The Sun's Wife and the Shadow

The sages told the Pandavas of Surya, the Sun god, and his wife Sanjna - a tale that explains why the great weapons of the gods were forged, and that carries a quiet wisdom about how even the brightest and best of things, in excess, becomes unbearable.

Surya, the radiant Sun, the eye of the heavens, married Sanjna, the lovely daughter of Vishvakarma, the divine architect and craftsman of the gods. Sanjna was devoted to her shining husband, and she bore him children who would themselves become great powers of the world: Yama, who became the Lord of Death and the judge of the dead, the upholder of justice; and Yami, who became the sacred river Yamuna; and another son who would carry on the line of the great kings. For a time they lived together, the Sun and his bride. But there was a difficulty in their marriage that grew harder for Sanjna to bear with every passing year.

The difficulty was the Sun's own nature. For Surya blazed with a heat and a radiance so intense, so overwhelming, that his wife Sanjna could not endure to be near him in his full and unveiled brilliance. To dwell with the Sun in his blazing glory was to be scorched and dazzled past all bearing; his very light, which gives life to all the worlds, was too fierce and too constant for her to live within.

So it was that the thing which made Surya great - his unbounded radiance, the splendor that lit the worlds - was the very thing that made him impossible to live with for the wife who loved him. There was nothing wicked in it; the Sun was not cruel; it was simply that his glory was too much, in its sheer unmoderated intensity, for any but the gods of equal fire to endure at close hand. And year by year Sanjna found his blaze harder to bear, until at last she could bear it no longer, and yet she did not wish to abandon her husband or her children outright. So she devised a strange and desperate plan.

Sanjna fashioned, from her own being, a perfect double of herself - a shadow-woman, identical to her in every feature, whom she named Chhaya, which means Shadow. She breathed into Chhaya a likeness of her own self, and instructed her secretly: "Take my place as the wife of Surya. Care for my children as if they were your own; serve my husband; let no one know that you are not truly Sanjna. Keep my secret, and stand in my stead."

And then Sanjna herself slipped away. Unable to endure the Sun's heat any longer, and leaving her shadow-self to keep her place, she fled far away - to a distant land, where she took upon herself the form of a mare and lived quietly in penance and seclusion, hidden from her husband, waiting and enduring in that humble shape, away from the unbearable blaze she had fled.

So the Sun god now had, in his house, a shadow in the place of his wife - Chhaya, who looked exactly like Sanjna and took up her duties - while the true Sanjna lived far off in the form of a mare, and Surya, all unknowing, did not at first perceive the substitution at all.

For a long while the deception held. Surya took Chhaya for his true wife Sanjna and noticed no difference, and Chhaya bore him children of her own - among them one who would become Shani, the slow and stern planet Saturn, and another who would father a line of kings. And Chhaya cared for all the children, both her own and Sanjna's.

But a shadow is not a true mother, and in time the difference showed itself. Chhaya came to favor her own children over the children of Sanjna, treating Sanjna's children with less love and more harshness, as no true mother would treat her own. And one day, provoked and angry, Chhaya went so far as to curse Yama, Sanjna's son.

This was the thread that unraveled everything. For a mother may scold her child, but a true mother's love would never let her lay a real curse upon her own son. When Yama, hurt and bewildered, came to his father complaining that his mother had cursed him, Surya was struck by the wrongness of it. He knew that a mother could not truly curse the child of her own womb, and so he understood that this woman, whatever she seemed, could not be the real mother of his children. The truth he had not seen for so long now broke upon him: that this was not Sanjna at all.

Surya confronted Chhaya and, by his power, drew the truth from her: that she was only a shadow-double, created by Sanjna to take her place, and that the real Sanjna had fled and gone away. Pressed further, the Sun learned the reason his wife had run from him - not from any hatred, but because she could not endure the unbearable intensity of his heat and radiance. It was his own blazing glory that had driven away the wife he loved.

This grieved the Sun, and he set out to find his true wife and win her back. By his far-seeing sight he sought her across the worlds, and at last he discovered where she had hidden - far away, living in the humble form of a mare, enduring in penance, away from his fire. But he understood, too, that he could not simply bring her back, for the very thing that had driven her away remained: his heat was still as unbearable as ever, and if nothing changed, she could no more live with him now than before. If he wished to be reunited with Sanjna, his own excess of radiance would have to be reduced.

So Surya went to his father-in-law, Vishvakarma, the divine architect and craftsman of the gods, who alone had the skill to do what was needed. Vishvakarma understood the problem: that the Sun's radiance, glorious but excessive, had to be moderated so that his wife could bear to live with him.

And so the divine craftsman did a wondrous thing. He placed the Sun himself upon his great lathe, and he pared down and ground away the Sun's excess radiance - trimming off a portion of that unbearable, overwhelming brilliance, reducing the blaze of the Sun to a glory that was still magnificent but now bearable, no longer too fierce for his wife to endure. The Sun was made less blinding, less scorching, his light moderated to a brightness that could be lived with, without losing the splendor that makes him the lord of the heavens. The excess was taken away; the glory remained.

But the fiery radiance that Vishvakarma trimmed from the Sun was not wasted, for it was the most potent substance in all the worlds - the very fire of the Sun himself. The divine craftsman gathered up those blazing fragments, and from them he forged the great weapons of the gods.

From the trimmed radiance of the Sun, Vishvakarma is said to have fashioned the Sudarshana chakra, the burning discus of Vishnu; the trident of Shiva; the lance or spear of the war-god Skanda; and other mighty divine weapons besides. So the very weapons by which the gods defend the order of the worlds and destroy the demons were made from the excess fire of the Sun - the dangerous, unbearable brilliance, once moderated, turned to the service of righteousness. The thing that had been too fierce to live with, reshaped, became the instrument of the gods' protection of all things.

And with his heat now bearable, Surya went to where Sanjna lived in the form of a mare. He took upon himself the form of a horse, and so came to her, and the two were reconciled and reunited at last - and of that union, in the form of horses, were born the Ashvins, the beautiful twin horse-headed physicians of the gods, the healers of heaven. Sanjna, finding her husband's fire now bearable, returned to him gladly, and they lived together once more, the Sun and his bride, in a glory she could at last endure.

The sages drew the gentle wisdom of the tale for the Pandavas.

"There is a quiet teaching here, son of Pandu, beneath the wonders. The Sun is glorious, and his radiance gives life to all the worlds - there is nothing wicked in it. And yet his glory in its full, unmoderated intensity was unbearable, even to the wife who loved him, and drove her away. So it is, the wise have seen, with many good things: that even a virtue, even a splendor, even a strength, becomes unbearable and drives others away when it is carried to excess, without moderation or tempering. The brightest light, undimmed, blinds rather than illumines; the fiercest heat, unmoderated, scorches rather than warms. Even greatness must be tempered to be lived with.

"And see what came of the moderation: when the Sun's excess was trimmed away, two goods followed at once. His wife could return to him, and their love was restored - for it is moderation that makes companionship possible, and excess that makes it unbearable. And the very fire that was trimmed away was not lost but reforged into the weapons that defend the worlds - for what is excessive and harmful in one place, rightly reshaped and directed, becomes a power for good in another. Temper your brilliance, then, that those near you may bear it; and know that what must be pared away from yourself need not be wasted, but may be turned to a higher use."

And the Pandavas, who had among them brothers of fierce and excessive strength and pride, took to heart the wisdom of the tempered Sun.