Sharmishtha Persuades Yayati to Father Her Child
Sharmishtha, a princess serving as a slave, sees her youth passing without a husband while her mistress has a child. She finds King Yayati alone and presents a layered, unanswerable case for why he should be her husband too, weaving together philosophy, friendship, and the law of ownership.
A thousand years passed. Sharmishtha, the daughter of the asura king Vrishaparva, reached her youth and felt her season arrive. She looked at her life: Devayani, the Brahmin woman she served, had a husband and a child. Sharmishtha had nothing. Her youth was in vain. She resolved in her mind: "I shall choose as my husband the same person and in the same way as her. I am certain the king will give me a son."
One day, King Yayati came walking alone to an ashoka grove. Sharmishtha was there. She saw her chance.
She greeted him with joined palms and spoke directly. "O son of Nahusha! No one can touch the women who dwell in the inner quarters of gods like Soma, Indra, Vishnu, or kings like you. Know that I am beautiful, born in a good lineage, and show good conduct. O ruler of men! I seek your favour for my season."
Yayati acknowledged her beauty and her conduct. He saw no blemish in her. But he had a problem. "When I married Devayani, her father Kavya Ushanas told me that Vrishaparva's daughter should never be in my bed." He was bound by the warning of the powerful sage Shukra.
Sharmishtha was ready. She began her argument.
First, she addressed the nature of falsehood. "O king! It is no sin to commit a falsehood in five cases—in jest, to women, at the time of marriage, when confronting death, and when all one's riches are liable to be lost." A lie, she argued, only harms the speaker when it serves no greater purpose.
Yayati refused. A king must be a role model. If he was proven a liar, destruction would follow. He could not afford it.
Sharmishtha shifted her ground. "O king! It is held that one's husband and one's friend's husband are closely related. A friend's marriage is equal to one's own." She had chosen her friend's husband as her own.
Yayati countered with his own principle: "The vow I have taken is that the gift should match the one who asks. You are asking my favour. Tell me what I should do?"
Now Sharmishtha delivered her final, unassailable point. "O king! Save me from sin and protect my dharma. If I conceive a child through you, I will perform the most righteous act in the world." Then she invoked the law. "It is decreed that three people can never own—a wife, a slave, and a son. Whatever they obtain belongs to the one who owns them. O king! I am Devayani's slave, and that descendant of the Bhrigu lineage is yours. She and I are equally yours. Love me as I love you."
The argument was complete. She had moved from permissible exceptions, to the bonds of friendship, to the cold logic of property. She was Devayani's property. Devayani was Yayati's wife. Therefore, Sharmishtha was also Yayati's property, to do with as he wished for her dharma.
Yayati was persuaded.
He paid honour to Sharmishtha and protected her dharma. He united with her in the grove, satisfying their desires, before they lovingly bade farewell and returned to their places. From that union with the king, Sharmishtha of the sweet smile and beautiful eyebrows conceived her first child. In due time, she gave birth to a son who was like the son of a god, with eyes like blue lotuses.