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31-Krishn and MBH War

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31-Krishn and MBH War

Krishn is often accused for His deceptive methods used in war. Let us try to list out some of them and understand.

1. The Bheeshm Episode.
The very first one is Bheeshm episode. Bheeshm was fighting fiercely and Arjun, because of his love to his grandfather, was not putting his best efforts to kill him. So, Krishn had to encourage and arouse Arjun to fight with him. The only method to do that was to take the weapon himself. Although Krishn had taken the vow not to take any weapon in the war, he took his chakra and this made Arjuna to come running and stop him. Bheeshma was a devotee himself and he had taken another vow that he would make Krishna take up a weapon. So, Krishn served two purposes by taking the Chakra.

2. The Karn Episode.
Since Dhuryodhana refused the offer of peace in spite of Krishn's best efforts, as a last effort, Krishna tried to avoid the unfortunate
war by telling Karna the secret of his birth. If Karna had taken KrishnaТs advice, the war could be avoided and both the Pandavas and
Kouravas could have lived in peace with half kingdom each. This was possible because Karna was DhuryodhanaТs best friend and main source of strength. KarnaТs refusal to accept KrishnaТs advice made the difference and the entire clan perished. KrishnaТs attempt was laudable from this angle.

3. The Drone Episode.
There is a popular belief that Bheema killed an elephant by name Ashwatthaamaa and Krishna made Yudhishtira to utter a lie to Drona about
the death of Ashwatthaamaa, Drone's son. The verse which tells this has been found to be a later insertion and has been dropped by several
scholars including VS Sukthankar (see Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune). It is obviously so because the story continues to say
that Drona did not lay down his bow immediately after that but he laid down only after the several sages like Vishwaamitra, Jamadagni, Bharadwaaj, Gautam, Atri, Vashishth, Brighu etc, arrived and advised Drone against using the Brahmaastra against innocent people and to renounce the weapons. They also told him that he was doing things against his Braahman Dharm and that he should take up to spiritual path. It was after this that he retired and sat in meditation at which instance Dhrishtdyumn beheaded him. Neither Yudhishthir, nor Bheem nor Krishn did any thing wrong. In case of Drone however he could have been defeated by Arjun as the latter had all the divine weapons whereas Drone did not have all these weapons. Only Arjun and Bheeshm had the mighty Paashupat weapon from Shiv. However one is not permitted too kill one's Guru and such being the case Arjun could not have killed Drone. The ruse of the dead elephant worked as Drone forgot for a moment that his son could not be killed as he was a Chiranjeevee.

4. The Jayadrath Episode.
Jayadrath, the Sindhu king was the brother in law of the Kauravas and was a wicked person. He had abducted Draupadee once. He was primarily responsible for the murder of the innocent Abhimanyu deceitfully and against all norms. If Arjun could not kill him as per his vow before darkness that day, he had to self immolate. Krishna, by his Yaugik power (not by the discuss) created darkness so that Jayadrath came out and Arjun could kill him. Krishna thus helped the establishment of Dharm even by going out of the way but it was entirely justified.

5. Killing Karn
Karn Parv gives a detailed narration of the rebuttal given by Krishn when Karn questioned on the method adopted. When Kaurav adopted all
deceitful methods like poisoning Bheem, trying to burn the Paandav in the lac house, molesting Draupadee, cheat them in the game of dice etc,
Karn had abetted the Kaurav. So, he had lost all claims to Dharma. Karn himself accepts the logic and dies when he did not have any arms.

6. Duryodhan
When Dhuryodhan was getting the upper hand, Arjun on a suggestion of Krishn reminded Bheem of his vow to break Dhuryodhan's thigh.
If this was not done, Dharm would suffer and Duryodhan's A-Dharm would perpetuate. It was just fulfilling the vow taken by Bheem at the time of Draupadee Vastra Haran.

Like these, it is possible to see reason in whatever Krishna did as an advisor and guide to the Paandav, His purpose was the restoration of Dharm and vanquishing the A-Dharm. Small procedural irregularities in order to achieve a major objective are acceptable. They are like amputating an unhealthy limb in order to save a whole life.

 

 

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Created by Sushma Gupta On 05/27/04
Contact: sushmajee@yahoo.com
Modified on 08/05/12