Ashwatthama

Tell me a Hindu story, says W. Okay, then.

Doubtless the battle of the Mahabharta is meant to stand in for other kinds of battle. Didn't Ghandi say just that? Life itself is a battle, and full of injustice and cruelty. Then the story of the Pandavas, who, because of injustice, led their armies against their enemies has a spiritual significance, for doesn't it dramatise the ongoing struggle for the rule of goodness, of duty, dharma, as the Indians might put it?

But dharma, too, is subject to decline; the doctrine of the Four Ages confirms this. And so when we read of the conduct of the Pandavas, guided by Krishna (who has accepted the position of charioteer, refusing to fight directly) we should not be surprised if some of their actions are less than righteous. For doesn't Krishna guide them into breaking the all-important rules of war? They break other rules, too …

The battle on the plains of Kurukshetra set family member against family member, friend against friend, pupil against teacher. I'm not sure how Drona, the teacher of the Pandavas, end up standing against them in battle. Of warriors, he was among the most feared; not even the gods could defeat him so long as he held a weapon in his hand.

When he saw his side was facing defeat, Drona became furious enough to use the murderous and terrifying brahmastra, the greatest weapon of the day. Now he was truly invincible, destroying whole divisions of the Pandavan armies.

What to do? Krishna tells the Pandavas that Drona can only be killed if he lays down his weapons. But how can he be made to do that? Drona would do so only if he heard his son Ashwatthama is dead, Krishna says. For his son was the very meaning of his life, the very reason he relinquished a brahminical life in order to became a warrior.

Krishna, the avatar of God, comes up with a ruse: someone should lie, Krishna says. Someone should tell Drona that his son is dead. When he heard this, Yudhishthira, the oldest and most virtuous of the Pandavas, the son of Dharma himself, was horrified. How could he, or any of his brothers, lie to their former teacher? How could they allow themselves to be tainted with dishonour?

But Krishna was insistent. Wait much longer, he said, and Drona, in his rage, would destroy the army of the Pandavas. And so the mighty Bhima, Yudhishthira's younger brother, locates an elephant called Ashwatthama that belongs to his own armies and strikes him dead with his mace.

Ashwatthama is dead!, Bhima cries out to Drona. Not believing him, Drona asks Yudhishthira whether this is true. His former pupil, incapable of lying, cries out that Ashwatthama has been killed, adding in an inaudible whisper, Ashwatthama the elephant. Drona, as Krishna predicted, lays down his arms in despair. The former Brahmin, the teacher of the Pandavas, allowed himself to be beheaded on the fifteenth day of battle.

What's it all about?, W. says. He thought Krishna was the avatar of God or something – hadn't I told him that? Some say he was serving a higher duty, a higher dharma, I tell him. Others that the third Age had given way to the fourth, and there was nothing left to him but cynicism and opportunism.

W. will have none of talk of a higher dharma, he says. Religion is about seeking justice in time, in this world, not outside of it, he says. All this fatalism, he says. Cynicism! Opportunism! Religion should have nothing to do with that, W. says.