AJAYA - RISE OF KALI (Book 2) (67 page)

Yuyutsu looked at the fallen Brahmin one last time and was surprised to see an untouchable sitting near him, a dog with him. ‘Good,’ he thought, the sinner was going to die with an untouchable polluting him at the time of death. God was meting out deserving punishment to all sinners. God was great.

***

Jara tried to wake Aswathama. “Swami, Swami,” he cried as he fumbled for the pot of water he carried. It was dry. He was afraid to touch the Brahmin, the loss of his sacred thread notwithstanding. How could he wake the Brahmin without touching him? Jara remembered the flute Krishna had given him and he pulled it out of his bundle. He nudged the prone figure on the ground with it and slowly, Aswathama stirred. The dog wagged his tail.

“Swami, wake up. Open your eyes. Look... my Dharma is back.”

Aswathama’s eyes flared with anger when he heard
dharma
mentioned. With surprising swiftness he sat up, a scowl on his bleeding face. When he understood the beggar had meant his blind dog, Aswathama’s face finally broke into a smile. The procession was thundering past near them, raising clouds of dust to the heavens. He coughed, vomited blood, and then fell back. Jara did not hesitate, he lifted the Brahmin, trying to drag him away from the road, away from the march of
dharma.
Jara knew the Brahmin had not fainted because of the injuries he had received during the lynching; he had seen the look of hunger in Aswathama’s eyes. No one knew more about hunger than he did. Jara fumbled with his bundle and brought out the cooked rice he had collected the previous day. He spread a banana leaf on the dusty pavement and then shook Aswathama awake.

The procession had gathered speed and the slogans were deafening, shaking the ground. Thunder sounded, cracking open the secret vault of heaven. Rain lashed the streets. The crowd roared in excitement. It was a sign from the Gods that this was a righteous war. The wind howled. The last chariot passed the fallen Brahmin and the beggar, splashing dirty water over them both. Dharma stood up, thereby preventing the little food they had from getting soiled. When the procession had become a dot in the distance, the dog shook himself dry and then went to sit beside its master, eager to be fed.

“Krishna,” Jara prayed and Aswathama’s eyes flashed with anger. He tried to get up but fell back weakly. “Krishna, you have come before us as food, as this Brahmin. You are love. You are compassion. I offer this rice to you.
Itham na mama.”

The untouchable began to feed the Brahmin as Dharma the blind dog waited patiently.

Ithi mama Mahabharata Katha
Sambhavami Yuge Yuge
This is the story of my Great Bharata.
It happens in all ages.

*****

Afterword
D
HARMA ¬
A S
U
BTLE
C
ONCEPT

THERE IS NOTHING IN INDIA
that has sparked more debate than the concept of
dharma.
It is a word that stands alone. Before the Bhakti movement rewrote the
Ramayana
and
Mahabharata
as stories where
dharma
wins over
adharma,
the very concept of
dharma
used to be debated vigorously. The
Mahabharata
is an example of each side believing they had
dharma
with them and they fought for that. Kurukshetra is thus considered to be
dharmakshetra,
a place where two definitions of
dharma
faced each other.

Duryodhana famously asks Krishna that if following
swadharma
or
dharma
as defined by one’s heart is the greatest
dharma,
was he not doing his Kshatriya duty by trying to protect his inheritance? The conventional argument from traditionalists is that
dharma
is based on the Vedas. Krishna answers Arjuna’s scepticism about
dharma
and
adharma
by saying that the scriptures are the authority for deciding this. Narada, the divine saint, also says to Yudhishtra that
dharma
has three cornerstones or
thrayi mula:
the Rig, Yajur and Sama Vedas. The Vedas are the roots of
dharma.
However, the counter argument to this is given in the
Mahabharata
itself, when Bhishma says
dharma
is the root of the Vedas. Once we accept this argument, then
dharma
becomes a dynamic concept that evolves over time, depending on the needs of the people. So the
dharma
of the Vedas served the needs of the people of the time, but the
dharma
of today may be different. Krishna also says that
dharma
changes with time and place, though he is quick to add that the scriptures are the final authority.

In the
Anusashasana Parva,
Bhishma says to Yudhishtra that only Kala, the Lord of Death (or Yama, the God of Yamam, a measure of time), can decide what
dharma
or
adharma
is, mere mortals cannot understand it. It is Time that decides how humans are punished or rewarded for their
karma
or actions. Everything happens due to some cause. Only time can reveal whether one has acted as per
dharma
or not. This law, though logical, offers no solace to anyone. Every action becomes a shot in the dark as we cannot tell what the results will be. Krishna offers an antidote to this confusion by advising
nishkama karma
or acting without worrying over the outcome, as acts of devotion. This serves those who are confused about what action to take when faced with a dilemma, but it can be a dangerous tool in the hands of others. In British India, thugs often argued that they were dacoits by
jati
and looting was their
kula dharma.
All wars and violence can be justified using the argument of
dharma.

In contrast, Balarama says
ahimsa
is the greatest
dharma.
His argument becomes relevant when we consider the lives of the women in the
Mahabharata.
It’s a man’s world, where women get abducted, pawned, stripped, widowed and raped. All the Pandava and Kaurava progeny are male, with the sole exception of Dushala, as are Karna’s children. How can one account for this improbable imbalance? It is ironic that except in the case of Draupadi, no other acts of violence against women are debated within the fine definitions of
dharma.
The Nishada woman and her children are quickly forgotten, the thousands of women and children who die in Khandivaprastha are never mentioned again. Even the fate of Gandhari, abducted and forcibly married to a blind man, is not spoken of except to praise her for being a
pativrata
who denied herself the sight her husband did not have. When Krishna’s wives are abducted by dacoits or when Sushala loses her only son, it is they who suffer. Some things never seem to change, even in the twenty-first century.

The counter argument to Balarama’s
ahimsa
is: can a ruler be non-violent? How can he then chastise wrongdoers? Another argument which frequently surfaces is the breaking of
dharma
when faced with danger, called
apad dharma.
When one needs to protect one’s kin, is it not right to use violence? The epic keeps throwing up questions and from every answer more questions sprout up. There is no absolute right or wrong in Vyasa’s
Mahabharata,
echoed in Shakespeare’s line from Hamlet:
There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Yudhishtra dealt with this confusion by following tradition, by acting in the time-tested way. He says to Drupada that he does not understand
dharma
as it is very subtle. He chooses to follow the path of his forefathers and strives to speak only the truth. It is thus natural that such a staunch traditionalist comes into conflict with Suyodhana, who wanted to change everything. He was willing to make a Suta a king, befriend a Nishada, and allow a Brahmin to wield the bow. Briefly, he makes Aswathama King of Uttara Panchala. It is evident he follows his heart. He is a creature of passion, not a man of logic. He admits this many times in the epic. Suyodhana is a man of extremes; he loves his friends unconditionally and hates his enemies with heartfelt passion. For such a man there is no confusion about what is right or wrong. His heart guides him.

Confusion comes to those like Arjuna, Karna, Aswathama and Yudhishtra, who struggle with their conscience. Was it not Karna’s
dharma
to protect his friend and refuse to give his word not to kill all the Pandavas to Kunti? On the other hand, was it not Karna’s
dharma
to side with his brothers when Kunti revealed he was her son? And Yudhishtra says that had he known Karna was his brother he would not have claimed the throne. The enigmatic question thus remains, had Suyodhana known Karna was his eldest cousin, how would he have reacted? Krishna rejects the claim that Karna was never a Pandava, as he was born before Kunti’s marriage, thus making Karna’s sacrifice meaningless. Moreover, was Aswathama right in killing Draupadi’s sons in revenge? Was he right in trying to prove his loyalty to his friend by committing such a condemnable act? Was he or the Pandavas who killed the Nishadas,
dharmic?
Additionally, Yuyutsu, Dhritarashtra’s Vaishya son’s emergence as the ultimate victor is yet another irony of the epic.

The greatness of Vedavyasa’s work is in the questions it evokes every time we read it, rather than in the answers given by preachers who reduce it to a simplistic tale of good versus evil. Such explanations do great injustice to the genius of Vyasa. I believe such explanations are the result of non-Indian influences on our psyche, the after-product of a wounded civilisation. It may be noted that the rise of the Bhakti movement coincided with the Islamic conquest of India. The open-minded rationalism of Indian thought went into hiding and blind devotion took its place. The blurred lines of
dharma
and
adharma
and the speculative philosophy that thrived in debate and delighted generations of a confident civilisation, slowly gave way to absolute definitions of good and evil, which are almost a Semitic concept and the hallmark of religious beliefs in the Middle East.

Ironically, it is in the villages of India that the willingness to think from all angles and points of view still thrives. In the course of my travels to remote villages, I once met a
sadhu
who refused to tell me his name. I met him near the Gokarna temple and we had an interesting chat. When he asked me what I did, I said I reinterpreted the epics from the loser’s point of view. He laughed and asked me why I wrote. He also asked who the loser was in any of our
Puranas
and who the winner? When I said that Ravana and Duryodhana were the losers, he laughed and asked me to read the epics again and again until I understood them. There were no victors or vanquished, just people and their lives, he said. I mentioned that I felt an empathy for the vanquished and wished to present their side as well.

In reply, true to the best traditions of our country, he told me an old Kannada folktale. It was about Barbarika, the son of Khatotkacha, who comes to fight alongside the Pandavas against the Kauravas. He was a formidable warrior and could win the war single handedly, but he has a great weakness. He was so compassionate that he could not stand to see anyone defeated. He was always the champion of the underdog. He supported the Pandavas because the Kauravas had more men fighting on their side; the Pandavas were the underdogs when the war began. But with his help, the Pandavas start winning against the Kauravas.

When Barbarika sees the fallen faces of the Kauravas, he feels pity and changes sides to fight against the Pandavas.

Then it is the Pandavas’ turn to lose. Barbarika feels pity stir for the Pandavas and changes sides once again. This continues, causing frustration on both sides. The war could never end if Barbarika kept supporting the losing side. Fed up with Barbarika’s actions, the warriors approached Krishna to solve the impasse. Krishna called Barbarika and asked him why he was acting in such a bizarre fashion. Barbarika says he is unable to see anyone vanquished. Krishna takes him to a higher plane and shows him the larger picture. From this vantage point, Barbarika sees that both sides are right and both sides wrong, that both are victors and vanquished,
dharmic
and
adharmic.
Confused, he asks Krishna what he is then fighting for. Krishna answers that what he sees is
maya,
the illusion of life, at once fascinating and confusing. No one can decide what is
dharma
and what is
adharma,
who is the victor and who is the vanquished. Mortals are but tiny specks in the vast universe, blips in the great ocean of time. Disgusted, Barbarika asks Krishna to behead him and raise his head on a pole so that he can watch the fools who kill each other and laugh at them and at the illusion of life. Krishna asks Bhima to do so. Barbarika’s head thus witnesses the rest of the war, laughing ceaselessly at the folly of the men on both sides.