Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata Read online

  And so the Kauravas did not lower their weapons even when the sun set and the battlefield was covered with darkness. To help warriors see in the dark, Duryodhana ordered some soldiers to drop their weapons and carry lamps instead.

  Soon, there were lamps along the entire length of the Kaurava army. The light of the lamps bounced off the golden armours and gleaming weapons of Karna and Drona and Duryodhana and Kripa. They looked magnificent. It seemed as if stars had descended on earth and were moving menacingly towards the Pandavas determined to annihilate them. The exhausted Pandava army was taken by surprise and suffered many casualties.

  Then Arjuna organized his army to carry lamps as well so that they too could see in the darkness and fight back. Seven lamps were placed on each elephant, two on each horse and ten on each chariot. Thus illuminated, the Pandavas fought back, refusing to let darkness overwhelm them.

  On this night, Drona slew his enemy, Drupada, father-in-law of the Pandavas, as well as Virata, the king of Matsya, who had sheltered the Pandavas in the final year of their exile.

  Watching Drona take advantage of the darkness, Krishna turned to Bhima and said, ‘Summon your son, Ghatotkacha, born of the Rakshasa queen, Hidimbi. A Rakshasa is invincible at night. Let him and his hordes fight for the Pandava army is exhausted.’

  Bhima did as told and Ghatotkacha came when summoned. At night, he looked tall and ferocious with his long, sharp, razor-like teeth and claw-like nails. He had the Kaurava forces running for cover in no time. Anticipating this move from the Pandavas, Drona had summoned another Rakshasa to support the Kauravas. His name was Alamvusha.

  Alamvusha, tall as a mountain, challenged Ghatotkacha for a duel. They rushed at each other like wild elephants. Such was the force with which they struck each other that it produced sparks of fire. The two armies watched in the flickering light of lamps the two demons fight on behalf of the two human armies. In the end, Ghatotkacha prevailed as he managed to choke Alamvusha to death.

  A desperate Duryodhana then turned to Karna. ‘Ghatotkacha fills our army with fear. We must destroy him. I beg you to use the spear Indra gave you against this Rakshasa. We have no other choice.’

  Karna had planned to use the spear against Arjuna, but compelled by Duryodhana, he hurled it at Ghatotkacha. Ghatotkacha screamed as the spear ripped open his chest. Such was his cry that all the elephants and horses on the battlefield stood still. He then kept tottering, swaying back and forth, like a tree in the forest that is about to fall to the floor. He did not want to die before looking at his father one last time.

  Krishna shouted, ‘Don’t fall on the Pandava side. Increase your size and fall on the Kaurava side. Crush as many of your father’s enemy as you can. Serve your father thus even in death.’ Ghatotkacha nodded his head. He stretched himself until his head touched the sky. He then threw himself on the Kaurava army crushing hundreds of soldiers, horses, chariots and elephants under him. Bhima howled as he saw his son fall. Duryodhana was happy to see Bhima cry, but the happiness lasted only until he was told of the vast numbers of Kaurava soldiers Ghatotkacha had claimed in death.

  Only Krishna was happy with this incident. With Indra’s spear gone, Arjuna had little to fear from Karna. And the death of Ghatotkacha would have the same impact on Bhima as the death of Abhimanyu had on Arjuna—now, the battle was personal.

  The battle continued through the night until Arjuna realized that half his soldiers were asleep or so drowsy that they had begun letting themselves be killed or had taken to killing each other, too tired to distinguish friend from foe. He directed all his troops towards Drona forcing him to leave the battlefield. With Drona driven out, the fighting stopped. The soldiers, with no energy to return to their battle camps, collapsed wherever they stood and slept along with their horses and elephants, amidst the debris of broken chariots and dead warriors.

  There are Rakshasas who fight for the Pandavas and Rakshasas who fight for the Kauravas. Thus the Rakshasas, though feared for their strength, and disdained for their barbarism, are accepted as allies.

  That Krishna is an opportunist is reinforced in this tale when he encourages Bhima’s demon son to inflict maximum damage on the enemy while dying.

  The night battle where exhausted soldiers have lamps in one hand and weapons in the other is a metaphor for the extent of human rage. When angry, all rules collapse, all good sense vanishes and the beast of vengeance takes over.

  85

  A teacher beheaded

  All eyes now turned to Drona. How does one defeat a great warrior like him, the Pandavas wondered. Krishna said, ‘All his motivation comes from his obsessive love for his son, Ashwatthama. Perhaps we must take away that motivation or at least let him believe that the cause of all his actions no longer exists. Let us tell him, Ashwatthama is dead.’

  All the Pandavas around Drona kept telling each other, ‘Ashwatthama is dead.’

  A distressed Drona refused to believe them. He turned desperately towards Yudhishtira, the most honest man in the world, and asked, ‘Is that true?’

  Yudhishtira turned to Krishna. Krishna smiled a compassionate smile, for he could hear the unspoken arguments that Yudhishitra was having with himself: Was truth so important? What if a lie could end a war? Wherefrom came his desire to tell the truth? To look good or to do good? With a heavy heart, Yudhishtira decided to speak his first lie, a little white lie. ‘Yes, Ashwatthama is dead,’ he said, and then, as an afterthought, he murmured, ‘Maybe it was an elephant, or maybe it was a man.’ But in the din of the battle the devastated father did not hear the murmur.

  Yes, an elephant called Ashwatthama had died, killed by Bhima on Krishna’s instructions. Yudhishtira knew this very well and still he told his teacher that he was not sure if the Ashwatthama referred to by his warriors was a man or an animal.

  This plan of Krishna’s had the desired effect. A shaken Drona lost the will to fight. He even lost the will to live. He stopped his chariot, alighted, put down his weapon and sat down in deep meditation ready to die.

  ‘Kill him. Kill him,’ shouted Krishna. But Drona was a teacher, a Brahman. To kill him was the greatest crime in all of Aryavarta. The soldiers hesitated. Krishna shouted, ‘He was merely the son of a Brahman. But he lived as a Kshatriya for wealth and power and vengeance. Let him die as a Kshatriya on the battlefield.’

  Thus instructed by Krishna, Dhrishtadyumna, son of Drupada, commander of the Pandava forces, raised his sword and in one sweep severed the neck of Drona.

  When Ashwatthama saw the beheading of his father who had laid down his weapons, he was so outraged that he released the Narayana-astra. It was a dreadful missile that spat out fire and covered the sky in the form of dark serpents with giant fangs. ‘It will destroy us all,’ said Yudhishtira.

  Krishna said, ‘Do not fear. Just drop your weapons and alight from your chariots. Do not fight it. Just salute it respectfully. It will not harm you.’

  All the soldiers fighting for the Pandavas did as told, all except Bhima, who in his rashness, rushed towards the son of Drona on his chariot, mouthing profanities, whirling his mace. The Narayana-astra enveloped him with fire and the dark, fanged serpents would have surely destroyed him had Arjuna and Krishna not rushed to his rescue. They forced him down from his running chariot and pulled the mace from his hand. Bhima was at first furious at being stopped. But then he saw how the Narayana-astra withdrew. It would not harm anyone who was not armed and hostile.

  Ashwatthama was outraged at the failure of his dreaded missile. ‘Shoot it again,’ said Duryodhana, impressed by the power of this weapon. ‘Avenge your father’s death.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Ashwatthama. ‘The Narayana-astra can be used only once. If I use it again, it will turn against me.’

  In Vedic India, it was important to uphold varna-dharma and ashrama-dharma. The former meant sticking to the profession of the father. The latter meant behaving as per one’s stage in life. Drona breaks the varna-dharma by living like a warrior rather than a pri