TO WHAT PURPOSE, THIS CHARACTER KIRATASENA?

 

King Bali’s story ended when Bhagawan Sri Rama killed him. His son Angada’s story ended when, after his coronation as the King of Ayodhya, Rama bid an affectionate farewell to him with a very precious gift. Some legends extended Angada’s story beyond Tretaya yuga and ended his story in Dwapara yuga. He was the cause of Bhagawan Sri Krishna’s departure from the mortal world. According to these legends, Angada, who was totally devoted to Rama, had an uneasy feeling in him. He was uneasy, thinking that, fully committed to Rama, he could not do his duty to his father - it was his duty to avenge his father’s killing. Rama knew this, and when they parted after his coronation, he comforted him, saying that his wish would be fulfilled in the following yuga, Dwapara. Thus, it was Rama’s wish that, in his Krishna avatara in Dwapara yuga, Angada would be the cause of his leaving his mortal form. Angada was born as the savara Jara in Dwapara yuga, and he did his putra dharma (son’s dharma) then. This story is incorporated in Sarala Mahabharata.  

Now, to the best of my knowledge, apart from Sarala’s magnum opus, there is no purana or itihasa (this difference does not apply to the regional language versions of Ramayana and Mahabharata, which are all treated as puranas. A discussion is out of place here.) that extends the story of Bali. Given this, it is not unreasonable to ponder how, or if at all, Sarala’s narrative gains from this innovation of his.

To start with, Kiratasena’s story serves no narrative requirement in the sense that it does not contribute to the development or the unfolding of the narrative. The character, unwanted by the narrative, makes an appearance, remains in the story for a while, and when it departs from the narrative, the narrative remains totally unaffected. The only connection the story has with the Mahabharata narrative is that Kiratasena met Duryodhana and Yudhisthira, who were the adversaries in the war, in which he wanted almost desperately to participate. He wanted military glory. But he was not allowed to fight in the war by both Duryodhana and Yudhisthira for almost essentially the same reasons: he was unwanted, and he was a low caste forest dweller.

But can this not, one might ask, be considered as a relevant addition to the Mahabharata story? The problem is that his aspiration to fight and his rejection by the leaders of the two armies have not been problematized here. Very importantly, Kiratasena’s aspiration is not the focal theme of his story; his dana (ritual gift) to Krishna is. His meetings with the Kaurava king and the eldest Pandava can be viewed only as a prelude to his meeting with Krishna.  

One can think of Belalasena in this context. There are some broad similarities between Belalasena and Kiratasena, but there are many differences. Differences do not concern us here. As for some of the similarities, both came to fight, both were denied the opportunity, both were capable of ending the war in no time, both ended up giving their heads to Krishna as their dana to him, and the Avatara granted both their wishes. Both had the same wish: they wanted to witness the war. Both attained the most exalted state by Krishna’s grace, though the form of that blessed state was not the same.

But unlike Kiratasena, Belalasena served a narrative purpose. Asked by Krishna, the severed head of Belalasena told the Pandava family what he had seen during the eighteen days of the war. He told them that no one killed anyone. It was a discus, blazing brighter than a myriad suns, moving from one side to the other, that killed warriors from both sides. From Belalasena’s account, one could infer that the Pandavas, each of whom was claiming sole credit for the victory in the war, were not even nimittas (instruments) in the war. Given to him the special power to see the reality of things, Belalasena saw what mortal eyes, shrouded by maya (cosmic illusion), could not. The truth had to be told, in the context of the members of the Pandava family quarrelling among themselves on the issue of credit for victory, and by telling the truth, Belalasena had satisfied an important narrative requirement.

Krishna had also fulfilled the wish of Kiratasena to witness the war. But what the savara king saw, remained with him. He did not tell anyone what he saw; no one asked him. There was no narrative necessity for that. The Pandavas had to know the truth. Therefore, Belalasena was a narrative necessity. As for Kiratasena, his son Jara, having left after his father’s dana to Krishna, it was only Krishna who could have asked him what he had seen. But the Avatara knew what had happened and did not have to ask him what the truth was.

In short, despite some connections, however weak, in Sarala Mahabharata, Kiratasena’s story cannot be viewed as an integral part of it. It appears to be a purposeless addition to the narrative.

Incidentally, unlike the Suhani Kanya and quite a few other episodes, this episode cannot be accounted for in terms of the localization of the Mahabharata narrative. In the Suhani Kanya episode, Yudhisthira, during his last pilgrimage, married an Odia girl. The Kiratasena episode has no Odisha connection.

Now, let us consider the story from another perspective. Let us begin by asking what kind of text Sarala Mahabharata is. The Mahabharata story in Sarala Mahabharata is not told during the Sarpa Yagna (Snake Sacrifice) of King Janmejaya. The King was avenging the killing of his father Parikshita by the snake Takshyaka. Janmejaya was performing the yajna to have all the snakes, not merely Takshyaka, destroyed. Requested by the King, who wanted to know the deeds of his forefathers, Sage Vaishampayana told the Mahabharata story to him and all those present at the yajna. Thus, the story was told in the context of revenge.

In contrast, the Mahabharata story is narrated in Sarala Mahabharata in a satwik context. Baibasutamanu (Vaivasvata Manu), the lord of the epoch, prayed to the venerable sage Agastya (Agastya) to tell him the way to attain moksha. And the sage narrated the Mahabharata story to him. For the sage, listening to a sacred text constitutes a way to attain moksha.

But traditionally, Mahabharata has not been considered to be a sacred text, unlike Bhagavata Purana.  And poet Sarala Das did not consider the story of the Kuru clan to be a sacred story. So, how does one make sense of what Sage Agastya did in Sarala Mahabharata? In his Mahabharata (popularly known as Sarala Mahabharata), Sarala repeatedly calls his Mahabharata narrative “Bishnu (Vishnu) Purana”. Vishnu Purana, the oldest among the eighteen puranas, is a sacred text. But when Sarala uses the term “Vishnu Purana”, he does not have in mind that work. He uses this expression as a descriptive term. For him, “Vishnu Purana” is a puranic composition that celebrates the leela (doings) of Vishnu. He calls his Mahabharata Vishnu Purana because it celebrates the leela of Vishnu or Narayana, the Supreme god, manifest in the form of Krishna. Sarala uses the story of the Kuru clan to expatiate on the leela of Krishna. Nothing happened in his Mahabharata without Krishna’s will. For example, if Arjuna won the archery test in Draupadi’s swayambara, it was because of Krishna. When others went to hit the target, they failed because it was covered by Krishna’s Sudarshana Chakra. When Arjuna went, Krishna withdrew his Chakra from the target. There are numerous such instances of Krishna’s leela in Sarala Mahabharata. Since it depicted Krishna’s leela and celebrated his mahima (grandeur and glory), Sarala called his retelling “Vishnu Purana”. And when Sage Agastya responded to the prayer of Baibasuta Manu to tell him the way to moksha, he told him the moksha-giving story of Krishna’s leela. The story of the Kurus was only the outer layer of his narrative. It would, therefore, not be misleading to say that Sarala composed his Mahabharata in the spirit of Bhagavata Purana.

Now, no story, long or short, of Narayana’s Grace in a work that expatiates on His leela, can be peripheral to an account of the doings of Narayana or His avataras, whatever be the main story. And Krishna Avatara is very special, Krishna being the Purna Avatara of Narayana. In Sarala Mahabharata, the lives of Belalasena, Kiratasena and Jara, in the episode of the manifestation of Vishnu (/ Narayana) as Jagannath in the “Musali Parva”, are short, but all these characters received Narayana’s Grace, in one form or the other – their stories depict the mahima of Narayana. On this account, these are all integral parts of Sarala’s retelling of Vyasa’s Mahabharata, namely, Sarala Mahabharata, which Sarala calls “Vishnu Purana”.