The King Who Lived in the Eyes

The sages told the Pandavas of King Nimi, who quarreled with his own priest over a sacrifice, and of how the two cursed one another, so that the king lost his body and came to dwell in the eyelids of all beings, and a new line of kings was born of him - a tale of haste and pride between a king and his teacher, and of the strange remedy that came of it.

King Nimi was a righteous and devout ruler, the son of an ancient king of the solar line, who wished to perform a great and long sacrifice. For this he chose as his officiating priest the venerable sage Vasishtha, the family preceptor, and asked him to conduct the rite. But Vasishtha was at that time already engaged to perform a sacrifice for Indra, the king of the gods, and could not come at once. 'Wait for me, O King,' the sage said; 'when I have finished Indra's sacrifice, I will come and conduct yours.' And he went off to the gods, expecting the king to wait.

But King Nimi, eager to begin his sacrifice and unwilling to wait the long while that Vasishtha's service to Indra would take, did not wait as the sage had bidden. Reflecting that life is short and uncertain, and that a good work should not be put off, he engaged another priest in Vasishtha's absence and began his great sacrifice without waiting for his preceptor to return.

When Vasishtha at last finished Indra's sacrifice and came back, expecting to conduct the king's rite, he found that the sacrifice was already under way, begun under another priest without him. The sage was deeply angered, feeling himself slighted and his word disregarded, that the king had not waited for him as he had asked, but had set another in his place. The king, for his part, felt that he had done no wrong, only declined to waste precious time in waiting; and so a bitter quarrel arose between the king and his preceptor, each feeling wronged by the other, neither willing to yield. What had begun as a matter of timing became, through pride and anger on both sides, a deadly breach.

In the heat of their quarrel, the angry sage and the angry king cursed one another. Vasishtha, enraged that the king had not waited for him, cursed Nimi, saying, 'Since you have begun without me and slighted your preceptor, may your body fall and your life depart from you.' And King Nimi, feeling himself unjustly cursed for a small thing, and angered in his turn, cursed the sage back with the very same curse: 'And may your body too fall, and your life depart.' So each, in anger, doomed the other to lose his body.

It was a grievous thing, that a king and his preceptor, who should have been bound in trust and reverence, should curse one another so, each over a matter of pride and haste; and the curses took effect upon them both. Both lost their bodies; both, in a sense, paid the price of their anger. The breach between teacher and king, born of a small disagreement over waiting, had brought ruin upon them both, each striking the other down with a word. So the tale shows how quickly pride and anger, even between those who should be closest, can turn a small fault into a mutual destruction.

So King Nimi's body fell, and his life departed from it, by the power of the curse. But the king had been righteous and devout, and the sages who had gathered for his great sacrifice were unwilling that so good a king should simply perish. By the power of their rites they preserved his spirit, and they asked the gods what might be done for him. The gods offered to restore Nimi to bodily life; but the king, his spirit speaking, declined to take on a new body.

For Nimi, having lost his body through the curse and the quarrel, had come to feel a weariness of embodied life, with its bondage and its liability to such griefs; and he did not wish to be confined again in a body of flesh, subject once more to the troubles and the partings that the body brings. He asked instead to be granted a subtler and freer dwelling, not bound in a single body of his own. And the gods, honoring his wish, granted him a strange and fitting boon: that he should dwell, bodiless, in the eyes of all living beings - present in the eyelids of every creature, in the very act of their sight.

And so King Nimi came to dwell, by the boon of the gods, in the eyes of all living beings, present in the eyelids of every creature. And this, the tale says, is the origin of the blinking of the eyes: for because Nimi dwells in the eyelids, all beings blink, their eyelids opening and closing, and in that blinking is the dwelling and the presence of the bodiless king. So every creature that lives and sees carries within its very eyes the trace of King Nimi, and in every blink renews his strange immortality.

It was a fitting and a gentle remedy for the king who had lost his body and would not take another: that he should dwell not in one body alone, but in the eyes of all, sharing in the sight of every living thing, present everywhere and bound nowhere. The quarrel and the curse had cost him his own body; but the boon of the gods had given him, in exchange, a presence in all eyes, a place in the very act of seeing, by which he is remembered in every blink to this day. So even the misfortune of the curse was turned, by grace, into a strange and enduring blessing.

But the line of King Nimi was not to end with the loss of his body, for the sages were concerned that so righteous a king should leave an heir to continue his house. By their power, at the place of the sacrifice, they churned the body or the substance of Nimi with their rites, and from that churning there was born a son - a prince brought forth not in the ordinary way but by the sacred churning of the sages, that the king's line might be carried on.

Because he was born of this churning, and because he was born, as it were, out of his father's loss and the trouble that had befallen the house, the son was given names that recalled his strange birth; and because he was born of Nimi, he and his descendants were known by names recalling their origin. This son became a king in his father's place, founding and continuing the royal line; and from him descended the famous house of the kings of Videha, the line of Mithila - the very line that would one day include the wise King Janaka, the royal sage. So out of the king's misfortune and the sages' remedy came a great and enduring dynasty.

There was in the tale a teaching the sages drew out about the cost of haste, pride, and anger, even in the righteous. For the whole misfortune had sprung from small and avoidable things: from the king's unwillingness to wait, and the sage's anger at being slighted, and the pride on both sides that would not yield. Neither was wholly in the wrong, and neither wholly in the right; but both, giving way to anger, cursed the other, and so brought ruin upon them both. Had either yielded, had either been patient or forgiving, the whole calamity would have been avoided.

The tale teaches, then, the danger of haste that will not wait, and of the pride and anger that turn a small disagreement into a deadly breach, especially between those who should be bound in trust, like a king and his teacher. It warns that even the righteous may fall into such faults, and that the consequences may be grievous and far beyond the smallness of the original cause. And yet it shows, too, the grace that can redeem even such misfortune: the bodiless king given a dwelling in all eyes, and a great line born of his loss. So the tale both warns against the faults that caused the ruin and points to the grace that can weave good even from it.

The sages drew the lessons of the tale for the Pandavas.

'See, first, the cost of haste, pride, and anger, even between those who should be closest. King Nimi would not wait for his preceptor, and the sage was angered at the slight; and from this small matter, through the pride and anger of both, came mutual curses and the loss of both their bodies. The tale teaches how quickly impatience and wounded pride can turn a trifling disagreement into a deadly breach; how even the righteous may fall into such faults; and how grievous the consequences may be, far beyond the smallness of the cause. Be patient, then, and slow to anger, and quick to yield in small things, especially with your teachers and your kin; for the breach that pride opens may cost far more than the matter that began it.

'And see, too, the grace that can redeem even misfortune. Nimi lost his body, yet was given a dwelling in the eyes of all beings, present in every blink; and a great line of kings, the house of Videha, was born of his loss. The tale teaches that even the calamities our faults bring upon us may, by grace, be woven into something enduring and good; that loss is not always the end; and that what is taken in one form may be given back in another. Learn, then, both to avoid the haste and pride that caused the ruin, and to trust that grace can bring blessing even out of misfortune.'

And the Pandavas, who knew well how pride and anger among kinsmen could bring ruin, took to heart the tale of the king who would not wait, and came to dwell in every blink.