The Wife Who Came Late

Brahma's wife was Savitri, and on the morning of his great sacrifice at Pushkar she was at home.

Everything else was in its place. Vishnu stood at Brahma's right hand and Rudra at his left. Bhrigu was the Hotr, Pulastya the Adhvaryu, Marichi sang the Saman, Narada sat as the Brahma priest. Brahma's head had been shaved, as the rite required. Only the sacrificer's wife was missing, and without her nothing could begin.

The Adhvaryu went to the house.

"The fires are lit," he said. "The initiation is at hand. Come."

"Look at this doorway," said Savitri. "The walls are not painted, the svastika is not drawn, the pots are not washed. And the ladies have not come. Lakshmi is not here, nor Svaha, nor Gauri, nor Ganga, nor Saraswati, nor Indrani, nor Rohini, nor Arundhati, nor the wives of the seven sages. I shall not go alone until those ladies come."

The Adhvaryu went back. "Savitri is busy. She is engaged in the work of the house."

Brahma had a sacred hour running out, and he grew a little angry. "Shakra," he said to Indra, "find me another wife, quickly, and I will release her when the rite is done."

Indra searched the earth and found only other men's wives, until he saw a girl on the road with pots on her head.

"Who are you?"

"A cowherd's daughter. I sell milk, and this good butter, and curds with the cream still on them."

He took hold of her. She cried for her mother and father, and begged him to ask her father first, and he did not. He set her down in front of Brahma. "I have brought her for the lord," he said. "Do not grieve."

Brahma looked at her and thought for a moment that she was Lakshmi. The girl looked at him and thought of nothing but him. "This is the goddess Gayatri," Brahma said to Vishnu, "the greatly blessed one." And Vishnu said, "Then marry her, now, in the Gandharva way, and do not hesitate. I have given her to you."

So he did, and the priests led her to the wife's chamber, and Bhrigu began, and the Purana says the sacrifice ran for a thousand ages.

Savitri came with the goddesses and the sages' wives behind her, all carrying gifts in winnowing baskets, and walked in to find a cowherd girl sitting in her seat.

The gods were afraid. Brahma was ashamed.

"You could not wait," she said. "You took a wife because you wanted one. This girl is not worth the dust of my foot. If she is what you want, live alone with her."

"The priests said the rite needed a wife," said Brahma. "Indra brought her. Vishnu gave her. Forgive me. I will not do such a thing again."

She did not forgive him. She cursed him: only brahmins would ever worship him, and only at his festival in the month of Kartika. She cursed Indra, who had fetched the girl, to be bound by his enemies and live in an enemy's city. She cursed Vishnu, who had given her: he would be born among mortals and lose his wife, and be called Krishna among the Yadus. She cursed Agni to blaze out of control eating what he should not, and the priests to be greedy and fed at other men's tables, and Lakshmi to never stay in one place.

Then she turned to go. Vishnu stood before her with folded hands and praised her, and her anger found its one gap. "Be unconquerable," she said to him. "In your birth among men, get your wife back. Finish Brahma's sacrifice. I will feed the pilgrims at Kurukshetra and at Prayaga."

When she had gone, Gayatri spoke, and every curse was answered with a boon: those who worship Brahma will prosper, Brahma will free Indra, Vishnu will recover his wife, Agni will be a purifier, and whoever recites Gayatri's names at Pushkar is clean. None of it was taken back. All of it was softened.

Savitri said one more thing, to Lakshmi and the others. "I shall go where I hear no sound." And she climbed the mountain, and stayed there, and Vishnu praised her from below.

Pushkar begins the story before the sacrifice, with a demon.

Vajranabha was hunting Brahma's children and tormenting people, and Brahma killed him with the only weapon he carries, a lotus. The petals fell. Where they landed three lakes opened in the sand, the eldest Pushkar, the middle and the youngest, and the town is named for the flower. Brahma chose the eldest lake for his fire sacrifice and raised four hills round it to keep demons off, Ratnagiri to the south, Nilgiri to the north, Sanchoora to the west, Suryagiri to the east, with a god on guard on each.

The hour came, and Savitri was not there. She was waiting for her friends, Lakshmi, Parvati and Indrani, and would not set out until they came. The rite could not begin without a wife beside the sacrificer.

"Find me a bride," Brahma said. And a Gurjar girl of the district was brought, and given the name Gayatri, and seated at his side. She held the pot of amrita on her head and poured the offerings into the fire, and the sacrifice was done.

Then Savitri came, and saw the girl in her place.

"You will never be worshipped," she said to Brahma. "Not anywhere."

The gods pleaded, and she gave a little. "Here, then. Only here." That is why, Pushkar says, this is Brahma's temple and there is hardly another. She cursed Indra to be easily beaten in battle, Vishnu to be parted from his wife when he lived as a man, Agni to devour everything he touched, and the priests who had let it happen to be poor.

Gayatri, who had not asked for any of it, softened each one. "Pushkar will be the king of pilgrimages," she said. "Indra keeps his heaven. Vishnu will be born as Rama and get Sita back. The priests will be scholars, and people will honour them."

Savitri would not stay in the town. She went up Ratnagiri, the southern hill, and became part of it, a spring that still runs there, the Savitri Jharna, and her temple stands above it looking down on his. On the full moon of Kartika the town fills with pilgrims who bathe in the lake and climb to her, and with the camel fair, which has nothing to do with the goddess and everything to do with the date.