Did any of us believe that we had got away so easily? I do not know. Our horses carried us at a swift pace, we wanted to get home. Their hooves and the rattle of the chariots said, “Indraprastha, Indraprastha, Indraprastha.” We asked only to be out of Uncle Dhritarashtra’s kingdom. Behind us, we heard the thunder of furiously whipped horses.
21
When we heard the horses we knew there would be no peace until we had killed the Kauravas. The white sky pressed down on us like the ceiling of the Sabha. The air was tainted again. The court messenger drew abreast. We slowed our chariots and stopped. Draupadi began to moan. Bheema jeered: “Did we leave something behind? Our skins perhaps?”
The messenger looked around uncertainly; there was nothing to draw his eyes but the river, with a bull drinking from it under the trees.
“The king invites you…”
We were to be invited for another dice game! Was it possible? Anything was possible. We had been stripped of all but our Dharma and it made cold covering. Duryodhana’s man himself was blustering and embarrassed. Coaxed by us, he said that it had taken Duryodhana but little effort to overcome the scruples of his old father. Duryodhana had said that they would never be forgiven by the Pandavas and that we would certainly not risk Draupadi being insulted again. He wanted just one more game of dice; the loser was to be exiled to the forest for twelve years. The thirteenth year was to be spent among men, but incognito. Discovery during that period would mean death for us.
This time, Great-Granduncle Bablika, Greatfather Bheeshma, Dronacharya, Uncle Vidura, Ashwatthama, Vikarna, Kripacharya, Duryodhana’s youngest brother Yuyutsu, Somadatta, his great-hearted son Bhoorishravas had not failed to protest. Duryodhana’s mother Gandhari said that Duryodhana should indeed have been killed at birth and that they had been wrong to disregard the portents and Uncle Vidura.
Now, here under the sky, Yudhishthira once again behaved like a puppet manipulated by dead and dusty sages who had laid down the law in the Shastras, or was he beckoned incomprehensibly by dice? I was sure of nothing.
We argued and protested all the way back. In the Sabha the quarrelling continued; the elders and our supporters had found their voices at last. Greatfather Bheeshma, Dronacharya, Ashwatthama, and all the others were there and our mother joined them, crying that it was all a sinful disgrace and should not be allowed.
Yudhishthira, in a trance of obstinacy beyond our understanding, threw the dice once more.
We lost, of course, and could not go back to Indraprastha. We were to spend twelve years in forest exile.
When Duhshasana saw us emerging from the palace in deerskins with bowed heads, he went mad with delight and danced around us. I had thought that the insults were over, but the greatest now came from this favourite brother of Duryodhana.
“Look at these monarchs without equal. Look at the King of the World! They are like sesame seeds without their kernels. Panchali, poor Panchali, born of your father’s sacrifice. Your husbands are like stuffed animals now, warriors in skins, no better than eunuchs. Choose one of us for your husband.”
Bheema squeezed his hands together until I thought his bones would snap. He snarled: “I shall remind you of this when I pierce your heart in battle.”
And Duhshasana, seeing Bheema’s restraint, sniffed around him like a jackal, “O Cow, look at this cow.” And put his hand out as though to stroke the deerskin; whereupon Bheema renewed his vow.
“May I not gain heaven if I do not pierce your heart in battle and drink your blood.” Duhshasana stopped in his tracks and drew back his head as though stung, but Duryodhana jumped forward and followed close behind Bheema, caricaturing his lion walk. The laughter of Duryodhana’s courtiers made Bheema turn around.
“I shall kill you, Duryodhana. Karna is for Arjuna and Sahadeva will kill your prize gambler. I say it again, Duryodhana: when you lie prone I shall place my foot on your head.”Bheema’s voice was strangled. Veins stood out on his neck like the roots of trees, and his eyes were red.
As he moved, wrestling him back with my arms I hissed, my mouth close to his ear, “Listen, Bheema, listen.” He struggled and Sahadeva caught his right arm as it slipped my grasp. “I promise you, Bheema. I swear, my arrows will send that treacherous dog to Yama if he tries to keep our kingdom.”
“And I,” said Sahadeva, his face distorted, shall carry out Bheema’s promise to you, Shakuni, son of Subala, if you are not vile enough to avoid battle.”
I felt Bheema begin to stop straining against my arms, and when Nakula promised to make the earth destitute of Dhritarashtra’s sons, Bheema gave a shuddering sigh, I let go, and we followed Yudhishthira to take formal leave of Uncle Vidura, of Uncle Dhritarashtra, of preceptors, and the other kings, of Ashwatthama, Sanjaya, and Vikarna. They were too grieved to speak—and what could they have said?
Uncle Vidura begged, “Your mother, she is a princess and delicately nurtured. Now she is too old to live in the forest again. Let her stay with me.” It gave us a moment of relief to remember that there were humans dispensing comfort to us in this world as well as wild animals trying to devour us.
Uncle Vidura spoke in everyone’s presence: “Yudhishthira, best of the Bharatas, nobody defeated by sinful means should suffer, for he has his Dharma. You have yours. There is no rule of morality unknown to you. Arjuna will never be defeated in battle and Bheema is your protector. Nakula attracts prosperity and Sahadeva has wisdom. You have Dhaumya to guide you. Your incomparable Draupadi has every virtue. Above all, you have delight in one another’s company. The world has seen that nothing can separate you.” Faintly life stirred within me. Uncle turned to Yudhishthira. “Sinless One, this respite from the possession of the world will be a gain for you.” Eldest’s eyes blinked as though he had awoken.
Each of us stood with hands raised in reverential salutation, drinking in his kindness. Suddenly, he sang out in a ringing voice the benediction: “Gain victory that belongs to Indra, control anger which is in Yama, practise charity which belongs to Kubera, control all passions which belong to Varuna.” He closed his eyes. “Find the gift of gladdening from the moon, the power of sustenance from water, forbearance from the earth, energy from the solar disc, strength from the wind and affluence from all the elements. May welfare and protection from all ailments be with you. In the seasons of distress and difficulties act fittingly. We hope to see you return in safety and garlanded with success.” Deeply moved, we bowed to Greatfather, to Uncle Vidura and Sanjaya, and to our preceptors.
Draupadi approached us from the women’s quarters, followed by weeping ladies. Her hair was tangled and she had not changed her bloodstained garments, but her face was set. Our mother watched her with her knuckles pressed against her mouth and then she ran after her in grief and embraced her, managing to say, between sobs, that good women never allowed their hearts to be unstrung, for their virtue conquered all. And then she came to us wailing.
“I should never have left the mountains of Satasringa when your father died. Was that why he wished to gain heaven so soon? Madri was the one who obtained every blessing. It must have been the desire of life which brought this suffering upon me. Has Brahma, the All-Creator, forgotten to ordain me and forgotten that I am still alive? O Krishna, Krishna. Pandu, my King, where are you?”
We had not wept until this moment. It was our last prostration to our mother. We knelt long and felt her hands on our heads in blessing. Then Uncle Vidura led her away. The sound of her keening is still in my heart.
She turned her head once more to say to Draupadi: “Look after my Sahadeva. Do not let his spirit be broken by this tragedy.”
And she looked back no more. Then I saw, for the first time, that she stooped and that youth had left her gait.
The populace mourned. We walked out of the city to the sound of sobbing and wailing. Yudhishthira covered his face with a cloth so as not to direct his blazing eyes against anybody. Bheema stared down at his huge hands as though promising them that one day he would give
them their desires. Sahadeva had smeared his face with turmeric and vermilion and Nakula had blotched his beauty with dust. Draupadi’s hair hung unbound; she had promised to wash it in Duhshasana’s blood and plait it into his entrails. In her bloodstained garment, her hair falling over her face, she walked proudly, weeping, pointing southwards with Kusha grass, and reciting verses to Yama, the Lord of Death.
…the gatherer of men;
Yama, the King, we worship with offerings.
Yama was the first to find us a way.
The pastures that no one shall steal from us,
The path that our ancient Fathers took
All mortals, once born, must tread for themselves.
Take our seat, O Yama, on the sacred grass,
Together with the priests of old and with the Fathers.
May the prayers of the sages bring you hither!
O King, rejoice in this oblation!
She was in a trance. She was chanting for those who would die in battle fourteen years hence.
And what was I doing as I left the city? They told me afterwards that I gathered handfuls of sand and scattered it about myself repeatedly. I threw it up in clouds so that it fell in a rain. The people took the rain as a symbol. Each grain, they said, was one of my arrows aimed at one of the families of our enemies. But I remembered only the sand when they reminded me of it. What I was remembering was Krishna’s assertion that the earth could no longer bear the tread of such men as had done this to us. It was they who were her poison. Krishna had said that together we would cleanse her of them. Would we? For the moment, for the next thirteen years, if I knew Yudhishthira and his passion for keeping a promise—arbiter of all our destinies—I knew that they and their evil would prevail.
The citizens began to throng, pressing around us, keening and wailing.
“Hai. Hai. We are undone.”
“Duryodhana and Karna and that cheating wretch from Gandhara are no rulers for us.”
“Where are our elders?”
“Where were Bheeshma, and Drona, and Vidura, that they allowed this?”
“Shishupala must have been right about Greatfather.”
People of all estates ran to us and threw themselves at our feet, beseeching us not to forsake them.
“We have no elders. They are none who permit your exile.”
“In your presence we gained in virtue. Do not forsake us and leave us to those that are sinful.”
But we did not even have a barren Khandavaprastha to offer them. There was only one way of saving the distraught citizens who were braving the punishment of Duryodhana’s guards: Eldest begged them to go back to Hastinapura and console our mother.
We learned later that each day of our exile a queue of citizens waited before Uncle Vidura’s verandah with offerings of cloth and flowers and food and to take the dust from her feet. They had assured her that they and many others had never stopped considering her the mother of their sons and their only king, Yudhishthira.
We passed through the Vardhamana gate, north of the city. Once we were alone we mounted into the chariots that had followed and went with the few servants allowed us to the mighty banyan tree on the banks of the Ganga. We reached it as the sun touched the western hills. We purified ourselves by touching the sacred waters of the Ganga. We would have to spend the night in the tree’s shelter, and there was no food.
When the sun went down, the Brahmins who had followed us lit the fires and began to chant the Vedas and engage us in holy converse. Familiar sweetness was tainted with the knowledge that tomorrow we would have to send these faithful priests back, for they supported themselves by alms.
When the Maker of Day caused the night to pass, and we had all bathed in the river, we found the Brahmins standing in a semi-circle, waiting for us. I felt sorry for Yudhishthira who had to send them back.
“We thank you for consoling us, but now we must enter the deep forest, where our food will be fruits and roots and whatever we can hunt. We are Kshatriyas and have lived in the forest, but for you it has many dangers. It is full of wild animals and you are from the city and not used to privation. It would add to our sufferings to know that we had imposed our burden upon you. To allow you who follow us out of love to come further would be sinful.”
At which the Brahmins, smiling in delight, settled down to discuss the nature of sin and duty as though this sort of discourse were a good meal. Yudhishthira listened, eyes closed in concentration. A serene old Brahmin with smiling eyes, a specialist in Samkhya Yoga, chanted:
There is not a day unstruck by tears of grief:
The wise escape but never the foolish.
Bheema walked away in search of earthly food.
Yudhishthira sat on, entranced.
The unquiet mind enters the body
Like a hot metal rod in water.
Knowledge acts on the mind like water on fire.
With peace in the mind, the body finds peace.
The root is desire.
Desire breeds desire.
Desire breeds fear.
This good Brahmin had come to heal Yudhishthira’s wounds, and Yudhishthira sat on the ground as though on his throne. Some of his comfort filtered through to me. I knew I was listening to the truth, but I was hungry and distracted by the fear of an outburst from Draupadi or Bheema. Some of the Brahmins finally convinced Eldest that their joy in life would be to stay with us and give us spiritual support. He turned to Dhaumya, so self-effacing in court life, for advice.
Dhaumya went into meditation and when he came out of it, he said in a voice that came from far away: “When creation needed to eat, Surya, the Maker of Day, like a father, took compassion and drew up water through his rays. With heat centred in himself, he waited for the sun’s heat to be converted into clouds which poured down in the shape of water, causing plants to grow. All creatures live on food that comes from the sun’s energy. Thus the sun is the father of us all. Take refuge in him, Yudhishthira, and practise ascetic meditation and find a way to support these twice-borns.”
Yudhishthira offered flowers and, standing in the river, he turned his face towards the sun. Then he chanted the hundred and eight names of our solar father, and after his pranayama he sang the hymn that Dhaumya taught him.
Thou art, O Sun, the eye of the universe:
Thou art the soul of all bodily existences and the source of all things,
The embodiment of spiritual actions and the refuge of those who know the
Mysteries of the soul.
Eldest’s voice began to reverberate and the sun’s rays appeared to beat down on him. As he chanted I saw a light about his head.
Thou sustainest and discoverest the world from pure compassion.
When Yudhishthira came out of his trance, he knelt at Dhaumya’s feet in silence, and in silence lit a fire and himself cleaned and cooked the roots that had been gathered. Though Eldest never spoke of it himself, Dhaumya told me that the Sun had come to Yudhishthira then. Now in our exile we began to realize the measure of our Guru’s virtue and value. However it was, we never ran short of the essentials for all the time we spent in exile. Surrounded by the Brahmins, we set out for the field of Kurukshetra and performed our ablutions in the three rivers, Saraswati, Drisadvati, and the Yamuna.
At the spot where Ulupi had once surfaced beside me, I was reminded of her. I dived into the water, but nothing tugged at my leg. The past is the past.
We travelled west, crossing forests until we came to the Kamyaka which was favoured by the sages. It lay by a level plain on the banks of the Saraswati and abounded in deer and fowl.
We had barely settled into our new routine when we saw a carriage draw up. Draupadi said, “Can it be Shakuni, so kind as to invite us to a royal game of dice?”
It was Uncle Vidura. He had come unescorted.
Draupadi ran forward with Eldest to take the dust from the feet of our beloved Uncle Vidura.
He had no mission; he had come to stay with us. The frightened and con
fused old Dhritarashtra had failed to elicit sympathy from Uncle Vidura and, when Uncle Vidura had spoken the plain truth to him and tried to get him to do something to repair Duryodhana’s folly, Uncle Dhritarashtra had told him to go away like a faithless wife if he wanted to talk like that. We had not thought to laugh so soon in the forest.
“There was no convincing Dhritarashtra,” said Uncle Vidura. “He gave me the scornful look of a young bride married off to an old husband.”
Uncle Vidura looked young and carefree in the forest. Like Yudhishthira, he was in his element, surrounded by trees and sages. Sitting side by side, they looked more like father and son than ever.
Uncle Vidura reconstructed for us what had happened in the palace of Hastinapura while we had slept on empty stomachs under the banyan. Gandhari and the wives of the princes had wailed all night at what had been done to Draupadi and the Brahmins had let the sacred fire go out in protest. The winds had blown furiously over the city and Rahu, the fierce planet, had alarmed the citizens by swallowing the sun in the afternoon. Greatfather and the preceptors and King Somadatta and his son Bhoorishravas and others had walked out of the assembly. Vyasa had been summoned and foretold gravely that we Pandavas would destroy the sons of Dhritarashtra in the fourteenth year. This had made Duryodhana extract a promise from Dronacharya that he would fight for him, and Dronacharya had said that he would fight for Duryodhana though his bitter fate would be to be killed by the son of Drupada. But seeing Karna and Shakuni exulting, he advised them to make the most of their thirteen years, for their happiness would last not an instant after that.
We were still discussing all these prophecies and the old king’s folly when Sanjaya arrived. He stumbled out of his carriage and, ignoring Eldest and all the formalities, ran straight to Uncle Vidura and, clasping his ankles, started pleading. We knew what he was going to say.
“Vidura, your brother is ill. He had not reached the door of his chamber to follow you before he lost his senses and fell to the ground. He repeats your name ceaselessly and wails, ‘Oh what a wretch I am! Oh what a wretch I am!’ Vidura, only you can revive him.”
The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata Page 24