Chyavana and Sukanya: The Mahabharata’s Three Identical Faces and the Ashvins’ Six Deeds in Charaka Samhita’s Rasayana

इस लेख को हिंदी में पढ़ें: च्यवन ऋषि और सुकन्या की कथा: तीन एक जैसे युवक और अश्विनीकुमारों के छह कार्य

📖 19 min read · Mahabharata, Vana Parva CXXII-CXXIII (Sanskrit 3.123-124); Charaka Samhita, Chikitsasthana 1

Pierced Eyes, Then a Wedding: The Paradox of Chyavana and Sukanya

Chyavana is the sage whose name lives on in Chyavanaprasha, the formula the Charaka Samhita names after him. A princess once pierced his eyes with a thorn. Then that same princess became his wife. Both halves come from one book, the Mahabharata, which tells the story of Chyavana and Sukanya in two short chapters.

The heart of it comes near the end. Three young men step out of a lake: all young, all in divine forms, all wearing polished earrings and dressed alike. One of them is her husband. The other two are the twin Ashvins, the physicians of the gods. Sukanya has to choose. The text tells us whom she chose. It does not tell us how she knew him, and this page will not invent a reason.

The second half of the page turns to the Charaka Samhita, where Chyavana appears twice in the chapter on Rasayana: in the name of a formula, and among six deeds of those same twins. Our reel promised the other five. They are below, each with its verse.

Valmika: The Sage Who Became an Anthill (3.123.1-4)

The sage Lomasha tells this story to Yudhishthira, eldest of the Pandavas, on a pilgrimage. He begins: “A son was born to the great saint Bhrigu, Chyavana by name.” Chyavana practised austerity (tapas) beside a lake (3.123.1). He stood “quiet and still like an inanimate post”, in Ganguli’s words; the Sanskrit says sthāṇubhūto, become a post, in the hero’s posture (vīrasthānena), for a long time in one spot (3.123.2). Then:

सवल्मीकोऽभवदृषिर्लताभिरिव संवृतः।
कालेन महता राजन्समाकीर्णः पिपीलिकैः॥ (3.123.3)

Word by word: the seer (ṛṣir) became an anthill (valmīka), as if covered (saṃvṛtaḥ) with creepers (latābhir iva); in a long time (kālena mahatā), O king, he was swarmed over by ants (pipīlikaiḥ). Ganguli: “And he was turned into an anthill covered over with creepers.”

The next verse finishes the picture. Covered on all sides like a lump of earth (mṛtpiṇḍa iva), he went on with his fierce austerity inside the anthill (3.123.4); Ganguli says he “looked exactly like a heap of earth”. Notice what the text leaves out: it gives no number of years, only “a long time”.

Still as a post for so long that he became an anthill, as if covered with creepers (3.123.2-3).

Sukanya at the Lake: A King, His Only Daughter and a Weak Call (3.123.5-11)

After a long time a king named Sharyati (śaryātir) came to this lovely lake for pleasure (3.123.5). With him were “four thousand females, espoused by him”, and “his only daughter endued with beautiful brows, named Sukanya” (3.123.6). The Sanskrit calls her subhrūḥ, fine-browed. Her name, Sukanya, is itself a description: Monier-Williams gives “a beautiful girl”.

Adorned with fine ornaments and surrounded by her friends, Sukanya came walking to the anthill where the sage sat (3.123.7). She looked at the forest and its trees and broke off branches in full flower (3.123.8-9). The sage saw her apart from her friends, alone, in a single cloth, “wandering like lightning” (vidyutam, 3.123.10). He called to her in a weak voice (kṣāmakaṇṭha), “but she heard him not” (3.123.11).

Kautuhala: Curiosity and the Thorn (3.123.12)

Here is the verse our reel opens with:

ततः सुकन्या वल्मीके दृष्ट्वा भार्गवचक्षुषी।
कौतूहलात्कण्टकेन बुद्धिमोहबलात्कृता।
किंनु खल्विदमित्युक्त्वा निर्बिभेदास्य लोचने॥ (3.123.12)

Word by word: then (tataḥ) Sukanya, having seen (dṛṣṭvā) in the anthill (valmīke) the two eyes of the Bhargava, Bhrigu’s son (bhārgavacakṣuṣī), out of curiosity (kautūhalāt), with a thorn (kaṇṭakena), driven by a clouding of her judgement (buddhimohabalāt kṛtā), saying “What can this be?” (kiṃnu khalv idam ity uktvā), pierced (nirbibheda) his two eyes (asya locane).

Ganguli’s English: “Sukanya from curiosity and losing her sense, said, ‘What is this?’— and with thorns pierced the eyes (of the Rishi).” Two small differences are worth seeing. Ganguli writes thorns, plural, where the Sanskrit has one thorn (kaṇṭakena is singular). And the Sanskrit gives two causes, not one: curiosity (Monier-Williams: “curiosity, interest in anything”) and moha, “bewilderment”, of her buddhi, her judgement.

Neither the Sanskrit nor Ganguli says that the sage went blind, and neither says that his eyes were later made whole. The text says pierced, and so does this page.

Khadyota: The Army Stopped, and Sukanya’s Firefly (3.123.13-19)

His eyes pierced, the sage grew angry (3.123.13). The text says plainly what he did: he stopped the faeces and urine (śakṛnmūtre) of Sharyati’s whole army. Ganguli: he “obstructed the calls of nature of Saryati’s forces”. The soldiers were in great distress (3.123.14).

The king asked who had wronged the son of Bhrigu, “old and ever engaged in austerities and of wrathful temper” (3.123.15). His soldiers replied: “We do not know whether any one hath done wrong to the Rishi.” (3.123.16). He asked his friends too, with soft words and with threats, and they did not know either (3.123.17). Then Sukanya, seeing the army suffering and her father troubled (3.123.18), spoke:

मयाऽटन्त्येह वल्मीके दृष्टं सत्वमभिज्वलत्।
खद्योतवदभिज्ञातं तन्मया विद्धमन्तिकात्॥ (3.123.19)

Word by word: wandering here (mayā’ṭantyeha), I saw in the anthill something glowing (satvam abhijvalat); taking it for a firefly (khadyotavat), I pierced it (viddham) from close by (antikāt). Ganguli: “taking it for a glow-worm I neared it, and pierced it (with thorns)”. Monier-Williams explains the word khadyota as “a shining flying insect, fire-fly”.

She took the glow in the anthill for a firefly (3.123.19).

Pranjali: The King’s Plea and the Sage’s Condition (3.123.20-27)

Hearing this, Sharyati went at once to the anthill and found the sage, “old both in years and austerities”, shining like the moon and the sun (3.123.20). With joined palms (prāñjaliḥ), for his army’s sake, he begged him to forgive what the girl had done in ignorance (3.123.21).

Chyavana answered, in Ganguli’s words: “Disregarding me, this one, filled with pride hath pierced my eyes.” The Sanskrit words are apamānād, out of disrespect, and darpapūrṇayā, full of pride (3.123.22). Then came his condition: “thy daughter would I have for my bride, I tell thee truly, on this condition alone will I forgive thee” (3.123.23).

“Saryati, without pausing, bestowed his daughter on the high-souled Chyavana” (3.123.24), and went home to his city with his army (3.123.25). The chapter ends with Sukanya. Having this ascetic for a husband, she served him every day with love (prītyā), with austerity and discipline (3.123.26), and looked after the sacred fires and the guests (3.123.27). Ganguli calls her “void of guile”. The text gives her no complaint.

Sukanya looked after the sacred fires and the guests (3.123.27).

Devabhishag: The Twin Physicians and Their Offer (3.124.1-14)

Some time later the two Ashvins, gods of heaven, saw Sukanya just after her bath (3.124.1). They hurried up to her and asked whose daughter she was and what she was doing in this forest (3.124.2-3). She covered herself and answered: know me as Sharyati’s daughter and Chyavana’s wife (3.124.4). The Sanskrit also calls the twins nāsatyāv, the Nasatyas (3.124.2). Ganguli turns that into “the nose-born Aswins”, but Monier-Williams calls the derivation from the nose “very improbable” and glosses the name “helpful, kind, friendly”. The same twins appear in another of our story pages, where they ask Daksha how Haritaki was born.

The twins laughed (prahasya, 3.124.6). Why, they asked, does a girl like you serve a husband worn out by old age (jarājarjaritaṃ), who can neither shelter nor keep you (3.124.10-11)? Leave Chyavana and choose one of us; do not waste your youth (3.124.11-12). Her answer, and their reply:

रताऽहं च्यवने पत्यौ मैवं मां पर्यशङ्कतम्।
तावब्रूतां पुनस्त्वेनामावां देवभिषग्वरौ॥ (3.124.13)
युवानं रूपसंपन्नं करिष्यावः पतिं तव।
ततस्तस्यावयोश्चैव वृणीष्वान्यतमं पतिम्।
एतेन समयेनैनमामन्त्रय पतिं शुभे॥ (3.124.14)

Word by word: “I am devoted (ratā) to Chyavana, my husband; do not doubt me.” The two said to her again: “We are the best physicians of the gods (devabhiṣagvarau). We will make your husband young and handsome (yuvānaṃ rūpasaṃpannaṃ). Then choose one husband from among him and us two. On this condition (samayena), go and ask your husband.” Ganguli: “We two are the celestial physicians of note. We will make thy lord young and graceful.”

Their first offer was simple: leave him. Their second is a test. Make him young first, and then see whether she still picks him.

Three Identical Young Men From the Lake (3.124.15-21)

Sukanya went to her husband and told him what the twins had said, and Chyavana told his wife: let it be done (kriyatām, 3.124.15-16). The twins said to the princess: let your husband enter the water (3.124.17). Chyavana, wanting beauty (rūpārthī), went quickly into the water, and the Ashvins went into the lake as well (3.124.18).

Chyavana went into the water, and the two Ashvins after him (3.124.18).

ततो मुहूर्तादुत्तीर्णाः सर्वे ते सरसस्त्रयः।
दिव्यरूपधराः सर्वे युवानो मृष्टकुण्डलाः।
तुल्यवेषधराश्चैव मनसः प्रीतिवर्धनाः॥ (3.124.19)

Word by word: then, after a moment (muhūrtād), all three (trayaḥ) came up out of the lake (sarasas): all in divine forms (divyarūpadharāḥ), young (yuvāno), with polished earrings (mṛṣṭakuṇḍalāḥ), wearing the same dress (tulyaveṣadharāś), a joy to the mind. Monier-Williams gives muhurta as “a moment, instant”, and also as “a period of 48 minutes”; Ganguli reads “the next moment”.

The three spoke together: choose one of us as your husband, the one you want (3.124.20-21). Stop here for a moment. Would you have known him? The text gives the reader the same three young men Sukanya saw, alike in form and dress, and nothing more.

Vavre Svakam Patim: She Chose Her Own Husband (3.124.22)

सा समीक्ष्य तु तान्सर्वांस्तुल्यरूपधरान्स्थितान्।
निश्चित्य मनसा बुद्ध्या देवी वव्रे स्वकं पतिम्॥ (3.124.22)

Word by word: she, looking closely (samīkṣya) at all of them standing there, alike in form (tulyarūpadharān), having made up her mind (niścitya) with her heart (manasā) and her judgement (buddhyā), the lady chose (vavre) her own (svakaṃ) husband. Ganguli: “Finding, however, all of them of the same appearance she deliberated; and at last ascertaining the identity of her husband, even selected him.”

That is all the Mahabharata says. It gives no sign: nothing about how he stood, looked or spoke. The verse puts the choice in two places only, her heart (manas) and her judgement (buddhi). Some later tellings give her a sign to know him by; this text gives none, and this page adds none.

The Sanskrit edition on Wikisource prints a one-line summary at the head of chapter 124, and it credits her choice to the greatness of her devotion to her husband (pātivratya). That line is the editor’s summary, not a verse of the epic.

Read the two chapters side by side and they answer each other. The girl who once took his eyes for a firefly picked him out from three identical faces.

Young, with polished earrings, dressed alike (3.124.19).

Somapithin: The Promise of Soma (3.124.23-26)

With his wife, and the youth and beauty he had wanted, Chyavana was glad, and spoke to the two Nasatyas (3.124.23). He reminded them that they had made him, an old man, young and handsome, and that he had won this wife (3.124.24), and went on:

तस्माद्युवां करिष्यामि प्रीत्याऽहं सोमपीथिनौ।
मिषतो देवराजस्य सत्यमेतद्ब्रवीमि वाम्॥ (3.124.25)

Word by word: therefore (tasmād) I will gladly (prītyā) make you both drinkers of Soma (somapīthinau), before the eyes (miṣato) of the king of the gods; this I tell you truly. Ganguli: “I will, well pleased, make you quaffers of the Soma juice in the presence of the lord of celestials himself. This I tell you truly.”

Delighted, the twins went back to heaven, “and Chyavana and Sukanya too passed their days happily even like celestials” (3.124.26). There Ganguli’s Section CXXIII ends. The promise matters to the frame of the story. When Lomasha first mentioned this place, Yudhishthira had asked him exactly this: “how, O Brahmana! did he raise the celestial physicians to the rank of the drinkers of Soma?” (Section CXXI). The rest of the answer is the next episode, and it is a story of its own.

What Ayurveda Learns From It: Chyavana in Charaka’s Rasayana Chapter

The Charaka Samhita’s section on medical care, the Chikitsasthana, opens with a chapter called Rasayana, a word the translations render as rejuvenation. It is split into four quarters (pāda). Chyavana appears in it twice, and the two mentions do not tell the same story.

In the first quarter, after giving a formula in full, Charaka names it:

इत्ययं च्यवनप्राशः परमुक्तो रसायनः (Chikitsasthana 1.1.69)

“Thus this is Chyavanaprasha, declared a supreme rasayana.” Three verses later he adds:

अस्य प्रयोगाच्च्यवनः सुवृद्धोऽभूत्पुनर्युवा (Chikitsasthana 1.1.72)

“By its use Chyavana, who was very old, became young again.” The Charaka Samhita Handbook on Ayurveda puts it as “the extremely old Cyavana regained youthful age” (Vol. I, p.445). The name itself is plain Sanskrit: Monier-Williams gives prāśa as “eating, feeding upon” and “food, victuals”, so the name means, word for word, Chyavana’s food.

In the fourth quarter, Charaka tells it another way: “Chyavana of Bhrigu’s line ... was made young again by the two”, the Ashvins (Chikitsasthana 1.4.44; the whole verse is in the next section).

Charaka does not join these accounts, and neither does this page. He gives the formula’s full recipe and the conditions he says it is used for; we leave both out, because this page is about a story, not about taking anything. His line about Chyavana is told in the past tense about one sage of legend. It is not a promise to anyone reading.

Charaka’s Rasayana chapter names Chyavana twice: in a formula, and among the Ashvins’ deeds.

The Ashvin Twins’ Six Deeds: Charaka Chikitsa 1.4.41-44 and the Other Five

Our reel ended on a question: what else did these twins do? Charaka answers in four verses of the Rasayana chapter’s fourth quarter. Here they are as printed on carakasamhitaonline.com:

अश्विनौ देवभिषजौ यज्ञवाहाविति स्मृतौ।
यज्ञस्य हि शिरश्छिन्नं पुनस्ताभ्यां समाहितम्॥४१॥
प्रशीर्णा दशनाः पूष्णो नेत्रे नष्टे भगस्य च।
वज्रिणश्च भुजस्तम्भस्ताभ्यामेव चिकित्सितः॥४२॥
चिकित्सितश्च शीतांशुर्गृहीतो राजयक्ष्मणा।
सोमाभिपतितश्चन्द्रः कृतस्ताभ्यां पुनः सुखी॥४३॥
भार्गवश्च्यवनः कामी वृद्धः सन् विकृतिं गतः।
वीतवर्णस्वरोपेतः कृतस्ताभ्यां पुनर्युवा॥४४॥

Word by word:

• 41: the two Ashvins (aśvinau) are remembered (smṛtau) as the physicians of the gods (devabhiṣajau) and the carriers of the sacrifice (yajñavāhāv); the head (śiraś) of Yajna, the sacrifice (yajñasya), cut off (chinnaṃ), was joined again (punas ... samāhitam) by the two (tābhyāṃ).
• 42: the broken (praśīrṇā) teeth (daśanāḥ) of Pushan, the two lost (naṣṭe) eyes (netre) of Bhaga, and the stiffness (stambha) of the arm (bhuja) of the thunderbolt-holder (vajriṇaś, Indra) were given medical care (cikitsitaḥ) by the two alone.
• 43: and the cool-rayed one (śītāṃśur), seized (gṛhīto) by rajayakshma (rājayakṣmaṇā), was given medical care; the Moon (candraḥ), somābhipatitaś (a hard word: see below), was made happy (sukhī) again by the two.
• 44: Chyavana of Bhrigu’s line (bhārgavaś cyavanaḥ), desirous (kāmī), being old (vṛddhaḥ san), gone into a changed state (vikṛtiṃ gataḥ), his colour (varṇa) and voice (svara) gone, was made young again (punar yuvā) by the two.

Then verse 45 sums up: “by these and many other deeds” (etaiś cānyaiś ca bahubhiḥ karmabhir), the two best of physicians became worthy of great honour from Indra and the other great ones:

एतैश्चान्यैश्च बहुभिः कर्मभिर्भिषगुत्तमौ।
बभूवतुर्भृशं पूज्याविन्द्रादीनां महात्मनाम्॥४५॥

Why six, not five. Both English versions, the Handbook (p.467) and carakasamhitaonline, read verse 43 into Indra’s line. The Handbook has “the spastic arms of Vajrin (Indra)” and goes on: “and thus he, addicted to soma drink, was again made happy”. Neither version names the Moon or rajayakshma. The Sanskrit names the Moon twice, as śītāṃśu, the cool-rayed one (Monier-Williams: “the moon”), and as candra, and gives the verse its own two verbs. Counted from the Sanskrit, the deeds are six. Besides Chyavana, the other five are Yajna’s head, Pushan’s teeth, Bhaga’s eyes, Indra’s arm and the Moon.

The hard word. Somābhipatitaś is where the English versions find “addicted to soma drink”. The Shabdakalpadruma, a nineteenth-century Sanskrit encyclopedia on Sanskrit Wikisource, quotes these verses with some different readings, among them सोमान्निपतितश्चन्द्रः, “the Moon, fallen from Soma”, here, and दक्षस्य हि शिरश्छिन्नं, “Daksha’s head”, in verse 41. There too the Moon’s line stands on its own.

One more caution. The Mahabharata’s next section also has a stiffened arm of Indra, in Chyavana’s own story. Charaka’s verse does not say how the arm came to be stiff, and the two books do not refer to each other, so this page keeps them apart.

Pranacharya: Why Charaka Tells the Twins’ Story (Chikitsa 1.4.39-51)

Charaka does not list these deeds for their own sake. The passage opens with an argument. Every rasayana, every vrishya formula (vṛṣyayogāś) and every medicine for illnesses (vikārāṇāṃ) depends on the physician (1.4.39). So the wise should honour the physician to the utmost, “as the king of gods honors Aswins” (the Handbook, p.467):

अश्विनाविव देवेन्द्रः पूजयेदतिशक्तितः (1.4.40)

The six deeds (1.4.41-44) are his evidence. Then come the honours: cups, hymns, mantras and offerings set apart for the twins (1.4.46), and this line:

प्रातश्च सवने सोमं शक्रोऽश्विभ्यां सहाश्नुते (1.4.47)

“At the morning pressing (savane), Shakra (Indra) drinks Soma with the Ashvins.” Set this beside the Mahabharata. There Chyavana promised to make the twins drinkers of Soma before the eyes of the king of the gods (3.124.25); here, Indra drinks Soma with them at the morning pressing. Charaka does not say how that came about, and the two books do not mention each other, but read side by side, the promise in one fits the morning cup in the other.

The argument then closes in two steps. If the gods, who know neither age nor death, honour the twins as physicians (1.4.49), how much more should mortals, who live under death, disease and old age, honour theirs (1.4.50)? And a physician of good conduct and learning “should be honored as preceptor by the people”, for he is the one called prāṇācāryaḥ, the teacher of life (1.4.51). So in Charaka, the legend of Chyavana ends as a lesson in respect for the one who gives care. For a physician’s training in another old book, see Jivaka’s test.

Where This Story Comes From: Mahabharata Vana Parva CXXII-CXXIII and Charaka Chikitsa 1

The story is in the Mahabharata’s third book, the Vana Parva (in Sanskrit editions, the Aranyaka Parva), in the part called the Tirtha-yatra Parva, the book of the pilgrimage. The sage Lomasha is guiding Yudhishthira and his brothers from one holy place to the next. At the spot where King Sharyati once held a sacrifice, Lomasha mentions Chyavana and the two celestial physicians, and Yudhishthira asks to hear “All this, precisely as it happened” (Ganguli, Section CXXI). Sections CXXII and CXXIII are the answer.

• English: Kisari Mohan Ganguli’s prose translation (1883-1896), Book 3, Sections CXXII-CXXIII; public domain, free to read online.
• Sanskrit: Sanskrit Wikisource, Aranyaka Parva chapters 123 and 124 (revisions 51370 and 51375). Verses this edition marks as additions were not used.
• Charaka: the Sanskrit and an English version on carakasamhitaonline.com (Rasayana Adhyaya, revision 44535); the Charaka Samhita Handbook on Ayurveda, Vol. I (2003), pp.445-446 and 467.

The Mahabharata does not stop at the promise. In Sections CXXIV and CXXV, Chyavana holds a Soma sacrifice for King Sharyati and offers Soma to the Ashvins, and Indra objects. That is a separate episode, a story for another day, so this page names it and stops there. At its very end, Lomasha shows Yudhishthira the place: “This is his lake, shining, O king!” (Section CXXV). Another Mahabharata story on our pages, read beside the Ayurveda books, is Takshaka and Kashyapa.

Later retellings of Chyavana and Sukanya add details this text does not have. This article follows the Mahabharata’s words, verse by verse, and Charaka’s, line by line.

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