Samba and the Sun

Samba was the son of Krishna and Jambavati, and he was the handsomest young man in Dvaraka. He knew it, too.

One day the sage Narada came to the city with other sages to see Krishna. The young princes of the Yadavas rose and greeted him properly. Samba, busy with his own pleasures and pleased with his own face, did not bother.

Narada decided that the boy needed a lesson in modesty.

He waited for a day when Krishna was at ease in the pleasure garden on Mount Raivataka with the women of his household. Then he went to Samba.

"Your father wants you. At once."

Samba hurried to the garden and stood before his father in the middle of the women's party. The women looked at the beautiful young man longer than they should have. Narada arrived a moment later, in time to make sure that Krishna noticed.

Krishna's anger was quick. He cursed the women, and he did not spare his son.

"You are so proud of that beauty. Lose it. Be a leper."

It happened at once. Samba's skin was ruined as he stood there.

"Father, I came because I was called," he said. "I have done no wrong."

Krishna did not take the curse back. He said only, "Go to Narada. He will know where your cure lies."

So Samba went to the very sage who had trapped him and asked which god he should turn to.

"I have been to the world of the Sun," Narada said. "I saw him there with the gods and sages standing round him and singing, and the Vedas themselves in attendance. He fills everything. Go to him."

With his father's leave Samba set out from the sea coast and travelled north. He crossed the great river Chandrabhaga and came to Mitravana, the Forest of Mitra, a holy place known in all three worlds. There he fasted until his body was thin and the veins stood out on it, and day after day he praised the Sun as the one who can heal every disease of the skin.

The Sun was pleased. He healed Samba, and Samba had his old beauty back.

"Set up an image of me here on the bank of the Chandrabhaga," the Sun said. "The town that grows around it will carry your name. And I will come to you every day in your dreams."

Some time later Samba went down to the river to bathe, as he did each day, and saw something riding on the current. It was an image of the Sun, floating face upward.

He carried it to his hermitage and set it up in the forest. Then he asked it who had made it.

The image answered. "Long ago, when no creature could bear the Sun's brightness, Vishvakarma put him on a lathe and trimmed him. Afterwards he carved me from the wishing tree, took me up into the Himalaya, and sent me down the Chandrabhaga for your sake."

Samba built a temple for it. Then he needed priests, and Narada told him that the priests nearby were not fit for the work. The Sun himself gave the answer. Across the salt ocean lay a land called Shakadvipa, where the priests, called Magas, wore a sacred girdle and praised the Sun with Vedic hymns.

Samba went home to Dvaraka, mounted his father's bird Garuda, and flew over the sea. He brought back eighteen families of Magas and settled them at Mitravana. The town was called Sambapura. People have long identified it with Multan, the Mulasthana of the old books, where a Chinese pilgrim of the seventh century still saw a golden image of the Sun set with gems.

On the coast of Odisha they tell the same story, and they point to where it happened.

Samba was proud of his looks and laughed at Narada, the tellers say. Narada led him into a trap, to a place where the women of Krishna's household were bathing. Krishna came upon him there and cursed him with leprosy. Samba begged forgiveness and said he was innocent. Krishna took pity on him, and told him where to go: to the forest by the river Chandrabhaga, to win the favour of the Sun.

In Odisha that forest is the shore at Konark, and the Chandrabhaga is a small stream near the temple. A local Sanskrit text, the Kapila Samhita, calls the place Maitreyavana and says that Samba worshipped the Sun there for twelve years and was cured.

On that coast the sun comes up out of the sea. The old books call the place Arka Tirtha and Surya Kshetra, the Field of the Sun, and people say Samba raised the first temple there. Many centuries later, about the year 1250, King Narasimha Deva built the great temple that stands at Konark now. It has the shape of the Sun's own chariot, with twenty-four carved wheels and seven stone horses.

The story is still kept. On the seventh day of the bright half of the month of Magha, in the cold season, pilgrims gather at the Chandrabhaga near the temple. The Brahma Purana already describes the rites of that day at Konark: a bath in the sea, three walks around the temple, flowers, incense and lamps for the Sun. The gathering is called the Chandrabhaga Mela.

A few weeks earlier, on the tenth day of the bright half of Pausha, comes Samba Dashami, which is observed only in Odisha. Mothers get up before sunrise and bathe, and cook a separate dish in the name of each member of the family, the children above all. At noon they look at the Sun in a bowl of turmeric water and offer him the food. They ask for their children what Samba was given, which was health.