Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata

by Devdutt Pattanaik

  Lion’s tail with golden rays

  Bhishma

  Tree with stars

  Kripa

  Fire altar

  Drona

  Pot

  Karna

  Elephant

  Duryodhana

  Snake

  Book Fourteen

  Perspective

  ‘Janamejaya, only your forefather heard God reveal the goal of life and the means to achieve it.’

  77

  Song of God

  The armies of the Pandavas and the Kauravas stood facing each other on the battlefield. Then suddenly, a chariot drew away from the Pandava side and came between the two armies. A banner displaying the image of a monkey fluttered above it. It was Arjuna!

  Arjuna looked at the army before him. Then he looked at the army behind him. Brothers, uncles and nephews, ready to fight and kill one another—for what? A piece of land? ‘I cannot do this,’ he said. ‘This cannot be dharma!’

  To the surprise of all assembled warriors, he lowered his bow.

  ‘Don’t be such a weakling, Arjuna. Face the situation like a man!’ shouted Krishna.

  ‘I cannot,’ moaned Arjuna, his shoulders drooping.

  ‘It is your duty as a Kshatriya,’ said Krishna, trying to reason with him.

  ‘I cannot,’ said Arjuna.

  ‘They abused your wife. They encroached upon your kingdom. Fight for justice, Arjuna!’ pleaded Krishna.

  Arjuna remained unmoved. ‘I see no sense in killing brothers and uncles and friends. This is cruelty, not nobility. I would rather have peace than vengeance.’

  ‘Noble thoughts indeed,’ said Krishna, ‘but where does this nobility come from? Generosity or fear? Wisdom or ignorance? Suddenly, you are confronted by the enormity of the situation—the possibility of failure, the price of success—and you tremble. You wish it had not come to this. Rather than face the situation, you withdraw. Your decision is based on a misreading of the situation. If you knew the world as it truly is, you would be in bliss even at this moment.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Arjuna.

  It was then that Krishna sang his song, a song that explained to Arjuna the true nature of the world. This was the Bhagavad Gita, the song of God.

  ‘Yes, you would kill hundreds of warriors. But that would be the death only of the flesh (sharira). Within this flesh is the immortal soul (atma) that never dies. It will be reborn; it will wrap itself in a new body as fresh clothes after old ones are discarded. What is a man’s true identity: the temporary flesh or the permanent soul? What do you kill, Arjuna? What can you kill?

  ‘The flesh exists to direct you to the soul. For the flesh enables you to experience all things temporary—your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions. The world around it is temporary. The body itself is temporary. Eventually, disappointed of all things temporary, you will seek permanence and eventually discover the soul. You grieve for the flesh, right now, Arjuna, without even realizing the reason it exists.’

  ‘Of all living creatures, the human being is the most blessed,’ Krishna continued, ‘for human flesh is blessed with intellect (buddhi). Humans alone can distinguish between all that is temporary and all that is not. Humans alone can distinguish between flesh and soul. Arjuna, you and all those on this battlefield have spent their entire life losing this opportunity—focusing more on mortal things than on things immortal.

  ‘Your flesh receives information about the external world through your five sense organs (gyan indriyas): eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin. Your flesh engages with the external material world through your five action organs (karma indriyas): hands, feet, face, anus and genitals. Between the stimulus and the response, a whole series of processes take place in your mind (manas). These processes construct your understanding of the material world. What you, Arjuna, consider as the battlefield is but a perception of your mind. And like all perceptions it is not real.

  ‘Your intellect is not aware of the soul. It seeks meaning and validation. Why does it exist? It seeks answers in the material world and finds that everything in the material world is mortal, nothing is immortal. Awareness of death generates fear (bhaya). It makes the intellect feel invalidated and worthless. From fear is born the ego (ahamkara). The ego contaminates the mind to comfort the intellect. It focuses on events and memories and desires that validate its existence and make it feel immortal and powerful. It shuns all that makes it feel worthless and mortal. Right now, your ego controls your mind, Arjuna. It gives greater value to the finite experience of your flesh and distracts you from the infinite experience of your soul. Hence, your anxiety, fear and delusion.

  ‘Your mind retains memory of all past stimulations—those that evoke fear and those that generate comfort. Your mind also imagines situations that frighten you and comfort you. Goaded by your ego, you suppress memories that cause pain and prefer memories that bring pleasure. Goaded by your ego, you imagine situations that the ego seeks and shuns. Right now, Arjuna, on this battlefield, nothing has happened. But a lot is occurring in your mind—memories resurface as ghosts and imagination descends like a demon. That is why you suffer.

  ‘Your ego constructs a measuring scale to evaluate a situation. This measuring scale determines your notions of fearful or comforting, painful or pleasurable, right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, good or bad. It is informed by the values of the world you live in, but is always filtered by the ego before being accepted. Right now, Arjuna, what you consider right is based on your measuring scale. What Duryodhana considers right is based on his measuring scale. Which measuring scale is appropriate? Is there one free of bias?

  ‘The world that you perceive is actually a delusion (maya) based on your chosen measuring scale. New memories and new imaginations can change this measuring scale, hence your perception of the world. Only the truly enlightened know the world as it truly is; the rest construct a reality that comforts the ego. The enlightened are therefore always at peace while the rest are constantly restless and insecure. If you were enlightened, Arjuna, you could have been in this battlefield, bow in hand, but still in peace. If you were enlightened, Arjuna, you would have fought without anger, killed without hate.

  ‘Your ego clings to things that grant it maximum comfort. The purpose of life then becomes the pursuit of comfort-generating states, the shunning of fear-generating states. Attainment of desirable states brings joy, failure to do so becomes sorrow. The ego clings tenaciously to things and ideas that validate its existence. The ego does everything in its power to establish and retain a permanent territorial hold over all external states that give it joy. Do you realize, Arjuna, all you want is to reclaim or recreate situations that give you joy? You have attached your emotions to external events. Separate them.

  ‘The external world is like the flesh: by nature transient and ever-changing. Governed by laws of space and time, it fluctuates between three states (guna): inertia (tamas), agitation (rajas) and harmony (sattva). No matter how hard you try, Arjuna, the ones you love will die, either on the battlefield or in the palace. No matter how hard you try, Arjuna, all things that you shun or disapprove will come into your life, again and again. War and peace will alternate like joy and sorrow, summer and winter, flood and drought.

  ‘Changes in external states make your ego insecure. The ego therefore struggles to prevent any change. If change gives the ego pleasure, then it will pursue change and struggle against stillness and stagnation. When unable to get its way, the ego experiences suffering and rage; it forces the body to reinstate things as they were. From this desire to make the world align to the ego’s measuring scale come all pain and suffering and rage. Refusal to accept the flow of the world is the root of all misery. Thus it is with you, Arjuna. You want to control the world. You want the world to behave as you wish. It does not, hence your anger and your grief.

  ‘Changes in the material world are not random. They are essentially reactions of past actions. No event is spontaneous; it is the result of
many past events. This is karma. The events in your life are the result of your past deeds, performed in this lifetime or the ones before. You alone are responsible for it. Such is the law of karma. Unless you experience the reactions of past actions, you will continue to be reborn. If you do not wish to be reborn, you must not generate karma. Actions that generate karma are different from those that do not; in the former, the ego has a territorial hold over the action, in the latter it does not. This moment, Arjuna, is the result of past actions—yours, of those behind you, and those before you. Accept it. Don’t fight it. This war is destined to happen. You cannot wish it away.

  ‘Your intellect can choose how to react to a particular stimulation. Often, there is so much conditioning, there is little thought between stimulation and reaction. But the option exists. If the chosen reaction is meant to please the ego, the cycle of karma continues (samsara). If the chosen reaction emerges from an awareness of the soul, the cycle of karma grinds to a halt (moksha). If you, Arjuna, fight this war in anger or righteous indignation, peace will elude you and you will be trapped in samsara; if you fight this war with empathy and wisdom, there will be liberation from samsara.

  ‘To function with the soul as the reference point, and not the ego, you must first experience the soul. To experience the soul, you must recognize the world for what it is, and not what the measuring scale tells you. Remember, the soul is watching everything—your intellect, your ego, your measuring scale and your responses to situations. It patiently awaits discovery. Suffering and rage will continue till you discover it. When will you discover it, Arjuna? When will you find peace?’

  ‘Peace even while fighting a war? How, Krishna, how?’ asked Arjuna, overwhelmed by the wisdom of Krishna’s song.

  ‘With your head—analyse the situation and discover the roots of your emotion. Why do you feel what you feel? Are you being spurred on by your ego? Why do you wish to fight? Is it from the desire to dominate your enemies and win back your territories? Is it rage which motivates you, the desire for vengeance and justice? Or are you detached from the outcome, at peace with the act you are about to perform? If these questions don’t come to your mind, Arjuna, you are not practising gyan yoga.

  ‘With your heart—have faith in the existence of the soul. Accept that nothing happens without a reason. Accept that all experiences have a purpose. Accept that the soul does not favour either you or the Kauravas, that there is a reality greater than what you perceive. Accept that infinite occurrences of the universe cannot be fathomed by the finite human mind. Surrender unconditionally, even in the absence of evidence, to the truth of the cosmos. In humility, there is faith. When there is faith, there is no fear. Is it faith guiding your hand, Arjuna, or is it fear? If it is fear, then you are not practising bhakti yoga.

  ‘With your actions—engage with the world around you as a human, not animal. Animals have no intellect; their flesh is geared towards survival alone. That is why they are fettered by the law of the jungle (matsya nyaya) using their strength and cunning to stay alive. Humans have intellect and yearn for meaning beyond survival. They have the unique ability to empathize with this need in others too for they can sense the soul encased in all flesh. Humans alone of all living creatures can reject the law of the jungle and create a code of conduct based on empathy and directed at discovering the meaning of life. This is dharma. To live in dharma is to live without fear. To live in dharma is to act in love. To live in dharma is to have others as a reference point, not oneself. Function therefore in this war not like that insecure dog that barks to dominate and whines when dominated, but like that secure cow, that provides milk freely and follows the music of the divine. Do you fight this war to break the stranglehold of jungle law in human society, Arjuna? If not, you do not practise karma yoga.

  ‘Duryodhana does not subscribe to dharma. All his actions stem from fear. He helps those who comfort him; he rejects those who threaten him. He behaves like a beast guarding his territory; but he is not a beast, he is human, very much capable of shattering this delusion. His refusal to do so makes him demonic, deserving of no pity. Your own refusal to fight also deserves no pity. It has its roots in fear, in a lack of empathy for the world. Rather than save the world from the likes of Duryodhana, you would rather comfort your ego that is terrified by the price demanded by this war. Your nobility is a delusion; it very cleverly masks your insecurities. That is not acceptable. The fight is not out there, Arjuna, it is inside you. Do not surrender to a situation that nurtures the ego. The war is not for you, Arjuna, but for civilized human conduct. Remember, the point is not to win or lose the war, the point is not to kill enemies and acquire their lands; it is to establish dharma and in doing so discover the soul.

  ‘That is why I am here, Arjuna, on earth, as your charioteer: to establish dharma, to remind humans of their humanity, to show the intellect that path that leads to the soul, and away from the ego. Every time humans feel purposeless and meaningless and in fear succumb to the ego, I descend to set things right. This has happened before. This will happen again. And I will keep coming.’

  Arjuna realized his friend was no ordinary man. Prostrating himself before Krishna, he said, ‘Show me who you really are.’

  Krishna then showed Arjuna who he really was. In that battlefield, between the armies of the Kauravas and the Pandavas, a vision unfolded for Arjuna alone.

  Krishna’s form expanded so that it stretched from above the sky to the bottom of the sea. He was as resplendent as a thousand suns. From his breath emerged countless worlds. Between his teeth were crushed countless worlds. In him Arjuna saw all that was, is and will be—all the oceans, all the mountains, all the continents, the worlds above the sky and the worlds below the earth. Everything came from him, everything returned to him. He was the source of all Manavas, Devas, Asuras, Nagas, Rakshasas, Gandharvas, Apsaras, of all forefathers and all descendants. He was the container of all the possibilities of life.

  The sight made Arjuna aware of the enormity of the cosmos and his relative insignificance. He felt like a grain of sand on a vast endless beach. If Krishna was an ocean, this moment, this war, was but a wave. So many waves, so many opportunities to discover the sea. This war, this life, his rage and his frustrations, everything in this world was a pointer to the soul.

  ‘Remember, Arjuna,’ said Krishna, ‘he who says he kills and he who says he is killed are both wrong. I am both the killer and the killed. Yet I cannot die. I am your flesh and your soul, that which changes and that which does not change. I am the world around you, the spirit inside you and the mind in between. I am the measuring scale, the one who measures and that which is measured. I alone can bend the rules of space and time. I alone can shatter the web of karma. Realize me. Become a master of your intellect as a charioteer masters his horses and you will realize it is not about the war, it is not about fighting or not fighting, it is not about winning or losing, but it is about taking decisions and discovering the truth about yourself. When you do this, there will be no fear, there will be no ego; you will be at peace, even in the midst of what the deluded call war.’

  The Bhagavad Gita is the most popular Hindu scripture because in it God speaks directly to man.

  The Gita was first translated into English in 1785 by Charles Wilkins under the patronage of the then Governor General, Warren Hastings. It reached Europe and was translated into other European languages like French and German. It was these translations that made the Gita so popular. The founding fathers of the Indian nation state read the Gita for the first time, not in a regional Indian language, or Sanskrit, but in English.

  One of the earliest translations of the Gita was the Marathi Dnyaneshwari by a young ascetic called Dnyaneshwar who challenged the caste hierarchy when he broke away from tradition and made the wisdom accessible to the common man in the language of the common man. Many other sages since have ensured the wisdom of the Gita reach the common man through song and stories. Few except the educated elite, until the 19th century, had read
the original Sanskrit.

  Sages have equated the Vedas with grass, the Upanishads with cows that chew on the grass and the Bhagavad Gita as the milk squeezed by Vyasa from the udders of these cows. In other words, the Bhagavad Gita captures the essence of Vedic wisdom. The Vedic hymns are dated to 2000 BCE while the Bhagavad Gita in its current form is dated to 300 CE, a testimony to the consistency of the thought which is considered sanatan, or timeless.

  At the end of the Bhagavad Gita is a war led by God himself. Does this make the Gita a scripture that propagates war? A reading of the Gita shows that the song is concerned neither with violence nor with non-violence. The song neither condones nor condemns war. The point is to look at the root of any action. What is the measuring scale that makes one war noble and another war ignoble? Wherefrom comes the desire to fight or not to fight? Is the motivation power or love? Is one indulging the ego or seeking the soul?

  From India came the idea of zero to the world of mathematics. This notion may have its roots in philosophical discussions where man’s insignificance in the cosmic framework is constantly highlighted. When contrasted against infinity, every moment of life, howsoever wonderful or miserable, is reduced to zero.

  The day the Bhagavad Gita was narrated is celebrated as Mokshada Ekadashi, the eleventh day of the waxing moon in the month of Margashirsh (Nov–Dec). Elsewhere in the epic, it is suggested that the battle took place in autumn, not winter, in the month of Kartik (Oct–Nov) around Dasshera and Diwali.

  Rationalists wonder how such a long discourse took place with two impatient armies on either side. Since this was a discourse by God, the rules of space and time did not apply. What seems like a long discourse to humans, must have taken place in the blink of an eye on the battlefield.