The History of Antiquity, Vol. 4 (of 6). Duncker Max

but his heart was angered at the degrading thought that he was guiding the horses of a waggoner, and he guided them so that while Karna was fighting against Arjuna, and had wounded him with his arrows, the chariot sank in a marsh. As Karna sprang down in order to draw the chariot out, Arjuna, at Krishna's instigation, shot a deadly arrow into the hero's back. Then one hero of the Kurus fell after the other. On the eighteenth day of the struggle, Duryodhana and Bhima met. As two raging elephants goad each other for the possession of a female elephant, so did these princes meet with their battle-clubs, whirling round sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left, each seeking the unprotected part of his opponent, and brandishing his club in the air. Duryodhana has the advantage. He has retired before a stroke of Bhima's club, which has thus spent itself on the ground; seeing the unprotected state of his opponent, he has dealt him a mighty blow on the breast. Then, on Krishna's advice, Bhima dealt a blow at Duryodhana's thigh, broke the bone, and the two fell to the earth. The army of the Pandus shouted for joy, but Duryodhana spoke with his dying voice: "We have always fought honourably, and, therefore, the honour remains with us. You have won by craft and dishonour, and dishonour attends your victory. In honourable fight you would never have conquered us. In the garments of Çikhandin, Arjuna slew Bhishma when defenceless. To Drona ye cried in subtlety that his son was dead, and slew him as he dropped his arms. Karna, Arjuna slew by a shameful blow from behind; by dishonour Bhima brings me to the ground, for it is said, 'In battle with the club it is dishonourable to strike below the navel.'" Red with rage, Bhima stepped up to the king-lion who lay outstretched, with his club beside him, beat in his skull with his foot, and said: "We have not laid fire to burn our enemies, nor cheated them in the game, nor outraged their wives; by the strength of our arms alone we destroy our enemies." On the evening of the eighteenth day of the battle, all the brothers of Duryodhana, all the princes who fought for the Kurus, and all the warriors of the Kurus were dead. The victors blew their shells, called Yudishthira to the king, and obtained as booty numberless treasures in gold and silver, in precious stones, in cloths, skins, and slave-women. Then all is sunk in deep slumber. But three warriors of the army of the Kurus have escaped into the forest; Açvatthaman, the son of the slain Drona, Kritavarman and Kripa. Sorrow for his father made rest impossible for Açvatthaman; on the branches of the fig-tree under which he lay he saw a troop of crows asleep; an owl softly flew up and slew one crow after the other. Açvatthaman set out with his companions and penetrated into the camp of the Pandus. First he slays the brother of Draupadi who had killed his father; then he throws fire into the camp, and slays the five sons of Draupadi, and all the Matsyas and Panchalas. Then he hastens to the place where Duryodhana lies. "Thou art still living," he says to Duryodhana; "listen, then, to a word which will be pleasing to thine ear: all the Panchalas, all the Matsyas, all the sons of Draupadi are dead." Only the four brothers, the sons of Pandu, Krishna and his charioteer, escaped this nocturnal massacre.

      Then the dead were buried on the field of Kurukshetra: the sons of Pandu knelt before Dhritarashtra, and Vyasa reconciled the old king with the sons of his step-brother; but Gandhari cursed Krishna, who by his devices had brought her sons to death. Then the Pandus made their entrance into Hastinapura, and Yudishthira was consecrated king under the guidance of Krishna. He treated the old king as a son treats his father, but the latter could not forget the death of Duryodhana and his other sons: he went with Gandhari into the jungles on the Ganges, and with her he perished, when the jungle was set on fire. At Vyasa's command Yudishthira offered a sacrifice of horses, and then obtained the dominion over the whole earth. Following the course of the sacrificial horse (chap. VIII.) Arjuna conquered for him the Magadhas on the south bank of the Ganges, the Chedis, the Nishadas, the Saindhavas, i. e. the inhabitants of the Indus, and the Gandharas, beyond the Indus.142 Afterwards all the conquered kings presented themselves at this sacrifice of the horse in Hastinapura, and acknowledged Yudishthira as their lord. He sat on the throne of Hastinapura for 36 years, and then heard that the curse which Gandhari had pronounced upon Krishna was fulfilled. At a great festival of the Yadavas the reproach was made against Açvatthaman that he had basely slain the heroes in their sleep, after the great battle. Then there arose a strife among the princes of the Yadavas. They seized their weapons and mutually slaughtered each other. Distressed at the loss of his people Krishna retired into the wilderness, and there he was slain by the arrow of a hunter who took him for an antelope. The death of the hero to whom he owed his victory filled Yudishthira and his brothers with deep sorrow. On Vyasa's advice they determined to withdraw with Draupadi into the forest. All her sons had fallen in the great battle; but the wife of one (Abhimanyu), who was the daughter of the king of the Matsyas, had borne a son, Parikshit, after the death of her husband. When he had been consecrated at Hastinapura, the sons of Pandu went on a pilgrimage to the east, to the Himalayas, and beyond this to the holy mountain, Meru. Draupadi was the first to succumb, then Nakula and Sahadeva; last of all Arjuna and Bhima fell exhausted. Yudishthira climbed on, till Indra met him with his chariot, and carried him with his body to the imperishable world, the heaven of the heroes; there he would again behold his brothers and his wife, when their souls had been freed from the earthly impurity still adhering to them. For Bhima had trusted too much to his bodily power, and had eaten too much. Arjuna had loved battle too well, and had been too harsh against his enemies; Sahadeva was too proud of his wisdom, Nakula of his beauty; and Draupadi had loved Arjuna too dearly. But Parikshit reigned in Hastinapura 60 years. He died from the bite of a snake. Hence his son, Janamejaya, caused all the snakes to be burned in one great fire of sacrifice. On this occasion he asked Vyasa how the strife had arisen in old times between the Kurus and the Pandus, for Vyasa had been a witness: "I would hear from thee, Brahman, the story of the fortunes of the Kurus and Pandus." So the king concludes. Then Vyasa bids Vaiçampayana repeat the great poem which he had taught him. Janamejaya was succeeded by Çatanika, Açvamedhadatta, Asimakrishna, and Nichakra, in his sway over the Bharatas, Nichakra changed the place of residence from Hastinapura to Kauçambi lower down the Ganges. And after Nichakra 24 kings of the race of Pandu reigned over the Bharatas.

      No words are needed to point out the absurdity and recent origin of an arrangement which not only ascribes to Vyasa the reconciliation of the last Kurus with the Pandus, but also makes him the father of the progenitors of the two hostile houses of Dhritarashtra and Pandu, and the author of the great poem. The name Vyasa means collector, arranger; and if the arranger of the poem is also the father of the ancestors of the contending tribes, this expression can only mean, that poetry has invented the whole legend. But a more minute examination limits this interpretation to a naïve confession on the part of poetry, that she and not tradition has transferred the origin of the Pandus to the race of the Kurus, and has represented the progenitors of the hostile races as brothers.

      We can do no more than make hypotheses about the original contents of the poem on the great war. Against the Kurus, who, at the head of the Bharatas, maintained their supremacy on the upper course of the Yamuna and the Ganges, there rises in rebellion a younger race, the Pandus, who have risen into note among the Panchalas. The sons of Pandu receive in marriage the daughter of the king of the Panchalas, who are situated to the south of the Bharatas on the confluence of the Yamuna and the Ganges; and they are aided by the king of the Matsyas. It is Krishna, a hero of the Yadavas, to whom the Pandus owe their success in council and action. The Epos represents the Pandus as growing up in their childhood in the forest, and afterwards again making their home in the wilderness; they receive half of the kingdom of the Bharatas, and then lose it; and in their half they found Indraprastha to the west of Hastinapura on the Yamuna. From this we may conclude that the supremacy of the Bharatas established by the Kurus was resisted by the Panchalas and Matsyas and a part of the Yadavas – the Yadavas fight in the Epos partly for the Kurus and partly against them – and that a family among these nations, apparently a family of the Panchalas, succeeded in combining this resistance and establishing another kingdom, with Indraprastha as a centre, beside the kingdom of Hastinapura, from which they finally conquered the Bharatas. This struggle of the Panchalas and Matsyas against the Bharatas is the nucleus of the Epos. A tradition may lie at the base of the statement in the poems, that the nations of the East, the Madras, Koçalas, Videhas and Angas (in north-western Bengal), fight beside the Kurus against the Panchalas and Matsyas: at any rate it would be to the interest of the previous settlers on the Ganges to repel the advance of later immigrants. On the other hand, the Kaçis, in the region of the later Benares, may have fought against the Bharatas. However this may be, the race

142

Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 12 656, n. and 12 850.