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The king took the rebuke calmly, because the men who were rebuking him had misread him. He had every intention, he told them, of doing exactly what they advised. The praise they had heard him pour out had been for Vidura’s benefit. He had wanted his brother to leave that room without a sign of what was in his mind, without so much as the twitch of a muscle to read, and so he had applauded the sons of Pandu to Vidura’s face. “Now Vidura has gone,” Dhritarashtra said. “This is the time, Suyodhana, to tell me what you have hit upon. And you, son of Radha. Tell me what you have hit upon too.”
Dhritarashtra’s real mind, Duryodhana’s stratagems, and Karna’s call for war
Duryodhana had more than one plan. He laid them out for his father one after another, the way a man lays out tools, so that any one of them might be picked up if the others were put down.
“Let us begin with Brahmins,” he said. “Trusted men, skilled, adroit, the kind who can be sent to work on the sons of Kunti and the sons of Madri separately, and set the three against the two. Or let it be done with money. King Drupada and his sons and every minister in his council can be plied with wealth, enough of it that they drop Yudhishthira’s cause altogether. Or let our spies go among the Pandavas and describe to them, one at a time, how uncomfortable Hastinapura would be for them now, so that they settle in Drupada’s country for good and we are rid of them. Or let the spies sow the seed of quarrel among the five themselves and make them jealous of one another. Or let someone turn Krishna against her husbands. She has many lords, Father. That one will not be difficult. Or let someone make the Pandavas dissatisfied with Krishna, in which case Krishna will soon be dissatisfied with them.”
He came then to the plan he had kept until last, and his voice changed. “Or let some clever spies go there and contrive, in secret, the death of Bhimasena. Bhima is the strongest of them all. It was Bhima they leaned on when they used to treat us with contempt in the old days. He is fierce and brave and he is their one refuge. Kill him and the others lose their strength and their spirit. Without Bhima to lean on they will stop trying to get the kingdom back. Arjuna is unbeatable in battle while Bhima guards his back. Without Bhima, Arjuna is no match for a fourth part of Radheya.” He let that settle. “The Pandavas, knowing their own weakness without Bhima and our strength, would never seriously try to recover the kingdom. Or, if they come here and prove docile and obedient, we repress them according to the rules of statecraft, the way Kanika explained them to you. Or we tempt them with handsome girls, and the princess of Panchala grows cold toward them. Or, Radheya, let messengers be sent to bring them here, and once they are here let our trusted agents finish them by one of the means I have named.”
“Use whichever of these seems faultless to you, Father,” Duryodhana said. “But use it soon. Time passes. Before their trust in King Drupada has set hard we can still take them on. Once it has set we will fail. These are my thoughts on how to bring the Pandavas down. Judge whether they are good or bad.” He turned to the man beside him. “Karna, what do you think?”
Karna did not think much of any of it, and he said so. “Your reasoning is unsound, Duryodhana. No method of that kind will work against the Pandavas. You have tried before, by every subtle means you could think of, to get what you wanted, and every time you failed to kill them. They were living next to you then. They were fledglings, boys of tender years, and even then you could not hurt them. Now they are far away, grown, with their feathers on. The sons of Kunti cannot be touched by any contrivance of yours. That is my opinion. The Fates themselves are helping them, and they want their fathers’ kingdom back, and there is no means in our power by which we can injure them.”
He went through the plans and broke them one by one. “Disunion among them is impossible. Men who have all taken one wife between them can never be divided. And no spy of ours is going to turn Krishna away from the Pandavas. She chose them for her lords when they had nothing. Is she going to leave them now that they have everything? Besides, women always like to have many husbands. Krishna has got what she wanted, and she will never be parted from them. The king of Panchala is honest and virtuous and he has no greed in him. Offer him our whole kingdom and he will still stand by the Pandavas. Drupada’s son has every accomplishment, and he is devoted to them. No, there is no subtle means that will do it.”
“This is what is good for us now, and this is what I advise. Attack them, and strike until they are wiped out. Let that be the course you choose. Strike while our side is strong and the Panchala side is weak, and strike without scruple. Strike before their chariots and horses and elephants beyond counting, their friends and their allied tribes, have all been gathered in one place. Strike while the king of Panchala and his strong sons have not yet set their hearts on fighting us. And strike, above all, before the Vrishni comes. Krishna will come to Drupada’s city with the whole Yadava host behind him, carrying everything in front of him, to put the Pandavas back on their fathers’ throne. There is nothing, wealth, pleasure or kingdom, that Krishna will not give up for the Pandavas’ sake.”
“The great Bharata won the whole earth by prowess alone. Indra won the lordship of the three worlds by prowess alone. Kshatriyas have always praised prowess. Prowess is the cardinal virtue of the brave. So let us take our great army, the four kinds of force together, and grind Drupada down now, without losing a day, and bring the Pandavas here. They cannot be beaten by conciliation, by gifts, by wealth and bribes, or by setting them against each other. Beat them by prowess, and having beaten them, rule this wide earth. I see no other means of getting what we want.”
Dhritarashtra was delighted with him. “You have great wisdom, son of the Suta, and great skill in arms, and a speech in favor of prowess suits you well,” he said. Then he did what he had done all his life when the choice was hard. “But let Bhishma and Drona and Vidura and you two take counsel together, and adopt whatever proposal will lead to our good.” He sent for those famous ministers, all of them, and the council sat.
The gist: Dhritarashtra tells his son and Karna that his praise of the Pandavas was a screen for Vidura, and asks for their plans. Duryodhana offers a list: divide the brothers, bribe Drupada, turn Draupadi, murder Bhima in secret, tempt them with girls, lure them to Hastinapura and kill them. Karna dismisses every stratagem as already tried and failed, argues that five men sharing one wife cannot be split and that Drupada cannot be bought, and calls for open war on Panchala before Krishna arrives with the Yadavas. The king praises him and refers the whole matter to Bhishma, Drona and Vidura.
Bhishma and Drona: give them half
Bhishma was asked first, and he began with the one thing he would never agree to. “A quarrel with the Pandavas is something I can never approve. What you are to me, Dhritarashtra, Pandu was, beyond any doubt. Gandhari’s sons are to me what Kunti’s sons are. I should protect them as I protect your sons, and they are as near to me as they are to Duryodhana or to any of the Kurus. I have no liking for a quarrel with them. Make a treaty with those heroes and give them half the land.”
He turned, then, from the father to the son. “This is their fathers’ kingdom, Duryodhana, beyond any doubt, as much as it is yours. You look on it as your inheritance, and so do they. If the famous sons of Pandu do not get the kingdom, how can it be yours, or any other Bharata’s? If you think you have come lawfully into possession of it, then I think they came lawfully into possession of it before you. Give them half of it, quietly. That is good for everyone. Do otherwise and evil falls on all of us, and you will be covered with dishonor. Guard your good name. A good name is the source of a man’s strength. It has been said that a man whose reputation is gone lives in vain. A man does not die while his fame lasts. One lives as long as one’s fame endures, and dies when it is gone. Follow the practice worthy of the Kuru line. Imitate your own ancestors.”
Then the old man let them see what the house of lac had cost him. “We are fortunate that the Pandavas did not perish. We are fortunate that Kunti is alive. We are fortunate that the wretch Purochana died himself without accomplishing his purpose. From the day I heard that the sons of Kuntibhoja’s daughter had been burned to death, I could hardly bear to look any living creature in the face. And hear this. When the world heard what had happened to Kunti, it did not hold Purochana as guilty as it holds you. The escape of Pandu’s sons from that fire, and their coming back to us, is what has wiped out your evil name. Know this too: while those heroes live, the wielder of the thunderbolt himself could not keep them out of their share of their fathers’ kingdom. They are virtuous and they are united, and they are being wrongly kept from their equal share. If you want to act rightly, if you want to do what pleases me, if you want the welfare of all, give them half the kingdom.”
Drona spoke when Bhishma had finished. “We have always heard that friends called in for counsel should say what is right and true and what will bring fame. I am of one mind with Bhishma in this. Let a share of the kingdom be given to the Pandavas. That is the eternal law.” And since he was a practical man, he went on to say how it should be done. “Send a messenger to Drupada at once, a man of pleasant speech, carrying a large treasure for the Pandavas. Let him take costly presents for the bridegrooms and for the bride, and let him tell that king how your power and dignity have grown through this new alliance with him. Let him say that you and Duryodhana are both exceedingly glad at what has happened, and let him say it again and again, to Drupada and to Dhrishtadyumna. Let him speak of the alliance as entirely proper and entirely to your liking, and of you as worthy of it. Let him win over the sons of Kunti and the sons of Madri with the right words, repeated. On your order let Draupadi be given plenty of ornaments of pure gold, and let every son of Drupada have a fitting present. Then let the messenger propose that the Pandavas come back to Hastinapura. When Drupada has given them leave to come, let Duhshasana and Vikarna go out with a handsome escort to receive them, and when they arrive, receive them yourself with affection, and seat them on their fathers’ throne, as the people of the realm wish. That, I think, is how you should treat the Pandavas, who are to you as your own sons.”
Karna had listened to two of the three greatest men in the kingdom tell the king to give away half of it, and now he spoke again, and he spoke to the king about them as if they were not there. “Both Bhishma and Drona have been pampered with wealth that is yours and favors you conferred. You count them both your trusted friends. What could be more amusing than to watch the two of them give you advice that is against your own interest? How can the wise accept counsel pronounced good by a man who speaks with wicked intent and takes care to hide what is in his heart? In a season of trouble friends can neither help nor harm. Every man’s happiness, and every man’s misery, hangs on destiny. The wise and the foolish, the young and the old, the man with allies and the man with none, all of them, as anyone can see, are happy at one time and unhappy at another.”
He had a story to prove it. “We have heard that long ago there was a king named Amvuvicha. His capital was Rajagriha, and he was king over all the chiefs of Magadha. He never attended to his affairs. His whole exertion consisted of inhaling air. Everything was in the hands of his minister, and that minister, Mahakarni, became the supreme authority in the state. Thinking himself all powerful, he began to hold the king in contempt, and the wretch took for himself everything that belonged to the king: his queens, his treasury, his sovereignty. Having all of that only inflamed his greed. Having taken everything that was the king’s, he coveted the throne itself. And we have heard that with all his striving he never got the kingdom of the master he served, though the master paid no attention to business and was content with breathing the air. What is there to say except that the king’s sovereignty rested on destiny? If this kingdom is settled in you by destiny, it will stay with you if the whole world turns enemy. If destiny has ordained otherwise, it will not stay, however you strive. Remember that, learned one, and weigh the honesty of your advisers. Find out which of them are wicked and which have spoken wisely and well.”
Drona answered him in the king’s hearing, and he did not trouble to be courteous. “You are wicked, so you say this out of wickedness of intent. You find fault with us because you want to hurt the Pandavas. Understand this, Karna. What I have said is for the good of all and for the prosperity of the Kuru line. If you think it is bad for us, say yourself what is good for us. And if the good advice I have given is thrown away, I think the Kurus will be wiped out in no time at all.”
The gist: Bhishma refuses any quarrel with the Pandavas: Pandu’s sons are as dear to him as Gandhari’s, their claim to the kingdom is as good as Duryodhana’s and older, and the world blames Duryodhana more than Purochana for the fire. He asks for half the kingdom. Drona agrees and sets out the embassy in detail, with gifts for Drupada, his sons, the bride and the grooms. Karna accuses both men of eating the king’s bread and advising him badly, and tells the tale of Amvuvicha of Rajagriha, whose minister Mahakarni took everything except the throne, to argue that kingdoms rest on destiny. Drona answers that Karna speaks from malice and that the Kurus will perish if his counsel is ignored.
Vidura’s counsel and the king’s decision
Vidura spoke last, and he began by naming the thing everyone in the room could see. “Your friends are telling you what is good for you, and there is no doubt about it. But you are unwilling to hear it, and so their words hardly find a place in your ears. What Bhishma, the son of Shantanu, has said is excellent and it is for your good, and you do not listen to it. The preceptor Drona has said a great deal that is for your good, and Karna, the son of Radha, does not consider it so. I have thought hard, and I cannot find anyone who is a better friend to you than those two, or anyone who surpasses either of them in wisdom. They are old in years, old in wisdom, old in learning, and they look on you and on the sons of Pandu with the same eyes. In virtue and truthfulness they are the equals of Rama, the son of Dasharatha, and of Gaya. They have never given you evil advice. You have never done them any injury. Why, then, should two men who have always been truthful give you wicked counsel now, when you have never wronged them? Men of that wisdom do not give crooked counsel. It is my firm conviction that those two, who know every rule of morality, will never be tempted by wealth into saying anything that smells of partisanship. What they have said is of the highest benefit to you.”
“The Pandavas are your sons as much as Duryodhana and the others are. Any minister who gives you counsel that means harm to the Pandavas is not looking to your interest. If there is partiality in your heart for your own children, the men who draw it out with their counsel are doing you no good. These two have said nothing that leads to evil. You simply do not understand it. And what they have said about the Pandavas being unbeatable is perfectly true. Do not think otherwise. Blessings on you. Can the handsome Dhananjaya, the son of Pandu, who uses the right hand and the left with equal ease, be beaten in battle by Indra himself? Can Bhimasena of the strong arms, who has the might of ten thousand elephants in him, be beaten by the immortals? Who that wants to live could overcome the twins in battle, Nakula and Sahadeva, so like the sons of Yama, so skilled in fighting? How could the eldest of them be beaten, in whom patience, mercy, forgiveness, truth and prowess all live together? Men who have Rama for their ally and Janardana for their counselor and Satyaki on their side have already beaten everybody there is. Men who have Drupada for a father-in-law and Drupada’s sons, Dhrishtadyumna and the rest of the heroes of Prishata’s line, for brothers-in-law, cannot be beaten. Remember that. Remember too that their claim to the kingdom comes before yours, and treat them as virtue requires.”
“The stain of Purochana’s deed is on you. Wash it off now with kindness to the Pandavas. That kindness will be a great benefit to us all. It will protect the life of every one of us who belongs to Kuru’s line, and it will mean the growth of the whole Kshatriya order. We made war on Drupada once. If we can have him for an ally now, it will strengthen our side. The Dasharhas are many and they are strong. Know that where Krishna is, all of them will be, and where Krishna is, there victory must be. Who, unless the gods have cursed him, would try to get by war what can be had by conciliation? The citizens and the people of the realm have heard that the sons of Pritha are alive, and they are overjoyed, and they are longing to see them. Act in the way that pleases them. Duryodhana and Karna and Shakuni, the son of Subala, are sinful and foolish and young. Do not listen to them. You have every virtue. I told you long ago that for Duryodhana’s fault the people of this kingdom would be destroyed.”
Dhritarashtra had heard all of them now, and whatever he had said to his son in private, he gave the council the answer the council wanted. “The learned Bhishma, the son of Shantanu, and the illustrious rishi Drona, and you yourself, Vidura, have told me the truth, and what is most beneficial to me. The heroic sons of Kunti, those great chariot warriors, are Pandu’s children, and so, by the ordinance, they are my children, there is no doubt of it. My sons are entitled to this kingdom, and so are the sons of Pandu. Hasten, then, and bring the Pandavas here, with their mother, and treat them with affection and every consideration. Bring Krishna of the celestial beauty with them. It is by sheer good fortune that the sons of Pritha are alive, and by good fortune alone that those great warriors have won Drupada’s daughter. By good fortune our strength has grown. By good fortune Purochana is dead. And by good fortune, Vidura, this great grief of mine has been killed.”
The gist: Vidura vouches for Bhishma and Drona as impartial men who look on all the cousins with the same eyes, and lays out why the Pandavas cannot be beaten: Arjuna, Bhima, the twins and Yudhishthira, with Balarama, Krishna, Satyaki, Drupada and Dhrishtadyumna behind them. He urges the king to wash off the stain of Purochana by kindness, to take Drupada as an ally, and to ignore Duryodhana, Karna and Shakuni, who are sinful, foolish and young. Dhritarashtra declares the Pandavas his sons by the ordinance, as entitled to the kingdom as his own, and sends Vidura to bring them home with Kunti and Draupadi.
Vidura at Drupada’s court, and the return to Hastinapura
So Vidura went to Panchala, at the king’s command, to Yajnasena and the Pandavas, and he went loaded. He carried jewels of many kinds and wealth of every sort, for Draupadi, for the Pandavas, and for Yajnasena himself. At Drupada’s palace he greeted the king with every proper form, for there was no rule of conduct Vidura did not know and no science he had not gone deep into, and he waited on him, and Drupada received him with the same correctness, and the two asked after each other’s welfare. Then Vidura saw the Pandavas, and Vasudeva with them, and the formality went out of him. He embraced them all out of pure affection and asked how they were. The Pandavas and Vasudeva honored him in their turn, each in his order, and Vidura, in Dhritarashtra’s name, asked again and again, with great tenderness, after their well-being. He handed over the gems and the wealth the Kauravas had sent through him: to the Pandavas, to Kunti, to Draupadi, to Drupada, to Drupada’s sons. And then, modestly, in front of the Pandavas and Keshava, he addressed the king.
“Hear what I have to say, with your ministers and your sons. King Dhritarashtra, with his ministers and his sons and his friends, has asked with a joyful heart, again and again, after your welfare, and he is greatly pleased with this alliance with you. Bhishma of the great wisdom, the son of Shantanu, with all the Kurus, asks after your welfare in every particular. Drona of the great wisdom, the son of Bharadvaja and your dear friend, embraces you in his mind and asks after your happiness. Dhritarashtra and all the Kurus count themselves supremely blessed in this alliance with you. The making of it, Yajnasena, has made them happier than the winning of a new kingdom would have done. Knowing all this, give the Pandavas leave to go back to their fathers’ kingdom. The Kurus are very eager to see the sons of Pandu. These bulls among men have been a long time away from their country, and they, and Pritha with them, must be very eager to see their city again. All the Kuru ladies, and the citizens, and all our subjects are waiting to set eyes on Krishna, the princess of Panchala. This is my opinion, then: let the Pandavas go there with their wife, without delay. The moment they have your leave I will send word to Dhritarashtra by fast messengers, and then the Pandavas will set out with Kunti and Krishna.”
Drupada would not be hurried into giving away his sons-in-law, though he agreed with every word. “It is exactly as you say, Vidura, and I too have been exceedingly happy in this alliance. It is entirely proper that these illustrious princes should go back to their fathers’ kingdom. But it is not proper for me to be the one to say it. If the brave son of Kunti, Yudhishthira, if Bhima and Arjuna, if the twins, those bulls among men, wish to go, and if Rama and Krishna, who know every rule of morality, are of the same mind, then let the Pandavas go. Those two tigers among men are always working for what is pleasing and good for the sons of Pandu.”
Yudhishthira answered for his brothers. “We are dependent on you now, with all our younger brothers. We will do gladly whatever you are pleased to command.”
Vasudeva said, “My opinion is that the Pandavas should go. But we should all abide by the opinion of King Drupada, who knows every rule of morality.”
“Then I agree with what this foremost of men thinks, considering the circumstances,” said Drupada, “for the illustrious sons of Pandu are to me now what they are to Vasudeva. Kunti’s son Yudhishthira himself does not seek the Pandavas’ welfare as earnestly as Keshava, that tiger among men.”
So the matter was settled, and at Drupada’s command the Pandavas set out for the city named after the elephant, and Krishna and Vidura went with them, and they took with them Krishna, the daughter of Drupada, and the renowned Kunti. They were in no hurry. They stopped at many places along the road for pleasure and for rest. When Dhritarashtra heard that the heroes were near the capital he sent Kauravas out to meet them, and the men he sent were Vikarna of the great bow, and Chitrasena, and Drona, that first of warriors, and Kripa of the line of Gautama. With those men around them, their splendor made greater by the throng, the brothers went slowly in through the gates of Hastinapura.
The whole city seemed to shine with the crowd that had come out to look. The Pandavas gladdened every heart that saw them, and the people, who had always wanted what those princes wanted, called out as they passed, and the brothers heard what they were calling. Some said: “Here he comes again, that tiger among men who knows every rule of morality and protects us as if we were his own nearest kin.” Others said: “It is as if King Pandu himself, whom his people loved, has come back from the forest today to do what is good for us.” And some said: “What good is not done to us today, when the heroic sons of Kunti come back to our town? If we have ever given in charity, if we have ever poured clarified butter on the fire, if we have any merit of austerity at all, let the Pandavas, by the power of those acts, stay in our city a hundred years.”
When they reached the palace the Pandavas worshiped the feet of Dhritarashtra, and the feet of the illustrious Bhishma, and the feet of everyone else who deserved that honor, and they asked after the welfare of every citizen who was there. Then, at Dhritarashtra’s command, they went into the chambers that had been made ready for them.
The gist: Vidura comes to Panchala with jewels and treasure for Drupada, his sons, the Pandavas, Kunti and Draupadi, and delivers Dhritarashtra’s greetings and his request that the brothers come home. Drupada will not decide for his sons-in-law; Yudhishthira defers to Drupada; Krishna favors the return and leaves the word with Drupada, who then gives it. The Pandavas travel to Hastinapura with Kunti, Draupadi, Krishna and Vidura, are met at the gates by Vikarna, Chitrasena, Drona and Kripa, are blessed by the crowds, who see Pandu in them, and bow at the feet of Dhritarashtra and Bhishma.
Half the kingdom: Khandavaprastha becomes Indraprastha
They were allowed to rest for a while. Then King Dhritarashtra and Bhishma, the son of Shantanu, summoned them to the court, and the king spoke to Yudhishthira, and what he had to say had been decided already. “Listen, son of Kunti, with your brothers, to what I say. Go to Khandavaprastha, so that no difference arises again between you and your cousins. If you make your home there, no one will be able to do you any injury. Guarded by Partha, as the gods are guarded by the thunderbolt, live at Khandavaprastha, and take half the kingdom with you.”
The half he was giving them was the half that nobody wanted. Khandavaprastha was unreclaimed desert. The Pandavas agreed to it, worshiped the king, and set out from Hastinapura, and they were content with their half. With Krishna at their head they came to that wasteland, and those heroes of unfading splendor made it beautiful and turned it into a second heaven. With Dvaipayana, their grandfather Vyasa, to help them choose, they selected a region that was sacred and auspicious, performed the rites that make a ground propitious, and measured out the land for a city.
What they built there was made to be held. A moat went around it as wide as the sea. The walls went up as high as the heavens, white as fleecy cloud or the rays of the moon, so that the city shone like Bhogavati, the capital under the earth, in the glitter of the Nagas. It was crowded with palatial mansions and had gates beyond counting, and every gate had two leaves that spread like the wings of Garuda. The gateways themselves stood like clouds and as high as the Mandara mountains, and they were so well furnished with weapons of attack that no missile of an enemy could make the slightest mark on them; they were thick with darts and missiles the way a bank is thick with double-tongued snakes. The turrets along the walls were filled with armed men at their training, and the walls along their whole length were lined with warriors. There were thousands of sharp hooks, and shataghnis, the engines that kill a hundred men at a stroke, and many machines besides, and great iron wheels planted on the battlements. The streets were wide and laid out so well that there was no fear of accident in them. The city came to be called Indraprastha, because with its mansions it was like Indra’s own Amaravati. In a delightful and auspicious quarter of it rose the palace of the Pandavas, full of every kind of wealth, like the mansion of Kuvera, the treasurer of the gods, and it looked like a bank of cloud with lightning in it.
When the city was built the people came. Brahmins came who knew all the Vedas and every language, wanting to live there. Merchants came from every direction, hoping to make money. Men skilled in all the arts came, wanting to settle. Around the city were laid out gardens full of trees in fruit and in flower: mango and amrataka, kadamba and ashoka and champaka, punnaga and naga, lakucha and panasa, shala and tala and tamala, bakula and ketaka with their fragrant loads, grand amalakas in blossom with their branches bent under the weight of fruit, lodhra and ankola in flower, jamun and patala, kunjaka and atimukta, karavira and parijata, and many other kinds always in flower and fruit and alive with birds of every species. The green groves rang with the cries of maddened peacocks and of koels. There were pleasure houses bright as mirrors, bowers of creepers, charming artificial hills, lakes brimming with crystal water, tanks fragrant with lotus and lily and adorned with swans and ducks and chakravakas, pools overgrown with fine water plants, and ponds of great beauty and great size. And the joy of the Pandavas grew from day to day in that large kingdom, peopled with pious men.
So, because Bhishma and King Dhritarashtra had behaved rightly by them, the Pandavas made their home at Khandavaprastha, and that first of cities, adorned with those five warriors, each the equal of Indra, looked like Bhogavati adorned with the Nagas. When they were settled there, the heroic Krishna took his leave of them and went back with Rama to Dvaravati.
The gist: Dhritarashtra gives the Pandavas half the kingdom and sends them to Khandavaprastha, an unreclaimed waste, so that no quarrel can arise again. With Vyasa’s help they choose and consecrate a site and build a walled city with a moat like the sea, white walls, gates like Garuda’s wings and engines on the battlements, and name it Indraprastha after Indra’s Amaravati. Brahmins, merchants and craftsmen settle it, gardens and lakes are laid out around it, and Krishna and Balarama go home to Dvaravati.
Narada’s visit, and the warning
Here Janamejaya, who was hearing all this from Vaishampayana at his sacrifice, stopped the teller with a question, and it was the question any listener would have asked. What did his grandsires, the illustrious Pandavas, do once they had the kingdom of Indraprastha? How did their wife Draupadi obey all five of them? And how was it that no quarrel ever broke out among those rulers of men, who were all attached to one wife? He wished to hear everything, in detail, about how they behaved toward one another after their union with Krishna.
Vaishampayana told him. The Pandavas had their kingdom at Dhritarashtra’s command, and they passed their days in joy at Khandavaprastha with Krishna. Yudhishthira, full of energy and always true to his word, ruled the land virtuously, with his brothers to help him. Their enemies had been beaten. They lived in great happiness. And they used to sit, those bulls among men, on royal seats of great price, and do the work of government. One day, while they were all so seated, the celestial rishi Narada came to them in the course of his wanderings.
Yudhishthira saw him and offered him his own handsome seat, and when the rishi had taken it the king offered him the arghya, the water of welcome, with his own hands, and told him how things stood in the kingdom. Narada accepted the worship, was well pleased, blessed him, and told the king to sit, and only then did Yudhishthira sit. Then the king sent word into the inner apartments that the illustrious one had come. Draupadi heard it, purified herself properly, and came with a respectful bearing to where Narada sat with the Pandavas. The virtuous princess of Panchala worshiped the celestial rishi’s feet and stood before him with her hands joined, properly veiled. Narada pronounced many blessings on her and told her she might go.
When Krishna had withdrawn, the rishi spoke to the Pandavas in private, all five of them, with Yudhishthira at their head. “The renowned princess of Panchala is the wedded wife of you all. Establish a rule among yourselves, so that no disunion can arise among you. In former days there were two brothers, famous through the three worlds, named Sunda and Upasunda. They lived together, and nobody could kill them unless each killed the other. They ruled the same kingdom, lived in the same house, slept on the same bed, sat on the same seat and ate from the same dish. And yet they killed each other, for the sake of Tilottama. So keep your friendship for one another, Yudhishthira, and do what will not produce disunion among you.”
Yudhishthira wanted the whole of it. “Whose sons were these asuras, great muni, Sunda and Upasunda? Where did the quarrel between them come from, and why did they kill each other? And whose daughter was this Tilottama, for love of whom the maddened brothers slew each other? Was she an apsara, or the daughter of some god? We want to hear everything, exactly as it happened, in detail. Our curiosity has grown very great.”
The gist: Janamejaya asks how five husbands of one wife lived without quarrel. Narada comes to Indraprastha, is given Yudhishthira’s own seat and the arghya, blesses the veiled Draupadi and dismisses her, and then, in private, tells the brothers to set a rule among themselves, citing Sunda and Upasunda, who shared one kingdom, one house, one bed, one seat and one dish, and killed each other over Tilottama. Yudhishthira asks for the whole story.
Sunda and Upasunda: the austerity and the boon
“Listen, then, son of Pritha, with your brothers,” Narada said, “and I will tell you this old story exactly as it happened.” And he told it.
In the old days a mighty daitya named Nikumbha, a being of great energy and strength, was born in the line of the great asura Hiranyakashipu. Two sons were born to Nikumbha, Sunda and Upasunda, and both were mighty asuras, full of energy and terrible in their prowess, fierce, and wicked at heart. They were of one resolve. They worked always at the same tasks and toward the same ends. They shared every happiness and every grief. Each said and did what pleased the other. They were never anywhere unless they were there together, and they never went anywhere unless they went together. They were so alike in disposition and in habit that they seemed to be one person divided into two. So they grew up, of one mind in everything they took on, and the thing they took on, when they were grown, was the conquest of the three worlds.
They were duly initiated and went to the Vindhya mountains, and there the austerities they performed were severe. Hunger and thirst wore them down. Their hair matted. They dressed in bark. They smeared themselves with dirt from head to foot and lived on air alone, and they stood on their toes, and they cut pieces of flesh from their own bodies and threw them into the fire. With their arms raised above their heads and their eyes fixed, they kept their vows for a very long time, and while they kept them a wonder happened on that mountain. The Vindhya, heated for years on end by the power of their austerities, began to give off steam from every part of its body.
The gods watched the severity of it and grew alarmed, and they set about obstructing the brothers in every way they could. Again and again they tempted the two with every precious thing there is and with the most beautiful girls, and the brothers did not break their vows. Then the gods tried illusion. It seemed to the two brothers that their sisters, their mothers, their wives and their other kinswomen were running toward them in terror, their hair and their ornaments and their clothes in disorder, with a rakshasa behind them striking at them with a lance, and the women seemed to cry out to the brothers to save them. It came to nothing. The brothers were wedded to their vow, and they did not break it. When the gods saw that none of it had made the slightest impression on either of the two, the women and the rakshasa vanished together.
At last the Grandsire himself, the supreme lord who seeks the welfare of all, came to the two great asuras and told them to ask for the boon they wanted. Sunda and Upasunda saw him, rose from their seats and stood with their palms joined, and they both said: “If you are pleased with these austerities of ours, Grandsire, and if you are favorable to us, then let us have knowledge of all weapons and of all powers of illusion. Let us be given great strength, and let us be able to take any form we wish. And last of all, let us be immortal.”
“Except the immortality you ask for, you shall be given everything you desire,” Brahma said. “Choose some form of death by which you may still be the equals of the immortals. You have undergone these austerities out of a desire for sovereignty and for nothing else. You have done your penance for the conquest of the three worlds. That, mighty daityas, is why I cannot give you what you want.”
The brothers conferred, and what they asked for was shaped by the only thing they had ever trusted. “Then let us have no fear, Grandsire, from any created thing in the three worlds, whether it moves or whether it stands still, except only from each other.”
“I grant you what you have asked,” said the Grandsire. “Even this, your desire.” With the boon given he made them leave off their austerities and went back to his own region, and the two mighty daityas, with those boons on them, could now be killed by nobody in the universe. They went home. Their friends and kinsmen saw that those two of great intelligence had got what they went for, and they were overjoyed. Sunda and Upasunda cut off their matted locks and put on crowns. In costly robes and ornaments they looked exceedingly handsome, and they made the moon rise over their city every night, out of his season. Their friends and relations gave themselves up to merriment. Eat, feed, give, make merry, sing, drink: those were the sounds heard every day in every house, and here and there great roars of hilarity went up, with clapping of hands, until the whole city of the daityas was full of it. And the daityas, who could take any form they chose, gave themselves to every kind of amusement and sport, and hardly noticed the passing of time, and counted a whole year as a single day.
The gist: Nikumbha, of the line of Hiranyakashipu, fathers Sunda and Upasunda, two asuras so inseparable that they seem one being in two bodies. On the Vindhya they practice austerities so fierce that the mountain steams, and they hold firm against the gods’ temptations and against an illusion of their own women hunted by a rakshasa. Brahma refuses them immortality, since they sought it only for conquest, and grants that nothing in the three worlds can harm them except each other. They crown themselves, make the moon rise out of season, and feast for a year that passes like a day.
The conquest of the three worlds, and the slaughter of the sages
As soon as the festivities were over, Sunda and Upasunda, who had never wanted anything except the sovereignty of the three worlds, took counsel together and ordered their forces drawn up. They had the assent of their friends and kinsmen, of the elders of the daitya race and of their ministers of state, and they performed the rites that go before a departure, and they set out by night, with the constellation Magha in the ascendant. The daitya host that marched with them was clad in mail and armed with maces and axes, lances and clubs, and it marched with a glad heart, the charanas, the bards, chanting panegyrics that promised them victory.
The brothers could go anywhere they wished, and they rose into the sky and went straight for the region of the gods. The gods knew they were coming, and they knew the boons the supreme deity had given them, and they left heaven and took refuge in the region of Brahma. The two daitya heroes subjugated the realm of Indra, overcame the tribes of yakshas and rakshasas and every creature that ranged the skies, and came away. Next those great chariot warriors subjugated the nagas of the world beneath, then the dwellers in the ocean, then every tribe of the mlechchhas. Then they wanted the whole earth, and they called their soldiers to them and gave an order that was cruelty itself. “The Brahmins and the royal sages on earth, with their libations and their other offerings at the great sacrifices, increase the energy and the strength of the gods and their prosperity too. While they do that they are the enemies of the asuras. All of us together, then, must slaughter them off the face of the earth.”
They gave that order on the eastern shore of the great ocean, and with that resolve in them the asura brothers set out in every direction. Wherever men were performing sacrifices, and wherever Brahmins were assisting at them, the brothers killed them at once, and having done the killing with violence they moved on to the next place. Their soldiers went into the hermitages of munis who had their souls under control and threw the sacrificial fires into the water. The great rishis cursed them in their wrath, and the curses, made abortive by Brahma’s boon, left the asura brothers untouched. When the Brahmins saw that their curses had no more effect than arrows shot at stone, they fled in every direction and abandoned their rites and their vows. Even the rishis on earth who had attained perfection, whose passions were wholly under control, who were absorbed in meditation on the Deity, fled before the asura brothers the way snakes flee at the coming of Garuda, the son of Vinata. The sacred hermitages were trampled flat. The jars and vessels of sacrifice were broken and their holy contents scattered over the ground. The whole universe went empty, as if every creature in it had been struck down in the season of the general dissolution.
When the rishis had all disappeared and made themselves invisible, the two great asuras, set on their destruction, began to take other shapes. They became maddened elephants with the temples split and the juice running, and in that form they searched out the rishis who had hidden themselves in caves and sent them to the region of Yama. They became lions, and then tigers, and then they were gone, and the next moment they were somewhere else, and by these means and others the cruel pair, wherever they saw a rishi, killed him on the spot. Sacrifice and study ceased. Kings and Brahmins were exterminated. The earth had no sacrifices and no festivals. The people cried out in terror, and buying and selling stopped. Every religious rite ceased; there were no more sacred ceremonies, and no more marriages. The fields went untended and the cattle were no longer herded. Towns and hermitages stood empty. Bones and skeletons lay scattered over the earth, and the earth took on a frightful look. The rites in honor of the ancestors were suspended. The sacred cry of Vashat was heard no more, and the whole round of auspicious rites fell silent. The earth was terrible to look at. The sun and the moon, the planets and the stars, the constellations and all the other dwellers in the sky watched what Sunda and Upasunda were doing and grieved. And when the asura brothers had conquered every quarter of the heavens by acts of that kind, they settled at Kurukshetra, without a rival anywhere.
The gist: The brothers march out under Magha with the daitya host; the gods flee to Brahma; Indra’s realm, the yakshas and rakshasas, the nagas, the ocean and the mlechchhas all fall. On the eastern shore they order every Brahmin and royal sage killed, since sacrifice feeds the gods; the rishis’ curses glance off like arrows on stone; in the shapes of elephants, lions and tigers the brothers hunt the sages in their caves. Sacrifice, study, marriage, farming and trade cease, the earth is strewn with bones, and the two settle at Kurukshetra without a rival.
The making of Tilottama
The celestial rishis, the siddhas, and the great rishis who had tranquility and self-restraint in them saw that universal slaughter and were stricken with grief, and with their passions and their senses and their souls fully under control they went, out of compassion for the universe, to the abode of the Grandsire. There they found Brahma seated with the gods, the siddhas and the brahmarshis around him. Mahadeva, the god of gods, was there, and Agni with Vayu, and Soma and Surya and Shakra, and rishis devoted to the contemplation of Brahman: the Vaikhanasas, the Valakhilyas, the Vanaprasthas, the Marichipas, the Ajas, the Avimudas, and other ascetics of great energy. All of them were sitting with the Grandsire when the rishis came in with sorrow in their hearts and laid before Brahma everything Sunda and Upasunda had done, in detail, how they had done it and in what order. Then every god and every great rishi there pressed the matter on him.
The Grandsire heard them out, reflected for a moment, and settled in his mind what he would do. He resolved on the destruction of the asura brothers, and he summoned Vishvakarma, the architect of the gods. When Vishvakarma stood before him, the Grandsire, whose ascetic merit is supreme, gave him his commission in a single sentence. “Create a woman who can captivate every heart.”
Vishvakarma bowed, received the command with reverence, and set to work with great care. He began by gathering every beautiful feature there is onto the body of the woman he was making, and what he made was very nearly a mass of gems. Shaped so carefully by the maker of the universe, she became, in beauty, without a rival among the women of the three worlds. There was no part of her body, however small, that did not draw the eye of whoever looked by the wealth of its beauty. Like Shri herself in bodily form, that woman of extraordinary beauty captivated the eyes and the hearts of every creature. And because she had been made with a portion of every gem, each taken in the smallest measure, the Grandsire gave her the name Tilottama. The moment he started her into life she bowed to Brahma, joined her palms and asked him: “Lord of all created things, what task am I to perform? What was I made for?”
“Go, Tilottama, to the asuras Sunda and Upasunda,” the Grandsire said. “Tempt them with that captivating beauty of yours, lovely one. And conduct yourself there in such a way that the two asura brothers, because of the wealth of your beauty, quarrel with each other the moment they set eyes on you.”
“So be it,” she said, and bowed to the Grandsire, and then she walked around the assembled gods. Brahma was sitting with his face to the east, and Mahadeva with his face to the east as well, and all the gods were facing north, and the rishis were facing every way. As Tilottama went around the circle, Indra and the illustrious Sthanu were the only two who managed to keep their minds still. But Mahadeva wanted very badly to see her, and so, when she had passed to his right, another face came out on the southern side of his body, like a lotus opening. When she was behind him a face appeared on the west. When she was on his left, a fourth face appeared on the north. And Indra, who wanted to see her just as badly, came to have a thousand eyes, each large and faintly red, before and behind and on both his flanks. That is how Sthanu, the great god, came to have four faces, and how the slayer of Vala came to have a thousand eyes. As for the rest of the gods and the rishis, they turned their faces whichever way she went, and the eyes of all of those illustrious beings, every one of them except the divine Grandsire himself, fell on Tilottama’s body. When she set out for the city of the asuras with the wealth of her beauty, they all regarded the task as done already. And when she had gone, the great god who is the first cause of the universe dismissed the gods and the rishis. Tilottama was on her way, and Narada’s story had reached its last turn.
The gist: The rishis and siddhas bring the slaughter before Brahma, seated with Shiva, Agni, Vayu, Soma, Surya, Indra and the ascetics. Brahma orders Vishvakarma to make a woman who can captivate every heart; built from a tiny portion of every gem, she is named Tilottama and sent to make the brothers quarrel at first sight. As she circles the assembly, Shiva grows a face on each side to keep her in view and Indra a thousand eyes, and every eye but Brahma’s follows her. She sets out for the Vindhya, and the gods are dismissed.
Source: the Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Adi Parva, the close of the Viduragamana sub-parva and the opening of the Rajyalabha, Sections 203 to 213 in K. M. Ganguli’s translation; the Gita Press Hindi edition numbers these chapters differently. Names, order, and events were checked against Ganguli’s complete translation, from which the dialogue is adapted.
Based on the Mahabharata of Vedavyasa (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)