HOW THE GAME OF DICE BEGAN

His brothers had gone with Krishna to Dwarika, and Yudhisthira was in Varunavanta with mother Kunti and wife, Draupadi. All of a sudden, as it were, he felt a strong desire to go to Hastinapura and meet Dhritarastra, his father’s elder brother, bada baapaa (“elder father”), as one would say in Odia ( the new spelling of "Oriya"). It is not incorrect to say “all of a sudden” for two reasons: one, Sarala’s narrative does not seem to support any other interpretation; for example, a fairly realistic one such as the following: Yudhisthira always wanted, almost longed, to go there and meet the family elders and brothers (Duryodhana and his brothers were “brothers”, not “cousins”, to him), but he knew that his own brothers would neither like to visit Hastinapura, nor let him to go there alone. In any case, his elders would never consider it normal if he went there leaving his brothers behind, and he would have to explain their absence. Now his brothers’ fortuitous absence in Varunavanta offered him a great opportunity, and he wanted to seize it. The second reason for “all of a sudden” is that it is in tune with the philosophy of Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata: things happen because they are destined to happen; an appropriate environment gets formed in order that the pre-ordained takes place.

In all humility Yudhisthira paid his respects to Dhritarastra, and told him that he had come alone because his brothers had gone with Krishna. The elder father welcomed him most warmly. He told him that he himself was a sinful person, and so were his sons: quarrelsome, and wicked, and such offspring as them were threat to the family line. He wished he had one virtuous son like him, he told Yudhisthira, and not those hundred wicked ones that he had. He implored his nephew to forgive Duryodhana, always, no matter how vile he was, and how often he wronged him. Yudhisthira chided him for being so unfair to Duryodhana, and told him that he valued him as a brother more than he did Bhima. The blind, old, former king of Hastinapura felt reassured, and said as much to Yudhisthira.

The poor old father had understood that his sons had no chance at all against the Pandavas, in the event of a conclusive fight between them. He was particularly scared of Bhima, who, he knew, hated his sons as intensely as they hated him, and who, he believed, could finish off all of them. He was also aware that it was Yudhisthira alone who could control the tempestuous Bhima. That was the main reason why he was so generous in his words of welcome to the eldest Pandava. One must not, however, be unfair to him; he was not unkind to his nephew, and his words of welcome were not totally insincere. In any case, he knew that Yudhisthira was his sons’ most effective shield against their destruction.

After the greetings were over, Dhritarastra asked Yudhisthira to go to the Kaurava court. He went there and paid his obeisance to Bhishma, Drona, Karna, Shalya, Sakuni, Bhurishrva, and other venerable elders. Apart from king Duryodhana everyone received him warmly.

The court was not engaged in any particularly serious business. There must have been a lazy atmosphere in the court. Sakuni looked disinterested and aloof, like one who had nothing to do. He was sitting alone at a corner, and was rolling dice, playing against himself as it were, something a compulsive player of dice would tend do when without a playmate, or when fighting a sense of boredom. He seemed to be neither hoping nor expecting any one to join him to play a game or two. No one in the court was paying him any attention.

Now Yudhisthira had paid his due respects and courtesies to all, and the main purpose of his coming had been served. He must have felt relaxed and happy - the feeling one has when with people one is fond of. He had a strong liking for dice, and the sight of dice cubes rolling must have been irresistible for him. He knew, as did everyone else, that Sakuni was an excellent dice player, who really enjoyed playing it – on the whole the kind of person a connoisseur would like to play with.

Yudhisthira directly went to him, and most warmly asked him if he would like to play a game or two with him. “Shall we have a game of dice, Uncle”, he said. And without waiting for a response, he took out a piece of chalk from his waist wear, and started drawing out the patterns for the game on the floor. He surprised everyone in the court with his enthusiasm.

Now quite unexpectedly and uninvited, Duryodhana came and asked his uncle, Sakuni, to move, so that he could play. Yudhisthira had no objection, not that Duryodhana sought his permission. Yudhisthira and Duryodhana sat facing each other, and Sakuni sat between them. “What shall we wager”, Yudhisthira asked him. In response, Duryodhana took off the ornaments on his body, and staked them as the wager. Yudhisthira thought it was reasonable wager, and took off the ornaments from his body. Then Duryodhana told Sakuni, sitting in the middle, that he would be the witness in the game, and also that he should cast the dice for them both – they would each mention a number and he would roll the dice, an arrangement that Yudhisthira had no objection to. Unlike in the canonical version of the narrative, here in Sarala’s, Sakuni was not rolling the dice on behalf of Duryodhana alone. When the game was about to begin, the idea of exploiting the situation to take revenge on Duryodhana occurred to Sakuni. He had realized long back that he would succeed in his secret mission of destroying Duryodhana comprehensively only by setting him against the Pandavas. He realized that the game of dice would be the chance of a lifetime for him. He invoked special powers to come to his help. Unknown to both the players, their witness, who they believed would be fair to them, had decided to betray their trust. When Duryodhana called a number and won, and Yudhisthira called a number and lost, neither suspected foul play. The former thought he was lucky, the latter thought he was not.

Thus in Sarala’s story, robbing Yudhisthira of his property, kingdom, etc. through the game of dice was not pre-planned. Leave alone any carefully hatched conspiracy by Sakuni and Duryodhana, there never was even any talk between them in this regard. Just as the brothers of Yudhisthira were not keen to visit Hastinapura, Duryodhana was not keen to meet them either. No one had invited Yudhisthira to come to Hastinapura and play a game of dice. Then if Duryodhana came to play with him, it was not because of any prior arrangement between Sakuni and him. It was a spontaneous decision on his part. It is possible that he decided to play in order to make it a game between kings, and thereby turn it into a more exciting event. It is also possible that since the atmosphere in the court was dull, and he felt bored, he might have wanted some relaxation. As for the wager, the idea was not his; it was Yudhisthira’s. It is unclear why he brought in the wager idea; it is possible he did so in order to make the game much more exciting. It was this wager that transformed the game into gambling, and it became the cause of all the terrible things that happened that day. Without it they would have played a few games, Duryodhana would have got tired of it all, sooner or later, since he was not a connoisseur, and at the end of the day Yudhisthira would have happily returned home.

This said, one probably should not blame Yudhisthira for all the outrageous things that happened that day, which eventually led the Kauravas and the Pandavas to the battlefields of Kurukshetra. What he did was natural to him: visiting his elders, inviting his maternal uncle to play with him, looking forward to an exciting game of dice, etc. None of these can count as impeachable conduct. He indeed did surprise the court, as the poet put it, when he happily started drawing out the patterns for the game on the floor. What the court might have found somewhat odd could be his enthusiasm, or over-enthusiasm, considering the quiet and composed person that he was, but it is understandable. He was happy after meeting his elders, and others, and might have wanted to play a game or two to amuse himself. In any case, his enthusiasm for the game would hardly constitute a good reason to censure him. He did introduce the gambling element into the play, but that would again hardly constitute justification for censure. His intentions were not mean; he did not covet things that Duryodhana had, and did not want to acquire the same through some devious means. Incidentally, there is nothing in the narrative to suggest that Duryodhana’s intentions with respect to Yudhisthira’s possessions were any different. As for gambling itself, it does not appear to have been stigmatized as unethical or undignified then. Yudhisthira was also not the kind of person who would have done something that would have lowered the prestige and the dignity of the great Kaurava court. In any case, if gambling were considered unethical or improper practice, then it would not have been allowed in the august royal court itself in the first place; there would have been voices of protest from the elders. It would be entirely wrong to think that the court was silent because of fear for Duryodhana; Bhishma, Drona, Bhurishrava were not the ones to keep quiet for fear of the king. But more than that, it must not be forgotten that wager was not Duryodhana’s idea at all. At one stage during the game, when Yudhisthira had lost all his jewelry, Bhishma did intervene to caution Yudhisthira; he advised him to stop playing because he had lost so much. His grounds were practical, not ethical.

The beginning of the game of dice brings out an important aspect of Sarala’s belief system, namely that things happen because they are destined to happen. There is a proverb in Odia, which is as follows: daiba daudi manisa gaai, jeniki otaari teniki jaai (“Destiny is the rope and the human is a cow, wherever it pulls him, he goes (there)”). The gambling episode is certainly one of the most emphatic pieces in Odia literature that illustrates it.

WHEN BHISHMA AND ARJUNA FACED EACH OTHER IN THE BATTLEFIELD

The Kurukshetra war had already started. Bhishma had assured Duryodhana that he would kill the Pandavas in the war. Yudhisthira had gone to the Kaurava side to seek the blessings of the elders, and Bhishma, Drona, Bhurishrava, Kripacharya, Aswasthama and Karna had each blessed him to win the war. Duryodhana’s brother, Durdasa, had changed over to the Pandavas’ side in the battlefield itself, and was engaged in a fierce fight with the Kaurava army as he was protecting Yudhisthira, who was in the enemy’s territory, and was weaponless. Before the eldest Pandava could return to his own army after paying respects to his elders, the war had started.

Bhima had rushed to where Durdasa was fighting, and Arjuna was trying to reach them; he was very worried about Yudhisthira’s safety. That was how he ran into Bhishma, who blocked his way. This was the first time the doting grandfather and the devoted grandson met after the Pandavas’ return from vanavasa (living in the forest) and ajnatavasa (living incognito). Arjuna paid his respects to him, and in all humility and sincerity prayed to him to use his authority to stop the war. Even after Yudhisthira had decided in favour of war, he was not inclined to fight, more sure than unsure about the immorality of that war. Let us not ask now whether Arjuna had any authority to take any step towards stopping the war, because such questions are meaningless when it comes to peace.

The grand old man expressed helplessness. How would peace be possible with a person who was intent on killing his brothers, and was unconcerned about the adharma of that act, said Bhishma. Therefore instead of thinking of peace with Duryodhana, Arjuna must concentrate on the war and devise a strategy to kill him.

Arjuna was upset. He got down from his chariot and prostrated before him. Bhishma gave him blessings for victory. How could he ever even think of killing him, his grandfather, who with so much loving care had looked after him all along, he asked him. Bhishma said that such feelings were inappropriate at that point of time. If he really did not want to kill his brothers, why did he desire kingdom instead of returning to the forest, he asked. In a family, he continued, there would sometimes be a troublesome person who would bring disgrace and ruin to the family. However, the virtuous would not abandon him, or eliminate him, rather they would find some way to accommodate him. But the wise Pandavas had done the contrary. It was indeed they who had abandoned dharma, coveted kingdom and entered the battlefield against their brothers. If Arjuna was really so fond of his brothers, then he should return to the forest. That would be the acid test of his brotherliness. That would also save the family.

This could be seen not merely as his counsel, but an implicit challenge to his grandson to follow the path of dharma. His words were direct and sounded harsh, but those were well-meaning words, and not at all unloving. Those were the words of a deeply hurt, disappointed and helpless family elder. He too didn’t want war! But he knew that war could be averted only if the Pandavas wanted, since they, unlike Duryodhana, understood dharma, and had the courage to live in accordance with it. And he said all this to Arjuna because he knew that he was a sensitive person, and would understand. It didn’t matter to him that he would, in all probability, not be able to accept his challenge, and meet the demands of peace, indeed, of love.

This was the only time Bhishma told a Pandava what he thought about averting the war. Unlike Arjuna, when Yudhisthira came to him on the Kurukshetra battlefield, he didn’t seek his help to stop the war; he only sought his blessings for victory. He had also asked him how he could be out of their way in order that they win, and he had told him what to do on the tenth day of the war to make him give up fighting. In all this talk, the eldest Pandava did not mention peace. It was Arjuna, who brought up the matter.

Incidentally, if Bhishma’s suggestion brings to mind Sakuni’s to Yudhisthira (see the piece “The Last Proposal to Avoid War” in this blog), his views concerning the problem person in the family reminds one of what the wise Bidura had told Dhritarastra about the infant Duryodhana. He had told him that his eldest son would be the cause of the destruction of the entire family; therefore in the larger interest of the family, he should allow him to kill him. Dhritarastra didn’t. Sons hadn’t come easily to him. Destiny had to be cajoled in the form of intervention by Vyasa, and later Durvasa, so that he, destined to be sonless, had sons. That’s a rather longish story, which we might skip. Besides, how could a father allow the killing of his eldest son, who was an infant then, on the basis of a prediction? Bidura’s fears came true of course, but his attitude came under scrutiny after a long time, in a different context. Bhishma’s words can easily be seen as a severe indictment of the Bidura’s thinking.

Listening to Bhishma, Arjuna was sad; he told his grandfather that he felt guilty. But why didn’t Duryodhana give them just one village, he asked him. There was anguish in his tone. Bhishma evaded the question. What answer could he give? He himself had advised Duryodhana to give at least two villages to the Pandavas, but he didn’t listen to him. He was helpless. But there was no point in saying these things to Arjuna at that point of time, he must have thought.

All he said was that things had been ordained that way, and it was in no one’s power to alter them. It was pointless to talk about giving or not giving. Neither had seeing nor not seeing mattered, he had heard, neither again had not getting. Now not giving would also not matter. He elaborated. Kansa saw and Dasaratha did not; both died. Bali gave; Ravana did not; both met the same end. Kichaka did not get, and he perished, and now, without giving, Duryodhana would meet the same fate.

But if Duryodhana was to perish for not giving, why must Bhishma and others perish, Arjuna asked his grandfather. Well, said Bhishma, things were ordained that way. He had heard that he would die in the war, and he knew that he would. It is here that their exchange ended. There was fighting all around, and the war was closing on them. Soon they too started fighting.

To return to Bhishma’s proposal for peace, it was not formulated within the framework of afterlife or reward in any world. It was not founded on any notion of the spiritual progress of self, spanning over births, or recognition of the illusory nature of the phenomenal world. Bhishma did not deny any of these, but nothing of these would matter for his computation of the right and the wrong, of one must do and what one must not. Rebirth would not bring with it the memory of the previous existences, and one couldn’t be guided by what lay beyond one’s awareness. For Bhishma relationships were real, and they mattered; bonds were real, and precious; and dead bodies on the battlefield were real too. A life of dharma would not discount these; on the contrary it would be crucially founded on these. That is why, for Bhishma, sacrifice of the interests of the self became so necessary for the adamant, uncooperative, and ignorant other in a relationship.

And what a metaphor to express a fusion of two profound ideas: no shastras or puranas, but one’s sense of discrimination, and understanding of dharma alone can be one’s guide to choose the right course of action for oneself, and one’s courage to pursue it enables one to work in accordance with it At the same time, one has no control over the consequences of one’s action, and the action and its consequence may lack logic and intelligibility. One followed dharma and gave, another committed adharma and did not give, but the result was the same for both. Did the great Bhishma mean to say that pursuing family dharma and renouncing the kingdom for Duryodhana might not necessarily yield positive results for the Pandavas, but that would be no reason for them to abandon the path of dharma? Perhaps he did. Incidentally, in Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata there is no exemption from right action; here Krishna does not give any assurance that he would protect one, who had surrendered to him, from the consequences of one’s action.

Krishna had kept quiet throughout the exchange. It wasn’t in his nature to remain silent when the talk around him was subversive with respect to what he wanted. He wanted war. So how could he remain a passive listener to that exchange? He probably thought that at that stage there was no need for him to intervene, when the language of peace had lost all meaning. He knew that nothing concrete would emerge from all that talk between those two conscientious, and sensitive persons, who nevertheless were too ineffective to change the course of events. They were only letting out their sense of disappointment and feeling of guilt. In that delicate moment they should be left to themselves.

Besides, their talk was their family-internal matter. He was an outsider. He was no one’s emissary any more. In the battlefield he was a charioteer, and he must behave in accordance with the charioteer’s maryaadaa (dignity): it was entirely inappropriate for him to intervene in a matter that did not concern him in that specific role.

But is it also possible that Narayana knew what kind of a nara (human) Bhishma was; Bhagawan knew what kind of a bhakta (devotee) the son of Ganga was. The Kaurava elder was an authentic person, a person of great integrity, who lived a life of dharma. And Krishna knew how to respect him.

THE LAST PROPOSAL TO AVOID WAR

In Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata it came from Sakuni. On the eve of the Kurukshetra war. Duryodhana had sent him to the Pandavas with the message that they must come to the battlefield and together with Sakuni, work out which side of the battlefield which army would take for camping. Sakuni was not supposed to offer any proposal to the Pandavas to avoid the war. But that was what he did. First he gave them Duryodhana’s message. Then he said that there was indeed an alternative to war: Yudhisthira must return to the forest with his brothers.

To make his point he then told Yudhisthira a story. Once upon a time there was a woodcutter in a small town named Kamapura near the river Krishnaveni. His name was Melaka. He was lazy and ignorant. All he did was bring home some dry wood, and his wife would go out and sell it. They had no children. He had acquired no other skill. Forty years passed in this way.

Once it rained heavily for a couple of days. It wouldn’t stop. Melaka couldn’t go out to collect wood, and the husband and the wife starved. When the weather improved, she shouted at him and asked him to go out and do something. The fellow went out with his axe, stretched himself on a temple platform and went off to sleep. He woke up in the evening when the conch was blown at the temple.

He was very worried. He had gathered nothing, and it was already evening. The very thought of facing his wife frightened him. It was getting dark, there was no one around, and it was very quiet. He went inside the temple. There were three idols: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. He threw the wooden idol of Vishnu on the floor and raised his axe to cut it to pieces. The wood would support him for some three or four days, he figured out.

Vishnu materialized. How could you think of cutting me to pieces, you ignoramus, he asked. Unafraid, Melaka told him that he had nothing to eat, and that if he was really Vishnu, could he provide him some food till that spell of heavy rains was over, he begged of him. Vishnu readily granted his prayer. When the rains were over, there was no more free food. So the lazy man used the same strategy on Vishnu, and this time when he appeared, he wanted him to provide him food as long as he lived. Vishnu agreed out of fear. Soon Melaka became prosperous and his status in the town improved.

Now he had a neighbour called Ananta. He was a man of virtue, but was poor. His wife, Lilavati, and Melaka’s wife were friends. Lilavati grew jealous of her friend. She would shout at her husband, insult him, hold him responsible for their miserable existence, and would occasionally threaten to leave him. If that lazy man, her friend’s husband, could manage his affairs so well, why couldn’t he, she would ask him. He asked her to find out from her friend how her husband had come to do so well.

Having found out the secret of his prosperity, one day Ananta went to the same temple. He picked up the stone idol of Shiva, and raised his axe. Now Shiva materialized in a terrible form. How dared he attempt to attack him, he asked, and told him that he would tear him to pieces. Ananta was greatly unnerved, but could still manage to ask him why he was so angry with him when Narayana was so generous to Melaka in an identical situation.

Then Shiva told him that Melaka was an ignoramus, a lazy person; he lacked understanding and a sense of the right and the wrong. But he, Ananta, was not like that. He was honest and knowledgeable; he had a sense of discrimination. So they both could not be dealt with in the same way. Gods fear those who have an undeveloped conscience, who have no inner growth, but they are not afraid of the knowledgeable, who have a well-developed moral sense. Shiva told him that Melaka would suffer in hell, but he, who had looked after the needy, and had lived a pious life, would be reborn as a saadhu, a pious person. Ananta put the idol in the proper place and returned home. He told his wife that he just couldn’t break the idol; he got terribly scared. He was not going to make another attempt, he told her, even if they were to die of starvation.

After death, Melaka and Ananta met the same fate as Shiva had said - Melaka suffered in hell, and in his next birth, Ananta was the pious king of Kashi.

Now, Duryodhana was like Melaka, and he was like Ananta, Sakuni told Yudhisthira. How could he do something so sinful? He was renowned to be a man of virtue; how would he fight a war to kill his brothers, he asked him. He might suffer in this life, but would have a life of bliss in the next. He should not give in to anger, desire for power, hatred and violence. He should reject war, and return to forest.

Yudhisthira’s reply was sharp. During his vanavasa (period of forest dwelling) he had traveled from arka tirtha (Konarka) to himagiri (the Himalayas), and there was probably no tirtha (place of pilgrimage) that he did not visit, he told Sakuni. He said he knew him well, and knew that he never wanted the Pandava and the Kaurava brothers to have good relations. Now, instead of asking him to go back to the forest, he should persuade Duryodhana to go for vanavasa for a while, and let the Pandava brothers rule the kingdom during his vanavasa. The poet doesn’t say anything about how Sakuni felt and what all he thought.

He of course did not fail to see that Yudhishthira was uncharacteristically harsh. Speaking ironically to one’s elder and kin is showing disrespect to him. This is probably the only example in Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata when Yudhisthira spoke ironically to anyone. He thought Sakuni was trying to exploit him – what else does the devil have in mind when he quotes scriptures?

It didn’t even occur to him that his uncle Sakuni could be honest. During this episode Sakuni told him that he did not really know him; Sahadeva did – he hinted that the youngest Pandava was aware of his compulsions, and his real goals. Yudhishthira didn’t ask him to elaborate, or to clarify himself a bit. He ignored his words; they surely made no sense to him. One’s perspective is limited by the stereotypes of knowledge one has constructed from one’s past experiences. Even Yudhishthira, the living embodiment of dharma on earth, was no exception.

Sarala’s – the poet who is sometimes believed to be deeply inspired by the Buddhist thought - Sakuni provides the ultimate argument for peace: there is no road to real peace through violence, and total commitment to rejection of violence would mean choosing to sacrifice the self at the decisive moment. The wise, loving, and non-violent Yudhishthira (whose non-violent and considerate nature had once upset his mother because in her view these were not the qualities that a king should have) did not opt for peace. He didn’t even care to give it a thought because it came from the one who in his eyes was an unworthy person. Like any ordinary person he believed that it is the source that matters, not the thing.

Besides, there probably were other things in his mind at that time. They had almost just returned from twelve years’ stay in the forest, and one year’s stay incognito. It had been a hard life. He was in no mood to return to the forest. He didn’t want a kingdom, didn’t want even his own kingdom back, if the war could be averted that way. He just wanted two, if not two, only one, village. But it was never nothing. He never talked of returning to the forest. Besides he knew he wouldn’t have his brothers’ and Draupadi’s support - for many reasons, including avenging Draupadi’s humiliation. His brothers knew that the time for this had come.

Except Yudhishthira, no one really wanted to avert the war, although it must be said in all fairness that only a few were looking forward to it. But even he was not committed to total and unqualified rejection of violence. And he didn’t ever think in terms of renunciation. His concept of a virtuous life did not include it. He had never renounced anything.

This apart, he was not the one who worked for reward in afterlife, whether in heaven or in the subsequent birth. He was the only one in the narrative who left the world of the mortals without undergoing death. But he never worked for it. It was neither his aspiration nor his goal. In fact, afterlife, rebirth, etc. were not part of his language. All this was characteristically Krishna’s language, also the sages’ language – Agasti’s or Vyasa’s, for instance, and occasionally, Sakuni’s, and a few others’ too. But never Yudhisthira’s, or for that matter, Bhishma’s, Drona’s or Karna’s. Whatever their beliefs about rebirth, these great men lived their days as though there was only one life to live. They did not allow thoughts and concerns about afterlife to govern their present. A generous, deeply conscientious, and scrupulously honest person, Yudhishthira did his best to live a life of righteousness. There was no compensation he sought in the form of reward, if not here, elsewhere. A “gain-hereafter” argument was unlikely to impress him.

Peace sometimes demands self-denial, renunciation. That was the essence of Sakuni’s proposal; that was also his challenge to Yudhisthira, the one believed to be the very embodiment of dharma. He chose to brush it aside.
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THE GURUS OF THE ABADHUTA

The great abadhuta (“ascetic”) told the celebrated king Yadu that he had twenty-four gurus (“preceptors”). They were not all humans; among them were natural objects such as the ocean, the sky and the tree, non-human animates such as the bees, the python, and a certain dove, and then the humans – ordinary humans, not great leaders of men or scholars or saints. The episode of the abadhuta occurs in Srimad Bhagavata (and in Jagannatha Das's Bhagabata). It is mainly about the knowledge of life that helps one to rise above the feelings of sorrow, anger, pleasure, etc. that day-to-day life brings. One loses one’s sense of balance in the periods of happiness and of sorrow as well. And both happiness and sorrow are temporary; when one is happy, one does not realize that happiness is short-lived, and when one is sad, one does not realize that sorrow is also temporary.

It is not possible to mention here what all the abadhuta learnt from each of his gurus. So we will touch on what he learnt from just a few of them. From the sea he learnt indifference to gain and loss. During the rains rivers bring more water to the sea, and during summer, water dries up, but the sea neither swells nor shrinks in these seasons. From the tree he learnt what it means to give. The tree gives whatever it has – flowers, fruits, shade, etc. – to whoever wants it, without considering whether he is deserving or not. From wind he learnt a certain kind of detachment. Wind is both inside the body and outside, serving it in many ways including removing smell. It is in and around every body, but is not owned by any particular body. From the python he learnt how to be content with whatever comes one’s way. It consumes whatever it gets, and starves if it gets nothing. From the thief of honey, he learnt how it is a way of the world that someone else takes away the fruit of someone’s hard labour. The bees work hard at extracting honey, but do not consume it themselves. They save it, and then the honey thief comes, smokes the bees, and takes away the honey. In this regard the bee is like the miser who works day and night, denies himself and others the simple pleasures of life in order to save money, and then loses it to a thief. From the dove he learnt about the undesirability of excessive attachment to one’s family, and from the daughter of a certain brahmin, the fact that congregation of many people merely leads to unpleasantness and quarrel. Certain events in the lives of the dove and the girl led the abadhuta to these insights. These events are described in the form of little stories in Srimad Bhagavata. We need not go into the details here.

The abadhuta changes our idea of a guru. None of these twenty-four teachers of him taught him directly, including the human teacher, the girl or the honey thief. None of them knew that he was learning from them. Some of them merely existed, some like the python lived out their lives in accordance with their nature, and some like the dove, the honey thief, and the girl chose to do what they did. The abadhuta did not exist, as far as each of his twenty-four gurus were concerned. Therefore they could hardly be called gurus. But for him, they indeed were his gurus, because he learnt from them.

He reminds us of Eklavya of the Mahabharata who called Dronacharya his guru, who indeed had refused to teach him. Eklavya practiced archery in his name, and acquired the skills. When the occasion arrived, he showed Drona that in archery he exceeded the Kaurava and the Pandava princes who he taught every day. Although self-taught, he had the humility and the sense of gratitude to call Drona his teacher because he had received inspiration from him. Drona of course was completely unaware of this.

Unlike Eklavya, the abadhuta had no way of expressing gratitude to his gurus. He never met his human teachers, to whom alone he could have told what they meant to him. He could do that only when he met someone like the great king Yadu, who was willing to listen. There is another difference between Eklavya and the abadhuta; the former learnt a skill, and the latter, the knowledge of life and of the world, with which he transcended the world. Each got what he sought.

Consider now the kind of shishya (“learner”) the abadhuta was. It would be saying the obvious if we say that he was a great learner. He had the motivation to learn and the intelligence too, but what was far more important was that he had an alert and completely receptive mind that richly responded to things around him, especially the unspectacular, unobtrusive, and mundane things that would ordinarily escape attention. He reflected on what he saw, and derived meanings from them. His life shows that the knowledge one acquires from experience and reflection is much more important than what one does from texts, when it comes to the knowledge of life.

We must note that he did not learn the affirmative values from every single guru of his; in fact, from most of them he learnt what not to do and what not to be. This shows that both the good and the bad are sources of true knowledge. This also shows that a learner must not decide in advance what to ignore; he must open oneself to everything – from the python to Pingala.

Now, coming to the content of the abadhuta’s knowledge, one might ask why he derived those specific meanings from his experiences. Were those the only meanings that could be derived? Surely not; the sky and the sea might mean other things to others. In general, almost any experience is interpretable in more ways than one. Srimad Bhagabata does not raise this issue in this particular context, probably because it would have arrested the flow of the narrative. But one can construct an answer drawing from another great work, namely, the Bhagavat Gita – putting it very briefly, what one seeks and what one becomes are due to the way one is programmed. A detailed answer is beyond the scope of this piece.

In a different world today, hundreds of years after Srimad Bhagavata was composed, one might ask how to relate to the abadhuta’s quest. One answer could be along the following lines: one cannot learn about the guiding values of life from texts alone; for this, one has to reflect on life as it is lived. And one must be “prepared” to learn in the sense of the abadhuta episode and then one would derive illuminating meanings from everything and from every experience.

Finally, if one wishes to dismiss the abadhuta’s values are hopelessly dated and irrelevant in today’s context, consider the way of living he symbolizes, which can be summarized as follows: live your life but remain unattached - let nothing tie you down emotionally Is there really a better way for living one’s life in harmony with the world and with oneself?

THE STORY OF PINGALA

(Note: This, and the following piece, namely, “The Gurus of the Abadhuta” are not from Sarala's Mahabharata, but the sixteenth century Oriya poet Jagannatha Das’s Bhagabata (better known in a slightly different spelling: Bhagavata).

The story of Pingala in Jagannatha Das’s Bhagabata, written in Oriya in the sixteenth century, is a little different from the original story in Vyasa’s text, but the difference is at the level of detail. This is not surprising: which story in its retold version is the exact copy of the original, even when the story in question is from a sacred text?

Pingala’s story is about the sudden bursting forth of spiritual illumination. Her story is told to king Yadu by abadhuta (roughly, “ascetic”), who regarded as her one of his gurus (“preceptors”). Pingala was a wealthy prostitute who lived in the city of Bidisha. She was surely attractive and accomplished in her profession, although the great abadhuta does not waste words on this aspect of her. Which sacred text would invite attention to the gross for its own sake? Pingala was greedy. One day she met the son of a very rich man, and invited him to visit her that night. She would receive only him that night, she told him.

When the evening came, she dressed herself most attractively and waited for him. Many came to seek her favours, but she turned everyone away. There was just one man in her mind. Night advanced and darkness thickened, but her man hadn’t still arrived. She was getting increasingly impatient, wondering why he wasn’t coming after making the deal with her. With great expectation she would rush to the doorsteps whenever she saw someone passing by, thinking it was her man, and would then return disappointed. This went on till she couldn’t stay inside any longer. She came to her doorstep and waited for him there.

It was past midnight and the pain of waiting was intense and her longing, unbearable.

And then it happened. Suddenly vairagya (roughly, “disinterestedness in worldly desires and pleasures”) arose in her and pervaded her consciousness. Her greed and her longing vanished as though they were swept off by a broom. She looked back on her life and lamented that she had wasted it in ignorance. She regretted all those years she had given in to the enjoyment of her gross body, and that obsessed with greed for wealth, she had sold herself to many, neglecting the dweller, Narayana himself, within.

Then she was filled with a profound sense of divine delight (ananda). She realized how blessed she was, and what a day that was that brought her liberation. She surrendered herself to Krishna and renouncing desires, decided to live the life of an ascetic, and dedicate every moment of her life to him. And as the dawn arrived, she entered the deep forest.

“Pingala is my guru, listen, O King!”, declared the abadhuta, as he concluded his narrative.

Pingala’s story is powerful and inspiring. In fact, all well-told stories dealing with the unconscious development of conscience are. Her story is short, which is appropriate in the specific context in which it occurs: the abadhuta was telling the king who all his twenty-four gurus (among them were not only humans, but also birds and beasts and even the water and the sky) were and what he learnt from each. Besides, the aim of the narrative is not to tell the Pingala’s story in its completeness, but to explicate, in the narrative mould, a powerful spiritual experience within the framework of a sacred text.

In the classical text Pingala did not retire to a forest. Spiritually awakened, she experienced profound composure, and went to sleep. Both the endings – the one in the classical text, and the other in Das’s – reflect different perspectives, and each is satisfying. From the point of the classical text, when one is spiritually awakened, one becomes indifferent to the physical surroundings; one does not relate to the same any more. These lose their earlier meaning and significance, so there is no need to abandon them - the world has no inherent content to it, and it is how one sees it. In contrast, from Das’s perspective, renunciation involves rejection of the existing living environment. The spiritually awakened person needs a supportive ambience in physical terms so that he (or she) continues to remain in that state. The world is not without content, and can be in conflict with or in harmony with one’s inner state, and the goals of life can be best pursued under conditions of such harmony.

Another way of looking at the ending would be to set aside the tatwic (roughly, “philosophical”) aspect and consider the narrative one. Then one might find Das’s ending more appealing. When Pingala entered the dense forest, she moved away from the familiar to the unfamiliar, to a region almost mysterious. This is quite dramatically and romantically executed in Das.

Probably the basic issue in the Pingala episode concerns the nature of her awakening. It was sudden and profoundly regenerative. What caused it? It was her karma, in Das’s version, and also in the original text. She had done something in some past existence of hers (the knowledge of which was obliterated by rebirth), and this was the result – this was how Pingala understood her experience of liberation. There seems to be no hint at all that it was caused by the grace (kripa) of God, and not by her karma, which might appear somewhat remarkable in view of the fact that Srimad Bhagavata is a work that celebrates the glory of Vishnu (Krishna). It would have been entirely in the spirit of it if grace had been brought into Pingala’s story.

Besides, whether or not some pure version of the theory of karma renders a theory of grace irrelevant and entirely dispensable, the fact remains that in the puranic literature, to which category Srimad Bhagavata belongs, the theory of karma and that of grace have both existed, and grace has been conceptualized as interacting with karma. Ahalya, Draupadi, among many others, provide excellent examples.

However, from the perspective of the time of the happening (as distinct from cosmic time), the perspective actually available to both Pingala (whatever she said about her past existence was nothing more than mere assumption) and the narrator, the event does appear to be an emergent – totally unpredictable in its uniqueness from its antecedents. Clearly, this is no resolution, but is the problem itself, needing explanation. Does grace really provide the explanation? It might only appear to be so, but would indeed amount to a mere restatement of the problem in another language, when one considers the logic of receiving grace. From the purans one comes to the conclusion that it is not predictable; there is no course of action that necessarily leads one to receive grace. In terms of Srimad Bhagavata itself, the demoness Putana received grace; did she do a thing for it? Did she ever want it even?

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THE STORY OF MADRI

In Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata, Madri was the daughter of Bhagavana, who was the king of Jyotisapura. Her mother was really a celestial being, an apsara, who had taken birth as a human after being cursed by god Indra for some misdemeanor that Sarala does not care to mention. Apsaras are known for their exceptional beauty, and if the mother was so beautiful, could her daughter have been any less? Besides, whoever has heard of an ugly princess in our puranas?

By the time Madri entered his life, Pandu had abdicated the throne of Hastinapura in favour of his elder brother, Dhritarastra, and was living with his wife Kunti in the forests surrounding the mountain Satasinga. One day Bhagavana, who had gone to the forest to hunt, ran into Pandu, and decided to give his daughter to him in marriage. Thus Pandu came to have a second wife, and thus Kunti shrank into the first wife. Now, if she had ever demurred on matters related to Madri, Sarala does not say anything about it. Nor does he describe the wedding, rather unusual for a narrative of this kind.

Soon Pandu earned that curse which forced him to live a life of abstinence from sex; he was condemned to die if he had sex – during the sex act itself. He was greatly worried that he would die issueless, which was bad from the point of view of his soul’s progress after death.

The sage Agasti (better known as “Agastya”) arrived one day. He told Pandu that he had no cause for worry on that count, because the great sage Durvasa had given Kunti a garland of beads and a mantra through which she could invoke anyone she liked and have a child from him. And her chosen person would never deny her because if he did, he would perish, be he anyone – Brahma or Indra or Vishnu. Agasti said that she should make use of the mantra and beget a child from a god so that the stigma attached to sex with a human out of wedlock would not get attached to her. Then in the manner of telling her about her future, the illustrious Agasti told Kunti that she would have three sons from god Dharma, Pavana, and Indra, and after that she should give the mantra to Madri who would have two sons from Aswini Kumara. He gave a special ointment to Madri with which she could attract Aswini Kumara. He advised Madri to serve Kunti with great sincerity and reverence and Kunti, to be kind to Madri.

The exciting part of Madri’s story starts from here. In due course, with Durvasa’s mantra, Kunti had three sons. One day, pleased with the devotion with which Madri had served her, she decided to reward her. She wouldn’t be childless, she told her, and gave her Durvasa’s garland of beads. She asked her to invoke any god she liked. At nightfall, she dressed her nicely, and Madri, who was naturally stunningly beautiful, looked absolutely gorgeous.

Madri reckoned that her chance had come. Kunti had already had sons from Indra, Pavana, etc. There weren’t more powerful gods than them, so she must think beyond such gods. She decided to invoke Vishnu himself. His son would be more powerful than Kunti’s and Gandhari’s, and would rule the world. And when she invoked Vishnu, Krishna appeared in no time. Except in one episode, in Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata, Krishna and Vishnu have been viewed as non-distinct, with the distinction between the part and the whole erased. In that one episode, as Krishna met Vishnu, who sharply reprimanded him for overstaying in the world, the avatara (“incarnation”) and the avatari (“the one who incarnates himself”) are most emphatically distinguished.

In any case, in Sarala’s narrative, when Krishna appears, drama appears. When Kunti invoked the gods of her choice, they came, and gave her sons and left, as unobtrusively as they had come. It was somewhat different of course when still unmarried, she had invoked the Sun god, more to test, out of curiosity, the efficacy of Durvasa’s mantra than to have a child. He listened to her pleadings, understood her situation and was considerate, but he expressed his helplessness about not having sex with her; he would perish if he didn’t. Durvasa’s mantra could simply not be ineffective. Under the circumstances he helped her as much as he could, the details of which we skip. In any case, even here, there was no spectacle, no drama. But could Sarala have his Krishna appear and disappear in an episode with so little impact? How could he have his Krishna as merely the controlled, and not the controller?

Krishna told Madri that he was devoted to Yudhisthira, as one would be to one’s god. Yudhisthira was the son of the god Dharma, and was himself the very embodiment of dharma. His mother Kunti was thus like the wife of his guru (“preceptor”), and as such like his mother, and given that, Madri too was like his mother. How could the son and his mother have a union, he asked Madri, why didn’t she think of this when she invoked him? Poor Madri, she was nonplussed.

Now from inside Kunti saw Krishna with Madri, and the first thought that occurred to her was that Madri’s son would be more powerful than hers and would therefore rule. When Krishna saw Kunti, he told her about his situation. On the one hand, he was constrained by Durvasa’s mantra, and on the other, he just couldn’t have a sexual relation with his gurupatni (“wife of the guru”), who was like his mother. Kunti then asked Madri to invoke someone else. But Krishna said he couldn’t disobey Durvasa. He would perish if he did. So she should invoke the great sage who alone would find a solution for his predicament.

The sage arrived, and saw Krishna. He told Madri that she had done wrong by invoking Narayana. He didn’t give a reason. It is not clear whether he agreed with Krishna’s argument against sex with Madri or whether he thought that the supreme lord should not have been dragged into such mundane matters as this. He freed Krishna from the obligations imposed on him by his mantra, and asked Madri to think of someone else. Durvasa thus ensured that the moral fabric of a relationship was not violated. But from another point of view, if Krishna didn’t want something, who could thrust it on him?

The episode, unlike any other, brings out a particular aspect of the relationship between the two wives of Pandu: their jealousy of each other, and their one-upmanship attempts with respect to each other. It also brings out their ambitions which would be realized through their children. Kaikeyi of Ramayana was not an individual; she was the eternal queen mother who wanted to see her own child prosper at the cost of others, if it came to that, and who wanted to have her own ambitions fulfilled through her son. In Mahabharata, she was manifest as Gandhari, Kunti, and Madri. It appears that Madri all along had felt that her situation was progressively weakening each time Kunti had a son. Therefore the first thought that came to her when she got the mantra was how to overcome the disadvantages she had with respect to Kunti at one go. For her Kunti was not a benefactor; she was only a rival. And consider Kunti. She gave her the mantra, even dressed her for the hour, but kept awake, and remained alert to see which god would come to oblige Madri. So naturally her immediate reaction on seeing Krishna with Madri was the apprehension that the latter’s son would be more powerful than hers, and would become king. At that moment Madri was not the one who had served her so sincerely, and so well; she was just her rival.

Madri got reconciled to the fact that Narayana would not be available to her. She didn’t suffer; she was very young, and was a simple person. Later one night when Pandu had gone into the forest, she invoked god Aswini Kumara, the Sun god’s son. When he arrived, Madri saw a strikingly handsome god - as handsome as the god Kamadeva (“god of love”), looking resplendent in the jewelry he wore. Madri was very happy with him, and from him she had a son, who his divine father named Nakula.

Soon the ultimate tragedy struck Madri. Kunti with the four children had gone to Hastinapura, leaving Madri behind. It was night. Madri was probably feeling very lonely; very young and a very simple person, she didn’t have the maturity and the strength of mind of Kunti. She was lying on her bed and was missing her husband. Absentmindedly she had picked up Durvasa’s garland of beads, and she was remembering Pandu. Pandu appeared. She was alarmed and asked him why he came to her at that hour of the night. He said he was forced to come since she remembered him with Durvasa’s garland in her hand. Madri contested: she didn’t invoke him. But for Durvasa’s mantra intention did not matter.

In that fateful moment Pandu was aware of his situation and of his impending death. He realized that he was going to die without being able to see his children at the time of his death. Madri resisted him, but he was no more in control over himself. Even gods were incapable of resisting Durvasa’s mantra, and he was a mere mortal. As fate was choking him, he overpowered Madri and forced her into sex. As they consummated the act, an arrow from the skies pierced through Pandu and entered Madri’s chest. Both were killed; however their child survived. This child came to be known as Sahadeva. In his narrative, Sarala makes use of the concept of saindu birth (“birth immediately after the union”), but it need not disturb us. Puranic discourse allowed such unnatural things. There is more to the story of Sahadeva’s birth. But here we are concerned with Madri’s story, not Sahadeva’s.

This is how Madri lived and died. Simple and uncomprehending, she was more like a child than a woman. Despite all her hidden jealousy towards Kunti, she had a certain kind of endearing naivety about her which distinguished her from the other Pandava women. She was in really lucky that she died along with her husband. Had she lived, she would have died a thousand deaths holding herself responsible for her husband’s fate. She didn’t have the maturity and the sense of discrimination to realize that what had happened was an accident, and that far from being the agent, she was a mere tool in the hands of fate.

She died twice. And she evokes sympathy more for her second death than her first. If that arrow gave her her first death, she died her second death on the funeral pyre. She was completely forgotten once her body was reduced to ashes. Her children were beautifully taken care of by Kunti and later by Yudhisthira. They were integrated into the Kunti family as Pandavas. From Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata one does not know whether they ever missed their mother. Madri had simply vanished from the narrative.

HOW THE KURUKSETRA WAR STARTED

Unlike in the classical text, in Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata Arjuna did not ask his charioteer Krishna to drive him to the middle of the battle field where he could have a view of all those people who he had to fight and kill. The Pandava army was frightened to see the terrible form of Bhishma, the supreme commander of the Kaurava army, and on seeing this, Krishna asked Arjuna to attack Bhishma with all his skill and energy. Arujna told him that he would not initiate the fight, because it would be an act of adharma (“unrighteous”) for him. He would fight only after he was attacked. Krishna told him that since Duryodhana had committed the basic adharma by not returning the Pandavas’ share of the kingdom to them, there was no adharma in fighting his forces. He wanted Arjuna to shoot his arrows at Bhishma without hesitation and delay. Arjuna told him that Bhishma, Drona, Aswasthma, Salya, and Karna, among others, were people worthy of his veneration. Besides, Karna, being his elder brother, was like his father, and therefore he could not be the target of his arrows. It is worth noting that in Sarala’s narrative, Pandavas’ relationship with Karna was no secret for them, or anyone else for that matter.

Krishna then asked him to kill Sakuni first, since he was the root cause of this fight between the brothers. Arjuna refused; being all knowing, he, Krishna, was very well aware that Sakuni was the benefactor of the Pandavas and was actually trying to eliminate the Kauravas. Besides, Sakuni was no ordinary person; he was greatly knowledgeable; he knew the past and the future. Therefore he could not kill him either. He must then kill Duryodhana, Krishna said, but Arjuna said that he would not kill his elder brother. Whosoever he could see in the battlefield was related to him, he told Krishna; therefore he was not interested in reclaiming their kingdom at the cost of his relatives. They were quite happy living in the forest, and he would prefer going back there to killing his relatives. He implored him not to force a fight on him.

Krishna was stunned, and wondered what to do to persuade him to overcome his hesitation and get engaged in the battle. However he didn’t tell him a word. He surely might have thought that in the ultimate analysis it wasn’t his problem. The Pandavas must decide; they were the kartaa (roughly “agent”); the war would be their karma. He drove the chariot to Yudhisthira, the head of the Pandava family, and informed him about his brother’s unwillingness to fight.

The profoundly humane person and the great romantic that he was, Yudhisthira told him that Arjuna was right, and that he himself had hesitations to fight his brothers. Bhima was impatient with all this, recalled the humiliation, and injustice that Duryodhana had meted out to them on numerous occasions, and asked Krishna’s permission so that he could start the war and kill Bhishma, Drona and the rest, if Yudhisthira and Arjuna were unwilling to do so. Krishna readily asked him to attack Dussasana. And as Bhima readied himself, Yudhisthira stopped him. He would like to make one last effort, he told them; he would go to Duryodhana in the battlefield itself, and ask him once again for just five villages in one last attempt at avoiding the war. Krishna was skeptical about the outcome.

He got off from his chariot and walked barefoot to the Kaurava side, ignoring the warnings of his worried brothers that it could be dangerous. He went to Bhishma, Bhurishrava, Salya, Drona, Aswasthama, and Krupacharya, and received blessings for victory from each of them. To each he asked how his blessing would materialize, when he was unconquerable in war. To this, each except Aswasthama told him how the war would progress and how he would die. For instance, Bhishma told him that on the tenth day of the war, Yudhisthira should keep Sikhandi in the front, seeing whom, he would give up weapons. Aswasthama told Yudhisthira that the Kaurava army would be defeated since Krishna was on their side. He couldn’t tell the secret of his death, as had done the others, because there was no such secret for him to tell – everyone knew he was immortal. So his blessings would not materialize in terms of his death, but of the death of the Kauravas.

Yudhisthira then went to Karna, and implored him to join the Pandavas. Being their elder brother, he was like their father. He told him that he would be the king and that the Pandavas would serve him. If he stayed with the Kauravas, he would face disaster. Karna blessed him for victory over the enemy, for prosperity and long life, but expressed his inability to abandon Duryodhana, as that would be adharma for him. In desperation, Yudhisthira looked up to the sky and declared as though to the celestials above that he would not be responsible for his elder brother who had abandoned both his own brothers and dharma.

Interestingly, Yudhisthira did not ask Karna about the secret of his defeat and death. Why didn’t he do so? Why this asymmetry? If Karna was father-like, so was Bhishma, so was guru Drona. Yudhisthira had persisted with his grandfather for a clue to his defeat. Was it because he didn’t consider Karna as great a barrier to his aspirations as Bhishma? After all, the grandfather had defeated the great Parasuram. Besides, death could not come to him except with his consent; he enjoyed this protection from the boon of ichchaa mrutyu (“death only when wished for”). Or was it because, for Yudhisthira, the relationship caused by the sharing of the same womb was far deeper than any other?

Yudhisthira went to Duryodhana, who was with Dhritarashtra, and his minister Sakuni. Yudhisthira paid due respects to his uncle and received his blessings for the fulfillment of his desires. There he repeatedly implored Duryodhana to give him just five villages, even of the latter’s choice, or to give him just one village, if giving five or three or two villages was unacceptable to him. But he refused, saying that let alone a village, he would not give him even as much land as the sharp end of a needle would measure, without a fight.

Then Yudhisthira called upon the Kaurava warriors and announced that anyone among them who wished to live and not perish in the war, and who wished to support dharma, should change side and come under his protection. One of the Kaurava princes, Durdasa, responded to the call and along with his army, proceeded to join Yudhisthira, who blessed him for a long life.

Now Durdasa’s conduct upset the Kaurava brothers and they attacked him. Duryodhana ordered his army to attack Yudhisthira, and thus the Kurukshetra war started. Unarmed and defenceless in the enemy territory, Yudhisthira regretted his decision to come to the Kaurava side, ignoring the advice of his brothers. As Durdasa fought valiantly, Yudhisthira prayed to goddess Mangala for protection. Directed by Krishna to protect Yudhisthira, Bhima engaged in the fight and when he fought his way to reach his brother, he found Yudhisthira on Durdasa’s chariot, and Durdasa fighting heroically against the Kaurava army.

Krishna had learnt in the meantime from Hanuman, manifest on the top of Arjuna’s chariot, that Yudhisthira had been surrounded by the Kaurava forces, and he promptly told Arjuna about it. Arjuna was very upset. He implored Krishna to drive him to Yudhisthira, as he apprehended that his brother might be taken prisoner by the enemy. Why should he be anxious, Krishna taunted him, weren’t the Kauravas Yudhisthira’s brothers, he said. Now Arjuna, really worried, asked Krishna not to taunt him and take him to his brother. He said he was ready to join the war.

One might consider it a surprise that Arjuna so quickly got over his hesitations. One might think that his hesitations were rather superficial, and merely sentimental. But perhaps one must rethink it. The change in his attitude was caused by the dynamics of the war. Once the fighting started, the very rawness of it drowned all delicate thoughts and feelings in him, and brought to the surface feelings of fear, anxiety and apprehension for his eldest brother. Yudhisthira was in danger, and at that moment, there was no place for anything in his mind except his brother’s safety.