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Maya the Danava stood before Vasudeva, close by Arjuna, his hands joined, and spoke in soft words again and again. Son of Kunti, he said, you have saved me from this Krishna in his spate of fire and from Pavaka the flame that was eager to consume me; tell me now what service I may render you. Arjuna answered that the great asura had already done everything by making the offer itself. Blessings on you, he said, go wherever you please, and be kind and well-disposed toward me as we are kind and well-pleased with you. But Maya’s heart would not rest there. He said that among the Danavas he was Vishvakarma, the supreme artist, and he would build something and would not be turned aside. Then Arjuna said that even if Maya thought himself saved from the very jaws of death, they would ask nothing of him for their own sake, yet neither would they thwart his wish; let him do something for Krishna, and that would be requital enough for the service done to him. At Maya’s urging Krishna reflected for a moment on what he should ask, and then, as the lord of the universe and the maker of every object, he commanded: if the son of Diti, the foremost of all artists, truly wished to do good to Yudhishthira the just, let him raise a hall of assembly such that the men of the world of men could not copy it though they studied it with care while seated within, a hall in which one might behold the craft of the gods, the asuras, and men together in one design. Hearing this, Maya was filled with gladness.
The Making of Maya’s Wondrous Hall
Krishna and Partha told King Yudhishthira the whole of it and presented Maya to him. Yudhishthira received the Danava with the honor he deserved, and Maya accepted that honor and thought highly of it. That great son of Diti recited to the Pandavas the history of the Danava Vrishaparva, and then, having rested awhile, set himself to the work after long and careful planning. On an auspicious day he performed the propitiatory rites of the foundation, gratified thousands of Brahmanas learned in the Vedas with sweetened milk and rice and with rich presents of many kinds, and measured out a plot of ground five thousand cubits square, delightful to behold and suited to a building fit for every season.
Having lived happily for some time at Khandavaprastha, Janardana grew eager one day to see his father and to go to Dwaraka. He saluted Yudhishthira and Kunti, bowing to the feet of his father’s sister, and she smelt his head. He spoke words of affection and truth to his sister Subhadra, his eyes filling with tears, took leave of Draupadi and of the priest Dhaumya, and then bathed and adorned himself. He mounted his golden car that bore the figure of Garuda on its banner, yoked to it the horses Saivya and Sugriva, and set out at an excellent hour of an auspicious day. Yudhishthira himself took up the reins, Arjuna fanned him with a white chamara that had a handle of gold, and Bhima and the twins followed behind. After half a yojana, about two miles, Krishna stopped them, and bending, took hold of Yudhishthira’s feet; but Yudhishthira raised him at once and smelt his head and gave him leave. The Pandavas gazed after Krishna as long as he was within sight, and when he had passed from sight their minds still followed him. With Satyaki and the charioteer Daruka he reached Dwaraka with the speed of Garuda, and there, honored by Ugrasena and the Yadavas, he saluted his aged father and mother and Baladeva, and entered the apartments of Rukmini.
A key to reading this (place): Khandavaprastha and Indraprastha are two names for one city, the Pandavas’ capital, raised on the ground of the burnt Khandava forest (held to be near present-day Delhi). Dwaraka, also called Dwaravati, is Krishna’s city on the sea (in present-day Gujarat).
Maya the Danava told Arjuna that he would go with leave for a little while and return soon. On the north of the peak of Kailasa, near the mountains of Mainaka, on the banks of the Bindu lake where the Danavas had once held a sacrifice, he had gathered a great store of jewels and gems and had placed it in the mansion of Vrishaparva; if it was still there, he would bring it back. There too lay a fierce club, heavy and strong and knobbed with gold, equal in strength to a hundred thousand clubs, as fit a weapon for Bhima as the Gandiva was for Arjuna. And there was a great conch called Devadatta, of loud voice, that had come from Varuna. All these he would give them. So saying, Maya went off toward the northeast, and from the Bindu lake he brought back the club, the conch, and the whole of Vrishaparva’s crystalline wealth, which had been guarded by Yakshas and Rakshasas.
Out of those very materials Maya built a peerless hall with columns of gold, covering an area of five thousand cubits. It shone like Agni or the Sun or the Moon, and by its brilliance it seemed to dim even the bright rays of the sun. Eight thousand Rakshasas called Kinkaras, fierce and huge of body, with coppery eyes and arrowy ears and the power to range through the air, kept guard over that hall. Within it Maya set a matchless tank, and in the tank were lotuses whose leaves were dark gems and whose stalks were bright jewels, with golden fish and tortoises, its water clear and free of mud, its stairs of crystal, its banks of marble set with pearls. So convincing was the tank that many kings mistook it for solid ground and walked into it with their eyes wide open. Maya finished the great hall in fourteen months and reported its completion to Yudhishthira.
The gist: Out of gratitude for being saved from the fire and from Krishna, Maya brought the divine wealth of the Bindu lake and raised for the Pandavas, in fourteen months, a hall that joined the craft of gods, asuras, and men; Bhima received the great club and Arjuna the Devadatta conch.
Sages and Kings in the Hall
Before he entered the hall, King Yudhishthira fed ten thousand Brahmanas with milk and rice cooked in clarified butter and honey and with fruits and roots, gratified those who had come from many lands with every kind of good food, and gave to each of them a thousand kine. So loud was the cry of the gratified Brahmanas, “What an auspicious day is this,” that it seemed to reach heaven itself. Then athletes and mimes and prizefighters and bards showed their skill and gladdened the son of Dharma. In that hall Rishis and kings from many countries sat with the Pandavas. Among the Rishis were Asita and Devala, Satya, Markandeya, Krishna-Dwaipayana who is Vyasa, Suka, Jaimini, Paila, and the disciples of Vyasa, ourselves among them, and Yajnavalkya, Lomaharshana with his son, and Dhaumya, and many others learned in the Vedas and their branches, all waiting on Yudhishthira and gladdening him with their discourse.
Among the Kshatriyas were Ugrasena and Kshemaka, Kamatha the king of Kamvoja, and Kampana who alone made the Yavanas tremble at his name; the king of the Madrakas; Pulinda the king of the Kiratas; the kings of Anga and Vanga; Jayasena the king of Magadha; Chekitana; Sisupala the king of the Karushas with his son; and the youths of the Vrishni line, Ahuka and Viprithu, Akrura, Kritavarman, and Satyaki the son of Sini. The princes who had learned the science of weapons under Arjuna waited there too, and the Vrishnis Pradyumna and Samba, the son of Satyaki, and Aniruddha, all in Yudhishthira’s service. Arjuna’s friend the Gandharva Tumburu and Chittasena, with many Gandharvas and Apsaras skilled in song, gladdened the hall with their sweet music, as in heaven the celestials wait upon Brahma.
A key to reading this (concept): A sabha means more than a building. It is the seat of a king’s dominion, the place where sages, kings, artists, and envoys come and sit. To possess such a hall was itself the first sign that a man was moving toward the rank of emperor.
Narada Arrives, and the Questions on Kingship
While the Pandavas sat in the hall with the Gandharvas, the celestial Rishi Narada came there, master of the Vedas and the Upanishads, versed in histories and Puranas, skilled in logic and in the truth of moral science. He came with the speed of the mind, accompanied by Parijata and Raivata and Saumya and Sumukha. Yudhishthira rose with his brothers, honored the sage with arghya and a fitting seat, with kine and gems, and Narada, gratified, put to him many questions on the duty of a king. Is the wealth you earn, he asked, spent on proper objects; do you divide your time justly among duty, wealth, and pleasure; and do you never sacrifice duty for the sake of wealth, or both duty and wealth for the sake of pleasure that so easily seduces.
Narada asked of the king’s seven chief officers, the governor of the citadel, the commander of the forces, the chief judge, the general of the inner guard, the priest, the chief physician, and the chief astrologer; of the secrecy of spies; of the telling of friend from foe from neutral; and of keeping counsel close. He asked whether the soldiers received their appointed rations and pay in good time, for arrears of pay and irregular rations drive an army to mutiny, which the wise count among the greatest of all mischiefs. He asked also whether the king supported the wives and children of the men who had given their lives for him, and whether he was to the distressed as a mother and a father.
Narada asked about the land itself. Are tanks and lakes built across the kingdom so that farming does not depend on the rains alone; do the tillers lack for seed or food; and when you lend them grain, do you take only a fourth in excess of each hundred? He counseled the king to keep himself free of the fourteen vices of rulers, atheism and untruthfulness, anger and incautiousness, procrastination and the neglect of the wise, idleness and restlessness of mind, taking counsel with a single man, consulting men who know nothing of policy, abandoning a settled plan, divulging one’s counsels, leaving beneficial projects unfinished, and undertaking everything without reflection; for by these, he said, even kings firmly seated on their thrones are ruined.
At the last Narada asked whether the king’s study of the Vedas, his wealth, his wife, and his knowledge of the Sastras had borne fruit. Yudhishthira asked how these bear fruit. The Rishi answered that the Vedas bear fruit when the one who has studied them performs the Agnihotra and the other sacrifices; that wealth bears fruit when its owner both enjoys it and gives it away in charity; that a wife bears fruit when she is useful and bears children; and that knowledge of the Sastras bears fruit when it produces humility and good conduct. Yudhishthira bowed his head and said that under the sage’s teaching his understanding had widened, and that he would follow all of it to the best of his power.
The gist: By his long questioning of Yudhishthira on the duty of a king, Narada laid open the entire code of conduct of an ideal ruler, and this same occasion planted the seed of the Rajasuya that was to come.
The Celestial Halls, and a Message from Pandu
Then Yudhishthira asked Narada whether he had ever seen a hall like this one, or a better. The sage smiled and said that among men he had neither seen nor heard of such a hall of jewels, but that he would describe to him the halls of Yama, Varuna, Indra, Kubera, and Brahma. He told of Indra’s radiant Pushkaramalini; of Yama’s shining hall, where Yayati and Nahusha, Puru and Mandhata and Bhagiratha, Rama the son of Dasharatha and Rama the son of Jamadagni, and countless royal sages dwell; of Varuna’s white hall built within the waters, where Vasuki and Takshaka and all the nagas live, and all the rivers of the world in their own forms; of Kubera’s hall, where Yakshas and Gandharvas gather and where the lord of Uma, Mahadeva himself, comes; and last, of the hall of Brahma the Grandsire, which no words can describe, whose very form changes from one moment to the next.
Yudhishthira asked why nearly all the kings of the earth were to be found in Yama’s hall, while in Indra’s hall Narada had named only one king, the royal sage Harishchandra, and what deed that king had done. Narada said that Harishchandra had been emperor over all the kings of the earth; that mounted alone upon his car he had brought the whole seven-island earth under his sway, had performed the great Rajasuya, and had given to every suppliant five times what was asked; and that for this he shone brighter than thousands of other kings and reached a rank like Indra’s own. The kings who perform the Rajasuya, Narada said, dwell in joy in Indra’s realm, and so too do those who yield up their lives in battle without turning their backs.
Then Narada delivered the message of Pandu, Yudhishthira’s father. Pandu, marveling at Harishchandra’s good fortune and knowing that Narada was going down to the world of men, had bowed to him and asked him to tell Yudhishthira that he could subjugate the whole earth, since all his brothers were obedient to him; let him then perform the great Rajasuya, so that Pandu too, like Harishchandra, might reach the region of Indra. But Narada also gave a warning: this sacrifice is beset with obstacles, for a class of demons called Brahma-Rakshasas search out every loophole to obstruct such rites, and its very beginning may bring on a war that destroys the Kshatriyas and the whole earth with them. So saying, Narada departed with the Rishis who had come with him, and Yudhishthira with his brothers began to turn over in his mind that foremost of sacrifices, the Rajasuya.
A key to reading this (concept): The Rajasuya is the great sacrifice at whose end its performer is installed as emperor and gains the fruit of every sacrifice, including the Agnihotra. Its condition was hard: every king of the earth must either pay tribute or submit. Pandu’s message about the region of Indra and Narada’s warning together set this sacrifice at the meeting point of a longing for release and a vast destruction.
Yudhishthira’s Doubt, and Counsel with Krishna
After Narada’s words Yudhishthira began to sigh heavily, and the thought of the Rajasuya gave him no peace of mind. Again and again he discussed it with his ministers and his brothers. With one voice the ministers said that he was worthy of the imperial rank and that the time had come. But the virtuous Yudhishthira held the welfare of his people above all. So just was his rule that no one in the kingdom bore him any enmity, and for this he came to be called Ajatasatru, the man with no enemy at all. Bhima ruled all men justly, Arjuna guarded the people from foes without, Sahadeva gave judgment impartially, and Nakula bore himself with the humility that was natural to him. The rains came in plenty, the kingdom grew rich, and even the kings whom he had conquered held him dearer than their own fathers and mothers.
Yudhishthira consulted Dhaumya and Dwaipayana, the ritwijas and his ministers, once more, yet thought it wrong to begin the sacrifice on his own resolve alone. He judged that only Krishna could settle the matter, Krishna of measureless energy, for whom nothing at all is unattainable. He sent a messenger to Dwaraka, and Krishna came swiftly to Indraprastha with Indrasena. Yudhishthira told him everything and said that some counselors, out of friendship, do not see the difficulties, and some, out of self-interest, say only what is agreeable, and some hold their own advantage to be worth pursuing; but Krishna stood above all such motives, for he had conquered both desire and anger; let him, therefore, say what would be most beneficial for the world.
Krishna’s Answer: The Obstacle of Jarasandha
Krishna said that Yudhishthira held every quality the Rajasuya required, yet there was one thing he had to say. The Kshatriyas of the present day, he said, are lesser men than those whom Rama the son of Jamadagni once exterminated. Every royal line calls itself descended from Aila and from Ikshvaku, but at this hour Jarasandha of Magadha has set himself over the heads of all the kings. Sisupala the king of Chedi has become the commander of his forces; Vakra the king of the Karushas, the two mighty warriors Hansa and Dimbhaka, and Dantavakra, Karusha, and Meghavahana all attend on him. Even Bhagadatta, who rules the west like a second Varuna and who chastised Muru and Naraka, Pandu’s old friend, has bowed his head to Jarasandha by word and by deed, though in his heart he regards Yudhishthira as a father regards his child. Only the maternal uncle Purujit still looks toward Yudhishthira from love.
Krishna went on. That wicked one born among the Chedis, who gives himself out as a divine being and wears the marks that distinguish Krishna, and Paundraka-Vasudeva the king of Vanga, have both taken Jarasandha’s side. From fear of Jarasandha the eighteen branches of the Bhojas, and the Surasenas, the Bhadrakas, the Salvas, and the Kuntis, fled to the west; the Matsyas and the Sannyastapadas fled to the south; and the Panchalas scattered in every direction. Krishna told the story of his own house: how the foolish Kansa, having married two daughters of Jarasandha, Asti and Prapti, oppressed the Yadavas, and how Krishna, aided by Rama, that is Balarama, slew both Kansa and Sunama. After that his father-in-law Jarasandha took up arms against them.
Krishna made it plain that the eighteen younger branches of the Yadavas had concluded that even if they struck Jarasandha ceaselessly with the finest weapons, they could do nothing to him in three hundred years, for his two friends Hansa and Dimbhaka could not be slain by any weapon. So they had left Mathura and settled in the west, at Kusasthali, that is Dwaraka, near the mountains of Raivata, and had rebuilt its fort until it was impregnable even to the gods. Krishna said, too, that Jarasandha, resolved to offer a hundred kings in sacrifice to Rudra, had been defeating monarchs and immuring them as captives in his fortress of Girivraja; eighty-six were already imprisoned, and only fourteen were wanting. So long as Jarasandha lived, the Rajasuya was impossible; his death, and the release of the captive kings, was the sacrifice’s first condition.
A sub-tale: One strange chapter of the enmity that began at Mathura had ended in this way. Rama, that is Balarama, in a battle of eighteen days slew a king named Hansa. Hearing of it, Dimbhaka believed he could not live without Hansa and threw himself into the waters of the Yamuna. Then Hansa, Jarasandha’s general, heard of Dimbhaka’s death and he too leapt into the Yamuna. With both his friends gone, Jarasandha returned to his kingdom with an empty heart.
The Story of Jarasandha, Whom the Demoness Jara Joined
Yudhishthira asked who this Jarasandha was, and why his energy was such that even after touching Krishna he had not been burnt like an insect at the touch of fire. Krishna told his birth-story. Brihadratha, king of the Magadhas, who kept three akshauhinis of troops, had married the twin daughters of the king of Kasi and had made a secret pledge to love both equally and to show a preference for neither. But for all his efforts no son was born to him. One day the king heard that Chanda-kausika, the son of Kakshivat of the illustrious line of Gautama, a great ascetic, had come wandering to his capital and had taken his seat in the shade of a mango tree.
The king went to the Muni with both his queens and gratified him with jewels and rich gifts. The Muni bade him ask a boon, but the king, his voice choked with tears, said that he was without a son, that he meant to leave his kingdom for the woods, and that a boon was of no use to him. Then the Muni entered into meditation where he sat, and there fell into his lap a juicy mango untouched by the beak of any bird. He pronounced mantras over the fruit and gave it to the king as the means of obtaining a matchless son, telling him to return, for his wish was fulfilled. Remembering his old pledge, the king gave the single fruit to both his queens, and each ate half of it. By eating it both conceived.
When the time came, each queen brought forth half a body, with one eye, one arm, one leg, half a belly, and half a face. In terror the two sisters abandoned those living halves, and the midwives wrapped them up, carried them out by the back door, and threw them away at a crossing. Then a Rakshasa woman named Jara, who lived on flesh and blood, came upon the fragments, and to carry them off more easily she joined the two together. The moment they were joined they became one sturdy child, its body hard as the thunderbolt. She could not lift him now, and the infant, closing his fists and thrusting them into his mouth, roared like the rain-charged clouds. At the sound the king and the queens came running.
The Rakshasa woman thought to herself that she lived within the domains of a king so eager for a son, and that it did not become her to kill this child. Taking a human form, she told the king that this was his own son, born of both his wives by the boon of the great Brahmana, cast away by the midwives, and saved by her. The king asked who she was, and she said she was the household goddess Jara, whose likeness men paint on the walls of their houses among children, and by whose worship a house keeps its prosperity; because she was worshiped in his house, she had done him this kindness. So saying, Jara vanished. And because he had been joined by Jara, the child was called Jarasandha.
Some time afterward Chanda-kausika came again to the country of the Magadhas. Brihadratha offered him his whole kingdom and his son. The Rishi, well pleased, foretold that this son would be matchless in strength, that even weapons hurled by the celestials would not pain him, that he would rob all the kings of their splendor as the sun robs the stars, and that he would behold Rudra, the god Hara, with his own eyes. So saying, the Rishi went his way. Brihadratha installed Jarasandha on the throne and withdrew to the woods with his two wives, and in the end they reached heaven. Later, after the death of Kansa, when the feud with Krishna grew hot, Jarasandha whirled a mace ninety-nine times at Girivraja and hurled it toward Mathura, where it fell ninety-nine yojanas from his city; that place is called Gadavasana to this day.
A key to reading this (lineage): Jarasandha is the son of Brihadratha, king of Magadha, formed from the joining of two half-bodies. His unslayable strength is in truth a joining, and this too is the thread of his death, for what has been joined can be pulled apart.
The gist: Jarasandha’s origin shows that his matchless strength is boon-born and that his body is made of a join; Krishna knows the secret, and so he means the kill to come in a wrestling duel, the joined body torn apart by hand rather than struck down by any weapon.
The Resolve of Bhima, Arjuna, and Krishna
Yudhishthira grew anxious at the thought of sending Bhima, Arjuna, and Krishna, who were to him as his eyes and his mind, against Jarasandha. Even Yama, he said, could not conquer Jarasandha’s host, and so it seemed to him better to leave the thing undone. Then Bhima said that in Krishna was policy, in himself was strength, and in Arjuna was victory, and that like the three fires that accomplish a sacrifice, the three of them would accomplish the death of the king of Magadha. Krishna added that by strength, protection, virtue, prosperity, and policy Yudhishthira deserved the imperial rank, and that Jarasandha already held eighty-six kings captive; the moment he gained fourteen more he would begin his cruel act, and whoever stopped it would win blazing renown.
Arjuna gave his own judgment. He had gained his bow and weapons, energy and allies, dominion and fame, he said, but nothing surpasses strength, and a man born in a heroic line who lacks valor is not worthy of regard. If, for the sake of the sacrifice, they could slay Jarasandha and rescue the captive kings, no act would stand higher, and if they did not attempt it, the world would think them incompetent. Krishna added that no one knows when death will come, in the night or in the day, and that no one has ever won immortality by shrinking from battle; therefore, if they entered the enemy’s house in secret and closed with him, no blame could touch them. He saw Jarasandha’s destruction plainly before him.
The Journey to Magadha, and the Entry into Girivraja
Yudhishthira gladly made over Bhima and Arjuna to Krishna, saying that Krishna was the lord of the Pandavas and that they were all under his command; under Krishna’s lead he already counted Jarasandha as slain. He ordered that Arjuna follow Krishna and that Bhima follow Arjuna, for the strength of a force lies in its leadership. The three set out disguised as Snataka Brahmanas, crossed Kuru-jangala, then the Gandaki, the Sadanira, which is the Karatoya, the Sarayu and other rivers, passed through Eastern Kosala and Mithila, and crossing the Ganga and the Sona, moved eastward toward Magadha. Reaching the hills of Goratha, they beheld the city of Magadha, filled with kine and wealth and water and made lovely with its countless trees.
Krishna showed Arjuna the beauty of Girivraja, guarded as if by five high peaks joined together, Vaihara, Varaha, Vrishabha, Rishigiri, and the delightful Chaitya. Coming to the city gate, they did not pass through it but fell instead upon the high Chaityaka peak, worshiped by the line of Brihadratha and by all the people of Magadha, where three drums made from the hide of the Rakshasa Rishabha were kept, drums whose sound, once struck, lasted a full month. Breaking down that peak, as though setting their feet upon the enemy’s head, they entered the city with joyful hearts, snatched garlands by force from the flower-sellers, put on robes of many colors and earrings, and reached Jarasandha’s palace like Himalayan lions eyeing a cattle-fold.
Jarasandha rose and received them with water for their feet, with arghya, and with the gift of kine, and said, “You are welcome.” But Partha and Bhima stayed silent, and Krishna said that the two were under a vow and would not speak until midnight, and would talk with him after that hour. The king lodged them in his sacrificial apartments, and at midnight he came to see them. His guests were in the dress of Brahmanas, yet they were decked with garlands and sandal-paste out of season, and their hands bore the marks of the bowstring. He asked who they were, wearing flowers and paste unseasonably and bearing the energy of Kshatriyas though they called themselves Brahmanas, and why they had broken the Chaityaka peak, entered by an improper gate, and refused the welcome he had offered.
Krishna answered in a calm and grave voice. The vow of the Snataka, he said, may be kept by Brahmana, Kshatriya, and Vaishya alike; and a Kshatriya shows his energy through his arms, not through his speech. It is the rule to enter a foe’s house by an improper gate and a friend’s by the proper one, and it is their eternal vow, having entered a foe’s house for their purpose, to refuse the welcome offered to them. Jarasandha said he had never done them any injury, so why did they treat him, an innocent man, as an enemy. Then Krishna revealed the truth: they were no Brahmanas; he was Hrishikesa, also called Sauri, and these two were the sons of Pandu; and for the sin of imprisoning kings to offer them to Rudra, they had come to slay him. Let him set every king free, or go to the realm of Yama.
Jarasandha answered that he made no king a captive without first defeating him in war, and that it was the very duty of a Kshatriya to bring others under his sway by prowess and to treat them as slaves; the kings he had gathered by his vow to sacrifice to the god he would not release out of fear. He accepted battle: host against host, or one, two, or three against him, together or one by one. So saying, he installed his son Sahadeva on the throne and made ready for the fight. Krishna, remembering Brahma’s command and the decree that Jarasandha was destined to fall by Bhima’s hands and not by any of the Yadavas, chose not to slay him himself.
A key to reading this (ethics): Here the moral difficulty of the Mahabharata stands open. Krishna, Bhima, and Arjuna enter the enemy’s house by stealth, through an improper gate, in the disguise of Brahmanas, and spurn his welcome. Krishna justifies it as the rule of the enemy’s house; and yet Jarasandha’s claim that he takes captives by the very dharma of a Kshatriya carries, in its own place, a solid weight. The story does not dissolve this tension. It holds it.
The Death of Jarasandha at Bhima’s Hands
Krishna asked which of the three Jarasandha wished to fight, and the king of Magadha chose Bhima. The priest came with the yellow pigment of the cow, with garlands, and with medicines to restore lost consciousness and to ease pain. Jarasandha took off his crown, bound up his hair, and stood up like an ocean bursting its shores, saying that he would fight Bhima, for it is better to be beaten by a superior man. The two heroes closed with their bare arms as their only weapons, seizing each other’s arms and twining their legs, slapping their arm-pits, striking neck against neck and forehead against forehead until sparks flew like lightning, like two maddened elephants. They performed the great feats of the wrestler, the Prishtabhanga, the Sampurna-murchcha, and the Purna-kumbha, and twisted each other’s limbs as one twists vegetable fibers into cord.
The people of the city, Brahmanas and Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Sudras, women and the aged, poured out to watch, and the crowd grew so dense that body pressed against body with no space between. The slap of arm-pits and the drag of neck and leg roared like thunder or like falling cliffs. The fight began on the first lunar day of the month of Kartika and went on without food and without rest, day and night, until the thirteenth. On the night of the fourteenth Jarasandha began to slacken with fatigue. Then Krishna warned Bhima that a tired foe must not be pressed too hard, or he may die under the strain; let Bhima put forth only as much strength as his antagonist had left in him.
From Krishna’s sign Bhima understood Jarasandha’s plight and resolved to take his life. Krishna urged him to show that day upon Jarasandha the strength he had drawn from the wind-god, his father. Then Bhima lifted the mighty Jarasandha into the air, whirled him a full hundred times, pressed his knee against his backbone, and broke his body in two, and gave a terrible roar. His roar mingled with Jarasandha’s death-cry into an uproar that struck fear into every heart; the women of Magadha were delivered before their time, and the people thought that Himavat was tumbling down or the earth itself being torn asunder.
They left Jarasandha’s lifeless body at the palace gate, where it lay as if asleep, and went out of the town. Krishna had Jarasandha’s own bannered car made ready, seated Bhima and Arjuna in it, and went in and released the imprisoned kings. Those kings, rescued from a terrible fate, made him presents of jewels and said that by great good fortune he had raised them out of the mire of grief that was Jarasandha’s fort. Krishna took up that celestial car upon which Indra of old had slain ninety-nine asuras, whose flagstaff stood without visible support and could be seen from a yojana away. At his mere thought, Garuda came and settled upon the flagstaff of the car, and its splendor doubled.
Krishna reassured the freed kings and told them that Yudhishthira wished to perform the Rajasuya, and asked them to aid him. “So be it,” they said, and offered him jewels, of which Krishna, moved by affection, took a portion. Then Jarasandha’s son Sahadeva, in fear, brought gifts and worshiped Krishna, who installed him then and there upon the throne of Magadha. The three returned to Indraprastha, and Krishna joyfully told Yudhishthira that by good fortune Jarasandha had been slain by Bhima and the captive kings set free, and that Bhima and Arjuna had come home unwounded. Yudhishthira worshiped Krishna and embraced his brothers in his joy. Sending off the freed kings with fitting honor, and Krishna to Dwaraka, the Pandavas lived at ease, and their fame grew greater still by this victory.
A key to reading this (the numbers, in modern terms): The wrestling ran from the first day of Kartika to the fourteenth, close to fourteen days and nights without a break, which is under two weeks by our reckoning; Bhima whirled Jarasandha a hundred times; and eighty-six kings lay captive in his fort, only fourteen short of the hundred meant for the sacrifice.
The gist: After a wrestling match of fourteen days, at Krishna’s sign, Bhima whirled Jarasandha aloft, tore his joined body apart at the knee, and killed him; the captive kings went free, Sahadeva took the throne of Magadha, and the road to the Rajasuya lay open.
The Conquest of the Four Directions, and the Rajasuya Begins
After this the four brothers went out to conquer the directions of the earth. Arjuna took the north, Bhima the east, Sahadeva the south, and Nakula the west. Arjuna, after battle, brought under his sway Bhagadatta the king of Pragjyotisha, Pandu’s friend, who said that as Yudhishthira was dear to him so now was Arjuna, and that he would do all that was asked. Arjuna conquered the mountain kings, Vrihanta of Uluka and Senabindu, the Kshatriyas of Kashmira, the Trigartas, the Daradas, the Kambojas, and even the Rishikas, exacting tribute from them all; from the Rishikas he took divine horses with breasts like a parrot’s and hues like the peacock’s. In the same way the other three brothers won their directions, and the kingdom was filled with boundless wealth.
After the conquest the Rajasuya began. Kings from every direction came to Indraprastha bearing tribute and gifts. As the sacrifice drew toward its close, Bhishma told Yudhishthira that a fitting arghya should be offered to each king, and that the first arghya should go to whoever among those present was foremost. When Yudhishthira asked whom he meant, Bhishma judged by his own wisdom that of all men on earth Krishna was the foremost, since by his energy and strength and prowess the sacrificial hall was lit and gladdened as a sunless land is gladdened by the sun. By Bhishma’s command Sahadeva presented the first arghya, of the finest ingredients, to Krishna of the Vrishni line, and Krishna accepted it according to the forms of the rite.
A sub-tale: In that same hall the sage Narada sat in wonder and dread. For he knew that Hari, who is Narayana, had been born in human form in the line of the Yadus, and that the Self-born himself was set to take from the earth this vast host of Kshatriyas. To his eyes, this dispute over the arghya was the quiet first stroke of the great destruction that was to come.
Shishupala’s Protest
Sisupala the king of Chedi could not bear that honor. In the full assembly he reproached Bhishma and Yudhishthira, saying that among all these radiant kings Krishna did not deserve a king’s arghya. He named them over: with Drona here, and Dwaipayana who is Vyasa, and Bhishma who dies only when he wills it, and Aswatthaman, and Duryodhana the king among kings, and Kripa, Druma, Bhishmaka, Pandya, Rukmi, Ekalavya, Salya the king of the Madras, and Karna who by his own strength alone had conquered every king, why had the first arghya been given to Krishna, who was neither a sacrificial priest, nor a preceptor, nor a king? He called it an insult to all the kings, and said that as a dog laps up butter in solitude, so Krishna had accepted a worship he had no right to. So saying, he rose from his seat and walked out of the assembly with a company of kings.
Yudhishthira followed him and urged him gently that his words were unworthy, and that to call one so versed in dharma as Bhishma ignorant of it was a sin. Bhishma said that whoever would not approve the worship of Krishna, the oldest one in the universe, deserved neither soft words nor conciliation; there was not a single king in that assembly who had not been defeated in battle by the energy of Krishna the Satvata, and so they honored Krishna as the foremost and the eldest. Bhishma recounted his countless virtues: liberality, knowledge of the Vedas, valor, humility, beauty, and majesty all dwell forever in Achyuta, and the whole universe springs from him and dissolves again into him.
Then Sahadeva raised his foot and threw down a challenge: if any king could not endure the worship of Krishna, upon his head Sahadeva set this foot, and let the one who had the power give him an answer. But not one of those wise and proud and mighty kings said a word, and flowers rained down upon Sahadeva’s head while a voice out of the sky cried, “Excellent, excellent.” Narada, clad in a black deer-skin, said also that those who would not worship the lotus-eyed Krishna should be counted as dead though they walked, and should never be spoken to on any occasion.
Sisupala, whom men also called Sunitha, his eyes red as copper with anger, stirred up the kings. While he stood among them as their leader, he cried, what were they pondering; let them stand arrayed in battle against the assembled Vrishnis and Pandavas. He began to plot with them how to obstruct the completion of the sacrifice, and the faces of many kings went pale with rage. Krishna understood that this sea of kings, rising in its waves, was making ready for a terrible rush.
Bhishma’s Reply, and the Birth of Shishupala
Yudhishthira asked Bhishma what he should do in the face of this raging sea of kings, so that the sacrifice would not be obstructed and his people would not be harmed. Bhishma told him not to fear: can the dog slay the lion? These lords of the earth were like a pack of dogs barking around a sleeping lion, the lion of the Vrishni race; while the lion did not wake, the king of Chedi made these kings seem like lions. In truth, Bhishma said, Vishnu wished to draw back into himself the energy that dwelt in this Sisupala, and it was for this that the mind of this king, and of all these kings, had been turned perverse.
At this Sisupala spoke harshly to Bhishma, calling him an old and infamous wretch of his line, and saying that such counsel, so far from morality, sat well on one who lived out his life in celibacy. He mocked Krishna’s deeds, the killing of Putana, the overturning of the calf and the cart, the lifting of the Govardhana mountain, and said that to slay Kansa, whose food he had eaten, was against all dharma. He struck at Bhishma too: where had his dharma been when he carried off by force the girl Amba, who had set her heart on another man, and when he had sons begotten by another upon the widows of his brother Vichitravirya? He told the tale of an old swan on the sea-coast who forever preached virtue to the other birds yet devoured their eggs, and whom the birds at last killed when they found him out, and said that Bhishma’s case was just the same.
Sisupala’s harsh words set Bhimasena ablaze, his broad lotus-petal eyes swelling and reddening like copper, three lines of wrath creasing his brow. As he sprang to leap up, Bhishma caught and held him, as Mahadeva once held Mahasena, the celestial generalissimo. But Sisupala did not tremble; he laughed and said, let Bhima go, and let all the kings watch him burn like an insect in a fire by Sisupala’s own prowess. Then Bhishma told Bhima the story of Sisupala’s birth.
Bhishma said that Sisupala was born in the line of the king of Chedi with three eyes and four arms, and that at his birth he screamed and brayed like an ass. His frightened parents were minded to abandon him, but a voice out of the air told the king and queen, with their ministers and priest, that this son would grow fortunate and mighty, that they had nothing to fear from him, that his hour of death had not come, and that the one who would slay him had also already been born. When the mother asked further, the voice said that the man in whose lap the child’s extra arms would fall like a pair of five-headed snakes, and at whose glance the third eye on his forehead would vanish, would be his slayer. Though the child was laid in the laps of a thousand kings, this did not come to pass. Then Balarama and Krishna came to see their father’s sister, the queen of Chedi, and when she set the child in Krishna’s lap, the extra arms fell away and the third eye disappeared. In alarm the queen begged Krishna for a boon, that he pardon the offenses of Sisupala; and Krishna promised that even when Sisupala deserved to die, he would pardon a hundred of his offenses.
A key to reading this (lineage): Sisupala is the king of Chedi and the son of Krishna’s father’s sister, which makes him Krishna’s cousin. This kinship was the ground of the queen’s plea, out of which Krishna gave his word to pardon a hundred offenses; and it is this same count that will fix the hour of Sisupala’s death.
The End of Shishupala at Krishna’s Hands
Bhishma held Bhima back and said that what Sisupala roared was not truly his own will but the will of Krishna himself; this king was a portion of Hari’s energy, and the Lord wished to take that portion back. Sisupala could not endure this and spoke words harsher still, likening Bhishma to the swan and to the Bhulinga bird, and praising Darada and Karna, Drona and Aswatthaman, Duryodhana, Jayadratha, Kripa, Rukmi, and many kings besides, and asking why Bhishma praised only Krishna and passed over all of these. Bhishma answered calmly that he did not count these kings as worth even a straw. At this many kings flared up in rage and threatened to burn Bhishma in a fire of grass and straw, but Bhishma set his foot upon all their heads and said that whoever wished for a quick death should challenge to battle Krishna the wielder of the discus and the mace.
Then Sisupala challenged Vasudeva himself: come, he said, today he would slay him along with all the Pandavas, for those who had passed over these kings to worship a man who was no king deserved to die as well. At this Krishna, in a soft voice before all the kings, counted out Sisupala’s offenses. During the expedition to Pragjyotisha, Sisupala had come and burnt Dwaraka. While the Bhoja king was sporting on the Raivataka hill, he had fallen upon his attendants, slaughtered many, and led others away in chains. He had stolen the sacrificial horse of the horse-sacrifice of Krishna’s father, let loose under armed guard. He had ravished the wife of the blameless Vabhru, that is Akrura, on her way from Dwaraka to the country of the Sauviras. And disguised in the attire of the king of Karusha, he had carried off the innocent Bhadra, the princess of Visala. All this, Krishna said, he had borne for the sake of his father’s sister; but now, before all these kings, Sisupala’s sins were full.
Sisupala laughed and said that Krishna was not ashamed to say in the full assembly, before all these kings, that Rukmini had been coveted by him; what man who thought himself a man would say that his own wife had once been another’s intended bride? Let Krishna pardon him or not; angry or friendly, what could he do to him? As Sisupala spoke, the slayer of Madhu called to mind his discus that humbles the pride of the asuras, and the moment it came into his hand he said aloud: hear, O kings, why this one has been pardoned until now. At his mother’s asking, a hundred of his offenses were to be pardoned by me; that number is now full, and I shall slay him before you all. So saying, in his anger he cut off the head of the king of Chedi with the discus, and Sisupala fell like a cliff struck by thunder.
Then all the kings saw a fierce energy, like the sun in the sky, issue out of the body of the king of Chedi; it bowed to the lotus-eyed Krishna, worshiped by all the worlds, and entered into his body, and all watched in wonder. Though the sky was cloudless, it poured down rain, meteors fell, and the earth trembled. Some kings gazed at Krishna in silence, some rubbed their palms in rage, and some praised him in private. The great Rishis, well pleased, praised Kesava. Yudhishthira commanded his brothers to perform the funeral rites of Sisupala, the son of Damaghosha, with due respect, and with all the kings he installed Sisupala’s son upon the throne of Chedi.
A key to reading this (ethics): Sisupala’s offenses were truly grave, and yet the difficulty of this passage is that Krishna kills his own cousin, on the count of a hundred offenses promised to his own aunt, with the discus, in the midst of a full royal assembly. The story neither makes Sisupala innocent nor makes Krishna’s stern judgment simple. The energy returning into the body hints that this killing is also part of a deep divine design.
The sacrifice was completed without hindrance. Krishna guarded it to the end with his Sarnga bow, his discus, and his mace. After the ablution that closes the rite, all the Kshatriya kings came to Yudhishthira and said that by good fortune he had won the imperial rank and spread the fame of his whole line, and that they now wished to return to their own kingdoms. Yudhishthira sent each of them off with fitting honor, and Krishna too, taking leave of his aunt Kunti and of Draupadi and Subhadra, set out for Dwaraka upon the Garuda-bannered car that Daruka had brought. As he left, he told Yudhishthira to cherish his people with care and patience, and to be, like the clouds to all creatures, like the great tree of spreading boughs to the birds, and like thousand-eyed Indra to the immortals, a refuge and support for his kinsmen. Only Duryodhana and Shakuni stayed on in that celestial hall of assembly.
The gist: When the hundred offenses were full, Krishna struck off Sisupala’s head with the discus in the full assembly; the energy that left his body merged into Krishna, the Rajasuya was completed without hindrance, and Yudhishthira was installed as emperor. Left behind in the hall were Duryodhana and Shakuni, whose envy is the seed of the story that follows.
Source: The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Sabha Parva; in the Gita Press, Gorakhpur tradition.
Basis: The Mahabharata, Vedavyasa (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)