Yayāti Carita

Yayāti was a king of the Candra vaṃśa, the lunar line. He married Devayānī, the daughter of Śukrācārya, and Śarmishṭhā, the asura princess. He had five sons, from whom the great branches of the human families came. Śukrācārya laid a śāpa (a curse) of early old age on Yayāti. Only his youngest son Pūru would take it, and gave his father his own youth. After a thousand years of pleasure, Yayāti gave the youth back to Pūru, made him king and went to the forest. This is told in the Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa and the Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa.

Nahusha’s sons and Yayāti’s rise

Nahusha was the great king of the Candra vaṃśa. He had six sons: Yati, Yayāti, Saṃyāti, Āyāti, Viyāti and Kṛti. Yati, the eldest, gave up the world and became a sannyāsī, and left the throne. So Yayāti was the crown prince who received his father’s kingdom, and he became a cakravarti (an emperor) of great power and virtue. (Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 68)

The two marriages

Yayāti came to marry two women in unusual ways.

Devayānī was the daughter of Śukrācārya, the guru of the asuras. Devayānī and Śarmishṭhā, the daughter of the asura king Vṛshaparvan, became enemies. Devayānī was shamed, and Yayāti rescued her. Śukrācārya was grateful that his daughter had been saved and honoured, and he gave Devayānī to Yayāti in marriage. She bore two sons, Yadu and Turvasu.

Śarmishṭhā had been the one who first ill-treated Devayānī. She was given to Yayāti as a serving-maid, to make amends. But Śarmishṭhā and Yayāti entered into a relationship, and Devayānī did not know of it. When the truth came out, Śukrācārya was furious at this break of dharma. Śarmishṭhā bore three sons, Druhyu, Anu and Pūru. (Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 68)

Śukrācārya’s śāpa: jaratā

Devayānī learned that Yayāti had secretly had sons by Śarmishṭhā, and she told her father. In his anger Śukrācārya laid a powerful śāpa on Yayāti. He would at once be struck with jaratā, early old age, with all the weakness of the later years falling on him in the prime of life.

Yayāti was shaken and begged Śukrācārya to ease the śāpa. Śukrācārya made it lighter. If any of Yayāti’s sons agreed to take the śāpa in his place, taking his old age and giving him their youth, then Yayāti could keep his youth for as long as that son bore the śāpa. (Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 68)

The sons refuse, and Pūru accepts

Yayāti asked each of his five sons in turn.

  • Yadu refused. He said he was too young to enjoy old age and had plans of his own. Yayāti laid a śāpa on Yadu that his descendants would never rule over the best of kingdoms. This was made lighter by the fact that Kṛshṇa, the greatest of all beings, would be born in the Yadu line.
  • Turvasu, Druhyu and Anu each refused in turn, and each gave his own reasons. Yayāti laid a śāpa on each of them in the same way. Their descendants would become chiefs of regions where mixed peoples and mleccha peoples lived.
  • Pūru, the youngest son of Śarmishṭhā, accepted at once. He said, “Father, whatever you give me, even misfortune, is a blessing. I accept your old age.” Pūru became an old man, and Yayāti got his youth back.

(Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 68)

A thousand years of pleasure

Yayāti was young again. He gave himself fully to kāma, pleasures of every kind. He enjoyed every pleasure known to men and devas for a thousand years. It was not only pleasure of the senses. He also ruled, performed yajñas and carried out the dharma of a king. Yet at the end of the thousand years he was still not satisfied. (Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 68)

The teaching on desire

At the end of the thousand years Yayāti went to Pūru and spoke some of the best known verses of the Purāṇas on the nature of desire:

“Desire is not quenched by the enjoyment of objects any more than fire is quenched by pouring ghee into it. It only grows. The entire grain harvest of the earth, all the gold, all the cattle, all the women — none of it is enough for one man. Knowing this, one should cultivate śama (tranquillity). A man who has renounced the objects of desire alone finds peace.”

He gave the example of the tortoise. As a tortoise draws its limbs into its shell, so a wise man should draw his senses back from their objects. Yayāti said that he had found no contentment in a thousand years of pleasure. He said that only this experience had made real to him what no scripture had made real before. He gave Pūru’s youth back to him, took back his own old age and got ready to leave the world. (Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 68)

Pūru is crowned and the earth is divided

The people at first objected to Pūru being crowned. He was the youngest son, and the sons of Devayānī had the earlier claim. Yayāti explained his reasons. He divided the earth among his five sons:

  • Yadu: the south and west. He became the father of the Yādava, Haihaya and Vṛshṇi dynasties.
  • Turvasu: the south-east, later the Deccan and Kerala regions.
  • Druhyu: the north and north-west, Gāndhāra and the northern border regions.
  • Anu: the central north. His descendants included Uśīnara, Śibi and the eastern kingdoms.
  • Pūru: the best heartland of Āryāvarta, the middle country of the Gaṅgā plain, including in time Hastināpura, the seat of the Bharata, Kuru and Pāṇḍava line.

Pūru’s crowning was held with great ceremony. The other four sons took their regions and left to rule them. (Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 68)

Yayāti goes to the forest

Yayāti had his old age back and had given up his kingdom. He went to the forest with his wife and did tapas at Bhṛgutuṅga, one of the holy mountain peaks linked with the Bhṛgu ṛshis. Through his tapas, and through the puṇya of a life lived in both enjoyment and renunciation, he reached svarga and in time the highest lokas. The Purāṇa gives his narrative as a whole teaching: from royal ambition through pleasure to wisdom, then renunciation and moksha. (Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 68)

The Vishṇu Purāṇa account

The Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Chaturdhāmsa, Chapter 10, tells Yayāti’s carita in line with the Brahmāṇḍa account. It gives the same main events: the quarrel of Devayānī and Śarmishṭhā, Śukrācārya’s śāpa of jaratā, Pūru’s acceptance, a thousand years of pleasure, and Yayāti’s teaching of vairāgya (detachment).

In this account Yayāti’s speech of renunciation says that no amount of sense experience can use up desire. Desire grows when it is fed, like fire when it receives ghee.

It also gives the division of the earth among the five sons: Yadu to the south, Turvasu to the south-east, Druhyu to the north-west, Anu to the north and Pūru to the central heartland. It tells Pūru’s crowning. It closes with Yayāti’s going to the forest, where through tapas and the puṇya of his renunciation he reached the highest loka. (Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Chaturdhāmsa, Chapter 10)

Sources

  • Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 68
  • Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Chaturdhāmsa, Chapter 10