The Sage & The Four Strange Birds
Introduction: This is the start of a new series compiling and retelling stories from the Puranas, simply and without distortion or substantive embellishment. This episode comes from the beginning of the Markandeya Purana. The quotes cited are from Bibek Debroy’s excellent translation of the Markandeya Purana.
The Pregnant Bird Witnesses the Great Battles at Kuruskhetra
Once upon a time, Drona — no, not that Drona who taught the Pandavas; this Drona was the youngest son of the rishi Mandapala — married a beautiful bird-woman named Tarkshi. The word ‘tarkshi’ means ‘bird’. The name was apt for this erstwhile apsara who had been cursed by the ever-irritable Durvasa Muni to be reborn as a bird. The story of that curse is also narrated in the Markandeya Purana.
One day, Tarkshsi traveled to Kurukshetra. She was three-months pregnant at the time. Who can say why she made the journey to that most perilous of places? Perhaps she sensed that some of the most pivotal moments of human history were to play out there and wanted to witness them. And she did indeed witness some of the most intense, dramatic, nerve-wracking battles fought during the Mahabharata war. One such battle, between Bhagadatta and Arjuna, raged on the twelfth of the eighteen days of war.