Valedictory Address - P.

Lal

Text of the taped extempore valedictory address by Prof. P. Lal at the international
seminar on the Mahabharata organized by the Sahitya Akademi, Delhi, February 17-
20, 1987. Published in The Mahabharata Revisited, edited by R.N. Dandekar, Sahitya
Akademi, New Delhi (1990).

"Professor Lal needs no introduction. I think everybody present here knows him pretty
well. May I request him to present his valedictory?"

Thank you very much. This delightful brief of introducing reminds me of Sarojini
Naidu's classic approach. She was presiding once and had to introduce a very trivial
personality; all she said was, "The person I am going to introduce to you is so eminent
that the less said about him the better" - which indeed is the way it should be. For,
after all, we are in this seminar in the presence of a luminosity greater than all of us, a
kind of concentrated grand radiance; we are lesser orbs revolving around the
Mahabharata. I know that even radiances have dark spots. But by and large my
concern will be to be dazzled. It is wonderful to be dazzled by Mahakavi Vyasa. It is
wonderful, to begin with, to be in the presence of a distinguished company that
provides so much varied, and, may I say, contradictory stimulation.

I am reminded of a hymn in the Japji. I come originally from the Punjab. We come
originally from many places and then we get lost in the big world around us.
The Japji says, "How many seas! how many mountains! how many rivers!" I am
giving the gist of it... "How many seekers of that which is holy!" -
whether dharma or ahimsa or whatever - "how many shapes! how many forms! how
many seekers of divine perfection! how many ... There is no end to them!" You have
had, I think, during this seminar an extraordinary presentation of this wide range of
seekers after wisdom in humble imperfect ways.

Professor Uma Shankar Joshi - sorry, Joshi-ji - respect for wise elders is an essential
part of our tradition - said the basic message of the Mahabharata in a sense was the
pursuit of dharma. Yes. "Dharma protected, protects; Dharma violated, destroys."
That is indeed what Vyasa declares in his epic. So why don't we
do seva to dharma? It is wonderful that Krsna Dvaipayana, who has many other
names too and not all of them flattering, Krsna Dvaipayana who has been associated
with Visnu Narayana himself - it is wonderful that he should have said this. But here I
am in the twentieth century, caught up, as we are all caught up, in our different
existential contexts, trying to see what is dharma. What is this dharma that Vyasa is
referring to? Is it Svadharma? Is it kuladharma? Is it yugadharma? Is
it sanatanadharma? At any particular time I am caught up in a certain context - and
there you are, it is another miracle, another wonder. I must discover for myself what
particular combination of dharma is right at a particular time. Our life is a soaring
experience; we capture it in words; and words have denotations and connotations;
words are floating. Even words like dharma are floating like paper boats on a sea of
silence; so I think I will, if you permit me, try not to stress philological exactitudes, or
semantic details. There is a very lovely poem, poem 11 in Tao Te-Ching, which says:
"Thirty spokes share the hub of a wheel but it is the centre hole that makes it useful.
Take clay and shape it into a vessel; but it is the hollow within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room; it is the holes which make the room useful. So
profit comes from what is there but value comes from what is not there." Now
perhaps, it is just possible that meaning lies in what is said but truth lies in what is not
said, and I do not have to mention that it was Rabindranath, who thought of the
marvellous confrontation, the"I"-ing and "thou"-ing in the Mahabharata which is
connected with Karna and Kunti. In his poem "Karna-Kunti Sambad", the "dialogue
between Karna and Kunti", Kunti will not say the truth. But let's see, we can arrive,
perhaps, at some kind of seeing, some kind of saying, some kind of wading in this sea
of silence in different ways.

What is this unsaid thing in the Mahabharata? Let's see. This is

an International Seminar. There is a parable of the Middle Ages narrated by John of
Damascus in the eighth century. It includes the story of "A Man in the Well" which is
based on a set of legends which arrived from this part of the hemisphere. The work
was translated into Latin in A.D. 1048-49 under the name Barlaam and Josephat, and
by the early thirteenth century it had found its way into the Gesta Romanorum ; there
the story of "A Man in the Well" appears as Chapter 168 titled "On Eternal
Damnation". It is good to remember, I say this in passing, before I return to the story
of "A Man in the Well", that the Mahabharata of Vyasa is a Doomsday Narrative, the
final narrative of the Dvapara Yuga. So Barlaam narrates that a sinner resembles a
certain man who, afraid of a Unicorn, slides back into a pit ... he did not know that he
was falling. We too do not know when the ground slips from under our feet. But after
he had fallen he seized with his right hand a little bush which was growing up
alongside and, looking down, he saw at the bottom of the well, a horrible dragon
waiting for his fall with wide-open mouth. Moreover, there were two mice - one white
and the other black. I think I recall having heard this parable on the first day of
the Mahabharata Seminar when it was brought into vivid focus by Professor Misra
here in conjunction with the other parable of the tree, the Double Tree. We will come
back to that again. ... Two mice - one white and the other black - continuously
gnawing at the root. He felt it sway. Also four vipers hissing. Looking up, he also saw
a flow of honey dripping from the branches of a Tree growing beside the well and,
forgetting the perils which surrounded him, he gave himself up completely to that
sweetness. "See! see! how Christ's blood streams in the firmament!" Then, a certain
Friend who happened to come passed him a ladder, but he tarried, and as the bush
snapped he fell into the mouth of the dragon. And so he died, alas, a miserable death.
Now what does all this mean? We know the moral of the story as expounded
inBarlaam and Josaphat. The Unicorn becomes an elephant in the Indian version of
the story in the Mahabharata. The Unicorn is Death, the pit is this life, the white and
black mice are day and night. The four vipers are the four humours in the human body
which is the tree, and the Dragon is the Devil, the well at the bottom is hell, the Friend
who is passing the ladder is Christ, the sweetness of the honey is delight in sinning
tempting the human being. The sweetness of the honey is delight of sinning! This is
not the Mahabharata interpretation. And the Friend - how happy, how wonderful,
how nice, how convenient, how utterly fortuitous that such a divinity should pass by
at the right time and supply a saving ladder! The friend is Christ and the ladder is
penitence which if refused leads to a precipitous fall in the Devil's mouth.

This story is in the Striparvan: the "Ladies Canto". It is always the men who fight and
it is always the ladies who mourn. Sisters, mothers, beloveds, wives. They go to the
vast field of Kuruksetra. They place body upon body, limb upon limb, head upon
head, and, in a gory spectacle reminiscent of the transposed heads of the
Vetalapancavimsati though on a much grander and more terrifying scale, they try to
discover who their beloved ones are. But where does this takes place? In
the Mahabharata or in life?

This is, I repeat an International seminar; whether we are in the West or in the East,
we are seeking. Seeking what? What should be the fancy word that I should use?
Truth, consolation, inspiration, peace? Every age, every yuga, finds a fancy word. We
hear the voice of Dhrtarastra telling Vidura, his half-brother, "Show me a clear path
through the dark thickets of dharma. That is the phrase used: "through the dark
thickets ofdharma." And then Vidura replies and narrates this parable (XI.5-7). We
know the parable well. It is the story of a Brahmana. Brahmanas always receive
ambivalent praise in India and are chosen for special tasks like this. A Brahmana is
passing through the forest and he slips inside a disused pit and hangs on to a root on
the side. And then he realizes that every effort he makes, every struggle on his part,
only weakens the root; so he looks up - there is nothing else to do - and he finds
honey, deliciously sweet honey, a flow of honey ... the honey all creatures love. The
honey we all seek. These are the Mahabharata's very words. The honey whose real
taste only children know. Suffer the little children to come to me for theirs is the
kingdom of honey. The honey drops fall on him, they fall on his mouth. He cannot do
anything. He can only reach out, and lick the honey. He relishes the drops, and he
says, "I am alive! I am enjoying life!" Even as he says this the root weakens and he
slips deeper into the pit. Is this being? Is this becoming? Is this essence? Is this
nothingness? What is it that we are all caught up in? What is this fearful well? This
thing we call existence in which we are all trapped? Dhrtarastra realizes its truth only
after the cataclysmic holocaust, and so he needs consolation. Now the parable as
offered in the Mahabharata is meant to console. Does it succeed? We are all doing
things to help people, so much seva, so much kindness everywhere, so much honey!
Well, we only sink deeper. The words of Vyasa, the words of Krsna Dvaipayana
Vyasa, are very simple. "The words of Vidura failed to revive Dhrtarastra." Here is a
man who wanted to cast out remorse. So great a sweetness flows into my breast, I
must dance and I must sing and I am blest by everything, everything I look upon is
blest. But it did not work. What then will work?

We go further into the Mahabharata. We are at the very end now. That was
the striparvan. We go a little further.

I am taking three little parables from the Mahabharata. The parables which float in
and around the epic, the parables which provide ideas, the parables which suggest
possibilities of hope and consolation. We shall see whether in our life they are
valuable or not. We go a little further to the very last parvan and we come to not
the Swargarohana but to Swarga itself. Heaven itself, the hard core Ultimate of
Reality. The first spectacle that Yudhistira sees when he enters Heaven is Duryodhana
ensconced gloriously in a beautiful seat and radiating heroic sun-like splendour
(XVIII.I). Consider who is taking him there. He cannot go alone. He is being guided,
as Dante was guided by Virgil, into that rarefied transcendental realm by no other than
a person whose name, if I mention it, will elicit immediate knowing smiles in the
majority of the audience here. He is the Rsi Narada who carries a one-string guitar,
the ekatara, who has long hair, and who always asks the wrong questions which are
the right questions, a terrifying man and a very dangerous person in
any yuga, specially, I imagine, in our worried century. But Narada is the one who
takes Yudhistira there, and Narada is the one who introduces him to this very
necessary experience of a fundamental illusion.

We are now passing from the drop of honey into another image, the desert image.
This is the waste land, if I may call it so, of life itself, of Kuruksetra. This is the waste
land, if I may call it so, of life itself, of the lower reality. It is a waste land which can
be made fertile but it is the waste land in which we all are. The well, the hole, the pit.
There is a folk legend which utilizes Narada as a hero in order to bring out the
meaning of life, I think - I may be wrong but one of the nicest things about being
wrong in a valedictory address is that there are no questions later. It is a touching
legend, a legend which so impressed Andre Malraux that he immediately recorded in
his book Anti-Memoirs saying that he had heard it in Varanasi when he was on an
official tour. Apparently an Indian had come up to him and said, "Malraux Sahib,
would you like to listen to a story?" He replied, 'But I have got official work to do."
But this is a very good story." "But ... All right, tell me." The story was told and this
urbane plenipotentiary of culture with an extraordinary Gallic sophistication was so
moved that he transcribed it in his autobiographical note-book and then paralleled it
with what he describes as a Christian parable about maya, the illusion by which the
phenomenal world appears to be real. Now that is roughly Webster's definition, but
whether it is actually real or whether it is not, is not something Webster is pleased to
answer. Andre Malraux remarks that the legend belongs to Christianity where it has
been given another form. Before I give you the Indian legend, let me give you the
Western. In one of the monasteries built in a medieval forest a monk asks what are the
tasks of the elect in the Heaven. The answer is: "None. They contemplate the Lord in
Heaven. For all eternity they contemplate the Lord." He says: "Eternity must be very
long." The Father Superior does not answer. The monk goes back to a clearing in the
forest. Above his head a beautiful bird comes and perches on a tree. He is meditating.
This is the concept of sadhana referred to earlier by Sri Uma Shankar Joshi, but raised
to an extraordinary poetic intensity. This is Westernsadhana. The monk meditates, a
lovely bird comes and perches. Soon it flies away to a tree, not far off, taking its time,
for it flies badly. The monk follows it, the bird flies off again, and the monk finds it so
beautiful, and so mysterious, that he follows the bird, and so the chase continues until
evening. The bird disappears and the monk hurries to get back to his monastery before
night falls. Guess what happens? Guess what happens to all of us when we hurry back
to a monastery before night falls. Yatrasayamgrho munih (cf. I.41.1): where-night-
falls-is-my-home Muni. That's what we all are. The monk hardly recognises it. The
buildings are much larger. The old Fathers are dead. The Superior has become an old
man. The monk thinks: "If it takes only a bird to make 20 years seem to you like a few
hours then what must the eternity of the elect be like?"

Back to Narada. Narada with his one-string ekatara goes up to Visnu who is
enthroned in his Heaven, so goes the story, and he asks Visnu: "Visnu, what
is maya?" Naturally the answer to it cannot be given; so Visnu remains silent. And
Narada again asks: "Do you mean to imply that maya cannot be explained? This
desert of a world into which we have come where illusion appears to be reality and
reality is illusion?" And Visnu says: "Maya can be experienced but it cannot be
explained." "Very well, then," says Narada, "if you cannot explain what you make
then I refuse to have faith in you." Visnu quickly steps off his throne because he
knows what happens to gods when human beings refuse to believe in them. The gods
simply disappear. This is the "death of the god" theology. We cannot worship the gods
who make us, we worship the gods we make. So he quickly steps down and hastily
says: "Wait, Narada! I will tell you what maya is. Come with me."

They walk together. Nothing happens until they come to the edge of a desert and then
he slumps under a tree, produces a lota (= pot) from the folds of his dress, gives it to
Narada, and says: "Narada, in the distance you see an oasis. There is a hut there. My
throat is parched. Can you get me some water? I will explain maya to you." Narada
steps forward, saying, "Wait here, I will get you water."

We know what happens next. Narada goes and notices a hut in the oasis. He shouts:
"Is anyone there?" And the door opens, and a beautiful girl with compelling eyes of
Visnu opens the door. He is haunted and fascinated, he forgets about the lota of water
and he is entertained by her with food. Her parents come. We know what happens
whenever parents come. They ask him to rest. He stays a week, then a fortnight. This
is the man they have been waiting for. One day he asks for her hand; this is exactly
what the parents have been waiting for; so he marries her.

One year passes; we know what happens when one year passes after marriage; a son is
born to him. Five years pass, and a daughter is born to him. Ten years pass, twelve
years. Twelve years pass, his inlaws die; they leave property behind; property is
meant to be left behind; and he inherits their land. Twelve years pass, and the floods
come. The floods come and they wash his wife away, his children away, his hut away,
his field away; he tries to save them and in the swelling waters he loses consciousness.

He wakes up, he opens his eyes and he finds he is lying on dry ground, his head on
Visnu's lap. Visnu is waiting under the tree at the edge of the desert. Visnu, looking
down at him, asks: "Where is that lota of water which I asked you to bring?" And
Narada says: "Please don't tell me now, Visnu. I understand, I know. But don't tell me
what happened to me did not happen to me." A sky-voice recurs in the folk parable:
"Is all this real?" Visnu says:"You wanted to know what maya is. And now do you
know?"

Then Narada realizes the real nature of Heaven and the real nature of
Kuruksetra. Maya is this desert of a world where we have been thrust to get a lota of
water for Visnu, and, instead of doing that, we have looked into the eyes of girls who
have eyes of Visnu, and we have got sidetracked; or we have created the endless
deserts of bloody Kuruksetra property conflicts.

One more parable, again from the Mahabharata. The point is this: if we are hanging
in a well, as indeed the Mahabharata seems to suggest as a doom narrative, and if
whatever we do, whatever we are, whatever reality we experience, somehow cannot
satisfy us, seems less than real, then what is the morality, the ethics, the manner in
which we should live our lives? What are the rules of dharmasastras? We go back to
theBhagawadgita. It is known as the Ygdrasil, the Tree of life. In canto 15, Krsna
clearly says: " Uttistha Arjuna: Stand up! Slice this tree with the sword of
detachment." What tree? What is this tree which we must cut down? This is the Tree
of Life. How can I cut down the Tree of Life itself whose roots, according to Krsna,
are in the sky, whose fruits are on earth? I come from the Punjab, but I live in Bengal.
There is a Bengali folk poet Ramprosad Sen who took this idea from the Gita and
composed a haunting song about it: "Ore mon chal re chal, niye ashi charti phal. let's
go my mind, let's go. Let's pluck the four fruits." He is referring to the four fruits
of Gita tree. This is the parable which Sri Ramakrishna, knowing that he was dealing
basically with people who would not understand the subtle philosophical implications
of what went on in theMahabharata, resorted to in order to explain the meaning of
life. This is the tree which was converted into the Kalpataru, the Wish-Fulfilling tree.

Here is the story of the Wish-Fulfilling Tree which is also an account of what we must
do in order to escape out of the well, the story which explains what is the honey of
life, and why reality is not the reality it appears to be. Permit me this little digression.
This is a roundabout entry into the heart of the Mahabharata.

There is an uncle who leaves for the big-time city. This is the parable as told by Sri
Ramakrishna. He has nephews and nieces, and he returns from the city loaded with
gifts; he gives them toys and sweets. He finds them playing with sticks, twigs and
pieces of stone, and he says: "What is the fun in all this? Surely, there are better things
in life than sticks, stones, and twigs." So he gives them glittering toys and he says: "
You know, outside the hut there is the Kalpataru. It is a very simple thing, getting
what you want. All you have to do is go to the Kalpataru, stand under it, make your
wish, and the Tree will give you what you want, whatever you like." The children,
like all children now-a-days, specially educated ones, know that this is not true. You
cannot get what you want. You have to struggle very hard to get what you want and
even if you struggle hard someone else is struggling harder and gets the goodies first.
Still others have connections, and they really get the best things first. The children
know this; this is practical wisdom, after all. Nonetheless, when the uncle goes away,
they rush to the Tree and stand under it and they start wishing.

They are children. What they want? Sweets, mithai of all kinds, sandesh,
rossogulla. What do they get? We were just told by Uma Shankar Joshi-ji, "You must
be careful with your food." They get stomach-ache, because the Tree will not merely
give you what you want, the Tree will also give you its exact opposite which is built
into it, guaranteed. The nature of the Universe is so marvellous; "complex" is the
wrong word. It ismarvellous, it is a gigantic cosmic hoax, a divine comedy. What else
do they want? Toys. What do they get? Boredom. They want bigger toys. Bigger
boredom. Bigger and better toys. Bigger and better boredom. The tree will give you
exactly what you want and with it its built-in opposite. "Arjuna, stand up! Cut down
this tree with the sword of ..." But we will come to that later.

The children grow older. There is nothing we can do under this tree except grow
older. The tree does not change; we do. It is not time that is passing; it's we. Some of
us may grow wiser, but grow older we all will. Now they are "young adults". Now
they do not want sweets and toys. They want the four fruits described by Ramprosad
Sen: sex, fame, money, and power. There is nothing else available under the Tree.
They reach for it, they get it, and the Tree gets them too, because they get the opposite
also. Nothing in this world comes single. Everything comes with its built-in opposite.
This is Sri Ramakrishna's interpretation. They are trapped and they worry and they
agonize and they do not know why they are agonizing. Then they grow still older and
now they are ... We have such lovely words for them: in the West they are called
"senior citizen"; in the East they called gurujanas, wise elderly people. They are just
supid grown-up children. They are now lying under the Tree, on their death-cots,
waiting to be carried to the funeral pyre where they will be given a proper crisp Hindu
cremation. They are divided into three groups: One group says - and this is the
interesting part now - one group says, "This world is a hoax, it is a farce, it is a
swindle. "Fools, they know nothing. The second group says: "We made the wrong
wishes. This time we will make the right wishes." Bigger fools. They have learnt
nothing. The third group says: "What is the point of living in a world like this? We
want to die." "Very well," replies the Tree, "Take it." The Tree will give you exactly
what you want and with its built-in opposite. That is its function. So, they die under
the Tree, for there is nowhere else one can die, and they are born again under the Tree
because there is no place else where one can be born again. We cannot say:" Stop the
world, we want to get off." This world is all we have and so back again they come
into the world, under the Tree, trapped once more. Such is Karma.

But there is a very fine ending to this parable. There was a lame boy, a cripple, and he
also ran to the Tree but he fell down, he was pushed aside by his clamouring
companions and relatives. So he crawled back to the hut, and thought: "I will wish my
wish later." He looked out of the window at the Tree and he saw his companions
wishing for sweets, and getting stomach-ache; wishing for toys, and getting boredom;
wishing for death and getting re-born. He suddenly saw the truth, he saw the world as
it is. He did not feel superior. He felt humble. There was a gush of compassion in his
heart for those under the Tree and in that gush of compassion he forgot to wish.
He wanted to wish, but he forgot to wish. The Tree could not touch him. He is the free
man. He had the obtained the accidental co-ordinates of moksa. Accidental, because
they cannot be obtained deliberately. No, no amount of yoga, no amount
of dharmasastra, no amount sadhana, mauna, or vocal, no amount of Seminars,
domestic or international, will give us the co-ordinates of mukti. In that gush of
compassion the boy forgot to wish. In a strange sense he had lept out of the well. He
had jumped out of the desert and he had cut down the Tree.

I merely wanted to indicate the possibilities the Mahabharata has for the expansion of
our feelings and our imagination. I don't think these are answers, these are only
signposts as we travel through the Kuruksetra of life.
Thank you for listening. I thank Vyasa too for making possible this fruitful Seminar
under the Tree of Life, one of whose countless blossoming branches is the Sahitya
Akademi.

Copyright, 1987, P. Lal, all rights reserved.