Parvati's Hard Penance

Parvati went into the forest near Kailash and began what the Purana calls tapasya — austerity, the deliberate hardship a seeker chooses to focus the will.

She did it slowly, in stages.

In the first stage, she gave up the comforts of a princess. No more silks. No more jewels. No more cooked food. She wore bark cloth. She ate fruit and roots from the forest. She slept on the bare ground. She kept her hair tied simply and washed each morning in a cold stream.

The forest creatures grew used to her. Birds came to sit near her. Deer drank from the streams she sat by. The forest, the Purana notes, recognised her even though Shiva had not.

Months passed. He did not notice.

In the second stage, she gave up the easy parts of forest life. She stopped eating fruit. She ate only leaves that fell from the trees — nothing she had to reach for. She sat in the middle of four fires in the hot summer sun. She stood in icy water in the winter snows.

Months turned into years.

In the third stage, she gave up even the leaves. She lived on water alone. Then she gave up the water. She lived on air. She had become, the Purana says, like a stalk of dry grass — thin, almost weightless, but unmoving in her purpose. The tradition gives her a new name from this stage: Aparna, “she without even a leaf.”

The heat of her austerity began to disturb the worlds. The seasons shifted. The gods felt it. From his deep meditation on Kailash, Shiva — at last — felt it too.

He opened his eyes. He saw what was happening.

But — characteristically — he did not come down at once. He tested her. He came to her in disguise, as he had once come to Sati. This time he came as a young brahmin who had been walking the woods and wanted to talk to her.

“Princess,” he said. “I see you are doing austerity. For what?”

“For Shiva,” Parvati said.

“Shiva?” the young brahmin said. “That Shiva? The ascetic who killed the god of love by opening his third eye? The one who covers himself in cremation ash? The one who lost his first wife and has been refusing to come out of meditation since? Do you know what kind of household he keeps? Ghosts and snakes. Do you know what kind of clothes he wears? Animal skins. Do you know what he eats? Almost nothing. You — a princess of the Himalayas — for him?”

Parvati did not even open her eyes.

“I know all of that,” she said. “I have known it since I was a child. He is the one I have chosen. Find another girl to insult him to. I have no time to listen.”

The young brahmin smiled, and his form began to change. The bent back straightened. The matted hair came down. The third eye opened on his forehead, just a slit. The trident appeared in his hand.

“Parvati,” he said. “I have been listening. I will come down. The austerity is over. You have won.”

She opened her eyes, then. She bowed, very low, and stood up. Her fingernails were long. Her hair was matted. Her cheeks were thin.

Shiva himself wiped the dust off her shoulder. “Go home to your father,” he said. “I will come for you properly. Tell him to prepare the wedding.”

Parvati went home.

But the rest of the gods — watching from above — were not going to leave anything to chance. They were going to make sure Shiva did not change his mind. They sent Kama, the god of love, to do his job.

That is the next story, and it does not end well for Kama.