King Suratha and the Merchant Samadhi

Every reading of the Durga Saptashati begins not with a goddess but with two unhappy men in a forest. Their story is the frame around the whole book, and it explains why the book was written.

The king

Suratha was a good king of the Chaitra dynasty. Enemies defeated him in battle; then, back in his own capital, his ministers seized his treasury and his army. Stripped of everything, he rode alone into the forest on the pretext of hunting, and came to the hermitage of the sage Medhas — a peaceful place where wild animals lived side by side without fear.

He stayed there. And he could not stop thinking. Were his ministers looking after the city? Was his old elephant being fed? Were his people being treated well by the men who had betrayed him?

The merchant

One day he met another man in the forest, as lost as himself. His name was Samadhi, a merchant. His wife and sons, greedy for his wealth, had thrown him out of his own house. And yet — he told the king — he could not stop worrying about them. Were they well? Were his sons behaving? Were they happy?

"I know they have done me wrong," he said. "I know I should feel nothing for them. And my mind keeps going back to them anyway. Why?"

The king realised that he had exactly the same question.

The question

So the two went together to the sage Medhas. The king put it plainly. We both know what has happened to us. We are not ignorant. And still our minds cling to the very people and things that threw us away. How can knowing be so useless?

The sage answered that even the wise are not immune. Birds, he said, though hungry themselves, carry grain to their chicks' mouths. All creatures are held by attachment, and that power which holds even the knowing mind is Mahamaya — the Goddess herself. She binds, and she alone releases.

"Who is she?" asked the king. "How was she born? What has she done?"

The rest of the Durga Saptashati — all three battles, [Madhu and Kaitabha](/learn/all/vishnu-and-the-demons-madhu-and-kaitabha), [Mahishasura](/learn/all/durga-and-mahishasura), [Shumbha and Nishumbha](/learn/all/the-goddess-who-stood-alone-shumbha-and-nishumbha) — is the sage's answer.

What they asked for

When Medhas had finished, the king and the merchant went to a riverbank. They made an image of the Goddess out of clay, and for three years they worshipped her, fasting and offering what they had.

At the end of three years she appeared, and offered each of them a boon.

The king asked for his kingdom back, and for it to last. She granted it — and told him that in a future age he would be born as Savarni, the eighth Manu.

The merchant had been thrown out of his house and had worried about his family for three years. When the Goddess offered him anything, he asked for neither wealth nor family. He asked for knowledge — the understanding that would free him from "mine" and "I". She granted it.

Why this is the frame

Many people read the Saptashati for the battles. The frame is a reminder of what the battles are about. The demons are not only out there. The most stubborn one is the mind that knows better and cannot let go — and the book was told to two men who were suffering from exactly that.

The clay image is also the reason, the tradition says, that the Goddess is still worshipped in clay at Navaratri and given to the water at the end: she was first worshipped that way by a king and a merchant on a riverbank.

To carry from this story: The same Goddess gave one man his kingdom and the other his freedom from wanting one. What you ask for is up to you.