The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  “Paundra,” he shouts.

  “Paundra…aundra…dra…dra…dra…”

  It sounds like a rattle of tiny pebbles.

  “Wow, wow, wow.” Dharma runs up and down the ledge in agitation.

  “Wow, wow, wow,” his voice comes back, but softly, and he cocks his head to the side.

  “Manipushpaka,” Sahadeva shouts.

  “Manipushpaka…pushpaka…pushpaka…pakah…pakah…ah…ah… ah…”

  The echoes of the conch names cross each other and grow louder before fading. The rattling of little stones increases. Pebbles bounce off our ledge. Then bigger stones come down. The spirit of the mountain has been woken. Dharma pricks up his ears and whimpers. Bheema cups his hands, purses his lips, and blows an earsplitting conch call through them. The sound of victory tears the air.

  “Stop,” I shout, “the god is waking.” My voice only adds to the echoes and the calls clash and bounce away, losing their meaning. Now Sahadeva purses his lips and through cupped hands sends out the shriek of Manipushpaka. Eldest leaps down towards the ledge to grab him back. My arm shoots out to stop him, even as larger stones begin to hurtle down. We are trying not to shout and yet to call the others back. They cannot hear us but have realized the danger and are moving out of the heavy shower when Sahadeva staggers; a jagged piece of rock has felled him. The clattering and the echoes are dying as we stare at Sahadeva lying with arms and legs outspread. Blood oozes from his head. His lips are pursed still. An eagle screams above, his shadow passing over Sahadeva.

  We carry our youngest brother into the shade without a word. I feel as though a sword has lopped my legs off. It is Nakula though, of course, who sits beside him in a trance. Bheema embraces him.

  “He died a warrior’s death, Son of Madri, challenging the mountains.” Nakula nods.

  “Yes, it is a good death,” he says.

  We sit all afternoon. In the purple light of dusk Nakula speaks again.

  “It is a hero’s death. But what am I doing here, Eldest? I want to be with him. There is nothing left to climb for me.” None of us can answer. They are heavenly energies, these Ashwins, matched steeds, a team that came to draw the same war chariot. The swiftness, the quickness that was Sahadeva has left Nakula too. I wonder that the rock that hit his twin did not find out Nakula’s life as well.

  When the first star rises, Eldest says, “Nakula, we are warriors. When a hero falls in battle, whether a son or father, we go on battling. Do not give in. Come with us. We will spend the night here and start tomorrow.”

  Bheema’s soft growl agrees to this. Nakula looks at me and I nod. We spend another night, chanting hymns to the celestial brothers.

  Like swans, the celestial coursers form a line.

  When they, the steeds, reach the heavenly arena,…

  Your body, O Steed, flies as with wings,

  Your spirit moves quickly like the wind…

  The fleet-footed steed, his mind recollected

  And thoughts directed godward, advances…

  At this point in our journey perhaps one should not look into the past. Yet when Nakula starts the hymn to the Ashwins,

  The steed has attained the abode supreme.

  He has gone to the place of his father and mother.

  May he find a warm welcome today among the gods…

  I am flooded with memories. I see Sahadeva springing up onto Krishna’s chariot when Krishna and Satyaki travelled from Kampala to Hastina to ask for peace on our behalf. Sahadeva calls out that we want war. Bheema at the last wants peace, but Sahadeva has turned into a lion and does not waver.

  We stay two days with Nakula and Sahadeva. In the plains Sahadeva’s body would already have begun to show the corruption of Kala. But here with the cold nights and the brief sun which never reaches the shelter, Sahadeva’s features show no shadow of decay. His nose is sharper, his cheek bones rise, and the blood fades. When we see the first small stains upon his skin, Eldest says to Nakula with great gentleness, “Son of Madri, you and your twin are the most perfect in limb and feature of the Pandavas. You have your mother’s grace and harmony of form which is a legend throughout Bharatavarsha. That is how he wants to be remembered. Who would want the form’s corruption to be seen by those we love? His wisdom was his greatest adornment and yet…”

  “I shall come with you,” says Nakula. “Let the Mountain God seek out my life. I shall die with my face towards the enemy.” Nakula is angry with the mountain, now his enemy. He who was the peacemaker among us has lines across his brow that we have seldom seen. He is hurt. He is gathering his anger to throw his warrior’s insults at the mountains. The mountain will not bear him much longer.

  When we cross the next icefield I hear the angry thumping of his staff behind me and then a sharp cracking; a black line runs beside my foot. I turn to see the ice around Nakula split open. As he falls into the crevice his hair lifts like a flying mane. Long before we get to the opening he has disappeared into the dark pool at the bottom. Perhaps Nakula’s body will be preserved in ice. Perhaps it is the mountain’s acknowledgment of his beauty.

  Now that he has gone my head is as light and clear as on a victory day in battle and we go on climbing higher. I pray to Durga, Mother of battles, as Krishna once bade me do.

  Then I pray to Krishna and in between, I think there will soon be two Pandavas instead of three. With the foresight of those Yama has already called, I see that Bheema will go after me, Eldest last. I climb in a trance, knowing that I cannot fall or falter now until the time of my departure. We are near the last high pass and I know that none of us will reach the summit of that noble mountain. It does not matter. It is life’s last lesson that the punya lies in the climbing, not the reaching. That night when we lie down to sleep watched by the cold moon, I wonder if my body, like Nakula’s, will be frozen before dawn. They say that when snow is falling you must fight the urge to sleep or you will never wake again. I try to think high thoughts but I am taken by the sweetness which the God of Sleep sprinkles over my body and pours into my veins.

  I stand before Lord Shiva who sits on skins in his high abode. He is not in his disguise as hunter nor mendicant with matted hair. He is in his high trance. The universe is in him. He is not Rudra Shankara. He is something that men can never see until their hour has come. So mine has come.

  “Arjuna, Son of Pandu,” he calls and he turns his gaze down, “you have not come for weapons now.”

  I bow and say, “My Lord, I have no need of them.”

  “What is it that you lack, my son?”

  I look at him in silence and bewilderment. Krishna is not there to prompt me. What should I say? What does the great God want? There must be a right answer. I have always wanted weapons. What other boon was there to ask for? Now I do not know my need. Eldest in the forest had asked for Sahadeva’s life instead of those of his own mother’s womb. Panchali had asked for her husband’s freedom instead of her own. These are the selfless prayers that drew the boon. It is something beyond me and all my loved ones that I want but I have not been a selfless man and this is now my grief. I search for an answer. It is not right to keep the God waiting. I stand alone in a great globe of ice. Should I say a warrior’s heaven? But I do not care for that. I am no longer a warrior and living as I do now is better than all the battles I ever fought. I have been in harmony with trees and flowers and the birds that sing in the high regions. But that is not the thing to ask for. Something comes to trouble me and it is this: In our mountain climb we have found oneness with ourselves and with the world, but I know and have always known that if we return through that first valley back to Hastina and into the world of men and statecraft and sacrifices, we will flutter to the ground like eagles with clipped wings. Yet that world is there. We were part of it, perhaps still are; certainly could be born into its chaos once again in other lives. We are forever Kshatriyas and must not turn our backs but do battle with our faces to the enemy. I see the gleaming sabhas, the palace of a thousand crystal colu
mns, our Yuddhashala in Indraprastha, and my heart turns cold and looks away. I am in a place where the most beloved faces can give no solace. Then what should I ask for—a happiness that never fails, whether in valley or high passes? Again my heart gives no consent. What then? I roam the reaches of my childhood, of my battles and my courtships. I scan the sacrifices and the campaigns. I see myself shoulder to shoulder with Krishna. I am holding Abhimanyu after his birth. I see the wooden bird and the fish target clattering to earth at my arrow’s wish. I see myself as hero entering the city after my victories, and my heart sickens within because there is no boon to ask for. Shiva has called me “son”, a cruel jest. One has heard that Shiva’s heart has been burnt out by long tapasya, and my own world is desolation, with Draupadi and two of my brothers dead and two about to die, and Subhadra whom I will never see again. “Who am I then? What am I? Some cold, high peak that no pilgrim ever reaches, some desert stretched out beyond infinity.” The desert.

  A little dart enters my heart. I think that Shiva’s eyelids flicker as though he says, “Yes?”, and I begin to see. It is the desert that has taught me that as long as you cling to a speck of desert sand you are a prisoner. I see it now, a prisoner of desolation. Sooner or later it will strike. The most deadly astra in the arsenal of life. I say at last, “Lord Shiva, I want nothing. I lack nothing.”

  As the words come tumbling from my mouth and the tears come raining down my face, Lord Shiva’s eyes focus on me and the worlds burst into snakes of flame. They dance and twine and then array themselves into a circle. Within it the great God Shiva begins to dance. Slowly he sways and his long hair fans out. A breeze is blowing through it which comes from no direction. His hand is raised in a gesture which calls for my attention. The fingers barely move, yet talk to me in subtle gestures. His shoulders sway. His other hand comes into play as his eyes look into mine. He rises, and turns upon himself. From his flicking fingers streams a power that touches my skin with little whips of energy and I am swaying too. Effortlessly we move through universes. Each gesture takes us through a new creation and yet we only turn upon ourselves while Shiva still sits in his meditation. Now I see that I am Shiva and meditating, dancing too. We are unmoved by our creation and wait for all those beings suffering and labouring and striving for enjoyment to turn around and find us. We sit in bliss. It is a game of hide-and-seek and those who find us vanish into us. All the wants and the lacks lie scattered before us like withered flowers to be ploughed into earthly life once more. I do not know my name and have no gender, but I sit with Shiva on the high mountain which I have reached at last.

  Eldest tells me that I have sat in a trance for one whole night.

  He holds my left hand and Bheema holds my other. They must have pulled me back. My hands feel as though they are on fire. Bheema is chaffing my feet, Eldest my cheeks.

  At last my staff is put into my hand and I am lifted to my feet. We are climbing steeply once again. Suddenly the sun is covered. There is no breath spent for talking. Then it begins to snow. A wind arises and that flings the falling snow into my face. It is getting very cold again, and dark. We are on a narrow ledge and my eyes refuse to open against the snow. I keep on walking, my right shoulder scraping the mountain side, my left hand out to keep the wind and emptiness at bay. I open my mouth but before I can call Bheema my mouth is filled with icy snow. My feet are numb and are weighed down from the lack of energy in me. Snow lies like a load upon my shoulders. The bitter cold has reached my marrow and whiteness sweeps around me in the darkness. This time my voice dies before I can unseal my lips. I am alone, walking on an edge, the edge of the cliff, the edge of darkness, even as the wind shudders through me. I am falling. It is the moment Kshatriyas prepare for. Krishna! I scream out in my mind.

  The gale is still blasting through my brain but it is scouring me of pain. And where I am is edgelessness. The Light has caught me in its net of Light. Shapes are moving in a soft mist and I feel a sudden lightness like the first tug of a kite. My heart is whirling like a snow flake, and turning inside out. There is a seam where two worlds hold, and it is giving way to let me out, to let me in. This is the edge of time, and softly, gently I slip through into a golden Light with no darkness before and no darkness after. A breath is wrenched from a deep place and I float outwards, now breathing in so easily, my breath going out one last time, with no return. I go consenting into the light of Love and look down at the form to which for one whole life I was affixed.

  My heart is silent in the sweetness of the music of great chains of OMs that carry me towards the shapes that come to meet me. The OMs tell everything there is to know, and that cannot be told.

  Out of the misty shapes One comes towards me shedding light and holding out a hand of light. My own hand also made of light melts into the hand of Krishna. He leads me into the Greater Light that is Pushan waiting for Nara and Narayana.

  The End

  Of Bliss these beings are born.

  In Bliss they are sustained

  And to Bliss they go and merge again.

  OM Shanti! Shanti! Shantih!

  Glossary

  Abhimanyu

  Arjuna’s son by Subhadra.

  Abhisheka

  Royal coronation bath.

  Acharya

  Literally, teacher. Title of Drona, the teacher of the Pandavas and Kauravas.

  Adharma

  Literally, against moral law. Since Hinduism has no exact word for sin (‘papa’ suggests crime, misdeed, ill behaviour), adharma serves as a blanket term for any form of unrighteousness or violation of the moral law.

  Adhvaryu

  The conductor of the sacrifice.

  Agama

  Bloodless sacrifice where grain is offered.

  Agastya

  A Rishi who crossed the Vindya mountains to settle in South India.

  Agni

  Literally, fire. The fire god in the Vedas. One of the three major Vedic deities.

  Ahuka

  A Yadava enlisted in the cause of the Pandavas.

  Akrura

  A Vrishni hero.

  Akshauhini

  A large army consisting of about 109,350 foot soldiers, 21,870 chariots, 21,870 elephants and 65,610 horses.

  Amaravati

  Literally, abode of immortality. Indra’s heavenly capital. According to legend it is located near Meru, the mountain of heaven. Also known as Devapura, ‘City of the Gods’.

  Amba

  Eldest daughter of the king of Kashi (Varanasi); abducted by Bheeshma for his brother.

  Ambalika

  The youngest daughter, widow of Vichitraveerya, and mother of Pandu by Vyasa.

  Ambika

  Second daughter of the king of Kashi, abducted at the same time as Ambalika; mother of Dritharastra.

  Anga

  Probably the precincts of Bhagalpur in Bengal; its capital was Charnpa.

  Angadas

  Arm bracelets and jewellery.

  Angavastra

  Shawl, upper garment worn over the arms and shoulders.

  Aniruddha

  A son of Pradyumna, grandson of Krishna.

  Anjali

  The hollow formed by joining the cupped hands together and raising them to the head. A gesture of great respect, supplication or surrender.

  Apsara

  Nymphs of Indra’s heaven; the most celebrated Apsaras are Urvashi, Menoka and Rambha.

  Arecanut

  A very hard nut which is chewed to give energy.

  Arjuna

  The third Pandava brother.

  Aryan

  Literally, loyal, noble, dependable. Name of the race inhabiting much of the northern part of the Indian subcontinent.

  Aryavarta

  A portion of northern India dominated by the Aryans in the second millennium BC. It was later extended, according to Manu, from the western to the eastern oceans.

  Ashram

  The hermitage of a Rishi or holy man.

  Ashwasena

 
A serpent that lived in the forest of Khandava. He was the son of Takshaka.

  Aswamedha

  A great sacrifice in which a horse was offered. The rulers of the territories he had passed through uncontested or defeated become the tributaries of the sacrifice.

  Ashwatthama

  Literally, strong as a horse. The son of Drona and Kripi, so called because his first cry when he was born was likened to the neighing of the celestial steed Uchchaihshravas.

  Ashwins

  The twin riders of the horse; lords of the joyous elevation of the mind and the vital powers; incarnated as Nakula and Sahadeva.

  Astra

  Missile or weapon (usually occult).

  Asura

  Literally, anti-gods. Enemies of the gods, they include the Daityas and Danavas.

  Atharvaveda

  The fourth Veda, composed by the Rishi Atharvan.

  Atman

  Soul.

  Babhruvahana

  Son of Arjuna by Chitrangada, princess of Manipura. He did not fight in the battle.

  Bahlika

  One of the kings involved in the Kaurava–Pandava war on the side of Duryodhana. The oldest warrior on the field, he is also known as Somadatta.

  Balarama

  Literally, the Rama who incarnated power. Krishna’s elder brother; he is also called Madhupriya (wine-lover).

  Bangas

  A people.

  Bhagadatta

  King of Pragjyotishapura. He fought against the Pandavas.

  Bhagirathi

  The river Ganges, said to have been brought down from heaven by King Bhagiratha.