The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  “Ashwatthama?”

  “When you have a very, very great Light like Ashwatthama has…”

  “Had!”

  “Has! You have also its corresponding shadow, its darkness. But darkness is the womb of Light.”

  After a pause in which Krishna creased his eyes as though looking for a way to explain, he went on. “Ashwatthama is a very, very great soul. His soul has taken on a burden, a task for the world that he agreed to before he was incarnated. He has prepared for it through many lives. Such souls carry the world’s destiny.” The sense of what Krishna said came to me through the compassion in his voice. “In time, a great light will shine through him, greater than before.” Suddenly I longed to see Ashwatthama.

  “I wonder if we shall meet again.”

  “Not in this life. But you will meet. You have something to do together.”

  After Krishna had spoken my thoughts dwelled much on what it was we stood for, on what one owed to the Gods, to the people we ruled over, to our family. “Offer everything to the Gods,” said Krishna, “the rest will take care of itself.”

  When Shuka and Parikshita came towards us, my heart was singing. Birds circled them. The child had now somehow the look of Shuka, a look both of wonder and of wisdom. He wore no royal jewellery. His chest and arms were bare and his hair, like Shuka’s, was unoiled and tied in a topknot. I looked at Shuka. In truth, one never looked at Shuka, one gazed as though in expectation that he would melt into the trees and welkin if one looked away. They were like creatures that belonged to nature, yet came from a world other than ours. Having touched our feet, Parikshita excitedly began to tell us that you could speak to birds. He gave a bird call, three piping notes, two up, one down, and put a finger to his lips. With a whir of wings, two birds, grey with red underbellies and black crests, fluttered onto his outstretched arm, then flew away. Krishna looked at me. His eyes said, ‘This is what we fought for. Was it worth it?’ I smiled. Parikshita gave a cuckoo call and a female of these independent creatures perched on his topknot and leaned to peck a little at his forehead before it flew away.

  “Shukadeva is going to show me where the king snake has his home,” Parikshita said. “May I go with him?” He took the dust from our feet and skipped off. I watched them. The dapples of the forest played upon their shoulders as they moved into the shadows.

  “Krishna, destiny plays so many tricks on us. What if after everything, Parikshita does not want to reign? He says he wants to live like Shuka, that Shuka knows how to heal and take pain and sadness away. He imitates him in everything. He says he will not need a queen. Yuyutsu is a noble soul, but there is no love of kingship in him either.”

  “Parikshita will reign. He may be a different sort of king than those who have ridden under the Kuru banner for many a generation, but he will reign. He is something new. There has to be some compensation in the Kali Yuga. There is a healer in him too.”

  “Perhaps we do not have to tremble at this Kali Yuga after all.” Krishna widened his eyes at me. “Jishnu,” he said, “you are not supposed to tremble. You will spoil your reputation and that of all Kshatriyas.”

  “That is not an answer, Krishna.”

  “Do you expect another discourse?” Then, more pensively, “Perhaps you do not have to think about it, neither you nor Parikshita. The Kali Yuga is but a babe, still half in the womb. But things will not stand still, Arjuna. The world will have to move, and then our earth will need to shake so that the crust falls off and reveals its soul. The world cannot be ruled by Kshatriyas forever, nor by Brahmins, for that matter.” We were coming to a place where the bank was almost level with the river. We sat down and let the current play against our legs.

  “Jishnu, I want you to remember this. Whatever happens, anything, anything at all, the failure of your dearest wish, the loss of a beloved, a great destruction, accept it. Join your hands and bow your head because that is what is needed. Always remember the Narayana astra and Kurukshetra.” It was like a slap against one cheek and a gentle caress on the other. Yet I felt my body hair standing and a welling up within of deep peace. In the desert I had known all this in the very marrow of my bones, I had known that one may not cling to anything. Anything can bind you, and Dharma most of all. Had I not learnt my lesson between the armies at Kurukshetra? Twice I had touched that further shore, and even now it was in sight. Why must we always be pulled back? Soon Krishna would return to Dwaraka.

  “It is life that pulls one back,” said Krishna. “We have entered life. Let us not moan and groan! You think that if you lived with me in Dwaraka it would be like Indra’s heaven or the Brahmaloka. No, Jishnu. When I take Uddhava, mildest of men, into my chariot I make a hundred enemies. When I give gifts to Satyaki, Kritavarman makes faces of suffering. Nobody is really happy in royal households. My aunt Kunti never tires of saying it, and she is right. But it is not only in palaces; men are not ripe for happiness.”

  “Will they ever be?”

  “Yes. That I promise you. One day. Man is ripening even now. Painfully. This Yuga will hasten it. There will be great events of destruction. Welcome them.” The promise lifted me into a silent invocation: “Tathastu, so be it.” Yet after a while I asked,

  “Krishna, where will we be?”

  “We will always be, you and I.”

  “Will we remember?”

  “I always remember. Next time you will too.”

  “Next time?”

  “In Eternity—what we have done, what we are doing, this very instant with the water moving round our legs and the blossoms falling never dies. Savour it. Let the future look after itself. Savour this moment as though it were our last.”

  12

  Krishna had left. Shuka had left. For Parikshita’s sake we tried to hide our sadness. He loved Yuyutsu and had a special fondness for our old preceptor—and now his—Kripacharya. With Bheema, he had always enjoyed putting toads and de-fanged snakes under the chairs of solemn councillors who never failed to oblige with suitable expressions of alarm. But now he ceased to take delight in such antics.

  Then his fever started. After the third day, some of the Brahmins fell to murmuring, and when it reached the people, the talk came back to us: the king horse had not been properly offered. Island-born Greatfather said that the cause of the illness was Parikshita’s missing Shuka but it was the superstition of the people that gave the fever strength. Greatfather and his disciples chanted hymns of health every day, bidding the fever that had started in the mind to depart through a body orifice in the form of phlegm or wind, or through the skin. But their efforts seemed to have no effect: Parikshita slipped into a coma.

  Then something happened. Durgadasa kicked down the gate of his stable, jumped the fence of the corral and galloped towards the plains of Kurukshetra. The groom who followed him said that the horse reached the sacred field without difficulty, then lay down on his side, while his breath left him for the last time.

  In the meantime Shuka had returned, called back by Greatfather. Parikshita opened his eyes. He broke out in a heavy sweat and was soon sitting up and asking for his favourite sweet. Man’s faith is easily shaken. We had begun to think that the promise of Parikshita’s reign would amount to nothing. Island-born Greatfather laughed.

  “How could that be?”

  “Did Durgadasa have to die?” I wanted to know.

  “When the sacrifice offers itself, it is auspicious. Do not grieve for Durgadasa. That great and noble soul is already with the Ashwins.”

  13

  After the sacrifice, Uncle Dhritarashtra began to speak of it being time to leave the palace and retire to the forest with Aunt Gandhari. Eldest protested vehemently. For a time it seemed they had been persuaded. Uncle Dhritarashtra still hankered for more sacrifices for his sons and all those who had been drawn onto the Kuru side by his passion for his first-born. Uncle Vidura and his faithful charioteer Sanjaya of occult vision, as well as our noble cousin brother Yuyutsu, took turns attending on Uncle Dhritarashtra. They at
tempted to put to rest his doubts about his future in heaven when he left his “old and useless body”, as he said.

  “You see, Sanjaya,” we heard him say one day, “There is no doubt that my eldest son and Duhshasana were guilty of many things, but they died facing the the enemy. Neither of them ever received an arrow in the back. So they have earned their warrior heaven. I, whose sin is very great, for I allowed their sin, can only hope for Patala. I do not mind the suffering. It can never be as much as the guilt I feel which burns like a thousand fires in my head and bowels. Patala may be cool beside it. But never to see my sons again…” And he would rub his arms against the carved lion heads of his chair in torment. “For they will be where they deserve to be. No warrior who dies bravely can be denied Kshatriya heaven.” Sanjaya wept with him, biting his moustache, trying to silence his grief. He who had consoled uncle Dhritarashtra a thousand times before in the intimacy of his life-long service, could now find no comfort for his king or himself. Even Uncle Vidura, wisest of the wise, could find no wisdom to comfort this blind and broken brother.

  “You see, Vidura,” Uncle went on, “when the jackals howled at the birth of Duryodhana, you foresaw all this destruction; but in the whole history of Bharatavarsha, in all the stories of our Rishis and our king sages, has any of them ever had the heart to kill an infant son? Even if it is to save a nation? Even to save the world? What father, when his first-born holds out his little arms to him, can think of his destruction?”

  Uncle Vidura did not weep, but closed his eyes to avoid seeing his brother’s contorting face. In the silence, Uncle Dhritarashtra’s hand groped Uncle Vidura’s. “Speak, brother.” Uncle Vidura would press the hand and carry it to his forehead, and Yuyutsu would massage his father’s feet and legs, trying to make peace flow into that body racked with the mind’s agony.

  The essence of Uncle Dhritarashtra’s discourse was always the same. The past had captured him. One day his counsel to me was, “My child Arjuna, I know you will not take amiss that which I have to say to you. You are noble, I know. Even my sons said that you are the noblest. You did not want to shoot at Karna when his chariot wheel got stuck. You would have struck Duryodhana only above the waist. Yes, you are the noblest of my brother’s sons. You are impulsive too, perhaps because you possess too good a heart. So I say to you,” and he rolled his sightless eyes, “Beware of loving Parikshita too much. Learn from my mistakes. The child, no doubt, is pure and gentle and has no one to provoke his jealousy, so the situations cannot be compared. But malevolent forces can find many ways to spoil a prince’s life. I am made uneasy by the games he plays with Bheema. I have told our faithful Kripacharya not to spare him. I know how much you love him, Arjuna my child. I love him, too. He is the kernel of Yuyutsu’s heart. He has your blood and Krishna’s. I know too well that a father’s love knows no restraint.” He made a gesture of desperation, rubbing his palms again on the armrests of the golden chair. “Be gentle with him, but be firm.” I knew Uncle Dhritarashtra must have rehearsed all this during his sleepless nights. I touched his feet and murmured reassurances but could not stem the flow of words. “…because if I thought that my example might cause more sin, my suffering would be multiplied.” I pressed his hands. “Spare me more suffering, Arjuna. Spare me more suffering.” Then after a pause he said, “You know the people’s faces are turned towards the king. If he fails, his sin is a hundred thousand times greater than that of anybody else. Parikshita will be king. Yuyutsu cannot and does not want to be. Now there is no one but Parikshita, the great-grandson of my beloved brother Pandu.” The tears poured down his cheeks.

  The widows of his sons who had not walked into the fire, waited on him and our Aunt Gandhari, massaging their limbs, oiling their hair or fanning them with perfumed peacock feathers. There were two women continuously blending herbs with curds or ghee to ease the pains in the old couple’s bones. But only Island-born Greatfather lifted Duryodhana’s father out of his darkness with his legends of old Rishis, celestial ascetics, Pitris, and Rakshas. He would begin with just Uncle Dhritarashtra, Aunt Gandhari, and their attendants for an audience. Little by little the widows would edge in, two at a time, and then in threes and fours. The attendants, entranced, would forget to fan.

  “Call my brother!” Uncle Dhritarashtra would command. Uncle Vidura, who was his minister of finance would hurry in. Sanjaya would leave his horses, followed by the chief of the stables. People from all over came to lose themselves in the stories told in the Sabha. It was like listening to Markandeya tell the story of Savitri in the forest. Nothing seemed impossible when we listened to Island-born Greatfather’s tales. Sin was no more, death was no more; darkness moved back to its womb. He could conjure up Lord Yama, advancing astride his buffalo, with his noose made ready to gather Satyavan’s soul. His Lord Yama became a dharmic king whom I always saw as Greatfather Bheeshma. I would see Savitri as Draupadi pleading for her husbands. We five were the dead whom she had to bring back. His stories echoed with new meaning. We saw ourselves as from a mountain top. Then he gathered everything into a net and placed it all before us, like a fisherman who has hauled in an unexpected load of pearls. Afterwards he brought us back with the great cleansing mantra.

  May there be health for all,

  May there be peace on all,

  May all be whole,

  May the All-auspicious come to be.

  When Uncle Dhritarashtra emerged from the spell that Island-born Greatfather cast upon us, he would order prisoners to be freed and pardon those that were condemned to death. When Eldest was consulted, he simply said, “Let it be so. Never make him feel that he is not king.” It was not difficult for us to follow Eldest’s orders. Even Bheema did his best, sometimes going into the kitchen to prepare special dishes, mairaya wines, juices, and honeys for our uncle. But when Uncle began speaking of another round of sacrifices for his sons, we knew that it would lead to trouble. Eldest for his part saw it as a pious distraction for the old king. He could never oppose a sacrifice.

  “Could we not send him on a pleasure excursion?” grumbled Bheema. He sounded like a child whose toys were being snatched from him.

  “Uncle Vidura says our coffers are all full,” said Eldest sharply.

  “But why should it flow out for sacrifices for the perpetrators of the dice game? They are dead and exactly where they should be. Does he believe that by sacrifices he can move them around like pieces in a game of chess, or elevate them to a higher heaven?”

  We had all agreed that the dice game should never again be spoken of—if for no other reason, than respect for Eldest. Mention of the game was banned. Even Bheema only infringed upon the rule when this question of sacrifices came up. He did not mind at all that Eldest showered on Uncle Dhritarashtra the most expensive silks and jewellery, but he still could not abide the thought of spending more on our cousins and on Jayadratha. “Think of all that clarified butter that we could use in the kitchen, simply thrown away. The Gods will never accept it.” And then the worst in Bheema came out. With the cruelty of a child, he imitated Uncle Dhritarashtra, rolling his eyes and hobbling around with one hand out as though on Aunt Gandhari’s shoulder. “I want my sons and my daughter’s husband Jayadratha to attain heaven.” Meanwhile, Uncle Vidura was waiting for our answer to his brother’s request. But while Eldest told him he could disburse whatever had been asked for, Bheema marched after him, continuing to protest,. “Tell him Bheema says that all his sons and especially his jackal of a son-in-law Jayadratha can stay in Patala’s depths, where they belong.” Uncle Vidura turned and looked at Bheema. Then he stroked his baby cheeks and shaven upper lip. “Never invite a curse, Bheema.”

  Bheema’s many efforts to restrain his indignation bore evil fruit. It was difficult to keep him out of the kitchen. One day, all the eight flavours that go to make a complete meal were mixed up for Uncle Dhritarashtra. The bitter gourd was smeared with honey, and the tart was adulterated with all sorts of herbs. The curd was mixed with lime in a most unpalatable con
coction, and the Ragakhandva sweet was liberally sprinkled with salt. We thought that there would be an outcry and that Aunt Gandhari would once again begin to rain down curses. But our aunt and uncle took it much more calmly than we had imagined. Uncle Vidura told me why. “They are preparing for the forest and have been eating very little. Both of them sleep upon the floor. There is no reason to tell Eldest before time. He will think that he has failed in fulfilling his filial Dharma. We shall be leaving soon.” My heart went cold. It was not so much that they would be going, though even that pained me more that I had thought it would, there were so few of us. It was that Uncle Vidura would go with them. So often he had been a raft that ferried us across troubled waters; and of course, our mother would go with him. It was the end of family.

  “Everything will fall apart,” I said to Uncle. He took me in his arms and stroked my hair. “Our generation has been wiped out and all our sons. If our Elders now move away, those of us left will be like a diminishing island between past and future, or something hovering in space without a footing. Eldest will feel it most.”

  “Not as long as Greatfather Vyasa is here. It is he who holds the house together. As long as he is here the pillars will not fall.”

  “Is this because of Bheema’s objections to Uncle’s sacrifices?” I asked.

  “Never speak against a sacrifice, Arjuna. Offering is the navel of the world. It is the only thing which brings peace to my brother.” He played with a lock of my hair. “There are some things that you cannot stop with arrows. That not even Krishna can. The Lord of Time was waiting. Bheema merely set the date. We are the sacrifice. You are the sacrifice. When the offering offers itself, it is the most reliable ferry. It is the raft of the gods.” He nodded slowly, still playing with my hair. “Do you know that there are some strands of white in this? White strands on the handsomest head of hair, of the handsomest warrior in the kingdom?” Uncle Vidura started chanting.