6. Those eighteen days- Duryodhana in denial – The proud fall – but pride doesn’t – Mahabharata wisdom

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Welcome back to the series on those 18 days. Today we go to the next day, the sixth day.
Now, during the Kurukshetra war, various warriors had claimed that they would be able to overcome the opposite warriors in a very short period and they would gain victory not only over particular opposite warriors, but over the entire opposite army. So, Karna had given an estimate and that to Bhishma was such an unrealistically inflated estimate that Bhishma had scornfully rejected it. And at that time, Karna feeling insulted and belittled by Bhishma retorted that I will not fight as long as Bhishma is the commander because if an army wins the war, the commander gets the credit and because Bhishma has refused to give me, recognize my contribution, my ability, so I do not want to give him credit for the victory that I will bring for Duryodhana.
So therefore, as long as Bhishma is the commander, I will not fight. Duryodhana was caught in a difficult situation because he knew that Karna was much more devoted to him, faithful to him than was Bhishma. And for fighting, he knew Karna would have a much stronger spirit of fighting against the Pandavas than would Bhishma who he felt because Bhishma was affectionate to the Pandavas and therefore Bhishma might not fight wholeheartedly.
At the same time, Bhishma was by far the most expert and most experienced warrior not just on the Kurukshetra war but practically on the whole earth. So therefore, he didn’t want to lose Bhishma. He had already appointed Bhishma as commander of his army.
So when Karna refused to fight, he accepted Karna’s refusal and then Bhishma fought leading the Kauravas. Now on the Pandava side also, Arjuna had made some estimates of how soon he would be able to defeat the opposing army. When the actual war started, it was a seesaw affair.
On the first day, the Kauravas got the upper hand. Second day, the Pandavas got the upper hand and things kept changing. But none of the estimates by any of the warriors turned out to be realistic.
The opposition for the Pandavas by the Kauravas and for the Kauravas by the Pandavas turned out to be much stronger than what either side had estimated based on their proclamations. And at one level in Kshatriya culture, there is a spirit of proclamation for intimidation. There are mind games which are fought and if the opponent is demoralized, then it’s much easier to defeat them than if they are in their best morale.
So therefore, we needn’t take the initial assessments by either side warriors as objective evaluations. They could also be contextual proclamations for boosting their morale and for demoralizing their opponents or striking fear in their opponents. The key point which I am driving towards is that as the war went on, it became tougher and tougher and soon became clear that how long the war would go on, nobody could say.
Who would win was very difficult to say. Although Bhishma had declared that the Kauravas would not win as long as Krishna was on the side of the Pandavas. But that did not mean necessarily that the Pandavas would win.
Because the Pandavas also were faced with formidable opposition and Bhishma had not yet been defeated, Drona had not yet been defeated and these were foremost in an array of many other formidable warriors also. So everyone had to re-evaluate their estimates. And among all those who had to re-evaluate, Duryodhana had to do the maximum re-evaluation.
Duryodhana had arrogantly dismissed Krishna’s peace proposition by saying that he would not give even as much land as was required to put the tip of a needle through. Why had he been so arrogant? Because he had been so confident. Of course, what he thought was confidence turned out to be overconfidence.
He had thought that with his superior warriors and superior number of forces, he would easily crush the Pandavas. But it turned out that they were far from easily crushing, whether with difficulty also, whether he would win or not was unclear. And yet he kept fighting and leading his army, not officially as the commander, but obviously he was the son of the king, he was the prince and he was the person who was overall in charge.
Duryodhana himself was a good fighter. You could say he was in some ways a great fighter with respect to the mace and with other weapons also he was a good fighter. And for an army, few things are as disorienting, disturbing as to see their head being defeated.
Now, the commander is at one level the functional head of the army. The king is the overall head, the official head. Either of them, if they are defeated, then that can be very demoralizing for the army.
In fact, many times one army might have far superior forces, superior in weaponry, superior in number, superior in say relative position. One army might be on the higher level and another army on the lower level. But if somehow the commander or the king is defeated, is arrested or was killed, then that can leave the remaining soldiers not just leaderless, but also spiritless.
And then they may all fall like a pack of cards. They may run helter skelter in fear or even if they stay and fight, they may just not have the will to fight and they might be overpowered. This can happen even in sports, for example, when a top batsman who is the lead performer in a team with others also who are good performers, who are okay performers, not poor, but okay.
But if that top performer suddenly gets out, then the whole side may collapse like a set of dominoes. So, the point which we are driving toward is that the fall of the king can be quite demoralizing for the whole army. And if the king falls, even if the king is temporarily defeated, that is humiliating for the king because the king wants to show to the whole army that I am so powerful, I am so illustrious that I can defeat everyone.
And yet if that king becomes defeated and especially the king is defeated by not such a big warrior on the opposite side, then that is even more difficult to bear. So, the Kavaravas and the Pandavas when they were fighting, Duryodhana was time and time again parted by the Kavarava forces. We do know that Duryodhana was defeated once by Bheema and Ghatotkacha, that was second day and again he was defeated by Bheema.
And on the sixth day, he encountered his third defeated hands on him and that was for Bheema. For Bheema, it was a matter of celebration and for Duryodhana, it was a matter of shock, dismay, humiliation, mortification, agony. And when he was defeated thus for the third time, he just couldn’t comprehend what is happening.
How can I be defeated like this? So, in general, whenever somebody is proud in the sense of being arrogant, then they overestimate themselves. And it is said that better to overestimate your enemies than to underestimate them because then we will be better prepared. But it is better to underestimate oneself rather than overestimate oneself because again, we will take due caution if we have underestimated ourselves.
So, underestimating oneself does not mean disrespecting oneself. It does not mean not having self-confidence. It just means that confidence is complemented with caution.
And when we talk about pride, the word pride can sometimes have a positive sense of honour that be honourable. So, a team which has lost all the matches, which has lost the series, may still fight on the remaining matches or match and then we say we are playing for pride. And we don’t want to be whitewashed completely.
We don’t want to say lose 5-0. Even if it is three matches lost, still we will try to play the remaining two matches. That is what pride.
So, there the word pride is used in the sense of honour. And those who have a sense of honour, that sense makes them behave honourably and not given spinelessly or just capitulate, just accept, abject defeat or surrender. So, pride if it is used in the sense of honour, it is positive, it is healthy.
It inspires one honourable actions. But pride in the sense of arrogance is unhealthy. It leaves one unprepared to face the actual fight and to even accept the reality of defeat after one has been defeated.
So, even when one has been outsmarted or overpowered, pride in the sense of arrogance keeps one in denial. It was Duryodhana who lived in such denial. So, his pride was in the form of arrogance.
And as is the well-known saying, pride cometh before a fall. So, whenever there is proud, when somebody is proud, that means they place themselves at a very high level. And they are not deserving of being at that high level.
And therefore, they were knocked down by the storms of life, by the tests of life. So, we all have a particular level at which we can function well. And if we try to go at a level higher than that, then we will be overpowered, we will be knocked down.
Now, taking that well-known saying pride cometh before a fall, I would like to nuance it a little bit. When we say that pride is followed by a fall, what exactly falls? It is actually the proud may fall, but their pride doesn’t fall. Or to put it another way, they may externally fall from their superior position, but that may not and that frequently does not change their internal conception of who they are and where they are meant to be.
So, pride refuses to learn. Even when life is teaching that lesson very forcefully, very graphically, with undeniable force, but still one may live in denial. That is the blinding potency of pride.
So, Duryodhana went through this situation. We will talk about Duryodhana in the later sessions also. But suffice it to say over here that Duryodhana’s mind was so devilishly contaminated by pride in his own presumed power and position and envy toward the Pandava’s actual power and position that it completely distorted his perception.
When we are proud, we don’t just look at who we are, we imagine who we are going to be or we imagine that we already are better than what we actually are. And in any situation, pride can actually backfire. Because if a person who is too proud, if they try to lift, if they have the capacity to lift say 30 kg or 40 kg, 50 kg weight and if they try to lift 100 kg weight just to show off to others, well, that would be very dangerous.
It will crush them. So, with respect to physical weights, we can easily understand that overestimating is going to be injurious. But with respect to life’s challenges, when the challenges are not so easily mathematically measurable, then we may not understand that we are overestimating ourselves.
So, Duryodhana’s mind always found an excuse to justify everything that he did wrong and it tried to give a positive spin even to times when his wrong actions led to terribly wrong results. But he continued on. Perhaps the most graphic incident of this, how the proud may fall but the pride inside them does not fall, that comes in the section of the Mahabharata when the Pandavas are in the forest.
Although Duryodhana has exiled the Pandavas, disposes them of all their wealth, still he is not satisfied. Envy doesn’t get joy in one’s own position. Envy gets joy only in seeing the misery of one’s objects of envy.
So, he decided to go to the forest to flaunt his wealth and his power in front of the Kauravas, in front of the Pandavas who he knew were living great austerity and poverty in the forest. But while he was trying to flaunt his power, he provoked the Gandharvas and they defeated and arrested Duryodhana right in front of his soldiers and the royal ladies, all of whom he had been trying to impress by marching against the Pandavas. So, Duryodhana felt so humiliated by this defeat that he could hardly control himself and then when Bhima and Arjuna came at the request of Yudhishthira and freed him, his humiliation knew no bounds.
He grudgingly thanked them but to be at the mercy of those whom one was trying to subordinate and crush and actually show no mercy, that was unbearable turning of the tables for Duryodhana and he felt so mortified that he wanted to commit suicide. He told Dushasan to take up the throne on his behalf and become the heir for his father and he decided to fast to death. But if someone doesn’t have that inner detachment, if one still has that obstinate desire to want to enjoy, then nothing can help them actually.
No matter what they do, the illusion will continue and they will find some reason to justify their illusion. So, while Duryodhana was fasting to death, he was proud and he had fallen terribly. But at that time, he had a mystical vision.
Later, he was not even sure whether it was an actual mystical vision or it was just a hallucination. But either way, he saw during that experience that he had been taken in a subtle form to the Daityas and Dhanavas who told him that you are our representative and if you fight on our behalf, you lead an army, we will enter into the bodies of your soldiers, your generals and we have a plan to destroy the Pandavas and to destroy the Gods who are manifesting as the Pandavas, who are supporting the Pandavas. So, through this vision, Duryodhana felt that this was not just a territorial battle on the terrestrial or earthly plane.
He realized that this was a cosmic battle between forces far beyond the human, both celestial and subterranean, both heavenly and divine and demoniac forces. So, that boosted his morale and he came back to fight. He said, I will strengthen myself, I will strengthen my army and I will fight again.
But despite all his preparation, again, Duryodhana’s whole army was defeated single-handedly by Arjuna at Virat. So, time and time again, Duryodhana was knocked down from the high pedestal which he had constructed for himself. But again, he climbed upon that pedestal and still kept claiming the position and power which he didn’t have and that was now happening again and again in this war, third time when it happened and yet he maintained his obstinate determination.
He thought that how was I able to exile the Pandavas? How was I able to put them to so much misery? If I didn’t have the power to do so, if I didn’t have the brains to do so, if destiny were against me, then I would not have had the successes that I’ve had till now. Therefore, this is just a bad phase and I will win and that’s how he stubbornly continued on. So, the point is that pride may be felt, the proud may be felt externally, but pride has to be felt internally.
A person has to consciously take the decision that being arrogant doesn’t work for me. It only makes my life miserable more and more and it sets me up for more and more falls. Therefore, I will give up a pretense of being more powerful than what I am and I will live according to my actual capacities.
So, unless there is that inner change in one’s self-conception, one’s self-understanding, without that inner change, no amount of outer upheavals will bring about a change. A person may be taught a lesson a hard way, but even then they will not learn it. As it is said, a person convinced against their will, those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.
Although Duryodhana was defeated the third time within six days, still he arrogantly persevered thinking that he would be victorious soon. Such is the illusion caused by pride in the form of arrogance. Thank you.