SITUATING "SARALA MAHABHARATA" IN OUR PURANIC LITERATURE

Aadi Kavi Sarala Das’s Mahabharata, popularly known as Sarala Mahabharata, is a truly creative retelling of Vyasa Mahabharata. However, when “Sudramuni” (Sudra Sage) Sarala called his narrative “Vishnu Purana”, began it with the question of how to attain moksha, and towards the end, described the emergence of Lord Jagannath, the composition crossed the boundaries of “retelling”, and even went beyond the canonical Mahabharata, composed by Sage Vyasa and became a different Mahabharata narrative. If dharma is the concern of Vyasa Mahabharata, moksha is the concern of Sarala Mahabharata. We do not propose to engage with our observation about the shift in genre here because it is extrinsic to our present purpose.

The poet Sarala reimagined and reconceptualized the ancient story of the last phase of the Kuru clan for his retelling. Therefore, innovations are to be expected.  There are significant innovations that are not forced into the narrative but gracefully integrate into it and enrich it. And many of these embody profound insights into various issues of timeless concern: from life and death, to human nature and human situation in the world, the nature of agency in a pre-determined world, dharma, action and its consequences (karma and karma phala), to the nature of divine intervention in the affairs of the mortals. As a consequence, the narrative transcends its temporal and spatial limitations. The following constitutes a brief attempt to substantiate this assertion about Sarala Mahabharata, and situate it in the Puranic literature.

But before that, we wish to say a few words in justification of Sarala’s repeated characterization of his Mahabharata story as “Vishnu Purana”. In our view, Sarala Mahabharata is composed in the bhava (spirit) of the great Sanskrit classic Srimad Bhagavata, in the sense that it celebrates the mahima (glory, magnificence), and the leela (doings) of Sri Krishna, and expectedly, there is a distinct tone of bhakti (devotion) in the narrative. Sarala’s narrative ruminates on various shades of bhakti in the process of explication of this notion. A detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this discussion.

(a) When he learnt that his elder brother, Dhritarashtra, was depressed and dejected, because not he, but his younger brother, became the king of Hastinapura, and was considering ending his life, King Pandu readily abdicated in favour of him and went to the forest with his wife, from where he protected the kingdom of Hastinapura, a task beyond the powers of his brother Dhritarashra, blind from birth.

When the great sage Agasti (Agastya) met him in the forest, he praised brotherliness and his sacrifice for his brother. He said that all this would disappear in the flow of time, but the story will remain: katha rahithiba in the sense that future generations would talk about his great sacrifice.

On a certain occasion, setting aside details, Yudhisthira said the same thing to Arjuna. In the world, everything is temporary, and so is life. Therefore, one must do things that would be remembered, long after the act is over: katha ruha a pruthvira (make the story, ie, the story of the act, live in the world). This expression is a version of “katha rahithiba”.

Katha rahithiba articulates a notion of eternal life, amaratwa, namely, “immortality in the mortal world without being alive”. This notion of immortality does not exist in the entire Puranic literature, either in Sanskrit or in the regional languages, to the best of my knowledge. 

(b) Aswasthama had killed the five sons of Draupadi by mistake. He thought he had killed the five Pandava brothers. He brought the severed heads to Durodhana as he lay dying, and told him that those were the heads of the Pandavas. The dying king was pleased, but when he knew the truth in the morning, he was disconsolate. Holding the heads on his lap, he breathed his last.

This was an affirmation of kulatwa (bondedness with the family). In Vyasa Mahabharata, kula consciousness is viewed as a moral weakness. In contrast, Sarala Mahabharata celebrates it. Thus, Sarala Mahabharata reevaluates the tradition and advocates a paradigm-changing concept of virtuous action.

(c ) It was not Krishna, but Yudhisthira, who made the last effort for peace with the Kaurava King Duryodhana. This he did as the Kaurava and the Pandava armies faced each other on the Kurukshetra battlefield, ready to start fighting. When he failed in his mission and realized that war was inevitable, he told Duryodhana that only the hundred Kaurava brothers and the five Pandava brothers must fight, and the rest should leave the battlefield. It was not their war. Duryodhana disagreed with Yudhisthira.

Yudhisthira’s suggestion embodies the idea that if a war cannot just be avoided, then sincere efforts must be made to minimize the damage. From this, it follows that only those who would directly gain from the war must fight. This concern about the unnecessary killing of those whose war it is not, on the battlefield, has no parallel in the classical war literature.

(d) In Sarala Mahabharata, war is considered to be sinful. There are no restrictive qualifications on this. That is, there are no situations in which it can be justified in terms of dharma. It is viewed as such because the blood of the “innocents”, in the sense mentioned above, flows on the battlefield.

The term “dharma yuddha” (just war) is used in Sarala Mahabharata by Duryodhana and Yudhisthira. The latter uses it, keeping in view the cause. If the cause is justified, the war is justified. In Vyasa Mahabharata, the term “dharma yuddha” is used in this sense. Yudhisthira calls the Kurukshetra War dharma yuddha because he was fighting for what he believed was a just cause. For Duryodhana, who first used the term in Sarala Mahabharata, the War was dharma yuddha because of the presence of Sri Krishna on the battlefield. The entire war field had become sacred land because of Sri Krishna. All those who came to fight for him told him that they aspired to fall looking at the Avatara on Arjuna’s chariot and would attain swarga. This view implicitly rejects the Vyasa Mahabharata view of dharma yuddha. In Sarala Mahabharata, Duryodhana did not step on the battlefield, deciding that he was fighting for adharma.   

Sarala Mahabharata questions, in fact, rejects the notion of dharma yuddha based on cause. In doing so, it boldly takes a stand in opposition to the entire Puranic literature in Sanskrit and the regional languages.

(e ) In Sarala’s narrative, Sakuni is not the embodiment of evil as in Vyasa Mahabharata. In Sarala’s retelling, he was condemned to do what he did. Setting aside gory details, Duryodhana had starved Sakuni’s father, King Gandharasena and his brothers and relatives, one hundred ninety-seven of them, to death. Before he died, his father, Gandharasena, had made him promise to avenge their death. He was to destroy the Kaurava brothers, and his father had told him how to make it possible. Sakuni had no choice. Only Sri Krishna, Sahadeva and Sanjaya knew Sakuni’s intention. Sakuni was an ardent devotee of Krishna.

All except Duryodhana had been killed. As he was fighting with Sahadeva, the latter told him that Duryodhana’s fall would happen anytime. Since he had accomplished his objective, he should return to his kingdom, Gandhara and rule there.

Sakuni told him that although he had redeemed his promise to the dead, he had committed the grievous sin of getting his nephews killed. He held himself responsible for the war and for the killing of many great warriors and a large number of soldiers, all of them innocent in the sense above, on the battlefield. He considered himself to be a great sinner. He told Sahadeva that he would have to atone for that by getting himself killed on the battlefield. In that fight between them, Sahadeva killed him. Unlike Vyasa’s Sakuni, Sarala’s Sakuni committed “virtuous suicide”.

Thus, it was not Yudhisthira alone, but Sakuni too was deeply concerned about the killing of the soldiers on the battlefield, who were fighting, not for themselves, but for their kings. There is no comparable concern for the soldiers in Vyasa’s immortal composition.

(g) On the battlefield of Kurukshetra, Sri Krishna asked Arjuna to attack Bhishma and thereby start the war. Arjuna refused. He would not start the war, but if he were attacked, he would retaliate. When he met the army of the Mlechas during the Kurukshetra war, at a different location from the Kurukshetra battlefields, he said the same thing to Sri Krishna. He would not start the war.

Earlier, on a different occasion, the Kuru priest Dhaumya had advised Yudhisthira not to start the war against the Kauravas but to wait for them to attack the Pandavas. It was believed that the sins of the war accrue to the one who starts it.

This “war dharma (war ethics)” is Sarala’s own. There is no convincing evidence that Vyasa Mahabharata upholds this ethical position on war.  

(h) This explains the non-occurrence of Srimad Bhagavad Gita or any comparable discourse by Krishna to Arjuna. In Sarala Mahabharata, Arjuna was not hesitant to kill the Kaurava warriors, including Bhishma and Drona, but he would not shoot the first arrow in the war. The “Gita” discourse had a place in the narrative in which Arjuna was not willing to kill relatives, preceptor, etc. But in a narrative where Arjuna’s moral position is very different, there was just no room for this or a comparable discourse for Arjuna.

In consonance with his philosophy of war, Sarala articulates a different war ethic and creates a persuasive narrative to situate it judiciously and harmoniously. In Sarala Mahabharata, the omission of the “Gita” or a comparable discourse is a creative act by the poet. The strategy he adopts is creative too – he renders such a discourse irrelevant in his narrative.

(I ) Sarala Mahabharata questions the inevitability of war in certain situations. In both Vyasa  Mahabharata and Sarala Mahabharata, war becomes inevitable. But in the latter, an alternative position is emphatically articulated. When Bhishma and Arjuna met for the first time on the battlefield, Bhishma disagreed with Arjuna that the Kauravas had thrust a war on the family. Bhishma told him that the Pandavas were responsible too. He asked him whether an enlightened family should abandon or accommodate a member of it who has gone astray. He told Arjuna that if the Pandavas were steadfast in their commitment to the kula (family), they should have left the kingdom to Duryodhana and returned to the forest. For performing kula dharma, that sacrifice was necessary.

Although the following event in the Kuru family is not mentioned in the narrative at this point, it would be on the minds of the Sarala Mahabharata readers. In the Kuru family, such a sacrifice as mentioned by Bhishma was by no means hypothetical. King Pandu had abdicated in favour of his elder brother.

Sarala Mahabharata questions the idea of war's inevitability, which Vyasa Mahabharata accepts. The alternative may be exceptional, but not beyond human capability. It is a highly comforting idea for humankind that humans are not doomed to an optionless existence.  

(j) In the “Vastraharana” episode in Sarala’s narrative, Draupadi’s honour is protected, neither by her dharma, the result of her karma, as in Vyasa Mahabharata, nor by Sri Krisna’s kripa (grace), as in some bhakti-centric regional language narratives, but a combination of both. Responding to her prayer, Krishna appears in the sky, but does not provide her with clothes. He asks her to pray to god Surya (Sun god) for relief. He does not tell her why he was asking her to do so, and she, a true devotee, does not ask him about it. She prays to god Sun, and he asks Chhaya and Maya to clothe her. What Krishna did was direct god Sun to come to her help. He reminds him that in her earlier incarnation, Draupadi had given him clothes and tells him to help her at the time of her need. This episode embodies a creative resolution of the conflicting theories of karma and kripa, without undermining either.

(k) Bhaktas (devotees) in our Puranic literature can be defined in terms of the Navada Bhakti (Nine types of devotion) and the popular notion of bhakti, or Virodha Bhakti (negative devotion, where intense enmity, intentional or unintentional,  becomes a form of bhakti). Sage Narada, Prahlada, Shabari, the gopis, Dasia Bauri, and Salabega are bhaktas of the former category. Sarala Mahabharata’s Jarasandha is an example of the latter category. Jarasandha’s hostility towards Sri Krishna was his strategy to be killed by him, so that he would attain moksha. Shishupala’s intense hatred of Sri Krishna made him totally Krishna-conscious within, and that was a form of bhakti. Thus, he was a bhakta unintentionally. When Sri Krishna killed him, he attained the state of ultimate bliss. What is common between the bhaktas of both categories is the bhakta’s desire, conscious or not, to be bonded with the object of his or her devotion. For their love, devotion or hatred, they sought Narayana.

Sarala creates a character, namely, Jara, in the episode on the emergence of Lord Jagannath in “Musali” Parva of his Mahabharata. Jara is a Savara (a community of forest dwellers, considered as low caste in the caste system, ignoring details). Incidentally, more than one character of the Savara community in Sarala Mahabharata has the name “Jara”. We are concerned here with the one in the said episode.

What is interesting about him is that neither does he seek nor does he need Narayana; it is Narayana who needs him. The Wood from which the Murtis (Icons) would be made would not move to the temple. The Voice from the  Sky asks King Indradyumna to involve Jara in the process. Jara did not ask for it, nor even want it. When he joins the effort, The Wood moves. When the King worries about who to make the Murtis, Lord Jagannath tells him in a dream that Jara would do so. It was not Jara’s choice or desire to be the maker of the Murtis. In fact, he was completely bewildered. Once inside the temple, all alone, with the door closed, he wondered what to do since he had not even seen an idol or a picture. Further details about the making of the Murtis do not concern us here. We would only say that he joined the divine carpenter, who manifested himself in the temple, in the process.

Now, Jara belongs to neither category of bhaktas mentioned above. In sum, his story is about God’s need for man, rather than man’s need for Him. The bhaktas in the Puranic literature embody the latter. None, bhakta or not, embodies the former in this vast and rich body of literature. Thus, Jara constitutes a very creative invention in Sarala Mahabharata.

These are only a few instances in Sarala’s narrative that demonstrate the paradigm-changing concepts and ideas in Sarala Mahabharata, viewed in the context of the Puranic literature. An outstanding storyteller, he created entirely convincing narrative contexts for their natural expression. 

TO WHAT PURPOSE, THIS CHARACTER KIRATASENA?

 

King Bali’s story ended when Bhagawan Sri Rama killed him. His son Angada’s story ended when, after his coronation as the King of Ayodhya, Rama bid an affectionate farewell to him with a very precious gift. Some legends extended Angada’s story beyond Tretaya yuga and ended his story in Dwapara yuga. He was the cause of Bhagawan Sri Krishna’s departure from the mortal world. According to these legends, Angada, who was totally devoted to Rama, had an uneasy feeling in him. He was uneasy, thinking that, fully committed to Rama, he could not do his duty to his father - it was his duty to avenge his father’s killing. Rama knew this, and when they parted after his coronation, he comforted him, saying that his wish would be fulfilled in the following yuga, Dwapara. Thus, it was Rama’s wish that, in his Krishna avatara in Dwapara yuga, Angada would be the cause of his leaving his mortal form. Angada was born as the savara Jara in Dwapara yuga, and he did his putra dharma (son’s dharma) then. This story is incorporated in Sarala Mahabharata.  

Now, to the best of my knowledge, apart from Sarala’s magnum opus, there is no purana or itihasa (this difference does not apply to the regional language versions of Ramayana and Mahabharata, which are all treated as puranas. A discussion is out of place here.) that extends the story of Bali. Given this, it is not unreasonable to ponder how, or if at all, Sarala’s narrative gains from this innovation of his.

To start with, Kiratasena’s story serves no narrative requirement in the sense that it does not contribute to the development or the unfolding of the narrative. The character, unwanted by the narrative, makes an appearance, remains in the story for a while, and when it departs from the narrative, the narrative remains totally unaffected. The only connection the story has with the Mahabharata narrative is that Kiratasena met Duryodhana and Yudhisthira, who were the adversaries in the war, in which he wanted almost desperately to participate. He wanted military glory. But he was not allowed to fight in the war by both Duryodhana and Yudhisthira for almost essentially the same reasons: he was unwanted, and he was a low caste forest dweller.

But can this not, one might ask, be considered as a relevant addition to the Mahabharata story? The problem is that his aspiration to fight and his rejection by the leaders of the two armies have not been problematized here. Very importantly, Kiratasena’s aspiration is not the focal theme of his story; his dana (ritual gift) to Krishna is. His meetings with the Kaurava king and the eldest Pandava can be viewed only as a prelude to his meeting with Krishna.  

One can think of Belalasena in this context. There are some broad similarities between Belalasena and Kiratasena, but there are many differences. Differences do not concern us here. As for some of the similarities, both came to fight, both were denied the opportunity, both were capable of ending the war in no time, both ended up giving their heads to Krishna as their dana to him, and the Avatara granted both their wishes. Both had the same wish: they wanted to witness the war. Both attained the most exalted state by Krishna’s grace, though the form of that blessed state was not the same.

But unlike Kiratasena, Belalasena served a narrative purpose. Asked by Krishna, the severed head of Belalasena told the Pandava family what he had seen during the eighteen days of the war. He told them that no one killed anyone. It was a discus, blazing brighter than a myriad suns, moving from one side to the other, that killed warriors from both sides. From Belalasena’s account, one could infer that the Pandavas, each of whom was claiming sole credit for the victory in the war, were not even nimittas (instruments) in the war. Given to him the special power to see the reality of things, Belalasena saw what mortal eyes, shrouded by maya (cosmic illusion), could not. The truth had to be told, in the context of the members of the Pandava family quarrelling among themselves on the issue of credit for victory, and by telling the truth, Belalasena had satisfied an important narrative requirement.

Krishna had also fulfilled the wish of Kiratasena to witness the war. But what the savara king saw, remained with him. He did not tell anyone what he saw; no one asked him. There was no narrative necessity for that. The Pandavas had to know the truth. Therefore, Belalasena was a narrative necessity. As for Kiratasena, his son Jara, having left after his father’s dana to Krishna, it was only Krishna who could have asked him what he had seen. But the Avatara knew what had happened and did not have to ask him what the truth was.

In short, despite some connections, however weak, in Sarala Mahabharata, Kiratasena’s story cannot be viewed as an integral part of it. It appears to be a purposeless addition to the narrative.

Incidentally, unlike the Suhani Kanya and quite a few other episodes, this episode cannot be accounted for in terms of the localization of the Mahabharata narrative. In the Suhani Kanya episode, Yudhisthira, during his last pilgrimage, married an Odia girl. The Kiratasena episode has no Odisha connection.

Now, let us consider the story from another perspective. Let us begin by asking what kind of text Sarala Mahabharata is. The Mahabharata story in Sarala Mahabharata is not told during the Sarpa Yagna (Snake Sacrifice) of King Janmejaya. The King was avenging the killing of his father Parikshita by the snake Takshyaka. Janmejaya was performing the yajna to have all the snakes, not merely Takshyaka, destroyed. Requested by the King, who wanted to know the deeds of his forefathers, Sage Vaishampayana told the Mahabharata story to him and all those present at the yajna. Thus, the story was told in the context of revenge.

In contrast, the Mahabharata story is narrated in Sarala Mahabharata in a satwik context. Baibasutamanu (Vaivasvata Manu), the lord of the epoch, prayed to the venerable sage Agastya (Agastya) to tell him the way to attain moksha. And the sage narrated the Mahabharata story to him. For the sage, listening to a sacred text constitutes a way to attain moksha.

But traditionally, Mahabharata has not been considered to be a sacred text, unlike Bhagavata Purana.  And poet Sarala Das did not consider the story of the Kuru clan to be a sacred story. So, how does one make sense of what Sage Agastya did in Sarala Mahabharata? In his Mahabharata (popularly known as Sarala Mahabharata), Sarala repeatedly calls his Mahabharata narrative “Bishnu (Vishnu) Purana”. Vishnu Purana, the oldest among the eighteen puranas, is a sacred text. But when Sarala uses the term “Vishnu Purana”, he does not have in mind that work. He uses this expression as a descriptive term. For him, “Vishnu Purana” is a puranic composition that celebrates the leela (doings) of Vishnu. He calls his Mahabharata Vishnu Purana because it celebrates the leela of Vishnu or Narayana, the Supreme god, manifest in the form of Krishna. Sarala uses the story of the Kuru clan to expatiate on the leela of Krishna. Nothing happened in his Mahabharata without Krishna’s will. For example, if Arjuna won the archery test in Draupadi’s swayambara, it was because of Krishna. When others went to hit the target, they failed because it was covered by Krishna’s Sudarshana Chakra. When Arjuna went, Krishna withdrew his Chakra from the target. There are numerous such instances of Krishna’s leela in Sarala Mahabharata. Since it depicted Krishna’s leela and celebrated his mahima (grandeur and glory), Sarala called his retelling “Vishnu Purana”. And when Sage Agastya responded to the prayer of Baibasuta Manu to tell him the way to moksha, he told him the moksha-giving story of Krishna’s leela. The story of the Kurus was only the outer layer of his narrative. It would, therefore, not be misleading to say that Sarala composed his Mahabharata in the spirit of Bhagavata Purana.

Now, no story, long or short, of Narayana’s Grace in a work that expatiates on His leela, can be peripheral to an account of the doings of Narayana or His avataras, whatever be the main story. And Krishna Avatara is very special, Krishna being the Purna Avatara of Narayana. In Sarala Mahabharata, the lives of Belalasena, Kiratasena and Jara, in the episode of the manifestation of Vishnu (/ Narayana) as Jagannath in the “Musali Parva”, are short, but all these characters received Narayana’s Grace, in one form or the other – their stories depict the mahima of Narayana. On this account, these are all integral parts of Sarala’s retelling of Vyasa’s Mahabharata, namely, Sarala Mahabharata, which Sarala calls “Vishnu Purana”. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KIRATASENA'S MOKSHA

 

Kiratasena, the king of the kiratas, the forest-dwellers, went to the Kurukshetra War for glory and for revenge but ended up attaining moksha.

The Great War at Kurukshetra was imminent. The Pandavas and the Kauravas had entered the battlefield of Kurukshetra, and each side, with the warriors who had come to fight for them, was assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their adversary. It was then that King Kiratasena arrived on the battlefield with his son, named Jara. Kiratasena went to Duryodhana and told him that with just one arrow, he could vanquish both Krishna and Arjuna, and requested him to make him the Commander of his army. Coupled with his quest for glory in the Great War, was his desire for revenge. In his earlier incarnation as Sri Rama, Sri Krishna had killed him, who was King Bali then. But about his desire for revenge, he said nothing to Duryodhana. The Kaurava king upbraided him for his boastfulness. With his crude bow and just three arrows, how could he think he would defeat Basudeva, the lord of the Universe, he asked him. Kiratasena told him that they were not ordinary arrows. With them, he could win the three worlds. Duryodhana told him that such boastfulness was totally incongruous with a true warrior. He would think of making him the Commander of his army if, with the forces at his command, he failed to defeat the Pandavas. He told him that he came to him uninvited, and he did not trust him. In any case, forest-dwellers were untrustworthy, and he did not need him, he said. Feeling humiliated and disappointed, Kiratasena left him.

He then went to Yudhisthira. He wanted glory. If he could not take revenge, so be it, he must have thought. He paid his respects to the embodiment of Dharma and told him that He belonged to the gotra of the Basu savara and that he was the king of the forest named Kaushika. On hearing that a great war was going to take place, he had come to participate in it. He told Yudhisthira he would win the war for him if he made him the Commander of the Pandava army. Yudhisthira’s reply was rude. They were the low caste forest dwellers, and how could he think he would fight with the great Bhishma, who even the king of the gods feared to fight with, he asked him. Kiratasena told him that he was not boasting. He had three infallible arrows with him. With one, he would win the swarga, with another, the patala and with the third, the world of the mortals: the martya. In that case, said Yudhisthira, it would be appropriate to make him the Commander of his army. But he would not do so. He told him what Duryodhana had told him before. He said if one failed to win a war with his own resources, only then could one think of taking someone else’s help. That apart, it was going to be a fight between brothers, and an outsider had no place in it. Disappointed, Kiratasena and his son left the place.

As they were going, Kiratasena saw Sri Krishna. With utmost devotion, he worshipped him. The poet Sarala gives no hint in his narrative that would explain the sudden change of attitude in the savara king: from the one who sought revenge, he became an ardent devotee. In the spirit of Sarala Mahabharata, we could suggest that the darshan of Krishna had purified him; his revengefulness had disappeared, and in him, there was pure devotion. He told Krishna how Yudhisthira did not allow him to take part in the war. He could conquer the world, but was going back utterly disappointed, and begged him to allow him to fight in the war. He told him about the power of his three arrows.

Krishna was worried. He took Arjuna aside and told him that if the savara went back to Duryodhana and Duryodhana changed his mind and allowed him to lead his army, it would be disastrous for the Pandavas. Arjuna told him that he was the protector of the Pandavas and that he left their fate in his hands.

Krishna then called Kiratasena and told him that he wanted something from him and that, in return, he would fulfil his wishes. The savara king readily promised ritually that he would give him, the wielder of Sudarshana Chakra, whatever he asked of him. Extending his hand to him in the manner of a receiver of dana (ritual gift), Krishna asked him for his head. Kiratasena told him that he was bound by oath to give him whatever he wanted from him and in all humility, told him to cut off his head with Sudarshana Chakra. He sat in the yogic position padmasana, and meditated on the Supreme god Narayana. Krishna severed his head with his Sudarshana Chakra.

The severed head told Sri Krishna how, in the aeon of Tretaya, in his incarnation as Sri Rama, he had killed him without a fight. He was Bali then, the king of Kishkindha and his son, now Jara in his present existence, was Angada. He told Sri Krishna that he, in the incarnation of Sri Rama, had killed him with the arrow named Babala. But now, being merciful, he had killed him with Sudarshana Chakra. Kiratasena surely knew that killed with Sudarshana Chakra by Sri Krishna, he would attain moksha.

To digress a little to reflect on this. Sarala Mahabharata distinguishes between the other Avataras (incarnations) of the Supreme god Narayana, the giver of moksha, and Sri Krishna. Sri Krishna is the only incarnation in which the Avatara wields Sudarshana Chakra (and rides on Garuda, not mentioned here in the narrative in this context for obvious reasons), like Narayana. In that sense, Sri Krishna can be called the Purna Avatara of Narayana. As such, he is the moksha-giver.

Returning to the severed head, Kiratasena prayed to Sri Krishna to grant him his wish. He wanted to stay alive and witness the Kurukshetra War. Krishna gave him a great deal more. Such was his mercy. He said that he would remain in his present form on the flag of his ratha (chariot), Nandighosha (gobinde boile mora nandighoshe raha / murtibanta hoi mohara ratha dhwaje thaaa). He then said that he would remain in his chariot for aeons and aeons, and people would see him manifest in that form (juga jugantare thibu ye mohara rathe / tohara murtibanta nare dekhibe samaste). And those who would see him would not be troubled by sorrow and suffering.

Thus, Kiratasena attained eternal life. Free from death and on that account, rebirth, he attained moksha. To see it from another perspective, moksha is staying eternally connected with Narayana. 

Now, what had happened to Bali in swarga, after he was killed by Sri Rama? This is what Sage Agastya (Agasti) told Baibasuta Manu, the lord of the aeon: he told him how killed by Sri Rama, Bali had attained swarga and how the Creator god Brahma cursed him there for having taken his younger brother’s wife by force and making her his wife. He cursed him to be born in the mortal world as a kirata, a low caste forest dweller. He would go to Kurukshetra and meet both the warring Kings and plead with each of them to be allowed to fight in the war. He would be rejected by both. And there he would meet Basudeva, who would sever his head with his Chakra. The severed head would remain alive, and Sri Hari would place it in the flag of his ratha (chariot) and from there, he would witness the war.

To conclude, Brahma had granted Kiratasena’s severed head a limited span of life. Sri Krishna freed him from the cycle of life and death.

 

ON BONDING WITH ONE"S KULA (Contrasting Perspectives in "Sarala Mahabharata" and "Vyasa Mahabharata")

 

In Sarala Mahabharata, 

(a) In King Duryodhana’s court, where he had gone as Yudhisthira’s emissary of peace, Krishna asked the Kaurava king for five villages for the Pandavas so that a war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas could be avoided. It would not be incorrect to say that during his interaction with the Kauravas in the court on the subject, he downplayed the issue of the Pandavas’ right to half of the kingdom of Hastinapura – not that the Pandavas had told him to ask Duryodhana for that.  Krishna’s emphasis was on the Pandavas being part of the Kuru family. He told Duryodhana that the Pandavas were his brothers and that it did not look proper that they were suffering much hardship, when his own brothers and he were living in luxury. It was his moral duty to help them live a life of dignity.

 

(b) As the Kauravas and the Pandavas’ armies stood facing each other, ready to fight,  Krishna asked Arjuna to attack Bhishma. He told the Avatara that he had an emotional bond with him and with his guru Drona, and with Ashwasthama, Duryodhana, Karna, Sakuni and some others as well, who were in the battlefield as his adversaries and that he would not attack them. He would fight with them only if they attacked him. The emotional bond with his family was an important consideration in the case of Arjuna. Krishna said nothing to him and left his chariot and went directly to Yudhisthira to apprise him about Arjuna’s refusal to fight.

 

(c ) Yudhisthira thought Arjuna was right, and he said so to Krishna. He went all alone, and without arms, to the Kaurava side to plead with Duryodhana to give them just one village, if not five, to avoid the fratricidal war. The Kula relationship was paramount for him.

 

(d) When Arjuna met Bhishma for the first time on the battlefield, he told him that it was the Kauravas who were responsible for brothers fighting brothers and pleaded with him to intervene and stop it. Bhishma told him that, contrary to what he thought, the Pandavas were also responsible for that fratricidal engagement.  If they really had a commitment to the family – for the kula, - they would not have come to the battlefield for the kingdom. He told him that it wasn’t too late, even at that stage, for the Pandavas to leave the battlefield, if they were really concerned about the kula. Bhishma told Arjuna that sometimes a member of the kula becomes an utter disgrace for the kula, but the kula does not discard him. They bear with him. Thus, in this dialogue between Bhishma and Arjuna, the Kuru eldest emphasizes the kula spirit, the commitment to the kula, which could include making sacrifices to accommodate a member who brings disgrace to the kula.

 

(e) Hit by Bhima, as Duryodhana lay mortally wounded, Yudhisthira was not celebrating his victory. He was crying, placing his head on his lap. He was talking to him as an elder brother would to his younger brother, who had strayed from the path of virtue and who had made grievous miscalculations about the outcome of the war. He said he would give him the kingdom and go to the forest, as his father Pandu had done for Duryodhana’s father. Pandu, the King of Hastinapura, once overheard a conversation between his elder brother Dhritarashtra and his wife Gandhari. Dhritarashtra, who could not become king because he was born blind, was telling Gandhari about ending their life. Pandu readily abdicated in favour of his elder brother and went to the forest with his wife, from where he defended the kingdom for Dhritarashtra. Now, Yudhisthira was saying that he wanted to give the kingdom to his younger brother Duryodhana. In the eldest Pandava’s words, there was no insincerity. Duryodhana was dying, and Yudhisthira’s words touched him greatly.

 

They were no enemies at that stage; they were brothers, members of the same kula.

 

(f) Later, that night, Ashwasthama, who had left the battlefield after his father, guru Drona’s death, came to him, on hearing that he was dying. He told him that with him being there in his army, the war had not ended. Duryodhana appointed him as the Commander-in-Chief. Soon, he returned to him with five severed heads and told him that he had won the war for him. Duryodhana was happy. In the morning, when he found that they were the heads of Draupadi’s sons, he was utterly miserable and condemned Ashwasthama in the harshest of words for bringing an end to the Kuru kula. Holding the five heads on his lap, he breathed his last.

 

His last act in life was an affirmation of the Kula feelings.

 

(g) As the Pandavas and Draupadi were climbing the mountain Himalayas to reach its top, Draupadi fell. Bhima told Yudhisthira, who was leading them, that Draupadi had fallen and begged him to stop for a while for her. He told Bhima that she was a great sinner, that she was bound to fall on that account, and that he should abandon her and resume climbing. A shocked Bhima asked him what sins she had committed. In Sarala Mahabharata, Yudhisthira, in “Swargarohana Parva”, was not merely the eldest Pandava; he was also the voice of dharma in the sense of justice. His pronouncements on the failings of the Pandavas and Draupadi, which were judgements, had the tone of authority and finality. He told Bhima that she was the cause of the all-consuming Kurukshetra war. She tied her hair only after “eating” ninety-nine of the Kaurava brothers. In the words of the embodiment of dharma on earth, there is a strong assertion of the kula spirit.

 

Taken together, these episodes affirm the kula bonding.

 

In Vyasa Mahabharata, although the importance of the kula bond is acknowledged and even endorsed, it is not considered pre-eminent. In the Kaurava court, Krishna spoke about the importance of unity among the members of the kula, but he dwelt on its utility: if they were together, the Pandavas and the Kauravas would be invincible. He did not treat the kula bonding as a moral value. Later, on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, when Arjuna refused to engage in a war against the members of his kula, Krishna told him that it was his moha (delusion) and impressed upon him the need to free himself from it in that dharma yuddha and do his duty as a kshatriya. He had to fight for the Pandavas’ right to the kingdom, which had been unjustly denied to them by their Kaurava brothers. Krishna told him that fighting for one’s legitimate rights, denied through adharma, is an act of dharma and not fighting, an act of adharma.

 

In Sarala Mahabharata, war is considered sinful. It is because many innocents die on the battlefield. They are innocent in the sense that they would not be the beneficiaries in the case of victory. The soldiers fight and die for others; the war is never their war. Under no circumstances would a war be justified in Sarala Mahabharata. But wars did take place. The challenge was to minimise the destruction caused by the war. That was why Yudhisthira suggested to Duryodhana that only the five Pandavas and the hundred Kauravas should fight, and the rest should leave the battlefield. Needless to say, it was unacceptable to Duryodhana.

 

From the above, it follows that there can be no “just war”, no “dharma yuddha”. In Sarala Mahabharata, as in Vyasa Mahabharata, the expression “dharma yuddha” is used to describe the Kurukshetra War, but in Sarala Mahabharata, for an entirely different reason. It is not related to the issue of the refusal by the Kauravas of the Pandavas’ legitimate right to half of the kingdom of Hastinapura. It is worth noting that in Sarala’s narrative, it was Duryodhana who first used this expression for that war. He did so when the Pandavas and the Kauravas were making the war code. He called upon everyone to honour the code. Theirs would be a dharma yuddha, he said, because Krishna would be the witness. On account of the Avatara’s presence, the entire battlefield would become a sacred place.

 

In both Vyasa Mahabharata and Sarala Mahabharata, the kula suffers incalculable damage. As for kulatwa, which is bonding with the kula and emotional attachment to the members of the kula, in the former narrative, it is considered to be moha, therefore morally and spiritually degrading, and useful only for material benefits, whereas in the latter, it is celebrated as a great human value, justified in itself, that is, not for any utilitarian reasons. It’s a value to be cherished, rather than discarded as a human failing.

AADI KAVI SARALA DAS

 

Sarala Das, the fifteenth-century poet, is acknowledged as the “aadi kavi” of Odia literature. “Aadi kavi” is like a title. It literally means “the first poet”. But here, it must not be taken in that sense. It means the first major poet. He is the creator of the rich tradition of Odia puranic literature. He composed three puranas, and his “Mahabharata”, popularly called “Sarala Mahabharata”, is the most renowned of them. Hailed as a truly remarkable work, it is a creative retelling of Vyasa’s “Mahabharata”, often referred to as “Vyasa Mahabharata”. It is the first retelling of all eighteen Parvas of Vyasa Mahabharata in any language. And this is the first retelling of the great  Sanskrit classic by a person who does not belong to a high caste.

Incidentally, Sarala Das is credited with composing the first Shakti purana in Odia: “Chandi Purana”. In my opinion, the first Shakti purana in Odia is his “Mahabharata”. It is composed with the “Saraswati bhava” of goddess Sarala (Shakti), which is harmony. Goddess Sarala, the inspiration behind the poet Sarala’s compositions, has a Saraswati aspect (knowledge and harmony) and a Durga (destructive) aspect.

Many are interested in Sarala Das, the person. No surprise, because although he is the aadi kavi, very little is known about his life. Friends who know my interest in Sarala Mahabharata, have asked me whether he knew Sanskrit. There is a controversy about where he was born and in which century. It is commonly held that he was born in the fifteenth century in a village called Kanakapura near Jhankad in Jagatsinghpur district. The eminent Odia writer and scholar, Gopinath Mohanty, disagreed. He argued that the poet belonged to the tenth century and that his birthplace was Kania, near Kakatpur in Puri district. Sometimes I have been asked what my view is. I tell them that I have not studied the controversy and have no interest in the matter. So, I go with the popular view.

I have always told those who have asked me about Sarala Das, the person, that the biography of an author is of interest to me only if it helps me to understand his ( her/their) work. But on a rethink, I realized that it is a pedantic response and that the hearer would not be unjustified to think that I was being dismissive, arrogant, and rude. Besides, personal interests apart, there is no good justification for one’s indifference towards the creator but interest in his creations.

So, I decided to mend my ways and be more reasonable and respectful about the questions about Sarala Das, the poet. I looked up whatever I could lay my hands on this subject. The most useful of those was Krishna Chandra Panigrahi’s book “Sarala Das”, published by Sahitya Akademi in 1975. The problem is that there is very little information about him outside of his own works. But one cannot go just by that, because one’s statements about oneself are, to a considerable extent, determined by the value system prevalent at that time. These days, self-promotion is socially acceptable, except when it reduces to bragging. But bragging by the powerful has to be accepted. This has been so all along. But in Sarala’s time, self-promotion by an ordinary person was, in all probability, unacceptable. So, what Sarala says about himself may not be the truth. But, as mentioned above, there is no strong independent evidence available, as of now, to determine to what extent Sarala’s observations about himself are reliable.

Sarala was born in the mid-fifteenth century into a farming family, and his name at birth was Siddheswara Parida. His family was not poor, but nowhere near rich. He was called a “paika (foot soldier)”; so, he must have learned some warfare. His father’s name was Yasovanta and his elder brother’s, Parasurama. Sarala says he was uneducated. He had no formal education. There is no evidence that he went to school. He could be said to be half-educated at best. Much of what he knew, he had learned on his own. It is difficult to believe that he did not know Sanskrit, unless one accepts his assertion that goddess Sarala was the real author of his works. Sarala says that he was a cultivator by profession and that he was a “sudra (low caste)”. In those days, “sudra” might have meant “non-brahmins” (and perhaps “non-kshatriyas”).

He depended on his paddy fields for his living. In his Chandi Purana, he says that he used to plough his paddy fields even in his old age. In “Drona Parva” in his Mahabharata, he says that he had children and grandchildren. To differentiate himself from the bhahmin “munis”, he seems to have called himself a Sudra muni. In those days, the word “muni” probably meant a “sage” or a “composer of religious texts”. So, he was a “sudra muni” in the latter interpretation of the word. He says that it was the goddess Sarala, not any human being, who conferred on him the title of “sudra muni”. He dedicated his writings to the goddess. In his Mahabharata, he says that the goddess Sarala was the creator of that work and that he was the scribe. It is said that this was his strategy to protect himself from the hostility of brahmins. It is not quite convincing, in our opinion, because he made himself open to being attacked for making the claim indirectly that the goddess specially favoured him.

There is no evidence to show that he had received any royal favour. Kalicharan Pattnaik, the well-known twentieth-century literary artist, who has also contributed much to the development of the theatre in Odisha, says in his dramatic presentation of Sarala’s life, in his play “Sarala Das”, that the great poet had received recognition from King Kapilendra Deba. But this is creative writing, where fiction is presented as fact and in the absence of proper evidence, it cannot be taken as fact. There is no evidence at all that Sarala became rich at a later stage of his life, which would have been the case if he had received royal recognition.

There is hardly any reliable information about the circumstances of his death. Sarala was not cremated, but buried, like a muni, in the “sage” sense of the term. It is possible that in his village, he was taken,  towards the end of his life, as a sage-like person. Or, he might have taken samadhi voluntarily.

It may appear surprising that so little is known about Sarala Das, despite his being regarded as the aadi kavi of Odia literature and as an important symbol of Odia identity. For one thing, he did not have followers, unlike Jagannath Das and other saint-poets (bhakta poets), who were together called the “Panchasakhas” of Odia literature. No “matha ( Hindu monastery)” or institution perpetuates him.  He performed no miracles, and no miraculous happening was associated with him. It is, therefore, unsurprising that Sarala did not have followers. This shows that he lived like an ordinary man and had not become a guru (a religious preacher). Today, very few public institutions in Odisha are named after him. Except recently, there does not seem to have been any strong demands made to the State urging it to take some affirmative action to honour him. As the senior linguist and academic Biswamohan Pradhan observed (personal communication), the spelling of the aadi kavi’s name has not been standardized.  

Probably after his death, people made copies of his Mahabharata on palm leaves, and later, palm-leaf copies were made of these copies. The greatest tribute to his masterpiece, in my opinion, was Jagannath Das’s Mahabharata, which is a commendable creative work. Jagannath Das is revered as the author of Srimad Bhagabata, the celebrated sacred text. Now, let us refer to his Mahabharata as “Jagannath Das Mahabharata”. Barely six decades separate Sarala Das and Jagannath Das. Some assert that Jagannath Das is not the author of this work. Someone else composed it and used his name as its author. We do not know for certain whether this assertion has any merit. We require a thorough and detailed linguistic analysis of this composition to respond meaningfully to this assertion. For the present, let us grant, for the sake of argument, that the authorship issue is real. But one thing is certain: it was composed during the puranic age. Broadly speaking, this work can be described as a retelling of Sarala Mahabharata in the well-known “nabakshari” form of Srimad Bhagabata. Now, isn’t it a huge tribute to the work that it inspired a retelling of it?

Sarala Das was not alive to see this beautiful thing happening to his truly remarkable work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ON GOING TO SWARGA ALIVE (SAME EVENTS, DIFFERENT NARRATIVES, DIFFERENT INSIGHTS)

 

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.

 

 (An earlier version of this piece was published in Samachar Just Click under the title"ONLY ONE Person Reached Heaven Alive and It Wasn't Who You Think!)

 

BHIMA AND KRISHNA: A RELOOK

 

Different from each other in a hundred ways, Bhima and Krishna share one personality trait in Sarala Mahabharata, which is a remarkably  creative retelling in Odia, in the fifteenth century, of Vyasa Mahabharata. It is this: neither can be contented.

In different respects, though!

 

Insatiable, says the poet Sarala, was Bhima’s hunger for a fight, for food, for sleep and for sex. He was simple and guileless, and pronouncedly sensuous. Wild, full of superhuman energy, and lacking in patience, this son of god Pavana (Wind) would, often thoughtlessly, jump into a fight. If he was fighting, he loved to feel his adversary’s blood in his hands. Unlike Arjuna, he hated his adversary, once he got into fighting . Think of what he did to Kichaka for coveting Draupadi – he killed him with such violence that Kichaka’s body looked like a lump of flesh! The brutal way he killed Dussasana was certainly not required by the oath he had taken in the Kaurava court to kill him. 

Now, killing the enemy from a distance with an arrow was not for him. But archery was rated most highly in the world of Sarala Mahabharata, in fact in all versions, in any language, of the ancient story of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Bhima’s mother knew that he would never be adept at archery because he lacked intelligence and concentration. He proved her eminently right. The preceptor Drona once set up an archery test for his pupils. One, lacking in concentration and focus, would not be able to hit the target and the archer had to do it in his first attempt; there would not be a second chance for him. Bhima failed miserably. He could be easily provoked and once provoked, he lost his sense of discrimination. Once, when his mother Kunti showered abuses on Krishna in the language most foul, he could not stand the words and raised his mace to hit her. Krishna’s intervention saved Kunti. Later, in a fit of rage, he slapped the severed, living head of Belalasena, his son, to his death because he did not support his claim he made in front of his brothers, Kunti, Draupadi, Subhadra and Krishna that he was sole architect of the Pandavas’ victory in the Kurukshetra War. For Bhima, it was an act of betrayal of him by his son and he hit him hard. It was another matter that whereas Bhima stood disgraced, Krishna gave his son moksha (liberation – from the karmic cycle, the cycle of life and death). Violence was ingrained in Bhima’s nature; in fact, it defined him best. On this account, both his mother and his elder brother, Yudhisthira, the embodiment of dharma, considered him dusta (wicked) and sometimes scolded him, calling him dusta.

His craving for food was well known. To just give one example, when his mother sent him to the asura (demon), Baka, with a huge amount of tasty food of many varieties that the villagers had cooked for the asura, he was secretly happy. In the forest he had eaten roots and fruits for too long. He was longing for cooked food. He was already gulping the food when the asura came. The demon showered blows on him, but he kept eating unaffected by the asura’s blows and abuses, and dealt with him only after he had consumed the entire food. What happened to Baka is not difficult to guess.

As for his sexual conduct, from one point of view it was above reproach since not even once in the narrative, did he cast a lustful look at a woman who was not his wedded wife. His hunger for sex was with respect to Draupadi alone. He had wild sex with his first wife, the asuri woman (demoness), Hidimbaki, but he lived with her only for a short time. But one could say that what would count as wild in the case of a human, would be natural in the case of a demoness. As for Draupadi, he could never have enough of her. She found his craving for sex with her unacceptable and his love-making difficult to cope with. She had to complain to her other husbands and they worked out a moral code of living with her. As for his sleeping habit, Sarala says nothing. A reader of Sarala Mahabharata would have hardly associated long sleep with him, had Sarala not said in so many words that he could never have sleep up to his satisfaction. There are no episodes in Sarala Mahabharata that bring out Bhima’s craving for sleep.

This rare lapse in narration may be because Sarala’s concern was not really Bhima in his narrative. He wasn’t interpreting him for his audience across centuries. It was Krishna, who he was concerned with;  he was sharing his understanding of the Avatara with them. To understand the Avatara and the nature of divine intervention in the affairs of the mortals was Sarala’s real purpose. Bhima’s story provided a contrast and in a way served the balancing function in this discourse on Bhima and Krishna.

 To turn to Krishna now. Warning Duryodhana about Krishna’s nature, said Sakuni to him: “danena atriputi je manena atriputi / bhagate atriputi je jnanena atriputi (not content with (ritual) giving, not content with honour / not content with devotion, not content with deep wisdom or transcendental knowledge)” – one cannot satisfy him with gifts, honour, devotion or knowledge. However much one gives him these things, it would always be inadequate.  

Krishna had gone to the Kaurava court as Yudhisthira’s emissary. There he told king Duryodhana that in order to avoid war with him, all the Pandavas wanted was just five villages. Duryodhana flatly refused. He wouldn’t give anything to the Pandavas, he said. Born of the gods, they did not belong to the Kuru family and being thus outsiders to the family, they had no right to the kingdom. Later, outside the court, in private, Bhishma told him in that it would not be right to send Krishna empty-handed; so, he should give two, if not five, villages to the Pandavas. Duryodhana relented and was willing to go by Bhishma’s advice.

This was where Sakuni said about Krishna’s nature as mentioned above. As for Bhishma, for Sakuni too, giving the Pandavas was actually giving Krishna. Duryodhana must not give Krishna anything in order to please him. He simply could not be pleased (danena atriputi). He told him about king Bali. Appearing as a dwarf at the jajna (fire sacrifice) king Bali was performing, Narayana told the great asura king that he came from a very poor family and asked him for a small piece of land in which he would perform his religious rituals - all the land he required was whatever would be covered by three steps of his. Bali thought that the dwarf didn’t know how little he was asking for. He asked him to ask for a great deal more as dana (ritual gift), but the Dwarf avatara wanted nothing more than three steps of land. Bali’s preceptor Sukracharya warned Bali that the dwarf was Narayana Himself and he had arrived to deprive him of all his possessions and power. Bali wouldn’t listen; a dwarf is a dwarf, his steps are small, so how would it matter if the guru was right that that he was Narayana Himself? But when the time to give dana came, the dwarf’s foot was no longer a dwarf’s foot. Bali was the lord of the bhuloka (earth) and the higher lokas (worlds) as well. In his two feet the Dwarf covered all that. When the third foot emerged from his navel, Bali offered his head to him and Narayana despatched him to the Netherworld. The great Bali perished because he wanted to fulfil Narayana’s demand, said Sakuni to Duryodhana. Krishna was the same Vamana, he told him, and had come to dispossess him of everything that he had. He advised him to give Krishna nothing at all. If he gave him just one village instead of two, he would absorb the entire universe of space in that one village, like what Vamana had done, and Duryodhana would be left with nothing to even stand on. So Duryodhana must abandon all thought of pleasing Narayana with a gift of two villages.

The wise Bhishma intervened and told Sakuni that his narrative was incomplete; so, his conclusion, wrong. After sending him to the patala loka, Narayana made Bali the king there, where he was like Indra of the swarga loka in every respect. Not just that. He Himself left his own abode and stayed with him for his love for him. But all this made no impression on Duryodhana; quite understandable, one would think. Who would sacrifice his today for his tomorrow, especially when he has wealth, power and status!

So, Bhima and Krishna were similar in just one respect, but unpack that similarity and you find a great difference. Bhima’s discontent was with respect to his bodily cravings. He couldn’t get certain pleasures to the level of his satisfaction. In Sarala Mahabharata, it is unclear whether Narayana wanted anything from anyone: dana, mana, bhakti or whatever else. The gods, the humans and the demons gave him things on their own, not knowing that one cannot please him by giving him anything whatever - this is all that this celebrated narrative by Sarala Das says. In the spirit of our ancient knowledge, all we can say is the following: He is not pleased if you worship Him, He is not displeased if you do not worship Him. He is not pleased if you pray to him and sing his mahima (glory); he is not displeased if you abuse him. Then what remains for us to do? Witness his leela perhaps? At least  that’s what I think poet Sarala says to his listeners and readers across centuries in his Mahabharata, popularly known as Sarala Mahabharata.     

Note:

Vyasa Mahabharata is about nara (the humans), whereas Sarala Mahabharata is about narayana ( Supreme god Narayana); Vyasa Mahabharata is about dharma (virtuous living), whereas Sarala Mahabharata is primarily about moksha and secondarily about dharma. This is what I understand. 

17.5.25