Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata

by Devdutt Pattanaik

  No one shall interfere in a duel

  Pandavas (Satyaki)

  Bhurishrava

  No killing of animals

  Pandavas (Bhima)

  Ashwatthama (the elephant)

  No spreading of misinformation

  Pandavas (Yudhishtira)

  Drona

  No killing of people who have laid down arms

  Pandavas (Dhrishtadyumna)

  Drona

  No archer shall fight one who has lowered the bow

  Pandavas (Arjuna)

  Karna

  No one shall strike below the waist

  Pandavas (Bhima)

  Duryodhana

  No attacking people who are asleep

  Kauravas (Ashwatthama)

  Sons of the Pandavas

  * * *

  93

  Ashwatthama cursed

  The sun rose to a terrible sight: charred bodies of the entire Pandava army and the headless remains of Draupadi’s brothers and sons. Thousands of vultures circled the skies above. The cawing of crows filled the horizon. Only seven warriors survived: the five Pandavas and the two Yadavas, Krishna and Satyaki.

  ‘My children,’ screamed Draupadi. ‘Oh, heavy is the price of tying my hair.’

  When the tears stopped, the demon of vengeance reared its ugly head. ‘Who did this?’ she asked. Dhrishtadyumna’s charioteer who had seen it all informed how Ashwatthama had attacked the sleeping warriors without mercy like an owl feasting on crows at night. ‘I want his head,’ said Draupadi.

  ‘No,’ said Krishna. ‘Let us stop this spiral of vengeance. Once, Ashwatthama came to Dwaraka and asked me for my Sudarshan Chakra. Since he was a Brahman, I was obliged to hand it over to him. He tried to lift it with his left hand and then with this right. Having failed both times, he started to weep. I asked him why he wanted this weapon of mine, a weapon that no one dared ask from me—neither my friend, Arjuna, nor my son, Pradyumna. He said he wanted it because he knew it was the most powerful weapon in the world. He wanted to use it against me and thus become the greatest warrior in the world, feared by all. Such was his nature. Even though he was born in a family of priests, his father’s upbringing transformed him into an ambitious monster. He craves power but does not know how to wield it. Neither a Brahman nor a Kshatriya is he. Killing him will serve no purpose. Bring him alive.’

  Scouts were sent to look for Ashwatthama. When Ashwatthama realized the Pandavas were looking for him, he raised his bow and shot the missile known as Brahma-astra. As the missile approached, Arjuna raised his bow and released another Brahma-astra to neutralize the first.

  As the arrows moved towards each other, darkness enveloped the horizon. Fierce winds began to blow showering dust and gravel everywhere. Birds croaked madly, the earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of these two missiles. Elephants burst into flames and ran to and fro in a frenzy. Horses crumpled to the ground and died. Each approaching missile released ten thousand tongues of flames towards the other, both determined to destroy.

  ‘Recall your astras,’ cried Krishna, appealing to the warriors. ‘Your weapons will scorch the earth and destroy all life.’ Other Rishis, including Vyasa, who saw the two fiery missiles hurtling towards each other, begged the two warriors to listen to Krishna.

  Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Arjuna immediately withdrew the missile back to his quiver. Ashwatthama, however, did not know how to pull the missile back. So he redirected the weapon towards the wombs of the Pandava women. ‘May it kill all the unborn descendants of the Pandavas. Thus, I shall wipe out the race of those who killed my father and my friend,’ he said.

  A furious Krishna stood before Abhimanyu’s widow, Uttari, and took the impact of the horrific missile on his body, preventing it from harming the unborn child in her womb, the last and only fruit of the Pandava tree.

  Krishna then turned to Ashwatthama, and uttered a deadly curse, the only curse to leave the lips of God, ‘Ashwatthama, so terrible has been your action that even death will shun you for three thousand years. For that period your wounds will fester with pus and your skin will be covered with boils forcing you to contemplate on the nature of your crime.’

  On Ashwatthama’s head was a jewel that brought him great luck. This was taken away from him and given to Draupadi, who gave it to Yudhishtira. Ashwatthama was then driven away from civilization, deemed inauspicious for all mankind.

  Many scholars believe that the description of the weapons released by Ashwatthama and Arjuna suggest that the Rishis of ancient times were familiar with, or at least visualized, nuclear weapons.

  Abortion is traditionally considered the worst of crimes in Hinduism not only because it involves the killing of an unborn innocent but also because it denies an ancestor a chance to be reborn. To make matters worse, Ashwatthama who tries to induce miscarriage in the Pandava women is a Brahman by birth, obliged to protect life. That is why the punishment meted out to him by God is worse than death. He is forced to live and suffer. It is said that even today if one listens carefully to the wail of the waves or the howl of the wind, one will hear the mournful cry of Ashwatthama, the baby-killer, too ashamed to show his face to man.

  Ashwatthama embodies what happens when the rules of varna are not obeyed. Born to a priest, he was supposed to live as a priest as per ashrama-dharma. But instead he chose to be a warrior, not to protect the weak but to harness power. That is why he is not shown any mercy by Krishna. He embodies the fall of civilization and the height of human rage and greed.

  Draupadi is depicted as helpless and angry in the Mahabharata of Vyasa, wailing and weeping when her brothers and sons are killed. In regional lore, however, Draupadi is reborn as different heroines who are not so passive. She is Bela in the Hindi medieval epic, Alha, who commits sati after her warrior husband is killed in battle. Draupadi is also reborn as Virashakti in folklore of north Tamil Nadu where armed with five sacred objects (a drum, a bell, a whip, a trident and a box of turmeric) she fights demons much like Durga.

  94

  Kunti’s secret

  The cry of orphans rent the air as they ran desperately looking for the remains of their fathers. The old blind couple, Gandhari and Dhritarashtra, entered the battlefield accompanied by their hundred daughters-in-law, now widows.

  The women ran searching for their husbands. They found headless torsos, cut hands and crushed legs, dogs chewing on the tongues of great warriors, rats nibbling on the fingers of archers. The stench of rotting flesh was unbearable.

  The Pandavas saw their mother, Kunti, wandering among the dead Kauravas. ‘Who are you looking for, mother?’ asked Yudhishtira.

  ‘Karna,’ she said.

  ‘Why that charioteer’s son?’ asked Arjuna.

  ‘Because he was your eldest brother. My firstborn,’ said Kunti, finally unafraid to face the truth.

  At first, the words did not sink in. When they finally did, Arjuna went weak in the knees. He realized he had killed not only Bhishma, who was like a father to him, and Drona, who was his teacher, but also Karna, who was in fact his brother. ‘Did he know?’ asked Yudhishtira. Kunti nodded her head. This made Arjuna feel even worse.

  She told her sons how out of childish curiosity she had used Durvasa’s magic formula that compelled the sun-god to give her a child. She told them how Karna had promised never to harm any of her sons except Arjuna. ‘With or without Arjuna, you can always tell the world you have five sons,’ he had said.

  The Pandavas remembered how Karna never killed them in the war despite having ample opportunities to do so. Now they realized why. They felt miserable. Victory had come to them stained in their brother’s blood. ‘Oh, may no woman ever again be able to keep such secrets from the world,’ said Yudhishtira.

  ‘Why did you not tell us?’ asked Arjuna.

  ‘If she did, would you have fought him? And if you had not fought him, the Kauravas would not have been defeated and dharma would not have been established,’ said Krishna, who
had overheard the conversation. But this logic did not take away the gloom that descended on the surviving sons of Kunti.

  After revealing the truth of Karna’s origin, the relationship between Kunti and her sons was never the same again. They were angry with her. She had abandoned her own child to save her reputation. She had allowed them to hate him all these years. But for her silence, Karna would not have been treated so unjustly by the world.

  Through Karna, Vyasa reiterates that our knowledge of the world is imperfect based on perceptions and false information. We are surrounded by Kuntis who hide the truth in fear. We are surrounded by Karnas, villains who are actually brothers.

  95

  Rage of elders

  Krishna advised the Pandavas to go and pay their respects to the parents of the Kauravas. ‘But be careful, Bhima. Beware of Dhritarashtra’s pent-up rage. When he tries to embrace you, place an iron image of yourself before him.’

  Bhima did as advised. Dhritarashtra embraced the iron pillar with such force, thinking it was Bhima, that the iron image was crushed as if it was made of soft clay. Such was the intensity of the blind king’s rage against the man who had killed his sons.

  The deed done, Dhritarashtra started to cry. ‘What have I done? In rage, I have killed the son of my brother who was like a son to me.’

  But Gandhari knew that Bhima was still alive. She sensed his breath. ‘Once again, Krishna protects the Pandavas,’ she said bitterly.

  As the sons of Pandu approached her, Vidura whispered in her ear, ‘Gandhari, control your rage. If you curse these men, the earth will be left with no kings.’

  And so as the Pandavas fell at her feet, Gandhari forced herself to bless them. As she did so, her eyes filled with tears swelled so much that her blindfold was pushed away and she managed to steal a glance at Yudhishtira’s big toe for a moment. That one glance was so fiery that it turned Yudhishtira’s big toe blue. With that glance, all of Gandhari’s rage dissipated.

  When Draupadi came to Gandhari, she hugged her and wailed, ‘Both of us are left with no children. What can we mothers do but cry?’ Draupadi broke down and hugged Gandhari tightly.

  Gandhari sensed Krishna’s presence beside her. ‘Why did all my children have to die?’ she asked. ‘Could you not spare even one?’

  ‘It was not I who killed your sons,’ said Krishna, his voice full of compassion.

  ‘It was your fate and theirs. Long ago, while cooking rice, you poured the hot water into the ground outside your kitchen destroying a hundred eggs laid by an insect. That insect cursed you that you would witness the death of all your children as she did hers.’

  ‘But that was an innocent act of a child,’ protested Gandhari.

  ‘Such is the law of karma. Every action, howsoever innocent, has a reaction, that one has to experience if not in this life, then in the next,’ said Krishna.

  Krishna then told the tale of a king called Nriga, whose cow, given away to a Rishi, had managed to slip back into the royal cowshed and was given away a second time to another Rishi. Though this was done unintentionally, the two Rishis who claimed the same cow were so angry with Nriga that they cursed him and he was reborn as a lizard.

  Rage needs expression. Dhritarashtra expresses it by crushing the iron effigy of Bhima while Gandhari expresses it by burning Yudhishtira’s toe with a glance. Once expressed, rage dissipates and reason returns. One is advised in many parts of India to eat sugar when angry, just like Gandhari did, so as not to end up cursing the Pandavas.

  In Andhra Pradesh, women are advised never to pour hot water on the ground like Gandhari. The water must be allowed to cool or mixed with cold water before it is poured out.

  In Orissa, it is said that Gandhari sat on a rock crushing the eggs laid under it by a turtle. The mother turtle cursed Gandhari which is why she was destined to lose all her children.

  The epic speculates on the origin of death. One day, Brahma, God who creates all living creatures, realized that all his children were reproducing and their numbers were multiplying and the earth was groaning under their weight. And so he created the goddess of death called Mrityu. This goddess, however, refused to kill any living creature. She did not want to carry the burden of such a terrible act. Brahma reassured her that she would carry no such burden. ‘Death will be the direct result of merits and demerits earned by living creatures in their lifetime. You will merely oversee the transition. The burden of death shall be borne by those who live.’ Thus all creatures die not because of external factors but because of their own karma.

  96

  Gandhari’s curse

  Krishna knew that his erudition would not take away the pain in Gandhari’s heart. Despite his words, she kept crying. The sun set. The wailing widows of the Kuru clan decided to return to the palace as the horizon was filled with vultures and crows and dogs and ghosts waiting to feed on the dead. ‘Come mother,’ they cried out to Gandhari. ‘We shall return tomorrow and cremate our sons and husbands.’

  ‘You proceed. I shall not leave my children. Let me comfort them as they lie unloved on this battlefield.’

  Krishna said, ‘Go home. This pain will be forgotten when you have a greater pleasure or a greater pain.’

  ‘No,’ said Gandhari angrily, ‘What do you know of my pain? You have not been mother to a hundred sons.’ Realizing that the blindfolded mother of the Kauravas was determined to spend the night in the battlefield, the rest decided to leave her alone and return to the city.

  That night the air was filled with the sound of hungry dogs and vultures and crows. Gandhari swung her walking stick to keep them away from the bodies of her sons. She felt sorry for her miserable situation. She was angry with the Pandavas. She was angry with Krishna. She was angry with life.

  At midnight, she began experiencing pangs of hunger. So great was the hunger that she could think of nothing else but food. Suddenly she smelt a mango. It came from above her. Desperate to eat this mango, she made a pile of stones, climbed on it and stretched out her hand to reach the fruit. The mango was delicious. As soon as she ate the mango, the hunger pangs abated. Gandhari’s senses returned. She felt the stones that she had climbed to pluck the fruit. They did not feel like stones at all, but like the bodies of men. Her sons! Gandhari realized she had made a pile of her own children’s corpses to pluck the fruit which satisfied her hunger.

  ‘Oh Krishna,’ she cried, ‘now I know the power of maya: that which deludes you to be unhappy can be overpowered by another delusion that causes greater unhappiness. Oh Krishna, did you have to use such a cruel way of teaching me the truth? Wicked one, I curse you. I curse you that you too will feel the pain of losing your loved ones. May you watch helplessly as your children, your grandchildren, and your entire clan kill each other. And may you, great God, die like a beast at the hands of a common hunter.’

  The next day, the bodies of the warriors were put in a great pile. There was not enough wood to burn them. So the broken war chariots with the wheels and banners were used as fuel and the pyre set alight. The flames rose high up to the heavens. The pyre was so bright that many felt the sun had descended on earth.

  Since God takes birth as a mortal, he needs to live like a mortal, earn demerits that will be the cause of his death. Vyasa reminds us that all actions have positive and negative repercussions. In establishing dharma, Krishna kills many people. They may be villains according to one measuring scale, but according to another measuring scale they are the beloved sons of doting mothers. So while Krishna is blessed for restoring faith in justice, he is also cursed for breaking a mother’s heart. What may seem like a good deed from one point of view may not be seen as one from another point of view. Thus does Vyasa reflect on the complexity of life where even the goodness of God is challenged by man.

  In many ways, Gandhari is the reason for the Mahabharata war. She chose to blindfold herself and so never really saw the truth about her children. Perhaps if she had not blindfolded herself and felt self-righteous about it, she would
have been a different mother, a less indulgent mother, and the story would have taken a different, less violent, turn.

  It is simplistic to imagine that the Pandavas are good and the Kauravas are bad and so Krishna sides with the former. Pandavas are willing to change; they want to outgrow the beast within them. The process of change is difficult—the Pandavas have to suffer exile, kill loved ones and lose their children, in the process of gaining wisdom. The Kauravas cling to their kingdom like dogs clinging to a bone. They refuse to change. Hence, they die without learning anything. Krishna is the teacher. But the onus of learning rests with the students.

  Marital alliances between the clans of Yadu and Kuru

  Book Seventeen

  Reconstruction

  ‘Janamejaya, knowledge must outlive death, so that the next generation is more enlightened.’

  97

  Yudhishtira’s coronation

  And then it was over: The war, the burning of the bodies, the immersion of the ashes in the river Ganga, and the long period of mourning. It was time to end the wailing, and the fasting. It was time to bring the flowers, raise the banners and light the kitchen fires. It was time for Hastina-puri to crown its new king, Yudhishtira, son of Pandu, grandson of Vichitravirya, great grandson of Shantanu.

  But the eldest Pandava had lost all interest in kingship. ‘I am a murderer,’ he cried. ‘My hands are soaked with the blood of my family. When I sit on a pile of corpses, how can I drink the cup of success? What is the point of it all?’