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Sukanya, the daughter of King Sharyati, wandered one day into the forest with her friends and came, at play, to the shore of a still lake. Her eye caught a great anthill wrapped in creepers, and from two small openings in its side two points of light glimmered like fireflies. A child’s curiosity took hold of her. She could not imagine what the shining thing might be, so she picked up a sharp thorn and drove it into both openings. In the next instant she felt the thorn come away wet, and from deep inside the mound rose a low, wounded moan. Bewildered, unable to guess what her own hands had done, the girl turned and left the place.
In that same moment a strange affliction descended. Every soldier in Sharyati’s army, and every animal among the elephants, horses, and camels, found the passage of urine and dung stopped within the body. The king and his ministers, sick with the distress of it, cast about for who could have worked such harm. Their search brought back an answer: on the western shore of the lake, the sage Chyavana, son of Bhrigu, sat wrapped in fierce austerity, and someone had surely done him injury. Because that ascetic, blazing like fire, had been dishonored, the whole camp was now paying for it in pain.
Frightened now, Sukanya went to her father and told him all of it, how at play she had pushed a thorn into the two glimmering holes of the anthill. The king hurried to the mound, scraped away the earth that had caked over the sage’s body, and found Chyavana within, racked with terrible agony. He dropped to the ground full length, like a fallen staff, and bowed. With his palms pressed together he pleaded, “O most fortunate one, my little girl has done this wrong without knowing it. Sages are strangers to anger, so I ask you to forgive her.”
The sage’s boon and the king’s dilemma
Chyavana answered, “King, not once do I hold even a grain of anger. Even when your daughter wounded me, I laid no curse on you. Yet now pain has bloomed in the eyes of an innocent man. I have gone blind, and I have gone old. In such a state, who will care for me? If forgiveness is truly what you want, then give me your lotus-eyed daughter to serve me.” The words dropped the king into a deep dread. He could not bring himself to say I will give her, nor could he say I will not. How, he wondered, could he ever know peace again after handing this daughter of his, lovely as a maiden of the gods, to a blind and aging hermit? He went home and took counsel with his ministers, and even they, facing so cruel a knot, found nothing to say.
Then Sukanya, watching her father and his ministers drown in worry, understood exactly what was being weighed, and she smiled and spoke. “Father, do not grieve on my account. Give me now to the sage. In that alone lies the happiness of all your people. I will go gladly into that lonely forest and serve my venerable, most holy husband with a faith that has no floor, and I will keep the dharma of a devoted wife. Pleasures and comforts hold no interest for me at all. As Arundhati and Anasuya won their renown through devotion to their husbands, so I too will carry your name higher.” Moved by this tender speech from his daughter, the king performed the wedding by the proper rites and delivered her to the sage. Chyavana would take no gift the king offered, accepting only the princess herself, for his service. Sukanya let fall her jewels and her fine garments and wrapped herself in bark and deerskin. To see her so dressed, every queen of the palace broke into tears, and the king went back to his city with a darkened face.
The bark-clad princess at her service
Once the king had gone, the virtuous girl gave herself wholly to the care of her husband and the tending of the sacred fire. She gathered sweet fruits and roots and tubers and laid them before the sage. She bathed him, settled him on a clean seat, and set out the articles for his daily rites. She cooked wild rice until it was soft and fed it to him, then offered him betel leaf with her own loving hands. At night she pressed his feet. In the heat of summer she fanned cool air over him, and through the cold she kept a fire burning at his side. So, with a light heart, she passed her days and nights in the worship of her aged husband.
The temptation of the Ashvini Kumaras
There came a time when the two sons of Surya, the Ashvini Kumaras, wandered near Chyavana’s hermitage at their sport. They caught sight of Sukanya returning from her bath in the lake, flawless from head to foot, and the two physicians of the gods lost their hearts to her at once. They pressed her with questions. “Bright-smiling one, tell us the truth. Whose daughter are you, and who is your husband? In your beauty you seem a second Lakshmi.” Modesty coloring her, the princess answered. “I am the daughter of King Sharyati and the faithful wife of the sage Chyavana. My lord is aged and without sight, and I serve him with a glad heart.”
Then the Ashvini Kumaras set to work on her. “Wide-eyed girl, having drawn a blind and elderly sage for a husband, why do you throw away this fresh youth of yours? Take one of the two of us for your husband and taste the many delights of the world of the gods at our side.” At these words the soft-spoken woman began to tremble, yet she steadied herself and spoke with iron in her voice. “Sons of Surya, you are the children of the Lord who witnesses the deeds of every living thing. You should not say such a thing to a faithful wife. My father gave me to this sage devoted to yoga, so how would I ever walk the road of unchaste women? If you will not stop, I will lay a curse on you both.”
Three identical youths rise from the lake
Her constancy delighted the Ashvini Kumaras beyond measure, and they said, “Lovely one, we are the foremost physicians of the gods. We will make your husband young and beautiful. Then, when the three of us stand alike in form and age, choose any one of us for your husband.” Sukanya went to her husband and laid this marvel before him. Chyavana told her, “Agree to their terms at once. Do not turn it over in your mind.” So the three of them stepped into the lake, and in that instant they rose from the water as three divine youths matched in form, in age, in voice, and in dress, each shining with heavenly earrings and ornaments.
To see them so alike threw Sukanya into confusion, and in her distress she thought, which of these am I to choose? I can never choose another and leave my own husband behind. Fixing that resolve, she sank into meditation on the gracious supreme Goddess and began to pray. “Mother of the world, ground down by a great trouble I have come to your shelter. Guard my faithfulness, and let me look again upon my husband.” As she offered this praise, the Goddess Tripura Sundari swiftly woke a soothing knowledge in her heart. Then, letting her eyes travel slowly over the three identical figures, the virtuous woman chose Chyavana, her true husband, and both Ashvini Kumaras were well pleased. In other tellings, Sukanya knows her husband by her own quick sense. In this Devi Bhagavata, she takes refuge in the Goddess, and by her grace alone she comes to the knowledge of her true husband.
With his beauty restored, his eyes restored, his youth and his wife all restored to him, Chyavana overflowed with joy. He turned to the Ashvini Kumaras. “You two have done me a great service, and so I will give you what even gods and demons cannot reach. Once, at Brahma’s great sacrifice on Mount Sumeru, Indra barred you both from the cup of soma, dismissing you as mere physicians. Now, at King Sharyati’s sacrifice, I will make you fit to drink the soma in the very presence of Indra, the king of the gods.” At this the Ashvini Kumaras returned to heaven in delight, and Chyavana, with Sukanya beside him, went on living at his hermitage.
The clash with Indra at the sacrifice
When some time had gone by, the wife of King Sharyati grew anxious about her daughter and said to her husband, “You gave our girl to a blind sage in the forest. Who knows whether she still lives. Go and see her.” The king climbed into his chariot and set out for the hermitage. There he found a sage bright with fresh youth, like a son of the gods, and doubt seized him. Had his daughter, driven by desire, killed the aged sage and taken another man for her husband? Anger rose in him, and he spoke hard words to Sukanya. She went to her father and told him all of it. “Father, this is your own son-in-law, the sage Chyavana. The Ashvini Kumaras took pity on him and made him this radiant, this lotus-eyed.” Chyavana himself then told the king the whole story in full, and hearing it, the king was overjoyed.
Then Chyavana said to the king, “I will conduct your sacrifice. You have only to gather the materials. I have vowed to make the Ashvini Kumaras fit to drink soma, and should Indra grow angry, I will quiet him by the strength of my austerity.” The king agreed and had a fine sacrificial hall raised. Summoning Vasishtha and the other foremost sages, Chyavana of Bhrigu’s line began the rite. Every god came, Indra among them, and the two Ashvini Kumaras arrived as well, longing to drink the soma. When Chyavana moved to serve them the soma juice, Indra stopped him. “These are only physicians. They have no right to the soma.” Chyavana answered him plainly. “These are no beings of mixed birth. They were born of the lawful wife of Lord Surya. For what fault, then, are they unfit to drink the soma? I have made them worthy of it, and I will most certainly give them the soma to drink.” Though Indra forbade it, not one god present dared say a word to Chyavana, and the sage, blazing with power, drew off a share of the soma by the might of his austerity and gave it to the Ashvini Kumaras.
Source: Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)