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Famously a form of Vishnu, she plays a key role in samundra manthana, where she tricks the Asuras into relinquishing control over the amrita they had churned out along with the Devas.
In other stories, she appears as an enchantress, associated most with Shiva and his adventures.
In certain southern retellings of Mahabharata she also appears as the one-night-bride of Iravan who is to be sacrificed in battle.
Pride month fic! Pride month fic! Aravan x Mohini, to continue the Mohini saga~!!
Trigger warning: Mentions of Human Sacrifice, Indifference to apparent death.
Aravan left his mother weeping.
Earlier, he had stroked her dark hair and fair arm[1], and murmured many promises of glorious victories, but Uloopi was a Naga of the line of Airavata[2], and there was starlight in her eyes. They looked deep and distant into the world, and knew this lost son would not return.
“Do not speak of such inauspicious things,” Aravan had begged her, even as she marked his forehead with vermillion. “I shall slay my father’s foes, and we shall win back the kingdom and uncle’s birthright.”
“And stay there, then, afterwards?[3]”
“Mother…” Aravan had sighed, and Uloopi spoke of it no more.
It stung when she gazed at his departing self like she was already mourning – surely, surely, Aravana was not so poor in his marksmanship! – and yet, all he could think of now was how right she had been, and how he wished she had not.
Father arrived a while later, when Aravan was still seated in his tent, and he was startled enough that he spilled the wine cup all over himself.
“Father!” he exclaimed. “Why did you bother yourself by coming all this way? If you called, I would have come at once!”
Arjuna waved away his greetings and worship – they were not as close as Arjuna was with Abhimanyu or Shrutakarma – and sank into the divan. He looked poorly already, even with the war not yet started, his face gaunt and hunted, his eyes sunken and bloodshot. Aravan thought with some resentment that it should have been him who appeared so morose, and yet he was polite and composed while his father, whom he barely knew, was falling apart.
“I wished to come to you myself,” his father said, likely in answer to his prior comments. “You came to me when I met the Navagraha.[4] You swore you would come when I called, and so you did. And yet I, your father, have never come to you, even though I should have.”
Forgive me, he did not say, but Aravan heard it anyway.
It was strange; no one had ever made him feel like a wronged child at the Naga court, in spite of the schemes and the vagaries of courtly life, and the quiet scorn his mother endured for her many choices. He had not even felt wronged when he met Arjuna for the first time, the man he knew was his father, and the man his mother said she loved.
In truth, he felt no great emotion indeed.
He was not sure how to say that, so he tried to end the conversation instead. “It’s okay. I do not mind.”
“Oh.” Arjuna rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you… uh, that is… um, do you have a last wish or something?”
Is that what this is? he wanted to ask. Trying to make up for your supposed failure a night before your son’s death?
If his father did not look so pitiful, Aravan might have even been offended. And yet, what did it matter anyway? On the morrow, his head would be an offering to the goddess – for both Arjuna and Krishna were too important to die – and perhaps it would be enough to grant them an easy victory.[5] His words to his mother would not even be a lie, only there would be no victory procession bound for home. But his mother knew that anyway.
What could he ask for then, that he could enjoy in his last hours? A letter to his grandfather would be too cruel, a letter to his mother crueler. He could ask for a good meal, but what good was precious war-time food to a dead man? Only he could ask of marriage – it would be terrible for the girl to be widowed at once, but she would be a widow of the Pandavas, guarded and honoured jealously, and maybe, just maybe, there would one day be a son, a little boy to offer pinda to his ancestors and his mothers’.
Why the hell not? Aravan thought callously. Father did ask for a last wish. There might even be a ceremony. Their camp was in sore need of some excitement.
“I want to get married,” he told Arjuna, and watched the light go out in his father’s eyes.
After Arjuna was gone, it occurred to Aravan what a daunting demand he had made. Which girl in her sane senses would choose to marry a dead man? He was almost embarrassed enough to run out and wave it away in jest, but well. He did not think there was any way to take back the spoken word with the Pandavas, not when they all wed dusky Draupadi – the most beauteous maiden in the three worlds, as gossip had it – all because of a misspoken command.
So he sat quietly in his tent, drank more wine and ate some fruits, and looked out of the window and longed for home.
Sometime after sunset, his father came to his tent again, trailed by a veritable retinue of servants. Aravan allowed himself to be maneuvered, unresisting as he was bedecked in fine groom’s attire and jewellery the likes of which his grandfather’s noblemen would never know. His father did not tell him who the bride was, and he did not ask.
They led him to a sacrificial fire where a veiled beauty awaited, and he took her soft hands in his as they were given to each other. They walked around the fire seven times, him trailing her and her trailing him, and Aravan thought he loved her already for standing so steadily by his side.
At night, after the meagre festivities, she led him to the bed herself, her giggles bold and mischievous, and when she lifted the veil Aravan’s breath left his chest in such a rush he wondered if he would live to be given to the goddess tomorrow; because his wife was– his wife was–
His wife was divine.
It was not an exaggeration. So beautiful she was, so bright and radiant, that he wondered if this was an apsara from Indra’s court, his heavenly grandfather lending a hand to Kunti’s bereft son.
“Hello, husband,” she said, smiling, “feeling shy?”
Aravan gaped dumbly at her. His mind slowed, as if slogging through molasses, and his mouth went dry. How could any creature be as lovely as her? And she was his wife.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Mohini.”
“I am Aravan,” he introduced himself, foolishly, as if she did not already know.
“I am aware.” She gave him a sly glance that sent blood pounding in his ears. His cheeks felt hot, and he wanted nothing more than to touch her shapely hands, so soft and dark, and perhaps press a kiss to them.
“Will you not come?” Mohini asked.
She leaned back and curled a finger at him, beckoning. Her nails were painted a red as bright as the vermillion Aravan put on her forehead, and her eyes gleamed in the low candlelight, lambent and alive.
Tomorrow, he will be taken to the altar of war, and the first blood shed shall be to a sacrificial fire. Tomorrow, Mohini will be there with him, and will hold his eye till the bitter, valourous end. Tomorrow, there will be at least one person in this wretched place that will mourn him.
And now, that person was here. Aravan held out his hands and went to her.
Some Notes:
[1]: I have no idea what Uloopi looks like, but most art I found shows her as a fair-skinned woman with dark hair.
[2]: Airavata is the name of a serpent born to the sage Kashyapa and his wife Kadru. There is nothing to suggest that he knew to look at the future, but there is an Airavata in Jyotisha which is the name of one of the nine divisions of the ecliptic and supposedly contains the constellation Gemini, among others. Ergo, my Uloopi can see the future :D
[3]: Aravan (named Iravan in MB), by and large, spends his childhood with his mother.
[4]: In MB, Aravan/Iravan first meets Arjuna in the House of the Heavenly Planets, where he introduces himself and spends time with him. Arjuna extracts a promise from him regarding his help during Kurukshetra.
[5]: According to folklore, the specific requirements for the sacrifice were fulfilled only by Krishna, Arjuna and Aravan.
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Snakes are not, as a general rule, sentimental parents; but Iravan remembers a time when he had worn himself out attempting to shed his first skin, hiccuping and miserable, and woken to find his mother standing over him in silent sympathy.
Court
It is not that Iravan fears that his famous father will reject him, necessarily; but yet he only approaches Arjuna in the midst of Indra’s court, where the gods might stand witness to his wild claims.
Cousin
His father’s other sons and his uncle’s children are all strangers, well-groomed and high-born enough to startle at his appearance, but his rakshasa cousin winks at him in greeting; Iravan lets out a breath, relieved despite himself.
Condition
Iravan listens to Krishna’s explanation in silence--ghoulish thought, to offer up one’s death in battle, days in advance, in exchange for victory--but a thought occurs to him; “Very well,” he says, “but I have conditions of my own.”
Cry
Even as he falls, he hears Ghatokacha’s shout of outrage--and, far away, his one-day wife’s wails--and dies, knowing he will not fade away, unmourned.
Anon, you probably remember the story of Aravan/Iravan/Iravat (seriously, there are multiple variants of his name in the Mahabharata alone) as in Tamil literature--with his volunteering to become a human sacrifice pre-war and marriage to Mohini/Krishna. I was going for that as well, until I got curious and decided to look it up in canon, where of course it’s very different. There, Iravan is Ghatokacha all over again--the abandoned son who never knows his father, but pledges his support in the war anyway; and then, to add insult to injury, winds up...I think, the least mourned of the Pandava children who die in the war? That is, Arjuna is sad to be sure, but compared to the mourning/Big Epic Moments all the other kids get...But anyway, I attempted to meld the two traditions here, and YMMV on how successful that is. More about the Tamil variants here.
Iravan/Iravat’s backstory is given here; the next section on the website covers Ghatokacha’s grief at his death.
