Yayāti

Yayāti was a great king of the Lunar dynasty. He was the son of Nahusha and one of the most celebrated cakravartīs (emperors) after the time of Pūrūravas. His life holds the famous triangle of Devayānī and Śarmishṭhā, the curse of early old age from Śukrācārya, the exchange of youth with his youngest son Pūru, a thousand years of sense-enjoyment that gave no lasting satisfaction, and at last his bright renunciation. He voiced it in the Yayāti Gīti and through it reached moksha (liberation). He is the forefather of both the Yādava and the Paurava lines.

Lineage and accession

According to the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Yayāti was the second son of Nahusha. Nahusha was the son of Āyus, and so a direct descendant of Pūrūravas and Ūrvaśī. Nahusha had six sons: Yati, Yayāti, Saṃyāti, Āyati, Niyati and Kṛti.

Yati, the eldest, refused the throne. He knew that being caught up in kingship blocks ātmajñāna (knowledge of the self). Agastya and other maharshis (great seers) cursed Nahusha for lusting after Śacīdevī, and he became a serpent. Yayāti then took the throne. He made his four younger brothers lords of the four quarters.

The Kūrma Mahā Purāṇa lists Nahusha’s sons differently. It gives the sons born of Virajā, daughter of the pitṛ-devas (devas of the ancestors), as Yātī, Yayāti, Saṃyāti, Āyāti and Aśvaka. That is five sons in all. In both accounts Yayāti is the most powerful and best known of them.

Marriages

Yayāti’s two marriages grew out of a quarrel between Devayānī, the proud daughter of Śukrācārya, and Śarmishṭhā, daughter of the asura king Vṛshaparvan. The two young women were playing with their companions in a royal garden. Śarmishṭhā wore Devayānī’s garment by mistake. Devayānī insulted her, and Śarmishṭhā threw her into a well and left.

Yayāti came to the well while hunting. He saw Devayānī inside and held out his hand to draw her up. At the touch of his hand, Devayānī declared, by the custom of the hand-touch, that he and no one else must be her husband.

She told her father Śukrācārya about the quarrel. He was furious and got ready to leave the city of Vṛshaparvan. Vṛshaparvan came and bowed down before Śukrācārya and agreed to any condition. Devayānī’s condition was that Śarmishṭhā, with a thousand companions, must go with Devayānī as her personal dāsī (maidservant) when she left to be married.

Śukrācārya gave Devayānī to Yayāti and warned him strictly: “Never approach Śarmishṭhā.” Yayāti agreed. Devayānī bore him two sons, Yadu and Turvaśu.

Śarmishṭhā longed for children. She went to Yayāti alone and begged him to father her sons. Yayāti weighed dharma (right conduct). He also felt the force of providence in that moment, and he gave way. Śarmishṭhā bore him three sons: Druhyu, Anu and Pūru.

The Kūrma Purāṇa gives the same marriages and the same sons. Yadu and Turvaśu were born of Devayānī. Druhyu, Anu (also called Cānu) and Pūru were born of Śarmishṭhā, daughter of the rākshasa king Vṛshaparvan.

Śukrācārya’s curse

Devayānī learned of Yayāti’s secret union with Śarmishṭhā and was overcome with anger. She went back to her father’s house. Yayāti followed her. He tried every gentle word and loving act to win her back, but he failed.

Śukrācārya was enraged. He cursed Yayāti: “You who are addicted to women, who did not scruple to speak untruth — let hideous premature old age seize you at once!”

Yayāti pleaded for relief, saying that his desires were still unsatisfied. Śukrācārya eased the curse: “Whichever of your sons agrees to exchange his youth for your old age — with him you may freely trade.”

The exchange with Pūru

Yayāti went to each of his sons in turn. Yadu, the eldest, refused. He said he did not want to grow old early without having known the pleasures of youth. Turvaśu, Druhyu and Anu also refused, each for his own reasons. The first three refused out of attachment to youth. The fourth refused for lack of understanding of dharma.

Only Pūru, the youngest, answered with a son’s wisdom:

“Who in this world can fully repay the father who gave him birth? Through a father’s grace, a son attains the highest good. The best son fulfils the father’s wish before it is spoken. The one who does it when told is middling. The one who needs to be persuaded is low. And the one who does not do it at all is no better than a stain upon the father’s name.”

Pūru gladly took his father’s old age and gave him his youth. Yayāti was young and strong again. For a thousand years he enjoyed the pleasures of the senses. He ruled the nine dvīpas (continents) of Bharatavarsha. He performed yāgas (fire rituals) as ārādhanā of Śrī Hari. He lived with Devayānī, who served him with complete devotion of body, speech and mind.

The Yayāti Gīti

After a thousand years of unbroken enjoyment, Yayāti saw that the fire of desire grows with what it is fed, like a flame given ghee. He became virakta (turned away from worldly desire). He told Devayānī the parable of a he-goat. The goat rescued a she-goat from a well and became tied to her. Not even a whole lifetime of pleasure brought him satisfaction. The parable was a teaching from Yayāti’s own heart.

He said: “All the grain and cattle and gold and women of the earth together cannot satisfy the desiring mind. I have been experiencing sense-pleasures continuously for a thousand years, and yet the thirst arises fresh in each moment. Therefore I relinquish this thirst. I shall fix my mind on Parabrahman, become free from the pairs of opposites, and wander in the forest with the animals.”

He gave Pūru’s youth back. He gave a kingdom to each of his sons: Druhyu in the northeast, Yadu in the south, Turvaśu in the west and Anu in the north. He crowned Pūru cakravartī of the whole earth and placed the others under his rule. Then he went to the forest.

In the forest Yayāti let go of every attachment. By the fire of jñāna (knowledge) he burned away the liṅgadeha (the subtle body). He reached moksha. He merged into Parabrahman, which is beyond prakṛti (nature), free from the bond of the guṇas (the qualities of nature), the support of all worlds, a mass of pure consciousness.

The Kūrma Purāṇa also says that Yayāti, after settling his sons in their regions, “departed with his wife to the forest and adopted vānaprastha” (the life of forest retirement).

Legacy

Yayāti is the forefather of both great lines of the Lunar dynasty. From Yadu came the Yādavas, in whose line Bhagavān Śrī Kṛshṇa would appear. From Pūru came the Paurava line, which led to the Kauravas, the Pāṇḍavas and finally Parīkshit Mahārāja, to whom the Bhāgavata was told. The kingdoms of the five sons set the political map of that age.

Devayānī also heard the Gīti and understood that all things pass. She fixed her mind wholly on Śrī Kṛshṇa and reached liberation.

Yayāti in the Bhūmi Khaṇḍa

The Bhūmi Khaṇḍa of the Padma Mahā Purāṇa gives an account of Yayāti’s later life with different sons and a different cause of old age (jarā). It continues at length and ends with the declaration that Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa will take an avatāra in the Yadu line.

Sons in the Bhūmi Khaṇḍa

The Bhūmi Khaṇḍa names Yayāti’s sons as Ruru, also called Turu (the eldest), Pūru (the second, son of Śarmishṭhā), Kuru (the third) and Yadu (the fourth). The yajñas of Nahusha had won him the place of Indra. Through that stored puṇya (merit), Yayāti inherited a reign of eighty thousand years.

The Mātali dialogue and the refusal of svarga

Yayāti proclaimed devotion to Vishṇu. His kingdom became free of disease and death, like an earthly Vaikuṇṭha. People looked young for ever, and Yama’s messengers were driven away. Yamadharmarāja reported this to Indra. Indra sent his charioteer Mātali to bring Yayāti to svarga (heaven).

Yayāti did not accept. He held a long talk with Mātali (Chapters 64–71) on the make-up of the body, how jarā comes from the fire of desire using up śukra (vital essence), death, pāpa-karma (sinful action), the torments of naraka, Śiva-dharma and the order of the lokas. At the end Yayāti declared that he would make svarga on earth through bhakti (devotion) and not seek it elsewhere. Mātali took this refusal back to Indra.

The Manmatha trap and the entry of jarā

Indra could not lure Yayāti to svarga. He asked Manmatha, Rati and Vasanta to stage a play before Yayāti. Yayāti watched it spellbound. At one point he answered a call of nature and came back without washing his hands. This lapse in ritual gave jarā a way into his body. The old age that he had driven away from his people entered the king himself through the craft of Manmatha’s play.

The Kāma-saras and Aśrubindumati

Afflicted with jarā, Yayāti was wandering while hunting. He found the Kāma-saras, a divine lake five by ten yojanas in size. Its waters were formed from the tears of Rati’s grief when Bhagavān Śiva burned Manmatha.

There he saw Aśrubindumati, the daughter of Rati. She was born from a thousand-petalled lotus that grew from Rati’s tears of joy when Manmatha was restored. She sat on the lotus and played the vīṇā with enchanting skill. Her friend Viśālā, daughter of Varuṇa, acted as go-between. She explained Aśrubindumati’s conditions: a young husband and no co-wives.

The Pūru exchange in the Bhūmi Khaṇḍa

Yayāti went back to his sons to ask for the exchange of youth. Turu, the eldest, refused. Yayāti cursed him with the loss of his śikhā (tuft of hair), of Vedic study and of right conduct (ācāra). He cursed him also with brahmahatyā-pāpa (the sin of killing a brāhmaṇa) and kushṭha (leprosy), and with mleccha descendants. Yadu also refused, later. Pūru, who in this account is specifically Śarmishṭhā’s son, accepted gladly. He gave his own youth and took his father’s jarā. Yayāti looked sixteen years old again.

Gāndharva marriage and twenty thousand years

His youth was back and he had made his vow of exclusive devotion. Yayāti married Aśrubindumati by gāndharva-vivāha (marriage by mutual consent). They lived together for twenty thousand years. She became pregnant. She asked for an Aśvamedha yāga and a journey to the divine lokas.

The jealousy of Devayānī and Śarmishṭhā

Despite his vow, Devayānī and Śarmishṭhā grew jealous of Aśrubindumati and turned ill feeling on her. Aśrubindumati told Yayāti. In rage he ordered Yadu to kill the two women. Yadu refused. He said that all veda-paṇḍitas (Vedic scholars) clearly rule that mātṛhatyā (killing one’s own mother) is mahāpāpa (a great sin), and that no father’s command can make it dharma. Yayāti cursed Yadu again for this second refusal.

The avatāra proclamation

Right after the curse on Yadu, Yayāti declared that Bhagavān Śrī Nārāyaṇa would take an avatāra (descent) with a part of himself in Yadu’s line. This was the very line Yayāti had just cursed. The divine presence would make it holy and cleanse what his anger had condemned.

Yayāti in the Matsya Purāṇa

The Matsya Mahā Purāṇa treats the Yayāti cycle at greater length than any other Purāṇa. It runs from Chapter 25 to Chapter 42.

It opens with a prologue found only in this Purāṇa. It tells how Kaca studied under Śukrācārya, how he died three times and was revived, and how he came out of Śukra’s body. Kaca refused the proposal of Devayānī, and the two cursed each other (Chapters 25–26). This prologue explains why Devayānī, though a brāhmaṇa’s daughter, married a kshatriya, Yayāti. Her curse from Kaca shut her out of a marriage within the brāhmaṇa class.

The main story follows the Bhāgavata account: the marriages, Śukra’s curse of jarā, the exchange with Pūru and the thousand years of enjoyment. The Matsya Purāṇa adds the Ashṭaka dialogue (Chapters 41–42). It is a long talk on dharma, the nature of dāna (giving) and the passing on of puṇya. Yayāti falls from svarga because of his pride. He meets his grandsons, among them the righteous Ashṭaka, son of Viśvāmitra’s daughter. They offer him their stored virtue to break his fall. The joint puṇya of the four grandsons raises Yayāti not only back to his old svarga but to a higher place.

Bhīshma tells the same fall and rise in short form in his teaching on daiva and purushakāra to Yudhishṭhira. Yayāti fell from svarga to earth when his puṇya was used up. He was raised to svarga again only by the puṇya earned by his own dauhitras (grandsons through a daughter). Bhīshma gives this as an example of how daiva (the seed) needs purushakāra (the field, here supplied by the next generation) to bear fruit.

In the Mārkaṇḍeya Samāsyā Parva

Mārkaṇḍeya Maharshi speaks of Yayāti in Chapter 195 of the Vana Parva, in the Nāhusha Carita section. He is telling Yudhishṭhira of kings who gave dāna. Yayāti is named for giving one thousand red cows to a brāhmaṇa. This gift is held up as a sign of the Nahusha line’s custom of royal giving. It stands beside other examples of virtuous kings in Mārkaṇḍeya’s teaching on the dharma of dāna.

The oath at Prabhāsa

Yayāti was in the great gathering of ṛshis and rājarshis (royal seers) at Prabhāsa when the lotus that Agastya had ceremonially planted was found stolen. To prove his innocence Yayāti swore a self-curse. Whoever had taken the lotus, he said, should have children by his wife outside her fertile season, though bound by a vrata (vow), and should treat the Vedas as no authority. Indra later admitted that he had taken the lotus to test the dharma of the gathering. This is told in Chapter 94 of the Anuśāsana Parva.

Yayāti among those who gave up meat

In the Anuśāsana Parva’s teaching on ahiṃsā (non-harm) and meat-eating, Bhīshma names Yayāti among the great rājarshis who gave up māṃsa (meat). Through this they reached svarga and Brahmaloka (Chapter 115).

Sources

• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 9th Skandha, Chapters 18–19
• Kūrma Mahā Purāṇa, Pūrvārdha, Chapter 22
• Brahmāṇḍa Mahā Purāṇa, Madhyama Bhāga, Chapter 68
• Padma Mahā Purāṇa, Bhūmi Khaṇḍa, Chapters 64–80
• Vishṇu Mahā Purāṇa, Caturthāṃśa, Chapter 10
• Matsya Mahā Purāṇa, Chapters 24–42
• Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, Sambhava Parva, Chapters 75–92
• Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 195
• Mahābhārata, Anuśāsana Parva, Chapters 6, 94, 115