Pregnant King

by Devdutt Pattanaik

‘I knew him before he became her,’ said a creature, rising from between the two rocks.

  Yuvanashva fell back, startled. It was a dark and ugly creature with a pot-belly and short stumpy legs. His teeth were deformed and his breath was foul. ‘Who are you?’ asked Yuvanashva, frightened.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ said the creature. His voice was soft and soothing. ‘I am the Yaksha, Sthunakarna, who made Shikhandi a man and Somvat a woman.’ He then took a bunch of red flowers and put them lovingly on the rock representing Somvati.

  ‘So you are the one who made Somvat a woman and started it all,’ said Yuvanashva.

  ‘Somvat would not have become woman had he not feared execution on your chopping block. I would not have made Somvat a woman had Shikhandi not taken away my manhood. And Shikhandi would not have sought my manhood had Drupada not insisted on fathering a killer-son. And Drupada would not have wanted a killer-son, had the Kurus not divided his kingdom. And the Kurus would not have divided his kingdom had Drona not demanded one half of Panchala as his tuition fee. And Drona would not have wanted half of Panchala had Drupada not insulted him. And… I can go on and on. Every event is a reaction to something else. Ultimately, we all can blame Prajapati, for creating life, hence, all problems’.

  Yuvanashva smiled. The Yaksha was wise. Yuvanashva got up and walked to the river to wash his face. The sun was now high in the sky but it was not hot. The Yaksha followed him and sat beside him on a rock, dipping his short legs in the water. Yuvanashva also put his feet in the water. They watched the fish move hesitatingly towards their toes. The Yaksha kept staring at Yuvanashva and smiling. ‘Is there something you want from me?’ asked Yuvanashva finally.

  ‘Nothing, really,’ said the Yaksha, ‘I just wanted to meet my daughter’s mother-in-law.’

  ‘Your what?’ The Yaksha was funny. Yuvanashva grinned and turned towards the Yaksha. But the Yaksha’s face was serious. This was no joke. He meant it. ‘What do you mean, your daughter’s mother-in-law?’

  ‘Are you not Mandhata’s mother?’ asked the Yaksha.

  Yuvanashva looked around wondering if someone had overheard them. He suddenly felt exposed and embarrased. Mandhata’s mother. Yes, he was Mandhata’s mother. Why was he feeling uncomfortable? This was the first time this truth had been acknowledged so publicly. Was this not what he wanted? He realized it was one thing to accept the truth yourself another thing to find it being accepted by others. ‘I am,’ Yuvanashva replied softly. He felt his heart leaping in joy. ‘Yes, I am Mandhata’s mother.’

  ‘Mandhata is married to a girl called Amba?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And Amba is the daughter of Shikhandi?’

  ‘Yes.’ Yuvanashva was intrigued by this series of questions.

  ‘It was my manhood that Shikhandi used to plough his wife’s field and my seed that he planted in her soil. That makes me Amba’s father. And you are my daughter’s mother-in-law.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Yuvanashva. His head was spinning. It was so complicated. But then who was he to complain? ‘I don’t think Amba knows anything about you.’

  ‘She knows a Yaksha made her father a man. But she prefers being Shikhandi’s daughter. When one truth is accepted, another one is rejected. In accepting you as father, Mandhata has rejected you as mother. In accepting Somvati’s womanhood, you have rejected the truth of his manhood.’

  ‘Only a Chakra-varti can accommodate all truths,’ said Yuvanashva. ‘I always believed that my son would grow up to be a Chakra-varti, like Bharata. But Mandhata disappoints me. He will not accommodate the truth about himself—how will he accommodate other people’s truth?’

  ‘Don’t you have another son?’ asked the Yaksha.

  ‘Yes, Jayanta.’

  ‘Does he accept your truth?’

  Yes he did, realized Yuvanashva. At that moment, something struck him, something that he had not noticed all these years: his younger son’s unconditional love for him. He recalled Jayanta running up to hug him, demanding nothing in return, not even attention, sitting beside him when the rest of the family regaled themselves in Shilavati’s courtyard, oblivious of his absence. He would constantly tell his father, ‘They all love you in their own way.’ Jayanta always tried to make him feel wanted and included. It struck him that Jayanta always saw good in people. He loved Shilavati despite her imperiousness, he loved Simantini despite her insecurities, he loved Pulomi despite her ambitions and he loved Keshini despite her bitterness. He did not begrudge his family its frailties. He did not protest against his father’s preference for the older son. Yuvanashva realized that in his obsession for the child he had created within his body, he had all but lost sight of his other son, the one created outside.

  ‘Yuvanashva,’ said the Yaksha. ‘There are two kinds of Chakra-vartis. One who makes room for all in his kingdom and one who makes room for all in his heart. Mandhata yearns to be the one. Jayanta is already the other.’

  flesh and sorrow

  ‘There is so much wisdom in the forest,’ said Yuvanashva, glad that he had met the Yaksha. ‘Perhaps because the rules of man do not apply here. Everything is accommodated. Nothing is domesticated or covered or hidden. Here, there are no Lajja-gauris smothered by lotus flowers. Apsaras and Matrikas can run free, unclothed. The forest is the kingdom of the Chakra-varti.’

  Sthunakarna corrected Yuvanashva, ‘The forest accepts no one. It rejects no one either. No king makes rules for the forest. To exist here all you have to do is win the fight for survival. That does not mean acceptance. Prajapati has given the faculty to love, accept and accommodate only to Manavas. That is why humans struggle to create society, where might is not right, where even the weak can thrive. A Chakra-varti’s kingdom will never be wild. It will be the perfect civilization, where everyone makes room for all.’

  ‘I was not allowed to thrive in Vallabhi. But no one can stop me in the forest from declaring that I am Mandhata’s mother and Jayanta’s father.’

  ‘The forest does not care, Yuvanashva. In the forest it does not matter if you are man or woman. You are either predator or prey.’

  ‘If it does not matter, O Yaksha, why did you spend thirty years chasing Shikhandi for your manhood?’

  ‘Because it was mine,’ snarled the Yaksha. Then he thought for a while. ‘No. That is not why. I gave it away of my own free will but when it was not returned, I felt incomplete. Now, with my manhood back, I still feel incomplete. This change in biology has not taken away my fears and my sorrows, my insecurities and my prejudices. I am what I was before. Only I have had a wider experience of life. Seen more, felt more. Known what it is to be within a woman. Known what it is to have a man within me. But all this experience has not taken away the turmoil of thought and feeling. I still yearn to please my king, Kubera, gain his acceptance and his respect. I long to be loved, have a child of my own. There was a time I thought my manhood would give me peace. I realize now, no flesh offers such a guarantee.’

  ‘You have been man and woman. I have been father and mother. Still we feel incomplete. What will grant us fulfilment?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That is what I will ask the teacher of teachers when I reach the mountain under the Pole Star.’ His renunciation finally had a purpose.

  ‘If he tells you, will you let me know?’

  ‘I will tell everybody,’ said Yuvanashva, suddenly excited by the prospect of meeting the great Adi-natha.

  Bidding the Yaksha farewell, Yuvanashva continued deeper into the forest, determined to find the secret of completeness. Of one thing he was sure: it lay beyond the flesh.

  male flesh

  Yuvanashva wandered in the forest, looking for the teacher of teachers, eating roots and shoots along the way, drinking river water, staring at trees bearing flower and fruit, watching animals eat, mate and migrate. In his journey, he met many hermits, each one seeking an answer to his own question.

  Yuvanashva noticed something that escaped most people. All the hermits were men.
Not one was a woman. ‘Why is it so?’ he asked, one day, when he took shelter in a cave on a rainy day. There were two other hermits in that cave. One was busy lighting a fire that would keep them warm. The other was enjoying the rain.

  ‘Because only the male flesh is the most evolved of all flesh, a vessel worthy of wisdom,’ said the hermit watching the rain. ‘It is acquired after going through a thousand times eight hundred and forty lifetimes. Women are but a lifetime away.’

  ‘What makes male flesh superior?’ asked Yuvanashva.

  The hermit replied, ‘The male flesh, with its hanging appendage, cannot hide the truth of its desire but the female flesh can. The male flesh therefore can be caught before it submits to passion but the female flesh, only after.’

  ‘Women can never be Rishis,’ said the other hermit, who had overheard this conversation. ‘The seed of life, when withheld, can generate the fire that burns the fetter of desire and destiny that binds us to the world. Women, whether they like it or not, will shed their red seed each month. Men, however, have the power to conserve their white seed.’

  ‘Can any man be a Rishi?’ asked Yuvanashva.

  ‘Yes, provided one is willing to step away and look at life,’ said the first hermit, suddenly finding the conversation more interesting than the rain.

  ‘Most men fail to realize how lucky they are. They waste their lives conquering the world rather than reflecting on their life,’ said the second hermit, warming his hand over the fire.

  Did my grandfather become a Rishi? Yuvanashva wondered. And Mandavya? Then he remembered his guru’s gentle wife, Punyakshi, who had silently and dutifully followed him to the forest. Was she just a companion, doomed by her body never to realize the wisdom of the Rishis?

  ‘Can I be a Rishi?’ asked Yuvanashva.

  ‘Of course. You have already taken the first step, become a sanyasi, stepped away from all things worldly.’

  ‘I may look like a man but I am not sure that I am a man,’ said Yuvanashva. The hermits looked at him quizzically. ‘I have created life outside me as men do. But I have also created life inside me, as women do. What does that make me? Will a body such as mine fetter or free me?’

  The two hermits in the cave had never heard such an incredible question. They sensed the truth of what was being said. They did not laugh. Instead, to Yuvanashva’s delight, they were genuinely intrigued. Both hermits spoke to other hermits, who spoke to their teachers who spoke to wandering sages. Before long, all the sanyasis across Ila-vrita were talking about Yuvanashva, the pregnant king, and his strange question. But no one had an answer for him.

  ‘Will the teacher of teachers know the answer?’ asked Yuvanashva.

  The hermits replied, ‘He will surely know.’

  ‘Where can I find him?’

  ‘Only the Siddhas, Yaja and Upayaja, know his whereabouts. They were his students. But before you ask for directions, ask them why one claims Adi-natha is an ascetic while the other insists Adi-natha is a nymph.’

  the language of symbols

  Yuvanashva found Yaja and Upayaja under a banyan tree next to a waterfall in the forest, arguing about desire and destiny. They looked no older than on the day when they came to Vallabhi to perform the yagna. ‘Life is to be measured not by years but by breaths. We breathe only twice a day; once at dawn and once at dusk. After the war at Kuru-kshetra, there is not much of the world to inhale, but much to exhale. Besides, we don’t argue as much as we once did,’ they said.

  The Siddhas showed no signs of recognizing Yuvanashva. Before Yuvanashva could say a word, Yaja turned to Upayaja and said, ‘He wonders why I consider Adi-natha a man and why you insist Adi-natha is a woman.’

  ‘Must we tell him Adi-natha is neither?’ asked Upayaja.

  ‘How can he be neither?’ Yuvanashva exclaimed. ‘He must be one or the other or both, like Ila and me.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Yaja, smiling.

  Yuvanashva had no answer.

  ‘Stop being such a Manava. Look beyond your limited experience. Look beyond your flesh,’ said Upayaja.

  ‘How can I? Flesh is what I see.’

  ‘But flesh is not what we show,’ said Yaja.

  Upayaja spread out his arms and looked up at the sky, ‘Know more words, see new worlds. Stop being a Manava. Grow to be a Rishi,’ said Upayaja. ‘There is a world beyond the flesh, a vision greater than anything that is shown and seen.’

  ‘The Manava looks at the manhood of Adi-natha,’ revealed Yaja.

  ‘But when he wonders what the idea expressed through the manhood is, he becomes a Rishi,’ revealed Upayaja.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Yuvanashva.

  The wind rustled through the leaves of the banyan tree. The steady sound of falling water was soothing. Yuvanashva felt his mind waking up like a lotus exposed to the morning sun. His heart felt the excitement of a bumblebee that senses the presence of nectar.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Yaja, ‘When the priest puts a bow in the king’s hand during a coronation, does he expect the king to be an archer?’

  ‘No,’ said Yuvanashva. ‘The bow is not to be taken literally. It is a symbol. It represents balance and poise that a king must display at all times. A bow is useless if the string is too tight or too loose and a king is useless if he is too stern or too lax.’

  Then Upayaja asked, ‘Do you believe the teacher of teachers sits in the north under the Pole Star?’

  Yuvanashva was surprised by the question. ‘Of course he does!’ he said. He saw the brothers smiling. Suddenly unsure, he asked, ‘Does he not? Why then are all sanyasis told to walk north towards the mountains?’

  ‘Maybe the north being referred to is not the literal north but the symbolic north. The place where all things are still and stable. What better way to represent stillness than with the Pole Star? What better way to represent stability than with mountains? North, the symbolic north, indicated by the still Pole Star and the unmoving mountain, is the seat of wisdom, which enables man to cope with change.’

  Yuvanashva’s eyes lit up. The language of symbols. It was spoken all around him. Yet, he had never paid attention to it.

  The Siddhas were pleased with the expression of discovery on Yuvanashva’s face. They got up and took Yuvanashva to the cave behind the waterfall. There, on the wet mossy walls, were two images. One of a stern ascetic, the other of an alluring enchantress. Shiva and Shakti. Both Adi-natha, the teacher of teachers.

  ‘What do you see before you?’ asked Yaja, his voice bouncing off the walls of the cave.

  ‘A man and a woman? Husband and wife? Brother and sister? Or something else?’ prompted Upayaja.

  Yuvanashva looked at the two images, one with the broad chest and the other with perfect breasts. Certainly not man or woman. Neither husband and wife nor brother and sister. Something else. Symbolic man and symbolic woman. That’s what they were. Vehicles of an idea. Two ideas. No. One idea, two expressions. Two halves of the same idea. Mutually interdependent.

  ‘Well done,’ said Yaja, feeling the flowering of wisdom in the lake of Yuvanashva’s mind. ‘To me, my master’s teachings revealed the truth of the soul, the unchanging truth within us that witnesses all things. I have chosen to represent this as a man.’

  Upayaja said, ‘To me, my master’s teachings showed me the truth of the world that is constantly changing around us. I have chosen to represent this as a woman.’

  ‘But why not choose woman to represent the soul and man to represent the world?’ asked Yuvanashva.

  ‘You ask this question only because you believe soul is superior to matter,’ said Yaja.

  ‘And men superior to women,’ added Upayaja.

  ‘Must one be superior to another?’ asked Yaja.

  ‘Can one exist without the other?’ asked Upayaja.

  I still think like a Manava. Limited by the ways of society. I must break free, thought Yuvanashva. He replied, ‘Without either there is neither. They are two halves of the whole. Neither can be superior or in
ferior. At least not to the Rishi. It is the Manava’s mind that creates such hierarchies and prevents women from becoming Rishis.’

  Said Yaja, ‘The female form lends itself best to represent matter because both create life within themselves.’

  Said Upayaja, ‘The male form lends itself best to represent soul because both create life outside themselves.’

  ‘Within you is your soul, Adi-natha as Shiva, silent, observant, still.’

  ‘Around you is matter, Adi-natha as Shakti, ever-changing, enchanting, enlightening, enriching, empowering.’

  Yuvanashva sensed Shiva within him, who never judged him, whether he was son or husband, father or mother, king or killer. Around him was Shakti manifesting as his mother, his wives, his sons, stirring emotions in his heart, provoking him into action. In between, connecting the soul to the world was his mind, trapped by change on one hand and stillness on the other.

  Yuvanashva realized Ileshwara was not a god, or an ancestor. Ileshwara was a symbol, a window to wisdom. Shiva on full moon days, Shakti on new moon nights, soul becoming matter with the waning moon and matter becoming soul with the waxing moon. At another level, a more subtle level, the deity represented the myriad forms of matter, sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes in between, always provoking the devotee, the mind. Beyond it all, formless, stood the still soul, awaiting discovery.

  Yuvanashva’s heart fluttered with new-found wisdom. So profound. So peaceful. Free from the snarling power games between men and women. Free from the constricting vocabulary of society. There was more to Yuvanashva than being Mandhata’s mother and Jayanta’s father. He was more than someone’s king, husband and son. He was a soul looking at an ever-changing world through an ever-changing mind. He had lived so many lives. Some happy and some sad. Some as Yama and some as Kama. Some as father, some as mother. Some as son, some as husband. The soul within observed it all.

  ‘Vipula told me that Yaja is the brother who loves the banyan tree and Upayaja is the one who admires the waterfall. But now I realize you don’t love the banyan tree; you love what it represents—that which does not change. And you,’ said Yuvanashva looking towards Upayaja, ‘you love not the waterfall but what it represents—that which changes. These are the two truths of the world that Yagnavalkya revealed long ago to Janaka. We are all trapped in the world of changes, where we feel trapped by destiny and propelled by desire. The point of life is to find that which does not change, the freedom from it all. Moksha.’