Yajnaseni: The Story of Draupadi

by Pratibha Ray

  If your music of peace proves fruitless, it is you who will be compelled to descend on earth. Two paths are yours — either peace or destruction. Man has understood very well the sorrow of taking birth on earth with this mortal frame. Then why does he not choose the path of peace? For the welfare of creation, national integrity and world unity are my fourth demand.

  Sakha! the fifth thing I ask for — I, Panchali, the heroine of five heroes, the princess of Panchal, and the mother of five sons. With the fifth demand I shall complete the final chapter of my body made up of five elements. What will the final matter be? Moksha? Svarg? Liberation? It is this that is the demand of a creature's soul. But my demand is the opposite!

  I do not want moksha, salvation. I do not want to reach svarg in this body — not even liberation. It is rebirth that I crave. You are surprised, sakha! I do not want svarg. That is the habitation of the gods. If anyone reaches svarg in his own body, it will be Yudhishthir. For, despite being virtuous, he is cruel towards human beings. He is more than a man, he is a god. To go far from earth in order to attain svarg has been his lifelong sadhana. My. other husbands are normal people. Definitely they will one by one slip and fall. Instead of undergoing the suffering of reaching svarg in one's own body, the effort to turn one's own motherland into a heaven will be preferable.

  Sakha! Many omissions have occurred in this birth. Even if it was for the sake of justice, I wanted war, sought the opportunity for revenge, encouraged my husbands for war. Today I think that if I had vowed from the beginning to establish peace then the innocent men and women of Aryavart could have lived on.

  For the faults of this life give me rebirth and on this same sacred earth: the earth where you took birth in a mortal body. The soul of Bharata is permeated with Krishna, bliss, love. It is a heart full of love that is the foundation of such grace. You cannot love God if you detest man. Therefore, O greatest of lovers, let me be born as a lover. Let me be born again and again as the beloved of Krishna and a lover of the world.

  I am realising the Krishna consciousness of great Bharata. Spirituality and the feeling for dharma will touch the consciousness of all mankind. Some day the entire world will be filled with the consciousness of Krishna. The meaning of Krishna is darkness. It is darkness that is the womb giving birth to light. Therefore, a world enveloped in the darkness of danger and difficulty and error can only be uplifted through spiritual consciousness. And then Bharata will be the pathfinder of the whole world in friendship and peace. O Creator Krishna! For the faults in my present birth, let me be born again and again in this land of Bharata.

  I do not want an entire life. Even for a moment, with the hand of a worker, the eyes of a knower, the heart of a devotee let me be born for your sake, die for your sake. Sakha! it is you who are the world, the universe. Living and dying for you means living and dying for the world. On being born thus, perhaps I may be freed of the faults of the present birth. My life will become meaningful. Living on earth, dying on earth, my soul shall attain heaven. More than attaining heaven in this body, it is the soul's attaining heaven that I like.

  Today I have no sorrow in dying. For I am dying with the wish to be born again on this sacred earth of Bharata. On the way to death instead of your name, it is the voice of your flute that is on my lips — Om shantih, shantih, shantih!

  In the troubled human mind of Kaliyuga may this enchanting sound of the flute keep playing in the same way — Om shantih, shantih, shantih!

  Finis.

  Sakha, I began this letter to tell you of my grief. And I have come close to the pain and suffering of the world. I have set down before you that play of which you are the hero. It seems that my story remains incomplete. Having finished the letter, I am going through it. Having read it, I am wondering if I should begin the letter all over again. Begin from the end, end from the beginning... what is this that I am doing?

  It is you who have said, life does not end in death: it begins there; it puts on a new dress. Then what is the harm in writing 'finis' at the beginning of the letter and beginning at the end?

  My body is lying here, the soul is flying away like the petal of a flower where, pierced by the arrow of Shabar Jara, your bleeding feet have bloomed as lotuses with innumerable golden petals in the empty black Krishna-full sky. You had thrown towards me one day exactly such a golden lotus of a thousand petals in full bloom and aroused in my heart a lotus-love! Caught in the bonds of maya that day, I did not understand that it was not a lotus but your loving feet that you had extended towards me.

  Innumerable tom petals are coming blown from somewhere, creating that very same lotus of innumerable petals. Again these lotus petals get blown away somewhere. They are torn away, to unite again. There is no diminution in the shape of the lotus or its petals. Neither do they increase.

  I see the face of each and every one of those for whom I was mourning, having lost them, in each petal in your lotus-feet. My father, brothers, sons, ma Kunti, Gandhari, friends and relations and ultimately heroic Karna — all are getting united as petals! I am being blown away to be united in that very blooming lotus. Whatever I have lost, I am going to take. Now I have realised that attaing your lotus feet is the supreme fulfilment. Where there is supreme fulfilment there is no distinction between friend and foe, dharma and adharma, race and caste,. In those very lotus petals I see everything and realise this: What is emptiness is really fullness; creation is really destruction; the beginning is really the end.

  Therefore, it is with 'finis' that I am beginning my letter. For this is not a letter; this is my life. After all, it is the reiteration of life that is my wish.

  Where did I end the letter — ? Yes — may the sound of the enchanting flute keep playing in the inner being of universal mankind — Om shantih, shantih, shantih!

  'The Beginning'.

  AFTERWORD

  Draupadi is a challenge of womanhood, the embodied form of action, knowledge, devotion and power.

  Such a woman — who has faced tonnent, insult, mental and emotional dilemma like Yajnaseni Draupadi — has not yet been bom on this earth.

  Beautiful women have been tormented and insulted throughout the ages by lust-blinded men. But that the bride of one's own family should be stripped before many wise, qualified and honourable men who all keep sitting silently to gaze at her naked beauty — a darker chapter than this will not be found anywhere in the written or unwritten history of the world. In fact, no account of such an outrageous incident can be found even in epics, poetry, novels and drama. Not only this. Because of the words which slipped inadvertently from the lips of the mother-in-law, princess Krishnaa was compelled to take five husbands. There are a few such instances in the Purans, but in the history of the civilized world it is a gooseflesh-raising event. On account of her outstanding chastity, Krishnaa remains one of the five satis. But on account of having accepted five husbands, Krishnaa was abused again and again by the Kauravs and Karna as a harlot, enjoyed by many men. In the life of Krishnaa, the unfailing companion of the Pandavs in their joys and sorrows, a series of griefs of various types came. But her self-confidence never gave way. Ultimately, her feet slipped for the first time on the golden dust of the Himalayas. Krishnaa was deprived from attaining heaven. Alone, in a helpless condition, she was forced to give up her life.

  All of us know something of Krishnaa's sacrifice, dedication, strength of character. The name of the younger sister of a lady known to me is Krishnaa. Leaving her debauched drunkard of a husband she is living in her father's house. Everyone said Krishnaa should remarry. But in our society today the remarriage of one discarded by her husband is not that simple and easy. For diverting her mind, Krishnaa went away to her brother in West Germany. Sometime later, she married a young man there. She has two children now, a son and a daughter. Her conjugal life is comfortable. But the peculiar thing is that those who were at one time sympathetic towards Krishnaa, said after the second marriage, "Well! When her very name is Krishnaa, she could be happy only after taking
a second husband. Arre! The Krishnaa of the Mahabharat took five husbands, and still not being satisfied, was attracted to Karna and Krishna..."

  I was deeply pained by this comment. Not because of any remark regarding the Krishnaa of the Kaliyuga, discarded by her husband. Today men shed crocodile tears for men — this is a matter of no consequence. The root of my sorrow was such thoughtless words for the Unique, learned, devoted and powerful woman, Krishnaa of Dvaparyuga. This can be the individual view of someone. But how far do we know Krishnaa? How much knowledge do we have of the majesty of the Mahabharat and of its noble culture? How many have read thoroughly the original Sanskrit or its translation or Sarala Das' Oriya Mahabharat? The blind have gathered to look at the elephant — in that fashion, without having read the Mahabharat, on the basis of hearsay we sully our culture.

  Portraying Krishnaa in the form of Yajnaseni, I am placing her before the culture-loving readers of my country. The incident mentioned above kept pricking me, so I have put it down.

  Chiefly I have depended upon the Mahabharat created by Vyasdev. I have also been influenced to some extent by the Oriya Mahabharat of Sarala Das. Some imaginary incidents and characters have been merged into the core narrative. At some places, the sequence of events of the original Mahabharat has not been followed. I have tried to present a psychological picture of Krishnaa as a woman living a predicament-ridden life, full of variety.

  It is the supreme human being, Purushottam Krishna, who is the protagonist of the Mahabharat. Krishna and Krishnaa — through the integral link between these two names I have depicted a relationship of spiritual love. Many writers have previously shown this sakha-sakhi relationship of spiritual love between Krishna and Draupadi. Faced with the superhuman personality of Krishna, which woman in any era could help loving him?

  Only this is my wish: that in the soul of this world, sorely beset by war, that final prayer of Yajnaseni should reverberate: Om shantih! shantih! shantih!

  PRATIBHA RAY