Yayaathi The famous forefather of the Pandavas

Yayathi

Yayathi was one of the forefathers of Pandavas.

Devayani was the daughter of Sukrachchariyar, the Advisor to the Asura King Virushparvan  and  had the knowledge  to give life to death Asuras using his Sanjivini medicine.

One day Devayani was playing with Sarmishta, the daughter of Virushparvan and her maids. They took bath in a pond and after their bath Sarmishta without knowing wore the dress of Devayan. Seeing this Devayani scolded Sarmishta  using very harsh words. Sarmishta apologized for her mistake but still angry, Devayani continued her scolding. Sarmishta also got angry and scolded Devayani saying “you filthy woman my father is the king and gives his alms and using that alms you and your poor Brahmin father survive. Remember that” and saying this she pushed Devayani inside a disused well and went away.

Devayani was inside the well and called out for help. At that time Yayathi, the famous king of Bharatha dynasty  was hunting in the forest . He was thirsty and came for water and thinking that water would be available inside the well looked into it. He found  a very beautiful girl inside the well. Devayani introduced herself as the daughter of the famous Sukrachchariyar and asked him to help her out of the well.He bent and lent his hand to her and lifted her out of the well.

Devayani told him to marry her as she was held by her right hand by Yayathi and being a Brahmin girl she had to marry the man who held her right hand. But Yayaathi refused to marry her saying that he being a Kshtriya he could not marry a Brahmin girl and went away to his country. In olden days people used to marry within their castes and if the marry outside their castes it should be approved by the bride’s parents.

Devayani did not want to go back to her home and remained in the forest as she could not bear the insult of Sarmishta.

When Devayani did not return back her father Sukrachchariyar came in search of her and found her standing in the forest and asked her to return back  home with him. But Devayani refused to return and told her father to go and ask  Sarmishta to become her maid and apologise for her insulting Deavayani. Sukrachchariyaar consoled her and said there is no insult in this and being the Advisor of the King he was respected and treated well by the king and hence she should not take this incident seriously and condone it. But Devayani would not listen.

 As she was so adamant , Sukrachchariyaar went to king Virushparvan and told him about the great insult his daughter gas heaped upon Sukrachcharyar’s daughter and hence he would not be able to work and advice him any further and would be going away.

Virushparvan was shocked and worried as without Sukrachchariyar’s help he would be dethroned and defeated by the Devas and all the Asuras would be  masaccared.  He pleaded with Sukrachchariyar  not to leave him as his Sanjivini medicine would not be available if he went away from the kingdom and The Devas would defeat him.. But Sukrachchariyar was adamant . So Virushparvan asked his daughter to go and apologise to Devayani for the welfare of his kingdom and his people. Sarmishta was all humility and went to Devayani and apologized to her and agreed to remain as her maid till her death.

Devayani returned to the kingdom and remained as comfortable as a princess with Sarmishta as her maid.  Once again Devayani happened to meet Yayathi in the forest and persuaded him to marry her. Again Yayathi refused saying the difference in their caste. Both went to Sukrachchariyar and he agreed to the wishes of his daughter and allowed their marriage and blessed them as husband and wife. Sukrachchariyar told him to treat his daughter as his only queen and should not marry anybody else. Yayathi promised to follow Sukrachchariar's conditions. Thus  they got married and lived happily ever after. 

As Sarmishta was Devayani’s maid, she also accompanied Devayani to the palace of Yayaythi. Sarmishta was also an extremely beautiful girl and hence she  one day met Yayathi and asked him to marry her also. Yayathi was enamoured by her beauty and married her secretly.

Devayani was angry when knew of this and went to her father and told him about Yayathi’s breach of promise. Sukrachchariyar got wild in anger and immediately cursed Yayathi to become old. Curse of such learned and powerful Brahmins  are powerful and take effect and could not be changed. Immediately Yayathi became very old and he went to Sukrachchariyar and pleaded with him to release him from his curse. Somewhat calmed Sukrachchariyar said once a curse is given it could not be taken back but he could modify it. So saying  he said if any one else was willing to take Yayathi’s  ‘old age’ then he could transfer the same to him and get back the youth of that person who gave him his youth  and live with it.

 Yayaathi called his five sons one by one  and asked them to take his old age and give their youth and in turn he would make them as his heir and King. All the first  four sons refused to do this. They made fun of him to get young after all these years of life he enjoyed.  Finally Yayathi called his fifth and youngest son Puru who was nice, honest and disciplined. 

His youngest son Puru had agreed to give his youth to him and take his old age. So Yayathi gave his old age and Kingdom  to him and took his youth and enjoyed life for another 1000 years and finally gave back his youth to his son and went to forest with his wives to enjoy solitude in his last years.