TWENTY-SIX
When they had not been long in the Dwaitavana, monsoon winds began to sweep across the land and dark clouds gathered heavily above Bharatavarsha. The rains came, lashing forest and earth with healing showers. The Saraswati swelled within her banks, a turbulent Goddess and the lake of lotuses spilt over. The scent of those flowers and of wet earth, filled the Pandavas with hope. Each day the end of their exile drew nearer.
When the monsoon passed, Yudhishtira said, "Indra said we should go back to the Kamyaka vana and I have this persistent feeling someone wants to visit us there."
They returned to the first asrama of their exile. It was strange, settling down in the old clearing, where little had changed. The big nyagrodha still stood there, with green shoots of the latest rain sprouting on its branches. It was like returning to the fringes of another life, which still excluded them: for less than two years more.
Yudhishtira was worried that the Kamyaka might evoke the old impatience in Bheema. Instead, Bheema took to visiting the rishis of the forest with him! The son of the wind would sit entirely absorbed in whatever conversation Yudhishtira had with the hermits and not a word out of him.
1. The discourse and stories of Markandeya are approximately 110 pages long in the original text.
Then, one day, Krishna arrived with Satyabhama. There was such a reunion. They hugged one another, repeatedly and when Krishna clasped Arjuna to him, it seemed he would never let the Pandava go.
He whispered in Arjuna's ear, "I have heard all about your stay in Amravati. I am so proud of you!"
Their lives made perfect sense again to the sons of Pandu, as it did every time dark Krishna was with them. Joy was upon them and he, the uncanny Blue One, was as cheerful as ever.
When they sat under the banyan tree, Krishna said, "Subhadra and Abhimanyu are with us in Dwaraka now. He is a splendid kshatriya and a better archer than you, Arjuna!
Draupadi, your sons have also come to Dwaraka to study archery with me. Dhrishtadyumna brought them from Kampilya and each one is an image of his father. Sometimes I feel you five are with me in my city, but grown younger!"
Tears rolled down Draupadi's face for her sons she had not seen for eleven years. Seeing her cry, Satyabhama took her hand and they went off into the asrama; and Draupadi was grateful for the company of another woman.
When they had gone Krishna leaned forward and, a glint in his eye, whispered, "Yudhishtira, you have served eleven years of exile; if you ask me, eleven years too many. Why wait any longer? The army of Dwaraka is prepared; Drupada and Dhrishtadyumna are ready with their legions; the Kekaya brothers strain as if at a leash, to attack Hastinapura. Let us ride now! We will take them by surprise and crush them before they realize that retribution has arrived. Why must you torment yourselves any more? Why suffer another year of this indignity and then one more of going like beggars in disguise? Let us go and kill Dhritarashtra and his sons today!"
He sounded earnest. But Yudhishtira smiled and said quietly, "I thank you for your kind thought, Krishna, but you know how I feel about this. We must see out another two years somehow and then ride on Hastinapura armed with dharma. As you say, it will be hard, especially for my poor Bheema. But I must wait."
Then, incredibly, Bheema said, "I agree with Yudhishtira. We should wait another two years. Time flits by in the jungle, anyway and the weeks are like days: especially with the helpful visitors we have."
There was a twinkle in Bheema's eye and Krishna flung an arm around him and burst out laughing. "Yes, Bheema! Just two years more and we shall let you loose on the enemy like a tempest of your father. But now, Arjuna, I am agog to hear about your stay in Devaloka. I have heard so many versions of it and each one so different, that one would hardly think they were the same story. So tell me yourself, all of it."
Krishna stayed with his cousins in the Kamyaka for some weeks and it was a happy time. The wildest beasts of the jungle would come to the hermitage and stand gazing at the Dark One. Deer would walk right up to him, nuzzle their faces in his hand, as he stroked them and spoke to them just as if they were human children.
A few days after Krishna's arrival the Pandavas had another visitor, whose fund of lore was always a source of delight. The ever-youthful Markandeya was a masterly pauranika and Krishna was the most eager of them all to hear the maharishi's tales.
When the sage, who arrived at nightfall, had been with them for an hour and a simmering moon rose above the forest, Krishna said, "Muni, they say you have no equal in the world as a pauranika. When I was a boy, my mother Yasodha would tell me a story every night, when she put me to bed. How well she told them! I felt I was part of the Purana she was recounting; I could see its spaces before my eyes. I could smell its forests and flowers and the characters would appear before me, real enough to touch.
Muni, I don't believe there is any story-teller to match my mother. But we shall give you a chance to prove yourself her equal."
Bheema, who loved a good story, cried, "Come, Muni, give us a legend or two. The night is perfect for it."
Markandeya did not need much persuading, but launched into some shining tales of the eldest days.
"At the end of the last kalpa, the three worlds were plunged in a solitary, undistinguished night," began that rishi. "There was nothing but a single dark sea everywhere: Ekarnava. There were no Devas, no rishis, nothing but the black sea. Upon that desolate and awesome sea, the Lord Vishnu Narayana slept on the interminable serpent Ananta Sesha. A thousand heads Vishnu had, a thousand arms and feet and a thousand eyes.
He wore a fulvid yellow robe." Markandeya glanced at Krishna's electric garment and continued, "Narayana's eyes were like suns and his body was immeasurable, an infinite sky the hue of blue clouds. As he slept, out of his navel a white lotus sprouted, its corolla blue, its stalk golden and endless. It was the heart of the worlds, that primal lotus and its divine scent spread everywhere.
Within that first sacred flower Brahma was born: the Creator, four-faced and irradiant. The lotus-born Pitama, grandsire of all beings, poured forth creation. First, he gave out the waters, fire, air, the sky, the wind and the earth, the rivers and oceans, mountains and the ancestral trees. Then the moments, the hours, the days, the weeks, the fortnights, the months, the half-years, the years, the yugas, the manvantaras and the kalpas flowed from him.
He made the Sapta rishi, sons born immaculately from his mind: Marichi, Daksha, Bhrigu, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha and Kratu. From his breath came Daksha, Marichi from his eye, Angiras from his head and the rest from other parts of Brahma's body. And with the advent of the seven sages, dharma had a human form."
Markandeya paused to be sure they were listening. None of them stirred; his Purana was hypnotic. He continued, "Then, Brahma made the other living beings. Tamas was the quality that first arose in that Prajapati. He extruded the Asuras from his hind-parts and they were his firstborn, from his body. Brahma abandoned his creative body and at that moment, from the castaway form, night was born, full of darkness and sleep. And the demons, the Asuras, worship the night and are strongest during the hours of darkness.
Brahma assumed another body and this had the essence of sattva. From it he made the Devas, beings of light, exuded them from his face. He abandoned the body of sattva and, because it was made of light, day was born from it. Thus, the Devas worship the day. Brahma took yet another form of sattva and from this, the Pitrs, the manes, were born. When he cast off this body it became the twilight, sandhya, which all beings, of both darkness and light, worship."
Now Krishna murmured, "Ah Markandeya, you are a sublime pauranika."
They all glanced at the Dark One and saw by the streaming moon that his eyes brimmed with yawning visions. It was as if Krishna gazed directly into the times and events Markandeya described. They waited impatiently for the rishi to continue. These were not tales that any of them had not heard before; but they had never heard them told like this: so they came alive and the silver sky was filled with a primeval sea, an interminable Serpent, a shadowy Blue God, a shining Lotus and all the rest.
Markandeya resumed, "Now Brahma assumed a body of rajas and from that form of his, his passionate sons, men, were born. When he abandoned that body, it became the dawn.
He assumed yet another material body, made of sattva, tamas and rajas, all three and from it sprang the rakshasas who roam the night and are creatures of both darkness and passion. From that body of mixed gunas, also came the yakshas and gandharvas, the nagas, the kinnaras and charanas and other divine beings.
Then he created the birds of the air and the beasts of the wilds; trees, herbs and plants were born from Brahma's hair. From his eastern mouth, the Gayatri mantra issued and the Rig Veda and the melody of the Saman and the Agnistoma yagna; from his southern mouth, the Yajur Veda, the Brihatsaman melody, the Trishtubh mantra; from his western mouth, the Sama Veda and Jagati mantra, the Vairupa and the Atiratha yagna; and from his northern mouth, the Atharva Veda, the Aptoryaman yagna, the Anushtup mantra and the Vairaja saman.
From all his limbs, he emitted the various creatures."
The muni, who now sang his Purana softly, paused and Yudhishtira said, "Rishi, tell us about the yugas."
Markandeya said, "Fifteen nimeshas, instants, is a kaastha. Thirty kaasthas is a kaala and thirty kaalas is a muhurta. Thirty muhurtas long are a day and a night. Three hundred and sixty-five days and nights make a human year: one day and night of the Gods.
Four are the ages called the yugas: the krita, the treta, the dwapara and the kali. Twelve thousand divine years long are the four ages together. The pristine krita yuga lasts for four thousand years of the Devas and for eight hundred years more, its twilights. The second yuga, the treta, lasts for three thou sand years of the Devas and for six hundred years its dawn and dusk. The dwapara yuga, the third age, lasts for two thousand years of the Devas and four hundred cosmic years its cusps. The final yuga, the kali, the age of evil, is for one thousand celestial years and two hundred years its twilights; and then another krita yuga begins.
A thousand yuga chakras, wheels of twelve thousand years each, is a day and a night of Brahma. Fourteen manvantaras are a day of Brahma, called a kalpa. Each manvantara is eight hundred and fifty-two thousand divine years and three hundred and sixty-seven million human years. At the end of each day of the Creator, the worlds, the stars and galaxies are all recalled into dissolution, while Brahma sleeps through his night, which lasts as long as his day. When he awakens again, he pours forth the worlds once more.
One year of Brahma lasts for three hundred and sixty-five such days and nights, with all their creations and dissolutions. Brahma's life lasts for a hundred years of such days and nights. At present, O Kshatriyas, half Brahma's life is over. This is the first kalpa of the second half of Brahma's life, his fifty-first year. It is the kalpa called Varaha."
Markandeya's eyes glowed in the moonlight and soft excitement gripped his listeners at his account of time. How small and insignificant all their trials and concerns seemed against the immensity he conjured. Krishna cried, "But tell us the nature of the yugas, O perfect Markandeya! I have heard everything that happens in time is determined, first and last, by the nature of the age in which it occurs." He flashed a smile, "Even the lives of the Avataras, I am told."
Markandeya bowed to Krishna. "Knower of all things, it is true, indeed, that the age determines everything that happens within its span. All that are born during each yuga are influenced by the spirit of the yuga: how long they shall live, what course their lives will take, how great or worthless they shall be. Because all beings are subject to their own natures and their natures to the primary nature of the yuga.
As for the Avataras, O Krishna, they are not influenced by the yuga, but only seem to be. But yes, they also assume the outward raiment of nature in their lives and their deeds and these surely belong to the yuga into which each Avatara is born."