Tripuri Purnima: Shiva and the Three Cities

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Namaste. In the first two episodes of this series, we spoke of the lamps of Dev Deepawali in Kashi and of the month of Kartik as households keep it. In this episode we turn to the story. Why is this full moon called Tripuri Purnima, or in some places Tripurari Purnima? And why does Kashi say that on this night the gods themselves came down to its ghats? Let us go to the Shiva Purana.

The Shiva Purana is one of the great Puranas devoted to Shiva. It is a long text, divided into several large parts called Samhitas. In one of them, the Rudra Samhita, there is a section called the Yuddha Khanda, the section of battles. The story of Tripura is told there, over several chapters. What we share here is a simple retelling of its main line. The full account is much longer and richer, and if you would like to read it, good translations are available, including from Gita Press in Gorakhpur.

The story begins with three brothers. They were asuras, sons of the asura Taraka. In the Purana they are named Tarakaksha, Kamalaksha and Vidyunmali. The three brothers undertook long and severe austerities, tapas, and in time Brahma, the creator, appeared before them and offered them a boon.

The brothers asked for something close to immortality. The Purana tells how Brahma said that no one born can be free of death altogether, and asked them to choose again. So they asked for three cities, strong and splendid, in which they could live, and which could not be destroyed except in one way. The cities would be destroyed only if a single arrow struck all three of them at once, at the one moment when they came into a straight line. That moment came very rarely. To the brothers, it seemed like safety for all time.

This shape of story will be familiar to anyone who knows other Purana tales. Someone performs great tapas, receives a boon, and words it very carefully so that it seems to close every door. Hiranyakashipu's boon, in the story of Narasimha, is another well known example. In these stories there is always one door left open, and the story turns on that door.

The cities were built by Maya, the great architect of the asuras. The Purana describes one city of gold, one of silver and one of iron. One stood in the heavens, one in the sky between heaven and earth, and one on the earth. The three were called together Tripura, the three cities. They could move, and they were full of wealth, gardens, palaces and people.

For a long time, the Purana tells us, the three cities prospered. The brothers ruled, and their people lived well. But over time things changed in the cities. The Purana describes how the order of dharma weakened there, and how the three worlds came to be troubled. The gods, in distress, went first to Brahma and then to Vishnu, and finally, together, they went to Shiva for help.

Now comes the part of the story that people love to describe. To face the three cities, the gods made a chariot for Shiva unlike any other. In the Purana's telling, the whole world became that chariot. The earth itself was its body. The sun and the moon were its two wheels. Brahma, the creator, took the reins as the charioteer, and the Vedas became the horses. Mount Meru, the great mountain at the centre of the world, was bent into a bow. The serpent Vasuki became the bowstring. And Vishnu himself became the arrow, with Agni, the god of fire, at its tip.

When you picture this, you see that the whole of creation is gathered into one act. Everything in the world lends itself to the chariot, the bow and the arrow, and Shiva is the one who draws the bow.

Shiva mounted the chariot and waited. The three cities moved through their long courses, and the gods waited with him. Then came the rare moment the boon had spoken of, when the three cities came into a single line. In that moment Shiva released the arrow. The Purana describes the three cities burning up in an instant. That which had seemed safe for all time was ended in a moment.

From this act, Shiva is called Tripurari, the enemy of Tripura, and Tripurantaka, the one who brought Tripura to an end. If you visit old temples across India, in the north and in the south, you may see him carved in stone or cast in bronze in this form, standing with a bow in his hand. Once you know the story, you will begin to recognise him.

The same story, in its own version, is also told in the Mahabharata, in the Karna Parva, where it is recounted during the great war. So this is an old and widely known story, told in more than one text, and retold in many regional languages.

If you tell this story to children, you may find they enjoy the chariot most of all, with its sun and moon for wheels and a mountain for a bow. It is a good way in. The details differ a little between tellings, and that is fine. What stays the same is the rare moment, the single arrow, and the gods' relief when the three cities were gone.

Many traditions remember this victory on the full moon of Kartik. That is why the day is called Tripuri Purnima, the full moon of Tripura, and in some places Tripurari Purnima, the full moon of the enemy of Tripura. In Shiva temples, it is kept with special worship, with lamps and with the reading or telling of this story.

And here we come to Kashi. Kashi is loved as the city of Shiva, and people there call him Baba, and speak of Kashi as his own home. The tradition in Kashi says that after Shiva's victory over Tripura, the gods came down to the ghats of his city to celebrate. They lit lamps along the river in joy. That is why, people in Kashi say, the evening of Kartik Purnima is Dev Deepawali, the Diwali of the gods.

We should be clear about the difference here. The Tripura story is told in the Shiva Purana. The belief that the gods came to the ghats of Kashi on this night to light lamps is a tradition of Kashi, told by its people and passed down in the city. Both are precious, and it helps to know which is which.

On Kartik Purnima itself, many people in Kashi visit the Kashi Vishwanath temple and other Shiva temples of the city, often after their morning bath in the Ganga. Temples are decorated, and in the evening, lamps are lit in their courtyards as well as on the ghats. In some homes and temples, older family members tell the story of Tripura to the children that day, in their own words, much as we have tried to do here. Customs differ, and each temple and family keeps the day in its own way.

People who have lived with this story for a long time have found many meanings in it. We will share two, simply as interpretations that some teachers give, and you are free to find your own.

In the Shaiva Siddhanta tradition, some teachers read the three cities as three kinds of bondage or impurity that cover the soul. In that reading, Shiva's single arrow is grace, which removes all three at once. Other teachers read the three cities as three layers of a person, or three states that we pass through each day, waking, dreaming and deep sleep, and see in Shiva the awareness that goes beyond them.

There is also something plain and human in the story. The brothers asked for a safety that could never fail, and built it in gold, silver and iron. Yet even that had one moment of weakness written into it from the start. Many listeners hear in this a gentle reminder that whatever we build, however strong, has its limit.

We also find it moving that the story ends with lamps. After a great struggle, the gods do not build a monument. They come down to a river and light small lamps on its steps. That is what the people of Kashi still do on this night. And when you watch hundreds of thousands of small flames along the ghats, it is easy to understand why the story has lasted.

One thing to take with you. The next time you see an image of Shiva holding a bow, pause for a moment and remember the story of the three cities, and the single arrow that ended them. And on Kartik Purnima, when you light your lamp, you might remember that the lamps of Kashi on that night are said to celebrate this very story.

In the next episode, we will leave Kashi for a while and travel across India, to see how many different communities keep this same full moon, each in their own way.

Keep going

• Listen: Tripuri Purnima: Shiva and the Three Cities
• Previous: The Month of Kartik: Early Baths, Lamps and Tulsi
• Next: One Full Moon, Many Observances
• All episodes of Kartik Purnima and Dev Deepawali in Kashi