Once, the Muni Gautama's son, Sharadwan, was strolling along a river's bank when he saw an apsara, Janapadi, bathing in the crisp water. Sharadwan had been celibate for a century and he was a master of himself. But on that day the unexpected sight of the naked nymph unmanned him. Watching her, he spent his seed into a clump of river-reeds.
The apsara did not see the sage whom she had stirred and both went their separate ways. But just a day later, two infants of unearthly splendor lay crying lustily in the bed of reeds. They were a boy and a girl and their fine voices rang over the murmurant river.
One of king Shantanu's soldiers was passing by, when he heard those babies crying and, captivated by their beauty when he saw them, he took them back to Hastinapura. Shantanu was so taken by the twins that he adopted them and raised them in his palace like his own children. This was some years before the return of Bheeshma and the advent of Satyavati. Since they were found in a bank of river-reeds, Sharadwan's twins were named Kripa and Kripi: God's grace1. Shantanu thought of them as fate's mercy to him, after Ganga left him and before he had Devavrata back.
Kripa and Kripi grew into noble children and the story of how they were discovered spread across Bharatavarsha. On his wanderings, Sharadwan heard about the twins and knew they were the fruit of his seed.
One soft autumn day, that rishi arrived in Hastinapura and met Shantanu. The king was astonished to hear how Kripa and Kripi had been born.
Sharadwan lingered on in the city of elephants for some years and taught his son Kripa archery. It is doubtful if he ever told the twins he was their father; he was an itinerant sage and not suited to the long responsibility of parenthood. Besides, the children seemed very happy in the palace and looked upon Shantanu as their adoptive father. They were hardly curious about their real origins, believing them to be irretrievable.
Kripa became a person of importance in the court of Hastinapura. With the instruction he had from Sharadwan, he was a master of weapons. In time, he was to become the first guru of the Panda- vas and the Kauravas. Not only the sons of Dhritarashtra and Pandu were Acharya Kripa's sishyas, the young Vrishni princes of Mathura and the Bhojas and Andhakas came to study under him in Hasti- napura.
The princes of the Kuru House, the sons of Pandu and Dhritarashtra's princes, as well, were pupils of remarkable talent. They swiftly mastered all that Kripa had to teach them; and then, Bheeshma was worried. He knew the young kshatriyas now needed a greater teacher than Kripa and was constantly on the lookout for such a man. He sent his scouts through all the kingdoms, across mountains and rivers and into deep forests. But none of them was able to find a master for the Kuru scions. They all returned with the same impression: that perhaps a man like that did not exist in these dark times.
Yet, at last, a guru did arrive to teach the princes of Hastinapura and he came of his own accord, brought by fate. As it turned out, he was even related to Kripa. But though he had lived in Hasti- napura for some time no one knew about him. He watched the young Kurus, secretly; and they never saw him until he thought they were ready for his instruction.
One day, the Pandavas and the Kauravas went out of the city-gates to a favored garden to play vita-danda. This game was played with two sticks, one short and sharpened at its ends and the other stout and long. The long stick was used to twirl the smaller one off the ground by striking one of its pointed ends. While it was aloft, the player hit it a second time as hard and far as he could, while the others tried to catch it in the air. Bheema struck the little vita such a blow that it flew above the heads of the rest and landed in an old well in a corner of the garden.
The boys crowded round the well. Peering in, they could dimly see the vita, floating a hundred feet below them on dark water. Some of them cried that they should lower a rope and try and snare the little thing, while others said it would be easier to lower one of them into the well. Among the lat- ter was Duryodhana, who wanted to send Bheema down. At first none of the youngsters noticed the stranger who stood under a mango tree and watched them intently.
Suddenly the stranger, who was a brahmana by his attire and the thread he wore across his body, spoke to them in such an arresting voice that the boys all turned to listen. He came nearer.
They saw hat, under shaggy brows, his eyes were like live coals. Though he spoke softly and slowly, his voice seemed loud to their ears.
"Kshatriyas, obviously you know no archery or you would easily fetch your vita out of the well." One of the Kaurava boys said, "You are wrong, stranger. We are good bowmen."
The man came closer and leaned over the mouth of the well. Yudhishtira ventured, "We are all
archers Brahmana and disciples of Acharya Kripa. But what has archery to do with our vita?"
The tall brahmana turned his face to stare at Yudhishtira for a moment. His eyes roved over the others, one by one and each prince was discomfited by the piercing regard. At last, he stopped with young Arjuna and his gaze remained fixed on that Pandava's face. Now when he spoke, he seemed to
address only Arjuna.
"You say you are archers, sons of Bharata, yet you can't retrieve your vita with arrows."
Arjuna felt an extraordinary warmth suffuse him at the stranger's scrutiny. He felt the brahmana
knew him well, even chose him somehow over the others. Arjuna said, "Can you retrieve our vita with archery?"
"Watch me."
"But you have no bow or arrows!" laughed one of the Kauravas. The stranger glared at him with his burning eyes and the boy fell quiet. The brahmana cast around for a moment and pulled up a clump of sharp reeds that grew at the base of the wellhead. The princes looked on disbelievingly, many of them thinking the fellow was mad and the others curious to see what he would do. Only Arjuna felt a complete faith in the stranger; he was certain the brahmana would recover the vita from the well. By sorcery, if need be.
Said the stranger, "These shall be my arrows. But first I will cast my ring into the well after your vita. And I will fetch them both out."
He slipped a golden, jewel-studded ring off his finger and threw it casually into the well. They heard a distant splash and when they peered down they saw no trace of it. Unlike the buoyant wooden vita, the metal ring sank below the surface of the dark water.
Chanting a mantra under his breath, the brahmana began to stroke the reeds he had pulled up. They sprang erect in his long fingers, as if he had invested them with a fierce life of their own. Those reeds assumed the shape of green arrows, plumed at their base and with silvery arrowheads. Still he stroked them and spoke to them; until, they began to fly out of his hands, each attached to the next so they formed a rope of arrows. The green rope snaked out of his grasp and into the deep well.
Down the well shaft those reed-arrows flashed. In a moment, they flew up again into the sun and, like obedient creatures, brought the vita into the stranger's hands.
The boys were speechless. The brahmana smiled, "See how easy it is when you are an archer?" Only Arjuna found his voice, "What about your ring?"
Again the stranger glanced intently at that prince. He detached one arrow from the rope he had
made. He let the rest fall on the ground where, at once, they were common reeds again. He shut his eyes briefly and whispered more secret words. He cast the single reed down the well. This time they all heard it splash into the water. A moment passed when they thought the reed had sunk. Then they cried out, for up flew the reed-arrow and back into the strange master's hands. At its tip, his jeweled ring glittered. Calmly the intense brahmana took his ring off the arrowhead and slipped it back onto his finger. He discarded the reed, which collapsed limply on the ground.
Yudhishtira breathed, "Tell us who you are, Brahmana."
But the stranger only said, "Go to your Pitama Bheeshma and tell him what happened here. He will know who I am."
Not pausing for breath, the boys ran to the palace. There, shouting all at once in their eagerness, they tried to tell Bheeshma about the stranger. Laughing, their grandsire stopped them. He couldn't make head or tail of what they were saying. He asked Yudhishtira, who alone had held his peace, to tell him what had happened. Yudhishtira told him about the brahmana with eyes like coals and how he fetched the vita and the ring out of the old well. Bheeshma's face lit up; he knew he had found the master for his princes. But he hadn't known that Kripi's husband Drona had come to Hastinapura.
Bheeshma went with the boys to the garden, where Drona waited. The two greeted each other cor- dially and Bheeshma said, "Welcome to Hastinapura, Acharya. How is it I did not hear of your arrival?"
Drona replied with habitual directness, "Because I did not want you to hear of it yet, O Bheeshma, because misfortune brought me here and because your princes were not ready for my instruction."
Bheeshma said, "So you will be their master. I came to ask you just that."
"I know. I have been watching your grandsons and they are all gifted boys. Some more so than others," his eyes sought Arjuna again in the throng of young kshatriyas. "Yes, I will be happy to teach them, as long as I am fed and treated with respect in the House of Kuru."
His deep eyes smoldered with defiance. Bheeshma took his arm and said, "Come, let us go in and speak privately. It will be easy enough to give you what you want. Here in Hastinapura, we honor men like you."
They went indoors, leaving the princes breathless with excitement that they were to have lessons at archery from the wizard.
