How Indra married Sachi Devi

We all know about Indra, the King of Gods and his wife Sachi Devi. But did you know that Indra won the hand of Sachi Devi after he dueled long and hard with a man blessed with immortality.

Sachi Devi was the daughter of Emperor Pauloma. Though an Auura, Pauloma was religious and extended a helping hand to Brahmins. He also sponsored Brahmins and Rishis.

King Pauloma had sponsored Shukracharya to take up research on immortality.

The King had an able commander in chief called Vrut who was deeply in love with Sachi Devi. However, Sachi did not want to marry Vrut as he considered him to be a mere servant of her father.

An insulted Vrut decided to take revenge by marrying Sachi. He went away from the kingdom and worshipped Shiva.

Shiva was pleased with the devotion of Vrut and blessed him with the boon of immortality, saying that he could not be killed with any known weapons of war.      

An elated Vrut set pout to conquer several kingdoms so that he would be the Emperor of a bigger and more powerful kingdom than Pauloma.

When Indra came to know that Vrut was on the warpath, he feared for the safety of Indraloka and other kingdoms. Indra too had fallen in love with Sachi and he wanted to marry her. He approached Sage Daduchi who realised that Vrut could not be worsted by any human weapons of war.

He, therefore, created a powerful weapon from his bones and handed it over to Indra, saying that it would be the cause of  Vrut’s death. Indra then marched at the head of an army to meet Vrut’s challenge.

The armies of both Indra and Vrut came face to face. Indra then suggested to Vrut that instead of shedding much blood, the dispute could be settled by them alone. Whoever won, would marry Sachi.

Vrut agreed and both Indra and Vrut fought hard. Indra finally prevailed and he married Sachi and took her to Indraloka.     

There us a temple to Sachi Devi in  Osian, near Jodhpur in Rajasthan.  The Goddess Sachi is also called Sachiya Mata and Sachchiyay Mata.

She is worshipped by Marwadi, Maheswari, Panwar, Rajputs and even Pareeks-Brahmins. This temple is known as the temple of happiness and it was built by the Parmar King Upendre between the 9th and 10th century.

However, there is a stone inscription that gives a different account of the deity in the temple. This is a Jain story that says the Goddess Chamunda was accustomed to receive animal worship and a Jain monk, Vijay Ratnaprabhasuri, convinced her to stop the practice. The Goddess agreed and the grateful saint named her Sachchiyay Mata.