Manu, having carried out the instructions of the fish in all its details, entered his ark and embarked upon the surging ocean. He thought of the fish, and it appeared with horns on its head, to which Manu fastened his vessel. A terrific tempest arose, in which the ark “reeled about like a drunken harlot.” Water covered everything, even the heavens and the firmament. For many years the fish towed the vessel through the flood, and at length conveyed it towards the highest peak of the Himavat (Himalayas) and instructed the occupants to moor their vessel to it. “Then the fish, addressing the associated Rishis, told them these words: ‘I am Brahma, the lord of all creatures; there is none greater than myself’. Assuming the shape of a fish I have saved ye from this cataclysm. Manu will create (again) all beings—gods, Asuras and men, and all those divisions of creation which have the power of locomotion and which have it not. By practising severe austerities he will acquire this power, and, with my blessing, illusion will have no power over him.” Manu, of course, underwent the necessary austerities, and recreated “all beings in proper and exact order.”
Such is the “Legend of the Fish,” and whosoever listens to it every day is assured of heaven.[82]
From this easy mode of reaching heaven,[83] as taught by the sage Markandeya, we turn to his exposition of the doctrine of Karma, which, if less comforting in respect to the means of attaining heavenly joys has, at least, something of philosophical plausibility to recommend it to our attention.
The divine sage, addressing Yudhisthira, explained to him that happiness is to be attained neither by learning, nor good morals, nor personal exertion. There is yet another and more important factor than all these to be reckoned with, and that is Karma. “If the fruits of our exertion,” says Markandeya, “were not dependent on anything else, people would attain the object of their desire by simply striving to attain it. It is sure that able, intelligent, and diligent persons are baffled in their efforts and do not attain the fruits of their actions. On the other hand, persons who are always active in injuring others, and in practising deception on the world, lead a happy life. There are some who attain prosperity without any exertion; and there are others who with the utmost exertion are unable to achieve their dues. Miserly persons with the object of having sons born to them worship the gods and practise severe austerities, and these sons ... at length turn out to be very infamous scions of their race; and others begotten under the same auspices, decently pass their lives in luxury, with hoards of riches and grain accumulated by their ancestors. The diseases from which men suffer are undoubtedly the result of their own Karma,” that is of their actions in previous and unremembered existences. “It is,” pursues Markandeya, “the immemorial tradition[84] that the soul is eternal and everlasting, but the corporeal frame of all creatures is subject to destruction here (below). When, therefore, life is extinguished the body only is destroyed, but the spirit, wedded to its actions, travels elsewhere.” It inhabits innumerable bodies in succession, it lives countless lives, it passes through the infernal regions, it attains to the heaven of the gods; and, after untold woes and infinite struggles, is eventually re-absorbed in the divine essence from which it sprang.[85]
Turning from these episodes and mystic speculations to the Pandavas themselves, we find that the ever-fair Draupadi having, by her perennial and faultless beauty, aroused the passions of Jayadratha, Rajah of Sindhu, was artfully carried off by him during the temporary absence of her husbands; but the ravisher was overtaken and suffered punishment at the hands of the ardent Bhima, who, after inflicting severe bodily chastisement upon the defeated Rajah, cut off his hair, all except five locks, and made him confess himself the slave of the Pandavas. At the request of Yudhisthira, backed by generous Draupadi, Jayadratha was released.
This abduction and rescue recalled to the mind of Markandeya the story of Rama and Sita, which he proceeded to relate, at considerable length, for the edification of the Pandavas. The sage also recounted the story of Savitri, more charming than that of Orpheus and Eurydice. How the lovely Savitri set her affections upon young Satyaván, the only son of the blind Dyumatsena, ex-king of the Salwas; how she learned from the lips of the celestial sage Narada, that the beautiful youth was fated to die within a year; how notwithstanding this secret knowledge she willingly linked her lot with his; and how, when the inevitable hour arrived, and the doom of fate was accomplished in the lonely forest, her austere piety and devoted love enabled her to follow Yama, on and on with fearless footsteps and touching entreaties, as he conveyed away her dear husband’s spirit to the Land of Shades, and at last to prevail upon the dread deity to restore to her the soul of her Satyaván.
“Adieu, great God!” She took the soul,
No bigger than the human thumb,
And running swift, soon reached her goal,
Where lay the body stark and dumb.
She lifted it with eager hands
And as before, when he expired,
She placed the head upon the bands
That bound her breast, which hope new fired,
And which alternate rose and fell;
Then placed his soul upon his heart,
Whence like a bee it found its cell,
And lo, he woke with sudden start!
His breath came low at first, then deep,
With an unquiet look he gazed,
As one awaking from a sleep,
Wholly “bewildered and amazed.”[86]
Of the doings of the Kauravas, during the twelve years that we have been following the fortunes of their cousins, little is recorded, and that little is not to their credit. Knowing full well where the Pandavas were passing their term of exile in the forests, Duryodhana, upon the advice of Karna, went thither in great state with a view of meanly feasting his eyes upon the wretchedness of his hated kinsmen, and of intensifying their misery by the cruel contrast between his own grandeur and their destitution. This was the real, if unworthy, motive of the journey to the forest of Kamyaka; the alleged reason was to inspect the royal cattle-stations in order to count the stock and mark the calves.[87] Attended by his courtiers, by thousands of ladies belonging to the royal household, and by a great army of followers and soldiers, Duryodhana proceeded towards the sylvan abode of the Pandavas; but his advance guard was refused admission into the forests by the Gandharvas, whose king had come with his celestial hosts and several tribes of Apsaras to have a merry time in those woods. As neither party would abate a jot of its pretensions, a terrible battle ensued, resulting in the complete defeat of the Kauravas, the ignominious flight of the redoubtable Karna, and the capture, by the victorious enemy, of Duryodhana himself, his court, and all his harem.
In this extremity the beaten followers of the captive king fled for help to the Pandavas. For the sake of the honour of the family, and particularly for the protection of the ladies of their house, Arjuna and Bhima, with the twins came, by the magnanimous command of Yudhisthira, to the rescue of their kinsmen; and, after performing feats of war which none but an Indian poet could imagine, obtained the release of the crestfallen Duryodhana, whose bitterness against his cousins was only increased by this humiliating and never-to-be-forgotten incident.
Stung to the quick by the intolerable mortification of his position, Duryodhana, in despair, resolved to give up his kingdom and his life. To the remonstrances of his friends, he answered: “I have nothing more to do with virtue, wealth, friendship, affluence, sovereignty and enjoyment. Do not obstruct my purpose, but leave me, all of you. I am firmly resolved to cast away my life by foregoing food. Return to the city and treat my superiors there respectfully.” He might have fallen upon his own sword; but the Hindu hero elects to die otherwise. “And the son of Dhritarashtra, in accordance with his purpose, spread kuça grass on the earth, and purifying himself by touching water sat down upon that spot. And, clad in rags and kuça grass, he set himself to observe the highest vow. And stopping all speech, that tiger among kings, moved by the desire of going to heaven, began to pray and worship internally, suspending all external intercourse.”