AHALYA'S STORY

Brahma once created, out of the ingredients of absolute
beauty, a woman, and she was called Ahalya (which in the
Sanskrit language means non-imperfection). God Indra,
being the highest god among the gods, was attracted by her
beauty and was convinced that he alone was worthy of
claiming her hand. Brahma, noticing the conceit and presumptuousness of Indra, ignored him, sought out Sage
Gautama, and left him in charge of the girl. She grew up in
his custody, and when the time came the sage took her back
to Brahma and handed her over to him.
Brahma appreciated Gautama’s purity of mind and heart
(never once had any carnal thought crossed his mind), and
said, “Marry her, she is fit to be your wife, or rather you alone
deserve to be her husband.” Accordingly, she was married,
blessed by Brahma and other gods. Having spent her
childhood with Gautama, Ahalya knew his needs and so
proved a perfect wife, and they lived happily.
Indra, however, never got over his infatuation for Ahalya,
and often came in different guises near to Gautama’s
ashram, waiting for every chance to gaze and feast on
Ahalya’s form and figure; he also watched the habits of the
sage and noticed that the sage left his ashram at the dawn
of each day and was away for a couple of hours at the river
for his bath and prayers. Unable to bear the pangs of love
any more, Indra decided to attain the woman of his heart by
subterfuge. One day, hardly able to wait for the sage to leave
at his usual hour, Indra assumed the voice of a rooster, and
woke up the sage, who, thinking that the morning had come,
left for the river. Now Indra assumed the sage’s form,
entered the hut, and made love to Ahalya. She surrendered
herself, but at some stage realized that the man enjoying her
was an imposter; but she could do nothing about it. Gautama came back at this moment, having intuitively felt that
something was wrong, and surprised the couple in bed.
Ahalya stood aside filled with shame and remorse; Indra
assumed the form of a cat (the most facile animal form for
sneaking in or out) and tried to slip away. The sage looked
from the cat to the woman and was not to be deceived. He
arrested the cat where he was with these words:
“Cat, I know you; your obsession with the female is your
undoing. May your body be covered with a thousand female
marks, so that in all the worlds, people may understand what
really goes on in your mind all the time.” Hardly had these
words left his lips when every inch of Indra’s body displayed
the female organ. There could be no greater shame for the
proud and self-preening Indra.
After Indra slunk away, back to his world, Gautama looked
at his wife and said, “You have sinned with your body. May
that body harden into a shapeless piece of granite, just
where you are… .” Now in desperation Ahalya implored, “A
grave mistake has been committed. It is in the nature of
noble souls to forgive the errors of lesser beings. Please … I
am already feeling a weight creeping up my feet. Do
something … please help me… .”
Now the sage felt sorry for her and said, “Your redemption
will come when the son of Dasaratha, Rama, passes this
way at some future date… .”
“When? Where?” she essayed to question, desperately, but before the words could leave her lips she had become a
piece of stone.
Indra’s predicament became a joke in all the worlds at
first, but later proved noticeably tragic. He stayed in
darkness and seclusion and could never appear before men
or women. This caused much concern to all the gods, as his
multifarious duties in various worlds remained suspended,
and they went in a body to Brahma and requested him to
intercede with Gautama. By this time, the sage’s resentment
had vanished. And he said in response to Brahma’s appeal,
“May the thousand additions to Indra’s features become
eyes.” Indra thereafter came to be known as the “thousand-
eyed god.”
Viswamithra concluded the story and addressed Rama. “O
great one, you are born to restore righteousness and virtue
to mankind and eliminate all evil. At our yagna, I saw the
power of your arms, and now I see the greatness of the touch
of your feet.”
Rama said to Ahalya, “May you seek and join your revered
husband, and live in his service again. Let not your heart be
burdened with what is past and gone.”
On their way to Mithila, they stopped to rest at Gautama’s
hermitage, and Viswamithra told the sage, “Your wife is
restored to her normal form, by the touch of Rama’s feet. Go and take her back, her heart is purified through the ordeal
she has undergone.” All this accomplished, they moved on,
leaving behind the scented groves and forest, and
approached the battlemented gates of Mithila City.