“Mahabharat” is a well-known tale.There are the righteous Pandavs and the bad Kauravs.Pandavs for their part,go out of their way to avoid a war.However,when injustice is meted out continuously they are left with no choice.Just before the war,Duryodhan tells Krishn(Pandavs’ messenger) that he won’t spare land equal to even the tip of a needle.This is a shocking statement and even his ever doting dad,Dhritrashtr is surprised at this.Uptil the war breaks out,the narrative is very clear about who is the good side & who is the bad side.The first 10 days of the war take place under the umbrella of civil rules of battle.These rules were agreed upon by the commander-in-chiefs of both sides.The Kaurav commander-in-chief Bheeshm possesses unparalleled valour.In his lifetime,he has even defeated Parshuram-the incarnation of Lord Vishnu himself-in a completely fair fight.He is the grand old man of the Kuru family.Apart from this,Bheeshm has an incredible boon protecting him from death.His death can’t touch him unless he wants to.This makes him invincible in battle.The Kurukshetr war thus comes to a stagnation with Bheeshm on the Kaurav side.He can’t be killed & he can’t be defeated.So,Krishn hatches a plan to neutralise him.Bheeshm understands Krishn’s play & himself offers the answer.This is an incredible moment where the most valiant warrior on the enemy camp reveals his weakness just to oblige with dharm.Dharm here is not religion.It is the set of rules of conduct people of the four varns are expected to follow.They vary with each varn.Now without Bheeshm,the Kaurav army makes Dronacharya their commander-in-chief.Dron was the teacher of both Kauravs & Pandavs.He too,is invincible in battle.He is also neutralized by some clever manipulation engineered by Krishn.Thus,the Kauravs keep losing their MVPs by deceptive ways.At the same time,just after Bheeshm’s removal the Kaurav army leaders made an extremely cowardly attack on the weaponless,young Abhimanyu breaking all the rules of war.They then danced around his dead body as celebration.This marks the beginning of the devolution.The war keeps getting more obscene.Civilized conduct continues to tumble.Eventually,Bheem bound by his terrible oath tears open Duhshasan’s chest and drinks his blood in the battlefield! He is called a ‘Rakshas'(demon) by both sides for his act.It is noteworthy that the tale of “Mahabharat” starts when civilization is near it’s peak.The text sings glories upon glories of the Kuru kings.The most glorious of them being the king Bharat,who is supposed to be the one ancient India was named after(Bharat-varsh) The first major cracks in this civilized world occur when the daughter-in-law of the Kuru family is dragged against her will into the court,in the presence of many noblemen of the state.Duryodhan,Duhshasan attempt to disrobe Draupadi publicly in that court..a scene terrible even by today’s standards.She is saved by Krishn but this incident marks the sunset of the Kuru family.We are told at the beginning of the Kurukshetr war that there are 18 “Akshauhini senas” involved.Each such army consists of about 2.2 lakh soldiers in all.Thus,the total number of participants comes to around 4 million.In the 18 days of the Kurukshetr war,each of these 4 million undergoes the same fate.The narrative has elaborate descriptions of the killings and beheadings and the blood on the battlefield.All women of Hastinapur end up crying & wailing after their dead men.The whole air is surrounded by the smell of corpses and the sounds of women & vultures.These are incredible scenes.A destruction of this magnitude! So,why did Vyas feel the need to include all this? Interestingly,all this destruction takes place under the watchful and ever-present eye of Lord Krishn.So did God fail? Why did God allow such massive destruction? In my view,Vyas is taking us through the life cycle of a civilization: Glory,prosperity at the beginning,some differences in the society,various uncivil elements promoted & then an eventual war.This society was so filthy that it needed to be wiped out.Why? A new era cannot start with the relics of the past.Thus,it’s a complete reset.The story of “Mahabharat” too,doesn’t end with the war.It goes on to describe Yudhishthir’s rule.He’s said to have ruled over India for 36 years,in an extremely wondrous society.No crimes,no conflicts and no unhappiness.You might argue that such societies only exist in fiction.That is fine.But the larger point is,after civilization has crumbled a new improved one has taken it’s place.
Thus,the grand epic of “Mahabharat” among other things is ultimately about the construction of a new society,under the patronage of God himself.The society’s most noble portions had become uncivilized and exploitative,forgetting all the ideals and ethics.So it became important to replace it.Replacement could only take place when there was nothing from the past to make it’s impression in the new society.After the war,only Pandavs & Draupadi survive alongwith Vidur,Gandhari & Dhritrashtr from the Kuru family.With this view,it is important then to appreciate that Krishn probably had the toughest task among all of Vishnu’s avtaars.While Ram improved a civil society and gave it a higher ideal,Parshuram prevented the crumbling of society by punishing it’s exploitative aspects,Krishn oversaw the complete reset.It is hard to agree with all this while reading about the blood that flowed during the war.However,it is very important to remember how much society had devolved.The role model noble family is party to an act that is considered heinous even today! Not just that,their devolution continues to such an extent that they are unable to differentiate between right & wrong.The tale is again very clear about this.If it’s hard to get the weight of the Kuru family’s devolution,then just try imagining if it were revealed that the daughter-in-law of the much haloed Tata group was undergoing abuse at her home! While this incident may not be much by itself,it does a lot to arm the perpetrators who always had such ill-feelings but couldn’t practice it because of the fear of the society.Crimes against women will definitely surge since this will give a good justification to the perpetrators.This is why a complete purge becomes necessary.Even if one element of this society survives,they will be able to produce the seeds of the next uncivilized society.We are talking about the Dvapar Yug here,where the world & India was still good enough that God himself walked the Earth! So,all these incidents added to the descent of society which is probably why Krishn considered it wise to replace it totally.
Please feel free to put in your views.
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