Those that had left their bodies were on the farther shore. We met in one great concourse in the middle, but when I say the farther shore, and the middle, these are only words. There was only one place. Everywhere. Everyone was everywhere. Bhoorishravas and Bhagadatta, Jayadratha and Shakuni, Satyaki’s ten sons and Duryodhana and his brothers. Nobody was missing. The air was full of silence, full of music, full of perfume, full of movement that was stillness. I knew now some foretaste of the warriors’ heaven. For some time afterward, I was like a vessel emptied of the soma wine, but which held its fragrance still and thirsted for it always. Yet I knew that where Island-born Greatfather had taken us was not the highest heaven. Krishna had taken me further, as far as my mortal frame could bear without shattering. I have known Kshatriyas who thought a warrior’s heaven was a place where you won your battles and were garlanded the hero every day. Perhaps some would be taken to such a place, but for most I now knew heaven held undreamt-of surprises.
How long did we spend together with our loved ones? How long is eternity? When Island-born Greatfather dismissed the concourse, it dipped into the water in a truti and disappeared, leaving us on the river bank to tune our eyes to the first jewel gleam of dawn, and our ears to the song of birds. Both were harsh to us.
We did not leave the forest for some days. The ladies, our widowed ladies, had discovered that the love they bore their lords was tinged with something much more holy than they had dreamt of. For the whole of Island-born Greatfather’s revelation centred around the mystery of life, and love’s healing power. Mourning had been turned into sweet yearning.
We hardly talked. Our conversation was with the now invisible but ever present. Slowly the pressure faded. The river bank where we spent hours gazing and remembering, gradually lost echoes and the murmurs sighed and died.
Only the words of Island-born Greatfather lingered. “Have you not understood, my dear ones, my sinless ones, my gentle souls? He who indulges in too much grief at separation is a fond and foolish one. He who cannot understand that there is no real separation should never try to form a union, for it means suffering. In truth, separation does not exist. That is what you have been shown.”
Such words can make your soul reverberate again, can throw a pebble into the pool that is your self, but with time the ripples lessen. There comes a surfeit, a moment when life demands a hearing. Even though for a while I thought I would not want to leave the forest that had shown me Ekalavya and Abhimanyu, my Gurudeva and Greatfather Bheeshma, something pulled me back to Parikshita and Subhadra.
The karma of my mother’s life had been exhausted, her great pain laid to rest. Karna had let her hold him in her arms and he had called her “mother”. She had understood at last that there was nothing for him to forgive. Aunt Gandhari too was quiescent. Her brothers and her sons were whole again in her, no longer battered corpses whose blood Bheema had drunk. Indeed, she had seen all her sons embracing Bheema, and when he came to her she had embraced him too. So had Uncle Dhritarashtra, his eyes brimming with tears, eyes which for the first time had seen his sons. Another strange thing happened. Sanjaya, who had seen the whole war with his inner eye, now lost his special gift of occult sight.
Eldest did not want to leave my mother, nor did Sahadeva.
So it was that Island-born Greatfather started on one of his delightful talks which wound in and out of fables, before ending with what he meant to say.
He addressed Uncle Dhritarashtra. “Though you have not fought on the battlefield, you have seen the heavens sanctified by weapons. You are one of very few. These other planes are seldom shown to men while they are still in their earthly bodies, or they might fail to do their duty in the world. Your duty has been done but Yudhishthira’s has not. Eldest has petitioned you to let him stay here and serve at his mother’s feet.”
Uncle Dhritarashtra did not answer for a while and then he bowed his head. “Yudhishthira says now that my youngest brother is no more, and Sanjaya has lost his special sight, it will be too hard upon his mother to have the charge of both myself and Gandhari.” We could hear the love and yearning in his voice.
But Island-born Greatfather replied, “You must bid him go, my son. It will be a burden for Kunti, ‘tis true, but she has made her choice. She does not want her son to forego his duty. You who have sat upon a throne know that the seat of sovereignty must always be maintained and guarded. Without its ruler, Son of the Kuru race, the kingdom which was yours will breed foes and envy. It is for you to call Yudhishthira and send him back. Tell him that it is his duty to return to his kingdom and to rule.”
It was I who went to call him. Eldest was sitting in a circle with a group of forest sages. Already from a distance you could not distinguish him from the others. There was that stillness and serenity in him. He had taken to their ways, dressing and eating like them, ceaselessly passing his mala beads between his fingers. His lips moved on a mantra even as he listened to the discourse on the virtue of renunciation. He came with me as readily as an obedient child, but listened to Uncle Dhritarashtra in stubborn silence.
“Grief no longer plagues me, Yudhishthira. By your grace and goodness and that of our noble sire, I live here now more happily than I ever did in the city of Hastina,” said Uncle. “But there is one thing that could mar my peace: If I felt that once again I was failing in my duty through excessive love.” This was something that Eldest understood. “We have had from you, Yudhishthira, all a loving father can dream of from a son. Your name, O Blameless One, will be carried through the ages as a legend of filial devotion. But if you remain with us now before your own time has come, you become an obstacle to our wishes and you stir our conscience to remorse.
“Besides, on you now rest our obsequies. The achievements of our race and of our ancestors rest on your shoulders. It is a burden; we know your heart. But do not tarry here, Chief of Bharata’s Race. I need not tell you again the duties of a king, you who have always known them better than any man.”
Without looking up Eldest protested: “Let my brothers go, and bid me stay. I have two mothers and I shall wait on them and you.” Eldest, for the first time in his life, having now tasted the joys and visions, the fruits of the contemplative life he had always dreamed of, was pleading for himself. “I want to serve my mother,” he repeated. We, the five Pandavas, sat around our uncle and Aunt Gandhari and our mother, listening.
Now Sahadeva burst out, “Eldest, I beg you to let me stay. I am not needed in Hastina but you are.” There was such passion in his voice that Nakula came and sat beside him in silent solidarity. He would not leave without his twin. I looked at Bheema. Here we were, having gained an empire, desirous only of a forest life. Not even Bheema protested. He stared at the ground, his forehead furrowed. Eldest and Sahadeva gazed at our mother, their faces full of pain, waiting for some decree from heaven to free them from their royal duties. Looking from them to her, I saw that of us all she was the only free one, with her thick white hair unoiled and her calm worn face. Perhaps she read my thoughts for her hand went up to push her straggling hair back from her face. What I saw smote my heart. Her jaw and cheekbone were scraped and swollen. She must have fallen. Now that there was no one else to take our aunt and uncle down to bathe, the aging Sanjaya would leave such tasks to her. They were so frail, the three of them. How could we leave her to her choice. And yet it was her choice. Krishna’s words returned: ‘Arjuna has not learnt to kill human compassion.’ None of us had.
After we had eaten our meal of roots and forest fruits, we decided to go to our mother again before her midday rest. We sat under a tree beside the river. Eldest was our spokesman. He made his plea again. If she could not find it in her heart to break her vow to serve her elders she must keep two of us with her.
“My children,” she replied in that same voice, firm and tender, which she had used when we returned with Draupadi from her Swayamvara. “I love each one of you. Though Sahadeva is the youngest and my darling, I had other reasons for the love that I ga
ve each of you. Through one’s first son, one learns about the joys and perils of a mother’s life. One also learns that children are far more hardy than they appear. So with the second child and those after, one has learned not to be afraid. One can enjoy them with less anxiety through every fall and fever. With my third son, Arjuna, I thought it was the last time I would bear a child. Indeed it was, so I savoured him as one does last occasions. While I knew Bheema would always remain a child, which is the secret wish of every mother who does not want to lose her children, Arjuna was never really a child, or rather he was everybody’s child because he was so charming and so noble. To think that I had mothered him, filled me with a pride and delight that never ceased.” She paused and smiled at me, remembering. “Life is full of riddles. When you think that you can never love in any other way, for I thought I would not be given other children, along came Nakula and Sahadeva. Of all of you, Nakula always found a way to make things easy for me. Now I speak to all of you as I have always spoken with him.” She had forced herself to resume the role, to speak to us as a mother. “But I must also speak of Karna. All my life, mothers envied me for having five such sons. I had the best sons in the world. I never doubted it; but the mother that was born in me when I was yet a maiden could not still the hunger for the son she had abandoned. I made a vow that if he ever called me Mother I would sacrifice my life in gratitude by fasting. We are nourished by the Lord. It is the last thing we can offer to him. My hunger is my offering.” So she would fast unto death. We could say nothing: It was her vow and so could not be contested. We pleaded that we be allowed to stay with her to perform her last rites. What mother can refuse herself the presence of a son to light her pyre? But she shook her head. “You would only make me suffer, and a sacrifice must be glad and devoid of suffering. What son could bear to see his mother emaciated without urging her to eat, even if he does so in silence? It is as well to expect a mother not to urge her son to eat when his flesh is wasting from the bone. For the first bond between a mother and her child is nourishment. Do not drag me back to that. My nourishment is now from other worlds. That is what supports me. To leave me to that is the only way that you can sustain me now.” Sahadeva had stopped weeping and Bheema too was quite composed. There was nothing we could say. She had travelled far beyond what was ordained by the shastras and had no longer a need for any rites. She was Krishna’s aunt. It was she who had said “fight” and understood why we had to do so long before we did. It was she who felt the outrage of the dice game as much as Draupadi, though it would have been sacrilege to recall that now. She was once again what she had been for all of us—something that bound us together. We felt the bond that she had woven around us tighten even as she was withdrawing. She was the bond itself. “Always stay with Draupadi,” she said. “Always stay together.” This again was her last command to us. After that she did not speak. Draupadi, my mother, Subhadra… I had glimpses of how they had shaped me. Kshatriyas forget that they are not forged entirely by their weapons masters alone.
19
We occasionally got news about our parents from passing pilgrims. We heard that Uncle Dhritarashtra held pebbles in his mouth so that he would maintain his vow of silence. He had taken to practising the austerity of the five fires in a clearing, with a fire kindled for each of the four directions while the sun blazed down on the bare head that had always worn the diadem and known the shade of the white royal umbrella. His eyes were bloodshot and watered from the heat and smoke. Our mothers were emaciated beyond all recognition. Aunt Gandhari no longer wore the blindfold. She no longer needed that scrap of silk, having lived in darkness for so long that her eyes now refused to see even without it. Meanwhile we had slipped back into the routine of palace living, into a life of silks and scents and decorum, and the Council Chamber.
The way we thought of them now was not very different from the way we thought of Uncle Vidura. Yet when months later Sanjaya brought the news that they had perished in a forest conflagration, we mourned as though they had left their palaces but yesterday.
There was much concern among the people, especially the wives of the dead sons, that the fire that had burned them had not been sanctified. Some of the Brahmins said that under the circumstances it would be difficult for them to perform the rites in Hastina in their entirety. Eldest, whose respect for Brahmins was the stuff of bardic songs, countered that any fire that had touched them had by that very contact been sanctified. The priests looked askance at this, for any fire, once it touches corpses, becomes unclean and must be quenched.
From Sanjaya we learned that Uncle Dhritarashtra had been wandering in the woods, the two queens, and Sanjaya following him. On the last day, as he retreated from the river bank after his morning ablutions, a high wind rose, and there was a murmuring and a crackling of snapping twigs like the sound of something chewing bones.
“The elephants were the first to respond, squealing and trumpeting in agony. They thundered past, trying to find the river, but were cut off. We saw two lions leap over the wall of flames to reach the Bhagirati. A whole herd of antelope sprang over and saved themselves. But all the creeping creatures, the snakes, wild boar, and hares could only flee in the opposite direction. I tried to pull my master and the Queen Mistresses to safety, but they were weak and slow from lack of food. My Queen Mistress could only shuffle with tiny dragging steps. Their little feet that had only known polished floors, had never really hardened in the forest. They were scratched and stained with dust but they were royal feet to the end. I tried to carry them all to safety. It was the first time I disobeyed them. I tried to lift them one by one but they resisted me with bodies suddenly grown strong. They had all decided that the conflagration had been sent for them. The king still held the ladle with his fire.
‘Can you not see,’ said your queen mother, ‘this is the grace of Agni? He has come accepting. We are the offering, Sanjaya.’ The sinless king then gestured me away. There was such majesty in him. More than at any other time in his life, he was king at the end. How could I who had been his eyes even in the great battle, I with whom he wept when Duryodhana died, I who had shared everything with him even in the forest—how could I leave him now? How could I not accompany him on the unknown journey? How would he go without his charioteer?
I pleaded with the queens. ‘Indra’s chariot will come for him,’ Queen Gandhari said.
Your queen mother said, ‘Who will reassure our sons if you do not tell them that we went consenting gladly and that Agni purified us for the journey? Remind them that water, fire, wind, and fasting confer highest merit as means of death. Let there be no mourning.’ Still I was reluctant to go.
Then once again my king made the gesture which said, go, and your queen mother said, ‘Sanjaya, you must go, for if you stay, how shall we focus our minds?’ The gesture and these words brought order to the chaos in my soul. The king sank down facing the east. The queens behind him. They sat like posts of wood. I made Pradakshina to them and did a full prostration. Then, gathering all my energies, I exerted my weak limbs to save myself for this mission. I reached the Bhagirati river where some ascetics tended me and put herbs upon my burns. It was there that I decided that when my task in Hastina was over I would proceed to the abode of snow. If wind and fire and water are meritorious means to leave the body, the fire of ice may serve as well.”
We had been hoping he would stay with us. He was a noble reminder of an era gone by, but there was no keeping him. He would sit down somewhere in the Himalayas, facing the east and praying to return to his masters.
Yudhishthira said, “Who can tell the end of a man before it comes? When we were boys fresh from the forest we saw Uncle Dhritarashtra like a god fanned by peacock feathers held by lovely maidens, and we heard the chants of the Sutas who woke him from his sleep each day. To think that now his bones are fanned by vultures’ wings.” After a pause he said, “Why did I ask for those five towns? What were we striving for?” He looked around him, musing. “What was it all about? Why do
we not follow in their footsteps?”
The sounds of keening from the servants’ quarters began to reach us.
20
We still had many things to be thankful for, the chief ones being Subhadra and Parikshita. He was growing straight and true and had not belied his promise. Island-born Greatfather, who now often passed through Hastina, observed one day that my grandson had the gift of healing. At his words I saw Durgadasa and remembered how Parikshita used to heal him; how the fever had left him at the touch of Parikshita’s hand.
Parikshita learned from everyone. Yuyutsu and Kripacharya were both his friends, and I could see in him the promise of no less an archer than his father. But he learnt the most from Shuka. When Shuka was not there he dreamed of him. When Shuka was there they spent their days wandering over fields, or climbing hills and speaking to the eagles and the bears, or playing in the clouds, and healing stricken animals.
Once I saw them call to a flock of migrating cranes winging toward the abode of snow, and saw them drop from the sky to alight all around them. It was like seeing an astra turned from its destination. Parikshita looked at me with amused eyes and said that they used no mantras but simply sent out messages of love. If love could do that, I thought, let us get rid of all the astras. I looked into Shuka’s eyes. That which captivated birds could capture human hearts. My own turned over. Even the great detachment of Great Vyasa, Island born Greatfather, had not withstood this emanation of an unnamed God. Shuka was the dearest of his heart. Once when Shuka was away Parikshita told me, “Shuka has not left. He is with me all the time. We shall always be together. He promised me.”
The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata Page 85
