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Eighteen armies lay dead in the field, and a hundred sons were gone, and the blind king Dhritarashtra was left like a tree torn up by a storm, every branch of it lopped away. Grief took his voice from him. Sanjaya, the charioteer who had watched the whole war with a granted sight and carried every report back to the throne, came near and spoke. What purpose does grief serve, O king? The earth has been all but emptied. The kings who came from far countries to fight on your son’s side have all given up their lives. Let the funeral rites now be done, in their proper order, for your fathers and sons and grandsons, your kinsmen, your friends, your teachers. At those words the king, without sons now, without counselors, without friends, that man of great fire, dropped suddenly to the ground.
Dhritarashtra’s Lament and Sanjaya’s Words of Consolation
Fallen on the earth, the king spoke. Stripped of sons and counselors and friends, I must now wander the earth in sorrow with no doubt of it. What need have I of life itself, a bird shorn of its wings, worn out by old age, robbed of my kingdom, bereft of kinsmen, and blind besides? I shine no more than a lamp with its rays gone out. I did not follow the counsel of my friends, of the son of Jamadagni, of the celestial rishi Narada, of island-born Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa, when they came to advise me.
The king went on. In the middle of the assembly, Krishna told me what was for my good. A truce to this enmity, O king. Let your son keep the whole kingdom, and give the Pandavas five villages only. Fool that I was, I did not walk that road, and now I am left to burn in a repentance this bitter. I did not listen to the righteous words of Bhishma. I have heard of the fall of Duryodhana, whose roar was as deep as a bull’s, of the death of Duhshasana, of the extinction of Karna, of the setting of the Drona-sun, and still my heart will not break into pieces. I remember no evil act of my own, Sanjaya, whose fruit I am now made to swallow. Without doubt I committed great sins in lives before this, for which the Supreme Ordainer has set me down to endure this measure of grief. Let the Pandavas see me this very day resolved to take the long road that leads to the regions of Brahman.
A key to reading this (the akshauhini in modern measure): one akshauhini held about 21,870 chariots, the same number of elephants, 65,610 horse, and 109,350 foot soldiers. Eighteen akshauhinis come to more than four million fighting men, which is like several whole standing armies of a modern nation joined into one.
Then Sanjaya spoke to dispel the king’s grief. Cast off your sorrow, O king. You have heard the conclusions of the Vedas and the substance of many scriptures and holy writings from the lips of the old. When your son was drunk on the pride that youth brings, you did not accept the counsel your well-wishers offered you. Wanting the fruit, moved by greed, you did not do what was truly for your good. Your own intelligence, like a sharp sword, has wounded you. You generally paid court to those of wicked conduct. Your son’s counselor was Duhshasana, and the wicked-souled son of Radha, and Shakuni as wicked as he, and Chitrasena of foolish understanding, and Shalya. By his own behavior your son made an enemy of the whole world.
Sanjaya continued. Your son did not obey the words of Bhishma, the reverend chief of the Kurus, of Gandhari and Vidura, of Drona and of Kripa the son of Sharadvata, of the mighty-armed Krishna, of the wise Narada, of many other rishis, and of Vyasa himself of measureless energy. For all his prowess your son was of little intelligence, proud, forever hungry for battle, wicked, ungovernable, never content. You are a man of learning and intelligence, always truthful. Men so righteous and so wise as you are never stupefied by grief. On the lips of them all there was one word only, battle. Virtue was regarded by none of them. For this the order of Kshatriyas has been wiped out and the fame of your foes raised high.
Sanjaya said, You had taken the seat of an umpire, and yet you did not utter a single word of saving advice. Unfit for the task, you did not hold the scales level. Every man ought, at the outset, to adopt a course of action so beneficial that in the end he will not have to repent for what he has done. Through love of your son you did what pleased Duryodhana, and now you must repent for it. The man whose eye is fixed on the honey alone and never on the fall meets his ruin through greed for the honey. The man who indulges in grief never wins wealth. By grieving one loses the very fruits one wants. You and your son, with your words, fanned the Partha-fire, and with your greed for clarified butter you made it blaze into consuming flames. When that fire flared up, your sons fell into it like insects. Now that they have all been burned in the fire of the enemy’s arrows, it does not become you to grieve for them. These tears, like sparks of fire, burn the very dead for whom they are shed. Kill your grief with your intelligence, and hold yourself up with the strength of your own self.
The gist: Sanjaya laid out a plain truth. This ruin was the fruit of destiny and of Duryodhana’s evil conduct, yet the king, by sitting as a silent umpire, did nothing to stop unrighteousness, and so the repentance is his own. Grief neither brings the dead back nor gives the griever any ease.
Vidura’s Discourse on Dharma: Death, Karma, and the Impermanence of the World
Then Vidura, displaying his great intelligence, spoke to the son of Vichitravirya words that were like nectar. Rise, O king. Why are you stretched on the earth? Bear yourself up with your own self. This is the final end of all living creatures. Everything gathered together ends in scattering. Everything that rises high is sure to come down. Union is certain to end in separation, and life is certain to end in death. The destroyer drags off the hero and the coward alike. Why then should Kshatriyas not go into battle? The man who does not fight is not seen to escape with his life on that account. When one’s time comes, O king, there is no escape.
Vidura went on. Living creatures are non-existent at first. In the interval between they exist. In the end they become non-existent once more. What matter of grief is there in this? As the wind tears off the tips of all the blades of grass, so death overmasters all creatures. All creatures are like the travelers of one caravan bound for the same place. What difference does it make whom death meets first? It does not become you to grieve for those slain in battle. If the scriptures are any authority, all of them have reached the highest end. All of them knew the Vedas, all of them had kept their vows, and facing the foe they met death. Where is the room for sorrow in that? Before their birth they were unseen. They came from that unknown country, and now they have become unseen again. They are not yours, nor are you theirs. What grief is there in such a vanishing?
A key to reading this (who Vidura was): Vidura was a son of Veda Vyasa, born of a serving woman. He was reckoned the younger brother of Dhritarashtra and Pandu, and was called an incarnation of Dharma itself, the fairest and most just counselor of the Kuru court. His word always leaned toward righteousness, which is why in the king’s grief it was he who could give the deepest consolation.
Vidura said, If a man is slain he wins heaven, and if he slays he wins fame. Both of these are for us the means of great merit, so battle is not a barren thing. Indra will surely fashion for these heroes regions that grant every wish. They will become the guests of Indra. Men cannot reach heaven so quickly by sacrifices with lavish gifts, by austerities, or by learning, as heroes reach it who are slain in battle. On the bodies of the enemy’s heroes, which were their sacrificial fire, they poured out their arrowy libations, and in return they bore the arrowy libations of the foe. I tell you, O king, that for a Kshatriya in this world there is no better road to heaven than battle. All of these were high-souled Kshatriyas, ornaments of assemblies, and they have reached a high state of blessedness. They are not men to be grieved for.
Vidura said, In this world there are thousands of mothers and fathers and sons and wives. Whose are they, and whose are we? From day to day a thousand causes of sorrow spring up, and a thousand causes of fear. These trouble the ignorant, but are nothing to the wise. There is none dear or hateful to Time. All are dragged along by Time equally. Time makes all creatures grow, and it is Time that destroys everything. When all else is asleep, Time is awake. Time cannot be resisted. Youth, beauty, life, possessions, health, and the company of friends, all are unstable. The wise man never longs for any of them. Grief itself grows lighter only when it is not fed. This is the medicine for grief. Dwell on it and it does not shrink, it swells. Mental grief should be killed with wisdom, as bodily pain is killed with medicine.
Vidura went on, The acts of a former life follow a man so closely that they lie down beside him when he lies down, wait by him when he waits, and run with him when he runs. A man is his own friend and his own enemy. One’s own self is the witness of one’s acts, good and evil. From good acts springs a state of happiness, from sinful deeds springs woe. A man always obtains the fruit of his own acts. No one enjoys or suffers any weal or woe that is not the fruit of his own acts.
Hearing this, Dhritarashtra said, O man of great wisdom, your excellent words have driven off my grief, and yet I wish to hear you again. How do the wise free themselves from the grief of the mind that comes with the advent of evils and the loss of what is dear? Vidura answered, The wise man wins tranquility by subduing both grief and joy. All the things about which we are anxious are fleeting. The world is like a plantain tree, without any lasting strength. Since the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor, all lay down their anxieties and sleep in the burning-ground alike, with bodies stripped of flesh and only bare bones bound by shriveled sinews, in which of them will the living find the marks of birth or of beauty? As a man throws off a garment, old or new, and puts on another, so the embodied self throws off the old body and takes on a new one. There is one thing alone that is eternal. The bodies perish in time.
A key to reading this (the potter’s simile): as a potter’s earthen pots break, one still on the wheel, one half-shaped, one just formed, one wet, one dry, one in the firing, one just drawn from the kiln, one when it is put to use, so it is with the bodies of embodied creatures. One dies in the womb, one at the moment of birth, one after a fortnight, one in a year or two, one in youth, one in old age. This is why Vidura says the order of death is uncertain and reaches everywhere, and grief is therefore useless.
The gist: Vidura’s teaching goes down into the depths of Samkhya thought and the doctrine of karma. The body is perishable, the self eternal. Every creature bears the fruit of its own acts, and so grief over the ruin of others is neither dharma, nor profit, nor a means of happiness.
The Allegory of the Forest of the World: The Brahmana Hanging in the Well
Dhritarashtra asked, O best of speakers, how is this wilderness of the world to be known? Vidura bowed to the Self-created One and said, I will tell you what the great sages say of the forest of the world. A certain brahmana came, one day, into a vast and trackless forest crowded with beasts of prey. On every side lions and creatures huge as elephants were roaring. The forest was so terrible that Yama himself would take fright at it. The brahmana’s heart shook and his hair stood on end. He ran this way and that, searching for a shelter. He saw then that the forest was ringed round with a net, and that a fearful woman stood there with her arms stretched wide. The forest was encircled by many five-headed snakes of dreadful form, tall as cliffs, touching the very sky.
Vidura continued, Within the forest was a pit, its mouth covered over with hard, unyielding creepers and shrubs. In his wanderings the brahmana fell into that hidden pit. He was caught in the tangles of the creepers, as the large fruit of a jackfruit tree hangs by its stalk, and there he hung, head down and feet up. He saw a great snake at the bottom of the pit, and near its mouth a gigantic elephant, dark of hue, with six faces and twelve feet. About the twigs of the tree, dreadful bees swarmed and drank the honey they had gathered in their comb. The honey fell below in many streams, and the man hanging in the pit drank those streams without pause, and still his thirst was never quenched. Even so, he did not grow weary of life. He kept his hope of living. A pack of black and white rats was gnawing at the roots of the tree. From the beasts of prey, from that woman, from the snake in the well, from the elephant, from the fall of the tree that the rats would bring, and from the honey-hungry bees, in the midst of all these terrors, he never once let go of his hope of life.
Dhritarashtra asked, What is the meaning of this parable? Vidura said, Those who know the religion of moksha cite it as a simile. What I called the wilderness is this great world. The trackless forest within it is the narrow span of a single life. The beasts of prey are the diseases that afflict us. That woman of gigantic size is Decrepitude, old age, which destroys complexion and beauty. What I called the pit is the body of embodied creatures. The great snake at its bottom is Time, the destroyer of all. The cluster of creepers to which the man clung is the desire for life, which every creature cherishes.
A key to reading this (the whole meaning): the six-faced elephant is the year. Its six faces are the six seasons and its twelve feet the twelve months. The rats and the snake that cut at the tree are the days and nights, which without pause wear the span of life away. The bees are our desires, and the falling streams of honey are the pleasures of the senses in which a man stays absorbed. The wise, caught by none of this honey, cut their bonds.
Dhritarashtra praised the parable and wished to hear more. Vidura said, As a man on a long journey halts partway when he is worn out with toil, so the little-minded, traveling the long road of life, halt again and again in the form of repeated births in the womb. The wise are free of that bondage. The body is the chariot, the living self its driver, the senses are the horses, and our acts and understanding the reins. He who runs after these racing horses must come to this world over and over. But he who, self-restrained, holds them in check by his understanding does not have to return. Self-restraint, renunciation, and heedfulness are the three horses of Brahman. He who yokes these horses with the reins of good conduct, and casting off all fear of death drives the chariot of his own self, goes to the regions of Brahman. He who gives all creatures the assurance that they need not fear him reaches the highest of all places, the blessed realm of Vishnu. That gift of fearlessness cannot be won by a thousand sacrifices or by daily fasts.
The gist: with the allegory of the forest of the world Vidura showed the fleeting nature of life and the wheel of repeated births. The road to release lies in self-restraint, renunciation, harmlessness, and the gift of fearlessness to all creatures. And even after hearing this, Dhritarashtra fell down again, senseless with grief for his sons.
Vyasa’s Secret of Fate: Duryodhana Was a Portion of Kali
Even after Vidura’s words, the foremost of the Kurus fell senseless to the earth in grief for his sons. His friends, and island-born Vyasa, and Vidura, and Sanjaya, and other well-wishers sprinkled cool water over his body, fanned him with palm leaves, and gently rubbed his limbs with their hands. For a long while they comforted him. Coming back to his senses after a long time, the king wept again and said, A curse on the state of humanity, a curse on this body. The woe of parting from sons and wealth and kinsmen and relatives burns the limbs like poison or fire and destroys the wisdom. O best of the twice-born, this very day I will put an end to my life.
Hearing this, Vyasa spoke to his son. Mighty-armed Dhritarashtra, listen. You are learned, you are wise, you are skilled in the knowledge of duties. Nothing worth knowing is unknown to you. You know that all things doomed to death are unstable. When the world of the living is unstable, when this world itself is not eternal, when life is sure to end in death, why do you grieve? Before your very eyes, Time, making your son its instrument, brought this enmity to pass. This destruction of the Kurus was not to be avoided. Why grieve for heroes who have reached the highest end? Vidura knew everything, and with all his strength he strove for peace. It is my belief that the course marked out by destiny cannot be turned by anyone, though he struggle for an age. What the gods have settled I heard with my own ears, and I will tell it to you, so that your mind may find peace.
Vyasa said, Once, without any weariness, I went quickly to the court of Indra. There all the dwellers of heaven were gathered, with all the celestial rishis at their head, Narada among them. There I saw the Earth herself in embodied form, come to the gods on an errand of her own. She said, What you all promised me in Brahma’s abode, blessed ones, let it be accomplished soon. Then Vishnu, worshipped by all the worlds, said to her with a smile, before that whole assembly of the gods, The eldest of the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra, known by the name of Duryodhana, will accomplish your business. Through him your purpose will be achieved. For his sake many kings will gather on the field of Kuru and, striking one another with hard weapons, will slay one another. Then, O goddess, your burden will be lightened in the battle. Go to your own place and bear the weight of creatures again.
Vyasa said, From this you may understand that your son Duryodhana, born of Gandhari’s womb, was a portion of Kali, come into the world for the sake of a universal slaughter. He was vindictive, restless, wrathful, and never to be satisfied. Through the working of destiny his brothers became like him. Shakuni was made his maternal uncle and Karna his great friend. As the king is, so his subjects become. Your sons perished through their own faults, O king. Do not grieve for them. The Pandavas are not in the least at fault in what has happened. Narada told all this to Yudhishthira at the time of the Rajasuya sacrifice, saying that the Pandavas and the Kauravas, meeting one another, would meet with destruction. Hearing it, the Pandavas were filled with grief.
A key to reading this (the balance of fate and karma): Vyasa’s word that Duryodhana was a portion of Kali does not wipe out responsibility. In the same breath Vyasa says the sons perished through their own faults. Here is the moral difficulty of the Mahabharata, that fate and human action run side by side. Duryodhana’s being a portion of Kali is no excuse for his evil. It is the source of his nature, and the choice of that nature was still his own.
Vyasa said, If Yudhishthira hears that you are burning with grief and losing your senses again and again, he will give up his own life-breath. He is always compassionate and wise, and his kindness reaches even the least of creatures. At my command, and knowing that what is ordained cannot be undone, bear your life, O Bharata. If you live so, your fame will spread through the world, and you will come to a knowledge of all duties and find many years for the winning of ascetic merit. This grief for your dead sons, which blazes like a fire, should always be put out with the water of wisdom. Hearing this, Dhritarashtra said, O best of the twice-born, I am pressed down by a heavy load of grief, but hearing your word of what the gods ordained, I will no longer think of casting off my life. I will live, and cast off my grief, and act. At that, Vyasa, the son of Satyavati, vanished from the spot.
The gist: by telling Dhritarashtra the hidden secret of the gods, Vyasa turned him back from his resolve to die. Duryodhana was a portion of Kali, and this ruin was not to be avoided, yet the Pandavas are blameless. The king grew calm and agreed to live, and Vyasa vanished.
The Women Set Out, and the Meeting with Kripa and Ashvatthama
When Vyasa had gone, Sanjaya, his granted sight now lost, came back to Dhritarashtra and said, O king, the kings who came from far countries have gone, with your sons, to the realm of the dead. Let the funeral rites now be done, in their proper order, for your sons and grandsons and fathers. At those words the king fell senseless to the earth again. Vidura raised him once more and comforted him, and the king ordered his chariot yoked. Bring Gandhari here without delay, he said, and all the ladies of the house of Bharata, and Kunti, and all the other women too.
Then Gandhari, torn with grief for her sons, came at her lord’s command to the place where the king waited, and Kunti and the other ladies of the household with her. As they met, they clasped one another and wailed aloud. Vidura, more stricken than all of them, gave them courage, set the weeping women on the waiting chariots, and led them out of the city. In that hour a wail of woe rose from every Kuru house. With their tresses loose and their ornaments cast off, each in a single garment, those women whom the gods themselves had never before looked upon were now seen helpless before the common people. Like white mountains they issued from their houses, as a herd of deer comes from its mountain cave when the leader has been killed.
They had not gone two miles when the king met three great chariot-warriors, Kripa the son of Sharadvata, Ashvatthama the son of Drona, and Kritavarma. At the sight of the blind king the three sighed in grief, and in voices choked with tears they said, O king, your royal sons, having done the hardest of feats, have gone with all their followers to the realm of Indra. Of Duryodhana’s whole army we three chariot-warriors alone are left alive. All the rest have perished. Then Kripa said to the grieving Gandhari, O lady, your sons fell doing deeds worthy of heroes, fighting fearlessly, striking down many foes. Without doubt they have won those bright worlds that are reached by the use of weapons alone. Not one of them turned from the battle. Not one joined his hands to beg for his life.
Kripa went on, Your foes the Pandavas, O lady, have been no more fortunate. Hear what we, led by Ashvatthama, have done to them. Learning that your son had been slain unrighteously by Bhima, we entered their camp while it lay buried in sleep and slew the Pandava side. All the Pancalas are dead, all the sons of Drupada, all the sons of Draupadi. Having made that carnage, we are flying now, for we three cannot stand against them in battle. Grant us leave, O queen, and you too, O king, grant us leave, and keep the duty of a Kshatriya. Then, having gone round the king, and unable to draw their eyes from him, they turned their horses toward the banks of the Ganga and took leave of one another. Kripa went to Hastinapura, Kritavarma the son of Hridika to his own kingdom, and Ashvatthama the son of Drona to the asylum of Vyasa.
A key to reading this (the three surviving warriors): Kripa, Ashvatthama, and Kritavarma were the only three of the Kaurava side to live through the night-slaughter. Ashvatthama is the man who fell by night upon the sleeping Pandava camp and killed the five sons of Draupadi and Dhrishtadyumna. It is this deed that Kripa now speaks of to Gandhari, and it is for this that Ashvatthama will later bear a curse of his own.
The gist: at Sanjaya’s second report the king fainted again. The women of the royal house set out from the city toward the field. On the road Kripa, Ashvatthama, and Kritavarma brought the king and Gandhari the news of the night-slaughter, asked leave, and went their three ways.
Yudhishthira’s Meeting and the Episode of the Iron Bhima
When all the warriors had been slain, Yudhishthira heard that his uncle Dhritarashtra had set out from the city named for the elephant. Torn with grief for his own dead, he went with his brothers to meet his uncle. Behind the son of Kunti came Krishna of the Dasharha race, and Yuyudhana, whom men call Satyaki, and Yuyutsu. Draupadi too, burning with grief, followed her lords with her Pancala companions. Near the banks of the Ganga, Yudhishthira saw the crowd of Bharata women crying like a flight of ospreys. Those thousands of women, arms raised aloft, wailing, speaking words kind and cruel by turns, closed around the king. Where is the king’s righteousness now, they cried, where his truth and his mercy, when he has slaughtered fathers and brothers and teachers and sons and friends?
Passing through those crying women, the mighty-armed Yudhishthira touched the feet of his eldest uncle. Then all the Pandavas announced themselves, each speaking his own name. Dhritarashtra, torn with grief for his sons, reluctantly embraced the eldest son of Pandu, who was the cause of that slaughter. Speaking a few words of comfort to Yudhishthira, the king of evil intent sought out Bhima, like a blazing fire ready to burn everything that comes near it.
Krishna had read the king’s evil purpose toward Bhima beforehand. He drew the real Bhima away and set before the old king an iron statue of the second son of Pandu. Taking it for Bhima himself in flesh and blood, the king clasped it in both arms and, with the strength of ten thousand elephants, crushed it to fragments. His own chest was badly bruised, and he began to vomit blood. Covered with blood, the king fell to the earth like a parijata tree bent under its burden of flowers. His learned charioteer Sanjaya, the son of Gavalgana, raised him and soothed him and said, Do not do this. Then the king, his wrath cast off, wept aloud in grief, crying, Alas, Bhima, alas, Bhima.
Then Vasudeva said, Do not grieve, Dhritarashtra, you have not slain Bhimasena. It is an iron statue that you have broken. Knowing you were filled with rage, O king, I drew the son of Kunti out from the very jaws of Death. There is no one equal to you in strength of body. Who could bear the pressure of your arms? As no one comes out alive from an embrace of the Destroyer, so no one comes out safe from yours. Grief for your dead sons has bent your mind from righteousness, and so you sought to kill Bhimasena. But the death of Bhima would have done you no good. Your sons would not have come back to life by it. Accept, then, what we have done for the sake of peace, and do not set your heart on grief.
Then some serving women came to bathe the king. When he had been bathed, Krishna spoke again. O king, you have read the Vedas and many scriptures, you know the duties of kings. Why then do you carry this anger, when all that has come upon you is the fruit of your own fault? Before the war I told you, and Bhishma and Drona told you, and Vidura and Sanjaya told you, and you did not take our counsel, though you knew the Pandavas were greater than you and yours in strength and courage. The fool who from pride had the princess of Pancala dragged into the assembly was slain by Bhimasena in just revenge. Look at your own evil acts and at those of your wicked-souled son. The sons of Pandu are wholly blameless, and yet you and he treated them with the utmost cruelty.
Dhritarashtra answered, O mighty-armed Madhava, what you say is wholly true. It was love of my son that made me fall from righteousness. By good fortune, that hero of true prowess, Bhima, guarded by you, did not come within my embrace. Now I am free of wrath and fever, and I wish to embrace that hero, the second son of Pandu. When all the kings are dead, when my own children are gone, my welfare and my happiness rest on the sons of Pandu alone. So saying, the old king embraced Bhima, and Dhananjaya, and the two sons of Madri, and poured his blessings on them and wept.
A key to reading this (the iron-Bhima stratagem): Krishna’s act lays bare the moral layers of the Mahabharata. He handed the old, blind, grieving king an iron statue by a trick, so that the king might spend his wrath upon it. This was no outright lie, and it was not the whole truth either. Such rule-bending moves of Krishna show that in this epic dharma is not divided into a simple black and white.
The gist: Yudhishthira touched his uncle’s feet. In his wrath the king tried to kill Bhima, but Krishna handed him an iron statue and so saved him. Then Krishna reminded the king of his own faults, and the king acknowledged the truth and blessed the Pandavas.
Gandhari and Bhima’s Dialogue, the Curse on Yudhishthira’s Nail
Then the Pandavas, with Keshava, went to see Gandhari. Torn with grief for her hundred dead sons, and remembering that Yudhishthira had slain all his enemies, she wished to curse him. Vyasa the son of Satyavati read her intent beforehand. Cleansed by the sacred and fresh water of the Ganga, the great rishi, who could go anywhere at will with the swiftness of thought, came to that spot. He said to his daughter-in-law, Do not use this moment to pronounce a curse. Use it rather to show forgiveness. Do not be angry with the Pandavas, Gandhari. Set your heart on peace. Hold back the words about to fall from your lips. For the eighteen days the battle lasted, your son begged you every day for the blessing of victory, and every day the answer you gave was, Where righteousness is, there is victory. I do not remember that any word you spoke has ever proved false. So the Pandavas have surely won, in that dreadful battle, both victory and a far greater measure of righteousness. You were always devoted to forgiveness. Why will you not keep that virtue now?
Gandhari said, O reverend one, I bear the Pandavas no ill will, nor do I wish them to perish. But grief for my sons has shaken my heart. I know that I should protect the Pandavas as carefully as Kunti herself protects them. Through the fault of Duryodhana and of Shakuni the son of Subala, and through the acts of Karna and Duhshasana, the extermination of the Kurus has come to pass, and in this not the smallest blame touches Arjuna or Bhima or Nakula or Sahadeva or Yudhishthira. But there is one thing Bhima did, in the very sight of Vasudeva, that stirs my resentment. Vrikodara challenged Duryodhana to a dreadful mace-duel, and knowing that my son was the better in skill, he struck him below the navel. It is this that rouses my wrath. How can heroes, for the sake of their own lives, break the rules of duty laid down by the wise?
Bhimasena, like a man in fright, spoke to soothe her. Whether the act was righteous or unrighteous, I did it through fear, to save my own life. Forgive me for it. Your mighty son could not be slain by anyone in a fair fight, and so I had to take an unfair road. Duryodhana had first cheated Yudhishthira unrighteously and had always dealt with us by guile. He was then the one warrior of his side left alive, and rather than let him slay me in the mace-fight and rob us of our kingdom again, I did what I did. You know what your son said to the princess of Pancala when she stood, in her season, in a single garment. In the middle of the assembly he showed Draupadi his left thigh. For that wicked act your son deserved to be slain by us even then, but at the command of Yudhishthira we held ourselves within the bounds of the compact. Your son made a deadly enmity with us and drove us into the forest to suffer greatly. Remembering all this, I did what I did. Do not lay a fault on my innocent self.
Gandhari said, Since you yourself praise his skill, he did not deserve such a death. Yet he did all that you say. But when Vrishasena had taken Nakula’s horses, you drank in battle the blood from Duhshasana’s body. Such an act is cruel, condemned by the good, fit only for the most base of men. It was unworthy of you, Vrikodara. Bhima answered, It is wrong to drink the blood even of a stranger, and how much more the blood of one’s own kin. But that blood, O mother, did not pass down my lips and teeth. Karna knew this well. Only my palms were smeared with his blood. When after the game of dice the tresses of Draupadi were seized, I spoke certain words in wrath, and those words are still in my memory. Had I left that vow unfulfilled, I would have been reckoned, for all the years to come, to have fallen from the duty of a Kshatriya.
Gandhari said, Unconquered by anyone, you have slain the hundred sons of this old man. Why did you not spare, my child, even one son of this old couple robbed of their kingdom, one whose offense was lighter? Why did you not leave even one crutch for this blind pair? Though you live unharmed, having slain all my children, still, had you slain them by the path of righteousness, no grief would have been mine. So saying, filled with wrath at the slaughter of all her sons and grandsons, Gandhari asked, Where is the king?
Then Yudhishthira, trembling, with joined hands, came near her and spoke soft words. Here is Yudhishthira, O lady, the cruel slayer of your sons. I am the cause of this whole destruction. Curse me. I have no more need of life, or kingdom, or wealth. By causing such friends to be slain I have proved myself a great fool and a betrayer of friends. Overcome with fear, he stood before her, and Gandhari, drawing long breaths, said nothing. But the Kuru queen, who knew righteousness, from within the folds of the cloth that covered her eyes, turned her sight to the tip of Yudhishthira’s toe as he bent forward to fall at her feet. In that instant the nail of the king’s toe, which had been most beautiful before, grew disfigured. Seeing it, Arjuna slipped behind Vasudeva, and the other Pandavas moved restlessly from spot to spot. Then Gandhari, casting off her wrath, comforted the Pandavas as a mother would.
A key to reading this (the power of Gandhari’s sight): to live alongside her husband’s blindness, Gandhari had bound a cloth over her own eyes for life. From that vow and that austerity her sight had gathered such power that a single glance of it disfigured Yudhishthira’s beautiful nail. Had she turned her full gaze on him, Yudhishthira would have been reduced to ash, and this is why Arjuna, wary, drew back behind Krishna.
The gist: Vyasa held Gandhari back from cursing. She voiced her resentment at two of Bhima’s unrighteous acts, the mace-blow below the navel and the blood of Duhshasana, and Bhima answered her. In the end her sight disfigured Yudhishthira’s nail, but she let her wrath go.
Kunti, Draupadi, and the March to the Battlefield
Having her leave, the Pandavas went to their mother Kunti. Seeing her sons after so long a time, and worn with anxiety on their account, Kunti covered her face with her cloth and wept. When she had wept a while, she looked over the many wounds and weapon-scars on the bodies of her sons. Then, one after another, she embraced each son and stroked him, and wept together with Draupadi, who had lost all her children and lay on the bare earth in piteous lament.
Draupadi said, O venerable lady, where have all your grandsons gone, and Abhimanyu among them? Seeing you in such distress, why do they delay to come before you? Bereft of my children, what need have I of a kingdom? Kunti raised the grief-stricken princess of Pancala and comforted her, and then, with Draupadi and her sons, went to Gandhari, who was more stricken still. Seeing Kunti with her daughter-in-law, Gandhari said, Do not grieve so, my daughter. See, I am struck with grief as much as you. I think this whole destruction has come by the unresistable course of Time. This dreadful slaughter was not brought about by the will of human beings. What Vidura foretold has come to pass. Do not grieve over what could not be avoided, and least of all now that it is done. I am in the same plight as you. Through my fault this foremost of races has been destroyed.
So saying, though she stood far from the field, Gandhari looked upon the slaughter of the Kurus with her divine sight. Devoted to her lord, that most blessed lady had always kept hard vows and austerities and had always spoken the truth. By the boon of the great rishi Vyasa she had spiritual knowledge and power. She saw, from a distance yet as if from close by, that dreadful field, strewn with bones and hair, covered with streams of blood, heaped with thousands upon thousands of corpses. The ground, soaked with the blood of elephants and horses and chariot-warriors and fighters of every kind, was full of headless trunks and trunkless heads. It rang with the cries of elephants and horses and men and women, and jackals and cranes and ravens and vultures roved over it, and it had become the playground of the rakshasas who feed on human flesh.
Then, at Vyasa’s command, Dhritarashtra, and all the Pandavas with Yudhishthira at their head, and Vasudeva, and all the Kuru women, went to the field. Widowed of their lords, those women reached Kurukshetra and saw their slain brothers and sons and fathers and husbands lying on the ground, torn and eaten by beasts of prey, by wolves, by ravens and crows, by ghosts and pishachas and rakshasas and the other wanderers of the night. At such sights, which they had never seen before, they gave a great shriek and stepped down in haste from their costly carriages. Their limbs failed them and they dropped to the ground, and some fainted away outright. The women of both houses, Pancala and Kuru, were plunged into a grief past telling.
The gist: Kunti embraced her sons and looked over their wounds, and wept with the childless Draupadi. Gandhari comforted Kunti, then looked on the field with her divine sight. The whole royal house came to Kurukshetra, and at the sight of the ground heaped with corpses and thronged with wild beasts, the women fainted with grief.
Gandhari’s Lament: Showing Krishna the Battlefield
Looking on that dreadful field, Gandhari the daughter of Subala, who knew all things, said to the lotus-eyed Keshava, O Madhava, look at these daughters-in-law of mine. Widowed, their hair loose, crying like a flight of ospreys, they run to the corpses, calling back to memory their sons and brothers and fathers and husbands. See, O mighty-armed one, the field is covered with mothers of heroes, every one of them bereaved of her children. See how it is adorned with tigers among men, with Bhishma and Karna and Abhimanyu and Drona and Drupada and Shalya, as if with blazing fires. It is strewn with golden coats of mail, with costly gems, with armlets and bracelets and garlands, with darts and clubs and swords and arrows and bows.
Gandhari said, At this sight, O Janardana, I am burning with grief. It seems to me that in the destruction of the Pancalas and the Kurus the five elements themselves have been destroyed. Fierce vultures and other birds, in their thousands, drag the blood-dyed bodies, seizing them by the armor and devouring them. Who could have thought of the death of such heroes as Jayadratha and Karna and Drona and Bhishma and Abhimanyu? Though they could not be slain, they have been slain. They who were fit to sleep on soft, clean beds now lie, in their calamity, on the bare ground. The bards who once delighted them at the proper hours with songs of praise are now the howling jackals whose cries they hear.
Gandhari went on, The heroes who once slept on costly beds, their limbs fragrant with sandal paste and powdered aloe, now sleep in the dust. Vultures and wolves and crows have become their ornaments. Some lie with their maces held in embrace, as if the maces were beloved wives. Some, still in their armor, grip their bright weapons in their hands, and the beasts of prey, O Janardana, thinking them alive, do not tear at them. Some women stand holding up the severed head of a kinsman, a head fine of nose and set with earrings, and grieve. Fitting one head to one trunk and then another, they recognize their mistake and say, This is not his, and weep the harder.
As she lamented, Gandhari’s eyes fell upon her son Duryodhana.
A key to reading this (the shape of the lament): Gandhari’s lament is among the most piteous passages of the Mahabharata. A mother, she shows no partiality, grieving alike for her own sons and for the heroes of the enemy. Addressing Krishna, she names one hero after another and counts out his end, so that the whole field becomes a sorrowful reckoning.
Grief Over Her Sons: From Duryodhana to Duhshasana
At the sight of Duryodhana, Gandhari fell fainting to the earth like an uprooted plantain tree. Coming back to herself and seeing her son lying blood-covered on the bare ground, she wept again and again. Embracing him, she said to Hrishikesha standing near, On the eve of this battle that has wiped out our race, this foremost of kings said to me, In this war within the family, O mother, wish me victory. And I, knowing a great calamity had come, answered him, Where righteousness is, there is victory. And since, my son, your heart is set on battle, you will surely win those worlds that are reached by weapons, and move there like a god. These were the words I spoke to him. I do not grieve for my son. I grieve for the helpless Dhritarashtra, robbed of kinsmen and friends.
Gandhari said, See, Madhava, this best of my warrior sons, who was wrathful and skilled in weapons and unconquerable in battle, now sleeps on the bed of heroes. Behold the reverses that Time brings. He who once walked at the head of all crowned kings now sleeps in the dust. He who gathered eleven armies has, by his own bad policy, been slain by Bhimasena’s mace, and sleeps like an elephant slain by a lion. This reckless, foolish, wicked prince, who scorned Vidura and his own father, came to his death through his disregard of the old. He who ruled the earth without a rival for thirteen years, my son, now sleeps on the bare ground.
Gandhari said, See, Krishna, a sight more painful to me than my son’s death, these fair women lamenting by the fallen heroes. Look at the mother of Lakshmana, Duryodhana’s beloved wife, like an altar of gold, her tresses loose. Surely this wise woman once found her rest in the arms of her mighty lord. Now the unfortunate one smells the blood-covered head of her son, and now she strokes Duryodhana’s body with her hand, grieving now for her husband, now for her son. If the scriptures and the shrutis are true, then surely this king has won those worlds that are reached by the use of weapons.
Gandhari said, See, Madhava, my hundred sons, who never wearied at their labor, all slain by Bhimasena’s mace. What grieves me more today is that these my tender daughters-in-law, robbed of their sons, their hair loose, now wander the field. They who once walked only on the terraces of fair mansions with feet adorned with many ornaments must now, in deep pain of heart, touch this hard, blood-miry ground with those same feet. There Duhshasana sleeps, slain by Bhima, the blood of all his limbs drunk by that hero. See this other son, O Madhava, slain by Bhima with his mace at the urging of Draupadi and the memory of his own wrongs.
Gandhari said, This Duhshasana, in the middle of the assembly, wishing to please his elder brother and Karna, said to the princess of Pancala, won at dice, You are now the wife of a slave. Come into our house, lady, with Sahadeva and Nakula and Arjuna. On that day I said to Duryodhana, My son, cast off this wrathful Shakuni. Your maternal uncle is most wicked and loves quarrel. Cast him off at once and make peace with the Pandavas. But scorning my words, he spat the poison of his speech upon them. There Duhshasana lies, his two great arms stretched wide, like an elephant slain by a lion.
A key to reading this (the vow of Duhshasana’s blood): years before, when Duhshasana had dragged Draupadi by the hair into the assembly, Bhima had vowed to tear open Duhshasana’s chest and drink his blood. Here Gandhari condemns that deed as cruel, though Bhima had already made it plain that the blood never passed below his lips. This is the very same moral doubleness, the keeping of a vow and an act of cruelty within one and the same deed.
The gist: Gandhari lamented over the bodies of Duryodhana and Duhshasana, grieved at the reverses of Time, and recalled that she had counseled Duryodhana to cast off Shakuni and make peace, counsel he had thrown aside.
The Remaining Sons, and the Lament of Abhimanyu and Uttara
Gandhari said, There my son Vikarna, praised by the wise, lies slain by Bhima, among the elephants like the moon in an autumn sky ringed by blue clouds. His broad palm, cased in its leathern fence and scarred by the constant wielding of the bow, the vultures scarcely tear. His helpless young wife tries in vain to drive off the vultures that come to feed. There my son Durmukha, that destroyer of great bands of foes, his face toward the enemy, lies slain by the heroic Bhimasena in the keeping of his vow. His face, half-eaten by beasts of prey, looks lovelier still, like the moon on the seventh day of the bright fortnight.
Gandhari said, See that other son, Chitrasena, the model of all bowmen, lying slain. My son Vivimshati, young and handsome, forever waited on by the loveliest of women, lies there stained with dust, his armor pierced with arrows. Having broken into the ranks of the Pandava army, that hero now lies on the bed of a hero. And who could have withstood my son Duhsaha, that destroyer of heroes, that ornament of assemblies? Duhsaha’s body, covered with arrows, is beautiful as a mountain overgrown with flowering karnikaras. With his garland of gold and his bright armor, though the life is gone from him, he is beautiful still, like a white mountain of fire.
Gandhari said, O Keshava, he whose might and courage were reckoned one and a half times greater than his father’s and yours, who alone and without a follower pierced the impenetrable array of my son, who became the death of many, that Abhimanyu now sleeps there, having himself yielded to death. Even in death the splendor of Arjuna’s son is not dimmed. There the daughter of Virata, the daughter-in-law of the wielder of Gandiva, that girl of faultless beauty, laments over her heroic husband. She strokes her lord with her gentle hand, and taking off his golden coat of mail, gazes on his blood-dyed body.
Uttara addresses her lord and says, O hero with eyes like the lotus, you have been slain by the foe. In strength, in energy, in prowess you were the equal of Krishna, and in beauty like him too. You who slept on soft deerskin, does your body feel no pain today, lying on the bare ground? Why do you not speak to me who weep? I do not remember ever to have displeased you. O reverend one, leaving behind the honored Subhadra, these your fathers who are like the gods, and my own wretched self, where do you go? So saying, she gathers the blood-dyed locks of her lord in her hands, lays his head in her lap, and speaks to him as if he lived. O son of Krishna and of the wielder of Gandiva, how could those great chariot-warriors slay you in battle? By the keeping of righteousness and self-restraint I will soon go to those worlds you have won by your weapons. O hero, your union with me lasted only six months, for in the seventh you were reft of your life.
A key to reading this (Abhimanyu and Uttara): Abhimanyu was the son of Arjuna and Subhadra, Krishna’s sister. Alone he broke the chakravyuha, the wheel-array, and many great warriors together slew him unrighteously. Uttara was the daughter of Virata, king of the Matsyas, and Abhimanyu’s wife. Widowed within six or seven months of her marriage, she carried in her womb the child who would become Parikshit, through whom the line of Kuru continued.
The gist: Gandhari lamented her remaining sons, Vikarna, Durmukha, Chitrasena, Vivimshati, Duhsaha, and then told of the piteous lament of Abhimanyu’s widow Uttara, made a widow only six months into her marriage.
The End of Karna, Jayadratha, Shalya, and the Great Heroes
Gandhari said, There the mighty bowman Karna lies on the ground. In battle he was like a blazing fire, and now that fire has been put out by the energy of Partha. Having slain many atirathas, he lies stretched on the bare ground, drenched with blood. My sons, those great chariot-warriors, from fear of the Pandavas fought with Karna at their head, as a herd of elephants keeps its leader to the fore. Like a tiger slain by a lion, he was slain by Savyasachi. His wives, the mother of Vrishasena among them, sit around the fallen hero with their tresses loose, lamenting. For thirteen years the thought of this Karna kept sleep from Yudhishthira’s eyes. That Karna, who became the shield of Dhritarashtra’s son, now lies on the bare ground like a tree torn up by the wind. His wife, the mother of Vrishasena, falls and rises again and says, Surely your teacher’s curse pursued you, for when the wheel of your chariot sank into the earth, the cruel Dhananjaya cut off your head with an arrow.
Gandhari said, There lies the lord of Avanti, slain by Bhimasena, and vultures and jackals and crows feed on that hero. He who had many friends lies now wholly friendless. There lies Bahlika, the son of Pratipa, that mighty bowman, slain by a broad-headed shaft, like a sleeping tiger. Burning with grief for his son and set on the keeping of his own vow, Indra’s son Arjuna slew there Jayadratha the son of Vriddhakshatra. That Jayadratha, guarded by Drona, Partha slew in the keeping of his vow after piercing through eleven armies. When that same Jayadratha, with the help of the Kekayas, tried once to carry off Draupadi, he deserved to be slain by the Pandavas, but for the sake of Duhshala they let him go. Now my tender daughter Duhshala runs this way and that in her grief, searching for her husband’s head.
Gandhari said, There lies Shalya, the maternal uncle of Nakula, slain in battle by the pure and righteous Yudhishthira. Everywhere he boasted of being your equal. The ruler of the Madras, that great chariot-warrior, lies now without life. When he took up the driving of Karna’s chariot, he sought to sap Karna’s fire to give the victory to the Pandavas. See, Krishna, the moon-fair face of Shalya, his eyes like lotus petals, torn by crows. The women of the royal house of Madra sit round the king’s body, wailing aloud. There King Bhagadatta, the ruler of a mountain kingdom, the foremost of all who wield the elephant-hook, lies without life, and the garland of gold still shines on his head. Between Partha and him there had been a fight to make the hair stand on end, like the war of Shakra and the asura Vritra. And see, Bhishma, who had no equal on earth in heroism, lies there without life. Behold the son of Shantanu, of the splendor of the sun, stretched on the earth like the sun fallen from the sky at the end of the yuga. He lies on a bed of arrows, his head resting on the fine pillow of three arrows given him by the wielder of Gandiva. To obey his father’s command that shining one drew his seed upward. Knowing every duty, by the strength of his knowledge of both worlds, though mortal, he holds his life like one immortal.
Gandhari said, See Drona, the best of brahmanas, the teacher of Arjuna and Satyaki and the Kurus, lying on the ground. Master of the four kinds of weapons, Drona lies now without life, for at the last the weapons refused to obey his call. As he moved through the field, scorching foes on every side, his course was like a blazing fire. The handle of the bow is still in his grip, the leathern fences still on his fingers, and though slain, he looks as if he lived. Kripi, senseless with grief, laments in the service of her lord, slain by Dhrishtadyumna. Brahmacharis, singing the three Samas, lay Drona’s body on the pyre and set fire to it. They have built his pyre with bows and arrows and the boxes of chariots, and having set him in the fire they sing and weep, and, keeping Kripi at their head, move toward the banks of the Ganga.
A key to reading this (Bhishma’s bed of arrows): Bhishma held the boon of death at will, and so, though pierced through with arrows, he did not give up his life at once. He chose to lie on his bed of arrows and wait for the northward turn of the sun. Arjuna had set three arrows beneath his head for a pillow, for Bhishma had refused a common pillow and asked for one worthy of a warrior. In this lies the mark of his righteousness and his self-restraint.
The gist: Gandhari set before Krishna the sorrowful reckoning of the ends of Karna, the lord of Avanti, Bahlika, Jayadratha, Shalya, Bhagadatta, Bhishma, and Drona, all the great heroes. She grieved especially for the widowhood of Duhshala and described the cremation of Drona.
Lament for Bhurishrava, Shakuni, and the Remaining Kings
Gandhari said, See the son of Somadatta, slain by Yuyudhana, pecked and torn by a swarm of birds. Burning with grief for his son, Somadatta seems to reproach the great bowman Yuyudhana. There the mother of Bhurishrava, that faultless lady, says to her lord Somadatta, By good fortune, O king, you do not see this terrible carnage, this extermination of the Kurus. By good fortune you do not see your heroic son, who bore the sacrificial stake on his banner and performed many sacrifices with rich gifts, fallen and devoured by beasts of prey after Arjuna had struck off one of his arms. Why did Arjuna do so blameworthy a thing, that he cut off the arm of a brave and heedless warrior devoted to sacrifice? And Satyaki did a thing more sinful still, for he took the life of a man of restrained soul who sat in the observance of the praya vow.
Gandhari said, There the wives of Bhurishrava place their lord’s severed arm in their laps and weep bitterly. This is that arm which once touched the navel and thighs and hips of fair women, which slew foes and dispelled the fears of friends, which gave away thousands of cattle and made an end of Kshatriyas in battle. In the very sight of Vasudeva, Arjuna of unstained deeds cut it off while its owner, heedless, was engaged with another warrior.
Gandhari said, There the mighty Shakuni, chief of the Gandharas, lies slain by Sahadeva, the maternal uncle by the sister’s son. Once he was fanned with a pair of gold-handled fans, and now the birds fan his fallen form with their wings. He wore hundreds and thousands of shapes, and all the illusions of that master of guile have been burned up by the energy of the son of Pandu. By his cunning at dice he had beaten Yudhishthira in the assembly and won his vast kingdom, and now the son of Pandu has taken his life-breath. My fear, O Madhava, is that this crooked man may there too sow dissension among my sons, who are candid and without guile.
Gandhari said, See that unconquerable ruler of the Kambojas, the bull-necked hero, lying in the dust, and his wife weeping at the sight of his blood-stained arms, which were once smeared with sandal paste. See the ruler of the Kalingas lying on the ground, his great arms adorned with a pair of armlets. There the women of Magadha stand round Jayatsena the Magadha king, lamenting. There again the women lament round Brihadbala, the ruler of the Kosalas, drawing from his body the shafts driven into it by Abhimanyu, and fainting again and again. There the tender-aged sons of Dhrishtadyumna, decked with garlands and armlets of gold, lie slain by Drona, having fallen like moths upon that chamber of fire which was Drona’s chariot, its bow the flame and its arrows the fuel. And the five Kekaya brothers lie slain by Drona, their faces turned toward that hero.
Gandhari said, See King Drupada, overthrown in battle by Drona like a great elephant slain by a lion in the forest, and the white umbrella of the Pancala king shining like the moon in an autumn sky. His daughters-in-law and wives, having burned his body on the pyre, move on, keeping the pyre to their right. There they are removing Dhrishtaketu, the ruler of the Chedis, slain by Drona, and his son too, with flower-soft locks and beautiful earrings, cut down by Drona’s shafts, who did not leave his father even in death. So too my son’s son, the mighty-armed Lakshmana, followed his father Duryodhana.
Gandhari said, See, Keshava, the two brothers of Avanti, Vinda and Anuvinda, lying like two blossoming shala trees felled by the spring tempest. The Pandavas, with you, are surely not to be slain, for they came safe through Drona, Bhishma, Karna, Kripa, Duryodhana, Ashvatthama, Jayadratha, Somadatta, Vikarna, and Kritavarma. Behold the reverses that Time brings, that heroes who could slay the very gods by their weapons have themselves been slain. My sons were reckoned dead even then, when you returned unsuccessful from Upaplavya. Bhishma and the wise Vidura told me then, Cast off your love for your sons. The counsel of those great men did not go for nothing. Soon my sons were turned to ashes.
A key to reading this (Bhurishrava and the praya vow): the praya vow, or prayopavesana, is the vow in which a warrior lays down his weapons in battle and sits, resolved to fast and meditate until death. Arjuna cut off Bhurishrava’s arm while he was heedless in his fight with Satyaki, and then Satyaki killed the disarmed Bhurishrava as he sat in the praya vow. This is among the most disputed rule-breakings of Kurukshetra, which Gandhari and the wives of Bhurishrava condemn openly.
The gist: Gandhari lamented the severed arm of Bhurishrava, the burned illusions of Shakuni, and the ends of the kings of Kamboja, Kalinga, Magadha, and Kosala, of the Kekayas, of Drupada, of Dhrishtaketu, and of the two Avanti brothers. She condemned the rule-breakings of Arjuna and Satyaki and recalled that Bhishma and Vidura had told her long before to give up her love for her sons.
Gandhari’s Curse on Krishna
Having said this, Gandhari fell senseless to the earth. Casting off her fortitude, her heart torn with wrath and grief for her sons, she laid the whole blame on Keshava. Gandhari said, O Krishna, both the Pandavas and the sons of Dhritarashtra have been burned up. While they were being destroyed, O Janardana, why were you indifferent? You were able to stop that slaughter, for you had a great following and a vast army, you had eloquence, and you had the power to bring peace. Since you were deliberately indifferent to this whole carnage, therefore, O mighty-armed one, you shall reap the fruit of this act.
Gandhari said, By the little merit I have won through my dutiful service to my husband, by that merit so hard to gain, I curse you, O wielder of the discus and the mace. Since you were indifferent while the Kurus and the Pandavas slew one another, therefore, O Govinda, you shall be the slayer of your own kin. In the thirty-sixth year from this, O Madhusudana, having brought about the slaughter of your kinsmen and friends and sons, you shall perish by disgusting means in a lonely wilderness. The women of your race, robbed of their sons and kinsmen and friends, shall weep and wail even as these women of the house of Bharata weep now.
Hearing this, Vasudeva said, with a faint smile, O reverend Gandhari, there is none in the world but myself who can make an end of the Vrishnis. This I know well. I am myself working to bring it about. In pronouncing this curse, O lady of excellent vows, you have only helped me in that task. The Vrishnis cannot be slain by any other, be he man or god or danava. So the Yadavas shall fall by one another’s hands. Hearing this, the Pandavas were struck dumb, and all of them lost hope of their lives.
Then the holy one said, Rise, rise, O Gandhari, do not set your heart on grief. Through your own fault this vast carnage came to pass. Your son Duryodhana was wicked of soul, envious, and swollen with arrogance. Praising his wicked acts, you took them for good. He was most cruel, the very image of enmity, and he broke the commands of the old. Why do you seek to lay your own faults on me? The man who grieves for what is already gone gains only more grief. By indulging in grief one doubles it. Hearing this, Gandhari, her heart shaken with grief, fell silent.
A sub-tale: Gandhari’s curse did not go in vain. Exactly thirty-six years later the Yadavas of Dwarka, quarreling among themselves, killed one another. Krishna’s whole Vrishni house was destroyed, and Krishna himself gave up his body in the wilderness, by the arrow of a hunter, in a lowly way. Krishna does not turn the curse aside. He accepts it, for the end of the Vrishnis was part of the very design he had willed. Here the Mahabharata shows that a curse and destiny are two ends of one thread.
The gist: laying on Krishna the charge of indifference, Gandhari cursed him that in thirty-six years he would see his own house destroyed and perish in a lowly way. Krishna accepted the curse with a smile and said she had only helped his own design. Then he reminded Gandhari of her love for her son and her praise of Duryodhana.
The Count of the Dead and Their Destinies
Then the royal sage Dhritarashtra, holding back the grief that folly breeds, asked Yudhishthira, O son of Pandu, if you know it, tell me how many were slain in this battle and how many escaped alive. Yudhishthira answered, In this battle one billion, six hundred sixty million, and twenty thousand men were slain, and of the heroes who escaped with life the number is two hundred forty thousand, one hundred sixty-five.
Dhritarashtra asked, O mighty-armed one, tell me, what ends have those foremost of men attained? Yudhishthira said, Those warriors of true prowess who gladly gave up their bodies in fierce battle have reached worlds like those of Indra. Those who, knowing death to be certain, met it without a heavy heart have gained the company of the gandharvas. Those who fell at the edge of weapons while turning from the field or begging for quarter have reached the world of the guhyakas. Those who, keeping the duty of a Kshatriya and holding flight from battle to be a shame, fell pierced with keen weapons while advancing even unarmed against fighting foes, have all taken bright forms and reached the regions of Brahman. The rest, who met death by any means at the edges of the field, have reached the world of the Uttara-Kurus.
Dhritarashtra asked, By the power of what knowledge, my son, do you see these things like one crowned with the success of an ascetic? Yudhishthira said, When at your command I wandered in the forest, I won this boon on the occasion of a pilgrimage to the sacred places. I met the celestial rishi Lomasa and had from him the boon of a divine sight. It was thus, on that earlier occasion, that I came to a second sight through the power of knowledge.
A key to reading this (the death-count in modern terms): Yudhishthira speaks of some 1.66 billion dead. This figure is far larger than any true count of a single war, and it belongs to the epic scale of the Mahabharata. It stands for the wholesale destruction of the entire Kshatriya power of that age. By way of comparison, the number comes to about the whole population of a large modern nation, which underlines how vast the destruction is meant to seem.
The gist: Yudhishthira gave the number of the dead and of the living, and told which kind of warrior had reached which world, from the realm of Indra to the region of Brahman and the Uttara-Kurus. He named the source of his divine sight as a boon from the rishi Lomasa.
The Last Rites of the Heroes and Water Offerings on the Ganga
Dhritarashtra said, It is needful that our people burn, with the due rites, the bodies of the slain, both the friended and the friendless. What shall we do with those who have none to look after them and no sacred fires? Our duties are many. Whose last rites should we perform? At this the wise Yudhishthira commanded Sudharma, the priest of the Kauravas, and Dhaumya, and Sanjaya of the suta order, and Vidura, and Yuyutsu of Kuru’s race, and all his servants headed by Indrasena, saying, Have the funeral rites of the slain, in their thousands, duly performed, so that none may go without for lack of someone to care for him.
At this command Vidura, Sanjaya, Sudharma, Dhaumya, Indrasena, and the others gathered sandal and aloe and other kinds of wood, and clarified butter and oil and perfumes, and costly silken robes and other cloth, and great heaps of dry wood, and broken chariots and many weapons, and having built the pyres in the due way, without haste, they burned the slain kings in their proper order. On those fires, blazing with torrents of clarified butter, they burned the bodies of Duryodhana and his hundred brothers, of Shalya, of King Bhurishrava, of Jayadratha and Abhimanyu, of the son of Duhshasana and of Lakshmana and of King Dhrishtaketu, of Vrihanta and Somadatta and the hundreds of Srinjayas.
They burned too the bodies of King Kshemadhanva, of Virata and Drupada, of Shikhandi the prince of the Pancalas, of Dhrishtadyumna of Prishata’s race, of the valiant Yudhamanyu and Uttamauja, of the ruler of the Kosalas, of the sons of Draupadi, of Shakuni the son of Subala, of Achala and Vrishaka, of King Bhagadatta, of Karna and his wrathful son, of the Kekaya princes those great bowmen, of the Trigartas those mighty chariot-warriors, of Ghatotkaca the prince of the rakshasas and the brother of Vaka, of Alambusha the foremost of rakshasas, and of King Jalasandha, and of hundreds and thousands of other kings. The pitri-medha rites were done for some of the illustrious dead. Some sang Samas, some wailed for the dead. With the loud sound of the Samas and the Riks and the lament of the women, all creatures were stunned that night. The funeral fires, smokeless and bright in the surrounding dark, looked like luminous planets in a sky wrapped in cloud.
The dead who had come from far countries and were wholly without friends were gathered in thousands of heaps and, at Yudhishthira’s command, burned by Vidura through many people working coolly, in good will and affection, on pyres of dry wood. Having had their last rites performed, the Kuru king Yudhishthira, setting Dhritarashtra at the head, went toward the river Ganga.
Reaching the holy Ganga of sweet water, with its high banks and broad shores and vast bed, they all cast off their ornaments, their upper garments, and their belts and girdles. The Kuru women, crying and torn with grief, offered water to their fathers and grandsons and brothers and kinsmen and sons and reverend elders and husbands. As those wives of heroes performed the water-rite in honor of their heroic lords, the way to the stream became easy, though the many paths made by their feet were afterward lost. Crowded with the wives of heroes, the shores of the stream looked as broad as the ocean and offered a spectacle of sorrow and despair.
A key to reading this (the pitri-medha and the water offering): the pitri-medha is the funeral rite in which the body of the dead is given to the fire with Vedic mantras and the singing of Samas. In the water offering, the udaka-kriya, the living kinsmen step into the river and offer water in the name of the dead, so that the departed soul may find a good passage. That Yudhishthira had the last rites performed even for the friendless dead is a mark of his royal duty and his compassion, for the scriptures say that without the rites no soul finds a good passage.
Kunti’s Revelation of the Secret: Karna Was the Eldest Brother
Then Kunti, in a sudden surge of grief, spoke soft words to her sons. That great bowman, that leader of the leaders of the chariot-divisions, that warrior marked with every sign of heroism, whom Arjuna slew in battle, whom you sons of Pandu took for the suta child born of Radha, who shone in the midst of his forces like the lord Surya himself, who fought against all of you and your followers, whose energy had no equal on earth, who chose glory over life, firm in truth and never wearied by effort, was your eldest brother. Offer water to that eldest brother of yours, who was born of me by the god of day. That hero was born with a pair of earrings and clad in armor, and was like Surya himself in splendor.
Hearing their mother’s painful words, the Pandavas grieved for Karna, and their sorrow grew heavier than before. Then Yudhishthira, sighing like a snake, asked his mother, That Karna who was like an ocean with arrows for his billows, his tall banner for his whirlpool, his mighty arms for a pair of alligators, his great chariot for a deep lake, and the sound of his palms for its tempestuous roar, whose force none could withstand but Dhananjaya, O mother, were you the one who bore that hero? How was that son, like a very god, born of you in the days before? The energy of his arms scorched us all. How, mother, could you hide him like one who hides a fire in the folds of his cloth?
Yudhishthira went on, The grief I feel for the death of Karna is a hundred times greater than the grief caused by the death of Abhimanyu and the sons of Draupadi and the destruction of the Pancalas and the Kurus. Thinking of Karna, I am burning as if thrown into a blazing fire. With him nothing would have been beyond us, not even the things of heaven. Alas, this terrible carnage, so destructive of the Kurus, need never have happened. Lamenting so, Yudhishthira wailed aloud, and then offered water to his dead elder brother.
Then all the women who crowded the shore suddenly sent up a loud wail of grief. The wise Kuru king Yudhishthira had the wives and members of Karna’s family brought before him, and with them he performed the water-rite in honor of his eldest brother. The ceremony finished, the king, his senses deeply shaken, rose from the waters of the Ganga.
A key to reading this (Karna’s birth secret): while still unmarried, Kunti had, with a mantra given her by the rishi Durvasa, called upon Surya the sun-god, and Karna was born, with armor and earrings. From fear of the world’s blame Kunti set the infant in a basket and floated it down the river, and Adhiratha the suta and his wife Radha raised him. This is why Karna was called the suta child and Radheya, though in truth he was the eldest brother of the Pandavas. The unveiling of this secret deepens Yudhishthira’s grief many times over, for without knowing it he had a share in the death of his own elder brother.
The gist: on the bank of the Ganga, Kunti at last unveiled the secret, that Karna was her eldest son, born of the sun-god, and the elder brother of the Pandavas. At this Yudhishthira’s grief grew a hundredfold, and he offered water to Karna together with his family. The Stri Parva ends here, at its most piteous height.
Source: the Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Stri Parva; in the tradition of Gita Press, Gorakhpur.
Source: the Mahabharata of Vedavyasa (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)