Uncovering the layers of meaning in the story of Satyavān Sāvitrī

Savitri following Yama, who is carrying away the soul of Satyavan
[Image Source]

Today is the kāradayān noṉbu fast in Tamil Nadu. The name of this fast is derived from kāra + adai, the sweet gur and spicy ginger chilli versions of adai, made from powdered rice and red beans. At the transition of the māgha month (Feb-Mar) and phālguṇa month (Mar-Apr), women offer this naivedya food on banana leaves, pray to the Goddess Kāmākṣī to grant them the kind of love and togetherness that Satyavān and Sāvitrī had and wear turmeric-soaked yellow saraḍu threads around their neck.

You’ve probably heard the story. It is an ancient tale of a princess who marries an ill-fated, exiled prince who is destined to die within the year. Unfazed, the princess observes an intense fast, and when Death comes to claim the prince, she follows the Grim Reaper until she wins her husband back. The story is first mentioned in the vana parva section of the Mahābhārata, as narrated by the Sage Markandeya.

It is perhaps not cool to say we observe a fast that is meant to pray for the husbands. Such fasts – like karvā chaut – are held up as examples of a regressive patriarchy that imposes these strictures on women but not on men. While karvā chaut is not practised in my part of the country, I have observed many similar fasts – the ārdrā fast in the month of mārghaśīrṣa (Dec-Jan) for instance – and have always felt enriched and uplifted, never oppressed, by these rituals. It seems to me that rituals are practical – it is in practising them that one can experience their meaning, not in theorizing.

I especially love this princess. And this fast that we observe in her honour across India. I love that we keep this ancient memory alive, that we bring her magic into our lives every year. She, who was born of intense tapas by her father Aśvapati and mother Mālvā – far from a symbol of patriarchy, is a fiery feminist to me.

• She burned so bright that she scared off her suitors. Sounds familiar?
• She travelled her little world, seeking her own partner.
• She answered to her own conscience and her own morality. When the sage Nārada predicted Satyavān’s death and advised her against marrying him, she argued that her mental decision was as good as a physical marriage since she lived in congruence of thought, word and deed. And stood her ground against a divine sage and the king.
• She bore the paralyzing weight of impending doom in secret, sparing her husband and in-laws the suffering. How is that for fortitude!
• But she also refused to accept her destiny, equipping herself with the strength of tapas to prepare for the final confrontation. When you’re in doubt, reskill, retool, recoup, reenergize yourself!
• When she faced the Lord of Death, she kept her cool and won him over – with her words! Her intellect, her knowledge of dharma, her articulation, her keen sense of psychology at once praising Yama, while reminding him of her own dharma, her deep understanding of the human condition – she knew her advantage and pressed it. How many times have we retained our wit and wiles in times of stress?
• She never gave up – after receiving every boon, Yama asks her to head back but she kept pushing on, not afraid to ask for what she wanted, not afraid that she might overstep her welcome. How many times have we tailored our demands to fit into what we think we deserve?
• She was loyal and generous – asking boons for her in-laws and parents. To think of others when your own life is in great disorder – that’s commendable.

So to me, Sāvitrī is pretty cool. But in all my decades of knowing her story, and observing the fast, I had never heard of the interpretation that I read yesterday. I was searching for the place where the story occurs in the MBh. and chanced upon Sri Aurobindo’s magnum opus – Savitri – a legend and a symbol.  Aurobindo looks at Savitri as the Flame, the light that leads the human soul, Satyavan, from death to immortality. In his own words –

“The tale of Satyavan and Savitri is recited in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death. But this legend is, as shown by many features of the human tale, one of the many symbolic myths of the Vedic cycle. Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; Aswapati, the Lord of the Horse, her human father, is the Lord of Tapasya, the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes; Dyumatsena, Lord of the Shining Hosts, father of Satyavan, is the Divine Mind here fallen blind, losing its celestial kingdom of vision, and through that loss its kingdom of glory. Still this is not a mere allegory, the characters are not personified qualities, but incarnations or emanations of living and conscious Forces with whom we can enter into concrete touch and they take human bodies in order to help man and show him the way from his mortal state to a divine consciousness and immortal life.”

How wonderful is this! Sāvitrī as a divine force, the flame that is lit, that leads one despite all one’s human failings, to eternity. This is what my favourite poet Bharati sang about, when he said, “aggiṉik kuñconṛu kaṇḍēṉ, adhai āṅgē kāṭṭilōr pondhiḍai vaittēṉ, vendhu taṇindhadhu kāḍu, tazhal vīrattil kuñceṉṛum mūppenṛumuṇḍō, tattarikiṭa tattarikiṭa dhittōm -” that the little flame lit in his dark heart, burned down the forest of entanglements.

The Mother, of Pondicherry, called this “The yoga of the Earth in its ascension towards the Divine” and “a mantra for the transformation of the world.”

I am so excited to have discovered Aurobindo’s masterpiece and I am going to – God willing – start studying this free verse poem in an astounding 23,837 lines.

And this is precisely why I love these rituals. Every time is a different experience, every time one learns a little something more – and a few rare times, if one is open, the ritual reveals itself in glorious new dimensions. Those moments of discovery catalyze further transformation and growth. To me, that is the real joy of practising religion – to bring it into life, to live it, to carry it – so one can use that, like music or art, to be unmade and remade, over and over, till every nonessential thing falls away and what remains is pure spirit.  

Aurobindo describes Sāvitrī as - 

A silence in the noise of earthly things...
The very room and smile of musing space...
A godhead sculptured on a wall of thought...
This intimation of the world's delight...
A Mind of light, a life of rhythmic force...

May that Sāvitrī grant us all a mind of light!