Damayanti

In Hindu mythology, the daughter of the
king of Vidarbha and the wife of King
Nala. The story of Nala and Damayanti
appears as a story within the
Mahabharata, the later of the two great
Hindu epics. It is recounted to the five
Pandava brothers, the epic’s protagonists, during a twelve-year exile in the
forest as a way to keep up their spirits by
telling how others had transcended
misfortune.
In the story, when Damayanti comes
of marriageable age, her father sends
invitations to the kings of the earth,
announcing her svayamvara, a rite in
which Damayanti will choose her own
husband. The kings of the earth come to
the svayamvara to seek her hand, as do
the gods (devas) themselves. Yet
Damayanti has already decided, with
the help of a swan who has praised King
Nala to her, to choose Nala. The gods try
to foil this by taking on physical bodies
identical to Nala, so that Damayanti will
not be able to tell the difference between
them. As a last resort, Damayanti makes
an act of truth, a ritual action whose
efficacy is based on the power of truth
itself. In her act of truth, Damayanti
declares that she has never loved anyone but Nala, and directs the gods to
resume their true forms to prove that
this statement is true. The gods immediately do as she commands, compelled
by the power of truth. Nala and
Damayanti are married, and as a reward
for her fidelity the gods give Nala various
divine gifts. Hearing of the marriage, two
of the rejected suitors curse Nala to lose
his kingdom, and like all curses in
Indian mythology, this eventually comes
to pass. Because of the curse, Nala and
Damayanti are separated and suffer
long tribulations, including Nala having
his body magically changed so that no
one would be able to recognize him. In
the end Damayanti recognizes him by
168
Dalit
his divine gifts, which could not be hidden, and the lovers are happily reunited.