Savitri and Yama

For three nights in a row, those eyes did not close. For three nights in a row, those lips did not touch a grain of rice or a sip of water. The one standing so steadily, in the yard of a small thatched hermitage in the forest, was a young woman named Savitri.

This is one of the most retold stories in the Mahabharata, the great epic of India. It is the story of a young wife who dared to follow the god of death, and who won against him with nothing but her own words. But to understand why Savitri had to keep watch for three whole nights, the story has to go back to the years before she was born.

King Ashvapati of Madra had long been without children. Day after day, he prayed to the goddess Savitri for a child. Then his wish came true. The queen gave birth to a princess of rare beauty, and the king named his daughter Savitri, as a way of thanking the goddess who had heard his prayers.

Savitri grew up, and the older she grew, the more radiant she became. She shone so brightly that no prince dared to ask for her hand. People took her for a goddess come down to earth and did not dare come near. So her father allowed his daughter to go and find a husband for herself. Savitri set out in a chariot. She traveled to the hermitages deep in the forests and visited the sages there, until the day she met a young man named Satyavan.

Satyavan was the son of King Dyumatsena, who had once ruled a kingdom. The old king had gone blind and lost his throne, and now he lived in seclusion in the forest with his wife and son. Though he lived simply, Satyavan carried himself like a true king. He was majestic as the sun, wise, brave and generous, and as handsome as the full moon. Savitri looked at him once, and in her heart the matter was settled.

She went home to tell her father. Just then, the sage Narada came to visit the palace. As he listened to Savitri, he nodded and praised each of the young man's virtues one by one. Then his voice suddenly grew heavy. The young man had only one flaw. Within a year, Satyavan would die.

King Ashvapati was alarmed, and he urged his daughter to choose someone else. But Savitri only shook her head. A person chooses only once in a lifetime, she answered, and her heart had already chosen. Faced with such resolve, the king let the wedding go ahead. Savitri left the palace and put on the plain clothes of a forest hermit. She went to live with her husband's family in the forest, and day after day she cared for her husband's parents with all the devotion of a loving daughter. But in her heart, she was quietly counting the days.

As the last days of that year drew near, Savitri began to keep a strict vow. She would stand for three nights straight, without sleeping, without eating, without drinking. Her father-in-law worried and told her the vow was very hard. But Savitri only smiled and said she was strong enough to keep her vow to the end. Those were the three nights at the very start of this story.

On that morning, the very day the sage Narada had foretold, Satyavan shouldered his axe to go into the forest and chop wood, as he always did. Savitri asked to go with him. He tried to stop her, afraid she was still weak after three nights without food. Savitri replied that she felt no tiredness at all, no weakness at all. For almost a year, she said, she had not set foot outside the hermitage. His parents gave their consent, and so husband and wife went hand in hand into the forest.

In the middle of the forest, Satyavan split wood and gathered fruit, chatting happily with his wife. But only a little while later, a sharp pain struck his head, and his arms and legs grew heavy. He let the axe fall, laid his head in Savitri's lap, and closed his eyes to rest. Savitri held her husband and quietly stroked him. She felt his breathing grow softer and softer, like a lamp flame sinking low before the wind.

Then, in that stillness, a figure appeared before Savitri. It was a king dressed in deep red robes, with a crown on his head, tall and radiant as the sunlight. This was the god Yama, who is also called Dharmaraja, the King of Righteousness. He was the same god who, in another story, taught the boy Nachiketa that the soul is immortal. He had not come to spread fear. He came out of duty, as a just king who judges every soul by what is right. Yama bent down and gently reached out his hand. A tiny point of light, no bigger than a thumb, left Satyavan's chest and followed the god's hand. Then Yama turned away and walked quietly toward the south.

Savitri laid her husband's head softly down on the carpet of leaves, rose, and quietly followed. Yama turned back, surprised. "Go back now, Savitri. You have fulfilled every duty to your husband." But Savitri answered in a voice both calm and firm. Wherever her husband went, whether someone else led him there or he walked there himself, she would follow too, for that was the natural way of a wife. She added that a friendship between two people can be formed just by walking a stretch of road together. And righteousness, she said, is worth more than all the years of a life on earth.

Yama fell silent. Savitri's words were brief, true and wise, and he could not help admiring them. "I am pleased with what you have said," Yama told her. "Ask me for a wish, anything at all, except the life of your husband." Savitri did not hesitate. She asked that her father-in-law, King Dyumatsena, might see again and be as strong as he once was. Yama nodded and granted it at once. Then she asked for more. She wished that her father-in-law might win back the whole kingdom he had lost. Yama agreed to that too. Then he urged her to go back, because the road to the realm of the ancestors was still long.

But Savitri kept following him. She went on talking gently about duty, about how to live, and about the joy of being near a good person, even for a moment. The more Yama listened, the more deeply her words moved him, and he invited her to ask for one more wish. This time, Savitri thought of her own father, King Ashvapati, who had no son to carry on his line. She asked that her father be given a hundred sons. Yama smiled and granted it at once. Then once again he urged her to go back.

Still Savitri did not turn around. She kept walking, and she kept speaking words so sincere that the just god of judgment respected her more and more. At last Yama invited her to ask for one final wish. Savitri pressed her palms together. "Grant that Satyavan and I may have a hundred strong sons, to carry on our family line." Yama, still caught up in admiring her wisdom, granted the wish at once.

Savitri gave a small smile. "Lord," she said, "I am a faithful wife. I can have children with no one but Satyavan. So how can the wish you have just granted ever come true, if my husband is no longer alive?"

Yama stopped short. He looked at the small woman before him. She had just used the very righteousness he held sacred to bind him to his own promise. The King of Righteousness was not angry at all. On the contrary, he burst out laughing, a warm laugh full of respect. "I have never heard anyone speak words like yours," Yama said. He opened his hand and released the tiny point of light he had been holding in his palm. "I give your husband back to you. Satyavan will be well, and he will live 400 more years at your side." With that, the god Yama turned and went quietly back to his own realm.

Savitri hurried back to the place where her husband lay. At that very moment, Satyavan drew a long breath and opened his eyes. He looked around in a daze, as if he had just woken from a very deep sleep. Dusk had already fallen. Husband and wife walked hand in hand through the forest, back to the thatched hermitage, where his parents were waiting, too anxious to sit still.

That night, after three full nights without a single grain of rice, Savitri at last sat down to eat. The firelight flickered, and Satyavan's hand was still warm in hers.