Unlike Biblical traditions, Hindus have more than one heaven. There is Swarga and Vaikuntha. Swarga is the paradise of Indra where all desires are fulfilled. Vaikuntha is God’s heaven where one is free of all desires.
Epilogue
The End of the Snake Sacrifice
Vaisampayana concluded his narration. The serpents were still suspended above the sacrificial fire and the priests were still around the altar impatient to conclude their ritual. The blazing fire had by now reduced to a flame. All eyes were on the king.
‘I am confused,’ said Janamejaya. ‘Who is the hero of this tale? Who is the villain?’
‘Who shall we call villain, my king? Duryodhana, who refused to share even a needlepoint of land? Yudhishtira, who gambled away wife and kingdom? Bhishma, who prevented Dhritarashtra from becoming king just because he was blind? Shantanu, who sacrificed his son’s future to satisfy his own lust? Or is it Gandhari, for blindfolding herself to her son’s many faults? Or maybe Krishna, who had long ago promised the earth-goddess to rid the world of unrighteous kings? You decide who is hero and who is villain,’ said Vaisampayana.
Janamejaya had no reply. He recollected the many forces that influenced the flow of the tale: boons and curses and manmade laws. There was no hero or villain in the epic, just people struggling with life, responding to crises, making mistakes, repeating mistakes, in innocence or ignorance, while trying to make their lives meaningful and worthwhile. ‘Why then do you call this tale “Jaya”? There is no real victory.’
‘There are two kinds of victory in this world,’ said the storyteller-sage, ‘Vijaya and Jaya. Vijaya is material victory, where there is a loser. Jaya is spiritual victory, where there are no losers. In Kuru-kshetra there was Vijaya but not Jaya. But when Yudhishtira overcame his rage and forgave the Kauravas unconditionally, there was Jaya. That is the true ending of my tale, hence the title.’
‘Though defeated in battle, the unrighteous Kauravas go to Swarga, while the victorious Pandavas end up in Naraka. It makes no sense.’
Astika spoke up, ‘For merits earned one goes to Swarga. For demerits earned one goes to Naraka. In the book of accounts, measured at the end of a lifetime, the Kauravas had been cleansed of all demerit by being defeated on a sacred land, while the Pandavas fell short on merit as the war had not purged them of their prejudices. Hence, it was Swarga for one and Naraka for the other.’
‘It does not feel right.’ said the king.
‘You see only one lifetime, my king,’ said Astika. ‘Stay in Swarga is not for eternity, nor is stay in Naraka. Eventually, after exhausting merits and demerits, the Kauravas will fall and the Pandavas will rise. Both will resume their journey through the cycle of rebirths. Once again they will be born and once again they will die. Once again they will earn merit, or demerit. Once again they will attain either Swarga, or Naraka. This will happen again and again until they learn.’
‘Learn what?’
‘What Yudhishtira learnt—the point of existence is not to accumulate merit, but to attain wisdom. We have to ask ourselves—why do we do what we do? When we truly accept the answer, we break free from the cycle of births and deaths, and discover the realm beyond Swarga, Vaikuntha, where there is peace forever.’
‘I thought the Pandavas did what they did for dharma,’ said Janamejaya, suddenly unsure.
‘If that had been true, then Vijaya over the Kauravas would also have been accompanied by Jaya over self. Following Krishna’s directive, they did defeat the Kauravas and ensured the overthrow of forces who pursued the law of the jungle. This was good for the world, but had no impact on the Pandavas themselves. There was remorse but no wisdom. External victory was not accompanied by internal victory. In the absence of spiritual insight, the Pandavas gloated over the Kaurava defeat which is why they went to Naraka.’
‘What was the insight that eluded my forefathers?’ asked Janamejaya.
‘That conflict comes from rage, rage comes from fear, and fear comes from lack of faith. That lack of faith which corrupted the Kauravas continued to lurk in the minds of the Pandavas. It had to be purged.’
The image of Krishna, serving as Arjuna’s charioteer, singing the song of wisdom before the war, flashed through Janamejaya’s mind. ‘If you have faith in me, and in the karmic balance sheet of merit and demerit, then you will have no insecurity,’ he heard Krishna say.
The lotus of wisdom bloomed in Janamejaya’s mind. ‘I too have no faith,’ he admitted. ‘That is why I am angry with the serpents and frightened of them. That is why I delude myself with arguments of justice and vengeance. You are right, Astika, this snake sacrifice of mine is not dharma.’
Astika smiled, and Vaisampayana bowed his head in satisfaction: the king had finally inherited the wisdom of his forefathers.
An expression of peace descended upon Janamejaya, the son of Parikshit, the grandson of Abhimanyu, the great grandson of Arjuna. He finally took his decision. ‘Shanti,’ he said. ‘Shanti,’ he said again. ‘Shanti,’ he repeated a third time.
Shanti, peace. This was the king’s call to end the Sarpa Sattra.
Astika burst into tears. Janamejaya had overpowered his fear and abandoned his rage. No more serpents would be killed. ‘Shanti, shanti, shanti,’ he had said. Not peace in the outer world. That could not happen as long as man felt insecure. This was a cry for inner peace.
Let us all have faith. Let us all be at peace—with ourselves, our worlds, and all the rest there is.
Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.
The Nagas may have acted in fear and rage but Janamejaya does not have any excuse. As human, he has a larger brain and can imagine the possibility of outgrowing animal instincts. That is the journey towards the divine. That is dharma.
The Mahabharata is not as much concerned with the war as it is with the root of conflict. Conflict is the result of greed exhibited by Duryodhana, and outrage exhibited by Yudhishtira. Both greed and outrage stem from insecurity; insecurity is the result of a poor understanding of, and a lack of faith in, one’s true nature and the true nature of the world around us. The Veda says that as long as we do not accept life for what it is, as long as we try to control and change things, there will always be conflict. Conflict ends when we realize that beyond tangible material reality, there is intangible spiritual reality.
Astika boasts that he is responsible for ending the massacre of the serpents. To humble him, his uncle, Vasuki, king of the Nagas, introduces him to Sarama, the mother of dogs, who reveals that when the sacrifice started, Janamejaya and his brothers had thrown stones at her children, wrongfully accusing them of licking the sacrificial offerings. For this, Sarama had cursed them that the sacrifice would be interrupted. So it was not Astika’s protest, but Sarama’s curse, that perhaps stopped the Sarpa Sattra. No one person can ever take credit for a moment in this cosmos.
A Bengali folktale informs us that Janamejaya asked Vyasa why he was not able to convince his ancestors from not going to war. Vyasa replied that excited people never listen to such logic. To prove his point, he advised Janamejaya not to marry the beautiful woman he had recently fallen in love with. Janamejaya married the woman nevertheless and ended up with a sexually transmitted disease. The king realized that he was no different from his ancestors when it came to taking advice.
All Hindu rituals end with the chant ‘Shanti, shanti, shanti’ because the quest for peace is the ultimate goal of all existence. This peace is not external but internal. It is not about making the world a peaceful place; it is about us being at peace with the world.
Among Hindu literatures, the Mahabharata is classified as Itihasa. Itihasa is not history, as is conventionally believed; it means ‘an account of life as it was, is, and always will be’. Itihasa is that which is timeless or sanatan. The sages therefore consider the Mahabharata to be the fifth Veda, the final whisper of God.
The Idea Called Dharma
The fear of death makes animals fight for their survival. Might becomes right as only the fit s
urvive. With strength and cunning territories are established and pecking orders enforced. Thus, the law of the jungle comes into being. Animals have no choice but to subscribe to it. Humans, however, can choose to accept, exploit or reject this law.
Thanks to our larger brain, we can imagine and create a world where we can look beyond ourselves, include others, and make everyone feel wanted and safe. We can, if we wish to, establish a society where the mighty care for the meek, and where resources are made available to help even the unfit thrive. This is dharma.
Unfortunately, imagination can also amplify fear, and make us so territorial that we withhold resources, exploit the weak and eat even when well-fed. This is adharma. If dharma enables us to outgrow the beast in us, then adharma makes us worse than animals. If dharma takes us towards divinity, then adharma fuels the demonic.
The Kauravas are stubbornly territorial before the war. The Pandavas struggle to be generous after the war. Adharma is thus an eternal temptation, while dharma is an endless work in progress that validates our humanity.
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Acknowledgements
Bodhisatva, who explained to me the difference between the words Jaya and Vijaya
My driver, Deepak Sutar, who is also an artist, who helped me shade many of my illustrations
Rupa, who read many of my drafts and whose expressions told me what works and what does not work
Works and people that have inspired and informed this retelling: A. Harindranath (Internet resources on the Mahabharata), Akbar the Great (paintings of the Razmnama and the Persian translation), Alf Hiltebeitel (research on Cult of Draupadi), Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (Critical Edition), Bhasa (play Urubhangam in Sanskrit), B.R. Chopra & Rahi Masoom Raza (teleserial Mahabharata), C. Rajagopalachari (Mahabharata retold), Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (novel Palace of Illusions in English), Dharamvir Bharati (play Andha Yudh in Hindi), Gajendra Kumar Mitrai (novel Panchajanya in Bengali), Iravati Karve (essay collection Yuganta), Jean-Claude Carrières & Peter Brooks (play Le Mahabharat in French), John Smith (Mahabharata translation), K.M. Munshi (novel Krishnaavatar in English), Kabi Sanjay (Bengali Mahabharata), Kamala Subramanium (Mahabharata retold), Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Sanskrit Mahabharata translation in English), Krishnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar (play Kichaka-vadha in Marathi), M.T. Vasudevan Nair (novel Second Turn in Malayalam), Mpu Sedha & Mpu Panuluh (Javanese Mahabharata titled Kakawin Bharatayuddha), Niranatt Sankara Panikkar (Bharatamala, Mahabharata in Malayalam), Perum Devanar (Tamil Mahabharata), Pradip Bhattacharya (essays in Boloji.com), Pratibha Ray (novel Yagnaseni in Oriya), R.K. Narayan (Mahabharata retold), Ramasaraswati (Assamese Mahabharata), Ramdhari Singh Dinkar (epic poem Rashmirathi in Hindi), Ramesh Menon (Mahabharata retold), Ratan Thiyam (theatre performance Chakravyuha), S.L. Bhyrappa (novel Parva in Kannada), Sarala Das (Oriya Mahabharata), Shivaji Sawant (novel Mrtiyunjaya in Marathi), Shyam Benegal (film Kaliyug in Hindi and teleserial Bharat Ek Khoj), Teejan-bai (Pandavani performance) and William Buck (Mahabharata retold)
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Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata Page 32