Sandhya's Austerities

Brahma said

Hear of Sandhya's great austerity; hearing it destroys accumulated sin in an instant. After instructing her Vasishtha went home. Delighted, she began on the shore of Lake Brihallohita, using the mantra Vasishtha gave and worshipping Shankara with devotion, single-minded, thinking of Shambhu alone, for a cycle of four yugas. Shambhu, pleased, showed himself to her within and without, in the sky, in the form she had been thinking of. She saw the lord in front of her with pleasant, serene face and was delighted. "What can I say? How will I praise Hara?" With these thoughts she shut her eyes, but Hara entered her heart and gave her divine knowledge, divine speech and divine sight, and she directly saw Durga's lord and praised the lord of the universe.

Sandhya said

You are formless, perceived through knowledge, supreme, neither gross nor subtle nor high. Yogis think of you inwardly; you are the creator of the universe, and I bow to you in that form. You are everything, serene, shining, indifferent, reached by knowledge, self-luminous, unchanging, called the road to heaven and the path beyond darkness. You are alone, pure, radiant, without origin, consciousness, bliss, naturally unchanging, eternal joy, truth, prosperity. Your form can be thought of as knowledge, different from all that is sentient; your form is the self, easily meditated on. You are the substance, the far shore, the most purifying of purifiers. Your form is pure, agreeable, jewel-adorned, clear and camphor-fair, holding in your hands the desired thing, the fearless gesture, trident and skull, full of yoga. Sky, earth, directions, water, fire and time are your forms. Pradhana and Purusha came from your form but you are not manifest in it. As Brahma you create, as Vishnu you preserve, as Rudra you destroy. Cause of all causes, you give divine amrita, knowledge and prosperity; illumination is your form; there is no station higher than yours. Earth, directions, sun, moon, the mind-born one, space and all within and without came from your navel. You are the supreme, the paramatman, known through all knowledge, the truth, the brahman, the supreme brahman, object of all reflection, without beginning, middle or end. How can I praise Hara, who words and mind cannot approach? Brahma, the gods and sages, stores of austerity, cannot describe his forms. How can I, a woman? You are without qualities; how can I know them? Indra, the gods and asuras do not know your form. I bow to Mahesha, the full of tamas. Shambhu, be gracious. Lord of gods, I bow again and again.

Pleased, Shankara, kind to devotees, saw that her bark and deerskin had given way to long matted locks, and that her lotus face was radiant. Moved, he said: "Fortunate one, I am pleased with your austerity and supreme praise. Ask a boon, whatever is in your mind." Rejoicing she bowed repeatedly: "Maheshvara, if a boon is to be given out of affection, if I am worthy, if I am purified of that sin, if you are pleased with my austerity, let the first boon be this: this firmament is full of desire, but let no being, at birth, succumb to it. Let me choose that no other woman ever be as famous in the three worlds as I am. Let nothing I create succumb to desire or fall. Let my husband be my well-wisher. Let any man who looks at me with desire lose his manliness and become a eunuch." Shankara answered, pleased: "Goddess Sandhya, your sins are burnt and my anger toward you is gone; by austerity you are pure. I grant all you ask. For any embodied being, the first quarter of life is infancy, the second childhood, the third youth, the fourth old age; desire will arise only in the third quarter, in some cases at the end of the second. By your austerity I establish this ordinance, that at birth no being suffers from desire. You will become a sati in this world, with none like you in the three worlds ever. If anyone looks at you with desire without marrying you, he will at once become weak and impotent. Your husband will be fortunate, beautiful and austere, and will live seven kalpas with you.

"Now I will tell you about your former life. You promised to give up your body in fire, and here is how. The sage Medhatithi is performing a twelve-year sacrifice with all fires lit, in a hermitage on the Chandrabhaga in this mountain valley. Go there unnoticed by the sages; by my favour you will become his daughter, born from the fire. If you have ever thought of a desirable husband, think of him as you give up your body in the fire. While you did fierce austerity here, a cycle of four yugas passed. After krita and in the first part of treta, Daksha had daughters, eloquent and well-conducted, married properly. He gave twenty-seven to the moon, who loved Rohini most, and in anger Daksha cursed him. All the gods then gathered near you, but with your mind on me you did not see Brahma and the gods; you regained sight later. To free Chandra from his curse Vidhatri created the Chandranadi. At that time Medhatithi came, unequalled in austerity, who has begun a sacrifice with jyotishtoma and other great rites; a great fire is lit. Give up your body there. You are now pure and all desires accomplished. I did all this for a purpose. Go to that sage's sacrifice." Having shown what was good for her, the lord of gods vanished.