The Blood Vow

This is the tale of how Bhima fulfilled, upon the field of Kurukshetra, the most terrible vow of the whole war - a vow born years before in the hall of the dice game, in the hour of Draupadi's deepest humiliation. For when the Pandavas had lost everything at the rigged dice, Dushasana, the brother of Duryodhana, had dragged Queen Draupadi by her hair into the assembly hall, a lone woman in a single garment, and had sought to strip her naked before all the court, mocking and reviling her, while the elders sat silent and the Pandavas sat bound by their word, helpless and shamed.

In that hour, watching his beloved wife so abused, Bhima had risen in a fury that shook the hall, and had sworn two dreadful oaths before all present: that he would one day break open the chest of Dushasana, the hands that had dragged Draupadi, and drink the blood of his heart; and that he would shatter the thigh of Duryodhana, upon which Duryodhana had insolently bidden Draupadi sit. These were savage vows, born of a savage wrong; and Draupadi herself had vowed that she would leave her hair unbound, hanging loose and disheveled as Dushasana had left it, until the day it could be bound again with hands wet with his blood. So the wrong of the dice hall planted the seeds of a terrible reckoning, to be reaped years later upon the field of war.

For thirteen long years the Pandavas bore their exile and their wrongs, and through all that time Bhima carried his vow within him like a banked fire, never forgetting, never forgiving, waiting for the day when he might fulfill it. And Draupadi too kept her vow: through all the years of forest and hiding, she left her hair unbound and disheveled, a living reproach and a standing reminder of the shame done to her in the hall, that no one might forget what had been done, nor what was owed. Her loose hair was the memory of the wrong, and the promise of its requital.

So the vow waited through the years, kept alive by the memory of the hall and the sight of Draupadi's unbound hair, until at last the time of exile ended, the peace failed, and the great war came. And when the armies met at Kurukshetra, Bhima knew that his hour was near at last - that on this field, where all accounts would be settled, he would meet Dushasana and Duryodhana, and pay them at last the debt he had sworn in the hall so long ago. The fire he had banked for thirteen years was ready now to blaze; and the field of war would be the place of its terrible fulfillment.

On the field of Kurukshetra, amid the great battle, Bhima and Dushasana met at last, face to face, the avenger and the man who had dragged Draupadi by the hair. Bhima's eyes blazed with the memory of the hall and the long-nursed vow; and he fell upon Dushasana with all the pent fury of thirteen years, roaring out his old oath, that the hour had come to repay the dragging of Draupadi and the attempt to strip her before the court.

The two clashed in a furious combat, Bhima driven by a wrath beyond all bounds, Dushasana fighting for his life against the terrible strength of the man whose wife he had shamed. But against Bhima's fury and his vast strength, fed by thirteen years of remembered wrong, Dushasana could not stand. Bhima overpowered him, struck him down, and brought him at last to the ground at his mercy - the very hands that had dragged Draupadi now helpless in the grip of her avenger. The hour of the vow had come; and Bhima, looming over his fallen foe, made ready to fulfill before the whole army the dreadful oath he had sworn in the hall.

Then Bhima fulfilled his terrible vow to the letter, before the eyes of both armies. He proclaimed aloud the old wrong and the old oath - that this was the hand that had seized Draupadi's hair, and that he had sworn to break Dushasana's chest and drink his blood - and he fell upon his fallen foe and slew him, breaking open his breast as he had vowed, and drinking, or seeming to drink, the blood of his heart, in fulfillment of the savage oath sworn in the hall so long ago. It was a deed of terrible and deliberate horror, done openly as the paying of a sworn debt, the most dreadful fulfillment of the most dreadful vow of all the war.

The whole field shuddered at the sight. Both armies looked on in horror at the savagery of the deed - the Kauravas in dread and grief, and even the Pandavas' own allies recoiling from so terrible a fulfillment. Bhima, his vow accomplished, declared that he had kept his word, that the shame of the hall was avenged, and that the blood he had sworn to drink was drunk. It was justice of a kind, the exact requital of a great wrong; and it was also a horror, the descent of a great warrior into savagery; and the tale holds both truths together, neither hiding the justice nor excusing the savagery, but showing the terrible thing that vengeance becomes when it is fulfilled to the last drop.

The deed sent a wave of horror through both armies. The Kaurava warriors, seeing Dushasana so slain and Bhima fulfilling so dreadful a vow, were filled with dread and grief and a kind of despair, for they saw in it the measure of the hatred their own deeds in the dice hall had kindled, and the doom that awaited them all. And many even of the onlookers turned away their faces, unable to bear the sight, and there were those who said that Bhima in that hour seemed no longer a man but something terrible, a being of pure wrath.

Yet the tale is careful to show that the horror of the deed was the harvest of an earlier horror: that Bhima's savagery on the field was the direct fruit of the savagery done to Draupadi in the hall, the dragging and the attempted stripping of a queen, the mockery and the cruelty that the Kauravas had thought themselves free to commit. The seeds sown in the dice hall - the shaming of a woman, the trampling of all decency by the powerful - had grown into this fearful tree, whose fruit was now eaten before all. So the horror of Bhima's vengeance points back always to the horror that begot it; and the tale lays the deepest blame not only on the avenger, but on those whose cruelty made such an avenger and such a vow.

His vow accomplished, Bhima went to Draupadi - or the news of the deed was brought to her - that the debt sworn in the hall was paid at last, that the hand which had dragged her was stilled forever, and that the blood she had vowed should wet her hair before she bound it was now shed. And Draupadi, who for thirteen years had worn her hair unbound and disheveled as a standing memory of her shame and a vow of its requital, could at last bind up her hair again, the long wrong avenged, the long oath kept.

So the binding of Draupadi's hair, after thirteen years, marked the closing of the terrible account opened in the dice hall: the shame done to her there was answered at last, and the symbol of her wrong, her loosened hair, could be set in order again. It was a grim closure, bought with a dreadful deed; and yet for Draupadi it was the lifting of a long burden of remembered humiliation, the sign that the wrong done to her had not gone unanswered, and that her honor, so cruelly trampled, had been at last and terribly vindicated. The unbound hair of thirteen years was bound; and the vow of the hall was complete.

There is in this tale a hard reckoning with the nature of vengeance and the wages of cruelty. For the deed of Bhima was at once a justice and a horror: a justice, in that it was the exact requital of a monstrous wrong, the shaming of a defenseless queen by the powerful; and a horror, in that the fulfillment of so savage a vow dragged even a great and loving warrior down into a savagery that made both armies shudder. The tale does not pretend that the vengeance was clean, nor that it left Bhima untouched; it shows the terrible thing that the paying of such a debt becomes.

But above all the tale traces the deed back to its root, and lays the deepest blame there: upon the cruelty of the dice hall, the shaming of Draupadi, the trampling of all decency by Duryodhana and Dushasana in their hour of power. It was that cruelty that kindled the hatred, bred the vow, and made the avenger; the horror on the field was the harvest of the horror in the hall. So the tale warns the powerful above all: that cruelty done in the day of one's strength, the humiliation of the helpless, the trampling of decency, sows a harvest of hatred and vengeance that will be reaped in full and terrible measure; and that those who shame the defenseless prepare, with their own hands, the savagery that will one day fall upon them.

The slaying of Dushasana carries its sober lessons, hard and double-edged.

See, first, the wages of cruelty, and above all of cruelty to the helpless. The whole dreadful deed sprang from the shaming of Draupadi in the dice hall, the dragging and the attempted stripping of a defenseless queen by the powerful in their hour of triumph. That cruelty kindled a hatred and bred a vow that waited thirteen years and was paid at last in horror. The tale warns the strong and the fortunate above all others: that to humiliate the defenseless, to trample decency in the day of your power, is to sow a harvest of hatred and vengeance that will be reaped in full; and that those who shame the helpless forge, with their own hands, the doom that will fall upon them. Be merciful, then, in your strength; for cruelty has a long memory and a terrible harvest.

And see the terrible nature of vengeance fulfilled. Bhima's deed was a justice, the exact requital of a monstrous wrong; and it was also a horror, that dragged a great warrior into a savagery that made both armies shudder. The tale neither excuses the savagery nor denies the justice, but holds both together, and so warns us of what even just vengeance becomes when it is carried to its last extreme: a thing that wounds the avenger even as it answers the wrong. Let the powerful, then, fear to kindle such vengeance by their cruelty; and let all who are wronged remember that even just requital, carried to its dreadful end, exacts its price from the avenger as well as the avenged.