The Mahabharata: A Modern Rendering (2 Vols.), page 76
She gasped, but he went on, “This forest is no place for you. Is this the life your husbands should give a woman like you? I will keep you as you should be kept, as a queen.”
Her eyes flashed at him. She cried like fire, “Aren’t you ashamed? You should be like a brother to me. You come from a noble house, but there is no dharma in you. Don’t you fear for your life when the Pandavas hear about this? They will not spare you, Jayadratha.”
He grinned like a beast in rut. “Your husbands don’t scare me, woman. I want you, and I intend to have you.”
He seized her, flung her easily across his shoulder and strode back to his chariot. Draupadi’s cries rang through the silent forest. “Wretch! Dare you defile me? Let me down! Let me go!”
Dhaumya came running to hear her. He cried in horror at Jayadratha, “What are you doing, O king?”
“Out of my way, priest! This is the kshatriya way, honoured through the ages.”
“By kshatriya dharma you may not carry her away without facing her husbands in battle! This is a sin, and you will taste the fruit of your madness. Let her go, Jayadratha, there is still time to save yourself.”
Jayadratha pushed Dhaumya out of his way, and climbed into his chariot. “Ride!” he cried. “Today, I have the finest prize in the world.”
They rode away through the forest, Draupadi screaming, and Jayadratha deaf to her cries. Dhaumya picked himself up, and ran along beside the footsoldiers of that force, who laughed at him, but did not turn him away.
Meanwhile, on the hunt, Yudhishtira suddenly said, “Look how the animals wheel to the left. Look at the flights of the birds.”
Arjuna breathed, “There is some danger in the asrama.”
They came running back, to find Draupadi’s sakhi, Dhatreyika, in tears and Dhaumya’s brahmanas panicstricken.
“What happened?” cried Yudhishtira.
The woman only sobbed hysterically, pointing where Jayadratha had gone.
“Where is Panchali?” Bheema roared, and the forest trembled.
The terrified sakhi cried, “Jayadratha carried her off, and Dhaumya followed them. That way!” and she fainted.
All five Pandavas went after Jayadratha. Running through the forest they knew well by now, flying along secret trails, they quickly caught up with the Sindhu king, who went along rather nonchalantly with his soldiers. All at once, a rage of arrows flared out from the trees, from the sky, from everywhere. In moments, Jayadratha’s legion lay dead around him. Leaving Draupadi, he leapt out of his chariot and fled.
Dhaumya roared like any kshatriya, and ran forward to embrace the Pandavas.
Sahadeva cut away the ropes with which Jayadratha had bound Draupadi. She clung to him fervently, then came to her other husbands, sobbing in relief.
Yudhishtira said, “We were fortunate. Our boyhood lessons in reading omens were not wasted, after all.”
Arjuna murmured, “More than a hundred men dead.”
Bheema’s eyes blazed. “I will go after that wretch. He won’t live after what he did!”
Yudhishtira said, “I will not allow you to kill him. He is Dussala’s husband, and mother Gandhari will be heartbroken if you make a widow of her only daughter.”
But Draupadi cried, “If you love me at all, you will kill the beast!”
That was enough for Bheema. He said, “Yudhishtira, go back to the asrama with Draupadi. Sahadeva, Nakula, go with him. Arjuna, come with me!”
He plunged into the forest after Jayadratha. The jungle held no mystery for Bheema and Arjuna, while Jayadratha kept slipping on soft earth, or tripping over roots sprung from nowhere in his path. He fell so often the two Pandavas soon caught up with him. Jayadratha ran for his very life, but Arjuna and Bheema taunted him, crying, “Is this the valour of the Sindhus?”
“What kshatriya are you, that you run so swiftly from a fight?”
“Or do you only fight women, coward?”
Jayadratha had to turn and face them. In a blur, Arjuna shot his bow out of his hands, and then, with a chilling roar, Bheema was on him. Bheema caught Jayadratha by his hair and flung him down to the ground. He stamped on that king’s face and head until Jayadratha fainted. Still, Bheema kicked him. Arjuna pulled him away, crying, “You will kill him!”
But Bheema was beside himself. He pulled a crescent-headed arrow from Arjuna’s quiver and began to shave the Sindhu king’s head. Half his hair and moustaches Bheema shaved, and left half of them—in fact, five tufts—so his victim could not have looked more ludicrous. Jayadratha awoke, whimpering.
Bheema said, “So you are still alive, wretch. But not for long, unless you cry out that you are the Pandavas’ slave. Go on, shout it for the world to hear!”
Without hesitating, Jayadratha yelled, “I am the Pandavas’ slave! I am the Pandavas’ slave!” so the forest rang with his cry.
Bheema growled, “Who is to hear you in this jungle? I would kill you anyway, except that Arjuna never kills a beaten enemy. I have no such compunction, but my brother Yudhishtira says it will break little Dussala’s heart, and mother Gandhari’s heart, if we kill you. But, oh, how my hands itch to wring your neck!”
Jayadratha whimpered louder, when he saw the look in Bheema’s eyes. Arjuna said, “You have punished him enough. Let us take him back to the asrama before you change your mind.”
They bound Jayadratha’s hands, tied a rope round his neck and led him back to the asrama like a dog. Flinging him down at Yudhishtira’s feet, Bheema cried, “Tell Panchali that this cur has declared himself our slave!”
Bheema kicked the kneeling Jayadratha down flat on his face at Draupadi’s feet. She said, “That will do, Bheema; you have humiliated him, and I am satisfied. Spare his life.”
Yudhishtira pulled Jayadratha up and said, “I set you free. Go now, but never repeat what you did today.”
Reluctantly, Bheema cut Jayadratha’s bonds. That king prostrated himself at Yudhishtira’s feet and then, getting up, ran into the jungle without a word. The Pandavas went back to their daily chores, the routine of the asrama, but Jayadratha ran blindly through the trees, his eyes streaming. He could not return to his kingdom, for the world would soon know of his shame. He flew through the jungle as if trying to escape from himself; until, exhausted, he came to the banks of the Ganga, and flung himself down on the moss beside the river.
In that place, he sat in tapasya. For a year he sat, his heart on fire, worshipping Siva. At last, Siva appeared before him in a mass of light. The Lord said, “What boon do you want, that you worship me like this?”
Jayadratha prostrated himself at the feet of the vision. He said, “Lord, grant me that I defeat all the Pandavas in battle one day.”
Siva said, “Not a lifetime’s tapasya would be enough for you to have that boon from me. The Pandavas’ dharma is great; their valour is greater. They are invincible and dark Krishna protects Arjuna. But this much I will grant you: if you meet the other four Pandavas in battle, you shall hold them up by yourself. More than that, I cannot do.”
Somewhat mollified that, at least, he would have his moment of triumph, Jayadratha returned to his kingdom.
A few days after Jayadratha tried to kidnap Draupadi, Markandeya returned to the Pandavas’ asrama. It was a time when they were all disturbed by what had happened, and the rishi’s coming was like balm to them. As always, he was full of lustrous stories; the brothers forgot their troubles, as they sat late into the nights listening to him.
Yudhishtira was deeply shaken by the incident with Jayadratha; it hurt him most because Jayadratha was Dussala’s husband. On his last visit, Markandeya had told Yudhishtira about Nala, the king of Nishada, whose exile had not been unlike Yudhishtira’s own. Now, the muni told them about Rama of Ayodhya, whose trials were harder than his. He told the story of Savitri, who turned Yama, Death himself, away with her wisdom and devotion.
Indeed, Markandeya came to the sons of Pandu as if the Gods sent him, at a time when Yudhishtira, particularly, was so full of guilt: a time when there was no telling what the eldest Pandava might have done, because his will was almost broken. More than anyone, in those trying days, the Rishi Markandeya gave Yudhishtira the strength to carry on along the narrow path of dharma.
But the Pandava suffered torments of self-reproach in that twelfth year. He blamed himself endlessly for what had happened to his family, his conscience gave him no peace. Long after the night’s stories were told, long after the moon had set, Yudhishtira would lie awake or sit out under the tree in the clearing by himself under a sky full of stars. ravaged by the enormity of all that happened to them because of his weakness. In those days, another face haunted him with terror: the strong, rebellious face of the enemy whom Yudhishtira was obsessed with, for no reason he could name, the man he feared most. The remarkable face of Karna haunted Yudhishtira relentlessly.
Over and over, he saw Karna urging Duryodhana to strip Draupadi in the Kuru sabha on the day of the gambling. Again and again, he heard Karna’s arrogant voice, ‘She is a slut shared by five men, and now she will have more than five!’
In that twelfth year of their exile, Yudhishtira, who had been the most restrained of his brothers, who had always advocated dharma and restraint, found that, when he was awake at nights and all the others slept, bloody visions of revenge possessed him. Every cell in his body felt as if it were on fire. All these years, he had been accused of being too patient and forgiving, of not being a true kshatriya. His brother Bheema, who had most accused Yudhishtira of all this, would have been shocked if he had seen into his older brother’s heart, during their last year in the jungle.
But Yudhishtira was different from Bheema. He was a master of his emotions—perhaps, even because they were so strong—while Bheema followed his like a child. Pandu’s eldest son could hardly resist the anxiety and impatience that raged in him during that twelfth year. There were nights when he was tempted to awaken Bheema and give the order to march on Hastinapura in the morning: because he could no longer contain the fury he felt. But somehow, Yudhishtira proved equal to the trial of those days and nights. All he did was to move, again, from the Kamyaka back to Dwaitavana.
His brothers saw how drawn and uneasy he was. They saw the dark rings around his eyes, his distracted manner, and, knowing he was tried by fire, they grieved for him. But there was little else they could do.
THIRTY-FIVE
The lake of death
IT WAS THE LAST MONTH OF THEIR EXILE IN THE JUNGLE. THE PANDAVAS were back in the asrama at Dwaitavana. One clear morning, a distraught old brahmana arrived there. Breathless from having run through the forest, he cried to Yudhishtira, “Help me, O king! You must help me or my puja will be ruined.”
“What happened, Muni, to disturb your puja?”
“I had hung the arani sticks I use to kindle my sacred fire on the branch of a tree in my asrama. I went into my hut to fetch some ghee for the fire, when I saw a stag run under the tree. The string of the aranis got entangled in the stag’s antlers. They were the same aranis my father and grandfather used, and I cannot perform my puja without them. Kshatriyas, you must find the stag, and retrieve my kindling-sticks!”
He was so upset he sat down and cried. Yudhishtira and his brothers set out at once in the direction the brahmana pointed, where the stag had gone. Their eyes peeled and their bows in their hands, the Pandavas ran through the familiar jungle. Scraping their bodies against trees, scratching themselves against thorn-bushes until they bled, they combed the forest. They saw no sign of the stag.
After two hours, they came to a part of the jungle they did not know, and they were exhausted. Panting, they flung themselves down at the foot of a fine pipal tree. They were as distraught as the brahmana; for it is a kshatriya’s inviolable dharma to help anyone who comes to him in need, specially, a rishi.
Nakula said in despair, “Yudhishtira, why are we cursed like this?”
Parched with thirst, Yudhishtira replied, “My child, in times of misfortune, troubles never come singly. It is to be a trial that they come, and we hardly know why: whether for any fault of ours or not. All we can do is bear them resolutely. Those that are enlightened say that whatever we experience in this life, good and bad, are the fruit of our own karma of the past, of our punya and paapa.”
Bheema was quick to seize his chance. “Suffering is always punishment for past sins. And I know what my sin is: I should have never left Dusasana and Duryodhana alive after what they did to Draupadi!”
Arjuna agreed quietly, “You are right, Bheema. I should have never spared Karna after what he said to her that day. But I let him live, and I am paying for my sin.”
The mood infected Sahadeva; he cried, “I longed to kill Shakuni, but I stayed my hand. That is why we are suffering like this. Now we shall have the brahmana’s curse as well.”
Yudhishtira smiled at them. “This is no time to reproach ourselves. Thirst churns our minds; we must find some water. Nakula, my brother, climb this tree and see if there is any water nearby.”
Nakula already regretted his innocent query. He shinned up the tall pipal, to its crown. The view of the forest was spectacular, a thousand virescent shades of green, and, away to the left, he saw the blue sparkle of water.
He called down, “I see a lake through the trees, not far from here.”
Yudhishtira said, “I am too tired to go another step. Come down, Nakula, and fetch us some water in these quivers.”
As Nakula ran through the forest with the quivers strapped to his back, he had the eerie feeling of entering a charmed zone of the jungle. The trees were all unfamiliar, and the birds in them sang songs he had never heard. But he pressed on, and arrived at the water he had seen from the treetop. It was indeed a calm, blue lake, so inviting that he rushed to it and knelt to quench his searing thirst.
As he raised the cool water in cupped palms, a voice spoke in that place like a crack of thunder. “You may not drink the water from my lake until you have answered my riddles!”
Startled, Nakula looked around; but he saw no one. He bent his face, and drank thirstily. Hardly had the sweet, fresh water passed his lips, when the Pandava keeled over, his face turning blue. He fell into a deep swoon, like death.
Meanwhile, back under the pipal tree, the others waited impatiently for Nakula. When there was no sign of him for an hour, Yudhishtira said to Sahadeva, “The lake was not so far that he should be this long. Go and see what has happened to him.”
Sahadeva arrived at the lake, and saw Nakula lying dead.
Sahadeva cried, “You have died of thirst, my brother! I had better drink quickly.”
He knelt beside the water, and made to fill his cupped hands. Again, the voice spoke crisply out of the very air. “You may not drink from my lake until you have answered my riddles!”
But Sahadeva thought it was a hallucination of his thirst. He drank a mouthful of water, and he also fell in the deathlike swoon beside Nakula. Another half-hour went by, then Arjuna said, “I fear they are in some trouble. Shall I go and find them?”
Yudhishtira nodded. By now, the breath rasped in their fevered bodies. Arjuna arrived at the lake. He saw his brothers lay dead, their skin turning blue.
“Ah, who has murdered you, my little brothers? I won’t spare them!” cried Arjuna.
So parched was his throat, only a hollow whisper came from him. Realizing he would be easy prey for whoever had killed Nakula and Sahadeva, Arjuna knelt at the edge of the lake, cupped his palms and scooped up some water. Again, the mysterious voice spoke, “Kshatriya! Answer the riddles I have for you before you drink. Or you will also die.”
Arjuna whirled around and, in a blur, shot twenty arrows where he thought the voice spoke. A soft laugh mocked him. “You will kill innocent jungle creatures, Kshatriya, and you will sin. Answer my riddles, and drink freely from my lake.”
Arjuna thought this was some playful woodland spirit, and he could not bear his thirst any more. Ignoring the voice, he knelt and drank a deep draught of the cool water. Arjuna also keeled over, as if dead.
In a while, Bheema followed Arjuna to the lake. When he saw his brothers, he thought this was the work of some forest yakshas, such as live in trees, have holes in their backs, and whose feet point behind them.
“Aaaahh!” roared Bheema weakly. “The yakshas will die for this. But first let me drink, or they may kill me too.”
Again, the voice spoke, “Don’t drink the water from my lake, until you have answered my riddles. Or you die.”
Bheema cried hoarsely, “I will drink. And then, you will die for what you have done to my brothers!”
He knelt, drank, and fell beside the others.
Yudhishtira waited another half-hour. By now, he was so weak and thirsty he was certain he could never reach the lake. But when Bheema also did not return, he rose with an effort, and stumbled through the trees after his brothers. He had no idea how far the water was, and, often almost falling, he staggered along with thirst savaging him.
The world was misting over before Yudhishtira’s eyes, when he arrived at the lake and saw his brothers lying dead. Yudhishtira was too weak to cry out. He tottered forward and collapsed on to his knees beside Bheema.
“Who has done this to my invincible brothers?” whispered Yudhishtira incredulously. “But no blood or struggle marks the place. They haven’t fought, yet they lie dead.”
He passed his hands over their faces. “There has been treachery here, and Duryodhana’s dearest wish has come true without a blow being struck in war. Has he done this thing? But by what sorcery? What will I tell Panchali? And Kunti? And to die now, when our exile is almost over.”
He took Bheema’s cold hand and cried, “Bheema, forgive me! I should have listened to you. We should have marched on Hastinapura years ago. How could I have been so blind? I caused you all so much grief, and now I have caused your deaths. Oh, my sweet brothers! You may forgive me for this, the Devas and Pitrs may forgive me; but I will never forgive myself.”
