The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  Like a little elephant himself, he lumbered down from his elephant and embraced me warmly. He had brought his ladies, who were very much at ease, calling down impatiently for us to hurry up because they wanted to meet Krishna. Keradesh was a matriarchy. Their lack of protocol amused me and I said to him, “Your wives are in a hurry to meet Krishna.”

  “Oh, they are not my wives, they are my sisters. My wives are coming later with their brothers. My sisters wanted to come first.” Too late I remembered that the Keradesh king lived with his sisters, visiting his wives only at night. It was his sister’s son who inherited the throne and he himself was the son of the last maharaja’s sister. Sweat broke out upon my forehead. I might have made the wrong arrangements in their palaces. Happily this man was not one to take offence, but I was less sure about his sisters. Over and over he embraced me and took the scent from my hair and I from his. My oil of mustard seed must have smelt as unusual to him as did his oil of coconut to me. At last we held each other’s shoulders at arm’s length and laughed. My eye scoured the line of elephants that came behind him. As far as I could judge there were the auspicious hundred and one. He was a generous man and took pleasure in his giving.

  “You will see what we have here for you. Ever since you left we have been selecting the best trees from our sandal and teak forests for the pillars and beams of your palaces. May they last a thousand years, as must your dynasty.” He did not care for airs and graces, and his heart was good. He had indeed brought forests for us and the perfume of the sandal floated on the air. “And we have brought you stacks and stacks of ivory. It is so fine it looks like the womb of pearl. Oil too we have brought. We have brought you all our best, O noble Prince.”

  “Yes,” called one of the sisters, bedecked in the blue sapphires of her region, “and we have brought you jars of honey.”

  “What are you thinking about? Why talk of honey? What about the jewels?” nudged her sister. We were all laughing as after this there was no standing on ceremony. I said as much.

  “Oh, ceremony.” The young king smacked his forehead with his palm. “I completely forgot the parasols! Sit in your chariot, O Prince Arjuna.” And then he snapped his fingers at his gajarohas. Immediately a hundred crimson parasols unfurled above the elephants. In a truti they were purple, that turned to rainbow colours, and finished up with gleaming white again.

  “Sadhu,” I cried, “Sadhu, Sadhu.” Everyone was beaming. The sisters called out questions.

  Would Krishna wear his jewel? And was it true that Bheema ate a buffalo for his dinner? Was it true that Draupadi had never coiled up her hair after the dice game? And we are sure it is not true that the Ashwamedha horse was substituted but who could have started such a rumour?

  I answered the questions as best as I could, relieved when we reached Hastina. Had any husband ever tried to curb these ladies’ tongues. I had heard it was enough for Keradesh women to turn their husbands’ shoes around on the threshold, toes towards the world, for them to understand they were no longer welcome.

  Half the fun of royal occasions like this was in observing the strangeness of others’ customs. I left the Kera-Raja in Bheema’s care. When I came upon them next Bheema was asking him how they cooked without ghee, and collecting recipes.

  Then came the other kings from the south in all their dignity and splendour. Diamonds always look best on black skin. First of those to arrive were the Andhras, a dark, excitable lot, who are classed with Yavanas and others who did not offer sacrifice. They kept their beautiful women under such control that we hardly saw their downcast eyes. They brought more elephants caparisoned in silks as gorgeous as their queens’ sarees which were dazzling pinks, purples, and oranges with wide gold borders. They had brought bales and bales of silk for Eldest as well as diamonds and rubies and there were strands and strands of pearls, the biggest I had ever seen. The huge jars which were brought in bullock carts were full of gold dust, while others held turmeric. They brought us gold and silver vessels and arecanuts enough to keep us chewing for a century. Their Dravida neighbours came hard upon their heels with more of the same sort of offerings, though their shot silks and silver lamps were quite the best we had ever seen, as were their royal fans of peacock plumes.

  From our far east coast came the Bangas’ royal party. Great debaters and merry, they never ceased arguing, often simultaneously laughing at jokes which we could never understand, but their merriment was contagious. It was their dress that was austere, finely woven white cloth that set off their glowing skin, and heavy gold ornaments studded with shell. They brought us the most astonishing variety of conches and skins that I had ever seen. It was difficult to keep from testing the conches before Uncle Vidura had them tallied and put away. There was a pair of tiger cubs for Parikshita.

  From the desert came tall turban-topped chieftains leading trains of sleek, golden-coloured camels loaded with fine woven hangings, skins and tents. Everybody but the Nagas and the Nishadas brought us gems.

  We were given Sindhu horses and flocks of sheep. From Kamboja came so many horses that in a few years our decimated cavalry would be built up again. What with all the different costumes, the Raktapataka monks, the naked Nagas and the Nishadas with their wild hair, Hastina looked as though the All-Creator had gathered all his creatures there, just as in the sacrificial compound were gathered all the animals for the inspection and delight of the gods.

  The kine had their horns painted gold and red, and pendants hung from their foreheads. Little discs and bells strung around their necks chinked and tinkled. They were garlanded with every kind of flower, and auspicious herbs interwoven with the flowers scented the air. There were goats and silver sheep brought from the northern mountains, and birds of every sort fluttered in their silver aviaries. Parrots and cockatoos, warblers of every kind, even lowly hens and crows with tilaks on their foreheads strutted like kings.

  After the invocations and prayers we made sure that all our guests were exposed to a chanting of Agastya’s bloodless sacrifice. There were a few raised brows and widened eyes as they realized that the animals were not going to be sacrificed, but the gods were kind to us and it soon became a question of who could outdo whom in citing the legendary great grain sacrifice. Eldest caught my eye; all our fears, it seemed, had been groundless. The only trouble came from an unexpected quarter, the good-natured ruler of Keradesh. He agreed that the animals should not be harmed. It had long been the custom in Keradesh, he explained, to extract a small quantity of omentum from the stomach of the animals, a painless procedure, he assured us, when done properly. The omentum was highly pleasing to Lord Agni when poured into his sacrificial fire. It made the flames leap up more strongly than even clarified butter could. He jumped up and mimed the leaping of the flames with his hands. He was a skillful orator and his arguments could not be easily ignored. We were offering, he said, not only for our kingdom but for the whole of Bharatavarsha, its rains and crops. I could see that other guests were swayed, for what use is there, after all, in a fire sacrifice if the Lord Agni is not gratified? I began to wonder if anything could make our friend from Keradesh desist. In the end his very enthusiasm defeated him. Learning that our priests, for all their special knowledge, knew nothing about the extracting of omentum, the Keralaraj declared that, had he known, he would have brought his own priests. This was a great breach of etiquette and our guests began to shake their heads; this last suggestion cost him their sympathy. Those who had been holding back swung over to our view. He tried to press his case on the new guests individually, but the moment had passed.

  All this time preparations for the sacrifice involving seventeen priests and thirteen helpers were going on. At last there came the solemn moment when they dipped their hands in clarified butter and vowed to conduct the proceedings in harmony and the ceremony began.

  The moment of the kindling of the sacred fire is always fraught with expectation. Rubbing the fire sticks together is the first attempt to call Lord Agni. There was a special tensio
n until the wood began to darken into an eye from which smoke rose to call the God’s attention.

  Even before the wood darkened, I felt my body hair standing. When the eye began to form, I bowed to Agni and offered the prayer that always came unbidden to my mind: “Let there be peace for Parikshita and Bharatavarsha.” Then a little tongue of flame leapt out. Breaths were let out in a great sigh as we all joined our hands to the God.

  Eldest and Draupadi emerged from their seclusion. Island-born Greatfather helped them mount the pedestal spread with golden silk. Bheema and I were on either side. Satyaki had been chosen to hold the royal umbrella over their heads, Nakula the ritual fan behind them. Sahadeva, protector of the sacrifice, stood with drawn sword.

  Large platters heaped with grains and fruits of our mother Bharata were placed before their feet while the yajna fire was fed with clarified butter. The flames rose straight and true and smokeless. In a deep silence laced by a single string of mantras Island-born Greatfather took a golden pitcher from Yuyutsu. Waters from the holy rivers of our world streamed over Eldest’s bowed head, and then over the loosened hair of Draupadi. In that moment they became the Emperor and the Empress of Bharatavarsha. The ceremony was a long one. There were many golden pitchers to be emptied and many hymns and mantras to be chanted, but finally we led the couple to the throne.

  Then the time had come to honour our most worthy guest. I watched the faces of the kings. Island-born Greatfather announced that Krishna was the Purushottama—the best of men. Krishna rose from his seat of honour and stepped up to the pedestal. Up till then I had been scanning the faces of our guests without turning my head. When Krishna stood before us, I forgot the world. Eldest and Draupadi stepped down to Krishna who stood with folded hands, deeply indrawn, his eyes closed. This was the moment he had struggled for, for which he had borne a thousand threats and insults. His opposition to the slaughter of animals for sacrifice, his defence of Draupadi, and his insistence upon the sanctity of women, his readiness to do battle for justice, his surrender only to God, and so much else were contained in this moment. Draupadi pressed the vermillion tilak on his forehead. A tear trembled on her cheek as she added the rice grains to the tilak. Krishna’s eyes were open now, those liquid eyes the shape of lotus petals. They were full of understanding and compassion and they also said, ‘You see, we have kept our promises.’ With that look he drained the bitterness from her. For a long time they stood gazing at each other. Then Krishna turned to Eldest and let himself be garlanded. This time no voice was raised in protest but only cries of “Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu,” like promises of peace. Krishna returned to his seat. Nakula took the gemencrusted bowl and platter from Yuyutsu and, lifting Krishna’s feet onto the platter with the tenderness of a mother, began trickling sandal-scented water on them from the pitcher. Island-born Greatfather’s promise had also been kept. And yet I could not wait for the Sabha to be cleared. At the Rajasuya, the trouble that led to Kurukshetra had come at the very last with the kings walking out in anger. Nobody could leave until Eldest rose. Sitting on the edge of my chair, I took to scanning faces again. The Keradesh fellow was working his way around us. He could not wait to find somebody who would listen to how much better it would have been received by the Gods with the omentum, but now there was no real threat from that quarter. Everyone had stopped listening to him. My gaze moved on and was arrested by Eldest’s sudden stiffening. He was staring straight before him wide-eyed. Sahadeva was looking with fixed attention, as if he was in a trance, at the same point in midair.

  After what seemed an endless time, though nobody had started fidgeting, Eldest rose, and with our Queen following walked towards the main door. We all fell in behind them.

  It was much later that I learnt that he and Sahadeva had seen the blue and gold mongoose again who had come to tell Eldest that though he was surrendering untold riches, his offering would not have half the merit of that of a poor family who had offered their last morsel of food to a hungry visitor. Only such another sacrificial gesture would turn the mongoose’s other half to gold.

  None of us doubted that Eldest would have liked nothing better than to be, like King Shibi, the sacrifice himself.

  This sacrifice ended without mishap.

  11

  The Ashwamedha was behind us. Here I was with Krishna walking along the river, flowers dropping all about us like blessings. I was awake to the splendour of the day.

  I breathed deeply. All speech had been drained from me. In silence, the mango flowers blossomed in profusion on the male trees, and on the female, tiny buds of fruit that promised summer splendour, hid amongst a riot of dark leaves. The cuckoo cry, unheard all winter, floated sweetly on the river. The weeping willows brushed the banks and in their higher branches weaver birds were working on new dwellings. The villagers would mark the end of winter with dancing around a low fire into which sweet sesame was thrown. Nobody remembered that the rains had stopped early. There had been enough to let the green sprouts break the earth and after Krishna’s coming, there had been light showers. The world, which had been teetering on a ledge, had settled into place again. Sparrows hopped about their business, and squirrels played about our feet or raced along the mango branches, shaking down the buds.

  Krishna took a stalk of grass between his teeth. The first time that I had seen him do that in the Khandava, I thought he would produce an astra or some miracle for that was what we spoke of then. The miracle now was that not only had order prevailed but order of a higher kind. The ocean had been churned, now we drew nectar from it.

  “That is what we fought the war for, cousin,” Krishna said. “What happened now with the Brahmins could not have happened in the times of Duryodhana. Men were not allowed to speak then. Even the souls of men like Greatfather Bheeshma and Dronacharya were as silent as the cuckoo bird in winter. They had become puppets of Duryodhana’s ego and the shadow of Shakuni. Now we begin to see it. But it is only the beginning.” When you are racing in your chariot towards a horde of men who want to kill you, you do not think like this. The fight becomes all, you forget what you are fighting for. We sat under a willow tree, pulling at the lowest branches that hung beside our cheeks.

  “Centuries from now, humanity will understand what happened in our chariot on the first day of the war. It all rested on you, Arjuna. If you had totally refused to fight, we could not have gone on without you. And then? Then men everywhere would have become the slaves of Duryodhana’s passion. The Jarasandhas would be free again. A tide was turned that day in the life of Bharatavarsha.” The idea of Nara and Narayana crept in on me again, along with the meaning of the war and the role that Krishna had played. “The world is rocking with the motion of that tide and it will feel it to the end of time. People will see it not as they do now, a victory of good men fighting an army twice their size, but as a victory of man’s soul outlawed from the world for thirteen years, a victory over Shakuni’s cheating, a victory of freedom where no voice could be raised against the evil that sought to take root in our world.” He pressed his hand to the earth beside him. “We have saved our Mother from the tyrant. Never doubt it, whatever happens hereafter, Arjuna. For dreadful things will happen still. Light may flicker but it shall not be quenched. In the Kali Yuga, when all the lands around succumb to Maya, Bharatavarsha, doing a tapasya for the world, may falter but will rise again.” The vastness of the world and the times he spoke of swept through my understanding. “The world will seem to be engulfed in darkness but the light that was lit by our surrender and our offering will not be extinguished. People from everywhere walking this land will be touched by it. They cannot stay unchanged.” After a while he said, “Every moment is a moment of decision. At every moment each man holds the world’s destiny in his hands.”

  His words summoned that moment after the war in Island-born Greatfather’s ashram, when Ashwatthama had released the world-destroying Brahmastra before diverting it to the wombs of the Pandava-women.

  “Krishna, what happens to someone who t
ries to destroy the world when he has the power?” I had always avoided asking about Ashwatthama’s awful destiny. He was still more friend than enemy, much more. Perhaps, not even the death of Draupadi’s sons had quite wiped out the memory of our loving friendship in Dronacharya’s ashram. In dreams, I still raced him to the river, silver in the dawn. Perhaps only the death of Abhimanyu’s son could have erased the memory of his glowing face, and the love I bore him in my heart. Not only had I avoided asking, but Krishna I knew had not wanted to speak of what had happened on that day. Even now he tried to divert my question with humour. “You’re not planning to destroy the world, Arjuna?”

  From anyone else such words would have shocked me. The Brahmastra is a weighty matter, but here under the trees there was great peace, the sort we pray for in our hymns, and a stillness in my heart, as when some great work is accomplished. So with Krishna smiling into my eyes, and I into his, I said “Tell me about Ashwatthama. I need to know. It is one thing that I have never understood. You know how much his father loved me and I would swear by Lord Indra that he was never jealous. He would stand by, radiant, when Dronacharya embraced me. He was so full of Light. I used to think only a Brahman could hold all that Light. I still wonder about it. The only greater Light was yours, Krishna, and that is something different. It wraps itself around the heart. Only Shuka has a radiance greater than Ashwatthama’s before he tried to destroy us.”

  I waited for Krishna to speak but he moved his head in agreement. After a while he said, “But that too is a different light.” It seemed that once again there would be no explanation, but now that the sacrifice was over Ashwatthama was moving into my dreams again.

  “Can the darkness swallow Light?” I asked.

  “Never,” said Krishna slowly. “Never. It only seems to, but in the end it is always Light that makes a meal of darkness.” Then after a pause: “Darkness is tremendous but Light is infinite.”