MAHABHARATA SERIES BOOK#1: The Forest of Stories (Mba) Read online

  At the sight of Uttanka, the queen rose and greeted him appropriately with respect befitting an acolyte of her husband’s guru. ‘Great one, command me. What can I do for you?’ Uttanka said to her gently, ‘Good queen, I ask that you give me the earrings that you are wearing. I wish to give them as guru-dakshina.’ Without hesitation, the queen removed her earrings and proffered them to him gladly. But as she gave them she cautioned him in a whisper: ‘Good man, know this. Takshaka, Lord of Nagas, dearly desires these earrings. He would do anything to possess them. Carry them carefully.’ Uttanka thanked her for the earrings and for her warning and assured her, ‘Shrimati, do not fear. This is my guru-dakshina. Even Takshaka, King of Snakes, cannot take them from me now!’

  He bid the queen farewell and returned to Paushya. The king asked him if he was satisfied now and Uttanka replied, ‘Oh yes, raje, I am very pleased. I shall now take your leave.’ Paushya bade him wait, saying, ‘Great one, you are clearly a person of great learning and note. I have been waiting to perform an important shraddha. By your grace, we may now perform it before you leave.’ Uttanka was reluctant but felt obligated to the king for his gracious treatment and generous gift. ‘Very well, raje. I shall stay a short while. But I ask that rather than prepare special food which will take a great deal of time, let us consume whatever food is already prepared.’ The king agreed and sent for food for Uttanka at once.

  When the food arrived and was served to Uttanka, he was upset to see that it was brought cold and there was a hair in the food. Angered by this extremely rude slight, he threatened Paushya: ‘You dare offer unclean and cold food to a guest? I shall curse you with blindness!’ Paushya reacted equally sharply: ‘In that case, since you wrongly accuse me and spoil food that was unspoiled, you shall lose the ability to have offspring!’ But as the host, Paushya felt obliged to investigate his guest’s complaint. On examining the food closely, he found that it did indeed contain a hair and was quite cold; he enquired further and learned that this was because the food had been prepared by a woman who was careless and had not braided her hair. Apologizing for this grave lapse in his hospitality, he joined his palms before Uttanka and said in a contrite tone: ‘Great one, the fault was entirely my own. You spoke truly. The food served to you was indeed cold and unclean. Please forgive me for this error. Please do not curse me with blindness.’ Uttanka sighed and shook his head regretfully: ‘What I pronounced shall surely come to pass. You will go blind but I shall counter the effect to ensure that you regain your eyesight soon. Now that you admit your fault, you must also take back your curse. Do not render me incapable of bearing offspring.’ Paushya rubbed his face in misery. ‘Great one, would that I could. But as you know, a brahmin’s heart is soft as ghee even though his words may be sharp as razors. A kshatriya is the opposite: our words may be soft as ghee but our hearts are sharp instruments. Even now, my anger has not been quelled completely. I cannot take back my curse. Please, just go.’ Uttanka rose and said, ‘I spoke the truth. The food was impure just as I said. Yet I allowed myself to be appeased by you. Earlier, you cursed me saying that I had wrongly accused you and spoiled food that was unspoiled. But my accusation was true and the food was spoiled, therefore your curse is ineffective. Let the matter end here.’ So saying, Uttanka left Raja Paushya’s palace, taking the earrings with him.

  ||Five||

  Uttanka was eager to return to his guru’s house and complete his mission. He put aside all thoughts of the events preceding and pursuant to his procuring the earrings and kept his mind set on reaching home at the earliest. But after walking a fair way, he saw a peculiar sight. There was a man on the road ahead who kept appearing and disappearing. As Uttanka approached, he was able to make out that the man was a kshapanaka, either a Buddhist or Jain mendicant, given to wandering naked and begging for alms. One moment, he could see the kshapanaka quite distinctly, standing on the road, the next moment, the kshapanaka was nowhere to be seen. Uttanka was vexed by this sight, remembering the equally bizarre incident that had occurred when he was en route to Raja Paushya’s palace. ‘I shall ignore this phenomenon completely and concentrate only on reaching home quickly,’ he told himself.

  He continued walking. But instead of passing by the kshapanaka, somehow the man always stayed several yards ahead of him on the road, continuing to appear and disappear in random flashes. Tense and disturbed by this vision, Uttanka found himself exceedingly thirsty. Due to the altercation with King Paushya, he had been unable to eat or drink anything since leaving his guru’s home days earlier and was desperately in need of refreshment. Spying a pool just beside the road, he bent down to drink. As his simple garb contained no compartment, he was compelled to set the earrings down beside him for a moment while he cupped his hands to drink the water. The instant he set them down, the kshapanaka appeared in a flash beside him, snatched up the earrings and disappeared.

  Uttanka sprang up and chased after the kshapanaka. At first the mendicant continued his vanishing act, but as Uttanka gained on him and began to grasp hold of his limbs and struggle to get the earrings back, the being finally gave up his disguise and assumed his true form. He showed himself to be Takshaka, king of snakes, and in his true body, it was impossible for Uttanka to grasp hold of him. Uttanka struggled manfully with him for a while, but Takshaka slithered out of Uttanka’s grasp and slipped into a chasm in the ground that had miraculously appeared. Uttanka understood at once that the queen’s warning had come to pass. If he allowed Takshaka to escape now, the lord of the Nagas would wriggle all the way home to the realm of snakes and Uttanka would never recover the earrings. His only chance was to plunge in after the lord of snakes. Determined to fulfil his obligation to his guru, he leaped into the chasm moments before it closed.

  Uttanka tumbled through empty space for what felt like an endless period of time. Finally, he found himself on solid ground with no recollection of having suffered any impact on landing. He was in a rock tunnel deep underground. Hearing a slithering sound from ahead, he moved in that direction and spied Takshaka’s tail swishing from side to side as the serpent lord slipped away. He followed the Naga for another endless period of time, through tunnel after tunnel, through bifurcations and intersections, through small narrow tunnels where he had to slide sideways to avoid striking his shoulders or elbow and through enormous vaulting tunnels where the ceiling was too high overhead for him to see and his footsteps echoed cavernously. Through all this pursuit, he could barely see anything, the entire journey being in darkness. Only the sound of Takshaka slithering ahead guided him. He was in perpetual fear of the Naga lord slipping through a tunnel before he could follow, leaving him at a loss to know which way to go next. By some instinct, he was able to avoid striking his limbs on the rocky outcroppings as he went, and to avoid the numerous pitfalls and yawning abysses that lay at every turn. After an unknown duration, he finally saw light up ahead and emerged to find himself in a wondrous place.

  At first, he thought he had somehow emerged into the upper world again, and was standing on a vast plain beneath the open sky. By degrees, he realized that he was in fact farther underground than any mortal had been before. Many miles, certainly several yojanas beneath the surface of the earth. The place he had emerged into was a vast underground cavern, so enormous that he could barely glimpse the roof of it, high, high above. The cavern’s other dimensions were equally epic: from one side to the far end was a distance so great, he could not accurately judge how many yojanas it might cover. There were entire townships nestled on the ground of the cavern, gleaming cities and individual nests where Nagas lived in uncountable profusion. Lakes, even oceans, mountains, valleys, hills and dales, it was a world unto itself, but all formed of the craggy black rock of the underworld, and lit by a luminescence alien to the illumination of daylight and sunlight. It was perpetual night here but without stars or moon or celestial orbs visible, only utter blackness beyond the phosphorescence of the inhabited regions.

  He climbed down from the tunnel’s entran
ce and walked to the nearest city of the Nagas. He began to see many of the denizens of the underworld, some in anthropomorphic form with only some vestige of their snake-like nature, others more serpent than human in appearance, and still others neither snake nor human but something else entirely. There were as many varieties of Nagas as there were species of living creatures on the surface of the world. Uttanka marvelled at their profusion and variety and despite their fierce outlook, he found himself curiously without fear.

  As he stopped in the centre of the city, he felt certain shlokas form in his mind unbidden. Following his instinct, he recited these aloud:

  |Beautiful sarpas, subjects of Airavata!|

  ||You victors of wars, you wielders of lightning!||

  |Handsome and many-shaped with chequered coils,|

  ||Adorned with jewels of shining hues||

  |You shine as the sun shines|

  ||In the great cavern of the sky||

  |Myriad are your pathways on the banks of the Ganga|

  ||Who dares march against your assembled might?||

  |I salute you who salute the great Takshaka, Airavata of the Nagas| ||I salute you Takshaka son of Kadru and your son Ashvasena|| |By the banks of the river Ikshumati in Kurukshetra, you lived| ||Along with your youngest brother Shrutasena||

  |Who lived in Mahadyumna and coveted your throne|

  ||May you march with 20,000 men at war and always find victory!||

  After he finished chanting these shlokas in Sanskrit, Uttanka was able to pass unmolested through the land of the Nagas. But although none obstructed his way or threatened his well-being, he also did not find that which he sought, namely, the earrings he wished to carry back home to his guru’s wife. Continuing to search doggedly, he began going from chamber to chamber in the great city of the Nagas. He saw many wonderful sights. Among these, he saw two women weaving a length of fabric mounted upon a loom worked by hand. The fabric was formed of black and white threads. He also saw a great wheel being turned by six boys. And a man who was handsome beyond description.

  Inspired yet again to poetic heights, Uttanka chanted the following shlokas:

  |Three hundred and sixty spokes in this wheel,|

  ||Moving in a cycle of twenty-four divisions||

  |Turned constantly by six young boys|

  ||Representing the hours of the day and the days of the year|| |Two young women who are the weavers of time|

  ||Weave black and white threads eternally|| |Representing the past and the present|

  ||Creating and destroying worlds endlessly.||

  |O master of the vajra, protector of worlds!|

  ||Slayer of Vritra, destroyer of Namuchi!||

  |The man in black who commands truth and untruth| ||He who once rode the great steed Ucchaihshrava|| |Avatar of Agni, as he emerged from the amrit-manthan| ||Lord of three worlds, great Purandara!||

  |Before thee I bow eternally!|

  ||You are master of the universe||

  |All fortresses fall before thee| ||Mighty Indra, accept my salutation!||

  The man who was handsome beyond description turned his gaze upon Uttanka. It was as if the sun had emerged from a cloud- blackened sky to shine its light directly upon him. He felt the heat and radiance of that great being shine upon him and enlighten his soul.

  ‘I am pleased by your praises,’ said the man. ‘Speak. Ask me for something you desire.’

  Uttanka bowed to him and said meekly: ‘Lord, let me have power over the Nagas.’

  The man commanded, ‘Blow into the anus of this horse.’

  Uttanka did as he was told. At once, a great rush of flames and smoke billowed forth from the horse’s orifices. As he watched with amazement, the smoke spread through the world of the Nagas like a living thing, scorching every creature, entering every crevice, burning every last living being and habitation. Before his very eyes, the great wondrous world of the Nagas was turned into a place of ruin and ashes, awash in smoke and soot.

  Faced with devastation, Takshaka emerged out of his hiding place. Still carrying the earrings, he threw them back at Uttanka, eyes weeping copiously from the smoke and flames. ‘Take back your earrings! I no longer want them!’

  Uttanka took the earrings with great delight. But the instant he received them his thoughts turned back to his given mission. This was the fourth day since he had departed his guru’s house. It was the very day the ceremony was to be performed for which the guru’s wife had desired to wear the earrings to impress the attending brahmins. It was quite impossible for him to climb all the way up from the realm of the Nagas and reach his guru’s home in time. And if he did not give them to her in time, all his effort would be in vain.

  He only thought these things but the man knew his thoughts and spoke aloud again: ‘Do not fret, Uttanka. Mount this horse. It will transport you to your guru’s house in an instant.’

  ||Six||

  Uttanka accepted the offer gratefully. Mounting the horse he turned its head and found the horse riding of its own accord. Its hooves clattered on the rocky floor of the underground cavern and as he looked back, he saw sparks shooting out each time it touched the stony ground. The city of the Nagas fell far behind astonishingly quickly. The horse entered the tunnel through which he had come and thundered up at blurring speed. It was all Uttanka could do to hold on and keep his seat. In no time at all, he found himself on the surface once again, and back on the road home. Shortly thereafter, he arrived at his guru’s house and dismounted with relief. He saw the preceptor’s wife had just bathed and was dressing her hair. As Uttanka entered, he heard her saying to her husband, ‘Uttanka has not returned as promised. I must curse him.’ Just then Uttanka bowed before her and presented her with the earrings.

  She exclaimed and took the earrings, admiring them joyfully. ‘Uttanka, you could not have come a moment too soon. In another instant, I would have cursed you! You have performed your duty admirably and given your guru-dakshina. May good fortune smile on you always!’

  Uttanka’s guru greeted his pupil warmly and asked him what had taken him so long. Uttanka narrated his experiences to his guru. In his excitement and his relief at having succeeded in his mission, the episodes of his travels tumbled forth in the wrong sequence and he described things that had occurred last, first, and those that had occurred first, last. But his guru sorted the incidents easily in his enlightened mind, stroking his beard as he contemplated. ‘These events have a profound meaning,’ he told Uttanka. ‘You have already fathomed some of their significance, I shall explain the rest.’

  The two women Uttanka saw weaving the loom, Rishi Veda told him, were named Dhata and Vidhata, the Giver and the Creator; one transposes and the other disposes. The black and white threads stood for night and day respectively. The wheel with twelve spokes was a solar year, the six boys turning it were the six seasons. The handsome man was Parjanya, Lord Indra in his incarnation as god of rain. The horse was Agni, lord of fire. The mammoth bull that Uttanka saw on the way to Raja Paushya’s palace was Takshaka, alias Airavata, king of snakes in yet another of his many disguises. The giant who rode it was Indra, signifying his control over Takshaka. The bull’s dung which Uttanka ate at Indra’s request was Amrit, the nectar of immortality. It was because he ate it that he was not killed in the kingdom of Nagas. Rishi Veda smiled as he finished, saying, ‘Indra is my friend and it is by his kind grace that you were able to return with the earrings. Now, my son Uttanka, you have achieved all you desired: you have given the guru-dakshina you promised. You have my leave to depart with good fortune.’

  Touching his guru’s feet to take his blessing, Uttanka left his preceptor’s house for the last time. Now he was truly free of brahmacharya-ashrama, the first major stage of his life. He had graduated to full adulthood and could go anywhere he pleased, pursue any occupation or vocation, marry and be a householder, it was entirely his choice. And he intended to do everything, live his life as fully as he could.

  But first he had to perform one more tas
k, this time not for his guru but for himself.

  He set out for Hastinapura, capital city of the Kurus, for he was angry with Takshaka and desired revenge on the lord of sarpas.

  At Hastinapura, he sought an audience with King Janamajaya, who had only just returned victorious from Takshashila, after quelling the rebellion and annexing that kingdom. Uttanka, filled with the confidence of having graduated from his guru’s kul after gifting him his desired guru-dakshina and by dint of the knowledge and experience he had acquired, stood before Raja Janamajaya. The king was seated on his throne, surrounded by many advisors for his great victory had enhanced his power and position and the prestige of the Kuru nation. As was required by protocol, Uttanka first pronounced the appropriate blessings and auspicious shlokas praising the king’s victory, then, carefully choosing his words and intonation, said, ‘O king among kings, why do you squander your time in puerile pursuits when a vital duty demands your attention?’

  Now this was an extraordinary thing to say and other kings might easily have taken umbrage at this bold rebuke. But Raja Janamajaya was no ordinary king and he understood that no brahmin would speak thus without good cause.