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Vana Parva · Episode 6 · Chapters 277–283
A princess marries a man fated to die within the year, follows Death into the forest, and talks him out of her husband
Yudhishthira asked a question about his own wife, and the sage Markandeya answered with a story about someone else's.
It came after Jayadratha had carried Draupadi off and been beaten back. Yudhishthira said he did not grieve for himself, or for his brothers, or for the kingdom. He grieved for Draupadi. She had rescued them all at the dice game, and now she had been dragged from the forest by force. Had there ever been a woman, he asked, as devoted as she was?
Markandeya told him about Savitri.
Ashvapati, king of the Madras, was righteous and childless. For eighteen years he lived chaste, ate only at every sixth mealtime, and made a hundred thousand offerings to the goddess Savitri. At the end of the eighteenth year she rose out of his sacred fire and offered him a boon. He asked for many sons. She told him she had already spoken to Brahma on his behalf, and that a radiant daughter would be born.
The girl was born to his senior queen, Malavi, and named after the goddess. She grew so brilliant that no man dared to ask for her. At last her father told her to find a husband herself. The law books, he said, blame a father who does not give his daughter in marriage. So she set out in a golden chariot with old ministers, through the hermitages of royal sages.
She came home to find the sage Narada sitting with her father, and announced her choice. Dyumatsena, king of the Shalvas, had gone blind, and an old enemy had taken his kingdom. He lived in the forest with his wife and son. That son, Satyavan, was the man she had chosen in her heart.
Narada cried out that she had made a terrible mistake without knowing it. He praised Satyavan in every way, down to the boy who had made horses out of clay and painted them. Then he named the one fault. A year from that day, Satyavan would die.
Her father told her to choose again. She refused. Three things happen only once, she said: an inheritance falls once, a daughter is given once, and a man says "I give" once. Long life or short, she had chosen her husband, and she would not choose a second. The mind decides, she said, the voice declares it, and then the deed follows. Narada saw that she would not move, and he advised the marriage.
She married Satyavan in the forest hermitage, put away her jewels, and wore bark and ochre cloth. And day and night she counted.
Four days before the end, she began a vow: three nights standing, without food. On the fourth morning she refused to eat before sunset. When Satyavan picked up his axe to go into the woods for fruit and firewood, she said she would go with him. In almost a year, she told his parents, she had never once left the hermitage. Dyumatsena said she had never asked them for anything before, and let her go. She walked beside her husband, the text says, smiling, with her heart split in two.
While he was splitting wood, Satyavan's head began to ache as if it had been pierced, and he lay down with his head in her lap. Then she saw a figure standing beside him. He was dark and red-eyed, dressed in yellow and crowned, with a noose in his hand. It was Yama, the god of death. He said he had come in person because Satyavan was too good to be taken by his servants. He drew from Satyavan's body a person no bigger than a thumb, bound it with his noose, and set off towards the south.
Savitri followed him.
Yama told her to go back and perform the funeral rites. She said that where her husband went, she went, and that this was the eternal dharma. Then she spoke about the conduct of the good. Yama was pleased and offered her a boon, anything except her husband's life. She asked for her father-in-law's sight. He granted it and told her to turn back. She kept walking and kept talking, and each time she spoke he offered another boon. The second restored Dyumatsena's kingdom. The third gave her father a hundred sons. The fourth gave Savitri herself a hundred sons by Satyavan.
Then she spoke once more about the good: they hold up the earth by their austerity and lead the sun by their truth. This time Yama offered her a boon beyond compare, with no exception attached. Savitri named the contradiction. He had given her a hundred sons by Satyavan, and he was taking Satyavan away. She chose her husband's life, so that Yama's own word would come true. Yama loosed the noose and promised Satyavan four hundred years.
Satyavan woke at nightfall and asked where the dark man had gone. Back at the hermitage, Dyumatsena had found that he could see. He and his wife had run through the forest calling for their son until their feet bled. When Satyavan and Savitri walked in that night, she told everyone everything. The next morning people arrived from the Shalva country. The usurper had been killed by his own minister, and the people wanted their old king back, blind or not. Dyumatsena went home to his throne, and Satyavan was made heir.
Markandeya ended the story with Draupadi. Like Savitri, he told Yudhishthira, she would rescue them all. Yudhishthira's grief lifted.
Yudhishthira's sorrow is that his wife has suffered for his sake. Markandeya's answer reminds him of what he had already said himself: in the dice hall, Draupadi too won boons from a powerful king, and spent them on her husbands' freedom. Savitri is not offered as a woman to pity. She is offered as a woman whose steadiness and speech save a whole family, and the epic tells Yudhishthira he is married to one.
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