The Book of Assembly Hall - Dharma, Dicing and Draupadi

The Book of Assembly Hall

Q. Comment on Dharma, Dicing and Draupadi in the Book of Assembly Hall

Answer: Dharma in the context of the Mahabharata cannot be confined to its religious meaning. It is a concept that evades simplistic definition to encompass a number of considerations; social rituals, law and order, morality, ethics and personal virtue –all fall under its purview. Although certain principles such as compassion, non-violence and rectitude may be regarded as its base foundation it demands continual evolution so as to properly resolve morality ambiguous quandaries.

The relativistic and nuanced quality of Dharma and the difficulty of its application become apparent in the Book of Assembly Hall when the Pandavas are invited to a dicing game with Kauravas. The questions that arise out of the match about inalienable rights of selfhood, the conflict between human law and the greater cosmic law and an individual’s duties to oneself and the state would be reiterated throughout the later chapters of the epic.

The malleability of the concept of Dharma is exploited by Duryodhana when he justifies his envy of the Pandavas’ success and his drive to bring them low s the ideal Ksatriya’s need to subjugate one’s rivals. With Sakuni’s help he rationalizes the use of trickery to impoverish and humiliate Yudhistira and by extension the Pandavas once and for all. Yudhistira on the other hand is aware of the pitfalls of accepting the invitationto dicing but is compelled to obey as such was his vow and also since it came from Dhratarastra, his elder. Moreover the Rajasuya Consecration that he had performed demanded a ritualistic coda of dicing. Bound by his Dharma of obedience and observation of ritual, urged on by his fondness of the game and crippled by his lack of expertise in it Yudhistira agrees to the disastrous match as if it were inevitable.

While Sakuni and his cabal reduce the Pandavas to destitution in the throes of a gambling frenzy Yudhistira stakes and loses not only himself and his brothers but also Draupadi, their wife. A petrified audience has to bear witness to the public humiliation of the queen of Indrapastha at the hands of her royal in-laws. Draupadi however refuses to remain a passive and silent victim. She questions the validity of the wager. Learned and scholarly, she does not bargain for mercy but as a supplicant demands justice according to the precepts of law. Yudhistira remains silent while Bhisma chooses inaction by claiming the matter too subtle to be resolved.

Vikarna, one of Yudhistira’s sons merely quibbles about the technicalities of patriarchal ownership of wives and when that may be forfeit while Viduracould only urge the King to dispense justice as otherwise it would be a crime in itself. Draupadi’s public shaming and the subsequent inertia of the court reveal the inadequacy of Ksatria dharma. Her inquiary not only encompasses the issue of ownership and autonomy of women within the hierarchy of marriage but also threatens to undo the foundation of the moral and legal authority of kings.

Alone and friendless she gets aid not from the dharmasastris but from an unseen force that clothes her repeatedly as Duhsasana attempts to render her bare. She still has to bear further indignities before unsettled by evil portents of chaos Dhratarastra stirs to action and grants her boons to free her husbands from bondage. She denies a third boon as ‘greed kills laws’ and thus exposes Duryodhana’s ambitions as lawful. However Draupadi’s questions about the sovereignty of the individual, remains unanswered. The Ksatriya kings had failed to rise above the temporal customs of the realpolitik; they did not comprehend how dharma circumscribed higher concerns of balance and disorder, right and wrong.

On a thematic level the Dicing episode posits dharma as cosmic balance and harmony that nonetheless inspires conflict due to its inscrutability. The subtleties and nuances of dharma would continue to pose riddles to the characters of the epic and would help evolve their ideas of proper conduct. On a diegetic level the episode deals with antithesis, for example, the victorious king is brought low by the roll of the dice, the call for justice develops into inaction, the observation of dharma reveals the adharma of custom and ambition of a better life courts death; these events of contrary aims and results help produce a greater dialectical understanding.

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