03-25-2007, 08:51 PM
<span style='color:red'>Gandhi: Violator of the Kshatriya Dharma</span>
http://agneya.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/gan...hatriya-dharma/
[quote]
When judging the greatness of a civilization, one usually looks at its creations or achievements in a diverse set of fields such as the arts, music, literature, religion, politics, or philosophy, to name a few. When the expression of something deeper or higher is made in these forms, such a civilization is viewed as a leader of culture, an advance in the evolution of Nature. For this to occur, it is necessary that the vessels of culture have appropriate training and purpose; the vessel being of course, man. It is here that we return to the Indian truths of dharma and svadharma. Because in order for the vessel to properly express deeper realities, his inner being must be as free as possible not only from external bondage such as rigid societal or governmental structures, but also from the trappings of ego such as ambition and greed. If such bondage is in place, it will be difficult for man to follow the truth of his inner being, svadharma, whatever that truth may be. The expression of his nature obscured, greatness is not fully revealed through him.
Along with individual dharma is the dharma of the aggregate of individuals or community, necessary in upholding any great civilization. In India, originally society was categorized into four distinct groups (Varnas) of Brahmanas (including those taking to the spiritual life, scholars, etc), Kshatriyas (rulership class and warriors), Vaishyas (traders, wealth-producers) and Shudras (service providers). The Varna classification recognized a gradation of these groups in relation to their importance to society yet emphasized that all four groupings were fundamental to its functioning. To create balance in a civilization, it is necessary that all four groupings contain men born or developed for such life purposes, men following their dharma. It is when people born or having developed the nature of a particular Varna are working from positions within their group, that the purest expression of a national Brahmana dharma or Kshatriya dharma is to be occur. This of course, does not always happen, whether due to groupings becoming based on hereditary, or worse if those entering a particular Varna are not of the right nature for that Varna. The latter problem was addressed by Lord Krishna, who warned that even a perfect imitation of anotherâs nature was fraught with danger:
Better is oneâs own law of works, swadharma, though in itself faulty than an alien law well wrought out; death in oneâs own law of being is better, perilous is it to follow an alien law. Bhagavad Gita 3:35
The Gita relates this danger primarily to the individual and his subjective development, but naturally an adverse effect will fall upon the group the individual has erroneously joined. Of the four, perhaps the most dangerous to have the wrong men involved, would be the Kshatriya varna. The Kshatriya dharma is first and foremost to protect the people, to fight against internal and external conflict, to ensure a just and stable society in order that the other varnas are free to create without fear. If the kshatriya does not follow the truest law of the varna, the nation is at risk to all sorts of disaster and misery. If, in order to protect the people, the kshatriya deemed the use of violence necessary, then it was used, whether in response to provocation or not.
It was this right arm of the kshatriya that Gandhi abhorred. Believing that the user of violence invariably met his death by violence, Gandhi proposed a different route. In it, the fighter of injustice, the kshatriya, was to not lay a finger on the proponent of adharma. Instead, the Kshatriya was to willfully allow himself to be attacked by the enemy, and accept death without a fight, while the other party was spared death. This was Gandhiâs famous Satyagraha:
There are two ways of countering injustice. One way is to smash the head of the man who perpetrates injustice and to get your own head smashed in the process. All strong people in the world adopt this course. Everywhere wars are fought and millions are killed. The consequence is not the progress of a nation but its decline. â¦But through the other method of combating injustice, we alone suffer the consequences of our mistakes, and the other side is wholly spared This other method is satyagraha. One who resorts to it does not have to break anotherâs head; he may merely have his own head broken. He has to be prepared to die himself suffering all the pain.1
The Satyagrahi was not to use bullets, nor try to evade its path:
The day of independence will be hastened in a manner no one has dreamt of. Let not the reformers in the States therefore be unduly impatient; let them not forget their limitations and above all the conditions of success, viz., strictest observance of truth and non-violence. They must be ready to face bullets without flinching but also without lifting a finger in so-called self-defence. A satyagrahi abjures the right of self-defence.2
Indeed, the only tangible goal of satyagraha, disregarding its claim to fight injustice, was the death of its practitioner: âFor a satyagrahi there can be only one goal, viz., to lay down his life performing his duty whatever it may be. It is the highest he can attain. A cause that has such worthy satyagrahi soldiers at its back can never be defeated.â3 Somehow, he failed to realize that if all the âsoldiersâ were to die, they would likely take their cause with them. Such a mass death of âsoldiersâ was always a possibility, for Gandhi did not believe the Satyagrahi should ever flee or retreat from battle. His only purpose in battle was to rush right into the arms of death:
Fleeing from battle - palayanam - is cowardice, and unworthy of a warrior. An armed fighter is known to have sought fresh arms as soon as he loses those in his possession of they lose their efficacy. He leaves the battle to get them. A nonviolence warrior knows no leaving the battle. He rushes into the mouth of himsa, never even once harbouring an evil thought. If this ahimsa seems to you to be impossible, let us be honest with ourselves and say so, and give it up.4
Here we can acknowledge a peculiar courage in his words, yet also appreciate the minimal importance such a philosophy places towards life. The Kshatriya, while having no fear of death, was supposed to value life â his own and that of the people he was protecting. For if the Kshatriya put himself submissively in harms way, who would subsequently protect the masses? It was this truth Gandhi ignored, refusing to acknowledge the great responsibility he held. For regardless of the common view of him as the austere Saint, Gandhi belonged to the Kshatriya varna, having spent the majority of his life as either the leader of the Congress Party in India, or involved with the South African Indian Congress. As a kshatriya, it was his dharma to protect the lives of his people, instead of telling them to lay down their lives in a bizarre idea of âself-defenceâ:
Gandhiji first asked them if any of them had taken part in the riots, to which they replied in the negative. Whatever they had done was in self defence; hence it was not part of the riot. This gave Gandhiji an opportunity of speaking on some of the vital problems connected with nonviolence. He said that mankind had all along tried to justify violence and war in terms of unavoidable self defence. It was a simple rule that the violence of the aggressor could only be defeated by superior violence of the defender. â¦Mankind, he stated, had not yet mastered the true art of self defence.
But great teachers, who had practiced what they preached, had successfully shown that true defence lay along the path of nonretaliation. It might sound paradoxial; but this is what he meant. Violence always thrived on counterviolence. The aggressor had always a purpose behind his attack; he wanted something to be done, some object to be surrendered by the defender. Now, if the defender steeled his heart and was determined not to surrender even one inch, and at the same time to resist the temptation of matching the violence of the aggressor by violence, the latter would be made to realize in a short while that it would not be paying to punish the other party and his will could not be imposed in that way. This would involve suffering. It was this unalloyed selfsuffering which was the truest form of selfdefence which knew no surrender. ⦠This art of true self-defence by means of which man gained his life by losing it, had been mastered and exemplified in the history of individuals. The method had not been perfected for application by large masses of mankind. Indiaâs satyagraha was a very imperfect experiment in that direction.5
The true Kshatriya would not put his hopes in a miraculous retreat of an enemy that knew the Kshatriya did not believe in fighting. In such an instance, the aggressor would achieve his objective due to the foolishness of the ahimsa-following kshatriya. The true kshatriya knew that counter-violence in such a case of direct confrontation was necessary, because without it, a steeled heart and strong determination could have no external result. The kshatriya fought back because it was the Law of his being to protect the nation from suffering, not to expose himself or the nation to it. Indeed, not only would the kshatriya fight back in such circumstances, he would also be inclined to take the war into the enemyâs home, to strike first. A kshatriya did not restrict himself to one tactic such as ahimsa in the face of battle. In fact, ahimsa or mute self-sacrifice in battle has never been anywhere close to a significant war strategy. Meeting the enemy in battle, negotiating with the enemy (yet trying to achieve the best possible terms for the nation), setting up defensive barriers, allying with enemies of the enemy, were among the many war strategies used by the Kshatriya. Ahimsa never crossed the mind of the true kshatriya because ahimsa was never considered part of the kshatriya dharma. It was a virtue of the Brahmin.
The brahmana dharma was not actively involved in the protection of the nation through physical means. It was not their dharma. For this reason, they were free to practice ahimsa, non-violence or more appropriately, non-maliciousness. Their contribution to the defense of the nation was through intellectual activity, education, direct guidance of the kshatriya, or through occult means. Ahimsa, a virtue of a section of Brahmins, the sannyasi, was undertaken to help move the sannyasi from rajasic (action, passion) impulses into a Sattvic (peaceful, harmonious) state of mind, in order to make it easier for the Sannyasi to obtain his individual spiritual aspiration. A strict following of ahimsa, therefore, was not even meant for all brahmins, it was meant for the individual who aspired for liberation. It was also meant for those with the inherent Sattvic nature to practice it. It was not meant to be the mass movement Gandhi desired:
Ahimsa which to me is the chief glory of Hinduism has been sought to be explained away by our people as being meant for sannyasis only. I do not share that view. I have held that it is the way of life and India has to show it to the world.6
Ahimsa was never âa way of lifeâ that all of India followed. It was a means to an end for the spiritual seeker just as brahmacharya was. This abstaining from violence, along with vegetarianism, celibacy, humility, elimination of intake of intoxicants, and many other practices, were used by the sannyasi or the yogi to obtain a Sattvic state. From this evolved mentality, the foundation was set for spiritual realization. These practices were not done simply to become a person of high morals, they were done with the ultimate purpose in mind.
Ahimsa, and its role in Indian society, was not the only exaggeration Gandhi placed on certain aspects of Hindu religion and Hindu history. Gandhi took his view of ahimsa to such an extreme that he claimed Hinduism itself never permitted the use of violence:
Similar is the story of Christianity. And Buddhism too, if we regard it as separate from Hinduism, grew only when some people sacrificed their lives for it. I have not found a single religion which did not in the earlier stages call for sacrifices on the part of its followers. When a religion is well established people in large numbers come forward to follow it. This gives rise to bigotry. Now even the followers of Hinduism have stooped to killing and slaughtering although Hinduism never advocated violence.7
Such a claim flies in the face of the Bhagavad Gita. In it Lord Krishna clearly exhorts Arjuna to fight his cousins in battle, to follow his dharma, knowing the eternal truth that the Soul is neither slayer nor slain (Bhagavad Gita 2:18-19). Arjuna was reminded that his particular war was the greatest one for a Kshatriya to partake in; for it was a war to protect dharma from adharma (Dharmayuddh):
Moreover considering your dharma you should not falter; for the kshatriya there does not exist a more appropriate endeavor than a battle to uphold dharma. Bhagavad Gita 2:31
Gandhi, as he is entitled, held his own opinion as to the Gitaâs message. âI find in the Gita the message of nonviolence, while others say that the Gita ordains the killing of atatayi. Can I go and stop them from saying so? I listen to them and do what I feel is correct.â8 Gandhiâs belief in non-violence was so strong that he concluded that if indeed the Gita advocated violence, it should not be held as shastra:
I do not believe that the Gita advocates violence for self-defence. I understand the Gita differently. If the Gita or some other Sanskrit work advocates this I am not prepared to accept it as Shastra. An utterance does not become scriptural merely because it is couched in Sanskrit.9
The Gita, of course, is more than just shastra or some other commentary. It is considered the word of God, the Divine Song; the language is not as relevant!
Among those who disagreed with Gandhiâs interpretation was a European guest, Vincent Sheehan, who argued that âthe whole of the Gita was an argument in defense of a righteous war.â In response to this, Gandhi gave one of his two significant interpretations of the Gita and Mahabharata, saying, âhe did not agree that the Gita was either in intention or in the sum total an argument in defence of a righteous war. Though the argument of the Gita was presented in a setting of physical warfare, the ârighteous warâ referred to in it was the eternal duel between right and wrong that is going within us. There was at least one authority that supported his interpretation. The thesis of the Gita was neither violence nor nonviolence but the gospel of selfless action-the duty of performing right action by right means only, in a spirit of detachment, leaving the fruits of action to the care of God.â10
This allegorical interpretation of the events at Kurukshetra is an important and widely held view of the Gitaâs message. The view of the world â and especially the inner fields of an individual â as a battle between divine and hostile forces (more so than between ârightâ and âwrongâ) is a truth long-held (and experienced) by many including Sannyasis. It is these forces, the Gods on one side, the Asuras and other Demons on the other, that constantly battle to win the heart and mind of man, even if in the end the two sides are still under control of the Absolute. The problem with Gandhiâs interpretation was that he exaggerated this truth. Just like those who viewed the material world as nothing but an illusion, Gandhi could not fathom that Hinduism conceived of war in the physical plane.
But if we take Gandhiâs thesis to be accurate, it only makes it more likely that this battle between Divine and Asuric forces would extend into the material plane. After all, the majority of manâs action stems from something within wanting to make itself known on the surface. Rare is it for a manâs inner fields to be disconnected from some form of action on the material plane, since all fields whether material or inner, Divine or subconscious, are interwoven. Only certain members of the Brahmana varna are free from these external battles, and that is only if in remote isolation.
Besides the entire Mahabharata, the background for Lord Krishnaâs revelation to Arjuna, there are certain things mentioned in the Gita that enlighten us to the integrality of the physical plane in Lord Krishnaâs message to fight. For instance, not only is Arjuna told to detach his mind from the idea of himself as the slayer, he is told of the worldy consequences for abandoning his dharma:
O Arjuna, happy are the Kshatriyas who achieve a battle of this kind presented in its own accord; such a battle is a wide open path to the heavenly realms. However if you do not engage in this dharmayuddh, then you have abandoned your svadharma and your reputation, and you will incur sinful reaction. All people will speak of your infamy for all time, and for respected persons infamy is worse than death. The mighty chariot warriors will consider that you retired from the battlefield out of fear and for those whom you have been held in great esteem you will fall into disgrace. Your enemies will speak many malicious and insulting words discrediting your prowess. Alas what could be more painful than that? Either being slain you shall reach the heavenly realm, or by gaining victory you will enjoy earth, therefore O Son of Kunti, confident of success rise up and fight! (Bhagavad Gita 2:32-37)
From these clear examples, we can see that the ârighteous warâ in the Gita clearly involved the physical plane, since Arjunaâs penance for not fighting was of an external kind, primarily involving his reputation. Thus, if Gandhi was lucent enough to absorb the inner meaning of the war (indeed, one can deduce such a meaning from wars such as World War II) and the message of Karmayoga (surrendering of the results of actions to the Lord), we can surmise his refusal to acknowledge the Gitaâs material aspect as being due to his fanatical aversion to violence. Because when we examine other comments Gandhi made on the Mahabharata, we come across his second significant interpretation, that victory obtained by violence was meaningless:
It was contended that the Mahabharata advocated the way of retaliation. He did not agree with that interpretation. The lesson of the Mahabharata was that the victory of the sword was no victory. That great book taught that the victory of the Pandavas was an empty nothing.11
The greatest of all wars, the war that Mahavishnu himself incarnated into human form to ensure the outcome, an epic battle full of heroic figures, the war to mark the end of one age and the beginning of another (Kalyug), was one void of any real purpose to Gandhi. The fate of those involved in the war soured Gandhiâs view of the Mahabharata:
What has been said in the Mahabharata is of universal application. It does not apply to Hindus alone. It depicts the story of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Though they were blood-brothers the Pandavas worshipped Rama, that is, goodness, and the Kauravas followed Ravana, that is, evil. Renouncing ahimsa they took to violence and fought amongst themselves with the result that not only were the kauravas killed, but the Pandavas also were losers in spite of their victory. Very few among them survived to see the end of the war and those who did found their lives so unbearable that they had to retire to the himilayas.12
For the kshatriya, the possibility of individual death in battle would never prevent them from warfare in a dharmayuddh, for as Arjuna declared in the Mahabharata, âWhat is the use to us of an existence without heroic deeds?â The kshatriya was not fighting for himself, he was fighting for the highest of ideals, the protection of dharma and the foundations that allowed dharma to flourish. Death received when battling to uphold dharma was a passage to the heavenly regions. For a man who wanted his followers to rush into death without a fight, why was Gandhi all of a sudden in anguish that few of the Pandavas saw the end of the war?
While it may be true that the descendants of the heroes of Kurukshetra became involved in the typical rajasic power mongering that had previously characterized the Kauravas, that does not mean we should conclude that violence is inherently wrong. Instead, the lesson learned from the aftermath is the same lesson the Gita teaches; that rajasic human tendencies of ambition, greed, lust for power, arrogance, vanity, and attachment (this particular trait would explain some of the Pandavas leading âunbearableâ lives after the war) are the causes of human misery and suffering. And if these qualities (especially the lust for power) are taken to an excessive level, men will be born whose inner law of being demands they fight another dharmayuddh, detached from the idea of themselves as either slayer or slain, equipoised, with steadfast faith in Lord Krishna.
***
http://agneya.wordpress.com/2007/03/22/gan...hatriya-dharma/
[quote]
When judging the greatness of a civilization, one usually looks at its creations or achievements in a diverse set of fields such as the arts, music, literature, religion, politics, or philosophy, to name a few. When the expression of something deeper or higher is made in these forms, such a civilization is viewed as a leader of culture, an advance in the evolution of Nature. For this to occur, it is necessary that the vessels of culture have appropriate training and purpose; the vessel being of course, man. It is here that we return to the Indian truths of dharma and svadharma. Because in order for the vessel to properly express deeper realities, his inner being must be as free as possible not only from external bondage such as rigid societal or governmental structures, but also from the trappings of ego such as ambition and greed. If such bondage is in place, it will be difficult for man to follow the truth of his inner being, svadharma, whatever that truth may be. The expression of his nature obscured, greatness is not fully revealed through him.
Along with individual dharma is the dharma of the aggregate of individuals or community, necessary in upholding any great civilization. In India, originally society was categorized into four distinct groups (Varnas) of Brahmanas (including those taking to the spiritual life, scholars, etc), Kshatriyas (rulership class and warriors), Vaishyas (traders, wealth-producers) and Shudras (service providers). The Varna classification recognized a gradation of these groups in relation to their importance to society yet emphasized that all four groupings were fundamental to its functioning. To create balance in a civilization, it is necessary that all four groupings contain men born or developed for such life purposes, men following their dharma. It is when people born or having developed the nature of a particular Varna are working from positions within their group, that the purest expression of a national Brahmana dharma or Kshatriya dharma is to be occur. This of course, does not always happen, whether due to groupings becoming based on hereditary, or worse if those entering a particular Varna are not of the right nature for that Varna. The latter problem was addressed by Lord Krishna, who warned that even a perfect imitation of anotherâs nature was fraught with danger:
Better is oneâs own law of works, swadharma, though in itself faulty than an alien law well wrought out; death in oneâs own law of being is better, perilous is it to follow an alien law. Bhagavad Gita 3:35
The Gita relates this danger primarily to the individual and his subjective development, but naturally an adverse effect will fall upon the group the individual has erroneously joined. Of the four, perhaps the most dangerous to have the wrong men involved, would be the Kshatriya varna. The Kshatriya dharma is first and foremost to protect the people, to fight against internal and external conflict, to ensure a just and stable society in order that the other varnas are free to create without fear. If the kshatriya does not follow the truest law of the varna, the nation is at risk to all sorts of disaster and misery. If, in order to protect the people, the kshatriya deemed the use of violence necessary, then it was used, whether in response to provocation or not.
It was this right arm of the kshatriya that Gandhi abhorred. Believing that the user of violence invariably met his death by violence, Gandhi proposed a different route. In it, the fighter of injustice, the kshatriya, was to not lay a finger on the proponent of adharma. Instead, the Kshatriya was to willfully allow himself to be attacked by the enemy, and accept death without a fight, while the other party was spared death. This was Gandhiâs famous Satyagraha:
There are two ways of countering injustice. One way is to smash the head of the man who perpetrates injustice and to get your own head smashed in the process. All strong people in the world adopt this course. Everywhere wars are fought and millions are killed. The consequence is not the progress of a nation but its decline. â¦But through the other method of combating injustice, we alone suffer the consequences of our mistakes, and the other side is wholly spared This other method is satyagraha. One who resorts to it does not have to break anotherâs head; he may merely have his own head broken. He has to be prepared to die himself suffering all the pain.1
The Satyagrahi was not to use bullets, nor try to evade its path:
The day of independence will be hastened in a manner no one has dreamt of. Let not the reformers in the States therefore be unduly impatient; let them not forget their limitations and above all the conditions of success, viz., strictest observance of truth and non-violence. They must be ready to face bullets without flinching but also without lifting a finger in so-called self-defence. A satyagrahi abjures the right of self-defence.2
Indeed, the only tangible goal of satyagraha, disregarding its claim to fight injustice, was the death of its practitioner: âFor a satyagrahi there can be only one goal, viz., to lay down his life performing his duty whatever it may be. It is the highest he can attain. A cause that has such worthy satyagrahi soldiers at its back can never be defeated.â3 Somehow, he failed to realize that if all the âsoldiersâ were to die, they would likely take their cause with them. Such a mass death of âsoldiersâ was always a possibility, for Gandhi did not believe the Satyagrahi should ever flee or retreat from battle. His only purpose in battle was to rush right into the arms of death:
Fleeing from battle - palayanam - is cowardice, and unworthy of a warrior. An armed fighter is known to have sought fresh arms as soon as he loses those in his possession of they lose their efficacy. He leaves the battle to get them. A nonviolence warrior knows no leaving the battle. He rushes into the mouth of himsa, never even once harbouring an evil thought. If this ahimsa seems to you to be impossible, let us be honest with ourselves and say so, and give it up.4
Here we can acknowledge a peculiar courage in his words, yet also appreciate the minimal importance such a philosophy places towards life. The Kshatriya, while having no fear of death, was supposed to value life â his own and that of the people he was protecting. For if the Kshatriya put himself submissively in harms way, who would subsequently protect the masses? It was this truth Gandhi ignored, refusing to acknowledge the great responsibility he held. For regardless of the common view of him as the austere Saint, Gandhi belonged to the Kshatriya varna, having spent the majority of his life as either the leader of the Congress Party in India, or involved with the South African Indian Congress. As a kshatriya, it was his dharma to protect the lives of his people, instead of telling them to lay down their lives in a bizarre idea of âself-defenceâ:
Gandhiji first asked them if any of them had taken part in the riots, to which they replied in the negative. Whatever they had done was in self defence; hence it was not part of the riot. This gave Gandhiji an opportunity of speaking on some of the vital problems connected with nonviolence. He said that mankind had all along tried to justify violence and war in terms of unavoidable self defence. It was a simple rule that the violence of the aggressor could only be defeated by superior violence of the defender. â¦Mankind, he stated, had not yet mastered the true art of self defence.
But great teachers, who had practiced what they preached, had successfully shown that true defence lay along the path of nonretaliation. It might sound paradoxial; but this is what he meant. Violence always thrived on counterviolence. The aggressor had always a purpose behind his attack; he wanted something to be done, some object to be surrendered by the defender. Now, if the defender steeled his heart and was determined not to surrender even one inch, and at the same time to resist the temptation of matching the violence of the aggressor by violence, the latter would be made to realize in a short while that it would not be paying to punish the other party and his will could not be imposed in that way. This would involve suffering. It was this unalloyed selfsuffering which was the truest form of selfdefence which knew no surrender. ⦠This art of true self-defence by means of which man gained his life by losing it, had been mastered and exemplified in the history of individuals. The method had not been perfected for application by large masses of mankind. Indiaâs satyagraha was a very imperfect experiment in that direction.5
The true Kshatriya would not put his hopes in a miraculous retreat of an enemy that knew the Kshatriya did not believe in fighting. In such an instance, the aggressor would achieve his objective due to the foolishness of the ahimsa-following kshatriya. The true kshatriya knew that counter-violence in such a case of direct confrontation was necessary, because without it, a steeled heart and strong determination could have no external result. The kshatriya fought back because it was the Law of his being to protect the nation from suffering, not to expose himself or the nation to it. Indeed, not only would the kshatriya fight back in such circumstances, he would also be inclined to take the war into the enemyâs home, to strike first. A kshatriya did not restrict himself to one tactic such as ahimsa in the face of battle. In fact, ahimsa or mute self-sacrifice in battle has never been anywhere close to a significant war strategy. Meeting the enemy in battle, negotiating with the enemy (yet trying to achieve the best possible terms for the nation), setting up defensive barriers, allying with enemies of the enemy, were among the many war strategies used by the Kshatriya. Ahimsa never crossed the mind of the true kshatriya because ahimsa was never considered part of the kshatriya dharma. It was a virtue of the Brahmin.
The brahmana dharma was not actively involved in the protection of the nation through physical means. It was not their dharma. For this reason, they were free to practice ahimsa, non-violence or more appropriately, non-maliciousness. Their contribution to the defense of the nation was through intellectual activity, education, direct guidance of the kshatriya, or through occult means. Ahimsa, a virtue of a section of Brahmins, the sannyasi, was undertaken to help move the sannyasi from rajasic (action, passion) impulses into a Sattvic (peaceful, harmonious) state of mind, in order to make it easier for the Sannyasi to obtain his individual spiritual aspiration. A strict following of ahimsa, therefore, was not even meant for all brahmins, it was meant for the individual who aspired for liberation. It was also meant for those with the inherent Sattvic nature to practice it. It was not meant to be the mass movement Gandhi desired:
Ahimsa which to me is the chief glory of Hinduism has been sought to be explained away by our people as being meant for sannyasis only. I do not share that view. I have held that it is the way of life and India has to show it to the world.6
Ahimsa was never âa way of lifeâ that all of India followed. It was a means to an end for the spiritual seeker just as brahmacharya was. This abstaining from violence, along with vegetarianism, celibacy, humility, elimination of intake of intoxicants, and many other practices, were used by the sannyasi or the yogi to obtain a Sattvic state. From this evolved mentality, the foundation was set for spiritual realization. These practices were not done simply to become a person of high morals, they were done with the ultimate purpose in mind.
Ahimsa, and its role in Indian society, was not the only exaggeration Gandhi placed on certain aspects of Hindu religion and Hindu history. Gandhi took his view of ahimsa to such an extreme that he claimed Hinduism itself never permitted the use of violence:
Similar is the story of Christianity. And Buddhism too, if we regard it as separate from Hinduism, grew only when some people sacrificed their lives for it. I have not found a single religion which did not in the earlier stages call for sacrifices on the part of its followers. When a religion is well established people in large numbers come forward to follow it. This gives rise to bigotry. Now even the followers of Hinduism have stooped to killing and slaughtering although Hinduism never advocated violence.7
Such a claim flies in the face of the Bhagavad Gita. In it Lord Krishna clearly exhorts Arjuna to fight his cousins in battle, to follow his dharma, knowing the eternal truth that the Soul is neither slayer nor slain (Bhagavad Gita 2:18-19). Arjuna was reminded that his particular war was the greatest one for a Kshatriya to partake in; for it was a war to protect dharma from adharma (Dharmayuddh):
Moreover considering your dharma you should not falter; for the kshatriya there does not exist a more appropriate endeavor than a battle to uphold dharma. Bhagavad Gita 2:31
Gandhi, as he is entitled, held his own opinion as to the Gitaâs message. âI find in the Gita the message of nonviolence, while others say that the Gita ordains the killing of atatayi. Can I go and stop them from saying so? I listen to them and do what I feel is correct.â8 Gandhiâs belief in non-violence was so strong that he concluded that if indeed the Gita advocated violence, it should not be held as shastra:
I do not believe that the Gita advocates violence for self-defence. I understand the Gita differently. If the Gita or some other Sanskrit work advocates this I am not prepared to accept it as Shastra. An utterance does not become scriptural merely because it is couched in Sanskrit.9
The Gita, of course, is more than just shastra or some other commentary. It is considered the word of God, the Divine Song; the language is not as relevant!
Among those who disagreed with Gandhiâs interpretation was a European guest, Vincent Sheehan, who argued that âthe whole of the Gita was an argument in defense of a righteous war.â In response to this, Gandhi gave one of his two significant interpretations of the Gita and Mahabharata, saying, âhe did not agree that the Gita was either in intention or in the sum total an argument in defence of a righteous war. Though the argument of the Gita was presented in a setting of physical warfare, the ârighteous warâ referred to in it was the eternal duel between right and wrong that is going within us. There was at least one authority that supported his interpretation. The thesis of the Gita was neither violence nor nonviolence but the gospel of selfless action-the duty of performing right action by right means only, in a spirit of detachment, leaving the fruits of action to the care of God.â10
This allegorical interpretation of the events at Kurukshetra is an important and widely held view of the Gitaâs message. The view of the world â and especially the inner fields of an individual â as a battle between divine and hostile forces (more so than between ârightâ and âwrongâ) is a truth long-held (and experienced) by many including Sannyasis. It is these forces, the Gods on one side, the Asuras and other Demons on the other, that constantly battle to win the heart and mind of man, even if in the end the two sides are still under control of the Absolute. The problem with Gandhiâs interpretation was that he exaggerated this truth. Just like those who viewed the material world as nothing but an illusion, Gandhi could not fathom that Hinduism conceived of war in the physical plane.
But if we take Gandhiâs thesis to be accurate, it only makes it more likely that this battle between Divine and Asuric forces would extend into the material plane. After all, the majority of manâs action stems from something within wanting to make itself known on the surface. Rare is it for a manâs inner fields to be disconnected from some form of action on the material plane, since all fields whether material or inner, Divine or subconscious, are interwoven. Only certain members of the Brahmana varna are free from these external battles, and that is only if in remote isolation.
Besides the entire Mahabharata, the background for Lord Krishnaâs revelation to Arjuna, there are certain things mentioned in the Gita that enlighten us to the integrality of the physical plane in Lord Krishnaâs message to fight. For instance, not only is Arjuna told to detach his mind from the idea of himself as the slayer, he is told of the worldy consequences for abandoning his dharma:
O Arjuna, happy are the Kshatriyas who achieve a battle of this kind presented in its own accord; such a battle is a wide open path to the heavenly realms. However if you do not engage in this dharmayuddh, then you have abandoned your svadharma and your reputation, and you will incur sinful reaction. All people will speak of your infamy for all time, and for respected persons infamy is worse than death. The mighty chariot warriors will consider that you retired from the battlefield out of fear and for those whom you have been held in great esteem you will fall into disgrace. Your enemies will speak many malicious and insulting words discrediting your prowess. Alas what could be more painful than that? Either being slain you shall reach the heavenly realm, or by gaining victory you will enjoy earth, therefore O Son of Kunti, confident of success rise up and fight! (Bhagavad Gita 2:32-37)
From these clear examples, we can see that the ârighteous warâ in the Gita clearly involved the physical plane, since Arjunaâs penance for not fighting was of an external kind, primarily involving his reputation. Thus, if Gandhi was lucent enough to absorb the inner meaning of the war (indeed, one can deduce such a meaning from wars such as World War II) and the message of Karmayoga (surrendering of the results of actions to the Lord), we can surmise his refusal to acknowledge the Gitaâs material aspect as being due to his fanatical aversion to violence. Because when we examine other comments Gandhi made on the Mahabharata, we come across his second significant interpretation, that victory obtained by violence was meaningless:
It was contended that the Mahabharata advocated the way of retaliation. He did not agree with that interpretation. The lesson of the Mahabharata was that the victory of the sword was no victory. That great book taught that the victory of the Pandavas was an empty nothing.11
The greatest of all wars, the war that Mahavishnu himself incarnated into human form to ensure the outcome, an epic battle full of heroic figures, the war to mark the end of one age and the beginning of another (Kalyug), was one void of any real purpose to Gandhi. The fate of those involved in the war soured Gandhiâs view of the Mahabharata:
What has been said in the Mahabharata is of universal application. It does not apply to Hindus alone. It depicts the story of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Though they were blood-brothers the Pandavas worshipped Rama, that is, goodness, and the Kauravas followed Ravana, that is, evil. Renouncing ahimsa they took to violence and fought amongst themselves with the result that not only were the kauravas killed, but the Pandavas also were losers in spite of their victory. Very few among them survived to see the end of the war and those who did found their lives so unbearable that they had to retire to the himilayas.12
For the kshatriya, the possibility of individual death in battle would never prevent them from warfare in a dharmayuddh, for as Arjuna declared in the Mahabharata, âWhat is the use to us of an existence without heroic deeds?â The kshatriya was not fighting for himself, he was fighting for the highest of ideals, the protection of dharma and the foundations that allowed dharma to flourish. Death received when battling to uphold dharma was a passage to the heavenly regions. For a man who wanted his followers to rush into death without a fight, why was Gandhi all of a sudden in anguish that few of the Pandavas saw the end of the war?
While it may be true that the descendants of the heroes of Kurukshetra became involved in the typical rajasic power mongering that had previously characterized the Kauravas, that does not mean we should conclude that violence is inherently wrong. Instead, the lesson learned from the aftermath is the same lesson the Gita teaches; that rajasic human tendencies of ambition, greed, lust for power, arrogance, vanity, and attachment (this particular trait would explain some of the Pandavas leading âunbearableâ lives after the war) are the causes of human misery and suffering. And if these qualities (especially the lust for power) are taken to an excessive level, men will be born whose inner law of being demands they fight another dharmayuddh, detached from the idea of themselves as either slayer or slain, equipoised, with steadfast faith in Lord Krishna.
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