THIRTY
Battle resumes by the light of the streaming moon. Awakened by echoing conches, the soldiers of both armies rise1 and, somewhat rested, fall at each other again. The moon has risen late. It is the last yaama of the night and soon the sun touches the eastern sky with livid fingers. A cheer goes up from both armies, as the star slides over the horizon and casts his luster across the field of death. It is the fifteenth day of the war, the fifth of Drona’s command.
As the sun rises, for the first time the armies clearly see the devastation the night has left. Kurukshetra is uneven with corpses, like anthills; and, among them, a mountain: noble Ghatotkacha’s body. But there is no time to mourn the dead, or to honor them with cremation. The war rages on.
Krishna sees the enemy legions now divided in two. He says to Arjuna, “Look to the left where Duryodhana, Karna, Shakuni and Dusasana fight in a cluster, like a baleful constellation.”
Bheema, who is near them, shouts, “Let us turn to the left! All those we have sworn to kill ride in a pack like dogs.”
Arjuna takes up the Gandiva and Krishna points his horses at the Kaurava king and his coterie. Arjuna comes in wrath; his arrows obscure the face of the rising sun. Easy as it was for Duryodhana to imagine that he and his inner circle would vanquish Arjuna, in battle they cannot stand before the Pandava at all. He quickly puts the four to flight, their army following and thousands cut down by the riptide from the Gandiva.
Meanwhile, with half the Kaurava army, Drona rides at the Matsyas, the Panchalas and the Kekayas. He is like fire that does not smoke. Certainty of his end is upon him. The enemy shrinks from him in awe; the brahmana’s body is as bright as a Deva’s. Yet, he is purely dreadful, like an evil amsa of Agni. Drona does not care any more if it is a kshatriya or a common soldier that stands before him; he consumes both with astras. He torches legions, leaving nothing but statues of ashes, which the wind blows down.
Drona sees three of Dhrishtadyumna’s sons riding at him, naively. He kills all three, in a moment, striking their heads from their necks with his famous crescent-tipped arrows. He kills the boys where their grandfather sees them die. Drupada’s roars shake the field and he rushes at Drona. This is exactly what Drona wants; he does not mean to leave the Panchala king alive, when his own death is so near him.
Virata rides beside Drupada at the hated brahmana. Drona is ready for them both. He engages them powerfully, fighting as Drupada has never seen him do, as Drupada had never known he could.
Drona cries at his old friend, his old enemy, “This is the end, Drupada. Everything will be over today!”
“When you die, vile Brahmana!”
Drona casts a gleaming javelin, striking the Panchala king through his heart, killing him instantaneously. Demented Drona turns on Virata and kills him with another lance, affixing him to his chariot-head. Uproar breaks out among the Pandava legions. Crimson-eyed, Dhrishtadyumna cries, “He has killed my sons and my father. If I don’t kill Drona today, let all my life’s punya be lost!”
He plunges at Drona; but Duryodhana’s legion rings the Acharya round. Arjuna and his brothers fly to help Dhrishtadyumna and a general battle ensues. After a wild hour, Drona still dominates Kurukshetra and Dhrishtadyumna is no nearer killing him. To provoke him into the deed, Bheema scoffs at his friend, “It doesn’t seem you will avenge your father or your sons. Let me help you, Dhrishtadyumna!”
Roaring twice as loudly as anyone else, Bheema rushes at the Kaurava army. The Pandava heroes fight, all together, trying to force a way through to where their Acharya burns like time. On the fifteenth day of the war, Drona bestrides Kurukshetra, as Bheeshma could not on the ninth day, when the Kuru Pitama was at his fiercest. But Bheeshma had fought with dharma, while Drona, in the clasp of despair after the night’s revelations, has abandoned the way of truth entirely.
The brahmana incinerates Yudhishtira’s common legions with the greater devastras. Fire stalks Kurukshetra and Drona is Agni incarnate. The war is Drona and he is death come naked to the world. Everywhere the sickly-sweet smell of burnt human flesh hangs in the air. The Kauravas rally around their Senapati and not the five Pandavas together can contain him. Few duels are fought, the war swirls around just Drona. Duryodhana and Nakula face each other briefly; and the Kaurava has his bow snapped in his palm and hastily retreats. Dusasana encounters Sahadeva and here also the Pandava prevails after a short, fierce encounter. In another duel, Karna and Bheema meet. In memory of how Karna humiliated him, Bheema fights beyond himself for revenge. Again, he finds Karna is an archer of superior gifts. Karna strikes Bheema unconscious in his chariot, then, spares his life once more.
Meanwhile, Krishna maneuvers Arjuna’s chariot to confront Drona and Kurukshetra seems transported to another world by the duel between that master and disciple, each fighting at the very ends of his skill. In two brilliant bands, astras sizzle across the field of moment. Only those who are masters themselves of the missiles can fathom the subtleties of that contention; the others watch, awed.
For some time, they fight, guru and sishya and neither prevails. Then, Drona, who by now hardly knows what he does, invokes a fearsome weapon. The brahmana summons the greatest brahmastra2. Kurukshetra is rocked by a seismic tremor and a sudden night falls, when he chants the mantra for the transcendent ayudha. Only Drona’s chariot is enveloped in such light that the soldiers turn their faces from it. At its white heart, Drona draws back his bowstring and his body is a flame. In a moment, the old master looses the weapon at his favorite pupil. Pandavas and Kauravas wait, breathless; they know this is a moment that can end the war.
The brahmastra flares up into the darkened sky, lights it like five suns. Then, like doom, it falls on Arjuna’s chariot. But a gasp goes up from the armies of darkness and light. At the heart of that moment, Arjuna’s chariot also blazes like a star; his body is a pale fire as well and the Gandiva a lucific crescent in his hands. Another sun flames up from the Pandava’s bow and brahmastra and brahmastra meet in the sky. An explosion like the world ending shakes heaven and earth, a million men fall dazed on the ground. Astra blows astra apart on high; they blow the darkness away and it is daylight again on Kurukshetra. With a long roar of frustration, Drona rides away from Arjuna.
The fighting grows diffuse again, as many duels break out. At least for the time being, Arjuna has broken Drona’s dominance: the brahmana rides away to savage the Panchala army once more. Dhr-ishtadyumna and Dusasana face each other; but the Kaurava cannot stand against the angry fire-prince. Swiftly, he has his bow cloven and his sarathy leaves the field before his warrior is killed.
Another duel rages nearby, a piquant one. Chance brings Duryodhana and Satyaki face to face. They fight fiercely, but with smiles on their faces! Though Duryodhana is some years the older, these two had once been inseparable friends. Suddenly, Duryodhana feels a pang of remorse. He roars at Satyaki, “What a despicable war this is, in which you and I must fight each other. How I hate myself sometimes, Satyaki, for my arrogance, my lust for kingdom and that I am a kshatriya! Otherwise, we two would never face each other with arrows today.”
He lowers his bow briefly and so does Satyaki, a little startled. The Kaurava continues, “Do you remember the old days, my friend? How clearly they rise before my eyes, as if they were happening again. You were dearer to me than my very life and I to you! Look where time has brought us.”
Duryodhana’s confession is sharper than his arrows and Satyaki is taken aback to see the Kaurava wipe tears from his eyes. The Yadava cries, “All that is past, Duryodhana! This is not our guru’s house, when I was a boy and you a youth and you were so fond of me that you would play children’s games with me.”
Duryodhana says, “Oh, where are those innocent games? This is like another life and we are like strangers, Satyaki. How cruel time is. Look at us today. Fate is merciless, my friend and fate is my enemy. Karna always says that if fate is against you, there is nothing you can do. It is not we but fate that decides our lives, every moment of them.”
Quickly, tears fill the softhearted Satyaki’s eyes and he says, “We are kshatriyas and war is our dharma. There is no escape from that, Duryodhana. We fight and must not care if it is our brother or our friend we kill; if a sishya kills a guru or a guru his sishya. Duryodhana, if you still love me, I beg you, kill me quickly! I can’t bear to see you like this, or hear you speak thus to me.”
With a sigh, Duryodhana raises his bow and they fight again. Soon, Satyaki strikes the Kaurava down in his chariot and then rides away, with all the memories welling in his heart. He had seen his friend Duryodhana turn to arrogance and harshness, to ruthlessness; and against that Duryodhana he could fight. But now, he saw another Duryodhana, the loving friend who wept that they must fight, the one who remembered the tender past so well. This Duryodhana, Satyaki cannot bear to face in battle. The Yadava rides away as far from the Kaurava as he can. He will never speak of the moment they have shared, to anyone. Neither will he ever ride against the Kaurava again.
When Arjuna cuts down his brahmastra, he fuels his Acharya’s despair. Drona turns his wrath on the Pandava army. Astra after astra he looses at Yudhishtira’s soldiers; every missile consumes ten thousand men. The brahmana blazes like the sun just before the world ends. It seems his body is swathed in the flames of hell and no one can look at him too long, let alone face him in battle. The carnage is like the slaughter of the creatures at the end of a manvantara.
The Pandava warriors watch him, aghast. They cry to one another, “This isn’t our gentle Acharya. It is not the same man at all.”
“It isn’t Drona, but the demon that has possessed him.”
“Look at his face, it isn’t human.”
“His body is like the fire at the end of time.”
Krishna sees how Bharadvaja’s son consumes common soldiers with devastras. He says quietly to Yudhishtira, “This man cannot be vanquished in battle; and if he isn’t killed soon, you will have no army left. Look at your precious guru. Where is his dharma, that he looses devastras at our common soldiers? He must die. And since all of you together cannot kill him, we must also use a little adharma to bring him down.”
Yudhishtira waits, uncomfortably. Krishna goes on, “Drona can only be killed if he lays down his bow. The only way he will do that is if we first break his heart. Then, perhaps, Dhrishtadyumna can keep his vow.”
The Dark One pauses, “If there is anyone the cold brahmana loves more than his life, it is his son. If he hears Aswatthama is dead, he will put down his bow.”
“But the son is hardly easier to kill than the father!” cries Arjuna.
“I only said that Drona must be told Aswatthama is dead.”
Arjuna is shocked. “Oh no!”
Bheema says, “If we don’t stop the Acharya, the war is lost. Have no doubt of that.”
They gaze out at Drona, the inferno, who will make ashes of their dreams and a waste of all their trials. Nakula and Sahadeva echo Bheema’s approval. But Yudhishtira is silent. Krishna waits, everyone waits for the eldest Pandava to speak. Then Bheema cries impatiently, “I will kill an elephant called Aswatthama and tell Drona his son is dead. So there will be no lie. Yudhishtira, you must allow me to do this! Look, he kills a thousand men each moment.”
A trembling Yudhishtira nods his head, consenting. Bheema rides off and kills the king of Malava’s war-elephant, Aswatthama, with a blow of his mace. He comes storming up to Drona and roars, “Aswatthama is dead! Aswatthama is dead!”
Drona sways in his chariot. Darkness films his eyes and his very life lurches in shock. But he says to himself, ‘Bheema is lying, no one can kill my son.’
The brahmana begins to fight again, twice as savagely as before. Once more, he invokes the brahmastra and now not against Arjuna. Drona looses the missile at the Panchala and Somaka legions! A flash of fire as if a volcano has erupted among helpless soldiers: flames tall as trees engulf those armies and fifty thousand men perish in an instant. Silence falls on Kurukshetra; the war will not last until dusk, if Drona is not stopped. Duryodhana’s face is wreathed in a smile. At last, his Senapati fights as his king wants him to: now he would see how the Pandavas won this war.
But across the field, a subtle miracle is happening. Suddenly, Drona hears unearthly voices speaking to him from the air. When he looks up, astonished, he sees a host of shining beings materialized in the sky: only he saw them. Among those rishis3, the brahmana sees his dead father Bharadvaja. A cry escapes Drona’s lips; in a moment, his eyes are full of tears.
The munis of Devaloka say, “You are not fighting with dharma, Drona; you burn men that know nothing of the astras with the brahmastra. Your time in the world has come to its end. Lay down your weapons now and prepare to die. Look, you see us with your mortal eyes. You are a brahmana, a master of the Vedas and Vedangas. This kshatriya’s violent way is not for you. Enough now, Mahatman: cast away the cloak of darkness in which you have wrapped yourself. Turn your mind again to the Brahman, your time to die is here.”
His father Bharadvaja says, “Put down your bow, my son. Your life on earth is over.”
The vision fades from the sky and Drona stands stricken in his chariot. Some way off, he sees the man born to kill him: Dhrishtadyumna hacks his way through the Kaurava army to reach his master. Away to the right and nearer, Drona sees Yudhishtira. Another war raging within him now, Drona turns to the Pandava. Seeking a final reason to die, the guru cries to his sishya, “Is it true, Yudhishtira? Is Aswatthama dead?”
Drona knows Yudhishtira will never tell a lie. He never has in all his life, even as a child. Krishna had already said to Yudhishtira, “When the time comes, Drona will ask you if Aswatthama is dead. The future of the world will depend on what you say to him. If you don’t tell this small white lie, the brahmana will fight on and in an hour or two you will have no army left. You will have the deaths of those who came to fight for you on your soul. But if you tell this small lie, I swear no blame will attach to you, no sin.”
Seeing Drona ravage his legions, Yudhishtira had reluctantly agreed. So now, when Drona cries out his fateful question, Yudhishtira hesitates only a moment before he replies, “Aswatthama is dead!” And adds under his breath, “The elephant Aswatthama.”
Yudhishtira was a man of such perfect dharma that his chariot never touched the earth but rode four fingers above it. Now, when he lied, his ratha descends to the ground and Dharma Deva’s son is like any other man in the mortal world.
Drona hears Yudhishtira and faints in his chariot. Every moment, Dhrishtadyumna battles his way nearer his Acharya. When Drona recovers, it seems his spirit is broken and the will to fight has all but left him. Dhrishtadyumna storms at him, his bow streaming; now the brahmana, who bestrode Kurukshetra a short while ago, fights back weakly, with effort. Drona’s hands have grown sluggish and hardly obey his will. Dhrishtadyumna harries him.
Yet the fight has not died in the Acharya; it only slumbers in grief. When the Panchala prince strikes him with arrows, the brahmana shakes off his stupor. Drona seizes up another bow, given him by his guru Angiras. He breaks Dhrishtadyumna’s weapon and covers him with fire. Dhrishtadyumna picks up another bow and fights back. But Drona is fear embodied, once more, his body is full of uncanny light. In a searing moment, he kills Dhrishtadyumna’s horses and his sarathy. He shatters the prince’s chariot.
Roaring himself, Dhrishtadyumna leaps down to the ground, sword in hand. He rushes at Drona. Coolly, the brahmana smashes his sword and shield and Dhrishtadyumna stands unarmed and helpless before his guru. A thin smile curving his lips, Drona raises his bow to kill the Panchala. From his quiver, he draws some arrows called vaitasmikas, meant specially for a powerful enemy who is very close. They are incendiary shafts and will steam away the armor from Dhrishtadyumna, before blowing him apart.
Of all the great archers only a few know anything about the vaitasmikas. They are more difficult to aim truly than any other arrow, because they are heavy and the bowstring must not be drawn back too far. Kripa is a master of them, as are Arjuna, Drona, Karna, Krishna, Pradyumna and Satyaki; Abhimanyu, also, was a master of the weighty shafts. Only one of those warriors is close enough to prevent Drona from killing Dhrishtadyumna.
His wrist cocked, Drona draws his bowstring back in the unusual manner used for the vaitasmikas. The Pandavas hold their breath. If Dhrishtadyumna is slain, who will kill Drona? In that interminable moment, the brahmana shoots his thick barbs, ten of them, one after the other. Dhrishtadyumna stands before him, roaring, ready to die. At the very last sliver of a moment, before the vaitasmikas tear into the Panchala’s breast, ten arrows flash out of nowhere, each one a savior and they cut down Drona’s shafts in the air! Arjuna and Krishna shout aloud in relief. They turn to see Satyaki has saved Dhrishtadyumna’s life.
Arjuna cries out Satyaki’s name. He says to Krishna, “Satyaki is more than a brother to us! The war would have been lost in another moment.”
Krishna murmurs, “It has not yet been won.”
Arrows flow endlessly from Arjuna’s Gandiva and he holds the Kaurava army off and away from Drona, just as he had on the day Bheeshma fell. On the other side, Satyaki does the same. The Kaurava warriors surround these two, but to no avail. Drona and Dhrishtadyumna still face each other.
As a flame blazes brightest just before it dies, so, too, does Drona on Kurukshetra. He fights more splendidly than ever, like a man of twenty. It is as if hearing his son is dead and seeing the rishis of Devaloka and his father have only made him more determined. He burns the Pandava army with astras, like a field of straw. He consumes twenty-four thousand kshatriyas; and, dissatisfied, rages on.
Once more, the terrible brahmana takes up the brahmastra. Dhrishtadyumna stands helpless on the ground, with no chariot and no means to contain the Kaurava Senapati. Then Bheema rides up like the wind, spirits him into his ratha and they attack Drona together. Fighting side by side, they cut down many of his missiles; but they can hardly put out the conflagration he is. Having beaten back the Kauravas on one flank, Satyaki rides up and he, too, turns his bow on Drona: not the three of them are enough to subdue him.
In disgust, Bheema leaps down from his chariot. Throwing caution to the winds, he runs to his old guru. He seizes Drona’s chariot horses by their bridles, bringing them up. Drona pauses his hellish archery; he turns glowering to the lion that dares accost him. Bheema roars, “It is when the brahmana abandons his natural dharma that kshatriya kind is destroyed! The brahmana is meant to be gentle and compassionate, a home of all the virtues. You were born a brahmana, Drona, but you have become a butcher. You have strayed from your dharma and you have lost your mind. All the thousands you kill are kshatriyas, fighting as they were born to. But you were not born to this, which is why you burn helpless footsoldiers with devastras.
I know what turns your head, Brahmana. It is the gold Duryodhana gives you, isn’t it? But what will you do with all that wealth, Drona, when your son for whom you want it is dead? Murderer, how much you preached dharma to us when we were children. Is this that dharma you show us now?”
Bheema spits on the ground in contempt, turns his back on his guru and walks away fearlessly. His every word has struck Drona like an arrow. With his childlike directness, this pupil of his always had the power to wound his master. For he always spoke the truth, frankly and without blandishment. Now, Bheema’s words push his Acharya over the edge, at which he already teetered. With a long roar, Drona flings his bow from him. The war pauses.
Drona cries in a ringing voice, “Karna, Duryodhana, Kripa: hear me! I will not fight any more. Drona’s war has ended, the rest is left to you.”
Drona sits on the floor of his chariot; he crosses his legs in padmasana. He shuts his eyes and yokes his spirit; in moments, he is lost to the battlefield around him, to the very world. Sunk in yoga, the brahmana journeys back on his anguish to the wellsprings of the eternal atman. Ancestral memory opens like a sacred flower in him. In relief, in gratitude, in joy, Drona discovers himself again.
Dhrishtadyumna sees him like that. Sword in hand, he leaps down from Bheema’s chariot and runs at Drona. Arjuna watches him. Seeing that Drona was again their old guru whom they loved and worshipped once, the one who taught them so much, the Pandava cries, “Don’t kill him, Dhrishtadyumna! Take him alive, don’t kill him!”
But he cries in vain to a kshatriya whose father and sons Drona has killed. The Panchala springs lightly on to Drona’s chariot. With a swing of his sword, he hews his Acharya’s head from his neck in a blast of blood. Drona never opens his eyes; perhaps, he never knows when the sword-stroke ends his life. When the head is struck off, a blinding light, of a soul, issues from the naked throat and, pulsing and awesome, rises into heaven, lighting up the sky as it goes. In the subtle akasa above, the immortal rishis are still waiting for the brahmana. Drona walks among them now. He attains Brahmaloka, a realm that the devas hardly know4.
Sanjaya, who has been blessed with mystic sight, sees the ascent of Drona’s spirit. Besides him, just Kripa, Krishna and Yudhishtira see it. The rest of the field only sees how brutally Dhrishtadyumna hacks off Drona’s head and stands drenched in his Acharya’s blood. The Panchala picks up that head and leaps down from the gory chariot. With a roar, he flings it on the ground and stands smiling and panting, while the cheering Pandava soldiers throng him. The Pandava Senapati has killed the Kau-rava Senapati. He has accomplished the impossible task for which he was born! But his father Dru-pada is not alive to see his son fulfil his destiny.
Bheema is the first to run up to Dhrishtadyumna and enfold him in a great embrace. Unmindful of the blood he is covered in, the blood of his master, Bheema roars, “You have kept your oath! I will hug you like this again when the sutaputra dies; and once more, when Duryodhana is killed.” Kurukshetra is alight with the news.