Kiratarjuniya

01Bharavi

Almost nothing is known of Bharavi’s life except that he was famous early. In 634 CE the poet Ravikirti, writing the praise of the Chalukya king Pulakeshin II on the Meguti temple at Aihole, compared his own fame to that of Kalidasa and Bharavi. A century later, in the tradition preserved in Dandin’s Avantisundari, Bharavi appears as a southern poet linked to the courts of the Pallavas and the Western Gangas. The Kiratarjuniya is his only work. It takes a single episode of the Vana Parva and builds eighteen sargas on it, and the last verse of every sarga contains the word lakshmi, a signature he set like a seal.

02The forester’s report

The poem opens in the Dvaitavana. A forester whom Yudhishthira had sent in a brahmachari’s disguise to watch how Duryodhana governs comes back with unwelcome news: Duryodhana rules well. He has won the people with gifts and justice, keeps his ministers loyal and his army paid, and is quietly preparing for the war he knows will come. The forester begs pardon for saying it plainly, since speech that is both wholesome and pleasing is rare. Draupadi, who has heard everything, can bear it no longer. She reminds Yudhishthira of the sabha, of his brothers in bark garments, and asks how long he will wait.

03Bhima and Yudhishthira

In the second sarga Bhima takes Draupadi’s side with the force of a warrior who has waited too long: honour lost is not won back by patience, and an enemy left to grow will be harder to uproot. Yudhishthira answers him slowly. He gave his word for thirteen years; to break it would hand Duryodhana the very dharma that is now on the Pandavas’ side. Act in haste, he says, and want of judgement becomes the seat of disaster; fortune chooses of her own accord the one who acts after thought. Pandits have quoted these verses on statecraft for fourteen centuries, and they are the reason readers speak of Bharavi’s arthagaurava, his weight of meaning.

04Vyasa’s counsel and the road north

Maharshi Vyasa arrives in the third sarga, and settles the quarrel by giving it a purpose. The war will come, he says, and when it does the Pandavas must have weapons equal to Bhishma, Drona and Karna. Let Arjuna go to the mountain Indrakila and win them from Indra by tapas. He teaches Arjuna a vidya for the purpose and gives him a yaksha as guide. Draupadi’s farewell is short and fierce: remember the insult. The fourth and fifth sargas carry Arjuna north through autumn country, paddy ripening and herdsmen singing, and up into the Himalaya, which the yaksha describes peak by peak.

05The apsaras and Indra

Arjuna’s tapas on Indrakila is so fierce that it alarms the heavens, and Indra sends gandharvas and apsaras to break it. Sargas seven to ten are the showpieces of courtly kavya: their descent through the sky, their bathing in the mountain streams, the night, the drinking, the attempt. Arjuna does not look up. In the eleventh sarga Indra himself comes as an old sage and tests him with an argument: why seek weapons and victory when the wise seek moksha? Arjuna replies that he cannot think of his own liberation while his brothers live in the forest and his wife’s shame is unavenged. Satisfied, Indra tells him to worship Shiva.

06The boar and the hunter

Arjuna now turns his tapas to Shiva, and the ascetics of the mountain, scorched by its heat, go to Mahadev for relief. Shiva takes the form of a Kirata, a mountain hunter, and comes down with his ganas dressed as a hunting party. At that moment an asura in the shape of a boar charges at Arjuna. Two arrows strike it together, Arjuna’s and the hunter’s. A messenger from the Kirata comes to claim the arrow and the kill, and an exchange of insults follows that is a small masterpiece of diplomatic speech. Then the fighting begins, first with the ganas, then with the Kirata himself.

07The fight and the gift

The battle runs from the fourteenth sarga to the eighteenth. Arjuna’s arrows vanish, his bow is taken, his sword breaks. Shiva throws his own bow aside and fights with his fists. Arjuna leaps into the air and seizes the hunter by the feet to throw him down, and Shiva, delighted, crushes him to his chest in an embrace. Bharavi says Mahadev was pleased less by the tapas than by the courage. Shiva shows his own form, ash-white and crowned with the crescent moon, and Arjuna bows. A hymn follows, Arjuna’s weapons are restored, and Shiva grants the Pashupata astra. The Mahabharata’s version has a clay altar and a garland; Bharavi ends with the wrestling.

08Puzzles in verse

The fifteenth sarga, the battle with the ganas, is where Bharavi shows what Sanskrit can be made to do. It is a sarga of chitrakavya. One verse is built from the single consonant n; others read the same backwards as forwards, or the same in each quarter, or can be arranged in the shape of a wheel or a drum. Critics have argued ever since about whether this is art or acrobatics. Students love it, and teachers set it as a test. With Magha’s Shishupalavadha, which follows Bharavi closely, and Shriharsha’s Naishadhacharita, the Kiratarjuniya forms the brihattrayi, the three great poems read after Kalidasa.

09Bharaver arthagauravam

A verse every Sanskrit student hears sums up the masters: upama is Kalidasa’s, arthagaurava is Bharavi’s, padalalitya, grace of words, is Dandin’s, and Magha has all three. The Kiratarjuniya’s first sargas are still set in school and university courses for that weight of meaning. Mallinatha’s Ghantapatha, the bell-path, is the standard commentary. The meeting of Arjuna and the Kirata became a favourite subject in temple stone, from the great relief at Mamallapuram that many read as Arjuna’s tapas to Chola bronzes of Kiratamurti, and Kathakali has its own Kiratam. Indira Viswanathan Peterson’s Arjuna and the Hunter (2016) gives a modern English verse translation.

What it contains

1. 1
   Sarga 1

   The forester reports to Yudhishthira on Duryodhana’s good government. Draupadi, stung, urges her husband to abandon patience.

2. 2
   Sarga 2

   Bhima argues for war at once; Yudhishthira answers with the case for keeping his word. The sarga is a debate on statecraft and the source of Bharavi’s best-known maxims.

3. 3
   Sarga 3

   Vyasa arrives and advises that Arjuna win divine weapons by tapas. He teaches him a vidya and gives him a yaksha guide; Draupadi bids him farewell.

4. 4
   Sargas 4–5

   Arjuna’s road through the autumn countryside, and the Himalaya and Indrakila described by the yaksha. Sarga 5 is a showcase of varied metres.

5. 5
   Sarga 6

   Arjuna begins his tapas on Indrakila. The forest spirits, alarmed, carry word of it to Indra.

6. 6
   Sargas 7–10

   The gandharvas and apsaras sent by Indra: their descent, sport in the streams, the evening and night, and their failed attempt on Arjuna’s tapas.

7. 7
   Sarga 11

   Indra comes as an aged sage and questions Arjuna’s purpose. Arjuna’s answer on duty and honour satisfies him, and he directs Arjuna to Shiva.

8. 8
   Sargas 12–13

   Arjuna’s tapas to Shiva; Shiva takes the guise of a Kirata. The boar is shot by both, and the Kirata’s envoy disputes the kill with Arjuna.

9. 9
   Sargas 14–15

   Battle with Shiva’s ganas and with the Kirata. Sarga 15 is the chitrakavya sarga of verses built on one or two consonants, palindromes and patterned forms.

10. 10
    Sargas 16–17

    The duel of weapons: each astra Arjuna looses is answered and swallowed. His arrows are spent, his bow is lost, and he fights on.

11. 11
    Sarga 18

    The wrestling bout, Shiva’s embrace and revelation, Arjuna’s hymn, and the gift of the Pashupata astra. Arjuna returns to bow before Yudhishthira.

Famous verses

श्रियः कुरूणामधिपस्य पालनीं प्रजासु वृत्तिं यमयुङ्क्त वेदितुम् । स वर्णिलिङ्गी विदितः समाययौ युधिष्ठिरं द्वैतवने वनेचरः ॥

The forester whom Yudhishthira had sent to learn how the lord of the Kurus conducts himself towards his people, the conduct that guards his royal fortune, came back to him in the Dvaitavana, disguised as a brahmachari, his task done.Kiratarjuniya 1.1

क्रियासु युक्तैर्नृप चारचक्षुषो न वञ्चनीयाः प्रभवोऽनुजीविभिः । अतोऽर्हसि क्षन्तुमसाधु साधु वा हितं मनोहारि च दुर्लभं वचः ॥

O king, rulers who see through their spies must not be deceived by servants set to a task. So forgive me what I say, pleasant or unpleasant; for speech that is both wholesome and charming is rare.Kiratarjuniya 1.4

सहसा विदधीत न क्रियामविवेकः परमापदां पदम् । वृणते हि विमृश्यकारिणं गुणलुब्धाः स्वयमेव सम्पदः ॥

Do nothing in haste; want of judgement is the seat of the worst misfortunes. Fortune, who loves merit, chooses of her own accord the one who acts after thought.Kiratarjuniya 2.30 (GRETIL reads वृणते; many editions वृणुते)

व्रज जय रिपुलोकं पादपद्मानतः सन् गदित इति शिवेन श्लाघितो देवसंघैः । निजगृहमथ गत्वा सादरं पाण्डुपुत्रो धृतगुरुजयलक्ष्मीर्धर्मसूनुं ननाम ॥

Bowed at Shiva’s lotus feet, Arjuna heard him say, ‘Go, and conquer the host of your enemies,’ and was praised by the gathered devas. Then the son of Pandu went home and, bearing the great Lakshmi of victory, bowed with reverence to Yudhishthira, the son of Dharma.Kiratarjuniya 18.48 (the closing verse)