Devalok
From the epics · 2 tellings · Pan-India

What left Prahlada: Shri follows conduct, and leaves Bali for Indra

Indra, serving Prahlada as a brahmin, asks for his conduct as a boon, and one by one Righteousness, Truth, Good deeds, Might and last of all Shri walk out of the asura king. In another book Shri leaves Bali's body before Indra's eyes and tells him why.

Who is in it

  • Lakshmi Shri, who follows conduct and is moved by Time
  • Prahlada rules the three worlds by his conduct and gives it away
  • Indra the brahmin in disguise; the one she goes to
  • Brihaspati sends Indra to Shukra
  • Shukra sends Indra to Prahlada
  • Bali the fallen king from whose body she walks out
  • Bhishma tells both tales to Yudhishthira
  • Yudhishthira asks how conduct is won and what helps in distress

Texts: Mahabharata

The story, beat by beat

  1. Prahlada has taken the three worlds from Indra by his conduct alone; Indra asks Brihaspati for the source of happiness, is sent to Shukra, and by Shukra to Prahlada.
  2. As a brahmin Indra asks Prahlada what brings happiness; Prahlada says he has no leisure; the brahmin waits, is accepted, and serves him as a pupil.
  3. Prahlada tells him how he won the worlds: no pride, no quarrel with brahmins, Shukra's counsel followed, elders served, anger conquered, the senses held.
  4. Prahlada offers a boon; the brahmin asks for his conduct; Prahlada gives it with a heavy heart and a sense that this is no ordinary pupil.
  5. A radiant form leaves Prahlada: Conduct, going into the brahmin. Then Righteousness, Truth, Good deeds and Might follow, each saying it lives where the one before it lives.
  6. Last, Shri rises out of him and says she dwelt in him and will follow Might; she tells him the brahmin was Indra, and that all of them rest on conduct.
  7. In the Mokshadharma, Indra taunts the fallen Bali; Bali says Time gives and takes everything, that Prosperity lived in many Indras before this one, left him for Indra and will leave Indra too.
  8. A radiant goddess walks out of Bali's body; Bali does not know her; she names herself Duhsaha, Vidhitsa, Bhuti, Lakshmi, Shri, and says Time moves her.
  9. She tells Indra she lives in truth, gifts, vows, penance, prowess and virtue, and that Bali fell from them; she will dwell in Indra now.
  10. Indra says no one can hold her for ever; she tells him to divide her into four: the earth, the waters, fire and good men who honour brahmins and keep truth.

conduct prosperity time asuras four parts

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Primary text (translation)

Mahabharata, Santi Parva CXXIV (Ganguli): the brahmin who asked for conduct

Pan-India All traditions

Yudhishthira asks how good conduct is acquired, and Bhishma tells how Dhritarashtra once answered the envious Duryodhana with a tale of Narada's. Prahlada took the sovereignty of the three worlds from Indra by conduct alone. Indra asked Brihaspati for the root of happiness; Brihaspati named knowledge and sent him to Shukra, who sent him to Prahlada. Indra came as a brahmin and asked what brings happiness; Prahlada said he had no leisure for lessons; the brahmin said he would wait, and Prahlada, pleased, took him as a pupil, and the brahmin served him and kept asking how the worlds were won. Prahlada answered: no pride in the throne, no hostility to brahmins, Shukra's counsel kept, elders served, no malice, anger conquered, the senses held; a man is filled by his teachers as a comb is filled by bees. He offered the brahmin a boon, and the brahmin asked for Prahlada's conduct itself. Prahlada gave it and was afraid. A shining form stepped out of him and said it was Conduct, going to live in the pupil; Righteousness followed, going where Conduct lived; then Truth, then Good deeds, then Might, each after the last. Then a goddess rose out of him, and he asked who she was. She said she was Shri, that she had lived in him and would follow Might, that the pupil had been Indra, and that everything she and the others were rested on conduct. Dhritarashtra ends: wealth got by wicked conduct does not last.

The Mahabharata, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883-96): Santi Parva CXXIV, CCXXIV-CCXXVIII; Anusasana Parva XI (sacred-texts mirror) § 12.124

Primary text (translation)

Mahabharata, Santi Parva CCXXIV-CCXXV: Bali, Indra, and the four parts

Pan-India All traditions

Indra finds the fallen Bali and mocks him: once he rode with thousands, now no kinsman is near; does he grieve? Bali says he does not; all things end under Time; body and breath go together; Time sweeps away the learned and the fool alike, an ocean with no far shore; Time gives everything and takes everything back; many Indras have gone before this one, and Prosperity, who lived in all of them, left Bali for Indra and will leave Indra in turn. As they speak a radiant goddess steps out of Bali's body, with plumes on her head and gold on her arms. Bali does not know her. She says his father never knew her nor does he; the learned call her Duhsaha, hard to bear, and Vidhitsa, and she is Bhuti, Lakshmi, Shri. Indra asks why she leaves Bali. Neither the Creator nor the Ordainer rules her, she says; Time moves her from place to place. She lives in truth, gifts, vows, penance, prowess and virtue, and Bali has fallen from them: he who honoured brahmins turned against them, touched the ghee with unwashed hands, boasted that his worship of her never ceased. She will live in Indra now; let him carry her with care, with penance and prowess. Indra says no being can hold her for ever and asks how to keep her. Divide me into four, she says, as the Veda prescribes; and Indra gives a quarter of her to the earth, a quarter to the waters, a quarter to fire, and a quarter to good men who honour brahmins and keep truth, and she yields each. Bali goes south and Indra north.

What is different here:

Not a boon given away but Time taking: she leaves Bali of herself. She names herself; she gives the reasons; she tells Indra how to hold her, in four parts. No Prahlada.

The Mahabharata, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883-96): Santi Parva CXXIV, CCXXIV-CCXXVIII; Anusasana Parva XI (sacred-texts mirror) § 12.224; The Mahabharata, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883-96): Santi Parva CXXIV, CCXXIV-CCXXVIII; Anusasana Parva XI (sacred-texts mirror) § 12.225

Sources: The Mahabharata, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883-96): Santi Parva CXXIV, CCXXIV-CCXXVIII; Anusasana Parva XI (sacred-texts mirror)

More stories with the same people

How a tradition frames it

The bird and the lion

After killing Hiranyakashipu, Narasimha's fury will not cool; in the Shiva Purana Shiva becomes the winged beast Sharabha and lifts him away, while in the Bhagavata Lakshmi dares not approach and the boy Prahlada calms him with a bow.
Temple legend

The cow, the anthill and the cowherd's axe

Looking for Lakshmi, Vishnu sits in an anthill on the Venkata hill, and Brahma and Shiva come as a cow and calf to feed him. The Chola king's cowherd, finding the cow dry, follows her and swings his axe; the god rises from the anthill and takes the blow. The wound on his head is why the image wears camphor, and why pilgrims give their hair.
Local story

Vaishno Devi and Bhairon Nath

A girl born of the three great goddesses waits on Trikuta mountain for Rama's promise; in the Kali age she feeds Pandit Shridhar's village, flees the Tantric Bhairon Nath up the mountain, hides nine months in a cave, beheads him at the mouth of her own, and grants him that her pilgrims must also visit him.
Legend

The garland in the dust: Durvasa, Indra and the three worlds going grey

Durvasa gives Indra a garland that carries Shri's presence; Indra hangs it on his elephant, the elephant throws it down, and the sage's curse strips the three worlds of her. Only the churning of the ocean brings her back, and Indra's hymn wins her promise never to leave again.
Legend

The elder sister: Jyeshtha, Alakshmi, the one who rose first

Before Lakshmi there was her elder sister: misfortune, who rose first from the ocean, cannot bear a chant or a clean floor, and is told by the gods which houses are hers.
From the epics

Where Shri stays: Rukmini's question, and the goddess who left the Danavas

Rukmini asks Shri in Krishna's house whom she lives with and whom she leaves, and Shri answers at length. By the Ganga, Narada and Indra watch her come through the sky from the Danavas, and she tells why she left them and with whom she comes.
Temple legend

The hundred years of Karavira: Mahalakshmi and Kolhasura at Kolhapur

The demon Kolhasura wins a boon that Mahalakshmi leave Karavira for a hundred years, rules it cruelly, and is killed by her eighteen-armed form when she returns; his dying wishes name the city after him and bind her to stay. The temple adds the Bhrigu road from Vaikuntha, the sun on her feet and the pilgrims from Tirupati.
Temple legend

The lotus at Tiruchanur: Padmavati rises from the Padma Sarovaram

After she leaves Vaikuntha, Lakshmi goes down to the netherworld, is told of a pool on the Swarnamukhi, and does penance there for twelve years; in the thirteenth, on the fifth day of Karthika, she rises from a golden lotus as Padmavati. Tiruchanur keeps the day with the Panchami Theertham and sends every pilgrim to her before Tirumala.