Shiva Curses the Proud Disciple to Become a Serpent in a Hollow Tree
Uttara Kanda, Chaupai 103
Doha 108 · Movement 1 of 2
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A voice breaks across the temple: unfortunate, ignorant, arrogant one. Your Guru holds no anger and possesses perfect understanding, yet violation of sacred order cannot be allowed to stand as though it were righteousness.
Shiva declares that failure to correct such conduct would corrupt the scriptural path. Envy of the Guru leads through terrible suffering and many births. Bhushundi has sat unmoving before his teacher like a python, so the curse gives outward body to the inward posture.
Become a serpent, Shiva commands. Enter the hollow of a great tree and dwell in a fallen state. The image closes around Bhushundi: a narrow body, a dark cavity, and the coiling instinct of pride that already shaped his human consciousness. Divine judgment does not invent a foreign punishment. It reveals the creature his conduct had been forming within him.
The temple voice names the serpent already coiled inside pride and sends Bhushundi toward the hollow that mirrors his heart.
Read the passage from the Manas
मंदिर माझ भई नभ बानी। रे हतभाग्य अग्य अभिमानी।। जद्यपि तव गुर कें नहिं क्रोधा। अति कृपाल चित सम्यक बोधा।। तदपि साप सठ दैहउँ तोही। नीति बिरोध सोहाइ न मोही।। जौं नहिं दंड करौं खल तोरा। भ्रष्ट होइ श्रुतिमारग मोरा।। जे सठ गुर सन इरिषा करहीं। रौरव नरक कोटि जुग परहीं।। त्रिजग जोनि पुनि धरहिं सरीरा। अयुत जन्म भरि पावहिं पीरा।। बैठ रहेसि अजगर इव पापी। सर्प होहि खल मल मति ब्यापी।। महा बिटप कोटर महुँ जाई।।रहु अधमाधम अधगति पाई।।
A voice from the sky resounded in the temple: 'O unfortunate, ignorant, arrogant one!' Though your guru harbors no anger and is supremely compassionate, with perfect wisdom in his heart, still, O fool, I shall curse you, for violation of righteousness does not please me. If I do not punish you, wicked one, the path of the scriptures would be corrupted. Those fools who envy their guru shall fall into the terrible Raurava hell for millions of ages. Then, taking bodies across the three worlds, they shall suffer pain for ten thousand births. You, sinful one, sat like a python; become a serpent, your mind steeped in impurity. Go into the hollow of a great tree and dwell there, O lowest of the low, having obtained a degraded state.