TWENTY-FOUR
Arjuna chants the mantra to withdraw the Paasupatastra. From afar, the silver shaft flies back into the Pandava’s quiver. There it vanishes and a breeze laden with the scents of a thousand different flowers blows across Kurukshetra. His eyes alight, because he knew how close they had come to failure, Krishna embraces Arjuna. The Kauravas troop numbly away from the place where Arjuna kept his vow, Duryodhana sobbing in rage.
Far away, across the field, Yudhishtira hears Bheema’s roar echoing, repeatedly and he cries, “It’s Bheema roaring in joy. Jayadratha is dead!”
As if to confirm this, golden blasts from the Devadatta and the Panchajanya are borne to them on the scented breeze. Yudhishtira is beside himself. Over and over, he cries, “Jayadratha is dead! Arjuna has killed Jayadratha!”
Meanwhile, Arjuna kneels before Krishna. The Pandava says, “This is your doing. Without you, Jayadratha would be alive and I would be preparing to kill myself. Krishna, without you I would never have crossed this sea of enemies and kept my word to my child. Now I see what your grace is; now I believe Yudhishtira will rule the world again. This is your doing, Lord, all of it!”
Krishna smiles. How different this Arjuna was from the kshatriya who was so full of doubt before the war began. Krishna says, “Look around Kurukshetra. Between Satyaki and you, you have razed seven aksauhinis; and the Kauravas were glad to sacrifice them, as long as Jayadratha lived and Arjuna died. How they will rue their losses now. I think our Satyaki has killed more men than you have today.”
The wind in their faces, they ride back through the ruins of the Kaurava army. With darkness, the first hyenas and jackals are already on the prowl among the dead. As they go, Arjuna asks, “Why did I have to carry Jayadratha’s head into his father’s lap? Krishna, why did I have to kill him with the Paa-supatastra?”
“Jayadratha was born after his father Brihatkshatra performed a tapasya. And when his son was born, he asked for a boon that he could be killed only by the greatest kshatriya on earth and with the greatest of all astras! You did not know this, but that is why you had to have the Paasupata. Brihatks-hatra’s tapasya was such that he could ask for another boon. And he asked that the man who caused his son’s head to fall on the earth would have his own head burst apart.”
Arjuna stares at his sarathy and Krishna nods in reply to his unspoken question. Earlier that evening, as the sun was setting, Brihatkshatra sat in dhyana at Samantapanchaka, not far from Kurukshetra. He sat in padmasana, his eyes shut, his breath stilled, lost in himself. But he was roiled by nightmarish anxiety this evening. Suddenly, some silver arrows flew out of the sky and dropped their grisly load in the meditating king’s lap. He sprang up with a cry and his son’s staring head fell on to the ground. Brihatkshatra had no time even to scream and his own head exploded.
Through the remains of the Kaurava army, Arjuna, Bheema and Satyaki ride back to Yudhishtira. He gives such a shout when he sees them. He runs to Arjuna, to embrace him fervently, while tears course down his face.
“I thank God for this! I thank God a thousand times that you are alive, Arjuna. And you, Krishna and my Bheema and you, heroic Satyaki.” One by one, he hugs the others as well. Then, taking Krishna’s hand, Yudhishtira cries, “My Lord, by your grace my brother has prevailed today. You decided Arjuna would keep his oath and then no power on earth could stop him!” And he sobs like a child before the Dark One.
A smiling Krishna says, “There you are mistaken: Jayadratha died because your eyes blazed in rage yesterday! The wrath of a good man, a serene man not easily moved to anger, is more potent than any other force on earth. And, also,” he puts an arm around Arjuna, “this brother of yours is the greatest archer in the world.”
Across Kurukshetra, in the Kaurava camp cloaked in gloom, Duryodhana sits alone in his tent. Today, he also realizes the truth of what Bheeshma and Drona told him, so often: that no one, not Drona, not Aswatthama, not even Karna, was Arjuna’s equal in battle. By himself, the Pandava had come through three vyuhas and he had killed Jayadratha. Now Bheeshma’s warnings and Krishna’s in Hastinapura, his uncle Vidura’s sage warnings, all return to Duryodhana in new resonance; as if only now he hears them clearly and understands what they tried to tell him. Duryodhana sits sobbing bitterly.
But the war is not over and not all his heroes are slain. Drona still lives and no one has really mastered the Acharya yet. Wearily, Duryodhana rises and goes to his guru’s tent. Drona is as calm as he was yesterday. Duryodhana walks in. He takes Drona’s hands and says, “Look what Arjuna has done to our army. So many kshatriyas have died for me. Bheeshma lies dying on his bed of arrows; and today, ah, today has been the most dreadful day. Satyaki and Arjuna have destroyed seven aksauhinis. Seven legions razed by two men!
All these kings came to fight for me and now they are dead and I am still alive. I am like a coward, Drona! A man who cannot fight for himself. And look how cruel fate leaves me alive to see my precious friends slain. Each one gave his life for me.” His voice is a whisper. “They paid for my sins, for my arrogance and my stubbornness. They paid with their lives. Not a hundred Aswamedhas can wash my sins from me. How will I face my sister Dussala? I swore to her husband he wouldn’t be harmed. Yesterday I was so confident that no man could break through the whole Kuru army and strike at the eye of the needle. Now not only Jayadratha but Jalasandha, Srutayus, Achutayus, Srutayudha, all once invincible, are dead. Sudakshina is dead, my lord, Vinda and Anuvinda, the wild and brave Alambusa. And fifty-six of my brothers.”
As he counts his dead, his tears stop flowing. Instead, his eyes turn red again. Duryodhana says, “I caused all their deaths and I have nothing left to live for. But I will avenge my friends before I die; I will kill all five Pandavas. I will kill every Panchala, or die trying. How else can I pacify the spirits of my dead? With his friends gone, Duryodhana’s place is not in this world any more, but in Devaloka with those who gave their lives for him. Acharya, I will not rest until I have avenged Jayadratha, Bhoorisravas and the rest, who were killed like animals on a hunt. Why should I wait for tomorrow? Even now, by darkness, I will ride for revenge!”
Drona is moved to see Duryodhana like that. He rises and says, “I always told you Arjuna is invincible, but there is no cure for that. I swear to you, Duryodhana, I will take such battle to the enemy, as they have not tasted yet. I will not take off this armor until all your enemies are dead or I myself am killed. Do not grieve, my prince, Drona will fight for you until no breath remains in his body. Aswatthama will fight beside me. Yes, let us not wait to begin our revenge, but go out straightaway. We will fight under the moon and the stars!”
Grimly, the two of them emerge from the brahmana’s tent. Drona goes to call his legions out again and Duryodhana to find Karna. Soon, the two friends stand at the edge of Kurukshetra, gazing across the starlit ruin of their army.
Duryodhana breathes, “Look at what Arjuna and Satyaki did to our army: more than half our men are dead. The earth drinks their blood, scavengers feast on their flesh. Look where Jayadratha’s headless body lies, with hyenas tearing at him. Karna, you know Arjuna is the Acharya’s favorite sishya; he loves Arjuna more than he does Aswatthama. I am convinced Drona let Arjuna into the padma vyuha; he could never have broken in otherwise. The brahmana swore to Jayadratha that he would protect him and instead he let the Pandava in like a leopard into a calf-pen. If only I had the sense to see what would happen, I would have sent Jayadratha back to his kingdom; and now we would be rejoicing that Arjuna had killed himself, instead of this terrible grief!
It is not only Jayadratha who is dead. Drona let Satyaki and Bheema in after Arjuna and thousands of our men lie still forever under the stars. Look at the arrows that protrude, ghastly, from their corpses: every shaft bears either Arjuna, Bheema or Satyaki’s name. And do you know how many brothers I have lost today? That beast has killed fifty-six of Dhritarashtra’s sons!”
A sob rends him. Karna says, “Grief clouds your judgement, Duryodhana; you must not even think this of Drona. I have watched him: he does everything he can for you. At his age, it is a miracle he fights like this. You must be grateful to him, not suspicious. Arjuna’s chariot is yoked to gandharva horses, Krishna is his sarathy. Tell me, who can stop him, when he comes like the wind? Arjuna did not fight Drona honorably. He dodged past him and the Acharya could do nothing. Arjuna cried, ‘You are not my enemy, but my guru!’ and flew by.
It isn’t only at Drona that you can point a finger. I was there and you yourself, Duryodhana. Could we stop Arjuna? It was fate, my friend and she is more powerful than all the armies of the earth. We can only do the best we can. The rest is in fate’s hands and, despite everything we do, fate has her way with us.”
Karna puts an arm around Duryodhana. “Come, let us go out and fight. That is all that matters: that we fight side by side, for each other! That, not even fate can take away from us. Look at all the kshatriyas who have died for you, Duryodhana. What more precious gift is there? How many men are there in this world for whom so many others will give their very lives? The armies are out again. We will fight as never before, for the sakes of those who lie dead for us on Kurukshetra. Beyond that, whether we will win or lose this war is not for us to decide.”
Even as they speak, conches sound across the dark field and Drona streams into battle with his legions. Like a ghostly Deva, swathed in starlight, the brahmana rides at the head of his legions. And now he is irresistible. Weapons clash across the field and sound like a burning forest of bamboo upon a mountain. Duryodhana joins his army, with Karna just behind him. The Kaurava fights in cold rage; his arrows are a river of death under the stars. Before the Pandava frontlines can adjust to the unaccustomed battle by night, Duryodhana has killed a thousand men. He is like an ancient Asura come to hunt by darkness.
The Pandava soldiers run from Duryodhana, any way they can. But from behind their melting lines rides another king as bright and noble as his enemy is fell and heartless. With Bheema at his side, Yudhishtira rides to face his cousin. As soon as Duryodhana sees the eldest Pandava, he plunges at him and the two of them, for whom all this war is being fought, duel. Their arrows are pale clouds scudding low in a high wind. At times, they loose shaktis, or the rare astra at each other and these light up the field of death in brief splendor.
Frequently, real clouds pass over the stars and the darkness of the cold night is complete. At these times, no warrior could be certain at whom he shot his arrows, though roars and screams still ring out, in evil bedlam. Drona is anxious for Duryodhana; any chance arrow could kill him in the night. Just then, Duryodhana pierces Yudhishtira’s sarathy with a smoking shakti and as the man drops his reins, it seems the Kaurava has his cousin at his mercy. But Yudhishtira replies, quick as life, with two smoking shafts that flame into Duryodhana’s chest, knock him down on his chariot-floor and would have killed him except for Brahma’s golden armor.
Drona rides between Yudhishtira and Duryodhana, drawing a magic curtain of arrows between them. Yudhishtira’s sarathy recovers. Some other Pandava warriors ride up to their king’s side and the duel ends. The fighting spreads out again. But it seems Drona can see as clearly by starlight as by the sun. His aim is unerring, his every arrow deadly. Once the two armies flow into each other, it is hard for the kshatriyas to fight with any ease. They can never be sure if their shafts and swords find enemies, or their own men.
The war by night wears a sinister face. Somehow, the battle by daylight, brutal as it is, is not remotely as macabre a ritual as fighting under the stars. The very earth takes on an eerie aspect, as if demons are about, invisibly, partaking in the offerings of life and blood. The darkness of night seems to illumine the deeper significance of this war: that it is a timeless contention between dharma and adharma, good and evil. As if these revelations of the soul’s dark and light are intolerable to the common soldier, terror stalks Kurukshetra as never before: terror woven into the screams of the dying and the dismal howling of the jackal-packs.
But the darkness is no obstacle to one that prefers to fight close to his enemies, hand to hand, smashing them down with his mace. For the Pandavas, Bheema is as devastating as Drona is for the Kauravas. It seems that Bheema, too, has cat’s eyes, as he hunts Dhritarashtra’s sons in the dark. He picks them out unerringly and, riding at each one, kills them with his mace, or his bare hands, even; rending some limb from limb, covering himself with blood that glimmers under the stars, so he is a scarlet spirit ranging the field.
Yet another warrior is even more at home in the darkness and entirely in his element. Ghatotkacha patrols the night with a legion of rakshasas. For them darkness is their daylight and their strength at this hour is ten times what it is by day. Their eyes like torches on Kurukshetra, their weird cries chilling their enemies’ blood, they sweep at the Kaurava army in a wave of dread.
There is a king that fights for the Kauravas, who has lost two sons on Kurukshetra: Somadatta, the father of Sala and Bhoorisravas. He rounds on Satyaki in the night, “Kshatriya! How could you kill my son when he sat in dhyana?”
Satyaki roars back, “And now I will kill you!”
The Yadava matches his words with a brace of fiery arrows, lighting up the dark. Duryodhana flits to Somadatta’s side; but Dhrishtadyumna materializes at Satyaki’s and holds off the Kaurava prince. Somadatta is hardly a match for Satyaki and the Yadava cracks his bow and fells him with another humming shaft. The unconscious king is borne off the field. Aswatthama rides up to confront Saty-aki, who is still tired after his long day. Aswatthama seems to have the better of their encounter, when, with a heart-stopping cry, Ghatotkacha erupts on him from the night!
Aswatthama whirls round to meet Bheema’s son with a lucent volley, turning night into day. Ghatotkacha uses maya against Drona’s son; he vanishes and reappears on the other side of Aswatthama’s chariot. Ghatotkacha fights with sorcery: he creates bizarre hallucinations out of the black air and the Kaurava soldiers run screaming from them. But Aswatthama is unmoved. He vaporizes the demoniacal visions with an agneyastra, which lustrates the field like a small sun. Aswatthama strikes Ghatot-kacha with some light-swift archery.
Roaring in pain, the rakshasa casts a phosphorescent chakra at him, but the brahmana’s son smashes it in flight. Ghatotkacha has a son himself, who attacks Aswatthama from the air with a barrage of occult weapons. Aswatthama turns up at the young rakshasa and brings him down like a bird out of the sky. Ghatotkacha’s roar shakes Kurukshetra.
For the first time, the two armies hear him speak in a human tongue. He cries, “Brahmana, you won’t escape with your life tonight!”
Ghatotkacha creates a vast illusion. Aswatthama finds himself in the heart of a mythic forest that teems with all kinds of predators: lions, tigers and baleful incubi; every one of these stalks Drona’s son, as in the most terrifying nightmare. The hallucination is like a trial the soul passes through on its way to moksha. But Aswatthama, master of weapons, master of himself, is warrior enough and yogin enough not to be perturbed. Serenely, he invokes the proper astra and dispels the illusion.
Ghatotkacha flies up into the sky and now he fights like any other kshatriya, with bow and arrows. He covers Aswatthama’s chariot in a hail of firestones. An anxious Duryodhana rides to his son’s side. All round them Ghatotkacha’s rakshasas are at their horrible sacrifice: thousands of petrified Kaurava soldiers their offering. Their naked bodies glistening in blood, the jungle demons are on the soft rampage.
Duryodhana cries to Aswatthama, “Who can stand against the rakshasas by night?”
Aswatthama actually smiles at his king, while arrows stream from his glowing bow. He says, “Leave them to me, my lord and their master as well.”
With a shaft like Yama’s danda, Drona’s son fells Ghatotkacha himself. Panic among the other rakshasas; they rush to their fallen friend to revive him. Aswatthama kills three of them as they go. Some of his anxiety allayed, Duryodhana rides away to find Shakuni. He persuades that sorcerer to attack the Pandavas, at this hour that suits him well.
A roar goes up from the Pandava soldiers, “Aswatthama has killed Ghatotkacha!”
Some kings who fight for Yudhishtira are so dismayed they leave the field. But when Bheema hears that cry, he falls on the enemy with renewed ferocity, killing three thousand. Until ten of Duryodhana’s brothers ring him round, determined they will finish him, before they meet their brothers’ fate. But they could not have chosen a worse time for their bravado. Bheema butchers them as if they were children before him.
When the last of the ten has his skull smashed by the Pandava’s mace, another shout rings out on Kurukshetra, “Ghatotkacha isn’t dead, he only fainted!”