Was Bhishma a great man?
While
watching Mahabharata the other day and discussing few characters of Ramayan and
Mahabharata with a friend, this question popped in my mind. Was really Bhishma
a great man? Yes, he did take a vow “never to get married” and “to see his
father in king of Hastinapur & to always protect the state”, he did
renounce his worldly desires and his right to the throne, but was it good? Or was
it a mistake? Did his vows and his subsequent actions throughout his life to observe
it, resulted in a worse situation?
I
asked this question to all of my contacts, (via WhatsApp Status); most of them
ignored it but the very few who did respond, were divided in opinion.
My
elder sister told, that yes Bhishma was wrong and so was Shantanu. Shantanu,
was Bhishma’s (then known as Debabrata) father. He, once saw a tribal girl,
Satyavati, and fell in love. He asked her father, her hand in marriage, but
with just one condition; King Shantanu had to ensure that the off spring from
Satyavati would be the next King of Hastinapur. King Shantanu refused this
condition since he had already declared Debabrata as the next in line to the
throne. Hence the marriage did not materialise. But the king could not take the
girl out of his mind and developed an apathetic attitude towards the daily
affairs of the state. A concerned Debabrata, soon found out the reason and went
to Satyavati’s father to ask her hand for his father. Satyavati’s father told
him his conditions for marriage. At that moment, Debabrata declared that, he
would renounce his right to the throne. Then her father asked, what if the son
of Debabrata demands his right to the throne? It was a valid argument. Then Debabrata
told, he cannot guarantee that his off springs would not claim their right to
the throne, but he can vow that he would not marry so that there will not be a
possibility of an off spring. Due to this vow he was named by the Gods as
“Bhishma” or the “awesome one”. So, as per my sister, Shantanu was bad because
he fell in love and got married at an age where he should have been looking for
a bride for his son. I disagree to my sister’s argument. At that time, it was
considered normal for the kings to have more than one wife, irrespective of his
age. Moreover, he did not send his son to find a solution to the problem,
neither did he force Bhishma to take an oath. Many would argue that, if Bhishma
had not taken the oath, the war could have been avoided. As some one had
pointed out, “he should not have left the capability of successive Kings of
Hastinapur to CHANCE”. I also disagree to this argument. At the time of taking
the oath, he naturally could not foresee that at a certain point in future,
there will be a feud inside his family for the throne.
Another
of my contacts, argued that all his actions were justified since he was
protecting the king and the throne. This again brings me back to the original
question? Did his actions bring more good than bad? Was it foolish to observe
the vows when you can foresee the state and its people getting annihilated, the
vary state you wanted to protect?
Most
of the other contacts who responded, were of the opinion that Bhishma could
have done things differently, probably to stop the war. One friend said that,
“he was a man, strong in thought but weak in action”. Another one said, that
“one should evaluate moral correctness and change your stance in case you are
on the wrong side”, i.e you should be flexible in your stance and what you are
standing for. The same friend even felt that, Bhishma was taking a revenge on
Hastinapur for not being its King. This may be a bit too harsh for someone like
Bhishma, who had voluntarily renounced the worldly desires and pleasures.
One
of my senior friends from graduation days, said that “One who can not stand for
his own right (i.e. throne) cannot stand for other’s. The day he sacrificed his
claim for the throne he planted a seed for the war”. In retrospection, the
second sentence is true, but as mentioned earlier, he could not foresee the
future. I also disagree that one who could not stand for his own right, can not
stand for others. This would not be true always, especially in case of Bhishma.
It was not that Bhishma was forced to abdicate his right to the throne. He did
it on his own, for the sake of his love towards his father. He was also strong
enough to fight for others right.
Another
of my sisters (younger sister this time), argued in totally different way. She
went into the story of why Bhishma was born and why his actions were required
in the context of the epic. So, the story goes like this. One day a group of 8 Vasus
(Astavasus) visited the Ashram of sage Vasishta. One of the Vasus’s (Prabhas)
wife liked the cow Kamdhenu, a wish bearing cow, and persuaded her husband to steal
it with the help of the other Vasus. Soon sage Vasishta found out and cursed
all of them to be born as humans on earth. All of them pleaded guilty and asked
for a softer punishment. Sage Vasishta then reduced the punishment of the 7 Vasus
so that they will die and leave the earth as soon as they are born.
Only the 8th
one, Prabhas would lead a full life as human but will be one of the most
powerful and illustrious man of his times. My sister argument was that, Bhishma
was serving the Karmic consequences of his actions in a previous birth and so
are others in Mahabharata, i.e. all the characters in Mahabharata were puppets
in the grand scheme of things and were just playing their roles. I asked then,
where is “conscience”? If all was pre planned than no one had a choice? But, in
Mahabharata, Lord Krishna himself asked Arjuna to choose, to fight or not to
fight. He told that what ever be the action will be Arjun’s choice only and
Arjun only had to face the consequences. But he must choose. Inaction is not
the way of the world, God himself explained. But God cannot have double
standards. If Arjuna had a choice, so did Bhishma. He also had a choice to
allow the dice game or not, he too had a choice to stop Draupadi’s humiliation.
But he chooses to do nothing. Does it make him bad or weak? Extrapolating my
sister’s argument, if all were predetermined, then there was no one bad or
good. Duryodhana was neither bad nor Yudhishthira was good. It was just the
actions which were bad. But we are judged by our actions in this world and in
this birth only.
Inconclusive,
I turned to one of my most favourite book, “The Difficulty of Being Good” to
find an answer. Written by Gurcharan Das, it analyses some important
Character’s of the epic in the present context. In the chapter related to
Bhishma, (Bhishma’s Selflessness, Chapter-5 of the Book), the author writes,
“It
is difficult to understand why this selfless hero did not get up in the
assembly on that fateful day of the dice game to stop the public humiliation of
Draupadi. Vidura tried, at least. Bhishma, must have known that more than
anyone else in the assembly, he could have saved Draupadi. He had the authority
to stop the shameful spectacle. Instead he sat there futilely discussing what
was dharma and what was not. One expected him to strike Dushashana to ground
when he tried to disrobe Draupadi”.
Did
he not fail here? When Bhishma replies to Draupadi, that Dharma is subtle, the
author argues that Bhishma appears to be in genuine conflict about what is
right and what is wrong in the circumstances. The author writes,
“Naturally,
he (Bhishma) views Dharma from the view point of the state policy and as the
elder statesman of the Kuru Clan, his main concern is to ensure that policies
are adopted to strengthen the interests of the Hastinapur and to preserve the
Bharata line to which both the Pandavas and Kauravas belong. He is a public
figure ad hence his arguments are cautious and legalistic. They betray an
individual so caught up in the affairs of the state that moral courage has
deserted him. Or is it perhaps that he worries about Hastinapur’s alliance with
the Gandhara and the political implications of alienating Duryodhana’s uncle
Shakuni’s powerful military state in the north west?
This
means, Bhishma always viewed the proceedings through the prism of the benefit
of Hastinapur. What is in for the state, not for himself but for the state. The
author further says that there is no easy answer to the question, or the moral
dilemma, and it is very difficult to be good. Perhaps it is also true that a
good virtue like selflessness or nishkama karma has also a limitation.
I
feel, that was the best explanation to the question. Bhishma might have lived
all his life like a Karmayogi, performed his duty without any expectation of
reward in return, but he might have, crossed a line and did not adhere to his
morals when “nishkama karma” hit a limitation.
I
posed this question to the author, Mr Gurcharan Das on twitter. Surprisingly he
replied, may be because he must have asked himself this question while writing
the book. He replied that, most of the characters of Mahabharata are ambiguous
not black and white, and probably that is why the epic is so good.
Bhishma
was a great administrator, a great fighter and definitely a karma yogi, but he
had his moments of failure. He may not be a weak person, but maybe few times
his conscience was a victim of his internal dilemma between “his duty as a
guardian of the state” and “his duty as a normal human being”. Like him, many other
characters of Mahabharat can also be weighed in the same parameters as Bhishma
and all of them at certain point in the epic, either morally failed or took
unfair means to achieve the desired objective. This makes the Mahabharat more
relatable to the present times as compared to Ramayana.
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