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Re: Bagavathan- asura

From the Bhakti List Archives

Ranganath • December 27, 2001 


Chitraketu was a Gandharva who was cursed by Narada to be born as an asura and he was born as Vrtrasura.

To give you the history of Vrtrasura.

Once Devaguru Brihaspati was insulted by Indra and hence he left Amaravati. Indra went to Brahma and asked him for advice. Brahma advised him that one should never be without a Guru and hence advised Indra to approach Twasta's son (I forgot the name here. It probably was Viwaswan). The wife of Twasta bwlonged to the Asura clan and hence Viwaswan was caught between two worlds. But he agreed to be the Devaguru

Interestingly he had three heads and while with one head he would do yagnas for the benefit of the Devas, the other head would pray for the benefit of Asuras. But Indra got know of this and he cut of Viwaswan's head. The heads turned into birds and flew away.

Twasta was very angry on the death of his son and hence he offered a yagna and from the yagna came Vrtrasura.

Vrtrasura defeated Indra and Indra ran to the Lord for protection. The Lord told Indra that Vrtrasura could not be killed by any normal weapon, since he was begotten on the penance of Twasta, and told him to get the bones of Dadichi (a sage) to make a weapon.

Dadichi graciously gave his bones to Indra and Viswakarma (the Divine Architect) made the Vajra from this. Indra used the Vajra to kill Vrtrasura,

Vrtrasura though an asura, was a great devotee of the Lord and he always prayed for deliverance. Even when defeat and death stared him in the face, Vrtrasura urged Indra to strike him down so that he may reach the Lotus Feet of the Lord. A staunch devotee, Vrtrasura, is glorified as one of the Great Devotees of the Lord.

Hope this clarifies

Ranganath

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: RAJI SRIDHAR 
  To: bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2001 8:11 PM
  Subject: Bagavathan- asura


  Pranams to all bhagavathas.
  HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

  Till now I was under the impression that only
  Prahladha was the devotee of Lord from Asura kulam.
  But, when I was going through the archives, in May
  1995, Sriman Krishna Kalale wrote about Bhagavatham.
  In that he mentioned about Vritrasura/Chitraketu.Since
  I don't have the meaning of Bhagavatham book, can
  someone tell me more about this Asura (bhagavatha)?

  Pranams
  raji sridhar





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           - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
To Post a message, send it to:   bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com
Archives: http://ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/
 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/