Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata Read online

  Astika’s question boomed across the sacrificial hall. The chanting stopped. The fire stilled. Silence descended as curious eyes fell on the king.

  Janamejaya pulled back his shoulders and replied with conviction, ‘I do this for justice.’

  Astika retorted passionately, ‘Takshaka killed your father for justice. You kill the Nagas for justice. The orphans you create by this yagna will also crave for justice.

  Who decides what justice is? How does one end this unending spiral of revenge where everyone believes they are right and their opponents are wrong?’

  Janamejaya was silent. He pondered over what Astika had said. Then he asked, with a little hesitation, ‘Did the Pandavas not fight the Kauravas for justice?’

  Astika replied, ‘No, my king. That war was about dharma. And dharma is not about justice; it is about empathy and wisdom. Dharma is not about defeating others, it is about conquering ourselves. Everybody wins in dharma. When the war at Kuru-kshetra concluded even the Kauravas went to paradise.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Yes. The Kauravas, reviled as villains by you and your forefathers, went to Swarga, that abode of pleasure where the gods reside.’

  ‘And the Pandavas?’ asked the king, disturbed by this revelation.

  ‘They went to Naraka, that realm of pain.’

  ‘I never knew this.’

  ‘There is so much you don’t know, my king. You may have inherited the kingdom of the Pandavas but not their wisdom. You do not even know the true meaning of dharma that was revealed to Arjuna by God himself.’

  ‘God?’

  ‘Yes, God. Krishna!’

  ‘Tell me more.’

  ‘Send for Vaisampayana,’ said Astika, ‘Ask him to narrate the tale that was composed by his teacher, Vyasa, and written down by Ganesha. It is the tale of your forefathers, and all those kings who came before them.’

  Messengers were sent to fetch Vaisampayana, guardian of Vyasa’s great tale. When Vaisampayana finally arrived, he saw in the sacrificial hall thousands of serpents suspended above a sacrificial fire, hundreds of priests around the altar impatient to complete their ritual, and a king curious about his ancestry.

  The storyteller-sage was made to sit on a deer skin. A garland of flowers was placed around his neck, a pot of water and a basket of fruits were placed before him. Pleased with this hospitality, Vaisampayana began his tale of the Pandavas and the Kauravas and of all the kings who ruled the land known as Bharata. This was the Jaya, later to be known as the Mahabharata.

  ‘Listen to the tale carefully, Janamejaya,’ Astika whispered in the king’s ear, ‘Do not be distracted by the plots. Within the maze of stories flows the river of wisdom. That is your true inheritance.’

  In the Vedic age that thrived around 1000 BCE, yagna was the dominant ritual that bound society. It was performed by specially trained priests who chanted hymns and made offerings into fire in a bid to invoke cosmic forces and make them do man’s bidding. A Sattra was a yagna performed on a grand scale with hundreds of priests over several years.

  While rituals helped man cope with the many material challenges of the world, they did not offer man any spiritual explanations about life. For that stories were needed. And so, during yagnas, and between them, bards were called to entertain and enlighten the priests and their patrons with tales. In due course, the tales were given more value than the yagna. In fact, by 500 CE, the yagna was almost abandoned. Sacred tales of gods, kings and sages became the foundation of Hindu thought.

  The Mahabharata is populated not only by Manavas or humans but also by a variety of beings such as Devas who live in the sky, Asuras who live under the earth, Apsaras or nymphs who live in rivers, hooded serpents who talk called Nagas, forest spirits called Yakshas, warrior-musicians of the woods called Gandharvas and brute barbarians called Rakshasas. Some like Asuras and Rakshasas were hostile to humans and hence deemed demons, while others like Devas and Gandharvas were friendly hence worshipped as gods and demi-gods. The Nagas had an ambiguous status, sometimes feared and sometimes worshipped. Rationalists speculate that these various non-human races were perhaps non-Vedic tribes that were gradually assimilated into the Vedic fold.

  It is said that the chief priest, Uttanaka, who was conducting the Sarpa Sattra had his own grouse against the Nagas. As part of his tuition fee, his teacher had asked him to give his wife the jewelled earrings of a queen. With great difficulty, Uttanaka had managed to get such earrings but these were stolen by the Nagas. To avenge that theft, Uttanaka wanted to perform the Sarpa Sattra. But he did not have the wherewithal to conduct it. King Janamejaya, in his quest to avenge his father’s death, inadvertently provided him with the opportunity. Thus while Janamejaya thought his was the only reason for the sacrifice, he was mistaken. There were many besides him who wanted to destroy the Nagas.

  Janamejaya’s family line

  Book One

  Ancestors

  ‘Janamejaya, what happened before repeated itself again and again in your family history.’

  1

  Chandra’s son

  When a man dies, he can, if he has earned enough merit, enter the paradise of the gods located high above the clouds. Humans call this realm Swarga. Its residents, the Devas, know it as the city of Amravati. Here there is no pain or suffering; all dreams are fulfilled and all wishes are granted.

  To sustain this delight, the Devas have to at regular intervals defeat their eternal enemies, the Asuras, who live under the earth. Their victory depends on the power of yagna. Brihaspati, god of the planet Jupiter, performs the yagna for the Devas. For the ritual to be successful, Brihaspati needs his wife, Tara, goddess of the stars, to sit by his side.

  But one day, Tara left Brihaspati’s side and eloped with the moon-god, Chandra. Tara had grown tired of her analytical husband, who was more interested in ritual than her. She had fallen in love with the passionate Chandra who adored her.

  ‘Bring my wife back if you want the yagna to succeed,’ said Brihaspati to Indra, king of the Devas.

  The Devas were divided: should they force Tara to return to her husband, who saw her merely as an instrument of ritual, or should she be allowed to stay with her lover, who made her feel alive? After much debate, pragmatism prevailed. The yagna of the Devas was more important than the happiness of Tara; without the power of yagna, the Devas would be unable to shower the earth with light and rain. Without yagna, there would be darkness and drought on earth. No, Tara had to return to Brihaspati. This was Indra’s final decision.

  Tara returned reluctantly. When she came, it was clear she was with child. Both Chandra and Brihaspati claimed to be the father. Tara remained silent, stubbornly refusing to give out the identity of the man who had made her pregnant. Then, to everyone’s astonishment, the unborn child cried out, ‘Tell me mother, of which seed am I fruit? I deserve to know.’

  Everyone assembled was impressed by the unborn child’s desire to know the truth. They declared this child would be the lord of Buddhi, the intellect, that part of the mind which enables one to distinguish truth from falsehood and thereby make choices. He would be called Budh.

  Compelled by her child, Tara lowered her eyes and said, ‘You spring from Chandra’s seed.’

  Hearing this, Brihaspati lost control over his dispassionate disposition and lashed out in rage, ‘May this love-child of my unfaithful wife be of neuter gender, neither male nor female.’

  The gods were horrified by this cruel curse. Indra intervened in his capacity as king. ‘The child you so contemptuously cursed, Brihaspati, will henceforth be known as your son, not Chandra’s. It does not matter who sowed the seed in the field; what matters more is who the master of the field is. As Tara’s lawfully wedded husband, you are the master, the father of all of her children, those born after marriage or before, by you or by anyone else.’

  So it came to pass, Tara gave birth to Budh, lord of planet Mercury, a shape-shifting liminal being, neither male nor female. Biologically, he descended f