Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata Read online

  Book Two

  Parents

  ‘Janamejaya, in your family, a son suffered for the sake of the father.’

  8

  Mahabhisha becomes Shantanu

  For merits earned during his lifetime, a king called Mahabhisha was granted entry into Swarga. There he enjoyed the dance of the Apsaras and the music of the Gandharvas in the company of the Devas. He was allowed to drink Sura, the drink which fills one with joy. He was even given access to the tree called Kalpataru, to the cow called Kamadhenu and to the gem called Chintamani, each of which had the power to fulfil any wish and grant every desire.

  One day, the river-nymph Ganga paid a visit to Indra’s sabha. While she was there, a gentle breeze caused her upper garment to fall exposing her breasts. The assembled Devas lowered their eyes out of respect but Mahabhisha, spellbound by Ganga’s beauty, kept staring unashamedly. This display of unbridled passion so angered Indra that he cursed Mahabhisha to return to the earth.

  Ganga who had enjoyed Mahabhisha’s shameless attention was also instructed by Indra to leave Amravati and return only after breaking Mahabhisha’s heart.

  Mahabhisha was reborn as Pratipa’s son Shantanu in the city of Hastina-puri.

  Pratipa, a descendant of Puru, renounced the world as soon as he felt his children were old enough to rule the kingdom in his stead. The crown should have gone to his eldest son, Devapi, but Devapi had a skin disease, and the law clearly stated that a man with a physical defect could not be king. So Shantanu, the younger son, became king instead. Devapi chose to become a mendicant, refusing to live in Shantanu’s shadow.

  One day, while Pratipa was meditating on a river bank, Ganga came and sat on his right lap. ‘Beautiful woman, you sit on my right lap. Had you sat on my left, it would mean you want to be my wife. That you sit on my right means you wish to be my daughter. What is it that you desire?’

  ‘I want to marry your son, Shantanu,’ said Ganga.

  ‘So it will be,’ said Pratipa.

  A few days later when Shantanu came to pay his respects to his father on the river bank, Pratipa told him, ‘One day a beautiful woman called Ganga will approach you and wish to be your wife. Fulfil her desire. That is my wish.’

  Shortly thereafter, Shantanu saw Ganga gliding on a dolphin. He fell in love with her instantly. ‘Be my wife,’ he said.

  ‘I will,’ said Ganga, ‘provided you promise never to question my actions.’ Driven both by lust and his promise to his father, Shantanu agreed and Ganga followed him home.

  Soon, Ganga gave birth to Shantanu’s first son. But there was little to cheer for as soon as the child slipped out of her womb, Ganga took the newborn to the river and drowned him. Though horrified by her action, Shantanu said nothing. He did not want to lose his beautiful wife.

  A year later, Ganga gave birth to Shantanu’s second son. She drowned him too. Even this time Shantanu did not voice his protest. In this way Ganga gave birth to, and drowned, seven children. Each time Shantanu said nothing.

  But when Ganga was about to drown Shantanu’s eighth child, Shantanu cried, ‘Stop, you pitiless woman. Let him live.’

  Ganga stopped and smiled. ‘Husband, you have broken your word,’ she said, ‘So it is time for me to leave you as Urvashi once left Pururava. The children who I killed were seven of the eight gods known as Vasus who were cursed to be reborn as mortals for the crime of stealing Vasishtha’s cow. On their request, I became their mother and tried to keep their stay on earth as brief as possible to spare them the misery of earthly existence. But alas, I could not save the last one. This eighth Vasu, who you have saved, Shantanu, will live. But a terrible life it shall be! Though man, he will neither marry nor inherit your throne. He will have no family, yet will be obliged to live as a householder. And finally, he will die a death of shame at the hands of a man who will actually be a woman.’

  ‘It will not be so, I will not let that happen,’ Shantanu argued passionately.

  ‘I shall take your son and raise him as a perfect warrior. He shall be trained by the martial sage, Parashurama. I shall send him to you when he is ready to marry and be king. Then we shall see.’ So saying Ganga disappeared with her son leaving Shantanu all alone.

  The Mahabharata gives great importance to the law of karma. According to this law, nothing in this world is spontaneous. Everything is a reaction to the past. Shantanu falls in love with Ganga and has his heart broken because of events in his past life. Ganga kills her own children because of events in their past life. By interfering with the course of karma, as Shantanu does when he stops Ganga from killing his eighth son, one ends up causing more harm than good. The epic constantly reminds us that what is apparently a good deed need not really be a good deed, for every moment is governed by factors that are often beyond human comprehension.

  The eight Vasus are ancient Vedic deities associated with the elements. For the paap of stealing Vasishtha’s cow, they had to be reborn as mortals. The leader of the eight, Prabhas, who stole it for his wife, suffers more than the other seven and lives a longer and more miserable life as Devavrata.

  Vyasa draws attention to the dangers of lust and blind obedience to the father when Shantanu agrees to the conditions laid down by Ganga. At the root of all human tragedy is human folly.

  Hastina-puri, or the city of elephants, is named after Hastin, a little-known ancestor of the Pandavas. Some say Hastin was another name for Puru. Scholars speculate that the city name suggests that in the era of the Mahabharata, herds of elephants roamed in and around what is now known as Punjab and Haryana.

  In Jain chronicles, Hastina-puri was an ancient city, built by the gods themselves. Three of the twenty-four great Tirthankaras of Jainism—Shanti-nath, Kuntha-nath and Ara-nath—were born in this city.

  9

  Bhishma’s sacrifice

  Devavrata grew up to be a handsome prince and a skilled warrior. When his mother sent him back to his father, the people of Hastina-puri loved him and looked forward to the day when he would be king. But this never happened.

  Shantanu had fallen in love again. And the object of his desire was Satyavati, a fisherwoman, who ferried men across the Ganga. He longed to make her his wife. But, like Ganga, Satyavati had a condition before she accepted Shantanu’s offer of marriage: she wanted to be sure that only her children would be his heirs. Shantanu did not know how to satisfy this condition for Devavrata was already the crown prince of Hastina-puri.

  When Devavrata learnt the cause of his father’s misery, he went to Satyavati and said, ‘So that my father can marry you, I renounce my claim to the throne.’

  Though impressed by Devavrata’s decision, Satyavati’s father, chief of the fisherfolk, was not satisfied. He said, ‘But your children will surely fight with my daughter’s children over the throne. How will you ensure that this does not happen?’

  Devavrata smiled and without remorse or regret took a decision that would change the course of his family history. ‘I shall never marry. I shall never be with a woman. I shall never father children.’

  Devavrata’s vow stunned all the creatures of the cosmos. So impressed were the Devas that they descended from the skies and showered him with flowers. They gave him a new name, Bhishma, the one who took the most terrible of vows. For a terrible vow it was. Since Devavrata would father no children, there would be no one left on earth after his death to facilitate his rebirth. He would be doomed to live forever in the land of the dead across the river Vaitarni. The Devas in fact felt so sorry for Devavrata that they decreed Bhishma would have the power to choose the time of his own death.

  With Devavrata taking the vow of celibacy, there was nothing to stop Shantanu from marrying Satyavati.

  Bhishma’s vow is yet another example of the Yayati complex—glorification of the son who sacrifices his own happiness for the sake of his father.

  In the Jain retelling of the Mahabharata, there is a suggestion that Devavrata castrated himself to reassure Satyavati that he would never father