| Sati | |
|---|---|
| Devanagari | सती |
| Sanskrit Transliteration | Satī |
| Consort | Shiva |
Satī (Devnagri: सती, IAST: satī), also known as Dakshayani (Devanagari: दाक्षायणी, IAST: dakṣāyaṇī ), is a Hindu goddess of marital felicity and longevity. An aspect of Devi, Dākshāyani is the first consort of Shiva, the second being Parvati, the reincarnation of Sati herself.
In Hindu legend, both Sati and Parvati successively plays the role of bringing Shiva away from ascetic isolation into creative participation in the world.[1] The act of Sati, in which a Hindu widow immolates herself on her husband's funeral pyre as a final and consummate act of loyalty and devotion, is patterned after the deed committed by this goddess to uphold the honour of her husband.[2]
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The Goddess, took human birth at the bidding of the god Brahma. Sati was born as a daughter of Daksha Prajapati and his wife Prasuti. Daksha was a son of Brahma and a great king and magnate in his own right. The girl was named Gauri, "the turmeric-hued one," since she was of the fair, golden complexion of auspicious turmeric. As the daughter of Daksha, she is also known as Dakshayani.
In bidding the Goddess to take human birth, Brahma's design was that she should please Shiva with humble devotions and wed him. It was natural that Gauri, even as a child, adored the tales and legends associated with Shiva and grew up an ardent devotee. As Gauri grew to womanhood, the idea of marrying anyone else, as intended by her father, became anathema to her. Every proposal from valiant and rich kings made her crave evermore the ascetic of Kailasa, the God of Gods, who bestowed all on this world and himself foreswore all.
To win the regard of the ascetic Shiva, the daughter of king Daksha forsook the luxuries of her father's palace and retired to a forest, there to devote herself to austerities and the worship of Shiva. So rigorous were her penances that she gradually renounced food itself, at one stage subsisting on one bilva leaf a day, and then giving up even that nourishment; this particular abstinence earned her the sobriquet Aparnā. Her prayers finally bore fruit when, after testing her resolve, Shiva finally acceded to her wishes and consented to make her his bride.
An ecstatic Gauri returned to her father's home to await her bridegroom, but found her father less than elated by the turn of events. The wedding was however held in due course, and Gauri made her home with Shiva in Kailasa. Daksha, depicted in legend as an arrogant king, did not get on with his renunciative son-in-law and basically cut his daughter away from her natal family.
Daksha once organized a grand yagna to which all the gods were invited, with the exception of Gauri and Shiva. Wanting to visit her parents, relatives and childhood friends, Gauri sought to rationalize this omission. She reasoned within herself that her parents had neglected to make a formal invitation to them only because, as family, such formality was unnecessary; certainly, she needed no invitation to visit her own mother and would go anyway. Shiva sought to dissuade her, but she was resolved upon going; he then provided her with an escort of his ganas and bid her provoke no incident.
Gauri was received coldly by her father. They were soon in the midst of a heated argument about the virtues (and alleged lack thereof) of Shiva. Every passing moment made it clearer to Gauri that her father was entirely incapable of appreciating the many excellent qualities of her husband. The realization then came to Gauri that this abuse was being heaped on Shiva only because he had wed her; she was the cause of this dishonour to her husband. She was consumed by rage against her father and loathing for his mentality. Calling up a prayer that she may, in a future birth, be born the daughter of a father whom she could respect, Sati invoked her yogic powers and immolated herself.
Shiva sensed this catastrophe, and his rage was incomparable. He created Virabhadra and Bhadrakali, two ferocious creatures who wreaked havoc and mayhem on the scene of the horrific incident. Nearly all those present were indiscriminately felled overnight. Daksha himself was decapitated.
According to some traditions, it is believed that an angry Shiva performed the fearsome and awe-inspiring Tandava dance with Sati's charred body on his shoulders. During this dance, Gaurī's body came apart and the pieces fell at different places on earth. According to another version, Shiva placed Gauri's body on his shoulder and ran about the world, crazed with grief. The Gods called upon the god Vishnu to restore Shiva to normalcy and calm. Vishnu used his Sudarshana Chakra to dismember Gauri's lifeless body, following which Shiva regained his equanimity. Both versions state that Gauri's body was thus dismembered into 51 pieces which fell on earth at various places. Several different listings of these 51 holy places, known as Shakti Peethas, are available; some of these places have become major centers of pilgrimage as they are held by the Goddess-oriented Shakta sect to be particularly holy.
After the night of horror, Shiva, the all-forgiving, restored all those who were slain to life and granted them his blessings. Even the abusive and culpable Daksha was restored both his life and his kingship. His decapitated head was substituted for that of a goat. Having learned his lesson, Daksha spent his remaining years as a devotee of Shiva.
Dākshāyani was reborn as Pārvatī, daughter of Himavan, king of the mountains, and his wife, the apsara Menā. This time, she was born the daughter of a father whom she could respect, a father who appreciated Shiva ardently. Naturally, Pārvatī sought and received Shiva as her husband. This legend appears in detail in Tantra literature, in the Puranas and in Kālidāsa's lyrical Kumārasambhavam, an epic that deals primarily with the birth of Subrahmanya.
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