Meaning in the Mahabharata

Meaning in the Mahabharata:

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by Michael Dolan/B.V. Mahayogi

Here's a short 7:59 minute video on Meaning in the Mahābhārata. With so many stories and different ideas it's easy to get confused. What does it all mean? Check out @MAHABHARATAGODS on twitter for more.

Here's a transcript of the video.

Meaning in the Mahābhārata

The Story of the Mahabharata has enlivened the hearts and minds of the people of India for over two thousand years. It is not an exclusively religious text. It contains the moral and ethical law that has guided life on the subcontinent, but it’s morality is not as rigid as it appears to be at first glance. The spiritual and ethical precepts are woven into the ancient epic, but are flexible enough to have withstood centuries of changing attitudes. Since the first recital of the Mahabharata, India has been conquered many times. The Vedic Period gave way the Buddhists who did their best to eradicate the culture of the Brahmins. Buddhism ceased to form part of the popular culture of India after the sixth century. But the stories of the Mahabharata were popular before and after Buddhism.

With the invasion of the moguls, sometime after the 11th century, the proponents of Islam destroyed many Hindu traditions. But the Mahabharata lived on. The influence of the British began to be felt as early as the 17th century, but the 200 year British Raj consolidated power in the 18th century and ruled up to the Gandhi independence movement of the 20th century. These British rulers were determined to stamp out what they saw as superstition. And as had the Buddhists and Muslims before them, the British In their Christian zeal did everything in their power to obliterate the memory of the Hindu Mahabahrata.

And yet, the story lives on. One we ask then, why? What particular charm does this book hold over the people of India that despite invasion by foreigners and attempts by different kinds of missionaries, the book lives on?

The poet Shelley once remarked that the sweetest songs sing of the saddest things. The Mahabharata is not a joyful song. This ancient history of India is more than a lament. It is deeply tragic. The Mahabahrata sings the sad song of the Kurus, whose ambition ends in disaster. And it sings the tragic raga of the Pandava brothers.

While the Pandavas are ever optimistic, they are orphans. As warriors they are honorable; they never strike the first blow. Their youth is ruined in wandering and waiting to be kings. Their dream is never realized; in the end they gain the kingdom, but lose their relatives, their families, and even their children. Their hopes are shattered by war. The war takes the sons of Draupadī and the son of Arjuna. The internecine war between brothers and cousins takes not only their cousins but their Guru and her grandfather as well.

And if that were not sufficient tragedy, when Arjuna and his brothers die they see their enemies exalted in heaven, while the Pandavas themselves go to hell.

And with this tragic dénouement, one must ask what is their saving grace? The deeper meaning of the book leads us to a spiritual understanding.

The friends of Krishna may lose the world and kingdom, but they gain divine love. They may lose heaven, but the mundane heaven of their enemies is part of the system of repeated birth and death. Having enjoyed heaven, their enemies will be born on earth, suffer their karma, and even go to hell. The suffering of the Pandavas has ended. They may have lost the worldly heaven of the gods, but their eternal souls are redeemed in the supreme abode of Krishna. After all, this is His promise in the Bhagavad-Gita.

The rupture of their loss is redeemed by the radiance of their love for Krishna.

This is the true and inner meaning of the Mahābhārata. Western and even Hindu scholars are often mystified by this strange and wonderful book. if it is only a motley collection of ancient myths about heroes who fight and heroines who love then there are many things which don’t withstand inspection. If the subject of Mahābhārata is Dharma, then why are so many adharmic ideas also promoted? They conclude that the book has been edited so many times and that so many theses have been interpolated over the centuries, that it has lost its original meaning. Many scholars have attempted to restore the present version back to an earlier text, one that is more “heroic” and in keeping with the classical texts of Greece such as the Iliad and the Odyssey. They miss the point. There is a very simple and unified principal running throughout the entire work that is Krishna bhakti. those who are antipathetic to Krishna bhakti would exercise Krishna from the work. They would make him the villain, exalting the position of Duryodhana his friend Karna to that of hero. But this thesis makes a muddle of the book. in our coming talks we can analyze this point in greater depth.

But a true thinker must come to the inevitable conclusion: the greatest epic poem ever produced by humanity is the Mahāhbārata.

And its greatest theme, it’s purport, the uniting principal and conclusion of the Mahābhārata is that divine love for Sri Krishna reality the beautiful is the supreme goal of life and the highest attainment of heroes.