Satī Asks About Bhakti

Home on Kailāsa

Nārada had heard from Brahmā how Śiva married Satī at Dakṣa's house. He wanted more. Tell me again, he said, of the lovely life of Śiva and Satī. Brahmā was glad to be asked; it is great good fortune, he said, that your heart keeps turning to Śiva's play.

After taking leave of Dakṣa, Brahmā said, Mahādeva came with his gaṇas to his own delightful home and got down from Nandīśvara, his beloved bull. Following the ways of the world, he entered his dwelling with his bride, and he was full of joy.

Then he sent Nandī and all the gaṇas away from the mountain cave. He spoke to them gently, as a householder would: when I call you to mind, honour that call and come to me at once. The swift and mighty gaṇas bowed and went each to his own place.

So the two were alone, and the Purāṇa describes their days as a time of tender, playful affection. Śiva would gather flowers in the woods and string them into garlands for Satī. When she looked into her mirror he would come and look over her shoulder. He would whisper in her ear things that could just as well have been said aloud, only to be near her. He would come up behind her when she was lost in thought and cover her eyes with his hands. He made ornaments of lotuses and other blossoms and put them on her himself.

He never went far from home, the Purāṇa says, and if he did he hurried back. Without Satī he would not go anywhere, would not sit, would not do anything at all; without her he had no peace even for a moment. In this way the Lord who loves his devotees lived happily with her in every grove of Kailāsa for a long time.

Spring on the Himālaya

From Kailāsa they went again to a peak of the Himālaya, and there Śiva, of his own free will, called Kāma to mind. As Kāma entered the hermitage, Spring understood Śiva's wish and showed his power too.

Every tree and creeper on the mountain broke into flower. The waters filled with open lotuses and the lotuses with bees. A fragrant southern breeze began to blow. The palāśa trees glowed like the red moon at dusk, and the nāgakesara trees by Śiva's side stood golden like Kāma's banners. Clove vines scented the wind, and bees hummed in the mango blossom.

The clear water, full of lotuses, shone — the Purāṇa says — like the minds of sages when the light of knowledge has dawned. The snow melted in the sun and ran down in streams, and the nights were free of frost and bright with the moon.

In that season Śiva and Satī wandered together through the mountain groves and along the rivers, and Dakṣa's daughter shone at his side. He wove garlands of fresh flowers for her with his own hands. The Purāṇa says he was bound by her beauty and her loving ways as a tethered elephant is bound and cannot move. Twenty-five years of the gods went by like this on the peaks and in the caves of the Himālaya.

Satī's wish in the rains

Once, in the rainy season, when Mahādeva was seated on the mountain's summit, Satī spoke to him. Lord of my life, she said, hear what I say, and then do it.

The hard season of rain has come. Clouds of many colours fill the sky and the directions with their thunder. A strong wind is blowing, carrying kadamba pollen and drops of water. Whose mind is not shaken when the clouds roar and pour, with lightning for their banners? By day the sun cannot be seen and by night the moon is hidden; the day itself looks like night. The clouds are driven about by the wind and cannot rest anywhere — they look as if they will fall on our heads. The great trees seem to dance in the sky.

She pointed out the season's sights one by one. A line of cranes flying across the dark, glossy clouds looks like foam drifting on the Yamunā. The moon, hidden in cloud in the black night, is like the submarine fire burning in the sea. Grass has sprung up even here in the courtyard of the peak. The peacocks dance for joy at the thunder, and the cātaka birds call sweetly to the clouds — and see how unjust the clouds are, that they shower hail even on the peacocks and cātakas who love them.

Then she came to her point. In this hard season even the crow and the cakora are building nests. You alone have none. Tell me, how will you find peace without a house? I am very much afraid of these clouds. So at my asking, make a home for us quickly — on Kailāsa, or on the Himālaya, or at Mahākośī, or on the earth, wherever is fitting for you.

Above the clouds

When Satī had said this again and again, Śiva laughed, and his face was bright as the light of the moon on his own head. Then, smiling, he set about pleasing her.

Beloved, he said, I will make a home for you in a place where the clouds can never come. Even in the rains these clouds drift only below the middle slopes of the Himālaya. In the same way they wander below Kailāsa and never rise above it. The great clouds Puṣkara and Āvartaka go no higher than the foot of Jambū; they do not reach the summit of Sumeru. Tell me which of these mountains you wish to live on.

He described each of them for her. On the Himālaya, golden-winged birds will sing of your delight in clear, sweet voices. The wives of the siddhas will prepare a seat for you on its jewelled ground and bring you fruits and roots. Nāga maidens, daughters of the mountains and horse-faced kinnarīs will attend you. The women there will look at your beauty and think little of their own. Even Menakā, the wife of the Himālaya, famed in the three worlds, will wish to please you, and all the mountain king's people will try to keep you happy and will comfort you if ever you are sad.

There, he said, the groves ring with the songs of cuckoos, and that is where spring is born. There are cool lakes full of lotuses, wish-granting trees, and meadows of fresh grass; horses, elephants and cattle live there, and even fierce animals live at peace. Sages and ascetics dwell in its shrines. Its peaks are of crystal, gold and silver. Lake Mānasa lies there, covered with golden lotuses on jewelled stalks and with blue lotuses, its clear water fragrant, its green banks alive with cranes, cakravāka birds and the hum of bees.

Or would you choose Sumeru, king of mountains and the essence of the earth? On its high summit stand the cities of Indra, Kubera, Yama, Varuṇa, Agni, Nirṛti, Vāyu and Īśāna, where the gods live, and Rambhā, Śacī and Menakā adorn it. There Śacī herself, with her companions and the apsarases, would wait on you.

Or would you rather live on my own Kailāsa, where Kubera's city of Alakā stands and the Gaṅgā flows, a mountain white as the full moon, where Brahmā's daughters sing in the caves and on the peaks? It is full of deer and lotuses, and is lovelier in every quality than Sumeru. Tell me quickly where you wish to live, and there I will build your home.

The peak she chose

Satī's answer was short. Lord, I wish to live with you on this very Himālaya, king of mountains. Make our home here, and soon.

Śiva was delighted, and took her to a high peak of the Himālaya. No bird could reach it. It shone like crystal and like the morning sun, and it was green with trees and grass. There were small pools everywhere, bright with lotuses of blue and many other colours; the tips of the branches were heavy with open flowers, and bees hummed among them.

The peak rang with the calls of cakravākas, geese, parrots, cranes and blue-necked krauñca birds, and with the song of the male cuckoo. Gaṇas, siddhas, guhyakas and apsarases frequented it; vidyādharīs, goddesses, kinnarīs and the women and girls of the mountains walked there. Apsarases danced to the vīṇā, the mṛdaṅga and the drum. There were ponds, long pools, flowering bowers and fragrance everywhere.

On that heavenly peak, the Purāṇa says, Śiva lived happily with Satī for ten thousand years of the gods. Sometimes they went elsewhere — to the summit of Meru, crowded with gods and goddesses, or to the islands, gardens and forests of the earth — and then came back again.

In those years Śiva's mind did not turn to sacrifice, to brahman or to samādhi; day and night his heart rested in Satī alone. She kept her eyes on his face, and he on hers. Together, the Purāṇa says, they tended the tree of love and watered it with affection, and it grew.

Satī's question

A day came when Satī had had her fill of enjoyment, and dispassion began to rise in her heart. Finding Śiva alone and in a glad mood, she bowed to him with devotion and stood before him with folded hands.

God of gods, ocean of compassion, great yogī, she said, be gracious to me. You are the supreme Person and the master of this world. You are beyond rajas, sattva and tamas; you are without qualities and also with them; you are the changeless witness of all. I am blessed to have become your beloved wife — and it is only out of your tenderness for those who love you that you became my husband.

I have lived in happiness with you for a long time, she went on. I am content, and my mind has now turned away from that. Lord, I want to know the highest truth — the truth that gives joy, by knowing which every being is lifted easily out of the sorrow of the world. Tell me that by which even a soul caught in worldly things reaches the highest state and is not bound again.

Brahmā adds that Satī, who is the primal Śakti herself, asked this only for the sake of other beings. And Śiva — who takes a body by his own will, and whose mind stays unattached to enjoyment through yoga — was greatly pleased and answered her.

Knowledge and its mother

Listen, daughter of Dakṣa, he said. I will tell you the highest truth, by which a soul bound by its cravings is set free at once.

Know that the highest truth is vijñāna — realised knowledge. It is that knowledge in whose dawning one is firmly certain: “I am brahman.” Nothing other than brahman is remembered then, and the understanding of the one who has it becomes wholly pure. This knowledge is rare; in all three worlds there is hardly anyone who knows it. Whatever it is and however it is, it is always my own nature, the supreme brahman itself.

The mother of that knowledge, he said, is devotion to me. Bhakti gives both enjoyment and liberation as its fruit, and it comes easily through my grace. There is no difference between bhakti and knowledge; the devotee and the knower both find lasting happiness. But one who is hostile to bhakti does not attain that knowledge.

I am always in the power of my devotee, Śiva said. Drawn by devotion, I go even to the homes of those the world counts lowest and without standing. Of this there is no doubt.

He then touched briefly on the kinds of bhakti. It is of two sorts, with qualities (saguṇa) and without (nirguṇa). Devotion that is prompted by scripture and devotion that arises by nature are the higher kind; devotion rooted in desire for something is the lower. Each may be steady (naiṣṭhikī) or unsteady (anaiṣṭhikī); the steady kind is said to have six forms and the unsteady one. The learned divide it further in many ways, and those details, Śiva said, are explained elsewhere. What the sages agree on is that both kinds of bhakti have nine limbs.

The nine limbs of devotion

Śiva named them in order: śravaṇa (hearing), kīrtana (singing or telling), smaraṇa (remembering), sevana (service), dāsya (being his servant), arcana (worship), vandana (bowing), sakhya (friendship) and ātmasamarpaṇa (giving oneself up). Then he gave the mark of each.

Śravaṇa is to sit on a steady seat and, with body and mind, gladly drink in the stories and praises of the Lord through the ears, honouring them every day.

Kīrtana is to hold his divine births and deeds in the heart and to speak them aloud, lovingly and in a clear voice.

Smaraṇa is to know the eternal Maheśvara as present always and everywhere, and so to live in the world without fear.

Sevana is continual service with the heart and the senses, always attentive to what pleases the one who is served. Here the chapter also speaks of serving the Lord's image with a devoted and fearless mind from dawn until the time of sleep.

Dāsya is to regard oneself as the Lord's servant and always to do, from the heart, what is dear to the master.

Arcana is to offer the supreme Self the sixteen services of worship, beginning with water for the feet, in the way the scriptures lay down, thinking of oneself always as his servant.

Vandana is the full prostration, with eight parts of the body touching the ground, while the voice repeats the mantra and the mind meditates on him.

Sakhya is the firm trust that whatever the Lord does, whether it seems fortunate or unfortunate, is all for my good.

Ātmasamarpaṇa is to offer the body and everything one calls one's own to the Lord for his pleasure, keeping nothing back for one's own upkeep — or being free even of the worry about how one will live.

These are the nine limbs of my bhakti, Śiva said. They give enjoyment and liberation, knowledge arises from them, and they are very dear to me. There are many secondary limbs as well, such as the use of bilva in worship, and these should be understood by reflection.

The greatness of bhakti

Bhakti with all its limbs, Śiva told Satī, is the best of all ways. It is the mother of knowledge and dispassion, and liberation is its handmaid. It always gives the fruit of every action. This devotion is as dear to me as you are, and the one in whose heart it lives always is very dear to me.

In the three worlds and the four ages there is no path that gives happiness as bhakti does. In the Kali age it is especially easy and sweet. For in Kali, he said, knowledge and dispassion find hardly anyone to take them up, and so they grow old, spiritless and worn out. But bhakti gives its fruit before one's eyes in Kali and in every other age.

I always help the devoted person in this world and remove his troubles, Śiva went on, and whoever is the enemy of my devotee deserves punishment from me. He gave four instances. To protect a devotee I grew angry and burned even Kāla, Time, with the fire of my eye. For a devotee I was once enraged at the Sun and overcame him with my trident. For a devotee I abandoned Rāvaṇa and his army in anger and showed him no favour. And for my devotees I had Vyāsa, when his judgement went astray, punished by Nandī and sent out of Kāśī.

What need is there to say more? he concluded. I am always subject to my devotee, wholly in the power of the one who has bhakti. Of this there is no doubt.

The other teachings

Satī was filled with joy at hearing the greatness of bhakti, and bowed to Śiva in her mind. Then, with great respect, she asked him about the scriptures of devotion and the other righteous means that bring happiness to the world and lift beings up — about yantras and mantras and their power.

Śiva was pleased with this question too, and for the good of all beings he explained them lovingly: the tantra teaching with its five limbs, the science of yantras, and the greatness of the various gods and of their devotees, with the old stories that go with them. He taught the duties of the classes and stages of life, the duties of kings, of sons and of wives, and also medicine, astrology, the reading of bodily signs, and many other sciences that make life easier for people.

In this way, Brahmā told Nārada, Śiva and Satī — all-knowing, the supreme brahman itself, bearing forms full of every good quality only to help the world — carried on their play of many kinds on the Kailāsa peak of the Himālaya and in other places, giving happiness to the three worlds.