Sukumarika

Summary

“Sukumarika” is a narrative retelling by Ganesh Lalwani that illustrates the karmic origin of Draupadī’s polyandrous marriage in the Mahābhārata. The story centres on Sukumarikā, the beautiful daughter of the merchant Sagaradatta whose life is likened to a sun‑scorched desert, barren and parched. Despite her upbringing, she is plagued by an unnamed curse that leaves her youth unfulfilled. Adorned like a bride during the full‑moon night of Baisākh and trembling with anticipation, she is suddenly spurned by her husband Sāgar, who shrieks “burning, burning” and flees without leaving a trace. Sagaradatta, despairing over the fate of his only daughter, arranges another marriage, but the second husband also leaves on the wedding night crying that her touch scorches him. Twice widowed within hours, Sukumarikā’s life becomes an unbearable torment. Occasionally contemplating suicide, she is counselled by her father that her misfortune results from past karma and can only be alleviated by practising dharma. Resolute, she receives initiation from the nun Gopalikā and embraces asceticism, but her physical austerities cannot extinguish the fiery desires of youth. She longs not for liberation but for the sensual joy of marriage, dreaming of dancing, singing and passionate embraces. When she seeks permission to worship the sun in a garden, Gopalikā forbids her, yet Sukumarikā defies the order and meditates in the Subhumibhāga garden. As dusk falls, an unseen voice repeatedly asks, “What do you want?” Initially unsure, she finally admits that she longs for fleeting worldly pleasures rather than nirvāṇa. In a vision she sees a woman attended by five lovers who comb her hair, fan her cheeks, anoint her breasts and paint her legs while she sits in the lap of another; Sukumarikā secretly hopes that through her pious act she might earn similar karma. The story ends with a marginal note identifying it as the previous life of Draupadī from the Trisastiśalākāpuruṣacaritra. Lalwani’s tale thus suggests that Sukumarikā’s yearning and defiance planted the karmic seeds that caused her rebirth as Draupadī, the wife of the five Pāṇḍava brothers. The moral undercurrent is clear: unfulfilled desire and rebellion against ascetic discipline can bind the soul to future lives shaped by those very cravings.