The Priest of Drupada

Vaisampayana was telling the story of the wedding, and he began it with a king who did not know whom his daughter had gone away with.

Drupada had spent the night asking it. Had a Sudra taken Krishna, or a man of mean descent, or some tribute-paying Vaisya, and set his dirty foot on a king's head? Had the wreath of flowers been thrown away on a grave-yard? He had one hope and he had said it aloud to his son: that the man who took her was Partha, and that the sons of Vichitravirya's son were somehow alive after all.

Dhrishtadyumna, his son, had followed the two strangers out of the amphitheatre the evening before and hidden himself in a corner of the potter's house all night, and he came back in the morning with an answer, and he gave it cheerfully.

"With large, red eyes," he said, "attired in deer-skin, resembling a celestial in beauty. That is the youth who strung that bow and brought the mark down out of the air. The foremost of the Brahmanas crowded round him at once and did him homage for the feat, and he stood in the middle of them incapable of bearing the sight of a foe, like the thunder-wielding Indra standing among the celestials and the Rishis.

"And Krishna followed him. She caught hold of his deer-skin and went after him cheerfully, the way a she-elephant follows the leader of a herd.

"Then the assembled monarchs could not bear the sight of it and rose up in wrath and came forward to fight. And there rose up another hero. He tore up a large tree and rushed with it at that concourse of kings and felled them right and left, like Yama himself smiting down creatures endued with life.

"After that, father, the kings stood motionless and only looked. The two of them, resembling the Sun and the Moon, took Krishna between them and walked out of the amphitheatre."

He had followed where they walked, and that was the part his father needed to hear.

"They went into the abode of a potter in the suburbs of the town," Dhrishtadyumna said, "and there in the potter's house sat a lady like unto a flame of fire, who I think is their mother. And around her sat three other foremost of men, and each of them also was like unto fire.

"The two heroes came in and bowed down and paid homage to her feet, and they told Krishna to do the same. Then they left her with the lady and all five of them went out on their round of eleemosynary visits, like Brahmanas, and begged their food from door to door.

"When they came back, Krishna took what they had obtained as alms and devoted a portion of it to the gods, and gave another portion away to Brahmanas. Of what was left she gave a portion to that venerable lady and divided the rest among those five foremost of men. She took a little for herself and ate it last of all."

Then he told his father how they slept, because he had watched that too.

They laid themselves down on a bed of kusa grass with their deer-skins spread over it, and Krishna lay along the line of their feet, as their nether pillow, and did not grieve in her heart at it.

"And before they slept," said the prince, "they talked. In voices deep as of black clouds, on diverse subjects. Their talk indicated them to be neither Vaisyas nor Sudras nor Brahmanas. It was all of celestial cars and weapons, of elephants and swords and arrows and battle-axes. Without doubt, O monarch, they are bulls amongst Kshatriyas, for their discourse was on military subjects.

"It seems to me, father, that our hope hath been fructified. We have heard that the sons of Kunti all escaped from the conflagration of the house of lac. From the way the mark was shot down by that youth, and the strength with which the bow was strung, and the manner in which I heard them talk with one another, it is proved conclusively that they are the sons of Pritha, wandering in disguise."

Drupada heard his son out, and became exceedingly glad, and did not yet believe it.

Being glad was not the same as being certain, so the king sent his priest.

A king's priest is not a messenger. He is the Brahmana who keeps the fire of the household, who knows the ordinance for every rite the king will ever need, and who can be sent to a stranger's house without either party being shamed by the errand. Drupada directed him to find out who these men were, and whether they were the sons of the illustrious Pandu, and the old Brahmana went down to the potter's house in the suburbs and applauded them all and delivered the king's message duly.

"Ye who are worthy of preference in everything," he said, "the boon-giving king of the earth, Drupada, is desirous of ascertaining who ye are. Beholding this one who hath shot down the mark, his joy knoweth no bounds. Give us the particulars of your family and your tribe. Place your feet on the heads of your foes, and gladden the hearts of the king of Panchala and his men, and mine also."

Then he said the thing he had been sent to say, which was not a question at all.

"King Pandu was the dear friend of Drupada, and was regarded by him as his counterself. And Drupada had all along cherished the desire of bestowing this daughter of his upon Pandu as his daughter-in-law. Ye heroes of features perfectly faultless, king Drupada hath all along cherished this desire in his heart, that Arjuna of strong and long arms might wed this daughter of his according to the ordinance. If that hath become possible, nothing could be better, nothing more beneficial, nothing more conducive to fame and virtue, so far as Drupada is concerned."

Having said this, the priest remained silent and humbly waited for an answer.

He had told them, in the politest form available to him, that his master was hoping out loud for exactly the men he was looking at, and that if they were those men they had only to say so. Then he sat there with his hands in his lap and let the silence do the rest of the work.

Yudhishthira did not answer him first. He turned to Bhima, who was sitting near.

"Let water to wash his feet with, and the Arghya, be offered unto this Brahmana. He is king Drupada's priest, and therefore worthy of great respect. We should worship him with more than ordinary reverence."

Bhima did as he was directed. The priest accepted the worship offered him with a joyous heart and sat at his ease, and only then did Yudhishthira speak, and what he said was not one word about family or tribe.

"The king of the Panchalas hath, by fixing a special kind of dower, given away his daughter according to the practice of his order, and not freely. This hero hath, by satisfying that demand, won the princess. King Drupada, therefore, hath nothing now to say in regard to the race, the tribe, the family and the disposition of him who hath performed that feat. Indeed, all his queries have been answered by the stringing of the bow and the shooting down of the mark.

"It is by doing what he had directed that this illustrious hero hath brought away Krishna from among the assembled monarchs. In these circumstances the king of the Lunar race should not indulge in any regrets, which can only make him unhappy without mending matters in the least. The desire that king Drupada hath all along cherished will be accomplished, for his handsome princess beareth, I think, every auspicious mark.

"None that is weak in strength could string that bow, and none of mean birth and unaccomplished in arms could have shot down the mark. It behoveth not, therefore, the king of the Panchalas to grieve for his daughter today. Nor can anybody in the world undo that act of shooting down the mark. Therefore the king should not grieve for what must take its course."

It was a complete answer and it disclosed nothing. The terms had been set by Drupada, the terms had been met, and a man who sets a test has agreed in advance to accept whoever passes it. Every question the priest had brought had been answered already, Yudhishthira said, by the bow.

While he was still saying it, another messenger came in from the king of the Panchalas in great haste.

"The feast is ready."

"King Drupada hath, in view of his daughter's nuptials, prepared a good feast for the bride-groom's party," the messenger said. "Come ye thither after finishing your daily rites. Krishna's wedding will take place there. Delay ye not. These cars adorned with golden lotuses and drawn by excellent horses are worthy of kings. Riding on them, come ye into the abode of the king of the Panchalas."

Cars adorned with golden lotuses, sent to a potter's yard, for men who had come back that evening with begged food in their hands. The invitation was a test in itself, and nobody in the yard said so.

Those bulls among the Kurus dismissed the priest, put Kunti and Krishna together on one of the cars, mounted the splendid vehicles themselves and drove to Drupada's place.

Meanwhile the king had heard from his priest what Yudhishthira had said, and had understood exactly how much of it was an answer. So he prepared the only question that cannot be evaded, and he prepared it in the form of furniture.

In order to ascertain the order to which those heroes belonged, he kept ready a large collection of the articles required by the ordinance for the wedding of each of the four orders. He set out fruits and sanctified garlands, for the Brahmana. He set out kine and seeds and various implements of agriculture, for the Vaisya. He collected every article appertaining to the other arts, and implements and apparatus of every kind of sport, for the Sudra and for any man who might be neither one thing nor the other.

And then he laid out the fourth set.

Excellent coats of mail and shining shields. Swords and scimitars of fine temper. Beautiful chariots and horses. First-class bows and well-adorned arrows, and various kinds of missiles ornamented with gold. Darts and rockets and battle-axes and the various utensils of war. Among them all he scattered beds and carpets and fine things and cloths of various sorts, so that nothing in the room should look like a trap.

Then he waited to see what five strangers in deer-skins would walk over to.

When the party reached Drupada's abode, Kunti took the virtuous Krishna with her and went into the inner apartments of the king, and the ladies of the king's household with joyous hearts worshipped the queen of the Kurus, without yet knowing that she was one.

The men came in by the other door, and the whole court looked at them.

They had the sportive gait of the lion. They wore deer-skins for their upper garments. They had eyes like unto those of mighty bulls, broad shoulders, and long-hanging arms like unto the bodies of mighty snakes. The king and the king's ministers and the king's son and the king's friends and attendants beheld those foremost of men, and all became exceedingly glad.

Then came the first small thing that was noticed.

Excellent seats had been set out, furnished with footstools, of a kind a beggar has no business sitting on. The five sat down on them without any awkwardness and hesitation, with perfect fearlessness, one after another according to the order of their ages. Men who are pretending do not sit like that, and men who are pretending do not know their own precedence so exactly that a whole room can read their birth order off the seating.

Well-dressed servants, male and female, and skilful cooks brought excellent and costly viands worthy of kings on gold and silver plates. Those foremost of men dined on those dishes and became well-pleased. Nothing about the food surprised them either.

And after the dinner was over, they got up and walked into the room where the king's collection was laid out.

They passed over the fruits and the garlands. They passed over the kine and the seeds and the ploughs. They passed over the implements of the arts and the apparatus of sport, and the beds and the carpets and the cloths of various sorts, and they went to the far end of the hall and stood among the coats of mail and the shields and the swords and the bows, and began to observe the various utensils of war with interest.

Drupada's son, and Drupada himself, and all his chief ministers of state, stood watching them do it.

They understood the sons of Kunti to be all of royal blood, and became exceedingly glad.

Even then the king asked. He had watched them choose the weapons and he still wanted it said aloud, and he addressed Yudhishthira in the form applicable to Brahmanas, because that was still, formally, what his guest was.

"Are we to know you as Kshatriyas, or Brahmanas? Or are we to know you as celestials who, disguising themselves as Brahmanas, are ranging the earth and have come hither for the hand of Krishna? O tell us truly, for we have great doubts. Shall we not be glad when our doubts have been removed? O chastiser of enemies, have the fates been propitious unto us? Tell us the truth willingly. Truth becometh monarchs better than sacrifices and dedications of tanks. Therefore tell us not what is untrue. Hearing thy reply, I shall make arrangements for my daughter's wedding according to the order to which ye belong."

He had put his own hand on the table. He had told them what the answer would be used for, and he had used the word monarchs of the man he was speaking to.

"Be not cheerless, O king," Yudhishthira said. "Let joy fill thy heart. The desire cherished by thee hath certainly been accomplished. We are Kshatriyas, O king, and sons of the illustrious Pandu. Know me to be the eldest of the sons of Kunti, and these to be Bhima and Arjuna. By these, O king, was thy daughter won amid the concourse of monarchs. The twins and Kunti wait where Krishna is. O bull amongst men, let grief be driven from thy heart, for we are Kshatriyas. Thy daughter, O monarch, hath like a lotus been transferred only from one lake into another. Thou art our revered superior and our chief refuge. I have told thee the whole truth."

Drupada's eyes rolled in ecstasy, and for some moments, filled with delight, the king could not answer him at all. He checked his emotion with great effort and replied in proper words, and the first proper word he could find was a question about a fire.

He asked how they had escaped from the town of Varanavata. Yudhishthira told him every particular in detail of their escape from the burning palace of lac. Drupada heard it out and censured Dhritarashtra, that ruler of men, and gave every assurance unto the son of Kunti, and that foremost of eloquent men then and there vowed to restore Yudhishthira to his paternal throne.

Kunti and Krishna and Bhima and Arjuna and the twins were commanded by the king to reside there, and Yajnasena treated them with due respect. Then Drupada came to Yudhishthira with his sons, assured now by all that had happened, and asked for the wedding he had wanted for years.

"O thou of mighty arms, let the Kuru prince Arjuna take with due rites the hand of my daughter on this auspicious day, and let him therefore perform the usual initiatory rites of marriage."

"O great king," said Yudhishthira, "I also shall have to marry."

Drupada took it for modesty about precedence. "If it pleaseth thee, take thou the hand of my daughter thyself with due rites. Or give Krishna in marriage unto whomsoever of thy brothers thou likest."

"Thy daughter, O king, shall be the common wife of us all. Even thus it hath been ordered by our mother. I am unmarried still, and Bhima also is so amongst the sons of Pandu. This thy jewel of a daughter hath been won by Arjuna. This, O king, is the rule with us, to ever enjoy equally a jewel that we may obtain. Krishna, therefore, shall become the wedded wife of us all. Let her take our hands, one after another, before the fire."

The king who had spent two days establishing that these men were of good birth now heard the eldest of them propose something no good family had ever done.

"O scion of Kuru's race, it hath been directed that one man may have many wives. But it hath never been heard that one woman may have many husbands. O son of Kunti, as thou art pure and acquainted with the rules of morality, it behoveth thee not to commit an act that is sinful and opposed both to usage and the Vedas. Why, O prince, hath thy understanding become so?"

"O monarch, morality is subtle. We do not know its course. Let us follow the way trodden by the illustrious ones of former ages. My tongue never uttered an untruth. My heart also never turneth to what is sinful. My mother commandeth so, and my heart also approveth of it. Therefore, O king, that is quite conformable to virtue. Act according to it without any scruples. Entertain no fear about this matter."

"O son of Kunti, thy mother, and my son Dhrishtadyumna, and thyself, settle amongst yourselves what should be done. Tell me the result of your deliberations, and tomorrow I will do what is proper."

So Yudhishthira and Kunti and Dhrishtadyumna sat down together to discourse upon it. And just at that time, in the course of his wanderings, the island-born came there.