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The poison that had been slowly ripening inside the palace at Hastinapura was ready now to burst. Duryodhana went to his father in private and said that the Pandavas should be sent by some clever device to the town of Varanavata, so that no fear of them might remain. The blind king, whose only eyes were his knowledge, hesitated at first, for Pandu had always been devoted to him and the people loved Yudhishthira. Yet his son’s insistence, and the same thought hiding inside his own heart, bent him at last. This is the nature of the Mahabharata, where adharma never ripens in one mind alone. It ripens in the silence and the weakness of many hearts.
The plot of the house of lac
Duryodhana told Dhritarashtra that the people could be won to their side with wealth and honors, and that the treasury and the ministers of state were, at this moment, in their control. So the Pandavas should be sent to Varanavata by some gentle pretext. The king answered that Bhishma, Drona, Vidura, and Kripa would never accept such an exile, because in their eyes the Kauravas and the Pandavas were equal. Duryodhana replied that Bhishma would stay neutral, that Drona had his own son Aswatthaman at his side, that Kripa would never leave the side of Drona and Aswatthaman, and that Vidura, though his heart was with the Pandavas, was alone and could do them no harm.
So Duryodhana and his brothers began, by grants of wealth and honor, to draw the people slowly over to their side. Some clever ministers, coached by Dhritarashtra, began one day in open court to praise the town of Varanavata. They said the festival of Pasupati, the festival of Shiva, had begun there, and that its procession was the most delightful of all ever seen on earth. Hearing this, the Pandavas felt a longing to go and see it. When the king sensed their curiosity, he told them that if they wished, they might travel to Varanavata with their friends and followers, enjoy the festival, sport there for a while as they pleased, and then return to Hastinapura.
Yudhishthira understood the king’s meaning perfectly. Knowing himself to be weak and without allies, he said only, “So be it.” Then, asking humbly for the blessings of Bhishma, Vidura, Drona, Valhika, Somadatta, Kripa, Aswatthaman, Bhurisravas, and the illustrious Gandhari, he set out. The elders of the Kuru house said, “Sons of Pandu, may all the elements bless you along your way, and may not the slightest evil befall you.”
A key to reading this (place): Varanavata was a town on the banks of the Ganga, far from Hastinapura. Picture someone sent today with full honors to a distant place for a “rest”: that is what this well-arranged banishment was.
Purochana and the mansion of lac
The king’s words made Duryodhana very glad. In private he took the right hand of his counselor Purochana and said, “Purochana, this world so full of wealth is mine, but it is yours as much as it is mine. I have no more trusted counselor than you.” He then ordered him to go at once to Varanavata in a chariot drawn by swift mules and to raise a four-sided palace near the arsenal. Into the walls of that palace he was to work hemp, resin, clarified butter, oil, fat, and a great quantity of lac, so skillfully that no one, even on close inspection, could tell the house was made to burn. All around it, too, he was to scatter hemp, oil, ghee, lac, and wood.
The Pandavas, Duryodhana said, were to be lodged in that house with great honor, together with Kunti and their friends, and the finest beds, seats, and conveyances were to be placed there, so that Dhritarashtra would have no cause to complain. Then, once the Pandavas were sleeping inside without fear, the house was to be set alight at the outer door, and the people would believe they had perished in an accidental fire. Saying, “So be it,” Purochana went straight to Varanavata and carried out every one of Duryodhana’s orders.
A key to reading this (word): Lac is a resin-like flammable substance secreted by insects; a house built of it gives this episode its names, jatugriha and lakshagriha, the house of lac. Hemp is a fibrous plant that catches fire quickly.
Vidura’s coded warning
The Pandavas yoked wind-swift horses to their chariots and set out. Before leaving they touched the feet of Bhishma, of Dhritarashtra, of Drona, of Kripa, of Vidura, and of the other elders of the Kuru race, embraced their equals, and took their leave of the children and the old women of the household. The townspeople and the Kuru elders followed them a little way. Some of the citizens said aloud, in their grief, that Dhritarashtra’s eye did not rest on what was just, and they asked how Bhishma, who was tolerating this exile, could permit so great an injustice.
When the citizens had fallen back, Vidura, who knew every secret of dharma, spoke to Yudhishthira in the tongue of the Mlechchhas, which no one else could follow, so that he might put him on his guard. He said, “The man who reads the schemes his enemies contrive, according to the science of politics, should act so as to turn aside every danger. The man who knows that there are sharp weapons that can cut the body though they are not made of steel, and who knows also the means of warding them off, can never be harmed by his foes. He lives who guards himself by knowing that neither the consumer of straw and wood, nor the drier of the dew, burns the one who lives in a hole in the deep woods. A man given a weapon not made of steel by his enemies, that is, a house made to burn, can escape the fire if he makes his dwelling like a jackal’s den, with many ways out.”
Yudhishthira answered, “I have understood you.” Vidura, having given the Pandavas this counsel, walked around them, took his leave, and returned to his own house. Then Kunti came to Yudhishthira and asked what those indistinct words of Vidura had meant, and what his own answer had meant, for she had understood neither. Yudhishthira said that Vidura had told him the mansion at Varanavata was built of things that burn, that the path of escape from it would not be hidden from them, and that those who keep their senses under control can win the sovereignty of the whole earth. On the eighth day of the month of Phalguna, when the star Rohini was in the ascendant, the Pandavas set out, and they came to Varanavata and looked upon the town and its people.
A key to reading this (word): The Mlechchha tongue means an unfamiliar frontier speech of the time, known to both Vidura and Yudhishthira but not to the others in the court. It served them as a kind of secret sign language.
The gist: The trap is fully laid, and the Pandavas are walking into it with open eyes, because they are weak and friendless. Vidura’s coded warning is their only armor.
The tunnel-digger and a year of deception
The people of Varanavata came out in thousands of vehicles with auspicious offerings to welcome the Pandavas, and they stood surrounding them, calling out the word of victory. The Pandavas greeted them in turn and entered the town. After ten nights Purochana showed them the mansion he had built, which he called “The Blessed Home.” Yudhishthira inspected it, and smelling the scent of fat mixed with clarified butter and preparations of lac, he told Bhima that the house was truly built to burn. He thought to himself that if Purochana read from their faces that they had fathomed his scheme, he might in his haste set the house alight at once. So he resolved to make every quiet arrangement for their escape while keeping up an outward show of contentment and trust, so that neither Purochana nor any of the townspeople should guess their minds.
Then a friend of Vidura’s, skilled in the work of mining, came secretly to the Pandavas and said, “Vidura has sent me. I am a skilled miner, come to serve the Pandavas.” To prove that he was genuine, he told them that Purochana meant to set fire to the door of the house on the fourteenth night of this dark fortnight, and that the words Vidura had spoken on the road in the Mlechchha tongue, and Yudhishthira’s answer in the same tongue, were his credentials. Hearing this, Yudhishthira accepted him as Vidura’s most trusted friend and said, “Protect us as the learned Vidura always protects us. I know that this house, so ready to burn, has been contrived for me at the command of Dhritarashtra’s son. With a little effort, and without Purochana’s knowledge, save us from the fire that is coming.”
The miner said, “So be it,” and carefully dug a large underground passage. Its mouth was made in the center of the house, level with the floor and covered with planks, so that Purochana, who kept constant watch at the door, could not see it. The Pandavas slept in their chambers with their weapons ready, and by day they went hunting from forest to forest, deceiving Purochana with a show of trust and contentment while inside they were watchful and uneasy. For a full year Purochana watched them living carefree and without suspicion, and he was greatly pleased.
The gist: Vidura’s foresight had already shaped their way out as a tunnel. The Pandavas patiently cut deception with deception for a whole year, and that patience was the seed of their victory.
Fire in the house of lac and the end of Purochana
Seeing Purochana thoroughly deceived, Yudhishthira said to Bhima, Arjuna, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva, “This cruel-hearted wretch has been well deceived. I think the time has come for our escape. Let us set fire to the arsenal, burn Purochana to death, leave his body here, and, six of us, fly from this place unseen by anyone.”
Then one night, at an almsgiving, Kunti fed a great number of brahmins. Many women came too, and after they had eaten and drunk and enjoyed themselves as they pleased, they took their leave of Kunti and returned to their homes. As though driven there by fate, a Nishada woman, wandering in search of food, came to that feast with her five sons. She and her sons, made senseless by the wine they had drunk, lost their wits, and more dead than alive they lay down to sleep in that mansion. When everyone in the house was asleep, a violent wind began to blow in the night. Bhima set fire to the very spot where Purochana lay sleeping, then to the door of the house of lac, and then to the mansion in several places all around.
When the Pandavas were sure the house had caught fire in several parts, those chastisers of foes, with their mother, lost no time and slipped into the underground passage. The heat and the roar of the fire grew fierce and woke the townspeople. Seeing the house in flames, the sorrowful citizens said that the base Purochana had built this house at Duryodhana’s command for the destruction of his master’s own kin, and had set it alight himself. Fie on the partial heart of Dhritarashtra, they said, that has burned the innocent heirs of Pandu as though they were enemies. And that sinful Purochana too, as fate would have it, has been burned to death.
A sub-tale: The moral shadow of this episode runs deep. To save themselves, the Pandavas deliberately left Purochana to his own fire, and the burned bodies of that unknown Nishada woman and her five sons later helped convince the townspeople that Kunti and the five Pandavas had died in the flames. Vyasa’s telling does not hide these innocent deaths. It places the cost of deception and survival squarely before you.
Bhima’s burden and the boat across the Ganga
The townspeople surrounded the house all night in grief, while the Pandavas came out of the tunnel with their mother and fled in haste, unseen by anyone. Heavy with sleep and fear, they could not move quickly. So Bhimasena, of terrible strength and speed, took all his brothers and his mother upon his body. He set his mother on his shoulder, the twins on his two sides, and Yudhishthira and Arjuna on his two arms, and Vrikodara marched forward with the speed of the wind, breaking the trees with his breast and pressing deep into the earth with his tread.
Meanwhile Vidura had sent into those woods a man of pure character whom he trusted. This man showed the Pandavas, on the sacred banks of the Ganga, a boat fitted with engines and flags, built by skilled artificers, able to withstand wind and wave, and endued with the speed of a tempest or of thought itself. To prove that Vidura had truly sent him, he repeated Vidura’s own words: “Neither the consumer of straw and wood, nor the drier of the dew, burns the one who lives in a hole in the forest; he who guards himself knowing this escapes death.” Then he added that Vidura had said, “Son of Kunti, in battle you shall surely defeat Karna, and Duryodhana with his brothers, and Sakuni.”
He set those heroic princes and their mother in the boat and went with them himself. He said that Vidura, in his heart, had smelled their heads and embraced them, and had said that as they began their auspicious journey and traveled alone they should never be careless. Bringing them to the far bank of the Ganga and seeing them all safe, he uttered the word of victory for their success and turned back. The Pandavas sent a message through him to Vidura, crossed the Ganga, and pressed on quickly and in deep secrecy.
The gist: Bhima’s matchless strength and Vidura’s unseen guardianship, these two powers together carried the Pandavas past both fire and water. Hastinapura believed them burned to death, and that false belief bought them their freedom.
Dhritarashtra’s grief and a deceived belief
When the night had passed, a great crowd of townspeople came to look for the Pandavas. Putting out the fire, they saw that the burned house had been built of lac and its materials, and that Duryodhana’s counselor Purochana had been burned to death. The people wailed aloud that all this had been contrived by the wicked Duryodhana to destroy the Pandavas, and that surely, with Dhritarashtra’s knowledge, he had burned the heirs of Pandu, for otherwise the father would have stopped him. Then, raking through the ashes to find some trace of the Pandavas, they came upon the burned bodies of the innocent Nishada woman and her five sons. The miner sent by Vidura covered the mouth of the passage he had dug with ashes, so that it escaped every eye.
The citizens sent word to Dhritarashtra that the Pandavas and Purochana had been burned to death. Hearing this evil news, the king wept in deep sorrow and said, “My brother of great fame, King Pandu, has truly died today, for his heroic sons with their mother have been burned. Go quickly to Varanavata and perform the funeral rites of those heroes and of the daughter of Kuntiraj.” Then Dhritarashtra, the son of Ambika, with his relatives around him, offered oblations of water to the Pandavas. All of them, in bitter grief, cried aloud, “O Yudhishthira! O Bhima! O Phalguna! O twins! O Kunti!” The citizens wept too, but Vidura did not weep much, for he knew the truth.
Bhima’s lament in the deep forest
The Pandavas, meanwhile, a company of six with their mother, went southward from the Ganga, finding their way through the dark by the light of the stars, and after much suffering they came at last to a dense forest. They were tired and thirsty, and sleep was closing their eyes at every moment. Then Yudhishthira said to Bhima, “What can be more painful than this? We are deep in the woods, we cannot tell one direction from another, and we can go no farther. Bharata, carry us upon yourself as you did before, for among all of us you alone are strong and swift as the wind.”
Bhima took Kunti and his brothers upon his body and went forward at great speed. The whole forest, with its trees and branches, seemed to tremble at their clash with his breast, and the motion of his thighs raised a wind like the storms of the months of Jyaishtha and Ashadha. Breaking large trees and creepers, with their flowers and fruits, he cleared his path, like a rutting elephant of sixty years trampling the woods as it passes. Toward evening they reached a terrible forest where fruit, roots, and water were scarce, and which rang with the fierce cries of birds and beasts.
Kunti, tormented by thirst, said again and again, “I am the mother of the five Pandavas, and I am here in their midst, and still I am burning with thirst!” Love for his mother filled Bhima’s heart with compassion, and he resolved to go on. He heard the sweet cries of water-fowl, and thinking there must be a large pool nearby, he set his brothers and mother down to rest beneath a great banian tree and went off toward the sound. Reaching the lake, he bathed and slaked his thirst, and he soaked his upper garment in the water to carry a drink back for his brothers.
When he returned and saw his mother and brothers asleep on the bare ground, Bhima drew long breaths like a snake and began to weep. “Fie on me, who look upon my brothers asleep on the naked earth! Kunti, sister of Vasudeva, daughter of Kuntiraj, daughter-in-law of Vichitravirya, wife of the illustrious Pandu, mother of us five, who once slept in palaces on the softest of beds, now lies down wearied on the bare ground! Yudhishthira, so devoted to virtue, worthy of the sovereignty of the three worlds, sleeps like an ordinary man on the earth! Arjuna, whose hue is that of dark blue clouds, and the twins, who are like the celestial Aswins, sleep on the naked ground like common mortals!”
Filled with wrath, Bhima wrung his palms together and said to himself, “Duryodhana, at this very moment I have the anger to send you and your brothers, and Karna, and Sakuni, to the realm of Yama. But what can I do, for the virtuous Yudhishthira is not yet angry with you, and gives me no command?” Then, thinking that some town must be near and that he could slake their thirst once they woke refreshed, Bhima sat awake, keeping watch over them.
The gist: Bhima’s lament shows his two natures at once, the lion’s fierce strength and a tender love for his mother and brothers. His anger stays bound because he lives under Yudhishthira’s command, and that is the discipline at the heart of the Pandavas’ dharma.
Hidimbi’s love and the demon Hidimba
Not far from where the Pandavas slept, a rakshasa named Hidimba dwelt on a Sala tree. His face was grim with sharp and long teeth, and he was hungry and craving human flesh, his eyes red, his body dark as a cloud. Catching the scent of man, he said to his sister, “Sister, after a long time such welcome food has come near me. Go, see who these are, sleeping in the woods. Slay them and bring them to me, and together we shall eat their flesh and dance to many measures.”
At her brother’s command, Hidimbi went there and saw the Pandavas asleep with their mother, and the invincible Bhimasena sitting awake. Beholding Bhima, of a hue like heated gold, with shoulders like a lion’s, a neck marked with three lines like a conch shell, and eyes like lotus petals, the rakshasa woman fell in love with him at once. She said to herself, “This one is worthy to be my husband. I will not obey my brother’s cruel command. A woman’s love for her husband is stronger than her affection for a brother. If I kill him, my brother’s pleasure and mine will last only a moment. But if I do not kill him, I can enjoy his company for a long time to come.”
Able to take any form at will, the rakshasa woman assumed a lovely human shape, decked herself with celestial ornaments, and came to Bhima with a smile on her lips and a modest step. “Best of men,” she said, “who are you, and from where have you come? Who are these of celestial beauty, asleep here? Do you not know that this forest is the home of a wicked rakshasa named Hidimba? He is my brother, and he has sent me to kill you all for his food. But seeing you shining like a god, I will have no other for my husband. My heart and my body have been pierced by the arrows of Kama. Accept me. I will save you from this man-eating rakshasa, and we shall live together on mountain heights that ordinary mortals cannot reach.”
Bhima answered, “Rakshasa woman, what man, keeping his passions under control like a sage, would abandon his sleeping mother and brothers as food for a rakshasa and go to satisfy his own desire? I will not, out of fear, wake my brothers and mother who sleep in comfort. Fair-eyed one, no rakshasa can bear the strength of my arms, nor can men, nor Gandharvas, nor Yakshas. Stay or go as you please, or send your brother to me. It is nothing to me.”
A key to reading this (a concept): A rakshasa here is more than a mere monster. It is a forest-dwelling race able to change shape at will. Hidimbi choosing love over her brother’s command shows that even the rakshasas of this tale carry discernment and a sense of dharma.
Bhima’s duel with Hidimba
Seeing that his sister was slow to return, Hidimba climbed down from the tree and came quickly to the place. With red eyes, hair standing on end, a body like a mass of dark clouds, and long sharp teeth, he was terrible to behold. Alarmed at the sight of her brother coming down in his fearsome form, Hidimbi begged Bhima to let her carry him and his brothers away through the sky on her back. Bhima said, “Fair-hipped one, do not be afraid. As long as I am here, no rakshasa can harm any of these. I will kill him before your very eyes. Look at these arms of mine, like an elephant’s trunk, these thighs like iron maces, and this chest hard as a thunderbolt. Do not scorn me, thinking I am only a man.”
When Hidimba saw his sister in human form, adorned with flower garlands, her face like the full moon, he understood that she had been moved by desire and was standing in his way. Widening his eyes in rage, he said, “Base woman, you are ready to sell the honor and good name of your rakshasa ancestors! Those with whose help you would do me this injury, I will slay along with you, here and now.” Gnashing his teeth, he rushed to kill his sister. But Bhima stopped him and said, “Stop, stop! Wicked rakshasa, it does not become you to kill a woman, above all when she has done no wrong. This girl’s love for me was moved by Kama, the god of desire who pervades every living being. You will not slay this woman while I am here. Come, fight me alone. I by myself will send you today to the realm of Yama.”
Hidimba jeered that Bhima should do all this first and boast afterward, and that today he would drink his blood and kill him first of all. With his arms spread wide, he sprang at Bhima. As though in sport, Bhima seized his outspread arms with great force and dragged him a full thirty-two cubits, the way a lion drags a small animal. The rakshasa roared in fury. Bhima dragged him farther still, so that his cries would not wake the sleeping brothers. Grappling like two rutting elephants, the two began to snap the trees and tear the creepers around them, and at those sounds the Pandavas and their mother woke and saw Hidimbi seated before them.
A sub-tale: Notice that before killing the rakshasa, Bhima establishes the dharma of protecting a woman, even a woman of the enemy’s own race. In the Mahabharata, strength and dharma walk together. The mighty man first weighs whom it is right to kill and whom it is not.
The slaying of Hidimba
Roused from sleep, the Pandavas and Kunti were struck with wonder at Hidimbi’s extraordinary beauty. Kunti asked her gently who she was and why she had come. Hidimbi told them the whole truth: that she was the sister of the rakshasa Hidimba, that she had come at her brother’s command to kill them, but that at the sight of Bhima she had been brought under the sway of Kama and had chosen him in her heart for her husband, and that now her brother and her husband were locked in combat.
Hearing this, Yudhishthira, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva rose and saw Bhima and the rakshasa dragging each other about like two lions. The dust their feet raised looked like the smoke of a forest fire. Seeing Bhima somewhat hard-pressed, Arjuna smiled and said, “Mighty-armed Bhima, do not fear. Let me kill the rakshasa, and let Nakula and Sahadeva guard our mother.” Bhima said, “Watch this as a spectator, brother, and have no worry. He who has come within the reach of my arms will not leave with his life.” Arjuna spoke again, “What use is there in keeping the rakshasa alive so long? The east is reddening, the dawn twilight is near, and rakshasas grow stronger in their powers of illusion at the two twilights. Be quick, leave off your play, and kill this terrible rakshasa now.”
These words set Bhima ablaze with wrath. Recalling the might that Vayu, his own father, puts forth at the dissolution of the world, he lifted the cloud-dark rakshasa high into the air and whirled him around a hundred times. Then he said, “Rakshasa, your cunning has been in vain, and this body grown fat on unhallowed flesh has been in vain. You deserve an unholy death, and today I will make this forest as blessed as one without thorns.” When Arjuna once more offered his help, Bhima, angrier still, dashed the rakshasa to the ground with all his force and killed him as one kills an animal. Dying, the rakshasa let out a terrible cry, deep as the sound of a wet drum. Then Bhima gripped his body in his hands and broke it in the middle, bending it double.
Seeing Hidimba slain, the brothers gladly congratulated Bhima. Arjuna paid honor to the revered Bhima and said that a town lay somewhere beyond this forest, so they should go there quickly, lest Duryodhana find their trail. Then all those heroes, saying “So be it,” set out with their mother, and Hidimbi the rakshasa woman followed behind them.
The winning of Hidimbi and the birth of Ghatotkacha
Seeing Hidimbi come after them, Bhima said that rakshasas take their revenge by deceptions, and told her to go the way her brother had gone. But Yudhishthira, seeing Bhima in anger, said, “Bhima, best of men, however enraged you are, do not kill a woman. The keeping of virtue is a higher duty than the guarding of life. The Hidimba who came to kill us, you have already killed. This is his sister. What harm can she do us, even in her anger?”
Then Hidimbi bowed to Kunti and to Yudhishthira and said, with folded palms, “Revered lady, you know what women suffer at the hands of the god of desire. Casting off my friends, my relations, and the custom of my race, I have chosen this son of yours for my husband. If this hero, or you, cast me off, I will not keep my life. Think me your slave, or a foolish girl, but give him to me. I will take him wherever I wish and bring him back to you again. Whenever you remember me, I will come at once, carry you across regions that cannot otherwise be crossed, and rescue you from every danger.”
She added that in a time of distress a person should guard their life by every means, and that the one who holds to virtue even in distress is the foremost of the virtuous. Yudhishthira said, “Slender-waisted one, it is so, there is no doubt of it. But do exactly as you have said. Bhima will bathe, say his prayers, perform the proper rites, and stay with you until sunset. Sport with him by day as you please, but bring Bhima back here every day before nightfall.” Bhima agreed and said to Hidimbi, “Fair one, I give you this promise: I will stay with you until you have borne a son.”
Saying “So be it,” Hidimbi took Bhima upon her body, and, herself taking on the loveliest of forms and singing sweet strains, she carried him through delightful mountain peaks, holy places of the gods, lakes bright with lotuses, and the caves of the Himalayas. In time she conceived and brought forth by Bhima a son of great strength, terrible to behold, with fierce eyes, a great mouth, straight arrowy ears, and lips brown as copper, dreadful yet wondrous. Rakshasa women give birth the very day they conceive, and so the child grew to a youth in the very hour of his birth, and soon became skilled in every weapon. His head was bald and round like a water-pot, a ghata, and so his parents named him Ghatotkacha. Deeply devoted to the Pandavas, Ghatotkacha became a favorite among them, almost one of their own.
Then Hidimbi, knowing the time of her stay had come to an end, saluted the Pandavas, made a fresh promise of return, and went off in the direction she chose, and Ghatotkacha too, promising to come whenever he was needed, went away to the north. In truth it was Indra who had created Ghatotkacha out of a portion of himself, as a worthy match for Karna, because Indra had given Karna the dart that would not return without killing the one against whom it was hurled.
A key to reading this (lineage): Ghatotkacha is the son of Bhima and Hidimbi, which makes him the rakshasa-born nephew of the Pandavas. In the great war to come, this same Ghatotkacha will take upon himself Karna’s unfailing dart and save Arjuna’s life, a fate at which the story hints here.
The gist: The slaying of Hidimba ends a rakshasa and, in the same stroke, opens a new bond and the coming of a future great hero. The Pandavas give a rightful place even to a woman of the enemy’s race, and from her a guardian of the war-days is born.
The meeting with Vyasa and the entry into Ekachakra
Those great warriors, the Pandavas, wandered from forest to forest, hunting deer and other game, and saw the countries of the Matsyas, the Trigartas, the Panchalas, and the Kichakas, and many lovely woods and lakes. They wore matted locks on their heads and bark and deerskin, dressed in the garb of ascetics; sometimes they hurried with their mother on their backs, sometimes they went in disguise. Along the way they studied the Rik and the other Vedas, the Vedangas, and the sciences of morals and politics. One day they met their grandfather, Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, and stood before him with their mother, their palms joined.
Vyasa said, “Sons of Bharata’s line, I knew already of this treacherous exile contrived by Dhritarashtra’s son, and I have come for your good. Do not grieve, for all of this is for your welfare. In my eye, Dhritarashtra’s sons and you are equal, yet a man’s love leans toward those who are in misfortune and of tender years, and so my affection rests more with you now. Not far from here is a delightful town where no danger can reach you. Live there in disguise and wait for my return.”
Comforting the Pandavas, Vyasa led them into the town of Ekachakra, and he said to Kunti, “Daughter, the truthful Yudhishthira, having conquered the whole world by his justice, will rule over all the other kings; by the prowess of Bhima and Arjuna he will win the earth to the belt of her seas, and he will perform sacrifices such as the Rajasuya and the horse-sacrifice, and keep his kinsmen in comfort and plenty.” Then, lodging them in the house of a brahmin, he said, “Wait here for me. Adapting yourselves to the country and the season, you will be happy,” and he took his leave and went back to the place from which he had come.
The grief of the brahmin family
At Ekachakra the Pandavas lived on alms in that brahmin’s house and became dear to the townspeople by their good qualities. At nightfall they laid before Kunti all they had gathered, and she took one half for herself with the four brothers, and gave the other half to Bhima alone. One day, when the other brothers were out begging and Bhima was home with his mother, Kunti heard a heart-rending wail from the brahmin’s inner rooms. Filled with compassion, she said to Bhima that they had lived here in comfort, honored, and unknown to Dhritarashtra’s son, and that it was their duty to help their benefactor in any trouble that had come to him. Bhima said his mother should learn the nature of the brahmin’s distress, and that he would take it away, however hard it might be.
Kunti went inside and heard the brahmin lamenting with his wife, his son, and his daughter. He was saying that fie was on this earthly life, hollow and full of sorrow; that he could see no way to escape the danger, nor to flee with his wife to some safe place. He reminded his wife that he had often told her they should move elsewhere, but she had refused, saying, “I was born here, I grew old here, this is my ancestral home.” Now he could not give up his wife, who was his helpmate in every good deed; nor could he sacrifice his tender young son; nor his daughter, whom the Creator had placed like a pledge in his hands to bestow upon a husband. And if he offered himself, the three of them without him would perish like fish when the water dries up.
A key to reading this (a concept): The brahmin’s crisis is a crisis of dharma, where every choice sacrifices one loved one or another. The Mahabharata builds such moments again and again, where there is no clean right answer, and a person must choose the path that carries the least adharma.
Who should go to Baka
The brahmin’s wife said he should not grieve like an ordinary man; a wife, a son, a daughter, all are sought for one’s own sake. She herself would go, for a woman’s highest and eternal duty is to seek her husband’s good by giving up her own life. She had discharged her debt, she said, by bearing him a son and a daughter, but without him she could not raise the children; a widow, without her lord, is set upon by men as crows settle on a lump of meat. So it was right that the husband give her up and raise the children instead. Then the daughter came forward and said that she should be the one sent to Baka, for one day the father must part from her in any case; a son is called putra because he rescues his parents, so let her herself become the raft that carries them across.
At their lament the three wept again together. Then the young son, his eyes wide with delight, said in his lisping voice, “Do not weep, father, mother, sister!” and, taking up a blade of grass, he said with a smile, “With this I will kill the man-eating rakshasa!” At the child’s sweet words a trace of joy touched every face. Then Kunti, seeing the right moment, stepped forward and said she wished to know the cause of their grief, and would remove it if she could.
The brahmin said this sorrow could be lifted by no human being. Not far from the town, he said, lived a rakshasa named Baka, lord of this country and this town, who fed on human flesh but who also, by his strength, guarded the town from outside enemies. The rule of his feeding was that each householder in turn must send him a cart-load of rice, two buffaloes, and one man to carry them. Whoever tried to avoid it, the rakshasa devoured together with his whole family. The king lived at Vetrakiya, and he was ignorant of statecraft and dull of mind. Now this deadly turn had come to the brahmin’s own house. He had no wealth to buy a man with, and he could give up no member of his family, and so he was ready to go this very day, with his whole household, to become the rakshasa’s meal.
A key to reading this (numbers, a modern equivalent): “A cart-load of rice and two buffaloes” is, by today’s reckoning, many days of grain for a whole settlement. A single family’s entire wealth was spent at one stroke, and a life along with it. This was Baka’s cruel system of tribute.
Kunti’s resolve and Yudhishthira’s doubt
Kunti told the brahmin not to grieve, for she could see a way to save him from this danger. He had only one son and one daughter, she said, so none of these, and not the couple themselves, should go. She had five sons, and one of them would carry the rakshasa’s tribute in the brahmin’s place. The brahmin said that to save his own life he would never take the life of a brahmin or a guest, for the killing of a brahmin is the highest sin, and there is no expiation for it. Kunti answered that she too held the protection of brahmins to be the highest dharma, but that one of her sons was greatly powerful and skilled in mantras; he would deliver the food to the rakshasa and yet save himself, for she had watched him before grapple with and kill many huge rakshasas. This, though, must be spoken of to no one.
The brahmin and his wife gladly agreed. Kunti went to Bhima, the son of Vayu, and asked him to do the deed, and Bhima said, “So be it.” In the evening, when the other Pandavas returned with their alms, Yudhishthira read from Bhima’s face alone the task he had taken on, and in private he asked his mother what it was, and whether Bhima did it at her command or of his own will. Kunti told him everything.
Yudhishthira said, “Mother, what rash deed have you done, one that is as hard as taking one’s own life? The wise never praise the giving up of one’s own child. On Bhima’s arms we sleep untroubled through the night and hope to win back the kingdom we have lost; he it was who ended Purochana, who saved us from the house of lac and from other dangers. How could you resolve to hand him over for the sake of another? Have your misfortunes clouded your reason?” Kunti told him not to fear for Vrikodara. She had not come to this resolve out of any weakness of mind. She had weighed it, and two purposes moved her: to repay the brahmin’s kindness and to win the highest dharma. Bhima’s arms hold the strength of ten thousand elephants; when he fell from her lap as an infant, the rock he fell upon was shattered to pieces, and from that day she had known his strength.
She said too that Vyasa had told her long ago that a kshatriya who helps a brahmin gains blessed regions hereafter; that one who protects a kshatriya or a vaisya wins fame; and that one who protects even a shudra who comes to him for refuge is born in his next life into a royal house. Yudhishthira, judging his mother’s compassion-driven resolve to be the best course, said that Bhima would surely kill the rakshasa and return alive, but that the brahmin must be made to promise to reveal this to no one in the town.
The gist: Kunti’s decision rests on the reckoning of Bhima’s strength and the gain of dharma; Yudhishthira’s doubt rests on a brother’s love and caution. Both views hold truth, and the Mahabharata does not flatly declare either one right.
The slaying of the demon Baka
When the night had passed, Bhima took the rakshasa’s food and set out for the forest where Baka lived. Reaching the neighborhood of the rakshasa’s dwelling, he began to eat the food himself and called out Baka’s name in a loud voice. Enraged by Bhima’s shouts, Baka came out. He was terrible to see, with a huge body, red eyes, a red beard, and red hair; his mouth was split from ear to ear, and there were three lines on his forehead. Seeing Bhima eating his food, he said, “Who is this fool, who, wishing to go to the realm of Yama, eats my food in my very sight?” Bhima smiled in scorn, ignored the rakshasa, turned his face away, and kept on eating.
The rakshasa gave a terrible roar, raised both arms, rushed at Bhima, and struck him a heavy blow on the back from behind. But Bhima did not so much as look at him and went on eating as before. Then the rakshasa tore up a tree and hurled it, and Bhima caught it in his left hand. The rakshasa kept tearing up trees and throwing them, and Bhima threw them back in the same way, until the whole region was left without a tree. Then Baka, crying “I am Baka!” leaped upon Bhima and clasped him in his arms. Bhima gripped him in his own firm arms and began to drag him about by force. Dragging and being dragged, the rakshasa grew exhausted. The earth trembled with the strength the two of them put forth, and great trees broke apart.
Seeing the rakshasa spent, Bhima pressed him to the ground with his knees and beat him with all his might. Then, setting one knee in the middle of his back, gripping his neck with his right hand and the cloth at his waist with his left, he bent him double by force and broke him in the middle. The rakshasa roared frightfully and began to vomit blood, and Baka, vast as a mountain, died broken across Bhima’s knee.
Terrified by these sounds, Baka’s kinsmen came out with their attendants. Bhima calmed them and drew from them a promise that they would never again kill human beings, for otherwise they would die as Baka had died. They said “So be it” and gave the promise, and from that day the rakshasas of that region were seen to be peaceful toward mankind. Then Bhima dragged the dead rakshasa to one of the town gates, left him there, and returned unseen, and he told Yudhishthira everything in full.
In the morning the townspeople saw Baka lying dead, covered in blood, vast as a cliff of the mountains, and their hair stood on end. The news reached Ekachakra, and thousands of men and women, old and young, came to see him, and, marveling at that superhuman feat, they began to praise their gods. Then they reckoned whose turn it had been the day before, and they came to the brahmin and asked him. Wishing to keep the Pandavas hidden, the brahmin said that a certain high-souled brahmin, skilled in mantras, had found him grieving and had himself taken the food to the rakshasa, and that this was the kindness he had done. Hearing this, the brahmins, the kshatriyas, the vaisyas, and the shudras all rejoiced, and, holding the worship of that brahmin foremost, they established a festival. Then the citizens returned to their homes, and the Pandavas went on living at Ekachakra as before.
The gist: By killing Baka, Bhima saved the family of a brahmin who had sheltered them, and all of Ekachakra with it, while keeping his own name secret. Having escaped the fire, the Pandavas now live in disguise, and even so, by their dharma and their prowess, they are becoming the protectors of ordinary people. That is the foundation of the kingdom that lies ahead of them.
Source: the Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Adi Parva; in the tradition of the Gita Press, Gorakhpur.
Based on: the Mahabharata, Vedavyasa (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)