Sandhyā, Who Became Arundhatī

Nārada's question

Brahmā had just told Nārada how Kāma, the god of desire, was given Rati as his wife. Kāma had gone home happy, Dakṣa had gone home, and Brahmā's mind-born sons had gone their ways. But Nārada had one more question. What became of Sandhyā — Brahmā's daughter, the mother of the Pitṛs? What did she do, and whom did she marry?

Listen, said Brahmā, to her whole story. The Purāṇa says that women who hear it become faithful wives. The Sandhyā who was once born from my mind did tapas, gave up her body, and became Arundhatī. Born again as the daughter of the great sage Medhātithi, and guided by the words of Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara, she chose the great-souled Vasiṣṭha as her husband — a woman worthy of worship, and compassion itself.

Nārada wanted it all in detail: why she did tapas, and where; how she left her body and became Medhātithi's daughter; how she came to marry Vasiṣṭha. And Brahmā began.

What Sandhyā saw

Brahmā did not hide his own part. When I first saw my daughter Sandhyā, he said, desire pulled at my mind — and out of fear of Śiva I let it go. Struck by Kāma's arrows, Sandhyā's heart had wavered too, and so had the hearts of the self-controlled sages, my sons. Śiva had laughed at me for it. And Sandhyā, seeing her own heart slip its bounds towards the sages again and again, was deeply troubled.

After Brahmā had cursed Kāma and vanished, and Śiva had gone back to Kailāsa, Sandhyā sat alone, shaken, and thought it over.

The moment I was born, she said to herself, my father looked at me with desire. So did his mind-born sons, forgetting every limit. And this wicked Kāma churned my own heart, so that looking at the sages my mind grew restless. Kāma has already paid for it: Brahmā cursed him in front of Śiva. I too will reap the fruit of this. My father and my brothers desired me before my eyes, and I felt the same for them — there can be no one more at fault than me.

So I will make atonement, she decided. In the way the Veda allows, I will offer this body into fire. But first, by hard tapas, I will set a limit on the earth, so that creatures are not seized by desire the very moment they are born. Then I will leave this body. It has no use for me now. A body in which such desire was felt, and roused, cannot be the means of any good deed.

With that resolve she went to Candrabhāga, a great mountain from which the river Candrabhāgā flows.

The brahmacārī at the lake

Brahmā knew where she had gone. He turned to his son Vasiṣṭha — self-controlled, all-knowing, a master of yoga and of the Vedas — and said: go to my daughter Sandhyā and give her proper initiation. Once, her eyes were full of desire; now that restlessness has gone. She has understood what happened and thinks death would be better. She has gone to Candrabhāga to set a limit for creatures through tapas — but she knows nothing of how tapas is done. Teach her.

And go in another body, Brahmā added. She has seen your form and mine here; she will take no teaching from them.

Vasiṣṭha agreed and went. On the mountain he found a lake as lovely as Mānasa, full of bright lotuses, called Bṛhallohita, and Sandhyā sitting on its shore. With her there, the lake looked like the evening sky when the moon has risen among the stars. He looked out at the river Candrabhāgā, breaking through the western flank of the mountain on its way to the southern sea, the way the Gaṅgā comes down from the Himālaya.

Then he spoke to her gently. Good lady, why have you come to this lonely mountain? Whose daughter are you? Why is a face like the full moon so clouded? Tell me, if it is not a secret.

Sandhyā saw before her a brahmacārī with matted hair, blazing like a lit fire, and bowed. What I came here for, she said, may be fulfilled just by seeing you. I am Brahmā's daughter, called Sandhyā. I have come to this empty mountain to do tapas, and there is nothing else to hide. But I came into the forest without knowing any method of tapas, and the worry of it is drying me up. My heart is trembling. Teach me, if you think it right.

The vow of silence

Vasiṣṭha asked her nothing more; he already knew everything. He called Śiva to mind, the lover of his devotees, and gave her his teaching.

Meditate on Śambhu, he said, who is the great light and the great tapas, worthy of all worship — the first cause of dharma, wealth, pleasure and freedom, the one without a second. Worship him with this mantra, and everything you seek will come to you: “Oṃ namaḥ Śaṅkarāya Oṃ.”

Here is the method. Bathe in silence and worship Sadāśiva in silence. Take only water, and that only at long fixed intervals, and fast completely through the next; keep to this rhythm until your tapas is complete. This is called the tapas of silence. It gives the fruit of brahmacarya and every good thing you desire — this is true, true, beyond doubt. Hold Śiva deep in your mind, and he will be pleased and quickly give you what you long for.

Having shown her the way, the brahmacārī vanished.

Śiva comes

Sandhyā was filled with joy now that she knew what to do. Dressed as an ascetic, beside the lake Bṛhallohita, she worshipped Śiva with the mantra Vasiṣṭha had given her, her mind fixed on him alone. In that fierce tapas a whole caturyuga — all four ages of the world — went by.

Then Śiva was pleased. He let her see him within, without and across the sky, and then stood before her in the very form she had been meditating on — serene, with a smiling face.

Sandhyā was overjoyed, and then afraid. What can I say to him? How can I praise him? She shut her eyes. And Śiva entered her heart and gave her divine knowledge, divine speech and divine sight.

With those gifts she opened her eyes and praised him. She bowed to the form that has no form, known only by knowledge, neither gross nor subtle, which yogīs reach within; to the one pure, radiant, free of māyā, consciousness and bliss; and to the form fair as camphor, holding trident and skull, with hands that grant boons and banish fear. Sky, earth, the directions, water, light and time are your body, she said. As Brahmā you create, as Viṣṇu you protect, as Rudra you dissolve. You have no beginning, middle or end; words and mind cannot reach you. If Brahmā, the gods and the great sages cannot describe you — if Indra and the gods and even the asuras do not know your form — how can a woman like me know the qualities of one beyond all qualities? Be gracious to me.

Four boons

Śiva was deeply moved. He looked at her — dressed in bark and black deerskin, her head covered with matted hair, her face like a lotus withered by frost — and spoke with great tenderness. I am very pleased with your tapas and your praise. Ask for a boon. Whatever you want, whatever will complete your work, I will do.

Sandhyā bowed again and again. If you will give me a boon, she said — if I am worthy of it, if I am now wholly cleansed of that sin, and if my tapas has pleased you — then this first. Let no creature born in the sky or on earth be filled with desire the moment it is born. Next, let me become known in the three worlds for my conduct as no other woman is. Let no child born of me fall through desire. Let the one who becomes my husband be my dearest friend. And let any man other than my husband who looks at me with desire lose his manhood.

Śiva answered: Your sin is destroyed. My anger is no longer on you; your tapas has made you pure. Everything you asked for, I have given. From now on a creature's life will have four stages: first infancy, then childhood, then youth, then old age. Embodied beings will know desire when the third stage comes, and some towards the end of the second. By your tapas I have set this limit in the world: no one will be born already desiring.

You will have such faithfulness as no other woman in the three worlds. Any man but your husband who looks at you with desire will at once become powerless and weak. Your husband will be greatly blessed, an ascetic and handsome, and he will live with you for seven kalpas.

The fire of Medhātithi

Now, said Śiva, I will tell you about your next birth. You have already vowed to give up your body in fire. Here is how to do it. The sage Medhātithi is holding a great twelve-year sacrifice at the foot of this very mountain, on the bank of the Candrabhāgā, in the hermitage of the ascetics. Go there as you wish; by my grace the sages will not see you. Enter the blazing fire. Keep in your heart whoever you would want as your husband, and leave your body in the flames. Then you will come forth from that fire as Medhātithi's daughter.

Śiva told her what had happened in the world while she sat there. When the Kṛta age ended and the Tretā began, Dakṣa's daughters were married, and twenty-seven of them were given to the Moon. But the Moon loved only Rohiṇī and neglected the rest, and Dakṣa cursed him in anger. The gods came to you then, with Brahmā — but you were meditating on me, gazing at the sky, and you never saw them. To free the Moon from his curse Brahmā made this river Candrabhāgā. At that time Medhātithi came here, and no one has ever equalled him in tapas, or ever will. It is he who has begun the Jyotiṣṭoma sacrifice on its bank. Go now, pure as you are, and fulfil your vow. And Śiva vanished.

Sandhyā went to Medhātithi's sacrifice, and by Śiva's grace no one saw her. She remembered the brahmacārī who had taught her tapas — it was Vasiṣṭha himself, sent by Brahmā — and, holding him in her heart as her husband, she entered the fire of the great sacrifice with a glad mind.

Her body burned at once, like the sacred rice-cake of the offering, and the fragrance of the offering spread all around, though no one knew why. At Śiva's command Agni carried her purified body into the orb of the Sun. The Sun divided it in two and set both parts on his chariot, for the joy of the Pitṛs and the gods.

The upper part became the morning twilight, the sandhyā between night and day, which rises at dawn before the sun and delights the gods. The rest became the evening twilight, between day and night, which comes when the sun sets red as a lotus and always delights the Pitṛs. That is why the twilights bear her name.

Arundhatī

As Medhātithi's sacrifice was coming to its end, Śiva's grace worked once more: the sage found in the sacrificial fire a baby girl, shining like molten gold. Overjoyed, he took her up, bathed her and set her on his lap. He named her Arundhatī, and he and his disciples rejoiced. The Purāṇa says she earned that name, famous in all three worlds, because she never gave up her faithfulness for any reason at all.

The sage finished the sacrifice and raised her in his hermitage, called Tāpasāraṇya, on the bank of the Candrabhāgā. By the time she was five, her goodness was already making the river and the forest holy.

Then Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśa themselves arranged her marriage to Vasiṣṭha, Brahmā's son — the very one she had held in her heart as she entered the fire. It was a great and joyful festival, and all the gods and sages delighted in it. From the water that fell from the hands of Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara during the rite, seven holy rivers were born, beginning with the Śiprā.

With Vasiṣṭha as her husband, Medhātithi's daughter shone as the greatest of faithful wives, and bore him fine sons, Śakti first among them.

This, Brahmā told Nārada, is the story of Sandhyā — holy and divine, and it fulfils every wish. Any man or woman of good vows who hears it, the Purāṇa says, will see all their hopes come true.