The Maiden Named Death

The sages told the Pandavas of the origin of Death - of how the Creator, faced with a world that could not die, brought forth Death as a weeping maiden, and of how she came at last to do her sorrowful work without sin - a tale told to console the grieving, that death is no cruelty but a part of the great order, and that those who die are not wronged.

In the first days of creation, the story goes, the Creator, Brahma, brought forth all the beings of the world, and they multiplied and increased; but in those days there was no death. Beings were born and grew, but none died; and so the creatures multiplied without end and without ceasing, until the whole earth was overburdened with the press of living things, crowded beyond all measure, with no room and no rest, the endless increase of undying creatures weighing the world down until it could bear no more. The very earth groaned under the burden of beings that were born but never died.

The Creator was troubled by the overburdening of the world, for the endless multiplication of undying beings had thrown the order of creation into distress; the earth could not sustain so vast and ever-growing a press of life, and all things suffered from the crowding. Something had to be done to relieve the world of its unbearable burden, to restore balance to a creation overflowing with life that never ended.

In his trouble and perplexity, the Creator pondered how to ease the world; and a great anger or distress rose in him at the disorder, a heat that he scarcely knew how to direct. For he had made the beings and loved them, and was loath to destroy what he had made; yet the world could not go on so. Out of this troubled heat of the Creator's mind, as he sought a remedy for the overburdened earth, there was about to come forth the being who would set right the order of creation - though she would come forth weeping, and would shrink with all her heart from the work she was made to do.

Then from the troubled heat of the Creator's being there came forth a woman - a maiden, dark-robed and lovely, who arose to stand before him. She was Death, Mrityu, brought into being to do the work that the overburdened world required: to take the lives of beings, that the endless multiplication might be checked and the earth relieved of its burden, and the order of creation restored. The Creator looked upon her, the maiden he had made, and gave her the charge for which she had been brought forth: to go out into the world and bring death to living beings.

But the maiden Death, hearing the work appointed her, was filled with grief and horror. She had no wish to be the slayer of beings, to bring sorrow and weeping into the world, to take from creatures the life they loved and to part loved ones from one another. The task appalled her gentle heart, and she shrank from it utterly. So Death was born not as a cruel and willing destroyer, but as a reluctant and weeping maiden, recoiling from the very work she had been created to perform; and her first act was not to slay, but to refuse.

The maiden Death wept before the Creator and begged to be released from her terrible task. She fled from his presence, unwilling to begin the slaying of beings; and going apart to a holy place, she gave herself up to fierce austerities and penance, standing for vast ages in devotion, hoping by her penance to win release from the cruel duty laid upon her. She pleaded with the Creator: 'How can I do this dreadful thing, to slay the innocent, to take from beings the life they cherish, to bring grief and weeping into the world? I cannot bear to be the cause of such sorrow. Release me, I beg you, from this work.'

For a great span of time the maiden persisted in her refusal and her penance, weeping and pleading, unwilling to be the destroyer of life. And the Creator, moved by her grief and her gentleness, did not force her harshly to her task, but reasoned with her, and sought to console her, and to show her that the work she so dreaded was not the cruelty she feared, but a needful and even merciful part of the great order of things. He set himself to ease her heart, that she might do her duty without the burden of sin or sorrow.

The Creator comforted the weeping maiden and reconciled her to her task, granting her a great consolation: that she would not bear the sin of the deaths she caused, nor be a cruel slayer, for she would act not out of malice but as the appointed instrument of a needful order, and so would remain blameless. And he ordained that death would come to beings not by her cruelty but through other causes - through desire and anger and the failings of beings themselves, and through the ailments of the body - so that she herself would be only the gentle gatherer at the end, not the wrathful destroyer.

And the tears that the maiden Death had wept in her grief and her refusal - these the Creator took, and ordained that they should become the diseases and ailments that would arise in the bodies of beings and bring them, in time, to their end. So her very tears, shed in compassion, became the means by which death would come, working through the natural decay and ailments of the body rather than through any cruelty of hers. Thus was Death reconciled to her work: assured that she bore no sin, that she was no cruel slayer but the appointed gatherer at life's natural close, and that the deaths she presided over came through the order of nature and the failings of beings, not through any malice of her gentle heart.

So at last the maiden Death took up her appointed work, but with a heart consoled and free of the burden she had dreaded. She went out into the world to gather beings at the end of their lives - not as a cruel destroyer, but as the gentle and blameless instrument of the great order, taking each being in its time, through the natural causes that the Creator had ordained, and bearing no sin for it. Her grief was eased by the assurance that she did no wrong, that she was a needful part of the balance of creation, and that the deaths she presided over were not cruelties but the natural and merciful close of each life's appointed span.

And so death came into the world, and the world was relieved of its overburdening; the endless multiplication was checked, the press of undying beings eased, and the order of creation restored. But death came as a thing without cruelty and without sin - a part of the great rhythm of birth and death by which the world is kept in balance, the gentle gathering of beings at the close of their time, presided over by a maiden who had wept to do it and did it now without malice. The tale held that death, rightly understood, is no wrong done to beings, but a needful and merciful part of the order of things.

The whole tale, the sages explained, was told as a consolation for those who grieve over the deaths of their loved ones. For the grieving are tempted to feel that death is a cruelty, a wrong done to the one who dies and to those left behind, an evil that ought not to be. But the tale of the origin of Death answers this grief: it shows that death is no cruelty and no evil, but a needful part of the great order of creation, without which the world itself could not endure; that it comes not from any malice, but as the natural and merciful close of each appointed life; and that even Death herself wept to do her work, and does it without sin, as a gentle gatherer and not a cruel destroyer.

So the tale bids the grieving to be comforted: that those who die are not wronged, but pass in their appointed time through a door that the very order of the world requires; that death is woven into the rhythm of things as needfully as birth; and that to rage against it as a cruelty is to misunderstand it. The one who grieves may still grieve, for grief is human; but the tale offers the deeper knowledge that can ease the grief: that death is not an evil inflicted, but a part of the merciful order of creation, and that the maiden who gathers us at the end does so gently, weeping, and without sin.

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

'See, first, that death is no cruelty, but a needful part of the great order of creation. Without death the world itself could not endure, for the endless multiplication of undying beings overburdened the very earth; and so death was brought forth to restore the balance, that life might go on. The tale teaches that birth and death are woven together in the rhythm of creation, each as needful as the other; that death is not an evil inflicted upon the world, but a part of the order that sustains it; and that to rage against death as a wrong is to misunderstand the nature of things. Accept, then, the order of which death is a part, as the wise accept it.

'And see the consolation this offers to the grieving. Those who die are not wronged, but pass in their appointed time through a door the world's order requires; and even Death herself wept to do her work, and does it gently and without sin, through the natural close of each life, not through any malice. Let the grieving be comforted by this: that death is no cruelty but a merciful part of the order of things, that the dead are not harmed but only gathered in their time, and that to die is no evil but a natural passage. Grieve as the heart must; but let this knowledge ease the grief, that death is woven into the mercy of creation, and that those we lose are not wronged.'

And the Pandavas, who would soon see death gather so many of their kin upon the field of battle, took deeply to heart the tale of how Death came into the world, weeping, and yet without sin.