Vishnu – Pradyumna and Aniruddha – {Ep.278}

In today’s episode we’re doing stories about Pradyumna and Aniruddha, Krishna’s son and grandson. Featuring a Shiva vs Krishna battle, prophecies, illusion, skydiving babies, abductions, and rapid arm surgery

Namaskar and welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”. With my ability to travel through space and time, I have been bringing you fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal has only been to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

In this episode, we’re doing a story about Krishna’s son and his grandson. 

But before we jump into today’s story, I just want to repeat the recent announcement in case you haven’t heard the last three episodes. This podcast is about to go on a hiatus and I will not be releasing any more new episodes. Today we’ve completed 5 years of this podcast. Thank you for all your support and your encouragement over these years. 

From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank each and every one of you. Whether you’ve been a long time listener or whether you’ve only just started tuning in – your support, feedback and engagement mean the world to me, and I’m deeply grateful and humbled by all your love and encouragement.

While I’m away doing my regular Narada duties – you know, visiting Gods and Goddesses, playing concerts in Swarg and so on, feel free to catch up on any of the 300+ episodes in this catalog, and stay connected with me on social media. You just might hear from me soon about a new project I’m starting on.

Now let’s dive right in, into the deep deep ocean. Because that’s what a 10 day old baby was doing as well – dropping from high up in the sky and into a very inhospitable part of the Indian Ocean. But back up a second here, you probably want to hear what the baby was doing in freefall over the open ocean. After all, there was a minimum age for skydiving even back in Ancient India when the rules were much more lax on everything else.

For that we’ll rewind the clock, and travel from sea level to thousands of kilometers away into some of the highest mountains in the world. We’re  going to Mount Kailash, where Shiva and Parvati lived. Shiva is the destroyer of the Universe, and as such he’s the character you have to be careful not to anger. And yet, that’s exactly what Kamadeva did. Kamadeva is the god of Love. If you’re looking for a parallel in other mythologies, Cupid comes close. They both shoot arrows that instantly make the target fall in love. The small difference is that Kamadeva carries a bow made of sugarcane, and flowery arrows. Cupid uses steel, silver, gold – metals that can really hurt! 

Back to what Kamadeva did. You see, there was a prophecy that Shiva and Parvati’s son would rid the world of an evil Asura. Shiva, if you haven’t heard of him before, is the Destroyer of the Universe. Part of the holy trinity, together with Brahma, the creator of the Universe and Vishnu its preserver. Shameless plug here, but Brahma is my father, I’m Vishnu’s number 1 fan and president for life of his fan club, and I’m a regular visitor at Shiva’s home in Mount Kailash.

Anyway, one other character here is Indra, the chief of the Devas in Swarg, or Heaven. By the way I’m also a regular at Heaven, so I’m on chummy terms with Indra too. The Devas were being oppressed, and Indra decided that he couldn’t simply wait for nature to take its course and for Shiva and Parvati’s child to be born. He decided to hurry matters along. He asked Kamadeva to cast a flowery arrow or two over Shiva and Parvati’s way. Unfortunately Shiva resented this intervention into his love life. He opened his third eye, which is about the most destructive force out there. In an instant Kamadeva was incinerated into just some atoms floating here and there.

Kamadeva’s wife, Rati, was distressed and searched everywhere for her husband. She was reborn on Earth as an ordinary girl, Mayavati, and continued looking for Kamadeva there.

Because she was merely a working class citizen in her Earthly avatar, Mayavati had to find a job to make ends meet. She was a hard working girl, and soon found an opening in the palace kitchen. She was 3rd assistant potato peeler to the fourth chef in the kitchens of the Asura King Shambara. This is important and you’ll soon see why. And by this, I don’t mean her position, but that she was in the employ of Shambara. 

You see, Shambara was not a nice king, to put it mildly. Besides the usual, tax the poor to feed his own rich self, he also did the unthinkable, taking candy from a child, and abducting babies, complete with candy, from their parents, whipping his servants, and generally ill-treating anyone and everyone. Shambara was the least likely person to react well to a prophecy predicting his death. Shambara heard the Akashvani – you know, the prophetic voice from heaven, not the radio station. The Akashvani announced that Shambara was going to meet his end at the hands of Krishna and Rukmini’s child. Instead of trying to investigate the source of the voice – to see if someone was pulling a prank on him using a loudspeaker, Shambara took a different course of action. 

He flew to Dwarka, where Krishna and Rukmini lived, and he found that their baby, Pradyumna, was already born. By the way, if you haven’t heard of Krishna and Rukmini before, Krishna was an avatar of Vishnu, and Rukmini that of his wife Lakshmi who was also the Goddess of wealth. And Krishna was a central character in the Mahabharata. Pradyumna had very powerful parents. 

But here’s the kicker, Pradyumna was no ordinary baby either. He was the reassembled version of Kamadeva. The very person that Mayavati had been searching for.

Shambara meanwhile could have waited. Pradyumna was just 10 days old. Because medical science was not as advanced in Ancient India, and infant mortality rates were high, life expectancy was low – there was a really good chance that the Akashvani would turn out to not come true. But Shambara, just like Indra and Kamadeva, did not believe in letting nature take its course.

So Shambhara, disguised as a palace maid, snuck into Krishna and Rukmini’s palace. On the pretext of cleaning out the baby’s diapers he snuck into the room where Pradyumna was sleeping all alone. Pradyumna didn’t realize that a strange lady, not his regular nurse, was picking him up and carrying him away. Or that the strange lady was not a lady at all, but an Asura intent on destroying him. But we have to make allowances. He was, after all, only 10 days old.

Things would have turned out very differently if the Asura had taken some immediate decisive action to terminate the baby that involved him confirming that the baby had indeed passed away. But Shambara decided on the simplest solution instead. Right then, he was flying a couple of kilometers over the Indian ocean. This area had extremely dangerous weather, and survival was impossible. So Shambhara thought as he dropped the baby, and flew straight back home.

Miraculously, or maybe because he was a God, Pradyumna was just fine. Nothing happened to him as he plummeted towards the Ocean. Nothing happened to him as his fall plunged him deep below the water’s surface. Nothing happened to him as he was swallowed by an enormous fish. The baby somehow was okay. The fish was not. It was caught promptly in a fisherman’s net.

The fisherman was astonished. In all his years finishing he had never seen such a magnificent fish. Truly one of a kind. There was only one thing to do. To head back to shore and present this fish to his King. And so it was that that fish was presented back to Shambhara. Not realizing what was in its belly, Shambhara passed it on to his cook and said he would like it served for dinner that night. And just for good measure, because he was such an evil Asura, Shambhara had the fisherman, as well as the cook whipped.

The cook took the enormous fish to the kitchen, and asked his staff to cut it open and began preparing it for dinner. His back was hurting from the whipping, he couldn’t do it all himself.

So all the assistant potato peelers, onion choppers, carrot slicers, egg boilers gathered around with their knives and began hacking away at the fish. There were cries of surprise when they discovered a baby, alive and well in the fish’s stomach. 

They immediately called the local consulting detective to investigate the matter. Detective Byomkesh Holmes. Byomkesh had his magnifying glass permanently superglued to his hand to save him some time. He was all about efficiency. The moment he arrived on the scene and took one look at the baby, he began speaking. “Right, fish and baby. You want to know where those came from. I’m right, aren’t I? See no one can fool me. So here’s the whole story. Far down the depths of the Indian ocean, there’s a Marlin colony. This is one of the youngest members of the Marlin. Speedy Dan Marlin they call him. He dropped out off his school chasing a shrimp that he spotted. He has blurred vision in one eye, that’s why he didn’t see the fisherman’s net. If he hadn’t had that extra serving of squid, he would have managed to free himself.”

Everyone interrupted to say that they wanted to know the Baby’s origin not that of the fish.

“Yes, yes I was coming to that” Byomkesh clarified. “Baby was dropped in the Ocean. Fell off a cruise ship. The Mother’s twenty years, 3 months and 12 days old. Wears a dark red shade of lipstick and Indraprastha brand bangles. She has a tattoo on her left shoulder in the shape of a hawk. Last week she stubbed her toe – banged into some furniture after the candle in her room blew out. Her father is a librarian. Regularly reads all the periodicals and writes letters at least once a week to the editors of India Today complaining about the lack of rainfall. I can also tell you that the mother has a profound dislike for Rabri, but loves Jalebi and Shrikhand. Now that’ll be 10,000 rupees for the initial consultation. My man Ajit here can take your check or swipe your credit card. If you want more info, you’ll need to book a time slot longer than 2 minutes next time.”

That didn’t really help anyone, and for 10,000 rupees, they still didn’t know what to do with the baby. That’s when Mayavati stepped in. Given her heavenly powers as Rati, Mayavati recognized her husband. She picked up the baby and begged the others to let her take care of him. None of the others knew anything about Pradyumna or the prophecy, so they didn’t see this gentle baby as a threat. And besides doing the right thing would have involved taking the baby to Shambara. And the Cook’s back was not looking forward to another whipping.

So Mayavati took the baby home, and took care of it. To her it was not an option to risk taking the baby back to Krishna and Rukmini. It would bring the parents joy, but Shambara would also find out. And he would try to destroy Pradyumna again. Restoring the baby to the parents was the equivalent to putting a target on its back, according to Mayavati. 

It was a little bit weird taking care of her own husband, changing his diapers, helping him burp after giving his Cerelac. But Mayavati didn’t mind. She was overjoyed at having found her husband, after all these years of searching. 

Many years passed, and Pradyumna had now grown into an adult. Mayavati had home schooled Pradyumna in everything – academics, but also practical things like warfare, and very importantly in the art of Mahamaya – which you can think of as the art of illusion. Before you go thinking that Pradyumna was being trained to become a stage performer like David Copperfield, or PC Sorcar, or David Blaine, let me clarify that Maya was much more than that. In our very first episode, Episode 0, I had a very jarring introduction to Maya from Vishnu himself – the master of this art. It can be quite powerful.

So anyway, when Rati felt that Pradyumna was ready for the showdown with Shambhara, she told him everything. Of course he was weirded out by having been taken care of by his wife, whom he had considered a mother figure until now. But that was something he could deal with afterwards. Right now, he had to go fulfill the prophecy and destroy Shambhara. 

He took up a special sword that Rati had procured for him, and headed straight for Shambhara.

The King was bored almost, and demanded to know who this handsome stranger was. He looked like Krishna but couldn’t be Krishna. And he couldn’t be Krishna’s son either because he had killed the boy many years ago.

Pradyumna said that he was that boy. And Shambhara was so incompetent, he had even failed to kill a baby that was entirely at his mercy.

Angered by this comment, Shambhara flung hundreds of venomous snakes at high speed at Pradyumna. And Pradyumna casually cast them aside. Because they weren’t a million venomous snakes. This was just Shambhara using his powers of illusion. And Pradyumna did the same with scorpions, boulders, and arrows. No wait. The arrows were real, so his powers of illusion defense didn’t have any effect. But his sword did. He repelled the arrows by twirling the sword, like he was some kind of a jedi knight waving his lightsaber. It worked. 

He got close enough to Shambhara, and then one quick swipe of his sharp sword and Shambhara was no more. People all over the kingdom were thrilled by Shambhara’s demise, but there was definitely a part of the population that wondered who would be there to whip them now?

Pradyumna and Mayavati flew back to Dwarka in a cloud. Again, using her superpowers.

There was initially some confusion about who this young man was. He looked like Krishna but couldn’t be Krishna. I was there in Dwarka that day. And I played the mediator explaining all sides of the story to everyone. It took a long while, but it ended in a tearful family reunion after all.

Pradyumna stayed in Dwarka much of his life. In the Mahabharata, he even helped train Abhimanyu, Arjun’s son. But he did not participate in the war himself. Because he was off on a pilgrimage with his uncle Balarama. 

Pradyumna had another wife, when Rukmavati chose him during her swayamvar. You know, a Groom reveal party. Like a super-speed version of the Bachelorette, if you’ve seen that reality TV show. Rukmavati and Pradyumna had a baby together – Aniruddha.

This grandson of Krishna was pretty handsome himself and he was popular with the ladies. Popular enough that Usha, an Asura princess abducted him and kept him hidden in her chambers. There was a good reason to keep him hidden. Her father, Banasura, would not approve. Banasura was the ruler of Sonitapura. He was a devotee of Shiva, and impressed the destroyer of the Universe by his ability to play the Mridangam, when Shiva danced the Tandav. The Mridangam is a musical instrument, a percussion instrument. Banasura had the massive advantage of having a thousand arms. So basically – yeah, he could have performed as an entire orchestra all by himself. Impressed by his musical ability, Shiva had granted Banasura a boon, and the Asura asked for Shiva’s help in defending his city. You’ll soon see why this matters.

Aniruddha and Usha fell in love in a way that wasn’t just Stockholm syndrome. And after several weeks of living secretly in the princess’s chambers, Banasura found out when he saw that his daughter was suddenly eating all her meals in her chamber, and she had doubled all her portions besides. At first he thought she was hiding a pet she had rescued from somewhere. But when the pet turned out to be a young man, he was furious. Luckily for everyone he didn’t execute Aniruddha on the spot. And merely imprisoned him.

Normally I don’t like to intervene. I believe in nature taking its course, unlike Indra, Kamadeva and Shambhara. But this time I had to intervene, because Banasura might change his mind and have Aniruddha executed. And I knew that Aniruddha’s family was getting anxious – they had been searching for him and a month later, they had still not found a sign.

So I went to Dwarka and told them where Aniruddha was. Infuriated by Banasura’s actions, never mind that it was his daughter who was actually responsible, and never mind questioning why Aniruddha hadn’t sent a secret message to them in the weeks before his discovery by Banasura, they prepared for war. 

The Yadavas led by Krishna and Pradyumna fought Banasura’s soldiers and quickly destroyed them. This was turning out to be a very one-sided battle until Banasura called on Shiva to help. Shiva, his son Kartikeya entered the battle themselves, and suddenly the balance was evenly balanced. Krishna’s Sudarshan Chakra quickly demolished Bansura’s chariot despite Shiva’s protection and even chopped off 996 of Banasura’s arms.

Shiva and Krishna fired all kinds of weapons at each other. Brahmastra, Narayanastra, Pashupatastra, and they all countered each other. Thankfully the damage to the rest of the world from these highly destructive weapons was fairly limited. But it might not remain so. For the second time in such a short while I felt the need to intervene, despite my inclination not to do so.

Being familiar with everyone has the massive advantage that I can persuade people to come to the negotiating table. And that’s all I had to do in this case. Krishna and Shiva both immediately reasoned that there was an easier way out of this. Shiva only wanted Banasura to not be killed, and Banasura shared that sentiment. Krishna clarified that he never intended to kill Banasura. After all, Banasura was Prahlada’s great-grandson. And Prahlada was Vishnu’s fan. Not his number 1 fan. Because that would be me. But he was extremely devoted to Vishnu. That story was covered in Episode 20 and 21. Anyway, Krishna just wanted to limit the number of arms Banasura had. 4 was still a good number, he could still play the Mridangam competently.

And in return for sparing his life, Banasura agreed that Usha and Aniruddha could be married. Funny how no one thought to ask the couple if they wanted to marry each other. But neither Usha, nor Aniruddha had any objections so it was all okay in the end.

Except it was not okay in the very end. Because far later, both Aniruddha and Pradyumna perished in a big fight amongst the Yadavas themselves. Gandhari, the mother of the Kauravas in the Mahabharata had cursed Krishna that his entire clan would perish before his eyes. And that is what happened. Vajra, who was Aniruddha’s son, was the only other survivor of the great Yadav fratricide. He became King of Indraprastha. Krishna himself didn’t live too long after that. He was killed in an accident where a hunter mistook him for a deer and fatally injured him.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

You may have heard about Perseus from Greek mythology. There’s one aspect in which Pradyumna’s story might remind you of Perseus. You know the son of Zeus, and great-grandfather of Hercules who battled Medusa, chopped off her head and rescued Andromeda from a giant sea monster that was about to eat her. Perseus’s grandfather, King Acricius of Argos heard from the Oracle that Perseus would kill him. Fearing for his life, he took both his daughter and his newborn grandson and tossed them into the Sea. Luckily, Perseus survived because he was rescued by a fisherman. The prophecy came to pass of course.

That’s all for now. 

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