RAI'S STORY

Note: Like yesterday's post on "Bala Dhupa", this post is not about Sarala Mahabharata. Like "Bala Dhupa", it is a presentation of an understanding of a ritual in the Temple of Mahaprabhu Jagannath in Puri. I thought this is not an inappropriate place for this essay. So I am posting it here.) 

For a month, from the eleventh day of the waxing phase of the moon of the month of Aswina till the tenth day of the waxing phase of the moon of the month of Kartika, both days inclusive, two special rituals are held in Shri Jagannath temple (“Shri Mandira”, as it is also called) in Puri: Radha Damodara besha and Bala dhupa. The besha celebrates mother Yashoda tying up the little Lord Krishna with a rope. After the daily ritual of abakasha (washing face, bathing, etc.) the Deities, Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra and Sudarshana wear this beautiful special besha (dress). Then after the ballava dhupa (name of the first food offering of the day) and the sakala (morning) dhupa (the second food offering of the day), which are daily rituals, an additional food offering or dhupa is held. This dhupa is called “baala dhupa”. The Deities are still in Radha Damodara besha when this dhupa takes place. This piece is about the besha. As for the dhupa, maybe some other time?

 During Bala dhupa the devotees, assembled in the presence of the Deities, keep chanting a simple couplet, containing some names of Krishna. One of these names is Damodara. The first line of the couplet is of interest here: jaya raadhaa daamodara gobinda (Victory to Radha and to Damodara, and to Govinda, who is also known as Damodara). Noticing that I was not reciting it, a servitor, an old person, came up to me and asked me to chant it. “Chant it, Babu (a polite address and reference term in Odia), it’s a mahaamantra, great mantra”, he told me. I noticed that though most were saying “raadhaa daamodara”, a few were saying “raai daamodara” instead. Later when I asked one of these devotees, he told me that the right word is really “Raai” not “Raadhaa” and that Rai was not Radha. He didn’t elaborate; neither did I ask him to do so. I do not remember why I didn’t; I must have thought that he really didn’t know. I knew that in colloquial spoken Odia, Radha often becomes Rai and she is occasionally mentioned as Rai in Odia Vaishnava literature as well. In any case, standing in front of Mahaprabhu, who would care what the right word is!   

 Far away from Puri, after many Kartikas, one day I recalled what that devotee had told me and tried to find out if Rai is different from Radha. What I found was that Rai and Radha are not indeed the same. This is Rai’s story:

 One day the bada panda (one of the chief servitors) invited Jagannath home. Let’s refer to Him by His first name as people in Odisha fondly do. He had performed the sraddha ritual for his forefathers and had cooked special food. Jagannath went to His great devotee’s house and the servitor and his wife offered Him food with utmost devotion. He was very pleased. “What do you want from me?” He asked him. The servitor said that he wanted Him to marry his daughter, Rai. The Supreme god obliged; she was born with the attribute of goddess Lakshmi, He told him. And thus, the great tradition of the classical narratives appropriated a local tale. After a while, He wanted to return to the Big Temple. The servitor folded his palms and said that he was poor and had nothing to give Him as dowry and implored him to forgive him and accept his surrender to Him instead.

 The caring Husband asked the pregnant Rai one day what she wished to eat. She said she wanted to sit on His lap and receive worship and eat coconut, banana, moong sprout, khai (fried paddy), kora (a coconut-based sweet), etc., she told Him. For that, she had to please goddess Lakshmi, He said. She would grant her a boon. At that time, she must tell her that she wanted to sit on His lap and receive worship in the month of Kartika. Rai served goddess Lakshmi well. Very pleased with her, one day she told her that she wanted to grant her a boon. Rai asked for Damodara. Lakshmi was stunned. She was not angry; she did not feel that the girl had been clever and had trapped her; so she did not want to punish her for her unfair request – she was only deeply perturbed and sad that she would lose Him. How could she ask for Him, she asked the girl. The generous girl told her not to worry, it was for just one month, the month of Kartika, she told her. Lakshmi was relieved. But Kartika is special, being the holiest of the holy month; “give me five days of Kartika”, the goddess requested her and Rai readily agreed. If not then, later, the goddess realized that it was His wish. Thus, Jagannath’s special Radha Damodara besha comes to an end one day before the ekadasi of the waxing month of Kartika. On the day of ekadasi, the Deities are adorned with gold ornaments as part of a dress known as “Lakshmi -Narayana besha”, symbolizing the return of Jagannath to Lakshmi.

 Rai’s is a local girl’s tale. She did not love Him; she was not His devotee and marrying Him was not in her mind. Neither was she in His mind - but who knows about Him! They were married because of her father, who was His devotee. The bhakta offered and Bhagawan accepted. Rai expected nothing from Him and did not ask Him for anything. It was only when He wanted her to ask Him for something that she expressed her desire. What she asked for is so very childlike, innocent and sweet - sitting on His lap, she wanted to enjoy the festive dignity and the serene grandeur of the food offering ritual and share the food with Him. This is what a child could ask of her father, one would think. She was not possessive about Him.  She was not jealous of goddess Lakshmi; neither was she afraid of what would happen to her when she would find out. She surely knew what He had told her father about Lakshmi - she was “ati dusta” – very wicked. With the goddess, she did whatever He wanted her to do. Her attitude is outside of navadha bhakti (nine types of devotion); it is perhaps surrender in one form. As Jara’s is, in Sarala Mahabharata.

 The above could just not be Radha’ story. Radha and Krishna longed for each other with great intensity. Virtually each couplet of the immortal love poem, the Gita Govinda, celebrates their longing, as have innumerable shastrik (roughly, scholarly and philosophical) texts and kavyik (literary) creations. Lakshmi or Rukmini, viewed as a form of Lakshmi in dwaapara yuga (aeon of Dwapara) never entered the Radha narrative. Radha was very possessive and jealous with respect to Krishna and could certainly not have accepted a situation in which she would have or would have had to share him with anyone: gopi or goddess. The Avatara left her and later married Rukmini but countless legends and rituals have ignored her and celebrated Radha’s and Krishna’s togetherness. In any case, that’s different and is not our concern here. As for Lakshmi, in puranic literature (at least in Odia puranic literature) she may not be openly possessive about Bhagawan Vishnu but there is no episode in which she shared her Spouse with any one, either willingly or forced by circumstances, without feeling anger and hatred towards that other. In the Jagannath Temple in Puri, the floral garland of Jagannath (called “adhara” by the servitors) which He wears in the bada simhara besha (the “big dress”, which is the last dress the Deities wear for the day and which is a flower -based dress) is ritually offered the following morning to goddess Lakshmi but before it is offered to her, every single tulsi leaf is taken out from it. Because she cannot stand a sautuni – the other female.

 And Jagannath? From the forests where the savaras worshipped Him in some Form, when exactly He entered the discourse of Sanatana dhama is a matter of interpretation - in the Rig Veda? Or in the puranas? Not resembling any Vedic or puranic god, He came into the Great pan-Indian tradition with no story of His own. Down the centuries, as different sects of Sanatana dharma embraced Him, their stories got attached to Him - some of these were Vishnu’s, some others were His avataras’. Independ of these, Jagannath had no doings; there was no leela of His, so no stories of His own. To confront the Great Tradition, narratives with a distinctly local flavour came into existence. Rai’s story is one such. So strong is the attraction of the Great Tradition that Sri Jagannath’s Rai became the Vaishnavite Radha. After all, Radha, who belongs to the “great tradition” has a great visibility; Rai, who belongs to the local loka katha (folk tales) is faceless.  No literary work, major or minor, in Odia language has celebrated her. Neither has any painting or dance. Today a few might remember Rai’s story but a few generations later, she would be entirely forgotten. Radha would have substituted her in the mind of the people. Today, the established panjikaas (almanacs) that inform about the rituals in the Big Temple use the word Raadhaa, nor Raai in this context.

 

It wouldn’t of course matter to Rai. Let her name be lost. Because, come Aswina sukla ekadasi, for a whole month from that day, Mahaprabhu Jagannath will dress beautifully for her - those who celebrate Rai would love to think; let the Vaishnavites not worry, Jagannath, who assimilates all stories, can accommodate their story as well! – and she will sit on His lap at the time of ballabha dhupa and eat coconut, banana, khai, kora, etc. to her heart’s content.

 

 

(published in Samachar Just Click on November 20, 20)

CONFRONTING BRAHMINIZATION: THE STORY OF BALA DHUPA

 

From the Ashwina shukla ekadasi (eleventh day of the waxing moon of the month of Ashwina) till the end of the month of Kartika, a special ritual is held in the Jagannath Temple in Puri. It is an additional food offering to Mahaprabhu Jagannath. Incidentally, “Jagannath” is a popular cover term for the Chaturdha Murti (Four -Form Images) of Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra and Sudarshana. The food offering in question is “bala (pronounced as ‘baala’) dhupa”. Now, the name of the first food offering, dhupa, to Jagannath is “gopala ballabha” or just “ballabha”, which is sometimes called “bala dhupa”. But the word “bala” in the special food offering under reference doesn’t have the meaning “first or the earliest”- this dhupa, incidentally, is the third dhupa of the day. The word has the meaning “hair”, in which sense it is most frequently used in Odia. This would appear quite odd, considering that in the relevant culture, hair is considered impure. The non-shastrik rituals generally have tales associated with them and there is one associated with bala dhupa. It occurs in Madala Panji, which is a chronicle of the Jagannath Temple, dealing with the doings of the kings of Puri belonging to different dynasties, some important events connected with the rituals and the like in the Bada Deula (the Big Temple), as the Jagannath Temple in Puri is famously called.

 

Long ago, in the first part of the fifteenth century, Nishanka Bhanumana Deba of the Ganga dynasty was the king of Puri. One day, he came for the darshana of Jagannath (The Lord is generally and fondly addressed and referred to by the people of Odisha as simply “Jagannath” without any honorific prefix or suffix). At that time there were no flowers on the head of the Deity. Extremely nervous, the pushpalaka servitor (these servitors dress the Deities) engaged in the seva (service of the Lord) on that day, placed the garland he was wearing on Jagannath’s head. When the king arrived, he took that garland from the Deity’s head and offered it to the king as prasad.

 

Later, the king found that there was a strand of hair in that garland. He was furious. He ordered his men to bring the servitor to his presence. He thundered at him, urging him to tell him how there was hair in the garland. The nervous, confused and terrified servitor told him that there was hair on Jagannath’s head. The king told him that he wanted to see it for himself the following morning. The servitor was utterly miserable. That night the king heard a voice in his dream asking him not to trouble His servitors. The voice asked him to come to the temple the following morning and see His hair. Early in the morning, at the time of Jagannath’s abakasha (bathing), when He wears nothing on His head, including flowers, the king went for His darshan.  And he saw long, thick hair flowing down from His head. The king prostrated himself in front of Jagannath. He then comforted the servitor and instituted an additional food offering called bala dhupa. Over the centuries, this special ritual has commemorated that narrative and celebrated the Lord’s mercifulness.

 

Dadhyata Bhakti (Steadfast Devotion), which is a collection of stories of some great devotees, composed in verse by the poet Rama Dasa in the eighteenth century, contains the story “Talichcha Mahpatra”. It can be viewed as a variation of the story in Madalapanji, mentioned above. In this story, however, the servitor had a name: Jagabandhu Mahapatra. He had the tilachcha seva, which included dressing the Deities. Now, he was not just a servitor but a great devote of Jagannath as well. The king then was Prataparudra Deva (sixteenth century), who was known to have a quick temper and who gave harsh punishment to the guilty. When he came for darshan one day, there were no flowers on Jagannath’ head. Jagabandhu put the garland he was wearing on the Deity’s head and when the king came to the Lord’s presence, he took that garland from the Deity’s head and gave it to the king as prasad. When the king found hair in the garland, he told Jagabandhu that if he did not see hair on the Deity’s head the following morning, he would punish him. Terribly frightened, that night Jagabandhu prayed to Jagannath to save him. He kept some water mixed with poison with him, having decided to drink it in the morning in case he did not receive any divine indication during the night to the effect that he would be saved. Jagannath appeared in his dream and told him that he had no reason to worry, for the following morning, he would see hair on His head. When the king came, Jagabandhu told him that he could see Jagannath’s hair for himself. Suspecting that the servitor had played a trick and that the hair was false, the king pulled out some hair and he found blood in them. The penitent king threw himself at Jagabandhu’ feet and begged for forgiveness.  Why the expected reference to bala dhupa is missing here is open to conjecture. Our tentative and rather weak surmise is that the episode, like the others in the collection, is about devotion and the devotee, as its title suggests; for the poet, things about the object of the devotee’s devotion were dispensable.

 

There is yet another construction of the Madalapanji story. In Surendra Mohanty’s classic, Neela Saila (Blue Mountain), published in 1968, a character, Kantha Mekapa, narrates the story of bala  dhupa for the benefit of his captive audience of Jagannath devotees in a village. Here the servitor was a suara. The suaras prepare food for offering to Jagannath. One day hair was found in the food (in poda pitha, roughly speaking, a kind of baked / roasted Indian cake) which had been offered to the Lord. The king, who, like the suara, is un-named here, put the servitor in prison. Jagannath appeared in the king’s dream and told him that He would not accept any food if His servitor was not released. Post- haste, the king went to the servitor, apologized to him profusely and set him free himself. On that day, the king instituted bala dhupa. Mohanty has attempted to make his version more credible and persuasive than the source narrative. If a food offering is instituted, not a dress (like Gajanana besha (Elephant dress), for example), then from the point of authenticity, the story is better contextualized in food than in dress (flower on Jagannath’s head). 

 

This is Jagannath’s story, not Lord Vishnu’s or any avatara’s. When Jagannath was brahminized (using the term without any caste implications), that is, assimilated into the Great Tradition of Sanatana Dharma, the narratives of the leela of Vishnu or His avataras became His stories. Prior to this assimilation, there was no leela of Jagannath (or whatever name the forest dwellers had given him); therefore, no stories of His own. In the Ramayana, there is the story of the savari who fed Lord Rama with berries which she had already tasted for sweetness and the hair story of Jagannath is similar to it to the extent that the Lord in each had accepted polluted food. But there the similarity ends. Ignoring details, there are no rituals in any Rama temple, to the best of our knowledge, where the savari episode is commemorated through a ritual. 

 

The hair story, like Rai’s story, the milkmaid Manika’s or the little girl in the brinjal field’s, are purely local stories, with a distinctly folk flavour. Who created these, for what purpose and in what context, we may never get to know for certain. But we tend to look upon these stories as attempts to confront the brahminization of Jagannath and construct His identity in consonance with the Little Tradition.

 

 (Published in margAsia. Summer 2020. pp. 9-11.)    

 

 

 

LECTURES ON SARALA MAHABHARATA

 

Link for the Video Lectures below:

“The Tradition of Retelling of the (Vyasa) Mahabharata: An In-Depth Study of Odia Mahabharatas”.  10 Lectures

Prepared, in 2019, at IIT Kanpur for Swayam Prabha, free DTH Channel for Education.

Telecast in January, 2020.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Dg2OSRexFgbm-V_9MKe0Dsbb6I5iKUuQ?usp=sharing

Friends, these lectures constitute a course. The lectures are a bit loosely connected. Deliberately. That is, one does not necessarily have to listen to the earlier lecture(s) to understand a particular lecture. 

I most cordially invite you to listen to this explication of Sarala Mahabharata.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION, FRIENDS

I have posted a manuscript - Ruminating Sarala Mahabharata -  the link to which is the following: https://works.bepress.com/bibudhendra_patnaik/17/

Written more than ten years ago, this manuscript was partially edited (the first 50 pages) two years ago. It is also incomplete. The last chapter is yet to be written. I hope I will re-work on this manuscript some day soon. I have posted it in this incomplete and unedited form all the same. Barring, perhaps, a very few, this manuscript deals with episodes not discussed elsewhere, to the best of my knowledge.

LAZY NOTES (IN LOCKDOWN)

 V

DHRITARASTRA’S ANGUISH

 

In the darkness of the night, Duryodhana, rattled, scared, intensely lonely and blood all over his body, fled from the battlefield. All his brothers had been killed, as had been Sakuni, his mighty generals and other celebrated warriors and his beloved son, Lakshmana Kumara. He directly went to Bhishma, lying on a bed of arrows, waiting for the auspicious moment to come when he would wish for his death. Duryodhana told him that he had lost everyone in the war and had come to him to take refuge in him. He prayed to him to save him. A kshatriya does not abandon the one who had surrendered to him and a grandfather cannot see his grandchild perish, no matter how wicked he might have been. Bhishma did not upbraid him but he did tell him, in much sorrow, how he had been responsible for his misery. He advised him to go to sage Durvasa, who was in charge of Vyasa Sarovara (the lake named Vyasa), take refuge in the venerable sage and with his permission, enter the lake. Once in the lake, none could harm him; be they mortals or immortals, he told him. He urged hm to hurry. The night was in its last phase. Once the day broke, the Pandavas would start looking for him, he said. Duryodhana thought of meeting his parents; so he headed to Hastinapura.

Earlier that night, Sanjaya had told Dhritarashtra about Duryodhana’s plight. The distressed father asked Vidura and him to go to the battlefield right then and bring his son to the safety of Hastinapura, taking advantage of the thick darkness of the night.  That was not possible, Sanjaya old him; the Pandava army was everywhere.

When Duryodhana arrived at his palace in Hastinapura, he found his wife Bhanumati waiting to welcome him ceremonially but when he told her that he alone of the Kauravas was alive and their son had fallen, she was completely devastated. But he consoled her, saying that not all was over. It was just that he was extremely tired and desperately needed rest. Having rested, the following morning he would return to the battlefield and win the war. Bhanumati couldn’t hear any of this; she had passed out.

Then he went to his parents. Sanjaya told Dhritarashtra that his son was in front of him. The father, who had been so very worried for the safety of his only surviving son, now that he was there with him, was missing the rest of his sons. He upbraided his eldest. He had come alone; where were his brothers, he asked him. He reprimanded him for not having given their due to the Pandavas, his brothers, for having listened to the wicked Sakuni instead of the wise Vidura, and for insulting Krishna – Narayana Himself! Because of him, he told him, his begetting a hundred sons had become futile. Utterly sad, defeated and mourning for his brothers himself, who he knew had sacrificed themselves for him, there was nothing meaningful that Duryodhana could say to his father by way of consolation.

Overcome with grief, the father continued in the same vein: having started the jajna of war (war viewed as sacrificial fire), he should not have wished to live alone. Looking at Krishna, he should have fallen in the war, fighting, and attained Vaikuntha (the abode of Vishnu). Then the devastated father said something he had never told him before. That moment of loss was too unbearable for him, an ordinary mortal in spiritual terms, to control himself. This is the best that can be said for him.

He should have listened to the sage counsel of the wise Vidura, he told his son. Vidura had advised him to have his infant eldest killed. If he lived, he would attain much prosperity and greatness but would bring him great grief by becoming the cause of the utter ruination of the entire family. If he was killed, his ninety-nine younger brothers would live, Vidura had said. Duryodhana’s killing would have ensured the continuance of his lineage and he, Vidura, was willing to perform that act of sacrifice himself. Dhritarashtra had turned down his brother’s advice. He told Duryodhana that he was regretting having done so now. Hurt by those cruel words, the son said,” Father, why are you being so merciless? At this difficult moment of mine, instead of pity, you are giving me pitiless words. Protect me for the night. I will win the war the following day.”

When he uttered those unfeeling and insensitive words to his eldest, he seemed to have forgotten why he had not allowed Vidura to kill his eldest born. As he gave the infants, one after the other, to the blind father to feel him, Vidura said of hm that he would be wicked. Much before he could hold all his sons, Dhritarashtra stopped him. If that was what he was forecasting for each infant, why must he sacrifice his eldest, he had asked Vidura. He would rather accept whatever destiny would bring him - that was what he had told Vidura, which he seemed to have forgotten. There is absolutely no suggestion in Sarala Mahabharata that Dhritarashtra’s decision was wrong. It just cannot be, if we think about it. Can it be a good reason for a father to sacrifice his eldest born so that his lineage continued with ninety-nine wicked sons?

Returning to the meeting of Dhritarashtra and Duryodhana, the troubled father expressed his helplessness to give him protection, even for that night. With the all-knowing Sahadeva, there was no place in the three worlds where he could be safe, he told his son. He told him then what Bhishma had told him: “take refuge in sage Durvasa and enter Vyasa Sarovara”. The difference was that Bhishma had given him that advice with kindness and Dhritarashta’s advice was expressed in hurtful language: jamaku dekhi darilu palai pasa ja ja - seeing Yama’s face, you got scared. Now, go away and enter (the lake).  Very harsh, unfeeling, unkind and unfair words for the one, who, even his worst enemies never considered to be a coward, who was afraid of death. And those were the parting words of the father to his son.

How very comforting it is to put the blame on someone else for one’s suffering! The blind king had forgotten that when he was the king, he had been grossly unfair towards the Pandavas and had deprived them of their due - long before his son did so.

 

LAZY NOTES (IN LOCKDOWN)

 IV

VIDURA"S SILENCE

For the Great War at Kurukshetra there was no one person in Sarala Mahabharata who everyone blamed as being solely or primarily responsible. For Gandhari and Dhritarastra, it was Sakuni - when the war was on. After the war, when she saw Krishna, she told him that he was solely responsible for the war since it was entirely within his powers not to allow the war to happen in the first place - no one would have gone against his words had he firmly told everyone concerned that there was to be no war. Arjuna squarely blamed Duryodhana, but the venerable Kuru elder, Bhishma, disagreed.  On the battlefield itself, when this exchange took place between them, Bhishma told him that the Pandavas’ commitment to peace was not total; had it been so, they would have given the kingdom to Duryodhana and returned to the forest. In a family, an unreasonable person is accommodated, not destroyed, he told his grandson.

In a technical sense, it was Duryodhana who started the war. The two armies were face to face, neither attacking the other. When his brother Durdasa declared that he would change sides and fight for the Pandavas and gave protection to the unarmed Yudhisthira, a furious Duryodhana ordered his army to attack Durdasa and that was how the war started. However, from this, it does not follow that he was responsible for the war.

At the same time, he could have stopped the war. In Sarala Mahabharata, it was Yudhisthira himself who made a genuine effort – the only one to do so - to avoid war. When Krishna told him on the battlefield that Arjuna was unwilling to fight, he told Krishna that he was right and then, unarmed, he went to the Kaurava side of the battlefield to negotiate peace with Duryodhana. He told him that he was not asking him now to give him five villages; all he wanted was just one. Duryodhana refused. About this exchange Gandhari surely did not know; had she known, she would not have thought that the Avatara alone could have stopped the war.

Now, who did the embodiment of Dharma on earth blame for the war? For Yudhisthira, it was Draupadi. When she fell to her death, he told the grieving Bhima that she was a sinner. By keeping her hair untied, she had instigated her husbands to take revenge. In her word and deed, she had goaded them, in a manner of speaking, to the battlefield. He also held Sahadeva responsible for much that had gone wrong. Being the knower of the past and the future, had he alerted him in time as to what was going to happen, things might have been different. But knowing everything, he would keep mum. He was a sinner, said the son of Dharma to Bhima.

Yudhisthira did not say anything about which situations he had in mind, with respect to what he had said about Sahadeva. In any case, that was neither the time nor the occasion for such things.

But let us think. When the first game of dice took place, Yudhisthira was alone in the Kaurava court. When the second game of dice took place, which led to his exile, he was not alone. In fact, that time, at Duryodhana’s instance, it was Sahadeva who rolled the dice for them both. And the two sticks this time were not Sakuni’s (see “The Second Game of Dice” in this blog, posted on May 7, 2010). Had Sahadeva alerted his eldest, the events might not have taken the turn they did.

Now, were there others in Sarala’s narrative who could have been held responsible but were not? Consider this:

This happened after the fire at the wax palace incident, in which, but for a very few, everyone knew that the Pandavas and their mother had perished. The family had performed the funeral rites. Along with the members of the Kuru family, Balarama and Krishna had wept. At that point of time, none but Vidura and Sakuni knew that Krishna’s tears were fake. But Vidura did not know that Sakuni knew that the Pandavas were safe.

Not long after the wax palace incident, Dhritarashtra decided to hand over the kingdom to Duryodhana. On earlier occasions, his proposal to do so had been resisted by the Kuru elders, who had firmly told him that Yudhisthira must be the crown prince, not Duryodhana. Now since they knew that the Pandavas were dead, they consented to the coronation of Duryodhana.

Had Vidura told them then that the Pandavas were alive, the coronation of Duryodhana would not have taken place. The Kuru elders would not have allowed it. Duryodhana would have been exposed. He would have received condemnation from the Kuru elders, the sages who used to visit Hastinapura, the Yadavas and the people of Hastinapura. Sakuni would not have been able to weave a story to protect him at that moment.

The Kuru elders would have decided to crown Yudhisthira, if not as the king, as the crown prince. In due course, he would have become the king. Duryodhana would not have been able to organize a revolt against him, let alone a war, at any time later. Who would have supported him? Maybe only Karna? None else of any significance from Aryavarta would have joined him at a battlefield against Yudhisthira.

Viewed thus, wouldn’t one say that Vidura’s silence, when he should have spoken, started a chain of events that led the Kurus to the battlefields of Kurukshetra? If Draupadi’s untied hair or Sahadeva’s silence could be viewed as responsible for the devastating war by the embodiment of virtue, whose judgement in Swargarohana Parva of the narrative has the status of the judgement of Dharma himself, why not Vidura’s silence?

  

 

 

LAZY NOTES (IN LOCKDOWN)

III

BHIMA'S OATH

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).