Mahabharata · The Origin of the Kuru Line: Vyasa’s Birth, the Partial Incarnations, Shakuntala and Dushyanta, Yayati, and the Line of Puru

About 95 minutes · in 3 sittings

The snake sacrifice has stopped and Vyasa has told his pupil Vaishampayana to give Janamejaya the story of his ancestors. This chapter is that story, the place where the Kuru line begins. First there is a king who rides a crystal car through the sky and a fish that gives birth to a girl, and on that girl’s ferry a sage raises a mist and Vyasa is born. Then Earth tells Brahma that her burden has become unbearable, and the gods agree to take birth among men in part. Then a king loses his way on a hunt, comes to a hermitage, and marries a girl the birds had raised, and years later refuses to recognize her in a crowded court. Then there is Yayati, aged by the curse of his own father-in-law and teacher, who asks each of his five sons for their youth, and only the youngest says yes. In that youngest son’s line, after a long procession of kings, come Pratipa and Shantanu, and there chapter 2 begins.

Shaunaka is still thirsty: a request in the Naimisha forest for the story Vyasa made, and the island-born sage who walks into the snake sacrifice and is given a golden seat

The story of Astika had ended. In the Naimisha forest the sages sat where they had been sitting for twelve years, the fire had burned low, and Sauti, the son of Lomaharshana, waited with his hands quiet in his lap for the master of the assembly to speak. Shaunaka spoke. He said that the telling had been long and great, beginning from the children of Bhrigu, and that he had been thoroughly gratified by it. Then he asked for more. In a sacrifice that runs for twelve years there are hours when the ritual work stops and the men who perform it sit and talk, and Shaunaka wanted those hours: the strange and various stories told among the brilliant men assembled there, and the reasons they had been told at all. Recite them to me in full, he said, son of a Suta. Sauti answered him plainly. The Brahmanas in those intervals spoke of many things, all of them founded on the Vedas. What Vyasa caused to be recited there was the wonderful and great history called the Bharata.

Shaunaka did not move off that answer. The sacred history called the Mahabharata, he said, the one that carries the fame of the Pandavas through the world, which Krishna Dvaipayana at Janamejaya’s asking had duly recited when the sacrifice was finished: give me that, and give it to me in the proper way, with nothing left out of its order. Such a history was born out of the ocean-like mind of a great sage whose soul had been made clean by yoga, and a thing born that way deserves to be heard whole. Recite it to me, best of good men, because my thirst has not been quenched by anything you have said so far. Sauti bowed his head. I will recite to you from the beginning that great and excellent history called the Mahabharata, which Vyasa composed. Listen to all of it, Brahmana, as I tell it. I take a great pleasure in the telling myself. So, inside one assembly listening to one storyteller, a second assembly opened, with a second storyteller in it, a second king listening, and a second fire.

Word had gone out that Janamejaya had been installed for the snake sacrifice, and the learned sage Krishna Dvaipayana came for the occasion. He was the grandfather of the Pandavas. He had been born on an island in the Yamuna, of the maiden Kali, by Parashara who was the son of Shakti. At the moment of his birth he had grown his body to its full size by an act of will alone, and had taken the Vedas with all their branches and every history into his possession. What men cannot obtain by austerity, by the study of the Vedas, by vows, by fasting, by offspring, by sacrifice, he came into easily. First among those who know the Vedas, he divided the Vedas into four. He knew the supreme Brahma. He saw the past by intuition, he was holy, and he held truth dear. Out of his sacred deeds and his great fame he had fathered Pandu and Dhritarashtra and Vidura, so that the line of Shantanu would continue.

He came into the sacrificial pavilion of the royal sage Janamejaya with his disciples around him, every one of them at home in the Vedas and their branches. What he saw when he entered was a king seated in the sacrificial enclosure like Indra himself, ringed by Sadasyas beyond counting, by kings out of many countries whose crown locks still carried the water of the sacred bath, and by Ritwiks as competent at their work as Brahman is at his. Janamejaya, first of the race of Bharata, saw the sage come in and was on his feet at once, moving fast toward him with his followers and his relatives and an unconcealed joy. With the approval of the assembly the king gave the sage a golden seat, the way Indra once gave one to Brihaspati. When the sage was seated, this man capable of granting boons, worshipped by the celestial sages themselves, the king of kings worshipped him by the rites the scriptures lay down. He offered his grandfather Krishna water for his feet and his mouth, the Arghya, and cattle, all of which that guest fully deserved. Vyasa accepted the offerings from Janamejaya of the line of Pandu and gave one instruction with them, that the cattle were not to be slaughtered, and he was much gratified. After the honors were done the king bowed to his great-grandfather, sat down in happiness, and asked after his welfare. The sage looked at him, asked after his welfare in turn, and paid his respects to the Sadasyas, who had already paid theirs to him.

Then Janamejaya, with every man of his assembly around him and his palms joined, put his question to that first of Brahmanas. You have seen the deeds of the Kurus and the Pandavas with your own eyes, he said. I want to hear their history from your mouth. What caused the split between them, the split that bore such extraordinary deeds as its fruit? And why did that great battle happen among all my grandfathers, the battle that killed creatures beyond counting, when their own clear sense had been clouded over by fate? Tell me all of it in full, excellent Brahmana, exactly as it happened. Krishna Dvaipayana heard the question and turned to the disciple sitting at his side, Vaishampayana, and gave him one instruction. The discord that happened long ago between the Kurus and the Pandavas: narrate all of it to the king, just as you heard it from me. So that fortunate Brahmana, at his teacher’s command, recited the whole history to the king, to the Sadasyas, and to all the chieftains gathered there. He told them everything about the hostility between the Kurus and the Pandavas, and about the utter extinction of both.

A key to reading this (three layers, and a name that belongs to two people): The Mahabharata is told in three layers at once. The outermost is the Naimisha forest, where Sauti speaks to Shaunaka. Inside that sits Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice, where Vyasa’s disciple Vaishampayana speaks to the king. Inside that sit the events themselves. Chapter 1 took place entirely in the first layer. From this chapter the second layer opens, and Vyasa, who made the poem, walks into it as a character in his own story: the grandfather of the Pandavas, receiving a golden seat from his great-grandson. The name Krishna here belongs to Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, who was called Krishna for his dark color and Dvaipayana for the island of his birth. Vasudeva Krishna has not yet entered the telling.

The gist: When the story of Astika ends, Shaunaka tells Sauti that his thirst has not been quenched and asks for the history Vyasa composed, the Mahabharata itself. Sauti agrees and opens the inner frame: hearing that Janamejaya had begun his snake sacrifice, Vyasa came to it, was given a golden seat and worshipped by the king, and was asked what had caused the quarrel between the Kurus and the Pandavas. Vyasa turned to his disciple Vaishampayana and told him to recite the whole history, and Vaishampayana began.

Vaishampayana’s first words: eight parts of the body touching the ground, and the whole shape of the quarrel laid out before a single detail of it is told

The gold seat had been set, the water for washing feet had been offered, the cows had been given and then spared, and the sacrificial ground at Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice had gone quiet in the particular way a crowd goes quiet when it understands that something long is about to begin. Vyasa had turned to the disciple sitting nearest him and given a one-sentence instruction, and now that disciple stood up. Vaishampayana went down full length on the ground before his teacher, eight parts of his body touching the earth at once, which is the prostration a student offers when he is about to repeat, in public and from memory, something he received in private. He rose and saluted the Brahmanas seated around the enclosure, and the learned men among the guests, and the kings whose hair was still damp from the consecration water. Then he spoke, and his opening was an accounting of where his words had come from. What he would recite, he said, he had heard in full from the great Rishi Vyasa, first among the intelligent in all three worlds. The king had now been brought within reach of that composition, and the king was fit to hear it. His teacher’s command had gone through him like heat, and because of it there was no fear left anywhere in his heart.

What he did next is worth noticing, because it shapes everything that follows in this chapter and the sixteen after it. He did not begin at the beginning. He began with the answer. Janamejaya had asked two questions, why the Kurus and the Pandavas split, and why the exile into the woods followed straight out of a game of dice played for the sake of undisputed rule, and Vaishampayana gave him the entire arc first, at speed, in one breath, the way a man might trace a river on a map with his finger before walking anyone along its banks. The sons of Pandu came home after their father died. Within a very short time they were expert archers. The Kurus watched them, saw physical strength and energy and quickness of mind, saw that the citizens liked them and that fortune seemed to be on their side, and went sour with envy. Duryodhana, whose mind ran crooked, took Karna into his confidence and his mother’s brother Shakuni, the son of Suvala, and the three of them began to work at the problem of how to be rid of their cousins.

The attempts came one after another and each one failed in a way that should have warned them. Poison went into Bhima’s food, and Bhima, who was called wolf-bellied for good reason, digested the poison along with the meal. Then Duryodhana had him tied while he slept on the bank of the Ganges and rolled into the water and walked away satisfied. Bhimasena woke underwater, tore the cords, and came up with his strength intact and his pain gone, and while he had lain there black snakes of virulent poison had bitten him over every part of his body, which killed him no more than the cords had. Behind each of these episodes stood Vidura, working quietly and continuously, unpicking the designs as fast as they were laid and pulling the intended victims clear. Vaishampayana gave that service its own comparison: as Indra keeps the world of men in happiness from the heavens, so Vidura kept the Pandavas out of harm. When open methods and secret ones had both failed against men whom fate was evidently preserving for some grave later purpose, Duryodhana called in his counselors, Vrisha and Duhshasana among them, and had a house built out of lac, with Dhritarashtra aware of what was being built. The old king, moved by love for his own children and by the appetite for sovereignty that came with them, sent the Pandavas off to Varanavata with a tactful word, and they left Hastinapura with their mother. Vidura walked with them to the edge of the city and gave them, in a form only they would catch, both the danger and the way out of it.

They lived in the lac palace for a year with their eyes open and Purochana under constant watch. A passage was dug under the ground, as Vidura had advised. Then the house went up in flames with Purochana inside it, and the five and their mother were gone into the dark, afraid of being seen and identified. By a fountain in the woods they met a Rakshasa, and out of that meeting Bhima took Hidimba for a wife, and of her Ghatotkacha was born. They moved on to Ekachakra and lived there in the dress of Brahmacharins in a Brahmana’s house, holding to their vows, eating little, drawing no attention, until a man-eating Rakshasa named Vaka came into Bhima’s path and Bhima killed him with the strength of his arms and left that town free of its fear. Then word reached them that the princess of Panchala was about to choose a husband from an assembly of princes. They went, they won her, and Draupadi became the wife of all five, and they stayed a year in Panchala. Once they had been recognized they went back to Hastinapura, and there Dhritarashtra and Bhishma, the son of Shantanu, handed down a settlement: so that no further dissension should arise between the cousins, Khandavaprastha would be their home, with its many towns and broad roads, and they were to go there and put jealousy away.

They went with their friends, their followers, their jewels and their precious stones, and they stayed for years, and they rose. They brought prince after prince under their authority by force of arms and still kept their hearts on virtue, held to truth, stayed calm in their bearing, and let no amount of wealth unsettle them. Bhima subjugated the East, Arjuna the North, Nakula the West, and Sahadeva the South, and when the four directions had been closed the Pandava dominion covered the whole world. Vaishampayana put an image on it that is hard to forget: with those five, each one like the sun, the Earth looked as though she had acquired six suns. Then, for a reason he did not pause to give, Yudhishthira sent into the woods the brother he loved better than his own life, the one who could draw the bow with the left hand as easily as the right, and Arjuna lived out there eleven years and some months. During that stretch he went to Krishna at Dwaravati and there won the lotus-eyed and sweet-spoken younger sister of Vasudeva, and Subhadra came to him in gladness as Sachi came to Indra and Sri to Krishna. Afterward, with Vasudeva beside him, he satisfied Agni in the forest of Khandava, and the work did not weigh on him at all, since nothing weighs on Vishnu when Vishnu has made up his mind about an enemy. Agni gave him the bow Gandiva, a quiver that never emptied, and a chariot flying Garuda on its standard, and in the same fire Arjuna pulled the great Asura Maya out of the reach of the flames. Maya repaid the debt by building the Pandavas a hall of jewels and precious stones fit for the gods.

That hall is where the second half of the arc begins, because Duryodhana looked at it and wanted it. The dice were thrown through the hands of Suvala’s son, Yudhishthira was cheated, and the sentence came down: twelve years in the woods and a thirteenth to be lived out unrecognized, thirteen in all. In the fourteenth year the Pandavas came back and asked for their property and were refused. War was declared. The Kshatriya race was exterminated, King Duryodhana was killed, and the Pandavas took back a kingdom that had been laid waste. Vaishampayana closed the summary exactly where he had opened it, on the question the king had asked. This, he said, is the history of the Pandavas, who never once acted under the influence of evil passions, and this is the account of the disunion that ended with the Kurus losing their kingdom and the Pandavas winning theirs. Everything from here on is that same story slowed down.

A key to reading this (names and places in the summary): Vrisha in the list of Duryodhana’s counselors is Karna under another of his names. The son of Suvala is Shakuni, Duryodhana’s maternal uncle, who throws the dice later in the same paragraph in which he is first named. Khandavaprastha is the site that becomes the city of Indraprastha once the Pandavas have built on it. Vibhatsu is Arjuna. Sachi is Indra’s wife and Sri is Lakshmi, and both comparisons are the source’s own way of saying that the match was a happy one.

The gist: Vaishampayana prostrates before Vyasa, salutes the assembly, and states his source, then answers Janamejaya’s question by laying out the whole quarrel in compressed form before telling any of it in detail: the orphaned Pandavas, Kuru envy, the poison and the drowning that Bhima survived, Vidura’s quiet counter-work, the house of lac and the tunnel at Varanavata, Hidimba and Ghatotkacha, the killing of Vaka, Draupadi won at Panchala, Khandavaprastha granted, the conquest of the four directions, Arjuna’s years in the woods and his marriage to Subhadra, the burning of Khandava with its gifts of Gandiva and the Garuda chariot, Maya’s jeweled hall, the rigged dice, thirteen years, and a fourteenth year in which a refused claim became a war that emptied the earth of Kshatriyas.

“A summary does not satisfy me”: the eight questions Janamejaya puts to force the story open, and the terms on which Vaishampayana agrees to tell it

The short account was finished. For a few moments the only sound under the canopy of the snake sacrifice was the fire working at the wood, and the assembled priests sat with the whole shape of the quarrel newly in their heads, delivered to them in one breath. The king on the seat facing the golden one was not satisfied. You have told me the history of the great acts of the Kurus, Janamejaya said, the history men call the Mahabharata, and you have told it to me in brief. Now recite the whole of that wonderful narration, and recite it in full, because a great curiosity has taken hold of me and it falls to you to satisfy it. Hearing so vast a history in a nutshell leaves me where I started. Consider what you have just described. The cause could never have been a small one. Virtuous men killed those they should never have killed, and men praise them for it to this day. I want to know what a cause like that looks like from the inside.

Then the king went through his questions one after another, the way a man goes through a list he has been keeping for a long time. Those tigers among men were innocent, he said, and they were entirely capable of avenging themselves on their enemies. Why did they sit still under the persecution of the wicked Kurus? Bhima has arms like beams and the strength of ten thousand elephants. He was wronged in front of witnesses. What held his anger down? Krishna the daughter of Drupada, chaste and wronged by those wretches, could have burned the sons of Dhritarashtra where they stood with one look of her anger. Why did she not burn them? The two other sons of Pritha and the two sons of Madri had injuries of their own from the same hands. Why did they keep walking behind Yudhishthira, who was so badly given over to the vice of gambling? And Yudhishthira himself, the son of Dharma, first among virtuous men and fully acquainted with every duty, why did he carry that much affliction on his back? And Dhananjaya, who had Krishna holding his reins, who emptied a fearless host into the next world with his arrows, why did persecution touch him at all? Speak of all of it to me exactly as it happened, and everything those mighty car warriors achieved.

Vaishampayana answered with a condition rather than a story. Appoint a time for the hearing of it, O monarch, he said. This history told by Krishna Dvaipayana is very extensive, and what you have had so far is the beginning only. I will recite it, and I will repeat in full the composition of the illustrious Vyasa, whose mental power has no measure and who is worshiped in every world. The son of Satyavati made this Bharata in a hundred thousand sacred shlokas. The man who reads it aloud to others and the men who hear it read reach the world of Brahma and become the equals of the gods. It stands level with the Vedas. It is holy, excellent, the worthiest of all things to be listened to, a Purana that the sages themselves honor. It carries a great deal of useful instruction on profit and on pleasure, and it leaves the heart wanting salvation. Learned men who recite this Veda of Krishna Dvaipayana to listeners who are liberal, truthful and believing earn great wealth by doing it. Sins as heavy as the killing of an embryo in the womb are destroyed by it, and a man may be as cruel and sinful as you like, and still he comes out of the hearing of this history released from what he carried, the way the sun comes out of Rahu when the eclipse has passed.

There is another name for this history, Vaishampayana said, and the name is Jaya, victory. Any man who wants victory should hear it. A king who hears it may bring the whole earth under his hand and conquer every enemy he has. The history is in itself a great act of propitiation and a great sacrifice, and its fruit is blessed. A young monarch should hear it with his queen beside him, and when they do, a heroic son is born to them, or a daughter fit to hold a throne. Vyasa, whose mind cannot be measured, called it the high and sacred science of duty, of profit and of liberation. It is recited in the present age and it will be recited in the ages to come. Those who hear it find their sons and their servants obedient, doing what they are told. Every sin committed by body, by word or by mind leaves the man who hears it. Anyone who listens to the story of the exalted birth of the Bharata princes without a fault finding spirit has no need to fear illness, and still less to fear the world after this one. Krishna Dvaipayana composed the work to carry the fame of the high souled Pandavas and of the other Kshatriyas, men versed in every branch of knowledge, high spirited, already famous for what they had done, and he composed it also because he wished to do good to the world.

The merit runs in every direction, he went on. The man who arranges for sacred Brahmanas to hear it, wanting religious merit by it, gets great merit and a virtue that does not run out. The man who recites the famous generation of the Kurus is purified on the spot, acquires a large family of his own, and is respected wherever he goes. The Brahmana who studies this sacred Bharata regularly through the four months of the rainy season is cleansed of everything he has done. A man who has read the Bharata may be counted as a man who knows the Vedas. What is in the work is this: an account of the gods, of royal sages and of holy regenerate sages; the sinless Keshava; Mahadeva who is the god of gods, and the goddess Parvati; the birth of Kartikeya, who sprang from the union of Parvati with Mahadeva and was reared by many mothers; and the greatness of Brahmanas and of cattle. It is a collection of all the Shrutis and every virtuous person is fit to hear it. The learned man who recites it to Brahmanas during the sacred lunations is cleansed of every sin, and without so much as thinking about heaven he attains union with Brahma. A man who has even a single foot of this poem heard by Brahmanas during a shraddha makes that shraddha inexhaustible, and the Pitris stay gratified forever by offerings presented to them once. The sins our senses and our minds commit daily, and the sins any man commits whether he knows it or not, are all destroyed by the hearing of the Mahabharata.

The story of the exalted birth of the Bharata princes is what the name Mahabharata means, and the man who knows that derivation of the name is cleansed of all his sins. Krishna Dvaipayana finished the work in three years. He rose every day, purified himself, performed his ascetic devotions, and then composed, and because of how it was made, Brahmanas should hear it under the formality of a vow. The man who recites this holy narration composed by Krishna for others to hear, and the men who hear it, whatever state they happen to be in, are never touched by the fruit of their deeds, good or bad. A man who wants virtue should hear all of it. It is equivalent to every history there is, and the man who hears it always comes away with a clean heart. The pleasure of reaching heaven barely matches the pleasure of hearing this holy history. The virtuous man who hears it with reverence, or has it heard, obtains the fruit of the Rajasuya and of the horse sacrifice. The Bharata is a mine of gems the way the vast ocean is, or the great mountain Meru. A man who gives a copy of the Bharata to someone who asks him for it has made a present of the whole earth with her belt of seas. So, son of Parikshit, listen: this pleasant narration that gives virtue and gives victory, I am about to recite in its entirety. Whatever is said anywhere about duty, wealth, pleasure and liberation may be found elsewhere as well, O bull among Bharata monarchs. Whatever this work does not contain is not to be found anywhere at all.

A key to reading this (Jaya, and the fruits of listening): The epic gives its own older name here, Jaya, meaning victory, and it gives its own etymology for the longer name as well: the story of the exalted birth of the Bharata princes, and therefore Mahabharata. The long list of what a listener gains is not a later devotee’s addition. It sits inside the work itself, spoken in the moment before the telling proper begins, the way a man opening a door might first say what is kept in the room. The last sentence of this section became the most quoted line the tradition has: what is here can be found elsewhere, and what is not here is found nowhere.

The gist: The short account leaves Janamejaya unsatisfied, and he demands the whole thing with eight questions: what cause could be large enough, why innocent men endured persecution in silence, what held Bhima’s anger, why Draupadi did not burn the Kauravas with a look, why the brothers followed a gambler, why the son of Dharma suffered so much, and why Arjuna suffered at all. Vaishampayana answers by setting terms. Appoint a time first, he says, because this is a hundred thousand shlokas, level with the Vedas, called Jaya, made by Vyasa over three years. Then comes the promise the work is still known by: whatever is not in it is nowhere.

Uparichara Vasu of Chedi: a king talked down from his austerities, Indra’s crystal car and the garland that never fades, the bamboo pole that started the festival of Indra, and a river freed from the arms of a mountain

Vaishampayana began with a king who does not belong to the Kuru line at all. His name was Uparichara, and Janamejaya, who had just asked for the divine origins of his own ancestors, would have to wait a few minutes to learn why this stranger came first. Uparichara was devoted to virtue and badly addicted to hunting. He was of the Paurava race, and men also called him Vasu. On Indra’s instruction he had conquered the excellent and delightful kingdom of Chedi, and then, some time after the conquest, he did what conquerors almost never do. He laid down his weapons, withdrew to a secluded retreat, and gave himself to austerities of the harshest kind. The gods watched this with growing unease. A king who burns like that, Indra at their head reasoned, is not burning for his own salvation; he is burning for the headship of the gods. So they came down to him, showed themselves to his eyes, and set about winning him away from his penances with soft words rather than force. Lord of the earth, the gods said, take care that virtue does not diminish on earth. Protected by you, virtue itself will protect the universe in return.

Then Indra spoke, and what he offered was a friendship across the gap between heaven and earth. Protect virtue on earth, king, attentively and rigidly. Be virtuous and you will behold many sacred regions in the life after this one. I am of heaven and you are of earth, and still you are my friend and dear to me. Dwell in that region of the earth which is delightful and full of animals, sacred, rich in wealth and grain, guarded like heaven, pleasant in its climate, furnished with every object of enjoyment and blessed with fertility. Your dominion of Chedi, king, is full of riches, of gems and precious stones, and it holds much mineral wealth besides. Its cities and towns are all devoted to virtue. Its people are honest and contented, and they do not lie even in jest. Sons never divide their wealth with their fathers there and are always mindful of their parents’ welfare. Lean cattle are never yoked to the plow or the cart or made to carry merchandise; they are fed and fattened instead. In Chedi the four orders keep to their own vocations. Let nothing that happens in the three worlds be unknown to you. And then came the gifts. I will give you a crystal car, Indra said, of the kind only the gods can drive through the middle air, and you alone of all mortals will ride it through the sky like a god who happens to have a body. I will give you a triumphal garland of lotuses that never fade; wear it in battle and no weapon will wound you. That garland, blessed and without equal, will be known across the earth as Indra’s garland, and it will be your distinctive badge.

The slayer of Vritra gave the king one more thing for his pleasure, a bamboo pole, for the protection of the honest and the peaceful. When a year had passed, the king planted it in the ground as an act of worship toward the giver, Shakra. From that day forward, Vaishampayana said, every king followed Vasu’s example and planted a pole for the celebration of Indra’s worship. They raise the pole and dress it in golden cloth, scents, garlands and ornaments of every kind, and with those garlands and ornaments the god Vasava is worshipped in due form. To please the high-souled Vasu, the god himself took the form of a swan and came to accept the worship offered to him. He looked at the auspicious rite this first of monarchs had made, was delighted, and gave a promise that outlived the king: those men and those kings who worship me and joyously keep this festival of mine as the king of Chedi does will have glory and victory for their countries and kingdoms, and their cities will expand and be always in joy. So Vasu was blessed by the gratified Maghavat, chief of the gods, and it is true to this day that those who cause Shakra’s festival to be observed with gifts of land and gems and precious stones become the respected of the world. Vasu, lord of the Chedis, giving boons, performing great sacrifices and keeping the festival of Shakra, was greatly honored by Indra, and from Chedi he ruled the whole world by virtue.

Vasu had five sons, all of great energy and immeasurable prowess, and the emperor installed each as governor of a province. Vrihadratha was installed in Magadha and became known as Maharatha. Another son was Pratyagraha; another Kushamba, also called Manivahana; and the last two were Mavella and Yadu, of great prowess and invincible in battle. These were the sons of that royal sage of mighty energy, and the five of them planted kingdoms and towns named after themselves and founded separate dynasties that lasted for long ages. As for the father, when he took his seat in the crystal car Indra had given him and coursed through the sky, the Gandharvas and Apsaras, the singers and dancers of heaven, came to attend him, and because he traveled in the upper regions men called him Uparichara, the one who moves above. Past his capital ran a river called Shuktimati, and that river was once attacked by a living mountain named Kolahala, maddened by lust. Vasu saw the foul attempt and struck the mountain with his foot. Through the cleft his kick had opened the river escaped Kolahala’s embrace. But the mountain had already begotten on her two children, twins, and the river, grateful to Vasu for setting her free, gave both to him. The son that best of royal sages, giver of wealth and punisher of enemies, made the commander of his forces. The daughter was called Girika, and Vasu married her.

A key to reading this (why the story starts with a stranger): Janamejaya asked for the divine births of the Pandavas and Kauravas, and Vaishampayana answers with a king of Chedi who is no Kuru. The reason arrives in the next scene: from Vasu’s seed will come the girl who becomes Vyasa’s mother, and Vyasa fathers Dhritarashtra, Pandu and Vidura. The festival of the pole, which later texts call the Indradhvaja or the great festival of Indra, is credited by this text to Vasu alone. Uparichara means “he who moves above.” Shakra, Vasava, Maghavat and the slayer of Vritra are all names of Indra.

The gist: The Paurava king Vasu conquered Chedi at Indra’s bidding, then laid down his arms for harsh austerities, and the gods talked him back into kingship so that virtue on earth would have a protector. Indra called him friend and gave him a crystal car that flies, the unfading garland that no weapon can pass, and a bamboo pole; Vasu planted the pole a year later in Indra’s honor, and from that act came the festival of Indra kept by every king since, at which the god himself appeared as a swan. Vasu’s five sons, Vrihadratha of Magadha, Pratyagraha, Kushamba, Mavella and Yadu, founded dynasties in their own names. Riding the sky earned him the name Uparichara. He kicked the mountain Kolahala off the river Shuktimati, and the grateful river gave him the twins the mountain had fathered on her: the boy became his general and the girl, Girika, became his queen.

A seed handed to a hawk in a spring forest, two birds fighting over it in the air, an Apsara cursed into a fish in the Yamuna, and the boy and girl cut out of her: a king called Matsya and a daughter given away to fishermen

Girika finished her season, bathed to make herself clean, and came to her husband to tell him she was ready. On that same day the Pitris of Vasu came to him, best of monarchs and foremost among wise men, and asked him to go and kill deer for their Sraddha. A command from the fathers cannot be set aside, so the king went hunting, and he went with his mind entirely on Girika, who was beautiful past comparison and looked like a second Sri. The season was spring. The woods he rode into had turned as delightful as the pleasure gardens of the king of the Gandharvas. Ashokas stood there, and Champakas, and Chutas, and Atimuktas in abundance; Punnagas and Karnikaras and Vakulas, the divine Patalas and the common Patalas, Narikelas, Chandanas, Arjunas, and other trees as beautiful and as sacred, every one of them bright with fragrant flowers and heavy with sweet fruit. The whole forest had been driven out of its senses by the calling of the kokila and it hummed with the noise of bees that were drunk. Desire came over the king, and his wife was nowhere in front of him.

He wandered one way and then another with that desire on him until he came to a handsome Ashoka, thick with foliage, its branches loaded with flower, and he sat down at his ease in the shade of it. The scent of the season worked on him, and the charming odor of all those flowers, and a breeze that was too pleasant to argue with, and his mind would not come away from the thought of Girika. Near him, on a branch, a hawk had settled, a bird built for speed. Vasu understood the fine points of Dharma and Artha as well as any man alive, and what he did next he did knowingly. He went to the bird and spoke to it as a man speaks to a messenger he trusts. Amiable one, carry this seed to my wife Girika and give it to her. Her season has arrived.

The hawk took the seed from the king and went up through the air at speed. Everything in this story that follows turns on the ordinary habits of birds. While the first hawk was flying, another of its own kind saw it carrying something in its claws and reached the conclusion any hawk would reach, that the load was meat and that meat in another bird’s possession is worth taking. The second one flew at the first. They fought in the sky above the river, striking at each other with their beaks, turning over each other in the air the way fighting hawks do, and while they were fighting the seed came loose from the claws that held it and fell into the waters of the Yamuna. In those waters lived an Apsara of the higher rank whose name was Adrika, whom a Brahmana’s curse had turned into a fish. The seed dropped from the hawk’s claws into the water and Adrika came up fast and swallowed it whole. Some time afterward fishermen working that stretch of water caught the fish in their nets and hauled it in. Ten months had gone by since the swallowing. When they opened the fish, out of its stomach came a male child and a female child, both of them in human shape, both of them alive. Men who spend their lives pulling fish out of a river have seen a great deal of what a river holds, and none of them had seen this. Since they were the subjects of king Uparichara they carried the news straight to him and told him everything, standing in front of the throne with the same sentence repeating itself in their mouths. O king, these two beings of human shape were found inside the body of a fish. Of the two the king took the boy, and kept him. That child grew up into the virtuous and truthful monarch Matsya.

The birth of the twins set the Apsara free. The illustrious one who had cursed her had told her beforehand how the curse would end: living in her fish form she would give birth to two children of human shape, and with that she would be released. The words held. Having borne the two children, and having been killed by the fishermen, she left the body of a fish behind her and took up her own celestial shape again, and rose along the path that the Siddhas and the Rishis and the Charanas travel. The girl, daughter of an Apsara who had been wearing a fish at the time, carried the smell of fish on her skin, and the king gave her to the fishermen with one sentence. Let this one be your daughter. She came to be known by the name Satyavati. She was gifted with great beauty and possessed of every virtue, a girl of agreeable smiles, and because she lived among fishermen the fishy smell stayed on her for a long while, so that people meeting her noticed the river on her before they noticed anything else. To be of use to the man who had raised her, she plied a boat on the waters of the Yamuna, taking passengers across and bringing the boat back, season after season, at an age when a king’s daughter would have been kept indoors. Nothing in her work or her clothing announced whose child she was. The crossing she worked was an ordinary crossing on an ordinary river, and every sage and king who will matter in this history has still to walk down to that bank and ask her for the boat.

A key to reading this (two lines leave this one scene): Two dynasties walk out of this single episode. The boy taken from the fish became king Matsya, and the Matsya country carries his name, the same country whose king Virata will shelter the Pandavas through their year of hiding. The girl is Satyavati, who will become Shantanu’s queen and Bhishma’s stepmother; before any of that, in the next scene, she becomes the mother of Vyasa. The seed sent by messenger when a husband cannot reach his wife in her season is treated by this text as a lawful act, which is why Vasu is called a man who knew the fine points of Dharma and Artha in the same breath. The hawk mistaking the seed for meat, and the fight that spills it, are exactly as the source has them; no god and no design has been added behind the accident.

The gist: On the very day Girika was ready, the Pitris sent Vasu out to hunt deer for their Sraddha. Filled with desire in a spring forest, the king handed his seed to a hawk to carry to his wife. A second hawk took it for meat and attacked, and in the fight the seed fell into the Yamuna, where Adrika, an Apsara cursed into a fish, swallowed it. Ten months later fishermen caught the fish and found a boy and a girl inside. The king kept the boy, who became king Matsya; Adrika was freed from her curse and rose to heaven; the girl, smelling of fish, was given to the fishermen, was named Satyavati, and plied a boat on the river.

The fog raised in the middle of the Yamuna: two promises made to a ferryman’s daughter, the son born on an island who would divide the Vedas, and the roll of births that would one day face each other at Kurukshetra

The girl who smelled of fish worked the river for her foster father, poling his boat from one bank of the Yamuna to the other and back, and the men who crossed with her mostly kept their eyes on the water. One day the great Rishi Parashara came down to that landing in the course of his wanderings and stepped aboard. Satyavati had a beauty that an anchorite could feel from across a deck, and a way of smiling that made a man forget the errand that had brought him to the river, and the sage, who had spent his life learning to want nothing, found that he wanted her. He said so plainly, in the manner of a man who has never had to ask twice. Accept my embraces, blessed one. She did not pretend to misunderstand him. She pointed instead at the two banks sliding past on either side, where ascetics sat at their water rites in full view of the channel, and asked him how she was supposed to grant anything at all with all of them watching. Parashara looked at the banks, and then he did the thing that ended the argument. He raised a fog. It had not been there a moment before and it was there now, thick and total, swallowing both shores and the boat between them, and the whole region went dark in the middle of the day. The girl stared at what he had made, and the blood came up in her face, and she understood exactly how alone the two of them had become.

What she said next was a negotiation. She told him she was a maiden and lived under her father’s authority, that his embrace would cost her the one thing a daughter in her position could not afford to lose, and that if she went home in that condition she would not be able to go on living in that house or, she thought, to go on living at all. Consider all of it, she said, and then do what ought to be done. It was a demand for terms, put to a man who could summon weather, and the sage was pleased by it rather than annoyed. He gave her two answers. The first was that she would remain a virgin even after she had granted what he asked. The second was an open offer: name the boon you want, timid one, for my favor has never yet gone to waste. She asked for the thing she had lived with since the fishermen cut her out of a fish, that her body should give off a sweet scent in place of the odor that clung to it. He granted it on the spot. Her season came upon her in that same hour, and she accepted him, and afterward men called her Gandhavati, the sweet-scented one. The fragrance carried a full yojana, so she picked up a second name as well, Yojanagandha, she whose scent travels a yojana in every direction. Parashara went back to his own hermitage and out of the story, having changed it permanently.

Satisfied with a bargain in which she had kept both her maidenhood and her name, Satyavati conceived, and she delivered that very day, on an island in the Yamuna, a child of enormous energy. He did not stay. With his mother’s leave he turned his mind to asceticism and walked away, and the sentence he left her with is the hinge on which the rest of the Mahabharata turns: the moment you remember me, when the occasion comes, I will be standing in front of you. So Vyasa was born to Satyavati by Parashara, and because his birth was on an island he was called Dwaipayana, the island-born. Later, watching virtue lose one of her four legs in every succeeding age, and watching the life span and the strength of men shrink along with the ages, and wanting the favor of Brahma and of the Brahmanas, he took the mass of sacred utterance and put it in order, dividing it into its parts. That labor gave him the name the world uses. Vyasa means the one who arranged. He then taught five pupils, Sumantu, Jaimini, Paila, his own son Shuka, and Vaishampayana, the Vedas with the Mahabharata standing as their fifth, and the compilation went out into the world through those five men separately, which is why the story now being told in Janamejaya’s sacrificial hall has a teacher’s name attached to it and a chain of custody behind it.

After that the births come in a rush, each one loading another weapon into the war that ends this book. Bhishma, formed out of the component parts of the Vasus, immense in energy and fame, was born to king Shantanu in the womb of Ganga. In the same stretch of time there lived a Rishi named Animandavya, learned in the interpretation of the Vedas, of great reputation, and entirely innocent of the theft for which he was accused and impaled on a stake. From the stake he summoned Dharma himself and put a question to him that no god had been asked in quite that form. In my childhood, he said, I pierced a little fly on a blade of grass. That is the one sin I can remember, and I can recall no other, and since then I have performed penances a thousand times over. Has that single sin not been outweighed by all of that? And because killing a Brahmana is more heinous than the killing of any other living thing, you, Dharma, have sinned in what you did to me; therefore take birth on earth in the Shudra order. By that curse Dharma came down and was born as Vidura, learned, pure in body, faultless. Then Kunti, still unmarried, bore a son to Surya, and the child came out of his mother’s womb already wearing a coat of mail that had grown with him, with earrings that lit his face. And for the good of the three worlds Vishnu was born to Devaki by Vasudeva, he who has no birth and no death, the invisible cause in which the three strands of sattva, rajas and tamas hold together, the Om of the Vedas, the maker and the material of everything that exists, who took flesh among the Andhakas and Vrishnis so that virtue might increase.

The rest of the muster follows in the order the text gives it. Satyaki and Kritavarma, masters of weapons, deep in every branch of learning, obedient to Narayana in all things, were born to Satyaka and Hridika. The seed of the Rishi Bharadwaja, kept in a pot, began to grow, and out of that pot came Drona. The seed of Gautama fell on a clump of reeds and produced twins, Kripi who would be the mother of Ashvatthama, and Kripa of great strength. Out of the sacrificial fire stepped Dhrishtadyumna with the brightness of Agni on him and a bow already in his hand, born for the express purpose of killing Drona. From the same altar came Krishnaa, dark and radiant and beautiful past describing. Then Nagnajit, the pupil of Prahlada, and Suvala; and to Suvala a son, Shakuni, who by the curse of the gods became a destroyer of creatures and an enemy of virtue, and a daughter, Gandhari, who would be the mother of Duryodhana, both of them expert in the arts by which worldly advantage is gotten. From Krishna Dwaipayana, in the field of Vichitravirya, came Dhritarashtra, lord of men, and Pandu of great strength, and from the same Dwaipayana in the Shudra caste came the wise Vidura, conversant with duty and with profit and free of every sin. To Pandu his two wives bore five sons like gods: Yudhishthira the eldest, begotten of Dharma; Bhima of the wolf’s belly, of Marut; Dhananjaya, fortunate and first among all who ever carried a weapon, of Indra; and Nakula and Sahadeva, handsome and endlessly attentive to their elders, of the twin Ashvins. To Dhritarashtra were born a hundred sons, Duryodhana and the rest, and one more, Yuyutsu, by a vaishya woman. Among those hundred and one, eleven were great car-warriors: Duhshasana, Duhsaha, Durmarshana, Vikarna, Chitrasena, Vivinshati, Jaya, Satyavrata, Purumitra, and Yuyutsu by the vaishya wife. Abhimanyu was born to Subhadra, the sister of Vasudeva, by Arjuna, and so was Pandu’s grandson. The five Pandavas had five sons by their common wife Panchali, all of them handsome and learned in every branch of knowledge: Pritivindhya by Yudhishthira, Sutasoma by Vrikodara, Shrutakirti by Arjuna, Shatanika by Nakula, and Shrutasena of great prowess by Sahadeva; and Bhima in the forest begot Ghatotkacha on Hidimva. From Drupada came a daughter, Shikhandin, afterward turned into a male child by a Yaksha named Sthuna who wished to do her good. Into that great battle of the Kurus came hundreds of thousands of kings to fight one another, and their names could not be recited in ten thousand years. Only the principal ones have been set down here.

A key to reading this (three Krishnas, a son left unnamed, and a count of eleven): The name Krishna belongs to three different people on this one page. Krishna Dwaipayana is Vyasa, who fathers Dhritarashtra and Pandu. Krishnaa is Draupadi, born from the sacrificial altar. The son of Devaki and Vasudeva is the third. The child Kunti bears to Surya before her marriage is never named in this section, which calls him only the Suta; he is Karna, and his story is told in full in chapter 14b. The source announces eleven great car-warriors and then lists ten names; the count has been left exactly as it stands in the text rather than quietly corrected.

The gist: Parashara sees Satyavati poling her father’s ferry, wants her, and answers her objection about the watching ascetics by raising a fog over the whole river. She negotiates before she consents, and he grants two things: her maidenhood will survive, and she may name a boon. She asks to smell sweet in place of the fish odor, and becomes Gandhavati and Yojanagandha. That same day, on an island in the Yamuna, she gives birth to Vyasa, who leaves at once for a life of austerity with a promise to appear whenever she remembers him, and who later divides the Vedas and teaches them, with the Mahabharata as a fifth, to Sumantu, Jaimini, Paila, Shuka and Vaishampayana. The section then runs through the births that will fill the war: Bhishma, Vidura who is Dharma cursed into a Shudra birth by the impaled Animandavya, Kunti’s armored firstborn, Vishnu among the Vrishnis, Drona from a pot, Kripa and Kripi from the reeds, Dhrishtadyumna and Draupadi out of the fire, Shakuni and Gandhari, Dhritarashtra and Pandu, the five Pandavas with their divine fathers, the hundred Kauravas and Yuyutsu, Abhimanyu, Draupadi’s five sons, Ghatotkacha and Shikhandin.

A golden age returns to an earth emptied of Kshatriyas twenty-one times, the Asuras come back through the womb, and the Earth herself stands before Brahma and asks for help

Janamejaya wanted more than names. Those you have named and those you have left unnamed, he told Vaishampayana, I wish to hear about in detail, and about the other kings too, by the thousand. And tell me the whole of it, fortunate one: for what purpose were those great chariot warriors, the equals of the gods themselves, born on this earth at all? Vaishampayana did not answer at once. What you are asking, he said, is a mystery even to the gods, so we have heard. But I will tell it, after bowing first to the Self-born. And then he began where the earth had last run out of kings. The son of Jamadagni, Parashurama, had made the earth empty of Kshatriyas twenty-one times over, and when it was done he went to Mahendra, the best of mountains, and sat down to his austerities. In that season, when there was no Kshatriya left alive, the Kshatriya women who wanted children came to the Brahmanas. The Brahmanas were men of rigid vows. They went to those women only in the woman’s season, never from desire and never out of season, and by that union thousands of Kshatriya women conceived. The children born of it were Kshatriyas of greater fire than the ones who had died, boys and girls both, and through them the warrior order took root again. So the Kshatriya line rose a second time from Kshatriya mothers by Brahmana fathers who lived in penance, and the new generation, blessed with long life, began to grow in virtue, and the four orders with the Brahmanas at their head stood established once more.

Vaishampayana lingered over that age, because everything that came after depended on how good it had been. Every man in those days went to his wife in her season and never from lust or out of it. The other creatures did the same, even the ones born among the birds, and hundreds of thousands of beings were born, all of them virtuous, all of them multiplying in virtue, none of them touched by sorrow or disease. The wide earth with the ocean for her hem, her mountains and forests and towns, was governed again by Kshatriyas, and when the earth was governed again by Kshatriyas who governed rightly, the other orders with the Brahmanas at their front were filled with joy. The kings gave up every vice that grows out of desire and anger. They punished those who deserved punishment and no one else, and so they protected the earth. Indra of the hundred sacrifices and the thousand eyes looked down, saw how the Kshatriya monarchs ruled, and poured out life-giving rain at the right times and in the right places, blessing every creature. No one died young. No one knew a woman before coming of age. The earth, to the very shore of the sea, filled up with people who lived long. The Kshatriyas performed great sacrifices and gave away great wealth at them. The Brahmanas studied every Veda with its branches and its Upanishads, and no Brahmana in those days ever sold the Veda by teaching it for money, and none ever recited it aloud where a Shudra could hear. The Vaishyas had the earth tilled with the help of bullocks and never yoked the cattle with their own hands; the thin animals they fed with care; and no one milked a cow while her calf still drank only her milk and had not yet turned to grass. No merchant sold by a false scale. Everyone held to the path of virtue and did everything with an eye fixed on virtue, every order mindful of its own duties, and so virtue in those days never once diminished. Cows and women both gave birth at the proper time. Trees flowered and fruited each in its season. The Krita age had properly set in, Vaishampayana said, and the whole earth was crowded with living things.

And it was into that blessed state that the Asuras came back. The sons of Diti, the Daityas, had been beaten in war again and again by the sons of Aditi, the gods, and stripped of both sovereignty and heaven, and now they began to take birth on the earth, in the lines of kings. They were possessed of great power and they wanted rule, and they were born among creatures of every kind: among cows, horses, asses, camels and buffaloes, among the Rakshasas and creatures like them, among elephants and deer. Between those already born and those still being born, the earth became unable to hold herself up. Some of the sons of Diti and of Danu, cast out of heaven, were born as kings of enormous pride and insolence, blazing with energy, covering the earth in shape after shape, able to crush every enemy, filling the whole earth to its ocean boundary. And by their strength they began to oppress Brahmanas and Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, and every other creature besides. They went about the earth in bands of hundreds and thousands, terrifying and killing whatever lived. Empty of truth and virtue, proud of their strength, drunk on the wine of insolence, they even insulted the great sages in their hermitages.

The Earth, crushed under those mighty Asuras with their great strength and energy and their limitless means, began to think of going to Brahma. She had bearers. The combined strength of the beings who hold her up, Shesha, the Tortoise and the great Elephant, and of many Sheshas beyond them, had been enough to carry her with all her mountains; now, weighted down with Danavas, she was heavier than what carried her. Oppressed by that weight and afflicted with fear, she went to the Grandsire of all creatures for protection. She saw him there, the divine Brahma, the Creator of the worlds who knows no decay, surrounded by the gods, the Brahmanas and the great sages of surpassing fortune, adored by the delighted Gandharvas and Apsaras who are always in attendance on the celestials. And in the presence of all the Regents of the worlds she laid the whole matter before him. Vaishampayana paused here to say what the king already suspected: the Earth’s purpose had been known beforehand to the Omniscient, the Self-created, the Supreme Lord. He who made the universe, why would he not know completely what was in the minds of his creatures, the gods and the Asuras included? Then the Lord of the Earth, the Creator of all creatures, who is also called Isha, Shambhu and Prajapati, spoke to her. Holder of wealth, he said, for the accomplishment of the purpose that has brought you to me, I shall appoint all who dwell in heaven.

Having said that to the Earth, the divine Brahma sent her home. Then the Creator commanded all the gods. To ease the Earth of her burden, he told them, go and take your births in her, each according to his part, and seek out strife with the Asuras already born there. He summoned also every tribe of the Gandharvas and the Apsaras and spoke to them words heavy with meaning: go and be born among men, each according to your part, in whatever forms you like. All the gods with Indra at their head heard those words of the Lord of the celestials, words that were true, that fitted the hour, that were full of benefit, and they accepted them. Having resolved to descend to the earth in their respective parts, they went together to Narayana at Vaikuntha. Vaishampayana named him by everything he is: the slayer of all foes, the one who holds the discus and the mace, who is clad in yellow, who blazes, who has the lotus at his navel, who destroys the enemies of the gods, whose eyes rest downward on his broad chest in the posture of yoga, who is the lord of Prajapati himself and the sovereign of all the gods, who is of mighty strength, who carries the auspicious whorl of Shrivatsa on his breast, who moves the faculties of every living being, whom all the gods adore. To him, the most exalted of persons, Indra spoke two words. Be incarnate. And Hari answered with three. Let it be so.

A key to reading this (birth by parts, and who holds the earth up): This sub-book is called the Adivansavatarana, the descent of the first lineages, and this is its hinge. The gods are told to be born by their parts, which means that a god places a portion of his fire in a human body and remains himself in heaven at the same time; the roll that follows in the next scenes, saying which god became which hero, is the fruit of this single command. Shesha, the Tortoise and the Elephant as the bearers of the earth are this text’s own image; Shesha’s austerity, by which he was given the earth to hold, was told earlier in chapter 1’s Astika book. Indra’s two words to Narayana and Hari’s answer are the whole of Krishna’s birth announcement in the Mahabharata, and they take one line.

The gist: After Parashurama emptied the earth of Kshatriyas twenty-one times, Kshatriya women bore children by ascetic Brahmanas, in season only, and the warrior order rose again; every order kept its duty, Indra rained on time, no one died young, and the Krita age returned. Then the Daityas and Danavas, beaten out of heaven, were born into royal lines and among animals and oppressed the earth until she could not bear her own weight. She went to Brahma, who commanded the gods, Gandharvas and Apsaras to be born among men by their parts; the gods went to Narayana at Vaikuntha, Indra asked him to be incarnate, and Hari said, let it be so.

Indra rides back from Narayana’s abode with a yes, and the ledger of creation is opened: Daksha’s thirteen daughters, the twelve Adityas, the forty sons of Danu, and the Apsaras born of Pradha

Indra had his answer, and now he needed a plan. He stayed a while in that abode where the lord of the Prajapatis sits with his gaze turned inward, and the two of them worked out the shape of the descent: who would go, in what measure, into whose house. A god does not simply fall out of the sky into a cradle. He apportions himself. Part of his blaze stays where it belongs and part of it consents to be an infant with a mother and a name and a death waiting for it at the far end. When the arrangement was settled Indra went through the halls of heaven giving the order, and then he rode home. After that the thing began quietly, the way large things do. One by one the dwellers in heaven were born on earth, in the families of Brahmarshis and of royal sages, choosing their houses as they pleased. They came for the destruction of the Asuras and for the welfare of the three worlds, and they went to work early. They killed Danavas. They killed Rakshasas and Gandharvas and snakes, and the man-eaters, and a great many other creatures besides. And here is the detail that tells you what kind of children these were: the Danavas and the Rakshasas and the Gandharvas and the snakes tried to kill them in the cradle, in infancy, while they were still soft, and could not do it. The strength was already there, folded up and waiting.

Janamejaya raised a hand at this point. He had been promised the origins of heroes, and the storyteller had begun in the middle. Tell me the births from the beginning, the king said. The gods, the Danavas, the Gandharvas, the Apsaras, men, Yakshas, Rakshasas, all of them, in order. So Vaishampayana bowed to the Self-create and opened the ledger at its first page. It is known, he said, that Brahma has six spiritual sons: Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha and Kratu. Marichi’s son is Kashyapa, and from Kashyapa these creatures have sprung. To Daksha, one of the Prajapatis, thirteen daughters were born, every one of them of great good fortune, and their names are Aditi, Diti, Danu, Kala, Danayu, Sinhika, Krodha, Pradha, Vishva, Vinata, Kapila, Muni and Kadru. Their sons and grandsons, gifted with enormous energy, run past counting. From Aditi came the twelve Adityas, the lords of the universe, and their names, in the order they are given, are Dhatri, Mitra, Aryaman, Shakra, Varuna, Amsha, Bhaga, Vivasvat, Pushan, Savitri, Tvashtri and Vishnu. The youngest of the twelve stands above all the others in merit, and every listener in that hall knew exactly whose birth that sentence was quietly pointing toward.

Then came the other side of the family. Diti had one son, Hiranyakashipu, and that celebrated son had five of his own, famous everywhere: Prahlada the eldest, then Samhrada, then Anuhrada, and after them Shibi and Bashkala. It is known everywhere that Prahlada had three sons, Virochana, Kumbha and Nikumbha. To Virochana was born Vali of great prowess, and the son of Vali is the great Asura Bana, blessed with good fortune, a follower of Rudra, known also by the name Mahakala. Danu had forty sons. The eldest was Viprachitti of great fame, and after him Shambara, Namuchi and Pauloman; Asiloman, Keshi and Durjaya; Ayahshiras, Ashvashiras and the powerful Ashvashanku; Gaganamurdhan, Vegavat and the one called Ketumat; Svarbhanu, Ashva, Ashvapati, Vrishaparva and then Ajaka; Ashvagriva, Sukshma and Tuhunda of great strength; Ekapada, Ekachakra, Virupaksha, Mahodara, Nichandra, Nikumbha, Kupata and then Kapata; Sharabha, Shalabha, Surya and then Chandramas. These are the names remembered in the race of Danu. The text stops here to make a correction of its own, because it knows what a listener will assume: the Surya and the Chandramas of the celestials, the sun and the moon themselves, are other persons entirely, and have nothing to do with these two sons of Danu who happen to carry the same names. Ten more were born in that race, gifted with strength and vigor: Ekaksha, Amritapa of heroic courage, Pralamba and Naraka, Vatapi, Shatrutapana, and Shatha the great Asura, Gavishtha, Vanayu, and the Danava called Dirghajiva. Their sons and grandsons were beyond counting too.

Sinhika gave birth to Rahu, the one who hunts the sun and the moon across the sky and swallows them, and to three others, Suchandra, Chandrahantri and Chandrapramardana. Krodha, whose name means wrath and who is called Krura as well, produced a countless brood as crooked and as wicked as herself, a whole tribe of them, angry, bent in their dealings, and given to persecuting whoever they decided was an enemy. Danayu had four sons who were bulls among the Asuras, Vikshara, Bala, Vira and Vritra the great Asura. The sons of Kala were each like Yama himself, smiters of every foe, of great energy, oppressors of all who stood against them, and their names are Vinashana and Krodha, then Krodhahantri and Krodhashatru, with many others besides. And Shukra, the son of a Rishi, was the chief priest of the Asuras. That celebrated Shukra had four sons who served as priests of the Asuras after him, Tvashtadhara and Atri and two others of fierce deeds, men like the sun in energy who had set their hearts on winning the regions of Brahma. Here the storyteller paused to mark his own limits. This account of the progeny of the gods and the Asuras, he said, both of them great in strength and energy, has been recited by me as I heard it in the Purana. I am not able to count their descendants. They are countless, and most of them never became famous enough to be remembered.

The last stretch of the ledger belongs to the other daughters. The sons of Vinata were Tarkshya and Arishtanemi, and Garuda and Aruna, and Aruni and Varuni. Shesha, who is also Ananta, along with Vasuki, Takshaka, Kumara and Kulika, are known as the sons of Kadru. Then came the long roll of the sons of Muni, that other daughter of Daksha: Bhimasena, Ugrasena, Suparna, Varuna, Gopati, Dhritarashtra, Suryavarchas the seventh, Satyavachas, Arkaparna, Prayuta, Bhima, and the celebrated Chitraratha, a being of great learning who had mastered his own passions, and then Kalishiras, and Parjanya fourteenth in the list, Kali the fifteenth, and Narada the sixteenth. These are the Devas and Gandharvas born of Muni. Pradha brought forth daughters named Anavadya, Manu, Vamsha, Asura, Marganapriya, Anupa, Subhaga and Vasi, and sons named Siddha, Purna, Barhi, Purnayus of great fame, Brahmacharin, Ratiguna, Suparna who was the seventh, Vishvavasu, Bhanu, and Suchandra who was the tenth, all of them celestial Gandharvas. It is known also that this same Pradha, through the celestial Rishi who was her husband, brought forth the sacred company of the Apsaras: Alambusha, Mishrakeshi, Vidyutparna, Tilottama, Aruna, Rakshita, Rambha, Manorama, Keshini, Subahu, Surata, Suraja and Supriya were the daughters, and Atibahu and the celebrated Haha and Huhu and Tumburu were the sons, the best of Gandharvas, born of Pradha and Amrita. The Brahmanas, the cattle, the Gandharvas and the Apsaras were born of Kapila, as the Purana states. So the births of all creatures have now been recited in due order, of Gandharvas and Apsaras, of snakes and Suparnas, of Rudras and Maruts, of cattle and of those fortunate Brahmanas whose deeds are sacred. This account lengthens the span of a life. It is sacred, it deserves every praise, and it gives pleasure to the ear, and it should always be heard and recited to others in a proper frame of mind. Whoever reads it duly in the presence of gods and Brahmanas obtains a large family, good fortune and fame, and reaches excellent worlds afterward.

A key to reading this (two genealogies, and names that belong to two people): Vaishampayana says himself that he is reciting what he heard in the Purana, and in this reckoning Daksha has thirteen daughters. The next episode opens a second reckoning in which Daksha has fifty. The epic carries both accounts without reconciling them, and both are kept here as the source has them. Three names repay attention. Among the sons of Danu are a Surya and a Chandramas, and the text itself warns that these are different persons from the sun god and the moon god. Among the sons of Muni is a Dhritarashtra, a Gandharva, unrelated to the blind king of this story. And Shukra, who appears here only as a name in the list of Asura priests, walks into this same chapter later as the father of Devayani, with a curse in his mouth that will decide who inherits a kingdom.

The gist: Indra settles the terms of the descent with Narayana, orders heaven to follow, and rides home. The gods are born on earth in parts, into the families of Brahmarshis and royal sages, and begin killing Danavas and Rakshasas while still young enough that their enemies try, and fail, to kill them in the cradle. Janamejaya asks for the births from the beginning, and Vaishampayana recites the genealogy as he heard it in the Purana: Brahma’s six spiritual sons, Kashyapa from Marichi, Daksha’s thirteen daughters, Aditi’s twelve Adityas, Diti’s line from Hiranyakashipu through Prahlada and Vali to Bana, the forty sons of Danu and ten more, Rahu born of Sinhika, the broods of Krodha and Danayu and Kala, Shukra the Asuras’ priest with his four sons, the sons of Vinata and Kadru, the sixteen Devas and Gandharvas born of Muni, and the sons, daughters and Apsaras of Pradha, whose names will keep returning for the rest of this story.

Daksha from Brahma’s right toe and his wife from the left: the eleven Rudras, Daksha’s fifty daughters, the eight Vasus, and the Vishvakarma whose inventions keep mankind alive

Vaishampayana began the way a court genealogist begins, from the top, because the king had asked a question that could not be answered without the whole ladder. Janamejaya wanted to know which god or Asura had come down as which of his ancestors. Before a single incarnation could be named, the listener had to know who the gods were, who had fathered whom, and which of them counted as kin. So the storyteller went back to Brahma. The six spiritual sons of Brahma had already been mentioned: Marichi, Angiras, Atri, Pulastya, Pulaha and Kratu. There was a seventh, Sthanu. Sthanu had eleven sons, each of them a furnace of energy, and these eleven are the Rudras: Mrigavyadha, Sarpa, Nirriti of great fame, Ajaikapat, Ahirbudhnya, Pinaki the oppressor of foes, Dahana, Ishvara, Kapali of great splendor, Sthanu himself, and the illustrious Bharga. Angiras had three sons known across the world, Brihaspati, Utathya and Samvarta, all of them men of rigid vows. Atri’s sons were many, and every one of them a great rishi, learned in the Vedas, crowned with ascetic success, perfectly at peace. Then came the surprising branches. The sons of Pulastya were the Rakshasas, the monkeys, the Kinnaras who are half man and half horse, and the Yakshas. The sons of Pulaha were the Shalabhas, the winged insects, and the lions, the Kimpurushas who are half lion and half man, the tigers, the bears and the wolves. And the sons of Kratu, as sacred as a sacrifice itself, were the Valakhilyas who travel with the sun, known through the three worlds, devoted to truth and to their vows.

Then Daksha. The illustrious rishi Daksha, a soul in complete peace and a man of tremendous austerity, sprang from the right toe of Brahma, and from Brahma’s left toe sprang the woman who became his wife. Daksha begot fifty daughters on her, every one flawless in feature and limb, every one with eyes like lotus petals. He had no sons, so he made those fifty daughters his Putrikas, which means that their sons would belong to him as well as to their husbands, and his line would not end. Then, according to the sacred ordinance, he gave them away: ten to Dharma, twenty-seven to Chandra the Moon, and thirteen to Kashyapa. The wives of Dharma are ten and their names are these: Kirti, Lakshmi, Dhriti, Medha, Pushti, Shraddha, Kriya, Buddhi, Lajja and Mati, appointed to Dharma by the Self-created one. The wives of Soma are twenty-seven, as the whole world knows, women of sacred vows whose work is to mark time. They are the Nakshatras, the lunar mansions, and they are the Yoginis, and they became what they are in order to help the worlds keep their courses.

Brahma had another son, Manu. Manu had a son named Prajapati, and Prajapati had eight sons who are called the Vasus, and Vaishampayana named them one by one for the king: Dhara, Dhruva, Soma, Aha, Anila, Anala, Pratyusha and Prabhasa. Of these, Dhara and Dhruva who knows the truth were born of Dhumra; Chandramas, who is Soma, and Shvasana, who is Anila, were born of the intelligent Shvasa; Aha was the son of Rata, Hutashana, who is Anala, the son of Shandili; and Pratyusha and Prabhasa were the sons of Prabhata. Dhara had two sons, Dravina and Hutahavyavaha. The son of Dhruva is the illustrious Kala, Time, the destroyer of the worlds. Soma’s son is the resplendent Varchas, and Varchas begot three sons on his wife Manohara, of whom the text names Shishira and Ramana. The sons of Aha were Jyoti, Shama, Shanta and Muni. The son of Agni is the handsome Kumara, born in a forest of reeds and called Kartikeya because the Krittikas reared him, and after him were born his three brothers Shakha, Vishakha and Naigameya. The wife of Anila is Shiva, and her sons were Manojava and Avijnatagati, the two sons of Anila. The son of Pratyusha is the rishi named Devala, and Devala had two sons, both forgiving beyond measure and of great mental power. And the sister of Brihaspati, the first among women, a speaker of sacred truth who wandered the whole earth in ascetic penance, became the wife of Prabhasa, the eighth Vasu. She gave birth to the illustrious Vishvakarma, the founder of all the arts, the originator of a thousand crafts, the engineer of the immortals, the maker of every kind of ornament and the first of all artists. It was he who built the celestial cars of the gods, and it is because of his inventions that mankind is able to live at all. For that reason men worship him. He is eternal and unchanging, this Vishvakarma.

The illustrious Dharma, the dispenser of every happiness, came out through the right breast of Brahma wearing a human face. Dharma has three excellent sons who charm every creature: Shama, Kama and Harsha, which is to say Peace, Desire and Joy, and by their energy they hold the worlds up. The wife of Kama is Rati, the wife of Shama is Prapti, the wife of Harsha is Nanda, and on these, truly, the worlds depend. The son of Marichi is Kashyapa, and Kashyapa’s offspring are the gods and the Asuras alike, which is why Kashyapa is called the father of the worlds. Tvashtri, taking the form of a mare, a Vadava, became the wife of Savitri and gave birth in the sky to two greatly fortunate twins, the Ashvins. And the sons of Aditi, O king, are twelve, with Indra at their head, and the youngest of them all is Vishnu, on whom the worlds depend. These are the thirty-three gods: the eight Vasus, the eleven Rudras, the twelve Adityas, Prajapati and Vashatkara. Their progeny is reckoned by Pakshas, Kulas and Ganas, by sides, families and troops. The Rudras, the Sadhyas, the Maruts, the Vasus, the Bhargavas and the Vishvedevas are each reckoned a Paksha. Garuda the son of Vinata, and the mighty Aruna, and the illustrious Brihaspati are reckoned among the Adityas. The twin Ashvins, all the annual plants and all the lesser animals are reckoned among the Guhyakas. These are the Ganas of the gods, Vaishampayana said to the king, and this recitation washes a man clean of all his sins.

A key to reading this (why the list comes before the story): Janamejaya has just asked which gods and Asuras were born as the men who fought at Kurukshetra. Vaishampayana answers with the genealogy first, because the answer will say that Bhishma was one of the eight Vasus and Drona a portion of Brihaspati, and the words mean nothing to a listener who does not yet know who the Vasus are or whose son Brihaspati is. A Putrika is a daughter given in marriage on the condition that her son continues her father’s line as well as her husband’s; Daksha, who had no sons, made all fifty of his daughters Putrikas.

The gist: Brahma’s six spiritual sons and a seventh, Sthanu, whose eleven sons are the Rudras; the descendants of the six rishis run from Brihaspati to the Rakshasas, monkeys, lions and Valakhilyas. Daksha from Brahma’s right toe, his wife from the left; fifty daughters, ten to Dharma, twenty-seven to Soma who became the Nakshatras, thirteen to Kashyapa. Manu, Prajapati, the eight Vasus and their sons, among them Kartikeya and Vishvakarma. Dharma’s three sons Peace, Desire and Joy; Kashyapa the father of gods and Asuras alike; the Ashvins from Tvashtri as a mare; Aditi’s twelve sons with Vishnu the youngest. Thirty-three gods in all, with their Pakshas and Ganas.

Bhrigu tears his way out of Brahma’s chest: the son who split himself in two to teach both armies, Parashurama four generations down, the three cruel sons of Adharma, and the mothers of every bird and beast alive

Vaishampayana went on. The next one out of Brahma did not wait to be made. Bhrigu came through the creator’s chest, ripping it open as he came, and everything that follows in this part of the recitation descends from that violence. Bhrigu’s son was Shukra, and Shukra is the reason the recitation matters to a man standing in a field looking at the sky. He became a planet. By the order of the Self-existent he moves through the heavens pouring rain down and holding it back, sending calamities and lifting them again, and he does this for one purpose, which is to keep the creatures of the three worlds alive. Then there is the other thing Shukra did, which may be the strangest fact in this whole stretch of the genealogy. A man of hard vows living as a brahmacharin, he divided himself into two by the force of his austerities, and with the halves he became the teacher of the Daityas and the teacher of the gods at the same time. Two camps that would spend the rest of recorded time trying to destroy each other learned their science from one mind wearing two bodies. Janamejaya, hearing this, would have understood that the war he descended from was not the first arrangement of its kind.

Once Brahma had set Shukra to that work of looking after the welfare of gods and Asuras together, Bhrigu produced a second son, and this one arrived angry. Chyavana came out of his mother’s womb in a rage, blazing like the sun at noon, and his coming was what freed his mother from the hands of the Rakshasas who held her. He grew into a soul of great virtue and greater fame, and Arushi, a daughter of Manu, became his wife. Their son was Aurva, and he too came into the world by tearing, since he ripped open Arushi’s thigh on his way out. Aurva begot Richika, who while still a boy held more power and energy than grown men, and every virtue besides. Richika begot Jamadagni. Jamadagni had four sons, and the youngest of the four was Rama, the one the world calls Parashurama. He surpassed all his brothers in the qualities that count, he was skilled in every weapon there is, his passions stood entirely under his own control, and he became the slayer of the Kshatriyas. Four generations down from a man who came out of Brahma’s chest, the line arrives at the ax that emptied the earth of its warriors twenty-one times, which is the emptying the last scene described. Aurva had a hundred sons in all, Jamadagni the eldest of them, and those hundred had children by the thousand, and their descendants are spread across this earth today.

Brahma had two further sons, Dhatri and Vidhatri, and they stayed on with Manu. Their sister is Lakshmi, the auspicious one, who lives among lotuses, and the sons born of her mind are the horses that range the sky. Shukra’s daughter Divi became the eldest wife of Varuna, and of her were born a son named Vala and a daughter named Sura, who is wine, brought into the world for the joy of the gods. Then the recitation turns, and what it names next has no lotuses in it. Adharma was born at the moment when creatures, having nothing left to eat, began to eat each other. He has been destroying every creature since. His wife is Nirriti, and the Rakshasas called Nairitas are hers, named for their mother. Adharma has three other sons besides, all cruel, all permanently occupied with sinful work, and their names are Bhaya, Mahabhaya and Mrityu, which is to say Fear, Terror, and Death, the last of them employed without pause in killing everything that has been made. Mrityu has no wife and no son, and the reason given is exact. A thing that destroys all things cannot leave anything behind it, including itself.

After that the list turns to mothers, and the world fills up. Tamra brought forth five daughters whose names are known in every world: Kaki, Shyeni, Phasi, Dhritarashtri and Shuki, which is to say crow, hawk, hen, goose and parrot. From Kaki came the crows. From Shyeni came the hawks, the cocks and the vultures. From Dhritarashtri came every duck and every swan, and the chakravakas came from her as well. From Shuki, who was lovely and gentle and carried every auspicious sign on her, came all the parrots in the world. Krodha gave birth to nine daughters, every one of them wrathful in temper, and their names were Mrigi, Mrigamanda, Hari, Bhadramana, Matangi, Sharduli, Shveta, Surabhi, and the agreeable Surasa, who held every virtue. From Mrigi came all the animals of the deer kind. From Mrigamanda came the bears and the creatures called srimara, the sweet-footed. Bhadramana bore Airavata, the elephant of heaven. From Hari came everything of the monkey kind, quick and restless, and all the horses too, and the animals called go-langula that carry a tail like a cow’s are counted among her children as well. Sharduli bore lions and tigers in great number, and leopards, and the other strong beasts. From Matangi came all the elephants, and Shveta bore the great elephant known by her own name, an animal of enormous speed.

Surabhi bore two daughters, the gentle Rohini and the far-famed Gandharvi, and two others besides, Vimala and Anala. Every cow on earth has come down from Rohini, and every animal of the horse kind from Gandharvi. Anala bore the seven trees that carry pulpy fruit, which are the date, the palm, the hintala, the tali, the little date, the nut and the coconut, and she had one more daughter, another Shuki, who is the mother of the parrot kind. Surasa bore a son called Kanka, a species of long-feathered bird. Shyeni, who was the wife of Aruna, gave birth to two sons of great energy and strength, and those two were Sampati and the mighty Jatayu, whose names will be heard again in a story older than this one. Surasa bore the Nagas as well, and Kadru bore the punnagas, the snakes. Vinata had two sons, Garuda and Aruna, both known far and wide. That, Vaishampayana said, is the genealogy of all the principal creatures, told to you in full, best of intelligent men. A man who listens to it is washed clean of his sins, gains great knowledge by it, and reaches the first of states in the life that comes after this one.

A key to reading this (four names to hold on to): Several names get only a flash here and return later with weight. Shukra teaching both sides at once sets up the story of Kacha and Devayani, which comes in this same chapter and turns on exactly that double loyalty. Sampati and Jatayu are the two vulture brothers of the Ramayana, and this text places their birth here, with Shyeni and Aruna as their parents. The elephant Shveta reappears in the war books among the elephants that hold the quarters of the sky. And Dhritarashtri in this passage is a bird, the mother of ducks and swans, with no connection whatever to the blind Kuru king whose name looks the same in English.

The gist: Bhrigu is born by tearing open Brahma’s chest. His son Shukra becomes a planet that governs rain and calamity, and splits himself in two so that he can teach the gods and the Daityas at once. Bhrigu’s second son Chyavana is born in anger and frees his mother; from Chyavana and Arushi comes Aurva, born through his mother’s thigh, then Richika, then Jamadagni, whose youngest son is Parashurama, the slayer of the Kshatriyas. Brahma’s sons Dhatri and Vidhatri have Lakshmi for a sister, whose mind-born sons are the horses of the sky. Adharma is born out of famine, and fathers Fear, Terror and Death, who has no wife and no son because he destroys everything. Tamra’s five daughters produce every bird, Krodha’s nine daughters every beast from deer to Airavata, and Surabhi’s daughters the cows, the horses and the seven fruit trees, while Shyeni bears Sampati and Jatayu, Surasa the Nagas, Kadru the snakes, and Vinata bears Garuda and Aruna.

Janamejaya’s second question: which Danava came back as which king, and the roll in which Jarasandha turns out to be Viprachitti and Kansa turns out to be Kalanemi

The genealogy of every creature had just been laid out, lineage by lineage, and the hall had gone quiet in the way a hall goes quiet when a list ends and nobody is sure whether the speaker has finished. Janamejaya was not finished. He leaned forward from the seat beside the sacrificial enclosure, where the fire had been burning for days and the priests moved in their slow circuits behind him, and he asked for something harder than a family tree. Worshipful one, he said, I want to hear it in detail now, the birth among men of the gods, the Danavas, the Gandharvas, the Rakshasas, the lions, the tigers, the other animals, the snakes, the birds, of every creature there is. And I want to hear what they did afterward, their acts and their achievements in order, once they had taken human shape and walked around inside it.

Vaishampayana understood what was really being asked. The young king had heard, in the summary, about a war in which his own great-grandfathers had destroyed one another, and he wanted to know whether the men who fought it had been only men. O king of men, the sage answered, I will begin with the celestials and the Danavas who were born among human beings. What follows is a roll call, and every name in it is a door. The first of the Danavas, the one known as Viprachitti, became that bull among men whom you know as Jarasandha. The son of Diti called Hiranyakashipu walked this world as the powerful Shishupala. Samhlada, the younger brother of Prahlada, became the famous Shalya, first among the Bahlikas. Spirited Anuhlada, the youngest of that family, became known everywhere as Dhrishtaketu. The son of Diti named Shivi became the celebrated monarch Druma, and the great Asura Vashkala became the great Bhagadatta.

The sage went on without pausing, the way a man recites something he has carried a long time. Five great Asuras of enormous energy, Ayahshira, Ashvashira, the spirited Ayahshanku, Gaganamurdhan and Vegavat, were all born into the royal line of the Kekayas, and every one of them became a great monarch. The Asura Ketumat became Amitaujas, a king of terrible deeds. Svarbhanu became Ugrasena, fierce in everything he did. The Asura called Ashva became Ashoka, whose energy was past measuring and who was never beaten in battle, and Ashva’s younger brother Ashvapati, also a son of Diti, became the mighty Hardikya. The fortunate Asura Vrishaparva was noted on earth as king Dirghaprajna, and Vrishaparva’s younger brother Ajaka became king Shalva. Ashvagriva, powerful and mighty, became king Rochamana. The Asura Sukshma, whose intelligence was as large as his achievements, became the famous Brihadratha. Tuhunda, first among Asuras, became the monarch Senavindu. Ishupa, an Asura of great strength, became Nagnajit of the famous prowess. Ekachakra became Pritivindhya. Virupaksha, who could fight in any manner a battle demanded, became king Chitravarman.

Some of the names in the middle of the list belong to men the court would recognize from its own borders. The heroic Hara, first of the Danavas, the one who humbled the pride of every enemy he met, became the famous and fortunate Suvahu. Suhtra, a destroyer of foes, became the fortunate Munjakesha. Nikumbha, who was never once vanquished in battle, was born as Devadhipa, first among monarchs. The Asura Sharabha, of the sons of Diti, became the royal sage Paurava. Fortunate Kupatha became the famous Suparshva. The great Asura Kratha was born as the royal sage Parvateya, whose form shone like a mountain of gold. The second Shalabha became king Prahlada in the country of the Bahlikas. Chandra, foremost among the sons of Diti and as handsome as the lord of the stars whose name he carried, became Chandravarman, king of the Kambojas. Arka, that bull among Danavas, became the royal sage Rishika. Mritapa became the monarch Pashchimanupaka. Garishtha, whose energy surpassed the others’, became king Drumasena. Mayura became the monarch Vishva, and Mayura’s younger brother Suparna became Kalakirti. Chandrahantri became the royal sage Shunaka, Chandravinashana became king Janaki, and Dirghajihva, a bull among the Danavas, became Kashiraja. Even the Graha born of Sinhika, the one that had spent ages persecuting the sun and the moon in the sky, came down and became the monarch Kratha.

Then came the families that arrived in groups, and here the pattern of the list changed from single names to whole houses. Of the four sons of Danayu, the eldest, Vikshara, became the spirited monarch Vasumitra; the second became king of the country called Pandya; Valina became the monarch Paundramatsyaka; and Vritra, that famous adversary, became the royal sage Manimat. Vritra’s younger brother Krodhahantri became king Danda, and Krodhavardhana became Dandadhara. The eight sons of the Kaleyas were all born as kings with the prowess of tigers. The eldest became Jayatsena in Magadha. The second, in prowess like Indra himself, became Aparajita. The third, who had great energy and a gift for producing illusions, was born as the king of the Nishadas. The fourth became Shrenimat, best of royal sages. The fifth became king Mahanjas, an oppressor of enemies. The sixth, who possessed great intelligence, became Abhiru. The seventh became Samudrasena, known from the center of the earth to the sea, a man who understood the truths of the scriptures. And the eighth, Vrihat, became a virtuous king who spent his reign in the good of all creatures.

The mighty Danava Kukshi became Parvatiya on earth, named for a brightness like that of a golden mountain. Krathana became the monarch Suryaksha. The handsome Asura Surya became Darada, monarch of the Bahlikas and foremost among all kings. And from that tribe of Asuras called the Krodhavasha, the sage said, of whom I have already spoken to you, a whole generation of heroic kings came into the world: Madraka and Karnaveshta, Siddhartha and Kitaka, Suvira and Suvahu and Mahavira and Bahlika, Kratha and Vichitra and Suratha and the handsome king Nila, Chiravasa and Bhumipala, Dantavakra and the one called Durjaya, that tiger among kings named Rukmi, and king Janamejaya, Ashada, Vayuvega and Bhuritejas, Ekalavya and Sumitra, Vatadhana and Gomukha, the tribe of kings called the Karushakas, and Khemadhurti, Shrutayu and Udvaha and Vrihatsena, Kshema, Ugratirtha the king of the Kalingas, Matimat, and the one known as king Ishvara. All of these first among kings were born of the Asura class called Krodhavasha.

The last two names of this stretch landed closest to home. There was born on earth a mighty Asura known among the Danavas as Kalanemi, a being of great strength, grand in his achievements, blessed with a large share of prosperity. He came into the world as the mighty son of Ugrasena, and this world called him Kansa. And the one who was known among the Asuras as Devaka, whose splendor was like Indra’s own, was born on earth as the foremost king of the Gandharvas. A boy sitting at a sacrifice in Hastinapura’s forest, listening to his father’s death being avenged in fire, was learning that the tyrant of Mathura and the grandfather of the man who had killed his enemies had both walked out of the same older war.

A key to reading this (one name, two people): Several names in this roll appear twice and belong to different persons. Kratha is the Asura who became the royal sage Parvateya, and Kratha is also the king who came from Sinhika’s Graha. Suvahu is the human form of the Danava Hara, and Suvahu is also a separate king born of the Krodhavasha class. The Prahlada who ruled in the Bahlika country is not the Prahlada whose younger brothers Samhlada and Anuhlada were named a moment earlier. The Janamejaya in the Krodhavasha list is an older king, not the one sitting in front of Vaishampayana. Names ran in many families at once in that age, which is why the sage keeps attaching a father, a country or a brother to each one as he goes.

The gist: Janamejaya asks how the gods, Danavas, Gandharvas, Rakshasas and every other creature were born among men, and what they did afterward. Vaishampayana starts with the Danavas and delivers a long roll of identifications: Viprachitti became Jarasandha, Hiranyakashipu became Shishupala, Samhlada became Shalya, Vashkala became Bhagadatta, Svarbhanu became Ugrasena, Vrishaparva became Dirghaprajna, Dirghajihva became Kashiraja, Vritra became Manimat. The eight sons of the Kaleyas became eight kings, among them Jayatsena of Magadha. The Krodhavasha class produced Rukmi, Dantavakra, Ekalavya, Shrutayu and the king of the Kalingas. And Kalanemi came back as Kansa, the son of Ugrasena.

From Drona to Abhimanyu: which god and which Asura came down inside which warrior, the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra named in the order of their birth, and the terms Soma set before he would lend his son to the earth

Every name in this next stretch of the list is one the king already knows. He has heard them since he was a child, in the mouths of bards and old soldiers and men who wanted something from his court. What Vaishampayana is doing now is turning each of them over to show what is stamped on the back. Drona, son of Bharadwaja, was born of no woman at all; he sprang from a portion of the celestial Rishi Brihaspati, and that is why he stood first among all the men who ever drew a bow. He knew every weapon. He knew the Vedas and he knew the science of arms, and he carried both without appearing to carry either. His son Ashvatthama, with eyes like lotus petals, came down through four doors at once, made of the joined portions of Mahadeva and Yama and Kama and Krodha, the great god and death and desire and rage. That is the composition of the man who will still be walking the field on the last night of the war, when almost no one else is.

Because of a curse laid by Vasishtha and an order given by Indra, the eight Vasus entered the womb of Ganga and were born to her husband Shantanu. The youngest of the eight was Bhishma, who lifted fear off the Kurus, who knew the Vedas, who stood first among those who could speak and first among those who could thin an enemy line; and who, having learned every weapon there was, once faced Rama the son of Jamadagni of the line of Bhrigu and was not destroyed by him. The Brahmana sage the earth called Kripa, manliness in a single body, came out of the tribe of the Rudras. The great chariot fighter known on earth as Shakuni, the crusher of foes, was Dvapara himself, the third age of the world, walking around inside a king’s brother-in-law with a set of dice in his sleeve. Satyaki of the unerring aim, who held up the pride of the Vrishnis, was begotten of a portion of those gods called the Maruts, and so were three others: Drupada, first among all men who bear arms; Kritavarman, whose deeds no one has surpassed; and Virata, who scorched the kingdoms of his neighbors. Hansa, the son of Arishta, was born in the Kuru line and became king of the Gandharvas.

Then the list arrives at the house where the whole quarrel is kept. Dhritarashtra, long armed and full of energy, was born of the seed of Krishna Dvaipayana, and he had the eye that sees what is coming; yet through his mother’s fault and the wrath of a Rishi he came out blind. His younger brother Pandu was a great being in his own right, strong, given to truth and virtue, purity with a body around it. And Vidura, first among all virtuous men, was the god of Justice in person, and the excellent and greatly fortunate son of the Rishi Atri. Against these, on the other side of the same roof, Duryodhana came down from a portion of Kali, the evil-minded king who destroyed the fair name of the Kurus, who got creatures killed in numbers no one could count, who wasted the earth, and who blew on the coal of a family quarrel until the fire it became consumed everyone. The sons of Pulastya, which is to say the Rakshasas, were born among men as Duryodhana’s brothers, that hundred of wicked individuals beginning with Duhshasana. Durmukha and Duhsaha and the rest of the ones who backed every scheme he ever had were Pulastya’s sons to a man. Over and above the hundred there was one more, Yuyutsu, whom Dhritarashtra had by a Vaishya wife, and who will be the only one of them to walk across to the other army on the morning of the battle.

Here Janamejaya stopped the recitation. Name them for me, he said, in the order they were born, beginning with the eldest. So Vaishampayana gave him the hundred, and the roll went like this. Duryodhana, Yuyutsu, Duhshasana; Duhsaha, Duhshala, Durmukha; Vivimshati and Vikarna, Jalasandha, Sulochana, Vinda and Anuvinda, Durdharsha, Subahu, Dushpradharshana; Durmarshana, Dushkarna, Karna; Chitra and Vipachitra, Chitraksha, Charuchitra, Angada, Durmada, Dushpradharsha, Vivitsu, Vikata, Sama; Urananabha and Padmanabha, Nanda and Upanandaka; Senapati, Sushena, Kundodara; Mahodara; Chitrabahu and Chitravarman, Suvarman, Durvirochana; Ayobahu, Mahabahu, Chitrachapa and Sukundala, Bhimavega, Bhimabala, Balaki, Bhimavikrama, Ugrayudha, Bhimashara, Kanakayu, Dridhayudha, Dridhavarman, Dridhakshatra, Somakirti, Anadara; Jarasandha, Dridhasandha, Satyasandha, Sahasravach; Ugrashravas, Ugrasena, Kshemamurti; Aparajita, Panditaka, Vishalaksha, Duradhara, Dridhahasta and Suhasta, Vatavega and Suvarchasa; Adityaketu, Bahvashin, Nagadatta and Anuyayin; Nishangi, Kavachi, Dandi, Dandadhara, Dhanurgraha; Ugra, Bhimaratha, Vira, Virabahu, Alolupa; Abhaya and Raudrakarman, and the one called Dridharatha; Anadhrishya, Kundaveda, Viravi, Dirghalochana; Dirghabahu; Mahabahu; Vyudhoru, Kanakangada; Kundaja and Chitraka. There was a daughter too, Duhshala, counted over and above the hundred, and Yuyutsu the son of the Vaishya woman stands outside the hundred as well.

That is the whole tally, sons and daughter, in the order of their births. Every one of them was a hero and a great car warrior and skilled in the art of war. Every one had the Vedas, and every one had been all the way through the scriptures. They could attack and they could hold, and learning sat well on them. All of them married women who matched them in grace and accomplishment. And when the time came, the Kaurava king listened to Shakuni’s advice and gave his daughter Duhshala to Jayadratha, king of the Sindhus, which is a sentence worth remembering on the afternoon, many years later, when Arjuna has sworn to kill Jayadratha before sundown. On the other side of the family the portions ran differently. King Yudhishthira was a portion of Dharma. Bhimasena was of the god of wind. Arjuna was of Indra, chief of the celestials. Nakula and Sahadeva, the handsomest beings among all creatures and unrivaled for beauty on earth, were portions of the twin Ashvins. And the mighty Varchas, son of Soma, became Abhimanyu of wonderful deeds, the son of Arjuna.

Varchas came down on terms. Before the incarnation Soma stood among the gods and set them out. I cannot part with my son, he said. He is dearer to me than my own life. Let this be the compact, and let no one break it. The destruction of the Asuras on earth is the work of the celestials, and therefore it is my work as well, so let Varchas go there. But let him not stay long. Nara, whose companion is Narayana, will be born as Indra’s son, and men will call him Arjuna, the mighty son of Pandu. This boy of mine will be his son, and he will be a great chariot warrior while he is still a boy. Let him stay on earth sixteen years, best of immortals, and no more. When he reaches his sixteenth year the battle will come in which all of you, in your portions, will destroy the great warriors of the world. One encounter in it will take place with neither Nara nor Narayana present. On that day your portions will fight inside the formation they call the chakra vyuha, and my son will force every enemy in front of him to give ground. He will penetrate the array no one can penetrate, he will range about inside it without fear, and in half a day he will send a fourth part of the hostile force to the country of the king of the dead. Then, toward the close of the day, when uncountable heroes and great car warriors turn back on him together, my boy of the mighty arms will return to me. And he will leave behind him one heroic son in his line, who will carry on the Bharata race when it has almost gone out. The dwellers in heaven heard Soma to the end and answered, So be it. Then all of them together praised the king of the stars and did him worship. And that, said Vaishampayana to the king in front of him, is the account of the birth of your father’s father.

A key to reading this (two men called Karna, two names that look alike, and a bargain struck before birth): The Karna in the roll of the hundred is one of Dhritarashtra’s own sons, and he has nothing to do with Karna the son of Radha and king of Anga. In the same way Duhshala appears twice, once as a son and once as the daughter given to Jayadratha; the source names both. On Vidura the text says two things at once, that he is the god of Justice himself and that he is the son of the Rishi Atri, and both are kept here as they stand. Notice also what Soma’s bargain contains: sixteen years, the chakra vyuha, the half day of slaughter, the single son to come after. All of it is settled before Abhimanyu is conceived. Janamejaya, who is listening, is the grandson of that arrangement, since the son Soma stipulated is Parikshit, his own father.

The gist: The roll of incarnations reaches the men who will stand at Kurukshetra: Drona from a portion of Brihaspati, Ashvatthama from Mahadeva, Yama, Kama and Krodha together, Bhishma as the youngest of the eight Vasus, Kripa from the Rudras, Shakuni as the age of Dvapara itself, and Satyaki, Drupada, Kritavarman and Virata from the Maruts. Dhritarashtra, Pandu and Vidura are placed, Duryodhana is named a portion of Kali, and his hundred brothers are the Rakshasa sons of Pulastya. Janamejaya asks for those hundred by name, and gets them in birth order, with the daughter Duhshala and with Yuyutsu counted apart. Then the Pandavas: Dharma, wind, Indra and the Ashvins. And last, Soma lends his son Varchas to the earth for exactly sixteen years, naming the chakra vyuha and the one grandson who will keep the Bharata line alive.

The last page of the roll: Dhrishtadyumna out of fire, Draupadi out of Sachi, and a child born wearing earrings and armor who was set adrift on a river

The catalogue was nearly finished, and Vaishampayana came now to the names that stood closest to the king’s own century. Dhrishtadyumna, the great car-warrior who would one day command an army and kill his own teacher, was a portion of Agni, which is why the story of his birth belongs to an altar and a flame rather than to a bedchamber. Shikhandin, who was born a woman and later became a man, was the incarnation of a Rakshasa. And the five sons of Draupadi, those bulls among the princes of Bharata’s line, were the celestials known as the Vishvas, come down into the world in their portions. The storyteller named them as the record names them: Prativindhya, Sutasoma, Shrutakirti, Shatanika, Nakula and Shrutasena, and he said of them only that they were endowed with mighty energy, which was the plainest thing that could be said about children who would be murdered in their sleep on the last night of the war.

Then he turned to the house from which Vasudeva came. Shura, the foremost of the Yadus, was the father of Vasudeva, and he had a daughter named Pritha whose beauty had no rival anywhere on earth. Shura had once made a promise in the presence of fire, and a promise made there is not a thing a man can quietly let lapse. He had sworn to give his firstborn child to Kuntibhoja, the son of his father’s sister, a king with no children of his own. So he gave his daughter away, partly to keep the oath and partly in the hope of that monarch’s favor, and Kuntibhoja took the girl and made her his daughter. From that day she lived in her second father’s house and her occupation there was the one that decides destinies in this epic without ever looking as though it might: she waited on Brahmanas and on guests. One day the guest was Durvasa, an ascetic of rigid vows, a man who knew truth and was fully conversant with the hidden machinery of religion, and a man whose temper was famous across three worlds. Pritha kept her own mind under complete control and attended on that wrathful rishi with every possible care, and he was gratified. He told her that he was satisfied with her, and that he would leave her a mantra by which she could summon to her side whatever celestial she liked, and by the grace of that god she would have children.

A little while later the girl was seized by curiosity. She was still unmarried, and she used the mantra, and the god she called was Surya. The lord of light made her conceive and begot on her a son who would become the first of all wielders of weapons on earth. She was afraid of her relatives, so she gave birth in secret, and the child who came out of her came out wearing earrings in his ears and a coat of mail on his body. He had the beauty of a celestial infant and the splendor of the maker of day himself, and every part of him was symmetrical and finished, as though he had been designed rather than born. Kunti carried that handsome child to the water and set him on it. The child was taken out of the river by the excellent husband of Radha, who brought him home and gave him to his wife to raise as her own, and the couple named him Vasusena. Under that name the boy was soon known across the whole country. He grew very strong and excelled in every weapon; he was the first of all successful men and mastered the sciences quickly; and when he had recited the Vedas, in the hours he set aside for it, there was nothing he would refuse a Brahmana who asked.

That last habit was known in heaven. Indra, the originator of all things, wanted an advantage for his own son Arjuna, and he came down in the guise of a Brahmana and begged of this hero his earrings and the armor he had been born in. The hero took the earrings from his ears and the mail from his body and handed them over. Shakra accepted the gift, and the open-handedness of it left even him surprised, so he gave the giver a dart in return, and told him that among celestials, Asuras, men, Gandharvas, Nagas and Rakshasas, whoever he hurled that weapon at would certainly be killed. The son of Surya was known in the world at first as Vasusena. Later he came to be called Karna for what he had done, because that hero of great fame had cut away the armor he was born with and given it to a beggar. He grew up in the Suta caste, this Karna, first among exalted men, foremost of all who carry weapons, a slayer of foes and the best portion of the maker of day, and he became the friend and the counselor of Duryodhana, which is the fact from which most of the rest of this epic follows.

The rest of the roll went quickly, because the storyteller had reached the names his listener already knew. He who is called Vasudeva, endowed with great valor, was among men a portion of that Narayana who is the god of gods and eternal. Baladeva of exceeding strength was a portion of the Naga, Shesha. Pradyumna of great energy was Sanatkumara. In the same way the portions of many other dwellers in heaven became exalted men in the race of Vasudeva and increased its glory. The tribe of Apsaras whose names had already been given also came down at Indra’s command, and sixteen thousand portions of those goddesses became, in this world of men, the wives of Vasudeva. A portion of Sri herself took birth in the line of Bhishmaka for the gratification of Narayana, and she was the chaste Rukmini. And the faultless Draupadi, slender-waisted as a wasp, was born of a portion of Sachi, the queen of the celestials, in the line of Drupada. She was neither short nor tall. She carried the fragrance of the blue lotus, her eyes were as large as lotus petals, her thighs were fair and round, her hair was a dense mass of black curls, and her complexion had the color of emerald. Every auspicious feature was on her, and she became the charmer of the hearts of five foremost men. The two goddesses Siddhi and Dhriti became the mothers of those five and were called Kunti and Madri, and she who was Mati became Gandhari, the daughter of Suvala.

With that the ladder was complete from top to bottom, and Vaishampayana said so. He had recited, he told the king, the whole account of the incarnation by portions of the gods, the Asuras, the Gandharvas, the Apsaras and the Rakshasas. Those who were born on earth as monarchs invincible in battle, the high-souled ones born in the wide extended line of the Yadus, those who were born as mighty kings in other lines, and those who came as Brahmanas and Kshatriyas and Vaishyas, had all been counted out in their order. This account of the descent of superior beings in their portions, he added, is capable of bestowing wealth, fame, offspring, long life and success, and it should always be listened to in a proper frame of mind. A man who has heard it becomes acquainted with the creation, the preservation and the destruction of the universe; he acquires wisdom; and afterward, even under the sorrows that engross a life completely, he is never cast down.

A key to reading this (five sons, six names): The source calls the sons of Draupadi five and then lists six names for them: Prativindhya, Sutasoma, Shrutakirti, Shatanika, Nakula and Shrutasena. The count is the text’s own and has been kept as it stands rather than quietly corrected. Other lists in the Mahabharata give the fifth name as Shrutakarma and keep Nakula where he belongs, among the sons of Pandu. Karna’s two names run together here in the same way, Vasusena first and Karna afterward, and the text supplies a reason for each of them as it goes.

The gist: The roll of incarnations closes. Dhrishtadyumna is a portion of Agni, Shikhandin the incarnation of a Rakshasa, and Draupadi’s five sons are the Vishvas. Then comes the line of Shura: his daughter Pritha is given away to the childless Kuntibhoja to keep an oath sworn before fire, she waits on the formidable Durvasa and is left a mantra that can summon any god, and curiosity makes her use it. Surya answers, and the child born in secret arrives wearing earrings and armor. She sets him on the water; the husband of Radha lifts him out; he grows into Vasusena, gives away his earrings and his armor to a Brahmana who is Indra, receives a dart that kills whatever it is thrown at, becomes Karna, and becomes Duryodhana’s friend. Vasudeva is a portion of Narayana, Baladeva of Shesha, Pradyumna of Sanatkumara; Sri becomes Rukmini, Sachi becomes Draupadi, Siddhi and Dhriti become Kunti and Madri, and Mati becomes Gandhari. Vaishampayana ends by promising that whoever hears this account learns how the world is made and unmade, and is never afterward broken by grief.

Source: the Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Adi Parva (Adivansavatarana and Sambhava sub-books). This chapter follows K. M. Ganguli, sections LIX-XCV (59-95); the Gita Press Hindi edition numbers these chapters differently. Names, order, and events were checked against Ganguli’s complete translation. Dialogue and commentary are adapted, not a verbatim translation. About the sources.