Article from "The Hindu" Dharma triumphs ultimately

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Date:02/11/2002 URL:

http://www.thehindu.com/2002/11/02/stories/2002110200430900.htm

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Miscellaneous - Religion

 

Dharma triumphs ultimately

 

CHENNAI NOV. 2 . The Bhagavad Gita, which appears in the Mahabharata,

is in the form of a narrative told by Sanjaya to Dhritarashtra.

Sanjaya was granted insight by the grace of Vyasa to see everything

that happened on the battlefield. So he was able to relate events in

minute detail as they occurred to the blind king when he questioned

him, "Gathered on the sacred soil of Kurukshetra, eager to fight,

what did my sons and the sons of Pandu do?" The question seems

redundant because what else will those who had taken recourse to war

to stake their claim to the throne of Hastinapura do on the

battlefield but fight. The particular way in which the king phrased

the question gives insight into the complexities of human nature that

precipitated the war.

 

Dhritarashtra could have either referred to them all as his children

or as Pandavas and Kauravas but the manner in which he said "my sons

and the sons of Pandu" revealed his attachment to his sons which made

him turn a blind eye to Duryodana's injustices meted out to his

brother's children. Likewise, his intention was that his sons should

win the war but the very mention of Kurukshetra as the soil where

Dharma triumphed, by him, gives inkling into the fact that Pandavas

would win in the end because they always followed Dharma.

 

In his discourse, Sri Goda Venketeswara Sastri said the reference to

the site of the war as "Dharmakshetra" lent itself to many

interpretations. Perhaps the king was anxious that he would lose the

kingdom because Duryodana's mind might change due to the sanctity of

the place and make him act righteously! Or maybe he consoled himself

with the hope that each person would be impelled by his intrinsic

nature and so his son who had been spoiling for a fight all his life

would not backtrack at the last moment.

 

A subtler elucidation of the opening verse of the Gita hints that the

text is a guide to both secular and spiritual ends of human life.

Though the war was fought for the sake of the kingdom of Hastinapura

it was also a battle between the good and evil tendencies, which

constantly create conflict in the human mind and thus refers to the

turmoil within every individual in life situations. Lord Krishna's

action of giving all His armies to the Kauravas and being with the

Pandavas but not wielding arms in the war bespeaks volumes of the

fact that God stands by those who uphold Dharma in life.

 

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