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).

 

LAZY NOTES (IN LOCKDOWN)

II

ARJUNA'S REVENGE

In the episode of “The Mango of Truth” (see the post on June 9, 2005 in this blog), Arjuna had told Krishna this truth, among others, about himself in the presence of his brothers, Draupadi, sage Vyasa and the imposter Gauramukha: he would never target an enemy who was fleeing from the battle (sangrame shatru pithidele sahasra na marai – in the battle – enemy – if turns his back – arrows – not – shoot = if the enemy turns his back on the battle, I do not hit him with my arrows). When the mother, who is going for her bath, tells her child to protect the butter from the crow till her return, she does not mean that he could allow a pigeon or a cat to eat it. Likewise, Arjuna’s declaration is not to be taken literally. What he said would cover situations like the enemy being without weapons or for some other reason, not being in a position to defend himself, having surrendered to him, etc.  Now, he didn’t say this to Krishna on that occasion but a reader of Sarala Mahabharata knows that this virtuous warrior would not attack unless he is attacked. He had refused to start a battle at least twice. In the Kurukshetra battlefield, when Krishna asked him to attack Bhishma and start the war, he had told him that he would respond only after he was attacked. Later, when he faced the army of the mlecha king Mayasura and Krishna asked him to attack them, he told him the same thing: he would wait for them to attack him and would fight with them only then.   

Now think of what he did when he came face to face with Jayadratha the day after Abhimanyu’s death. He had taken a vow that he would consign himself to the fire if he failed to kill Jayadratha by evening that day and avenge the killing of his son. Jayadratha was so well-protected in the battlefield that he could not penetrate through the layers of his defence before it became dark. Arjuna requested Duryodhana to light the funeral fire. The fire was lit and Arjuna was readying himself to enter it when Sakuni asked Jayadratha to come out of his protective ring and witness the event and he came out.

The sun suddenly appeared, as unknown to every mortal, Krishna withdrew his divine chakra, Sudarshana which had covered the sun.  Duryodhana asked his brother-in-law to flee from the battlefield and save himself. He ran for his life and Arjuna and Krishna abandoned their chariot and chased him. With one arrow, Arjuna cut off his bow and destroyed his quiver. Jayadratha stood unarmed and defenceless.  

Jayadratha begged for mercy. “Save me, O Partha,” he said, “You are known to be the noble warrior, who spares his enemy when he abandons fighting and surrenders to him. I have surrendered.  I am your servant from now on. Save me. Save me”. Arjuna felt sad. Jayadratha was his brother-in-law. “There is no merit in killing one’s relations, O Krishna, said Arjuna. “Those who kill their kin for their selfish gains, head to narka (hell). Why did we start this fratricidal war, O Keshava?”, said Arjuna in grief.

Krishna told him that the man was vile and insincere. If he spared the vile wretch, he would mercilessly kill his brothers and he would not be there to save them, having entered the fire for failing to redeem his promise. Besides, he was the killer of his son and not avenging one’s son’s killing was a grievous sin. One would suffer in narka for that. “Jayadratha is doomed,” the Avatara told him. “I have saved him for you, O Partha”, said Krishna, “if you don’t kill him, someone else will; if no one does, then I will”. In this assertion, one hears the echo of Krishna’s words in Srimad Bhagavad Gita – Bhishma, Drona and the others were already dead, killed by Him, had said He, in His Viwarupa Form. He, Sabyasachi was to be only a nimitta.    

That last sentence has a narrative purpose; it brings Abhimanyu again into the discourse in a different way.  This was Krishna’s strategy to provoke Arjuna – to keep reminding him of Abhimanyu so that his mind would be filled with the image of his dead son and he would forget for that moment his warrior-dharma. He succeeded. How Jayadratha was killed, let that remain for another note. From another perspective, in the Bhagavad Gita, it was the Essence of the Avatara Krishna in His Supreme manifestation who was speaking to Arjuna; here it was the Avatara speaking. The Avatara has human relations; his Essence has none.

In Sarala Mahabharata, no one blamed Arjuna for the death of Jayadratha. The Kauravas blamed Krishna – on suspicion. If impossible things happened, Krishna must be the reason, they thought. Who didn't! As for Arjuna, it never occurred to him during the many years he lived after his brother-in-law’s death, that he had compromised with his warrior-dharma.  

 

 

    

 

LAZY NOTES (IN LOCKDOWN)

I

YUDHISTHIRA'S HALF-TRUTH

Yudhisthira was persuaded to tell Drona “The man or the elephant Aswasthama was dead’ but utter “elephant” in a low voice (nara ki gunjara aswasthama marana / Kariba dhire gunjara sabda uchcharana). Krishna told the virtuous shishya that his guru, in the terribly disturbed state he would be in at that time, would suspect nothing and would act on what he would be allowed to hear.  Thus, when Drona asked Yudhisthira about his son, to cut a long question unfairly short (we will return to it in another note), he told him this: nara ki gunjara je aswasthama hata (man or elephant Aswasthama is dead). The expected happened: Drona collapsed and the sword fell from his hand. The rest is too well known for a recount here (see Part II of the article in this blog “The Killing of the Guru in Two Parts”, posted on December 1, 2019) and in any case, it is not relevant for the present purpose.  

Of late I have wondered what difference it would have made had Yudhisthira not uttered the “elephant” part in a low voice. I think it would have confounded the bewildered guru. He had come looking for a definite answer. Now, his shishya was giving a reply which was entirely unhelpful. Maybe, he would have thought that the virtuous man was suggesting that his son was alive and the elephant, named Aswasthama, was dead. But it seems unlikely. If his son was alive, why did Yudhisthira not say so, he would have wondered. Why did he bring in the elephant at all? One would use a hedge when one has to say something which is likely to trouble the addressee. So, Drona might have inferred that his son was indeed dead and Yudhisthira was informing him indirectly. But the chances were that father would have still looked for a definitive answer, given to him in a direct, straightforward language.

So he would ask the same question again to Yudhisthira, pleading with him to give him a clear, unambiguous answer. Yudhisthira would give him the same answer the same way, i.e., uttering “elephant” in a low voice. What option did he have? He obviously could not tell him that Aswathama was dead, without bringing in the elephant. Could he tell him just that the elephant, Aswasthama, was dead: gunjara je aswasthama hata? No mention of “nara”. That would have been risky; it was possible that even in that mental state, the guru would have figured out that his shishya had indirectly told him that his son, Aswasthama, was live. He couldn’t have chosen to speak in a roundabout way; in that case, suppressing part of that answer would have been difficult. Instead of just one word, he would have to utter more words inaudibly. That would most likely have made his guru request him to speak audibly. What could Yudhisthira have done then? He would have only repeated what he had told him and in the same way. The distraught father would have been even more confused, wondering why he wasn’t answering him properly and out of frustration, leading to anger, he might have cursed him. Who knows!

It occurs to me that Yudhisthira’s half-truth or lie had saved both his guru and himself. His guru’s fate had been decided; he was to die as his shishya, on whom he had such absolute trust, had already chosen victory in the war over staying steadfast to dharma. Now, his guru did not have to go through the agony of uncertainty any longer and as for him, he wouldn’t risk being doomed by a curse from his guru.

A LIST OF ARTICLES ON SARALA MAHABHARATA

These articles deal with the creativity of Sarala as the re-teller of the canonical text and the richness and the depth of his poetic vision.

Forthcoming

“The Tribal Theme in Sarala Mahabharata”

 “Exploring the Possibilities of a Theory of Meaning for a Theory of Discourse Structure”

 “On Variations in Mahabharata”

 “Bhakti in the Times of Darkness and Bliss: A Study of Bhakti in Sarala Mahabharata” 

 “Peace or War? Remarks on the Pre-war Deliberations in Sarala Mahabharata”

(With Vikas Kumar). “Situating Sarala Das’s Mahabharata in the Story Space that is India”. Indian Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.

Published

(2020). “Explaining the Story-within-Story Structure of the Puranic Narratives in terms of a Theory of Meaning”. Konark, Vol IV: 1. pp. 165-178.

(2020). “On Bad Language (According to Sarala Mahabharata)”. Proceedings of the International Seminar on Sarala Mahabharata. Sarala Bishwabhasa Sammilani. Bhubaneswar. January 14-16.

(2019). “The Way Power Talks”. Occasional Paper -1. Bhubaneswar: Utkal University of Culture. pp. 1-16 (e-publication).

 (2018). “Bhishma in Two Episodes in Sarala Mahabharata”. Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature, Vol 54. pp. 23-34.

(2018). “Drona in the Ekalavya Episode in Sarala Mahabharata”. In Chandra, Sibesh, Vrinda Dalmiya and Gangeya Mukherji (eds.) Exploring Agency in the Mahabharata: Ethical and Political Dimensions of Dharma.  New Delhi: Routledge India. pp. 232-246.

 (2018). “Interaction between the Forest Dwellers and the Urbanites in Sarala Mahabharata and Some Select Works of Gopinath Mohanty”. The Critical Endeavour: Vol XXIV, pp. 233-243.

(2018). “On Three Women Characters in Odia Puranic Literature”.  The Critical Endeavour: XXV, pp. 259-268.

(2018) Vikas Kumar and B.N.Patnaik. “Sarala Mahabharata: Reading the Whole in the Part”. margASIA, Summer 2018. pp. 11-12.

 (2017). “Sarala Mahabharata: Eka ‘Bandi-Pratishodha’ ra Gatha”. Paurusha: 50^th year, 8^th issue. pp. 59-63. (with Vikas Kumar (first author) and Dharmapada Jena) (in Odia)

 (2017). “A Bhuta named Babana”.  In Abbi, Anvita (ed.). Unwritten Languages of India. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. (pp. 94 -105).

(2017). “Observations on an Instance of Negative Interaction in Sarala Mahabharata”. In Garg, Shweta Rao and Deepti Gupta (eds.) The English Paradigm in India. Palgrave Macmillan. (pp. 285-292). 

(2017). “Observations on Action and Its Ethicality”. In Majhi, R.C. et. Al. (eds.). Morality, Objectivity and Defeasibility. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company Pvt. Ltd. (pp. 162-176).

(2017) (with Vikas Kumar, the first author). “Reading Sarala Mahabharata as a ‘dharmasastra’”. PBD Special Supplement on Sixth Anniversary. October 31.

 (2016) (with Vikas Kumar, the first author). The “Sarala Mahabharata” as a Novel “Prison- Revenge” Story. PBD. July 17, 2016.

(2014). “Arjuna’s Problem and Its Resolution in Two Mahabharatas”. Lokaratna, Vol VII. ISSN 2347-6427, pp 1-13. (E-journal) -http://www.yumpu.com/document/view/27256081/lokaratna-vol-vii

 (2012). “On the Great War in Kurukshetra in Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata”. In (Danda, A.K. and R.K.Das eds.) Alternative Voices of Anthropology. Kolkata: Indian Anthropological Society.

 (2009). “On the Notion of Progress in the Knowledge Domain of Humanities”. In Ramanan, Mohan, Panchanan Mohanty, Tutun Mukherjee (eds.). Humanities in the Present Context. Hyderabad: Allied Publishers. pp. 242-263.

(2009). “Remarks on Baabarapuri”. In Tomar Sristir Path. Kolkata: Apana Book Distributors. pp. 533-37.

 (2007). “Orwell’s Problem and Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata”. The Critical Endeavour. Vol. XIII. pp. 12-21.

Video Course

(2019) “The Tradition of Retelling of the (Vyasa) Mahabharata: An In-Depth Study of Odia Mahabharatas”. Course Duration: 10 hours (UGS in the terminology of IITs and PGs)

Prepared, in 2019, at IIT Kanpur for Swayam Prabha, free DTH Channel for Education. Telecast in January, 2020.

FAKE PEOPLE (IN THE WORLD OF SARALA MAHABHARATA)

Made of the three gunas, namely, satwa, raja and tama, and destined to live enveloped in maya, humans lack the necessary clarity of vision to make sense of the world and even one’s own small world. If this view of the human predicament is unpalatable to someone, he (or she or they), might like to turn to some modern theory of the essential human nature (say, a theory of knowledge as biological endowment) together with some theory of the humans’ failure to make good sense of the social world he lives in (“Orwell’s Problem”, for instance, a rather poetical conception of the real human problem, one might say). Humans, with their sense of insecurity, fear and desire for acquisition and the world being partially intelligible at most, it has never been an easy place to live in for anyone and has been particularly hard for the marginalized at all times. Now, as for fakery, unless one is a compulsive imposter or finds fun in pretending, one wears a mask to serve one’s own interest or to protect oneself. If one is clever, the others fail to see the mask, at least during their interaction. These hold for our world and for the world of Sarala Mahabharata as well.

One might be inclined to say that in Sarala Mahabharata, Sakuni is the very name of faking. Sakuni is unfortunate because there were others who faked at one time or the other, but one would hardly mention them: the Pandavas, Kunti, Dhritarashtra, Vidura and Sanjaya and that doesn’t close the list. Weren’t the Pandavas and Draupadi imposters in the kingdom of king Virata? She was generosity incarnate when Kunti dressed her husband’s co-wife, Madri, for her meeting with a god she would invoke to get a child. But she could not sleep, anxious to know about who she was going to invoke, and unknown to her, kept peeping into her room. Her fear was that if Madri got a child from a god, mightier than the three gods from whom she had got her children, then her child would be more powerful than hers and her wish to see her son, Yudhisthira, as the king of Hastinapura, would surely not be fulfilled. Now, wasn’t her generosity towards Madri fake, strictly speaking? As for Vidura and Sanjaya, both highly trusted by Dhritarashtra, did they not fake when they did not tell the Kuru elders that the Pandavas had not perished in the fire at the lac house, and thereby made it possible for him to anoint Duryodhana as the king of Hastinapura? This would certainly not have happened if the Kuru elders knew the truth.

Think of Sahadeva. In the second game of dice, he rolled the dice for both Yudhisthira and Duryodhana and made sure that the eldest Pandava lost. Both Yudhisthira and Duryodhana believed that he, who knew the past, the present and the future, was playing honestly for them. He betrayed both. But neither they nor anyone else ever got to know that he had a definite purpose in mind when he was rolling the stick-dice. During the Great War at Kurukshetra, he had a role in the killing of Abhimanyu; he had told Krishna how Arjuna could be separated from Abhimanyu that day so that the young warrior would lose his most powerful defence and become extremely vulnerable. No one ever knew about it. When the fighting stopped for the day and Abhimanyu’s body arrived, he was among the mourners. Wasn’t there some fakery somewhere? Years ago, when Duryodhana, who had orchestrated the lac house fire, saw the charred bodies in the house and was certain that those were the remains of the Pandavas’ and their mother Kunti’s, he had wept bitterly and those tears were fake, as Sakuni, Vidura and Sanjaya knew. There was another among the mourners who knew, but he was shedding fake tears himself!  In Sarala Mahabharata, there is nothing that this mourner didn’t know and there was nothing that happened without his will.

Think of Nakul. In the Mango of Truth episode, he declared, among other things, in the presence of his brothers, Draupadi, Vyasa, the fake sage Gauramukha and Krishna, that his loyalty to Yudhisthira was total. There was nothing that he had done till then and nothing that he did later that could be used to charge him of disloyalty with respect to the eldest Pandava. Now, when Krishna told him, when they were alone, that he was going to Duryodhana as Yudhisthira’s emissary for peace, he requested him to ask the Kaurava king for two villages, one for himself and the other for his brother, Sahadeva. After all, they were Madri’s children and Yudhisthira, Bhima and Arjuna were Kunti’s. In trying times, they were all together but in better times, after the war, Kunti’s children might not share the prosperity with them. In view of that, he thought that they would have those two villages to sustain themselves. Now, is it unreasonable to ask whether there wasn’t some fakeness in his relationship with his elder brothers, no matter that it was never translated into words or deeds?

Think of Karna, the commander-in-chief of the Kaurava army on the 16^th and the 17^th day of the Great War Kurukshetra, and the eldest child of Kunti, a fact known to everyone, right from his childhood days, in Sarala Mahabharata. He found himself in a situation where he promised Kunti that he would spare all the Pandavas barring Arjuna in the battlefield. This had happened before the war started and no one in the Kaurava army knew about it. Vidura knew but he wasn’t fighting; in any case, he wasn’t going to betray Kunti.

During his command of the Kaurava army, he could have killed the four Pandavas but he did not. The killing of Yudhisthira or Bhima would not have been sufficient to win the war, but the consequences of their killing would have been momentous. Considering that he was the friend on whom Duryodhana had absolute trust, he turned out to be a fake, as a friend. He was also a fake as the commander-in-chief of the Kaurava army.

Is there anything that might persuade one to reconsider his betrayal and see if it could be condoned? One would then have to ask why he didn’t tell Duryodhana about his word to Kunti. Maybe he believed that he could kill Arjuna and that once that was achieved, it would not be long before the Pandavas lost. He had the infallible weapon of god Indra and he also had the powerful snake arrow. Had Krishna not saved him, Arjuna would have been killed. But Krishna had not been part of his plan. He knew who Krishna was and he knew the powers of the Avatara, but does take into consideration destiny as one makes one’s plans?

This is perhaps the best that could be said for him, but questions would remain. We need not pursue this matter here; his fakeness might not invite censor, considering his circumstances, but the fact would remain that he was a fake friend and a fake leader of the Kaurava army.

Think of Bhishma and Drona. Bhishma tried to kill Arjuna but failed because Krishna intervened and unknown to everyone in the battlefield, including Bhishma and Arjuna, he destroyed Bhishma’s infallible arrow with his Sudarshana chakra. As for Drona, he could not take Yudhisthira as prisoner, despite Arjuna’s absence in the battlefield, because of Abhimanyu. But both Bhishma and Dona had told the Pandavas what would bring their fall. Duryodhana was aware of it. Even so, wasn’t that their betrayal of the Kaurava army?

Think of Gandhari. The war over, Yudhisthira along with his brothers went to meet Dhritarashtra. The man of virtue, victory in the fratricidal war had given whom no happiness, was seeking a reconciliation with the head of the Kuru clan. With him were Vidura and Krishna. Gandhari expressed her wish to see Yudhisthira and his brothers and wanted the eldest Pandava to remove the cover from her eyes. Krishna suspected trickery and took Sahadeva aside and sought his opinion. He told him that she wanted to destroy Yudhisthhira with her yogic fire. The moment he would remove her cover, she would open her eyes and destroy him. Krishna asked Durdasa to take off the cover from his mother’s eyes and sent him to his death. For just once in her life, in Sarala Mahabharata, Gandhari had resorted to fakery.

Let us pause awhile to shed a quiet tear for Durdasa. Responding to Yudhisthira’s call in the Kurukshetra battlefield, this brother of Duryodhana had changed sides and joined him. The eldest Pandava had promised him protection. When he was alone and weaponless in the Kaurava side of the battlefield, Durdasa had fought the Kaurava army and protected him. He had fought valiantly in the war. Now, right in front of his eyes, Durdasa had been reduced to ashes. True, he could not have saved him; things happened far too fast for any kind of intervention from him. But shouldn’t the son of Dharma have protested later when he knew how deception had killed the one who he had promised protection? Not a murmur of protest ever came from his lips.  But whatever one might say about him, one cannot perhaps charge him of being fake.

Now think of Dhritarashtra. He knew, as the others did, that he had become king by his younger brother, Pandu’s generosity. When Pandu got to know how miserable his elder brother was for not becoming the king of Hastinapura, he readily abdicated the throne for him and retired to the forest with his wife, Kunti, telling him that he would protect the kingdom on his behalf from the forest. This act of exemplary brotherliness did not endear him to Dhritarashtra. He knew that the kingship that he had obtained through his brother’s magnanimity would never be his, in either his or anyone else’s, eyes. He desperately wanted his eldest son to be the king as early as possible. That way he could have, although only emotionally, what he did not have, except technically. It is not so much for what he did for which he could be called fake; he could be called so, for what he had become within. He had found meaning in life in terms of the throne and the throne had become his obsession and it is this that had corroded his genuineness. So, what Gandhari intended to do with respect to Yudhisthira was surprising but what Dhritarashtra intended to do with Bhima, namely, crush him to death, by inviting him for an embrace, was not. Pretence had long become part of his personality.

Sakuni’s is a case in contrast. Sakuni’s fakeness lay in what he did, not in what he was within. He was chosen by his father and his relatives to avenge their merciless killing through systematic starvation by Duryodhana. He was duty-bound to his loved dead to destroy Duryodhana, who had used treachery to have them all imprisoned. With no material resources, Sakuni had to use treachery to deal with the might of the Kauravas. Although the Kuru elders, including Dhritarashtra, knew that his advice to Duryodhana would lead to the destruction of the Kauravas, none ever suspected that he was fake. Duryodhana died without knowing that he was fake. 

But in his heart of hearts, Sakuni was a genuine person. Notwithstanding that he was doing his duty to his ancestors, to whom he owed his life, he knew that what he was doing was wrong, both as Duryodhana’s uncle and his most trusted advisor. He wanted to atone for his doings by getting killed in the battlefield. This was what he told the Avatara in Udyoga Parva: hari sateka bhanajanta maraibi muhin…apara hatya dosa hoibaka mote…hari tohara mukha cahin bharata juddhare padile/ nana pataka khandiba rana jagyan kale (Hari, I will get a hundred nephews killed…sins of killing will accrue to me. Hari, looking at your face when one will fall in the Bharata War/ numerous sins of his will be destroyed in that yajna). This was his response to what the Avatara had told him: gobinde boile sakuni tu thibu na samaye/ ambhara tule tu pache jibu na swarga jaen (Govinda said, Sakuni, you live/ later with me you will go to the abode of the gods). Apart from Sahadeva, Sanjaya and Vidura, no one knew that he was a great devotee of Krishna and was aware of his avataric purpose.

As we close, we draw attention to the fact that we have not mentioned Krishna in the context of the present discussion. From a laukika point of view, he faked in much of what he said and did. Forget about the ordinary mortals, he dealt with Balarama, his doting elder brother and the other incarnation of Narayana, in virtually the same way. He shed false tears in the house of lac on seeing the charred bodies and Balarama did not know that he was pretending. He broke his promise to his brother about his not participating in the Great War at Kurukshetra, when he saved Arjuna from the infallible, divine arrow of Bhishma and when Balarama confronted him on that matter, he flatly lied to him. 

 

But Krishna’s doings cannot be viewed from the laukika perspective in Sarala Mahabharata. He was the purna avatara of Narayana. He was born a human but unlike the rest of Brahma’s creation, he wasn’t born to experience the fruit of his karma. He was born with a cosmic purpose, namely, to reduce the burden of the goddess Earth. His doings were his lila. And lila cannot be judged from the moral code of any loka, the one of the mortals or of the divines.   

FAKE VIEWS

“Fake views” are views one advocates but does not really subscribe to them. The expression is used in this broad sense here. One could express fake views for a number of reasons: from enlivening a boring conversation, to protecting oneself in a situation where telling what one really believes or knows for certain would most likely put one into trouble, to getting one’s work done. In an ordinary conversation, if a fake view is presented cleverly and with sophistication, the listener would not be able to figure out whether or not it is fake, going by its content. One can only guess. Sometimes the lack of fit between the body language and the content may give the speaker’s secret away but if the speaker is an accomplished manipulator, as Sarala’s – in fact, every Mahabharata poet’s - Sakuni was, one would never know the truth. His Duryodhana never knew that Sakuni had actually worked relentlessly against him all along and was the orchestrator of his and his brothers’ destruction. Only four knew about it: Vidura, Sanjaya, Sahadeva and the Avatara. Duryodhana died without any doubt that Sakuni had not been his greatest well-wisher.

Sakuni used the fake views strategy with great effectiveness when Krishna was in the Kaurava court as Yudhisthira’s emissary for peace. When Krishna arrived, Sakuni advised King Duryodhana not to offer him a seat in his court. He argued with Bhishma and Drona and prevailed upon Duryodhana not to give anything to Krishna, when submitting to his father’s and grandfather’s advice, the Kaurava king was inclined to give him two villages. Krishna was asking for five villages for the Pandavas but Sakuni made it appear as though he was asking the same for himself. He then advised Duryodhana to attack Krishna in the court, saying that he was there all alone and could be overcome.

When Krishna arrived at Duryodhana’ court, Sakuni told King Duryodhana that Krishna, born to Yashoda and Nanda, was a mere cowherd and for that reason could not be invited to the assembly of royals. That apart, he was a great sinner, having killed, in his childhood, a woman (he had in mind, the demoness Putana) and a bull (Sandhasura). Bhishma got very angry and told him that sins committed, knowingly or unknowingly, in numerous births would disappear on seeing Krishna. Such was he. Sakuni disagreed. When the great god Shiva beheaded the cow, Kapila, the severed head got stuck to his hand, He went on pilgrimage and performed tapas but could not get rid of the head. He assumed the terrible form of Vairabha, but the severed head still remained stuck to his hand. He was deemed by the gods to be unworthy of worship. Was the cowherd Krishna greater than the great god, he asked. The low born was guilty of yet another heinous act; he had illicit relations with many cowherd women in Brindavan. On account of his caste and sinful deeds, he did not deserve a seat among the royals. Responding to Sakuni, Dussasana and many warriors of the Kaurava army tried to block Krishna’s way to the court. 

It was late in the morning and Krishna was still waiting to be offered a seat. Drona told Duryodhana that he must offer Krishna a seat forthwith. An assembly where Narayana is unwelcome, is an assembly of ghouls, said Drona: jebana sabhare hade narayane na bari / nichaye janiba se sabha pichasa sabha sari (a court which does not welcome Narayana / that court is like a court of the ghouls).

“Listen, guru Drona”, said Sakuni and then he told the court the story of how king Jarasandha had not allowed Krishna and Balarama to sit in the assembly of kings once. King Bhishma of Kundi, who owed allegiance to the mighty Jarasandha, had arranged a swayambara for his daughter, Rukmini. Krishna and Balarama wanted to join the assembly but the moment Jarasandha saw them, he thundered that they must not be allowed to join the kings. They were lowly cowards and had committed many sins, he said, and on those accounts were unworthy of sitting in the company of kings. Humiliated, the brothers left. “Listen, O king,” said Sakuni to Duryodhana, “this is what had happened. You must respect the dignity of the court and not offer Krishna a seat with the royals.” “If there is such a precedent”, said Duryodhana, “how can we invite Srivatsa to the court?”

Bhishma told Duryodhana that Sakuni hadn’t told him the whole story. As Jarasandha was ranting against Krishna and Balarama, they left the place. Krishna invoked Garuda. He arrived at once. Krishna told him to break up king Bhishma’s swayambara. As Garuda flapped his mighty wings, a ferocious storm arose and so great was its impact that the kings who had assembled were all blown away. “Think, O Duryodhana,” said Bhishma, “if his vahana (carrier) could accomplish this in an instant, what Krishna himself could do.” He then reminded him of the fate of Jarasandha. Such a powerful king he was; he became Krishna’s enemy and perished untimely. He advised Duryodhana to invite Krishna respectfully to the court.  Although the Kaurava king did not say anything, the venerable Bhishma’s advice was not lost on him.

Sakuni couldn’t afford to let Duryodhana be influenced by the eldest Kuru’s advice. He had no answer to Bhishma.  So he resorted to abuse. “That one is the son of a lowly cowherd and you are childless”, Sakuni told Bhishma. “You have no wife, no son, no daughter and if one sees your face in the morning, one will face only trouble in the day. You have no right to be in the royal court. It is only out of consideration for your age, that we have tolerated your presence here”, said Sakuni. Embarrassed and humiliated, Bhishma kept quiet.

Then Drona spoke. He told Duryodhana that he must desist from dishonouring the One in whom resides the entire universe. The same One in His human Form was standing before the assembly waiting to be invited to his court. “You are the incarnation of Pannaga Narayana yourself. Does it behove of you to treat the Supreme god Narayana like this?”, the guru asked. He advised him to offer him a seat and allow them to worship him, each in his own way.

Sakuni did not argue with him; he started abusing him right away. “You are just one who lives on alms. You couldn’t maintain your wife. Although she was only seven months pregnant, you tore into her womb to extract her son. She died an untimely death because of your wicked act. You are the killer of a woman. You are a heinous sinner. We have been ignoring all this and have not objected to your presence in the court because you are the preceptor of the Kuru princes”, Sakuni told the virtuous guru.

Bhishma spoke again. He spoke of the supreme glory of Krishna and advised Sakuni not to speak of him in degrading terms. Sakuni said that if someone was guilty of killing, no matter who he was, human or god, he was not worthy of sitting in the company of the distinguished members of the Kaurava court. Finally, it was Vidura, the wise and virtuous minister, who spoke to the king. He pleaded with him to invite Krishna to the court and listen to what he had come to say and they should then decide what they should do in that regard. King Duryodhana agreed and invited Krishna to the court and offered him a seat.

   

Krishna told Duryodhana that he had come to him at Yudhisthira’s behest. The eldest Pandava had told him to plead with him for five villages in all for him and his brothers. They had suffered hardships for thirteen long years. It was his duty now to look after his cousins, he told them. He then reminded him of how the Pandavas had helped him on many occasions. The time had come for him to do things for them in return. And all he had to do was give them only five villages.

Krishna was Vidura’s guest that night. Vidura told him that Duryodhana would never agree to give five villages to the Pandavas and asked Krishna whether they would be satisfied with just one village. Krishna told him that he could not ask for fewer villages because each of the Pandavas had requested him to ask for a village for himself. He couldn’t disregard anyone’s request. So let it be nothing, he told Vidura, if not five villages, and let the Pandavas return to the forests, if their request was not granted.

Now, the same night, Bhishma and Drona went to Duryodhana and pleaded with him to show respect to Krishna, who had come as Yudhisthira’s emissary, and was asking for five villages for the Pandavas. Duryodhana said that he would give two villages to please Sri Hari. No one, neither Duryodhana nor Bhishma and Drona mentioned the Pandavas. When it came to giving, Krishna was in their mind. Krishna had come to ask; that was all that mattered for them. 

Likewise, he alone figured in Sakuni’s response to Duryodhana. He told Bhishma and Drona that he did not agree with them. Krishna would be displeased, he told them, if he was denied five villages. At the same time, if they gave him one, in that one village, he would take away from them everything they had. In fact, there would be nothing left in the world that would not belong to him: yeka gramake hari se sacharachara pruthibi gheniba (in that one village, he will take away the entire world). “Listen, O king,”, said Sakuni to Duryodhana, “the doings of Narayana” and he went on to tell him about the doings of His avatara, Vamana”. In the form of a vamana, a dwarf, he had asked the noble and virtuous king Bali to give him as dana (ritual gift) only that much land that his three steps could cover. With two steps he covered the earth and the heaven and Bali had nothing to give him. He offered his head for his third step and Vamana put his third foot on his head. Thus, Sakuni told Duryodhana, the great king perished. Krishna, he told the king, was Vamana in the aeon of Truth. Like his guru, Sukracharya, who had counselled Bali not to give anything to Vamana, in the aeon of Dwapara, Sakuni was asking the Kaurava king to do likewise to Krishna. “Bali could not give Vamana land to cover his three feet”, said Sakuni to Duryodhana,” how can you even think of giving him five villages? You will have nowhere to stay if you give him just one village!”

But what is fake with these views, one would ask. Bhishma and Drona said what they believed to be the case.  The text gives no reason for scepticism. As for Sakuni, in Sarala’s retelling, he did not have to be told by anyone that Krishna was no sinner but the giver of moksa and that seeing him freed one from sins of numerous births. Yet he told Duryodhana that he was a sinner and could not be offered a place among the venerable in his court.

In the case of king Bhishma’s swayambara, he deliberately concealed facts, for which there is evidence in the text. Bhishma had charged him of not telling Duryodhana the entire story and Sakuni did not contest him. Now, what can we say about his views of Bali’s fate? From the laukika perspective, Bali perished.  

From the cosmic perspective, he was blessed. He had felt immensely gratified that the Supreme god had come to him for dana; he had said this to guru Sukracharya : ehaun ana kisa mu paibi sulabha / samasta sampada mora pache ghenu padmanabha (What better fortune can I ever have than this. / Let Padmanabha take all my wealth). Sakuni had mentioned this when he was telling Duryodhana the story of Vamana. Taking the narrative to the cosmic level, Bhishma said that Bali’s story did not end with his disappearance from the earth.  The dana made him immortal. Narayana made him the lord of the patala loka and assured him of the lordship of the swarga loka in due course.  Sakuni brought the narrative back to the laukika level.  After Bali’s departure from the mortal world, his queen offered worship to Vamana and reprimanded him severely for having killed her husband, who had most devoutly given him all he had. Sakuni was surely not unaware of what Narayana had given Bali for what He had taken from him but he chose to ignore it when he advised Duryodhana not to give anything to Krishna. It is this selectivity that shows that his views were insincere – fake.

But let us not judge him harshly. He doesn’t deserve it; he deserves our understanding. No character in Sarala Mahabharata is more unfortunate than him. He was condemned to live a life of deception. Now, he desperately wanted war for the fulfilment of his own objective of avenging his father’s and relatives’ treacherous killing by Duryodhana. He had to say what he knew was false.

      

NARAYANA AND HIS GRACE

Deeply offended by Krishna’s plain speaking, Duryodhana lost his temper and started abusing him. To be fair, his feeling humiliated and even being angry at what Krishna had told him is not un-understandable, although one could hardly deny that he had asked for it. But his being abusive was certainly inappropriate, at least in view of the fact that Krishna was a messenger, no matter how badly he might have conducted himself, in his view. Losing his cool, he held his mace and moved menacingly towards Krishna. He shouted to his brothers Dussasana, Durvinda, Durjaya, and in no time they were ready to attack the Avatara with their maces, swords, spears and the like. The sages who were with Krishna withdrew in fear, as did the courtiers.

Krishna did not want to harm them; he was there in Duryodhana’s court as Yudhisthira’s messenger for peace; it was another matter that his own agenda was very different, about which the eldest Pandava had no knowledge. But hurting the Kauravas, he knew, would be unacceptable to both dharma and the son of Dharma. So he decided to frighten them. He knew that they were looking upon him as a low-born and arrogant cowherd and he thought he would let them know who he really was. He presumed that once they knew the truth about him, they would refrain from attacking him.

So he transformed himself into a huge Fish. The Kauravas were surprised. “Look at what the mean cowherd has done – look at how he has changed himself into a fish!”, they shouted. Now, killing snakes, tigers and fish was permitted by the shastras, they told one another; so Dussasana raised his huge mace to hit the fish. Then suddenly the Fish disappeared and, in Its place, appeared a big Tortoise. Dussasana’s mace broke into pieces as it hit its back. The same happened to the swords, maces, spears and all other weapons of his brothers as they struck the tortoise. “Look at this miserable coward”, said the Kauravas, “see, how, for fear of being hurt, he has turned himself into a tortoise!”

Krishna was wondering how very ignorant the Kauravas were - they were not able to make sense of what they had seen: kebana murkha ye kaurabe na jananti kichhi (how unlearned, how ignoramus these Kauravas are; they know nothing.). Hoping to help them, he became a gigantic Boar. “Look at the lowly cowherd”, said the Kauravas,” he has now become a boar, of all creatures!” Then the Boar became a Dwarf. This was extremely hilarious for the Kauravas and they made fun of the dwarf. “Look, how in fear the coward cowherd has changed into a dwarf!”, they said, and promptly rushed to hit him. 

“How very ignorant are these Kauavas!”, thought Krishna, “they see, yet they do not see.” In a flash, the Dwarf vanished and manifest in His place was the Dazzling, Magnificent and Terrifying Man-Lion. The Kauravas fled in fear.  

Later, at night fall, in the assembly of sages, in the august presence of the great Markandya, Kashyapa and their like, sage Vyasa said that the Kauravas were truly great sages, who, by their enmity, had pleased Narayana. They had seen Five Avataras of Him, one after the other - an experience that one, who has done tapas across a thousand births, would not have. None among the mortals and immortals, in any aeon, had ever had that profoundly blissful experience. In the context of navadha bhakti (nine forms of devotion), droha (enmity) can be said to be the tenth bhakti. Or, was the end of the Kauravas near, because of which, the Supreme god Narayana in His boundless grace, had revealed Himself to them in His many incarnations, mulled the celebrated Vyasa.

Thus, in Sarala Mahabharata, no one is excluded from His grace; the virtuous and the sinner, the wise and the fool, the believer and the sceptic, the devotee and the enemy. When Krishna killed with his Sudarshana Chakra, that was an act of grace for the “victim” – he attained moksa. What the severed head of Belalsena saw with the purity of vision, in the battlefields of dharma kshetra, that was Kurukshetra, rendered divinely blessed by the Avatara’s presence, was that it was Sudarshana that killed warriors on both sides – not just one side. Among those who fell thus were the virtuous and the sinners both (see “Divya Chaksu” posted in this blog on 24.2.18). But Sudarshana was only the instrument; the agent was Krishna. This was how Sarala expressed the vision of Srimad Bhagavad Gita: he had already killed all who were to be killed, Krishna told Arjuna, asking him to be only a nimitta. 

Because of ignorance, the ordinary, unevolved mortals, do not realize that they too are the blessed receivers of His grace. Later that day, Duryodhana told his father Dhritarashtra and mother Gandhari how deeply disappointed he had been with Krishna. His conduct in the court had been disgraceful, he told his parents. He had behaved like an actor in an opera, who changed his appearance many times for the stage. He assumed the illusory forms of fish, tortoise, boar, dwarf and man-lion, one after the other, he told them. Dhritarashtra knew what that meant. He was deeply concerned and pleaded with his son not to go to war against the Pandavas. Disgusted and angry with his advice, Duryodhana left.

The following day, before the court started, Sakuni met him and advised him not to yield to the magic that Krishna had shown the day before. He was like an opera actor, changing appearances, he told him: aho natakara lokankara yesaneka gati / ksane ksane dharanti se anu ana murati (listen, this is how actors behave/ they assume one appearance now, another the next moment). Sarala’s Sakuni knew the truth but misguiding the king was necessary for the accomplishment of his mission.

 In this very short sub-episode of just thirty-five couplets, Sarala deals, in his remarkable story-telling mode, with the classic question of how one acquires the knowledge that makes one see the real nature of things. One thing is certain: from direct, perceptual experience one cannot arrive at the truth. Intervention of pure jnana is needed that would remove the layers of illusion that conceal the truth. But how does one acquire that? The Upanishads and the Puranas would give different answers: the realization of the Brahman is not attainable through grace in the puranic sense. One answer in Sarala Mahabharata is this: one does, when one receives Narayana’s grace. Thus, Belalsena saw things that the Pandavas did not.  Thus, the Kauravas saw Krishna transforming himself into a fish, a tortoise, a boar, a dwarf and a man-lion. Sage Vyasa saw something else.