The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  “Eldest, you have not slept.”

  “No,” he said without turning to me, and then, with almost a groan embedded in his words, “I have something to atone for.” He sensed my protest before I spoke. “The sacrifice?” he said and waved it away. “Greatfather has cleansed us twice-over of all blood guilt. No, brother, there are things that are not cleansed by rites or blessings.” I waited.

  “The blue mongoose?” I ventured.

  “No, we have given all we can. I am not King Shibi. No God will ask me why I did not cut off my flesh to distribute it at the Medha.”

  “Then?”

  What Eldest told me, opened a pit beneath my heart: When Eldest had learnt after the war that Karna was an unacknowledged womb-brother, he had cursed our mother. I remembered that he had stopped speaking to or looking at her until much later, but a son’s curse! It is an astra difficult to withdraw. There are tremendous moments in our lives which leave us speechless. I gazed at him dumbly, glad of the dimness that veiled my face. I summoned thoughts and words that slipped away like lapsing waves. At last I murmured,

  “Dronacharya said that any astra worth its power…” I nearly said evil “…can be withdrawn by its counterpower.”

  “The power that propelled it was anger.”

  “Then the counterpower would be…” he did not let me finish.

  “That is it, brother. I am still angry. I have forgiven all our enemies. I thought I had forgiven her, but I am still angry and cannot tear the roots out.” His whispered passion surprised the tranquil air.. “Leave me, Arjuna. Do not try to share my burden. It is too heavy.” I walked away but turned to see his lonely, tired back. Nobody could share its burden and yet I could not shake it off. I moved into the sombre morning, brooding on the mystery of the floating world in which we do not even know ourselves. I had just discovered another unsuspected torment in the most passionless of men.

  After our ablutions, Eldest was led by the sages to grace their forest dwellings with his Darshan. Even in the forest an anointed king is king. So, followed by our servants and our priests and all the ladies and the retinue, we took the smoke from many sacrificial altars where fires blazed and libations were poured in honour of the deities. I loved the altars spread with fruits and roots and heaps of flowers. Many of the sages’ skins shone with an inner light that all our oil and unguents could not produce. The deer browsed about their dwellings without fear. The forest rang with peacock cries and the twitterings of birds. Here too gifts must be given by the king. We had brought thousands of wooden platters, pots and pans and copper sacrificial ladles, cups and vessels of all sizes, and skins and blankets. Each of the forest-dwelling sages carried off as many as he needed. Everyone had heard of our arrival and we, who had had trouble finding those we sought, were found as though the birds had proclaimed our coming.

  Then Island-born Greatfather arrived. For his sake Uncle Dhritarashtra consented to be brought to where we had made camp beside the shelter of our aunt and mother. When Island-born Greatfather gently told him of Uncle Vidura’s death the tears I had thought burnt out of him started flowing. Island-born Greatfather who had sired him, began to stroke his head.

  “Vidura is eternal. By divine command and through my energy of tapas he was summoned to this earth, a deity of deities. He is Dharma, like Yudhishthira. Dharma is like fire or wind or water or space or earth. Dharma pervades the universe, yet you can light a fire and be warmed by it.”

  Island-born Greatfather’s eyes found mine. His look said ‘You see, Arjuna, how the bonds we forge tie us to pain?’ Or thus I understood it. It was something Krishna had tried to teach me at Kurukshetra. But I never understood the lesson half as well as now, when I saw Uncle’s hard-earned peace shattered. Our mortal loves are clinging creepers that send out a million tendrils. You cut them down to the root and find them growing still. When he understood that his youngest brother’s soul had entered Eldest, Uncle Dhritarashtra took Eldest in his arms and clung to him, caressing his cheeks, his head, his hands.

  Once Greatfather Vyasa had arrived, the forest gathered around him. Here he was king. He sat upon a black deer skin with Kusha grass over it, covered with finest silk. Each one brought to him his doubts and troubles. Sages confessed to him and sought his help. Had he not taken all the Vedas into his keeping? Indeed he was radiant with their light. Even so, like Krishna, he said, ‘Do not forget that the Vedas dwell in all your hearts already.’ As one by one, the greatest of the forest sages brought their questions to Island-born Greatfather, I saw how little anyone on earth really knows.

  Watching our Mother day by day I thought that she was now one who had no questions, but in the end she too came and laid her head upon Island-born Greatfather’s feet. He knew what she was saying without words, and he spared her the confession of her pain and doubt. Holding her hand he said, “Kunti, my child, you are thrice blessed by me, for you have served, as no one could, three sons begotten of my energy. Be at peace about the birth of Karna and about his death. That was no fault in you. You had a destiny. The energy of the Gods works through humankind. The great souls that choose to come to earth at their request agree to take on a portion of human pain before their birth. You were a maiden in your soul. There was no fault.” My mother looked up at him and I saw within the white-haired woman, the frightened maiden who had borne a son in hiding and set him afloat upon the water. “You belong to humankind and you are great,” Island-born Greatfather went on. “For to the great, everything is becoming, for the great, nothing is impure. To the great, every deed brings merit.” Still my mother looked imploringly at him. What more could he say to her?

  “Kunti, my child,” he murmured, “for the great, everything is their own and they do not look to left or right to see what others do, nor do they measure deeds by what men think. Their Vedas are within them. Through your own life, your own truth is revealed to you. You, who have Krishna as your brother’s son, should know this. It is this Truth he comes to teach us.” In front of all of us my mother burst into violent sobs so that the words she tried to speak were choked off. Her voice came out in snatches as though from inside her, someone was beating them out of her breast. At last words came: “When he became a man he knew me for his mother.” Again her voice was tightened by her sobs. She had not finished. “I did not want to own him; that I only did when I wanted him to help my other sons.” At this she broke down completely and her body writhed this way and that while her hands covered her face. Through her fingers she spoke her ultimate regret: “Now I can never tell him. He will never know that I loved him best.” He looked beyond her, smiling. Later on it came to me that then he had smiled at Karna.

  The comfort Mother needed was beyond words. Perhaps it was then that he decided how to give it. But now it was Aunt Gandhari who came forward and spoke for herself and all the widows and mothers bereaved by Kurukshetra. While Mother wept without restraint, Aunt Gandhari knelt beside her and said to Island-born Greatfather, “I know you have the power. I who have misused my occult power yet know what can be done through merit gained.” Her voice rasped. “And who has greater merit now than you, O Sinless One.”

  “My child,” he said, “you are all at peace already. Why do you fail to see it?”

  “At peace! May good befall you, Father. At peace?” Her eyeballs must have stared behind the bandage. She tried in vain to hide the indignation in her voice. “What are you saying, Father? You told our sister Kunti that we belong to humankind, that nothing that is human is unbecoming. Father, then my feelings are my Vedas. I have practised austerities but still I mourn my sons. More than that, it burns me that it was my son that caused the war. The knowledge that I gave birth to that son who made these ladies widows, is like a knife in my heart. How can I atone for these sins? No human mind can comprehend the depth and width of my error, and of its consequences. The earth is ravaged because I could not stop my brother from corrupting my eldest son. Father, you say we are already at peace and that our children’s souls are
at peace—Well, show that to us Father. If through your merit you can show our sons to us, then indeed will my soul be at peace.” Again Island-born Greatfather gazed beyond her. For a long time he did not answer. At last, still gazing over the river, he murmured.

  “Gandhari, my child, you are blessed. This very night you will behold your sons and brothers, friends and kinsmen. Some you have never seen with mortal eyes. Your king shall also see them and Kunti too shall clasp her Karna in her arms. Draupadi shall once again behold her five sons, her sire and her brothers. You, Arjuna,” and his gaze returned for me. There was a smile about his eyes. “You will clasp the one who is always in your thoughts. He will arise as though from sleep and you will go straight to him before all others. And you will be embraced by Dronacharya. Yudhishthira will be embraced by Karna and by Dronacharya. Dhritarashtra will see his brothers and his sons. You will see Shakuni’s shining soul embraced by everyone. Draupadi will meet her father and her brothers. Greatfather Bheeshma will return with all the Vasus. Madri too will rise and see her sons once more.”

  “What of my Lord,” an anguished woman’s voice rose from the gathered crowd.

  “You will see Bhoorishravas. You will see your Lord.”

  “And mine, O Sinless One.”

  “The valiant Bhagadatta will clasp you in his arms tonight.” There was the sound of sobs.

  “And my father?” asked a maiden’s childlike voice.

  “He will bless you.”

  “And my brother?”

  “And my father?”

  “And my Lord?”

  Island-born Greatfather raised his hands in blessings on us all. If anyone could still the burning in Eldest’s nerves, it was Greatfather, but he did not go to him.

  “I have promised. They will rise as from sleep. All will be there, everybody, everybody, and not a single one will be missing.”

  We lived through the morning like children torn between hope and doubt. How could we clasp the dead? Island-born Greatfather had promised I would clasp Abhimanyu’s body in my arms. They had told me that his skull had been shattered.… I could imagine shades rising, but not our sons in flesh and blood. I watched the sun at noon with hope, but as he walked towards the west my expectation faltered. How could it be? How could it be? Many times I had embraced Abhimanyu in my dreams but was the merit of Island-born Greatfather’s penances enough to make the soul take flesh again? He had stopped the landslide yes, but once Lord Yama’s noose has claimed a soul he does not give it back. Many of the ladies spent the day in prayer and silence: those who spoke, spoke only of reunion.

  Long before the usual time we bathed for the evening prayers. I heard voices, muted in awe or anxiety.

  “This day is passing like a year.”

  “No, like a century.”

  “My heart beats faster every moment.”

  I sat apart, my hands caressing the still warm stones as I remembered moments with Abhimanyu. I saw Krishna’s foot raised above Parikshita’s tiny infant body, stilled by Ashwatthama’s curse. I remembered Abhimanyu in Indraprastha one gleaming winter day when I gave him his first bow, and at Kurukshetra, his banner swallowed by the enemy when he rode into their akshauhinis; pieces of memory that stretched time into eternity and invaded this strange and swollen hour. I saw him, that little boy, touching my feet for the last time, when I went into the nursery after the dice game.

  This waiting was something between what was felt before going into battle and trysting with the woman that you love, but a hundred times greater, and neither of these held the essence of this feeling. We would be stepping into another world, a world you only meet when you yourself go on the unknown journey. It was like hearing Yama’s silent footsteps. The ladies sensed it. Some felt danger hovering over them, but none drew back. After the bathing came the evening ritual. The sun clung onto the sky as though to keep watch all night. Little lights were waved and prayers were sung, but still Surya hung fiery and guarding the horizons. At last he sank into fire as on the fourteenth day of battle.

  Island-born Greatfather bade us take our places along the river’s edge. But there was time, he said, before night fell. I do believe that it was by his great shakti that the following watch was stretched into eternity. It gave us time to look into ourselves. As day drained from the sky, birds gathered, their twittering and chirping rising to a pitch that I had never heard before. I wondered whether they could see the ghostly presences that I began to feel. Sages from far-flung hermitages, their clothes still dripping from their river bath, arrived in silence. The sky became intense with red and purple ribbons and suddenly the shrill chattering and chirping of birds rose to a frenzy. A moment later there was silence. Then a single frog gave its croakcroak-croak call. After a while other frogs joined it and the noise became thunderous. Then all at once, they too fell silent as though at Island-born Greatfather’s command.

  It was perhaps the first time since we left Hastina that no one in the whole assembly spoke. All our energy was in anticipation. My mind began to utter prayers of both fear and hope. Where was Island-born Greatfather? I felt like a child that seeks his father’s hand as he steps across a threshold into darkness.

  The only sound was that of water flowing. The sky became a smoky red and slowly darkened to let the first stars appear. The trees darkened, the stars whitened. My eyes strained into the air above me from where the form of Abhimanyu might descend. A little splash and my gaze went to where a figure had stepped into the water. It was Island-born Greatfather. He placed his palms upon the surface. Crickets began to sing in chorus again as though released; one by one the frogs joined in. After a while, a humming could be heard. The earth began to breathe and sigh, and from deep within it came a groan as though something was being wrenched from it. Without turning my head, I looked left and right. All was still. Across the river was solid darkness. I felt reverberations. Did they come from me or from the earth I sat upon? If me, they came from deep within. If from the earth, from its innermost core. I set my palm upon the ground to steady it. Time that had reined itself in all day now hurtled us beyond midnight into a black eternity and then reversed itself. The river changed its direction. The menace of Gods hung in the air. I could no longer pray. The figure in the water was pleading for us; even in the midst of chaos I felt the strength of his compassion. He wrestled for us with forces entrenched since Time’s beginning. He raised joined hands and bowed his head. The echoes of his silent mantras could be felt along the river. There was a tension as when maces lock, then something ceded and withdrew. And now came a strange rumbling, faint at first, familiar as the sound of chariot wheels. Chariot wheels and cavalry, but muffled as though the wheels and horses’ hooves were wound with cloth, And then suddenly the earth was wrapped in belts of chariot rattle, one after another came the sound of conches and battle cries. When the first pennant rose above the water, there were gasps and stifled screams all along our bank. Then nothing could be heard against the roar of a thousand chariot wheels clattering against the river’s bed of stones. The first chariot, drawn by silver horses, ran above the water and was followed by another and another. Kurukshetra was before us and I felt myself rise to my feet and walk towards the one that sought me, the one I must seek out. My heart began to sing. I stood before a dark and burnished form. The eyes glowed with the light of one worshipping, indrawn. Someone watched us as we stood face to face. The one who watched was Dronacharya. The one before me, Ekalavya. He joined his palms in salutation and I saw the hands were whole. We fell into each other’s arms then, and in the long embrace I knew that I had never wronged him and I was cleansed of sin. His destiny was not to be the greatest archer for he was something greater—the true disciple. When we drew apart I fell at Dronacharya’s feet. He raised me to his heart and afterwards I fell at Ekalavya’s feet. When I looked about, the river had become a stream of flowing light. Soft light, strong, but not dazzling. Whole families were reunited under the flowering trees of flame that lined the bank. Draupadi was with her t
win. They stood as I had seen them first at her Swayamvara, when he announced the feat to be performed. But now they stood upon an altar upon which flames played, flames that did not burn for the twins were born of their father’s aspiration. He stood behind them and they turned and knelt before him. He raised them in an embrace. Draupadi’s sons—one of them my own—were waiting to prostrate before her. They were all forms of light and yet when Shrutakirti came towards me, he was more real than the son that I had known. He was his Self, the soul of him. How can I speak of what we were, of what we truly are? We were all shining souls. When I remember them I can only do so with a memory that disfigures them and a heart that longs for them. I cannot summon the words that will bring them to life. How could I? I am but a warrior. I was still gazing into Shrutakirti when I felt my heart expanding with a gladness that one only knows in other worlds; somewhere a door had been flung open. I waited. Karna approached, blazing with the light that was his generosity, his loyalty, the light which comes from that great giver which sustains us all, the Sun, Lord Surya. We gazed and gazed upon each other till I felt myself completely melted into him. I was aware of nothing but this bliss of immortal union. At last, he took me by the shoulders in a strong grasp, and turned me round and had me facing Abhimanyu. My son was clothed in radiance and wore a garland of radiance round his neck. My son! Subhadra’s son. Island-born Greatfather had taken us to where we were all sons and brothers, fathers and sons. We were all part of one another and fragments of the All-Creator. We are of that other world but do not know it. Deprived of knowledge, some cold wind of ignorance binds us to the mind’s seeing. And the mind does not see true. Even the Rishis cannot sing the glory of it. Though they are yet impelled to sing, their hymns are as crows’ voices next to the sweetest notes of flute and veena. And now, my heart still bathed in the sweetness of Abhimanyu, I saw Karna embracing Eldest, then drawing him towards our mother, their mother. A ghostly figure was behind her and its exact double hovered over Eldest. As he and Eldest knelt side by side before her for her blessings, the two vague beings came together into a single menacing face that fled from them alarmed to vanish in a mist: The curse bends the curser as surely as the accursed, and only Grace dissolves it.