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BOOK ONE - ADI PARVAL
ONE THE BANKS OF THE GANGA
Shantanu, fourteenth king of the Kurus in the august line of Manu and Bharata, was a keen hunter. Since his earliest years, the monarch of the race of the Moon was a solitary; and he hunted alone as well. He did not like to share the passion of careful tracking, the breathless chase, or the humming arrow. He did not care to diffuse the excitement and danger of the hunt by surrounding himself with courtiers or trackers. Hunting was rather like worship to him, a thing just between himself and the wilderness.
Shantanu was a young king at the time of which we speak. But he had not married and the kingdom did not have an heir. It seemed he would never take a wife, for he had refused the most beautiful, most gifted princesses in all Bharatavarsha. Shantanu had always known that one day he would indeed marry and the Kurus would have their crown prince. Only when the woman for whom he was waiting, the one who appeared so clearly to him in his dreams, came into his waking life.
Twilight and the blue sky was dying in dark crimson and turquoise when Shantanu rode to the banks of the sacred Ganga. His horse frothed at the mouth, its flanks steamed. Shantanu had almost ridden him into the ground today, as if the king was possessed by a demon. He had come much farther than he had intended and though he had set out at dawn he had killed nothing yet. Once a leopard had eluded him and twice a fine stag. The last arrow missed its mark by a hand's width. An archer like him should have turned home in disgust, on this luckless day when the gods of the hunt mocked him.
But Shantanu did not turn back. He pressed on, more determined than ever that he would not return empty-handed, not if he had to sleep out under the stars. He did not know it yet, but fate drew him on.
The sun was sinking at the crest of the western hills, when he arrived exhausted on the banks of the shimmering river.
"Ganga!" breathed Shantanu when he saw her: she who had fallen from the sky in pristine times. She was as wide as a sea and he could hardly make out her far bank. He dismounted and led his horse to the susurrant water's edge, where the river lapped at banks of green moss.
He knelt beside his beast and, bending down to the crystal flow, drank deeply, splashing his arms and face with the sweet water. Suddenly, the king became aware that he was not alone.
He turned and saw her: a vision swathed in the last rays of the saffron sun, her skin like soft gold. She appeared perfect of face and body. Her eyes were luminous, her black hair fell to her waist in a cascade, as she stood staring at him and made his blood quicken as no other woman ever had. And she was no stranger: she had visited his dreams since he was a boy.
They stood transfixed for an interminable moment, before Shantanu went softly toward her. Words failed him, but he held out his hands, wanting to say everything with that gesture.
She stood there, playing nervously with her black tresses. Her face mirrored the river uncannily; it seemed the water flowed across her sculpted features, as if the Ganga and she were one being, their rhythms the same, their souls.
Next moment, he drew her to him in the deepening darkness. He whispered, "I am Shantanu, king in Hastinapura. I cannot live without you, I want you to be my queen."
Her eyes wild, she said, "Oh I love you, my lord! But I must bind you with a condition, if I am to be your wife."
"Anything, anything at all; my life if you want it."
"You must never ask me who I am, nor question what I do, however terrible it may seem."
His hands parted the flowing garment she wore, which seemed made of river-moss and he knelt before her to slake all the thirst of his young manhood, for the king was still a virgin. She breathed, "I will be your wife until you question me. But the day you do, I will leave you for ever."
"Never. I swear I will never question you, whatever you do."
Now her hands were peeling off his clothes and the river swelled around them in a tide of flames. It seemed their bodies turned to water and fire and they were lost in an ancient dream of love.
(This is the same chapter from my previous update . on banks of ganga . )
Shantanu brought her home to Hastinapura, the city of elephants and she became his queen. For where he had found her, he called her Ganga. She was peerless: a perfect companion who knew his every whim, wise and just, modest and charming and knowing how to keep her own counsel. Most of all, she was his love; and when they were alone together, Shantanu and Ganga slipped beyond time's confines and became other, magical beings.
A year passed and one summer's evening Ganga told Shantanu that she was pregnant. There was celebration in Hastinapura, which lasted a month: that an heir would be born in the royal House of the Moon. It seemed to the king that he was hardly mortal any more. In his joy Shantanu chose to ignore the strange anxiety that gripped his wife during her pregnancy. He attributed her moody silences and her refusal to see anyone for days, to just the fact that a woman is subject to many changes at such a time.
Winter was near its end and there was spring in the air, when on a fine morning a messenger arrived breathless in his king's court. He came with the news that a fine son had been born to queen Ganga. Shantanu sprang up from his throne and ran to his wife's apartment. Ignoring the guards, who were trying to convey something urgently to him, he burst into the room of labor, only to find it deserted.
He turned back to the guards and the somber women of the harem.
"Where is she?" he cried. "Where is my son?"
The captain of the guards said, "My lord, the queen had hardly given birth when she snatched up the child in her arms and ran out. She said she was going to the river and forbade any of us to follow her, on pain of death."
Shantanu ordered his swiftest horse saddled. She had an hour's start, but she had gone by chariot. It was twilight again when the Kuru king came flying to the river's bank, to the very place where his love had first appeared.
The sun was sinking over the western hills. In that last light, he saw her standing at the candescent water's edge, her infant in her arms. She was speaking earnestly to the river in an old and fluid tongue. He couldn't understand a word she said, but suddenly he remembered some other words she had once said to him: "You must never question me, whatever I do, or I will leave you for ever."
Even as he leapt off his horse, she chanted a resonant mantra, lifted their baby high above her head and cast him into the swirling flow. Her cry echoed there as if she had torn her heart from her body and flung it from her.
She turned in the golden ghost-light and, as long as he lived, Shantanu would never forget the look on her face. Before he could roar the searing protest that rose in him, she ran to him and flung her arms around his neck. Her eyes raged at him, 'Remember your oath!'
She pulled him down onto the emerald moss and enfolded him in her currents. She made him forget everything in the velvet tide to her sea.
Hello everyone . i know most of my readers are silent readers till now . but I need your decision to see how was my story . if you can then please reply . I was sorry I thought of posting a update yesterday but I have been busy with exams . but now you can enjoy
Chapter 2 - A TALE OF TWO CURSES - 1
Never once did Shantanu ask his queen why she had drowned their child, not even in their most intimate moments together.
In a year, she was pregnant again. Once more there was expectation and rejoicing in the kingdom and once again, when she was delivered of a beautiful infant, she took the child to the river and threw him to the foaming currents. Again Shantanu followed her and found her at the water's edge. Once more she made him dumb with a look, smothering him with her loving so he dared not ask her why she had killed their baby.
Seven times in as many years, Ganga became pregnant: because her husband did not stop loving her. But living with his terrible secret, his heart died within him, day by day. They told the world their sons were born diseased from an old curse and had been given into the care of some rishis in the forest. This was near enough the truth, but Shantanu did not know that yet.
Like a serpent in its hole, his anguish coiled itself round his life. His hair turned grey and his face was lined. He tried to stay away from Ganga, but this he could not do; she was closer to him than his very breath and he could not live without making love to her. He bore his ordeal in silence, through the murder of seven sons.
But slowly Shantanu arrived at a crisis. What tormented him most, whenever he thought of it, was his queen's nonchalance at what she did, which was so monstrous. He often wondered whether she was not a rakshasi, a demoness. After all, her past was cloaked in mystery. Even on that first day they met, he recalled now in dark suspicion, she had made him swear he would never question her: on pain of losing her forever.
Yet, he also knew how gentle she was, even to the smallest living thing. How was he to reconcile these two Gangas? Shantanu was close to losing his mind, when his queen conceived for the eight time.
The time of her delivery drew near and this time Shantanu waited night and day outside his wife's apartment. He listened, as he could not have done in the past, to her cries of labor as their child pushed his way out from her delicate body. It was the night's final yaama, the hour before dawn. Shantanu heard her order her chariot to the door and he knew where she would go.
That night Shantanu rode to the river before her.
For an hour he waited by the murmuring water, until dawn caressed the eastern sky. It was the longest hour of his life; then he heard her arrive. By the first rays of the sun, he saw her alight from the chariot with their child in her arms. He stood hidden by a tree and she did not notice him in her urgency. She ran straight to the edge of the water and as she lifted the baby to cast it into the lightening flow, all the sorrow of seven agonized years burst from him.
"Stop!" howled Shantanu, his voice echoing against the dawn. "You won't kill my son!"
Hii everyone . it has been long since i have updated ( usually i update every once a week.)
A TALE OF TWO CURSES - 2
It was as if he had struck her with an arrow. She turned in shock, a moan on her lips and stood frozen as he ran up to her. Before he could snatch the child from her arms, she handed it to him herself. He was beside himself now, raging.
"What is this dreadful thing you do again and again? How can a mother cut off these innocent lives?"
She smiled sadly, "You have broken your oath to me. It seems you need this son of yours more than you do me. So be it; the curse has ended."
"What curse? What are you raving about, you murderess?"
He saw hurt flash in her eyes; then she took his hand, "My lord, hear my story before you judge me." Stroking his face so tenderly he thought his heart would break, she whispered, "Look, Shantanu, at who I really am."
She stood transformed before him. She was ethereal light and crystal waves at once: the tides of ages were contained in her. She was pure beyond belief, brighter than the rising sun. She was a Goddess. He drew back from her in awe—she who had been his wife for ten years, stood now, an immortal.
She said, "I am Ganga, the river of heaven and earth. The sins of men are washed in me."
Shantanu stood speechless. He wanted to kneel and worship her, but the child was in his arms and confusion stormed through his body.
In a moment, she returned to her human form. "Now you will believe me and my tale of two curses.
The first curse is the reason I came to you as a woman. Once, in a time you cannot remember, since this mortal body binds you now, you were another king. You were called Mahabhishek then."
As Ganga spoke, the memory of another life rustled at Shantanu's soul and he saw what she described in a vision.
Once Mahabhishek sat in Indra's court, the Sudharma, among the Devas. Those were days when heaven and earth were hardly apart from each other and kings of the earth went freely to the realms of the Gods. Ganga came there then, as she often did and when Mahabhishek saw her he wanted her. When she looked at him, she also felt a powerful yearning. The Devas saw them quicken to each other and a hush fell in Indra's court.
As Ganga told her tale, Shantanu saw it all again clearly: he was swept back to that unearthly occasion.
How could an immortal like her and he, a mortal king, come together? The Devas cursed them that they dared gaze at each other with forbidden desire, in the Gods' very presence. They cursed Mahabhishek and Ganga to a human life, when they would be a king and his wife for a time and satisfy themselves with each other's love.
"And I appeared before you at my water's edge one day," she said.
He asked in a whisper, "And the children? What curse was that?"
She said in her voice of tides, "Once the eight Vasus of heaven came down with their women to roam the earth."
AND .........
To be continued ,
i hope you enjoy . it is so long so i have to update it in parts . i dont plan on having many parts . but it is a long chapter .
A TALE OF TWO CURSES - 3
She said in her voice of tides, "Once the eight Vasus of heaven came down with their women to roam the earth."
With invisible bodies those immortals came and saw a mountain where Vasishta the sage had his asrama. They saw Nandini, the muni's cow, with her calf beside her, cropping the grass that grew on a jade slope. They were besotted with that divine cow that lit up the mountainside with her luster.
One of the Vasus' wives cried to her husband that she must have the creature for herself.
The Vasu laughed, 'Nandini belongs to the Rishi Vasishta, who is master of this mountain. My love, a human may escape death by drinking her milk. But we are already immortal; it is foolish to tempt the sage's wrath.'
But his woman would not listen. 'It is not for me, but for a mortal friend of mine that I want the cow. My friend is dearer to me than I can tell you and I don't want her ever to die.'
Taunted by their wives, who brought their husbands' manhood into question, asking how could they, who were Gods, fear a mere rishi, those Vasus came down like eight comets on that mountain and took Nandini and her calf from Vasishta's asrama.
But Nandini was like Vasishta's daughter; he could not live without her. The muni was a seer of time. He looked into his heart and knew the Vasus had taken his cow. When he saw how his gentle animal had been spirited away, crying out, her calf lowing in terror, his eyes blazed. With all the power of his long tapasya, he cursed the Vasus.
'Arrogant Devas, be born as mortal men!'
He felt drained. In their distant world, the Vasus became aware of the curse and they trembled. It was unthinkable for them, who were as free as light, to be bound in chthonic flesh. They flew to the rishi's feet, with Nandini and her calf and cried, 'Muni, forgive us!'
But a rishi's curse was no trifle that it could be withdrawn. Moreover, the germ of a deep destiny was hidden in that curse; there were mysterious designs to be accomplished by it, on earth. Vasishta had grown calmer now and felt pity for the contrite Vasus.
He said, 'I cannot withdraw the curse and you must pay for what you did. But for seven of you let the curse be brief. You will spend nine months in the darkness of a mother's womb; but as soon as you are born you will meet your deaths and be free again.'
It was the eighth Vasu, Prabhasa, who had actually seized Nandini. He stood with his head hung before Vasishta. The rishi said kindly to him, 'You led the others to sin; you must pay more fully than they. Prabhasa, you will live a whole life as a man on earth and yours shall be a great human life. But now, Devas, go and find a woman who can be your mother in this world.'
The curse and even its softening, had exhausted Vasishta. He had to find a lonely place to begin his tapasya once more. Taking Nandini and her calf with him, he disappeared from there.
Left alone on the mountain, the Vasus saw a sparkling spring that issued from a cleft in some rocks. They knew this was from where the Ganga flowed down into the world. It struck them that here, surely, was providence trying to show them their way ahead: who better than the river of heaven and earth to be their terrestrial mother?
They worshipped her on the icy mountain and, surprised at their being there, Ganga appeared before them. Already like children, the Vasus fell at her feet and cried, 'Devi, listen to the curse Vasishta has laid upon us.'
They told their tale by turns. At last, Prabhasa said, 'We beg you, O Ganga, take a human woman's form. Marry a king of the earth and become our mother. And as soon as we are born, cast the first seven of us into your waters. But I, Prabhasa, must suffer the whole span of a mortal life.'
Ganga ended her story softly, "With the other curse already hanging over me Shantanu and longing for you as I did, how could I refuse?"
Now Shantanu knew she was pure. He knelt before her and asked her forgiveness that he had doubted her. Then, without a word, he handed her the shining infant he held in his arms. Tenderly, she took the child, the Vasu Prabhasa, from him.
Ganga said, "When he is sixteen our son will return with you to Hastinapura. And one day, he will rule the Kurus."
Shantanu realized the time had come for her to leave him. He cried, "And you, Ganga? Will I never see you again? What if I come to the river? Won't you meet me here in secret, hidden from the eyes of men and Gods? Oh, how will I live without you?"
Briefly, she was sad. But then she stroked his face and said, "Nothing is hidden, nor ever shall be. Our time together is past."
With the child in her arms, she vanished. Shantanu's cries rang against sky, forest and river. Again and again he called out her name; but she had gone. In a while, knowing his old life was truly over, he climbed wearily into the chariot in which she had driven here and turned home.
This one is going great. Please do continue.
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