Pāṇḍava Mahāprasthāna

The Pāṇḍavas left the world together. After Bhagavān Kṛshṇa went back to his own dhāma (supreme abode) and Parīkshit was crowned, the five Pāṇḍava brothers and Draupadī gave up all ties and walked to their end. This marks the close of the great royal line of the Dvāpara Yuga. The Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa tells it in the 1st Skanda, Chapter 15. The Mahābhārata tells it in its own parva, the Mahā Prasthānika Parva, Chapters 1 to 3. Both accounts are given here.

The Bhāgavata account

The decision

Arjuna came back from Dvārakā in deep grief, and this confirmed that Bhagavān Kṛshṇa had left the world. Yudhishṭhira saw clearly what this meant for the life of the Pāṇḍavas. He had already seen the coming of the Kali Yuga in the omens: the strange behaviour of animals and the elements, the spread of deceit and adharma, quarrels among family members, and the general fall of righteousness. Now the confirmation had come.

Yudhishṭhira understood that the reason for their staying in the world, which was to protect and support the purpose of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, was complete. Their task was done. The kingdom had been ruled and dharma had been kept. The family line had been secured through Parīkshit. Now it was time for them to go. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 15)

Coronation and arrangements

Before leaving, Yudhishṭhira made every needed arrangement for the kingdom.

He crowned Parīkshit as emperor of Hastināpura and of the earth up to the sea. Parīkshit was the son of Abhimanyu and the grandson of Arjuna, and the child whom Bhagavān Kṛshṇa had saved in the womb. Yudhishṭhira also made Vajra king of Śūrasena at Mathurā. Vajra was the son of Aniruddha and, through Pradyumna, a grandson of Kṛshṇa. This was to keep the rule of dharma among the Yādavas in that land.

With both lines of rule secure and all things provided for, Yudhishṭhira performed the prājāpatya ishṭi. This is the last rite fit for one who is about to give up the fire rites of a householder. He placed the sacred fires within himself. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 15)

The renunciation

Yudhishṭhira and his brothers took off their royal clothes and put on garments of bark, as renouncers do. They gave up all their possessions, all signs of rank and all marks of worldly standing. They let their hair and beards grow, which shows the end of a householder’s careful grooming.

Then Yudhishṭhira made the deepest renunciation of all. He drew back speech, action and the senses into their higher sources, in the right order. Speech went into fire, because fire is the deva of speech. The senses went into prāṇa (the life breath). Prāṇa went into apāna, apāna into death, and death into the five elements. The five elements went into prakṛti (nature), prakṛti into the avyakta (the unmanifest), and the avyakta into avidyā-māyā (the illusion of ignorance). Avidyā went into the jīva (living being), and the jīva into the Supreme Brahman. This is the path of the yogī who gives everything back to its source in order. After this Yudhishṭhira no longer spoke, acted with purpose or answered outside things. His mind was wholly turned inward and upward. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 15)

The walk north

The Pāṇḍavas walked north: Yudhishṭhira, Arjuna, Bhīma, Nakula, Sahadeva and Draupadī. They walked in silence with their minds fixed on the lotus feet of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa. They did not look back. The Bhāgavatam says: “They walked northward, meditating upon the lotus feet of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa, and reached the state beyond rebirth.”

They walked until they reached the state beyond all states. The Bhāgavatam does not describe a bodily death for them. It describes an attainment. They merged into Bhagavān Kṛshṇa. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 15)

Arjuna’s inner journey

Arjuna’s mahāprasthāna was prepared by an important event within him. After he came back from Dvārakā in grief and made his long lament to Yudhishṭhira, he sat in meditation. Through that surrender and grief he slowly won back the jñāna (knowledge) of the Bhagavad Gītā. During the years of kingship, the faults of his actions and his attachment to the fruits of action (bhoga-āsakti) had settled over this knowledge. Now they melted away. He became guṇātīta, beyond the three guṇas. From that state, the mahāprasthāna came naturally and without effort. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 15)

Kuntī’s departure

Kuntī had heard Arjuna tell of the departure of Bhagavān Kṛshṇa. She fixed her mind on Bhagavān Kṛshṇa with ananya-bhakti (devotion to him alone). The Bhāgavatam records that at that moment she reached jīvanmukti (freedom while living) and dropped her body, simply by being wholly and singly absorbed in Bhagavān Kṛshṇa. She did not walk north. She reached the end by another way. (Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 15)

The Mahābhārata account

The Mahābhārata tells the same great departure in the Mahā Prasthānika Parva, as Vaiśampāyana told it to King Janamejaya. It holds several episodes that belong to the epic alone: the meeting with Agni on the eastern shore, the giving back of Gāṇḍīva to Varuṇa, the falls of Draupadī and the brothers one after another with the reason for each, and the great testing of Yudhishṭhira through the faithful dog.

The resolve to leave

Janamejaya had heard of the ruinous war of the iron club that destroyed the Vṛshṇis and Andhakas, and of how Bhagavān Kṛshṇa had gone back to the divine world. He asked what the Pāṇḍavas did next.

Yudhishṭhira heard of the end of the Vṛshṇi line and decided to leave household life. He told Arjuna that Kāla (Time) ripens all beings toward their end, and that he now accepted the noose of Kāla and wished to lay down his body. Arjuna murmured “Kāla, Kāla” and agreed with the words of his wise elder brother. Bhīmasena, Nakula and Sahadeva followed the decision of Savyasācī (Arjuna). They did not leave in distress or haste. They left out of the wish to fulfil dharma. (Mahābhārata, Mahā Prasthānika Parva, Chapter 1)

The ordering of the kingdom

Yudhishṭhira wished to renounce for the sake of dharma. He called Yuyutsu, the son of Dhṛtarāshṭra by a vaiśya woman, and put the whole rule of the kingdom in his charge. Yuyutsu had no claim to the crown itself. Yudhishṭhira then crowned Parīkshit as king in his own city of Hastināpura, and made the Yādava Vajra king in Indraprastha.

He gave Subhadrā the care of both young kings. He told her that her grandson would be lord of the Kurus and Vajra lord of the Yādavas. He forbade her to think of going with them, for that would be adharma while the children needed guarding.

Yudhishṭhira then performed the funeral tarpaṇa and śrāddha rites for Vāsudeva (Kṛshṇa), for his old maternal uncle Vasudeva, for Balarāma and for the other kinsmen who had died. With his heart fixed on Hari, he fed the great ṛshis: Vyāsa, Nārada, Mārkaṇḍeya, who is rich in tapas, Bharadvāja and Yājñavalkya. He spoke of the virtues of Śrī Kṛshṇa. He gave them jewels, clothes, villages, horses and chariots. He gave hundreds and thousands of women to the foremost brāhmaṇas. He honoured his respected teacher Kṛpācārya and gave Parīkshit to him as a pupil.

Then he called together the townspeople and the people of the country and told them all that he planned to do. They were deeply troubled and said that it was not the right course. But the righteous king saw how dharma would be turned upside down by the coming age. He did not do as they asked. He made peace with them about his decision and set out. (Mahābhārata, Mahā Prasthānika Parva, Chapter 1)

The renunciation and the setting out

Yudhishṭhira threw away all the ornaments on his body and put on bark garments. Bhīma, Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadeva and the glorious Draupadī did the same. They performed the final offering, the utsarga-ishṭi, as the śāstra lays down. Then they reverently cast their sacred fires into the waters and left.

The women of the household wept aloud, as they had wept when the heroes went to the forest after the lost game of dice. But the brothers themselves felt only gladness at the journey. Five brothers, Draupadī as the sixth and a dog as the seventh left Hastināpura. The townspeople and the people of the inner rooms followed them a long way. None dared ask the king to turn back. After a time the townspeople went home, and Kṛpa and the others returned, taking Yuyutsu with them. Ulūpī, the daughter of the serpent king, entered the Gaṅgā. Citrāṅgadā went to Maṇipūra. The other mothers stayed near Parīkshit.

The great-souled Pāṇḍavas and the famous Draupadī fasted, their minds bound in yoga. They travelled east, having taken up the dharma of renouncers, and saw many lands, rivers and seas. Yudhishṭhira walked in front, then Bhīmasena, then Arjuna, then Nakula and Sahadeva in order. Behind the five walked the dark, lotus-eyed Draupadī, the first of women. The dog followed them all. (Mahābhārata, Mahā Prasthānika Parva, Chapter 1)

Agni and the return of Gāṇḍīva

The heroes came to the shore of the sea called Lauhitya in the east. Arjuna still carried his divine bow Gāṇḍīva and the two inexhaustible quivers, because he was attached to their treasure.

Agni stood in their way like a great mountain. He had taken the form of a person and blazed with seven flames. He called himself Pāvaka. He reminded them that through Arjuna’s strength and the power of Nārāyaṇa he had once burned the Khāṇḍava forest. He ordered Arjuna to give up Gāṇḍīva, for it had no more purpose now. The discus-jewel that had once been with the great-souled Kṛshṇa had also gone from there and would return in due time. Agni himself had long ago brought Gāṇḍīva from Varuṇa for Arjuna’s sake, and now the supreme bow must be given back to Varuṇa.

Arjuna’s brothers urged him, and he threw Gāṇḍīva and the two inexhaustible quivers into the water. Agni then vanished on the spot.

The heroes turned south. Then they went along the sea toward the north from the south-west, and coming round to the west they saw Dvārakā swallowed by the ocean. Keeping to the dharma of yoga and wishing to walk around the earth, the foremost of the Bharatas turned north again. (Mahābhārata, Mahā Prasthānika Parva, Chapter 1)

The falls of Draupadī and the brothers

The Pāṇḍavas went north with their minds fixed in yoga. They saw the mighty Himavat. Crossing it, they saw a sea of sand and the great mountain Meru.

As they all hurried on, Draupadī’s yoga loosened and she fell to the ground. Bhīma asked why, since she had done no wrong. Yudhishṭhira answered, without looking back, that she had held too much partiality for Arjuna over her other husbands, and now she was reaping its fruit.

Next Sahadeva, who knew the śāstras, fell. Yudhishṭhira said it was because he had thought no one equal to himself in wisdom. Then Nakula fell, who was devoted and matchless in beauty. The cause was pride in his own form, for he had believed that no one equalled him in good looks. Then Arjuna, the hero of the white horses, fell. His faults were pride in his valour and an unkept vow. He had boasted that he would burn all his foes in a single day and had not done so, and he had looked down on other archers. Last Bhīma fell and called out, asking the reason. Yudhishṭhira answered that Bhīma ate too much, boasted of his strength and did not respect others.

To each one who fell Yudhishṭhira spoke the truth and went on without turning back. He felt that the friendship that would block the way to the higher world must not be given in to. Only the dog still followed him. (Mahābhārata, Mahā Prasthānika Parva, Chapter 2)

Yudhishṭhira and the dog

Then Indra, king of the devas, came thundering through the sky and the earth in his chariot and told Yudhishṭhira to climb in. The king grieved for his fallen brothers and for Draupadī. He said that he would not go to svarga without them. Indra told him that his brothers and Draupadī had already reached svarga after casting off their human bodies, but that Yudhishṭhira alone would enter svarga in this very body.

But a dog had followed the king with steady devotion. Yudhishṭhira would not enter the chariot unless the dog was taken too. Indra urged him to leave it. He said there was no place in svarga for those who come with dogs. He said that the devas called Krodhavaśas would carry off the fruit of a man’s ishṭa and pūrta rites if a dog were present. He said Yudhishṭhira had already left his brothers and Draupadī, so there was no cruelty in leaving a mere dog.

Yudhishṭhira replied that to abandon a devoted being is a pāpa equal to the four great pāpas: frightening one who seeks shelter, killing a woman, stealing a brāhmaṇa’s wealth, and betraying a friend. He had left his brothers and Draupadī only because they were dead and he could not bring them back to life. But one who was alive, devoted, afraid, helpless and seeking protection he would never abandon, even if his own life were the price. This was his vow.

When he heard these words, the being in the shape of the dog showed himself as Dharma himself. In loving and praising words, Dharma said that by his conduct, his wisdom and his kindness to all beings Yudhishṭhira had upheld the honour of his family and of his father Pāṇḍu. He recalled that he had tested Yudhishṭhira once before, at Dvaitavana, when the brothers had fallen while looking for water. There Yudhishṭhira had asked for the life of Nakula, because he valued fairness to his stepmother above his own full brothers. Now, by refusing to leave the devoted dog even at the cost of the divine chariot, Yudhishṭhira had shown that none in svarga was his equal. He had won worlds that do not perish and the highest divine goal in his own body. (Mahābhārata, Mahā Prasthānika Parva, Chapter 3)

The ascent toward svarga

Then Dharma, Indra, the Maruts, the Aśvins and the other devas and divine ṛshis placed Yudhishṭhira in the chariot. The siddhas (perfected beings), who move without hindrance, the sinless and the pure, rose in their own vimānas (flying cars). The king climbed into the chariot, filled the space between earth and sky with his light, and rose swiftly.

There Nārada, who lives among the devas and knows all worlds, said aloud that this Kuru king had outshone in glory all the royal ṛshis gathered there and all who were still remembered. No one except the son of Pāṇḍu had ever come to that place in his own mortal body, filling the worlds with his fame, splendour and virtue.

Even in that glory, Yudhishṭhira spoke to the devas and the kings of his own side. He said he cared nothing for any world, whether of bliss or of sorrow, apart from the place where his brothers had gone. He wished only to reach the place that his brothers had reached. Indra urged him to live in the station that his own puṇya (merit) had won and to let go at last of his human attachment, saying that his brothers had not reached his station. Yudhishṭhira answered that without them he did not wish to stay. Wherever the noble, dark, wise Draupadī and his brothers had gone, that place alone was his true goal.

Here the Mahā Prasthānika Parva ends. What follows, the vision of the worlds of his kin and the final settling of the Pāṇḍavas in the divine realm, is told in the Svargārohaṇa Parva. (Mahābhārata, Mahā Prasthānika Parva, Chapter 3)

Sources

• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 1st Skanda, Chapter 15
• Mahābhārata, Mahā Prasthānika Parva, Chapters 1 to 3