'Mahabharat- Different Versions -Perspectives' - Page 67

@Abhijitbasu

I just started reading a book by Julian Woods called ' Destiny and human initiative in the MB'

i guess vyasa was right when he said the following shloka, dharmecha arthecha kaamecha mokshecha bharatarshava, yadi asti tad anyatra ya na asti na tad kwachit. the mahabharat is the saara of all stories of the world, what is written here can be found elsewhere and if not it does not exist.

Some Kings that were killed and dynasties in the war that were destroyed;-

These ones had nothing to do with either the atrocities committed by kaurvas or the injustice that pandavas had to face.These are the few pointed out to in Stri parva

1)King Virata and princes of Matsya dynasty

2)King of Kambojas and Sudakshina the prince of the Kambhojas

3)lord of Avanti and his sons and brothers

4)Shalya

5)king Bhagadatta

6)Bhurvisas

7)Ruler of kalinga

8)Ruler of Kosalas

9)King drupda

10)Drishtdyumna and his sons and other panchal princes

11)Ruler of cedis

12)Vrihanta and Somadatta and the hundreds of Srinjayas

13)king Kshemadhanva

14)the valiant Yudhamanyu and Uttamauja

15)ruler of the Kosalas

16)Acala and Vrishaka

17)the Kekaya princes

18)the Trigartas

19) king Jalasandha

Now if the war was really to make society better is there any documented text that says that these kings were bad or were mistreating the people of their kingdom?

When we talk about society at large we need to take entire Aryavrata into account.So if society pre war was bad or was suffering is there any account that for the states ruled by the above kings were suffering?

This war was pre ordained by gods that much is pretty clear from what ved vyas tells dhritrashtra in stri parva itself.This war has many divine elements even in its reason as it was pre ordained by god.An avtaar of god himself participated in the war to ensure righteousness wins.And five demi gos were the ones who gained victory in the end.And most importantly this war gave mankind Geeta.And other than this the avtaar of god himself teaches us many things through this war the most famous of which is anything done in the path of victory of righteousness is right

But like everything in MB even this war has another side to it an ugly dark side that shouldn't be ignored just because certain divine elements were involved int his war.The kind of death and destruction it caused shouldn't be ignored .After all Ved vyas himself didnt ignore it ,He had the main victor i.e Yudhishtir lament the war and the destruction it caused..If this war was only a holy war or dharam yudh why would dharam raj himself lament the destruction this war caused.

So yes this war had divine reasons and divine elements along with human reasons and dark elements .If this war taught society a lot of things it even took alot away from the society .And in my humble opinion both sides of this war should be seen rather than just one

Originally posted by: Sabhayata

Sir i agree that we shouldn't view Dwapar yug incidents with a Kalyug mindset but still sometimes it becomes difficult to overlook an incident just because it was acceptable in dwapar yug

In any case my question is regarding another incident which atleast as per the epic seems not wrong but personally for me its something difficult to overlook.This is Yudhishtir staking his brother's and wife and other pandavas not protesting it at all.Now in my personal view this was wrong but again here epic doesn't seem to say so

Firstly no one ever rebukes Yudhishtir or other pandavas for this especially Yudhishitr is never rebuked for his act of staking his family.Only Draupadi shows her disappointment at some occasions but revered character's like Krishna ji don't rebuke him or pandavas

Also after all this Yudhsitir's chariot never touches the ground until the his half lie to drona because he is considered to be pure

And even in the end Yudhsitir gets to go to the Heaven in his full human form which other pandvas don't

Now my questions are

1)Does this mean that Yudhishtir's act of staking his wife or the silence of other panadavs in this indent wasn't wrong as per dwapar yug standards?

2)Or perhaps it was wrong but since both Yudhishtir and other pandavas regretted their actions they were cleansed of this sin which would explain why even after staking his family Yudhishtir got to go to the heaven in his human form

3)In the end Yudhisitr gives reasons as to why other pandavas didnt get to to heaven because of their flaws like Drauapdi loved Arjuna the most,Arjuna disregarded other archrer's and Bhima due to his gluttony.Now are all these flaws bigger than Yudhistir's mistake of staking his family?How come even after Yudhishtir made such a big mistake he still gets to go to heaven but his other family members because of mere human flaws dont get to do that?Again is it because of repentance or because Yudhishtir spent many years in the service of rishi's during exile?

My tentative comments on your points:
1) It was 'wrong' in a progressive civilizational sense. But it defied a clear judgemental response in the custom (lok-aacaara) of the time, i.e. the patriarchal culture of the middle-Vedic age. In fact, even Draupadi herself did not raise the issue whether Yudhishthira had the right to stake her. All she asked was whether he had the right to do so after he himself became a slave. Given the idiom of that age, even Bheeshma and the other elders did not have a ready answer. So, in a way, your surmise that it was a grey area in the ethico-legal context of the Dvaapara age seems right. Vikarna had a stronger point that Draupadi was the common wife of the five Pandavas, but none of the other Pandavas objected to Yudhishthira's controlling sway as their family elder.
2) Yudhishthira and the Pandavas surely regretted and repented their inaction, and thereafter their guilt-laden contrition made Draupadi's the dominant voice of vengeance in all inner-family discussions. But, again given the importance attached to dicing in the accepted mores of the time, Yudhishthira's act of staking his brothers and Draupadi by accepting the specific challenge of his opponent did not count as an act of 'sin'.
3) The answer is covered in 1 & 2 above.

Originally posted by: AnuMP

@Abhijitbasu

Sir. How familiar are you with Jewish stories? I have a question for you. I have seen the Sai people speculate that the Melchizedek mentioned as Abraham's friend and mentor is actually Krishna after Kurukshetra (http://www.worldofsai.org/html/krishna_melchizedek.html). Some of clues fit. For example the timing would be right. Then there are the names - Abram and Sara (Brahma and Saraswati). Also he said to have gone to meet Abram after the War of 5 Kings, the outcome of which he was pleased with. Then the Hebrew name used for Jewish people, Yudas.

Your thoughts?

Thanks. I have visited the link and read its contents. Though I was not aware of this particular legend linking Abraham with Krishna, it is quite interesting. Isn't it significant that we get this sense of de ja vu when we make such cross-civilizational comparisons?

Originally posted by: abhijitbasu

Yes, Yudhishthira to my mind is the undeclared secular-dramatic protagonist of the Mb. No doubt Krshna, as the book also discusses, is the transcendental mover and shaker of the epic, as the yugapurush -- the God who constrains himself in human form to guide the events along their ordained course.
There are valid reasons to consider Yudhishthira to be the central character of the human drama of the Mb. Without him and his claim of primogeniture there would have been no Kurukshetra war. In Drona-Parva, Krshna chides Arjuna for his impetuous action in following the letters of a certain pledge and lifting his sword against his elder brother, because with Y dead, Arjuna would have had none to fight for. And, of course, Y, and he alone, figures in the epic's sublime denouement of svargaarohana. Yudhishthira is the great epic's jnana yogi, the Philospher-King, who predated Plato by many centuries. But, he has also some striking contrarieties, as a Kshatriya prince with a Brahmana disposition, ever conflicted by his natural inclination for peace and his class duty to fight to win, not always by pure means, as the leader of his wronged royal line. He is subject to depressive indecision, but 'to be or not to be' is never a question with him. Rather, he continues 'being' from this world to the beyond. He has his limitations as a warrior, but has the ever-loyal Bheema and Arjuna to more than compensate those limitations. But he excels in acquiring knowledge, from a galaxy of sages. In that regard he is unique -- an itinerant prince-pilgrim, who shines as a knowledge-seeker even in contra-distinction to the great Rama. He saves his brothers in two crucial tests by marshalling that knowledge to answer unerringly strings of questions, first put by the accursed serpent Nahusha and more importantly, by his disguised pater, Lord Dharma. The Yakshna-prashnas indeed are the essence of the epic as a treasure of liberated wisdom.
Having scaled such heights of pure wisdom, it may seem hard to reconcile some of his war-time actions to follow. As a practical war-leader, expediency at times seems to be more important to him than ethics. But after the battle, we again find the pilgrim Yudhishthira, now overwhelmed by a burden of guilt-laden grief. Y after the war is surely the most penitent character, not only in the Mb, but in all the world's epics. This unique repentance cleanses him of all worldly impurities and finally he lifts himself to the highest peak of human greatness, succeeds in his ultimate transcendental test and earns the unparalleled distinction of entering heaven in his bodily form.
As regards the other point of trans-civilizational comparisons, I find the subject quite intriguing -- as if some telepathy was at work in making ancient civilisations react alike to circumstances. Not only Greek, I have drawn comparison with the Semitic literature, chiefly the Old Testament, but also with Islamic and Jewish thoughts. The book's last chapter, called 'Epics and Epics', highlights some strange similarities between our two epics, the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, and the two Homeric epics. However, you are right in the sense that the Greek cognation seems to be the most striking. Just think of Megasthenes' description of Krshna (with Balaram) as the Indian Hercules, with the subsequent etymological derivation as Hari-kul-esh!

Originally posted by: abhijitbasu

The Mb, as I see it, is a colossal work with many facets. To present it as a one-dimensional chronicle of caste oppression is to trivialise and sensationalise things beyond reason. As you yourself have observed, the stray examples of class / (not 'caste', which was a much later development and coinage) discrimination / persecution that I have highlighted are presented by the epic's narrator without much ado. That was the character of the age and perhaps its better not to sensationalise it by viewing it through the lens of today's egalitarian principles. After all, when Draupadi publicly rejects Karna with the bold assertion: naaham varayaami sootam [I shall not accept one belonging to the soota class], even today's reader would perhaps look at it as a natural reaction from a well-endowed princess in wishing to choose a social equal, given the milieu of the time.

TAILPIECE: Just in case this forum is still active, I may add a qualifier to my post above. On a rethink, Yudhishthira's words about the escape plan from the jatugrha might be explained in a less negative light. Bhartrhari categorises people in four types: Those who sacrifice their own interest for others' benefit are the righteous persons. Those who make efforts to help others only if there is no conflict of interest are the general kind. Those who harm others for their own benefit are the human-demons. And those who harm others for no reason are of the even worse kind.
Going by this model, the Pandavas' action could be attributed to the second kind of behaviour, because had they tried to save the inebriated Nishadas, Duryodhana could have learnt of their escape from them, and sent his killers after the Pandavas. This would have put paid to their own life-or-death interest of staying incognito for some time as per Vidura's sensible advice. As a savant friend tells me, perhaps the best way for us to judge the event is to ask ourselves the question: 'What I would have done in that situation?' So, we should perhaps not be unduly harsh on Yudhishthira on that score.