THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 2 (68 page)

Meanwhile, a bizarre thing happens to Karna. The crown his nagastra shot from Arjuna’s head is the same one Indra gave him. From where that kirita fell and Karna’s shaft with it, a serpent thrusts itself out from the ground. Invisible to every other eye, it flies through the air to where Karna stands disconsolate in his chariot.

Startled, Karna stares at the gleaming snake. It speaks to him, “You did not know it, but I entered your nagastra subtly; but for me, your arrow would have been quicker and Krishna would not have saved Arjuna. I am Aswasena. Long ago, when the Khandava vana burned and he killed my mother, I swore that I would kill Arjuna. Set me on another arrow, Karna and shoot me at the Pandava. This time there will be no mistake, I swear Arjuna will die.”

Karna cries angrily, “Haven’t you done enough? Karna needs no help to fight his enemies. I would rather die than depend on you. Leave me, before I kill you!”

Aswasena’s eyes glint balefully. He hisses, “If you won’t help me, I will take revenge by myself.”

He flashes through the air, invisibly, at Arjuna’s chariot. But Krishna sees him coming and says, “A serpent comes to kill you!”

By Krishna’s grace, Arjuna sees the snake, hood unfurled, flying to sting him. In a flash, he cuts Aswasena in shreds with six light-like arrows. Panting, Arjuna says, “Who was he that came to kill me though no one sent him?”

Krishna, who knows all things, tells him. Karna and Arjuna resume their duel, more intensely than ever. Soon both of them stream blood from a hundred wounds they have opened on each other. Shalya and Krishna are not spared either.

Karna’s time runs out swiftly; every moment, his death glides nearer. Two curses stalk him close. Fate and the very earth conspire to fulfil the first one. All at once, the ground under his chariot turns soft and his chariot-wheel sinks into the yielding earth. Shalya’s horses cannot pull them out. The ratha tilts backwards and his fine steeds’ hooves are off the ground. Warrior, sarathy, chariot and animals are askew. Karna cannot possibly fight as he is.

A memory from years ago floats up into his mind. He sees a wind-swept beach and at its edge, the corpse of the cow he killed. Karna sees the brahmana’s anguished face before him again. He hears the man curse him, his words ringing above the surf, “When you face your greatest enemy, your chariot-wheel will be mired in the earth.”

A shiver runs through Karna’s body: death’s first touch. He fights more furiously than ever. He thinks of one final astra he has, which might still finish Arjuna. Despair stokes Karna. He decides to use a weapon, which will kill a hundred thousand men besides the Pandava. Karna summons the brahmastra against Arjuna. He draws a golden arrow from his quiver, fits it to his bow in a blur and begins to chant its mantra.

Another face floats up before his mind’s eye: a face he has hardly dared remember all these years. Karna sees his guru Bhargava’s face before him. He sees his master’s angry eyes. He hears his curse across the years, “When you most need an astra to save your life, you will forget the mantras I have taught you.”

Karna fumes. He cannot remember all the mantra for the brahmastra. Arjuna’s arrows swell at him in a squall. Now Arjuna severs Karna’s bowstring, again and again, as quickly as he can mend it. Tears stand in Karna’s eyes. He recalls the misfortunes of his life. He cries, “They say that dharma always watches over those who keep it. I have walked the way of dharma, as I saw it: but there is no such thing in this world!”

Arjuna’s arrows draw flowers of blood on Karna’s body, as he stands helpless in his mired chariot. Arjuna invokes the aindrastra. At the mory last moment, the mantra for the brahmastra flashes into Karna’s mind and he manages to contain the aindra with the brahma. The two astras fuse in the sky.

Every moment Karna’s chariot-wheel sinks deeper into the yielding earth. With a curse, he leaps down to the ground. Kneeling, he pulls out the mired wheel, lifting the chariot with awesome strength. At that moment, Arjuna is thinking of the raudrastra. When Karna sets the chariot-wheel down on what he believes is firm ground, it promptly sinks again.

Howling, he bends again at the offending wheel and cries, “Arjuna, wait until I lift this wheel out. You are a kshatriya. It isn’t dharma for you to shoot at me when I stand helpless. Give me a moment and we will fight again.”

A wild laugh rings out from Krishna. “So you want dharma from Arjuna now! Tell me, Karna, have you always walked the way of dharma yourself? Was it dharma when you plotted against the Pandavas’ lives with Duryodhana? Was it dharma when Draupadi was dragged into the sabha in Has-tinapura and you told Dusasana to strip her naked? Was, perhaps, the game of dice dharma? And let me remind of another moment of dharma, just four days ago.”

Krishna’s face is a mask. “Was it dharma when six of you killed Abhimanyu, when he was alone and without a weapon in his hands? And who broke the boy’s bowstring from behind? I hear it was you, Karna. Was that dharma? That you demand dharma now from Abhimanyu’s father!”

Krishna’s lips throb and Karna reels at what he says: the Avatara’s words are like arrows, tipped with terrible truth. He leaves the mired wheel and with a roar, turns to fight. Arjuna does not summon the raudrastra he had thought of, but looses an agneyastra instead. It burns at Karna. Karna invokes another varunastra to quell the fire in the sky. The effort to remember the mantra for the sea-weapon drains him. Karna staggers against the side of his chariot.

Arjuna invokes the vayavyastra to blow away the clouds of smoke that billow around Karna’s chariot. They screen Karna, give him time to lift his wheel from the sludge. He hardly has the strength any more to do this. His mind is numb. He realizes he cannot remember another mantra. Somehow, he keeps his bow raised and fights back with common arrows. Visions overwhelm Karna. He sees his life flash before his eyes, in a moment. He sees it all so vividly and with complete detachment, as if he was watching someone else’s years. Why, even the present moment, this great duel, assumes a quality of dream. Wonderful illumination floods his tired body. Somehow, he fights on.

Shalya is helpless. His horses are covered in blood, wild-eyed from the wounds Arjuna has given them. Neighing frantically, they strain against their bits. The mired wheel will not let them escape and their legs thresh the air. Shalya is also covered in blood, like his archer on the ground. Gritting his teeth in a last, tremendous effort, Karna shoots a heavy wooden arrow at Arjuna. With a crack like thunder, it flashes into the Pandava’s chest. The Gandiva slips from Arjuna’s hand and he falls.

A cry of dismay from the Pandava army and an excited cheer begins on the lips of the Kaurava legions. It dies before being given full throat, because Arjuna rises as if from the dead, groggily, but his eyes turning red. He picks up his bow and cuts down Karna’s banner of Anga. Karna roars as if he has been shot through his heart; then the wave of visions smothers him again. It is as if there are two men in his body: one fights Arjuna for his life; and the other a Karna wafted far from this field, from this very world on a bright current of bliss.

Karna, the kshatriya, strains again at his chariot-wheel to lift it out. By now, he is bathed in blood. Tears run channels down his cheeks. With his huge effort, the sinews on his back stand out like snakes. Again, he sees the face of the brahmana who cursed him. He hears his voice, as if the man spoke them even now, ‘And just as you have killed my cow, when she least expected it, so, too, you will meet your death, when you are not ready for it.’

Krishna cries to Arjuna, “Quick! Kill him now!”

Karna kneels on the ground, bending his back to his task. Slowly, the chariot-wheel slides out from its furrow. Arjuna draws an uncommon arrow from his quiver, its head wide as two hands and shaped like a thunderbolt. It is the anjalika and the Kauravas who watch hold their breath. Caught in a dream himself, Arjuna chants the weapon’s mantra. The moment pauses as if time will stand still in it. Fluidly Arjuna draws his bowstring to his ear and looses the anjalika at his sworn enemy, his brother. It is just past high noon.

A clap of thunder, the light of a sunflare and the arrow flies at Karna. Karna turns his head to that sound. The livid astra seems to take forever to reach him; Karna looks straight into Arjuna’s eyes and a smile of supreme contempt lights his face. As both armies watch, transfixed, the astra takes off Karna’s head in a burst of wild roses and it falls to the earth, brilliant, like the setting sun. The last disdainful smile still curves his haughty lips and at last, death’s peace softens his face.

Karna’s headless trunk sways and falls beside the chariot-wheel that was his undoing. A pulsing light issues from his bloody neck and rises so slowly from him, as if it was reluctant to leave his magnificent body. Majestically, that light, his soul, rises into the sky and is absorbed into the sun.

TEN
THE SORROWING SUN 

Karna lies on the earth like a fallen star. And it seems nothing beautiful is left in the world after he left it, as if all that was noble has died with him. High noon of the seventeenth day of the dharma yuddha claims Karna’s life. As the Pandava legions break into deafening cheers, the Sun above pales in grief to see his son slain by Arjuna. He shines so dimly he seems like a moon in the sky. An abrupt twilight falls on the battlefield, where Karna lies cut in two on Kurukshetra.

His head is like a thousand-petaled lotus sprouted on the earth and his body gleams like gold. Slowly, the Sun contains his searing sorrow and shines down again on the world: but with soft evening light though he is at his zenith.

Shocked, his eyes streaming, Shalya drives his chariot back to the Kaurava camp. Both its banner and its warrior have fallen. Strangely, when Karna dies, the chariot comes out easily from the mire, as if its wheel was never stuck at all. Amidst the exultant roaring of the Pandava army, their blasting conches and trumpets, Shalya rides back in a sad frenzy.

Numbly, he comes to Duryodhana’s tent and finds him outside, in a terrible state. The Kaurava’s chest heaves in gasps and no words come from his lips that seek to form them, again and again: to cry out his untellable grief. Tears course down Duryodhana’s face, trails of fire. His heart, which bore the death of his brothers and his sons so bravely, cannot believe his friend is dead.

Duryodhana sees Shalya in the empty chariot. His eyes roll up; his legs buckle under him and he falls in a heap. Shalya runs to him and lifts him up gently. He carries him into his tent, where the Kaurava is ministered to with scented water and salts.

Duryodhana has gone limp. His face is ashen, as if his very life has left him and no word comes from him still. Sitting beside him, Shalya takes his hand and tries to comfort him. “My son, don’t let your heart break. All this happens only as fate wills. I saw how Karna fought today and I tell you only fate could have brought him down. But how he raged before she could have her way with him and I was proud to be his sarathy. Arjuna did not kill him; fate did. If it had been a duel between just the Pandava and him, Karna would have killed Arjuna five times over. Duryodhana, the greatest archer in the world has left us and we are all poorer for his going. Perhaps the Gods love him so much, they could not bear to have him away from them any longer.”

Duryodhana still cannot say a word; but listening to Shalya calms him a little. His chest does not heave as much and he no longer struggles to speak. Some semblance of quietness comes over him. But his eyes are still full of shock; they are desperate: everything is lost now, that Karna is dead.

Shalya says, “The enemy massacres our men. Even the sun is dim that Karna is dead. Shouldn’t we honor his passing by stopping the battle for today?”

Duryodhana can only nod slightly. Shalya sends word that the fighting should be stopped for the day in honor of Karna. He turns back to Duryodhana. “We saw the light of his soul rise into heaven. Your friend is at peace now; don’t grieve for him.”

Aswatthama and some others try to pacify Duryodhana, but he sits like a stone, only the tears flowing down his face. All night he sits like that.

The sun sets over Kurukshetra and Karna lies on the field of death. His body glows as if it is still alive and the smile on the lips of his severed head seems so alive as well. No one dares come near him as he lies there. They say he was the noblest man who lived in the world: rivers stand still when Karna dies, the sun loses his luster, the earth trembles and the sky turns crimson with grief. The planets wander from their orbits when Karna dies and comets flare across the sky, plain even by day. The Devas weep when that kshatriya falls, even they who are free from sorrow.

When he kills Karna, Arjuna raises his conch, the Devadatta and blows on it and Krishna sounds his Panchajanya. Neither blows a joyful note. It is as if they, his enemies who killed him, are sad he is gone. Arjuna feels a part of his own life has ended. So many years he had waited for this duel, since the day Karna first swaggered into the exhibition in Hastinapura and stole his thunder. Now his enemy is dead and least of all Arjuna can believe that by killing Karna, he, the Pandava, has proved he is the better archer. All that hardly matters any more; inexplicable sorrow lays hold of Arjuna.

Yet, there is no taking anything away from his triumph. The last warrior who stood between the Pandavas and victory has fallen and their army celebrates his death. Yudhishtira had come out to watch the duel between Karna and Arjuna; but the pain of his wounds forced him back to his tent.