Tuesday, February 25, 2020

SARALA'S SAHADEVA AND HIS BOON!


As god Ashwini Kumara shared his life with the dead child, life returned to him. He was born and had died as Pandu’s (and Madri’s) son but now he became the god’s son as well. His divine father gave him a name: “Sahadeva” – literally, a companion(saha) god (deba), but perhaps best understood as a celestial like his father. Ashwini Kumara also gave him a boon: he would only have to look at his palms and the entire universe would be visible to him. Not merely that, he would be the knower of the past, the present and the future, which would make him the wisest advisor. If anyone asked him, he would certainly tell him (or her) what would happen to him or what had happened to him, depending on the question, one should think: je tote pachariba gata agata katha / abasya tu kahibu bhuta bhabishya barata (whoever would ask you about the past or the future / you would certainly tell him about the past and the future).  The word “abasya” (must/certainly) suggests that once asked, he would be obliged to tell the truth but there is nothing about the boon that tells us how it would affect Sahadeva if he chose not to tell. There is nothing in it also that tells us that he had to tell the truth in a direct and straightforward manner - without having recourse to ambiguity or metaphor or circumlocution, maybe in difficult circumstances, leaving it to the asker to apply his mind to get at the intended message. Sahadeva knew about his special powers; so did everyone in the world of Sarala Mahabharata.

   When, in the “Mango of Truth” episode, Krishna asked the Pandavas and Draupadi to tell some truth about themselves, Sahadeva said that he knew the past, the present and the future but he would not tell anyone things on his own. He would tell only when asked and the asker then would never be in difficulty. In Swargarohana Parva, when Sahadeva fell to his death on the icy and windy Himalayas, Yudhisthira told Bhima, who had drawn his attention to his fall, to abandon him and not to grieve for him. He was a sinner and grievous was his sin. His sin, said the son of Dharma, who in this episode the very Voice of Dharma, was that he knew the past, the present and the future but would keep mum. Had he said what would happen, what all happened would not have happened (see, in this blog, “The Death of Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva”, posted on 23.2.14). Unlike in Vyasa Mahabharata where Sahadeva’s sin was his arrogance for his knowledge, here it was his failure to keeping what he knew to himself when saying what he knew would have helped everyone. The Mahabharata world would not have suffered that destruction of colossal proportions.

   But why didn’t Yudhisthira ask? He knew, once asked, Sahadeva would speak the truth. Actually, he had asked him, as they were preparing for the war, in the presence of everyone including the Avatara. Sahadeva had told him that he knew what would happen but wouldn’t tell. He was afraid of bother Bhima, he told the eldest Pandava.  During a war, one side would not win every day; some days the enemy would win. Even Bhagawan Rama did not win everyday during his war with Ravana. The war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas would not be different. Sahadeva was afraid that if he said that on a certain day the Pandavas would lose, brother Bhima would bash him up badly.  Truth cannot be told to everyone; only those who had the composure to receive it, can be told the truth.

   But was Sahadeva’s fear justified? Was Bhima incapable of accepting the truth? He was, as the Belalsen episode shows. Shortly after the war, on one lazy day, the Pandavas, Kunti, Draupadi and Subhadra were sitting with Krishna and they soon started talking about who really had won the war. Each was claiming that the victory was solely due to him or her. It didn’t take long for their exchange to degrade into an unpleasant faceoff. Krishna told them that if they wanted to know the truth, they should ask the severed head of Belasena who had seen the war from the beginning to the end. When they asked him, what he said was entirely unexpected; he said that he hadn’t seen anyone killing anyone else. All he had seen was a resplendent, dazzling chakra (discus), shining brighter than myriad suns, moving to and fro in the war fields, killing warriors on both sides (see “The Story of Belalsena” in this blog, posted on 15.8.17). His father, Bhima, was so upset with his son’s not supporting his assertion that he slapped the head hard. It fell from the top of the post, from where he had witnessed the war and died. The Avatara absorbed his essence and freed him from the cycle of karma. This shows that Sahadeva’s apprehensions about Bhima were not unfounded. Bhima was not the one who was evolved enough to accept truth.

   But why didn’t Yudhisthira ask him about the result when he was going to play the second game of dice, which led to the exile of the Pandavas for long thirteen years, including the year when they had to spend incognito? It didn’t occur to him to ask. He had been obsessed with defeat in the first game of dice and was desperate to play again and win. Winning the game of dice had become a fixation with him. So he went to Hastinapura with his brothers and Draupadi to play another game with Duryodhana, rather Sakuni. No one had asked him to play again (see “The Second Game of Dice”, posted in this blog on 7.5.2010).

   But when the fateful time came, which was the time of reckoning, Yudhisthira condemned Sahadeva as a sinner.

   To close, let us return to the second game of dice, it was Sahadeva, not Sakuni, who rolled the dice cubes that day for both Yudhisthira and Duryodhana. Sahadeva ensured that Yudhisthira lost. That was what the gods wanted.  Sahadeva knew that; he knew more than the past, the present and the future. Carrying god Ashwini Kumara’s life in him, Sahadeva was a deva, as mentioned earlier.

   No one ever knew what Sahadeva had done that day. If anyone did, it was Krishna and he didn’t have to be told. In Sarala Mahabharata, there was nothing that he did not know and there was nothing that took place without his will.  

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