Devalok
From the epics · 1 telling · Pan-India

Krishna's penance for a son

Jambavati asks Krishna for a son like Pradyumna; Krishna spends six months in austerities under the sage Upamanyu, and Shiva appears as Ardhanarishvara to grant the boy Samba, named after that form.

Who is in it

The story, beat by beat

  1. Jambavati asks Krishna for a son who will equal Pradyumna.
  2. Krishna goes to the Himalayan hermitage of the Shaiva sage Upamanyu.
  3. He performs austerities month by month — holding skull and staff, standing on one leg in water, standing on his toes — for six months.
  4. Shiva appears in the form that is half Parvati and grants the wish.
  5. The boy is born and named Samba after the form in which the boon came.

devotion penance birth

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Encyclopedia

Mahabharata, Anushasana Parva 15–16

Pan-India All traditions

The Mahabharata has Krishna himself recount how, wanting a son for Jambavati equal to Pradyumna, he went to Upamanyu in the Himalayas, was instructed in Shiva's worship, and undertook six months of increasingly severe austerities. Shiva and the goddess appeared together as one body and granted him the son, whom he named Samba for that joined form. The Bhagavata simply lists Samba among Jambavati's sons; the Devi Bhagavata also carries the story. Pattanaik's remark that the scriptures paint Samba as a wastrel, so that a great man's son need not be great, is his own gloss.

What is different here:

Base and only telling found; Vaishnava and Shaiva readers weigh the episode differently (a Vishnu-avatar worshipping Shiva) but the plot is not varied.

Samba (Krishna's son) — Wikipedia

Sources: Samba (Krishna's son) — Wikipedia

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