While most debates end with a winner and a loser, those in the Mahabharata often end inconclusively or on a note of doubt. The Mahabharata ...
While most debates end with a winner and a loser, those in the Mahabharata often end inconclusively or on a note of doubt. The Mahabharata abounds in debates, the most important of which are about the subtlety and mysteriousness of dharma. The overall emphasis of the narrative is that one must understand one’s dharma – essentially that of the varna one is born into – and strive to follow it, no matter how unpleasant it may be and how much unhappiness it may bring.
Nevertheless, characters in the epic are frequently tormented about what exactly their dharma is, none more so than Yudhishthira, the eldest Pandava brother, who (ironically) has the epithet Dharmaraja (king of dharma).
Although at one level, dharma is spoken of as eternal and universal, the Mahabharata in fact suggests the existence of several dharmas.
The dharmas of the four ages (Krita, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali) vary. Dharma is frequently associated with the varnas and the ashramas, but there is also a dharma of sages, of forest people, even of mlechchhas. In times of acute distress or emergency, apad-dharma (dharma in time of emergency) kicks in, and certain departures from the norm are justified. We have noted the Mahabharata example of...
