Yuganta is a unique depiction of the Mahabharata the grand epic of the Hindu religion. The book tries to rationalize the epic and present it from a terse logic and definitive view point rather than from a religious view. What was the epoch which defines the times of Mahabharata. I see five concepts through which the times of the epoch of Mahabharata can be described.
1. Non-existence of a concept of an Organization as described by a systems theory.
2. Every person in those times had a framework of operation of his own and he made it public for others to know.
3. The personal frameworks which created ripples in the social framework defined during those times is a central theme of Mahabharata.
4. Every framework was rigidly defined and defined with precision upto words. Any concept which was not fitting into the framework was treated ruthlessly.
5. There is no concept of ethics in Mahabharata. It's a time of definitive systems like a defined law.
3 comments:
Hi,
Well written but for the five points you mentioned you should actually give some examples from the book to substantiate.
The book i wouold say is written differently and more from the personal angle of individual characters rather than the story as a whole.
The author has brought out well teh fact that it was a simple story with real life characters and which was later modified to make it religious and revered.
Hi Samrat,
My comments on each of the points made. Hope these will clarify my deductions. Of course the focus on individuals is something which is very well focused in the book, but I think in a deeper sense to bring it into a learning framework we need to also look at it from the systems perspective as well.
regards,
Sambit
1. Non-existence of a concept of an Organization as described by a systems theory: -
For example, Mahabharata didn't emphacize the need for a political structure which could have bound the organization or the raja dharma. If that would have been the case Bhishma could not have taken a vow of celebacy being the eldest son. I think issue of child mortality is pretty high knowing the fact that Ganga had lost seven children. I will not accept the fact of mother killing her own child at its face value. Bhishma's decision not to kill pandavas is another one for example.
2. Every person in those times had a framework of operation of his own and he made it public for others to know:
Everybody took vows and the organization adopted to it. Arjuna's vow to kill jayadratha was one of them. The system adapted to it.
3. The personal frameworks which created ripples in the social framework defined during those times is a central theme of Mahabharata:
This is evident how the system has been bent to accept individual limitations.
4. Every framework was rigidly defined and defined with precision upto words. Any concept which was not fitting into the framework was treated ruthlessly:
Killing of the animals and detroying the Khandavaprastha was one of them which annoyed the nagas.
5. There is no concept of ethics in Mahabharata. It's a time of definitive systems like a defined law:
Everything done in Mahabharata is defined with a dharma. Either it's within it or outside of the dharma, which is the moral. Why else Krishna would ask Arjuna to fight otherwise.
Ok now we have examples and i agree to what you are saying about frameworks, the thing that i was saying is that mahabharata and ramayana were not written to be epics or a model for right or wrong , i guess it was written like a story a good nice well fledged story. There were of course puranas and upanishads to give gyan. And no youngster or shild would read an upanishad , even to this date i have not managed to read a single one complete it is so boring.
So i guess since these two epics were interesting stories the elderly of that time though why not make these stories teh way to inculcate values in younger generation, and they changed and modified stuff.
What was starkly staring as wrong was masked under dharma or god like behaviour, hence the inconsistencies.
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