Balkand · Shiva Weds Parvati, and Her Question About Rama

The gods have been called and seated, each as befits him. The altar is dressed by the rule of the Vedas while the women sing songs of good omen, and there stands a throne that Brahma made, past describing. The groom does three things, in order. Shiva bows his head to the brahmins, remembers in his heart his own Lord, Rama, and then sits. He is sitting down to a wedding that is the gods’ cause, since Brahma tied the death of the asura Taraka to a son born of Shiva’s seed. The Lord he remembers is the one who asked him, three episodes ago, to go and marry Parvati. The mother who declared that while she lived she would not make this wedding, and whose grief ended at Narada’s words, is about to give her daughter away.

What follows is the wedding, told as the Ramcharitmanas tells it, with its own pauses. A bride the description gives up on and then catches in one small picture, a bee at her husband’s feet. Ganesha worshiped by the couple, with a word to anyone who would doubt it. A father’s hand holding kusha grass and his daughter’s hand. The wedding itself done in one line. A dowry loaded on carts, and after it the father’s folded hands and the mother at Shiva’s feet, asking for her daughter the place of a servant in his house. Counsel given in a lap, a cry against the creator, and a weeping held back because the time is wrong. Kailasa, and a six-faced son whose birth and victory take a single line.

Then the telling turns to the man who has been listening. At Prayaga, Bharadvaja hears the end of Shiva’s story with tears in his eyes and no words. Yajnavalkya tells him that by telling Shiva’s story first he has learned his listener’s secret. He begins Rama’s story with an image, Sarasvati as a puppet and Rama holding her strings, and with a bow to Rama. Then he sets the scene for it: a banyan on Kailasa, a skin spread by Shiva’s own hand, a seat at his left. A wife, with the story of her former birth in her mind. She asks whether the Rama he repeats day and night is the prince of Ayodhya who lost his wits over a woman, or someone else.

The couple, the parents, and two sages

The main figures in this episode

• Shiva the groom, who bows to the brahmins and remembers Rama before he sits on the throne Brahma made. He takes Parvati’s hand and consoles her father and her mother. He takes her home to Kailasa, and under the banyan gives her the seat at his left. He speaks no quoted word in this episode.
• Parvati Himavan and Maina’s daughter, brought in dressed by her companions, who cannot look at her husband’s feet for shyness. She is counseled in her mother’s lap and sent off looking back. On Kailasa she is the wife who judges her moment, sits at his left, remembers her former birth, and asks about Rama.
• Himavan the king of the mountains, who gives his daughter with kusha grass in his hand and a dowry past describing. Then he asks with folded hands what he could give to one whose every wish is fulfilled. He sees Shiva on his way and sends the mountains and lakes home with gifts and honor.
• Maina Parvati’s mother, who holds Shiva’s feet and asks that her daughter be made a servant of his house and her faults forgiven. She gives her counsel in her lap, cries out against the creator, and takes courage, judging the time wrong.
• Bharadvaja the sage at Prayaga to whom all of this has been told. The end of Shiva’s story leaves him in tears and without words. Yajnavalkya, seeing that state, says he has learned his secret.
• Yajnavalkya the teller, called only the wise sage in this episode and named by the commentary. He reads his listener’s state and says that by telling Shiva’s story first he has learned his secret. He begins Rama’s story with the image of the puppet and a bow.
• The six-faced son born to Shiva and Parvati on Kailasa after much time, who killed the asura Taraka in battle. He is called Shanmukha, and Kartikeya by the commentary. His story is told in brief.

The hour comes, and the gods are called

The sages came back and read the wedding hour to Himavan, and, seeing the time of the wedding, sent and called the gods. The last episode ended at his table, with the gods seated in rows and women singing them abuse in sweet voices. Now the rite begins. All the gods were called with respect, and each was given the seat that befitted him. The altar was dressed by the rule of the Vedas, and the women sang songs of good omen. The Vedic rule and the women’s songs share one line.

There stood a throne, divine and handsome past describing. Brahma had made it. Shiva sat on it after bowing his head to the brahmins and remembering in his heart his own Lord, Rama. The order is the bow, the remembrance, and then the seat. The wedding is his and the throne is Brahma’s work, and he bows before he sits. The one who will be asked about Rama under a banyan before this episode ends sits down to his wedding with Rama already in his heart.

The bride, and a description that gives up

Then the sages called Parvati. Her companions dressed her and brought her in, and at the sight of her every god was enchanted. Who in the world, the line asks, is the poet who could describe such beauty? Then the gods knew her for the mother of the world and Shiva’s wife, and they saluted her in their minds. Enchantment first, then knowledge, and with the knowledge a salutation made in the mind. She is the utmost of beauty, and ten million mouths could not tell it.

Then the same is said again, and names are added. Ten million mouths cannot describe the great beauty of the mother of the world. The Vedas, Shesha, and Sarasvati shrink from saying it. What, asks the poet, naming himself, is dull-witted Tulsi? Then, having given it up, the telling gives one small picture. Parvati, the mine of beauty, went to the middle of the pavilion, where Shiva was. For shyness she could not look at her husband’s lotus feet, and her mind, a bee, was there already. The eyes stay down. The mind has reached the feet.

At the sages’ bidding, Shiva and Parvati worshiped Ganesha. The verse adds a word to anyone who hears this: let no one doubt it, knowing in the heart that the gods are without beginning. The commentary spells out the doubt it means: Ganesha is their son, so how is he there before the wedding?

The daughter given, and a wedding told in one line

The rite of marriage as the Vedas sing it, the great sages had all of it performed. Then Himavan, with kusha grass in his hand, took his daughter’s hand and gave her to Shiva, knowing her as Bhavani, Shiva’s own. The father has both things in one line: his hand holding his daughter’s, and the knowledge of who she is. He gives her away knowing it.

When Shiva took her hand, all the lords of the gods rejoiced in their hearts. The best of the sages chanted the mantras of the Vedas, and the gods cried victory, victory, victory to Shiva. Instruments of many kinds played, and flowers of many kinds rained from the sky. Then the line itself: the wedding of Shiva and Parvati was done, and joy filled every world. A procession, a lament, and a feast went before it, and the wedding takes one line, which also finds room for the joy of all the worlds.

The dowry, and a father’s folded hands

Then the dowry, listed item by item: maidservants and servants, horses, chariots, elephants, cows, clothes, jewels and goods of many kinds, grain and vessels of gold, all loaded onto carts. A dowry past describing. When he had given all of it, Himavan folded his hands and spoke. “What can I give you, Shiva, whose every wish is fulfilled?” He took hold of Shiva’s lotus feet and stayed holding them. The list came first, and the question after it. Shiva satisfied his father-in-law in every way, with no words given for it.

Then Maina, her heart full of love, took hold of Shiva’s feet. The father had held his feet first, and now the mother. Where the father had asked what he could give, the mother asked for something. “Master, Parvati is to me as my own life. Make her a servant in the house, and forgive every fault. Be pleased now, and give the boon.” Narada had told her, at the end of the last episode, that her daughter is the mother of the world. What she asks for her is the place of a servant in Shiva’s house, and forgiveness for every fault.

A mother’s counsel, and a mother’s question

Shiva consoled his mother-in-law in many ways. She bowed her head at his feet and went into the house. Then the mother called Parvati, took her in her lap, and gave her this counsel. “Always worship Shiva’s feet. A woman’s dharma: the husband is god, and there is no other.” As she said it her eyes filled with tears, and she held the girl to her breast. “Why did the creator make woman in the world? One who depends on another has no happiness, even in a dream.” The mother was distraught with love. Then she took courage, judging the time wrong, which the commentary reads as no time for grieving.

Again and again she met her, and fell holding her feet. The commentary reads the feet as Parvati’s, the mother at her daughter’s feet. That love cannot be described. Parvati met all the women, then went back and clung to her mother’s breast. She met her mother once more and set out, and everyone gave her the blessings that were fitting. She kept turning to look at her mother. Then her companions took her to Shiva.

Shiva satisfied all who had come asking, and set out for home with Parvati. The gods rejoiced and rained flowers, and drums sounded in the sky. Himavan went along with great love to see him on his way, and Shiva, after satisfying him in many ways, sent him back. Himavan came straight home, called all the mountains and the lakes, and sent each of them off with respect, gifts, courtesy, and honor. The mountains had come as guests in fair bodies in the last episode. Now they are sent home.

Kailasa, and a silence

When Shiva reached Kailasa, the gods went each to his own world. Then the telling speaks in the first person, and the commentary gives that voice to Tulsidas. Shiva and Parvati are the mother and father of the world, and so I do not describe their adornment. At the pavilion the word was that Parvati’s beauty could not be described. Here, that their adornment will go undescribed.

They lived on Kailasa with the ganas, in pleasures of many kinds, and the play of Shiva and Parvati was new every day. In this way much time passed. Then a six-faced son was born to them, who killed the asura Taraka in battle. His name is Shanmukha, the six-faced, and the commentary names him Kartikeya. His birth is told in the shastras, the Vedas, and the Puranas, and the whole world knows it. The condition Brahma gave the gods two episodes ago was that Taraka would die only by a son born of Shiva’s seed. It is met here in one line, in the past tense, with the battle untold.

The reason for the brevity follows in the same first person. The world knows the six-faced one’s birth, his deeds, his glory, and his great valor. For that reason I have told the story of Shiva’s son in brief. Then the same lines turn to whoever will carry the story on. The men and women who tell or sing this wedding of Parvati and Shiva will always find happiness in works of good omen and in the celebrations of weddings. The lines that close Shiva’s story name the poet outright. Shiva’s deeds are an ocean, and even the Vedas do not find its far shore. How, it asks, could Tulsidas, so dull-witted and rustic, describe it? On that line the story of Shiva ends.

At Prayaga, a test already made

Then the telling turns to the one who has been listening. Bharadvaja, in his hermitage at Prayaga, where this telling began, heard Shiva’s story to its end, full of flavor and handsome, and found great joy in it. His longing for the story grew. Tears filled his eyes, and the hair rose on his body. Overcome by love, he could not bring a word to his lips.

Seeing his state, the wise sage rejoiced. He is unnamed here. The commentary names Yajnavalkya, who began this telling. “Ah, blessed is your birth, great sage. Shiva is dear to you as life.” Then the line he sets at the turn from Shiva’s story to Rama’s. “Those who have no love for Shiva’s lotus feet cannot please Rama, even in a dream. Guileless love for Shiva’s feet: that is the mark of Rama’s devotee.” The mark of Rama’s devotee is given as love for Shiva. The next line turns the same thought the other way, as questions. “Who is vowed to Rama like Shiva, who gave up a wife like Sati, sinless, and showed his devotion to Rama by a vow he made? Who is as dear to Rama as Shiva, brother?” The vow he made is the one named in Sati’s story: the resolve Shiva made in his mind. There would be no meeting with Sati in that body of hers. The voice from the sky called it a vow no one else could make.

Then the secret itself. “By telling Shiva’s story first, I learned your secret. You are Rama’s pure servant, free of every fault.” He had told Shiva’s story down to a procession, a wedding, a dowry, a mother’s counsel, and a mountain home. The verse gives what he saw before it gives his words: the tears, the raised hair, the lost words. “I have learned your virtue and your nature. Now I tell the lila of Rama. Hear it. Hear, sage: the joy in my mind today at meeting you cannot be told.”

The puppet, the one who holds the strings, and the poet’s courtyard

Before the story, its measure. “Rama’s deeds are boundless, great sage. A thousand million Sheshas could not tell them. Still, as I have heard it, I tell it, remembering the Lord of speech, the Lord with the bow in his hand.” He tells it as he heard it. The Lord he remembers the commentary names as Rama, and the next line names him outright. “Sarasvati is like a wooden puppet, and Rama, who knows every heart, is the one who holds the strings. The poet he favors, knowing him his devotee, in the courtyard of that poet’s heart he makes Speech dance.”

The puppet moves, and the hand that moves her belongs to the one whose story is about to be told. The floor she dances on is the courtyard of a poet’s heart. “I bow to that gracious Rama, and tell the pure story of his virtues.” The next line changes the scene: Kailasa, the best of mountains and the loveliest, where Shiva and Parvati always dwell.

The banyan, and a skin spread by his own hand

Siddhas, ascetics, yogis, gods, kinnaras, and hosts of sages live on Kailasa, all of great merit, and all of them serve Shiva. Those who have turned away from Vishnu and Shiva, with no love for dharma, never go there, even in a dream.

On that mountain stands a vast banyan, new every day and beautiful in every season. A breeze of three kinds blows there, which the commentary gives as cool, gentle, and fragrant, and its shade is deeply cool. The Vedas sing it as the tree of Shiva’s rest. Once, Shiva went beneath it, and the sight of the tree gladdened his heart. With his own hand he spread the skin, which the commentary names as a tiger’s, and sat down naturally, in the commentary’s reading with no particular purpose. The day has no other mark than that once.

Then the description turns to him, seated. His body was fair as the jasmine, the moon, and the conch. His arms were long. He wore the clothes of a sage. His feet were like red lotuses newly opened, and the light of their nails lifts the darkness from a devotee’s heart. Serpents and ash were his ornaments. His face outshone the autumn moon. On his head was a crown of matted hair with the Ganga in it. His eyes were large lotuses. His throat was blue. He was a treasure of beauty. On his brow sat the young moon, which the commentary reads as the crescent of the second night. The last episode dressed him in snakes, ash, the moon, and the Ganga for the road. Here the same four sit at rest, and his throat is blue. Seated, he shone as if the rasa of peace, stillness itself, had taken a body.

The seat at his left, and a moment judged right

Parvati, judging the moment good, went to Shiva. Knowing her as his beloved, he received her with great honor and gave her a seat at his left. She sat near him, glad, and the story of her former birth came into her mind. She judged that there was more love in her husband’s heart, more than before in the commentary’s reading, and then she smiled and spoke sweet words. Two things she weighed before she spoke, the moment and the love in the heart before her. The seat was his to give. Here Yajnavalkya adds a word of his own, which the commentary marks as his. The story that does good to all people, that is the story she wants to ask for.

She began with his praise. He is the lord of the universe and her own master, the slayer of Tripura. His greatness is known in the three worlds. All that moves and all that stands still, serpents, men, and gods, serve his feet. He is able and all-knowing, benevolent, the home of every art and virtue, the treasure of yoga, knowledge, and dispassion. His name is a wish-tree to those who come to him for refuge. A wish-tree will come back in her next lines.

The question she came to ask

Then she asked, and tied the asking to a condition. “If you are pleased with me, and truly know me as your servant, then lift my ignorance, Lord, by telling Rama’s story in its many ways.” The praise goes to work in the next line. “One whose house stands under the wish-tree, does he bear the pain that poverty brings? Think of that in your heart, you who wear the moon, and lift the heavy confusion from my wit, master.” The tree is the one she had just named, in the commentary’s reading of both lines, and she has set herself under it, in want.

Then she laid out the confusion. “Lord, the sages who speak of the highest truth call Rama the beginningless Brahman, and Shesha, Sarasvati, the Vedas, and the Puranas all sing Rama’s virtues. Moreover, you repeat Rama, Rama, day and night, with reverence.” She names the sages, then Shesha, Sarasvati, the Vedas, and the Puranas, and last her husband, and then she asks. “Is that Rama the son of the king of Ayodhya? Or is he some other, unborn, without qualities, whose ways cannot be seen?”

The next lines press the question. “If a king’s son, how is he Brahman? And how did his wits go astray in separation from a woman? Seeing his deeds, and hearing of his greatness, my intellect is thoroughly confused.” Seeing and hearing are the two sources of her confusion. She leaves the other door open too. “If there is some other, desireless, all-pervading, and mighty, then explain him to me, master. Do not hold anger in your heart, knowing me ignorant. Do whatever will lift my delusion.”

Then the words that make the question hers. “In the forest I saw Rama’s majesty, and, distraught with great fear, I did not tell you. Even so the mind, impure, came to no understanding, and I had the fruit of that in full.” The forest is the one of the former birth that came into her mind as she sat down. As Sati she had walked with Shiva and seen Rama searching the Dandaka forest for his wife. She did not say what she doubted, though Shiva knew it. She went to test him in Sita’s form, came back afraid, and hid it from her husband through fear. The sinless wife Yajnavalkya named at Prayaga is now speaking for herself, and her account of it is a reckoning: the fear, the silence, and the fruit.

“Even now some doubt remains in my mind. Be gracious. I beg it with folded hands. Lord, you explained it to me then in many ways. Think of that, master, and do not be angry.” Shiva had explained it then, in the forest, many times over, and that episode says the teaching found no place in her heart. “I have no such delusion now as I had then. Now my mind has a taste for Rama’s story. Tell the pure story of Rama’s virtues.” She ends on a bow. “I bow at your feet with my head on the ground, and I beg with folded hands. Tell Rama’s pure glory, pressing out the essence of the teaching of the Vedas.”

There the episode stops. The question has been asked. Both of them are seated under the banyan. The answer has not yet come. In the next episode her plea runs on through what she wants told. When she ends, the question pleases Shiva, the whole of Rama’s story rises in his heart, and he begins.

The weeping held back, and the question that came back

Two inward acts stand on either side of this episode’s wedding. Before he sits on the throne Brahma made, Shiva remembers Rama in his heart. Before the parting, Maina, who has just cried out against the creator, takes courage and holds her weeping back, judging the time wrong. Each is marked in a line.

The third thing is larger than both. In the forest, in the last life, a wife saw something, doubted, and through fear hid it from her husband. In this life the same wife chooses a moment, is given a seat at his left, weighs the love in his heart, and asks. In her own words she says what she hid, says why she hid it, and says that she paid for it. The sinless wife Shiva gave up, as Yajnavalkya puts it, and the wife who now asks with her head on the ground. They are, by Narada’s telling of her birth in the last episode, one person.

A question like hers has been asked before in this telling. At Prayaga, before this telling began, Bharadvaja asked Yajnavalkya: one Rama is the prince of Ayodhya, whose story the whole world knows. He suffered boundless grief in separation from his wife. Is that the Rama whom Shiva repeats, or another? Yajnavalkya answered that Parvati had raised just such a doubt, and that Shiva had then explained it at length. He said he would now tell that dialogue of Parvati and Shiva, the time it came about and the reason. The time and the reason have now been told. From Sati’s doubt in the forest to a wedding, a mountain, a banyan, a seat at the left, and a remembered life. The dialogue itself has begun, with her side of it. Shiva’s side comes with the next episode.

So the couple made under the pavilion is the couple seated under the banyan. The groom who sat down with Rama in his heart is the one now asked who Rama is. The remembrance came first and the question after, with a mountain, a son, and much time in between.

The same story, elsewhere: the Shiva Purana: The Marriage of Shiva and Parvati.

Source: the Gita Press edition of Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, Balkand, doha 99 to 109, read with Hanuman Prasad Poddar’s Hindi commentary.