THE ROLE OF DHARMA IN

MAHABHARATA

When Yudhishtira asks Bhishma what Dharma is, Bhishma says:

“Tadrisho ayam anuprashno yatra dharmaha sudurlabaha

Dushkamha pralisankhyatum tatkenatra vysvasyathi
Prabhavarthaya bhutanam dharmapravachanam kritam
Yasyat prabhavasamyuktaha sa dharma iti nischayaha.”

Which means,

“It is most difficult to define Dharma. Dharma has been explained to be that
which helps the upliftment of living beings. Therefore, that which ensures the welfare
of living beings is surely Dharma. The learned rishis have declared that that which
sustains is Dharma.”

It is indeed difficult to find one meaning for a word which has a scope as immense as the
word, Dharma. Dharma comes from the root dhr, which means to uphold, sustain or
uplift. And so, one interpretation of the word can be 'the collection of natural and
universal laws that uphold, sustain, or uplift‟. In the words of Shankara Bharadwaj
Khandavalli, “Dharma embraces every type of righteous conduct, covering every aspect
of life essential for the sustenance and welfare of the individual and society. Further, it
includes those rules which guide and enable those who believe in God and heaven to
attain moksha”.

The three characters that represent Dharma in its different forms are Vidura,
Yudhishtira and Bhishma. Throughout the epic, the opinion of these three is given
importance as they are considered to be “firm in law”.

Vidura is considered to be the incarnation of Yama, the god of death who is also
Dharma, the god of order. He believes that an act is good if it promotes good
consequences. An act which promotes the good of many persons is better than one
which promotes the good of a few. He was against the game of dice as it would create
strife and even harm the people. He says," To save the family, (one must) abandon an
individual. To save the village, abandon a family; to save the country, abandon a
village."He is the only one who speaks in the sabha when Draupadi is dragged as a slave
and raises her question about dharma. He urges the elders to intervene in the matter.
For him not answering Draupadi‟s questions in the sabha puts dharma at stake.
“Speaking what is applicable when one knows it is the highest dharma”, he says.
However, Vidura is never given his due because he is lowborn. He represents the
dharma that is unheeded and neglected by everyone in the epic.

Yudhishtira represents Dharma as the son of Yama. He always adheres to dharma and
satya which are more precious to him than his royal ambitions. He stands for duty and
righteousness. “Yudhisthira's understanding of dharma is distinct from that of other
righteous kings. He married Draupadi along with his four brothers, he had Bhima marry
an outcast Rakshasi, he denounced casteism, saying a Brahmin is known by his actions
and not his birth or education, thus portraying a changeable dharma that modifies itself
to suit the times.” When Draupadi tells Yudhishtira that dharma does not protect him,
he replies, "I do not act for the sake of fruits of dharma, I act because I must….by its
nature my mind is beholden to dharma.” Yudhishtira highlights the most important
aspect of Dharma- its subtlety. Although Bhishma and Draupadi are the ones who
mention that Dharma is subtle when Draupadi poses her questions in the assembly hall,
it is Yudhishtira whose silence makes one question what was so puzzling about the
question Drauapdi asked. Had Yudhishtira lost himself when he had wagered Drauapdi?
If he said he didn‟t, he would have been simply lying. If he said he had lost himself when
he wagered Drauapdi, he would have still not have spoken the truth. As Alf Hiltebeitel
says “a man (or a woman) with his ego-mind-intellect, is feminine matter, „Prakriti‟
(ultimately unconscious), living for the sake „Purusha‟ as a conscious self.” According to
this, Yudhishtira could have never lost his self as it was a transcendental being beyond
identification with any phenomenon. What was the truth then? What was the answer?
One realizes the subtlety of Dharma in Yudhishtira‟s predicament.

Yudhishtira is constantly put to test by his father, Yama on his knowledge of Dharma.
His first test is the one where he would not abandon his dog; the other is when he is
made to believe that his brothers and wife are in hell. Yudhishtira passes both these
tests because he sticks to his dharmic behavior and makes the right choices. Yudhisthira
is very important in the Mahabharata because, through him, others can learn about
Dharma and what it means to be righteous. But the fact that till the very end of the epic,
Yudhishtira cannot find the answer to his question about the one that was raised in the
sabha, highlights that Dharma like this question has no finality.

The third character that represents Dharma is Bhishma. In his dying speech, Bhishma
tells Yudhishthira that in the fourth age of kaliyuga (our present age), "dharma becomes
adharma and adharma, dharma." Somewhat paradoxically, he continues, "If one fights
against trickery, one should oppose him with trickery. But if one fights lawfully, one
should check him with dharma ... One should conquer evil with good. Death by dharma
is better than victory by evil deeds." Bhishma shares his wisdom with the Pandavas,
especially Yudhishtira. He tells them that, “Dharma is one‟s only friend, for it follows the
body that has been abandoned by all”.
According to Vishnu Purana, Mahabharata is considered to be the consequence of a
complaint made by the earth in the form of a cow to her cowherd, Govinda, who is
Vishnu. To ensure harmony between earth and human culture, Vishnu establishes
dharma. In Hindu mythology, Vishnu is believed to have taken more than nine
incarnations on this earth to defend the righteous (i.e. those observing Dharma) against
the “demonic forces “. In Satyuga, Vishnu incarnates as Rama and saves Sita from the
demon Ravana. In doing so, Rama is seen restoring the „Divine Order‟. Vishnu‟s
incarnation as Krishna is also meant for the purpose of restoring Dharma. However,
unlike in the age of Rama, adharma was not “exclusive to the demonic races alone but
had begun to enter into the minds of men. And unlike Rama, Krishna did not adhere to
an external code of Dharma. Rather, he saw to the essence of each situation and acted in
such a way as to manifest the greatest divine good (Ramesh Manocha)”.

One of the most perplexing questions is that if Krishna is indeed a God incarnate
present on this earth to establish Dharma, why does he show disregard for dharma in
the epic? He suggests Pandavas to let Shikhandi fight Bhishma knowing that Bhishma
would never fight Shikhandi (who was a woman who later transformed into a man). He
forces Arjuna to break the warrior code and kill Karna while he was trying to move his
chariots wheel. When at the end of the war voices from the heaven say that the
Pandavas killed Bhishma, Duryodhana, Karna and others via adharmic means, Krishna
says, “From desire of doing good to you (heaven), I repeatedly applied my powers of
illusion and caused them to be slain by diverse means in battle. If I had not adopted
such deceitful ways in battle, victory would never have been yours…When the number of
one‟s foes becomes great, then destruction should be effected by contrivances and
means. The gods themselves, in slaying the [demons], have trod the same way. That
way, therefore, that hath been trod by the gods, may be trod by all (Ganguli, 1883-
1896b).” Krishna is clearly a consequentialist who believes that adharmic actions can be
justified by their right or dharmic consequences.

Yet Krishna‟s very incarnation on this earth was to restore dharma. So then how can he
encourage adharma to finally restore dharma? Maybe he vies dharma as something that
leads to good consequences which will sustain the universal and natural laws. Yet, as
Joseph Dowd puts it, “Mahabharata is an epic, not a modern philosophical treatise, and
Krishna‟s moral viewpoint may not be completely consistent throughout.” And this
continues the mystery behind the reason for Krishna‟s adharmic means to restore
Dharma. If Krishna is violating Dharma for the sake of Dharma, what dharma is actually
being restored?

As Hariprasad says, “One of the names of Vishnu in the Vishnu Sahasranama is

Dharma. The Dharma in the world is governed by Krishna. What he says is Dharma”.
Hence, Yudhishtira's chariot does not come down on earth because he lied about
Ashwatthama but because he did not completely follow the word of Krishna. Contrasting
this point is Gurucharan Das who draws attention to the “searching attitude of
Mahabharata.” He says, “Krishna, after explaining the mysteries of life and the
knowledge of the holy, asks Arjuna to consider his message carefully and 'to act as he
will'.” This is because even if this world is considered to be God‟s “leela”, every human
has the free will to make his own decisions and is hence the only one responsible for his
karma. So even if what Krishna says is Dharma, Yudhishtira‟s dharma was to act
according to his own will.

And as Joseph Dowd says, maybe we need to learn the distinction between Dharma and
dharmas. He says, “By dharmas, I mean particular duties for particular contexts. The
Mahabharata refers to many such dharmas. For example, there is a specific dharma for
warriors, the Law of the baronage which includes fighting, and a specific dharma for
brahmins (priests), which includes prayer. However, Indian tradition often mentions a
single universal Dharma, which deteriorates with the passing of great periods of cosmic
time called yugas. According to the Mahabharata, this Dharma declines by one quarter
with each yuga…Dharma is a principle of cosmic order, and the dharmas are the
different rules that different people must follow in order to be in harmony with
Dharma…As a scholar puts it, to violate one‟s own dharma is “to be out of step
with the universe.”

Van Buitenen gives us one of his most memorable insights when he says that "the epic is
a series of precisely stated problems imprecisely and therefore inconclusively resolved,
with every resolution raising a new problem, until the very end, when the question
remains: whose is heaven and whose is hell?" Who achieved Dharma? The answer isn‟t
as simple as we think. Pandavas who are seen to be supported by Krishna, God himself
are doomed to be in hell while Kauravas are in heaven.

The answer to this is perhaps given by the fact that the stay in heaven or hell is not for
eternity. Eventually, when the merits and demerits are exhausted, the cycle of rebirths
begin. This will happen continuously till it is learnt that the point of existence is not to
gain merits but to attain wisdom like Yudhishtira does in the end. Both Pandavas and
Kauravas have to know why they did what they did. If the Pandavas had really done
what they did for Dharma, then they would have not gone to hell (or heaven). And if
Pandavas didn‟t fight the war for Dharma then what did they fight it for? Maybe, they
simply followed Krishna in his mission to restore Dharma but did not gain any wisdom
at the end of it. But these are all probable answers. I think Mahabharata should not be
seen as a book which answers all these questions, but as a book that makes the reader
think and explore so that he ultimately find his own wisdom.

I‟ll conclude with what A.K. Ramanujan says, “ It is not dharma or right conduct that
Mahabharata seems to teach, but the "subtle" nature of dharma – its infinite subtlety,
its incalculable calculus of consequences, its endless delicacy."