ON BONDING WITH ONE"S KULA (Contrasting Perspectives in "Sarala Mahabharata" and "Vyasa Mahabharata")

 

In Sarala Mahabharata, 

(a) In King Duryodhana’s court, where he had gone as Yudhisthira’s emissary of peace, Krishna asked the Kaurava king for five villages for the Pandavas so that a war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas could be avoided. It would not be incorrect to say that during his interaction with the Kauravas in the court on the subject, he downplayed the issue of the Pandavas’ right to half of the kingdom of Hastinapura – not that the Pandavas had told him to ask Duryodhana for that.  Krishna’s emphasis was on the Pandavas being part of the Kuru family. He told Duryodhana that the Pandavas were his brothers and that it did not look proper that they were suffering much hardship, when his own brothers and he were living in luxury. It was his moral duty to help them live a life of dignity.

 

(b) As the Kauravas and the Pandavas’ armies stood facing each other, ready to fight,  Krishna asked Arjuna to attack Bhishma. He told the Avatara that he had an emotional bond with him and with his guru Drona, and with Ashwasthama, Duryodhana, Karna, Sakuni and some others as well, who were in the battlefield as his adversaries and that he would not attack them. He would fight with them only if they attacked him. The emotional bond with his family was an important consideration in the case of Arjuna. Krishna said nothing to him and left his chariot and went directly to Yudhisthira to apprise him about Arjuna’s refusal to fight.

 

(c ) Yudhisthira thought Arjuna was right, and he said so to Krishna. He went all alone, and without arms, to the Kaurava side to plead with Duryodhana to give them just one village, if not five, to avoid the fratricidal war. The Kula relationship was paramount for him.

 

(d) When Arjuna met Bhishma for the first time on the battlefield, he told him that it was the Kauravas who were responsible for brothers fighting brothers and pleaded with him to intervene and stop it. Bhishma told him that, contrary to what he thought, the Pandavas were also responsible for that fratricidal engagement.  If they really had a commitment to the family – for the kula, - they would not have come to the battlefield for the kingdom. He told him that it wasn’t too late, even at that stage, for the Pandavas to leave the battlefield, if they were really concerned about the kula. Bhishma told Arjuna that sometimes a member of the kula becomes an utter disgrace for the kula, but the kula does not discard him. They bear with him. Thus, in this dialogue between Bhishma and Arjuna, the Kuru eldest emphasizes the kula spirit, the commitment to the kula, which could include making sacrifices to accommodate a member who brings disgrace to the kula.

 

(e) Hit by Bhima, as Duryodhana lay mortally wounded, Yudhisthira was not celebrating his victory. He was crying, placing his head on his lap. He was talking to him as an elder brother would to his younger brother, who had strayed from the path of virtue and who had made grievous miscalculations about the outcome of the war. He said he would give him the kingdom and go to the forest, as his father Pandu had done for Duryodhana’s father. Pandu, the King of Hastinapura, once overheard a conversation between his elder brother Dhritarashtra and his wife Gandhari. Dhritarashtra, who could not become king because he was born blind, was telling Gandhari about ending their life. Pandu readily abdicated in favour of his elder brother and went to the forest with his wife, from where he defended the kingdom for Dhritarashtra. Now, Yudhisthira was saying that he wanted to give the kingdom to his younger brother Duryodhana. In the eldest Pandava’s words, there was no insincerity. Duryodhana was dying, and Yudhisthira’s words touched him greatly.

 

They were no enemies at that stage; they were brothers, members of the same kula.

 

(f) Later, that night, Ashwasthama, who had left the battlefield after his father, guru Drona’s death, came to him, on hearing that he was dying. He told him that with him being there in his army, the war had not ended. Duryodhana appointed him as the Commander-in-Chief. Soon, he returned to him with five severed heads and told him that he had won the war for him. Duryodhana was happy. In the morning, when he found that they were the heads of Draupadi’s sons, he was utterly miserable and condemned Ashwasthama in the harshest of words for bringing an end to the Kuru kula. Holding the five heads on his lap, he breathed his last.

 

His last act in life was an affirmation of the Kula feelings.

 

(g) As the Pandavas and Draupadi were climbing the mountain Himalayas to reach its top, Draupadi fell. Bhima told Yudhisthira, who was leading them, that Draupadi had fallen and begged him to stop for a while for her. He told Bhima that she was a great sinner, that she was bound to fall on that account, and that he should abandon her and resume climbing. A shocked Bhima asked him what sins she had committed. In Sarala Mahabharata, Yudhisthira, in “Swargarohana Parva”, was not merely the eldest Pandava; he was also the voice of dharma in the sense of justice. His pronouncements on the failings of the Pandavas and Draupadi, which were judgements, had the tone of authority and finality. He told Bhima that she was the cause of the all-consuming Kurukshetra war. She tied her hair only after “eating” ninety-nine of the Kaurava brothers. In the words of the embodiment of dharma on earth, there is a strong assertion of the kula spirit.

 

Taken together, these episodes affirm the kula bonding.

 

In Vyasa Mahabharata, although the importance of the kula bond is acknowledged and even endorsed, it is not considered pre-eminent. In the Kaurava court, Krishna spoke about the importance of unity among the members of the kula, but he dwelt on its utility: if they were together, the Pandavas and the Kauravas would be invincible. He did not treat the kula bonding as a moral value. Later, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, when Arjuna refused to engage in a war against the members of his kula, Krishna told him that it was his moha (delusion) and impressed upon him the need to free himself from it in that dharma yuddha and do his duty as a kshatriya. He had to fight for the Pandavas’ right to the kingdom, which had been unjustly denied to them by their Kaurava brothers. Krishna told him that fighting for one’s legitimate rights, denied through adharma, is an act of dharma and not fighting, an act of adharma.

 

In Sarala Mahabharata, war is considered sinful. It is because many innocents die on the battlefield. They are innocent in the sense that they would not be the beneficiaries in the case of victory. The soldiers fight and die for others; the war is never their war. Under no circumstances would a war be justified in Sarala Mahabharata. But wars did take place. The challenge was to minimise the destruction caused by the war. That was why Yudhisthira suggested to Duryodhana that only the five Pandavas and the hundred Kauravas should fight, and the rest should leave the battlefield. Needless to say, it was unacceptable to Duryodhana.

 

From the above, it follows that there can be no “just war”, no “dharma yuddha”. In Sarala Mahabharata, as in Vyasa Mahabharata, the expression “dharma yuddha” is used to describe the Kurukshetra War, but in Sarala Mahabharata, for an entirely different reason. It is not related to the issue of the refusal by the Kauravas of the Pandavas’ legitimate right to half of the kingdom of Hastinapura. It is worth noting that in Sarala’s narrative, it was Duryodhana who first used this expression for that war. He did so when the Pandavas and the Kauravas were making the war code. He called upon everyone to honour the code. Theirs would be a dharma yuddha, he said, because Krishna would be the witness. On account of the Avatara’s presence, the entire battlefield would become a sacred place.

 

In both Vyasa Mahabharata and Sarala Mahabharata, the kula suffers incalculable damage. As for kulatwa, which is bonding with the kula and emotional attachment to the members of the kula, in the former narrative, it is considered to be moha, therefore morally and spiritually degrading, and useful only for material benefits, whereas in the latter, it is celebrated as a great human value, justified in itself, that is, not for any utilitarian reasons. It’s a value to be cherished, rather than discarded as a human failing.

AADI KAVI SARALA DAS

 

Sarala Das, the fifteenth-century poet, is acknowledged as the “aadi kavi” of Odia literature. “Aadi kavi” is like a title. It literally means “the first poet”. But here, it must not be taken in that sense. It means the first major poet. He is the creator of the rich tradition of Odia puranic literature. He composed three puranas, and his “Mahabharata”, popularly called “Sarala Mahabharata”, is the most renowned of them. Hailed as a truly remarkable work, it is a creative retelling of Vyasa’s “Mahabharata”, often referred to as “Vyasa Mahabharata”. It is the first retelling of all eighteen Parvas of Vyasa Mahabharata in any language. And this is the first retelling of the great  Sanskrit classic by a person who does not belong to a high caste.

Incidentally, Sarala Das is credited with composing the first Shakti purana in Odia: “Chandi Purana”. In my opinion, the first Shakti purana in Odia is his “Mahabharata”. It is composed with the “Saraswati bhava” of goddess Sarala (Shakti), which is harmony. Goddess Sarala, the inspiration behind the poet Sarala’s compositions, has a Saraswati aspect (knowledge and harmony) and a Durga (destructive) aspect.

Many are interested in Sarala Das, the person. No surprise, because although he is the aadi kavi, very little is known about his life. Friends who know my interest in Sarala Mahabharata, have asked me whether he knew Sanskrit. There is a controversy about where he was born and in which century. It is commonly held that he was born in the fifteenth century in a village called Kanakapura near Jhankad in Jagatsinghpur district. The eminent Odia writer and scholar, Gopinath Mohanty, disagreed. He argued that the poet belonged to the tenth century and that his birthplace was Kania, near Kakatpur in Puri district. Sometimes I have been asked what my view is. I tell them that I have not studied the controversy and have no interest in the matter. So, I go with the popular view.

I have always told those who have asked me about Sarala Das, the person, that the biography of an author is of interest to me only if it helps me to understand his ( her/their) work. But on a rethink, I realized that it is a pedantic response and that the hearer would not be unjustified to think that I was being dismissive, arrogant, and rude. Besides, personal interests apart, there is no good justification for one’s indifference towards the creator but interest in his creations.

So, I decided to mend my ways and be more reasonable and respectful about the questions about Sarala Das, the poet. I looked up whatever I could lay my hands on this subject. The most useful of those was Krishna Chandra Panigrahi’s book “Sarala Das”, published by Sahitya Akademi in 1975. The problem is that there is very little information about him outside of his own works. But one cannot go just by that, because one’s statements about oneself are, to a considerable extent, determined by the value system prevalent at that time. These days, self-promotion is socially acceptable, except when it reduces to bragging. But bragging by the powerful has to be accepted. This has been so all along. But in Sarala’s time, self-promotion by an ordinary person was, in all probability, unacceptable. So, what Sarala says about himself may not be the truth. But, as mentioned above, there is no strong independent evidence available, as of now, to determine to what extent Sarala’s observations about himself are reliable.

Sarala was born in the mid-fifteenth century into a farming family, and his name at birth was Siddheswara Parida. His family was not poor, but nowhere near rich. He was called a “paika (foot soldier)”; so, he must have learned some warfare. His father’s name was Yasovanta and his elder brother’s, Parasurama. Sarala says he was uneducated. He had no formal education. There is no evidence that he went to school. He could be said to be half-educated at best. Much of what he knew, he had learned on his own. It is difficult to believe that he did not know Sanskrit, unless one accepts his assertion that goddess Sarala was the real author of his works. Sarala says that he was a cultivator by profession and that he was a “sudra (low caste)”. In those days, “sudra” might have meant “non-brahmins” (and perhaps “non-kshatriyas”).

He depended on his paddy fields for his living. In his Chandi Purana, he says that he used to plough his paddy fields even in his old age. In “Drona Parva” in his Mahabharata, he says that he had children and grandchildren. To differentiate himself from the bhahmin “munis”, he seems to have called himself a Sudra muni. In those days, the word “muni” probably meant a “sage” or a “composer of religious texts”. So, he was a “sudra muni” in the latter interpretation of the word. He says that it was the goddess Sarala, not any human being, who conferred on him the title of “sudra muni”. He dedicated his writings to the goddess. In his Mahabharata, he says that the goddess Sarala was the creator of that work and that he was the scribe. It is said that this was his strategy to protect himself from the hostility of brahmins. It is not quite convincing, in our opinion, because he made himself open to being attacked for making the claim indirectly that the goddess specially favoured him.

There is no evidence to show that he had received any royal favour. Kalicharan Pattnaik, the well-known twentieth-century literary artist, who has also contributed much to the development of the theatre in Odisha, says in his dramatic presentation of Sarala’s life, in his play “Sarala Das”, that the great poet had received recognition from King Kapilendra Deba. But this is creative writing, where fiction is presented as fact and in the absence of proper evidence, it cannot be taken as fact. There is no evidence at all that Sarala became rich at a later stage of his life, which would have been the case if he had received royal recognition.

There is hardly any reliable information about the circumstances of his death. Sarala was not cremated, but buried, like a muni, in the “sage” sense of the term. It is possible that in his village, he was taken,  towards the end of his life, as a sage-like person. Or, he might have taken samadhi voluntarily.

It may appear surprising that so little is known about Sarala Das, despite his being regarded as the aadi kavi of Odia literature and as an important symbol of Odia identity. For one thing, he did not have followers, unlike Jagannath Das and other saint-poets (bhakta poets), who were together called the “Panchasakhas” of Odia literature. No “matha ( Hindu monastery)” or institution perpetuates him.  He performed no miracles, and no miraculous happening was associated with him. It is, therefore, unsurprising that Sarala did not have followers. This shows that he lived like an ordinary man and had not become a guru (a religious preacher). Today, very few public institutions in Odisha are named after him. Except recently, there does not seem to have been any strong demands made to the State urging it to take some affirmative action to honour him. As the senior linguist and academic Biswamohan Pradhan observed (personal communication), the spelling of the aadi kavi’s name has not been standardized.  

Probably after his death, people made copies of his Mahabharata on palm leaves, and later, palm-leaf copies were made of these copies. The greatest tribute to his masterpiece, in my opinion, was Jagannath Das’s Mahabharata, which is a commendable creative work. Jagannath Das is revered as the author of Srimad Bhagabata, the celebrated sacred text. Now, let us refer to his Mahabharata as “Jagannath Das Mahabharata”. Barely six decades separate Sarala Das and Jagannath Das. Some assert that Jagannath Das is not the author of this work. Someone else composed it and used his name as its author. We do not know for certain whether this assertion has any merit. We require a thorough and detailed linguistic analysis of this composition to respond meaningfully to this assertion. For the present, let us grant, for the sake of argument, that the authorship issue is real. But one thing is certain: it was composed during the puranic age. Broadly speaking, this work can be described as a retelling of Sarala Mahabharata in the well-known “nabakshari” form of Srimad Bhagabata. Now, isn’t it a huge tribute to the work that it inspired a retelling of it?

Sarala Das was not alive to see this beautiful thing happening to his truly remarkable work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ON GOING TO SWARGA ALIVE (SAME EVENTS, DIFFERENT NARRATIVES, DIFFERENT INSIGHTS)

 

The composition of the timeless epic, Mahabharata, did not give contentment to the great poet, so  goes the legend. Sage Narada told him that it was because he had not expatiated on the supreme majesty and glory of Sri Krishna. He would attain spiritual contentment by depicting his leela (divine doings) and thereby celebrating his magnificence, his mahima. That is how the Bhagavata Purana was composed by the great sage-poet. It is a devotee’s narrative of the Supreme Avatara Krishna’s life from his birth to his departure for Vaikuntha. Part of the story of Mahabharata enters Bhagavata Purana because there was a Hastinapura phase in the Avatara’s life.

 

What is interesting is that in Bhagavata Purana, Kunti did not join Dhritarashtra and Gandhari when they went for vanaprastha and Yudhisthira did not go to swarga (the abode of the gods) without passing through death. Kunti stayed in Hastinapura. When she got to know about Krishna’s passing away, she was devastated. She did not want to live any longer. She meditated on Krishna and surrendered herself to him and attained supreme bliss. Yudhisthira decided to abandon worldly life forthwith, handed over the kingdom of Hastinapura to Parikshita and undertook the journey from which there is no return. His brothers followed him and with utmost devotion, they all mediated on Krishna and attained eternal bliss. Draupadi followed the path of her husbands. She completely focussed her mind on Krishna and attained beatitude. The same was the case with Dhritarashtra. He attained ultimate bliss. He lived a virtuous life in the forest and one day, as he was completely focussed on Sri Hari, the forest fire engulfed him. The virtuous Gandhari consigned herself to the fire and as suggested in the text, attained the state of supreme bliss. Vidura, who had left Hastinapura and had chosen to live in the forest, concentrated on Sri  Krishna’s lotus feet, gave up his body by his yogic power and attained ultimate bliss. Thus, none of them went to the higher world of eternal bliss in their mortal body.

 

In Bhagavata Purana, the only character from Mahabharata, who  went to swarga, the abode of the gods, without passing through death, is the savara (name of a tribe) Jara.  The forest dweller had, by mistake, fatally wounded Krishna. Finding that his arrow had not killed a deer but had hurt Krishna, he was beside himself in grief. He was inconsolable. He condemned himself and pleaded with Krishna to kill him. Krishna comforted him and told him that he had done only what he himself had willed. The Avatara asked him to go to swarga in his mortal body. In the words of the sixteenth century Odia poet Jagannath Das, who has rendered Bhagavata Purana into Odia, “mora bachane tu nirmala /  ehi sarire swarga chala ( roughly, in my judgement, you are blemish-less / go to swarga in your mortal body)”.  The divine ratha (chariot) comes from swarga and moving round the Avatara three time with utmost devotion, Jara goes to swarga in the ratha.

 

When the human-centric narrative became part of the composition that aimed to expatiate on the mahima of the Avatara, this was the form it took. The poet viewed actions, events and states from the perspective of bhakti (devotion). These stories of Bhagavata Purana embody the poet’s understanding of karma (action) and kripa (the Lord’s grace) – the former is an agent-oriented notion and the latter, a receiver-oriented one – one does karma but receives grace from the giver of grace.

 

Kunti, the Pandava brothers, Vidura and Draupadi all attained supreme bliss in Bhagavata Purana because of their karma. They all voluntarily abjured the world, mediated with complete devotion on the Avarara’s lotus feet and this was their karma. There was no intervention by the Avatara with regard to what they attained as the phala (fruit, that is, result) of their karma. Incidentally, no other karma of theirs in their life mattered. Only the last one did. In contrast, Jara attained swarga in his mortal body because of the Avatara’s grace, not because of his karma or the karma of his earlier existences. As Krishna told him, he had done only what he had wanted. But Jara did not know that he was the instrument, not the karta (doer) that he thought he was. Now, he was Krishna’s choice to become the instrument for the implementation of his will and the Avatara’s choice was not  the consequence of Jara’s karma of his present life or of the earlier lives. That indeed is grace and grace cannot be explained in terms of the theory of karma. He receives His grace who He chooses to receive His grace, echoing an Upanishadic insight.

 

In Vishnu Purana, as in Bhagavata Purana, Jara went to swarga through the Avatara’s grace. As for the Pandavas, following Sage Vyasa’s advice, they handed over the kingdom of Hastinapura to Parikshita and went to the forest. In Bibek Debroy’s translation of Vishnu Purana, nothing more is said about the Pandavas and Draupadi. So, one can assume that they gave up their mortal body and attained supreme bliss. 

 

Turning now to Sarala Mahabharata. It is a remarkably creative retelling, by the fifteenth century Odia poet Sarala Das, of the  ancient story of the Pandavas and the Kauravas composed by sage Vyasa, namely, Mahabharata, popularly called Vyasa Mahabharata. But in his retelling, Sarala incorporated in it, episodes from Bhagavata Purana, Skanda Purana and then local tales, among others. In his Mahabharata, many times Sarala calls his narrative “Vishnu Purana”. He used the story of the last phase of the Kuru clan to expatiate on the leela of Krishna. In other words, he wrote Mahabharata from the perspective of Bhagavata. Incidentally, the Odia Bhagabata was composed a few decades after Sarala’s Mahabharata. Now, just as Vyasa had transformed parts of the Mahabharata story in his Bhagavata Purana, Sarala had transformed the Mahabharata narrative in the spirit of Bhagavata Purana in his Mahabharata. As a result, his Mahabharata reads like a “Vishnu Purana”.

 

In Sarala Mahabharata, Kunti went with Dhritarashtra and Gandhari (and Vidura and Sanjaya) to the forest. When Gandhari asked her why she was going with them, she gave her one explanation. When Yudhisthira asked her the same question, she gave him another explanation. To her sister-in-law, she said that having lost her dear son Karna and her grandchildren, she had no desire to live in the palace. To Yudhisthira she said that by looking after her old, blind and infirm brother-in-law and sister-in-law in the forest, she would protect him and his brothers from their curses. She, along with them, perished in a forest fire.

 

In Sarala Mahabharata, as in the canonical work in Sanskrit, only Yudhisthira went to swarga in his mortal body. One after another, Draupadi, Sahadeva, Nakula, Arjuna and Bhima, fell to their death (Bhima’s death is somewhat different, but let us ignore those details. Those interested might visit the blogpost : saralamahabharat.blogspot.com). It is because of their karma that they died and it is because of his karma that Yudhisthira went to swarga. None of the above, from Dhritarashtra to Yudhisthira, focussed on the Avatara at the time of their death. But there is a Bhagavata Purana – like suggestion in Sarala’s narrative that, it was Krishna’s will that Yudhisthira would not die. When he saved him from the yogic fire of Gandhari, who wanted to destroy him, he told Gandhari that the world cannot exist without dharma. Now, think, if Yudhisthira did not wish to live in a Krishna-less world and if he could not die for the reason Krishna gave to Gandhari, then (setting aside the traditional views) what narrative option remained for the poet to describe his leaving the mortal world without passing through death?

 

As for Jara, in Sarala’s Mahabharata, as in Vyasa Mahabharata, the wounded Krishna comforted him and told him not to grieve and not to worry about what he had done. He asked him to go to Hastinapura and bring Arjuna to his presence, which he did. The Avatara then left his mortal body and entered Vaikuntha, his own abode. Arjuna held Jara responsible for Krishna’ death and attacked him. Reluctantly Jara fought with him. They fought till the Voice from the Sky asked them to stop fighting and cremate the body of Krishna. Let us leave that story here. Now, there is no mention of when and how Jara died. Neither is there any suggestion that he was immortal. In either case, he did not attain swarga in his own body, unlike, to repeat, in Bhagavata Purana. 

 

Concerning grace, the only one who receives it in Sarala Mahabharata is Belalasena, also referred to in this narrative as “Belabali”. When Krishna wanted his head, he readily gave it to him and appealed to him to allow him to witness the Kurukshetra War. Krishna gave life to the severed head and his objective was fulfilled. After he told the Pandavas and their women what he had witnessed, Bhima, his father, felt humiliated and slapped him hard. The head fell on the ground and died. Krishna absorbed his soul in him: prana nija ange kale lina, and freed him from the karmic cycle. For some details, see

(https://in.search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=E210IN1274G0&p=The+story+of+Belalasena+in+samachar+just+click).  

 

That’s moksha, being out of the karmic cycle. And that was the Purna Avatara (roughly, Complete Manifestation) Krishna’s grace. Belalasena’s desire to witness the war was fulfilled (that was the  phala of his karma) because of his karma of giving Krishna what he wanted, without any hesitation. His absorption in Krishna was the grace he received from the Avatara. Thus, karma phala (the fruit of the karma) is earned; grace is received, not earned, which is how Bhagavata Purana too understands kripa.

 

 (An earlier version of this piece was published in Samachar Just Click under the title"ONLY ONE Person Reached Heaven Alive and It Wasn't Who You Think!)

 

BHIMA AND KRISHNA: A RELOOK

 

Different from each other in a hundred ways, Bhima and Krishna share one personality trait in Sarala Mahabharata, which is a remarkably  creative retelling in Odia, in the fifteenth century, of Vyasa Mahabharata. It is this: neither can be contented.

In different respects, though!

 

Insatiable, says the poet Sarala, was Bhima’s hunger for a fight, for food, for sleep and for sex. He was simple and guileless, and pronouncedly sensuous. Wild, full of superhuman energy, and lacking in patience, this son of god Pavana (Wind) would, often thoughtlessly, jump into a fight. If he was fighting, he loved to feel his adversary’s blood in his hands. Unlike Arjuna, he hated his adversary, once he got into fighting . Think of what he did to Kichaka for coveting Draupadi – he killed him with such violence that Kichaka’s body looked like a lump of flesh! The brutal way he killed Dussasana was certainly not required by the oath he had taken in the Kaurava court to kill him. 

Now, killing the enemy from a distance with an arrow was not for him. But archery was rated most highly in the world of Sarala Mahabharata, in fact in all versions, in any language, of the ancient story of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Bhima’s mother knew that he would never be adept at archery because he lacked intelligence and concentration. He proved her eminently right. The preceptor Drona once set up an archery test for his pupils. One, lacking in concentration and focus, would not be able to hit the target and the archer had to do it in his first attempt; there would not be a second chance for him. Bhima failed miserably. He could be easily provoked and once provoked, he lost his sense of discrimination. Once, when his mother Kunti showered abuses on Krishna in the language most foul, he could not stand the words and raised his mace to hit her. Krishna’s intervention saved Kunti. Later, in a fit of rage, he slapped the severed, living head of Belalasena, his son, to his death because he did not support his claim he made in front of his brothers, Kunti, Draupadi, Subhadra and Krishna that he was sole architect of the Pandavas’ victory in the Kurukshetra War. For Bhima, it was an act of betrayal of him by his son and he hit him hard. It was another matter that whereas Bhima stood disgraced, Krishna gave his son moksha (liberation – from the karmic cycle, the cycle of life and death). Violence was ingrained in Bhima’s nature; in fact, it defined him best. On this account, both his mother and his elder brother, Yudhisthira, the embodiment of dharma, considered him dusta (wicked) and sometimes scolded him, calling him dusta.

His craving for food was well known. To just give one example, when his mother sent him to the asura (demon), Baka, with a huge amount of tasty food of many varieties that the villagers had cooked for the asura, he was secretly happy. In the forest he had eaten roots and fruits for too long. He was longing for cooked food. He was already gulping the food when the asura came. The demon showered blows on him, but he kept eating unaffected by the asura’s blows and abuses, and dealt with him only after he had consumed the entire food. What happened to Baka is not difficult to guess.

As for his sexual conduct, from one point of view it was above reproach since not even once in the narrative, did he cast a lustful look at a woman who was not his wedded wife. His hunger for sex was with respect to Draupadi alone. He had wild sex with his first wife, the asuri woman (demoness), Hidimbaki, but he lived with her only for a short time. But one could say that what would count as wild in the case of a human, would be natural in the case of a demoness. As for Draupadi, he could never have enough of her. She found his craving for sex with her unacceptable and his love-making difficult to cope with. She had to complain to her other husbands and they worked out a moral code of living with her. As for his sleeping habit, Sarala says nothing. A reader of Sarala Mahabharata would have hardly associated long sleep with him, had Sarala not said in so many words that he could never have sleep up to his satisfaction. There are no episodes in Sarala Mahabharata that bring out Bhima’s craving for sleep.

This rare lapse in narration may be because Sarala’s concern was not really Bhima in his narrative. He wasn’t interpreting him for his audience across centuries. It was Krishna, who he was concerned with;  he was sharing his understanding of the Avatara with them. To understand the Avatara and the nature of divine intervention in the affairs of the mortals was Sarala’s real purpose. Bhima’s story provided a contrast and in a way served the balancing function in this discourse on Bhima and Krishna.

 To turn to Krishna now. Warning Duryodhana about Krishna’s nature, said Sakuni to him: “danena atriputi je manena atriputi / bhagate atriputi je jnanena atriputi (not content with (ritual) giving, not content with honour / not content with devotion, not content with deep wisdom or transcendental knowledge)” – one cannot satisfy him with gifts, honour, devotion or knowledge. However much one gives him these things, it would always be inadequate.  

Krishna had gone to the Kaurava court as Yudhisthira’s emissary. There he told king Duryodhana that in order to avoid war with him, all the Pandavas wanted was just five villages. Duryodhana flatly refused. He wouldn’t give anything to the Pandavas, he said. Born of the gods, they did not belong to the Kuru family and being thus outsiders to the family, they had no right to the kingdom. Later, outside the court, in private, Bhishma told him in that it would not be right to send Krishna empty-handed; so, he should give two, if not five, villages to the Pandavas. Duryodhana relented and was willing to go by Bhishma’s advice.

This was where Sakuni said about Krishna’s nature as mentioned above. As for Bhishma, for Sakuni too, giving the Pandavas was actually giving Krishna. Duryodhana must not give Krishna anything in order to please him. He simply could not be pleased (danena atriputi). He told him about king Bali. Appearing as a dwarf at the jajna (fire sacrifice) king Bali was performing, Narayana told the great asura king that he came from a very poor family and asked him for a small piece of land in which he would perform his religious rituals - all the land he required was whatever would be covered by three steps of his. Bali thought that the dwarf didn’t know how little he was asking for. He asked him to ask for a great deal more as dana (ritual gift), but the Dwarf avatara wanted nothing more than three steps of land. Bali’s preceptor Sukracharya warned Bali that the dwarf was Narayana Himself and he had arrived to deprive him of all his possessions and power. Bali wouldn’t listen; a dwarf is a dwarf, his steps are small, so how would it matter if the guru was right that that he was Narayana Himself? But when the time to give dana came, the dwarf’s foot was no longer a dwarf’s foot. Bali was the lord of the bhuloka (earth) and the higher lokas (worlds) as well. In his two feet the Dwarf covered all that. When the third foot emerged from his navel, Bali offered his head to him and Narayana despatched him to the Netherworld. The great Bali perished because he wanted to fulfil Narayana’s demand, said Sakuni to Duryodhana. Krishna was the same Vamana, he told him, and had come to dispossess him of everything that he had. He advised him to give Krishna nothing at all. If he gave him just one village instead of two, he would absorb the entire universe of space in that one village, like what Vamana had done, and Duryodhana would be left with nothing to even stand on. So Duryodhana must abandon all thought of pleasing Narayana with a gift of two villages.

The wise Bhishma intervened and told Sakuni that his narrative was incomplete; so, his conclusion, wrong. After sending him to the patala loka, Narayana made Bali the king there, where he was like Indra of the swarga loka in every respect. Not just that. He Himself left his own abode and stayed with him for his love for him. But all this made no impression on Duryodhana; quite understandable, one would think. Who would sacrifice his today for his tomorrow, especially when he has wealth, power and status!

So, Bhima and Krishna were similar in just one respect, but unpack that similarity and you find a great difference. Bhima’s discontent was with respect to his bodily cravings. He couldn’t get certain pleasures to the level of his satisfaction. In Sarala Mahabharata, it is unclear whether Narayana wanted anything from anyone: dana, mana, bhakti or whatever else. The gods, the humans and the demons gave him things on their own, not knowing that one cannot please him by giving him anything whatever - this is all that this celebrated narrative by Sarala Das says. In the spirit of our ancient knowledge, all we can say is the following: He is not pleased if you worship Him, He is not displeased if you do not worship Him. He is not pleased if you pray to him and sing his mahima (glory); he is not displeased if you abuse him. Then what remains for us to do? Witness his leela perhaps? At least  that’s what I think poet Sarala says to his listeners and readers across centuries in his Mahabharata, popularly known as Sarala Mahabharata.     

Note:

Vyasa Mahabharata is about nara (the humans), whereas Sarala Mahabharata is about narayana ( Supreme god Narayana); Vyasa Mahabharata is about dharma (virtuous living), whereas Sarala Mahabharata is primarily about moksha and secondarily about dharma. This is what I understand. 

17.5.25

THE WAR CODE: ANOTHER VIEW

 

War between the Pandavas and the Kauravas was imminent. In the assembly of the warriors who had joined him, Duryodhana appealed to them to give him victory. They assured him that they would fight for him with utmost commitment but would not be able to win the war for him. The Pandavas themselves were great warriors and with Krishna on their side, they had become invincible.

 

Duryodhana turned to Bhishma. He told him that there were many great warriors on his side and his army was huge. In contrast Yudhisthira’s army was small. Would the huge Kaurava army, he asked Bhishma, not vanquish the small Pandava army easily? Bhishma said the question was not how large his army was and how small the enemy’s but who were fighting on which side and how capable they were. It was within Bhurishrava’s power, said Bhishma, to kill them all in three days, Shalya in two, and Aswasthama, in one. Karna could do so in three praharas (three quarters of a day) and guru Drona, in two. As for himself, said Bhishma, he could end it in one prahara but Arjuna, in just a muhurta (moment).

 

Arjuna had defeated Bhagawan Shiva and pleased with him, the greatest of the gods had given him the infallible arrow, named Pashupata. Arjuna had defeated Indra, the king of the gods along with some other powerful gods in the forest of Khandava. He had defeated the incomparable Balarama and later, Krishna himself. Only the other day, he had defeated, single-handed, the entire Kaurava army in the Virata war. Arjuna was unconquerable, said Bhishma.

 

Duryodhana asked him if there was a way to neutralize him. Bhishma said there was. A rule could be made with the consent of all the warriors to the effect that weapons received from the gods must not be used in the Kurukshetra war. He suggested to Duryodhana that he must invite the Pandavas to Hastinapura. They all would persuade them to accept a war code, which would include the above-mentioned constraint. Both sides must work out the code together and both sides must commit themselves to it. Sakuni was entrusted with the task of bringing the Pandavas from Jayanta (pronounced as jayantaa), where they were staying, to Hastinapura.

 

Bhishma knew that wars are not always won or lost in the battlefields. Victory could be manipulated; victory could be assured even before stepping on the war field. Now, in such a situation, a “heroic” performance on the battlefield loses authenticity and victory and defeat become meaningless. How fettered, for instance, was the defeated - by a curse or a promise made to someone dear or revered, or to self or by a rule or a personal value and the like? Bhishma lost in the Kurukshetra War because he had promised to himself that he would not fight a woman. Yudhisthira lived because Karna had promised Kunti that he would not harm any of her sons except Arjuna.

 

Sakuni went to Jayanta and told Yudhisthira that he had come at Duryodhana’s behest to invite them to Hastinapura where they and the other warriors would work out a war code. Bhima asked him why Duryodhana did not come to them. Sakuni said that in Hastinapura, there were the Kuru elders, kings from many kingdoms and many others; the war code could be made in the presence of them all.

 

So the Pandavas went to Hastinapura with Krishna. They were fondly welcomed at Hastinapura and there was bonhomie among the Kauravas and the Pandavas. In the presence of all, Yudhisthira asked Sahadeva when the war should start. Sahadeva said the very next day – Tuesday, the dwithiya tithi (the second day) of the month of Magha - would be good for the purpose. Everyone agreed.

 

Duryodhana told Yudhisthira that since brothers would be fighting with brothers, they must fight without malice or hatred towards each other and there must be no bitterness or hypocrisy. He said that this would be the war of dharma and the witness would be the Avatara Himself! He said dharma would win.

 

Now, would Duryodhana have said all those things if he did not believe that he had done nothing adharmik (morally wrong) in not sharing the kingdom of Hastinapura with the Pandavas, no matter who all had said things to the contrary? In Duryodhana’s tone there was no insincerity. And for him, giving half the kingdom would be sharing the kingdom, as would be giving one village. No one goes to war under the banner of adharma. Duryodhana was certain that he wasn’t.

 

Then he said, “Let no one use weapons the use of which one hasn’t learnt from one’s guru (preceptor). Let Arjuna not use manavedi arrow. Let the warriors kill during the day but be cordial to one another when the fighting stops at sunset and they must then sit together as close friends and enjoy the togetherness.” Everyone agreed.  “No one must violate the code”, said Duryodhana, “Narayana will be the witness. The one who does, will suffer”. The Pandavas and the Kauravas solemnly promised to abide by the Code.

 

Bhishma’s objective was to disempower Arjuna; King Duryodhana said what he wanted. The Pandavas could not have failed to understand Duryodhana’s motive, although they would not have guessed that the idea was Bhishma’s. In any case, they did not say anything. The meeting ended. The Pandavas returned to Jayanta. They had to make preparations for the war that would start the following morning.

 

No one, neither the Pandavas nor the Kauravas, mentioned the infallible weapon Karna had received from god Indra. Everyone in both sides knew that he had decided to use it against Arjuna alone. With that weapon, Karna could have effectively won the war for Duryodhana. With Arjuna killed, his four brothers would not have survived. Now, the code disempowered Karna too. One could guess why the Indra-given weapon was not mentioned, but one guess would be as good as another since there is nothing in the narrative that offers a clue to why it was ignored in the making of the War Code.  True, Pashupata astra was not mentioned either but it was in everyone’s mind.

 

Now, was it ethical for the virtuous Bhishma to plan with Duryodhana as to how to disempower Arjuna? Was the idea of War Code not essentially camouflage? In our view, Bhishma was right about constraining Arjuna with respect to the use of Pashupata ashtra, the all-destroying divine arrow. Since brothers were to going to fight with their brothers, he wanted there to be a level battlefield. He was also justified to have Duryodhana propose the condition. A King declares a war; so it’s for the king to make statements about it. And Duryodhana was the king.

 

But what was unethical for Bhishma, in our view, is that he did not say it during the Code- making that it was his idea and that he was being fair to both sides. He loved Arjuna most dearly and knew it very well that Arjuna loved him and revered him profoundly. So hiding the truth about the War Code from Arjuna reduces, in our opinion, his moral stature in the narrative.

 

Talking about manipulating disempowerment, in Sarala Mahabharata, Karna has been the victim more than anyone else, one would think. He was disempowered by Indra and later, by his mother, Kunti. Both had trapped him. There is no place here for those fascinating details. 

 

To conclude, the War Code did not survive; it was violated repeatedly by both sides. Those who had made it together, destroyed it together. But the Code, the poet Sarala’s creation, has lived, in a manner of speaking, in a different way. The narrative has given it permanence; in the entire puranic literature, it is the only instance of adversaries in a war sitting together and formulating a moral Code to follow during the war.

Notes: (a) This essay was published in Samachar Just Click under the title: "The War Code in Sarala Mahabharata: A Tale of Strategy, Ethics and Disempowerment" on January 9, 2025.

(b) The story of this post and the post on September 13, 2024, namely, "Politics of the War Code", is the same. But here, the perspective is different; as such different issues have been raised and discussed. Thus this post is not a repetition of the post of September 13, 2024. 

DIFFERENT STORIES, DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES (On Variations in Sarala Mahabharata)

The variations are with respect to Vyasa’s Mahabharata (referred to, alternatively, as Vyasa Mahabharata here).  Sarala Das’s Mahabharata (referred to as Sarala Mahabharata here), composed in Odia in the fifteenth century, is not a translation of Vyasa Mahabharata but a remarkably creative retelling of it. Sarala re-conceptualised the ancient narrative and retold it. In his narrative, he introduced variations in certain ways to express his understanding of the classical text, his poetic vision and insights into various matters, such as the human condition in the world, the nature of agency in a pre-determined world and the nature of divine intervention in the affairs of the humans, etc. Sarala Mahabharata scholars over the years have enumerated many variations but have not dealt, barring just a few, in detail with the significance of the same. We discuss here in brief two stories which are Sarala’s innovations in the sense that they do not occur in Vyasa Mahabharata.

We begin with the story of the “Mango of Truth”. Yudhisthira needed a ripe mango for a sage who had visited him. The visitor had told him that he would accept only a ripe mango for his food from him. It was autumn. The “sage” was Gauramukha, Duryodhana’s spy in disguise, who he had sent to the forests to trace the Pandavas, who were already into their ninth year of exile after losing the second game of dice. Just three years of exile remained and Duryodhana was getting worried. Yudhisthira invoked Krishna and he arrived. Krishna invoked sage Vyasa and Vyasa arrived. Vyasa planted a mango seed, as told by Krishna and at the Avatara’s wish a plant appeared. Krishna then asked each of the Pandavas and Draupadi to speak some truth about themselves so that at the end a ripe mango would emerge. He warned them that if anyone told a lie then the tree would burn to ashes. First spoke Yudhisthira, then Bhima, then Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva in that order and finally Draupadi spoke. Seven ripe mangoes appeared. Krishna gave one to the sage.

But he ensured that Gauramukha did not take the mango to Duryodhana. He met him disguised as a brahmin and told him that it was not a real mango because a ripe mango in the autumnal month of Bhadra is out of nature and that if he went to Duryodhana with that fake mango, he would become the laughing stock in the court. Gauramukha told him that the fruit was real because he had witnessed the entire process of its coming into existence. Krishna told him that utterance of truth cannot change the law of nature. He told him that he wanted to subject it to a truth test. He uttered a number of lies, such as he had “seen” the sun rising in the west and setting in the east, the sun shining at night and the moon, in the day, a lotus grown on the top of a hill and the like. Unable to withstand the onslaught of lies, the mango of truth disappeared. Krishna told Gauramukha that the mango was unreal and that he had saved him from ridicule in the Kaurava king’s court.

Turning to what Draupadi said when her turn came. She said that although she had five husbands, she wished for Karna. This occurs in the version of Sarala Mahabharata published by Sarala Sahitya Sansad and seems to have received popular acceptance. Sarala Mahabharata scholars are generally of the opinion that exposing Draupadi as just an ordinary woman and by no means a “sati” (virtuous woman), is the purpose of this episode. Sarala Mahabharata, edited by Artaballav Mohanty and published by the Department of Culture of the Government of Odisha does not contain this. Here she said something else; she talked about her having the same weakness as other women, namely that when they saw a handsome person, who might even be their blood relative, they would desire him. She also said that she had a special fondness for Arjuna. In either version, Draupadi emerges as an unexceptional woman. As for the Pandavas, what they said revealed no dark secrets about them and can be ignored in this discussion. (For some details of this fascinating episode, see my post “The Mango of Truth” in the blog: saralamahabharat.blogspot.com). One wonders if exposing Draupadi’s secret desires could be a strong enough justification for this innovation in the Mahabharata story.

No Pandava ever talked about Draupadi’s weaknesses and there was no change in the attitude towards her on the part of any of her husbands on that account. After her death, Yudhisthira did mention her special fondness for Arjuna as an act of adharma (sin) but during her life time he never treated her unkindly for that. In other words, Draupadi’s revelations about herself has no consequences at all for the narrative. Her view of woman’s nature concerning handsome males may be interesting but it would hardly count as a deep insight into the woman’s sexuality in the context of Sarala Mahabharata.

In our opinion, a Draupadi-centric reading of the episode, which has been the case so far, as the literature on this episode shows, can hardly raise questions of interest and significance. A reading of it from a different perspective is certainly in order in my opinion.

We suggest a mango of truth-centric reading of the episode. In this reading, questions of appearance and reality, of the power of the utterance of truth and also of falsehood and of the role of Krishna would arise. Can the words of truth really extend the possibilities of happenings in the real world that defy the laws of nature? Was the mango of truth a real world object? What is the power of lies? Is the power of truth and of untruth inherent or derived? What is Krishna’s role in the appearance and the disappearance of the mango of truth?

The Pandavas’ and Draupadi’s utterances of truth made the impossible possible, but Krishna’s lies destroyed what truth had created. So, truth can create, lies cannot. There was pratyaksha pramana (evidence based on what the eye had seen) for the existence of the mango but that was no evidence for the reality of the mango, as Krishna told Gauramukha when he advised him that the mango should be subjected to a truth test to determine whether it was real. When it was destroyed, he told him that it was indeed unreal because words could not destroy a physical object.

Incidentally, there is no mention of the other mangoes in the narrative. One could presume that they all vanished once Gauramukha’s mango was destroyed. There is no mention of the mango- of- truth event in the narrative thereafter.

It is true that the truth of the Pandavas and Draupadi produced the mango but their truth was empowered by Krishna. It was he who had told them that their truth would yield the desired fruit. So in a sense his words for them were his truth. It was his truth that created the mango and it was his lie that destroyed it. It is not clear whether the mango was an illusion or a real object. A real world object could not be destroyed by words but when Indra received the mango from Krishna, he must have thought it was a real mango. In any case, the narrative does not need this clarification. By creating the mango as the causer-agent, Krishna disturbed the order of the natural world and by destroying it as the agent, he restored order to it. Viewed thus, the episode is a description of his leela.

When we read Sarala Mahabharata, we must not ignore Sarala’s repeatedly referring to his narrative as “Vishnu Purana”. So Sarala used the story of the Kuru clan to expatiate on the leela of the Purna Avatara (the complete manifestation) of the supreme god Vishnu.  

Let us consider another innovation in Sarala Mahabharata. Here the last effort to avoid a fratricidal war was made by Yudhisthira, not Krishna, as in Vyasa Mahabharata. Here Krishna did not offer any advice to Arjuna when he expressed his unwillingness to fight in the Great War in Kurukshetra. He left his brother’s problem in the hands of Yudhisthira. 

Incidentally, scholars of Sarala’s magnum opus have observed that there is no Srimad Bhagavad Gita in Sarala Mahabharata. The explanation of its non-occurrence has mostly been in terms of Sarala’s audience, who did not have the benefit of education. But it has not been noticed by the scholars that Arjuna’s problem in this work was fundamentally different from the same in Vyasa Mahabharata (taking Srimad Bhagavad Gita to be part of this work). In Sarala’s retelling, Arjuna was unwilling to start the war by attacking anyone in the Kaurava side. If anyone attacked him, he would respond and he had absolutely no hesitation in killing anyone in the enemy’s side, be it Bhishma or Drona or his cousins, he told Krishna. He firmly believed that the sins of the killing in the war, where blood of the innocents flows, accrues to the one who starts a war. There were others in the world of Sarala Mahabharata who had the same belief, Dhaumya, the venerable priest of the Kuru family being one. This being Arjuna’s problem in Sarala’s Mahabharata, there is obviously no place for the Gita discourse here.

To return to the war, when he heard about Arjuna’s unwillingness to attack the Kaurava warriors, Bhima asked Krishna to permit him to attack them. Krishna asked him to attack Dussasana. As he was readying himself to do so, Yudhisthira stopped him and said that he would make an effort to avoid the war. Ignoring the warnings of his brothers, relatives and Krishna himself, he proceeded towards the Kaurava army all alone and unarmed. In all humility, he paid due respects to Bhishma, Bhurishrava, Shalya, Drona, Ashwasthama, Kripacharya and Karna, who he knew, as did everyone else in the world of Sarala Mahabharata, was his elder brother and received their blessings for victory in the war.

Then he met Duryodhana and pleaded with him for five villages of Duryodhana’s choice. In contrast, Krishna had asked for five villages of his choice when he went to Duryodhana as Yudhisthira’s emissary. When Duryodhana refused, Yudhisthira asked for four, then three villages, finally ending up with just one. Duryodhana said he would not give him anything at all. He told him that if he won the war, then he would be the king of Hastinapura and if Yudhisthira won, then he would be the king.

Yudhisthira chose to take his saying literally and told him that since he held that view, then the war should be fought between the hundred Kauravas and the five Pandavas and that he should ask everyone else to leave the battlefield. He told him that that would ensure that blood of the innocents would not flow in the battlefields of Kurukshera. Duryodhana was unwilling. Yudhisthira’s understood that his attempt to avoid the war had failed.

There is, to the best of my knowledge, nothing comparable to Yudhisthira’s proposal in the entire puranic literature. It celebrates humaneness most emphatically. In essence, the idea is that if a war becomes unavoidable, then strictly only those who directly benefit from it must participate in it. As for the others, such as the soldiers, it is not their war. In that sense, they are innocent and their killing is the killing of the innocents. In Sarala Mahabharata, war is considered sinful, and there is absolutely no situation in which war is the best solution to a problem in this narrative. In Yudhisthira’s proposal, Sarala makes a rich contribution to the war ethics articulated in our puranic literature.

By dissociating Krishna from crucial decisions about war, the poet suggests that humans alone must decide their destiny. It was pre-determined that the war would take place but human agency is not undermined in the pre-determined world of Sarala Mahabharata. At the laukika level (level of the phenomenal world), alternatives, even to war, are never unavailable to the humans, neither is their freedom to choose.

As for Krishna, the devotee Sarala saved his ista: the Avatara.

 

Note: A version of it under the title “Different Tales, Different Perspectives” is published in margAsia (Summer and Winter 2023).

POLITICS OF THE WAR CODE

 

The negotiations to avoid war between the Pandava and the Kaurava brothers had failed and war was imminent. Duryodhana appealed to the kings who had chosen to fight for him to give him victory. They told him that the Pandavas themselves were great warriors and with Krishna on their side, they were invincible. Notwithstanding all this, they would fight for him with full commitment and while having darshan (sacred viewing) of Shri Krishna on Arjuna’s chariot, they would fall in the battlefield and attain moksa (liberation).

Duryodhana turned to Bhishma. He told him that many great kings and warriors had joined his side and in contrast Yudhisthira’s army was small. Would the huge Kaurava army not vanquish the small Pandava army easily, he asked the venerable Bhishma. Bhishma said the question was not how large his army was and how large the enemy’s. It was within Bhurishrava’s power to send them all to the abode of the god of death within three days.  Shalya could end the war in two days and Aswasthama, in one day. Karna could do so in three praharas (three quarters of a day) and guru Drona, in two. He could do so in one prahara and Arjuna could do so in just a muhurta (moment).

When he fought, continued Bhishma, his hands and fist shook, when Drona fought, his chest would palpitate fast and likewise every great warrior present there had one such problem or the other. Only Arjuna was not troubled by any problem of that sort. This apart, Arjuna had defeated Lord Shiva and pleased with him, the greatest of the gods, had given him the infallible arrow, named Pashupata. He had defeated Indra, the king of the gods and the other gods in Khandava forest. He had defeated the incomparable Balarama and later, Krishna himself. Only the other day, he had defeated the entire Kaurava army in the war in the kingdom of Virata. His manavedi arrow was so powerful that everyone in the battle field fell unconscious. Arjuna was indeed unconquerable, said Bhishma.

Duryodhana understood the situation. He asked Bhishma if there was some way to contain Arjuna. Bhishma said there was one. A rule could be made with the consent of all the warriors to the effect that weapons received from the gods must not be used in the war. He suggested to Duryodhana that he must invite the Pandavas to Hastinapura. They all would persuade them to accept a war code. Both sides must work out the code together and both sides must commit themselves to it. Sakuni was entrusted with the task of bringing the Pandavas from Jayanta (pronounced as jayantaa), where they were staying, to Hastinapura.

Bhishma knew that wars are not always won or lost in the battlefields. That raises the question about the nature of the heroic acts on the battlefield and more importantly, of the meaning of victory or defeat there. How fettered, for instance, was the defeated - by a curse or a promise made to someone dear or revered, or to self or by a rule or a personal value and the like?

Sakuni went to Jayanta and told Yudhisthira that he had come at Duryodhana’s behest to invite them to Hastinapura where they and the other warriors would work out a war code. Bhima did not like the idea of going there. “Why didn’t the Kuru king come here?” asked Bhima. “Why should we go there? Are we in his service that we would be at his beck and call?” he asked Sakuni. Sakuni said that at Hastinapura, there were the Kuru elders, many kings from many kingdoms and many others; so there could be arguments and discussions while making the code. Besides, going there should not be viewed as a humiliation for them; after all, one day that place might be theirs, he said (kale tumbhakain prapata hoiba sehisthana). No one responded to the last part of what he said. Quite rightly, one might think – in a war one side would win. Might be the winner in that war would be the Pandavas, but that would hardly be something to talk about at that point in time, especially when it was Sakuni, who Yudhithira considered utterly dishonest, had said so and in the casual way he had said it.

So the Pandavas went to Hastinapura with Krishna. They were fondly welcomed at Hastinapura and there was bonhomie among the Kauravas and the Pandavas. In the presence of all, Yudhisthira asked Sahadeva when the war should start. Sahadeva said the very next day – Tuesday, the dwithiya tithi (the second day) of the month of Magh - would be good for the purpose. Everyone agreed.

Duryodhana said,” Listen, O son of Dharma, in the battlefield brothers will be fighting with brothers. Let us fight without any negative feelings towards each other– let there be no malice or hatred in our heart. Let there be no bitterness or hypocrisy. This will be the war of dharma and the witness will be the Supreme god Narayana Himself. Dharma will win the war”.

Now, would Duryodhana have said what he did if he did not believe that he had done nothing wrong with regard to sharing the kingdom of Hastinapura with the Pandavas, no matter who all had said things to the contrary? In Duryodhana’s tone there was no insincerity, no hypocrisy. And for him, giving half the kingdom would be sharing the kingdom, as would be giving one village. No one goes to war under the banner of adharma. Duryodhana had no doubt in his mind that he wasn’t.

Then he said, “Let no one use the divine weapons. Let no one use weapons the use of which one hasn’t learnt from one’s guru (preceptor). Let Arjuna not use manavedi arrow. Let warriors kill during the war but become loving friends once the fighting stopped for the day and then they must sit together and enjoy the togetherness.” Everyone agreed.  “No one must violate the code. Narayana would be the witness. The one who does, would suffer”, said Duryodhana. The Pandavas and the Kauravas took the oath to abide by the code.

Bhishma’s objective was to disempower Arjuna; it was just that it was not he but King Duryodhana who had articulated what he wanted. Pandavas surely did not fail to understand Duryodhana’s motive, but they did not say anything by way of exposing him.

No one, neither the Pandavas nor the Kauravas, mentioned the infallible weapon Karna had received from god Indra. Everyone knew that he had decided to use it against Arjuna alone. With that weapon, Karna could have effectively won the war for Duryodhana. Now, the code disempowered Karna too. There is nothing in the narrative that explains why that weapon did not figure in the deliberations. The following might give a clue.

After the war code was accepted, Bhishma spoke. “You have taken the vow”, he told Krishna, “that you would only be the charioteer of Arjuna and not wield a weapon. O, the One of infinite kindness, O, the One with boundless benevolence for His devotees, know that I am the servant of your servant. I know that you will break your oath. On my account, you will wield a weapon.”

“You have taken avatara to reduce the burden of the earth. You will be the witness in the war for both sides. We will fall in the battlefield, looking at you and will be rid of the burden of our sins of countless existences”. With that, the meeting ended. Those who had assembled there left for their respective places of stay. The Pandavas returned to Jayanta. They had to make preparations for the war to start on the following day.

Krishna did not say anything. On the sixth day of the battle, Bhishma attacked Arjuna with an infallible divine arrow and Arjuna had no arrow to neutralize it. Unseen by everyone in the battlefield except Hanuman on the top of Arjuna’s chariot, Krishna destroyed it with his Sudarshana chakra. And on the ninth day, Krishna rushed to Bhishma’s chariot with Sudarshana chakra in his hand, setting aside details, and everyone saw that. Everyone saw that Krishna had broken his vow. Bhishma had won. Narayana would never disappoint His devotee.

Returning to the non-mention of Indra-given weapon to Karna in the discussion, maybe Bhishma knew it would be ineffectual. He knew Krishna would intervene if there would be threat to Arjuna’s life. And when the Avatara had chosen to protect Arjuna, which weapon in all the brahmandas could harm him!