The Sage Who Defeated Death

The Pandavas had been told many tales by the deathless sage Markandeya, the rishi who had outlived ages of the world and seen the universe dissolve and be born again. At last Yudhishthira asked the question that all who met the ageless sage must wonder: how was it that Markandeya alone, of all beings, did not die - how had a mortal man come to be deathless? And the other sages told them the story of how, long ago, a boy named Markandeya defeated Death himself by his devotion, and was granted eternal youth.

It began with a childless couple, a sage named Mrikandu and his wife, who longed for a son and worshipped the great god Shiva with fierce devotion for many years, praying for a child.

At last Shiva, pleased by their long devotion, appeared before the couple to grant their wish - but he set before them a hard and painful choice. "I will give you a son," the god said, "but you must choose between two kinds of son, for I cannot give you both. You may have a son who is dull, stupid, and of poor character, but who will live a long, full life to a ripe old age. Or you may have a son who is brilliant, virtuous, beautiful, and supremely devoted - a son to be the joy and pride of your hearts - but who will live only sixteen years, and then must die. Choose which son you wish."

It was a cruel choice: a long life with a worthless son, or a brief, shining life with a perfect one. The couple did not hesitate. They chose the virtuous son, though it meant they would lose him at sixteen. "Better," they said, "to have a noble and devoted son for sixteen years than a worthless one for a hundred." And so Shiva granted them such a son, and in time the boy Markandeya was born to them - brilliant, beautiful, and devoted, exactly as promised, and doomed to die at sixteen.

Markandeya grew into everything Shiva had promised: a child of dazzling intelligence and goodness, mastering the scriptures young, gentle and pure, and above all utterly devoted to Shiva, whom he worshipped with his whole heart from his earliest years. He was the delight of his parents - and the shadow of his fate hung over them the whole while, for they knew the day was coming when they must lose him.

As Markandeya's sixteenth year approached, his parents could not hide their grief. The boy, seeing them weep, asked them why, and at last they told him the truth: of the choice they had made, and of the death that was appointed for him at the end of his sixteenth year, now drawing near.

But Markandeya was not dismayed. He had a faith and a resolve beyond his years. "Do not grieve," he told his parents. "I worship Lord Shiva, the conqueror of death himself. I will give myself entirely to his worship, and I do not believe that the Lord I love will let death take his devotee. Let me spend whatever time I have at his feet." And he set himself to worship Shiva more ardently than ever, fixing his whole being upon the god, awaiting the appointed day not with fear but with devotion.

When the last day of his sixteenth year came - the day appointed for his death - Markandeya did not flee and did not despair. He went to a temple of Shiva, and there he clasped the sacred Shiva-linga, the emblem of the god, in his arms, and gave himself wholly to worship and prayer, pouring out his love and his devotion to the Lord, his whole soul fixed upon Shiva, his arms wrapped about the linga as a child clings to its father.

And as the appointed hour arrived, the messengers of Yama, the Lord of Death, came to take the boy's life. But they could not approach him. So radiant was Markandeya with the power of his devotion, so wrapped in the protection of his love for Shiva, that the servants of Death could not come near him; they shrank back, unable to lay their nooses upon a boy so filled with the presence of the god. They returned to their master and told him that they could not take this devotee.

Then Yama himself, the Lord of Death, the keeper of the law that all who are born must die, came to take the boy, for it was the appointed time and the law could not be set aside. He came riding his great buffalo, dark and terrible, his noose in his hand, and he approached the boy who clung to the Shiva-linga.

Markandeya saw Death coming for him, but he did not let go of the linga. He clung all the tighter to the emblem of his beloved Lord, and went on worshipping, his whole heart crying out to Shiva to save him.

Yama, bound by his duty, cast his noose - the cord that draws out the life of every creature - to loop it around the boy and take his soul. And the noose flew, and settled around Markandeya. But because the boy was clasping the Shiva-linga so closely, the noose of Death fell not only around the boy but around the sacred linga itself - around the very emblem of Shiva. And that was a thing that should never have been done.

The instant the noose of Death fell around the Shiva-linga, the god could be restrained no longer. With a sound like thunder, Shiva himself burst forth out of the linga in his full and terrible glory, blazing with wrath that Death should dare to cast his noose around his very emblem and reach for his devotee.

In his fury Shiva struck at Yama - kicking the Lord of Death, or smiting him with his foot and his power - and stopped him utterly, defeating Death himself before the eyes of the boy. The terrible god of death, who had never been resisted, who comes for all beings and is denied by none, was struck down and halted by Shiva in defense of his devotee. For this deed Shiva is called ever after Mrityunjaya, the Conqueror of Death, and Kalantaka, the Ender of Time and Death - the one power before whom even Death must yield.

Markandeya, still clinging to the linga, looked up to see his beloved Lord standing over him, having burst forth from the very emblem he worshipped to save him from Death's noose. His faith had been answered exactly as he had believed it would be.

Shiva, his devotee saved, did not leave the matter merely at sparing the boy's life. He granted Markandeya a boon beyond all that his parents had dared to hope. "Because of your perfect devotion," the god declared, "you shall not die at sixteen, nor grow old, nor be taken by Death at all. You shall remain forever as you are now, a youth of sixteen, deathless and unaging, for as long as the worlds endure. Death has no more power over you. You shall live through age after age, through the very dissolutions of the universe, an immortal witness, eternally young."

And so it was. Markandeya was made deathless and forever sixteen, freed from death and decay by the grace of Shiva, whom he had loved and trusted to the very edge of the grave. Yama was pacified and restored, for it had never been his wish to be cruel, only to keep the law; and the law itself bowed, in this one case, to the power of devotion and the will of the god who conquers death.

And this, the sages told the Pandavas, is why Markandeya is deathless - why the same sage who clung to the Shiva-linga as a boy of sixteen still walks the world, ageless, ages and ages later, telling his tales to the sons of Pandu in their forest exile. He is the immortal witness, who has outlived the deaths of worlds, kept forever young by the grace of Shiva, who conquered Death on his behalf.

"See, son of Pandu," the sages said, "what devotion can accomplish. A boy was doomed to die at sixteen, and by the sheer force of his love for the Lord, and his unshakable faith that the Lord would not abandon him, he defeated Death itself - or rather, his Lord defeated Death for him. He did not flee his fate, nor despair of it, nor rage against it; he simply gave himself wholly to God and trusted, clinging to the emblem of the Lord even as Death's noose descended. And his faith was answered. There is no protection in all the worlds like sincere devotion, and no power, not even Death, that the grace of God cannot overrule for the sake of one who loves him truly."

And the Pandavas looked with new wonder upon the ageless sage who had told them so many tales, knowing now that he was the boy who had clung to the linga and outlived Death - the deathless Markandeya, the eternal witness, kept forever young by love.