Bhagavad Gita and Asuri Sampada: “Who on Earth is my Equal?”

The Bhagavad Gita classifies people into two groups – those born with daivi sampada and those born with asuri sampada. Daivi sampada are positive virtues like fearlessness, purity of mind, and so on, twenty-nine of which the Gita lists. And then it moves on to the asuri sampada – negative qualities like pride, haughtiness, anger and so on, the list of which is small but which is discussed in greater details.

Krishna states here that people are born either with daivi sampada or with asuri sampada. Though Krishna does not expressly state this, since none of us is entirely positive or negative and all of us are grey, we must assume that he is speaking of our basic dispositions – some of us are basically disposed towards negativity and others towards positive virtues, just as in terms of modern psychology some of us are basically optimists and others are basically pessimists. Even the darkest people like Duryodhana in the Mahabharata, for instance, shows some good qualities and even the most positive ones, like Yudhishthira shows some negative qualities.

Krishna knows, as the whole east knows, that life does not begin at birth or conception – we all have had innumerable past lives and every time we take a new birth, we are born with our past gunas, karmas, vasanas and samskaras. We are all born with memories of our past lives lying buried just beneath the surface of our consciousness, becoming visible sometimes on their own and at other times when we peep beneath the surface, as during past life regression or deep meditation. It is these memories, gunas, karmas, vasanas and samskaras that make us daivi or asuri.

Describing people with asuri sampada, negative qualities, Krishna says each one of them thinks:

“I am the lord of all. I am a great bhogi who enjoys the best things in life. I am a siddha, a man of great power and achievements; balavan, a man of immense strength; sukhee, living a life of contentment and bliss. Of noble birth am I, master of heaps of wealth, famous everywhere. I conduct grand sacrificial rituals where wealth flows endlessly, I give in charity boundlessly, I revel in pleasures, I make merry, feast and celebrate.  Tell me, who on earth is my equal? Self-centered, willful, filled with all the insolence of wealth and bloated with the adulation they receive, arrogant, haughty, full of rage and lust, these people cling to their mighty egos, and lord it over everyone.”  BG Ch. 16

When I think of such people, a person who used to stay close to my house some years ago comes to my mind. Every word he spoke, every step he took, every breath of his, the way he sat and stood, the way he treated all except those who were his superiors, spoke of his boundless arrogance. The poor and the powerless were no better than worms that crawled in the gutter for him and he crushed them under his foot every chance he had. He owned a fairly big house in an affluent locality and walked as though he was the master of everything under the sun.

In his case it was money that made them so arrogant. Power can give us the same arrogance, fame can give us the same arrogance, victories can give us the same arrogance.

Most people get bloated up with pride even when their achievements are puny. The wisdom of ancient India understood that arrogance is unhealthy for us even when our achievements are big because they feed the ego and starve the soul. Healthy living requires that you feed your ego and starve the soul. That is wisdom in the truest sense of the term. 

Hell is the destiny of people with asuri sampada – hell not only for themselves, but for everyone around them too. One Hitler created hell for the six million Jews he killed in the concentration camps and the millions of soldiers and civilians killed in WW II. It is for this reason that their asuri sampada has to be destroyed and if that proves impossible, then they themselves have to destroyed, so that they could be saved from themselves and others could be saved from them.   

The Brahmavaivarta Purana tells us an amazing story of how a god of great achievements was taught humility and the asuri sampada in him was destroyed.

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The story begins with Indra slaying the mighty serpent dragon Vritra lying crouched on the high mountains in the shapeless shape of a massive cloud. Indra frees the waters Vritra had blocked making the world parch for want of water. With the monster’s death, the freed waters burst forth from the mountains joyously, nourishing the earth and quenching the thirst of all living creatures making them sing in delight and praise Indra as the mightiest hero ever. Much of the Rig Veda is the rapturous praises thus sung by the inspired poets of the ancient world. Here is one Vedic poet singing of Indra: 

I will declare the manly deeds of Indra,

the first that he achieved, the Thunder-wielder.
He slew the Dragon, then disclosed the waters,

and cleft the channels of the mountain torrents.
He slew the Dragon lying on the mountain:

his heavenly bolt of thunder Tvaṣṭar-fashioned.
Like lowing kine in rapid flow descending

the waters glided downward to the ocean

[From Rig Veda Mandala 1, Hymn XXXII. Griffith trans.] 

Indra killed the monster who had misappropriated what belonged to all and freed living water to benefit the plants and trees, the birds, beasts and humans, making mother earth throb with life once again. Earth turned green once again, birds soared up into the skies, animals roamed the jungles that sprang up everywhere and man was happy.  Clouds started raining from the skies again.

Indra destroyed the ninety-nine cities that belonged to Vritra, cities of repression and oppression. Saviour, savior, everyone called him. Truly, he had made life and light possible by destroying darkness and bondage. Now he wanted to rebuild the cities of the gods, cities of freedom and light, of joyfulness and celebration and a palace for himself.   

Indra instructed Vishwakarma to build the magnificent palace for himself. The palatial gardens should have streams running through it, Indra told him, and lakes teeming with waterfowl, divine trees everywhere, and everything else he could imagine. Vishwakarma was making great progress and as the first year neared its end and work was nearing completion, Indra started making frequent visits to see the work in progress. Which was fine with Vishwakarma, but every time he made a visit, he would ask the celestial architect to modify something or the other, micromanaging things and interfering the Vishwakarma’s work, making progress slow, putting him in unendurable stress, making sleep impossible to him, driving him nuts.

Indra had ceased to be the mighty hero and liberating leader he was earlier. Instead, with his own importance gone to his head, he had become an intolerable boss, always grumpy, always complaining, always looking for faults, insisting that his way alone was right, constantly insulting the intelligence and imagination of Vishwakarma in his attempt to show he was superior. It was possible that he was jealous of the miraculous powers of Vishwakarma as an architect. Frequently when a boss becomes jealous of his subordinate, he tries to ‘show him his place’ by trying to show he has better ideas about everything, even in subjects about which he has no knowledge. He refuses to see people as people, and instead sees them as his subordinates whom he can order about. And as an architect there was no equal to Vishwakarma who turned everything he touched into pure wonder, whose creations were beauty solidified. But Indra wanted him to do things Indra’s way. Life became hell for the celestial architect.

Vishwakarma just did not know what to do. He was the most creative architect, but, as it often happens, he did not know how to play games to outsmart his boss. That was not his area of expertise – he was a simple creative genius and not a politician. He decided to seek help and secretly went to Brahma, the Creator. Brahma listened to him patiently, assured him his troubles would soon come to an end and sent him back a relaxed man, or rather a relaxed god. 

Brahma informed Vishnu of the whole affair who instantly made a plan to solve the problem. Such things should not happen in the celestial world, Vishnu knew. Time had come for the lord of the gods to be shown his place.

India has always loved telling human stories in the name of the gods. Or let’s say, stories of gods as though they were human beings, subject to the same anger that men are subject to, the same jealousy and greed, the same intolerance and hostility, the same ignorance and narrow-mindedness, the same lust and illusions and delusions. These are teaching stories, stories told to teach men and women wisdom, to teach us that whoever we are, however powerful we are, we are all subject to the games the mind plays with us.

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It is a Purana that tells us this story – the Brahmavaivarta Purana. Indra in Vedic literature is different from Indra in the Puranas. In Vedic literature, Indra is the symbol of the enlightened mind, mind that has become still and empty, the yogic mind, the meditator’s mind, the free mind, the ‘mindless mind’, what Zen calls the no-mind, mushin, mind that is one with pure consciousness, mind that soars in the limitless skies of consciousness like Garutman, the eagle of the Vedas on whom Vishnu, the all-pervading being, travels. Whereas in the Puranas, he is the symbol of the ordinary human mind, the mind about which Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita complaints to Krishna: chanchalam hi manah krishna, pramaathi balavad drdham tasyaaham nigraham manye vayor iva sudushkaram – “The mind, Krishna, is restless, turbulent, strong and stubborn. I consider that it is as difficult to control as the wind itself.”

In the modern spiritual classic The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche speaks of the two completely different minds, or aspects of the mind: sem and rigpa. Sem, says Rinpoche, “is the mind that thinks, plots, desires, manipulates, that flares up in anger, that creates and indulges in waves of negative emotions and thoughts, that has to go on and on asserting, validating, and confirming its "existence" by fragmenting, conceptualizing, and solidifying experience. The ordinary mind is the ceaselessly shifting and shiftless prey of external influences, habitual tendencies, and conditioning. The masters liken sem to a candle flame in an open doorway, vulnerable to all the winds of circumstance.”

The higher mind, or the enlightened mind, the awakened mind, is the “primordial, pure, pristine awareness that is at once intelligent, cognizant, radiant, and always awake. It could be said to be the knowledge of knowledge itself.” The Vedic Indra stands for this mind, for rigpa.

The Indra of the Puranas, books written after the glorious age of the Vedas had come to an end and the worship and understanding of the Vedic gods had declined giving rise to the Pauranic gods in their place, is the symbol of sem, the ordinary mind. 

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Early next morning a radiant young brahmana traveler with brilliant eyes that spoke of his serene intelligence appeared at the gate of Indra. He was immediately received in great honour and given the traditional offerings of water, honey, milk and fruits made to brahmanas on arrival. Politely enquired of the purpose of his visit, the boy said he had heard of the great palace Indra was building and had come to see it. When the young boy spoke, his voice was rich, deep and soft. Indra’s hairs stood on their ends as he listened to the traveler.

“It is great that you are building this splendorous palace,” said the boy. “How long will it take for the work to be completed?” The boy paused and a gentle smile appeared on his lips as he added, “No other Indra of the past has completed a more magnificent palace.”

Indra too smiled at the comment. How conceited of the little boy to assume he has known the Indras before him and the palaces they had built! Was the boy mocking at him, ridiculing him? Or was he just being presumptuous? With the indulgent smile of an elder towards a child the lord of the gods asked him, making sure his voice remained polite, “Have you then known other Indras? Seen the palaces they built?” 

“Yes,” the boy replied calmly with no change in his serene voice. “I have seen numerous Indras and Vishwakarms and the many palaces they built.” There was no mockery in that steady voice, no boasting. “Vatsa,” said the boy addressing Indra as though the lord of the gods was no more than a toddler, “I have known your father, Maharshi Kashyapa, and his father, Maharshi Marichi. And I also know Brahma, whose son Marichi is, and, Lord of the Gods, I know Vishnu too, from whose naval lotus Brahma was born.”

“I have known the dissolution of universes. I have seen it happening again and again, and again and again new worlds coming into being form the cosmic waters of consciousness without end. I have seen that state in which all was one. How many times have I seen this happening? No one can count that.  Universe after universe is born endlessly and every one of them dissolves into the nothingness from which they come.  And right at this moment, King of the Gods, who can count the number of universes that exist simultaneously, each with its own Indras and Vishwakarmas. Who can count the grains of sand on the beaches of world?”     

   

Indra had grown completely silent listening to what the boy was saying. There was no doubt the wandering brahmana child was speaking the truth. There was the power of authenticity to every word he spoke. The bemused smile on the face of Indra had disappeared long ago. Without blinking his eyes, he was watching the miraculous being that had appeared before him that morning in the guise of a young pilgrim and wondering who it was. All arrogance had left him and his head that he haughtily held high was now bent in humility before the speaker whose words he was listening to holding his breath. He was about to ask him who he was when he noticed a procession of ants that had appeared in the royal chamber where they were seated. Indra saw the procession was almost as wide as the large hall itself and the ants were slowly moving towards them.

The young boy’s eyes too were on the ants now, watching them with curiosity and deep interest. All on a sudden the child burst out laughing – sparkling spontaneous, mirth filled, wondrous laughter the like of which Indra had never heard before. As the laughter died out, Indra got up from his seat, stood humbly before his guest, bowed deeply to him and asked, “Bhagavan, who are you? I have never met anyone like you and I never knew someone like you existed. Your brilliance surpasses that of a thousand suns simultaneously rising up, you look like a child but seem to be more ancient than time itself. Who are you, please tell me. And also tell me why you laughed at the parade of ants. You terrify me, though you exude nothing but love.”

“Let me tell you why I laughed, Lord of the Gods,” said the boy. “When I saw the parade of the ants I couldn’t control my laughter. But why the sight of the procession of the ants made me laugh is a secret that cannot be revealed to anyone who is not ready for it. It is the great secret of secrets, which very few even among great saints know. The axe of this secret destroys at a single stroke the mighty tree with its roots above and branches below, the tree that has existed from times without beginning, the tree that the wise speak of as eternal.”

The boy had become silent after he spoke these words, so silent as though he had never spoken at all. Indra fell at his feet and begged him to reveal the secret to him and the little boy knew that the lord of the gods is ready for the highest knowledge, the highest secret.

And in a long discourse the little boy who was none other than Vishnu himself told him the secret of karma which controls us from lifetime to lifetime, the result of our karmas which cannot be escaped even in a million lifetimes, and also how to free ourselves from the bondage of karma and become liberated. The little boy told him how every time we perform an action with the sense of I, we create a karma and these karmas accumulated become life scripts for future births and bind us. He also told Indra in great detail how to act without the I-sense, how to be the non-doer even when doing all kinds of actions. He taught Indra the secret of become asanga, unattached, to not only the results of one’s actions but also to the actions themselves. He taught Indra how to perform actions for the good of the world, as he had done when he had slain the snake monster Vritra and dedicate the results to the Divine.

The boy explained to Indra that each ant in the parade was once an Indra like him, from which Indra got visible proof, pratyaksha, that there had been endless number of Indras before him.  As Indras, the boy told him, prompted by their ego and arrogance, each one of them had asked the same question: Who in the universe is equal to me? This asuri sampada had led them to lower births and in their lower births too they had continued with asuri sampada until each of them had ended up an ant after countless lifetimes.

A little later an old wandering ascetic appeared on the scene wearing a deerskin as his loincloth, his hair matted, and taught Indra the same wisdom in different words. When the teaching was over and the ascetic disappeared on the spot, it became clear that he was none other than Lord Shiva. Following Shiva, the little boy too disappeared, revealing to Indra that he was none other than Lord Vishnu.

Indra now moved to the other extreme, like a pendulum, losing all interest in life, denying himself all joys, saying no to his wife, to all pleasures, to his responsibilities, saying no to life itself. A horrified Indrani, his queen, rushed to Brihaspati, the guru of the gods, who came and taught Indra how to balance between the extremes, how to remain in the world doing all that is expected of him, including his commitment to his wife and son and others, and yet remain free from karmas that bind us.

And yes, of course, he let Vishwakarma complete the palace without more micromanaging and constant squabbling. One other thing came to an end: he no more asked kon’yosti sadrisho mayaa, “Who on earth is my equal?” Every time the thought came to him, he remembered the parade of ants.

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One question that arises here is if a man with asuri qualities can become Indra, a position that according to Pauranic Indian tradition goes to the one who has done the highest number of powerful religious rites and asceticism. Well, as I said earlier, please keep in mind we are not discussing here the Vedic Indra, symbol of the enlightened mind, but the Pauranic Indra, who stands for the ordinary mind, sem. The ordinary mind can feel haughtiness, arrogance and pride in its achievements – success can go to the head of a man with such a mind. He can be proud of the rites themselves, of his asceticism, as it happened with Jajali. Second, though the Gita says we are all born either predominantly asuri or predominantly daivi, our qualities are subject to change from moment from moment. A man who is wicked now can become good later and vice verse.  

The Saptashloki  Durga says: jnaaninaam api chetaamsi devee bhagavatee his saa balaad aakrshya mohaaya mahaamayaa prayacchati. Even the minds of enlightened men, she, the Goddess, the Mahamaya, draws by force and leads to delusion.  

It is like moss on the surface of water, says the wisdom tradition of India. You clear it with your hands to drink the water and a moment later, it is back again, covering the surface. So you have to be constantly on the alert. The famous story of the great yogi Matsyendranath tells us of how he became infatuated with the queen of Sri Lanka long after his enlightenment and his disciple Gorakhnath had to go to him and awaken him by saying those words that have since become legendary: Jaag macchandar gorakh aayaa – Wake up, Matsyendra, Gorakh has come. 

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Living Bhagavad Gita 012: What was in the War for Krishna?

A series of short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for people living and working in our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times filled with stress and fear. This scripture born in a battlefield teaches us how to face our challenges, live our life fully, achieve excellence in whatever we do and find happiness, peace and contentment.

[Continued from the previous post]

At the end of the previous article we saw how Krishna wanted to destroy the philosophy that people could be used as a means to your egoistic goals, that people are expendable. The philosophy that considered power as the ultimate goal, power as an end in itself, was anathema to Krishna. He knew that power for the sake of power or power for the privileges it can give you was a danger to the world.

The Mahabharata states clearly that kingship came into being to serve the weak, to protect the weak from exploitation by the strong, to destroy what the epic calls the matsya nyaya or the fish-eat-fish philosophy, the way of life in which big fish eat small fish. To the epic, service to his subjects is the ultimate aim of the king, his raison d'etre. It considers this aim to be so noble that it asks rhetorically: What shall a king do with tapas, or with religious vows or sacrificial rituals? The king who has looked after his subjects well has already achieved the results of all sacrifices and rituals.

kim tasya tapasaa raajnah kim cha tasya adhvarairapi; supaalitaprajo yah syaat sarva-dharma-videva sah. [MB Shanti 69.73]

To the Mahabharata, this service to the people is his religion to the king – the highest spirituality, the highest yajna, yaga, homa, the highest everything sacred. There is nothing more sacred than service to the people. If the king has served his people, he has achieved the results of all sacred acts, all sacred rituals, it said.

The Mahabharata does not stop there. It says that for the king his personal likes should seize to be his likes if they are against the good of his people; and even if he does not like to do something, if it is for the good of his people, that is what he should do. The greatest rulers this land has known, like Rama, believed in this and practiced it. Some of his actions we vociferously criticize today were based on this philosophy. He himself did not matter to him, his likes and dislikes did not matter to him, his deepest feelings did not matter to him, his personal pain and agony did not matter to him, if he believed an action would do good to his people he went ahead and did that.  

The Mahabharata considered the garbhini, the pregnant woman, as the highest ideal for a ruler and said: Just as a pregnant woman gives up the things that are to her liking and does what is good for the baby in her womb, so too should a king, without a doubt, give up his pleasures and do whatever is for the good of his subjects. He should totally give up his own likes and do whatever is for the good of the world.

yathaa hi garbhinee hitvaa svam priyam manaso’anugam |

garbhasya hitam aadhatte tathaa raajnaapy asamshayam || 

vartitavyam kurushreshtha nityam dharmaanuvartinaa |

svam priyam samabhityajya yadyal-lokahitam bhavet || MB Shanti 56.45-46||

Chanakya of course came long, long after the Mahabharata times. But he, the genius behind the founding of the Maurya empire, too considered the job of the king as service to his people. Comparing the king’s job with the most sacred thing known to India in his days, a Vedic yajna, Chanakya says in the Arthashastra:  To a king, “readiness to action is his religious vow [vrata]; continuous discharge of duties is his performance of sacrifice [yajna]; equal attention to all is the offer of fees to the priests [dakshina]”.

According to Chanakya: In the happiness of his subjects lies the happiness of the king; in their welfare his welfare; whatever pleases himself he shall not consider as good, but whatever gives happiness to his subjects he shall consider as good.” [prajaasukhe sukham raajnah, prajaanaam cha hite hitam; na aatmapriyam hitam raajnah, prajaanaam tu priyam hitam // Artha 01.19.34//] [Shama Shastry translation]

All his life Krishna fought to bring this philosophy of kingship as service to the people back into the political life of the day, into the leaders of his times. He sided with the Pandavas because he saw in them the possibility of leadership becoming for the service of the people, unlike Duryodhana who was obsessed with power for himself, would do anything to achieve it and wouldn’t let anyone or anything stand in the way of his attaining it. Duryodhana loved himself too much to live for others.

A narcissistic leader does not serve others. He serves only himself, whether he is the head of a family, a corporate house, a political organization or a nation. Personal glory is his aim, not service to others. That is why if you have a narcissistic leader at the head of an organization, the organization is doomed. His first thought is always how something will benefit him, not how it will benefit others. A leader has to put the others first, not himself or herself.  

There were several powerful kings in the Mahabharata times who believed in Duryodhana’s philosophy. In those times kings in general had become power greedy –in the words of Sanjaya, they had become “like dogs that snatch meat from one another.”  It is them that Krishna fought to destroy throughout his life and the Mahabharata war too was fought for no different purpose, at least not from Krishna’s standpoint.

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Though the war was fought to counter this philosophy and to reestablish that leadership is service, to lead is to serve and a leader should live for others, especially for the weak, it did involve a throne. What throne was it? Was it the throne of a small kingdom, or was it the throne of the entire India, then known as Bharatavarsha? Let’s take a quick look at the Mahabharata to find this out.

Chapter IX of the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata is a discussion of what Bharata or Bharatavarsha is. Dhritarashtra calls the land for which his son Duryodhana and the Pandavas are fighting the war Bharatavarsha and asks his minister and companion Sanjaya for a description of it. In response, Sanjaya describes the mountains of this land, the rivers, the people living on this land and so on.

Important among the mountains that Sanjaya names are Mahendra, Malaya, Sahya, Shuktiman, Rakshavan, Vindhya and Paripatra, which are called the seven kula mountains. Besides these he says there are thousands of other mountains that are part of this land.

He then names the rivers of Bharata: Ganga, Sindhu, Saraswati, Godavari, Krishna, Narmada and Yamuna; Dhrishadwati, Vipasha, Vetravati, Iravati, Vitasta, Payoshni, Gomati, Gandaki, Sarayu, Charmanwati Vetravati; Kaveri, Bhima, Oghavati, Asikni, Vidisha, Varuna, Asi and Nila  Sanjaya mentions scores of other rivers by name, but this short selection will serve our purpose.   

As we can see, even this list contains rivers from every part of India, not just from the Kuru land or Kuru Jangala. The Iravati mentioned here is the river that flows through what was then Brahmadesha, Burma for the British and now Myanmar. Godavari and Krishna flow through today’s Andhra Pradesh, Kaveri through Tamil Nadu and Nila flows through Kerala, a river more widely known by the local name Bharatapuzha. Locate these rivers on a map and you will find that they cover all of modern India and much more.

Sanjaya now describes Bharata as the land where the following people are living: the Kuru Panchalas, Panchalas proper, Madras, Shurasenas, Kalingas, Matsyas, Kashis, Kosalas, Chedis, Karushas, Bhojas, Sindhus, Dasharnas, and the Utkalas; the Keralas, Shakas, Angas, Vangas, Abhiras, Kekayas, Andhras, Pundras; the Kashmiras, Tamraliptas, Malavas, Dravidas, Karnatakas, Cholas.....  Sanjaya’s list goes on and on describing scores of other people living on this land called Bharata.

Interestingly he mentions the Mushakas on his list. The Mushakas, or Mushikas, were a dynasty of people who ruled northern Kerala long ago. There is an epic poem in Sanskrit called Mushaka Vamsha Kavya, authored by the poet Atula in the 11^th century CE.

The description of the different peoples living in Bharata includes the Kiratas – they are the people of what we today call Tibet, an independent nation until 1954 and occupied by China since then.  Just like Tibet, Bahlika mentioned on the list is also no more part of Bharata. It is the place we know today as Balkh, a province of Afghanistan.

So this is the land for which the Mahabharata war was being fought according to Ch. X of the Bhishma Parva of the epic.

All this land had been brought both under the Pandava rule through conquests while they were ruling from Indraprastha, also known as Khandavaprastha.  Just before Yudhishthira’s rajasuya, Krishna, accompanied by Bhima and Arjuna, goes to Jarasandha and has the emperor killed, the eighty-six kings imprisoned by him released and Jarasandha’s virtuous son Sahadeva crowned king in his father’s place. Informed of the rajasuya Yudhishthira plans to perform, all these kings give Krishna their joyous assurance of going along with Yudhishthira. They go to Indraprastha along with Krishna, Bhima and Arjuna and pay their respects to Yudhishthira. After they depart, Krishna and the Pandavas have discussions with Yudhishthira and plan the digvijaya, conquest of all kings of the land as required by the rajasuya.  

Soon Arjuna proceeds in the northern direction and subjugates all kings in that direction. The epic mentions these kings by name one after another, in the order in which Arjuna conquered them. At the same time, Bhima proceeds in the eastern direction and conquers all the kings there. Sahadeva proceeds in the southern direction and conquers all the kings there, going right up to what is now Rameshwaram, from where he sends messengers to Lanka. The only serious challenge Sahadeva had on his long journey south was from King Nila of Mahishmati, about which we are told the fascinating story of an adulterous affair between Nila’s daughter and the god Agni, their subsequent marriage and Agni’s protection given to the king. On Sahadeva’s way to the extreme south, we are specifically told of his conquest of the Kalingas, the Andhras, and the Dravidas.  Later, after receiving tributes from the king of Lanka, Sahadeva returns to Indraprastha. 

Nakula proceeds in the western direction and conquers all the kings in that direction. Interestingly, one of the kingdoms that accepted his sway was Krishna’s Dwaraka. Nakula sends messengers to Krishna’s father Vasudeva and Vasudeva with all the Yadavas accepts his overlordship. Next, approaching Madra, he sends messengers to his uncle Shalya and Shalya, of course, happily accepts the sway of the Pandavas – out of affection, adds the Mahabharata. Nakula also conquers the Mleccha kingdoms on the western sea coast  such as the Yavanas and Shakas.  

The four brothers had thus brought within Yudhishthira’s overlordship all the kings in all the four directions of the land – north, east, south and west, thus making Yudhishthira the emperor of the entire land from the Himalayas to the southern sea. So it was not just the kingdom of Indraprastha that Yudhishthira lost in the dice game, but also lordship over all the kingdoms that the four brothers had conquered on his behalf.

The Mahabharata war was fought for all of India – all of Bharatavarsha, an India much larger than today’s India. It was throughout the length and breadth of this land that Krishna wanted kings to rule people based on the philosophy that kingship is service to the people.

We have a modern name for leadership as service: servant leadership. This style of leadership which was the very heart of Indian leadership philosophy, in which kings considered themselves the dasas, servants, of the people they ruled, was reinvented in the west in modern times by Robert Greenleaf. Greenleaf’s inspirations were Krishna, Jesus and Leo, a character in Journey to the East by Nobel Prize winner Herman Hesse, who himself was inspired deeply by India. Today servant leadership is fast growing as a leadership approach, many leading industrial and business houses across the world following it, including South West Airlines, the world’s largest low-cost carrier. I have taught servant leadership as a leadership approach in one of the leading business schools in the country to several batches of students over many years and have also given lectures to officers from various corporate houses of the country, including the Tatas.

Krishna wanted all kings across India to be servant leaders. It is for this that he fought wars with many arrogant kings of the land, it is for this that he helped Yudhishthira perform the rajasuya sacrifice and become the samrat, and it is for this that Krishna supported the Pandavas against Duryodhana. This is the dharma yuddha, war for dharma, Krishna was talking about, the purpose for which he took incarnation. He wanted kings to serve their people. Service to the people was rajadharma as Krishna understood it.

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This description of Bharatavarsha in the Mahabharata is also an answer to those who say that it was the British that for the first time brought India under one rule, that the very concept of India as a nation owes its existence to the British. India as a separate entity has existed for several thousand years before the arrival of the British in India, speaking of which the Vishnu Purana says: The land that lies north of the [southern] sea and south of the Himalayas, that is called Bharata and the people living there are called Bharati[yas].

uttaram yat samudrasya, himaadres chaiva dakshinam; varsham tad bharatam naama, bhaaratee yatra santati.  

Of course, the political set up we had in the Mahabharata days was different. We believed in a federal system rather than in centralized administration – a federal system in which each kingdom had its independence but accepted the overlordship of an emperor, called a samrat or a chakravatri, to whom he paid tributes. Later in modern historical times too, such as under Ashoka and under Chadragupa Maurya, we had most of India under a single emperor’s rule, as did Akbar have most of India under his rule centuries before the British became the rulers of India. Under the British too several independent kingdoms existed in India, though they all paid tributes to the British, exactly as independent kings paid tributes to Yudhishthira in his days.

Besides, this condition of ancient India existing as several independent kingdoms is not a unique condition in world history. In fact, that is how most large countries were in ancient days. The historian Sarah Bradford’s celebrated book Lucrezia Borgia:  Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy, for instance, begins by describing how Italy at that time was more a geographical expression than a country.  She says:  

“At the time of Lucrezia Borgia’s birth in 1480, Italy was famously a geographical expression rather than a country, a peninsula divided into independent states bound by the weakest sense of common nationality. Neapolitans, Milanese and Venetians were Neapolitans, Milanese and Venetians first and foremost: the concept of Italy as a political whole did not exist beyond a vague xenophobia in which non-Italians were perceived as barbarians...

“The principal Italian states in the late fifteenth century were (from north to south) Milan, ruled by the Sforza family; Venice, a merchant empire ruled by an oligarchy of patrician families headed by a doge; Florence, then ruled by the Medici as a hereditary despotism in the person of Piero, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent; the Papal States, the temporal dominion of the Pope whose authority in practice was devolved to ‘papal vicars’, principally the Este of Ferrara, but including smaller city states such as Bologna, Rimini, Pisa, Siena, Camerino, Forlì, Faenza and Pesaro, where families such as the Bentivoglio, the Malatesta, the Petrucci, the Varani, the Riarii and the Manfredi held sway. Mantua was held as a fief of the Holy Roman Empire by the Gonzaga family.”

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Photo courtesy: Devender Malhotra

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