Mahabharata: Underlying Moral Teachings - Research Paper Example

Essay 2

The Mahabharata is an epic which contains short stories throughout with underlying moral teachings which help one at different junctures of life.

Significance of the poisonous lake

The story of a poisonous lake with a crane sitting beside it has been depicted in Mahabharata (Buck, 194). As soon as the four pandava brothers drank the water they were dead. The moral of the story is that no one should be underestimated. People create errors when they ignore someone considering the individual to be inferior. The story is also religiously significant as it teaches everyone to listen to others unlike what the four Pandava brothers had done. But Yudhisthira did not repeat the same mistake and this saved his life. He took a wise decision by listening to the crane whom others ignored. Again the questions that Yudhisthira answered are portraying religious beliefs. Such beliefs are wife is a friend given by god, mother is heavier than earth and many more. The answers to these and other questions asked portray religious beliefs of the Hindus (Buck, 195-198).

At the end of the total episode of the poisonous lake it gives a moral teaching. It teaches every individual to be obedient and not to disobey anybody. Disobedience can result in extreme disasters like the one shown in the story. Had the brothers obeyed the voice they would not have died. Moreover the story teaches not to judge anybody based on his appearance. In the story itself we see that Lord Dharma was disguised as crane and he was testing the merit of Yudhisthira (Buck, 198). So nobody should be considered weak or harmless. The inner powers or intentions of nobody can be judged from outside.

Absolute weapon

The characters of Mahabharata portray the characters which are quite similar to the characters that any individual comes across throughout his life. One can compare and draw similarity with the type of characters the person faces in his life. According to Karna his ‘absolute weapon’ was Indra’s winged dart. But the concept of the absolute weapon to defeat Arjuna was totally proved wrong as the dart broke into pieces as soon as it reached near Arjuna’s head. Arjuna remained unhurt.

Role of Karna

The character of Karna although carries negative shades, is a tragic one. He had been left alone by his mother as soon as he was born. Again due to his friendship with Duryodhana he stayed away and became an enemy to his own brothers. With inclusion of the character of Karna in the plot, we find shades of negativity in princess Kunti’s character that left her son Karna in the Ganges soon after his birth without caring what would happen to him (Buck, 30). It is for Kunti only that Karna was separated from his brothers. Such a betrayal totally devastated his emotions and made him bad. Even after being Lord Surya’s son he had to live the life of a charioteer’s son. Karna also has been depicted as being very kind to beggars.

Karna himself is not a very bad person. Negativity had touched his character only after he accepted Duryodhana’s friendship (Buck, 46). This instance of advancement of Karna’s character certainly contains a spiritual meaning. It guides individuals to stay away from bad company. Touch of evil even in something good can make it bad. This is exactly what we see in Karna’s character. Had he stayed with the Pandavas he could not be portrayed as a negative character. Negativity comes into his character only when he tries to do justice to friendship.

One can learn from him to be always loyal to friends and be kind. But at the same time it teaches everyone to stay away from bad people and their company. Karna has bad karma only because he became a friend of the evil Duryodhana and participated in all his evil activities. He never protested or prevented Duryodhana from doing all these.

Rakshasi, Hidimba

Hidimba, the Rakshasi is a powerful woman since unlike the normal timidity that a woman of that society was expected to display, the rakshasi actually proposes Bhima with her affection towards him and this shows her courage and simplicity. She even pleads with Kunti to convince Bhima for marriage and finally succeeds. She depicts the different dimensions of a woman’s character. A woman can be destructive in nature if she wants and also can transform as she wishes into an enticing and shy person. It shows that woman of the society were expected to behave meekly and be beautiful in order to gain attention of their counterpart.

Virata’s general finds a bad end

The epic Mahabharata contains a number of incidents during Pandavas life in the forest and even during the period when they hid themselves from Duryodhana’s spies and took shelter in King Virata’s kingdom. They took shelter in disguise with some other identities. Draupadi took shelter as queen’s servant and told her name Sairindhri (Buck, 203).

King Virata’s general, Kichaka was an evil natured man. He wanted Draupadi to be his wife irrespective of her wishes. Due to his forceful attempts to get hold over Draupadi she decided to teach him a lesson and rightly did so. Kichaka was crushed by Bhima to death (Buck, 220). This whole incident carries with it a religious message. Religious teachings say that a person always has to pay for his deeds and that is exactly happened with him. Ill behavior with women and forceful attempts to get hold of them is forbidden by religion. Kichaka did so and was hence punished by Bhima for his deeds.

Danger of love

Incidents like this, as depicted in Mahabharata gives an idea of romanticism during that period. Men were attracted by beautiful women and paid much attention to them. Sometimes the desired for them badly and wanted to get hold of them irrespective of women’s wishes. Women were looked upon as objects of desire and luxury which men tried to take over through their riches or through force. Such an instance is shown in the Draupadi –Kichaka episode where Kickaka, getting hold of Draupadi’s arm, says, “The Queen has many servants. Surely you can spend here the day with me” (Buck, 216) or where he catches Draupadi and says, “Sairindhri let our union take place” (Buck, 218). Such incidents prove that women had hard time protecting themselves from the eyes of such ill natured man. It also raises questions about the security of women during that period.

Duryodhana’s excuse

In Mahabharata the characters discussed contains both good and bad and each continues to remain so till the end of the story. The characters do not undergo any change in nature in any part of the story. Similar is the case with prince Duryodhana who refuses to shed his image of cruelty. As per the punishment from the game of dice after completion of the thirteenth year of their disguise the Pandavas could reveal their identity and get back their kingdom but Duryodhana refused to hand over their kingdom with the fake excuse of discovering them and revealing their identity before time (Buck, 218). Duryodhana had no limits to his cunning nature and cruelty and so refused to handover Pandavas Kingdom even after they served their entire of punishment. He wanted to grasp everything of his own cousins and his jealous nature has been revealed here.

Bhisma’s refusal

For the epic Mahabharata its biggest event had been the war which occurred for Duryodhana not returning Pandavas kingdom. Only Duryodhana supported the war for kingdom against everyone. He only received active support from his friend Karna. However Bhisma did not want Karna to fight. This is because Karna had already lost his support of armor by giving it to Indra. The Indra dart that he got in exchange had no comparison in protection to the Narayana one which the Pandavas received (Buck, 236).

Karna’s fight against brothers

Karna wants to fight against the pandavas knowing that they are his brothers. This is because wounds of Kunti’s betrayal had not healed up. Karna wanted to take the revenge from his brothers for such a betrayal. Moreover Karna wanted to do justice to his friendship Duryodhana who had always been by his side. He considered Duryodhana much above than his brothers whose mother had left him. Such an instance although gives out negativity shades in Karna’s character that supported a wrong cause but at the same time also reveals Karna’s loyalty towards his friend.

Gita’s techings

The epic Mahabharata has carried out religious teachings throughout along with various incidents. Some religious teachings have also been delivered to mankind in the final stage of the story which is warfare. In one part of the story where Krishna delivered Gita’s teaching to Arjuna saying, “My beloved –why yield, why give away? – the song of the Lord.” (Buck, 259) is very inspirational. In fact this message of Gita on the warfield is delivered to Arjun to give him support and courage to fight against his own people. It is always a difficult task to rise up against near and dear ones. But every individual should give priority to truth. Fighting for justice is the biggest task that a man can perform in his entire life. He should look forward to do so and if necessary revolt against his family. But justice should always be ensured. Such a message in the battlefield gave the confidence and strength to Arjuna with which he fought for justice. This message is thus highly appreciable. The message also serves the spiritual purpose of the story. It teaches human beings not to deny justice in any matter. It is equivalent to committing a crime. An individual should always step forward to fight for justice even if it requires him to fight against his family and friends.

The Trick

The warfare, biggest event of the epic Mahabharata, has been depicted in the final stage of the story. It gives us a vivid description of how man turned beasts on the battle grounds and also a clear description of the cruelty associated with such violence and bloodshed. Even Lord Krishna known to be the face of truth saves Arjuna’s life in the war by performing a trick. When Karna targeted some arrows at Arjuna, Krishna put his feet down so that Arjun’s car land in the earth. Thus arrows went atop Arjun’s head and this saved his life.

Argument against the trick

Such a trick cannot be justified in respect of warfare which always should be fairly fought. Such a trick does not at all suit Krishna who always speaks of truth and justice. Even if the trick is considered to be n attempt to save Arjuna’s life but it again cost Karna his life. This is again unfair. Hence such a trick in the battlefield can never be supported or tolerated at any cost.

The final point

The epic Mahabharata starts with the story of brothers of which one group is honest, kind and truthful while the other filled with cruelty and can never be honest or truthful. Throughout the epic we have short stories with religious teachings related to various incidents and finally the epic ends with warfare. At the final point of the story it has been shown that victory is always in the side of truth.

It also goes with our religious belief that whoever is right and justified should be on the winning side. The Pandavas emerged victorious because they fought for the right reason and justice. Duryodhana found himself on his losing side in spite of having a huge army and eminent warriors. Actually Duryodhana was rightly paid in the end for his cruel deeds. Anybody in support of wrong doings is himself committing a crime. This is why Karna was punished although he was kind and remained loyal to his friend. Overall the moral of the story is victory is always on the side where truth and honesty is.