16. Those eighteen days – Bhima slays Dushasan – A scary show to win the mental war – Mahabharata wisdom

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna welcome to the series on those 18 days today we come to the 16th day of the Kurukshetra war where things have now started moving toward the finale in the war the first 10 days Bhishma was the commander the next 5 days Drona was the commander on the 16th day Karna became the commander he was for the next 2 days the final day it was Shalya who was the commander and then for the final night Ashwatthama was the commander so Karna had been waiting for a long time for his moment of glory and he fought furiously during the 2 days when he was the commander he defeated practically all the Pandavas he defeated Yudhishthir but spared his life, he defeated Nakula he defeated Sahadeva also with Bhima he had had several tussles and it was always a very tight contest sometimes Karna getting the upper hand and sometimes Bhima now the Mahabharata is a very huge book and there are different recensions 110,000 verses makes it one of the biggest books in not one of the but it is the biggest book in human history from the ancient times it is 7 times larger than the Germanic sagas Iliad and Odyssey combined together so naturally with the Indian weather being such that the tropical climate makes things easily perishable so preserving precisely a huge book like this has been a challenge naturally the different recensions of the Mahabharata have some differences however despite these differences it is remarkable that there is a substantial level of consistency among these various recensions and of course recensions refers here to the origins of the same original book which was what the Mahabharata was Vyasadeva’s literary product and then of course there have been many regional retellings of the Mahabharata and these have been to varying degrees exact retellings of the Sanskrit epic but the point is that there are some differences in the recensions and the incident we are going to discuss today according to some versions it happens on the 17th day and according to some it happens on the 16th day more important for us than the precise day is the what we can learn from it today so the incident we will focus on is the culmination of the fights between Bhima and Dushyasana in every work of literature especially which is describing a dramatic story there are major plots and then there are minor plots and sometimes there are what you could call as something between the minor and major plots so for example the Mahabharata is primarily the story of the Pandavas and the major plots there we could say are the rivalries between Arjuna and Karna and the rivalry between Bhima and Duryodhana but apart from these major plot lines another significant plot line is the rivalry between Bhima and Dushyasana so Bhima had been forced to be a silent though enraged spectator when Draupadi had been dishonored in the Kurukshetra, in the Kuru assembly in Hastinapur Yudhishthir during that fateful gambling match had lost his brothers and himself and thus technically they were servants of Duryodhana and thus they could not oppose what Duryodhana was doing when he schemed with Karna, Shakuni and Dushyasana to have Draupadi dragged to the assembly and dishonored and Dushyasana was the person who used his hands his arms to disrobe Draupadi of course to say that he, the incident which is a horrifying incident which is often called as disrobing of Draupadi needs to be more precisely called as attempted disrobing because she was not actually disrobed it was Krishna’s mystical intervention by which her cloth became unlimited and the persecutor that Dushyasana was he became exhausted trying to tug that cloth normally pulling a cloth is not a very exhausting activity, warrior wear lots of strength to fight wars which are often to death and here you are just pulling the cloth from the body of a woman but still the cloth was so long that he kept pulling and pulling and pulling and he got tired eventually so at that time after the whole incident got over or in fact during that incident itself Bhima took some terrible vows he said that he would kill all the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra because they all had been complicit in the dishonoring of the Pandavas, of Draupadi and the dispossessing of Yudhishthira and the Pandavas among them special target for him was Dushyasana and Duryodhana Dushyasana had tried to disrobe Draupadi and he said that I will break, I will cut off the arm with which you try to disrobe Draupadi he took another fearsome vow he said I will rip open your heart and I will drink your blood and then he took a vow about Duryodhana, Duryodhana during the course of the dishonoring of Draupadi had bared his thigh while seated on a throne and he had said oh Draupadi come and sit here now I am your master so Bhima took a vow that I will break your thigh and I will kill you so these are fearsome vows, you can say even gruesome vows but the point is that the whole Kurukshetra the whole Mahabharata culminating in the Kurukshetra war has many gruesome incidents a teenage boy trying to poison his cousin, that was what Duryodhana tried to do to Bhima, to try to burn one’s own relatives alive it requires a devilish kind of intelligence with a with a horrifying lack of conscience to want to do that among various forms of death, death by burning is probably among the most painful, if people are caught in a high rise building which is on fire, anytime they prefer to jump down and die then then have their body burned while they are still living so and then of course the very act of trying to disrobe an honourable lady in public that is horrifying there is always a section of society who will be law breaking and lust is a formidable force which can pervert humans and make them act in bestial ways but generally people who are lusty will act in privacy even if a man wants to molest and violate a woman usually he will drag that woman to some private place and do something like that but if someone does that in public that means such a person has no fear of the law at all and imagine if somebody does something like that in the police station or in the courthouse that means that person is completely brazen is breaking the law in the place where the law is to be established to be enforced and worst still if you consider a police person does something like this in a police station or in a courthouse that would be a perversion of catastrophic proportions because when the protectors of society become predators then society is doomed so the Kauravas act of trying to disrobe Draupadi was of this proportion of catastrophic perversion why? because the Kuru assembly was the place where ordinary citizens were supposed to come to see justice and protection from wrongdoers and that is where the Kauravas tried to in public in front of their elders, in front of the king in front of the courtiers, in front of practically the entire who’s who of the kingdom they tried to disrobe Draupadi and it’s one thing to disrobe, it’s horrifying to dishonor any woman it’s a bestial activity but to dishonor a respectable woman who is the queen of powerful warriors this means that they were so brazen that they were afraid of nothing at all and for most of society fear of the law is essential to keep them law abiding if justice is not seen to be done then justice is as much as not done because people may see somebody breaking the law and they may not see that person being punished by the law and they may think that you can get away by breaking the law if you are powerful enough so what Dushyasan did was brutal beyond words and of course he was an instrument for Duryodhana’s evil desire but it was not just an instrument, he was an accomplice an active accomplice and so Bhima’s horrifying vows need to be seen in the light of the horrifying deeds that were done sometimes when we hear of when we have repeatedly heard of particular details like the disrobing of Draupadi and we have not heard so much about the way in which Duryodhana, Dushyasan was killed by Bhima then when we hear this latter detail because it is new and jarring it seems unconscionable however however it was a response to something that was far far far more unconscionable so this is the background to understand why Bhima was furious and Bhima had taken these horrifying vows and from the fourth day onward Bhima started getting his hands on the Kaurava brothers and killing them one by one by one the biggest single day till then had been on the 14th day when while Arjuna was pursuing Jaidrath Bhima accompanying him killed 20 of Duryodhana’s brothers and the toll started increasing thereafter and finally there was this confrontation between Dushyasan and Bhima now both of them fought furiously Dushyasan had had his moments of brilliance because he was also no mediocre warrior it was just that he was in the presence of such outstanding warriors that his being above average still made him not outstanding in that circle so he had his moments of brilliance but overall he had been out shown by the other heroes in the war field and in this day he fought furiously while Karna was destroying the Pandava armies and humiliating the Pandavas and then releasing them and it was building up toward the Karna Arjuna duel this was another duel that happened so Bhima had been fighting against various warriors and that time several Kaurava brothers headed by Dushyasan charged toward Bhima and Dushyasan sought a series of arrows Bhima countered them on this day Dushyasan’s speed and skill was such that his arrows pierced into Bhima’s body breaking his armor and stunning him jolted by those arrows, stung by the pain, Bhima grabbed the side railing of his chariot to steady himself seizing that opportunity Dushyasan sought further arrows at Bhima and it thudded into his body which I was now vulnerable because of the breaking of the armor still Bhima’s body itself was very strong and arrows which would have killed a lesser warrior didn’t have that lethal an impact on Bhima but still Bhima fell down and swooned and seeing this the Kaurava brothers who were cheering Dushyasan on started now jeering Bhima and they started showering Bhima with arrows thinking that their opponent their rival, the one who had vowed to kill them was now there as they kept shooting arrows, Bhima’s charioteer Vishoka tried to steer his chariot out of danger zone and to keep Bhima safe Bhima recovered and as he came back to consciousness the first thing he heard was the jeering laughter of the Kauravas and this laughter was similar to the laughter with which the Kauravas had taunted him while they had been dishonoring Draupadi the Kauravas attempted to dishonor Draupadi was not just out of lust Draupadi was exquisitely beautiful and Duryodhana also had his eyes on her and so did Karna they had both come to the Swayamvar seeking Draupadi’s hand but along with that lust there was also the power play Draupadi was a tool for them through which they wanted to cause pain to Bhima and at that time seeing how furious, how enraged Bhima was at Draupadi being dishonored that had given Duryodhana and his cowards great evil joy so their perverse glee was now going to come back to them at that time eventually when the Pandavas went to the forest so Bhima was powerful and regal and he walked, he had a majestic gait but at that time he was he was devastated, he was enraged but he had been thwarted he was not able to do anything so he was walking along and at that time imitating his gait Dushasan had jeered him calling cow, cow, cow now cow is a sacred animal but cow is also not a very powerful animal, cow is not like a warrior, cow is not like a lion or a tiger or a predator at all, so to have a warrior compared to a cow is especially insulting so as Bhima came back to consciousness he heard the same jeering laughter that had played and replayed hundreds of times in his head as he had remembered those horrifying moments in the Kuru assembly he got up and he looked at Dushasan and said laugh oh wicked prince while you can shoot your arrows while you can because today I am going to destroy you Bhima was expert with bow and arrows but he was fearless with mace so he picked up his mace and he started charging toward Dushasan on his chariot Dushasan shot weapon after weapon after weapon he shot a he hurled a formidable lance which was shining and seemed like a missile of doom a streak of fire racing toward Bhima but Bhima whirled his mace with such precision and power that that mace that lance that spear was shattered to pieces before it could even hurt him and then as Bhima came close enough to Dushasan that mace which he had been whirling toward the weapons coming toward him he suddenly released it and it had been moving with such force that when it came forward Dushasan couldn’t do anything Dushasan had been preparing for a mace fight with Bhima if he came very close but he hadn’t been prepared for this mace being hurled from a distance and the mace hit into him and threw him off his chariot and he fell almost 10 yards away Bhima’s chariot was coming full force forward and Bhima left off his chariot and charged toward Dushasan and Dushasan tried to get up and run but Bhima pounced on him and started pounding him pummeling him furiously Dushasan tried to fight but Bhima was too powerful and too enraged then Bhima took the arm which Dushasan had used to disrobe Draupadi and he caught it and he twisted it. This was the arm with which you caught the hair of Draupadi and saying this he twisted the arm so badly that Dushasan screamed in pain he tried to fight but there was just no fighting Bhima in this mood then Dushasan Dushasan’s arm was raised high up by Bhima and he took off he took off his sword and Bhima had been roaring in fury and Dushasan had been screaming in pain and their combined shouts especially the roars of Bhima were so fearsome that the nearby warriors were petrified even Karna was stunned into silence and inaction as he watched this horrifying drama unfold before his eyes just while everyone was watching Bhima raised his sword up and lopped off the arm of Dushasan and flung it far away as the decapitated arm with its bloodied inner part flew through the air the warriors just ran aside to get out of its way then blood started gushing out of the shoulder stem of Dushasan and Bhima bent down and picked up that blood in his arm and brought it to his mouth he said this this blood is sweeter than my mother’s milk this is sweeter than the water of the purest river this is the tastiest thing I have ever drunk and his whole face was filled with blood and then he took that same sword and he raised it high up and he brought it down straight into the chest of Dushasan Dushasan was petrified as he was already in mortal pain because of his arm being cut off so brutally but then as his chest as he knew his death was going to come he knew that nobody could save him at that moment he was horrified and then Bhima pierced his sword deep into the chest of Dushasan and killed him and Bhima got up and roared in fearsome proclamation of victory that caused nearby warriors to drop off their horses in fear and Bhima ran across the battlefield his whole face bloodied and seeing this Karna dropped his bow the warriors nearby started thinking this is not a human being this is a Rakshasa this is a cannibalistic demon who has drunk human blood it was Shalya who had to remind Karna of his duty so that Karna could overcome the shock and then Duryodhana’s brothers who were nearby who had been attacking Bhima with Dushasan were struck with fear and rage not knowing whether to flee from Duryodhana, from the slayer of Dushasan or to fight against him, they stood there as Bhima kept roaring in rage and victory, they summoned their courage and tried to avenge Dushasan and with his face bloodied still Bhima tore into them and destroyed them one by one by one right in front of Karna’s eyes though Karna was the commander he could do nothing to save his king’s brothers, Duryodhana’s brothers and as Bhima who scored a victory that was from one perspective glorious other perspective was gory so now here you might say what kind of person would drink blood how could a Pandava, how could a devotee do that, this was indeed the question that Dhritarashtra asked Bhima when the Pandavas went to meet him after the Kurukshetra war at that time Bhima told you should know oh king that I did not let that blood go down my lips I had taken a vow in anger and I had to honor that vow so he said I brought the blood to my mouth but I closed my mouth and why did he do that at all, why take such a vow first of all and then why go about fulfilling that vow, the vow was taken to show that evil actions will have consequences, those who try to dishonor and disrobe and abuse and violate honorable women or any women for that matter they need to be punished in in ways that are scary and Dushyasana’s punishment was of that category and in a war it’s not just a physical contest it’s also a mental contest and if the morale of the opponent is weakened then the defeating them becomes much easier so Bhima by this fearsome almost macabre display of anger with blood all over his face Bhima struck terror in the Kaurava camp and thereby he decreased their fighting spirit and thus the war was anyway coming to an end, Bhishma and Drona killed the end was near but Bhima by his by his scary display of power demoralized them further how can we fight against somebody who is as powerful and as ruthless as Bhima, that thought paralyzed the Kauravas not necessarily the Kaurava brothers but the Kaurava princes so by this horrifying display of rage Bhima won the mental war so in the Kshatriya culture in the culture of warfare intimidation is often prelude to the actual confrontation, each Kshatriya will warn their powers and their feats and deride that of the opponent in order to boost their own morale and the morale of their soldiers and to demoralize their opponents so that happens not just in the beginning of the war but it happens throughout the war and when one is actually having a confrontation one has to stand strong and winning the physical war is important but winning the mental war is just as if not more important and through this incident Bhima shows that just because one is devoted virtuous doesn’t mean one is going to be weak that when required even those who are devoted are up to not only fighting the mental war in the most uncompromising of terms but also winning in the most unnerving of terms Thank you Hare Krishna