Mb120. Pandava's Journey To God's Abode Poem by Rajaram Ramachandran

MAHABHARATA

What a sorrowful news they heard?
"Krishna disappeared from this world.
The Yadavas race, a curse destroyed."
A flood of tears Hastinapura shed.

All attachments, Pandavas lost.
They crowned Parikshit at last.
On a pilgrimage, they went round.
Some peace in this, they found.

A dog followed them on the way.
They couldn't send it far away.
Himalayas they finally reached.
Its foot they reverently touched.

Hard was their journey upside,
One by one fell down and died.
First Draupadi, Sahadeva
And the next one Nakula.

Arjuna and Bhima too died.
They fell down side by side.
Yudhishthira kept them aside,
No more he had grief or pride.

In his chariot Indra appeared.
Towards peak when he arrived.
"To take you, I'm here, " Indra said
To get in with the dog, he tried.

"You leave this dog here.
It has no place, up there."
Indra gave it no preference,
And he denied its entrance.

"For me too, there's no room, "
Yudhishthira refused to come.
The dog suddenly disappeared.
His father, Dharma, appeared.

Pleased with his conduct Dharma,
He blessed his son Yudhishthira,
Who at last reached the Heaven.
He saw Duryodhana in a throne.

He asked, "Where're my brothers?
Karna, Draupadi, and many others,
Who lived, fought, and died for me,
How is it they don't talk to me? "

Then Narada told, "My son,
You're now in this Heaven.
Shed your tendencies human.
Here souls are treated as one."

An angel led him to a dark place.
There he heard every voice,
Of Draupadi, his brothers,
His friends and all others.

"How's it, sinners in high place?
Sufferers for truth in low place?
Why partiality exists in this place?
I feel why I came to this place? "

"No, " said the messenger Angel,
"Now you're here in the hell."
"Then I prefer this hell, " he said,
"To suffer with them, I'm not afraid."

Pleased with him, Indra appeared.
"None on the earth escaped
The gates of hell, when they died.
So you're here, " he explained.

"This is an illusion, but not real,
You're in Heaven, not in Hell."
To Indra, he began to tell,
"I deserve a place in the Hell."

"For I told a lie, to kill my Drona.
I killed my brother Karna.
A thousand Hells I deserve.
A place for me you reserve."

Yama, his father, appeared then.
"These tests you passed, my son.
Every time, the truth has won.
Really you're the truth born."

The story comes to an end.
The events one by one send,
A world of morals when read,
It shows, ‘good' conquers ‘bad.'

An epic Mahabharata is, why?
This eternal truth none can deny.
The fact it surpassed many ages,
It's a proof of its living pages.

The end of the great epic
The story of Mahabharata.