When Krishna established dharma, why did it last for such a short time?

From: Jugal

Krishna says that he descends to establish dharma, what does he mean by that? My question is because if we observe then the pandavas didn’t rule for that long after the war and soon kaliyuga began, so was the dharma that was established was just for few years? If it is that way then why such a big war? Please give the proper understanding.

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you so he is saying here in 4.2 that by the great power of time that this knowledge of yoga, of connection with God was lost because of the power of time so what is evident from this is that the battle between dharma and adharma is a constant ongoing battle within the material world and also within the heart of every human being in the material world and this battle is always going up and down and when things go substantially down the lord takes the charge in his hands and he comes to establish dharma so normally Krishna gives spiritual knowledge in 4.1 he describes how to give your knowledge on God and then it comes down in parampara so here Krishna is acting like a brahmana like a spiritual intellectual who gives spiritual knowledge and that is how he ensures that dharma is maintained but Krishna is so concerned that dharma be maintained that if dharma starts getting lost then he comes himself and he destroys the demons and delivers the devotees and he establishes dharma actually destroying the demons and protecting the devotees is the duty of a kshatriya but when the kshatriyas fail to do their duty then Krishna himself comes and takes the role of a kshatriya and he establishes dharma so normally Krishna gives brahmanical knowledge and brahmanical knowledge to virtuous kshatriya kings, Rajya Rishis Rajya Rishi literally means royal sages which the Prabhupada translates as saintly kings because they were kings as far as the functional role was concerned but the distinctive feature of their kingship was that they were saintly they were enlightened with spiritual knowledge so when Krishna came at the end of Draupadi Yuga he re-established dharma by having the virtuous Yudhisthira established as the king and the vicious Yudhana eliminated dethroned and killed so actually from the moment when Dushyasana touched Draupadi Kali Yuga started practically speaking Kali entered into this world but as long as Krishna was present, Kali couldn’t take charge Kali couldn’t make much headway and further Kali’s progress was checked by Parikshit Maharaj so that way if we see, there was a huge war but that huge war established the rule of dharma through Yudhisthira Maharaj then through Parikshit Maharaj, then through Janamejay and there were several other kings so when Krishna comes in this world, he re-establishes dharma for that generation and sets up a system by which dharma can be continued for future generations but ultimately the principle is that every generation has its choice and if more people choose dharma over dharma then what was done in the past generation can be brought to naught in the next generation within the gap of just one generation so now Krishna because he does not interfere with the free will of living beings at an individual level he leaves the choice to us and he does his part by establishing dharma periodically, but at the same time it is up to human beings whether they want to continue the dharma.
Now we may say that Krishna has such a huge war fought so that dharma could be established but that lasted for only a few hundred years yes, it lasted for at least a few hundred years and for at least a few hundred years that is not small for those hundreds of years all the people who were born and brought up at that time, they had the opportunity to practice devotional service, make spiritual advancement and possibly even go back to godhood and that is a huge arrangement by any standards so the world is like a hospital and if the hospital is becoming chaotic, a doctor comes along and the doctor sets things right ensures the patients are diagnosed properly, treated properly and given proper counsel so that they can continue their treatment and cure stay in the healthy state now the doctor may come and set up systems also and while setting up systems, he may do a shake-up and a clean-up he may fire incompetent people and he may take to task and even take to court some people who have been exploiting the patients for money and abusing them and complicating their life just for earning money so during that competent doctor’s tenure that dedicated doctor’s tenure there will be hundreds and hundreds of patients who will get cured properly and if the doctor sets up systems then there is a chance that future generations of future patients can also be cured but suppose after the doctor’s tenure gets over a subsequent doctor comes up and that doctor is not competent that doctor is not educated then in one tenure or a few tenures all the good work can be lost in the sense that it will not be continued but that does not mean that the good work does not produce any good result during that generation it produced a positive result and that positive result was that people got benefited and cured during that particular doctor’s tenure similarly when Krishna comes at the end of Kali Yuga sorry at the end of Draupadi Yuga he is not coming to establish Yuga Dharma Yuga Dharma is a prescribed process for that particular age and the Yuga Avatar is Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and he is teaching the Harinam Sankirtan movement but Krishna is a Leela Avatar and while coming as a Leela Avatar he also establishes Dharma but for Draupadi Yuga the primary method of worship was deity worship and Lord Krishna did not teach that much because he is coming at the end of Draupadi Yuga so Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu comes and gives chanting of the Harinam as a Yuga Dharma by which people can become purified now we may say that Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came a long time ago but by the time Bhaktivinoda Thakur appeared India was almost lost so was Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s descent in vain? No, at that time millions of people got delivered and he came to knowledge which was passed on in Parampara and depending on each generation and the people of each generation whether they took up that knowledge or not the Parampara expanded or it did not expand so when intelligent, dedicated Acharyas take up the responsibility and sincere people come to those Acharyas then during that generation the Parampara spreads and the Lord’s mission continues in a more visible and effective way so the whole principle of Avatar is that Krishna comes to put the course of human history back on track but Krishna does not force the course of human history in a particular way when Krishna comes as Avatar, he sets up a system and the system has to be run by human beings if human beings don’t cooperate with the system that Krishna has set up for their own artistic benefit then it is human beings who are to be blamed and it is human beings who have to bear the consequences so if Krishna had not taught the Bhagavad Gita Krishna had not established Dharma then Kali Yuga would have come much much earlier and Duryodhana was as it is a great atrocity in a shameless way if he could dare to violate the modesty of another lady who was a queen then what would stop him from violating the modesty of lesser ordinary women and if he could dispossess his own cousins who were powerful and resourceful by his deceptions, what would stop him from dispossessing ordinary citizens who were not as resourceful and powerful as his cousins so Duryodhana would have brought in Kali much much earlier if he had been left unchecked so that Lord Krishna checked with Duryodhana and guided the Pandavas to power and then set up a system by which people could practice spiritual life and make devotional advancement and ultimately go back to Godhead that itself is a glorious activity so Krishna recognizes the point that in this world again and again avatars will be required in fact the Bhagavatam says that there are as many incarnations as there are rains in the ocean why? why are Krishna’s incarnations practically unlimited like the rains in the ocean? because Krishna’s love for us is unlimited and we as unconditional souls are going to create unlimited bangles we are going to create unlimited messy situations and Krishna will again and again have to come to set them right that is Krishna’s kindness and that after Krishna goes away things will become wrong again is not the fault of Krishna and the fault of we human beings who despite Krishna’s example and Krishna’s instructions neglect his words and again turn to our own devious ways and create mess for ourselves therefore as devotees we need to recognize that Krishna’s message itself is eternal but the relief work the social and spiritual transformational work that he does has to be regenerated and re-executed in each generation for each generation new people are coming and the new people if they are inspired to take to Krishna’s message then they will be transformed and they will transform society but if they are not inspired they don’t transform themselves positively by the power of the eights they will be transformed negatively and that generation may lose out the opportunity to come closer to Krishna so therefore it is the responsibility of each one of us in this present generation to make sure that Krishna’s legacy of love continues on at least during our generation and a possible set of systems by which it can continue on in the future generations also to assist thereby in Krishna’s plan so to summarize Krishna’s coming is like a doctor coming to a disorderly hospital he cures as many people as possible and sets up systems by which future people can be cured but it is the future generations of doctors and medical staff responsibility to make sure that what this doctor has done is considered so like that Krishna and Lord Chaitanya have come to set things right and it is for us as their servants to make sure that we keep things right