త్రిపురాసుర సంహారం

శరి యై కార్ముకి యై మహాకవచి యై సన్నాహి యై వాహి యై
సరథుం డై సనియంత యై సబలు డై సత్కేతనచ్ఛత్త్రు డై
పరమేశుండొక బాణమున్ విడిచె తద్బాణానలజ్వాలలం
బురముల్ గాలె ఛటచ్ఛటధ్వని నభో భూమధ్యముల్ నిండగన్ 


-- శ్రీమదాంధ్ర భాగవతము, సప్తమ స్కంధము, త్రిపురాసుర సంహార ఘట్టం నుంచి కార్తీక పూర్ణిమ సందర్భంగా

The Story: 

One upon a time, there lived a daemon named tArakAsura. He was killed by kArikEya the son of Lord Shiva in the war. This tArakAsura has three children named vidyunmAli, tArakAksha and kamalAksha. Their mothem took them to pAtALa after the death of tArakAsura. They grew up in due course of time and performed a severe penance. When lord Brahma appeared in front of them they have asked as follows.

"We need three cities made of Gold, Silver and Iron and each city should have all wonderful facilities to live and enjoy. These cities will orbit around in their own orbits and they come into a straight line once in 1000 divine years. They can only be destroyed if someone who can hit them with an arrow which was unknown to be an arrow earlier at that time of they coming in conjugation."

Having got the above boon from lord Brahma, they have occupied the three cities and started ruling over the world like dictators. People were put to all sort of troubles by these tripurAsuras. They have conquered all the Gods as well in the battle.

All the gods went to Lord Shiva and requested him to solve the problem. Lord Shiva taken earth as the chariot, Sun and Moon as the wheels, Lord Brahma as charioteer, mount Meru as the bow, Ananta as the bow-string, Lord NarayaNa as the arrow and smashed the three cities in one single shot when they come in to straight line. Thereby Lord Shiva earned the name as "purAri" and tripurAntaka. 


What is the yogic meaning of this story?
The waking, dreaming and deep sleep that are dominated by three gunas/qualities sattva, rajas and tamas respectively are the three cities of white, golden and dark colors. These three puras will never come to one line as when one dominates the other two are not come into experience.These three states of existence cause a ocean of samsaara of repeated deaths and births for the embodied beings.

They will come into a straight line when the jeeva (none other than Siva) assimilates all the equipment in the body of chariot, the backbone (meru) as the bow, life force (ananta) as the string, Lord Vishnu (the consciousness which spreads all through - concentrated towards the aim of attaining moksha) as arrow, correctly identifies the conjugation point of three states of existence in deep meditation and hits them all in ONE SHOT. Thereby one attains the Kaivalya i.e., the transcendental independence from the dictatorship of tripurasuras i.e, GuNas!!

This final kaivalya is the moksha; one who attains it is the purAri or Siva himself!!!

This event happened on the kaartika poornima day which is today. Hence sharing this story.

om tat sat

My blog on assimilating all the required instruments to carryout tripurasura samhaara : http://prasad-yoga.blogspot.com/