My only recourse was through dharma. Therefore I waited for you to come to me. You took a long enough time! And when you came before me, I knew I must provoke you into speaking out, to saying exactly the kind of things you said. The honest person is always predictable for he or she will always do what is right! So did you. And your anger and your righteousness prompted the gods themselves to intervene, when the court of men had failed to speak for you,’ he gestured at his own court, ‘and to pronounce judgement on your behalf. For we still live in an age when dharma and fidelity are rewarded, not punished or ignored. And now, all the world knows that Shakuntala is my lawful wife and Bharata my lawful son and heir. None dare dispute it,’ Dushyanta raised his voice to a menacing baritone, glancing around at his courtiers, ‘or they risk incurring not just my wrath but the wrath of the gods themselves!’ Not one person met his eyes with a challenge or denial. If anything, all bowed their heads in acquiescence.
Shakuntala smiled then, and in that smile all her radiant beauty was visible for all to see, the beauty of a mortal woman born of the apsara Menaka, most beautiful of all female creations. Dushyanta came to her and embraced her, tentatively at first, then openly, and Bharata, laughing and happy at the reunion of his parents, joined in the embrace, and with one movement, the entire court rose to its feet, and began applauding and cheering. The hall filled with their deafening cries of joy and support, and not a single one dared offer any opposition.
‘I love you,’ Dushyanta said softly to his wife, clasping her and acknowledging her before the entire world. ‘Rule with me and be my queen. It is time to fulfil all my promises to you and for us to resume the marriage we entered into so briefly that auspicious day.’
And Shakuntala was pacified and appeased and filled with love and joy.
Thus was Bharata, son of Dushyanta and Shakuntala, born and made heir to the throne of the Kuru nation. In time, he ascended to the throne, exactly as Shakuntala had predicted, and Dushyanta had desired, and in time he brought about the enduring peace that his father had struggled to maintain. Living up to his name, he maintained and was maintained. He came to be known as Chakravarti, monarch of all realms, and as Sarvabhauma, sovereign of the world. He performed many great yagnas, and his grandfather Rishi Kanva was the officiating priest at all of them. The historical records say that he gave Rishi Kanva a thousand padmas as the brahmin’s fee. A padma means a lotus, but it also means one trillion in numbers. The usual fee given to a brahmin after a sacrifice was a cow. Does this mean that Raja Bharata gave Rishi Kanva one thousand trillion cows? Perhaps. Whatever the number, it was great indeed, for Raja Bharata possessed enormous wealth, and so did all the kings of his lineage.
||Eight||
As Vaisampayana finished the tale of Shakuntala and Dushyanta, a wind passed across the plain of Samantapanchaka. All present felt the wind. In the wind, he thought he heard voices, whispering. Their words were inaudible but as the voices of the wind passed over him, he saw in his mind’s eye the image of another suta, seated in a gathering in a forest clearing, also narrating a tale. Something told him that it was the same tale he was reciting, the Mahabharata of his guru Krishna Dweipayana Vyasa. Even as he realized this, his mind filled with other images, of sutas past, present and future, also reciting the same epic poem in all its beauty and glory, to a variety of audiences. The voices on the wind grew in number and intensity, building to a crescendo. The images blurred even as the voices grew to deafening proportions. Down the ages, throughout time itself, a thousand thousand narrators related a thousand thousand versions of the great epic, their voices melding into one great river of narrative flowing through the forest of stories that was itihasa itself.
Next in the Mahabharata Series
Book Two THE SEEDS OF WAR introduces us to the elder protagonists of the epic, as well as some of the great loves and lusts, friendships and enmities, politics and self-sacrifice that will lay the seeds that will eventually fester and erupt into the mother of all wars. At first it may seem that the journey is the reward, with seemingly unrelated love stories, fantastical tales of exploits in the heavenly realms, divine pacts and demoniac trysts. But it soon becomes evident that all these form a tapestry revealing the grandeur and glamour of the Kuru Bharata race itself, the growing descendants of the original tribe that established perhaps the greatest and oldest human civilization ever known in recoded history. Their loves and enmities are epic, their stories astonishing, their personalities mercurial. Every page you turn reveals magical new thrills and wonders. As one larger-than-life personality after another strides onstage, the drama ratchets up to thriller level, the arrow swarms begin to fly and conflicts turn ugly as the author of the Ramayana Series once again proves himself the master of epics.
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Book Three THE CHILDREN OF MIDNIGHT brings to vivid, searing life the politics and human drama that led to the greatest war ever waged. Patriarch Bhishma-Pitama and Dowager Queen Mother Satyavati do their best to make the right decisions to ensure the survival of the Puru dynasty of Hasinapura. But fate intervenes, and free will outwits destiny. Blind King Dhritirashtra’s hundred and one children are born through the intervention of Sage Vyasa at the stroke of midnight. Yet even this strange batch is reason enough to celebrate for a troubled kingdom. Meanwhile, deep in the forest, rightful heir Pandu defies a curse that forbade him from making love—and dies. Acting on his last instructions, his widowed queens Kunti and Madri use divine boons to summon gods to father sons upon them. The five boys produced in this manner prove themselves to be extraordinary at once: each gifted with the power of his divine sire. Thus are the Pandavas and Kauravas born and the stage set for the great conflict.
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Home of the epics!
RAMAYANA SERIES®
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Table of Contents
The Forest of Stories
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About Ashok
Prelim Pages
Invocation
Dedication
Kshamapana
To You, Gentle Reader
Introduction
||Paksha One|| SAUTI'S TALE
Text
||Paksha Two|| THE BOOK OF CREATION
Text
||Paksha Three|| THE TALE OF PARASHURAMA
Text
||Paksha Four|| THE SARPA SATRA
Text
||Paksha Five|| TALES OF THE BHRIGU
Text
||Paksha Six|| THE BOOK OF SNAKES
Text
||Paksha Seven|| THE BIRTH OF VYASA
Text
||Paksha Eight|| ANSHAVATARNA
Text
||Paksha Nine|| SHAKUNTALA AND DUSHYANTA
Text
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MAHABHARATA SERIES BOOK#1: The Forest of Stories (Mba) Page 28