Dhaumya was performing a special sacrifice for Yudhishthira with Draupadi as co-sacrificer. “Om!” intoned Dhaumya. The flames leapt to the touch of the clarified butter, and I heard the clamour of battle. I arrived to find that even the crack Kuru forces had been terrified by the supernatural weapons of the Gandharvas, but that Karna, though wounded, was fighting on and urging Shakuni not to run away. Karna was soon surrounded and, finding the axle of his chariot shattered and his flagstaff falling on top of him, he leapt into Vikarna’s chariot and, whipping up the horses, fled the field. Duryodhana, in a frenzy of stubbornness, received the impact of the Gandharvas’ army and soon found Chitrasena’s hands round his neck throttling him almost to death. He and Duhshasana and several of his other brothers and the royal ladies were taken prisoner and we found ourselves the lords of shops, pavilions, elephants, half-built pleasure houses, and all the royal trappings they had brought with them, including ornamented cowherdesses now ready to dance for the victors.
Wailing, humiliated, and utterly servile, Duryodhana’s courtiers came and interrupted the sacrifice and, suddenly recalling that Yudhishthira was Dharmaraj, they did obeisance and appealed to his sense of justice and mercy. Every time they opened their mouths to speak of the Kuru fate at the hands of the Gandharvas, Bheema said, “Good! It’s nice to know that there is somebody in this world who wishes us well and protects us from mockery.”
Just then, one of Duryodhana’s friends rushed in to say that our cousin had been grabbed by the throat and carried away.
Bheema burst out laughing. “That is rich,” he shouted, trying to slap Eldest’s hands to draw him into his delight. “Carried away, you say? That is marvellous. Let them carry him and his friends as far as anybody can bear to carry them. I wager no one can bear it long. So do not worry overmuch.”
Bheema carried on riotously in this vein, snorting with laughter until the tears ran down his cheeks. “Go and tell our king…” he said to the man, and began laughing so much that he could not finish. He made helpless gestures in the air to try and tell us what he wanted to say. “This loyal servitor of our dearest cousin, who braved untold dangers to come and visit us in our exile…” He and Draupadi began to wipe each other’s tears of laughter. The twins and I tried to smother our own. Bheema gained enough control to say, “Can you imagine that sweetest of all men dragged off by those nasty Gandharvas, and I’m very worried about my dear Shakuni and Karna, those gentle noble souls.”
Eldest, totally unmoved by our mirth and our mood, looked at us with faraway eyes and spoke in a measured voice, “Bheema.” That single word held all the love he had for his brother. “A family dispute has temporarily divided us into the five Pandavas and the hundred Kauravas, but when others are hostile we are a hundred and five brothers.”
My mirth receded like an abruptly turning tide. I sat staring at Eldest in silence. The sacrificial fire leapt up at Eldest’s words and it was in this moment that the sense of Krishna’s mission was revealed to me and I understood why he, the slayer of tyrants, wanted Eldest to rule the world, and why he had urged him to break his vow in order to regain the kingdom.
But Bheema, though not untouched, protested hotly, “Eldest, this is the Duryodhana who tried to burn us alive and who fed the kalakuta and had me trussed and thrown into the Ganga.” His voice rose. “This is the family member who showed his thigh to Draupadi and allowed her to be dragged into the sabha and who wanted her stripped before our eyes. The Gandharvas are doing our work for us, no blame attaches.”
Ironically, just then one of Duryodhana’s officers came to tell us that our cousin, as he was dragged off, had wailed the following message to be delivered to Eldest.
“Your own cousin-brothers are being carried off. Our queens have been insulted. Cousins Bheema and Arjuna, lend us your strength to maintain family honour and dignity, and may the twins lend their valour.”
Eldest said to Bheema, “Receiving a first-born son or a great boon from a god or exercising authority bring great joy, but there is none equal to that obtained by the virtuous rescuing of an enemy. I will follow you, but I must complete the sacrifice first. Even the least of Kshatriyas rescues one who supplicates him—and you are…Bheema.” Once again he had put all his love into the word and now, he turned his gaze back to the sacred flame. With a great sob Bheema turned to do his bidding. I was all set to go. I touched Eldest’s feet and ran down to the lake. The twins were running with me.
Only Yudhishthira could have wiped all thoughts of my love for Chitrasena from my mind and have had me running with the sole intention of rescuing family members in distress. It was only at the end of a long and difficult battle, when I had pinned down Chitrasena with a weapon I had never used before and he was saying, “Arjuna, see, it is your friend Chitrasena you are fighting,” that I retracted the missiles and went forward and embraced Chitrasena.
We laughed and thumped each other on the back, exchanged news, and removed our armour. As we were massaging our arms I asked Chitrasena what it had all been about and why they had humiliated the Kurus to the point of carrying off and insulting their ladies.
Chitrasena replied, “And what did they do to Draupadi in the Sabha? I will tell you how it was. Indra knew that they had come to mock you and he sent me to protect you because you are my friend and disciple, and he told me to make Duryodhana and his friends captive and bring them to him.”
I told him, knowing that it would be difficult to explain, that Eldest was not interested in revenge and that he wanted them released.
Chitrasena stared at me, hardly believing this possible, for the laws that obtain in Indra’s heaven, as I knew from my stay there, were very different from Yudhishthira’s Dharma. Chitrasena was at a loss and at last he said, scratching his head, “Let us go to your brother and if that is really what he wants, and if you are sure that this is what you want, I will set them free.”
Having Yudhishthira to thank for his freedom, Duryodhana left for Hastinapura lifeless with shame. Small wonder. I do not think I could have survived. And Duryodhana, who since childhood was less capable of bearing slights than any other person I had ever known, resolved to put an end to his life and stopped taking any nourishment whatsoever. Duryodhana not only refused to eat but would neither speak nor sleep. He sat on a bed in his tent brooding, Karna went to him at dead of night and congratulated him on the defeat of the Gandharvas. At last, Duryodhana consented to turn his dull gaze on Karna and told him that since he owed his life to us, he would never enter Hastinapura alive. He called Duhshasana, took the scent from his hair, and told him to return to Hastinapura which was now his kingdom. Duhshasana wept bitterly and clasped his Eldest’s ankles and the two brothers sobbed together. Karna tried to rally them. He told them that our saving our kinsmen was the most natural thing in the world. For once he could not rouse Duryodhana who sat where he was and continued to refuse nourishment. Karna called Shakuni, the last person I could have chosen to see in my moment of shame.
“If your humiliation cuts so deep, perhaps you should give the Pandavas back their kingdom. He who would play a winning game must have endurance, must not be brought down even by insult.”
Shakuni got no answer, for Duryodhana was already preparing for death. He spread Kusha grass on the ground, touched water, and dressed himself in Kusha grass and rags. He turned his attention inwards, trying to send his soul to heaven by yogic means.
He must have come near enough to his purpose to alarm beings of the nether regions, for the sage who reported all this saw the chilling vision of them pouring libations into a sacrificial fire to summon Duryodhana to their underworld. They persuaded him to renounce his vow of starvation. They reminded him that a suicide always goes to hell. They told him that demons had been born on earth to help him defeat his enemies. They promised that Greatfather Bheeshma and Drona themselves would be possessed by demons who would harden their hearts even against us whom they loved. “You have no need to fear Arjuna in battle,” they told him. “Fo
r even though his father, Wielder of the Thunderbolt and Lord of Heaven, will try and protect his son by taking Karna’s protective earrings and mail, you, Duryodhana, will obtain from Krishna himself a full akshauhini of Samsaptakas who will take vows to conquer Arjuna or die. They will kill him.”
For a time the mere thought of those who loved us, Greatfather, our Acharyas, and Ashwatthama having their hearts turned away from us by demonic forces, left a dull pain in my own heart and it weakened me. I tried to harden myself by visualizing the demonically grinning faces at which I would have to shoot, but all I could summon were the eyes that had gazed like the benevolent sun on my adolescence.
The sage tried to cheer me by reporting the last words of the beings of the underworld to Duryodhana. “You are our refuge; hold your courage high, we will defeat your enemies, but if you die you weaken us. The Pandavas are the refuge of the gods.”
In time both the good and the bad of this message dimmed like a dream melted by the sun, for it had all happened beyond the boundaries of the world we moved in.
Two days later we saw Duryodhana’s standard flying at the head of his retreating army. Behind him came his horses and elephants and chariots and infantry. The swarming royal white umbrellas and royal whisks and pennants were like moving clouds against the sky. Restored to flaming splendour, Duryodhana, accompanied by Karna, Shakuni, and Duhshasana and the kings, Bhoorishravas, Somadatta, and the mighty Bablika, returned the salutations of the forest Brahmins and bent his head to receive their benedictions.
So they returned to their capital, and to the reproaches of Greatfather who censured our cousin for being under the sway of the baseborn Karna. At which Duryodhana laughed and walked out, followed by Karna who would feel this thorn in his heart until his end.
Karna would need to conquer the entire world to wipe away the memory of those insults he had been hearing all his life, and he almost did.
In our forest exile we heard in our hearts and minds, as Uncle Vidura’s messengers came to us, the tread and rattle of Karna’s army as it swept the length and breath of the world. His first act was to besiege the beautiful city of Panchala and exact tribute from Draupadi’s father—an arrow shot directly into all our hearts. He made all the princes that were subject to Drupada pay tribute to him. He conquered the kings of the north and then, moving east, he conquered the Angas and the Kalingas, the Mandikas and the Magadhans. He went down to the south, as Sahadeva had done, and reduced Rukmi himself. He even defeated Shishupala’s son, whom Yudhishthira had installed as king at the Rajasuya, and made peace with the Avantis. In the western quarter he extracted tribute from the Yavana kings, the white-faced barbarians. In effect, he was now able to offer to Duryodhana the world that we had brought to Yudhishthira. Uncle Dhritarashtra could no longer dismiss him as the son of a Suta, but received him and embraced him affectionately. Our only consolation was that Greatfather would still have nothing to do with him, though he was the Commander-in-Chief of Duryodhana’s army.
In Hastinapura, it was now a foregone conclusion that the Pandavas would be defeated by Karna in battle. The way seemed open for Duryodhana’s Rajasuya, but the Brahmins pointed out that with Yudhishthira and his own father still alive, this was not possible. They offered, however, to make the gold that his tributary kings brought into a ploughshare to plough up the sacrificial compound in order to perform the great Vaishnava sacrifice performed by Vishnu himself and which they assured him was equal to the Rajasuya.
It was Duhshasana who kindly thought of sending us an invitation to the sacrifice. The messenger was well primed and told us in detail of the preparations and the precious golden plough. The sacrifice was being attended by Greatfather, our Acharyas, and our Uncle Vidura himself. Our hearts burned.
Yudhishthira alone was able to summon enough calm to answer courteously, “It is by good fortune that King Duryodhana celebrates this best of sacrifices. If it were not for our vow we should certainly leave this Dwaita forest, but as you may have heard, we are in exile for thirteen years.”
Whereupon Bheema jumped up and finished, “At the end of which Eldest, in the sacrifice of battle, will pour the clarified butter of our fury into the sacrificial fire and throw Duryodhana into it.”
All our friends and well-wishers, even Uncle Vidura, were entertaining the kings of Bharatavarsha and feeding Brahmins by the thousands. We as good as heard the conches and the panegyrists eulogizing the Prince of Great Prowess and the Bowman, only this time it was not Eldest and it was not me. And I could see the kings and citizens sprinkling Duryodhana with fried paddy and singing his praises, and I could see and hear the sycophants.
“Yudhishthira’s Rajasuya cannot compare with this.”
“Duryodhana has a much better sense of things than the Pandavas. Didn’t we say since the day he crowned Karna King of Anga that Arjuna could not touch him?”
And I swear that one night I heard Duryodhana saying that this was nothing compared to the sacrifice they would perform once they had killed Eldest in battle. All these things caused my heart to twist and turn impotently, and, always and everywhere, it was the beautiful but insolent face of the son of the Suta that thrust itself into my vision. I knew that he had promised Duryodhana he would kill me. I had no fear of death, but when we heard Karna’s vow that he would not drink wine and that he would grant any favour asked of him until the day he killed me, I saw Eldest anxious. His belief in Karna’s prowess ate into me. At the same time Duryodhana was consolidating his position and celebrating sacrifices with handsome gifts to Brahmins. People had forgotten what he had done to us. They were even saying that he ruled justly and with generosity.
It was then, when our spirits were at their lowest ebb, that the deer came to Eldest in a dream and begged him with tears to move from the Dwaita forest so that the remnant of the deer race might remain as seed to propagate itself. So it was that we moved to the Kamyaka forest to pass the rest of our exile there. Eldest after all these years, had suddenly lost his hard-earned peace of mind, and we could find no way to relieve him of his self-reproach, nor to make him sleep peacefully.
He shouted in his dream, “Bring me fire to burn my hands.”
Bheema heard him and wept. I do not know how it would have ended if Vyasa had not come. He assured his eldest grandson once again that after the thirteenth year he would regain possession of his kingdom.
Vyasa’s visit gave us heart, and when he left, this was how we were able to persuade Yudhishthira to come hunting with us. One day, after the rains had subsided leaving everything shimmering and new, we asked Draupadi to say that the stocks of food were very much depleted and that we were in danger of letting the Brahmins go hungry.
As usual, we advised Draupadi to be most cautious: she must be careful when bathing in case of crocodiles and she must not stray from the clearing.
“Go and hunt,” she said. “With no food to cook, I will have nothing to do but sit here and long to see you. I shall do that anyway, so do not worry.”
A grand swayamvara had been held for Dusala, Duryodhana’s only sister, and several kings were returning through the forest. We had seen none of them but had heard the sound of their chariots. In the first year of our exile we would have hoped that an allied king would cross our path so that we could hear the news and talk of battles, but now we were happy running through the dripping forest, refreshed and glad of the exercise.
Bheema spotted a splendid buck and all else was forgotten in the chase. The forest was made up of so many shades of leaves that it was like a palace of green light and everywhere flowers like rich gems burst out in all the colours of the universe.
While we were hunting Jayadratha, the King of Sindhu and neighbour to Gandhara, on his way home after winning Dusala, saw Draupadi combing her long black hair which fell in torrents to her feet. He could marry this fascinating woman and take her straight back to his palace. How surprised and pleased she would be to find she had captivated a great king. He sent Kotika, King of Suratha, to her
.
“I am Kotika, King of Suratha,” he said. “That handsome king with lustrous hair gazing at you is King Jayadratha of Sindhu, husband of Dusala the Kuru Princess, accompanied by a retinue of kings. Now that you know who we are, maybe you will tell us who you are.”
“If you are kings I should not have to remind you that a woman alone must not speak, yet I will tell you so that you may have no excuse not to treat me as a king’s daughter. My father is Drupada and I have five husbands who are hunting nearby.”
The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata Page 28