Mahabharata and Corruption DOCX

Title	Mahabharata and Corruption
Author	Ravi Khangai
Pages	4
File Size	21.3 KB
File Type	DOCX
Total Downloads	209
Total Views	472

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What the Mahabharata says about corruption? - - Dr. Ravi Khangai, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University, Amravati Raod, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India- 440033. [email protected], 09402168854, 09862799912 Abstract- Corruption is one of the maladies that is plaguing our society. On the discourse on the corruption and possible remedy spiritual angle is often overlooked. It is our insatiable desires that impel us to corruption. The Mahabharata tries to make some psychoanalysis of this insatiable greed of human nature. This paper is an attempt of finding the reasons as narrated in the epic that prompts human being to corruption. Key words- Death, Horrible, Honey, Grim. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… The 'Stri parva' section of the Mahabharata narrates a story. In the story a Brahmin was journeying on foot, he comes to an impenetrable forest that scares him to death because it was teeming with huge, carnivorous beasts. Horrible, voracious beasts were scattered around it on every side, such as lions, tigers and elephants. When he saw this, his heart pounded wildly; his hair bristled and stood straight up. Running through the wood, dashing this way and that, looking out in every direction, wondering, "Where can I take refuge?" searching for some opening among those beasts, racing forward in terror, he could not get out, and he could not get far enough from the beasts. In times he saw that horrible wood was surrounded by a net on every side, and that absolutely horrible woman had embraced the wood with her arms. The large wood was dotted here and there with five headed snakes, lofty like mountains and touching the sky like tall trees. In the midst of that wood there was a covered up well; its opening was choked with vines that were hidden under the covering of grass. The Brahmin fell into that hidden well and got caught in the webbing of the vine's filament. He hung there with his feet up and head down, like a big jack fruit hanging by the stalk. And then another calamity developed to make the things worse. He saw a large, black brindled elephant at the edge of the top of the wall. It had six faces and moved on twelve feet and it was gradually working its way over the well, which was covered by vines and trees. As the Brahmin clung to the branch of tree, at its end there were all sorts of frightening, horrible looking bees; they had gathered honey and were returning to their hive. Honey is the sweetest of all things…….A stream of this honey was flowing there constantly and copiously, and that man hanging there drank from that stream. But in this dire situation, as he drank it, his craving for it did not abate. Never satisfied, he kept wanting it again and again. And the man never lost hope for his life….though white and black rats were cutting at the root of the tree on which his hope of surviving depended! 1...