The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  Krishna’s gaze echoed my voice, and the latter originated from the source of all the anger of the world. Draupadi had said that she could always tell from one end of the palace to the other when I spoke of Karna. I forced it back to normal. “I know that you and Eldest have always thought he is at least my equal as a bowman. If it were any other man, I might accept it with a better grace. Now I tell you once again: my life depends on you as much as it does on him, for I swear I could not flee the field and live.” His eyes were full of tears. I said again, but quietly now, “I promise I shall kill him.”

  “You shall kill him.” He uncurled my hand and brought his palm down upon mine to seal the promise.

  Alone I walked back to my tent under the stars and gave the password: ‘dice game’. Krishna had chosen it.

  There is a saying that a man’s last night passes as swiftly as an arrow’s flight. I learnt that this was true.

  16

  “Look, Krishna.”

  “I am looking.” We both shaded our eyes to stare across the battlefield.

  “Uncle Shalya is charioteering Karna? He is the vainest monarch on earth, and he volunteers to chariot a suta?” Krishna gazed at them between creased eyelids. “What did they promise him this time?” Krishna said nothing. “You who can explain the universe, can you not tell me this?”

  “It is one of the easier questions that you ask of me, Arjuna. The answer is flattery. When Duryodhana begged this favour of your uncle, he told him he would be looked upon as the Krishna of the Kauravas.”

  I finished pulling on my fingerguards. Our crescent formation was halfformed. Just as on the third day, our chariot was to be in front. “Take us past the right horn, Krishna.” Satyaki was in the central rear position. We slowed down to a walk to exchange wishes. “May you live a hundred autumns, grandson of Sini.”

  “Arjuna, son of Pandu, may you silence that viper’s tongue forever.” We rode past Shikhandin and Dhrishtaketu. When we passed Virata’s station, I sent his soul a silent greeting and my gratitude. We slowed down to greet Vijaya, his last remaining son. He jumped into our chariot; I embraced him. He felt so like Uttarakumara that I hugged him once again.

  “Fight well, but guard yourself today, Vijaya,” I advised. “Your father was the raft that ferried us across. You must carry on his line.” Tears came into his eyes and he gave a proud precarious smile. We embraced once again. Bheema waited on our eastern horn and blew Paundra to welcome us.

  We came into position and surveyed the enemy. Their army had been so reduced I did not see how it could last another day. The war was mine and Karna’s. The biggest war-drums which only the elephants could hold began their steady menace and the elephant cymbals met in great reverberations. Nakula blew Sughosha. Duryodhana replied to Sahadeva’s Manipushpaka. Karna lifted his conch high and waited for our notes to die. When the silence settled once more, he poured scorn into it. The conch screamed out like a hundred ghostly eagles laughing. Krishna and I made Panchajanya speak as one with Devadatta to exorcise this inauspicious call. Then Eldest blew the signal for us to advance. We rode to challenge Karna but at the last his horses swerved and went to Eldest. They had planned this so cleverly that Krishna was caught unawares. He turned to me with raised eyebrows.

  “Your uncle is a clever scoundrel, indeed another Krishna.” Susharma meanwhile led the Trigartas towards us. Krishna brusquely turned the horses but they were upon us.

  “Ho, Arjuna! Are you running home today?”

  By the time we sent them scampering Karna had played cat-and-mouse with Eldest. He had wounded and dismissed him. “A Brahmin’s place is in the forest”, he had said. Bheema crashed into him for this and had him sprawling on the tiger skin. As Uncle Shalya tried to gallop him away, Bheema leaped into Karna’s moving chariot. Brandishing his sword he started pulling open Karna’s mouth and shouting: “I shall cut your cruel Suta tongue out for what you said to Eldest.” He fumbled for the tongue, but Uncle Shalya shouted that it was I who had vowed to kill him. “We are wounded and retreating. What would Eldest say?” He slashed at Bheema with his whip and jerked the chariot to a stop so that Bheema lost his balance.

  We rushed towards the camp to see how Eldest was. Ashwatthama came galloping towards us. My mind was filled with Eldest and with Karna. I let my arrows shred the lion tail and pierce his mast and then I shot his bow out of his hands. Krishna turned on me in rage: “You must be mad, Arjuna. This is not the friend I knew. You are fighting like a woman. I taught Subhadra thrice as much. Kill him! Kill him!” I threw a lance but he was out of lance cast. It fell into his wheel track. He was past us. At last we reached the tent as Eldest donned his armour once again.

  “Arjuna!” he cried out joyfully. Leaving his quiver in the servant’s hands, he took two strides towards me and embraced me warmly. I felt his tears upon my cheek. He led me to his chair and took me on his lap and said, “Thank the Great Lord Indra, it is all over. You do not know how Karna’s breathing threatened me. Now I can live again.” Eldest was so caught up with his celebration that he did not see my face or that of Krishna. I jumped up.

  “ Karna is not dead” I said without any preamble, “We came to see you.” Eldest stared, his long nose twitching. He looked at Krishna, then back at me. “You came to see me?” he enquired as if he could not belive what he had heard.

  “You were wounded when you left the field,” I offered, as an explanation for our surprise visit.

  “Am I a woman that I need to be tended for such a small wound? Are you a eunuch, Arjuna, that you act like this!”

  “Eldest,” I said through clamped teeth and grabbed his arm, “if any other said such things to me, I would have killed him.” Krishna pulled me away. It was the first time in my life that I had responded thus to Eldest.

  “Do you not see, it is his fear for you, not for his kingdom, that makes him say these things?”

  I stormed out raving, “Is that your consolation?”

  Krishna stopped me. “We cannot go without your brother’s blessings.”

  “No. Later, after I have killed him.”

  “It is because he loves you.” The sound of Krishna’s words rang true within me. I turned around and touched the feet of Eldest. He placed his hands upon my head, then drew me up and held me away so that I saw his eyes. His tongue could not have spoken his remorse more clearly.

  Things happened quickly after that. We found that on the northern side of the battlefield there was a duel truce. Both armies watched. Duhshasana and Bheema circling warily with iron maces locked. A moment later Duhshasana was on the ground. Bheema threw his mace aside and jumping on Duhshasana, he drew his sword. I still can see the terror in his vanquished eyes. He was a shrike caught by an eagle.

  “This is the hand I owe to Draupadi. It touched her hair.” The hand tumbled, palm up. He picked it up and tossed it high towards a circling vulture. Its jewels flashed in the sun. Bheema snarled and growled as he opened up his victim’s chest. Blood spurted out and Bheema put his lips to it. Duhshasana’s eyes rolled back white as unintelligible protests burbled with the blood that gushed out from his mouth.

  The son of Karna drew his bowstring to his ear to shoot at Bheema’s back. My arrow slit his throat.

  17

  It might have been another tournament. All around us the armies watched, the mounted warriors gazed, transfixed, from their chariots and varandakas. Karna and I prepared to duel. I did pradakshina to my weapons and to my chariot and then went to my charioteer. There was a silence on the battlefield. Krishna looked at me and said: “The sun may drop from heaven but you will kill your enemy.”

  Suddenly, someone leapt out to land before Duryodhana and Karna. Before I saw his face I knew that it was Ashwatthama. Nobody else could land so lightly on his feet. He took Duryodhana’s hand and said for everyone to hear: “Let us have peace!” His voice rang out. At first his meaning was not clear for we had lost the concept. He must have known this from our faces and then he called out to the entire
universe, “Let us have peace!”

  The wheeling vultures hovered. The sun just past its zenith shifted back to noon; the patient elephants became immobile in their listening in a way that men are not. “Duryodhana, we have killed enough. What have we proved? What will we prove by killing more?” Duryodhana was silent, and turned his face away in sorrow. “What for, Duryodhana, what for?” he asked, and stood before him. After the sight of Uncle Shalya charioteering Karna, I had thought the day could hold no more surprises.

  “Do you forget Duhshasana?”

  “Do I forget my father? They are the sacrifice to peace.” There are moments when the gods descend to listen.

  “Duryodhana, think of our children’s children. What will they be if no more fathers live to rear them? Karna’s son is dead. Abhimanyu was killed by us. Duhshasana is dead. Enough!” He waited for a reaction. Duryodhana still looked away. “Must Karna also die for you?” Duryodhana’s head jerked up at that question. “Look around you. Even if you keep your kingdom, who will there be to inhabit it? Give half away and live in peace. Be bighearted and for centuries to come the bards will sing their praises of this day and of the extraordinary king who put an end to war and brought peace to the land. Show yourself the generous King you are. I beg you” he pleaded, “share your kingdom.” He closed his eyes to chant a hymn he must have learnt from his father as a child:

  The man who eats alone brings troubles on himself alone.

  The man without foresight gets food in vain.

  He chanted as a Brahmin does, as though he came to birth in knowledge of the verses.

  “Sadhu.” Subdued voices dared to utter praise.

  “Sadhu; well spoken.”

  “Sadhu.” More voices now took courage and rang out. Ashwatthama drew strength from them.

  “Before the war Krishna spoke of the greatness that could be yours with these five brothers to support you. It is not too late for grace to rain on our great land.” Cheers broke out and rolled over the field. I held my breath in anticipation of what was coming. He paused and then burst into a peasant song:

  Let the oxen work merrily, let the men work merrily,

  Let the plough move on merrily.

  Fasten the traces merrily;

  Ply the goad merrily.

  He called, “Come, let us go home,’ and then he did a little peasant dance, swaying with the rhythm of oxen drawing the plough. He sowed the seed. Then some of the men began to sway and joined him in the song. I had to stop myself from joining as I used to do in Hastina, for fear of irritating Duryodhana and wrecking Ashwatthama’s effort. Finger-guards and turbans were thrown into the air. It was indeed a moment such as bards sing of in sabhas. If Duryodhana agreed, Ashwatthama was the hero of the war and of the age. Ashwatthama’s soul had swum up to his eyes. He said, “Duryodhana, the kingdom that my father won from Drupada is yours. What Karna has is yours. Karna himself is yours, and if you call for peace so will I be and serve you all my life.” He threw himself at Duryodhana’s feet. A garland of red flowers fell. Men cheered, softly. Our fates teetered in Duryodhana’s mind. Some of us began to dream of a world where to feel like this was normal and where words like these were current usage. Ashwatthama continued: “Men are not born to live like this. The stench of death is not a perfume for our human nostrils.”

  “Why do we learn archery then?” A voice came from the troops. “For tournaments?”

  Ashwatthama echoed: “Yes, indeed for tournaments. Does anybody here remember my father’s tournament in Hastina when Uncle Kripacharya called our names and when noble Karna won his kingdom?”

  “We remember.”

  “We remember,” voices by the hundreds called.

  “You and your father were like gods that day,” a Kaurava soldier cried.

  “Tests of skill are the proper use of arms.”

  “That is a Brahmin speaking,” Shakuni called down from his elephant. Ashwatthama ignored him.

  “Let us, to celebrate the peace, have now another tournament. Let us bathe and rest and garland ourselves before we come together for a celebration. Let our priests officiate at a great sacrifice.” He held Duryodhana’s hand in both of his. Duryodhana did not withdraw it but his head was sunk upon his chest.

  I felt a change of mood. It was less easy than we thought. The idea of war was deeply embedded in us. I wanted peace. But the memory of Karna’s coronation still stirred my blood to anger. I would be rocked by war’s momentum until the war between Karna and myself had been decided. Duryodhana turned to Karna; he and Shakuni wanted war. Ashwatthama must have known his cause was lost, but struggled on: “Your father and your mother in Hastinapura begged you. Think of the many sons that they have lost. Think of the brothers you have lost. Think of your parents’ lives if not a single son remains.”

  A groan of sympathy was wrenched from us; it fed Ashwatthama’s endeavour. “Go to your parents now. Do not leave them without sons.” Duryodhana still did not withdraw his hand. He looked again at Karna.

  “It is too late,” said Karna. Was it regret that dragged his words out?

  “It is too late,” said Duryodhana, without regret. “There are certain fates which can be dodged, but this is unavoidable.”

  “Nothing is unavoidable,” said Ashwatthama. His voice rang clear and loud. His face, which always glowed, was now radiant with energy. His head-jewel reflected the rays of the sun and sent out light. “The horrors we have seen, Duryodhana, are nothing compared to the ones the earth will see if you say no to peace. No man will remain.” Duryodhana withdrew his hand.

  “It is as you say, Ashwatthama, my friend. No man will remain.” His voice was cracked and tragic. His eyes were creased in pain. “What happened to Duhshasana cannot be cleansed in any other way. We must fight till the last man falls.” Then Ashwatthama, in desperation, seized Duryodhana’s hand once again.

  “I warn you all, the war has been a Kuta war; after a certain point the forces we unleash move out of our control.” Duryodhana felt his anguish but remained unmoved by the plea in Ashwatthama voice and pulled his hand away as though it were diseased.

  18

  I had killed Karna many times in my mind. But when you are fighting unto death, conceit deserts you. I saw at last who the better archer was. Karna’s body did not move. His arm flowed like a wave. I saw what I had never wanted to see and acknowledge earlier. His fingers, quick and light, did everything and, fully relaxed, pulled back the bowstring to his ear.

  Karna was saying: “Take your last look, Pandava, before you die.” The astra left the bow of Karna spitting fire. It would have pierced my brain but by some miracle of Krishna’s the arrow was deflected and hit against my diadem. I knew by Karna’s look that it had been his only hope. I sent an arrow to slice his head off but Uncle Shalya swerved. It merely grazed his neck. The reins had been pulled so wildly that Karna’s chariot lurched and careened onto a patch of ground beside a wounded elephant. The earth was softened by the blood and the left front wheel had sunk so that the chariot listed. His steeds stood rolling their eyes and tonguing the bits. Uncle Shalya used his whip. They put their heads down and their shoulder muscles rippled as they strained forward to raise the wheel out of the ditch. I waited while Karna and Uncle Shalya jumped down to lift the chariot out. Some of our men were jeering that this was work for sutas. I turned on them in fury and told them to be silent or they could have the arrows meant for Karna. Hearing me, Karna pleaded that we should wait for him to raise the chariot. He refused the one that Duryodhana brought to him. I saw he was jealous of his honour as I was of mine.

  “You know the Dharma” he said, panting with the effort. “In just a little while…” he stopped to draw his breath, “we can begin again.” The muscles on his neck stood out. His eyes started from his head and Uncle Shalya called to me.

  “Nephew, just wait a while!” He too was panting. “Karna,” I called, “we are the greatest archers in the land. I would not have it said you were defeated by your chariot wheel. An
d if you die today, it will not be while you are at a disadvantage.” Sweating and heaving, he turned his head and gave me such a smile of pride and gratitude as to disarm me: it was dazzling. I could see why Duryodhana loved him. I started to get down to help him but Krishna caught my arm.

  “No, Karna,” he said. And then he turned to me. “Arjuna, you want to step into another trap of Dharma? Karna, we cannot give you dharmic treatment now. You have not given it to us. You were the heart and soul of what the Pandava brothers suffered. Where was your Dharma at the dice game? Four days ago you cut the bow of Abhimanyu from behind.” I could not send an arrow at my enemy while his back was bent over the wheel so I shredded his umbrella and sent his flag mast crashing. He turned to me and sent an iron arrow while Uncle Shalya dug at the mud around the chariot wheel. “Arjuna, if you do not kill Karna now, I will drive the chariot from the battlefield. It will be thought that you have run away.” He turned the horses round to show he meant it.

  I turned around myself and waited for my enemy to draw his bowstring. My arrow flew and slashed his neck. Blood spurted out and Karna fell. A keening wail went up from Duryodhana. The Kauravas lamented and Uncle Shalya turned on me in fury.

  “You killed him when his chariot wheel was stuck, and you call yourself my nephew?”

  “He has not done that for some time,” said Krishna, “Now give the body to Duryodhana.”

  Duryodhana was rushing to the chariot. I turned away. But Krishna called me back and pointed to where Karna had fallen to the platform of his tilted chariot. I could not see him. “No, look.” There was a golden glow that held the shape of Karna for some instants. And then it rose and, as it rose, became a mist. Duryodhana threw himself upon his body and wept. I could have done the same but lifting up my conch I sounded victory. The other conches followed.

  19