The Crane at the Lake

Mahābhārata — Vana Parva — the Yakṣa Praśna

Tradition note. The questions and answers are quoted rather than summarised, which is why they have survived word for word — people have memorised this exchange for two thousand years without necessarily knowing the story around it.

Before you begin. Four brothers die and lie beside a lake for most of the story, and are alive again at the end. The dying is not described — they drink and fall. The questions in the middle are about death, plainly, and a child may want to sit with one of them.

Ages 10+3 min aloudanswering honestly under pressurewho you will not leave behind

Five brothers in a forest, a long way into an exile, and no water anywhere.

Sahadeva went to look and found a lake — clear, cold, full. And as he knelt down, a voice said: answer me first, then drink.

He drank. And he fell down beside it.

pause

Nakula went after him and found his brother lying there and the water beside him, and the voice said the same thing, and he drank, and fell.

Arjuna went. Then Bhīma. Each of them saw the ones before, and each of them was told, and each of them drank.

pause

Yudhiṣṭhira came last and found all four of them on the ground.

He was as thirsty as any of them. He did not drink.

He said: ask.

pause

There was a yakṣa there — a crane on the bank, which is what the voice had been — and it asked a great many questions, and he answered every one.

Then it asked the famous one. What is the greatest wonder in the world?

And he said: every day, people watch other people die. And every single one of them goes on believing it will not happen to him. Nothing is stranger than that.

pause

The crane said: you have answered. I will give you one brother back. Choose.

And he said: Nakula. Not Bhīma, who is the strongest. Not Arjuna, who is the reason they have any chance at all.

He explained it in one breath. My father had two wives. I am Kuntī's son and I am standing here — so let a son of Mādrī stand up too. If only one of us lives, it should not be that one whole mother is left with nobody.

The crane was his father, and had been from the first question. All four of them got up.

Four of them saw four brothers lying beside the water and drank it anyway. He was the only one who stopped.

Now turn to your child

The yakṣa let him choose one brother and he chose the one who was not his mother's son. Would you have chosen the same way?

And if they shrug, you can leave it at this: Fair does not always mean the one you would miss most.

Sahadevasuh-huh-DAY-vuhThe youngest of the five, and the first sent for water at the lake.

NakulaNUH-koo-luhThe fourth Pāṇḍava, and Mādrī's son rather than Kuntī's — which is the whole reason he is the one asked for at the lake.

ArjunaUR-juh-nuhThe archer among the Pāṇḍavas; the one who could see only the eye of the bird.

BhīmaBHEE-muhThe strongest of the five Pāṇḍava brothers — and, like Hanumān, a son of Vāyu.

Yudhiṣṭhirayoo-DHISH-thi-ruhEldest of the Pāṇḍavas, and the one the crane at the lake chose to question.

yakṣaYUCK-shuhA spirit of a place — a lake, a tree, a hill. Not a god and not a demon; something that belongs to somewhere and expects to be asked.

KuntīKOON-teeMother of the eldest three Pāṇḍavas, and of Karṇa before any of them. She kept the second fact for sixty years.

MādrīMAAD-reeThe Pāṇḍavas' other mother, and Nakula and Sahadeva's. She died long before this, which is why Yudhiṣṭhira is counting.

Something isn't right here

This is the short telling. The longer one, tonight's pick, and the rest of the collection are in the app — free, nothing to install.

Open Sandhya Katha