The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  Stripped of their maces Bheema and Uncle circled warily. Then Bheema closed in. A wrestling match began; the voices rose to a new pitch. Bheema, head down, had Uncle Shalya in a bear hold. Uncle Shalya struggled to release himself. His biceps bulged, the veins of neck and forehead looked about to burst. His arms were pinioned flat and Bheema held him fast in a leg lock. It looked as though it would be over then, for Bheema’s strength of arm could paralyse his breathing. Uncle Shalya’s face grew dark with blood, but he had not gained his wrestling reputation for no reason. He threw himself upon his back and kicked his legs up. Bheema flew up behind him and twisted just in time to do a hand-spring instead of landing on his head. They turned around to face each other and, crouching low, they waited. Then Bheema made the tiger leap, but uncle was the quicker man. As he stepped aside Bheema lost his purchase of him before it was established. Faltering, he staggered back. Uncle Shalya charged forward to butt him with his head, but just before he rammed into him Bheema had recovered. Bow-legged and boulder-firm, he caught Uncle Shalya in a neckhold. Uncle Shalya worked his leg behind the knee of Bheema and gave a jerk that brought them both crashing down. Uncle Shalya lay on top of Bheema.

  “Bheema, son of Pandu!” yelled the men. “Bheema, Bheema, Bheema.” I dug my fingers into Krishna’s arm not knowing what I did. Bheema who had killed Jarasandha of Magadha and strangled Keechaka was lying helpless. But, suddenly, he had rolled over and was back on top of Uncle Shalya, pressing on his windpipe. His legs were locked beneath his back. Now it had to end. I started breathing once again. We had always heard it said that Balarama and our Uncle Shalya were the only two who could meet Bheema in the wrestling pit, but I had not believed it.

  Uncle jerked his knee free and twisted to the side. They rolled over in the dirt and then over once again. First Bheema on the top, then Uncle Shalya. Bheema started banging Uncle Shalya’s head against the ground. Blood streamed into the dust and both men’s hair was matted with it. They were groping to their feet again and locked into each other’s arms, staggering backwards and then forwards. Now Bheema had a thumb on uncle’s windpipe. Uncle’s arms fell to his sides and then he dropped like wet linen. Bheema himself tottered sideways, punching at his open chest. Before he could return to finish Uncle Shalya, Duryodhana’s chariot had drawn up. It pulled him in and drove away.

  The conches sounded, the drums and cymbals went wild.

  Eldest was guarded by Dhrishtadyumna and Satyajit whose lives were for him but Karna decoyed Dhrishtadyumna while Dronacharya pierced the second line of our defence. Krishna turned the horses’ heads. Cold with horror, I found that I was shooting at my guru.

  We drove him back. Though I hated Dronacharya then, there was no gladness in my victory. Devotion turned to hatred is a bitter thing. If he was Duryodhana’s and Shakuni’s pawn, I would not call him guru. My anger helped me to defeat him once again that day, which earned him scorn from Duryodhana in front of all the generals. As though he were a wayward pupil, he was scolded for his vanity in making promises he could not keep. Dronacharya had replied angrily that he could not fight us all at once. When I heard of his humiliation, the stirring in my heart told me that he was still my guru. There was a knot that bound us and would not be loosed. He promised that if I were kept away he would show the value of his word. In this promise Abhimanyu’s fate was sealed, and that of Jayadratha. It is not in military academies that battles are born. They are forged in the fire of pride and anger in the hearts of men.

  Duryodhana looked about him and then asked who would dispatch me on the morrow. My sworn enemies, the five Trigarta brothers, now stepped forward and took the ritual oath before the sacred fire: if they failed to kill me they would immolate themselves. News of this went round the Kaurava camp like a runaway horse. And soon enough, it galloped to ours.

  9

  Krishna and I disguised ourselves to cross the lines that night, armed with Trigarta bows and swords, cloths wrapped around our heads. The man before us said, “Arjuna dies tomorrow.”

  Krishna murmured it to the sentry and then followed him. I thought the sentry recognized me, so I quickly said, “Arjuna dies tomorrow.” But it made my flesh come up in little bumps. The camp was silent but the password echoed in the cavern of my empty head. Crores of men had said, “Arjuna dies tomorrow.” Once Dhaumya had explained that repetition gives strength to a mantra.

  The camp was strewn with men on sacred kusha grass and many others came behind us. The Malavas, the Tundikeras, the Mavellakas, the Lalitthas, and the Madrakas had all come to take the oath. I looked about covertly, then sat, and closed my eyes. This was another sort of battle. A heaviness descended. I might have lost my senses then if Krishna had not put his hand upon my arm.

  All around, the men were rubbing ghee into their bodies and Krishna held the pot towards me. I slowly spread ghee on my chest as one does on a corpse. The priests in front were chanting benedictions before the sacred fire, and then one voice rose up above the others.

  “If we flee from the field or come from battle while Arjuna lives, may we all go to the dark realms of Patala hell.” Thousands of throats sent the chant up to the skies. The stars were listening. I felt my courage draining out of me as water does from a cracked pot.

  “Let those who flee deserve the realms reserved for Brahmin killers, the realms to which disciples go who sleep with gurus’ wives.”

  I shivered.

  “The realms for those who eat a king’s salt and prove disloyal.”

  “The realms for those who indulge in sex on days of shraddha.”

  “The realms for those who debase their Atman.”

  “The realms for those who abandon the sacred fire and their parents and who lay waste a fertile field.”

  “The realms for murderers of refuge-seekers.

  Why had Krishna brought me here?

  Krishna sat deep in meditation. I looked upon the field: there was a terrifying beauty in the countless flickering lamps that lit the faces of me oath-takers. A night breeze sent them streaming east. The men began to file before the sacred flame. They touched water with their fingers. Krishna placed his right palm to my back. My spine felt warm and tingled. Then from its base a steady fire mounted. Suddenly, my strength reversed itself. It energized my body and my heart and mind. Within myself I took the oath: Arjuna lives tomorrow. Arjuna fights tomorrow and nobody will kill him. I knew why Krishna had brought me.

  We crossed the lines back to our camp.

  Satyajit, prince of Panchala, could be trusted to guard Eldest with his last breath. For Satyajit, Eldest was not only the king, he was lord of heaven; he would not need an oath to die for Eldest.

  Krishna addressed the men: “You may have heard, my brothers, that the Trigartas have sworn to kill Arjuna which everybody knows is not an easy matter. Oaths are important when you are frightened. These men were wise to touch water and spread ghee upon their bodies. You know why they had to do all that?” He mimicked frightened men rubbing their bodies. Our men laughed and shouted in delight.

  “They are frightened.”

  “They are terrified,” Krishna said. “They must use oaths to nail men to the battlefield. They have invoked upon themselves the hells reserved for those who kill the refuge-seeker, for those who lay waste fertile fields, who eat a king’s salt and prove disloyal.

  “Such things are powerless against the purity of Dharma. For thirteen years of exile the Pandavas have kept their oath. What strength, what power is carried by the oaths of frightened men? What is one night compared with thirteen years of truth and Dharma?” The men stood rapt. “We need no oaths, you know that Dronacharya has boasted he will capture Dharmaraj to make him play another game of dice.” The muttered protests turned to roars. He stopped them with his hand. “I do not think you will protect King Yudhishthira with your lives. I know you will.” Then voices called, “We shall, we shall, no drop of blood of his shall fall!”

  “King Duryodhana would have him in the forest for a second thir
teen years, then another, and another.” Growls rolled into thunder; Krishna’s voice rang out above it. “If Arjuna guards the king, no one can capture him, so they have found a way to get past him; each one of you must be Arjuna. See that Satyajit is always covered; he rides before the king.” We made Eldest promise that if Satyajit was lost, he would return to camp. Then Krishna stood upon the charioteer’s seat and blew notes of victory as though we had already won the day.

  Many strange things happened in the war of Kurukshetra. But what happened with the Trigartas on that twelfth day is burned into my memory. The Trigartas battled for their salvation. There was fierce fighting hand to hand. But when Krishna blew his conch and chanted a particular mantra, the Trigartas fell upon each other. For them, everyone they faced was Krishna or Arjuna. Krishna would not explain this except to say, “It was our darshan to them and a benediction.”

  We returned at midday, battered but triumphant, to protect Eldest but he was in his tent. Again our guru had cut through our first line of defence and through our second, a metal fortress raining arrows, with rows and rows of chariots behind him. Like wild ducks in mid-air they did not break formation.

  Our guru got so close to Eldest that Satyajit jumped into Dronacharya’s chariot, slashing downwards with his sword. Dronacharya’s body-eyes had warned him and Satyajit had leapt chest first onto his sword.

  This sacrifice gave Eldest time to turn and flee. But Dronacharya came thundering behind. They say he drew beside him, poised to leap, when the Kekayas, Dhrishtadyumna and his brothers, and Virata came to bar his way. Virata’s brother Satanika lost his life in the defence. Eldest’s son Prativindhya galloped to the rescue on a Sindhu horse, leading a second horse for his father. Then while Shikhandin and Satyaki kept Dronacharya busy, Eldest jumped onto the horse and rode off with Prativindhya. More than two score of our men closed around on horses to escort him. A dozen of them fell by Dronacharya’s arrows but Eldest reached our camp in safety.

  Nothing could stop Dronacharya after that. He was everywhere. Our forces had to scatter. Out of the chaos Bheema turned his chariot round to face the enemy, screaming for the cavalry to follow, and in so doing turned the tide. We came up from the southern field in time to give him our support and drove our guru back. Nothing should have stopped us now, yet Bhagadatta did. It is not to be believed that just a single elephant can stop an army but Supratika, remembering Bheema, and with squeals of malice, came down upon his chariot. We thought Bheema was finished but he had slipped beneath the elephant to torment him with the anjalikavedha which I had only heard about at the academy. He pummelled the elephant’s testicles until the poor beast swivelled like a potter’s wheel. When Bheema finally stepped out, the great long trunk came reaching out and pulled him under again.

  “Bheema is dead,” the cry went up a second time. “Prince Bheema!” Eldest, overtaking Satyaki and breaking through his row of bodyguards, attacked king Bhagadatta. Eldest’s arrows did nothing more than shred the varandaka and wound the gajaroha. Supratika knew exactly what to do. He headed straight for Satyaki and crushed the chariot into a heap of splintered wood and twisted metal. Satyaki jumped. Bheema appeared and ran to him. Supratika reached right out and with his trunk pulled Bheema up and would have dashed him to his death. But Bheema jammed his fist into his nostril, and catching his great ear he swung from it and slithered down. The elephant rushed into our protective mandala. It was as I had feared. The enemy was Supratika.

  “Get Supratika now!” I yelled.

  With trunk outstretched and ears held back, Supratika crushed Satyaki’s horses. Satyaki jumped into Abhimanyu’s chariot and both were shooting at the elephant, but the mass of its steel armour stopped our heaviest arrows.

  Krishna brought us closer; I felt the breath upon my neck and arms and smelt hot blood. Dodging wide the trunk that probed for us, I lifted my longest lance. Standing on the chariot’s seat and clinging to my mast, I thrust with all the strength of my right arm, through the gold netting. I felt the temple crunch and leant against it hard. I sent it deep and when the beast tottered back I shot an arrow in behind to drive it deeper. Bhagadatta pressed his toe spurs into his mount to turn his head towards us, but with a piteous scream the great head swung and swung to shake the lance loose. And then it stopped and, like a mighty hill, collapsed. Its tusks drove down into the ground. Bhagadatta screamed, “Supratika, Supratika, my friend, my warrior!” Then he lay back within the shattered varandaka to shoot at us. He looked as though ten years had swept his face, and then another ten. His eyes were raining tears. My arrow pierced his forehead, and he lost his grip. His bow and arrows fell. He slithered down, and lying prone he laid his cheek against the elephant’s right ear and spoke to him. The fighting ebbed; I shouted for a truce: “Acharya, they are dying. We want to do pradakshina around Bhagadatta and Supratika.”

  Dronacharya led the way. In silence, all the chariots, elephantry, cavalry, and infantry circled them and gazed and gazed as the spirits of these two kings began to leave their bodies. Bhagadatta tried to lift his arm in salutation to us. When surgeons broke the circle, they found there was no work for them and they joined in the pradakshina.

  The day was won but the setting sun saw Dhrishtadyumna still waging battle with Dronacharya. His bowmen pressed so tight around them that no one could approach. The sun lit up one last cloud at the edges. It was burnished red and gold. It paled and then it darkened.

  10

  Krishna once said to me—and my father’s father, Island-born Greatfather Vyasa, said it too—that if you want to reach the highest heaven, you must be ready to let go of the thing you most love. Then the truth of your surrender brings it back to you in the strength of your full freedom.

  The big days of our lives sometimes begin without event. The gods send you no auguries. The water that you stand in to salute the sun catches its rays in silver like the water of another day. The sun itself marshals its heat to warm you and auspicious cranes may even scale its face. Perhaps if the auspices had not been good I would have stayed to protect Eldest and somehow found a way to avoid the Trigartas’ challenge. I would have followed Abhimanyu. Or so the mind will try to tell you.

  It was many years before I saw that it can be a grace not to be allowed to interfere.

  During Subhadra’s pregnancy I used to speak to her of days gone by with Dronacharya. She was a Kshatriya heroine through and through, and had been trained by Krishna to ride and shoot and swim. Unlike our landlocked maids who swam in bathing ponds she rode the highest waves and came in like a gull. When she became too heavy to ride out with me, we would draw vyuhas in the sand; it was never too early, she had said, for our son to learn. She never doubted that she bore a warrior hero. The fates were working even then for on the day I drew the Chakra vyuha for her, the one that I had vowed to Dronacharya to keep secret from everybody but my son, I had to leave her in the middle. So she had learned its entry only. When I returned to her she was asleep, one arm smudging the vyuha stem. You do not wake your love for military tactics and so I gazed upon the cascade of her hair and on her form that housed our son. Why should it matter in those days of peace? The vyuhas were a game for us, like chess that could be left upon the board or swept from it to start again. That was before the game of dice which took me to the forest and her to Dwaraka to stay with Krishna. Greatfather had said there is a pattern in our lives we cannot read while we are making it. After exile in Virata when only war was on our minds, I taught the same vyuha to my son, but once again after the entry we were interrupted, for he was newly wed and Uttaraa had sent for him.

  On the thirteenth day once more Susharma of the Trigartas rode up to challenge me.

  Once in battle on the southern side, I no longer thought of Dronacharya, for when you fight your head must be where your feet and arrows are. I did not like this battle; there was no purity in it. The Trigarta men fought out of fear of going to Patala hell, like those women who sleep with husbands that they fear. By midday I saw it was an idl
e boast that we could thrash them and return to Eldest before the sun was high. When it had reached the western hills, our losses were so grave we struggled back to camp with but a semblance of an army. Our way was strewn with corpses. Clearly twice as many men had died as on the worst of other days. What would the vyuhas look like when they formed tomorrow?

  My open wounds had lost much blood. And though my body was too rent with pain to admit much thought beyond it, in the detachment of my fever I caught a ragged tail of something like a dream: we were riding on a beach with Abhimanyu and Subhadra. Here, under a fading sky our gashed horses gave their last strength to drawing us away. Upon the ground I saw a severed head that bit its nether lip in anger. Great shadowy shapes flapped around the dead; others hunched, intent upon their prey. We heard the ripping of dead flesh. The exhausted horses almost ran us into a soldier sitting propped up by his armour. The vultures must have thought he was alive for they avoided him. Krishna looked round as though he searched the air for omens.

  There were twice as many men in Eldest’s tent as usual. In silence they made way for us. Eldest’s seat was empty. My first thought was that they had captured him but he sat on Bheema’s lap and wept while Bheema murmured like a mother in his ear. I looked about me. Virata and Drupada looked as though they mourned their sons, but none were missing that had been alive this morning. Kuntibhoja and Chekitana were there and so were the Chedi princes, the twins and Satyaki, and all the princes of Panchala and our five sons by Draupadi. Nobody looked at us, no one greeted us; no one spoke. We might have been the shades that roam the battlefield not knowing they are dead, with Eldest weeping for us. “We are alive,” I said to Eldest. Was it a fever dream? Now Krishna was beside me and I knew. Eldest freed himself and came towards us; he tried to speak but could not.

  I said with stiff lips: “Where is Abhimanyu?”

  Eldest shook his head and took me in his arms. The sound of weeping broke forth on all sides. I let them make me sit. I let them stroke my head and cheeks. I let them put the potions to my lips. Nothing could make a difference now. Later that night when my thoughts returned to me, I wondered why we had tried to stop Duryodhana from one more game of dice. We could have gone to forest exile and shared our lives with Abhimanyu and Subhadra for thirteen years. How could we have failed to think of that? I saw the brightness on his face, the crow-wing locks that hid his temples, the way he had, like Krishna, of observing me and smiling as though I were his son and he were proud of me and somehow amused. I used to boast to him and now I saw I never asked him how he felt about this thing or that and what his thoughts and dreams were. The weeks after his wedding had been full of preparation for the war. Now I would never know what he had in his heart about the days that he had lived. I knew he could have died only one way; he was a heroic warrior. It was the way he lived that I must ask about—the things that he did as a child were what I wanted to ask Krishna and Subhadra about. I would find out later who had killed him and I would destroy that man.