Death by Deceit

On the occasion of Janamashtami, the birthday of Krishna, I would like to discuss an important allegation leveled against him in the epic Mahabharata. These views are not subjective opinion shrouded in devotion; rather, these are objective views of a rank rational, if there was one!

In the epic, Mahabharat (Mb), the deaths of Bhishma, Drona and Karna are all seen as acts of treachery by Krishna. The perception is that these deaths were unethical and against all norms of war and also the fact that none of the Pandava’s wanted to kill them under the said circumstances. They were made to resort to such unethical means at the behest of Krishna.

Was this fair? Was it moral? Was it ethical?

To put this in perspective, Mb was not about right or wrong or black and white, instead, it teaches that life is grey. Defining the grey is not easy because it is deeply rooted to the context. Every character has a shade of grey and that is what makes him or her closer to a human being. S/he was a combination of strengths and weaknesses and thus consequences.

While the said deaths are seen as injustices in the particular episode of the war, one should also see it along with the innumerable injustices meted out on the Pandavas that had taken place before the Kurukshetra, like the incident of lakshagraha, malpractices in the dice game leading to exile and that too with unfavourable conditions, Draupadi’s insult, not giving the Promised Land after 13 years, to mention some of them. The lives of the Pandavs had been spent more in jungles than the palace which was their rightful home. The war itself was not of equals – the Kauravas had a much bigger army, than that of the Pandavs. However, the deaths of the heroes were not to be seen as a tit-for-tat justice system.

In the ‘killing’ of the said ‘heroes’ there was no ill design. Such decisions were taken in what is better understood in management parlance as ethics of the emergency situation. Ethics of emergency situation implies ethical decisions which have be taken in dire emergencies. Emergency is better understood as crisis or an urgent situation. This ethics of the emergency situation in this case was keeping the greater good of society in view, and certainly not for personal gains. The deviation from the norm, was not really for any personal benefit here at all, including saving of lives. Krishna resorted to the ethics of the emergency situation in getting all of them eliminated (not killed) toward the greater good of humanity, through means that are questionable outside of the context. They were all, by the way, associated with an unjust cause, and had serious personal flaws in their characters.

Bhishma was myopic in his ‘serving the throne’. The focus on saving the throne was so strong that he could not see anything beyond it. He had a very myopic definition of his existence and a life whose virtues had serious ramifications, which in the larger interest were being misused by the perpetrators of evil. Drona was guided by first an initial enmity with Drupad and then the future of his son. Both were personal agendas, and he did not have any serious affinity for either the Kauravs or Pandavs. A teacher of his stature who had much in his power and capabilities was unfortunately driven by narrow considerations of life. Karna, a hero in the truest sense of the word, was a misplaced hero. His entire life was a quest for recognition, which made him fall slave to a person who had nothing right on his side. His need to repay debts was so strong that it became his sole objective of life.

Were any of these heroes fighting a war of ethics and morals and was their objective to fight a just war, when all in their hearts knew that the cause of the war itself was flawed? What significant efforts were made by each one of them to avoid or stop the war, especially when each one of them was in his own way strong and could have insisted on stopping the war, by just not willing to participate in the war?

Pandavs needed justice to regain all they had lost, after paying a heavy price for their mistakes and Krishna was guided here by the consideration of dharma which had been taken to a different dimension altogether. In the accepted interpretation, the ethics of the emergency situation notwithstanding, truth was by and large given an unconditional status. Krishna’s major motivation was to establish a sense of dharma and satya in the world to come. Did Krishna resort to indulging in ‘lies’ (as many call it) anywhere in the epic except in the specific case of Kurukshetra? Nowhere has Krishna advocated duty for the sake of duty, not without consequential consideration, though certainly without selfish motives. If efforts to establish dharma and satya were selfish motives then he surely had been selfish, lied and committed injustice. But ponder here – never has a lie been uttered anywhere. What was uttered was untruth. Lies are spoken with selfish motives, but an untruth need not have selfish motives.

Here I am reminded of an episode from American Civil War. When General Sherman had decided to burn down Atlanta, his Commander was shocked and wrote to him to stop it. The General is supposed to have told his Commander, “War is cruelty and you cannot refine it”. According to him a war has its own logic and momentum once it begins. It inevitably escalates, and you cannot blame the soldiers and generals for the killing, sometimes mindless. You can only blame those who started it.¹ Nothing could be different in Kurukshetra too!

A close look of the epic will reveal that an austere and an unforgiving streak of dharma appeared to run through the epic. If good people are not allowed to win by any means, and if they had to fight justly, then one must be prepared to face the fact that they might lose. There was no guarantee that truth and goodness would prevail in human history. The Pandavas then would have had to accept this and wait, for another day. The outcome of the entire world would have been so different if the most important thing then was to just fight fairly. Since they did not and fought the way they did, they failed in their individual dharma, but managed to uphold dharma at large.

Needless to say that they were punished too with none of them allowed to ‘live happily ever after’. Even Krishna and his community faced elimination and died a bitter death. A big price to pay on the part of the Pandava’s and Krishna for eliminating all that stood for wrong and erroneous and establish the rule of the right and just.

What do you think?

¹ – The Difficulty of Being Good – By Gurcharan Das

Image courtesy - http://www.stephen-knapp.com/krishna_print_onehundredsixtyseven.htm

Black-magic in Malayalam Mahabharat – Part 2

In the previous part, we read about the Pallippana ritual and the legend behind it. Today, we will read a slightly different version of the same, where the ritual is not conducted by the Malayi.

A slightly different version from the above is observed in the Nizhalkkuttu attakatha which was composed by Shri Pannisseri Nanupillai in 1925, and according to the author, there weren’t too many Hindu homes (then) which did not perform the Nizhalkkuttu attakatha at least once a month to annul the effects of abhicara which could have been performed by some unknown person.

 

Duryodhan (Kathakali)

The story behind this is similar to the above with a slight difference. Duryodhan calls Bharata Malayan to perform abhicara. When Malayan learns that the victims of his act were going to be the Pandavs, he declines to do it, as for him both the Pandavs and the Kauravs were Kings, besides the fact that Krishna was with them, due to which he would not be able to do so. Duryodhan threatened him with dire consequences if he did not comply with his order.

Malayan agreed but asked for certain things for the ritual – the sun as a lamp, the moon as a plate, measures of darkness, egg of an elephant, arrows used by Lord Rama, some leaves made of water, etc. Besides all such impossible things, he also asked for the sacrifice of their sister, Dusshala. On hearing all this Duryodhan was enraged and threatened to kill him instantly, if he did not begin the abhicara. A reluctant and a scared Malayan decided to perform the ritual.

 

Malayan (Kathakali)

When the ritual began, Malayan realised that he was unable to see the shadows of the Pandavs on the stone. He was worried, if the ritual was not successful, Duryodhan would kill him. He prayed to the gods to bail him out of the plight. Soon he noticed that he could see the shadows of the Pandavs along with that of Lord Krishna. He prayed to Krishna to show mercy on him as he was doing this only under utter duress. Soon the shadow of Krishna went missing and his task was accomplished. He begged forgiveness and left with all the gifts heaped on him by Duryodhan.

When he reached home, his wife found it unusual that he should return with so many gifts, and still be sad. On asking him the cause of his unhappiness, Malayan said that on his way back he practiced abhicara on five does, who were with a deer. Malayi was not convinced and on insisting to know the truth, Malayan told her that he had killed the Pandavs by Nizhalkkuttu, shadow-piercing. When Malayi learnt this, she was enraged. She killed her son, so that Malayan could feel the pain of Kunti and rushed to the spot where the Pandavs were lying dead.

In the meanwhile Kunti finds her dead sons and calls for Krishna. Krishna revives them and soon Malayi arrives there and tells all that had happened due to her husband. Krishna assured her that he knew everything and killing her own son was too drastic a reaction and that his son would be alive too and that there would be no hatred towards Malayan as he had done it out of sheer compulsion.

 

Krishna, Malayi & Kunti (Kathakali)

Krishna then goes on to say, that anybody who listens to this tale would never be affected by abhicara ever.

The above version is different in the fact that here Krishna is credited with the revival of the Pandavs and not Malayi as in the previous version. Also, Malayan is shown making efforts to avoid the abhicara and thus he is not spited for greed, again, as against the previous version. Also, in the earlier version, the son remains dead, unlike this version, where the son is given another lease of life. The bottom line is that in the previous version the Malayi is at the centre stage whereas in the present, it is Lord Krishna.

Needless to say, that both the versions are depicted in different dance forms in Kerala, like Theyyam and Kathakali, and people who have witnessed the performances say that the depictions of the abhicara episode in Kathakali is extremely colourful and rich in details.

NB – The pictures shown in this and the previous article are not from a ritualistic performance, but stage performances of Kathakali, depicting the episode.

Before we conclude, we will read an altogether different version of abhicara. Keep reading……

Black-magic in Malayalam Mahabharat – Part 1

In this Blog, you have read about different versions of sometimes the same tale, myth, etc. Earlier, we have read about different versions of the epic Ramayan (http://www.utkarshspeak.blogspot.in/2011/12/part-1-ramayanas-from-south-india.html, http://www.utkarshspeak.blogspot.in/2011/12/part-2-ramayana-from-jain-texts.html, http://www.utkarshspeak.blogspot.in/search/label/Ramkien, http://www.utkarshspeak.blogspot.in/2011/12/part-4-ramayana-tribal-version.html). In bits and pieces, we have also read about different episodes of Mahabharat, which have been from different versions, especially regional versions of the Mahabharat. It is interesting to note how regional aspects, like identity, behavioural and moral codes have shaped the narrative and even created new heroes or focussed on unsung heroes from the original text of Vyasa.

Mahabharata in Kerala too has its regional version and some aspects are a far cry from the original. What is interesting is that some of the episodes are part of the present day enactment in a number of dance forms of Kerala like the Kathakali, Theyyam, etc. While, I must add that the entire version is worth reading as it is extremely colourful and interesting, we will focus on only one aspect of the difference from the original text by Vyasa, and that is the act of Nilalkkuttu or shadow-piercing by abhicara, i.e. use of black magic. At the onset, let me thank both Mr. A. Purushothaman and Mr. A. Harindranath, who have been studying this aspect very closely, for sharing details with me on the subject as well as allowing me to use photographs from their personal collection.

While there are different versions of abhicara in different versions of the Malayalam Mahabharat, we will only discuss a couple of them, which are till date enacted in different dance forms across the state, besides being a part of certain rituals in some temples in Kerala. While there are some common elements amongst the different versions, the difference does make interesting reading. It is important to mention here that the rituals that are performed as part of the ritual enactment of the myths from the epic, are generally enacted by Malayas, Velas, Mavilas, Koppalas, and Pulayas, etc. who are part of the aboriginal groups of Kerala and the adjoining regions.

At the Ambalapuzha Srikrishnaswamy Temple, a ritual called Panthrandu Kalabham is performed during 1st to 12th of the Malayalam month of Makaram (December - January) every year. After every 12 years, the ritual called Pallippana (palli is divine and pana is song; Pallippana is divine song) is performed at the temple. The ritual of Pallippana consists of two main rituals, Oattu, performed by the Velans during the day and Muroattu, which is performed by the Velathis during the night.

We will not go into the details of the ritual enactment, but will focus on the legends behind the rituals. One of the legends says that the Pallippana was first performed by Lord Shiva. Once due to excessive work pressure, Lord Vishnu fell unconscious. Subramanya, the god of Astrology, suggested that Pallippana be performed to revive and rejuvenate Vishnu and same had to be done by a Velan. The world was searched for a Velan but none could be found. It was then that Lord Shiva took the form of a Velan and Parvathi as the Velathi and performed the first Pallippana and revived Lord Vishnu.

In the ritual of Pallippana, the Muroattu is more important which is performed by the Velathis. The legend behind this is as follows –

Bharata Malayi a servant of the Pandavas was worried that her husband, Bharata Malayan was gone for too long and had not returned home. She decides to step out along with her son to look for her husband. On the way, she sees him coming with a large bundle which was full of gifts. When Malayi enquired about the gifts, he said that he had got the gifts from his masters (Kauravas) who had got together with her masters (Pandavas) for a hunt. Malayi not satisfied with the answer, further inquired if there was any death in the ritual, to which he replied that five stags and two deer were killed.

Malayi immediately understood that her husband had shadow-pierced the five Pandavs along with Kunti and Draupadi. She was angry with him as he had earlier pledged to her that he would never harm the Pandavs, her masters and she to his masters and this pledge was broken by Malayan. Malayi insists on doing the counter abhicara to revive her masters. Malayan tried to dissuade her by showing her a diamond necklace which he had received as a gift. An angry Malayi threw it away. Their son also tried to dissuade her, which further infuriated Malayi, as she felt that the son was like the father. She killed their son in anger. She then recited the counter- abhicara mantras and invoked the gods.

Malayi killing her son (Kathakali)

The gods appeared and asked her what she wanted. Malayi asked for all those things that she needed to perform Pallippana, which were none other than the ones that Lord Shiva had used to perform the first Pallippana. The gods were pleased with her and gave her all the items that she had asked for, with the help of which Malayi revived the Pandavas and Draupadi and Kunti.

It is interesting to note that the entire performance is conducted by an aboriginal group and the main act is performed by the women. Here the woman is serving the righteous and also revives them when they were wrongfully killed by her husband in return for material gifts. She doesn’t even think twice before killing her own son, for taking the side of the wrong/evil. The first performance of the ritual having been done by Lord Shiva, lends a sense of credence and divinity to the later and modern day performers, even if they are an aboriginal group and probably marginalised in the modern times.

The Panthrandu Kalabham is performed every year to rid the idol of impurities and weakening of its powers with time and sometimes due to the rituals not performed in accordance to the laid down norms. A deity which is not powerful cannot shower effective blessings and such rituals enable the deity to regain its diminished or lost power.

Next we will go through a slightly different version on the above. Keep reading……