THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 1 (69 page)

BOOK: THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 1
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MARKANDEYA’S LORE1
 

When they had not been long in the Dwaitavana, monsoon winds began to sweep across the land and dark clouds gathered heavily above Bharatavarsha. The rains came, lashing forest and earth with healing showers. The Saraswati swelled within her banks, a turbulent Goddess and the lake of lotuses spilt over. The scent of those flowers and of wet earth, filled the Pandavas with hope. Each day the end of their exile drew nearer.

When the monsoon passed, Yudhishtira said, “Indra said we should go back to the Kamyaka vana and I have this persistent feeling someone wants to visit us there.”

They returned to the first asrama of their exile. It was strange, settling down in the old clearing, where little had changed. The big nyagrodha still stood there, with green shoots of the latest rain sprouting on its branches. It was like returning to the fringes of another life, which still excluded them: for less than two years more.

Yudhishtira was worried that the Kamyaka might evoke the old impatience in Bheema. Instead, Bheema took to visiting the rishis of the forest with him! The son of the wind would sit entirely absorbed in whatever conversation Yudhishtira had with the hermits and not a word out of him.

1. The discourse and stories of Markandeya are approximately 110 pages long in the original text.

Then, one day, Krishna arrived with Satyabhama. There was such a reunion. They hugged one another, repeatedly and when Krishna clasped Arjuna to him, it seemed he would never let the Pandava go.

He whispered in Arjuna’s ear, “I have heard all about your stay in Amravati. I am so proud of you!”

Their lives made perfect sense again to the sons of Pandu, as it did every time dark Krishna was with them. Joy was upon them and he, the uncanny Blue One, was as cheerful as ever.

When they sat under the banyan tree, Krishna said, “Subhadra and Abhimanyu are with us in Dwaraka now. He is a splendid kshatriya and a better archer than you, Arjuna!

Draupadi, your sons have also come to Dwaraka to study archery with me. Dhrishtadyumna brought them from Kampilya and each one is an image of his father. Sometimes I feel you five are with me in my city, but grown younger!”

Tears rolled down Draupadi’s face for her sons she had not seen for eleven years. Seeing her cry, Satyabhama took her hand and they went off into the asrama; and Draupadi was grateful for the company of another woman.

When they had gone Krishna leaned forward and, a glint in his eye, whispered, “Yudhishtira, you have served eleven years of exile; if you ask me, eleven years too many. Why wait any longer? The army of Dwaraka is prepared; Drupada and Dhrishtadyumna are ready with their legions; the Kekaya brothers strain as if at a leash, to attack Hastinapura. Let us ride now! We will take them by surprise and crush them before they realize that retribution has arrived. Why must you torment yourselves any more? Why suffer another year of this indignity and then one more of going like beggars in disguise? Let us go and kill Dhritarashtra and his sons today!”

He sounded earnest. But Yudhishtira smiled and said quietly, “I thank you for your kind thought, Krishna, but you know how I feel about this. We must see out another two years somehow and then ride on Hastinapura armed with dharma. As you say, it will be hard, especially for my poor Bheema. But I must wait.”

Then, incredibly, Bheema said, “I agree with Yudhishtira. We should wait another two years. Time flits by in the jungle, anyway and the weeks are like days: especially with the helpful visitors we have.”

There was a twinkle in Bheema’s eye and Krishna flung an arm around him and burst out laughing. “Yes, Bheema! Just two years more and we shall let you loose on the enemy like a tempest of your father. But now, Arjuna, I am agog to hear about your stay in Devaloka. I have heard so many versions of it and each one so different, that one would hardly think they were the same story. So tell me yourself, all of it.”

Krishna stayed with his cousins in the Kamyaka for some weeks and it was a happy time. The wildest beasts of the jungle would come to the hermitage and stand gazing at the Dark One. Deer would walk right up to him, nuzzle their faces in his hand, as he stroked them and spoke to them just as if they were human children.

A few days after Krishna’s arrival the Pandavas had another visitor, whose fund of lore was always a source of delight. The ever-youthful Markandeya was a masterly pauranika and Krishna was the most eager of them all to hear the maharishi’s tales.

When the sage, who arrived at nightfall, had been with them for an hour and a simmering moon rose above the forest, Krishna said, “Muni, they say you have no equal in the world as a pauranika. When I was a boy, my mother Yasodha would tell me a story every night, when she put me to bed. How well she told them! I felt I was part of the Purana she was recounting; I could see its spaces before my eyes. I could smell its forests and flowers and the characters would appear before me, real enough to touch.

Muni, I don’t believe there is any story-teller to match my mother. But we shall give you a chance to prove yourself her equal.”

Bheema, who loved a good story, cried, “Come, Muni, give us a legend or two. The night is perfect for it.”

Markandeya did not need much persuading, but launched into some shining tales of the eldest days.

“At the end of the last kalpa, the three worlds were plunged in a solitary, undistinguished night,” began that rishi. “There was nothing but a single dark sea everywhere: Ekarnava. There were no Devas, no rishis, nothing but the black sea. Upon that desolate and awesome sea, the Lord Vishnu Narayana slept on the interminable serpent Ananta Sesha. A thousand heads Vishnu had, a thousand arms and feet and a thousand eyes.

He wore a fulvid yellow robe.” Markandeya glanced at Krishna’s electric garment and continued, “Narayana’s eyes were like suns and his body was immeasurable, an infinite sky the hue of blue clouds. As he slept, out of his navel a white lotus sprouted, its corolla blue, its stalk golden and endless. It was the heart of the worlds, that primal lotus and its divine scent spread everywhere.

Within that first sacred flower Brahma was born: the Creator, four-faced and irradiant. The lotus-born Pitama, grandsire of all beings, poured forth creation. First, he gave out the waters, fire, air, the sky, the wind and the earth, the rivers and oceans, mountains and the ancestral trees. Then the moments, the hours, the days, the weeks, the fortnights, the months, the half-years, the years, the yugas, the manvantaras and the kalpas flowed from him.

He made the Sapta rishi, sons born immaculately from his mind: Marichi, Daksha, Bhrigu, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha and Kratu. From his breath came Daksha, Marichi from his eye, Angiras from his head and the rest from other parts of Brahma’s body. And with the advent of the seven sages, dharma had a human form.”

Markandeya paused to be sure they were listening. None of them stirred; his Purana was hypnotic. He continued, “Then, Brahma made the other living beings. Tamas was the quality that first arose in that Prajapati. He extruded the Asuras from his hind-parts and they were his firstborn, from his body. Brahma abandoned his creative body and at that moment, from the castaway form, night was born, full of darkness and sleep. And the demons, the Asuras, worship the night and are strongest during the hours of darkness.

Brahma assumed another body and this had the essence of sattva. From it he made the Devas, beings of light, exuded them from his face. He abandoned the body of sattva and, because it was made of light, day was born from it. Thus, the Devas worship the day. Brahma took yet another form of sattva and from this, the Pitrs, the manes, were born. When he cast off this body it became the twilight, sandhya, which all beings, of both darkness and light, worship.”

Now Krishna murmured, “Ah Markandeya, you are a sublime pauranika.”

They all glanced at the Dark One and saw by the streaming moon that his eyes brimmed with yawning visions. It was as if Krishna gazed directly into the times and events Markandeya described. They waited impatiently for the rishi to continue. These were not tales that any of them had not heard before; but they had never heard them told like this: so they came alive and the silver sky was filled with a primeval sea, an interminable Serpent, a shadowy Blue God, a shining Lotus and all the rest.

Markandeya resumed, “Now Brahma assumed a body of rajas and from that form of his, his passionate sons, men, were born. When he abandoned that body, it became the dawn.

He assumed yet another material body, made of sattva, tamas and rajas, all three and from it sprang the rakshasas who roam the night and are creatures of both darkness and passion. From that body of mixed gunas, also came the yakshas and gandharvas, the nagas, the kinnaras and charanas and other divine beings.

Then he created the birds of the air and the beasts of the wilds; trees, herbs and plants were born from Brahma’s hair. From his eastern mouth, the Gayatri mantra issued and the Rig Veda and the melody of the Saman and the Agnistoma yagna; from his southern mouth, the Yajur Veda, the Brihatsaman melody, the Trishtubh mantra; from his western mouth, the Sama Veda and Jagati mantra, the Vairupa and the Atiratha yagna; and from his northern mouth, the Atharva Veda, the Aptoryaman yagna, the Anushtup mantra and the Vairaja saman.

From all his limbs, he emitted the various creatures.”

The muni, who now sang his Purana softly, paused and Yudhishtira said, “Rishi, tell us about the yugas.”

Markandeya said, “Fifteen nimeshas, instants, is a kaastha. Thirty kaasthas is a kaala and thirty kaalas is a muhurta. Thirty muhurtas long are a day and a night. Three hundred and sixty-five days and nights make a human year: one day and night of the Gods.

Four are the ages called the yugas: the krita, the treta, the dwapara and the kali. Twelve thousand divine years long are the four ages together. The pristine krita yuga lasts for four thousand years of the Devas and for eight hundred years more, its twilights. The second yuga, the treta, lasts for three thousand years of the Devas and for six hundred years its dawn and dusk. The dwapara yuga, the third age, lasts for two thousand years of the Devas and four hundred cosmic years its cusps. The final yuga, the kali, the age of evil, is for one thousand celestial years and two hundred years its twilights; and then another krita yuga begins.

A thousand yuga chakras, wheels of twelve thousand years each, is a day and a night of Brahma. Fourteen manvantaras are a day of Brahma, called a kalpa. Each manvantara is eight hundred and fifty-two thousand divine years and three hundred and sixty-seven million human years. At the end of each day of the Creator, the worlds, the stars and galaxies are all recalled into dissolution, while Brahma sleeps through his night, which lasts as long as his day. When he awakens again, he pours forth the worlds once more.

One year of Brahma lasts for three hundred and sixty-five such days and nights, with all their creations and dissolutions. Brahma’s life lasts for a hundred years of such days and nights. At present, O Kshatriyas, half Brahma’s life is over. This is the first kalpa of the second half of Brahma’s life, his fifty-first year. It is the kalpa called Varaha.”

Markandeya’s eyes glowed in the moonlight and soft excitement gripped his listeners at his account of time. How small and insignificant all their trials and concerns seemed against the immensity he conjured. Krishna cried, “But tell us the nature of the yugas, O perfect Markandeya! I have heard everything that happens in time is determined, first and last, by the nature of the age in which it occurs.” He flashed a smile, “Even the lives of the Avataras, I am told.”

Markandeya bowed to Krishna. “Knower of all things, it is true, indeed, that the age determines everything that happens within its span. All that are born during each yuga are influenced by the spirit of the yuga: how long they shall live, what course their lives will take, how great or worthless they shall be. Because all beings are subject to their own natures and their natures to the primary nature of the yuga.

As for the Avataras, O Krishna, they are not influenced by the yuga, but only seem to be. But yes, they also assume the outward raiment of nature in their lives and their deeds and these surely belong to the yuga into which each Avatara is born.”

TWENTY-SEVEN THE FOUR YUGAS
 

Krishna laughed happily. He said, “How simply you illumine the most profound mysteries, Muni! Now tell us about the different natures of the yugas.”

Markandeya said, “The krita is the immaculate age, when there is no trace of evil on earth. Eternal dharma is four-footed in the krita yuga, but only three-footed in the treta, because evil enters the world during the second age. Dharma stands on just two feet in the dwapara and in the kali yuga, princes, dharma barely survives, hobbling on just one foot.

In the pristine krita yuga, dhyana is said to be the highest virtue, gyana in the treta yuga, yagna in the dwapara and bhakti in the kali of vice and darkness.

Brahma is the Lord of the krita, Surya of the treta, Vishnu of the dwapara and Rudra of the kali. Brahma, Vishnu and Surya are all worshipped in the kali yuga; and Siva, who bears the Pinaka, in all the four yugas.

In the krita yuga, every creature is perfectly contented. They live at peace with themselves and in harmony with the divine Brahman. Their livelihood arises in spontaneity, from their pleasure in it. In the krita, there is no distinction between the best and worst of men; they are all equally gifted, in wisdom, in longevity and in beauty. They are free from sorrow and given to seeking solitude. They are tapasvins and their goal is Mahadeva Siva. They live without selfishness of any kind and are full of natural joy, welling endlessly in their hearts. They have no permanent homes, but live either beside the ocean or upon mountains.

In the krita yuga, also, children are born from sexual intercourse. But the ecstasy of lovemaking is much more profound and prolonged than it is in the lesser ages.”

Krishna sighed, “Ah, indeed. But then, the men and women of those times were more like Gods, weren’t they, Muni? They lived for thousands of years, if I remember what my mother Yasodha told me.”

Markandeya went on, “At the end of the krita yuga, the natural font of joy in the hearts of the people of the earth dried up; but another blessing arose, as if in its place. When the eternal wellsprings ran dry in the hearts of men, those waters appeared materially in the sky, as clouds: sacral rain fell upon the world, life-giving and full of bliss.

When that precious deluge covered the surface of the earth, lustrous trees sprang up. These trees were called homes, O Pandavas and they were the ancestors of our trees of today. The people of the world got their food from the trees, as they did anything else they wished for; and they, too, were as happy as the men and women of the krita yuga. The trees were full of visions, which moved the spirits of those who sat near them to rapture.

But then, evil came to the earth. It came first into men’s hearts, where there was a void left by the cessation of the waters of joy, which were sukshma, subtle, spiritual: of God.

When the evil seed sprouted in the hearts of the men of the treta yuga, they grew passionate and greedy. And the wishing trees, which they had called their homes, vanished from the world. The men and women of the earth were repentant and returned to the path of dharma. They still craved all that the trees had given them, but they knew their greed had made the trees disappear.

Once more, the trees called homes reappeared across the earth and now they gave the people clothing, fruit and ornaments. Cavities in the trees were full of divine honey, which no bees or birds fed on. The men of the earth lived on that ambrosial honey and were content. Joy returned to them, for many years; but the evil, which had sprung once in their hearts, did not die. After a while, the people of the treta yuga turned to greed and violence again. For the first time, they seized the wishing trees for themselves, making possessions of them and attacking one another to own them.

The trees vanished again from the world, as suddenly as they had first appeared. Bitter days fell on the people of the treta yuga. The elements turned against them in wrath; savage extremes of heat and cold beset them. Burning rains fell on them and they built shelters for themselves against the fury of nature. Many perished for their crimes in those days of retribution and the people of the earth turned back to meditation: to seek their souls in dhyana, so some peace may return to the world.

The rains turned mild over the earth again. They flowed down mountains and valleys as the first rivers, flowing always into the ocean. Now, the first herbs of the earth sprouted from the alchemy between the new rain and the soil. As if to answer the prayers of the people, fourteen great trees reappeared in the world, with flowers and fruit.

A brief time of peace came to the earth. But evil had taken root in men’s hearts and it diminished the people of the treta yuga, as the age wore on inexorably to fulfil its destiny. Avarice and passion rose again and men seized field and tree, village and shelter for themselves. They seized their brothers’ women. The lust for possessions overcame them and perhaps it was because they were afraid of losing all these again.

The life-giving herbs disappeared back into the ground. Desolation stalked the world again. It was then, at the command of the manes, that Prithu milked the earth. Again, violence swept the land, as rapacity mastered the dwindled men of the treta yuga. It was in those fateful days that Brahma created the kshatriyas to rule the earth, to curtail the anarchy that had seized her and to bring peace to the brahmanas. It was in the treta yuga that the classes of men were ordained and each varna was given his own dharma by God, by which they could aspire to nirvana.

Those times are inscrutable, for great wonders and various blessings were still upon the earth. After the first agonies of transformation, men lived in harmony again, with themselves and all the mysterious and divine forces in the world. Thus the treta yuga wore on and then the dwapara yuga dawned.

The evil in men’s hearts took many forms by now, some subtle and some openly sinister. The dwapara was an age of conflict and men doubted the very nature of truth. While the Veda had been single and sacred in the treta, in the dwapara it was divided in four by the son of Parasara and the river-girl. Anxiety arose among men, suspicion and an abhorrence for life itself. They could no longer distinguish between truth and illusion. For the first time, disease swept the world as monstrous plagues. Drought came to the earth and terrible suffering, because of which men began to think about liberation from birth and death, to think of moksha. They thought of the futility of life, the emptiness of desire; they meditated upon their own deepest natures.

Rajas and tamas arose to dominate half the dwapara yuga, in war, doubt and strange knowledge born from brutal conflict. Man’s very mind divided against him. He became a power and a law unto himself, divorced from the natural world. He sought to control his suffering and was alienated from the natural earth. Yet, all these dark tendencies were tempered, curbed by the profound virtue that men had inherited from the krita yuga and the treta, as well.

But in the kali, the age of wrath and darkness, the earth becomes a realm of night and the sattva guna is all but lost in dominating sinfulness. It is in the spiritual apostasies of the brahmanas that the evil of kali yuga is rooted; for, the holy ones are corrupted in that age and forgetting dharma, they turn to unthinkable sins. Why, in the kali yuga, the twice-born themselves are ignorant of the Veda.”

Markandeya sighed as if he could hardly bear the thought. The Pandavas shuddered at the mention of the kali, the fell yuga that lay in wait around the corner of time. Krishna, alone, was as serene as ever. He said with a laugh, “But the kali is the age into which every spirit of all the other ages prays to be born. For it is the easiest age in which to have moksha.” Softly he said, “They say that in the kali yuga a man need not perform any great deed or sacrifice; he need not even be pure. Let him but take the name of God and he shall be liberated. Is this true, O Markandeya?”

There were fathomless mysteries beneath the surface of his words. Did his tone gently mock the rishi? Was there so much the sage had left out of what he said, which, indeed, he did not begin to suspect? Great truths that dark Krishna knew. Other worlds stirred in the heart of the earth: unknown, unknowable, legendary dimensions, all of them uncannily part of Krishna’s mystery. The Pandavas saw their cousin transformed. It was not a physical change; but for that instant, he seemed to encompass the very universe within himself.

The moment passed. Krishna smiled at them. He looked at Markandeya, who seemed to have turned to stone in the Avatara’s mystic moment. The Blue One said, “Muni, you have not answered my question about the kali yuga. Is it true, what they say, that it is the simplest age for a man to attain moksha in? Is it enough for a man to chant the name of God in the evil yuga, for him to find nirvana?”

And now, here was another mystery: Krishna was full of earnest inquiry; he was an anxious seeker. Truly, as if he sought liberation for himself, or as if he could liberate all mankind, if he only found moksha first; as if all Time was just Krishna’s quest for his own freedom. Markandeya and the Panda-vas sat absorbed in the Dark One’s mystery. Somehow, they had never thought of him as a seeker. They realized now, especially the Pandavas, that they had never thought of him as having any needs of his own.

Krishna flashed his smile again, breaking the trance. He urged Markandeya, once more, “Tell us, Muni, about the kali yuga. Forgive my foolish interruptions; I only wondered about moksha and how it was to be had most easily.”

Markandeya said in a low voice, “Krishna, there is nothing on heaven or earth that you do not know. But it is, indeed, as you say: the kali is the simplest age in which a man may find moksha and he can find it by just saying the name of God. Yet, the reason for this is not simple. For a man suffers horribly merely by being born into the age of wrath.

He suffers undreamt-of terror, constantly, from within himself and from the world, as well. He lives shrouded in evil; every breath he draws is in fear. In the kali yuga, the kings who sit upon the thrones of the earth will have neither tranquillity nor dharma. They will be men mainly of tamas, full of rage, vanity and lust, full of lies. They will find their pleasure in inflicting torment and death on their subjects, even women and children. And they rise to power just briefly and then fall away. The kings of the kali will be short-lived, greedy and rapacious.

The people will be contaminated by the customs of others. Kings will employ wild barbarians and murderers and these will have their say in the violent affairs of state. And with the people living in perversion, far from dharma, ruin will come to all the land.

Wealth alone will confer nobility, regardless of a man’s birth or his character; power alone will define virtue. Pleasure will be the only reason for marriage, seductiveness the quintessence of womanhood. In disputes of justice, the ability to distort the truth will determine who prevails. Just wearing a thread will determine who is a brahmana; for the twice-born will lose their dharma and be steeped in sin themselves. They will not have dhyana, gyana, yagna or bhakti, in the age of night.

All the world will be plunged in a turbid darkness of the spirit and the earth will be full of deceit and passion, greed and wrath. The precious waters of the soil will dry up at the fearsome ways of men. A man’s worth will be decided not by his truthfulness, by his wisdom or goodness, but only by the wealth he has amassed, by even the vilest means.

Arrogance and sin will pass for wisdom and righteousness, brashness and a loud voice for scholarship. Only the poor will have any honesty or virtue left and the powerful will make life so miserable for them, that they, too, will become corrupt. Feebleness will be the only reason for not being employed. Just a bath in water will come to signify purification and charity will be the only surviving virtue.

Unimaginable evil will engulf the sons of men. Abduction will be equal to marriage and wearing costly clothes and ornaments to dharma. The very affectation of being great will pass for greatness and boastfulness for heroism.

Men of power, men of great faults within themselves and kings with the hearts of monsters, will rule the earth. Oppressed beyond endurance by their rulers, the good people of the world will flee the macabre cities of kings to hide in secret valleys between mountains, where they will turn to nature for succor, living off wild honey, roots and fruit, birds and flowers. Violence and perversions will rot the cities and all the land. Terrible wars and demonic diseases will decimate the human race and savage cold and scathing heat, scorching droughts and sweeping floods will terrorize the people of the kali yuga. Until, the earth will be a hell in creation, where souls are born for no pleasure at all, but only searing expiation.”

Yudhishtira said quietly, “Already, there are omens of what is to come.”

“It is not far from us,” said Markandeya. “Why, it is prophesied that with your war against the sons of Dhritarashtra, the kali yuga will begin.” He paused and said in a low voice, “And it will truly set in when Krishna leaves the world.”

Krishna murmured thoughtfully, “Yes, it will be rare for men to even say the name of God in the age of evil.”

“And so they will indeed find moksha, if they do, with a devout heart,” put in the rishi.

Bheema said, “I pray I will not see much of that wretched time! But tell us, O Markandeya, does the world itself end with the kali yuga?”

“At the end of the kali yuga, when the earth has been ravaged and laid waste by men’s sins, a drought arises that lasts for a hundred years, with not a day’s rain. Every creature in the world will perish, all the species. And Siva comes as Rudra for the dissolution.

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