Sarmishtha, the Other Woman
Practically everyone loves love stories — especially those set in the backdrop of a war. Love triangles are even more enjoyable.
The love triangle of Yayati-Devayani-Sarmishtha has been one such story that has endured for ages and ages, through many retellings and interpretations. If you include the love Devayani entertained for Kacha, it becomes a love quadrilateral, perhaps!
Yayati’s story has been narrated not only in Sambhava Parva of Adi Parva of Mahabharata, but also in many Puranas, including Matsya, Devi Bhagavata, and Brahmanda Purana.
Naturally, there are differences in the details of every retelling. Even the storylines sometimes differ in some ‘factual’ detail. When it comes to interpretation, the differences become quite significant.
In this write-up, I try to examine the character of Sarmishtha, the other woman, in the love triangle of the three main protagonists of the story.
The story Outline
For those that don’t know the basic story, I will briefly outline it here. Here is a more detailed version from an author who is presenting Mahabharata stories in nice bite-size nuggets, while staying truthful to the original story: https://www.indictoday.com/quick-reads/the-indulgences-of-king-yayati-part-i/and https://www.indictoday.com/quick-reads/the-indulgences-of-yayati-part-2/
The Devas and Asuras are engaged in an epic battle for gaining supremacy.
Devayani is the daughter of Sukracharya, the Asura preceptor, who can bring back the dead to life, using a mantra called Mrita Sanjeevani. Kacha, the Deva preceptor’s son, comes to Sukracharya to learn the Sanjeevani. Devayani falls in love with him.
Asuras make three attempts to kill Kacha because they don’t want to lose the Sanjeevani to the Devas. In the first two attempts, Sukracharya applies Sanjeevani and makes him well.
In the third attempt, the Asuras get Sukra drunk on alcohol-laced with the ground-up remains of Kacha’s mortal remains, and Sukracharya teaches Mrita Sanjeevani to Kacha, who is inside his body. Kacha applies Sanjeevani on Sukracharya and brings him back to life.
Kacha repudiates Devayani’s love and returns to his people. Devayani goes to a picnic with Sharmishtha, the Asura princess. Sharmishtha insults her and belittles Sukracharya, pushes her into a well, and returns home. King Yayati rescues Devayani, and she asks him to marry her. Devayani wants Sukracharya to go away with her. Asura king requests Sukracharya to stay back in the kingdom. Devayani asks that the price for Sukracharya staying again is that Sharmishtha should become her maid. Sharmishtha agrees and goes with Devayani to her new home. Sukracharya asks Yayati not to have a relationship with Sharmishtha.
Yayati and Devayani have a troubled marriage.
Sharmishtha falls in love with Yayati and asks him to marry her. Yayati is wary of displeasing Sukracharya and Devayani, but can’t help his attraction towards Sharmishtha.
Devayani has three children — two boys, Yadu and Turvasu, and a girl, Madhavi.
Sharmishtha also has three children — three boys, Druhyu, Anu, and Puru.
When Devayani accidentally discovers that Yayati has fathered Sharmishtha’s children, she is enraged. She complains to her father, who curses Yayati to become a decrepit old man. Devayani asks her father for an antidote.
Sukracharya says Yayati could exchange his old age for the youth of a donor. When he is finished with his responsibilities and done enjoying life, he can take back his old age.
Yayati’s sons refuse, one-by-one, except Puru, who gives his youth to his father.
Yayati disinherits all the sons and confers his vast kingdom on Puru. The sons go away in different directions.
The romance between Devayani, Yayati, and Sarmishtha has so intrigued generations that many novelists and poets have presented their own interpretations.
How is Sarmishtha portrayed in all these different stories?
Kalidasa’s Abhijnanasakuntalam
There is a poignant scene in Kalidasa’s Abhijnanasakuntalam, where tearful father sends off his pregnant foster daughter, Sakuntala to husband’s home. He offers her parting blessings and advise, and tells her to be as loving towards her husband as Sarmishtha was to Yayati.
The verse goes like this:
ययातेरिव शर्मिष्ठा भर्तुर्बहुमता भाव | सुतं त्वमपि सम्राजं सेव पूरुमवाप्नुहि ||
Kanva (Kashyapa’s descendent) says, ‘Child, be a loving wife to your husband, like Sarmishtha was to Yayati. May you also have a son who will be an emperor like Puru.’
Clearly, Kalidasa viewed Sarmishtha, Puru’s mother, and Yayati’s wife as the epitome of love. Sakuntala’s husband, Dushyanta was descended from the line of emperor, Puru.
Mahabharata
Mahabharata is pretty matter-of-fact in its narration, and there is no implied judgment in characterization.
In Mahabharata, Devayani and Sarmishtha are swimming in a lake. When they get out of the water, their saris get mixed up, and Sarmishtha wears Devayani’s sari by mistake, causing an argument that quickly escalates into a bitter fight. Harsh words are exchanged. Sarmishtha denigrates Devayani’s father, calling him a beggar.
She also abuses Devayani rather sharply, pushes her into a well, and walks away with her friends without a backward glance.
After Yayati rescues Devayani, she complains about Sarmishtha to her father and refuses to return to the Asura capital. Sukracharya counsels his daughter to control her temper. He advises her to forgive Sarmishtha. He even tells her, incredibly, that she must have done something to suffer such a sorrow!
“आत्मदोषैर्नियच्छन्ति सर्वे दुःख सुखे जनाः |”
Meaning, everyone experiences happiness and sorrow as outcomes of their karma.
When I read it, I thought Sukracharya was insensitive to his own daughter’s feelings. Kacha’s rejection of Devayani, Sarmishtha’s verbal and physical abuse of her, and a traumatic rescue occur one after another.
But Mahabharata’s narration is dispassionate, and offered without context. It does not even dwell on Sarmishtha’s insensitive, arrogant, and brattish behavior in abusing Devayani and her father, and then walking away after possibly killing her. The reader has to infer that Devayani and Sarmishtha were perhaps friends because they were swimming together. Also, a possible mistake in wearing the other’s sari should not elicit such an extreme response, which is probably just a ruse for some pent up conflict to explode.
Devayani is vengeful, demanding Sarmishtha become her maid as a price for her father to continue as the Asura preceptor.
Sarmishtha agrees to become Devayani’s servant. Mahabharata’s Sarmishtha has made mistakes, but she is graceful about accepting her punishment and trying to atone for her wrongdoing. Devayani is far more unforgiving. She punishes Sarmishtha for pushing her into a well, and Yayati for being unfaithful to her.
Sarmishtha solicits Yayati’s love, quite insistently, until he gives in. They have three boys.
This brings up the question as to why Sarmishtha asked Yayati to marry her.
She could have chosen anyone else, but why her friend’s husband? The obvious answer, of course, is that she fell in love with Yayati. But was there a tinge of revenge for Devayani for treating her, a princess, badly? Or, perhaps a touch of competition and jealousy for marrying a Kshatriya man, more ‘suitable’ for a princess than a teacher’s daughter? People are complex. Possibly it was a mixture of all these different impulses.
In Mahabharata, it seems like Sarmishtha lives quite near Devayani in the Asoka bower, in her own home. Sarmishtha explains away her pregnancy to Devayani that she has married (been blessed by) a Rishi. It is almost laughable that Devayani was not aware that Sarmishtha had become the mother of three boys fathered by Yayati. Devayani discovers — by chance — the relationship when Sarmishtha’s three boys come to their father when she is walking in the Asoka bower with Yayati. Yayati does not ‘recognize’ them, and they run to complain to their mother in tears. Paradoxically, Mahabharata does not talk about if the ‘discovery’ of the three boys — Sarmishtha’s sons — was not rigged somehow. How long can you keep the children under wraps? Don’t they deserve to tell the world about their father?
In my novel, Devayani, (soon to be published by https://www.garudaprakashan.com/,) I have located Sarmishtha in a different town, sufficiently far away to afford some cover, thus allowing me to talk a little bit about the geography. (I will post an article on the geography of that time, based on my reading.) Secondly, it makes the story more plausible. How can Devayani not have known about Sarmishtha’s three sons? Conversely, it is indicative of how hard Sarmishtha and Yayati strove to hide their relationship from Yayati. That must have made Sarmishtha reclusive and, consequently, very lonely.
In my novel, I have tried to address all these conflicts and clash of personalities.
V. S. Khandekar’s Yayati
V. S. Khandekar also looks at Sarmishtha with deeply sympathetic eyes.
Not only is she the victim of Devayani’s tyranny and jealousy, but also the victim of Yayati’s lust and weakness, much more than his love. Sarmishtha, on the other hand, is desperately in love with Yayati and makes herself available to him without judgment. She is cast off by Yayati, terrified of Devayani, even though he admits to loving Sarmishtha. Khandekar depicts Sarmishtha as a saintly woman who brings up her only son, Puru, in some far off land away from Yayati’s capital. Yayati is a weak, lustful man who is terrified of owning up to his relationship with Sarmishtha. He is a debauch who will molest any woman. In a scene towards the end of the book, he even assaults a young woman, Alaka, his son Puru’s love interest. Thankfully, he does not know who she is. The assault, I presume, is a metaphor for Yayati taking away Puru’s youth. Again, Khandekar’s Yayati stops short of snatching his son’s youth. I plan to do a detailed review of this book in a later post.
Other Versions
I tried to find Michael Madhusudan Dutta’s five-act play, Sermista, and didn’t have much success in finding it. After reading about Dutta himself, I doubt if I would like it too much. Perhaps I am biased. Dutta seems to have detested Indian literature to the point of glorifying Ravana and denigrating Rama. While I want to examine my characters critically, I am profoundly suspicious of prejudice. In fact, in my novel, I reject the notion that Yayati was a womanizer, Devayani, a manipulative woman, and Sarmishtha, a giving and self-sacrificing wife and mother.
Then there is Girish Karnad’s Yayati. Here, too, Yayati is painted as a lustful man. Sarmishtha has only one son, Puru. After Yayati takes Puru’s youth, Sarmishtha does not know who she is with — her son or her husband, in some redux of an Oedipus complex. In my opinion, Karnad’s Sarmishtha is a weak character. She has failed to protect her son, even while Yayati revolts her.
My biggest criticism of all these versions is that they depart significantly from the original story. I like creative license. But I feel that if a retelling fails to capture the original story’s essence and spirit, it has failed in its purpose. Furthermore, I think it is incumbent upon an author to declare his objective when he attempts a retelling. Khandekar pretty much says that Yayati is loosely based on a Puranic-story and is an independent social novel.
I may have injected a touch of controversy by writing this piece. Please go ahead and let me know what you think. I would love to hear both your kudos and criticism!
