18. Those eighteen days – Duryodhana defeated, – Is it unfair to unfix a fixed match? – Mahabharata wisdom

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Welcome to the last day of this series on those 18 days where we have discussed the events on each of the days of the Kurukshetra war and the lessons that we could learn from them today we will discuss the climactic battle on the 18th day that is the battle between Bhima and Duryodhana on the 18th day the Pandava troops were upbeat and the Kaurava troops were demoralised their depleted ranks tried to fight under Shalya who fought to the best of his capacity but Yudhishthir soon killed him and Shakuni was killed by Sahadev as he had vowed and seeing practically all his warriors and almost entirely all his soldiers killed, Duryodhana fled he went and hid under a lake using his mystic power to stay there.
The Pandavas discovered him and challenged him to come out for a final fight. He was very sarcastic and he said initially the Pandavas said why are you hiding here like a coward Yudhishthir primarily called out to him come out and do your duty as a warrior fight. You were the person who caused this war and it is because of you that so many warriors have died now why are you hiding from the war that you started.
Duryodhana his pride angered said I am not hiding I am just tired and I am resting you also rest and in due course I will come and fight you. Yudhishthir said that we have all rested enough now don’t give any excuses come out and finish this war that you started. Duryodhana replied everyone that I lived for, all my friends have died Karna, Shakuni, Dushasan.
I have no desire for the kingdom. Take it I will reward it to you. Yudhishthir didn’t miss the note of sarcasm in his voice and he said Duryodhana you have no right to give this kingdom because it was never yours to give you are the person who caused this war by your repeated atrocities if you really wanted to give a kingdom give the kingdom.
Why did you reject Krishna’s proposal by saying that you would not give enough land even to put the tip of a needle through do not be a coward and avoid the war that you have started and Duryodhana said that I am alone, I am weaponless, I am armourless and you are many I can fight you but how will it be a fair fight Yudhishthir replied it is you who remember fairness when you had ganged up with several other warriors to kill 16 year old Abhimanyu yet I will grant you a fair fight. Come out and fight with whoever you choose. If you defeat even one of us we will all accept defeat and you will be the king Krishna looked with concern at Yudhishthir Duryodhana was an extremely powerful mace fighter and practically no one could defeat him.
Maybe Bhima could defeat him but even that was not sure Bhima was stronger but Duryodhana was better in skill he had been trained by Balaram who was by far the best mace fighter. So at that time Duryodhana came out of the water and he said I do not care with whom who among you I fight with I can defeat all of you. Just wait for an hour and all of you will be destroyed choose whoever wants to come let that person come one by one and fight with me I don’t care.
Now it was because of his arrogance that Duryodhana didn’t choose a weaker opponent he hoped that Bhima would fight because he had longed to kill Bhima and Bhima left forward and he said yes I will destroy your pride and I will end your life today Balaram appeared at that time and all the assembled warriors offered their respects to him and then as he heard quickly the narrative of what had happened while he had gone on pilgrimage and he along with all the warriors went toward Simant Panchak that is a place where Parashuram had performed austerities it was a very secret place and they had decided to have a battle over there. The warriors formed a circle and in the middle of it where Bhima and Duryodhana Bhima hit his base with such force on the ground that the earth seemed to shake Duryodhana raised his fist shaking it forcefully glaring with unbridled hatred at Duryodhana at Bhima. Soon the fight began.
The celestials assembled in the sky to watch this climactic fight as both of them kept fighting soon Duryodhana’s superior skill started giving him the upper hand Bhima hit him with repeated force repeatedly with force and yet Duryodhana would block or dodge or otherwise defend himself and he was counterattacking and several times he hit Bhima severely Duryodhana also landed in a few blows but the Pandavas could clearly see that Bhima was getting battered eventually Duryodhana hit Bhima so severely that Bhima was shaken although he did not show himself being shaken and Bhima swung his mace and hit Duryodhana so forcefully that Duryodhana was knocked off his feet and hurled quite some distance away. Now when Duryodhana had hit Bhima, he hit him straight on his forehead and Bhima started bleeding and Duryodhana had expected that Bhima would fall Bhima would be so wounded that he would not even live or even if he lived he would be severely injured and Bhima was wounded but Bhima’s destroyed face showed no pain at all and he kept himself ready to fight and that shook Duryodhana, it took him aback what kind of opponent is this, I hit such a blow and nothing happens and that’s why he did not follow that attack and seeing Duryodhana’s temporary pause Bhima took that opportunity and hit Duryodhana as Duryodhana fell to the ground he initially screamed in pain as he was hit but as he got up and shook off the dust he found he was utterly uninjured and he started smiling the sadistic delight and he started sneering Bhima was shocked, that blow had been big and forceful enough to actually cause a hill to break apart into pieces, how had Duryodhana remained utterly unscathed Arjuna approached Krishna and he said, Krishna what do you think will be the outcome of this fight, who do you think is superior Krishna thoughtfully replied both of them are more or less evenly matched but while Bhima’s superior strength can match Duryodhana’s superior skill in normal times these are not normal times why were they not normal times the previous night Gandhari had come to the camp when she had heard from Sanjay how all her sons had been killed except for Duryodhana, she thought that I will keep him alive some way or the other she gave him benediction by which his entire body all the parts of the body that would be vulnerable in a mace fight they were invulnerable his body had become tougher than mountain nothing could damage it, nothing could destroy it and Krishna said because of Gandhari’s blessing Duryodhana has now become undefeatable that has given him an unfair advantage now to understand how unfair this advantage was let’s compare this to a cricket match normally in a sports like cricket the bowler bowls and the batsman the bowler sends the ball and the bowler has to somehow get the batsman out and the batsman has to score runs the way the batsman may get out is the batsman may be bold or the batsman may be caught or the batsman may run out if the bowler is going to get the batsman out then there are three ways getting caught, getting caught suppose a particular batsman gets a blessing there is a change in the rules of the match by which the batsman will never get out that means even if the batsman misses the ball, the stumps are shattered all three stumps fall, still the batsman is not out even if the batsman blocks the ball with his feet, still the batsman is not out even if the batsman hits the ball and somebody catches then the batsman is not out on the other hand, there is no such change of rules for the bowler, the bowler bowls and when the bowler is hit, it can be a boundary, it can be a sixer and now the bowler can go on bowling and bowling and bowling and bowling and it’s just a match that the bowler can’t win no matter what the bowler does the bowler may bowl the best spell of their entire life leave alone their entire life, the bowler may bowl the best spell in the history of cricket and yet the bowler has no chance to win at all, the bowling is laborious work, actually it’s far more exhausting than batting run and hurl the ball with great speed again and again and again now as the bowler is bowling and the batsman is never getting out when the batsman is hitting the bowler is getting exhausted this was the predicament of Bhima Bhima was doing everything in his power but the whole basis of mace fighting is that using the mace blows, you injure the opposite person, now Bhima broke the armour of Duryodhan very quickly Duryodhan also broke the armour of Bhima during the course of the fight but once the armour is broken the body is normally vulnerable and the body’s vulnerability is the opportunity for either side to win but if the body is rendered invulnerable, how can one possibly win so a player will become exhausted, so Bhima was getting exhausted and he was also getting wounded because Duryodhana was hitting him and Duryodhana’s blows were hurting him whereas Bhima’s blows were not hurting Duryodhana Bhima had hurt Duryodhana and he had screamed in pain it was more from the severity of the blow and anticipation that he would be injured than actually he was injured he was hurled through the air and that was alarming but when he fell and looked at his body he was unmoved, wounded now Duryodhana hit Bhima several times and twice he hit Duryodhana he hit Bhima so severely that a lesser warrior would have immediately killed him somehow Bhima sustained those moves and kept fighting but it was a match with Bhima in one sense destined to lose it was fixed against him so that he could never win and just by the power of time and the moves that he would sustain eventually he would lose to go back to the cricket metaphor when Duryodhana hit Bhima repeatedly it’s like the batsman when the bowler is bowling, the batsman is using the bat to hit the ball back and hit the bowler again and again so the bowler is getting battered, not only the bowler is exhausted by the ball being smashed to the boundaries but the bowler is getting wounded by the ball being hit so similarly Bhima was at one level hearted completely he was not able to wound his opponent, he was getting wounded what was he to do? so this was a fixed match and it was unfairly treated toward Duryodhana, so now if Bhima had to have a realistic chance to win he had to unfix the match and Krishna is always the protector of his devotees, so Krishna knew what Gandhari had planned and just as earlier when Bhishma had got five arrows to kill the Pandavas Krishna had asked Arjuna to go and get those five arrows from Duryodhana so similarly Krishna decided to intervene and he intervened himself Gandhari had arrived at the Kaurava camp and she had told Duryodhana that you bathe and come to meet me in the condition in which you were when you were born now in cultured society you may not use word like completely unclothed end word for that, so Krishna said come in the way in which you were naturally born Duryodhana was a little puzzled but he said ok my mother if that’s what she wants I’ll do that so he went to bathe in a nearby river and at that time as he was returning by he saw Krishna over there he said what is Krishna doing over here and Krishna started laughing he said Duryodhana where are your clothes he said actually my mother, Duryodhana was himself embarrassed and when he saw Krishna laughing he became even more embarrassed actually my mother has told me to come to her like this yeah I mean she said that come in the way you should, that doesn’t mean that you should even expose your private parts, at least cover those just put a loin cloth around your private parts and Duryodhana thought and he said ok that makes sense so he put a loin cloth around his private parts and he came to meet Gandhari, now Gandhari by her mystic powers she would plan to make Duryodhana’s body invincible, she had performed great austerity in general austerity means not indulging in pleasure even when we can, so just seeing the world at one level is pleasure the eyes we can see so many attractive things so Gandhari had voluntarily accepted blindness when she had been married to a blind man Dhritarashtra and she had put a blindfold on her eyes, cloth to cover them and she never removed them, she never saw even for the few times when it was removed while she was bathing or she was replacing the cloth but this time when Duryodhana said yes I am here she removed her blindfold and at the same time she opened her eyes and she looked at Duryodhana and all the mystic powers that she had accumulated by her austerities not just by accepting voluntary blindness but by the many other austerities she had performed during the course of her life, she was a religious lady although she unfortunately happened to be on the evil side and she was attached to people who were evil but still she had powers and she invested all those powers in her eyes and she glanced at Duryodhana, she made his body entirely invincible and then as she was looking over his entire body he suddenly noticed that loincloth, he said what have you done I told you to come the way you were born actually Krishna told me to put this loincloth around me Gandhari felt dejected, she had done her best she had invested all her mystic powers and now she couldn’t do that again she said my desire was to make your entire body invincible now however that part of your body will remain vulnerable now initially Duryodhana had not been very sure about whether Gandhari’s protection would even work or not but when he had seen how he had been utterly unheard by Bhima’s deadly blow, he became delighted he had just been given the winning card and now although he knew that the portion around his thigh was vulnerable, he didn’t bother because according to the codes of war codes of mace fighting, one is not supposed to hit below the waist and when the match was about to start Duryodhana had told Yudhishthir you are celebrated as Dharmaraj, you know the codes of Dharma so you should be a referee and make sure that nobody violates those codes, that was like a coded way of saying that you should make sure that Bhima doesn’t hit me on the thighs so now if we consider that Duryodhana had got something extraneous which had made the battle tilted toward him, biassed toward him then for restoring fairness in a match that had unfairly favoured one person, something had to be done and Krishna had made a two-step plan to restore fairness to a match by countering the unfair advantage with the opposite part he had got, so Krishna initially ensured that the portion under his thigh was the portion below his waist around Duryodhana’s thigh was vulnerable and now as Arjuna and Krishna were discussing Krishna told Arjuna that because Duryodhana has an unfair advantage, Bhima needs to use the appropriate strategies while fighting wicked men enemies who have unfair advantages even unfair strategies can be used, in fact Indra used famously unfair methods to defeat Virochan and Vritra the demons who had otherwise been terrorising the gods and even the universe at large Krishna gave precedence also and understanding Krishna’s words Arjuna caught Bhima’s eye as he was circling at a distance and while they were he was fighting with Duryodhana and Arjuna tapped his thigh and he understood, this must be some plan of Krishna Bhima himself had been pondering how can I win this match Bhima had been hit twice, deadly blows and he was fast weakening, although he kept an utterly stoic demeanour showing no pain at all but he was in pain he was diminishing in strength he knew he couldn’t fight for very long and although Duryodhana had been battered he was unaffected so although he was exhausted he was not wounded so Duryodhana had a big advantage for him, as they kept fighting again, slowly but surely Duryodhana seemed to gain the upper hand as in this round they kept fighting and Bhima using an opportunity swung himself round and hit in a full blow Duryodhana but Duryodhana expecting that move leapt up now when he leapt up as Bhima’s blow swung, now what happened was that Bhima’s blow exactly hit Duryodhana on his thighs so an avasthan or the specific move by which one shifts out of position and leaps up and dodges the blow so in this case Bhima hit Duryodhana on the thighs and such a blow Bhima’s mace was so powerful that so heavy in fact that it took three men to even lift it or to speak of actually wield it and Bhima had charged forward so he was rushing forward and he had the force of both his mighty arms and then all that combined force Duryodhana on his thighs Duryodhana’s thighs cracked everybody could hear it, it was like a thunderbolt cracking a tree, Duryodhana shrieked in pain and fell to the ground breathing, it was clear to everyone that the battle was over, Bhima celebrated his victory Duryodhana although he was in pain he was incensed, he said you have won only by unfair means, do you think I didn’t notice when Arjuna signalled that you should, when signalled touching his thigh it is only because of this this wicked Krishna that you have forgotten the course of morality it is only because you have fought unfairly have you won this war, there is no glory in your victory, there will be only infamy I will attain heavens because I have fought heroically and have died a hero’s death whereas you will be condemned forever at that time even the gods in the heavens seemed to agree with what Duryodhana was saying and Krishna at that time spoke calmly and he said oh Duryodhana you blame me now but it is I who came to you to ask for peace on the most accommodating terms why did you reject it at that time where was your sense of fairness at that time when you refused to give the Pandavas their fair share of the kingdom where was your sense of fairness that you ask for now when you rigged the gambling match and stripped Duryodhana of his kingdom was it out of fairness that you tried to poison Bhima, was it fairness because of which you tried to burn the Pandavas along with their aged mother alive was it out of fairness that you along with five other warriors ganged up against Abhimanyu and killed him so as Duryodhana heard this he remained defiant, he paid no attention but it’s important here to note that what had Bhima done Bhima, to go back to the cricket bowling example what can a bowler do if a match is rigged so that the batsman never gets out maybe the only way is to get the batsman retired hard bowl at the batsman’s body and you are the batsman normally that’s not fair but in an unfair match, what’s fair so Bhima did what he had to do and we see that although the match was unfairly biassed against Bhima Bhima did not choose to attack below the thigh as his first option Bhima knew that so Krishna also spoke and he said because of your arrogance in disrespecting the great sages you were cursed to have your thigh broken Bhima had only honoured the word of the of the sages, so Bhima could very well have used this excuse, I am an instrument for the actualisation of the sages curse but he did not do that he did not choose that as his first course of action Bhima could have said that I have taken a vow to break your thigh because this was the thigh you invited Draupadi, he had bared his thigh and said you come and sit over here Draupadi so he said I have taken a vow to break your thigh and I will do that, Bhima’s plan had been to defeat Duryodhana fairly and he had tried to the fullest extent, his plan was I will defeat Duryodhana fairly and then I will break his thigh but when the match had been unfairly biassed against him he did what he had to do so if you look only at the immediate picture yes what Bhima did seems outrageously unfair but if you look at the bigger picture then we see Bhima did what he had to do, Bhima had to survive and win in a match that was unfairly biassed against him, so law codes or war codes cannot be seen in isolation from the overall way the war has been fought and Bhima in this way illustrates although he was powerful he illustrates his submission to Krishna’s supreme wisdom and the Mahabharata’s great virtue is that it is throughout the whole Mahabharata is motivated by the question what is dharma and dharma is subtle, dharma is sukshma, it is not easy to understand and the Pandavas choices at various times can seem unfair Bhima’s choice in hitting Duryodhana below the thigh can seem definitely unfair but it is not what is dharma, dharma is not just legalistic following the rule of the law to the letter dharma is fulfilling the purpose of the law and the purpose of the law is ultimately that the virtue should rule those who are vicious should be sidelined and neutralised otherwise they will spread adharma in the world, the Pandavas were following dharma because their purpose was dharmic and that dharmic purpose how to fulfil it in the real world when fighting against people who are vicious who have repeatedly exploited others who have no sense of ethics, how to function in the real world is demonstrated by the controversial incidents of the Mahabharata, the Mahabharata is a book that offers us real guidance in real life, not that we treat this as a licence for us to play hard and fast with any and every rules but that we don’t become so rigidly fixated on the rules that we forget the purpose of the rules we remember the letter of the law but more important than that we remember the purpose of the law this is a lesson that we can carry among the many other lessons that the Mahabharata is ready to teach us, so in this series of those 18 days, we just took some small incidents from the Mahabharata and we analysed some of the wisdom that we can gain from it the Mahabharata is an oceanic book and there is an oceanic wisdom that can be learned from it I hope that this series will inspire you to explore the wisdom of the Mahabharata, the wisdom of the epics, the wisdom of the sacred texts that formed the Vedic canon and with this we conclude the series I wish all of you auspicious journey in your life guided and empowered by the wisdom