The Ascent to Heaven

After the long march into the Himalaya, after the falling away of Draupadi and his four brothers one by one upon the slopes of Mount Meru, Yudhishthira had walked on alone but for a single faithful dog. At the very gate of the celestial regions he had refused Indra's chariot rather than abandon that creature, and in that final mercy the dog had revealed itself to be Dharma, his own divine father, testing him one last time on the threshold of the worlds. Having passed, Yudhishthira was lifted up into the sky.

He rose in his living body, a thing almost unheard of among men, the wind of the heavens cool upon a face still lined with the grief and dust of the earth. Below him the white peaks fell away; above him the firmament opened like a flower of light. He thought of all that had brought him here - the dice, the exile, the war that had swallowed an age of heroes - and he believed that the bitterness was behind him now. Surely, he told himself, his brothers had arrived before him, and Draupadi, and the great-souled men who had died for the cause of dharma. Surely heaven would be a reunion.

The gates of the immortals stood open. Music that no earthly ear had heard poured out to meet him, and the fragrance of flowers that never fade. Celestial beings came forward to honour him, and the assembled gods and sages rose at his approach, for it was no small thing that a man should enter those halls in the body he had worn upon the earth. Yudhishthira passed within, his heart lifting toward the faces he longed to see, certain that the worst sorrows of his life were finished and that only joy remained beyond that shining threshold.