Summary
Kubera is the Hindu god of wealth and treasure, king of the Yakṣas, the spirits of earth and forest who guard treasure, and guardian of the northern quarter, with his seat on Mount Kailāsa. His best-known story is that of a rich lord whose city and chariot were taken from him by force, and whose chariot came back to him after it had carried the slayer of the one who took it.
The Mahābhārata tells that Pulastya, one of the sons of Brahmā, had a son named Vaiśravaṇa, that is, Kubera, who left his father and went to his grandfather Brahmā. His father, angered, created from half of himself another being, Viśravas, to take vengeance on Kubera. Brahmā, pleased with Kubera, gave him immortality, sovereignty over all the wealth of the universe, the guardianship of one of the quarters, the friendship of Śiva, a son named Nalakūvara, Laṅkā for his capital guarded by Rākṣasas, a chariot called Puṣpaka that goes wherever its rider wills, and the kingship of the Yakṣas. Viśravas, who in this telling is Kubera's father, looked upon him with anger, so Kubera sent him three Rākṣasa women to wait on him; he was pleased with them and gave each the sons she desired: one bore the ten-headed Rāvaṇa and Kumbhakarṇa, the second Vibhīṣaṇa, the third Khara and Śūrpaṇakhā. The brothers saw Kubera seated with their father, rich and borne on the shoulders of men, and in jealousy they practised austerities for a thousand years until Brahmā granted their wishes. Rāvaṇa defeated Kubera and took Laṅkā from him; Kubera went to Mount Gandhamādana with the Yakṣas and Gandharvas, and Rāvaṇa took the chariot Puṣpaka by force. Kubera cursed him: "This chariot shall never carry you; it shall bear him who will slay you in battle." Mahābhārata, Vana Parva 272–273, Ganguli's translation.
In the Rāmāyaṇa Rāvaṇa boasts before Sītā that he is Kubera's half-brother, that he fought and defeated him and drove him from his wealthy seat until he fled to Mount Kailāsa, and that by his valour he took Kubera's chariot Puṣpaka, which moves by its rider's wish. Then Rāvaṇa is killed, and his brother Vibhīṣaṇa offers Rāma "Pushpaka of Kubera my brother, robbed by the mighty Ravana"; Rāma and his army ride it to Ayodhyā, and Rāma then commands it to return to Kubera, to whom it first belonged. The curse was fulfilled: the chariot carried Rāvaṇa's slayer and then went back to the one from whom it was taken.
The idea his story turns on is that wealth has a keeper, and that what is taken from him by force does not stay with the one who took it. Kubera fights in the story only to be defeated, but he owns what the strong do not: the guarded treasure, and the curse that brings it back. The oldest text that names him makes concealment itself his work: in the Atharvaveda his people milk "concealment" from the cosmic cow and live on it. The story belongs to the sacred mountain, since his seat is Kailāsa, Śiva's mountain.
We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this. Kubera, in later Sanskrit Kuvera, has k-b-r for its root letters, and the final -a marks the stem. The project's Hindu essay reads it as Arabic qabara and calls the reading "very likely": Kubera is "the one who buries treasure", the keeper of hidden wealth. Arabic q becomes k in Sanskrit, which has no q, and b and r stay. In Lane, qabara is to bury a dead body, to conceal it in the earth. This is what the oldest text says of him: Kubera is the lord of "concealment", which his people milk from the cosmic cow, and whoever knows this "concealeth all evil". Name and first text agree that Kubera is the one who hides in the earth and keeps what he has hidden.
Linguistic Root
| Form | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Kubera | the god of wealth; as adjective, deformed, slow |
| Kuvera | the later form |
| Vaiśravaṇa | son of Viśravas |
| qabara, qabr (Arabic) | to bury, conceal in the earth; grave |
k, b and r
Monier-Williams says Kubera was originally the name of a chief of the evil beings or spirits of darkness, called Vaiśravaṇa, in the Atharvaveda and the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, and afterwards the god of riches and treasure, regent of the northern quarter, son of Viśravas, chief of the Yakṣas and friend of Rudra, represented with three legs and only eight teeth. The dictionary gives no Sanskrit root for the name; it records from the lexicographers an adjective kubera, "deformed, monstrous; slow, lazy", from which comes the popular explanation ku-, bad, plus vera, body. That explanation starts from his later image; the essay starts from his first work. In Atharvaveda 8.10 the cosmic cow Virāj ascends to each folk in turn and they milk from her what they live on: the gods refreshment, the Gandharvas sweet odour, the serpents poison, and the "other folks" concealment, and Kubera son of Viśravaṇa was her calf.
The essay offers two other readings: kabura, to be great, the god of great wealth, which accounts for the letters but says nothing particular about treasure; and qawwabara, to gather and grasp, for which the lexicon gives no support. Qabara is the stronger, since the oldest text makes concealment his work. The reading covers the name Kubera alone; Vaiśravaṇa is a patronymic from his father Viśravas.
Key Mythic Narratives
Kubera's assembly hall
In the Mahābhārata the sage Nārada describes Kubera's hall: a hundred yojanas long and seventy broad, built by Kubera himself by his ascetic power, with the splendour of the peaks of Kailāsa, supported by Guhyakas so that it seems attached to the sky, with high chambers of gold and numberless jewels, like the peaks of a mass of white clouds. In it Kubera sits on a seat bright as the sun, in fine robes, surrounded by his thousand wives, while cool breezes blow from forests of Mandāra trees and plantations of jasmine.
Cross-Cultural Parallels
The Hindu essay sets Kubera beside Pluto, whose name it derives from ploutos, wealth, and calls his role "similar exactly". Pluto's Roman title Dis the project's Roman essay reads as Arabic dassa, to put a thing beneath another and hide it in the earth, so both gods are lords of what is hidden in the earth. Hesiod tells that Demeter bore Plutus, Wealth, in a thrice-ploughed fallow in Crete, and that he goes everywhere over land and sea and makes rich whoever finds him and into whose hands he comes.
In the North the dwarf Andvari owned much gold in a rock below a waterfall; Loki took it from him by force, and he cursed the gold to be the death of whoever owned it, as Kubera cursed the chariot taken from him to carry its taker's slayer. In both stories the strong defeat the owner of the treasure, and the owner keeps the word that follows what was taken from him.