Daksha's Sacrifice

Daksha never forgave Shiva for being who he was. He had given Sati to him under pressure, and the resentment did not fade with the years — it grew. He began planning a great sacrifice, the biggest a patriarch could perform. The grandest gods would be invited. Every important being in the three worlds would be asked to come.

He would invite everyone except Shiva.

The plan was deliberate. Daksha wanted to show the worlds that his own son-in-law was not worthy of being called when the great gods gathered. He wanted to insult Shiva publicly, in the most ceremonial way he could think of.

Invitations went out. Brahma was invited. Vishnu was invited. The guardians of the directions, the sages, the apsaras, the kings of every land — invited. Sati’s own sisters were invited and went, with their husbands.

No invitation reached Kailash.

When Sati heard of the rite — others were talking about it as they made their way past — she was puzzled.

“Father is performing a great sacrifice?” she said to Shiva. “And he hasn’t asked us?”

Shiva had already known. He had not mentioned it.

“He has not asked us because he does not want us,” Shiva said. “Daughter or no daughter, son-in-law or no son-in-law, your father has chosen to leave us out. Let him have his rite. We will sit here.”

Sati was not satisfied. “He is my father. A daughter does not need an invitation to her father’s house. I will go. I will speak to him. This is a misunderstanding.”

Shiva looked at her for a long time.

“It is not a misunderstanding,” he said. “It is exactly what he means to do. If you go, you will be insulted. He has set everything up so that you will be insulted in front of everyone.”

“He is my father,” Sati said again. “I cannot believe he will insult his own daughter in front of the gathered worlds.”

Shiva sighed. He knew her. He knew, too, that no argument was going to hold her back.

“Go,” he said. “But know that I have said you should not.”

Sati went — without a chariot, without an escort, on foot. She walked out of Kailash into the world below. She did not change her clothes; she went in the simple cloth she wore on the mountain. Her hair was matted as Shiva’s was now matted.

She reached her father’s hall.

The whole assembled court turned to look. Her sisters did not greet her. Her father did not rise from his seat to welcome his daughter. He looked at her as if she were a stranger who had wandered in.

The next story is what passed between Sati and Daksha that day, and what Sati did in the end.