Ancients Speak
Suman K Sharma
Princess Sukanya was as playful as she was pretty. Hardly of marriageable age, she had the curiosity of a child. Her doting father, King Saryati never turned down her request to accompany him on a hunt.
Once, out on a royal hunt, Sukanya detached herself from her maids and set out to explore the jungle on her own. Wandering about, she discovered a mound of dried up mud under the shade of a tree by the river bank. What aroused her interest were the two holes in the mound through which soft light came out. She plucked a thorn from a nearby bush and poked it into the holes one after the other. Instantly, streams of blood started to flow down the mud heap.
Sukanya ran away from the spot in alarm and joined her father’s entourage without telling anyone what she had done. But the consequences of her deed did not take long to surface. The king’s army, his personal servants, and even their horses stopped passing urine and stools. Everybody cried of stomach ache.
Seeing the misery all around her, Sukanya felt guilty and took her father to the mound, telling him what she had done. Aghast, the king asked the forest dwellers what it was all about. They said it was Chyavan Rishi sitting in deep meditation. He had been there so long that mud had piled round his body.
King Saryati removed the mud with his own hands and found that both the eyes of the rishi had been damaged. As the sage woke up from his meditation, the king sought his pardon. In return, he agreed to give away Princess Sukanya to him in marriage. Chyavan Rishi accepted the offer and relieved the king’s men and beasts of their malady. Soon after, King Saryati left for his palace along with his retinue.
Princess Sukanya remained in the jungle with her husband, who went back into meditation. The incident had changed her completely. In deep penitence, she stood before Chyavan Rishi without taking food and water. As the time passed, the once bouncy girl was reduced to a skeleton. Seeing her pathetic condition, Indra, the king of devas, appeared before her. He saidthat she had suffered enough to atone for her innocent mistake and should give herself a respite. But Sukanya did not waver from her penitence.
After fourteen long years, Chyavan Rishi woke up from his meditation. He was moved to pity at the miserable condition of his wife.With the help of Ashwini Kumar, the physician to gods, and by own acumen, the sage restored Sukanya to her former beauty and youth. The rishi also transformed himself into a sixteen year old handsome boy and the couple then lived a long and happy life.
There was old Ajamil who spent his life wilfully breaking all the spiritual and earthly laws; and there was this young and beautiful princess Sukanya who unintentionally harmed a sage. The stories of both of them had happy endings. Ajamil got one whole year to atone for his sins and was then taken to Brahmloka in a celestial chariot, while Sukanya got back her youth and enjoyed a fruitful long life with her husband, Chyavan Rishi.
Our ancestors firmly believed that man was prone to commit big and small mistakes, involuntarily or of his own volition. But there was always a hope of reprieve if one repented sincerely as did Princess Sukanya, or showed, like Ajamil, even an iota of devotion to the Deity. That said, Sukanya’s story is also a stern warning to all of us: even an insignificant action taken absentmindedly can have serious consequences.
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