The gods and the immortals watched in horror as the enormous death-force of Ashwathama’s final, desperate weapon held the earth hostage. Krishna smiled subtly and waited for the cloud of destruction to dissipate itself.
After a very, very long time, during which the armies of the Pandavas hugged the bloodied soil of Mother Earth and entreated her protection, the flaming arrows exhausted themselves. A strange calm descended over Kurukshetra and the stars became once again visible in the dark sky.
In the hour between day and night, the terror of the Narayanastra returned to Ashwathama.
Drona’s son wept hot, burning tears for the father who had loved and tutored him, and whose death he had been unable to avenge. He remembered the time when he had wept because he did not know the taste of milk; he remembered how his parents, Kripi and Drona, had consoled him. ‘Why do we fight this war?’ he said to himself through clenched teeth. ‘Why do the Kauravas and the Pandavas seek to destroy the rest of us in the whirlwind of their enmity?’
Dusasana’s Death
Bhima and Dusasana engaged in a terrible battle. Dusasana’s hatred for his cousin fuelled his bitter attack. ‘I remember all the times we have defeated and routed you,’ he jeered. ‘You and your brothers lived in the forest like animals. If you do not die at my hands today, you will surely return there again.’
‘If you remember all this, you must remember my vow!’ said Bhima, his teeth clenched and his angry eyes red as burning coals. ‘I have sworn to drink the blood spurting from your heart! No one can stop me from doing so!’
Duryodhana and his brothers stood as though paralysed while Bhima lifted Dusasana by the neck. He twirled him around a hundred times before dashing his body to the ground. Then he ripped his chest open and drank the warm blood that spewed out of his heart.
‘Now my vow is fulfilled,’ said Bhima, ‘and the honour of Draupadi at last avenged.’
Karna’s Last Battle
The Kauravas were disheartened, their courage broken. Bhishma had been vanquished in battle, Dronacharya killed. Dusasana had died the most terrible death conceivable. The war was not going well and they could sense defeat and disgrace hanging like a shadow over them.
On the night of the new moon, Karna went under cover of darkness to the Pandava camp. There was no music or laughter in the camps, only fatigue and despondency. Physicians pulled out arrows and darts from the bodies of the wounded, and priests recited prayers and incantations to heal them.
Karna made his way stealthily towards Arjuna’s tent. He wondered fleetingly how it would have been if things had been different, if he had received the love of his mother rather than being abandoned by her at birth. They might have laughed and joked and competed with each other in sport, rather than being engaged in a grim death-battle. All the hatred had been bled out of him, and the anger which had sustained him all his life had given way to a wistful regret, now that he knew who his mother and brothers were.
His appearance took Arjuna by surprise. ‘Let us meet in the battlefield of Kurukshetra tomorrow,’ Karna said to him without preamble. ‘The time has come for us to fight to the finish. One of us shall live to see the dawn; the other shall greet his death.’
‘Certainly, my honoured foe,’ Arjuna replied courteously. ‘Death shall meet you tomorrow at my behest.’ Little did he realize that the radiant warrior he had sworn to kill was his blood brother, born from the same womb as him. Not even in his dreams could he have imagined that Karna was Kunti’s abandoned son.
In the Kaurava camp, Duryodhana conferred with Ashwathama. ‘Our troops need a commander to lead and inspire them,’ he said. ‘Ninety-eight sons born to Gandhari have all died at the hands of Bhima, while all the five born to Kunti and Madri continue to live. Only Karna, with his unparalleled valour, can save us now. Let Karna lead our troops.’
‘Tomorrow, I shall fight Arjuna,’ said Karna, trying to comfort Duryodhana. ‘If I live, I shall vanquish the rest.’
‘Then they are dead already,’ exclaimed Duryodhana, for his faith in Karna was absolute and unflinching.
Karna was silent and said nothing, but in his heart of hearts he thought, ‘I am doomed already to certain death; my brother is only to be the instrument of it.’
The next morning, the Kaurava priests greeted the dawn with sacred invocations and prayers for Karna’s victory. Before he departed for the battlefield, where he was to meet Arjuna, Duryodhana came to greet him.
‘I was the son of a humble charioteer when you anointed me the king of Anga,’ Karna said to his friend. ‘Today, I shall try to save your kingdom for you. I shall give up my breath and my body and all that I have for you. I cannot say if victory will come to me or to the valiant Arjuna; but of this I am sure, that I shall die your loyal friend and subject.’
‘I think you have been beguiled by my treacherous cousins,’ Duryodhana sighed. ‘Dronacharya let Arjuna enter the Chakravyuh, and spared Yudhishthira from certain death. For his love, he was killed by a lie! Yet those whom the gods love ride on success whatever the evil acts they commit, while destiny defeats us at every step.’
The friends were both silent for a while. Then Kaalla, the malicious spirit that leads mankind to death, distrust and disaster, perched himself on Karna’s broad shoulders. ‘Your destiny awaits you,’ Kaalla whispered to the sixth Pandava. ‘Forget this talk of omens and what is preordained. You shall kill Arjuna today.’
Karna’s sad heart took courage again, and he strode into battle determined to destroy his brother.
The gods had assembled in the heavens to watch Karna, born of the sun god Surya, enter into battle with Arjuna, son of Indra, lord of the heavens. The skies above Kurukshetra were crowded with their anxious faces as they observed Karna string his bow, the Vijaya, which no man but he could bend. Arjuna, too, was caressing his bow, the Gandiva. The sun god’s heart was heavy as he watched the scene from the heavens, for he knew that Karna’s trust and generosity were the very qualities that had led to his betrayal.
The two armies gathered to watch this decisive encounter from a respectful distance.
Kurukshetra was covered with dead bodies, scattered with severed arms and broken legs and decapitated heads and other such emblems and tokens of victory and defeat.
Salya, king of Madra, had been chosen as charioteer to Karna. Only Salya could possibly match Arjuna’s charioteer, the divine Krishna, in strength and strategy. It was another matter altogether that, unknown to both Duryodhana and Karna, Salya had promised his nephew Yudhishthira that he would help his kinsman Arjuna rather than Karna in this crucial encounter.
Karna had anointed his rugged shoulders with sandal paste. He wore a fragrant garland of sweet-smelling flowers around his muscular neck. Behind him stood a second chariot stacked with long supple arrows winged with dark feathers, to hold out against his opponent’s magical quiver of unending arrows.
Salya greeted Karna with a gracious smile. Having gotten to know the generous-hearted warrior better, Salya now regretted his promise to the Pandavas. ‘I shall be fair to Karna,’ he resolved.
Lord Krishna harnessed the silver-white horses of his chariot and led Arjuna into the battlefield. When he sighted Karna, his eyes lit up with a deep compassion; and yet his usual inscrutable smile continued to play upon his dark face.
Indra hid his son Arjuna in a magical mist, but the sun god breathed hard upon Kurukshetra and blew the mist away. As the two brothers fought, death danced in balance between them. Their skill and courage were so well matched that it seemed they could both fight forever, neither conceding the battle until eternity. There was silence on the battlefield, broken only by the furious twanging of arrows.
Karna’s chariot heaved and tilted over. The wheel was locked fast, mired in the damp and bloodied mud of Kurukshetra. Karna descended from the chariot to push the wheel free, but Earth herself conspired against him and rose to frustrate his attempt.
Arjuna took aim, and Karna thought, ‘I must not die undefended.’
He took up his strongest weapon, the Nagastra, and aimed it at Arjuna’s heart. His ultimate weapon, Indra’s Shakti, had already been spent.
For the first time in his life Karna’s unerring aim did not hit true. As his chariot had lunged down and was stuck in the mud he failed to calculate the distance accurately.
In Arjuna’s chariot, Krishna pressed the wheel down so that it sank deep into the damp soil. The deadly weapon hit the golden crown on Arjuna’s head and exploded into a corona of fire.
His hair was damp with blood, but still Arjuna lived. He aimed his Gandiva and flew a volley of swift and lethal arrows at his noble brother, beheading him. Lord Indra had beguiled Karna of his invincible armour, and now Indra’s son had robbed Karna of his life.
The last ray of the setting son touched Karna’s brow in benediction. Surya the sun god blessed his beloved son and sank grieving over the horizon.
The Defeat of Duryodhana
His promise to the Pandavas fulfilled, Salya decided to fight the rest of the war like a true warrior. His empty chariot retreated from the field where Karna lay dead, his head with its mop of curly dark hair lying beside his body.
‘I cannot believe that Karna is vanquished,’ sighed Yudhishthira. ‘A noble enemy commands respect even in death. I wish we had known each other in happier times.’
As for Duryodhana, who can describe his emotions? He was all alone now, and his world was falling apart. All his brothers were dead, and now the man he had trusted above all others to steer his army to victory was gone too.
The aged Kripacharya sighed and counselled that the Kauravas accept defeat. ‘Death flowers are blooming in this bloodied field; let us sow the seeds of peace,’ he entreated.
But a strange hungry desperation possessed Duryodhana. He smiled recklessly. ‘Life is a game of dice,’ he muttered. ‘And I shall emerge once again the victor.’
On the eighteenth day of battle, Salya advised what remained of the disheartened Kaurava army to engage in a swift and sudden sortie. ‘Kill them and run back from the fight,’ he instructed the soldiers. Sakuni too was in battle-gear, playing the game of real life without his loaded dice to protect him. Sanjay, whom Vyasa had gifted with superhuman sight so that he could report the progress of the war first-hand to blind Dhritarashtra, was also conscripted to make up for the falling numbers.
In the field of death, Yuyutsu stood facing the army his brothers had once led, his banner of plain gold fluttering besides Yudhishthira’s flag, with its emblem of a golden moon. Sahadeva’s banner displayed a silver swan, and Nakula’s a Himalayan sarabh bird. The banners flew proudly but the hearts of the heroes were defeated and weary of so much fighting. Only Yudhishthira, normally so gentle and patient, was resolute in his will to fight.
Sakuni advanced on a mountain horse, bearing a long silver lance in his elegant hands. His blue-grey eyes glittered, as always, with a sort of amused contempt. Nakula and Sahadeva leapt off their chariots and mounted swift steeds, one light and one dark, in pursuit. The great gambler had played his last game, and could not cheat the death that awaited him. The youngest of the Pandavas together split Sakuni into three dismembered pieces, and left his body to rot on the battlefield.
Salya was dead, and Dhrishtadyumya relentlessly pursued the straggling remainders of the Kauravas’ eleven akshauhini battalions that had swaggered into war just eighteen days ago.
Duryodhana, though wounded, was still alive. He fought alone, fearlessly and calmly, his arrows never missing their mark. Then his elephant fell, and he leapt off the mighty beast, first thanking it in death for the service it had done him in life.
With only a single mace in his hand as weapon, Duryodhana left the battlefield and wandered into the woods nearby. His body was burning with fever, and when he saw a tranquil pond he walked towards it tiredly and rested himself there.
Some hunters saw him and reported the news to the Pandava camp. ‘We must find Duryodhana and end this war,’ Yudhishthira pronounced.
They hurried to the pond where their cousin and foe had hidden himself. He lay hidden deep in the calm waters, away from the clamour of the battlefield.
‘After destroying your family and kingdom, how can you hide in this pond and seek refuge from the consequences of your actions?’ Yudhishthira exclaimed.
‘I neither fear death nor wish to live!’ Duryodhana replied. ‘I have lost my friends and all those who stood by me. What should I fight for? The kingdom is yours to enjoy. Rule it well.’
‘You had said that you would not grant us a needle-point of land,’ said Yudhishthira. ‘We do not fight for land or kingdom but for honour. We cannot let you go.’
‘Then take me on one by one and I shall combat you all,’ said Duryodhana angrily, his pride reasserting itself. He took up his mace against Bhima, and the two battled by the shore of the tranquil pond, far from the slaughter-field of Kurukshetra.
As Bhima faced Duryodhana, his mind filled with memories of all the wrongs Duryodhana had inflicted on his brothers and their beloved Draupadi. He had sworn at the time of Draupadi’s public humiliation that he would break Duryodhana’s thigh with his mace.
The two circled each other, trying to find an opening in the other’s defences. Bhima drew Duryodhana off-balance, and hurled his mace at him. The jewelled mace, heavy with Bhima’s anger, fell at his cousin’s thighs. The king of the Kurus lay on the soft mud, immobilized. His body was broken, but his spirit was intact.
Bhima did a terrible victory dance, raining blows on his fallen opponent and stamping his head with his massive feet. Yudhishthira tried to restrain him. ‘He is your cousin, and a king,’ he advised. ‘Pay him the respect due to him.’
‘You have won the war by base tricks and deceit,’ pronounced the dying Duryodhana. ‘You killed Bhishma with a stratagem and Drona with a lie. The noble Karna was defenceless when you attacked him. You have not behaved as true warriors. As for me, I have had a full life, a royal life. My friends have loved me and given me their loyalty. I die only to join them, and leave the sorrows of life to you.’
So died Duryodhana, son of Dhritarashtra, the firstborn of the Kauravas.
Yuyutsu, the only surviving Kaurava, could foresee the destruction of his city, Hastinapura. The women of his kingdom had been widowed, the children orphaned. Only old men remained to defend them, and there was panic and confusion everywhere.
Yuyutsu sought Yudhishthira’s permission to return to Hastinapura and establish order there. It was late in the afternoon when he arrived at the city of his birth. He first went to meet his uncle, Vidura.
Vidura’s palace was deserted, and the sounds of weeping and lamentation could be heard in all quarters. ‘Where is Duryodhana?’ asked Vidura, his voice choked with sorrow. He knew in his heart that the eldest of the Kauravas was dead.
King Dhritarashtra had already heard the news of his son’s imminent death from Sanjay. ‘I weep for my sons, who I shall not see again,’ he said, tears rolling from his sightless eyes. ‘All my life I have been blind, and if ever I wanted the gift of sight, it was to see my sons smile at me. I am utterly destroyed.’
Ashwathama’s Revenge
After the Pandavas had left Duryodhana for dead, life had lingered within him for a while. Ashwathama, Kripacharya and Kritavarma went to see him, to pay their last respects. Duryodhana was in his final death throes, his long hair covered in blood and dust, his body a battlefield of life and death.
‘I shall avenge your death,’ swore Ashwathama before the dying king.
That night the Pandavas slept not in their tents but by the riverside, where the gentle river breeze soothed their conscience and the sound of the rushes swaying in the breeze was a balm to their souls.
Ashwathama went in the dead of the night to the Pandava camp, on the western side of the battlefield, near the Samantapanchaka lake. Dhrishtadyumya, the slayer of Dronacharya, lay asleep in his tent, unaware that death was stalking him. His nephews, the sons of Draupadi, slept in the tents surrounding h
is, as did Sikhandin, his brother.
The massacre was swift, and sudden. Breaking every code of Kshatriya honour, Ashwathama, Kritavarma and Kripacharya slaughtered the sleeping soldiers in the Pandava camp, and set fire to their tents.
‘I have avenged my father,’ said Drona’s son, and they went to the pond where Duryodhana lay. Although defeated, life would not leave him. In this half-life, he heard Ashwathama’s words as though in a dream.
‘I have taken my revenge,’ said Ashwathama, ‘and the sons of the Pandavas live no more.’
‘I die happy,’ murmured Duryodhana and gave up his life.
At dawn, as the morning mists were clearing, the Pandavas returned to their camp. Only Dhrishtadyumya’s charioteer had escaped the executioners. He told the brothers what had happened.
Yudhishthira wept, for his gentle heart could take no more pain, but Arjuna’s eyes were dry and his resolution steadfast. ‘Blood for blood,’ he declared and went in pursuit of Ashwathama, who sat in prayer by the banks of the Ganga.
When he saw the Pandavas approaching, with Lord Krishna beside them, Ashwathama took a blade of durva grass and charged it with the sacred mantra of destruction. ‘My father, Drona, taught me the Brahmastra,’ he said, ‘and cautioned me never to use it against mankind. But you Pandavas are not men—you are traitors, and vultures who feed on the dead. I shall destroy you and all your offspring, born and unborn.’
Uttara, the widow of Arjuna’s son Abhimanyu, carried his unborn child in her womb. The Brahmastra first took aim at her and sought to annihilate the last remnant of the Pandava clan.
But Lord Krishna opened his celestial third eye and caused Ashwathama’s weapon to retract. ‘We have had enough destruction,’ said Krishna. ‘It is time to sow the seeds of peace; for the world to renew itself.’
Ashwathama, whom Duryodhana had anointed commander of his army before he died, conceded defeat and retreated to the forest to spend his life in prayer and meditation. Before he departed, he took the shining jewel from his headgear and gave it to the Pandavas as a token of victory.
The Puffin Mahabharata Page 15