to have my loyal soldiers massacred
like helpless insects. Furthermore, Arjuna—
our only match for Bhishma, with his command
of celestial weapons—is not fighting
with genuine conviction. He saw our troops
attacked by Bhishma earlier, but did nothing.
Only Bhima fought with his whole heart
like a true kshatriya. Life is too precious
to be squandered in the dust like this.
I shall surrender, embrace a forest life!”
“Son of Kunti, you should not despair,”
said Krishna, “when so many noble princes,
allies and kinsmen, are committed to you.
Dhrishtadyumna is more than capable
as supreme commander; and Shikhandin
will certainly be the cause of Bhishma’s death.
Time has decreed it.” Krishna’s calm confidence
allayed Yudhishthira’s despondency.
Meanwhile, out on the darkened battlefield,
wounded men, located by their groans,
were carried to camp, where surgeons tended them.
Men were running to and fro, collecting
arrows and other weapons, stripping corpses
of their armor and accoutrements
to be used again. It was bloody work.
Lowborn men, whose task it was to handle
the dead, piled their carts high with bodies,
hundreds upon hundreds, some still warm,
some stiff and cold, in indiscriminate death.
They tipped them onto funerary pyres,
doused them with oil and set fire to them.
Smoke rose for hours, sullying the moon.
Throughout the night they worked. Sometimes jackals
had been there first and, as dawn approached,
crows and vultures jostled in the trees.
The workers rattled pans to scare them off.
They flapped up briefly, with complaining cries,
then settled back to their lugubrious watch.
In Yama’s realm, the shades of brave warriors
were opening their eyes on another world.
34.
BHISHMA IN COMMAND
Sanjaya went on:
For a while, on the first day of battle,
the fighting had been fairly orderly
in accordance with the covenant
agreed between the sides. But very soon
rules were forgotten in the mad excitement,
the joyful surge of blood-lust, and the desperate
struggle to survive. When a leader’s standard
had been cut down, or toppled, the foot soldiers
ran around like a scattered flock of geese
wildly searching for their own battalion.
Like the men, the elephants and horses
had been trained for battle. But reality,
in its terror, wiped out what they had learned.
Often they were maddened and confused.
Elephants worked well when their driver
remained in charge. But if he was wounded
and fell, then the animal was inclined
to stampede, doing enormous harm.
Day two went better for the Pandavas.
Their troops were deployed in a wide formation
resembling a crane, with wings outspread,
banners, like feathers, brilliant in the sun.
Bhishma, at the head of the Kauravas,
advanced on the Pandavas, pelting them
with streams of arrows from his mighty bow,
and soon the field was littered with the dead
and dying. But Arjuna and Krishna
rushed to confront the patriarch, and soon
cut a great swath through the Kauravas
as a violent storm flattens a field of grain,
such that Duryodhana became dismayed.
“Grandfather, I hope you have not forgotten
that it’s only on account of your contempt
that Karna is not here, fighting with us,
instead of idly burnishing his bow.
So you had better see that Arjuna
does not survive the day!”
The patriarch
well knew that Arjuna was unbeatable.
But, as he had to, he attacked the Pandava,
drawing on his preternatural prowess.
Arjuna matched his onslaught shaft for shaft,
blow for vicious blow, while all around them
soldiers fell, animals screamed and died.
When the sun set on a bloody day,
Bhishma pulled his troops back for the night.
Sanjaya said:
On the third day, Bhishma arranged his army
Drona and Kritavarman the two eyes,
the mass of troops the body and outstretched wings.
The Pandavas, arrayed in a half-moon,
vast and curving, marched steadily to meet them.
Arjuna was at the left horn, Bhima
at the right; and, between them, other generals,
each standing on his splendid four-horse chariot,
riding in the vanguard of his troops:
Yudhishthira, protected by elephants,
Virata, Drupada, Dhristadyumna,
the five sons of Draupadi, and Satyaki
(never yet defeated in single combat).
Ghatotkacha, Bhima’s half-ogre son,
and other staunch allies of the Pandavas,
advanced in glittering armor, bright-hued banners
fluttering proudly above their chariots.
Like the meeting of two walls of water
rearing upward from the ocean bed,
driven by unseen forces underground,
the armies clashed and mingled with each other;
the noise of conches, drums, the marching feet
and battle cries, were enough to drown the senses
and make men mad. Earlier, back at camp,
each man had known himself a human being
with plans and passions, memories, preferences.
Now he only knew he was an atom
in a vast organism, carried forward
by the collective energy of the mass.
No place for initiative at this moment,
no room for escape. He was fired up,
seized by a frenzy larger than himself
and with a passionate desire for glory.
Dust swirled and billowed, blotting out the sun.
Men struggled to keep their bearings, to make out
which were their leaders, comrades, countrymen,
shouting names they hoped would bring an answer,
straining to catch sight of familiar standards
while, all around, tripping them, blocking them,
dead and dying men and animals
bled into the already slushy ground.
Through gashed skin the blood came spurting, leaping,
on its mending mission; blood to fill
the impossible gap, the violent breach
in the body’s confident integrity;
the breach that let death enter, the spirit fly.
The great chariot warriors, well matched,
each supported by close-knit divisions,
showered each other with bright streams of arrows.
Bhishma and Drona engaged Dhrishtadyumna
and Yudhishthira in savage battle.
The Kaurava troops, getting the worst of it,
flew away in all directions, Bhishma
powerless to stop them. Duryodhana,
for whom any reverse seemed like betrayal,
reproached Bhishma harshly: “You and Drona
are allowing my army to be slaughtered
by the Pandavas. If I had known
you would be soft on them, Karna and I
would hav
e devised a different strategy!”
Bhishma rolled his eyes to heaven in fury
and despair. “How often have I told you
that Arjuna and Krishna are invincible?
We are doing everything we can—I vow,
in front of all your kinsmen, that today
I shall hold at bay the sons of Pandu!”
At this, Duryodhana was mollified.
Bhima and Duryodhana, old enemies,
pitted themselves fiercely against each other
until Bhima, smiling wrathfully,
hurled a heavy lance with enormous force
denting the breastplate of the Kaurava
so that he sank back, fainting, in his chariot,
and was driven rapidly away.
His troops, seeing him retreat, defeated,
scattered in fear, Bhima pursuing them
with a joyful roar, killing hundreds.
Meanwhile, Bhishma, faithful to his vow,
was tearing apart Pandava divisions
like a tiger savaging its prey.
The sound of men and animals collapsing
in their armor was like an avalanche
of rocks clattering down a mountainside.
Only one Pandava was capable
of withstanding so terrible an assault.
Arjuna hated to fight the patriarch
who had loved and nurtured him from childhood.
But Krishna urged him forward, whipping up
the spirited white horses.
That was combat
Each warrior released a spate of arrows
which the other shot down with his own.
Arjuna was holding something back
although he fought with great skill and panache,
causing Bhishma to shout in admiration.
But Bhishma had made a vow, and he inflicted
such dreadful damage on the Pandava troops
that Krishna was in despair, seeing clearly
that, at this rate, a Pandava defeat
was certain. He raised his divine weapon,
his discus, Sudarshana, flung down the reins
and, though he had undertaken not to fight,
he ran toward the patriarch.
Bhishma cried,
“I welcome you, lord of the universe.
What better fate than to be killed by you?
I shall be honored in all the three worlds!”
Krishna exclaimed, “It is your wrong action
that is at the root of this murderous war.
You should have prevailed on Dhritarashtra
to curb his son.”
“Krishna, I tried,” said Bhishma.
“Let destiny take its course.”
As Krishna raised
the lethal Sudarshana to fling it,
Arjuna tore across and seized his arms.
Krishna broke free, energized by rage,
but Arjuna knocked his feet from under him
and brought him down. They glared at one another.
“Krishna, you shall not do this! It is I
who am pledged to crush the Kauravas.
You are my charioteer—that was agreed.
I will stretch every nerve to keep my word.”
At this, Krishna’s fury was appeased.
He mounted the chariot.
Battle recommenced
with its cacophony, so appalling
that kites and vultures seeing, smelling flesh
were nonetheless driven to a distance
yet, then, forgetting, greedy, circled back
to hover for a time above the field.
Arjuna, lit up by new resolve,
blazed into action. His bow Gandiva
thrummed like thunder, shaking the very heavens.
Like a dense swarm of locusts, outstripping
the fastest wind, the Terrifier’s arrows
tore into the heart of the enemy,
and none was wasted; each one found its mark.
Whatever lance or javelin or arrows
were directed at him, he intercepted
and shattered with his own unerring shafts.
Nothing Bhishma or the other Kauravas
flung at him succeeded in its aim.
He, on the other hand, devastated
the enemy. With the setting sun
about to mark an end to the day’s battle,
he took the powerful Mahendra weapon,
invoked its power with the proper mantras,
drew back his bowstring to its full extent
and let Mahendra fly above the field
where it rained down showers of flaming arrows,
scorching the enemy. Those arrows stripped
men’s armor from them, piercing heart and head,
or melted it on their backs, so that they died
in agonizing pain.
“Enough! Enough!”
screamed the Kauravas. As the sun went down
on that day’s victory for the Pandavas,
Duryodhana’s men dragged themselves wearily
back to their camp, exhausted and downhearted.
Sanjaya continued:
The fourth day of the war. The Kauravas
moved forward in a formidable array.
Elephants were adorned with dazzling cloths
in festive colors, as if this were a day
of celebration. Bhishma rode in front,
his own brilliant banner flying high.
But hearts quailed when they saw the Pandavas
marching toward them, led by Arjuna.
Their army was arranged in a vast crescent,
as the day before; four thousand elephants
on each flank, packed shoulder to shoulder,
advanced like the approach of doom itself.
Bhima was the hero of that day.
Determined to engage with Duryodhana,
Wolf-belly launched himself among the enemy,
mace whirling, roaring like a man possessed.
Alhough the Kauravas were well equipped
and organized, advancing like massed storm clouds,
Bhima, a hulking one-man war machine,
rolled on, relentless, with great loss of life.
Among the several hundred infantry
he sent to Yama’s realm with his deadly mace
were fourteen of Duryodhana’s brothers.
Abhimanyu and the sons of Draupadi
supported him, as he wiped out an entire
elephant division, inexorable
as death personified, his mace swinging,
dripping with blood and flesh. The dead animals
looked like a range of hills, and their riders
lay slumped over their necks, like fallen trees.
Meanwhile Dhrishtadyumna, Satyaki
and Ghatotkacha killed tough adversaries.
Then Duryodhana rallied his divisions
to attack Wolf-belly, and succeeded
in smashing him into unconsciousness.
Seeing this, the powerful Ghatotkacha
flew to his father’s aid, wild with fury.
Master of sorcery, he took the form
of a monster, riding a giant elephant.
He engaged with Bhagadatta; and Bhishma,
seeing that Bhagadatta was struggling,
called a halt for the day. The Pandavas
surged back to their camp in exultation.
Dhritarashtra sighed. “Oh, Sanjaya,
you tell me constantly about the Pandavas,
how splendid their skill, how immense their courage,
etcetera, etcetera—how is it
that you never give me a grain of comfort,
never speak of my poor son’s success?
Is there no end to the sorrow I must bear?
I feel as if I’m foundering in an ocean
with only my two arms to
bear me up.”
“Your memory is selective, majesty.
But it is true that you will have to hear
the dire consequences, as they unravel,
of your weakness, greed and faulty judgment.”
Dhritarashtra was pacing up and down,
restless and fearful. At last he burst out,
“The Pandavas are indulged by the gods—
luck favors them, or perhaps it is some trick.
We have always been unfortunate.”
“Not luck, not tricks,” said Sanjaya, “but virtue
favors them. Simply—they are in the right.
Your sons are sinful; and victory favors
the righteous.
“Now I shall describe to you
how the war continued. But, out of pity,
I shall spare you some of the worst details.
As the relentless killing goes on and on,
day after day, I shall conjure for you
only the main events—though I could make you
listen to stories of such suffering
as would detain us for a hundred years
and still there would be more to tell, and hear.
Think of all time’s patient increments
that go to make a single human life;
and think about the casual waste of it—
that, O king, multiplied by millions,
is what your fatal failures have achieved.”
Duryodhana, grieving for his brothers,
went to Bhishma. “How can this have happened?
You, Drona . . . so many great warriors,
well armed, well prepared, are fighting with us—
your joint prowess is unparalleled.
Yet the Pandavas ride all over us.
Explain all this to me.”
“What is the point,”
said Bhishma, “of explaining it to you
when I have tried so very often before?
For the final time—it will be impossible
for you to overcome the Pandavas
while Krishna Vasudeva is their guide.
He is Narayana, lord of the universe,
born in human form to protect the earth,
to rid it of its demon infestation;
and Nara, his companion, is Arjuna.”
Bhishma told Duryodhana the story
of how, once, in a meeting of the gods,
Brahma had begged the supreme lord, Vishnu,
to take birth in the human world, to save it
from the demons who were oppressing it.
Vishnu consented, and was born as Krishna,
Yadava prince. And Bhishma recited
an ancient hymn of praise to the supreme lord.
Duryodhana began to feel a deepening
respect for Krishna and for the Pandavas.
Bhishma went on, “He blesses his devotees.