Śatadhavān and Śaibya

Śatadhavān was a king and Śaibya was his queen. This account is told in the Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, in the Tṛtīyāṃśa, Chapter 18. It shows how heavy is the result of keeping company with a pāshaṇḍa (one who has given up Vedic dharma), and how the steady wisdom of a faithful wife can set a husband free. Śatadhavān spoke with a known heretic on a day of vrata (vow). He was born seven times as lower and lower animals. Śaibya followed him through all seven births, until she bathed him in the avabhṛtha bath of Janaka’s Aśvamedha and he was born again as a human being, as Janaka’s son.

The king and his queen

In Bhūloka there lived a king named Śatadhavān. He was wholly given to Bhagavān Janārdana. With his wife Śaibya he kept japa (chanting), homa (fire offering), arcana (service of the mūrti) and upavāsa (fasting), with a steady mind. Śaibya was a model patīvratā (a wife faithful to her husband). She had satya (truth), śauca (purity), dayā (kindness), vinaya (humility) and all good qualities.

On a Kārtika pūrṇimā (full-moon day), the king and queen bathed in the Gaṅgā and kept the fast. As they returned, they met a man who was known to be a pāshaṇḍin, a heretic who had given up Vedic dharma. The king knew this man as a friend. Out of affection and old acquaintance, he greeted him warmly and talked with him.

Śaibya saw the danger. She was fasting, so she kept strict silence and turned her eyes away. At once she looked toward Sūrya. This is the act of cleansing laid down when one has unwillingly seen a pāshaṇḍin.

The couple went home and did their Vishṇu-pūjā as usual.

First birth: a dog

After the king died, the pāshaṇḍa-dosha (fault of keeping company with a pāshaṇḍa) from that one talk with a known heretic on a vrata day bore its fruit. Śatadhavān was born as a dog (śvā) in the city of Vidiśā.

Śaibya had pure karma and the strength of her vow as a faithful wife. She was born as the daughter of the king of Kāśī. She was beautiful and gifted, and she remembered her past life (pūrva-janma-smṛti). She also had divya-dṛshṭi (divine sight), which let her see the state of her husband’s births, one after another.

Her father wished to arrange her marriage, but she stopped him. With her divine sight she found her former husband, a dog in Vidiśā. She travelled there and found him. She fed him fine food from her own hands. The dog felt a flicker of recognition and made the loving signs that dogs make. Śaibya bowed to the dog with tears of pity and spoke to the king within it:

“Mahārāja! It is your misplaced friendliness, your talk with that pāshaṇḍin, that has brought you to this state. Do you remember? After the bath in the Gaṅgā and the holy fast, you spoke with that heretic. Do you recall?”

This reminder overwhelmed the dog-king. He was filled with nirveda (despair at his low birth). He left the city, climbed to the edge of a cliff and threw himself off, and he died in that body.

Through the animal births

In every later birth the same thing happened. By her divine sight, Śaibya followed her husband and visited him in each form. She reminded him of his past and his fault. He took in the teaching, felt nirveda, gave up that body and took the next birth. The seven forms were:

In the crow birth, Śaibya reminded him: “You were the great king to whom all kings bowed and brought tribute. Now you are a crow living on bali-food (the offerings left out for crows), yourself a bali-bhuk.”

By the peacock birth, his karma had been largely used up. Śaibya had been with the peacock through all this time, giving him food and doing all the acts of devotion.

Liberation at the Aśvamedha

Śaibya learned that Janaka Mahārāja was performing an Aśvamedha yajña. She understood that this was the time of her husband’s freedom. The avabhṛtha snāna, the holy closing bath of the Aśvamedha, has the power to wash away even deep marks of karma.

She brought the peacock to the place of Janaka’s Aśvamedha. At the time of the avabhṛtha snāna, she bathed the peacock in the holy waters, and she bathed with him.

As the holy waters touched him and Śaibya spoke the words that brought back his memory of the past life, the peacock gave up its body. In the same moment Śatadhavān was born as a son of Janaka Mahārāja, a birth of the highest puṇya (merit).

Reunion and the end

Śaibya went back to her father, the king of Kāśī, and persuaded him to arrange a svayaṃvara (a bride’s own choice of husband). At the svayaṃvara she knew, among all the princes gathered there, the one who was her husband in his new form. She put the garland on Janaka’s son. In this way she married the same ātmā again, across the veil of births.

The couple ruled together for a long time in Videha. They:

• performed many yajñas
• gave much dāna (gifts) to those who asked
• had sons
• defeated their enemies
• ruled the earth with nyāya (justice)

At last the king fell in battle, the death fitting for a kshatriya. Śaibya joyfully followed him on the pyre, as she had done in the earlier birth. Together they rose beyond the worlds of the Indras and reached the akshaya lokas, the worlds that never perish.

What the account teaches

The Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa uses this account for three teachings:

1. A single talk with a heretic on a holy day is enough to bring repeated animal births. Contact with those who have given up the Vedic dharma is to be avoided.
2. The avabhṛtha snāna of a rightly performed Aśvamedha has the power to wash away pāpa (sin) gathered over many births.
3. Śaibya’s steady devotion, shown in her silence in front of the pāshaṇḍin, her search for her husband through seven animal births, and her winning of his freedom, shows that the resolve and pity of a faithful wife can carry another ātmā to moksha.

Sources

• Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Tṛtīyāṃśa, Chapter 18