the longest poem in existence is composed in sanscrit, and, although begun before the ramayana, it was completed only about one hundred years after. it consists of some two hundred and twenty thousand lines, divided into eighteen sections (parvans), each of which forms a large volume. although the whole work has never been translated into english verse, many portions of it have been reproduced both in verse and prose.
the hindus consider this one of their most sacred books, attribute its authorship to vyasa, and claim that the reading of a small portion of it will obliterate sin, while the perusal of the whole will insure heavenly bliss. its name signifies "the great war," and its historical kernel,—including one-fifth of the whole work,—consists of an account of an eighteen days' battle (in the thirteenth or fourteenth century b.c.) between rival tribes. the poem is, besides, a general repository of the mythological, legendary, and philosophical lore of the hindus, and reached its present state of development only by degrees and at the end of several centuries.
bharata, the real founder of the principal indian dynasty, is so famous a character, that the hindus often designate their whole country as "the land of bharata." we are told that rajah dushyanta, a descendant of the moon, while hunting one day beheld the beautiful sakuntala, daughter of a sage, whom he persuaded to consent to a clandestine marriage. but, after a short time, the bridegroom departed, leaving his bride a ring as a pledge of his troth.
absorbed in thoughts of her absent lover, sakuntala once failed to notice the approach of a sage, who cursed her, saying she should be forgotten by the man she loved, but who relenting after a while declared this curse would be annulled when her husband beheld his ring.
some time after this, on the way to rejoin her spouse to inform him she was about to become a mother, sakuntala, while bathing in a sacred pool, accidentally dropped this ring. on appearing without it before dushyanta, he sternly denied all acquaintance with her and ordered her driven out into the jungle, where she soon gave birth to their son bharata.
the lad was about six years old when a fisherman found in the stomach of a fish the lost ring, which he carried to the rajah. on beholding this token, dushyanta, remembering all, hastened to seek poor sakuntala, whom he discovered in the jungle, watching her boy fearlessly play with lion cubs. proud of such a son, the rajah bore his family home; and bharata, after having a long reign, gave birth to hastin, founder of hastinapur, a city on the bank of the ganges about sixty miles from the modern delhi.
a grandson of this hastin married the goddess of the ganges,—who was doing penance on earth,—and their children were animated by the souls of deities condemned for a time to assume human form. in order to enable these fellow-gods to return to heaven as soon as possible, ganga undertook to drown each of her babies soon after birth, provided the gods would pledge themselves to endow one of her descendants with their strength, and would allow him to live, if not to perpetuate his species.
after seeing seven of his children cast into the water without daring to object, the rajah, although he knew his goddess-wife would leave him if he found fault with anything she did, protested so vehemently against the similar disposal of his eighth son that his wife disappeared with the child. but a few years later this son, bhishma, the terrible, having grown up, was restored to his father.
to comfort himself for the loss of his first wife, the king now married the beautiful daughter of a fisherman, solemnly promising her son should succeed him, for bhishma voluntarily relinquished all right to the throne and took a vow to remain celibate. the new wife's main attraction seems to have been a sweet odor, bestowed by a saint, who restored her virginity after she had borne him a son named vyasa, the author of this poem.
by the rajah the fishermaid now had two sons, one of whom was slain at the end of a three years' fight, while the other began his reign under the wise regency of bhishma. when it was time for his royal step-brother to marry, bhishma sent him to a bride's choice (swayamvara), where three lovely princesses were to be awarded to the victor. without waiting to win them fairly, the young prince kidnapped all three, and, when the disappointed suitors pursued him, bhishma held them at bay by shooting ten thousand arrows at once, and thus enabled his step-brother and brides to escape.
although thus provided with three royal wives, our prince was soon deserted by one of them and was never fortunate enough to have children by the two others. after he had died, custom required that his nearest kinsman should raise issue for him, so,—owing to bhishma's vow,—vyasa, who was fabulously ugly, undertook to visit the two widows. one of them, catching a glimpse of him, bore him a blind son (dhritarashtra), while the other was so frightened that she bore a son of such pale complexion that he was known as pandu, the white.
neither of these youths being deemed perfect enough to represent properly the royal race, vyasa announced he would pay the widows another visit, but this time they hired a slave to take their place, so it was she who brought into the world vidura, god of justice. because one prince was blind and the other the offspring of a slave, the third was set upon his throne by his uncle bhishma, who in due time provided him with two lovely wives.
with these the monarch withdrew to the himalayas to spend his honeymoon, and while there proved unfortunate enough to wound a couple of deer who were hermits in disguise. in dying they predicted he would perish in the arms of one of his wives, whereupon pandu decided to refrain from all intercourse with them, graciously allowing them instead to bear him five sons by five different gods. these youth, known in the poem as the sons of pandu, the pandavs (or the pandavas), are the main heroes of india. as a prediction made by an ascetic was bound to come true, the king, momentarily forgetting the baleful curse, died in the embrace of his second wife, who, in token of grief, was burned with his remains, this being the earliest mention of a suttee.
meantime the blind prince had married a lady to whom a famous ascetic had promised she should be mother to one hundred sons! all these came into the world at one birth, in the shape of a lump of flesh, which the ascetic divided into one hundred and one pieces, each of which was enclosed in a pot of rarefied butter, where these germs gradually developed into one hundred sons and one daughter.
as long as pandu sojourned in the himalayas, the blind prince reigned in his stead, but when he died, his surviving widow brought to the capital (hastinapur) her five divine sons, the pandavs. there the blind uncle had them brought up with their cousins, the hundred kurus (or kauravas), with whom, however, they were never able to live in perfect peace. once, as the result of a boyish quarrel, a kuru flung bhima, one of the pandavs, into the ganges, where, instead of sinking, this hero was inoculated by serpent-bites with the strength of ten thousand elephants before he returned to his wonted place at home.
the young princes, who had all been trained to fight by their tutor, drona, and who had already given sundry proofs of their proficiency in arms, were finally invited by the blind monarch to give a public exhibition of their skill. the poem gives us a lengthy description of this tournament, expatiating on the flower-decked booths reserved for the principal spectators, and dilating particularly on the fact that the blind monarch, unable to see with, his own eyes, made some one sit beside him to describe all that was going on.
after the preliminary sacrifice offered by the tutor, the skill of the princes, as archers, was tested on foot, on horseback, in howdahs, and in chariots; then they indulged in mock fights with swords and bucklers, closely watched by drona, who pronounced his favorite arjuna, the third pandav, the finest athlete ever seen.
still the princes shook their weapons, drove the deep resounding car,
or on steed or tusker mounted waged the glorious mimic war!
mighty sword and ample buckler, ponderous mace the princes wield,
brightly gleam their lightning rapiers as they range the listed field,
brave and fearless is their action, and their movements quick and light,
skilled and true the thrust and parry of their weapons flaming bright![42]
thereupon, from the ranks of the spectators, emerged karna, son of a charioteer, who challenged arjuna to fight with him, but the prince refused on the score that they were not of equal rank. still a legend assures us that karna was a child of the sun-god, set afloat by his mother on the river jumna, whence this hindu moses, floating down into the ganges, was rescued and brought up by the charioteer, his reputed father. meantime the four pandav brothers were greatly elated by the eulogy bestowed upon their brother, but their jealous cousins became so enraged that, when the time came for the youths to face each other in club exercises, the sham battle degenerated into an earnest fight.
with ponderous mace they waged the daring fight.
as for a tender mate two rival elephants
engage in frantic fury, so the youths
encountered, and amidst the rapid sphere
of fire their whirling weapons clashing wove
their persons vanished from the anxious eye.
still more and more incensed their combat grew,
and life hung doubtful on the desperate conflict;
with awe the crowd beheld the fierce encounter
and amidst hope and fear suspended tossed,
like ocean shaken by conflicting winds.
seeing this, the horrified tutor separated the contestants, whom he soon after sent off separately to war against a neighboring rajah. in this conflict the one hundred kurus were badly worsted, while the five pandavs scored a brilliant triumph. they also subdued sundry other kings, thereby so rousing the jealous hatred of their uncle and cousins that these finally began to plot their death. the five pandavs and their mother were therefore invited to a feast in a neighboring city (allahabad), where the kurus arranged they should be burned alive in their booth. but, duly warned by the god of justice, the pandavs had an underground passage dug from their hut to the forest, by means of which they escaped, little suspecting that a beggar woman and her five children—who had sought refuge in the empty hut—would be burned to death there in their stead.
disguised as brahmans, the five brothers and their mother now dwelt for a time in the jungle, where they proceeded to slay some demons, to marry others, and to perform sundry astounding feats of strength. we are told, for instance, that whenever the mother and brothers were tired, the strongest of the pandavs, bhima, carried them all with the utmost ease.
while in the jungle they were visited by their grandfather vyasa, who bade them attend the bride's choice of draupadi, daughter of a neighboring king, who—minerva-like—came into the world full grown.
human mother never bore her, human bosom never fed,
from the altar sprang the maiden who some prince will wed!
she was so beautiful that her father decided the suitor she favored would have to prove himself worthy of her by spanning a bow which no one as yet had been able to bend, and by sending an arrow through a rapidly revolving wheel into the eye of a gold fish stationed beyond it.
owing to the extreme loveliness of draupadi, many rajahs flocked to the tournament to compete for her hand, and the five pandavs betook themselves thither in brahman garb. after the preliminary exercises, the beautiful princess—to whom all her suitors had been duly named—gave the signal for the contest to begin. the mere sight of the huge bow proved enough to decide several of the contestants to withdraw, but a few determined to risk all in hopes of obtaining draupadi's hand. no man, however, proved able to bend the bow until arjuna stepped forward, begging permission to try his luck. while the rajahs were protesting that no brahman should compete, this pandav spanned the bow and sent five successive shafts straight to the goal, amid the loud acclamations of all present.
he grasped the ponderous weapon in his hand
and with one vigorous effort braced the string.
quickly the shafts were aimed and swiftly they flew;
the mark fell pierced; a shout of victory
rang through the vast arena; from the sky
garlands of flowers crowned the hero's head,
ten thousand fluttering scarfs waved in the air,
and drum and trumpet sounded forth his triumph.
the beautiful princess, captivated by the goodly appearance of this suitor, immediately hung around his neck the crown of flowers, although the defeated rajahs muttered a mere brahman should not aspire to the hand of a princess. in fact, had not his four brothers, aided by krishna (a divine suitor), stood beside him, and had not the king insisted there should be no fracas, the young winner might have had a hard time. then, as the princess seemed perfectly willing, the wedding was celebrated, and the five brothers returned to the humble hut where they lived on alms, calling out to their mother that they had won a prize! on hearing these tidings, the mother—without knowing what the prize was—rejoined, "share it among you," an injunction which settled for good and all that draupadi should be common wife to all five. but the legend adds that this came to pass mainly because the maiden had prayed five times for a husband, and that the gods were answering each of her prayers separately!
shortly after this fivefold marriage,—which assured the pandavs a royal ally,—bhishma persuaded the blind rajah—who had meantime discovered his nephews were not dead—to give them one half of his realm. taking up their abode there, the pandavs built the city of indraprastha (delhi) on the banks of the jumna, before they decided that the eldest among them (yudhishthira) should be king, the others humbly serving as his escort wherever he went.
one day this eldest pandav went to visit the eldest kuru, a proficient gambler, with whom he played until he had lost realm, brothers, wife, and freedom! but, when the victor undertook to take forcible possession of the fair draupadi, and publicly stripped her of her garments, the gods, in pity, supplied her with one layer of vesture after another, so that the brutal kuru was not able to shame her as he wished. furious to see the treatment their common wife was undergoing at the victor's hands, the five pandavs made grim threats, and raised such a protest that the blind uncle, interfering, sent them off to the forest with their wife for twelve years. he also decreed that, during the thirteenth, all must serve in some menial capacity, with the proviso that, if discovered by their cousins, they should never regain their realm.
"'tis no fault of thine, fair princess! fallen to this servile state,
wife and son rule not their actions, others rule their hapless fate!
thy yudhishthir sold his birthright, sold thee at the impious play,
and the wife falls with the husband, and her duty—to obey!"
during the twelve years which the pandavs spent in the forest, with the beautiful and faithful draupadi (who was once carried away by a demon but rescued by one of her spouses), they met with sundry adventures. not only did they clear the jungle, rescue from cannibals the jealous cousins who came to humiliate them, and perform other astounding feats, but they were entertained by tales told by vyasa, among which are a quaint account of the deluge, of the descent of the ganges, a recitation of the ramayana, and the romance of nala and of savitri, of which brief sketches are given at the end of this article. all this material is contained in the "forest book," the third and longest parvan of the mahabharata, wherein we also find a curious account of arjuna's voluntary exile because he entered into draupadi's presence when one of his brothers was with her! to atone for this crime, arjuna underwent a series of austerities on the himalayas, in reward for which his father indra took him up to heaven, whence he brought back sundry weapons, among which we note siva's miraculous bow.
meantime his four brothers and draupadi had undertaken pious pilgrimages to all the sacred waters of india, and had learned sundry useful trades and arts, before they, too, visited the himalayas. there arjuna joined them in indra's chariot, and led them to the top of a mountain, whence they beheld the glittering palace of kuvera, god of wealth.
after the twelve years' sojourn in the jungle were ended, the pandavs, thanks to divine aid, entered the service of a neighboring king as teachers of dice and music, as charioteer, cook, cow-herd, and maid. there the five men and their wife remained for a whole year, without being discovered by their enemies, and, toward the end of their sojourn, rendered so signal a service to their master that he offered his daughter in marriage to arjuna. although this prince virtuously refused to accept her for himself, he bestowed her upon a son begotten during his exile when he indulged in sundry romantic adventures.
having completed their penance, the pandavs returned home, to demand of the kurus the surrender of their realm. as these greedy cousins refused to relinquish their authority, both parties prepared for war. seeing the kurus had ten allies, the pandavs became anxious to secure some too. the most powerful person in the region being the rajah krishna, one of the kurus hastened to his palace to bespeak his aid, and, finding him asleep, seated himself at the head of the bed. a moment later one of the pandavs arrived, and modestly placed himself at the foot of the sleeping monarch's couch. on awakening, krishna, of course, saw the pandav first, but, after listening impartially to both petitioners, informed them that one party should have the benefit of his advice and the other the aid of his one hundred million soldiers. the greedy kuru immediately bespoke the use of the army, while the pandav was only too glad to secure the advice of krishna (an embodiment of all the gods), who throughout the war acted as arjuna's charioteer.
all preparations finished, the great war (mahabharata) began, the two families pitted against each other meeting on the plain of kurukshetra (the modern panipat) where the battle was fought. after many speeches, and after erecting fortifications which bristled with defences and were liberally stocked with jars of scorpions, hot oil, and missiles, the two parties drew up rules of battle, which neither was to infringe under penalty of incurring the world's execration.
even nature now showed by unmistakable signs that a terrible conflict was about to take place, and when the two armies—which the hindus claim numbered several billion men—came face to face, krishna delayed the fight long enough to recite with arjuna a dialogue of eighteen cantos called the bhagavad-gita, or divine song, which contains a complete system of indian religious philosophy.
the pandavs, having besought the aid of the monkeys, were informed they would derive great benefit by bearing a monkey banner, so it was armed with this standard that they marched on to victory.
the sons of pandu marked the coming storm
and swift arrayed their force. the chief divine
and arjuna at the king's request
raised in the van the ape-emblazoned banner,
the host's conducting star, the guiding light
that cheered the bravest heart, and as it swept
the air, it warmed each breast with martial fires.
throughout the war the pandav forces were directed by the same general, but their opponents had four. a moment after the first collision, the sky was filled with whistling arrows, while the air resounded with the neighing of horses and the roaring of elephants; the plain shook, and clouds of dust, dimming the light of the sun, formed a heavy pall, beneath which pandavs and kurus struggled in deadly fight. this frightful conflict lasted eighteen days, the battle always stopping at sunset, to enable the combatants to recover their strength.
and ever and anon the thunder roared,
and angry lightnings flashed across the gloom,
or blazing meteors fearful shot to earth.
regardless of these awful signs, the chiefs
pressed on to mutual slaughter, and the peal
of shouting hosts commingling shook the world.
the kurus' general, bhishma, fell on the tenth day,—after a terrible fight with arjuna,—riddled with so many arrows that his body could not touch the ground. although mortally wounded, he lay in this state, his head supported by three arrows, for fifty-eight days, and was thus able to bestow good advice on those who came to consult him.
darker grew the gloomy midnight, and the princes went their way;
on his bed of pointed arrows, bhishma lone and dying lay.
he was succeeded as leader of the kurus by the tutor drona, who during his five days' generalship proved almost invincible. but, some one suggesting that his courage would evaporate should he hear his son was dead, a cry arose in the pandav ranks that aswathaman had perished! unable to credit this news, drona called to the eldest pandav—who was strictly truthful—to know whether it was so, and heard him rejoin it was true in regard to the elephant by that name, but not of the man.
said yudhishthir: "lordly tusker, aswathaman named, is dead;"
drona heard but half the accents, feebly dropped his sinking head!
the poor father, who heard only a small part of the sentence—the remainder being drowned by the sound of the trumpets—lost all courage, and allowed himself to be slain without further resistance.
the whole poem bristles with thrilling hand-to-hand conflicts, the three greatest during the eighteen days' battle being between karna and the eldest pandav, between the eldest kuru and bhima, and between karna and arjuna. during the first sixteen days of battle, countless men were slain, including arjuna's son by one of his many wives. although the fighting had hitherto invariably ceased at sunset, darkness on the seventeenth day failed to check the fury of the fighters, so when the moon refused to afford them light they kindled torches in order to find each other. it was therefore midnight before the exhausted combatants dropped down on the battle-field, pillowing their heads on their horses and elephants to snatch a brief rest so as to be able to renew the war of extermination on the morrow.
on the eighteenth day—the last of the great war—the soil showed red with blood and was so thickly strewn with corpses that there was no room to move. although the kurus again charged boldly, all but three were slain by the enemies' golden maces. in fact, the fight of the day proved so fierce that only eleven men remained alive of the billions which, according to the poem, took part in the fight. but during that night the three remaining kurus stole into the pandav camp, killed the five sons which draupadi had born to her five husbands, carried off their heads, and laid them at the feet of the mortally wounded eldest kuru, who fancied at first his cousins had been slain. the battle ending from sheer lack of combatants, the eldest pandav ordered solemn funeral rites, which are duly described in the poem.
pious rites are due to foemen and to friends and kinsmen slain,
none shall lack a fitting funeral, none shall perish on the plain.
then, no one being there to dispute it, he took possession of the realm, always dutifully according precedence to his blind uncle, who deeply mourned his fallen sons.
wishing to govern wisely, the eldest pandav sought the wounded general, bhishma,—who still lay on his arrowy bed in the battle-field,—and who, having given him rules for wise government, breathed his last in the presence of this pandav, who saw his spirit rise from his divided skull and mount to the skies "like a bright star." the body was then covered with flowers and borne down to the ganges, where, after it had been purified by the sacred waters, it was duly burned.
the new king's mind was, however, so continually haunted by the horrors of the great battle-field that, hoping to find relief, he decided to perform a horse sacrifice. many chapters of the poem are taken up in relating the twelve adventures of this steed, which was accompanied everywhere by arjuna, who had to wage many a fight to retain possession of the sacred animal and prevent any hand being laid upon him. then we have a full description of the seventeen ceremonies pertaining to this strange rite.
victor of a hundred battles, arjun bent his homeward way,
following still the sacred charger free to wander as it may,
strolling minstrels to yudhishthir spake of the returning steed,
spake of arjun wending homeward with the victor's crown of meed.
next we learn that the blind king, still mourning the death of his sons, retired to the bank of the ganges, where he and his wife spent their last years listening to the monotonous ripple of the sacred waters. fifteen years after the great battle, the five pandavs and draupadi came to visit him, and, after sitting for a while on the banks of the sacred stream, bathed in its waters as vyasa advised them. while doing so they saw the wraiths of all their kinsmen slain in the great battle rise from the boiling waters, and passed the night in conversation with them, although these spirits vanished at dawn into thin air. but the widows of the slain then obtained permission to drown themselves in the ganges, in order to join their beloved husbands beyond the tomb.
"these and other mighty warriors, in the earthly battle slain,
by their valor and their virtue walk the bright ethereal plain!
they have cast their mortal bodies, crossed the radiant gate of heaven,
for to win celestial mansions unto mortals it is given!
let them strive by kindly action, gentle speech, endurance long,
brighter life and holier future unto sons of men belong!"
then the pandav brothers and their wife took leave of the blind king, whom they were destined never to see again, for some two years later a terrible jungle fire consumed both cottage and inmates. this death was viewed by the pandavs as a bad omen, as was also the destruction of krishna's capital because his people drank too much wine. krishna himself was slain by accident, while a hurricane or tidal wave sweeping over the "city of drunkenness" wiped it off the face of the earth.
having found life a tragedy of sorrow, the eldest pandav, after reigning thirty-six years, decided to abdicate in favor of arjuna's grandson, and to start on a pilgrimage for mount meru, or indra's heaven. as the hindu universe consists of seven concentric rings, each of which is separated by a liquid from the next continent, he had to cross successive oceans of salt water, sugar-cane juice, wine, clarified butter, curdled milk, sweet milk, and fresh water. in the very centre of these alternate rings of land and liquid rises mount meru to a height of sixty-four thousand miles, crowned by the hindu heaven, toward which the pandav was to wend his way. but, although all their subjects would fain have gone with them, the five brothers, draupadi, and a faithful dog set out alone in single file, "to accomplish their union with the infinite."
then the high-minded sons of pandu and the noble draupadi
roamed onward, fasting, with their faces toward the east; their
hearts
yearning for union with the infinite, bent on abandonment
of worldly things.
* * * * *
and by degrees they reached the briny sea;
they reached the northern region and beheld with heaven-aspiring
hearts
the mighty mountain himavat. beyond its lofty peak they passed
toward a sea of sand, and saw at last the rocky meru, king
of mountains. as with eager steps they hastened on, their souls
intent
on union with the eternal, draupadi lost hold of her high hope,
and faltering fell upon the earth.
—edwin arnold.
thus during this toilsome journey, one by one fell, never to rise again, until presently only two of the brothers and the dog were left. the eldest pandav, who had marched on without heeding the rest, now explained to his companion how draupadi sinned through excessive love for her husbands, and that his fallen brothers were victims of pride, vanity, and falsehood. he further predicted that the speaker himself would fall, owing to selfishness, a prediction which was soon verified, leaving the eldest pandav alone with his dog.
on arriving, indra bade this hero enter heaven, assuring him the other spirits had preceded him thither, but warning him that he alone could be admitted there in bodily form. when the pandav begged that his dog might enter too, indra indignantly rejoined that heaven was no place for animals, and inquired why the pandav made more fuss about a four-legged companion than about his wife and brothers. thereupon the pandav returned he had no power to bring the others back to life, but considered it cowardly to abandon a faithful living creature. the dog, listening intently to this dialogue, now resumed his proper form,—for it seems he was the king's father in a former birth,—and, having become human once more, he too was allowed to enter paradise.
straight as he spoke, brightly great indra smiled,
vanished the hound, and in its stead stood there,
the lord of death and justice, dharma's self.
—edwin arnold.
beneath a golden canopy, seated on jewelled thrones, the pandav found his blind uncle and cousins, but failed to discern any trace of his brothers or draupadi. he, therefore, refusing to remain, begged indra's permission to share their fate in hell; so a radiant messenger was sent to guide him along a road paved with upturned razor edges, which passed through a dense forest whose leaves were thorns and swords. along this frightful road the pandav toiled, with cut and mangled feet, until he reached the place of burning, where he beheld draupadi and his brothers writhing in the flames. unable to rescue them, the rajah determined to share their fate, so bade his heavenly guide return to paradise without him. this, however, proved the last test to which his great heart was to be subjected, for no sooner had he expressed a generous determination to share his kinsmen's lot, than he was told to bathe in the ganges and all would be well. he had no sooner done so than the heavens opened above him, allowing him to perceive, amid undying flowers, the fair draupadi and his four brothers, who, thanks to his unselfishness, had been rescued from hell.
the grandson of arjuna reigned at hastinapur until he died of a snake-bite, and his son instituted snake sacrifices, where this epic was recited by a bard who learned it from the mouth of vyasa. there is also a continuation of the poem in three sections called the harivam?a, which relates that krishna is an incarnation of vishnu, and describes his exploits and the future doom of the world.
