Daksha's Daughter, Sati

Daksha was one of the great patriarchs of the early creation, a son of Brahma himself. He had many daughters, but the one closest to him was named Sati. She was beautiful, intelligent, and from a young age she was different from her sisters.

While the other princesses played with toys and went to court, Sati sat alone with her eyes closed. While they wore jewels, she preferred the simpler ornaments. While they listened to court music, she listened to the names of one god — and only one.

She loved Shiva. From the time she could speak, his name was the one she said most. She drew his trident in the sand. She tied a piece of cloth around her head like his matted hair. When she heard a story of him on the mountain, she would not eat for the rest of the day; the food felt empty next to the story.

Daksha did not approve.

“Shiva?” he said. “The ascetic in the cremation grounds? The one who covers himself in ash and lives with snakes? You are a princess. You will marry someone respectable — a god of high standing, a king, a sage with proper habits. Not him.”

Sati did not argue. She knew her father. She also knew her own mind. She simply said, “I have already chosen. There is no one else for me.”

Daksha tried other approaches. He arranged suitors to come to the palace; she sent them away politely. He held a great gathering of princes and gods; she did not attend. He scolded; she listened quietly. He shouted; she did not raise her voice. In the end, Daksha saw that scolding and shouting would not work.

So he tried something else. He told Sati that if she wanted Shiva, she would have to earn him — that no one was simply given to a husband who had renounced the world.

This was the answer Sati had been hoping for. She did not need her father’s permission to do austerity. She only needed his acknowledgement that she was free to try.

She left the palace.

She went to the forest. She gave up the silks and the jewels. She gave up the cooked food and the warm rooms. She wore bark cloth. She ate fruit, then only leaves, then only air. She sat in the heat of summer in the middle of four fires. She stood in the cold of winter in water up to her waist. She did this not for days but for years.

The gods watched. Her father grew uneasy.

And on Mount Kailash, the great ascetic — who had told everyone he was done with householder life — opened one eye, then the other, and looked.

He looked for a long time. Then he sighed in a way that even Nandi noticed.

The next story is what he did about it.