Shambuka Rama

by Mukunda Rao

  Yudhishthira stood in stunned silence for a long while. Finally, he spoke. He addressed no one in particular, and he addressed everyone: himself, his brothers, the dead and the unborn.

  ‘See, see for yourselves and hear me out. Of all men, kings are the worst. They carry a deadly disease. They are the messengers and executioners of death. This victory is a defeat drenched in the blood of the innocent. Enough, enough of this bloodshed.’

  Then turning to his brothers, and his wife in particular, he cried, ‘I abandon Kurujangala; I reject this bloodstained victory and I reject you all.’ Raising his head, he said, ‘O Krishna, if you can hear me, listen. I reject you too. You are an unrealized god, an unborn truth. Your talk of dharma is only a trick of maya. I shall leave you all, strip myself of this illusory yet fatal garb of civilization, and go into the forest to live the life of a hermit. I shall meet cold and heat and illness and hunger and death as they come. I shall live only on fruits fallen from trees. I shall abjure violence and fear no creature. If a tiger chews off one of my arms, I shall offer him the other arm, nay, my whole body if that will satiate his hunger. I will go on thus, forward and never backwards, but with no goal in mind, for all goals are delusive…’

  Wallowing in the slime of their own suffering, they did not hear Yudhishthira trumpeting his disgust with life and his resolve to renounce everything and everyone. Draupadi, who had swooned in unbearable sorrow a moment ago, sat up and turned to Bheema, fire leaping in her eyes. ‘Bheema,’ she cried in wrath, ‘listen carefully. From this moment onwards, I will neither eat nor drink until Ashwathama is killed. You must destroy him or I will destroy myself in this very spot where my children have been massacred.’

  As Bheema, like one under a spell, picked his deadly mace, Yudhishthira cried out again, ‘Bheema, where are you going? Listen to me. You are the second one, so you must be the king. I’m leaving this very moment.’ Bheema was not listening. ‘Bheema, where are you going? Listen to me.’ Yudhishthira shouted at him, but Bheema turned his back on his brother and strode out of the camp.

  Sanjaya quailed. ‘Draupadi, don’t do this. This blind rage will destroy the world. I know you were abused, and not only by the Kauravas. I understand you have suffered a great deal, and that suffering blinds you. Didn’t it all start with Kunti’s preposterous idea that all the five brothers should share you? Your beauty was a curse. The brothers shamelessly lusted for your body. ‘Share the alms you’ve brought equally among yourselves,’ said Kunti. Did Kunti really believe it was alms, bhiksha, the brothers had collected from the neighbourhood? Later, even after knowing the fact that Arjuna had won your hand in a swayamvara, Kunti did not take back her words, you didn’t protest, and the brothers were more than happy to take their mother’s words as her command. Where was Kunti’s sense of fairness and justice towards another woman? What was the difference between Gandhari and Kunti? Is this the way of samsara? Is this how Brahma plays his leela with his children?

  ‘Revenge! Ah, I know you,’ Sanjaya cried, laughing hysterically now. ‘Aren’t you the other side of dharma, one born of Shiva’s destructive wrath, a monster let loose on earth to devour all creation, to quench the unquenchable hunger of your other self?’

  The horrible sight of the bodies of his sons turned Bheema mad for retribution. No sooner had Draupadi uttered her terrible oath that he, like a wounded tiger growling in pain and rage, rushed out in search of revenge.

  And then, Krishna arrived. The ghastly scene snapped something inside this being, this composed, wise, smiling Krishna. He had to check himself. Anger is the essence of dualism and the stuff of illusion. He sighed tiredly. But knowing that Bheema had gone after Ashwathama, his face turned dark with the fear of the known. He had come a little too late. And it seemed he had become irrelevant. The self-destructive neurosis was now too deeply entrenched in human consciousness to be able to be cleansed. All was lost, nothing on earth or heaven could remedy the blunders committed by all those who had the power in their hands to be different.

  Then the enigmatic Krishna suddenly cried out. ‘Arjuna, perhaps all is not lost; perhaps we can still prevent the holocaust. Come on, Arjuna, be quick.’

  Ashwathama was hiding in Vyasa’s ashram. By the time Krishna and Arjuna reached the place with the speed of the wind, Ashwathama had set the deadly weapon in his bow and was ready to fire. The great glow on his face had gone and a sinister smile sat in its place. He no longer looked human. In front of him stood Bheema, paralysed by the destructive power of the Brahmaseerastra, eyes wide with shock, with a fear he had not known before.

  ‘Arjuna,’ Krishna cried in hopeless anguish, ‘my fear has come true. I knew it would come to this. To fight evil is to court evil. There is no stopping now, pick up your bow.’

  A fearful shudder passed through Arjuna and he dropped his great bow, the gandiva. At the start of the Kurukshetra battle, he had fallen into despair over the prospect of killing his own cousins, his gurus and his elders. Krishna had guided him then so he could overcome his despondency and kill like a true Kshatriya, kill for the sake of dharma, without the fear of death and without guilt. But now, what he experienced was not despair or fear but a terrifying blankness. He stood thus, wide-eyed and speechless.

  Krishna smiled wearily, for he knew there was no protection against the Brahmaseerastra. Fire could not be put out by fire. They had broken the law. They violated the cosmic rhythm, the rta. Now they had to pay for it with their lives.

  ‘Arjuna, pick up your bow,’ he ordered.

  ‘But, Lord Krishna—’ Arjuna froze in horror.

  It was terrible. A Brahman and a Kshatriya, whose dharma it was to protect and nurture the world, were going to be its destroyers. ‘What are you waiting for?’ Krishna said impatiently. ‘You wanted to possess the ultimate weapon and be the greatest archer in the world, didn’t you, Arjuna? You are the greatest. Come on now, you shouldn’t hesitate to finish what you started.’

  Arjuna spoke in great anguish. ‘I have never heard you speak this way before. Are you mocking me? Are you blaming me for what has happened?’

  ‘No, Arjuna, I’m mocking myself,’ said Krishna and sighed. There was no hatred, and therefore no vengeance, in Gokul. There was love, the great yearning for love, the agonizing forlornness and the overwhelming desire for oneness. There was mischief but no malice; there was jealousy but no distrust or greed. The music of the flute and veena floated through the air, and with that came out the gopis, shimmering in oranges and yellows, greens and reds. His Radha too, in radiant colours, glowed against the brilliant green landscape and the blue-blue sky. What had driven him out of this circle of dance, this circle of enchanting leela? He was here because it was the same leela, the same intriguing cosmic play, refracted through the Kuru race. This tragedy, this rasa, was cathartic; it opened the path to transcendence.

  ‘I’m mocking myself,’ repeated Krishna with a helpless sigh.

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘We are past all understanding, Arjuna.’

  ‘Please don’t say that. You know everything. Give me that knowledge with which one understands everything.’

  ‘There is no such thing, Arjuna. There is no such thing as ultimate understanding or ultimate knowledge like your ultimate weapon, the Brahmaseerastra.’

  Why was Krishna speaking thus? Was this the affectionate relative, the dependable friend and wise, compassionate guru? Was this the same being with whom he had roamed the forests like they were inseparable lovers and, when Surya had painted the horizon with his golden hues, when the eastern wind had floated in carrying the alluring fragrance of forest women with luscious breasts, had danced like drunken men, and enjoyed himself with wild abandon?

  Surely this could not be the same Krishna who had saved him when he was in the abyss, and shown him the path of truth. This could not be the man whose embraces were more tender and reassuring than the embraces of all the women he had known. How could this be the being who could turn even a curse to the Pa
ndavas’ advantage, that Supreme Being who they trusted would ferry them to the shore beyond conflict and evil?

  ‘Why did you acquire the weapon then, Arjuna?’ Krishna continued harshly, destroying Arjuna’s hopes. ‘Why do you always carry it? Should I wake up that most perverted Brahman Drona and ask him why he taught you and his son the mantra of this deadly weapon, which, he knew, could only destroy the earth. Look at his son. Look at the face of evil.’

  Trembling at the sight of Krishna’s visage, Arjuna stuttered: ‘Krishna, I’m perplexed by what you are saying. You know me.’ But what did the world know about him? The world saw him as a handsome young man who had his way with the most beautiful of women, and as an exemplary warrior, a Kshatriya worthy of emulation. What did they know about his doubts and conflicts, about the anguish and guilt that brought him down on his knees when he lifted his gandiva? They knew nothing about how he hated this world and what it expected of him, how he wished to run away from everything, disappear like a stone thrown into a stream. But Krishna knew all this! Didn’t he tell him once that they were two bodies but with one mind, one soul?

  ‘I know you,’ said Krishna, reading Arjuna’s mind. ‘But you do not know me, and I do not think you heard me correctly.’ Suddenly, he thundered: ‘Remember this, Arjuna: There is no difference between you and Karna, between Bheema and Duryodhana. There was never the other.’

  Arjuna was stunned. ‘Krishna, how can you say that? Are you saying there is no difference between dharma and adharma?’

  Krishna said quietly, ‘One creates the other and then they devour each other, like two snakes swallowing each other through their tails.’

  Arjuna stared at Krishna in disbelief.

  ‘I don’t blame you, Arjuna. You are just one link in this chain of events, just one character in this play of power and lust and pain and pleasure.’

  ‘Krishna, my friend, you cannot be serious. I have known and experienced something more; and I know you.’

  ‘Only Yudhishthira knew, and he suffered a thousand deaths because he knew. It’s all over now.’

  Horrified, Arjuna asked, ‘Isn’t there a way out?’

  Bheema, who had all this while stood in silent horror as Ashwathama readied himself to fire his weapon, now turned to Arjuna and screamed desperately, ‘Arjuna, look, Ashwathama is about to fire the weapon. Stop him, stop him now, shoot your arrow and sunder his head. What are you waiting for?’

  But Arjuna was not ready, still not sure if he should use the astra. How could he? To use the fatal weapon was to curse himself to eternal hell. What a curse it was to be born in a warrior caste. A Kshatriya should never waver in his actions, should never doubt himself, never fear, never cry like a woman, never hesitate to kill. He was born to hold the whip in his hand and rule the world. Was there no deliverance from this awful karma? ‘Krishna,’ he cried again in desperation, ‘can’t you do anything at all?’

  Ashwathama paused in his act and chuckled. ‘Krishna, I’m tired of you and tired of this life. I will bring you freedom and release you from human bondage. This astra of death will dissolve all bonds, all sorrow, and deliver humanity back to its pristine state. It will save the Pandavas from ruling over the dead, and strangling themselves with their guilt and suffering.’ Grinning malevolently, Ashwathama drew the invincible astra and chanted: ‘For the destruction of the Pandavas, and the destruction of Krishna.’

  As the demonic weapon rose into the sky, spewing fire, Arjuna’s Kshatriya self bounced back, just the way a stone flung into the sky must return to earth. He quickly picked his gandiva and, without a second thought, fired his Brahmaseerastra.

  Not far from there, on the blood-drenched Kurukshetra field, women and children, old men and women bent with age and affliction, were still searching for the bodies of their kith and kin. Like demented beings, beating their chests, pulling at their hair, they were crying and groaning. ‘Mother, look,’ cried a boy, ‘here lies father’s head. His eyes are open but there is no life in them and they are not angry with me…’ They drove away the shrieking vultures and hungry ravens, and waded through the river of death. An arm here, a head there, severed bodies lay scattered everywhere, and family members went about fetching the missing parts, choking, wailing…

  Suddenly, everyone’s attention was distracted by two huge spheres of curling yellow fire that erupted in the sky, like two blazing comets that travel at deathly speed and crash into one another. And the people spoke no more.

  Vyasa looked up and gave a deep sigh of fatigue. Kaliyuga had begun in blood and fire and death. The tale of irresolvable conflict and unquenchable vendetta, with sporadic peace and joy thrown in, would begin all over again, the tale of alienation deeply entrenched in human consciousness. Krishna would no longer be at the centre of this tale, for he was already deeply caught in the web of thought – divisive, illusory and self-destructive – and was condemned to be a passive witness. But he, Vyasa, would be there, in varied forms and under different names, at the centre of conflict and doubt, to narrate in many tongues the stories of other fratricidal wars, other romances with death, other journeys in search of the secret knowledge of life.

  But, for now, it was the end, for Time appeared to be in a hurry to close in and go to sleep. Yet, there was always something left behind, a residue that slithered back and forth. And so, this end would continue in a new beginning. Vyasa, the grandfather of the Pandavas and the Kauravas, the narrator of the life and times of the Kuru race, closed his eyes and drew his body–mind to a point of stillness.

  As the destructive weapons clashed in the sky, a million bolts of lightning struck the world. The earth began to crackle, hills and mountains exploded, forests caught fire, rivers steamed, a deathly mushroom of monstrous clouds rose and began to envelope the earth…

  Sanjaya sat speechless.

  Ganga was dead. The river had turned dark with deadly poisons, and the innumerable creatures that had lived in the water through kalpas, now lay dead and rotting. For what purpose? Sanjaya wanted to speak, he had so much to ask, so much to say. But it was absurd to speak when there was no one to hear. And it was meaningless to speak to oneself when words had lost all their meaning. Still, the pain remained. And he felt his body burn as the rain of fire poured down on him. He felt something tug at his heart and saw Yama, the Lord of Death, with his green skin and flaming red eyes, come rushing towards him. Still, unafraid, because fear was dead, too, Sanjaya opened his mouth to speak. No words issued forth, for all thoughts, all memories had burnt themselves out like a heap of curses.

  SHAMBUKA RAMA

  ‘“O Purushothama,” Narada said, “find out who in your country is violating the dharma, and put an end to it.

  ‘“With the prevention of adharma, dharma grows, the longevity of people increases, and the dead son of the Brahman will come back to life.”

  ‘Thanking the maharishis, Raghava picked his bow and quiver, and his coruscating sword, and climbed into his pushpak vimana. After searching in all three directions, at last at the south of Vindhyas, as he came by a hillock called Shyvala, he spotted beside a lake a man hanging upside down, doing intense tapas. Approaching the man, Raghava asked, “O blessed tapasvi, to what purpose are you engaged in this rigorous penance? I, Rama, the son of Dasharath, would like to know. And I also want to know what caste you belong to. Are you a Brahman, a Kshatriya, a Vaisya or a Shudra? Tell me the truth.”

  ‘The tapasvi answered thus: “O Rama, know that I am born of a Shudra womb. My name is Shambuka. I wish to enter swarg and attain godhood, hence this harsh and rigorous tapas.”

  ‘No sooner had Shambuka said that he was a Shudra engaged in tapas than Rama, with his bright sword, severed his head from his body.’

  —Valmiki Ramayana (Uttarakanda: 74–76)

  IT WAS AT JABALI’S ASHRAM that Rama finally broke his stubborn, heartbreaking silence. The maharishi had listened to Rama’s distressing tale with quiet attention but without any response, the way a clear and quiet lake reflects
the world without the intrusion of thought. He was a short man with a shaggy beard and the calm eyes of a deer.

  The moon had reached the centre of the universe when Jabali stood up and said quietly, ‘Rama, I have listened. Tomorrow, leave before the sun is out. Go southwards, and after covering about ten yojanas, you will find what you have been seeking all your life. Trust your instincts and do not despair.’

  The next morning, soon after the three started their journey southwards, they reached a lake perfumed with lotuses, where Sita bathed in its cool waters. Suddenly, Narada, with the ubiquitous veena hanging like a bow from his shoulder and a mischievous grin on his face, stepped out from behind a bush, ‘Ah, Rama! What are you doing here with your wife and brother?’

  Rama smiled but Lakshman reacted thus: ‘O Narada Muni, is there anything in the three worlds that goes unnoticed by you?’

  Narada was many things to many people: a cursed wanderer of the three worlds; a peripatetic reporter; an incorrigible voyeur; a chronic gossipmonger; an itinerant musician; and a great teller of tales from the beginning of time. He laughed at Lakshman’s remark. He squinted at Sita, cleared his throat as though he were going to break into a song, and then gave a long sigh. ‘Ah! I remember now. I’m growing old, you see. Sad, it’s very sad. But where are you going? Isn’t our most hospitable Maharishi Jabali at home?’

  ‘Maharishi has instructed us to go southwards,’ Rama answered simply.

  ‘I see,’ said Narada, narrowing his eyes. ‘I suppose you can’t go against the advice of the maharishi. You are a good man, Rama – very obedient to your elders and gurus!’

  Strangely, the hint of mockery in Narada’s voice did not offend Lakshman, let alone Rama. Rather, with sudden anxiety, Lakshman asked, ‘Is there any danger?’