6. Three heads
Abolakara | Children’s Stories from Odisha
Abolakara was back with yet another question.
In the market, there is an elaborate court made of stone. It has a king and several courtiers made of stone. What could be the logic behind this strange monument?
There was a country called Manikyapura. It was ruled by King Chandraketu. He had two wives called Ratnamanjari and Kanakalata. Ratnamanjari, the elder queen was pregnant but this frustrated the younger so much that she plotted to destroy her happiness — she had the newborn & her unconscious mother put in a basket and the basket dumped in a river. The basket floated & hit the shore of the kingdom Ratnapura.
Ratnapura was ruled by the smaller heir who had overthrown the elder brother, who was the rightful successor. The elder prince had given up & took to the life of a fisherman. That evening, as he tugged on his net he found a box entangled in it. Within the box he discovered the tender child. With the help of his wife, he carried them to their hut and nurtured them back to good health. The queen Ratnamanjari wept profusely at this cruel turn of events. Together they named the boy ‘Biswajita’ — one who would conquer the world. The kind couple sheltered them and arranged for the boy’s education.
Meanwhile, the king’s spies reported the news of his elder brother having adopted a child. As the boy excelled in his school the insecure king had him called for a murderous challenge. The minister read the terms,
In the kingdom of Bira Singha lives the princess Kamalini of incomparable beauty. She has thrown a challenge to all men. The condition is that the one who gets her the head of the rakshasi Trishira will get her hand. You have to get it for our worthy king. If you fail, we chop your head off your body.
Biswajita laughed the matter off as if it were a petty task, “When my ancestor could bring the Ganga from heaven onto the earth, can I not get the head of a mere rakshasi?” Saying so, he rode off on his horse in search of the rakshasi. However, none of the people on the way could tell him her address.
Eventually he saw a meditating sage on his way. Seeking the answer he went to the wise man and sat beside him with a clear mind. When the sage opened his eyes, he asked him the same question — “Where does Trishira live?” The sage told him to go ask the question to the two sisters of Trishira who lived in a cave a few yards away. He warned him, “Both the sisters of Trishira are blind. A pot hangs in front of them with a ruby eye in it. Whenever any of them wishes to look around, they grasp it in their hand and until they hold it, they can see everything around them.” His question answered, Biswajita trotted off in search of the cave.
Sure enough, there was a cave near the foothills of the mountain. The boy peeked inside and seizing the moment, he sprung inside and took the ruby. The two rakshasi sisters smelled him but could not see anything. They each thought that the other had kept the ruby to themselves. So began a terrible fight.
Biswajita called aloud from far away and told them to stop their banter. “I have taken your ruby” he said. “Tell me where your sister Trishira lives and I will return this to you or else I will call the frightening goddess Kala Bhairabi.”
The rakshasis receded and shrieked at the mention of Kala Bhairabi. “No, don’t call her please — it was she who took our vision. We had another sister called dishira — it was she who killed her. Go behind us deeper into the cave and you’ll find a red rock blocking the opening. Push it aside and go through the fields until you find a temple — that is Kala Bhairabi’s temple. The cave behind her temple is where Trishira lives. Now give us our eye!”
Biswajita tossed the ruby back into the pot and went as per their instructions. Soon he found the temple. Inside it there was a huge statue of a goddess, so terrible in appearance that he had never seen anything more frightening. This was Ranachandi, the goddess who went into war. Afraid, he fell at her feet, seeking her advice to defeat Trishira.
The goddess was impressed by his courage and gave him three gifts — a long garment with a cap, sandals and a sword. The garment would never allow him to burn in a fire, the sandals would take him anywhere and the sword would slash through anything in one motion. Then she gave him a mirror to protect himself from Trishira’s boon. The rakshasi had a boon. Any humans she looked at would freeze to stone.
Guided by the goddess, Biswajita held the mirror and walked backwards, hiding behind obstructions. As he neared the top of the mountain he saw rotten meat, bones and the smell of wild alcohol lurked in the wind. At the apex of the mountain was the deadly beast’s cave and in his mirror Biswajita saw the hideous creature.
This was Trishira — with three heads, limbs like trunks of a banyan tree, feasting upon two wild buffalos, eating them up raw.
After her food she gulped down three jars of alcohol and dozed off to an intoxicated nap. Biswajita carefully went behind her and chopped off her neck with the sword, taking care not to turn the creature’s eyes towards him. Then he tied the chopped heads in a cloth and put them in a huge pot. With the pot slung over his shoulder, he descended the mountain and went back home.
When he went to the king saying that he had done the task, they ridiculed him. They wanted to physically inspect the head. Biswajita agreed, but when he opened the cloth the rakshasi’s eyes fell on the king and his courtiers. As soon as the cut-off head glanced at them, they turned to stone.
Biswajita then went to the kingdom of Bira Singha and showed the princess Kamalini Trishira’s head using the mirror. They married and lived happily ever after.
Abolakara was satisfied.
- Tracing geographies as we have been doing with this series, Manikyapura is indeed a town in the Ganjam district of Odisha and there are Manikyapurams in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Ratnapura has many contestants though — there’s one each in Maharashtra, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and yet another in Sri Lanka. The Ratanpur in Chattisgarh is the closest to Manikyapura in Odisha and there is the river.
- The kingdom of Bira Singha seems to be named after a man of that name. Bira Singha was a famous 15th-century master possessing psychic and spiritual abilities. He is said to have lived in a cave on the banks of the sacred Prachi river. His limited literature stands out and rejects all beliefs that ordinary people, even atheism. There is still a small, virtually unknown shrine dedicated to him in Odisha. Read more on him here.
- The name Trishira is a compound that can be split into tri meaning ‘three’ and shira meaning ‘heads’. The masculine form is trishira and the feminine trishirā.
- In Ramayanas of India, Trishira is a son of Ravana who battled Rama along with Khara and Dushana to avenge the insult of Shurpanakha. Trishira here is an asura though, not the feminine asuruni. Rama is said to have cut off his three heads with three arrows.
- Kala Bhairabi is a terrifying aspect of the goddess. Kala refers to time and Bhairabi means quite literally ‘terrifying’. Tantra often dwells around ideas of terrifying and shocking visualisations of feminine divinity and was immensely prevalent in Odisha at one point of time. The mention of such ideas in the Abolakara stories reveal Tantric influence.
- The name Kamalini means ‘one like a lotus’, and can also refer to one of the four classes of women in Indian erotic science, alternatively called ‘Padmini’, considered the best in the art of lovemaking.
- This story heavily resembles the Greek legend of Medusa & Perseus in which Polydectes challenges Perseus to get the head of Medusa. Perseus consults the Graeae, three sisters who share a single eye between them and finds Medusa’s whereabouts. With the help of Hermes who gives him magical tools for his mission, Perseus slashes Medusa’s head off.
This project was created to make traditional children’s literature in Odia available to everyone.
The stories have been translated into English by Prateek Pattanaik. It is supported by Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik.
