Mahabharata

THE HORSE SACRIFICE. Still at the banks of the Ganga, Yudhishthira grieves, but Dhritarashtra tells him not to grieve since he himself has been even more foolish and suffered more loss. Krishna similarly advises Yudhishthira to put aside his grief, since he will soon have to fight a new battle—with himself—but Yudhishthira finds this hard to do. At last, Yudhishthira agrees to put aside his grief and rule as king, and Dhritarashtra performs last rites on all of the fallen warriors.

Later, Krishna spends some time with Arjuna discussing matters of dharma. Krishna tells Arjuna stories about Brahmins who lived wisely, acting nonviolently and showing reverence to the gods. He then goes on to explain the teachings of Brahma. According to Brahma, to be free of sin, a person must free themselves from the concept of “I.” A person who removes all doubts can reach a state of brahman.

Krishna and Arjuna go to Hastinapura in Krishna’s chariot. They make it there, and then Krishna asks to go off to Dvaraka see his father (Vasudeva)—Yudhishthira grants this request but makes Krishna promise to come back for the upcoming horse sacrifice.

Krishna goes off on his journey accompanied by Satyaki. They meet a seer named Uttanka in the desert. Krishna offers Uttanka a boon and then leaves. Since it’s dry in the desert, Uttanka decides to use his boon to wish for drinking water. He soon sees a dirty naked man urinating, and the naked man offers him the urine to drink, which Uttanka refuses. Uttanka gets mad at Krishna when he sees him again, but Krishna reveals that the dirty man was Indra in disguise and his urine was the nectar of immortality. As a consolation, Krishna gives Uttanka rain clouds, and now rain in the desert is called Clouds of Uttanka.

Krishna and Satyaki make it to Dvaraka. He meets up with Vasudeva and tells him the story of the war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Initially, he leaves out the part about Abhimanyu dying (since he is Vasudeva’s grandson), but eventually Vasudeva finds out and asks to hear this part in detail. They perform śraddha for Abhimanyu.

Meanwhile, the Pandavas are grieving in Hastinapura. Yudhishthira and some of the others decide to travel to find a treasure that Vyasa told them about. When they reach their destination, they make offerings to Śiva, then they come back with cartloads full of riches. Krishna comes back for the horse sacrifice. The wife of the late Abhimanyu gives birth to a son called Parikshit who dies right away (due to Aśvatthaman’s use of the celestial weapon Brahma’s Head). But to everyone’s delight, Krishna offers to revive Parikshit.

Krishna gives a short speech, and Parikshit begins to stir. Parikshit goes on to become the father of Janamejaya (who is still listening to Vaiśampayana tell this story). Eventually, it comes to be time for the horse ceremony.

On the day of the horse ceremony, even Krishna pays homage to Yudhishthira, who oversees the ceremony. He will release a horse into the wild, where it will be Arjuna’s responsibility to protect it with his bow. Yudhishthira lets the horse free, and it roams the entire earth. Sometimes the remaining enemies of the Pandavas try to attack the horse, but Arjuna bravely fends them off. During a fight with the king Babhruvahana, Arjuna briefly dies but gets revived by a special jewel. This helps him atone for the breach of dharma he committed by killing Bhishma.

Arjuna fights off more enemies until finally the horse heads back toward Hastinapura. Yudhishthira gets word of him coming and orders the other brothers to prepare. Bhima summons all the other kings in the area. Yudhishthira begins praising Arjuna for his many successful battles. Not long after, Arjuna himself arrives with the horse in the city. Many others who have gathered in the city give Arjuna praise as he enters. A couple days later, Krishna advises Yudhishthira that the time for the ceremony is at hand.

Yudhishthira and the sacrificial priests carry out the horse ceremony exactly as the Vedas prescribe. They tie many animals to stakes to be sacrificed. Eventually, they kill the horse and cook its intestines according to ritual, then split its limbs into 16 parts to throw in a fire. At the ceremony’s conclusion, Yudhishthira offers vast amounts of wealth to the priests who participated, then offers the earth to Vyasa. Vyasa thanks Yudhishthira but tells him to keep the earth and just pay him money. Yudhishthira says he’s going into the forest, and so instead he’ll divide the earth up among the four highest-ranking sacrificial priests.

Vyasa insists that Yudhishthira keep the earth, and Krishna advises him that Vyasa is correct. Eventually, they agree to have Yudhishthira’s gold divided up among the four sacrificial priests, who distribute it to the rest of the kingdom. He showers all his subjects in wealth and nourishment.

When the horse sacrifice is over, a huge mongoose appears. Its body is half gold. The mongoose proclaims angrily that the sacrifice was not correct, because if it had been correct, he would now be all gold instead of just half gold. Janamejaya interrupts the story, since he is surprised—he thought the sacrifice sounded sufficient. Vaiśampayana explains that the mongoose was actually Anger, who was imprisoned in the form of a mongoose and who could only become free by judging the dharma of others, as he did at the horse sacrifice.