Opinion | When Victory Defeats You: Lessons From The Epics About The Cost Of War

There can never be an ethical justification for the violence and misery inflicted by war

Steven Pinker has recently argued that war and violence have declined in modern times, and that our species is living in its most peaceful era. Yet we often find ourselves on the brink of a great war, worrying that a catastrophe is about to occur. The Iran–US war has indeed thrown many of us into that anxiety once again.

The war has now entered its fifth week. As with any war, it has brought horror to many people and caused widespread suffering. The rise in prices and fuel shortages has affected us as well, though to a lesser extent than in neighbouring countries. Organised warfare and violence are as old as human civilisation, even if they may have declined in recent times.

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This also means that, when we look back at our heritage, at ancient times and the literature written then, we encounter stories, songs, and narratives of wars and their effects. It can hardly be otherwise. Poets are, in many ways, healers of wounds. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the cobbler who appears in the first act introduces himself as “a mender of bad soles." Great poets often dwell on great tragedies and console themselves and others for the pain these tragedies inflict. “Ruditaanusaaree Kavi," writes Kalidasa. The poet is the one who follows tears and lamentations.

In both of the great Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, war is a major component. In fact, great poems, or “Mahakavyas," formed a distinct genre in classical Sanskrit literature, and classical Indian literary theorists considered war an essential component of the genre. “Mantradootaprayaanaaji naayakaabhyudayair api," writes Acharya Dandin in his text ‘Kavyadarsha’ when he defines the Mahakavya. The planning of war, the march to battle, and the victory of the hero should be portrayed in the poem if it is an epic poem or Mahakavya. Perhaps war cannot be excluded from any grand narrative about the human condition.

It would be interesting to examine these epics once again to see what they say about war. Perhaps this has been done before. Yet, as is often said, classic texts yield new meanings with each reading. According to Italo Calvino, one of the defining characteristics of a classic is that, with every rereading, it offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first. Moreover, the pain caused by the death of loved ones, and the suffering such loss brings, has not changed over the millennia. The strategy, cruelty, and even the stupidity of those who go to war; well, that has not changed much either.

In the Mahabharata, after Duryodhana’s fall, three remaining warriors from the Kaurava side, Ashwatthama, Kripa, and Kritavarma, leave the battlefield, grieving, and set up camp outside it as evening sets in. There, to console a grieving Ashwatthama, Kripa tells him: “This Duryodhana, stained by covetousness and bereft of foresight, had without taking counsel, foolishly commenced to seek the accomplishment of an undigested project. Disregarding all his well-wishers and taking counsel with only the wicked, he had, though dissuaded, waged hostilities with the Pandavas who are his superiors in all good qualities. He had, from the beginning, been very wicked. He could not restrain himself. He did not do the bidding of friends. For all that, he is now burning in grief and amid calamity."

Reading now, in light of the current events, there are many images and contexts that one can connect this with. Perhaps all wars, in some way or another, are stained by covetousness. Perhaps wicked people, those who cannot restrain themselves, are involved in all wars. In the Mahabharata, Kripa’s words did not comfort Ashwatthama. A vengeful Ashwatthama, in his rage, went to the Pandava camp at night, where the sons of the Pandavas and many other mighty warriors from their side were asleep after the exhausting battle. There, Ashwatthama unleashes great terror and kills the sons of the Pandavas.

The terrible tragedy soon reaches the ears of the eldest of the Pandavas, Yudhishthira, who was basking in his victory in the great war. That, finally, was the proverbial straw for him. Yudhishthira, who had witnessed much death and violence in the war, could not bear the loss of his own children. Suddenly, for him, the victory of the war lost all its meaning. Yudhishthira sank down and lamented:

Hatva bhratrn vayasyamsh ca pitrn putran suhrd-ganan

bandhun amatyan pautramsh ca jitva sarvan jita vayam

anartho hy artha-sankashas tathartho ’nartha-darshanah

jayo’yam ajayakaro jayas tasmat parajayah!

“Having slain brothers and friends and sires and sons and well-wishers, and kinsmen, and counsellors, and having vanquished them all, we ourselves are vanquished at last! Misery looks like prosperity and prosperity looks like misery! Thus our victory has assumed the shape of defeat. Our victory, therefore, has ended in defeat! Having won the victory, I am obliged to grieve as an afflicted wretch. How, then, can I regard it as a victory? In reality, I have been doubly defeated by the foe. They for whose sake we have incurred the sin of victory by slaying our kinsmen and friends, alas, they, after victory had crowned them, have been vanquished by defeated foes that were heedful!"

The line “jayo’yam ajayakaro jayas tasmat parajayah!"—that the victory has assumed the shape of defeat –– echoes through the history of wars. A victory in war, when one considers the immense human cost, suffering, devastation, and anguish that it brings, often assumes the shape of defeat. Millennia later, Jean-Paul Sartre would write in one of his plays, where a character, an Archbishop, interrupts the account of a war he has won, saying that he does not wish to be troubled with details, as “a victory described in detail is indistinguishable from a defeat."

After this jolting confrontation with reality, the Pandavas go to see Gandhari, the mother of the Kauravas. All the Kauravas, all one hundred of them, were killed in the war by the Pandavas. They are meeting the mother of those they have slain, and they do not go with pride or happiness. They are as broken-hearted as any who have lost a war. When they meet, Gandhari asks Bhimasena why they had to kill all the Kauravas. They could have spared even one child, as a support for her and her husband, an old, blind couple now bereft of their power and their kingdom. A furious Gandhari then asks for Yudhishthira, the eldest of the Pandavas.

Yudhishthira comes forward. “Here is Yudhishthira," he answers her. “Here is the cruel slayer of thy sons! I deserve thy curses, for I am the cause of this universal destruction. Oh, curse me! I have no longer any need for life, for kingdom, for wealth! Having caused such friends to be slain, I have proved myself to be a great fool and a hater of friends."

Here, at last, is a point where Yudhishthira’s victory defeated him utterly. Gandhari realised that. With a mother’s boundless love, she understood that Yudhishthira and the Pandavas were as heartbroken as she was.

Gandhari never cursed the Pandavas. When she realised that the killers of her children were as grief-stricken as she was, she comforted them instead of cursing them. But she did curse someone else: Lord Sri Krishna. After seeing the dead bodies of her children and many other warriors on the battlefield, an enraged Gandhari says to Krishna, “If I have attained any virtue through my devotion to my husband, then with all that virtue, I curse you, Krishna!"

In the 1960s, the BBC aired a documentary titled ‘The Great War’, for which they interviewed Stefan Westmann, who had served as a corporal in the German army during the First World War. Westmann recounts how he killed a French soldier—an act he remembered vividly many years later. He says he would wake up at night drenched in sweat because he “saw the eyes of his fallen adversary." He recalls that those who fought alongside him were ordinary people—tram conductors, farm workers, students—“people who never would have thought of doing harm to anyone." He wonders how they could all have acted so cruelly. He himself bore no personal animosity towards the man he killed. Westmann offers an explanation of sorts. At the end of the interview, he reflects that “the culture we boasted so much about is only a very thin lacquer, which chips off the moment we come into contact with cruel realities like war."

The question that Westmann pondered was a simple one: how could someone kill another person when there is no personal animosity between them?

The question is an important one and has long troubled many. The Ramayana addresses this very issue in one of its chapters. In the Aranyakanda of the Valmiki Ramayana, a group of sages from the Dandaka forest come to meet Sri Rama. They are being bullied, harassed, and killed by Rakshasas. Rama promises to help them, and the next day he prepares to leave for the Dandaka forest along with Lakshmana. It is then that Sita offers her views. Sita says, “There are three miseries that arise from desire, which those who walk the path of Dharma should avoid. One is dishonest speech; the second is coveting another man’s wife; and the third—and most important, Lord—is violence without enmity. “trtiyam yad idam raudram parapranabhihimsanam / nirvairam kriyate mohat tac ca te samupasthitam" says Sita. “The third misery—violence towards other beings without enmity—has now come upon you."

To reiterate her point, Sita narrates a story of a pure and honest sage. Because the sage’s meditation and spirituality were so powerful, Indra, feeling threatened, came to him disguised as a cavalryman and requested the sage to keep his sharp sword safely for a while. The sage agreed and kept it securely. Whenever he went into the forest to gather fruits and edibles, he began carrying the sword with him so that it would remain safe. Gradually, as he continued to carry the sword, his attitude began to change, and he developed an inclination toward violence. Eventually, because he lived constantly in the company of the sword and his nature had changed, he fell into hell.

After narrating the story, Sita says: “agnisamyogavad hetuh shastrasamyoga ucyate" — being in contact with weapons is like being in contact with fire; it will ultimately harm you. She concludes her point by saying, “aparadham vina hantum loko vira na manyate" — Inflicting violence upon someone who has committed no offence against you is not acceptable in the world.

The story narrated by Sita suggests that proximity to weapons might change a person. When it becomes easy to accomplish things through violence, one may begin to develop a liking for it. One’s transcendental nature, or one’s basic disposition that one considers to be peaceful, may not be enough to prevent this. Or, in the words of Stefan Westmann who lived and fought a war many millennia later, “the culture we boasted so much about is only a very thin lacquer, which chips off the moment we come into contact with cruel realities."

Any country that is at war with another will have justifications for its actions. There will be political, geographical, and financial justifications. Anyone who advises pacifism may appear to be a contentless fool in the face of these arguments. Yet, though there may be many such justifications, there can never be an ethical justification for the violence and misery inflicted by war.

After long and terrible conflicts, after bloodshed and devastation, this is what the voices of the Mahabharata affirm. And what of the common person’s suffering? Inflicting violence upon those who have committed no offence is simply unjustifiable by any means. That is one of the lessons of the Ramayana.

From Ukraine to Iran, these insights remain relevant. Yet we humans tend to recognise their truth only in the aftermath of such wars.

As one of the great philosophers of the West once said, “The Owl of Minerva flies only at dusk."

The writer is a commentator with a research degree in philosophy from the University of Sheffield, focusing on the intersections of culture, history, and politics. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.

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