32.) Is the Ethics in the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata Different?

Without entering into the question of whether there is ethics as such in the two epics, I would like to argue that it might be possible to distinguish between their ethical orientations. These different orientations, I would further argue, could be characterized as deontological in the case of the Rāmāyaṇa and consequentialist in the case of the Mahābhārata, where by deontological one means “an approach which prescribes obedience to particular norms” and consequentialist refers to an approach which “requires the actors act so as to maximize the realization of values endorsed by the theory”.

The deontological nature of the ethical orientation of the Rāmāyaṇa is apparent in the person of Rāma himself. A recent work on Hinduism, for instance, concludes its abridged narrative of the events of the epic as follows:

Here, in summary, are the colourful and exuberant episodes of a great story beloved of Hindus across sectarian boundaries for generations and generations. A tale of heroes and villains – including animals and ogres – of war and passion, devotion and duty, wondrous feats and fell deeds. And at the centre of it all is undoubtedly the figure of Rāma, the very model of dharma in its different aspects: dutiful king (even at the cost of personal tragedy), protector of the vulnerable, avenger of the wronged, obedient son, faithful husband, loving brother, magnanimous enemy. His compassion and friendship extend to the disadvantaged, to animals and even to conciliatory ogres. Thus, at the beginning of his exile, he accepts the assistance of and embraces Guha, the low-caste chief of the Niṣādas; in the forest he is gracious to Śabarī, the low-caste woman ascetic; he befriends the monkeys in his journey southwards towards Laṅkā; and he welcomes the ogre Vibhīṣaṇā who acknowledged his righteous cause.[1]

In order to appreciate this point one must appreciate the danger of the consequentialist position – namely, the risk of moral relativism. On the other hand, the deontological approach entails the risk of moral absolutism. Hence the problems with Rāma’s subjecting Sītā to ordeal by fire, her banishment and so on. The consequentialist approach is subject to an opposite danger: moral rules become flexible in the light of the telos of the moral system, and with it the danger of arbitrariness has to be faced once rules are allowed to be broken. In the Mahābhārata the rules are broken:

Arjuna and Sātyaki were rightly accused by Gāndhārī for their acts of violence against the king Bhuriśravā. It was condemned as wrong then and there by friends and foes alike. It was against a Kṣatriya’s code of conduct in war. It was a sin against a specific dharma. So was Bhīmasena’s act of hitting Duryodhana on his thigh. Bhīmasena’s plea that he was bound by a vow to break by mace Duryodhana’s thigh and fell him in the battle because of the immodesty shown to Draupadī was not accepted in the Mahābhārata. The vow itself was wrong and the act following it was a sin against a specific dharma. Kṛṣṇa also silently accepted the accusation of aiding and abetting in the sin. He reasonably apprehended that Bhīmasena would not be able to defeat the skill of Duryodhana. He was in no doubt that Yudhiṣṭhira again had committed a mistake by inviting Duryodhana to a duel and giving him the choice of arms and opponent. Kṛṣṇa covered this human failure and accepted the blame from his elder brother Balarāma and Gāndhārī. Contrast with this tale of Balāka the hunter, told to Arjuna by Kṛṣṇa himself during the incident of Arjuna’s vow (Karṇa 70). He killed a blind animal while it was drinking water. But this earned him merit instead of sin because he destroyed the fearful killer that the animal was.[2]

Just as the deontological approach runs the risk of becoming morally rigid, the consequentialist approach runs the risk of becoming morally convenient, and raises the following question:

Should it be that one taking a vow could break it, that there is nothing such as personal and social morality? Is the entire common-life moral structure that contingent? If so, it would not be possible to carry on our everyday life, for this would destroy the mutual confidence people have regarding promise-keeping.[3]

Now

The answer is provided in the incident involving Arjuna and Yudhiṣṭhira (Karṇa 70). Arjuna had taken a vow that should anyone dare to tell him to surrender his Gāṇḍīva (the sacred and fearful bow of Arjuna given him by God) to someone else he would kill him. Wounded and disgraced in defeat, Yudhiṣṭhira was beaten back by Karṇa, who was mercilessly destroying the Pāṇḍava army. He very much wanted Arjuna to face Karṇa and kill him before the Pāṇḍava(s) were destroyed. But Arjuna was engaged in fighting elsewhere in the battlefield. When Yudhiṣṭhira found Arjuna, he reproached him angrily and told him that he was unworthy of the Gāṇḍīva and had better give it to someone else and retire. Arjuna took out his sword. Kṛṣṇa intervened. Hearing of his vow, he reproached him that taking such a vow was an act of foolishness leading to another foolish act against dharma, against the truth of nonviolence. True, Yudhiṣṭhira’s reproach would not matter much had there not been such a thoughless vow. Now this was one aspect of the incident. Kṛṣṇa then asked Arjuna to keep his vow by severely insulting Yudhiṣṭhira, the most respected character in the Mahābhārata after Bhīṣma. His brothers and Draupadī and Kṛṣṇa himself were obedient and respectful toward him. He was called Dharmarāja, ‘the king of dharma’, by all. Therefore, to insult such a revered person was like killing him. Arjuna did that but broke down in remorse for doing so and was about to kill himself. Kṛṣṇa again stopped him. Self-killing is a greater sin that what Arjuna did to Yudhiṣṭhira. Let Arjuna speak loud and boast about himself; for that would be annihilating his own self, a punishment. Arjuna did so and then fell at the feet of his revered elder brother.[4]

In accordance with a deontological approach Arjuna would have slain Yudhiṣṭhira. However, a series of consequential manoevres avert such a fate. Thus both the epics advocate the pursuit of Dharma, but arguably the Rāmāyaṇa is more deontological and the Mahābhārata consequentialist in its approach.

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[1] Julius Lipner, Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London and New York: Routledge, 1994) p. 129-130.

[2] Arun Kumar Mookerjee, “Dharma as the Goal: The Mahābhārata,” in Krishna Sivaraman, ed., Hindu Spirituality Vedas Through Vedanta (New York: Crossroad, 1989) p.143.

[3] Ibid., p. 142.

[4] Ibid., p. 142-143

31.) The Bhagavadgītā and War: Ancient and Modern Perspectives

It could be considered odd – that the West, with its far more violent record, feels turned off by the martial context of the Bhadavadgītā, while the milder Hindu remains unfazed by it! How else are we to assess the following comment, even if not entirely accurate according to some.

More exposure to the Smārta sect came near the end of the 1930’s when the Bhagavad Gītā was introduced to the West as the holy bible of the Hindus. The metaphysical and philosophical circles and intelligentsia in America could not believe that an excerpted section of the Mahābhārata preaching violence could be anything but detrimental to future generations in the West. This has proven to be true in many, many cases, right up to the supreme court level. The swāmīs in those early years tried to justify God Krishna’s telling his devotee to kill his relatives, his guru, and that all would be well in the end because the soul never dies, and those who were killed would reincarnate. Western people were at that time, and still are, innocent and believing, having never been taught the art of divine deception. So, when Lord Krishna was seen to tell the warrior Arjuna to have a good night’s sleep, free from conscience, that did not go over well at all. Contemporary swāmīs made fruitless efforts to philosophically justify the Gītā, but their arguments and explanations were not convincing. [1]

The author goes onto say:

This was before the West experienced the Second World War, and people were still very religious, moral and thoughtful about these matters. The Gītā was rejected for the lofty Upanishads of the Veda that were being made available in English. Yet, in this century the Smārtas, along with many Vaishṇavas, have taken the Bhagavad Gītā as their promotional scripture, a text which is not a true scripture at all, but an epic poem from the Mahābhārata condoning was, critically called by eminent swāmis ‘the book of carnage,’ giving permission for violence.[2]

But is this reaction really that modern? The ancients were already concerned with the violence in the Mahābhārata and according to one tradition the sages requested Vyāsa to compose another work which corrected this impression. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is said to have been composed as a result.

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[1] Satguru Sivaya, Subramuniyaswami, Merging with Śiva (Hawaii: Himalayan Academy, 1999), p. xxx.

[2] Ibid.

30.) The Bhagavadgītā and War According to Madhva?

It is best to begin by shooting the question straight – does the Bhagavadgītā preach war and violence?

The Bhagavadgītā is part and parcel of the Mahābhārata, so how the Bhagavadgītā is interpreted should not be divorced from the interpretation of the Mahābhārata as a whole, the epic within it is more or less centrally lodged.

How then is the Mahābhārata to be interpreted? Here is one answer. One begins by noting that

The present edition of the Mahābhārata itself speaks of three beginnings: manvādi, beginning from Manu, corresponding to the first twelve sub-parvans (sections) of the present work; āstikādi, beginning with Āstika, compromising sub-paravans thirteen to fifty-three, uparicarādi, from sub-paravan fifty-four onward.

One then proceeds by noting that according to the famous scholiast Madhva:

The reading of the Bhārata, in so far as it is a relation of the facts and events with which Śrī Kṛṣṇa and the Pāṇḍavas are connected, is āstikādi, or historical. That interpretation by which we find lessons on virtue, divine love, and the other ten qualities, on sacred duty and righteous practices, on character and training, on Brahmā and the other gods, is called manvādi, or religious and moral. Thirdly, the interpretation by which every sentence, word or syllable is shown to be the significant name, or to be the declaration of the glories, of the Almighty Ruler of the universe, is called auparicara or transcendental.[1]

It is clear, then, that the Mahābharata may be interpreted at (1) a literal level, (2) a moral level and (3) a spiritual level. It could then plausibly be argued that, at the story-line level, Arjuna is literally urged to engage in combat. That, at the moral level, the martial context of the Gītā epitomizes the struggle between good and evil which goes on in the human heart, the way Mahatma Ghandhi interpreted it when he said

The fight is there, but the fight as it is going on within. The Pandavas and the Kauravas are the forces of good and evil within. The war is the war between Jekyll and Hyde, God and Satan, going on in the human breast. The internal evidence in support of this interpretation is there in the work itself and in the Mahabharata of which the Gita is a minute part. It is not a history of war between two families, but the history of man – the history of the spiritual struggle of man. I have sound reasons for my interpretation.[2]

At the spiritual level the Gītā may be decoded as follows.

Arjuna, the superman under the guidance of Kṛṣṇa, the Super-self, emerges successful in this conflict, after he has destroyed with the sword of knowledge the ignorance embodied in his illegitimate desires and passions symbolized by his relatives, teachers, elders and friends ranged on the other side. In this interpretation Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the Paramātman, and Arjuna the Jīvātman. Dhṛtarāṣṭra is a symbol of the vacillating ego-centric self, while his sons symbolize in their aggregate the brood of ego-centric desires and passions. Vidura stands for Buddhi, the one-pointed reason, and Bhīṣma is tradition, the time-bound element in human life and society.[3]

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[1] Klaus K. Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism (Second Edition) (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1994) pp. 84-85.

[2] M.K. Gandhi, Hindu Dharma (edited by Bharatan Kumarappa. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1958) p. 159-160.

[3] V.S. Sukthankar, as cited by Klaus K. Klostermaier, op. cit.., p. 85.

29.) Hebrew – What Has That Got To Do With Sanskrit?

I was visiting my lawyer friend. As soon as he let me into the chamber I remarked: “Have you decided to grow a beard?” It was an obvious question for a man in his condition.

“You know,” he began, after he had offered me a seat and settled into one himself, “I am the member of a theatre group and my role requires a person with a beard. So my director suggested that I grow one, instead of wearing a made-up one.”

I began to muse why I hadn’t joined an elocution society, I am so dissatisfied at the way I make conversation, when I do, that is. My silent soliloquy ended as he resumed speaking.

“Have you heard of Yiddish?” he suddenly asked.

“A German dialect used by the Jews”, I ventured and then bit my tongue. Why didn’t I say sociolect? See, I do need those lessons after all.

“Only it was spoken all over – in Germany, Poland, Ukraine – kind of Jewish Lingua Franca”, he ever so gently corrected me. “It started along the Rhine around eleventh century. Has a vast literature.”

“Have you ever heard of Salinger?”

My thoughts went to a news item about an affair of a famous author with a younger girl – apparently dug out to show Clinton was not reinventing the wheel with Monica…he used my silence to fill the gap himself.

“He won a Nobel Prize”

I must have looked mildly surprised, for he added: “The only one awarded in Yiddish.”

If Yiddish was so well entrenched as a language among the Jews – why Hebrew then?

He read my mind.

“Hebrew of course was there as the language of ritual, but everything else was done in Yiddish. In 1908 a resolution was passed that Yiddish should be the language of Israel.”

Was Yiddish like Hindi? His talk flowed on regardless of my self-interrogation.

“Of course, for Theodore Herzl the language could only be German. But history marches to its own drumbeat. It was Hebrew which ended up being Israel’s language. It’s a miracle.”

I had long thought so - reviving a dead language. I finally said: “The first time I learnt of this was as a teenager. An Indian leader returned from a visit to Israel and said: if the Jews can revive Hebrew, why can’t we revive Sanskrit?” Then I let out a soft laugh.

“They also laughed when ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­attempts were made to revive the Hebrew language. Then came the first family in which Hebrew was the mother tongue. Now when I hear people make baby-talk in Hebrew – it’s just unbelievable”

Ya – but in India people still laugh at the idea of Sanskrit.

28.) Denying the Holocaust: What Has It Got to Do With Hinduism?

I had concluded the business with the lawyer, who happened to be Jewish. I don’t quite know how the conversation turned to the Holocaust, but it did.

“Ah, yes, but you know, after a point the statistics don’t seem to mean much. One needs an actual account to bring it to life, like the diary of Anne Frank.”

I was reminded, as he took the name, that some missing pages of her diary had been found. They were critical of the marriage and were held back by the father. So dishonour once again proved to be worse than death? The thought passed, and by then my lawyer friend has resumed speaking.

“And some even deny the Holocaust. Now I cannot be the witness of the Holocaust in Auschwitz and Prague but I am witness to the Holocaust in our own village in Ukraine. Ours was the only family to survive.”

The atmosphere in the room changed; in fact the room changed from a legal into an archival chamber as it were. I was now sitting on the edge of my seat. I didn’t want to say anything, I just wanted to listen.

“They came and took the gypsies, they came and took the Jews, they came and took the Ukranians and the Ukranian police came and helped take them.”

My mind wandered through the corridors of Hindu history. Did not our own likewise do us in? And aren’t the Gypsies really Hindus to begin with?

“They took them and shot them. My grandparents came back from the United States. They knew what they were doing. They feared assimilation. They were killed. They used to have what they called an ‘action’” –he used the German pronunciation – “People will be rounded up and shot, my father was rounded up. He had a sense of humour. He said to them: why are you killing us in such a small batch. You will have to carry the corpses to where the large group is. Why not kill us there. We will walk there ourselves.”

They shot the person next to my father. My father fled – making a zig-zag pattern because that is what he had seen in some movie, not realizing people had machine guns now! They still missed. He ran across the field and went into the river until it reached his neck.

But he did not know how to swim. What now? Someone came by on a boat and asked him to explain his curious situation. My father could not say he was running away from the Germans, that would give him away. He made up some Jewish ritual which required him to do what he was doing. He was taken aboard.”

My vocal chords finally became functional. I was wondering all this while what it felt, as I kept changing the word Jew to Hindu in my mind as he spoke. I said rather slowly: “When did the nightmare end?”

“When the Russians came in 1945. It all began in 1942 when the Nazis turned on the Russians and Ukraine was occupied.”

The Jewish Holocaust – three thousand years and then three years. A Hindu holocaust – a thousand years of foreign rule and then two years of partition. Or is the comparison overblown or has it been blown away to maintain communal peace in India?

My reverie was suddenly interrupted as he concluded. “So as I was saying, Dr. Sharma. I cannot vouch for the veracity of the Holocaust in Germany or Poland. But I know it happened in a village in Ukraine”.

He perhaps even had evidence to prove it but I thought the deposition was proof enough. Have the victims of Partition been deposed? Such as are amongst us? In the case of the Jews the no-sayers will deny it had occurred, in the case of the Hindu they won’t let you ask the question if it occurred, much less find out?—at least so I am told on every visit to India.