THREE
Riding through the darkness across Kurukshetra, the three warriors approach the Pandava camp. Aswatthama lets Kripa and Kritavarman down near the main gate. He says, “See no one escapes this way.”
He rides off into the night. He means to find another way in. As he goes, the dark wind in his face, suddenly a rakshasa looms in his path, its hundred strangely beautiful eyes glowing red, round its waist a tiger-skin dripping fresh blood and the skin of a black buck covering his radiant chest. A writhing serpent is his sacred thread and his many arms hold aloft diverse weapons. Flames issue from his fanged maw. Aswatthama looses a few arrows at the demon. The rakshasa yawns his mouth wide and swallows those shafts. Aswatthama summons the rathashakti. The apparition swallows that fiery missile as well. Leaping down from his chariot, Aswatthama draws his sword, golden-hafted and its blade the color of the sky; but it disappears from his hand and into the demonic being’s body like a mongoose into its hole! So does the great mace he seizes up next.
Aswatthama thinks this is no ordinary rakshasa; it makes no move to come any nearer, or to attack him. Drona’s son folds his hands and stands on one foot. He prays to Siva, by whose grace he was born. Abruptly, the rakshasa vanishes and in its place, a golden altar appears before the brahmana. In moments, all sorts of strange spirits materialize from that altar.
Some have three heads, some no head at all. Some are naked, pale phalluses erect; others wear tiger-skin. Some have three eyes and others just one. Some have four and five arms; some have tails. Some are minotaurian, others have bull’s heads and men’s limbs and still others are indescribable, for they have no human feature, or any bestial one. Many have the complexion of the lotus and they carry all kinds of weapons. Yet, these weird beings do not threaten Aswatthama in any way, only sing and dance bizarrely before him; they shriek and yodel, too. The Siva-bhakta knows these extraordinary creatures are his Lord’s ganas, come to announce their master.
The golden altar blazes up in flames. Bracing himself, Aswatthama climbs the steps that lead to the vedi. He cries, “Lord, I offer myself to you! I am born in the line of Angiras and I beg you to accept me as the sacrificial animal.” and is about to step into the flames, when a light illumines heaven and earth and Siva stands before his devotee. The God wears deerskin; he is three-eyed, irradiant and carries his trisula. Matted jata covers his head, the crescent-moon peeps out from his topknot and the Ganga glimmers there. Aswatthama falls on his face to worship that vision.
Siva says, “Krishna is my finest bhakta and so far I protected the Panchalas for his sake. But the time of their lives has run out. Here, take this sword, Aswatthama and may your enemies perish.”
In a daze, Aswatthama takes the shining sword from awesome Sankara and the Lord vanishes. Just the ineffable fragrance of him lingers on the midnight air. Rising from where he knelt, Aswatthama stalks into the Pandava camp, the sword a long flame in his hand. To his right and left, unseen rak-shasas march. He peers into the first tent he comes to in the dark and dimly sees Dhrishtadyumna lying asleep on a white bed, on satin sheets, scented with powdered dhupa. Aswatthama steals into the tent.
For a moment, he stands staring at the sleeping Panchala prince. His lips curl, his eyes blaze and then, with a screech like the hunting owl’s, he lashes out with a kick at his father’s killer. Dhrish-tadyumna is startled awake and Drona’s son is at him. Dhrishtadyumna tries to get up, but Aswat-thama seizes his long hair, flings him down on the ground and begins to kick him relentlessly: in his stomach, his groin, his face, again and again. Dhrishtadyumna curls up in agony. In a flash, Aswatthama rips the string from the Panchala’s bow lying nearby. He plants his knees on Dhrish-tadyumna’s chest and quick as rage, winds the bowstring around his throat and throttles him. Dhrishtadyumna’s eyes bulge from his head, his tongue lolls out of his mouth. He grips his attacker’s hands and manages to gasp, “Don’t kill me like this! Kill me with an arrow like a kshatriya, or I won’t reach swarga.”
Aswatthama’s face is a mask, its eyes slit in hatred. Drona’s son, the Panchala’s boyhood friend, hisses, “You killed your own guru! swarga is not for men like you. I have come to send you to hell. You will be damned forever and that is what you deserve.”
Still throttling him with the bowstring, Aswatthama drags Dhrishtadyumna around the tent, kicking him, killing him in the most brutal way. Long after life has left the fire-prince’s body, Aswatthama continues to savage his corpse. At last he stands panting above the dead Dhrishtadyumna and his eyes gleam in satisfaction.
Aswatthama takes up Siva’s sword he had set down so he could kill that kshatriya with his bare hands. Now he goes through the rest of the Pandava camp as the white owl did among the sleeping crows. Aswatthama slaughters the other Panchalas, Shikhandi and his brothers. He comes to another tent and sees Draupadi’s sons asleep. They are hardly more than children. The brahmana enters stealthily and, covering their mouths so they did not cry out, he cuts their throats or plunges his sword into their hearts, killing them before they awake. He finds Yuddhamanyu and Uttamaujas and kills them1.
Meanwhile, Kripa and Kritavarman have set fire to the camp from three sides and the tents blaze up like yagna flames in the dark. Roused by terrified screams in the feral night, the other sleeping soldiers wake up and try to run from the rakshasa attacking them at the midnight hour. Like Yamadutas, death’s messengers, Kripa and Kritavarman cut them down at the only gate.
Aswatthama stalks that camp like Yama himself2. His roars drown the screams of those he murders with Siva’s sword, flashing like a moon-sliver in his hand. Drona’s son attacks the elephants and horses that stampede through the camp, felling them at will and is drenched in their innocent blood. Whinnying and trumpeting in terror, those beasts plunge away from the demented avenger; and on their panicstricken careen, they trample a hundred Pandava soldiers who try to escape Drona’s dreadful son.
Soon, the three Kaurava warriors meet again at the gate. Lit by the flames of the burning camp, their faces are wet with blood. Their mission is accomplished; their macabre sacrifice is complete: every man in the Pandava camp is dead and most of their beasts. Scavengers descend on the camp and begin to feast. Rakshasas and pisacahas arrive, to quaff the flowing blood. Gorging on flesh, fat and sucking marrow out of the corpses’ bones, they dance in joy. Drunk with murder, Aswatthama, Kripa and Kritavarman embrace one another, roaring at the stars. They climb into the waiting chariot and ride back to Samantapanchaka like an evil, three-headed wind.
Duryodhana lies alone where he fell. He keeps his mace close beside him, because the night has flowered with a hundred baleful eyes. The jackal and hyenas packs have discovered him and every moment they pad closer. He roars and screeches at them and they retreat. But in a few moments, they come snuffling forward again, with low growls and the hyenas’ mad cackling. The pain in Duryodhana’s loins threatens to make him faint at any moment and he knows that will be the end: the scavengers will tear him apart.
Then, the animal eyes vanish as if by magic. It takes the Kaurava a few moments longer than it has the jackals and hyenas to hear horses flying toward him through the night, bearing Aswatthama and his army of two. Even before they stop and alight, Duryodhana senses their excitement. Next moment, the three are at his side. He sees they are covered in blood and their eyes shine.
Smiling, Kripa says, “My lord, I see you mean to take your gada with you into Devaloka: a friend who remained faithful to the last!”
Aswatthama takes his king’s hand fervidly and cries, “I did not fail you, Duryodhana! I killed all your enemies tonight. The Panchalas and Dhrishtadyumna are dead; Draupadi’s sons are slain. What remained of the Pandavas’ army is dead, their camp burned to the ground. But I did not find Yudh-ishtira and his brothers there and I did not find Satyaki or Krishna. Of the two forces that faced each other on Kurukshetra, my lord, from your army just Acharya Kripa, Kritavarman and I still live; and from the enemy’s, only the five Pandavas, Krishna and Satyaki.” He pasues a mont, then cries, “When you meet your guru, my father Drona, in heaven, tell him I have slain Dhtrishtadyumna, his sons and the sons of the Pandavas!”
By now, Duryodhana is gasping for his last breath. A faint smile touches his lips and there is a glitter of triumph in his hooded eyes. He manages to whisper to his final Senapati, “Aswatthama, you have done what Bheeshma, Drona and Karna could not! I am proud of you. May God bless you.”
Duryodhana’s eyes are full of death and his three warriors hold his hands tightly. Their king breathes, “I am going now, my friends, we will meet again in swarga.”
Then he has gone and peace suffuses his dead face. At last, the tumult and anguish of that great and terrible life have ended. One by one, his warriors embrace their dead king and, their hearts full, they walk away from him. Once more, the night sprouts hungry eyes, as the scavenger packs arrive for their feast. But then, unearthly protection is upon Duryodhana’s corpse. It begins to glow so eerily in the dark that the scavengers back away from it and run yelping into the night.
It is told that the moment life left Duryodhana’s body, Sanjaya’s eyes lost the miraculous sight with which they had been blessed so he could relate the events of the war of dharma to Dhritarashtra.
The most terrible morning of the Pandavas’ lives dawns. They are roused by a man who comes howling to the tree under which they spent the night. It is Dhrishtadyumna’s sarathy, the only one to have escaped Aswatthama’s carnage: by pretending to be dead. He cries to Yudhishtira, “They are all dead, my lord! Aswatthama killed them in the night. Your sons are slain, the Panchalas are killed, my lords Shikhandi and Dhrishtadyumna have been murdered!”
Yudhishtira falls where he stands and Satyaki catches him. For a moment, the other Pandavas stand turned to stone. It is the hour of atonement: for they, too, have killed thousands on Kurukshetra. Shock rages through their bodies, maddening them and then, mercifully, each one of them faints. Even Krishna seems shaken.
When Yudhishtira revives, in a low voice he says, “We have been vanquished in our victory.” He tells Nakula, “Go and fetch Draupadi.”
They ride to the camp and see the desolation Aswatthama has made of it: ashes everywhere and bloody corpses, their faces peaceless even in death, because they died so horribly. They see their sons lying side by side, some still on the charred remains of their beds, other having fallen off when Aswatthama killed them in their sleep. But the sight Yudhishtira can bear least is of Dhrishtadyumna, strangled, his swollen tongue protruding lewdly from his lips, his eyes staring in terror, his body and face covered in purple welts. This was how the splendid fire-prince had died at last, the kshatriya who had been their Senapati since the war began, without whom they could have never won the dharma yud-dha. Yudhishtira begins to sob. Satyaki and Bheema sit mutely beside their friend’s mangled corpse.
Arjuna walks around the horrific camp. When he sees the corpses of Uttamaujas and Yuddhamanyu, who rode at his chariot-wheels all these days, he breaks down. They hear the sound of a chariot driving up. Nakula has returned with Draupadi.
The Pandavas stand helpless, as Panchali is helped down from the chariot. She takes a few hesitant steps, then, sees her sons and collapses. When she regains her senses, hysteria has its way with her: her screams ring through the tragic morning. She beats her breast, tears her hair and cries out her sons’ names, her murdered brothers’ names. She screams at Yudhishtira, “Are you content now, that you have won the earth by sacrificing your sons?”
She falls across the body of each of her boys, kissing their faces, touching their wounds that smear her in dried blood, like sacramental kumkum and whimpering like a wild mother that has lost her young. Then, suddenly, she grows ominously quiet. Like a cobra uncoiling, she rises.
She says to Yudhishtira, “I will not eat again until Aswatthama is killed. I will die in this place.”
She sits down again and her husbands know she means to do exactly what she has said. Yudhish-tira tries to pacify her. “Your brothers and your sons died heroes and they have found swarga for themselves. How can you sit here in prayopavesha, Panchali? Aswatthama has escaped into the jungle, who can tell when we will find him?”
“I want revenge for my sons and my brothers, or I will die here.”
Yudhishtira cries, “Even if we do find Aswatthama and kill him, how will you believe we have?”
“He has a red jewel on his head, he was born with it. Bring me that stone and I will be content. Losing it will be worse than death for him.” Yet again, she turns to her husband she relies on whenever there is violence to be done, the one she can most easily persuade. She turns to Bheema and says, “Bheema, my love, you are the only one who will help me. You must do this for me!”
That is all it takes. Bheema swells up, his eyes turn red and he cries, “I will bring you the jewel. Nakula, come with me, be my sarathy.”
Bheema sets out to find Aswatthama. Yudhishtira sits near Draupadi. He puts his arms around her and does his best to comfort her. She sobs against his chest.
Krishna says, “Aswatthama has the brahmasirsa. He has left dharma behind him and he will stop at nothing any more. If he uses that astra, Bheema will not live. Drona once gave the brahmasirsa to Arjuna, but he did not trust Aswatthama with it: for it can make ashes of the earth in its four fires. But Aswatthama did not stop begging Drona and at last the father relented and gave his son the astra too.
I can never forget how Aswatthama flattered me once for a whole morning and I wondered where his flattery was leading. In a while, he asked me for the Sudarshana Chakra3! Bheema doesn’t know Aswatthama has the brahmasirsa. Arjuna, come with me, we must go after him.”
They climb into Krishna’s Jaitra and set out. When they are out of the others’ sight, Krishna says to his sarathy, “Daruka, fly!”
The wonderful horses take to the air and rise above the trees. With unerring instinct, they fly straight to where Bheema has already found Aswatthama, who is with Vyasa and some other rishis on the banks of the Ganga.