Devayani

The relationship between Devayani and Sharmishtha — the brahmin's daughter and the princess who becomes her servant — is one of the sharpest treatments of caste and humiliation in the epic literature, and this record does not narrate it, because the treatment consulted gives the marriage, the complaint and the son. No edge is drawn between the two women: the sources consulted make them co-wives and the earlier part of their story is not in hand, and 'rival' would be an interpretation rather than a citation.

Parentage

• Shukra

Children

• Yadu

Relations

• spouse: Yayati

Sources

• Reference treatments of Devayani, of Yayati and of the curse.