THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 1 (37 page)

SIXTY-SIX THE HUNGRY BRAHMANA
 

Summer came once more to Bharatavarsha and the heat was intolerable. In Indraprastha, Krishna and Arjuna were to be found in each other’s company: the Avatara and the bhakta. From dawn until late into the night, they would sit drinking and talking, or, at times, enfolded in a shared silence, not needing words to commune. Often they hunted together, for boar and deer, in the woods near the city.

Early one morning, Arjuna came to Krishna’s room. “Shall we go to the river today and spend a day in the Khandava vana? They say the forest is cooler than anywhere else.”

Krishna was enthusiastic. “I’ve heard so much about the Khandavaprastha. I haven’t been on the banks of the Yamuna for years and I grew up beside her.”

They set out within the hour. The party included Draupadi, Subhadra and Satyabhama, Bheema and the twins, other members of the family, the palace-cooks and a cart full of provisions and vessels for them to ply their craft. They journeyed leisurely through the comfortable warmth of the early morning. As the heat of the day began to grow fierce, they saw a forbidding jungle loomed ahead, its old trees reaching for the sky with dark arms and fingers of branch and leaf.

Subhadra shivered. “What an evil place it seems.”

Draupadi said, “I hope we won’t be going too deep into that jungle.”

Arjuna laughed, “Not you, certainly, the Khandava is no place for women. But after we have eaten, Krishna and I may explore it for a while.”

Krishna said, “But let us get to the first trees, or this heat will be the end of us.”

The sun beat down and they now drove their chariots hard to find shade. Suddenly, Sahadeva, riding in the van of the party, shouted, “Look, the Yamuna!”

Meandering into the dim forest, was the midnight-blue river. Krishna gave a cry and forged ahead of the others and came first to the river. As if meeting an old friend, even an old love, he knelt beside the Yamuna and, excited as a child, began to speak to her! He not only spoke but craned to listen to her smoky water, as if she whispered back to him and he knew her fluid tongue.

The others arrived to find him under a kadamba tree whose branches grew out over the water and a deep wistfulness had come over him. He sat lost in his mood. Satyabhama came and sat briefly beside him; but she saw he would rather be alone and went back to Draupadi and Subhadra.

The servants cleared some level ground near the river and set up tents. The food carts were unloaded and the cooks were soon at their fires. The Kuru men stripped off their clothes and plunged into the cool water. The women, also, had come prepared. They went off a short way with their sakhis and they too swam in the caressing flow.

Krishna sat plunged in a reverie. Being beside the Yamuna had loosed a flood of memories from his boyhood. This river was a part of him, a part of his earliest, happiest years. In his mind’s eye now, he saw his father Nanda’s house of logs built on the hem of another deep jungle along the Yamuna’s course: the Vrindavana. He saw the gypsy cowherders’ crescent-shaped settlement. Enchanted by the Yamuna, Krishna was borne back to those green days when he roamed the jungle and the riverbank, wild himself, a friend to deer and tiger, jackal and elephant and all the free creatures of the earth.

He saw his mother Yasodha at her hearth; he thought she turned and smiled at him. He had not had the heart to say farewell to her, when he left Vrindavana all those years ago, left so suddenly for Mathura. His mind turned another corner in the precious maze of memory and now he was not a boy any more, but a dark youth, irresistible. He saw himself in the heart of Vrindavana, in a hidden glade full of jasmine, fragrant as heaven. He was not alone there, but with she who was as lovely as the forest in spring. Krishna saw her face. The pain he thought he had grown out of was still sharp.

Thinking of Radha again, today beside the darkling river, Krishna heart filled with ecstatic memories: of stolen hours of forbidden love in the forest, when a throbbing moon bathed the trees in silvery magic. He had never loved anyone else as he had her. He knew he would never see her again in this life; it was a curse he carried. He saw her face, her naked body filmed in dew, lying beside him on Vrindavana’s velvet grasses. He could hardly bear the anguish; or wait for everything he had come for to be over and his life to end. He felt her presence so clearly under the kadamba tree: Radha waited for him across the threshold of death.

At last, Krishna tore himself away from his dream of the sweet, irretrievable past. He joined the others in the river; and he was himself again, full of high spirits. He challenged Bheema to race across the Yamuna and beat him by lengths.

The cooks announced food. They had laid on a banquet in the wilds, because Bheema would have no less. Everything tasted so fresh out in the open and, after a vigorous swim, they all ate more than they should. When the meal was over, the cool tents beckoned. The sun was overhead now and the heat fiercer than ever on a full stomach. The kshatriyas and their women retired to the tents and quickly fell asleep.

Krishna said to Arjuna, “Let’s explore the vana.”

The two of them set off into the towering, ominous jungle. As they went along, the trees grew closer together and their branches intertwined like so many lewd spirits embracing. They felt this forest was a single, somehow terrible being. Soon, hardly any light penetrated the thick awning above and Krishna and Arjuna sensed sinister presences all around them and an aura of implacable evil. The air was still, dank vapors hung heavy; no breath of breeze had stirred here for years. This jungle was the home of many malignant creatures and fell spirits that had lived here through the ages, their malevolence spreading through the earth. It was a forest of ghouls and demons.

Arjuna shivered, “I feel suffocated! Let us find the river.”

They struck out again toward the Yamuna and, quite abruptly, emerged from the breathless, perpetual night of the Khandava into a bright glade where the dense growth of trees parted to let the blue river flow through. Here the meshed roof of branches was broken and the summer sun lay upon the clear water. Krishna and Arjuna sighed in relief. Back in the darkness, they had felt countless leering phantoms crowding them, probing them, stroking their very souls with obscene fingers.

They saw a large punnaga tree growing beside the river. Great roots curled above the ground and the cousins sat in its shade, beside the susurrant Yamuna. They sat in silence, listening to the river murmuring along.

Here in the open the day was warm again and the two kshatriyas drifted off into a light slumber. They had hardly dozed for half an hour when, roused by a sharp instinct, both of them awoke together. They saw the strangest being standing before them. He was tall as a sala tree and he was a brahmana. But such an extraordinary brahmana! His bare body glistened like molten gold in the sunlight. His eyes, long as lotus petals, were red as flame-hearts and so were his flowing hair and beard, tinged with green. He had matted locks and wore rags, but glowed as if a fire burned inside him.

Krishna and Arjuna rose and folded their hands to the uncanny one. He stared back at them, breathing heavily, his eyes like sunsets. Krishna said, calmly as ever, “Greetings, Brahmana, how may we serve you?”

In an exceptional voice—as if a hundred wood-fires crackled in his throat—the brahmana said, “I am hungry!”

Arjuna said innocently, “Our cooks will make anything you want to eat.”

The brahmana looked at him for a moment, as he might at an imbecile child. “My hunger is not easily appeased. I am Agni! I want to devour this accursed Khandava vana with all its evil birds and beasts, trees and plants, spirits, serpents and demons. I know who you are and I have been waiting for you. You are the ones to help me.”

“How is that, O Agni?” asked Krishna.

“I have my reasons for wanting to devour the Khandava,1 and the weal of the world is one of them. For centuries, I have longed to burn this vana; but Takshaka, the serpent-king, lives in the heart of the Khandava and he is Indra’s friend. Whenever I send my tongues of flame to lick up the jungle, Indra unleashes a thunderstorm to put out my fire. Many times this has happened and I have no answer to Indra’s torrents.

I know you two are masters of the devastras. This jungle is a seething nest of evil; you must help me exorcise it. The monsters that breed in the darkness of the Khandava are abominations upon the earth. Long ago, this was a pure and taintless forest; but for thousands of years now, its heart has turned to darkness. There is only one way to end the breeding night that thrives under its canopy. To burn it down! If your astras can hold off Indra’s rain, I will raze the jungle in a day and satisfy my hunger, which feeds on me that it cannot feed on the vana.

I ask you this favor and I will give you anything in return.”

They were astonished to hear what the Fire God wanted. With a laugh, Krishna cried, “We will help you, Agni! But first, we need some weapons and a chariot.”

Arjuna said, “We have astras and we can hold off Indra’s rain; but, Deva, I have no bow to loose the astras I command. I have no quivers and my chariot and horses are too slow for your task.”

Arjuna was certain the advent of Agni was, also, a pretext for him to receive a gift of weapons from the God of fire.

Agni turned to Krishna, “Tell me the weapon you want.”

The Dark One murmured, “A Chakra would serve me well.”

Agni bowed gravely to both of them. He folded his hands to the west, in the direction of the ocean. He shut his eyes and began to chant some words in a divine language that Arjuna did not know and Krishna had not heard in this lifetime; but the Avatara understood it. Agni stood rapt and the arcane mantra flowed resonantly from him. The Yamuna paused to hear it.

Then, another sound arose, as of waves crashing against a rocky shore. For a moment they thought the river had risen, but then a great, fluent luster shone there: light in rippling waves, light in a crystal tide. Another Deva stood before Agni, as tall and unearthly as himself. His body was translucent; his hair seemed to be flowing water, every strand a river. His raiment was of moss, lichen and colourful plants that grow in ocean-deeps. He wore incredible pearls and corals, carried a trident in his hand

1. See Appendix.

and a thousand brilliant fish clung to him in adoration. He seemed to be in this world and another, at once.

The two Gods greeted each other in the tongue in which Agni had summoned Varuna, Lord of oceans and keeper of the pristine weapons of the earth. Varuna bowed to Krishna and Arjuna, who bowed back to him, quite wonderstruck.

In his voice of tides, Varuna said, “After an age, my friend Agni has called me with the Samudra mantra. It must be a task of destiny he summons me for.”

Agni said, “You know how long I have wanted to consume the Khandava vana; but Indra has always prevented me. These kshatriyas are Arjuna and Krishna, of whom we know. They have promised to help me, but they have no weapons with which to contain Indra. You have Soma Deva’s ayudhas, given to you when the earth was young. Let these warriors have the Moon’s weapons and a chariot swift as the mind.”

Varuna said, “I have brought them, I knew the time had come. And the kshatriyas may keep the weapons for the span of their mortal lives, after which they must be returned to me.”

“What have you brought?” cried Agni.

Varuna made a mystic mudra and another supernatural light shone there: the river seemed to become part of another world. The Ocean God said, “Look!”

An incandescent chariot materialized at the heart of the light; four horses were yoked to it, whiter than the snow on Kailasa, their manes like moonlight. They tossed their long heads and whinnied. On the chariot’s golden banner flew a legendary flag with the image of a hero from an ancient race that had vanished from the jungles of Bharatavarsha: Chiranjeevi Hanuman, the immortal vanara, bhakta of Sri Rama of old! This same chariot, in time out of mind, had helped the Devas win their very first war against the Asuras. It stood there, pulsing with life, bright as a new cloud lit by the rising sun.

Varuna led them to the ratha and Arjuna drew a sharp breath: on the chariot-seat lay a golden bow, encrusted with jewels. It was a prodigious weapon and Arjuna was sure he saw it breathe. The Pandava had the strangest feeling that ayudha recognized him!

Varuna opened his arms, like a sea parting, to that primeval weapon. He said, simply, “Gandiva.”

They gasped at that name: who had not heard of the legendary Gandiva? It was the Moon’s bow, which Brahma had wrought before the earth was made and given to Soma Deva, his favorite son. No warrior who wielded the golden bow could be vanquished in battle. Beside the Gandiva, lay two silver quivers that shimmered so delicately they seemed to be made of moonbeams.

These were the Moon God’s inexhaustible quivers; the arrows that welled from them were as numerous as water-drops in the sea. The oceans of the earth would dry up before these quivers were empty. By now, Arjuna was melting in gratitude. He bowed to Varuna and Agni and made a solemn pradakshina around the chariot. At last, he picked up the weapon that lay in it.

It was alive in his hands! It spoke to his deepest heart and the Pandava felt a tremor of exhilaration. He strapped on the quivers, light as wishes: at once, they were full of shining arrows. Arjuna prostrated himself before Varuna and Agni. They blessed him and, as he rose, Varuna vanished.