BACKGROUND OF TRISHANKU

(A peep into the background of Trishanku is essential to understand the Story of Vishwamitra better. Please read, comment and share. SDN)

Trishanku was the father of Harishchandra, who sacrificed his empire and even sold his wife and son to meet the demand of Vishwamitra and kept his own word, according to a legend. Harishchandra is, according to scriptures, the synonym of truthfulness. Trishanku was also known as Satyavrata and his wife was called Satyavrate. His father was called Nibhandana belonging to Surya dynasty. Nibhandana had two more names Tribandhana and Tridhanva. Once Satyavrata kidnapped a married woman and hearing his son’s sinful act, Nibhandana cursed Satyavrata that he should be among a community called Shwapakas (perhaps meaning cannibals). However, Satyavrata, probably because of the curse of his 

father, was roaming aimlessly in the royal capital. This further hurt the feelings of the king. He also thought of getting another son because one son had become corrupt and disobedient and the throne would remain without any heir to succeed. Vasishtha was a witness to all these happenings in the family and to an extent, he was supportive to the king in all his decisions a d moves. King Tribandhana decided to do penance to get a son and hence, handed over the kingdom to his council of Ministers and retired to forests to do penance. The kingdom was without a king and there was a severe drought for nine long years. The subjects became insane, dishonest and despicable. The time turned so wretched that people were struggling from hand to mouth. Taking advantage of this situation, Satyavrata also wanted to have his revenge on Vasishtha for he thought the sage and royal preceptor was the reason behind all his distress. He surrendered to the feet of Vishwamitra who had by then started hating Vasishtha and they had become foes. Satyavrata took upon himself to look after the family of Vishwamitra. A little later, Satyavrata killed the cow which Vasishtha was rearing and consumed its flesh without following any scriptures or tradition. Vasishtha, who came to know about it, cursed Satyavrata to become a Trishanku which means a person who had committed three sons namely, doing a thing that was against the wishes of his father, killing the cow that belonged to the royal preceptor, and thirdly consuming its flesh without performing the final rites to the cow as prescribed in the scriptures. What happened to the penance of Tribandhana, whether he got any more children or not are not known for sure. It is not clear how Trishanku transformed into such a right-thinking and sensible person from his original habits and practices are not clear. These details however are given in Mahabharata, Bhagavata and Brahma Purana.