"What is here is found elsewhere
What is not here is nowhere"(p.xxxi)
The great epic Mahabharatha starts with this seemingly boastful claim of encompassing everything that is within the scheme of nature and character of human beings. Irrespective of the veracity of the claim, one thing can be surely said about it: it is everywhere in the Indian culture and tradition. This epic has deeply influenzed the Indian psyche and has played a vital role in forming its conscience. Its omnipresence can be felt in the popular cultural traditions including folklore, literature and movies. My first tryst with work happened through Amar Chithra Kathas, which had deftly illustrated the events of it. But there the emphasis was on the action and not on the characterization. Then there was this tele-serial made by B.R.Chopra, which had taken the nation by a storm. That, at least made the story of the epic familiar to me. However, the sop series, with its emphasis on faith and the super-natural, somehow failed to depict the colossal moral ambiguity that defines the characters in it. The grey shaded characters' faces were refurbished with rouge and mascara, and were presented to us in clearly distinguishable shades of black and white. Even the movies inspired from the epic, ranging from Thalapathy(Tamil 1991) to Rajneeti(Hindi 2010) were guilty of this crime.
For anyone who is intrigued with the ambivalence and the ambiguity of Mahabharatha, Gurucharan Das's 'The Difficulty of Being Good-The Subtle Art of Dharma' would prove to be a good read. The book tries to examine the puzzle of morality in the light of the epic, and also tries to address the question 'why be good'. According to the author, he had undertaken the task of writing this work to assail his 'mid-life crisis'. Mr. Das, who had served as a CEO of Procter&Gamble for many years, felt disillusioned with the success defined in terms of credit and debit entries of corporate accounts, and to plug the void that had crept into his life he embarked upon an 'academic holiday' to read and understand Mahabharatha.He shares with us his understandings through this work.
The envious Duryodhana
Duryodhana,as depicted in Yakshagana(Kannada art-form)
If
there is anyone in Mahabharatha who could be identified as an
antagonist, that is Duryodhana and he is the first one who is subjected
to the author's analysis. The author concludes that the main emotion
which drove the actions of Duryodhana and triggered off the subsequent
dramatic events was envy. Right from the young age, he was envious of
the Pandavas, and had attempted on many occassions to destroy them. He'd
tried to poison the young Bhima; had tried to roast them in the palace
of lacquer. But the Pandavas, sometimes through divine intervention or
through acts of fortune, managed to escape unharmed from the devious
ploys employed by Duryodhana. When the Pandavas finally established
their kingdom at Indraprastha and drew attention and praises from
everyone, he could not digest that. Engulfed in the tentacles of the green
monster of envy, his reason takes off on a leave, and he gets more
diabolic and devises a trick that could finish off the Pandavas for
ever.
However,
Dhritharashtra, his father and the king of Hastinapur, tries to reason
with his belligerent son. But Duryodhana has his own reasons. He argues
that it is the duty of a king to further the interest of his kingdom. A
prosperous neighbour always poses a threat to one's kingdom. So, it is
in the best interests of his kingdom that he is planning to destroy
them, lest the Pandavas would attack and conquer Hastinapur. A kshatriya's duty is to prevail...Kingship is enjoyed by brave princes after conquering their foes in the battle(p.14)An enemy,however tiny,whose might grows on and eventually destroys one, is like an anthill which destroys a tree(p.4).
The
words of Machiavelli and Kautilya resonate in Duryodhana's
rationalizations. He is a subscriber of 'realpolitik',which refers to
politics or diplomacy based on practical considerations, rather than on
ideological notions or moralistic premises. Adolf Hitler, Henry
Kissinger, George.W.Bush etc. were devout observers of this school of
pragmatism. But, we can also see that Duryodhana's underlying emotion
was envy, and all these dharmic arguments are merely providing a rationalization to his crude emotion.
Dhraupadi Humiliated:Painting by Raja Ravi Verma
The most disturbing and revolting event of Mahabharatha is the disrobing of Dhraupadi which happens in the royal court of Hastinapur. The naive Yudhishthira, intoxicated with the game of dice, wagers his wife and loses her. When Dhraupadi is callously dragged to the court by Dushassana, she asks Yudhishthira.
'Whom did you lose first, yourself or me?' (p.34)
Dhraupadi might have asked the question in an expression of her rage and disgust, alluding to the senselessness of Yudhishthira. However, that questions had many connotations. Yudhishthira himself had wagered himself and had lost. So he was a slave and he could not have wagered Dhraupadi, for a slave is a master of none.Thus, the question posed by Dhraupadi assumed the status of a legal puzzle.
Bhishma, the conscience keeper of Hastinapur, then rose to solve her query. He employs his statesman's acumen to dissect her query from a strict legal perspective. One who has lost himself in a gamble cannot wager anymore of his possessions. Because, the moment he loses himself, he ceases to be the owner of them. But a wife belongs to her husband and the acts of the husband would bind her. So, if Yudhishthira has staked her, Dhraupadi is bound by it. He also refutes the argument that he did not make the wager in accordance with his free will. Bhishma asserts that the game was fair and valid. In short, Bhishma asserts that the acts of Yudhishtira were within the confines of law. Finally Bhishma tells her:'As dharma is subtle, I fail to resolve your question properly'(p.36). Thus, Bhishma, like Pilate of New Testament, fails to summon courage to listen to his conscience and washes off his hands.
Disappointed with the response, Dhraupadi asks 'What is left of the dhrama of the kings?'(p.40). This is a more powerful question. Grasping that the laws of the state would not aid to protect her dignity, Dhraupadi is appealing to a higher dharma. This is a jurisprudential conundrum. If an act is within the confines of law, would that become morally right?. This tussle between law and morality has puzzled jurists since time immemorial. What should be done when the law of the land fails in delivering justice? The common law jurisdiction had devised the concept of equity, to mitigate the error of common law by allowing courts to apply justice in accordance with natural law. An act which is inherently abhorrent, which shocks the conscience of the society, should not be permitted and if the postulated law is impotent to deal with it, then the judiciary should act in accordance with its good conscience and employ its wisdom to subvert the prevalence of injustice. Bhishma failed to do that.Pilate failed to do that. The Indian judiciary failed to do that during emergency time in cases like A.D.M Jabalpur v. S.S. Shukla (AIR 1976 SC 1207). In the court of Hastinapur, there was the voice of Vidura who had heeded to the dictates of his reason and objected to the violation of Dhraupadi's modesty. Like the Vidura of Hastinapur, Judge H.R.Khanna, listened to the dictates of reason and dissented from the flawed majority judgement of ADM Jabalpur case, to attempt to prevent the disrobing of democracy and constitution. Although their opinions did not prevent the act, they shattered the moral validity of the reprehensible acts. What India need is people with such moral integrity and wisdom, who, instead of merely applying the dead letter of law, would give effect to the spirit of law to prevent injustice. If, through sophistry and technicalities, unjust acts are clothed as legal ones, travesty of justice would happen. Simple Dhraupadi, with her housewife's logic, was addressing this issue.
Why be good?
Consequent to losing the dice game, the Pandavas have to spend twelve years in exile and spend one additional year incognito. While biding their time in the forest, Dhraupadi asks Yudhishtira to take up arms and fight against the Kauravas. But, he does not heed to that. He states that he had given word to them and breaking that would offend dharma. Moreover, being a person who abhors violence, he dismisses the idea of fighting them too. But Dhraupadi states that they themselves have been victims of adharma and there was no need to observe the word given to the violators of dharma. She states. 'Dharma is supposed to protect the good king, but I find that it doesn't protect you...When I see noble, moral and modest persons harassed in this way, and the evil and ignoble flourishing and happy, I stagger with wonder. I can only condemn the Placer, who allows such outrage'(p.64).
Most of us share Dhraupadi's angst at the problem of unmerited suffering. Why do bad things happen to good people? This is something which none of us can fathom and we feel that the cosmic sense of justice is inherently absurd and cruel. This feeling has given rise to the philosophy of nihilism and absurdism propounded by people like Nietzsche and Camus. They assert that life is inherently meaningless and valueless and it would be an absurd effort to find meaning in it. It states that if human beings, instead of wrestling with the incomprehensible, embrace the absurd wholeheartedly, life would become a less stressful experience. It is a philosophy of utmost resignation and submission. Life is just a progression of accidents and it would be a futile effort to make sense out of the randomness of life. When Shakespeare said 'Like flies to wanton boys, we are to the gods;they kill us for their sport'(King Lear Act 4 Scene 1), he was also evoking the same feeling.
The Holy Bible too addresses this puzzle. Jesus states, 'That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust(Matthew 5:45). Since the Father in Heaven, makes sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust alike, one should not be judgmental about others acts and should forgive the unjust and evil. It suggests that our sense of justice could be different from that of the cosmic sense of justice.
But Yudhishtira addresses this conundrum in his own unique manner. He says : 'I do not act for the sake of dharma. I act because I must. Whether it bears fruits or not, buxom Dhraupadi, I do my duty.I obey dharma, full-hipped woman, not for its rewards...but by its nature my mind is beholden to dharma.'(P.66). He realizes that life, like a loaded game of dice, is inherently meaningless, and that one has to create ones own meaning to it; and he finds the meaning of life in the strict adherence to dharma.Franz Kafka through his work 'The Trial' is also propounding the same thing. We human beings get ourselves entangled in a maze of events and assigned unique roles in lives, we must search deep within the apparent absurdity of life to attain spiritual self-realization.(Even while addressing such existential puzzles, one can see that Yudhishtira's mind is pulsating with admiration for the beauty of Dhraupadi, and he does not forget to intersperse his reply with words of appreciation for her immense charm). But his 'beautiful and long-eyed' Dhraupadi is not completely convinced with his reply. She reminds him that, being a kshatriya, he has the duty to preserve his state and his dependents, and if he is not fighting, he would be violating his kshatriya-dharma.
Thus we witness a conflict of the norms. When the norms of the society are in conflict with higher norms, viz the norms which appeal to one's conscience, which one should be permitted to prevail. Yudhishtira's sva-dharma, his duty to his clan, was in apparent conflict with his sadharana-dharma,his duty to his moral conscience and world at large. He is adamant that he is not going to offend the universal dharma for the sake of his clan-dharma. He was demonstrating what went on later to become the 'Grunnorm' theory of Hans Kelsen, which states that a lower norm should give way to a higher norm.
But he wavers from this supreme idealistic position when Kauravas refuse to honour their word after the period of exile. When met with humiliation again, he adopts a tough stand and calls for war. He states. 'In times of trouble one's duty alters. When one's livelihood is disrupted and one is totally poverty-stricken, one should wish for other means to carry out one's prescribed duties...which means in dire situations one may perform normally improper acts'.(P.78).Desperate times call for desperate actions. Chastened by thirteen harsh years in exile, he has become pragmatic. He adopts a position which can be termed as 'reciprocal altruism', which states that one should portray a friendly face to the world, but should not let himself to be exploited. Machiavelli also states that a man who wishes to profess goodness at all time will come to ruin among so many who are not so good. He realizes that his earlier super-moralistic view or Duryodhana's amoral real-politik view do not befit the capacity of a king and he adopts a middle-path of moral pragmatism. Any form of absolute, be it meanness or goodness, is not advisable in this world.Turning the other cheek may be a good ideal to practice for an ascetic, but a king cannot afford to do that. Hence it follows that, morality is not absolute and its worth depends on its place and time. Is it not said that anything which is done out of place and out of time is a sin? So, the morality of an act is absolutely dependent on its circumstances.
(To continue)
Disclaimer
References
Why be good?
Exile of the Pandavas
Most of us share Dhraupadi's angst at the problem of unmerited suffering. Why do bad things happen to good people? This is something which none of us can fathom and we feel that the cosmic sense of justice is inherently absurd and cruel. This feeling has given rise to the philosophy of nihilism and absurdism propounded by people like Nietzsche and Camus. They assert that life is inherently meaningless and valueless and it would be an absurd effort to find meaning in it. It states that if human beings, instead of wrestling with the incomprehensible, embrace the absurd wholeheartedly, life would become a less stressful experience. It is a philosophy of utmost resignation and submission. Life is just a progression of accidents and it would be a futile effort to make sense out of the randomness of life. When Shakespeare said 'Like flies to wanton boys, we are to the gods;they kill us for their sport'(King Lear Act 4 Scene 1), he was also evoking the same feeling.
The Holy Bible too addresses this puzzle. Jesus states, 'That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust(Matthew 5:45). Since the Father in Heaven, makes sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust alike, one should not be judgmental about others acts and should forgive the unjust and evil. It suggests that our sense of justice could be different from that of the cosmic sense of justice.
But Yudhishtira addresses this conundrum in his own unique manner. He says : 'I do not act for the sake of dharma. I act because I must. Whether it bears fruits or not, buxom Dhraupadi, I do my duty.I obey dharma, full-hipped woman, not for its rewards...but by its nature my mind is beholden to dharma.'(P.66). He realizes that life, like a loaded game of dice, is inherently meaningless, and that one has to create ones own meaning to it; and he finds the meaning of life in the strict adherence to dharma.Franz Kafka through his work 'The Trial' is also propounding the same thing. We human beings get ourselves entangled in a maze of events and assigned unique roles in lives, we must search deep within the apparent absurdity of life to attain spiritual self-realization.(Even while addressing such existential puzzles, one can see that Yudhishtira's mind is pulsating with admiration for the beauty of Dhraupadi, and he does not forget to intersperse his reply with words of appreciation for her immense charm). But his 'beautiful and long-eyed' Dhraupadi is not completely convinced with his reply. She reminds him that, being a kshatriya, he has the duty to preserve his state and his dependents, and if he is not fighting, he would be violating his kshatriya-dharma.
Thus we witness a conflict of the norms. When the norms of the society are in conflict with higher norms, viz the norms which appeal to one's conscience, which one should be permitted to prevail. Yudhishtira's sva-dharma, his duty to his clan, was in apparent conflict with his sadharana-dharma,his duty to his moral conscience and world at large. He is adamant that he is not going to offend the universal dharma for the sake of his clan-dharma. He was demonstrating what went on later to become the 'Grunnorm' theory of Hans Kelsen, which states that a lower norm should give way to a higher norm.
But he wavers from this supreme idealistic position when Kauravas refuse to honour their word after the period of exile. When met with humiliation again, he adopts a tough stand and calls for war. He states. 'In times of trouble one's duty alters. When one's livelihood is disrupted and one is totally poverty-stricken, one should wish for other means to carry out one's prescribed duties...which means in dire situations one may perform normally improper acts'.(P.78).Desperate times call for desperate actions. Chastened by thirteen harsh years in exile, he has become pragmatic. He adopts a position which can be termed as 'reciprocal altruism', which states that one should portray a friendly face to the world, but should not let himself to be exploited. Machiavelli also states that a man who wishes to profess goodness at all time will come to ruin among so many who are not so good. He realizes that his earlier super-moralistic view or Duryodhana's amoral real-politik view do not befit the capacity of a king and he adopts a middle-path of moral pragmatism. Any form of absolute, be it meanness or goodness, is not advisable in this world.Turning the other cheek may be a good ideal to practice for an ascetic, but a king cannot afford to do that. Hence it follows that, morality is not absolute and its worth depends on its place and time. Is it not said that anything which is done out of place and out of time is a sin? So, the morality of an act is absolutely dependent on its circumstances.
(To continue)
Disclaimer
- The author of the blog has not read the original text of Mahabharatha. The views expressed in the blog are the inferences drawn by the author from the interpretation given to and understandings derived from the epic by Mr.Gurucharan Das.
- Some of the views expressed in the blog are the personal conclusions of the author of the blog. They may differ from that of the views propagated by Mr. Gurucharan Das.
References
- All page references are taken from the hard bound edition of 'The difficulty of being good' published by Penguin India in the year 2009
- The statements in italics are taken from the English translation of the text of Mahabharatha. The page numbers mentioned next to the statements refer to the book under review here, and the original source of the statements could be traced from the said book.
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