…‘Akurvata’ is in the past tense and means ‘did do’. Dhritarashtra asked Sanjaya: “What did my sons and those of Pandu do, assembled in the sacred ground of Kurukshetra, itching to fight?” In fact this incident occurred on the 9th day of the battle after the fall of Bhishma, and the war turned in favour of the Pandavas.
…I would like to bring a few points to your notice just for the sake of perspective. There are three motifs in the Mahabharata which flavour the story and its philosophy of life.
First, the ideal of yajna — the Rajasuya in the beginning and the Asvamedha in the end. In both these rituals the king first fights to acquire enormous wealth and then distributes all that wealth among his citizens.
Second, the game of dice. The king is obligated to risk and wager all his wealth and possessions in the game of dice. Third, war. It is the kshatriya's duty to fight incessantly to expand his kingdom and subdue his enemies.
Life is constant risk-taking, recklessly thrown to the uncertainties of chance, and the passion to die with boots on. These are the ideals of a Kshatriya. He is mainly interested in power and fame (kirti). It is the Vaisya's duty to create wealth through agriculture (krishi), animal husbandry (goraksha) and commerce (vanijyam). The Brahmin is responsible for creating knowledge and ethical values and the dissemination of those values. And the sudras, constituting 80 percent of the population, were split into many castes according to their crafts. When we read the Mahabharata this socio-political-economic template (varnashrama dharma) has to be kept in mind.
Today India is pursuing a competitive market economy and parliamentary democracy where every citizen, regardless of gender, religion, race or language, is constitutionally guaranteed equality of opportunity. We read the Mahabharata for insights about human nature and mind and interpersonal dynamics in the pursuit of power, wealth and fame. The actual nitty-gritty of wealth creation, distribution and consumption is not the core of this study. And high-level management and leadership are essentially a matter of power or decision making and risk taking — a mindset of living dangerously and in total freedom.
Can you give us some analogies from the corporate world for zero-sum games and win-win situations? The key negative words are ‘arrogance’ and ‘greed’, and the positive words are ‘coexistence’ and ‘collaboration’. A paltry settlement is no settlement, and the Pandavas would not have long been happy with that kind of a humiliating situation.
Swami Bodhananda