novelraw Arc 4 - Ghaṭotkacha-Vadha Parva - Chapter 7 - Keśava’s Exhortation and the Rakshaha’s vow
Arc 4 - Ghaṭotkacha-Vadha Parva - Chapter 7 - Keśava’s Exhortation and the Rakshaha’s vow
Sañjaya said:
Karna, that slayer of hostile hosts, sighted the son of Pṛṣata and struck him full in the chest with ten arrows driven to the vitals. Dṛṣṭadyumna answered with five keen shafts and called out, “Wait, wait!” They veiled each other in a storm of missiles, bows drawn to the ear, string-song loud in the night. Then Karna cut down the Panchāla’s foremost bow, felled his charioteer, slew his four steeds, and harried him with straight shafts. Leaping to the ground, the valiant Dṛṣṭadyumna seized a mace, rushed in through the rain of arrows, and with a single sweep slew Karna’s horses. Swiftly he sprang to Dhanañjaya’s car to wheel back upon the Sūta’s son, but Dharmarāja restrained him with a word.
Karna, roaring like a lion, blew his conch and bent his bow. Seeing Pṛṣata’s son checked, the Panchālas and Somakas, wrath-fired and death-resolved, closed upon Karna. Meanwhile, his charioteer yoked new Sindhu-white steeds; Karna, sure of aim, poured shafts like monsoon upon a mountain. The Panchāla host broke like deer before a tiger. Horsemen toppled; elephant-lords slid from howdahs; car-warriors fell from shattered cars. Razor-headed arrows reaped arms bright with aṅgadas, thighs from steeds and elephants, and helmed heads with crest-rings. So terrified were they that straw in the whirl of dust seemed Karna to their eyes; fleeing, they mistook fleeing friends for him and fled the more. Karna pressed the rout, slaughtering on all sides; and others, merely beheld by Droṇa, fled as well.
Beholding his army broken and the hour grown fierce, Yudhiṣṭhira spoke to Pārtha: “See Karna standing like Rudra with bow in hand, scorching all like the sun at dead of night. Hear the cries of our mangled friends. His hands know no interval between taking aim and letting fly. Do now, O Pārtha, what in thy judgment is timely concerning Karna’s slaying.” Arjuna answered Keśava: “The son of Dharma is shaken by Karna’s prowess. Choose swiftly what must be done. Our host, torn by Droṇa and terrified by Karna, cannot stand. I see him wheeling fearless. I cannot endure his triumph before my face. Drive to him, O Mādhava. I slay him—or he slays me.”
Vāsudeva said, “I behold Karna, tiger among men, moving like Maghavan in battle. None may advance upon him now, save thee—or the Rākṣasa Ghaṭotkacha. Yet the time is not come for thee, O sinless one. The blazing Indra-dart remains with him, kept for thee alone. Let Ghaṭotkacha go forth—devoted to you, strong as a deva, born of mighty Bhīma, rich in astras and Rākṣasa-māyā.”
At once the son of Hiḍimbā stood before them, mail-clad, with sword, bow, and arrows, saluting both Kṛṣṇa and Pāṇḍu’s son: “Here am I. Command.”
Vāsudeva spoke to him, mouth of flame, eyes like embers, cloud-dark in limb: “Now is thy hour. Be the raft for the sinking Pāṇḍavas. Thy weapons are many, thy illusions manifold. Behold Karna burning our van like a herdsman goading kine; Panchālas flee like deer before a lion. None but thee can stand against the Sūta’s son tonight. Children are sought of men for such a time—to rescue sires and kin. At night, O Rākṣasa, thy might is limitless. Slay Karna with illusion; let the Parthas with Dṛṣṭadyumna attend to Droṇa.”
Rise, night-born thunder, lift thy hand;
be storm and shadow, fang and brand.
Be raft and bridge through fate’s black sea—
bear dharma’s sons to victory.
Arjuna added, “Among us thou, long-armed Sātyaki, and Bhīmasena are foremost. Go, meet Karna in single combat. The Sātvata will guard thy rear. With him beside thee, slay brave Karna as Vāsava slew Tāraka aided by Skanda.”
Ghaṭotkacha said, “I am a match for Karna—or for Droṇa, or any kṣatriya skilled in arms. This very night I will wage a battle with the Sūta’s son that men shall tell while the world endures. I shall spare neither brave nor timid; those who sue for quarter I shall slay, after the Rākṣasa manner.”
Night is my mother, war my breath;
I make my pact with iron death.
Let drums of doom beneath me roll—
I hunt till darkness drinks his soul.
Thus speaking, the son of Hiḍimbā surged toward Karna, terrifying thy troops. The Sūta’s son, tiger among men, received him smiling, bow singing. Then in that midnight field Karna and the Rākṣasa roared against each other, as once Indra and Prahlāda contended of old.
Sañjaya said:
Beholding the mighty-armed Ghaṭotkacha advancing like a thundercloud toward the car of the Sūta’s son, intent on Karṇa’s destruction, Duryodhana, alarmed and wrathful, turned to Duḥśāsana and said:
“See how the Rākṣasa, beholding Karṇa’s might, hastens against him with tempestuous fury! Go—resist that terrible one. Surround Karṇa with a strong host, O valiant prince. Protect him, lest through our carelessness that dreadful son of Hiḍimbā slay the son of Vikartana.”
As Duryodhana spoke, another Rākṣasa drew near—Alamvuṣa, the mighty son of Jāṭāsura, foremost among smiters. Standing before the king, he said:
“O Duryodhana, command me and I shall destroy thy foes—the sons of Pṛthā and their followers. They slew my sire, the noble Jāṭāsura, by foul incantations. I burn to offer their blood upon his shade, to feed him with their flesh. Grant me leave, O king, that I may worship him with vengeance.”
Delighted, Duryodhana said, “Go then, O hero. Slay in battle that fierce-deeded Rākṣasa, born of man, who aids the sons of Pāṇḍu and lays waste our elephants and horsemen from the skies. Send Ghaṭotkacha to Yama’s abode!”
Alamvuṣa bowed, saying, “So be it.” With a roar that shook the heavens, he summoned the son of Bhīma to combat. His arrows darkened the sky, but Ghaṭotkacha, alone and unaided, rushed like a storm upon Alamvuṣa, Karṇa, and the Kuru host, grinding them as a tempest shatters clouds.
Seeing the power of his illusions, Alamvuṣa loosed shafts of many kinds upon him. Piercing Bhīma’s son with countless arrows, the Rākṣasa of Jāṭāsura’s line struck also at the Pāṇḍava troops, who, terrified in the blackness of night, fled like clouds scattered by the wind. Yet the Kurus, too, mingled in Ghaṭotkacha’s storm of weapons, fled in thousands, flinging aside their torches.
Then Alamvuṣa, in fierce wrath, struck Ghaṭotkacha again and again, as a goad-driver strikes a maddened elephant. But the son of Hiḍimbā laughed terribly and, with a volley of arrows, splintered Alamvuṣa’s chariot, steeds, and weapons into dust.
Like clouds loosing floods upon Meru’s crest,
the Rākṣasa poured his arrows bright;
Karṇa, Alamvuṣa, and the Kuru host
reeled beneath his storm that night.
Afflicted by the giant’s might, the Kuru army trembled. Foot, horse, car, and elephant pressed upon one another in panic. Alamvuṣa, his car shattered, sprang down and struck Ghaṭotkacha with his fists, blow after thunderous blow. The son of Bhīma quivered like a mountain at earthquake, then, roaring aloud, raised his arm heavy as a mace and smote his foe to the ground. Seizing him in both hands, he crushed him as a lion crushes prey.
But Jāṭāsura’s son, freeing himself, rose again, and Alamvuṣa too closed in, dragging Ghaṭotkacha down in fury. They grappled upon the earth, two monstrous warriors roaring, their bodies vast as hills. Each sought to master the other through dreadful illusion, their combat recalling that of Indra and Bali’s son.
They became fire and ocean,
Garuḍa and Takṣaka,
cloud and tempest, thunder and mountain,
elephant and lion, Rāhu and the sun—
a hundred forms of terror,
each striving for the other’s doom.
Axes and maces clashed; clubs, spikes, and lances whirled. They fought on foot, on chariots, on elephants, in the air—two Rākṣasas vast in magic and rage. At last Ghaṭotkacha, desiring his enemy’s end, rose into the sky with a roar that split the clouds, then descended like a hawk upon its prey. He seized Alamvuṣa and pinned him to the ground, pressing him down like Viṣṇu slaying the Asura Maya. Drawing a scimitar that flashed like lightning, he struck off the Rākṣasa’s head—still roaring even as it fell.
The head rolled crimson through the dark,
fanged jaws agape, eyes wide with hate;
and Ghaṭotkacha, grasping its matted hair,
bore it aloft as victory’s weight.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Bearing that ghastly trophy, the son of Hiḍimbā strode to Duryodhana’s car. Smiling grimly, he flung it upon the king’s chariot so that it struck with a clang. Then, with a roar deep as thunder, he cried:
“Behold, O Kaurava! Thy ally lies slain—
the hero whose prowess thou didst praise!
Soon shalt thou see Karṇa fall, and after him—thyself.
Remember this, O king: none should face a monarch,
a Brāhmaṇa, or a woman empty-handed.
Live until I strike Karṇa down!”
With that terrible vow, he turned again upon Karṇa, loosing hundreds of keen arrows upon the son of Rādha.
The battle that followed, between the man of earth and the demon of the night, was fierce beyond telling—wonderful, and dreadful to behold.
Sañjaya said: Ghaṭotkacha came on like a nightmare made flesh—blood-red eyes, coppery face, blue body, a low sunken belly, a greenish crown of hair knotted high, ears like barbed heads, cheekbones sharp, a cavernous mouth rim to rim, four fangs long and keen, lips and tongue the color of burnished copper. His neck glowed red above a brass cuirass that flashed like a ring of fire on a mountain. Gold diadem and sun-bright earrings framed his terrible visage; golden garlands lay over arm-rings and broad Angadas. His car was huge—about a nalva in measure—panelled with bearskin, edged with a hundred tinkling bells, eight wheels rumbling like thunder, tall standard swaying under blood-red banners; atop it perched a carnivorous vulture, crimson and grim. His steeds looked like maddened elephants—variegated, red-eyed, tireless, tossing long manes—reined by a Rākṣasa charioteer whose blazing earrings and fiery mouth made him a shadow of Aruṇa beside the sun. Ghaṭotkacha’s bow, a dozen cubits long and a cubit broad, sang with a thunder-twang as he filled the quarters with shafts thick as axle-pins and bore down on Karṇa.
Karna met him smiling, closing like tusker on tusker. Their first collision was terrific: brass mail pierced, bodies mangled by straight-flying arrows and heavy darts, blood running in streams until each looked a white hill streaked red. Neither gave an inch. When Ghaṭotkacha’s furious bow-music shook friend and foe alike, Karṇa reached for celestial missiles; the Rākṣasa answered with illusion—legions of demon allies hurling rocks, wheels, spears, and axes in a midnight downpour. Kings and common soldiers broke in panic, elephants voided in terror, but Karṇa, steady in pride and power, shattered the phantasm with his shafts.
Enraged, Ghaṭotkacha drove blood-slick arrows through Karṇa’s body, then tore up a jeweled, sun-bright, thousand-spoked wheel and hurled it like a razor. Karṇa cut it to glittering fragments. The Rākṣasa followed with a gold-bound mace—he cut that too—then rose into the sky and rained trees; Karṇa’s arrows pierced him aloft as sunlight spears a cloud, slew his team, and hacked his car to splinters, pelting him with a storm of iron until the giant bristled like a porcupine and vanished in fresh illusion.
Now unseen, Ghaṭotkacha fought on, swallowing Karṇa’s astras with many-headed, many-mouthed forms, then collapsing wounded, then reappearing elsewhere, now mountain-huge with a hundred heads, now thumb-small and flickering through earth and sky. He rolled back before Karṇa’s Vāyavya, answered with fresh glamours: a black mountain spouting weapons, a cloud with rainbow pouring stones, a whirlwind of Rākṣasas on elephants, cars, and horses, armored and roaring like Maruts about their lord. Karṇa smiled, cut the mountain, scattered the stones, and, drawing a bow vast as Īndra’s, scythed down the demon riders like Agni consuming the triple city.
Still Ghaṭotkacha came on, five keen shafts striking Karṇa as he loosed a terrible roar; an Añjalika cut Karṇa’s bow from his hand, but another bow sprang up and golden-feathered arrows lashed the sky-rangers into disorder. Flames seemed to leap from the Rākṣasa’s eyes; he bit his lip, slapped palm to palm, and conjured yet another car—asses yoked to it with piśāca faces, huge as elephants. He hurled an eight-wheeled Aśani of Rudra’s forging; Karṇa sprang down, caught it, and hurled it back. Ghaṭotkacha had leapt clear; the thunder-weapon burned his car, steeds, driver, and flag to ash, bored through the earth, and vanished, drawing cries of wonder from the gods. Karṇa remounted and pressed on, his feat applauded by all.
Again the Rākṣasa split himself into many, sent beasts and night-fiends shrieking at Karṇa; again Karṇa’s arrows drank their blood and a divine missile dispelled the glamour. He lamed Ghaṭotkacha’s fresh team; and as the giant sank back into invisibility he spat his vow into the darkness: “I will presently compass thy destruction, O son of Vikartana!”
Sañjaya said:
As the night-battle raged between Karṇa and the mighty Rākṣasa Ghaṭotkacha, there appeared upon the field another lord of demons — the fierce and valiant prince Alāyudha.
Surrounded by thousands of grim Rākṣasas of monstrous forms and dreadful strength, he came roaring like a tempest, his heart burning with an ancient feud. Long had he brooded upon the deaths of his kin: Vaka, who had feasted upon Brāhmaṇas; Kirmira, of terrible might; and his friend Hiḍimbā, all slain by Bhīma’s hand. Even the maiden Hiḍimbā, taken by Bhīma and made his mate, still festered in his memory as an insult to their kind.
Now, hearing of the nocturnal carnage, Alāyudha came forth like an enraged serpent, seeking vengeance upon Bhīma and all his bloodline. Standing before Duryodhana, his vast shadow blotting the torches around, he thundered:
“Thou knowest, O King, how Bhīma slew my kinsmen — Vaka and Kirmira,
and the mighty Hiḍimbā. He defiled the virgin Hiḍimbā herself, scorning us,
the Rākṣasa tribes. Therefore, I come to slay Bhīma and all his kin —
his sons, his steeds, his elephants, and that spawn of Hiḍimbā,
the foul Ghaṭotkacha.
Today, I shall drink their blood and devour their followers.
Recall thy troops, O King; bid them stand aside.
Leave the Pandavas to me — I shall fight them alone.”
Duryodhana, delighted, surrounded by his brothers, answered with joy:
“Be it so, O Rākṣasa of flaming might!
Take the van and lead our host.
My warriors will follow, for their wrath still smolders —
they shall not watch idly while vengeance is wrought.”
At the king’s words, Alāyudha gave a growling assent — “So be it.” Then, raising his mace and bow, he surged toward Bhīma’s division, his horde of flesh-eating demons howling around him.
His car was a monstrous chariot blazing like the sun, covered in bearskin, measuring a nalva in length. Its arches gleamed with gold, its eight wheels shrieked like thunderclouds, and its sound rivaled Ghaṭotkacha’s own war-car.
A hundred steeds were yoked to it — creatures vast as elephants, with hides like storm-clouds, eyes red with fury, and voices like braying asses. They fed on flesh and blood and knew no fatigue.
The car’s standard rose like a pillar of fire, draped with blood-red banners where vultures and ravens perched, beating their wings. The Rākṣasa himself shone terrible and resplendent — handsomer in form than Ghaṭotkacha, but blazing with wrath. His black skin gleamed like iron; Angadas, diadem, and garlands flashed like lightning about him.
He bore dreadful weapons: mace and club, plough and Bhūṣuṇḍi, swords, and bows of monstrous girth. Around his brow the wreaths of wildflowers mingled with sparks from his breath. Mounted thus upon his sunlike car, he seemed a storm-cloud roving through the sky, veined with lightning, ready to burst upon the earth.
And as Alāyudha came roaring into battle, the foremost kings of the Pāṇḍava army — mailed, shielded, eager for the fray — turned to meet him with uplifted hearts, their swords flashing like meteors in the gloom.
Sañjaya said:
When Alāyudha, the dread prince of the Rākṣasas, entered the field, the Kauravas shouted in delight. Their faces shone like drowning men who at last behold a raft upon the waves. The sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, led by Duryodhana, rejoiced as though reborn from death. They hailed the Rākṣasa with honour and hope, seeing in him their deliverance from the terror of Bhīma and Ghaṭotkacha.
Meanwhile, the terrible yet wondrous duel between Karṇa and the son of Hiḍimbā blazed in the dark of night. The Panchālas and other Kṣatriya kings watched with awe, their faces lit by the flashing arrows, as though beholding a celestial drama. Yet in the Kuru ranks arose cries of despair. Warriors fled despite the protection of Droṇa, Aśvatthāman, and Kṛpa, wailing—
“All is lost! Karṇa is doomed! The night devours us!”
The roars of Ghaṭotkacha shook their hearts; the earth itself seemed to tremble beneath his feet.
Then Duryodhana, seeing Karṇa sorely pressed and his army breaking, called to Alāyudha:
“Behold, O prince of Rākṣasas, how the mighty Karṇa is hard pressed by Hiḍimbā’s son.
The field lies strewn with kings slain by Bhīma’s offspring—
trunks torn like trees uprooted by elephants.
This task I give thee, fierce one:
destroy Ghaṭotkacha before his illusions consume Karṇa!
Let him not slay Vikartana’s son before thy strength prevails!”
Hearing this, Alāyudha bared his fangs and roared, “So be it!” Then he sped forward like a thundercloud, while Bhīma’s son turned from Karṇa to meet him in mid-field.
The clash of the two Rākṣasa princes was like the meeting of maddened elephants fighting over a single cow in season. Sparks leapt from their arrows; darkness blazed with sudden fire.
Freed from Ghaṭotkacha, Karṇa, luminous as the sun, turned once more upon Bhīmasena. But Bhīma, seeing his son hard-pressed by Alāyudha, left Karṇa aside and rushed roaring upon the Rākṣasa, clouds of arrows raining from his bow.
Beholding Bhīma approach, Alāyudha turned from Ghaṭotkacha and charged the son of Kuntī himself. The earth shuddered beneath their steps as the slayer of Rākṣasas and the lord of cannibals met. Bhīma covered his foe with pointed shafts; Alāyudha, whetting his arrows upon stone, sent them back in unbroken streams.
Then all the Rākṣasas—hideous, armed with lances and scimitars—rushed to aid their leader, bellowing for the Kauravas’ victory. Bhīma, that mountain of might, met each with five keen shafts; they shrieked and scattered like bats before the flame. Furious at their rout, Alāyudha stormed upon Bhīma, drowning him in arrows. Bhīma, steady as a cliff, shattered the volleys and answered with a rain of steel.
Then Bhīma, roaring like thunder,
hurled his mace—a fiery bolt of wrath;
Alāyudha struck it midair with his own,
and the weapon turned back upon its master’s path.
Undaunted, Bhīma loosed another flight of arrows; the Rākṣasa cleaved them all. Then his followers rallied once more and fell upon Bhīma’s elephants and steeds. The Panchālas and Śṛñjayas, sorely pressed, staggered beneath the assault of demons roaring in the gloom.
Seeing Bhīma surrounded and staggering under the monstrous blows, Keśava turned to Arjuna and said gravely:
“Behold, O Pārtha, thy mighty brother bends before the Rākṣasa’s strength.
Go to him swiftly—think of nothing else!
Let Dhṛṣṭadyumna, Śikhaṇḍin, Yudhamanyu, Uttamaujas, and the son of Draupadī
turn upon Karṇa.
Let Nakula, Sahadeva, and Yuyudhāna strike down the other Rākṣasas.
As for thee, resist Droṇa’s host;
for great indeed is the peril now upon us!”
Thus urged, the heroes obeyed and wheeled their cars toward their foes.
Then Alāyudha, his eyes red as copper, loosed arrows like venomous serpents and cut off Bhīma’s bow. In the same instant, he slew Bhīma’s steeds and charioteer. Bhīma leapt down, roaring like a lion, and hurled a massive mace blazing like fire. The Rākṣasa parried it with his own, and both maces fell away. Laughing harshly, Bhīma seized another and struck again; their weapons crashed like thunderclouds colliding, making the ground quake.
They cast aside their maces,
and struck with fists like granite,
then with wheels, yokes, and broken car-frames—
each a storm, a mountain, a flame.
Blood streaming, they grappled like twin elephants drunk with fury.
Then Hṛṣīkeśa, guardian of the Pāṇḍavas, seeing Bhīma locked in perilous combat, turned to Ghaṭotkacha and said:
“Go, mighty one—aid thy sire!
The time has come for thy power to blaze forth.”
Thus commanded, the son of Hiḍimbā roared aloud and rushed once more into the fray, the night trembling with his dreadful cry.