Duty, not for the sake of Duty

This is a tale from the book which is as old as time itself. A lesson from the Mahabharata involving Krishna, Karna, Yudhishthira and Arjun, an incident unknown to most. I had heard it from my grandmother a long time ago as a bedtime story.

Lord Krishna was the mentor and a great friend of Arjun. One day they both were discussing the values of life and the Lord was praising Karna who was then the king of a small piece of land, Anga, and Yudhishthira was the king of Indraprastha. As they were discussing, they landed on the topic of dharma and Krishna said that Karna was more righteous than Yudhishthira. Arjun was not ready to believe so and argued that Yudhishthira followed it strictly without violating any rule, even to the extent of not speaking a single lie. Krishna understood that Arjun would not be convinced by arguing and hence decided to show it to him and thus proving his words.

Both of them were dressed as sages first went to the kingdom of Yudhishthira, Indraprastha. It was monsoon season and Krishna dressed as sage requested the king to grant him wood to perform a yagna. Krishna further continued that the sages searched the forests for dry wood but couldn’t find any and said that the yagna was important for the peace and the well being of the people. Yudhishthira greeted the sages and told them to rest until his soldiers bring them the wood. Obeying and trying to fulfil the needs of the Brahmin was the dharma of the king. He then told his soldiers to look for some dry wood in the forest, meanwhile, he treated the sages and also fed them. The soldiers after searching far and wide couldn’t find any success and informed it to their king. He was sad but told the sages that he couldn’t arrange the wood they had asked for. The sages thanked the king for his efforts and then left for Anga, Karna’s kingdom.

Here also they requested the same thing and Karna sent some soldiers in search of wood and meanwhile, he treated the sages with hospitality. The soldiers didn’t have any luck either and informed their king of the same. Hearing this Karna thought for a second and went to take an axe and proceeded towards his room and chopped down the doors and windows of his room. He then gave these chopped wood to the sages and asked them to perform the ritual without any further delay. They both thanked Karna and left.

Krishna explained, “Yudhishthira blindly believes in the dharma and the code of conduct without ever questioning their existence and believes that change in dharma is not good. He follows the age-old tradition of dharma and his duty for the sake of doing his duty. His heart and soul are not involved in following his dharma whereas Karna has very little knowledge of the dharma of the king as he was not bought up in a palace and was not trained to follow the dharma of the king. He just wants to help people, even if he has to lose everything. Yudhishthira follows certain rules because it is written in the book of dharma. His definition of righteousness is limited to books but Karna does things from his experience and hence his definition of righteousness is not limited to books as he is genuinely interested in helping those who come to him for help.” Thus Arjun realised what the Lord had been trying to tell him.