The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  Kotika hurried back to Jayadratha, making gestures as he went, to warn the king not to proceed ahead because they were about to step on a hornet’s nest: he had been coveting the wife of the Pandavas. Jayadratha, lovesick and past caring, hastened forward to get Draupadi, asking after her husbands and after her own welfare. She, meticulous in Dharma, enquired of him as to the well-being of the kingdom he ruled and the justice of his laws. She said that Dharmaraj Yudhishthira would soon be back with boars and buffaloes, to which he replied that it was the Dharma of kings to have the most beautiful women at their side.

  Draupadi started playing for time, straining her ears to hear the cracking of twigs or the whistle of an arrow. Dusala being Duryodhona’s only sister, meant that she, Draupadi, had fallen into enemy hands. The thought of how Duryodhana would react if he heard the news put rage into her fear and she warned Jayadratha that he was digging a well for himself: “You may think to drink from it, but you will fall in and drown. You are, at this moment, challenging Arjuna to combat. Are you anxious to fight a duel with Sahadeva and Nakula? You would be treading on twin cobras.”

  Jayadratha laughed roughly. “The days are gone when the name Pandava struck terror into the hearts of all. The best young warriors have never even heard of them.” He reached out for Draupadi who screamed out loudly for Dhaumya.

  A warrior’s rage may terrify men and the rage of a yogi strikes fear into the hearts of gods, but a man mad with drink, victory, or passion is beyond fear. Jayadratha now respected nothing and no one. He tugged at Draupadi who, as in a nightmare, relived the moment when she was pulled into the assembly at the behest of Duryodhana.

  “My head begins to ache,” said Eldest. “Something is dying inside me.”

  “The Kamyaka is disturbed,” said Bheema.

  Draupadi’s maidservant came running out. Her hair was dishevelled and her face bathed in tears. We felt as though pierced by a million arrows, but whoever had harmed Draupadi was going to be pierced by two million arrows with metal tips. We saw the column of dust ahead of us and easily caught up with Draupadi and her abductor. They were a wedding party and not expecting to fight, but when they saw us, and me, they almost swooned.

  Jayadratha had the gall to ask Draupadi to tell him which of her husbands was in which approaching chariot.

  I killed twelve Sauviras and many Trigartas in the party. It was to be regretted that these houses would now have cause to hate the Pandavas, but I could not have done otherwise. We were determined to kill Jayadratha, and when you slaughter a buffalo, you do not think of the fate of its fleas. Bheema and I stayed to finish the task while Yudhishthira and the twins took Draupadi to safety.

  “Don’t forget that Jayadratha’s wife is our cousin-sister, daughter of the long-suffering Gandhari,” Eldest said. “Don’t kill him.”

  “Spare the man who insults me?” Draupadi said bitterly. “There is no end to your scruples. It seems as if you can always think of a reason to show mercy to my enemies.”

  Jayadratha was in need of mercy. Evidently, he thought so too but expected none, for he was running away. We chased him shouting, “Brave One, Brave One. You who were so brave as to abduct Draupadi.”

  Bheema seized him by the hair and kicked him. Eldest called to him to stop, but Bheema shouted back, “How much more of this are we to suffer?” and he took out a crescent-shaped arrow and shaved off all Jayadratha’s lustrous hair of which he was so proud.

  Yudhishthira took pity on the bleeding dusty thing with five tufts of hair standing up on his bruised scalp and said, “He is our slave by right, but let him go.”

  Bheema held on. “You say you love me,” Eldest said.

  Bheema looked at Draupadi. The five tufts touched Draupadi, she afterwards told us.

  “Let him go,” she said. But we might have done better to kill him, for he went straight to the source of the Ganga and prayed to Shiva for power to defeat us. Shiva said that I was invincible because he himself had given me the pashupata, but because of Jayadratha’s penances he granted him the power to check me in battle for a single day. How were we to know that day would be the saddest of our lives?

  That Jayadratha had dared to lay hands on Draupadi shook the faith Vyasa had instilled in us. The world no longer feared us and we felt like empty husks from which the living grain has been picked. The sage Markandeya came to console us in our despondency. It was one thing to hear Draupadi’s laments, and Bheema’s anger was no unfamiliar thing, but my throat tightened till it almost choked me to hear Yudhishthira, “O Markandeya, was there ever such a human destiny upon this earth? And, O great Sage, what of our fire-born Draupadi, gift of the gods to her father? Was any virtuous woman so insulted and her husbands so powerless?”

  The stifled sobs of Bheema set Draupadi weeping.

  “Oh yes, Tiger Among Men.” The sage’s smile was luminous as he touched the head of Eldest in benediction. “Have you forgotten the story of Rama?”

  How could we not have remembered that Rama had lived in exile in the forest and that his chaste queen Sita had been abducted and imprisoned by the demonic Ravana. Over the next five nights we lived the grief of Rama and wept with him.

  As Dhaumya finished each day with a chant and fed the sacrificial fire, Markandeya narrated the legend which brought the Rishis from their ashrams, the servants from their tasks, and even, it seemed, the creatures clustering in from the woods. The story might have been happening before our eyes. We knew that to Markandeya the adventures he recounted were as real as, perhaps more real than, our own. We were all Rama when Sita was stolen and we all exulted when he reduced Ravana to nothingness so that not even ashes were left. It was a nightly magic which averted all evil and transmuted our own story.

  Markandeya said to Draupadi, “Panchali, just as Sita was the salvation of Rama through her virtues, so you at the dice game saved your husbands with faith and courage.”

  For Draupadi the sage now told us of Savitri whose determination overcame Yama, the god of death himself, so that he was forced to relinquish her husband to her. At this the bitterness was washed out of Draupadi with the grateful tears she shed. She was brighter and sweeter than she had yet been in the forest and, beholding her with refreshed vision, we saw how her beauty had only deepened since the dice game.

  The last year in the forest was irksome to Bheema. Once again he sat skimming stones across the lake. He and Draupadi conferred often. We would soon have to make plans for our year of incognito. Dhaumya had told us there would be a time for war and rejoicing, but that now was the time to develop detachment, to practise inner discrimination. He knew that we should face trials in our year of incognito.

  On one particularly oppressive day when we seemed to have been waiting for the rains forever, a Brahmin came running to us. His firestick had been caught in the horns of a deer, he said, and his churning rod too. Not to be able to light his sacred fire was disaster for him, but it gave us something to do.

  Normally, Eldest would have sent two of us hunting, or perhaps just one. This time all five of us went, having ensured that Draupadi was safe with the sages. It was an easy task and it felt good to be out hunting, to carry a bow, and to break through the heat with fast-moving bodies, but we could not catch the deer. It took us some time to admit this. It seemed incredible that Bheema, who could kill a boar with his bare hands, snatching it from the ground as it charged, could not catch a small encumbered deer. The twins, too, fleet as heavenly horses, could outrun anything. Even my eyes were not keen enough to catch a glimpse of it. The Brahmin trusted us to help him to keep the sacred fire alive. That is the duty of a Kshatriya. Had it entailed a fight to death with humans or demons, we would have been bound to help and not to fail, but the deer eluded us. Why? How? Nakula, running beside me, became tired and despondent.

  Bheema broke out: “This would not have happened if I had broken that lout’s thigh on the spot.”

  I had just enough breath to say, “It was because I did not kill Karna for his arro
gance.”

  “It was my fault I let Shakuni go,” Sahadeva panted.

  We paused under a banyan tree. We were tired, hungry, and very thirsty. Eldest asked Nakula to climb the tree and look for water. Nakula saw trees and water cranes nearby and ran off at once. We waited and waited. I dozed off dreaming of water and awoke with a parched mouth. Finally, Eldest sent Sahadeva to find out what happened. He did not come back, so I went myself, confident that I would bring back water for Bheema and Eldest. I came to the lake and saw the bodies of the twins stretched out on the ground, as though asleep, but without a mark upon them. I was numb with pain and then seized with a terrible rage. I shouted my question to the air. It came to me weirdly.

  “Who has killed my brothers?”

  “You must answer my questions before you can drink,” said a sweet voice, “for this is my lake.”

  My thirst and my anger answered for me. “My arrows will decide.”

  No one could have stopped me. I slaked my thirst and looked for the enemy. I saw him on a tree, as immense as a mountain, his eyes powerful and invincible. A blow mightier than any I had received felled me as though it came from all the ten points at once—and I knew no more.

  I woke from a deep sleep as after exercise. I was fresh and the forest was vibrant with colour. I saw Bheema stretching and the twins looking around them. Eldest sat on a rock watching us, his face glowing with love.

  It had been most terrible for him, because he had found us all dead and had no one left to call to. He had to face the foe and answer his questions. The twins were laughing and embracing one another. The water and the sleep of death had given us strength and good humour.

  “Who was it?” I asked.

  “The Lord of Justice, Dharma,” Eldest said quietly, and the sound of his voice hovered over the lake. “Dharma was the Yaksha, spirit of the lake, and Dharma was the deer who stole the Brahmin’s firesticks.” I grew silent.

  We saluted Eldest as one whose mind is a sword and whose words are astras. I touched his feet.

  “How do you always know what to do?”

  “You know what my first thought was?” he said. “I looked at Bheema lying there dead and cried out aloud, ‘Bheema, you vowed to smash Duryodhana’s thigh in battle.’ Not only were all your vows unfulfilled, but also the vows of the gods themselves. Remembering all the prophecies that had been made about Arjuna’s victories, I stood bewildered and full of doubt. You slept so sweetly on the earth, so peacefully that I envied you all. And then I realized that no weapon had felled you. What had happened? But first I had to slake my thirst. Then I remembered Duryodhana poisoning Bheema and thought he had had the whole lake filled with kalakuta, and yet there was a freshness about all your faces which belied death, so I decided to bathe at least. Hardly had I put my foot in the water than I heard that sweet voice saying, ‘I am a crane living on the small fish of this lake and if you, like your brothers, refuse to answer my questions, the sky will soon look down on the five of you lying prone’.”

  With this the spirit had changed into a ferocious horror. The most complicated of questions rained like arrows glancing off the edge of Yudhishthira’s intelligence. The four of us could face anyone in battle, but it was Eldest who, on the brink of utter disaster, could stand equal to Bheema himself.

  Yudhishthira lifted the questions concerning ritual observance into the realm of true spirituality. Ablution, he said, was the act of cleansing the mind of all impurity. The learned were those who knew their duties, and hypocrisy was the establishment of religious standards in place of truth. Brahminhood was determined not by birth, not by learning, not by study, but by behaviour; even one who had studied and knew the four Vedas by heart was a wicked wretch unless he behaved according to them. But then came the answer which I remembered the best. I do not know what I would have said if asked what the most extraordinary thing in the world was, but once Yudhishthira had given his answer it seemed obvious. Though thousands of creatures go on the unknown journey to the mansion of Yama every day, nobody ever really believes that he too must die.

  The Lord of Dharma cast off his Yaksha form and revealed himself to his son. Well pleased with Eldest’s understanding, he granted a boon to all of us, that we would not be recognized during the last year of our exile.

  This boon made the year of incognito come a step closer to us. What bothered me most was that I should have to conceal Gandiva along with all the weapons, as we now agreed we must do. Sitting on the floor of the forest we made plans and celebrated with quick looks and smiles our return to life.

  At last, the twelve years were over. But there was still the thirteenth year to be spent in disguise somewhere. We had to choose our country carefully; we could not be near Krishna in his ocean-washed domain; it was too obvious a choice and I would have to put off seeing him and Abhimanyu and Subhadra for another year. Once the bite of disappointment had passed, a weight was lifted from my spirit.

  There was no particular reason to believe that we would favour Virata. But Eldest, it now turned out, had at the Rajasuya marked him as the king he would turn to if he ever needed help.

  We sat on our deer skins in our forest ashram discussing all these things for what would probably be the last time. I looked through the doorway at birds flying over a lake of lotuses and I heard the Vedas being chanted in a nearby ashram. We hated to part from Dhaumya. His wisdom and presence and hymns had sustained us more than the advice of a hundred babbling counsellors.

  Parting with the forest and its animals and from Dhaumya tore at my heart and I was perturbed by the dangers of the year that lay ahead. If we stayed, I could not see how we would go unrecognized anywhere, no matter what Lord Dharma had promised us. Even if Draupadi’s beauty were veiled, her temper could not be. The five Pandavas were already celebrated in legends and woven into the tales that storytellers took to the villages of Bharatavarsha. Ghatotkacha later told us that even in Rakshasa country they had heard about the Kamyaka forest and had listened to a marvellously distorted and story about the death of Jarasandha.

  It was inconceivable that a year could pass without Bheema losing his temper and our lives thereby. Any slight offered to Draupadi or Eldest would inflame him. We had been kings ourselves and Draupadi the proudest of wives. Life in the forest had been hard, but she had been queen in her own house. Was it possible for Draupadi to be in royal service without life becoming one long offence to her? Nobody had ever accused Yudhishthira of pride, but his very humility and truthfulness would stand us in bad stead as we tried to carry out the plan he was outlining. We would have to go about in various disguises, which was a sort of lie—and how was he ever going to break his lifetime habit of never speaking anything but truth? How did he think he was going to disguise himself? How would we ever conceal Draupadi’s fiery beauty? Even if we managed to hide Yudhishthira’s royal bearing and to seal Draupadi’s mouth and to tie Bheema’s arms to his sides, what could one do with the handsomest twins in the world? There was only one way to conceal them and that was to separate them. Unthinkable. Since nobody had even mentioned the possibility of our being scattered, I was glad to say nothing, for I hated the idea.

  “Do you think so, Jishnu?” Yudhishthira asked, using Krishna’s pet name for me. I had not been paying attention, so I hid my confusion by answering with a question.

  “How will you be disguised, Eldest?” A bemused look came over Yudhishthira’s face and he spoke as though in a dream.

  “I shall present myself as a gambler, a player of dice and chess.” After that we were silent. “Yes, upon chess boards of mother-of-pearl I shall move ivory chessmen, and blue and red and yellow and white queens, and kings made of gems. And I will throw the dice.” Yudhishthira loved fine chess pieces. All of us sat with our heads bowed, afraid to look at Draupadi. “I shall be a Brahmin skilled in dice. My name will be Kanka and if asked [as though it were possible he would not be] I shall say that I used to be like Yudhishthira’s twin soul.” And now we finally summoned the coura
ge to look at Draupadi.

  Even as she prepared to speak, Bheema catching the idea said that he would apply for the position of cook to King Virata and make him the tastiest dishes that had ever been set before him; thus he would feed himself and all of us well, and he would carry great loads of firewood, such as would astonish the king, and he would train young men in the art of wrestling. The plan began to come alive. “I shall say that I was the cook and wrestler of Yudhishthira of Indraprastha.”

  I had a distinct advantage, I now remembered: Chitrasena had taught me and Urvashi had cursed me. I would, after all, be glad of the imposed neutrality. I said, “I shall wear women’s earrings and conch bangles and plait my hair down my back. I shall live as a woman by the name of Brihannala and teach the ladies to dance and sing and be a storyteller and, if obliged, I shall say I lived in the palace of Yudhishthira as Draupadi’s personal maid.” Draupadi was enjoying this and threw me a teasing look.

  None of us was surprised when Nakula said he would offer himself as the trainer and keeper of the king’s horses and that, if necessary, he would say he had been in charge of Yudhishthira’s stables. So Nakula would be Granthika and Sahadeva would offer himself as Tantripala, keeper and physician of the king’s cattle, which was Virata’s chief wealth.

  After this it was Draupadi’s turn. We were relieved to see her animated as she declared her intention of introducing herself as of the caste of Sairandhris, independent female artisans who got themselves employed where they could. The thought of our Draupadi dressing the hair of Virata’s queen and pounding the perfumes and serving others distressed us: seeing it, she was softened and said to Eldest, “There is no need for distress, my Lord.”

  Yudhishthira could not help giving her a short lecture to the effect that she was innocent of the ways of sinful men and should thus conduct herself most carefully so that men were not intoxicated by her beauty. And indeed, when she donned a black dress which was none too new and hid her lustrous hair under its folds, she was still Draupadi.