The "Good or Bad" series: Ashwatthama

Image: netra-creative-vision.blogspot.com

Ashwatthama should be an easy call. The son of Dronacharya, Ashwatthama develops enmity towards the Pandavas and loyalty to Duryodhana (not unlike Karna) and commits several wrongs that seem to me to be unparalleled in the Mahabharata.

Ashwatthama is considered a partial avatara (amsha) of Shiva..

When Ashwatthama is still a child, Dronacharya is insulted by King Drupada (father of Draupadi) when he goes to ask for a cow to feed milk to his son. It is only after this incident that Kripacharya offers him a position as a teacher to the Pandavas and Kauravas. There perhaps was some anger in Ashwatthama towards Drupada (and hence Draupadi) due to this slight.

Ashwatthama's real enmity towards the Pandavas starts when they kill Dronacharya on the battlefield due to a 'lie' by Yudhishtira. When Drona is told by many that Ashwatthama is dead (not entirely untrue, because an elephant by the same name had died), he refuses to believe anybody but Yudhishtira. Yudhishtira confirms the death of the elephant, but Krishna blows his conch to blot out Yudhisthira's reference to the elephant. Drona, on hearing this, drops his weapons, and sits down in meditation on the battlefield. Seizing the opportunity, the Pandavas (Arjuna?) finish him off. Surely this must have angered Ashwatthama enough to commit all the atrocities he eventually does at the end of the war.

As a side note, it is interesting that there are several warriors in the Mahabharata that are considered unbeatable at one point or another. Bhishma is the first, whom even Parashurama is unable to beat (the Amba story), and he is only taken out when Shikhandhi is used to make him drop his weapons. The second is Arjuna, although his case is slightly weak, given that he is protected against Karna once or twice. Drona is deemed unbeatable in the Mahabharata war (although he is beaten by Arjuna in the Virata parva battle), and hence the Pandavas resort to trickery to take him out. Bhimasena is of course invincible and he routs most of the key bad characters in the entire Mahabharata.

Towards the end of the war, Ashwatthama resorts to killing several warriors in the Pandava camp including the sons of the Draupadi/Pandavas (mistakenly assuming that they were the Pandavas themselves) in stealth at night, not becoming of even a lowly soldier let alone a top warrior in an army.  

Ashwatthama also directs his brahmAstra at the womb of Uttara (daughter of king Virata, wife of Abhimanyu) to finish off the as-yet unborn Parikshit, since he would be the last of the Kuru clan. Krishna uses his chakra to protect the child and mother, but only ends up reviving the child after a still-birth.

Lastly, Duryodhana, in his death bed, requests Ashwatthama to have a child with his wife Banumati, so that that child can be the ruler of Hastinapura. While Ashwatthama does not actually oblige, he neither accepts not refuses to Duryodhana, not a good quality for someone who should immediately know the right Dharma.

On the last item, Vyasa himself sires Pandu and Dhritarashtra (with Ambika and Ambalika) to keep the Kuru clan alive. Is that considered Dharma because he is a rishi and God Himself? Or is it because Vyasa is a son of Satyavati (the fisherman's daughter who is married to Shantanu) and he is obeying his mother's command and acting on behalf of his now-dead younger brother Vichitravirya? In this case, the continuation of the clan is for the good of humanity, perhaps, while not so in the case of Duryodhana? 

To hell with relativism - a look at the Ramayana

Image courtesy: realchristianity.wordpress.com, cartoonstock.com

I have come to believe that relativism - moral or cultural - is dangerous. There are several reasons why I believe that.

In case you are not familiar with the terms moral relativism and cultural relativism, here are simple definitions in my own words:

Moral relativism holds that morals (standards) are relative and what one may hold as the right thing to do in a certain land is not necessarily the right thing to do in another. For example, the idea that if it is immoral for most of humanity to kill one another, a cannibalistic society can still do what it pleases.

Cultural relativism is similar. For example, the idea that while I may consider equal rights to men and women as sacred, I would tolerate cultures that do not hold the same standard. 

  

Today's attitudes in the liberal, democratic world are largely culturally relativistic (though may be not morally relativistic). Let's look at the Ramayana in the lens of cultural and moral relativism and see where that might lead us. 

I was talking with a friend about Rama a few years back. The conversation quickly came around to how he thought Rama was an aggressor because of the Ashwamedha Yagna. Contrast Rama's 'aggression' with, for example, Ashoka, who 'renounced' violence and became a peace loving king. This is an argument of a moral relativist. Peace is definitely the ideal to strive for, but for the kshatriya (the ruler, the politician, etc.), the duty is to protect his people. However, the duty of the kshatriya is also to protect people beyond his borders. Afterall, Indian culture talks of the principle of Vasudaiva Kutumbakam, that the entire world and its people is one family. So, while the Ashwamedha Yagna involved the king's (Rama) army going from kingdom to kingdom asking its ruler to accept the leadership of Rama, that ruler was still autonomous. The leadership of Rama meant that Rama Rajya would come to that kingdom as well, and Rama Rajya would not strip the ruler of his individuality, merely ensure that tresspasses from the right path, if any, would be prevented.

Here the relativist can of course ask: "What makes Rama Rajya superior to the other governments?", "Why should Rama be superior to others?", etc. This is a question born out of our experience from today's worldview where no form of government is without significant flaws. So, if the US asks extremist Islamist despots to give up their dictatorship and embrace 'democracy', the decision is not a no-brainer even for the people. Comparison with Rama's Ashwamedha Yagna is therefore not congruent.

With Rama Rajya, there was no doubt. We are talking about the ideal government, with all its people happy with the rule. For what it is worth, MK Gandhi did want to see Rama Rajya in India after independence (which most Indians conveniently ignore when they talk of Gandhism); although the ideal, how Rama Rajya would be achieved would have been up in the air (much like the Islamists' ideal of a 'just' Khilafa). During the Ramayana, people in other kingdoms will not have seen Rama as an aggressor, and only a tyrant or egoistic king would have seen the need to protest the leadership of Rama.

I know I will not have convinced the relativists, but it is important to see Dharma, the good of the people, truth, etc., as objective and non-relativistic concepts. Without that, there is no way to arrive at the correct answer to important questions, for example, Arjuna's question of whether he should fight his own relatives. Ashoka might have advised diplomacy or surrender.

The pursuit of happiness

Image courtesy: lynndove.wordpress.com

(This post is not related to any of the epics directly..)

Why do we do what we do in life? Why do we go to work, have kids, go to the park for a walk, or study hard? While all these activities may have some intermediate benefits, the ultimate goal of all humans is happiness. There is not one thing that we do that is not in some way aimed at making us happier.

Let's of course leave cases such as masochism out of the picture for now, even though they can be explained without much trouble.

Just one Mahabharata reference related to 'happiness'. Kunti prays to Krishna (not sure when in the Mahabharata) to give her constant sorrow, because she believes that only when in sorrow do we tend to think about God. When happy, we may of course praise God, but the tendency is to tie that momentary happiness to our own accomplishment or activity - "I worked hard and got my bonus", for example. Mere mortals like us would, of course, never pray to God to deal us a tough hand. So, was Kunti an idiot?

As I write these lines, I feel like this post is going to be long winding, but I'll try to keep this concise.


Rebirth. To begin with, we must agree that our lives and transit through the material world necessarily involves a cycle of birth and death. That is, our present lives are not the first and last. I have a simple way of explaining why this must be the case. We all have a sense of natural justice, and even if a human grows up without seeing any other human (eliminate bias and influence), that sense of natural justice is going to prevail. For example, this 'lone' human is not going to kill indiscriminately because something might tell him that that is incorrect. Even when we know that some form of natural justice pervades the world we inhabit, we see injustice all around us. I am not talking about 'local' events here, but the 'full lifecycle'. That is to say, some criminals lead perfectly happy and affluent lives, while some honest hardworking people face nothing but misery. There's of course a continuum between these two extremes. So, if justice didn't prevail in this birth for some people, there must be at least one rebirth and a better model yet, a birth-death cycle that would account for all their good and bad activities. How the 'accounting' takes place is a longer discussion of course, with many schools of thought explaining how good/bad and heaven/hell work.    

Rebirth, of course, is a very difficult concept for us to imagine or accept. If I am going to be born again, am I going to have a different father and mother, a different spouse, different children, and am I going not going to be rich? Let me life the life I have now as well as I can, why should I worry about a rebirth or plan for it in any way? Who is going to count my bad deeds and punish me? I can explain why I cheated on my wife, etc. As a result, much of our pursuit of happiness is short-sighted. Most of us never give any thought to much beyond a good living in this life, and in many cases it is instant and other forms of gratification that we crave. However, the moment we acknowledge that some form of natural justice exists (whether or not we accept the existence of a supreme being) we should ideally start thinking beyond our current lives, and how things might work outside of our limits of knowledge.

Now, back to Kunti (and whether she was an idiot).
All the happiness we experience in life, whether momentary (like eating an ice cream) or extended (like romance) are very materialistic or physical in nature. Still, these 'happy' states are not impenetrable. You can eat one extra cone of ice cream and regret it because it numbed you, or hurt yourself while on a beach with your loved one. The human mind, of course, is accustomed to assuming that the current happiness will never go away, and we make that mistake over and over again.

Sure, everyone knows that life has its ups and downs, etc. based on experience, but most of us want to just put up with this (not knowing a way out), while secretly wanting eternal happiness.

Kunti prays to Krishna to give her constant sorrow because while the sorrow may be physical and material, if she can hold Him in her thoughts, that will be happiness and bliss (that is of a non-material kind). She rightly realizes that the only way to sail through both the ups and downs is to hold God in her thoughts. For, no other source can comfort one through sorrow. Even in times when we might consider ourselves happy (when we've received a raise at work, for example) news that a colleague received a larger raise will tell us that we weren't really 'happy' in the true sense of what we want in the 'happy' state. We ideally want happiness that is uninterruptible, and that state cannot be material or physical in any way.

So, no, Kunti was most definitely not an idiot. If God did grant her constant sorrow and sped her material and physical experiences, may be she would not have to go through a multitude of rebirths. When unaware of how many lives we may have lived already, this doesn't seem like a big deal to us, but once we do realize it, the feeling is not unlike doing the same exact thing at work every day for years and years together. Nobody wants that, and an escape is what we would crave. That is exactly what Kunti must have been shooting for - the concentrated experience that will get her through the material world as quickly as possible. And, of course, the non-material world would mean heaven and uninterrupted happiness for the good.

Law and Order, Dharma

Courtesy: Wikipedia.org

I have always believed that law and order is the primary duty and reason for existence of the government in a state. All other regulations or activities that one would expect a government to do will fall under law and order.

To begin with, life is probably the most important thing that living beings covet. The state must first protect life. That is, when we step out to go to the market, we should not fear for our lives, or face any intimidation that includes potential for violence against our selves.

Going up the 'pyramid', personal belongings, the environment and natural resources, etc., become important. These get into areas where no one man is necessarily affected directly, but the state needs to take on the responsibility for future generations, as well as for the protection of nature in general.

In some ways, the United States, and the modern Western world in general, are successful and just societies (relatively) because of the presence of reliable and effective law and order. Even Jinnah believed this, while unfortunately other Indian leaders of the time unfortunately didn't accord law and order as much importance.

The Manusmruti is probably the oldest book on law and order, and is supposed to cover not just crimes and such but a horde of other do's and don'ts, rituals to be followed, duties of the different classes of people, etc. I began reading a translation of Chanakya's Arthashastra a few months ago. Like the Manusmruti, the Arthashastra too is not necessarily an account of the laws in vogue at the time they were written. The Manusmruti is of course much more ancient than the Arthashastra.

By the way, here's an interesting article by Stephen Knapp on the 'Purpose of Government According to the Mahabharata' where he discusses Manusmruti.

In the Mahabharata, Yudhishtira is hailed as 'Dharmaraja'. An example of his sense of justice is when he chooses to have Nakula brought back to life when all his brothers are killed by a divine 'demon' (Dharma, who Yudhishtira is an avatara of?) Yudhishtira's reasoning for bringing Nakula back in spite of the chance of bringing the powerful Bhima or Arjuna back was that his father had two wives, and he the first wife's son was alive. It was only just to have a son of the other wife alive too, ahead of Arjuna or Bhima. The 'demon' (who was just testing Yudhishtira) brings back all his brothers alive anyway, overjoyed by Yudhishtira's Dharmic stance. Dharma is hence a matter of not just law, but of ethics as well. No punishments for not being Dharmic in many cases.

There probably are some things that are plain obvious to us regarding dharma. Should I kill an animal and eat it just because it is going to be tasty? No. How can you drink milk, it after all is from the cow and intended for its own calf? This is more difficult to answer, but the shrutis (Vedas), Puranas and the Manusmruti all talk of the cow's products as being made available to mankind, and therefore not being off limits. Protecting mankind is the duty of the cow, and taking care of it is ours (putting it between two buns isn't). On other topics, the question of dharma can become tricky, especially since most of us have very limited knowledge.

Caste references by Vishnu...

Image courtesy: spirituality-krishna.blogspot.com

In all of the Mahabharata, I can think of only two instances where Vishnu explicitly mentions or uses the caste of a person for any purpose at all.

Karna goes to learn from Parashurama
Parashurama had taken a vow that he would only teach brahmanas, and hence Karna is forced to pretend that he was a brahmana to learn archery from him.

Karna does learn from Parashurama, including the use of the brahmAstra, the most potent astra there was, for the purpose of fighting Arjuna (?). On one occasion, when Parashurama was resting his head on Karna's thigh to sleep, a wasp bores into Karna's thigh. Karna, not wanting to disturb his guru, does not move but bears the wasp's bite for a while. Because  of the heat generated by the wasp sucking blood, Parashurama wakes up. Realizing that only a kshatriya could bear such pain, he curses Karna to not be able to remember the mantra for the brahmAstra in time of need.

Parashurama, here, does not actually uphold the caste system. He breaks it, and as a rule. Quite a surprising act from the Lord. Further, it's ironic that the first person that recognizes him as a kshatriya (good news?) also gives him bad news in the form of the curse.

Krishna advises Draupadi to reject Karna
Unfortunately, the second instance also involves Karna. Karna contests in the Draupadi swayamvara, and when it appears that he might actually be able to win Draupadi (on advice of Krishna) stops him and rejects him stating that he was not eligible because he was not a kshatriya.

The Purusha Sukta
The purusha sukta has been slighted sometimes and mentioned in controversial light because it is a key sukta in the vedas, and mentions the castes by name.

"Brahmanosya mukhamaseet bahoorajanyahkrutah, ooroo tadasya yadvaishyah padbhyaam shoodro ajayata..."

The sentence is literally translated "the brahmana came from the face of the Lord, the kshatriya from his arms, the vaishyas from his thighs, and the shudras from his feet." The sukta goes on to describe that the moon came from his mind, etc.

I've heard some supporters of the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu mention this part of the purusha sukta, and talk about how the upper castes (and God, the "co-conspirator") have set in stone the backwardness of the lower castes.

Firstly, I don't think a literal translation of the vedas is going to yield significant insight. Scholars and schools of thought have evolved over centuries essentially debating the meanings, each school propounding a different meaning or 'spirit' to many such portions of the vedas.

Secondly, the vedas and puranas emphasize that the caste (varnAshrama, really - I don't know that 'caste' is an accurate meaning, but it works for our purpose) of a person is really based on the person's innate qualities or sAdhana, not based on birth or colour (as some people tend to incorrectly translate varna).

However, we also see vedic schools of thought with theories that suggest that while the dharma for a person being born into a certain varnAshrama is that of the typical activities of that varnAshrama for the benefit of society, the ideal progression over several births is from shudra to brahmana. I don't know if this progression refers to the innate quality (sAdhana). There sure must be two different planes on which varnAshrama is defined/used in our scriptures.

In the epics and puranas, we also see instances of caste being dynamic, changing with marriage (at least for the offspring), etc. So one was supposedly able to move between castes. I've never understood how this worked, and how this became rigid over time, though. Even more perplexing is when and how people ended up in a 5th category (the untouchables), beyond the 4 castes. Definitely blemishes in Indian society that no doubt have existed since the days of the Mahabharata or even earlier.

And btw, my examples of Vishnu using the caste of Karna in seemingly negative ways, were not intended to suggest that Vishnu might have done wrong. There sure must have been reasons, and it would be nice to understand in better detail.

Illogical inferences of modern researchers?

Image courtesy: vina.cc

I've seen a bunch of documentaries over the years - mostly by Western researchers (archaeologists, indologists, etc.) on India, its traditions, history, etc. While some of these were well researched and very informative to the western (and sometimes even Indian) audience, they feature somewhat ludicrous inferences/ideas. Maybe I shouldn't rubbish their ideas as ludicrous, but here are a few examples.

A Facebook post began making the rounds recently, one about a History Channel documentary of the discovery of the 'lost city' of Dwaraka. I'd seen this one before and thought I should write about it. Here's an excerpt from the documentary.

The Mahabharata says that Dwaraka was submerged under the ocean 36 years after the Mahabharata itself. Krishna (and to a lesser extent, Arjuna) are said to have played a role in the evacuation of some of the people, after a period of societal decay. I wonder if the story of Dwaraka submerging was actually part of the original Mahabharata, or if it was included only in the retelling of the Mahabharata by sage Vaishampayana (on request by King Janamejaya, son of Parikshit -> son of Abhimanya -> son of Arjuna). Maybe 36 years wasn't that long a period for Janamejaya to come into the picture, but Parikshit himself died early because of a snake bite and Abhimanyu was dead in the war). Maybe I am wrong.. will need to confirm where the story of Dwaraka occurs in the Mahabharata.

While the underwater shots in the documentary are great, the narrator quickly jumps to an alien theory. The mahabharata and our puranas talk of different astras (warheads in today's military parlance). Each divine astra (Pashupathastra, Brahmastra, etc.) is described as being capable of doing certain things (like incapacitating the opponent, bolts of thunder, etc.) There of course were normal 'arrows' that may not be any special astra. This documentary explains these occurrences as caused by aliens and their superior technology. I found the animation shots of a flying saucer shooting lasers to destroy Dwaraka (to help us picture the war between Salwa and Krishna) especially hilarious!

Here's a very well made documentary called 'The Story of India', by the BBC.

There is one particular theory proposed in the documentary that I am not sure how to react to. Go to 4:30 in the video, where the narrator shows you a Brahmin father in Kerala teaching his son Vedic chanting; and a subsequent elaborate yagna. I have a strong feeling that what is being chanted is from the Sama veda (this intuition is with just a wee bit of sama veda chanting experience, and I can't be a 100% sure).

The narrator concludes that this must be non-language based chanting that are likely bird sounds from Africa that some traditions in Kerala still practice, and that these don't actually mean anything to humans.

The sama veda is a branch of the vedas that is musical in nature, and one of the toughest to learn and chant, even with a book in front. Of the ~20 veda/upanishad portions (small ones) that I've had the opportunity to learn to chant, only the Taittiriya upanishad tritiya bhrgu valli (3rd chapter) had a paragraph from Sama veda at the end, fairly simple to learn. Longer portions from the Sama veda, I am sure, are much harder since there is a lot of breath and vocal pitch control required, and each word may be 'sung' for much much longer than the size of the word itself. Sentences and paragraphs of course can go on and on, even if the whole portion is only a page or two long in text.

For people interested in listening to a live Sama veda chant, try the Vishwanath temple in Kashi (Varanasi) in UP. When I was there some 8 years ago, a saptarshi pooja was performed for the shiva linga there, by 7 priests, who chanted from the Sama veda. I believe the saptarshi pooja is performed every week.

It was perhaps this same BBC documentary (it has been a while since I watched it last) where the journalist went searching for soma (soma paana and soma are mentioned frequently in the vedas). The journalist had but one interpretation of soma in mind - an intoxicating drink. He eventually finds an old-world drugs and herbs store in Peshawar, Pakistan where a herb called soma is available. This herb (if I remember right) comes from central asia, and can be used to make an intoxicating drink. The journalist seemed to conclude that the vedas must therefore have been composed in central asia, and not in India. I wish people stopped interpreting ancient Sanskrit with such ignorant callousness.

Rama in the subcontinent and beyond

Happy to be writing a post on Rama on Rama Navami, Nandana Samvatsara...this is less about the Ramayana itself than it is about cultural impact and political issues today.

Rama was born to king Dasharatha of Kosala (capital: Ayodhya) in the Treta Yuga, the third avatar of Vishnu in that yuga - after Vamana and Parashurama. Interestingly, this is the first yuga where Vishnu incarnates as normal humans, the Satya yuga having included Matsya, Koorma, Varaha and Narasimha.

Rama breaking the bow to win Sita. Nobody else
was able to even lift the bow. Raja Ravi Varma.

The story of Rama, by and large, is familiar to most of us from India, and the reason is probably because the Ramayana is such an important part of our culture that the story is familiar to everyone cutting across faiths and subcontinent cultures. In fact, not so long ago many a village in the subcontinent would have a local legend about Rama having passed through on way to Lanka, or Sita having dropped some jewels when being flown by Ravana to Lanka, etc. Whether these were true or not in each case, the pride in being somehow related to Rama can be infectious. Rama is still the benchmark for a man, and comparative references to Rama's eka patni vratha are common even in contemporary conversations. 

There are various estimates for the time period of the Ramayana, ranging from 20,000 years ago to much earlier. Dating events in the previous yugas becomes tricky due to several reasons, including the ages of people and other frames of references being very different. I read some accounts of Rama rajya having run for a period of 11,000 years. Again, I'm unsure of whether this is a time period comparable to 11,000 years in kali yuga. Another aspect to consider is that some schools of thought propose yuga sandhis between different yugas, periods of dormant metamorphosis of the earth where changes in environment, species, continents, etc. take place. Going by this theory, the age of the ramayana would have to account for 2 yuga sandhis.

Javanese Ramayana play. Courtesy hinduyuva.org

What amazes me is the spread of the legend of Rama beyond the seas, to countries like Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia. In fact, the Indonesians do plays to this day depicting the Ramayana. 

The Javanese (Indonesia) version of the Ramayana may not mirror the mainstream Indian versions exactly. Still, that this is still a part of their culture is inspiring.

Rama has become a major flashpoint in India in recent times. The Babri demolition and subsequent riots are an example. The issue however is not as recent as the 1990s, but appears to have been simmering for at least 2-3 centuries, during the Mughal and then British rule of India. I will not go into this issue here, but a more recent 'academic' controversy is worth noting. Delhi University decided to include (and subsequently revoked, after protests) an essay by AK Ramanujam describing several different versions of Ramayana. There do exist perverted versions of the Ramayana that depict Rama and Sita as siblings, for example, but I don't believe that these versions were at all part of the culture of the land. The differences in the credible versions are much more subtle. I haven't read Ramanjuam's essay, but going by media accounts, what he attempted was likely just a collection of the different versions. When in no way reflective of the culture or beliefs of the people, it would have been wise on the part of the history department to leave this essay out, or present it in the right light to students.

Allama Iqbal.
Courtesy: opinion-maker.org

I was surprised to see a post floating around on Facebook a few weeks ago, about poet Mohammad 'Allama' Iqbal having written a poem on Rama. Iqbal was initially an Indian nationalist, and a secular person (much like Jinnah, but they of course ended up supporting the two nation theory eventually). Iqbal of course wrote the famous Sare Jahaan Se Acha Hindustan Hamara before he took a u-turn. Still, I am happy that when he was saner, he saw Rama through the prism of culture and nationhood, and not via religion or faith. On the other side of the political spectrum (of the 1940s), MK Gandhi was also a famous proponent of Rama rajya. I am not entirely sure what he meant when he used the term, but I'm certain it had no particular religious connotation.

Like many others, I wait for the day that a temple for Rama will stand tall again in Ayodhya, where he administered Rama rajya from.