CHENNAI: As advised by Vyasa during the Pandava forest exile, Arjuna is sent away in the search of divine weaponry. This is Arjuna’s third odyssey in the epic. The first took place after he barged in on Yudhistira and Draupadi in a private moment.
For 12 years, Arjuna traveled the length and breadth of the continent and established relations with several women, eventually bringing Krishna’s sister, Subhadra, home as his wife. The second is part of the quest to establish Yudhistira as an emperor, wherein Arjuna leads the imperial campaign in the north, establishing Pandava dominion right till the higher Himalayas. Now, the third journey, is to empower the Pandavas enough so as to be able to win the eventual war against their cousins. To that effect, Arjuna obtains a grand weapon from Shiva and other powerful weapons from lower gods. He is eventually invited into Indra’s abode.
All in all, Arjuna spends more than five years separated from his brothers and Draupadi. Most of this time, it seems, is spent in relative comfort in heaven. During this divine interface, Arjuna is repeatedly told of his status as the incarnation of Nara, an identity inextricably linked to Narayana (Vishnu).
Among the other Pandavas, sorrow and discord raises its head every once a while. Bhima continues to urge Yudhistira to attack the Kauravas, and the elder brother continues to placate Bhima. At one point, a brahman named Brihadashva arrives to meet the Pandavas in the Kamyaka forest.
Yudhistira seeks distraction and comfort from Brihadashva, at which the brahman recites the ancient story of King Nala. Hearing rumours of the beauty of Damayanti, a princess from a neighbouring kingdom, King Nala sends a swan to convey his love. Damayanti hears of Nala’s qualities through the swan, and falls in love with him. The use of a swan here makes one think of the Greek myth of Leda (mother of Helen, whose kidnapping by Paris of Troy started the war in Iliad). There, Zeus seduces Leda in the form of a swan. Here, too, the supreme god, Indra, desires Damayanti, such that he deviously recruits King Nala as his messenger just before Damayanti’s swayamvara. But Damayanti still chooses Nala over Indra and the other gods.
A dice game, however, makes Nala lose his kingdom to his brother. He has to go to the forest with his wife. Yudhistira must have identified with this part of the story. In the forest, Nala forsakes Damyanti, apparently for her own sake. Maddened by grief, Damayanti looks for Nala in the dense forest, where she is attacked by both beast and man.
This story (more detail next week) is essentially an act of providing comfort through literature. Yudhistira believes that his miseries are the most extreme in all the world, but it is through knowing other’s stories that he can understand that it is not so. That is what Brihadashva is providing to Yudhistira through this story.
Tanuj Solanki
Twitter@tanujsolanki
The writer is reading the unabridged Mahabharata