Yudhishthira's Final Trial

When the news of Krishna's passing reached Hastināpura, the Pāṇḍavas lost all remaining attachment to life on earth. They crowned Abhimanyu's son Parīkshit as the next emperor, and then Yudhishthira and his four brothers and Draupadī set out on their final pilgrimage, the great journey toward the frozen heights of the Himālayas, toward death and beyond. And somewhere along the wearisome way, a stray dog joined them, and kept them silent company.

And as they climbed the steep frozen slopes, one by one they fell, exhausted, and died. First fell Draupadī, then Sahadeva, then Nakula, then Arjuna, and then the mighty Bhīma. And at each fall, Yudhishthira, walking on without turning, explained the subtle flaw, the last small attachment, that had kept each of them from ascending in the body: Draupadī's partiality for Arjuna above her other husbands, Sahadeva's pride in his learning, Nakula's vanity in his beauty, Arjuna's boastfulness, Bhīma's gluttony.

Each of the great ones, for one small unmastered thing, fell on the mountain; and Yudhishthira alone walked on, never wavering, his mind fixed on the transcendent truth, and the faithful dog alone followed him.

At the summit, Indra descended in a blazing golden chariot, and told Yudhishthira that his wife and brothers had already reached heaven, and bade him ascend in his own body and come. But as Yudhishthira went to step into the chariot, the dog climbed up with him, and Indra pushed it back, saying there was no place for a dog in heaven. And Yudhishthira stopped, and refused to enter.

This dog has followed me faithfully, he said, through all the frozen wastes, when my own wife and brothers have fallen away; to desert a devoted companion for the sake of my own happiness would be a heinous sin; I will not enter heaven without this dog. And at that, the dog transformed into Lord Dharma, his own divine father, who had taken that form to test him one last time, and who blessed him for his peerless compassion, that would not abandon even a dog that had been faithful to him.

But there was a final trial still. Entering heaven, Yudhishthira was shocked to see Duryodhana seated there in glory, and his old anger flamed up; but Nārada corrected him, saying that in heaven no ill-will is harboured, that Duryodhana had attained that place through the warrior's dharma with which he had died, and that Yudhishthira must lay aside his human prejudices.

And then Yudhishthira demanded to see his brothers; and a messenger led him down a dark and slippery path, foul with the stench of blood and rotting flesh, where worms crawled and horrors of torture loomed out of the gloom. And as Yudhishthira, sickened, turned to go back, familiar voices rose out of the darkness, the agonized voices of Bhīma and Arjuna and the twins and Draupadī, crying: stay, Dharmaputra; your pure presence brings a sweet breeze that eases our torment; do not desert us.

And hearing the voices of all he loved suffering in that hell, Yudhishthira was filled with grief and anger, and he turned to the messenger and said: go back to your masters; I will not leave; I shall remain here in hell with my suffering brothers rather than enjoy heaven alone.

And at that word, the illusion of hell rolled away. For it had been the last test. Lord Dharma and Indra appeared, and the dark horrors dissolved into radiant light; and Dharma smiled upon his son and said: this is the third time I have tested you, and you have not failed. It is decreed that even the most righteous king must glimpse hell for a brief moment, for the small stains that cling even to the best.

But your brothers and Draupadī, and Karṇa too, are already in radiant glory; and your choice to remain in hell for their sake was your final transfiguration, the last and highest proof of your soul. And Yudhishthira bathed then in the celestial Gangā, and cast off his mortal frame and all its memories of hatred and grief and conflict, and entered the eternal, blemishless plane of supreme peace.

And so the great journey of the soul, through the whole long tale of the Mahābhārata, comes at last to its end.

It has carried us from the cosmic origins of the Lunar Line, through the passions and curses of the ancestors, through the birth and the rivalry of the cousins, through the dice and the exile and the war, through the deaths of the mighty and the teaching of the Gītā, to this final ascent of a single righteous soul up a frozen mountain, refusing heaven for the sake of a faithful dog and choosing hell for the sake of his suffering brothers.

And in that ending is gathered the whole meaning of the tale: that the one thing that endures, through every fortune and every ruin, through victory and loss and even through the illusions of heaven and hell, is dharma; that dharma alone accompanies the soul when all else falls away, exactly as Yudhishthira answered the Yaksha beside the pool so long ago; and that the soul which holds fast to compassion and to righteousness through every trial, refusing to abandon even a dog, refusing to enjoy its own bliss while others suffer, is the soul that passes at last, purified, into the eternal peace.

This is the journey the Mahābhārata sets before us, not as a tale of long ago only, but as the map of every soul's own journey through the tangled world toward the truth; and may it light, for all who follow it, the long and difficult and blessed path of dharma, which alone leads home.