The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata

by Maggi Lidchi Grassi

  On our next descent the trail takes us further down to a village where the land is terraced. Men grow food and acquire merit by offering it to us pilgrims. We gain merit by eating when we offer it to the gods in us. There are gourds and other things we like, to be eaten in the dark rooms of the little houses. A woolen shawl is offered to Draupadi. She is more happier with it than with all the gold and silken clothes that she has ever had.

  We have lost the sense of what should or should not be done. The Shastras did indeed go down the mountain with the landslide. But for all the joy in the valley’s modest comforts we are like animals with twitching noses, not quite trusting this world of men where the air is thicker.

  As for Dharma, the village dogs circle at a distance. Some of them are savage watchdogs, some are half wolves who answer only to their masters and have to be kept chained. They yank at their chains and make ferocious sounds at passers-by, but are silent and puzzled by Dharma. We see the hair rise stiffly on the back of one of them. Another has his tail between his legs. Pheasants run about with their stiff gait, picking at what they find. We are anxious to tread the upward trail again.

  “We are no longer food for men. We have been taken by the mountain,” says Eldest.

  “It has owned us,” says Sahadeva.

  “It has cooked us,” says Bheema.

  At sunrise we set out and begin to climb the slope.

  “Walking on flat surfaces has no charm,” calls Bheema, looking back at me, his features split by expansive joy, his voice ringing out towards the neighbouring mountains. He carries Draupadi.

  There are big, brown monkeys in the woods whose faces look as though painted with snow. There is a silver stream rushing down and as we cross it, we make jokes about it hurrying to pay tribute to an emperor. A butterfly comes to rest on Draupadi’s new shawl. We are laughing once again. We are back in the now.

  The now is climbing. We know not why we climb, but we do anyway.

  The heights have become our element. It is like riding on a horse or elephant or camel. In time you get the feel of it with your whole body. Your foot treads the measure of the mountain, as to a drumbeat. Your staff is part of you. I remember that Island-born Greatfather was called from the mountains by his mother Satyavati to sire our father. Perhaps there is something of that part of his life in us. I feel that I was born to tread these mountain tracks.

  We have been singing Island-born Greatfather’s hymns; hymns to the mountains, but sometimes we hum the tunes we hear the shepherds play. The stones are very beautiful, all shapes and colours. Some are packed sheets of friable and silvery layers. We all agree that it is a maya of the false mind that puts such special value on gold or silver.

  We meet a shepherd in a dirty sheepskin coat. His flock of sheep is meagre. We flatten ourselves along the wall to let them pass. He grins at us. Eldest’s voice intones a hymn.

  One alone is God, there cannot be a second.

  It is He alone who governs these worlds with his powers.

  He stands facing beings. He the herdsman of all worlds.

  We hum with him and join in where we know the words.

  He stands facing beings. He is the Herdsman of all worlds.

  Suddenly Bheema stops. I, walking behind him, am forced to a halt. The twins and Draupadi stop short behind me. Only Dharma comes to see what is happening. Bheema who has been singing loudly is now gazing up in silence. Two kingfishers are darting past a nut tree. We hear the murmur of the brook they must be aiming for. There is another flash of blue and green. The breeze is fresh and pleasant and beyond, the peaks are cradled by the huge sky. Bheema throws back his head. He stood thus defying the Narayana astra at Kurukshetra, but today he opens his mouth wide and using his own words he sings.

  He is the Herdsman facing himself.

  I, Bheema, am myself the Herdsman facing him.

  All worlds are made mine through Him.

  There is someone behind the Bheema that we know.

  Who other than I is fit to know God,

  Even He who is rapture and the transcendence of rapture.

  Bheema stands there, a Rishi who sees and sings what he has seen.

  Bheema, our brother Bheema. I am shamed, as well as awed, that I have ever judged him. Eldest has always known what Bheema is.

  We feel the pounding of Bheema’s heart as the rush of celestial energy threatens to shatter even his vast frame. Here on the mountain it is made plain to me: if Eldest is our head, Bheema is our heart.

  It is much later and higher up, that from the mouth of a mountain cave I watch the stars begin to light the sky to the south. It is only now that it occurs to me, remembering Bheema on his ledge: Head, Heart…then what am I, Arjuna? The answer is one thing that the mountain has not changed. Nara and Narayana, Krishna’s companion. With stars crowding the entrance of our cave, I sleep.

  Awoken by a grunting sound, I sit upright with my eyes stretched wide. Even now Dronacharya’s training is not entirely lost. The others have not stirred. Dharma is beside me making small noises. I stare at the entrance expecting to see a pair of animal eyes. Instead, a thousand eyes stare at me from the sky. I crawl towards the entrance where Bheema sleeps, straining my ears, but the muffled sounds I hear turn out to be only the murmur of the river. Dharma stretches out to sleep which shows me that if there was danger, it has gone. I try to sleep again but from the entrance all those stars are gazing at me and the world slowly stretches and grows huge. I may as well go out and challenge it. The danger is in us, say the Shastras, and so too says Island-born Greatfather. So did Dronacharya. There are some truths undisputed by the mind. It is not the animal at the cave mouth which ultimately we fear. It is a wind you cannot catch. I said some mantras that the evil did not like, for like a bear, it slunk away. I smiled wryly to myself. We may have sent the shastras down with the landslide, but there are times when it is wintry without them, and unless one turns into a Rishi like Bheema, one slides down with them.

  After a while the void and its many eyes grow friendly and I sleep. But before dawn we are woken by the sound of Draupadi’s heavy breathing. Once again, but for the last time, the little flower brings her back.

  Now we sit around Draupadi; for a moment we had glimpsed life without her. Five mortals without their shakti. What had I thought? We must have hoped that we would all go together. My brothers’ faces are subdued. We carry Draupadi to a place densely rimmed all around with little flowers. There is a stream not far from it which cascades over steps from which more flowers sprout. Above us is a great ledge of rock which gives us shelter. Draupadi smiles enchanted with this resting place. “This is the place,” she says. “I saw it in my dream.”

  We sit around her. “Arjuna. It was from you that Greatfather Bheeshma wanted water when he was on his bed of arrows.” I bring her water in a leaf cup. After a sip she says, “That is the best water I have ever tasted.” I know what she is saying in her compassion. She has given me a chance to serve her at the last so that I will be without remorse. To Bheema who has served her best, she raises folded palms. Eldest she makes sit beside her head; to each of the twins she gives a hand. “This night,” she says, “I will carry your messages to our sons.” At first she will not let us put the Leopard’s bane into her mouth again, and then to please us she chews a small leaf. The late afternoon is quiet and golden. An eagle wheels very high above us. The stream makes a sweet sound over the stones. There is nothing more to do but wait. Suddenly grey clouds scud overhead, plunging the world in shadow and rain pelts down on the overhang. We move in closer and then, in the way of mountain rain, as quickly as it has begun, it is all over.

  “That was grace,” says Draupadi. “Everything is grace. All our lives have been grace. One sees it at the end. Not only rain is grace, the snow is grace, the winds are also grace.” Even as she speaks the sun is setting, leaving its memory in the sky with many colours. “The best sunsets are after rain,” she says. We watch in silence until the first star comes out. As dusk deepen
s a distant peak burns like a sacrificial flame, unwavering and pointing straight upwards as is auspicious. More stars come out and the mountain turns into a glowing ember. Draupadi lies with closed eyes.

  “You should sleep. I shall not leave before the sunrise.” A quiet sob breaks from Bheema. She opens her eyes wide and exclaims, “Bheema, have you forgotten how Island-born Greatfather called up all the souls on the Bhagirathi river? What a festival it shall be when we shall meet like that.” She turns to me and speaks a single word, “Krishna”. It tugs at my soul. Now the moon is coming up, a first pale gleam on the world’s rim.

  “Do not try to offer this body that housed Draupadi in fire. She was altar-born. She did what she had to do. Leave wind, water, and sky to take care of this outer sheath. I shall find my way with Lord Pushan Ekarishi, the one and only Seer.” She closes her eyes. Between deep breaths, her voice, now a whisper, murmurs snatches of the hymn which says—

  O Fosterer, O sole Seer, O Ordainer,

  O illumining Sun, O power of the Father of creatures,

  Marshal thy rays, draw together thy light;

  The Lustre which is thy most blessed form of all, that in Thee I behold.

  The Purusha there and there,

  He am I.

  She is already on her way. The thread that bound her to her mortality is fraying and when the flame in her leaps up, she will be gone.

  Night draws on and the spirit of the mountain closes around us. Still she is as calm as by the golden light of afternoon, opening her eyes from time to time to look at us. I feel myself unwilling to let her go. I am not afraid. She is not afraid. We have come for this, yet in this cold moonlight something in me clings.

  “Is my staff here?” she asks.

  “Yes, it is here.” I put her hand on it. She smiles. “Break it when I am gone.”

  She has been a warrior. Her battle is over. There is silence once again. With our minds we make a yajna for her. A pebble bounces off our overhang and goes clattering down the slope.

  Now comes the hour of the gods. The energies that begin to stir in the mountains and rivers and the whole earth also stir in us. The sky still teems with the stars of deepest night, yet there is a lightening and lifting of the veils. Shadows slowly pour themselves into their holes like snakes. Our souls respond. Eldest very softly intones a hymn.

  Arousing from deep slumber all that lives,

  Stirring to motion man and beast and bird,

  We join him,

  Ushas comes carefully, fostering all creatures,

  Stirring to life all winged and creeping things.

  Now, Dawn, Beloved of the Sky,

  Shine ever more widely,

  Surpassing every dawn that went before.

  Draupadi opens her eyes. They smile with her gratitude. Though she has wanted to reach the high mountain with us, and now will not, it is alright; inside she has reached her peak. We know that she is waiting for the sun and I pray that there will be no clouds, though in truth nothing can throw shadows on her now. Her peace falls on us all. Some unseen birds announce the dawn and a purple light answers our hymns.

  We have called the dawn in. Now is the time of silence. It is too early for the sun. The universe cannot be ordered by our hymns. It is the universe that orders us.

  Sustainer of the Heaven, Lord of the Cosmos,

  This sage puts on his golden-coloured mail,

  Clear-sighted, far-extending, filling the heavens,

  Savitri has brought us bliss our lips must praise.

  A stark brightness burns the mountain tops and then the brow of the Maker of Day appears and pushes against the sky. Draupadi is very still, hardly breathing. She stares into the sun. Her body gives a single shudder. There is a sudden radiance as when day takes hold.

  Yama, Lord of Time, has come as light, has come as sun.

  Homage to Death, the end of life!

  Here rest your breath, both inward and outward!

  May the life of this being be maintained

  In the realm of the Sun, in the world of deathlessness!

  We meditate and accompany her as far as we can on her journey with Pushan. It is only when I feel she is beyond our reach and the sun is high enough that we perform the ritual sprinkling of the water. As we carry her into the coolness of a cave, her long knotted hair, silver-streaked, that used to touch her ankles, cascades over our hands and sweeps the floor. We place her in a corner of the cave and cover her with her roughly woven woolen shawl.

  Dharma sits beside her. The fire-born, the Empress of Bharatavarsha at the last is alone with a faithful dog and her five husbands. They are the only ones to prostrate themselves at her feet. Tathastu, Tathastu, Tathastu. So be it.

  38

  We have lost the sense of timelessness. We are anxious to reach our snow mountain. Yet we move more heavily, more slowly than before, intoning our Shanti mantra.

  Peace be the heaven,

  Peace be the earth,

  Peaceful be the broad spaces between.

  Peaceful for us the running waters,

  Peaceful be the plants and herbs.

  What is it that we have left behind in Draupadi? Like our mother, she had bound us to each other and all that we stood for. In the fateful moments of our lives she had been our Dharma. There is no Dharmaraj without her. But when I have thought of all this there is still something that escapes me. In spite of all the hymns, in spite of all the Vedas, in spite of knowledge, I no longer feel myself. I try to fit myself into the pilgrim waiting for Yama but I am like a sword that rattles in a sheath too big. There is no purpose, no more battles to be fought, no one to fight for. Perhaps that is it. She was the emblem in our battles. She had loved me in a way to which I could not reply and to which now I never would. That is all in the past, though.

  We are walking down a trail with legs braced against the slope, but my mind has stayed behind like Dharma who will not leave Draupadi. This is not the way. Regrets about the past will be a burden in the next life. All that you do not leave behind will weigh you down. We have learnt that any extra weight inside your pouch in the high mountains becomes ten times as heavy as in the valley below. This, and everything about the mountains, is there to teach us something. Even now I have not learnt how to let go. And so I strain to understand.

  There is a presence of heavy moisture in the air. There is a smell of leaves that have begun to turn to mould. We are near the forests and there are nuts beneath our feet. Some have been cracked by squirrels. Some we pick up and crack with our own teeth. There is a pointlessness in autumn when it does not usher winter in, for winter is the completion of a cycle before life begins again. We would not begin again, and I am glad of that, yet the thing which bound us has melted away. I strive to carry on. It makes the muscles in my neck and in my legs tenser than usual. My feet are heavy, dragged along by will alone. Though we are in a valley, I seem to teeter along a precipice. An eagle screams. The trees begin to whirl around me. My throat is dry as on the first day of the battle. A voice that rises from the past is speaking to me. But it is not Krishna saying, Get up and fight. It says, “Let go, Arjuna. You are too tight.” I stumble on. “What do you see, Arjuna?” The trees stop whirling. My mind begins to focus. I am alert in every particle, and yet at ease. I hear myself replying, “the eye.” I see the “eye”.

  Dronacharya’s voice like splitting wood, “Then shoot.”

  The eye grows larger. I see myself sailing towards it. Now I am through it into the emptiness. Freedom, I think. Back again into the now; one step after another. One step and then another and that is all. I move in fullness and joy.

  We are half-way up the slope when Dharma, panting, catches up and takes his place behind us.

  “What do you see, Arjuna?”

  “I see only the mountain.”

  39

  We are aiming to reach a pass before nightfall and the boulders below the snowfield are strewn in our path like stepping stones, as though to make it easy for us. Sahadeva say
s, “Bheema may like to pit his strength against the mountain but I wish it was like this all the way to heaven.”

  “We would present ourselves before Lord Indra with muscles flaccid from lack of use and so be denied a warrior’s heaven,” says Nakula.

  “Count on your soft heart and not your hard muscles to get you in,” says Eldest.

  “That is right. We will be arriving without muscles, hard or soft,” I add.

  “Some Kshatriyas!” says Sahadeva.

  Our laughter bounces off the rocks and echoes from across the valley. It comes as a surprise. It is the first time that we have laughed since Draupadi left us.

  We sit to rest and call to the other side: OM! OM! From the caves between the boulders and from the rock itself the answer comes back to us. We go on calling. OMs multiply and wax, then fade. We take our stations in different places. OM! OM! OM! OMs resound and dislodge a group of birds who flutter out of a crevice. This makes Bheema’s laughter boom. There is a mystery and something awesome about the way his laughter bounces back at us.

  “Bheema.” Bheema shouts his name. Sahadeva shouts his. Bheema cups his hands and bellows through them.

  “Bheema…Bheema…ma…ma…ma…”

  “Sahadeva…Sahadeva…deva…deva…va…va…va…” “Bheema… Bheema…ma…ma…ma…” the rocks answer. He turns to us and shouts, “If only I had my conch here!”

  “Conch here…conch ere…ere…ere…ere…”

  “Bheema!…ma…ma…ma…”

  Bheema and Sahadeva have climbed down to a ledge which juts out into emptiness. Bheema shakes his fist at his own mocking echo. It is midday and the sun beats down on him. His face is red from the heat and from shouting, as when he stood up to the Narayana astra and slapped his armpits at it. This is how he will enter heaven, shaking his fist and dancing.