Savitri and the Lord of Death

King Ashvapati of the Madras had no child. For eighteen years he prayed to the goddess Savitri, and at last she rose from his fire and promised him a daughter. He named the girl after her.

Savitri grew up so radiant that no prince dared ask for her. So her father sent her out to find a husband for herself.

When she came home, the sage Narada was sitting with the king.

"I have chosen," she said. "Satyavan, son of Dyumatsena. His father, the king of the Shalvas, went blind and lost his throne. They live in the forest."

"That is a great pity," said Narada. "He is truthful, brave and gentle. He has one fault. A year from today he will die."

"Choose again, child," said the king.

"A person dies once," said Savitri. "A daughter is given once. I have chosen once, whether his life is long or short. I will not choose twice."

So she married him, and went to live in the forest with his parents. She kept Narada's words in her mind and counted the days.

---

When four days were left she took a hard vow and fasted for three days and nights. On the last morning Satyavan picked up his axe.

"I am coming with you," she said. "Today I cannot be apart from you."

In the forest he began to cut wood. Then he stopped.

"My head hurts, Savitri. I cannot stand."

She sat down and took his head on her lap. When she looked up, someone was standing over them. He was huge and dark, dressed in red, with a crown on his head and red eyes, and he held a noose.

She laid her husband's head on the ground and stood up.

"You are no man. Who are you?"

"I am Yama. Your husband's days are finished. I have come to take him."

"I had heard that you send messengers."

"He is too good a man for my messengers. So I came myself."

He drew out of Satyavan a figure no bigger than a thumb, bound it in the noose and walked away to the south. Savitri walked after him.

"Go back, Savitri. Go and give him his funeral. You have come as far as anyone can."

"Where my husband is taken, I go. And the wise say that seven steps walked together make a friendship. So let me talk to you as a friend."

She spoke about duty and goodness, and she spoke well.

"I like your words. Ask for a wish. Anything but his life."

"My father-in-law is blind. Let him see."

"Done. Now turn back. You are tired."

"How can I be tired near my husband?" She went on talking, and he gave her a second wish. She asked that Dyumatsena get his kingdom back. For the third she asked a hundred sons for her own father. Each time Yama told her to go home, and each time she walked on.

"A fourth wish, then. Anything but his life."

"A hundred sons for me and Satyavan."

"You shall have them. You have come too far. Go back."

She did not. She spoke of how the good never regret a kindness.

"The more you say, the more I respect you. Ask me for a wish beyond compare."

He had not said "anything but his life".

"The wish you already gave me cannot come true without my husband," said Savitri. "Give me Satyavan's life, so that your own word is not made false."

Yama untied the noose. He was smiling.

"He is free. You will live together four hundred years."

---

She ran back and took his head on her lap again. He opened his eyes.

"I slept so long. Where is the dark man who was pulling me away?"

"It is late. I will tell you tomorrow."

They walked home by the light of a tree still burning from a forest fire. His father met them, and he could see. In the morning men came from the Shalva country. The usurper was dead, they said, and the people wanted their king.

In Tamil Nadu the story is told once a year, at the moment the month of Masi ends and the month of Panguni begins. It is the same story with a small kitchen in it.

Savitri knew the day. In the telling kept by the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham, she prepared for it by praying to the goddess Kamakshi. For three days she fasted and stood still as a tree.

On the first day of Panguni she went with Satyavan to the forest. He grew tired while cutting wood and lay down with his head on her lap, and Yama came and drew out his life, no bigger than a thumb.

Savitri did not get up to follow, not yet. She sat beside her husband's body and went on with her worship. She gathered wild flowers and fruit for the goddess. But worship needs an offering of cooked food, and she had nothing with her. She was in a forest.

So she made what she could. She shaped a little cake out of clay, and beside it she set a lump of tree sap to stand for butter.

"This is wasted," Yama told her. "He is dead. He cannot be brought back."

She finished her prayer. Then she stood up and followed him south.

"No one in a living body may enter my world," said Yama.

She kept walking, and she praised him. He knew the scriptures, she said, and he never departed from what was right. They talked for a long way. He gave her sight for her father-in-law, then his kingdom, then a hundred sons for her father, then a hundred sons of her own.

"The word of Yama Dharmaraja cannot be false," said Savitri. "For me to have those sons, you must give Satyavan back."

He admired her and gave him back.

So on that day Tamil women make the cake she made, with rice flour and jaggery now in place of the clay, and set real butter beside it. They offer it to Kamakshi, tie a yellow thread around their necks, and pray never to be parted from their husbands.