Stories

When Damayanti awoke and discovered that Nala was gone, disbelief quickly gave way to anguish. She called his name again and again, expecting that he might be nearby or that he would answer from beyond the trees. No reply came. As she searched the ground, she realised that the cloth they had shared had been cut in two. One half remained with her, while Nala had taken the other. The meaning was unmistakable. He had left her alone in the wilderness.

The episode forms part of the Nalopakhyana, the celebrated story of Nala and Damayanti narrated in the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata. What appears at first to be a frightening encounter with a serpent becomes one of the story’s most remarkable examples of misfortune concealing divine purpose.

A flock of magnificent swans descended before Nala. Their wings gleamed with a golden radiance. Among them was one remarkable bird that would soon become the messenger through whom two distant hearts found one another. The episode appears in the Nalopakhyana, the celebrated story of Nala and Damayanti narrated in the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata.

In a quiet forest, King Pandu raised his bow against what appeared to be a pair of deer. The arrows he released would strike far beyond their visible target. From that moment came a terrible curse, the renunciation of a king, the unusual birth of the Pandavas and one of the great turning points in the Mahabharata.

The Mahabharata describes Bharata overpowering lions, tigers, elephants, buffaloes and other wild animals and even binding them to trees, while the specific scene in which he attempts to count the teeth of a lion cub appears more explicitly in Kalidasa’s later drama Abhijnanashakuntalam. Kalidasa’s scene is therefore a vivid dramatic development of the extraordinary childhood already described in the Mahabharata.

Adrika belonged to the radiant company of celestial maidens who danced in the courts of the gods. Her beauty was like moonlight upon moving water, and her laughter was said to resemble the music of silver bells.

Around the helpless infant stretched an ancient forest filled with prowling beasts, twisting roots and the dark movements of unseen creatures. Yet destiny had not abandoned her.

They were the Eight Vasus, radiant deities associated with the fundamental powers of nature. They moved freely through heaven and earth, untouched by age, disease or sorrow. Their bodies shone with celestial light, and wherever they travelled, the air became fragrant and the sky seemed brighter.

Their weapons no longer blazed with their former brilliance. Their strength weakened, their victories grew uncertain and the celestial gardens seemed dim beneath the gathering power of the Asuras. The immortals who had once ruled the heavens now feared that their enemies would soon seize every realm.

Many Nagas delighted in frightening weaker creatures. They struck without warning, poisoned wells, disturbed hermitages and mocked those who lived by restraint. Their anger was swift, their grudges long and their pride sharpened by the knowledge that even mighty warriors feared their bite.