Krishnavatara VII: The Book of Yudhishthira
BHAVAN’S BOOK UNIVERSITY
KRISHNAVATARA
VOLUME VII
THE BOOK OF YUDHISTHIRA
WITH 13 CHAPTERS OF
VOLUME VIII
By
K.M.MUNSHI
2020
BHARATIYA VIDYA BHAVAN
Kulapati K.M.Munshi Marg
Mumbai – 400007
All Rights Reserved
© Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan
Kulapati K. M. Munshi Marg
Mumbai - 400007
First Print Edition: 1973
Second Print Edition: 1981
Third Print Edition: 1984
Fourth Print Edition: 1988
Fifth Print Edition: 1991
Sixth Print Edition: 2004
Seventh Print Edition: 2009
Eighth Print Edition: 2012
Ninth Print Edition: 2018
First e-edition: 2020
KULAPATI'S PREFACE
The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan-that Institute of Indian Culture in Bombay-needed a Book University, a series of books which, if read, would serve the purpose of providing higher education. Particular emphasis, however, was to be put on such literature as revealed the deeper Impulsions of India. As a first step, it was decided to bring out in English 100 books, 50 of which were to be taken in hand, almost at once.
It is our Intention to publish the books we select, not only in English but also in the following Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.
This scheme, involving the publication of 900 volumes, requires ample funds and an all-India organisation. The Bhavan is exerting its utmost to supply them.
The objectives for which the Bhavan stands are the reintegration of Indian culture in the light of modern knowledge and to suit our present-day needs and the resuscitation of its fundamental values in their pristine vigour.
Let me make our goal more explicit:
We seek the dignity of man, which necessarily implies the creation of social conditions which would allow him freedom to evolve along the lines of his own temperament and capacities; we seek the harmony of individual efforts and social relations, not in any makeshift way, but within the frame-work of the Moral Order; we seek the creative art of life, by the alchemy of which human limitations are progressively transmuted, so that man may become the instrument of God, and is able to see Him in all and all in Him.
The world, we feel, is too much with us. Nothing would uplift or inspire us so much as the beauty and aspiration which such books can teach.
In this series, therefore, the literature of India, ancient and modem, will be published in a form easily accessible to all. Books in other literatures of the world, if they illustrate the principles we stand for, will also be included.
This common pool of literature, it is hoped, will enable the reader, eastern or western, to understand and appreciate currents of world thought, as also the movements of the mind In India, which though they flow through different linguistic channels, have a common urge and aspiration.
Fittingly, the Book University's first venture is the Mahabharata, summarised by one of the greatest living Indians, C. Rajagopalachari; the second work is on a section of it, the Gita by H.V.Divatia, an eminent jurist and student of philosophy. Centuries ago, it was proclaimed of the Mahabharata: "What is not in it, is nowhere." After twenty-five centuries, we can use the same words about it. He who knows it not, knows not the heights and depths of the soul; he misses the trials and tragedy and the beauty and grandeur of life.
The Mahabharata is not a mere epic: it is a romance, telling the tale of heroic men and women and of some who were divine; it is a whole literature in itself, containing a code of life, a philosophy of social and ethical relations, and speculative thought on human problems that is hard to rival: but above all, it has for its core the Gita, which is, as the world is beginning to find out, the noblest of scriptures and the grandest of sagas in which the climax is reached in the wondrous Apocalypse in the Eleventh Canto.
Through such books alone the harmonies underlying true culture, I am convinced, will one day reconcile the disorders of modern life.
I thank all those who have helped to make this new branch of the Bhavan's activity successful.
K.M.Munshi
New Delhi
1, Queen Victoria Road,
October 3, 1951
INTRODUCTION
WHO has not heard of Sri Krishna who delivered the message of the Bhagavad Gita and whom the Bhagavata calls 'God Himself '?
From the earliest days that my memories can go back to, Sri Krishna has been, in a sense, dominating my imagination. In my childhood, I heard his adventures with breathless amazement. Since then I have read of him, sung of him, admired him and worshipped him in a hundred temples and every year on his birthday at home. And day after day, for years and years, his message has been the strength of my life.
Unfortunately, his fascinating personality, which could be glimpsed in what may be called the original Mahabharata, has been overlaid with legends, myths, miracles and adorations for about three thousand years.
Wise and valorous, he was, loving and loved, far-seeing and yet living for the moment, gifted with sage-like detachment and yet intensely human; a diplomat, a sage and the man of action with a personality as luminous as that of a divinity.
The urge, therefore, came upon me, time and again, to embark upon a reconstruction of his life and adventures by weaving a romance around him.
It was an almost impossible venture, but like hundreds of authors, good, bad and indifferent, from all parts of India for centuries, I was impelled by an irrepressible urge and I could not help offering him whatever little imagination and creative power I possessed, feeble though they were.
I have called the whole work Krishnavatara, The Descent of the Lord. The First Part, which ends with the death of Kamsa, has been named The Magic Flute, for it deals with his boyhood associated with the flute, which hypnotized men, animals and birds alike, sung with such loving tenderness by innumerable poets.
The Second Part, which ends with Rukmini Haran, is entitled The Wrath of an Emperor, as the central theme is the successful defiance by Sri Krishna of Jarasandha, the Emperor of Magadha.
The Third Part is entitled The Five Brothers and ends with Draupadi's Swayamvara. The Fourth Part is entitled The Book of Bhima, the Fifth Part The Book of Satyabhaama, the Sixth Part The Book of Veda Vyaasa, the Master, and the Seventh Part The Book of Yudhishthira.
I hope to carry forward the series till the episode when, on the battle-field of Kurukshetra, Krishna reveals himself as the Eternal Guardian of the Cosmic Law-Saashvata Dharma Gopta-to Arjuna, if it is His will that I should do so.
I have followed the technique since 1922 to reconstruct the episodes connected with Chyavana and Sukanya in Purandara Parajaya (a play); Agastya and Lopamudra, Vasishta and Vishwamitra, Parashurama and Sahasrarjuna in Vishvaratha (a romance); Deve Didheli (a play); Vishwamitra Rishi (a play); Lomaharshini (a romance) and Bhagawan Parashurama (a romance), and now Sri Krishna and the heroes and heroines of the Mahabharata in these volumes of Krishnavatara.
Time and again, I have made it clear that none of these works is an English rendering of any of the old Purana.
In reconstructing Sri. Krishna's life and adventures, I had, like many of my predecessors to reconstruct the episodes inherited from the past, so as to bring out his character, attitude and outlook with the personality-sustained technique of modern romance. I also had to give flesh and blood to various obscure characters referred to in the Mahabharata.
In the course of this adventure, I often had
to depart from legend and myth, for such a reconstruction by a modern author must necessarily involve the exercise of whatever little imagination he has in presenting a connected and cohesive narrative.
I trust He will forgive me the liberty I am taking, but I must write of Him as I see Him in my imagination.
K.M.Munshi
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan,
Chowpatty Road, Bombay-7
August 15, 1967
CONTENTS
KULAPATI'S PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY
VOLUME V THE BOOK OF YUDHISHTHIRA
1. YUDHISHTHIRA'S DILEMMA
2. THE FATHER’S MESSAGE
3. RAJASUYA—TO BE PERFORMED OR NOT TO BE PERFORMED
4. MEGHASANDHI’S MESSAGE
5. THE THREE VISITORS
6. THE WRATH OF THE GODS
7. BHIMA PLANS A DIGVIJAYA
8. A STRANGE ARRIVAL
9. AGRAPUJA TO SHREE KRISHNA
10. THE CHAKRA
11. THE PREDICTION
12. UNCLE VIDURA BRINGS A MESSAGE
13. A CHALLENGE TO THE MASTER’S PREDICTION
14. DRAUPADI PROTESTS
15. DURYODHANA MAKES A REQUEST
16. YUDHISHTHIRA SEEKS A FAVOUR
17. THE THRONE HALL
18. LET THE GAME BEGIN
19. SHAKUNI AT HIS BEST
20. WE HAVE WON
21. DRAUPADI IS DRAGGED INTO THE THRONE HALL
22. KRISHNA! KRISHNA! WHERE ARE YOU?
23. THE SUPREME MANDATE
24. TO THE FOREST
VOLUME VIII THE BOOK OF KURUKSHETRA
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
1. AGRAPUJA
2. THE CHALLENGE
3. THE NEW SHAPE OF DWARAKA
4. MAYAVATI
5. THROUGH THE DESERT
6. FACE TO FACE
7. THE MUGG FORT
8. THE PRISON OF ROSE BUDS
9. THE MANDATE
10. ON THE BATTLE-FIELD
11. SHALVA LAUGHS
12. PRABHAVATI MAKES UP HER MIND
13. THE MOTHER ARRIVES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
THE Emperor Shantanu of the powerful Bharatas, ruling from Hastinapur, had three sons-Devarata Gangeya (otherwise called Bhishma), who took a vow to remain a celibate and not to occupy his father's throne in Hastinapura; Chitrangada and Vichitraveerya, both of whom died young.
Vichitraveerya had two queens-Ambika and Ambalika. Ambika gave birth to a son named Dhritarashtra, and Ambalika gave birth to Pandu, who was in weak health.
According to the ancient canons, Dhritarashtra could not succeed to the throne because he was born blind. Pandu occupied the throne of Hastinapura for a short time. During his lifetime, his wives Kunti and Madri gave birth to five sons named Yudhishthira, Bhima and Arjuna, and Nakula and Sahadeva, who were twins.
When Pandu died, Madri joined him on the funeral pyre, entrusting her two sons to Kunti, who thus became the mother of the five sons, who came to be known as "Five Pandava Brothers".
Dhritarashtra had several sons, who came to be called "the Kauravas", the eldest of them was named Duryodhana and the next one Dushasana.
Satyavati, the dowager Empress of Shantanu, and Bhishma accepted the Five Brothers as the sons of Pandu; and Yudhishthira, being the eldest of them, was recognized as Crown Prince.
After Pandu's death, the venerable Mother, Satyavati, with the two Kashi princesses, Ambika, and Ambalika, on the advice of the Master, went to live at the Gautama ashram at Godhuli.[1]
Bhishma invited Dronacharya and his brother-in-law, Kripacharya, two experts in the art of war, to settle in Hastinapura to train the Five Brothers and the Kauravas, the sons of Dhritarashtra, in the heroic tradition of the Bharatas.
The Five Brothers were distinguished by their righteous outlook; they also became experts in the use of arms.
Yudhishthira was wise and sober. Bhima had a zest for life and was ready to fight any one. Arjuna came to be recognized as the supreme archer in Aryavarta. Nakula specialized in rearing and breeding horses, then the most powerful engines of war. Sahadeva acquired the gift of foresight.
Duryodhana's principal advisor was his maternal uncle, Shakuni. He also secured the support of Karna, believed to be low-born, a brilliant warrior and a supreme archer, known for his generosity and loyalty to his friends, the Kauravas.
Inspired by inveterate jealously, Duryodhana had a palace built of lac built at Varanavata, in which the Five Brothers and their mother, Kunti, were invited to stay during a festival. While they were there, the palace was set fire to by an agent of Duryodhana's. Vidura, the Minister, arranged for them to escape from the burning palace.[2]
Further, to avoid Duryodhana's murderous intentions, the Five Brothers and their mother, Kunti, sought refuge in the forest, where they met a community of Rakshasas. Bhima killed Hidimba, the Rakshasa chief, and married his sister Hidimbaa. He had a son by her named Ghatotkacha.[3]
Kunti, the adopted daughter of King Kuntibhoj, was the sister of Vasudeva, the father of Krishna.
Krishna was distinguished for his astuteness, learning and valour. He was a master in the art of war. He soon acquired the reputation of being the defender of dharma, and took the Five Brothers under his protection.
In a swayamvara, Draupadi, daughter of King Drupad of Panchala, was won by Arjuna. At the instance of their mother, Kuntl, and as advised by the Master, Veda Vyaasa, and Krishna, Draupadi was married to all the Five Brothers.[4]
With the Five Brothers allied to Drupad, the powerful King of Panchala, Dhritarashtra had no other alternative but to invite the Five Brothers to Hastinapura and install Yudhishthira as the Emperor of Hastinapura. However, in order to obviate a conflict between his sons and the Five Brothers, he advised the Five Brothers to go to the banks of the Yamuna and settle at Indraprastha, which had been a very ancient capital of the Kurus.[5]
Guided by the Master and with the active support of Krishna and King Drupad, the Five Brothers soon developed Indraprastha as a centre of power and dharma. Many people from Hastinapura and elsewhere also followed the Five Brothers to Indraprastha. After the city was founded, Yudhishthira was crowned King.
After the coronation, the Master returned to Dharmakshetra and Krishna to Dwaraka.
Krishna returned to Indraprastha when the Yadavas came to attend the wedding of Arjuna with Subhadra, the sister of Krishna. After the wedding, most of the Yadavas left Indraprastha, but Krishna, at the pressing request of the Five Brothers, continued to stay in Indraprastha with his followers. During this period, Krishna helped Arjuna to bum the forest of Khandava to secure more room for the growing population of Indraprastha.
The Five Brothers loved Krishna not only as a cousin, but as their saviour and guide, almost adoring him as a deity.
After some time, Krishna requested the Five Brothers to let him return to Dwaraka.
All the Five Brothers, with their family and the residents of Indraprastha, turned out to bid good-bye to him.
CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY
SRI KRISHNA:
Balarama - his elder brother;
Vasudeva - His father, Chief of the Shoora tribe of the Yadavas and brother of Kunti, the mother of the Five Brothers.
Devaki - His mother.
Rukmini, Shaibya, Satyabhama and Jambavanti - His wives.
Subhadra - His sister, married to Arjuna.
Uddhava, Yuyudhana Satyaki - His relations and friends.
KRISHNA DVAIPAAYANA VYASA:
-Son of Sage Paraashara by Satyavati and great-grand-son of the Vedic Rishi Vasishtha; the redactor of Vedas and the most revered Muni in Aryavarta, styled the "Master" or the "Best of Munis”
Vatika - His wife - daughter of Rishl Jabaali.
Sukadeva - His son.
Vidura - Principal Minister of Hastinapura and son of a maid-servant, begotten by Krishna Dvaipaayana V
yasa.
BHISHMA (Also Gangeya)
King Shantanu - His father, Emperor of Hastinapura, of the Kuru tribe.
Satyavati - His step-mother, the spouse of the Emperor Shantanu.
Chitrangada, Vichitraveerya - His step-brothers, Satyavati's sons.
Ambika, Ambalika - Vichitraveerya's wives; daughters of the King of Kashi.
PANDAVAS:
The Five Brothers.
Pandu - Son of Ambalika and King of Hastinapura.
Kunti - His wife, sister of Vasudeva, the father of Sri Krishna.
Madri - His wife, sister of Salya, the King of Madra.
Yudhishthira (also Dharmaputra),
Bhima, Arjuna - His sons by Kunti.
Nakula, Sahadeva - His twin sons by Madri.
KURUS:
Dhritarashtra – Blind son of Ambika and father of Duryodhana and others called the Kauravas.
Gandhari – His wife, daughter of King Sabal of Gandhara.
Shakuni - His brother-in-law (brother of Gandhari).
Duryodhana, Dushasana - His sons.
OTHERS:
Jarasandha – Emperor of Magadha
Sahadeva – His son.
Meghasandhi - His grandson
Dronacharya - A pupil of Parashurama and the teacher of the Pandavas and the Kauravas in the art of war.
Aswatthama – Dronacharya's son.
Kripacharya - Dronacharya's brother-in-law and teacher of military science.
KRISHNAVATARA
VOLUME V
THE BOOK OF YUDHISHTHIRA
1. YUDHISHTHIRA'S DILEMMA
It was a splendid farewell that was given to Krishna.
The whole of Indraprastha had gathered in the spacious grounds of the palace or had lined the streets of the city.
Acharya Dhaumya, the royal preceptor, with all the Srotriyas, stood in one of the lines of people, with rice-grains in his hands, ready to shower them on the departing guest by way of blessing.
Yudhishthira led Krishna to where the latter's chariot was waiting. Daruka, the charioteer, with the reins in his hand, was ready to let the impatient horses go as soon as his master took his seat in the chariot. All Krishna's arms had been kept in their proper positions in the chariot by Satyaki, his friend, who was however staying behind to take lessons in archery from Arjuna, the master-archer of Aryavarta.