The Tree and the Forest

At Upaplavya, in the border town Virata had given the Pandavas for their camp, Sanjaya of the Suta caste sat as an ambassador and waited to be answered.

He had come from Hastinapur carrying Dhritarashtra's message, and the message had been long and had contained no land in it. There had been praise of peace, and reminders that righteous deeds are the foremost of all acts, and a suggestion that a son of Pandu who went to war would be doing something unworthy of himself. Yudhishthira had heard the whole of it. He had answered that virtue and vice exchange their aspects in seasons of distress, and that a man must first ascertain which of the two he is practising before he can be praised for it, and then he had done the thing he always did when the ground under a question stopped being solid.

He turned to the man sitting beside him.

"Here is Krishna, the giver of virtue's fruits," he said, "who is clever, politic, intelligent, who has waited upon the Brahmanas, who knows everything, and counsels various mighty kings. Let the celebrated Krishna say whether I would be censurable if I dismiss all idea of peace, or whether if I fight, I should be abandoning the duties of my caste. For Krishna seeketh the welfare of both sides. Krishna is dear to us, and is the most illustrious of men. I never disregard what Krishna sayeth."

So Krishna answered. He did not address the king. He turned and spoke to the envoy.

"I desire, O Sanjaya, that the sons of Pandu may not be ruined; that they may prosper, and attain their wishes. Similarly, I pray for the prosperity of king Dhritarashtra, whose sons are many. For evermore my desire hath been that I should tell them nothing else than that peace would be acceptable to king Dhritarashtra. I also deem it proper for the sons of Pandu. A peaceful disposition of an exceedingly rare character hath been displayed by Pandu's son in this matter."

Then he changed.

"When Dhritarashtra and his sons, however, are so covetous, I do not see why hostility should not run high?"

"Thou canst not pretend, O Sanjaya, to be more versed than I am, or Yudhishthira is, in the niceties of right and wrong. Then why dost thou speak words of reproach with reference to the conduct of Yudhishthira, who is enterprising, mindful of his own duty, and thoughtful, from the very beginning, of the welfare of his family?"

The envoy had built his whole errand on one idea: that the higher course was to renounce, to sit still, to let the kingdom go and keep the merit. Krishna took that idea up and broke it on the plainest thing in the world.

"With regard to the topic at hand, the Brahmanas have held opinions of various kinds. Some say that success in the world to come depends upon work. Some declare that action should be shunned and that salvation is attainable by knowledge. But the Brahmanas say this: that though one may have a knowledge of eatable things, yet his hunger will not be appeased unless he actually eats. Those branches of knowledge that help the doing of work bear fruit, and no other kinds do, for the fruit of work is of ocular demonstration. A thirsty person drinks water, and by that act his thirst is allayed. This result proceeds, no doubt, from work. Therein lies the efficacy of work. If anyone thinks that something else is better than work, I deem his work and his words meaningless."

Then he opened the argument out until it covered the sky, and every example he chose was of something that never rests.

"In the other world, it is by virtue of work that the gods flourish. It is by work that the wind blows. It is by work that the sleepless Surya rises every day and becomes the cause of day and night, and the moon passes through the months and the fortnights and the combinations of constellations. Fire is kindled of itself and burns by work, doing good to mankind. The sleepless goddess Earth sustains by force this very great burden. The sleepless rivers, giving satisfaction to all beings, carry their waters with speed. The sleepless Indra, possessed of a mighty force, pours down rain, resounding the heaven and the cardinal points."

Not one of those things, he was saying, has ever been praised for renouncing.

Krishna went on to the two beings the Kurus most liked to invoke when they wanted the authority of heaven, and showed Sanjaya how each of them had got what he had.

"Desirous of being the greatest of the gods, Indra led a life of austerities such as a holy Brahmana leads. He gave up pleasure, and all things agreeable to the heart. He sedulously cherished virtue and truth and self-control, and forbearance, and impartiality, and humanity. It was by work that he attained a position the highest of all. Following that course of life, Indra attained the high sovereignty over the gods."

And then the preceptor of the celestials, the one whose name is quoted in every council to settle a point of policy.

"Brihaspati, intently and with self-control, led in a proper manner that life of austerities which a Brahmana leads. He gave up pleasure and controlled his senses, and thereby attained the position of the preceptor of the gods."

So also, he said, the constellations, and the Rudras, the Adityas, the Vasus, king Yama and Kuvera, the Gandharvas, the Yakshas and the celestial nymphs: every one of them attained his present position by work. In the other world the saints shine by a life of study, austerity and work combined.

"Knowing, O Sanjaya, that this is the rule followed by the best of Brahmanas, and Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas, and thou being one of the wisest of men, why art thou making this endeavour on behalf of those sons of Kuru?"

Then he described the man Sanjaya had just been lecturing, and the description was a rebuke.

"Thou must know that Yudhishthira is constantly engaged in the study of the Vedas. He is inclined to the horse-sacrifice and the Rajasuya. Again, he rides horses and elephants, is arrayed in armour, mounts a car, and takes up the bow and all kinds of weapons."

Both halves at once. The recitation and the bow. That was what a king was, and the envoy had come to ask him to be only the first half of himself.

"Now, if the sons of Pritha can see a course of action not involving the slaughter of the sons of Kuru, they would adopt it. Their virtue would then be saved, and an act of religious merit would be achieved by them, even if they would have then to force Bhima to follow a conduct marked by humanity. On the other hand, if in doing what their forefathers did they should meet with death under inevitable destiny, then, in trying their utmost to discharge their duty, such death would even be worthy of praise."

"Supposing thou approvest of peace alone, I should like to hear what thou mayst have to say to this question: which way doth the injunction of religious law lie, whether it is proper for the king to fight or not? Thou must take into thy consideration the division of the four castes, and the scheme of respective duties allotted to each. Then mayst thou praise or censure, just as it may please thee."

He laid the four out in order, without hurry, the way a man lays out a case he intends to win.

A Brahmana should study, offer sacrifices, make charities, and journey to the holy places of the earth; he should teach, minister as a priest in the sacrifices of others worthy of such help, and accept gifts from persons who are known.

A Kshatriya should protect the people in accordance with the injunctions of the law, diligently practise the virtue of charity, offer sacrifices, study the whole Veda, take a wife, and lead a virtuous householder's life. If he be possessed of a virtuous soul, he may easily attain the religion of the Supreme Being.

A Vaisya should study, and diligently earn and accumulate wealth by commerce, agriculture and the tending of cattle. He should so act as to please the Brahmanas and the Kshatriyas, be virtuous, do good works, and be a householder.

And for a Sudra the duties declared from the olden times are these: he should serve the Brahmanas and submit to them; he should not study; sacrifices are forbidden to him; he should be diligent and constantly enterprising in doing all that is for his good.

Then the one whose business is all four of them at once.

"The king protects all these with proper care, and sets all the castes to perform their respective duties. He should not be given to sensual enjoyments. He should be impartial, and treat all his subjects on an equal footing. The king should never obey the dictates of such desires as are opposed to righteousness. If there be anybody who is more praiseworthy than he, who is well known and gifted with all the virtues, the king should instruct his subjects to see that man."

And then the other kind.

"A bad king, however, would not understand this. Growing strong, and inhuman, and becoming a mark for destiny's wrath, he would cast a covetous eye on the riches of others. Then comes war. For that purpose came into being weapons, and armour, and bows. Indra invented these contrivances for putting the plunderers to death. Religious merit is acquired by putting robbers to death."

He had defined the war without once naming the man he had defined.

"Many awful evils have manifested themselves on account of the Kurus having been unrighteous, and unmindful of law and religion. This is not right, O Sanjaya. Now, king Dhritarashtra with his sons hath unreasonably seized what lawfully belonged to Pandu's son. He minds not the immemorial law observable by kings. And all the Kurus are following in his wake."

Then the comparison that no one in that hall could answer.

"A thief who steals wealth unseen, and one who forcibly seizes the same in open daylight, are both to be condemned. What is the difference between them and Dhritarashtra's sons? From avarice he regards that to be righteous which he intends to do, following the dictates of his wrath. The share of the Pandavas is, no doubt, fixed. Why should that share of theirs be seized by that fool? This being the state of things, it would be praiseworthy for us to be even killed in fight. A paternal kingdom is preferable to sovereignty received from a stranger."

That last line went further than a lawyer's point. Dhritarashtra had been letting it be understood that whatever the Pandavas eventually received, they would receive from him, as a gift, in his own good time. Krishna answered that a man would rather die on his father's land than hold a larger country as somebody's present.

"These time-honoured rules of law, O Sanjaya, thou must propound to the Kurus, in the midst of the assembled kings. I mean those dull-headed fools who have been gathered together by Dhritarashtra's son, and who are already under the clutches of death."

Sanjaya had come as an ambassador to persuade, and he was being sent back as a herald to recite, and the audience he was being given was a room full of kings whom Krishna had just described as men already dead. The envoy said nothing. He was an honest man in a dishonest court, and he had been sent to Upaplavya with instructions to talk about peace and to offer nothing, and everyone in that hall, including him, knew it.

Then Krishna stopped arguing about kingdoms, and named the thing that could not be settled by any division of land.

"Look once more at that vilest of all their acts. The conduct of the Kurus in the council-hall."

"That those Kurus, at whose head stood Bhishma, did not interfere when the beloved wife of the sons of Pandu, the daughter of Drupada, of fair fame and pure life and conduct worthy of praise, was seized while weeping by that slave of lust. The Kurus all, including young and old, were present there. If they had then prevented that indignity offered to her, I should have been pleased with Dhritarashtra's behaviour. It would have been for the final good of his sons also."

He went through it in order, and he did not soften any of it.

Dushasana forcibly took her into the midst of the public hall, in which were seated her fathers-in-law. Carried there, expecting sympathy, she found none to take her part except Vidura. The kings uttered not a word of protest, solely because they were a set of imbeciles. Vidura alone spoke words of opposition, from a sense of duty, words conceived in righteousness and addressed to that man of little sense.

"Thou didst not, O Sanjaya, then say what law and morality were. But now thou comest to instruct the son of Pandu."

Then the three voices from that hall, quoted back word for word by a man who had not been in the room.

Karna, while she stood there: "O daughter of Drupada, thou hast no refuge. Better betake thyself as a bond-woman to the house of Dhritarashtra's son. Thy husbands, being defeated, no longer exist. Thou hast a loving soul; choose someone else for thy lord." That speech, said Krishna, was a wordy arrow, sharp, cutting all hopes, hitting the tenderest parts, and frightful. It buried itself deep in Arjuna's heart, and it is there still.

Dushasana, when the five were putting on the garments made of the skins of black deer: "These all are mean eunuchs, ruined, and damned for a lengthened time."

And Shakuni, king of the Gandhara land, at the table, in the voice of a man making a helpful suggestion: "Nakula hath been won by me from you. What else have you got? Now you should better stake your wife Draupadi."

"You know, O Sanjaya, all these words of an opprobrious kind that were spoken at the time of the game of dice."

He had said earlier that the Pandavas had been saved that day by Draupadi herself, who, repairing to the hall, made everything right, and, like a vessel in the sea, rescued them as well as herself from that gathering ocean of misfortunes. Nobody in the room disputed it. It was the reason all five of her husbands were alive to be argued over.

Then Krishna said the thing the whole speech had been walking toward, and he said it as a plain statement of intention.

"I desire to go personally to the Kurus, in order to settle this difficult matter. If, without injury to the Pandava cause, I succeed in bringing about this peace with the Kurus, an act of religious merit resulting in very great blessings will then have been done by me, and the Kurus also will have been extricated from the meshes of death."

He put it no higher than a hope, and he put the hope twice.

"I hope that when I shall speak to the Kurus words of wisdom, resting on the rules of righteousness, words fraught with sense and free from all tendency to inhumanity, Dhritarashtra's son will in my presence pay heed to them. I hope that when I arrive, the Kurus will pay me due respect."

And then, immediately, the other half of it.

"Else thou mayst rest assured that those vicious sons of Dhritarashtra, already scorched by their own vicious acts, will be burnt up by Arjuna and Bhima, ready for battle. When Pandu's sons were defeated at the play, Dhritarashtra's sons spoke to them words that were harsh and rude. But when the time will come, Bhima will, no doubt, take care to remind Duryodhana of those words."

So the errand was fixed. Not an embassy of state, and not a request. One man would go into Hastinapur himself, in the character of a kinsman to both houses, and say aloud in that hall the things nobody had said when they should have been said, and find out what the Kurus would do with him.

And having decided it, he did not stop, because there was one more thing Sanjaya had to carry home.

"Duryodhana is a big tree of evil passions. Karna is its trunk. Shakuni is its branches. Dushasana forms its abundant blossoms and fruits. And the wise king Dhritarashtra is its roots."

He let that stand, and then he set the other tree beside it, limb for limb.

"Yudhishthira is a big tree of righteousness. Arjuna is its trunk. Bhima is its branches. The sons of Madri are its abundant flowers and fruits. And its roots are myself, and religion, and religious men."

Two trees, matched at every point, and the difference in them was underground where nobody looks.

Then he changed the image, and the second one was not a rebuke at all. It was an offer.

"King Dhritarashtra with his sons constitutes a forest, while the sons of Pandu are its tigers. Do not, oh, cut down the forest with its tigers, and let not the tigers be driven away from the forest. The tiger, out of the woods, is easily slain. The wood also, that is without a tiger, is easily cut down. Therefore it is the tiger that protects the forest, and the forest that shelters the tiger."

That was the whole case for peace, in four sentences, and it was not made on grounds of affection or of law. It was made on grounds of survival, and it was addressed to a house that thought it could do without its cousins. Cut the wood and you lose the tigers. Drive out the tigers and the wood will be felled by the first man who comes with an axe.

"The Dhritarashtras are as creepers, while the Pandavas are Sala trees. A creeper can never flourish unless it hath a large tree to twine round."

And then the last thing, which was the offer and the threat in one breath, given in that order because both were true at the same moment.

"The sons of Pritha are ready to wait upon Dhritarashtra, as, indeed, those repressors of foes are ready for war. Let king Dhritarashtra now do what may be proper for him to do. The virtuous and high-souled sons of Pandu, though competent to be engaged in fight, are yet now at peace with their cousins."

He turned to the envoy who had come to lecture him about righteousness, and finished.

"O learned man, represent all this truly."