THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 1 (75 page)
Read THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 1 Online
Authors: Ramesh Menon
AUM, I bow down to Narayana, the most exalted Nara and to the Devi Saraswathi and say
Jaya
!
Yudhishtira gathered Dhaumya and his brahmanas together in the asrama on the banks of the lake at Dwaitavana. He said, “Our twelve years in the jungle are over. Holy ones, but for the solace of your company we would have found these years an intolerable burden. Now the hardest part of our exile begins. For this last, thirteenth, year we must live among men again, in disguise. And the price of being discovered will be another twelve years in the wilderness.”
His voice choked, “I have no words to tell you how beholden we are to you, none to say how much we love you and how much we shall miss you. But our ways must part now, for this final year; the time has come to say farewell. We must disguise ourselves and no one must know where we are, lest our whereabouts are inadvertently betrayed. At the end of this year I will have my kingdom back: in peace, if the Gods will, or with war if fate so decides. And we shall meet again.”
Now he sobbed like a boy. Dhaumya put an arm around him and said, “This thirteenth year is the last yaama of the night, before dawn breaks. When it ends, you will shine over the earth again like the sun. You must be brave until then.”
Bheema was visibly upset to see his brother crying. He took Yudhishtira’s hand and began to speak flippantly to him, as one would to distract a child. Touched by this, Yudhishtira smiled and wiped his eyes.
Most of them in tears, the brahmanas blessed the Pandavas and went back to Hastinapura and Indraprastha, to the homes they had left twelve years ago. Some of them remained in the forest. The Pandavas went to bid farewell to the other rishis of the vana. Again, Yudhishtira was in tears, for those hermits had become like kin to him.
When all the other brhamanas had gone, the Pandavas, Draupadi and Dhaumya sat beside the lake in Dwaitavana. Yudhishtira said somberly, “We have to choose a kingdom in which to spend the next year and we must choose wisely. Arjuna, you have ranged these lands as none of us has. Tell us where to find a home for a year.”
Arjuna said, “Seven kingdoms surround the Kuru country: Panchala, Matsya, Salva, Videha, Dwaraka, Kalinga and Magadha. For myself I have heard that Virata in the Matsya kingdom is a fine city; and we must live in a city, where people abound and we can pass unnoticed. But you must decide, Yudhishtira.”
Yudhishtira agreed at once. “We shall go to Virata. I would have gladly chosen Dwaraka or Panchala; but those are where Duryodhana’s spies will first look for us. As for the other kingdoms you named, I know little about their kings. Virata I know about. He is a man of dharma. He is powerful, charitable and our wellwisher, as I have heard. Moreover, he is not a young man, or a fickle one. Let us decide on the Matsya kingdom and the city of Virata.”
Bheema said, “Shall we go as ourselves?”
“We must go in disguise and never be recognized.”
Arjuna asked, “Yudhishtira, how will you go to Virata?” His voice tremulous, he said, “Oh, my brother, how can we think of you in another king’s sabha? Even these twelve years in the jungle you have been our lord. King of the earth, how can I bear to see you serving another man?”
Arjuna’s eyes filled at the thought. Yudhishtira wiped his brother’s tears; gently he said, “I will be no king’s courtier, Arjuna. Listen to what I propose for myself. I will go as a brahmana, calling myself Kanka. I shall wear tulasi and rudraksha and I do know something of the Vedas and the Vedanta. I will also show the king that I am a master of dice.”
Bheema stiffened. Yudhishtira glanced at him and both of them laughed. Yudhishtira said, “You must not forget, Bheema, that the Muni Brihadaswa taught me the akshahridaya. I think the Matsya king will take me for a companion, especially when he realizes that I want no wealth or favors from him.”
A sense of adventure was rising in place of the anxiety they had first felt at the prospect of leaving the jungle. Arjuna was mollified. “The Matsya king is sure to treat you with honor. I am content.”
“And being an old man, he may have some use for such small wisdom as I have gleaned in the forest from the rishis. But my disguise is the least of our worries. Bheema, how will you contain your strength and your temper for twelve months? For a few flowers Draupadi wanted, you slaughtered a hundred of Kubera’s people.” Yudhishtira took his brother’s hand fondly, “The slightest provocation, little one and your eyes blaze. How will you last a year, obeying someone’s orders?”
Bheema said, “Nothing will induce me to lose my temper. After these twelve years, no provocation will make me risk another exile.”
Arjuna asked, “How do you intend to appear in the Matsya king’s court?”
Bheema grinned. “You know that I love cooking almost as much as eating. I have spent a lot of time in kitchens, both in Hastinapura and Indraprastha and there is little I don’t know about them.
I will go to Virata as Ballava, a great cook and ask him to let me have charge of his palace kitchen. I will tell him I am a wrestler, as well and offer to train the young men of his city. I am sure he will employ me.”
Yudhishtira said, “Suppose he asks where you worked before?”
Bheema laughed. “I was the emperor Yudhishtira’s cook in Indraprastha! I can furnish him with convincing details. I will say that since my lord Yudhishtira went into exile, I have been seeking another master as noble as him. And I heard the king of the Matsyas is such a man.”
His brothers and Draupadi laughed at his ingenuity. Yudhishtira turned to Arjuna, “And how will you, tameless Kshatriya, live as a servant yourself, when you were so anxious at the thought of seeing me as one?1”
Arjuna turned his eyes down. He spoke in a strange new voice. “Yudhishtira, twelve years of our exile have ended. But I did not realize this because Dharma Deva said so.”
He was silent again and it seemed to the others that the lines of his face had softened. Puzzled, Yudhishtira asked, “How did you know twelve years had passed?”
Arjuna flushed. “The curse of Urvashi is taking effect. My body has changed, I am not a man any more.”
His brothers stared at him. Yudhishtira said, “What do you mean to do, Arjuna?”
“I will also enter the Matsya king’s employ. What better disguise for me than a beardless face and a eunuch’s body? I will wear my hair in a plait and offer my services in the king’s harem. Chitrasena taught me to sing, dance and to play on the vina. I will teach the king’s women these. Besides, after the usual inspection, the king will have no anxiety about letting me into his harem, as a member of the third sex.”
The others were so taken aback they said nothing. A small moan came from Draupadi and Bheema’s eyes bulged. Yudhishtira turned to Nakula, “And you, little brother? How will you hide your beauty? And you are so sensitive, how will you tolerate a year of servitude?”
Nakula was also prepared. “I shall be Damagranthi, the man who has power over horses: which, as you know, I do, for I can speak to them. When he sees me with his horses, the king will not refuse to give me charge of his stables. I can remain at a remove from the court,” he blushed, “and its women, too.”
1. In Ganguli’s translation, Yudhishtira says that Arjuna is ‘the tenth Rudra, the thirteenth Aditya, the ninth Vasu and the tenth Graha’.
“Well done!” said Yudhishtira. His eyes still worried, he turned to Sahadeva. “My child, what have you planned? You are the wisest of us, as knowing as Brihaspati. When we left her, all our mother could think of was, would her Sahadeva be looked after? How can I let you serve another king, when you are such a child still?”
Sahadeva laughed disarmingly. “I am not a child any more, Yudhishtira! I also have a plan for myself. I am as good with cows as Nakula is with horses. When the Matsya king sees me cajole his cows into yielding more milk than ever before, he will give me charge of his herd. Moreover, his cattle are his main wealth and he will be happy to have me look after them. I shall be Tantripala, the gifted cowherd. Best of all, I do love being with the gentle ones.”
Then, the most anxious, most miserable part: Yudhishtira turned to Draupadi. “You must endure another twelve months, Panchali. Have you thought how you will go to Virata, delicate queen?”
Draupadi smiled bravely. “When you, emperor of the earth, can enter the service of another king; when Bheema, who has never obeyed another soul except you, can become a cook; when Arjuna can go as a eunuch in a harem; when the beautiful Nakula can be a groom and the brilliant Sahadeva a cowherd, what does it matter what Panchali does? You five are my life, my soul. My burden will be as nothing these remaining twelve months.”
“But what have you decided to disguise yourself as?” asked Bheema anxiously.
“I will dress myself as a sairandhri and be the Matsya queen’s sakhi. I know how to do a woman’s hair in a hundred ways; to string fine garlands with flowers of every kind; and to distil perfumes for a queen that will make her husband mad with desire. The queen of the Matsyas will not refuse to have me as her companion.”
Yudhishtira said quietly, “We are ready for the last year of our exile.”
The Pandavas left Dwaitavana and went back to the Kamyaka. They walked on from there to the southern bank of the Yamuna. On they went, through the lovely wild places, tangled with exotic plants and fruit trees. At last, they reached the frontiers of the Matsya kingdom.
Now Yudhishtira embraced Dhaumya and said, “Go to Drupada’s court and keep our fire of agnihotra lit there. Take Draupadi’s sakhis with you. If anyone, even Drupada himself, asks where the Pandavas have gone, say we left you in the Dwaitavana and walked away without telling you where we went.”
Solemnly, Dhaumya performed some sacred rites for the safety and wellbeing of the Pandavas. Then, blessing them, embracing them all, the brahmana turned toward the Panchala country.
The sons of Pandu and Draupadi were alone and, with a prayer in their hearts, they set out for the city of Virata and the final year of their exile. When they had gone some way, Draupadi sat on a tree-root and said, “I am tired and Virata is nowhere to be seen. Let us sleep here tonight and go on tomorrow.”
Nakula and Sahadeva were tired, as well, but Bheema had wandered some way ahead. It fell to Arjuna to carry Draupadi. How well they looked together, like a dark cloud bearing a streak of lightning through the jungle.
They trudged on through the dim jungle, as afternoon began to wear into dusk. At last, through the trees ahead they saw that the forest ended and beyond a stretch of fields, silhouetted against the sinking sun, was the city of Virata.
Yudhishtira said, “There it is, our destination.”
Gently, Arjuna set Draupadi down. He asked, “Shall we enter the city now?”
Yudhishtira replied, “Can you imagine the attention we will draw if we go in together, carrying our weapons? Just the Gandiva would give us away and remember Duryodhana’s spies must be everywhere. The quest for us will not be less than a war for our cousin. If we are found, we must spend another twelve years in the wilderness and that should certainly be the end of us.”
“What shall we do then?”
“We must leave our weapons somewhere in this forest and come back for them at the end of the year.”
Arjuna said, “I have been here before. If I remember correctly, there is a cremation-ground not far from here, a much feared place full of snakes and wild animals. No one will dare search it too closely, nor stay there a moment longer than they need to.”
“Let us find the burning-ground.”
It was not far. One pyre still smoldered among the trees and there were other dead bodies, unburnt, moldering. Arjuna pointed to a tree, a giant that grew at the very heart of the grove of death. “The sami would be an ideal hiding-place for our weapons.”
“Our bows have jewels that might catch the light of the sun.”
“We will wrap them in a sheet of hide, as if they were a corpse and tie them to a high branch. No one will climb a tree as tall as this to inspect a corpse.”
The Pandavas made a bundle of their weapons. And they were a curious sight to see, those kshatriyas: their eyes full of tears as they gave up their bows and quivers, their swords and daggers and Bheema his mace. It was as if they were parting from their lovers! Arjuna tied the bundle up just in time.
Some men from a nearby village were passing that way, travelling to the city of Virata. They saw five splendid young strangers and an exquisite woman with them, crying as they made fast a corpse in its sheet. The giant among them was the most distressed and the eldest was consoling him as one would a child.
The villagers approached the Pandavas and one of them asked, “Whose corpse are you tying up, friends? Who have you lost, that you cry so bitterly?”
At which, Bheema turned on them, his eyes bleary and terrible and spoke in a voice that made the poor villagers quail. “It is our mother who died, who else? She was a hundred and eighty years old.” He added threateningly, “And we want to be left in peace to hang her up.”
The villagers knew only sorcerers and demons hang their dead from trees and when red-eyed Bheema took a step toward them, all seven bolted through the forest.
The Pandavas wrapped their weapons in the hide of a dead cow to protect them from wind, sun and rain. Yudhishtira himself climbed the sami and lashed the ‘corpse’ to the upper side of one of the thickest branches, so it could not be seen from the ground. When he climbed down again, he invoked the Goddess, the Devi.
“Mother Durga, I leave these weapons as precious as our lives in your care. At the end of our ajnatavasa, let them be returned only to Arjuna or to me. I worship you, Devi Bhagavati, hear me in the hour of my need.”
A breeze stirred in the darkening forest. Unearthly fragrance filled the trees and a light grew lucid before the Pandavas. Within that luster was She, mounted on her mythic beast, the tiger. She was eight-armed, fabled weapons in every hand, beautiful past imagining. Her grace seemed to pervade the earth.
The Devi said, “No one will know you this next year and your ayudhas will be safe when you return.”
“Bless us, Mother!” cried Yudhishtira fervently and Draupadi and the Pandavas prostrated themselves before her.
“You will rule the earth again, Yudhishtira and you will prosper. But why do ask that the weapons be returned only to Arjuna or yourself?”
“My brother Bheema is quick-tempered. He may decide to seek his own revenge against Dhritarashtra’s sons, before the year is over. He may order Sahadeva or Nakula to fetch the weapons for him and they may feel they must obey him.”
The Goddess laughed softly. She said, “So be it, then. Only Arjuna or Yudhishtira shall have these weapons back at the end of the year.”
She blessed them and vanished.
Yudhishtira said, “Let us sleep in the forest tonight and from tomorrow, enter the city, separately.”
They lay down on some thick grass. Bheema asked, “We must go separately? Does that mean we should seem not to know each other in Virata?”
“We shall be strangers, unless we happen to meet when no one else is about. And even then, we must be careful. Let us give ourselves some names to know each other by, if any messages have to be passed between us.”
Yudhishtira said, “I will call myself Jaya. Bheema, what name will you have?”
Sleepily, the son of the wind said, “Jayesha.”
Arjuna said, “I will be Vijaya.”
Nakula said, “Jayatsena.”
And Sahadeva, “Jayadbala.”
At dawn, they bathed in the river, worshipped the Gods and hugged each other tearfully. Then, dressed as Kanka the brahmana, carrying his ivory1 dice in a square of plain cloth, wearing rudraksha and chanting Siva’s many names, Yudhishtira set out toward Virata’s city and the king’s palace. The others must wait and follow him, one at a time, with some days’ interval between them so no suspicions were aroused.
It was the public hour in the court of the aging Matsya king, when the brahmana stranger presented himself in his sabha and stood without bowing, his head held high. King Virata of the Matsyas was a little taken aback, not only at the brahmana’s hauteur but his altogether noble appearance. It was a critical moment and Yudhishtira trembled a little.
Virata thought, ‘Who is this? He stands before me as if he were the king and I his subject. He does not bow and yet, strangely, I don’t feel offended. It is uncanny, but I feel he is my superior and I should rise and bow to him. He wears a brahmana’s cloth, but his gait and bearing are those of a kshatriya. Look at him, like a tiger! As if he ruled all the world.’
Virata inclined his head to the brahmana to say he should approach the throne. The brahmana came forward a few steps and then, incredibly, Virata rose and went to him!
1. Ganguli says ‘golden dice set with lapis lazuli.’
That king said, “I am honored you have come to my sabha, Brahmana. To my eyes, you seem more like a mighty kshatriya, but you are welcome in my city. Tell me, what can I do for you?”
Yudhishtira said, “I am Kanka, O king. I belong to the Vaiyaghra family. I am a master of dice and I once lived in the palace of Yudhishtira of Indraprastha. He and I were so close, my lord, that you might say I was his very soul and he mine. Alas, he lost everything he owned and went away to the forest.
I hear that you are as noble as Yudhishtira and hope to find solace in your company and sanctuary in your palace. I have no one I can call my own and today joy and sorrow are the same to me. I have no desires left, Virata, but I am tired of wandering. I have come to you seeking rest and peace. Shall I find refuge in your city?”
Deeply moved by the presence and dignity of the brahmana, the Matsya king said without hesitation, “You honor me that you choose to come to my house for refuge. I am as fond of the rolling dice as Yudhishtira was and I will be happy if you teach me every secret you know of the game. You say you are a master of dice and I am old enough to know that you are not a boastful man.”
Virata turned to his amazed court and said loudly, “From this day, Kanka is as much king here as I am. All my wealth is his, to dispose as he chooses. He shall ride with me, sit beside me and rule even as I do. Let no man dare displease Kanka in this kingdom.”
But Kanka, the brahmana, said, “My lord, you are too kind. I have no need for wealth. But may I be allowed to keep what I win at dice? As for the kingdom, I will advise you on the affairs of state, of which I have some little knowledge since I was as close to the emperor Yudhishtira as he was himself. As to other things, my lord, I have sworn an oath that I will eat only one meal a day, at night and that I will touch no leavings. Grant me so much and I will gladly stay with you.
Virata embraced Kanka in welcome.
