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Hinduism 
Desire Under the Kalpataru - 2

It is in the same dynasty that Samvarana is born, who is so sun-struck by Tapati, daughter of Surya, that he neglects his kingdom. Significantly, as with his descendants Santanu and Pandu and his ancestor Pururava, desire seizes him in its constricting coils while he is engaged in hunting. Lust goes hand-in-hand with anger and cruelty:

Her body shone
Like a straight flame...
She stood, a black-
Eyed beauty on the hill-top,
Statuesque,
Like a golden girl.
The hill, its creepers,
Its bushes, all flamed
With the golden beauty
Of the golden girl...
She had trapped his mind
And his eyes. He stood
Transfixed, as if tied
With ropes, as if senseless. (Adi parva, 173.26-28, 31)

This is precisely the point that Krsna makes in the Gita, that lust, hiding in the senses, destroys judgment like an all-consuming flame. Samvarana's condition, when Tapati suddenly disappears, is like that of Pururava bereft of Urvashi:

Like a man crazed
He wandered in the woods
... the love smitten
king fell on the ground.

The imagery used by Samvarana in his appeals to Tapati revolves around raging fire, senselessness, fury, loss of self-control – all the typical signs associated with the madness desire is seen to inflict on its victims.

Of course, he does succeed, first, in winning the hand of Tapati through the intercession of Vasistha with her father Surya.

For twelve years he
and his wife delighted in each other's company
in the hill's woods.
(Adi parva, 175.40)

However, his complete lack of interest in the welfare of his kingdom provides his Pancala cousins the opportunity to conquer his capital, Hastinapura. It is this conquest which sows the seeds of the Kuru-Pancala hostility (Kuru is Samvarana's successor) which culminates in the Kuruksetra holocaust of the Mahabharata. His neglect also leads to the land being afflicted with drought resulting in a horrifying famine. The city "became a land of the dead and the dying." That is a phenomenon which is repeated with his descendant Santanu, who has to beg his dis-inherited elder brother Devapi, who has become a hermit, to intercede with the gods for bringing rain to his drought-afflicted kingdom.

Thus, we find the Kalpataru granting the desires of Pururava, Nahusa, Yayati, Devayani and Samvarana, but along with it gratuitously gifting its bitter, ashy fruit. The first two and Devayani have to bear the loss of that which they have desired most.

The third,
Yayati,
discovers that,
but
Desire never ends . . . This disease kills.
The wicked Cannot give it up,
old age Cannot lessen it. (Adiparva, 85.12,13)

Having acquired much merit, Yayati achieves Heaven, his desire;

Pride is the road to hell . . .
I was virtuous once — All gone — irrevocable . . .
for millions of years I made love to apsaras in the Nandana gardens,
under clustering,
lovely trees ornamented with flowers shedding delicate scent upon us

Then a fearful-faced messenger came
And shouted loudly, thrice:
Lost! Lost! Lost!
And I fell from Nandana. (Adi parva, 89. 17-20)

The fourth, Samvarana, gets his desire at the cost of his kingdom. Neither he, nor his descendant Santanu, appear to have drawn any lessons from the tragic lives of their ancestors.

Ironically, Santanu's name means "the child of controlled passions," as he was born to his parents in their old age. He seems to have a special penchant for unknown tribal women encountered by the riverside:

He stood there,
Entranced,
All his body
In horripilation.
With both eyes
He drank in her beauty
And wanted
To drink more. (Adi Parva, 97.28)

Smitten by the sight of Ganga—who had wantonly solicited his father Pratipa and was politely rejected as not belonging to the same caste --- he unthinkingly accepts all her conditions so that he can make her his own:

Captivated by her charms,
The king was not conscious of
The months, seasons, years that rolled by.
The lord of men enjoyed her whenever he wished. (Adi parva, 98.11,12)

The Kalpataru grants him that sexual gratification which he so passionately desires like Pururava, Yayati and Samvarana. But, along with it, he has to undergo the repeated experience of watching seven of his sons being consigned to the river, one after another, year after year, by that same object of his violent infatuation, Ganga. Well might we say,

"La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!"

In his old age, this "child of controlled passions" is infatuated with yet another maiden-by-the-river, Matsyagandha, fish-odorous, who has been transformed by the sage Parasara into Yojanagandha, lotus-fragrant-for-a-yojana (a unit of distance), in return for having enjoyed her body. Once again, Santanu has no regard for propriety, status, or the rights of Devavrata, his Crown Prince. He must have her:

She was fragrant,
Beautiful,
Santanu saw her,
And desired her...
The fire of desire
Ravaged his body
...desire maddened him.
He kept thinking of
The daughter of the fisherman. (Adi parva, 100.49,56,75)

The symptoms could virtually be describing Samvarana's state after Tapati vanishes. The same discrimination-destroying, judgment-clouding fire of desire afflicts both Samvarana and Santanu. In both cases, it is the kingdom which suffers. Santanu himself, having learned nothing from his experience with Ganga, dies, leaving behind two children, both weaklings. both die prematurely. The elder, Citrangada, dies unmarried. The younger, Vicitravirya, is another instance of the Kalpataru in action. Under the instructions of Satyavati (Santanu's second wife), Bhishma (his son by Ganga) obtains not one, but two brides for his foster brother, so that the future of the dynasty is assured:

Both were tall.
black, wavy hair.
Fingernails and toe nails
Painted red, pointed.
Hips round and full.
Swelling and large breasts.
Vicitravirya,
driven by passion, became
A victim of his own lust. (Adi parva, 102.65,66)

He dies after seven years without any issue. Thus, the dynasty of Pururava comes to an end.

What has Satyavati got out of the Kalpataru? As a nubile maiden, her dearest desire was to rid herself of the powerful fishy odour. This she was granted, at the cost of her virginity. After Santanu met her, the desire of her father (or foster-father, if we accept the story that king Uparicara Vasu of Cedi was her real father) is that through her he should be the dynast of Hastinapura. The Kalpataru grants this wish through what becomes renowned as the most terrifying of all vows: Devavrata becomes Bhishma (one who has taken the vow of celibacy) so that Satyavati's children alone succeed to Santanu's throne. Santanu himself does not live long after this marriage, and Satyavati becomes the Queen Mother, with minor children. She sees one killed in a skirmish, and the other die of consumption, both without issue. Now, both the Dasa-king, her father, and she find that the greatest obstacle to perpetuating the dynasty of Santanu is precisely that very vow which they had demanded as the security for ensuring their hegemony over Hastinapura in perpetuity through their children! Bhishma stonily refuses to break his vow and father progeny on the widows of Vicitravirya by following the custom of niyoga (sexual union with another's wife).

Satyavati, like the people clustered under the Kalpataru in the parable, has not learned anything from her experiences, so far, of desire and its fruits. "Hungry for grandsons," she summons Vyasa, her illegitimate son by Parasara, and orders him to practice niyoga on Ambika and Ambalika. Vyasa advises a year-long vow on their so that they purify themselves of the lust they have been tainted with through seven years with his foster brother. Satyavati cannot wait. Her judgment is warped by her insensate desire to have grandsons immediately. She leads her daughters-in-law to believe that Bhishma will be coming to them. Hence, being wholly unprepared for the horrendous looks and malodorous body of Vyasa, they give birth to the blind Dhritarastra and the anaemic, jaundiced Pandu. Even now, Satyavati has learned nothing. She had wanted grandsons at any cost. The Tree fulfilled her desire; but, along with it, gave her offspring incapable of being proper monarchs. Yet, she again asks Ambika to like with Vyasa. Ambika deceives her, and sends in her maid instead, who is without fear and aversion, and has only profound respect for the sage. Their child is the virtuous Vidura, possibly the sole true grandson of Satyavati, born of her son and of a Sudra (low caste) maid like herself. He is the only one born whole in mind and in body, and is untouched by the craving to rush to the Kalpataru. He, too, however, dies childless. Her other grandson, Pandu, dies, like his putative father Vicitravirya, without having been able to father progeny.

Thus, in her lifetime, empire-hungry and progeny-hungry Satyavati sees her husband, her two sons and one grandson die; the eldest grandson born blind; the youngest one not qualified to be king, being base-born, despite being the only fully healthy and virtuous issue, (although by that argument her sons, too, should not be kings, as she is a fisherman's daughter. Hence, probably, the legend of her having been fathered by the king of Cedi on an apsara-turned-fish).

Perhaps, after Pandu's death, the coming of the Pandavas to the Hastina court and the sibling rivalry which breaks out, Satyavati might have come to realize what it means to ask of the Kalpataru. And, perhaps because of that realization, she meekly obeys her son Vyasa when he advises her to leave the court and retire to the forest with her daughters-in-law:

The green years of the earth
are gone. . . . .
Do not be a witness
to the suicide
of your own race.

Satyavati and her grand daughter-in-law Kunti share various similarities. Uparicara Vasu of Cedi sends off his fish-born daughter Matsyagandha to be brought up by a Dasa-chief among fishermen. Pritha is the daughter of King Sursasena of the Vrishnis who gifts her to his cousin Kuntibhoja, who renames her Kunti, respectively. Both Satyavati and Kunti have pre-marital sons. In both cases the issues are discarded and reappear full grown, as does Devavrata. One appears before us as the sage Krsna-Dvaipayana Vyasa, the Dark Island-born Arranger. The other comes as Vasusena, born with the wealth of skin-armour and ear rings, also called Karna. Both Parasara and Surya gift-armour and ear rings, also called Karna. Both Parasara and Surya gift Matsyagandha and Kunti with unimpaired virginity as the reward for becoming willing partners in their concupiscence. This virginity is not merely a physical attribute, but very much of a psychological quality with they share with Draupadi, who is said to regain her virginity before living in turn with each of her five husbands. In that respect, Draupadi is carrying on a special trait found long back in the ancestry of the family into which she marries.. Yayati's daughter Madhavi also had this boon of regaining her virginity even after giving birth to a child. On the strength of that, Galava loaned her to Haryasva, Divodasa, Usinara and Visvamitra to fulfil his guri-daksina (graduation fee pad by pupil to teacher).

The precise opposite of this can be seen in the Madri type of woman, who is dependent on what others think, regardless of what her real opinions might be, and always acts as a female counterpart to a male and is not "one in herself." The psychologically virgin woman is not, however, thus dependent. Dr M. Esther Harding writes in Women's Mysteries (Rider, 1971), "as virgin, she is not influenced by the considerations that make the nonvirgin woman, whether married or not, trim her sails and adapt herself to expediency...she does what she does not because of any desire to please, not to be liked, or to be approved, even by herself; not because of any desire to gain power over another, to catch his interest or love, but because of any desire to gain power over another, to catch his interest or love, but because what she does is true. Her actions may, indeed, be unconventional. She is what she is because that is what she is." (pp.125-6) such a personality is wholly integrated and autonomous-in-herself, defining herself in her terms and not dependant on others for finding and acting out her role in life.

Kunti is by no means the conventional wife typified in Madri. She is one found fit by Durvasa to be the custodian of the mighty spell which forces even gods to respond to her desires for progeny. It is she who, single-handed, provides Pandu with five foster-children through herself and through Madri, and guards them amid all the venal politics of the Kuru court till they can hold their own in life.

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Hinduism