Savitri, emblematic of ideal womanhood

The princess Savitri embodies the Brahmanical vision of the ideal wife’s unstinting devotion to the welfare of her husband, a tenet of Brahmanical social order. Her legend is first told in the Mahabharata: Savitri, after rejecting many royal suitors, resolves to marry the poor forest dweller Satyavann, a man of high moral virtue who has devoted his life to caring for his blind parents. When Satyavann’s health fails and Yama, the god of death, appears to take his soul, Savitri pleads with Yama to spare him. Yama is so moved by her piety and courage that he grants her wish. The theatricality of the scene is worthy of a moment from a staged production of King Lear, engravings of which circulated in Victorian-era Kolkata.