Heaven, Hell in Hinduism
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The Mahabharat on Heaven, Hell
In the Mahaprasthanika parv
P Lal, Dec 23, 2019 Times of India
Just 114 shlokas – the shortest parva of the Mahabharata’s 18 parvas. But in the deceptive brevity lies profundity, because the emotional content of the Mahaprasthanika is amazingly rich and inspiring. The reason? Shloka 33 says: “Trailing the Pandavas/ on their forest journey/ was a dog.” An animal associated in the Hindu Indian imagination with pollution. Indra warns Yudhisthira: “Heaven has no place for dogs.” But Yudhisthira is adamant: he will not abandon a bhakta. If the faithful stray dog is refused admission to this elite celestial club, Yudhisthira chooses not to be a member. After all, it’s not only the canine species that is “imperfect”. Human beings have failings too.
His own brothers – and his lotuspetal-eyed common wife Draupadi – have been tested and found wanting. They have, as a result of their very human weakness, fallen, as it were, by the wayside. Who has judged them? Yudhisthira himself – and he has left them to their fate and proceeded on his journey.
This must be rankling in his mind. Who are we to judge, and whom do we judge? His brothers and wife were loyal to him. He abandoned them. The dog is loyal as well. He has made up his mind. Enough is enough. No more moral judgments. He may be Dharmaraja, but he has exceeded the limits of dharma. (Indeed, he has, for the dog is Dharma. Can Dharma judge Dharma?) It’s a lesson in ultimate humility. Instead of judging and condemning, compassion is the criterion of character. Which is why, in the last shloka of his parva, Yudhisthira tells Indra about Draupadi whom he has left forlorn on the path: “I want to be with Draupadi –/ the lovely ample-bodied lady,/ the dark-blue cloud-complexioned lady,/ the sattva-guna-endowed lady,/ the lady who is youthful./ Take me to my Draupadi.”
This takes place at the conclusion of the Mahaprasthanika, but before Yudhisthira can be taken to his beloved Draupadi – whom he condemned because she was “partial” to Arjuna – he must pass another test. Dharma says he tests Yudhisthira thrice, in the epic, and each time Dharmaraja emerges with flying colours. But the crucial test of humanity, compassion and magnanimity is executed not by Dharma but by Vyasa. The Mahaprasthanika is the lead-up to the last parva, the Svargarohana, where Yudhisthira passes through the dark night of his soul when he is given a vision of the horrors of hell.
Vyasa’s advice to Yudhisthira – and to all of us afflicted by deep-seated desire for arbitrary personal revenge – is: None. Not a single Mahabharata character, no matter how “wicked”, gets permanent hell. The verdict for misguided and misbehaving humans is: heaven first, and hell later; or hell first, and heaven later. And, because karma is a tight mystery that even the gods cannot unravel, neither heaven nor hell is everlasting. There is always another chance given to the “sinner” – the delighter in good deeds as well as the wallower in bad – to pass through another birth and experience the redemption the sacred texts describe as moksha, where knowledge, known and knower become one.
So Yudhisthira, the moral judge, is himself judged. Hopefully, it is a lesson well learnt – well learnt because well taught by Veda-wise wonder-working Vyasa in the Mahaprasthanika and Svargarohana parvas of the Mahabharata. (From Writers Workshop: The Mahabharata)
