Value Education and Spirituality 14 – Mahabharata 8 – Draupadi – Ask not why this but how now

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. Welcome to the Value Education and Spirituality series. We are discussing based on the Mahabharata.
So, we’ll discuss on the theme of Ask not why this, but how now. We’ll discuss based on this is about Draupadi. Ask not why this, that means things go wrong in life.
And if we keep asking the why questions, we will never be able to move forward in life. But if you ask the how question, how does this happen? Or not how does this happen? How can I go ahead? How can I respond? How can I make a positive difference in this situation? Then we can come up with something constructive. So, ultimately, when things go wrong, whether we get an explanation or not to why things have gone wrong, we have to keep moving forward in life.
Life goes on and we have to go on with it. So, resentment can eat us up. And that’s why we need to keep resentment under control by which we can move onwards in life.
So, now the Pandavas had been invited for a gambling match. And in that gambling match, Yudhishthir was pressurized into competing a rigged match against Shakuni. And in that match, eventually, Yudhishthir lost everything.
And eventually Draupadi was taken and lost. And then the palace messenger, the palace attendant Pratikaman was sent to Draupadi’s chamber to get her in the assembly. Now, when he was a cultured, God-fearing person, and he realized what a horror was descending on the Kuru assembly.
It’s practically trembling. When he went to Draupadi’s presence, Draupadi asked her kindly what had happened. Now, Draupadi at that time, her period was just getting over.
And she had just, after taking a bath, dressed herself in a single cloth. So, she was just getting ready for normal activities at that time. Now, at that time, she actually, when she heard all this, when she heard that Yudhishthir had gambled, what kind of man will gamble his wife? Did he have nothing else to gamble? And when he told that he had lost everything, Draupadi became grave.
And then she spoke words of profound wisdom. She said, surely, that Supreme, the one who is the ordainer of all things, has ordained this too. In this world, bad happens to bad people and to good people.
Good people get bad, everybody gets good and bad. So, the important thing is to stick to virtue. Because those who stick to virtue are eventually rewarded.
So, therefore, ask the members in the Kuru assembly, what is the path of virtue here? Since Yudhishthir had gambled himself and lost, then, and lost himself first, then was he my master to gamble me away? Pratikaman came here and returned. Now, the assembly heard the question and nobody replied anything. And Duryodhana was enjoying the discomfiture of the Pandavas, especially Bheema who was blazing with barely controlled fury.
And he told Pratikaman, go and tell Draupadi that she herself can come and ask this question. So, now, Pratikaman went again. And when Pratikaman went and he explained to Draupadi what had happened, Draupadi said that I will surely come if the elders in the assembly tell me to.
And my question still remains. And she remained firm at the same time gentle with Pratikaman. And Pratikaman went back again.
And then, now Duryodhana got angry. He says, what happened? And then she heard. And then eventually he said that, let Yudhishthir give the order to order her.
But then he realized that what should I tell her now? He is a coward, Duryodhana said. And he ordered, he told his brother, you go and fetch her. Dushasan was already very envious like Duryodhana.
And he immediately strode into Draupadi’s chamber just as a dog might enter into a sacred premises. And as he entered, Draupadi was in her chamber. She saw Dushasan coming.
She screamed and she ran. Now, where was she to run? Her husbands were all enslaved practically. So she could only think of one protection, that was Gandhari.
So she ran towards Gandhari’s palace. But Dushasan rode and he charged after her. And he caught her by the hair and dragged her forcefully.
He said, oh, wretched man, how can I go before the assembly in a single cloth in this condition? He said, whether you are in single cloth or no cloth, now you are a maid servant of the Kurus. You must do their bidding. And he kept dragging.
Now, Draupadi was actually chastising him, rebuking him, but he paid no attention. He was insolently laughing and moving onwards. But then, when Draupadi reached there, so at that time, what happened? He actually dragged her and hurled her onto the ground in the assembly.
And Bhima had jumped up. He was furious. He wanted to pound Dushasana to pulp there itself.
But then Yudhishthir controlled him. And then Draupadi nearly got up and folded her hands in front of the elders in the assembly. She said, please forgive me, I have not offered my respects to you.
But I was not brought properly over here. And then she repeated her question. Then Duryodhana, enjoying the discomfiture, said, why don’t you ask Yudhishthir? So, Draupadi said, I don’t consider Yudhishthir at all blameworthy.
He was pressured by unscrupulous men into a gambling, which he did as a duty to his elders. It is those elders who are responsible for what has happened. This is important.
You know, when there is a predicament in which, even if it appears as if one of the family members has done something wrong, it is important for the family to stick together, especially if that family member is not innately evil or is not incorrigibly wrong. At that time, it’s important for the family to stick together. So, Draupadi defended her husband.
And then after that, the conversation went to and fro. And now nobody in the assembly could answer. He said that, how could he have gambled me when he had gambled himself away already? Now, the point here is, actually, Draupadi is using her godly intelligence very shrewdly.
She’s, after all, a Kshatriya woman. And she doesn’t overturn the patriarchal order of society that was there at that time. But she does point out firmly to them in her own way that they are all deviating from the path of Dharma.
So, she is actually using her intelligence to hold on to a technicality. The whole idea of dragging an honourable lady into public assembly to disrobe her, that itself is so scandalous that it should not even be considered. But somehow the assembly has fallen to such a degraded level that they’re not only considering, but they’re actually about to do it.
That Draupadi takes it in her own hands to somehow stop this catastrophe. It is a catastrophe that is going to besmirch not only her honour, but the honour of the whole assembly. And how does she stop it? She holds on to a technicality.
So, if the assembly had been in good sense, then they would never have allowed such a thing to happen. But somehow they were paralysed. And finally, actually, the number of events happened.
We won’t go into the details of all of them. So, when Draupadi repeated, Dushasan again dishonoured her. Bhima was about to pound on Dushasan.
But then it was stopped again. And then Vikarana replied, Oh, assembly, please reply to Draupadi’s question. And nobody replied.
Vikarana said, I’ll give my opinion. And he spoke about how the whole gambling match was null and void. And then Karna opposed that.
And when Karna opposed that, although most of the assembly didn’t agree with Karna, but still, Karna’s proximity to Duryodhana and Duryodhana’s obvious desire to go ahead with the evil plan and Dhritarashtra’s silence, it kept the remaining assembly in check. And then Dushasan proceeded to try to disrobe Draupadi. And then we know what happened.
As Draupadi realised, she had used all her intelligence to keep things in balance till then. But now she realised that she had no protection except the one supreme protection. She called out to the Lord, O Keshava, O Govinda, O Lord of the Gopis, O maintainer of the world, I am sinking in the Kuru Ocean in a bottomless misery.
Please protect me. As she called out with her hands upraised, Dushasan pulled her saree, but the saree re-expanded. It’s Krishna who manifested as her saree and protected her.
And Dushasan pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled and eventually became exhausted. And as the whole assembly was filled with tumult at this miraculous event, people praised the chastity of Draupadi and chastised Dushasan for his viciousness. And as further events transpired, eventually Dhritarashtra also realised, as inauspicious omens were seen everywhere, Dhritarashtra realised things had gone very far.
And he decided to take things in his hands. And he said, stop this. He turned to Duryodhana and said, stop, this is enough.
Then he turned to Yudhishthira and he said, he turned to Draupadi. He said that, he spoke kind words to her and he said that, actually I had called this game only to just test the skills of both the cousins. And as far as you are concerned, your adherence to Dharma is extraordinary.
And I wish to give you some boon. Please ask whatever you would like to ask for. So she first asked, let Yudhishthira be free.
He said, okay, one boon, I want to give you something more. He said that. And then, please let all my other husbands also be released and let them get their weapons also.
Because if they have their weapons, they will get everything else back afterwards. So eventually, Dhritarashtra gave them all that they had lost. Not just their weapons, but their weapons, their chariots and even their kingdom.
And then Karna, Duryodhana, Dushasan, they were shocked. Because they thought they had got a great victory. But Dhritarashtra had undone all of it.
And Dhritarashtra was after all the king. So Duryodhana could not openly oppose his father in the public assembly. He was grinding his teeth in frustration.
And what had turned out to be a wonderful success according to their idea, had now just been ruined by the old king, the lion king. So as Duryodhana was grinding his teeth in fury and frustration, at that time, Karna decided to have one last parting shot. And he said, oh, when all these great warriors, he used the word great very sarcastically, were sinking into an ocean of misery, they were rescued by a fair damsel.
I have never heard of a woman rescuing not one, but five men. This is indeed unprecedented. And he started laughing.
And the remaining Kauravas also laughed. Bhima was again so angry. So Arjuna calmed him down and said, oh brother, don’t let yourself be disturbed by the small words of petty people.
And maintain virtue. So of course, Pandavas departed with barely concealed fury, especially Bhima. But then, through all this, Draupadi emerges as the heroine in the Draupadi Vastra Handilala.
Krishna, of course, came and protected her. But along with that, we see that Draupadi was intelligent, principled, and she was deeply cultured, while everybody else had given up intelligence, principle and culture. She held on to it, the voice of sanity, in an assembly on which insanity had descended.
So, actually speaking, if we see her whole demeanor, a lesser woman, what to speak of a lesser woman? Any other human being would have been crushed in the face of such adversity. At one moment, she is the wife of the emperor of the world, she is the queen. And the next moment, she is informed that you have become a maidservant.
You have become practically like a slave. Anyone would have become shattered by hearing this collapse and the shock. But her words are very meaningful.
And they help us understand what was her thinking by which she was able to survive this catastrophe. So, he who has ordained all things has surely ordained this also. In this world, good and evil come to everyone, even those who are good.
But everybody gets the results of their activities. Therefore, the wise focus on acting according to dharma and doing the right thing. So now, the important thing is that we can also understand that there are times when things will just go wrong.
And we cannot make any rhyme or reason. Why did this happen? How did this happen? What am I supposed to do about this? So, that last question can open some gateway of light for us if we can check ourselves from getting paralyzed by resentment or frustration or dejection at what has gone wrong. So, ask not why this.
Ask how now. Why this? Ultimately, at a philosophical level, we know that it is our own past karma that is coming back to us. But at a practical level, we don’t know why certain things happen in certain ways.
And we may never know that. So, rather than straining and wasting our mental energy over some questions which may not be nearly answerable, we focus on what can be done right now to improve the situation. And that attitude will enable us to march ahead in life.
March ahead towards greater growth, greater strength. And greater capacity to face life’s atrocities, life’s injustices with dignity. So, that’s what Draupadi demonstrated.
Ask not why this, but how now.