After knowing about the monkey god’s identity, Bhima demands that Hanuman show him a different form of his — the one that he used to jump over the ocean to reach Lanka in a single leap. At first, Hanuman advises Bhima against it, reminding him that it is Kali yuga, the age of deterioration, and that he finds himself weakened, and thus uncomfortable with exposing the terrible form. Hanuman instead explains the properties of the four yugas to Bhima.
The first, Krita yuga, is the most interesting in that it seems to have the world as it is originally created, a sort of cosmic unity with no need for gods or demons. The world in this yuga seems to be close to Plato’s dimension of ideal forms. There is only a single Veda in the time, and only one path to dharma.
From there, we move through Treta and Dvapar yuga to arrive at Kali yuga, where ‘even tasks performed in the name of dharma lead to perverse outcomes.’ In a way, Hanuman’s utterance is the defining trait not just of Kali yuga but of the Mahabharata as well. In the epic, knowing about the Pandavas’ exile from kingdom should be enough to inform us that perversion abounds, the path of dharma isn’t clear, and mistakes are committed—yet the actors remain stridently committed to their notions of righteousness, as if they belong to an era different from the one in which is the action is taking place. This discord is what attracts new readers to the epic, for therein lies the possibility of reimagining the stories as even closer to our times.
After meeting Hanuman, Bhima proceeds to the Sougandhika forest where, in and around a celestial pond, he begins to gather lotuses and other flowers for Draupadi. Sougandhika is actually King Kubera’s pleasure garden and is protected by rakshasas, who warn Bhima about sporting there with abandon. Then, a storm rises, a meteor descends, and sunlight is dimmed. Yudhistira and the other Pandavas see this as a bad omen, and immediately ask Ghatotkacha to carry them to the Sougandhika forest. There, the reunion takes place and all is fine for a while.
A rakshasha named Jatasura, however, is not too happy with the Pandavas’ encroachment of Sougandhika. He is a powerful being, for he is able to successfully abduct Yudhistira, Nakul, Sahadeva, and Draupadi. Bhima then makes up his mind to fight Jatasura. Like all of Bhima’s battles with rakshashas, this one too involves hand-to-hand combat, where trees crushed. Eventually, the Pandava prevails, and is able to sever the rakshasha’s head from its body (there is never much sophistication in the way Bhima kills his foes).
After Baka and Hidimba, Jatasura is the third rakshasha killed by Bhima in the epic. Except Hidimba’s story, which has relevance to the plot, the other two seem to exist only to remind us of his immeasurable strength.
Tanuj Solanki
@tanujsolanki
The writer is reading the unabridged Mahabharata