Vishnu – Barbarika – {Ep.213} – Stories From India – Podcast

Today’s story is from the Mahabharata – it’s about one possible explanation of how Krishna decided the outcome of the Mahabharata war, by making a deal with Bhima’s grandson Barbarika when Barbarika showed up with his three supreme arrows that could destroy everything!

Welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”. With my ability to travel through space and time, I can bring you fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal is only to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

In this episode, we’re back to the Mahabharata by popular demand. One of you listeners wanted to hear the story of Barbarika and Krishna, so here we are. And thanks for that suggestion Vaishnavi!

The story begins not with Barbarika or Krishna. But with my dad, Brahma. Brahma is the creator of the Universe. He’s part of the Holy Trinity in Indian mythology, along with Vishnu – the preserver and Shiva the destroyer. Brahma is an all-around well-intentioned guy and I’m not just saying that because he’s my father. Yes, he does have a habit of granting enormous powers to all those who pray to him. I could give you lots of examples – but I understand his point of view as well. He’s not regarded in nearly the same light as Vishnu or Shiva. So if someone does pray to him, he tells me he has to make the best of whoever or whatever he gets. And for every one who turned into a world conquering evil mega-villain after receiving a superpower from Brahma, there are about 10 others who did not. It’s a percentage play.

And today, it wasn’t about Brahma-created mega villains that he was worried about. The first I heard about this was when he asked me if I wanted to go along with him to Vaikuntha. 

If you already know what a huge fan of Vishnu I am, that is such a pointless question. I’m president for life of the Vishnu fan club, and I’m constantly chanting his name, when I’m not recording podcasts that is.

Brahma might as well have asked “Is the sky blue?”. Actually I take that back. Is the Sky blue is a complicated question. For a universe traveler like me, that’s probably a trick question. I could not confidently say yes it’s blue. Maybe if I’m on the planet Earth in the daytime on a clear day, or if I’m on Mars during sunrise and sunset. Anyway, you get the picture.

I rushed him a bit, before he could change his mind. We got there easily enough. Being a divine creature has its privileges.

When we got there, Vishnu wasn’t alone. There was a Yaksha, a kind of a nature spirit. His name was Barbarika. He was around too, but nothing confidential was being said, and Vishnu indicated that Brahma could speak freely in the Yaksha’s presence.

Brahma was grim faced as he began explaining the purpose of his visit. “The balance of justice on Earth was swinging a bit too much, and not in a good way, don’t you know? Criminals running around. There’s too much Adharma on Earth.”

I guess I was a little bit naive at the time, so I asked if we should punish the people who empowered all these villains. Those enablers were really the ones responsible for all the hatred and violence that was being spread by these mega-villains.

Brahma patted my head and said to Vishnu – “Look, my boy is growing up! But he still has lots to learn”

Vishnu got straight to the point – another thing I like about him. “I hear you, but destroying stuff is Shiva’s domain. I’m curious why you chose to come to me”

Brahma confessed that he was a little nervous around Shiva since the incident with the flower petal back in Episode 46, when they had tried to measure Shiva’s height. Besides, if Brahma asked Shiva, Shiva’s response might be to get carried away and to dance. And not a dance of joy, but of destruction. You see the way Shiva destroys the Universe is by dancing the Tandav. I can’t yet try to explain the physics behind how that works, because many of the principles behind this haven’t been discovered yet in the 21st century.

The dance need not be localized, he wouldn’t destroy just the villains on planet earth – he might destroy the entire Universe. There were good people on Earth too, people worth preserving.

The Yaksha, Barbarik, chimed in at this point. “Why do you need Vishnu to solve this problem? It’s like using a sledgehammer to open a peanut. I can do it in a jiffy myself. Just give me the word and I’ve got it”

And that for some reason massively enraged my dad. He was talking to Vishnu, he was asking for Vishnu’s help. How dare the Yaksha interfere? Brahma cursed Barbarika right then – the Yaksha would be reborn on Earth as a human and what’s more – Vishnu would be responsible for his death, before he wiped out all the Adharma.

At this point, Vishnu revealed that he already knew about the problem, and had a plan in place. “Don’t worry. I’m going to go down to Earth myself and will take care of this problem”

And he did. Vishnu was born on Earth as Krishna. For those of you with little or no familiarity with the Mahabharata, I have to give you a tl;dr at this point.

The heart of the Mahabharata is a disagreement between two sets of cousins – the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Each of them thought they should be the ones in charge. That disagreement led to arguments, disputes and assassination attempts, exile, and ultimately war. We’ve covered good chunk of this in earlier episodes, but the point at which we’re jumping in today is the one where the cousins were headed for war. 

Krishna was involved and he was helping the Pandavas. He was cousins with the Pandavas, but more importantly he was best buddies with Arjun, the middle of 5 Pandava children.

But he didn’t completely sever ties with the Kauravas either. In fact, he helped both sides – he contributed his Narayana sena or army to the Kauravas, and he himself drove Arjun’s chariot.

In the lead up to war, there were negotiations between both sides. Let’s join the warriors at the negotiation table. It was evening and again, they had failed to reach any kind of an agreement. 

Krishna decided to change the mood a bit – by doing a bit of a poll. He asked various members on each side how long it would take them to finish the war on their own – one person versus all of their opponents. Bhishma, Grandpa to the Pandavas and Kauravas, and Uncle to the current King Dhritarashtra said it would take him 20 days. He would be fighting on the side of the Kauravas. That was because he had sworn loyalty to the throne which was currently occupied by Dhritarashtra, the father of the Kauravas.

Dhritarashtra said it would take him an eternity, seeing as he was blind and all that. Dronacharya, the professor who had taught both the Pandavas and the Kauravas said it might take him 25 days. He too, was fighting on Duryodhan’s side. Karna, who was the Kauravas’ best friend, not to be outdone, said it would take him 24 days. Karna being Duryodhan’s best friend was a little bit of a twisted situation. You see Karna was secretly a Pandava. And I don’t mean a Pandava spy. Karna himself didn’t know that he was a Pandava. He was abandoned by the Pandavas’ mother shortly after childbirth and the circumstances in which he grew up – and the politics he experienced led him to ally with the Kauravas.

Normally, Karna’s response might have prompted Arjun to say 23 days, but that’s not what he did. He said truthfully it would take him 28, seeing as how the Kaurav army was larger than the Pandava army.

While this was going on, a stranger showed up. He had a bow with him and a quiver, with only 3 arrows in it.

He said it’d take him a minute or maybe less. Everyone was shocked, except Bhima, the Pandava, who walked right up and tousled the stranger’s hair and explained to everyone that this was Barbarik, his grandson. And yes, Bhima’s grandson wasn’t just a namesake of the Barbarika at the start of the story. This was the Yaksha reborn.

Barbarika meanwhile was trying his best to avoid being embarrassed. He was Bhima’s grandson, but he wasn’t a kid. At least he didn’t think so.

Krishna got up from the table and suggested to Barbarika that they take a walk out in the garden.

As they were strolling, Krishna asked him how exactly he intended to resolve this battle in a minute.

Barbarika explained that he had three arrows. They were very special arrows. When he fired the first one it would go mark all of his enemies. The second arrow would mark all people who would not be harmed, and the third would actually destroy everyone.

Krishna replied “To me it seems like the second arrow is completely useless? You can just have the third arrow destroy all the people the first arrow marked. And it seems your arrows are doing all the hard work for you. Can you show me?”

Barbarika was ready to demonstrate. He swept his hand to indicate the garden where a large number of leaves were scattered. I can fire this arrow so that it pierces every single leaf in this garden. And with that he took it out of the quiver and fired it. It went everywhere and it did exactly what Barbarika said it would. Krishna had quickly placed his foot on one leaf to hide it. But the arrow’s leaf-seeking capabilities were strong enough, and it kept hovering over Krishna’s foot. Barbarika, almost panicking, urged Krishna to move his foot, or the arrow might get impatient and pierce it. 

So Krishna moved his foot and immediately the arrow went through the last leaf.

Barbarika added that the demonstration should also have shown him why the second arrow was necessary. If he had fired it, it might have marked Krishna as a non-target.

Krishna at this point was quite convinced about the power of Barbarik’s arrows.

Now came the million rupee question – which side was Barbarika planning on joining?

Barbarika replied that he was glad Krishna hadn’t assumed he’d be with the Pandavs just because Bhima was his grandfather. 

“I can’t really make assumptions like that,” Krishna said. “Not when we have examples like Karna”

What was that about Karna? Barbarika asked, but Krishna dismissed the question.

Barbarika explained that he was here because he wanted to watch the whole build-up to the war. He had also brought along a lot of popcorn for the fun of it. And when he would join the war, he would only do it in accordance with a promise he made to his mother. He had told her that he would only fight on the weaker side. And at the moment that meant the Pandavas.

Krishna thought for a moment and explained the problem. It’s not so simple. “Think about it, Barbarika. What if you join the Pandavas? With your arrows victory is assured in a minute”

“And that’s a good thing right?” Asked Barbarika.

“No and I’m not just saying that because there’s a lot more to come yet out of this epic. There’s the Bhagavad Gita for example, which I haven’t passed on to Arjun yet. But that’s not it. There’s a logical problem with your strategy”

Barbarika didn’t get it. “And what is that? I’m not sure I follow”

So Krishna explained. It was true that the Pandavas were the weaker side in terms of numbers. But Barbarik’s arrows made him a superpower, arguably the strongest warrior in the battlefield. Whichever side he joined would become the more powerful one. The Pandavas plus Barbarika would become significantly more powerful than the Kauravas and that meant he would break his promise to his mother.

Barbarika finally got it. His mother had played a trick on him. To keep him away from battle he imagined. “This is terrible. I’m a warrior, I can’t not be on the battlefield”

But Krishna had a way – he said he’d think about it.

Barbarika had a couple of sleepless nights. And then on the third day, a Rishi came to him. A rishi is a scholar and well respected repository of knowledge and skills. It’s a warrior’s duty to honor a Rishi’s slightest command. So when the Rishi asked for Barbarik’s head, Barbarika got out his sword and asked if the Rishi would be kind enough to catch it in a bag the moment he sliced it off. But there was one thing that Barbarika asked for. He wanted to watch the Mahabharata war. The Rishi assured him that he would, and Barbarika believed him. 

When the ghastly deed was done, the Rishi – who was really Krishna in disguise, kept his promise. He attached the head to a basic life support system – the type you see in Futurama series. Then he had everything placed on a nearby hill that would overlook the battlefield. 

“This view is perfect!” Barbarik’s head said. “I also don’t feel any guilt about not being in the war”

In fact the only thing that didn’t go according to Barbarik’s plan was that he didn’t eat any of the popcorn. Why would he need it? He had no digestive system.

At the end of the war, spoiler – but the Pandavas one. And they started arguing amongst themselves about who deserved credit for their victory. They each had some strong reasoning. The identities of the opponents they had taken out – factored largely in their argument.

Then someone had a suggestion. Barbarik’s head had witnessed the whole war start to finish – every arrow fired, every sword clash, every spear thrust. Who better then to judge where the credit should lie?

So they asked him, and Barbarika had a ready answer.

“Krishna deserves the credit, of course. You Pandavas see, but you do not observe. You might think about arrows and swords and spears, but all I saw were two things. One was the Sudarshan Chakra – Krishna’s and Vishnu’s flying discus weapon. It went all over the battlefield. The second was the Goddess Mahakali. She spread out her tongue all over the battlefield and consumed every one of the sinners.”

And so that’s the story of Barbarika. He was released off of life support and is back to being a Yaksha again. I had some tea with him a few days ago, and he sends his regards to all of you listeners. 

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

In one version of the story, the interaction between Krishna’s foot and Barbarik’s arrow leaves  Krishna vulnerable at that exact spot. And that weak spot plays a crucial part in Krishna’s eventual demise.

Previous Mahabharata episodes are here.

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll do a folk tale again. This one is from Nagaland and features magical fish transformations and a wedding between a human girl and a river. And a terrible outcome when some enthusiastic uncles and aunts misunderstood what was on the menu.

Feedback

Thank you all for the comments on Social Media and on Spotify’s Q&A! I can’t directly reply to the questions there, but I’ll address them here on this show.

Rez and Vamsi – thank you for the feedback on the episode! NM – yeah, I’m considering either doing the story of the Ponniyan Selvan, or covering the Chola, Chera and Pandya rulers as part of an episode on history. There is a massive amount of material there, so it will take some time to organize. I appreciate your patience in the meantime. Samay – I’ll get to the Yoga episode shortly as well.

If you have any other comments or suggestions or if there are particular stories you’d like to hear, please do let me know by leaving a comment or a review on the site sfipodcast.com, or tweet @sfipodcast, or reply to the questions on Spotify Q&A. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook.

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A big thank you to each of you for your continued support and your feedback.

The music is from Purple Planet.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!