Burning of the Khandava Forest

Part 4: Arjuna confronts Indra

As Agni started burning the Khandava forest, the two great warriors, Sri Krishna and Arjuna in their chariots, circled the forest killing animals that tried to escape. Whenever they would see an animal trying to flee the flames, they would pursue it and kill it. As the forest burnt, thousands of animals started giving out an eerie scream which filled the forest as they fled in all directions. Many were burnt together; the air was filled with the smell of burnt skin. Many stayed behind to save their young ones and were burnt along with them. Even the water reservoirs in the forest started boiling with the heat and were full of dead fish and tortoises. The birds of the forest tried to save their lives by flying high in the sky, but they could not escape Arjuna’s arrows, which cut them into pieces and let them fall into the burning flames. As the arrows pierced the bodies of the birds they screamed loudly, and even though trying to fly high they were pulled back into the forest fire. The whole forest was filled with the cries of animals in pain.

Let us interpret this part of the story. We have seen that the Khandava forest represents our deep unconscious mind. In yoga, this area is called as Manipura or the solar plexus. Here lie our deep desires and passions. We have a multitude of animal cells and they have very powerful animalistic tendencies; all such tendencies and our desires are concentrated in this area. This area has to be purified and this is a painful process as each desire manifests from the unconscious to the conscious and we, with our sword of awareness, cut it from its roots. As these roots lie very deep in us and are soaked with the emotions of attachment, this process becomes very painful, represented by the animals woefully trying to escape the fire. To sustain this process, the student must work as if he is on fire and that is what is meant by Agni burning the forest.

As the flames of the fire started rising high, the gods in the heavens started feeling the heat. They got together and went to their lord, Indra, and asked him why the god Agni was burning all beings, and asked if it was the end of the world. After hearing them, Indra himself mounted his chariot and went to save the forest. He filled the skies with dark clouds which started raining down heavily on the forest. But the power of the flames was such that not a drop of water reached the earth but dried up mid-sky. This made Indra very angry and he started raining down water, along with lightning, as if it was the great deluge. As the flames and the water met, steam and fumes filled the sky which was dancing in lightning and thunder.

As Indra kept on increasing his rain shower, Arjuna started using his bow with great dexterity. He covered the whole forest with a canopy of arrows, not allowing a single raindrop in and also not allowing a single animal to escape. The forest was the home of Indra’s friend, the king of the snakes Thakshak. At that time, Thakshak was not in the forest as he had gone to Kurukshetra. His son, Ashwasen, a powerful warrior himself, was trying his best to escape from the forest, but the speed and power of Arjuna’s arrows would not allow him to do so. To save her sons life Ashwasen’s mother a female serpent swallowed her son, starting head first. She then flew into the sky to escape the fire, but Arjuna’s arrows stopped her by cutting off her head. At that moment Indra who was battling Arjuna saw his friend’s wife. To save Ashwasen, Indra made Arjuna lose his consciousness for a moment by striking him with a bolt of lightning, and exactly at that moment Ashwasen escaped onto Indra’s chariot.

This momentary loss of consciousness made Arjuna very angry and now instead of just trying to surround the forest and preventing the animals from escaping he started firing his arrows directly upon Indra. When the king of the gods saw Arjuna’s anger, he covered the sky completely with clouds. He then attacked Arjuna with his divine weapons of whirlwinds, thunder, and lightning. The sound and the terror of the attack made even the mighty oceans tremble in fear. But Arjuna was not the one to shy away. He took out his divine astra called ‘Vayavya’, recited the mantras to invoke its power and let it loose in the sky. The power of the astra was such that all the winds calmed down, the clouds ran dry, it stopped raining, and the lightning and thunder vanished as if they had run away in fear.

Indra means the lord of the senses. At present, our senses are ruled by external attractions. Like thunder and lightning, different objects of excitement hypnotise us to the external world. Instead of burning our Khandava forest of unfulfilled desires and appetites, we keep creating new ones. Rarely a moment goes by when we do not desire. This adds new and intensive desires and lusts to the ones already there in our deep unconscious. Arjuna used the ‘Vayavya’ astra. It means pertaining to vayu or the wind or the prana in the body. If our prana is calm, in rhythm, and balance, then we can easily ward off the attacks of the five senses or Indra. That is why one should do the three step rhythmic breathing all twenty four hours of the day. If our breath is in rhythm, then the prana or vayu of the body comes into rhythm and cannot be excited and it becomes easy to fight the attractions of the senses and be free of their hypnotism.

Thakshak is our inner ego, the active part of it, the doer. His son is saved in the burning of the forest. Here the rishi Vyasa is giving us a message that even after the burning of the desires in the unconscious mind, certain weaknesses will remain and have to be worked upon later.

In our next article, we will see how all the gods came to help Indra fight Arjuna and Krishna.