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In Vaikuntha one day the celestial sage Narada set out for Shvetadvipa, the White Island, playing the Gayatri-sama on his vina, longing for the darshan of Lord Vishnu. Vishnu sat there beside Lakshmi, dark as a rain cloud, robed in yellow, the conch, the discus, and the mace in his hands. Seeing Narada approach, Lakshmi rose and withdrew into the inner chambers. With a touch of pride Narada asked, O teacher of the worlds, why did Mother Lakshmi go inside the moment she saw me coming? I am neither low nor cunning. I am an ascetic who has conquered the senses, anger, and maya itself.
Vishnu smiled and answered in a voice as sweet as the vina, Narada, the rule of propriety is simply this, that a woman does not remain near any man except her husband. But hear me. To conquer maya is a thing of terrible difficulty, even for the greatest yogis, the masters of Sankhya, and those who have mastered every sense. When I myself, and Shiva, and Brahma, and the sages beginning with Sanaka could not conquer that unborn maya, you must never say that you have conquered her. Even Time is a form of hers, formless and yet taking on form, and the learned and the foolish alike remain within her power.
The demand to see maya
Doubt crept into Narada’s mind. He asked, O lord of Lakshmi, what does this maya look like, how great is her power, where does she dwell? I wish to see her. Be gracious and grant me her sight. Vishnu said, that maya, woven of the three gunas, pervades the whole world and stands within it. If you wish to see her, climb onto Garuda with me. Only, when you have seen her, do not let your mind sink into sorrow.
Seated on Garuda, the two of them crossed over many forests, lakes, rivers, and cities until they arrived near the city of Kanyakubja. There a divine lake came into view, covered with lotuses, loud with the calls of swans and cranes, its water as sweet as the milk of the ocean of milk. Vishnu said, sage, bathe first in this clear water, and then I will bathe. Narada set his vina and his deerskin on the bank, tied up his lock of hair, sipped water in the ritual manner, and stepped down into the lake.
But the instant he dipped beneath the surface, while Hari watched, he shed his male form and became a woman of flawless beauty. In that same moment Vishnu took up Narada’s vina and deerskin, mounted Garuda, and returned to his own abode, and every memory of the earlier body was wiped clean from Narada’s mind. He forgot Vishnu. He forgot even his vina. Adorned in fine ornaments, the woman rose from the lake and stood there, bewildered, wondering, what is this?
Saubhagyasundari
Just then a young king named Taladhvaja arrived, ringed by elephants, horses, and chariots, looking like the god of love made flesh. Seeing this woman alone, her face like the full moon, he asked, gracious lady, who are you, whose daughter are you, why are you here alone? Take me, a fine king, for your husband, and share every pleasure at my side. The woman said, O king, I do not know whose daughter I am, who my mother and father are, or who brought me here. I have no protector. I am in your keeping. Do as you will.
The king seated her in a golden palanquin draped in silk and carried her with great joy to his palace, and at an auspicious hour, with the fire as witness, he married her. He gave her the name Saubhagyasundari. He sank into her so completely that he abandoned the affairs of the kingdom and passed his days and nights with her alone, losing all sense of the passing of time. Saubhagyasundari too was bound in his love. She forgot her earlier male body and her birth as a sage entirely, and came to think only this, that she was the beloved chief queen of this king, and her life was blessed.
Twelve years passed like a single moment. In time Saubhagyasundari gave birth to twelve sons, then eight more, and her household swelled with daughters-in-law and grandsons until it had grown vast. Sometimes wealth and abundance came, sometimes the illness of a son left her heart unquiet, sometimes the quarrels among sons and their wives filled her with grief. Forgetting all knowledge of Brahman and all the shastras, she stayed sunk in the work of the house, nursing this pride in her mind, that her sons were mighty heroes and her daughters-in-law came from noble families. Not once did the thought so much as rise in her, that she was Narada, whom the Lord had deceived with his own maya.
An ocean of grief, and Puntirtha
Then a powerful king of a distant land turned against Taladhvaja, and marching with his army he laid siege to Kanyakubja. All of the king’s sons and grandsons came out from the city, and a terrible battle followed. By the working of fate, every one of Saubhagyasundari’s sons and grandsons was killed in that fight, and the enemy withdrew with his army. The moment she heard, Saubhagyasundari came wailing to the battlefield, and seeing her sons and grandsons fallen on the ground she drowned in an ocean of grief, oh, where have my sons gone, cruel fate has destroyed me.
Just then the Lord Madhusudana came there in the form of an aged brahmin and said, slender one, why do you grieve? This confusion springs from your attachment to husband and sons. Consider who you are, and whose sons these were. For kinsmen who have died, bathing and the offering of sesame belong to a place of pilgrimage. Do not perform them in the house. The woman rose, and setting that brahmin-formed Vishnu before her, she went with her kinsmen and the king to the holy Puntirtha.
Hari in his brahmin form said, lady of graceful step, bathe in this holy lake and set aside your useless grief. Across birth after birth you have had millions upon millions of sons, fathers, and husbands, and all of them have died. For how many of them will you mourn? All of it is a delusion, no more real than a dream. Narada stepped down to bathe in that lake called Puntirtha, and the instant he dipped beneath the water he became a man again at once. On the bank stood Vishnu in his own natural form, holding Narada’s vina in his hand. As he came up from his bath, everything came back to Narada, I am Narada, I came here with Vishnu, and bewildered by maya I became a woman.
The secret of maya
On the other side, King Taladhvaja stared at this brahmin Narada, stunned, wondering where his wife could have gone. Again and again he lamented, oh my beloved, where have you gone, leaving me bereft? Without you my life, my home, and my kingdom are all worthless. Then the Lord consoled him, king of kings, why do you weep? In this flowing river of the world the bond among human beings is like that of travelers boarding the same boat. Union and separation are always in the hands of fate. The beautiful woman with whom your enjoyment was ordained, that enjoyment has run its course. As she came, so she has gone.
Joy never arrives alone, and neither does sorrow. Like the pots on a water-wheel, the two keep turning. This fragile human body is a thing of great rarity. Having gained it, a person should secure his own liberation. The taste of the tongue and the senses is easy to find even in the wombs of beasts. Knowledge is found in this body alone. All of this is the maya of that same Goddess, by whom the whole world is deluded. Hearing this, a wondrous detachment came over Taladhvaja. He handed his kingdom to his grandson, went away to the forest, and attained the knowledge of truth.
When the king had gone, Narada, as Vishnu laughed and laughed, asked, O Lord, you deceived me, and now I have learned the strength of maya. But tell me this, why did my earlier memory vanish the moment I stepped into the lake? My mind was the same, my awareness the same, so how was the memory erased? Vishnu said, great sage, all of this is the play of the great maya. Just as the state of a creature changes as it wakes, dreams, and sleeps, so it is when one takes on another body. A sleeping man seems in his dream to meet a dead grandfather, to talk with him, to eat with him, and on waking he understands that it was an illusion.
The unreachable limits of maya’s powers are known neither to me, nor to Shiva, nor to Brahma. How then should some dull-witted person know her fully? This whole world of the moving and the unmoving is made from the joining of the three gunas, sattva, rajas, and tamas. Without them the world would not hold together for even a moment. So, lord of sages, do not let this hollow world spun out of maya bind you in attachment. Only just now you saw the power of maya with your own eyes, and tasted many pleasures yourself. What then do you ask me about the wondrous ways of that great maya?
Source: Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)