THE KILLING OF KARNA

In a significant sense his mother Kunti had killed him before the Kurukshetra War started. Indra had done so even before. In the guise of a brahmin. Responding to the pleadings of his son, Arjuna, he had taken away from him his divine protections, which were part of his body. He had to tear open parts of his body to give them to him, as dana (ritual gift), which made Indra’s asking an act of mean robbery. Impressed with Karna’s sacrifice (hopefully ashamed of himself too), he had given him an infallible weapon with which to target whosoever he liked. But this was hardly compensation. 

 

Now, on the eve of the War she was sent by Krishna and the Pandavas to get two infallible divine arrows from him: Neela bana (arrow named Neela) and Bhuja bana (arrow named Bhuja). These were given to him by Krishna himself in a certain situation, details of which do not concern us here. He would remain invincible as long as he had those arrows. Kunti had joined Krishna and her sons who were discussing matters about the impending War and she asked Krishna who would fight who in the War. He told her. How could her sons, Arjuna and Karna, fight against each other, she asked him. Besides, Arjuna was a mere child with respect to Karna, who was an accomplished and experienced warrior, so how could he fight Karna, she asked Krishna. The mother’s anxiety for her younger child’s safety was exploited by Krishna to disempower Karna.

She should go to Karna at once and ask for those divine arrows, Krishna told her. He told her that those two arrows tilted the scales heavily against Arjuna. Karna had hidden them inside his body and as long as they were with him, he simply could not be killed. Besides, those were the arrows made of a piece of bone of the bodies of Krishna (Neela) and of Shiva (Bhuja) and they could not be neutralized or destroyed by any weapon. Yudhisthira told his mother to tell Karna that as the eldest of the Pandava family, he should join the war on behalf of his brothers and after the victory was won, become the king, which was his right. Sahadeva added that in case Karna decided not to leave Duryodhana, he should not kill Yudhisthira, Bhima, Nakula and Sahadeva in the War. She must ask for this too as dana from Karna, he told her. A celebrated dani (giver of dana), Karna would never disappoint anyone asking for a dana. He had once pleased Krishna himself with his dana - he had pleased the one, Narayana, who could never be pleased, be it with dana or gnana or bhakti, as Sakuni often said. 

Kunti went to Karna. She requested her brother-in-law, Vidura, to accompany her. The wise man told her that Karna would never fight against Duryodhana, his close friend from childhood, but she was determined to meet her son and persuade him to join his brothers, and Vidura went with her. Karna prostrated himself at her feet. Soon they started talking about the War and realizing that her son would never leave the Kauravas, she asked a dana from him, in accordance with the plan. He would give her whatever she asked of him, he assured her. She wanted his word that he would not kill Yudhisthira, Bhima, Nakula and Sahadeva. As for Arjuna, she said that she would accept whatever be the result of their engagement. Whether Arjuna died or he died, she would be left with five children.  

Dana is incomplete without dakshina. Therefore Karna asked her to name her dakshina. Kunti asked for Neela bana and Bhuja bana. Karna asked her how she knew about these arrows. Nothing was a secret for Sahadeva, said the mother.  Why she told him a lie – recall that it was Krishna who had told her about these arrows – the narrative does not tell us. The one who had once killed his son to appease the hunger of the guest who had asked for food – the guest, Krishna in disguise, was so pleased that he not just restored his son to life, but hailed him as the greatest dani - was disappointed. Says Sarala: karna boila mata go tu jugate garvadhari mohari/ kincita chatripana thila ailu taha mari (Mother, said Karna, you bore me in your womb / Now you deprived me of whatever little power I had). She wanted nothing of all that she had asked for, she told him; all she wanted was for him to join his own brothers in the War and rule the kingdom afterwards. Why was she saying all that, he told his mother, he would rather die for the sake of his friend than desert him at the time of his greatest need: maitra karjyare thile prana pache jau. He then tore open his right thigh and took out Neela bansa and then he tore out his left thigh and took out Bhuja bana. He gave them to his mother. Kunti gave them to Krishna. He gave them to Arjuna. Arjuna was happy. Karna’s loss was Arjuna’s gain; the former’s disempowerment was the latter’s empowerment.

During the War, Krishna saved Arjuna from Karna’s infallible weapon given him by Indra. Krishna had anticipated – rather “knew”, what did he not know! – that he would attack Arjuna with that weapon. So he asked Ghatotkacha to stand behind Arjuna’s chariot. The young warrior did what he was asked to do. He couldn’t think of asking the avatara why he was asking him to do such a strange thing. As that divine weapon despatched by Karna to kill Arjuna was about to hit its target, Krishna swiftly moved his chariot sidewise a little, exposing Ghatotkacha to the fast advancing weapon. It hit the young warrior and that was the end of Ghatotkacha. Indra’s weapon could not be used twice. The avatara destroyed yet another of Karna’s protections. Doesn’t it amount to the third killing of Karna?

It was then the snake Shoshaka’s turn to harm, in fact, kill, Karna. The snake had escaped the fire during the burning of Khandava forest, in which he had lost his parents and relatives. The snake hated Arjuna intensely. Revenge was always in his mind. He sought protection from Karna and requested him to keep him in his quiver as a weapon and promised him that he would kill Arjuna when he would use him against him. His years of waiting were over when Karna used him unwillingly against Arjuna, yielding to pressure from his charioteer, king Salya. As the terrible snake arrow came hissing, Krishna asked Hanuman on Arjuna’s chariot to help and Hanuman, the one without an equal, pushed the chariot down into the nether world. Thinking that the snake had swallowed Arjuna and Krishna, as he had all the arrows that Arjuna had sent to destroy him, the Kauravas were jubilant. After a while when the chariot reappeared in all its glory, the snake realized that he had missed his target. He prayed to Karna to use him again but the great archer wouldn’t use the same arrow twice. So he refused to oblige and silenced his insistent pleadings by abusing him and condemning himself for using a mean snake, always considered inauspicious, in the War. Greatly disappointed, hurt and angry, Shoshaka cursed him as he left the battlefield: his chariot would sink into the ground for two dandas (danda is a small unit of measurement of time) at midday on that very day, but for some inexplicable reason added that if somehow he survived those two dandas, he would be invincible.  

Soon his curse materialized. Karna jumped down from his chariot and tried to lift it. Salya asked him to counter Arjuna’s shower of arrows, instead of working on the chariot, which he did, but from a static position, on the ground, he was ineffective against the arrows from Arjuna’s bow coming downward from all directions, as his chariot, at a considerable height, moved swiftly from one position to another. He needed to lift his chariot from the ground. In the name of judhdha dharma (right action in the context of fight) Karna asked Arjuna to wait for a while as he was not in a position to fight. Arjuna stopped attacking him. He would not attack one who was helpless and without weapons and bring disgrace to himself and the ksatriya dharma. Krishna insisted that he must take advantage of Karna’s plight and kill Karna, but Arjuna flatly refused to do such a heinous thing. He said he would wait. Krishna mocked at Karna’s invoking dharma. He listed many evil doings of the Kauravas against the Pandavas and told Karna that by keeping quiet, he had been complicit in all those adharmik acts. Krishna’s outburst was as much to provoke Arjuna as to dishearten Karna. He reminded Karna of the vicious and entirely unethical killing of Abhimanyu. Arjuna was greatly provoked.

Then Krishna said something that proved decisive. He told Arjuna about Shoshaka’s curse and that one danda had already passed and if he did not kill Karna in the remaining danda, Karna would never be defeated. That was when Arjuna decided to choose victory over judhdha dharma. But Karna could not be killed so easily. As Arjuna’s arrow cut off his head, a new head appeared in its place. He used the infallible pasupata, but the same thing happened. Krishna asked Sahadeva about that strange happening. He told Krishna about the depositories of amrita (nectar) in three different parts of his body. That was god Sun’s blessing for his son, he said. Those repositories of amrita would have to be dried up so that there would be no flow of amrit in his body. He advised Arjuna that he must attack him, at the same time, with three powerful divine arrows, babala, pasupata and neelachakra, aiming at his heart, navel and shoulders respectively. This was what Arjuna did, as Karna stood unarmed and defenceless. Those three arrows tore him into three pieces. The greatest hurdle on the Pandavas’ victory path was removed. But it was a victory that brought the celebrated archer disgrace that nothing could ever wipe out.

As Karna died, his father, god Sun, wept piteously. His brave son had been killed unjustly, in a manner that was entirely unworthy of him – without a fight. The fond father recounted the doings of his pious and illustrious son. His friend, Duryodhana, was inconsolable. He remembered with great gratitude the doings of his friend, lying dead in front of him. No loss till then had pained him as much as this.

The Pandavas were celebrating. Including the son of Dharma, known as the very embodiment of virtue on earth, who had gone to Karna for his blessings on the Kurukshetra battlefield and had received his blessings for victory, and who had always said that as Kunti’s eldest, Karna would be the king and they would all serve him. Had seventeen days of bloody, merciless killing deadened his sensitivities and made him see Karna only as a formidable enemy? As Karna lay dead, that was the moment for him to remember his elder brother and pay tribute to him with his tears. But he was celebrating. As for Arjuna, there is nothing in Sarala Mahabharata that he was ashamed of his adharmik act. Krishna had told him that just one danda stood between Pandavas’ victory and their defeat. Arjuna chose victory, as Yudhisthira had done earlier by consenting to tell a lie to his guru. But why couldn’t Arjuna shed a few tears to honour his eldest brother now that he was no more?

Incidentally, for the respective choices that Arjuna and Yudhisthira had made, there is no point in implicating Krishna. That would be against the spirit of Sarala Mahabharata – the avatara’s doings, leela, cannot be judged from the human perspective. From another point of view, which is not in dissonance with the spirit of Sarala’s narrative, Krishna persuaded, provoked, counselled Arjuna to act in a certain way, but he did not take away from him the choice to reject it. Destiny tempts humans with alluring alternatives but it is for the human to choose from among them. That choice both is and becomes his karma. 

Where were the mother’s tears? There weren’t any. The mother, her mind firmly fixed on revenge and comprehensive victory in the War, which alone could quench that wild fire, seemed to have gotten distanced from Karna. She seemed to have forgotten that he was her son. In her eyes he seemed to have become nothing other than an enemy of her sons, a hindrance to her aspirations. Even his death did not seem to change her perspective. If it had, she would have rushed to the battlefield to see her dead first born. She did not. 

The Great War was over and her son, Yudhisthira, had become the king. This was what Kunti had always wanted to happen. She had worked for it in many ways. But the Queen mother was no more at peace. The mother in her had asserted herself. What she had lost stole her sleep. She remembered her grandchildren: Abhimanyu, Ghatotkacha, and her relatives. And she remembered Karna. He was in her mind when she was awake and he was in her dreams when she was asleep. When she decided to join her brother-in-law Dhritarastra and sister-in-law Gandhari for vanaprastha, she condemned Arjuna, called him papistha (sinner) who had killed her virtuous (satyavanta) son. The mother seemed to have been redeemed through suffering. As for the son, Sarala restored his mother to him in death.          

THE DEATH OF ARJUNA, NAKULA AND SAHADEVA

There was nothing dramatic about the death of Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva in Sarala Mahabharata. Unlike Bhima’s death. Weak, hungry and tired in the extreme, these three brothers were unable to cope with the terrible weather in the snowy, windy Himalayas and one after another Sahadeva, Nakula and Arjuna in that order slipped as they were following Yudhisthira and fell to their death.  Sarala does not give many couplets to them as he winds up their story. Swargarohana Parva is about Yudhisthira – it is his story. Other characters have to disappear from the stage quickly, quietly and of course elegantly, so that the focus remains on the son of Dharma at this stage in the narrative. 

Since natural deaths are of no narrative interest, what is of interest about these three brothers here is how they are judged by Yudhisthira  – in what way each was a dosi (wrong doer, sinner, in this context) in his eyes – in the eyes of Dharma, that is, at this stage of the story. Sahadeva fell before Nakula and Arjuna, but we will turn to him last. When Nakula hit a slab of snow and fell, Bhima pleaded with Yudhisthira to halt for a while. As one lies dying is the time to mourn him with words of praise. As he wept, Bhima recounted his bravery and his prowess. He was the one who had held the earth on the tip of his spike. For rajaswiya jajna, he had fought and defeated many Southern kings. And didn’t he always have more affection for Nakula and Sahadeva, his co-brothers, than for him and Arjuna, his own brothers, Bhima asked his elder brother. Which spirit had entered him, such an affectionate brother, and such a virtuous person, and had made him so indifferent and callous to them all, Bhima asked – more “wondered” than “asked”. Nakula was so very handsome, Bhima continued and now he looked pale as death was claiming him. But the one to whom his words were addressed was climbing the mountain, taking long steps, without a thought about who was following him and who was dying. Leave Nakula, said Yudhisthira at last; no need to talk about his charms and prowess, which are meaningless when one faces death. In half a couplet Yudhisthira declares his dosa: he endlessly gloated over his charms - ...apana sundara apane bakhanai. Leave him, said Yudhisthira to Bhima.

Soon Arjuna fell. Bhima again pleaded with his elder brother to stop and turn to his brother. Unequalled in war, he had won countless victories. He had defeated even Krishna and Balarama at the time of Subhadra’s wedding, had single-handedly defeated the Kauravas in the Virata war, and had pleased the mighty Hanuman by making a bridge of arrows on the sea. He had saved Dwaraka from Gosingha’s attack and Kapilasa (in Odisha), the abode of Shiva, from Kumbheka’s. Kind hearted and generous, he had always empathised with those in distress; he had made many happy. His eyes were closing, said Bhima to Yudhisthira with great urgency in his voice; he must comfort him with his presence, he implored. 

Yudhisthira asked Bhima not to grieve; the dead would not return to life in response to the tears shed for him. Arjuna’s punya (good karma) had brought him that far, he said, and that exhausted, he had to die. He was a great sinner: ye bada dosi, said Yudhisthira. He was proud and arrogant and vaunted his glory. He would boast of his victory over Shiva, and was never tired of bragging how he had conquered all in battle - gods, demons and humans, and how because of him, he, Yudhisthira could rule as the emperor. He was an ignoramus, a sinner, he told Bhima. 

We must return to Sahadeva now, who we had left behind. He was unable to walk any further, the youngest Pandava told his eldest brother, and in an imploring tone, he suggested to him that they rest there for the day and resume their journey the following morning but even before he could complete, he collapsed. Save me, O Dharma, was all he said before he slipped into silence for ever. Disconsolate, Bhima placed him on his lap. He was wise, Bhima told Yudhisthira, was a man of virtue, of conscience, and a person with exceptional vision, he knew what was to happen. He was his able minister and aided by his knowledge, he had ruled the world, he told him as though he was reminding him of something he had forgotten. He must stop for a while, he pleaded with him; how could he walk ahead when his brother who had served him with such devotion was lying dead? What would he do on the mountain top leaving behind such a brother, he asked him. His dosa was great, Yudhisthira answered; he, Bhima, should not weep over the death of a sinner and resume his climb, he said. Bhima was unhappy and unconvinced. He should tell him what his dosa was, and only then he would leave him, was what he told him. He almost challenged his brother. He had never spoken to him like this – not at the time of Draupadi’s death or Nakula’s or Arjuna’s. 

Yudhisthira’s words were pitiless. Sahadeva was the knower of the past and the future, said the eldest Pandava; he could only look at his palm and he would see what was to happen. But he would not utter a word unless someone asked him.  He wouldn’t utter a word of warning even when one was on the edge of a precipice, as it were. The game of dice and their exile wouldn’t have happened had he told him what was going to happen. His silence was the cause of their misery and he felt no sorrow on account of his death, he told Bhima. In one stroke he absolved himself from his own indiscretion, lack of perspective and disregard for Bhishma’s advice during the games of dice and put the blame on his younger brother and made him an adhami (one who violates dharma). The son of Dharma seemed to have forgotten that Sahadeva too had undergone exile with his brothers. On many occasions on being consulted, Sahadeva had said things that had benefited the Pandavas immensely. But when it came to making a judgement on him, even the virtuous and the sagacious eldest Pandava remembered only his difficult times for which he held him responsible, but not the many experiences of relief and joy of which that same person was the cause. Even after hearing from Yudhisthira about the dosa of Sahadeva, Bhima did not leave his brother. Instead he begged him to stop and take one last look at his wise minister. Give him up and shed no tears, was all he told Bhima. 

In Sarala Mahabharata Sahadeva was not constrained to tell what was going to happen except when asked; here he chose to keep quiet when no one asked him. Yudhisthira strongly condemned his attitude of keeping knowledge to himself when sharing it would have eliminated suffering and pain. He didn’t think that there was any merit in withholding knowledge from others until consulted. Withholding a word that would have helped was a sin, in the judgement of the son of Dharma. Is it possible that he considered this attitude nothing short of plain arrogance? From one point of view, the dosas of these three brothers related to speech: what must be spoken and what must not be. One could enjoy one’s achievements and attributes alone in silence and not speak about the same. And one must not remain silent when speaking would help.  

One would think that Yudhisthira’s judgement would have been far harsher had he known what all his younger brother and trusted minister had done, about which he had no knowledge. In the second game of dice that led to the Pandavas’ exile, it was Sahadeva who had rolled the dice for both Yudhisthira and Duryodhana. Gifted with a special vision, he knew that Yudhisthira’s defeat would serve the divine purpose; therefore, he deliberately rolled the dice in order to ensure his brother’s defeat. He sided with the gods but betrayed his trusting brother. Again, later, both Krishna and he had betrayed Yudhisthira when the avatara went to the Kaurava court as his emissary. Peace was not in Krishna’ mind; war was. And in Sahadeva’s too, probably because, being all knowing, he knew that the avatara’s will would prevail, so the best or the only thing he could do was to become an instrument of his will - the cosmic will. Yudhisthira had instructed Krishna to ask for just one village from Duryodhana and he hadn’t asked for any particular village. As Krishna consulted his brothers individually, he found that each brother wanted one village for himself. Nakula wanted two, one for himself and one for Sahadeva. Sahadeva wanted nothing. As the one who had chosen to surrender to Krishna’s will, all he told him was that he must ask for what could simply not be given and thereby ensure war. He named the villages. As he characterized each, it ceased to be an existing village. Each village was a concept to be actualized in terms of new boundaries of space. He would have no place on earth to even stand on, if he decided to give anything to Narayana, warned Sakuni – the one in Sarala Mahabharata who worked for the avatara while creating the impression that he was working against him – and Duryodhana realized how correct his uncle was when Krishna named the villages. But this is no place for details of that episode. There was so much else that Sahadeva was doing without his brother’s knowledge. Just one more example would suffice here: Sahadeva and Sakuni were working together to destroy the Kauravas. Yudhisthira was ignorant about both Sahadeva and Sakuni.

As the narrative leaves Sahadeva in the snowy loneliness of the Himalayan cliffs and proceeds to tell the story about his brothers’ destinies, some of us, Sarala’s audience, distanced from him by more than five centuries, should like to stay for a while with the lifeless body of the youngest Pandava and shed tears for him, uncomfortable with Sarala’s resolution of Sahadeva’s karma. And as we do so, we should like to ask Dharma whether it is ethical to divulge what one knows and whether doing so is an obligation of the knower to his community. As for the argument that one must judiciously do so, isn’t it the case that the knowledge that helps one may harm another? When the fight between a Kaurava and a Pandava was evenly poised in the Kurukshetra war field, didn’t Sahadeva’s special knowledge bring victory to the Pandava and death to his adversary? Was this in consonance with the spirit of agreed code for the Kurukshetra war?  Knowing the nature of knowledge, wouldn’t it be ethical not to at least volunteer to share what one knows, especially the potentially dangerous knowledge of what is to come? Isn’t this what Sahadeva did? It’s a different matter when one asks. One, who everyone around him knows to be the knower of the future, cannot remain in sansara (mundane world) and remain silent - one will never be forgiven for it. And if one speaks, dharma of speech would demand that one speaks the truth. As we question Yudhisthira’s condemnation of Sahadeva and mourn over the unfortunate man, we ask the Giver of all knowledge why give one an ordinary man the knowledge of the past and the future and condemn him to live a worldly life among sansaris (those who live a life of sansara)?  

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.