The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  It is during this Ashwamedha campaign that Arjuna is helped by the sacrificial horse to make a true surrender, the surrender of his ego, his prejudices, his ingrained Kshatriya pride which hang so much on Gandiva.

  In the dice game he and his brothers and Draupadi are the outraged oblations poured into the sacrificial fire. They go unwilling. As their destiny unfolds their sacrifice, however painful, is made with a degree of surrender and progressive understanding which, at the end when they climb the Abode of Snow, turns into a joyful offering. On the fulcrum of surrender are balanced Karma and Dharma.

  The Kali Yuga that Krishna predicted is upon us and is accelerating the rate of evolution at a dizzying pace. Forms of resistance are inevitable, as are clashes with forms of resistance. The evils that led to Kurukshetra and World War II are still the evils that haunt us—insensitivity, rivalry, greed, violence, competitiveness, and the denial of the love that created us. Recent world events have left us living in a state of semi-paranoia. As Eckhart Tolle says in A New Earth:

  If the history of humanity were the clinical case history of a single human being, the diagnosis would have to be chronic paranoid delusions, a pathological propensity to commit murder and acts of extreme violence and cruelty against his perceived enemies, his own unconsciousness projected outwards. Criminally insane with a few brief, lucid intervals.

  Nothing makes this clearer than the epic narratives of history. And yet they allow us to pause and take stock. For a moment we live in the aftermath and reflect. And we are somehow stilled and healed. The soul makes its way through the madness to come to the fore. In his sensitive introduction to Part II of an earlier edition of my work, Pradip Bhattacharya drew attention to a point made by Joseph Campbell in a televised series of his talks. Campbell said that science had created a gap between the modern world and mythological symbols. As the incidence of vice and crime, violence, murder and despair rises rapidly, it is the myths that offer “the most solid supports of the moral order, of the cohesiveness and creativity of civilization.” Campbell concludes that it is in the body of creative literature focusing on the world’s epics that he sees “hope for our society in the twenty-first century”.

  Yet the Kali Yuga, the precursor of a wondrous dawn, is pregnant with surprises. Science has recently taught us to harness the beneficent sun. A deeper science may yet harness us to the Greater Light. In any case though the resistances are fierce, the ultimate victory is certain. It will be for some future epic to tell the tale.

  The sages say that much merit is acquired by listening to the story of the Mahabharata. May you, the reader, acquire merit, peace of soul, and serene joy.

  Of Bliss these Beings are born,

  In Bliss they are sustained

  And to Bliss they go and merge again.

  Om Shanti, Shanti, Shantih.

  (Upanishad)

  NOTES

  1. All of Churchill’s quotations are from ‘Churchill’s War Speeches, 1939–45’, published by Cassel, 1946, London.

  2. Quotations from Sri Aurobindo are from Vol. XXVI of the 1972 Centenary Edition of his Collected Works (pp. 198 and 394–7), Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.

  THE MAHABHARATA FAMILY TREE

  The Beginning

  At first the world was Darkness which then began to stir the unending seed of life. A great egg. Then Prajapati emerged from the egg, lord of all beings, and also Manu, Daksha and his seven sons, the twin Ashwins, the Adityas and the Pitris.

  Afterwards were created waters, earth and sky, the directions of heaven and time, the seasons, the months—the full lunar months and the dark moon phases and the light moon phases, and the bright day and the dark night.

  Yet this universe will vanish with the ending of this Yuga. But a new Yuga will bring new life after the old season. So spins the world ever without end.

  When the poem had blossomed in the mind of Vyasa, Brahma came to him. Vyasa jumped up and stood in reverence with joined palms.

  “My poem tells of the seasons of time, of what will be in the future as well as of what was in the past, and it tells also of the now. It tells of corruption and death as well as terror and disease of the actual and imagined. It prescribes the rules for the actual and imagined. It prescribes the rules for the four castes and of the ascetics. It measures the stars and planets, condones the secret doctrines and expounds philosophy. All the heavenly sites as well as the earthly wonders are in it, the holy planes, the rivers, oceans and mountains. It speaks of the different races and languages, the rules of war and the Divine are contained in it, everything is held within it. But it stays inside my head for who would I ever find to dictate it to so that it does not lose its accuracy.”

  Brahma answered, “Your poem will be incomparable. It will stand alone. Lord Ganesha himself will transcribe it.” And then Brahma disappeared.

  Vyasa was left to ponder this. Now his great poem could be told. Who else but Lord Ganesha, the remover of all obstacles, could he have summoned for this endeavour, Lord Ganesha, granter of all boons. Now Island-born Vyasa met with the universe that flourished inside him. Not only did it flourish, but it overbrimmed his mind so that he summoned Lord Ganesha with urgency. Ganesha insisted that the flow of trie dictation should not be interrupted if he undertook the work.

  “Yes, yes,” agreed Island-born Vyasa, “but I too have my condition: you are not to write anything down unless your mind has grasped it.” The outflow was such that Ganesha would be forced to pause, and in those pauses the great ideas could be sorted out.

  The poet and the scribe both closed their eyes and chanted, OM, OM, OM, OM, OM, calling down great silence and emptiness, and into that emptiness the world that was in Island-born Vyasa’s mind began to tumble. This was the first time that this great story was transcribed but it was done many and many a time again in many guises, in many climes, and what now follows is one of them, written far into the Kaliyuga, in its birthplace, Bharatavarsha, right on the cusp of what is old and what is new, as the Light prepares to spread over the earth that has resisted for so long.

  1

  For a long time I thought it was because I had asked for milk. I dreamed of the slaughter and awoke clutching my bow. So real did it seem that one hand felt slippery with blood and I had to wipe it across my chest. While the blood, which was not there, mingled with the sweat that ran down my body, I sat up to think again: eighteen armies wiped out, eleven of ours and seven of theirs. I would begin multiplying by eleven, twenty-one thousand eight hundred and seventy elephants, a hundred and nine thousand eight hundred and ten horses…a futile exercise in exorcism. What I saw again and again was a huge king, our Bhoorishravas, the stump of his arm bleeding into the earth. He was sitting in meditation when they killed him, as adharmically as we killed the sons of the Pandavas and their uncle while they slept.

  I heard the conches and trumpets and the war drums on the first day of battle and I saw, with the first sun, Greatfather Bheeshma, our general, in his silver chariot, light glancing off the white of his hair, off the white of his cloth, and off the flanks of the white horses. I was proud to be leading the protectors of Bheeshma. The most important task in this war was to keep him alive and fighting. He was our conscience, our Dharma, and when he addressed us, my heart stopped with love and pride. My friends were on the other side, but at last that had ceased to matter.

  As always, Bheeshma’s message was to the point: it was a shameful thing for one of the warrior caste to die in bed. We were to be ready to win or to die. Those who die in battle gain heaven. It was like a promise from the All Creator. The skin of my forehead tingled under my life-protecting gem. When Bheeshma spoke, he made you thirsty for death. He made you into anything he wanted. His fluttering banner of five stars and a golden palm turned and twisted. When he stopped, a hush moved gently like a dying breeze over the two armies. My vision sharpened. I picked out from all the Pandava chariots the gold of Krishna and Arjuna with the white horses. Above it fluttered the emblem of the ape. Krishn
a and Arjuna were there and I, here on the other side. My heart turned painfully towards them. They were more beautiful than Bheeshma. The great monkey Lord Hanuman himself seemed to leap into the sky.

  I brought myself back to my senses by scanning the angles of their Vajra formation, Lord Indra’s thunderbolt, so simple and deadly.

  Did I know then that we would be defeated?

  I think so, but a flashing and gleaming around the eldest Pandava brother gave me pause. Yudhishthira had put down his weapons and taken off his armour. He walked towards us on bare feet. It was a long walk across level ground, freshly watered for battle, but I saw Yudhishthira’s right foot send up a tiny spurt of dust. Would his passion for peace prevail? We had often said that he was no warrior king but a Brahmin. But certain insults must awaken the wrath of the All-Creator Himself. I did not like honour set aside. Warrior kings were tigers, not deer. Bheema the wind-born was always the first to draw his sword, but he would now follow Eldest; so would Arjuna and, a bow’s length behind him, the twins, Nakula dark and Sahadeva fair, moving with the rippling grace of gods.

  When Yudhishthira fell to his knees before his Greatfather, I was close enough to see the tears in his eyes. All five brothers were kneeling, raising their faces to ancient Bheeshma. Eldest was asking for his blessing.

  “Assure us that we will be victorious, Greatfather,” he said. Bheeshma was old and sacred and not easily affected, but he was moved now. He smiled faintly, his eyes half closed. “You have Krishna.” He paused. “And you know righteousness says I must support your cousin Duryodhana. I have eaten his salt. You know Dharma as well as I do.” During the long silence which followed, Bheeshma bent down and blessed his Pandava grandsons one by one, laying his hands on their heads. First Yudhishthira whom he most resembled; to him he gave his longest blessing; then Bheema. Then Arjuna. His hands left Arjuna’s head too quickly, I thought, but that may have been because I still loved Arjuna best. Some things never change in the heart, no matter what you think in the head. They say a Brahmin is all head and no heart, but mine kept pulling at me. Now the twins.

  Our army had closed behind the five brothers; it opened to let them return. The sun was rising and it struck like lightning the metal of the armour which they donned again. The silence was broken by the rattle of armour and weapons as the warriors climbed into their chariots; then the air was torn by sound—Greatfather Bheeshma’s conch, full and hardblasting, piercing to heaven, conches answering conches, the crescendo of war drums, the raised trumpets, the jewels and crowns and garlands of the great warriors; the chariots, the sun striking brilliance from a million surfaces. Even the silks and skins of the men caught the light, as did the head gems and armour of the freshly washed elephants. The smell of animals, oiled weapons and polished leather, together with the scents of the warriors’ garlands were more intoxicating than honey wine.

  Bheeshma roared his battle cry. He sounded like Lord Indra angry. In war I would always have to remind myself that the sound came from Greatfather Bheeshma, for he never raised his voice in council. He had not done so at the dice game. Arjuna waited for the last echo to die away. The blast of Arjuna’s conch Devadatta-of-the-pure-notes made the hair of my arms stand up. Bheema took up his conch and blew his wild tune. Then Eldest, steady and threatening. Then came the conches of the handsome twins. Then conch upon conch, the sound-symbols of kings and princes. The conches of the sons of the Pandava brothers screamed their challenges. Then it was the turn of Kasi, then Shikhandin, son of Drupada, who would cause the death of great Bheeshma. The notes clung to the air and as one overlapped the other, space trembled.

  It all echoes in my ears, and I see again, as though looking down on the field from a great height, as from Indra’s heaven where they all went, those warriors fresh from their morning ablutions without spot or blemish, with hair bound up for battle, and I see their shields and weapons glint in the rays of the newly risen sun.

  They made a terrible garden of the brown earth of Kurukshetra.

  Eighteen days and all but Krishna and the five Pandavas were dead on their side. On our side remained Kripa, Kritavarman, and myself who was cursed by Krishna to live forever.

  Of our Duryodhana’s ninety-nine brothers, only the righteous Yuyutsu lived to carry on the line of the old blind king. It was at the end of twentyone days, when all the fighting was over, that Kunti, mother of the Pandavas, and their queen Draupadi, met and shed tears. All the sons of the Pandavas had been killed by us, but their fathers, the five Pandava brothers, lived. Wives and mothers were crouching beside their dead, wailing; it was as though no one in the world remained whole. There was nothing left to do but burn the bodies of the great heroes.

  After that, with the sweet stench hanging like the smell of a poisoned rose over Kurukshetra, it was worse for me, much worse.

  I continued to think as I had for so long, like a guilty child, it was all because I had asked for milk.

  Even when that childish notion began to fade, the knowledge of all that I had to answer for tormented me. The one was the continuation of the other. Let me explain.

  I must have been three of four when my mother found me weeping in a corner of our forest retreat. Some pilgrims had stopped and respectfully asked for my father. One of the women had given her child milk to drink from a gourd. The drops that remained on his face were like the pearls of rich men.

  “What is it?” I asked the woman in surprise.

  “What is what?” she asked in greater surprise.

  I put my small finger on the child’s lips.

  “Those are his lips.”

  “No, this,” I said, showing my finger with milk on it.

  “Why, that is milk. Do you not know what milk is?”

  I shook my head. On her face I caught the beginning of a look replacing her surprise. I know now that it was compassion. Just then my mother came in and took me away into a corner of our room with her.

  I knew she did not want to speak of this. Milk had been a forbidden subject since the day I had come home after hearing about it from other boys. Any mention of milk always made her unhappy and thus me too, but it made me curious as well.

  When nobody was looking, I sucked my finger. Even that half-absorbed drop tasted like nectar. When my father came home, I was crying for milk and my mother pretended for a while to continue winnowing rice. Suddenly she turned around, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “It is well to live a righteous life. It is well to live simply and not covet what others have, but we are Brahmins, my lord, and we have not one cow. This is the third time the child has cried for milk.”

  I could not remember the second and have never been able to decide whether my mother invented it in her desperation or not. My father left our hermitage without a word. He was away for some days and when he came back it was not with milk, nor a cow, but with the news that he would be taking us to Hastinapura, to the court of the blind king Dhritarashtra; there he would ask my mother’s brother Kripa to get him a job teaching the grandsons of Bheeshma the martial arts which he had learned from the greatest of all masters, Bhagavan Bhargava himself.

  My father was never the same after this journey. All his life, he continued to be kind and loving to me, but an essential sweetness had dried out of him. I never saw it again.

  This is what had happened.

  While my father was studying at his first ashram together with Prince Drupada, a special friendship grew between them and for some reason Drupada offered the young Brahmin Drona half his kingdom. Perhaps it was an impulsive expression of love and admiration. No doubt a kingdom seemed of much less value in Drupada’s youth than years later when my father, in all his poor Brahmin’s simplicity, went to remind him of his promise.

  I could never understand what it was that made King Drupada so angry, for he was a man who loved justice. Perhaps if my father had gone about it tactfully, Drupada would have sent him home with more cows than he would have known what to do with, but my father always had a
stiffness in him, and indeed a pride, which suited him to solitary life. At least in the forest his anger scarcely ever surfaced and it was I, with my need for milk, who drove him to Drupada, as I have said. There he reminded the king of Panchala that he had promised him half his kingdom, and while he did not claim the kingdom outright, I can imagine the lack of ceremony with which he asked Drupada to give him a place in his court. Drupada must have sensed then the fierce pride of Drona, pupil of the warrior-hating Bhargava. There was nothing humble about my father, and the king was probably right, for even after the humiliation by Panchala, my father behaved in the court of the Kurus more like a king than a Brahmin. He wore white silk and gold. I was treated like a prince, though I knew the Vedas and Vedangas, not as the princes did, but with a Brahmin’s secret knowledge.

  When he returned from Drupada, my father’s mouth was sealed in bitter silence, but I learned later what had happened. Drupada had scorned him. The very idea of having this tiresome, righteous and possibly ambitious, self-centred Brahmin in his court must have made him bristle. It may well have alarmed him. He told my father something to the effect that a poor man could not hope to be the friend of a rich man. My father had roused some devil of cruelty in him: “Mind you, two poor men can be friends; why do you really not look for a poor Brahmin if you need a friend? My friends must be powerful warrior kings. The sort of thing you propose…” and Drupada laughed, waving the possibility away with a jewelled hand.

  “I beg you, Drona, for the sake of your dignity, and mine, not to bring up that boyhood effusion.” He laughed again. “But now, what can I do for you?” He asked this with friendly condescension.

  This was all in the presence of courtiers and servants. The faces of the two attendants fanning him with peacock feather fans did not change, but there were smiles from others around my father who stood below the king’s dais like the supplicant that he did not realize he was; I never learnt whether Drupada softened his insults with an offer of hospitality and gifts—things unthinkable not to offer a visiting Brahmin. There were things no one would tell me.