06-22-2006, 10:10 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Relevance of Mahabharata</b>
Hiranmay Karlekar
A time of transition for a nation is a time of normlessness, which the French social philosopher Emile Durkheim called a time of anomie. It is a time when there is confusion about the values that rule the lives of people, those of the old order having lost their force and those of the emergent one still to crystallise. India is passing through precisely such a phase, with a traditional, feudal society evolving into a modern, industrial one, powered by science and technology and guided by a democratic polity. Like all such stages in history, it is marked by social stress and strain, often erupting into violence, as those adversely affected by change react in anger.
While there is optimism all round about the country's future, it would be unwise to ignore some of the ominous portents on the horizon. Development and a savage process of urban renewal are making hundreds of thousands homeless, robbing them of their means of livelihood and driving them to destitution. A rapidly-spreading, advertisement-driven consumer culture that makes the capacity for self-indulgence and possession of goods the index of a person's worth, is making for a relentless pursuit of wealth and its ostentatious display heedless of the rights of others and the resentment it causes among the deprived. An exploitative and thoroughly corrupt administrative system, law's delays and controversial judicial decisions have raised serious doubts about the ability of the present system to deliver. Resentment is rampant. Two hundred and forty districts are in state of insurgency, with Maoists calling the shots. The gap between means and compulsive consumer aspirations is leading to crime as means of income. One wonders whether the policies that guide development and the wider social engineering that has been attempted are correct, whether political opportunism, pandering to divisive sectional interests, will not undermine economic development, and whether the present system itself will not be torn asunder by mutually hostile forces struggling for supremacy.
At a time like this, it is imperative for a nation to draw upon the entire reservoir of its wisdom, traditional and contemporary, and introspect deeply about its course and destiny. Unfortunately, however, no such serious effort is underfoot and those that are, ignore a vital source of wisdom, the philosophical texts of its illustrious antiquity and its two great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
At the heart of the Mahabharata, the Great Epic, is the battle of Kurukshetra, fought between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Understandably, it has a surfeit of stories of heroic deeds, primal violence and warfare. It, however, was far more than that. Marking the end of the Dwapara and the beginning of the Kali Yuga or Age, it was fought to vanquish Adharma or evil, embodied in the line of the Kauravas, and Dharma, for which the Pandavas stood. Unfolding through the great narrative, therefore, is the eternal conflict between Dharma and Adharma. After the feast that marked the end of mourning for the death of King Pandu, from whom the lineage of the Pandavas has been named, Vyasa, composer of the Mahabharata, told his mother, Satyavati, that there would be enmity between the sons of Pandu and Dhritarashtra and would lead to an unprecedented war that would destroy the power of the Kshatriyas in the world signal the end of an age. He added that he had a vision of it from the Himalaya, as a war between Dharma and Adharma, light and darkness.
The point was definitively underlined by Krishna when, while reciting the Bhagavat Gita on the eve of the battle of Kurukshetra, he said "Whenever evil dominates the world/ And there is an upsurge of Adharma/ I create a body for myself/ To save the virtuous, destroy the evil-doers and re-establish Dharma/ I arrive from age to age." Dharma is the most important thing for a person. Every individual, according to the Bhagavat Gita, must perform his own Dharma, however imperfectly, than the Dharma of others, however, flawlessly. It is better to die performing one's own Dharma. The performance of another's Dharma can have fearful consequences.
Two questions arise at this stage. What is Dharma? Why is it important? An episode in the Mahabharata occurred by a lake in Dwaityavana where the Pandavas came to slake their thirst. A Yakshya told them that they had to answer his questions before they drank. Nakul, Sahadev, Bheem and Arjuna drank without doing so and died. Yudhistira agreed to answer and two of his replies are most illuminating. Asked what was the highest Dharma, he answered that it was not to injure any living being. In reply to another question, he descried liberality as the highest sanctuary of Dharma. The Yakshya was in reality the God Dharma who had come to test Yudhistira. Satisfied by the latter's answers, he brought the Pandavas back to life and allowed all of them to drink from the lake.
In the Udyoga Parva of the epic, Vidura tells Dhritarashtra, "Eight are the paths of Dharma: Sacrifice, study, asceticism, charity, truth, mercy, forgiveness and contentment. The first four may exist from vanity; the last four are found only in the truly great men" (Ramesh Menon, The Mahabharata: A Modern Rendition). Earlier he had told Dhritarashtra during the same conversation, "Poison or an arrow will kill one man, but evil counsel will destroy a kingdom. Dharma is the highest good; the supreme peace is forgiveness. In the knowledge of truth lies the only stability and contentment, and joy only in benevolence."
Of course, the word Dharma has specific connotations for specific categories of people like Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Shudras and Vaishyas. But there are certain fundamental elements common to all of them, and these universal elements constitute the essence of the concept of Dharma the Mahabharata enshrines. No doubt, these are the words of all perennial religions. But then like the Upanishads, the Vedas, the Puranas and the Ramayana, the Mahabharata is a part of the essential Indian heritage. Its message has been transmitted throughout the ages among hundreds of millions of Indians who have internalised it and sought to implement it in their quotidian lives. Unfortunately, the Indian elites, particularly the intelligentsia and the policy makers, are heedless of it. The result is a near collapse of morality in public life, which is one of the major causes of the ills afflicting the nation.
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Hiranmay Karlekar
A time of transition for a nation is a time of normlessness, which the French social philosopher Emile Durkheim called a time of anomie. It is a time when there is confusion about the values that rule the lives of people, those of the old order having lost their force and those of the emergent one still to crystallise. India is passing through precisely such a phase, with a traditional, feudal society evolving into a modern, industrial one, powered by science and technology and guided by a democratic polity. Like all such stages in history, it is marked by social stress and strain, often erupting into violence, as those adversely affected by change react in anger.
While there is optimism all round about the country's future, it would be unwise to ignore some of the ominous portents on the horizon. Development and a savage process of urban renewal are making hundreds of thousands homeless, robbing them of their means of livelihood and driving them to destitution. A rapidly-spreading, advertisement-driven consumer culture that makes the capacity for self-indulgence and possession of goods the index of a person's worth, is making for a relentless pursuit of wealth and its ostentatious display heedless of the rights of others and the resentment it causes among the deprived. An exploitative and thoroughly corrupt administrative system, law's delays and controversial judicial decisions have raised serious doubts about the ability of the present system to deliver. Resentment is rampant. Two hundred and forty districts are in state of insurgency, with Maoists calling the shots. The gap between means and compulsive consumer aspirations is leading to crime as means of income. One wonders whether the policies that guide development and the wider social engineering that has been attempted are correct, whether political opportunism, pandering to divisive sectional interests, will not undermine economic development, and whether the present system itself will not be torn asunder by mutually hostile forces struggling for supremacy.
At a time like this, it is imperative for a nation to draw upon the entire reservoir of its wisdom, traditional and contemporary, and introspect deeply about its course and destiny. Unfortunately, however, no such serious effort is underfoot and those that are, ignore a vital source of wisdom, the philosophical texts of its illustrious antiquity and its two great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
At the heart of the Mahabharata, the Great Epic, is the battle of Kurukshetra, fought between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Understandably, it has a surfeit of stories of heroic deeds, primal violence and warfare. It, however, was far more than that. Marking the end of the Dwapara and the beginning of the Kali Yuga or Age, it was fought to vanquish Adharma or evil, embodied in the line of the Kauravas, and Dharma, for which the Pandavas stood. Unfolding through the great narrative, therefore, is the eternal conflict between Dharma and Adharma. After the feast that marked the end of mourning for the death of King Pandu, from whom the lineage of the Pandavas has been named, Vyasa, composer of the Mahabharata, told his mother, Satyavati, that there would be enmity between the sons of Pandu and Dhritarashtra and would lead to an unprecedented war that would destroy the power of the Kshatriyas in the world signal the end of an age. He added that he had a vision of it from the Himalaya, as a war between Dharma and Adharma, light and darkness.
The point was definitively underlined by Krishna when, while reciting the Bhagavat Gita on the eve of the battle of Kurukshetra, he said "Whenever evil dominates the world/ And there is an upsurge of Adharma/ I create a body for myself/ To save the virtuous, destroy the evil-doers and re-establish Dharma/ I arrive from age to age." Dharma is the most important thing for a person. Every individual, according to the Bhagavat Gita, must perform his own Dharma, however imperfectly, than the Dharma of others, however, flawlessly. It is better to die performing one's own Dharma. The performance of another's Dharma can have fearful consequences.
Two questions arise at this stage. What is Dharma? Why is it important? An episode in the Mahabharata occurred by a lake in Dwaityavana where the Pandavas came to slake their thirst. A Yakshya told them that they had to answer his questions before they drank. Nakul, Sahadev, Bheem and Arjuna drank without doing so and died. Yudhistira agreed to answer and two of his replies are most illuminating. Asked what was the highest Dharma, he answered that it was not to injure any living being. In reply to another question, he descried liberality as the highest sanctuary of Dharma. The Yakshya was in reality the God Dharma who had come to test Yudhistira. Satisfied by the latter's answers, he brought the Pandavas back to life and allowed all of them to drink from the lake.
In the Udyoga Parva of the epic, Vidura tells Dhritarashtra, "Eight are the paths of Dharma: Sacrifice, study, asceticism, charity, truth, mercy, forgiveness and contentment. The first four may exist from vanity; the last four are found only in the truly great men" (Ramesh Menon, The Mahabharata: A Modern Rendition). Earlier he had told Dhritarashtra during the same conversation, "Poison or an arrow will kill one man, but evil counsel will destroy a kingdom. Dharma is the highest good; the supreme peace is forgiveness. In the knowledge of truth lies the only stability and contentment, and joy only in benevolence."
Of course, the word Dharma has specific connotations for specific categories of people like Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Shudras and Vaishyas. But there are certain fundamental elements common to all of them, and these universal elements constitute the essence of the concept of Dharma the Mahabharata enshrines. No doubt, these are the words of all perennial religions. But then like the Upanishads, the Vedas, the Puranas and the Ramayana, the Mahabharata is a part of the essential Indian heritage. Its message has been transmitted throughout the ages among hundreds of millions of Indians who have internalised it and sought to implement it in their quotidian lives. Unfortunately, the Indian elites, particularly the intelligentsia and the policy makers, are heedless of it. The result is a near collapse of morality in public life, which is one of the major causes of the ills afflicting the nation.
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