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M B Part 2

The Mahābhārata narrates the conflict between the Pāṇḍavas and the Dhārtarāṣṭras, culminating in a war over rightful ownership of the kingdom, which the Pāṇḍavas win but at a great moral cost. The aftermath of the war leaves Yudhiṣṭhira troubled by the ethical implications of their victory, despite reassurances from others that it was justified. Ultimately, the Pāṇḍavas embark on a 'Great Journey' towards heaven, where Yudhiṣṭhira's virtue is tested before he is reunited with his brothers.

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5 views6 pages

M B Part 2

The Mahābhārata narrates the conflict between the Pāṇḍavas and the Dhārtarāṣṭras, culminating in a war over rightful ownership of the kingdom, which the Pāṇḍavas win but at a great moral cost. The aftermath of the war leaves Yudhiṣṭhira troubled by the ethical implications of their victory, despite reassurances from others that it was justified. Ultimately, the Pāṇḍavas embark on a 'Great Journey' towards heaven, where Yudhiṣṭhira's virtue is tested before he is reunited with his brothers.

Uploaded by

harini.priya1102
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Pāṇḍavas fulfilled their part of that bargain, but

the villainous leader of the Dhārtarāṣṭra party,


Duryodhana [Dur-YODH-ana], was unwilling to restore
the Pāṇḍavas to their half of the kingdom when the
thirteen years had expired. Both sides then called
upon their many allies and two large armies arrayed
themselves on 'Kuru's Field' (Kuru was one of the
eponymous ancestors of the clan), eleven divisions in
the army of Duryodhana against seven divisions for
Yudhiṣṭhira. Much of the action in the Mahābhārata is
accompanied by discussion and debate among
various interested parties, and the most famous
sermon of all time, Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva's ethical lecture
accompanied by a demonstration of his divinity to his
charge Arjuna (the justly famous Bhagavad Gītā
[BHU-gu-vud GEE-taa]) occurred in the Mahābhārata
just prior to the commencement of the hostilities of
the war. Several of the important ethical and
theological themes of the Mahābhārata are tied
together in this sermon, and this "Song of the Blessed
One" has exerted much the same sort of powerful and
far-reaching influence in Indian Civilization that the
New Testament has in Christendom. The Pāṇḍavas
won the eighteen day battle, but it was a victory that
deeply troubled all except those who were able to
understand things on the divine level (chiefly Kṛṣṇa,
Vyāsa, and Bhīṣma [BHEESH-ma], the Bharata
patriarch who was emblematic of the virtues of the era
now passing away). The Pāṇḍavas' five sons by
Draupadī, as well as Bhīmasena [BHEE-ma-SAY-na]
Pāṇḍava's and Arjuna Pāṇḍava's two sons by two
other mothers (respectively, the young warriors
Ghaṭotkaca [Ghat-OT-ka-cha] and Abhimanyu
[Uh-bhi-MUN-you ("mun" rhymes with "nun")]), were
all tragic victims in the war. Worse perhaps, the
Pāṇḍava victory was won by the Pāṇḍavas slaying, in
succession, four men who were quasi-fathers to them:
Bhīṣma, their teacher Droṇa [DROE-na], Karṇa
[KAR-na] (who was, though none of the Pāṇḍavas
knew it, the first born, pre-marital, son of their
mother), and their maternal uncle Śalya (all four of
these men were, in succession, 'supreme commander'
of Duryodhana's army during the war). Equally
troubling was the fact that the killing of the first three
of these 'fathers,' and of some other enemy warriors
as well, was accomplished only through 'crooked
stratagems' (jihmopāyas), most of which were
suggested by Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva as absolutely required
by the circumstances.

The ethical gaps were not resolved to anyone's


satisfaction on the surface of the narrative and the
aftermath of the war was dominated by a sense of
horror and malaise. Yudhiṣṭhira alone was terribly
troubled, but his sense of the war's wrongfulness
persisted to the end of the text, in spite of the fact that
everyone else, from his wife to Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva, told
him the war was right and good; in spite of the fact
that the dying patriarch Bhīṣma lectured him at length
on all aspects of the Good Law (the Duties and
Responsibilities of Kings, which have rightful violence
at their center; the ambiguities of Righteousness in
abnormal circumstances; and the absolute
perspective of a beatitude that ultimately transcends
the oppositions of good versus bad, right versus
wrong, pleasant versus unpleasant, etc.); in spite of
the fact that he performed a grand Horse Sacrifice as
expiation for the putative wrong of the war. These
debates and instructions and the account of this
Horse Sacrifice are told at some length after the
massive and grotesque narrative of the battle; they
form a deliberate tale of pacification (praśamana,
śānti) that aims to neutralize the inevitable miasma of
the war.

In the years that follow the war Dhṛtarāṣṭra and his


queen Gāndhārī [Gaan-DHAAR-ee], and Kuntī
[Koon-tee], the mother of the Pāṇḍavas, lived a life of
asceticism in a forest retreat and died with yogic calm
in a forest fire. Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva and his always unruly
clan slaughtered each other in a drunken brawl
thirty-six years after the war, and Kṛṣṇa's soul
dissolved back into the Supreme God Viṣṇu (Kṛṣṇa
had been born when a part of Nārāyaṇa-Viṣṇu took
birth in the womb of Kṛṣṇa's mother). When they
learned of this, the Pāṇḍavas believed it time for them
to leave this world too and they embarked upon the
'Great Journey,' which involved walking north toward
the polar mountain, that is toward the heavenly
worlds, until one's body dropped dead. One by one
Draupadī and the younger Pāṇḍavas died along the
way until Yudhiṣṭhira was left alone with a dog that
had followed him all the way. Yudhiṣṭhira made it to
the gate of heaven and there refused the order to drive
the dog back, at which point the dog was revealed to
be an incarnate form of the God Dharma (also known
as Yama, the Lord of the Dead, the God who was
Yudhiṣṭhira's actual, physical father), who was there
to test the quality of Yudhiṣṭhira's virtue before
admitting him to heaven. Once in heaven Yudhiṣṭhira
faced one final test of his virtue: He saw only the
Dhārtarāṣṭras in heaven, and he was told that his
brothers were in hell. He insisted on joining his
brothers in hell, if that be the case. It was then
revealed that they were really in heaven, that this
illusion had been one final test for him. So ends the
Mahābhārata!

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