BHIMA'S END

Bhima was surprised, worried and pained at Yudhisthira’s words which were plain, unambiguous, unkind and harsh - the language that truth often uses. Yudhisthira had just condemned the dying Draupadi as the cause of the Great War that had destroyed the Kauravas, who were his brothers, and their relatives, who were the Pandavas’ relatives too. Out of ignorance, said Yudhisthira to Bhima, the Kauravas had tormented and humiliated her, but so vindictive was she that she had kept her hair loose for fifteen years and tied it only after consuming ninety nine brothers of his. Grave was her sin, said Yudhisthira, and in that very windy and punishing cold in the snowy and lonely Himalayas, as the hungry and the fatigued Pandavas were climbing those hostile mountains, the words of Yudhisthira were the words of Dharma himself. Abandon Draupadi, Yudhisthira told Bhima. All Bhima could utter was that by that logic, the eldest Pandava had made all of them sinners! At that moment of recognition for him, did he say that to Yudhisthira, who was unrecognizable as the Yudhisthira he knew, or to himself? 

Before the dark age of Kali could corrupt them, the wise Yudhisthira and his brothers had decided to leave the life of sansara.  With their wife Draupadi, they went on pilgrimage. When their pilgrimage was over, there was nothing for them to do in the world. That was the time to take the path to swarga and the path, the sages told them, lay in the deep and inhospitable regions of the Himalayas. After Draupadi, Bhima saw his brothers falling one by one: first Sahadeva, then Nakula and then Arjuna, the one without an equal. Each time Bhima drew the attention of Yudhisthira, who was walking ahead, taking long steps. Each time Yudhisthira would tell him how the one who had fallen had succumbed to his sins, and what specifically his sins were, and ask him to abandon the fallen one and leave him to die.  

This narrative is part of Swargarohana Parva (the canto dealing with the Pandavas’ ascending to swarga, roughly, heaven) in Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata.  Isn’t swargarohana a euphemism after all for dying? Isn’t it the poet’s way of referring to the death of those he celebrated in his narrative? For Yudhisthira of course swargarohana turned out to be literally true; he ascended to the habitation of the gods without the intervention of death.

In Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata, only Krishna and Bhima knew that death would spare Yudhisthira. And just him! Surely Bhima had forgotten; he must have forgotten it soon after he had got to know of it. As for Krishna, what can one say? He, the knower of the past, the present and the future, surely pretended as if he did not know, when Bhima told him. Let us set aside for now further details of this episode. Sarala Dasa in Swargarohana Parva tells us that Krishna himself had actually arranged for Yudhisthira’s going to swarga with his mortal body. Earlier, when Gandhari had tried to kill him, hadn’t Krishna told her that Yudhisthira wouldn’t die because dharma cannot die?

But did Yudhisthira know that death would not come to him? One doesn’t know whether he did. Sarala gives us the impression that neither Krishna nor Bhima had told him. In any case, for him it was totally irrelevant, totally inconsequential as going to swarga without experiencing death had never been an aspiration for him.  One, on the path to swarga, knew Yudhisthira, would remain alive as long as the effect of his good deeds lasts. After that one must die in order to cover the rest of the journey to swarga. In those agonizing moments of seeing his dear ones die, uncared for and denied even a word of comfort, Bhima had heard all this from Yudhisthira, but he did not surely register the meaning of what he had heard. He was too disturbed and too confused to be able to do so. So aloof, so unfeeling and so distant - this was not the Yudhisthira he ever knew!

Obeying Yudhisthira, Bhima would leave the fallen dear to meet his lonely his death as he had done to Draupadi, and follow Yudhisthira. The virtuous Pandava was walking ahead, without fear, without concern for anything or anyone. His steps showed that he was completely self-possessed and unaffected by fatigue, hunger, hostile weather and all other negatives there. Free yourself from moha (attachment) and be calm, Yudhisthira told his brother - one could not reach the abodes of the celestials in one’s mortal body. And why grieve for others’ death when you are so close to death yourself, he told Bhima. Dejected, disappointed, bewildered and afraid, Bhima asked his elder brother why he was so unkind to his brothers at the time of their death, who had served him with great dedication throughout. Some unkind god must have possessed him, Bhima thought.

Yudhisthira held him in his arms. His brothers were always very dear to him and he had never thought of him and them as separate from him, he assured him. But then each one has his own inclinations, own nature, in accordance with which he acts and one has to experience the fruit of his actions. Instead of grieving over Arjuna’s fate, Bhima must ready himself for his own death - his time had come, he told him.  Don’t forsake me and take me with you, Bhima pleaded with his brother piteously. Without him, what he would do on the top of the Himalayas, all alone? This was all he could say at that fearful moment. The one who had sent many to the habitation of the dead, was now pleading piteously for protection from death. 

Yudhisthira told him that he was helpless; he could not take him with him. One’s good deeds, one’s dharma, alone would take one on the path to swarga, and nothing else. The mountain top was visible now. Follow me, he told Bhima, as he was climbing up, his steps firm, fast and long. 

The phala of Bhima’s good karma appeared to be exhausted, and his left foot slipped and he fell. Do not be unkind, brother, take me with you, he screamed from behind and his painful and piteous pleading pervaded the mountain. For once, Yudhisthira stopped climbing and turned back. He smiled at him. Like a fond elder who repeats things to an uncomprehending child, he told him again to remain calm in the face of death. One could not move forward on the path to swarga except by the power of dharma, he told him again; so one, who understands things, must accept death calmly when it comes. As he was slowly slipping into unconsciousness, he told Yudhisthira in a tone of utter despair that he was unable to move any further. 

Incidentally during that final journey in their quest for death and swarga, Bhima was the only brother with whom Yudhisthira had had a conversation. He was the one who, each time a dear one fell, had appealed to him to pause for a while and attend to and comfort the dying one. None but Bhima had pleaded with him to take him along. The poet does not tell us why it was so. May be the others knew better about life and death and could accept death with composure. May be they had realized during that journey that Yudhisthira had ceased to be just their brother. There could be many other reasons!  Because of the narrator’s silence in this regard, one would never know the truth. From another point of view, the narration needed just one listener who could be told how each character had sinned in the eyes of the very embodiment of Dharma. 

But then what does one say about Bhima? Why didn’t Yudhisthira tell him anything about how he had sinned? Well, Bhima’s story has not ended yet! 

Bhima recovered. Unlike Draupadi, Sahadeva, Nakula and Arjuna. Wounded and unstable, calling up all his latent energy he followed his elder brother, unsteadily, pushing himself, depending on his right foot, but moving still quite fast for all that,  to catch up with the virtuous traveller who had moved far away, very close to the top of the mountain where ends the earthly path to swarga. Afraid of being left alone and dying alone, he needed Yudhisthira. One who never thought of dharma now badly needed dharma’s protection. Yudhisthira saw him closing up. With fear and pleading in his eyes. Dharma saw him – Dharma who has no relatives and no moha. 

A wicked person like Bhima must not go to swarga in his mortal form, thought Yudhisthira. He would see there the warriors who had fallen in the war and would attack them. Gods would not be able to live in the midst of a man so violent, so full of malice and vindictiveness. The celestials would need protection from the wicked man. He needed death which would cleanse him of the impurities and the failings of his mortal form.  The embodiment of Dharma invoked god Dharma and responding to his call, goddess Hingulakshi attacked Bhima. From this primordial energy of Death there was no escape. Bhima slipped again. He let out one last agonizing cry: save me, Yudhisthira. Why are you worried, Yudhisthira told him, be calm and do not speak. He was climbing up, with his eyes fixed on the mountain top and the mountain top was so near, so very close. Who knows whether Bhima heard him and if he did, what he felt and thought. Death was already tearing apart his body. 

THE STORY OF ALAKSHMI

This story is not from Sarala Mahabharata. It is from a minor puranic work in Odia, entitled Kartika Mahatmya, which was composed by the eighteenth century poet Mahadeva Dasa. The concept of Alakshmi embodied here is creatively different from the same in the classical texts.

Once, on being asked to compare between Lakshmi and Alakshmi, the inimitable sage Narada is credited to have said essentially the following in a fascinating, euphemistic language: it is beautiful when Alakshmi leaves the house and it is beautiful when Lakshmi enters the house. I do not know if there is indeed a puranic story that embodies this observation. In the rich Odia puranic literature spanning almost four centuries, a story of Alakshmi does not appear anywhere except in Kartika Mahatmya and there too rather peripherally. Her story seems to be the great taboo of our puranic literature. Incidentally, isn’t it interesting that she is referred to not in name but in terms of an epithet (“elder sister of Lakshmi”) in “Sri Sukta”, the celebrated hymn in Sanskrit to goddess Lakshmi? Was she referred to by a name other than Alakshmi at that time? Very unlikely!

In his Kartika Mahaatmya, Mahadeva Dasa retells the story of Alakshmi in Padma Purana, the only purana that tells Alakshmi’s story at some length. The prefix “a” in “alakshmi” is one of the negative prefixes of Odia; thus the word means, “anti-Lakshmi” (not just “non-Lakshmi”). Going by Dasa’s story, this goddess is, in ultimate analysis, anti-Lakshmi in that she cannot reside where Lakshmi resides. It might appear from the way they are related through their names that the two are antagonistic towards each other. But it is only language that locks them in that relationship, according to Mahadeva Dasa’s composition.

Which father would give her child such a bad name as “Alakshmi”? Such inauspicious, negative names are usually given to a child when his or her elder siblings had died early.  Such a name is believed to protect the child from early death. But this was not the case with Alakshmi. Besides, there is no reason to believe that her father was unfond of her. Therefore we might presume that this uncomplimentary name was given to her later by the composers of puranas to please Lakshmi, and whatever name her father had given her was forgotten. In fact, no one must have cared.

Alakshmi was born out of the mud which was formed at the time of pralaya (the great deluge) when all existences in the creation in their purest form got assimilated into Narayana and all the impurities remained in the form of mud in the waters of pralaya. Time passed, but can one meaningfully say “time passed”? Isn’t it grossly misleading, didn’t time start with Brahma’s sristi (creation)? But how else can one describe that period between pralaya and the manifestation of Narayana’s leela again? Thus was Brahma was born, and he created the universe and in the world appeared everything again, the non-living and the living. In terms of Kartika Mahatmya, the Creator god created dharma first; it was for this reason that the mud that was the residue of the earlier existence of the universe found no space for itself in the new world. However, eventually it was born as Varuna’s daughter and she came to be known as “Alakshmi”.

Then the churning of the ocean of milk took place and the beautiful Lakshmi emerged. To please Vishnu, her father, god Varuna, got her married to him; thus his younger daughter married first. This was against the custom. It was not that Varuna had made no efforts to get his elder daughter married. But no one was willing to marry her; the goddess of mud was uncouth and ugly. Now, was she a goddess? The poet Mahadeva Dasa does not describe her as such. Neither does he describe her as anything else. But how does one describe her, god Varuna’ daughter and goddess Lakshmi’s sister, except as a goddess? What was she, if not a goddess? However, not to be unfair to the poet, which god or goddess received no worship from anyone at all and was ugly and powerless too? Which goddess could not avenge her humiliation and inspire an osha katha or brata katha (these are minor puranic stories associated with some particular fasts and rituals observed mainly by women, and at home) in her name? And which god or goddess was aware that he or she had all the negatives in his or her nature and would openly say so without any trace of virtuous arrogance that is so comforting? 

Now Lakshmi lived in Vaikuntha, the abode of the Supreme Being. She was worried because her father was worried.  According to the custom, it was the father’s responsibility to find a suitable husband for his daughter in case she turned out to be unattractive. He simply could not keep her at home. If this happened, he would earn papa (religious demerit). One day she told her consort about her father’s problem and pleaded with him to do something about it.

Vishnu knew that he himself would have to find a husband for his sister-in-law. He knew that not just the martya loka, the world of the mortals, no loka is favourably disposed towards an ugly woman. The Supreme god went directly to sage Uddalaka and asked him whether he would like to be related to him by marrying his elder sister-in-law. He would be very pleased to have him, the virtuous sage, as his brother-in-law. The sage readily gave his consent; it was a proposal too attractive to even think of turning down. As for his sister-in-law, Vishnu told him that in his view she was the worthiest of all: sarba tahun shrestha. We do not know whether the good sage was disappointed when he saw his bride at the time of the wedding which was attended by gods and sages; if he was, he overcame it and accepted her as she was. He knew it was Vishnu’s will. 

The wedding over, the sage took his wife to his ashram, but she found the place utterly unsuitable for herself. The chanting of the sacred hymns pained her. The atmosphere of peace, serenity and spirituality in the ashram suffocated her. Alakshmi ran out of the house right on to the street. The sage was distressed to see this. He found her conduct not only disgraceful but also completely incomprehensible. He asked her why she ran out of home, why she was crying and what she had found so terribly wrong in his ashram.

Then she told him what he never knew: she could not live in a satwik (spiritually pure) environment and could live in only a tamasik (spiritually degenerate) one. She could live where people are violent, hate one another, are jealous of one another, quarrel among themselves, praise themselves and engage in malicious talk about one another, steal, practice no sexual discipline, and where there is the smell of cooked meat. Mahadeva Dasa’s list is longer than this. No point in reproducing it here. In essence, she could not live where there is cleanliness, calm, contentment and understanding, and where the sacred fire is lit and sacred mantras chanted.

The sage was aghast. He realized that he simply could not live with that woman. Such a woman would bring home only unhappiness and kula (lineage) only disgrace and eventually become the cause of her husband’s degradation in this world and in the other world too. He knew what the shastras had said; one must never live with a woman who is foul-mouthed, quarrelsome and negative. The virtuous sage did not hate her; nor did he feel cheated by Vishnu. He had no complaints against anyone. But at the same time he realized that there was no possibility at all that his marriage with Alakshmi would work. She was not going to live in the ashram and he was not going to give up life as a sage and neither wanted to impose on the other the life one liked to live. He decided to abandon her. So one day without telling her his mind, he took her to the woods, and there he told her that he was going to bring her food. He never returned. This is one rare example, in puranic literature, of vanavasa (life in the forest) which was unconnected with danda (punishment) or prayascita (atonement). Uddalaka’s act of concealing his real intentions from his wife as he took her to the forest was reprehensible. One does not know why being such a virtuous person, he stooped to that. Perhaps he did not want to hurt her. After three days of waiting, the reality of her situation dawned on her and the helpless, abandoned wife started crying. 

And this was no ordinary crying. It was loud and piteous and painful, and it reverberated in lokas beyond the loka of the mortals. It was the agonized cry of the unwanted and the rejected for some suitable space. Mud cannot cease to exist merely because it is unwanted. Alakshmi’s cry reached her sister’s ears in Vaikuntha and she was sad and worried. She pleaded with her husband to do something for her sister, who, she told him, had been forsaken by her husband and was all alone in the deep forest. He must console her, she told him, and settle her in some good place where she would lead a comfortable life, or else bring her to Vaikauntha. There are many Lakshmi stories in Odia, but in none of these is the goddess of wealth and prosperity as empathetic, considerate and magnanimous as in this.

Vishnu went to Alakshmi at once. She was happy to see her bother-in-law, the Supreme lord of the universe, and became calm. The Supreme Being told her that her sister had sent him to her. He told her to come to Vaikuntha with him, a satwik abode, where lived those who had lived virtuous lives and had received his grace. Her sister was in charge there and she would enjoy all comfort there. 

Alakshmi declined. In the narrative style, so characteristic of the puranas, she told him - the One who needed no telling - how she was born of the impurities that had remained after all that existed became free of the fundamental gunas (attributes – here, satwa, raja and tama) that constituted them, and as pure essence had merged into Narayana at the time of pralaya. She told him that her nature was such that purity and virtue suffocated her. Vaikuntha would make her utterly miserable. That apart, she had always been jealous of Lakshmi’s beauty and in Vaikuntha, she would be jealous of her sister’s prosperity, she told Vishnu; she said she would be in great distress in Vaikuntha. As he knew everything and took care of everyone in the creation, he should find her a place that would suit her nature, she said.

It is then not the case that in Vaikuntha everyone finds solace and lives in peace; one finds it in a place determined by one’s karma, as Mahadeva Dasa seems to be saying. Thus his Lakshmi said that her sister’s suffering was due to her karma dosa (consequence of (one’s) karma). But was it really due to her karma? Whose karma was the mud from which she was born? That cosmic mud was part of the process of pralaya. Alakshmi’s situation brings to mind the words of the great Odia poet Jagannatha Dasa in his Srimad Bhagavata: sarpare jata kalu mote/ swabhaba chadibi kemante (you chose that I be born as a snake/ How can I give up my nature?)This is what the snake Kaliya asked Krishna. In any case, Alakshmi had to be given a place of her liking. Vishnu, the ultimate provider, found such a place for her; he asked her to live in those houses where people quarrel, in those persons who are cheats and liars, who bring suffering to others, and relish the sight of others in pain, who have no respect for others’ women and who are addicted to the game of dice and who are unclean in every respect. 

And from then on, on every Saturday, he told her, she would receive worship along with him under the Aswastha tree, who was none other than a Form of his. In the entire puranic literature, this is perhaps the only episode where a god is worshiped, thereby associated, with his sister-in-law. In a fascinating way, Mahadeva Dasa emphasized the all pervasiveness of Vishnu. The one whose inner eye is open can see him where the bhaktas sing his glory and also in the dens of vice.

RESPONSES TO SOME OBSERVATIONS ON "INTRODUCING SAARALAA MAHAABHAARATA"

Some who have read Introducing Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata, have written or spoken to me about a few things concerning the book. I am rephrasing and organizing some of them and am responding to the same here:

One: One misses a concluding essay or section or at least some concluding remarks. On that account one feels a sense of incompleteness about the book.

Response: The book begins with the dedication, although this word is not used there, and ends with the acknowledgement. From my point of view, the narrative starts with the dedication and ends with the acknowledgement (setting aside the Director’s Foreword). The bibliography is also a kind of acknowledgement, not unlike a statement of gratitude in spirit. I think if one looks at the book this way, one would perhaps not have this feeling of incompleteness about the book.

In all humility I have tried to capture in my humble effort the traditional style of telling or composing a puranic text: seeking the blessings of gods before telling the story, then telling the story and finally expressing one’s gratitude to the gods because of whose grace alone the composition could be completed. The dedication in the present book is really a sort of invocation, seeking blessings, and my acknowledgement, expressing gratitude to those whose help and good will I had received while working on this book. As for the core narrative itself, I have not tried to tell Sarala’s story from the beginning to the end. Therefore in a manner of speaking, there is no real beginning, no real ending!

Two: About the structure of the book:  

Response: A purana is recited or a puranic story is told in several sittings. Not everyone finds it possible to attend every sitting. The storyteller responds to this situation by making the contents of the sittings a bit independent of one another. If one misses a sitting or two one does not find oneself excluded from the telling. One major strategy the storyteller uses for this purpose is repetition. He repeats certain key episodes, so that the one who has missed a sitting can still get connected with the main story. However, each time he repeats an episode, he interprets it slightly differently, adding a little to its telling, so that those who have not missed a sitting do not feel bored with the repetitions. 

I have tried to follow this pattern in this book. Each essay, which is the word used for a chapter, is, to an extent, independent of the others; that is, it is not the case that if one hasn’t read the first essay, one cannot follow the second, or if one hasn’t read the first two essays, one cannot follow the third. One could even start reading the book with the last essay. I have used repetition as a strategy to bring unity to the presentation of the great poet’s celebrated work, and also to enable the reader who is not reading the book from the first essay to the last in a serial order to feel comfortable with the narrative.  Incidentally, I wish I had used the word “sitting” and not “essay”. That would have captured what I had in mind a great deal better. In addition, at times I have tried to give the impression that there is a certain looseness in my presentation – with a bit of overstaying with a thought or a theme here and there, introducing an idea at one place but exploring its meaning or significance in some detail elsewhere, etc. In doing this I have tried to capture the traditional village storyteller’s rather meandering style of storytelling.

Three: About whether it is a translation of some episodes from Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata and whether it is intended to be viewed as a piece of literary criticism. 

Response: A friend of mine who teaches English literature at an institution of higher education in India wrote me saying that the book reads neither like a conventional translation nor a piece of conventional literary criticism. He felt that in some sense it is a fusion of both. I was happy he saw it that way; he understood very well what I have tried to do. 

I have attempted here to give the readers a flavour of Sarala’s creativity as a thinker and a storyteller. I have done no translation; I have only retold some of his stories in English. Since a retelling is an interpretation, what I have presented in the book is an interpreted retelling of some episodes from this great work. In my retelling I have taken no freedom with respect to the episodes in Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata I have chosen to retell. I have only explicated them (which is not unlike what a purana pathaka or a traditional storyteller does), keeping in view the readers who are distanced from him (more than five hundred years in this case) in terms of time, culture, language and narrative style. I have tried to stylistically integrate my narration of the episodes and my explications of the same. Throughout the style is conversational – after all, I am telling a story. I have tried to incorporate certain features of an oral narrative into my narrative style - features which one finds is Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata itself: simplicity of diction, a bit of repetition, which is not mechanical, but functional, in the sense outlined above, a bit of rambling here and there in the form of digression, but not out of control. 

Four: About there being no contents page

Response: Entirely unintended. Somehow it has happened. all I can say is; friends, who are reading this book, I'm really sorry for the inconvenience.

FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION

Jadavpur University (Department of Comparative Literature), Kolkata has just published (2013) the book Retelling As Interpretation: An Essay on Sarala Mahabharata (123 pages), which contains my essay with the same title, responses to it by Professor Pratap Bandyopadhyay (Literature), Professor Vrinda Dalmiya (Philosophy), Professor Syed A. Sayeed (Philosophy), my response to these, and the piece "By Way of Conclusion" by Professor Ipshita Chanda (Literature). Most of the stories from Sarala Mahabharata discussed here have not been part of Introducing Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata and of this blog.

THE STORY OF KRISHNA'S GURUDAKSHINA

One day Krishna decided that his elder brother and he himself, both barely out of their childhood, absolutely needed education. It must have occurred to the avatar that no matter how many asuras he punished or how many mountains he lifted on his finger tip, how many serpents he chastised or gods he humbled, none of these or even all of these together would compensate for his lack of literacy and knowledge of the shastras. So with elder brother Balarama he went to a well known preceptor of those days, named Santipani (better known as Sandipani). He told him that they had lived among people who were all unlettered and ignorant of the shastras. They had never heard the Vedas even once where they grew up. All they knew was how to graze cattle, milk cows, churn milk, and some silly things like playing pranks and the like. The language people used there was uncouth, and the talk was mostly about catching someone, beating someone up, etc. With so much quarrelling and fighting all around, they had learnt the language of quarrelling. No one ever arranged for their education, or even felt that they needed education. Now they had left it all behind them, left home and parents as well, and had come to him to learn. In all humility they pleaded with him to accept them as his pupils. Santipani was kind-hearted, and he agreed to teach them. He was impressed with their sincere desire to learn and had not failed to notice that they were very different from children of their age, that they were truly exceptional. They almost looked like devas, he thought. He had lost four sons and only his youngest son alive who was still a child. Santipani and his wife felt that looking after these two extraordinary children would bring them some solace. 

The guru ritually started their education. He first taught them the script (most certainly the Odia script!): the alphabet, the markers, the diacritics and other symbols, compound letters, etc. They mastered these in no time. In fact, as their teacher was writing the letters and the markers, Krishna and Balarama learnt them by just looking at them. They needed no practice and the teacher did not have to teach them anything the second time. Then he taught them spelling, and again they learnt it as Santipani was teaching them. Teach us more, the pupils would say, and the teacher was astonished at the speed of their learning. This must not surprise us for which knowledge needed time for the avatara to internalize whose consort was the goddess of learning herself! 

Then Krishna and Balarama learnt languages: Odia, Telugu, Nagari, Marathi, languages of the South, among others – altogether sixty languages, as the poet tells us, and many scripts. Then they learnt the four Vedas, astronomy and astrology, kama shastra (science of desire), tantra, yoga, archery, military arts, among many others, which according to Sarala, numbered many thousands. We need not be curious about what these were. 

One day Santipani had gone to bathe in the sea and his son, Saudasi, was with him. As he was bathing, a big wave washed away the child from the beach. The unfortunate parents had lost four sons before and now they lost their fifth. The grief-stricken parents decided to go on pilgrimage and at the completion of it, end their life by sacrificing themselves ritually in the sacred waters at the holy Prayag. Krishna asked his preceptor why he was so distraught. Life is an opportunity for those who have done some virtuous act, and the sinners die early, he told him, so he should not think of ending his life, grieving over the death of his sons. He said that Balarama and he, being his pupils, were like his sons, and that he should look upon them as such and enjoy parenthood. They had a good deal more to learn from him, he told him, so his responsibility for them was not over yet. In those words Santipani experienced grace flowing on to him. He had always wondered whether Krishna and Balarama were not manifestations of Narayana and Shiva. Since his pupils were insisting, Santipani told his wife that they should postpone their pilgrimage plans and stay home for some more time. His wife, who was no less fond of those wonderful god-like children, agreed.

So Krishna and Balarama studied again, but Sarala does not tell us what they studied since according to his narrative, the guru had already told them that he had taught them all he knew. Sarala had nothing to tell really, he knew that the pupils were pretending. They had simply wanted to comfort Santipani and his wife. The couple were happy; how could they not be when Krishna and Balarama had taken it on themselves to make them happy?

Now Krishna knew that they could not stay there for long. One day Krishna most humbly sought Santipani and his wife’s permission to leave. The guru told him that once they left, they would go on pilgrimage, have a ritual bath in the Ganges at Manikarnika, and then have a darshan of Madhava at Prayag and having done so, consign themselves to the sacred waters there. That was how they would be able to put an end to their suffering on account of the death of their sons. Krishna decided to do his preceptor a favour and give him just whatever he wanted. If he wanted his sons to return to him from Yama’s loka, he would let it happen. But he did not tell him anything.

He requested Santipani to tell him what he wanted from Balarama and him as guru dakshina. The guru said that he did not want anything from them. Wealth and possessions had become meaningless to him because he had no child to inherit the same. The young pupil insisted that he ask for his guru dakshina, because the knowledge they had obtained from him would be useless if they did not give him dakshina.

Guru dakshina was the teacher’s fee. That was an important source of the teacher’s livelihood and the maintenance of his ashram. At the end of his education, when the pupil would leave, he was duty-bound to request his guru to name his dakshina. The guru might not always demand his dakshina, but once requested by his pupil, he was obliged to mention what he wanted, because it was believed that unpaid for education would not be useful for the pupil. The teacher was obliged to ask the pupil as his dakshina what was reasonable and was within his capacity to give. If offering guru dakshina was the pupil’s dharma, asking for proper dakshina In the above sense was the teacher’s dharma.

When Krishna insisted, Santipani named his dakshina. He and his wife wanted their five sons back. The guru needed nothing else. If Krishna and Balarama were not willing to give that dakshina, then he would happily exempt them from the requirement of dakshina. Krishna asked him whether being the wise person that he was he thought it proper and reasonable to ask even for his elder sons who had died eighty years ago. How could they return alive now after all those years, and wasn’t he thereby asking for the impossible, he asked him. The guru was unfazed and unrepentant. If he thought it improper, he must not worry about guru dakshina and return home with his blessings, he told his shishya. Krishna, who had decided, as we know, unknown to his preceptor of course, to give him his sons, assured him that he would not shy away from guru dakshina, and would try his best. But he wondered how his wise preceptor, after all those days of their being together, remained unaware of who he really was, and how he did not ask for moksha, and how badly he was caught in the snares of moha (attachment) for his sons. He asked Balarama to return home and he proceeded towards the sea where the guru had lost his youngest son.

He entered the waters and the god of the waters, Varuna, hurried to welcome him and pay his obeisance. The avatara, who was completely aware of his Self and of his essence as Narayana, asked him sternly why he had stolen his guru’s children. Varuna prayerfully said that it was not his doing, and that it was Yama’s. Under the spell of the god of life and death of all mortals, they had entered the deep waters and perished. Only Yama would know their whereabouts, he told him.

Krishna invoked the mighty Garuda, his vahana (carrier), and immediately went to Yama loka. On arrival there he blew his conch, Panchayajna, and Yama rushed to welcome him. His presence redeemed the sinners in that loka who were undergoing Yama’s punishment. Yama prostrated at his feet, offered him worship, and in great humility asked him how he had decided to grace him by his visit. In a reprimanding tone Krishna told him that he had heard about his unjust doings, about how he took children’s lives, whereas he should be taking the lives of those who had lived their full time in the mortal world. Children are no sinners, he told him, so why did he punish them with death, he asked.

We need not be puzzled about the avatara’s conflicting words. He had told his guru that sinners would die early and had not exclude childhood as not counting for the computation of “early” and was now telling god Yama that children are no sinners – presumably, as we understand, because they have not lived long enough to commit sins! He said things that would serve his purpose best. From another point of view, Krishna was unaffected by maya, cosmic illusion, and was beyond dualities. As for his words, then, what sense would truth and lie make! Only those caught in maya would interpret things in terms of duality, such as truth and untruth,

    

To return to Yama, he was reverential in his response. He did no injustice, he told the avatara with folded hands. The death of children was not due to their karma in their present life or even their earlier lives, but to the karma of their parents, in particular, the sexual wrong doings of their parents, he told him. He detailed various transgressions of sexual conduct and said that when the children are born out of such unethical unions, they come to the world with the destiny of short lives. That was the law, he told him, that humans must abide by, so he should not be blamed for the death of children. People in their lack of understanding blamed him, he told Krishna, but he was only going by the law and doing his assigned role as the dispenser of justice. 

Then Yama said something totally unexpected in the context of their dialogue. He confronted him. How can one blame the ordinary people when the fully manifest avatara himself in his unlimited power and arrogance indulged in the wildest, most irresponsible and unethical sexual union with whosoever he liked?, he asked Krishna. He was respectful but firm. Didn’t he set a very disturbing example? When the great leaders of the society engaged themselves in unethical activities, ordinary people would not only follow their example but would also justify their own reprehensible conduct, Yama told Krishna.

Given the law, the logic of the god of justice and of death was impeccable, and his charges just, but Krishna was unembarrassed and unfazed. If that was the logic of the death of children, then Yama must consider untainted all the children born out of union with him. He conceded that he had committed the sin of impermissible sexual union with others’ women, but at the same time he directed Yama not to view all these women as violators of the ethical code and his union with them sinful. Yama could administer justice according to the law elsewhere but must leave his off springs untouched. Yama bowed to his instruction. “Bada lokanku uttara nahi (there is no answer to the great men, i.e., the powerful, are above the law)”, as goes the Odia proverb.

Then he asked him where his five brothers were. They had become his brothers by virtue of being his guru’s sons, Krishna told Yama. He said that they had been reborn in the world and were living their life as thieves and robbers. Sarala Dasa was a great devotee of Bhagavan Krishna. So in his narrative, the cosmic wheel of events and time had to move backwards to materialize Krishna’s wish. We need not go into that story here.

As Santipani and his wife were preparing to sacrifice themselves in the waters at Prayag, Krishna arrived with their five children and offered them to them. The parents were extremely happy and very much surprised as well. A little later, when the euphoria was over and normalcy returned to the guru, he wondered how the impossible had taken place. He now became absolutely certain about what had often occurred to him before - that Krishna was Narayana Himself. He felt a biting sense of regret and sorrow that he had not asked his shishya for release from the karmic cycle - for moksha. It was too late now; having given his guru dakshina, the avatara had gone far away on the back of the mighty Garuda. Santipani must have realized that when the defining moment comes, it is always nara who fails Narayana, never the other way round.