The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  “Little Princess,” I said, “We must teach the son of Abhimanyu to be courageous, and many other things. It is not too early to begin, for he is listening.” She was too moved to speak: she pressed my hand and put it to her forehead. “Yes, many things,” she said, and put my hand upon the child. I felt its movement. “He leapt when you began to speak, and has been pushing with his feet.”

  “Oh, that is a sign. Abhimanyu always did that in his mother’s womb when I spoke to her, to show us that he understood. He even told us afterwards that he remembered.

  “Yes, you can order me a feast.” Subhadra had slipped out of sight.

  I got up and as I reached the door, I clapped my hands and said in a loud voice, “A large feast for a small princess.” Then I turned to salute her with joined palms.

  She said, “Do you know who the bravest people are? Warriors who save the lives of other warriors in battle may be brave, but those who give others courage through telling of their fear are by far the braver.” I bowed my head to her tribute, and sent for her Matsya ladies-in-waiting.

  Our meal was served in our private chamber and afterwards when we went to say goodnight to Uttaraa we found her sleeping. We went into the garden where I had seen Uncle Vidura and our mother. I had spoken of it to nobody but now I told Subhadra and ended saying: “You know it was a delightful shock to me to find such sweetness between my mother and my uncle. He took her hand and put it to his heart as I now do with yours. We never think our parents can feel love as we do. Perhaps not quite exactly as we do, for we are we.” She turned to me and smiled.

  “It does not matter. We can only know the delicacy of our own.”

  “Come, let us go and savour it,” I replied.

  When I had spoken to the unborn child something was born in me. That night I dreamt of a ring of fire through which time streamed. It was Abhimanyu’s son. Subhadra’s dream told her the same. She also saw that he would reign for sixty years.

  The future of our country hung on the life or death of this unborn child. We had all fought for him. I saw only the aftermath of the child’s reign. There was no blood in it. The dream showed me what Krishna had already promised: we had not fought in vain.

  Next evening, Subhadra and I sat out in the garden beside the lotus pool after we had visited Uttaraa. The white flowers of the night released their fragrance into the evening—champa, jasmine, and tuberose. We got to talking once again of Uncle Vidura. I said I wanted him and no one else to be the mentor of this child. With eyes that smiled she scrutinized me.

  “Why do you look at me like that?” I smiled back.

  “I want to get to know the man who spoke to Uttaraa last night.”

  “Do you not know him, Subhadra? Nobody knows me as you do. I have not shown myself to anyone save your brother, as I have to you. I spoke to Uttaraa through you; the good things are done through you and Krishna.” She gazed at me intently. “What do you see?” I asked.

  “My husband who has changed more in the eighteen days of war than in the years he spent exiled in the forest. Though after the exile in Virata you were no longer the man that I had known. Do you know what I am saying?”

  “In the last year of our exile, I had no gender and began to see that there are other things as important as being the greatest archer. Is that what you are trying to say?”

  “What really happened on the first day of the battle?”

  “I saw at last what Krishna means by saying that we are Nara and Narayana, Man and his Divine Companion. I saw that I am but a man. A man and, you might say, is nothing without that companion.”

  Silent, we looked into each other’s eyes seeking to hear what lay embedded in our unspokenness. But some mysteries are best left untouched and we moved towards the future; we spoke of the unborn child.

  Subhadra and Draupadi prepared a cradle and had the softest cloth woven for garments. Bheema made a toy sword for him while I fashioned chariots out of acacia wood. We never left Uttaraa by herself. She was too frail to travel to her mother in Virata and the physicians counselled against it. Word came that her mother was ailing and could not come. Draupadi who also knew of the loss of all her brothers and her father, was often with her and became a surrogate mother to her.

  As Lord of Dwaraka, it was Krishna’s duty to return for the Raivataka Festival. My Uncle Vasudeva and Aunt Devaki awaited him. I remembered the festival as a magical and innocent time. Lamps were lit in all the houses and garlands hung from every tree. Stalls lined the road, offering the finest wines and dishes. The skirling and swirling of flutes from the Raivataka hill filled the world with a love that I had never known before and which began to change me even then.

  At night worshippers wearing garlands and holding torches traced wavering lines around the hills. If we had pleased ourselves, we would have planned to go together with Subhadra now but Dwaraka was across the desert, many yojanas away. We could not leave Uttaraa and Draupadi and my brothers. I minded less being with Subhadra. With her my restlessness was assuaged. But before he left Krishna suggested that I go to with him to Indraprastha for some days.

  We made sure everything was quiet and peaceful in the city. Our informants, who frequented the wine shops, the food stores, and the pleasure-houses where you hear the most biting of home truths, told us that the people revered Eldest. They had been quick to note his treatment of Duryodhana’s father and to appreciate his respect for the dead. Though Duryodhana had been lavish to those who courted him and to the Brahmins, people saw at once that Eldest was a king who served them.

  Before we left, Krishna helped Eldest pick out the ministers who would be faithful and to pension off the doubtful ones with such rich estates that they would have their work cut out to steward them.

  On the day of our departure we went to Uncle Dhritarashtra’s palace to take the dust from his feet. The place was in an uproar and I heard a sound that made my skin crawl. It was Aunt Gandhari keening. Servants ran past us carrying great golden vessels. We hurried down the corridor. Out of a side room a figure brushed past me. It was uncle’s chief physician.

  I tried to catch his arm, but touching his finger to his head and heart he strode away, murmuring the names of herbs and mantras. His angavastra stayed in my hands. Just then our aunt’s voice rose to a new pitch. Other female voices joined in her lament. Had our uncle left his body? My thought was that we would be obliged to stay for the obsequies. Then we heard her scream: “Bheema! Bheema! Bheeeemaa!” It sounded like a curse. We began running. As we neared the door of Uncle Dhritarashtra’s chamber, we heard the sound of retching and we bumped into assistants carrying steaming potions.

  Uncle with his eyes rolled up, propped up by many pairs of hands, was vomiting what looked like water into an ewer. His face was pale and ghastly and Aunt Gandhari sat with hair falling over her blindfold, rocking to and fro, babbling her desperation. I had seen women thus but never Aunt Gandhari. “Why were we left alive when all our sons were taken?” she wailed and clawed her breast. “How have we lived to see this day, that in our palace Bheema tries to poison us!” I had to stop myself from rushing up to clap my hand over her mouth. It would be galloping around the town in moments, and Eldest’s work undone. We could never leave him. Indraprastha was snatched from me.

  “Mother Gandhari,” Krishna knelt before her; this stopped her wailing only for a second.

  “Krishna Vasudeva,” her mouth opened as if to spit. “Is that Arjuna with you? Go back to Dwaraka, the two of you, before my curse for Bheema falls on you.” I grabbed her hands. Uncle tried to speak but only sounds of retching came from his mouth. A young physician held his temples and pushed his head over the silver ewer embossed with swans and lions.

  “Why, Aunt Gandhari, why?” I pumped her hands as though to shake an explanation from her. She merely turned her head from side to side like those wooden dancing dolls you find in street stalls. What exasperating thing had Bheema done once more? Krishna turned to Vikarna’s lovely widow with his questions. She sa
t cowering behind our aunt and looked at her to see if she might answer.

  “Tell us what happened,” he insisted.

  She would not look at us but murmured, “Bheema tried to poison father-in-law.”

  Bheema could stab someone in anger but never plan a poisoning. I had no time to savour my relief for, since not Bheema, someone else had done it and tried to implicate him. The story now came out. Uncle Dhritarashtra broke his fast today with milk and his favourite sweetmeats. In the first appeasement of his hunger he disregarded their strange taste. The cook had been summoned and said that Bheema had prepared the sweets in order to delight his uncle. Bheema was always in and out of kitchens and his cooking ability was legendary. I was to hear of it again in Virata’s capital on my ashwamedha, but now I could not laugh. Who had mixed poison with the sweets?

  By now Uncle Dhritarashtra, spent and trembling, had dropped back into the arms of his supporters. His physicians peered into the ewer. One held it to his nose. Another took a little quantity of green powder and mixed it with the scum that uncle’s stomach had finally sent up. It seemed there was no trace of poison. “Is it a frog-pond?” Krishna whispered in my ear. Then he turned to aunt. “Aunt Gandhari, Bheema would never poison anyone, it has never been his way.”

  “The cook says that no one but Bheema touched the sweets, he brought them here himself and fed them to his uncle.”

  “Well, there you are, that is hardly the manner of a poisoner.”

  “It must have been a joke.” The thought came to both of us at the same time. But by then, it was on longer a smiling matter.

  “If you are so sure of that, will you not make a meal of Bheema’s sweets yourselves?”

  I pinched a little between my thumb and forefinger and put it on my tongue. The taste was horribly salty. As we had thought, it was another tiresome prank of Bheema’s and I said so aloud. Uncle Dhritarashtra was uttering the word in a gargling sort of voice.

  “Salt…salt.” He had been trying to say what the taste was. Still trembling, he pretended he was smiling at the joke instead of retching out of terror. I sent for Bheema so that he could apologize to uncle and aunt for his prank. I brought him in, chastened and submissive. But it was not until we three got all the sweets down that uncle ceased to tremble. We made sure that Bheema had the greatest share and fed them to him until he belched. Uncle now gave us a watery smile and placed his hand on Bheema’s head. But there was no appeasing Aunt Gandhari.

  Krishna gave Bheema strict instructions not to make things difficult for Eldest by offending Uncle Dhritarashtra. Even before the funeral rites for Greatfather, he had tried to make the treasury cut down on Uncle Dhritarashtra’s retinue. This sort of thing irritated Eldest as much as I had ever seen him become with his favourite brother. I could not wait to leave Hastina in case there was an emergency involving Bheema or anybody else.

  We rode to Indraprastha, taking it in easy stages, remembering the time we had set out to what was then a ruined city amidst encroaching jungle when it had been apportioned us as our half of the kingdom by Uncle Dhritarashtra.

  At first I cast my gaze back to make sure that Hastina was not following us.

  “Don’t worry, it is no great sprinter, it will get left behind,” said Krishna.

  Soon we could not see it for the barrier of trees; the forest now protected us. I gloried in its gloom as though it were a bath that washed over and through us. As we cantered forth, I called: “Will Abhimanyu’s son sit here before me on the saddle and ride with us one day?”

  “You had rather say that Abhimanyu’s son shall ride with us someday soon.”

  “What shall we call him?”

  “Parikshita,” he sang out without hesitation. My blood thrilled to the sound of it. “For he will be the king of these forests and all that he surveys.”

  “Parikshita, Parikshita,” I repeated, matching it to the sound of my horse’s hooves. “It is music. It is music. The child lives. I know it.”

  “You do well to know it.”

  “Parikshita, Parikshita.” And I threw my head back and laughed. The name had been secreted in the forest and it radiated from stones and trees, and filtered through the dapples from the sky. My son lived! It was here with Krishna in the forest that my fears were exorcised.

  We did not wear silk or jewels or take attendants, so no one recognized us. We sat dangling our feet in the water and gazing at the clouds.

  “Krishna,” I said on impulse, “Do you remember what you said to me that day before the battle—almost three yugas seem to have passed—when I could not hold my own bow?” Krishna gave me a comic look; his head cocked to one side to examine me better.

  “You do not remember?”

  “Not exactly. Do you expect me to remember what I said so many yugas ago?” I saw that I would learn nothing from him. But still, I tried to tease him into speaking the words that I wished to hear. “You mean it was a great illusion then?” Krishna put his head to the other side and countered.

  “What do you think?” he yawned. I stared in fascination at Krishna’s teeth, remembering the kings impaled on them.

  “Krishna!”

  “There is no need for you to prod. Nothing could summon it.” It ceased to matter. What was important was sitting here with Krishna, our four legs dangling in water. He plucked a blade of grass and started chewing it in that thoughtful way he had. I followed suit. He told me of the pranks he had played with Balarama when they were little.

  There were villages along the way and at each place that we stopped to rest, we shared the lives of farmers or of traders, simple and essential, without the ceremony that attendants at court force upon you. We were made welcome for ourselves and not for our wealth, akshauhinis, or anything we might have brought other than a coin or two, which was refused more often than not. The belief that a guest was an incarnation of god was much stronger in the countryside than in the towns. Krishna showed me how to milk a cow, which both delighted and amused our hosts. They thought few Kshatriyas knew this. They asked me how it was that Krishna knew.

  “You would be surprised how many talents this man has,” I said. We were travelling southward. Everywhere we stayed questions of polite convention were asked and rather than to repay the kindness of our hosts with freshly minted lies, I told them I was one of the men left with King Yudhishthira after Kurukshetra. Had they heard of this great battle, I enquired.

  “Who has not heard of it?” They had heard that all the Kshatriyas had died but said people always exaggerate. They said they heard it was a battle to end all battles and plied us with questions about it.

  “Is it true King Bhagadatta’s elephant was so intelligent he could speak?”

  “Is it true that Ashwatthama nearly destroyed the world?” They said they had heard that Prince Bheema had drunk Prince Duhshasana’s blood. But then Prince Duhshasana was such a twisted and deranged character, they could not think why anyone would want to drink him.

  “What of Prince Duryodhana?” we asked.

  It was his father’s fault, for he had always spoilt him. His mother would have had him killed at birth because of the omens, but because his father was blind and they did not have an eye between them, they decided to let him live.

  And why did they think Greatfather Bheeshma had not done anything to discipline Duryodhana? “Oh, Prince Devavrata,” said an old grandfather. “What could he do? Had he not sacrificed his manhood and his kingship for his father’s sake? Now, there was one who would have made a king but you could carry pious duty to your parents much too far. If Duryodhana had been Greatfather Bheeshma’s son he would have slapped him left and right. But he was never the father or the king to do it.” Our host went to drink from his pot of wine and returned with increased confidence. He shook his head and said, “He made a big mistake, that one.” He was silent for a moment staring at the wall. “That Duryodhana was born under an evil star. They say the jackals howled and that one of his uncles who was wiser than the rest said, “He mu
st not live.” Nobody listened. He hiccupped. “The uncle was a suta too.” He peered into his wine pot. “Then there was that other suta, Karna. I saw him once.”

  “You saw him! Where?” I said.

  “Where were you?” said the old man. “It was before the war. Was it not?” he said, turning to me.

  “What?”

  “The tournament!” Our host became excited. “By the Great God Indra, what a tournament that was. It was that acharya who arranged it. A little dark dry man with broad chest, but how straight and strong he stood. A match he was for all his pupils, even in the war,” he said. “He is dead and gone with all the rest. The way he had trained those boys, miraculous! I took my family with me. I still remember one trick that King Pandu’s son did right at the end, a handsome lad with curly hair.” He got up to show us how I had juggled with my sword. “He flung it about like wet laundry. The crowds went mad. My daughter dreamt of him for many months.”

  “That must have been Arjuna,” Krishna said. “But he was not so handsome.” Krishna was disregarded by our host who sat down and remembering caste observance jumped up again.

  “The other handsome one came in. That did not half make trouble. I always say it started on that day.” He showed us how Karna had entered the arena. “Tall as a cliff he was.” He straightened his back and tottered somewhat comically. Then he turned his head to one side and distorted his face into a supercilious leer. “Some people thought him wonderful. My other daughter dreams of him still. When news came of his death, she wept for days.”

  “Which would you have dreamed of,” asked Krishna, “if you were a young maiden?” Our host was baffled for a moment, his mouth hung open and then he laughed and laughed. Outside court, Krishna was no stickler for caste observances, and as Krishna drew him down to sit beside him, the old man still protested. Krishna persuaded him that it was too knotty a problem to work out standing.