Living Bhagavad Gita 17: Journey to True Greatness

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.]

For that reason, we should not kill the Dhartarashtras, our relatives. How can we be happy after killing our own people, Krishna? Because their hearts are overpowered by greed, they see no evil in destroying the family and no sin in harming friends. But we know what evil it is to destroy families. How then can we not, Krishna, turn back from this sin? BG 1.37-39

O0O

In his book Forerunner, Kahlil Gibran paints a beautiful picture of greed:

“In my wanderings I once saw upon an island a man-headed, iron-hoofed monster who ate of the earth and drank of the sea incessantly. And for a long while I watched him. Then I approached him and said, “Have you never enough; is your hunger never satisfied and your thirst never quenched?”

“And he answered saying, “Yes, I am satisfied, nay, I am weary of eating and drinking; but I am afraid that tomorrow there will be no more earth to eat and no more sea to drink.”

Krishna considers greed one of the three gates of hell, lust and anger being the other two, and asks us to free ourselves from them: trividham narakasyedam dvaaram naashanam aatmanah kaamah krodhas tathaa lobhas tasmaad etat trayam tyajet.  BG 16.21

It is our insecurities about the future that give birth to greed in our mind. And so long as insecurities are there, greed will be there too. The insecure man will never be contented with what he has, however much he has, and will constantly try to acquire more, whether it is power, position, wealth, or whatever else he thinks will make his future secure.

In Abraham Maslow’s triangle of needs, security needs come as the second group of needs from below, after physical and physiological needs. Insecurities about the future are built into human nature and until man wakes up from the life of illusions he is living and realizes his true nature, or learns to surrender to Existence, to God, they will be there.

A botanist was in the Himalayas along with his young son, exploring the Valley of Flowers. He tied a rope to his son’s waste and slowly lowered him to explore a deep gorge in the valley. As the son disappeared from sight and started going deeper and deeper into the gorge, the father’s heart started beating faster and faster, his head started nearly reeling in fear. Unable to control his fears any more, he called out, “Son, are you all right? Are you afraid?”

And he heard his son’s laughter from the gorge. Laughing, the young boy answered, “Why should I be afraid when the rope is in my father’s hands?!”

That is how surrender is. As we shall see later, Krishna concludes his teachings to Arjuna by asking him to surrender to him. By surrendering to Existence, you give yourself over into the safest of hands. And awakening to your true nature, you realize you are what the Gita speaks of as what neither weapons, nor fire, not water can touch, what is unborn and deathless. And with that all insecurities and fears disappear and so does the need to acquire more and more, to hoard.

A difficult path to practice, of course. That is why the Upanishads say that religion is for the truly brave – to walk the spiritual path, to tread the path of shreyas, you have to be truly strong and courageous.  Listing divine qualities, daivi sampada, Krishna lists abhayam, fearlessness, as the very first quality on his list. 

Duryodhana’s is the sad story of a man who cannot surrender to God, even though God was there in the form of Krishna all the time. His asuri nature prevents that surrender, his ego prevents him from surrendering to Krishna and accepting him as his protector and guide. Instead, he would like to imprison the Divine and make him do his bidding, as he tries to do when Krishna comes to speak of peace in the Kuru assembly. Before the war begins, Arjuna and he both approach Krishna seeking his help and Arjuna is given the first choice: to choose between Krishna’s army and an unarmed, non-combating Krishna. The epic tells us that while Arjuna happily chose Krishna, Duryodhana was worried all the time that he might choose Krishna’s army, as he himself would have done instantly given the first choice to him. For Duryodhana, Krishna is of no value.

Greed is truly a gate that leads to hell. Greed makes us forget no amount of wealth, no amount of power, no position, nothing we can acquire from the world is going to make us joyous, nothing is going to help us live our life in utsava bhava, the spirit of festivity and celebration, as life is meant to be lived.

One of my favourite passages from Kahlil Gibran is a conversation between the serpent and the lark:

Said the serpent to the lark, “Thou flyest, yet thou canst not visit the recesses of the earth where the sap of life moveth in perfect silence.”

And the lark answered, “Aye, thou knowest over much, nay thou art wiser than all things wise – pity thou canst not fly.”

And as if he did not hear, the serpent said, “Thou canst not see the secrets of the deep, nor move among the treasures of the hidden empire. It was but yesterday I lay in a cave of rubies. It is like the heart of a ripe pomegranate, and the faintest ray of light turns it into a flame-rose. Who but me can behold such marvels?”

And the lark said, “None, none but thee can lie among the crystal memories of the cycles: pity thou canst not sing.”

And the serpent said, “I know a plant whose root descends to the bowels of the earth, and he who eats of that root becomes fairer than Ashtarte.”

And the lark said, “No one, no one but thee could unveil the magic thought of the earth – pity thou canst not fly.”

And the serpent said, “There is a purple stream that runneth under a mountain, and he who drinketh of it shall become immortal even as the gods. Surely no bird or beast can discover that purple stream.”

And the lark answered, “If thou willest thou canst become deathless even as the gods – pity thou canst not sing.”

And the serpent said, “I know a buried temple, which I visit once a moon: It was built by a forgotten race of giants, and upon its walls are graven the secrets of time and space, and he who reads them shall understand that which passeth all understanding.”

And the lark said, “Verily, if thou so desirest thou canst encircle with thy pliant body all knowledge of time and space – pity thou canst not fly.”

Then the serpent was disgusted, and as he turned and entered into his hole he muttered, “Empty-headed songster!”

And the lark flew away singing, “Pity thou canst not sing. Pity, pity, my wise one, thou canst not fly.”

Greed is a curse. Where there is greed, there is no joy. One of the most joyless men I have come across is a rich man I once knew who lived for making money. He was my neighbour and I would hear him talking loudly over the phone from five in the morning till ten or eleven in the night every day. He had only one topic: how to make more money through investment in shares and the business of gold, diamonds and real estate.

Tibetan culture speaks of accursed beings they call the hungry ghosts – ghosts, pishachas, surrounded by all kinds of delicacies, but with such tiny mouths, like that of anteaters, they can eat no more than the tiniest morsels and remain hungry forever. 

O0O

In the 1987 movie classic Wall Street, the Michael Doughlas character Gordon Gekko says: “Greed...is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.” This is the philosophy that has dominated the world, particularly the industrial western world, for quite some time and we can see all round us what greed has done to us. In his book Is the American Dream Killing You? Paul Stiles speaks of the power of the greed-driven market: “The ability of the Market to overcome the most important human bonds, the natural bonds between man and woman, and between parents and children, and to subvert traditions that have arisen out of millions of years of biological and social evolution, in a short fifty years, is stark testimony to the power of the Market in modern life. That power has now placed us in a position where we are serving the Market from birth, rather than having it serve us.”

A 1909 cartoon shows the inside of a huge boat where a large number of children are rowing oars like galley slaves and a muscular man stands overseeing them which a whip in his hand. The writing on his clothes reads: GREED.  

That is what happens when greed takes over the world and we say greed is good!

A Psychology Today article on greed says:

“Greed is also associated with negative psychological states such as stress, exhaustion, anxiety, depression and despair, and with maladaptive behaviours such as gambling, scavenging, hoarding trickery and theft. By overriding reason, compassion and love, greed loosens family and community ties and undermines the bonds and values upon which society is built.

“Greed may drive the economy, but as recent history has made all too clear, unfettered greed can also precipitate a deep and long-lasting economic recession. What’s more, our consumer culture continues to inflict severe damage on the environment, resulting in, among others, deforestation, desertification, ocean acidification, species extinctions, and more frequent and severe extreme weather events. There is a question about whether such greed can be sustainable in the short term, never mind the long term.”

By the laws and traditions of the day that governed royal succession, Duryodhana had no right over the kingdom of the Kurus, as both his father Dhritarashtra and his mother Gandhari tell him openly in royal assembly during discussions on the subject in the Udyoga Parva of the epic. But in spite of that when he usurps power through crooked means, the kingdom is divided and the Pandavas, the rightful heirs to the throne, are sent to the wilderness of Khandava Prastha, which they soon turn to the most glorious kingdom on earth. And when that happens, Duryodhana’s greed for power and wealth once again makes him snatch from the Pandavas their kingdom and wealth. It is this greed of Duryodhana for wealth and power and his refusal to give the Pandavas so much as five villages that make the Mahabharata war necessary. And what Arjuna  tells Krishna now is that even though Duryodhana is deprived of his intelligence because of his greed, we should not fight the war because Duryodhana is after all his cousin.

The first commitment of a kshatriya, of all leaders of men, should be to righteous ways of living. You cannot condone because the perpetrator is your own cousin. A kshatriya is bound to destroy adharma wherever he finds it, going beyond relationships. When he condones adharma because it was done by his own people, he is failing in his basic duty as a protector of dharma.

O0O

Modern psychology tells us that the human mind does not take decisions based on reason; instead it first takes decisions and then seeks reasons to justify those decisions. The actual decision makers are our feelings and emotions, not our reason.  This is true whether it is an individual who is taking the decision or a group. The individual in a shop trying to decide whether to buy a shirt or not and the marketing group in a corporate meeting trying to decide what marketing strategy to adopt take decisions based on their emotions and feelings, though they not be aware of this.

Arjuna has made up his mind not to fight – that was an impulsive, instant decision taken under the impact of his emotional hijack he suffered when he saw his people standing in the battlefield ready to slaughter each other and realized that he will have to kill, among others, his own beloved grandfather and revered guru to win the war. Now he is giving Krishna reasons to justify that decision.

But in truth the reasons are sought less for Krishna’s sake and more for himself.  These reasons are the ways of his ego to defend itself – in his own eyes and in the eyes of the others. The first and the last concern of the ego under all circumstances is to save itself. But unfortunately, the ego is our greatest enemy. In fact it is our only enemy. It is the enemy of our happiness, the enemy of spiritual welfare, the one thing that separates us from the joyfulness that life should be. And spirituality is the process of starving the ego and feeding the soul so that we can wake up from the illusions we are suffering from and live life as it should be lived.

For the ego the only thing that matters is that it wins. Losing is one thing that the ego cannot accept – it has to win under all circumstances. So Arjuna’s ego tries to turn even abandoning the war and running away from it too into a victory.

Arjuna says however bad they are, if they are his own people he will not do anything against them because doing anything against one’s own people is wrong. Which is exactly what a corrupt politician practices today, though he does not openly say that because that is bad publicity.

Political organizations thrust incompetent leaders on people because they are their swajana. Numerous organizations and business houses have fallen because of this tendency to impose swajana on people, whether they are good or bad, competent or not. In politics, as in industry and business to a smaller extent, it is a common practice to promote one’s own people however ignorant, unethical and incompetent they are. And nations have to pay huge prices for this.   

Arjuna says taking actions against swajana is a sin – papa.  The opposite is true: not taking actions against one’s own people if they are evil is the sin. The most important reason why the Mahabharata war had to be fought was because Dhritarashtra failed to take action against his son who kept sinking lower and lower into the quicksand of adharma. When you do not take actions against the wrong deeds of your people over whom you have authority, you are not only condoning their wrong deeds but also encouraging them.  

Arjuna is among the most virtue-conscious people of the Mahabharata. But because of the impact of the emotional hijack, his buddhi has for the time being taken over by tamas and because of that he sees everything as the opposite of what it is. At this moment what is right is wrong for him and what is wrong is right for him.  Speaking of tamasic buddhi, the Gita says:  

adharmam dharmam iti yaa manyate tamasaavritaa

sarvaarthaan vipareetaamshcha buddhih saa paartha taamasee

The intelligence that regards adharma as dharma and views all things in a distorted light because it is enveloped by darkness – that intelligence, Arjuna, is tamasic. BG 18.32

Like everything else in existence, intelligence too can be sattvic, rajasic and tamasic.

O0O

The Mahabharata tells us how Karna sacrifices his loyalty to Duryodhana immediately before the war at the altar of the victory of dharma – loyalty that had sustained him all his life. Right from his childhood, he had been loyal to Duryodhana but eventually the light that Duryodhana is evil penetrates his mind in spite of that loyalty. Just before the war Krishna offers him the entire kingdom asking him to join the Pandava side and telling him he is really the eldest son of Kunti and hence the eldest of the Pandavas. He rejects the offer saying he does not want the kingdom to go to Duryodhana who does not deserve it because he evil and if Krishna gave the kingdom to him, he would give it to Duryodhana out of his friendship with him. Against the interests of Duryodhana, Karna also gives away his divine armour and earrings that made him invincible in war, thus causing damage to Duryodhana. Not only that, he promises his mother Kunti that he would not kill any Pandava other than Arjuna, a promise that he keeps though he defeats each one of them in the war.   

Yudhishthira makes a great sacrifice by agreeing to tell the lie that Ashwatthama has been killed so that Drona would lay down his weapons and then he could be killed. In one of the two narrations of the incident found in the epic, there is no equivocation on his part, his words are not blown away by Krishna’s conch sound; he really tells Drona in so many words that his son Ashwatthama has been killed.  Yudhishthira thus sacrifices his lifelong truthfulness at the altar of dharma – knowing well he is lying, initially refusing to do so, but finally persuaded by Krishna.

Krishna makes a sacrifice by agreeing to be a mere driver in the war, though he is without a doubt the greatest warrior of the age and the most respected man.

Now it is time for Arjuna to make a sacrifice of his own by agreeing to kill those two pillars of Durdyodhana’s evil empire, both of whom he loves and reveres: Bhishma and Drona.  Which is what his ego is refusing to do at this moment.

There are times in our lives when we all feel the call to greatness too tough a challenge to accept. In the movie Saala Khadoos, we see that the wrestler Madhi [Mati] at one stage in her life is so crushed by darkness that she feels the life she was living as a fish seller in the market is preferable and thinks of abandoning the challenge of becoming world wrestling champion.. That would have been choosing preyas over shreyas, the easy path over the right but tough path. Fortunately in the movie she finds the right guru – her inspiring and tireless boxing coach Prabhu.
 

Happy are the ones who find a guru. The right guru.

Arjuna is lucky to find the right guru in Krishna. Krishna helps him  make that sacrifice and journey into the world of true greatness.

O0O

Living Bhagavad Gita 04

Short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for the busy, stressed working people of today. Discusses how to live the Gita in our daily life.

[Continued from the previous post]

Then Bhishma, the aged Kuru grandfather, roared like a lion and blew a powerful blast on his conch making Duryodhana’s heart leap with joy. BG 1.12

Bhishma thoroughly understands Duryodhana’s psychology and that is why without allowing him to continue, in a brilliant move, he roars like a lion and blows his conch powerfully making the whole war field boom with its sound.

In the Richard Attenborough movie Gandhi there is an amazing satyagraha scene which we cannot watch without holding our breath because of the intensity of the feelings it arouses in our heart. In May 1930, soon after the highly successful Dandi March against the salt tax imposed on India by the British, following a call given by Gandhiji, a large group of freedom fighters assemble to peacefully raid the British managed Dharasana Salt Works in Gujarat because, as Mahatmaji said, India’s salt belongs to India. We see a multitude of Indians waiting not far from the gate of the Salt Works ready to move towards the factory. There are several women volunteers waiting a little distance away to nurse those men who would be brutally beaten up by the policemen guarding the factory gate. And there are journalists present, covering the event.  The British want the event to turn violent, thus defeating Gandhiji’s determination to make the event non-violent. They arrest Gandhiji hoping it will provoke the people and turn them violent. But people are determined come what may they will not raise a hand: they will not fight back and they will not turn away and run.

As the first row of freedom fighters led by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad approach the gate, police batons come down brutally on their heads and shoulders. We hear the sound of bones cracking and people collapsing on the ground, blood flowing freely bathing their faces. As the women volunteers come forward and carry them away for first aid, the second line of freedom fighters move forward. Steel tipped police lathis come down heavily on their heads and shoulders too, crushing the skull and breaking bones. The scene is repeated again and again and we see the reporters turning their faces away, unable to stand the viciousness of the police and the silent, wordless superhuman endurance of the satyagrahis.

Here is how American journalist Webb Miller who was an eye-witness to the scene reports it:

“Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows... From where I stood I heard the sickening whacks of the clubs on unprotected skulls. The waiting crowd of watchers groaned and sucked in their breaths in sympathetic pain at every blow.

“Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing in pain with fractured skulls or broken shoulders. In two or three minutes the ground was quilted with bodies. Great patches of blood widened on their white clothes. The survivors without breaking ranks silently and doggedly marched on until struck down. When every one of the first column was knocked down stretcher bearers rushed up unmolested by the police and carried off the injured to a thatched hut which had been arranged as a temporary hospital...

“Bodies toppled over in threes and fours, bleeding from great gashes on their scalps. Group after group walked forward, sat down, and submitted to being beaten into insensibility without raising an arm to fend off the blows. Finally the police became enraged by the non-resistance....They commenced savagely kicking the seated men in the abdomen and testicles. The injured men writhed and squealed in agony, which seemed to inflame the fury of the police....The police then began dragging the sitting men by the arms or feet, sometimes for a hundred yards, and throwing them into ditches.”

According to Wikipedia from which this quote is taken, “Miller later wrote that he went to the hospital where the wounded were being treated, and "counted 320 injured, many still insensible with fractured skulls, others writhing in agony from kicks in the testicles and stomach....Scores of the injured had received no treatment for hours and two had died."

There are several forms of courage, what we see here is without a doubt courage of the highest kind.  

What gives such extraordinary courage to ordinary people? What awakens in ordinary peddlers and street vendors, school teachers and office clerks, farmers and fishermen, carpenters and blacksmiths the courage to stand up against the mightiest empire the world has seen? It is one thing to be struck by the police lathi unawares. It is an altogether different thing to know that when you take the next step the lathi is going to come down heavily on you and break your skull causing unspeakable pain, to see this happening to the person right in front of you and yet take that step. While there are other reasons involved, the satyagrahis were able to rise to such superhuman levels of courage through they were afire with the cause for which they were fighting. 

In the Hindi movie Lagaan, we see ordinary village people who have never played cricket forming a team and beating the English who have played cricket all their life. The strength of the villagers: inspiration born of their cause.

The Hindi movie Chak De India shows us how, following the final speech by their coach, the members of the Indian hockey team forget their rivalries and personal goals and fight as a single team, again inspired by their cause of making India win.

What we find lacking in the Kaurava team under Duryodhana is this inspiring cause. And because of that, none of the leading men of his army is able to give himself entirely to his war, none of them is able to forget their personal rivalries or their personal goals.

And Duryodhana himself is weighed down by guilt. He knows full well his cause is not just, that his heart is full of bitterness and jealousy, that the ways he has been practicing all his life, right from mixing deadly poison in th food of a completely unsuspecting Bhima at Pramanakoti while they were both children, were  treacherous.

In the Udyoga Parva, sometime before the war becomes inevitable, Dhritarashtra gives a long speech in a Kuru meeting about who the rightful heir to the Hastinapura throne is and concludes it by telling Duryodhana: “I was not fortunate to have the right over the kingdom; how can you then desire to be king? You are not the son of a king and therefore the kingdom does not belong to you. You are coveting what does not belong to you and trying to snatch it away from its rightful owner. The noble Yudhishthira is the son of the king, and this kingdom has rightfully been inherited by him. He is now the lord of all of us Kauravas, and that generous one is the [rightful] ruler of this land.”

It is this inner ethical conflict that creates confusion in Duryodhana’s heart and undermines his confidence as he looks at the Pandava army assembled, to cover up which he starts talking, saying exactly what he should not be saying, like praising the opposition army and insulting his guru Drona who is one of his greatest warriors.

Unless your cause is right, you will have no inspiration. And unless your cause is right and you yourself are inspired, you will not be able to inspire others. This is a universal truth.

Bhishma understands what is going on in Duryodhana’s mind and does precisely what needs to be done to cheer him up and bring back some semblance of confidence in him.

O0O

This ability to understand other people’s emotions is part of what is called emotional intelligence, which is intelligence in the true sense of the term because eighty to ninety percent of our success in life depends on emotional intelligence. The supreme example for emotional intelligence in the Mahabharata is, of course, Krishna. Each of his actions emerges from the brilliance of his emotional intelligence. And perhaps the worst case of emotional intelligence in the entire epic is Duryodhana who does exactly what should not be done most of the time in the epic, as he does at this moment, eventually leading not only his family and the Bharata clan into tragedy but all of India, sending this glorious land into a long age of darkness much longer than what Europe went into from around the fifth century of the Common Era.

Duryodhana was the most powerful man in Bharatavarsha when the war begins and he was the de facto emperor of the land, though officially he was not. Tragedy is what naturally results when the person at the helm of affairs in any organization lacks emotional intelligence – be it a war, a business, an industry or a nation.

O0O

Photo courtesy:  Devender Malhotra 

Thank you in advance for your comments and questions.

Living Bhagavad Gita 003: Arjuna Vishada Yoga

Short articles on the Bhagavad Gita for the busy, stressed working people of today. Discusses how to live the Gita in our daily life.

[Continued from Living Bhagavad Gita: 002]

Praise in the right place is praise; praise in the wrong place is an insult. Praise at the right time is praise; praise at the wrong time is an insult.      

In these opening verses of the Bhagavad Gita, Duryodhana addresses his guru Acharya Drona using the word dvijottama, a word that literally means the best of brahmanas and in common usage means a noble brahmana. Since Drona is neither the best of brahmanas nor a noble brahmana, this definitely is an insult, or at least sarcasm. Unless of course he is trying to flatter his guru, which the context shows he is not.

The definition of a brahmana handed down for thousands of years through the karna-parampara, the oral tradition, is: one who knows the Ultimate Reality, Brahman, or in other words someone who knows God: brahma janati iti brahmanah. By an extension of the definition, the term could also be used for one whose aim of life is knowing God and treads the path that leads to God realization by living a life of nivritti – of serenity, quietude, acceptance, forgiveness, patience and so on.

This is not the way Drona has been living his life, though the society in his days expected a brahmana to live such a life. Instead, he had chosen to be a teacher of the martial arts and is standing in the battlefield fully armed to fight a war and kill Duryodhana’s enemies. Though he is not the commander-in-chief of the Kaurava army yet, he would become that once Bhishma falls. That definitely is not being a noble brahmana.

The Buddha is just stating the traditional perception of who a brahmana is when he says in the Dhammapada:   

One who has laid down the rod

In dealing with beings, moving or still,

Who neither kills nor causes to kill,

Him I call a brahmin. [James Carter translation]

And again:

Whoever endures abuse, assault, and imprisonment

Without animosity,

And who has forbearance as one’s strength,

As one’s mighty army,

I call a brahmin. [Jack Kornfield translation]

Forget about being a dwijottama, Drona is hardly a dwija at all, unless you go by birth alone, though even then you are expected to live a certain lifestyle which Drona has given up a long time ago.  Some of the basic virtues by which a brahmana lives are lack of vengefulness, forgiveness, great self mastery, endurance and so on.

Consciously or unconsciously, Duryodhana is just adding another insult to the list of insults he heaps upon his guru in these opening verses. And by doing that, he is not promoting his cause in any way. The only way to understand his behavior is by assuming he has temporarily lost mastery over himself and his actions are not emerging from his conscious self but from his unconscious, as it happens with all of us in our moments of great fear or stress.

Duryodhana here demonstrates complete lack of emotional intelligence. He is not in touch with his own inner feelings and naturally has no mastery over these feelings. He has got into such situations numerous times in the past too, thus incurring the curse of rishis and the anger of his elders.

The Kuru prince has throughout his life been a slave to his emotions, something no leader can afford to become, either in earlier times or today. Atma jeyah sada rajna – one should always be a master of oneself, says the Mahabharata, discussing one of the first principles of leadership. And self mastery means mastery over one’s body, one’s senses and one’s mind. It includes mastery over the six enemies of man – kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada and matsarya – lust, anger, greed, delusion, pride and intolerance..This is particularly true of a man in a leadership position, because he is responsible not only for himself but for others, sometimes tens of thousands of others, as in the case of an ancient king or the head of a modern corporate house, or the captain of a team of let’s say mountaineers, sportsmen, explorers, or whoever else.  One of the most striking examples of a sportsman losing mastery over himself and suffering great loss for himself, his team and his nation in modern times is that of the great Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 Football World Cup final in Berlin.

Why has Duryodhana lost mastery over himself? What could be the reason? Let’s look at his words to his guru Drona once again before we proceed further.

Among other things he tells the Acharya his own army is aparyapta and that of the Pandavas is paryapta. His words here are traditionally interpreted in two different ways. One, to mean his army is boundless and that of the Pandavas is limited. And two, just the opposite: his army is not sufficient to meet the challenge, and that of the Pandavas is adequate.

In my previous discussion [Living Bhagavad Gita: Short Essays 002], I had followed the first traditional interpretation of his words. Let’s now give his words the second meaning: that he feels his army is inadequate whereas that of the Pandavas is sufficient. Why does he say such a demoralizing thing when he and his people are standing in the battlefield ready to begin the war?

Well, Duryodhana has just counted the major warriors on both sides. While on the Pandava side he mentions several mighty warriors, he mentions only a few on his own side. Surprisingly he misses even such powerful warriors on his side as his brother Dusshasana, Bhurishava and Shalya, each one of whom is a truly mighty warrior, each capable of commanding large armies and causing great harm to the enemies. Shalya has in fact joined his side with an entire akshauhini of army and would eventually become the commander-in-chief of all Duryodhana’s forces after the death of Karna!

And he mentions Karna – who is not present on the spot to fight the war, has vowed not to enter the war field so long as Bhishma stands!

Has the presence of so many mighty warriors on the enemy side confused him? Has it made him doubt his chances of victory, lose his confidence?

A short while before the war was finally decided upon, Duryodhana was absolutely sure of his victory. When Krishna had gone to the Kuru assembly and negotiated peace, the language Duryodhana used throughout was the language of power. Every time Krshna would suggest a way to end the conflict and find peace, Duryodhana would ask: But who is more powerful, they or us? But all on a sudden, his sense of his own power, his army’s power, seems to have deserted him. What could be the reason?

Could it be that the sight of so many mighty maharathis on the Pandava side made him suspect his own power? It is possible that earlier Duryodhana had assumed that the Pandavas would not be able to procure the alliance of so many mighty warriors and such a huge army?

While I believe that is possible, there could be another important reason. Something related to his people’s commitment to him. 

Duryodhana has doubts about the commitment of his people to him and to his cause. In fact they have told him so openly several times in the past and he himself has accused them of being more sympathetic towards the Pandava cause than to his cause. This has lead to explosive scenes in the Kuru assembly numerous times in the past.

When he looks at the Pandava army, he sees people totally committed to one cause, all of them standing behind Yudhishthira as one. But on his own side he knows no one is really with him. No one, not totally. Except perhaps his brother Dusshasana, who was like his twin soul.

Let’s take a quick look at the important people on Duryodhana’s side, those he mentions and those he does not mention. The first person on his list is Acharya Drona himself. It is well known that Drona’s favourite disciple is Arjuna, loved so much by the Acharya that to make sure that he remains his best student he asks for the thumb of Ekalavya in gurudakshina, thus destroying Ekalavya as an archer forever and gaining for himself eternal notoriety as a guru. It is also equally clear that Drona has no love for Duryodhana. The acharya sees him as arrogant, impulsive, incompetent brat, a usurper of power.

It has been so from the beginning. In the crocodile test devised by him to check the devotion of his disciples, when a crocodile attacks Drona, it was Arjuna who saved him risking his own life while Duryodhana watched on helplessly. While Duryodhana failed to give the guru dakshina Drona wanted in the form of Drupada, captured, bound and brought to him, Duryodhana failed to do that and it was the Pandavas, led by Arjuna, who did it. Arjuna repeatedly proves his total devotion not only to his guru but also to learning, even defeating his guru in his cunning, unethical schemes to stop him from becoming his best disciple. Every teacher would love such a disciple.

Drona has repeatedly said that Duryodhana has neither any right over the Kuru crown nor the ethical requirements to wear it. The acharya certainly has no commitment to Duryodhana. Just before the war starts, as Yudhishthira comes to Drona seeking his blessings in the war and requesting him to join his side, Drona publicly announces he is on Duryodhana’s side only because of his financial indebtedness to him. Arthasya dasah – a slave to his wealth, that is how Drona describes himself then.

Kripa’s attitude in everything, including his commitment to Duryodhna, is the same as that of his brother-in-law Drona. Drona’s son Ashwatthama is close to Duryodhana as a friend, though he has frequently and bluntly questioned Duryodhana’s unethical ways.

It is too well known that Bhishma has no commitment to Duryodhana. Nor has Shalya, not mentioned here by Duryodhana, who is really Pandu’s wife Madri’s brother and thus an uncle of the Pandavas, who was waylaid and tricked to join the Kaurava side while he was on his way to join the Pandava side. His heart is with the Pandavas.

Vikarna, a younger brother of Duryodhana, is the only one who shows the courage to question what was being done in the Dice Hall to Draupadi, apart from Vidura. Though he fights for Duryodhana because they are brothers, his heart is not with him.

And Karna? His heart is definitely not with Duryodhana in this war, as he himself says openly to Krishna, because he considers Duryodhana ethically unfit to become king. When Krishna offers Karna the kingdom and asks him to join the Pandavas who are actually his brothers, Karna tells him he knows that and asks Krishna not to give him the kingdom because if it is given to him, out of his friendship with Duryodhana he would give it to him, and he does not deserve it, he is unfit to become king. True, Duryodhana counts on him heavily and perhaps believes he is with him fully, but he knows the fact that because of a quarrel with Bhishma, he would not be joining his side to fight the war so long as Bhishma stands. He may not know of the promise Karna has made to his mother not to kill any of her sons except Arjuana, but he certainly knows that Karna has put his own ego above Duryodhana’s interests by taking the decision to keep away from the war so long as Bhishma fights.             

Is there any wonder then if Duryodhana is shaken as he looks at both the sides as the war is about to start? He knows that wars are not won by skilled people, but by skilled people with commitment. A successful leader is he who is able to generate that commitment in people whether it is in the Mahabharata war, in any other war, or in a modern corporate house, a political party, an election, or whatever ‘battle’ it is. People contribute best to a cause when their heart in it.

Duryodhana knows he is a failure as a leader. His guide all his life has been Shakuni whereas the Pandavas have Krishna with them to give them strength and to show them their path. He also knows he does not have even the blessings of his own mother for this war in which she considers him on the side of adharma! She refuses to bless him as he goes to her seeking her blessings as he starts out.  As he bends and touches her feet, instead of the conventional vijayi bhava, be victorious, what she says is yato dharmah tato jayah – Victory will be where dharma is!  

O0O  

Rather than asking Duryodhana to shut up, Bhishma in a tactically brilliant act blows his powerful conch to stop Duryodhana’s babbling and to announce the war.  He has openly criticized Duryodhana all his life but does not want to do that again at this juncture and in front of all these people!

tasya sanjanayan harsham kuruvriddhah pitaamahah

simhanaadam vinadyocchaih shankham dadhmau prataapavaan // BG 1.12 //

Then Bhishma, the aged Kuru grandfather, roared like a lion and blew a powerful blast on his conch making Duryodhana’s heart leap with joy.

O0O

Thank you in advance for your comments and questions!