The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

Has bestowed on our Father’s life, power and riches.

  Let him drink Soma, rejoicing in our offerings.

  In his Law walks the pilgrim!

  Years later Parikshita, who had been sitting on my lap, remembered that the birds stopped singing as the hymn burst forth, and started up again when it was over. In the pauses immediately after the hymns, it rained a little—grace from heaven.

  Mounted on an elephant, Eldest did pradakshina and then the ceremony was over. There was a great feast at the palace and Eldest distributed villages and cattle and gold to the Brahmins. To each of us, his brothers, he gave a sword made by his master swordsmith in memory of the occasion. Afterwards he spoke to us. We had won the kingdom for him and our spirits shared the throne with him, though there was space on it for but one pair of royal buttocks. Having made this rare joke, he became grave again and said that he did not believe that any other brothers would have followed him and fought for him after the dice game as we had and that, together with Draupadi, we had behaved with such love and loyalty that we had turned the great misfortune of his life into its greatest blessing. For while it is not difficult to bow before a king whose fortunes are intact, to support a brother or a husband who has beggared you, and laid you open to the grossest insults, is the most sublime gesture that one human being can offer to another.

  6

  I had longed for Indraprastha and its sabha, and been sure no other sabha could steal my heart. But hardly had the walls of the new sabha begun to rise, that I found it hard to stay away from it. This one was a Dharma sabha and full of Eldest’s gravity. In no place before had I ever felt such power beneath my feet. A sabha may be beautiful and noble, it may have majesty and power, and yet have little of the sacred essence. The site that had been chosen was situated at once in Hastina and on other planes. It was a place from which the sacred flame would radiate, and those who came to it, even in future ages when the sabha itself might no longer stand, would know the spirit that had descended here.

  Day by day, the pillars grew. Parikshita was growing too. He had Uttaraa’s great soft eyes, my curly hair, and the strong arms of a warrior. Ours was one Kshatriya household where, looking at our male child, we did not say he would grow up to kill his enemies and avenge his father upon his foes. It was Subhadra who first said when looking at him, “He will grow up to have no enemies.” On hearing this, Uttaraa began to weep and flung herself into Subhadra’s arms. Subhadra’s words had released the fears that flooded her. Afterwards, looking at him while he slept or romped in play, we always said, smiling at each other, “He shall grow up to have no enemies.” Yet, as soon as he could hold the bow, I held his elbow and pulled his hand back to his ear, in a gesture that Kshatriyas recognize from past lives. He was a Kshatriya and so was I. What else had I to teach him? He was a prince and must if need be, defend his kingdom. He had the long arms of an archer. We had seen that from the first. The shoulders that could carry great weight, the long legs of the Vrishnis that could sprint ahead of me. I could no longer feel that Abhimanyu had been lost. I was a father again.

  We had long delayed his auspicious tonsure ceremony, feeling a celebration of such pure felicity must wait in the aftermath of Kurukshetra. But Uttaraa and Subhadra felt it was inauspicious to delay for too long. Whether this was so or not, the feelings, both of continuity and of new beginnings, engendered at the ceremony were full of good omens. Even more than Abhimanyu and Ghatotkacha, Parikshita was everybody’s hope and everybody’s son. Now that the coffers were replete, the whole of Hastina was invited to join in the celebrations. Garlands and lanterns were hung upon the trees that lined the streets, and the wine shops were instructed to serve two pots of wine to all. Gold was distributed to the citizens and all our servitors received new silken cloth as well as jewellery.

  A procession was taken out. Conches were blown and drums were beaten as painted elephants wound their way about the town behind dancing girls and troops of mimes. The priest who shaved Parikshita’s head beamed with approval: Parikshita turned to see each curl fall into the golden platter. He scratched his head, opening his eyes wide in astonishment. His wellshaped head showed the man that he would be. The nose, the cheeks, the mouth and the wide brow revealed themselves. What the curls had hidden was now duly seen. The forehead was Eldest’s, the nose a shade long, like Eldest’s. Subhadra saw it, and our eyes met and smiled.

  Draupadi had once asked Krishna if there was any feature in my face that denoted my ceaseless wandering. He said that indeed I had every auspicious mark a man could possibly be born with, but that my cheekbones were a trifle high which meant that I must wander. It was the only time I saw Draupadi annoyed with him. I looked at Parikshita’s cheekbones, still covered by his round soft cheeks. There was stability in them. For us, he was Bharatavarsha. Without him, not even the Ashwamedha would have any meaning. Not even being wholly cleansed of our sins would have made up for the sin of leaving our vamsha without a son.

  We tipped Parikshita’s curls into a golden casket and carried them to the Yamuna. As I dipped my hand in the casket to transfer the hair onto the golden cloth, I felt its silkiness. I thought of all the rites that would be performed for him. Being in the forest, I had missed the initiations of my sons. We offered the child’s hair to the goddess and put him in her keeping. I was about to make my own petition for him but remembering Krishna’s counsel, held it back. The goddess would know what to do for him. ‘Will you not ask me to not take him in the bloom of youth like Abhimanyu?’ I heard the goddess say.

  I stood poised on the river’s edge, between one way of offering and another, one way of understanding and another. I heard my thoughts replying, ‘I have given him into your hands, and Durgadasa too.’ I turned from the river knowing that I had done a better thing for Parikshita than if I had secured many a boon for him.

  Again, as we left the river, I felt the quickened pace of mortal time. Soon there would be more initiations for Parikshita. I saw him with the light of my mind’s eye, standing to the west, facing his acharya. Before him, stood the shadow of his teacher facing east, tying the brahmacharya girdle from left to right three times, fixing the sacred thread and sprinkling water three times with his joined hands. I heard the words that they would utter: OM, bhur, bhuva, suvar. He grasped the boy’s hands with his right hand and said, “Parikshita, I initiate you.” The shadowy acharya began to take on a shape. I felt Dronacharya’s finger on my heart. He had said to me, “May your pure heart ever hold me dear.” Dronacharya turned from right to left in silence, then with his full palm on my chest, I heard his low grave voice.

  Under my direction I place your heart.

  Your mind will follow my mind.

  In my word you will rejoice with all your spirit.

  May the lord of the holy world unite you with me.

  My heart was full to the point of bursting, whether for myself or Parikshita, I did not know. We are all one in the divine preceptor. Even as I saw this, the hand upon my heart changed into Krishna’s. There is but one Acharya, and all the hands of the priests and teachers are His Hand.

  When I came home, Parikshita ran up to me and sat upon my lap.

  “Father, feel my head.” I stroked the tender bristles and was about to say the words Greatfather Bheeshma said to me. ‘Not father…’ But I desisted. He was the only son that I would see growing to manhood. I was the only father that had been given to him. I was his father—I put my hand upon his heart and said the words that made me his preceptor too.

  7

  I could not pluck it out and I could not loosen its grip on me. When we sat in council, and all our councils were about the sacrifice, it caught my breath, constricted my heart, and yet I did not know how to begin, where to begin; there were other weighty matters to consider.

  Who should we honour? Who must we be careful not to offend? We had not concerned ourselves with such questions before the rajasuya in Indraprastha. This time we were determined not to leave anything unthought of. The more we calculat
ed and the more we weighed each move, the more restless I felt. I have never really liked the council chamber but now I felt suffocated. Only with the child and Subhadra and Uttaraa, or when I went to Durgadasa with rock candy, could I breathe freely.

  My sleep was troubled and at night I took to walking in the garden. At first the fragrance of the spring nights assuaged my inner fever; then it aggravated it. Something asked in me, “What is the use of it all?” All was barrenness. Durgadasa was a king. He was a hero. He was Prajapati. He was my soul brother. His death would be a monstrous error and would hold the world back in its darkness. But how could the priest or Eldest be prevented from believing that his death would save the world, would unify the world and redeem us? How could I ever challenge iron tradition, the belief of the priests, Eldest and the whole of Hastina? Had he not sent the Brahmin home for disbelief? Eldest would only turn that gaze of his on me and speak about the sin of killing kinsmen and our duty to the people. And yet I saw ever more clearly that the custom must be changed, not only because the thought of Durgadasa’s death had become so painful to me that I could have offered my own body in his stead, but because I had seen mankind had need to change. And it is in changing customs that man moves forward. This is what the Gods were asking of me. This was what Krishna wanted.

  Dronacharya always said that the important thing to learn about an astra was not so much how one must send it, but when one must prevent oneself from sending it. To interfere with the sacrifice would be like spitting into the sacred fire. How many kings would attend an Ashwamedha where the horse was not offered in sacrifice?

  We had already killed all the men and beasts the great sacrifice could ask for. We had cremated all our warriors beside their broken bows. I put my arms around the neck of Durgadasa. He rubbed his cheek against my chest. I repeated my promise to him. That night I slept beside him. The straw smelt sweet and fresh and I slept better than I had for several moons.

  But when dawn came I was still without a plan. No dream had come to guide me. Kings see slights everywhere. They have only to have drunk an extra cup to swear the sole of someone’s foot was lifted at them, or that their quarters were inferior to those offered to a neighbouring king. But if the future was never ushered in, the miry past would hold our feet forever, a predicament no less dangerous than a riot at the sacrifice.

  Later my steps took me into the Homa Room where every day the chief Brahmin instructed Eldest and Draupadi. They sat before him with bent heads, while he instructed them. He was in the middle of his discourse when I entered and hardly paused to acknowledge my hands joined in respect. He signed to me to sit slightly behind Eldest, and went on without a pause: “The pundits cannot tell us clearly, no matter how they try, who Agni is. Agni is not like other Gods. He is life-giving warmth on earth; in the middle regions and in the highest region, he is a leader of the Gods, and the priest of men carrying our message to the Gods, and also the tongue of the Gods speaking to us their command. He is at once their father and their son. Who can describe the glory of Lord Agni?” The Brahmin touched his forehead in respect. “Agni carries the sacrifice, transforms the offering, consumes not only the gift offered but swallows sin. Nothing must be withheld. That is the sin against Gods and men. For those who steal from the Gods, there is no ordained penance. Agni by swallowing, transmutes everything into Light. We are all food for Gods when we are cooked and transmuted into light and must not withhold ourselves. Indeed, we cannot in the end, when the kravyad corpse-burning fire removes all stains and evil. As for the appointed sacrifice, it benefits the world and men of all castes.”

  The Brahmin was a powerful man in his prime and had me as well as Draupadi and Eldest in his thrall. He was a fortress that would be hard to shake. “Nothing must be withheld. For those who steal from the Gods, there is only perdition.”

  It was a challenge and I would act now before my blood cooled.

  When the priest had finished with us, I drew Eldest aside.

  “Eldest, come with me to Durgadasa’s stable.” He must have seen something in my face for he bit off his words and dismissed his servitors. It was midday, the time for a king’s sport or recreation, when he sometimes swam or sat before his chessboard but now we walked across the courtyards with our dwarf-like shadows and I was tremulous with apprehension. I knew that if I let them butcher Durgadasa, I would never have another peaceful day. For years I had carried in my mind a picture of Ekalavya’s thumb still wet with blood, lying between stones. Ashwatthama had consoled me, saying that his father would have done it anyhow, but I knew what had been my error. It still came back to me in dreams. Beside me Eldest talked of how pleased Uncle Dhritarashtra was with the arrangements we were making. I felt my chest tighten with anger at his chatter. I did not know what I was going to say to him. We had crossed the last part of the gardens with the decorative lotus pond and turned off for the stables. Durgadasa was in the largest, airiest stall apart from all the others and several rows of garlands of auspicious leaves, orange calendula and white chrysanthemums hung from it.

  “How lovely the horse’s stable looks, Arjuna.” I held my words. Eldest always liked to get an answer. He repeated, “I said, how lovely the horse’s stall looks.” Then I burst out, “What do you mean ‘horse’?” At last he turned to me, surprised.

  “He is the King-horse, Eldest, not any horse. Are you proposing that he should be killed?” We stood outside staring at each other, and I smelt the hay and Durgadasa’s scent, mixed with the herb-sweetened water that we sprinkled on him. I flung the stable open. Durgadasa came to me and I held the rock candy out on my palm. He did not take it but put his head against my chest and rubbed his cheek there. Then he shook his mane and held his head high, posing for Eldest. He looked at Eldest calmly as though waiting for judgement. Eldest stood in silence, watching.

  I combed the mane and smoothed it with my fingers. Without turning to him I said, “Eldest, since when do we, like Jarasandha, sacrifice our kings? You gave your blessings when I went with Krishna to kill that beast. What are we planning here? What was the whole of Krishna’s Govardhana about?”

  I felt, more than I saw, the long speech welling up in him. The sermon on the Dharma of a king, the discourse on Bharatavarsha’s unity, the words about the priests, the kings and the calamities which followed if we kept to ourselves what should be offered to the gods. I heard the words as though he spoke them, but it was like a great wave that comes to knock you down then suddenly falls back and collapses, so that there is nothing there. But he knew I was too heated up to listen. His mouth opened to speak and closed again. He looked at Durgadasa posing still, then turned and walked away. His back looked lonely. His shoulders had the muscles all warriors have, yet he looked vulnerable. I longed, as always, when he was displeased, to run and touch his feet but that was only one part of me, another stood by Durgadasa. I had let loose an astra, not knowing what it would do, but even if it burnt us all and the whole world into an ashy heap, I would not take my words back. What use was this universe that compelled you to betray a friend and guru, a messenger of the Gods? This messenger had taken me around the world, but, more than that, around myself one crisp and starry desert night. The shastras say that to kill your guru is to eat blood-stained food for the rest of your life, and I could taste it even now. What was this Dharma that demanded death? It was not mine nor Krishna’s. My head and heart said it was not mine. “If it is not, follow your own Dharma.” From Dwaraka, the counsel came to me across the desert and stiffened my resolve. It became a vow. If I let them kill you, I shall walk into the fire, Durgadasa. I lifted his forelock and sealed it with my lips upon the white stars of his forehead. “I will not let them,” I assured him.

  From his stable I went straight to Dhaumya. He was looking at some of the auspicious yantras for the sacrificial platform.

  “Gurudeva,” I said, and I could say no more for when I tried hot tears came pouring down my cheek.

  “Prince Arjuna, the horse does not belong to us, it b
elongs to the Highest.”

  Lost in my tumult, I did not ask myself how Dhaumya knew. He was the one who always knew. I put my head into my hands, trying to stifle my grief. I spoke through them.“What do the priests want with him? What do they think that they can accomplish by his death?” I felt his hand upon my shoulder.

  “They are practising the hymns even now. Listen to them, O Sinless One. I am no expert in the Ashwamedha hymns. The Adhvaryu may enlighten you.”

  They were sitting in the Yajna Shala, open on four sides, pouring ghee on the fire. This made the flames crackle and then unite to shoot straight up. When they saw me they began, “OM.” That first mighty syllable traversed my being and reverberated inside my head.

  “Dawn is the head of the horse sacrificial. The sun is his eye, his breath is the wind, his wide open mouth is fire, the universal energy; Time is the Self of the horse sacrificial. Heaven is his back and the mid-region is his belly, earth is his footing. The quarters are his flanks and their intermediate regions are ribs; the seasons are his members, the months and the half months are that on which he stands, the stars are his bones and the sky is the flesh of his body. The strands are the food in his belly, the rivers are his veins, the mountains are his liver and lungs, herbs and plants are the hairs of his body; the rising day is his front portion and the setting day is his rear. When he stretches himself, there is lightning; when he shakes himself, thunder roars; at his wish it rains. Speech verily is the voice of him. Day was the grandeur that was born before the horse as he galloped, the eastern ocean gave birth to it. Night was the grandeur that was born in his rear and its birth was in the western waters. These were the grand things that arose into being on either side of the horse. He became Haya and carried the gods; Vajin and bore the Gandharvas; Arvan and bore the Titans; Ashwa and carried mankind…”

  There was a thunderclap inside my head as though a second fontanelle had opened and I was born again to light and understanding. I saw Prajapati who carried no man on his back, but carried mankind. It was the universe that we must offer, our universes. We were Prajapati. The light in us grew to the measure of his gallops. He led us forward. His speed and strength was energy from heaven, filling the three worlds. There was a painful clarity inside my head. I could not bear more of this light. It filtered to my heart as joy and certainty, and I was steeped in knowing as one knows when one has drunk the Soma wine, with no thought yet as to what use I would put this knowledge. That would come later, for now it was sufficient unto itself. When the Hotris saw me hardly breathing with half-closed eyes they fed the fire and began another chant but it brought me nothing new. You cannot add wine to a brimming pot. Yet the chants held me aloft, so I was glad of them. I was free of obligation. I was no longer thinking of my Durgadasa in his stable. He had become the ocean of his birthplace and I swam with him, the sea his brother. Doubt and hesitation were swallowed up.