4. Those eighteen days – Duryodhana humbled? – How our mind blinds us – Mahabharata wisdom
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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. Welcome to the fourth day of those 18 days. On the fourth day, the battle began in dead earnest.
The war had now come to a point where both sides had suffered significant casualties and in the seesaw battle that was happening, the Pandavas seemed to have gained the overall upper hand. Bhima had gained significant morale boosting victories over the Kauravas and on the fourth day, Duryodhana decided to target Bhima. Again, the war started with the battle line with the main duels going along predicted lines.
Bhishma was engaged by Arjuna and the battle though fierce turned out to be more of a stalemate. The same happened with Drona being engaged with Dhrishtadyumna. Although Drona was superior, Dhrishtadyumna aided by several other forces held back Drona.
Although he couldn’t win but Drona couldn’t do much damage being hemmed in by the warriors headed by Dhrishtadyumna and Bhima charged out in full fury and on this particular day, Duryodhana targeted Bhima. He and his brothers confronted Bhima and Bhima was furious remembering all the insults that had been done to them, especially to Draupadi by the Kauravas and he started tearing apart the ranks of the Kauravas. On this day, Bhima was attacked by Duryodhana using a massive elephant division.
So, an elephant division meant that it was array of elephant warriors who all charged toward Bhima headed by a giant elephant who seemed to be just like Airavata, the celestial elephant who was the carrier of the king of the gods Indra. The attack was so fierce that Abhimanyu came to assist Bhima and Bhima tore into the ranks of the elephants. After a period of time, his attack was so fierce and the attack on him was so fierce that things became blurry.
The fight was going on wildly and Duryodhana’s forces were able to break the chariot of Bhima while the elephant division was torn down by Bhima. Bhima jumped off his chariot and charged toward the opponents. This was the opposite of what any normal warrior would do.
If the chariot broke, the warriors would either flee or at least look for some other warrior on their side on whose chariot they could rise and therefore have some kind of security and base from which they could fight. But Bhima was so powerful and so fearless that the breaking of his chariot, instead of evoking any hesitation within him, evoked rage within him and he charged towards the Kaurava army. On that day, Duryodhana was accompanied by 14 of his brothers and Bhima fell upon them one by one, whirling his mace round and round with such blinding speed that not a single one of the weapons that were hurled towards him, be the arrows or javelins or lances, not one of them could even touch him.
He just whirled around his mace so fast that all the weapons charging toward him fell harmlessly, being knocked down by the forceful and rapid swinging of his mace and with that mace just leapt upon the chariot of one of the Kaurava brothers and the brother was shocked to see Bhima appearing like death personified right on his chariot. Bhima and Bhima swung his mace on to the skull of the Kaurava brother and knocked him down and out permanently and with a victorious roar Bhima leapt off the chariot and charged towards the next Kaurava brother. Within moments, one by one by one, Bhima started dispatching the Kaurava brothers.
Duryodhana was furious and he yelled to his soldiers and warriors, kill Bhima and he himself attacked but Bhima was unstoppable. He was bent on fulfilling his vow. Before the Kurukshetra war, he had taken a vow to kill all the hundred Kauravas and he saw an opportunity to advance toward fulfilling that vow today as he attacked one by one by one.
Right before Duryodhana’s eyes, he saw his brothers being slaughtered like a lion might kill a herd of deer. Enraged, Duryodhana charged toward Bhima with his forces backing him in hundreds and thousands. Yet no one could even reach Bhima, leave alone stop him.
Instead Bhima reached them, whoever was trying to attack him and Bhima knocked all of them out and charged through them making a way like a racing animal breaking through the wilderness and Bhima one after another started killing the Kaurava brothers. Bhishma urged Duryodhana, stop Bhima or he will destroy all your brothers today. Bhishma himself was engaged in the fight with Arjuna and still he tried to assist Duryodhana.
Duryodhana fought to the best of his ability but Bhima’s force was too much. While Bhima was fighting in this way, his chariot was replaced. His charioteer Vishoka moved to a different chariot and he charged into the field where Bhima was.
Bhima had, right before Duryodhana’s eyes, slaughtered 14 of his brothers. Enraged, Duryodhana attacked Bhima with a ferocious arrow. Bhima who had been on the just ascended the chariot and was preparing to fight with his bow and arrow was struck with a fearful, fearsome arrow that knocked him out and Bhima swooned on the floor of his chariot.
Yelling, screaming in victory, Duryodhana tried to press advantage but many other Pandava forces came to counter Bhima, defend Bhima and counter Duryodhana. Within a few minutes, Bhima gained consciousness and on seeing what had happened became even more enraged and he shot eight arrows in rapid succession toward Duryodhana. The arrows were so strong and swift shot that Duryodhana was knocked out and these forces already stunned and fear struck by the attacks of Bhima became even more afflicted and started running in fear.
Seeing the chaos and seeing the sun nearing the horizon, Bhishma blew the conch shell to indicate the cessation of the hostilities for the day. That evening when the Kauravas met in their tent, Duryodhana had been treated by the physicians and with his wounds somewhat treated, he approached Bhishma and asked him, Oh, Grandsire, here I have an army headed by you and accompanied by undefeatable warriors like Drona, Kripa and Shalya and I had my hundred brothers who are all glorious warriors. How was it that our army which has not just superior warriors but also superior strength.
At the start of the war, Duryodhana’s forces were far greater than Yudhishthira’s forces. Although he had 11 Akshahunis as compared to the Kaurava, Pandava seven, if we can count all the Rakshasas in him also, the Kaurava forces almost outnumbered the Pandavas two to one and yet Duryodhana had seen his forces being routed. How is it that our army is being defeated? Bhishma took a deep breath and he said, Oh King, I have cried myself hoarse trying to explain to you the truth.
Let me repeat it once again to you. There was not, there is not and there will not be any warrior who can defeat the Pandavas as long as Krishna is with them. The side which Krishna protects, that side is undefeatable.
Let me tell you a history that I had heard long ago when my mother Ganga had taken me to the heavens. At that time, the sages along with the gods were discussing about an incident where Bhoomidevi, the goddess of the earth, being afflicted by the demoniac forces plundering her, went along with the gods to Brahma seeking help and Brahma along with all the gods who had appealed to him went to the ocean bordering the material and spiritual worlds and therein he prayed to Vishnu seeking his intervention to restore order in the cosmos and there Vishnu promised to descend in the Yadu dynasty. The being whom you dismiss as just as an ordinary Yadu prince is actually that supreme Vishnu.
He is undefeatable. All those who oppose him, all those who fail to understand him, they are all of a demoniac disposition. You, oh Duryodhana, have heard about his prowess and have seen his prowess in the universal form that he displayed.
The form that you dismissed as mere magic because you do not understand or accept his prowess, I consider you to be demoniac too. You are selfish and blinded by your selfishness. It is because you are fighting against the supreme Vishnu that you cannot be victorious.
On hearing Bhishma’s words, Duryodhana fell silent. He started thinking, could Krishna really be the supreme? Even if there was a supreme and that question was open to debate. Although Duryodhana knew that there are gods and one could appease them to gain specific powers, he was unsure about whether there was a supreme being.
Even if there was a being, such a being, would that be a person, not just an impersonal force? And even if it were a person, how could that person be Krishna who was after all a Yadu prince? And even if that person were Krishna, why would that supreme be against him? After all, was he such a bad person? All the sages said that he was a bad person, but he always did his duty. He tried to rule his citizens virtuously. He was only seeking the kingdom that was his due.
Thinking in this way, Duryodhana became pensive. In a subdued tone, he asked Bhishma, please tell me more about Krishna. The defeat on successive days and the wounds that he had sustained had decreased Duryodhana’s pride, at least temporarily.
And the arrogance that normally blinded him had thinned. And he asked this question. Bhishma was pleased in his heart to get the opportunity to glorify his lord.
Bhishma was a great devotee of Krishna and he jubilantly started speaking the various pastimes of Krishna. He described how even as a infant, while Krishna was among the cowherds in Vrindavan, he had defeated and destroyed a series of demons who had come in disguise in various deceptive and dangerous forms and sometimes in attractive and seductive forms. Yet, Krishna had defeated all of them.
What to speak of defeating the demons, Krishna had even thwarted the king of the gods when he had tried to destroy the Vrajavasis. Krishna as a mere seven-year-old boy had lifted the Govardhan Hill for seven full days and nights on the little finger of his left hand. As Krishna’s glories were extolled by Bhishma, all the warriors on the Kurukshetra war field, on the Kaurava side became silent.
Knowing how learned Bhishma was and the conviction and devotion with which Bhishma was praising him, the warriors started thinking maybe Krishna was really God. Duryodhana silently signaled the end of that day’s meeting and went back to his tent. As he laid down to sleep, as he moved toward his bed to sleep, he started thinking, if Krishna is really God, then there would be no harm in bowing down to him.
Maybe his fortunes would change. Thinking thus, he turned in the direction of the Pandava camp, the direction where Krishna’s camp was known to be located as per his spies, and he bowed in that direction. Then he climbed onto his bed and slept fitfully.
The next morning when he awoke, Bhishma’s words were still echoing in his ears. But along with that and superseding that was his own craving. He had come so far.
He had tasted sovereignty over the kingdom for the last 13 years. How could he lose it? If it had not been for his father being blind, he would already have been the king. The kingdom was his right.
He had already fought so much to gain that kingdom and he couldn’t give it up now. He thought the very fact that so many of his schemes had succeeded indicated that maybe Krishna was not God. If Krishna had been God, how would he have been able to exile the Pandavas who were clearly devoted to Krishna? Thinking thus and rationalizing to himself, Duryodhana led his forces on the charge on the fifth day.
So, here we see how Bhishma’s words and his combined with Duryodhana’s own experiences created some kind of illumination within Duryodhana. But it didn’t last unfortunately. Why not? Because Bhishma, though he was devoted, his devotion hit against a wall and that wall was Duryodhana’s obstinacy.
Although that had subsided a little bit, it resurfaced again. We don’t see with our eyes. With his eyes, he had just recently seen the sheer magnitude of the prowess of the Pandavas.
But we don’t see with our eyes, we see with our mind. The world shows us many things. Among the many things that are seen by our eyes or about which information comes into our eyes, what we focus on is based on the desires in our mind.
Sometimes our desires within us can dominate us so much that not only do we see selectively among the various things shown by the, we’ve seen to the eyes that we even see deceptively. We downplay or deny certain things which are actually visible to the eyes and we focus on other things. So, our eyes can blind us to our eyes.
Sorry, our eyes can be blinded by our mind. We may have some experience like of this when say we are driving and are in great anxiety. Now, we are supposed to go to a particular address and the address notification might be right in front of us.
But we are looking here, there, driving up and down, not finding it because we are blinded by our anxiety. Or if we are trying to pack something for a urgent journey and we are trying to pack a suitcase and we’re looking for something and that’s right in front of us. But we search everywhere, we can’t locate it.
And if somebody points it out, we say, how could I missed it? We missed it because our mind was filled with anxiety. So, our eyes can blind us. Our eyes can be blinded by our mind.
What our eyes see can be overshadowed by what our mind wants to see. That was the predicament of Duryodhana and that blindness was what led to his destruction. Dhritarashtra was blinded physically by his eyes.
Duryodhana was blinded by his mind. And thus the father-son duo led the whole dynasty to destruction. We’ll continue tomorrow.
Hare Krishna.