| YouTube Channel

इन्द्रमतङ्गसंवाद (indramataGgasaMvAda)

 
Mahabharata
English
[Indra-Mataṅga-saṃvāda(ḥ)]
(“the conversation between Indra and Mataṅga”). § 735b (Ānuśāsanik.): Bhīshma said: Once a brahman obtained a son named Mataṅga, who, though procreated by a person of a different order, had, however, the rites of infancy and youth performed according to the ordinances laid down for brahmans. His father, desiring to perform a sacrifice, ordered him to collect the articles, and he set out riding in a car drawn by a young ass, that bore away the car to its mother
Mataṅga repeatedly struck the animal with his goad on its nose
but the old she-ass consoled it, saying, “A Cāṇḍāla it is that is driving thee
there is no severity in a brahman.” Asked by Mataṅga, the she-ass revealed to him that his father was a Śūdra following the profession of a barber, who begat him upon a brahman woman excited with desire
“thou art, therefore, a Cāṇḍāla by birth.” Mataṅga returned home, told his father what he had heard, retired to the forest, and began to undergo the austerest penances in order to acquire the status of a brahman, so that he scorched the very deities. Indra came and offered him boons, but the status of a brahman, he said, could not be won by penances (XIII, 27). Mataṅga then stood for 100 years on one foot. Indra came once more and said: “From the order of brute life one attains to the state of humanity
if born as a human being, one is sure to take birth as a Pukkaśa or a Cāṇḍāla
after 1, 000 years one attains to the status of a Śūdra
then after 30, 000 years that of a Vaiśya
after a period that is sixty times longer, that of a kshatriya
after a period that is sixty times longer than this, to that of a fallen brahman
after a period 200 times as long, to that of a brahman living by the profession of arms
after a period 300 times as long, to that of a brahman reciting the Gāyatrī and sacred mantras
after a period 400 times as long, to that of a brahman conversant with the entire Vedas and the scriptures” (XIII, 28). Mataṅga then practised austerer penances, standing on one foot for 1, 000 years in yoga-meditation. Indra once more came and said the same. Mataṅga then repaired to Gayā, and there passed 300 years on one foot in yoga, and was reduced to only skin and bones, and dropped down on the ground from sheer exhaustion. Indra came quickly
now Mataṅga accepted the boons that he should be celebrated as chandodeva, and obtain the worship of all women, and his fame should become unrivalled in the three worlds (XII, 29).