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Centuries ago, it was proclaimed of the Mahabharata: “What is not in it, is nowhere.” After twenty-five centuries, we can use the same words about it. He who knows it not, knows not the heights and depths of the soul: he misses the trials and tragedy and the beauty and grandeur of life.
Mahabharata came to be written by Ganapati to the dictation of Vyasa.
“Bhishma” means one who undertakes a terrible vow and fulfils it.
‘Virtue will desert the man who through lack of wisdom drinks wine. He will be an object of scorn to all. This is my message to humanity, which should be regarded as an imperative scriptural injunction.’
"It is by their own actions, good or bad, that men are happy or miserable. The virtues or vices of others will not affect us in the least."
“He conquers the world, who patiently puts up with the abuse of his neighbours. He who controls his anger, as a horseman breaks an unruly horse, is indeed a charioteer and not he who merely holds the reins, but lets the horse go whither it would. He who sheds his anger just as a snake its slough, is a real hero. He who is not moved despite the greatest torments inflicted by others, will realise his aim. He who never gets angry is superior to the ritualist who faithfully performs for a hundred years the sacrifices ordained by scripture. Servants, friends, brothers, wife, children, virtue and
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The wounds inflicted by weapons may close in time; scalds may heal gradually; but wounds inflicted by words remain painful as long as one lives."
The sastras, no doubt, prescribe what is right and forbid what is wrong but a marriage once effected cannot be made invalid.
“Dear son, sensual desire is never quenched by indulgence any more than fire is by pouring ghee in it. I had heard and read this but till now I had not realised it. No object of desire - corn, gold, cattle or women - nothing can ever satisfy the desire of man. We can reach peace only by a mental poise beyond likes and dislikes.
The great men of the world regarded Vidura as a mahatma who was unparalleled in his knowledge of dharma, sastras and statesmanship and was totally devoid of attachment and anger. Bhishma appointed him, while he was still in his teens, as the chief counsellor of king Dhritarashtra.
“Just as the water of a deep pool is cool at the bottom and warm on the surface, so the heart of Dhritarashtra was at once warm with joy and chill with sorrow.”
Vyasa consoled her with these words: “No virtuous man is strong enough to live in virtue at all times, nor is any sinner bad enough to exist in one welter of sin. Life is a tangled web and there is no one in the world who has not done both good and evil. Each and everyone has to bear the consequence of his actions. Do not give way to sorrow.”
Death comes to all, the hero as well as the sluggard;
wickedness alone can hate goodness,
Our best wisdom is vain against fate, and if destiny is kind, our very follies turn to our advantage.
grey hairs do not prove the ripeness of the soul.
“A son need not be like his father. A father who is physically weak may have a very strong son and an ignorant father may have a scholarly son. It is wrong to assess the greatness of a man on his physical appearance or age. External appearances are deceptive.”
“What is that, by giving up which, man becomes rich?" “Desire-getting rid of it, man becomes wealthy.”
“Birth and learning do not make one a brahmana. Good conduct alone does. However learned a person may be he will not be a brahmana if he is a slave to bad habits. Even though he may be learned in the four Vedas, a man of bad conduct falls to a lower class.”
He should not be jealous of other servants. The king may place fools in positions of authority, leaving aside the wise.
Fear is a strong instinctive feeling, though it can be overcome by will-power or strong motives like love, shame or hate, or more usually, by discipline.
truly great warriors desire peace, and that to seek peace is not a sign of fear.
In the olden days, it was the practice to ascertain the views of younger people first, before consulting elders. This instilled enthusiasm and self-confidence in the younger folk. If the elders were consulted first, it would not be possible for others to speak with freedom, and even honest differences of opinion might savour of disrespect.
episode of Balarama’s, keeping out of the Mahabharata war is illustrative of the perplexing situations in which good and honest men often find themselves. Compelled to choose between two equally justifiable, but contrary, courses of action, the unhappy individual is caught on the horns of a dilemma.
It is only honest men that find themselves in this predicament. The dishonest ones of the earth have no such problems, guided as they are solely by their own attachments and desires, that is, by self-interest. Not so the great men who have renounced all desire. Witness the great trials to which, in the Mahabharata, Bhishma, Vidura, Yudhishthira and Karna were put. We read in that epic how they solved their several difficulties. Their solutions did not conform to a single moral pattern but reflected their several individualities. The conduct of each was the reaction of his personality and
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Neutrality in war may be of several kinds. It may arise from conscientious objection to war or it may be due to mere conceit and self-interests. Yet others may keep aloof through cowardice or sheer inertia.
The arrogant man is never conscious of his own arrogance. When accused of it, he charges the accuser with that very fault. His judgment is warped and he considers it a crime on the part of any one to point out his defect.
“I am under inescapable obligations to the Kauravas, O son of Dharma. Our vested interests enslave us and become our masters.
Besides these numerous single combats between renowned warriors, there was also indiscriminate fighting among common soldiers. The name of “sankula yuddha” was given to such free fighting and promiscuous carnage. The Kurukshetra battle witnessed many such “sankula” fights wherein countless men fought and died in the mad lust of battle, and on the field lay piles of slaughtered soldiers, charioteers, elephants and horses, and the ground became a bloody mire in winch it was difficult for the chariots to move about. In modern battles there is no such thing as single combats. It is all “sankula.”
“The Pandavas are not to be so easily vanquished. They will never surrender. The wrongs they have undergone are too great to be forgotten.
“When Brahma created living beings, he was filled with anxiety. ‘These lives will multiply and soon their number will be beyond the capacity of the earth to bear. There seems to be no way of coping with this.’ This thought of Brahma grew into a flame which became bigger and bigger until it threatened to destroy all creation at once. Then Rudra came and pleaded for allaying this destructive fire. Brahma controlled the great fire and subdued it into the law that is known to mortals as Death. This law of the creator takes many forms, such as war or sickness or accident and keeps the balance
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The slaying of Bhurisravas is one of the many situations of moral conflict woven into the story of the Mahabharata to demonstrate that, when hatred and anger have been roused, codes of honour and dharma are powerless to control them.
It was nightfall, but, on the fourteenth day of the battle the rule of cease-fire at sunset was not observed. As the passions rose from day to day, one by one the rules and restraints broke down.
The Mahabharata is a great and wonderful story. The sorrows of human life are painted with sublime beauty and rolled out in a grand panorama. Behind the story of errors and sorrows the poet enables us to have a vision of the Transcendent Reality. Thus it is that the Mahabharata, though a story, has come to be a book of dharma. This book, in style and substance, is altogether different from tales and romances. In modern novels, dramas and pictures, exciting scenes are enacted, the hero passes through dangers and difficulties and finally marries a woman whom he loves, or else everything seems to
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The lesson is that it is vanity to hope, through physical violence and war, to put down wrong. The battle for right, conducted through physical force leads to numerous wrongs and, in the net result, adharma increases.
Of what avail is wisdom that comes too late? What has been done must produce its result which has to be suffered. That is the law.
when men face misfortune, they see and preach dharma and chivalry to others.
Nothing but error can result if one proceeds to judge conduct without taking into account the chain of events leading up to it.
One’s understanding naturally limits one’s vision.
One transgression begets the next and thus evil grows from evil submerging righteousness. Evil flourishes on retaliation.
The wisest of men are sometimes affected by envy and suffer thereby.
In this world men become envious of others, just because the others are good, while they themselves are not so good, and they cannot hear this.
