Rishi Chandakoushika Prophesies Jarasandha's Future Greatness

The great ascetic Chandakoushika returned to Magadha. King Brihadratha was delighted. He went out to meet the sage with his entire court — his advisers, his subjects, his wives, and his infant son. The king performed the rites of hospitality, offering water for the sage’s feet, gifts due to a guest, and water to rinse his mouth. Then he offered the rishi his own son and his entire kingdom. The illustrious sage accepted the king’s worship. With a happy heart, he spoke to the lord of Magadha. “O king,” he said, “everything is known to me through my divine sight. O Indra among kings! Listen to what will happen to your son.” The prophecy that followed was not a blessing. It was a statement of fact, a vision of an inevitable future. “No king will be able to equal this valorous one in valour. O lord of the earth! Like the currents of rivers make no impression on mountains, weapons hurled by the gods will cause him no pain.” The sage described a force of nature. Jarasandha would blaze forth over the heads of all consecrated kings, robbing their light the way the sun outshines the stars. Kings with large armies would rush to their destruction before him like moths to a flame. He would seize the combined prosperity of all kings, the way the ocean receives the swollen rivers in the monsoon. With immense strength, he would uphold the four varnas (social orders) justly, the way the earth supports all crops, good and evil. “All the rulers of men will be under his subjugation,” the rishi said, “just as all beings are subservient to the breath of life in their bodies.” He ended with a final, cryptic vision. “This Magadha, immensely stronger than everything in all the worlds, will witness with his own eyes Rudra Mahadeva Hara, the destroyer of Tripura.” Jarasandha would one day stand before Shiva himself. Having delivered the prophecy, the sage thought about the acts he still had to perform and dismissed King Brihadratha.