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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Vana
Sāvitrī
Classical
The story of Savitri begins with a king in despair over another woman's suffering. Yudhishthira is grieving for Draupadi, who has been dragged through the dice-hall humiliation and later seized by Jayadratha, and he asks the sage Markandeya whether any woman so devoted has ever lived. Markandeya answers with Savitri, daughter of King Aswapati of the Madras.
Aswapati was old and childless, and for eighteen years he kept up a harsh discipline of daily offerings. The goddess Savitri granted him a boon, a daughter, and the child was named for her. When she grew up, no suitor came. Her father told her to find a husband herself, and she set out with his old counsellors through holy places and hermitages.
When she came back, the sage Narada was sitting with her father. Narada asked why she was not yet married, and Aswapati invited her to name her choice in front of him. She named Satyavan, son of Dyumatsena, a blind king of the Shalvas who had lost his throne to an enemy and gone into the forest with his wife and baby son. Narada praised Satyavan's character and then said that Satyavan had one year left to live. He urged Aswapati to have her choose again. Aswapati repeated the warning. Savitri refused: a choice is made once, and as she put it, "Twice I shall not select." Narada was moved and approved. Aswapati began preparing the wedding.
He went to the hermitage and found the blind king sitting under a sala tree on kusa grass. Dyumatsena hesitated, because forest life is hard for a king's daughter, but Aswapati insisted that they were equals and he would not be refused, and the old man admitted he had long wished for exactly this match. The rites were done by forest sages. Savitri gave up her jewels, wore bark and red-dyed cloth, and won over her in-laws and her husband by service and gentle speech. Through all of it Narada's words stayed in her mind.
On the day, Satyavan went to the forest to gather fruit and cut wood, and Savitri went with him. He began to sweat, felt a violent headache, and lay down with his head in her lap. She, who had been counting the time, saw a dark figure in red standing over them with a noose. She laid her husband's head down and asked who he was. He was Yama. Satyavan's days had run out, and Yama had come in person because Satyavan was too good for his messengers. He drew out a thumb-sized life from the body and started south.
Savitri followed. Yama told her to go home, and she argued from dharma and from the bond of companionship until he was impressed. He offered boons, anything but Satyavan's life. She asked first that her blind father-in-law have his sight and strength back, then that his kingdom be restored, then a hundred sons for her father, then a hundred sons for herself and Satyavan. Each time Yama granted it and urged her to stop. Then she pointed out that the hundred sons meant nothing if the man who would father them was in his noose. Yama let go. He gave Satyavan four hundred years of life and lasting fame.
She went back to the body, sat with his head in her lap, and he woke without knowing what had happened. They walked home by moonlight. Meanwhile Dyumatsena had found his sight returned and had been searching with his wife through the night, his feet torn on thorns. Ascetics told them Satyavan was alive and gave reasons. When the couple came in, Savitri told everyone what she had done. Messengers from the Shalva people arrived next day: the usurper had been killed by his own minister, his troops had scattered, and the people wanted their king blind or not. Dyumatsena went back and was crowned, with his son as prince. Savitri had a hundred sons, and a hundred brothers had been born to her father.
Markandeya's closing is aimed at Yudhishthira: a woman like this lifted her family out of ruin, and Draupadi, he says, will do the same for the Pandavas.
Told by Mārkaṇḍeya → Yudhiṣṭhira
Who: Draupadī
Bound to
Nala twin
Where this comes from
- CE · Mahabharata, Critical Edition 3.277-283 3.277-283
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Section as shown on page (opening of the Savitri episode: Yudhishthira's question, Aswapati's boon)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Section CCXCII (Savitri names Satyavan; Narada's warning)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Section CCXCIII (wedding and hermitage life)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Section CCXCV (Yama and the boons)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Section CCXCVI (Dyumatsena's sight; Savitri's account)
- read for this telling · Mahabharata, Ganguli translation (mahabharataonline.com) Section CCXCVII (messengers from Salwa; coronation; closing)