No, I am not playing the devil’s advocate. But I am only trying to look deeper and see whether there is any justification to whatever Krishna did; Whether Vyasa really convey the intricacies of righteousness or Dharma through his master piece namely the Mahabharata.
How do we decide what is right and what is wrong?
For most of us anything that benefits us and does not harm anyone else is right. Sometimes we may harm others in an attempt to safeguard ourselves and our companions. We don’t consider that to be wrong. No one considers a soldier killing the enemy as wrong, though it still involves harm to someone.
So, our notion of right and wrong revolves around ourselves. That is normal and we all do that. It is only that some people harm others out of hatred or greed or just because of a wicked mental makeup. That is not considered to be right by most people.
Now look at the Mahabharata. The Pandavas killed all the Kauravas as well as many great people who sided with them. You can’t call that as wrong since they did it in self-preservation. Even if they did it out of vengeance, they are still justified in doing it since the Kauravas had committed lot of atrocities on them which they did not deserve.
So, from Pandava’s point of view, even if they resorted to deceit, it was all fair since they were fighting a war that was heavily loaded against them and was completely in favor of the Kauravas. There was no way they could have won the war without resorting to deceit.
But look at the God incarnate Krishna. What was his compulsion to resort to deceitful ways? Can a God incarnate indulge in complete annihilation just because Pandavas were his cousins? Can he bring up such a mass destruction just to avenge the wrong doings of Kauravas?
Krishna claims that he is neither a friend of anyone nor anyone is his enemy.
“Samoham sarva bhooteshu na mE dwEshyOsthi na priyaha
I am impartial to all. There is none who is my enemy nor there is anyone who is dear to me.” (Bhagavad Gita 9.29)
So, what applies to ordinary mortals does not apply to him. He is neither after any worldly gains, nor harbors any vengeance that justifies such mass killing. Not the least he had any threat from anyone.
That being the case, how is the act of Krishna justified? How is he considered to be righteous even though he resorted to all wrong ways?
The key probably is the way great people look at things. An ordinary mortal looks at from the point of view of his individual self or at most his family or kith and kin. His circle is limited to that. Right and wrong is defined within that limited circle.
But not so for a person who identifies himself with the entire existence. He never thinks about himself, nor about his cousins or friends. His sense of righteousness is driven by how his acts affect the majority. And it is not just majority, it is that majority who cannot take care of themselves. The ones that Krishna calls as ‘saadhu’.
These are the people who are helpless. They are so subservient that they cannot even take care of themselves. It is they who need to be taken care of. Punishing a wrong doer is only a secondary issue. But the main issue is to take care of the helpless masses who are silent sufferers.
A God incarnate comes to the world not just to punish the wrong doers. But to protect the helpless masses who are going through the agony, for no fault of theirs. In Bhagavad Gita Krishna declares
“Yadaa yadaa hi dharmasya glaanirbhavati bhaarata
abhyutthaanam adharmasya tadaatmaanam srjaamyaham
Whenever the unrighteousness has an upper hand over righteousness, I create myself in human form.”
“paritraaNaaya saadhoonaam vinaashaaya ca dushkrtaam
dharma samsthaapanaarthaaya sambhavaami yugE yugE
The primary purpose of my coming is to rescue the helpless people who are tormented by the unrighteous ones and also to eliminate the perpetuators of unrighteousness.
And last but not the least, I keep taking birth again and again to re-establish righteousness.” (Bhagavad Gita 4.7 and 4.8)
This is the promise made by God in Bhagavad Gita. He does not come as a judge but primarily as a rescuer of the helpless people who are the mute sufferers.
But how does Kauravas doing injustice to Pandavas amount to tormenting helpless people? Afterall, the Pandavas were not helpless. They were great warriors who were quite capable of protecting themselves. Why then Krishna had to intervene?
Actually, it is not just some acts but the mindset behind those acts that creates the problems. A king who is always bent on deceitful ways, a king who does not shy from usurping someone else’s belongings, a king who does not hesitate to disrobe one of his own female family members in front of a full court, how can such a King be fair to innocent and helpless people?
His ways will not prevent him from doing wrong things to them as well. Not only that, by his unholy acts he is setting an example to his subjects. And the wrong perpetrates down the line.
On the other hand, the Pandavas, even though they were not a match to the all-powerful Kauravas, always worried about right and wrong. They were very vigilant about their acts and how those acts affected others.
They stood a better chance to be caretakers of helpless people. They could set a better role model.
But given the disparity between their strengths, Pandavas could have never vanquished the Kauravas. So, they would have been just ‘nice losers’ who could not have done anything for the suffering humanity, if Krishna had not intervened.
So, it is the interest of larger suffering masses that was of paramount importance to Krishna. Krishna was even concerned about the helpless soldiers who would lose their lives for no fault of theirs. He did everything to avert the war and minimize the massacre. But the Kauravas did not listen to him.
That is reason he had to resort to unfair means. For him the ultimate results mattered. He knew that he can re-establish the righteousness if the righteous Pandava were given a chance.
So, Krishna was not really partial to the Pandavas. He cannot be, since He is the God “who is neither anyone’s friend nor a foe”.
For those who want to quote Krishna’s actions to justify their wrong ways, all that I can say is that – “first become like Krishna who identified himself with the entire existence. Then whatever you do is fair”.
The funny thing is that when you identify yourselves with the entire existence, you can neither be partial to anyone nor can you do anything unfair. You become the God himself! We need to expand our sphere of identity beyond our limited self, family, religion, nationality, race, and so on. We need to become universal.
That probably was what Vyasa meant to convey.
That was Mahabharata episode 21
Based on the 5000 year old Indian Epic namely Mahabharata. © Dr.King 2019.
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