Bhima Laments His Fate While in Serpent's Grasp
Coiled by the serpent Nahusha and unable to move, Bhima accepts his fate without anger — but his mind turns not to his own death, but to the sorrow it will bring his brothers and his mother, who will lose their protector in this wilderness.
The serpent had him. Bhima could not move.
He had heard the serpent's story — the tale of Nahusha, the king who became a snake, cursed by a sage for his arrogance. Now the coils were around him, tightening, and Bhima, whose arms had felled rakshasas and whose thighs had shattered trees, could do nothing.
But he was not angry.
"O great serpent," he said, "I am not angry with you. Nor do I blame myself. Sometimes a man is capable of bringing happiness or unhappiness. At other times, he is incapable. One's mind should not be worried at these comings and goings. How can one's own exertions rise above destiny? I think that destiny is supreme and endeavours are meaningless."
He looked at his own arms — the arms that had once killed the rakshasa Hidimba, that had slain the demon Baka, that had crushed the Kaurava princes in wrestling matches. Now they were useless. "Because of adverse destiny, I have lost the strength of my arms. Without any immediate reason, I have been reduced to this state now."
But it was not his own death that weighed on him.
It was his brothers.
They had been exiled to this wilderness, dislodged from their kingdom by deceit. The Himalayas were difficult of access, infested with yakshas (spirits) and rakshasas (demons). "On seeing me thus, they will be confounded and will fall down. On hearing of my destruction, they will lose all enterprise."
He thought of Yudhishthira, the eldest, who followed dharma. "It was I who drove them, because of my greed for the kingdom." He thought of Arjuna, the invincible archer, "capable, with his strength, of dislodging the king of the gods from his seat, not to speak of Dhritarashtra's sons." Even Arjuna would be overcome by sorrow.
He thought of his mother Kunti. "She always wished that we might attain a greatness superior to that of others. O serpent! At my destruction, she will be without a protector. All the desires that she had for me will become unsuccessful."
He thought of the twins, Nakula and Sahadeva. "They were always protected through the strength of my arms and were proud of their manliness. They will lose their enterprise. They will be dislodged from prowess and valour. At my destruction, they will be without protection."
Vrikodara — the wolf-bellied one — lamented a long time. But the serpent's coils held him fast, and he could not move at all. Aranyaka Parva, Chapter 473