Chapter 27 - On the birth, etc., of Sāvitrī

1-2. Nārāyaṇa said :-- O Nārada! After having chanted the above hymn to the Goddess Sāvitrī and worshipped Her in accordance with due rites and ceremonies, the king Aśvapati saw the Devī, effulgent like the lustre of thousand suns.

She then smilingly told the king, as a mother to her son, whilst all the quarters were illumined with the lustre of Her body :--

3-14. Sāvitrī said :-- “O King! I know your desire. Certainly I will give what you and your wife long for. Your chaste wife is anxious for a daughter, while you want a son. So, one after another, the desires of both of you will be fulfilled.” Thus saying, the Devī went to the Brahma Loka. The King also returned to his house. First a daughter was born to him. As the daughter was born, as if a second Lakṣmī was born after worshipping Sāvitrī, the King kept her name as Sāvitrī. As time rolled on, the daughter grew, day by day, like the phases of bright fortnight moon, into youth and beauty. There was a son of Dyumat Sena, named Satyavāna, always truthful, good natured and endowed with various other qualifications. The daughter chose him for her bridegroom. The King betrothed her with jewels and ornaments, to Satyavāna, who gladly took her home. After one year expired, the truthful vigorous Satyavāna gladly went out, by his father’s command, to collect fruits and fuel. The chaste Sāvitrī, too, followed him. Unfortunately Satyavāna fell down from a tree and died. Yama, the God of Death, saw his soul as a Puruṣa of the size of one’s thumb and took it and went away. The chaste Sāvitrī began to follow Him.

The high souled Yama, the Foremost of the Sadhus, seeing Sāvitrī following Him, addressed her sweetly :-- O Sāvitrī! Whither are you going in your this mortal coil? If you like to follow after all, then quit your this body.

15-25. The mortal man, with his transient coil of these five elements, is not able to go to My Abode. O Chaste One! The death time of your husband arrived; therefore Satyavāna is going to My Abode to reap the fruits of his Karma. Every living animal is born by his Karma. He dies again through his life long Karma. It is his Karma alone that ordains pleasure, pain, fear, sorrows, etc. By Karma, this embodied soul here becomes Indra; by Karma he can become a Brahmā’s son. What more than this that Jīva, by his Karma, can be in Hari’s service and be free from birth and death! By one’s own Karma all sorts of Siddhis and immortality can be obtained; the four blessed regions as Viṣṇu’s Sālokya, etc., also can be obtained by Karma. What more than this that by Karma, a being becomes divine, human, or a King, or Śiva or Ganeśa! The state of Munīndra, asceticism, Kṣattriyahood, Vaiśyahood, Mlechahood, moving things, stones, Rākṣasahood, Kinnaras, Kingship, becoming trees, beasts, forest animals, inferior animals, worms, Daityas, Dānavas, Asuras, all are fashioned and wrought by Karma and Karma alone. O Nārada! Thus speaking, Yama remained silent.

Here ends the Twenty-seventh Chapter of the Ninth Book on the birth, etc., of Sāvitrī in Śrī Mad Devī Bhāgavatam of 18,000 verses by Maharṣi Veda Vyāsa.