As on every other day, Sukanyā went down to bathe in a quiet, delightful bend in the Sarasvatī. While she was in the water, she had the habit of running through variations of her imaginary love affairs, which, by now, were as numerous as they were tangled. It was a private ritual. She celebrated it with the same devotion and diligence she would any other ritual, but with the added pleasure of caprice and mental waywardness. She looked up from the water toward the bank and the familiar screen of trees. That day, for the first time, there was something new. She saw two young men sitting in the same position on two boulders, each the same distance from herself. Both men had one leg slightly raised, one the right leg, the other the left. They formed two points in a perfect triangle. The third point, Sukanyā realized, lay within her own eyes. She immediately noticed that the two strangers were of fearful beauty. But another thought unnerved her: could it be that the visible world had become a double mirror, which she was now looking into? What she saw to her right was the exact inversion of what she saw to her left. Could the world, this place of disorder, be thus — or was the scene before her nothing more than the projection of the story her mind was inventing as she swam? Alarmed, amazed, she didn’t realize that she was climbing out of the water. At which she saw something that left her paralyzed. At the same moment, curling the same corner of two mouths, the young men smiled. And Sukanyā heard these words: “Woman of the lovely thighs, who are you? Who do you belong to? What are you doing in the forest? Speak, we want to know.” Sukanyā blushed, her whole dripping body turned red. She hurried to pick up her clothes, a strip of muslim she never changed. Eyes on the ground, she said in a barely audible voice: “I am the daughter of Śaryāti. I belong to Cyavana.” She felt angry then, because the young men responded with a shrill laugh. “Why on earth did your father give you to a man who’s already a wreck? Even among the gods there’s no one so beautiful as you. You were made to be adorned in the most precious robes, not these rags. Leave Cyavana, he’s not complete, whole, perfect, as you are. There’ll always be something missing in your life, almost everything in fact. Choose one of us. These are your best years. Don’t toss them on a rubbish heap…” Sukanyā no longer felt either amazement or desire, just a cold fury. She didn’t even answer and walked away toward the place she considered her home, a flimsy cane shelter near the anthill.
She found Cyavana motionless as ever, with his sharp bones and knowing eyes. She told him what had happened, without sparing a single detail. Her voice trembled. Cyavana gazed at her with immense sweetness and a shrewd, almost mocking gleam. He said: “They were the Aśvins, the divine twins. They wander around the earth, helping people here and there, healing them. What they told you is true, but not the whole truth. Tomorrow they’ll be there again, perhaps in the same place, and they’ll say the same thing. They won’t give up. Then you must say: ‘It’s you who are not whole, because you are not allowed to drink the soma.’ You’ll see how they’ll change their tune at that. They’ll ask you who could take them to the soma. You’ll say: ‘My husband. He drinks the soma.’ They’ll follow you like two tame dogs, you’ll see. Bring them here to me.”
All went as Cyavana had foreseen. The twins and the old Cyavana fell to talking with some familiarity. But now the Aśvins’ voices were anxious and urgent. Sukanyā didn’t know if she was supposed to be listening. They were whispering. Then Cyavana’s sharp voice rang out very clearly: “Agreed. This is the deal. I help you get to the soma. All you have to do is find a priest called Dadhyañc. In return, you give me youth. And Sukanyā will choose whichever of us she most desires.”
Taking advantage of a moment when the Aśvins were confabulating together, Cyavana came to Sukanyā and muttered: “We’re going now. When we come back, you won’t be able to tell me from them. The moment I arrive, I’ll lift my hand to my right eye, where you pricked me. That way you’ll know who I am.”
Then he set off toward the Sarasvatī. Standing by the door of their hut, Sukanyā watched the magnificent backs of the Aśvins and, between them, the shrunken, skinny Cyavana. They reached the water and jumped in. When Cyavana reemerged and looked around, the Aśvins were beside him. Deft as devoted servants, they stripped “the skin off his body, like a cloak.” Cyavana felt a sudden exuberance flood in. Without a word they climbed out of the water. They were three prodigiously beautiful young men, with sparkling earrings, all naked and identical. Sukanyā left the bushes where she had been hiding and went to meet them. “Choose which of us you desire,” said a single voice. Sukanyā lowered her eyes, but not so far as not to see one of the three young men rub au eyebrow. She nodded in his direction. As soon as the Aśvins were gone, Sukanyā abandoned herself to the exploration of Cyavana’s body. Thus began their unending embraces, “like those of the gods.”
“How are we to find Dadhyañc?” the Aśvins asked themselves. “How are we to recognize him?” They wandered anxiously around. They had hoped to set off with a resplendent bride on their chariot, as though a new Sūryā. Daughter of the Sun, were traveling with them on the earth. But all they had gotten was a name. They repeated it to themselves as if it were a password: “Dadhyañc, Dadhyañc…”
Still, they were all three quite sure of themselves when they met in the crowd that milled as though at a market in the field of the Kurus, where in times past the gods used to sacrifice. Each knew the other at once. Before being men or gods, they were horses. They recognized each other’s stride and rhythm.
Dadhyañc was used to being alone. He knew his knowledge could not, must not be communicated. Why? Honey cannot flow into the world without turning it upside down. So Dadhyañc was a seer like so many others, he kept himself to himself.
The Aśvins looked him straight in the eye and said: “We want to be your disciples.” Dadhyañc had never seen creatures of such beauty. It was as though they were transparent receptacles for doctrine. But most of all he felt an affinity with them, and this disturbed him. It happened the moment they shook out their hair. He realized he wanted to neigh with them.
“You’re asking me to teach you what the head of the sacrifice is. I’d be glad to. But one day Indra came to tell me that, if ever I revealed it, he would cut off my head. Indra is sovereign among the gods, and he would sense it at once. Nothing escapes him. I must live alone.”
The Aśvins didn’t give up. They looked at Dadhyañc and said: “There is a way. Let us cut off your head.” They waited. “Then we’ll put a horse’s head in its place. With that new head you can teach us the doctrine of the honey.” Dadhyañc was already smiling. “Of course Indra will find you out one day and cut off your head. But he’ll be cutting off the horse’s head. Then we pull out your human head from a safe place. And we stick it back on your neck. We can do that kind of thing. We’re doctors. What we don’t know about is the doctrine of the honey.”