Ghaṭotkaca

Ghaṭotkaca was the son of Bhīma, the second of the Pāṇḍavas, and Hiḍimbā, the Rākshasī (a woman of the Rākshasa people) of the forest. Born of a Pāṇḍava hero and a Rākshasa woman, he became the lord of the Rākshasa hosts. He was very strong in open fight and in māyā-yuddha (war by illusion). The Skanda Mahāpurāṇa tells how he went to Prāgjyotisha to win Kāmakaṭaṅkaṭā. He beat her in three contests, one of riddle, one of magical power and one of strength, and brought her to Indraprastha for a formal marriage. Their son was Barbarika, one of the great warriors of the age.

Lineage

Ghaṭotkaca was the son of Bhīma, the second of the Pāṇḍavas and a son of Vāyu, and of Hiḍimbā, a Rākshasī. His name means “pot-headed”. It refers to his bald, round head, which came from his Rākshasa birth. He joined Pāṇḍava courage with Rākshasa strength and the powers of the Rākshasa people: to fly, to take any form, and to use magical illusion in battle.

Birth, in the Ādi Parva

The Mahābhārata, in the Ādi Parva, tells of his birth just after Bhīma killed the Rākshasa Hiḍimba. Hiḍimbā was Hiḍimba’s sister. She had fallen in love with Bhīma. She asked Kuntī and Yudhishṭhira to let her marry Bhīma, even if only until she could conceive and bear his child. Kuntī agreed on one condition. Bhīma would spend the days with Hiḍimbā and return each evening to the Pāṇḍavas. The marriage lasted until Ghaṭotkaca was born.

The child came from the womb already grown, as Rākshasas do. His head was bald and round like a pot. His name joins ghaṭa (pot) and utkaca (hairless). He bowed before Kuntī, before Yudhishṭhira and before all his Pāṇḍava uncles. He promised that whenever the Pāṇḍavas needed him, in whatever trouble, he would come at once. Then he left for the forests with his mother Hiḍimbā. His promise stood as a lasting pledge to the family.

Journey to Prāgjyotisha

Arjuna finished his long journey to holy places and came back to Indraprastha. After that, Ghaṭotkaca took leave of the Pāṇḍavas and set out for Prāgjyotisha. This was the kingdom in the north-east, ruled by Bhagadatta. Outside the city he saw a splendid golden mansion of a thousand storeys in a great park. It rang with the sound of flutes, lutes and mṛdaṅgas (drums), and ten thousand maidservants waited on it. It was the home of Kāmakaṭaṅkaṭā, daughter of the Asura Muru and sister of Bhagadatta. The Skanda Mahāpurāṇa tells this in the Māheśvara Khaṇḍa, Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 60.

Karṇaprāvaraṇā, a companion of Kāmakaṭaṅkaṭā, met him at the gate. She warned him that crores (tens of millions) of suitors had already been killed. She offered herself to him instead. Ghaṭotkaca refused gently but firmly. He said he meant to see Kāmakaṭaṅkaṭā herself.

The three contests

Kāmakaṭaṅkaṭā had set a hard rule. Any suitor must beat her in turn in a riddle, in a contest of magic and in a contest of strength, or be killed.

The riddle. Ghaṭotkaca remembered Kṛshṇa and asked: “A man raised his own daughter and told her she was the neighbour’s child. When she grew up, he made her his wife. A daughter was born to them. Is that child his daughter or his granddaughter?” Kāmakaṭaṅkaṭā could reach no firm answer, and she was beaten.

The contest of magic. She struck the golden chain of her swing. This set free crores of fearsome Rākshasas, lions, tigers, boars and leopards. Ghaṭotkaca rubbed his little finger against his thumb and made twice as many. They swallowed all of hers in a moment.

The contest of strength. She stood up and seized her sword. Ghaṭotkaca caught her by the hair with his left hand and threw her to the ground. He put his left foot on her neck and raised a knife to cut her nose. She trembled and gave in. She said: “O my husband, I have been beaten in all three, by question, by magical power and by strength. I am your servant.”

The Skanda Mahāpurāṇa tells this in the Māheśvara Khaṇḍa, Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 60.

Marriage at Indraprastha

Ghaṭotkaca let her go. Kāmakaṭaṅkaṭā knew him as the Yaksha lord Kālanabha, overlord of sixty crores of Guhyakas, born on earth. The devī Kāmākhyā had foretold this to her. She offered him her mansion and all her followers.

Ghaṭotkaca held to his family custom and refused a secret marriage. He said: “One should not marry in secret when one has parents and kinsmen. In our family the wife carries the husband. Carry me to Śakraprastha (Indraprastha). When my elders give leave, I shall marry you there.”

Kāmakaṭaṅkaṭā told her brother Bhagadatta, took much wealth, said farewell, and carried Ghaṭotkaca on her back to Indraprastha, with her attendants around her. There Vāsudeva and the Pāṇḍavas gave them joy, and at a good muhūrta (auspicious moment) the formal marriage took place. The Skanda Mahāpurāṇa tells this in the Māheśvara Khaṇḍa, Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa, Chapter 60.

His son Barbarika

From this marriage was born Barbarika. He was named for his hair, which grew like that of the Barbara people. He had both the supernatural power of the Rākshasa line and the Asura-born strength of Kāmakaṭaṅkaṭā’s family. Barbarika became one of the great warriors of his time. He gained siddhi (spiritual power) at Guptakshetra and was raised to divine honour at Kurukshetra.

Carrying the Pāṇḍavas to Gandhamādana, in the Vana Parva

The Pāṇḍavas were travelling towards Gandhamādana during their forest exile. Gandhamādana is the great mountain in the north. Bhīma meant to seek the divine saugandhika lotuses there for Draupadī. The ground became too rough and steep for ordinary travel. Draupadī and the brāhmaṇas with the Pāṇḍavas could not go on without help. Ghaṭotkaca answered the need of his father Bhīma without delay.

He came with a host of his Rākshasa kinsmen. Together they carried the Pāṇḍavas, Draupadī and the brāhmaṇas over the steep mountain ground. Ghaṭotkaca himself carried Bhīma, or helped in the carrying. So the whole party reached the high lands of Gandhamādana, where no ordinary traveller could have gone. This loyal service recalled the promise Ghaṭotkaca had made at his birth, that whenever the Pāṇḍavas needed him he would come at once. The Mahābhārata tells this in the Vana Parva, Chapters 143–146.

Mahāratha grade, in the Udyoga Parva

In the Rathātiratha-Saṃkhyāna Parva of the Udyoga Parva (Chapters 165–172), Bhīshma grades the warriors of both armies by the system of ratha, atiratha and mahāratha. He names Ghaṭotkaca a mahāratha among the Pāṇḍava forces. A mahāratha is rated as able to fight ten thousand ordinary warriors at once. The grading recognises his superhuman Rākshasa power, his skill in māyā-yuddha and his bodily strength, which set him apart from ordinary human warriors.

His son Añjanaparvan is also named among the Pāṇḍava forces. In Chapter 194 Arjuna names him as a skilled warrior of great arms (mahābāhu) and a scholar in the science of war.

Death by Karṇa’s Śakti, in the Droṇa Parva

Ghaṭotkaca’s greatest and last deed came in the Droṇa Parva, in the night battle of the fourteenth day of the Kurukshetra war. Arjuna had sworn to kill Jayadratha, and his oath was fulfilled at sunset. Even so, the battle of the fourteenth day did not end. By the agreement of both sides it went on into the night under torchlight. This was a rare and desperate extension.

In the dark, Bhagavān Kṛshṇa sent Ghaṭotkaca against the Kaurava forces. Night is the time of the Rākshasas. Their powers grow in the dark and their māyā (illusion) grows with it. Ghaṭotkaca was the greatest Rākshasa warrior alive. His attack on the Kauravas was terrible. He used every form of māyā-yuddha. He rained weapons from above, took on huge forms, and rained boulders and burning brands from the sky. The Kaurava army faced the danger of being wiped out.

Duryodhana and the Kaurava chiefs begged Karṇa to act. Karṇa had kept his best weapon for Arjuna. This was the divine Śakti that Indra had given him in exchange for his kavaca (armour) and kuṇḍalas (earrings). It was his one great advantage in the decisive meeting with the greatest warrior of the Pāṇḍavas. But the whole Kaurava army was being destroyed before his eyes, and he could not stand aside.

Karṇa called on the Śakti and hurled it at Ghaṭotkaca. The divine spear struck him with its full force. Ghaṭotkaca died at once. Even in death he served the Pāṇḍava cause. His huge Rākshasa body, made even larger by his māyā, crashed down on the Kaurava forces and crushed a whole division.

When Bhagavān Kṛshṇa heard of Ghaṭotkaca’s death, he held Arjuna and wept for a short while for the loyal son of Bhīma. Then he laughed with joy. The Śakti was spent. Karṇa no longer had a supreme weapon against Arjuna. Bhagavān Kṛshṇa saw that Ghaṭotkaca’s death, though a real loss, had kept Arjuna alive for the decisive meeting still to come.

Bhagavān Kṛshṇa explains

In Chapter 178 of the second part of the Droṇa Parva, Arjuna asked Bhagavān Kṛshṇa to explain his joy at Ghaṭotkaca’s death.

Bhagavān Kṛshṇa said that the Indra-śakti, which Indra had given to Karṇa for his kavaca and kuṇḍalas, was the one weapon that could have killed Arjuna himself. Even Bhagavān Kṛshṇa and Arjuna together, with the Gāṇḍīva bow and the Sudarśana Cakra, could not have beaten Karṇa while he held it. Now it had been spent on Ghaṭotkaca. Without the Śakti, Karṇa was like any other warrior, however skilled, and only Arjuna could kill him.

Bhagavān Kṛshṇa then said more. The outcome of the war had been shaped by removals he had arranged before the war. Jarāsandha, Śiśupāla and Ekalavya had all been taken out of the way beforehand, to guard Arjuna’s road to victory. Ghaṭotkaca had killed Alāyudha. And Ghaṭotkaca himself had been “caused to be killed”, in Bhagavān Kṛshṇa’s own words. Bhagavān Kṛshṇa had deliberately arranged for the Indra-śakti to be spent on him. He added that Ghaṭotkaca was in any case a pāpātmā (sinful one) who had been harming brāhmaṇas and yajñas (fire rituals). His time of death had come as part of the same dharmic order that drove the whole war.

Reunion at the Gaṅgā, in the Āśramavāsika Parva

In Chapter 32, Vyāsa called up the whole host of the fallen at the Gaṅgā. Ghaṭotkaca rose from the holy waters among the risen warriors. He was young again and free of enmity. He stayed for one night of reunion and then went back to his loka.

Among the devas and yakshas, in the Svargārohaṇa Parva

In the last chapter, Sauti tells where all the fallen went in the end. Ghaṭotkaca is counted among the mahārathas who died in the great war and then reached the company of the devas and the yakshas. He was born a Rākshasa, yet the loyal son of Bhīma had laid down his huge body to shield the Pāṇḍava cause from Karṇa’s Śakti, and he was raised to the hosts of the devas and yakshas.

Sources

• Skanda Mahāpurāṇa, Māheśvara Khaṇḍa, Kaumārikā Khaṇḍa, Chapters 59–60
• Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva
• Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapters 143–146
• Mahābhārata, Udyoga Parva, Rathātiratha-Saṃkhyāna Parva (Chapters 165–172; Chapter 194)
• Mahābhārata, Droṇa Parva
• Mahābhārata, Droṇa Parva, Chapters 174–181 (Chapter 178)
• Mahābhārata, Āśramavāsika Parva, Chapter 32
• Mahābhārata, Svargārohaṇa Parva, Chapter 5