As god Ashwini Kumara shared his
life with the dead child, life returned to him. He was born and had died as
Pandu’s (and Madri’s) son but now he became the god’s son as well. His divine father
gave him a name: “Sahadeva” – literally, a companion(saha) god (deba),
but perhaps best understood as a celestial like his father. Ashwini Kumara also
gave him a boon: he would only have to look at his palms and the entire
universe would be visible to him. Not merely that, he would be the knower of
the past, the present and the future, which would make him the wisest advisor.
If anyone asked him, he would certainly tell him (or her) what would happen to
him or what had happened to him, depending on the question, one should think: je
tote pachariba gata agata katha / abasya tu kahibu bhuta bhabishya
barata (whoever would ask you about the past or the future / you would
certainly tell him about the past and the future). The word “abasya” (must/certainly) suggests
that once asked, he would be obliged to tell the truth but there is nothing about
the boon that tells us how it would affect Sahadeva if he chose not to tell.
There is nothing in it also that tells us that he had to tell the truth in a
direct and straightforward manner - without having recourse to ambiguity or metaphor
or circumlocution, maybe in difficult circumstances, leaving it to the asker to
apply his mind to get at the intended message. Sahadeva knew about his special
powers; so did everyone in the world of Sarala Mahabharata.
When, in the “Mango of Truth” episode, Krishna asked the Pandavas and Draupadi
to tell some truth about themselves, Sahadeva said that he knew the past, the
present and the future but he would not tell anyone things on his own. He would
tell only when asked and the asker then would never be in difficulty. In Swargarohana
Parva, when Sahadeva fell to his death on the icy and windy Himalayas,
Yudhisthira told Bhima, who had drawn his attention to his fall, to abandon him
and not to grieve for him. He was a sinner and grievous was his sin. His sin, said
the son of Dharma, who in this episode the very Voice of Dharma, was that he
knew the past, the present and the future but would keep mum. Had he said what
would happen, what all happened would not have happened (see, in this blog, “The
Death of Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva”, posted on 23.2.14). Unlike in Vyasa
Mahabharata where Sahadeva’s sin was his arrogance for his knowledge, here
it was his failure to keeping what he knew to himself when saying what he knew would
have helped everyone. The Mahabharata world would not have suffered that destruction
of colossal proportions.
But why didn’t Yudhisthira ask? He knew, once asked, Sahadeva would
speak the truth. Actually, he had asked him, as they were preparing for the
war, in the presence of everyone including the Avatara. Sahadeva had told him
that he knew what would happen but wouldn’t tell. He was afraid of bother
Bhima, he told the eldest Pandava. During
a war, one side would not win every day; some days the enemy would win. Even
Bhagawan Rama did not win everyday during his war with Ravana. The war between
the Kauravas and the Pandavas would not be different. Sahadeva was afraid that
if he said that on a certain day the Pandavas would lose, brother Bhima would
bash him up badly. Truth cannot be told to
everyone; only those who had the composure to receive it, can be told the
truth.
But was Sahadeva’s fear justified? Was Bhima incapable of accepting the
truth? He was, as the Belalsen episode shows. Shortly after the war, on one lazy
day, the Pandavas, Kunti, Draupadi and Subhadra were sitting with Krishna and
they soon started talking about who really had won the war. Each was claiming
that the victory was solely due to him or her. It didn’t take long for their
exchange to degrade into an unpleasant faceoff. Krishna told them that if they
wanted to know the truth, they should ask the severed head of Belasena who had
seen the war from the beginning to the end. When they asked him, what he said was
entirely unexpected; he said that he hadn’t seen anyone killing anyone else. All
he had seen was a resplendent, dazzling chakra (discus), shining
brighter than myriad suns, moving to and fro in the war fields, killing
warriors on both sides (see “The Story of Belalsena” in this blog, posted on
15.8.17). His father, Bhima, was so upset with his son’s not supporting his assertion
that he slapped the head hard. It fell from the top of the post, from where he
had witnessed the war and died. The Avatara absorbed his essence and freed him
from the cycle of karma. This shows that Sahadeva’s apprehensions about Bhima
were not unfounded. Bhima was not the one who was evolved enough to accept
truth.
But why didn’t Yudhisthira ask him about the result when he was going to
play the second game of dice, which led to the exile of the Pandavas for long thirteen
years, including the year when they had to spend incognito? It didn’t occur to
him to ask. He had been obsessed with defeat in the first game of dice and was
desperate to play again and win. Winning the game of dice had become a fixation
with him. So he went to Hastinapura with his brothers and Draupadi to play another
game with Duryodhana, rather Sakuni. No one had asked him to play again (see “The
Second Game of Dice”, posted in this blog on 7.5.2010).
But when the fateful time came, which was the time of reckoning,
Yudhisthira condemned Sahadeva as a sinner.
To close, let us return to the second game of dice, it was Sahadeva, not
Sakuni, who rolled the dice cubes that day for both Yudhisthira and Duryodhana.
Sahadeva ensured that Yudhisthira lost. That was what the gods wanted. Sahadeva knew that; he knew more than the
past, the present and the future. Carrying god Ashwini Kumara’s life in him, Sahadeva
was a deva, as mentioned earlier.
No one ever knew what Sahadeva had done that day. If anyone did, it was
Krishna and he didn’t have to be told. In Sarala Mahabharata, there was
nothing that he did not know and there was nothing that took place without his
will.
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