KRISHNA CORIOLIS#5: Rage of Jarasandha
Page 25
Krishna looked at Balarama. “Very good, bhai. Let’s do it tomorrow itself. After the battle.”
Balarama grinned mischievously, “You mean today, don’t you, bhraatr?”
He winked and raised the goblet to drink.
14
JARASANDHA watched with sardonic glee as the Brothers approached on their golden chariots. The ruins of his proud army lay scattered across the field of battle for miles in every direction, a vast wasteland of carnage and destruction. Smoke from fired chariots and flame arrows rose in drifts. Great numbers of carrion birds flew through the rising spirals of smoke, beaks bent earthwards, seeking fresh meat. Their’s was a cornucopia of delights, a smorgasbord of delectables that would last them for weeks—or until the meat grew too rank to consume. They had no way of knowing that by tomorrow these carrion corpses would have magically vanished from this field, leaving no trace of their ever having been here. Then again, in their places would be fresh, living bodies, awaiting their time of death. In a way, that was even more enticing—instead of yesterday’s rotting corpses, they would have fresh corpses again tomorrow—and the day after, and so on in an unending succession of Tuesdays, until…until when.
Except that would not be the case. Yes, this same army would rise from the dead again tomorrow and the day after and for so long as it took for Jarasandha to assert his supremacy. But the carrion bird would be different each day. As would the bodies waiting to be turned into corpses. As would the city of Mathura itself and all its denizens. As would every blade of grass, tree, leaf, insect, stone, drop of dew…Everything would be almost exactly the same yet subtly different each day. Only he would be the same—and so would the Brothers.
Fitting therefore that they should come to him each evening after triumphantly cleansing the battlefield of his forces and still be too stubborn to broach the real subject of the day. The question of how he could be appeased. Thus far at least, they had not broached the subject and he did not expect them to do so today. Well, perhaps today. Or tomorrow. Sooner or later they must broach the topic. Or continue thus forever. He hoped it would not be too long; this endless standing about on battlefields and watching his armies get slaughtered was growing tedious. As was the show of groveling and being humbled he had to put on each evening after the day’s battle.
“Jarasandha,” Balarama said as the chariots touched ground. Jarasandha marveled at the celestial vehicles. They would be of great use to his purposes, especially since as he knew, they could be used to travel freely between the Three Lokas—Swarga, Prithvi and Naraka. Imagine how convenient it would be to fly from Heaven to Earth to Hell and back again whenever he pleased. He mused on the possibility of asking for the chariots outright, then dismissed the idea with reluctance. There were far larger stakes involved here. Celestial chariots would be nothing compared to what he would have access to once he succeeded in playing his role in this great game.
“We know you are somehow repeating this day over and over again, causing events to reset themselves each morning.” Balarama jumped down from the chariot, his heavy feet sinking into the soft loamy soil. He strode towards Jarasandha, his mace in his hands, thumping the bulb into his own palm to produce an ominous smacking sound. “We will not tolerate it any longer. You will make it stop and stop right now!”
Jarasandha smiled. “That is impossible. What you suggest, it cannot be done!”
Balarama turned to Krishna, who was approaching with greater care, adjusting his anga-vastra delicately. “You see, bhraatr? I told you he would not admit it readily. Let me smack him about a few times and we will have his confession.”
Krishna raised his hand. Balarama subsided, muttering something under his breath, but moving aside and lowering the mace. Krishna strode forward.
“Jara,” he said. “I address you now not as an enemy but as a fellow Sura. After all, ultimately, we are of the same race, are we not?”
Jarasandha tensed at Krishna’s words. He felt every fiber of his being scream in protest and anguish. “A fellow Sura? Is that what you consider me?” He wanted to roar with fury, to leap at Krishna and pound his head to bloody pulp. But he settled for a piercing glare. “You can take your Sura race and go back to Swarga, Deva. I am an Asura and proud to be one.”
Krishna smiled sadly. “I know things have not been peaceable between our kinds for a very long time.”
Jarasandha snorted. “Since before time itself began, in the present way of reckoning. Our enmity is as old as the Universe itself, since the dawn of the first Day of Brahma.”
He was referring to the endless cycle of Creation and UnCreation, marked by Days of Brahma, each lasting Four Ages, each Age lasting for many millennia.
“This is true,” Krishna admitted. “Ever since the Lords of Creation existed, we have been in conflict. Yet today you play here with forces that endanger us all. That threaten the very fabric of existence. You are playing with Time and Space, Jarasandha. By going back in Time and causing this day to somehow repeat itself over and over, you might cause an imbalance in the scales of brahman itself. That would be perilous for all races, all kinds of beings!”
Jarasandha chuckled very softly, mildly. Almost politely. “I have already told your brother…” he corrected himself, using the proper Sanskrit pronunciation, “…your bhraatr…that what he and now you suggest I am doing is impossible. Nobody can do it. The Lord of Time and Space, Kala-Bhairav, would not permit such flagrant violation of the laws of existence. It would violate the law of Causality itself. And without Causality, there can be no birth and life and death, no growth, no destruction, no Beginning and End, only chaos and nothingness eternally. As there once was…” he reminded Krishna, scratching his own cheek with one sharp taloned fingernail.
“And will be again,” Krishna admitted. “For Creation itself is but a breath-space between death and Re-Death. But we cannot deny what is already occurring. I do not claim to understand how you are doing it or why Lord Kala permits it, but the fact remains that this is Tuesday yet again, one in a succession of Tuesdays on which the same events repeat themselves again and again, without ending. And I know that you must be causing this to occur. So do not deny it.”
Jarasandha smiled. “Why should I deny it? I am causing it. But what I am causing is not what you believe I am causing.”
15
“I have no objection to admitting to what I actually do or have done,” Jarasandha said proudly. “I simply do not wish to be accused of things for which I am not responsible.”
Balarama stepped forward, unable to contain himself any longer, and pointed the mace at Jarasandha. “So then you deny causing Tuesday to repeat itself, you liar?”
Krishna started to raise his hand to restrain Balarama but Jarasandha answered anyway.
“Yes, Bhraatr Balarama, I deny it because that is not what is happening here at all. This is not the same Tuesday repeating itself as you believe. It is a succession of different Tuesdays occurring at the same time, in different variations of Prithvi-loka.”
Krishna and Balarama was silent. Balarama lowered his mace, then shut his mouth.
Jarasandha smiled. The light of the setting sun was soft upon his perfectly balanced features. So exactly proportionate were both sides of his face and body that you could count the hairs on his lashes on one eye and they would correspond precisely to the number of hairs on the other eye. If one lash fell from this eye, one would fall from the other—or, if it pleased him, the fallen lash would grow back in order to maintain the Balance. Immaculate matching, at all times, in every single respect.
“I see I have your attention now.” He gestured at the battlefield. “You have been through this battle so many days already. Surely each day you noticed some subtle differences? Perhaps not so subtle at times? Mayhap a person who said something different, or acted differently, or a different person did what another had done the day before? Surely each day was not exactly the same?”
Krishna and Balarama exchanged a glance.
Krishna nodded, then said calmly, “Assume it to be so. What then does it mean? What is it you have done here?”
Jarasandha chuckled. “Done? No, my dear flute-player. Doing! I am doing it even now as we speak. I am preventing you from continuing with your real work upon this mortal realm, by delaying you in this endless game of repetition.”
Krishna’s face clouded over, a trace of deep anger manifesting itself. “I did suspect that this was a diversion, not the real assault.”
Jarasandha wagged a finger. “Your suspicion was right.”
Krishna looked around, thinking. “And this is not the same day repeating. It is a succession of different Tuesdays played out on different worlds, each only slightly differing from the one before it, a series of infinite Prithvi-lokas, mortal realms, all marginally different from each other?”
Jarasandha nodded. “We are not traveling back in time each morning, as you assumed. That would be impossible. You should know that by now, bhraatr Balarama,” he called out with an exaggerated raising of his tone, “time travel cannot be done, by anyone. For each time we attempt to travel back to a certain moment in time, we alter that timeline irreparably, thereby splitting it off into a different future. By going back in time, I would only repeat the same day over and over again, each time leading to different outcomes.”
“Isn’t that what you just said you were doing, you stupid asura?” Balarama sputtered.
“No, bhraatr Balarama,” Jarasandha went on. “I am forcing the three of us to travel through the Vortal to alternate versions of our world, to relive a succession of Tuesdays in each alternate world, going through similar but not exactly the same events each time, while in our actual world—the original world in which we were waging war against one another…”
“…time marches on, continuing in our absence,” Krishna said, “It is as if we disappeared from that world, traveling to other alternate worlds, while that world moved forward in time.”
Balarama shook his head. “But if these are only alternate worlds,” he gestured around them, “then why is it always Tuesday each time we awaken?”
Jarasandha looked at Krishna, smiling.
Krishna answered: “Because that is how he has set up the Vortals. He has set them to trip at a precise moment in time, taking us back to the morning of the same Tuesday in each new alternate world.”
Balarama scratched his back with the mace. “So then we are traveling in time?”
“Not really. Traveling in time would imply that we were going back and forth on the same timeline, like moving to and fro on the exact same road. This is slipping between worlds at different times. So yes, it is like time-traveling but each time we do so, we change the world simply by the act of coming into that world, and thereby change its future, splitting it away from the original world, our world.”
Balarama looked at his mace as if he wished he were wielding it now instead of standing around discussing such things. “I shall take your word for it, bhraatr. So this is not our world at all? And these are not really Jarasandha’s armies we destroyed today? Again,” he added emphatically.
“Yes,” Krishna replied. “We are fighting and destroying alternate versions of his armies in each alternate world, protecting alternate Mathuras each time. While our own Mathura in our own world remains unattended, undefended…but against what? If this is the distraction then there must be a real menace threatening our people. What is that?”
Jarasandha chuckled. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Krishna grasped hold of Jarasandha unexpectedly. He held the asura lord by his throat, lifting him a yard above ground. Slight and slender though he seemed, Krishna’s strength was superhuman. Perhaps because of that, he rarely used his strength, unlike Balarama who was happy to demonstrate it at every opportunity.
“Answer me,” Krishna said. “What is your ultimate goal in playing out this elaborate charade? By causing us to slip through these Vortals each day, forcing us to fight the same battle over and over, what is it you seek to ensure? Speak!”
Jarasandha’s eyes glazed over momentarily as Krishna’s fist choked him but he made no attempt to respond.
“Answer me, Jarasandha!”
Jarasandha’s tongue flickered out, its twin tips diverging to either side of his mouth, licking at the corners. “Kill me and you will never know.”
Krishna held him up for another moment, his eyes dark. Balarama saw thunderclouds amass within Krishna’s eyes, lightning flicker in his pupils, and swallowed. Even he was a little afraid of his brother’s fury.
But Krishna’s anger subsided, brought under control once more. For his superhuman strength was balanced by his superhuman self-control. That was why he was a master of dharma. Krishna let Jarasandha drop to the ground. The Magadhan clutched his throat and rubbed it a few times but was otherwise unharmed. He grinned at Krishna as he turned and started to walk away.
“Govinda,” Jarasandha said.
Krishna stopped, his back to Jarasandha, his face still tight with suppressed fury.
“You wish to know my ultimate goal? It’s quite simple. To slaughter all the people under your protection…merely because they are under your protection! For no other reason than that. I do not seek to harm you directly—although if that occurs, I would not mind it. I seek to harm those you protect. For that would be the greatest triumph. To destroy your flock while the cowherd watches helplessly.”
Balarama hefted his mace but a look from Krishna made him lower it again. He settled for a glare at Jarasandha. The brothers began walking to their chariots.
Jarasandha called out one last challenge as they boarded the celestial vehicles and they began to rise.
“And in the end, I shall achieve my goal,” Jarasandha said. “Do you hear me? I shall win in the end, Krishna! Nothing you do shall prevent that from coming to pass!”
The chariots sped away, leaving him laughing to himself in the light of the setting sun.
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