धर्माङ्गद

{ dharmāṅgada }

Puranic Encyclopaedia

DHARMĀṄGADA   A Brahmin who became a deep meditator on Viṣṇu, because of his habits in his previous life. Dharmāṅgada was the son of Rukmāṅgada by his wife Sandhyāvalī. Rukmāṅgada was the son of Ṛtadhvaja who lived in the city of Vidiśā. He was a man of good personality, who lived with his father and being a generous man he did not hesitate to give his head to Mohinī for the pleasure of his father. God Viṣṇu was pleased with him because of his love of his father and of his loyalty to Vaiṣṇavite deity and took him bodily to heaven (Vaikuṇṭha). Dharmāṅgada lived there for many thousands of years enjoying heavenly pleasures. Then he went astray from divine life and had to take life again as Suvrata the son of a Brahmin named Somaśarmā. The wise Suvrata discarded the passions of Kāma (desire), Krodha (anger) etc. and controlled his senses and engaged himself in penance in Vaiḍūryamahādri. For hundred years he sat in meditation and Mahāviṣṇu was pleased with him and took him and his father to Vaikuṇṭha. At the instruction of Mahāviṣṇu, Suvrata took life again in the house of Kaśyapa. When he died he went to Vaikuṇṭha. In every successive birth he had the remembrance of his previous birth. [Padma Purāṇa, Chapter 21] .