(Just a bit of context: I’m an atheist, however, I do have a keen interest in religion and culture, and have studied different versions of both these great texts. I think the insights they offer into the Indian, or rather, the Human psyche, are as relevant today as they were when these texts were written. What I write is my view on these texts and their purpose, and my intention is not to offend anyone’s religious sensibilities. Also, I highly recommend the epics Mrityunjay by Shivaji Sawant and Chandrakanta by Devki Nandan Khatri, which I myself am reading right now)

I have a job with Proctor & Gamble, arguably the world’s biggest FMCG firm. At least, I have a job in theory. When the HR calls you up every week to tell you that your joining being delayed is not because of the recession and there is absolutely no reason to panic because there is a bit of restructuring going on and there is no need to panic because these things happen all the time and there is no need to panic, well, I think there is every need to panic.

Anyhow, to come to the point, I loved working for P&G during my internship. I read up on their history, saw their best practices etc. and it was an awesome experience. I felt like I was in a firm that could do no wrong, and then, I got the jolt of my life.

I found out where the soap in the soap opera comes from.

Now, I detest soap operas. I find them boring and over dramatic, and I can understand the market for them, and I know I don’t understand the appeal of a soap opera but some of them would be good nonetheless, but there is one thing I do know, that the Soap operas aren’t the biggest thing on Indian TV ever, no matter what the spin doctors say. That right belongs to one of the biggest epics of the world: Mahabharata.

Mahabharata was not a TV show. It was a cultural phenomenon. To be honest, it did no justice to the source material, but that’s because of the sheer awesomeness of the source material, not any flaw in the serial itself. Most of us are perhaps too young to remember the kind of impact it had when the show was first broadcast. The streets used to be deserted and parliamentary proceedings would be rescheduled so that the MPs could catch the episodes as they aired. Suffice to say, the nation was crazy about Mahabharata.

There were a number of reasons for this. Firstly, the Mahabharata is an awesome piece of work, the second largest epic of all times (bowing out to The Epic of Gezar), with a stellar ensemble cast of characters, each of them giants in their own rights. The plot itself was brilliant to say the least, with millions of subtle nuances underlining the character motivations and how their interactions and machinations had far reaching impacts (just as an example, consider the relationship between Krishna, Balram and Duryodhan). Each character was brilliantly portrayed in various shades of grey, with all of them portrayed equally righteous and monstrous, and there was always a certain inevitability about how events moved towards a bitter and tragic end that struck a chord with the reader. The Mahabharata is a story of dharma and filial obligations, as much as it is a story of what jealousy and greed can do to us, but most importantly, it is a discussion on what means to be human and imperfect, and contains some of the best dialogues and scenes ever written. It is also a reflection of the conditions of the Dwapar Yuga. (bear this in mind, I’ll be coming back to it)

The other great Indian epic, Ramayana, is completely different. Like the Mahabharata, it also has strong characters, a basic and driving plot, titanic forces and a resolution of the fight between good and evil, and the inherent inevitability of all things. The Ramayana however, is much more black and white than the Mahabharata. The characters do not work at cross purposes and the story is pretty linear. There is a clear distinction between good and evil, and yet, it is also explained how these values are intrinsically tied to the concept of dharma and the inevitability of fate and actions.

There isn’t moral ambiguity in the actions of the characters, and even the rakshas behave according to what is their true nature and dharma, and in a sense, have a purity of thought and actions that the characters in Mahabharata do not engage in (note: here, purity of action has nothing to do with good or evil, rather, it is about being true to one’s self. It is possible to be pure and evil and malicious at the same time). To be sure, there are scenes where the characters engage in something morally ambiguous (the killing of Bali by trickery) but these scenes tend to highlight the setting more than take away from them. (The Ramayana was set in the Treta yuga, a fact that’s quite relevant to the present discussion)

Now, this is where it gets interesting. Both of these books are said to be written in the same time period, yet there is a huge disconnect in the treatment of their subjects and the actions of the characters. However, this disconnect can easily be explained if we consider the following factors:

1) These epics were written as a part of cultural propaganda/case studies.
2) They are set in different yugas

Cultural Propoganda/Case Studies

Most of us loath case studies. Its usually because they are boring and repetitive and about as much fun as a root canal treatment, and since I’ve graduated from IIM-C and have had a root canal treatment within three months of the same, I can claim to be an expert on the matter. As one of my profs at IIM-C rightly said, one of the best case studies on the growth of family businesses and succession policies was this little book called The Godfather. It is my opinion that management education could be made vastly more interesting if all profs thought like this, and instead of Kotler, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz became required reading for marketing. Anyhow, I have this little theory (to my knowledge, no one else has claimed this) that these epics are in effect case studies.

Think about it, they talk about different facets of human behavior, contain most of the situations a person can be reasonably expected to face (or at least, could be expected to face back in 1000 BC), can be seen as a treatise on both statecraft and warcraft, and deal primarily with Kshatriyas and their Dharma. Now, bear in mind that in those times, high quality education was the right of mostly Kshatriyas and Brahmins, with the Kshatriyas being required to learn about diplomacy and correct behavior, while Brahmins studied rituals and lore. Also, keep in mind that kings and princes were Kshatriyas, and any Kshatriya student at a higher place of learning could be reasonably expected to be a leader of men when he grew up. What better way to teach and invite debate on accepted behavior than through the example of a man who was the Maryada Purushottam (an example of best amongst all men). Or for that matter, the killing of Bali (it goes like this, Bali was technically the rightful king of the vanaras, but had turned into a bit of a psycho and a despot. Sugreeva, Bali’s twin, promised to help Ram if he could help him bump off Bali and hence make Sugreeva the rightful king. Consider it from this point of view: Ram knew he needed the help of the vanaras if he was to take down Lanka, but killing Bali by trickery went against his upbringing. Another matter to consider was that Ram, although still exiled, was of royal blood and was a prince of Ayodhya, and hence, it was his moral duty to help out Sugreeva, who was of royal blood himself, and Ram’s actions would cement an alliance between Ayodhya and Sugreeva’s people in Kishkindha, but on the other hand, striking down the king of the vanaras without actual provocation could be considered an act of war).

However, if you really wanted hours of debate on the finer aspects of ownership and rights, look no further than the Mahabharata (Draupadi’s harangue against Yudhishthira: The pandavas lost themselves and became slaves first, and then lost Draupadi, but by definition of being slaves, they could not own property, and hence, could not have bet Draupadi. One can imagine Draupadi being quite vocal on the issue). It also featured a debate on the finer aspects of misinformation (Ashwathamma maro, naro va kunjaro: Ahswathamma is dead, but man or elephant, I know not), what to do when your part-rakshas step-nephew is rampaging through your army (the case of Ghatotkacha), or for that matter, what constitutes a weapon on the field of battle (the death of Karna).

Another interesting aspect is their possible use as propaganda for Arya Khatriya supremacy against the existing Dravidian cultures in south India, particularly in the case of the Ramayana. It is a theory that is gaining momentum with historians, and it is highly probable that these stories were carried with the north Indian kshatriyas and Brahmins (not pundits, because temples started gaining momentum with the Gupta periods, which was centuries away) as they explored further south, and the fact that versions of Ramayana exist in most nations of Indo-china, coupled with the knowledge that South Indian kings regularly sent their navies as far as Indonesia, it is not any stretch of imagination to assume that these works found their way into these cultures as a part of their conversion to Hinduism (or what was Hinduism back then, like many religions, Hinduism has never been a stable concept except for some core ideologies like the concept of dharma and karma and its inherent polytheistic nature).

It can also be argued that the vanaras and the richhas (the ape/monkey-men and the bear-men) could simply have been shamanistic societies that used these animals as their totems, and therefore, their dress and mannerisms would suggest their belief in kinship from these sacred animals, and therefore, Hanuman and Jaamvant could have had some basis in fact.

Different yugas

Basically, there are four yugas (Satayuga, Tretayuga, Dwaparyuga and Kalyuga). These yugas represent the degradation and decay of society and morals, and are cyclical in nature, with a calamity at the end of the kalyuga acting as a reset and the cycle beginning again from the Satayuga. It is also said that the duration of each of these yugas is directly in proportion to the purity of thought and action in them, with Satyuga being the longest and Kalyuga being the shortest, and that we are currently in Kalyuga. Now, consider the fact that these epics are set in two different yugas. The Ramayana is set in the Tretayuga, which was preceded by the Satyuga, while the Mahabharata was set in the Dwaparyuga, which was succeeded by the current kalyug. In essence, times were better in Treta than in Dwapar, people were more honest and pure of thought, and it was still possible to define people by whether their actions were righteous or not. This is the crux of the argument, that since the Ramayana and the Mahabharata were written to represent these two ages, Mahabharata is understandably darker and more morally ambiguous than its predecessor. This is also why the subject matters of both deal with wildly different topics. While Ramayana is a tale of good vs evil, the Mahabharata concerns itself more with intrigue and counter-intrigue. Ramayana represents evil by the rakshas, while in the Mahabharata, there is no true or pure evil, but rather, it is given to understand that all men are susceptible to evil through circumstances and emotions (the only notable rakshas in Mahabharata fought from the Pandava camp, while Draupadi avenged herself by washing her hair with the blood of Dushasan). Also, while the Ramayana is more concerned with righteous action and consequence, the Mahabharata builds its case through the ambiguous actions of the players (there is a case for the theory that Shakuni brought destruction upon both the entire Kaurava and Pandava clans because of his anger at his sister marrying a blind man for which he blamed the entire family. Also, consider the actions of Balram and Krishna, and how Duryodhan became the point of contention between them).

Mahabharata and Ramayana are the greatest epics of Hinduism and the cornerstone of Indian mythology and culture. It is my belief that if we are to understand the true significance behind them and understand their intended teachings, then we have to correctly understand the context in which they were written as well, and this article has been an attempt to explain that context as I see it, and to explain why there is no disconnect between the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, and how they are case studies for the examination of immortal concepts like Dharma through the ages.

(Note: It wasn’t my intention to offend anyone’s religious sentiments with this post. This post contains my personal views and nothing else. Also, once again, I’d highly recommend Mrityunjay and, if you can get your hands on it, The Golden Bough by J.G. Frazer)

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