Why didnt Bhishma pitamah stop the Kurus from disrobing Draupadi?

From Rahul Bhat

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Rahul Bhatt Prabhu. Though Bhishma Maitama was a Mahajan, why didn’t he stop the Kurus from disrobing Draupadi? Answer. There is a answer to this at a dharmic level and at the level of pure devotion.
At the level of dharma, it is described in the Mahabharata that Yudhishthira Maharaj gambled of his full kingdom, gambled his brothers, gambled himself and then he gambled Draupadi. So, when Draupadi was brought into the Asitsabhaya, in that vicious assembly, she in order to try to protect her dignity, she protested and first of all she protested against the total injustice that was happening for a woman to be publicly disrobed and humiliated and violated in this way was against all norms of Kshatriya behavior. But then she made a specific point and that was that if Yudhishthira had gambled himself off, then how could he have gambled her because he had already lost himself.
So, if he was not in control of himself, he was not his own master, then how could he be the master of Draupadi and how could he have gambled her off. That means the gamble was not according to proper principles. So, when this question was raised, so she raised this question pitifully to the whole assembly and Bhishma spoke saying that actually the question that you have raised is it bewilders my intelligence because I know from the scriptures that a woman always belongs, especially a married woman, a wife always belongs to the husband.
At the same time, a wife, if the husband has lost himself, then does he still, is his wife still his to gamble away? So, he says the intricacies of dharma are very hard and my intelligence is confused, I cannot answer this question. Then Vikarna goes on and says that actually in my opinion, he doesn’t go into the technicality of that, he says that there are four evils to which Kshatriyas are vulnerable, meat-eating, intoxicating, gambling and womanizing and under the influence of these, Kshatriyas lose their intelligence and do all sorts of terrible things and therefore, whatever they do under this influence should not be taken seriously and therefore this whole gambling match should be considered null and void and everything that the Pandavas have lost should be returned back. Many of the attendants of the Kuru assembly start cheering Vikarna but then Karna gets furious and Karna silences Vikarna and everyone else and says that this is the most improper thing that I have seen in this assembly because nobody forced Yudhishthira to gamble, he gambled by his own will and he lost it.
So, a woman is always the property of her husband and what to speak of Draupadi, a woman who, why do we have to bother about her chastity, a woman who has more than one husband already, she is already unchaste and therefore there is nothing wrong in calling her in public as such and now that she is Duryodhana’s maid servant, she can definitely be called and done whatever is and told to do whatever is required for the pleasure of her master. So, in this way Karna argues very, making inflammatory and provocative statements against the character of Draupadi and his will eventually, his word prevails over there. The point over here at a dharmic level is that Duryodhana, Bhishma Pratama gets caught in a technicality.
So, the technicality is a person not in possession of himself, still in possession of his wife. So, he says because I can’t decide, it doesn’t give any judgment. But actually there is a broader principle that is being violated that is that the innocent is being victimized.
Kshatriyas are meant to protect her, protect people from her, not cause her themselves. So, in the Vedic scriptures in general and in the Upadesha Amrit, this is called as Niyamagraha. Niyamagraha means sticking to the letter of the law while forgetting the overall purpose of the law.
So, what we learn from Bhishma Pratama’s thought process and inaction over here is that ultimately the letter of the law is meant to fulfill the purpose of the law. So, we shouldn’t get caught up in the letter of the law, but should remember the purpose and see how that purpose can be fulfilled in various contexts. Now, of course, Bhishma Pratama is a Mahajan and this whole particular pastime is orchestrated for demonstrating one lesson.
That lesson is that when everyone fails to protect, the lord protects. No matter how many protectors we have in this world, all those protectors will not be able to protect us in certain situations and that time we need to turn towards the lord. So, even Yudhishthira’s gambling so feverishly and losing everything, it’s also incomprehensible when we consider that he was Dharmaraj.
He was in many ways the personification of Dharma. So, how could he do that? So, actually even he was impelled at that particular time to think. He was thinking that surely Krishna will ensure that Arjuna, his favorite devotee won’t get gambled away.
Krishna will ensure that Draupadi won’t get gambled away. So, he was still Krishna conscious somehow at that time. But the more important thing is that he was orchestrated by the arrangement of the lord to demonstrate eventually during the Vastra Haran, how Krishna comes to the protection of his devotees and how ultimately Ananya Natha, we have no Natha except Krishna.
So, at a moral level, we see that Bhishma Pitamah gets caught up in technicality and succumbs to the error of Niyamagraha, getting caught in the letter of the law while forgetting its purpose and spirit and at transcendental level we understand that Bhishma Pitamah is acting according to the will of the lord to demonstrate through this dramatic and tragic pastime that we ultimately have, no matter how many protectors we have in the world, ultimately we have no protector except Krishna.