The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  “You have to get his throat.” When Krishna turned to me, his face looked as if it was smeared with ghee and sandal powder, like a corpse’s. It was only sweat and dust but something about it shocked me. With my next arrow I wounded Kritavarman above the collar bone. He jerked and fell back. Later, we had reason to repent that I had not killed him. To the right of me were the Kambojas. Uttamaujas and Yudhamanyu caught up with us, and with the hundred or so men that managed to keep pace with our advance force, we scattered the Kambojas. When I killed their Sudakshina his army rushed at us with cries of fury.

  The next thing I remember I lay sprawled on tiger skins with Krishna calling “Jishnu! Jishnu!” and pouring water in my mouth. It took me some time and effort to sit up. I drew my palms across my face and felt hot blood. The brightness of the afternoon was gone. Perhaps the dream had been a dream, no more than that. I wished to say this when I saw the mace of Shrutayudha aimed at Krishna. I threw myself at him. We landed in the dust. Our chariot scraped his chariot. I cut off Shrutayudha’s arm and then I pierced his neck. There was a blare of conches from our men. Krishna rose again but his whip arm hung beside him. I tried to lift it gently but he winced and cried out: “Look at the sun.”

  We both looked up. Once you can look with open eyes into the sky, the sun speeds west as quickly as an arrow. “Get back! Get back!” There was no time. The horses of the Avantis, mouths foaming white like ocean spume, bore down on us. They caught me unprepared but fate favoured me. The time had come for Vinda. My arrow cut his throat. In fury his younger brother Anuvinda rushed at us. I killed him too. But then our horses slowed; all four were wounded and their breast armour was in shreds. I could not see how they would get to Jayadratha before the sun set forever on me. The shadows slanted as though on Duryodhana’s side, to shield the man whom I had vowed to kill. Krishna leaned forward till he virtually lay above the horses. He spoke to them and touched them. He caressed them and they pricked their ears up; and then they picked their feet up. Suddenly, there was a clearing for us and we sped towards the needle’s eye, when Duryodhana challenged us from a distance. We had to slow down. Duryodhana stood with shoulders squared and began to shout out a speech as though receiving us at a marriage feast.

  “Welcome, my cousins. Welcome to our vyuha. I thank the gods for granting me this opportunity to bid you both farewell on this your final day on earth.” He held his shield before him. His eyes above it mocked us.

  “Shoot your arrows into his drunken tongue,” said Krishna. Duryodhana stood recklessly. No Kshatriya trained by Dronacharya should stand so. It gave me pause.

  “Waylaying tactics,” Krishna said. “Kill him, kill the rascal.” I shot an arrow at his mouth. Ashwatthama intercepted all my arrows. “He needs your help, Ashwatthama,” I shouted, focusing on Duryodhana’s fingertips as though they were the eyes of the bird. I shot my arrows at them, one, two, three, and Duryodhana started screaming. As he fled I shot the diadem from his head.

  Krishna shouted: “Ashwatthama is not your guru’s son. He is your mortal enemy. Now kill him if you meant your oath.” I sent arrows at Karna and his son Vrishasena and shattered Uncle Shalya’s bow. An arrow grazed Krishna’s neck and then I really did forget that Ashwatthama was my friend. I shot at him without respite. The men protecting Jayadratha bore down upon us and we rushed in to meet them. Bhoorishravas, Karna, Shala, Vrishasena, Kripacharya, and Uncle Shalya joined Ashwatthama. “Let Devadatta speak,” said Krishna through his teeth. “I need to hear.” I made my conch scream my defiance and knew he asked it for my sake. I fought as I had never fought before and Krishna drove as he had never driven. Yet without more help, there was no way to make a breach. And then we heard the conch of Satyaki, who should have been guarding Eldest. Never had I been so glad to see his silver horses but their pace was slow.

  While his conch was brave and shrill, his horses were exhausted. One staggered. I thought it would collapse, but it recovered. My boasting vow endangered Satyaki as well. All that the Kauravas had to do was bait their trap and wait while we fought each bow-length of the way. Now Satyaki had risked his life to save me from this trap of my own making. Another of his horses floundered and my heart sickened. We blew our conches and again Satyaki’s joined our blare. I felt their strength as though a potion had been poured in me.

  “Who is guarding Eldest?” I yelled.

  “Bheeeema!” and he made for Bhoorishravas who came towards him. What followed is so painful that for years I could not speak of it. Now I must.

  Satyaki challenged Bhoorishravas. Why it had not happened much earlier I do not know. We knew Bhoorisravas’ heart belonged to us. He was our father’s friend and not a man to fight for Duryodhana. His quarrel was with Satyaki. Their ancient feud was bitter, but we would see again today deeply it rankled. “Satyaki,” called Bhoorishravas, “get ready to pay for your greatfather’s deed. He placed his foot upon my fallen father.”

  “Bhoorishravas! You will pay instead for each of my ten sons,.”

  It was a thing between them. We would have to let Satyaki fight alone, though he was ten times more exhausted. The conches announced a duel and then the general fighting stopped. Almost immediately both warriors leapt from their chariots and faced each other with drawn swords. His head gashed, Satyaki fell senseless to the ground. Before we could draw breath Bhoorishravas had grabbed his topknot with his left hand and put his foot upon his chest. Satyaki was unconscious and as we stared Bhoorishravas lifted his sword.

  “Arjuna!”

  I thought of the Kshatriya Dharma afterwards. But before Krishna could fully call my name, I shot a crescent-headed arrow. It sliced Bhoorishravas’s hand off at the wrist; clutching the sword it dropped. He spun round and stared at me, then at his bleeding stump. His face was white.

  “Arjuna. You! A Pandava, descendant of the House of Kuru? I thought you were the noble one. It is the sort of thing the Vrishnis do. This is a feud which nobody dare enter. You did not even challenge.” He throbbed with outrage. He signalled Duryodhana and the others back with his bleeding stump. We had always respected his great spirit. And the measure of it was that it held even Duryodhana back. I had never hated war so much.

  “Bhoorishravas,” I said, “forgive me. I honour you. We all honour you but in this war we all do what we would not but what we must. You are honour bound to take revenge for what a Vrishni once did to your father. But his grandson is my heart’s friend and like a son to me. When you see your son unconscious, about to lose his head, you do not think of Dharma. You would not, Bhoorishravas. The wind has carried Dharma far away. It was not present when you watched my Abhimanyu killed by a pack of seasoned warriors. You did not talk of Dharma then. My arrow could have sliced your head, Bhoorishravas.” His head was on his chest and he was listening. There was great dignity in him. “Bhoorishravas, there are few we revere more than you. To be a Kshatriya is a curse today. I ask you to forgive me.” He slumped.

  They propped him up against his chariot, he clutched the stump of his right hand against his stomach as though he held a small wild animal he must protect. He raised his blood-stained left hand and looked up into my eyes with head still lowered. Beneath his bushy brows his eyes were full of pain and very human. They spoke to me and assented to what I said.

  If you are born a Kshatriya and dream of revenge, and if when it comes all ends in this sordid manner, you lose your wish to live. He had the kusha grass spread on the ground and sat in meditation. Immediately a force of stillness descended upon us as though the war were at an end. He was the first of us to try to leave his body yogically. We were all watching, all save Krishna who edged the horses towards Jayadratha. Nobody saw Satyaki rise and leap, and when we saw him, it was too late. He swung his sword.

  The great head tumbled. Silence descended like a thick curtain before the screams of rage. The enormity of the deed saved the life of Satyaki. It stunned the warriors’ reflexes as they hurled their outrage. “He was defenceless,” screamed Duryodhana.


  “The Vrishnis do not believe in Dharma,” said Karna. I felt great shame for Satyaki. Panting, he turned on them.

  “You speak of Dharma! Where was your Dharma yesterday when you killed Abhimanyu? You make me sick.” The sky was golden blue and silver. Satyaki was in a mood to throw his life away. Krishna sounded the Rishabha note.

  I took Satyaki by the arm, pressed him close, and led him to our chariot, speaking to Karna all the while in a way that might not break the duel truce.

  “Karna,” I said, “I curse this war. I curse the Kshatriya code. Perhaps such a thing still exists in battles of a day or two. But if Duryodhana risked his life to come to help you, if he arrived battered and exhausted, and if I who had sat here all day with baited trap challenged him and placed my foot upon his chest for what he did to Draupadi and grabbed his hair to slash his head off, would you look on and say it was adharmic for you to interfere? Just what is Dharma?” These were the very words that Greatfather used. What is Dharma? What is Dharma? What is Dharma? The questions flew to heaven like so many startled birds. It was a rotten sabha infested by white ants. There was another Dharma we were groping for, and this was the sense in which Krishna meant the word. I stood in silence. Again they could have killed me then and yet I knew they would not touch me. It suited them to keep me talking so they could see me walk into the fire without losing more men. The battle could have ended then.

  Daruka had arrived with Krishna’s chariot and I covered him and Satyaki as he climbed in. There was a silence save for harness bells when horses shifted or a breeze blew. The crunch of chariot wheels unleashed the battle in us. We blew our conches, Krishna darted. He took the Kauravas by surprise and before I was completely in the chariot, slipped us past Duryodhana. Behind us Karna shot at Satyaki. Satyaki’s weariness had lifted. He uncharioted Karna who scrambled on to Duryodhana’s terrace. He had Duhshasana at his mercy now but let him go and shouted after him—we heard it faintly: “Bheema will deal with you, Duhshasana. He promised you the manner of your ending.” We could see Jayadratha though from a distance still. But from the distance I could smell his fear. The sun had lost intensity and all about us Kauravas were shouting out to keep me back from Jayadratha but not to kill me. Krishna snaked us through. Both sides now drew on energy that you could tap only in extreme despair. Bheema’s Paundra close by raised our hearts, but we were blocked. There was no getting through to Jayadratha.

  My arrows all fell short; and a hedge of spears grew thick about him as we tried to force an opening. Their arrows sought our chariot wheels and horses, but spared me for the funeral pyre. Krishna, dancing on the chariot seat, had slung an ocean-embossed shield over his shoulder which partly covered him. He moved his arm so skilfully that it seemed to wave aside the arrows as he made the horses dance.

  Duryodhana shouted: “Hold fast, my men. We swore to Jayadratha that this night would see Arjuna burn. The sun is going down. Let us not value life. If we break our vows Patala waits for us, and if we keep them heaven will be ours.” The hedge thickened and, fed by cheers, grew taller. It covered Jayadratha’s diadem and the failing sun. Only his crane banner curled and uncurled without concern. My arrows broke against the wall of lances. In me a voice repeated, “Arjuna, son of Kunti, your time has come.” I saw the flames rise from my pyre. As though he heard my thoughts, Duryodhana screamed: “The day is over. Hold fast. Arjuna walks into the fire. Hold fast, my gallant warriors.” He pitched his voice like an excited woman’s. The men below the spears sent up their cries of victory.

  No man of mortal woman born can live forever. I called on Pushan, god of journeys: “I am ready.”

  And then I called to Krishna: “Let us not spend these precious moments shooting at walls of steel. These fourteen days in this chariot were better than a hundred lives without you.”

  “Keep shooting then!” My bow had fallen to my side, but Krishna’s angry voice released the life that was within me and I did the only things I could. I shot at the outstretched legs of Jayadratha’s banner crane. It fell sideways onto the upright spears.

  “Do what I say. Your Pashupata. Use it now!” What use was it to waste my Pashupata on a wall of steel? Yet I felt some lightning stream down my neck and fork into my limbs. I did not understand but took Shiva’s gift from its special quiver still smelling of the flowers with which I worshipped it in the first watch of day. In the darkness and the silence I nocked it to my string.

  “Do exactly as I say.” Then he turned the horses round as though we were fleeing and called to me: “Hold ready. Shoot when I say.” I looked behind and saw the shadowed hedge of lances glint against the fading sky.

  “Arjuna is retreating, he walks into the fire.” The screams of victory were like vultures picking at my brain. There fell a sudden twilight.

  “Arjuna, son of Kunti, pray for an arrow to send you a warrior’s death,” I thought, “or you must walk into the pyre.” Now darkness fell, an absolute darkness like an eclipse. The jackals howled. They howled for me. I said goodbye to Krishna and my loved ones in my heart. I thought of meeting Abhimanyu. Duryodhana sounded victory. Our eyes, stretched wide for darkness, blinked in a sudden light. Night sped into the distance like a lance.

  Like men emerging from a cavern, we peered at the sun. “Get ready.” The wall of spears was down.

  I felt the incantation rise in me, and shoot into my head and hands. I knew then that Shiva gave me victory, I felt the horses turning, so smoothly that their bells and little metal discs chinked softly.

  “Now!”

  My fingers opened and Jayadratha’s head flew past the flaming orange orb, his lustrous hair streaming like clouds against it. I said the mantra to recall the Pashupata. As Krishna raced away to the sound of Kaurava wailing, arrows scattered in the dust behind our wheels. I turned to see two chariots come in vain pursuit; there was no heart in them and they fell back.

  “You will not walk into the fire. You will not. You will not immolate yourself,” Krishna kept repeating as he must have done all day.

  The sun began to sink again. The fourteenth day was over.

  12

  The akshauhinis of the Kauravas lay strewn about the field. They could not have had more than four armies left now; and we had nearly five. Everywhere were flags and shreds of silk from banners and umbrellas, and little bells and all the other debris that made our wheels jump. The smell of blood was thick. Darkness had drawn out the jackals and they howled all about us. Krishna used his whip to scatter them and keep the vultures off. I sat beside him and held the reins as he lashed about.

  In Eldest’s tent all was jubilation. Each one told his story except Satyaki. Bheema’s was a strange one. It stunned us all save Krishna. Karna had him at his mercy and let him go with insults and a kiss: “Run home now, baby Bheema, and tell big brother Yudhishthira that I sent you back to him.”

  “That suta kissed me.” Bheema rubbed his cheek and spat.

  “He did the same to me,” Nakula added. I shrugged and said that I supposed that for a man like Karna victory lay in humiliating others but I was too full of a sober gratitude to begrudge him anything. After today I would know that everything was possible with Krishna. I also knew I would kill Karna soon. When you have died and then come back to life again, you see a different world. It is as if you have awoken after a deep sleep of many years. The world has moved on. You know that it can do without you, and yet it has called you once again.

  The sight of Jayadratha’s head sailing past the sun was in my inner eye. I spoke of it to Krishna. He told me then that Jayadratha’s father had obtained a boon. If Jayadratha were to die in war, it would have to be by the greatest of all weapons in the bare hand of the greatest of all warriors. Nothing stirred in me. At last, I thought, my vanity had died. We spoke of boons and oaths and of how our guru had failed to keep his promise to capture Eldest and save the life of Jayadratha. I knew the crudeness and cruelty Duryodhana was capable of when thwarted and felt a pang for this old man under the lash of his mon
arch’s tongue. I later learnt I need not have felt this way. Our cousin had become mournful and despairing.

  Though he no longer seemed to doubt that Dronacharya tried his best, he saw that in their heart of hearts he and Ashwatthama could never kill their love for us. “It was the same with Greatfather,” he said. Perhaps he understood at last the difference between providing salt and being loved. Sanjaya said that he had sat, his head in his hands, surrounded by silent men. His brokenness had won his guru in a way that raw complaints could not.

  “You are the king, Duryodhana. I have promised you my arm. It will not fail you. Had we taken the fate of Jayadratha into account, we would have let him go back home. It was not Drona’s love of Arjuna that made him lose his life. It was the love of Krishna for Arjuna. There are some things we cannot fight, and that was one of them, and so was fate. But I will prove my loyalty. I shall not doff this armour till I die. The fight goes on tonight.” The men around Duryodhana did not respond. No soldier wants to fight at night. It was unthinkable. No Kshatriya wants to kill his own men in the dark. And after a day like this it was inhuman.

  The war cries rose uncertainly, as though the darkness were a wall they had to climb. When men called out others’ names, their voices startled them. The night was pierced by exclamations, jokes, and curses.

  “See where you go!”

  “Can you not see in broad daylight?” some wag called out.

  The laughter was high-pitched and nervous.

  “It is no time to lay your head upon the lap of night.”

  “You must be dreaming.” The laughter soon died out. We killed our own men with our arrows. A horse’s armour grazed our chariot and then an eagle scream was flung against the sky, a Rakshasa yell: “Drooona! Drooona!”