Talk:Triśañku
By Swami Harshananda
Triśañku literally means ‘one who had committed three śaṅkus or sins’.
There can be no better example for human frailty than that of Triśaṅku,[1] who happened to be the father of Hariścandra, the redoubtable champion of satya or truth. His father Nibandhana had christened him ‘Satyavrata’[2] which might be construed as adding insult to injury.
Since the prince Satyavrata had committed three śaṅkus or sins adultery, killing a cow and eating its flesh he came to be known as Triśaṅku. Once he decided to perform a sacrifice that would enable him to go to svarga (heaven), keeping his physical body intact. The well-known sage Viśvāmitra agreed to do it for him. However, the gods in heaven refused to come and accept his offerings. Incensed by this, Viśvāmitra started sending Triśaṅku to svarga, by the power of his tapas or austerities. When Satyavrata was halfway through his upward journey, he was cursed by Indra to fall on earth, upside down.
Viśvāmitra came to his rescue again by stopping him in the middle of the sky and started creating a separate heaven for his sake. Alarmed by this, the gods of heaven under Indra’s leadership pleaded with the sage that Triśaṅku, because of his threefold sin was unfit to enter heaven. As a compromise, it was agreed that Triśaṅku would stay where he was, surrounded by his own world of stars. Triśaṅku-svarga has now become a byword for anything which is ‘neither here, nor there’.[3]
References[edit]
- The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore