The Mahabharata of Palmira

4 A prayer is answered

4 A prayer is answered

The current avoided all the little creeks and channels, and carried the basket down the Ashwa river like a horse bearing a sleeping rider; till it flowed into the turbulent Charanwati. From the Charanwati, the battling streams drove the boy into the centre of the river Yamuna, dodging all the little islands and reed beds. The Yamuna, in turn, joins the great river Ganges.

The Ganges flows from beyond the great capital city of the Bharata people, Hastinapura, all the way into the sea at the north-eastern corner of the huge triangle of India. Halfway between the point where the Yamuna joins, and the coast, is a region then called Anga. Soon after the Ganges enters this region, the river curves slowly round a town called Nagakaksha. Near Nagakaksha, on the southern bank of the great river, was a secluded shrine.

A woman was sitting on the river bank. She had been praying at the shrine; but now was just gazing blankly at the water which flowed slowly round the shallow bend, swirling with strange eddies.

A man, a little farther back from the river’s edge, was still in prayer. He knelt with his face in his hands beside a huge block of stone, which was sculpted on each of its four vertical faces.

On one side of the stone the hero Rama was depicted defeating the evil demon Ravana. On a second side was shown Vishnu in the guise of a dwarf, appearing to the powerful but virtuous demon Bali. The third side was weathered in parts. It revealed a man with four arms and three eyes falling at the feet of a majestic adversary. Although the fourth side was worn almost smooth, an outline was just visible on it, of a horse, bridled and saddled, but with no rider. The shrine stood beneath a huge palm tree.

Perhaps a strange sound lifted the woman’s attention from the constant bubbling of the water. Or maybe from the corner of her eye an unexpected shape joined in the river’s vacant dance. For suddenly she shouted:

‘Adhi! Come quick!’

Her husband looked up blearily, as from a dream, and went to the river’s edge.

‘Look, look at that basket. What is it? Adhi, what do you think it is?’

The basket was drifting slowly past in the shallow water. Without answering his wife, Adhi jumped into the river and quickly reached it. He undid the straps and took off the cover. He took one look inside, then turned and shouted across to his wife on the bank.

‘Radha! Come and look at this!’

Radha was about to tell him to bring the basket up onto the bank, when a sound that had been pressing at the back of her mind burst through to flood her consciousness. She jumped into the water.

‘Radha! Surely our prayers have been answered!’

They both stood in the water, staring in disbelief at the little face peering at them, its beautiful black eyes blinking in vain to focus in the startling light.

‘Look at those ear-rings!’

‘Aren’t they huge! Why put such huge ear-rings on a little baby? Are they gold, Adhi?’

‘They look like gold.’

‘Look how tiny it is, Adhi... It must only be a few days old — and yet, see how it looks... Look at its eyes, Adhi, like lotus flowers. And it has stopped crying. See, it’s looking at your eyes. And now at mine!’

The little baby did seem to be able to focus.

‘I think it’s a boy,’ said Adhi proudly.

They brought the basket up onto the bank, and Radha tried to grasp the baby’s little body through the sack. She felt something hard.

‘Aaagh? What’s this?’

She drew back the sack, which was bright red and lined with silk. There, gleaming in the sun, was dazzling gold. The child was wrapped in folds of what looked like chain mail, tiny rings of gold, tightly linked.

Adhi carefully picked up the chain mail with the little baby wrapped inside it, and put the bundle on the ground. The two of them gently unwrapped the mail, revealing the baby swathed in a red silk cloth. The golden mail appeared to be made to fit a large man, as armour to be worn round the chest. But they both noticed there was a small area missing from one corner.

The silk cloth around the baby was decorated with the round face of the sun, crowned with radiating flares. Radha pulled the cloth away. They discovered around the little boy’s tiny chest, almost tight enough to be a second skin, the missing section of chain mail.

The boy was certainly beautiful for such a small baby. He already had quite dense hair, curling at the ends; his skin was the colour of burnished copper; even now his eyes seemed to take everything in.

Radha and Adhi looked at each other.

‘Surely,’ stammered Adhi, with tears in his eyes, ‘surely it is the gods that have sent this wonderful, beautiful boy to us, in answer to our prayers... They have taken pity on a poor childless couple!’