Dharma

Chapter 6: Two Dharma Biographies? Rāma and Yudhiṣṭhira

CHApTEr 6 Two Dharma Biographies? Rāma and Yudhis t hira The question mark in this chapter’s title looks ahead to chapter 10. There I will argue that our last classical dharma text, the Buddhacarita or “Adventure of the Buddha,” offers a critical reading of both the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa. As mentioned in chapter 1,where all three works were briefly summarized, Aśvaghoṣa, the Buddhacarita’s poet, was familiar with both epics. He portrays the Buddha as finding many ways to speak of dharma, but one of the most important is that he uses the Mahābhārata’s term mokṣadharma, “laws of salvation,” for the pursuit of nirvāṇa. In brief, when the Buddha-to-be says “there is no such thing as a wrong time for dharma,” meaning the quest for nirvāṇa (Buddhacarita 6.21), both Rāma andYudhiṣṭhira fail to realize this, according to Aśvaghoṣa, because they are caught up in the particulars of Brahmanical dharma. A preliminary picture of Rāma and Yudhiṣṭhira’s dharma biographies can be given in outline in relation to the similar ways their royal lives are structured through each epic’s organization into “books.” I present a template shared by both epics that will be fleshed out further in chapter 7, when we focus on the two epics’ queens. Capitalized words identify themes the books share in common. In each epic, • Book 1 begins with Frame Stories that make the poets characters in their own poems and tell how the poem is composed and transmitted. A Dynastic History leads to a set of brothers as the lead male characters. These are Rāma and his three brothers in the Rāmāyaṇa. In the Mahābhārata, it is the Pāṇḍava heroes (the five sons of Pāṇḍu), of whom one needs to remember the three eldest—Yudhiṣṭhira, Bhīma, and Arjuna—and recall that their mother, Kuntī, secretly bore another son before she was married; Rāma and Yudhiṣṭhira 75 that son is Karṇa, who sides with the Pāṇḍavas’ paternal cousins and rivals, the hundred Kauravas led by Duryodhana. Rāma marries Sītā. All five Pāṇḍavas marry Draupadī. • Book 2 then describes a pivotal Court Intrigue resulting in exile. In the Rāmāyaṇa it unfolds around a rivalry between two cowives of Rāma’s father; Rāma, Sītā, and one brother, Lakṣmaṇa, depart, while another brother, Bharata, remains in the capital to rule in Rāma’s stead. In the Mahābhārata it culminates in a dice match; the Pāṇḍavas and Draupadī depart, while King Duryodhana takes over their half of the kingdom. • Book 3 then tells of Forest Exiles: fourteen years for Rāma and company; twelve for the Pāṇḍavas and Draupadī. The exiled kings receive Instructive Guidance from Great Sages, and there are attempts to abduct their wives—in the Rāmāyaṇa a successful abduction of Sītā by the demon Rāvaṇa. After Monstrous Encounters (in Yudhiṣṭhira’s case with his father Dharma disguised as a murderous goblin), the heroes return to society (in Rāma’s case a society of monkeys). • Book 4 is about Inversions. Rāma gets involved with the upsidedown world of the monkeys’ capital, in which the royal monkey brothers play out a reverse image of Rāma’s own story of exile, wife-abduction,and fraternal rivalry for the throne.The Pāṇḍavas assume topsy-turvy disguises in the kingdom of “Fish”— Yudhiṣṭhira under the name “Heron,” an eater of fish. • Book 5 is about “Efforts” made in Preparation for War—by all the monkeys and Rāma in the Rāmāyaṇa, and by both sides in the Mahābhārata. A Divine Messenger—Rāma’s devoted monkey Hanumān in one epic, Kṛṣṇa in the other—goes into the Enemy Camp, where he Reveals an Overpowering Nature while upstaging Attempts to Hold Him Captive. • Rāmāyaṇa 6 and Mahābhārata 6–11 are War Books. • Rāmāyaṇa 7 and Mahābhārata 12–18 provide the Denouements and return to the frames. Here the two kings’ dharma biographies are handled very differently. Once their main exploits are over, Rāma becomes the primary listener to his own adventure, whereas Yudhiṣṭhira goes on learning...