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STORIES · THE MAHĀBHĀRATA · Ādi

Yayāti

Classical

Yayati, son of Nahusha, is a king the epic uses to teach something about wanting. His story is told to Janamejaya as part of the family history, and it runs through two marriages, a curse, and a very strange trade between father and son.

He had married Devayani, daughter of the sage Shukra, and her friend Sharmishtha was in the household too. Yayati had two sons with Devayani, Yadu and Turvasu, and three with Sharmishtha: Drahyu, Anu and Puru. Devayani first learned that Sharmishtha had borne a child and confronted her, and Sharmishtha said the father was a learned, virtuous sage, which satisfied her for the moment. The truth came out one day in a quiet part of the royal park. Devayani saw three boys playing and asked whose they were. They named Sharmishtha as their mother and pointed to the king. Yayati felt awkward in front of his wife and did not embrace them, and the boys ran to their mother in tears.

Devayani left the palace and went to her father. She said Yayati had strayed from righteousness. Shukra cursed Yayati with old age before his time. Yayati defended himself: to refuse a woman at the right time for her would itself have been wrong. Shukra replied that he should have waited for his command, so it was still a breach of duty. Yayati, old and not yet tired of pleasure, asked for the curse to be lifted. Shukra gave him a way out: he could pass the old age to someone else, and the son who took it would inherit the throne, with long life, fame and many descendants.

Yayati asked his sons one after the other to take his age and give him their youth, promising to return it after a thousand years. Yadu, the eldest, refused, listing the miseries of age: weak strength, white hair, lost respect. Yayati cursed his line never to be kings. Turvasu refused too, saying old age steals appetite, pleasure, strength and mind, and his line was cursed to die out and rule over impure peoples. Drahyu said the old cannot enjoy elephants, chariots, horses or women, and was cursed to be king in name only in a land without roads. Anu said the old eat like children and cannot keep the fire offerings, and was cursed to be overtaken by age and see his children die at youth. Puru, the youngest, agreed at once and without complaint. Yayati blessed his people with all their desires, called on Shukra, and handed his old age to Puru.

For a thousand years Yayati enjoyed his borrowed youth, and by the account he lived well: sacrifices, honour for the ancestors, gifts to the poor and to Brahmins, justice for his subjects. At the end he drew the conclusion the story exists to teach. Desire is never satisfied by indulging it. It grows, like a fire fed with ghee. He decided to give up craving and go to the forest to devote himself to Brahma.

He gave Puru's youth back, and crowned him. The four social orders and the Brahmins objected, since Puru was the youngest and the elder sons were passed over. Yayati answered that Yadu, Turvasu, Drahyu and Anu had disobeyed him, Puru alone had obeyed and taken his age, and Shukra himself had said the obedient son should inherit. The people agreed, Puru was crowned, and Yayati went to the forest with Brahmins and ascetics. The text then names the descendants: Yadu's became the Yadavas, Turvasu's the Yavanas, Drahyu's the Bhojas, Anu's the Mlechchhas, and Puru's the Pauravas, the line to which Janamejaya belongs. So the Kuru dynasty descends from the son who was willing to bear his father's age.

Told by Vaiśampāyana → Janamejaya

Bound to

Śakuntalā geneal

Kaca & Devayānī origin

Where this comes from

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