Sāvitrī and Satyavān (Devī Bhāgavata Purāṇa)

The Devī Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa tells the Sāvitrī upākhyāna in Chapters 26 to 38 of the ninth Skanda. It opens with Nārada asking Śrī Nārāyaṇa for the account of Devī Sāvitrī. It follows King Aśvapati of the Madra country. His childless queen Mālatī first did pūjā of Devī Sāvitrī. Then the king himself did a great number of Gāyatrī japas (repetitions of a mantra) at the tīrtha (holy place) of Pushkara, to gain a divine daughter. Sāvitrī is born, radiant as the sun in the afternoon. She chooses Satyavān, a prince living in the forest, although Nārada warns her that he will die within a year. She follows him to the forest and sees him die. She then speaks with Yama Dharmarāja in a deep dialogue and wins a series of varas (boons), ending with Satyavān’s return to life. The last chapters of the narrative turn into a teaching on Devī bhakti (devotion) and the five forms of mukti (liberation).

The line of Sāvitrī and the story of Aśvapati

Śrī Nārāyaṇa tells Nārada that, among all who did pūjā of Sāvitrī in Bhāratavarsha, King Aśvapati of the Madra country was the first. Aśvapati was a mahārāja of great righteousness. He defeated his enemies and took away the sorrows of his friends. His chief queen was the noble Mālatī, who was equal to Lakshmī in purity and virtue. But Mālatī had no child (nirāpattya), and this was a deep grief to her.

On the advice of Vasishṭha, Mālatī did the pūjā of Devī Sāvitrī for many years with pure and steady devotion. Yet Sāvitrī did not give her darśana, and no divine word came to her. Heartbroken, she went home. The king saw his queen’s sorrow and decided to gain a child. He went to the holy tīrtha of Pushkara to do tapas (austerity). There he did tapas for a hundred years with full control of the senses, but he still received no darśana.

Then a divine voice (ākāśavāṇī) spoke: “O king! Do ten lakh (one million) japas of Devī Sāvitrī’s mantra.”

Parāśara’s teaching on Gāyatrī japa

At that moment the great ṛshi Parāśara came to Pushkara. Aśvapati bowed down before him. The ṛshi taught him how the worth of Gāyatrī japa grows step by step:

• One recitation of Gāyatrī removes the pāpa (sin) of that day.
• Ten recitations remove the pāpa of one day and night.
• A hundred remove a month’s pāpa.
• A thousand remove a year’s pāpa.
• One lakh (100,000) removes all the pāpa of the present birth.
• Ten lakh removes the pāpa of other births.
• One hundred lakh removes the pāpa of all births.
• Ten crore (for a brāhmaṇa) gives complete liberation.

Parāśara also taught the right seat and method of japa. The person sits facing east. The right hand is held like a serpent’s hood with the fingers closed. He recites with the head bowed. He uses the anāmikā (ring finger), counting from its middle joint, and touches the bead with the thumb.

Aśvapati was taught in this way. He did the ten lakh Gāyatrī japa with full śraddhā (faith) and devotion.

Sāvitrī’s birth

By the power of the ten lakh Gāyatrī japas and his long tapas, Aśvapati was given a daughter. She shone like the afternoon sun (aparāhṇa-sūrya). She was named Sāvitrī after the Devī whose sādhana (spiritual practice) had brought her. She grew up with great beauty and wisdom. All who saw her honoured her as the direct grace of the Devī.

When Sāvitrī came of age to marry, no one came forward to ask for her. Her divine radiance was so strong that suitors were struck silent. Aśvapati asked her to choose her own husband. Sāvitrī set out with her attendants to find a fitting match.

Sāvitrī chooses Satyavān

Sāvitrī visited the forests where noble ṛshis and the children of kings lived in simple ascetic life. There she met Satyavān, the prince of the Śālva kingdom, who was living in exile. His father, King Dyumatsena, had gone blind and had been driven from his kingdom. Satyavān lived in the forest with his old blind parents and served them with rare devotion. He was truthful (satya is truth, vān is one who has it), pure of heart, and fully devoted to dharma.

Sāvitrī went back and told her father whom she had chosen. Aśvapati asked the advice of Nārada Muni, who was present at court. Nārada knew Satyavān at once and praised his goodness. He called him a scholar of the Vedas with perfect conduct, a son devoted to his parents and a man of the highest character. Then Nārada told the one fault: Satyavān was fated to live only one more year. His āyus (life-span) would end exactly twelve months from that day.

Nārada urged Aśvapati to find another husband for Sāvitrī. Aśvapati gently told this to Sāvitrī and asked her to think again.

Sāvitrī did not change her mind. She said: “A maiden chooses her husband only once. His life may be long or short, his fortune good or bad. I have chosen Satyavān. I do not take back this choice.” Her resolve was so firm and pure that even Nārada blessed her when he heard it, and told Aśvapati to go ahead with the marriage.

Life in the forest

The marriage was held with all the proper rites. Sāvitrī gave up her royal clothes and ornaments and put on the simple bark and ochre cloth of the forest dwellers. She went with her husband to the āśrama (hermitage) in the forest, to serve her blind father-in-law Dyumatsena and her mother-in-law together with Satyavān. She carried wood, gathered fruits and roots, brought water and cooked. She cared for every need of the household, quietly and well, as a devoted pativratā (faithful wife).

Inside, Sāvitrī counted each day with a heavy heart. She had asked Nārada the exact day on which Satyavān would die. As the day came near, she took a three-night fast (tri-rātra vrata). She told Dyumatsena, who begged her to end the fast because it was too hard. She answered that the vow was already taken and must be finished.

Satyavān’s death

On the morning of the day Nārada had named, Satyavān took his axe to go to the forest for wood. Sāvitrī insisted on going with him, and she overcame the gentle objection of Dyumatsena. In the forest, while Satyavān was cutting wood, he felt a sharp pain in his head. He stopped work and came to Sāvitrī. She helped him lie down with his head in her lap.

As she held him, Sāvitrī saw a dark, shining figure arrive, of great and terrible majesty. He wore a red garment and held a pāśa (noose), and his form blazed with power. This was Yama Dharmarāja himself, come to take Satyavān’s prāṇa (life-breath).

Yama drew the thumb-sized prāṇa (jīva) out of Satyavān’s body with his pāśa and bound it. He began to walk south, toward Yamapura. Satyavān’s body lay still and without breath in Sāvitrī’s lap.

Sāvitrī laid Satyavān’s body down with care, stood up and began to walk after Yama.

Sāvitrī follows Yama

Yama turned and spoke to Sāvitrī: “O devoted wife! You have done your dharma. Your husband has died. Now do his funeral rites and turn back. No mortal can follow into Yamapura.”

Sāvitrī answered with calm authority: “Where my husband is taken, that is my path. The dharma of a pativratā does not end with the death of the body. I follow you by the power of my pātivratya-dharma.”

Yama was moved by her resolve. He offered her a vara: anything except Satyavān’s life. Sāvitrī asked that her blind father-in-law Dyumatsena should get his sight back. Yama gave it. But Sāvitrī went on walking.

Yama offered a second vara. Sāvitrī asked that Dyumatsena’s lost kingdom be given back to him. Yama gave it. But Sāvitrī went on walking.

Yama offered a third vara. Sāvitrī asked that her own father Aśvapati be given a hundred sons. Yama gave it. But Sāvitrī went on walking.

Yama was deeply struck by the purity and wisdom that went with her steady walking. He offered a fourth vara: anything except Satyavān’s life. Sāvitrī said: “Give me a hundred sons of my own body.”

Yama saw at once what this meant. For Sāvitrī to have sons of her own body, Satyavān must be alive. He was held by his own vara, and he paused. In that pause Sāvitrī spoke again: “O Dharmarāja! You yourself have given me a hundred sons from my own body. But Satyavān is my only husband. How can this vara be kept without him?”

The dialogue with Yama

Before the last vara was granted, a deep dialogue took place between Sāvitrī and Yama Dharmarāja. Sāvitrī asked Yama about the nature of dharma, the cause of birth and rebirth, the kinds of people whose pāpa brings them to Yamapura, the forms of naraka (hell), and the kind of subtle body (sūkshma-śarīra) in which jīvas live through the states after death.

Yama answered each question in full. He described:

• The twenty-eight great narakas and the pāpa that leads to each.
• How the jīva, though its gross body is burned at death, still feels the fruits of karma in a subtle body (ātivāhika-śarīra).
• The exact classification of dharma and adharma according to the Vedas, the Dharma-saṃhitās, the Purāṇas and the Pāñcarātra.
• The pañca-devatā upāsanā (the worship of the five great devas: Devī, Vishṇu, Śiva, Sūrya and Gaṇeśa) as the highest means to avoid the realm of Yama altogether.

Yama said: “Those who worship Devī, who are devotees of Śrī Hari, who keep Ekādaśī and go on tīrtha yātrā (pilgrimage), who worship Bhagavān Vishṇu with full surrender, none of these will come to my realm. My own messengers run away at the sight of Śiva-bhaktas. My scribe Citragupta trembles when he writes the account of a Devī-bhakta.”

Satyavān is restored

Held by the force of his own vara, Yama let go of Satyavān’s prāṇa. The prāṇa went back into the body lying in the forest. Satyavān woke, opened his eyes and saw Sāvitrī’s shining face before him. He spoke like one waking from deep sleep. He said he had had a strange dream of darkness. Sāvitrī held him with tears of relief and said: “The night has passed. Let us go back to your parents.”

They returned to the āśrama. Dyumatsena had got his sight back, for Yama’s first vara had already come true. Soon after, messengers came to tell Dyumatsena that his enemies had been destroyed and his kingdom given back to him. The second vara had come true. The forest āśrama became a place of joy and celebration.

Sāvitrī’s questions on Devī bhakti

In the last chapter (38) of the Sāvitrī upākhyāna, Sāvitrī herself asks a deep question: “O Yama! You have told me about the path of dharma. Now tell me which of all the forms of bhakti is highest. What is the nature of the Devī whom all the worlds honour as their mother? What are the five forms of liberation she gives?”

Yama was himself a great bhakta of Śrī Devī, and he answered with joy. The highest bhakti is Devī bhakti, true devotion to Parāśakti, because she is the nirguṇa (without qualities) Parabrahman who has taken a saguṇa (with qualities) form out of compassion. The five forms of mukti are sāyujya, sāmīpya, sārūpya, sālokya and sārshṭi. All five can be reached through sincere and constant Devī bhakti. Of these, sāyujya (complete merging) is the highest. Through Devī bhakti alone the Trimūrtis themselves gained their powers and their śaktis.

Sources

• Devī Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Skanda 9, Chapter 26 (Aśvapati, the ākāśavāṇī, Parāśara’s teaching on Gāyatrī japa)
• Devī Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Skanda 9, Chapter 27 (Sāvitrī’s birth)
• Devī Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Skanda 9, Chapters 28 to 29 (the choice of Satyavān, life in the forest)
• Devī Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Skanda 9, Chapter 30 (Satyavān’s death)
• Devī Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Skanda 9, Chapters 30 to 32 (the varas, Satyavān restored)
• Devī Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Skanda 9, Chapters 33 to 37 (the dialogue with Yama)
• Devī Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Skanda 9, Chapter 38 (Devī bhakti and the five forms of mukti)