THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 2 (34 page)

Duryodhana, of course, has no inkling of the secret Karna now carries, which has changed him so profoundly. The Kaurava believes his friend is eager to take the field against the Pandavas. He does not know these eight days have been a miraculous respite, a Godsend to Karna and a time when he has really begun to think of the Pandavas as his brothers. Duryodhana has no clue of the secret that bisects Karna’s life. He, who once longed to take the field against Arjuna, hardly dares let the thought enter his mind now, but prays that Bheeshma will save him from the exigency; though, deep inside him, he knows it is inevitable.

Karna can reveal nothing of his secret to Duryodhana; least of all, when the war is being lost so swiftly. Now, he says bravely, “I can’t bear to watch you cry. There is nothing I want more than to see a smile on your lips. Don’t forget I am here: to fight for you, to die for you if I must. I grieve for your brothers, my prince. What can I say to soften your pain, except that their deaths were destined? All that happens in this world is by fate: life, death, everything; and there is nothing you or I can do to change what fate has written. How I wish I could comfort you, or bring your brothers back to life! Nothing saddens me as much as to see you like this.”

Karna, too, has tears in his eyes.

Duryodhana says, “Drona, Bheeshma, Kripa, Shalya, none of them fight to kill the sons of Pandu. They raze the enemy army, but that is not enough. The Pandavas are that army’s soul; if the soul isn’t put out, they will win. It happens every day: we come home defeated, our soldiers more terrified than ever, because they have seen their comrades die. Even our great kshatriyas are dispirited; no one believes we can win this war any more. They probably outnumber us now, though we began with four aksauhinis more than they did. How I wish you were on the field, Karna, how different things would have been. You wouldn’t hesitate to kill Arjuna or the others.”

Karna says somberly, “Your Pitama loves his grandsons too much. Besides, I am not sure that at his age he can kill them even if he wanted to. There is one solution. Tell Bheeshma to stay away for a day or two and I will come to fight. I will hunt just Arjuna; when I have killed him, the others’ hearts will break. I will leave the field again and your Pitama can win the rest of the war. Arjuna is the key to victory. Why do you think Krishna chose to be his sarathy and not Yudhishtira’s or Bheema’s? If we can kill Arjuna, the rest will be easy.”

Nothing in his voice or his face gives away what it costs Karna to make that offer. Duryodhana stares at him, for a moment, then he gets up. “I will go and speak to Pitama.”

Bheeshma is waiting for him; he has been expecting his grandson. Usually so direct, Duryodhana is uncomfortable with having to tell his grandsire what he has come for. He folds his hands, then sits down near Bheeshma, but never looks into the patriarch’s eyes. Bheeshma waits for him to speak.

“Pitama, there is no kshatriya on earth like you. When you took command of my army I was certain victory would be mine and I thought it would take no more than a day or two. But we have fought eight terrible days and my certainties were mere dreams. You haven’t killed even one Pandava.”

Bheeshma begins to speak, but Duryodhana holds up his hand so he may finish. “Your love for Pandu’s sons is stronger than your love for me. I know you kill ten thousand soldiers every day. But that will not win the war for us, because they kill more of our men than you kill theirs. And, finally, this war will not be won or lost by the ordinary soldiers who die, but by the lords of men that do.”

He lowers his voice, “Pitama, I have lost twenty-four brothers already, all killed by that beast. Weren’t they your grandsons too? Were their lives cheaper than my cousins’ lives, that they can die but not the Pandavas? On whose side do you fight, O Bheeshma, on theirs or mine? If you will not attack Yudhishtira and his brothers, I beg you, relinquish your command. Let Karna take the field tomorrow.”

Having said what he found so hard, Duryodhana falls quiet. Bheeshma sighs. He says in his slow, sad way, “Why are you so cruel to me every day, Duryodhana? Here I am at this bloody yagna, for your sake and the yagnapasu, the sacrificial animal, is I. And you still doubt my love for you? You wound me so casually with your accusations. Instead, why don’t you face the truth? I do my best, but I cannot kill the Pandavas. Even if my heart were set on killing them, I would not be able to. Krishna is with them; the armies of Devaloka could not harm the sons of Pandu.

Duryodhana, the root of your troubles is that you do not realize who Krishna is. You think of him as the Pandavas’ cousin, or as the prince of Dwaraka. You are engulfed in such darkness that you don’t recognize the lights of lights when he stands before you. It is God you are fighting, poor child, the master of all things, the lord of galaxies, the king of time, the creator, sustainer and destroyer of not just us, but the worlds. He showed himself to you in Hastinapura, so you might believe; and you fell down in fear when you saw him like that. Yet, later, you chose to ignore what you saw and accused him of performing a conjuring trick to deceive you. Ah, my son, you are so stubborn and so afraid, that I fear you will submit to Krishna only in death. What can Karna or I, or anyone else do for you? Duryodhana, the dying and the defeat are not on Kurukshetra, but in your own heart.”

Duryodhana sits very still. Bheeshma says, “Let me fight tomorrow and watch me burn their army. I will be a fire among the dry trees of summer and the earth shall never forget how Bheeshma fights. Now go and sleep, my child, you must be strong for battle. And let me rest as well, so I can show you in the morning how much I do love you.”

Bheeshma lies down on his bed and turns his back on Duryodhana. Mollified by his grandfather’s promise, Duryodhana leaves the tent. He doesn’t see the tears Bheeshma sheds: for him, for his slain brothers, for all the men who have lost their lives and, most of all, for Duryodhana’s immortal soul, plunged in darkness, its final ruin drawn near.

Later that night, another kshatriya, who has taken no part yet in the war of Kurukshetra, lies awake long after he has left Duryodhana’s tent. Karna lies roiled in his bed. He does not cry for himself, that he had such a cruel burden thrust upon him: the knowledge of who he was. He weeps for Duryodhana, that his cause was a lost one and only defeat and death would reward his struggle. Yet, Karna chooses to stay at his friend’s side, even at this impossible time.

Duryodhana still believes that if one man on earth hates the Pandavas as much as he himself does, it is Karna. How can Karna confess to him that, now, his hatred has turned into a love that has wrought a miracle in his spirit? Changed the way he saw the world. How can he tell Duryodhana that now Karna loves Arjuna and his brothers more than Bheeshma does? That, as nothing else, would break his friend’s heart. Karna, whose life has been a long injustice from its first moments, cannot bring himself to do the thing his body cries out to: to run away from Kurukshetra until the war is over!

No, he will stay. He will fight Arjuna and his other brothers. He knows life will not spare him that final trial, that last ordeal, before he finds death’s release.

Karna does not cry for himself, as he well might. He is so used to suffering that he feels hardly any pity for himself. He cries for Duryodhana: because, like Bheeshma and Drona, he knows Duryo-dhana will lose this war and his life with it. Karna knows who Krishna is and that victory will come inevitably to those that fought on the Avatara’s side. But who can make Duryodhana see the truth? No one on earth: not even Krishna, who had revealed the shadow of his Viswarupa to the Kaurava. Duryodhana rushes headlong toward an abyss; and Karna, whose heart has been exorcised by the truth, will not abandon him. This night, like every other night of the war, Karna lies staring into death’s very face. He will not allow fear to master him.

EIGHTEEN
THE NINTH DAY:
THE TERRIBLE PATRIARCH 

The sun rises over the remains of the dead on yawning Kurukshetra. Jackals and hyenas have picked the corpses clean. Bare bones shine by first light of day, like fossils on the bed of a dry lake. Duryodhana is full of hope again, this ninth morning of the war. He tells Dusasana, “Today we will see a long-cherished dream fulfilled. Today, my brother, our Pitama has sworn to fight as he has never fought in his life.”

They have just come out into the crisp morning and, shading their eyes, gaze out across the field at the Pandava legions, already deployed. Duryodhana points to Arjuna’s chariot at the heart of the enemy army. “Uttamaujas guards Arjuna’s right wheel and Yuddhamanyu the left; and, look, Arjuna himself guards Shikhandi today. They mean to make their attempt on Pitama’s life. Dusasana, you must see that Shikhandi never comes near Bheeshma. That is all you must devote yourself to today.”

Across the field, Arjuna says to Dhrishtadyumna, “Let Shikhandi take no part in the general fighting. I will watch him with my life: today, let him go after Bheeshma.”

Bheeshma forms his legions in the sarvatobhadra vyuha, which means ‘safe from every side’; and so it is, that square formation. As always, Bheeshma himself is at the head of the vyuha and Dusasanahas arranged for Kripa, Kritavarman, Shakuni, Jayadratha, Kambhoja and fifty of Duryodhana’s brothers to protect the Kuru patriarch. The Trigartas form another ring around this inner one.

The Pandavas form their legions into another mandala vyuha. Yudhishtira, Bheema, Nakula, Sahadeva and Draupadi’s sons are at the very front. Just behind them are Arjuna, Dhrishtadyumna, Shikhandi, Ghatotkacha and Chekitana; after these, Abhimanyu, Drupada and the five Kekaya brothers.

Bheeshma gives the signal. Conches resound and the two armies surge at each other. Arrows light up the morning like rays of the rising sun. Swords gleam and clash and lances drift through the air. Screams ring out over the field, as the morning claims its first lives. Soon the killing begins in earnest.

Suddenly, the sun climbing into the sky is eclipsed by an uncanny cloud appeared from nowhere. Darkness falls on the field and, from the woods that fringe Kurukshetra, another army howls dismally: an army of jackals and wolves baying at the gloom. The underside of their wings pale, vultures wheel into the bizarre twilight. Everywhere the soldiers are terrified and stop fighting. The sinister cloud showers down a rain of fine pebbles on the legions and all around on the horizon, meteors fall on the earth like fantastic fireworks. Then, as abruptly as it appeared, the cloud vanishes. The howling beasts run back into the jungle and the sky is clear and speckless again. This is the dawning of the kali yuga.

While the others stand rooted by the weird omens, Abhimanyu recovers first and charges the enemy, loosing a cloud of his own at them, of arrows. Horses, elephants and footsoldiers fall to his firestorm and chariots explode when his incendiary shafts strike them. The omens of earth and air and then Abhimanyu’s onslaught, are too much for the Kaurava soldiers. They turn and run, when the day’s fighting has barely begun.

Like his grandsire Indra, Abhimanyu shines on Kurukshetra. The jewels on his arms and chest sparkle; his bow is a blur, so it seems that weapon bent in a golden circle is a halo round his beautiful head. Drona and Kripa ride at Abhimanyu together; he beats them back with a crescendo of arrows. Aswatthama and Jayadratha attack him from two flanks, but they cannot even approach him this morning. Abhimanyu rules Kurukshetra like a resplendent Yama.

Duryodhana rides to call Alambusa from a far corner of the field: perhaps the rakshasa’s powers will be of some avail against Arjuna’s son. Alambusa comes to the heart of the battle. He fights with maya. But it seems that Abhimanyu has occult vision so he sees the demon clearly, even when he is invisible to everyone else. The prince’s aim is unerring. Swiftly, Draupadi’s sons are at Abhimanyu’s side and they, too, find the rakshasa with shafts of flames.

Roaring, Alambusa grows tall as a palm-tree in his chariot. He raises his pale sorcerer’s hand above his head and intones an evil mantra. In black tides, his maya shakti shrouds the Pandava army in an unnatural night. Abhimanyu looses a bhaskarastra over the darkling field and light breaks across it again. His maya dispelled by the weapon of the sun, Alambusa stands revealed in his chariot. In fresh rage, Arjuna’s son and his brothers attack the rakshasa, wounding him sorely. Alambusa invokes the siddhi of anima. He becomes a little homunculus, leaps out of his chariot unnoticed and flees.

Bheeshma rides to challenge his great-grandchild. But the prince who bears both Pandava and Yadava blood in his veins is more than a match for his Pitama. Then, Arjuna is at his son’s side and they face the patriarch together. Duryodhana sounds an alarm and fifty of his brothers surround Bheeshma. They know that neither Arjuna nor Abhimanyu will kill them, for Bheema’s oath; and they fight marvelously in that certainty.

Seeing Arjuna and Abhimanyu outnumbered, three other Pandavas arrive beside them. A general battle breaks out. Satyaki confronts Acharya Kripa, who fights like a tiger today. The fleet young Yadava is too much for the old master and, after a hot exchange, Satyaki fells Kripa in his chariot. Quick as wishing, Aswatthama is at his uncle’s side, beating Satyaki back. The Vrishni recovers from the unexpected assault and breaks Aswatthama’s bow in his hands. Meanwhile, Kripa’s sarathy has ridden off the field to safety.

Aswatthama seizes up another bow and takes the fight back to Satyaki. He looses an astra that could shear the peak off a mountain. Struck squarely in his chest, Satyaki falls unconscious. In a moment, he jumps up again and fights in such fury now, that, fearing for his son’s life, Drona rushes up to draw the Yadava’s fire. Like Budha and Sukra battling, Satyaki and Drona duel. The Kuru Acharya covers Satyaki in a blaze of arrows: in fury that he attacked his precious son. Taken unawares by the master’s ferocity, Satyaki is beaten back. In a flash Arjuna is at his side, matching his guru shaft for shaft, holding him off.