Hindu Technicalities

I have a Hindu story for every occasion, he knows that, W. says. What about for a train journey? Very well, I agree. I'll tell him a story for our times. I'll tell him how even God needs to cheat in order to serve dharma … 

The battle on the plains of Kurukshetra – the great battle of the Mahabharta, that even the gods looked down from heaven to watch – has raged for several days, with neither side gaining an upper hand. On the one side, the forces of the Pandavas, led by Arjuna, who fight on the side of dharma; on the other, and though their ranks contain many virtuous men, the forces of the Kauravas, who fight against dharma.

Disaster strikes for the Pandavans on the thirteenth day of battle: Arjuna's son is killed. Jayadratha, the Asurya, is the culprit. In his grief, Arjuna cries out that he'll avenge his son's death by sunset on the next day, or throw himself into the funeral pyre. Fighting stops at sunset, in accordance with the rules of war, and that night Arjuna meditates in silence, concentrating his powers on the task ahead.

The next morning, Arjuna rises more resolute than ever, and men and horses fall in their hundreds to his arrows. Chariots collapse in the dust. But the enemy, having heard Arjuna's oath, have set six of their greatest warriors the task of guarding his son's killer.

Fight as he might, loosing volleys of arrows, Arjuna can get no closer to his foe. And so, in the last moments of the afternoon, with the rules of war dictating that all fighting stop at sunset, there seems no choice but for Arjuna, leader of the Pandavan armies, to follow his son onto the funeral pyre.

Then Arjuna's charioteer, Krishna, the avatar of God, lifts his chakra over the sun like a great cloud. Krishna, who promised to have no part in the fighting having friends and allies on both sides, has made sunset seemed to fall all at once. Soldiers on both sides head back to their camp. Even the warriors who surround Jayadratha drop their guard, taking off their armour and turning for home.

'Strike now!', Krishna cries. 'He's unguarded!' Arjuna is aghast. – 'But it's sunset. I should put down my arms!' – 'It's not sunset', says Krishna, 'for the sun continues to shine above my chakra'. Arjuna shakes his head. – 'I don't understand, Lord!' And Krishna replies, 'You must win this battle. There are higher kinds of justice'. And so Arjuna does the bidding of his Lord, firing an arrow into the breast of his enemy, thus avenging the murder of his son.

'What is a chakra?', W. says. 'Do you have a chakra? Have you got one in your rucksack?' And then, 'So Krishna made it look as though it was night so Arjuna could kill his enemy? Sounds pretty dodgy to me'. Technically, it wasn't sunset, I tell W. – 'But he made it appear so'. But technically, sunset had yet to fall. This seems very unfair to W. Well, there was more unfairness to come, I tell him.

On the fourteenth day of battle, I continue, Yudhishthira, the oldest of the Pandavas, makes a terrible mistake. In the midst of battle, the dead of his own armies all around him, he wonders whether there might be another way to resolve the battle.

'Duryodhana!', he cries to the greatest of the warriors of the enemy army, 'I will make you a deal. Choose any one of my brothers and fight him instead, in one to one combat. The victor will win the battle, and we can stop the carnage'.

Duyhodhana agrees, he says, but on one condition: that he chose the weapon with which they'll do combat. Yudhishthira agrees in turn; the battle ceases, and all wait to see who Duryodhana will pick. Will it be one of the twins Nakula or Sadheva, the youngest of the Pandava brothers, valiant warriors, but probably no match for their enemy? Will it be Yudhishthira himself, the son of Dharma, famous for his virtue rather than his prowess on the battlefield? Surely it couldn't be Arjuna, the greatest of archers, who has already felled thousands of enemy soldiers! And surely not Bhishma, a man with the strength of seventy elephants?

'Bhima!' cries Duryodhana, and everyone is surprised. 'We will fight with maces'. What a strange choice! Bhima is stronger than him, and Duryodhana and he were taught mace-fighting by the same teacher. What madness is this? Combat begins. Bhima lands some mighty blows on his opponent which thunder like earthquakes, but Duryodhana shrugs them off, striking mighty blows himself. Over the hours and days that follow, Bhima visibly tires. How could it be?: it is Duryodhana who is winning.

Krishna takes Bhima aside during a break in the fighting. – 'Duryodhana was given a boon', he tells him. 'He was led to the river by his mother, and prayers uttered over him. The gods granted that every part of him touched by the river became impossible to harm. That's why your mace cannot inflict the lightest bruise'. Bhima: 'Then I can't defeat him?'

Krishna: 'Listen carefully. Duryodhana was too modest to step naked into the river in front of his mother, and the river did not touch his groin. Strike him there, and he will fall'. Bhima looks shocked, for the rules of mace combat forbid blows below the waist. How could he maintain any virtue as a warrior after such an act?

He has no choice, Krishna says. – 'You must not lose. You must break the rules of war if you are to serve the higher rule, the law of dharma'. Bhima, who had sunk to the ground in despair, looks up at him. – 'Since it is you who have asked me, Lord, I will do as you say'. And sure enough, he strikes Duryodhana a terrible blow across his thighs and kills him outright.

'And I suppose you think that's technically alright, too', W. says. 'Hindu technicalities!', W. says. He's had enough of them. 'Anything goes when you think the world is illusory'.

Why did Krishna advise the Pandavas to break the rules of war?, I continue. How can a lie be superior to the truth? Some say Krishna had his eye on a greater duty, a higher dharma, than that which ruled men on earth; others that the enemies of the Pandavas deserved nothing else: weren't they unrighteousness, adharma, incarnate, no matter which men of virtue fought amongst them?

Others still say that the battle marked the transition from to the lowest of the Four Ages. In the Age of Iron, there is nothing left but cynicism and opportunism, and even gods have to lie.

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. There is no higher law in Judaism, W. says. It's far more sensible. God's law is the same everywhere, W. says. Well, that's how it works in his Judaism, he says, which is to say, the Judaism of Cohen and Rosenzweig. It's entirely different to Hindu fatalism, he says. To Hindu cynicism. Religion should have nothing to do with technicalities, W. says.

And there's worse to come, I tell W.

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, ended 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's son was the very meaning of his life, the very reason he relinquished a brahminical life in order to became a warrior. He would lay down his arms only if he hears his son Ashwatthama is dead, Krishna says.

Yudhishthira is baffled. But Drona isn't dead, he says. – 'But we will have to tell Drona Ashwatthama is dead', Krishna says. Yudhishthira can't make sense of this. 'So you're telling us to lie, Lord?'

Krishna whispers in the ear of Bhima, who rises and disappears. – 'I have told him to kill one of our elephants, whose name is Ashwatthama', Krishna says. 'Now you can tell Drona that Ashwatthama is dead without lying'. The son of Dharma shakes his head. – 'Is this really what you want, Lord: to deceive a virtuous man?' And Krishna says, 'It is what I want'.

In the midst of battle, corpses of his enemies piled about him, Drona hears a great cry: 'Ashwatthama is dead!' It's Bhima's voice, he says to himself. Can it really be true: his son – dead? He shakes his head. No, he will not believe it. – 'It is not true!' he cries. 'You're deceiving me'. And then, 'Yudhishthira: is it true?' And then another voice comes, Yudhishthira's, who is incapable of lying: 'It is true: Ashwatthama is dead'.

Drona, as Krishna predicted, lays down his arms in despair. The former Brahmin, teacher of the Pandavas and their enemies alike, allowed himself to be beheaded on the fifteenth day of battle.

He's never heard anything so stupid, W. says.