The old man struck his forehead and turned upon his men, “What are you thinking of? Did we bring tents and beds to collect dust?” Sudden activity broke out. I was made to sit inside a chariot while the white silk sprang up like flowers with my pennant slapping this way and that above my tent. When I saw it challenging the sky, I knew the battles were all over and I was home, and weariness conquered my body. I stifled a yawn but even with my knuckles pressing against my lips another one forced my jaws open.
Inside the tent my bed, with snowy sheets, was waiting. Among the men that came to tend me were physicians, barbers, and specialists in massage. They bathed me with perfumed water over which mantras had been said and rubbed the oil of many herbs into my shrivelled skin. I fell asleep dreaming of Durgadasa and only stirred when fingers kneaded flesh too near a wound. They let me sleep and when I woke, not knowing where I was, their faces grave and expectant reassured me. They propped me up, trimmed my hair and oiled it. Subhadra had sent my great collar of diamonds and two triple strands of pearls. The angadas they brought blazed with gems. Now with my diadem and this retinue, I could not be mistaken for anyone but Arjuna the Conqueror. At last they fed me.
But where was Durgadasa? Nobody dared to ask me. I climbed into the golden conquering-hero chariot with elephants and lions embossed everywhere and as the Suta flicked his whip and the horses leaned their weight against the chariot, Durgadasa walked out of the forest with simple dignity. He passed me with a sideways look that said he had been waiting for me to get presentable, then snorted and took the lead.
Great was the rejoicing. The good people of the city and its environs had never thought to see their Prince Arjuna again. The single cry that went up as we passed was:
“Victory to Prince Arjuna.” “Who else but Prince Arjuna….” I heard many of the names that people called me by, Unvanquished and Unvanquishable, Fearless One, Partha, Dhananjaya, Conqueror of Wealth. I had everybody’s blessings and when the party from the palaces came out, they brought the greatest blessing of them all. Behind Uncle Dhritarashtra’s chariot, beside Eldest, sat Krishna whose tender and amused look said, “Did you think I would not come to greet you?” It sent sweetness coursing through my veins.
I nearly hurled myself past Uncle Dhritarashtra, checked myself to touch his feet and let him put his fingers in my hair while I gazed past at Krishna. I fell at Eldest’s feet. We clasped each other. After I had pranamed Bheema and got my ribs half cracked, I found myself, as so often in my dreams, face to face with Krishna. We had never quite established who was older and so we always vied to prostrate first. This time we just gazed and gazed. I tried to tell him with my eyes that he had never left me. My lips said “Krishna”. As always when I saw him, trees, men, heaven, and earth sprang to life and colour. I touched his feet and he touched mine. All would be well.
2
At first the town was full of merriment, the usual elephant procession, only multiplied by ten. “Where did you find all these elephants?” I kept asking. Eldest said that even if they emptied the coffers, nothing must be spared to celebrate my return. I was nearly drowned in flowers and perfumes. The dancing in the streets, the mimes, the puppet shows, and general revelry went on for days. Even I, whose mind was elsewhere, could see that the dancing maidens had a special glow to them. The mimes were at their best.
Krishna had not let me speak to him of Durgadasa until the celebration was at an end.
“Arjuna, you are too tense. If you had shot your arrows thus at Kurukshetra, Duryodhana would be sitting on the throne today. You say you received an omen of surrender. How did we surrender to the Narayanastra?”
“If we lie down this time, the priests will walk right over us without noticing.”
“It is of no use staring at me with pleading looks, Arjuna. I cannot pull down a Vishwarupa for your convenience. That comes when the world’s destiny is in the balance. Your dilemma is a gift to you. You will be shaped by it. If you want to change the world, and that is what you want…”
“No, Krishna.”
“Yes, Krishna. And it is what I want, Arjuna.” Krishna lifted his brows. “But the world is run by custom. Custom is an astra; if you want to challenge it, you had better learn to move out of its way as from a charging elephant.”
“I know how to sidestep an elephant.”
“It is not so different or as difficult as your worried face suggests. It is in fact the only simple thing.”
“We killed off half the world so that Eldest could sit upon the throne. Yet he is not firmly seated until the sacrifice is performed and we are cleansed. I sit in council with my brothers trying to think of ways to find the riches required for the sacrifice. Because I know there must be a sacrifice.” I banged my fist into my palm. “This is the shortest road to madness. My mind is like a team of horses that pull two different ways.”
“There is no need for anger at your palm.” Krishna could not make me smile.
“I am angry at myself. At my presumption. It is days, Krishna, only days since I was free, free of everything, of every want. And now it is no more than a memory.”
“You expected it would last forever.”
“Yes, Greatfather Bheeshma always said that expectations make a fool of one.” Krishna threw his head back and laughed, and I laughed with him. Then he said, “Greatfather expected he could keep everyone happy by giving up his rights, so he knew.”
It was impossible to remain desperate in the ringing of that laughter, so I added to his irreverence: “What is the use of knowledge when it is snatched back? Perhaps it was too little, and I thought it was all of it.”
“Even a little knowledge liberates. When you are in the mountains, it is wonderful. Then you have to come back to the valleys; likewise with the desert. It is in the towns and valleys that you put your knowledge to the test. Otherwise what is its use?”
I felt Krishna gently advising me as only he knew how. At last I fell into silence and his words began to reach me. After a long time I looked up from the scars on my arms, and murmured, “It was easier in the war chariot.” then asked again, “Is there anything to be done?”
“For the moment nothing.” Argument rose up and then subsided. Yes, what was there to do? “Get out of the way. Stay inside, stay inside your desert place. Don’t go blurting out your thoughts. It will upset the others. It will consume your energy. It will create confusion. Go on as you have, and wait for things to ripen.”
“And in the meantime we search for riches?”
“That does not concern you. Let there be riches. Wealth is needed for any sacrifice.”
“I heard you say so many times that blood sacrifices have no place in our Aryan times, that they belong to a dark past and that a few drops of water offered with a pure heart are infinitely more acceptable and beneficial.”
“Yes, cousin. You can even dispense with the few drops of water. So watch, wait. If it is possible at this time for custom to be changed, the universe will find a way. Cherish your wish for bloodless sacrifice with a pure heart. But that is for you, Arjuna, for you have seen. For the priests and people something tangible must be given. Something must be offered that can be touched and seen while the mantras are repeated. You cannot remove the pillars all at once. When I put an end to the cow sacrifice in my part of the country, I gave the people something in return. Men are children, Arjuna. If you take a toy from a child, you have to give him something else or he will cry. You have to find a way to make him smile. Anyway, you have already done the most important part.” I wagged my head at Krishna in friendly mockery of his impenetrable nature. He wagged his head back at me at my own impenetrability. “Yes, Jishnu. It had to slip into somebody’s mind like a sword into its scabbard. That is how things begin to change. Ideas slipping in. The old customs themselves began like that. It is true the time has come for an end to animal sacrifice as it once came for the end of human sacrifice; it is to you that this comes in the form of your heart’s vision.”
We sat in
silence, questions rising and then falling back in me. I would have liked Krishna to speak at length but he waited for his words to settle in me. At last he said, “Submit. In wrestling, Balarama taught you how to fall. Learn to move like the smoke of sacrifice that wafts upwards without even knowing that it offers itself.” Seeing my expression, he added, “If you can’t do that, learn to fall through life like a stone. Put your trust in things unseen. They wait to take shape when the moment comes. You cannot see them, they are like fish in the deep or a child in his mother’s womb. Yield to Time. He is Lord of all.”
But still I struggled for I did not lose sight of the enormity of what I planned in secret. For once, I held something to myself that I could not tell Subhadra about.
One day as Krishna and I strolled together beside the river, I challenged the counsel of submission. Krishna listened in silence, gazing at me so that his liquid eyes grew even larger. He stopped walking to scan my face. “Only the Gods are free from Kala, the Lord of Time and Change. But change the custom, Jishnu. Change it! Change it for Eldest. Only remember there is no rule without sacrifice. There is a higher law that absolves you from blood guilt but you have to feel its breath blow on you and make the priests and people feel it. You have felt it but that is not enough. You have to blow the higher god’s breath on them, Jishnu.” In my heart there was deep silence. “And you have to make Eldest feel it. His need to atone is very great, greater than what custom demands. If the God’s breath blows through you strongly enough, no one can touch the sacred horse. Make no mistake though, the hold of sacrifice is tight. The lower powers demand it. It is what they know. You cannot snatch it from them unless you conquer them.” I knew that he was telling me to conquer them in myself.
“We are at the end of sacrifice as we have known it, and at the beginning of understanding, and your soul protests like a rearing horse at the bit and harness of the old. Because you are a free soul and you know it. You are probing the future, Arjuna. That is what you are doing, and you may dislodge an avalanche, unless, unless…”
“Unless what?”
“I told you, unless you offer something in exchange.” I heaved a sigh. What could one offer?
“You can only give yourself,” said Krishna. “That is all anyone can give— adoration, action and silence in action, and worship of Prajapati and his creations—and if you know this, you are that offering. Listen, my Guru Ghora Angirasa taught me to say it like this:
You are imperishable.
You are immovable.
You are firm in the breath of life.
To offer without knowledge is without avail.
If you know what you are doing, and if you do it for the world and not for your heart’s desire, you and the future will prevail. May good befall you!”
And then Krishna was gone, suddenly called away. There was quarreling amongst the clans in Dwaraka, that never-ending story of rivalries which the war had only served to stir up. We had kept Satyaki with us but his officers and friends in Dwaraka stood in lieu of him when insults were served out. It seemed a chance word was enough to inflame the factions and they were ready to wash out any small offence in blood. Satyaki once said that but for Krishna’s mediation, there would have been no men left in Dwaraka. Only Krishna could charm them out of anger and back into their senses. But I was left alone with my dilemma.
Now that I had returned with Durgadasa, preparations for the final ceremony had to proceed. Until my return, all matters concerning the Ashwamedha Sacrifice rested in abeyance. Perhaps the priests considered such planning in my absence inauspicious, or perhaps the odds against my success were simply too great for them to move towards the future before they saw us canter home. In any case, I had walked into a situation. It seemed the Ashwamedha required such distribution of wealth as we could not afford, the coffers having been emptied by war. The kings that would attend would bring their tribute with them but there would be none before that. Amid the joy of my return, this problem loomed large.
Once Krishna had left, an oppressive dullness descended upon the palaces and the town. The world was waiting, and waiting is no occupation for Kshatriyas who have lived upon the edge of death and felt the noose of Yama tighten many times a day. Now at times it seemed that Eldest’s main preoccupation was to see that Uncle Dhritarashtra who had lost his hundred sons was not slighted, and that deference was paid to him of a kind that he was not accustomed to in Duryodhana’s time.
While Bheema tried to please by full prostrations to our aunt and uncle, he could not keep his tongue against his palate when Uncle received gold for sacrifices to be made in the name of Greatfather Bheeshma, Dronacharya, and all the others who had fought against us, as well as his dead sons. One day, in front of Bheema and Satyaki, Uncle Dhritarashtra added Jayadratha to the list of souls for whom he would distribute wealth. The two of them ran to Eldest’s palace as though an astra followed them, and burst open the door. At that moment I was recounting what had happened at my meeting with our cousin Duhshala on the campaign, hoping that I could make that lead to talk of the sacred horse. There was, in fact, little reason why my meeting with our cousin Duhshala and Jayadratha’s grandson should lead to talk of the sacred horse, but it being always on my mind, I thought that I might slide it into my story. Duhshala was another name that Bheema would not hear of for she had married Jayadratha. Satyaki had been drinking and began to laugh as soon as Bheema snarled, “Jayadratha.”
Eldest, who was listening to my story with his senses all indrawn, now turned his head as though the dead had risen.
“That jackal who was the death of Abhimanyu,” Bheema shouted, “and who hid himself behind a hedge of spears to make Arjuna walk into the fire, that scum, that eunuch! And to offer sacrifices for him! No, Eldest.” Eldest raised his hand and held it out to him. This was a supplication and also a command which Bheema never failed to heed. Today he nudged it aside with the back of his arm and turned away. It brought me to my feet. Satyaki turned Bheema towards Eldest to apologize.
“This is an outrage I cannot tolerate,” shouted Bheema. “Satyaki, you are free to go to Dwaraka any time but I have to look on here. I am all for paying Uncle respect, but must I see him empty our depleted coffers in order to appease the soul of Jayadratha, that lowest scoundrel second only to Shakuni? He was conceived in sin and bred in darkness to insult Draupadi. It turns my stomach.” He made great retching sounds. “You must be drunk, Satyaki, to push me to support such madness. Would you spend your treasury on sacrifices for Bhoorishravas? Yet Bhoorishravas was a noble soul.”
Satyaki threw a glance at Bheema which troubled me. It was full of ire. That the name of Bhoorishravas could evoke such a look filled me with foreboding. I had to hope it was the wine, but since Bhoorishravas had killed Satyaki’s ten sons, it was seldom that he was not in his cups. Krishna was the only one to keep him off it and Krishna was not here. On the fifteenth day of war, when Drishtadyumna, our queen’s twin, had cut Dronacharya’s head from his body and swung it by the topknot right before my nose, I had kept silent, but later, in the tent, I hurled my anger at him. Drishtadyumna and Draupadi’s other brother, and her five sons had been burned alive by Ashwatthama and my anger burnt out with that, if not before. That such fires were still alive in Bheema and Satyaki so many moons after the war, with so much tinder all around, could only portend evil. I heard the silent laughter of Ashwatthama before he spoke the curse. Krishna had saved Parikshita, but was the astra quenched? The war was not yet over, and it would not be as long as deadly anger smouldered in these hearts.
Knowing how Bheema reacted to being contradicted, I sat again and held my tongue as I had learnt to do during my peace campaign. For a while we waited. Satyaki sat with an angry brow and Eldest with a bent head. They were like mimes giving an audience time to understand. Then Satyaki got up and walked away without taking the ritual leave of Eldest. Not even in the forest, when there were but the five of us, had we failed to observe obeisance to our king. Satyaki’s lapse brought
Bheema to his senses. Like some tame wolf or tiger, he knelt to Eldest and laid his head upon his lap. Eldest’s hand caressed it but his eyes were full of thought as he gazed upon the door by which Satyaki had left. Bheema sensed this for he followed Satyaki, calling, “It is nothing, Eldest. I shall apologize to him.”
In point of fact, as far as the coffers went, it made little difference whether Uncle offered a sacrifice for Jayadratha or not. Our wealth had been spent on war. There would not have been enough to offer the Ashwamedha, even in an impoverished style, had Uncle offered no sacrifices and lived on plain, parched rice and water. It was this that tormented Bheema: Eldest who had offered the Rajasuya in splendour and dignity was reduced to fretting over the material necessities for re-establishing royal Dharma and cleansing our bloodguilt. For the Rajasuya, Bheema had brought the riches of the East, baskets of rubies and sapphires. He had poured them out at Eldest’s feet; now he was as helpless as an anguished mother unable to provide for her children. As for myself, part of me longed to help raise gold for Eldest, while another part knew that nothing would move Durgadasa more quickly toward the stake. Our wits must have been thickened by war, for it took another incident to show us the obvious.
In the meantime my life was made, not only bearable, but even joyful by my grandson, the son of Abhimanyu. My mornings were passed in the council chamber where we discussed taxes and irrigation, and Uncle Dhritarashtra’s dead, while Bheema fell asleep and gently snored, or suddenly got up to make obeisance and leave because boredom made his hunger sharp. Satyaki kept us company, well-fortified with wine. Had it not been for Eldest’s poise and the support and dignity of our Uncle Vidura and of Sanjaya, the council room would have become most cheerless. It was never too soon when Eldest rose to his feet and gave us leave. Then my heart lightened in proportion to the shortening distance between myself and the palace of Subhadra. I would stand inside her doorway, miming collapse and muttering the ritual phrases of the refuge seeker. She would never fail to give that laugh which was like water splashing on rocks, or a birdsong, and it revived me like no potion ever would. If Uttaraa and the child were elsewhere, we would find them out or have him carried to us by his nurse. He looked like Krishna, and like Abhimanyu, when we had left him in Indraprastha to accept the invitation to the dice game. His eyes were merry, but there were times when his long lashes would come down halfway; then he looked thoughtful beyond his age. Whatever happened in Eldest’s palace or the Sabha, there was a ring of peace around Parikshita. I knew the auguries and my dreams were true. The child would reign in peace.
The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata Page 74
