Samā (Yakshiṇī)

Samā

Samā was a Yakshiṇī, the wife of Samanyu, lord of the Yakshas, who lived in a jewelled cave on Himavat. She was a pativratā, devoted to her husband and eager to serve him, and she could take any form she wished. When King Ila took the cave and killed Samanyu’s Yakshas, Samā took the form of a hind, drew the king into Umāvana, the forest of Umā where any man who enters becomes a woman, and then taught Ilā the arts of women and sent her to Budha. The arts she gave later flowed out of Ilā’s body at the Gautamī as three rivers.

Brahmā tells this to Nārada in the Gautamī Māhātmya of the Brahma Purāṇa, in the account of Ilātīrtha.

The Yaksha’s cave

Samanyu, the Yaksha, roamed his forest on Himavat as he pleased with his wife, dancing and singing. King Ila of the line of Vivasvān came hunting, saw the jewelled cave and stayed in it, not knowing it was the Yaksha’s home. When Samanyu’s Yakshas told him to leave, Ila fought them, killed them and stayed there ten nights. With his abode lost and his servants killed, Samanyu lived in the forest in the form of a deer, with Samā in the form of a doe.

Samanyu asked her: “Beloved, how shall I conquer this king, strong, proud of his glory, blind with arrogance and given to hunting?” Samā said: “Is there any means of subduing his arrogance? If my words or deeds can help, tell me, and I shall do it.” Samanyu told her to take the form of a hind, show herself to Ila and draw him into Umāvana, so that he would become a woman. “It is not proper for me to go, for I am a man. You are a woman, and a Yakshiṇī besides.” Samā asked why he could not go there himself, and he told her how Devī Pārvatī had asked Bhagavān Śiva for Umāvana, and how Śiva commanded that every man who entered it, except himself, Gaṇeśa, Kārtikeya and Nandin, would become a woman.

The hind in Umāvana

Hearing her husband’s words, Samā of the large eyes became a hind and appeared before Ila. The king, given to hunting, set out alone on his horse after her. Now vanishing, now showing herself, now standing still, now walking, now running as though afraid, she drew him on into Umāvana. When she knew that he had entered it, she gave up the form of the hind and took a divine form, anointed with divine unguents, and stood beside an aśoka tree with one hand on its branch, glad that she had done what she set out to do.

As the tired king searched for the hind, she looked at him with a smile and said: “Delicate-limbed one, young maiden, Ilā, where are you going alone on a horse, dressed like a man?” Ila, hearing himself called Ilā, rebuked her in fury and showed her his bow. “Ilā, look at yourself,” she said, “and then tell me whether I speak the truth.” The king looked and found he had become a woman.

Her words to Ilā

Ilā asked what had happened and who she was. Samā said: “Samanyu, my husband, lord of the Yakshas, lives in an excellent cave of the Himālaya. I am his wife, a Yakshiṇī. It was his Yakshas you killed, out of delusion, without a formal fight, and his cave you were staying in. To make you leave it I took the form of a hind and entered Umāvana, and you followed. Long ago Maheśvara declared that the ignorant man who comes within this place will become a woman. That is why you have become a woman. Do not grieve; even a mature person cannot know the hidden future.”

When Ilā fell from the horse, Samā comforted her: “You have become a woman once and for all. Do not strive to regain manhood. Learn the arts that befit women: a woman’s charm, her elegance and playful ways, all the activities of a woman.” When Ilā had mastered them, she asked who would be her husband and how she might become a man again. Samā told her of Budha, the son of Soma, whose āśrama lay to the east of the forest, and who passed by that way every day to pay respects to his father: “Show yourself to him, and all your desires will be fulfilled.” Then Samā vanished and told Samanyu, who was happy to hear it.

The arts she gave

Ilā married Budha and bore Purūravas, and in time, by the grace of the Devī and Bhagavān Śiva at the Gautamī, Ila became a man again by bathing there. As Ilā bathed, water flowed out of her body, and the dance, song, charm and other arts she had received from the Yakshiṇī entered the Gaṅgā as the rivers Nṛtyā, Gītā and Saubhāgyā.

Sources

• Brahma Purāṇa, Gautamī Māhātmya, Chapter 38