In Sarala Mahabharata,
Kunti and Yudhisthira thought of Bhima as dusta. It would be grossly unfair
to translate “dusta” as wicked, in the given context. Wicked, he was certainly
not. When he was a child, he was naughty and sometimes for fun, he would tease
and torment his Kaurava cousins. He was totally devoted to his mother and his brothers
and no one had done for them more than him to make their life a bit easier when
they spent years in the forest. With him around, they were safe. After his wedding,
whenever Draupadi needed his help, he did not disappoint her.
He was totally committed to
Yudhisthira and obeyed him but did not hesitate to denounce him, when he found
his action insufferable. He was deeply devoted to Krishna. Unlike Yudhisthira
and Arjuna, he obeyed him unquestioningly. In Sarala Mahabharata, Krishna
was the only one who feared but it was not out of fear that he obeyed him. He
did not understand Krishna, neither did he ever try, but readily did what he
asked him to do. His relation with the Avataa was not based on jnana
(knowledge) but on bhakti (devotion) of a kind. He had surrendered to him
but it was not a conscious act of his; neither was he conscious of it. Through
his characters, the bhakta (devotee) poet Sarala explores the many forms
of relationship between nara and Narayana.
Krishna thought of him as dusta
as well, as someone who was thoughtless and was inclined by nature to be
violent. No one thought he was vicious and sinful. That he certainly was not. In
fact, it would not be wrong to say that he was virtuous. It was merely that full
of energy, he was impatient and impetuous and could be excited easily. When provoked,
he could be really wild and very destructive.
Now, despite all their suffering
caused by the Kauravas and despite the oaths that he had taken during Draupadi’s
humiliation in the Kaurava court, when the time came to decide on a conclusive war
with the Kauravas, he was unenthusiastic. He did not want a fratricidal war. He felt it
was wrong. He told Krishna that he would be content if Duryodhana gave him one village
for his subsistence. Krishna had to provoke him to give up that attitude and think
in terms of war. Inciting him wasn’t difficult. Yudhisthira, Arjuna and Nakula
also did not want war if Duryodhana gave them what they wanted: Yudhisthira
wanted one village for himself and his brothers, Arjun, one village for himself
and Nakula, two, one for himself and one for his brother, Sahadeva. Krishna did
not try to incite any of them, the way he did to Bhima. He knew who to incite. This
episode shows why it would be justified to call Bhima essentially virtuous and
at the same time, why Krishna thought he was dusta in the above sense of
the word.
In the war, he redeemed his
oaths: he killed all the Kaurava brothers who were fighting against the
Pandavas and tore off Dussasana’s arm and washed Draupadi’ hair with his blood.
Still wild with rage and going beyond his oath, he tore open his chest and
drank his blood. Later he must have felt guilty or at least embarrassed about
it. After the war, when Gandhari asked him how he could drink the blood of the
warrior he had defeated, Bhima said that fearing condemnation, he did not drink
the blood; he just touched it with his lip.
Incidentally, when Bhima hit
Duryodhana’s thighs and felled him, he didn’t redeem any oath. In Sarala
Mahabharata, Duryodhana hadn’t suggested to Draupadi to sit on his lap and Bhima
hadn’t taken an oath to break his thighs. Clueless about how to tame Duryodhana
when they were fighting, Bhima looked at Krishna for help, the way he had done
during his fight with Jarasandha. Like then, Krishna had come to his help. He
had indicated to him that he had to hit Duryodhana on his thigh.
In the “Mahabharata” world, be it
the world of Vyasa Mahabharata or of Sarala Mahabharata, taking
revenge was considered to be the moral duty of a kshatriya at least. Bhima
had fulfilled his oath. He had done his sacred duty. Of course, in Sarala
Mahabharata, he went beyond his oath, as mentioned above, when he tore apart
Dussasana’s breast and drank his blood. Arguably, this event satisfied the requirement
of the narrative at that stage. We will return to this part of the episode in a
future note.
Nobody in Sarala Mahabharata
ever said that the oath itself was terribly, terribly wrong. It was an oath
that dreadfully dehumanized the utterer and his target both. None said that the
utterance itself was a degrading act – a papa (sin).
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