Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata

by Devdutt Pattanaik

  The purpose of life is to grow—materially, intellectually and emotionally. Unfortunately, the Kauravas focus only on material growth. By embracing Krishna, the Pandavas are offered intellectual and emotional growth, besides material growth, that has the power to help them break their own self-imposed limitations.

  Book Fifteen

  War

  ‘Janamejaya, in the battle, fathers, teachers, brothers and friends were all killed, so that delusion could be replaced with wisdom.’

  78

  Bloodbath

  Krishna’s song had changed Arjuna’s perspective of the battlefield. This was not Kuru-kshetra, where war was about property or vengeance. This was Dharmakshetra, where Arjuna would triumph over his fear, guilt and rage.

  Arjuna picked up his magnificent bow, the Gandiva, and requested Krishna to take him towards the enemy lines. As the chariot rolled, Arjuna’s banner with the image of Hanuman fluttered against the blue sky. The deep sound of Devdutt, Arjuna’s conch-shell, filled the air, joined by the sound of Panchajanya, Krishna’s conch-shell. Together, they announced the start of the war.

  Far away, in the palace of Hastina-puri, the blind king and his blindfolded wife heard Sanjay describe the scene thus: ‘Then commenced the battle between your sons and your nephews, O monarch, which was as fierce and awful as the battle between the Devas and the Asuras. Men and crowds of chariots and elephants, and elephant-warriors and horsemen by thousands, and steeds, all possessed of great prowess, encountered one another. Resembling the roar of the clouds in the season of rain, the loud noise of rushing elephants of fearful forms was heard. Some chariot-riders, struck by elephants, were deprived of their chariots. Routed by those raging beasts other brave combatants ran off the field. Well-trained chariot-warriors, with their shafts, dispatched to the other world large bodies of cavalry and the footmen that urged and protected the elephants. Well-trained horsemen, O king, careered on to the field, surrounded the great chariot-warriors, and struck and slew the latter with spears and darts and swords. Some combatants armed with bows surrounded great charioteers and dispatched them to Yama’s abode, the many united battling against individual ones.’

  As the sun reached the zenith, he said, ‘Those warriors, O monarch, longing to take one another’s life, began to slay one another in the battle. Throngs of chariots, and large bodies of horses, and teeming divisions of infantry and elephants in large numbers, mingled with one another, O king, for battle. We beheld the falling of maces and spiked bludgeons and lances and short arrows and rockets hurled at one another in that dreadful engagement. Arrow showers terrible to look at coursed like flights of locusts. Elephants approaching elephants routed one another. Horsemen encountering horsemen, and chariots encountering chariots, and foot-soldiers encountering foot-soldiers, and foot-soldiers meeting with horsemen, and foot-soldiers meeting with chariots and elephants, and chariots meeting with elephants and horsemen, and elephants of great speed meeting with the three other kinds of forces, began, O king, to crush and grind one another.’

  At the end of the day, when the soldiers withdrew to their battle camps, this is how Sanjay described the battlefield: ‘The earth, covered with blood, looked beautiful like a vast plain in the season of rains covered with red flowers. Indeed, the earth assumed the aspect of a youthful maiden of great beauty, attired in white robes dyed with deep red. Variegated with flesh and blood, the field of battle looked as if decked all over with gold. The field, O monarch, indented with the hoofs of the steeds, looked beautiful like a beautiful woman bearing the marks of her lover’s nails on her person. Strewn with those fallen heads that were crimson with blood, the earth looked resplendent as if adorned with golden-coloured lotuses in their season. Many steeds with garlands of gold on their heads and with their necks and breasts adorned with ornaments of gold, were seen to be slain in hundreds and thousands. And strewn with broken chariots and torn banners and brilliant umbrellas, with shredded chamaras and fans, and mighty weapons broken into fragments, with garlands and necklaces of gold, with bracelets, with heads decked with earrings, with headgears loosened off from heads, with standards, with the undercarriage of upturned chariots, O king, and with traces and reins, the earth shone as brightly as she does in spring when strewn with flowers.’

  In the Vishnu Purana, the earth-goddess in the form of a cow complains to Vishnu that she has been milked so terribly by the greedy kings of the earth that her udders are sore. Vishnu promises to teach the greedy kings a lesson; as Parashurama, Ram and Krishna he will spill their blood on the earth so that like a lioness, the earth can drink their blood. Thus the battle at Kuru-kshetra is preordained by cosmic events. It is a sacrifice to quench the thirst of the earth-goddess and restore the earth’s splendour.

  Every warrior on the battlefield has a conch-shell trumpet. The sound of the conch-shell indicated the strength and stamina of warriors, and served as a warning to their opponents. Yudhishtira’s conch-shell was called Ananta-vijaya, Bhima’s was called Poundrya, Nakula’s was called Sughosh and Sahadeva’s was called Mani-pushpak.

  The descriptions of the war and renditions in art suggest a crowded battlefield covered with millions of fighting warriors. Vedic wars, in all probability, were primarily duels where the chief warriors of opposite sides confronted each other. Each warrior, mounted on a chariot, was accompanied by elephants, horses and foot soldiers, who were there more to cheer the warrior, demonstrate his power and mock the opponent rather than actually fight. Poets added their imagination to the reality to create a grand, mesmerizing epic.

  79

  Sacrifice for victory

  For nine days, they struggled. The sun rose, arched across the sky, and plummeted down the horizon, watching brother kill brother, friend kill friend. Hands were cut, heads smashed, stomachs torn, eyes gouged out—but there was no victory in sight. The ground was wet with blood, the air filled with the stench of rotting corpses. Day after day young men hurled themselves into battle, their energies stoked by the beating drums and the songs of charioteers and the commands of their generals. By evening, a few returned bruised and maimed, impatient for the sun to rise again.

  In the silence of the night, servants who had waited in the battle camps all day collected the bodies of their masters lying dead or maimed on the battlefield. Kuru-kshetra was thus prepared for the next onslaught at dawn. By the time the land was cleared, the sun appeared on the horizon: there was no time to dispose of the dead, who were then simply piled up in heaps on the rim of the battlefield, their dead eyes watching the continuing carnage.

  At first, it seemed the Pandavas would win. Then the battle moved in favour of the Kauravas. The old leader of the Kauravas proved to be an astute general. Under his command, the warriors successfully pushed the Pandava army back. But young Dhrishtadyumna was an able commander too. He matched the size of the Kaurava army with nimbleness; his instructions ensured that his army stood its ground and his soldiers did not lose heart.

  As the days passed, it was clear that the two sides were equally matched. Victory eluded either. Strategies which worked at dawn failed by dusk. For every attack, there was a counterattack. Every astra was matched with an equally powerful astra from the opposite side. If the Pandava side included Rakshasas in their army, so did the Kauravas; if there were elephants on the Kaurava side, there were elephants on the Pandava side. Frustration built up. Hope was like a mirage, appearing for a few hours each day, and then disappearing. Amidst the war cries and clanging of weapons, it was clear to all that this war would not end soon.

  ‘Perhaps if we sacrifice to Kali, the goddess of the battlefield, a worthy warrior, she might reveal how this war may be won,’ said Krishna on the ninth night. The oracles were consulted and they agreed. A warrior with thirty-two sacred marks on the body would be ideal, they said.

  Only three men on the Pandava side had such marks: Arjuna, Krishna and a warrior called Iravan. The Pandavas could not sacrifice Arjuna and would not sacrifice Krishna and so all eyes turned
to Iravan.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Arjuna.

  ‘Your son,’ said Iravan, his eyes gleaming with excitement. But Arjuna had no memory of fathering a son such as him. Iravan explained, ‘My mother is the Naga princess, Ulupi, who you married long ago.’

  Iravan had come to Kuru-kshetra despite his mother’s protests. ‘It is his war, not yours,’ she had said. But Iravan longed to meet his father and yearned for glory.

  Arjuna barely remembered Ulupi yet hugged Iravan as a son, for every warrior who joined his side, for whatever reason, was precious. If it meant being father to a man he did not even know, so be it. ‘If you are truly my son, you should not have any hesitation in allowing yourself to be sacrificed to Kali,’ said Arjuna.

  Iravan realized he could not say no. ‘But I have one condition,’ he said, ‘Let me not die a virgin. Let me have a wife, who will weep for me when I die.’

  In keeping with the rules of the ritual, it was mandatory to fulfil the last wish of the sacrificial victim. The Pandavas were obliged to get Iravan married but no woman was willing to be Iravan’s wife. Who would want to marry a man doomed to die at sunrise? When all attempts to get Iravan a wife failed, Krishna came to the rescue in a way no one could imagine.

  Krishna took the female form known as Mohini, married Iravan, and spent the night with him as his wife, bringing great delight to his heart. The next day when Iravan was beheaded at dawn, Krishna wept for him as his widow. No widow had ever wept for a man as Krishna did for Iravan.

  The Sanskrit epic is generally silent on the son of Arjuna and Ulupi who is identified as Iravan. The tale of Iravan’s human sacrifice comes from north Tamil Nadu’s oral traditions where Iravan is worshipped as Kuthandavar, a form of Shiva.

  Iravan’s sacrifice is re-enacted each year ritually where he becomes the divine husband of all men who have womanly feelings. Such men are known locally as Alis and they are today identified as homosexual transvestites, who often castrate themselves and spend their entire lives as women, separate from mainstream society. Through Iravan’s mythology the existence of those who call themselves Ali is acknowledged, explained and validated.

  It is said that Iravan had this great desire to see the conclusion of the war. Divining this, Krishna placed his severed head on top of a tree, breathing life into it, so that he could witness what followed in the war from that vantage position.

  80

  A woman on the battlefield

  The Pandavas knew that as long as Bhishma was alive, they would not win. But the Pandavas were reluctant to hurt Bhishma; he was like a father to them, the only father they knew. Arjuna released many arrows at Bhishma, but none that posed any real threat.

  An angry Krishna jumped off the chariot one day, picked up a loose chariot wheel and ran towards Bhishma. Arjuna realized Krishna was so irritated with the way things were moving that to bring the war to a conclusion, he was willing to break his own vow of never raising weapons against anyone at Kuru-kshetra. Arjuna ran after Krishna, and begged him to stop. ‘I will kill Bhishma,’ he promised.

  But therein lay the problem: how does one kill Bhishma, who had been given the boon by the gods that he could choose the time of his own death? Krishna said, ‘Maybe he cannot be killed, but surely we can put him out of action by pinning him to the ground so that he can move not a single limb.’

  ‘That is impossible so long as he holds his bow,’ said Arjuna.

  ‘Then make him lower his bow,’ said Krishna with a smile, knowing fully well that Arjuna was finding excuses to avoid the unpleasant task.

  ‘Bhishma will never lower his bow on the battlefield,’ said Arjuna.

  ‘Will he hold his bow even when facing a woman?’ asked Krishna slyly, reminding all of the female form he had taken to be Iravan’s wife.

  ‘But women are not allowed to enter the battlefield,’ argued Arjuna, still focusing on problems rather than solutions.

  ‘Is Shikhandi a woman or a man?’ asked Krishna, referring to Draupadi’s elder brother.

  Shikhandi’s story was a peculiar one. She was born a woman but her father, Drupada, king of Panchala, was told by oracles that later in life she would acquire the body of a man. ‘In her last life,’ they said, ‘she was Amba, the eldest daughter of the king of Kashi, and it is her destiny to be the cause of Bhishma’s death.’ So Drupada raised his daughter as a man. He even gave her a wife. On the wedding night, Shikhandi’s wife ran screaming to her father, Hiranyavarna, king of Dasharna, complaining that her ‘husband’ had the body of a woman. Hiranyavarna raised an army, laid siege to Drupada’s kingdom and threatened to raze it to the ground to avenge the humiliation of his daughter. To save Panchala from war, Shikhandi decided to kill herself. She ran to the forest where she encountered a Yaksha called Sthuna. On hearing of her situation, the Yaksha offered Shikhandi his manhood. ‘Use it to prove to your wife and her father that you are a man but return it tomorrow,’ said the Yaksha. Shikhandi took the Yaksha’s manhood and did all that was necessary to prove to his wife that he was no woman, forcing his father-in-law to beat a hasty retreat. When Shikhandi returned to the forest the next day to return her temporary manhood, the Yaksha said, ‘My king, Kubera, lord of the Yakshas, ruler of Alakapuri, was not pleased when he learnt how I let you use my manhood for a night. He has cursed me that my manhood will return to me only at the end of your life.’ Shikhandi was overjoyed. Born a woman, he had now become a man and would stay so till the day he died.

  All those who knew this tale wondered if Shikhandi was man or woman. Is gender defined by the truth of birth or by the truth of this moment?

  Krishna said, ‘If you, Arjuna, believe Shikhandi is a man, you can take him into the battlefield on your chariot. But if Bhishma believes Shikhandi is a woman, he will lower his bow and complain that you have breached the rules of war. That will give you an opportunity to overpower him.’

  ‘That is unfair,’ said Arjuna.

  ‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ said Krishna.

  And so on the tenth day of the battle, Shikhandi mounted Arjuna’s chariot and challenged Bhishma to a duel. As expected, Bhishma refused to fight one who was born with the body of a woman. He lowered his bow. Arjuna who stood behind Shikhandi immediately shot hundreds of arrows at Bhishma.

  Duryodhana watched in horror as Arjuna’s arrows ripped through the great warrior’s limbs and torso. The great leader of the Kaurava army fell from his chariot, and fell to the ground. The arrows that had pierced every inch of his flesh suspended him between sky and earth.

  News of Bhishma’s fall spread across the battlefield like wildfire. All the soldiers lowered their weapons in respect. Bhishma was the great patriarch of the Kuru clan respected by all. They gathered around him and wept on seeing him so pinned to the ground.

  An ordinary man would have died of these injuries. But Bhishma was no ordinary man. ‘I can choose the time of my death and the time is not now. The rising sun moves in the southern direction along the eastern horizon, and the moon wanes with each passing day. I shall wait until this changes and die at an auspicious time after the winter solstice, when the sun rises each day closer to the Pole Star, only in the bright half of the lunar month when the moon is waxing.’

  Thus ended the tenth day of battle, with the Kaurava army losing its great leader.

  Though the Pandavas invoke Durga, goddess of war, before the battle, they still hesitate to allow a woman to fight beside them. In the epic age, killing a woman was considered the worst of crimes, equal to killing a Brahman, keeper of wisdom, and a cow, source of wealth, because to kill a woman was equal to killing a mother.

  Bhishma’s defeat marks the end of an old and noble era when rules of war were respected. The days that follow witness the gradual breakdown of all principles.

  Arjuna’s arrows suspend Bhishma between the earth and the sky because he is rejected by both in death. This is because Bhishma cannot be identified clearly either as a householder or as a hermit. Moreover, though born a man he
lives like a non-man, meaning he neither fulfils his obligations as a son nor partakes the benefits of being a son: he does not marry, does not father children, does not inherit his father’s kingdom and, in the end, dies because of a woman. Bhishma also carries the burden of letting his family bloodline die because of his vow; his half-brothers turn out to be weaklings who die childless. Vyasa thus draws attention to the terrible consequences of what may appear to be a very noble sacrifice.

  In a way, Bhishma practices adharma. He breaks the code of ashrama-dharma that demands that men retire when their children are old enough to take care of themselves. He refuses to let go and allow his family to fend for itself. Taking advantage of the fact that he can choose his death, he refuses to die, or retire, or detach himself from his household.

  The time when Bhishma is pinned to the ground falls in the period before the winter solstice when the Pitrs or ancestors are close to the earth according to the traditional calendar system. Bhishma, who chose never to give birth to a child, perhaps is ashamed to meet his ancestors and so chooses to die in the next half of the year after the winter solstice when the Pitrs pull away from the earth.

  Both the stories of Iravan’s marriage and Shikhandi’s participation deal with sexual transformation and gender ambiguity. Both these events take place on the ninth night and tenth day, which is midway between the eighteen-day battle. Until their occurrence, the battle is indecisive. Only after these events occur does the battle approach a conclusion. Thus the ninth night marks the shift from binary logic to fuzzy logic, where lines are not so clearly drawn between points of view.