When we come to the Kaurava camp, there are so very many villains that it might appear impossible to pick on any one! Anyways, this gang is always boasting of its numerical prowess. Since the childhood days, Duryodhana time and again tries to ill-treat, drown, poison the guileless Bheema, his bete-noir, with the support of this number potency!
I would like to divide the villains in the Kaurava camp in to two groups. The first group consists of good people who allowed themselves to be caught in a bad 'cont(r)act'. THE best representative of this type would be Bhishma. He errs because of his excessive goodness. As a prince, his duty was to the kingdom, not to the silly lust of an aging king. It is his pledge, extremely well intentioned and loving but absolutely misplaced, that is the seed of the entire destruction. He does not, moreover, rein in the negative forces he has thus unleashed which leads to further havoc.
In other words, excessive adherence to a misplaced ideal, too much goodness that leads in to a blind alley, the resultant tunnel vision are the real villains. Hence the balanced wisdom of Lord Krishna to which we sang paeans towards the end of the blog yesterday.
The real tragedy of Mahabharata is that in the Kaurav mafia, there are very many such people with good intentions that fetch bad results. To give a few examples, Dronacharya, Kripacharya, Vidur (who does rebel at times though) commit crimes that deserve a chapter each!
The other group of villains in the Kaurav camp are badness incarnate, with very little to recommend them to any re-consideration. Leading them in my opinion are Dhritrashtra and Gandhari. Dhritrashtra's blind spot, both literally and figuratively, for Duryodhana's stupid wickedness, his final desire to crush Bhima whom Duryodhana so many times ill-treated show a fond (which also means foolish) father, but a bad king. Similarly, if Gandhari as a responsible wife and mother had used her vision, once again both literally and figuratively, to help Dhritrashtra rule wisely, may be, Mahabharata would not have happened at all.
Shakuni, sheer evil egging on the stupid Duryodhana, thus would not have managed to avenge an imaginary affront. Yet another mistake of Bhishma is allowing this crook's interference in immediate family matters. The guiding principles of ruling a kingdom then were well-defined enough for him as the patriarch to end the vicious game this creep initiated.
The rest of the set of villains, Dushasana, Jayadratha, for instance, too, signify such stupidities. It is one of my hopes to one day write detailed interpretative chapters on all these issues, quoting copiously the Mahabharata, and the abundant scholarship available!
In the meanwhile, let me conclude this longish blog by maintaining that wise balance seems to be the key to avoid any excesseses that unwittingly lead to evil. Hence the need to keep a check on self so that goodness does not get washed off in an avalanche of the very many modes evil incarnates!
Pratima@May be, I would be thus able in a small way to explicate the much misunderstood Karma Siddhanta, with reference to the Dnyan Yoga, tempered with Bhakti Yoga, that the Geeta expounds! Talk of tall, not high, mind you, hopes indeed!!!
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