Vishvamitra -- The King Who Became a Brahmarshi

Vishvamitra was born a kshatriya, a warrior: Kaushika, son of King Gadhi, ruler of a great kingdom. His story, told most fully in the Bala Kanda of the Ramayana, turns on a single encounter. Out with his army, the king came to the hermitage of the sage Vasishtha, who welcomed them all and fed the whole host lavishly from the bounty of his wish-fulfilling cow, Nandini. The king demanded the cow; the sage refused; and when the king tried to seize her, the cow brought forth armies that destroyed his own. Vishvamitra's weapons, even the divine ones he then won from Shiva, broke against Vasishtha's single staff.

The defeated king drew his conclusion: "Shame on a kshatriya's strength; the power of a brahmin's spirit is the true strength." He gave up his kingdom and turned to austerity, determined to become a brahmarshi -- a sage of the highest rank, equal to Vasishtha.

What follows is one of the great stories of the human will. Again and again Vishvamitra's austerities bore fruit, and again and again he lost their power through his own passions. To help King Trishanku, who wished to ascend to heaven in his body, he used his merit to create a whole new heaven in the southern sky. The celestial dancer Menaka was sent to distract him, and he lived with her for years; their daughter was Shakuntala, mother of Bharata. When the apsara Rambha was sent in turn, he cursed her in anger -- and saw his austerities wasted once more.

Finally he mastered both desire and anger. In the Ramayana's account, after thousands of years of severe penance, the gods themselves came to grant his wish, and Vishvamitra asked that Vasishtha acknowledge him. Vasishtha did, calling him brahmarshi -- and Vishvamitra, the epic says, honoured Vasishtha in return.

For Hindus the most lasting gift of Vishvamitra is the Gayatri mantra. The Rigveda attributes the third of its ten books to the family of Vishvamitra, and the Gayatri -- the prayer to Savitri, the divine light, to inspire our understanding -- is found there, with Vishvamitra as its seer. Every day it is recited at dawn by millions, and it is the mantra given at the sacred-thread ceremony. That the seer of the most sacred Vedic verse was born a warrior has long been read as a sign that spiritual rank is won, not inherited.

In the Ramayana he is also a great teacher. He asks King Dasharatha for the boy Rama to protect his sacrifice from demons, gives Rama and Lakshmana the mantras bala and atibala and a host of divine weapons, and walks them to Mithila. Without Vishvamitra, Rama would not have met Sita.