THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 1 (56 page)

EIGHT ARJUNA’S QUEST
 

Arjuna walked slowly and the first hour of his journey was a sad one. In his mind, he saw his brothers downcast and he heard Draupadi crying. But after a while, he was truly on his way and his thoughts turned ahead of him. He wanted to test the pratismriti, which was an occult yogic siddhi. He summoned it and asked it to help him on his quest.

At first, nothing extraordinary seemed to happen and for a while, Arjuna thought the siddhi did not work. Then, with a rush of excitement, he realized he was travelling at several times his ordinary speed, as if he slipped in and out of many worlds. For there, already before him, he saw an incredible sight: in a short, magic hour, he had arrived at the foot of Gandhamadana, the fragrant mountain and gatekeeper to the heavens! This was normally a journey of weeks.

The scents of the wild herbs that grew on Gandhamadana and gave it its name, wafted down to Arjuna. He felt the mountain greeted him like an old friend. Arjuna folded his hands to the unmoving one and then, effortlessly, in no time, he crossed Gandhamadana as well and saw ahead of him Himavan, loftiest of ranges, guardian of the sacred realms. Arjuna lay on his face in the snow and worshipped the mountain-king, the Goddess Parvati’s terrestrial father.

On he pressed, through white, breathtaking terrain, through endless snow-drifts, across pristine icescapes where wonderful beings lived—kinnaras and kimpurushas, siddhas, charanas and gandharvas—until he saw a solitary peak before him, thrusting at the sky in splendid isolation: a mountain apart. It had an aura of being rarer, finer than the others; it was a spiritual mountain, more so than all the rest. Arjuna had never come this far north before. But he knew the name of the massif before him: it was the Indrakila.

A premonition of fortune dawning on him, the Pandava climbed that mountain along a rough trail he found. He still traveled magically, though his destination was only the middle heights and a suitable place to sit in tapasya. Soon, he saw an ideal-looking cave; but an old rishi, attenuated and bright-bodied, already sat meditating at its mouth.

The sage seemed astonished to see Arjuna. He said, “A strange thing indeed! Who are you, Kshatriya, who climb the Indrakila with a bow and a sword? They are exceptional weapons, surely, but there is no conflict in this place. There never has been and never shall be.” The old one squinted at him. “Rare, indeed, are those who find their way to this mountain. Those who come here do not subdue others with weapons, but only themselves with wisdom!”

He paused, scrutinizing the Pandava. His deep eyes twinkled, belying his words: for some reason, the old hermit was overjoyed to see Arjuna. He went on, “This is no place for kshatriyas, but for brahmanas who have left every passion, every vestige of violence, behind them. Never in all time, not since the earth was made, has a battle been fought here. Kshatriya, I cannot imagine how, but you have also arrived in this blessed place. Lay down your weapons now and seek Devaloka for yourself. For the kingdom of the Gods is close to Indrakila!”

Though he folded his hands reverently to the holy one, Arjuna did not put down his weapons. The shining sannyasi cried, “Ha! You doubt what I say. I do wonder how you found your way here. Didn’t you hear me, young man? Cast your weapons down the mountain, you will have no further use for them.”

Arjuna stood before the rishi and made no move to disarm. The hermit’s heavy brows bristled in anger, but Arjuna fancied his eyes still twinkled merrily. Uncoiling from padmasana, the rishi sprang to his feet. “Why don’t you listen to me, young fool? Don’t you know who I am? I command you, throw your weapons down the mountain! You will never have need of them again.”

Arjuna stood his ground. He shook his head, refusing to do what the sage asked. The next moment, the muni stood transformed before the Pandava: his body a flame, clothed in unearthly raiment, wearing ornaments wrought in Devaloka and a glorious crown on his head. Arjuna cried out. He knelt before that stern and brilliant God, his father Indra.

The Deva blessed his son. He asked, “Tell me, bane of your enemies, what boon do you want from me?”

The Pandava told him about Vyasa’s visit and his gift of the pratismriti.

“Lord, I want the devastras from you.”

Indra laughed. “Astras! Do you know where you are? Do you know how near heaven you are? Arjuna, a man who sees me face to face can ask for much more than astras. You can ask for a life of bliss in Devaloka. What do you want with weapons any more?”

Arjuna said, “I have not come seeking the joys of heaven. My brothers and Draupadi wait for me in the forest and I have come for just one thing: your astras. My mind is full of the war and revenge. In the Khandava vana, you said you would give me your weapons when the time came. My Lord, the time has come. You must help me, or we shall never vanquish our enemies.”

Indra said gently, “You are devoted to your purpose and I will give you all the astras I have. Yet, as I told you in the Khandava vana, you must first seek Lord Siva and get his Paasupata from him. For, one of your enemies only Siva’s astra can kill.

This is an ideal place for you to sit in tapasya. Worship Siva, my son and when he gives you his own ayudha, I will see you again.”

Indra vanished, leaving Arjuna alone. The Pandava set himself down at the cave-mouth where he had found the macilent rishi. Crossing his legs, he shut his eyes and began to chant the Kotirudra, Siva’s thousand names.

“
Siva, Sankara, Sarva, Bhava, Mahesvara, Isana, Rudra, Mahadeva, Pasupati, Sambhu, Lokanatha
…” chanted Arjuna, quickly becoming absorbed. Thus he sat, for a long time, on Indrakila. Then, he grew restless. He felt this was not really the place for him to meditate. He knew Indra always tested a tapasvin, often by misleading him. The Pandava climbed down the Indrakila again and returned to the forested foothills of the Himalaya. He went on to sacred Mandara.

Donning valkala and the skin of a black antelope, Arjuna found a fine aswattha tree to sit under and began his tapasya once more. During the first month, he ate just once in three days and then only roots and leaves. During the second month, when his dhyana grew more intense, he ate only once in six days and just dry leaves. In the third month, he ate once a fortnight. At last, from the fourth month on, Arjuna did not eat at all any more, but was absorbed in Siva’s mantra of five syllables, flowing like his very breath.

“
Namah Sivayah
,” he chanted, silently, interminably, “
Namah Sivayah, Namah Sivayah, Namah Sivayah
…”

Soon, when he found it too easy to meditate in padmasana, he got up and stood on his toes, with his arms raised to the sky. The devarishis, the vigilant guardians of heaven and earth, saw Arjuna at his penance. Even when the Pandava began his worship, they remarked that in this darkening age such a tapasya was rare and difficult. If the tapasvin’s resolve did not break, his worship would compel the God he invoked to grant whatever he wanted.

As Arjuna’s tapasya continued, the rishis were hopeful the kshatriya’s will would not bear the privation he imposed on himself. But Arjuna showed no sign of weakening. When his dhyana began to affect the natural environs around him, the devarishis grew anxious. Seeing the Pandava worshipped Siva, they came to Kailasa to meet the Mahayogin, the original ascetic.

Siva said, smiling, “Munis, to what do I owe this privilege? Not one or two, but all of you have come to me together. Surely, something extraordinary brings you to Kailasa.”

One of the rishis said, “We are alarmed by Arjuna’s tapasya.”

Another put in, “We can hardly believe it in these dark times. It seems you will have to grant him any boon he wants.”

A third said, “We do not know what Arjuna is praying for; but we dread to think what it may be. He could ask you for the throne of Devaloka and you would have to give it to him.”

The first muni said, “Lord, you must stop Arjuna.”

Siva laughed. “Rishis, your anxiety is for nothing. Arjuna is a man of dharma; he does not want heaven, wealth, or even moksha. I know what he wants and I mean to give it to him. It is in a just cause he asks for his boon. Indeed, when you came I was about to go myself to test this tapasvin. Go back in peace, you have nothing to fear.”

Bowing to Siva and curious to discover what Arjuna the Pandava prayed so fervently for, the rishis returned where they had come from.

NINE THE VETALA
 

A hunter clad in tiger-skin, with a vetala’s bow and arrows, came with his dark and exotic vetali to the forest where Arjuna stood in tapasya. A hush fell on the mountain; even Arjuna at his meditation sensed it. He stood motionless.

The vetala and vetali walked regally toward the copse in which the Pandava stood. Suddenly a commotion broke out. The demon Mooka had seen Arjuna at his dhyana and he hated the tranquil emanations from the tapasvin. The asura became a savage boar, big as a hillock. Snorting, he came to gore the hermit into a pulp.

Just as the vetala arrived at the copse’s edge, Mooka, red-eyed and screaming, charged Arjuna. At speed that defied the eye, Arjuna picked up the Gandiva, fitted it with an arrow and aimed at the boar.

With a squeal the asura stopped in its tracks. Mooka stood pawing the earth, his eyes blazing fear and hatred, equally.

Arjuna cried, “Asura, why do you disturb my dhyana? Are you in a hurry to see Yama’s land?”

Then, the vetala cried from the edge of the copse, “Put your bow down, Muni, the beast is mine.”

Losing his nerve, Mooka charged Arjuna. In a wink, Arjuna and the hunter both shot their arrows into him, like twin bolts of lightning striking a mountain. They cut him in half. Mooka sank to his knees, dark blood springing from him. As he died, he changed back into his own monstrous form. His truncated body lay twitching for a few moments and then he was still.

Arjuna turned to the vetala and his woman. Was he imagining it, or did the very mountain glow with the light of the strange pair? Arjuna shook his head to clear it. Even now, his mind chanted, ‘
Namah Sivayah, Namah Sivayah, Namah Sivayah
,’ on and on. He wondered at the hunter’s thought-swift archery. A memory of Ekalavya flared through him.

The Pandava said, “Who are you? This jungle is not safe even for men; how are you here with your woman?”

The vetala stood smiling slightly and again Arjuna thought he saw light all around the hunter. Coolly, the wild man said, “The forest is our home; but what about you? You look as if you have been raised in luxury, in a palace even?”

Arjuna found himself growing angry at the man’s shrewdness. “You look like a hunter, but you shot the asura after I killed him.” Unaccountable fury surged in Arjuna, a mad urge to fight the vetala. He raged, “How dare you spoil my kill? He lies divided like a father’s legacy for two sons. You deserve to die for what you have done and I will kill you!”

Arjuna raised his bow and there was ineffable charm in the smile the vetala favored him with. Despite his anger, the Pandava felt his heart melting. In a hypnotically friendly voice, the hunter said, “I aimed at the boar before you saw him. He was already mine when he charged you and my arrow killed him. Your shaft struck him after he was dead.

You are impudent, for a stranger to the jungle. In fact, your life is in danger. I am the king of the vetalas and you shot my prey after I killed it. What sort of rishi are you, anyway, at tapasya with a bow and arrows?”

Arjuna growled and began to draw back his bowstring. Imperturbably, the hunter bent down and drew out both arrows from the dead demon’s carcass. Holding them up and grinning, he cried, “Look, Muni, both arrows are mine now. Let us see if you are man enough to take yours back from me.”

“You don’t know who I am that you dare challenge me. Does the jackal challenge the lion, fool?”

“We shall see who the jackal is and who the lion: in battle. Even if you are the lion at words!” replied that suave hunter.

Arjuna loosed a blinding volley at him. Arrows from the Gandiva enveloped the hunter in a shroud of darkness; his woman gave a cry and stepped back. Those shafts would have felled any kshatriya on earth. The rough hunter merely raised his arms and the Pandava’s arrows fell away from him. The smile on the fellow’s handsome, insolent face was as bright as a slice of the sun. As he may a shroud of silk, the vetala shrugged off Arjuna’s deadly mantle.

Arjuna shot another, fiercer salvo, humming from the Gandiva. These were astras, shafts of light and flames, enough to consume a small army. Now some of them struck the vetala and blossoms of blood sprouted on his body; but the astras’ fires were extinguished against his skin.

The hunter still stood before Arjuna with the same maddening smile. Arjuna paused, he thought, ‘Who is this hunter? Is he a Deva in disguise? How handsome he is, not at all like a crude vetala.’ Arjuna found it a challenge and a pleasure, to fight him. He was an exceptional warrior; he stood shining against the kshatriya’s arrows.

These reflections took just a moment. Arjuna shot at the blithe forester again, while the man stood unresisting before him. Again, the missiles from the Gandiva fell harmlessly around the vetala. It was as if he knew each of them and they would not harm him. In a storm, the greatest archer on earth shot shafts of white flames at the hunter. He shrugged them off as if they were flowers flung at him by a child. There was blood on him, surely, but his wounds cleared miraculously.

Then Arjuna reached behind him into his twin quivers and found them empty! These were Varuna’s inexhaustible quivers; this was never meant to happen. With a roar, he flew at the hunter and swung Gandiva at his head.

Instead of splitting his skull, the pristine bow snapped echoingly in the Pandava’s hands. The vetala laughed softly. Arjuna drew his sword and, with both hands, brought the blade down on the hunter’s head. That weapon would cut through a stone like butter, but it smashed to dust on the vetala’s head.

Panic gripped Arjuna. He howled, “Fight me hand to hand, I will tear you apart!”

He rained a flurry of blows on the hunter. At last, as if he had tired, the hunter struck him back. For Arjuna’s ten blows or twenty, the vetala struck him twice, lazily. Pandu’s son reeled. The third blow felled him; he slumped to the ground with a sigh and his world went dark.

When Arjuna came to his senses again, blood flowed down his face and his head pounded. There was no sign of the vetala anywhere. Arjuna pulled himself up groggily and pain flooded his body. He limped to the forest and gingerly began to gather wildflowers from the trees and bushes. He strung them into a garland. He was anguished that his tapasya had been interrupted and felt shattered that a mere hunter had beaten him, contemptuously.

Kneeling painfully, the Pandava scooped up some earth and began to fashion a rough parthiva linga with it. When it was complete, Arjuna laid the wildflower garland around it. He lay on his face before the linga, sobbing, “O Siva, a hunter beat me so easily. How will I fight Bheeshma, Drona and Karna? And my brothers depend on me. Lord, only your grace can save me.
Aum Namah Sivayah, Aum Namah Sivayah
…”

Something made the Pandava open his eyes. He saw the earthen Sivalinga had vanished and the garland he had draped around it. He jumped up with a cry. The vetala stood smiling where the linga had been and the garland was draped around the topknot of his jata! Arjuna gasped and next moment, he realized who this hunter was.

“Lord!” cried the Pandava. “Forgive me.”

He fell at Siva’s feet, his tears flowing. The hunter’s smile was the same: serene, dazzling, the smile of Siva. Siva said, “I am pleased with you! Even when you were beaten you never gave up. What shall I forgive? That a kshatriya worshipped me as he knows best? With arrows and blows! There is nothing to forgive. I enjoyed your worship, more than any other in a long time! Arjuna, I have never seen a kshatriya like you. Ask me for anything and I will give it to you.”

Arjuna knelt before Siva, “Lord, I worshipped you for your Paasupatastra, for the war that will be.”

Siva the vetala said, “And I came as a hunter to test you, Arjuna. Only a man who is a master of himself should have the Paasupatastra, or he could call an apocalypse down on the earth. I have tried you now, Arjuna and your heart is pure. You are truly a kshatriya.”

The Pandava stood with his head bowed. Siva said, “You will not use the astra unless you have to and only for dharma. Come, I will teach you the mantra for my weapon.”

“Lord, if you think me worthy, there is one other boon I want from you.”

“Tell me what it is.”

“I would see you as you really are,” said Arjuna, with folded hands.

Siva laughed gently, “As I really am, you would not be able to bear seeing me. But I will show you the form of the yogin who sits on Kailasa.”

In a flash, the hunter was gone; in his place, stood Mahadeva with Parvati at his side, both of them refulgent. Siva had the crescent moon in his hair and the Ganga. He was Vyalin: coiling cobras were his ornaments. He wore a deerskin and carried the trisula in his hand. Parvati was so beautiful Arjuna could not look at her for more than a moment. Overwhelmed, the Pandava knelt at their feet. Siva blessed him, Uma did as well and Arjuna trembled with ecstasy at the touch of their hands.

Plucking them out of thin air, Siva held out Arjuna’s Gandiva and his twin quivers: the bow whole again, the quivers full of arrows. “Your weapons, Arjuna and you shall have the Paasupata as well. Indra, Yama and Kubera know nothing of that astra; it is beyond them.

But, I warn you, summon it only as a final resort, perhaps against someone who can be killed by no other weapon.”

Siva laid his hand of grace on Arjuna’s head. Arjuna felt his body fill with tumultuous light. He felt as powerful as a God and the greatest of all astras was his. With just a thought, Siva taught him the mantras for summoning the weapon, for discharging it at an enemy and calling it back.

The earth trembled when Arjuna received the Paasupatastra from the Lord. Mysterious conches sounded in the sky. The Devas and Danavas appeared on high in gleaming vimanas to watch the Pandava being given the weapon that would save his life, one day of fate.

Arjuna prostrated himself before Siva once more. He felt Siva’s palm on his head again. He heard the Lord saying, “The Paasupata is yours, Kshatriya. It will obey you even as it does me.”

The next moment, though it was daylight still on Mandara, it seemed night had fallen. It was only that Siva and Parvati had vanished, taking their radiance with them.