The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  Kalidasa was chomping grass. Little white flowers fell around us from the tree above. Kalidasa raised his head and shifted his weight in a way which made his skin ripple like water. The baby who had slept through my tales of horror now jerked awake and opened his mouth to wail. “Look, Duhshala,” I pointed at the child. There was a faint and milky sprouting above the rim of the lower gum. The wail which struggled for release in the little chest now came streaming out. We shared such ecstasy over this first white rim of tooth that Duhshala asked me to stay on. It is against tradition but Kalidasa was happy here. And so I saw Duhshala through Suratha’s cremation and offered first oblations with her. It is against the rule of Ashwamedha to stop in any palace, but Island-born Greatfather had said to me: “Act in accordance with your good sense and inner Dharma.” I was the only male member of the family to help the priests to see the body laid in the cremation ground. I placed his warrior’s bow and arrows by Suratha’s body, and as soon as I had lit the funeral pyre I snatched the bow away and snapped it into two pieces on my knee.

  When I left Duhshala’s palace she thrust something into my hand. I forgot to open it until almost two days later, and when I did I found a parcel of sweetmeats of the kind she had given me so many years ago in her father’s palace.

  Kalidasa now turned south. After some days I found myself in Matsya country. The cousins of Uttaraa welcomed us and I was made to sleep in the palace where I had been the dancing teacher to Uttaraa and the palace ladies. I visited the kitchen where Bheema reigned secure and sneaked tidbits out to us.

  Nowhere had I been received so warmly. Yet I did not see the queen. I listened for the voices of Uttarakumara and King Virata. I walked past the gaming hall where Eldest and King Virata had thrown dice and I felt their presences. At times they sat over the chessboard made of ivory and lapis lazuli which lay ready on a silken carpet. There was serenity in the hall but Queen Sudeshna sat grieving in her chamber. They told me that the queen would speak to no one, but on the second day she had me ushered in. I did not recognize her in the lady with the bent and snowy head. The hair was white that had once been raven black. It was still thick but white as curd. I had not known that this could happen in a matter of months but they told me it had happened in one night.

  “Arjuna,” she said without lifting her head. She dragged my name out of herself. Her voice had aged more than her hair and had a tremor in it. “I am alone,” she said. I hung back awkwardly. Her desolation drew me to her. I touched my forehead to her feet.

  “You will never be alone, as long as there are Pandavas alive to remember all your goodness and endless compassion to Draupadi. Parikshita looks like Krishna and has the limbs of Uttarakumara. Come to Hastinapura and be with Uttaraa and her child. Dharma has changed after the war, we are free now…and the child is wonderful.”

  She could make no response and did not even raise her head. I was kneeling at her feet with both her hands in mine. They were limp and cold. I felt her walled within ramparts of grief. I told her at great length of Uttarakumara’s high gallantry in battle, of the smile that he had turned on me before he fell. I spoke to her of Shweta and of how those two great kings, Virata and Drupada, had fought with the valour of a hundred men. And of my encounter with Pavitra before the last day of battle; he was the son she had doted on. Though I wept in the recounting of it, she could not reach her tears.

  “You know that they have gained the warrior’s heaven. I implore you, do not grieve. Uttaraa needs you,” I said, pressing her hands to my forehead. I was so sure that if I talked for long enough I would leave her more serene. But no matter what I said or how I spoke of her grandson, she would not lift her head. I hoped that time would do for her what I could not. It did, but not in the way I thought. A few months after my visit, her spirit left her body to join her lord.

  I followed Kalidasa southwards. Had he turned west, we might have come to Dwaraka. The gods will take you where they decree, not to your heart’s desire. If you prevail on them, it may well be the worse for you. Suddenly, the horse turned east and led me through Chedi country. The Chedi prince was the greatson to Shishupala, whom Krishna killed at the rajasuya, and son of our great ally Dhrishtaketu whose sister wed Nakula. He had the Vrishni wide-apart eyes and curly hair like mine. As he approached, he brought to mind Satyaki and the merry smile he wore before his sons were killed. For that alone I would have loved him, but he had strength and understanding too and was eager to come to the Ashwamedha.

  Jaya, the son of Sahadeva of Magadha, was like his father, our other great friend in adversity. He had heard the legend of how we danced on the three great drums before entering his city and killing his greatfather Jarasandha. He asked me if this was true. Most of it was not but I admitted we had come disguised as snataka Brahmins which made him laugh.

  “I would have known that you were Arjuna,” he said, “who else would have those scars on both his arms. What was he like, my greatfather?”

  I said, “We used to call him Jarasandha the Horrible, the Scourge of Bharatavarsha. He was no coward though; he thought to please the gods with human offerings. I do believe he would have offered his own life if he thought the gods had wanted it, so if you like you can honour him for that. But as it was, the gods left him for Bheema.”

  “I would rather honour my father. He was not like that.”

  “No, he was not and he never forgot his loyalty to Krishna when it looked as though we could not win. He joined his akshauhini to our six instead of swelling Duryodhana’s twelve.”

  “I would have done the same,” said Jaya.

  “Then you are the man for us,” I said. “You will find that we remember valour. You will have a place of honour at the Ashwamedha.”

  I began to understand the manner of Kalidasa’s method. It had little to do with victory or battle. He took me on a journey through my life. He now continued to the hills of north-east where I had married the Princess Chitrangada when I was on my pilgrimage so many years ago. I left her, as is the custom there, when our boy-child Babhruvahana was born. I had avoided thinking of him since he had not come to join me in the war. I had hoped that Kalidasa would avoid him, as he had avoided me, for these hills were not easy to traverse. How could a son not come to his father?

  He had looked sturdy when I left him but I heard that Chitrangada’s father died not long after and Chitrangada had no brothers. Had this young queen in her loneliness clung too long to the child and neglected to have him taught the arts of war in time? And yet there was no fear in Chitrangada. In her small and fragile form no larger than Uttaraa’s, there lived a queen who ruled her valorous land, they said, with wisdom and with love. Had she made our son too mild or had she shut his mind from me?

  A flock of memories hidden by the foliage of the years rose in flight like a great iridescent blur of sweetness and then the one that settled for me first was Chitrangada’s gaze when I asked her if she would have me stay with her. She had traced my features with her ring finger and said: “Arjuna, Arjuna, can the arrow stay once you have released it?” I shook my head. “Then you cannot stay,” she said.

  “But I am here,” I had argued, “and you hold my heart.”

  “Some god has spared you for a time to me,” she said. “Even if you stayed here you would be driven forth one day. You have to leave these mountains and some destiny will find a way to summon you. Let me be the one to say the time has come. You must not feel that I have bound you except by love which is a gift. I knew there would be pain.” We stood together at the window looking at her kingdom girdled by mountains. “It would be greater pain if this became a prison for you even for an instant.”

  “A prison?” I had said. “The pain is mine to hear you say that. Have you felt my passion dwindling?” Now I smiled at myself with the same small smile that she had given me, half of compassion. How callow was that young Arjuna to think that passion was the proof of love. I had travelled many roads since then and knew that love was what we had endured with Draupadi
as well as what it was that made me one with Subhadra. Then I had prattled on about the nights of love that we had spent and reminded her of what she had said to me and what I had said to her and what my heart had felt and my promise of undying remembrance.

  That was before I went to Dwaraka and Subhadra. Yet I had loved Chitrangada. Something detached itself from the blur of sweetness. It was my love for Chitrangada. It had survived the years of my forgetting. The rough men of her land saluted me in their un-Aryan way. I was strangely moved by the fierce high-cheeked faces of these men so loyal to the queen, entrusted to them by her father. I knew that they could cut me open if they chose to without rhyme or ritual, and perhaps pay respects to my innards for success in the next hunt. Was it finally these un-Vedic blood-sacrifices that had crept into our Aryan lore? Had they over centuries contaminated the purity of the rishis’ vision? Was that why Krishna had to change the Dharma?

  The kingdoms in the Himalayan mountain ranges are peopled by tribes, whose culture derives from the nomads from Cina, but whatever they may be, their loyalty is paramount. They were known to slash at the enemy even when their heads had fallen off. Unprotected and unperturbed, they walk through yojanas and yojanas of snow and avalanche to kill you if they want to or to greet you if they respect you. Like the hills, they stand in defiance of the whims and wishes of men. The mountains are both their cradle and their cemetery. The high altitude and snow immobilizes their mind. There is something in them that warns men off unless they are pure in thought and deed. They call for tapasya and heroism. You enter arrogantly at your peril knowing that unseen guardians wait to lay you waste or blow you out as though you were a lamp. It is a testing ground. During my years of pilgrimage I had contended with it all and felt its hidden sword. What I felt now was a naked challenge. Now I was Arjuna, the conqueror, and yet unsure as I had ever been, for I was entering the kingdom of my son. At times I saw him the boy I wronged by never calling him to me, a moment later as the son who failed me when his arm and akshauhini strength could have tipped the scales at Kurukshetra.

  So I rode the uneven mountain path first in one frame of mind and then another, which was itself hazardous. The path was steep and winding. On one side, it was a sheer drop into the rushing river. On the other, the immense deodars looked as small as pine needles. Up on the mountains, trees grew horizontally out of the mountain side. At times they barred the way, and I chopped them off as if they were the limbs of challenging warriors. And every time I did so I knew that I had failed in my peace mission for I was full of anger. The mountain that had been my friend last time and carried me to Chitrangada was now my enemy. Peace is not achieved by making war on enemies but upon ourselves; I had forgotten it while I was on the relentless climb. The rushing waters below heated my blood further.

  I had to fight some of Chitrangada’s guards when I had come to the city, for they would protect her and her father with their very teeth had they lost their weapons. She ruled securely. I now recalled her words when I had urged her to come with me.

  “Arjuna, we are kings and hold the destiny of our people for the gods. If we betray their trust why should the gods not do the same to us and to our love? My priests have told me that your chariot wheels will thunder through Bharatavarsha and one day may bring you back, though fleetingly. Your destiny is elsewhere. When I am queen and very old and bent and have to be propped on my throne, your chariot wheels may make their music once again over the courtyard stones.”

  What of my son? I thought again. He should have come, a son unto his father, in a time of need. I was tired and unsure of what I had to face in my son’s eyes. I had never sent for him or gone to see him but his mother must have told him we were in exile. I tried to picture him, was he an Aryan or simply a stocky tower of a man?

  My mood changed swiftly from imaginings of tender meetings with him to those of stern upbraidings. As fortune had it, Babhruvahana caught me in my irritation. He was purest Aryan. Perhaps it was the height and breadth of him, the waste of it that he had stayed at home, and then my heart said: “But at least one son was spared,” and then, “but Abhimanyu, Shrutakirti, and Iravan were not.” With the swiftness of respect he jumped down and came to put his forehead on my feet.

  “Welcome, father,” he said as he bent down but something seized me.

  “Stop!”

  He was quick for he looked up sharply, used no doubt to the surprise commands of weapons teachers. He scanned my face and then my feet as though he might have put his head on wounds; he looked up for instructions: “Father”.

  I do not know what prompted me, perhaps a need to test his valour, but the perverse mood invented words for me.

  “I do not like your meekness, Babhruvahana. I had hoped my only living son would be a warrior, not a eunuch who would scrape and bow.” Babhruvahana looked disbelievingly, half expecting me to smile as if I had made a joke. I thought I should turn my insult into humour but my voice thought otherwise and said, “Since you have come to meet me you must have heard why I am here.” I did not wait for his answer. “Do you not know you are supposed to catch the sacrificial horse?”

  “But, Sire,” he said. I saw from the expressionless faces of his priests they did not like the way I spoke to him. His Kshatriya lords appraised me. Some of them I knew but they stood back. A bearded courtier who had been his greatfather’s Prime Minister took one step forward and said: “But, Prince Arjuna…” Babhruvahana held him back with the merest gesture of his hand and flicked his head in the direction of the horse; almost by the time I turned my head one of the young men of his guard had thrown a noose around the neck of Kalidasa, another fettered his hind legs. I pretended not to see. The boy still stood respectfully but his eyes said, “Now what?” I descended from my chariot and said: “Well, Babhruvahana, will you not challenge me or must I send an arrow first?” The boy’s eyes hardened.

  “It is as you wish, Sire. I come unarmed.”

  “Is that not a sword you wear,” I said pointing to his belt, “or is it but a jewelled bauble?” I knew it well. It was no bauble but had been his greatgreatfather’s that Chitrangada gave to me and that I had left for him. “If so we can wrestle.” There were some in-drawn breaths at this. If he had smiled again, I would have laughed as though I jested. But he had laid his hand upon his sword and I drew mine. I shrugged my outer garment off. He signed one of his men to pick it up and shrugged his own off.

  “I am the son of Chitrangada, Queen of the hills of the north-east. By this sword do I deny the sacrificial horse entry into my kingdom. Prince Arjuna, return the way you came or fight.” I liked the way he said it, without unnecessary shouting, though I did not like it that he acknowledged himself to be the son of Chitrangada only. I said my own name dryly, deciding I would rid him of his weapon and ask him for the right of way. It would serve to show this son of mine and all his men what I was made of. We rushed at each other with naked swords. I felt my right wrist wrenched and saw a streak of silver as pain shot up my arm. I thought it had been slashed until my sword had clattered to the ground. I took another look at Babhruvahana. He was picking up my sword and gave it back with courtesy. I had thought too little of him; now I was forewarned. This time Babhruvahana turned my sword aside but I had a grip on it. His sword was high above his head and with both hands he smote me down. There was no time for thought.

  When I came to my senses there was a mist before my eyes and great birds of prey with talons firmly in my scalp were picking at my brains. I tried to wave them off so that they should see I was not dead and ripe for eating but could not raise my arm. Then I felt coldness on my forehead. It drove the scavengers away but only for a moment and then there was a sound of something rasping near my ear. It made the talons dig in deeper. I think I lost my senses once again and then the mist before my eyes became less dense. I grappled to make the shapes mean something. At last I saw a carved roof beam. This then was Chitrangada’s chamber, I surmised. The sound of a saw through wood was that of my son weeping. Sou
nd, movement, and light echoed in my brain and were a torment to me.

  “Please do not make that sound,” I begged, and tried to lift my hand up.

  “You are alive, my Lord.” It was the voice of Chitrangada, the cold thing on my forehead was a cloth held by her hand. “He weeps to think he killed his father.”

  “Thanks to the gods, not to myself, I am alive.” I murmured faintly. My head throbbed painfully. These were the words I said to Chitrangada after eighteen years.

  It took me several days to recover and might have taken more, except that Chitrangada’s physicians knew mountain potions which they poured into me to make the healing swifter after Ulupi had brought me to life with Naga magic. Babhruvahana was so relieved not to have killed me that he apologized every fifth period of the day. There was much love between us now and if my silent questioning to him was why he had not lent me his arm in war, his was to me why I had made him challenge me. It took Chitrangada to explain us to each other.

  She had held me in her heart but her feelings were tempered by the years and shorn of passion. It made me feel I had a sister. My shame at never sending word was healed by her unquestioning. I had always liked the company of women whether little maids or white-haired greatmothers. I realized while sitting with Chitrangada and looking down onto the valley that on this campaign I had no thought but to give solace. While it was natural after the war, for distress of one kind or another was the order of the day, I had become a Kshatriya at last, helper and protector.

  From the couch on which I rested I gazed at mountains with snow turbans. This land might have been another world, lifted by the gods as with a mechanism and suspended there through all the years of trouble. I asked Chitrangada how it was her kingdom had remained untouched.

  “Our land is small, my Lord,” she said, “too hard a country and too far-flung to trouble much about. It is ruled by an unambitious queen. We have but little tribute to be coveted. And then…” She lifted her palms to heaven. I saw she struggled with something she could not tell me. We sat a while. “A country has a destiny and when you left I prayed to heaven to make me wise and through me guide my people. Heaven must have heard me for it gave me strength when you had gone. I knew my love and longing had to serve some purpose or else they would destroy me. I did it for my son and for the people that my father had entrusted to me. I took the child and with two of my priests, I went into the forest for many weeks and months, to gain the merit that would protect my kingdom. I saw each tree, each bird, each river and every blade of grass as—my Lord Arjuna. I threw my heart which yearned for you into the sacrificial fire.