The Power of Women: A Tale of Vengeance
Of Ancient Power, Faith, and Destiny.
Helen of Troy — the face that launched a thousand ships1.
Most hold that she was a fictional character, brought to dramatic life by Homer.
But the role of women as harbingers of men’s fates is perhaps a universal plot.
Across the stories of this nation are scattered tales of women who were the cause of the destruction of dynasties, evil kings, and brave warriors.
Women who were wronged. Humiliated. Disrespected.
Who then avenged themselves in spectacular fashion.
Or became the cause of devastating defeats for the perpetrators of forced acts — destroying evil men, whether kings or not.
Born out of fire. A princess named Draupadi. Whose humiliation crossed every boundary of moral acceptability, and who became the ultimate cause of a great war. Born to destroy the unrighteous brothers. Enabled by their indulgent parents.
Her vengeance echoed through the ages.
The blood of the man who dishonored her was brought to her by her husband — after he killed the one who had dared touch her, and dragged her by the hair through a court full of men who watched in silence as he tried to disrobe her.
Why?
Fourteen years earlier, she had vowed never to tie her hair until it had been washed in his blood.
Their entire dynasty — wiped out.
Today, I retell the lesser-known story of another woman — one whose defiance led an evil king to meet his end at the most unlikely hands.
It was the age when tapas2 was the chosen way for humans, demigods, and demons to seek the blessings — and favors — of the three main Gods3.
The Creator was easily pleased. The Destroyer took a little more effort.
But to please the Preserver was an immense and uphill task.
Hence, most started their tapas focussed on the Creator or the Destroyer.
Not so Vaidehi, a woman, who had fallen in love with the Preserver-God, and sought to be his wife.
She began an austere penance to seek his favor.
Thousands of years.
This type of austerity meant no short-cuts.
Moving from eating, to fasting intermittently, to then, living only on air, without any awareness of the material world. To sitting, to standing on two legs, to one.
Just the one you meditate on.
Such were the giants of tapas. Not for the faint-hearted.
An intense way of calling to the One who will grant you your prayer.
But before Vaidehi could reach her final phase — as she had not yet been graced by the One she sought — came an interruption that she had not foreseen.
A king had recently received boons from the Creator and the Destroyer — of immortality.
No living being should be able to kill him. His prayer, accepted.
Except he did not deign to include humans in the list of beings.
He had defeated the puny humans in battle many a time, and he had no fear of them. Cowards, every one of them, he thought. They fled when they saw him coming.
He was out, riding his flying chariot. Newly empowered, drunk with power.
Flying over a mountainous region, he heard a sweet song from down below.
Drawn by the voice, he landed his chariot, and slowly sourced the sound.
What he beheld astonished him.
A woman of beauty such as he had not seen in a human was picking out flowers from the nearby trees and collecting them presumably for her hair, or for worship, he wasn’t sure which.
He spied on her for a few minutes.
Then he approached her, and Vaidehi — startled by a strange man in kingly gear, gazing at her form boldly — remained mute for a second.
Then, the king spoke: “Dear lady, who are you? Such beauty I have not seen in any human — nay, in any woman in the universe. Why are you in such an ascetic garb —this is an injustice to your beauty.”
“Who has dared cause this to you? Name him at once, and I shall slay him, and free you from his tyranny.”
Vaidehi recovered her poise. “Dear Sir, please go on your way. I am here of my own volition. I am undertaking a severe tapas to become the wife of the Preserver-God.”
“Please do not invade my privacy in this lone forest. I thank you but I have no need of your assistance. Be on your way, look back no more.”
Hearing this, the king laughed, loud and hard.
“The Preserver-God — hah hah — what a joke!”
“Why pine for him when I am here, the greatest of all kings? Even Brahma4 granted me immortality — such was my tapas. Shiva5 himself named me, honoring my devotion.”
“Come, abandon this foolish quest, and accept my hand. You deserve my protection.”
Vaidehi angered, rained on him, the choicest of her abuses. She warned him from coming any closer and infringing on her hard-earned meditative grace.
The king checked around them - there was none to intervene. He tried to make her see his point of view — and to consent.
She would not. She swore she was bidden to the Preserver-God.
But the king laughed again. Why pursue a God who had not yet responded to her beauty — when he was right there — eager to accept her?
No amount of anger or pleading moved the king.
Vaidehi was alone. She had depended on the honor of men, and Gods to protect her.
But alas, she had not contended with an immortal demon.
The king brooked no more objections. Laughing, he advanced towards her.
In the end, Vaidehi, betrayed, dishonored, spewed fire at the king.
“You destroyed my tapas.
“For this, you shall pay.
I will be born again, and become the cause of your death.”
So, prophesying, she called upon the God of Fire, Agni, that shield of a woman’s honor, to take her into his world.
Before the stunned eyes of the king, she disappeared in a burst of flame.
Taken aback, the king was stupefied, but for only a few moments.
When he thought of her curse, he was slightly puzzled.
He had the boon of immortality.
No one could kill him. Least of all a woman.
He stopped worrying and returning to his flying chariot, flew home.
It was many decades later that he had cause to remember Vaidehi.
For Vaidehi had her prayer to be the wife of the Preserver-God fulfilled, albeit in a way she had not expected, when she was called on by the Fire-God to take the place of Sita — the day of the kidnapping.
Moments before the demon-king arrived, Sita was spirited away to the Fire-God’s realm.
Instead, it was Vaidehi who was kidnapped from the hut by the demon-king, Ravana.
It was Vaidehi who went with Ravana, the king who had infringed her honor.
In a past birth.
She had waited for many births to pass.
Then, she waited for ten months outside his palace.
For the war to begin. For his end to come.
At the hands of a human.
Ravana had not deigned to include in his list of beings he needed to fear.
So it was in human form that the Preserver-God was born — as Rama.
In doing so, he not only fulfilled her vow, but honored his devotee, Vaidehi, who yearned to be his wife, so deeply did she love him.
The story had already been set.
A long time ago.
For every unchecked, immoral power that pervades the universe, a greater force rises — to confront and defeat it.
For the universal rule is always the same — the way of good, the way of truth to be preserved, without a doubt.
No matter how long it takes.
Or if its instrument becomes the vengeance of a woman, wronged.
So say the ancients.
Helen’s story is more nuanced than this brief reference suggests — her agency was constrained by the narrative traditions of her time, and interpretations vary widely across sources.
Tapas, Sanskrit. An extreme form of meditation aimed at gaining Divine favor.
The Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer.
The Creator-God.
The Destroyer-God.