Yuga dharma.

Sri gurubhyo namaha.

Post or two on the Ramayana - Done.
Post or two on the Mahabharatha - Done.
No more Mahakavyas. What next?

Realise a lack of more in terms of what are itihasa kavyas (historic epics) which are elevated to the level of the two mentioned above. Ulysses? No. Better stick to what I know.

Yes! A post digging for scraps from the both!
So, here goes.

Rama (the hero of the Ramayana) is one among the avatars (incarnations) of Vishnu. Krishna (the hero of the Mahabharatha) too is one among the avatars of Vishnu. Both incarnations occurred at different epochs. Ramas incarnation is set in the Treta yuga and Krishnas incarnation is towards the end of the Dwapara yuga. These epochs or yugas are huge periods of time and the intrinsic nature of these yugas give us an insight into the peoples and their psyches, their inner and outer troubles, the environment, their 'state', etc as a collective. And believe me, they are certainly varied times. Rama walked this earth in a human form somewhat (quite somewhat) earlier than Krishna and observing the parallels in the lives of these two individuals, who really are the same person, who lived in different times is a wonderful exercise. Not only does it provide the contextual difference in terms of their respective characters or their respective message to the world at large, it also gives us the influence of the actual yuga dharma or the nature of the flow of things in the different yugas.

As with everything, it is easy to look at the obvious differences than the not so obvious ' oneness'. A look at the differences then-

Rama is renowned for being the eka patni vratan or the one who is married only once and remains loyal to that one wife. Legends associated with Rama glorify this aspect of his character. Krishna on the other hand had more wives than there are days in peoples lives! Some legends hold that Krishna had 16,108 wives (this number has an esoteric significance which is not the intent of this post to hover on) and even if we ignore that view for the time being, he still had more wives than one. Krishna was married to Rukmini, Sathyabhama, Jambhavathi, Kalindi and Mitrabinda (these are all detailed in the many stories of Krishna, his life and exploits!). Even still Krishna is always associated with Radha primarily - who was his lover(oh, the taboo) and not one he married! Legends associated with Krishna glorify this aspect of his as the playboy who stole the hearts of many.

The adharma in the times of Rama is personified as the demon king Ravana who out of his lust and desire for Sita forcibly abducts her from the hermitage in the forest to his kingdom. It is this act of Ravana that served to be the catalyst for Rama to invade and attack Lanka the kingdom of Ravana. In the times of Krishna though things look different. Krishna encouraged (aided and abetted) his friend and devotee Arjuna to come to Dwaraka to seduce and steal his sister Shubadra!! Not only that, Arjuna did this job of seducing the princess Shubadra by living in Dwaraka in the guise of an ochre clad sanyasi.

The warfare in the days of Rama was governed by the rules pertaining to warfare and there was not much of the back hand and adharmic fights fought then. Rama's decision to fight with Ravana was justified and Rama did not use his sly cunning to win the war. The war was won by dharma and truth. In Krishna's time, the stories of the Mahabharatha make it evident; warfare was altogether a different affair. Most of the opponents (great heroes each one) that were defeated or slain by the Pandavas were felled by unfair means. In the slaying of Jayadratha Krishna played an important part in the unfair fight by covering the sun temporarily. Radheya (Karna), Drona, Duryodhana were all killed in unfair fights. One of the chapters of the epic also records this transition from dharma to adharma by makeing a note of the fact that the first ten days of the war (when the Kauravas fought under the leadership of the great Bheeshma) were ones of dharma. Then with the fall of Bheeshma and with the captaincy of Drona things took a turn for the wicked. Since then all the duels and the general war was dominated by adharma and underhand fighting. Krishna at the end of the war comments that the Kaurava greats could never have been defeated in a fair fight, never mind being killed, and that it was the nature of the yuga (the transition from dwapara to kali) that is seen from the sudden departure from the accepted code of warfare and dharma.

Rama spent his whole life trying to play down the fact that he was God - really! He was the personification of humility and the paragon of the virtues of the good Hindu. Always respectful towards his elders, sensitive to the needs of his subjects, aware of his duties as a son, king, husband etc. Even when the great Vasishtha began to preach the liberating wisdom to Rama in the end (yoga vashishta) it is remarkably clear that Rama is portrayed as human. Krishna on the other hand lived out his entire life (complete with all its glorious mischief making) to convey that he was God. Right from torturing his poor mother (Yasodha) by his pranks to stealing the hearts (and possibly more) of the gopikas, from the killing of Kamsa to orchestrating the whole great war, from providing yards and yards of saree material for the honour of Draupadi to revelling in his revelation of the cosmic form, Krishna's life story is a celebration of his being God.

There you go now, some of the parallels observed in the two incarnations at the two different yugas. I am sure there be plenty more we can find on even a first glance. These help to determine the ethic and the morality of the general populace at these different times and also in seeing what the yuga dharma does to influence the progress and the evolution of the world and its peoples. Now, I would like to take leave of you with a few questions.....

In the treta yuga (Rama's period) dharma or righteousness has three legs (out of four) so all is hunky dory to the most part. In the dwapara yuga (the end of which is marked by Krishna's birth and the end of the great war) dharma had but two of its four legs and things are (as we can see) beginning to wobble. In kali yuga (the current period, our period) which began at the end of the great war dharma stands on only one leg. Dharma is officially crippled! This much is yuga dharma. If Krishna incarnated to rid the earth of its demons, if his incarnation was for the destruction of adharma and the upholding of dharma, and if this his purpose was achieved by the total and all out slaughter of (nearly) all of the sixteen akshouhinis of troops and the subsequent destruction of the clan of the vrishinis, then why is the immediate birth of the next yuga (kali) one where dharma stands on only one leg??

Were the good slain in battle? Did dharma actually win when the kings and their armies were butchered? If those wicked souls on the path of adharma were weeded out like it is made out in the epic, why then was dharma left with such a handicap immeadiately after? Does adharma to fight adharma (for the bigger stake of dharma) make sense or is that very fact even an indicator that perhaps the means are more important than the end? Or are the means verily ends themselves? Or finally is yuga dharma akin to the proverbial ragwort (a weed) that simply rises its head above the ground no matter how many times is chopped down to the very ground?

A meditation on the Mahabharatha.

Sri gurubhyo namaha.

I am sure most of you would know of or atleast have heard of the Mahabharatha (the supreme epic) and more importantly the Gita (Bagawad gita). The Mahabharatha tells a story, rather many stories, of extraordinary proportions. Each time I read the book I see a different picture, a different message, a different moral. I am not going to go into the depth of the story here but I will just mention a thing or two here.

One of the most commonly asked questions about the Mahabharatha and the Gita is why is such a superior and sublime spritual book / discourse obsessed with war? Why is there so much fighting, so much treachery and so much violence in such a book? Is Hinduism really non violent or not in its core belief? If I were to list all questions in a similar vein, I am sure I can be filling pages and pages. But now that you have the gist of what I am saying, I wont repeat myself.

There are many reasons why such a spiritual masterpiece, one so sublime and yet so immanent as the Gita should precisely be set in such a context. A bit of internal meditation on the book and its message will tell you quite a bit of it and the great souls and gurus with their own insight and experience in the path of yoga and meditation garner an even deeper depth. Here though in this post, I am not going to attempt to answer this question - rather, I am going to put a question to you, the reader! Thats nice, I hear you say.....thats a good way of getting out of tricky questions. Let me assure you, I am doing nothing to deflect the question. Instead I am attempting to guess the depth of your ideologies and ethics (if we have any) much like the situation in the great epic of Mahabharatha.

Before I pose the question, let me throw in some context for those less familiar with the setting of the scene for the Bagawad gita. In the middle of the battle field called Kurukshetra the two armies have been stationed opposite each other. The army of the Kauravas (the bad guys put simply:please read the story for yourself to realise they arent actually all that bad) with eleven Akshauhinis (a military unit comprising of cavalry,elephant troops, foot soldiers, charriot troops, etc each) on the one side and the Pandavas (the good guys put simply : please read the story for yourself to realise they arent actually all that good!) with their seven Akshauhinis and Krishna on the other side. Now, these Pandavas and the Kauravas are heirs to the same throne, that of the great house of the Kurus. They are actually first cousins - Pandu the father of the Pandavas and Dritharashtra the father of the Kauravas are brothers (though born to different mothers). Since the death of Pandu in the forest while the Pandavas were still only young children, the Pandavas and the Kauravas grew up together in the city called hastinapura. Their grand father, the grand sire Bheeshma watched over their education and rearing. The acharya Drona was the guru who taught the use of the various astras and shastras (the weapons and missiles used in warfare) to the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The Pandavas were five brothers and the eldest of them was Yudishtra, the very personfication of Dharma or righteousness. The Kauravas were 100 brothers and the eldest was Duryodhana, a good man apart from the fact that his heart was consumed with jelousy at the thought of the Pandavas. The great war which forms the bulk of the Mahabharatha in all its gory detail was fought between the two camps as a result of the jelousy of Duryodhana which over time grew into a horrible hatred for the Pandavas.

The Pandavas wanted a rightful share in the kingdom of the Kurus as was their due. The crown prince Duryodhana did not want to hand them their share of the land. To cut a long story short, the Kauravas attempted many things to get rid of the Pandavas and the Pandavas did many things to give peace a chance. This was not to be and finally things came to such a boil that the great war was announced. The two armies faced each other in the battlefield called Kurukshetra. Arjuna (one of) the star(s) of the story had his bow and his inexhaustible quiver of arrows and was ready for the war. He was in a charriot yoked with handsome powerful horses and the Lord of the world, the supreme Krishna was guiding him by being Arjuna's charrioter. This is the scene. Now imagine in your minds eye (call on the special effects of the Gladiator/Tipu sultan or anything else you fancy to help the visuals) this scene. The Pandavas are on the one side, at the front line are Arjuna and his brothers backed by an immense army of heroes. The Kauravas on the other side with the veteran Bheeshma in his silver charriot yoked to white steeds commanding the immense army of heroes on the side of Duryodhana.

Just as the great war is about to begin, Arjuna looks across to the other side and sees the array of heroes ready and waiting to begin the fight. He sees there assembled against him, his dear grandfather Bheeshma, his beloved guru the acharya Drona, their uncle Salya, and many of his friends who studied with him under Drona, his cousins the hated Duryodhana and his brothers, the acharya Kripa and many other heroes who Arjuna held in high regard. Opposite Arjuna were arrayed his family and friends, his teacher, his elders - those very people he had been used to venerating and holding close to his heart. When he sees this, his legs go weak under him and give way. Arjuna collapses to the side of the charriot and is choked with tears. His mind is paralysed by the fear of the understanding that whether he won or lost the war, he would be a loser. Gasping for breath and trying to acchieve some amount of composure (he is a kshatriya after all) Arjuna speaks to Krishna. He says, '' O Krishna, my limbs fail me and my courage and valour desert me now at this moment when I see those arrayed against me. O Krishna, of what use is the kingdom, why, of what use is the lordship over the entire world, when it has to be obtained by slaying those who are so dear to me? Against me, my lord, are assembled the elders and the scions of the Kuru house. Against me is my guru, the acharya Drona. How O Krishna, can I bring myself to kill these very people who have been objects of my love and devotion all along? How O Krishna can I enjoy the kingdom by destroying those very people who make it meaningful for me to enjoy that kingdom?''

The lord spoke then to Arjuna to address this his dilema (which was so powerful that it was in the way of him performing his duty), so the despondency and confusion in the heart of Arjuna will vanish. These words of the Lord Krishna which were spoken to clear the mind of his devotee and friend Arjuna is what is known as the Gita. Here at the climax stage, where the armies were waiting to tear each other apart, where many incredible and exceptionally powerful weapons and missiles were armed and at the ready, where the drama which would spell the end of the days of darkness (if it went well) and which might result in the total anihilation of the world (if it didnt go well), where we the readers are waiting with bated breath to see the way the events would unfold, here at this most high point Krishna utters the Gita!!

This so far is the context. Now to my question - It has been made extremely clear that the war to be fought is going to be the mother of all wars. Ferocious, intense and arduous. Innumerable heroes make up the two armies and each one is an opponent you would not want to face if you intend to live! Those heroes have the most unimaginably powerful weapons. One side represents dharma (what is righteousness) and the other adharma (what isnt righteousness). This is the external war we all know.

On the other hand is the internal dilema faced by Arjuna (and it goes without saying that such a dilema will be faced by anyone with an ethic and conscience). Every rule, every precept whether traditional (sampradaya) or injunction from the Vedas (pramana) has always made it extremely clear that one's elders and one's guru etc are verily the manifest form of God. They deserve respect, devotion and the love of disciples and children. A student is forbidden to deride the guru even in jest and thought, never mind fight a battle on opposite sides. Have you ever heard of sastras or scriptures advocating one to fight with and to go against the wishes of the elders like one's grandfather or guru?? I am sure though you would have heard of many stories and scriptures which detail the gory states of hell and the netherworlds obtained by one who goes against his guru. And yet as Krishna tells Arjuna, knowing all this he has to fight his guru and those who are close to his heart to fulfil his duty as a kshatriya to prevent the rise of adharma.

Meditate on it. Think about it. And then tell me which is the bigger and greater war? The externally violent one fought with the weapons and missiles or the inner war where one is pitted against one's own set of ethic and moral codes for the sake of a 'bigger' justice?? Tell me, which war did the author want us to be aware of before spilling the beans on the nature of this world and the intricacies of dharma, karma and yoga in the form of the Gita? When you deliberate and find the answer for this one, think more! Then we will begin to answer the question that originally brought us here. Until then....................