Why did Yudhishthira consider the wicked Dhritrashtra as a respectable elder who had to be obeyed? Why didnt he consult Krishna?

From Arpan halder

Does religion seeks to be such fanatic .. when He knew Dhritarastra was the rascal … couldn’t he just asked Krishna what would be right …

From MADE GOWDA

WHY TO FOLLOW THE ELDERS WICKEDLY ADVICE IN THE FEAR OF RESPECTING MORALITY ?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Correct.
Any other question? This is a question based on the earlier answer to the question about why Yudhishtira Maharaj gambled despite knowing its consequences. So, two questions have come on this topic, both of which are somewhat similar. So, I will answer them together.
One question is by Madegaoda Prabhu, why should one follow the elder’s wicked advice in the fear of respecting morality? And the other question is by Arpan Halder Prabhu, does religion seek to be such fanatic? When he knew Dhritarashtra was a rascal, couldn’t he have just asked Krishna what would be right? Correct answer. Firstly, Krishna was not present when this happened. In fact, at that time, a demoniac ruler named Shalva had attacked Krishna’s kingdom, Dwaraka, and Krishna had gone there.
And the Srimad Bhagavatam describes how there was a fierce battle, which ranged for more than 20 days. And finally, Krishna destroyed the demon’s army, destroyed the demon, rescued the Dwarkavasis from his ravages, restored order. And by that time, he got the news that this whole gambling conspiracy has happened and the Pandavas have been exiled.
And Krishna, Balaram, immediately depart to the forest of Kamyaman to meet the Pandavas and console them. And Krishna says over there that if I had been present at that time, I would surely have stopped this gambling match. I would have persuaded everybody involved that this gambling will lead to evil and I would have stopped it.
Now, when Krishna exhibits his Nara Leela, when he manifests as a human being, Krishna does not always manifest as omnipotence. Because if Krishna manifested as omnipotence, then there would be no opportunity for any Leela to take place. If Krishna manifested his omnipotence as all-knowing, then he would say in the Ram Leela, he would have known that Ravana is coming in disguise and then he would not have gone.
Or even if he had gone, he could just have reappeared in one trice and stopped Ravana from abducting Sita, killed him there itself. But when the Lord descends to the human world, at that time, he doesn’t always manifest as omnipotence. So here Krishna did not manifest as omnipotence in the sense of being present at both places.
Of course, Krishna did manifest it partially in the sense that he arranged to protect Draupadi by himself appearing but in an invisible form. So actually, when Draupadi was being disrobed and she called out to Krishna, Krishna appeared in the invisible form and provided unlimited sari to her. But nobody could see that it was Krishna who was providing the sari.
All that they could see that Draupadi was calling out to Krishna and that although Dushasan was trying to pull off her sari, her sari was endless. So Krishna did protect devotee at that time by manifesting over there. But the way the leela was to go and Krishna wanted to also demonstrate that even when his devotees, even when people become his devotees, they’re not necessarily exempt from suffering nor are they exempt from human failings.
They may also commit mistakes and if they commit mistakes, there will also be consequences. But amidst the consequences, amidst the mistakes, amidst the sufferings, Krishna will help the devotees to tolerate and transcend it all and to use it all to deepen their devotional connection with him and to help them become more spiritually advanced. So of course, this is going into the intricacies of how a leela works.
But the focus point for us is that they should not have Krishna to ask at that particular time. And Krishna said, if I had been available over there, I would immediately surely have stopped this gambling match and the disaster resulting from it from ever occurring. So now Yudhishthira did not have the advantage of consulting Krishna as Arjuna had at the start of the battlefield of Kurukshetra.
So that’s why when he entered into the battlefield of the gambling match, gambling match is indeed like a battlefield. He did not have the advantage of consulting Krishna. So now was he fanatical or foolish in choosing to respect the moral principle of obeying the elders over here? Now it is said that in hindsight, things are very clear.
Hindsight means to see after the event. So when we are seeing from here, the moral things seem obviously clear for us. Why would anybody gamble like this? But we need to understand that in the heat of the moment, things are not always so clear.
And we can look at our own lives and see that we often make mistakes of judgment. We ourselves become confused about what is right and what is wrong or what is better and what is not so good. So Yudhishthira Maharaj certainly is an exalted devotee and his confusion was not, as I mentioned in the earlier answer, a moral crisis.
He was unable to calculate which would be a higher morality, avoiding gambling or refusing to obey Dhritarashtra. Now when the gambling match started, Dhritarashtra and Duryodhana portrayed it as if it is a just a friendly gambling match. And it was portrayed as if it is non-threatening and Yudhishthira was reassured, actually you can stop gambling whenever you want it.
So it can be called off at any moment and it is just a match between friends. So when it is portrayed in such an innocuous way and also when it was presented as an instruction coming from an elder, Yudhishthira Maharaj was compelled to accept it because although he knew that Duryodhana had evil intentions, he still had confidence in his elders. Now we come today in a culture where accepting elders and accepting the words of elders and respecting them is considered passe, it is considered old-fashioned, it is considered regressive.
People think that we know everything that is right and there’s no need for us to listen to our elders. If what they say doesn’t make sense to us, just reject it. So at one level, if we are getting guidance which is not proper, then it is true that we should not follow it, that is fine.
In certain situations that may be required. For example, if the parents insist that the children should take meat and the children are becoming devotees, they can politely but firmly say no to the meat-eating, that is fine. But in this particular case, for Yudhishthira, things were not so black and white because if we see that way, why did Lord Ram have to obey the Dashrath when Dashrath Maharaj told that go to the forest and let Bharat become the king.
So Lord Ram didn’t have to do that, we could say from our point of this whole sentence of exile was because of the greed of Kaikeyi and why did Ram have to become a victim of Kaikeyi’s greed and her manipulation of the Dashrath. But Lord Ram considered that I have to obey my father. So the culture that was there in earlier times involved giving a lot of respect to the elders.
Yudhishthira, even when he won the kingdom back, he told all the ministers and citizens that treat Dhrashtra as if he is the real king. And although Yudhishthira was enthroned as the king, he offered respects with Dhrashtra. So rather than considering this as a blemish in Yudhishthira’s character, we can see that how Yudhishthira was so magnanimous in offering respect to the elders.
Certainly the decision that he took there was wrong, but the rationale over there was not as easy to discern at the moment as it is for us now. So was Dhrashtra in and of himself wicked? Yudhishthira knew that Duryodhana was wicked, but he felt that the elders would act in his interests ultimately. So there was Vidura and there was Drona and there was Bhishma and somehow all of them were bound.
Vidura opposed it, but Bhishma and Drona being bound by their employment contracts in our language to Duryodhana, to Dhrashtra and Duryodhana could not openly oppose what they were saying. So here in this particular instance, the emphasis that we have to carry with us is that yes, Yudhishthira did make a decision that was wrong, but there were circumstances which prompted him to make the wrong decision. And when it started off, it did not appear to be such a major wrong decision.
It appeared to be a minor transgression that also had some reason for being done, the reason being the instruction of the elders. So the point again is that when action starts off in its wrong course, at that time the things are not as clear as they are at the end. So did Yudhishthira Maharaj commit a mistake over there? Yudhishthira Maharaj never denied that he committed a mistake.
If you look at the later parts of the Mahabharata after the Sabha Parva, the Vanaparva and others are there. So Yudhishthira Maharaj laments several times that I have actually put all my brothers and my family into such trouble because of my own attachment to gambling. And he also knew that it was a serious mistake that he had committed.
At the same time, Yudhishthira did not give up the Kshatriya principle that whenever a Kshatriya is challenged, he has to accept the challenge. So he knew that in the future he might have to, he might be challenged to a gambling match again. So while he was in the forest, he realized that both from the point of view and instruction of elder, both also from the point of view of a Kshatriya having to follow the Kshatriya code of whenever he is challenged, either for fighting in war or for fighting in a gambling match in a sport.
A sport is at one level like a war. We will be seeing in cricket matches and sports matches, we have all the terminology of war. We have death overs and knockout and crash and wound and all such words are there.
So it is not just sports as war is not just a metaphor. Often that fighting spirit is there here also. So Kshatriyas in general have to have a gallant, unfearing fighting spirit.
That fighting spirit has to be exhibited even in the arena of not just the war field but also the gambling field. Yudhishthira knowing that in the future he might have to succumb, he might have to fight another gambling match with Shakuni and company. So he actually used the time in the forest to become seasoned in the practice of gambling so that if at all he was ever had to fight again, he would be prepared.
So he recognized that as a Kshatriya, he could not refuse the challenge. So there were in a sense multiple factors and Yudhishthira, although he realized that it was a mistake for him to gamble but still he also recognized that in the future circumstances might come because of which he might have to gamble and he prepared for those circumstances. So to summarize, Yudhishthira did not have Krishna to consult.
Certainly religion does not require us to become foolish or fanatical in terms of following one particular principle of morality but it is always easier to understand things clearly in hindsight. For Yudhishthira at that particular time when the game was portrayed as a harmless friendly match, it did not seem so harmful and lastly it was not that Yudhishthira rationalized his mistake. He admitted his mistake frankly and he planned that he should not repeat the mistake.
Not repeating the mistake doesn’t mean that he would refuse a gambling challenge if it came to him. He could not do that kind of refusal as he was a Kshatriya. So he prepared for that so that in future he would be able to succeed.
So we learn from Yudhishthira’s example that gambling has its serious consequences and we also learn that if a person commits mistakes then the person should make sure that he can make amends for the mistakes and prevent that and make sure also that he doesn’t commit the same mistake again. So we see all this in Yudhishthira. So the beauty of the Mahabharata is that it just doesn’t present us perfect characters doing perfect actions.
In the Ramayana, Lord Ram is shown as an ideal human being whereas in the Mahabharata, Yudhishthira despite being Dharmaraj, despite being extremely virtuous in terms of dharma is shown as fallible. So that fallibility is indicative of his humanity and it indicates to us how we also need to be careful in our decision making so that we don’t get misled. So the Mahabharata by not giving us characters in black and white, it demonstrates the reality of life as we see it in our day-to-day events and therefore it forces us to go deeper to look with this scripture not just for formulas, okay this is what I should say I should do, but to actually imbibe the essential purpose of the scriptures to absorb their broad principles and based on understanding of those principles and the purpose to arrive at natural decisions ourselves.