Mahabharata · Savitri and Satyavan, and Karna’s Gift of his Armor

About 85 minutes

After the story of Rama, Yudhishthira’s grief is less for himself and more for Draupadi, and he asks Markandeya whether any woman has ever kept faith with her husband as Panchali has. The sage answers with a princess of the Madras who chose her own husband knowing he had one year to live, and who on the last day of that year followed Yama down his own road through the forest and closed him in, boon by boon, until he gave the man back. Then the telling turns toward the shadow that will fall across Kurukshetra in the seventeenth year of the story: the sun warns his son Karna in a dream that Indra is coming, dressed as a Brahmin, to ask for the armor Karna was born in, and Karna answers that he cannot refuse a Brahmin anything. In between, at Janamejaya’s asking, Vaishampayana opens the secret Kunti kept all her life: Durvasa’s mantra, the coming of the sun, and the basket set on the river.

Eighteen years of offerings, a goddess out of the fire, and the girl who chose her own husband

Yudhishthira had listened to Rama’s story to the end, and when Markandeya finished, the king did not ask about Rama. He asked about his wife. My grief, he said, is not for myself, nor for these brothers, nor even for the kingdom we lost. It is for Drupada’s daughter. When those wicked men tormented us at the dice, it was Krishna who delivered us, and then Jayadratha dragged her by force out of the forest. Have you ever seen or heard of a chaste and exalted woman who could be set beside this daughter of Drupada? It was the question of a man who could forgive himself for losing a throne and could not forgive himself for what had been done to Draupadi under his protection, and Markandeya answered it the way the old answer the young, with a story that had an answer folded inside it. Listen, king, he said, to how the whole merit of devoted wives was won, completely, by a princess called Savitri.

There was a king among the Madras named Ashvapati, and the story pauses to look at him closely before it hurries on, because the daughter will make sense only if the father does. He was virtuous and devout, a servant of the Brahmins, generous, firm in his word, a man of subdued senses who performed sacrifices and gave more than any other giver, loved alike in the city and in the villages, and intent on the welfare of every creature. He was also childless, and when age came for him it brought that grief along with it. So he did what a king of his kind does with grief: he turned it into discipline. He took rigid vows, ate sparingly, lived as a celibate, held his senses in check, and every day he poured ten thousand oblations into the fire while reciting the mantras of the goddess Savitri, eating one small meal at the sixth hour. He kept that up for eighteen years. At the end of the eighteenth year the goddess was satisfied, and she came out of the Agnihotra fire itself, in a body, in great delight, and stood before the king to give him a boon. I am gratified, king, she said, by your celibacy, your purity, your self-restraint, your keeping of vows, by all your effort and all your reverence. Ask for what you want, mighty Ashvapati. Only do not, in any way, slight virtue. He answered like a man who had rehearsed the sentence for eighteen years. It was for the sake of virtue that I undertook this, he said. Goddess, let many sons be born to me, worthy of my line. If you are pleased with me, this is the boon I ask; the twice-born have assured me that there is great merit in offspring. The goddess did not give him what he asked. Knowing this wish of yours already, she said, I spoke about your sons to the Grandsire himself. By the grace of the Self-born, a daughter of great energy will soon be born to you on earth. You should make no reply to this. I tell you it gladly, at the Grandsire’s command. Ashvapati, who had asked for sons and been told a daughter, said only: so be it. He pleased her once more and added, may it happen soon. And the goddess vanished.

The king went back into his city and ruled his people righteously, and in time he begot a child on his eldest queen, a princess of the Malavas who was devoted to virtue, and the child in her womb grew like the moon in the bright fortnight. When her time came she gave birth to a daughter with eyes like lotuses. The king performed all the rites for her with joy, and because she had been given by the goddess Savitri, through the oblations offered in that goddess’s honor, her father and the Brahmins called her Savitri. She grew like the goddess of fortune herself in a human body, and when she came of age she was so beautiful, slender at the waist and full at the hips and golden as an image, that people who saw her thought a goddess had come to live among them. And here the story turns its first corner. No one asked for her. Her radiance was such that the suitors who should have crowded the Madra court were overpowered by it, and not one of them dared. On the day of a festival she fasted and bathed her head, presented herself before the household deity, had the Brahmins pour the oblations, and then, carrying the flowers that had been offered to the god, she went to her father, bowed to his feet, gave him the flowers, and stood beside him with her hands joined. Ashvapati looked at his daughter, grown, radiant, unasked for, and he was sad. Daughter, he said, the time for giving you has come, and no one asks for you. So find yourself a husband equal to you in qualities. Whoever you desire, tell me, and I will consider and bestow you. And listen to what I have heard the twice-born recite: the father who does not give his daughter incurs disgrace; the husband who does not go to his wife in her season incurs disgrace; the son who does not protect his mother when her husband is dead incurs disgrace. Go and search, and act so that the gods cannot censure us. He said the same to his old counselors, told the attendants to go with her, and she, bashful, bowing to his feet, went out without hesitating. She rode in a golden chariot with her father’s aged ministers to the hermitages of the royal sages, honored the feet of the old men there, and went from forest to forest and from one holy place to the next, giving away wealth wherever the foremost of the twice-born lived.

She came home to find her father in his court with Narada, and she bowed her head to the feet of both. Narada looked at her and asked the obvious questions. Where has this daughter of yours been? Where does she come from now? And why, king, have you not given her to a husband, now that she is of age? Ashvapati said that this was exactly the errand she had been sent on, and that she was returning from it, and he turned the question over to her: hear from her own mouth, celestial sage, whom she has chosen. Her father told her to tell everything in detail, and she took the command as if a god had given it. Among the Shalvas, she said, there was a virtuous Kshatriya king named Dyumatsena. In the course of time he went blind. That blind and wise king had an only son, and an old enemy who lived nearby took advantage of the king’s misfortune and stripped him of his kingdom. So the king went into the woods with his wife, who carried an infant at her breast, took great vows there, and gave himself to austerities. His son, born in the city, grew up in the hermitage. That youth is fit to be my husband, and in my heart I have accepted him as my lord. Narada’s reaction was immediate and it was the last thing the court expected from him. Alas, king, he said, Savitri has done a great wrong. Not knowing, she has accepted this Satyavan for her lord. And then, as if to make the wrong worse by making the boy better, he described him. His father speaks the truth and his mother is truthful too, which is why the Brahmins named the son Satyavan. As a child he loved horses; he made horses of clay and drew pictures of horses, so he is sometimes called Chitrashva. The king asked whether the prince had energy, intelligence, forgiveness, courage. In energy he is like the sun, said Narada, in wisdom like Brihaspati, in bravery like the lord of the gods, in forgiveness like the earth. Is he generous, devoted to the Brahmins, handsome, magnanimous, pleasing to look at? In giving according to his means he is like Rantideva, Sankriti’s son; in truthfulness and devotion to the Brahmins he is like Shibi, son of Ushinara; magnanimous like Yayati, beautiful like the moon, in his person like one of the twin Ashvins; self-controlled, meek, brave, truthful, his passions in check, devoted to his friends, free of malice, modest, patient. In short, said Narada, those of great ascetic merit say that his conduct is always right and that honor sits on his brow.

Ashvapati heard the whole catalogue and then asked the only question that mattered. Reverend sage, you tell me he has every virtue. Now tell me his defects, if he has any. He has one, said Narada, and it has swallowed all the rest, and no effort however great can overcome it. Within a year from today Satyavan, short-lived, will cast off his body. The king turned to his daughter at once. Come, Savitri, go and choose another for your lord, beautiful girl. This one great defect covers all his merits. Narada, whom even the gods honor, says that Satyavan’s days are numbered and that within a year he will lay down his body. What Savitri said in reply is the sentence the whole story is built on, and she said it standing in her father’s court in front of the sage who had just pronounced her husband’s death. Death falls only once, she said. A daughter is given away only once. And only once can a person say, I give. These three things happen once. Short life or long, with virtues or without them, I have chosen my husband once; I will not choose twice. A thing is first settled in the mind, then spoken in words, then carried into practice. My mind is the proof of that. And Narada, who had called her choice a great wrong a moment earlier, reversed himself completely. Best of men, he said, your daughter’s heart does not waver, and nothing will move her from this path of virtue; and the virtues that live in Satyavan are found in no one else. I approve the giving of your daughter. The king said that Narada’s words could never be disobeyed because they were true, and that he would act on them as on a teacher’s; Narada blessed the wedding, wished them all well, rose into the sky, and went to heaven. And the king began to prepare for his daughter’s marriage.

A key to reading this (names): The Krishna who “delivered us” in Yudhishthira’s question is Draupadi, whose given name is Krishna, “the dark one,” and who is the reason he asks. The goddess Savitri is the deity of the Savitri mantra (better known as the Gayatri), which Ashvapati recited with his oblations; the girl carries the goddess’s name because the goddess gave her. The Malava princess is Ashvapati’s chief queen, whom the story later names Malavi. Rantideva, Shibi, and Yayati are kings whose stories Markandeya has already told earlier in the Vana Parva; Narada measures Satyavan against them. Both Ashvapati and Dyumatsena are called royal sages, kings who live as ascetics live.

The gist: Yudhishthira asks whether any woman ever equaled Draupadi, and Markandeya answers with Savitri. A childless Madra king pours oblations for eighteen years; the goddess who rises from his fire gives him a daughter instead of the sons he asked for. No suitor dares approach the girl, so her father sends her to find her own husband, and she comes back having chosen Satyavan, the son of a blind, exiled king. Narada lists the boy’s every virtue and then his single flaw, that he will die within the year, and Savitri answers that a daughter is given once.

A wedding under a shala tree, a queen in bark cloth, and the morning Savitri had counted her way to

Ashvapati took Narada’s words as instructions and went to work on the wedding. He called together the old Brahmins, the officiating priests, and the household priests, chose an auspicious day, and set out with his daughter for the forest. When they reached Dyumatsena’s hermitage in the sacred wood, the king of the Madras got down and approached the royal sage on foot, with the twice-born around him, and found the blind king seated on a cushion of kusha grass spread under a shala tree, wise and composed and stripped of everything. Ashvapati bowed to him and introduced himself humbly, and Dyumatsena, who had no kingdom, still had the manners of one: he offered his royal guest the arghya, a seat, and a cow, and asked what had brought him. Ashvapati laid out his purpose without ornament. Royal sage, this beautiful girl is my daughter, Savitri. You who know the moral law, take her from me according to the custom of our order, as your daughter-in-law. The blind king’s answer was the answer of a man who had learned to distrust good fortune. We have lost our kingdom, he said, and we live in the woods as ascetics under a regulated life, practicing virtue. Your daughter is not fit for a forest life. How will she bear this hardship, living in a hermitage in the wilderness? Ashvapati refused to let the objection stand. When my daughter knows, as I know, that happiness and misery come and go and neither of them stays, he said, words like these should not be used to a man like me. I have made up my mind, king, and I have come. I have bowed to you out of friendship; you should not destroy my hope, and you should not disregard a man who has come to you moved by love. You are my equal and fit for an alliance with me, as I am your equal and fit for one with you. Accept my daughter as your daughter-in-law and as the wife of the good Satyavan. And Dyumatsena, given a way to say yes, took it gladly. I once wished for an alliance with you, he said, and hesitated only because I had lost my kingdom afterward. Let that old wish be fulfilled today. You are a welcome guest.

The two kings summoned all the twice-born who lived in the hermitages of that forest and had the marriage performed with the proper rites, and Ashvapati, having given his daughter away with robes and ornaments suited to her rank, went home in great joy. Satyavan had gained a wife with every accomplishment, and Savitri had gained the husband her own heart had picked, and the story lets both of them be glad for a moment before it shows what Savitri did next. As soon as her father had gone she took off all her ornaments and dressed in bark and in cloth dyed red. She had married into a hermitage and she meant to live in one. By her service and her virtues, by her tenderness and her self-denial, by the way she made herself agreeable to everyone, she pleased the whole settlement. She pleased her mother-in-law by tending to her person and by keeping her dressed and adorned; she pleased her father-in-law by worshiping him as a god and by governing her speech; and she pleased her husband by her sweet words, her skill in every kind of work, the evenness of her temper, and the signs of her love when they were alone. So they lived among the pious forest-dwellers for a time, practicing austerities. And all that time, day and night, Narada’s words were present in the mind of the sorrowing Savitri, who told no one what she was carrying.

At last the long time passed and the hour appointed for Satyavan’s death arrived. Because Narada’s sentence had never left her, Savitri had counted every day as it went by, and when she reckoned that her husband would die on the fourth day from that one, she undertook the triratra vow and fasted day and night. Dyumatsena heard of it and was deeply grieved. He rose and tried to soothe her. This vow you have begun, princess, is exceedingly hard; to fast for three nights together is a very difficult thing. Do not be sorry, father, she said. I will be able to keep this vow. I have undertaken it with perseverance, and perseverance is what carries a vow through. The blind king heard something in her voice that stopped him. I cannot say to you, break your vow, he said. A man like me must say the opposite: complete it. And he said nothing more. Savitri went on fasting until she looked like a wooden doll, and on the third night, knowing her husband would die in the morning, she lay awake in extreme anguish. When the sun had risen about two hands’ breadth above the horizon she said to herself, today is that day, finished her morning rites, poured oblations into the blazing fire, bowed to the old Brahmins and to her father-in-law and mother-in-law, and stood before them with her hands joined and her senses gathered inward. All the ascetics of the hermitage pronounced the blessing they would have pronounced on any young wife on any morning: may she never suffer widowhood. Savitri, deep in her own concentration, received the words and answered them silently, so be it, and went on waiting for the hour and the moment, with Narada’s words moving under everything she did.

Her father-in-law and mother-in-law, pleased with her, came to where she sat in a corner and said what any parents would say. You have completed the vow as prescribed. The time for your meal has come; do what is proper. And she declined. Now that the vow I resolved on is complete, she said, I will eat when the sun goes down. Such is my heart’s resolve, and such my vow. She was still saying it when Satyavan shouldered his axe and set out for the woods to gather fruit and firewood, exactly as he had done on a hundred other mornings, and Savitri, who knew what morning it was, moved at once. You should not go alone, she told him. I will come with you; I cannot bear to be separated from you. Satyavan gave the reasonable objections of a man who knows nothing. You have never gone into the forest before, he said, and the forest paths are hard, and you are weak from fasting for your vow; how will you walk? I feel no weakness from the fast and no exhaustion, she said, and I have made up my mind to go. Do not stop me. He gave way, on one condition: if you want to go, I will grant your wish, but take my parents’ permission, so that no fault falls on me. So Savitri, who had never asked for anything, went to her father-in-law and mother-in-law and asked. My husband is going to the forest for fruit. With the permission of my revered mother and my father-in-law I will go with him, because today I cannot bear to be parted from him. Your son goes for the sake of the sacrificial fire and for his elders, so he should not be dissuaded; if he went on any other errand he could be. Do not prevent me. It is a little less than a year that I have not left the hermitage, and I am very eager to see the flowering woods. Dyumatsena’s answer was a father’s. Since her father gave Savitri to me as my daughter-in-law, he said, I do not remember her ever speaking a word that carried a request. Let my daughter-in-law have her will in this. Only, daughter, act so that Satyavan’s work is not neglected.

With permission from both, the illustrious Savitri went out with her lord, smiling, while her heart was being torn apart. The woods were lovely and full of peacocks, and Satyavan, who was happy, kept pointing things out to her in his sweet voice: look at these rivers with their sacred currents, look at these fine trees covered in flowers. And Savitri looked at none of it. She watched her husband, in every mood and every movement, and because she remembered what the celestial sage had said, she was already seeing him as a dead man while he walked ahead of her talking about flowers. With her heart cleft in two she answered him softly and followed him, waiting for the hour.

A key to reading this (the vow and the customs): The triratra vow is a complete fast of three nights; Savitri takes it so that it ends on the morning of the appointed day, and then extends it on her own until sunset. The arghya, a seat, and a cow are the three traditional offerings to an honored guest, which the blind and landless Dyumatsena still keeps up in his hermitage. Savitri’s taking off her jewels for bark and red-dyed cloth is, in Vyasa’s telling, her first test, long before she meets Yama. Satyavan’s errand, wood for the sacrificial fire, is the reason Dyumatsena will not have him held back.

The gist: Ashvapati goes on foot to the blind king’s hermitage and asks for his son; the marriage is performed under a shala tree. Savitri puts off her ornaments and lives as an ascetic’s wife, pleasing everyone and telling no one what Narada said. When her count reaches the fourth day before the death she fasts for three nights, and on the morning itself she asks, for the first time in her marriage, for something: to walk into the forest behind a husband who is pointing out flowers.

A life the size of a thumb, Yama with the noose in his hand, and the friendship of seven steps: Savitri’s five boons

Satyavan gathered fruit with his wife beside him and filled his wallet, and then he began to cut branches. The work made him sweat, and the sweat turned into a headache, and the headache into something worse, and he came to Savitri like a man apologizing. Savitri, from this hard work my head aches, he said, and all my limbs and my heart are sorely afflicted. I think I am unwell, you of the restrained speech; it is as if my head were being pierced with many darts. I want to sleep, good lady. I have no strength to stand. She came to him quickly, sat down on the ground, and took his head into her lap, and while he lay there she did the only thing left to do. She reckoned the division of the day, the hour, and the moment, against what Narada had told her. And in the next moment she saw a man standing beside her husband. He wore red. A diadem was on his head. His body was huge and bright as the sun, his complexion dark, his eyes red, and he carried a noose in his hand, and he was terrible to look at, and he was gazing steadily at Satyavan and at nothing else. Savitri laid her husband’s head gently on the ground and stood up with her heart shaking. Seeing this superhuman form of yours, she said, I take you for a god. If you are willing, chief of the gods, tell me who you are and what you intend. The figure answered her by name. Savitri, you are ever devoted to your husband, and you have the merit of austerities; that is why I am speaking with you. Know me for Yama. This lord of yours, Satyavan, the son of a king, has run out his days. I am going to bind him in this noose and take him away. That is my errand. She asked the question a trained mind asks first. I had heard, worshipful one, that your emissaries come for mortals. Why have you come in person? And the lord of the ancestors, wanting to oblige her, told her the truth. This prince has virtue and beauty and is a sea of accomplishments. He does not deserve to be carried off by my messengers. So I came myself. Then Yama pulled out of Satyavan’s body, by main force, a person the size of a thumb, bound in the noose and wholly subdued, and the body that was left behind, without breath, without luster, without motion, became an ugly thing to look at. Yama turned south with the bound life and walked. And Savitri, her heart drowned in grief, her vows fulfilled, devoted to her lord, walked after him.

Yama noticed her at once and told her to stop. Desist, Savitri. Go back and perform your husband’s funeral rites. You are freed from all your obligations to him. You have come as far as it is possible to come. She did not stop, and she did not argue about the noose. Wherever my husband is being carried, she said, or wherever he goes of his own will, I will follow him. That is the eternal custom. By my austerities, my regard for my elders, my love for my lord, my keeping of vows, and by your own favor, my way is unobstructed. The wise who possess true knowledge have declared that walking seven steps with another person makes a friendship. Keeping in view the friendship I have now contracted with you, I will say something; listen. Those whose souls are not under control gain no merit from passing through the four modes of life, celibacy with study, householding, retirement to the woods, and renunciation. What is called religious merit consists in true knowledge. The wise have therefore placed merit above everything, above the passage through the four modes. By practicing the duties of even one of those four according to the directions of the wise, we have attained true merit, and we do not desire the second or the third. That is why the wise have said that merit is the foremost of all things. Yama listened to a lecture on dharma from a woman following him into the south, and it pleased him. Desist, he said. I am pleased with these words of yours, in their proper letters and accents and grounded in reason. Ask a boon. Except your husband’s life, faultless one, I will give you any boon you ask. She asked for someone else. My father-in-law, deprived of his kingdom and of his sight, lives a life of retirement in our forest hermitage. By your favor let that king regain his eyes and become strong as fire or the sun. Granted, said Yama, it will be as you have said; and you seem tired from your journey, so desist and go back, and do not wear yourself out any longer. Savitri’s answer was that she felt no weariness in her husband’s presence, that her husband’s lot was hers, and that wherever Yama carried him she would go too. And she gave him another reason to keep listening. Even a single meeting with the pious is greatly to be desired, and friendship with them still more; the company of the virtuous is never fruitless. So one should live with the righteous. Yama said that words so full of useful instruction delighted the heart and increased the wisdom even of the learned, and told her to ask a second boon, except Satyavan’s life. She asked for the kingdom. Some time ago my wise father-in-law lost his kingdom. Let him regain it, and let my elder never fall away from his duties. The king will soon have his kingdom back, said Yama, and will never fall from his duties. I have fulfilled your desire, princess. Now desist. Return. Take no further trouble.

She kept walking, and each time she spoke she began with him. You have restrained all creatures by your decrees, she said, and by your decrees you take them away, and never according to your own will; that is why people call you Yama, the restrainer. Listen. The eternal duty of the good toward all creatures is never to injure them in thought, word, or deed, and to bear them love and give them their due. As for this world, everything in it is like this husband of mine. Men lack both devotion and skill. The good, though, show mercy even to their enemies when those enemies seek their protection. As water to a thirsty soul, Yama said, so are these words of yours to me; ask again, fair lady, any boon except Satyavan’s life. She asked for her father. That lord of the earth, my father, has no sons. Let a hundred sons be begotten of his loins, so that his line continues; that is my third boon. Your father will have a hundred illustrious sons, said Yama, who will carry on and increase his race. Now, princess, you have your wish. Desist; you have come far enough. Beside my husband, she said, I am not conscious of how far I have walked, and my mind runs on to a longer road still. Hear me again as you go. You are the mighty son of Vivasvat, and that is why the wise call you Vaivasvata; and because you deal out an equal law to all created things you are called the lord of justice. A man does not place even in himself the confidence he places in the righteous; that is why everyone wants intimacy with the righteous. Goodness of heart alone inspires the confidence of every creature, and for that reason people rely on the righteous above all. What you say, fair lady, Yama answered, I have heard from no one but you, and I am highly pleased with it. Except the life of Satyavan, ask a fourth boon and then go your way. And this time she asked for herself, and the request had a hook in it that the god did not see. From my loins and Satyavan’s, begotten by both of us, let there be a hundred sons with strength and prowess, able to perpetuate our line. That is my fourth boon. You shall have a hundred sons, said Yama, strong and valiant, a great delight to you, daughter of a king. Let there be no more weariness for you. Desist; you have come too far already.

She answered with the longest speech of the walk, and it was about the righteous: that they always practice the eternal morality, that their communion with one another is never fruitless, that there is no danger to the pious from the pious, that it is the righteous who by their truth make the sun move in heaven and by their austerities hold up the earth, that past and future both depend on them, that they do good to others without expecting any return, that a good office is never thrown away on the good, and that because this conduct always adheres to them the righteous become the protectors of all. Yama’s respect had grown with every sentence, and now he said so. The more you speak such words, weighty and honeyed and moral and pleasing to the mind, the more respect I feel for you. You who are so devoted to your lord, ask an incomparable boon. He had not said, except Satyavan’s life. Savitri had noticed. Bestower of honors, she said, the boon you have already given me cannot be accomplished without union with my husband. Therefore, among the other boons, I ask this one: let this Satyavan be restored to life. Deprived of my husband I am as one dead. Without my husband I do not want happiness. Without my husband I do not want heaven itself. Without my husband I do not want prosperity. Without my husband I cannot make up my mind to live. You yourself have given me the boon of a hundred sons, and yet you are taking away my husband. I ask for this boon, that Satyavan be restored to life, because by that your own words will be made true. Yama, the son of Vivasvat, the dispenser of justice, said, so be it, and untied his noose, and he said it cheerfully. Thus, auspicious and chaste lady, your husband is freed by me. You will take him back free of disease, and he will attain success. With you he will live four hundred years, and celebrating sacrifices with the proper rites he will win great fame in this world, and on you he will beget a hundred sons, Kshatriyas who with their sons and grandsons will all be kings and will always be known in connection with your name. And your father will beget a hundred sons on your mother Malavi, and under the name of the Malavas those brothers of yours, like gods, will be widely known with their sons and daughters. Having given her these boons and, at last, made her turn back, Yama went to his own abode.

Savitri went back to where the ash-colored body lay, sat down on the ground, and took the head into her lap again, and Satyavan came back to himself. He looked at her again and again with affection, like a man come home from a strange country, and said: I have slept a long time. Why did you not wake me? And where is that dark person who was dragging me away? You slept long on my lap, bull among men, she said. The worshipful Yama, restrainer of creatures, has gone away. You are refreshed, blessed one, and sleep has left you. If you are able, rise, son of a king. Look, the night is deep. He got up like a man who had enjoyed a sweet sleep, saw forest on every side, and tried to assemble what had happened: the fruit, the wood-cutting, the pain in his head, lying down in her lap, the darkness, and in the darkness a person of surpassing brightness. If you know everything, slender-waisted one, tell me whether what I saw was a dream or real. She would not tell him, and she gave a reason that was also true. The night deepens, prince; I will tell you everything tomorrow. Rise, rise, and go and see your parents. The sun set long ago, the night-rangers with their dreadful voices are out and glad, the forest creatures can be heard moving, and these terrible shrieks of jackals from the south and the east make my heart tremble. He said the wilderness was covered in darkness and she would not be able to make out the track; she said a forest fire had left a withered tree burning and she could fetch fire and light faggots around them, and that if he was too unwell to walk they could spend the night where they were and leave when the woods became visible. And then Satyavan, who a moment earlier could not stand, found that the pain was gone and that all he could think about was two old blind people waiting in a hermitage. Never before, he said, have I come back after the proper time; even before twilight my mother keeps me inside; even when I go out by day my parents are anxious, and my father searches for me with everyone in the settlement, and they have scolded me many times for coming late. Think what they must be going through tonight. Only the other night the two of them, who love me dearly, wept and said, we cannot live a moment without you, son; while you live we live; you are the staff of these blind ones, and on you depend our line, our funeral cake, our fame, our descendants. My mother is old and my father is old and I am their staff. If they do not see me tonight, what will become of them? I hate the sleep for whose sake my innocent mother and father are in trouble and I myself am in this rending distress. I cannot live without them. By now my blind father, his mind broken with grief, is asking every hermit about me. I do not grieve so much for myself as for him and for my weak mother, always obedient to her lord. I hold my life only as long as they live. He raised his arms and lamented, and Savitri wiped the tears from his eyes and made a vow of her own. If I have practiced austerities, given in charity, and performed sacrifice, may this night be for the good of my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, and my husband. I do not remember telling a single lie, even in jest. By that truth let my father-in-law and mother-in-law keep their lives. Satyavan swore by himself that if he found any evil had befallen his parents he would not live, and begged her, by her regard for virtue and by her wish for his life, to go. So Savitri stood up, tied back her hair, and lifted her husband to his feet. He rubbed his limbs, looked around, and saw his wallet, and she told him he could gather fruit tomorrow and that she would carry his axe. She hung the wallet on a branch, took the axe, put his left arm over her left shoulder, held him with her right, and walked with the gait of an elephant. And Satyavan, walking, found the forest paths coming back to him. I know these paths by habit, timid one, he said, and by the moonlight between the trees I can see them. This is the path we took in the morning for the fruit. Go the way we came, auspicious one, and doubt the road no more. Near that stretch overgrown with palasha trees the way forks; take the northern branch. I am well now and my strength has come back. I long to see my father and mother. And he hurried toward the hermitage.

A key to reading this (Yama and the boons): In Vyasa’s telling Yama comes in person and explains why: Satyavan is too good to be fetched by messengers. The life is “a person the size of a thumb,” drawn out of the body and tied in the noose, the same image the Upanishads use for the self within the heart. Each boon reaches further than the last: the father-in-law’s eyes, his kingdom, a hundred sons for her father, a hundred sons for herself, and then the argument that closes on Yama, that the fourth boon is impossible without the husband; and Yama’s own fifth invitation, for once, leaves out the words “except Satyavan’s life.” The “friendship of seven steps” is the rule behind the seven steps of a Hindu wedding. Vaivasvata, son of Vivasvat the sun, and Dharmaraja, the lord of justice, are two of Yama’s names, and Savitri explains both to him.

The gist: Satyavan’s head aches while he cuts wood, he sleeps in Savitri’s lap, and Yama himself, in red, draws out his thumb-sized life and walks south with it. Savitri follows, and every time she is told to turn back she says something new about dharma; four boons are granted one by one, and on the fifth her logic closes the trap and the noose is untied. Satyavan wakes with four hundred years ahead of him, weeps for his blind parents, and walks home leaning on his wife’s shoulder in the moonlight, with the fork at the palasha trees and the northern path ahead.

Sight returns, the son returns, the kingdom returns: Savitri’s account by the night fire

While Savitri was walking behind Yama through the forest, something was happening in the hermitage that no one there could explain. Dyumatsena’s eyes opened. The blindness that had cost him his throne and his years simply lifted, and as the blur cleared he saw, for the first time in a long while, the thatch above him, the fire pit, the faces of the ascetics, his wife Shaivya. And with that new sight he looked for the one thing he most wanted to see and could not find it. His son was gone. He took Shaivya and went from hermitage to hermitage asking for Satyavan, and the longer they searched the more frightened the old man became. All that night the two of them wandered, among the asylums, along the rivers, into the woods and down to the floods, and at every sound they stopped and lifted their heads and said to each other, there, that will be Satyavan coming with Savitri. They ran about like people out of their minds. Their feet split and bled; thorns and the sharp blades of kusha grass tore them and they did not notice. At last the Brahmins of the hermitage came out and closed round them and coaxed them home, and there, surrounded by the old ascetics, the king and queen were kept company with stories of kings of former times. It helped a little and it did not help at all. Whenever they remembered their son as a boy the grief came back, and they wept aloud: son, where are you? Chaste daughter-in-law, where are you?

What answered them was a chorus, and Markandeya gives it voice by voice, as if the hermitage were a court and each sage a witness swearing to the same fact. A truthful Brahmin named Suvarchas spoke first: considering the austerities, the self-restraint, and the conduct of his wife Savitri, there can be no doubt that Satyavan lives. Gautama spoke next, and laid out his credentials before his verdict, because the verdict rested on them: I have studied all the Vedas with their branches; I have earned great ascetic merit; I have lived celibate and kept the discipline of a student; I have satisfied Agni and my elders; with concentrated mind I have kept all the vows and, according to the rule, I have often lived on air alone. By virtue of that merit I know what other people are doing. Take it as certain that Satyavan lives. His disciple added that a word from his preceptor’s lips could never be false, so Satyavan surely lived. Another rishi pointed to the auspicious marks on Savitri’s body, every one of them a sign that she would never be a widow. Bharadvaja repeated the argument from her merit and her conduct. Dalbhya reasoned from the evidence in the room: you have got your sight back, and Savitri went out after finishing her vow without taking food, so Satyavan lives. Apastamba reasoned from the forest itself: listen to how the birds and the wild animals are calling on every side through the still air, and remember that your eyes have been given back to you, which means you are wanted in the world again; Satyavan lives. And Dhaumya, last, reasoned from the boy: your son has every virtue, everyone loves him, and he carries the marks of a long life. Satyavan lives. Cheered by so many truthful men, Dyumatsena turned their arguments over and found a little peace in them.

He did not have to wait long. Some time in the night Savitri came into the hermitage with her husband beside her, and her heart was light. The Brahmins spoke before anyone else could. Seeing you reunited with your son, lord of the earth, and seeing your sight restored, we all wish you well; a meeting with your son, the sight of your daughter-in-law, and the return of your eyes make three fortunes you have gained in one night. What we said must come true, and there is no doubt of it: from now on your prosperity will grow fast. They lit a fire and sat down before the king, and Shaivya, Satyavan, and Savitri, who had been standing apart with the grief gone out of them, sat down with everyone’s leave. Then curiosity, which is as strong in ascetics as in anyone, got the better of the company, and they turned on the prince. Illustrious one, why did you not come back earlier with your wife? Why so late in the night? What held you? We do not understand, son of a king, why you frightened us and your father and mother this way; you owe us the whole story. Satyavan told them what he knew, and it was almost nothing. With my father’s permission I went to the woods with Savitri. While I was cutting wood I felt a pain in my head, and from the pain I fell into a deep sleep. That is all I remember. I have never slept so long before. I came back so late in the night only so that you would not grieve for me. There is no other reason.

Gautama saw the shape of the thing at once. Then you do not know, he said, why your father’s sight came back so suddenly. Savitri should tell it. I want to hear it from you, Savitri, for you know the mysteries of good and evil, and I know you to be like the goddess Savitri herself in splendor. You must know the cause of this; tell it truly, and if it need not be kept secret, open it to us. She did not make them wait. It is as you suppose, she said, and your wish will not go unanswered; I have no secret to keep. Hear the truth. The high-souled Narada had foretold my husband’s death, and today was the appointed day. I could not bear to be parted from him, and after he had fallen asleep Yama came with his messengers, bound him, and began to lead him toward the region of the fathers. I praised that august god with true words, and he granted me five boons; hear what they were. For my father-in-law I obtained two: his sight, and his kingdom. My father has obtained a hundred sons. I myself have obtained a hundred sons. And my husband Satyavan has obtained a life of four hundred years. It was for my husband’s life that I kept the vow. So I have told you in full how this great misfortune of mine was turned afterward into happiness. The rishis answered her the way a court answers a verdict it has already reached. Chaste lady of excellent disposition, keeper of vows, virtuous, born of an illustrious line, by you the house of this foremost of kings, which was overwhelmed with calamity and sinking in an ocean of darkness, has been rescued. They praised her, they reverenced her, they took leave of the king and his son, and they went home to their several hermitages at peace and glad at heart.

The rest came with the daylight. When the sun rose and the ascetics had done their morning rites they gathered again, and they could not stop telling Dyumatsena about Savitri’s good fortune; however often they said it, it was not enough. And that day a large body of people arrived at the hermitage from Shalva with news. Dyumatsena’s enemy, the usurper who had taken his throne while he was blind, had been killed by his own minister, along with his friends and allies; the usurper’s troops had scattered; and the subjects had come to a single mind about their lawful king. Sighted or blind, they had said, he shall be our king. We were sent to you by that resolve, the envoys told him. Here is your chariot, and here is your army of four kinds of forces, come for you. Good fortune to you, king; come. You have been proclaimed in the city. Take up for good the station of your father and your grandfather. Then they saw that the king had his eyes and his strength, and they bowed their heads with their eyes wide. Dyumatsena worshiped the old Brahmins of the hermitage and was honored by them in return, and set out for his city with the soldiers around him. Shaivya, with Savitri beside her, followed in a litter hung with shining cloth and carried on men’s shoulders. The priests, rejoicing, installed Dyumatsena on the throne, with his high-souled son as prince regent beside him. And after a long time Savitri gave birth to a hundred sons, all of them warriors who never turned back in battle, who raised the fame of Shalva’s line; and a hundred mighty brothers of her own blood were born to Ashvapati, lord of the Madras, by Malavi. So, Markandeya told Yudhishthira, did Savitri raise herself, her father and mother, her father-in-law and mother-in-law, and her husband’s whole house from a pitiable condition to high fortune. And like that gentle Savitri, he said, the auspicious daughter of Drupada, of excellent character, will rescue all of you. Vaishampayana closes the story where the sage closed it: exhorted this way, the son of Pandu went on living in the Kamyaka forest with his mind at ease, and whoever listens with reverence to the excellent story of Savitri attains happiness and success in everything, and never meets with misery.

A key to reading this (names and the count of boons): Shaivya is Dyumatsena’s queen and Satyavan’s mother; Malavi is Ashvapati’s queen and Savitri’s mother. The sages who swear one after another that Satyavan lives are named in the source as Suvarchas, Gautama and his disciple, an unnamed rishi, Bharadvaja, Dalbhya, Apastamba, and Dhaumya; this Dhaumya is a forest ascetic, a different man from the Pandavas’ priest of the same name. Savitri counts her boons from Yama as five: her father-in-law’s sight, his kingdom, a hundred sons for her father, a hundred sons for herself, and her husband’s life, which the text fixes at four hundred years. The last sentence of the story belongs to Markandeya and explains why he told it: Yudhishthira had asked whether any woman ever matched Draupadi’s devotion, and the answer is a promise that Draupadi, too, will bring her husbands through.

The gist: On the night Savitri follows Yama, her blind father-in-law’s eyes open in the hermitage, and he and his wife run bleeding through the thorns looking for the son who has not come home. Seven sages swear in turn that Satyavan lives, and past midnight the couple walks in. Satyavan remembers only a headache and a sleep; it is Savitri who tells the whole night and counts the five boons. In the morning envoys arrive from Shalva: the usurper is dead, and the people will have their king back with or without his eyes. Dyumatsena is enthroned, Satyavan made regent, and a hundred sons are born to Savitri. Markandeya’s last word to Yudhishthira is the point of the whole tale: Draupadi will save you the same way.

Yudhishthira’s hidden fear, and the Sun in a Brahmin’s shape in Karna’s dream: do not give the earrings

The Savitri story ends, and before Vaishampayana can go on, Janamejaya stops him with a question that has been waiting since the pilgrimage. What was that great fear, Brahmin, that Yudhishthira had on account of Karna, the one Lomasha meant when he brought the son of Pandu that message of deep import from Indra: the intense fear you never speak of to anyone, I will remove after Dhananjaya has gone from here? And why, best of ascetics, did the virtuous Yudhishthira never say it aloud to anyone? It is a good question, because the fear is the hinge of the whole war and the king has carried it in silence for twelve years. Vaishampayana answers it with a history. Since you ask, tiger among kings, I will tell it; listen, best of the Bharatas. When twelve years of the exile had passed and the thirteenth had set in, Shakra, who was always the friend of the sons of Pandu, resolved to beg Karna for his earrings. And Surya, whose wealth is his own radiance, learned what the chief of the gods intended and went to Karna. That hero, devoted to Brahmins and truthful in speech, was lying at night on a rich bed spread with a costly sheet, at his ease, and the radiant god, full of kindness and affection for his son, showed himself to him in his sleep. By his ascetic power he took the form of a handsome Brahmin learned in the Vedas, and in that shape, gently, for Karna’s good, he spoke.

Son, he said, listen to me, Karna, foremost of truthful men. Mighty-armed one, I tell you today out of affection what is greatly for your good. Shakra, wanting to help the sons of Pandu, will come to you disguised as a Brahmin to get your earrings. He knows, as all the world knows, what you are: that when pious men ask, you give and never take. You give Brahmins wealth or whatever else they ask, and you refuse nothing to anyone. Knowing this, the subduer of Paka himself will come to beg your earrings and your coat of mail. When he asks for the earrings you must not give them; satisfy him with sweet speech as best you can. That is your highest good. Refuse Purandara again and again with reasons of every kind, offer him other wealth instead, gems and women and cattle, cite precedents. If you give away the beautiful earrings you were born with, Karna, your life will be cut short and you will meet your death. Wearing your mail and your earrings, bestower of honors, you cannot be killed by any enemy in battle. Take these words to heart. Both of those jeweled ornaments were born from amrita, and if your life is worth anything to you, keep them.

Karna’s first question was the natural one. Who are you, he asked, that you show me such kindness and tell me this? If it pleases you, illustrious one, tell me who you are in this Brahmin’s guise. Son, said the Brahmin, I am he of the thousand rays. Out of affection I am showing you the road. Do as I say; it is greatly for your good. And Karna, who now knew that the god he prayed to every morning was standing in his dream, did the thing that made him Karna: he thanked the god and refused him. This alone is great fortune for me, he said, that the lord of splendor himself speaks to me today for my welfare. But hear my words too. Be gracious, giver of boons; it is out of love that I say this. If I am dear to you, do not turn me from my vow. Lord of radiance, the whole world knows that my vow is this: to the best of Brahmins I am ready to give my very life. If Shakra comes to me disguised as a Brahmin, foremost of those who range the sky, to beg for the sake of the sons of Pandu, I will give him the earrings and the excellent mail, so that my fame, which has spread across the three worlds, may suffer no loss. For men like me it is not fitting to save life by a blameworthy act; it is fitting instead to meet death with the world’s approval and in circumstances that bring fame. So I will give Indra the earrings with the coat of mail. If the slayer of Vala and Vritra himself comes to ask for the earrings for the Pandavas’ sake, that will be my glory and his disgrace. I want fame in this world, radiant one, even at the price of life, for those who have fame enjoy the celestial regions, and those without it are lost. Fame keeps people alive in this world like a mother; infamy kills a man though his body walks about unharmed. That fame is a man’s life is proved by an ancient verse the Creator himself sang: in the next world fame is a person’s chief support, and in this world pure fame lengthens life. So by giving away the earrings and the mail I was born with, I will win eternal fame. By giving to Brahmins according to the rule, by offering my body in the sacrifice of war, by doing what is hard to do and conquering my enemies in the field, I will earn nothing but renown. By driving off, on the battlefield, the fear of the frightened who beg for their lives, and freeing old men and boys and Brahmins from terror, I will win excellent fame and the highest heaven. My fame is to be protected even at the cost of my life. Know that this is my vow. By giving so great a gift to Maghavan in a Brahmin’s disguise, I will reach, god, the most exalted state in this world.

The Sun did not argue with the vow. He argued with the arithmetic of it, and he did so as a father does, with the one fact he could not say kept behind his teeth. Never do anything, Karna, that harms yourself and your friends, your sons, your wives, your father and your mother. Best of living men, people want renown here and lasting fame in heaven, and they want it without giving up their bodies. You want undying fame at the cost of your life, and she will surely take your life. In this world a father, a mother, a son, and the other relations are of use only to a man who is alive; for kings, tiger among men, prowess is useful only while they live. Understand this. Fame is for the good of the living. What use is fame to the dead, whose bodies have been burned to ash? A dead man cannot enjoy renown; only a living man can. The fame of the dead is a garland of flowers around the neck of a corpse. Because you revere me I tell you this for your good, for you are my worshiper, and those who worship me I always protect; that is another reason I am speaking to you. And thinking, this one reveres me with great reverence, I have come to love you. So do as I say. There is, besides, some profound mystery in all this, ordained by fate; that is why I tell you what I tell you. Act without mistrust of any kind. It is not fit for you to know this thing, which is a secret from the very gods, and so I do not reveal it. In time you will understand it. I repeat what I have said: son of Radha, take my words to heart. When the wielder of the thunderbolt asks for your earrings, never give them. You are beautiful in them, radiant one, like the Moon in a clear sky between the stars of Vishakha. Do you understand that fame serves only the living? So when the lord of the gods asks for the earrings, refuse him, son. Answer him over and over with reasons of every kind, sinless one, and you will be able to wear down his eagerness for them; turn Purandara’s purpose with replies full of reason and grave meaning, adorned with sweetness and courtesy. You are always challenging the man who draws the bow with his left hand, tiger among men, and heroic Arjuna will surely meet you in the fight. But wearing your earrings you can never be beaten by Arjuna in battle, even if Indra himself comes to his aid. So, Karna, if you want to defeat Arjuna, these beautiful earrings of yours must never go to Shakra.

A key to reading this (how the pieces connect): This episode does not grow out of the Savitri story; it opens with a question from Janamejaya, and Vaishampayana tells it in his own voice. The message from Indra that Lomasha carried to Yudhishthira in the Kamyaka forest, before the pilgrimage began, was that the fear the king never spoke of would be lifted once Arjuna had gone to heaven; that fear is Karna’s armor and earrings, born from amrita, which make him impossible to kill. Shakra, Purandara, Maghavan, the wielder of the thunderbolt, the subduer of Paka, and the slayer of Vala and Vritra are all Indra. He of the thousand rays is Surya. Surya calls Karna “son,” and Karna does not yet know that this is the literal truth; that is the secret the god says is hidden even from the gods. The man who draws the bow with his left hand is Arjuna, Savyasachi.

The gist: Janamejaya asks what secret fear Yudhishthira carried, and Vaishampayana takes the story to a night at the start of the thirteenth year. Indra has decided to beg Karna’s earrings for the Pandavas’ sake; Surya, knowing it, enters Karna’s dream as a Brahmin and warns him: Indra will come disguised, do not give the earrings and the mail, for while you wear them you cannot be killed. Karna answers that his vow is to refuse a Brahmin nothing, and that fame outweighs life. Surya presses him again: a dead man’s fame is a garland on a corpse, there is a mystery here hidden even from the gods, and with the earrings on, Arjuna cannot beat you even with Indra’s help. Karna’s reply comes in the next scene.

Surya’s condition, and an irritable guest in Kuntibhoja’s house: the Brahmin who was given Pritha

Karna answered the sun a second time, and the answer had not changed. Lord of splendor, he said, you know me for your worshiper, and so you know that there is nothing I cannot give away. My wives, my sons, my own body, my friends, none of them is as dear to me as you are, and you know as well that the great-souled hold their devoted worshipers in affection. Karna reveres me, Karna is dear to me, Karna knows no other god in heaven: that is the thought that made you tell me what is good for me. And still I bow my head to you again, I place myself in your hands again, and I give you the same answer I gave before. Forgive me. Death does not frighten me the way a lie does, and for the Brahmins in particular I would not hesitate to give up my life. As for what you said about Phalguna, the son of Pandu, let that grief of yours, born of a heart’s anxiety over him and me, be gone. I will beat Arjuna in battle. You know that I hold great strength in weapons, from Jamadagni’s son and from the high-souled Drona. Permit me, first of the gods, to keep my vow, so that when the wielder of the thunderbolt comes to beg from me I can give him even my life. The sun had tried warning, and warning had failed. So Surya did what a father does when a son will not be moved: he found the one door that was still open inside the son’s refusal. If you are going to give your earrings to the thunder-wielder, he said, then at least do this for the sake of victory. Say to him: god of a hundred sacrifices, I will give you the earrings on one condition. Wearing them, no creature can kill you. That is exactly why the destroyer of the Danavas wants them off you: he wants to see you fall to Arjuna. So honor Purandara, whose weapons never fail, with truthful words, over and over, and then ask him this: give me an infallible dart that kills all enemies, and I will give you the earrings and the excellent mail. On that condition give them to Shakra. With that dart, Karna, you will kill enemies in battle. The dart of the king of the gods does not come back to the hand that throws it without killing enemies by hundreds and by thousands.

Having said this, the thousand-rayed god vanished. The next morning, after his prayers, Karna told the sun what he had dreamed; Vrisha laid out the whole vision and everything that had passed between them in the night. And Surya, the enemy of Svarbhanu, the resplendent lord, heard it all and said with a smile: it is even so. From that day Radha’s son, knowing everything, wanting the dart, waited for Vasava to come. Here Janamejaya, who had been listening to Vaishampayana tell the story of his ancestors, stopped him. What was the secret, he asked, that the warm-rayed god did not reveal to Karna? What kind of earrings were those, what sort of coat of mail, and where did the mail and the earrings come from? Tell me all of it. Vaishampayana agreed, and the story he told went back a generation, to a king’s house and a girl who was not yet anyone’s mother. Once, king, there appeared before Kuntibhoja a Brahmin of fierce energy and tall stature, bearded, with matted hair and a staff in his hand, pleasant to look at, faultless in his limbs, seeming to blaze with splendor. His complexion was a yellowish blue like honey. His speech was sweet, and he was adorned with ascetic merit and knowledge of the Vedas. This man of great austerity addressed the king. You who are free from pride, I want to live as a guest in your house, eating food I receive as alms from you. Neither your followers nor you yourself must ever do anything that displeases me. If that suits you, sinless one, then I will live in your house on those terms. I will leave when I wish and come back when I please, and no one shall offend me in the matter of my food or my bed. It was a demand dressed as a request, and Kuntibhoja heard the danger in it as clearly as the honor. Be it so, he said cheerfully, and more. And he went on: wise one, I have an illustrious daughter named Pritha. She is of excellent character, keeps her vows, is chaste and self-controlled. She will attend on you and serve you with reverence, and you will be pleased with her disposition.

Then the king went to find the girl whose year he had just given away. He paid the Brahmin his due honor first, and then he went to his large-eyed daughter and spoke to her at length, because he understood what he was asking. Child, this eminently pious Brahmin wants to live in my house. I have accepted, and I accepted relying on your aptitude and your skill in serving Brahmins. So act in such a way that my words do not become false. Whatever this reverend Brahmin of ascetic merit, this student of the Vedas, may want, give it to him with alacrity, and let everything he asks for be given cheerfully. A Brahmin is the embodiment of pre-eminent energy and of the highest ascetic merit. It is because of the virtuous practices of Brahmins that the sun shines in the sky. It was for disregarding Brahmins who deserved honor that the mighty Asura Vatapi was destroyed by their curse, and Talajangha too. For now it is a highly virtuous man of that order who is entrusted to your keeping, and you must tend him always with a concentrated mind. Then the king said the things a father says when he is proud and frightened at the same time. Daughter, I know that from childhood you have been attentive to Brahmins, to superiors, to relatives, to servants and friends, to your mothers and to me. I know you carry yourself well and give everyone proper regard. In the inner city of my palace there is not one person, not even among the servants, who is dissatisfied with you, because of your gentle behavior. That is why I judged you fit to wait on Brahmins of wrathful temper. And then he reminded her who she was, because it mattered to what she was being asked to bear. You are a girl, Pritha, and you were adopted as my daughter. You were born in the race of the Vrishnis, the favorite daughter of Shura, and your father gave you to me gladly. The sister of Vasudeva by birth, you are by adoption the foremost of my children. He had promised me his firstborn, and he gave you to me while you were still an infant. That is why you are my daughter. Born in such a race and reared in such a race, you have passed from one happy state to another like a lotus moved from one lake to the next. Women of low extraction, girl, are hard to keep in check, and being young they are generally deformed in character; but you were born in a royal house, your beauty is extraordinary, and you have every accomplishment. So set aside pride, haughtiness, and any sense of self-importance, wait upon this boon-giving Brahmin and worship him, and by doing so attain an auspicious state. If instead you stir up the anger of this best of the twice-born, my whole race will be consumed by him.

Kunti’s answer was the first thing in the story that showed what she was made of. According to your promise, king, she said, I will serve that Brahmin with a concentrated mind. I do not say this falsely. It is my nature to worship Brahmins, and since in this case doing so is agreeable to you, it is also greatly to my own good. Whether that worshipful one comes in the evening or in the morning, at night or at midnight, he will have no reason to be angry with me. To do good by serving the twice-born and to keep all your commands is what I count most profitable to me. So rely on me. That best of Brahmins, while he lives in your house, will never have cause for dissatisfaction. I tell you truly. I will always attend to what pleases him and what is good for you. I know very well that eminently virtuous Brahmins, when they are propitiated, bestow salvation, and when they are displeased, can bring destruction on the offender; therefore I shall please this foremost of Brahmins, and no act of mine will bring you grief from him. It is through the transgressions of kings that Brahmins have become the cause of evil to them, as Chyavana became because of Sukanya’s act. So I will wait upon him with great regularity, as you instruct. The king embraced her and cheered her and went over in detail what she was to do. Act even so, gentle girl, without fear, for my good, for your own, and for the good of your race. And then Kuntibhoja, devoted to the Brahmins, handed the girl over, and he did it with a plea. Brahmin, this daughter of mine is of tender age and was brought up in luxury. If she ever transgresses, do not take it to heart. Illustrious Brahmins are never angry with the old, with children, or with ascetics, even when these transgress often; even for a great wrong, forgiveness is due from the regenerate. So let the worship that is offered to the best of her power and effort be acceptable to you. So be it, the Brahmin said. The delighted king gave him apartments white as swans or moonbeams, set a brilliant seat built especially for him in the room of the sacrificial fire, and saw that his food and everything else offered him was of the same excellent kind. And the princess, casting off idleness and every sense of her own importance, gave herself with a good will to the Brahmin’s service. Chaste Kunti, pure in conduct, went to him and served him as if he were a god himself, and she pleased him greatly.

A key to reading this (names and threads): Svarbhanu is Rahu, so “the enemy of Svarbhanu” is the sun; Vrisha and Radha’s son are names of Karna. Jamadagni’s son is Parashurama, Rama of the axe, and the weapons Karna says he holds from him and from Drona return later in this chapter. Pritha is Kunti’s birth name: she is the daughter of Shura of the Vrishnis and the sister of Vasudeva, Krishna’s father, and Shura gave her as an infant to his friend Kuntibhoja, who had asked for his firstborn; from the adoptive father comes the name Kunti. Vatapi and Talajangha are Asuras destroyed by the curses of Brahmins they slighted; Chyavana and Sukanya belong to the pilgrimage chapter (13a). The irritable guest is unnamed in this telling; tradition calls him Durvasa, and Vyasa’s narrative here never says so.

The gist: Karna refuses the sun a second time in the same words: a lie frightens him more than death, and refusing a Brahmin would be a lie. So Surya hands him a bargaining position instead of a refusal, the earrings and mail for Indra’s infallible dart. Janamejaya asks what the secret was, and Vaishampayana goes back to Kuntibhoja’s court, where a blazing, demanding Brahmin takes up residence and a king entrusts his adopted daughter with the survival of his entire race.

A year of service, a mantra from the Atharvan, and the morning Kunti called the sun down out of curiosity

The Brahmin tested her the way a hard master tests a good pupil, by never being where he said he would be. He would say, I will come back in the morning, and come in the evening or in the middle of the night; and at whatever hour he came, the girl had food and drink and a bed ready for him. As the days went by her attentions grew rather than slackened. When he found fault with some arrangement and scolded her, or spoke to her harshly, Pritha did nothing that displeased him. Many times he came back long after the appointed hour. Many times, in the dead of night when food was hard to come by, he said, give me food, and every time she said, all is ready, and set the meal before him. Like a disciple, a daughter, or a sister, that blameless jewel of a girl served him with a devoted heart, and he was pleased with her conduct and took her service at its true worth. Her father asked her every morning and every evening, daughter, is the Brahmin satisfied with your service? And every time the illustrious girl answered, exceedingly well, and the high-souled Kuntibhoja was delighted. When a full year had passed and that best of ascetics had been unable to find a single fault in her, he said to her, pleased: gentle girl, I have been well pleased with your attentions. Ask, blessed one, even for boons that are hard for men to obtain in this world, boons by which you may surpass every woman in the world in fame. Kunti’s answer was the answer of a girl who wanted nothing except to be done with the year. Everything has already been done for me, she said, since you, chief of those who know the Vedas, and my father as well, are pleased with me. As for boons, I consider them already obtained. The Brahmin would not leave it there. If you do not wish for boons from me, sweet-smiling one, then take from me this mantra for invoking the celestials. Whichever god you invoke by uttering it will appear before you and be under your power. Willing or not, by the force of this mantra that deity will come in gentle guise, in the obedient posture of a slave, and be subject to you. For fear of a curse, the faultless girl could not refuse the wishes of that best of the twice-born a second time. So he taught her the mantras that are recited at the beginning of the Atharvan Veda, and then he turned to Kuntibhoja and said: king, I have lived happily in your house, always honored with due regard and gratified by your daughter. Now I shall go. And he vanished where he stood. The king, amazed, treated his daughter from then on with a new respect.

What follows is the story of a girl alone with a secret that is also a weapon, and the text does not pretend she was wise about it. When the Brahmin had gone, the maiden began to think about the power of those mantras. What kind of mantras are these that the high-souled one gave me? she said to herself. I shall test their power without delay. And while she was thinking this, she suddenly saw the signs that her season had come; unmarried as she was, she blushed with shame. Seated in her chamber on a rich bed, she saw through the window the orb of the sun rising in the east. Both her mind and her eyes fastened on it. She gazed and gazed and could not have enough of the beauty of the morning sun, and all at once she was gifted with celestial sight. Then she saw the god in his divine form, dressed in mail and adorned with earrings, and at the sight of him her curiosity about the mantras got the better of her. She resolved to invoke him. She practiced pranayama and called the maker of day, and the maker of day came at once, honey-colored, mighty-armed, his neck marked with lines like a conch shell, wearing armlets and a diadem, smiling, lighting up every direction. By his yoga power he divided himself in two: one half went on giving heat in the sky, the other stood before Kunti. He spoke to her with exceeding sweetness. Gentle maiden, overpowered by the mantras I have come here obedient to you. I am subject to your power. What shall I do, queen? Tell me, for I shall do whatever you command. And Kunti, who had wanted only to know whether the words worked, said: worshipful one, go back to the place you came from. I invoked you out of curiosity alone. Pardon me. The god did not go. Slender-waisted one, I will return, as you say, to the place I came from. But having called a celestial, it is not proper to send him away for nothing. Your intention, blessed one, is to have from Surya a son furnished with a coat of mail and earrings, whose prowess will be beyond compare in this world. So surrender your person to me, and you shall have the son you wish for. I will go back after having known you. And if you do not gratify me today by obeying my word, I shall in my anger curse you, your father, and that Brahmin as well. For your fault I will consume them all: your foolish father, who does not know of this transgression of yours, and the Brahmin who gave you the mantras without knowing your disposition. Look up. All the celestials are in heaven, with Purandara at their head, watching me with mocking smiles at being deceived by you. Look at them; you have celestial sight now. I gave it to you before, so that you could see me.

She looked, and the sky was full of gods in their stations, and the one in front of her was blazing. Frightened, her face burning with shame, she tried the only defense a girl has against a god, which is the law. Lord of rays, go back to your own region. Because of my maidenhood, this outrage of yours brings me only woe. Only a father, a mother, and other elders can give away their daughter’s body. I will never sacrifice virtue, for in this world keeping her person inviolate is held to be a woman’s highest duty and is greatly honored. It was only to test the power of my mantras, out of mere childishness, that I summoned you. Consider that a girl of tender years did this, and forgive her. Surya answered her gently, and the gentleness was a warning. It is because I consider you a girl, Kunti, that I speak to you so mildly. To anyone else I would not concede this much. Surrender yourself, Kunti; you will surely find happiness in it. You invoked me with mantras, timid one; it is not proper for me to leave with no purpose accomplished, for then I would be a laughingstock in the world and a byword among the gods. Yield to me. You will have a son like myself, and you will be praised throughout the world. She tried every sweet word she had, and none of them turned him. When she saw she could not dissuade the dispeller of darkness, she thought for a long time, afraid of the curse, and the text lets us hear her thinking. How can my innocent father, and that Brahmin too, escape the angry Surya’s curse on my account? Energy and asceticism can destroy sins, but even honest people, if they are young, should not foolishly go courting them. By acting foolishly I have put myself today in a frightful place; I am entirely in this god’s grasp. And yet how can I do what is sinful by giving my body to him? Terror of the curse on one side, the reproach of her friends on the other, and between them a stupefaction of the senses that left her unable to decide anything. At last, in a voice trembling with shame, she said to the god: while my father and mother and friends are still living, this violation of duty must not happen on my part. If I commit this unlawful act with you, the reputation of my house will be sacrificed in this world because of me. But if you, foremost of those who give heat, deem this a meritorious act, then I will fulfill your desire even though my relatives have not bestowed me on you. Let me remain chaste after having surrendered my person to you. Surely the virtue, the reputation, the fame, and the life of every creature rest in you.

The god’s answer was a piece of philosophy about girls, and it is one of the strangest speeches in the epic. Sweet-smiling one, neither your father nor your mother nor any other elder of yours is competent to give you away. Listen. It is because a virgin desires the company of everyone that she is called kanya, from the root kama, to desire. So a virgin is by nature free in this world. You will be guilty of no sin by complying with my request; and how could I, who desire the welfare of all creatures, commit an unrighteous act? That all men and women should be bound by no restraints is the law of nature; the opposite condition is a perversion of the natural state. You will remain a virgin after gratifying me, and your son will be mighty-armed and illustrious. Kunti had lost the argument, and so she did what a clever girl does when she has lost: she set terms. If I obtain a son from you, dispeller of darkness, let him be furnished with a coat of mail and earrings, and let him be mighty-armed and endowed with great strength. Gentle maiden, Surya said, your son will be mighty-armed and adorned with earrings and a celestial coat of mail, and both will be made of amrita, and the mail will be invulnerable. If the mail and the earrings are indeed made of amrita, she said, then let your purpose be fulfilled, worshipful god. Let him be powerful, strong, energetic, and handsome like you, and let him be virtuous too. Princess, Surya said, these earrings were given to me by Aditi. I will bestow them, and this excellent mail, on your son. Very well, worshipful one, she said. If my son becomes so, I will gratify you as you say. So be it, he said. And that ranger of the skies, the enemy of Svarbhanu, his soul absorbed in yoga, entered into Kunti and touched her on the navel. The girl was stupefied by his energy and fell senseless on her bed. I will depart now, he said. You will bring forth a son who will be the foremost of all wielders of weapons, and you will remain a virgin. As the effulgent god was leaving, she said to him bashfully: so be it. That, the narrator says, is how the daughter of Kuntibhoja, importuned by Surya, having asked him for a son, fell stupefied on that fine bed like a broken creeper; the god had entered her by yoga power and placed his own self within her womb, and he did not sully her by deflowering her in the flesh. When he was gone, she came back to herself.

It was on the first day of the bright fortnight in the tenth month that Pritha conceived a son like the lord of the stars in the sky. Out of fear of her friends she hid her condition so well that no one knew of it; she kept entirely to the maidens’ apartments, and no one but her nurse learned the truth. In due time, by the grace of the god, the beautiful girl brought forth a son who looked like a god himself: like his father, he came into the world in a coat of mail and wearing brilliant earrings, with the eyes of a lion and the shoulders of a bull. As soon as he was born she consulted her nurse and laid him in a roomy, smooth box of wickerwork spread with soft sheets and fitted with a costly pillow, its surface coated with wax, encased in a rich cover. With tears in her eyes she carried him to the river Ashva and gave the basket to its waters. She knew it was improper for an unmarried girl to bear a child, and still, out of a parent’s love, she wept piteously, and the text preserves what she said as the box went out of her hands. Child, may good come to you from all who live on the land, in the water, in the sky, and in the heavens. May all your paths be auspicious; may no one obstruct your way; may everyone who meets you have a heart emptied of hostility toward you. May Varuna, lord of waters, protect you in the water, and the god who ranges the skies protect you in the sky, and your father Surya, best of those who give heat, from whom I received you as destiny ordained, protect you everywhere. May the Adityas and the Vasus, the Rudras and the Sadhyas, the Vishvadevas and the Maruts, the cardinal points with great Indra and the regents who preside over them, and all the celestials protect you in every place. Even in foreign lands I will know you by this mail of yours. Blessed is your father, the divine Surya, who will watch you with his celestial sight as you go down the current. Blessed is the woman who will take you for her son, you who were begotten by a god, and give you suck when you are thirsty. What a lucky dream she must have dreamed, the woman who will adopt you: you with the sun’s splendor and the celestial mail and the celestial earrings, with wide lotus eyes and a complexion bright as burnished copper or lotus leaves, a fair forehead and hair ending in curls. Blessed is she who will see you crawl on the ground covered in dust, sweetly uttering words that are not yet words; blessed is she who will see you come into your youthful prime like a maned lion born in the forests of the Himalaya. Having wept like this for a long time, Pritha set the basket on the water of the Ashva. At dead of night, with her nurse, the lotus-eyed girl, sick with grief for her son and longing to look at him again and again, let it go, and went back to the palace for fear her father would learn what had happened. The basket floated from the Ashva into the Charmanvati, from the Charmanvati into the Yamuna, and from the Yamuna into the Ganga, and carried on the waves of the Ganga the child in the box came to the city of Champa, ruled by a man of the Suta tribe. The excellent mail and the earrings of amrita that were born with his body, and the ordinance of destiny, kept him alive.

A key to reading this (what is here and what is not): This is Vyasa’s own account of Karna’s conception, and it differs from the versions most people carry in their heads. Kunti calls the sun out of curiosity and then argues against him at length and with real legal skill; the god wins by threatening a curse and by an argument about the word kanya; the conception is by yoga, through a touch at the navel, and the text says twice that her virginity was untouched. The earrings were Aditi’s gift to the sun, and both earrings and mail are made of amrita, which is why the mail is invulnerable. The sun splitting into two, one half still heating the sky, is this telling’s detail. The basket’s route is named river by river: Ashva, Charmanvati (the Chambal), Yamuna, Ganga, and the city of Champa in Anga. The Brahmin who gave the mantra remains nameless throughout; Kunti’s own name here is mostly Pritha.

The gist: A year of faultless service earns a reward the girl does not want and dares not refuse: a mantra that compels any god. One morning she tests it on the rising sun, and the sun will not be sent away. Every argument she makes fails; only her conditions hold, a son in mail and earrings of amrita, and her own maidenhood preserved. The child is born ten months later and set adrift in a waxed basket on the Ashva with his mother’s blessings following him downstream, until the rivers hand him to Champa.

Adhiratha and Radha’s lap, a Brahmin at midday, and the armor Karna peeled from his body smiling

At about that time a Suta named Adhiratha, a friend of Dhritarashtra, came down to the Ganga with his wife. Radha, his wife, had no equal on earth for beauty, and she had tried everything a woman can try to have a son, and had not been given one. Standing at the river she saw a box drifting on the current, a box full of things that protect against danger, decked with unguents, and the waves of the Jahnavi carried it up to her feet. Curiosity made her have it seized, and she told Adhiratha everything. He took the box from the water’s edge and opened it with tools, and inside was a boy like the morning sun, dressed in golden mail, his face lit by earrings, beautiful past anything they had seen. The charioteer and his wife stared until their eyes were wide with wonder. Adhiratha lifted the child onto his lap and said to her: in all my life, timid one, I have never seen such a wonder. This child who has come to us must be of celestial birth. I am sonless; surely it is the gods who have sent him to me. And he gave the infant to Radha, and Radha adopted him according to the ordinance, that child of divine form and divine origin, with the glow of lotus filaments on him. Reared by her with care, he grew, and he grew strong; and after Karna’s adoption Adhiratha had other sons of his own begetting. Seeing the boy in his bright mail and golden earrings, the twice-born named him Vasushena, and so the child of immeasurable prowess became the son of a charioteer and was known as Vasushena and as Vrisha. Far away, Pritha learned through spies that her own son, dressed in celestial mail, was growing up among the Angas as the eldest son of a charioteer. When Adhiratha saw that the boy had grown, he sent him to the city named for the elephant, and there Karna lived with Drona to learn arms. He formed a friendship with Duryodhana. Having acquired all four kinds of weapons from Drona, from Kripa, and from Rama, he became famous in the world as a mighty bowman, and having bound himself to Dhritarashtra’s son he set himself against the sons of Pritha, always wanting to fight the high-souled Phalguna; from the day they first set eyes on each other, Karna challenged Arjuna and Arjuna challenged Karna. That, king, was the secret the sun knew: begotten by himself on Kunti, Karna was being raised in the race of the Sutas. And Yudhishthira, seeing him in his earrings and mail, believed him unkillable in battle, and the belief was a constant pain to him. Every day at noon, when Karna rose from the water and worshiped the effulgent Surya with joined hands, the Brahmins came to him for wealth, and at that hour there was nothing he would refuse the twice-born. It was at that hour that Indra, in the guise of a Brahmin, stood before him and said: give me. And Radha’s son answered: you are welcome.

What follows is a bargaining scene in which both parties know exactly who the other is and neither says so until it suits him. Not knowing his intention, Adhiratha’s son asked the Brahmin what he would take: a necklace of gold, beautiful women, villages rich in cattle, which of these shall I give you? The Brahmin said: I do not ask you for a necklace of gold, or fair women, or any other pleasant thing. Give those to the people who ask for them. If you are sincere in your vow, sinless one, then cut from your body this coat of mail you were born with, and these earrings, and give them to me. I want you to give me these quickly; this one gain of mine will count above every other. Karna said: Brahmin, I will give you land for a homestead, and fair women, and cattle, and fields, but my mail and my earrings I am unable to give. He pressed the Brahmin with every kind of argument, he tried to pacify him, he honored him with all due rites, and the Brahmin would ask for nothing else. So Radha’s son spoke again, smiling, and laid his life on the table so the guest could see what he was asking for. Regenerate one, my mail was born with my body and this pair of earrings came from amrita. It is because of them that I cannot be killed in the worlds. So I cannot part with them. Take from me instead the whole kingdom of the earth, rid of enemies and full of prosperity. If I lose my earrings and the mail I was born with, I can be beaten by my foes. The illustrious slayer of Paka would ask for nothing else. And then Karna, still smiling, stopped pretending. God of gods, lord, I recognized you before this. Shakra, it is not proper for me to grant you a boon that profits you nothing, for you are the very lord of the celestials; being the creator and lord of all beings, it is you who should confer boons on me. If I give you this mail and these earrings, god, my destruction is certain, and you will be laughed at. So take my earrings and my excellent mail in exchange for something you give me. Otherwise I will not give them. Shakra answered, and the answer admitted everything. Even before I came to you, Surya knew my purpose, and without doubt it is he who told you all of it. Karna, let it be as you wish. Son, apart from the thunderbolt alone, tell me what it is you want.

Karna was filled with joy; the thing he had waited for was here. He came close to Vasava, intent on a dart that could not be baffled, and said: in exchange for my coat of mail and my earrings, give me, Vasava, a dart that cannot be baffled and that can destroy hosts of enemies arrayed for battle. Vasava fixed his mind on the dart for a moment to bring it there, and then he set the terms. Give me your earrings and the mail you were born with, and in return take this dart on these conditions. When I meet the Daityas in battle, this dart, hurled by my hand, destroys enemies by hundreds and comes back to my hand when its work is done. In your hand, son of a Suta, this dart will slay only one powerful enemy of yours, and having done that it will return to me, roaring and blazing. I want to slay, in fierce fight, just one enemy of mine, Karna said, one who roars fiercely and is as hot as fire, and of whom I am afraid. Indra told him the truth about that one enemy. You will slay such a roaring and powerful foe in battle. But the one you seek to kill is protected by an illustrious being: he whom those who know the Vedas call the invincible Boar and the incomprehensible Narayana, Krishna himself, is protecting him. Even so, Karna said, give me the weapon that will destroy one powerful foe, and I will give you my mail and my earrings, cutting them from my person. Only grant that my body, wounded like this, may not be unsightly. Because you are bent on keeping the truth, Karna, Indra said, your person shall not be unsightly, and no scar shall remain on it. You shall have the complexion and the energy of your father himself. And if, maddened by anger, you hurl this dart while you still have other weapons and your life is not in imminent peril, it will fall on you yourself. As you direct me, Shakra, Karna said, I shall hurl this Vasavi dart only when I am in imminent peril. Truly I tell you this.

Then, king, Karna took the blazing dart and began to peel the natural mail from his body. When the whole host of gods and men and Danavas saw him cutting his own flesh, they set up a lion’s roar. Karna’s face did not move while he peeled the mail. Watching that hero among men cut his body with a weapon, smiling now and then as he did it, the celestial kettledrums began to play and celestial flowers came down on him. He cut the excellent mail from his person and gave it to Vasava still dripping; he cut the earrings from his ears and handed them to Indra. It is from this act that he came to be called Karna. And Shakra, having beguiled in this way the man he had just made famous in the world, thought with a smile that the business of the sons of Pandu was as good as finished, and went up to heaven. When the sons of Dhritarashtra heard that Karna had been beguiled, they were distressed and their pride went out of them; and the sons of Pritha, learning what had befallen the charioteer’s son, were filled with joy. Janamejaya asked where the sons of Pandu were at that time, from whom they heard this welcome news, and what they did when the twelfth year of their exile had passed. Vaishampayana answered with the sentence that closes the forest years: having defeated the chief of the Saindhavas and rescued Krishna, having lived out the whole term of their painful exile in the woods, and having listened to the ancient stories of gods and rishis told by Markandeya, those heroes among men returned from their hermitage at Kamyaka to the sacred Dvaitavana, with all their chariots and followers and charioteers, their cattle, and the citizens who had come after them.

A key to reading this (names and terms): The city named for the elephant is Hastinapura. The slayer of Paka, Vasava, Shakra, and Purandara are all Indra; “Rama” among Karna’s teachers is Parashurama. The Vasavi dart’s conditions are fixed here and matter later: it kills one enemy and returns to Indra, it may be thrown only when Karna’s life is in imminent peril and no other weapon remains, and otherwise it falls on Karna himself; Indra also says plainly that the enemy Karna fears is guarded by Narayana. What becomes of the dart is told in the Drona Parva, on the night Ghatotkacha dies. The text ties the name Karna to the cutting of the earrings from his ears, and gives Vasushena as the name the Brahmins chose when they saw the bright mail and golden earrings. Adhiratha is Dhritarashtra’s friend, and Champa is the city of the Angas.

The gist: A childless Suta couple find the basket on the Ganga, and the boy Vasushena grows up in Anga, learns arms under Drona in Hastinapura, befriends Duryodhana, and becomes Arjuna’s lifelong rival. Then Indra comes at noon dressed as a Brahmin. Karna knows him, refuses nothing, and states the sun’s condition: mail and earrings for an infallible dart that will kill one enemy. He strips his own body smiling while the gods rain flowers, and Indra leaves believing the Pandavas’ work is done. From that gift Vasushena became Karna.

Source: the Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Vana Parva. This chapter follows K. M. Ganguli, sections CCXCI-CCCVIII (291-308); the Gita Press Hindi edition numbers these chapters differently. Names, order, and events were checked against Ganguli’s complete translation. Dialogue and commentary are adapted, not a verbatim translation. About the sources.