Learnings from Mahabharth - 8: Virat Yudh

Jai Guru Deva,

This is the contunuation of the series that I had started last year.

Virat Yudh is the fight between Kaurav forces and Arjun who comes out of his secret life. As I had mentioned before Arjun and Grandsire Bhishma are my favourite characters of this great epic. Virat Yudh features these two mighty characters pitted against each other in a ferocious battle. However, what i particularly liked is the display of emotions during that battle. Arjun greets the Grandsire and Dronacharya with his arrows while Grandsire laments a lot as he has to face Arjun in the battlefield after 13 long years of exile and secret life.

Profound knowledge is shared in the conversation during the battle. My learning is that, if you are on the side of dharma nobody can stop you. Grandsire was worried to fight Arjun not because he is inferior to Arjun in warfare but Arjun is standing on the side of dharma. Howmuch ever Karna badmouths Arjun Grandsire would not relent to fight because he knew ethically Arjun have the upperhand and not Duryodhan. For this reason, when Kripacharya asks Duryodhan to apologize for his rude remarks, Grandsire says for how many mistakes shall he apologize?

Personally, I always believed that ethics are way superior to emotions because emotions change with time but not ethics. In my childhood, smoking and drinking are vices and taboo while today they are part of cultured and civilized life. Barring my Art of Living friends, the list of non drinkers and non smokers I met in Bangalore is very less. This doesn't take away the damage done by alcohol to our society nor it reduces the pain of people who are suffering. So the ethics that I was taught still remains the same while popular perception changed in a couple of decades.

On the other end, Arjun in his conversation with Uttara Kumar gives some marvelous insights about human conduct. I feel what he said is applicable even today. One thing that majorly caught my attention was his advice about servants. He requests Uttara Kumar never to insult servants and be decent to them. Also, Arjun asks Uttara Kumar to salute his own wounds and blood flowing. Sich a noble thought!!! Afterall, its our blood that keeps us alive.

Then Arjun goes on to say that because of their 13years of exile and secrecy world understood the danger of gambling and so its worth all the toil they had gone through. This should be a lesson for every human being. Because of my mentor Vijay Kumar sir, I realized the danger of gambling and never gambled in my life. I'm All India 51st ranker in a national level exam and achieved Einstein standards of memory in 2004, yet i never really understood the 52 card game. May be I dont have the divine permission to gamble.

Sarvejana Sukhinobhavantu,

-Karthik