The Boy Bound for Sacrifice

The sages told the Pandavas of Shunahshepha, the boy who was bound to be offered in a sacrifice and was saved by the power of prayer and the compassion of a sage - a tale that turned the world away from the offering of human life, and showed that the gods desire mercy and devotion, not the blood of the innocent.

There was a king who, in his longing for a son, had made a hard and terrible vow to the god Varuna: that if the god would grant him a son, he would one day offer that very son back to the god in sacrifice. A son was granted him; but when the time came that the god required the promised offering, the king's heart failed him, as any father's would, and he could not bring himself to sacrifice his own beloved child. Yet the vow hung over him, and the god required its keeping; and the king sought desperately for some way to satisfy the vow without slaying his own son.

It was the custom of that age, harsh as it seems, that a victim for such a sacrifice might be obtained by purchase: that a man might buy another's son to offer in place of his own. So the king sent his men to find some poor man who would sell a son to be the sacrificial victim in place of the prince. And they found a poor and starving brahmana sage named Ajigarta, who had three sons, and who, in his desperate poverty, agreed for a price to sell one of them.

He would not give his eldest, whom he loved, nor would the mother give the youngest, whom she loved; and so it was the middle son, a boy named Shunahshepha, who was sold - handed over for a price by his own starving father to be the victim of the king's sacrifice. So the innocent boy Shunahshepha, through the poverty of his father and the king's desire to keep his vow without losing his own son, was bought to be offered up in the place of the prince, a child sold to die for another. It was a cruel bargain, born of hard custom and harder need; and the boy seemed wholly without hope.

Now there was at that place, among those gathered for the great sacrifice, the mighty sage Vishvamitra, a man of vast spiritual power and, beneath his fierce austerity, of deep compassion. When he saw the innocent boy Shunahshepha brought bound to be made the victim of the sacrifice, sold by his own father and doomed to die for the keeping of another's vow, the sage's heart was moved with pity, and he resolved to save the boy if he could.

Vishvamitra first tried to find some way to free the boy by persuasion or by offering himself or his own; but the sacrifice could not so easily be turned aside. And so, seeing that the boy could not be saved by ordinary means, the sage gave him the one thing that could yet deliver him: he taught the boy two sacred hymns, secret and powerful prayers addressed to the gods - to Varuna, to whom he was to be offered, and to the other great gods - prayers by which the boy might call upon the gods themselves for deliverance in his hour of need. 'Recite these,' the sage told him, 'when you are bound at the stake; call upon the gods with these words, and they will hear you.'

The hour of the sacrifice came, and the boy Shunahshepha was bound to the sacrificial stake, the gathered priests and the king ready to perform the dreadful rite, the boy held fast and helpless, with no human power left to save him. It seemed that nothing could now prevent the offering of the innocent child; the vow would be kept, and the boy would die in the prince's place.

But Shunahshepha, bound at the stake, remembered the sacred hymns that the compassionate sage had taught him. And there, helpless and doomed, with no hope left but the gods themselves, the boy began to recite the prayers - calling with all his heart upon Varuna, the god to whom he was to be offered, and upon the other great gods, in the powerful and holy words the sage had given him, praying to be set free from his bonds and delivered from death. With nothing else left to him, the bound child lifted up the prayers of the sage to the gods, and the gods heard him.

As the boy recited the sacred hymns and called upon the gods, the gods were pleased with his prayers and his devotion, and they answered him. Hymn by hymn, as he praised them, his bonds were loosened: by the grace of the gods he prayed to, the cords that bound him to the stake fell away one by one, until he was wholly freed; and the sacrifice that would have taken his life was undone. The very god Varuna, to whom he was to have been offered, was satisfied by the boy's heartfelt prayer and released him, accepting his devotion in place of his death.

So the innocent boy, helpless and doomed, with no power of his own and no human aid, was saved by the power of prayer and the grace of the gods - delivered from death at the very stake by calling upon the gods with the holy words the compassionate sage had taught him. The gods had shown that they did not desire the blood of an innocent child, but were moved rather by devotion and prayer; and they had set the boy free, that the cruel offering might not be made. Mercy had triumphed over the harsh letter of the vow.

When the boy was freed, the sage Vishvamitra, who had saved him by his compassion and his teaching, took Shunahshepha to himself and adopted him as his own son, giving him a place and a family in his own line; for the boy had been cast off by his own father, who had sold him to die, and the sage who had saved his life now became to him a truer father than the one who had given him up.

So the boy who had been sold by his father to be a victim was made the beloved son of the sage who had delivered him, and was received with honor into the sage's family. The compassion that had saved his life was crowned by a love that gave him a new and better home; and the child who had been bound for death at the stake became instead the cherished son of one of the greatest of sages, his sorrow turned wholly to blessing. Where his own father had failed him, the compassion of a stranger had given him both his life and a new and loving family.

There was in the tale a teaching that the sages drew out with care: that the gods do not desire the sacrifice of innocent life, but are moved rather by devotion, by prayer, and by a pure heart. For the whole dreadful machinery of the vow and the purchased victim and the stake had been overturned in a moment by the boy's heartfelt prayer; the gods had refused the offering of his blood and accepted instead his devotion, setting him free. By this they had shown plainly that it was never blood they wanted, but the love and the faith of the worshipper.

And so the tale stood as a turning of the world away from the offering of human life, a sign that such cruel sacrifice was not the will of the gods and ought not to be made; that the true offering pleasing to heaven is not the death of the innocent but the prayer of the devout heart. The compassion of the sage and the mercy of the gods together had declared that the path of sacrifice was not the path of blood, but the path of devotion; and that the gods are won not by cruelty but by love.

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

'See, first, the power of prayer and the grace of the gods to deliver even the most helpless. Shunahshepha was bound at the stake, sold by his own father, doomed, with no human power left to save him; and yet by calling upon the gods with a devout heart, in the holy words a compassionate sage had taught him, he was set free, his very bonds falling away. The tale teaches that no one is beyond the reach of grace; that prayer offered from a pure and desperate heart is heard; and that the gods are moved by devotion to deliver those whom no human aid can save.

'And see what the gods truly desire: not the blood of the innocent, but devotion and a pure heart. The whole cruel rite was overturned, and the gods refused the offering and accepted the boy's prayer instead, declaring that they desire mercy, not sacrifice. And see the compassion of the sage, who saved the boy and made him his own son, a truer father than the one who sold him. Let this turn you away forever from cruelty done in the name of duty or of heaven; for the gods are won by love and mercy, not by the suffering of the innocent. Be compassionate, be devout, and trust that grace delivers the helpless who call upon it.'

And the Pandavas took to heart the tale of the boy saved from the stake, and the truth that the gods desire mercy and devotion, not the blood of the innocent.

(This tale touches on intended human sacrifice; it is told here, as in the epic, to show that such cruelty is contrary to the will of heaven, and that mercy and devotion are what the divine truly desires.)