Sokha Baba: The Legend and Origin of This Kuldevata (Part 1)

The speaker introduces Sokha Baba as a KuldevtaThe lineage deity of a family, to be settled with before any other sadhana is taken up. especially established in Bihar, Nepal, Uttar Pradesh and other regions. He sets out what he will cover: who Sokha Baba is, how he appeared, his full story, the folk tales around him, how he is worshipped at home, and his place in tantra. He begins with the question of the deity's original form. He says that when elders, learned men and people accomplished in tantra were asked, they narrated the whole story step by step: how he came to be worshipped in Nepal, how he appeared in the Mithilanchal region, and how he was worshipped in Bihar. The answer, he says, is that Sokha Baba is principally the name of Virabhadra, the Gana of Lord Shiva. How Virabhadra came to be called Sokha is told later in the account.

The speaker says the origin story is one everyone knows. When Bhagavati Sati gave up her life in Daksha's yajna, burning herself in its fire, Lord Shiva brought forth Virabhadra. He tore out his jata (matted hair) and struck it on the peak of the Himalaya; Virabhadra was born there. Because the lock had split into two pieces, Virabhadra came from one and Bhadrakali from the other, and the two went and destroyed Daksha's yajna. This, he says, is where Virabhadra's appearance begins. He continues: after wrecking the yajna, Virabhadra cut off Daksha's head too and threw it into the same yajna kund. Around the kund were many sages who tried to stop Virabhadra by the power of their mantras, such as the sage Bhrigu and the sage Aryama, each using his own siddhi. Everyone there who stood in Shiva's insult and sided with Daksha Prajapati, even if a sage, was killed by Virabhadra. The speaker notes that this is a story of the puranic age. After the yajna was fully finished off, Virabhadra went to Shiva and reported it; he also dragged many devatas away in bonds and tormented many of them.

After Daksha's yajna was destroyed and Virabhadra came to Lord Shiva to report it, the speaker says, Shiva gave him a blessing. Because the work for which Virabhadra had been brought forth was now complete, and because he is a direct amsha (part) of Shiva, Shiva granted him a boon. The boon, as the speaker states it, has two parts: in a later age Virabhadra's worship would take place in the form of a KuldevtaThe lineage deity of a family, to be settled with before any other sadhana is taken up., and his power and capability would always remain for the protection of dharma. Later in the account the speaker refers back to this boon when Virabhadra asks his guru how it might come true.

The speaker says that after Shiva's boon Virabhadra's anger still did not cool. Two things were going on in him: his wrath kept burning and growing, so that he went on causing much destruction, and at the same time he felt self-reproach that he had killed so many rishis and munis. Then, he says, Bhagavati Bhadrakali, who is Virabhadra's shakti, herself put forward a proposal of marriage, meaning a worldly marriage, in order to pacify him. The two of them, in the form of Shiva and Shakti, married there with fire as their witness. After that Virabhadra's anger became calm. But, the speaker adds, once the anger was calm the agitation inside him over the killing of the sages increased a great deal, and that is what drove him to penance.

The speaker says that after his anger cooled, Virabhadra did TapasyaAusterity undertaken over time, the effort from which tapobal accumulates. at many places so that the agitation in his mind would settle. He says the gods do all this as lila. He draws a parallel with Kaal Bhairava: when Kaal Bhairav cut off Brahma's head, the fault was Brahma's and Kaal Bhairav is himself a part of Shiva, yet in the human world he still incurred the dosh of Brahmahatya and had to wander from place to place; finally at Kapal Mochan tirtha in KashiVaranasi, the city on the Ganga held to stand outside ordinary dissolution. the Brahma-kapala dropped from his hand, and the tirtha came into being there. In just the same way, he says, Virabhadra was troubled that he had killed many sages and that Daksha Prajapati had died at his hand, and felt he too must do penance. The Kankhal region of Haridwar, where the yajna and its destruction happened, is held to be one place where he did penance. After that he did tapasya at other tirthas over time. One of these, the speaker says, is a folk tale only; he says you will not find it in any shastra, purana or history. By that tale, in Lodhas village, called Kawalesar Dham, in Itarhi block of Buxar in Bihar, Virabhadra became calm: his penance was completed there, he found peace, and from there he went to his own lokas. The speaker calls this the puranic part of the account.

The speaker says another story tied to the worship of Virabhadra is that of the rakshasa Bankasura. He notes that Bankasura himself is worshipped at one place: Surajpur, in Chhattisgarh, has a proper temple of Bankasura where puja is done with full Bali vidhan. The people who worship there, he says, are the local Bhagatvaal, the kind who learn tantra vidya. He says he will speak about this separately some other time. The history of the puranic age, he says, is that this same Bankasura tormented people heavily in the direction of the island groups, where Lakshadweep is and the region of Lanka. Many people were brutally killed by him. But he had one rule: he might kill many people a day, yet he ate only one. In that setting comes the story of a devotee named Pingala, a servant and worshipper of Virabhadra, who lived with her son on one of those islands. The people of that place and the king of the island went to Bankasura with a treaty: we will offer you one human every day, you stop causing such havoc.

The speaker says the day came when it was Pingala's turn to send her son as the offering to Bankasura. She was a widow, alone, with no husband; she could not live without her son, so she went with him to the demon's island. Seeing two, Bankasura was delighted that he would get two meals that day and told them to wait while he bathed. While he bathed, Pingala, in anguish, began invoking Lord Virabhadra for her son's protection, and he appeared. But because he is an UgraThe fierce mode of a rite or deity, as against the saumya or gentle mode. deity, a deity of protection, his light and aura were extremely fierce and vast, and he stood in a most terrible form bearing a thousand arms. Pingala and her son were badly frightened. So Virabhadra appeared for his devotees in the form of a child, the Bala Virabhadra form, addressed Pingala as mother and told her not to worry: today I will kill this wicked one. When Bankasura came back, the speaker says, the child form was so charming that he said he would eat this little boy's flesh first, thinking the gods were very pleased with him to send three meals in place of one. As soon as he stretched his hand toward the child, Virabhadra took on his vikaral (terrible) form and killed him.

The speaker says that in the very act of being killed, Bankasura spoke: he had attained certain siddhis, and he said, I want my own worship. The speaker says this has always been so; you will find it in tantra and in the stories too. He lists the examples. When Mahishasura was about to be killed, he asked for a place of worship alongside Bhagavati. The Bhairav at Vaishno Devi, who was a tantrik, also asked for a place for himself. Durgamasura had Bhagavati's own name fixed on his: Bhagavati herself said that after his name her name would be Durga. In the same way Kolhasura, when his death was near, had Bhagavati settle the whole of Kolhapur so that the city would carry his name. In just that way Bankasura folded his hands and begged, and Virabhadra gave him the region that is today Surajpur in Chhattisgarh, saying: when such a time and such a yuga come, you will be worshipped there. The speaker says this is a separate vidhan of tantra, in which there is also a method of worshipping a rakshasa, and siddhis of a tamasic nature; in a later age someone accomplished that kind of siddhi, and Bankasura became worshipped there.

The speaker explains what happened after Bankasura was killed. Bankasura's body was huge: during the fight, since Virabhadra had shown his fierce thousand-armed form, Bankasura, who was himself a master of siddhis and had mayavi (illusory) powers, had enlarged his own form greatly. So when he died, the weight of his body sank the part of the island lying between the battle site and the place where Pingala and her son lived; that stretch went under the sea and there was water on every side. Then, the speaker says, the Lord came back into his child form. Pingala asked how they would get across. Bala Virabhadra told her: take me in your anchal on one side and your son on the other, and walk with me; the path will make itself. It is said that Virabhadra then drank up all the water of the sea. When the sea was empty the path appeared, he dropped them at their home, and then he brought the water back out of his belly and filled the sea again. Because of this, he says, sea water is held to be salty; the same story, he notes, comes in the tale of the sage Agastya. Because Virabhadra dried up the whole sea, the speaker says, the name Sokha caught on and became current for him; so it is said. With this, he says, the stories of the puranic age are done.

Turning from the puranic stories to how Virabhadra came to be worshipped everywhere in later times, the speaker says the folk tale begins with Virabhadra's guru-form, who is Lord Sadashiva Mahadev. In the folk tales, and particularly in the Nepal region, he says, Mahadev has also been addressed by the name Dinkar Maharaj. He clarifies that the Dinkar form actually belongs to Bhuvan Bhaskar, that is, Lord Surya; but in the form of guru, Shiva has been addressed as Dinkar Maharaj.

The speaker says Virabhadra's form remained very UgraThe fierce mode of a rite or deity, as against the saumya or gentle mode.. When people began his worship, if any mistake at all occurred in his puja he did not forgive it; he treated it as an unpardonable offence and simply killed the person. He is, the speaker says, a very fierce and violent deity. He adds a present-day note: even now, for those in the tantra field who do his siddhis, it is very difficult to accomplish his mantra or to accomplish him; very rare are the sadhaks who obtain this kind of siddhi.

The speaker says that because Virabhadra was such an UgraThe fierce mode of a rite or deity, as against the saumya or gentle mode. deity, no devotee would readily agree to worship him: people thought, he is so fierce that if we serve him and something goes wrong he will simply kill us. In that situation Virabhadra went to his guru, that is, to Mahadev, and said: I have no devotee; how will I get one who will serve and worship me, so that I too am worshipped and your boon is fulfilled? Then Lord Sadashiva told him: in the Himachal region, even beyond the Kankhal area, lives a Brahmani who is very old. She has one son, obtained by my grace, whose name is Madhava; he alone is fit to become your devotee. Go, show him the effect of your power, and make him your devotee. The speaker says that in a way this was a test, a lila set up here by Lord Shiva. So Virabhadra went to the old Brahmani. In the story current in the Nepal region, the speaker says, her name is given as Hira Moti. He came to her, gave his introduction and spoke to her as mother. She became very afraid: how could one possibly do the service and puja of so fierce a deity? She sent him to her son, who was outside. Then Sokha Baba, that is Virabhadra, went to Madhava and said: accept me as your deity and worship me.

The speaker says that when Virabhadra asked Madhava to accept him as his deity, Madhava was greatly afraid: how could we ever worship so fierce a god? So he thought to test him, and there was something else in his mind too; the speaker says this is placed in the story as lila. Madhava proposed: fine, we will worship you as a deity, but first fulfil one condition. Cut a sandalwood tree without any axe; split it; when it has fully split, carry it to the bank of the Ganga and arrange it as a pyre. And you must light the fire in it without using any fuel, that is, without any means at all. Virabhadra did all these tasks, the speaker says. When the fire was lit and blazing, Madhava Bhagat circled the pyre and jumped into it. He jumped, the speaker says, thinking: I will neither stay alive, nor will I have to become this deity's devotee, for he is so fierce; who wants to be the target of his wrath? Thinking this he gave up his life in the fire. Seeing this, the speaker says, Lord Virabhadra too felt that this would be a blot on him: that his devotee had given up his life in such a way.

The speaker says that although Virabhadra is all-capable, in the lila story he at once ran to Indra, king of the devas, and begged him for the Amrita Kalasha: please give me the pot of nectar. But while he was away in heaven and on his way back, some cowherds who had been watching went and told the old Brahmani that such-and-such had happened to her son: he had burnt himself in a pyre and given up his life. Before Virabhadra could return with the nectar, the Brahmani too resolved to give up her life. She said: I suspected this from the beginning; Virabhadra is such a fierce deity that he can never be worshipped by anyone, and in the end that is what happened, my son's life is gone. At that very moment Virabhadra appeared and said: I will bring your son back to life, and along with that I grant you not one but two sons. Do not give up your life; come now and enter the Ganga. As soon as you enter the Ganga your old age will go, the light of your eyes will return and you will be full of fresh youth. But the old Brahmani would not agree. Then, after Virabhadra pleaded again and again, he made a SankalpaA formal ritual resolution spoken aloud before an offering or observance, declaring its intent and dedicating its merit. over the ashes of the pyre and caused a rain of amrita on them. Her son Madhava came alive, and by divine grace and his blessing one more son appeared, who was named Sadhak Ji as Madhava's sahodar (brother). The two of them appeared, and when the Brahmani entered the Ganga she received her own youthful body again.

Right after telling of Sadhak Ji's appearance, the speaker adds a note about another deity. In the Nepal region, he says, a deity named Karik Ji Maharaj is worshipped, and his worship is also especially found in the Mithilanchal region. The first bhagat (devotee-priest) of Karik Ji Maharaj, the speaker says, was that very Sadhak Ji, the one whom Lord Virabhadra had brought forth as the Brahmani's second son.

The speaker says that when Madhava came back to life he was frightened again: I had chosen death, and you have made me live again; now tell me the whole matter, why did you do this? Then Virabhadra, under the sway of his devotee, told him: yes, I brought the Amrita Kalasha. Having learnt this, Madhava said: all right, I will accept your worship, but you are a very UgraThe fierce mode of a rite or deity, as against the saumya or gentle mode. deity; you forgive no one's offence. So come to the Ganga and take an oath on GangajalWater from the Ganges, used to purify and re-consecrate ritual items exposed to impurity. that you will never be established anywhere in such a fierce form; you will stay in a gentle form, do good to your devotees, and never in great fury kill them or cause them harm over their small faults. Then, the speaker says, Virabhadra went into the Ganga, took Ganga water in his hand and made the SankalpaA formal ritual resolution spoken aloud before an offering or observance, declaring its intent and dedicating its merit.: I will never do this kind of act, and I will remain in a gentle form. For this reason he is worshipped in many places in his child form; the form of Bala Virabhadra is held to be the form he keeps for his devotees, and he gives them this promise. After that Madhava became his first devotee, and Virabhadra came to be worshipped by the name Sokha.

The speaker closes with what the story says about the Amrita Kalasha. Madhava took the pot of nectar. But then Madhava began reviving many other people too by means of it. So Lord Virabhadra explained matters to him and took the amrita-kalasha back. By the grace of Virabhadra, though, a small part of the amrita was placed in the kanishthika, the little finger, of Madhava the bhagat. And in this way, the speaker says, the first worship of Lord Virabhadra begins from here. He says the rest of the story continues in the next part.