The Severed Arm

This is the tale of Bhurishravas and Satyaki, and of the two wrongs done upon the field of Kurukshetra in the space of a single combat - a hard tale of how the code of honor was broken on both sides, and of how war corrodes the dharma of even noble men. Bhurishravas was a great warrior of the Kuru side, the son of Somadatta and grandson of Bahlika, a prince of the royal line, renowned for his prowess and his devotion to sacrifice and to dharma. Satyaki, also called Yuyudhana, was a mighty warrior of the Vrishni clan, a kinsman of Krishna and a devoted disciple of Arjuna, who fought for the Pandavas.

Between the houses of these two there was an old and hereditary enmity, a feud passed down through their families; and when they met upon the field of Kurukshetra, the long-nursed enmity of their lines flared into deadly combat. It was on the fourteenth day, during the great drive when Arjuna had sworn to slay Jayadratha before sunset, that Satyaki, sent to follow and support Arjuna deep into the enemy host, came at last against Bhurishravas; and the two great warriors, divided by their ancient feud, closed in a furious and personal combat amid the larger battle, each bent on the destruction of the other.

The duel between Bhurishravas and Satyaki was long and terrible, the two mighty warriors matched in fury; but Satyaki, who had already fought his way through much of the enemy host that day in support of Arjuna, was wearied and worn, while Bhurishravas was fresh and strong. And so, in the end, Bhurishravas gained the upper hand. He overpowered the exhausted Satyaki, struck him down, and brought him to the ground at his mercy, the disciple of Arjuna helpless beneath his old enemy.

Then Bhurishravas, in the pride of his victory and the heat of the old feud, seized the fallen Satyaki by the hair, and dragged him along the ground, and raised his sword to strike off his head, meaning to slay his helpless foe and end the ancient enmity of their houses then and there. Satyaki, exhausted and overpowered, lay at the mercy of his enemy, about to be beheaded; and there seemed no help for him, for none of his own side was near enough to save him from the descending sword of Bhurishravas. It was in that extremity that Krishna saw his disciple's peril and called out to Arjuna.

Krishna, seeing Satyaki, the disciple of Arjuna and the kinsman of his own house, about to be beheaded by Bhurishravas, cried out to Arjuna to save him. Arjuna was at that moment hard pressed in his desperate drive toward Jayadratha, fighting on every side; and to strike Bhurishravas would mean shooting a warrior who was engaged in combat with another, and from a distance, without challenge - a thing forbidden by the strict code of war. Yet his disciple's life hung upon the instant, and there was no time and no other way.

So Arjuna, torn between the rule of the code and the duty to save his disciple, chose to save Satyaki. He loosed an arrow from afar, swift and sure, and with it severed the sword-arm of Bhurishravas at the very moment the sword was descending upon Satyaki's neck - cutting off the arm, sword and all, so that it fell to the ground, and Satyaki was spared. It was a deed that saved a life, but it broke the code of war: for Arjuna had struck a man who was not fighting him, who was engaged with another, and had struck him unawares and from a distance, without warning or challenge. The deed was done; Satyaki was saved; but a wrong had been committed in the saving.

Bhurishravas, his sword-arm severed and fallen, turned upon Arjuna in grief and indignation, and reproached him bitterly for the unworthy deed. 'Is this the conduct of the famous Arjuna,' he cried, 'the paragon of warriors, the knower of dharma? You have struck me from afar, without challenge, while I was engaged with another foe and not fighting you at all - a deed forbidden to every honorable warrior, a coward's stroke from a distance against a man who did not face you. Shame upon you, Arjuna, that you, of all men, should so break the code of war and strike down a warrior occupied with another, from behind and unawares. This is not the way of honor.'

And Arjuna, stung, defended his deed as best he could. 'It is my duty,' he answered, 'to protect my disciple and my ally; a warrior who lets his own follower be slain before his eyes, when he might save him, fails in a greater duty. And was it the code of honor, Bhurishravas, when your own side surrounded the boy Abhimanyu, six great warriors against one child, and cut him down from behind, breaking every law of war? You who shared in that, or stood by it, reproach me now for saving my disciple's life. In a war where your side first trampled the code to murder a boy, I will not let my disciple be slain for the sake of a rule you have already broken.' So each accused the other, and there was truth and untruth tangled in the words of both; for both sides had indeed broken the code, and neither could claim clean hands.

Bhurishravas, wronged and grieved, his sword-arm gone, would fight no more. Holding himself dishonored by the unfair stroke and unwilling to continue in a battle where the code had been so broken, he resolved to give up the fight and his life together in a manner worthy of his devotion. He cast away his weapons, sat down upon the field in the posture of yoga, spread a seat of arrows, and entered into prayopavesa - the solemn fast unto death - turning his mind from the battle to the divine, composing himself to die as an ascetic dies, in meditation and renunciation, withdrawing from the war and the world.

So Bhurishravas, a warrior renowned for his piety and his devotion to sacrifice, met the wrong done to him not with rage but with renunciation, choosing to leave the battle and the body together in a holy calm, his thoughts fixed on the divine, abandoning the fight and seeking the higher goal. He sat unarmed and unresisting upon the field, deep in meditation, a warrior become an ascetic in his last hour, harming no one, asking nothing, only composing his soul for death. It was a noble and a moving end that he had chosen for himself; but it was not to be granted him in peace.

But Satyaki, freed from death and risen up, was not content to let his old enemy live, even disarmed and renouncing the fight. In a fury of the old feud and of his own near-death, Satyaki took up a sword and rushed upon Bhurishravas where he sat unarmed and unresisting upon the field, lost in meditation, his thoughts fixed on the divine, harming no one - and despite the cries of protest from the warriors of both sides, despite the dishonor of it, Satyaki struck off the head of the meditating, weaponless Bhurishravas, and slew him.

It was a second wrong, worse perhaps than the first: the slaying of a man who had laid down his arms, who was deep in the holy fast unto death, who was unresisting and absorbed in the divine, who offered no fight at all. The warriors of both armies cried out against the deed, and even Krishna and Arjuna and the Pandavas did not approve it; Satyaki was reproached by all for so dishonorable a slaying of a renouncing and defenseless man. Yet the deed was done. So within the space of a single combat, two breaches of the sacred code of war had been committed: Arjuna's stroke from afar against a man engaged with another, and Satyaki's killing of a disarmed and meditating foe; and both clung to the honor of the Pandava side.

The whole episode stands as one of the war's clearest pictures of how the code of honor was broken on every side, and how war corrodes the dharma of even noble men. For here were good warriors all - Bhurishravas the pious, Arjuna the paragon, Satyaki the brave - and in the space of a single combat, two grave breaches of the code were committed by the Pandava side, and the matter could not be reckoned clean for anyone. Arjuna broke the rule to save his disciple; Satyaki broke it far worse to slay his disarmed enemy; and Bhurishravas, the apparent victim of the second wrong, had himself shared in the dishonorable killing of Abhimanyu.

The tale refuses any easy verdict, and shows the tangle of competing duties and broken rules in which all were caught. Was Arjuna right to break the code to save his disciple, or wrong to break it at all? Was Satyaki's deed pure savagery, or the fruit of an old feud and a near-death, in a war where the other side had broken the code first? There is no clean answer; and that is the point. The tale shows how, in the grinding of a great war, the bright code of honor is worn away on every side, how good men are dragged into dishonor by the pressure of competing duties and old hatreds and the relentless logic of battle, and how, in such a war, no one keeps wholly clean hands. It is a sober mirror held up to all who imagine that war can be waged in perfect honor.

The tale of Bhurishravas and Satyaki carries its hard and humbling lessons.

See, first, how war corrodes the dharma of even noble men. Here were good and honorable warriors all; and yet within a single combat, the sacred code of war was broken twice by the Pandava side - Arjuna striking from afar a man engaged with another, and Satyaki slaying a disarmed and meditating foe. The tale teaches that the bright rules of honor are worn away under the pressure of a great and bitter war; that good men are dragged into dishonor by competing duties, old hatreds, and the relentless necessities of battle; and that in such a conflict no one keeps wholly clean hands. Let no one imagine, then, that a great war can be waged in perfect honor; for war itself is a corroder of dharma, and stains all who wage it.

And see the tangle of competing duties that admits no easy verdict. Arjuna broke the code to fulfill the duty of protecting his disciple; Satyaki broke it from the old feud and his near-death; Bhurishravas, the victim, had himself shared in a worse breach against Abhimanyu. The tale offers no clean judgment, but holds up the tangle for our sober contemplation: that duties conflict, that rules collide, that the wronged are often themselves wrongdoers, and that in the hard cases of a corrupted war, righteousness is not a simple thing. It bids us, therefore, to humility in judging, to a clear sight of our own complicity, and above all to a deep reluctance to enter upon the kind of conflict that so erodes the honor of all who are caught in it.