The Birth of the War-God

When the war was over and Bhishma lay upon his bed of arrows, Yudhishthira asked him why gold is praised above all gifts, and then, his curiosity stirred, how the demon Taraka, whom no god could slay, had met his end. So the old grandsire told him what the sage Vasishtha had once told Rama, the son of Jamadagni: the story of the birth of the war-god Skanda, the six-faced commander of the celestial host, and of the long extremity that brought him into the world.

"There was once," said Bhishma, "a demon of fearful power named Taraka, who by long and severe penance had won from the Grandfather of the worlds a terrible boon. He had asked that he could not be slain by the gods, the asuras or the rakshasas. And it was granted. So Taraka, certain that no power in creation could touch him, fell upon the three worlds. He drove the gods from heaven, overturned the sacrifices, oppressed the sages, and seized the rule of all things, and there was none who could stand against him, for no god was able to do him harm. The gods, cast down and helpless, went to seek a way out of a doom that seemed to have no door."

The gods went to Brahma, the Grandfather, and begged him for a way. But their plight was worse than Taraka alone. Not long before, when the great god Shiva had wed the goddess Uma on the slopes of the Himalaya, the gods had feared that a son of two such mighty ascetics would leave nothing standing in the three worlds, and had begged Shiva to hold back his seed. He agreed. And Uma, angered that her motherhood was denied, cursed the gods: since they had stopped her from having offspring, they too would have none.

Yet Brahma showed them a single thread of hope. Agni, the god of fire, had not been present when Uma spoke her curse. And a little of Shiva's energy had slipped from him and fallen to the earth, and from there into the fire. From that energy, carried by Agni, a son would be born whom the curse could not touch, a warrior greater than gods, demons or rakshasas, who would slay Taraka with an invincible spear. The gods had only to find Agni - who had hidden himself - and set him to the task.

So the spark of Shiva that had fallen into the fire was a seed of such power as the worlds had never held - for it carried the fiery energy of the supreme god, the force that was destined to become the slayer of the unconquerable demon.

But that seed was too potent for any vessel to bear. It blazed with a heat beyond the strength of the earth, beyond the strength of any womb, beyond the strength of almost any being in creation to hold. The fiery energy of Shiva, charged with the doom of Taraka, could not simply be carried to term as an ordinary child is carried. It had to be received, and passed from hand to hand among the powers of the world, each bearing it as far as they could endure before yielding it to the next, until at last it could be safely brought to birth.

The fiery seed of Shiva was held by Agni, the god of fire, the only one able at first to bear so blazing a thing - for fire alone might hold fire. But even Agni, lord of flame, could not long endure the terrible heat of it, and was scorched and tormented by the burden.

So, when the gods found him, the fire-god at Brahma's bidding cast the shining seed into the waters of the holy river Ganga, that she might carry it. The Ganga received the blazing energy, but it was so hot that even the great river could not contain it, and at last she cast it out upon the slopes of the mountains, where it came to rest in a thicket of reeds, where it might cool and take shape away from the world.

Thus the seed of Shiva passed from the god of fire to the goddess of the river, each bearing the unbearable as far as they could, until the fiery energy of the supreme god came to rest at last in a quiet place on the mountain, ready to become a child.

There, in the thicket of reeds on the mountain, the fiery energy of Shiva took form at last as a divine infant of surpassing radiance. And the child was found and nursed by the six Krittikas - the six shining star-goddesses of the constellation we call the Pleiades - who came upon the wondrous baby in the reeds and were filled with love for him, each wishing to suckle and mother him as her own.

The divine child, that he might receive the milk and love of all six of his star-mothers at once and disappoint none of them, brought forth six faces - one to turn to each of the six Krittikas - and so he nursed at all their breasts together. From this he took his form and several of his names: he is called Shanmukha and Kartikeya, the six-faced one, the son of the six Krittikas; and Skanda, and Kumara, the eternal youth. He grew with the swiftness of the gods, a child for only the briefest while, swelling almost at once into a being of immense and shining strength, beautiful and terrible, born for a single purpose that the whole anxious host of heaven was waiting for him to fulfill.

When the gods beheld the radiant, mighty son of Shiva, grown swiftly into the fullness of his divine power, they knew their deliverer had come. They came to him in a great assembly, told him of all that the demon Taraka had done to them, and the Grandfather made him the general of all beings and bade every god serve him. Taraka, hearing of the child, tried many ways to kill him, and failed in every one.

So on the banks of the Sarasvati, at Samantapanchaka on the slopes of the Himalaya, Skanda was consecrated as the Senapati, the supreme commander-in-chief of the host of the gods. They gave him the weapons of war - the spear that never missed, the banner, the divine arms - and they set him at the head of the celestial army. Indra and all the gods placed themselves under his command. The youth who had been nursed in the reeds by the star-mothers now stood arrayed for battle, six-faced and blazing, riding at the head of the assembled might of heaven, and the gods who had been driven into hiding lifted their heads at last, for their champion had come, the one against whom Taraka's boon gave no protection.

Then came the great battle between the host of the gods, led by Skanda, and the armies of the demon Taraka. It was a war that shook the worlds. The demon legions, who had grown used to victory and to the helplessness of the gods, now found the celestial army transformed, fierce and confident behind their shining new commander, and the two hosts crashed together in a storm of weapons and fury that filled the sky.

Skanda rode through the heart of the fighting, his six faces blazing, his never-failing spear in his hand, cutting through the demon ranks and rallying the gods wherever the battle wavered. The tide that had run for so long against heaven now turned. The demons, who had thought themselves invincible behind their unkillable king, were driven back and broken, until at last Taraka himself, seeing his armies failing, came forth in his wrath to face the youthful god who had dared to challenge the doom he thought no being could undo.

Taraka came against Skanda certain of his boon, for no god, asura or rakshasa could kill him - but Skanda was the one being the demon's pride had failed to guard against, the son of Shiva's fire, outside the terms of the boon entirely. The two met in the midst of the reeling battle, the unkillable demon and the god born to kill him, and their duel was terrible to behold.

At the last, Skanda hurled his divine, unfailing spear, the weapon charged with the very fire of Shiva from which he had been born, straight at the demon. And against that spear, in the hand of that wielder, Taraka's boon was no protection at all. The spear struck home, and the great demon who had conquered the three worlds and driven the gods into hiding, who had believed himself beyond all death, fell slain upon the field by the son of Shiva, exactly as the Grandfather had foretold.

A great cry of deliverance went up from the gods. The oppression of the worlds was ended; heaven was restored to its rightful lords; the sacrifices and the sages were freed; and the youthful six-faced god stood victorious, the savior of the worlds, the slayer of the unslayable.

Bhishma finished the tale, and Yudhishthira understood why the gods honor Skanda above so many of their number.

"So was the war-god born, son of Pandu," said the grandsire, "out of the very fire of Shiva, carried by the god of fire and the goddess of the river, nursed by the six stars, and made the commander of heaven - all to accomplish the one thing the boon of the demon had left undone. Taraka had armored himself against gods, demons and rakshasas, and never thought of a child born of fire and river. So pride, however great its power, always leaves a single door unlocked, and through that door its destruction comes.

"And there is comfort in it for you as well. When the worlds were darkest and the gods most helpless, deliverance was already being prepared, in a quiet thicket of reeds on a mountain, in a child not yet born. The night is never so complete that the dawn is not already on its way." And Yudhishthira, weighed down by the ruin of the war and the kingdom he must now rule, took heart from the tale of the six-faced god who was born for exactly such an hour. Bhishma told him too why the tale belonged among the teachings on gifts: the shining seed of fire had turned the mountain to gold, and so gold is the essence of Agni, and he who gives gold gives the purest of gifts.