Story of Gajendra and Lord Vishnu
To read the story of Gajendran in Tamil, click the underlined link.
King Indradyumna was a great devotee of Lord Vishnu who renounced royal life after entrusting the kingdom to his ministers and retired to the forest where he remained absorbed in the meditation of Lord Vishnu.
One day, Sage Agastya came to see the king but the king did not notice him. The ascetic became furious and cursed to turn into a mad elephant.
Realizing what had happened, Indradyumna begged for forgiveness. The Sage mitigated the impact of the curse stating that as ‘Elephant Gajendra’ he would continue to remain devout to Lord Vishnu and one day, by the Lord's grace, he'd be liberated.
Actually, Sage Agastya had noticed that the great King, despite the greatness of his good deeds, still has traces of Ahamkara in him. He felt that the king had to be taught the hard way that self is to be renounced and surrendered to the Lord for attaining moksha.
Gajendra ruled over all the other elephants in the herd. On a hot day, he proceeded with his herd to a lake to cool off in its fresh waters. Suddenly a crocodile living in the lake attacked Gajendra and caught him by the leg. Gajendra tried for a long time to escape from the crocodile's clutches. He trumpeted in pain and called to Lord Vishnu to save him, holding a lotus up in the air as an offering.
Hearing his devotee's call and a prayer, Lord Vishnu rushed to the scene. As Gajendra sighted the Lord coming, his Sudharshana Chakra separated the crocodile's head from its body and Gajendra prostrated before the Lord.
The crocodile in its previous birth was a Gandharva king called Huhu. Once Sage Devala came to visit him. The two were taking bath and Sage Devala was offering prayers to Sun God when Huhu playfully fulled the sage's leg. The enraged sage cursed the king to become a crocodile in his next life. The repentant Huhu asked for pardon. The Sage proclaimed that though he cannot reverse the curse, the crocodile would be liberated from the cycle of birth and death only when Lord Vishnu visited the Earth upon invocation by a holy soul.
Gajendra represents the jiva, Huhu the sins, and the muddy water of the lake the Samsara. The symbolic meaning of Gajendra moksha is that materialistic desires, ignorance and sins create an endless chain of karma in this world and are similar to a crocodile preying upon a helpless elephant stuck in a muddy pond. Humans are thus stuck in a continuous cycle of death and rebirth until the day they submit themselves to the Supreme Being Vishnu.
At two of the 108 Divya Desam temples, you can see Gajendra Varadhar. One temple is at Kapisthalam situated just over 10kms from Kumbakonam on the Thiruvayaru road where Lord Vishnu is present in Bhujanga Sayana reclining posture.
Another Divya kshetram is located in the temple town of Kanchipuram. The moolavar is Aadikesava perumal also called Gajendravaradan in a standing posture.
கவடு கோத்தெழும்......சுவடு பார்த்தட வரு கராத்தலை தூளா மாறே
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