Yudhisthira: The Dharma of Awareness in Participation

2013 Gregory Scott Baisden, Ph.D. | All Rights Reserved.

originally published through The Global Question | the-global-question.com

Chapter 13. Exile in the Forest.

Draupadi weeps. She says, O King, my heart burns when I think of wicked Duryodhana dwelling comfortably in our palace at Hastinapura having exiled you to the farthest
forest. Without doubt he delights in our misfortune. Seeing you squatted here on grass
while remembering your jeweled ivory throne, I feel such anguish I can scarcely behold
you: your body smeared with rough river mud when once daubed with finest sandalwood
paste; your wardrobe once costly silk, now deerskin and tree bark. How may I bear seeing
you, once tended by countless servants and now scouring the forest for food?

Yudhisthira | Dharma 2

Thus her husband Yudhisthira, leader of the dispossessed and exiled Pandava princes,
hears her sorrow and her recrimination. Just so does reactive spirit cry out against the
slights of an apparently cruel fate, and just so does reflective, considering soul listen. But
stronger in his ears rings the song of dharma.
Not so receptive, the ears of emotion-bathed senses stoked by a raging spirit. And the
kings four brothers, Draupadis other husbands, join in her sorrow and recrimination.
Bhima, prideful son of the Wind God, rails, I do not mind this austerity, but the
thought of Duryodhana and his brothers enjoying their ill-gotten gains. Why do you suffer
in silence? Draupadi is right. Time has come for us to act. What can we gain living like
ascetics. You are no yogi but a king, and should walk the paths of kings. THUS DOES
VANITY SPEAK OF REVENGE.

Arjuna, thoughtful son of Indra King of Gods, says, Duryodhana robbed you of your
kingdom. He is like a weak, carrion-eating jackal stealing away the bounty of lions. How
can you tolerate it? How can you abandon the riches and position that assured both our
virtue and our pleasure? How can you exchange duty and glory for solitude and poverty?
Are you blind to that of true value? THUS DO REASON AND PASSION SPEAK AGAINST WISDOM.
And Yudhisthira, Dharmaraj, King of Virtue, bows his head, silent, shamed in recalling
the fateful dice game in which dread and anger and pride overtook him. And yet another
memory comes as well, words of the ancient Vishnu Purana:

Yudhisthira | Dharma 3

When society reaches a stage where property confers rank, wealth becomes the
only source of virtue, passion the sole bond of union between husband and
wife, falsehood the source of success in life, sex the only means of enjoyment,
and when outer trappings are confused with inner religion then are we in
the Kali Yuga, the world of today. (Zimmer, 1946, p.15)
Kali means the worst of everything: struggle, strife, dissension, war. In the dice-play,
Kali is the losing throw (ibid.). And Yudhisthira, silent, remembers acquiescing to the
challenge of Sakuni, Duryodhanas agent, cunning in cheating at dice.
Even the twins sword-champion Nakula, master strategist Sahadeva together release
their woe: O King, only your carelessness lost us our kingdom. Only in loyalty to you did
we allow Duryodhana and his brothers to wrest away our wealth and afflict us with such
pain. At your command now we impoverish ourselves and enrich our enemies. Surely was
it folly not to kill the Kauravas then and there. Instead we meekly came to the forest. O
King has your despair lost your manliness to pleas of virtue? THUS DOES ACTION RAIL
AGAINST CIRCUMSPECTION.

Yudhisthira breathes, and his shame falls away, but not his silence, not his contemplation. Not the subtly ringing song of dharma, which some call simply Justice or Righteousness and others define as the moral order of the world (ibid., p.13-14).
Dharmaraj looks up into Draupadis eyes. Thus does balanced awareness, tempered
soul, still-pointed psyche, greet needful body, anxious emotion, mistrustful mind.
And Draupadi says, All this is due to evil schemes of sinful men. Does this not make
you angry? Why you wont rise up and destroy the Kauravas I cannot understand. Surely

Yudhisthira | Dharma 4

such response after all befallen would accord with morality. Does your discrimination fail?
THUS DOES IMMEDIATE PAIN CHASTEN AND CHIDE FARTHER SIGHT.

And most-strong Bhima adopts a conciliatory tone: The Brahmins and the people all
despise Duryodhana, and want Yudhisthira to rule. You can reclaim your kingdom, with
Arjuna and I beside you. Who can withstand us in battle? With strategy and strength, lets
win back our rights, our riches, our responsibilities (Dharma, 1999, pp.237-250). THUS
DOES FORCE ENCOURAGE VIRTUE TO IMPATIENCE.

At last the king answers with a simple nod. Yudhisthtira says, I cannot blame you for
hurting me with your troubled words. Yes, my folly delivered this calamity upon us, for I
knew Sakuni could not be beaten yet allowed myself to be drawn into the game. But you
must consider as I do the dharma, right action, the necessity and subtlety of duty that
requires of us awareness in participation. You would have me rush to redress an apparent
wrong, and I say you are correct that wrongs must be made right. But you must consider as
I do the dharma, right action, patient recognizing and understanding through witnessing
experience and offering conscious example. You would have me wrest back, righteously,
what I have lost. Have you given no thought to more than what was lost and to how it was
lost, but to why it was lost, beyond an apparent act of folly?
Consider: as Duryodhana seems bound to act out of avarice and lust and deceit, to
succumb to all vice, so am I bound to reside in patience and restraint and candor, in
service to all virtue. Such is his dharma, and my dharma, and the dharma between us. I do
not refute your complaints, nor refuse action, but have you considered that meeting

Yudhisthira | Dharma 5

Duryodhana in his schemes, participating in their unfoldment, serves as conscious

witness of vice and as conscious example of virtue, and thus as a chance, however slim, for
him to awaken in consciousness? The brothers and their wife look surprised, confused.
Would you have me first example them with war than with wisdom? However painful,
however inconvenient, when we speak of justice and what is right, I feel we must remember
what justice must serve which is wisdom and virtue and healing, ever over revenge and
despite and recompense. The brothers and their wife grow still in silence.
And so listen now to yourselves and all youve said, as I have with sorrow and with
open heart, however much reminded of pain and failure and doubt. You speak in your
pain and passion, and with vanity, of action and force and of revenge, against patience,
circumspection, and wisdom. Did I play the dice game for our enemies alone, to bring to
their awareness their avarice? Might I have played that dice game for you loved ones as well?
For in losing have we not won this time for cleansing our awareness and claiming our
clarity? In losing have we not won riches beyond all ivory thrones, sweeter raiment than
every softest silk: gifts of owning our limitations, our tendencies and traits, of bringing into
awareness our own failings.
The Kauravas must be allowed to persecute, for a time, that they may perceive their
persecution and thus overcome it, even if only, ultimately, by the hands of justice in
fratricidal war but only if necessary. And the Pandavas must be allowed to recriminate,
for a time, that they may perceive their recriminating attachment and thus overcome it,

Yudhisthira | Dharma 6

even if only, ultimately through penance in the forest and with hurtful words to their king
but only if necessary.
As Dharmaraj sheds a tear, his brothers and their wife look to one another, cleansed
and relieved.

Works Cited
Dharma, Krishna. Mahabharata: The Greatest Spiritual Epic of All Time.
Los Angeles: Torchlight Publishing, 1999.
Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization.
Princeton, NJ: Bollingen Series|Princeton University Press Angeles, 1946.