Ashṭāvakra and Uttarā Diś
The Ashṭāvakra–Uttarā Diś saṃvāda (dialogue) is an itihāsa that Bhīshma tells Yudhishṭhira in the Anuśāsana Parva of the Mahābhārata, in Chapters 19 to 21. It tells how the great ṛshi Ashṭāvakra wished to marry Suprabhā, the daughter of the ṛshi Vadānya. Vadānya sent him on a journey to the far north, where Uttarā Diś, the devī of the northern quarter, tested him through a long night.
Bhīshma tells it in answer to a question about how husband and wife share one dharma and yet receive separate results after death, and about what kind of union marriage is.
Yudhishṭhira’s question
Yudhishṭhira had just heard Vāsudeva and Vishṇu praise Maheśvara as the source of all the principles of creation, in the praise of the Śiva Sahasranāma. Now he turned to a new question about the gṛhastha (householder) life.
The dharma texts teach that husband and wife must do dharma together:
sahobhau carataṁ dharmaṁ
This is the sahadharma (joint dharma) of the couple. But it seems to need a marriage first, and the marriage has not yet happened when the wedding mantras are spoken. If the joint dharma of a couple depends on a union that dharma has not yet approved, how can the whole teaching hold together?
Yudhishṭhira added a second doubt. After death, husband and wife are parted. Each goes alone to svarga (heaven) or naraka (hell), according to their own puṇya (merit) and pāpa (sin). In what sense was their dharma ever shared?
His third question was about the union itself. Is dāra-saṃgraha (taking a wife) of the ārsha kind (of the ṛshis), the āsura kind (of the asuras, springing only from the pull of the senses), or the prājāpatya kind (approved by Prajāpati for the sake of children)? He recalled the teaching:
na putrasya loko’sti
There is no world for one who has no son. Yudhishṭhira called his doubt gahvara (deeply puzzling) and pressed Bhīshma for a clear answer. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 19)
Bhīshma’s answer
Bhīshma said that for a person moved by rāga (desire), taking a wife is rāga-prāpta. It is already open to such a person by the very nature of desire, and no separate vidhi (rule) is needed to set it up. In the same way, the ordinary first offerings before the darśa and pūrṇamāsa yajñas (the new-moon and full-moon fire rituals) need no separate rule.
The Vedic rules about taking a wife and having children apply properly to the one who is not driven by rāga. They set up the frame in which even a pursuit driven by desire can be brought under dharma.
To show this, Bhīshma told the itihāsa of Ashṭāvakra and Uttarā Diś. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 19)
Ashṭāvakra asks for Suprabhā
The great tapasvī (one rich in austerity) Ashṭāvakra Maharshi wished to marry. He went to the ṛshi Vadānya and asked for his daughter Suprabhā. She had no equal on earth in beauty, good qualities, power and conduct. Ashṭāvakra had lost his heart to her at first sight, as a flowering line of trees takes the eye in spring.
Vadānya agreed to give her to him, but only after Ashṭāvakra first travelled to the northern quarter. Vadānya told him that beyond Kubera’s Alakāpurī and beyond the Himālaya he would reach the dwelling of Rudra, served by siddhas and chāraṇas. There he would find an aged woman of great austerity, who had taken dīkshā (a sacred vow) and was rich in her observances. He must seek her out and honour her, and then return to claim Suprabhā.
Ashṭāvakra accepted the condition. He asked Vadānya to keep his own word in turn, and set out for the north. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 19)
The journey north
Ashṭāvakra’s road led him through the holy Bāhudā tīrtha and the Aśoka tīrtha. There he bathed, offered tarpaṇa (water offering) to the devas, and rested on kuśa grass. He rose before dawn, kept his further observances, and went on to the Rudrāṇī and Rudra-namaka tīrthas. He rested a while at their lake before going on towards Kailāsa. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 19)
At Kubera’s Alakāpurī
He came to the golden gate of Alakāpurī, shining with divine splendour. He saw the Mandākinī, Kubera’s lake, filled with the waters of the Gaṅgā. The rākshasa guardians of the lake, led by Maṇibhadra, rose at once to welcome him.
Kubera himself came. He already knew, through his own foreknowledge, why Ashṭāvakra had come. He greeted the ṛshi with full honour, offered him arghya and pādya (water for the hands and feet), and gave him the freedom of his palace.
Kubera offered a night of divine dance and song by his apsarasas. Ashṭāvakra gladly accepted. A great company of apsarasas danced to the music of the gandharvas: Urvarā, Miśrakeśī, Rambhā, Urvaśī, Alambushā, Ghṛtācī, Citrā, Citrāṅgadā, Ruci, Manoharā, Sukeśī, Sumukhī, Hāsinī, Prabhā, Vidyut, Praśamā, Dāntā, Vidyotā, Ratī, and many others. Ashṭāvakra was so absorbed that a full divine year passed without his knowing it.
At the end of the year Kubera asked politely whether the ṛshi wished the entertainment to go on or wished to travel further. Ashṭāvakra, pleased with the welcome he had received, took his leave. Kubera blessed him with growing vṛddhi and ṛddhi (increase and prosperity) as he went north again. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 19)
To the divine āśrama
Ashṭāvakra went on by the ākāśa-mārga (the path through the sky), as the text says. He crossed Kailāsa and the Himācala. Three times he walked around the mountain of Śiva, who appeared there in the form of a kirāta (a hunter), bowing in praṇāma and pradakshiṇa (circling with respect). Then he came down again to level ground, his mind fully purified.
He came to a second lovely forest, full of the fruits and flowers of every season and alive with birdsong. In it stood a divine āśrama that surpassed even Kubera’s palace. It had gold, jewels, pools set with gems, and vimānas (flying palaces) studded with jewels. It stood on the bank of a Mandākinī bordered with mandāra blossoms. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 19)
The seven kanyās and the chosen one
Ashṭāvakra stood at the gate and announced himself as an atithi (guest). At once seven kanyās (young women) of different, mind-catching forms met him. His mind could not fully hold back, and it was stirred at the sight of each one. Yet a steadiness (dhairya) rose inside him.
The maidens asked him to come in. He answered that all but one should go back to their homes. Only the one who had jñāna (knowledge) and full mastery over her senses and mind should stay.
The kanyās walked around him in respect and left. Only an aged woman remained. She wore clean clothes, was richly adorned, and sat on a couch. Ashṭāvakra greeted her with “svasti”. She rose at once to welcome him and asked him to sit. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 19)
The night of testing
That night Ashṭāvakra told the woman to rest as well, since the hour was late. She lay down on a second couch near his, just as splendid. As the cold grew deeper, she came trembling to his couch. He welcomed her politely, but he stayed wholly unmoved, like wood or a wall, even as she embraced him.
She was troubled. She said she was deluded by desire (kāma-mohitā) and asked him to take her as his lover. She said his tapas was the true cause of her longing, and she offered him mastery over all her wealth.
Ashṭāvakra refused outright. He had made a vow, with truth as his witness, to marry a muni’s daughter for the sake of children and dharma, and not for the pleasures of the senses. He urged her to give up her unrestrained way of living.
She answered with the old teaching on the nature of women: that desire is dearer to women than any other bond, even family, husband or son. She said Prajāpati himself had spoken of this weakness of women. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 19)
Still testing him, she brought him divine oil for his abhyañjana (oil bath) the next morning and bathed him herself with tender care. A new seat was brought for him. She served him food that tasted like amṛta (the drink of immortality), so full in its flavour that Ashṭāvakra, held by the taste and the pleasure of her touch, did not notice the whole day and the following night pass. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 20)
On the second night she came to him again, and again he refused. This time she said she was svatantrā (independent, with no husband). So, she said, there would be no fault of going to another man’s wife, and no fault for him either.
Ashṭāvakra answered with the teaching he had received: no woman in the three worlds has true independence. She is guarded by her father in childhood, by her husband in youth, and by her sons in old age.
Then she said she had stayed a kanyā (unmarried girl), in brahmacarya, since childhood. She begged him not to destroy her śraddhā (faith) by refusing marriage. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 20)
The change and Ashṭāvakra’s decision
Ashṭāvakra saw with amazement that the aged, worn-out woman in front of him had become a young girl, dressed in divine ornaments and clothes. He asked whether this was māyā (illusion), and whether Vadānya himself, through this appearance, was testing his nature. If so, he reasoned, this was no real vighna (obstacle) to his first purpose.
He weighed two choices. He could drop his earlier promise about Vadānya’s daughter and accept this dazzling girl. Or he could keep his word. He decided firmly on the second. He had śakti, the power to master desire, and dhṛti, steady faithfulness to his first resolve. With the strength of both he would not turn away from dharma. Breaking his given word did not please him, and he would reach what he wanted only through truth. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 20)
He then asked the woman plainly why she kept changing her form. A woman who seeks honour from a brāhmaṇa, he said, should not speak or act falsely. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 21)
Uttarā Diś reveals herself
The woman then told him the truth. Wherever a woman and a man are together, in svarga, on earth, or anywhere in the three worlds, the desire born of their nearness never fully ends. She had shown this, she said, not out of any real wish towards him, but to make his mind firm. By his unshaken faithfulness to dharma he had won every world of puṇya.
She said: “Know me as Uttarā Diś, the northern direction itself. You have seen the restlessness that stays even in aged women. Even they are not free from the fever of union. Brahmā and Indra and all the assembled devas are pleased today with your firmness. Your errand here is done. The ṛshi Vadānya himself gave me this task, to test you and to teach you in this way, and I have done it, in his honour. Go home safely. You will obtain Vadānya’s daughter as your wife, and through her you will have sons.” (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 21)
Ashṭāvakra heard the words of Uttarā Diś. He stood with folded hands, and with her leave he went home. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 21)
The marriage
Ashṭāvakra rested and greeted his household. Then he went to Vadānya and told him the whole journey: the road to Gandhamādana, the meeting with the devī of the northern direction, her words about Vadānya, and her instruction.
Vadānya was overjoyed. He gave Suprabhā to Ashṭāvakra in marriage, at a favourable nakshatra (star) and with full vidhi (ritual rules). Free from every worry, Ashṭāvakra lived happily with Suprabhā in his āśrama. (Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 21)
Sources
- Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 19
- Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 20
- Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapter 21