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.
