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Though I needed none, now that my father was supreme in his own kingdom, I had been given grudging permission by Duryodhana to accompany the party, and I remembered his last words.
“As long as you get them out, you can do what you like. The sooner the better.” I expected him to insinuate that we had eaten his salt, but he refrained, which was a rare thing for him. He even managed to make Greatfather Bheeshma, who was, after all, the son of Emperor Shantanu, feel dependent. His silence did not diminish my distaste and discomfort, for I knew his thoughts: to him I would always be the poor Brahmin boy from the forest.
The citizens of Hastinapura bade us farewell. Many wept in the streets. Others blocked the road and beseeched the Pandavas not to leave them in the hands of that madman Duryodhana. We had begun a journey which would only become increasingly harsh. At the end there was no comfort. With Kunti and Krishna, the Pandavas, their priest Dhaumya, and those who had chosen to accompany them, we reached a high mount of Khandavaprastha and looked down on the barren country below us: brown hillocks breaking up a flat and dusty terrain.
At last Krishna spoke about the Kurus, his words more bitter than my thoughts.
“Do you see this exquisite country, the gift of your affectionate uncle Dhritarashtra? Those fascinated by lightning forget how it strikes. Greatfather countenanced this action. He, along with everyone of the others, will reap its fruits. Not yet though. For the moment let us do our best to disappoint Duryodhana.”
He lifted his hands and prayed to Indra, King of Heaven.
“Help us to transform this land of the Pandavas, O great Indra. We shall call it Indraprastha. Let it be fertile and beautiful as your own heavenly realm.”
Indra responded with a promise that Visvakarman, the divine architect, would inspire them to make it the most wondrous of places. He kept his promise, but it must have meant hard work for everyone. By the time I returned on my first visit to Indraprastha, a moat had been dug around the city. It looked as wide as the sea from the white sky-high battlements. On these high battlements stood soldiers with double-tongued weapons. Sharp hooks jutted from the wall, but the gardens were full of kokila, peacocks, mirror-like lakes in which swam swans and sheldrake. The fame of the new city brought people from the four corners. For the first time in his life Yudhishthira knew the joy of being king in his own kingdom and of owing nothing to anyone. Everything was owed to Krishna, but that was not a debt. Krishna was their eternal friend. Once when we were sitting in a mango grove eating fruit, Arjuna had, in an excess of joy, asked him why he had done so much for them. He said gravely, “That is what I have come to earth for. And you have come for me. We have something to do together.” And then, biting his mango and smiling, “We are doing it, even now like this.”
Merchants came to the city and assured its prosperity. Brahmins were welcomed by Yudhishthira and schools of learning sprang up. The brothers found themselves occupied with kingly duties, the greater part of which fell on Yudhishthira. There were meetings, reports, and accounts to study. There were ceremonies and audiences, tributes to receive and boons to grant. Ritual, meditation, and prayer were not neglected, neither did the five forget that they were warriors: military manoeuvres and practice were constant. Bheema, for one, complained that there was scarcely any time for hunting, but consoled himself at the vast state banquets. Whenever I visited the new kingdom, I found great warriors and holy men who had come to pay homage and to offer their allegiance to King Yudhishthira who was already beginning to be known as Dharmaraj.
One day the sage Narada came to see Yudhishthira and gave him and his brothers sound advice. He said it was of the greatest importance that quarrelling should not arise over Draupadi. He reminded them of the brothers Sunda and Upasunda who destroyed each other because of the Apsara Tolama.
“If you ever lose your unity, the sons of the House of Kuru will destroy you.” The Pandavas took this advice very seriously. They decided to make strict rules about enjoying Draupadi’s company: she was to spend one year with each of them, starting with Yudhishthira. So strict were these rules to be that if any brother should enter the chamber when she was alone with her husband, he must banish himself to the forest for a year.
One day there was an urgent call from a Brahmin in trouble. His cow had been stolen, and since it was a Kshatriya’s bounden duty to help a Brahmin in such straits, Arjuna rushed without thinking into the nearest house, that of Yudhishthira, took Eldest’s bow and went to his chamber where he happened upon Yudhishthira and Draupadi alone. So Arjuna planned to go on a pilgrimage to all the holy places. Yudhishthira urged him to stay, saying that the rule did not apply since it was by way of helping a Brahmin that Arjuna had come. But Arjuna insisted with the only argument Yudhishthira would not gainsay: it would be Adharma to break the rule for any reason at all.
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It was not until I found myself staring down into the face of Mother Ganga that I began to know why I had left, and to feel the pain of it. Why was I not where my brothers were? Why was I not where I could be smiled upon by Draupadi? What would my pilgrimage yield?
“You will come and see me in Dwaraka?” Krishna’s last words had been to me, and ever since I had longed to go and see him in his city by the sea.
“That is where you are going,” said the little waves. “Krishna,” said the current.
I walked along the river, further and further from my mother and home until my legs and feet shared the pain in my heart. When it was all in my feet and legs and back, I dived in and swam away from the shore. When the waters had cleansed and renewed me, I rolled over onto my back and looked up at the deep blue sky of Bharatavarsha. I sighed with satisfaction and paddling myself with my hands, I thought of what Krishna had told me about our having to save Dharma. Krishna and Arjuna, not Krishna and Yudhishthira. I had not understood it even in Krishna’s utterly convincing presence. It did not matter. Whichever direction my footsteps took and however far I wandered, I was bound, in the end, for Dwaraka. I could not be with Draupadi, or even much with Yudhishthira, since this year belonged to Yudhishthira and Draupadi. I had no right to miss them but the thought of not having Bheema near me to uproot a tree and wave it around in time of trouble brought me a sort of melancholy amusement. There was a need in me to wander, almost like sickness. I suppose that was what had made me opt for self-exile when Yudhishthira with a sweet remorseful face had pressed me to ignore the penalty. In the end I had had to wink at him with both eyes so he would understand that I really wanted to go. Bheema had not needed the wink. At the thought of Yudhishthira, always reasonable, humble, and never taking offence, my heart grew sad. I struck out for the bank of the river and as I was about to climb it, I found myself standing a few yards from a beautiful young woman. My hair was in my eyes and by the time I had swept it away, she had gone and I wondered whether I had seen an Apsara, a water maiden. I was still tying my hair into a knot when I felt a tug at my leg. Dronacharya’s crocodile. As I drew back I found the apsara standing beside me and then we were smiling at each other. She had swum underwater and come up behind me.
“Did I surprise you?” she asked, neither bold nor shy.
“I cannot say I was expecting you.”
“Nor was I expecting you,” she said earnestly. “I saw you smiling and you are so beautiful that I have fallen in love with you. Will you accept me?”
I said quickly, before I could change my mind, that I was observing Brahmacharya for a year and she must excuse me. She was now standing on my foot and was ready to introduce herself.
“I am Ulupi,” she said, “daughter of the king of Nagaloka.” We both smiled at the formality.
“But that cannot change anything. You will have to let me go,” and when she did not, “I really would love to help you if I could do so without breaking my Brahmacharya vow.” I doubted that she would consider my vow a valid excuse. She did seem to be an apsara.
Frowningly she considered my explanation and then said, “But th
at applies only to Draupadi. Your vow would not be broken by your loving me. I think that I would kill myself if you did not understand that. Besides which, it is your Kshatriya duty to take a woman who approaches you with love.” She moved her foot to allow me to take my decision, her head bent in shyness at last. The crown of her wet head and her lowered lids were exquisite. It was true that by our code it was beholden on me to accept a woman in such need of me. Besides, a tear brimmed from her eye, and it was no longer a question of Dharma.
We spent an extraordinary night: sporting in the water, making love on the bank and then underwater, tying up each other’s hair, spluttering and laughing.
The sun was up when I awoke to see the sky through the trees. Ulupi was gone and I lay alone on the bank of the river. Squirrels streaked up and down on trunks and branches, birds sang, crows cawed, and I could hear the chanting of hymns from nearby ashrams.
I touched my right foot with the sole of my left foot, wondering if it had really been trodden on, or if I had dreamt it. I sat up. There was no sign of my night’s companion. I felt good but hungry. I went into the river again and then made for the sound of chanting.
In the ashram they gave me fruits and milk. I told my story of Ulupi to several rishis.
One said, “Oh, Ulupi.”
And others said, “That has happened to several men.”
And yet another said, “Yes. They come from Nagaloka, the world of the water serpents.”
That night, on my way to the Himalayas, I dreamt that she came and granted me a boon. “Arjuna,” she said, “I promise. You will never be defeated by any water-creature. I shall bear you a son.”
My pilgrimage to the Himalayas was full of the things of which pilgrimages are made: cold, lions and tigers, blistered feet, Rishis and ashrams, welcome and unwelcome companions, but no more love-making but for a sweet glance here and there, until I came to the foothills of the Himalayas. I was welcomed by King Chitravahana whose daughter Chitrangada fell in love with me.
I was so taken with her lovely ways and the sweetness that is in all the Manipuri women, that I introduced myself as the third son of Pandu and Kunti and asked the king for her. He agreed on condition that I left our son with her, when he was born, as heir to the dynasty since there were no sons to follow him. The three years we spent together were happy and so neither of us was in any hurry for children. When our Babruvahana was born, I knew that an end had come to this part of my life. I wrenched myself away from Chitrangada to start my wandering again.
Once on the road I found what I had suspected, that my habit of roving had been lying in wait all along, kept at bay only by the love and tenderness of Chitrangada, the memory of whose face looking down upon our son lingered in my heart.
I turned south and came to the five lakes. Whoever has, after a long pilgrimage walk, arrived at a lake in the noonday heat knows the ecstasy of jumping into it. However, a Rishi caught at my clothes.
“Whoever bathes in one of the five lakes is devoured by crocodiles.” I was dying of heat and I remembered Ulupi’s boon that I could not be harmed by any water-creature. But the thought was not proof against the cocodile’s jaws when it seized my leg. I struggled and kicked against the dreadful creature and still do not know whether I dragged it or it dragged me ashore. This was the last of my adventures before I set out for my final destination: Dwaraka, or rather, Krishna.
First I travelled up along the west coast. I saw palm groves in the southern part of Bharatavarsha and the sea that plays around it. Krishna’s face was ever before me and I silently told him the story of my adventures over and over again to while away the hours of tramping the world. The nearer I came to the land of the Vrishnis, the more I found myself wondering about Krishna and imagining myself touching his feet and his drawing me up and taking the perfume from my hair and laughing into my eyes.
I was also intimidated. Perhaps the Krishna awaiting me in his splendid palace by the sea would not be the Krishna I knew. I had never seen him in his own kingdom. I remembered his catching me by my Brahmin’s deerskin when I won Draupadi. I heard the echoes of his laughter in the potter’s hut later. I remembered our mission he had spoken of in Indraprastha. Now I would be meeting the Lord of Dwaraka who must have matters of state to attend to.
What of the Krishna whose legend had started trickling through to us even when we were in the forest? As a child he had, they said, danced on the head of the serpent and held up a mountain. I could believe the witch had dropped dead when he sucked the poison from her breast because I had seen Bheema thrive on Duryodhana’s poison. My mind escaped from the Krishna of miracles; I had never seen the warring Krishna, slayer of tyrants. Our cousin Krishna was proving to be the most influential of rulers. His councils must occupy much of his time. As much as he slayed tyrants so he looked after his people and did not neglect any of the details of life in his kingdom. How would he find time for me?
In the heat of a southern noon I hoped it might be the season for swimming in the seas which washed the coasts of his kingdom making beaches with their tides, or for hunting. I might find myself in armour riding out with Krishna to do battle, or the days might pass in conversation and sport. I would see Krishna’s sister Subhadra. Satyaki, our common cousin, had spoken to me of her beauty when we were pupils of Drona in Hastinapura.
It was a long journey with places of pilgrimage as its landmarks. I went far to the south and west, bathed in holy rivers, climbed holy mountains, and gained much merit. In the sacred places I had my head shaved and repeated the prayers the Brahmins taught me.
At last I reached Prabhasa. The favorite spot of the great god Indra where all sins may be removed. Now I was but a few yojanas away from Krishna and I performed the required austerities, but when Krishna came to meet me here and we embraced, as always, the notion of sin was washed away.
It was as though we had never been apart. I knew now what indeed I had never doubted, that the purpose of my life was to be with Krishna. It was not the bathing in the ocean nor in any sacred river nor climbing mountains nor prayers, nor fasting, nor any merit I had acquired by shaving my head in one pilgrimage centre and reciting the thousand names of Shiva that could remove sin. Being with Krishna wiped out sin, made you see it had never existed. A single smile from him and I was free of doubt and memory of past errors. Sometimes in the loneliness of a pilgrimage, I had imagined myself asking him what he thought of what had happened with Ulupi or about Ekalavya’s thumb or whether such and such an action constituted a transgression of Dharma. But when we walked the streets of Dwaraka arm in arm or he handed me into his golden carriage, there was nothing to ask. The questions were something left on a distant shore or like a dried skin that the snake had shed—lifeless. Krishna was life. We were merry as boys together.
When I first saw Dwaraka I found that Balarama had not exaggerated. Hastinapura was not a village beside it, it was a quiet and modest little town, neat and prosperous with high enough walls, but unimaginative, and even Indraprastha seemed a sort of town beside Dwaraka.
In Dwaraka our chariot raced between flower-laden trees which met above our heads. The air was drenched with their perfume. We would suddenly emerge to find the sea sparkling on our left, and white marble and gold as far as the eye could see elsewhere. Embroidered pennants fluttered from the roofs in the sea breeze. Yes, birds did sing from the caves a hundred melodies and cries that blended and pierced the heart. I looked about me like a country youth and when we entered Krishna’s palace the muted colour of the walls and the sounds of the flute and tabor made me feel I was in heaven. My chamber both soothed and elated me. Krishna stood silent by my side. For a long time I examined no one thing in particular. Indeed, the long wall on which the sun shone might have been lime-washed or made of silver for all I knew. I walked around feeling the marble like a caress under my feet, cracked and burnt from my long walks. At last, with the shadows lengthening, we sat and listened to a voice. It was a song of welcome, whether sung by a man or a girl I do
not know. It seemed to come from heaven. A silken-clad serving girl came in to light a lamp whose base was a female statue brought over the western ocean from some foreign country. Her cupped hands held the oil in which the wick now burnt with a high bright flame. Then another lamp and another was lit. The walls and pillars sprang to life again and now I noticed that the burnished columns upholding the roof were chiselled into flowers and leaves and twining stems. The leaves were set with emeralds, the flower centres with rubies. Around the window that looked out to sea the wall seemed made of living substance.
“What is it?” I asked. Krishna explained that the wall had been painted with a special mixture of five subtle colours of the cassia. One of the lamps was on a stand and threw light on the bed made of lengths of ivory that had belonged to great tuskers killed in battle; it was wide enough for four and partly filled a recess whose ceiling was painted with forest scenes, deer and peacocks and foliage. The ivory of the bed itself was carved into myriad shapes of animals and birds and vegetation. It was hung with a lattice of threads of pearls. The soft animal skins that covered it were folded back to show the snowy starched sheet sprinkled with rose petals. I crushed a skin in my hand for the pleasure of its softness. It folded like silk. I prodded the mattress. It was made of swansdown as were the great white pillows.
“I’ve been sleeping on the banks of rivers and on the floors of temples, sometimes roasting, sometimes dying of cold, and sometimes holding a banana leaf over my head to ward off the rain and almost always bitten by mosquitoes,” I said.
“Then you have earned this,” said Krishna, prodding the mattress with me. I wanted to ask about Subhadra. The polite sort of enquiry is almost mandatory of a cousin’s family, but Krishna laughed and said that the bed was for me alone.
In the days that followed I made what I thought were discreet enquiries about Subhadra, but my passion became a friendly palace joke which nonetheless had to be hidden from Balarama. I tried to make friends with her young brother by the same mother, Sharana, a lively handsome lad with the Vrishni high spirits and charm. He accepted my overtures and took me on a tour of the lakes and fountains and the beauty spots of Dwaraka—and a very knowledgeable guide he was, entertaining me with stories of his half-brother Krishna. What he most admired about Krishna was his pranks. I should have been warned.
The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata Page 15
