Ultimately, the poetic language of the Mahabharata takes us to the threshold, but not the heart of experience. Words, no matter how eloquent, cannot replace experience ... Krishna's ineffable nature, paradoxical and mysterious, cannot but be understood through perhaps a journey that goes beyond any acquired erudite knowledge.
The subject of the article is the age-old debate of Krishna's tricks and deceptions and apparent lack of impartiality in the central conflicts in Mahabharata. He openly proclaims that he sides with the Pandavas and would do anything to help them defeat the Kauravas. Although he does not directly involve himself in the actions, his advice is crucial to the outcome of the war. At each turning point in favor of Arjuna, Yudhishthira, or Bhima, when each of them commits an act against the kshatriya code to beat their equally mighty rival, the story puts the responsibility squarely on Krishna's shoulder. When Arjuna kills Karna when the latter was pulling his chariot wheels from the mud, when Yudhishthira tells the first lie in his life to cause the death of Drona, when Bhima slams his mace into Duryodhana's thigh, the poems says, it is because Lord Krishna tells them to.
These plot points are sufficient for many readers and scholars to question the divinity or the moral validity of both the Pandavas and Krishna for as long as Mahabharata is in circulation. Nevertheless, plenty and more people continue to exalt the Bhagavad Gita as the ultimate guidance for behavior and dharma and Krishna as the ultimate figure of worship. People continue to feel both disturbed by all the rule-breaking and dishonorable choices attributed to Krishna in the story and compelled by the feeling that he is right --- that his example and advice are truer and more human than any moral education we have be infused with since childhood.
In some ways, Krishna's cunning, practicality, and attitude remind me of the Old Testament God. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Except Krishna is in no way straightforward. As much as the Pandavas win the war and crown, they are left with fates hardly better than the defeated and dead enemies (in some sense, one could argue that victory is worse than defeat). Krishna himself is cursed, and he does eventually pay the price of a painful and lonely death. The moral ambiguity is sophisticated beyond any religion or mythology that I am aware of, perhaps even beyond Greek philosophy. I have seen a lot of Indian scholars use the word "subtle" to describe the theology of Krishna in Mahabharata. I don't know exactly what they mean, but I would compare it to a warm and glowing ball of hot air hanging in space, emitting powerful electromagnetic rays, defying description and interpretation by words.
In our well socialized brain, all those tricks, deceptions, and "by any means necessary" practicality (to quote Malcolm X) do not bring us certainty or comfort, but we cannot deny the truth, built upon lived experience. The shock of reading Mahabharata comes, perhaps, from its fundamental difference from all other religions --- we are so used to the routine that we do not question their prescriptive nature, regardless of whether we believe in them or not. In fact, the prescriptive nature of conventional religions is illustrated in Yudhishthira's representation of dharma (never lying is included in his paradigm). Thus, the point-counterpoint debate between Krishna and the Dharma King is but one example of the internal contradictions and co-existence in Mahabharata, where everything is included.
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