Bhasmasura and the Trick

Bhasmasura is a small, terrifying story about giving the wrong gift to the wrong person.

A demon named Vrikasura — better known as Bhasmasura, “ash demon” — did long, hard austerity to please Shiva. The austerity was sincere enough that Shiva, who is famously easy to please, came down to grant him a boon.

“What do you want?” Shiva said.

Bhasmasura had thought about this. He had been planning a long time.

“Lord,” he said, “I want this: that whenever I place my hand on anyone’s head, that person should immediately turn to ash.”

Shiva considered. The request was strange. But he had agreed to grant the boon, and Shiva does not break his word.

“Granted,” he said.

Bhasmasura got up at once. The boon’s first test, he thought, should be the most thorough. He raised his hand and lunged at Shiva himself, to put his hand on the giver’s head and turn the great god to ash.

Shiva fled.

The Purana lets the scene be slightly comic. The lord of the worlds, the destroyer of demons, the ascetic on the mountain — running across the worlds with a demon chasing him, hand raised, trying to touch the top of his head.

Shiva ran. Bhasmasura ran. Across the heavens, through the forests, over the mountains. Shiva could not directly fight him — Bhasmasura only had to touch the head once, and the boon would do the rest. Shiva ducked and dodged.

He ran finally to Vishnu.

“Brother,” Shiva said. “I gave a boon I should not have given. Help.”

Vishnu nodded. “Wait here,” he said. “Hide somewhere. I will deal with him.”

Shiva hid in a cave. Vishnu took the form of Mohini — the same beautiful enchantress form he had used at the churning of the ocean — and walked into Bhasmasura’s path.

Bhasmasura had been raging through the forest looking for Shiva. He came around a tree and saw Mohini standing there, more beautiful than any being he had ever seen.

He stopped.

“Who are you?” he said.

Mohini smiled. “I am a celestial dancer. I am bound by a vow: I will marry only the man who can match me, step for step, in the dance.”

Bhasmasura, who had been chasing Shiva, immediately forgot why he was running. He wanted Mohini. “I will match you,” he said. “Begin.”

Mohini began to dance. She moved with a grace that hypnotised him. He copied her steps. She raised her hand to her hip; he raised his to his hip. She turned and spun; he turned and spun. She arched her neck; he arched his. She raised her hand to her head — placing her palm on her own crown — and he, lost in the rhythm, did the same.

His own hand, with the boon Shiva had granted, touched his own head.

He turned to ash on the spot.

The Purana lets the story end there. Bhasmasura’s pile of ash settled in the forest clearing. Mohini turned back into Vishnu. Shiva came out of the cave he had been hiding in. The two great gods looked at each other and laughed, and Shiva went home to Kailash a little wiser about boons.

The lesson of the Bhasmasura story is given without ceremony. Be careful what you grant; the receiver may not deserve it. Bhasmasura did the austerity, technically. He earned the boon, technically. The boon was given, technically. And the boon turned at once on the giver, because the receiver’s intentions had never been the kind that deserved any boon at all.

It is also a reminder that Shiva — easy to please, generous with boons — is sometimes saved from his own generosity only because Vishnu is willing to put on a dance.

The next story is far more serious. A boy was told he would die at sixteen. He embraced the linga. We will see what came out of it.