The Difficulty of Being Good-The Subtle Art of Dharma (Part II)

(Continuation of the previous post)

Krishna, the 'noble' charioteer.

Krishna giving counsel to Arjuna

Be intent on the action

Not on the fruits of the action 

Krishna gives this advise to Arjuna to prod him to take up his arms and to fight the enemy. When Arjuna realized that he would have to kill his own cousins, uncles and teachers to win the war, he developed a cold feet and he put down his weapons. At this juncture, Krishna gives his counsel to Arjuna, which is available to us in the form of Srimad Bhagvad Gita. Krishna says that one can attain moksha or salvation by doing his karma or duty. While performing the duty, one should not be bothered about its consequences. When a man dwells in his mind on the object of sense, attachment to them is produced. From attachment springs desire and from desire comes anger. So duty bound deeds should be done without letting the nature of results to affect one's actions. 

Krishna, was advocating an alternative way to attain salvation. The other ways are through jnana yoga, wherein one through the employment of his intellect tries to gain knowledge about the supreme being and  through bhakthi yoga, wherein one through utmost devotion and love attains oneness with the cosmic soul. But these two ways are not easily adoptable for a man of world. These two calls for solitude and  renunciation of world. So, by suggesting that one can attain salvation through a detached and religious performance of one's duties, Krishna was opening the doors of salvation to a man of world. 

Krishna tells Arjuna that being a kshatrhriya he has the duty to fight for his kingdom. Moreover, the war was not merely for the reclamation of kingdom. It was a fight for justice. So Arjuna has the duty of punishing the unjust and eliminating evil. Therefore he should not let his personal affections to come in the way of his duties. 

But this philosophy of 'nishkama karma' can also be problematic at times.German philosopher Hegel recognized the moral attractiveness of 'doing one's duty for duty's sake', and agreed that this was a great moral intention but also pointed out the practical difficulty in knowing what one's duty is(p.134). The moral law of acting disintrestedly does not necessarily lead one to virtuous acts. For example  Adolf Eichmann,Nazi SS Officer, considered by many to be the 'architect of holocaust', during his trial in Israel sought to justify his evil acts on the grounds that he was not acting for selfish ends;he was doing his duty to his country.  He implied that he generally felt sympathy for the jews. However, he steadfastly stuck to his job because he believed that everyone should do one's duty unaffected by sympathy. He was obeying the highest law by doing his duty.

                                                                                                     Adolf Eichmann

This sort of extreme, if not absurd, extrapolation of the philosophy of nishkama karma  could be arrested with the theory of consequentialism. It suggests that acts, per se, do not have any morality attached thereto. The morality of the act is judged from the consequence of it. It is an extension of the doctrine of utilitarianism, which was devised by Jeremy Bentham and was developed by J.S.Mill. It suggests that an act which promotes pleasure is good and an act which promotes pain is bad. All deeds should be seeking to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest numbers.

During the Kurukshetra war, Krishna too employs this philosophy. It forms the edifice for the aphorism 'ends would justify the means'.  Thus he prods Yudhishtira to  deceive Drona into believing that his son Ashwatthama is dead. He encourages Arjuna to kill an unarmed Karna. He also encourages Bhima to kill Duryodhana through foul play. All these acts were blatant violations of the recognized rules and norms of war. Krishna says 'Casting aside virtue,ye sons of Pandu, adopt some contrivance for gaining victory'(p.185). This causes Duryodhana, during his dying moments, to accuse Krishna of perfidy. He states that the victory was achieved through deceit and trickery and had it been a fair fight Kauravas would have won comprehensively. 

Duryodhana may have had good reasons to denounce Krishna, but Krishna believes that Duryodhana is really the guilty one. He blames him for the failure of peace talks. He firmly believes that once you make the fateful decision of going to war, then you must win at any cost. As he sees it, the Pandavas cause is just, and once the war begins the only thing that matters is victory. Ends justify the means. We can see a manifestation of moral relativism in Kurukshetra. And one would not be wrong in presuming that Krishna would be the first one to breach  the Geneva Conventions, if  it is a jus ad bellum(just war).

Karna's insecurities

    Arjuna killing Karna

Karna is often perceived as a 'wronged hero'.He had an unfortunate birth. Despite being born as a kshathriya, he had to live as a charioteer, a low-caste. His apparent low-caste origin caused him a lot humiliations throughout his life. Dhraupadi shunned him during her swayam-vara by stating 'I do not choose a charioteer'. His utmost adherence to his virtue causes him to voluntarily relinquish his boons. And at the war, he gets killed through foul means .

In this book, the author tries to examine the psychology of this tragic-hero. He suggests that Karna might have been suffering from 'status-anxiety'.Mahabharatha is set in a rigid social order regulated by the varna system and Karna is eager to establish his place in the society. He is conscious of his skills and talents and that leads him to think that he deserves a more worthy position in the society. But the tag of 'charioteer's son' dogs him all his life. And when a beautiful woman like Dhraupadi delivers the snub, it is unbearable. 

Like most people, Karna wants to be 'somebody'. It must have hurt him to sit in the stands at the tournament where Pandavas and Kauravas exhibited their skills. Later when his own skill is discovered and he is praised by the crowd, Karna begins to feel worthy. Anxiety about one's place in the world tends to distort one's character. It makes Karna excessively proud and boastful(P.156). The shrewd Duryodhana is aware of Karna's insecurity, and he seeks to exploit it for his ends. He renders Karna the much coveted recognition and place, and that makes Karna loyal to him, till the end. Karna's loyalty is blind and unquestioning and he connives at Duryodhan's misdeeds. When Dhraupadi was getting humiliated, Karna supports it by stating that a woman who sleeps with five men has no dignity and that she ought to be humiliated(p.40). While doing that Karna was avenging the humiliation he suffered at Dhraupadi's swayam-vara.

Karna can be characterized as an 'others-centric' person. He is too conscious about others' perception about him. He values fame and reputation above everything. When Surya, his father, cautions him about Indra's ploy to snatch the boons of immortality and invincibility from him, he is categorical that he would not resist that, for he fears 'infamy than death'(p.172). He does not pay heed to his father's counsel that there are other things in life that matter more than fame, such as the 'human duties of the living'. Even Surya's parting words, 'What use is fame to a dead man?It is like a garland on a corpse', could not shake his resolve.

Karna was suffering from an ego problem. He was favourable to anyone who appeased his ego(Duryodhana). And he was vindictive to anyone who scorned his ego(Dhraupadi). This ego-centric attitude blinds his objectivity and impairs his reason. His eagerness to inflate the leaky balloon of ego which was susceptible to tiny pin-pricks of neglect led to his predicament. Karna's search for his identity reminds one of the terrible mistake society makes in assessing a person on the basis of his origins. Even now, we have not redeemed ourselves completely of the scourge of casteism. So the rigid social hierarchy, which does not value a person on the basis of merit but on the basis of origin, is equally culpable for Karna's follies. At the root of status-anxiety is an excessive concern about what others think of us. At this juncture, Albert Camus' wise words could be helpful. 'To be happy one must not be too concerned with the opinion of others. One should pursue one's goals single-mindedly, with a quiet confidence, without thinking of others'.

Revenge and Remorse

Revenge, the primitive yet potent emotion is an underlying theme of the epic. Most of the events in the epic are a manifestation of it. Most of the characters succumb to it. Dhraupadi's need to avenge her humiliation is one of the factors which led to the war. Arjuna avenges the gruesome killing of his son Abhimanyu. Ashwatthama's vendetta against the Pandavas for killing his father Drona in an unfair manner goads him to effect the brutal decimation of Pandavas' sons. So revenge, in all its superlative forms, recurs throughout the work. This has tempted many to think that the main theme of the work is revenge. The recent movie 'Rakht Charithra', directed by Ram Gopal Verma, sought to attribute its theme 'Revenge is the purest emotion', to the epic. This is either a result of selective reading of the epic or selective quoting(And the Censor Board, rightly, admonished the producers of the film for this distortion, and they diluted its impact by including a quote by Mahatma Gandhi.)

                                                                

One who is besotted with this crude emotion will not think about anything else, and would be bent on realizing it at any cost. One can  adopt any desperate measures, can stoop down to any reprehensible level, for the sake of retribution. The fate of Ashwatthama is illustrative of this. Hence, society has institutionalized this emotion through it's criminal justice system, wherein state would be carrying out retributive justice on behalf of its wronged subjects. This mechanism is imperative for preventing the social fabric from withering.

From a holistic appraisal of the work, one would understand that the epic never attempts to glorify revenge. It also highlights the dire  consequences which arise therefrom. After the war, a sense of hollowness assails everyone. The winning of war does not lead the Pandavas to any form of satisfaction or contentment. It is a pyrrhic victory for them. On the contrary, the immense wreckage and irreparable loss caused by the war make them remorseful. And, the virtuous Yudhisthira is the one who gets tormented by remorse the most. 'There are no victors in war' he laments. Even the Mauryan emperor Ashoka also underwent similar feelings after the Kalinga war. Yudhishthira, who is vulnerable to dogmatic morals, wants to abdicate the kingdom which was won through violence, and wants to lead the rest of the life as an ascetic repenting for his horrific sins.

                                                      

                                                       Bhishma advising Yudhisthira(Mughal Painting)

At this juncture, Bhishma, who was felled by Arjuna and had been lying on a bed of arrows since then, advises Yudhisthira about the dharma of a king.He suggests that renouncing kingdom would amount to cowardice and escapism. He also states that a king has to use danda or force for protecting his state. Society exists because it is in everyone's interest to have peace and peace can prevail only if there is a sovereign authority to punish those who breach it. And Yudhishtira, who is always at a loss to reconcile the duties of being a kshatrhriya and the words of his conscience, again adopts a pragmatic middle path and ascends to the throne.

What is Mahabharata all about?

Mr. Das observes that Mahabharata is not a tale intended to celebrate and romanticize royal valour and war heroism. If that was the case, the epic should have ended right after the victory of Pandavas. But the epic does not stop there. A mood of voidness permeates the epic after that, and it goes on to suggest the futility of war and other acts of human vanity. Krishna, the strategist of Pandavas, who is accursed due to the wrath of Gandhari, dies a banal death like an animal in the forest. One should behold that Krishna is an incarnate of God, and he is also depicted as vulnerable and fallible. The Pandavas, after ruling the kingdom for a while, gets disenchanted with worldly affairs and embarks upon a journey for salvation.

So what is it suggesting?One can sense nihilistic undertones in the epic which is announcing that life is inherently meaningless. Shakespeare was also suggesting this when he said 'Life is a tale, told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'(Macbeth Act 5 Scene 5). After all the sound and fury of Kurukshetra war, the characters in the epic grapple with this feeling of nothingness. They realize that all the coveted values and cherished possessions of the world, be it glory,happiness, wealth, beauty or talent, everything is transient and ephemeral. As Yudhishtira says 'time cooks all of us', and in that the texture of everything changes. So in search of something eternal, something which is not susceptible to the change of time, they set out. One may recall that the author of the book, like the Pandavas, felt disenchanted with the success in corporate life, and quit the job and embarked upon a journey for gaining knowledge and enlightenment. 

Commentators throughout the ages have wrestled with the overall meaning of Mahabharata. Among the most celebrated was Anandavardhana, who lived in Kashmir in ninth century A.D. He suggests that epic's world-weary message is that we should cease to desire and should seek liberation from the worldly life. The miserable end of the Kauravas and Pandavas suggests that the great sage who was its author meant to convey a disappointing conclusion with a poetic mood of peace. The aim of this work is to produce disillusionment with life and point us towards the human aim of liberation from the worldly life.(p.297-298).

But at this age, I do not possess the transcendental wisdom to understand the spiritual and metaphysical connotations of the epic. The epic, to me, appears like a wonderful portrayal of all human characteristics, its vanities and frailties, thereby validating the claim which it makes in the beginning. What comes in the way of engaging creatively with the world is human vanity, whose many faces are displayed in abundance. Vanity in the form of mischievous ego or ahamkar, enslaves human beings and is sometimes expressed as Duryodhana's envy, Dhritharashtra's hypocrisy, Karna's status anxiety or Ashwatthama's revenge. Vanity is an irresistible aspect of human condition and invariably spoils our engagement with the world(p.280).

Mahabharata is a series of precisely stated problems imprecisely and inconclusively resolved, with every solution raising a new problem. To say the least, it leaves us with an awareness of possibilities of life. What my understanding is that, a sort of moral ad-hocism is more desirable than a form of moral dogmatism. It could be a hasty, if not immature conclusion. One thing is quite clear. Morality is something which eludes concrete definition. And it is quite difficult to identify goodness and therefore it is difficult to be good. Even the epic shares this thought.

               Because of its subtleness, the deeply hidden dharma cannot be discerned. At first sight it appears in the form of a fairyland city, but when scrutinized by the wise it dissolves again into invisibility. Because people are inclined to abide by the principle of political advantage, no kind of generally beneficial behaviour presents itself, by which one person profits, grieves another. Modes of behaviour are universally characterized by diversity. For this reason one should seek true dharma and not follow the ways of the world. (p.294)

And what is this true dharma? It is for all of us to find out in our own individualistic way.

(Concluded)

Disclaimer

1. The author of the blog has not read the original text of Mahabharatha. The views expressed in the blog are the inferences drawn by the author from the interpretation given to and understandings derived from the epic by Mr.Gurucharan Das.
2. Some of the views expressed in the blog are the personal conclusions of the author of the blog. They may not be reflected in the book by Mr. Gurucharan Das.

References

1. All page references are taken from the hard bound edition of 'The difficulty of being good' published by Penguin India in the year 2009 
2. The statements in italics are taken from the English translation of the text of  Mahabharatha. The page numbers  mentioned next to the statements refer to the book under review here, and the original source of the statements could be traced from the said book.

The Difficulty of Being Good-The Subtle Art of Dharma (Part I)

"What is here is found elsewhere

  What is not here is nowhere"(p.xxxi)

The great epic Mahabharatha starts with this seemingly boastful claim of encompassing everything that is within the scheme of nature and character of human beings. Irrespective of the veracity of the claim, one thing can be surely said about it: it is everywhere in the Indian culture and tradition. This epic has deeply influenzed the Indian psyche and  has played a vital role in forming its conscience. Its omnipresence can be felt in the popular cultural traditions  including folklore, literature and movies. My first  tryst with work happened through Amar Chithra Kathas, which had  deftly illustrated the events of it. But there the emphasis was on the action and not on the characterization. Then there was this tele-serial made by B.R.Chopra, which had taken the nation by a storm. That, at least made the story of the epic familiar to me. However, the sop series, with its emphasis on faith and the super-natural, somehow failed to depict the colossal moral ambiguity that defines the characters in it. The grey shaded characters' faces were refurbished with rouge and mascara, and were presented to us in clearly distinguishable shades of black and white. Even the movies inspired from the epic, ranging from Thalapathy(Tamil 1991) to Rajneeti(Hindi 2010) were guilty of this crime.

For anyone who is intrigued with the ambivalence and the ambiguity of Mahabharatha, Gurucharan Das's 'The Difficulty of Being Good-The Subtle Art of Dharma' would prove to be a good read. The book tries to examine the puzzle of morality in the light of the epic, and also tries to address the question 'why be good'. According to the author, he had undertaken the task of writing this work to assail his 'mid-life crisis'. Mr. Das, who had served as a CEO of Procter&Gamble for many years, felt disillusioned with the success defined in terms of credit and debit entries of  corporate accounts, and to plug the void that had crept into his life he embarked upon an 'academic holiday' to read and understand Mahabharatha.He shares with us his understandings through this work.

The envious Duryodhana

 Duryodhana,as depicted in Yakshagana(Kannada art-form)

 

If there is anyone in Mahabharatha who could be identified as an antagonist, that is Duryodhana and he is the first one who is subjected to the author's analysis. The author concludes that the main emotion which drove the actions of Duryodhana and triggered off the subsequent dramatic events was envy. Right from the young age, he was envious of the Pandavas, and had attempted on many occassions to destroy them. He'd tried to poison the young Bhima; had tried to roast them in the palace of lacquer. But the Pandavas, sometimes through divine intervention or through acts of fortune, managed to escape unharmed from the devious ploys employed by Duryodhana.  When the Pandavas finally established their kingdom at Indraprastha and drew attention and praises from everyone, he could not digest that. Engulfed in the tentacles of the green monster of envy, his reason takes off on a leave, and he gets more diabolic and devises a trick that could finish off the Pandavas for ever.

However, Dhritharashtra, his father and the king of Hastinapur, tries to reason with his belligerent son. But Duryodhana has his own reasons. He argues that it is the duty of a king to further the interest of his kingdom. A prosperous neighbour always poses a threat to one's kingdom. So, it is in the best interests of his kingdom that he is planning to destroy them, lest the Pandavas would attack and conquer Hastinapur. A kshatriya's duty is to prevail...Kingship is enjoyed by brave princes after conquering their foes in the battle(p.14)An enemy,however tiny,whose might grows on and eventually destroys one, is like an anthill which destroys a tree(p.4).

The words of Machiavelli and Kautilya resonate in Duryodhana's rationalizations. He is a subscriber of  'realpolitik',which refers to politics or diplomacy based on practical considerations, rather than on ideological notions or moralistic premises. Adolf Hitler, Henry Kissinger, George.W.Bush etc. were devout observers of this school of pragmatism. But, we can also see that Duryodhana's underlying emotion was envy, and all these dharmic arguments are merely providing a rationalization to his crude emotion.

Envy is an emotion, which is prevalent in every human being. The human tendency to evaluate one's well-being by comparing it with that of another is the cause of Duryodhana's distress. The author observes that envy could have been  the driving force behind the Holocaust movement and communist revolutions. If greed is the sin of capitalism, envy is the vice of socialism, he argues(p28). At this juncture, Yudhishthira's words could be enlightening. 'Envy of another is ignoble behaviour. Be content with what you have. Perform your duty-therein lies happiness'(p.13). However, this sort of self-absorbed mindset may not augur well for our everyday existence. The competitive spirit is the factor which causes the advancement of society and improvement of our lives. So, a sort of healthy competitiveness, which encourages one to excel not by destroying others but by harnessing one's potential to the maximum, could be the mantra to a happy and successful existence. Envy, like that of Duryodhana's, is a destructive weapon, which can destroy both the agent and its object

Dhraupadi's Questions

Dhraupadi Humiliated:Painting by Raja Ravi Verma

The most disturbing and revolting event of Mahabharatha is the disrobing of Dhraupadi which happens in the royal court of Hastinapur. The naive Yudhishthira, intoxicated with the game of dice, wagers his wife and loses her. When Dhraupadi is callously dragged to the court by Dushassana, she asks Yudhishthira.

'Whom did you lose first, yourself or me?' (p.34)

Dhraupadi might have asked the question in an expression of her rage and disgust, alluding to the senselessness of Yudhishthira. However, that questions had many connotations. Yudhishthira himself had wagered himself and had lost. So he was a slave and he could not have wagered Dhraupadi, for a slave is a master of none.Thus, the question posed by Dhraupadi assumed the status of a legal puzzle.

Bhishma, the conscience keeper of Hastinapur, then rose to solve her query. He employs his statesman's acumen to dissect her query from a strict legal perspective. One who has lost himself in a gamble cannot wager anymore of his possessions. Because, the moment he loses himself, he ceases to be the owner of them.  But a wife belongs to her husband and the acts of the husband would bind her. So, if Yudhishthira has staked her, Dhraupadi is bound by it.  He also refutes the argument that he did not make the wager in accordance with his free will. Bhishma asserts that the game was fair and valid. In short, Bhishma asserts that the acts of Yudhishtira were within the confines of law. Finally Bhishma tells her:'As dharma is subtle, I fail to resolve your question properly'(p.36). Thus, Bhishma, like Pilate of New Testament, fails to summon courage to listen to his conscience and washes off his hands. 

Disappointed with the response, Dhraupadi asks 'What is left of the dhrama of the kings?'(p.40). This is a more powerful question. Grasping that the laws of the state would not aid to protect her dignity, Dhraupadi is appealing to a higher dharma. This is a jurisprudential conundrum. If an act is within the confines of law, would that become morally right?. This tussle between law and morality has puzzled jurists since time immemorial. What should be done when the law of the land fails in delivering justice? The common law jurisdiction had devised the concept of equity, to mitigate the error of common law by allowing courts to apply justice in accordance with natural law. An act which is inherently abhorrent, which shocks the conscience of the society, should not be permitted and if the postulated law is impotent to deal with it, then the judiciary should act in accordance with its good conscience and employ its wisdom to subvert the prevalence of injustice. Bhishma failed to do that.Pilate failed to do that. The Indian judiciary failed to do that during emergency time in cases like A.D.M Jabalpur v. S.S. Shukla (AIR 1976 SC 1207). In the court of Hastinapur, there was the voice of Vidura who had heeded to the dictates of his reason and objected to the violation of Dhraupadi's modesty. Like the Vidura of Hastinapur, Judge H.R.Khanna, listened to the dictates of reason and dissented from the flawed majority judgement of ADM Jabalpur case, to attempt to prevent the disrobing of democracy and constitution. Although their opinions did not prevent the act, they shattered the moral validity of the reprehensible acts. What India need is people with such moral integrity and wisdom, who, instead of merely applying the dead letter of law, would give effect to the spirit of law to prevent injustice. If, through sophistry and technicalities, unjust acts are clothed as legal ones, travesty of justice would  happen. Simple Dhraupadi, with her housewife's logic, was addressing this issue.

Why be good? 

Exile of the Pandavas

 

Consequent to losing the dice game, the Pandavas have to spend twelve years in exile and spend one additional year incognito. While biding their time in the forest, Dhraupadi asks Yudhishtira to take up arms and fight against the Kauravas. But, he does not heed to that. He states that he had given word to them and breaking that would offend dharma. Moreover, being a person who abhors violence, he dismisses the idea of fighting them too.  But Dhraupadi states that they themselves have been victims of adharma and there was no need to observe the word given to the violators of dharma. She states. 'Dharma is supposed to protect the good king, but I find that it doesn't protect you...When I see noble, moral and modest persons harassed in this way, and the evil and ignoble flourishing and happy, I stagger with wonder. I can only condemn the Placer, who allows such outrage'(p.64).

Most of us share Dhraupadi's angst at the problem of unmerited suffering. Why do bad things happen to good people? This is something which none of us can fathom and we feel that the cosmic sense of justice is inherently absurd and cruel. This feeling has given rise to the  philosophy of nihilism and absurdism propounded by people like Nietzsche and Camus. They assert that life is inherently meaningless and valueless and it would be an absurd effort to find meaning in it. It states that if human beings, instead of wrestling with the incomprehensible, embrace the absurd wholeheartedly, life would become a less stressful experience. It is a philosophy of utmost resignation and submission.  Life is just a progression of accidents and it would be a futile effort to make sense out of the randomness of life. When Shakespeare said 'Like flies to wanton boys, we are to the gods;they kill us for their sport'(King Lear Act 4 Scene 1), he was also evoking the same feeling.

The Holy Bible too addresses this puzzle. Jesus states, 'That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust(Matthew 5:45). Since the Father in Heaven, makes sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust alike, one should not be judgmental about others acts and should forgive the unjust and evil. It suggests that our sense of justice could be different from that of the cosmic sense of justice. 

But Yudhishtira addresses this conundrum in his own unique manner. He says : 'I do not act for the sake of dharma. I act because I must. Whether it bears fruits or not, buxom Dhraupadi, I do my duty.I obey dharma, full-hipped woman, not for its rewards...but by its nature my mind is beholden to dharma.'(P.66). He realizes that life, like a loaded game of dice, is inherently meaningless, and that one has to create ones own meaning to it; and he finds the meaning of life in the strict adherence to dharma.Franz Kafka through his work 'The Trial' is also propounding the same thing. We human beings get ourselves entangled in a maze of events and assigned unique roles in lives, we must search deep within the apparent absurdity of life to attain spiritual self-realization.(Even while addressing such existential puzzles, one can see that Yudhishtira's mind is pulsating with admiration for the beauty of Dhraupadi, and he does not forget to intersperse his reply with words of appreciation for her immense charm). But his 'beautiful and long-eyed' Dhraupadi is not completely convinced with his reply. She reminds him that, being a kshatriya, he has the duty to preserve his state and his dependents, and if he is not fighting, he would be violating his kshatriya-dharma.

Thus we witness a conflict of the norms. When the norms of the society are in conflict with higher norms, viz the norms which appeal to one's conscience, which one should be permitted to prevail. Yudhishtira's sva-dharma, his duty to his clan, was in apparent conflict with his sadharana-dharma,his duty to his moral conscience and world at large. He is adamant that he is not going to offend the universal dharma for the sake of his clan-dharma. He was demonstrating what went on later to become the 'Grunnorm' theory of Hans Kelsen, which states that a lower norm should give way to a higher norm.

But he wavers from this supreme idealistic position when Kauravas refuse to honour their word after the period of exile. When met with humiliation again, he adopts a tough stand and calls for war. He states. 'In times of trouble one's duty alters. When one's livelihood is disrupted and one is totally poverty-stricken, one should wish for other means to carry out one's prescribed duties...which means in dire situations one may perform normally improper acts'.(P.78).Desperate times call for desperate actions. Chastened by thirteen harsh years in exile, he has become pragmatic. He adopts a position which can be termed as 'reciprocal altruism', which states that one should portray a friendly face to the world, but should not let himself to be exploited.  Machiavelli also states that a man who wishes to profess goodness at all time will come to ruin among so many who are not so good. He realizes that his earlier super-moralistic view or Duryodhana's amoral real-politik view do not befit the capacity of a king and he adopts a middle-path of moral pragmatism. Any form of absolute, be it meanness or goodness, is not advisable in this world.Turning the other cheek may be a good ideal to practice for an ascetic, but a king cannot afford to do that. Hence it follows that, morality is not absolute and its worth depends on its place and time. Is it not said that anything which is done out of place and out of time is a sin? So, the morality of an act is absolutely dependent on its circumstances.

(To continue)

Disclaimer

1. The author of the blog has not read the original text of Mahabharatha. The views expressed in the blog are the inferences drawn by the author from the interpretation given to and understandings derived from the epic by Mr.Gurucharan Das.
2. Some of the views expressed in the blog are the personal conclusions of the author of the blog. They may differ from that of the views propagated by Mr. Gurucharan Das.

References

1. All page references are taken from the hard bound edition of 'The difficulty of being good' published by Penguin India in the year 2009 
2. The statements in italics are taken from the English translation of the text of  Mahabharatha. The page numbers mentioned next to the statements refer to the book under review here, and the original source of the statements could be traced from the said book.