Maharaja Kulasekhara

krsna tvadiya-pada-pankara-panjarantam
madyaiva visatu me manasa-rajahamsah
prana-prayana-samaye kapha-vata-pittaih
kanthavarodhana-vihau smaranam kutus te

“O Krishna, let the swan of my mind enter into the stem of
Thy lotus feet (while I am youthful), for at the time of my death,
when my throat is choked with mucus, air and bile, how can I
possibly remember thee? (Mukundamala 40)

This verse, composed by the vaisnava saint, or alhvara, King Kulasekhara, was often recited by His Divine Grace, Srila Prabhupada (A.C. Bhaktivedanta Svami Prabhupada). King Kulasekhara appeared in year 27 of the Kali Yuga (@2,975 bc), in Travancore, South India. He is said by the sri vaisnavas (followers of Vishnu) of that region to be the incarnation of the kaustubha gem of the Supreme Lord.

Traditionally, the sovereign in his dynasty owe allegiance to the famed archa-vigraha of the Godhead, Sri Padmanabha of Travancore, to whom they offer obeisanaces and a report of their royal business twice daily. Despite his origins, however, Kulasekhara Maharaja played the part of a materialist to begin with, just as our gaudiya saint, Srila Bhaktivinode Thakura, did. He was valiant, however, and by force of arms became king of the Cholas and Pandyas as well as of the people of Mahalayam, and he was possessed of a mighty military force. The administration of his kingdom was moral, just and magnanimous.

As above stated, Kulasekhara Alhvara appeared at first to be a mundaner, a sovereign who fancies himself the lord and controller of his realm. But with the passage of time his natural devotion to the Lord of Vaikuntha, and especially to Lord Sri Rama, manifest itself for all to behold. By the practice of sadhana-bhakti (sadhana, regulated; bhakti, devotional service) he came to be free from all signs of ignorance and passion and shone as one situated in pure goodness. The natural tendency of a devotee towards renunciation arose in him, and he viewed the world as unfit for his habitation. So pure did he become that the Lord’s intimate parshada (messenger), Sri Vishvaksena, was deputed by his Master to initiate the king by the performance of five samskaras.

Being thus enabled to enter into the mysteries of unalloyed devotion, King Kulasekhara lamented his position as a pounds-and-pence monarch and declared his royal opulence to be as scorching to him as fire. Above all there arose the earnest desire within his heart to give up his regal seat and go to the Lord as His menial servant. The king would sigh as he contemplated serving the Lord at Rangaksetra, a great center of devotion, and then at other times he would long to go to other holy sites and abide there for the rest of his days.

In this way he longed to renounce his royal burden and devote himself exclusively to the service of Godhead. He invited many saintly devotees to his capital and he studied the scriptures with them. He read the eighteen Puranas, the Itihasas and the sacred lawbooks too. Having extracted the essence of all this shastric lore he composed the great Mukundamala, ‘A Garland for Mukunda’, which contains verses such as these:

madana parihari sthitim madiye
manasi mukunda-padaravinda-dhamni
hara-nayana-krsanuna krshosi
smarasi na cakra-paara-kramam murareh

“O Cupid, give up thy place in my heart, which is the seat of the lotus feet of Lord Mukunda, lest thou art scorched by Siva’s third-eye! Do you not remember the supreme power of the discus of Krishna, the enemy of Mura?”[Mukundamala 29]

idam sarire parinama-peshalam
pataty avasyam slatha-sandhi-jajharam
kim ausadhaih klisyasi mudha-durmate
nairamayam krishna-rasayanam piba

This body, its beauty faded, will inevitably fall down, the joints of its limbs unfastened. With what medicines dost thou torment thyself, thou evil-minded fool? Drink instead the life-giving nectar that is Krishna!” [Mukundamala 31]”

Best of all, King Kulasekhara loved to hear Srimad Ramayana, ‘The Beautiful Adventures of Rama’, and that he did every day without fail. One day the reciter spoke the following verse to the king:

ekas ca ramo dharmatma
katham yuddham bhavisyati
catur-dasa sahasrani
rakshasam bhimakarmanam

[The sages said:] “These rakshasas (ogres) of ferocious deed are fourteen-thousand in number. The pious-souled Rama is but a single man–how can He do battle with them?”[Ramayana, Aranya Kanda 24.23]

This text, which was uttered at the time of Rama being attacked by fourteen thousand ogres, wrought the most extraordinary influence on the alhvara. So absorbed was he in the narrative of the holy Ramayana that he fully believed Rama to be in danger at that very moment and facing the demoniac horde unaided. The king thus cried:

“My Rama is on the battleground alone, and His brother, Lakshmana, has stayed behind to guard Mother Sita. Rama is in danger and goes forth to do battle with fourteen-thousand rakshasas single-handedly. We are well-equipped with swords and bows–are there not heroes enough amongst us to aid Him? Should not I, His devotee, go and guard Him, even though He has His discus and His conch? Make haste, soldiers! Let us march!”

Hearing this proclamation, the king’s ministers were aghast, and they wondered how they might disabuse their sovereign of an extraordinary error born of transcendental love.

They decided to secretly dispatch an advance party to meet the king as he marched his army to Janasthana, the site of Rama’s battle, and to deceive him into returning to his capital. This plan being put into action, the impassioned Kulasekhara set out with his military force and encountered this group of men, apparently coming home from Janasthana. They broke the tidings of Rama’s victory to him, as if it had just occured, and spoke the following verse:

tam dristva satru-hantaram maharshinam sukhavaham
babhuva hrshta vaidehi bhartaram parisasvate

“Beholding Rama, who had slain His foes and had brought delight to the great sages (who had witnessed the fray), Sita, the Princess of Videha, became ecstatic and embraced Her husband.” [Ramayana, Aranya Kanda 30.39]
King Kulasekhara experienced unbounded bliss upon hearing this report, and, fully believing it to be so, turned his army back home.

Following this remarkable incident, the recital of Ramayana continued as usual, and every noteworthy event described therein was celebrated by the king with great fanfare. He had Rama’s deity taken daily from His temple and put on procession through the city’s streets, the festivities concluding with the feasting of the saintly sri vaisnavas and the distribution of charity.

The brahmana-reciter of Ramayana, however, had begun to take great care not to inflame again the transcendental sentiments of King Kulasekhara, lest he again embark on a hopeless crusade. Thus he touched only briefly, with no particular emphasis, on the untoward occurances during the Lord’s career, and stressed instead only the delightful events thereof.

One day, however, the brahmana-reciter was unable to attend the royal palace, and he deputed his son to recite instead. The brahmana-son was unaware of the precautions taken by his father, and he thus recited all parts of Ramayana with equal fervor.

When he came, then, to the section wherein is described the abduction of Mother Sita, the brahmana-son inadvertantly roused the king to great anger and anguish. The king, thinking the Mother of the universe to be in peril at that very moment, cried:

“I must march at once across the ocean and reduce Lanka to ashes, slay Ravana and his kin, and return my weeping Mother to Sri Rama!”

Railing thus, the king armed himself and commanded his army to march.

Upon reaching the ocean shore, Kulasekara plunged into its waters, with no thought for his safety, and headed as fast as he was able toward Lanka. His followers were thunderstruck by his behavior and simply stood motionless upon the beach, unable to do or say anything to dissuade him from his attempt. The king, of course, soon came near to complete submersion and his sure destruction, the water reaching to his neck. Lord Sri Rama, however, was observing him throughout, and, seeing His servant in peril, decided to rescue him from his plight.

As the wildly anxious sovereign was plunging even deeper into the main, the Lord appeared before him upon the waves with Sita on His arm. He then addressed Kulasekhara, saying:

“Hearken, My faithful devotee. We are returning victorious from battle. I have slain My foes and rescued My wife. There is now no need for your assistance–your desire has been fulfilled. Let us return to the city; I shall lift you from the ocean just as I lift the conditioned soul from the cycle of nativity and mortality to vaikuntha (the living entity’s spiritual home, devoid of all-dullness)”.

Having thus spoken, Lord Rama lifted the monarch from the sea and brought him safe to shore. He then accompanied King Kulasekhara to his capital, where He vanished from sight.

The king’s ministers were by now convinced that their sovereign was afflicted with a sort of religious insanity, and they tried to determine how they might curb his excesses. They decided to somehow bring about his disenchantment with the sri vaisnavas, whom they took to be the cause of the king’s ‘ruin’.

Meanwhile, whenever the king’s going to some holy city or other became a real liklihood, a group of sri vaisnavas, apparently coming from that very place, would be ushered in so as to satisfy the king by their association, thus keeping him at home.

This ploy assuaged the ministers’ fears for some time, but they soon found the constant throng of sri vaisnavas within the palace walls, and their freely coming and going, to be an intolerable botheration.

Thus they decided to implicate these saintly sri vaisnavas in a theft, and to that end removed some jewelry from Lord Rama’s murti’s treasure chest–a precious necklace–and hid it away. Soon a report was given to the king regarding the disappearance of the necklace, and the sri vaisnavas, charged with the worship of the Lord, were accused of the theft and deemed deserving of punishment.

The king, however, upon hearing this calumny, declared:

“Hearken, O my ministers! I cannot believe that the devotees of Godhead are capable of such a theft, or that they might entertain such a sinful idea. To prove what I say is true, bring at once a vessel containing a live cobra and I shall thrust my hand in it.”

The vessel was forthwith brought to him, and saying, “If they be guilty as you say, then let this serpent bite me!”, he fearlessly plunged his hand within, and then withdrew it unscathed.

Seeing this, his ministers hung their heads with shame and, prostrating themselves before their sovereign, confessed all. Kulasekhara kindly forgave them and ordered that thenceforth they should be the servants of those they had unjustly tried to ruin.

Kulasekhara Alhvara no longer felt able to live in materialistic company after this occurance and he thus resolved to renounce his kingdom. To that end he called his son, Dridavrata, and entrusted the realm to him. Accomapanied by his daughter, Godadevi, who was also a great, unalloyed devotee (vaisnavi), he proceeded to Rangaksetra, the holy city he had long desired to make his habitation.

There he gave his daughter in marriage to Lord Ranganatha, and absorbed himself completely in the service of the Lord. At times Kulasekhara Alhvara journeyed to other holy South Indian pilgrimage places, including the samadhi of Namalvhara, one of the foremost sri vaisnavas, and to Brahmadesa at last. There, at the age of sixty-seven years, he returned to his true plalce of origin, Vaikuntha, the eternal realm of Lord Sri Visnu.

Thus ends the prabhupada-vanivadi statement of Sriman Karnamrta Prabhu in Vedic Village Review, Issue #13, pp41-42, dated June 1990, in the matter of the life and lila of Sri-Sri Sita-Rama/Maharaja Kulasekhara.