THE MAHABHARATA: A Modern Rendering, Vol 2 (90 page)

Gravely, Krishna gives the sacred idol of Dwaraka into their hands. He says, “Take this holiest of my idols to Kerala, which is divided from the rest of Bharatavarsha by the western mountains. Establish it there and let it remain as a blessing upon the land, secure from the invasions of darkness that will sweep the country in the centuries to come. Let this idol stand in a shrine you must fashion yourselves in Kerala: to be a solace to all men, a lamp that will burn in the darkest nights of kali yuga.”

The unearthly ones receive the image in reverent hands, of wisdom and air. They kneel before him and when he blesses them, they vanish from there with the idol. They scour the southern country of Kerala, seeking an appropriate place in which to install it. One day, they find Siva at worship in a sylvan grove beside a lake. As soon as they see him, Siva vanishes and Brihaspati and Vayu install Krishna’s stone image where he sat. Thus, they found the most holy Krishna temple in Guruvayoor, named after the both of them.

Carrying provisions for a long excursion—many kinds of food, wine and meat—the Yadava men set out for Prabhasa, with Krishna and Balarama going before them. As they ride out from the ocean city, Krishna knows his people will never see it again, bathed in the first light of day, a vision among the waves. Sorrow surges in his heart, but he forces himself to ride on. As they go, the Dark One thinks of the last time he persuaded his people to visit Prabhasa. It was a life ago, when Arjuna the yati came to Dwaraka and eloped with Subhadra. Krishna sighs; a smile touches his lips.

At Prabhasa, the Yadavas pitch their tents and as the brahmanas they have brought with them chant the Vedas, they themselves begin to celebrate. The crisp sea air exhilarates them and the drinking and feasting begin in earnest, with Krishna joining in. The tirtha-yatra turns into a raucous outing. The Vrishnis mix wine with the food prepared for the brahmanas and feed the mixture to monkeys. They have some games between the different clans and these continue through the day and the night, hardly as if they have come to expiate their sins. A week passes; then one morning, Krishna calls them together for a ritual bath. He initiates them into some unfamiliar mantras, which he says will turn away Gandhari’s curse. In fact, these are last rites for safe passage from the earth.

Later that day, just before the noon meal, they all drink large quantities of the sweet and potent stimulant, maireyaka. Krishna had the maireyaka brought and he begins the drinking. The Yadavas do not notice that fate flutters down on every kshatriya’s shoulder like a dove of death. They have not seen the unusual reeds, shaped like jagged thunderbolts, growing in clumps at the water’s edge: silvery, ominous, eraka reeds, rustling sibilantly in the hot breeze that hums over land and sea.

Soon, every Yadava is roaring drunk. Krishna watches them, a tear glistening in his eye. Tensely, he watches them, an instinct of imminent calamity awoken in him. The different clans, the Andha-kas, the Bhojas, the Kukuras and the Vrishnis, have always envied one another and only Krishna’s masterfulness has held them together for so long. Now, the maireyaka and the intense games they have been playing have made them all more than a little rumbustious.

Suddenly, with a hard look at Kritavarman, whom he has never forgiven his part in the war, Satyaki cries, “There are some here that call themselves kshatriyas, but murder their sleeping enemies at night! And then run back to their homes, never to face the consequences of what they have done.”

Kritavarman’s face turns crimson. “Who was it that cut off Bhoorisravas’ head when he had put down his weapons and sat in dhyana? That was truly the deed of a kshatriya!”

Drunk as they are, all the others quickly take sides and a hundred voices are raised in anger. Krishna sees death everywhere, in the waves and on the sand. He sees the silver reeds glistening in the sun, which seems to stop in mid-heaven, with prescience of the massacre to come. Krishna watches his son Pradyumna take sides with Satyaki, the Vrishni, against the Bhoja, Kritavarman. Hot words fly back and forth.

Then, Satyaki roars, “Today I will avenge Dhrishtadyumna, the finest kshatriya who fought on Kurukshetra!”

In a blur, he draws his sword and hews off Kritavarman’s head in a scarlet explosion. The other Vrishnis are some way off and hardly has Kritavarman’s head struck the earth, when the Bhojas and Andhakas fall on Satyaki and hack him to pieces. Pradyumna is the only Vrishni at Satyaki’s side. He draws his sword and slashes out wildly. He is badly outnumbered and the Andhakas and Bhojas kill Krishna’s son, too.

By now, the Vrishnis arrive and a pitched battle breaks out. Like characters in a nightmare, the Yadavas helplessly enact the tragedy that follows. Akrura flies at Bhoja; Aniruddha and Samba fall on each other. Soon, they hardly know anymore who the enemy is, nor care. Son hews at father, brother at brother, all of them unhinged with maireyaka and with Krishna’s potent maya. They fight like a pack of dogs, felling one another with savage sword-strokes. But then, they are the invincible Yadavas: the dead rise again, intoxicated and laughing! Their wounds heal miraculously and death is their ally, because they are Krishna’s own people, his flesh and blood.

Aniruddha sees the eraka reeds growing in shallow water. Moved by an instinct he hardly understands, he throws down his sword and grasps at the glittering things. Balarama cries out to him to desist; too late. When Aniruddha pulls up a clutch of the reeds grown out of the powdered club of the rishis’ curse, they turn into a dark blade in his hands. Anyone he strikes with it falls dead instantly and never rises again.

All the Yadavas pull up those macabre reeds to be their weapons, powerful as thunderbolts. Now the killing begins in earnest. Those even scratched with a silver reed die, by the curse in them. Krishna has seen his son and Satyaki both killed before his eyes. With an anguished cry, he runs forward to stop the fighting. Like any man, the Avatara had hoped some miracle could save his people at the last moment from Gandhari’s curse, from the sages’ curse. His sons Samba, Charuka and Charu-varman turn on him, growling. They attack him viciously, like children who have repressed a lifetime of resentment and raging, festering envy. Now they are sons who hate their father more than they can bear any more and must kill him.

His cousin Akrura and all the others surround Krishna menacingly. His own head turned, with a heartbroken roar, the Dark One snatches up a handful of the deadly reeds and sets on his murdering clan. In his hands the reeds turn into a gleaming club and, roaring for fate, roaring like the God he is, roaring wild for sorrow, Krishna slaughters his Yadavas with that club. He smashes their noble heads and their splendid bodies. Blood flies everywhere, brightly in the sun, splashing into crystal water. Heads are broken like melons, handsome limbs shattered: a grisly orgy of killing and Krishna roaring above it all, above the screams of the others.

In moments, all the Yadavas are dead and Krishna stands alone among the corpses of his people, drenched in crimson, his chest heaving. Still, bloodlust rages in him.

“Balarama, where are you?” he roars, red-eyed. In a whisper, his heart calls him to the waving sea.

There, Balarama sits, calmed, under a giant aswattha tree growing at the forest’s edge. Daruka appears there and his master and he watch Balarama seated in padmasana, perfectly withdrawn in dhyana, lost to the world. Light enfolds his brother and at once Krishna grows calm. He knows he has accomplished everything for which he came into the world.

He says quietly to Daruka, “Ride to Hastinapura, my friend. Tell Arjuna what happened here and Yudhishtira. Tell Arjuna to come at once to Dwaraka, he must look after our women and children. The curse is on me, as well and my time is near.”

Daruka stands numb for a moment, hardly believing what has happened, so suddenly. Without a word, he prostrates himself at Krishna’s feet. Krishna raises him up and embraces him. He says, “Fly now, Daruka!”

The sarathy finds a chariot and rides like Vayu to Hastinapura. Krishna goes near Balarama and says, “Wait for me, brother. I must go briefly to Dwaraka, but I will fly back to you.”

There is no sign that Balarama has heard him. Black turmoil churns Krishna, as his death glides nearer. Quietening himself, somehow, he climbs into the Jaitra and flies back to Dwaraka through the air. At the palace, he runs up the marble steps and straight into Vasudeva’s presence. The world spins around Krishna, strange and terrible fires burn him. Panting and bloody, with the killing he has done, he comes into his father’s chambers. Krishna runs forward and kneels at Vasudeva’s feet. “Bless me, father, my end is upon me!”

With a cry, Vasudeva blesses his son. Krishna gasps, “I have sent for Arjuna, he will be here soon. Until then I leave the women and children in your care.”

Vasudeva looks helplessly at his son, on whom he has always depended. Summoning all his strength, the old Yadava somehow whispers, “Go in peace, my child.”

“Balarama is waiting,” cries the Avatara and runs out.

On his way, he hears wailing and screaming, as the women hear the news. In passing, he cries to them, “Arjuna will be here soon, he will look after you.”

Then he is gone. Krishna flies back to Balarama. He finds him still locked in padmasana, but now his body seems to be on fire: such light blazes from him. Krishna goes nearer. Suddenly, Balarama’s eyes fly open, staring. He sees Krishna standing before him and smiles. Balarama’s eyes close again and even as Krishna watches him, he begins to metamorphose. An immense white serpent slides slowly out of his mouth. As it comes, the snake transforms Balarama’s body for its own flesh; so that when it has emerged fully, nothing is left of the man. Big as a hill, the brilliant, thousand-hooded Naga pauses a moment, its hood inclined to gaze at Krishna. It lowers itself, glides majestically into the sea and vanishes. Varuna himself, countless celestial nagas and sacred rivers receive Ananta with padya and arghya.

Krishna knows his own time has come.

TWO
KRISHNA 

In a tide of memories, he sees his life flit before his eyes. After the white snake enters the sea, Krishna roams the forest around Prabhasa in a daze. It is part of Gandhari’s curse coming true: that he would wander the earth, alone. He ranges a whole life in vast, crystalline remembrance.

Arjuna sits alone in his apartment in Hastinapura. All at once, he begins to think of Krishna. The Pandava’s heart races and he hears Krishna’s voice, ‘Go and lie down, Arjuna. I want to speak to you.’

Arjuna goes to his bed. As soon as he lies on it, he falls asleep. In a dream Krishna comes to him and takes his hand. ‘Arjuna, do you remember I once told you that all things in this world are born to serve a purpose? And when each one’s purpose is served, it passes on.’

‘You said that when my chariot burned down after the war.’

‘And so it is with men. When a man has served every purpose he is born for, he doesn’t live another moment in the world, but death comes for him.’

‘Yes, you told me, Krishna.’

Krishna’s eyes are bright in Arjuna’s dream. ‘Arjuna, all that I came for has been accomplished. It is time for me to go.’

‘My Lord!’

‘You must also come soon, Arjuna. We cannot be apart, you and I.’

‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘I wanted to see you once, before I went. Now I can go in peace.’

A smile lights the Avatara’s face, as he fades from Arjuna’s dream and the Pandava awakes.

His soul in tumult, Krishna runs through the forest and arrives back at the aswattha tree under which Balarama was transformed. With a sigh, he sinks down on the ground. With every moment now, he feels his death draw nearer; he can feel its breath on his neck. Krishna lies on the earth in shavasana, the posture of the dead and the Brahman, the timeless Spirit, washes over him in an infinite swell. He yokes himself deeply into that Godhead and is lost in samadhi.

Jara, the hunter, is out looking for a deer. From a distance, he sees Krishna’s feet around the bole of the tree under which the Dark One lies. Jara sees the feet red with forest earth and blood from the slaughter of the Yadavas. The old hunter thinks he is seeing a red hind and he stalks the crimsoned feet. When he is within range, he raises his rough bow and taking careful aim, looses his fateful arrow. The muni Durvasa had once blessed Krishna that every part of his body would be invulnerable to all weapons, save the soles of his feet. The arrowhead made from the sliver of the accursed club flares into the sole of the Dark One’s foot, piercing the base of the thumb toe. Krishna roars in shock, as fate’s shaft plunges agony through him.

Jara comes running to hear that cry. Gasping to see Krishna, four-armed, knowing him at once from rumor, the hunter falls on his face before the dying Avatara. Krishna places his hand on the wild man’s head and tells him, “It is only as I willed it and, my friend, you have set me free. Your mission in the world is fulfilled and you will find swarga for what you have done today.”

Sobbing, the hunter takes Krishna’s head onto his lap. The Avatara’s face is serene, wreathed in a smile. Next moment, he is dead. His spirit issues from his body and makes all the earth glow mysteriously, as it courses into heaven, where Indra, the Aswins, Rudra, the adityas, the vasus, the viswede-vas, devarishis and siddhas come to receive him. Greeting them, he ascends beyond, as Vishnu Narayana, into his own, most exalted realm.

Then, the very world is dim: like a flower that has lost its fragrance, like a body from which the soul has gone. At that moment, the sacred river, the golden Saraswati, also vanishes from the earth forever; and, black lightning into the void Krishna leaves, the kali yuga flashes into the world, entering her fully.