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P. Lal: The Complete Mausala Parva of the Mahabharata transcreated from Sanskrit, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, Rs.150 (hardback)

 

Vyasa’s narrative art is spread across a broad spectrum. Besides operating within a series of frameworks—boxed within one another like Russian dolls or Chinese boxes—it changes suddenly from the dialogical question-and-answer method to the administration of sudden shocks. The war books, for instance, invariably begin with Sanjaya reporting that the current general of the Kaurava army is dead and then entering into a detailed flashback narrative. The Mausala Parva suddenly reverts to that style, shaking us out of the somnolent depression of the preceding Ashramavasika Parva that closed with Yudhishthira continuing to rule the kingdom “somehow” after losing his elders in a forest-fire 15 years after the great war. Now we are told that 36 years after the war Yudhishthira receives the shocking news of the slaughter of the Yadavas and, unbelievably, of the death of Balarama and Krishna. Gandhari’s curse has come true. The internecine blood-letting did not end at Kurukshetra; it is paralleled at Prabhasa. What sets the tragedy in motion is the supreme arrogance of the Vrishnis who find themselves the unrivalled power in the country following the fall of the established kingdoms and their eighteen armies. Traditionally, India has upheld the ideal of Brahma-tej (brahmanical virtue) being backed up by Kshatra-tej (the warrior’s heroism) as the foundation of society. Neither the Kauravas nor the Yadavas had any respect for the wisdom of sages. It is the act of mocking Vishvamitra, Narada and Kanva that brings crashing down upon the Yadavas the curse of destruction by an iron club birthed by Krishna’s handsomest son Samba. Ugrasena has the club ground to powder and thrown into the sea. Washed ashore, these ashes grow into adamantine reeds. The Vishnu Purana (5.37) adds a detail: one piece of the club defied all attempts to grind it and ended up in the belly of a fish. A hunter named Jara (old age) made it the head of an arrow which became the mortal dart for Krishna for whom, as with Achilles, the foot was the vulnerable spot. The Harivansha (Vishnu Parva, 103.27) informs that Jara was Vasudeva’s son from a Shudra wife and became a lord of Nishadas. Thus, as Krishna kills his cousin Ekalavya, so is he in turn slain by his cousin Jara. The destruction of the Yadavas is but a continuation of the fratricidal Kurukshetra war. Recalling that Satyavati was a Nishada, and through Vyasa her blood ran in the Kauravas, it is finally the Nishadas’ revenge on the architect of the Kurukshetra holocaust. But in terms of narrative art, the story has come full circle. According to Nilakantha, the 17th century commentator on the epic, Jara was a Kaivarta (fisherman). Sauti told us that one of the three beginnings of the Mahabharata is with the story of Uparichara Vasu and his children born of a fish, the daughter becoming Matsyagandha and the son the chief of the Matsyas. The story has come full circle. Dr. A. Harindranath has pointed out that according to Hanumanatakam, Jara is the Ramayana’s Bali reborn to avenge the injustice done in his former life. In Ezhuttachchan’s Malayalam Bharatam Kilippattu, Krishna tells Jara, “I deceived you in the previous birth. This is your revenge for that. Now you can reside in heaven without any grief.” Satya Chaitanya finds that in the Oriya Sarala Mahabharata Jara is a Sabara tribal and a great devotee of Krishna. There is a battle between Jara and Arjuna, who is furious with him for killing Krishna by mistake. The battle between the two is stopped by a skyey voice announcing that Arjuna is the Ramayana’s Sugriva and Jara is Angada, while Krishna is Rama. The Bhagavata Purana (canto 3) gives short shrift to the event, comparing it to the fire produced by bamboos rubbing against each other in a forest. It avoids Krishna’s participation in the killing, concentrating instead on his being reminded by the gods that he has stayed on earth for over a hundred years and ought to return to his heavenly abode. It does say that Krishna is aware that unless the Yadavas are wiped out—and they are too powerful to be destroyed by anyone but themselves—the earth’s burden will not be lightened. This clan has become asuric, drunk on its prosperity and power. Ironically, like Jarasandha, they have to be removed for the fledgling “dharma-rajya” of the Pandavas to put down firm roots. Paul Dundas has pointed out that the Jain Bhagavati Sutra (7.9) provides a fascinating historical parallel to the “reeds massacre” in two battles in Mahavira’s time involving king Kuniya-Ajatashatru. One called “Mahasilakantaya samgama,” (battle of thorns-like-great-stones) was so intense that the touch of thorns, leaves and twigs was like blows from huge stones. The other was “Rahamusala samgama”, the battle of Kuniya’s chariot-fitted-with-clubs. The Mausala Parva’s powdered iron club that becomes deadly “trina” (grass/reeds) is analogous to the Jain sutra’s “kantaya” (thorns), as is the manic violence. It is believed that the Mahabharata was written around this time in the 6th-5th century BC. Abruptly, after the sages curse the Yadavas, prohibition is promulgated. The Mahabharata is silent regarding the reasons. The Samba Purana tells of Narada, annoyed by Samba’s pride of his beauty, plying Krishna’s junior wives with liquor, creating a scenario that leads Krishna to believe that they are enamoured of his son. Krishna curses Samba with leprosy and his wives with being abducted by robbers—thus explaining Arjuna’s failure to protect them. The punishment of impaling the brewer of liquor along with his family is ineffective. Throughout the epic no lessons are learnt from the tale of Yayati the Lunar Dynast: The Vrishnis perpetrated crimes, shamelessly. They mocked Brahmins and pitris and gods… Pouring wine in the food prepared for mahatma Brahmins, the Yadavas fed the wine-flavoured dishes to vanara-monkeys… They insulted gurus and elders… Wives cheated on husbands, and husbands cheated on wives. Time (Kala), a major theme of the epic is personified by Vyasa for the first time, appearing as a shaven-headed, terrifying man of black-and-tawny complexion sneaking in and out of Yadava homes. This may well be a reference to Buddhist monks who shaved their heads and wore ochre robes, as the epic seeks to stand against the Buddhist (pashanda) and Jain (kshapanak) creeds. A grinning white-toothed black female (Kali) slinks into households, snatching away the auspicious wrist-threads. Krishna’s celestial discus, chariot and Garuda pennant disappear. Noticing the ill omens and recalling Gandhari’s curse, Krishna gives orders to go on pilgrimage to Prabhasa. It is Balarama who, violating his own commands, starts drinking, followed by the rest. Earlier, in a drunken frenzy, Balarama has slain Rukmini’s brother Rukmi during a gambling match and then the Suta Lomaharshana. The massacre begins with drunken Satyaki abusing Kritavarma who had not only killed the sleeping Panchalas but also Satyabhama’s father Satrajit. Satyabhama bursts into tears and sits in Krishna’s lap, instigating him. Krishna glares at Kritavarma, and Satyaki beheads him and attacks indiscriminately. Unable to stop his drunken fury, Krishna does not intervene when others batter Satyaki and Pradyumna to an ignominious death with soiled pots and plates. Seeing his sons and brother Gada slain, Krishna snatches up a clump of eraka reeds that transform into an adamantine club with which he “slaughtered his entire clan…Demented with drink…Not one of them had the good sense to flee the carnage.” Balarama does not participate, just as he had avoided the Kurukshetra war. His alienation from Krishna followed the theft of the Syamantaka gem by Satadhanva. Vyasa silently poses questions to which we still seek answers: the inglorious death of Purushottama Krishna at the hands of a mere hunter. Shravan Kumar and sage Kindam had at least been shot by royalty (Dasharatha and Pandu)! All traces of Dvaraka are submerged. The volume has a preface by the trans-creator that is valuable for the insights offered, relating the massacre to the current times and asking, “What happens to the ‘maha’ of the Bharata is no one listens to the epic?” which is what bewilders both Vasudeva and Arjuna—why did the omnipotent Krishna do nothing to prevent the slaughter? Although Mahabharata is the biography of his sons and grandsons, Vyasa’s is a ruthless gaze where it comes to revealing the pitiable plight to which the greatest of heroes is reduced. As Prof. Lal writes, “Karma is ruth-less…not callous; it is unsentimental. The laws of nature do not forgive…They grind slow, and very small. What about the laws of morality?…Vyasa does not say.” Invincible, ambidextrous Arjuna for whom Krishna’s love “was wonderful, passing the love of women,” fails to fight off lathi-wielding Abhiras who laugh at his vain efforts to protect the Yadava women. Utterly humiliated, he rushes to Vyasa who tells him he ought to realise that it is time to depart. It has been not a reign spanning epic dimensions, but a rule of just 36 years. Vyasa sends him back to Yudhishthira with these profound words, transcreated with memorable simplicity that will long ring in our ears: “Cosmic Time Kala is the seed of the universe. Kala is the giver, and Kala is the taker… He who rules becomes he who is ruled.” COMMENTS: Alf Hiltebeitel: Your most recent piece on Mausala backfills the sparse Critical Edition account of the end of the Yadavas with so many informative narratives, from the Harivamsa on. A truly edifying and inspiring piece. Thanks so much. Sorry to have missed you in New Delhi. Simon Brodbeck read your paper with great vigor and clarity, as only he can do. Since you were not there and the reading filled the allotted time, there was little discussion, but an elderly gentleman of your land arose at end to say the keshakarshana covers for both elements in the keshambarakarsana, with the ambarakarshana being too improptioutous to mention. It is an additional argument I have thought of making on the basis of attitudes among Draupadi cult performers, who treat the tuyil-urital very delicately, in begging Draupadi’s forgiveness on the side, as you know; and morever, it is not performed at some festivals simply because it is so inaspicious. In other words, Vyasa and his characters could (and I would say would have similar reasons to) be silent about it as a matter of delicacy and discretion. But I don’t often risk publically such an argumentum e silentio, so have kept my own silence on it till now. In the vein of your two most recent pieces on the Mbh’s closing books in Lal’s transcreation, though, where you mention parantheticlly that Yudhisthira did not mention the disrobing to Duryodhana in heaven, there particularly I think one has a good case for Yudhisthira keeping silent on this particular aspect of his old grievences. Moreover, he knows by now that this is something he would have to blame not on Duryodhana but on his elder brother Karna, with whom he wants to be and is about to be quasi-restored. Alf Hiltebeitel

 

The Complete Ashvamedhika Parva in the Mahabharata of Vyasa transcreated from Sanskrit by P. Lal, Writers Workshop, 2008, 440 pages including maps, genealogical tree. Rs.300 (special edition with original hand-painted patachitra Rs.800).

The Kurukshetra holocaust is over. After the Pyrrhic victory, what does Yudhishthira experience but a wasteland? ‘Son of man,’you know only’a heap of broken images’Only fear in a handful of dust.’

How does the morally sensitive man of Dharma achieve reconciliation after wading through a gory Serbonian bog, trampling over the corpses of kith and kin towards the throne of Hastinapura? Much to the shock of Draupadi and his brothers, instead of joyously quaffing the heady wine of victory, he would rather work out his salvation in a sylvan retreat. For, ever at his back he hears ‘The rattle of the bones and chuckle spread from ear to ear.’ After all, he is the only one to have played chess with death, answering the Mortal Lord’s riddles with his brothers as the stake. How can he recline at ease on the throne of blood? This model of rectitude, this man who is righteousness incarnate, has more than once done the wrong thing for the right reason. He has gambled away his brothers and their wife. He has not hesitated to ask patriarch Bhishma how he may be slain. He has quibbled so that guru Drona lays down arms. He has made uncle Shalya sabotage Karna’s valor and then speared that uncle to death. All the cataracts of wisdom rushing over him from Bhishma, Vyasa, Narada, Vidura and Krishna in the massive corpus of the Shanti and Anushasana parvas have failed to excise the profound mea culpa.

Section 12 has Krishna rebuking Yudhishthira sharply somewhat as he had done Arjuna: ‘Don’t you remember anything?’ Earlier he has reprimanded Dhritarashtra and Gandhari for evading their responsibilities. Krishna points out that Yudhishthira’s lack of ‘shraddha’ prevented his learning the meaning of ‘kama-corrupted karma’ though explained to him repeatedly. Krishna provides a simple solution to cut through all intellectual sophistry:

‘All crookedness leads to death,
simplicity leads to Brahman.
This is the essence of all wisdom.
The rest is idle babble.’ (11.4)

He explains the real meaning of the Indra-Vritra myth: Vritra is the enemy lurking within one’s self causing delusion. Krishna criticizes Yudhishthira for conveniently forgetting the public dragging of Draupadi and Kichaka kicking her, the exile, the sufferings at the hands of Jatasura, Chitrasena, Jayadratha. It is a new war that has to be fought now.

‘The battle with Drona and Bhishma
is over’the lonely battle now
is your battle with yourself.
Grasp the glory of your secret spirit
and perform your sva-karma!
No arrows will help you here,
no servants, no relatives.
You alone can help yourself.
You cannot escape the crisis’
You must fight, and you must win. (12.12-15)

There is no point lamenting time and again over the dead’they cannot be revived. ‘Mine’ is what leads to death; ‘not mine’ to eternity. ‘Kama-control is dharma’, rooted in self-discipline. Section 13 has a brilliant passage in which Kama explains how it deludes human beings by shackling them to desires. Therefore, it should be channeled into charity distributed in yajnas. Hence the need for the Horse Sacrifice.

Vyasa, too, criticizes Yudhishthira (‘your wisdom is weak’) and recommends that the Horse Sacrifice be conducted to earn merit, as Rama and Bharata had done in the past. The wealth needed for this huge ceremony is provided by Vyasa (how often does the author personally intervene in his plot!) who guides him to the gold left by Marutta, one of the very few human kings like Raji and Mandhata whom Indra failed to subdue. The gold Yudhishthira recovers is over 16 crore gold bharas, returning with it to Hastinapura when Parikshit is a month old.

Section 9 contains a rare dialogue between Indra, boasting of his omnipotence, and Agni sarcastically reminding him of his ignominious humbling by Vritra and Chyavana. This time it is Samvarta, Brihaspati’s brother, whose sacrifice for Marutta Indra is forced to sanctify. One of the messengers Indra dispatches to Marutta is the gandharva Dhritarashtra. The Kauravas have links with gandharvas and nagas. Satyavati’s son Chitrangada was killed by a gandharva with the same name; her grandson shares his name with a naga and a gandharva.

Yudhishthira, aware that the era of Kali is approaching, and that the raja’s character shapes the people’s future, rules wisely, inspired by dharma. An idyllic portrait of his reign is given in section 14.

As many as 42 sections are devoted to something quite different. Krishna has been enjoying the company of Arjuna: ‘To be with you/is to find joy/even in a desolate forest.’ Now he wishes to return home. A peripeteia occurs here as Arjuna makes a startling disclosure. Being of fickle concentration, he has forgotten what Krishna revealed on the eve of the battle. Krishna reprimands him:

‘I am maha-displeased by your silliness
in not understanding what I said’.
you seem to lack shraddha
and power of comprehension.’ (16.10)

The Gita is not a command performance. The divine afflatus cannot be repeated on demand: ‘Yoked-in-yoga then/I discoursed on Brahma-realisation’. As a substitute, Krishna offers Arjuna an ancient history that he must listen to with concentration and without questioning (in the Gita he had argued repeatedly). This takes the form of a series of conversations: between a Brahmin named Kashyapa and a perfected Siddha; a Brahmin and his wife (anticipating that between Vaishampayana’s rebellious disciple Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi); Narada and sage Devamata; Parashurama and his manes; finally, a guru and his disciple. This is the Anugita: a summation of the doctrine of liberation that, though profound in its intellection, presumably does not soar to spiritual heights beyond Arjuna’s ken. Krishna says that for a confused or unreceptive mind this wisdom is unattainable and that none but Arjuna has heard it till now (19.58).

The concepts of equanimity (sthitaprajna), Adhibhuta, Adhidaivata, Adhyatman are explained, as also the concept of Vibhutis. Vairagya (renunciation) is celebrated as the key to achieving nirvana that even the low-born and women can adopt. It takes but six months of dedication with faith and shraddha to attain this yoga (19.66). Gods do not value transcending bodily mortality by renouncing the fruits of action. Hence, their realm is for work-obsessed people. It is greed that is the single worst vice: ‘Slice greed with a sharp sword and happiness is won!’ Selflessness, impartiality, absence of desire constitute the supreme path of Dharma. The atman has to be purified by the atman, wiping out all rituals and social formalities to experience freedom.

Much of the symbolism of sacrifices is explained here. It is the ten hotri (priest)-senses who offer the ten sense-objects as libations in the ten fires that are the phenomenal world. The meaning of yajna is service and sacrifice to the divinity Narayana, the soul of all, by ego the hota, mind the adhvaryu, intellect the udgata using the shastra-weapon truth, the dakshina-offering being apavarga (emancipation). Animal sacrifice is explicitly condemned (with the rider that in the past this used to be offered to Narayana) and ahimsa extolled as the supreme dharma as we have first heard in the story of Ruru in the Adi Parva. Instead of the terrifying world-forest of Vidura’s parable in Stri Parva, here is Vidyaranya, the mighty forest of Brahma, where the tree of wisdom blooms with fruit of moksha and the soothing shade of peace.

The Gita’s eidetic symbol of the cosmic tree is repeated here twice (sections 35 and 47) with a different significance. Its seed is the un-manifest, its trunk the intellect, its branches self-conceit, the senses its sap, the five elements its ever-flowering tangled branches, leafy, fragrant, laden with bitter and sweet fruit. Two foolish birds sit on this tree: mind and intellect, neither very percipient. But there is another, the atman, the self-knower, the kshetrajna. He who slices this tree with the sharp sword of knowledge achieves freedom from birth and death. Krishna repeats the Gita’s figure of the nine-gated city fed by three streams of gunas along with a detailed exposition of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, as also the advice to withdraw one’s senses like the tortoise pulling in its limbs. The Gita’s symbol of the body-chariot, the mind-charioteer, the intellect-reins, the senses-horses recurs. The guru narrating all this is Krishna and Arjuna’s mind is the disciple to whom this wisdom of Adhyatman is a gift of love, which none has heard previously.

We are taken by surprise to find that Shankaracharya’s sublime nirvana-shatakam has its source in section 28. Another serendipitous finding is that section 16 contains these lovely verses that are echoed by the Buddha:

‘Again and again I died,
again and again I was reborn’
I rejected the whirling world
and sought refuge
In the nirakara formless Divinity’
and so by the grace of my atman
I found the perfection I sought.
I shall not be born again’
No, never more!…
I shall be free,
and working for the welfare of others
I will find my fulfillment.’16.32-40

The Buddha says:

‘How many births have I known
Without knowing the builder of this body!…
But now I have seen you, O builder of this body!
All desire is extinct, Nirvana is attained!
The rafters have crumbled, the ridge pole is smashed!
You will not build them again.’ P.Lal: The Dhammapada, 153-154

Haridas Siddhantavagish, who edited and translated the Bengal recension of the epic, pointed out that the recital of the Gita to Arjuna on the battlefield is stated thrice in this parva (16.5 at the beginning, 19.55 in the middle and 51.49 at the end of the Anugita). Similar references occur in the Shantiparva too. Scholars claiming that the Gita is a later interpolation have overlooked this.

Krishna returns to Dvaraka and en route meets the sage Uttanka, whom we have met in the Paushya sub-parva of the first book and who motivated Janamejaya to hold the snake sacrifice. In the Ashvamedha account, his guru is not Veda but Gautama whose wife Ahalya demands, asdakshina, the earrings of the wife of the king-turned-cannibal, Saudasa-Kalmashapada who devoured Vashishtha’s progeny as plotted by Vishvamitra. The sage is furious that Krishna did not enforce peace and caused mass destruction. Krishna stops him from wasting his hard-won ascetic merit in a curse and instructs him about Adhyatman, repeating the concept of avatara and explaining that being born as a human he is forced to act in that fashion and not as the Omnipotent. Krishna blesses him not only with a vision of the Vishvarupa, but also persuades Indra to gift the sage Amrita. Indra approaches the parched Uttanka in the desert as a naked hunter, offering him the water streaming from his penis. Uttanka refuses, despite repeated urging. This parallels the Paushya parva incident where Indra asks him to eat a bull’s dung and drink his urine, both forms of Amrita, and Uttanka obeys because his guru Veda has done so previously. Here, he refuses and loses immortality. As recompense, Krishna assures him that to slake his thirst Uttanka-clouds will invariably appear in the desert to rain sweet water.

The account of the war Krishna gives his father is of interest because of the differences. In it, Shikhandi, not Dhrishtadyumna, leads the Pandava army against Bhishma and fells the patriarch, with no mention of Arjuna. Dhrishtadyumna slays weary Drona, with no mention of Yudhishthira’s quibbling. Karna is slain by Arjuna, with no reference to his chariot-wheel getting stuck. Shalya, leading three armies, is killed by Yudhishthira. Bhima tracks down Duryodhana and kills him. There is no mention of any blow below the belt. At Subhadra’s insistence, Krishna relates how Abhimanyu was deceitfully killed by Drona, Karna, Kripa and Duhshasana’s son. Significantly, the Yadava kinsman Kritavarma’s role is not mentioned.

The obtaining of Marutta’s gold begins, significantly, with the propitiation of Shiva whose presence has waxed, looming over the events more and more. Bhima now directly attributes Arjuna’s successes to Shiva’s grace. It takes them a month to return with the gold by when Uttara’s son has been born dead and revived by Krishna through an act of truth. Even at that climactic moment the very special place Arjuna holds in his consciousness is made clear once again. Krishna swears by the power of no rift having ever existed between him and Arjuna. Thus Parikshit, the remnant of the line, lives.

The remaining sections recount the roaming of the horse, the battles fought against the slender remnants of descendants of those slain at Kurukshetra and a brief account of the completion of the sacrifice. Only some of the encounters are narrated (Trigarta, Saindhava, Pragjyotisha, Rajagriha, Cedi, Dasharna, Nishada ruled by Ekalavya’s son, Dravida, Andhra, Raudra, Mahishaka, Kolla, Saurashtra, Gokarna, Prabhasa, Dvaraka, Panchanada in the west, Gandhara). The Sindhu queen Duhshala, Dhritarashtra’s daughter, approaches Arjuna for mercy, her son having died of fear on hearing of his approach. Anguished, Arjuna rails against the warrior code: ‘Shame on that which has made me/despatch all my relatives’. There are hints that Arjuna is not invincible without Krishna. Twice the Gandiva slips out of Arjuna’s grip (against the Trigartas and the Saindhavas). In Pragjyotisha, Bhagadatta’s son Vajradatta engages Arjuna for three full days.

Vyasa, master raconteur, grips our interest with unexpected reversals. The epic has several peripiteia. Just when we thought the Pandavas were finally victorious, their sons were murdered. In Manipura (Manalura in many manuscripts, located in southern India near Madurai) Ulupi suddenly appears to motivate Arjuna’s son Babhruvahana to fight and slay his father. Then she revives him, having engineered the event to cleanse her husband of the adharmik slaying of Bhishma, for which the Vasus had cursed him. At Arjuna’s request, Babhruvahana is specially honored in Hastinapura along with Ulupi and Chitrangada.

There is a piquant touch in section 87 where Yudhishthira asks Krishna why Arjuna should have to travel and suffer so much despite his body bearing all auspicious marks. Krishna replies that Arjuna’s over-developed ‘pindike’ are the cause. Draupadi casts an annoyed side-glance at Krishna, much to his delight at this sign of her love for Arjuna. ‘Pindike’ has been mis-translated as ‘cheek-bones’. ‘Pindikaa’ means a lump of flesh on shoulders, arms or legs, also ‘penis’. In view of Arjuna’s incessant roaming, it would connote his exaggerated calves.

The description of the Ashvamedha ritual is drastically abbreviated compared to what we find in the Ramayana and the Shatapatha Brahmana. The chief queen has a major role to play in the sacrifice and spends the night lying with the horse. Here Draupadi has no role other than sitting beside the sacrificed animal. In the Harivamsa Janamejaya prohibits performance of this yajna in future because of a scandalous incident involving his queen. In India today we see the peculiar phenomenon of this sacrifice being celebrated by businessmen without an animal sacrifice to purify the environment.

The audience presumes that the parva has now drawn to a close, but Vyasa astonishes them yet again. Suddenly a blue-eyed mongoose appears with a half-golden pelt and laughs to scorn the rich donations of which the Pandavas are so proud. It declares this horse-sacrifice a failure as it does not turn the rest of its pelt golden. Superior by far was the gift of a handful of parched grain by a fasting Brahmin to a guest who was Dharma himself. This story is yet another lesson imparted by Dharma to Yudhishthira on eschewing greed and anger. ‘No number of yajnas can make one virtuous’; ‘Dharma is not happy with maha-luxurious gifts, he prefers the littlest gifts if donated with shraddha and acquired by honest means.’ That is the anagnorisis, the recognition and realization of the core truth.

After this we find a fascinating record of the controversy over animal sacrifice. The ascetics and the gods disputed over whether it was better to sacrifice animals, grains or juices. Uparichara Vasu, asked to adjudicate, sought to wriggle out of the dilemma by ruling that whatever was available could be used. That evasion consigned him to hell. Agastya performs a twelve-year yajna only with seeds, overcoming Indra’s opposition. Thus ahimsa is extolled once again as the supreme virtue. Along with the mongoose episode, this provides a clue to when the epic might have acquired its written form. This would be in the time of Ashoka when non-violence to creatures acquired state sanction.

The Lal transcreation rightly omits the Vaishnava-dharma sub-parva of 1700 verses found after this in the Bengal and Southern recensions which is an obvious sectarian interpolation, having nothing to do with the theme of the Ashvamedhika Parva.

This parva is particularly significant for having inspired two very different but remarkable creative works. One is a novel, The Great Golden Sacrifice, the last part of Maggi Lidchi Grassi’s trilogy on Arjuna’s spiritual journey. The other is an ancient composition by Jaimini, one of Vyasa’s four disciples, whose Ashvamedha Parva is the only portion of his version of the Mahabharata that has survived. Jaimini’s work is larger than his preceptor’s and quite sensational, featuring the heroism of the sons of heroes slain in the Kurukshetra war. It was so popular that the medieval vernacular retellings of the epic and the Persian version Akbar commissioned used Jaimini instead of Vyasa’s composition for this parva.

Unknown to most, its first English translation by Major General Shekhar Sen has been published from Writers Workshop.

 

P.Lal: The Mahabharata of Vyasa, Book XII, the Shanti Parva Part 1 (Raja-Dharma), pp.1011, Rs.2000 (hardback), Rs. 1500 (flexiback), Writers Workshop, Calcutta.

The last part of the great epic of Bharata that Professor Lal, Padma Shri and Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow, succeeded in completing is now published. Devoted to the principles of governance (raja-dharma), it appears at a time most opportune when all principles have been cast to the winds and the polity of India is falling to pieces. Kiran Bedi’s tweet of 10th June 2012 on “Coalgate” shows how alive India’s great epic still is in our consciousness after millennia: “PMO clears Prime Minister. Did Dhritarashtra in Mahabharata not support Kauravas even after they attempted to disrobe Draupadi? Indian genes/culture? Or?” Soon after the Gujarat riots, Prime Minister Vajpayee’s only response to the public outrage had been to urge chief minister Modi to be mindful of “raja-dharma”. Unfortunately, today neither the legislature nor the executive is aware of what this phrase means. The availability of this transcreation should bridge that hiatus.

The holocaust of Kurukshetra is over; eighteen armies have been decimated. The cosmic design to rid over-burdened Prithivi of power-hungry warriors has been accomplished. Surely, for Yudhishthira, son of Dharma and the righteous king (Dharma-Raja), it is a time to celebrate the fulfillment of his mother Kunti’s dream to see her sons win back their inheritance. Instead, he is tormented by loss and guilt, confessing to the celestial sage Narada,

“motivated by greed
I committed this maha-murder
of my kith and kin…
what is it but defeat…?”

So the chink in his armour of righteousness is the passion that has doomed the lunar dynasty down the ages: greed. He is particularly anguished over the killing of Karna, who knew he was the eldest Kaunteya while fighting his brothers who did not. We learn that his anger against Karna would dissipate when he looked at his feet which strangely resembled Kunti’s. What an inimitable Vyasan vignette! Hence Yudhishthira’s curse that women will never be able to keep a secret. Narada informs him of a great secret: it was in order to engender the war that “a friction-fostering foetus/was placed in a virgin womb”. So Karna’s role from the very beginning was that of the resentful bastard, like Edmund in King Lear, backing up Duryodhana against the Pandavas. Narada narrates key incidents in Karna’s life bringing out the multiple handicaps he suffered: disowned at birth, cursed by Parashurama and a Brahmin, the boon he gave Kunti, his gift of the armour and earrings that made him invulnerable, being branded half-a-chariot-hero by Bhishma, constant belittling by Shalya, Krishna ensuring that Arjuna never faced a fresh Karna. Narada mentions Karna defeated Jarasandha who gifted him Champa town in Anga which begs a question: if he were truly king of Anga, as Duryodhana had crowned him, how could Champa be Jarasandha’s to gift? We always find Karna in Hastinapura, never ruling in Anga. Was the investiture merely symbolic?

We find here interesting revelations regarding the society of those times. For instance, what was the status of atheism? Charvaka (after whom the doctrine of atheism is named) takes advantage of Yudhishthira’s guilt to berate him publicly. The Brahmins kill him, branding him a demon and friend of Duryodhana disguised as a mendicant. Again, Narada informs that king Rantideva killed over 20,000 cows to feed guests. So the Vedic practise of slaughtering a cow for a special guest (who was therefore called “goghna”) continued into epic society. Vyasa tells that Uddalaka’s famous son Shvetaketu was actually begotten by a disciple on his wife on his guru’s orders. Uddalaka later renounced his son for having lied to Brahmins. Yajnas (sacrifices) are prescribed as essential for all four classes with the saving that the Shudra will not chant mantras. The three other classes are responsible for maintaining the Shudra. A Brahmin of ill character is equivalent to a Shudra and should be ostracized. It is one’s karma that makes dharma. The ruler must have a group of ministers taken from all sections of society: 4 Brahmins, 8 Kshatriyas, 21 Vaishyas, 3 Shudras, 1 bard expert in Puranas. Their qualifications are given in details, and of them the ruler has a cabinet of eight, whose decisions must be announced to the public. Section 108 contains the famous verses, extolling them as the highest teaching:

“One’s father excels ten teachers, one’s mother surpasses ten fathers, indeed surpasses the world itself. There is no guru anywhere to equal a mother…you will gain this world by serving your father, the next world by serving your mother properly, and the world of Brahma by serving your guru…When a legitimate adult son fails to support his father and mother, his crime equals that of killing a foetus—that which is no greater wickedness.”

There is an uncompromising condemnation of those who discarding the three Vedas, their professions and families, don saffron robes and go begging with a three-pronged staff:

“but they are tied to the world,
because to them
begging is a profession…
Pure selfishness.
These shaven dunderheads,
flaunting the flag of dharma,
are hypocrites.”

It is also admitted that “the shastras are full of contradictions”, and that “The Vedas do not cover everything” (Section 109). Ascesis, tapasya, is extolled above sacrifices and it is clarified that this does not mean mortifying the flesh but is non-violence, truthfulness, self-control, compassion. Incidentally, there is never any mention of the Vedas as numbering more than three, which shows that the Atharva Veda was a post-Mahabharata composition. We are also told that originally the three Vedas were one. It is Vyasa who arranged them under separate names, as he did with the original Purana.

As with the secret cause of Karna’s birth, another fascinating sidelight comes in the tale of demon Damsha that takes forward the rape of Bhrigu’s wife Puloman related in the Adi Parva. We learn that the rapist was cursed by Bhrigu to be reborn as a vicious insect, and in that form he bored through Karna’s thigh, resulting in Parashurama’s curse.

To dissuade Yudhishthira from becoming a sannyasi, by turn arguments are presented by the brothers and Draupadi extolling earning of wealth (artha), the householder’s life, desire (kama) and punishment and justice (danda) as the principle preserving a polity. In the process, they even call Yudhishthira a fool! To console Yudhishthira for the loss of his progeny, Krishna narrates the account of 16 past kings of far greater stature who all died. This account, occurring also in the Drona Parva, is similar to the Old English “Deor’s Lament” in intention.

Once Yudhishthira has reconciled to kingship, Krishna sends him to Bhishma, lying on his bed of arrows, for instruction on governance, for with his death “you will see the setting of all knowledge.” Bhishma begins with a paean to Krishna in which he mentions the ten avataras, interestingly saluting Balarama as “the soul of Bhoga, enjoyment” and Krishna as “the soul of sport”, and mentioning Buddha as disciplining the anti-gods. The crucial importance of the ruler is repeatedly stressed:

“First find a raja.
Then get a wife.
Then wealth…
Without a raja
Your wife and wealth,
What good are they?”

The ruler’s cardinal duty is to ensure his subjects’ welfare first and last. Unless he conquers his own senses he cannot conquer his foes. It is because he delights (ranjita) them that he is called “raja” and all dharmas depend on him. It is the ruler who shapes the nature of the age—Krita, Treta, Dvapara or Kali.

Much of what we know later as the Arthashastra is given here. Originally it was called “Danda-niti”, the principles of punishment. Composed of one lakh sections by Brahma, it was condensed by Shiva under the name “Vishalaksha” in ten thousand sections which Indra abridged in five thousand calling it “Bahudantaka”. Brihaspati reduced it to three thousand and that was further edited to one thousand sections by Shukra because of the decreasing life-span of humans.

Beginning with quotations from past savants and 8 stories on the origin and duties of the ruler, Bhishma narrates 19 tales on the core issues of ruling (repeatedly stressing impersonal administration of punishment, careful selection of advisers through fivefold tests and not trusting anyone completely), following up with 8 on what is to be done in extremity, and ending with 9 on expiating sins and the results of harming friends. The methodology adopted is Upanishadic question-and-answer between pupil and teacher. These make up the 173 sections of this tome in which sections 98 to 173 are in prose—the longest prose section in Vyasa’s narrative.

Vyasa narrates to Yudhishthira the “Ashma Gita” narrated to Janaka by the sage Ashma where the root causes of mental anguish are specified as either confused thinking or unexpected calamity, with attachment to material things as a related cause. We also find here the philosophy that is repeated in the Upanishads by Yajnavalkya:

“No one is anyone’s, no one
belongs to anyone but oneself.
Wife, and relative,
And friend—
All travelers, all passers-by
On the road of life…
Whoever you love, will leave you.”

Vyasa also repeats insights from the Gita regarding Time being the real slayer of the armies, and that

“Times are when dharma
starts looking like adharma,
and adharma like dharma.…
In special cases,
even stealing, lying and killing
can be dharma.”

As a telling example the story of Vishvamitra justifying stealing dog-meat from an untouchable is told: “What is important is to stay alive” because only then can dharma be practiced! If problems arise regarding dharma, a committee of ten experts in the scriptures is to resolve them, or three teachers of dharma.

Vyasa declares that since Yudhishthira got involved in fratricide because of the wicked deeds of others, he is not at fault. There is no sin in killing even gurus who flout their calling because of greed (as with Drona). He advises Yudhishthira to enthrone the surviving kin of the rulers, including daughters if there are no sons, showing compassion to establish peace in the land. This is where the famous verse on when it is permissible to lie occurs which is repeated at least thrice in this parva: to save one’s life or another’s; for one’s guru’s sake; to win over a woman; to arrange a marriage. “Women, diamond and rain-water—these three are always pure.” Even an unfaithful woman becomes pure after her period

From the standpoint of narrative art, a fresh frame has been introduced in this parva. The Mahabharata’s outermost frame is Sauti narrating it to Shaunaka and his sages in the forest of Naimisha. The next layer is the snake-sacrifice in Takshashila during which Vaishampayana narrates the epic to king Janamejaya in the presence of the author Vyasa, which is what Sauti heard. Now we have a series of concentric layers where several narrators tell Yudhishthira stories, of which the largest is Bhishma’s portion. Nested within Bhishma’s layer are so many tales, and tales-within-tales! The entire narrative structure reminds us of a Chinese Box or a Matroyshka.

Among these “akhyanas” (tales) are some that stand out. Such a one is Janaka’s queen quite unexpectedly berating him for wishing to abdicate, much as Draupadi does Yudhishthira. Others are animal fables that recur in Panchatantra.

Possibly the most fascinating of Bhishma’s many accounts is the conversation Krishna has with Narada. It is the only passage giving vent to the frustration Krishna experiences—something none of us would imagine, and which remains unknown to most of us who have not read the Shanti Parva fully. The mellifluous free verse transcreation communicates the emotions beautifully. Balarama, Gada, Pradyumna—all are engrossed with themselves, none helps Krishna. Among his quarrelling clansmen he is,

“like a mother of two gamblers:
I want one side to win
I do not want the other to lose.
And the result is that
I am at the receiving end of both.”

The bitter words of relatives “stir fire in my heart.” Narada, after pointing out that this is his own doing because they are all his own relatives, tells him of a weapon “not made of iron, a gentle but heart-piercing weapon” to wash clean their bitter tongues. Those of us who are interested can read section 81 to find out what it is.

The genocide of the warrior-class perpetrated by Parashurama is a significant story Bhishma tells to explain how the “kshatriya varna” had to be restored by Brahmins to protect the polity. The divine right of kings is not just a European and far-Eastern concept. Bhishma equates the ruler with the preserver Vishnu, explaining the sacred nature of his duties. The ruler is the god of fire when he scorches liars; the sun-god when he observes the people and ensures welfare; death when he kills criminals; Yama the judge when he punishes and rewards; the god of wealth Vaishravana when he collects taxes and remunerates. Bhishma also tells the tale of Vena to show that an unrighteous ruler is even killed or removed by the people. There is more than enough guidance available here for our own times—provided we are interested!

A bonus for the reader is the superlative introduction provided by the transcreator, packing into just two pages an amazing amount of profound insight, bringing home to 21st century society the lessons of the ancient past that never cease to be relevant. “Artha”, wealth, is indeed a basic goal of life, but it is not money but the meaning of money—trusteeship—that makes it worthwhile. Without benefiting others, how do I benefit myself? “Kama”, desire or pleasure is an essential ingredient of life, but what is important is to transform lust into love: “both are four-letter words; it’s our disciplined choice that changes one into the other.” Dharma is not just ritualistic religion but spiritual vision where differences of creed vanish. “Moksha” is not only escape from life, but transforming that into liberation for humanity at large. What a world of meaning has been concentrated into these few printed words!

At the end are detailed reviews of the Shalya Parva transcreation and the set of ten DVDs of readings by Prof. Lal from the Adi Parva telecast on Tara TV. Prof. Lal’s rebuttal of Dr. Amartya Sen’s misconception regarding what Krishna says in the Gita is also printed. This volume leaves the discourse on Moksha and the Anushasana Parva untranslated.

Thus ends the massive enterprise a single poet and transcreator of remarkable genius embarked upon in 1968, making transcreating Vyasa the major work of his life, having also covered, before his departure, the lovely ninth and tenth books of the Bhagavata Purana.

 

Dharmakshetre Kurukshetre
– On the field of righteousness, on the field of the Kurus –

What are the joyous fruits of victory?

 Ah! hapless wives of those mail-clad sons of Troy!
Ah! poor maidens, luckless brides, come weep,
for Ilium is now but a ruin; and I,
like some mother-bird that o’er her fledglings screams,
will begin the strain.

These words that fell from the lips of Hecuba, queen of Troy, on the Athenian stage when Euripides staged it in 416 BC (the Mahabharata took shape around the same time) could as well have been spoken by Vyasa’s Gandhari. Aeschylus’ The Trojan Women has been celebrated as the greatest piece of anti-war literature by those not familiar with Vyasa’s Stri Parva.

The Kurukshetra holocaust is over. Of the 18 armies only 10 warriors survive. The immense scale of slaughter is recounted by Yudhishthira to Dhritarashtra as numbering ten arbuda, sixty six crores and twenty thousand dead (1,660,020,000). A huge cremation rite is held for all of them. It is here that for the first time, in the Lal version, we come across the name of Abhimanyu’s slayer: Duhshasana’s son Sudarshana (the critical edition leaves him nameless).
Indian scholars have overlooked Vyasa’s repeated use of the image of war as a ritual sacrifice, which sets the Kurukshetra war well apart from the Trojan. It was Alf Hiltebeitel who highlighted this in The Ritual of Battle. James Fitzgerald has further elaborated it in his translation of the Stri Parva.

The Book of Women takes us back to the Book of Effort where Karna, imaging the ensuing war to Krishna as Duryodhana’s massive weapons-yajna, foretold:

When the wives of Dhritarashtra’s grandsons huddle together,
Keshava-Krishna, having lost their protectors, their sons, and their husbands,
And lament in the presence of Gandhari,
with dogs and vultures roaming the battlefield, that will be the yajna’s final bath,
Janardana-Krishna. – Udyoga 141.50-51, the Lal transcreation.

Sanjaya, consoling Dhritarashtra, makes this even more clear:

Into the sacred fire
Of the sacrificed bodies
Of the heroes, were poured
The ghee oblations
Of the arrows
Of their enemies – Stri 2.17

Ladies never seen outdoors now stream forth, clad in single white garments (as Draupadi had cursed after the dice-sabha), like screeching ospreys onto the corpse-strewn field, their complexion turned copper-brown by the sun as they frantically seek to match limbs to bodies and heads – often fruitlessly. Repeatedly Vyasa says that the scene resembled doomsday, yuganta. There is wailing and gnashing of teeth. David’s anguished lament rings in our ears:

Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places!
How are the mighty fallen!
Tell it not in Gath,
Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon;’
Ye daughters of Israel,
weep ‘

How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!
And the weapons of war perished!

The previous translations of the Stri Parva are all in prose, the latest being James Fitzgerald’s in 2004. The anguish captured in the anushtubh shloka (from shoka came shloka said Valmiki) cannot, however, be conveyed thus. It is like couching David’s lament and Hecuba’s grieving in prose. The poetic Lal transcreation communicates it with great sensitivity, the mood set by the Preface itself. It is an extract from his remarkable long poem, The Man of Dharma and the Rasa of Silence recreating the stunning parable about the meaning of life that Vidura relates in response to Dhritarashtra’s frantic question: “But what is the way?…How does an un-winged bird like me fly? How does an unsonned sun like me shine?” The very unusual dedication that follows reinforces the tone:

“to the kanyas, devis, apsaras, dharma-patnis, kinnaris and other ladies in the Mahabharata whose shakti energises the kala-chakra of the Kshatriyan cosmos.”

Vyasa never proceeds along expected lines. He is the narrator par excellence who always has a surprise in store. The incidents of this parva are set in-between the murder of the sleepers and the capture of Ashvatthama in the preceding Sauptika Parva. Abruptly, with Duryodhana’s death, the heroic aura disappears and the survivors stand before us as ordinary men, terrified of the victors. Dhritarashtra and the widows, en route the battlefield, are met by Kripa, Ashvatthama and Kritavarma who give him the news and flee on horseback, splitting up lest the Pandavas catch them. Yudhishthira leads his brothers and sorrowing women to meet his blind uncle and aunt on the banks of the Ganga. The Kuru widows put to him a rhetorical question which he will echo later, wishing to abdicate:

You have killed father,
brothers, gurus,
sons and friends’
What good
is this kingdom to you
without fathers, brothers, without
valiant Abhimanyu,
And Draupadi’s sons?  (12.7, 9)

Dhritarashtra dissimulates, asking to embrace Bhima. Krishna’s brilliant prescience saves the Pandavas once again by substituting a metal image that the blind king crushes in rage, shedding crocodile tears. The two Krishnas, Vyasa and Vasudeva, bluntly point out to Dhritarashtra and Gandhari their responsibility for the war by not controlling Duryodhana and persuade them to cast aside vengeful thoughts. Dhritarashtra then calls for “Pandu’s second son, Bhima (not Arjuna as translated)” to caress him (13.15). Bhima, terrified, lies to Gandhari that he did not drink Duhshasana’s blood, justifying his other acts by citing the outrage committed on Draupadi. There is no mention of any attempt to strip her, only to her being dragged by the hair. But Gandhari’s fury has to have an outlet. As Yudhishthira, stooping to touch her feet, begs her to punish him, her glance from below the blindfold deforms his lovely fingernails. Section 15, shloka 30 is mistranslated as: “toe-nails of the king/instantly became black.”

Yudhishthira is stooping, or falling prone, at Gandhari’s feet; her glance would naturally fall on his finger-nails not his toes which are beyond her lowered glance. The original is angulyagrani, finger-tips, with no reference to pada (feet). Vyasa presents a lovely vignette here: seeing Yudhishthira’s plight, invincible Arjuna scurries to hide behind Krishna. Noticing this, Gandhari’s anger is quenched.

Besides Gandhari, we would have expected Draupadi to lament at length. Instead, it is limited to two verses addressed to Kunti who helps up the prone Draupadi and takes her to Gandhari who greets her coldly:

What good is grieving?
All dead. Grief is useless.
You and I are the same-
victims of grief’ (15.44)

There is none of the loathing that throbs in Hecuba’s reference to Helen: “A thing of loathing, of shame to husband, to brother, to home. She slew Priam, the king, father of fifty sons, she wrecked me upon the reef of destruction.” Shloka 44 of section 15 has Gandhari telling Draupadi that both are “rejected by all”, which ought to read “who will comfort us?” Gandhari ends with, “I am responsible for the slaughter of my family,” hinting that so is Draupadi because of her inveterate vengefulness.

Prior to all this, Vidura’s interaction with the grief-stricken king contains gems of philosophical insights: cosmic time is unavoidable, impartial, loving or hating none, merely cooking all creatures indiscriminately. The image of the body as chariot, the senses the horses, rational acts the reins recurs side by side with that of the world as the chariot of Yama. The sense-controller is free of the world-wheel, “He moves in the world./The world/does not move him. (7.16)” Grief can be cured only by not indulging in it. You are your own friend and your own enemy: do good, be happy; do bad, suffer, for “Always, everywhere,/ your deeds bring fruits-/ nothing else does.” The Gita’s image of discarding bodies like old clothes and that of the potter’s wheel are repeated as the sole eternal reality. In section 5 comes the wonderful image of the world as a wilderness in which man (named Samaraditya in Haribhadra’s Jain text) is lost that became so well known in medieval Europe – via Persian, Arabic and Greek – as the parable of the man in the well told by Saint Barlaam to prince Josaphat (Bodhisatva). Towards the end of section 7 Vidura stresses character as the pre-requisite for a sorrow-free mind, dependant on discipline (dama), detachment (tyaga), alertness (apramada). Interestingly enough, this same triad features on the Besnagar Garuda pillar of Heliodorus and forms a critical part of Buddhist teaching.

It is extremely rare that the author should himself appear within his own composition. Vyasa does so in section 8 specifically to bring the narrative full circle, taking us back to the Adi Parva to reveal to Dhritarashtra “the eternal secret of the gods”, providing an eye-witness account of the plan for this carnage drawn up by Vishnu at the over-burdened Earth’s request to the gods. He reminds us also that Duryodhana was a partial incarnation of Kali and that Shakuni (Dvapara) and Karna were born to assist in the carnage. This raises a puzzling issue over Surya fathering Karna who is ranged on the side of evil. Undoubtedly, to reconcile his affiliation with the anti-god Kauravas, some redactor added on the passage in the Vana Parva that Narakasura would possess Karna. Vyasa informs that during the Rajasuya ritual he had told Yudhishthira of this and Narada too had warned him of the impending destruction. The Sabha Parva, however, has no such warning by Narada, though after Shishupala has been beheaded Vyasa does foretell doom. This may well indicate a missing passage.

Vyasa now rings a marvellous change by replacing Sanjaya’s special gift of omniscience with that of Gandhari who paints for Krishna – appropriately called here “Janardana, crusher-of-people” – a heartbreaking picture of the battlefield spanning as many as ten sections (16 to 25). In it we find instances of erotic horror, as in Bhurishravas’ queen’s cradling his severed arm and recalling intimate caresses. Speaking of her brother Shakuni, Gandhari suddenly shifts to juxtaposing opposites: he won a kingdom by trick – and lost his own life; once soothed by the breeze of golden fans, today he is fanned by flapping birds; Shakuni has become the feast of shakunta-birds. Her mounting anguish is again transformed into rage directed at Krishna as Janardana, persecutor of people, for deliberately destroying the Kaurava dynasty. She curses him to become the doom of his own people after thirty six years and to die a shameful, disgusting death while his women weep like the Bharata ladies. Imperturbable Krishna acknowledges that this doom is inevitable. Thus, the Mausala Parva is anticipated.

When least expected, as Yudhishthira is offering water oblations to the dead in the Ganga, Kunti suddenly erupts with grief and stuns her sons with the truth about Karna’s birth. What a climactic scene Vyasa creates in the midst of the sea of tears! To Yudhishthira, this revelation is more agonising than the death of the Pandava children and the Panchalas. The agony of being responsible for his eldest brother’s death finds expression, as with Gandhari, in a curse pronounced by the dharma-king with which the Book of Women ends:

“Let no woman
from today keep a secret.”

 

Pitamaha Bhishma suspended on a bed of arrows; guru Drona beheaded; son Lakshmana slain; favorite brother Duhshasana’s breast ripped open – none struck Duryodhana so much to the heart as did the death of Karna. Always keen that Karna lead the army, he had had to settle for ancient Bhishma and old Drona, biting his nails over their divided loyalties. With Karna in charge, victory seemed certain. But, multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque labra (“many things fall between the cup and the last lips”), pace Erasmus’ Adagia (1.5.1). It is with Duryodhana’s anguish over Karna’s death that the Shalya Parva begins.

For the first time we hear of fear in the context of Duryodhana who, Vaishampayana tells Janamejaya, “fled terrified” after Shalya’s death and hid himself in a lake. We are surprised to find Dhrishtadyumna too trembling with fear on seeing Shalva’s huge elephant charging him. The morning after the deaths of Shalya (after fighting for half a day), Duryodhana and the sleeping Panchalas (the Pandava sons are not mentioned in Vaishampayana’s summary) Sanjaya reports to Hastinapura that:

In this world caught
in the clutches of Kala,
only the women are left-
and seven from the side
of the Pandavas, and three
of your chariot-heroes. (1.35)

There is a clear decline in the prowess of the successive Kaurava commanders-in-chief that is reflected in each leading the army for half his predecessor’s term. Shalya hardly qualifies to stand with them, devoid of superhuman qualities and prone to seduction by luxury. That is why S.L. Bhyrappa’s epic novel Parva, daringly beginning with Shalya, deserves acclaim all the more. After Karna’s death when Duryodhana turns to Ashvatthama, Vyasa paints him in such heroic colours that we are led to presume that he will be the next general. Instead, Ashvatthama advises that since Shalya left his nephews to join their enemies, he should command the army. Actually, like Bhishma and Drona, Shalya has been serving Pandava interests by discouraging Karna and directing his fury away from his nephews. From the very inception Duryodhana has continuously been betrayed. Even his most trusted general Karna did not kill a single Pandava, despite having four of them in his grasp, because of his promise to Kunti.

This last of the battle-books falls into 3 parts: the death of Shalya; the pilgrimage of Balarama; and the death of Duryodhana. Section 2 contains the deeply moving lament of the blind king:

O my son! Come to me! Come to me,
O maha-muscled Indra-among-rajas!
I am helpless!
What will happen to me without you?…
I am a wingless bird.

He recounts Duryodhana enumerating his allies as outnumbering the Pandavas and his supreme confidence that, should everything fail, Karna would be the final answer. That is why, Dhritarashtra says, he went along with his son’s decision. He attributes his plight to ill-luck in a lament of 17 verses which contains an interesting contradiction. First he wonders how a jackal like Shikhandi could lay leonine Bhishma low; 27 verses later he says Arjuna killed Bhishma. He wishes to retire to the forest rather than listen to Bhima’s bitter words (repeated in the Stri Parva) but ironically bears this humiliation for many years. Blindness and perception alternate in him. He will not take responsibility for his actions: “Fooled by fate I rejected his (Vidura’s) words.” Yet he also says, “There are fools in this world who have eyes but do not see. You see one such fool in front of you.”

There are fascinating variations following Shalya’s investiture in the 12th century Indonesian Kakawin, Bharatayuddha: Ashvatthama storms off the field, refusing to fight under Shalya’s command, holding him responsible for Karna’s death-surely a very logical development. On Krishna’s advice Nakula visits Shalya who tells him of Pashupati’s decree that he can only be slain by Yudhishthira. Shalya spends the night with his wife Satyavati, stealing off at dawn, cutting off with his sword the part of his cloth on which she lies asleep (inspired by Nala-Damayanti). She seeks out his body and stabs herself, as does her maid, turning epic into melodrama.
It is interesting that Bhima responds to an infantry attack by alighting from his chariot for hand-to-hand combat while Arjuna never fights except from his chariot. After Karna’s death and again after Shalya’s Duryodhana strains to rally his fleeing soldiers (sections 3 and 19) in identical words. In the first instance, Kripa advises him to make peace. Duryodhana refuses and the reasons he cites reveal he is no dreamer: he tricked Yudhishthira out of his kingdom and so will never be trusted; he tricked Krishna too during his visit, who will never forget the treatment of Draupadi and the killing of Abhimanyu; Arjuna burns over Abhimanyu’s murder; Bhima will not forget his terrible vow; the twins and Drupada’s sons hate him; the Pandavas cannot forget how menstruating Draupadi was abused and stripped in public. Finally, “How can I shuffle behind Yudhishthira like a cowering slave?” He then sums up his glorious achievements, which he will repeat after being struck down, and decides to fight to the death. For the night of Karna’s death they retreat to the banks of the Sarasvati, “the river of dawn-pink waters”, at the Himalayan foothills. This is where Shalya, son of Ritayana, is appointed commander.

Krishna now adopts a curious stance. He extols Shalya’s prowess above all and tells Yudhishthira that none but he can face him. But the truth is soon out. Till now, the eldest Pandava has no feat of battle to his credit. The conquering monarch needs to show the army his worth-at least one major kill is required. Therefore, Krishna urges him,

“You have survived the ocean
of Drona and Bhishma,
the sea of Karna.
Shalya is a water-hole
the size of a cow’s hoof print.
Don’t drown in it.”

He responds, “Only my share of valour remains”, recalling that Shalya was his allotted share in the Udyoga Parva (section 57). Finally, only handsome Nakula is left with no major kill, his “share” Uluka being dispatched by Sahadeva in addition to his own, Shakuni. There is a deliberate effort by the poet to build up Yudhishthira’s skills at arms, especially with the shakti (spear), by comparing him with Skanda.

Shalya adopts a new strategy: no warrior will face the Pandavas singly; all will fight collectively as one. Even after his death, there is no let-up and Shakuni decimates the Pandava cavalry. At this point Vyasa introduces a sudden lowering of pitch and change of tone. Arjuna addresses Krishna, puzzled at the unremitting bloodshed even after Bhishma’s fall:

“I do not know why,
but the war went on
and on and on.” (24.21).

It becomes the recurring refrain in this plangent passage of 30 verses on the meaninglessness of war. It is only now that Arjuna realizes the truth of Vidura’s warning that, come what may, Duryodhana will never share the kingdom and therefore war is the only solution.

Unable to remain a passive spectator as the Kaurava army is decimated, on this last day Sanjaya joins four warriors fighting alongside Kripa against the Panchala army (25.52). Routed by Dhrishtadyumna, he flees, is attacked by Satyaki, knocked unconscious and taken prisoner. Satyaki is about to behead him when Vyasa materializes and grants Sanjaya immunity. Laying aside his weapons, bleeding all over, that 18th evening Sanjaya leaves for Hastinapura. En route he is appalled to see Duryodhana grievously wounded,

“All alone.
No soldier.
No vehicle’
standing all alone
on five footsteps of land’
Such a Jagannatha reduced to such misfortune”.

Duryodhana’s eyes fill; he cannot speak, nor look straight at him. It is from Sanjaya that Kripa, Ashvatthama and Kritavarma get to know that Duryodhana is hiding in a lake. Yuyutsu comes into his own now, escorting the wives of the slain into Hastinapura, winning high praise from Vidura which brings him no peace, no delight in the palace:

“No joy here, no glory, no solace.
Desolate like a forsaken garden.”

Duryodhana’s reply to Yudhishthira’s challenge is in prophetic words:

“I give this empty earth to you.
She is all yours.
Which raja wants a kingdom
with no one in it?…
enjoy this husband-less earth
without wealth and warriors.
Be happy with this pathetic, life-less girl.”

Ironically, later the victor will repeat these very sentiments and wish to abdicate. At this moment, for once Yudhishthira refuses to compromise because

“If you live,
and I live,
the world will be confused:
Who won the war?…
Stand up!
And fight!”

Then once again he displays his complete lack of good sense, promising Duryodhana the kingdom should he kill any of the Pandavas. Krishna administers a sound tongue-lashing for his inveterate gambling instinct that, with just a single enemy left, stakes the kingdom in a perilous wager against one who cannot be defeated in a fair fight. Exasperated, Krishna exclaims,

“Pandu’s and Kunti’s children
don’t deserve the kingdom.
They were born to live
in forest-exile,
and go about as beggars.”

Duryodhana has been practicing with the mace for 13 years, while Bhima is out of practice. Krishna reminds Bhima to be true to his vow and smash his thighs. In the challenge Bhima roars out there is a very interesting detail in verse 49 where, while enumerating all those dead because of Duryodhana’s wickedness, he suddenly mentions that the sinful Pratikamin who made Draupadi suffer is also dead. This attendant merely carried Duryodhana’s insulting summons to her, so the reference is a puzzle-unless he is using it as an epithet for Duhshasana.

As the duel is about to begin, Vyasa deliberately lowers the tension by having Balarama stride in, back from the pilgrimage that he started 42 days ago just before the war began. If he has returned after 42 days, how has the battle lasted for only 18 days? This has led Vasudev Poddar to argue that the battle was not continuous but had intervals. Here and at two other places in Shalya Parva astronomical data appear that have been used to hazard dating the war. Janamejaya, in no hurry to have the story end, presses Vaishampayana to narrate the 43 pilgrim spots Balarama visited. By the time this ends, the audience’s frazzled nerves are relaxed, refreshed and prepared for the gory violence of the climactic battle.

Vyasa paints a lovely word-portrait of Narada in 54.18-20 as he comes to meet Balarama, ending with the wry comment: prakarta kalahana’ca nitya’ca kalahapriya, “He loved provoking people./He was a mischief maker.” Balarama’s pilgrimage is an adjunct to the elaborate itinerary of 350 holy fords that Lomasha guides the Pandavas through in the Vana Parva. Balarama’s includes two spots giving contradictory messages. Section 52 celebrates sage Kunigarga’s aged daughter who cannot attain heaven until she gets married. Section 54 immortalises Shandilya’s daughter who gains svarga by remaining celibate. The plurality of the Indian tradition that embraces opposites so felicitously is eminently in evidence.

By this time the river Sarasvati had already got lost at Vinasana because of tectonic upheavals hinted at in the myth of Dhundhumara. The river has seven names: Suprabha at Pushkara, Kanchanakshi at Naimisha, Vishala at Gaya, Manorama in north Kosala, Surenu and Oghavati at Kurukshetra and Gangadvara and Vimaloda in the Himalayas where the seven mingle at the Sarasvati-tirtha. In its waters spilled the semen of sage Mankanaka on seeing a naked girl bathing. Put in a pot, it produced 7 sages from whom sprang the forty-nine Marut wind-gods.

So here we not only have a myth paralleling the birth of Drona, but a variation on the origin of the Maruts who are otherwise Diti’s embryo that Indra cuts into 49 parts. We learn of a new cause of the destruction of Dhritarashtra’s kingdom: sage Baka’s destructive sacrifice when the king gave him animal carcasses instead of cattle. Two episodes in the Vashishtha-Vishvamitra conflict are described in connection with two tirthas. The story of the Aruna tirtha hints that a horrific war invariably follows a Rajasuya sacrifice (the first, Soma’s, was followed by the war against Taraka). This was the fate of Yudhishthira’s Rajasuya too. Vyasa tells Janamejaya as much in the Harivamsa. The birth and feats of Skanda form an important part of the account of pilgrimages. Among his attendants is the goblin Ghantakarna, an important figure Krishna meets during his tapasya for obtaining a son. Skanda’s investiture, the fearsome mother goddesses in his retinue and his killing the demon Mahisha are appropriated in the Shakta Puranas for Durga.

The reason for the special holiness of Kurukshetra-Samantapanchaka is revealed here. Eager to stop the inveterate tilling of the field by Kuru, Indra agreed that whoever died here by fasting or in battle would reach heaven. Hence the choice of the battlefield lying between Tarantuka, Arantuka, Ramahrda and Machakurka by the Dhartarashtras and Pandavas.

As the duel proceeds, Krishna tells Arjuna that Bhima will lose if he fights righteously, which calls to mind the parallel episode of Jarasandha’s killing. The predicament is all Yudhishthira’s fault. Krishna quotes from the lost treatise on governance by Ushana-Shukra that has been splendidly transcreated in gnomic verse:

“If an enemy routed
an enemy fled,
returns to fight you,
be filled with dread,
for his sole aim
is to see you dead” (58.15).

Like a seasoned bureaucrat, Krishna quotes precedents: Indra using deceit to destroy Virochana and Vritra (and Namuchi, Trishira). Moreover, Bhima is obliged to honour his oath. Once Duryodhana is down, Bhima proclaims the successful avenging of Draupadi’s molestation, attributing the Pandavas’ victory to “the strength of the tapasya of Yajnaseni” and shrugs off all criticism with “If this takes us to heaven, or takes us to hell’what do we care?” He then kicks prone Duryodhana’s head to the disapproval of all and is rebuked by Yudhishthira who tearfully attempts a closure by echoing Duryodhana’s own prophecy:

“It’s we who
should be mourning;
We must pass our days now
without all
who were near and dear to us’
You alone are the happy one,
heaven truly is yours.
we will suffer a fearful hell
on earth.”

As furious Balarama rushes with upraised plough to kill Bhima, Krishna grips him in his arms. The inimitable poet in Vyasa instantly paints a lovely portrait:

“The two Yadava brothers,
one dark, the other fair,
shone like sun and moon at day-end,
like white Kailasa
beside a black mountain.”

Krishna advances several justifications: imagine Kali Yuga has set in; Bhima had to fulfil his vow; Bhima has destroyed a disgrace to the family; Duryodhana was air-borne and not on the ground when Bhima hit his thighs. Vyasa does not scruple in recording that Balarama was “displeased with the crooked dharma of Keshava”. Through his lips Vyasa also heralds closure to the theme of war as a ritual sacrifice in which Duryodhana took initiation, offered up his life as oblation and attained glory completing the yajna.

Krishna reprimands Yudhishthira for not interfering when Bhima was stamping on Duryodhana’s head. Yudhishthira explains that knowing Bhima’s deep grudge he looked the other way, as did Arjuna though neither liked what was done. These verses conflict with what has gone before, where Bhima was promptly rebuked. One of the two sets is a later addition. Yudhishthira now tells Bhima that his debt to mother Kunti and to his own wrath stands discharged.

Duryodhana, roused to fury by the adulation offered to Bhima by all and their insults, now rears up

“like an angry venomous snake
with its tail sliced in half’
in excruciating pain”

to abuse Krishna, enumerating the many tricks he played to defeat the Kauravas. Later, he exclaims to Sanjaya,

“How does it profit
a good man
to win by wicked means?”

Krishna spares no words in hitting back with a list of Duryodhana’s crimes for which he is now paying. Duryodhana’s last words are majestic indeed, repeating much of what he said before the duel:

“I have studied, given gifts,
ruled the sea-girt earth,
Placed my foot on the heads
of my enemies’
I have achieved the peak of power.
Who is there more fortunate than me?
O Achyuta-Krishna,
I go to heaven
with my friends and followers,
And all of you stay back here
with grieving minds
and shattered hearts.”

Vyasa cannot be accused of pro-Pandava bias. In sections 33, 54 and 61 he records the applause greeting Duryodhana’s responses. Krishna and the Pandavas are dismayed, disconcerted and ashamed to find his speech greeted with a shower of celestial flowers and music. To raise their spirits, in a booming voice Krishna justifies his use of trickery for ensuring their victory. Duryodhana, in his speech to Sanjaya, wanders into make-believe, claiming that he never won by unfair means, never poisoned anyone or killed a sleeping enemy, drawing a convenient veil over Varanavata, Pramankoti and Abhimanyu’s murder. He hopes that the wandering mendicant Charvaka, expert orator, will avenge his death. That attempt is, indeed, made later. When the three surviving heroes of his army meet him, Duryodhana states that though he grants Krishna’s glory, it never blinded him. This is why Bankimchandra argued that Vyasa portrays Krishna not as God but as a human being of outstanding genius.

When the victors repair to the camp of the vanquished, a significant incident occurs.
Krishna directs Arjuna to descend first. The moment Krishna steps down, the great chariot is consumed in flames. Hit by many celestial weapons, it had held together so long as Krishna drove it. It is an ominous hint of the passing of superhuman prowess, which the subsequent books elaborate. Krishna advises them to spend the night outside this camp. Yudhishthira, terrified of Gandhari’s fury because of the unfair killing of Duryodhana, begs Krishna and Vyasa to go in advance to pacify her. This is stated cryptically in section 62. Section 63 is a typical elaboration by a later redacteur where Yudhishthira again addresses Krishna, praising him at length, urging him to the same task. Krishna’s tells Dhritarashtra that he has only his own karma to blame for his plight and not the Pandavas on whom he has now to depend. To Gandhari he says that what she had foretold has happened, so she should not curse the Pandavas. Krishna announces that he has intuited Ashvatthama’s plot to murder the Pandavas that night and therefore he must hurry back. Ashvatthama vows to Duryodhana to exterminate the Panchalas, not mentioning the Pandavas, which shows that what drives him is taking revenge on his father’s killers. With Duryodhana lustrating Ashvatthama as the last commander-in-chief, the Shalya Parva ends.

The unremitting carnage of this book is lit up by iridescent flashes of images that forcibly unite completely disparate ideas. It is Prof. Lal’s inimitable transcreation that brings home the realization that centuries before the much acclaimed English Metaphysical poets Vyasa’s poetry was replete with such images:

“Beautiful the field of battle,
struck by the hoof-beats of horses,
like a girl
scratched by the nails
of her lover.”
Or,
“The battlefield, O raja
covered over
with lifeless, mangled heads
with staring eyes
looked like a spread
of red pundarika-lotuses.”
Or,
“Under their onslaught,
your warriors teetered
and tottered,
like a young girl besotted with wine.”
Or, Bhima’s mace is,
“Indeed like a fragrant sandal-
paste-and-agaru-unguent
anointed sexually desirable girl,
it was smeared instead
with fat and marrow and blood.”
When Shalya falls,
“the earth
lovingly clasped
that bull-brave hero/to herself,
Like a lovelorn girl
embracing her lover
to her breasts. Long did he lie there,
passionately enjoying the earth,
covering her with all his limbs,
sleeping with her peacefully.”

The Mahabharata of Vyasa: The Complete Karna Parva transcreated from Sanskrit by Padma Shri Prof. P. Lal, Writers Workshop, 2007, pp. 1036, Rs.1000 (hardback). Special edition of 50 copies each with an original hand-painted frontispiece Rs.2000/-

The Battle of Kurukshetra has a double climax: the Karna-Arjuna duel and the final confrontation between Bhima and Duryodhana. By the time we come to the third book of battle, the elder generations have fallen, and along with them their obsessions. Drupada’s craving for vengeance against Bhishma and Drona has been achieved through his two sons, each specifically engendered for that purpose. Before he is beheaded, Drona lays low the two major allies of the Pandavas: Drupada and Virata. Ancient Bahlika, Bhagadatta, Bhurishrava —all are gone. Nothing stands in the way of Duryodhana’s eagerness to have Karna command his forces, a desire that he has had to put off twice over. Despite Karna having fled the field at least thrice during Drona’s generalship, Duryodhana holds fast to a blind faith in his invincibility with a drowning man’s desperation.

Karna’s undying appeal as a heroic Aryan ideal is reflected in Tagore’s poem on Karna and Kunti composed in response to Jagadish Chandra Bose’s request to adopt Karna as a mythic paradigm for the modern Indian. Earlier, Bankimchandra had sought to do the same with Krishna in “Krishnacharitra”. The typology was carried onto the Bengali stage with famous plays like “Karnarjun”, “Nara-Narayan” and in many an Indian film, both mythological and modern. The trait for which Karna is celebrated is his unparalleled greatness as an undiscriminating donor, never refusing anything to anyone, even butchering his son to provide a Brahmin (Krishna disguised) with his chosen meal. Songs about Karna in Gujarat celebrate him as a hero who brings water and fertility to the community. The Western Indologist is understandably fascinated by Karna who, like Homer’s Achilles, has divine armour, a godly parent, initially sulks away from the battle and is ultimately struck down by an archer.

The reader will notice a unique feature about Prof. Lal’s style of transcreation: the use of doublets in proper nouns. Thereby, with masterly skill he interweaves explanations doing away with the need for annotations. Thus, “river-born Apageya-Bhishma” explains the original’s “Apageya”, simultaneously indicating that this is another name for Bhishma. In all cases where Vyasa does not use the usual name, Lal provides the doublet. He does so for technical terms too: “Aksha-axles”, “Kubara-poles”, “Isha-shafts”, “varutha-fenders”. Where explanations of weaponry are needed e.g. the fourfold science of weaponry, this is provided in the transcreation itself in rhythmic free verse [2.16]:

The free
Those released by the hand
Like arrows;
The unfree
Those clutched by the hand
Like swords;
The machine-free
Those shot by machines
Like fire-balls;
The free-and-unfree
Those which return after released
Like Indra’s thunderbolt.

Doublets make abstruse weapons self-explanatory: prasa-barbed darts, risti-swords, parigha-spiked iron clubs, shakti-spears, tomara-javelins, pattisha-pointed spears, bhushundi-firearms tanutra-armour. So, too, for ornaments: angada-armlets, keyura-bracelets, hara-necklaces, nishka-gold coins,. However, “33-lord Indra” (p.237) is hardly mellifluous!

The images used in this book have a distinction of their own. With Arjuna’s arrow stuck in his forehead Ashvatthama looks “like the rising son/with its rays shooting upward” (17.3). Shikhandi, with three arrows in his forehead, is like a triple-peaked silvery mountain (61.18). An elephant struck with 100 arrows glows like a mountain with its trees and plants aflame in a forest-fire at dead of night (18.14). Like countless bulls attacking a single one to mount a cow in season, warriors target Arjuna (19.5). The battlefield blossoms like a lake lovely with white lily and blue lotus faces of beheaded warriors, glowing with splendour as if decorated with garlands of constellations in autumn. Bloodied faces are as lovely as split pomegranates, their teeth the seeds. Headless bodies stand erect in bloody uniforms and armour like crimson pieces of cloth dyed red and drying (28.43). Like a monsoon field with red shakragopa-beetles, or a young dark-skinned girl’s white dress dyed with red turmeric (52.9), or a free-roving courtesan flaunting a crimson dress, crimson garland and gold ornaments—such was the earth (94.26). Arrows pierce like snakes burrowing into an ant hill (59.54). Fallen soldiers look as lovely as pollen-filled kadamba blossoms (81.39). Karna’s snake-arrow blazes in the sky “like the centre parting/in a woman’s hair” (90.30).

The parva begins with the Kauravas musing over how they dragged and demeaned Draupadi. Although, at different stages in the battle, Dhritarashtra, Bhima, Duhshasana, Krishna all recall the dragging and insulting of Draupadi, none refers to any attempt to strip her. That episode could be an interpolation to accentuate the wickedness of the Kauravas and exalt the divinity of Krishna.

An intriguing feature of the battle is that attacking and even killing weaponless charioteers draws no criticism. Even Krishna is wounded by Ashvatthama, Karna and Satyasena whose javelin pierces through his left arm making him drop the whip and reins. The charioteer’s role as advisor is well brought out where he advises Dhrishtadyumna who is bewildered by Kripa’s assault. Section 26 is a rare picture of Kripa in irresistible full flow.

In the beginning, in just five verses the death of Vrisha (Karna) is wrapped up. Janamejaya questions Vaishampayana about Dhritarashtra’s reaction on hearing of the deaths of Drona and Karna. In section 2 we learn that the night after Karna was killed, Sanjaya rushed to Dhritarashtra and related the aftermath of Drona’s death till the fall of Karna, his sons and brothers and how Bhima slew Duhshasana and drank his blood. Struck to his very marrow with horror, the blind king wants to know what is left of both armies. From the reply a pattern emerges: the inhabitants of regions where Krishna was born and brought up—Surasenis and Narayanas of Mathura and Gokul—chose to fight against him alongside the kings of the east and north-east (Kalingas, Bangas, Angas, Nishadas) who were anti-Pandava and led elephant armies. Satyaki killed the Banga ruler, Sahadeva the Pundra ruler, Nakula the Anga ruler. Those from the south, west and north-west suffer annihilation at Arjuna’s hands. Among southerners, Pandya alone is pro-Pandava and Sanjaya calls him world-renowned. Dhritarashtra asks him to justify this and we have a sudden description of his savage attack on the Kauravas in section 20 in 44 verses, till he is killed by Ashvatthama. This looks very much like a command performance. It is interesting that Chitrangada is a Pandya princess in the southern recension of the epic.

We are given new information in 2.13 that Parashurama had taught Drona from early childhood. Confirmation regarding the relative novelty of the Mahishamardini myth is found in 5.56 where, as in the Vana Parva, it is Skanda, not Durga, who is the buffalo-demon’s slayer. A typical epic exaggeration occurs in 5.4 where Sanjaya says that Bishma slew an “arbuda” (a crore) of soldiers in ten days. As he slew ten thousand daily, the total is a lakh and not “ten crores” as translated (p.24). In 5.14 Sanjaya says that Draupadi’s son (unnamed) slew Duhsasana’s son—possibly the nameless killer of Abhimanyu—but there is no other account of this. Paurava, a Kaurava ally whom Van Buitenen regards as a historical reference to Poros, had been defeated by Abhimanyu and now falls victim to Arjuna (5.35). We usually overlook the fact that Kunti too was a loser in the battle. All Kuntibhoja’s descendants were slain by Bhishma who also accounted for the Narayanas and Balabhadras (6.22). Drona slew both brothers of Kunti, Virata, Drupada and their sons and most of the notable kings in just five days. Bhishma in ten days mostly concentrated on reducing the Pandava army.

The Karna-Arjuna battle is obviously the high point since Sanjay compares its carnage as rivalling the mythical duels of Indra-Vritra, Rama-Ravana, Kartavirya-Parashurama, Mahisha-Skanda, Andhaka-Rudra, Indra-Bali, Indra-Namuchi, Vasava-Shambara, Mahendra-Jambha and Krishna-Naraka-Mura. Karna becomes infused with the Naraka following Duryodhana’s capture by the Gandharvas. In the Tullal songs of Kerala he is the demon Sashrakavacha (thousand-armoured) reincarnated. Underlying the Arjuna-Karna duel lies the Vedic myth of Indra routing Surya and taking his wheel (Rig Veda 1.175.4; 4.30.4; 10.43.5). Its epic reversal occurs in the Ramayana where Surya’s son Sugriva brings about the death of Indra’s son Vali. On both occasions, it is Vishnu’s avatara who plays the decisive role in ensuring the death.

Ironically, Dhritarashtra’s lament (9.21):

“You plan something
Fate plans differently.
Aho!
Fate is all-powerful.
Kala
cannot be questioned.”

is no different from what Krishna had told Yudhishthira before the peace embassy: “What is possible for man, I can exert to the utmost; but over fate I have no control.” Dhritarashtra makes the telling point (9.39) that both Bhishma and Drona were killed by exceptional deceit: Shikhandi shot down Bhishma who was not fighting him and Drona was beheaded when in yoga, weaponless. Significantly, Dhritarashtra points to the Panchalas as responsible for both heinous deeds, exposing what underlies the Pandava-Dhartarashtra rivalry. Often he mentions the awe in which the Pandavas held Karna, especially Yudhishthira who went sleepless for 13 years, reminiscent of Lakshmana in the Ramayana (for a different reason). Fear of Karna haunts Yudhishthira wherever he goes. Even Bhishma, Kripa, Drona have never shamed him in battle like Karna (66.22). Twice Dhritarashtra recalls Karna taunting Draupadi that she is husbandless in the very presence of the Pandavas—such was his self-confidence. He calls Karna “the never-retreating hero”, overlooking how he was routed from the field several times.

Arjuna’s laxity is a recurring phenomenon here, lending support to the argument that the Gita is a later addition. In section 16 Ashvatthama’s feats wax, Pinaki-like, while Arjuna’s wane, enraging Krishna who berates Arjuna for being sentimental about fighting his guru’s son. Arjuna flares up only after Krishna, with blood streaming from his body, asks him not to spare Ashvatthama. In section 19 Krishna has to exhort him to stop playing games with the suicide squad of Samsaptakas and to proceed to fight Karna. The suicide squad even catches hold of them. Susharma succeeds in making Arjuna slump down (53.15, 36). Keshava fells them bare-handed while Arjuna displays his unique skill in repulsing the enemy with arrows at extreme close quarters. In section 56 Ashvatthama nonplusses Arjuna again, infuriating Krishna who exhorts:

“very strange, Partha-Arjuna
Very strange—what I am seeing now.
…Drona’s son
Seems to be the better man today….
Is your fist
a little flabby or what?” (56. 135-138).

The carnage after Arjuna has been tongue-lashed becomes the occasion for a survey of the field by Krishna (19.28-53), repeated in 58.10-41, as after Jayadratha’s death in the Drona Parva (section 148). This anticipates Gandhari’s heart-wrenching lament in the Stri Parva and ends with Krishna praising Arjuna’s performance as worthy of the king of the gods. The field becomes such a morass that even Arjuna’s chariot-wheels get stuck (27.40-41)—a doublet of Karna’s plight later. In 90.57 Krishna lifts the embedded chariot wheels out of ground with both hands, which Shalya later fails to replicate. Indeed, he does not even make the attempt and leaves it to Karna to fight and extricate the wheel. Karna is also called Bibhatsu (49.25) after he recovers having been knocked unconscious by Yudhishthira’s arrow, deliberately equating him with Arjuna.

Section 29 has a rare duel between the rivals for the throne. The normally diffident eldest Pandava knocks Duryodhana unconscious but, surprisingly, Bhima stops him from administering the coup de grace because that would nullify his vow. Similarly, when Bhima knocks Karna unconscious in section 50 and rushes to slice his tongue for his insults, Shalya stops him, reminding him of Arjuna’s vow. Shalya does a fine job as a double-agent by saving Yudhishthira from being captured twice (sections 49, 63): once by warning Karna not to touch him as he may be reduced to ashes and then exhorting him not to be diverted from the goal of slaying Arjuna who is the main danger. Strangely enough, Dhritarashtra does not ask Sanjaya why, despite defeating Yudhishthira, Karna did not take him captive, which would have ended the war as Drona had realised. To comprehend Karna’s complicated psyche we have to recall what he told Krishna in the Udyoga Parva. Karna is a man at war with himself, so memorably portrayed in Shivaji Sawant’s  epic novel Mrityunjaya. One part of him knows that the victor has to be Yudhishthira, the righteous ruler; the other’s very life is bound by gratitude to Duryodhana. Every Kaurava general suffers from the same dilemma, but in Karna it has been portrayed in extremis.

We discover that following Jarasandha’s death, Girivraja and Magadha have separate rulers. Arjuna kills Dandadhara of Girivraja. Jayatsena, king of Magadha, was killed by Abhimanyu. There is an interesting exchange of roles: in section 18 Arjuna emerges as elephant-killer while elsewhere Bhima shows off mastery of archery. Just as six had surrounded Abhimanyu, so Dhristadymna, Draupadi’s 5 sons, the twins and Satyaki attack Karna jointly. He successively routs them, looping his bow round the Pandavas’ necks and, to their profound chagrin, letting them go, as he had promised Kunti. Dhrishtadyumna berates Ashvatthama who is routing Pandava forces as Bhima had done Drona: “You have no love, no gratitude, you are a fake Brahmin” (55.33). Not only does Ashvatthama make Yudhishthira turn tail but, when Arjuna topples his charioteer, he continues fighting while holding the reins (64.30).

Prof. Lal succeeds admirably in conveying the variety in battle descriptions as in 28.36-40—an excursion into vigorous vivid description of fist-fights compellingly Englished:

Hands raised high
Brought crashing down
On the foe!
A battle of tugged
And ripped hair-tufts!
A battle of bodies
grappling and wrestling!
Smell, touch, rasa-taste—
Stench of blood!
Feel of blood
sight of blood,
gush of blood,
Everywhere crimson blood (49.104).

Like Valkyries, Apsaras take the dead soldiers in chariots to heaven (49.93). Alongside this, Vyasa repeatedly stresses the horrific meaninglessness of war: the soldiers who died, killing friend and foe, did not know who and what weapons killed them (28.41).

The greatest challenge Duryodhana faces is Karna’s request for a charioteer who will equal Krishna, for he finds that he cannot equal Arjuna without this. Duryodhana lays flattery on with a trowel to persuade Shalya, extolling him as superior to Karna and comparing him to Brahma whom the gods considered Shiva’s superior and therefore chose as his charioteer in the Tripura war. In his lengthy exhortation we find a mini-myth in section 34 of Shiva engaging Parashurama to annihilate the Daityas. Shalya finally succumbs when Duryodhana declares that he considers Shalya Krishna’s superior and that, should Karna die, the Kaurava army will be in his hands.

Sections 40-45 contain Karna’s lengthy diatribe against Shalya’s people, the Madras, for being wicked like the mlecchas, promiscuous, utterly untrustworthy. He particularly condemns the women (tall, fair, dressed in soft blankets and deer skin) for urinating while standing like camels and donkeys and being indiscriminately lustful, gluttonous and drunk. He tars the people of Gandhara and Aratta/Bahika (those in the land of five rivers) with the same brush. It is curious that Bhishma should have paid heavy bride-price for a Madra princess for Pandu and a Gandhara one for Dhritarashtra! Karna voices the prevailing prejudices: the Kauravas, Panchalas, Shalvas, Matsyas, Naimishas, Koshalas, Kashis, Angas, Kalingas, Magadhas and Chedis are the civilized peoples, while the Bahikas/Madras are the filth of the earth, located along Vipasa (Beas) and Sakala (Sialkot); the easterners are servants, the southerners bastards, the Saurashtrans miscegenous. Shalya’s retort is far less violent and throws into relief the bitter gall spewing from Karna. No wonder his sword is said to be his tongue.

It is in the course of the exchange of abuse with Shalya that Karna recalls the two curses that alone trouble him and is confident that unless his chariot wheel gets stuck, Arjuna’s death is assured (42.35). In this context he voices the sentiment that sums up his goal:

“I was born for valour, I was born
to achieve glory” (43.6).

Krishna, wanting Karna to tire himself out fighting before he meets Arjuna, drives to meet the demoralised Yudhishthira, leading to Arjuna’s peculiar attack on Yudhishthira reprimanding him for insulting him from the comfort of Draupadi’s bed. Do we notice suppressed jealousy peeking out here? The clash also reveals the high-pitched tension that war has brought about. It is not only in the Kaurava camp that Kripa, Bhishma, Drona and Ashvatthama revile Karna and Duryodhana insults them. In the Drona Parva the crackling tension in the Pandava camp was first exposed in the clash between Satyaki and Dhrishtadyumna after the killing of Drona. Now the tension has bored deeper, wearing thin the unity between the brothers. Bhima’s sudden loss of morale on finding himself all alone facing the enemy army is another indication of this. In resolving the issue between Arjuna—who won Draupadi—and Yudhishthira—who appropriated her—Krishna makes a signal pronouncement that is quite distinct from the philosophy of the Gita: to lie (anrita) is better than to kill (69.23) because ahimsa is the supreme virtue (69.57). It is a childish vow that is taken without going into the subtleties of dharma and prompts the killing of the elder brother. The secret of dharma, he says, is known to very few such as Bhishma, Yudhishthira, Vidura and, most unexpectedly and significantly, Kunti. He enumerates the occasions on which lying is permissible: marriage, love making, to save life, when all one’s wealth is being stolen, to benefit a Brahmin or when joking (69.33, 62). It is childish to think that truth should be spoken no matter what:

“He knows dharma who knows
when to speak the truth
and when to lie” (69.35).

This is no Kantian categorical imperative. To illustrate, he narrates the stories of the hunter Balaka and of the learned hermit Kaushika, vowed to truth-speaking, but lacking knowledge of practical dharma:

“shruti is not everything.
The precepts of dharma
are meant for the welfare
of all creatures” (69.56).

Dharma is so called because it supports and protects—this is incontestable (69.58) hence lying to protect dharma is not a lie (69.65).

Section 72 is a long harangue by Krishna to lift Arjuna out of the morass of depression following this encounter. Krishna provides a fascinating reason why Karna must be killed: because his hatred of Pandavas is not motivated by self-interest (72.34). Krishna tells Arjuna that Karna is possibly his superior, has all the qualities of a warrior, is 168 finger-lengths tall, long armed, broad-chested, proud, very strong. Like a wall of water shivering into rivulets when striking a mountain, the Pandava army disperses before Karna’s might. His sword is his tongue, his mouth the bow, arrows his teeth (72.38). Dhritarashtra too mentions his acid tongue. It is his profound sense of injured merit that fuels this vomiting of poisonous speech.

In section 73 Krishna states that the massive massacre had continued for 17 days now. He burns with fury recalling that Karna—so mangled and dazed by Abhimanyu’s arrows that he wanted to flee—caused the boy’s death by slicing his bow on Drona’s advice so that 5 others could kill him (there is no mention of Duhshasana’s son smashing his head). Krishna has frequently to provoke Arjuna by reminding him how Karna abused Draupadi and the Pandavas vilely. He bids him kill Karna’s son to demoralise him. Arjuna now abandons his self-flagellation saying, as in the Gita: “Govinda, you are my lord and master” (74.1-3). When Karna’s Bhargava missile counters Arjuna’s Indra missile and decimates the Panchalas, Arjuna needs to be enthused first by Bhima and then by Krishna who reminds him that in every era he has killed demons specially Dambodhbhava (whose overweening pride Krishna narrated in the Kuru court). The Arthashastra VI.3 also cites him as one of those monarchs who perished due to arrogance. Krishna even bids Arjuna use the razor-edged Sudarshana discus. Again, as in the Gita, Arjuna awakens to his life’s mission and uses the Brahma missile—which Karna promptly neutralises! In disgust, Bhima advises him to try some other weapon. Never have we seen Arjuna thus foiled.

Characteristically, Arjuna is the true hero who always admires his opponent, as in 79.9,11: how splendid raja Duryodhana looks beside Karna with Shalya urging the horses! Shalya encourages Karna repeatedly to kill Arjuna who is alone with no protectors, reminding him of his great feats. Karna acknowledges that Shalya seems finally to have found himself (79.51). After Duhshasana’s death, Shalya encourages Karna in true heroic style: “Win and gain glory, lose and gain heaven” (84.16).

Section 76 paints a unique picture of a demoralised Bhima. “I am troubled”, he says, being all alone, surrounded by enemies. He seeks encouragement from his charioteer Vishoka, who re-inspires him and is gifted 14 villages, 100 slave girls, 20 chariots. Bhima creates a river of blood. Shakuni suddenly emerges as a mighty warrior who kills Bhima’s charioteer, destroys his flag and umbrella, catches Bhima’s lance in mid-flight and flings it back, piercing his left arm. Bhima knocks him down but does not kill him, because he is Sahadeva’s portion.

However, in section 82 all Karna’s prowess cannot prevent Duhshasana’s horrific death, or that of his son Vrishasena whom Arjuna kills at the behest of Nakula who has been humiliated by him. Unrepentant Duhshasana mocks Bhima, reminding him how the Pandavas fearfully lived in the lac house, scrounged for food in the forest obsessed with fear, hiding in caves and deceived Draupadi “to choose as husband Phalguna” (82.39). Then he hits hard:

“Then you scoundrels
did something similar
to what your mother did.
Draupadi chose only one,
but all five of you
shamelessly enjoyed her.” (39-40).

It is another matter that Draupadi did not even murmur a protest. Her silence, like her origin and her unanswered question in the Kuru assembly, remains an unresolved enigma. Duhshasana even fells Bhima, who is temporarily unable to hit back. Finally, Bhima strikes him down and invites Karna, Duryodhana, Kripa, Ashvatthama, Kritavarma to try to stop him from killing Duhshasana. Though laid low, Duhshasana smiles with fury and proudly displays the hand by which he dragged Draupadi by her hair in public. Bhima rips out that arm, pummels Duhshasana with it, rips open his chest, drinks the blood, beheads him and roars that nothing is as sweet—not mother’s milk, honey, ghee, flower-wine, sweet curd, butter, nectar. Sipping the blood he dances, terrifying onlookers who flee. One vow fulfilled, he looks forward to offering the yajna-beast Duryodhana as sacrifice, crushing his head with his foot before all Kauravas (83.50). This image of war as a sacrifice, repeated at critical intervals, is rooted in the panchagni vidya celebrated in the Brahmanas as a symbol of Prajapati the Creator’s self-devouring to create the cosmos, another symbol of which is the serpent biting its tail.

Krishna paints a lovely picture of Karna advancing (86.6-10) and encourages Arjuna by reminding him that he has Shiva’s blessings. As in the Gita Arjuna says that he will win “Because you, the guru of all the worlds are pleased with me” (86.17). Karna and Arjuna are both like Kartavirya Ajruna, Dasharathi Rama, Vishnu, Shiva, with the finest chariots and best charioteers driving white horses. While warriors watch,

“the two heroes
played the dice-game of war,
for victory/or defeat.” (87.36).

The sky goddess Dyau and the Adityas favour Karna, born of Surya, while the earth Bhumi (symbolised in Pritha the wide one), Agni, Indra, Soma and Pavana favour Arjuna—a curious split among the Adityas indeed. Karna, the hero of “the other”, is backed by Asuras, Yatudhanas, Guhyakas, Pishacas, Rakshasas, minor serpents, Vaishyas, Shudras, Sutas and the mixed castes. Brahma and Shiva jointly foretell Arjuna’s victory. The line-up of celestial beings shows clear evidence of repetitive interpolation from shlokas 39 to 63 and again from verses 64 to 99 in section 87. Shalya boasts that if Karna falls, he will alone slay Krishna-Arjuna. Krishna-Janardana (transcreated appropriately as “punisher of the people” in 87.119) announces that if Arjuna falls, which is impossible, he will crush them barehanded. When Arjuna routs the finest of Shaka, Tushara, Yavana and Kamboja cavalry Ashvatthama pleads with Duryodhana to make peace and rule jointly, undertaking to persuade Arjuna, as the whole world will benefit from renewed friendship.  Duryodhana refuses as the Pandavas will never trust him, for he has heaped too many insults on them. He believes that Arjuna is tired and Karna can kill him.

Suddenly, Arjuna’s bowstring snaps and Karna pierces him and Krishna. The Pandavas are ripped apart like a pack of dogs by a lion: “invulnerable the bow/of Karna and tremendously/strong its bowstring” whereby he pulverises all of Arjuna’s missiles (90.3). Arjuna slices off Shalya’s armour, wounds him and Karna severely. Bathed in blood, resembling Rudra dancing in a cremation ground, Karna pierces Krishna’s armour with arrows that are the five sons of Takshaka’s son Ashvasena whose mother Arjuna killed at Khandava. Infuriated, Arjuna riddles Karna’s vulnerable parts so that he is in agony, yet he stands straight. Unable to excel Arjuna, he uses the snake-mouthed arrow which Ashvasena enters by yogic powers. Shalya tries to disturb Karna at the critical moment by urging him to re-aim the arrow. Krishna saves Arjuna from being beheaded by pressing down the chariot so that only his diadem is knocked off. Karna arrogantly refuses to re-shoot the same arrow even if it could kill a hundred Arjunas. His armour shredded with arrows, Karna faints, glowing like a hill “covered with a wealth of blossoming ashoka, palasha,/shalmali and sandalwood”, dazzling like a mountain “bursting with the beauty/of entire forests/of blossoming karnikaras” (90.77-78). As Arjuna does not press the advantage despite Krishna’s repeated urging, Karna recovers. Suddenly his morale plummets as fails to recall Parashurama’s missile. Simultaneously his chariot wheel gets stuck. Raising his arms, he laments repeatedly that though dharma-knowers proclaim that dharma protects its cherishers and he has always cherished dharma, it is not protecting him—it protects none (90.88). This is a remarkable echo of Vyasa’s Bharata-Savitri at the end of the epic: “I raise my arms and I shout/but no one listens! From Dharma flows wealth and pleasure–/ why is Dharma not practised?” Vyasa urges not giving up dharma up for the sake of pleasure, out of fear, for greed, or to save one’s life—which is precisely what Karna is doing.

Arjuna’s arrows had bewildered Karna and Shalya; his mutilated body refused his bidding. Here an interpolation occurs. In verse 90.82 Arjuna readies the Raudra missile and Karna’s wheel sinks in the next shloka. This happens again in verse 106. In-between is a passage in which Karna succeeds in wounding Krishna and Arjuna, cutting Arjuna’s bowstring 11 times. Failing to extricate the wheel (Shalya does nothing), Karna weeps in frustration and begs for time from Arjuna appealing to his heroic code. It is Krishna who responds, knowing Arjuna’s weakness where the heroic code is concerned. Thrice he recalls the insult to Draupadi and other un-dharmic deeds of Karna, who is shamed into silence. Krishna’s words arouse Arjuna’s fury, but Karna successfully continues countering whatever he shoots and simultaneously tries to free the wheel. Hit hard, Arjuna lets slip the Gandiva and Karna tries with both hands to free wheel. This is exactly what Krishna had done earlier successfully. Krishna commands Arjuna to behead Karna before he climbs back into his chariot. Here shlokas 34-40 are interpolated because, instead of beheading Karna, Arjuna shatters his flag. The death-dealing dart is described as charged with Atharva-angiras energy. From Karna’s body a radiance shoots into the solar orb and his headless corpse blazes like the sun. Vyasa specifically identifies Karna with Surya, saying,

“The arrow-rayed Karna-sun,
after scorching its enemies,
was forced to set
by valiant Arjuna-Kala.” (91.62)

In a later parva Kunti celebrates Karna as “A hero, ear-ringed, armoured, splendid like the Sun”, a solar hero whom Yudhishthira sees attended by twelve suns. Karna lies headless, hundreds of arrows sticking in him like Bhishma:

“He was all adazzle,
like molten gold,
like fire, like the sun.” (94.34)

Spectators wonderingly exclaim, as for Shakespeare’s Cleopatra,

“But he is alive!…
he looked
so alive!
To whoever asked,
he gave;
he never said no …
always the giver” (94.34, 36, 45, 47).

Yudhishthira feels reborn and able to sleep in peace that night.

Like the Indo-European hero, Karna is the eternal solitary who can make the Senecan tragic hero’s motto his own: “I am myself, alone!”

After Karna’s death Shalya, who had boasted he would slaughter Krishna and Arjuna should this happen, flees. Duryodhana takes a stand behind an army of 25000 which Bhima decimates. Failing to rally his troops, Duryodhana all alone faces the Pandavas and Dhrishtadyumna. Shalya paints a dismal picture of the battlefield for Duryodhana in section 94 in 20 shlokas. The end is impending.