The Burning of the Three Cities

Among the tales the sages told the Pandavas was the story of the burning of the Three Cities - how the great god Shiva destroyed three impregnable flying fortresses with a single arrow, and why even that one arrow needed the strength of all the gods behind it.

It began with three asura brothers, sons of a great demon, named Tarakaksha, Kamalaksha, and Vidyunmali. Like their kind, they hungered for power that no one could take from them, and to win it they went away and performed penances of extraordinary severity, standing in austerities for age upon age, until the heat of their discipline compelled the Grandfather of the worlds, Brahma, to appear before them and offer a boon.

The three brothers asked, as such beings always do, for invulnerability - for fortresses that no enemy could ever destroy. And Brahma, bound to reward their penance, granted them a boon of a strange and cunning kind: cities that would be all but impossible to bring down, protected by a condition so nearly unmeetable that the brothers believed themselves safe forever.

Brahma granted the three brothers three great cities, and had them built by the celestial architect of the asuras. One city was made of gold, and set in the heavens; one was made of silver, and set in the sky; and one was made of iron, and set upon the earth. Together they were called Tripura, the Three Cities - vast, magnificent, and moving, sailing through their three realms.

And this was the condition of the boon, the single thread by which alone they could be destroyed: the three cities were always in motion, circling through heaven and sky and earth, and only once in a great long while - once in a thousand years - would all three come into a single perfect alignment, ranged one behind another in a straight line for a single fleeting moment. In that one instant, and in no other, the Three Cities could be destroyed - but only by a single arrow that pierced all three at once, loosed by an archer mighty enough to do it in that breath of time before they drifted apart again.

To the three brothers this was as good as immortality. What archer could ever loose a shot that would pierce three moving fortresses in three different worlds in the one instant of their thousand-year alignment? They believed no such bowman could exist, and so, certain they could never be brought down, they grew bold.

For a long age the asuras of the Three Cities lived in splendor and grew ever more powerful. The golden city in heaven, the silver city in the sky, and the iron city on earth sailed through their realms, and from them the demons extended their dominion until they oppressed all the worlds. As long as they kept to virtue, the boon's protection held perfectly and nothing could touch them.

But power without check corrupts, and in time the dwellers of Tripura abandoned their early discipline. They grew arrogant, cruel, and lawless. They harried the gods, broke the sacrifices, tormented the sages, and trampled the order of the worlds, confident that their three moving fortresses made them untouchable. They forgot the one truth that undoes all such pride: that protection bought by power lasts only as long as righteousness does, and that the very boon that shields the wicked has, somewhere within it, the seed of their fall - in this case, a single instant, once in a thousand years, and a single arrow waiting to be loosed.

At last the oppressed gods, unable to bear the tyranny of the Three Cities any longer and unable to breach their defenses, went together to the one being mighty enough to attempt the impossible shot: the great god Shiva, lord of destruction, seated in his power upon the mountains.

They bowed before him and laid their helplessness before him. "Lord," they said, "the asuras of Tripura have made the worlds a misery, and their boon makes them all but unconquerable. Only once in a thousand years do their three cities align, and only in that instant can they be destroyed, and only by a single arrow that pierces all three at once. There is no archer among us equal to such a feat. You alone have the power. Be our champion. Take up the bow, and at the moment of alignment, end the Three Cities and free the worlds."

Shiva consented to be their deliverer. But even he, the greatest of the gods, did not undertake the shot alone. For a feat so vast - to pierce three flying fortresses in three worlds in a single instant - the strength of one being, however great, was not enough. It would take the whole of creation, gathered into a single weapon.

So the gods built for Shiva a war-chariot unlike any other - a chariot made of the very fabric of the universe, into which all the powers of creation poured themselves so that Shiva might wield them as one.

The Earth herself became the chariot. The sun and the moon became its two great wheels. The four Vedas became the four horses that drew it. Brahma, the creator, the Grandfather of the worlds, took up the reins and became the charioteer. The great mountain Meru, the axis of the world, became the mighty bow. The cosmic serpent that girds the worlds became the bowstring. And for the arrow - the single shaft that would have to pierce all three cities at once - the gods gave the very essence of Vishnu, the preserver, with Agni the fire-god as its burning point and the wind-god as its feathers. The whole universe, gods and elements and sacred powers together, was gathered and shaped into one chariot, one bow, and one arrow, and placed in the hands of Shiva.

So armed with the strength of all creation, the great god mounted the chariot of the worlds, set the cosmic arrow to the bow of the mountain, and waited.

Then began the waiting for the one instant in a thousand years. Shiva stood in the chariot of the worlds, the cosmic bow drawn, the arrow of Vishnu and fire nocked and held at the full, his aim fixed upon the heavens where the Three Cities sailed in their endless circling - the gold in heaven, the silver in the sky, the iron on earth - each in its own orbit, drifting through its realm.

The gods held their breath. For the shot to succeed, all three cities had to come into a single straight line, one behind another, at the exact instant that Shiva loosed - and that alignment would last only the briefest flicker of time before the three drifted apart again for another thousand years. There would be no second chance in that age. Shiva, motionless, his terrible gaze fixed upon the circling fortresses, held the strength of all creation drawn back upon the string, and waited for the cities of gold and silver and iron to fall, for one heartbeat, into one.

The moment came. In the turning of the worlds, the three cities slid at last into a single perfect line - the golden city, the silver city, and the iron city ranged one behind another in the one instant of their thousand-year alignment.

And in that instant Shiva loosed the arrow. The shaft of Vishnu and fire, drawn by the strength of all creation from the bow of Mount Meru, flashed out across the worlds - and it pierced all three cities at once, gold and silver and iron together, in the single breath of their alignment. The whole pent-up energy of the universe, gathered into that one arrow, blazed up in a fire that could not be quenched, and the Three Cities, with all their pride and all their wickedness, were burned to ashes in a moment, consumed utterly by the flame of the single shot, and fell out of the heavens as cinders.

It is said that Shiva destroyed the Three Cities almost with a smile - that so complete was the power gathered in him and the rightness of the moment that the unconquerable fortresses, the terror of the worlds, were undone in the space of a single arrow's flight, and the long oppression ended in a heartbeat.

The worlds were freed. The tyranny of the asuras of Tripura was ended forever, the sacrifices restored, the gods given back their heaven, and the order of things made whole. And from that day the great god bore a new name among his many names: Tripurantaka, the Ender of the Three Cities, in memory of the impossible shot by which he had delivered creation.

But the sages who told the tale always drew attention to one thing in it that is easy to overlook. Mighty as Shiva is, he did not burn the Three Cities by his own strength alone. He needed the Earth for his chariot, the sun and moon for his wheels, the Vedas for his horses, Brahma for his charioteer, Meru for his bow, the world-serpent for his string, and Vishnu and Agni for his arrow. It took the whole of creation, gathered and given freely into one weapon, to accomplish the deed - and it took the one right instant, waited for with perfect patience, to loose it. The greatest power in the worlds still depended on the union of all the powers, and on the discipline to wait for the single moment when the shot was possible.

The Pandavas took the tale to heart, for there was more than wonder in it. They saw first the old, sure truth that runs through all such stories: that the protection won by the wicked never holds, that the very boon that shields arrogance carries the seed of its undoing, and that the Three Cities, certain they could never be brought down, were brought down the moment their pride outran their virtue.

And they saw a second thing, meant for those who must one day face an impossible task of their own. The destruction of Tripura looked like the deed of a single god, but it was in truth the work of all the gods together, each giving what was his to give, united into one purpose and one weapon - and crowned by the patience to wait for the single instant in which victory was possible. So the greatest things, the tale teaches, are accomplished neither by lone strength nor by haste, but by the gathering of every power into one aim, and the discipline to strike at exactly the right moment, and not before. And the brothers, who would themselves one day have to gather every ally and wait for their own hour, remembered it.