The Birth of the Mighty Asura Jalandhara

Indra, the king of the gods, and Brihaspati, the guru of the gods, once argued over which of them was greater. They decided to go to Mount Kailash and ask Lord Shiva to settle their dispute.

Indra and Brihaspati reached the snowy Mount Kailash. They proceeded to Lord Shiva's abode but were stopped by a yogi wearing a necklace of skulls and sporting matted hair. Indra introduced himself and his guru to the yogi and asked him about Lord Shiva's whereabouts, but the yogi refused to answer.

Enraged by the yogi's silence, Indra attacked him with his thunderbolt. However, no sooner had he raised the weapon than the yogi paralyzed him with his magical powers. The yogi was none other than Lord Shiva in disguise, having assumed this form to test Indra and Brihaspati.

The furious yogi then transformed into Lord Shiva. He opened his third eye, and fire emanated from it. But before the fire could burn Indra, Brihaspati begged Shiva to forgive his unwitting student. At Brihaspati's request, the merciful Lord Shiva redirected the fire from his third eye into the ocean.

Indra was grateful to his guru for saving his life. He accepted that Brihaspati was his superior, and the two returned to the land of the gods.

Meanwhile, the fire that had emanated from Shiva's third eye came into contact with the ocean and turned into a young asura (a type of demon) with extraordinary power. Since he emerged from the ocean, Hindus regard him as the son of the Ocean God and the younger brother of Goddess Lakshmi. (Recall that Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu, had also emerged from the ocean during the Samudra Manthana.) Shukracharya, the guru of the daityas, named the young asura Jalandhara (Sanskrit for "he who holds water") because he was born in water. He trained Jalandhara, who would eventually become one of the most powerful asuras ever.