These days, we hear of sex drugs, aphrodisiacs and even sex transplants. But have you ever heard of anyone exchanging his youth with someone younger than him? That is what the ancient Indian King Yayaati is supposed to have done. It is an interesting story that appears in the great Indian Epic Mahabharata. Let us do a momentary detour into this story.
There was this king Yayaati thousands of years ago. He was the ancestor of Lord Krishna, the hero of Mahabharata. Yayaati was married to Devayaani , the daughter of a great sage Shukra. Devayaani had a companion called Sharmista who was the daughter of a daemon king. Sharmista was secretly in love with Yayaati and one day she managed to force him to accept her. Well, love cannot remain secret for long. Sharmista bore three sons from Yayaati. And the worst part is that Devayaani came to know that it was Yayaati who was their father!
Devayaani was furious with the treachery of her husband. She went and complained to her father. Sage Shukra cursed Yayaati that he would at once lose his youth and become old.
It was too early for Yayaati to give up worldly enjoyment. He wanted to continue to enjoy life for some more time. But now due to the curse, his body was not permitting him. He decided to barter his old age with the youth of his sons. He promised them his entire kingdom in return for their youth. He also promised that he would return their youth after he enjoyed enough.
Yayaati first approached his eldest son Yadu born of Devayaani. But Yadu refused to part with his youth. Yayaati cursed Yadu that he as well as his descendants would never become Kings. The second son of Devayani namely Turvasu also refused to comply with his father’s request. He was driven away to the land of uncivilized people called Yavanas where he later became their leader. Even Sharmista’s sons Drahyu and Anu rejected their father’s offer. They were driven away from the Kingdom and made to move to the land of Mlechchas.
Historically, Indians considered Yavanas as barbaric people who had no ethics at all. They identified them with ancient Greeks. Similarly, the word Mlechcha is also a derogatory term which means people who speak an unintelligible language and who are highly immoral. This word is generally used to denote Arabs, or people belonging to any region to the far west of India.
Finally, it was the turn of the youngest son of Sharmista namely Puru. He agreed to barter his youth with his father. Yayaati was very much pleased and declared Puru to be his successor.
Yayaati spent several years enjoying his newfound youth. But he finally came to the conclusion that worldly pleasures are short lived and never satisfying. They only produce more craving and there is no end to that. So, he gave back his youth to Puru and retired to the forest to lead the life of a hermit seeking eternal happiness.
Puru became the king. He expanded his kingdom to vast lands in far off places around India. He even conquered the lands of Yavanas and Mlechchas, once occupied by his brothers. Puru’s descendants were called Pauravas.
It is an interesting story. But where does this story fit in our topic of Vedas? I will come to that shortly.
Today, the central Asian country namely Iran is recognized as a Muslim nation. But it was not always so. It was a country which once supported a belief system very much similar to the Vedic system of India. Till Alexander almost destroyed this civilization, they were very much like the Vedic Indians.
They had a language called Zend that was very similar to the language of the Vedas namely Sanskrit. They also had scriptures very similar to the Vedas. This scripture was called Avesta. They had religious practices, mythology and belief systems very much like that of the Vedic Indians. In fact, many of the things that were deciphered about this now almost extinct civilization is based on their similarity with Sanskrit and the Vedas.
After the Islamization, most of the original adherents of this civilization fled to western banks of India. They are called Zoroastrians after their prophet Zarathustra. They live a peaceful life in India and they are called the Parsi by the local Indians – a name remnant of the word Persia with which ancient Iran was known.
I will get into more details of this interesting civilization and their connection with the Vedas in the next episode. For now, let me suggest a possible connection between these Iranians and the story of Yayaati that I started with in the beginning.
I said that Yayaati’s son Puru expanded his kingdom to far off places outside India. Now the interesting question is “were the so-called Iranians who followed a Veda like scripture and spoke a Sanskrit like language, actually descendants or subjects of Puru?”
It may not be a great coincidence that the father of Zarathustra, well known as a prophet of the Iranians and founder of the Zoroastrian religion was called Paurushaspa. Was he a descendant of our King Puru? It is common in India to name the descendants after their well-known ancestor’s. For example, the descendants of sage Vishwamitra are called Vaishvamitris, the descendants of King Kuru are called Kauravas and so on. Was Paurushaspa a descendent of Indian King Puru?
Many Indians may want to jump to this conclusion and establish the connection between India and ancient Iran, between Sanskrit and Zend, between Vedas and the Avesta. But then what will happen to the Aryan invasion theory?! The supporters of that theory would certainly not like it! How do they explain this connection?
Let us see more in the next episode.
A series discussing the most ancient of the Indian scriptures, nay the world scriptures namely the Vedas. © Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2021
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