The Slayer of the Sand-Demon

The deathless sage Markandeya told the Pandavas of King Kuvalashva, who slew the terrible demon Dhundhu that lay hidden beneath the desert sands - a tale of heroism and of the great cost at which the world is sometimes saved.

There was a fearful demon named Dhundhu, a being of enormous power who could not be slain by the gods, and who, fleeing their wrath, hid himself away in a strange and terrible fashion: he buried himself deep beneath the sands of a vast desert, coiling himself in the deep earth and covering himself over with the sand, and there he lay, sunk in the ground, unseen by all. But though hidden, he was not harmless. Once each year the demon, breathing in his sleep beneath the sands, would send up such a blast that the whole earth shook with it - earthquakes rocked the land, smoke and fire and storms of dust burst up from the desert, and the world for miles around was filled with terror and calamity. The cause of these yearly disasters was unknown to men; they knew only that the earth shook and the sands belched fire, and they were afraid.

Now there reigned a mighty and righteous king of the solar line named Kuvalashva, son of King Brihadashva, a ruler of great valor with twenty-one thousand strong and able sons. To this king came the sage Uttanka, who had learned the secret of the calamities, and told him the truth: that the cause of the yearly earthquakes and the fire and the terror was the demon Dhundhu, who lay hidden beneath the sands of the desert, and that it was Kuvalashva who was destined and able to destroy him.

The sage told the king that the power of the Lord Vishnu himself dwelt within him, granted for this very purpose, so that he alone could withstand the demon's fire and bring about his death. And he charged Kuvalashva to go to the desert, to find and uncover the buried demon, and to slay him, and so free the world of the calamities that his breathing brought. Kuvalashva, brave and dutiful, accepted the charge at once, and resolved to rid the world of the hidden demon.

King Kuvalashva set out for the desert with his twenty-one thousand sons, a great host of brave young warriors, to find and uncover the buried demon. They came to the vast desert where Dhundhu lay hidden beneath the sands, and they set about the enormous labor of digging him out.

The king's sons spread across the desert and began to dig, tearing up the sands, digging down and down through the dunes to uncover the demon coiled in the deep. It was a tremendous task, to dig up so vast a desert in search of a buried demon, but the king's mighty sons labored at it without ceasing, throwing up the sand in great heaps, driving their excavation deeper and deeper into the earth. And at last, far down beneath the sands, they reached him - they uncovered the great demon Dhundhu where he lay coiled in the deep, and disturbed his long sleep.

When the king's sons uncovered the demon and woke him from his long sleep beneath the sands, Dhundhu rose in terrible fury, enraged to be disturbed and exposed. And he loosed upon his attackers the dreadful weapon of his nature: he breathed out a vast and consuming blast of fire, a roaring inferno that burst from him and swept over the desert, an unquenchable flame of demonic power.

The terrible fire of the demon engulfed the king's sons where they stood about the place they had dug. The flames swept over the brave young warriors, and the fire was beyond any earthly fire to bear - and most of the twenty-one thousand sons of Kuvalashva were consumed by that blast, burned to death in the demon's flame, only a very few escaping alive. So the uncovering of the demon was bought at a fearful price: nearly all the king's host of mighty sons perished in the fire, a terrible blow to the king and a grievous cost in the very moment of confronting the foe.

But King Kuvalashva himself, in whom the power of the Lord Vishnu dwelt, was not consumed by the demon's fire. He alone could withstand that terrible flame, for the divine power within him made him proof against it. Grieved beyond measure at the loss of his sons, but resolute in his duty, the king faced the demon and his unquenchable fire.

And then Kuvalashva brought forth the power that had been given him for this very hour. By the yogic might and the divine power within him, he produced from his own body a great flood of water - a vast outpouring of water that issued from him and poured over the demon's fire, quenching the unquenchable flame, drowning the inferno that no ordinary water could have put out. The fire of the demon, which had consumed his sons, was overwhelmed and extinguished by the divine water that flowed from the king, until the flame was put out and the demon stood revealed, his fiery weapon spent.

With the demon's fire quenched and his chief weapon spent, King Kuvalashva closed with Dhundhu and gave battle. And now, the fire that had been the demon's terror put out, the king overcame him. By his valor and the divine power within him, Kuvalashva struck the great demon down and slew him, ending Dhundhu, the fire-breathing terror of the sands, who had shaken the earth and brought calamity upon the world year after year.

The demon was destroyed, and with him the cause of the earthquakes and the fire and the terror that had afflicted the world. The hidden evil beneath the sands was rooted out and ended. But the victory had cost the king dearly: nearly all his twenty-one thousand sons lay dead, consumed in the demon's fire, the terrible price of uncovering and confronting so dreadful a foe. The world was saved, but the king's house had been all but emptied in the saving of it.

For this great deed - the slaying of the demon Dhundhu and the freeing of the world from his terror - King Kuvalashva was given a new name, by which he was honored ever after: Dhundhumara, the Slayer of Dhundhu. The name proclaimed his heroism, that he had done what the gods themselves could not, rooting out and destroying the hidden demon that had shaken the earth.

Yet the name carried within it, too, the memory of the cost. For the king had won his title and saved the world at the price of nearly all his sons, burned to death in the demon's fire. He returned from the desert a hero and a deliverer, the savior of the world from a terrible evil - and yet a grieving father, his great host of sons all but gone. So his victory was a thing both glorious and sorrowful, a deliverance bought with the deepest loss, and his honored name held both the glory and the grief together.

Markandeya drew the lessons of the tale for the Pandavas.

"See, first, the heroism of the king who rid the world of a hidden evil. The demon Dhundhu lay buried and unseen, sending up his calamities year after year, a terror that the gods themselves could not destroy; and it was a mortal king, armed with the power of the Lord, who dug him out and slew him and freed the world. Hidden evils, the tale teaches, must be sought out and rooted up, however deep they are buried and however dreadful to confront; and the deliverance of the world from such evils is the high and heroic duty of the righteous, even of mortal kings.

"But see, too, the great cost at which such deliverance is sometimes won. Kuvalashva saved the world, but at the price of nearly all his twenty-one thousand sons, burned in the demon's fire; his victory was a deliverance and a bereavement together. So it often is: that the saving of the world, the rooting out of great evils, is bought with terrible loss, and that those who deliver others must sometimes pay for it with what they hold dearest. The hero's victory is rarely without its grief; and the title of deliverer is often won at a cost that the world, rejoicing in its rescue, does not see. Honor, then, both the heroism of those who confront and destroy great evils, and the price they pay; for the deliverance of the world is a costly thing."

And the Pandavas, who would themselves one day deliver the world from a great evil at the terrible cost of their own kin, took soberly to heart the tale of the king who saved the world and lost his sons.