Machiavellian Character Traits in Devasmita from The Red Lotus of Chastity

Even if Devasmita, the heroine of Somadeva's "The Red Lotus of Chastity," was not a woman, she would still have no chance of advancing into a ruling position in a caste-based society of ancient India. This does not mean, however, that she has absolutely no influence. In her husband's absence, she is the ruler and administrator of their household. As such, possessing character qualities that Machiavelli identifies as "virtues" of the ruling class allows Devasmita to maintain the well being of her household by ruining the plans of the men who wanted to seduce her and benefiting her family in the process. Throughout the story, Devasmita shows foresight, ruthlessness, and cunning that, according to Machiavelli, any prince would be proud of. But at the same time, she knows when a straightforward approach and compromise would work better as a solution to a problem.

Even though Machiavelli does not directly mention foresight as one of the virtues, he describes how a ruler is better off being stingy rather than liberal in his spending. A stingy ruler may displease some people or may not show off how rich he is, but he will be better off in the long run because he will not overburden his subjects with excessive taxes. In the end, his wealth will be large and he will be respected and loved by more people than disrespected and hated by some. A leader who is capable of looking ahead like this has foresight.

Devasmita's ability to deceive is shown even before she marries Guhasena. Her marriage to Guhasena would probably not take place at all if not for Devasmita's desire to leave her home even though her father objected to the marriage. Even though the nature of the plan used to have Devasmita meet Guhasena and sail away with him is not described in detail, it is mentioned that she was the one to devise the plan.

Devasmita's intelligence and cunning are confirmed with her second meeting with Yogakarandika. When the nun, hired to convince Devasmita to commit adultery, offers her a strange sermon about the moral duty of "yield[ing] to the demands of sense and element" (1348), Devasmita is immediately suspicious: "This nun has some crooked scheme afoot!" (1348). She does not, however, take the straightforward approach of ordering the nun thrown out of her house. Doing so would solve her immediate situation, but Devasmita wisely looks ahead; she quickly guesses the nature of the scheme but does not yet know who is behind it, and without finding out, a possibility exists that people behind it would just try something else. So she lets the nun believe that she has been sold on her reasoning and is ready to cheat on her husband. Realizing that what the four young men are attempting to do is both socially embarrassing and illegal, Devasmita decides that she can be as ruthless in her punishment as she wants to be, short of killing them. Apparently, she is also a good judge of character, correctly guessing that none of the four men would want to be laughed at by the rest and thus would hide the truth about what happened to them. This way, all four of them - and later Yogakarandika and her pupil - would meet with punishment Devasmita has devised for them.

The fact that Devasmita is not satisfied with just punishing the intruders is another proof of her foresight. Correctly guessing that the four young men have been in contact with her husband - which is how they got the idea of trying to seduce her to begin with - she is worried that now, embarrassed and hurt, they might take out their anger and frustration on him: "Might those merchant's sons now kill my husband in revenge?" (1349). To prevent this from happening, she devises another plan, involving both cunning - dressing as a man and presenting herself as a merchant - and courage - traveling, without male escort, on a ship to a foreign country. She finds an imaginative way to neutralize the four men, which results not only in her husband returning home with her, safe and sound, but also in improving their financial fortunes considerably in the process.

However, if Devasmita would show only the ability to deceive and to be cruel, she would not exhibit all the character qualities that, according to Machiavelli, define an effective ruler. Not every situation requires these particular qualities, and Machiavelli claims that a capable ruler must have "a mind capable of turning in whatever direction the winds of Fortune and the variations of affairs require... he should not depart from what is morally right, if he can observe it, but should know how to adopt what is bad, when he is obliged to" (2529). In other words, the greatest virtue of an effective ruler is the ability to evaluate the situation correctly and to adapt to it. Devasmita does this, adapting from deception and cruelty to forthrightness and trust when it comes to her doubts about her husband remaining faithful to her during his business travels.

Guhasena's own behavior appears to play an important role in his wife's approach, since he does not simply exercise his patriarchal privileges and leaves despite Devasmita's objections, but instead makes a sincere attempt at solving the problem and keeping his wife happy in the process. If he did it otherwise, seeing how Devasmita has dealt with people who displeased her, it is not difficult to imagine that her husband would have become the target for some cunning plan to test his honesty - and his punishment would have been as ruthless if he failed this test.