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five apsarās from a curse by which they had been transformed into dangerous crocodiles. He then returns to Maṇalūra for a brief visit to see Citrāṅgadā and his son, Babhruvāhana.19 Next he proceeds towards the Western ocean where he meets Kṛṣṇa in Prabhāsa. The two friends and cousins20 greet each other happily and spend all their time together. Soon Arjuna falls in love with Kṛṣṇa’s beautiful sister Subhadrā whom he sees in a procession at Mount Raivataka. He confides himself to Kṛṣṇa and seeks his advice as to how to marry Subhadrā.

      As the abduction is a risky undertaking, Yudhiṣṭhira as the head of the family is consulted first by messengers. He gives his consent whereupon Arjuna abducts Subhadrā at an appropriate moment when she returns to Dvārakā from a pilgrimage. Taking her into his chariot par force, he speeds away while the armed escort looks on helplessly. The Vṛṣṇis and Andhakas are outraged at this unexpected move of Arjuna’s and want to pursue the offender. Kṛṣṇa, however, manages to convince his kinsmen of the futility of such action. Arjuna is a worthy partner after all; therefore he should be welcomed by everyone. Thus this third marriage of Arjuna in exile is finally accepted.

      Arjuna’s marriage with Subhadrā is the most important during the exile. Not only are close ties established to the Vṛṣṇi clan, but also a son, Abhimanyu, was born to the couple whose son Parikṣit (by Uttarā) survived the Great War and became the only male successor in the dynasty. Arjuna’s first meeting with Subhadrā has been further embellished in some editions of the epic. Thus Arjuna is reported to have come to see her in the disguise of an ascetic who is attended by Subhadrā etc., adding some more romantic moments to this well-known episode which has been rendered here according to the text of the Critical Edition.

      The subject of this chapter was Arjuna in his private capacity, a hero attractive to women, himself a man readily responding with passion to longing, but always with an eye on dharma, on appropriate action. Properly speaking, he is the soul of the Pāṇḍavas, perhaps not as handsome as Nakula and Sahadeva but yet well-looking, not as ostentatiously strong as Bhīma and yet immensely powerful, not as sattvic in nature as Yudhisṭhira but well-balanced in his passion. Clearly, he was also the favourite lover of Draupadī, wife of the five Pāṇḍavas. Once when during the period of his family’s exile in the forest he had gone out for some purpose and stayed away for a long while, Draupadī became very unhappy:

      Mbhr. 1.182.1-2

      Another name of Draupadī.

      Mbhr. 1.205.2-3

      Mbhr. 2.61.35-36

      Mbhr. 1.205.15

      Mbhr. 1.206.29-30

      Mbhr. 1.206.33

      Mbhr. 3.44.20

      See Vanaparvan, Chapters 45-46.

      CWSA Vol. 1, Collected Poems, 311

      Ibid., 312-13

      There is a scene in the Āśvamedhika Parvan (Chapters 78-82) where Citrāṅgadā much later meets Arjuna once more, along with her son Babhruvāhana and Ulūpī.

      Kṛṣṇa’s father Vasudeva was the brother of Arjuna’s mother Kuntī.

      Mbhr. 211.22-23

      Mbhr. 1.213.20

      Mbhr. 3.79.12-13

      2.

      Śrī Kṛṣṇa – The Ritual of Departure

      From the viewpoint of most Indian readers, Kṛṣṇa is regarded as a great personality of key importance in the Mahābhārata, but he is judged differently by some critical scholars in the West. In fact, the tricks employed by Kṛṣṇa in the Great War induced the German scholar Adolf Holtzmann (Sr.) in the 19th century to believe and propagate that the Pāṇḍavas were originally the bad people and the Kauravas the good ones. This ‘inversion theory’ which was further elaborated upon by A. Holtzmann (Jr.) has fallen into discredit since long, but it is remarkable that it could ever have come about at all.

      It was the Indian scholar Sukthankar who defended the Indian position on the scholarly level. In his book On the Meaning of the Mahābhārata he writes:

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