The Palace of Illusions (44 page)

Much has been written about Arjun's grief at this eleventh hour and what Krishna said in response to shake him out of immobility. Vyasa knew it first, dreaming it before it happened. They say he chanted it to Ganesha, god of beginnings, who penned it down. (Was it him I'd glimpsed under the banyan with his pendulous elephant head?) Others took up Krishna's words and translated them into many languages and meters. Some gave it elaborate names, but most merely called it
The Song
. It wouldn't surprise me if poets and philosophers continue to write about it until the world dissolves on the day of pralaya.

No one—including Arjun himself—had anticipated that the
bravest of the Pandavas would be paralyzed by guilt on seeing the kinsmen he'd have to kill in order to achieve victory. He was a practical man. All this time, he'd been the most impatient, the one most eager to test his skills. Who could have imagined that he would be so shaken by the thought of the devastated world we'd have to inhabit after the war had killed or maimed millions? But unless they are masters of evasion, all who begin a war must at some point face these emotions. Over the next few days, each of my other husbands would bitterly regret their part in the battle and wish it undone. But by then we would all know this: war is like an avalanche. Once begun, it cannot cease until it has wreaked all the destruction it is capable of.

When I watched Krishna advise Arjun, consoling him, teaching him how to be successful not only on this battlefield but beyond it, I almost didn't recognize the amusing, carefree man I'd known since my girlhood. Where had he learned so many philosophies? When had he made their wisdom his own?

I faithfully repeated the points he made to the other women when I joined them at night.
The pleasures that arise from sense-objects are bound to end, and thus they are only sources of pain. Don't get attached to them.
And:
When a man reaches a state where honor and dishonor are alike to him, then he is considered supreme. Strive to gain such a state.
Uttara was too distracted by her own concerns to pay much attention, but Kunti and Subhadra listened carefully and nodded in understanding. I couldn't imagine such a man of wisdom, however, far less aspire to be like him. I didn't know how to live without attachment or feel the same way toward honor and dishonor. Perhaps only when one possessed a greater treasure could one let go of this world. Krishna hinted that such a treasure was inside me—
Weapons cannot harm it; fire cannot burn it; it is eternal, still and blissful
—but the words, slippery as stones that have been left
underwater a long time, slid from my fingers even as I tried to examine them. Wisdom that isn't distilled in our own crucible can't help us. Thus, though my mouth parroted Krishna's words, my will swung between remorse and revenge, and my heart wouldn't stop stinging.

But one thing Krishna said struck me directly. When Arjun asked why man found himself driven to wrongdoing in spite of good intentions, Krishna replied,
Because of anger and desire, our two direst enemies.
How well I knew them, my longtime companions—no, my masters—and their offspring, revenge! And how faithful they were! When I sought to rid myself of them, they clung to me most tenaciously.

I couldn't claim, as Arjun did after hearing Krishna's discourse, that my delusions had vanished. But I learned to watch myself. And if I wasn't able to bar anger, or her insidious cousin, irritation, from my heart, at least some of the time I bit back the sharp comments that I'd prided myself on dispensing so freely all these years.

One part of Krishna's conversation with Arjun I was unable to report. Arjun spoke of it later, though his disjointed words didn't make much sense. He said Krishna had appeared to him in the form of God.

“His eyes were the sun and moon and fire,” he added. “In his body there were mountains and oceans, and the deep darkness of space beyond the stars. All our enemies—and many of our friends— fell into his gigantic mouth and were crushed to death.” He shuddered. “It was terrible—and beautiful beyond description. Did you not see it?”

I shook my head. “I only saw a great flash of light, as though a
divine astra had been discharged. It blinded me. I thought the end of the world had come.”

“It was the end of the world—the world as I knew it,” Arjun said. “Now the meaning of everything is different—our lives, our deaths, what we do in between.” He stared into the distance and didn't say any more, but the sorrow was gone from his face.

I, too, said nothing, but I was deeply hurt. Why hadn't Krishna, whom I believed to be my dear friend and protector, allowed me to see his cosmic form? Ever since the war began, he'd had little to do with me. I understood that: he was preoccupied with larger events. But this was a slight too huge to ignore. I decided I, too, would have nothing to do with him until I received proof of his caring.

I decided this, but it didn't lessen the sting in my heart. I couldn't stop myself from wondering, over and over, why he considered Arjun more fitting to receive this vision. What crucial ingredient did I lack that the mystery of the universe should forever elude me?

What else did the sight bring?

My father locked in battle with Drona, both their faces rigid with old hatred. In between striking deathly blows at each other, they both remembered fragments from their shared past: days at the hermitage, sharing lessons and food, a hunt where they'd got lost in the forest together, the tears they had shed at parting. Bheem roaring as he killed Duryodhan's brothers. When the bloodlust receded from his mind, it was filled with remorse at fratricide, for no matter how he excused himself, he knew that the same blood ran in their veins. Ghatotkacha, bellowing with rage, all gentleness melted from his face, as he used his rakshasa magic to grow to gigantic proportions. When he crushed enemy soldiers under his feet as they fled in
terror, his conscience cried, Is this glory? I saw Sikhandi, grown more androgynous by the moment, discharge arrow after arrow toward Bheeshma, swearing in frustration when none of them could reach him. One part of his mind was relieved that he hadn't yet committed the heinous act of killing Bharat's greatest warrior. Arjun's chariot cut through the field like a meteor, burning everything in its path—but he took care to avoid his grandfather and his teacher, not ready to kill them yet.

Thus the war went on, the physical battle outside matching the conflicts within each warrior. And yet this did not mitigate the carnage. I saw the death throes of the innocent and the guilty, and both were equally terrible. In only a few hours, the ground turned red as though the skies had rained blood. What would happen by the end of the eighteen days? I watched the pendulum of victory sway back and forth, one hour toward the Kauravas, the next toward the Pandavas, and with each swing, I searched for—and failed to find— Karna, whose heart I most yearned to read.

In the night I learned the reason for his absence. Before the war began, Bheeshma told Duryodhan that he would command the Kaurava forces only if Karna stayed off the battlefield. (Was this because of the long animosity between them? Or was it as my husbands thought—that Bheeshma was trying to protect them? Or was there a different reason, related to the dream I'd had?) Knowing Bheeshma to be the more experienced warrior, Karna had acceded for the sake of his friend—but with great anger, for this was the war he'd been preparing to fight all his life. Now he waited in his tent for Bheeshma to win—or die. My vision could not travel there, but my imagination made up for this lack. In it he paced up and down, his back ramrod straight, his weapons lying ready on the ascetic's pallet where he slept. His ears were tuned to every sound of war; his whole being chafed with impatience.

I imagined Duryodhan coming to him at the end of the day to discuss strategy and to vent his frustration with Bheeshma, for he sensed that though Bheeshma's promise yoked him to the throne of Hastinapur, in his heart the grandfather favored the Pandavas. Karna hid his own agitation to calm him, agreeing as he'd always done— the one friend Duryodhan could lean on. In case Bheeshma failed, Karna assured him, he would certainly kill Arjun. Didn't he possess Indra's Shakti, that invincible weapon? Once Arjun was gone, the Pandavas would be nothing. Why, Duryodhan could finish them off himself in a day or two!

But after Duryodhan left, greatly cheered by such talk, Karna sank onto his pallet and put his hands over his face. When he removed them—why should I imagine this?—his fingers were wet with tears.

34

The grandfather was proving to be a problem. We'd known all along what a hardened warrior he was, and what a strategist. But my husbands were taken aback by the energy with which he plowed into the Pandava army, killing thousands single-handedly. He also created troop formations that were almost impossible to penetrate: the crane with outspread wings, the intricate sea serpent, the layered mandala. Deep down they had believed (as did Duryodhan) that he loved them too much to truly harm them. Hadn't he announced, in open court, that he'd do his best to bring Duryodhan victory, but he would not kill the Pandavas, because they were his grandsons, too?

“He can't talk to us directly because of his vow,” Sahadev the strategist said. “So he's sending us a coded message. Circumstances, he's saying, have placed us on opposing sides, but even while I'm fighting you, I'll aid you.”

“Of course!” Arjun said. “Wasn't that what our uncle Salya told us after Duryodhan tricked him into joining his forces?
He thinks he's won, but two can play at this game. When Karna comes to the battlefield, I'll volunteer to be his charioteer, and I'll use my words to sow discouragement in his heart.
“

Only Yudhisthir shook his head, unconvinced.

“The grandfather is made of a different metal,” he said.

He was right. The promise Bheeshma had given in his youth— that he'd guard the throne of Hastinapur against all invaders—was carved into his heart at least as deep as any love that subsequently entered it. And when (following a slew of triumphs by Arjun) Duryodhan accused him of partiality to the Pandavas, he demonstrated this by fighting so fiercely that our soldiers whispered that he was Yama the death-bringer come to earth. Even the bravest of them broke formation and fled when they saw his silver chariot approaching—but that didn't save them from destruction. (Already the rules of righteous war were breaking down.) Each day, faced with Bheeshma's wrath, our forces dwindled. Each night our camp was mired in despondence as my husbands faced a fact they hadn't considered: the legends had spoken true; Bheeshma was invincible. He wouldn't kill them, no. But he didn't have to. Once he destroyed enough of their army, their defeat was inevitable.