Savitri and Satyavan: The Woman Who Argued With Death
Warned that her chosen husband had only a year to live, Savitri married him anyway. When Death came to collect his soul, she followed on foot and would not turn back.
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There was once a king named Ashwapati who had no children. For eighteen years he lived austerely and offered oblations to the goddess Savitri, and at the end of that time the goddess appeared and granted him a daughter. He named the girl Savitri, after the one whose worship had brought her.
She grew into a woman of such radiance that the young men of the neighbouring kingdoms were afraid to approach her. None came to ask for her hand. Seeing this, her father spoke to her gently. "Daughter, the time for your marriage has passed, and no one has sought you. Go out yourself, then, and find a husband worthy of you. Choose a man whose qualities match your own, and I will not stand in your way."
Savitri set out with her father's elders and travelled through forests and hermitages. When she returned, she found Ashwapati seated with the sage Narada. She bowed to them both and said plainly what she had done. "In the forest of the Shalwas lives a blind king named Dyumatsena, who lost his sight and then his kingdom and now dwells among the ascetics. His son is called Satyavan. Him I have chosen in my heart, and no other will I take for husband."
Narada drew a slow breath. "You have made an unfortunate choice, child. Satyavan is everything you say. He is truthful, generous, patient, handsome, and firm as the earth. But he carries one flaw that outweighs every virtue. One year from this day, at the appointed hour, Satyavan will die."
The king turned to his daughter. "You have heard the sage. Go and choose again."
Savitri answered without any tremor in her voice. "A daughter is given once. A kingdom is inherited once. A gift is given once. And once only does a woman say, I choose this man. Long life or short, with merit or without, I have chosen Satyavan, and I will not choose a second time. What the mind has settled, the tongue confirms, and the hand performs."
Narada looked at her for a long moment and then said to the king, "Her heart will not be moved. Give her to Satyavan." And so it was arranged. Dyumatsena received them courteously in his hermitage, and Savitri set aside her ornaments and her fine cloth and put on the bark garments of the forest dwellers. She served her blind father-in-law and his wife, she tended Satyavan with a quiet and unhurried love, and she told no one what Narada had spoken. The date the sage had named lived only in her own counting.
As the year wore thin, Savitri kept the hour always before her. When four days remained, she took a vow to stand without moving and without food for three nights and three days. Dyumatsena was troubled and begged her not to punish herself so, but she pressed her hands together and said the vow was already taken, and he gave his blessing to it. Through those three nights she stood, and the fast burned in her but did not bend her.
On the fourth morning, the day of the appointed hour, she rose and finished her rites. When Satyavan lifted his axe to go into the wood for fuel, she asked to come with him. He laughed and said the forest paths were rough and she was weak with fasting. She said she was not weary, and that she wished to be at his side that day above all days, and he could not refuse her. They walked together into the green shade, and he gathered fruit and began to cut wood.
Then Satyavan felt a heaviness pass through his head. He set down the axe and said, "My limbs have no strength, and there is a pain like needles in my skull. Let me lie down a little while." Savitri sat and drew his head into her lap. She remembered Narada's word and the hour, and she counted, and she waited.
A figure stood before her, dark and majestic, clothed in red, a noose in his hand. Savitri laid Satyavan's head gently on the ground and stood. "You are no mortal," she said. "Who are you, and what have you come to do?"
"I am Yama," he answered, "lord of the dead. This man's term is finished. I have come myself, and not by my servants, because his virtue is great." He drew out the soul, bound to his noose, no larger than a thumb, and turned toward the south. And Savitri followed him.
"Turn back," said Yama. "You have done the last rites you owe him. You cannot come where I go."
"Where my husband is taken, there I go," said Savitri. "This is the eternal law. And by my devotion, by my fasting, and by my reverence for my elders, no path is closed to me. The wise have said that to walk seven steps beside another makes the two of them friends. In the name of that friendship, hear me. The self-controlled reach the highest good by their own conduct, and none should turn from the road of the righteous."
Yama slowed. "Your speech is well shaped and pleasing to me, and it is spoken with understanding. Ask a boon, woman, any boon but the life of this man, and I will grant it."
Savitri said, "My husband's father is blind and dwells in exile. Let him have his sight again, strong as fire, strong as the sun."
"It is granted," said Yama. "Now turn back, for you are tired."
But she walked on. "How can I be tired when I am near my husband? A meeting with the good is never barren. To sit even a moment in the company of the righteous is a thing to be desired, and their friendship bears fruit that never fails."
"Your words feed my mind like water to the thirsty," said Yama. "Ask a second boon, save the life alone."
"Restore to my father-in-law the kingdom he lost," said Savitri, "and let him rule again in righteousness."
"He will have his kingdom," said Yama. "Go home now, child. You have come far enough."
Still she followed. "You hold all creatures under your law, and you deal them their end not by desire but by justice. That is why they call you Dharma, the god who is righteousness itself. A person trusts the righteous more than they trust themselves, and so all beings run to the good for shelter."
"I have never heard such words as yours from any but the seers," said Yama. "Ask a third boon."
"My own father Ashwapati has no son," said Savitri. "Grant that a hundred sons be born to him, to carry his line."
"A hundred sons he shall have," said Yama. "Now the road grows long. Return."
She did not return. "To live among the righteous is no long road at all. Hear me still. The good do not falter, nor do they lose their reward. The good protect all creatures. The good look for no return. Such conduct is the ornament of the world, and the righteous never withdraw their kindness even from an enemy who falls into their hands."
Yama said, "The more you speak, the more you honour me, and my regard for you deepens with each word. Ask a fourth boon without measure, and then go your way."
Savitri chose her words with care. "Let there be born to me a hundred sons, strong and valiant, to continue my own line and Satyavan's."
"You shall have them," said Yama. "A hundred sons, full of strength and joy. Now let your weariness end."
Savitri did not move from the path. "Lord of justice," she said quietly, "you have granted me a hundred sons of my own body. Yet you are carrying away the only man by whom I would ever bear a child. I ask no new thing. I ask only that your own word be made true. Give me back Satyavan, for without him your boon is empty, and a boon from the god of righteousness cannot be a hollow one."
Yama stood still. He had been caught not by force and not by grief but by his own justice, spoken back to him. He loosed the noose from around the soul. "So be it, fortunate woman. I release him. Take your husband. He will live four hundred years, and you will have your hundred sons, and your names will not be forgotten." And the lord of the dead turned south and was gone.
Savitri went back to where the body lay and drew Satyavan's head once more into her lap. Warmth returned to his limbs. He opened his eyes like a traveller waking, and said he had slept too long, and asked who the shining dark being was that had seemed to lead him away. "He has gone," she said. "You slept, and now you are rested. Rise, if you can. The night has come."
They walked home through the dark forest. In the hermitage they found Dyumatsena with his sight restored, staring in wonder at the world he had not seen in years, and before long the messengers came to say his enemy was dead and his kingdom waited for him. Everything Yama had promised unfolded in its season. And in later ages, when people wished to speak of a woman whose devotion was matched by her wit, whose love was armed with knowledge of the law, they said her name, and the name was Savitri.