The Gatekeepers Who Became Demons

The sages told the Pandavas a tale that ties together many of the great stories of the Lord's descents - the strange and beautiful secret of why the Lord's three greatest demon-enemies were, in truth, his own beloved servants.

In Vaikuntha, the highest abode of the Lord Vishnu, there stood at the gates two doorkeepers named Jaya and Vijaya. They were devoted servants of the Lord, beautiful and mighty beings, entrusted with guarding the entrance to his realm. For ages they kept their post faithfully. But pride is a subtle thing, and it can creep even into the servants of the Lord, standing so near to his glory - and so it crept into Jaya and Vijaya, and led them into a fault that would cast them out of heaven and send them down through three terrible births.

One day there came to the gates of Vaikuntha four great sages - the Kumaras, the four mind-born sons of the creator Brahma, the eternal child-sages named Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatana, and Sanatkumara. Though they were among the oldest and holiest beings in all creation, ancient beyond reckoning, by the power of their purity they wore always the forms of small naked children, innocent and radiant. They had come to behold the Lord.

But Jaya and Vijaya, the gatekeepers, seeing only four naked little boys approaching, and not perceiving the great and holy beings they truly were, barred their way with arrogance and scorn. They refused the child-sages entry, treating them with discourtesy, turning them away from the door of the Lord as though they were unworthy. It was a grave failure in the servants of Vishnu - to be proud and unwelcoming at the very gate of the Lord, who receives all who come to him, and to fail to recognize and honor great souls because of their humble appearance.

The four child-sages were offended - not for their own sake, but at the discourtesy and pride they found in the very doorkeepers of the Lord, who of all beings should have been humble and welcoming. And in their displeasure they pronounced a curse upon Jaya and Vijaya: that since they had behaved with such pride and lack of devotion in the Lord's own house, they should fall from Vaikuntha, lose their high place, and be born in the lower worlds, far from the presence of the Lord they had failed to serve rightly.

Jaya and Vijaya were stricken with horror and grief at the curse, for to be cast out of Vaikuntha, away from the Lord, was the most terrible of fates - worse than any torment, for it meant separation from the one they loved and served. They bowed before the Kumaras and before the Lord in anguish, repenting their pride, and begged for mercy.

The Lord Vishnu himself came to his grieving gatekeepers. He could not wholly revoke the curse of the Kumaras, for their word, once spoken, had to be honored. But he could soften its terms, and he offered Jaya and Vijaya a choice between two paths back to him.

'You must be born in the lower worlds,' the Lord told them. 'But you may choose how. Either you may take seven births as my devotees - as righteous beings who love and worship me - and return to me after those seven lives; or you may take only three births as my enemies - as demons who hate and oppose me with all their being - and return to me after only three. The path of devotion is gentle but long; the path of enmity is terrible but short. For this is the secret: that to be slain by me, even as an enemy, even in hatred, is itself a swift liberation - for the mind fixed wholly upon me, whether in love or in hatred, is fixed upon me still, and is drawn to me in the end. Choose, then: seven lives as my loving servants, or three as my hating foes.'

Jaya and Vijaya did not hesitate. So great was their longing to return to the Lord and to his presence in Vaikuntha, so unbearable to them was the thought of seven long lives of separation from him, that they chose the shorter road, however terrible: to be born only three times, even though it meant being born as his enemies, as demons filled with hatred for him.

It was a choice that reveals the depth of their devotion in a strange and paradoxical way: that they would rather spend three lives hating the Lord, and be slain by him three times, than spend seven lives apart from him even as his devotees - for the three lives of enmity would bring them back to him sooner, and any separation from him, even a gentler one, was more than they could bear. So they accepted the terrible path, and fell from Vaikuntha, and were born into the world as demons, three times over, each time to be the great enemy whom the Lord himself would come down to slay.

And so, in three successive ages, Jaya and Vijaya were born as the three great pairs of demon-foes whom the Lord descended to destroy - and in each age, their deaths at his hands drew them nearer to their home in Vaikuntha.

In the first age they were born as Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu, the mighty demon brothers - Hiranyaksha who seized the Earth and was slain by the boar Varaha, and Hiranyakashipu who tormented his own devoted son and was slain by the man-lion Narasimha. In the second age they were born as Ravana and Kumbhakarna, the demon-king of Lanka who stole Sita and his giant brother, both slain by the Lord come as Rama. And in the third and last age they were born as Shishupala and Dantavakra - Shishupala, who heaped a hundred insults upon Krishna at the great sacrifice and was beheaded by the Lord's discus, and Dantavakra after him. Three times the gatekeepers were born as the Lord's enemies; three times the Lord came down and slew them; and three times their deaths at his hand brought them closer to the home they longed for.

After the third death - after Shishupala fell at the great sacrifice, beheaded by the discus of Krishna - the curse of the Kumaras was at last fulfilled, the three births accomplished, and Jaya and Vijaya were freed. Released from their demon-forms, purified by their three deaths at the hand of the Lord, they returned at last to Vaikuntha and to their place as the gatekeepers of the Lord, restored to the presence they had so longed for, their long and terrible exile ended.

It is told, too, that those who watched closely saw a wonder at the death of Shishupala: that as the discus struck off his head, a light went out of him and merged into Krishna - the soul of the enemy returning, in the very moment of its death, into the Lord it had hated and been slain by. The secret was made visible: that the enemy of the Lord, slain by the Lord, was united with the Lord at the last. So the gatekeepers came home, by the strangest of roads - through three lives of enmity and three deaths - back to the love and the presence from which their pride had cast them out.

The sages drew the lessons of the tale for the Pandavas, and they were deep and strange ones.

"See, first, how subtle a thing pride is, that it crept even into the gatekeepers of the Lord, standing at the very door of heaven, and cast them out for their discourtesy to four humble-seeming child-sages. Let no nearness to holiness, no high station, make you proud or unwelcoming; and never despise a soul for its humble appearance, for the greatest beings often come in the lowliest forms. The doorkeepers fell for failing to honor four naked children who were holier than they.

"And see the deep secret behind the Lord's great enemies. Hiranyakashipu, Ravana, Shishupala - the most terrible foes of the Lord across the ages, whom he came down again and again to destroy - were in truth his own beloved servants, fallen by a curse, who had chosen the terrible road of enmity only because it would bring them home to him the sooner. There is a mystery here past easy telling: that the mind fixed wholly upon the Lord, even in hatred, is fixed upon him still, and is drawn to him in the end; that even his enemies, slain by him, are united with him; and that behind the great drama of the Lord's wars against the demons lies a love that was never truly broken. The Lord's enemies were his own, coming home by a hard road; and his slaying of them was, all along, an act of love."

And the Pandavas, who knew Krishna as their friend and had seen him slay Shishupala with their own eyes, marveled at the secret behind the deaths, and at the love hidden within the Lord's wars.