A Womb of Weeds
The sun shone brightly as Eve sat beside the riverbank, the ripples on the water glittering in the corner of her eye. She and Adam had been living in their new home on the outskirts of Eden for close to a year. They had trodden familiar paths among the trees in the forest where they dwelled, and the land provided an abundance of food and materials they used to construct clothing and shelter.
As the months passed, however, Eve had grown restless. She and Adam had left Eden to populate the earth, to create new life together and spread humanity across the land. But Eve's womb remained barren. She longed for the stirrings of a child, and the hollow pains she felt each day were a constant reminder of the absence of life within her. Try as they might, she and Adam had been unable to conceive a child together.
Eve sat brooding as the water flowed past her. Brahma was watching from the heavens, observing her distress with a deep sympathy. His heart reached out to her as a father to a child, and he decided it was time for destiny to intervene in the fate of Adam and Eve.
A Saint by the name of Shardwana resided on the other side of the forest from Adam and Eve. He was a pious man and had taken a vow of celibacy at a young age, binding his life to the pursuit of study and prayer. Brahma knew, however, that beneath a mind veiled by purity lay the basic primal instincts of a man.
Brahma paid a visit to Agni, the God of Fire, and asked that he conjure a wall of flames to push Shardwana further into the forest.
Forced to leave his home to escape the blaze, Shardwana wandered toward the end of the forest where Adam and Eve resided. One afternoon, the Saint caught a glimpse of Eve bathing in the Yamuna. Her slender form was outlined in bright sunlight, her pale skin glowing as it reflected the sparkling water. Shardwana could feel the stirrings of lust, and a terrifying and thrilling ecstasy that he could not control began spreading through his body. He fought to suppress this base instinct, and, clinging to his vow of celibacy, quickly turned away from the sight of Eve and moved further down the river.
Unable to control the result of his desire, Shardwana's semen fell into a bed of weeds by the river bank and planted the seed of a child.
Brahma called upon the help of the Gods in germinating the small life. The Yamuna river swelled with Yami’s power; the water levels rose and flooded the bank where the weeds cradled the child, the richness of the water nourishing the young creature. Yama instilled the little soul with a sense of justice and a righteous energy that protected it from harm. The Ashwini twins concocted a salve of herbs to bolster the child’s strength, and they visited the riverbank to smooth the mixture over the child’s delicate flesh. And because they could not help themselves, they brought another balm that they dabbed along the child’s forehead, which produced hair with fiery red pigmentation. Brahma rolled his eyes looking down at this scene; he had not factored red hair into the human gene pool, but the Ashwini potion had irrevocably introduced it.
The Gods did their job so well that the creature, which had developed as a little girl, was soon bursting with life. As she burst from the womb, splitting open the thick mesh of reeds and leaves that encased her, the energy caused her body to split in two, and thus twin children were born from the bed of weeds. A small boy and a small girl had emerged and lay by the riverbank, Yamuna’s waters once again swelling to wash over and cleanse them.
Not far off in the forest, Eve was collecting berries. A faint cry reached her ear just as she was bending down to rake the patch of fruit, and she stood up, alarmed. “What creature could have made that noise?” she wondered.
When she reached the bank of the Yamuna, she found the twin children all alone. Scooping them up, her heart swelled with joy. “I will raise them as my own,” she thought to herself. “At long last, Adam and I will be parents to the human race.”
Author's Note: As the final story in my storybook, I wanted to tie together the loose ends of the various meetings with the sets of divine twins. Each of these Gods returns to offer the child developing in the womb of weeds an element to help it grow. I also wanted to introduce one last set of twins, but this time, they manifested as the human children that Adam and Eve were destined to raise. In the original story of Shardwana, he is an archer who practices penance in order to strengthen his abilities. When the Gods begin to see him as a threat, they send a beautiful woman to distract him, and he ejaculates into a bed of weeds. The weeds divide in two, forming a boy and a girl who are born unto the land. The King of Hastinapura, Shantanu, finds the children and takes them home to raise as his own. In my version, Eve is the one to find the children to take home to raise. The idea of the weeds splitting to form two lives also reminded me of the tale of Eve's origin in the original creation story, and how she grew from Adam's rib. Having the child split to become two separate children seemed like an excellent way to tie in this element.
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