Question- Write a character sketch Raibhya.

Answer - 

Character Sketch of Raibhya

Sage Raibhya is the father of Paravasu and Arvasu. He has been depicted as a cantankerous old man despite his learning and wisdom, of which we have no evidence in the play. He has been described as "thin and emaciated, but physically active" despite his advanced. age. He lives in his hermitage with his daughter-in-law Vishakha and his younger son. Arvasu while his elder son Paravasu is away presiding over the royal sacrifice as the chief priest.

Suspicious and Ruthless : Raibhya return home a day earlier than scheduled. Vishakha is surprised. He "Scowls" at Vishakha when she returns to the hermitage without her pot of water. when Arvasu follows her, carrying the pot of water on his shoulder, Raibhya suspects their relationship.

"But perhaps I should give the two of your more
Such surprises.... wait! ...... you go to fetch water.
And your brother-in-law carries it back for you. Strange!
What is happening here? why are yor filthy? you like
look a buffalo that's been rolling in mud."

When Vishakha says that she felt faint and fell down, Raibhya is furious. And he turned up, just at the moment to help you! Isn't that convenient! And you two have been taking a long time for just that what were you up to?

When told that Nittilai was also there, he dismisses her as "a savage" and continues with his cross questioning. But when he comes to know the truth about Vishakha having made love to Yavakri, he is incensed. He thrashes her and kicks her about and then dismisses her with these words:

"You whore-you roving whore ! I could reduce you to
ashes-turn you into a fistful of dust with a simple
curse. But let that husband of yours handle you.
Paravasu. Chief Priest of the sacrifice!
Let him clean up his own shit !"

His ire turns to Yavakri. He sits down to meditate, invokes the 'kritya' and creates a Brahma Rakshasa to pursue Yavakri and kill him. He has a rider, though. Yavakri need only go to his hermitage and hide himself there. If he steps out, he is dead. If he can manage to stay alive for the ment twenty- four hours, Raibhya will accept defeat, enter fire and immolate himself. Despite Vishakha's warning, Yavakri accpets Raibhya's challenge. Just when he is about to enter his hermitage, the Brahma Rakshasa chases him and spears him. This shows how vengeful a sage like Raibhya can be.

His Confrontation with Paravasu: When Paravasu suddenly returns home from the sacrifice to have "a word" with his wife, Raibhya is incensed.

"You? Here? What are you doing here? There's still a month left to go before the sacrifice ends. You are you can't-you have broken the rules! you are deliberately defying the gods !"

When Paravasa explains that he " felt like coming home", Yavakri explodes :

"Felt? And just walked out? with the ritual bracelet on? As though the sacrifice were a market place?

Or have they thrown you out?"

He attributes Paravasu's "wilful transgression of the rules" to his "usual insolence" when Paravasu tries to pacify him by saying that he will be back before down and "no one need know" of his absense, Raibhya flases up:

"No one need know? The chief priest of the royal sacrifice sneaks out at night, crawls home, his face" covered like a leper, and you think the gods won't know? They won't retaliate? How could I have fathered two such imbeciles? I told the king," Mark my words, my son defecates wherever he goes. And he will defecate in your sacrifice".

The king, Paravasu inform Raibhya, wanted him to be the chief priest but since it's a seven-year-long ritual, he preferred a younger person (Paravasu). This infuriates Raibhya further.

"I see. So you measured my life-span, did you-you and your king? Tested the strength of my life-line? well the sacrifice is almost over and I'm still here. Still here. Alive and kicking. Tell the king I shall outlive my sons."

But, alas, he doesn't. He walks out in disgust, after telling him, "If you want to be alone with your wife, send that fool (Arvasu) somewhere else."

While Raibhya is away, Vishakha senses that something is worrying her husband. She knows that he has returned home looking not for her, but something else. It turns out that Raibhya has been feeling slighted over his son being chosen as the chief priest of the royal sacrifice. Vishakha tells him about his father's behaviour since Paravasu left for the royal sacrifice :

"Something died inside your father the day the king invited you to be the chief priest. He's been drying up like a dead free since then. No sap runs in him...... On the one hand, there's his sense of being humiliated by you. On the other, there's lust. If consumes him. An old man's curdled lust. And there's no one else here to take his rage out on but me."

That explains why Vishakha wants her husband to shoot her with his arrow and offer her as a human sacrifice. But after he has aimed his arrow at her, Paravasu hears Raibhya entering, aims his arrow in that direction and shoots him. Raibhya collapses without a sound. But Paravasu is unre pentant. He now knows what has been troubling him. He tells Vishakha that Raibhya deserved to die.

"He killed Yavakri to disturb me in the last stages of the sacrifice. Not to punish Yakakri, but to be event with me. I had to attend to him before he went any further."

After entrusting the last rites of his father to the meek Arvasu, Paravasu colly walks off as his presence at the royal sactifice is essential. There is no touch of remorse in him, And when Aravasu appears at the sacrificial site after completing the obsequies for Raibhya and expiating for his death, Paravasu Passes on the blame to his younger brother and has him thrown out of the sacrificial precincts.

Raibhya, Paravasu and Yavakri are all learned people. But they are all stubborn, ruthless intriguing and callous. We do not know anything about Bharadwaja who died broken-hearted when Yavakri went to the jungle to undertake his ten-year penance. All the three who appear in the play are swollen-headed and conceited. They haven't been able to overcome the common human weakness of pride and vengeance, which lead to their downfall. They emerge much worse than the ordinary mortals whom they despise and for whose good they are supposed to use their hard-earned spirituae knowledge for.

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