In the previous episode, we had witnessed the continuation of an important phase of discussion as part of the “Aapad Dharma”, as discussed by Bhishmachaarya with Yudishtra. The discussion revolves around “trust”, which has come out of a beautiful story of a bird called “Poojani” and its tryst with King Brahmadatta. As we’ve witnessed, King Brahmadatta’s little son had killed Poojani’s little chick. This angered Poojani,who in turn inflicted heavy injuries on King Brahmadatta’s son. This ended up straining the deep relationship between King Brahmadatta and the Poojani bird. As Poojani decided to pack its bags and leave the palace, it explains certain important points pertaining to trust – It is imperative not to trust anybody who is ineligible to be trusted. At the same time, it is not advisable to not trust someone beyond a certain boundary, even if that person is trustable.
Both these points are important here. Bhishmachaarya clearly picks up this section of the dialogue and renders important pieces of advice to Yudishtra. He explains that as a leader, it is always wise to keep everyone at a safe distance, and not to go too close to anyone. The person whom we are trusting today, might be trustable at this moment. However, we would never know when the person might switch sides and go into our enemy camp. If we go beyond our boundary of trust and blurt out all our secrets to that person, chances are very high that we would be in trouble if that person ditches us. Moreover, Bhishmachaarya also highlights an allied point here – Loss of trust, which leads to enmity, can occur in five scenarios – Enmity because of women, Enmity because of land disputes, Enmity because of abusive language being traded between each other, Enmity due to caste issues and Enmity due to bad memories of the past! Now let us discuss these five points in detail as we move on from here. Firstly, lack of trust and enmity can easily occur because of women. Even in our daily lives in the present context we might be able to see this clearly – Two men might be very thick friends for years together – They might go everywhere together, and might even end up eating food from the same plate. However, if a woman comes in the middle, this trust slowly drifts away, isn’t it? One person amongst the two might fall for that woman, and subsequently, an insecure feeling creeps within him – “What if my friend also falls for the same woman whom I’m in love with?” This feeling of insecurity starts the downfall of the trust that these two men had for years together!
Secondly, enmity can happen because of land disputes. We see this quite a bit in today’s scenario as well – How many families get separated today because of a dispute pertaining to houses or property? How many brothers and sisters live separately without even talking a word with each other because of these issues? This point needs no explanation! In fact, even in the Mahabharata story, we’ve witnessed that the entire feud between the Pandavas and Kauravas was over the Hastinapura kingdom being split! When Bhagawan Krishna asked for five villages on behalf of Yudishtra, Duryodhana was adamant in refusing to part with even an inch of land, wasn’t he? This led to the devastating Kurukshetra war and the entire family had to pay a heavy price for this! Thirdly, enmity can happen because of abuses being traded against each other! This also we’ve witnessed quite a bit. In the Mahabharata story itself, we’ve seen during the gambling game episode, how Duryodhana and Bheemasena traded barbs and abusive language with each other, especially after Draupati was molested publicly! This was one of the fundamental reasons why the Kurukshetra war had to happen!
In similar ways, enmity and lack of trust can happen between two thick friends / relatives / brothers / sisters! So for today, let us understand up to this point and we shall take this discussion forward into the next episode as well! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 