novelraw Arc 5 – Ulūka Agamana Parva - Chapter 7 - The Combat of the Sage and the Kuru
Arc 5 – Ulūka Agamana Parva - Chapter 7 - The Combat of the Sage and the Kuru
Returning to Hastināpura, Bhīṣma told Satyavatī all and made propitiations. Blessed by his mother, praised by Brahmanas, he mounted a silver car drawn by white steeds; white mail on his breast, white bow in hand, white umbrella and white fans above. Thus, like a moon armed with lightning, he sped to Kurukṣetra.
White as vow and keen as storm,
the Ape-banner’s elder kin rode forth;
vows were his mail, truth his rein,
dharma the charioteer of the north.
On the holy field the hosts of seers and gods gathered to witness: garlands rained; music, cloudlike, trembled in the sky. Bhīṣma’s conch pealed. At that moment, the River-Mother rose before her son—Gaṅgā in her own form, eyes deep with the world’s compassion.
“Do not,” she pleaded, “as a Kṣatriya, set thy heart obstinately against a Brahmana who taught thee arms. I shall entreat Rāma: ‘Spare thy disciple.’ He is equal to Mahādeva in wrath; know whom thou challengest.”
Bhīṣma, hands joined, told her all—the svayaṃvara, the maiden’s avowal, his refusals, his plea for conciliation. The goddess went to Rāma and begged for peace. Rāma answered only, “Make Bhīṣma desist; he thwarts my word—therefore I have challenged him.”
Gaṅgā returned; Bhīṣma, eyes now fire-bright, stood by his choice. Then Rāma appeared within his sight, axe and bow, a thunder carried in a sage’s frame—and the foremost of the twice-born challenged the Kuru-bull to single combat.
Two vows, two peaks, one field, one sun—
the river watched, the heavens hung;
the bowstring spoke, the silence broke:
dharma would choose through iron’s tongue.
Then Bhīṣma, smiling with the calm of a lion before the storm, addressed Rāma Bhārgava, who stood ready for battle upon the sacred plain.
“O Rāma,” said he, “thou art on foot, while I stand upon a car. I would not strike thee thus unequal. Mount a chariot, O hero, and gird thyself in mail if indeed thou wishest battle!”
Rāma, the seer-warrior, smiled in turn, his eyes gleaming like fire through forest smoke:
“The Earth herself, O Bhīṣma, is my car;
the Vedas are its coursers, swift and sure.
The wind is my charioteer;
and my coat of mail is woven of the Mothers—
Gāyatrī, Sāvitrī, Sarasvatī.
Thus covered in their light, I fight.”
So spoke the ascetic, and lo—his will became a chariot, radiant as dawn. Celestial steeds bore it, gold and hide and sunbeam adorned its form. Akṛtavranā, that sage-friend and seer of the Vedas, stood as charioteer beside him.
Then, summoning Bhīṣma with the words “Come, come!”, Rāma loosed a thousand arrows swift as breath. They fell like rain on the Kuru’s steeds and driver, yet Bhīṣma stood unmoved, his armour gleaming like ice beneath the sun.
Descending from his car, the grandsire went on foot before the sage, laid aside his bow, and bowed low.
“O Rāma,” he said, “thou art my preceptor. Whether thou art stronger or weaker, I will still fight thee as becomes a disciple. Bless me, O lord, with thy grace—grant me victory if so it be thy will.”
Rāma looked upon him and answered gravely:
“He that seeks virtue should come thus, Bhīṣma.
A warrior who faces one mightier than himself wins honour.
Hadst thou not approached me so, I would have cursed thee.
Fight now, but fairly; summon all thy strength.
I cannot bless thee for victory, for I stand to vanquish thee—
yet I am pleased with thy bearing.”
Bowing again, Bhīṣma mounted his silver car, blew his golden conch, and the world shuddered to its call. The fight began—long, terrible, even as the meeting of fire and storm. For many days it endured, each seeking the other’s fall, yet neither yielding ground.
First did Rāma strike. Nine hundred and sixty arrows, vulture-winged and bright as meteors, flew from his bow and cloaked the chariot of Bhīṣma. Steeds and driver vanished in a cloud of shafts, yet the son of Śāntanu stirred not, calm in his shining mail.
Then Bhīṣma spoke aloud amid the whine of arrows:
“O Brāhmaṇa, I have honoured thy preceptorship;
yet hear another law of righteousness:
The Vedas that dwell in thy body, and thy sacred birth,
these I strike not;
but that Kṣatriyahood thou hast assumed,
that shall feel my bow.
When a Brāhmaṇa takes up arms, he becometh a Kṣatriya.
Behold, O Rāma, the power of my arm.”
He loosed a single shaft—keen, broad-headed, and straight. It sheared one horn from Rāma’s bow and cast it to the dust. Then a hundred arrows sped, piercing the sage’s car, rending his flesh so that blood streamed like molten gold.
Red as the dawn was Rāma then,
his body shining like Mount Meru
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with rivers of metal flowing down;
red as the aśoka in spring,
red as the kinsuka in bloom,
fierce and beautiful in pain.
Taking up another bow, Rāma, wrath inflamed, sent a storm of golden-feathered shafts—arrows that hissed like serpents, burned like meteors, and smote Bhīṣma to his very vitals. Reeling, the grandsire gathered himself, and in turn rained a hundred flaming darts that pierced the sage till his light seemed dimmed. Struck deep, the Bhārgava swayed; pity stirred within Bhīṣma’s breast.
He lowered his bow and cried out in anguish:
“Fie upon battle! Fie upon Kṣatriya law!
What sin have I wrought, wounding my preceptor,
a Brāhmaṇa, a soul of virtue?
Alas, the path of duty is edged with sorrow.”
So saying, he stayed his hand. The field fell still as the sun, burning all day upon that holy plain, sank at last to the western sea. The two great souls, teacher and disciple, faced one another in the fading light, their weapons resting, their hearts heavy with the weight of dharma.
Thus ended that day’s battle between Bhīṣma and Rāma of the axe— a contest of fire contained by reverence, of wrath tempered by righteousness.
When night had passed and the sun climbed once more to heaven, Bhīṣma’s charioteer, deft of hand and calm in skill, drew from the body of his master and the flanks of his steeds the arrows that had sunk there like serpents in earth. The wounds were bathed, the steeds were loosed to roll upon the dust, to drink of cool water and regain their vigour.
When the dawn reddened over Kurukṣetra, Bhīṣma rose, his mail glimmering white as moonlight, his bow once more strung. Rāma too, the wrathful son of Jamadagni, harnessed his heavenly steeds and stood arrayed with the brilliance of the rising sun.
Bhīṣma, seeing him advance, first descended from his own car, bowed low to his preceptor in reverence, then remounted and stood ready, his heart calm yet aflame with purpose.
Then began again the rain of arrows. Bhīṣma’s shafts came swift as hail, and Rāma’s blazed back, serpent-tongued and hissing, lighting the field like a storm of fireflies. The air was darkened, the sky reverberated with thunderous twang and cry.
When Bhīṣma loosed the Vāyavya Astra, the weapon of the Wind, Rāma met it with the Guhyaka, stilling its tempest. When Bhīṣma invoked Agneya, fire roared from his bow, but Rāma quenched it with Vāruna, the wave-born counter. Thus did preceptor and disciple match stroke for stroke—celestial weapon against celestial weapon—each cancelling the splendour of the other as night extinguishes day.
Then Rāma, filled with fury, circled to Bhīṣma’s right and drove a shaft into his breast so deep that the grandsire swooned upon his chariot. Seeing him fall, his charioteer turned the steeds aside and bore him swiftly from the field.
The followers of Rāma—Akṛtavranā and the sages, and the princess of Kāśī herself—raised their cries of triumph, thinking the mighty Bhīṣma slain. But soon the son of Śāntanu stirred; his eyes opened like fire rekindled from embers.
“Turn back,” he said to his charioteer, “to where Rāma stands! My pain is gone. The field calls again.”
And the steeds, white as foam and fleet as the wind, bore him back, their hooves striking sparks from the sacred soil.
Bhīṣma rose in wrath and sent a storm of arrows that shrouded Rāma as rain hides the earth. But the Bhārgava, calm in mastery, cut each shaft in twain, loosing three for every one. His followers shouted with delight, seeing each of Bhīṣma’s arrows cleft mid-air, glittering fragments falling like fireflies at dusk.
Then Bhīṣma drew forth a single gleaming shaft, its head bright as Yama’s own mace.
“Go, O arrow,” he murmured,
“bear Death upon thy wings.”
It flew, it struck. Rāma fell like a tree struck by lightning, the dust rising in waves about his body. A cry went up from gods and mortals alike—“Alas! The son of Jamadagni hath fallen!”—and the world seemed to tremble, as if the sun himself were slipping from the sky.
The ascetics rushed to him; the princess of Kāśī knelt by his side, bathing his face with cool water, whispering prayers. Revived, Rāma rose again, pale with anger and resolve.
“Stay, O Bhīṣma!” he cried. “Thou art already slain!”
And loosing a shaft like a streak of flame, he struck Bhīṣma in the side so that the warrior trembled as a tree shivers in storm.
Rāma’s next arrows slew Bhīṣma’s steeds; his bow sang like a thousand voices. The grandsire answered in kind, filling the heavens with shafts till day itself was darkened.
The arrows met midway and clashed, breaking into sparks. The wind was halted, the sun’s rays dimmed; friction of steel upon steel kindled a fire in the sky.
The heavens burned with their battle;
fire rained down like red blossoms of doom.
The air roared, the earth quaked,
and even the gods grew silent in awe.
Rāma, enraged, covered Bhīṣma with millions of arrows—so thick they fell that the field seemed one mass of flame. Bhīṣma, serpent-eyed, struck them apart with shafts of his own, each severing the other in mid-flight, until the sky showered broken steel like a storm of meteors.
Thus did the combat blaze—Brahma’s power against Kṣatriya valour—until evening spread her mantle. Then the son of Jamadagni, wearied yet radiant, laid down his bow, saying softly,
“The sun has set, O Bhīṣma. Let the duel rest till dawn.”
And the two heroes, the preceptor and the pupil, stood gazing upon one another—bloodied, unbowed, and eternal as Dharma itself.
Vaiśampāyana said:
Then, O King Janamejaya, Bhīṣma continued to recount to his listeners the terrible duel that raged between himself and the divine sage Rāma of the Bhṛgu race. That sacred conflict, fought with celestial arms and boundless fury, shook even the heavens themselves.
Bhīṣma said:
On the following day, O bull of Bharata’s line, when the dawn broke over Kurukṣetra, I once again stood face to face with Rāma—the mighty son of Jamadagni, lord of ascetic fire and wielder of divine weapons. Each of us burned with undying resolve, each bound by his own vow, and neither willing to yield an inch of Dharma or pride.
The wind was still upon the plain,
The sky was brass, the earth was flame;
Gods leaned from cloud and astral chain
To watch two heroes match their fame.
Rāma, conversant with every celestial missile, drew forth one after another, and each shone with the brilliance of a newborn sun. I, devoted to the Kuru line, countered every weapon with its lawful opposite. Fire was quenched by water, wind by mountain weight, lightning by celestial calm. Thus, the air between us blazed with a thousand hues—each arrow meeting its destroyer, each flame swallowed by another.
But when all arms of heaven and earth had been exhausted, that high-souled son of Jamadagni, his eyes like molten gold, seized a lance blazing like a meteor, its tip flaming as though Death himself hurled it forth. The very sky seemed to burn as it sped towards me.
Yet before it could strike, I loosed three keen arrows and clove the dart into fragments mid-flight. It burst apart with a roar that echoed across the worlds, and the winds, relieved, blew cool and sweet upon the field.
Three shafts of truth I loosed that day,
Against the weapon born of flame;
The sky grew clear, the darkness fled,
And fragrance filled the world again.
Seeing his weapon severed, Rāma, burning with wrath, summoned twelve more lances of unspeakable power—each glowing like a sun at dissolution’s end. They came upon me like tongues of fire, terrible and swift. My heart trembled but my purpose stood firm. With clouds of arrows I wove a barrier of light, meeting flame with storm, and burned those blazing missiles in their flight.
Then Rāma hurled hundreds of golden-winged darts, radiant as falling meteors. With sword and shield I struck them down, till the earth itself seemed strewn with shattered suns. In return I loosed a storm of arrows that veiled his car, his steeds, and his charioteer.
But Rāma, slayer of the Haihaya king, seeing his car engulfed in my shafts, was seized by fury and invoked once more the powers of heaven. At his word, the skies darkened as if filled with locust swarms of fire-bright arrows. They fell upon me like rain in monsoon tempest—covering my chariot, my steeds, my driver, until even the light of the sun was lost.
The yoke cracked, the wheels shuddered, the spokes splintered beneath that storm. For a moment, I was engulfed in his wrath as in a sea of flame. Yet when the downpour ceased, I answered with a tempest of my own—piercing his armour, his chariot, his limbs, till blood streamed from the son of Bhṛgu like crimson rivers upon white sand.
His blood was fire, mine a storm;
The day was lost in clouds of red.
Heaven watched the meeting of our forms—
A god and man in combat wed.
Even so, he pierced me in return, and both our bodies glistened with wounds, each red mark a seal of honour. And when at last the sun descended behind the western hills, its light mingling with our crimson stains, both of us—master and disciple—ceased our strife, our bows lowering like weary serpents.
Thus ended that day’s battle, O king, when the gods themselves beheld us and wondered which of the two—Brahmanic might or Kṣatriya valour—was truly greater.