The Queens of Hastinapur

By Sharath Komarraju

'They can claim to know her because she is unknowable. They see her form because she is formless. They speak her words because she never utters a word.'This is the story of Ganga, Madri, Pritha and Gandhari: powerful women who, driven by their fears and ambitions, trigger events that lead to an epic war, propelling kings, princes and warriors towards glory and bloodshed, sin and redemption. Here is a retelling of the Mahabharata through the eyes of its female characters, for what came to an end at Kurukshetra took root in throne rooms and bed chambers; hermitages and sacred lakes; prisons and shrines; on horseback and under the stars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins India
• Release date: Oct 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9789352773145

Sharath Komarraju

Sharath Komarraju is an author of fiction and non-fiction based in Bangalore, India. He is best known for his Hastinapur series.

Book preview

BOOK ONE

INTERVENTION

PROLOGUE

GANGA SPEAKS

T

he bare White Rock against which I sit, which rises up to touch the clouds, breathes a chilling current of air down my back. My hooded black cloak – once all that I needed to protect me from the elements – is now damp, its coarse cotton giving way at the seams under the arms. A gust of wind runs up the mountain, turns Yudhisthir’s lifeless body a darker shade of blue, and nibbles at my shrivelled white hair.

I have been speaking for long, now, yet the tale of the great war is but at its very beginning. My body withers with each passing moment, and soon I shall lie down next to Hastinapur’s High King and shut my eyes. But before that, I must make certain that the entire song passes my lips, for if the light once departs my body, the story of the Meru people and the battle of Kurukshetra shall forever remain untold.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone hears me here, for I see no bird or bee or flower or tree – just the falling snow and the endless grey of the overhead skies. Perhaps all that I say here is in vain; perhaps my voice speaks just to the lifeless crags among which the Pandavas lie dead; perhaps even if I were to trick death long enough to narrate my tale, it shall never be uncovered.

If that is so, perhaps it is best that I lie down right now, and surrender to the weight of my eyelids …

I lean forward on my seat to feel Yudhisthir’s battle-hardened palm; even after all those years of peace, his hands bear the marks of war. With the sleeve of my cloak I clean the sleet off his hand, and to my utter surprise I sense his fingers tremble slightly, and then they wrap as one around mine. I watch the rest of his body for other signs of life, but there are none. His lips had already blackened, as though they had been dipped in the venom of hell. His eyelashes are freckled with ice.

But his trembling touch has given me my answer. Even if my listeners are lifeless rocks, I must go on. Even if my words are destined to lay forever buried under carpets of snow, I must go on. Even if they freeze in this air for a while, I must believe there will come a time – in the far future, perhaps – when summer arrives and melts them into life once again. Even when I see no hope, I must find some, deep within me.

So I hold on to Yudhisthir’s hand and will myself to resume.

The hands of man yearn to grasp. His fingertips are born with the innate knowledge that they must curl around whatever they touch. To sate his hunger he kneads the nipples of his mother. As he begins to move about on all fours, he reaches for objects that catch his eye; he touches, he feels, and those that he likes, he clutches to his bosom. When he learns to walk, he holds the hand of his elder for support; when he is old enough to love, he sends out his fingers again, eager, groping, into the dark in desperate hope. He makes food for himself by guiding the path of the plough, and he makes the plough itself by felling trees with an axe, whose blade he forges from black iron extracted from the Earth’s breast – all by means of his hands.

The mind of man yearns to grasp. Deep within it is a well of unslaked thirst that drives him forever on, asking questions of the Goddess, digging her for secrets, and when the Goddess answers each of his queries with a thousand of her own, he soldiers relentlessly on. He picks up each one of the puzzles at once, turning it over in his head, certain that he shall one day unravel them all.

The mind of man is also besotted with lust – for power, for wealth, for status. Its tendrils are akin to those of a ravenous spider spinning an infinite web. There is never a moment when it is still. It is always teetering on the edge that separates instinct from thought, clawing, feeling …

The soul of man yearns to grasp. From the time he gains consciousness, he is aware of two worlds that he at once inhabits: one outer world that seems to run of its own volition, oblivious to his whims and thoughts; and one inner world where he reigns supreme, where his word is decree, where there are no arguments to face, no wars to fight, where there is peace at every corner, where love and forgiveness bloom on every tree. But this inner world is locked in eternal combat with the outer, and his soul longs to shape the latter in the image of the former.

This yearning is the reason for all of man’s most towering achievements. Without it, would we ever have rubbed together two stones on a cold winter’s night? Would we have written the book of mysteries? Would we have told each other tales of wars and triumphs and defeats, taught our children to be good, fed the old and weak, respected the dead? Would we have made love, passed on our memories, kindled this flame of hope in our hearts?

And yet it is this same yearning that brings out the worst in man. The same hand that guides the plough also grabs at the hilt of a sword. The same mind that lusts for knowledge and wisdom also yearns for revenge, for power over another. The same soul that acknowledges the free existence of the outside world seeks to bend it – by waging wars, by placing curses, by enslaving kingdoms.

The journey of a priestess is not to escape this desire to grasp and to mould – indeed, none of us can – but to realize its futility. The march of creation is inexorable. The sweep of time extends thousands of years into the past and into the future. The life of one man – and the life of one race – is but a blink of the Goddess’s eye. An age is but one heave of the Goddess’s chest. All of the thoughts that have occurred in all human minds through the epochs are contained within the Goddess’s one heartbeat.

This notion, then, that we control the course of history is but an illusion. I told the Wise Ones on the mountain this on the day Pritha and Gandhari were betrothed in Hastinapur – that we must stay away from Earth from now, allow the Goddess to exert her will in her own patient, invisible manner – and they nodded.

Yes, they said. The Lady of the River speaks well. We have meddled enough in Earth’s affairs. Let us now turn our gaze inward, and bow to the will of the Goddess.

But it is the great folly of men – even the wisest of them – that they think they know the Goddess’s will. They can see into her mind, these men claim, forgetting that her mind holds the entire known universe within it. They have spoken to the Goddess, they insist, forgetting that she has no mouth with which to speak or scream. Perhaps this is why she has so many who speak on her behalf – these men who are but mere mites of dust by her feet. They can claim to know her because she is unknowable. They see her form because she is formless. They speak her words because she never does.

And so it is with Meru’s Wise Ones. Not so much as a moon had passed after the weddings in Hastinapur when I went one morning to the Crystal Lake to pay my respects. It was a morning like every other – until it was not.

CHAPTER ONE

T

he high metal gates opened. Ganga walked out through them into the garden, acknowledging the bowing guards with a swift nod. Her black cloak was draped around her shoulders, her hair thrown open to the morning air. If there was one thing she loved about summers, it was the dawn breeze that came running up the slopes from the east, leaving in its wake a trail of white roses in full bloom.

Even in the controlled environs of Meru there was summer, winter, autumn and spring. The hot months did not make you sweat as they did on Earth, and the cold ones did not make you shiver quite as much, but one could still tell one season from another. The Elementals strove to keep everyone on the mountain in comfort through the year, but hardly a day went by without Ganga hearing someone or the other complaining that it was either too hot or too cold.

She kept her grumbling to herself. Her skin had begun to dry up more in the last week. Twice in the last four days she had woken up on the stone ledge of her hut in the middle of the night, her throat parched. Evenings had become colder, it seemed, and nights had become warmer.

The Elementals said that nothing had changed, that they used the same Mysteries they had in previous years. What they did not say out loud – but thought in their minds – was that everyone who complained about the weather on the mountain seemed to be advancing in years. The Crystal Water delayed ageing but did not stop it. Sometimes, the Meru people forgot this and assumed that, like the mountain, they would forever be unchanging.

Ganga did not know how old in years she was now. Her hair had not yet begun to grey, but a few locks around her temples had turned a shade of reddish brown. The colour in her lips had faded, and when she looked into the mirror now, the eyes looked much like those of her mother’s had.

She pushed away these thoughts of decay and smiled into the morning. The eastern sky was just turning orange. The corners of her mouth were still wet with water from the lake. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her stomach felt cool and cleansed. A serene sense of vitality coursed through her veins. At this moment, she felt more alive than anything else in the world.

As Lady of the River, she had as much access to the Crystal Lake as she desired, but she did not go beyond two mouthfuls every morning. She went to bed every night with the hint of an itch at the base of her throat, and by the time she woke up it would turn into a mild burn. Only a drink from the lake soothed it.

She came to the fountain and sat by its edge, looking up at the granite statue of Mohini, the girl with the water pitcher mounted on her hip. A team of craftsmen was replacing the greyed-out pearls of her necklace with new, brighter ones. Of the heap of diamonds set in her hair, one or two had fallen off. The golden inscription at her feet required polishing. The Brightest of the Dark Ones, it said.

Ganga looked through the rippling water of the fountain at the snow-white marble floor. In her own reflection she saw the sad eyes of Devavrata, but his lips were set in a smile. When he had first left the mountain in a huff, she had thought he would be unable to stay away for longer than a few moons, that the lake would pull him back. The sages and the other Celestials had said the same. But now, fourteen years had come and gone since that day when Brihaspati had barked his curse at him. ‘Earth will spit you out, Son of Ganga,’ he had said.

But Earth had not spit him out. She had clutched him to herself. She had made him the great warrior of his age. She had given him more than the mountain ever could.

Why would he return? Why do you still have hope?

She heard footsteps approach. Hard, gem-encrusted sandals clacking on the dew-covered mud ground. The man approached her from behind and stood at a respectable distance. She knew who it was without having to look. Only one Celestial would visit the statue of Mohini this early in the morning.

‘Vishnu,’ she said, turning to face him, ‘I have not had an audience with you for the longest time.’

‘Yes, my lady,’ he said, bowing. ‘It has been way too long.’

‘And even when we do meet, it has to be by accident, in this manner.’

‘Actually, my lady, I came here today hoping to see you.’

‘It is I you have come to meet? Not her?’

‘That is so.’

‘Then it must be rather important.’

Vishnu inclined his head. ‘It is, my lady. Yes.’

Ganga looked over at Mohini’s statue. Three of the craftsmen who were standing by her looked expectantly at Vishnu. ‘I think the men over there want you to supervise their work. Return after you finish. I shall wait right here.’

‘Yes, my lady. I shall be no more than a few minutes.’

Vishnu circled the statue, pointing at spots the polisher had missed. He had the slender, wiry build of most Celestials. Something about the way he held his frame reminded Ganga of Devavrata in his early youth. His complexion and face were nondescript, and the only way in which he differed from other Celestials was that he wore his hair short, not shoulder-length. His ears resembled those of a baby elephant, pink and round. On his head he wore no crown. His fingers and ears were shorn of rings. He carried a wooden staff in his right hand, which people said held untold magical powers, but Ganga had never seen him use it.

He was one of the mountain’s three most desirable men.

Before every fertility rite, the people on Meru spoke about just two things: whether the three Wise Ones would partake in it, and if so, with whom. Among women the Lady of the River had once held a similar position, but ever since that spring of eight years ago, when she had gone to the rite with Shiva and failed to bear a son, she had heard her name being mentioned less and less among the mountain folk.

Vishnu came to her and joined his hands. No shade of red appeared in his hair. No dimming of the spark she had first seen in his eyes. It was the will of the Goddess that age enhanced a man’s qualities while a woman dwindled under its weight.

‘You do not come here every morning, do you, Vishnu?’

‘No, my lady.’ His voice carried an echo, like the sound of a pebble cast into an empty well. ‘I come when Mohini calls for me. I come at the onset of summer, because this is the month in which we declared our love for each other, all those years ago.’

‘Ah,’ said Ganga. ‘Did she ever return to the mountain?’

‘Not to my knowledge. I have heard a few wandering shepherds describe someone like her roaming the slopes, but they cannot be true sightings. Many years must have passed since her death.’

‘And yet you love her to this day.’

Vishnu looked at Ganga and smiled. ‘All that we have today, my lady, is her blessing. During those few moons, I am certain she loved me too.’

‘Perhaps it is just as well you did not meet her before her death.’

‘Yes.’ He looked up with his grey eyes at the statue. ‘I like her like this, as she was when she left us.’

The sun had just cleared the horizon. It now appeared as a solid saffron ball in the distance, cradled by the slopes of two adjoining snow-clad mountains. The first rays of sunlight touched Ganga’s arms warmly and threw a long shadow of Mohini in their direction. The wind from the east stilled somewhat, but the smell of full-bloom roses remained in the air.

She shrugged her cloak into position and stood up straight. ‘You said you wanted to speak about something important.’

‘My lady, yes. I did not seek your audience to speak just of Mohini. Lord knows that everyone on the mountain has heard enough of her.’

‘If the matter is important enough to drag you out of the woods, Vishnu, it must concern Earth.’ And Hastinapur, she wanted to say, but held herself.

‘It is true what they say,’ said Vishnu. ‘You see all.’

Ganga could feel herself grow uneasy, as she did whenever someone on Meru came to her wishing to speak of Earth. Almost always it concerned Devavrata, and almost always she needed to do something to thwart her son. Her first loyalty was to the mountain, yes, and to the Goddess who looked after them. But the mere thought of fighting Devavrata turned her heart to lead.

‘Speak!’ she said, bristling.

‘Our worries concern the Middle Kingdoms, my lady,’ said Vishnu. ‘Now that we have acquired the black stones of Mathura for ourselves, we have left the city too weak to defend itself, and King Jarasandha of Magadha is sharpening his spears as we speak.’

‘King Jarasandha rules wisely, I am told.’

‘He does, Lady Ganga. But he also wishes to expand his rule across the breadth of North Country, and Mathura is the first kingdom in his path.’

‘What if it is? Let them fight, and may the better king win.’

Vishnu’s face grew grim, even as the shadow of Mohini shortened with the rising sun. ‘Between Magadha and Mathura, my lady, there can only be one winner. Without the black stones, Mathura’s naval fleet is but a shade of its former self. Their ships lumber across the Yamuna now, where once they shot through like arrows from a well-strung bow.’

‘Let me understand this,’ said Ganga. ‘You do not wish for Jarasandha to become more powerful than he is.’

‘No, my lady, we do not.’

‘Who is this we, Vishnu?’

‘The three Wise Ones and Indra.’

‘I see.’

‘If King Jarasandha gains a hold on the Middle Kingdoms, Lady Ganga, he shall soon challenge the power of Hastinapur, and even the prowess of Devavrata might not be enough to quell him.’

‘That may not be a bad thing. A powerful kingdom breathing down his neck will keep Devavrata honest, and he shall not think of attacking Meru.’

‘That is true,’ replied Vishnu. ‘But what if they battle each other, and one of them becomes the supreme emperor? Then they will train their sights northwards, and my lady, we do not have the army to win a war.’

Ganga held out her arm to the fountain and rubbed a handful of cold water on her arms to soothe her skin against the sun. Then she entwined her fingers together. The polishers had finished and were walking around the statue, giving it their final appraisal.

Vishnu was correct in what he had said at the end. The army that Meru maintained in Indra’s archery ranges and stables could fight battles, win some skirmishes perhaps, but was not fit for outright war. Meru had long moved away from courting open violence to employing all its inhabitants to plough the Mysteries. Knowledge was Meru’s weapon, and it did not fight well when faced with a lance.

She sighed. ‘I am wary of meddling in Earth’s affairs, Vishnu,’ she said. ‘We should allow matters to take their own course. We must all be akin to the Goddess, and merely sit by and watch.’

‘The Goddess would have wanted us to act, my lady. High Sage Vasishtha said so.’

‘It has been no more than two moons since we left North Country, and you want us to return?’

‘Circumstances are such, Lady Ganga.’

Ganga got to her feet and shook her head once. She kept her voice low. ‘We blame circumstances more than we ought to, Vishnu. If you have come to me for advice, I shall give you some. No amount of meddling on our part shall stop what is to come. I know not what it is. I do not see the future. But to believe that we shape it by our actions is folly.’

‘My lady—’

‘I know what you will say. I have heard it all before. But I have seen more of Earth than you have, Vishnu. I have lived as an Earthwoman. I have loved an Earthman. Let me assure you that Meru would do best to look after its own affairs.’

He lifted his head to speak, but Ganga pursed her lips and shook her head again. He fell silent.

‘It is time for my morning prayers. I need to go.’ She pulled her cloak about herself, covering her head. She took a few steps away from the Celestial. Then she said over her shoulder, ‘We have the whole mountain to ourselves, Vishnu. Let us live our lives and let the people of Earth live theirs.’

Vishnu did not answer. He just bowed.

While separating neem leaves from their stems that night, Ganga thought of what Vishnu had said. It had been an idea similar to this that had resulted in her leaving Meru for eight long years. Then it had been Vasishtha who had convinced her it was for the good of Meru. She had received a son in the bargain, and about that she had no regrets, but she had also had to foster enmity with Devavrata. In the name of loyalty to Meru, she and Devavrata had drifted apart, and after all these years they were still estranged.

One change gave rise to two. Two gave rise to four, four to eight and so on. It would not end until one of the two sides – either Meru or Earth – was ruined. How much better would it be to retreat and watch events unfold and set aside this manic desire to control them? How many lives could they save just by letting Earth chart its own destiny?

She gathered all the leaves into a straw bowl and carried them to the grinding stone in the corner. Sitting in front of it with her left leg splayed to one side and the right folded and raised, she rested her chin on her knee as she crushed them. Every few seconds she stopped to add a few drops of oil into the mix. After a few minutes of grinding, she first examined the colour, then bent forward to smell it.

A few cumin seeds and a pinch of turmeric, she thought.

The neigh and snort of a horse came in through the open window, accompanied by a man’s soft whispers. Her lips spread into a smile. Then the sound of the water trough being dragged over, a splash as the horse slobbered its mouth in it thirstily. She set aside the bowl and rubbed her fingers clean on the corner of her robe.

The doorway filled with a man’s shadow.

‘Nishanta,’ said Ganga, ‘how happy I am to see you.’

Even in the dim, flickering light of the lamp, Nishanta’s eyes wore a bloodshot look. His bronze frame was coated in a layer of dusty sweat. His sword dangled in the scabbard tied to his side. His lower garment looked yellow, but it could have been white when he had started his journey. Its true colour would only emerge after a wash or two. For a man who spent much of his life on horseback, he carried a generous layer of belly fat, although his arms looked as though they had been sculpted by a fine chisel.

He got down on one knee and bowed. ‘I bring news of Hastinapur, my lady.’

‘Indeed you do,’ said Ganga, beaming. ‘How does Devavrata?’

‘The Kuru house is the happiest it has been in a long while, my lady Ganga. The people in the street do not sing and dance, but they do not live in worry either.’

‘The wedding ceremonies were grand, were they not? We have heard tales of them here on the mountain as well.’

‘Indeed they were. Dhritarashtra’s was grander than Pandu’s, but that is not surprising.’

‘No,’ said Ganga, ‘it is not. When are they making him king?’

A hesitant pause, then: ‘There appears to be some … confusion about the matter, my lady. Some of the people I know who work in the palace tell me that Bhishma does not think Dhritarashtra worthy of being king.’

Ganga feigned curiosity, although she had hoped this would happen. A blind king on the throne of Hastinapur would just not do. It did not matter in any real way, of course; kings rarely ventured out into the battlefield, and the true measure of a king (or a man) did not rest on whether or not he could see with his eyes. But a blind king would attract from friends and foes alike a good deal of attention, none of it desirable.

It was just not the sensible thing to do. And Devavrata, for all his faults, could never be faulted for not being sensible.

‘So they wish for the second-born to become king, do they?’

‘It appears that way, my lady. The third half-brother has trained himself in the scriptures and polity. He appears set to become a minister.’

‘His name is Vidur.’

‘That is so.’

‘And what of the princesses? Have there been any murmurs about how Gandhari and Pritha treat each other in the palace?’

‘Yes, Lady Ganga, and everything I have heard suggests they are happy in each other’s company.’

‘No jealousy on Gandhari’s part that Pritha will become queen before her?’

Again, another moment’s pause. ‘I have not heard anything of that nature, my lady.’

‘Then it must all be good,’ she said, even though in her heart she did not believe it. Gandhari had learned much, ruling Gandhar at a young age, and all the pain that Devavrata had heaped on her before her marriage to Dhritarashtra could not be forgotten in a matter of months. If she was being amicable to Pritha at present, she must have a larger plan in mind.

‘Enough of Hastinapur,’ she said. ‘What of Magadha and Mathura?’

‘What of them, my lady?’

‘I heard today that the High King of Magadha is readying some chariots to march against Mathura.’

‘It is hard to say for certain which kingdom Jarasandha is after, my lady. But yes, weapons are being sharpened in that city. Iron miners have been working on the double, and foundries stay open through the night, every night.’

Ganga looked out of the open door, into the dark. It was a sticky, moonless evening.

‘Tell me, Nishanta,’ she said, ‘what kind of a man is Jarasandha?’

‘Cunning.’

Ganga turned to look Nishanta in the eye.

‘Yes, my lady. He is a noble king, looks after his people well. He is quite adept with a sword, they say, and in his younger days he is rumoured to have been the best wrestler in the city. But that head he has on his shoulders – he has vanquished many an enemy without shedding a drop of blood.’

‘So if he is preparing to march into battle, he must think it worth winning.’

‘They say he would never fight a battle he does not think he could win, my lady.’

The more Ganga heard, the more troubled she grew. It seemed now that Vishnu had been correct. What were the words he had used? Circumstances were such. And she had scoffed at him.

‘Is Jarasandha strong enough to win a battle against Hastinapur, Nishanta?’

It was not Nishanta’s job to speculate about military strength. He had his ears well trained on the common people. He heard everything the palace maids and servants breathed to one another. He was a deft hand with a sword too. But of statecraft he knew next to nothing. Ganga felt she could use a word of reassurance, though, even if it had to come from him.

‘Not now, my lady,’ said Nishanta. ‘No. Hastinapur has Gandhar, Kunti and Shurasena as allies. Magadha stands alone.’

‘But if Magadha were to take Mathura—’

‘Even then it would not be strong enough to defeat Hastinapur, my lady.’ Nishanta considered her with his red eyes. ‘But if Magadha takes Mathura, it will gain control of its warships, and it will control a significant part of the Yamuna that separates Hastinapur from Shurasena and Kunti.’

‘So after he annexes Mathura, Jarasandha will move against Shurasena?’

‘That seems the right thing to do. Neither Shurasena nor Kunti is big or strong enough to stand against Magadha. If he launches a surprise attack, the battle will be finished before the cry for help reaches Hastinapur.’

Ganga let out a deep breath. ‘And will taking Kunti and Shurasena make Magadha strong enough to win against Hastinapur?’

Nishanta’s broad shoulders rose and fell. ‘They will be even in might then, I think. But as long as Bhishma fights under Hastinapur’s banner, my lady, no city in North Country will take it.’

The words gladdened her heart. She never tired of hearing praise of Devavrata. She lifted herself off the ground and picking up the bowl of crushed leaves doused in oil, went to the stove and started a fire. ‘I am putting some rice to boil, Nishanta,’ she said, between blowing through a black pipe at the live coals. ‘Would you like some? I am making a pickle with neem leaves, and I would like someone to taste it and tell me how it is.’

Nishanta bowed. ‘My lady.’

Ganga fanned the coals until they crackled. Nishanta never said no to food.

They ate quickly and in silence. Out on the porch, just as Nishanta was about to mount his horse, she asked him, ‘Did you happen to visit Panchala this time?’

‘I stayed at an inn there, my lady, but just for a night.’

‘Has the king of Panchala taken a wife?’

‘Not in the last year. But if the meaning behind your asking is whether he has an heir to the throne, the answer still appears to be no.’

‘That means Amba has not come there.’

‘Who, my lady?’

‘There is a priestess who lives in Parashurama’s hermitage in Naimisha. From now on, you shall do well to keep abreast of the goings-on in her life as well. Her name is Amba. She was once the princess of Kasi, and was betrothed to Vichitraveerya.’

Nishanta did not respond. He sat like a black idol on the saddle, set against the starlight, holding the reins.

‘We hope that she will have a large say in the future of North Country.’ Ganga felt a