The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  I spoke to Gandiva.

  “Gandiva, I take you home at last.” For the first time since the plunderers had descended upon us I felt a tremor in the wood. Gandiva was not dead. The vibration resonated in me. Agni had spoken true, Gandiva would return to my hands when the need arose. Now there was a constant humming between the two of us. My steps grew light. I breathed more freely. Draupadi held her head up once again and Eldest found his voice chanting a hymn to Durga, the one that he had chanted when we had left our weapons on the Sami tree and were walking towards Virata’s capital.

  We salute you.

  Bestow your boons on us,

  O maiden Goddess!

  Rescuer of those afflicted

  And sole refuge of those in distress;

  You are fate, prosperity and success.

  The wife you are

  And desired sons of men,

  And you are knowledge;

  The sleep of night

  And the two twilights,

  Compassion, forgiveness and loveliness.

  There is nothing that you are not.

  I seek your protection.

  Now, as then, no one would have known us as the Pandavas, though this time there was no need for disguises. The sky and sea would recognize us for what we were. Maker of Day would shine on us whatever guise we wore.

  We smelt the salt before we came to it and from a distance we heard Lord Varuna’s voice. He was waiting to take back his child and called out to me over the sound of the waves, “Arjuna, Arjuna!” I stopped to listen. “I will keep Gandiva for you, but it is yours by reason of your nobility. There will be no separation. As a sword sleeps in its scabbard, Gandiva will rest upon its bed, worshipped without cease, awaiting its time beside its quivers. Give them into my keeping. The gods will know that they are here and will take the burden of protection from your shoulders. Do not protect yourself, Arjuna, there is no need.”

  With a dying sound the far-off waves spoke once again like an underwater echo, “Do not protect yourself.” The only weapon higher than Gandiva was surrender.

  We got our first glimpse of the sea in the form of a tiny patch of blue. Chanting the hymn now with a stronger voice, Eldest led us straight towards it.

  You are knowledge;

  The sleep of night and the two twilights,

  Compassion, forgiveness and loveliness.

  There is nothing that you are not.

  I seek your protection.

  We had spoken little along the way, saving our breath for walking. When our feet sank into the sand even the chanting stopped. We moved towards the water’s edge, and stood strung out side to side, facing the vastness. We let the curl of water play against our feet and wash the sand from them. The water here was clear and light, deepening step by step until a thin line of darker blue told us where sky blended with the water. It was the first time Draupadi had seen the ocean. From our campaigns Sahadeva and I had the best knowledge of it. Dharma darted in and swam a little way, then turned back and scrambled out on to the sand in front of me. He shook himself dry and waited at my feet. It was the first time he had left Draupadi’s side. He had just shown me what I should be doing. Who was this little dog? I walked forward and he wagged his tail.

  With Gandiva slung across my chest I stepped into the water and struck out towards the deep end. At first I felt the cold shock of ocean water. Then a warm current enveloped me like a circling arm and I swam further and further into the open sea, drawn towards that thin blue line at the world’s edge. But I did not know how to make the offering. The sacrifice is always made through Agni who carries all offerings to their destinations save for the ashes of the dead. I addressed the waters:

  Hail to you divine, unfathomable, all-purifying waters.

  Waters, who are the mothers purifying me.

  You who are the world’s foundations.

  You who were made first and who are immortal.

  You who are the seed and womb.

  A wave lapped at my face; the salt tasted like wine. I went on swimming till I was far beyond the breakers. Here was only the smell which made my movements effortless. I turned and floated upon my back. Luxuriating in the sight of the sea and sky, it was like resting on a slow-moving elephant. I forgot for a moment what I came for. Suddenly I received a blow and was swirling under water. Out here, beyond the breakers, a wave had broken on me, so I knew even before Varuna spoke. Then his voice said, “Here.”

  I unslung Gandiva, and plucked the string which made a sodden underwater click. I put it to my brow and offered it, then felt it tugged from me.

  The offering had been accepted.

  I unclasped my quivers, and raised them to my heart and lips. They too were swept away by hands I could not see. Now an eddy whirled around me, and I felt myself being sucked down. Just when I thought I had been called along with my weapons I was shot upwards. My head broke the surface. My eyes were filled with salt and I had lost sense of where the others waited. As I peered around me, blinking in the sudden light, another mighty wave caught me, and like some great sea monster, hurled me shoreward. Through salt-bleared eyes I saw Draupadi and my brothers standing with joined palms raised to their foreheads. At first I could not tell whether they chanted or if it was the sea sounding in my ears.

  Whatever sin is found in me,

  Whatever wrong I may have done,

  If I have lied or falsely sworn,

  Waters remove it far from me.

  I struggled out of the water and, panting still, joined them in the chant.

  Now I have come to seek the waters,

  Now we merge, mingling with the sap,

  Come to me, Agni, rich in milk –

  Come and endow me with your splendour.

  35

  It was not the Magadha that Bheema and I remembered. This time we were not princes in disguise who had come with Krishna to kill the tyrant Jarasandha. There were no captive kings waiting to be sacrificed to Shankara Shiva. We looked exactly like what we were; renunciates on a pilgrimage. Bheema, growling and laughing, said, “Brother, this is a better disguise than when we came as Snatika Brahmins. A pity we have no mission.” Our only mission now was to chant hymns and spread our blessings in the countries that we passed through. In each we kept away from towns as much as possible and stopped in tiny villages, eating what was offered us. We crossed the Mahanadi in a reed boat that we wove ourselves, and which Bheema punted. That was a truly happy day. We had all worked together with our hands, plaiting the reeds after breaking our fast with forest berries and spring water. We felt a peace that we had never known in our palaces.

  As we pulled our boat ashore, a covey of bright red-crested birds flew up chittering. Laughing, we scrambled on to the bank, and looking back watched kingfishers darting and hovering above the surface of the water. “Next life,” said Nakula, “I want to be a boatmaker.” He so seldom expressed a wish that we all turned and stared at him. “Making something instead of breaking it,” he added, with his peaceful smile, shrugging his shoulders matter-of-factly.

  His words held more truth for us than Pundits’ discourses. Our early childhood had been passed in forests where we had taken serenity for granted. But during our twelve-year forest exile, Bheema’s impatience and Draupadi’s fire had eaten up the peace. Only now had peace and simplicity been restored. Defending frontiers, expanding territories, supplying the needs of Brahmins, judging land disputes—these were all behind us. The Rajasuyas and the Ashwamedhas, the coronations, the conches and the war drums, and all the trappings of royal life—were all things of the past now. Even Gandiva had left for home. We sat upon a river bank, chewing reeds, and knew that we had played our part. The tiny yellow flowers and the mauve, the shy white bell-shaped ones, half-hidden under stones and grasses—these were now our riches—the sudden dip of a brilliant wing, the bubbling song of a lark hanging on the air, the hovering dance of a deer.

  “What shall we do with this?” said Bheema, nodding at the boat. “Shall I carry
it?”

  “We do not have to carry anything,” Draupadi said, knotting up her hair. “This is the right place for it.”

  Sages’ retreats came aplenty after we crossed the river. So we never wanted for shelter or for nourishment. As for the walking, it made our bodies hard and strong now that we were out of the rain-soaked country.

  One day, when the sun was high and our stomachs told us it was time for our first meal, we were guided by rising smoke to a small ashram. We did not know the language of the region but the sage who had also done Pradakshina to all the regions had some of our northern tongue. With his own hands he served us fruits and nuts and curds and milk from his tawny cow, who he said was his only companion.

  “What was the purpose of your pilgrimage?” asked Eldest. The sage rolled his eyes up and held his palms to the sky. Smiling he said, “The purpose was that there was no purpose. After a moment he added, “It was my gratitude to our generous mother of Bharatavarsha, and I learnt to take from it with sparseness. That is wealth, to take as little as you need. Then you are burdened with neither poverty nor riches.” He paused, and with eyes that smiled at us, continued his sermon: “Not even punya. What you are doing now is better than all your Ashwamedhas.”

  We looked at each other for signs that might have given us away. None of us was sitting in the kingly pose. Our queen’s hair was once again unoiled and unadorned. There was dignity in her but not the tokens of a queen. The sage chuckled softly at our bewilderment. We had prided ourselves on having lost even the style of kings; if still we carried remnants of our royal lineage that were so obvious to him, I was just as happy not to know of it.

  Our journey took us down to Kishkinda country where the people are dark and handsome, and the soil stains your feet red. There were trees laden with mangoes, others with the wood apples named after Rama and Sita, and there was the soothing gloom of tamarind trees to rest under. Here we never wanted for shelter or refreshments, or ready smiles.

  We followed paths that took us through vast stretches of paddy fields restful to the eyes. In the evening when we had walked all day, the water of the tender coconuts that Bheema shook down from the trees was better than any honey wine. It was here, I think, that we began living out of time. Indeed, we might have gone on walking through this generous country without a thought to our destination, had we not now reached the source of the Godavari which took us to the border of Vidarbha country. Sahadeva was for striking still further south for he had happy memories of the region from his Rajasuya campaign, but we had to think of Draupadi. Her body was not trained like ours. We turned north and now with a mixture of apprehension and yearning, our minds turned towards the waters that covered Dwaraka.

  I was remembering my last sight of the tall, empty mansions before the waters claimed them. My heart came to rest only when Nakula said, “We should make a final oblation there for our aunt and uncle, and Krishna and Satyaki and their kindred.”

  We found the captain of a little ship who was full of stories of Dwaraka and how after the floods you could have made a fortune from what the sea had washed far inland: pieces of gem-inlaid columns and jewellery and marble furniture and golden lamps and ladles and horses’ bridles and embossed chariot wheels, knives and swords and other riches from the great houses. It made sad listening. Our only consolation was that we were not recognized.

  “But if you are going there to make your fortunes, it is too late. The sea still throws up some articles for latecomers but for every bit of marble there are a hundred people waiting.” This robust fellow’s speech marked him out as one of the Yadu race who must have once been a cowherd as he still used cowherd terms from time to time. All too well did his story conjure up for us the picture of a mob of scavengers picking through the flotsam of Dwaraka. Still, it kept our minds from thinking of the perils of the sea. The slightest of our glances at one another reassured us that we would keep away from the new shoreline and offer our oblations when we reached the shore that faced the Narmada. Water is sacred everywhere; it is the mind and the heart’s aspiration that decides what makes a fit offering for the gods.

  So it was that we looked from some distance upon the sea that covered Dwaraka. It looked like any other sea. Perhaps in times to come no one would know of the beauty and the splendour that Krishna had wrought here until the savage folly of men’s ways had ravaged it. Perhaps one day Varuna would stir in anger once again and rush away to swallow some other city, leaving the world to wonder at the sea-tumbled grandeur then revealed. But whether men knew of it or not, Krishna’s light had touched the earth here. This I knew for certain; and it was something no sea could wash away.

  Now we had to cross a stretch of desert, a prospect none of us relished despite it being the season when the desert flowers were in bloom. A fierce-looking but friendly caravan of merchants offered to carry us across. They were en route towards some centre on the river Lavana, their camels lightly burdened. Bheema was still carrying Draupadi and they felt compassion for her. In former times we might have thought of them as plunderers, but such fears no longer found a place in us. These people were not Aryans. We had long since had to leave the niceties of our caste behind, but I saw Draupadi shrink back the first time our hosts offered to let us eat with them from a single dish of greasy rice. Though as hungry as the rest of us, she said she had no appetite. Eldest soothed her brow and fed her with his own hand.

  The desert changes you. Draupadi took to holding Dharma in her arms. By the time we reached the feet of the great gods the sun would have softened us and we would be ready as ripe fruit for prasad. Before that, my shoulder needed to forget that it had worn Gandiva. Gandiva was now reduced more to a groove upon the flesh than on the soul. Yet one night when I was sleeping in the traders’ tent and a breeze lifted the flap, I had sat up and before I knew it, my hand reached for Gandiva. I knew then that there was still something to be done. The voice inside me said, “The time for that is over, Arjuna. If you protect yourself, how can I protect you?” My Dharma had changed. I must now be the protected, not the protector. I listened to the breathing of the sleeping forms around me and wondered who I now was, and for an instant, as when a shooting star holds all of you, I was not anyone. I sat there in the wonder of it, my heart brimming with love and gratitude. After a while I crept out of the tent into the desert night. It was clear and cold and the sky was full of stars. The soft clinking of camels’ bells, the shift of sand, the muffled slap of the tent flap brought me to a place I knew. It was the desert where I had met myself after the Ashwamedha march. I had understood even then that whatever we cling to—wives, weapons, or specks of desert dust—binds us to a twilight life which is a twin of death. And I had learned then what it was to be delivered, to be saved, to have no need and no weapon; and nobody to fight for or with. The same throbbing arose in me now, the music of the stars and desert sand, the heart of my heartbeat. This time I had no need to return to Hastina, and I could not go back to Gandiva. Surely there could be no clinging now? Parikshita’s face came up before me, radiant after the coronation, and Subhadra’s quiet and serene expression. The love that I felt for the people in the tent became an enormous love that grew and grew but I was no longer the protector of anyone. One night Parikshita would sit up thus in bed, understanding for the first time that this was what the words of Kripacharya and the Brahmins’ hymns spoke about. Subhadra knew it. I think that she had always known it. Tonight I understood her letting go of me, and in this understanding my heart found peace.

  36

  We scouted Matsya country and began calling each other by the names we had used during the year of hiding there. This always put us in high spirits and dispelled the silence. It is difficult to set a tone of gravity when you are addressed as Kanka the Gambler or Brihanalla the dancer. It never failed to bring a slow smile to Eldest’s lips which sometimes reached his eyes. The idea of disguise was now a jest in itself. The sun had done its work on us: Bheema, Eldest, Nakula, and myself were no longer golden-skinne
d and the others might have been Nishadas. We were all as lean and taut as bowstrings and Dharma had become wolf-waisted. Our feet were cracked and calloused, and Draupadi’s tortoise-shaped nails were split.

  It was sweet relief to be out of the desert back in countries fringed with tall trees that grew more and more dense as we moved towards the Khandava forest. We could now catch occasional glimpses of the mountains’ white peaks. Our silences grew longer, our words fewer.

  Slowly we moved north until we touched the Khandava. Here, leaning on our pilgrim staves, we paused. We had passed Indraprastha without visiting Vajra or the Maya-sabha.

  When we reached the Khandava, we were not so many yojanas from Hastina either—but no one mentioned it. The silence sealed our future from our past, and we proceeded towards the mountain peaks. A new concern overwhelmed us. This was the last part of our journey—the journey of our lives. Any preparation for future births must be made now. Island-born Greatfather had said that you could change the deeds that you had done in life in a truti of the present, at the last moment, that you could wipe all out like smoothing sand which bears the tracing of a yantra.

  Up and up we trudged, living on nuts and fruits until we came to the Saraswati. It had been in the Khandava, during our exile, that a deer had come to Eldest in a dream, asking him to hunt no more, for the herd was in danger of extinction. That time we had moved north to the Kamyaka, then followed the Saraswati, and this was the way we went again. It made me think that we would soon be home, which made me smile with sudden gladness. For it was “home” that we were going to. Not palaces, not forests, not even mountains. We were going back to our beginning, to where we came from. It burst upon me so joyfully that I called out, “We are going home.” Eldest and Bheema stopped and looked back smiling.