The Sambhava parva of the Mahabharata is an incredibly topsy-turvy story of king Yayati, who is often cast as a fi gure whose entire life is spent obsessing about sex. The story begins with king Yayati getting himself entangled in the long-running rivalry between two powerful women — Devayani and Sharmishtha. Devayani is the daughter of sage Shukra, the preceptor of the asuras, and thus, also, of their king Vrishaparva. Sharmishta is the daughter of Vrishaparva. The two are friends to begin with.
The rift in their friendship is instigated by none other than the king of gods, Indra. One day, Devayani and Sharmishtha are frolicking naked in a forest. Indra takes the form of wind and mixes up their garments. Since Devayani’s father is Sharmishtha’s father’s preceptor, Devayani has reasons to assume that she is superior to Sharmishtha. She is enraged after seeing Sharmishtha attempt to wear her clothes. She insults Sharmishtha who, daughter of a demon-king as she is, is so chafed by her words that she throws Devayani in a nearby well and walks away. King Yayati comes to the same well to give water to his thirsty horse. Seeing Devayani inside, he provides her a hand and pulls her out.
Devayani then goes to her father and complains. Politics follows: Shukra threatens Vrishaparva of abandoning him; Vrishaparva, sure that Shukra’s abandonment would mean a conclusive defeat for Asuras before the Devas (as the Asuras would also lose the power to reemerge from death), is committed to pacify the sage. The pacifi cation requires that Sharmishtha become Devayani’s slave and follow her everywhere; Sharmishtha, as a woman who bears the burden of deciding the fate of her entire race, has no choice but to agree. King Yayati again meets Devayani and Sharmishta in the same forest.
This time, Devayani reminds him how he once touched her, and how that entails that he has to accept her as his wife. Scared by the prospect of an inter-caste marriage, Yayati doesn’t agree at fi rst. Before Shukra, he specifi cally asks: ‘Let no great sin descend on me as a consequence of my begetting offspring of mixed caste.’ Even the kings, as can be seen here, were terrifi ed of breaking the codes of the caste system. The marriage between Yayati and Devayani is approved by Shukra.
After a few years, slave Sharmishtha is able to seduce Yayati and gives birth to three sons. On their discovery, Devayani again takes the matter to her father. Yayati’s defence is classic: ‘A man, who refuses when a desirous woman privately solicits him, is called the killer of an embryo by the learned.’ Perverted as this thought is, one takes solace in knowing that the ancients at least thought of killing embryos as a crime.Shukra curses Yayati with immediate old age, yet allows him the power to transfer this old age to a willing recipient. What happens next is another story. (The writer’s fi rst novel ‘Neon Noon’ is now available)
Tanuj Solanki
@tanujsolanki