Following the advice of the sage Vyasa, Arjuna visited the Himalayas in order to gain the favour of Siva, and to obtain from him certain most potent celestial weapons for the destruction of the Kauravas, of whom the Pandava heroes seem, notwithstanding their own wonderful fighting qualities, to have had a wholesome dread. Having arrived upon the sacred mountains, Arjuna went through a course of austerities “with arms upraised, leaning upon nothing and standing on the tips of his toes.” For food he at first had withered leaves, but eventually he fed on air alone. Such was the fervour of his penances that the earth around him began to smoke, and the alarmed Rishis came in a body to Siva, and asked him to interfere. The chief of all the gods sent them away with comforting assurances and, having assumed the appearance of a Kiráta, or low-class hunter, came upon Arjuna and provoked him to an encounter. The battle was fierce, culminating in a desperate personal struggle; but where one of the combatants was the Supreme Being the issue could not be doubtful, and Arjuna fell smitten senseless by the god. He soon recovered consciousness, and “mentally prostrating himself before the gracious god of gods, and making a clay image of that deity, he worshipped it with offerings of floral garlands.”[77] To his surprise he found the garland he had offered to the clay image adorning the head of his victorious enemy, the Kiráta, who thus revealed himself to the much-relieved son of Pandu. Arjuna prostrated himself before the deity, who expressed his approval of his worshipper, and presently bestowed upon him the gift of a terrible celestial weapon, called the Pácupata, with instructions in regard to the appropriate mantras or spells to be used with it. At that moment the whole earth, with its mountains, plains, and rivers, trembled with excitement, a terrible hurricane expressed the concern of nature in the important event, and the “terrible weapon in its embodied form” stood by the side of Arjuna ready to obey his behests. When Siva had vanished from sight, the guardians of the four regions (lokapalah) Kuvera, Varuna, Yama, and Indra appeared in great splendour upon the mountain top, and presented Arjuna with other celestial weapons; after which he was carried in a wondrous car to the heaven of his real father, the god Indra. It was a glorious and delightful region, lighted with its own inherent brilliancy, adorned with flowers of every season, fanned by fragrant breezes and resounding with celestial music. Here there were bands of lovely Apsaras and Gandharvas, who gladdened all hearts with their ravishing songs and dances. It was a region for the virtuous alone, and not for those “who had turned their back on the field of battle.”
In this delightful place Arjuna passed five years of his life, treated with the highest honour and consideration, learning the use of the various celestial weapons with which he was eventually to overthrow those redoubtable champions, Kripa and Drona, Bhisma and Karna. Nor were lighter studies neglected. Arjuna, under a competent instructor, became proficient in the arts of music and dancing.
That he might be made “to taste the joys of heaven,” properly, the lovely Apsara,[78] Urvasi, of wide hips, crisp soft hair, beautiful eyes and full bosom, was specially commanded to make herself agreeable to Arjuna. Her sensual beauty, described in some detail by the poet, failed, however, to subdue the hero, who met her amatory advances with a somewhat exaggerated respect, which so enraged the fair temptress that she cursed him, saying: “Since thou disregardest a woman come to thy mansion at the command of thy father and of her own motion—a woman, besides, who is pierced by the shafts of Kama,—therefore, O Partha, thou shalt have to pass thy time among females, unregarded, and as a dancer and destitute of manhood.”
While Arjuna was in the heaven of Indra, King Yudhisthira passed some time in the forest of Kamyaka, in company with his three younger brothers and Draupadi, attended by his family priest, Dhaumya, and a number of faithful Brahmans. Here he learned, from an illustrious Rishi, Vrihadaçwa, “the science of dice in its entirety,” ignorance of which science had cost him so dear. After a while the party set out on a pilgrimage to visit and bathe in those tirthas, or sacred waters, which abound all over India to this day. Each tirtha is famous for some event in the history of the gods or the saints of the lands, and the water of each one has a virtue of its own. A dip in one cleanses the bather from all his sins, a dip in another confers upon him the merit of having bestowed a thousand kine upon the Brahmans, or, perhaps, that of having performed a horse-sacrifice. By a plunge in a third tirtha the pilgrim acquires the power of disappearance at will, or some other coveted power; while ablution in the water of a fourth places the heaven of Indra, or of some other god, within his reach. It is evident that by making a round of these tirthas a man might acquire superhuman power and the highest felicity in this and a future life.
Journeying leisurely from tirtha to tirtha, from the Punjab to the Southern Sea, under the guidance of the sage Lomaça, King Yudhisthira, with the others, pleasantly acquired an enormous store of merits of various kinds. But, anxious for reunion with Arjuna, they wended their way back to the North, visiting the tirthas on their route, till they found themselves in the Himalayas. Pushing into the sacred solitude of these giant mountains they met with many adventures, in which Bhima’s son, Ghatotkacha, was very helpful to them. At last, from a lofty summit, these fortunate travellers got a glimpse of the abode of Kuvera, the god of wealth, “adorned with golden and crystal palaces, surrounded on all sides by golden walls having the splendour of all gems, furnished with gardens all around, higher than a mountain peak, beautiful with ramparts and towers, and adorned with doorways and gates and rows of pennons. And the abode was graced with dallying damsels dancing around, and also with pennons wafted by the breeze.... And gladdening all creatures, there was blowing a breeze, carrying all perfumes, and of balmy feel. And there were various beautiful and wonderful trees of diverse hues, resounding with diverse dulcet notes.”
Kuvera came out to meet the Pandavas, and after some excellent advice to Yudhisthira, in which he pointed out to the king that success in human affairs depended upon “patience, ability (appropriate), time and place and prowess,” requested them to retire to a somewhat less elevated position on the mountains, and there await the return of their brother. And it came to pass that one day, while they were thinking of Arjuna, a blazing chariot driven by Indra’s charioteer, Matali, filled the sky with its brilliancy and, stopping near them, their long-absent brother descended from it, in a resplendent form, adorned with a diadem and celestial garlands. He paid his respects, in due form, first to the family priest and then to Bhima; after that he received the salutations of his younger brothers; he next cheered his beloved Krishná by his presence, and finally stood, in an attitude of humility, before the king. The Pandavas worshipped Matali as if he were Indra himself, and then “duly inquired of him after the health of all the gods.” At dawn next day Indra himself, attended by hosts of Gandharvas and Apsaras, visited the Pandavas and, having received their adoration, and having assured Yudhisthira that he would yet rule the earth, desired him to go back to Kamyaka, whereupon the Pandavas, of course, commenced their return journey.
Arjuna, restored to the companionship of his brothers, related to them some of his adventures during the five years of his absence, and dwelt in some detail upon the successful destruction of certain Danavas, named Nivata-Kavachas, which he had carried out single-handed. These were ancient and powerful enemies of Indra, dwellers in the womb of the ocean, and numbering thirty millions.[79] Against these puissant demons Arjuna was sent in Indra’s chariot, driven by Matali; and, after prodigies of valour and the most marvellous performances with the celestial weapons which he had received from the gods, he completely overthrew them and destroyed their wonderful aërial city, Hiranyapura. Shortly after these events Krishna came on a visit to his friends, and they were also joined by the sage Markandeya, who lightened the tedium of their wanderings with interesting narratives of past events, and profitable discourses on important religious and philosophical subjects. How competent he was for such a task will be readily admitted, when we learn from himself that he, and he alone, of the race of men or created beings, was privileged to see the entire universe run its cycle of changes through the four appointed Yugas or ages; to watch it undergo gradual degeneracy and decay; and, finally, to witness its total destruction by fire,—with all animated beings, even gods and demons,—only to be recreated again in order to run its appointed course through the ages once more.[80]
Markandeya relates to the Pandavas the whole story of the “Ramayana” and many another legend of the olden time. Let me here reproduce his story of the flood, as it has an interest not confined to India or Hindus, and also his explanation of the doctrine of Karma, of which we are beginning to hear so much in these days.
Markandeya’s Account of the Universal Deluge.—There was once a powerful and great Rishi, named Manu, who “was equal unto Brahma in glory.” For ten thousand years he practised the severest austerities in the forest, standing on one leg with uplifted hand and bowed head. One day as he was undergoing his self-inflicted penance, with matted locks and dripping garments, a little fish, approaching the bank of the stream near which the Rishi stood, entreated his protection against the cruel voracity of the bigger fishes; “for,” said the little suppliant, “this fixed custom is well established among us, that the strong fish always prey upon the weak ones.” The sage, touched with compassion, took the little fish out of the river, and put it for safety into an earthen vessel of water, and tended it carefully. In its new home it grew apace and, at its own request, was removed to a tank. Here its dimensions increased so wonderfully that “although the tank was two yojanas in length and one yojana in width,” there was not sufficient room in it for the fish, who again appealed to Manu, asking him to place it in the Ganges, “the favourite spouse of the ocean.” Gigantic as the fish was, the wonderful Rishi put it into the river with his own hands; but the Ganges itself was too small for this monster of the waters, and the Muni carried it to the sea-shore and consigned it to the bosom of the mighty ocean.
“And when it was thrown into the sea by Manu, it said these words to him with a smile:[81] ‘O adorable being thou hast protected me with special care; do thou now listen to me as to what thou shouldst do in the fulness of time! O fortunate and worshipful sir, the dissolution of this mobile and immobile world is nigh at hand. The time for the purging of this world is now ripe. Therefore do I now explain what is well for thee. The mobile and the immobile divisions of the creation, those that have the power of locomotion and those that have it not, of all these the terrible doom hath now approached. Thou shalt build a strong and massive ark, and have it furnished with a long rope. On that must thou ascend, O great Muni, with the seven Rishis, and take with thee all the different seeds which were enumerated by regenerate Brahmans in days of yore, and separately and carefully must thou preserve them therein. And whilst there, O beloved of the Munis, thou shalt wait for me, and I shall appear to thee like a horned animal, and thus, O ascetic, shalt thou recognize me.’”