THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 1 (33 page)

FIFTY-EIGHT THE CROCODILES
 

Arjuna went from tirtha to tirtha and each one purified him. He sat in dhyana in the hearts of unknown forests, under great trees that had themselves stood rooted in tapasya for an age; he felt renewed and at peace. The years flowed by. Once, he came to a jungle where he found some friendly rishis. Arjuna stayed with them for a few days and heard the mythic lore of the south from them. When he told them he was on a pilgrimage to the holiest tirthas of Bharatavarsha, they advised him on the best route to take so he would miss none of them.

But he noticed they left out five of the most sacred river-fords, where, in bygone days, the greatest sages had sat in tapasya and been rewarded with visions of the God they worshipped and with boons. Arjuna asked the hermits why the route they charted for him did not lead to those five pilgrim’s fords.

One of them replied, “There is a savage beast at each tirtha, which drags bathers down and devours them.”

Another said, “Many hunters have tried to end the curse of the crocodiles. But they all failed and many were killed themselves.”

That set Arjuna’s kshatriya blood coursing. “I am not afraid of crocodiles. If you show me the way to the nearest tirtha, I will bathe there.”

The eldest rishi said, “These are not ordinary crocodiles. If you bathe at any of those tirthas, it will be your last ablution.”

Arjuna laughed, “The crocodile that seized my guru Drona once was not ordinary; but I killed it. Besides, I have a boon that I will be invincible in water. Show me the way to the tirtha, Munis and you yourselves shall bathe there soon.”

The hermits took him to the nearest ford. One of them said, “The creature has never been seen ashore. The only way to find it is to enter the river.”

The munis remained at a safe distance from the water. It was late afternoon. Removing the cloth he wore across his chest, Arjuna folded it on a dry rock. The Pandava dived into the current and began to swim with easy strokes.

The rishis stood anxiously, prayers on their lips. They were certain they would see the handsome kshatriya pulled down by intractable jaws and his blood stain the limpid water. They did not have long to wait. Arjuna cried to them, “There is no crocodile here, Munis! Come and join me, the water is fine and warm.”

The next moment, a creature big as a whale broke surface behind him. The rishis shouted a warning, but too late. A leviathan’s jaws closed round the Pandava’s waist and, without a splash, the armored beast dragged him under the river.

Below the water, Arjuna saw the creature that had seized him was a crocodile all right; but this was no crocodile such as he had seen or heard of before. It was a giant of the deeps, a dragon that belonged in the plumbless sea. As he went down, he saw Ulupi’s smiling face before him. He heard her say, “You shall be invincible in water, my love. It is my boon to you.”

As the monster dragged him to the riverbed, Arjuna felt a tide of new strength course into his body: as if the river knew he was a blessed one and took his side against the predator. Arjuna seized the crocodile’s jaws in his hands and, easily as opening a baby’s fist, wrenched open the maw that could have swallowed a small island.

For a moment, the beast was startled. Arjuna seized it by the neck and snout, clamping its jaws shut. He kicked his legs and swam powerfully toward the surface and the sunlight that creature loathed. The crocodile threshed about and tried to beat the terrible human off with its whiplike tail; but Arjuna was stronger. Inexorably, he rose into the daylight and there, with arms like time, he dragged the giant lizard into the shallows.

Now the rishis began to cheer him, though still from a safe distance. In shallow water, the crocodile went limp in his arms. With hardly a struggle, it allowed itself to be hauled ashore, where it lay heaving for breath. Arjuna stood panting beside the dying creature when suddenly, the hermits gave a shout.

A transformation came over the scaly monster: in a flash of light, the huge lizard turned into an unearthly woman! Her delicate body shimmered; her hair cascaded from her enchanting head, dark and full of fascination. She was taller than Arjuna; she folded her hands to him in absolute reverence. Of the demon crocodile, there was no trace.

“Who are you?” cried Arjuna.

In a voice out of dreams, she replied, “I am an apsara of Devaloka, mighty Kshatriya.”

“But how were you the monster, or are you still one deceiving me?”

She laughed and it was a heavenly sound. Arjuna smiled at his own suspicion; no demoness could laugh like that, so full of joy. The apsara said, “The monster was what I became when I was cursed. Once, my four friends and I came down to earth to bathe in this river. We saw a rishi at his tapasya. We challenged one another to tempt the holy one from his dhyana.

By moonlight, we came to him, singing softly, dancing and wearing not a stitch on ourselves. For a long time, he sat unmoving. Then his eyes fluttered open and we thought he had succumbed. For a moment, he gazed at us in the warm light of the moon and we wondered which of us he would choose first. He was obviously a man of power and we all yearned to lie with him.

After staring at us for a moment, he cursed us. ‘The Gods have not made you beautiful to disturb a rishi’s dhyana. You are arrogant and I will take your beauty from you for a hundred years. Become ugly lizards from now and man-eaters, for your spirits are vulgar and rapacious. A hundred years should shear some pride from you. One day, a kshatriya will come to this place and free you from my curse. Until then live only in the water and feed on whatever you find in it.’

He rose and walked away. We stood naked, burning with shame and we felt ourselves turn into the beasts we became. We heard ourselves hiss and growl at each other and the land was made of fire, so we fled from it into the river. We had become so fierce we would have devoured one another if we had stayed together. My friends swam away from here and they haunt four other tirthas.

I beg you, Kshatriya, free them as well.”

There were tears in her eyes as she told her story and now, she surely seemed as humble as she was beautiful. Arjuna said, “Apsara, I was going with the munis to the other tirthas anyway. Come with us, if you like and find your friends again.”

In a few days, on the banks of the same river, but four fords upstream, not one but five apsaras stood gratefully before Arjuna. In more or less similar fashion, he had freed them all from the rishi’s curse. Some say the nymphs rewarded Arjuna, spending five nights of abandon with him in the forest. Whatever the truth, he did not tarry long with them or they in the world. They were impatient to return to Devaloka, from where they had come a hundred years ago for a bath in the river.

When they left him, the Pandava longed to see his son and returned to Manalur. He stayed a month with Chitrangadaa and her young prince, Arjuna’s first child, whom they named Babhruvahana. On an auspicious day, Chitrasena held a solemn ceremony in his sabha, during which Arjuna formally presented his son to that king, saying, “My lord, now free me of my debt: I give you my son to be your heir.”

He set out again and went south once more. Traveling from tirtha to tirtha, crossing the western mountains, he came into Kerala and, finally, to the southern-most tip of Bharatavarsha, where he bathed in the sea at sunrise and sunset.

Now his heart yearned for home and, not stopping anywhere, he journeyed north along the western coast, along pristine beaches where few men had ever set foot. Arjuna went north with the wind in his face and the tide echoing in his body: the crash of waves against stark promontories and their wash over virgin sands in silver grottoes where he spent many nights under stars hanging like lanterns above. Full moons streamed wild longing into his blood and set his fantasies alight.

An extraordinary passion possessed him, as he made his way slowly up the coast and came at last to Prabhasa. Here, were those that may still recognize him. He let his hair hang loose and his beard down to his waist. He smeared himself thickly with ashes, covered his chest with string upon string of rudraksha beads, which are the Lord Siva’s tears of mercy for the world. He carried a trisula in his hand and walked through the streets of the blessed city as a yati, a wild Sivabhakta.

His heart played strange tricks on him. Memories from his youth, which he had thought long buried, rose, fresh and untamed, in his mind: memories of when Krishna’s cousin Gada came with the other young Vrishni boys to learn archery from Drona in Hastinapura. Gada had described Krishna’s sister Subhadra vividly to Arjuna. The adolescent Arjuna had fallen in love with her then, without seeing her but only from hearing Gada’s warm descriptions.

Prabhasa was just a short way from Dwaraka, city in the ocean, where Krishna ruled. Arjuna the yati dreamt incessantly of his cousin, the ravishing Subhadra. In Prabhasa, she became his obsession, a sweet mania; it was as if she called him to her, subtly, irresistibly. He knew he must either escape from this country at once, or go to Dwaraka and make her his wife. Otherwise, he would lose his mind beside the sea.

At nights, Arjuna sat under a giant banyan tree at the heart of Prabhasa, pretending to be lost in dhyana, while, in fact, visions of Subhadra gave him no peace. The greatest kshatriya on earth was vanquished by an insane love: for a woman he had never set eyes on! One evening, in despair, he sat under the immense awning of the tree and began to think of Krishna. Arjuna remembered his blue cousin’s parting words, as he left Indraprastha, ‘Think of me and I will come to you.’

For the first time since he arrived in Prabhasa, Arjuna actually sat meditating. Not a hundred yards away, the sea was all fluid thunder; and then it began to pour. In flashes, the setting sun also slanted his crimson and gold through the torrents of the sky. Night fell and it rained on. Arjuna sat unmoving, soaked through, his heart frozen around one frantic desire.

FIFTY-NINE THE RAIVATAKA HILL
 

On Dwaraka, also, it was pouring. Waves climbed over the outer walls and spilled into the streets of the city of miracles, which the Devas had raised in the sea for the Avatara. Krishna was with his wife Satyabhama tonight. It was past midnight and they lay together, after love.

Then Krishna grew restless. He rose and paced the room; often going to the windows that looked out at the lashing storm outside. Satyabhama lay quiescent, watching him. Suddenly her unpredictable husband began to laugh.

“What is it, Krishna?”

“I was thinking what love does to the greatest men. My valiant cousin Arjuna has been on a pilgrimage throughout Bharatavarsha. He has purified himself at all the holiest tirthas and now he has come to Prabhasa disguised as a yati, his beard down to his chest and jata hanging to his shoulders.

The mighty Pandava sits under an old banyan tree, soaked to the bone and staring at the sea. But it isn’t a call of the spirit that has brought him to Prabhasa.” He smiled in the dark, “I fear he is unhinged with love and too shy to come seeking love’s satisfaction here, in Dwaraka. So he sits drenched in the storm and calls for my help.”

“Whom does he love in Dwaraka?”

“My sister Subhadra, about whom Gada told him when he was a boy and he has never forgotten her. Poor Arjuna suffers; let me go to him and put an end to his misery.”

“Now?”

“What better time?”

He pulled on his clothes and kissing her stole out into the squally night. Satyabhama sighed, but knew better than to protest or worry about him. She turned on her side and was soon asleep.

Thunder and lightning gashed the midnight sky over Prabhasa and Arjuna sat numb in the furious storm. He hardly saw the jagged whiplashes of lightning; he barely heard the heartstopping thunder. He did not mind the walls of rain that fell from the dark sky and breached the canopy of his tree. Once he began to think of Krishna, Arjuna found he had some respite from the relentless visions of Subhadra that tormented him.

A towering bolt of blue lightning briefly connected sky and earth. It fell into the sea, lighting up the swollen waves for an electric moment. Then, all was darkness again and the thunder, which followed on winged heels of the serpent lightning, erupted among the clouds. When the last echoes of that awesome peal died, out of the perfectly black night a voice spoke to Arjuna, “I wonder, cousin, if your thoughts really suit your hermit’s garb!” and the familiar laugh, full of tender mockery.

“Krishna!”

Arjuna jumped up and, next moment, they were hugging each other in the storm.

Arjuna cried, “So at last you heard I was here.”

Krishna murmured, “I couldn’t sleep for hearing you call me.”

Seeing the amazed look on the Pandava’s face, he laughed and hugged him again. Now Arjuna did not shiver with the wind that ripped across sea and land, but with the thought that his uncanny cousin may have known his other, more intimate fantasies.

“But come, we can’t stand out here all night. Let me bring you closer to Dwaraka, though not yet to the city, not until tomorrow.”

The Pandava allowed himself to be led to the gleaming chariot that stood nearby, a chariot he could not fathom, this night or ever. He had often imagined it flashed not only over land, but flitted through the air, as if the exotic thing belonged to another order of reality. Yet, he could never be quite certain.

They came to the Raivataka, to the side of the hill away from the storm and the sea. Krishna led Arjuna to a dry cave and settled him there.

“For another night, then; tomorrow you will come to Dwaraka. But first, there is someone I would like you to see, here on Raivataka.” Krishna’s eyes twinkled at the Pandava. “Someone I rather think you want to see yourself.”

He would say no more however Arjuna pressed him. Yawning and saying that he was no yati and Satyabhama would be waiting for him in bed, Krishna went off into the night. Exhausted, but at peace, Arjuna fell asleep in the cave. He dreamt all night of a young woman he had never seen before.

When he awoke the next morning, Arjuna went down to a stream that sprang nearby. He bathed in the crisp water and, standing in the swift flow, performed Suryanamaskara. As he left the stream, he heard voices round the corner of a rough trail that wound its way to the summit of Raivataka. They were full of cheer that the sky had cleared so miraculously; last night, they had been certain there would be no feast today.

“Krishna made the storm pass!” said one young man who had come to prepare for the feast.

Arjuna hid from the Yadavas. He skirted the path and climbed above them. He hid behind a boulder perched conveniently above the flat clearing where the feast was to be. He sat watching the Vrishnis at their outing. The view from here was spectacular, out over a smoky sea stretching away to the curved horizon. The air had been washed so clean by the night’s rain, Arjuna fancied he could see out of this world into other realms.

The clearing below him, on the hill’s broad shoulder, was obviously a favorite spot for the Yadavas. There was a temple at the heart of the clearing and around it pavilions for a banquet in the open. There were rows of stone tables and seats, on which the servants sent in advance now laid plates of silver and cushions of down and silk. Other Yadavas arrived and, with them, mule-carts laden with piles of fragrant food. Quickly, the tables were heaped with all sorts of delicacies, as the mild sun rose higher.

Arjuna heard singing round the corner of the path and the tinkling of women’s anklets. Peering around his rock, he saw a small throng of Yadava women. They were dressed for the occasion and carried lamps and offerings for the deity in the little temple. They were resplendent in the sun. When Arjuna saw the young woman who led the others up the winding path, his chest grew tight and he felt short of breath. She pierced him like a streak of last night’s lightning. All his daydreams about Subhadra vanished: Arjuna was on fire for this young beauty, whoever she was.

The Pandava almost fell on to the path when, suddenly, a laconic voice said behind him, “I fear, my good Yati, the thoughts in your heart don’t suit your hermit’s garb at all.”

Krishna stood smiling at him. How he had climbed here, Arjuna could not imagine. The only way was the one by which the Pandava had hauled himself up; and he would certainly have seen his cousin if he had come that way. Behind Arjuna’s back was a sheer cliff that fell a hundred feet. But this was Krishna and one quickly learnt not to inquire too closely what he did, or how. Moreover, Arjuna only had just the one question that came tumbling out the moment he saw Krishna.

“Who is she?” he whispered desperately.

“Who?” asked Krishna, innocently.

“She who leads the puja,” breathed the Pandava.

Krishna laughed softly. “That is my half-sister Subhadra. She is Balarama’s sister. You like her, do you, Arjuna?”

Arjuna clutched Krishna’s hand and said hoarsely, “I love her! I love her so much it makes me mad just to look at her. I feel as if my body and soul are on fire. I must marry her, Krishna and you must help me.”

Arjuna’s eyes never left the lovely Subhadra below, as she performed the arati to the God in the temple. Krishna smiled, “Ah, poor Yati, you are truly lost. I will help you, isn’t that my dharma? Come, climb down from here when no one can see you and go back to your cave. Sit there in dhyana, deep dhyana, Yati!” He paused. “Until you are discovered. Then be brave: give no sign of who you are to anyone or your cause is lost. Not even Balarama will recognize you as long as you do not give yourself away. Be perfectly calm, Arjuna and watch what happens.”

The Blue One gave a sigh. “After all, of the different kinds of marriage, the one of love is the highest. You cousin, must make her fall in love with you, as you have with her. I will go and mingle with the others. You sit very still in your cave, with your eyes shut, as if you have seen or heard nothing. Lost in samadhi, Arjuna, which should not be too hard, seeing how you have someone to meditate on now.

My brother Balarama is the man for you, he can never resist a holy yati.”