Itihāsa / Mahābhārata / The Yakṣa's questions

Yakṣa-praśna (यक्षप्रश्न)

Near the end of the forest exile, in the Vana-parva. The brothers are thirsty. They find a lake. A voice, a crane in one moment of the telling and a yakṣa when he shows himself, says that no one drinks before the questions are answered. Nakula drinks, and falls. Sahadeva, Arjuna, and Bhīma do the same. Yudhiṣṭhira answers. The vulgate and the critical edition do not give this episode the same chapter number. The episode is stable. The numeral is not, so this page does not freeze one.

The questions are a catechism of dharma, not a riddle for its own sake. Four answers the tellings agree on: heavier than the earth, one's mother; higher than the sky, one's father; faster than the wind, the mind; more numerous than the blades of grass, the mind's cares. Around those four the yakṣa asks what a person is, what happiness is, and who the friend of a traveler is. This page gives those four in prose because the answers are stable. It does not print a Sanskrit line. A misremembered śloka would be worse than none.

At the end the yakṣa says one brother may live, and Yudhiṣṭhira must choose. He chooses Nakula, so that Mādrī as well as Kuntī still has a son. The yakṣa is Dharma, Yudhiṣṭhira's father, and the fallen brothers rise. The test was the choice, not the cleverness of the answers. The Mokṣadharma will later be Bhīṣma's long discourses. This is the short form, asked at a lake, with the bodies of his brothers on the bank.

नेपालीमा

वनवासको अन्त्यतिर, वनपर्वमा। दाजुभाइ तिर्खाएका छन्। ताल भेट्छन्। एउटा आवाजले, यक्षको, भन्छ, प्रश्नको उत्तरअघि कसैले पिउनु हुँदैन। नकुल पिउँछन् र ढल्छन्। सहदेव, अर्जुन, भीम पनि। युधिष्ठिर जवाफ दिन्छन्। प्रचलित पाठ र आलोचनात्मक संस्करणमा अध्यायको अङ्क फरक छ। घटना स्थिर छ, अङ्क स्थिर छैन, त्यसैले यो पृष्ठले अङ्क तोक्दैन।

प्रश्न धर्मको प्रश्नोत्तरी हो, केवल पहेली होइन। चार उत्तरमा कथन मिल्छन्। आमा पृथ्वीभन्दा गह्रौं हुन्। बाबा आकाशभन्दा अग्लो हुन्। मन हावाभन्दा छिटो हुन्छ। मनका चिन्ता घाँसका पातभन्दा धेरै हुन्छन्। यो पृष्ठले ती चार गद्यमा दिन्छ। संस्कृत पङ्क्ति छाप्दैन।

अन्त्यमा यक्षले एक भाइ मात्र बाँच्न सक्छ, र युधिष्ठिरले छान्नुपर्छ भन्छन्। उनले नकुल छान्छन्, ताकि कुन्तीसँगै माद्रीको पनि छोरा रहोस्। यक्ष धर्म हुन्, युधिष्ठिरका पिता, र ढलेका दाजुभाइ उठ्छन्। परीक्षा उत्तरको चतुर्याइँ होइन, छनोट हो।

Where it sits

Dharma as a father who tests his son is this episode. The same Dharma walks with Yudhiṣṭhira as a dog in the Mahāprasthānika. Two meetings, one god. The household telling of a nāga and a disputed treasure, on another lake, is Bhoto Jatra. That nāga is not this yakṣa.