Damayanti

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Damayanti (दमयंती) is a character in Hindu mythology. She is the wife of Nala and their story is told in the Mahabharata.

[edit] The Story

Damayanti was a princess of Vidarbha who fell in love with Nala simply from hearing about his virtues and accomplishments from a swan. When it came time for Damayanti to choose her husband at a swayamvara, princes and kings came to seek her hand, including Nala. The Gods Indra, Agni, Varuna and Yama were in attendance, too. Nala met the gods on their way there, and they ordered him to go inform Damayanti that she must choose one of them for her husband. Damayanti agreed to pay her respects to the gods, but she insisted on choosing Nala for her husband, although he was addicted to gambling. The Gods each disguised themselves as Nala, but Damayanti saw through them each time. Unaware that he was too late for the ceremony, the demon Kali, the personification of Kali yuga, ran into the gods and they told him how she had chosen Nala in their place. Kali then angrily vowed to cause the fall of Nala’s kingdom through his propensity for gambling. He waited twelve long years for the right time to strike.

Damayanti and Nala were happily married and had two children, but when her husband made himself impure by not washing his feet before his prayers, Kali bewitched his soul. In games of dice with his brother Pushkara, he lost his kingdom, forcing Nala and Damayanti to live in poverty in the forest. Birds flew away with the only garment Nala possessed. Kali forced Nala to abandon Damayanti, who remained in the forest and enacted a curse against those who had caused the downfall of her husband. Nala, meanwhile, rescued the Nāga Karkotaka from fire and was bitten in an attempt to exorcize the devil within him. As a result, the venom turned Nala into a dwarf named Bahuka, who served as a charioteer to the Ayodhya King Rituparna. When King Rituparna revealed to him the supreme skill of controlling the dice, Bahuka vomited Kali from his body and imprisoned him temporarily in a tree.

After serving as the hand-maiden to the Princess of Chedi, Damayanti was discovered and taken back to her father's house where she was reunited with her children. They searched for Nala, but could not find him. Damayanti learned about the dwarf and suspected it might be her husband. In order to test his identity, she requested a second swayamvara. Nala's master was one of the many kings who went to the swayamvara, and Nala accompanied him. On their journey to the swayamvara, the king instructed the dwarf in the techniques of gambling. Damayanti was persuaded that the dwarf was Nala because of the flavor of a dish that he cooked for her. The two were reunited and Nala was transformed from being a dwarf into his familiar form. He used the knowledge of gambling he had gained in order to regain everything he had lost.

Hinduism | Hindu mythology | Indian epic poetry
Female Deities: Saraswati | Mariamman | Lakshmi | Dakshayani | Gayatri | Parvati | Durga | Shakti | Kali | Sita | Devi | Radha | Mahavidya | more...
Male Deities: Brahma | Vishnu | Shiva | Rama | Krishna | Ganesha | Murugan | Hanuman | Ayyanar | Indra | Surya | more...
Texts: Vedas | Upanishads | Puranas | Ramayana | Mahabharata | Rigveda
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