Ghatotkacha Carries the Pandavas to Badari

The Pandavas had been walking for a long time. Draupadi was exhausted — her limbs heavy, her spirit worn by the endless forests and mountains they had crossed since leaving the Kamyaka forest. Bhimasena looked at his wife and then at his brothers. He knew they could not go much farther on foot. He called for his son. Ghatotkacha came — born of Bhimasena and the rakshasa woman Hidimba, a being of immense strength and dark power, capable of changing his size at will and moving through the sky. Bhimasena gave him his command: "Your unvanquished mother is exhausted. You are capable of going anywhere at will. You are strong. Take her up into the sky. Carry her on your shoulders. Follow us in the sky. But travel low, so that she does not feel oppressed." Ghatotkacha looked at the party — Yudhishthira, Bhimasena, the twins Nakula and Sahadeva, Dhoumya the priest, and Draupadi. He considered the task. "I am alone capable of carrying Dharmaraja, Dhoumya, the princess and the twins," he said. "It shouldn't be surprising that I can do it now, when I have help." He lifted Draupadi onto his shoulders. Other rakshasas — commanded by Ghatotkacha, who was the Indra among rakshasas — took up the Pandavas. Lomasha, the sage who had been guiding them, travelled through his own powers along the path of the siddhas (perfected beings), blazing like a second sun. The brahmanas who accompanied them were carried by the other rakshasas. They rose into the sky. Below them, the earth unfolded: forests and groves, mountains and foothills, regions infested with mlecchas (foreign tribes) and rich with jewels. They saw the stores of minerals in the mountainsides. Vidyadharas (celestial beings of knowledge) populated the peaks. Monkeys and kinnaras (half-human, half-horse beings) moved through the trees. Kimpurushas and gandharvas (celestial musicians) wandered the slopes. Rivers wound through the land like silver threads, frequented by birds of every kind. They passed over northern Kuru — the legendary region said to lie beyond the Himalayas, where the sun never sets too harshly and where men live without fear. Then they saw it: Mount Kailasa, supreme and extraordinary, rising before them like a pillar of the earth touching the sky. Near it, they saw the hermitage of Nara and Narayana.