Once the peace negotiations fail and preparations for the war begin, the epic Mahabharata lays down elaborate rules of warfare in Bhishmaparvan. Lest anyone forget, it repeats them several times.
“A person who fights with speech should only be opposed with speech during battle. One doesn’t kill a person who has left the battlefield. A charioteer should only fight a charioteer, an elephant rider by one who rides an elephant, a horseman against a cavalryman, and an infantryman by (one in the) infantry… One is allowed to strike another according to usage, heroism, power and age, by (first) calling out, (but) not at one who is unwary or in trouble or fighting another or is looking the other way or without armor or whose weapons are exhausted. One does not hit (those who provide services, such as) charioteers, weapon-helpers, those who blow conches and beat drums…”
Sanjaya, who is narrating the action of the war to the blind Dhritarashtra, begins to rebuke those who break the rules. In this way the war correspondent becomes the epic’s conscience. He reproaches Arjuna for killing the otherwise invincible Bhishma unfairly by breaking the cardinal rule that one “doesn’t strike an enemy who is already engaged in fighting another.” As we know, Arjuna struck Bhishma when the old man was engaged by Shikhandi. The patriarch was particularly vulnerable because he was meticulously observing another rule of war – not to strike a woman or someone who was once a woman as in Shikhandi’s case.
After Bhisma’s death, Krishna incites the killings of Drona, the next Kaurava commander-in-chief, in a most deceitful manner. Like Bhishma, Drona had also told Yudhishthira how he might be killed. “I really don’t see (anyone in) the enemy who is capable of killing me in the battle. The one exception is, O king, (When I have)… cast down my weapons after hearing bad news from a man of integrity.”
Learning of this, Krishna confers with Arjuna and suggests that the only option is to employ ‘strategy’. He says : “Cast aside virtue… let a device be adopted for victory.” Arjuna does not approve of this, but everyone else does. Yudhishthira accepts the advice ‘With difficulty’. So Bhima kills an elephant named Ashwatthama, which is the name also of Drona’s beloved son, and spreads the news. Since Drona knows that Ashwatthama is invincible, he ignores the rumor and continues to inflict great damage upon the Pandava armies. Later in the day when he sees Yudhishthira on the battlefield, he asks gloomily if Ashwatthama is dead.
According to Sanjaya, “Drona firmly believed that Yudhishthira would not speak untruth, even for the sake of the sovereignty of the three worlds. Yudhishthira confirms that Ashwatthama is indeed dead, muttering ‘iti gaja’ (it’s an elephant) under his breath. The grief stricken father lays down his arms. Dhrishtadyumna, Draupadi’s brother, seizes the defenseless general by his hair and severs his head.
The epic punishes Yudhishthira instantly. Sanjaya tells us that Yudhishthira’s chariot which had always travelled slightly above the ground, now sinks to the earth. Arjuna, who had earlier been horrified at Krishna’s scheme, is now filled with remorse. When Kripa, the other teacher of the Kuru princes, recounts the scene to Ashwatthama, he says that Arjuna had wanted his teacher to be taken alive, and he regrets that he did not intervene. Drona, of course, had trusted Yudishthira implicitly thinking that “this Pandava is endowed so completely with dharma, and he is my pupil.”
The Mahabharata has a problem on its hands when the greatest upholder of dharma achieves success by telling a lie. Krishna tells Yudhishthira that a lie is permissible when it is for a greater good.
“Untruth may be better than truth. By telling an untruth for the saving of life, untruth does not touch one.”
Yudhishthira must have found this utilitarian advice very disturbing, especially as it came from God. The epic describes Yudhishthira as being torn. He is “sunk in the fear of untruth but clinging to victory.” Arjuna, whose dharmic antenna is always acute, is even more upset and he accuses his brother of deceit :
“Our Guru dependent on you... For someone who is conversant with dharma, you performed very great adharma… (Moreover) you spoke untruth in the garb of truth... we harmed our old guru, our benefactor, dishonourably for the sake of sovereignty.”
Arjuna’s verdict is clear - a crime has been committed, the murder of an innocent and unarmed man. The motive was base self-interest, the method was underhand, and the opportunity came when Drona was disarmed.
Kama becomes the next commander of the Kauravas after Drona, and the next victim of Krishna’s deceit. When asking Arjuna to wait until he has finished lifting the sunken wheel of his chariot, Karna reminds Arjuna of the rules :
“Arjuna, the brave don’t hit those who turn away their face, whose hair is undone, who are Brahmins, who seek protection, who put down their weapons, who are in difficulty, who are without arrows or armor or whose weapon is broken… Since you are brave, O son of Kunti, have patience.”
Arjuna, as we know, wavers when he hears this, but Krishna tells the dithering warrior, “Strike now… here is your chance!”
[Published with permission from Penguin Random House India, from the book
"The Difficulty of Being Good", by Gurcharan Das]
