Savitri and Satyavan

The Daughter Named Savitri

The promise kept its order. In time a daughter was born first, and by the power of the king’s worship of Bhagavati Savitri it was the great goddess Kamala herself, she of the lotus, who came into the world as that girl. King Ashvapati named her Savitri. She grew day by day like the moon of the bright fortnight, and in due time beauty and youth came to her together. When she was grown she chose her own husband: Satyavan, son of Dyumatsena, a young man who held to the truth and carried many virtues besides. The king adorned her with jeweled ornaments and gave her to him, and Satyavan, in great joy, took her home.

The Fall from the Tree

A year went by after the wedding. Then one day Satyavan, whose valor was as true as his word, went gladly into the forest at his father’s order to bring back fruit and firewood, and the chaste Savitri went behind him. By the turning of fate Satyavan fell from a tree, and his life went out of him. Yama saw the dead man. He lifted out the subtle body, no bigger than a thumb, and set out with it, and Savitri began to follow him. Dharmaraja, lord of the city of Samyamani and the best of all who are good, saw the bright-toothed woman walking behind him, and he spoke to her in a sweet voice.

“Savitri, where are you going, wearing this human body? If you wish to go with your husband, first give up this body. A mortal who must perish can never come to my world in this destructible frame made of the five elements. Your husband came into Bharatavarsha, and his span there is finished; Satyavan goes now to my world to taste the fruit of his deeds. A being takes birth by karma and meets death by karma. Pleasure and pain, fear and grief, all of them come from karma. By his karma a jiva may become Indra, or a son of Brahma, or a servant of Hari set free from the bond of birth and death. By karma a man surely gains every siddhi, and immortality, and the four kinds of moksha that begin with salokya, dwelling in Vishnu’s own world. By karma he easily wins the station of a god, of a Manu, of a king over kings, even the state of Shiva or of Ganesha. By karma he becomes a great muni, an ascetic Brahmin, a Kshatriya, a Vaishya or a mleccha; of this there is no doubt. And by karma a being takes the births of the creatures that move, of a mountain, a rakshasa, a kinnara, a ruler of men, a tree, a beast, a creature of the forest, a thing too small to see, an insect, a daitya, a danava, an asura.” Having said this to Savitri, Yama fell silent.

Savitri’s Questions to Yama

Savitri heard him out. A pativrata, bound to her husband by her vow and firm in her resolve, she praised Dharmaraja with the deepest devotion, and then she put her questions to him. “What is karma, and from what does it arise, and what is its cause? Who is the dehi, the one who wears the body, and what is the body, and who in this world makes beings act? What is jnana, what is buddhi, and what is the prana of the embodied? What are the senses, what are their marks, and who are the deities who rule them? Who enjoys, who causes the enjoying, what is bhoga, and what is nishkriti, the release from it? Who is the jiva, and who is the Paramatma? Be gracious, and tell me all of this.”

Dharmaraja answered her. “Whatever the Veda teaches is dharma, and that karma is supremely auspicious. Its opposite, karma outside the Veda, is surely inauspicious. Service of the gods with no sankalpa in it, no private intent and no motive at all, is what is called the uprooting of karma, and that service gives para-bhakti, the highest devotion. Who enjoys the fruit, and who stays untouched by it? The shruti has answered: whoever has devotion to Brahman is free, free of birth, of death, of old age, of disease, of grief and of fear. The shruti speaks of two kinds of bhakti, and all accept them. One gives nirvana. The other gives a man the very form of Shri Hari. Vaishnavas want the bhakti that gives Hari’s form; the yogis who know Brahman want the bhakti that gives nirvana. The seed-form of karma always bears fruit. Karma is the form of the Paramatma, Bhagavan Shri Hari, and of the para Prakriti; the Paramatma is the cause of karma, and this body is perishable from the start. Earth, water, fire, air and ether, the five great elements in their thread form, are what the Paramatma works with in his creation. The jiva who does karma is the dehi, and as the antaryami, the ruler within, he is also the one who causes the enjoying. The tasting of pleasure and pain is called bhoga, and release from it is nishkriti, which is moksha. Jnana is the chief seed of telling sat from asat, the real from the unreal; it has many kinds, and it is what tells a pot from a cloth. Buddhi is the power that discriminates, and the shruti knows it as the seed of knowledge. The pranas are the forms of the wind within, and they are the strength of the embodied. That which is chief among the senses, a portion of Ishvara, beyond reasoning, the impeller of karma, which no embodied being can resist, which cannot be described or seen, and which divides the buddhi, is called manas. The eye, the ear, the nose, the skin and the tongue are the limbs of a being and the drivers of all its karma, its enemies and its friends at once, giving pleasure in good work and pain in bad. Surya, Vayu, Prithvi, Brahma and the others are the deities of the senses. What holds the prana and the body together is called the jiva. And the all-pervading Brahman beyond Prakriti, without gunas, the cause of all causes, is called the Paramatma. All you asked I have told you as the shastras give it, and for the wise it is knowledge itself. Child, now go happily.”

Savitri stayed where she stood. “Leaving the lord of my life, and leaving you, an ocean of knowledge, where am I to go? Tell me what I ask now. Father, by which karma does a jiva go to which womb? By which karma to svarga, and by which to naraka? By which karma does mukti come, and by which, devotion to the guru? By which karmas does a being become a yogi, or fall sick, or live long, or die young, or live unhappy, or live happy? By which is one born without a limb, or one-eyed, or deaf, or blind, or lame, or maddened, or out of his mind, or ravenous with greed, or a thief? By which karma does a man gain siddhi, and the four muktis that begin with salokya, and Brahminhood, and the power of an ascetic, and the pleasures of svarga, and Vaikuntha, and the supreme pure Goloka above them all? How many kinds of naraka are there, how many in number, and what are their names? Which being goes to which, and for how long does he stay? And by which karma does which disease fall on sinners? Out of love I have asked all this. Be gracious, and tell me.”

The Boon of Dharmaraja

Narayana went on. Yama heard her and was amazed, and he laughed, and he began to tell her the fruits that the karma of beings bears. “Child, you are twelve years old, and already your knowledge goes past the great scholars, past the jnanis and the yogis. By the boon of Bhagavati Savitri you were born of her own kala, a portion of herself, and the worlds know you as Sati Savitri; long ago King Ashvapati won you by his tapas, a daughter in the likeness of that same Savitri. As Lakshmi sits in Vishnu’s lap and Bhavani on Shiva’s breast, as Aditi shines beside Kashyapa, Ahalya beside Gautama, Shachi beside Indra, Rohini beside Chandra, Rati beside Kamadeva, Svaha beside Agni, Svadha beside the Pitris, Sandhya beside Surya, Varunani beside Varuna, Dakshina beside Yajna, Prithvi beside Varaha and Devasena beside Kartikeya, each the fortunate beloved of her lord, so may you shine as the fortunate beloved of Satyavan. This boon I have given you. Ask any other boon you desire, and I shall give you all you wish.”

Savitri answered him. “May I have a hundred sons of my own body by Satyavan; that is my boon. May my father too have a hundred sons, and may my father-in-law get back his eyesight and his kingdom; that is my wish. And at the end, when a hundred thousand years have passed, may I go with Satyavan to the abode of Bhagavan Shri Hari; give me that boon too. I am very curious, besides, to hear the fruit that the karma of jivas bears, and the means by which they are delivered out of samsara. Be gracious, and tell me all of it.” Dharmaraja said, “All your wishes will be fulfilled. Now I tell you the fruit of karma; listen with care.” And he told her. Good and bad karma are made only in the holy land of Bharatavarsha; everywhere else beings only eat the fruit. Gods, daityas, danavas, gandharvas and rakshasas are doers of karma; animals are not. They all wander through every womb and reach svarga or naraka by what they have done. When karma is spent, bhakti rises, and it is of two kinds, the bhakti that is nirvana and the bhakti to Bhagavati Prakriti, who is Brahman itself. By old bad karma a man is diseased, by good karma free of disease, and so too with long life and short, with happiness and sorrow; the blind and the limbless are made by vile deeds, and siddhi by the best of deeds, and this is to be kept secret. Human birth in Bharata is the rarest thing; among men the Brahmin is best, and the Brahmin fixed on Brahman greater still. He told her where each kind of worship leads. Those who worship the two-armed Shri Krishna and want nothing of him go to Goloka, never to return; those who worship him wanting something go to Vaikuntha, and from there back to Bharata, until in time they too want nothing. Those who worship Mula-Prakriti Jagadamba and want nothing of her go to Manidvipa, her island of jewels, never to return; the worshipers of Shiva, of Shakti and of Ganapati go to Shivaloka and come back again; fallen Brahmins and those who abandon their own duty go to naraka. He told her what each gift earns, the daughter given in marriage to a dharmic Brahmin, the cow, the gold, the land, the house, the temple, the tank and the stepped well, the pipal planted, the flower garden, the dola-mandira raised for the Lord’s swing, the royal road laid with rest-houses, each gift with its world and its term of years, and he told her that only what was given is ever received. “Karma is never destroyed without being enjoyed, though tens of millions of kalpas go by; one is purified by the gods, by tirthas and by tapas. I have told you some things. What more do you wish to hear?” She wished to hear more, and asked, and he answered, and the asking went on: which deeds lead to svarga, what the gift of food earns, how the life of one Indra runs to seventy-one yugas of the gods and a day and a night of Brahma to the lives of twenty-eight Indras, and how, when Brahma’s hundred years are done, the whole world sinks into Shri Krishna at the closing of his eyes and comes out again when they open. At the last he told her of the four muktis, salokya, sarupya, samipya and nirvana, and of the devotees who want none of them, who wave away even the state of Shiva, immortality and the state of Brahma, because mukti is empty of service and bhakti only deepens it. The wise, he said, have named one means of cutting off birth and its enjoyments, the supreme service of the Lord alone, and this knowledge stands firm in the world and in the Veda. “Child, now go happily.”

Having said this, Dharmaraja, son of Surya, gave her husband back his life. He blessed her and made ready to leave. Savitri saw him going, and she bowed, and caught both his feet in her hands, and wept, undone by the grief of parting from a holy one. Her lament reached him, and the compassionate Dharmaraja wept too, and, pleased with her, he spoke. “Savitri, you will enjoy happiness for a hundred thousand years in the holy land of Bharatavarsha, and at the end you will go to the world where Bhagavati herself sits. Go home now, and keep the Savitri-vrata for fourteen years; for women it is the very cause of moksha. Kept on the fourteenth day of the bright half of Jyeshtha it brings the highest good, as the Mahalakshmi-vrata does on the eighth of the bright half of Bhadrapada, which a woman keeps for sixteen years and so comes near to Shri Hari’s feet. Keep the vrata of Mangalachandika every Tuesday, worship Shashthi on the sixth day of every bright fortnight, and Manasa at the Ashadha sankranti; worship Shri Radha, dearer to Shri Krishna than his own life, on the full moon of Kartika at the rasa, and Durga, who gives boons, with a fast on the eighth day of every bright fortnight. Worship without pause the powers that go out from the Bhagavati, and worship the Parameshvari herself, who is every form; nothing gives a greater fulfillment than this.” Then Dharmaraja went to his own world, and Savitri went home with her husband. When Savitri and Satyavan reached the house, she told her kinsmen all that had happened. By the power of Dharmaraja’s boon her father got his sons, her father-in-law’s two eyes were healed and his kingdom came back to him, and Savitri too had sons. For a hundred thousand years she enjoyed happiness in Bharatavarsha, and then that pativrata went with her husband to Devi-loka. And the goddess whose portion she was, Narayana said, is called Savitri in this world because she presides over Savita, the sun, because she is the deity of the Gayatri, the sun’s own mantra that reveals Brahman, and because she is the mother of all the Vedas.