The
Struggle over Righteousness - Dharma in S.L. Bhyrappa’s
Novel Parva- a Tale of War, Peace, Love, Death, God
and Man
Dr.
Prasanna Deshpande, Assistant Professor, Department of
English, Fergusson College, Pune
Introduction
‘What is
righteousness?’ is a question which does not have one
answer. The quest for an answer to
this question, which is acceptable to all, forms the base of
the self-knowledge and the knowledge of the society of which
we are a part. The uniqueness of every individual’s
experiences of life accentuates a particular value or view
about those experiences. It makes us understand ourselves,
our life and the world. What a human being experiences in
life forms his or her understanding of what is right to do
in a particular situation. The formation of one’s values of
life largely happens as a result of the communication and
interaction with one’s own surroundings. Personal thought
process and cultural understanding are vitally influenced by
these social transactions. One’s own choices in life,
decisions, actions, talks, and thoughts, feelings and the
manifestation, materialization of them all, are always and
permanently haunted by the concerns over righteousness. The
issue most commonly faced by us, in this regard, is the
issue of correspondence between what is right for one and
what is right for all or what is right now and what is right
always. A cumulative understanding of identity,
individuality and temporality-the times one belongs to and
the spatial position-the place one is located at, the
society, the culture, the people and the family that we
belong to-help us form the ‘sense of righteousness’.
Individual thinking is not necessarily in contradiction with
the consciousness of a society or civilization as a whole.
One understands one’s own and others’ life, character,
nature, personality, actions, choices and decisions;
questions, challenges or agrees upon, supports or rejects,
with regards to the prevalent discourse of righteousness.
This prevalent idea of righteousness in a particular age, of
a particular region is understood, responded to, reacted
against or acted upon through communication of social
consciousness, through introspection and through the
interaction with society.
Righteousness
is
Dharma
Factors
like religion and Dharma, social institutions, family
institutions, knowledge systems, education, faith, value
system, cultural philosophies and belief systems, contribute
vitally in the propagation and perpetuation of the sense of
righteousness and sagacity. In most ancient civilizations of
the world these factors fashioned and nurtured the sense of
righteousness with regards to their respective dispositions
and approaches to human life and the world. To mention a
few, the ancient civilizations like Egyptian, Greek, Roman,
Chinese and the Indus Valley civilization, popularly known
as Sindhu Sanskriti in Indian languages, became the
cultural inventories of the successive generations in their
corresponding regions. These cultural inventories sourced
the artistic, aesthetic expressions of the humans through
their creative faculty. Thus, was created language and
literature, shapes and drawing, colours and painting, sound
and music, movements and dance. These aesthetic, artistic,
creative manifestations of human experiences and
imaginations drew a lot from the life, society and culture
prevalent in different periods of human history and at
different regions of the human world. These creations could
not be believed to have happened in isolation from the
myriad aspects of human life being felt, thought over,
contemplated over and cognised by those who put them into
effect. A perpetual exchange between the world without and
the world within, between the outer, physical world and the
inner, spiritual world, between the self and the world
formulates certain directives for human conduct, behaviour,
actions, choices, decisions and the whole way of life. The
artistic, intellectual verisimilitude sourcing from the
cultural inventories of civilizational consciousness settles
the understanding and practice of righteousness.
Traditionally,
the
practice of religion and culture of worship, spirituality
and divine philosophies in different faith systems have
exerted an influence on what different societies in the
world held supreme as ‘righteousness’. In the culturally
pluralistic, multicultural, polytheist society of India,
this ‘sense of righteousness’ emanates from the diverse ways
of life. These ways of life and the overall cultural milieu
are so dynamic and different in nature that each single
cultural identity or thought often probes into every other
cultural thought, idea or practice. This probing often
takes the form of an interactive, argumentative and dialogic
form of dialectical examination of issues and ideas. The
cultural struggle owing to the dialectical nature of the
moral laws of behaviour and actions, the personal and social
understanding of the ‘righteous’ conduct occupies a
significant position in the narratives of S.L. Bhyrappa’s
novels. This sense of righteousness becomes a complex
psychological, philosophical concern on account of the
continual contemplations of the major characters in the
novels selected for the study. In Bhyrappa’s novels, since
the characters, situation, plot, narrative and the overall
cultural milieu are strictly Indian, the present discussion
demands some explanation on the respective meanings of and
distinctions between ‘religion’, the word in English, which
is used conventionally to describe the discourse of moral
law that monitors the sense of righteousness in all the
societies in the world; and the word in Sanskrit, ‘Dharma’
which nourishes the diverse cultural ethos and value systems
of India. The researcher proposes to differ from the
conventional usage of the word ‘religion’ being applied to
the consciousness that forms the sense of righteousness for
the major characters in the novels. The intellectual,
philosophical deliberations and reflections made by the
characters in Bhyrappa’s novels can be identified with those
of the general population in India that experiences a
similar outlook towards life. These complex concerns over
righteousness as felt and expressed by the major characters
in the selected novels can be identified as the
contemplative, introspective and persuasive stirring of
ideas and thoughts related to ‘righteousness’ as prompted by
the empirical, experiential significance of the word
‘Dharma’ more than as the signifying examples of the word
‘religion’.
Righteousness in
Parva
‘Parva’
is the realistic rendering of the great Epic Mahabharata.
The ethos of the Mahabharata epic is integral to the ethos
of India. In the various renderings of the Mahabharata
brought out in different periods of history, the fundamental
aspect of its cultural ‘rootedness’, binds all these
versions with a common string. The Mahabharata is the most
ancient literary work with a prodigious modern and
contemporary significance with regards to the Indian society
in different periods. The work represents life and culture
of India in all its periods of history with clarity and
precision. It is difficult to tell whether the epic is a
reflection of India or the India of bygone times with its
entire people living with a distinctive culture of their own
is a reflection of the life and its milieu presented into
the epic. It is this aspect of perennial social and cultural
relevance of the epic that has inspired a galaxy of authors
in different periods in and out of India to extract their
own perspective of the Mahabharata. There is literally a
God’s plenty in it so much so that each mind that engages
itself with the epic is likely to produce his or her logical
rendering of the same work in a unique way and still retain
an allegiance to the original.
The novel
Parva is a realistic adaptation of the Mahabharata.
S.L Bhyrappa has marvellously maintained the mastery of
adhering to the epic real in terms of its thematic,
philosophical ethos and yet offering a very humane,
philosophically replete, realistic, true-to-life
representation of the original epic. In addition to the
other merits of this novel like detailing of
characterization through their revealing monologues,
philosophical background to the great war, the point of
views behind every action and decision of every character,
the overall progression of the plot with the war as its
central motif, all these aspects grant the novel the status
of an incomparable creation in literature. As the subtitle
of the novel ‘Parva’ suggests, it is a Tale of
War, Peace, Love, Death, God and Man. It brings out the
innumerable aspects of human life with all its dynamism.
There is nothing in the human world that is not found in
Mahabharata and there is nothing that the epic contains
which cannot be found in the human world. It is an account
of an age, a period and a civilization in its entirety of
the narrative.
The
Great War fought on the battlefield of Kurukshetra between
the Kauravas and the Pandavas is the central motif, the most
significant action in the novel Parva. Bhyrappa
foregrounds this happening of the war emphatically in his
novel. Through the successive narratives presented in the
form of monologues of the Madra King, Salya, Pandava’s
mother- Kunti, Bheema, Draupadi, Arjuna, Yuyudhana, Karna,
Bhishma and Dronacharya- the centrality of the war is
maintained with absolute details. The final part is the
narration of the actual war. The concerns of the either
parties pitted against one another to fight this war are
fundamentally the concerns over ‘righteousness’.
Righteousness or one’s own ‘Dharma’- the guiding principles
or the moral laws held by one person or one group differ
sharply from those of another. This diversity of views about
righteousness results into a collision, a confrontation, a
struggle of culture in the society of which these humans are
a part. This struggle is carried out, is executed in the
form of a dialectical approach, an interactively analytical
examination of the truth about the particular issue.
Bhyrappa’s emphasis on the issue of righteousness as the
most fundamental cause of the war is so concretely presented
that it drives us to form a perspective about the war as the
‘War of Righteousness’. This war of righteousness is fought
on the fields as well as in the minds of all those who
actually fight on the field and also those who do not. Such
are the complexities of the values of righteousness as
presented in the novel ‘Parva’ that no one can claim
non-partisanship on his or her part. The massive churning of
thoughts, principles, values and views between two or more
rival parties, communities, societies or individuals and
between the contesting, dialectical views about the most
righteous choice to be made, creates a situation of cultural
struggle undertaken in order to be in union with the
reality.
The
Conflict of Loyalty
The
novel opens with a comprehensive narrative of the Madra
King, Salya, the patriarch, the brother of Madri-the second
wife of Pandu, the mother of Nakula and Sahadeva, two of the
five brothers identified as Pandavas. Salya represents the
older generation of the Mahabharata times. We see that this
octogenarian king is agitated over the issue of the Great
War. The concerns of righteousness in this regard haunt him
continually. The cause and situations that made the war so
imminent are summed up in the following account of
Rukmartha, Salya’s son. He reports to his father that
Duryodhana, the son of Dhritrashtra has refused to return
the kingdom to the Pandavas who have come back after twelve
years of stay in forest and one year of incognito life.
There was a dispute of progeny between Dhritrashtra and his
brother Pandu. Duryodhana argued that the five Pandavas were
not born to Pandu. Their mothers conceived and delivered
them after an intercourse with utter strangers. Rukmartha
presents Duryodhana’s view that only he and his thirteen
brothers and one sister are born to Dhritrashtra and
Gandhari, thus, they are the legitimate successors of the
throne of Hastinavati and the lineage of the Kuru clan. This
contention between the Kauravas and the Pandavas has now
become intense and hence the war is inevitable. After
listening to this report of the state of affairs, Salya, the
old Madra King loses his calm and he criticises Duryodhana
for his lack of discretion. He maintains that although the
Pandavas were not born to Pandu, although their mother
conceived them from different men, their birth is not
illegitimate. He adds that their birth occurred as a result
of a wilful consent of Pandu for their birth through the
practice of Niyoga’. The Niyoga practice
sanctioned the birth of a child through the intercourse
between a man and a woman on the husband’s consent in case
of the infertility of the husband and solely in the interest
of consistency of the clan as the supreme duty of a
householder. Salya proceeds that it was Pandu himself who
ordered his wives to practise Niyoga in order to
perpetuate the lineage. This was done according to the
established moral code of the times. This was done to keep
up with the ultimate duty of a family, namely, of
‘perpetuation of the clan.’ Salya strongly claims that in
order to keep up with the commitment of perpetuation of
lineage, the practice of Niyoga is sanctioned by the
Dharma or the convention of righteousness. He further adds
that Duryodhana’s father Dhritrashtra and Pandava’s father
Pandu, both were born in consonance with the same practice.
Hence, Salya does not find a violation of righteousness or
violation of Dharma in the claim made by the Pandavas that
they are the legitimate heirs of the throne of Hastinavati.
Hence, Salya makes it clear that if the war happens, he will
support the Pandavas because their stand is righteous while
Duryodhana, in his view, is blinded by selfishness, egoism
and ambition.
While
Salya finds that the Pandava’s demand of their kingdom is
legitimate for they are the legitimate descendants of the
Kuru lineage, his own son Rukmartha is rather inclined to
second the view of Duryodhana. The changing social, cultural
values are seen clearly at a point of collision. The moral
principles of the older generation are discarded by their
own children. Rukmartha finds that Duryodhana’s claim is
righteous as against the view of the Pandavas. He believes
that posterity cannot be determined by faith and convention.
Hence, in the war, after his support would be solicited by
both the contesting parties, Rukmartha wants to extend his
support to Duryodhana because in his view, this would be a
righteous choice on his part. He also thinks that his father
is viewing the situation sentimentally because Madri, his
sister was wedded to Pandu. It is his love for his sister
and her sons which does not allow him to be with the
righteous party, that is, the Kauravas. He also finds
serious faults with his father’s inclination to the Pandavas
considering his ignorance of the sin of polyandry committed
by the wife of Pandavas. He considers this practice as a
regressive convention, a primitive and uncivilized act on
the part of the Pandavas. When he questions his father about
this, even his father fails to offer a convincing answer. He
barely tells his son that it is because the wisest of the
wise men like Bhishma and Dronacharya found nothing wrong in
approving this marriage of five Pandavas with one woman;
even he does not find anything wrong in it. While citing
this fact even Salya is aware of the meek logic he is
offering to justify his support to the Pandavas. Both, the
father and the son find that they are not able to reach to a
conclusion in this debate over who must they support in the
Great War. This dilemma of Salya and the dialectical tension
continues till the beginning of the war. Salya personally
feels that the Pandavas are righteous hence he should go
with them. However, his admiration of Bhishma compels him to
side with the Kauravas. Ironically, towards the end, we find
that Bhishma himself is confused about his own choice of
staying with Duryodhana not because he agrees with
Duryodhana’s rejection of the rightful demands of Pandavas
but because of his loyalty to the throne of Hastinavati.
Thus, the initial description of this conflict sets the
dialectic tone of the cultural struggle which encompasses
the entire novel.
Later
in the novel, Yuyudhana, also called Satyaki, devoted to
Krishna and Arjuna, is seen experiencing a mental turmoil
and conflict of whom to support in the war. Yuyudhana
belongs to the Yadava-Vrishni dynasty of the Yadavas in the
North. Krishna’s elder cousin Balarama has already made up
his mind to extend his support to Duryodhana because he
finds Duryodhana’s stand against the Niyoga as quite
justifiable according to the norms of Dharma. Duryodhana
also meets Yuyudhana’s father, Satyaka. He advocates his
cause very strongly before Satyaka and Yuyudhana. He
vehemently argues that if the Niyoga had to be
there, why Pandu and Kunti went to the far-off regions of
the Himalayas. Why beget sons from the barbarians? He
continues, if the Niyoga is practised for progeny
should they have not stopped after the birth of one son? Why
did they give birth to three children from Kunti and the
twins through Madri through Niyoga? Hence,
Duryodhana proclaims himself as the rightful heir of the
Kuru lineage. He declares that if the Yadavas support him in
the war, it would be an act of upholding the Dharma.
Thus, the unsettling debate on the dialectical views retains
its enigmatic nature for all those who are compelled to take
a stand on righteousness or Dharma.
The
Conflict of Progeny
The
person most deeply affected by Duryodhana’s strong
indictment of the Pandavas for the alleged illegitimacy of
their birth is of course Kunti- the woman who has given
birth to them, the mother of three of the five Pandavas. The
dialectical exposition of this most central issue, the most
fundamental cause of the ever growing dispute, hostility and
finally the approaching war which drags almost the entire
population into it, is developed further through the
narrative of Kunti, the wife of the late Pandu. She is
infuriated to know that Duryodhana identifies the Pandavas
as ‘Kunti’s sons’, thus, disapproving the legitimacy of
their royal descend. She feels that Duryodhana’s own father
Dhritrastra himself was born through the Niyoga
practice performed by Kunti’s mother-in-law. Kunti’s
reflection over the account of Duryodhana’s spiteful remark
as ‘Kunti’s sons’ leads her to recollect her past memories.
She remembers her marriage with Pandu, his distancing from
her due to his unexposed impotency, Kunti’s suppression of
her youthful desire for physical love, her bewilderment over
Pandu’s behaviour and all those awkward moments when Pandu
himself would plunge into depression. She also remembers how
the other members of the family started despising her as a
woman with a sterile womb unable to carry a child and to
continue the consistency of the clan. Her situation had
become so deplorable that she could not even share her
predicament with anyone. She was upset with Bhishma who was
desperate for the consistency of the Kuru clan because of
the delay caused in the perpetuation of the lineage and for
executing the second marriage of Pandu with a hope that
Madri, the second wife, will at least bear a child of Pandu.
When nothing really worked, Pandu had announced his decision
of going for penance to the Himalayas and staying there for
some time. It was due to Kunti’s insistence that Pandu
finally agreed to allow both his wives accompany him. Even
after staying in the salubrious atmosphere of the forest
near the Himalayas for a long time, Pandu had lost all hopes
of any cure to his ailment. During their stay in the realm
of Himalayas, they encountered the Devas community, the
people who lived their life with a distinct culture from
that of the Aryans. They were known as the original
ancestors of the Aryans. One day, the servant who used to
bring their grocery and other essentials from Hastinavati,
brought the news that Dhritrashtra, the younger brother of
Pandu, married the princess of Gandhar. The news made Pandu
anxious of the future of his own progeny. He thought that if
the younger brother begets sons, they will inherit the
throne of Hastinavati while Pandu’s heirs, in spite of he
being the eldest between the two, will be deprived of the
claim of succession. He found it difficult to accept the
fact that he or his decedents will lose their claim on the
throne if he continues being issueless. It was during this
time that Pandu had consulted Kunti for the Niyoga
practice as the last measure for ensuring the lineage. The
practice had a moral sanction on the condition that there
would be no emotional relationship between the man who would
father a child in Kunti’s womb and his wife. After a lot of
persuasion, Kunti and Madri both agreed for the solution and
this is how the Devas men begot three sons from Kunti and
two from Madri.
The
recollection of Kunti of her past and the circumstances that
led to the birth of the Pandavas reveals the prevalent
notion of righteousness or Dharma centred on the concerns
over consistency of clan or the progeny as the greatest
value of family life. The social, cultural, moral
conventions of the times gave enormous importance to the
lineage, succession and inheritance of the royal order. The
family consciousness and family institution plays a vital
role in the generation of social, domestic and cultural
practices in India even today. The average population of
India even in the ultramodern times today recognises this
vital importance of family in their life. If we cast a
glance around, we find that the general discourse of a
successful and happy life rests mostly on the fulfilment of
this aspiration of a ‘complete’ family experience. This
attitude is so deeply ingrained into the psyche of the
people of India that the state of ‘happy life’ is hardly
believed to be different from the state of a ‘happy family’.
Quite closely attached to the family consciousness are the
issues of inheritance and legacy. The contemporary popular
culture in India is not an exception to this either. If we
think of this consciousness as the transferable notion from
generation to generation, we find that it forms the
‘essential’ character of the people of India. Even the
massively turbulent times, upheavals in the history of India
and immensity of diverse cultures in different regions have
not wiped out the significance of family consciousness. It
is easy, then, to understand how deeply and committedly the
civilizations that existed in the bygone times must be
concerned about the consistency of clan and progeny. This
aspect of life occupied their entire thought processes and
influenced all their actions and life’s choices. No wonder
that Pandu, the eldest of the two brothers, went through
these social, cultural and moral pressures of progeny. The
compelling order of the society prevalent in those times,
the concern of righteousness of the times, the Dharma of the
land and of the times drove them to adopt the practice of Niyoga
to ensure the fulfilment of their sense of duty. It was this
intense anxiety of claiming the succession of the royal
order which made it obvious for them to beget children.
However, Duryodhana vehemently opposes the very idea of
Dharma being followed in the birth of the Pandavas. He
conveniently neglects the fact of the birth of his own
father as a result of the same practice of Niyoga.
He goes on arguing that the illegitimacy of the birth of
Pandavas makes their claim on the throne of Hastinavati
illegitimate. He even disapproves them the status of members
of the Kuru family. He rejects to return them their kingdom.
This basic conflict leads to a situation of cultural
struggle with all the parties advocating their reasoning as
the truth.
The
Matrimonial Conflict
Another
equally complex issue which Bhyrappa deals with in the novel
‘Parva’ is the issue of Draupadi’s marriage with five
men. Through the popular story found in the original epic we
know that the marriage institution in those times rather
functioned as a measure of extension of kingdom and building
diplomatic ties with neighbouring kingdoms or provinces.
This would be a means to secure the dominion of a particular
monarch in his own kingdom. Secondly, the marriage
settlement itself would happen in the form of a ceremony not
less than a show off of power, valour, talent, skill and
mastery into something. The ‘svayavnwara’ or the
‘contest-marriage’ tradition would require the prospective
grooms, qualifying the criterion of social, ancestral status
and norm of nobility, would meet the challenge set by the
bride’s family, parents or herself in order to ‘win’ her as
a reward of the ‘performance’ against those who lose. The
sole winner in the end would marry the bride. Thus, Draupadi
was won by Arjuna by exhibiting his dexterous skill of
archery. He fulfils the challenge of fish contraption set by
Draupadi’s father, Drupada, the King of Panchal. Soon after
winning her, a clash starts between Kauravas and Pandavas
and others who lost the challenge. After defeating the
claims made by others a quarrel erupts among the Pandavas
themselves. Bhyrappa’s absolutely realistic and
non-mystifying treatment of this episode brings out the
human and the ordinary disposition of all the five brothers.
Each one claims Draupadi as his saying that each one of the
Pandavas cannot live for oneself. There cannot be a single
Pandava, meaning, they are five brothers living one life.
Arjuna, Bhima, Dhrmaraja and others spit fire against one
another and the dispute gets further complicated. It is only
after Kunti’s intervention that the bewildered Draupadi gets
an answer. In response to Draupadi’s question, ‘What is
right?’ in this situation, Kunti tells Draupadi that the
Devas community, from whom the Aryans have descended, have a
similar tradition. Other non-Aryan communities like the
Raksasas, the Nagas, the Gandharvas have many such practices
which the Aryan clan may not approve of but the practice of
polyandry is not forbidden in specific circumstances in the
neighbouring societies. In addition to this, Kunti offers a
personal and a more intimate reason to this marriage. She
tells Draupadi that in order to achieve the mark of
legitimacy and lineage, the Pandavas must establish
themselves as the rulers of the Hastinavati. This must
happen because according to the laws prevalent in those
times, Pandu, the late husband of Kunti, was the elder
brother of Dhritrashtra and hence the legitimate successor
to the throne. Dhritrashtra became the King of Hstinavati in
the absence of Pandu. Now, since, Pandu’s successors are
claiming the throne, it must be returned to them. However,
this could happen only if the Pandavas stay together, stick
together and live together with one mind and one heart.
Anything that causes rift among the brothers may give a very
dangerous turn to their pursuit. The consistency of the clan
and the rule of the legitimate successor will never take
place. Hence, Draupadi could either make them by consenting
to be the sole wife of the five brothers or break them into
factions by rejecting the proposal. If Draupadi refuses to
accept her condition as the wife of the five brothers, they
would turn into each other’s enemies and this would be a
disastrous end of Kunti’s long cherished ideal of
righteousness and Dharma of posterity. This is how we find
that the issue of Draupadi’s so called polyandry is
addressed by Kunti.
Bhyrappa’s
deft dialectical touches are clearly seen in the description
of the quarrel among the brothers, Draupadis’s question to
Kunti and Kunti’s response to her questions. In addition to
this, Drupada, Draupadi’s father, the King of Panchal, when
he asks Dharmaraja, the eldest of the Pandavas, whether this
marriage of five brothers with a woman is a non- Aryan
practice or not?, Dharmaraja argues back saying that he does
not deny that it is a practice among the non-Aryan
communities but he points out that such people, such
communities are living in the kingdom of Drupada, that they
are a part of the kingdom of Panchal, hence, Drupada should
not object to this marriage. Drupada agrees with this
argument instantly. Personally too, Drupada sees this whole
proposition as politically and practically advantageous
because this marriage would make his own kingdom strong
through the relation with the Kuru lineage.
At a
later stage, in the narrative of Arjuna, we come across with
this criticism of Draupadi’s polyandry by Balarama-Krishna’s
elder cousin who is opposing Arjuna’s marriage with
Subhadra, Krishna’s sister. Balarama’s and Krishna’s
aversion of this practice is clearly seen in the fact that
when Balarama gets angry over Subhadra’s elopement with
Arjuna, Krishna tries to quieten his brother’s anger by
assuring him that Subhadra will not meet the same fate of
being the wife of all five brothers . Krishna says,
“Let
us call them back, and impose on Arjuna the condition that
our sister will have him and him only as her husband. After
he accepts such a condition, we shall celebrate the
wedding.” (p. 317)
It is
important to understand here that a panoramic view of the
issue of Draupadi’s marriage with the Pandavas shows the
diversity of cultural practices prevalent in the early days
of the foundation of civilization.
It is also not that each practice executed by each of the
communities stayed in isolation from one another. In fact,
these practices and their corresponding values often
collided, clashed, confronted against each other. At times,
this collision led to an amalgamation, an incorporation of
the practice or value followed by another community. Thus,
the debate on the polyandry of Draupadi does not end
abruptly with a customary conclusion of its prohibition in
the Aryan culture, but continues being addressed
dialectically by referring to what other communities like
the Devas, Nagas and Rakshasas practised in this regard. The
‘meeting-points’ of these practices often created a
situation of a dialectical manner of addressing the issue in
question. It shows the continual struggle to validate and
pursue righteousness in everything.
The
Conflict of Supremacy
Yet
another incident in the novel based on one of the most
significant actions, a watershed moment in the original epic
Mahabharata, which causes profound reflection on the part of
all the major characters on the issue of the exact meaning,
nature of Dharma or righteousness is the incident of
gambling episode which leads to disastrous consequences. In
the novel ‘Parva, in her stream of consciousness,
Draupadi thinks about the intricacies of Dhrama or
righteousness pertaining to one’s own identity and position
in the world. She thinks that the Kshatriya community or the
warrior class has a typically traditional culture. The
accepted norm for the members of royal family and the
established tenets of the Kshatriya Dharma would not
allow a Kshatriya to waver but to accept an invitation or
challenge to play the game of dice and the challenge to
fight. Any rejection to this would be considered as rudeness
or cowardice and would be looked upon as the violation of
the norm of righteousness for the Kshatriyas. Moreover,
Dharmaraja, the eldest of the Pandavas, has a ‘weakness’ for
the game of dice. It is the ‘tragic flaw’ in his character
to use the concept of the Greek Tragedies. Hence, we find
that in spite of Draupadi’s and his brother’s best efforts
to dissuade Dharmaraja from accepting the challenge, he
defies them all and goes on defending his will to accept the
challenge of gamble put forward by Duryodhana. The passion
for winning lures him to keep playing it until he loses
everything, his rule, his kingship of Indraprastha, all his
belongings, wealth and assets. Still, after he is provoked
by Duryodhana’s uncle Shakuni, he stakes Draupadi, his wife,
and plays his turn. To his and other Pandava’s worst dismay,
he loses in the last turn and the opponent group wins
Draupadi. As soon as their defeat is final, we see that
Bhima scolds Dharmaraja for ruining everyone’s life for his
insane passion for gambling. He sheds off the usual respect
and awe of the elder brother and exposes him to the reality
of predicament in which he dragged all of them due to his
addiction. Arjuna, on the other hand, prefers to follow the
so called Dharma in his thoughts over the situation. He
rather finds faults with Bhima and asks him not to speak
disrespectfully of the elder brother. The contentious nature
of their respective ideas about Dharma reveals the dialectic
nature of the ideas of righteousness between the two
brothers. While Bhima holds that it was totally a violation
of Dharma on the part of Dharmaraja to spoil everyone’s life
on account of his passion for playing dice and the worst of
all, to stake and lose Draupadi in the gamble, Arjuna thinks
that the consequences of good or bad actions of the deeds of
the eldest brothers are to be borne and faced by all is in
accordance with Dharma. Their arguments over the matter halt
abruptly when they see that Draupadi is pulled into the
court in front of all the men like a slave woman by
Dussasana, Duryodhana’s younger brother. He misbehaves with
her, molests her, challenges her virtue right in the
presence of all, even of the elderly members of the family
and the court. Seeing the Pandavas as completely crushed
having lost their moral voice to speak up against the
molesters of a woman, the agonised Draupadi turns to
Bhishma, the most senior, most revered member of the court,
the grandfather of Kauravas and Pandavas, and one who is
known for his sound knowledge of Dharma and its intricacies.
She asks him poignantly about what explanation he would
offer of her misery in the present situation according to
the tenets of Dharma. Bhishma disappoints her merely saying
that the principles of Dharma are ambiguous but his
own Dharma, his own sense of righteousness does not allow
him to go against the wishes of those who rule over the
kingdom of Hastinavati because he is bound by his own vow to
protect the interest of this kingdom even in extreme
conditions. Moreover, his sense of duty as the patriarch in
the dynasty compels him to be loyal to those who fend for
his livelihood. He would not waver from his Dharma of being
loyal to the dynasty and to the ruler of Hastinavati. That
would be against ‘his Dharma’. Draupadi gets a similar reply
from another revered person, Dronacharya, the guru of
Kauravas and Pandavas. Finally, when she finds that no one
present in the Court could protect her dignity against the
lustful advancements of Dussasana and from the lewd remarks
passed by Duryodhana, she threatens the malefactors by
warning them of Krishna’s wrath. She cautions them saying
that her cousin Krishna is no less a warrior and that he is
the saviour of a sufferer. The very mention of Krishna by
Draupadi scares the wrongdoers. Bhima also threatens to kill
Duryodhana and his brothers in a fit of rage. The Kauravas
argue that since the Pandavas have lost their kingdom,
wealth and everything, they should agree to live next twelve
years in forest and another year in an incognito life.
Pandavas have no choice but to accept the sad fate. Thus,
the gambling episode comes to a close but it opens up an
unending enquiry into the issue of righteousness. Draupadi’s
questions to Kunti about marrying the five brothers and
Kunti’s reply to her, Draupadi’s questions to Bhishma and
other elderly men in the Court about the nature of Dharma or
righteousness, their inability either to give a sound
response to her call for an intervention or to give a
convincing reply, all these questions present a situation of
an intense cultural struggle on the part of a woman, herself
hard-pressed by these questions which only move forward as
the dialectics of the cultural struggle.
The
entire episode of the gamble, Draupadi’s humiliation,
torture and molestation is a very scathing criticism of the
discrepancy between the idealist perceptions of Dharma or
righteousness and its real life implications. A very sound
reasoning of this enigmatic question of whether rejecting
the challenge to fight and gamble is against the norm of
righteousness or not, is given by Krishna. When Krishna
comes to know of the hideous manner in which Draupadi, his
cousin was molested in the Court, he rushes to meet them in
the forest a couple of months after the incident took place.
In a conversation with Dhrmaraja on the position of Dharma
in this regard, Krishna states that when one refuses an
offer of war, the enemy may compel you to fight. You must
fight then. But such a compulsion is not exercised in the
invitation to gamble. The other party will not force you to
gamble. Krishna continues,
“Should
we surrender to the mercy of the blind rolling of the dice,
our life and fortune? There is no habit more contemptible
and more stupid than gambling.” (p. 255)
This
dialectical situation of the intense examination of
righteousness is presented as the most integral aspect of
Mahabharata. Bhyrappa’s novel emphasises on this aspect as
the essence of the epic. Such is the enigmatic nature of the
dialectics of this cultural struggle that enquiry exceeds
the conclusions. In fact, there can be no conclusion to the
examination of values when the dialectics are so elusive.
They become elusive because they are not bound by the usual
dichotomous mode of binary logic. The dichotomy of cultural
struggle between different views might only perpetuate
antagonism provoked by ‘the ‘Otherness’ of another’s views
or position. S.L. Bhyrappa’s delineation of the debate over
righteousness shows that the cultural issues of perceptions
of righteousness rather move forward as ‘dialectics’ of
cultural struggle than as ‘binary’ standpoints having only
two parts with a stagnant logic. The ‘binary’ logic if
applied to the analysis of reality leads to a dualistic
conclusion which often results into a ‘dichotomous’
understanding with irreconcilable differences. Whereas, the
dialectic approach, the unsettling conclusiveness of the
most fundamental question of righteousness as examined in
the novel Parva adheres more to the pursuit of the
truth than to the determinedness of an authoritative
conclusiveness of the dominant group. Hence, we find that
Duryodhana’s rejection of legitimacy of the lineage of the
Pandavas, as the novelist suggests it, is prompted by his
perception of a violation of the moral, cultural principles
of righteousness. His doubt and denigration of Pandavas is
based on his disagreement of Pandava’s view of Dharma while
the Pandavas’ resistance of Duryodhana’s vilification of
their stand of legitimacy is also prompted by their
understanding of Dharma, of righteousness. Thus, the
struggle is dialectic and exploratory moving forward with
the enquiry of truth rather than as dichotomous duality and
binary categories settling down with an authoritative
conclusion. What then, is the conclusion of this debate over
righteousness carried out by the either parties of
Mahabharta, is certainly not the central concern of
Bhyrappa’s novel Parva. The novelist seems to be
rather grappling a greater question than that and that
greater question, that higher truth could be the delineation
of the dialectic churning of values of righteousness as an
unending process or the pursuit of a conclusion, of the
truth of the matter. It is the conclusiveness and not the
conclusion of this dialectics of righteousness that matter
more to the Indian consciousness than the premature
termination of enquiry with a static conclusion. The luxury
of ‘poetic justice’ is affordable to those who rather float
on the surface but for those who dive into the fathomless
depth of an idea or a thought, there is no luxury of a
singular conclusion. There can be only too many approaches
to reach the higher truth than one’s own perception of the
reality about something. These approaches generally
originate into one’s own understanding of righteousness.
This plurality and diversity makes way for dialectic rather
than a dichotomous examination of values. The Mahabharata
times, as the novel Parva suggests, is actually an
epoch or an era of changing, colliding, contesting values.
That is why the title Parva, which means ‘an era’.
Mahabharata is that era of most reflective and enigmatic
questions faced by the mankind.
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