THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 2 (41 page)

“Drona will not take me, Arjuna. Answer Susharma’s challenge, let this be the Trigartas’ last day on earth.”

“Bless me!” cries Arjuna.

Leaving Yudhishtira in the care of Satyajit, who is Drupada’s brother and no less a kshatriya than him, Arjuna says to Krishna, “Come, my Lord, let us ride at the Trigartas.”

FOUR
BHAGADATTA’S ELEPHANT 

An army by themselves, the Trigartas have formed a crescent of their own beyond the southern wing tip of the garuda vyuha. Arjuna rides alone against that legion of thousands, like a lion at a vast herd of deer. Duryodhana sees Arjuna’s white horses flying like foam across a wave and cries to Drona, “Our plan is working! Arjuna rides at Susharma’s men. Take Yudhishtira, Acharya, no one can stop you now.”

Susharma has brought his legion to the south, a fair way beyond the main Kaurava army. From here, Arjuna will not be able to ride back in a hurry to his brother’s side. They are so far that he will not be able to hear a call for help. As they draw near, Arjuna turns to Krishna, “Do you see the smiles on their savage faces? Are they so glad I will send them to hell, that they smile?”

Arjuna lifts his Devadatta, adorned with gold and blows a deep note on it. For a moment, the Trigarta force stands paralyzed; their horses’ eyes bulge wildly and the beasts pass dung in fear. Then a thousand conches’ bass answers his call, a thousand arrows flash at his chariot, obscuring the face of the sun. Arjuna replies with an astra that spumes up as a calid fireball, then, falls on the enemy in a hundred burning shafts. Every arrow claims a life: a hundred Trigarta soldiers are immolated.

The Trigartas have sworn a solemn vow and they shoot bank upon bank of dark arrows at Krishna and Arjuna, falling on them like swarms of bees upon a flowering tree, engulfing them. Because of Krishna’s chariotry and the white horses’ speed, the Pandava’s chariot is a hard target to find. Their finer marksmen’s barbs Arjuna cuts down with his own fire.

One of the Trigarta’s bravest kshatriyas, Subahu of the gifted hands, rides out of the throng to face Arjuna alone. He is an excellent bowman and wounds both Krishna and Arjuna. Roaring, Arjuna breaks the bow in Subahu’s hand, then severs the hand from its wrist in a red font. Screaming in horror, Subahu flees. Susharma himself dashes forward with ten of his truest archers. But Arjuna is a warrior of another ilk. As in a nightmare, Susharma sees Sudhanva’s head cut from his neck by the Pandava’s golden-winged arrow, its scream stilled on its lips. Turning, he sees the other nine around him have met the same fate, in the space of a wish.

Arjuna fights as if from another dimension; where he has all the time he needs to shoot at the enemy, while he is protected from their arrows by a threshold they cannot breach. He seems to defy nature: his one to their thousand is more than they can subdue. He burns them at will; the common Trigarta soldiers panic and want to run back to the main Kaurava army. Susharma roars at them, “Stand and fight, cowards! You have sworn to kill or be killed. I will shoot you down myself if you run.

And he sends a few warning arrows after the deserters, so they scramble back to the crescent. Sush-arma cries, “Shoot all at once! Cover them in a night of arrows.”

The wind whistles toward Arjuna from behind the Trigarta legion and suddenly a dark cloud of arrows drifts at him as if at midday an unnatural night has fallen over Kurukshetra. It is an endless cloud. The Trigartas now shoot in waves; and in terror: so they can hide in that darkness from the Pandava. Such an impenetrable darkness; Arjuna can hardly see his hands. In fury, he summons his first greater astra, the weapon of Tvashtar. He looses that missile, then blows a rolling blast on the Devadatta.

Tvashtar’s astra is a weapon of hallucinations. Every Trigarta soldier sees the Pandava beside him. They fall on each other, thinking they are attacking Arjuna. Thousands die in the surreal confusion, cut down by their comrades; those that are not killed, Arjuna picks off. Yet, the darkness persists around the white chariot, for the Trigarta brothers themselves are masters of maya and they are not deluded by the astra.

The heavy darkness afflicts Krishna at the chariot-head. He feels exhausted, so he can hardly hold the reins in his hands. His body is drenched in sweat and blindness films his eyes. In that eerie night, Krishna cries, “Arjuna! Where are you? I cannot see you in this accursed blackness. Are you still alive, Arjuna? Answer me!”

A roar of anger answers the Avatara. Dimly, Krishna hears the kshatriya behind him invoke the vayavyastra, the wind’s weapon. He sees an arrow glowing in the sinister dark, a shaft charged with a thousand storms. Next moment, the golden arrow flashes out in the unnatural night and a hurricane sweeps Kurukshetra. Like the sun, it dissolves the darkness of the Trigarta cloud. It also blows away whole columns of soldiers as if they are dry leaves of summer. The gale of the vayavyastra blows the Trigartas across the plain of war—beautiful they seem, like flights of birds!

His enemy hopelessly scattered for the moment, Arjuna cries to Krishna, “I fear the Acharya. We must ride back to Yudhishtira.”

Meanwhile, as soon as Drona saw Arjuna ride against Susharma, he makes straight for Yudhishtira. Drona knows the Trigartas will not hold Arjuna for long. Dhrishtadyumna is beside Yudhishtira. The Pandava cries to Drupada’s son, “Here comes Drona, he must not take me.”

The fire-prince laughs. “I am beside you, my lord and my father’s army is here with Satyajit. Drona can promise Duryodhana anything he likes; but he will not keep his word. We will make him pay for it!”

Drona arrives at the outer ring of the warriors who guard Yudhishtira and sees Dhrishtadyumna riding at him. He swerves away from the encounter. Drupada’s army surrounds Drona, shooting at him from every side. Durmukha, the ugly Kaurava, one of Duryodhana’s fiercest brothers, rides at Dhrishtadyumna. Dhrishtadyumna fights him and also shoots smoking shafts at Drona. Durmukha fights as if for his life today and contains Dhrishtadyumna. He looses a renitent astra at Dhrishtadyumna; for a moment, Drupada’s army is dazzled. Seeing his chance, Drona flits through the protective ring.

Drona is dangerously close to Yudhishtira when Satyajit sees him. Stealthy as a lion come to pounce on a calf separated from the herd, the Acharya stalks his royal prey. Satyajit veers his chariot round and attacks Drona. The brahmana, roused, is more than he can contain. In a flash Drona cuts Satyajit’s bow in two and plunges on at Yudhishtira. Drupada’s other brother, Vrika, flies between Drona and the Pandava king. Drona finds Vrika’s heart with a wooden arrow and that kshatriya falls dead from his chariot.

Satyajit seizes up another bow and sets on Drona. Now Satyajit breaks Drona’s bow in his hand and kills the Acharya’s sarathy with a silver shaft that transfixes him to the chariot-head. Drona’s time is short. He pulls a crescent-tipped arrow from his quiver and severs Satyajit’s head from his neck, scarlet spouting at the naked part.

Panic takes the Pandava army. The Kekayas, Virata and some more of Drupada’s brothers rush to where Drona closes ominously on Yudhishtira. Virata’s brother Satanika sets his chariot between Drona and Yudhishtira. Growling, Drona decapitates him, too, in a flash of blood. Drona has killed three kshatriyas in a few moments and the Pandava soldiers shrink from him. He flares on toward Yudhishtira. Shikhandi, Vasudhana and Satyaki challenge the Acharya. He beats them back easily, with fire-headed arrows that kindle their chariots.

Yet, the few moments for which the three held Drona up are fateful. Yudhishtira leaps nimbly from his chariot. He mounts the swiftest horse he can find and flees the battle! When Drona realizes his quarry has escaped, it is too late for him to give chase. He turns on the Pandava army around him and they feel his wrath. Today, Drona fights as if to prove that he is more than Bheeshma’s equal. There is a bloodbath again on Kurukshetra, more copious than any before.

Many of Drupada’s brothers and Dhrishtadyumna storm back to fight Drona
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. The old master, his white hair flying in the wind of death that blows on that field, is tameless. He kills thousands, their blood falling like rain upon the caked earth. Drona finds the prince Suchitra’s heart with a serpentine naracha. All around, Pandava soldiers cry, “Kill Drona! Kill Drona or the war is lost!”

Who can kill the Acharya? In a brief hour, alone, he routs all the Pandava army. Away off, Dury-odhana stands with Karna at the heart of the Kaurava legions, which have hardly any fighting to do for the slaughter Drona takes to the enemy. His eyes shining, Duryodhana cries to Karna, “Look at him scatter them! Dhrishtadyumna and the rest flee from him. Look at Bheema run!” He roars with laughter. “The Pandavas will forget their dreams of a kingdom, they will hardly hope to live through the day!”

But with the queerest look in his eye, Karna replies, “Don’t belittle your enemy too quickly, Duryodhana. These are kshatriyas, they will not be beaten so easily. Look where Bheema comes to fight, his eyes red as plums. And look at the rest, streaming back after him. We must ride to the Acharya, he is in danger.”

Duryodhana glances sharply at his friend, startled at the warmth in his voice for the Pandavas. Then he sees Drona surrounded and rides to his Senapati, with Karna and some of his brothers. A sharp battle breaks out. Nakula and Sahadeva are twin incarnations of death; behind them, Drau-padi’s sons are implacable; and away to the right, Abhimanyu is the most terrible of all. The Pandavas fight in great heart after Yudhishtira escapes Drona.

Farther away, to the left of Abhimanyu, Bheema, elemental as his airy father, is among Duryo-dhana’s elephants, tormenting them with arrows, smashing them down with his mace, as is commonplace for him by now. Then, to avenge all his kind that Bheema slew, comes a white beast, a titan among elephants: Bhagadatta’s Supritika bears down on the son of the wind. Like Indra mounted on Airavata comes that ancient mountain-demon, Narakasura’s son; and Airavata’s son Supritika charges Bheema’s chariot.

The Pandava army parts like the sky for a Deva. Soldiers hapless enough to come in his way, he tramples as if they were hardly there at all. Enjoying himself among Duryodhana’s lesser beasts, Bheema does not see Supritika until the immense creature is upon him. With a shrill scream at the sight of the corpses of the other elephants Bheema has felled, Supritika lifts a gigantic foot and brings it down thunderously on Bheema’s chariot. The ratha is smashed. The horses bolt, whinnying. The sarathy Visoka is pulp and Bheema himself nowhere to be seen.

Supritika raises his pale trunk and trumpets his triumph; the sound rings across Kurukshetra. A cry of anguish goes up from the Pandava soldiers, “Supritika has killed Bheema!”

The Pandava, meanwhile, is under the mastodon, dazed but unhurt. Sensing him there, the beast begins to settle on its stomach, to crush him. As its hilly bulk descends on him, Bheema, who knows something about elephants from his boyhood, begins to rub its belly furiously with his hands
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. Supritika cannot resist this. For a moment, all the rage flies out of him and he basks in the sweet tickling! In a trice, Bheema escapes between his legs and runs for his life.

Hearing the awful cry that Bheema was dead, Yudhishtira flies back into battle with Drupada’s army. Like the God of wrath he comes, bow singing. The lord of the Dasaarnas comes with Yudhish-tira, bringing his greathearted elephant, which stood up so bravely to Supritika. But Bhagadatta and his beast are denizens of a lofty realm that borders Devaloka and Yudhishtira’s most ferocious volleys fall away from them like raindrops.

Bhagadatta is an endless font of all kinds of missiles, some common, others sorcerous. Columns of men he burns up, in an eyeflash, with blazing javelins that explode with enormous violence. There are hypnotic arrows, full of haunting music, which lulls Yudhishtira’s soldiers into dreams. They stand stupefied, forgetting where they are and are easy picking for the Kaurava archers.

Satyaki rides against the lord of Pragjyotishapura. The Yadava covers elephant and rider in a hum of arrows like dark bees. Supritika charges Satyaki’s chariot and once more, smashes it in splinters with a stamp. Satyaki leaps out, just in time. But another roar shakes the field and Bheema returns to face the white elephant. He fetches Supritika a staggering blow with his mace. Quick as anything, the creature darts out its trunk, seizes Bheema and lifts him high above its head. The elephant is about to dash Bheema on the ground, when with great presence of mind Bheema stabs its soft trunk with an arrowhead. The animal screams and loosens his grip for an instant, which is time enough for Bheema to wriggle free and leap down.

Supritika lifts a leg, wider than the bole of a tree, to stomp on him. Bheema darts under the creature’s belly again and stabs it from below. It runs round and round in a fever, but cannot find its tormentor. Giving up, Supritika sees Abhimanyu’s chariot before him and charges it. Bheema leaps out from between its legs, but Abhimanyu is not quick enough to pull his horses out of Supritika’s way. The white giant crushes his chariot and the prince himself jumps free at the last moment.

It is an unusual battle being fought on Kurukshetra: the Pandava army against Supritika the elephant! The elephant surely has the better of it. He keeps the enemy army at bay, crushing so many chariots, trampling any men who come in his way, holding up Bheema; while Bhagadatta on his neck sows death all around him in a scarlet flurry.

Panic grips the Pandavas and their soldiers’ cries ring plaintively across Kurukshetra.