Why are there contradictions between Mahabharata and Bhagavatam?

From Maha Raas Prabhu:

I got see the Mahabharat by Krsna Dharma Pr. I was  astonished to find that the description of duel between Bhima and Duryodhana given there says that Lord Balarama interfered and wanted to kill former and Lord Krsna practically gripped Balaraji.

Whereas  SB says that after giving detached suggestion to warriors, Balaramji left for Dwarka. Kindly clarify.

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question by Manoj Kumar. In the Mahabharata by Krishnadevaraya Prabhu I was astonished to find that the description of the duel between Bhima and Duryodhana says that Lord Balram interfered and wanted to kill Bhima and Lord Krishna practically gripped Balramji to stop him. Whereas Srimad Bhagavatam says that after giving detached suggestions to warriors Balramji left for Dwarka.
How do we understand this contradiction? Answer. The Mahabharata and the Bhagavatam describe the historical accounts that offer that don’t happen in the same kalpa. In fact they are happening at several places.
We can see some marked differences between the Mahabharata and the Bhagavatam narratives and we understand that they are referring, in fact Krishna comes once in a day of Brahma, so they are referring to different days of Brahma. So Balramji in the Bhagavatam narrative gives advice that there is not going to be any victory because Bhima is better in strength and Duryodhana is better in skill. And he leaves.
So this is referring to the account in one particular day of Brahma and the Mahabharata account where Balramji watches and is enraged at what he feels is the injustice, the unfairness of the attack on Duryodhana, that is referring to another day of Brahma. So we have to understand that when the scriptures are narrating incidents, they are narrating it for the purpose of our education and education is primarily philosophical and moral. It is not historical.
When the scriptures give narrations, they are trying to teach us lessons of how we need to act and what we need to learn in our spiritual lives. So that is why historical accuracy in the sense, it is not that they are not historically accurate, but chronology is not a particularly important thing for those who write scriptures. Scriptures are of course given by God, but there are individuals who narrate them based on the inspiration of God.
And the primary concern of those who are narrating the scripture to us, being an instrument of God in that case, is to educate us in terms of philosophy and values. So Balramji in the two incidents is teaching us two different things. In one incident he teaches how a teacher needs to be detached from his students.
And in one sense, both Bhima and Duryodhana are his students, although Duryodhana learned much more from Balramji than Bhima, but both of them he taught something. So he gives the advice and he leaves. That is one attitude of a teacher.
Another attitude of a teacher is that he actually wants to see how the skills that he has taught are actually used by the students. So now why does Balramji take the side of Duryodhana? Actually that is a special rasa which increases the pleasure of Krishna. So Duryodhana has actually no good qualities.
He is a personification of evil, and personification of sin and greed. And actually when Draupadi’s exiles, sorry Draupadi’s Vishnu and the Pandavas exiles, when Krishna and Balram come to meet the Pandavas in the forest, Balramji is also furious at that time, at the insult that has happened. So Balramji also recognizes that something unrighteous has happened.
But in this particular situation, Balramji takes the purva paksha so that the rationale of Krishna’s actions can be revealed to the world. So the mundane moralists will always point out, why did Bhima strike below the waist, which is against the codes of mace fighting. So this accusation would always have been leveled by the skeptics, by the cynics, by the critics of Krishna.
And by leveling it himself and by expressing the same anger which they would feel at what they see as an apparent injustice, Balramji ensures that Krishna gets the opportunity to explain why he has done what he has done. And in this way, Balramji preempts the doubts of the later people and solves and allows Krishna to clarify situations. So basically in the Mahabharata, Krishna and Bhima together make this plan.
So why does Krishna have to do like this? Bhima actually is surely intending to break the thighs of Duryodhana, because Duryodhana had said to Draupadi, exposing his thigh, come and sit on the lap of your new master. So Bhima was enraged at this insult of the chaste Draupadi. It was almost like a woman being tempted in the presence of her husband by a person who is very evil.
So this insolence deserved to be punished. And Bhima’s plan was that he would defeat Duryodhana and then break his thigh. So in the meanwhile, once Bhima, when he was being given good advice by various sages that he should not embark on persistent hostilities with the Pandavas and should return their kingdom to them, one of the sages who came to inform him was Maitreya Rishi.
And when Maitreya Rishi was talking about the strength of the Pandavas, in sheer insolence and arrogance, Duryodhana slapped his palms, creating a loud sound to show his defiance to what Maitreya was saying. And Maitreya became enraged and said, fool, you are so proud of your strength, the thighs which you are slapping now, that thigh will be destroyed and it will become the cause of your death. And then later on, Gandhari also tried to, by her mystic power, make Duryodhana’s body impenetrable.
So that benediction of Gandhari had made it impossible for Bhima to wound Duryodhana by attacking him in any part of the body except the thigh. The thigh had been covered by Duryodhana when he had gone to see Gandhari and so that was a vulnerable part. So now when Bhima and Duryodhana were fighting and fighting and fighting and there seemed to be no way that Bhima could defeat Duryodhana, then the only way he could do it was by attacking him at his vulnerable point.
Now that was against the codes of law but Krishna teaches us in the Mahabharata that Shatrughna Shatyam, with the cunning, at times cunningness is required. So the Kauravas had exhibited no sense of morality when they had disrobed Draupadi, when they had burned the house in which the Pandavas were living, when they had tried to poison Bhima when he was just young and innocent and unsuspecting, when they had mercilessly colluded together, six of them, to slaughter the 16 year old Abhimanyu. So seeing all these atrocities committed by the Kauravas, Krishna said that for one who has been the root of this kind of grievous wrongs, he needs to be killed in whatever way is possible.
And even according to Vedic moral codes, an Atatai, an aggressor can be killed in any way and there’s no sin incurred in killing that aggressor. So Balramji basically plays the role of a Purvapaksha. Purvapaksha is the opposing party and gives Krishna the chance to clarify why he told Bhima to kill Duryodhana by hitting him under the thigh.
So the Mahabharata and the Bhagavatam are looking at things often in different ways of Brahma and are also focusing on different messages. So another striking difference between Mahabharata and the Bhagavatam is that Bhagavatam describes that Parishad sat down for seven days to hear the Krishna Katha from Parishad Maharaj. The Mahabharata describes that Parishad went and hid himself in a fort on top of a hill where nobody could penetrate and did everything that he could to protect himself.
But somehow a Brahmin came and gave him a fruit in donation and when he opened the fruit, the fruit contained a snake which bit him and then he died. So now at an external level the character of Parishad in Mahabharata and the character of Parishad in Bhagavatam seems to be entirely different. Obviously one thing is that it’s different ages of days of Brahma but more importantly these two contrasting narratives indicate the two different attitudes which are both devotional.
When a devotee is faced with imminent death, what should he do? Should he try to fight to protect his life so that he can serve Krishna better or can continue serving Krishna in his remaining life or he should just give up any attempts to try to protect them and do what and just focus on Krishna. Now both attempts are bona fide. Now if a devotee is being chased by terrorists who are Muslim, who are say fanatics of a particular religion, should a devotee just succumb to surrender to them and okay it is Krishna’s will, let me be killed or should he try to flee and escape and save his life? It depends on consciousness.
If a devotee feels this is Krishna’s will and let me do whatever it is, whatever is Krishna’s will, let it happen, a devotee can do that and if a devotee feels that I have a mission for Krishna and I need to fulfill that mission and therefore let me do what I can to escape, he will do that. So we see both these examples in the Gaudiya literature. When Haridas Thakur was being whipped in 22 market places, he made no attempt to save himself, he made no attempt to protect himself.
In fact he was begging for the forgiveness of those who were flogging him. Of course by the lord’s mercy he was saved but when Sanatana Goswami was similarly arrested, Sanatana Goswami made an elaborate plan to escape from those clutches and he even gave some money to the prisoner and told him to tell a convenient story, a reasonable convenient story which he could tell the king and then he made good his escape and when he escaped Chaitanya Mahaprabhu welcomed him and embraced him. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also glorified Haridas Thakur for how he tolerated the attacks of the people who were flogging him.
So in that sense ultimately everything depends on the consciousness of the individual and the inspiration that the lord gives to the Vaishnava at the time when a danger is being faced. So in one particular day of Brahma, Parikshit Maharaj is given the inspiration by the lord, okay if it is by the will of the lord that this curse has happened then let me forget everything and let me just fix my mind on Krishna and accept death. In another particular day of Brahma Parikshit is inspired, actually it is my responsibility to take care of the kingdom, it is my responsibility to fight off the attacks of Kali and in order to protect my citizens I have to protect myself.
So let me do what I can to protect myself and if in spite of that the will of the lord is there that I should die I’ll accept that. So when Parikshit Maharaj sees the snake inside the fruit at that time he doesn’t try to run away in cowardice, he folds his hands and accepts it and he embraces death at that time also. So it is not that the Mahabharata account is describing a fearful Parikshit but is describing a different mode of devotional service of Parikshit Maharaj.
So as devotees who study Shastra we need to understand the purpose and the spirit which Shastra has written and when we understand this then we will not get bewildered by seeing apparent contradictions. Thank you.