Was it just wanderlust? Not so much...

After the Pandavas define the punishment for the transgression of one of them despoiling another’s intimacies with Draupadi, it was only a matter of time that the punishment comes into force.

HYDERABAD: After the Pandavas define the punishment for the transgression of one of them despoiling another’s intimacies with Draupadi, we understand that it is only a matter of time that the punishment comes into force. The situation for it is created when a brahmana living in the Pandavas’ domain is robbed of his riches by robbers and comes to the palace seeking retribution.

Arjuna wants to fight for him, but his arms are kept in a room in which, at that moment, Yudhistira lies with Draupadi. Caught between the adharma of negligence and the adharma of trespass, Arjuna chooses the latter, and picks up his arms from the room. He then wrests the brahman’s riches from the robbers.


On his return, Arjuna announces that he would now go suffer the punishment, which is to go the forest and practice brahmacharya for twelve years. When Yudhistira tries to stop him, emphasising that no offense was taken through Arjuna’s trespass, the latter respectfully  refutes his elder brother’s reasoning and proceeds towards the forest.


Arjuna’s exile, however, may seem less a case of following the path of dharma and more a case of satisfying wanderlust, even as his travels are somewhat remindful of the painful passage of another hero in another mythology: Odysseus. He first travels to the Himalayas, received by brahmans and other men of note as an important guest.

But he does not only remain in the forest and visits cities and sites of population too. Even his brahmacharya falls apart at the first opportunity. While taking a bath in the Ganga, he encounters a naga princess named Ulupi and has sex with her. His desire is a bit too conveniently sanctified by dharma — the text would have us believe that it is Ulupi who is lustful for Arjuna, who is just following the practice of not denying a desirous woman.


Arjuna then travels east, to the kingdoms of Anga and Vanga (modern day Bengal). He then travels to Kalinga (Orissa) and reaches the city of Manalura (some have equated this with Manipura). There, again, his brahmacharya is broken, when he is stricken by desire for princess Chitrangada. The king of Manalura imposes the condition that the heir obtained from their union belong to his kingdom, and that Arjuna have no right over him. 


Arjuna agrees.

From there, Arjuna proceeds to the pilgrimages in the south, where he learns that some of the tirthas have been abandoned by people because of the fear of five crocodiles that roam in the marshes surrounding the places. When Arjuna begins to take care of the crocodiles, he learns that they are in fact condemned apsaras from a previous time.

The scholar Julia Leslie has noted correspondences between Arjuna’s apsara episode with Odysseus’ encounter with the Sirens. The dalliance with Chitrangada has been compared to Odysseus’ stay with Calypso. Draupadi, of course, is faultless Penelope.

(The writer is reading the unabridged Mahabharata)
 

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