[Developed from the author’s class lectures in Indian Philosophy for Leadership Excellence to senior Management students at XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur.]
Is there something called destiny, an unalterable future decided in the past? Is predetermination a reality and all human effort in the ultimate analysis inconsequential? Will what is bound to happen happen, do what you will?
When we look at these questions from the standpoint of the Mahabharata, we find that several stories in the epic would suggest that there is an unalterable destiny before which all human effort is of no significance.
The Mahabharata tells us that when Shishupala was born, it was predicted that Krishna would kill him. Shishupala’s mother Shrutashrava, who was Krishna’s aunt, begs Krishna to give her a promise that he would never kill him. Instead, Krishna promises that he would pardon a hundred offences of Shishupala.
As is well known, Shishupala is abusive of Krishna from the beginning and sides up with his enemies. Eventually, during Yudhishthira’s rajasooya sacrifice, Shishupala objects to Krishna being offered the highest worship and becomes abusive. He abuses the Pandavas, he abuses Bheeeshma, apart from abusing Krishna repeatedly. Eventually there is a battle between the two, at the end of which Krishna kills Shishupala with his discus. [According to another version, Krishna invokes his discuss in the rajasooya hall itself and there, without giving the abusive Shishupala an opportunity for a battle, kills him after telling him he has crossed his limit.] The prediction that Krishna would kill Shishupala comes true.
Similarly, at the time of Krishna’s mother Devaki’s wedding, a prophecy is heard from the heavens that her eighth son would kill Kamsa. A furious Kamsa tries to kill Devaki that very instant, but relents to her husband Vasudeva’s repeated pleadings and spares her life. Instead, he imprisons her and Vasudeva and each of their children is killed as soon as he is born. When Krishna is born as their eighth son, he is smuggled out of the prison and taken to the cowherd chief Nanda in whose house he grows up as his son. Kamsa makes many attempts to locate Krishna and kill him. Eventually though it is Krishna who kills Kamsa, thus fulfilling the prophecy.
These two stories too would suggest the existence of an unalterable destiny. A deeper look into the epic, however, would show us that the Mahabharata does not subscribe to the view that there is an unalterable destiny.
Take the story of Savitri and Satyavan, for instance. Savitri is one of the most revered heroines from Indian literature. She is among the highest ideals Indian culture has always exhorted women to live up to. She is like a lamp that has been guiding Indian womanhood for the past several millennia.
Ashvapati was the king of Madra and his queen was called Malati. Though the couple had been married for ages, they had no children. They please the goddess Savitri through penances that last for eighteen years and is eventually blessed with a daughter, whom they name Savitri. The princess grows up to be a splendorous beauty. However, even after reaching the marriageable age, no young man comes forward to marry her. One day as Savitri comes to pay her respects to her father after her morning bath, Ashvapati tells her she should now go out and search for a husband by herself.
Savitri wanders long in search for an appropriate husband, taking Ashvapati’s elderly ministers with her. When she comes back, she informs her father that she has chosen Satyavan to be her husband. Satyavan is the son of King Dyumatsena of Salva. Dyumatsena had become blind in his old age, and his enemies, sensing their opportunity, had attacked his kingdom and driven him away. Dyumatsena found a refuge for himself, his wife and their infant son in the jungle, where he has ever since been living, leading the life of an ascetic.
Sage Narada, who was present with Ashvapati when Savitri informs her father of her choice, praises Satyavan very highly. He tells them that in lustre he is like the sun; in intelligence and knowledge, like Brihaspati, the guru of the gods; in courage, like Indra, the lord of he gods; and in patience, like the Earth herself. When Ashvapati enquires the sage of Satyavan’s faults, Narada tells him that the youth is destined to die within a year and that was the only unfortunate thing about him.
When her father tries to dissuade Savitri from marrying Satyavan since that would mean widowhood in a year’s time, Savitri politely refuses, telling him that she has mentally chosen Satyavan as her husband and now she wouldn’t be able to imagine anyone else in that position. The marriage takes place and Savitri begins living in the jungle with her husband and in-laws.
The year passes fast. There are just four days left for Satyavan to die, though neither he nor his parents are aware of this. Savitri enters a fast that would last three days. Her father-in-law tries to stop her from it, but she does not relent. When Dyumatsena sees that Savitri does not take food even on the fourth day though her vow was over and asks her why, she tells him she would eat only after the sunset. All of the previous night she had spent in prayer. As Satyavan leaves for the jungle on that day as he has been doing every day for gathering fruits and roots and firewood, Savitri insists on accompanying him. Satyavan asks her why she suddenly wants to accompany him, something which she has never done in the past, and especially when she is weak after three days of fasting and a night spent in prayer and without sleep. Savitri tells him she is fresh in spite of the fast and the sleepless night, and insists that she be taken with him. Satyavan relents after much persuasion.
After gathering fruits and tubers for his family, Satyavan starts cutting down a dry tree for firewood. Suddenly he feels tired and develops a headache. The axe drops from his hand and as he begins to collapse, Savitri gathers him in her arms. As Satyavan is lying in her lap, she finds Yama, the Lord of Death, standing in front of them. Death throws his noose and gathers Satyavan’s life. As he begins moving on taking Satyavan’s life with him, Savitri follows him.
Yama tries to persuade her to go back. But she insists on her right as a wife to follow her husband wherever he went. Because of her spiritual power, Yama is unable to stop her from following him. When he fails, he offers her a boon – he asks her to ask for anything other than Satyavan’s life. Savitri asks for sight for her blind father-in-law. Yama grants it, but still Savitri refuses to go back. He then grants her another boon – that Dyumatsena would get his kingdom back. And then another – that her own father would have a hundred sons. When she refuses to go back even after this, he offers her a fourth boon. And she asks for a hundred sons for herself, which Yama grants. It is only then that Yama realizes the error he has made – as a chaste woman, she cannot have children unless Satyavan was alive. Yama laughs at the trick she has played on him, admires her determination and inner power that has made it possible for her to follow her husband even in his death, and grants Satyavan his life.
Savitri’s story is thus an example for a woman’s determination and inner power defeating destiny, altering it. Which means destiny is alterable. Destiny, however, by definition, means unalterable – what is bound to happen, do what you may. If destiny is alterable, then it is no destiny at all. It is only a possibility. It is destiny only in the sense in which we say that a seed is destined to become a tree, but whether it will become a tree or not depends on a number of other circumstances. In which case the right thing to say is that the tree has the potentials of becoming a tree, but it is not certain it will become.
Of course, those who subscribe to an unalterable destiny could argue that it was destined that Savitri would alter Satyavan’s destiny – an argument against which the only possible argument will be silence!
Markandeya is a sage who appears several times in the Mahabharata. His is another story from Indian literature in which destiny fails before human determination and man’s inner power. His parents had the option of choosing a son who would live long but would be evil, or a wise, noble son who would live only for sixteen years. They choose the latter, but when Markandeya learns that he is destined to die at the age of sixteen, he begins austerities to overcome destiny. Eventually, when Yama comes before him on the appointed day, he clings to the Shiva Linga he has been worshipping and Yama throws his noose over Markandeya and the Linga together. A furious Shiva burns Yama to death. It is originally Shiva who had told Markendeya’s parents that he would live only sixteen years – now Shiva blesses Markandeya: he would live as an immortal, his age permanently sixteen years.
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Does the Mahabharata then believe in an unalterable destiny or does it believe in a destiny that is only a possibility, but not a certainly, which will ultimately be decided by other factors affecting it?
Kripa, the old teacher of the Kuru Princes and Drona’s brother-in-law has this to say in the Mahabharata regarding destiny: “All men are subjected to and governed by these two forces, destiny [daiva] and exertion [purushartha]. There is nothing higher than these two. Our acts do not become successful in consequence of destiny alone, nor of exertion alone, O best of men! Success springs from the union of the two. All purposes, high and low, are dependent on a union of those two. In the whole world, it is through these two that men are seen to act as also to abstain. What result is produced by the clouds pouring upon a mountain? What results are not produced by them pouring upon a cultivated field? Exertion where destiny is not auspicious, and absence of exertion where destiny is auspicious, both these are fruitless! What I have said before (about the union of the two) is the truth. If the rains properly moisten a well-tilled soil, the seed produces great results. Human success is of this nature.” [Ch 2, Mahabharata Sauptika Parva. KM Ganguly translation]
Kripa clearly expresses the view that density alone can achieve nothing, but requires the aid of human effort if it is to come to fruition. But he also says that just as destiny cannot achieve results all on its own, human effort also cannot achieve results without the aid of destiny.
According to him, as we have seen, destiny is like a cultivated field, which, if aided by the rains, produces yields, and if not, yields nothing. Obviously, the destiny we are speaking about here is not the unalterable destiny. It is not a certainty unless it is aided by other factors. Which is to say, in other words, that there is nothing called an unalterable destiny.
In the whole of the Mahabharata, with the possible exceptions of Dhritarashtra and Yudhishthira, perhaps there is no other central character who believes in an inalterable destiny. Before Dhritarashtra sends the invitation for the game of dice to Yudhishthira, Vidura and others strongly advice him against it. Dhritarashtra refuses to listen to him. His excuse: what is bound to happen will happen, nobody can stop it, nobody can make it otherwise. After Yudhishthira’s defeat in the game of dice, after the humiliation of the Pandava brothers and their wife Draupadi in the dice hall, Dhritarashtra gives everything back to them, thanks to Draupadi, and the humiliated Pandavas depart for their capital Indraprastha. While they are still on their way, Duryodhana persuades his father to call Yudhishthira back again for a second game of dice. This time too Dhritarashtra yields. His excuse: what is bound to happen will happen, nobody can stop it, nobody can make it otherwise. And Yudhishthira accepts the invitation: his excuse: what is bound to happen will happen, nobody can stop it, nobody can make it otherwise.
Apart from these two, both of whom have strong loser elements in them, no other major character in the epic abjectly surrenders his fate to destiny. Even of these two, Yudhishthira’s surrender to destiny is not so abject as that of Dhritarashtra, as he proves on a few occasions in his later life.
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Later on in the Mahabharata, answering a question from Yudhishthira about destiny, Bheeshma would make a powerful statement about destiry. “Daivam kleeba upasate,” Bheeshma tells Yudhishthira from his bed of arrows: “It is the impotent ones that yield to destiny.”
“Nothing comes into existence without seed,” says Bheeshma, quoting an ancient conversation between Brahma and Vasishtha. “Without seed, fruits do not grow. From seeds spring other seeds. Hence are fruits known to be generated from seeds. Good or bad as the seed is that the husbandman soweth in his field, good or bad are the fruits that he reaps. As, unsown with seed, the soil, though tilled, becomes fruitless, so, without individual exertion, destiny is of no avail. One's own acts are like the soil, and destiny is compared to the seed. From the union of the soil and the seed doth the harvest grow… Everything can be secured by exertion: but nothing can be gained through destiny alone, by a man that is wanting in personal exertion. Even so does one attain to heaven, and all the objects of enjoyment, as also the fulfilment of one's heart's desires by well-directed individual exertion.”
Bheeshma states it all very effectively when he says, “He who, without pursuing the human modes of action, follows destiny only, acts in vain, like unto the woman that has an impotent husband.”
In his answer to Yudhishthira, Bheeshma cites the victory of the Pandavas themselves as an instance of human determination and effort and not an abject surrender to destiny. Says Bheeshma, “The Pandavas too regained their lost kingdom, of which they had been deprived by the powerful sons of Dhritarashtra, not through the intercession of the fates, but by recourse to their own valour.”
Bheeshma’s stand on the issue is clear: “Even as a fire of small proportions, when fanned by the wind, becomes of mighty power, so does destiny, when joined with individual exertion, increase greatly (in potentiality). As with the diminution of oil in the lamp its light is extinguished, so too the influence of destiny is lost if one's acts stop… So there is no authority inherent in destiny. [My italics. SC] As the pupil follows one's own individual preceptor, so does destiny follow exertion. The affairs in which one's own exertion is put forth, there only destiny shows its hand.” [KM Ganguli translation.]
Every major character in the Mahabharata, except for the possible exceptions of Dhritarashtra and Yudhishthira, believes in the strength of human will and effort. Krishna never leaves things to destiny, nor does Arjuna, or Bheema, or Nakula or Sahadeva. We cannot imagine Draupadi leaving things to destiny. Kunti expresses her trust in the power of action when she sends her whiplash words to Yudhishthira in the form of the Vidula Upakhyana. We do not find Karna, or Duryodhana or Dushshasana, or even Shakuni, leaving things to destiny.
When Krishna makes that powerful promise in the Gita and says, “Whenever dharma declines and adharma prospers, I shall create myself. In order to protect the virtuous and destroy the evil, I shall be born in age after age,” he is actually stating that the world depends on will and effort for the protection of the good and destruction of evil, and things cannot be left to themselves, or to a power called destiny.
No, it is not destiny that makes the world what it is, but human will and effort and no better proof could be offered for this than Krishna’s own tireless, long life during which he waged war after war to wipe out evil from the world and establish dharma in its stead.
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Does it mean there is nothing called destiny and everything depends on human will and effort?
Well, there are forces outside us that powerfully influence our lives, says the Mahabharata. The epic calls such forces, in their totality, daiva, which is the word used by both Kripa and Bheeshma in their discourses, and has been translated as destiny. Daiva is often described as samashti karma, the karma of not just the individual, but of the group, of the totality. Daiva is like a mighty psychological force formed by the merging together of the psychology of each individual that forms part of the totality. It influences and shapes the world we live in.
Our world, which is a constantly changing flux, is shaped by this totality of individual psychological forces, and it is subject to the psychological power of each one of us: the power of our thoughts and emotions, and of our will; and to the thoughts, emotions and will of other people around us. The weak among us influence the world we live in mildly, and the powerful among us, powerfully.
Life is like being in a river. True, the current of the river is mighty, but in spite of that we have our choices. We can decide to let go and float with the river, or we can swim in its direction, thus making our journey faster than what it would be if left to the river alone; or we can fight against it, and swim in the opposite direction.
And some of us alter the very direction of the river – Krishna being one such man.
And that is what Krishna’s promise means. That he shall be born again and again, in age after age, to alter the very direction of the river of life, the river of the world.
His promise to incarnate in age after age is not an assertion of destiny; on the contrary, through that statement he is saying that there is nothing called an inalterable destiny.
What does it all mean to us at a professional and a personal level? It means that destiny is essentially in our hands. It is we who create our destiny. Even the mightiest powers bow down before human effort and will, provided these are strong enough and sustained.
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