Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata Read online

  According to the Bhagavata Purana, in their previous life, Shishupala and Dantavakra were Jaya and Vijaya, the doorkeepers of Vishnu who prevented the four sages, the Sanat Kumars, from entering Vaikuntha. The sages cursed them that they would take birth three times away from God. Each time they were born, Jaya and Vijaya performed terrible deeds that forced Vishnu himself to descend on earth and kill them. The first time, they were born as the Asura brothers, Hiranayaksha and Hiranyakashipu, who were killed by Vishnu taking the form of a boar and a man-lion. The next time, they were born as Rakshasa brothers, Ravana and Kumbhakarna, and were killed by Vishnu who descended as Ram. The third time they were born as Shishupala and Dantavakra (some say Kansa and Shishupala), and were killed by Vishnu who descended as Krishna. Thus the death of Shishupala was preordained.

  To protect her son, Shishupala’s mother gets from Krishna a boon that he will forgive a hundred crimes of her son. But she does not bother to warn her son never to commit a crime. Thus Vyasa draws attention to a peculiar human trait of trying to solve a problem through external means without bringing about any internal transformation.

  According to one folktale, Krishna cut his hand when he hurled the Sudarshan Chakra at Shishupala. Draupadi immediately tore her upper garment and tied it around Krishna’s wound to stop the bleeding. Since she gave him cloth, Krishna promised that the day she needs cloth, he will provide it, which he does later in the epic when the Kauravas try to disrobe Draupadi in public.

  Yudhishtira’s coronation is surrounded by inauspicious events. It is preceded by the death of a king, Jarasandha; it witnesses the humiliation of another king, Duryodhana; and finally the ceremony itself is followed by the killing of yet another king, Shishupala, leading to an uproar among all Kshatriyas.

  Book Ten

  Gambling

  ‘Janamejaya, your ancestors treated their kingdom and their wife as property to be gambled away in a game of dice.’

  46

  Shakuni’s plan

  Duryodhana returned from Indra-prastha a broken man, consumed by envy. ‘The Pandavas had nothing. And now they are kings. Their kingdom is wealthier than mine and their reputation far greater.’ He felt inferior once again to his cousins.

  Gandhari’s brother, Shakuni, then came up with a plan that brought cheer back into Duryodhana’s heart. ‘Yudhishtira may be great, but he has one weakness: he loves to gamble. Invite him to a game of dice. Even though he is a terrible gambler, he will come. He will not be able to say no. Let me play in your stead. You know of my skill with the dice. I can make the dice fall the way I want it to. I will win. And with each victory, we will take all that the Pandavas possess. By the end of the game, you will be the lord of Indra-prastha and the Pandavas will be nothing but beggars.’

  Duryodhana was overjoyed to hear this, but he did not realize that his uncle was playing a devious game to destroy the Kuru household.

  Years ago, when the Pandavas and Kauravas were children, they were playing a game which ended, as usual, in a fight. The Kauravas abused the Pandavas, ‘You are children of a whore,’ pointing to the widely known fact that the Pandavas were not children of their mother’s husband.

  The Pandavas retorted by saying, ‘And you are children of a widow!’

  The Kauravas were surprised to hear this. Surely their mother was no widow. They went crying to Bhishma and narrated the entire incident to him. Bhishma decided to investigate and sent out spies to the kingdom of Gandhara to find out the truth.

  The spies found out that when Gandhari was born, astrologers had foretold that while her first husband would have a short life, her second husband would have a long life. Her father, Suvala, then decided to get his daughter ‘married’ to a goat and that goat was sacrificed soon after ‘marriage’. Technically, that made Gandhari a widow.

  Bhishma was very furious when astrologers revealed that the Kauravas were actually the children that the goat would have fathered had he not been sacrificed. ‘I have been duped by Suvala. A widow entered my noble household as a daughter-in-law. If the world learns of this, I will be the laughing stock of all Bharata-varsha. I will kill Suvala’s entire family and let this terrible secret die with them.’

  Bhishma locked Suvala and his sons in a dungeon. Every day, only a fistful of rice was given to them. Suvala told his sons, ‘Bhishma knows it is adharma to kill family. So he has found a way to kill us without breaking the code of dharma. He feeds us every day but the quantity of food is so less that we are bound to starve and die. There is nothing we can do about it, for it is adharma to ask for more food. And it is adharma to run away from the daughter’s house when food is still being served.’

  As the days passed, things got worse. The brothers of Gandhari began fighting over the food being served. A starving and suffering Suvala came up with an idea, ‘Let only one of us eat: the most intelligent one among us. Let only he survive and remember this great wrong done to us by Bhishma. Let him live to take vengeance.’

  Shakuni, the youngest, was the chosen one and alone he ate the food being served while the rest of his family starved before his eyes.

  Before dying, Suvala struck Shakuni’s foot with a staff and cracked his ankle. ‘Now you shall limp every time you walk. And every time you limp, remember the crime of the Kauravas against your family. Never forgive them.’

  Suvala had noticed Shakuni’s fondness for the game of dice. He told his son, with his dying breath, ‘When I die, take my finger bones and turn them into dice. They will be filled with my rage and will turn whichever way you want them to. That way you will always win the game of dice.’

  Shortly thereafter, Suvala and his sons died. Shakuni survived and he lived in Hastina-puri along with the Kauravas under the care of Bhishma. He pretended to be the friend of the Kauravas, but all the while he plotted the downfall of Bhishma’s household just as Bhishma had destroyed his own.

  Duryodhana’s envy of the Pandava fortune is the root cause of the tragedy that is the Mahabharata. It is not that he has less but that his cousins have more that makes him suffer.

  The story of Shakuni’s family is part of many folk traditions. In some variants, Duryodhana, not Bhishma, is responsible for killing Shakuni’s father and brothers. The aim of his narrative is to remind all not to judge people without knowing their story. Even the worst of villains has a story that perhaps explains their actions, without condoning them.

  In other versions of the story, Suvala is put in prison along with his sons for refusing to let Gandhari marry a blind man. Thus Gandhari, like Ambika and Ambalika, is a captive and so is Shakuni.

  The story of Gandhari and the goat comes from the Jain retellings of the Mahabharata.

  In epic times, it seems that the mother’s family played a prominent role in family politics. Shakuni is the maternal uncle of the Kauravas while Krishna is the maternal cousin of the Pandavas.

  The Mahabharata attributes all downfall to greed. In a story that is further elaborated in the Vishnu Purana, Vishnu descends on earth in the form of a tiny fish and asks Manu, the first man, to save him from the big fish. The notion of big fish feeding on small fish is known as ‘matsya nyaya’ and denotes the law of the jungle. By promising to save the small fish, Manu, in effect, establishes the code of civilization or ‘dharma’ where even the weak can thrive. Manu puts the small fish in a pot. But as the days pass the fish grows in size and becomes too big for the pot. So Manu moves him to a pond. The fish in due course becomes too big for the pond. Manu moves him to a river. As the days pass, even the river proves inadequate for the fish. The fish is then moved to the sea. It grows too big even for the sea. So the skies burst and torrential rains fall which end up submerging the whole earth. This, the fish declares ominously, is Pralaya, the end of the world. The story ends with the giant fish, identified as Vishnu himself, towing a boat with Manu and his family through the devastating flood to safety. The latter part of the story is similar to Noah’s ark and establishes Vishnu as the saviour. The earlier part exp