Belalasena’s story is in two parts: the first
part is about his decapitation; the second, about his saying what he had seen
happening in the battlefields of Kurukshetra. The avatara had asked for his
head and he had prayed to him to behead him. He wanted to see the Mahabharata
war, so by Krishna’s grace, his severed head remained alive. That is
essentially the substance of the first part of his story. The severed head saw
the war and when Krishna asked him to tell him and the Pandavas, who had
accompanied him to the severed head, what he had seen, he said that he had seen
a chakra, dazzling with the brightness of a thousand suns, moving to and fro in
the battlefields, now killing some from one side and then killing some from the
other side, and repeating it ceaselessly. He said that he had seen nothing
else. He hadn’t seen anyone killing anyone else. This story is reminiscent of
Barbarik’s story but the two stories are not identical.
Interestingly, in Sarala Mahabharata, edited by Artaballava Mohanty and published by
the department of Culture of the government of Odisha in 1966 (“Orissa”, the spelling of "Odisha" at that time)
and since then, has been generally regarded as the standard version, the first
part does not occur. The second part does but with a note by the editor, which
says that although in the concerned pothi
(palm leaf manuscript), it is not there, Mohanty had chosen to include it
because it was there in a different pothi
(what that story was he did not say) and also because the story was there in
the Sanskrit text. Which text, Mohanty did not mention. One is inclined to
think that the text in question was Vyasa Mahabharata.
There is a version of the Mahabharata that goes
in the name of Jagannatha Das, who is known as the author of Odia Bhagavata. His Bhagavata is revered and worshipped as a sacred book in Odisha. Jagannatha
Das’s Mahabharata is said to be a kind
of “summary” of Sarala Mahabharata,
although the poet himself does not say so. His narrative occasionally
deviates from Sarala Mahabharata. For
instance, whereas the first part of the Belalasena story occurs here, the
second part, which occurs in Sarala
Mahabharata, as mentioned above, does not.
The first part of the story is this:
The Pandavas and the Kauravas had assembled on
the battlefield of Kurukshetra for the division of the battlefield. In
Krishna’s presence, it was divided into two parts and Krishna himself drew the
dividing line. The eastern part was occupied by the Pandavas and the western
part, by the Kauravas. “O Ananta, the
One without End,” said Sakuni to Krishna, “now place a witness.” Krishna asked Bhima
to bring the agara tree from the
mountains of Kundali. At that time it was indeed more a trunk than a tree,
having lost its top – the result of having been used for years as the target by
the learners of archery. It looked like a pillar. It was huge and a thousand
wrestlers of great strength could not even shake it. But for Bhima it was no task.
He uprooted it effortlessly and brought it to Krishna. Then he dug a big hole
and tried to put the tree in it but that he couldn’t do; he tried many times
but the tree was unsteady. Krishna asked Sahadeva about it but for once the
youngest Pandava was clueless. “O Lord Padmanabha, ask the tree yourself”, he
said. “Why aren’t you stable?”, asked Krishna of the tree. The tree manifested
itself in its divine form and told him that he wanted a sacrifice.
Krishna told Sahadeva that the tree wanted
sacrifice of a Pandava. Unknown to everyone else, Sahadeva told Krishna that
there was one who lived in the nether world: Bhima’s son, Belalasena. When
Bhima was in the naga loka (the land
of the snakes), after being fed poisonous sweets by Duryodhana, he had married
a naga princess and they had a son.
Bhima should go, said Sahadeva, and bring him to Kurukshetra. Krishna went to
Bhima and asked him to invoke his son, Belalasena. “let everyone see him”, said
Krishna. He did and there in the nether world, his son was restless.
“My eyes are twitching continuously, mother,”
said Belalasena to his mother,” why is it so?” “Your father is remembering you,
son. There is soon going to be a war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas.”,
his mother told him. At once the young man left for Kurukshetra, taking with
him his bow and just one arrow. Reaching there, he bowed to the avatara first,
then to Yudhisthira, his father, his uncles, Bhishma, Drona and the other
elders. Everyone was happy seeing this young naga prince, whose head was marked with seven hoods.
Evening had set in and Krishna suggested that
all assembled should retire for the night. He then left for Dwarika. That night
his father asked Belalasena what to do to win the war. He must not worry on
that account, he assured his father; he would be able to defeat the Kauravas in
just a day.
In the morning, Belalasena was busy sharpening
his arrow on a slab of stone by the river when Krishna arrived. He bowed to the
avatara. Krishna asked him why he was sharpening his arrow. Belalasena told him
that with that one arrow he would be able to kill everyone in the battlefield
and the war would be over in a day. Would he really be able to do that, asked
Krishna. Belalasena dipped the tip of his arrow into vermilion and instructed
his arrow to put a mark on the heads of all those it could kill. Unknown to all except Belalasena and Krishna, it left a mark
on the head of everyone: Pandavas, Kauravas, their soldiers. Only one was
excluded – that was Krishna.
“Will you give me something, child?”, Krishna
said. “Anything you want, Lord. Tell me what you want. I will give you the
dana. I promise!”, said a happy Belalasena. Krishna told him that he would tell
him what he wanted some other time. As he left, Belalasena resumed sharpening
his arrow.
Krishna met the Pandavas. He was sad. Yudhisthira
was deeply worried. What was troubling him, he asked Krishna. Krishna looked at
Bhima. “Only if you promise to give me what I want, I will tell you why the
tree is not staying steady”. Bhima told him that he would give him anything he
wanted from him. Then Krishna told the Pandavas that the divine tree wanted a strange
thing: it wanted a Pandava as sacrifice. The Pandavas were utterly confused,
completely nonplussed.
Nakula started crying. He was sure that he
would be chosen for sacrifice. After all, he and Sahadeva were only the step
brothers of Yudhisthira. Besides, Krishna would never choose Yudhisthira, Bhima
and Arjuna. Yudhisthira told him that he had no reason to feel insecure. “Why
are you crying, my brother”, said Yudhisthira. “For your sake, I will go to the
forest again.” Krishna told him not to worry. There was someone but only if
Bhima willed to give him. Bhima promised the avatara that he would give him the
one he wanted. “Tell me where is he, O the One without End,” said Bhima. “Give
me your son, Bhima”, said Krishna.
Bhima flatly refused. He told Krishna that he
was willing to suffer the consequences of committing the gravest of the grave
sins of dishonouring his promise, but he would not let his son be used for
sacrifice. Krishna said nothing, moved a little away from the Pandavas and sat
there alone looking glum. Bhima was unmoved.
But what was beyond the avatara! He concentrated
on the goddess of words and asked her to make Bhima say what he wanted. Soon
Bhima came to Krishna and told him that he would give him his son. But he must
persuade Belalasena to submit himself for the sacrifice. It was goddess
Saraswati who had uttered those words.
Without saying a word, Krishna went to
Belalasena and told him that he wanted his head as dana. “I will give it to
you, O Lord,” said the young prince, “please grant me a wish. Severe my head
with your chakra with which you had severed Shishupala’s head and given him
mukti. Then place my head on the shubha
khamba (auspicious pillar) and allow me to witness the Mahabharata war.”
“So be it!”, said Krishna.
Krishna took him to the shubha khamba and with prayer in his heart, Belalasena sat in the
posture of meditation at Krishna’s feet. The chakra descended from the sky and
severed his head. As Krishna put the body in the hole where the tree stood
unsteady, it steadied at once. And as the head was going up on to the top of
the auspicious pillar, it was uttering “Hari”, “Hari”.
Full of divine delight, Vaibasuta Manu asked of
sage Agasti, “Who was he in his previous birth?” The venerable sage, who was
telling him the story of the Mahabharata, told him about that but let us leave
that story out.
This is the first part of Belalasena’s story,
which is notably different from the first part of Barbarik’s story in its
familiar version. This part of Belalasena’s story, to repeat, is not there in Sarala Mahabharata edited by Artaballava
Mohanty. It is there in Jagannatha Das Mahabharata, said to be a summary of Sarala Mahabharata.
The second part of Belalasena’s story is not
very different from the corresponding part of Barbarik’s story, which is well
known. The significant differences, which relate to what the avatara-empowered
witness in the form of the severed head saw, are mainly two: in Sarala Mahabharata, the divine chakra
killed from both sides without making any distinction – it did not destroy only
those who were sinful. In Sarala’s version, alongside the chakra, there was no
goddess of destruction who licked the blood of those killed. Thus Sarala’s was a
purer rendering of Krishna’ words in the Gita – Arjuna would kill those who
were already dead. Generalize this a bit: those who would die in the
battlefield had already been killed. The only doer was Krishna, the rest were
nimittas.
Incidentally Vyasa Mahabharata does not contain the story of Barbarik.
Janmastami, 2017
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