In the previous episode, we had witnessed Bhishmachaarya talking about “belief” to Yudishtra, and how this belief is such a fragile element in life. In other words, beliefs might be based on several assumptions, and they might be shattered at any point in time. To highlight this point, Bhishmachaarya is narrating a beautiful story of a king who chases a deer as part of his hunting spree. He gives a long chase, however, the deer is smart enough to escape everytime the king tries to hit it with his arrows. Even after giving such a long chase, the king believes that he will be able to catch the deer. As he gets tired, hungry and thirsty, the king approaches a group of sages, who help him with sumptuous food and water. Upon being questioned by the sages of coming alone into this dense forest, the king explains that he was on a hunting spree and was trying to catch hold of a deer, which is escaping from his sight every time. As the sages listen to this accord, they ask whether the king intends to continue the chase or not, for which, the king replies in the affirmative!
Upon listening to the king’s reply, the sages now talk thus, “Oh king! You’ve come all alone here! You’ve been chasing a deer, which is afterall an animal. Now you are standing and talking with us for the past 15 minutes or so. Before that, you’ve been sitting here and having food and water for the past 30 minutes or so. Adding both together, you’ve spent almost 45 minutes to an hour in this place itself. Now, within this one hour, the deer might have jumped up and ran several miles from this place! How will you go and find it now? Where will you go and search for that deer?” For this, the king replies the same way as Yudishtra did just now – “I just have the belief that I’ll capture that deer! Nothing else!” This is exactly what Bhishmachaarya is making Yudishtra understand – From this, we can see how fragile “belief” could be! We also go behind several worldly things in our daily lives, don’t we? Sometimes we might be able to achieve a few things, many times, we might fail! However, we always keep saying that when we encounter failure, we should “never give up”! Of course, this is correct. We should never give up our pursuit just because we’ve failed once. But, the context where this is applied is very important. Are we applying this for merely worldly attainments or are we trying to strive for higher-level needs like attaining “Moksha”, trying hard to walk the spiritual path, etc.?
As Bhishmachaarya explains this to Yudishtra, the story doesn’t end here. Now the king asks the sages thus, “Oh Sages! You’re ridiculing my belief of capturing that deer. First of all, what is belief? How is it important / not important for human beings?” As the king asks, the sages show Sage Thanu who is sitting amongst all of them and explain thus, “Oh king! Belief is like Sage Thanu who is sitting here! Look at him – He is so tall (More than 6.5 feet), but very fragile with no fat anywhere. He is just a bag of bones, isn’t he? Belief is also like this only! It is very fragile in nature! Before you came here, two others came to meet Sage Thanu a while ago. One of them is by name “Veera-Dhyumna” and he is the son of a king, who is the other person. This “Veera-Dhyumna” encounters an unfortunate death, upon which the father was coming along this way, searching for his son. This is where he met Sage Thanu. As Sage Thanu questions the king on why he was roaming here and there amidst this dense forest, the king replies thus, “Oh great Sage! I’m searching for my son! He is dead! I’m believing that my son will come back some day, and perhaps he might be here amidst this dense forest somewhere! I’m trying to find where he will be and once I find him, I’ll take him along with me to my kingdom!”
This answer might sound very weird from the king, doesn’t it? We’ve to understand here that the king is talking this way because of his excessive attachment towards his son. The king could not digest the fact that his son is no more, and hence, he is resorting to such behaviours. Consoling the king, Sage Thanu replies back politely thus, “Oh great king! Those people whose “Karma” is over in this world, will automatically encounter death! It seems that your son’s “Karma” is over in this world and hence he has died. Please understand that those people who have died, will never come back again!” As the sage replies thus, the king counters him immediately – “Oh Great Sage! Please do not say this! My son will definitely come back! I have this belief in me! He will be here somewhere and I shall search for him!” As the king is in tears, the sage consoles him once again and replies thus, “Oh my dear king! You are wrong! Of course, I appreciate your belief, however, it doesn’t work this way! Your belief is very fragile and is not practical in nature!” As Sage Thanu tries to explain him calmly thus, the king is not very satisfied with this explanation. The king asks thus, “Oh Sage Thanu! You are a great Sage! You’ve performed immense penance all through your life and you’ve explored all secrets of life, haven’t you? So tell me this – Our entire life revolves around belief, isn’t it? For instance, we ride a chariot. Whenever we want to stop the chariot and try to stop it, we believe that the chariot can be stopped if the brakes are applied, isn’t it? Similarly, the entire fabric of life revolves around belief, isn’t it? How can you say that belief is very fragile in nature?”
Now this is a very important question that the king has asked Sage Thanu. Bhishmachaarya is narrating this story to Yudishtra to highlight the importance of belief in life. So for today, let us understand up to this point and in the next episode, we shall continue with Sage Thanu’s answer to the king! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 