Story of Mandhata (Part 2)

Introduction to Mandhata

Previously, we saw that Mandhata acquired the knowledge of the Vedas, weapons, and warfare in a flash. The weapons he acquired were a bow called ‘Ajagav’, arrows made out of horns, and armour that was impenetrable. Lord Indra himself performed the ceremony to anoint him as king. Just as Lord Vishnu had done before him, Mandhata won over the earth in three steps.

The power of Mandhata was such that it invited the flow of wealth from everywhere. The earth itself willingly yielded immense amounts of precious stones to him. The king used the wealth to perform many yagnas in which he freely gave charity to numerous Brahmins. Owing to the spiritual grace he got from the yagnas, he was even able to share half of Indra’s kingdom. In one of the yagnas he performed, the whole earth was included, not an inch of earth was spare and the seas were covered with agnihotras.

When Mandhata became king, the kingdom and its people had been suffering from a drought for twelve years, with no grain to eat. Mandhata asked Lord Indra to provide his kingdom with rain. Indra refused and so the king personally forced the clouds to shed water which ended the drought. This was a task which till then only Indra could perform.

Mandhata defeated and killed the king of Gandhar, the most powerful king at that time. Thus, he ruled unopposed as the lord of the earth. This great king performed his last yagna on the ground called Kurukshetra. On this holy ground, the great war of Mahabharata would be fought, where good will overcome evil.

Let us try to see what the story symbolizes. The student of yoga tries to build the astral body, an inner body separate from the physical. We get a small glimpse of what the astral means in our dreams. This body has a life of its own after the death of the physical. If the student has worked well to build this body, his consciousness continues even in death. In the astral world, time and space change, that’s how Mandhata acquired the knowledge of the scriptures and warfare in an instant.

When the inner body is being built, it must be protected from people’s negative thoughts, signified by Mandhata’s impenetrable armour. Just as the raw material for the physical body is food, the raw material for the astral is prana, which comes in with breath. Mandhata’s bow represents the diaphragm, he was breathing in a special way. It was called ‘Ajagav’ which comes from ‘gati’ to move implying the movement of prana. To be able do this requires total control over attention, symbolized by the arrows he possesses.

Gandhar, means smell, a ‘guna’ of the element earth. Mandhata defeating the king of Gandhar shows that he is free of the cycle of the earth or life and death.