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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1906.
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE SAVITRI-VRATA.
BY B. A. GUPTE, F.Z.S. The Savitrf-vrata is a fast kept by Hinda women on the last three days, or the last day of the bright half of the Jyêshtha (June) to avert widowhood.
In order that the reader may appreciate the Nature-myth of Savitri, which underlies the symbolism and the ceremonies proper to the occasion, I will quote the Paarânic story: - She was the daughter of the king Aśva pati. When she had reached a marriageable age, her father asked her to go in search of a husband and make her choice herself. She returned and announced to her father that she had chosen Satyavat, the son of an old king, who, after being dethroned, was then living in the jungle with his wife. At this time Nârada, the all-knowing saint who happened to be present, told her and her father that it would be choosing grief and misery, because Satyavat was fated to die within a year. But the high-minded maiden could on no account be persuaded to change her mind. They were, therefore, married. Såvitri discarded her princely jewels and dresses, and followed her husband in the coarse raiment of the hermit. During the last three days of his life sbe vowed to fast. On the fated day, as her husband bad gone out to collect fagots or to fell trees, she accompanied him. Fatigued by his work, Satyayat rested his head upon his wife's lap and fell asleep. At this point there are variants in the story. Some authors say that a branch of the tree fell on his head, while others proclaim that he was bitten by a snake. Anyhow the fact remains that he rested his head on the lap of his wife, - Mother Earth, as will be shown further on. At that moment Yama, as the Marathas call him, or Jama as the Bengalis say, snatched his soul out of his body in the presence of his devoted wife and moved towards the South. Savitri closely followed the God of Death, and as she was a Sati, even the hard-hearted Yama dared not interfere with her. At last, Love conquered Death, and at her earnest solicitation, Yama restored life to the prostrato body of her Lord, and blessed her with gifts. Among them were the restoration of the lost eye-sight, youth, and crown of her father-in-law, and the birth of a hundred sons to the now happy pair.
Såvitri is therefore regarded as the highest type of conjugal fidelity, and her example is held out to every daughter of high-class India for imitation. Here the Purana ends, but Ethnology does not discard all mythological records as mere stories. Carlyle tells us that behind literature there is a great deal of the history of the evolution of religion handed down by tradition. Traditions are still recorded in India by symbols or in hieroglyphic or pictographic writings, and with my wife's help I have been able to get a copy of some traditional drawings lately made with sandal-wood paste on a wall. I have not interfered with her original production (Plate attached), as I prefer it to any of the artistic embellishments of modern artists, who would introduce the ghost-like shadow of death in servile imitation of Watt's celebrated paintings of Love and Death and murder or mutilate the chaste symbolism of the past, unde modern chromolithographs sold in the bd drs.
The first impression produced by the picture is that it is a marriage scene. The priost (fig. 36) and the group of musicians (figs. 37, 38, 39) tell us that. But let us look at the San (fig. 1) and the Moon (fig. 5). They are the two eyes of the Mahapurusa or the Great Person, the common source of life, the highest manifestations of fructifying force. Emerson tells us that it is the vivifying morning sun, which, rising, awakens the sleeping world and gives life to men and plants. The Sun and the Moon signify beatific life, and in their conjunction were emblems of blessedness. On the elaborate Shield of Achilles, Homer is careful to describe
Noto by Mr. R. Burn, I.C.S. The Sun and the Moon almost invariably occur on Sati-pillars in Bundelkhand, and are usually interpreted as symbols of chastity, thus implying the everlasting union of the faithful wife with her husband.
