Just War in Religion and Politics by Jacob Neusner

Author:Jacob Neusner
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780761860945
Publisher: UPA

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Reflections on War and Dharma

in Classical Hinduism

Richard H. Davis

Bard College

At the conclusion of the great eighteen-day battle of Kuruksetra that lies at the center of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, the queen Gandhari surveys the battlefield where millions of warriors lie slain. “Those glorious heroes who used to lie upon couches, their limbs slathered with sandal-paste and aloe,” she observes, “now lie in the dust, and the vultures, jackals, and crows toss their ornaments aside while screeching their gruesome, horrid calls over and over.” (MBh 11.16.33-34) War turns things upside down. This war, like so many, had begun with masses of proud warriors eager to attain glory through their heroic exploits on the field of battle. But now, in this most unblinkered of heroic epics, Gandhari watches the other women of the palace searching for the remains of dead husbands, fathers, and sons, and reflects on the changes the battle has brought about. “Clever bards would celebrate them in the wee hours of every night with the best songs of praise and flattery. Now the best of women, tormented with pain—women in an agony of grief and pain—mourn them wretchedly.” (MBh 11.16.41)

As mother of one hundred sons, leaders of the losing Kaurava army and now all of them dead, Gandhari has good reason to be bitter. But the leader of the victorious Pandava side, Yudhisthira, grieves just as deeply over the wartime devastation.

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