From one point of view, it was not Sakuni who
avenged the brutal murder of his father, uncles and relatives by his nephew,
Duryodhana; it was indeed his father, King Gandharasena himself who did. He was
the Causer Agent: Sakuni was merely “doing agent”, more an instrument than an
agent. In fact, in a Sanskrit causative sentence with the explicit causer agent,
the “doer” takes the instrumental marker. Gandharasena could not do it himself,
so he armed his son with an unfailing revenge tool and told him how to go about
destroying the Kauravas with it.
All the captives of Duryodhana were dead; there
were just the father and the son alive. Gandharasena knew that his moment would
soon come. “Listen, Sakuni,” he told his son, “you are my eldest son, you are
capable and very knowledgeable (maha
jnani). I have protected you. We all starved so that you do not. You had
assured us that you would avenge us. Tell me, how will you do it?” Sakuni told
him that he was an ignoramus and appealed to his father to tell him how he
should go about it. “You are going, father”, he said, “tell me and rest assured
that I will ever forget what you tell me.”
Some might feel disappointed. Even the
parent-child relationship is not without self-interest, not without
expectation. Gandharasena’s sacrifice for his son was not unselfish. And what
dark expectation! But wasn’t the world of Mahabharata a dark, dark world!
Some consolation that Sarala’s Gandharasena
wasn’t that cruel to his son as Gandharasena in some versions of the Mahabharata. He didn’t make him lame, so
that he never forgot that he had to take revenge.
Come to think of it, Sarala’s Gandharasena
wasn’t a really a bad man. Like any father, he was worried about his daughter’s
marriage. She was born in an inauspicious moment, so when she got engaged to a
prince, the prince died. He readily accepted sage Vyasa’s advice to get his
daughter married to a sahada tree
first and then to Dhritarashtra. Vyasa himself conducted the marriages. Vyasa,
Dhritarashtra’s father, knew that Gandhari and Dhritarashtra’s marriage was
arranged by the stars because when the latter got engaged to a princess, she
would die. The arrogant and foolish Duryodhana punished his maternal grandfather
entirely unjustly. Like any other grandfather, Gandharasena loved his
grandchild. That was why he told Duryodhana what he did not want to hear but
what would be good for him, namely that he must never go to war against his
cousins, the Pandavas, because being sons of gods, they were stronger than him.
He trusted Duryodhana. He acted like the grandfather and not the king, when he sent
his army back to the capital when asked to do so by his nephew and came with him
Duryodhana along with his brothers and relatives, not even knowing where he was
taking them. Till his imprisonment he had done nothing that could have been viewed
as unworthy of a loving grandfather or a father.
To return to what Gandharasena told Sakuni. Duryodhana
had brutally tortured and killed his family and relatives without any wrong
doing by him or them. The dead must be avenged, he told Sakuni. He gave him the
revenge plan and with that he bound him up for life. He told him that after his
death, he must collect the bones of his hands. In complete secrecy, from the
bones of his right palm, he must get two dice sticks made and from the bones of
his left palm, thirty dice cubes. Those sticks would obey his demands. One day
Duryodhana would surely free him and make him his minister and most trusted
adviser. He must take full advantage of that opportunity. Playing dice on
behalf of Duryodhana, he must defeat Yudhisthira and make sure that he lost all
his possessions, that the Pandava brothers became slaves of Duryodhana and their wife was dragged to the Kaurava court where she would be disrobed. Bhima
would not stand that terrible humiliation and would never forget it. That would lead
to a war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas and Bhima would wipe out Duryodhana
and his brothers and their children. “I am telling you, my son,” said
Gandharasena, “that war would end no other way. The Pandavas cannot be killed
on the ground or in water or by fire.” Therefore the Pandavas must be used to
eliminate the Kauravas. Poisonous sweets and the house of wax were not in
Gandharasena’s scheme; for him two dice sticks were enough.
“After getting your nephews killed, do not
live, my son,” said Gandharasena, “fight with Sahadeva and get killed in the
war.” He had predetermined his life and now his death.
Not for nothing did his father have such
complete trust on his eldest son’s competence. That intelligent prince appeared
to be justly sceptical. Two dice sticks and a few dice cubes made of the bones
of his father’s palms could really be the unfailing tools for taking on the
mighty Duryodhana, Sakuni must have wondered. “Tell me, father”, Sakuni said,
“when did your hands do so much punya
(action that brings religious merit to the doer) that they are bestowed with
such super human power?”
“It happened many, many years ago”, said
Gandharasena. He was a recognized scholar of more shastras – sahasra shahastre (a thousand shastras),
says Sarala - than anyone else then. But he would always lose a game of dice.
So for fifteen years he did severe tapas to please goddess Ganga. The primordial
goddess appeared and asked him what he wanted. He asked her for the divine dice
sticks and cubes with which he would never lose a game of dice. The goddess
gave him the sticks and cubes and asked him to return them to her after three
years.
He defeated many kings and amassed a lot of
wealth in the form of gold, gems, elephants, armies and much else. His treasury
was overflowing. His reputation spread and kings were afraid of meeting him,
lest he challenged them to a game of dice. Three years over, he went to a place of
pilgrimage called Uttrankura and prayed to the goddess. As he was placing the
sticks and the cubes on the palm of the goddess, he made an appeal to her in
all prayerful humility. “Grant me, Mother, this: let this grace of yours remain
with my family in some form.” The Mother goddess granted his wish. She told him
that after his death, his son must make sticks and cubes from the bones of his
palms. Those would be bestowed with special powers and no one would defeat him in
a game of dice if he played with the same. “Mother Ganga’s words with never be
untrue, my son,” he said and those were his last words.
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