Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata Read online

  No one shall interfere in a duel

  Pandavas (Satyaki)

  Bhurishrava

  No killing of animals

  Pandavas (Bhima)

  Ashwatthama (the elephant)

  No spreading of misinformation

  Pandavas (Yudhishtira)

  Drona

  No killing of people who have laid down arms

  Pandavas (Dhrishtadyumna)

  Drona

  No archer shall fight one who has lowered the bow

  Pandavas (Arjuna)

  Karna

  No one shall strike below the waist

  Pandavas (Bhima)

  Duryodhana

  No attacking people who are asleep

  Kauravas (Ashwatthama)

  Sons of the Pandavas

  * * *

  93

  Ashwatthama cursed

  The sun rose to a terrible sight: charred bodies of the entire Pandava army and the headless remains of Draupadi’s brothers and sons. Thousands of vultures circled the skies above. The cawing of crows filled the horizon. Only seven warriors survived: the five Pandavas and the two Yadavas, Krishna and Satyaki.

  ‘My children,’ screamed Draupadi. ‘Oh, heavy is the price of tying my hair.’

  When the tears stopped, the demon of vengeance reared its ugly head. ‘Who did this?’ she asked. Dhrishtadyumna’s charioteer who had seen it all informed how Ashwatthama had attacked the sleeping warriors without mercy like an owl feasting on crows at night. ‘I want his head,’ said Draupadi.

  ‘No,’ said Krishna. ‘Let us stop this spiral of vengeance. Once, Ashwatthama came to Dwaraka and asked me for my Sudarshan Chakra. Since he was a Brahman, I was obliged to hand it over to him. He tried to lift it with his left hand and then with this right. Having failed both times, he started to weep. I asked him why he wanted this weapon of mine, a weapon that no one dared ask from me—neither my friend, Arjuna, nor my son, Pradyumna. He said he wanted it because he knew it was the most powerful weapon in the world. He wanted to use it against me and thus become the greatest warrior in the world, feared by all. Such was his nature. Even though he was born in a family of priests, his father’s upbringing transformed him into an ambitious monster. He craves power but does not know how to wield it. Neither a Brahman nor a Kshatriya is he. Killing him will serve no purpose. Bring him alive.’

  Scouts were sent to look for Ashwatthama. When Ashwatthama realized the Pandavas were looking for him, he raised his bow and shot the missile known as Brahma-astra. As the missile approached, Arjuna raised his bow and released another Brahma-astra to neutralize the first.

  As the arrows moved towards each other, darkness enveloped the horizon. Fierce winds began to blow showering dust and gravel everywhere. Birds croaked madly, the earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of these two missiles. Elephants burst into flames and ran to and fro in a frenzy. Horses crumpled to the ground and died. Each approaching missile released ten thousand tongues of flames towards the other, both determined to destroy.

  ‘Recall your astras,’ cried Krishna, appealing to the warriors. ‘Your weapons will scorch the earth and destroy all life.’ Other Rishis, including Vyasa, who saw the two fiery missiles hurtling towards each other, begged the two warriors to listen to Krishna.

  Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Arjuna immediately withdrew the missile back to his quiver. Ashwatthama, however, did not know how to pull the missile back. So he redirected the weapon towards the wombs of the Pandava women. ‘May it kill all the unborn descendants of the Pandavas. Thus, I shall wipe out the race of those who killed my father and my friend,’ he said.

  A furious Krishna stood before Abhimanyu’s widow, Uttari, and took the impact of the horrific missile on his body, preventing it from harming the unborn child in her womb, the last and only fruit of the Pandava tree.

  Krishna then turned to Ashwatthama, and uttered a deadly curse, the only curse to leave the lips of God, ‘Ashwatthama, so terrible has been your action that even death will shun you for three thousand years. For that period your wounds will fester with pus and your skin will be covered with boils forcing you to contemplate on the nature of your crime.’

  On Ashwatthama’s head was a jewel that brought him great luck. This was taken away from him and given to Draupadi, who gave it to Yudhishtira. Ashwatthama was then driven away from civilization, deemed inauspicious for all mankind.

  Many scholars believe that the description of the weapons released by Ashwatthama and Arjuna suggest that the Rishis of ancient times were familiar with, or at least visualized, nuclear weapons.

  Abortion is traditionally considered the worst of crimes in Hinduism not only because it involves the killing of an unborn innocent but also because it denies an ancestor a chance to be reborn. To make matters worse, Ashwatthama who tries to induce miscarriage in the Pandava women is a Brahman by birth, obliged to protect life. That is why the punishment meted out to him by God is worse than death. He is forced to live and suffer. It is said that even today if one listens carefully to the wail of the waves or the howl of the wind, one will hear the mournful cry of Ashwatthama, the baby-killer, too ashamed to show his face to man.

  Ashwatthama embodies what happens when the rules of varna are not obeyed. Born to a priest, he was supposed to live as a priest as per ashrama-dharma. But instead he chose to be a warrior, not to protect the weak but to harness power. That is why he is not shown any mercy by Krishna. He embodies the fall of civilization and the height of human rage and greed.

  Draupadi is depicted as helpless and angry in the Mahabharata of Vyasa, wailing and weeping when her brothers and sons are killed. In regional lore, however, Draupadi is reborn as different heroines who are not so passive. She is Bela in the Hindi medieval epic, Alha, who commits sati after her warrior husband is killed in battle. Draupadi is also reborn as Virashakti in folklore of north Tamil Nadu where armed with five sacred objects (a drum, a bell, a whip, a trident and a box of turmeric) she fights demons much like Durga.

  94

  Kunti’s secret

  The cry of orphans rent the air as they ran desperately looking for the remains of their fathers. The old blind couple, Gandhari and Dhritarashtra, entered the battlefield accompanied by their hundred daughters-in-law, now widows.

  The women ran searching for their husbands. They found headless torsos, cut hands and crushed legs, dogs chewing on the tongues of great warriors, rats nibbling on the fingers of archers. The stench of rotting flesh was unbearable.

  The Pandavas saw their mother, Kunti, wandering among the dead Kauravas. ‘Who are you looking for, mother?’ asked Yudhishtira.

  ‘Karna,’ she said.

  ‘Why that charioteer’s son?’ asked Arjuna.

  ‘Because he was your eldest brother. My firstborn,’ said Kunti, finally unafraid to face the truth.

  At first, the words did not sink in. When they finally did, Arjuna went weak in the knees. He realized he had killed not only Bhishma, who was like a father to him, and Drona, who was his teacher, but also Karna, who was in fact his brother. ‘Did he know?’ asked Yudhishtira. Kunti nodded her head. This made Arjuna feel even worse.

  She told her sons how out of childish curiosity she had used Durvasa’s magic formula that compelled the sun-god to give her a child. She told them how Karna had promised never to harm any of her sons except Arjuna. ‘With or without Arjuna, you can always tell the world you have five sons,’ he had said.

  The Pandavas remembered how Karna never killed them in the war despite having ample opportunities to do so. Now they realized why. They felt miserable. Victory had come to them stained in their brother’s blood. ‘Oh, may no woman ever again be able to keep such secrets from the world,’ said Yudhishtira.

  ‘Why did you not tell us?’ asked Arjuna.

  ‘If she did, would you have fought him? And if you had not fought him, the Kauravas would not have been defeated and dharma would not have been established,’ said Krishna, who