Stories of the Great Bharata - A Retelling

Arc 2 - Dushahan Karna-Vadha Parva - Chapter 11 - Heavens Shake As Warriors Clash

Meanwhile, O King, the sky became a living amphitheatre—crowded with gods and Nāgas, Asuras and Siddhas, Yakṣas, Gandharvas, Rākṣasas, and flocks of radiant birds. Music drifted like wind through cloud—lutes and conchs, hymn and laughter, dance and praise—till even men below beheld that wonder: beings of marvellous form poised in the heavens, watching.

Then both hosts, gladdened and emboldened, shook the quarters with drums and shells and leonine roars, and fell upon each other. The field, thronged with elephants, cars, steeds, and men—maces and swords and darts flashing—grew red with blood and bright with broken steel. It looked, O Bhārata, like that ancient war of gods and Asuras reborn.

When the duel of Dhanañjaya and the son of Adhiratha began in earnest, each, clad in flawless mail, roofed the ten directions with arrows, so that a darkness fell and neither friend nor foe beheld clear form. In fear, the warriors turned, some to Karṇa, some to Arjuna—like rays divided in the sky running back to sun or moon. Their weapons clashed and answered like meeting winds from east and west; then, as clouds part, the sun and moon of battle shone—each encouraging his host, “Do not fly!”—and the armies ringed them like gods and Asuras about Vāsava and Śambara.

Two bows bent into blazing halos,

A thousand arrows for their rays;

Twin suns ascended Judgment’s skyline,

To burn the world in Yuga’s blaze.

Invincible both, wrathful both, they closed like Indra and Jambha, summoning the mightiest missiles and mowing down men and horses, elephants and chariots, even as they struck each other. Herds in a forest scatter before a lion: so fled the mixed ranks of Kuru and Pāṇḍava beneath their storm.

Then Duryodhana, the Bhoja lord, the son of Subala, Kṛpa, and the son of Śaradvata’s daughter—five mighty car-warriors—assailed Keśava and Dhanañjaya with pain-bearing shafts. But Arjuna, loosing in one breath, cut away their bows, quivers, steeds, elephants and drivers; he scarred each with bright-winged arrows and planted a dozen into Karṇa.

A hundred cars, a hundred elephants, and Saka, Tukhāra, and Yavana horse with Kāmboja spear-men charged upon Pārtha—only to be shorn of weapons and heads, steeds and standards by cloth-yard razors from Gandīva. They fell like ripe fruit in storm. Then celestial trumpets sounded in the sky; gentle winds strewed fragrant blossoms upon Arjuna’s crest. All creatures marvelled. Only thy son and the Sūta’s son, of one mind, felt neither pain nor wonder.

Flowers fell from lucid pathways,

Praise arose from drum and shell;

Fate leaned close to watch the archer—

And noted where the garlands fell.

Then Aśvatthāman, grasping Duryodhana’s hand, spoke softly for the world’s good: “Be pleased, O King, and make peace. Fie on war! The preceptor, equal to Brahmā and skilled in the highest weapons, is fallen; with him, the bulls among men, headed by Bhīṣma. I and my maternal uncle are unslayable, yet what profit now? Rule the earth forever, sharing with the sons of Pāṇḍu. By my word, Dhanañjaya will refrain; Janārdana seeks no quarrel; Yudhiṣṭhira ever wills the good of all; Vṛkodara and the twins obey him. Let the surviving kings return; let the armies rest. If thou refuse, struck down, thou wilt burn with grief.

“Thou hast seen what the single-handed Arjuna has wrought—deeds beyond even Vṛtra-slayer, beyond the Destroyer, beyond Pracetas, beyond the Yakṣa-king. He is greater yet, and he heeds my counsel. I will dissuade Karṇa too, if thou incline to peace. Four are friends: by nature, by conciliation, by wealth, by power. All these bind the Pāṇḍavas to thee; win them again by gentle means, and act for the universe.”

Duryodhana listened in silence, drawing long breaths; then, heavy-hearted, replied: “As thou sayest, so it is. Yet hear me. Vṛkodara slew Duḥśāsana like a tiger and spoke words that still scorch my heart—you heard them. How then shall peace be made? And Arjuna—he cannot endure Karṇa in battle, as a tempest is broken upon Meru. The Pāṇḍavas will never trust me, remembering my harsh deeds. Nor shouldst thou bid Karṇa now to hold his hand. Pārtha is weary today; Karṇa will soon slay him.”

Thus humbly pleading with the preceptor’s son, thy son turned to his host and cried, “Arm and rush! Smite these foes! Why stand ye idle?”

Peace knocked softly at the doorway;

Pride unbarred to let her pass.

But wounded words like hidden arrows

Turned back grace—and called for brass.

So the heavens rang with conch and chorus, the earth answered with iron, and between sky and soil the two great bows still sang—till fate should choose its stanza in blood.

When the blare of conchs and roll of drums rose like thunder, O King, the two white-steeded lords of war—Vikartana’s son and Arjuna—closed, drawn together by thy son’s dark counsel. They met like rutting tuskers of Himavat contending for a she-elephant, like mountain shouldering mountain, cloud heaping cloud—bows singing, wheels clamouring, bowstrings and palm-slaps cracking like fire.

They loosed first the common hail of war; then, eager for each other’s lapse, they gathered themselves—calm at heart, fierce in limb—and rushed again. Pārtha rubbed the string of Gāṇḍīva till it purred, then poured a monsoon of cloth-yard shafts, nālikās, boar-ear heads, razors, añjalikas, crescent blades—the welkin grew feathered and dark, his flights diving into Karṇa’s car like birds seeking the night-roost. But the Sūta’s son, with swift, clean cuts, sheared them mid-flight, feather from steel, shaft from head.

Fire met water in their wrath—

A world could burn or drown;

Agneya rose, and Varuṇa

Cast cooling rivers down.

Then, O Bhārata, the son of Indra lifted a blazing weapon—its light ran across earth and heaven and the ten directions, and robes of warriors smouldered as in a bamboo-forest fire. Karṇa, great in lore, quenched it with the Varuṇāstra: mountains of cloud massed, horizons drowned, and the fierce glow died. Pārtha, untroubled, blew those clouds apart with the Vāyavyāstra and, mantra-keen, called to hand the favourite of the Thousand-Eyed—thunder-quick, adamant, a rain of razors and crescents and long darts. They bit through yoke and wheel and standard, through harness and horse.

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Bleeding, eyes red as hot copper, Karṇa bent Vijaya till it roared like sea on rock, and summoned the Bhārgava missile. With it he pared away the Indra-born torrent and, laughing at the Two, smote Pañcālas and Somakas in their ranks. They ringed him in wrath; he shook them with steel and sent down men, steeds, and tuskers as a lion fells forest elephants. Thy warriors shouted, O King, deeming the Two Kṛṣṇas under his yoke.

Then Vṛkodara’s breath grew fire. “O Jiṣṇu,” he cried, “remember the hall, the laughter, the words—‘sesame without kernel’! Why suffer this Sūta’s son?” And Keśava said, “Not gods nor Time shall unseat thee. Take up that patience with which thou gavest Khāṇḍava to flame; with that, unmake Karṇa.”

Remembered wrongs are whetted steel,

Old vows are burning brand;

Let dharma be thy bow once more,

And justice guide thy hand.

Thus urged by Bhīma and Mādhava, Pārtha bowed within—the Maker and the Trident-Bearer his silent witnesses—and loosed the Brahmāstra by mind alone. Karṇa baffled it: still he poured his rain, cloud upon cloud of arrows. Bhīma flared again—“Another of the kind!”—and the diadem-decked archer obeyed. Golden-fletched serpents of fire sprang from Gāṇḍīva, shrouding quarters and sub-quarters; axes, discs, and darts leapt among foes. Heads fell like fruit; an arm the size of an elephant’s trunk thudded down, sword still gripped; shields and standards toppled. Arjuna, crowned and garlanded, sowed the front of Duryodhana’s force with death.

Vaikartana answered—thousands of shafts fell like monsoon rain. He pricked Bhīma and Janārdana and pierced Arjuna thrice; he tore Pārtha’s banner and struck Śalya. Sabhāpati of the Kurus he slew outright—head, arms, steeds, driver, banner, bow—fallen like a śāla hewn at the root. Then Pārtha, with quick salvos—three, eight, twelve, four, ten—rent Karṇa, shattered elephants by the hundred, car-warriors by the thousand, horse and foot in their thousands. Soon Karṇa’s car and steeds and driver and flag were lost within Gāṇḍīva’s night.

Yudhiṣṭhira, healed and mailed in gold, came like a full moon freed from Rāhu; the creatures rejoiced to see the foremost pair engaged. Bows sang; the air was a furnace of whizz and twang. Then—loud as a thunder-snap—Pārtha’s bowstring broke. In that heartbeat Karṇa stitched him with a hundred oil-steeped darts, feathered like new-sloughed snakes; he struck Keśava with sixty, Arjuna with eight, and stung Vṛkodara with innumerable points. He pierced the banner again; the Somakas blanketed him in reply; he sheared them off and broke their cars and beasts, and many, voiding their life, fell with a cry.

Thy people roared, O King, scenting victory. But the son of Pāṇḍu, resetting his string, clapped his palms and made a darkness of arrows; he pricked Śalya’s mail with ten, gashed Karṇa with a dozen and again with seven. Blood-bright, limbs mangled, the son of Adhiratha stood like Rudra at evening in the cremation-ground, joying in ruin.

Then Karṇa loosed five shafts, serpent-souled—Takṣaka’s brood that favoured Aśvasena, whose dam had died at Khāṇḍava. They ran through Keśava’s armour, bathed in Bhogavatī, and wheeled back in the earth toward their sire. Arjuna, with ten broad razors, sliced each snake to thirds and dropped them harmless to the dust. Seeing Keśava’s blood, the diadem-bearer blazed as dry grass under spark; his arrows smoked from the string, striking every vital of his foe till Karṇa swayed and caught his breath to stand.

The bow became a midnight wood,

The sky a thicket drawn;

Within it stalked the hunter’s wrath—

And death came up like dawn.

Then, O Bhārata, Savyasācin cut to pieces two thousand of the chosen Kurus—the wheel-guards, wing-men, van and rear that fenced Karṇa’s car—together with their drivers and steeds. Thy sons and captains, seeing the ring hewn down, fled, leaving wounded sires and crying boys. But Karṇa, deserted and alone, felt no tremor; cheerful of heart, he lowered his brow, set Vijaya again to the ear, and rushed straight at Arjuna.

Sañjaya said to Dhṛtarāṣṭra, ”O King, as Arjuna’s storm of shafts wheeled like lightning across the sky, thy routed divisions, standing far off, watched in terror the weapon’s blaze. Then Karṇa, with a gold-feathered rain, split that whirling mass and quenched it mid-air. Bending Vijaya, his bow of unyielding string, he loosed a destroying tide—Bhārgava-taught, Atharvan-strong—that tore the Pandava fire to smoke and pierced Pārtha’s mail with many keen points. Thus the two—like tusked bulls clashing—struck and counter-struck till day itself seemed shuttered with arrows, the sun hid, the quarters woven to one vast net of steel.

In that night of feather and flame, both warriors showed the art that makes men marvel: sudden feints, ascending spirals of shafts, breaks and restorations as swift as thought. Now the Sūta’s son surged and seemed to master; now the diademed Pārtha answered and rose like a wave over rock. From the ways of heaven the unseen hosts cried, “Excellent, O Karṇa!” and, “Excellent, O Arjuna!”—applause falling in alternate showers.

Then, O Bhārata, while cars pressed earth deep, and hoof and tusk churned the field to mire, the serpent Aśvasena—nursed in the nether dark, remembering Khaṇḍava’s fire and the mother slain within it—rose wrathful through the veins of the world. Seeking the hour of his hate, he entered Karṇa’s quiver, arrow-shaped, and lay there like coiled doom.

Smokeless his anger, cold his breath,

A midnight thought in scale and fang;

He sought the path of archer’s death—

To sing his mother’s undone song.

When equal skill had wearied strength, beheld and fanned by Apsaras with palm-leaf fans and sandal dew, when Śakra and Sūrya with gentle hands cooled the faces of the twain, Karṇa, scorched by Pārtha’s cutting light and mangled in his limbs, reached for the single shaft he had long worshipped—a snake-mouthed, foe-killing bolt, consecrated with rite and wrath. He set it to the ear and aimed at Pāṇḍu’s son, desiring to shear the head from the trunk, as a thunderbolt rives peak from mountain.

The quarters blazed; meteors fell; the Regents wailed. Śalya, charioteer-king, counselled once more—“Choose another shaft; this will not take his head.” But Karṇa, proud in straight dealing, answered, “I do not aim twice.” He whispered to his foe, “Thou art slain, O Phālguṇa!” and loosed.

The serpent-bolt burned a path across the sky, as if parting heaven like the vermilion line that divides a woman’s hair. Then Kṛṣṇa, the slayer of Kaṃsa, feeling death’s wind, stamped the chariot earthward with effortless might. The white steeds bent their knees and sank; the car dropped a cubit into the ground; the missile, passing over the lowered crown, tore away only the brilliant diadem forged for Vāsava by the Self-born and gifted to Arjuna when gods were gladdened at Khaṇḍava.

That crown—sun-bright, gem-laden, a terror to foes—was shattered like a thunder-hewn crest of a flowering hill. A roar rose in all the worlds; men swayed though they strove for steadiness. Dark of limb and young of face, Pārtha bound his loose locks with a white cloth and stood unshaken—like Udaya’s peak lit by dawn.

The serpent sang through gold and fire,

And crown to shining splinters fell;

But he who bears the Gāṇḍīva string

Stood calm—like silence after bell.

Then the snake, still blazing with venom, wheeled to strike again. Unseen by Karṇa at first, he spoke—“Thou loosed’st me unknowing. See me, aim me now, and I will cleave his head though Vajra shield him.” Karṇa asked, “Who art thou?” The serpent said, “Wronged by Pārtha; my mother fell when Khaṇḍava burned. Even if the wielder of the thunder guards him, he is for the Pitṛs. Shoot me again and win.”

But Vaikartana answered, straight as his shaft, “Karna seeks no victory on another’s strength. Even were there a hundred Arjunas, I would not use one arrow twice. By my other serpent-weapons, by effort and by wrath, I shall slay him. Be content—go where thou wilt.” Stung by that proud truth, the great snake, unable to bear refusal, himself took arrow-form once more and sped, eager to feed his enmity.

Then Mādhava said to Pārtha, “Behold the serpent who comes—slay him.” Arjuna asked, “Who is this that runs into Garuḍa’s mouth?” Kṛṣṇa replied, “At Khaṇḍava, his mother sheltered him in her body in the sky. Thinking her a single serpent, thou struckest and she died. Remembering that hurt, he falls upon thee now, streaking like a meteor.”

What men forget, the cosmos keeps—

A coal beneath cold ash;

When fate breathes once, the ember leaps,

And oaths return as flash.

Thus, O King, even as the snake rushed a second time—venom for memory and memory for venom—Keśava’s counsel steadied Pārtha’s aim. What followed, hear yet: for the hunter in the midnight wood had lifted again his fatal bow, and destiny drew near with noiseless feet.