Mahabharata · Yudhishthira Wounded, the Insult to Gandiva, and Krishna on Truth

About 145 minutes · in 5 sittings

Every war has an hour that is not on the battlefield, and this is the Mahabharata’s. On the seventeenth morning Karna has done what no one else managed in sixteen days: he has put an arrow through the king. Yudhishthira, bleeding, humiliated, spared by the man who could have killed him, is carried back to his tent, and when Arjuna comes to find him there, alive and whole and without Karna’s head in his hands, the king says the one thing a brother must never say. He tells Arjuna to give his bow to someone who can use it. Arjuna has sworn to kill any man who says that. What happens in the next hour, with a sword half drawn between the two eldest sons of Pandu and Krishna standing between them talking about when a lie is the truth, decides the war more surely than anything Karna does that afternoon. Before it and after it, the fighting goes on: Ashvatthama meets Arjuna and is beaten, Dandadhara and Pandya die, and Bhima holds the field alone, asking his charioteer how many arrows are left.

Dhrishtadyumna against Kritavarma, then Yudhishthira under a roof of arrows: the king’s bitter words to Ashvatthama

Suketu’s head had barely touched the ground when his men lost their nerve. They gave Kripa a wide berth and scattered in every direction, and the battle, which for a moment had a center, broke again into a dozen separate fights. One of them belonged to Kritavarma. The Bhoja king, Hridika’s son, the one Vrishni warrior who had chosen Duryodhana’s side, came around Dhrishtadyumna with his chariot and called out to him cheerfully, wait, wait, in the tone of a man who has been looking forward to this. What followed was the kind of fight the poets compare to two hawks over a scrap of meat. Dhrishtadyumna put nine arrows into Kritavarma’s chest, deep enough to hurt him badly. Kritavarma answered by burying the Panchala commander, his horses, and his chariot under so many shafts that Dhrishtadyumna vanished from sight, the way the sun disappears behind clouds heavy with rain. When he cut his way out of that gold-feathered shroud and stood bleeding in the open, Sanjaya says, he looked better for the wounds. He closed the distance and loosed a storm of his own, and Kritavarma broke it up with thousands of arrows before it reached him. So Dhrishtadyumna changed his target. He drove closer, took a razor-sharp broad-headed shaft, and sent Kritavarma’s charioteer to Yama’s house. The man fell dead off the car. With his opponent suddenly without a driver, Dhrishtadyumna did not waste a moment on him; he turned his bow on the Kauravas at large, and Dhritarashtra’s warriors came roaring at him like lions, and the fighting there started all over again.

Ashvatthama, meanwhile, had found the king. Yudhishthira was guarded that morning by Satyaki, the grandson of Shini, and by Draupadi’s five sons, and Drona’s son looked at that guard and advanced on it gladly. He came scattering arrows with golden wings and stone-whetted points, showing off the whole repertoire, the chariot maneuvers, the trained skill, the lightness of hand that his father had given him, and he charged the shafts with the force of celestial weapons until the sky itself was full of them. He was a master of every weapon, and he used all of them to close a ring around Yudhishthira. Nothing could be seen through it. The whole space in front of Ashvatthama became a single sheet of arrows, and the sky, covered with that dense gold-decked rain, looked to Sanjaya like a canopy embroidered with gold spread over the field, and under it lay a shadow like the shadow of clouds. It was a wonder to see, he says, and a terrible one: for a while not a single creature of the air could travel through its own element. Satyaki fought hard inside that ring and could not show what he was. Neither could Yudhishthira, nor any of the others. The Pandava chariot-warriors watched the speed of Ashvatthama’s hands with something close to awe, and the kings could no longer look at him directly, as if he were the noon sun standing in the sky.

Since they were being slaughtered anyway, they decided together to die going forward. Draupadi’s sons, Satyaki, Yudhishthira, and the Panchalas dropped their fear of death and charged Drona’s son as one body, and Sanjaya keeps the count of that charge the way a herald would. Satyaki struck him with seventy arrows and then seven long gold-decked ones. Yudhishthira hit him with seventy-three, Prativindhya with seven, Shrutakarman with three, Shrutakirti with five, Sutasoma with nine, Shatanika with seven, and many others from every side. Ashvatthama, breathing like a venomous snake, paid each of them back by name: twenty-five stone-whetted arrows for Satyaki, nine for Shrutakirti, five for Sutasoma, eight for Shrutakarman, three for Prativindhya, nine for Shatanika, five for Yudhishthira, and two apiece for the rest. He cut Shrutakirti’s bow; Shrutakirti took another and answered with three shafts and then many more. Then Drona’s son buried the whole Pandava division in arrows, and, smiling, cut the bow of Yudhishthira the just and pierced him three times. Yudhishthira picked up a second and heavier bow and put seventy arrows into Ashvatthama’s arms and chest. Satyaki, furious now, cut Ashvatthama’s bow with a crescent-headed shaft and gave a roar of triumph, and Ashvatthama, bowless for one instant, took a dart and knocked Satyaki’s charioteer off the car, then strung a new bow and covered Satyaki with arrows while his driverless horses ran wherever they pleased. The Pandavas came at him behind Yudhishthira, shooting as they came, and Drona’s son received all of them. Like a fire in a forest eating heaps of dry grass and straw, Sanjaya says, with the arrow showers for his flames, he burned through the Pandava army as if it were exactly that, dry grass and straw, and the army heaved like the mouth of a river when a whale moves in it. People watching decided that Ashvatthama had already killed the Pandavas; it only remained for them to fall down.

Yudhishthira had been Drona’s pupil, and that is what made him say what he said next. Anger and the wish to hit back put the words in his mouth, and they were the words of one student of the same house to another. Tiger among men, he said, you have no affection and you have no gratitude, since today you want to kill me. A Brahmana’s duties are austerity, giving, and study. The bow is for the Kshatriya to bend. It seems, then, that you are a Brahmana in name only. Mighty-armed one, in your very sight I will defeat the Kauravas in this battle. Do what you can. I tell you that you are a wretch among Brahmanas. Ashvatthama heard it and smiled. He thought about what was proper and what was true, Sanjaya says, and he did not reply. Without a word he covered Pandu’s son with arrows, the way the Destroyer in his anger covers the creatures he is about to end, and Yudhishthira, buried under that silence, quickly left the spot and left his large division behind him. When the son of Dharma had gone, Drona’s son left too. And Yudhishthira, keeping clear of Ashvatthama for the rest of that great battle, turned instead against Dhritarashtra’s army, resolved on the cruel work of slaughter.

A key to reading this (who is who): Kritavarma is the son of Hridika and king of the Bhojas, a Vrishni fighting for Duryodhana against his own kinsman Krishna’s friends. Dhrishtadyumna is Drupada’s son and Prishata’s grandson, which is why Sanjaya also calls him Parshata. Prativindhya, Sutasoma, Shrutakarman, Shatanika, and Shrutakirti are Draupadi’s five sons, one by each Pandava in order of age. Yudhishthira’s taunt lands because Ashvatthama is Drona’s son and Yudhishthira was Drona’s pupil; the insult “a Brahmana in name only” is a family quarrel conducted with arrows.

The gist: After Suketu falls, the battle splinters. Dhrishtadyumna kills Kritavarma’s charioteer and moves on. Ashvatthama pins Yudhishthira under a roof of arrows so thick that birds cannot fly through it, and Satyaki and Draupadi’s five sons together cannot break it. Yudhishthira calls him a Brahmana in name only and a wretch among Brahmanas; Ashvatthama smiles, says nothing, and answers with arrows, and the king has to abandon the position.

Three destroyers and three armies: Karna on the Panchalas, Bhima on the Kurus, Arjuna on the samsaptakas; Ashvatthama’s swoon and his oath

By the middle of the morning the battle had settled into a shape that Sanjaya could describe in one sentence, and he does: Partha, Vrikodara, and Karna were exterminating the samsaptakas, the Kauravas, and the Panchalas, respectively. Karna himself, Vikartana, held Bhima off while the Panchalas, Chedis, and Kaikeyas supported him, and killed great chariot-warriors of the Chedis, Karushas, and Srinjayas while Bhima watched. Bhima, rather than be held, went around him and fell on the Kaurava ranks like a fire on dry grass, and Karna turned back to the Panchala, Kaikeya, and Srinjaya bowmen and began killing them by the thousand. Because of your evil counsels, king, Sanjaya tells Dhritarashtra, all those Kshatriyas were being burned out of existence by three men. Duryodhana, in the middle of it, found the twins. He put nine arrows into Nakula and his four horses and cut Sahadeva’s golden standard with a razor-headed shaft; Nakula hit him back with seventy-three arrows and Sahadeva with five; Duryodhana pierced each of them with five, cut both their bows with two broad-headed arrows, and then, suddenly, struck each twin seventy-three times. They took up two new bows as fine as Indra’s own and looked, for a moment, like a pair of young gods, and they rained arrows on their cousin the way two clouds rain on a mountain. Duryodhana’s bow seemed drawn into a permanent circle, shafts leaving it endlessly on every side, until the sons of Madri lost their brightness like the sun and moon behind cloud, and the chariot-warriors watching thought the twins were standing in the presence of Death. Then Dhrishtadyumna arrived. He stepped past the two brothers and took Duryodhana for himself.

Duryodhana smiled and hit him with twenty-five arrows, then sixty, then five, and roared, and cut his bow and the leather guard on his wrist with a razor-headed shaft. The Panchala prince threw the broken bow aside, took a new one built for heavy strain, and stood on his chariot with blood-red eyes and wounds all over him, looking, Sanjaya says, magnificent. He loosed fifteen cloth-yard shafts that hissed like snakes, feathered with kanka and peacock, and they went through the gold of the king’s armor, through the king, and into the earth behind him, and Duryodhana, pierced through, looked like a great kinshuka tree in spring under the weight of its flowers. Wounded in every limb, he still cut Dhrishtadyumna’s bow with a broad-headed arrow and put ten shafts into his forehead between the eyebrows, where they sat like bees on an open lotus. Dhrishtadyumna took another bow and sixteen broad-headed arrows. With five he killed Duryodhana’s four horses and his charioteer. With one he cut the gold-decked bow. With the remaining ten he cut away the chariot’s fittings, the umbrella, the dart, the sword, the mace, and the standard, and every king on the field saw the Kuru king’s beautiful banner go down, the one with the golden armlets and the elephant worked in jewels. Duryodhana’s own brothers rescued him, chariotless and weaponless; Durdhara took him onto his car and carried him out of the fight while Dhrishtadyumna watched him go.

Karna, who had just beaten Satyaki, saw the king in trouble and drove straight at Drona’s killer to save him, with Satyaki chasing him from behind and shooting into his back, like one elephant tusking another in the hindquarters. In the ground between Karna and Dhrishtadyumna the two armies met, and Sanjaya says that not one man on either side turned his face away. Then Karna went at the Panchalas with all his speed. It was the hour when the sun stood at the meridian, and the killing of elephants and horses and men on both sides was enormous. The Panchalas came at him like birds to a tree, wanting victory, and Adhiratha’s son picked out their leaders from the front and shot them one by one: Vyaghraketu, Susharma, Chitra, Ugrayudha, Jaya, Shukla, Rochamana, and Simhasena, who had never been beaten. Eight men surrounded him and poured arrows on him, and he answered the eight with eight arrows and then killed thousands of others. He killed Jishnu and Jishnukarman and Devapi, Chitra and Chitrayudha, Hari, Simhaketu, Rochamana, and the great chariot-warrior Shalabha, and the dying Chedi charioteers bathed Karna in their blood while he took their lives. Elephants ran from his arrows or fell screaming like mountains split by thunder, and along the track of his chariot the earth was paved with the bodies of elephants and horses and men and chariots. Neither Bhishma nor Drona nor any warrior of your army, Sanjaya says, ever did what Karna did that day. He moved among the Panchalas like a lion in a herd of deer; the ones who reached him did not come back alive, as deer that reach a lion’s jaws do not; the Srinjayas who touched the Karna-fire burned. He killed the men the Chedis and Panchalas counted as heroes single-handed, calling out his own name each time he struck. Watching him, Sanjaya thought that no Panchala at all would leave that field alive.

The Pandava answer was to throw everyone at him. Yudhishthira charged him in fury; Dhrishtadyumna and Draupadi’s sons and hundreds of warriors surrounded him; Shikhandi, Sahadeva, Nakula, Nakula’s son, Janamejaya, Satyaki, and the countless Prabhadrakas came on behind Dhrishtadyumna, striking Karna with every kind of weapon, and Karna fell on all of them alone the way Garuda falls on a nest of snakes. It was, Sanjaya says, like the old war of the gods and the Danavas, and Karna stood in that united storm of arrows the way the sun stands in the darkness it is dispelling. And while Karna was tied up with the Pandavas, Bhima did to the Kurus what Karna was doing to the Panchalas. He fought the Bahlikas, the Kaikeyas, the Matsyas, the Vasatis, the Madras, and the Saindhavas alone, and elephants shot through the vitals fell with their riders and shook the earth, and horses and foot soldiers lay vomiting blood, and chariot-warriors by the thousand dropped their weapons and died. Duryodhana’s army stood stupefied with fear of him, motionless, like the sea in an autumn calm, and lost its pride and its splendor and seemed to bathe in gore. The Suta’s son was routing the Pandava division and Bhima was routing the Kurus, and both of them, at that work, shone.

Far off on his own front, Arjuna had finished with the first wave of samsaptakas, and he turned to his charioteer with a request. Janardana, he said, this struggling force of the samsaptakas is broken; their great chariot-warriors are running with their followers, unable to bear my arrows, like deer that cannot bear a lion’s roar. The great Srinjaya army also seems to be breaking. And there, Krishna, in the middle of Yudhishthira’s division, is the banner of the clever Karna, the one with the elephant’s rope on it, and he is moving fast under it. Our other chariot-warriors cannot beat Karna; you know what his energy is in battle. Go where Karna is routing our force. Leave the others and take me against the Suta’s son. That is what I want, Krishna. But do what you think best. Govinda smiled at him. Slay the Kauravas, son of Pandu, without delay, he said, and the white horses, swan-white, took Krishna and Arjuna into the Kaurava host, which broke open around them on all sides. The ape-bannered chariot, wheels rumbling like clouds, flags streaming, went into the army like a celestial car passing through the sky, and the two men on it, red-eyed with anger, splendid, answering the Kurus’ challenge like the twin Ashvins summoned to a sacrifice by priests who know the rites, went through the chariots and the cavalry with the fury of two forest elephants maddened by the clapping of hunters. Duryodhana saw what Arjuna was doing inside his army and sent the samsaptakas at him again: a thousand chariots, three hundred elephants, fourteen thousand horse, and two hundred thousand archers on foot, brave men, sure of aim, who covered the son of Kunti with arrows from every side. Under that cover Arjuna showed himself in his terrible form, the Destroyer with the noose, and became a thing worth looking at. Gold-winged, lightning-bright shafts filled the sky and lay across everything like snakes, and the sound of his palms on the bowstring made people think the earth, the vault of heaven, the quarters, the oceans, and the mountains were splitting. He killed ten thousand Kshatriyas and drove on to the far wing, which the Kambojas held, and ground it as Vasava grinds the Danavas, cutting off arms with the weapons still in their grip and heads that were straining to kill him, so that men fell like many-branched trees in a hurricane. The younger brother of Sudakshina, chief of the Kambojas, tried to stop him with an arrow shower. Arjuna took off both his arms, thick as spiked maces, with two crescent-headed arrows, and then his head, with its face like the full moon, with a razor-headed one, and the tall, handsome, lotus-eyed prince fell bathed in blood like a mountain peak of red arsenic split by lightning, like a column of gold, like a summit of Sumeru. Kambojas, Yavanas, and Shakas went down one arrow each until the field was one expanse of red, and horseless chariots and riderless horses and elephants without their men fought each other in the wreckage.

When Savyasachi had torn out both wings of the samsaptakas, Ashvatthama came for him. He came shaking his formidable bow, carrying his terrible arrows the way the sun carries its rays, mouth open with rage, eyes red, looking like Death himself with his mace at the end of an age, and he began routing the Pandava army with his showers. The instant he saw Krishna on the chariot he turned the showers on him, and with hundreds of sharp arrows he shrouded both Madhava and Pandu’s son and stunned them where they stood. The universe of moving and unmoving things cried oh and alas to see its two protectors covered in arrows, and Siddhas and Charanas gathered from every side, praying silently, let good come to all the worlds. Sanjaya had never seen prowess like it: the sound of Ashvatthama’s bow came again and again like a lion’s roar, and his bowstring flashed to left and right like lightning inside a mass of cloud. Arjuna, for all his firmness and his speed of hand, was stunned by him. He looked at Drona’s son and thought his own prowess had been destroyed by this great-souled enemy; the form of Ashvatthama in that fight was something men could barely gaze at. Krishna watched Ashvatthama gain and Arjuna fade, and Krishna became angry. He drew deep breaths and looked from one to the other as if he could burn them both with his eyes, and then he spoke to Partha, and Sanjaya is careful to say that the tone was affectionate. Partha, this that I see of you in battle today is very strange, since Drona’s son surpasses you. Do you not have the energy and the strength of arm you had before? Is Gandiva not still in your hands, and are you not standing on your chariot? Are your two arms not sound? Has your fist been hurt? Why then do I see Drona’s son prevailing over you? Do not spare him, Partha, on the ground that his father was your teacher, bull of Bharata’s race. The time for sparing him has passed. The rebuke was enough. Arjuna took fourteen broad-headed arrows at once, speed being everything now, and with them cut Ashvatthama’s bow, standard, umbrella, banners, chariot, dart, and mace, and with a few calf-toothed arrows he struck deep into Ashvatthama’s shoulder. Drona’s son sank into a swoon and sat down holding on to his own flagstaff, and his charioteer, to save him from Dhananjaya, carried him off the field senseless and badly hurt. Vijaya went on killing your troops by the hundred and the thousand in full view of your son, Sanjaya says, and within a short time Vibhatsu had routed the samsaptakas, Vrikodara the Kurus, and Vasushena the Panchalas, and headless trunks were standing up all over the field. And Yudhishthira, in great pain from his wounds, withdrew about two miles from the fighting and rested for a while.

Duryodhana chose that moment to make a speech. He went to Karna and said to him, and to the king of the Madras and the other lords of the earth standing there: without our seeking it, this occasion has come, when the gates of heaven stand wide open. Happy are the Kshatriyas, Karna, who get such a battle. Brave heroes who fight brave Kshatriyas equal to them in might and prowess win great good, son of Radha, and that is the occasion that has come. Either these brave Kshatriyas will kill the Pandavas and take the broad earth, or they will be killed by the enemy and win the blessed region kept for heroes. The bulls among Kshatriyas cheered him, beat their drums, and blew their trumpets, and into that noise Ashvatthama, recovered and gladdening the warriors further, swore an oath. In the sight of all the troops, before the eyes of all of you, he said, my father was killed by Dhrishtadyumna after he had laid his weapons down. By the wrath that such an act kindles, and for the sake of my friend, kings, I swear truly before you all; hear my oath. Without killing Dhrishtadyumna I will not take off my armor. If this vow is not fulfilled, let me not go to heaven. Be it Arjuna, be it Bhimasena, be it anyone else, whoever comes against me I will crush, him or all of them, and there is no doubt of it. After that the whole Bharata army rushed the Pandavas as one body and the Pandavas rushed them, and the collision of the chariot divisions’ leaders was like the end of the world. The gods came to watch, with the Apsaras, who scattered celestial garlands and celestial perfumes and gems over the warriors doing their duty, and a soft wind carried those scents to every man’s nostrils, and having smelled them, the warriors fought harder and fell faster. The earth, strewn with the flowers of heaven and the gold-winged arrows of men and the bodies of the best of warriors, looked like the night sky sown with stars, and under the cheering from the sky and the music of the instruments the twang of bows and the rattle of wheels and the shouting rose into something fiercer than before.

A key to reading this (a few words): Vikartana, Vaikartana, and Vasushena are all names of Karna, whom Sanjaya also calls the son of Radha, the son of Adhiratha, and the Suta’s son. The samsaptakas are the Trigartas and their allies, who swore to kill Arjuna or die and who drew him away from the main battle day after day. “The two Krishnas” is the epic’s own phrase for Arjuna and Vasudeva together, since Krishna is also one of Arjuna’s names; Vijaya, Vibhatsu, Savyasachi, and Dhananjaya are Arjuna too. Durdhara is one of Duryodhana’s brothers. Karna’s banner carried the device of an elephant’s rope.

The gist: The midday battle turns on three axes: Karna kills the Panchala leaders by name, Bhima stuns the Kurus into stillness, Arjuna tears out the samsaptakas and the Kambojas. Dhrishtadyumna strips Duryodhana of chariot and weapons. Arjuna asks to be taken to Karna, and Ashvatthama gets in the way and buries both Krishnas in arrows; only Krishna’s rebuke rouses Arjuna to knock him senseless. The wounded Yudhishthira withdraws two miles from the field. Duryodhana points his kings at heaven’s open gate, and Ashvatthama swears he will not take off his armor until Dhrishtadyumna is dead.

“I cannot see Yudhishthira’s standard”: Krishna’s tour of the killing field, and Dhrishtadyumna pulled from Ashvatthama’s grip

Three hours of daylight were left, and Arjuna could no longer find his brother. He had just beaten Ashvatthama and a string of other great chariot-warriors, the samsaptakas were breaking, and still the thing he looked for at every pause was missing from the sky. Krishna, he said, look: the Pandava army is running. Look at Karna killing our best chariot-fighters. I cannot see Yudhishthira, and I cannot see the standard of Dharma’s son anywhere. A third of the day remains, and none of Dhritarashtra’s people will come out and fight me. Do what I ask. Drive to wherever the king is. When I have seen Dharma’s son alive and whole with his younger brothers, I will fight the enemy again. Krishna turned the horses at once toward the quarter where Yudhishthira and the great Srinjaya chariot-warriors were fighting with death as their only goal, and it was on that drive, across the middle of the seventeenth day, that he gave Arjuna the strangest gift of the whole war: a guided look at what they had made.

Look, Partha, he said, at this slaughter of Kshatriyas, all of it for Duryodhana. And he began to point. The gold-backed bows of dead men. Costly quivers slid off dead shoulders. Straight arrows with gold fletching, and the long oil-washed cloth-yard shafts lying about like snakes fresh out of their skins. Scimitars with ivory hilts, shields embossed with gold and flung aside, gilded lances, darts with gold ornament, huge maces wound with gold wire, gilded swords and axes, axe-heads snapped clean off their golden handles. Iron kuntas, short heavy clubs, the pretty rockets, spiked bludgeons, discs that had flown out of the hands that threw them, spears that had done their work. Men who had come to this field full of speed, who had taken up all these weapons, lying there without life and looking, from a distance, as if they were still alive. Thousands of them, Krishna said, limbs crushed by maces, skulls broken by clubs, bodies torn open by elephants and horses and chariot wheels. The ground is beautiful, he told Arjuna, and he meant the word exactly. Arms smeared with sandal paste, still wearing their gold armlets and bracelets, their hands still in the leather guards. Thighs severed and lying like elephant trunks. Heads with jeweled earrings and large open eyes. Headless trunks bathed in blood, cut limbs, cut heads, cut hips, until the earth looked like an altar strewn with fires that had gone out. Broken chariots with rows of golden bells. Dead horses with the arrows still in them. Chariot floors, quivers, banners, standards of every design, the great white conchs of chariot-warriors scattered like shells on a beach. Elephants the size of hills, tongues lolling, and more elephants and horses dead under their victory banners. Elephant housings, hides and blankets, torn embroidered cloth, bell-rows snapped by the fall of the animals that wore them, goads set with lapis, hooks lying on the ground. Whips worked with gold and gems, still clenched in the fists of dead riders. Ranku-deer skins and blankets that had been saddle seats. Gems out of kings’ diadems, gold necklaces, umbrellas and yak-tail fans knocked down and trampled. A field of mud made of blood, covered with the faces of heroes, their earrings and their trimmed beards and the light of the moon and the stars still on them.

Then Krishna turned from the dead to the dying, and the description became harder to hear. Look at the wounded, he said, lying everywhere, crying out, not dead yet, and their kinsmen throwing down their weapons to tend them and weeping without pause. Look at the ones who have just killed a dozen men and are turning, swollen with rage, to find more. Others running back and forth across the field. Fallen men begging for water, and their relatives gone to look for it. Many are dying while they wait, Arjuna. The relatives come back, see them senseless, drop the water they carried, and run about wild, shouting to one another. Some have died with their thirst quenched; some, Bharata, are dying with the water in their mouths. Some love their kin and are leaving them anyway to go at the enemy. And some are standing there biting their lower lips, their brows drawn so hard their faces have gone terrible, looking around the whole field for someone to kill. All the while he was saying this, Krishna was driving toward Yudhishthira, and Arjuna, who had caught sight of the king now, kept saying the one word, go, go. When he had shown Partha the field, Madhava, still driving fast, spoke again, quietly this time, and the tour became tactical. Look at the kings rushing at Yudhishthira. There is Karna, a lit fire in the middle of the arena. There goes Bhima with his great bow. The best of the Panchalas, the Srinjayas and the Pandavas are following him with Dhrishtadyumna at their head. The charging Parthas have broken the enemy’s host again. Watch Karna trying to rally the Kauravas as they run. There goes Drona’s son, the first of all weapon-bearers, with the speed of the Destroyer and the strength of Indra; Dhrishtadyumna is going for him and the Srinjayas after Dhrishtadyumna. Look, Arjuna. The Srinjayas are falling. And then, Sanjaya told the blind king, the two hosts met with a roar, each side with death for its aim, and this destruction of your own men and the enemy’s alike, lord of the earth, came from your evil counsels.

The Kurus and the Srinjayas closed again without fear, the Parthas under Yudhishthira, the Kaurava side under Karna, and the battle between Karna and the Pandavas made the hair rise and swelled the population of Yama’s kingdom. When the rivers of blood had started running and only a remnant of the samsaptakas was left alive, Dhrishtadyumna gathered all the kings on the Pandava side, and the Pandavas themselves, and threw the whole weight at one man. Karna took it alone, the way a mountain takes a flood, and the flood broke on him and ran back on every side. Dhrishtadyumna hit him with a straight arrow and called out, wait, wait. Karna shook his great bow Vijaya, cut Dhrishtadyumna’s bow and his snake-venom arrows to pieces, and put nine shafts through the gold of Prishata’s grandson’s armor, where they stood out wet and red like cochineal insects. Dhrishtadyumna took another bow and put seventy arrows into him; Karna covered him in return, and the slayer of Drona answered with more. Then Karna drew a gold-decked shaft like a second staff of Death and sent it at Dhrishtadyumna, and Satyaki, Sini’s grandson, cut it into seven pieces in the air with a speed of hand that people talked about afterward. Karna turned on Satyaki with arrows from every direction and put seven cloth-yard shafts into him; Satyaki gave back gold-winged arrows of his own, and the duel between those two, which had begun as a thing to fear, turned into a thing to watch, so that the hair stood up on everyone present.

It was Ashvatthama who broke the pattern. Drona’s son came at Dhrishtadyumna with the words he had been carrying since his father’s death: wait, wait, killer of a Brahmana, you will not leave me alive today. Sanjaya saw the two men look at each other and understood the symmetry: just as Drona, alive, had gone cheerless at the sight of Dhrishtadyumna and known him for his death, so Dhrishtadyumna now looked at Drona’s son and saw his own. Then he remembered that he could not be killed by weapons, and he went at Ashvatthama the way the Destroyer goes at the Destroyer at the end of an age. Ashvatthama drew a long breath through his anger. Wretch of the Panchalas, he said, I will send you to Yama today; the sin of killing Drona will fill you with regret this very afternoon, if you stay in the fight without Partha to protect you and do not run, fool. And Dhrishtadyumna answered him: the same sword of mine that answered your father, when he stood resolute in battle, will answer this speech of yours. If Drona could be killed by me, Brahmana in name only, why should I not kill you as well? He struck first. Ashvatthama’s reply put thousands of arrows into the space around him until the sky and the compass points and the fighters on every side disappeared, and Dhrishtadyumna shrouded him back, in full view of Karna, who was at that moment single-handedly holding off the Panchalas, the Pandavas, the five sons of Draupadi, Yudhamanyu and Satyaki, and drawing every eye. Dhrishtadyumna cut Ashvatthama’s bow and arrows. Ashvatthama, in the blink of an eye, destroyed Dhrishtadyumna’s bow, his dart, his mace, his standard, his horses, his driver and his chariot. Dhrishtadyumna snatched up a great scimitar and a blazing shield with a hundred moons on it, and before he could even climb down, Ashvatthama’s broad-headed arrows had cut those away too. Everyone who saw it called it a marvel. And still, Sanjaya said, Drona’s son could not kill him. Chariotless, horseless, bowless, pierced and mangled, Dhrishtadyumna would not die of arrows, and when Ashvatthama understood this he set down his bow and went for him with his hands, like Garuda dropping on a big snake.

Krishna saw it from the moving chariot. Look, Partha, how Drona’s son is rushing at Prishata’s grandson’s car. He will kill the prince, no doubt of it. Mighty-armed one, rescue him; he is inside Ashvatthama’s jaws now as if inside the jaws of Death himself. He drove the moon-colored horses straight at Ashvatthama, and they seemed to eat the sky. Ashvatthama saw Krishna and Arjuna coming and redoubled the effort to finish Dhrishtadyumna in the seconds he had left. Arjuna saw Dhrishtadyumna being dragged and let fly from Gandiva, and the gold-winged arrows went into Drona’s son like snakes into an anthill. He let go. He climbed back onto his chariot, took up his bow and began to shoot at Arjuna instead, and in that gap Sahadeva drove in and carried Dhrishtadyumna away on his own car. Arjuna and Ashvatthama exchanged wounds, Ashvatthama striking him in the arms and chest, until Arjuna sent one long shaft, a second staff of Death or Death itself, that hit the Brahmana hero in the shoulder and dropped him onto the floor of his chariot in a swoon. Karna, watching, shook Vijaya and eyed Arjuna again and again, wanting single combat. Ashvatthama’s driver, seeing his master senseless, whipped the chariot out of the fight. The Panchalas, seeing Dhrishtadyumna saved and Drona’s son carried off, roared for the victory they now expected; thousands of instruments sounded; the fighters answered with lions’ shouts. And Arjuna, having done that, said to Krishna: now drive to the samsaptakas. It is what I most want. Krishna turned the banner-crowded chariot, which ran with the speed of wind or thought, and went.

A key to reading this (why Dhrishtadyumna does not die): Dhrishtadyumna was born out of Drupada’s sacrificial fire for the single purpose of killing Drona, and the text says plainly that he remembered, facing Ashvatthama, that weapons could not kill him. That is why Ashvatthama, having stripped him of chariot, horses, bow, sword and shield, still cannot finish him and finally throws down his bow to use his hands. In the Sauptika Parva, on the night after the war, Ashvatthama will kill the sleeping Dhrishtadyumna exactly that way, without a weapon. “Killer of a Brahmana” refers to Drona’s beheading in the Drona Parva, when he had laid his weapons down. “Prishata’s grandson” is Dhrishtadyumna (Prishata was Drupada’s father), as “Radha’s son” is Karna. A cochineal is the scarlet insect from which red dye is made; Ganguli keeps the epic’s image of arrows standing in a wound like those insects on a leaf.

The gist: Arjuna cannot find Yudhishthira’s standard and asks Krishna to drive to the king. On the way Krishna makes him look at the seventeenth day: gilded weapons and severed limbs strewn like an altar of dead fires, and the wounded dying with water in their mouths. The armies close again; Karna alone stops Dhrishtadyumna and Satyaki; Ashvatthama strips Dhrishtadyumna of everything and, unable to kill him with arrows, drags him by hand, until Arjuna’s shafts make him let go and a second arrow drops him senseless. Sahadeva carries Dhrishtadyumna off, the Panchalas roar, and Arjuna turns back toward the samsaptakas.

“I think the king has fallen”: Krishna’s fear, Karna’s white umbrella, and then the good news that Yudhishthira lives

Krishna had not finished with the field. Pointing past the horses’ heads, he showed Arjuna his brother. There, son of Pandu, your brother is being hunted by a pack of mighty Dhartarashtra bowmen, and every one of them wants him dead. The Panchalas, hard to beat, are chasing after him to save him. And there is Duryodhana, king of the whole world, armored and with a great chariot force, pursuing the Pandava king; his brothers are with him, men whose weapons touch like venomous snakes and who know every mode of war, and the elephants and horses and chariots and infantry of the Dhartarashtras are closing on Yudhishthira the way poor men close on a jewel. Look: Satyaki and Bhima have checked them, and they have gone stupid again, like the Daityas frozen by Shakra and Agni when they tried to steal the amrita. But there are so many of them that they are pouring back toward Yudhishthira like rain-swollen rivers running to the sea, roaring, blowing conchs, shaking their bows. Then Krishna said the thing that no one on the chariot wanted said. I regard Kunti’s son Yudhishthira, caught this way in Duryodhana’s power, as already in the jaws of Death, already poured as an offering into the fire. Dhritarashtra’s army is properly arrayed and properly equipped, and Shakra himself could scarcely get out of the range of its arrows. Who will stand the charge of Duryodhana, who shoots so fast and who, angry, is the Destroyer? Duryodhana’s arrows, or Drona’s son’s, or Kripa’s, or Karna’s, would break mountains. Karna once made Yudhishthira turn his back and leave the field. Radha’s son is strong, quick-handed, skilled, practiced in war, and more than able to hurt Pandu’s eldest, above all with Dhritarashtra’s brave son beside him. When Yudhishthira was fighting all of them, other great chariot-warriors were hitting him too, and helped to defeat him. And the king, Bharata, is wasted by his fasts. He has the force of Brahma in him; he does not have much of a Kshatriya’s might. Attacked by Karna, he has been put in mortal danger. Partha, I think the king has fallen.

He gave his evidence. Bhima, who is wrath itself, is listening calmly to the lions’ roars of the Dhartarashtras shouting for victory and blowing their conchs; from that I think Pandu’s son Yudhishthira is dead. There is Karna driving the Dhartarashtra chariot-warriors on toward Pritha’s son with the weapons called Sthunakarna, Indrajala and Pashupata, and with clubs and the rest. The king must be badly hurt and very weak, because the Panchalas and the Pandavas, the finest weapon-bearers alive, are racing toward him at the moment when speed is everything, like strong swimmers going after a man sinking in a bottomless sea. And the king’s standard is no longer to be seen. Karna has probably shot it down. Then the view widened to the whole collapse, and he named the witnesses: in full sight of the twins, of Satyaki and Shikhandi, of Dhrishtadyumna and Bhima and Shatanika, of all the Panchalas and the Chedis, Karna was breaking the Pandava division with his arrows like an elephant wading through lotuses. Your chariot-warriors are running, son of Pandu. See how those great fighters retreat. The elephants Karna has hit are stampeding in every direction, screaming. The chariot crowds he has routed are flying. Look at the Suta’s son’s standard, the one with the elephant’s rope on it, moving all over the field. There he goes at Bhimasena, scattering arrows by the hundred and slaughtering your army as he comes. The Panchala chariot-warriors are being driven the way Shakra drove the Daityas. He has beaten the Panchalas, the Pandus and the Srinjayas, and now he is looking around in every direction, and I think he is looking for you.

What Krishna did next was to make Karna beautiful. Look at him drawing that first of bows, he said; he looks like Shakra among the gods after a victory. The Kauravas are roaring at his prowess and frightening our people on every side. There is Karna himself, terrifying the Pandus with his whole soul, calling to the troops: blessed be you, advance, Kauravas, and go so fast that no Srinjaya leaves this field alive; do it together, all of you; we will come on behind. And there he comes behind them, scattering arrows. Look at him under his white umbrella, like the Udaya hill with the moon on top of it. A hundred ribs in that umbrella, full as the moon, held over his head, and under it, prince, he is casting his eyes after you. He will come this way at speed, no doubt of it. Watch him shake that terrible bow and shoot those snakes. There, he has seen your ape banner, and he is turning toward it, because what he wants is you, and he comes for his own destruction, like a moth into the mouth of a lamp. He is wrathful and brave and always working for Dhritarashtra’s son, and in his wicked understanding he has never been able to bear you. And look at Duryodhana, seeing Karna alone and unsupported, wheeling with his chariot force to guard him. Kill that wicked-souled man, Krishna said, and all his allies with him; put out your strength; win fame and the kingdom and happiness. You are both strong, both famous. When you two meet in battle, like a god and a Danava in the great war of gods and asuras, let all the Kauravas see what you are. With you enraged and Karna in fury, Duryodhana in all his anger will be able to do nothing. Remember that your soul is pure, and remember that Radha’s son hates the virtuous Yudhishthira, and do now, son of Kunti, what has to be done. Set your heart on this battle with righteousness and go at that leader of chariot-warriors. Five hundred of the best chariot-fighters, five thousand elephants, twice as many horses and foot-soldiers past counting are advancing on you together, guarding one another. Show yourself of your own will to that great bowman, the Suta’s son. Go at him, bull of Bharata’s race, and go fast. There he is, charging the Panchalas in a rage; I can see his standard nearing Dhrishtadyumna’s chariot, and I think he means to wipe the Panchalas out.

And then, in the same breath, the news turned. I will tell you something good, Partha, Krishna said. King Yudhishthira the just is alive. There is mighty-armed Bhima, come back, standing at the head of the army with the Srinjayas and Satyaki. There the Kauravas are being cut down with sharp arrows by Bhimasena and the high-souled Panchalas. Dhritarashtra’s son’s troops are running from the field with their faces turned away and blood streaming from their wounds, driven by Bhima’s shafts. The Bharata army, bathed in blood, looks as cheerless as the earth stripped of its crops. Look at Bhimasena, son of Kunti, the foremost of fighters, angry as a venomous snake and routing the host. Yellow and red and black and white banners with stars and moons and suns on them, and umbrellas, lie scattered everywhere; standards of gold and silver and brass and other metals; elephants and horses too. Chariot-warriors are falling from their cars, killed by the unreturning Panchalas with arrows of every kind. The fast Panchalas are charging the riderless Dhartarashtra elephants and horses and cars. Reckless of their lives, backed by Bhimasena’s strength, they are crushing the enemy, roaring and blowing conchs as they go. Look at their energy. By sheer valor they are killing the Dhartarashtras the way angry lions kill elephants. Unarmed, they are snatching weapons out of armed men’s hands and killing the owners with them, and shouting. Heads and arms are being struck off and falling on the field. The Panchala chariots and elephants and horses deserve the highest praise. Like fast swans leaving Lake Manasa for the Ganga, the Panchalas are going at the Kauravas, and every part of the vast Dhartarashtra force is under attack. Kripa and Karna and the other leaders are resisting them like bulls against bulls, with everything they have. The Panchala heroes under Dhrishtadyumna are killing the Dhartarashtra chariot-warriors by the thousand, men already sinking in the ocean of Bhima’s weapons. And when the Panchalas are hard-pressed, the fearless son of the Wind goes at the enemy himself, shooting and roaring, and the greater part of the Dhartarashtra host has gone badly afraid.

The last thing Krishna showed him was Bhima at work. Look at the elephants Bhima has pierced with his cloth-yard shafts, falling like mountain peaks split by Indra’s thunderbolt; look at the huge ones, deeply hit, running and crushing their own ranks. Do you not know your brother’s roar, Arjuna, the unbearable lion’s shout of Bhimasena wanting victory? There is the prince of the Nishadas coming at him on the best of elephants with lances in both hands, in a rage, like the Destroyer with his bludgeon. Ten sharp shafts from Bhima, bright as fire or the sun, and both of the roaring prince’s arms are off with the lances still in them. He kills the prince and goes on to the next elephants, blue as rain clouds, ridden by men who know how to ride; look at those riders throwing darts and lances at Vrikodara in profusion. He is killing those elephants seven at a time with his keen arrows, and cutting down their victory standards, Partha, and every one of the rest he is taking with ten shafts each. Since Bhima went into the battle, Bhima who is Purandara’s equal, the Dhartarashtras’ shouting has stopped. Three full akshauhinis of Duryodhana’s soldiers had been massed in front of him, and that lion among men, in his wrath, has checked them all. Sanjaya, telling it, let his own voice come through: behold that feat of Bhimasena’s, hard to accomplish. Arjuna, meanwhile, finished the remnant of his enemies with sharp arrows; the mighty samsaptakas, slaughtered and routed, ran in every direction in terror, and many of those who fell became Shakra’s guests and came to great happiness; and Partha, tiger among men, went on with his straight shafts through the four kinds of Dhartarashtra force. It was too much for the blind king, who wanted to know what his own side had done. When Bhima and Pandu’s son Yudhishthira were engaged, Dhritarashtra asked, when my troops were being slaughtered by the Pandus and the Srinjayas, when my vast army, broken and routed again and again, lost heart, tell me, Sanjaya: what did the Kauravas do?

A key to reading this (a report that changes as it is spoken): The whole scene is Krishna talking from a moving chariot, which is why it contradicts itself: he reasons his way to “the king has fallen” from a missing standard and Bhima’s silence, and then, minutes later, reports that Yudhishthira is alive and Bhima is back at the head of the army. The epic does not smooth this; the uncertainty is what drives the next scenes, in which Arjuna will find his brother wounded in camp. Karna’s standard carries the device of an elephant’s rope; Arjuna’s carries the ape. Sthunakarna, Indrajala and Pashupata are named here only as weapons Karna uses to drive his men forward; the text lists them and moves on. Shatanika is Nakula’s son, one of Draupadi’s five. The Nishada prince is the only enemy named in Bhima’s exploit, and the text gives him no other name.

The gist: Krishna shows Arjuna the hunt for Yudhishthira, the fallen standard, the fasting king’s weakness, and says outright that he thinks the king is dead. He then paints Karna under his white umbrella, turning toward the ape banner, and urges Arjuna to meet him. In the next breath comes the good news: Yudhishthira lives, Bhima has returned and is holding three akshauhinis alone, the Nishada prince has lost both arms to him, and the Panchalas are crushing the Kaurava host. Dhritarashtra, hearing it, asks what his own people did.

Karna turns a fleeing army around: the day breaks into pairs, and Bhima alone in a herd of elephants

The army was running. That was the first thing Karna saw when he came around with his eyes red, looking for Bhima, and it was the thing he dealt with first, because a commander who charges while his line dissolves behind him is a man charging alone. Sanjaya told the blind king exactly how it went. The Kaurava host was streaming away from Bhimasena, and Karna, with great effort, rallied it, turned it, held it, and then led it back at the Pandavas, those men who are so hard to defeat in battle. The Pandava chariot-warriors came forward to meet him, shaking their bows, shooting as they came: Bhimasena, Satyaki the grandson of Shini, Shikhandi, Janamejaya, Dhrishtadyumna of the great strength, all the Prabhadrakas, and the Panchalas, tigers among men, every one of them in a rage and hungry for the win. The Kaurava chariot-warriors moved against them with the same appetite. Chariots, elephants, horses, foot soldiers, standards: the two hosts, Sanjaya said, took on a wonderful aspect, which is what a man says when he has watched something terrible and been unable to look away.

Then the field sorted itself into pairs, the way a battle does when both sides have decided to stop maneuvering and start killing. Shikhandi went for Karna. Dhrishtadyumna, with a large force behind him, went for Duhshasana. Nakula took Vrishasena, Yudhishthira took Chitrasena, Sahadeva took Uluka. Satyaki went for Shakuni, and Draupadi’s five sons for the rest of the Kauravas. Ashvatthama, with great care, moved against Arjuna. Kripa, Sharadvat’s son, against the great bowman Yudhamanyu; Kritavarma of the great strength against Uttamauja. And Bhimasena, the mighty-armed, alone and unsupported, held back all the Kurus and all of Dhritarashtra’s sons at the head of their division. The first pair to close was the one everybody was watching. Shikhandi, the man who had brought Bhishma down, checked Karna with his winged arrows and ranged across the field without fear. Held in place, Karna’s lips trembled with rage, and he put three arrows into Shikhandi between the eyebrows. With those three shafts standing in his forehead Shikhandi looked, Sanjaya said, like a silver mountain with three raised crests. Deeply pierced, the great bowman answered with ninety keen shafts. Karna killed his horses, killed his driver with three arrows, and cut down his standard with a razor-headed shaft. Shikhandi jumped from the horseless chariot and hurled a dart. Karna cut the dart in three pieces in the air and put nine more arrows into him, and Shikhandi, badly mangled, dodging the shafts that kept coming from Karna’s bow, withdrew fast from that place. Then Karna began to scatter the Pandava troops the way a strong wind scatters a heap of cotton.

Elsewhere the pairs were finding out about each other. Dhrishtadyumna, pressed by Duhshasana, put three arrows into the center of Duhshasana’s chest; Duhshasana drove a gold-winged broad-headed shaft through his left arm. Dhrishtadyumna, in pain and wanting it back, sped a terrible arrow at him, and Duhshasana cut that arrow apart with three of his own as it came, closed the distance, and struck him in the arms and chest with seventeen more gold-adorned broad-headed shafts. Prishata’s son, furious now, sheared Duhshasana’s bow with a razor-headed arrow, and the whole field shouted at it. Duhshasana took another bow and, as if smiling, boxed Dhrishtadyumna in with arrows from every side. The fighters, the Siddhas, the Apsaras: all of them wondered at what Dhritarashtra’s son was doing, because what they were watching was the commander of the entire Pandava army, a man who looked like a huge elephant, being held in check by a lion. Panchala chariots and elephants and horsemen came in from every direction to get their commander out, and the fight that opened around Duhshasana looked like the destruction of all creatures at the end of the age. Vrishasena, standing beside his father, put five iron arrows into Nakula, then three more; Nakula, as if smiling, sank a keen cloth-yard shaft deep in his chest; Vrishasena answered with twenty and took five, and the two of them buried each other in thousands of arrows until the divisions supporting them broke. When Karna saw Dhritarashtra’s troops running he went after them to stop them by force, and with Karna gone Nakula advanced on the Kauravas, and Karna’s son slipped away from Nakula and hurried to where his father was, to guard his chariot wheel. Sahadeva held the angry Uluka, killed his four horses, sent his driver to Yama’s house, and Uluka, his father’s delight, jumped down and ran into the Trigarta division. Satyaki put twenty arrows into Shakuni and cut down his standard almost carelessly with a broad-headed shaft; Shakuni, enraged, pierced Satyaki’s armor and cut down his golden standard; Satyaki pierced him with many keen arrows, hit his driver with three, and with the next shafts sent Shakuni’s horses to Yama. Shakuni came down from his chariot fast and climbed onto Uluka’s, and the son carried his father away at speed from the grandson of Shini. Then Satyaki drove into the Kaurava army with such force that it broke, and Dhritarashtra’s men, shrouded in his arrows, fled on every side and fell down dead.

That left Bhima, and everyone came for Bhima. Duryodhana tried to hold him first, and in the space of a breath Bhima stripped him of horses, driver, chariot and standard, the Pandava troops roaring at it, and Duryodhana left Bhima’s presence. Then the entire Kuru army rushed at Bhimasena, and the noise of men who wanted one man dead was tremendous. Around the edges the other pairs finished their business. Yudhamanyu cut Kripa’s bow; Kripa, foremost of all weapon-wielders, took another and dropped Yudhamanyu’s standard, driver and umbrella on the earth, and Yudhamanyu drew off driving his own chariot. Uttamauja poured arrows on the terrible son of Hridika the way a cloud pours rain on a mountain, and Sanjaya, who had seen everything, said he had never seen a fight like that one; then Kritavarma suddenly pierced Uttamauja in the chest, Uttamauja sat down on the terrace of his chariot, and his driver carried him off. Now Duhshasana and Shakuni closed a great elephant force around Bhima and began to work him with small arrows. Bhima drove the furious Duryodhana off the field with hundreds of shafts and then turned to the elephants. Watching that force come down on him he filled with rage and called up his celestial weapons, and he began to kill elephants with elephants, the way Indra killed the Asuras, and while he did it he covered the sky with arrows like myriads of insects covering a fire. As the wind scatters banks of cloud, Bhima scattered and destroyed elephants massed in thousands. They were beautiful, those elephants, netted in gold and studded with gems, like clouds with lightning inside them, and they were dying. Some fled; some, pierced through the heart, went down where they stood, and the earth with its fallen gold-clad elephants looked strewn with broken mountains, and with its fallen riders, blazing with gems, looked strewn with planets whose merit had run out. Hundreds of them, pierced through the temples and the frontal globes and the trunks, ran from Bhimasena’s arrows; some, big as hills, vomited blood as they ran, their limbs torn by shafts, like mountains with molten metal running down their sides. And people saw Bhima’s two arms, smeared with sandal paste and other ground unguents, like two great serpents, drawing the bow without pause. The sound of his bowstring and his palms was thunder, and the elephants, hearing it, voided themselves in terror and ran. What one man of great intelligence did there, alone, shone like the work of Rudra himself when he sets about destroying all creatures.

A key to reading this (who is paired with whom): Vrishasena is Karna’s son, which is why he breaks off from Nakula to guard his father’s chariot wheel. Uluka is Shakuni’s son, and the rescue on his chariot is a son saving a father. Yudhamanyu and Uttamauja are the two Panchala brothers who guard Arjuna’s chariot wheels, which is why Kripa and Kritavarma are sent at them. Kripa is Sharadvat’s son and Kritavarma is Hridika’s son. Sanjaya’s “elder brother of Pandu” is Dhritarashtra, the man he is telling all this to.

The gist: Karna turns the fleeing Kaurava army around and the afternoon breaks into duels: Shikhandi is driven off by Karna, Dhrishtadyumna is boxed in by Duhshasana, Nakula and Vrishasena trade arrows, Sahadeva unhorses Uluka, Satyaki unhorses Shakuni and breaks the line. Duryodhana loses his chariot to Bhima and retreats, and Bhima, alone against an entire elephant force, scatters it like Rudra at the end of the world.

Three arrows in Yudhishthira’s chest: the king’s crown knocked off, Shalya’s rebuke, and a retreat to camp in shame

Arjuna arrived the way weather arrives. His chariot came onto the field with its white horses and Narayana himself at the reins, and like a tempest churning the ocean, Sanjaya said, Vijaya churned Dhritarashtra’s host with all its horsemen. But a storm is only in one place at a time, and Duryodhana understood that. While the white-horsed Arjuna was engaged elsewhere, Duryodhana, in a rage, with half his troops around him, came at Yudhishthira suddenly and surrounded him as he advanced, and the king of the Pandavas, who had come looking for revenge, found himself inside a ring. The Kuru king put seventy-three razor-headed arrows into him. Yudhishthira, Kunti’s son, flared with anger and struck back with thirty broad-headed shafts, and then the Kaurava troops surged forward with a purpose that everyone on the field could read: they meant to take the king alive. The great chariot-warriors of the Pandava army saw the intention and came together to get him out. Nakula and Sahadeva and Dhrishtadyumna, Prishata’s son, moved toward Yudhishthira with a full akshauhini; Bhimasena, crushing Kaurava chariot-warriors as he came, made for the king in the middle of his enemies. And one man stopped all of them. Karna, called Vaikartana, shooting dense showers of arrows, single-handed, checked every one of those great bowmen as they came. They shot back in sheets, they hurled lances beyond counting, they fought with determination, and they could not so much as look at Radha’s son. He was master of every weapon, the ones that attack and the ones that defend, and with sheer density of arrows he held the rescue where it stood.

Sahadeva got through anyway. The high-souled twin reached the place where Duryodhana was, called up a celestial weapon without wasting a moment, and put twenty arrows into the Kuru king, who stood there covered in blood and looked, Sanjaya said, beautiful, like a great elephant with its temples split. Karna saw Duryodhana pierced by those blazing shafts and the sight sent him in that direction in a fury, and then, seeing the state Duryodhana was in, he invoked his weapons and began to slaughter the troops of Yudhishthira and of Prishata’s son. They fled quickly. What came from Karna’s bow then was one continuous thing: arrows shot later touching, with their heads, the feathers of arrows shot before, showers colliding in the air until the sky seemed to have caught fire. He covered the ten directions with shafts that could go through a body, like advancing flights of locusts, and as he displayed his highest weapons he swung his two arms, smeared with red sandal paste, bright with jewels and gold, with tremendous force. He stupefied every quarter of the field, and he hurt Yudhishthira the just badly. The king, in a rage, struck him with fifty keen shafts, and in the darkness the arrows made the battle became dreadful to look at. Yudhishthira was killing Kauravas with Kanka-feathered shafts whetted on stone, with broad-headed arrows, with darts and swords and clubs, and wherever that righteous man cast his eyes with the intention of harm, the Kaurava army broke there. Karna, of immeasurable soul, his face flushed, wanting it back, came at Yudhishthira with cloth-yard shafts and crescent-headed arrows and arrows headed like a calf’s tooth. Yudhishthira pierced him with many gold-winged shafts. And Karna, as if smiling, put three broad-headed arrows, stone-whetted, Kanka-feathered, into the chest of Pandu’s royal son. Deeply hurt, Yudhishthira the just sat down on the terrace of his chariot and told his driver to retreat. Every Dhartarashtra on the field, the king with them, sent up one shout: seize him, seize him. They chased the Pandava king. Seventeen hundred Kekaya troops skilled in striking, joined by a body of Panchalas, threw themselves across the pursuit and held it, and inside that fierce and terrible fight Duryodhana and Bhima, the two strongest men on the field, met each other.

Karna did not let go of the king. He was working on the Kaikeya chariot-warriors who stood in front of him, the great bowmen who had been posted to check him, and he sent five hundred of them to Yama’s house; the survivors, seeing that Radha’s son could not be resisted, went to Bhimasena. Karna broke that chariot force into pieces with his arrows and then, alone, on that same chariot, went after Yudhishthira, who was moving slowly toward the Pandava camp, mangled by arrows and nearly senseless, with Nakula and Sahadeva at his two sides. He caught up. To do Duryodhana good, he put three formidable arrows into Pandu’s son. The king answered with an arrow to the center of Karna’s chest and three to his driver. The twins, the two guardians of Yudhishthira’s chariot wheels, rushed at Karna so that he could not kill the king, and covered him carefully with showers of shafts, and Karna, in return, pierced both of those high-souled men with two broad-headed arrows of great sharpness. Then he killed Yudhishthira’s horses, the excellent white ones, ivory-colored and swift as thought, with black hair in their tails. And smiling, that great bowman, with one more broad-headed shaft, knocked the headgear from Kunti’s son. He killed Nakula’s horses the same way and cut the shafts and the bow of that intelligent son of Madri, and the two brothers, horseless and chariotless, climbed onto Sahadeva’s chariot.

It was their uncle who spoke. Shalya, the ruler of the Madras, brother of the Madri whose sons had just been stripped of their chariots, was moved by compassion at the sight, and he said to Radha’s son: you are to fight Pritha’s son Phalguna today. Why, with your rage stoked to this pitch, are you battling Dharma’s royal son? You are using up your weapons. Your armor is coming loose. When you go to Partha with your arrows reduced and your quivers empty, your driver and horses exhausted and your body torn by enemy weapons, son of Radha, you will be an object of derision and mirth. Karna heard him and went on attacking Yudhishthira anyway, in a rage, and went on piercing Madri’s two sons with keen arrows, and, smiling, with his shafts he made Yudhishthira turn his face from the battle. Shalya laughed and spoke again, to a man standing on his chariot in a fury with Yudhishthira’s death fixed in his mind. Kill the Partha for whose sake Dhritarashtra’s son honors you, son of Radha. What do you gain by killing Yudhishthira? The two Krishnas are blowing their conchs; you can hear them. You can hear Arjuna’s bow, like the clouds in the rainy season. He is over there cutting down the best of our chariot-warriors under his showers of arrows and devouring our whole army. Look at him, Karna. Yudhamanyu and Uttamauja guard his rear; the brave Satyaki has his left wheel and Dhrishtadyumna his right. And there is Bhimasena, fighting Dhritarashtra’s royal son. Act so that Bhima does not kill the king today in front of all of us, so that the king gets away from him. Look: Duryodhana is in the power of Bhimasena, that ornament of battle. If you can get there and rescue him it will be a very wonderful feat. Go there, rescue the king, a great peril has come over him. What do you gain by killing Madri’s sons or king Yudhishthira? Karna heard that, and looked, and saw Duryodhana under Bhima in that dreadful fight, and the words did what the plea for mercy had not done. Wanting badly to save the king, he left Ajatashatru and the twins and drove for Dhritarashtra’s son, carried by horses swift as birds with the ruler of the Madras at the reins.

With Karna gone, Yudhishthira withdrew on Sahadeva’s fast horses. He went to the Pandava camp quickly, the twins with him, in shame, his body torn by arrows, got down from the chariot and sat down at once on a fine bed. They drew the arrows out of him. And the royal son of Pandu, with a worse pain than the arrows lodged in his heart, said to the two great chariot-warriors who were his brothers: go quickly to Bhimasena’s division. Vrikodara is fighting, roaring like a cloud. Nakula, that bull among chariot-warriors, and Sahadeva of great energy took another chariot and went to Bhima behind horses of the utmost speed, and reached his division, and took up their places there. The king they left behind them was sitting on a bed with his crown gone, and the rest of this chapter is what he said when his brother finally came to see him.

A key to reading this (why this wound matters): Karna could have killed Yudhishthira here and did not; he killed his horses, knocked off his headgear, and smiled while he made the king turn away. That humiliation is what Yudhishthira will be nursing on his bed when Arjuna walks in, and it is the pressure behind the bitter words about Gandiva that follow. Shalya is king of the Madras and the brother of Madri, mother of Nakula and Sahadeva, so the compassion he feels is for his nephews; he is driving Karna’s chariot under protest, and this is the afternoon of his rebukes. “The two Krishnas” are Krishna and Arjuna. Ajatashatru, “he whose enemy is not born,” is a name of Yudhishthira.

The gist: With Arjuna busy elsewhere, Duryodhana surrounds Yudhishthira and Karna alone holds off the rescue. Sahadeva wounds Duryodhana; Karna answers by putting three arrows into Yudhishthira’s chest, and the king sits down and orders a retreat. Karna hunts him down, kills his horses and knocks off his crown. Shalya rebukes him twice, first for wasting his weapons on the wrong man, then for leaving Duryodhana in Bhima’s hands, and the second rebuke works. Yudhishthira reaches camp in shame and sends the twins back to Bhima.

The teacher’s son: Ashvatthama’s defeat, Karna’s Bhargava weapon, and Krishna’s decision to see the king first

Ashvatthama came at Arjuna with a large chariot force and no warning at all. He was Drona’s son, raised in the same weapons school as the man he was charging, and he came the way the ocean comes at a shore, and the shore, Sanjaya said, held: Partha, with Krishna beside him, stood against the rush. Then the son of Drona, in a fury, covered both Arjuna and Vasudeva with arrows, and the sight of the two Krishnas shrouded in shafts astonished the Pandava chariot-warriors and the Kurus watching alike. Arjuna, as if smiling, called up a celestial weapon. Ashvatthama, the Brahmana, baffled it. Every weapon Arjuna loosed with the intention of killing Drona’s son, that great bowman baffled, one after another, and in that dreadful contest of weapons the watchers saw Ashvatthama as the Destroyer himself with his mouth open. He covered all the points of the compass, the cardinal ones and the ones between, with straight arrows, and he put three of them into Vasudeva’s right arm. That was the moment Arjuna stopped smiling. He killed every horse of his high-souled opponent and turned that stretch of ground into a river of blood, a dreadful one, flowing toward the other world with all manner of creatures floating on it. Everyone could see the chariot-warriors of Ashvatthama’s division lying dead with their chariots, cut down by shafts from Partha’s bow. Ashvatthama, killing his own enemies, made a second terrible river there that ran to Yama’s domain. In the fight between Drona’s son and Partha the ordinary soldiers stopped paying attention to one another and ran in every direction, and the carnage Partha made, chariots whose horses and drivers were dead, horses whose riders were dead, elephants whose riders and guides were dead, was awful. Chariot-warriors fell lifeless under his arrows. Horses freed from their harness ran wherever they liked.

Drona’s son watched Partha do all that, that ornament of battle, and came in closer. He shook his formidable gold-decked bow and pierced Arjuna from every side with many sharp arrows, and then, drawing again, aiming at the chest, he struck him cruelly with a winged shaft. Deeply pierced, the wielder of Gandiva, that hero of great intelligence, buried Drona’s son in showers of arrows and cut his bow. Ashvatthama, his bow gone, picked up a spiked mace whose touch was like a thunderbolt’s and hurled it at the diadem-decked Arjuna, and the son of Pandu, as if smiling, cut that gold-decked mace apart in the air as it came, and it fell to the earth like a mountain broken by lightning. Now Drona’s son was truly angry, and he reached for the Aindra weapon and began to cover Vibhatsu with its energy. Partha saw the arrow shower spreading across the sky, took up Gandiva, fixed on the string a mighty weapon made by Indra, and destroyed that Aindra shower, and having baffled it he covered Ashvatthama’s chariot with arrows of his own. Ashvatthama, overwhelmed, drove through that shower anyway, reached Arjuna, invoked a mighty weapon and suddenly put a hundred shafts into Krishna and three hundred small arrows into Arjuna. Arjuna answered his teacher’s son with a hundred arrows in every vital limb, and then, in full view of the Kaurava warriors, poured arrows on his horses, his driver, and his bowstring, and with a broad-headed shaft knocked his driver out of the chariot niche. What Ashvatthama did then was the thing the whole field remembered. He took up the reins himself and kept covering Krishna with arrows, guiding his horses with one hand while he fought Phalguna with the other, and all the warriors, on both sides, applauded that feat. Vibhatsu, also called Jaya, smiling, cut the traces of Ashvatthama’s horses with a razor-headed arrow, and the horses, already suffering under the energy of Arjuna’s shafts, ran away with the chariot, and a loud noise went up from the Kaurava troops. That was the end of the duel. Sanjaya’s summary of it was flat: Kunti’s son had fought the son of his teacher Drona and defeated a hero whom the wielder of the thunderbolt himself could not have withstood.

The Pandavas, having the victory, wanted more of it. They came at the Kaurava troops shooting from every side, and the vast Dhartarashtra host broke, again and again, in the sight of Dhritarashtra’s sons, who knew every mode of warfare, and of Shakuni, and of Karna. The sons tried to stop it and could not. Confusion set in; men fled in every direction; Karna shouted stay, stay, and the army, slaughtered by so many high-souled warriors, did not stay. The Pandavas shouted for joy watching it run. Then Duryodhana spoke to Karna, and Sanjaya notes that he spoke from affection, which is worth remembering about those two. Look, Karna, he said, how our army, so terribly afflicted by the Pandavas, is running from the battle although you are here. Knowing this, mighty-armed one, do what suits the hour, chastiser of foes. Thousands of our warriors, routed by the Pandavas, are calling for you, hero, for you alone, best of men. Karna heard those grave words and answered, as if smiling, and he answered Shalya, the man at his reins, as if the words had been meant for him. Look at the prowess of my arms and the energy of my weapons, ruler of men. Today I will kill all the Panchalas and all the Pandavas in this battle. Drive the horses forward with my chariot, tiger among men. Without doubt, everything will be as I have said. He took up his ancient bow, the foremost of bows, called Vijaya, strung it, and rubbed the string again and again. He made the troops stay on the field, assuring them on his truth and with an oath. And then Karna of immeasurable soul fixed on his bowstring the weapon known by the name of Bhargava.

From that weapon, Sanjaya said, flowed millions and millions of keen arrows. The Pandava army, shrouded in blazing, terrible shafts feathered with Kanka and peacock plumes, could see nothing. The Panchalas wailed under it. Elephants and horses by the thousands, chariots, men, fell on every side deprived of life, and the earth began to tremble, and the vast Pandava force shook from one end to the other. Karna in the middle of it, consuming his enemies, was resplendent like a fire without smoke. The Panchalas and the Chedis lost their senses across the field like elephants in a forest fire; those foremost of men roared like tigers, and the cries of the terrified, running wildly in every direction, were the cries of living creatures at the universal dissolution. Even the beasts and the birds were afraid. And the Srinjayas, being slaughtered by the Suta’s son, called out again and again for Arjuna and Vasudeva, the way the spirits of the dead in Yama’s dominion call on Yama to rescue them. Arjuna heard them. He heard the wails of the troops dying under Karna’s shafts and he saw the terrible Bhargava weapon in full existence, and he said to Vasudeva: look, mighty-armed Krishna, at the prowess of the Bhargava weapon. It cannot be baffled by any means. And look at the Suta’s son, filled with rage in this great battle, like the Destroyer himself in prowess, doing this fierce thing. He is urging his horses without pause and he keeps throwing angry looks at me. I will never be able to run from Karna in battle. A man who is alive may meet with victory or defeat; for a man who is dead, Hrishikesha, even death is victory. How can the dead be defeated?

Krishna’s answer was the answer of a man who had already decided where the chariot was going. Kunti’s royal son has been deeply wounded and mangled by Karna. See him first and comfort him, Partha, and then kill Karna. Sanjaya adds the calculation underneath the compassion: Keshava went to see Yudhishthira thinking that Karna, in the meantime, would wear himself out. Dhananjaya, who wanted to see his wounded brother anyway, drove off at Keshava’s word, avoiding the fight. And as Kunti’s son went looking for Yudhishthira the just he cast his eyes over every part of the army and could not find his eldest brother anywhere on the field, and that absence, on a field where the king should have been, was the first thing he understood before anyone told him anything. He had just beaten the man Indra could not have beaten. He was about to walk into a tent and be told he was a coward.

A key to reading this (the weapons): The Aindra weapon is Indra’s; both men reach for weapons of Indra here, and Arjuna, who is Indra’s own son, breaks Ashvatthama’s shower with one. Vijaya is Karna’s ancient bow, and the Bhargava weapon is the one he received from Parashurama of the Bhrigu line, the same teacher whose curse hangs over Karna and comes due in the next chapter. Arjuna’s line that for the dead even death is victory is the Kshatriya’s formula against flight, and it is what he means when he says he cannot run from Karna. Vibhatsu, Jaya, Phalguna, Dhananjaya and Partha are all Arjuna; Vaikartana and Radha’s son are Karna.

The gist: Ashvatthama attacks Arjuna and Krishna, baffles every one of Arjuna’s weapons, drives his own chariot after his driver is shot from it, and is finally sent off the field when Arjuna cuts his horses’ traces. The Kaurava army runs; at Duryodhana’s appeal Karna strings Vijaya, swears the troops back into place, and unleashes the Bhargava weapon on the Panchalas and Srinjayas. Arjuna wants to go straight at Karna. Krishna turns the chariot toward the wounded king instead, and Arjuna cannot find his brother anywhere on the field.

“Where is the king?”: Arjuna and Krishna ride to the camp, and Yudhishthira’s joy, which rests on a mistake

Ashvatthama was beaten and gone, and for a moment Arjuna stood on his chariot with the bow still drawn and looked at his own side of the field. He did what a commander does after a hard passage: he called out to the divisions still fighting at their fronts, praised the men whose older deeds everyone knew, and settled the chariot-warriors back into their posts by the fact of his attention. Then he looked for the one face that should have been there and was not. Yudhishthira was nowhere among them. Arjuna, with the diadem on his head and the gold chain at his throat, drove fast to Bhima and asked him the only question that mattered. Tell me, where is the king? Bhima’s answer had no comfort in it. King Yudhishthira the just has gone from here, he said, his limbs scorched by Karna’s arrows. Whether he is still alive is in doubt. Arjuna’s mind ran to what he knew of his brother. Then go quickly, he told Bhima, and bring word of the king. There is no doubt he has gone to the camp, deeply pierced by Karna. In the fight with Drona he was wounded as badly and he stayed on the field anyway, hoping for victory, until Drona was dead. Today Karna has put the best of the Pandavas in great danger. Go and find out how he is, Bhima. I will hold all our enemies here. Bhima refused, and his reason was the reason Bhima always had. Go yourself, glorious one, and see how the bull of the Bharatas fares. If I go, the foremost heroes here will say that Bhima was frightened in battle. Arjuna pointed at the men in front of him. The samsaptakas are in front of my division, he said. I cannot move from this spot without first killing these assembled enemies. And Bhima, relying on his own strength as he relied on nothing else, took the whole problem onto himself. I will fight all the samsaptakas, foremost of Kurus. So go, Dhananjaya, yourself.

That was a hard thing for one man to promise in the middle of an enemy host, and Arjuna heard how hard it was, and wanted to see the king more than he wanted to argue. Urge the horses, Hrishikesha, he said to Krishna, out of this sea of troops. I want to see king Ajatashatru. Krishna had the reins in his hands and one more thing to say before he used them. This feat is nothing wonderful for you, Bhima, he called across. I am going now. Slay these assembled enemies of Partha. He posted Bhima at the head of the army with the order to fight the samsaptakas, and then the horses that ran like Garuda took the chariot away from the battle at a speed that left the noise behind. The two of them came to the place where the king lay alone on his bed. They got down from the chariot together and worshiped the feet of Yudhishthira the just. And when they saw him whole, that tiger among men safe and breathing, the two Krishnas were filled with a joy like the twin Ashvins seeing Indra, and the king welcomed them the way Vivasvat welcomed the Ashvins, or the way Brihaspati greeted Shankara and Vishnu after the great asura Jambha was killed. The comparison in Yudhishthira’s mind was exact and it was wrong. He saw the two of them come to him unhurt from the direction of Karna, and he concluded that Karna was dead. His voice, when it came, was thick with delight.

Welcome, son of Devaki, he said, and welcome, Dhananjaya. The sight of you both, Achyuta and Arjuna, is more than I can say. I see that without a wound on you, you two have killed the great chariot-warrior Karna. He was a snake of deadly poison in battle. He knew every weapon. He was the leader of the Dhartarashtras, their armor and their protector, guarded whenever he fought by Vrishasena and Sushena, both great bowmen. He learned his weapons from Rama. He was invincible. Celebrated through all the worlds as a chariot-warrior, he was the savior of the Dhartarashtras and the man who went in front of them, a killer of hostile armies, a crusher of great bands of enemies, forever working for Duryodhana’s good and forever ready to hurt us. The gods themselves with Vasava at their head could not have beaten him. In energy he was like fire and wind, in gravity as unfathomable as the underworld, joy to his friends and the Destroyer himself to his enemies. To have killed such a Karna in dreadful battle and come back like two gods who have beaten an asura, that is good fortune indeed. And then, still in the flood of relief, he told them what the morning had done to him. Today a great battle was fought between me, straining every nerve, and that hero who was like the Destroyer bent on ending all creatures. He cut down my standard. He killed both my flank drivers. He took my horses and my chariot from me in the sight of Yuyudhana, of Dhrishtadyumna, of the twins, of heroic Shikhandi, of Draupadi’s sons and all the Panchalas. Having beaten those countless enemies he beat me too, mighty-armed one, though I fought with all my resolve. He chased me, he defeated every one of my protectors, and then that foremost of warriors said many harsh things to me. That I am alive at all, Dhananjaya, is Bhimasena’s doing. What more is there to say? I cannot bear that humiliation.

What came next was thirteen years of a fear that a king had never been able to confess to anyone, and he confessed it now because he thought the cause of it was lying dead on the field. For thirteen years, Dhananjaya, out of fear of Karna I had no sleep at night and no ease by day. I burned with hatred of Karna. I ran from him today like the bird Vaddhrinasa, knowing the hour of my destruction had come. My whole time has passed in one thought, how Karna would die in battle. Awake or asleep, son of Kunti, I saw Karna. Wherever I was, the universe seemed full of Karna. Wherever I went, out of fear of him, I saw Karna standing before my eyes. And that hero who never retreats beat me with my horses and my chariot and let me go alive. What use is life to me, or kingdom, when Karna, the ornament of battle, cried fie on me today? What I never met at the hands of Bhishma or Kripa or Drona, I met today at the hands of the Suta’s son. That is why I ask you about your welfare, son of Kunti. Tell me in detail how you killed Karna today. In battle he was Shakra’s equal, in prowess Yama’s, in weapons Rama’s. How was he killed? Dhritarashtra and his son worshiped Radha’s son for your sake alone; in every engagement Duryodhana counted Karna as your death. How, tiger among men, did you kill him? How did you cut his head off in front of all his friends, the way a tiger tears the head off a ruru deer? And the questions went on and on, each one a wound that had waited years for this dressing. That Suta’s son who searched every point of the compass for you, who promised a chariot drawn by six bulls the size of elephants to whoever pointed you out, does that wicked Karna lie on the bare ground today, killed by your keen arrows fledged with kanka feathers? Have you really killed the man who bragged of his heroism and hunted you everywhere on the field? The man so dear to Suyodhana, who swaggered in the assembly of the Kurus, does he lie mangled by your sky-ranging shafts, steeped in blood? Are Dhritarashtra’s son’s two arms broken at last? Are those words made empty that he boasted among the kings, I will slay Phalguna? Son of Indra, is Karna dead, that man of little understanding who vowed he would not wash his feet while Partha lived? The Karna who said to Krishna before the Kuru chiefs, why do you not abandon these Pandavas, weak and fallen and stripped of might? The Karna who swore for your sake that he would not come back from battle without killing Krishna and Partha? You know what the battle was in which I was brought to this state. Have you met him and killed him? Savyasachi, have you cut the head with its shining earrings off that wicked Karna’s trunk with blazing arrows from Gandiva? When his arrows were in me today I thought of you; have you made that thought true? Suyodhana in his pride thought nothing of us because Karna protected him. Have you destroyed his refuge? The Suta’s son who called us sesame seeds without kernel before the assembled Kauravas, who laughed and ordered Duhshasana to drag in Yajnasena’s daughter, won at dice by Subala’s son, who was counted only half a chariot-warrior in the tale of rathas and atirathas and reviled our grandsire Bhishma for it, is he dead? Put out this fire in my heart, Phalguna, which was born of vengeance and is fanned by the wind of humiliation. Tell me you have killed Karna today. The news of his death is sweet to me beyond anything. Tell me how the Suta’s son died. Like Vishnu waiting for Indra to come with the news that Vritra was slain, I have been waiting for you, hero, all this while.

A key to reading this (the mistake): Yudhishthira left the field wounded and is lying alone in camp; when Arjuna and Krishna walk in unhurt he assumes they have come from Karna’s corpse. Karna is alive, and that single fact turns the next scene. “The two Krishnas” is the epic’s name for Krishna and Arjuna together. “Sesame seeds without kernel” and the order to drag Draupadi into the hall belong to the dicing scene of the Sabha Parva; the “half a chariot-warrior” count is the one Bhishma made at the end of the Udyoga Parva (chapter 20, part 3). Ajatashatru, “he whose enemy is not born,” is Yudhishthira’s name.

The gist: Arjuna, done with Ashvatthama, cannot find the king; Bhima tells him Yudhishthira left the field scorched by Karna’s arrows, takes the samsaptakas on himself, and sends Arjuna to the camp with Krishna. Yudhishthira, seeing both men unhurt, believes Karna is dead and pours out thirteen years of hidden fear and the morning’s humiliation in a torrent of questions that all ask the same thing: tell me how he died.

“Karna is still alive”: Arjuna’s truth, Yudhishthira’s poison, and fie on Gandiva

Arjuna had listened to all of it, the welcome and the hatred and the questions, and he had to answer with a fact that would take the joy out of the room. He answered the way he fought, in order and without decoration. While I was fighting the samsaptakas today, king, Drona’s son, who always goes at the head of the Kuru troops, suddenly came at me shooting arrows like snakes of virulent poison. When they saw my chariot, whose rattle is as deep as the roar of clouds, all the troops began to surround it. I killed five hundred of them and went for Drona’s son. He came at me with great resolve, like a prince of elephants at a lion, wanting to rescue the Kaurava chariot-warriors I was slaughtering. And then the preceptor’s son, that foremost of Kuru heroes who cannot be made to tremble, began to afflict me and Janardana with whetted shafts like poison or fire. While he fought me, eight carts drawn by eight bullocks each were carrying his hundreds of arrows. He shot them all at me, and I destroyed that shower with my own arrows the way wind destroys clouds. Then, with skill and force and resolve, he shot thousands more from a bowstring drawn to his ear, like a black cloud of the rains emptying itself. So fast did Drona’s son move in that battle that we could not tell from which side he was shooting, left or right, nor see when he took up an arrow and when he loosed it. His bow seemed to us to be drawn into a circle without a break. At last he pierced me with five whetted arrows and Vasudeva with five. In the blink of an eye I struck him with the force of thunderbolts. So badly hurt by my shafts, he took on the shape of a porcupine, every limb bathed in blood. Seeing his troops, those foremost of warriors, covered in blood and overwhelmed by me, he went into the chariot-division of the Suta’s son. And when Karna saw the troops overwhelmed and frightened and the elephants and horses running, that grinder of armies came at me quickly with fifty great chariot-warriors. I killed them all, avoided Karna, and came here fast to see you.

The rest of the report was the part that mattered, and Arjuna did not soften it. All the Panchalas are afraid at the sight of Karna, like cows at the smell of a lion. The Prabhadrakas have gone to Karna as men walk into the open jaws of Death. He has already sent seventeen hundred of those hard-pressed chariot-warriors to Yama’s house. The truth is, king, the Suta’s son did not lose heart until he caught sight of us. You had first engaged Ashvatthama and been badly mangled by him; I heard that Karna saw you after that. I thought, you of inconceivable deeds, that you must be resting in camp, having got away from the cruel Karna. I have seen Karna’s great and wonderful Bhargava weapon displayed at the front of the battle. There is no other warrior among the Srinjayas now who can withstand the great chariot-warrior Karna. Let Satyaki, Sini’s grandson, and Dhrishtadyumna guard my chariot-wheels. Let the heroic princes Yudhamanyu and Uttamauja guard my rear. I will meet that heroic and invincible chariot-warrior where he stands in the enemy host, as Shakra met Vritra, and fight the Suta’s son if he can be found in this battle today. Come and watch me and the Suta’s son contend for victory. There the Prabhadrakas are rushing at the face of a mighty bull; there six thousand princes are giving up their lives today for the sake of heaven. If I put out my strength and do not kill Karna today with all his kinsmen while I fight him, then let my end be the end of a man who fails the vow he took. I ask you, bless me, say that victory will be mine. Over there the Dhartarashtras are about to devour Bhima. Lion among kings, I will kill the Suta’s son and his troops and all our enemies.

So Karna was alive. That was the sentence Yudhishthira heard inside all the others, and it landed on a man whose body was full of Karna’s arrows and whose mind had just been emptied of thirteen years of fear for nothing. The anger that came up in him was aimed at Phalguna, and it was total. Sire, he said, your army has fled and been beaten in a way that has no honor in it. You were frightened, you deserted Bhima, and you came here because you could not kill Karna. By entering her womb you made Kunti’s conception a miscarriage. You did wrong to abandon Bhima because you could not kill the Suta’s son. In the Dvaita forest you told me, Partha, that on a single chariot you would kill Karna. Why then, out of fear of Karna, have you come here, avoiding him and deserting Bhima? If in the Dvaita forest you had said, king, I will not be able to fight Karna, we would have made other arrangements to fit the case. You promised me Karna’s death, hero, and you have not kept your promise. Having brought us into the midst of enemies, why have you broken us to pieces by throwing us down on hard ground? Expecting so many good things from you, Arjuna, we always spoke blessings over you. All those expectations have proved as empty as those of men who wait for fruit from a tree that bears nothing but flowers. Like a hook hidden in a piece of meat, like poison spread over food, you showed us, greedy for a kingdom, our destruction in the shape of a kingdom, only to fail us at the last. For thirteen years, Dhananjaya, we lived in hope, relying on you, like seeds sown in the earth waiting for the rain the gods send in season.

Then the king did something crueler than any insult, which was to quote the prophecy of Arjuna’s birth back at him, word for word, as evidence against him. On the seventh day after your birth, you fool, a voice in the sky said this to Pritha: this son of yours will have the prowess of Vasava himself; he will vanquish all his heroic enemies; at Khandava he will defeat all the celestials together and many other beings; he will subjugate the Madras, the Kalingas and the Kaikeyas; among many kings he will slay the Kurus; there will be no bowman greater than he and no creature will ever defeat him; with his senses mastered and every branch of knowledge in his hands, he will bring all creatures under him by merely wishing it; this high-souled son of yours, Kunti, will rival Soma in beauty, the wind in speed, Meru in patience, the Earth in forgiveness, Surya in splendor, the lord of treasures in prosperity, Shakra in courage, Vishnu in might; like Vishnu, Aditi’s son, he will be the slayer of all enemies; of immeasurable energy, he will be famed for the destruction he brings to foes and the success he wins for friends, and he will found a line. So the voice spoke in the sky on the summit of Shatashringa, in the hearing of many ascetics. None of it has come true. It shows that even the gods can speak untruth. Hearing the praise the foremost rishis always spoke of you, I never expected that Suyodhana would win success or that you would be afflicted with fear of Karna. You ride a chariot the celestial artificer built, whose axles do not creak, with the ape on its standard. You wear a sword on a belt of gold and silk. This bow of yours, Gandiva, is a full six cubits long. Keshava is your driver. Why then, out of fear of Karna, have you come away from battle, Partha? Wicked man, if you had given this bow to Keshava and driven for him, Keshava would have killed the fierce Karna by now, as the lord of the Maruts killed the asura Vritra with his thunder. If you cannot withstand Radha’s son today as he ranges the field, give this Gandiva of yours today to some other king who is your better in weapons. Then the world will not see us bereft of sons and wives, robbed of happiness with the loss of our kingdom, sunk in an unfathomable hell of misery. It would have been better for you never to have been born in Kunti’s womb, or, being conceived there, to have come out in the fifth month as a miscarriage, than to have come away from battle like this, you wicked soul. Fie on your Gandiva. Fie on the strength of your arms. Fie on your inexhaustible arrows. Fie on the banner with the giant ape on it, and fie on the chariot the god of fire gave you.

A key to reading this (the roots of the poison): The promise at Dvaita is from the Vana Parva, when Arjuna in exile took Karna’s death on himself. The voice at Shatashringa is the birth prophecy from the Adi Parva, which Yudhishthira quotes in full so that he can call it a lie. Yudhamanyu and Uttamauja are the two Panchala princes who have guarded Arjuna’s wheels through the war. The demand to hand Gandiva to a better man is the one sentence Arjuna cannot hear; why becomes clear in the next scene.

The gist: Arjuna reports the truth: Ashvatthama beaten, Karna avoided, Karna alive and cutting down the Panchalas, and he asks his brother’s blessing to go and fight him. Yudhishthira’s joy curdles at once. He calls Arjuna a coward and a burden on Kunti’s womb, throws the Dvaita promise and the birth prophecy in his face, tells him to give Gandiva to a better man, and ends with fie on the bow, the arms, the arrows, the ape banner, and the fire god’s chariot.

The drawn sword and Krishna on truth: Balaka the hunter, Kaushika the sage, and a death that takes no life

The sword came out of its belt of gold and silk before anyone in the tent understood why. Arjuna, white-horsed son of Kunti, stood over his wounded brother with the blade drawn to kill him, and only one person in the room read his heart fast enough to speak. Why do you draw your sword, Partha? Krishna asked. I see no one here, Dhananjaya, with whom you have to fight. The Dhartarashtras are being handled by the intelligent Bhimasena. You came from the battle to see the king. You have seen him. Yudhishthira is well. Having seen that tiger among kings, whose prowess is a tiger’s, why this madness at a moment when you should rejoice? I see no one here you may slay. Why do you want to strike? What is this delusion of your mind? Why have you snatched up that terrible sword so fast? I ask you, son of Kunti, what is it you are about, that you grip a sword in anger, you of inconceivable prowess? Arjuna turned his eyes on Yudhishthira and breathed like an angry snake, and gave Govinda the reason. I would cut off the head of any man who told me, give your Gandiva to someone else. That is my secret vow. This king has spoken those words in your presence, Govinda. I dare not forgive them. For that I will kill this king, who himself fears the slightest fall from virtue. Killing the best of men, I will keep my vow. That is why I have drawn the sword, delighter of the Yadus. By killing Yudhishthira I will pay my debt to truth, and by that I will be rid of this grief and fever, Janardana. I ask you: what do you think fits the case that has arisen? You know the whole past and future of this universe. I will do what you tell me.

Fie, fie, Krishna said, and then he gave Arjuna the hardest lecture Arjuna ever received. Now I know, Partha, that you have not waited on the old, since you have given in to anger at a time when you should never have done so. No one acquainted with the distinctions of morality would act as you, who are unacquainted with them, are acting today. He is the worst of men who does what should never be done and does what looks proper but the scriptures condemn. You do not know the decisions of the learned men who, with their pupils around them, declare their opinions according to dharma. A man who does not know those rulings is confounded and stupefied, exactly as you are now, in telling what should be done from what should not. That cannot be settled easily. It can be settled with the help of the scriptures, and you do not know the scriptures. Believing yourself versed in morality, you want to observe it this way, which means you are driven by ignorance. You think you know virtue, Partha, and you do not know that killing living creatures is a sin. Not harming creatures is, in my view, the highest virtue. One may even speak an untruth, but one must never kill. How then, foremost of men, could you wish, like a common man, to kill your eldest brother, the king, who knows dharma? The righteous never praise the killing of one not engaged in battle, or of an enemy who has turned his back, who flees, who seeks protection, who joins his hands, who surrenders, who is off his guard. Every one of those marks is on your superior. That vow of yours was taken in folly, and out of that folly you now want to commit a sin. Why do you rush at your reverend superior to kill him without having resolved the exceedingly subtle course of morality, which is hard to understand even when it is explained? Then he explained it. I will tell you the mystery of dharma that Bhishma declared, and righteous Yudhishthira, and Vidura called Kshatri, and Kunti of great fame. Listen, Dhananjaya. One who speaks truth is righteous; there is nothing higher than truth. But look how hard truth is to understand in practice. There are times when truth should not be spoken and falsehood should, when falsehood becomes truth and truth becomes falsehood. When life is in danger, and in marriage, falsehood may be spoken; when one’s whole property is about to be lost, falsehood may be spoken. At a marriage, in the enjoyment of a woman, when life is at stake, when all one’s wealth is about to be taken, or for the sake of a Brahmana: those five falsehoods are declared sinless. On those occasions falsehood is truth and truth is falsehood. He is a fool who practices truth without knowing the difference between truth and falsehood, and he alone knows dharma who can tell them apart. What wonder, then, that a wise man may earn great merit by a cruel act, like Balaka killing the blind beast? And what wonder that a foolish, ignorant man may earn great sin out of the very desire for merit, like Kaushika among the rivers? Arjuna asked for the two stories, and Krishna told them.

There was a hunter named Balaka, Krishna said, who killed animals for the livelihood of his son and his wives and never from inclination. He kept the duties of his order, always spoke the truth, harbored no malice, and supported his parents and everyone who depended on him. One day, searching hard and carefully, he found nothing. At last he saw a beast of prey drinking water, an animal whose sense of smell did the work of its missing eyes. He had never seen such a creature before, and he killed it at once. When the blind beast fell, flowers rained from the sky onto the hunter’s head, and a celestial car came down for him, ringing with the songs and instruments of the apsaras. That beast had won a boon by austerities and had become the cause of the destruction of all creatures, which is why the Self-born had made it blind. By killing an animal that had resolved to kill everything, Balaka went to heaven. That is how hard dharma is to understand. And there was an ascetic named Kaushika, who did not know much of the scriptures. He lived far from any village at a place where many rivers met, and he took a vow: I will always speak the truth. He became famous as a speaker of truth. Once some people fled into that wood from fear of robbers, and the robbers, furious, came searching for them, and asked Kaushika: holy one, by which path did a crowd of men go a little while ago? We ask you in the name of truth; if you saw them, tell us. Adjured by truth, Kaushika told them the truth: those men have gone into this wood, thick with trees and creepers. The cruel men found the people they were looking for and killed them all. For that great sin, which consisted of words, Kaushika, ignorant of the subtleties of dharma, fell into a terrible hell, the way a man of little knowledge falls into painful hell by never asking his elders to resolve his doubts. There must be some marks by which virtue and sin can be told apart. Sometimes that high and hard-won knowledge can be reached by reasoning. Many say the scriptures indicate morality; I do not contradict it. But the scriptures do not provide for every case. The precepts of dharma were declared for the growth of creatures. What goes with not doing harm, that is dharma. Dharma protects and preserves the people; so the learned conclude that what maintains is dharma. I have told you its signs, Partha. Now decide for yourself whether Yudhishthira is to be killed by you or not.

Arjuna’s answer showed how completely the lecture had landed, and how completely it had not solved his problem. Krishna, he said, your words are full of great intelligence and steeped in wisdom. You are to us like our parents and our refuge. Nothing in the three worlds is unknown to you, so you know the canons of morality. Keshava of the Vrishnis, you know my vow: whoever among men says to me, Partha, give your Gandiva to someone braver than you, I will end his life at once. Bhima too has vowed that whoever calls him tularaka will be killed on the spot. Now the king has used those very words to me, repeatedly, in your presence: give your bow. If I kill him, Keshava, I cannot live in this world for a moment. And by intending the king’s death through folly and the loss of my senses, I am already stained with sin. Foremost of the righteous, give me such counsel today that my vow, known through the world, may come true, and that both I and Pandu’s eldest son may live. Krishna had the counsel ready, and it began with mercy for the man who had done the wounding. The king was exhausted and under the weight of grief, he said. Karna had mangled him with countless arrows in battle, and then, hero, the Suta’s son struck him again and again as he retreated. That is why, laboring under that sorrow, he spoke those improper words to you in anger. He provoked you with them so that you would kill Karna. Pandu’s son knows that the wretched Karna can be borne by no one else in the world. That is why the king, in great wrath, said those harsh things to your face. The stake in today’s battle has been laid on Karna, always alert and never to be borne; with Karna dead, the Kauravas are beaten; that is what the royal son of Dharma thought. For that, the son of Dharma does not deserve death. And your vow, Arjuna, should still be kept. Listen to the counsel that will please you, by which Yudhishthira, without losing his life, may yet be dead. As long as a man who deserves respect goes on receiving it, he is said to live in the world of men. When such a man meets with disrespect, he is spoken of as dead while still alive. This king has always been honored by you, by Bhima and the twins, by every hero and every person in the world venerable for years. Show him disrespect in some trifle. Address this Yudhishthira, whose usual form of address is “your honor,” in the familiar form one uses to an equal or an inferior. A superior addressed that way is killed, Bharata, without being deprived of life. Bear yourself so toward king Yudhishthira the just; adopt that censurable behavior, perpetuator of Kuru’s line. Both Atharvan and Angiras have declared this, the best of all that has been heard, and men who want the good should act on it without scruple. Without being deprived of life a superior is said to be killed if that venerable one is addressed as an inferior. You who know duty, address the king as I have said. This death at your hands, son of Pandu, king Yudhishthira will never count as an offense. Then, having addressed him so, worship his feet, speak words of respect to Pritha’s son, and soothe his wounded honor. Your brother is wise; the royal son of Pandu will never be angry with you. Freed from falsehood and freed from fratricide, Partha, you will then go cheerfully and kill the Suta’s son Karna.

A key to reading this (the grammar of the remedy): Sanskrit addresses a superior as bhavan, “your honor,” and an equal or inferior as tvam, the plain “you.” To use tvam to an elder is an insult with a name of its own, and Krishna, citing the tradition of Atharvan and Angiras, makes that insult stand in for a death. That is how Arjuna’s vow can be kept and his brother left alive. Balaka and Kaushika are the two opposite errors about dharma: an act that looks cruel and earns heaven, and a truth that earns hell. Tularaka, in Ganguli’s spelling, is the taunt Bhima has sworn to kill for. The five permitted falsehoods are Krishna’s own list, given here exactly as the epic gives it.

The gist: At “fie on Gandiva” Arjuna draws his sword, because his secret vow binds him to kill anyone who tells him to give the bow away. Krishna rebukes him and lays out the subtle law of truth: five falsehoods are sinless, harmlessness outranks truth, Balaka the hunter went to heaven for a killing and truthful Kaushika to hell for an answer. Then he gives the way out: kill your brother by addressing him as an inferior, a death without a death, then touch his feet, and go and kill Karna.

Arjuna’s cruel words, a sword drawn against himself, and Krishna’s second device: praise yourself, and you have killed yourself

Arjuna did what Krishna had told him to do, and he did it with the whole of his voice. He turned on the eldest brother he had obeyed since childhood and spoke to him in language he had never once used in his life, and Sanjaya, telling it to the blind king, does not soften a word of it. Do not throw these reproaches at me, king, Arjuna said, you who are passing the time a full two miles from the battle. Bhima may reproach me. Bhima is out there fighting the foremost heroes of the world. He has struck his enemies at the right hour, he has killed brave kings and great chariot-warriors and huge elephants and heroic horsemen and fighting men beyond counting, and on top of all that he has killed a thousand elephants and ten thousand Kamboja mountaineers and is roaring on the field like a lion that has finished with the smaller animals. That man does things you could never do. He has jumped down from his chariot with a mace in his hand and smashed horses and chariots and elephants; with his sword he has cut down riders and chariots and horses and elephants; with the broken limbs of chariots, and with his bow, he burns his enemies; with his feet and his bare arms, like Indra, he kills. Strong as Kubera and Yama, he is tearing the hostile army apart with everything in him. That Bhimasena has the right to reproach me. You do not, you who are always protected by friends. Alone, churning the best of the chariot-warriors and elephants and horses and foot soldiers, Bhima is right now in the middle of the Dhartarashtras. He who is killing Kalingas and Vangas and Angas and Nishadas and Magadhas and whole herds of maddened elephants the color of rain clouds is competent to reproach me. Riding a fit chariot, shaking his bow at the proper moment with arrows in his other hand, that hero pours down arrows in battle the way clouds pour down rain. Eight hundred elephants, I have seen today, with their temples split open and the ends of their tusks cut off, killed by Bhima’s arrows. That killer of enemies is competent to speak harshly to me.

Then the reproach turned from what Yudhishthira had not done to what he was, and this was the part that would need to be forgiven. The learned say that the strength of the best of Brahmanas is in speech, Arjuna said, and that a Kshatriya’s strength is in his arms. You, Bharata, are strong in words, and very unfeeling. You think I am like you. I have always tried to do you good with my soul, my life, my sons, and my wives, and since after all that you still pierce me with these darts of words, it is clear that we can expect no happiness from you. Lying on Draupadi’s bed you insult me, while for your sake I kill the greatest chariot-warriors alive. You have no anxieties, Bharata, and you are cruel. I have never had any happiness from you. It was for your good that Bhishma, who never left the truth, himself told you the means of his own death in battle and was killed by the heroic Shikhandi, Drupada’s son, whom I protected. I take no pleasure in the thought of your being restored to the throne, since you are addicted to the vice of gambling. Having yourself done a low thing that only low men do, you now want to defeat your enemies through our help. You had heard from Sahadeva the many faults and the great sinfulness of dice, and still you could not give up dice, which the wicked worship. It was for that that all of us fell into hell. We have never had a day’s happiness from you since you sat down to gamble. Having brought this whole calamity on us yourself, son of Pandu, you now speak these hard words to me. The enemy troops we have killed are lying on the field with mangled bodies, wailing. It was you who did the cruel deed because of which the Kauravas became offenders and are being destroyed. Nations from the north, the west, the east, and the south are being struck and wounded and killed after matchless feats by the great warriors of both sides. You gambled, and for your sake we lost the kingdom; our calamity came from you, king. Do not goad us again with the cruel goad of your speech, king, and do not provoke our anger.

The words were out, and the moment they were out, Arjuna wanted to be dead. He had committed what the epic calls a venial sin, a small one, and he was a man who lived in fear of falling from virtue, and the size of the sin did not matter to him. The son of the king of the gods, Sanjaya says, was filled with remorse, breathed heavily, and drew his sword. Krishna saw the blade come out, blue as the sky, and asked him plainly what this was, why he was unsheathing it again, and told him to say what he intended so that he could be advised toward whatever he meant to accomplish. Arjuna answered in great sorrow: I will put out my strength and kill my own self, by whom this wicked act has been done. And Krishna, the foremost of all righteous men, took the situation apart with the same cool patience he had used a few minutes earlier. Having said those words to the king, why have you become so cheerless? You want to destroy yourself now. The righteous do not approve of this, Kiritin. If today, from fear of sin, you had killed your virtuous eldest brother, what would your condition have been then, and what would you not have done? Morality is subtle, Bharata, and unknowable, especially to the ignorant. Listen while I teach you. By destroying yourself you would sink into a more terrible hell than if you had killed your brother. Now declare your own merits aloud. Then, Partha, you will have killed yourself.

It was the mirror image of the trick that had started the trouble. Insulting a superior is his death; praising oneself is one’s own. Arjuna applauded the counsel, said let it be so, Krishna, lowered his bow, and turned to Yudhishthira to perform his own execution. Listen, king, he said. There is no other bowman like me, ruler of men, except the god who bears the Pinaka, and even that illustrious god regards me. In a moment I can destroy this universe of moving and unmoving creatures. It was I, king, who conquered all the points of the compass with the kings who rule them and brought them all under you. The Rajasuya you performed, completed with the gift of dakshina, and the celestial palace you own, were both due to my prowess. On my hands are the marks of sharp arrows and of a strung bow with the arrow fixed; on both my soles are the signs of chariots with standards. No one can defeat a man like me in battle. Nations from the north, the west, the east, and the south have been struck down, killed, exterminated, and destroyed. Only a small remnant of the samsaptakas is alive. I alone have killed half the enemy army. The Bharata host that looked like the host of the gods is lying dead on the field, slaughtered by me. I kill with high weapons those who know high weapons; that is the only reason I do not reduce the three worlds to ashes. Riding my terrible and victorious chariot, Krishna and I will now go to kill the Suta’s son. Let this king be cheerful. I will surely kill Karna in battle with my arrows. Either the Suta’s wife will be made childless by me today, or Kunti will be made childless by Karna. I say it truly: I will not take off my armor until I have killed Karna with my arrows in battle. Every boast was a fact. That was what made it a punishment.

A key to reading this (the two devices): In the previous scene Yudhishthira, sick with pain and humiliation, told Arjuna to give Gandiva to someone else, and Arjuna had an old vow to kill any man who said that to him. Krishna’s way out was that insulting an elder counts as killing him, so a harsh speech would discharge the vow. That is the speech here. The instant it is spoken, Arjuna’s conscience demands his own life, and Krishna answers with the same logic reversed: for a good man, praising himself is a kind of suicide, so let Arjuna list his own deeds and count himself dead. The bearer of the Pinaka is Shiva; the Rajasuya and the celestial palace belong to the Sabha Parva, where Arjuna’s conquests paid for both. Kiritin, Partha, Savyasachi, Dhananjaya, Phalguna, Vibhatsu, Vijaya, and Jaya are all names of Arjuna; the Suta’s son and Radha’s son are Karna.

The gist: Arjuna carries out Krishna’s device and says the unsayable to his eldest brother: you sit two miles from the fighting, only Bhima has earned the right to reproach me, your dice put us all in hell. Then the sword comes out against his own throat. Krishna stops him with a second device, self-praise as self-slaughter, and Arjuna recites his conquests as a penance and swears he will not unbuckle his armor until Karna is dead.

The king’s collapse: “Let Bhima be king, I am going to the forest”; and Krishna bows to ask forgiveness

Arjuna put everything down. The weapons went to the ground, the bow was thrown aside, the sword went back into its sheath as fast as it had come out, and the man who a moment ago had been reciting his conquest of the four directions stood in front of his brother with his head hanging and his hands joined. Be cheerful, king, and forgive me, he said. What I have said, you will understand a little while from now. I bow to you. He tried to lift the king’s spirits with the only thing he had to offer, which was the promise of Karna’s death. This task will not be delayed, he said. It will be done soon. Karna is coming toward me and I am going to meet him. With my whole soul I will go to rescue Bhima from the battle and to kill the Suta’s son. I tell you that I hold my life for your good; know that for the truth, king. Then Arjuna, blazing in his diadem, touched the king’s feet and rose to go to the field, and if Yudhishthira had said nothing, the scene would have ended there, with the vow discharged and the brothers a little damaged and the war resumed.

Yudhishthira did not say nothing. He had heard every word Phalguna had spoken, and the words had gone in where Karna’s arrows had gone in a few hours before, and he rose from the bed he had been sitting on and answered with his heart full of sorrow. Partha, I have acted wickedly, he said. Because of me you have been overwhelmed by terrible calamity. So strike off this head of mine today. I am the worst of men, the exterminator of my race. I am a wretch. I am addicted to wicked courses. I am of foolish understanding. I am idle and a coward. I am an insulter of the old. I am cruel. What would you gain by always obeying a cruel man like me? Wretch that I am, I will go into the woods this very day. Live happily without me. The high-souled Bhimasena is fit to be king. A eunuch like me, what would I do with sovereignty? I cannot bear these harsh speeches of yours, spoken in anger. Let Bhima be king. Having been insulted like this, hero, what use do I have for life? And having said it, the king left the bed, stood up suddenly, and wanted to go to the forest, the way he had gone once before, and the whole cause of the war, the kingdom that eighteen armies were dying to settle, came within a step of being abandoned by the man it belonged to.

Krishna stopped him by doing the one thing nobody in that tent expected: he bowed. Vasudeva bent down before Yudhishthira and explained the device he himself had engineered. King, you know the famous vow of the wielder of Gandiva, who is always devoted to truth where his Gandiva is concerned: that any man in the world who told him to give his Gandiva to another would be killed by him. Those were the very words you spoke to him. So, to keep that earnest vow, and acting also at my instance, Partha inflicted this insult on you, lord of the earth. Insult to superiors is said to be their death. For that reason, mighty-armed one, you must forgive this transgression of mine and of Arjuna’s, committed to maintain the truth, and I beseech you and bow to you for it. Both of us, great king, throw ourselves on your mercy. Then he made the promise that would decide the day. The earth shall drink the blood of Radha’s wretched son today. I swear it to you truly. Know the Suta’s son as already killed. He whose death you want has lost his life today. Yudhishthira heard him and something in him turned over. In a great rush of feeling he raised the prostrate Hrishikesha with his own hands, joined his palms, and spoke in haste. It is even so as you have said. I was guilty of a transgression, and now I have been awakened by you, Govinda. I am saved by you, Madhava. By you, Achyuta, we have today been rescued from a great calamity. Both of us stupefied by folly, Arjuna and I, have been rescued from an ocean of distress by having you as our lord. Having got the raft of your intelligence today, we and our kinsmen and allies have crossed an ocean of sorrow and grief. Having you, Achyuta, we are not masterless.

That left Arjuna, who had done exactly what he was told and could not forgive himself for it. Krishna turned to him, and this time he was smiling. What would your condition have been, Partha, if in your observance of virtue you had killed Dharma’s son with your sharp sword? You merely addressed the king with the familiar word, and such cheerlessness has taken hold of your heart. If you had killed the king, Partha, what would you have done after that? Morality is inscrutable like this, especially to people of foolish understanding. Without doubt great grief would have been yours from your fear of sin, and you would have sunk into a terrible hell for the slaughter of your brother. Now gratify this king of virtuous behavior, this foremost of all who practice virtue, this chief of Kuru’s race. That is my wish. When you have gratified the king with devotion and Yudhishthira has been made happy, the two of us will go against the Suta’s son’s chariot and fight him. Kill Karna today with your keen arrows, giver of honors, and give Dharma’s son great happiness. That, mighty-armed one, is what I think suits this hour. Do this, and your purpose will be achieved. And Arjuna, in shame, put his head on king Yudhishthira’s feet and said to him, again and again, be pleased with me, forgive, king, everything I said out of the wish to keep to virtue and out of fear of sin.

A key to reading this (the familiar word): When Krishna says Arjuna merely addressed the king with the familiar word, he means the pronoun a man uses for equals and juniors, which in a Kuru household was the deepest insult a younger brother could offer an elder. That single pronoun, and the speech built around it, was the whole “death” that discharged the Gandiva vow. Yudhishthira’s self-abuse (a eunuch, a coward, an insulter of the old) and his offer of the throne to Bhima come from a man who had just been stripped of armor, standard, and bow by Karna in front of the whole army and sent back to camp alive only because Karna chose to let him live; the wound Arjuna’s words reopened was that one. Hrishikesha, Govinda, Madhava, Achyuta, Janardana, Keshava, and Vasudeva are all Krishna.

The gist: Arjuna sheathes the sword and asks forgiveness, but the words have already broken Yudhishthira, who rises from his bed calling himself a wretch and a eunuch, offers his head, names Bhima king, and turns to leave for the forest. Krishna bows to him, confesses that the insult was his own device to satisfy the Gandiva vow, begs pardon for himself and Arjuna, and swears that Karna is a dead man today. Yudhishthira lifts him up and calls his intelligence the raft that carried them across; then Krishna, smiling, tells the stricken Arjuna that a rude pronoun is a small thing beside a brother’s murder, and Arjuna lays his head on the king’s feet.

Two brothers weep and embrace, the king’s blessing, Daruka yokes the chariot, and Krishna’s warning: do not take Karna lightly

Yudhishthira saw Dhananjaya lying at his feet in tears, and the king who a minute earlier had wanted his own head struck off bent down and lifted his brother up. He held him, and the two of them, great and blazing men both, wept aloud for a long time, and when the weeping was done the grief was gone with it and they were, Sanjaya says, as cheerful as before. The king embraced him again, smelled his head the way an elder does, and then told him, with the plainness of a man who has stopped pretending, what had actually happened to him that morning. Mighty-armed one, in the very sight of all the troops my armor, my standard, my bow, my dart, my horses, and my arrows were cut off in battle by Karna with his arrows, great bowman, although I exerted myself with care. Thinking of his feats and seeing them, Phalguna, my strength drains away in grief. Life itself is no longer dear to me. If you do not kill that hero in battle today, I will throw away my breath. What use do I have for life? Arjuna, whom the epic calls Vijaya here, answered with an oath and a gesture. I swear by Truth, king, and by your grace, and by Bhima, best of men, and by the twins, lord of the earth, that today I will kill Karna in battle, or, killed by him myself, fall on the earth. Swearing truly, I touch my weapons. And to Krishna: without doubt, Krishna, I will kill Karna in battle today. Helped by your intelligence, blessed be you, the slaughter of that wicked-souled man is certain. Keshava told him that he was competent to kill the mighty Karna, and that this had always been his own thought, how Arjuna would kill Karna in battle, and then he turned to the king and asked for the thing he had come for. Yudhishthira, it is for you to comfort Vibhatsu and command him to slaughter Karna of the wicked soul. Hearing that you had been struck by Karna’s arrows, he and I came here, son of Pandu, to learn your condition. By good luck, king, you were not killed. By good luck you were not taken. Comfort your Vibhatsu, sinless one, and bless him with your wishes for his victory.

The king gave the blessing, and gave it twice, because Arjuna would not let him give it once. Come, come, Partha, come, Vibhatsu, and embrace me, son of Pandu, Yudhishthira said. You told me useful words that deserved to be said, and I have forgiven you. I command you, Dhananjaya: go and kill Karna. Do not be angry, Partha, over the harsh words I said to you. Dhananjaya bowed his head and took hold of his eldest brother’s feet with both hands; the king raised him, held him close, smelled his head again, and told him that he had been greatly honored by him and that he should always win greatness and victory. And Arjuna made the vow that the rest of the day would be spent keeping. Approaching Radha’s son today, who is proud of his might, I will kill that man of sinful deeds with my arrows in battle, together with all his kinsmen and followers. He who bent his bow strongly and struck you with his arrows, that Karna, I say, will get the bitter fruit of that act today. Having killed Karna, lord of the earth, I will come back today from the dreadful battle and pay my respects to you by walking behind you. I tell you this truly. Without having killed Karna I will not come back from the great battle today. Truly I swear it, touching your feet, lord of the universe. Yudhishthira, cheerful now, answered him with words of grave import: obtain imperishable fame, and a span of life to match your own desire, and victory, and energy, and the destruction of your enemies; let the gods grant you prosperity; obtain all these in the measure that I wish for you. Go quickly to battle, and kill Karna as Purandara killed Vritra for his own aggrandizement.

What follows is the sound of a war machine being reassembled. Arjuna, satisfied that the king was satisfied, turned to Govinda and asked for his chariot. Let my chariot be equipped once more and my best horses yoked to it. Let every kind of weapon be placed on that great vehicle. The horses have rolled on the ground; they were trained by men skilled in horse lore. Let them be brought quickly with the rest of the chariot’s equipment and decked in their trappings. Go quickly, Govinda, for the slaughter of the Suta’s son. Krishna passed the order to Daruka, his own charioteer, telling him to do everything that Arjuna, chief of Bharata’s race and foremost of all bowmen, had said, and Daruka yoked the horses to the chariot covered with tiger skins, the chariot that could scorch any enemy, and reported to the son of Pandu that his vehicle was ready. Phalguna looked it over, took Yudhishthira’s leave, had the Brahmanas perform the propitiatory rites and speak their benedictions, and climbed aboard; the king, wise as he was, blessed him once more; and the chariot moved off toward Karna. The omens came at once and they all pointed one way. Every creature that saw that great bowman going, Sanjaya says, regarded Karna as already killed. All the points of the compass became serene. Kingfishers and parrots and herons wheeled around the son of Pandu. Beautiful auspicious birds called Pung, whose timely appearance drove Arjuna to greater speed, cried out cheerfully around him. Terrible kankas and vultures, cranes and hawks and ravens, tempted by the prospect of food, flew ahead of his chariot, and by flying ahead they promised the destruction of the enemy host and the death of Karna. And under all of it Arjuna was sweating. A copious perspiration covered his body as he went, and his anxiety about how he would keep his vow grew very great, because a vow sworn on Truth and on Bhima and on the twins and on his brother’s feet is a heavy thing to carry into a fight against the one man on the field who might be better than you.

Krishna saw the sweat and the silence and spoke, and what he said was two things at once, a hymn and a warning. Wielder of Gandiva, there is no other man alive who could defeat those whom you have defeated with this bow of yours. We have seen many heroes with prowess like Shakra’s go to the highest regions after meeting you in battle. Who else, not being your equal, would have come out safe and sound after meeting Drona and Bhishma and Bhagadatta, Vinda and Anuvinda of Avanti, Sudakshina the chief of the Kambojas, Shrutayudha of mighty energy, and Achyutayudha too? You have celestial weapons, lightness of hand, and might, and you are never stupefied in battle. You have the humility that comes from knowledge. You strike with effect. You have sureness of aim, and presence of mind in the choice of means. You could destroy every moving and unmoving creature, the very gods and the Gandharvas included. On earth there is no human warrior equal to you in battle; among all the Kshatriyas who wield the bow, among the very gods, I have neither seen nor heard of one who is your equal. Brahma himself, the creator of all beings, made the great bow Gandiva with which you fight; for that reason there is no one equal to you. Then the turn. I must, however, son of Pandu, say what is good for you. Do not, mighty-armed one, disregard Karna, that ornament of battle. Karna has might, and he is proud and accomplished in weapons, a maharatha who knows every mode of warfare and everything that suits place and time. What need is there to say much? Hear it in brief, son of Pandu: I regard the great chariot-warrior Karna as your equal, or perhaps your superior. With the greatest care and resolution you must kill him in this battle. In energy he equals Agni; in speed, the rush of the wind; in wrath, the Destroyer himself. His body is built like a lion’s. He stands eight ratnis tall; his arms are long, his chest is broad. He is invincible, he is sensitive, he is a hero and the foremost of heroes, he is exceedingly handsome, he has every accomplishment of a warrior and he takes away the fears of his friends. Devoted to Dhritarashtra’s son, he always hates the sons of Pandu. No one, not even the gods with Vasava at their head, can kill Radha’s son, save you, as I think. So kill the Suta’s son today. No creature of flesh and blood, not the gods fighting with the greatest care, not all the warriors of the three worlds together, can defeat that chariot-warrior. Toward the Pandavas he has always been wicked-souled, sinful, cruel, and of wicked intelligence, and in his quarrel with the sons of Pandu he serves no interest of his own. Kill that Karna, then, and fulfill your purpose today. Send that Suta’s son, that first of chariot-warriors whose death is near, into Yama’s presence, and by killing him show your love for Yudhishthira the just. I know your prowess truly, Partha; gods and asuras cannot resist it. The Suta’s son of wicked soul, out of sheer pride, always scorns the sons of Pandu. Kill today, Dhananjaya, the man for whose sake the wretched Duryodhana thinks himself a hero, the root of all those sinful men, that son of a Suta. Kill that tiger among men, that quick and proud Karna, whose tongue is a sword, whose mouth is a bow, whose teeth are arrows. I know the energy and the might that are in you. Kill brave Karna in battle as a lion kills an elephant. Kill today, Partha, that Karna who is also called Vaikartana, on whose energy Dhritarashtra’s son relies when he disregards yours.

A key to reading this (names and measures): Daruka is Krishna’s own charioteer; since Krishna holds Arjuna’s reins himself, the yoking falls to Daruka. A ratni is the length from elbow to closed fist, roughly a cubit, so eight ratnis marks Karna as a giant among men. Vaikartana is Karna’s name as the son of the Sun, Vikartana. The warriors Krishna lists, Bhishma, Drona, Bhagadatta, Vinda and Anuvinda, Sudakshina, Shrutayudha, and Achyutayudha, are men Arjuna has already defeated or killed on earlier days of the war. Purandara is Indra, and the slaying of Vritra is the epic’s standard image for a decisive kill. Yudhishthira’s account of his armor, standard, bow, dart, horses, and arrows being cut away is his own summary of the morning’s duel with Karna, told earlier in this chapter.

The gist: The brothers weep in each other’s arms. Yudhishthira admits what Karna did to him in front of the whole army and says he will not go on living if Karna does; Arjuna swears on Truth, on Bhima, on the twins, and on his brother’s feet that Karna dies today or he does, and the king blesses him twice and sends him off as Indra was sent against Vritra. Daruka yokes the tiger-skinned chariot, the birds of good omen fly ahead, and Arjuna rides out sweating with the weight of his vow. Krishna first tells him that no warrior on earth or among the gods is his equal, and then, in the same breath, that Karna may be.

The seventeenth day: Krishna reads Arjuna his own record, then opens the ledger of Karna

Arjuna was already moving toward the field with Karna’s death fixed in his mind when Krishna spoke to him once more, and this time the charioteer did something a charioteer rarely does: he told the warrior what the warrior had already done. Today is the seventeenth day, Bharata, of this terrible slaughter of men and elephants and horses, Krishna said. At the start the host that belonged to you was vast. It met the enemy and it has been cut down to a fraction. The Kauravas too were numberless once, thick with elephants and horses, and having met you as their enemy they have been nearly wiped out at the front of the battle. These lords of the earth, these Srinjayas, this Pandava army, hold their ground on the field only because they have you, unconquerable, as their leader. Protected by you, the Panchalas, the Matsyas, the Karushas, and the Chedis have done great destruction to your foes. Who could defeat the assembled Kauravas? And who could defeat the Pandava chariot-warriors while you protect them? You could defeat the three worlds together, gods and asuras and men. What is the Kaurava host beside that? Who else, even if he had the strength of Vasava, could have beaten king Bhagadatta? All the kings of the earth united cannot so much as look at this army you guard. Dhrishtadyumna and Shikhandi killed Drona and Bhishma because they were always under your protection; who else could have beaten those two, whose might equaled Shakra’s? Bhishma, Drona, Karna, Kripa, Drona’s son, and king Duryodhana himself, those fierce lords of akshauhinis who never turn back, all masters of weapons and all standing together, who in this world could defeat them, except you?

Then Krishna counted the dead, the way an accountant reads a column he already knows the sum of. Countless divisions you have destroyed, their horses and chariots and elephants mangled by your arrows. Countless wrathful Kshatriyas from every province have died at your hands. The Govasas, the Dasamiyas, the Vasatis, the Easterners, the Vatadhanas, the Bhojas who are so tender about their honor, all of them came against you and Bhima with their horses and elephants and met their end. The Tusharas, the Yavanas, the Khasas, the Darvabhisaras, the Daradas, the Shakas, the Kamathas, the Ramathas, the Tanganas, the Andhrakas, the Pulindas, the Kiratas of fierce prowess, the Mlecchas, the mountain peoples, the peoples of the sea coast, all of them wrathful and strong and mace-armed and glad of battle, fought for Duryodhana beside the Kurus, and nobody in the world could have beaten them but you. Who, without your protection, could even have advanced on the Dhartarashtra host drawn up in its array? Protected by you the Pandavas went into that dust-shrouded host that looked like a swollen sea, and they broke it. Seven days have passed since Abhimanyu killed Jayatsena, the ruler of Magadha; after that Bhima’s mace killed the ten thousand elephants that used to follow that king, and after that hundreds more elephants and chariot-warriors. So, Partha, the Kauravas with their horses and chariots and elephants have met Bhima and you and gone from here to the country of the dead. Krishna gave Bhishma his due in full: ten days of slaughter, a hundred thousand men and elephants, chariot platforms emptied by the thousand, the grandsire fighting like Rudra or like Upendra to drag the wicked Suyodhana out of a sea that had no raft, until the Pandavas threw everything they had at him and he threw them back alone, the one foremost hero in the world, and then Shikhandi, protected by you, brought him down with straight arrows, and now that grandsire lies on a bed of arrows like Vritra after he found Vasava for an enemy. He gave Drona his due as well: five days of carnage, the impenetrable array, Jayadratha shielded for a while, the night battle where Bharadvaja’s son fought like Death himself, and then Dhrishtadyumna. If you had not held back every Dhartarashtra chariot-warrior with Karna at their head that day, Krishna said, Drona would never have died. You held the whole Dhartarashtra force. That is how Prishata’s son could kill him. And Jayadratha: who but you could have done what was done to reach the ruler of the Sindhus through that army and those kings? Every king called it a wonder. I do not call it a wonder. You did it, and you are a great chariot-warrior. If this whole assembly of Kshatriyas, having you as an enemy, took a full day to be exterminated, I would still call them mighty.

The arithmetic ended in a single number. With Bhishma and Drona dead, Krishna said, the Dhartarashtra host has lost all its heroes; with its best warriors gone and its horses and chariots and elephants destroyed, it looks today like a sky without sun or moon or stars, like the asura host stripped of its glory by Shakra. What is left of that grand army is five great chariot-warriors: Ashvatthama, Kritavarma, Karna, Shalya, and Kripa. Kill those five today, tiger among men, be the hero who has killed all his enemies, and give the earth with all her islands and cities to king Yudhishthira. Let Yudhishthira have the whole earth today, with the sky above it and the waters on it and the regions below it. Kill this host as Vishnu killed the Daityas and the Danavas, and give the earth to the king as Hari gave the three worlds to Shakra; let the Panchalas rejoice as the gods rejoiced. And then Krishna narrowed the five to one, and he did it by naming, one by one, the reasons Arjuna might hold back from the other four. If out of regard for Drona, that foremost of men, your preceptor, you feel compassion for Ashvatthama; if out of the respect due to a teacher you have kindness for Kripa; if, coming up to Kritavarma, you do not send him to Yama today because of the honor owed to a mother’s kinsmen; if, lotus-eyed one, you come up to your mother’s brother Shalya, ruler of the Madras, and do not kill him out of pity, then I ask you this: kill Karna today, quickly, with sharp arrows, that vile wretch of sinful heart who hates the sons of Pandu more fiercely than anyone. That is your highest duty. There is nothing improper in it. We approve it, and there is no fault in the act. Karna is the root of the attempt made in the night to burn your mother with all her children. Karna is the root of everything Suyodhana did to you after the dice. Suyodhana always hopes for deliverance through Karna; leaning on Karna he tries in his rage to hurt me too. Dhritarashtra’s son is firmly convinced that Karna will kill all the Prithas in battle, and knowing your strength perfectly well, he chose war with you because he relied on Karna. And Karna says it himself, always: I will conquer the assembled Parthas and that great chariot-warrior Vasudeva of the Dasharhas. Buoying up that wicked-souled son of Dhritarashtra, the wicked Karna roars in the Kuru assembly. Kill him today, Bharata. In every injury Dhritarashtra’s son has done you, Karna of sinful understanding has led the way.

Then Krishna spoke of Abhimanyu, and for the first time in the speech his voice was not the voice of an accountant. I saw Subhadra’s heroic son, with eyes like a bull’s, killed by six great chariot-warriors of cruel heart from the Dhritarashtra army. He ground down Drona and Drona’s son and Kripa and the rest, he threw riders from elephants and warriors from chariots, that bull-necked boy who spread the fame of the Kurus and the Vrishnis both; he stripped horses of riders and foot soldiers of weapons and life, routed divisions, and sent men and horses and elephants beyond counting to Yama. I swear to you by Truth, friend, that my limbs burn when I think that while Subhadra’s son was advancing like that, burning the hostile army with his arrows, even then the wicked-souled Karna was working against him. Unable to stand before Abhimanyu’s face, mangled by the boy’s arrows, senseless, bathed in blood, Karna breathed hard and burned with rage, and at last, tormented with arrows, he had to turn his back. Wanting to run and despairing of his life, he stayed a while in the fight, stupefied and exhausted by his wounds. And then, hearing Drona’s cruel words, words fitted to that hour, Karna cut Abhimanyu’s bow. Bowless, the boy was killed by five great chariot-warriors well versed in foul fighting, under a shower of arrows. Grief entered every heart at that death. Only the wicked-souled Karna and Suyodhana laughed for joy. Krishna went on to the assembly, and he repeated Karna’s words to Draupadi as though he had memorized them for exactly this moment, which he had. The Pandavas are dead, Krishna; they have sunk into eternal hell. Choose other lords now, you of the large hips and the sweet speech. Enter Dhritarashtra’s house as a serving woman, for your husbands are no more. The Pandavas will be of no use to you today. You are the wife of slaves, princess of Panchala, and you are a slave yourself. Today only Duryodhana is counted a king on the earth. Look how all the sons of Pandu have fallen alike; overwhelmed by the energy of Dhritarashtra’s son, they stand silently eyeing one another. They are plainly sesame seeds without kernel, sunk into hell, and they will serve the Kaurava king of kings as his slaves. Those were the words, Bharata, that sinful Karna of the wicked heart spoke in your hearing. Let gold-decked arrows whetted on stone, arrows that take the life of whoever they are sent at, quench the fire of those words and all the other wrongs that man did you; let your arrows quench the wrongs and the life. Let Karna feel the arrows of Gandiva and remember today what Bhishma and Drona told him. Let cloth-yard shafts with the brightness of lightning pierce his vitals and drink his blood. Let all the kings of the earth, cheerless and wailing, see Karna fall from his chariot today. Let his kinsmen see him stretched on the earth, dipped in gore, his weapons loosened from his grip. Let the tall standard of Adhiratha’s son with its device of the elephant’s rope fall fluttering, cut by your broad-headed arrow. Let Shalya run in terror, abandoning the gold-decked chariot he drives when he sees it cut to fragments, its warrior and horses gone. Let your enemy Suyodhana see Adhiratha’s son killed by you and despair of life and kingdom both.

And then the present tense, because the present was burning. There, Partha, Karna, equal to Indra in energy or perhaps to Shankara himself, is slaughtering your troops with his arrows. There the Panchalas, cut down by his whetted shafts, are still rushing at him for the sake of the Pandavas. Know that he is prevailing over the Panchalas, over the five sons of Draupadi, over Dhrishtadyumna and Shikhandi and Dhrishtadyumna’s sons, over Satanika the son of Nakula, over Nakula himself and Sahadeva, over Durmukha and Janamejaya and Sudharman and Satyaki. You can hear the uproar of your allies as Karna strikes them. The Panchalas are not afraid and they do not turn their faces from the battle; those great bowmen are reckless of death. They did not turn from Bhishma when he covered the whole Pandava army with a cloud of arrows single-handed. They always strove to beat down Drona, invincible, the preceptor of all bowmen, the blazing fire of weapons. They never turned from Adhiratha’s son out of fear. But the hero Karna is taking the lives of those quick Panchala warriors as they come at him, like a blazing fire taking the lives of myriads of insects; Radha’s son is destroying by the hundred the heroes who have resolved to lay down their lives for their allies. It falls to you, Bharata, to become a raft and rescue those brave bowmen who are sinking in the raftless ocean that is Karna. The awful weapon Karna got from Rama of the Bhrigus, that foremost of sages, has been unleashed; scorching all the troops, blazing with its own energy, it surrounds our vast army. The arrows from Karna’s bow are coursing thick as a swarm of bees and burning your troops, and meeting that weapon, irresistible to anyone whose soul is not under control, the Panchalas are flying in all directions. There is Bhima, of unappeasable wrath, surrounded on every side by the Srinjayas, fighting Karna and afflicted by his keen arrows. Neglected, Karna will exterminate the Pandavas and the Srinjayas and the Panchalas like a neglected disease whose germ has entered the body. I see no one else in Yudhishthira’s army who would come home safe after meeting Radha’s son in battle. Kill that Karna today with your keen arrows, bull among men, act according to your vow, Partha, and win great fame. I tell you truly, you alone can defeat the Kaurava host with Karna in it, and no one else, foremost of warriors. Do this great deed, kill the mighty chariot-warrior Karna, attain your object, and crowned with success, best of men, be happy.

A key to reading this (the names in the ledger): Vaikartana, Radha’s son, and Adhiratha’s son are all Karna; Radha and Adhiratha are his foster parents. The “Krishna” whom Karna insulted is Draupadi, whose given name that is, and the words are from the dice hall of the Sabha Parva. The attempt to burn Kunti and her sons in the night is the house of lac in the Adi Parva; Abhimanyu’s death, with six chariot-warriors surrounding him and Karna cutting his bow at Drona’s word, is in the Drona Parva. The Bhargava weapon is the one Karna won from Parashurama. Krishna’s count of five surviving great chariot-warriors on the Kaurava side (Ashvatthama, Kritavarma, Karna, Shalya, Kripa) is the state of play on the seventeenth day; “seven days since Jayatsena” places Abhimanyu’s kill on the tenth.

The gist: As Arjuna rides back toward the field, Krishna delivers one long speech in two movements. First he reads Arjuna his own record: Bhagadatta, the deaths of Bhishma and Drona made possible under his protection, Jayadratha, seventeen days of a shrinking Kaurava host, until only five great warriors remain. Then he opens the account against Karna: the house of lac, the dice, Abhimanyu’s cut bowstring, the words to Draupadi. Spare the other four if pity demands it, Krishna says, but kill Karna today, because right now Bhima is surrounded under the Bhargava weapon and the Panchalas are dying by the hundred.

“My arrows are the dice and Gandiva the box”: Arjuna’s vow, and the two armies meet again

The speech worked. Sanjaya, who was watching from a distance no eye should have been able to cover, says that Vibhatsu shed his anxiety on hearing Keshava’s words and became cheerful, and the sign of it was physical: he rubbed the string of Gandiva, stretched it, and held the bow up for the destruction of Karna. What came out of him then was a vow that ran on like a river in spate, each sentence beginning with the same word, today, as if he were nailing the day to the earth so it could not slip away from him. With you for my protector, Govinda, he said, and with you, who know the past and the future, pleased with me today, victory is certain. Aided by you, Krishna, I could destroy the three worlds together in a great battle; what is Karna beside that? I see the Panchala host running, Janardana. I see Karna careering fearlessly in the battle. I see the Bhargava weapon too, invoked by Karna and coursing in every direction, you of the Vrishnis, like the thunderbolt when Shakra invokes it. This is the battle in which Karna will be killed by me, and all creatures will speak of it as long as the earth lasts. Today, Krishna, unbarbed arrows driven by my arms and sped from Gandiva will mangle Karna and take him to Yama. Today king Dhritarashtra will curse the intelligence that made him install Duryodhana, who was unfit for sovereignty, on the throne. Today, mighty-armed one, Dhritarashtra will be stripped of sovereignty, happiness, prosperity, kingdom, city, and sons. I tell you truly, Krishna, that with Karna dead today Duryodhana will despair of both life and kingdom. Today, seeing Karna cut to pieces by my arrows as Indra cut Vritra in the war of the gods and the asuras, let king Duryodhana remember the words you spoke to bring about peace. Today let Subala’s son learn that my arrows are the dice, my Gandiva the box for throwing them, and my chariot the checkered cloth.

He went on, and the vow became a settlement of debts. Govinda, by killing Karna with keen arrows I will end the long sleeplessness of Kunti’s son; today, with the Suta’s son slain by me, the royal son of Kunti will be gratified and cheerful and happy for ever. Today, Keshava, I will shoot one irresistible, unrivaled arrow that will take Karna’s life. That wicked-souled man vowed this about my death: I will not wash my feet until I have killed Phalguna. Making that wretch’s vow false, slayer of Madhu, I will throw his body down from his chariot with straight arrows. Today the earth will drink the blood of the Suta’s son who holds every other man on earth in contempt. With Dhritarashtra’s approval, boasting of his merits, the Suta’s son Karna said, you have no husband now, Krishna. My keen arrows will make that speech a lie; like angry snakes of virulent poison they will drink his life-blood. Today Radha’s son will repent of the cruel words he spoke to the princess of Panchala in the middle of the assembly to disparage the Pandavas. Those who were sesame seeds without kernel that day will become seeds with kernel today, when the Suta’s son Karna, also called Vaikartana, falls. I will save you from the sons of Pandu: that is what Karna, bragging of his merits, told the sons of Dhritarashtra, and my keen arrows will make that a lie. Today, in the sight of all the bowmen, I will kill the Karna who said, I will kill all the Panchalas with their sons. Today, slayer of Madhu, I will kill that son of Radha on whose prowess the proud son of Dhritarashtra, of wicked understanding, relied when he always disregarded us. Today, when Karna falls, the Dhartarashtras with their king will flee in every direction, panic-struck, like deer afraid of the lion. Today let king Duryodhana repent when Karna is killed in battle by me, with his sons and relatives. Today let the wrathful son of Dhritarashtra see Karna slain and know me for the foremost of all bowmen in battle. Today I will make king Dhritarashtra shelterless, with his sons and grandsons and counselors and servants. Today cranes and the other flesh-eating birds will sport over the limbs of Karna cut to pieces by my arrows. Today, in the sight of all the bowmen, I will cut off the head of Radha’s son Karna. Today I will cut off the limbs of Radha’s son of wicked soul with keen vipathas and razor-faced arrows. Today the heroic king Yudhishthira will cast off a great pain and a great sorrow he has long cherished in his heart. Today, Keshava, killing Radha’s son with all his kinsmen, I will gladden king Yudhishthira, the son of Dharma. Today I will kill the cheerless followers of Karna with arrows like blazing fire or snake venom. Today, Govinda, with straight vulture-feathered arrows I will strew the earth with kings in golden armor. Today, slayer of Madhu, with keen arrows I will crush the bodies and cut off the heads of all the enemies of Abhimanyu. Today I will give my brother the earth emptied of Dhartarashtras, or perhaps, Keshava, you will walk over an earth emptied of Arjuna. Today, Krishna, I will free myself of the debt I owe to all bowmen, to my own wrath, to the Kurus, to my arrows, and to Gandiva. Today I will be freed from the grief I have carried for thirteen years, Krishna, by killing Karna in battle as Maghavat killed Shambara. Today, when I have killed Karna, let the great chariot-warriors of the Somakas, who want to finish their allies’ work, count their work finished. I do not know, Madhava, what the measure of Sini’s grandson’s joy will be today when I have killed Karna and won. Today I will kill Karna and his son too, that mighty chariot-warrior, and give joy to Bhima and the twins and Satyaki. Today, killing Karna in dreadful battle, I will pay my debt, Madhava, to the Panchalas with Dhrishtadyumna and Shikhandi. Today let everyone see the wrathful Dhananjaya fight the Kauravas and kill the Suta’s son. And then, without a pause, the boast that only he was entitled to: Once more there is no one equal to me in the world. In prowess, who resembles me? What other man is my equal in forgiveness? In wrath, no one is my equal. Armed with the bow and the prowess of my arms I can conquer the asuras and the gods and all creatures together. Know that my prowess is higher than the highest. Alone I will assail all the Kurus and the Bahlikas with the fire of arrows from Gandiva and burn them with their followers like a fire in a heap of dry grass at winter’s end. My palms bear the marks of arrows and of this outstretched bow with an arrow on the string; on each of my soles is the mark of a chariot and a standard. When a man like me goes out to battle, no one can defeat him. Having said this to Achyuta, that foremost of heroes, that slayer of foes, with eyes red as blood, drove quickly to the battle to rescue Bhima and to cut the head from Karna’s trunk.

In Hastinapura the blind king asked his question, the one he always asked when the news turned. In that awful and fathomless encounter of the Pandavas and the Srinjayas with the warriors of my army, when Dhananjaya went out to fight, how did the fight go? And Sanjaya answered with weather. The countless divisions of the Pandava army, under their tall standards, swollen with pride and energy and united in battle, began to roar, with drums and other instruments for their mouths, like masses of clouds at the end of summer. The battle that followed was like a baneful shower out of season, cruel, destructive of living things. Its clouds were huge elephants; the water they had to pour was weapons; their thunder was the peal of instruments and the rattle of chariot wheels and the noise of slapped palms; their lightning was the flashing of gold-decked weapons; and arrows and swords and cloth-yard shafts and great weapons were its torrents of rain. Blood ran in streams. It was terrible with the incessant strokes of the sword, and it was full of the slaughter of Kshatriyas. Many chariot-warriors together surrounded one and sent him to Yama; or one foremost chariot-warrior dispatched one adversary, or one dispatched many together; one sent a single enemy to Yama with his driver and his horses; one rider on a single elephant dispatched many chariot-warriors and horsemen. And Partha, with clouds of arrows, dispatched great numbers of the enemy’s chariots with their drivers and horses, elephants and horses with their riders, and foot soldiers. Then the pairings, named as a herald would name them. Kripa and Shikhandi met each other; Satyaki went against Duryodhana; Srutasravas engaged Drona’s son, Yudhamanyu engaged Chitrasena; the great Srinjaya chariot-warrior Uttamaujas engaged Karna’s son Sushena, and Sahadeva rushed at Shakuni, king of the Gandharas, like a hungry lion at a mighty bull. Young Satanika, the son of Nakula, rushed at young Vrishasena, the son of Karna, shooting showers of arrows, and Karna’s heroic son struck that son of the princess of Panchala with many. Nakula, Madri’s son, a bull among chariot-warriors and versed in every mode of war, assailed Kritavarma. Dhrishtadyumna, king of the Panchalas, the son of Yajnasena, attacked Karna, the commander of the Kaurava army, with all his forces. And Duhshasana, with the swollen host of the samsaptakas that formed a part of the Bharata army, fell fiercely on Bhima, foremost of warriors, of irresistible impetuosity.

Two things happened in that first collision that mattered later. Uttamaujas, putting out all his strength, struck Karna’s son and cut off his head, and it fell to the earth with a noise that filled earth and sky. Karna saw Sushena’s head lying on the ground and was filled with grief, and then, quickly, with rage, and with many keen arrows he cut down the horses, the chariot, and the standard of his son’s killer. Uttamaujas, meanwhile, pierced with keen arrows and cut with his bright sword the horses of Kripa and the warriors guarding Kripa’s flanks, and climbed quickly onto Shikhandi’s chariot. And Shikhandi, on his own vehicle, seeing Kripa deprived of his chariot, did not wish to strike him with arrows. Drona’s son covered Kripa’s chariot with his own and drew his uncle out like a bull sunk in a mire. Meanwhile Bhima, the son of the Wind, in his golden mail, began to scorch the troops of Dhritarashtra’s sons with his keen arrows, like the midday sun in the hot season scorching everything beneath it.

A key to reading this (dice, sesame, and Karna’s sons): “My arrows are the dice, Gandiva the box, my chariot the checkered cloth” answers Shakuni’s game in its own vocabulary; “sesame seeds without kernel” was Karna’s insult in the dice hall, which Arjuna now turns around. Vipathas are long, broad-bladed arrows. Sushena, killed here by Uttamaujas, and Vrishasena, who fights Satanika here and will die at Arjuna’s hands in the next chapter, are both sons of Karna. The marks on Arjuna’s palms and soles are the bodily signs of a great man, which he lists as proof that he cannot be beaten. Kripa is Ashvatthama’s maternal uncle, which is why Drona’s son is the one who pulls him out.

The gist: Krishna’s words lift Arjuna’s anxiety, and he answers with a long chain of vows that all begin with “today”: Karna’s oath about not washing his feet will be made false, the words to Draupadi will be avenged, Dhritarashtra will curse his own judgment, thirteen years of grief will end. Then Dhritarashtra asks how the fight went, and Sanjaya paints the two armies colliding as an out-of-season storm, names every pairing, and records two hinges: Uttamaujas beheads Karna’s son Sushena, and Shikhandi refuses to shoot a chariotless Kripa. Bhima, meanwhile, is burning the Kaurava host alone.

Bhima alone among the enemy: an inventory of quivers, the twang of Gandiva, and fourteen villages for the charioteer Vishoka

While the great engagement raged, Bhima was fighting alone, encompassed by enemies beyond counting, and he gave his driver an order that only Bhima would give. Take me into the middle of the Dhartarashtra host, he said. Drive, charioteer, and drive fast, with these horses. I will send all these Dhartarashtras into the presence of Yama. The charioteer obeyed, quickly and with great force, and carried him against Dhritarashtra’s army to the very place from which Bhima wanted to destroy it. A great mass of Kaurava troops, elephants and chariots and horse and foot, came at him from every side, and from every side they began to strike that foremost of chariots with arrows without number. Bhima, high-souled, cut every one of those advancing arrows with his own golden-winged shafts, and the enemy’s golden-winged arrows fell to the earth in two and three pieces. Then, king, among those foremost Kshatriyas struck by Bhima’s arrows, the elephants and chariots and horses and foot soldiers raised a wail like the sound mountains make when thunder splits them. Struck by Bhima, their limbs pierced by his powerful shafts, those Kshatriyas rushed at him from every side like fledglings toward a tree. And when the troops came on like that, Bhima of the furious impetuosity showed everything he had, like the Destroyer himself with a mace in his hand when he burns and exterminates all creatures at the end of the age. Dhritarashtra’s soldiers could not withstand that fierce, forcible energy, the energy of the wide-mouthed Destroyer rushing at the end of the age to end all creatures; and the Bharata host, mangled and burned by the high-souled Bhima, broke like masses of cloud scattered by a tempest and fled in fear in every direction.

What Bhima did then is one of the small, exact moments the epic keeps among its catastrophes: he stopped, and he asked. Find out, Suta, he said cheerfully to his charioteer, whether those chariots and standards gathering and advancing toward me are ours or the enemy’s. I am so deep in the battle that I cannot tell them apart. I must not cover our own troops with my arrows. Vishoka, seeing hostile warriors and chariots and the tops of their standards on every side, I am greatly troubled. The king is in pain. The diadem-decked Arjuna has not come yet. These things fill my heart with sorrow, Suta. This is my grief, charioteer, that king Yudhishthira the just should have gone away and left me in the middle of the enemy. I do not know whether he is alive or dead, or whether Vibhatsu is. That adds to my sorrow. Still, full of grief as I am, I will destroy these hostile troops in all their might, and slaughtering my gathered enemies in the middle of the battle, I will rejoice with you today. Examine all the quivers that hold my arrows, Suta, ascertain the matter well, and tell me what quantity is still left on my chariot, how much of what sort. Vishoka counted. Of arrows, hero, you still have 60,000, he said; your razor-headed shafts number 10,000, and your broad-headed ones as many. Of cloth-yard shafts you still have 2,000, hero, and of pradaras, Partha, you still have 3,000. In truth, son of Pandu, the portion of your weapons that remains could not be carried on carts by six bullocks. Shoot and hurl them, learned one, for of maces and swords and the other weapons used with the arm alone you have thousands upon thousands, and lances and scimitars and darts and spears as well. Never fear that your weapons will run out.

Bhima took the inventory as permission. Look, Suta, at this awful battle today, he said, in which everything will be covered by my impetuous arrows sped fiercely from my bow, mangling all my enemies, until the very sun disappears from the field and it looks like the domain of Death. Today every Kshatriya down to the children will know either that Bhimasena fell in battle or that alone he subjugated all the Kurus. Today let all the Kauravas fall in battle, or let the whole world applaud me, beginning from the feats of my earliest years. Alone I will overthrow them all, or let all of them strike Bhimasena down. Let the gods who help in the achievement of the best acts bless me. Let that slayer of foes, Arjuna, come here now like Shakra coming quickly to a sacrifice when he is duly invoked. And then, in the middle of his own vow, he saw something. Look, the Bharata host is breaking! Why are those kings running? It is plain that Savyasachi, that foremost of men, is quickly covering that host with his arrows. Look, Vishoka, at those standards and elephants and horses and bands of foot soldiers flying away. Look at these chariots, assailed with arrows and darts, being scattered with the warriors on them, Suta. There the Kaurava host, assailed by Dhananjaya’s gold-winged, peacock-feathered arrows that strike like thunderbolts, is slaughtered wholesale and yet keeps filling its gaps. There chariots and horses and elephants are running, crushing bands of foot soldiers as they go. All the Kauravas have lost their senses and are running like elephants panicked by a forest fire, crying out in woe. And these huge elephants, Vishoka, are trumpeting aloud, assailed by arrows.

It was the charioteer who said the thing Bhima needed to hear, and he said it with a driver’s licensed insolence. How is it, Bhima, that you do not hear the loud twang of the yawning Gandiva, stretched by Partha in wrath? Are those two ears of yours gone? All your wishes have been fulfilled, son of Pandu. There is the Ape, in the middle of the enemy’s elephant force. Look, the string of Gandiva is flashing again and again like lightning among blue clouds. There is the Ape on the top of Dhananjaya’s standard, terrifying hostile divisions everywhere in this dreadful battle; even I am struck with fear looking at it. There the beautiful diadem of Arjuna is shining, and the precious jewel on the diadem, with the splendor of the sun, looks exceedingly resplendent. There beside him is his conch Devadatta, loud-blaring, the color of a white cloud. There, beside Janardana, reins in hand as he penetrates the hostile army, is his discus of solar effulgence, its nave hard as thunder and its edge sharp as a razor. Look, hero, at that discus of Keshava that increases his fame, which the Yadus always worship. There the trunks of huge elephants, straight as tall trees, cut off by Kiritin, are falling to the earth. There those huge creatures with their riders, pierced and split by arrows, are falling like hills riven by thunder. Look, son of Kunti, at the Panchajanya of Krishna, exceedingly beautiful and the color of the moon, and the blazing Kaustubha on his breast, and his garland of victory. Beyond doubt Partha, first and foremost of all chariot-warriors, is advancing, routing the hostile army as he comes, borne by his foremost horses the color of white clouds and driven by Krishna. Look at those chariots and horses and bands of foot soldiers mangled by your younger brother with the energy of the chief of the celestials; look, they are falling like a forest uprooted by the tempest of Garuda’s wings. Four hundred chariot-warriors with their horses and drivers, seven hundred elephants, and foot soldiers and horsemen without number have been killed in this battle by Kiritin’s mighty arrows. Slaughtering the Kurus, the mighty Arjuna is coming toward your side like the constellation Chitra. All your wishes are fulfilled. Your enemies are being exterminated. May your might, and the span of your life, ever increase. Bhima answered as a king answers a bearer of good news, and the answer is where this chapter ends. Since you tell me of Arjuna’s arrival, Vishoka, I will give you fourteen populous villages and a hundred female slaves and twenty chariots, for I am pleased with you, Suta, for the welcome news you have brought.

A key to reading this (Vishoka and the count): Vishoka is Bhima’s charioteer, and the quiver inventory is Vyasa’s own: 60,000 ordinary arrows, 10,000 razor-headed, 10,000 broad-headed, 2,000 cloth-yard shafts, 3,000 pradaras (a heavy piercing arrow). Gold-winged, peacock-feathered arrows are Arjuna’s signature, like the Ape on his banner, the jewel in his diadem, and the conch Devadatta; Krishna’s signs are the conch Panchajanya, the Kaustubha gem, and the discus. “Like the constellation Chitra” compares Arjuna’s approach to that bright star. The reward to a charioteer for good news follows the custom by which a suta who brings welcome tidings is paid; the chapter ends on that gift, and the next chapter opens with Arjuna cutting through the Kaurava host to reach Karna.

The gist: Alone in the enemy’s midst, Bhima first breaks the host that surrounds him and then, unable to tell friend from foe in the dust, asks Vishoka to identify the chariots ahead and confesses his grief: the wounded king has gone to camp and Arjuna is nowhere in sight. Vishoka counts the quivers to prove the arrows will not run out, and when Bhima wonders aloud why the Kauravas are suddenly fleeing, the charioteer points him to the twang of Gandiva, the Ape on the banner, the diadem, Devadatta, and Krishna’s discus. Arjuna is coming. For that news Bhima promises him fourteen villages, a hundred slave women, and twenty chariots.

Source: the Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Karna Parva. This chapter follows K. M. Ganguli, sections L to LXXXII (50 to 82); 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.