Janamejaya had asked Vyasa why any king would give a lovely-eyed daughter to a blind man, and Vyasa smiled and told him. Sharyati, the son of Vaivasvata Manu, had four thousand wives, all princesses, and among them all one daughter, the sweet-smiling Sukanya, dear to her father and to every one of her mothers. Not far from his city lay a lake like Manasa, clear-watered, loud with hamsas and cranes, five kinds of lotus on it, its banks ringed with sala and tamala and ashoka, banyan and kadamba and mango, and cuckoos and peacocks calling in the trees. Near it, in a quiet place among those trees, the ascetic Chyavana of Bhrigu’s line had chosen his seat. Silent, firm in his posture, master of his breath, his senses drawn in, he had given up food and then water, and he sat meditating on Parambika, the supreme Mother, until creepers wound around him and an anthill rose over him, and the ants swarmed him, and over the long years the wise man became on every side like a lump of clay. One day King Sharyati came to that lake with his women and lost himself in water play among the lotuses. Sukanya, lovely as Lakshmi and restless as lightning, went into the wood with her friends to pick flowers, every ornament on her and her anklets ringing, and wandering she came to the anthill that was Chyavana. She sat down beside it at her play, and through two holes in its side she saw two lights shining like fireflies. What was this? She would uncover it. The slender girl picked up a sharp thorn and began clearing the earth away. From inside, the sage saw her close and busy, fair-haired, like Rati herself, and in a voice gone thin with fasting he spoke to her. “What is this? Go far away. I am an ascetic. Do not break this anthill with a thorn.” She did not listen. “What is this, really?” she said, and she pierced his eyes. Driven by daiva, the princess went off to her play, uneasy, thinking, what have I done?
With his eyes pierced, the sage, whose wrath was great, grew angry, and the pain tormented him. At that very moment the urine and dung of every soldier in Sharyati’s army stopped inside the body, and of the elephants, camels and horses and every creature with them, and worst of all the king’s own and his ministers’. The soldiers came and told him, and Sharyati, in his own distress, turned the matter over and found the cause. He went home and put the question to his people and his soldiers in anguish. In the forest on the western side of the lake the great ascetic Chyavana sat in the hardest tapas; someone had surely wronged that ascetic bright as fire, and from that wrong this pain had come to all of them. Someone had insulted the great Bhargava, old and eminent and great in tapas, and whether it was done knowingly or unknowingly, the fixed fruit of it had to be borne. Which of them had done it? The soldiers, racked with pain, answered that they knew of no wrong done to the muni by any of them in mind, word or deed.
The anxious king questioned his kinsmen too, gently and then sternly. Sukanya watched the people suffer and her father sick with it, and she thought of her pricking with the spike, and she spoke. “Father, playing in the forest I saw a large firm anthill wrapped in creepers, with two holes in it, and in them two lights shining brightly like fireflies. I took them for fireflies and pricked them with a needle. I saw the needle come out wet with water, and from inside the anthill I heard a faint ha, ha. Then I was amazed and afraid, and I did not know what I had pierced.” Sharyati heard his daughter’s soft words and knew them for an insult to the muni, and he went quickly to the anthill. There he saw Chyavana, great in tapas, in terrible distress, and he broke away the mound caked over the sage’s body. He fell to the ground full length like a staff, bowed to the Bhargava, praised him humbly, and pleaded with his palms joined. “My daughter did this wrong at play. Forgive what the child did in ignorance. I have heard that munis are without anger; forgive the child now.”
The sage’s boon and the king’s dilemma
Chyavana looked at the king bowed in humility and distress, and answered him. “I never feel even a grain of anger. Even though your daughter caused me pain, I have not cursed you. Yet pain has come into the eyes of an innocent man, and I know that you suffer because of that sin. Who, having committed a grave offense against a devotee of the Devi, can find happiness, even if Shiva himself should be his protector? What am I to do now? I have gone blind, and old age surrounds me. Who will serve a blind man?” The king promised him many servants who would wait on him day and night, and asked again for forgiveness, since ascetics have little anger. Chyavana would not have them. “I am blind and alone; how am I to do tapas? Will your servants do what I like? If you ask my forgiveness, do as I say. Give me your lotus-eyed daughter for my service. I am pleased with this daughter of yours; I will do tapas and she will serve me. If this is done I shall be happy, and good will come to you, and when I am satisfied your soldiers too will be well. Think it over and give her in marriage. There is no fault in it, for I am a self-controlled ascetic.” The words dropped the king into a grave worry. He said neither I will give nor I will not give. How could he be happy after giving this daughter of his, like a daughter of the gods, to a blind, ugly, old muni? What dull, sinful man who knew good from bad would destroy his own daughter’s happiness for his own comfort? How would this fair-browed girl pass her time with a blind old husband, when in youth desire is hard to conquer even with a husband of one’s own age? Lovely Ahalya, with her beauty and youth, had been given to the ascetic Gautama, and Indra had soon deceived her, and her husband had cursed her for it after. Let sorrow come to him, then; he would not give Sukanya. He went home dejected, called his ministers and asked them whether he should give his daughter to the Brahmin or suffer himself, and they could only ask in return what anyone could say in so hard a crisis, and how so lovely a girl could be given to that unfortunate man.
Sukanya saw her father and the ministers troubled, understood the matter, and smiled. “Father, why are you troubled today in all your senses? Surely you are downcast on my account. I will go to the frightened muni now, reassure him, and please him by giving myself.” The king was glad in his heart to hear it, and he refused her before the ministers. How would a weak girl serve, in the forest, a blind man afflicted by age and quick to anger? A father should give his daughter to a man of equal age, caste and strength, rich in wealth and grain, never to a poor man who lived in a little leaf hut. Better that he and his soldiers die. “What must be will be, and I will not give up my firmness. Let my kingdom stay or go, and this body likewise; I will not give you to that eyeless one.” Sukanya’s face was very bright, and her words were loving. “Father, do not worry about me. Give me to the muni now. Let all the people have happiness through what I do. Content, I will serve my most holy old husband with supreme devotion in the lonely forest, and keep the dharma of a devoted wife, and do what is approved. I have no desire for pleasures; my mind is at ease.” The ministers were amazed, and the king, very pleased, went to the muni, bowed his head, and asked him to accept his daughter duly for his service, and gave her by the marriage rite. The Bhargava received her and was pleased. He would take none of the gifts the king offered, only the girl for his service; and the moment the muni was pleased, the soldiers were well, and the king felt great joy. When he turned to go home, his slender daughter stopped him. “Father, take my garments and my ornaments, and give me bark to wear and a fine deerskin. I will take the dress of munis’ wives and serve in tapas, so that your fame stays unfallen on the face of the earth, in heaven and in rasatala. You have given a young and beautiful daughter to a blind old man; do not worry for her virtue. As Arundhati is on earth, the dharma-wife of Vasishtha, so shall I be, and as the chaste Anasuya, wife of Atri, is renowned, so your daughter will bring you fame.” The king handed her the deerskin and wept, seeing his sweet-smiling daughter with her ornaments and clothes cast off and a muni’s dress on her, and he stood there pale. Every queen who saw their daughter in bark and deerskin wept. Then, leaving her there, the anxious king went back to his city with his ministers.
The bark-clad princess at her service
When the king had gone, the girl gave herself to her husband’s service and, intent on dharma, to the service of the sacred fires. She brought tasty fruits and roots and set them before the muni. She bathed him quickly in warm water, wrapped him in a deerskin, seated him on a clean seat of grass, set sesame, barley, kusha and the water pot before him, and told him to do his daily rites; when the rites were done she raised him by the hand to a seat or a soft bed, and fed him ripe fruit and well-cooked wild rice, and when he had eaten she gave him water to sip and then areca nut and betel leaves, and only then, with his leave, saw to her own needs and ate some fruit herself. After the evening homa she brought him soft sweet fruits and ate what remained, spread a soft bed and laid him on it, pressed his feet and asked him about the dharma of women of good family, and when she knew he was asleep she slept near his feet. In summer she fanned him with a palm-leaf fan; in winter she gathered firewood, set a blazing fire before him, and asked him again and again whether he was comfortable. She rose in the brahma-muhurta before dawn, set water and a vessel and clay before him, raised him for his ablutions and seated him some way from the ashrama, herself sitting farther off, and when she knew he had finished she brought him carefully back, washed his feet with clay and water, gave him the vessel for sipping, brought the tooth-stick the shastra prescribes, heated pure water for his bath, and asked him lovingly whether he had cleaned his teeth, since the warm water was ready and it was the hour of the homa and the morning sandhya. So the blameless girl, with an ascetic for a husband, served him daily with love, with tapas and by rule, and served the fires and the guests as well, and gladly worshiped Chyavana.
The temptation of the Ashvini Kumaras
One day the two Ashvins, the sons of the Sun, came near Chyavana’s ashrama at their play. They saw the girl, lovely in every limb, coming back from her bath in the lake, bright as a daughter of the gods, and the Nasatyas, infatuated at once, ran up and spoke to her with respect. “Stop a moment. We two sons of a god have come to ask you something; tell us the truth. Whose daughter are you, who is your husband, and why have you come alone to bathe in this lake? You shine like a second Shri. Your tender bare feet on the ground pain our hearts; you deserve a vimana, so why do you walk in this forest on foot, with no hundred maids around you? Are you a princess or an apsara? Blessed is the mother who bore you, and blessed your father, and of your husband’s luck we cannot even speak. Enough praise. Tell us truly who your father is and where your husband is; we wish to see him with respect.” Modesty colored her, and she answered. “Know me as the daughter of Sharyati and the chaste wife of the muni Chyavana, given to him by my father of his own will. My husband is blind and very old, a great ascetic, and I serve him day and night with a glad heart. Who are you two, and why have you come? My husband is in the ashrama. Come there and make the ashrama holy today.”
The Dasras set to work on her. “How did your father give you to an ascetic? You shine in this forest like lightning in a cloud, and no woman like you is seen even among the gods. With those dark tresses you are fit for divine garments and every ornament; you do not shine clad in skins. What a foolish deed of the creator, that you should suffer in this forest with a blind muni worn down by age for a husband. You chose him in vain; you do not shine with him in your fresh youth. The dull-witted creator made a woman full of youth a blind man’s wife. You are not fit for him. Make another your husband. Why waste your youth serving that luckless man, who cannot maintain you or protect you? Leave the muni, who has lost every pleasure, and accept one of us two, and roam at will in Indra’s Nandana and Kubera’s Chaitraratha. How will you pass your time dishonored with a blind old man? Your youth is new, and you must serve a blind man; is sorrow what you want? You are very tender; fetching fruit and water does not suit you.” The princess, who spoke little, trembled at this, and then took courage and answered. “You are the sons of Ravi, all-knowing and honored among the gods, and you should not speak so to a chaste woman devoted to dharma. My father gave me to this muni devoted to yoga; how should I walk the road that unchaste women walk? Divakara, born of Kashyapa, is the seer of all the world and the witness of every deed, and it is his sons who say this. How can a woman of good family leave her husband and take another man in this hollow world? You know the rulings of dharma. Go where you please, or I will curse you. I am Sukanya, Sharyati’s daughter, devoted to my husband.”
Three identical youths rise from the lake
The Nasatyas were greatly amazed, and they feared the muni, and they spoke to her again in another voice. “We are pleased with your dharma. Choose a boon, and we will give it for your good. Know that we are the best physicians of the gods. We will make your husband young and handsome. Then choose one of us three, alike in form and body, as your husband.” Amazed in her turn, she went to her husband and laid the strange thing before him: the two sons of the Sun had come, divine-bodied, struck by desire at the sight of her, and they offered to make him young and divine-bodied and give him eyes, on one condition, that he be made like them in limb and form and she then choose one of the three. “Tell me what to do in this crisis. The maya of the gods is hard to fathom; I do not understand their trick. Command me, and I will do what you wish.” Chyavana said, “Go now by my word to the Nasatyas and bring the best physicians of the gods to me quickly. Accept their word at once; there is no need to deliberate.” She went and told them to act on their condition, and the Ashvins came and said, “Let your husband enter the water.” Chyavana went quickly into the lake, and the Ashvins went in after him, and in that moment three came out of the lake alike in form, divine-bodied, young, identical in every limb, adorned with divine earrings and ornaments, and all three said together, “Choose whichever of us you wish as husband; choose him for whom your love is greatest.”
Three men alike in form and age, one in voice, one in dress, like sons of gods: she fell into doubt. She did not know her husband for certain, and in her distress she thought, what shall I do? The three are alike, and I do not know whom to choose. These two gods have devised an illusion here and thrown me into doubt. Death has come to me. I will never choose another and leave my husband, though he be some very handsome god; this is my firm resolve. With that resolve the slender girl meditated on the supreme Bhuvaneshvari, Bhagavati Devi, and praised her. “Jagadamba, I have come to your refuge, greatly afflicted. Protect my sati-dharma today; I bow at your feet. Homage to you, lotus-born Devi, beloved of Shankara, Lakshmi beloved of Vishnu, Sarasvati mother of the Veda. You created this whole moving and unmoving world; you protect it carefully and absorb it for the peace of the worlds; you are the acknowledged mother of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesha. You give understanding to the ignorant and liberation to the wise; you are the complete Prakriti, giver of enjoyment and of release to the pure of mind, giver of siddhi to yogis, of victory and of fame. Mother, in great perplexity I have come to your refuge. Show me my husband; I am sunk in an ocean of grief. These two gods have played a trick, and I am deluded; whom shall I choose? You know all things; look at my vow of chastity, and show me my husband.” Praised so, Devi Tripurasundari at once put into her heart a knowledge that brought happiness. Her mind made up, the chaste girl looked carefully at all three, alike in age and form, and chose her own husband. When Chyavana was chosen the two gods were satisfied, and seeing her sati-dharma they gladly gave her a boon, and by the grace of Bhagavati the two best of gods, pleased, took leave of the muni and made ready to go.
Beauty, eyes, youth and his wife were all his again, and the glorious Chyavana spoke joyfully to the Nasatyas. “You have done me a favor, and what shall I say? I have gained the highest happiness in this world. Before, blind and very old and without enjoyment, I had only sorrow every day in this forest, though I had a fair-haired wife. You have given me eyes, youth and a wondrous form, and I wish to do you some favor in return. Fie on the man who does not repay a friend who helped him; such a man stays a debtor on earth. To free myself of the debt for this new body, I will give you what you ask, even what gods and asuras cannot obtain. Tell me your heart’s wish.” The two consulted together and answered the muni seated with Sukanya. “By our father’s grace all our wishes are fulfilled, except that we long to drink soma with the gods. At Brahma’s great sacrifice on the golden mountain Sumeru, Indra forbade us the soma cup, calling us physicians. If you are able, do this for us: make us drinkers of soma. Our thirst, so hard to satisfy, will be quenched through you.” Chyavana spoke gently. “Since you made me, old as I was, handsome and young, and I have gained a wife, I will gladly make you soma-drinkers in the very sight of the king of the gods, at the extended sacrifice of King Sharyati of boundless splendor. I tell you truly.” The two went joyfully to heaven, and Chyavana took Sukanya and went back to his ashrama.
The clash with Indra at the sacrifice
Janamejaya asked how a man’s word could stand against the king of the gods, and Vyasa went on. Chyavana, now like a second god, lived gladly with Sukanya. In time Sharyati’s wife grew anxious, and came to her husband trembling and weeping. “You gave our daughter to a blind muni in the forest. Whether she lives or is dead, you must see her. My heart burns with grief for our daughter; bring that wide-eyed girl, thin from tapas, to me. I want to see my slender bark-clad daughter suffering with a blind husband.” Sharyati told her they would go that very day, both of them, to see their dear Sukanya and the muni firm in his vows, and he mounted his chariot and drove to the ashrama. Near it he saw a muni full of fresh youth, like a son of the gods, and everything in him went cold. What vile deed, condemned by the world, had his daughter done? Tormented by desire, she must have killed the old, calm, penniless muni and made another man her husband, and put a great stain on the line of Manu. Fie on the life of a man whose daughter was vile. And he had done an improper thing himself, giving his daughter knowingly to a blind old man, and this was the fruit of it. If he killed this wicked daughter now he would incur the sin of killing a woman, and a daughter at that; on one side stood public blame, on the other the chain of affection that could not be broken. While he sank in that ocean of worry, Sukanya chanced to see him, came to him full of love, and asked why he sat with a troubled face at the sight of this young lotus-eyed muni; let him come and bow to her husband, and grieve no more. Sharyati burned with anger. “Daughter, where is the muni Chyavana, old and blind, the best of ascetics? Who is this young man drunk with youth? I have a great doubt. Did you kill the muni, sinner and destroyer of your family, and out of desire make this man your new husband? Why did you do this vile deed, the conduct of a kulata, an unchaste woman? Seeing this divine man and not seeing Chyavana, I am sunk in an ocean of grief that you have made.” She laughed, took her father by the hand, and led him to her husband. “Father, this is the muni Chyavana, your son-in-law, no doubt of it. The Ashvins made him so radiant and lotus-eyed. The Nasatyas came by chance to my ashrama, and out of compassion they made Chyavana so. I am your daughter, and I am not such a sinner as you, deluded by doubt about his form, take me to be. Bow to the Bhargava and ask him; he will tell you everything.” Sharyati bowed to the muni and asked how he had got his eyes and where his old age had gone, and Chyavana told him that the Nasatyas had done him this kindness, and that in return he had promised to make them drinkers of soma at the king’s own sacrifice. The king sat at ease with his wife, and they held auspicious talk with the great soul.
Then the Bhargava said to the king, “I will officiate at your sacrifice; prepare the materials. I have promised the two that I will make them soma-drinkers, and that must be done at your great sacrifice. If Indra is angry I will restrain him by my tejas, and I will make them drink soma at your soma-sacrifice.” Sharyati accepted gladly and went home with his wife, talking of the muni all the way. On an auspicious day he had an excellent sacrificial hall built, and Chyavana summoned the revered munis led by Vasishtha and began the king’s sacrifice. All the gods came with Indra, and the two Ashvins came for the soma. Indra saw them and grew suspicious, and asked the gods why these two had come, since they were physicians and unfit for soma, and who had brought them; the gods gave no answer. Then Chyavana took up the soma-portion for the two Ashvins, and Indra stopped him. “Do not take up a portion for these two.” Chyavana answered him. “Tell the truth: how are these two sons of Ravi not fit for a portion? They are not born of mixed caste; they are sons of Ravi by his lawful wife. By what fault are these best of physicians unfit for soma? Let all the gods at this sacrifice decide it. I will make them take soma; I have made them soma-drinkers already. I myself urged the king to this sacrifice for this purpose, and my word is true. They did me a favor and gave me new youth, and I must by all means repay them.” Indra said again that the Nasatyas, made physicians, were censured by the gods, and neither was fit for soma. “You who were Ahalya’s lover, restrain this useless anger of yours. You who killed Vritra, why are the Nasatyas, sons of a god, not fit for soma?” No one present said a word, and the Bhargava of fierce tejas, by the power of his tapas, had the portion taken up for the two. Indra’s anger broke. He called the sage a Brahmabandhu, a Brahmin in name only, and swore that if he set up this improper rule he would kill him as he had killed Vishvarupa. Chyavana told him to count these great ascetics among the gods, and gave the Ashvins their soma duly as Indra raised the vajra. Indra hurled it, bright as tens of millions of suns, and Chyavana stopped it in the air by his tapas. Then he poured oblations with mantras to raise a kritya against Indra, and out of the fire rose Mada: mountain-sized, black as collyrium, with arms like mountains and the nails of a tiger, four fangs a hundred yojanas long, eyes like a forest fire, a tongue that licked the sky and the netherworld, one jaw on the earth and the other reaching heaven. The gods panicked. Mada took the vajra in his mouth and rushed to eat Indra, and Indra’s arms were paralyzed, and he remembered Brihaspati, who told him that Mada could be killed by no mantra and no weapon, that none could check the anger of a devotee of the Adishakti, and that his only refuge was Chyavana. Indra bowed. “Forgive me. From today the Ashvins shall drink soma. I did this only to show your power. Withdraw Mada.” Chyavana restrained his anger and comforted Indra, and he divided Mada into four and lodged him in women, in wine, in dice and in hunting, and completed Sharyati’s sacrifice.
Source: Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)