The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  Bheeshma brushed him aside, squashing his garland. He walked straight up to the dais, observed the courtesies and spoke in a voice so resonant that the music faltered and died. “I am taking the brides to the House of Kuru. I will fight anyone who wishes to oppose me.”

  Before anyone could gather his wits and weapons, Bheeshma had put the three princesses into his chariot. His charioteer was waiting to whip up the horses. The party of Bheeshma and the three abducted princesses was already on its way when several of the kings raced after him in their chariots. Bheeshma stopped and in a short time put them out of action. They had been feasting and were unprepared and were no match for him. Only Salva fought so furiously that he managed to give Bheeshma a chest wound, whereupon Bheeshma killed Salva’s charioteer and horses. He spared Salva’s life.

  In Hastinapura Amba, the eldest and most beautiful of the princesses, learned that they were not to marry Bheeshma but his brother Vichitraveerya. After making obeisances to Satyavati, she said:

  “I cannot marry your son. My sisters may do so if they please, but I cannot.”

  Bheeshma gave her a good look and saw that he had brought trouble home in his chariot. Amba’s form was rigid and her eyes flashed through her tears. Her sisters shrank and looked at their feet. Bheeshma opened his mouth to speak, when she said, her voice trembling with grief and outrage: “Salva is my husband. I was about to garland him.”

  “Why did you not say so?”

  “Salva,” she continued bitterly, “whom you left lying in the dust. Did you not herd us into your chariot? Did you not see the garland in my hand? Salva’s head was bent and my arms raised.”

  And now with horror Bheeshma remembered a red garland falling to the ground in the scuffle.

  “You can do what you like. Salva, the king of Saubala, is my husband.” She broke into hysterical weeping.

  Her sisters, already as good as the daughters of the house, did not know whether or not to comfort her in her insolent rage and grief. Satyavati took her in her arms.

  Amba turned to Bheeshma.

  “You do not seem to know the rules of courtesy, but if you know the Vedas and Vedangas, as they say you do, you must know that you have no right to keep me here.”

  Bheeshma had never met such a woman, and quite apart from wanting to honour the Shastras, he wanted her out of the house. Also Bheeshma was too fine in feeling not to recognize the justice of her words. With apologies and kindness, he sent her back to Salva who however would have nothing to do with her.

  When she returned to the House of Kuru, some of her pride was gone, but her bitterness had increased. Bheeshma was appalled. From the beginning he had felt uncomfortable in her presence. For all his wisdom he understood nothing of what could be aroused in some women, for he was surrounded by men except for Satyavati whom he called Mother. From the day in the fisher chief’s hut, he had felt no need to understand women. They were modest, beautiful creatures like Amba’s sisters, to be won by others; and now here was this girl with her eyes raining scorn on him.

  “I was given a lesson in the Shastras by Salva. It is a shame that nobody taught you that lesson. You took me by my right hand and carried me off in your chariot and fought with the one I would marry. By your act I am as good as married to you, for now no one else will take this hand. I hope the great Bheeshma realizes his responsibility.”

  There was outrage in her voice, but there was a frightened appeal in her eyes which was close to love. Her hand remained raised between them. But he did not take her hand. Bheeshma was the most handsome and greatest of soldiers and, by reason of his vow, unattainable; this unattainability made him no less desirable. In any case, Amba saw no flicker of response in him, only pity. She became desperate and threw herself at his feet, weeping hysterically.

  “You must marry me. No one else will.” Bheeshma was already married to his vow.

  He tried to get Vichitraveerya to accept her as his bride, but the young prince, despite his great love for Bheeshma, was utterly unable to bring himself to accept the princess. She had almost garlanded another man and had now offered herself to Bheeshma. He took refuge in the fact that Amba’s hand had been touched by Bheeshma’s right hand. It was no good Bheeshma’s protesting that he had only grabbed her by the arm to throw her into the chariot. Satyavati, already established in the role of mother-in-law breaking in new arrivals, chided the girl.

  “This is no way to behave,” she said.

  But Bheeshma interrupted.

  “I am sorry. I would marry you now if it were not for my vow. You know that, do you not?”

  “What I see is that you have left my womanhood to shrivel within me.”

  “We could send emissaries to approach Salva, Princess,” he said. Her look told him she had wedded herself to him by hatred as strong as love, and not unmixed with it.

  For six years Amba remained in the palace, icy and aloof, nourishing her obsession. Finally, she left for the forest to join a group of ascetics. Here too rejection awaited her. They did not know what to do with this stormy and beautiful young woman. At last her grandfather Hotravahana came to the hermitage. He was the first to renew her hope.

  “But it is quite simple, my child. Bheeshma is Bhargava’s disciple. Bheeshma would never refuse to do what Bhargava asks, and Bhargava is my great friend. Of course he will marry you.” At Bhargava’s summons Bheeshma called for his fastest horses and hurried to his teacher. He fell at Bhargava’s feet, weeping with emotion. Bhargava raised him and embraced him.

  “Bheeshma, I want you to help someone.”

  “Of course, my Lord,” said Bheeshma.

  Bhargava pointed to Amba in a corner.

  “I have promised that you will marry her. You cannot make your Guru break his word.”

  Bheeshma stared.

  Since that other terrible moment in the fisherman’s hut, so many years ago, Bheeshma had felt nothing like this desperation. His silence itself was unheard-of insolence to the Guru. Finally, he pleaded:

  “My Lord, I cannot. You know how much I love you, but this I cannot do.”

  “It is I, Bhargava, who order you.”

  Silence again.

  “Your Guru orders you.”

  Bheeshma brought his cupped palms to his head and bent it in supplication.

  “Marry her, or my curse upon you.” Then, seeing Bheeshma’s look of love, he said, “You will have to marry her or fight me.”

  “My Lord, I do not want to fight you, but even less do I want to be cursed by you who love me.”

  Their duel raged for so long that Bheeshma decided to use the worlddestroying weapon.

  He was about to utter his incantation when he saw Narada and Rudra hurrying towards him.

  “You are not the one to destroy the world, Bheeshma. Do not put your Guru to shame by making him withdraw first.” So Bheeshma threw himself at his Guru’s feet and Bhargava raised and embraced Bheeshma. The two fell into each other’s arms. “There is no fighter greater than you, Bheeshma.”

  Sweating, laughing, and hugging each other, they staggered around and collapsed on the ground, slapping each other’s hands and thighs.

  “Ho, ho, ho, Bheeshma, you wanted to destroy the world!”

  The sky echoed with the laughter of these two huge men.

  Amba watched their delight in each other. She knew now she could count on no one but herself. Men! Only the gods could help. She was full of gall. There was no austerity she would not perform now to revenge herself on Bheeshma who lolled, relaxed and happy, all his preoccupations temporarily sweated out of him. He had forgotten the reason for the challenge. He had forgotten her; but she would make him remember. Whether in this life or another, she would have him killed, and he must know that it was she, Amba, whose womanhood and life he had blighted, who caused his death.

  When at last Bhargava turned to tell her that he could not budge “this incomparable Bheeshma” from the truth, she was no longer there.

  Bheeshma stood between her and lif
e, and nobody had the courage or the strength to move him. She went to Salva. If he would not marry her, would he not fight Bheeshma? How could he, a king who must make rules, break them, he asked. She had been taken by Bheeshma; she belonged to him.

  “You were happy enough when he took you up in his chariot,” he said to her.

  “But he did not want us for himself,” she had protested. “It was his brother.”

  “Nobody but a fool would challenge Bheeshma. At the swayamvara he killed all my best horses and the shoulder wound I got from his arrow still burns.” The other great warriors had been less bitter, but no one was ready to face the incomparable Bheeshma for her sake.

  Leaving these insults behind, Amba went deeper and deeper into the forest, where she practised her desire for revenge. She stood on one leg for months, breaking her fast with a few dried leaves, and drinking so little that the beautiful lotus-eyed woman became an old dried stick wrapped in animal skins. Day and night she was visited by visions so that she hardly knew which world she lived in. Animals, angels, demons, and gods appeared before her. She ignored them all. The mother of Bheeshma, Mother Ganga herself, came to her and cursed her for ill-will towards Bheeshma. Amba was a rock that nothing could move.

  One day, through dry lids, she saw a woodsman standing before her, axe in hand. A ray of sun, glancing off the axe, split into the three prongs of Lord Shiva’s trident. She prostrated before the Lord and listened to his promise. “Your sufferings are over, my child. In your next life but one, after you have lived out the curse put upon you by Bheeshma’s mother, you will cause the death of Bheeshma.” Amba’s heart was wrapped in silk.

  Ah! That was it. She sighed deeply.

  “But what if I do not remember? Lord, I will lose the zest, the taste of revenge.”

  Shiva smiled and said:

  “Listen and remember. You will be born again as the child of Drupada, King of Panchala, and you will recall everything. You will cause Bheeshma to be killed. I promise.”

  Amba tore herself out of her trance. She built a fire and threw her life into it.

  4

  As for Ambika and Ambalika, they were considered fortunate in having come to the Lord of the House of Kuru, the beautiful young Vichitraveerya. However, the young man lacked ambition and chose to spend his time with his wives in pleasure. When it was found that he suffered from a wasting disease, it was too late for the most skilful physician to save him. Thus the second son of Satyavati and Shantanu died in his youth, leaving no heir to the throne of the Kuru dynasty.

  Once again Bheeshma was asked to forsake his vow, this time in order to give his sons to Ambika and Ambalika. Now it was Satyavati who pleaded with Bheeshma. She wept and tore her hair.

  “I never complained when Lord Shantanu died; but with no sons left, if you do not do your duty by the House of Kuru, the whole line will be destroyed.”

  Bheeshma sat listening to this grief-stricken and preposterous woman.

  “Mother,” he said gently, for all his gentleness towards women was reserved for her, “you forget my vow is absolute. You forget that not even with my terrible responsibility towards Amba could I be made to break it. You forget that I actually fought, I did physical battle with my beloved Guru for whom I would gladly die this minute, all in order not to break my vow. And Amba, remember, was deprived forever in this birth of the joys of wifehood, while Ambika and Ambalika have lived most happily with our Vichitraveerya. Come, Mother, calm yourself. Remember that you are the brave queen of the great house of Kuru warriors and as such you must be prepared to lose your sons every day.”

  And who would light his, Bheeshma’s, funeral pyre for him? She looked through her hanging and dishevelled hair for the effect that this must have on him. It had none. His sons had died in the fisherman’s hut more than thirty years ago. He had known then that someone not of his loins must light his pyre and that thus he had forfeited heaven.

  But Satyavati went on endlessly about custom and tradition and true descent, insisting on the rule that a brother takes the dead brother’s wife.

  “But do you not remember, Mother? Surely the death of your muchbeloved son has distressed you beyond reason, or such a thought would never even have entered your mind.”

  “But listen, Devavrata,” she pleaded, giving him his old name in a strangled voice. “It is you who do not remember. You took the vow so that my son could be king, but my sons are dead and your vow falls useless.” Bheeshma sat silent with lowered lids. She commanded him in a solemn voice. “There is one Dharma that is above an oath taken to any god and that is obedience to your mother. I command you to give sons to my daughters.”

  “Mother,” said Bheeshma in a trembling voice, “nothing, nothing, nothing…will make me break my vow.”

  He looked at the stubborn uncomprehending face of this woman he had called Mother for so many years. Oh for the mind of a man. To pit himself against a man, as he had against Bhargava when his guru had asked him to break his vow; to grapple with the mind of the sage Vasishtha who had been his master in the Vedas, even to break his head with Brihaspati on the knotty questions of political science, which had not been his favourite subject. Yes, a thousand times yes. Anything rather than have to try and explain further to this creature who was all perfume and fading beauty and terrible obsession. First: it had been the son who must be king; and now this: a grandson.

  Satyavati had never shown regret for breaking up his friendship with his father, for ruining the happiest period of his life, and causing him to renounce his manhood. She had never mentioned it, out of delicacy, he had thought, but here she was, carrying on about rights and the fruitlessness of Ambika and Ambalika, two princesses who, though comely and pleasant, lacked distinction. He saw that in fact she had taken it all for granted, all that he had given, so that her equally obsessed father could have royal descendants. They claimed it had been foreordained, but the irony of it was that even if he gave these two young women ten kings apiece, none of them would be blood grandchildren to that preposterous fisher chief. Amba who had stormed through his life was a thousand times finer. Now, there was a mother of kings! That was another thing: this creature could not see, the difference between Amba and her sisters; and that if he had refused to marry that lotus-eyed firebrand because of his vow, he was hardly going to be moved by the much lesser plight of her two sisters to whom he owed nothing.

  Amba. He thought of her having immolated herself and of his responsibility. In whatever way he thought of Amba it brought him discomfort. It had been so from the first day.

  He thought too of his mother Ganga whose apartment upstairs remained untouched. This was not what she had prepared him for. An immense surge of anger grew, like Ganga herself in full spate, straining to break her banks. But just when the thundering in his ears and the pounding of his heart became intolerable, he heard it again, that great sigh.

  “BHEEESHMA. BHHHEEEEESSSSHHHMA”, and then dying away gently, “Bheeshma.” He himself sighed. There was a perfume in his nostrils, not of Satyavati but of invisible flowers and the earth.

  He had made a vow. He would not break it.

  Perfunctorily, taking the dust from Satyavati’s feet to his forehead, before she could say anything he was gone from the apartment.

  For a time Satyavati spoke no more to him, but her silence was worse than her pride. Her hair was uncombed. She wept continuously, ate little and but once a day, and slept on the ground. She was showing him that she had gone into mourning a third time, and Bheeshma understood very well the implication: he was regarded as the murderer of the grandsons that he would not allow to be born. But Satyavati was now really gaunt and, more alarming, for the first time since he had followed her scent along the bank of the Yamuna her fragrance…well, it was still the same smell, stronger if anything…but a touch sour. Besides which, the echo of his name, given him in the hut, had made his anger abate and the paternal feeling he had nursed all these years for this queen of his father’s returned.

&nbs
p; One day he asked her maid for admittance to her apartment to make his daily obeisance. Even before he entered, he smelt the new sour odour. The room seemed darker. She was reclining, her elbows supported by great bolsters, and her clothes were none too fresh. She was still smeared with the night’s sandal paste. Her hair was again uncoiled and tousled, for his benefit, he suspected. He tried to disregard the feminine paraphernalia of henna pots, eye makeup, and sandal paste in the room. He dismissed all her attendants and briefly asked after her health. He listened respectfully to her long rambling, then came straight to the point.

  “Mother, you want sons for Ambika and Ambalika. You are not wrong in saying that normally it would be the right and proper thing for me to beget them in the case of a brother’s decease. But things are not normal. Have you not thought of any other way in which it would be legitimate for sons to be brought into a family to continue a line of Kshatriyas? If you want to consider such a way, I will do anything that is in my power to help you. The possibilities are, of course, the seed of another kinsman, a worthy Brahmin, or a rishi who might hand on the fruit of his tapasya.”

  Satyavati became pale and her head hung down on her breast so that all he could see was her dry hair with its first streaks of grey. She was about to faint when he called her woman and left her.

  Bheeshma had been up into his mother’s apartments, which he kept fresh, clean, and fragrant with flowers from the banks of the river. He always brought his problems here and, remembering the years of his childhood and the love of his mother, he emerged renewed.

  Today, with the question of the succession still unresolved and with Satyavati looking more distraught than ever, he decided to take his chariot to the river Ganga. On the threshold of the palace, he saw a woman hurrying towards him. From her gait he recognized Urmilla, Satyavati’s maid who was much used as a messenger by Ambika and Ambalika because of her tact and good humour. Still panting, she took the dust from his feet, touched her eyes and smiled cheerfully at him, pointing to her heart to show that she had to get her breath. She had a round pleasant face and, had it been anyone else, Bheeshma would have been impatient at the interruption, but he continued to walk slowly with Urmilla beside him. Then he stopped.