NINE
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.