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Abhimanyu is dead and Arjuna has not yet come back. This chapter is the story of the evening in between and of the day that follows it, which is the longest day in the Mahabharata. First Vyasa explains to a weeping king who Death is, and that sixteen kings at whose sacrifices rivers of gold ran also died. Then Arjuna returns, hears the news, and makes the vow that keeps the whole Kuru camp awake: before tomorrow’s sunset Jayadratha will be dead, or Arjuna will walk into a fire. That night Krishna takes him, in a dream, through the sky to Shiva. And then comes the day on which Drona has built an array twelve miles deep and hidden Jayadratha in its innermost corner, and Arjuna goes into it like a fish into the sea, bowing to his teacher and passing him on the right, dropping Shrutayudha and Sudakshina and the two brothers of Avanti, digging a lake in the middle of the field with an arrow for his exhausted horses. Behind him Yudhishthira can hear Panchajanya and cannot hear Gandiva, and he sends Satyaki after Arjuna, whose own expedition is the last part of this chapter.
Who is Death? Vyasa’s answer: Brahma’s wrath, Sthanu’s plea, and the girl who refused to kill
Vyasa had come into the tent while the king was still talking, and he let him finish. Then he spoke, and the first thing he said was that men like Yudhishthira do not let calamity make fools of them. Yudhishthira, master of every branch of knowledge, the sage said, this brave boy has killed his enemies by the hundred and gone to heaven. He was a child, and he behaved like a man of full years. This law cannot be crossed, Bharata. Death takes everyone: gods, Danavas, Gandharvas, without exception. The king heard him, and the words that came back were not about Abhimanyu at all. They were about the field outside the tent. Look at these lords of the earth, Yudhishthira said, lying on the bare ground in the middle of their own armies, past feeling. Some of them had the strength of ten thousand elephants. Some had the speed and the force of the wind itself. All of them are dead, killed in battle by men of their own class, and I cannot think of anyone else who could have killed them. They came out every morning with the same certainty planted in their hearts, that they would win, and now they lie there, wise as they were, cut open, emptied of life. Today I have finally understood what the word death means, because almost every one of these terrible kings is dead. They lie still. Their pride has gone out of them. They have yielded to their enemies. Princes full of rage have been fed to the fire of other men’s rage. And a great doubt has taken hold of me. Where does Death come from? Whose child is Death? What is Death? Why does Death carry creatures away? Grandsire, you who are like a god, tell me this.
It was a real question, asked by a man who had spent thirteen days watching the answer and still did not have it, and Vyasa treated it as one. On this matter, king, he said, there is an old story of what Narada once told Akampana. I knew King Akampana. While he lived in this world he was afflicted with a grief so great he could not bear it, on account of the death of his son. I will tell you the excellent story of the origin of Death. When you have heard it you will be freed from sorrow and from the touch of affection’s tie. Listen, sire. This history is truly excellent. It lengthens life, it kills grief, it gives health. It is sacred, it destroys great bodies of enemies, and it is the most auspicious of auspicious things; it is equal to the study of the Vedas. The foremost of kings, those who want long-lived children and their own good, should hear it every morning. And then he told it. In the old days, sire, there was a king named Akampana. Once, on a battlefield, he was surrounded by his enemies and nearly overpowered. He had a son called Hari, equal to Narayana himself in might, very handsome, accomplished in arms, gifted with intelligence, strong, and in battle the image of Shakra. Hemmed in by countless enemies, that boy shot thousands of arrows at the warriors and elephants around him, and having done the hardest things a man can do in battle, Yudhishthira, that scorcher of foes was killed at last in the middle of the army. King Akampana performed his son’s funeral rites and purified himself, and then grieved for the boy day and night and could not find peace of mind. Narada, the celestial rishi, heard of it and came to him. The blessed king told the rishi everything: his defeat, the killing of his son. My son had great energy, the king said; in splendor he equaled Indra or Vishnu. He showed his prowess on the field against countless enemies, and he was killed. Illustrious one, who is this Death? What is the measure of his energy, his strength, his prowess? Foremost of the intelligent, I want to hear all of it, truly. And Narada, who gives boons, recited for him the long history that destroys the grief of a father for a dead son.
Listen, mighty-armed king, Narada said, to this long history exactly as I heard it. In the beginning the Grandsire Brahma created all creatures. Endowed with mighty energy, he saw that his creation bore no sign of decay, and the Creator began to think about the destruction of the universe. He reflected, and he could not find any means of destruction. Then he became angry, and out of his anger a fire sprang from the sky. That fire spread in every direction to consume everything in the universe. Heaven, sky and earth filled with fire, and the Creator began to burn the whole world, everything that moves and everything that stands still, and all of it was being destroyed. Mighty Brahma, frightening everything by the force of his wrath, did all this. Then Hara, whom they also call Sthanu and Shiva, the god with matted locks, lord of all the wanderers of the night, appealed to Brahma, lord of the gods. When Sthanu fell at Brahma’s feet out of the wish to do good to all creatures, the Supreme Deity said to that greatest of ascetics, blazing with splendor: what wish of yours shall we fulfill, you who deserve to have every wish fulfilled, you who were born from our wish? We shall do whatever pleases you. Tell us, Sthanu, what do you want? Sthanu said: Lord, you took great care to create creatures of many kinds. You created them and you reared them, and now those same creatures are being consumed by your fire. Seeing it, I am filled with pity. Illustrious lord, be inclined to grace. Brahma answered him honestly. I had no wish to destroy the universe, he said. I wanted the good of the earth, and it was for that that anger took hold of me. The goddess Earth, crushed under the weight of creatures, kept urging me to destroy the creatures on her. Urged by her, I could find no means of destroying an infinite creation, and at that, anger possessed me. Rudra pressed him. Be inclined to grace, lord of the universe. Do not cherish this wrath for the destruction of creatures. Let no more of them be destroyed, the moving and the unmoving. By your grace, illustrious one, let the threefold universe, the future, the past and the present, go on existing. You blazed up with wrath, and from that wrath came a substance like fire, and that fire is right now blasting rocks and trees and rivers and every kind of herb and grass. It is exterminating the moving and the unmoving world; the world is being reduced to ash. Be gracious. Do not give way to wrath. This is the boon I ask. Everything created belongs to you, and it is being destroyed. Let your wrath be appeased. Let it be swallowed into your own self. Cast your eye on your creatures with the wish to do them good. Do that by which living creatures may not cease to be. Their generative powers are weakened; do not let them be wiped out. Creator of the worlds, you appointed me their protector. Lord of the universe, do not let the moving and the unmoving world be destroyed. You are inclined to grace, and that is why I say these words to you.
Brahma heard Mahadeva, and out of the wish to benefit creatures he held his roused wrath inside himself. He put out the fire. The great Master, the benefactor of the world, declared the duties of Production and of Emancipation. And while the Supreme Deity was extinguishing the fire born of his anger, there came out through the doors of his senses a woman, dark and red and tawny, with a red tongue and a red face and red eyes, wearing two brilliant earrings and many other brilliant ornaments. She came out of his body, looked smiling at those two lords of the universe, and set out toward the south. Brahma, who governs the creation and the destruction of the worlds, called after her by the name Death. And he gave her the order. Slay these creatures of mine, he said. You were born of the wrath I cherished for the destruction of the universe. At my command kill all creatures, idiots and seers alike. It will be to your benefit. The lotus-like lady called Death heard him, thought deeply, and then, helpless, wept aloud in a melodious voice. And the Grandsire caught the tears she shed in his two hands, for the benefit of all creatures, and began to plead with her.
The helpless lady pressed her grief down inside herself, joined her hands, and bent before the Lord of creation with the humility of a creeper. Foremost of speakers, she said, you created me. How shall I, a female, do such a cruel and evil act, knowing it to be cruel and evil? I am greatly afraid of unrighteousness. Divine lord, be gracious to me. Sons and friends and brothers and fathers and husbands are always dear; if I kill them, those who suffer the loss will want to injure me. That is what I fear. The tears that will fall from the eyes of grieving, weeping people frighten me, lord. I seek your protection. Divine being, foremost of gods, I will not go to Yama’s abode. Boon-giver, I implore your grace with my head bowed and my palms together. Grandsire of the worlds, grant me this one wish: with your permission, let me undergo ascetic penances, lord of created things. Grant me this boon. Permitted by you, I will go to the excellent hermitage of Dhenuka and there, adoring you, I will practice the severest austerities. Lord of the gods, I will not be able to take the dear life-breath of living creatures who weep in sorrow. Protect me from unrighteousness. And Brahma said: Death, you were intended for the destruction of creatures. Go and destroy all creatures. You need have no scruples. This must be. It cannot be otherwise. Only do my bidding. No one in the world will find fault with you. The lady was badly frightened. She stood with joined hands looking at Brahma’s face, and out of the wish to do creatures good she did not set her heart on their destruction. And Brahma, lord of the lord of all creatures, also stayed silent. Soon the Grandsire became gratified within himself. He looked out over the whole creation and smiled, and creatures went on living as before, untouched by untimely death. And when that invincible and illustrious lord had shaken off his wrath, the girl left his presence. Without having agreed to destroy creatures she went quickly to the retreat called Dhenuka, and there she practiced excellent and extremely austere vows.
What follows is one of the epic’s long counts of time, and Narada gives it in full, because the length is the point: she stood on one leg for sixteen billion years, and five times ten billion more, out of pity for living creatures and the wish to do them good, restraining her senses all the while from their favorite objects. Then, king, she stood on one leg for twenty-one times ten billion years more. Then she wandered with the creatures of the earth for ten times ten thousand billion years. Next she went to the sacred Nanda, full of cool clear water, and spent eight thousand years in those waters, keeping rigid vows and cleansing herself of every sin. Then, still keeping her vow, she went to the sacred Kaushiki and practiced austerities there, living on air and water alone. She went to Panchaganga and then to Vetasa, and by austerities of many special kinds that cleansed girl emaciated her own body. She went to the Ganga and then to great Meru, and stayed there motionless as a stone, her life-breath suspended. From there she went to the summit of Himavat, where the gods had performed their sacrifice in the old days, and that amiable and auspicious girl stood there for a billion years on the tips of her toes. She went to Pushkara and Gokarna and Naimisha and Malaya, wasting her body with penances agreeable to her heart, acknowledging no other god, steadily devoted to the Grandsire, gratifying him in every way. And at last the unchanging Creator of the worlds, gratified, spoke to her with a softened and delighted heart. Death, he said, why are you undergoing austerities so severe? And Death said to the divine Grandsire: creatures are living in health, lord. They do not injure one another even by words. I shall not be able to kill them. Lord, this is the boon I want from you. I fear sin, and that is why I am engaged in these austerities. Blessed one, undertake to remove my fears forever. I am a woman, in distress, and without fault. I beg you, be my protector.
Brahma, who knows the past and the present and the future, answered her. You will commit no sin, Death, by slaying these creatures. My words can never be false, amiable one. Therefore, auspicious girl, slay these creatures of four kinds. Eternal virtue will always be yours. Yama, the Regent of the world, and the many diseases will be your helpers. I myself and all the gods will grant you boons, so that, freed from sin and perfectly cleansed, you will even win glory. She joined her hands once more, bowed her head, and asked one thing more. If, lord, this cannot be without me, then I place your command on my head. But hear what I say. Let greed, wrath, malice, jealousy, quarrel, folly, shamelessness and the other harsh passions tear the bodies of all embodied creatures. It will be as you say, Death, Brahma told her. Meanwhile, slay creatures duly. Sin will not be yours, and I will not seek to injure you, auspicious one. Those teardrops of yours that are in my hands will become diseases, springing from living creatures themselves. They will kill men, and when men are killed the sin will not be yours. So do not be afraid. Truly, sin will not be yours. Devoted to righteousness, observing your duty, you will rule all creatures. Take the lives of these living creatures always. Casting off both desire and wrath, take the life of all living creatures. That way eternal virtue will be yours. Sin will seize those whose conduct is wicked. By doing my bidding, cleanse yourself. It will be yours to sink the wicked in their own sins. So cast off desire and wrath, and kill these creatures that have life. And the girl, seeing that she was being called Death again and again, and afraid too of Brahma’s curse, said yes. Having no other way, casting off desire and wrath, she began to take the lives of living creatures when their time came.
Then Narada drew the lesson, and it is a hard one, harder than the story. Only living creatures die, he said. Diseases spring from living creatures themselves. Disease is the abnormal condition of creatures, and it pains them. So do not indulge in fruitless grief for creatures after they are dead. When creatures die, the senses go with them to the other world, and having done their work there, they come back again with the creatures when they are reborn. Thus all creatures, lion among beings, the very gods included, go there and must act like mortals. The wind, that awful wind of terrible roar and great strength, everywhere present and of infinite energy, it is the wind that will split the bodies of living creatures; it will put forth no special effort in the matter and it will not suspend its functions; it happens by nature. Even the gods carry the name of mortals. So, lion among kings, do not grieve for your son. Having gone to heaven, the son of your body is passing his days in perpetual happiness, in those delightful regions that are for heroes. He has cast off every sorrow and reached the company of the righteous. Death was ordained by the Creator himself for all creatures. When their hour comes, creatures are destroyed duly. The death of creatures arises from the creatures themselves. Creatures kill themselves. Death does not kill anyone, armed with her bludgeon. The wise, knowing death to be inevitable because Brahma himself ordained it, never grieve for creatures that are dead. Knowing this death to be ordained by the Supreme God, cast off, without delay, your grief for your dead son. King Akampana, hearing these words of grave import, said to his friend: illustrious one, foremost of rishis, my grief is gone, and I am content. Having heard this history from you, I am grateful to you, and I worship you. And that foremost of superior rishis, that celestial ascetic of immeasurable soul, went on to the woods of Nandava. Vyasa closed the frame himself. The frequent recital of this history for others to hear, and the frequent hearing of it, is regarded as cleansing, he said; it leads to fame and heaven, it deserves approval, and it lengthens life. Having listened to this instructive story, Yudhishthira, cast off your grief, and reflect on the duties of a Kshatriya and the high state that heroes attain. Abhimanyu, that mighty car-warrior of mighty energy, killed his enemies in the sight of every bowman and has reached heaven. That great bowman, struggling on the field, fell in battle struck by sword and mace and dart and bow. Sprung from Soma, he has disappeared into the lunar essence, cleansed of every impurity. Therefore, son of Pandu, muster all your fortitude, and with your brothers, without letting your senses be stupefied, set out quickly for battle, inflamed with rage.
A key to reading this (the nested telling): Four voices are stacked here. Sanjaya reports to Dhritarashtra; inside his report Vyasa speaks to Yudhishthira; inside Vyasa’s story Narada speaks to King Akampana; and inside Narada’s story Brahma, Sthanu and Death speak. Sthanu, Hara and Rudra are all names of Shiva. Death in this telling is a woman, a girl, and the whole argument turns on that: she does not want to kill, and what is finally settled is that creatures die of the diseases and passions that rise inside them, while Death herself lifts her cudgel against no one. Dhenuka, the Nanda, the Kaushiki, Panchaganga, Vetasa, Pushkara, Gokarna, Naimisha and Malaya are the places of her austerity; the billions of years are Vyasa’s own arithmetic. The “creatures of four kinds” are the egg-born, the womb-born, the sweat-born and the sprouting. Abhimanyu “sprung from Soma” refers to the Adi Parva, where he is a portion of the Moon’s son Varchas.
The gist: Yudhishthira asks Vyasa what Death is and where she came from, and Vyasa answers with the story Narada told a king who had lost his son. Brahma’s anger begins to burn the world, Shiva stops him, and out of the cooling anger a girl is born who is named Death. She refuses to kill, spends billions of years in austerities, and submits at last on one condition: that greed, anger and disease eat creatures from within. So, Narada says, Death kills no one; creatures kill themselves. Akampana’s grief leaves him, and Vyasa tells Yudhishthira that Abhimanyu is in the world of heroes, and that it is time to ride out in rage.
Srinjaya’s golden son: two sages curse each other over a girl, the boy the robbers cut open, and the first king who died
The story of Death had not done its work. Yudhishthira listened to the whole of it, the crowded creation and Brahma’s fire and the dark woman who wept because she had been made to kill, and when it ended he was still a man sitting beside his sister’s dead son. So he asked for more, and he asked for a particular kind of more. There were kings in the blessed countries, he said, sages on thrones, sinless men who spoke the truth, whose strength was Indra’s own. Tell me about them, holy one. Tell me the measure of the gifts they gave at their sacrifices, and who those great-souled men were, and console me with their deeds. What he wanted, without quite saying it, was a scale on which to weigh a sixteen-year-old boy. Vyasa understood, and gave him a story that begins with a girl and ends with a corpse.
There was a king named Switya, he said, whose son was Srinjaya, and Srinjaya had two friends among the sages, Narada and Parvata, who came one day to his palace and, being honored as they should be, stayed on, well pleased. One afternoon the king was sitting at ease with the two ascetics when his daughter came in, a girl of sweet smiles, and bowed to her father, and he blessed her the way she wanted to be blessed. Parvata watched her and smiled. Whose daughter is this, he asked, this girl with the restless glances and every auspicious mark on her? Is she the light of the sun, or the flame of fire? Or is she one of the goddesses, Shri or Hri or Kirti, Dhriti, Pushti, Siddhi, the splendor of the moon? She is my daughter, holy one, Srinjaya said, and she is asking me for my blessing. And Narada, who had been silent, spoke before his friend could. King, he said, if you wish for great good, give this daughter of yours to me as my wife. Srinjaya was delighted. I give her to you, he said. And Parvata turned on Narada in a fury, because he had already chosen the girl in his heart, without a word to anyone, and now his friend had taken her. Brahmana, he said, since you have done this, you shall not go to heaven when you wish to. Narada answered him like a lawyer. He listed what makes a man a husband: the husband’s own heart and his words, the giver’s consent, the speech of both parties, the gift itself made by sprinkling water, the mantras laid down for taking the bride’s hand, and above all of these the seven steps the bride walks around the groom. None of that happened in your heart, he told Parvata. Your purpose was never accomplished. And you have cursed me, so hear this: you also shall not go to heaven without me. The two sages, having tied their fates together with a pair of curses, went on living in the king’s house exactly as before.
Srinjaya wanted a son. He set about it the way kings in these stories do, by feeding and clothing Brahmanas to the limit of his means with a clean heart, and after a time the Brahmanas, learned men who knew the Vedas and every branch of them, were pleased with him, and they went in a body to Narada and said: give this king the kind of son he wants. So be it, Narada said, and told Srinjaya to ask. The king joined his hands and asked for a son with every accomplishment, famous, of glorious deeds, of great energy, able to punish every enemy. Then he asked for one thing more. Let the child’s urine, his excrement, his phlegm and his sweat be gold. In due time the boy was born, and the world named him Suvarnashthivin, the one whose very spittle is gold, and the boon began to do what boons do, which is to give a man exactly what he asked for. The king’s wealth grew past any limit. Srinjaya had everything he desired made of gold: his houses and his walls and his forts, the houses of every Brahmana in his kingdom, his beds, his vehicles, his plates, every pot and cup, the palace itself, every implement and utensil in the household and out of it, all gold, and the stock kept growing. And then the robbers heard about the prince. They gathered and talked, and one of them said the thing that had to be said: we will seize the king’s son himself, since the boy is his father’s gold mine, and that is what we should work for. Hungry with greed, they broke into the palace, carried off Suvarnashthivin by force, took him into the forest, and there, being fools with a treasure they did not understand, they killed him and cut his body into pieces looking for the gold. There was no gold in him. The moment the prince died, every ounce the sage’s boon had produced vanished from the kingdom. The robbers, ignorant to the end, fell on one another and perished, and the wonderful prince perished with them, and the men of wicked deeds sank into a hell past imagining.
Srinjaya, a great ascetic and a king, looked at what was left of the son a sage had given him and began to weep like any father. And it was into that weeping that Narada came. Listen, Yudhishthira, Vyasa said, to what Narada said to a king who had lost his senses with grief, because it is the same thing I am saying to you. Srinjaya, Narada said, you will have to die with your desires unfulfilled, even though we, who utter the Brahma, live in your house. Then he began the count. Marutta, the son of Avikshit, Srinjaya, we hear that even he had to die. He quarreled with Brihaspati and made Samvarta officiate at his great sacrifices instead. The lord Mahadeva himself gave that royal sage wealth in the form of a golden plateau of the Himalaya, and with it Marutta sacrificed and sacrificed. When his rites were complete the tribes of the gods, the makers of the universe, came to him with Indra in their company and Brihaspati at their head. The carpets and furnishings of his sacrificial ground were gold. The twice-born who wanted food ate what they liked there, clean food to their taste, and milk and curds and clarified butter and honey, and every good thing to eat, and robes and ornaments so costly that men envied them, all went to Brahmanas who knew the Vedas through and through. In Marutta’s palace the gods themselves served the food. The Vishvedevas sat as his courtiers. He satisfied the dwellers of heaven with libations of clarified butter, and they in turn poured rain on his kingdom and swelled his harvests. By celibacy, by study, by the rites for the dead, by every kind of gift he kept the sages and the fathers and the gods content. His beds and carpets and vehicles, his vast stores of gold that any man would find hard to give away, all of that untold wealth he gave of his own will to the Brahmanas. Indra wished him well. His subjects were happy. He lived by dharma and went at last to the eternal regions his merit had earned. With his children, his ministers, his wives, his descendants and his kin, Marutta ruled for a thousand years, and he was young the whole time. When such a king died, Srinjaya, a man who surpassed you in the four cardinal virtues, in penance and truth and compassion and giving, and who, surpassing you, surpassed your son by far, do not weep and cry out, son of Switya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and made no gift at one.
A key to reading this (names and the refrain): Suvarnashthivin means “he whose spittle is gold.” “Son of Switya” (Shvaitya in the Sanskrit) is Narada’s way of addressing Srinjaya, and he ends every one of the sixteen kings’ stories with the same sentence; the repetition is the argument, and the reader is meant to feel it land sixteen times. The seven steps Narada names are the saptapadi, the bride’s walk that seals a Hindu marriage; by that rule Parvata’s silent choice was never a marriage at all. Samvarta is Brihaspati’s brother; the story of Marutta’s quarrel with Brihaspati and his sacrifice with Samvarta is told at length in the Ashvamedha Parva. The four cardinal virtues, as Ganguli’s translation glosses them, are penance, truth, compassion and liberality.
The gist: Yudhishthira asks Vyasa for the old royal sages and the measure of their gifts, and Vyasa answers with Srinjaya: two sages curse each other over the king’s daughter, the Brahmanas win the king a son whose body makes gold, robbers kill the boy looking for it and find nothing, and the gold vanishes with him. To the weeping father Narada begins the count of kings who died, starting with Marutta, in whose halls the gods served food and who ruled a thousand years young. He too died, Narada says; why weep for a son who never sacrificed?
Rivers of gold, a million white horses, a leather belt around the earth, and an eleven-thousand-year reign: Suhotra, Paurava, Shibi and Rama died too
Narada did not pause for the king to answer. The count had a rhythm now, and he kept it. Suhotra, Srinjaya, we hear that king Suhotra too fell to death. He was the first of heroes and no one beat him in battle; the gods came down to look at him. He won his kingdom by dharma and then did what few kings do with a kingdom won, which is to ask. He consulted his priests and his household Brahmanas for his own good and did what they told him. He knew the duty of protecting his people, he was virtuous and open-handed, he sacrificed, he crushed his enemies, and he wanted his wealth to grow, and the wealth came in a form that even he found hard to believe. The god of the clouds rained gold on him from one year’s end to the next, so that in those days the rivers of his kingdom ran with liquid gold and anyone could use them. The clouds poured down on his land alligators and crabs and fish of every species, and countless desirable things, all of them gold; his artificial lakes measured two full miles each; and Suhotra would stand and wonder at thousands of golden dwarfs and hunchbacks, golden alligators and sea monsters and tortoises. All of that limitless gold he gave to the Brahmanas at a sacrifice at Kurujangala, before the sacrifice was even finished. A thousand horse sacrifices, a hundred Rajasuyas, many of the sacred rites that only a Kshatriya may perform, each with abundant gifts to the Brahmanas, and daily rites past counting, undertaken for specified ends: that was the account of Suhotra, and at the end of it he reached a very desirable end. When such a king died, Srinjaya, who surpassed you in the four cardinal virtues and therefore surpassed your son by far, do not cry son of Switya, son of Switya, and grieve for a boy who performed no sacrifice and made no gift.
Paurava, Srinjaya, the heroic king Paurava, we hear that he too fell to death. That king gave away a thousand times a thousand horses, every one of them white. To his horse sacrifice came Brahmanas without number, from every realm, learned men versed in the principles of Shiksha and Akshara, the science of right pronunciation and the letters, purified by the Vedas and by knowledge and by vows, generous and pleasant of face; and from the king they received robes and houses, fine beds and carpets, vehicles and draft cattle, and actors and dancers and singers, thoroughly competent in their arts, kept them entertained the whole time. At each sacrifice, in due season, he gave as the priests’ fee ten thousand elephants of golden splendor with the temple-juice running down their bodies, and chariots of gold with standards and banners. He gave a thousand times a thousand maidens decked in golden ornaments, chariots and horses and elephants for riding, houses and fields, cattle by the hundreds of thousands, and thousands of cowherds decked in gold. Those who know the past sing this of him: that at his sacrifice Paurava gave cows with their calves, their horns of gold, their hooves of silver, their milk pails of brass, and female slaves and male slaves, asses and camels and sheep past counting, gems of every kind, and heaps of food like hills. That sacrificing king of the Angas performed, one after another, in the order of their merit and as was proper for his own order, many auspicious rites that yield every object of desire. When such a king died, Srinjaya, who surpassed you in the four cardinal virtues and therefore surpassed your son by far, do not cry son of Switya, son of Switya, and grieve for a boy who performed no sacrifice and made no gift.
Shibi, Srinjaya, the son of Ushinara, we hear that he too fell to death. That king had put a leather belt around the earth, as it were: the earth with her mountains and islands and seas and forests rang with the clatter of his chariot. He was a killer of the best of his enemies and a performer of many sacrifices with lavish gifts to the Brahmanas, a man of great strength and great intelligence who had gathered enormous wealth and won the applause of every Kshatriya in battle. When the whole earth was his, he performed horse sacrifice after horse sacrifice without an obstacle, rites of great merit, and gave as the fee a thousand crores of golden nishkas, and elephants and horses and other animals, and grain in bulk, and deer and sheep in multitudes. He gave the sacred earth herself, with all her kinds of soil, to the Brahmanas. He gave as many cows as there are raindrops falling on the earth, or stars in the sky, or grains of sand in the bed of the Ganga, or rocks in the mountain called Meru, or gems or living things in the sea. The Creator himself has not met, in the past or the present, and will not meet in the future, another king who could carry the loads that Shibi carried. In his sacrifices the stakes and the carpets, the houses and the walls and the arches were all gold. Food and drink, clean and to every taste, stood in heaps; the Brahmanas who came were counted by the myriad of myriads; in a place overflowing with every dish, the only words anyone heard were give and take. Milk and curds were gathered in lakes. In his sacrificial ground there were rivers of drink and white hills of food, and the only speech was bathe, drink, eat as you like. Rudra, pleased with his righteousness, gave Shibi a boon: as you give, let your wealth and your devotion and your fame, your religious acts, the love all creatures bear you, and the heaven you attain, all be inexhaustible. Shibi got every one of those boons, and when the time came he left this world for heaven all the same. When he died, Srinjaya, who surpassed you and surpassed your son by far, do not cry son of Switya, son of Switya, and grieve for a boy who performed no sacrifice and made no gift.
And then Narada named the king that every listener in the tent had been waiting for. Rama, Srinjaya, the son of Dasharatha, we hear that he too fell to death. His subjects delighted in him the way a father delights in the children of his own body. His energy had no measure and his virtues no count. Rama of unfading glory, Lakshmana’s elder brother, lived fourteen years in the forest with his wife at his father’s command, and in Janasthana that bull among men killed fourteen thousand Rakshasas to protect the ascetics. While he lived there the Rakshasa Ravana deceived him and his companion Lakshmana and carried off his wife, the princess of Videha. As the three-eyed god slew the demon Andhaka in the old days, so Rama in his wrath slew in battle that offender of Pulastya’s line, who had never before been beaten by any enemy, and slew him with all his kin and his followers, a Rakshasa the gods and the demons together could not kill, a thorn in the side of the gods and the Brahmanas. Because he loved his subjects the gods worshiped Rama; he filled the earth with his deeds and the celestial sages praised him. Compassionate to every creature, having won many realms and protected his people by dharma, he performed a great sacrifice without hindrance, and a hundred horse sacrifices, and the great rite called Jaruthya, and with libations of clarified butter he pleased Indra. By these acts Rama conquered hunger and thirst and every disease that living things are subject to. He blazed with his own energy. When Rama ruled, the sages and the gods and men all lived together on the earth, and the lives of creatures were never other than they should be; the breaths of life, prana and apana and samana and the rest, did their work; the lights of heaven shone brighter; no calamity came. His subjects were long-lived and none died young. The dwellers of heaven, well content, received the libations and the food that men offered according to the four Vedas. His realms had no flies and no gnats, no beasts of prey, no poisonous snakes; no one leaned toward unrighteousness, no one was greedy, no one was ignorant, and people of all four orders did the work that was right and good for them. When the Rakshasas of that time blocked the offerings to the fathers and the worship of the gods in Janasthana, Rama killed them and restored both. Every man was blessed with a thousand children, and their lives ran a thousand years, and no elder ever had to perform the funeral rites of a junior. Young in form, dark blue in color, with red eyes and the walk of an elephant in rut, his beautiful heavy arms reaching to his knees, his shoulders a lion’s, strong beyond measure and loved by all creatures, Rama ruled his kingdom for eleven thousand years, and his people had his name always in their mouths, and the world grew very beautiful. At the last, taking his four kinds of subjects with him and leaving a line of eight houses on the earth, Rama went to heaven. When even he died, Srinjaya, who surpassed you in the four cardinal virtues and surpassed your son, do not lament, son of Switya, son of Switya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and made no gift.
A key to reading this (numbers and names): This is Rama in a single breath of Narada’s, a Mahabharata epitome and neither Valmiki’s telling nor Markandeya’s in chapter 14a; the figures here (fourteen thousand Rakshasas in Janasthana, an eleven-thousand-year reign, a thousand children to every man, a line of eight houses) belong to this passage. Jaruthya is a sacrifice named only here. Rama’s “four kinds of subjects” are the four kinds of living things, those born from eggs, from wombs, from sweat and filth, and from the earth (the plants). A nishka is a gold coin or a weight of gold; a crore is ten million. “Kshatriya sacrifices” are the rites that only a king may perform. Suhotra’s lakes of two miles each and Paurava as king of the Angas are given as Ganguli’s text gives them.
The gist: Four more kings, and the same sentence after each one. Suhotra, on whom the clouds rained gold until his rivers ran with it, and who gave it all away before his sacrifice was over. Paurava, who gave a million white horses and a million girls in gold. Shibi, who belted the earth with the noise of his chariot, gave as many cows as there are raindrops, and won inexhaustible boons from Rudra. And Rama, son of Dasharatha, in whose kingdom no one died young and who ruled eleven thousand years. They died. So, son of Switya, do not weep for a boy who never sacrificed or gave.
They died too: Bhagiratha, in whose lap the Ganga sat, Dilipa, Mandhata who drank from Indra’s finger, Yayati, Ambarisha, and Shashabindu
Narada kept counting, and Srinjaya, who had wanted only to weep for his son, had to sit and listen to kings. Bhagiratha, he said, we hear that even Bhagiratha died. That was the king who covered the banks of the Ganga, the river called Bhagirathi after him, with flights of golden steps, and who outdid every king and every prince by giving the Brahmanas a million girls decked in gold ornaments, each girl on a chariot, four horses to every chariot, a hundred cows behind every chariot and goats and sheep behind every cow. The gifts at his sacrifices were so enormous that a vast crowd of men gathered wherever he sacrificed, and the Ganga, pressed and pained by that crowd, said, protect me, and sat down in his lap. Because she sat in his lap in those old days she came to be regarded as his daughter, the way the celestial dancer Urvashi came to be regarded as a daughter, and she was named after him; and having become the king’s daughter she also became his son, since it was she who did for his dead ancestors what a son does. Gandharvas of sweet speech and celestial splendor sang all of this, well pleased, in the hearing of the rishis, the gods and mankind. So it was, Srinjaya, that the goddess who flows to the ocean chose the lord Bhagiratha, descendant of Ikshvaku, sacrificer with profuse gifts, as her father. The gods themselves, with Indra at their head, graced his sacrifices, and they took their shares by removing every impediment so that those sacrifices went forward without a hitch. Rich in ascetic merit, Bhagiratha gave the Brahmanas whatever they wanted in the very place where the wish came to them, without making them stir a step. There was nothing he held back from them; whoever coveted anything received it from him. In the end, by the grace of the Brahmanas, the king rose to the region of Brahma. The purpose for which the rishis who live on sunbeams wait upon the sun and the sun’s presiding deity, for that same purpose they used to wait upon lord Bhagiratha, that ornament of the three worlds. When he died, Srinjaya, who was above you in the four cardinal virtues and, being above you, was far above your son, you should not cry, oh Svaitya, oh Svaitya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and gave no sacrificial gift.
Dilipa, son of Havila, we hear that he too fell to death. Brahmanas learned in the truth, devoted to sacrifice, blessed with children and their children’s children, myriads upon myriads of them, attended his hundreds of sacrifices. Having performed sacrifice after sacrifice, king Dilipa gave this earth, treasures and all, to the Brahmanas. At Dilipa’s sacrifices the roads were made of gold. The gods with Indra at their head came to him as if he were Dharma himself. The upper and lower rings of his sacrificial stake were gold. Men who had eaten his ragakhandavas could be seen lying down on the roads. When he fought over water, the two wheels of Dilipa’s chariot never sank in it, a wonder that happened to no other king. Even those who merely saw king Dilipa, that steady bowman, always truthful, always lavish at his sacrifices, went to heaven on the strength of it. In Dilipa’s house, which was also called Khatvanga, five sounds were always to be heard: the sound of Vedic recitation, the twang of bows, and Drink, Enjoy, and Eat. When he died, Srinjaya, who was above you in the four cardinal virtues and, being above you, was far above your son, you should not cry, oh Svaitya, oh Svaitya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and gave no sacrificial gift.
Mandhata, son of Yuvanashva, we hear that he too fell to death, and his story begins before his birth, in his father’s body. That king conquered the gods, the Asuras and men, and the twin Ashvins, the physicians of heaven, had taken him out of his father’s womb by an operation. Once king Yuvanashva, chasing deer in the forest, grew very thirsty, and his horses were worn out; seeing a line of smoke, he followed it to a sacrifice and drank the consecrated butter that lay scattered there, and by that the king conceived. When the Ashvins saw Yuvanashva heavy with child they drew the child out of the king’s belly, and the gods, looking at that infant of celestial splendor lying in his father’s lap, asked one another, what will feed this child? Indra said, let him suck my fingers, and from Indra’s fingers came milk as sweet as nectar; and because Indra out of compassion had said, he will draw his sustenance from me, and had shown him that kindness, the gods named the child Mandhata. Streams of milk and clarified butter dropped into the mouth of Yuvanashva’s son from the hand of high-souled Indra, and the boy kept sucking Indra’s hand and grew by it: in twelve days he was twelve cubits tall and full of prowess, and in a single day he conquered the whole of this earth. Righteous, keen-minded, heroic, devoted to truth, master of his passions, Mandhata beat Janamejaya and Sudhanvan and Jaya and Suna and Brihadratha and Nriga with his bow, and the lands between the hill where the sun rises and the hill where it sets are called Mandhata’s dominion to this day. A hundred horse sacrifices and a hundred Rajasuyas he performed, and to the Brahmanas he gave rohita fish made of gold, ten yojanas long and one yojana wide. After the Brahmanas had been fed, mountains of savory food of every kind were eaten by the others who came to his sacrifices, and they too were gratified: huge stores of food and drink, mountains of rice standing beautiful, and around the mountains of solid dishes flowed rivers with lakes of clarified butter, soups of every kind for their mud, curds for their froth and liquid honey for their water, wafting the smell of honey and milk. Gods and Asuras and men and Yakshas and Gandharvas and serpents and birds, and many Brahmanas accomplished in the Vedas and their branches, and many rishis came to his sacrifices, and among all those present there was no one who was unlettered. Having bestowed the sea-girt earth with all its wealth on the Brahmanas, king Mandhata at last set like the sun, and filling every quarter of the sky with his fame he went to the regions of the righteous. When he died, Srinjaya, who was above you in the four cardinal virtues and, being above you, was far above your son, you should not cry, oh Svaitya, oh Svaitya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and gave no sacrificial gift.
Yayati, son of Nahusha, we hear that he too fell to death. He performed a hundred Rajasuyas, a hundred horse sacrifices, a thousand Pundarikas, a hundred Vajapeyas, a thousand Atiratras, Chaturmasyas beyond counting, Agnishtomas of many kinds and many other sacrifices, with profuse gifts to the Brahmanas in all of them; and he gave the Brahmanas, having first had it counted, the whole of the wealth that lay on this earth in the hands of Mlecchas and other haters of Brahmanas. When the gods and the Asuras drew up for battle, king Yayati fought for the gods. He divided the earth into four parts and gave it to four persons. Having performed his sacrifices and righteously begotten fine sons on Devayani, the daughter of Ushanas, and on Sharmishtha, that king who was like a god roamed the celestial woods at his pleasure like a second Indra. He knew all the Vedas, and when he found that no indulgence could satisfy his desires, he went into the forest with his wives, saying: all the paddy and wheat and gold and animals and women on the earth together are not enough for one man; a man should think of this and cultivate contentment. So, giving up every desire and reaching contentment, lord Yayati set his son on the throne and retired into the forest. When he died, Srinjaya, who was above you in the four cardinal virtues and, being above you, was far above your son, you should not cry, oh Svaitya, oh Svaitya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and gave no sacrificial gift.
Ambarisha, son of Nabhaga, we hear that he too fell to death. Alone he fought a thousand kings a thousand times. Those enemies, skilled in arms and hungry for victory, came at him in battle from every side with fierce cries, and with his strength and his quickness and the skill he had earned by practice he cut down their umbrellas, weapons, standards, chariots and lances by the force of his arms and put his own anxieties to rest. To save their lives those men took off their coats of mail and begged him for mercy, saying, we yield ourselves to you. Having subdued them and conquered the whole earth, he performed a hundred sacrifices of the finest kind according to the rites of the scriptures, and at those sacrifices food of every agreeable quality was eaten by whole classes of people. The Brahmanas were worshiped with respect and greatly gratified; the twice-born ate sweetmeats, purikas and puras, apupas and shashkalis of good taste and generous size, karambhas and prithumridvikas and dainties of every kind and soups of every kind, maireyaka and ragakhandavas, confections well made and soft and fragrant, clarified butter and honey and milk and water and sweet curds, and many fruits and roots pleasing to the tongue. Those who were used to wine drank intoxicating drinks of many kinds at the proper hour, for the pleasure of them, and sang and played their instruments, and thousands of others, drunk on what they had drunk, danced and merrily sang hymns in praise of Ambarisha, while others, unable to stand, dropped to the ground. At those sacrifices king Ambarisha gave the kingdoms of hundreds and thousands of kings as sacrificial presents to the ten million priests he employed, and having performed sacrifice after sacrifice he gave the Brahmanas, as presents, princes and kings whose heads had received the coronation bath, all in golden mail, white umbrellas held over their heads, seated on golden chariots, dressed in fine robes, with great trains of followers, carrying their scepters and holding their treasuries. The great rishis, watching this, were delighted and said: no man in the past has done, and none in the future will be able to do, what king Ambarisha of profuse liberality is doing now. When he died, Srinjaya, who was above you in the four cardinal virtues and, being above you, was far above your son, you should not cry, oh Svaitya, oh Svaitya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and gave no sacrificial gift.
King Shashabindu, we hear that he too fell to death. Of great beauty and unbaffled prowess, he performed sacrifices of many kinds. That high-souled monarch had a hundred thousand wives, and each of those wives bore him a thousand sons, all of them princes of great prowess, who performed millions of sacrifices. Accomplished in the Vedas, those kings performed many of the foremost sacrifices; all of them wore golden mail in battle and all were excellent bowmen, and all these princes born of Shashabindu performed horse sacrifices. And their father, best of monarchs, in the horse sacrifices he himself performed, gave all those sons away to the Brahmanas as sacrificial presents. Behind each of those princes went hundreds upon hundreds of chariots and elephants and fair girls decked in gold; with each girl a hundred elephants, with each elephant a hundred chariots, with each chariot a hundred horses adorned with garlands of gold, with each horse a thousand cows, and with each cow fifty goats. Such limitless wealth the blessed Shashabindu gave the Brahmanas in his great horse sacrifice, and for that sacrifice he had as many golden stakes made as double the number of wooden stakes used in other sacrifices of the kind. There stood mountains of food and drink about two miles high, and when the horse sacrifice was over, thirteen such mountains of food and drink remained untouched. His kingdom was full of contented, well-fed people, free from every inroad of evil, and the people were perfectly happy. Having ruled for many long years, Shashabindu at last went up to heaven. When he died, Srinjaya, who was above you in the four cardinal virtues and, being above you, was far above your son, you should not cry, oh Svaitya, oh Svaitya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and gave no sacrificial gift.
A key to reading this (names and the refrain): Svaitya is the name by which, in Narada’s telling, Srinjaya cries out for his dead son Suvarnashthivin; every king’s story ends on that same line, and the repetition is the argument. The “four cardinal virtues” are the four excellences in which each of these kings stood above Srinjaya. The Ganga is called both Bhagiratha’s daughter and his son because bringing salvation to the ancestors is a son’s office. Mandhata’s name is explained from Indra’s words, “he will draw his sustenance from me.” Maireyaka is a fermented drink and ragakhandava a prepared dish; rohita is a fish, whose golden images Mandhata gave away. Yayati’s two wives, Devayani and Sharmishtha, belong to the Adi Parva, and his lineage was recited by Dhritarashtra in chapter 20 of this Mahabharata.
The gist: Narada’s count goes on: Bhagiratha, in whose lap the Ganga sat, who gave away a million girls on chariots; Dilipa, in whose house five sounds were always heard; Mandhata, born from his father’s body, who grew twelve cubits in twelve days on Indra’s finger and conquered the earth in a day; Yayati, who after hundreds of sacrifices found that no pleasure satisfies; Ambarisha, who gave crowned kings themselves away as presents; and Shashabindu, after whose sacrifice thirteen mountains of food stood untouched. All six end on the same sentence: they died too, and they were far greater than your son.
Gaya, Rantideva, Bharata the tamer of everything, Prithu who milked the Earth, and Parashurama; then the boy who came back from hell, and Vyasa’s word that Abhimanyu is past grieving for
Gaya, son of Amurtarayas, we hear that he too fell to death, Narada said. For a hundred years that king ate nothing except what was left over from the libations of clarified butter poured into the sacrificial fire, and Agni, gratified by that devotion, offered him a boon. Gaya asked for what he wanted in a single breath: I desire a thorough knowledge of the Vedas through austerity, through the practice of Brahmacharya and of vows and rules, and through the grace of my elders; I desire inexhaustible wealth earned by the duties of my own order and without injury to anyone; I wish always to be able to give to the Brahmanas with devotion; let my sons be born to wives of my own order and to no others; let me give food with devotion; let my heart always delight in righteousness; and, supreme purifier, let no obstacle overtake me while I am at work for religious merit. Be it so, said Agni, and vanished on the spot. Gaya, having received all he asked, subdued his enemies in fair fight and then, for a full hundred years, performed sacrifices of every kind with profuse presents to the Brahmanas and kept the Chaturmasya and other vows. Every year for a century, on rising at the completion of his sacrifices, the king gave the Brahmanas a hundred and sixty thousand cows, ten thousand horses and a crore of golden nishkas, and under every constellation he gave the presents ordained for that occasion; he sacrificed like another Soma or another Angiras. In his great horse sacrifice king Gaya made an earth of gold and gave it to the Brahmanas. His sacrificial stakes were beyond price, golden and set with gems that delighted every creature, and Gaya, who could fulfill any wish, gave those stakes to the well-pleased Brahmanas and to other people besides. The creatures of every kind that live in the ocean, the woods, the islands, the rivers, the waters, the towns, the provinces and even in heaven were gratified by the wealth and food handed out at Gaya’s sacrifices, and all of them said that no other sacrifice could come up to this one. Gaya’s altar was thirty yojanas long, twenty-six wide and twenty high, made entirely of gold and spread over with pearls and diamonds and gems, and he gave that altar to the Brahmanas too, with robes and ornaments and the other presents the scriptures lay down. When that sacrifice was completed, twenty-five hills of food remained untouched, and many lakes and beautifully flowing rivulets of juicy drinks, and heaps of robes and ornaments. By the merit of that great sacrifice Gaya became famous in the three worlds, and the eternal banyan and the sacred Brahmasara owe their existence to it. When he died, Srinjaya, who was above you in the four cardinal virtues and, being above you, was far above your son, you should not cry, oh Svaitya, oh Svaitya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and gave no sacrificial gift.
Rantideva, son of Srinjaya, we hear that he too fell to death. That high-souled king kept two hundred thousand cooks to serve excellent food, raw and cooked and like nectar, day and night to the Brahmanas who came to his house as guests. He gave the Brahmanas the wealth he had earned by righteous means; having studied the Vedas, he subdued his enemies in fair fight; and so rigid were his vows and so unfailing his sacrifices that countless animals, wanting heaven, came to him of their own accord. So many animals were offered in that king’s Agnihotra that the secretions running from his kitchen, from the heaps of skins piled there, made a real river, which for that reason was called the Charmanvati. He gave the Brahmanas nishkas of bright gold without pause. I give you nishkas, I give you nishkas, he said over and over; I give, I give, and with those words he gave away thousands of them, and then, with soft words to the Brahmanas, he gave more. Having given a crore of such coins in a single day, he thought he had given very little and gave again. Who else could give what he gave? He gave, thinking: if I do not put wealth into the hands of the Brahmanas, great and endless grief will surely be mine. For a hundred years, every fortnight, he gave thousands of Brahmanas a golden bull each, with a hundred cows and eight hundred nishkas behind it. Everything needed for his Agnihotra and for his other sacrifices he gave to the rishis, including karukas and water pots and plates and beds and carpets and vehicles, mansions and houses, trees of many kinds and food of many kinds; every utensil and article Rantideva owned was of gold. Those who know the history of ancient times, seeing the superhuman affluence of Rantideva, sing this song: we have not seen such heaped-up treasure even in the house of Kubera, what then of human beings; and people said in wonder that the kingdom of Rantideva was surely made of gold. On the nights when guests gathered in Rantideva’s house, twenty-one thousand cows were slaughtered to feed them, and even so the royal cook, wearing jeweled earrings, had to call out: take as much soup as you like, for today there is not as much meat as on other days. Whatever gold was left to Rantideva, even that remnant he gave to the Brahmanas during one of his sacrifices. Before his very eyes the gods took the libations of butter poured into the fire for them and the Pitris the food offered them at the shraddhas, and every superior Brahmana got from him the means of every desire. When he died, Srinjaya, who was above you in the four cardinal virtues and, being above you, was far above your son, you should not cry, oh Svaitya, oh Svaitya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and gave no sacrificial gift.
Bharata, son of Dushyanta, we hear that he too fell to death. As a child living in the forest he did what no one else could do. With his great strength he stripped lions white as snow, armed with teeth and claws, of all their power in a moment, dragged them about and tied them up as he pleased. Tigers, fiercer and more ruthless than lions, he checked and brought to heel. Other beasts of prey of great might, and even huge elephants dyed with red arsenic and spotted with other liquid minerals, he seized by their teeth and tusks and subdued, leaving their mouths dry or driving them off; he dragged the strongest buffaloes, and by his strength he checked proud lions by the hundred, powerful srimaras, horned rhinoceroses and other animals, binding them by the neck, crushing them to within an inch of their lives and letting them go. For those feats the twice-born ascetics he lived among named him Sarvadamana, the controller of all, until at last his mother forbade him to torment animals that way. Grown to his full prowess, he performed a hundred horse sacrifices on the banks of the Yamuna, three hundred on the Sarasvati and four hundred on the Ganga, and having done these he performed a thousand horse sacrifices more and a hundred Rajasuyas, great sacrifices with very profuse gifts to the Brahmanas; and other sacrifices too, the Agnishtoma, the Atiratra, the Uktha and the Vishvajit, together with thousands and thousands of Vajapeyas, all completed without impediment. Having performed all of these, the son of Shakuntala gratified the Brahmanas with gifts of wealth, and Bharata of great fame gave ten thousand billion coins of the purest gold to Kanva, who had raised his mother Shakuntala as his own daughter. The gods with Indra at their head, with the Brahmanas, came to his sacrifice and set up his sacrificial stake, made entirely of gold and a hundred vyamas wide. And imperial Bharata of noble soul, victor over every foe, a monarch no enemy ever conquered, gave the Brahmanas beautiful horses and elephants and chariots decked with gold, fine gems of every kind, camels and goats and sheep, slaves male and female, wealth and grain and milch cows with their calves, villages and fields and robes of every kind, by the millions and millions. When he died, Srinjaya, who was above you in the four cardinal virtues and, being above you, was far above your son, you should not cry, oh Svaitya, oh Svaitya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and gave no sacrificial gift.
Prithu, son of Vena, we hear that he too fell to death. At the Rajasuya he performed, the great rishis installed him as emperor of the world. He conquered everyone and his deeds became known everywhere, and for that he was called Prithu, the celebrated; and because he protected all people from wounds and injury, he became a true Kshatriya. Seeing Vena’s son, all his subjects said, we are greatly pleased with him, and from that affection he came to be called a Raja. In Prithu’s time the earth yielded crops in plenty without being tilled, every cow gave milk at a touch, every lotus was full of honey, and the blades of kusha grass were gold, pleasant to touch and delightful in every way, so that Prithu’s subjects made their clothes of those blades and the beds they lay on. All the fruits were soft and sweet, like nectar, and these were his subjects’ food; no one ever went hungry, all men were hale and hearty, every wish was fulfilled, and they had nothing to fear; they lived in trees or in caves as they liked, and his dominion was not parceled into provinces and towns. When king Prithu went to the sea the waves turned solid, the mountains opened to let him pass, and the standard of his chariot never broke against anything. Once the tall trees of the forest, the mountains, the gods, the Asuras, men, the serpents, the seven rishis, the Apsaras and the Pitris all came to Prithu where he sat at his ease and said: you are our emperor, our king, our protector and father, our lord; great king, give us the boons our hearts desire, by which we may have satisfaction and joy forever. So be it, said Vena’s son. Then, taking up his bow Ajagava and terrible arrows the like of which had never existed, he thought for a moment and addressed the Earth: come quickly, Earth, and yield these the milk they desire; from it, bless you, I will give them the food they ask for. The Earth answered: hero, you must regard me as your daughter. So be it, said Prithu, and that great ascetic, master of his passions, made every arrangement for the milking, and the whole assembly of creatures began to milk the Earth. The tall trees of the forest rose first, and the Earth, full of affection, stood there wanting a calf, a milker and vessels: the blossoming shala became the calf, the banyan the milker, torn buds the milk, and the auspicious fig tree the vessel. Then the mountains milked her: the eastern hill where the sun rises was the calf, Meru the prince of mountains the milker, the gems and the herbs the milk, and the stones the vessels. Then one of the gods became the milker, and everything that bestows energy and strength was the milk they craved. The Asuras milked her with wine for milk in an unbaked pot, Dvimurdhan milking and Virochana the calf. Human beings milked her for tillage and crops, the self-created Manu their calf and Prithu himself their milker. The serpents milked poison into a vessel made of a gourd, Dhritarashtra milking and Takshaka the calf. The seven rishis, who can produce anything by their will, milked the Vedas out of her, Brihaspati milking, the meters for a vessel, and excellent Soma the calf. The Yakshas milked into an unbaked pot the power of vanishing at will, Vaishravana Kubera their milker and Vrishadhvaja their calf. The Gandharvas and Apsaras milked every fragrant perfume into a vessel made of a lotus leaf, Chitraratha the calf and mighty Vishvaruchi the milker. The Pitris milked svadha into a silver vessel, Yama son of Vivasvat the calf and Antaka the destroyer the milker. So was the Earth milked by that assembly of creatures, each getting for milk what it desired, and the calves and vessels they used exist to this day and can always be seen. Then mighty Prithu, performing sacrifice after sacrifice, satisfied every creature’s desire with gifts agreeable to its heart; he had golden images made of every article on earth and bestowed them all on the Brahmanas at his great horse sacrifice, had sixty-six thousand elephants made of gold and gave them all to the Brahmanas, and this whole earth, decked in jewels and gems and gold, he gave to the Brahmanas too. When he died, Srinjaya, who was above you in the four cardinal virtues and, being above you, was far above your son, you should not cry, oh Svaitya, oh Svaitya, for a boy who performed no sacrifice and gave no sacrificial gift.
The sixteenth name was different, because its owner was still alive. Even the great ascetic Rama, Narada said, the hero worshiped by all heroes, the far-famed son of Jamadagni, will die, and die without being content with the span of his life. Rooting out every evil from the earth, he brought back the primeval age; he won unrivaled prosperity, and no fault could be seen in him. When his father had been killed and his calf stolen by Kshatriyas, he killed Kartavirya, whom no enemy had ever beaten, and made no boast of it. With his bow he killed sixty-four times ten thousand Kshatriyas already in the jaws of death, among them fourteen thousand Brahmana-hating Kshatriyas of the Dantakura country, every one of them; of the Haihayas he killed a thousand with his short club, a thousand with his sword and a thousand by hanging. Heroic warriors lay dead on the field with their chariots, horses and elephants, killed by Jamadagni’s wise son in his rage at his father’s murder, and with his axe Rama killed ten thousand Kshatriyas more, because he could not quietly bear the furious speeches those enemies made. And when many of the foremost Brahmanas cried out, calling the name of Rama of Bhrigu’s race, Jamadagni’s valiant son went against the Kashmiras, the Daradas, the Kuntis, the Kshudrakas, the Malavas, the Angas, the Vangas, the Kalingas, the Videhas, the Tamraliptakas, the Rakshovahas, the Vitahotras, the Trigartas and the Martikavatas, by the thousand, and killed them all with his whetted shafts; going from province to province he killed thousands of crores of Kshatriyas, made a deluge of blood, filled many lakes with blood as red as the indragopa insect or the wild fruit called bandhujiva, and brought all eighteen islands of the earth under his sway. Then that son of Bhrigu’s race performed a hundred sacrifices of great merit, all completed, all with profuse gifts to the Brahmanas. A sacrificial altar eighteen nalas high, made entirely of gold according to the ordinance, full of jewels and gems and decked with hundreds of standards, and this earth teeming with tame and wild animals, were accepted by Kashyapa as Rama’s sacrificial present to him, and Rama gave him many thousands of prodigious elephants adorned with gold besides. Having freed the earth of robbers and filled her with honest and graceful inhabitants, Rama gave her to Kashyapa at his great horse sacrifice; having emptied the earth of Kshatriyas twenty-one times and performed hundreds of sacrifices, that mighty hero gave the earth to the Brahmanas, and it was Marichi’s son Kashyapa who accepted her from him with her seven islands. Then Kashyapa said to Rama: at my command, go out of the earth. At Kashyapa’s word that foremost of warriors, wanting to obey the Brahmana, made the very ocean stand aside with his arrows, went to the best of mountains, Mahendra, and lives there still. Even he, the enhancer of the Bhrigus’ fame, possessed of countless virtues, Jamadagni’s famous son of great splendor, will die. Greater than your son, even he will die. So do not grieve for your son, who performed no sacrifice and gave no sacrificial present. All these, above you in the four cardinal virtues and in a hundred other merits, all these foremost of men have died, Srinjaya, and those who are like them will die too.
Vyasa said: when he had heard that sacred history of sixteen kings, which lengthens the life of the listener, king Srinjaya sat silent and said nothing, and the illustrious rishi Narada spoke to him as he sat there. Man of great splendor, have you heard the histories I recited, and have you caught what they mean? Or is all of it lost, like a shraddha performed by a twice-born man who has a Shudra wife? Srinjaya answered with joined hands: rich in austerity, having listened to these excellent and praiseworthy histories of the royal sages of old, all of whom performed great sacrifices with profuse presents to the Brahmanas, my grief has been driven out by wonder, as darkness is driven out by the rays of the sun. I am cleansed of my sins now and I feel no pain. Tell me what I should do. Narada said: by good fortune your grief is gone; ask the boon you desire, and you will have whatever you ask, for we never say what is untrue. Srinjaya said: I am happy with this alone, holy one, that you are pleased with me; the man you are pleased with has nothing here he cannot obtain. Narada said: I will give you back your son, who was killed by robbers to no purpose, like an animal slaughtered in a sacrifice, and I will take him out of a terrible hell to do it. And then, Vyasa said, Srinjaya’s son of wonderful splendor appeared, a child like the son of Kubera himself, given back to the bereaved father by the gratified rishi, and king Srinjaya, with his son again, was filled with joy and performed many meritorious sacrifices, giving profuse presents at the end of each. Then Vyasa turned the story on Yudhishthira, and the turn was the whole point. Srinjaya’s son had not fulfilled the purposes of his being: he had performed no sacrifice and had no children, and, without bravery, he had died miserably and not in battle; that was why he could be brought back to life. Abhimanyu was brave and heroic, and he has fulfilled the purposes of life, for Subhadra’s valiant son blasted his enemies by the thousand and left the world falling on the field of battle. The inaccessible regions that are reached by Brahmacharya, by knowledge, by acquaintance with the scriptures and by the foremost sacrifices, those regions your son has already won. Men of knowledge desire heaven by their righteous deeds, and those who live in heaven never prefer this world to it; so no desirable thing he might have missed here would make it easy to bring Arjuna’s son, killed in battle and living now in heaven, back into the world. Your son has reached the eternal goal that yogins reach with closed eyes in contemplation, that the performers of great sacrifices reach, that men of great ascetic merit reach. Dead, and in a new body, that hero shines like a king in his own immortal rays; Abhimanyu has got back his own body of lunar essence, the one every twice-born man desires. He does not deserve your grief. Knowing this, be quiet, and kill your enemies; let fortitude be yours. Sinless one, it is the living who need our grief, never those who have gone to heaven, and the sins of a dead man increase, king, when the living grieve for him. So the wise man puts grief aside and works for the benefit of the dead, and thinks of the dead man’s joy, his glory, his happiness. Knowing this, the wise never give way to grief, for grief is painful; know this to be true. Rise, strive for your purpose, do not grieve. You have heard how Death was born, and of her unexampled austerities, and how impartially she deals with every creature; you have heard that prosperity is unstable; you have heard how Srinjaya’s dead son was revived. Learned king, do not grieve. Peace be with you; I go. With that the holy Vyasa disappeared where he stood. When that master of speech, that foremost of the intelligent, the holy one whose color was the color of a clouded sky, had gone, Yudhishthira, consoled by what he had heard of the sacrificial merit and prosperity of those great monarchs of old, men with the energy of Indra who had all acquired their wealth by righteous means, praised those illustrious persons in his mind and was freed from grief. And then, with a heavy heart, he asked himself once more the question the sixteen kings had not answered: what shall we say to Dhananjaya?
A key to reading this (names, measures, and the turn of the argument): The “eternal banyan” and the Brahmasara connected with Gaya’s sacrifice are the undying banyan and the Brahma tank of the pilgrimage town of Gaya, which the pilgrimage chapter 13a also visits. The Charmanvati is today’s Chambal, its name explained here from the run-off of Rantideva’s kitchen skins; a nishka is a gold coin and a karuka a sacrificial vessel. Sarvadamana Bharata is the son of Shakuntala and Dushyanta whose story the Adi Parva tells and after whom the land is called Bharata; a vyama is the span of outstretched arms and a nala a measure of length. In the milking of the Earth every order of beings has its own calf, milker and vessel, and Narada says those calves and vessels can still be seen; the Earth’s name Prithvi, “Prithu’s daughter,” follows from this story, though that sentence is not in the text here. Parashurama is the only one of the sixteen of whom Narada speaks in the future tense, because he is still alive; indragopa is a red insect and bandhujiva a plant with red flowers. Watch the hinge of Vyasa’s conclusion: Srinjaya’s boy could return because his life was unfinished, and Abhimanyu cannot because his is complete.
The gist: Narada finishes the count: Gaya, whose golden altar was thirty yojanas long; Rantideva, with two hundred thousand cooks and a river running from his kitchen; Bharata, who tied up lions as a boy and paid Kanva ten thousand billion gold coins; Prithu, who made the Earth his daughter and had every order of creatures milk her; and Parashurama, who is alive and will die all the same. The sixteen histories cure Srinjaya’s grief, Narada gives him his son back out of hell, and Vyasa tells Yudhishthira why that boy could return and Abhimanyu cannot: an unfinished life can be resumed, a completed one has already arrived. Vyasa vanishes, Yudhishthira’s grief lifts, and one question is left standing: what to tell Arjuna.
Source: the Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Drona Parva. This chapter follows K. M. Ganguli, sections LI-CXXIII (51-123); 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.
Based on: The Mahabharata, Vyasa (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)