22
Draupadi’s silence hurt us more than any words she could have said. Her great eyes swept us without recognition. She would not be supported and allowed only Subhadra to hold her hand. We feared that she would never speak again. There was extremity in her silence, it was as though a pillar that supported her, and if she spoke, her words would break it. If she had cried I would have held her, but her dry and withdrawn eyes forbade it. We wept, even Bheema was careful not to break the silence with his sobs. Without raising her eyes she said at last in a passive, musing way: “But who of you is weeping for my sons, for his sons? When Abhimanyu died you mourned for him. You mourned for Ghatotkacha when he was killed. But now you weep for me, your queen.”
Bheema gave out a sob which said that it was true. I felt the pang of it. She turned her head this way and that as though pondering what to think and what to feel. I was afraid. During our forest exile she had so often been beside herself with bitterness and rage and grief. And then she must have known that after thirteen years her sons, her twin and other brothers, and her father waited for her. But now she had five husbands who had failed her once again. Her eyes had said it when she looked at us: she was alone and had no one with whom she could share her grief. Bheema bit his knuckles as he looked at her, twisted his shoulders, and rolled his head in anguish. Then, suddenly, he leapt up and shouted, “I will kill Ashwatthama!” He turned his back on us and ran.
“Bheema!”
Her voice that came from far away commanded him. It pulled him back like a noose. He sat at a little distance from her feet and waited. After a while, still from afar, she said, “Enough, enough of killing. We have the head of Jayadratha. We killed Keechaka. Duryodhana and Duhshasana are dead. That does not bring my sons to life nor does it bring my brothers.”
There was another heavy silence and then she drew a long and shuddering breath. “There was a glow on Ashwatthama’s face. It was his head gem. He had a power with it which he misused. It must be taken from him. We do not want his head. Eldest must wear the gem; he will protect the sons of others. The king must wear it.” She spoke not as a woman or a queen but as a priestess. We had not heard her speak like this before. Her voice had a new timbre, like gold that has been purified in the crucible of anguish.
Bheema gazed at her. His features softened. Then he left to look for Ashwatthama. When Krishna came back with Daruka and heard of it, he got straight back into his chariot, pulling me in with him. We followed Bheema.
“To Greatfather Vyasa’s ashram!”
In our torment everyone but Krishna had forgotten that Ashwatthama had the Brahmasira astra. Dronacharya had taught no one but Ashwatthama and myself, and I must counteract it. Part of what was needed was to hold in mind the welfare of the earth and all its creatures including him who sent the astra. Even as Daruka drove us through the countryside, I prepared my mind and heart. They embraced the trees and sky. I sent my mind out to the four corners and the ten directions. I held the three worlds in my heart, but when I drew in the one who sent it, the flow was stopped. It came against something that would not be dislodged. It stood between Ashwatthama and me, a black unyielding doom. I drew upon my memories: Ashwatthama and I racing to the river to fill our guru’s waterpots, and the fire of affectionate appraisal in Dronacharya’s eyes. He loved us both, Ashwatthama as the only son and me as someone whom you fall in love with. I saw the water and the water pots, the sun that made the river silver and Ashwatthama’s eager smile. I summoned them, but nothing yielded to my grief and anger. I tried remembering his face, the way it glowed, but all that I could see was something on the surface of the skin. I said inside myself the words that he had spoken in our defence. They did not quicken. I saw him pleading with Duryodhana for peace and dancing as he sang the hymn.
My heart was a great stone. The sweat stood out upon my brow. The road turned and the river came to meet us. We were nearing the ashram. My heart was pounding. I felt the force of Krishna struggling with my ill-will.
23
When Island-born Greatfather Vyasa heard the chariot wheels, he came out to receive us. We took the dust from his feet and he raised us up.
As if his scent was on the air I looked around and knew that Ashwatthama was not far. And then I saw him. His face had lost its lustre and was like an animal’s. His eyes were full of fear and madness. He wore a piece of woven kusha grass around his body smeared with ghee and dust. This was no warrior, but a poor Nishada or a Shudra. No! he was less than that. He had a dreadful crooked smile and bowed to us as menials do. I saw that he was mad. The pity and disgust of it turned my fury to revulsion. He crouched there like a beggar and picked up something from the ground to stare at. The air thickened, turning dark and closed in. There was evil in it and we saw the smoking stalk of grass he held. Krishna shouted: Wait, Ashwatthama! By all your hopes of a warrior’s heaven, wait! We have not come to harm you.”
The Kshatriya cannot loose his weapons on a madman any more than on a woman. The grass began to grow and spit out fire. Holding it up, he stared at us, his mouth agape as if to speak. As Krishna moved towards him, the gaping mouth intoned: “let the world be pandava-lessssssssssss!”
He laughed and, throwing back his head, he sent the stalk into the air, like a javelin aimed at heaven. I could not breathe. My blood had curdled.
“Now! Quickly now,” called Krishna. It was not hatred of Ashwatthama that stopped me. I was bereft of thoughts and words, incapable of the condition that could have called his words back. Something had paralysed me. The air was filled with dread. The ashram cows and buffaloes bellowed, thunder pealed. It wrapped the heart in darkness. Krishna grabbed my arm and dug his fingers into it. “The world will be destroyed, Arjuna.” But still I could not. I turned my face to him. “Call upon your love for me,” he pleaded. Something shifted and flowed; inside I bowed to Krishna and Dronacharya, to my parents and to all the gods. I wished the welfare of the worlds, I bowed to Ashwatthama and called a blessing on him.
“Let all evil intent die upon this weapon.” I took an arrow from my quiver. I concentrated and felt the mantras come welling up to inspire my arrow. It floated into the sky. Ashwatthama’s stalk had expanded into energy. It hovered in the air above our heads and grew with every peal of thunder as lightnings flashed in it. The earth pressed hard against my feet. My arrow spiralled upwards and condensed into another ball of fire that grew more quickly than the other. The spheres wheeled languidly about each other.
“You must withdraw these weapons.” It was Island-born Greatfather’s voice thrown from a distance and compelling. “If they collide, you call a Yuga to its end. The world will be destroyed. Withdraw your weapon. I shall help Ashwatthama withdraw his.”
I drew on all the merit of my penances. I closed my eyes and climbed the mountains to find Shiva who destroys universes, but could not call him from his meditation. In hopelessness I closed my eyes and waited for the world to disappear. I was at Krishna’s feet and felt myself widen into vastness. I forgot what I was striving for.
When I opened my eyes I saw my sphere shrink while Ashwatthama’s gathered force; Island-born Greatfather had been powerless to help him. With shamed, hunched shoulders and a furtive look, Ashwatthama said: “It will not obey me. I cannot call on purity to help me. I can only change its course a little…it must go to the Pandavas.” He closed his eyes; with utmost malice he intoned, “Let destruction go to the Pandava wombs.” We saw Island-born Greatfather coming up over the river slopes.
“For your own sake retract it,” he called.
“That I can never do. You must choose. Either the Pandavas must die or all the Pandava children waiting in their mothers’ wombs.”
“These Pandavas shall not die.” Krishna’s voice reverberated. “I tell you now that Uttaraa, the wife of Abhimanyu, bears his child and that he too shall live.” I heard Krishna’s words but did not understand them yet.
“Ashwatthama,” cried Greatfather Vyasa, “you have forfeited the right to w
ear this gem; it does not protect you any more. Give it to Krishna now.”
“Since you have robbed me of its power, take it.” He threw it at our feet. “But I tell you that the child shall die.” Krishna said, “We shall see which is stronger. Truth or the power of your astra. The child may be stillborn. But I tell you this: nothing can stop him from being brought to life again.
You have pulled fate down upon yourself. You have used the Narayanastra against the side I stood for. You have seen how you have fallen by your own hand, even the great god Shiva could not stop it. Neither I nor anyone can lift it, for Truth will not allow it. You will live forever; that is the curse. You will wander this earth, alone, reviled, with no one by your side, from place to place, country to country, bodied or bodiless. You will see the male child now in Uttaraa’s womb rule the world for sixty years.”
24
It sometimes happens that when warriors fight they keep fevers at bay. As though misfortune lurked, I felt a tightness in my throat. Two of my wounds were festering.
We had hardly left the camp to go towards Hastina when we saw royal white umbrellas against the sky. It was Uncle Dhritarashtra and a procession from Hastinapura.
It is not considered auspicious to hold reunions on the road, so we turned back. No miracle could make our meeting easy after these fourteen years. The last words I remembered with any clarity from uncle’s mouth were those hissed into Sanjaya’s ear when the dice stopped rolling, “Who won that throw?” We had no wish to add to evil by gambling with precaution. It was at our camp gate that Krishna and Satyaki fell at Uncle Dhritarashtra’s feet. Our uncle had almost lost his hearing. There was no sureness in him. I saw him fumble when he felt for Krishna to take the perfume from his head. I felt nothing for him and wanted to feel nothing.
“Is that you, Krishna Vasudeva?” Those were the first words I heard him say after fourteen years. His voice was old and full of pain. It angered me that he could draw my pity. I felt him broken. When Krishna brought Eldest before him, our uncle took the perfume from his head without affection. He could no longer play the part of the benevolent uncle. Bheema should have followed Eldest.
But Krishna waved him back and he himself knelt down.
Our uncle raised him and, with the strength his sudden fury lent him, tried to embrace the life out of him. Had he had a knife he would have stabbed him.
“It is Krishna,” shouted Satyaki and leapt to unclasp his arms. Uncle fell back, fainting on Satyaki. It is the duty of a Kshatriya king to seek revenge on those who kill his sons. So I suppose that there was pious courage as well as folly in his act. When he came to, his anger had been spent.
“Mahatma Krishna,” he gasped. “What sin, what sin it might have been!” He sobbed convulsively and passed a hand over his sightless eyes as though to clear them. “I tried to kill the son of Pandu. My brother was the only man who ever loved me. I tried to kill his son. I almost killed Paramatma Krishna.” The tears rained down. They always had when he tried to take our lives. They no longer repelled me now, there was a difference in them. He sat silent. His head had fallen onto his chest. Uncle Dhritarashtra knew the Vedas and courted wisdom, but she had avoided him. Yet with this last pitiable act he was released. His folly had been Duryodhana and had passed away with him. When the violence of his sobbing abated, and he raised his head to listen to what Krishna said, I thought I saw Uncle Vidura’s brother after all and the son to Island-born Greatfather.
Krishna was saying, “The sons of Pandu need a father as you need sons. They have lost theirs as you have yours.”
“Bheema,” he called in a choking voice, “accept a father’s embrace.” His head hanging on his chest, Bheema came forward. “I tried to kill my brother’s son. Come here, my child. I did it because it was you who broke his thigh.” By now Bheema was weeping too.
“I know. I know,” he said. “It was my vow because of Draupadi.” Whether our uncle drew him up or whether Bheema, like a child, climbed onto him, I do not know. But he was sitting on our uncle’s lap and blended tears with him. I envied him; my heart had turned to stone again.
Now it was my turn. I felt his love in his strong arms, his love for sons. Perhaps if he had had no sons it would have always been like this. I did not question as I felt my forgiveness go to him and his poured into me. After guarding one’s very breath for eighteen days, this was release and grace.
And then he called the twins. They took the dust from his feet.
“I wish my eyes could see you, Sahadeva and Nakula,” he said, feeling Nakula’s face. “They always said you were the handsomest children in all Hastinapura.” He caressed their cheeks with emotion so great that it shook his frame. “Nakula, you are the gentle one. Sahadeva is the strong and spirited horse.” He put an arm about each of them and held them close and long. Nakula moved to put his own about his neck and Sahadeva stroked his head and made soothing sounds as when tending a wounded horse.
At last he turned to Eldest and said, “Yudhishthira, my son, let me embrace you once again. I did so before with my arms but not with my heart.” Eldest, with the gravity of a king, knelt down before our uncle. In the miracle of forgiveness we were a family again. I had been conscious all along of Uncle Vidura showering his benediction on us. One by one we touched his feet, then laughing and crying we all embraced in happy confusion. This was what Greatfather had fought for all his life, so he was here as well as on his bed of arrows, smiling that he no longer had to serve the throne.
We went towards the ladies’ tents and entered Aunt Gandhari’s. I feared our meeting with her more than any other. We knew that she had powers her austerities had gained her. She seemed to probe us as though her great grey eyes which we had only heard of were of less use than other eyes she had developed. She sat a shadow from another world. Her back was straight and stiff. She was battling not to curse us. Island-born Greatfather was behind her.
“Gandhari,” he said, leaning over her. “Do you remember what you said to Duryodhana before the war? That he could not win, that Dharma was with Krishna.” She assented with a nod of her head.
“Yes, Father. It is not Pandu’s children that I blame, but only Bheema. What sort of monster drinks the blood of his own cousin brother? Duhshasana was still alive. Bheema also broke Duryodhana’s thighs.” I closed my eyes and prayed for Bheema. I could not think of any hymn but within myself I offered libations to the gods. Bheema drew on all his sweetness and, like a child, begged her forgiveness.
“In the three worlds,” he said, frowning with earnestness, “there was no one to equal Duryodhana with the mace. I could never have killed him in fair fight. The gods themselves could not. But he had shown that thigh to Draupadi, and on that day I vowed to break it. Had my own brother shown his thigh to any other queen I would have done the same. It is a Kshatriya’s duty to protect women and to avenge an insult.” I felt a loosening in my solar plexus; Aunt Gandhari’s fingers picked a little at her dress.
“But you drank your cousin brother’s blood. Are you an animal that you drink your own brother’s blood? There are limits to forgiveness.”
“It only looked like that but I swear to you it did not pass further than my lips and teeth. A warrior’s vow is a warrior’s vow. One rule of Dharma fights against another. You know it is a sin not to fulfil our vows. I took that vow in passion when Duhshasana dragged our queen by her hair into the open sabha, and she was in her period.” Bheema quivered. Aunt Gandhari turned her head this way and that. We thought that it was over. But she blazed forth.
“Could you not have left,” she wailed, her voice rising with every word. “A queen’s son to that aged king? One of my sons who had done nothing at the dice game? A single crutch for us?” She thrust Bheema aside and in a ringing voice called out, “Where is your king?” The question raised the hair on all our arms. Eldest came forward with joined hands.
“If you have curses, spend them all on me. I am the cause of the destruction.” Trembling with anger, our aunt turned h
er head again, as though searching for a pit to cast her curses into. At last she heaved a sigh and her head sank. We held our breath. Under the blindfold her eyes must have come to rest on Eldest’s feet. He winced and drawing back he stared down at them. We saw his toenails darken, flake, and turn to ash. I pulled away and went to stand with Krishna. I would have faced bloodthirsty demons a thousand times rather than face Aunt Gandhari now. The twins and Bheema shifted restlessly, like animals before a storm. Her wrath had spilt itself on Eldest and for some moments all was quiet again. Tears flowed beneath the blindfold onto her hands and lap and watered her forgiveness. Eldest took her hands and placed them on his head. She filled them with her blessing.
Then her tide of anger turned again.
“Krishna,” she said, “you are the only one who could have stopped it. You have the power. You have the tongue that nobody withstands.” Her voice was cold and sounded as if it came from afar. I heard the curse in it. My blood began to freeze. I would have been less frightened if she had jumped up and clawed at Krishna, wailing like a wildcat, as desperate women sometimes do. She sat in silence, her spine erect, lashed to an unseen sword.
“Krishna, Krishna, Krishna,” she said in rising tones. Her voice was like an animal’s that strains against the leash. “The Kauravas are dead. Their wives search for their bones and cannot recognize them. Wolves and jackals have devoured their semblance. You could have saved them. You have the power. You have the words that turn cosmic tides; you did not use them.” A demon rode upon her voice. It came from deep within her. Silently I said the incantation against demons:
Indra and Soma together
Roll the shattering weapon for the sky,
From the earth,
Upon the demon who plots evil.
“Krishna!” Her cry came upon us like a tidal wave. I aimed my silent words like darts:
The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata Page 58