Dūta-vākya continued ...
War was inevitable; Bhīṣma sleeps on a bed of arrows; the first ten days of the war was led by Bhīṣma. On the eleventh day, Droṇa was anointed as the commander-in-chief of the armies. On the thirteenth day, when Arjuna was away fighting the Samaśaptakas, Abhimanyu, Bhīma and others made their way into the Padma-vyūha and fought many ati-rathas and mahā-rathas. Abhimanyu valorously fought his enemies and attained vīra-svarga. The deeds of this courageous lad are the central theme of the Droṇa-parva. Droṇa’s bravery and Aśvatthāmā’s arrogance are of secondary importance in comparison with the deeds of the lad. Bhāsa has captured this essence of Droṇa- and Bhīṣma-parvas in his Dūta-ghaṭotkaca. Abhimanyu is dead right at the beginning of the play. Dhṛtarāṣtra learns the manner in which the lad was killed and weeps for him; he laments the killing of the offspring of his lineage. Arjuna pledges that he will kill Saindhava before Sunset the following day, and Ghaṭotkaca informs the Kauravas of this development. These are elaborately described in the play. Dhṛtarāṣtra is pictured to have possessed lalita-gaṃbhīrākṛti, i.e., a pleasant but dignified demeanour; his personality went well with his appearance. He had immense devotion towards Śrī-kṛṣṇa; he received Kṛṣṇa’s message as a great prasāda. We know Ghaṭotkaca from the Madhyama-vyāyoga, but he is a little older here. He possesses the same kind of affection towards his father and is valorous as well. He does not care for Duryodhana or Duśśāsana and fights them like death incarnate. He calms down out of his respect for Dhṛtarāṣtra. He finally leaves them with the message, “By Sunrise tomorrow, your Yama will appear in the form of Pāṇḍava…”
Arjuna’s oath is fulfilled thanks to Kṛṣṇa’s grace and guidance. Ghaṭotkaca ends up dying due to Kṛṣṇa’s strategy and thereby gives the years of his life to Arjuna. Droṇa attains svarga. Aśvatthāmā’s anger cools down. On the sixteenth day, Karṇa enters the battlefield with Śalya as his charioteer. The war begins. In Bhāsa’s portrayal, Karṇa is not merely older than the Pāṇḍavas by age but is also superior to them in skill and good qualities. The play is filled with the noble qualities of Karṇa. As he did not have the support of the divine, his good qualities became detrimental to his life. The Pāṇḍavas survived. Karṇa’s valour and generosity killed him – Bhāsa portrays this in Karṇa-bhāra.
The minds of the connoisseur are not pulled towards the strategies of Kṛṣṇa or Arjuna as neither appears on the stage as a character. The play is full of Karṇa. Śalya is his charioteer and Indra appears in the form of a brāhmaṇa who seeks alms. The plot does not capture Karṇa’s death nor does it discuss the nature of dharma and adharma there. We only see him rushing towards Arjuna on the battlefield just as a comet emerges out of a sky lit with stars; we don’t see the comet losing its power and dissolving into the earth. Although Bhāsa does not mind showing the death of Daśaratha and Duryodhana on the stage, he does not seem to prefer to show the death of Abhimanyu, Ghaṭotkaca, Karṇa, and other valarous warriors; Karṇa possessed all the skills that a kṣattriya is naturally endowed with; he excelled in them. It seems as if the excess of these qualities and the lack of support of the Divine took his life; his life is full of sorrow and tragedy. The poet tests the two aspects against the touchstone of the Kurukṣetra war and reveals to us only a couple of streaks. It is left to us to make an estimate of the two qualities by looking at the colours left by the streaks on the touchstone.
By the time Karṇa fought the Mahābhārata war, his life had already been sucked by Paraśurāma, Kuntī, and Indra. He was only left with his karṇa-kuṇḍalas on his ears and the amṛta-kalaśa in his heart. These are taken away towards the end by Kṛṣṇa, and Karṇa becomes the target of Arjuna’s arrow; he finally gives up his life. It is quite possible that Bhāsa was a devotee of Bhagavān Viṣṇu – the maṅgala-ślokas of the plays are dedicated to Viṣṇu. Therefore, in his plays, Bhāsa has made Indra ask Karṇa for the kavaca and kuṇḍala; he does not make Kṛṣṇa be the cause for the tearing open of Karṇa’s chest to extract the amṛta-kalaśa.
Karṇa reached the vīra-svarga and his own generosity turned to be a curse upon him. Śalya, who was his charioteer took up the post of the commander-in-chief on the eighteenth day of the war. Neither Bhīma nor Arjuna had to participate to vanquish Śalya; Dharmarāja did the job all by himself. The eighteen-day war turned the battlefield of Kurukṣetra into a graveyard – the eighteen akṣauhiṇīs lost their lives. On the side of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, only Duryodhana survived and on the side of Yudhiṣṭhira, the Pāṇḍavas and Janārdana survived. Still, Bhīma’s vow would not be fulfilled until Duryodhana died and the war would not see its end. It was thus inevitable for Duryodhana to fight; though he had no energy left in him, he was dragged to the battlefield by the Pāṇḍavas. Though he was weak, he single-handedly fought Bhīma with his gadā. This is the summary of Śalya-parva. The poet has not included the segments which capture Śalya’s death and Duryodhana, who was hiding in the lake. The combat on the maces is captured in the viṣkambha of the play and becomes the subject of the Ūru-bhaṅga.
To be continued ...
The current series of articles is an enlarged adaption of Prof. A. R. Krishnasastri's Kannada treatise Saṃskṛta-nāṭaka. They are presented along with additional information and footnotes by Arjun Bharadwaj.
