death of a son while father is alive is itself a taint on creation. If parents suffer from such great pain, which of them will ever love their children?”

“Oh son! Overjoyed I was when I got you, but could never imagine that you would leave me this way. Oh baby! Is it proper to leave your mother in this pitiable state? Leaving your dear and generous father, do not go away with cruel Yama, the God of death.”

Observing his queen thus bursting with uncontrollable sorrow the King became unconscious overcome by deep sorrow.

Message of Wisdom:

None of those present had the courage to console the grieving parents with their heads still lying on their dead child. Just then, two persons came there and asked Chitraketu:

“Oh King! For whom are you grieving? Who is that child? What is his relation to you? When and where were you born? When was he born? Was his relationship to you in existence right from your birth? Where is it now? Will it be there henceforth?

When a river is f1owing, some sand particles get together underneath and later get separated. It is not even possible to imagine the number of such meetings and separations. Who is to grieve for whom? Will those who grieve for the departed remain to do so without going away when their turn comes? Persons are grieving this way imprisoned in a kind of illusion (or maya of omnipresent God as held in Hindu philosophy).

Like seed coming from seed, children are born to parents. These are transitory relationships, but not real or everlasting. They were not there in the past. They will not be present in the future. The World’s ruler creates like a father, sustains them like a ruler and destroys them through serpents and the like.”

King Chitraketu heard them, wiped his tears and spoke this way with the visitors: “Oh great ones! Who are you? Hearing these words, I feel you are men of great eminence and wisdom. Your odd appearances, however, give a different impression. In the past,  I heard that divine messengers move around and remove undue attachment of the ignorant like us to worldly objects. I deem you to be such persons. Oh great souls! I am ignorant and steeped in darkness of great sorrow caused by deep attachment to my only son who is no more. Show me the way for deliverance from it and save me.”

One of the persons replied. “Oh King! I am Angirasa; am moved by your sorrow for the departed son. This is sage Naarada, son of Brahma. Having seen you, a great devotee, in great sorrow, we came to be of help to you.

Oh Raja! When I visited you in the past I gave you a message of wisdom of detachment. But finding you greatly desirous of having a son, made you perform a sacrifice Putra kamesti and made you the father of a son.

Oh, Chitraketu, now you have come to grieve from your experience of sorrow resulting from the death of a son. Wife, children, relatives and friends, power and riches are momentary and pain - causing. Reflect in depth. Do not grieve because relationships and attachments are passing. ‘Think who it is that formed these relationships and is experiencing pain and sorrow,” Angirasa clarified.

Looking at the pitiable condition of the King, the kind heart of sage Naarada melted and he spoke to him – “If you restrain yourself, I will tell you a mantra that will definitely save you. Divine beings like Maheswara and others adopted and overcame the duality and thereby reached the divine feet of Sankarshana, the supreme Lord within a week of meditating upon it.” Saying so, sage Naarada approached the lifeless body of the child.

“Oh, life of the departed child! Good things will happen to you. Get up. Your parents are suffering greatly due to your departure. Your relatives and friends are also suffering from sorrow. Wake up and look at them. Converse with them. Calm down their agitated hearts. Enter this body again. Live again from your recent demise. Experience the rule of the Kingdom your father would bestow on you,” said sage Narada.

The departed life then returned to the body of the child. The child came to life. Chitraketu was filled with joy and there was no limit to the happiness of Kritadyuti. The relatives and servants became happy. The child started talking,

“I am a product of and controlled by my karma. So far, I took lakhs of births from the wombs of many. Which parents shall I remember? In which birth, these were my relatives? Like Jewellery on being sold, passes on from one person to another, in this flow of creation, lives acquire and give up relationships which are momentary in the process of evolution.

Even in this birth., there are no permanent relationships. Based upon emotional and physical affinity, relationships are formed. They change once these affinities undergo changes. Children grow up and get distanced from parents. Wives get distanced from their husbands. Friendships disappear. Relationships get spoiled. Who for whom? Oh! Great sage! It is not proper for them to grieve for me. So long as an individual lives he/she does not realize the divine light of God. God is birthless, everlasting, self-luminous and above happiness and sorrow.” He continued:

“Oh, great soul! The ever-present life(soul) is everlasting and permanent and has no bond with individuals. The physical bodies that take births (worn as dresses by lives) get discarded. The life (force), which has no birth, does not die. It has no ego or attachment. As long as the embodied life is bound by the effects of actions and maintains affinity towards parents, so long the patents’ loving attachment subsists towards the child. After the child passes away, that loving attachment also departs. It is futile to be sad by continuing to be affected by the exit of such transitory loving attachment.

Sage, divine Naarada! Who are sons and who are husbands and who are wives? These bonds subsist only until the concerned people die. Likes and dislikes are in fact unreal and artificial. There are no joys and sorrows to the inner soul. Those who do know this are unaffected by attachment.” Having said so, the child’s life left the body again. King Chitraketu, the queen and the relatives around were dumbstruck They overcame grief and gave up attachment, performed the last rites for the departed child on the banks of the Yamuna river. The other queens who gave poison to the child repented and felt sorry for their wrong action. They realized that only sorrow would yield from children, on hearing the enlightening talk by sage Angirasa. With faces downcast by shame, they went to river Yamuna. They observed all ceremonies as per the process prescribed for repentance, gave up their desire for having a son(s). With the enlightenment provided by sage Naarada and sage Angirasa, King Chitraketu was able to free himself from the shackles of home. Sage Naarada gave upadesamu (i.e. core message/ oar-like guidance) to the pure hearted and meritorious Chitraketu. He taught how to pray to God and gave him eight slokas to be repeated and remembered frequently.

Sages Angirasa and Naarada then left to another region of the world, Brahmaloka, the universal core region. 

Chitraketu retained in his heart and mind the enlightening message, took only water for seven days and lost himself in meditation. Then he realized the truth that even kingship was unimportant. The meditation became more meaningful. At the end of the seven nights of such meditation he witnessed the divine entity Sankarshana. Unable to talk anything, he stood, folding his hands.

“Oh God!” he prayed, “Only sincere devotees can win over you and none others can. There is no beginning, middle and end to you. You are in all existence. Those who serve you have no birth or end. Hence, only those who see, understand and feel this, adopt such divine principle of Dharma. Oh God! Seeing you is cleansing oneself of all sins, I am blessed. By my fortune of witnessing you, I have been freed from my sins and their evil consequences of (undue) attachment and repulsion (hatred). My whole­ hearted salutation to you again and again, oh God!
(Translated into English by Sri K. K. Sharma)
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Forward–Onward!

Trust not the so-called rich, they are more dead than alive. The hope lies in you–in the meek, the lowly, but faithful.

Do not look up to the so-called rich and great; do not care for the heartless intellectual writers, and their cold-blooded newspaper articles. Faith, sympathy–fiery faith and fiery sympathy! Life is nothing, death is nothing; hunger nothing, cold nothing. Glory unto the Lord–march on, the Lord is our General. Do not look to see who falls–forward–onward! Thus and thus we shall go on, brethren. One falls, and another takes up the work.

That you may catch my fire, that you may be intensely sincere, that you may die the heroes’ death on the field of battle–is the constant prayer of VIVEKANANDA.

- Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission