The Old Man and the Pool

When the family of the Bhrigus went up to heaven, one of them was left behind on earth. His name was Chyavana. He was so old and shrunken that he looked more like a ghost than a man, and he lay on the ground in the open country and could not get up.

King Sharyata, a son of Manu, came wandering that way with his whole clan and camped nearby. The boys of the camp went out to play and found the old man lying there. They thought he was nothing at all, and they threw clods of earth at him.

Chyavana was angry. He could not stand up, but he could still do harm. Quarrels broke out all over the camp. Father fought with son, and brother with brother.

Sharyata thought about it. "This has come from something I have done," he said to himself. He called the cowherds and the shepherds together.

"Which of you has seen anything strange here today?"

"There is a man lying over there," they said. "He is very old and looks like a ghost. The boys threw clods at him."

Then Sharyata knew who it was. He yoked his chariot, set his daughter Sukanya on it and drove to the place where the sage lay.

"Reverence to you, Rishi," he said. "I did not know you, and so I have wronged you. Here is Sukanya. With her I make amends. Let my people live in peace."

From that hour the clan was at peace. Sharyata broke camp at once and went away, in case he should offend the old man a second time. Sukanya stayed.

In those days the two Ashvins went about on earth healing people. They came to the place and saw Sukanya, and they wanted her for themselves.

"Sukanya," they said, "what a worn out ghost of a man you live with. Come away with us."

"My father gave me to him," she said. "I will not leave him as long as he lives."

Chyavana knew that they had been there. "What did those two say to you?" he asked. She told him everything.

"If they come again," he said, "tell them this. Say that they are not quite whole themselves, and yet they laugh at your husband. They will ask what they lack. Say that you will tell them when they have made your husband young."

They came again and said the same thing.

"You two are not complete, and not perfect," said Sukanya, "and yet you mock my husband."

That stopped them. "In what way are we not complete?"

"Make my husband young again, and I will tell you."

They pointed to a pool. "Take him down into that water. He will come out at whatever age he wishes."

She led the old man down into the pool, and he came out at the age he wished for.

"Now, Sukanya," said the Ashvins. "What is it that we lack?"

It was Chyavana who answered. "The gods are holding a sacrifice in Kurukshetra, and they have left the two of you out of it. That is how you are incomplete."

The Ashvins left at once for Kurukshetra.

Long before this story was written down, the poets of the Rigveda already knew its ending. They sang that the twins stripped the old skin off Chyavana like a coat, and lengthened his life when everyone had left him.

In the Mahabharata the sage Lomasha tells the story to the Pandavas beside a lake, and he begins it earlier.

Chyavana, son of Bhrigu, sat in one posture beside that lake for so long that an anthill grew over him. Creepers covered it. Only his eyes still showed.

King Sharyati came there for pleasure with his army and his household. His only daughter Sukanya wandered off among the trees and came to the anthill. She saw two bright points in the earth. "What is this?" she said, and out of curiosity she pricked them with a thorn.

The sage was in great pain, and he was angry. In the camp every soldier found that his body would not obey him, and the whole army was in pain. The king asked who had wronged the old ascetic. Nobody knew. Then Sukanya spoke.

"I saw something shining in an anthill. I thought it was a glow worm, and I pierced it."

Sharyati went to the anthill with joined hands and begged forgiveness for a young girl's ignorance.

"I will forgive you on one condition," said Chyavana. "Give her to me as my wife."

The king gave her without a pause. Sukanya stayed and tended the old man, his guests and his fire.

One day the Ashvins saw her coming from her bath. They asked whose daughter she was, and why she wasted her youth on a husband near death.

"Choose one of us instead," they said.

"I am devoted to my husband," said Sukanya. "Do not doubt it."

"We are the physicians of the gods," they said then. "We will make him young and handsome. After that, choose among the three of us."

She took the offer to Chyavana. "Do it," he said.

He went down into the water, and the twins went in with him. A moment later three young men came out, alike in face and form, all wearing bright earrings.

"Choose," said all three.

Sukanya looked for a long time. Then she chose her husband.

Chyavana was delighted. "You have given an old man youth, beauty and his wife," he told the twins. "I will see that you drink Soma, in front of Indra himself."

The Devi Bhagavata Purana, a book of the Goddess, follows the Mahabharata closely until the three young men come out of the water. Then it stops to ask how Sukanya could possibly have known.

In this telling her life in the forest is described day by day. She warms water for the blind old sage's bath and spreads his seat of grass. She brings him fruit and wild rice, and in the hot months she fans him. He lost his sight to her thorn, and she is now his eyes.

When the Ashvins speak to her she trembles, but she answers firmly.

"You are sons of the Sun, and the Sun sees everything people do. He is watching now. Go wherever you like. I am the daughter of Sharyati and I am faithful to my husband. If you say more, I will curse you."

The twins are startled, and a little afraid of the sage. They change their tone. "We are pleased with you," they say. "Ask a gift. We can make him young and give him back his eyes. But he will look exactly like us, and you must pick him out."

Chyavana agrees. The three go into the tank and three come out with the same face, the same voice, the same ornaments.

Sukanya is frightened. "They are exactly alike," she thinks. "This may be some magic of the gods. I will not choose a man who is not my husband. I would sooner die."

So she closes her eyes and prays to the Goddess, the Mother of the world. "I am in great trouble and I take shelter with you. Keep me true."

The Goddess is pleased and gives her clear sight. Sukanya looks again. The three are still alike, yet she knows at once which is Chyavana, and she chooses him.

The Ashvins are glad. They have seen her faithfulness and the Goddess's favour. Chyavana, young and able to see, asks what he can give them in return. They ask for a share of the Soma.