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Heaven for the Righteous

The Mahaprasthanika Parva or the “Book of the Great Journey” is the shortest

book in the Indian epic of Mahabharata, serving as the second to the last of the

eighteen books. This book details the journey of the Pandavas from India to Himalayas

in order to ascend to Heaven. In the journey, the group of the Pandavas meet a dog

and, ironically, only the dog and one of the Pandavas remain to reach Mount Sumeru.

To briefly entail the epic, the Pandavas are the five sons of the king of Hastinapur

who all share a wife named Draupadi. These five brothers are Yudhishthira, Bhima,

Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva. These brothers were not born from ordinary means,

they were birthed through a mantra (i.e., since Pandu was cursed). They lived with

Pandu and Madri, one of Pandu’s two wives, in a forest until the two died. They were

then adopted by Pandu’s other wife, Kunti, who took them to Hastinapura wherein they

met their cousins collectively called Kauravas. Later on, they warred against their

cousins of which they emerged as the victor.

After the Kurukshetra war, the brothers with their wife journeyed around India

and the Himalayas which began with befriending a dog. Their destination was heaven or

the abode of the gods, otherwise known as Mt. Sumeru in Hindu mythology. It is the

golden mountain acting as the axis of the world of which in its feet are the Himalayas

and its south is Bharatavarsa or India. As such, they first went south to the salt sea then

north to cross the Himalayas. While crossing the Himalayas, Draupadi fell. When Bhima

questioned Yudhishthira why such a virtuous lady fell, he answered that her fall was a

consequence of her partiality towards only Arjuna.

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As Mt. Sumeru is heaven, only the truly virtuous can enter. Therefore, one by

one the Pandavas fell. Sahadeva was the second one due to pride from intelligence.

Nakula was the next due to narcissism. Arjuna, who one the war, fell due to

conceitedness. Bhima, who ate excessively while disregarding the starving was the last

to fall. As such, only the loyal dog and the determined Yudhishthira remained.

Yudhishthira was unknowingly given a final test by Indra. The latter proposed to

the former to come on board his golden chariot and enter heaven. To that Yudhishthira

accepted on the clause that the dog will accompany them as well as his brothers and

wife being already in heaven. However, Indra could not let the dog travel in his chariot.

Indra tried hard to trick and convince Yudhishthira, but Yudhishthira remained loyal to

his similarly loyal dog. It was then revealed at the end that the dog was Dharma.

Therefore, rewarding the righteous Yudhishthira, he was them welcomed to heaven.

Similar to many other epics, Mahaprasthanika Parva aims to teach morality to

man. In contrast to Dante’s Inferno, this Indian epic teaches not through fear but

through rewards. Yet similarly, they portray a heaven of infinite comfort and beauty

being the goal of many a man. In the end, in any culture, heaven is open only for the

truly virtuous and those who are directly the opposite belong to the opposite of heaven,

that is, hell.

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Hell: The Man-made Constructs

Hell is a concept man has obsessed with for thousands of years, even beyond its

religious essence. The religious concept of hell in Christianity began with the ever

famous Dante's Inferno depicted as a place of eternal damnation. Despite its role as a

religious construct, the punishments and other characteristics of Dante's hell is quite

dependent on human imagination allowing myself to detect bits of human egoism, as if

stating that even in Hell (a realm created by God for the damned), humans are the most

significant. Christian depictions of hell serve as a source of fear against sins. Although,

this may be quite contradictory to the view of an endlessly merciful God. Dharmic

religions, on the other hand, such as Hinduism and Buddhism portray hell as an in-

between during death, reincarnation, and birth. Similarly to the Christian and Islamic

belief of damnation, some Dharmic religions portray hell as an atonement before

reincarnation. Likewise, the hell in this manner is a punishment to avoid wrongdoings.

This view of hell mayhap been born from the desperate wish of man to punish those

who were wrong, those who are successful despite their sins. It is a comfort to know

that whatever one's doing while alive will affect their life in the next, may it be their life in

hell or their reincarnation. From this wish may be the reason as to why the punishments

in different hells seem to only be an extension of the laws of man. This is to contrast, for

example, the depictions of angels. Biblical angels are said to be quite abstract to the

human eye, contrary to the famous paintings of such fair human-like winged figures. In

this case, they are not based on humans at all, insinuating that God or any higher being

truly is beyond the reasoning of man.

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Other belief systems hold hell synonymously to the underworld or the land of

dead. In such beliefs or religions, hell is not eternal damnation or the punishment of a

higher being, rather, it is a dwelling for the departed souls. Modern depictions of this hell

is the animated movie “Coco". Again, this hell is managed by man for man. Any person,

as long as they are not forgotten, will exist in the land of the dead; otherwise, they'll

disappear. In the land of dead, there are no distinctions between the virtuous and the

fraudulent. This description does not base itself on any higher being, it is simply based

on man and the nature of death – death being the removal of existence. This description

of death implies that the significance of an individual can be found within another's, as

such humans are social beings. Thereby, the land of the dead is not a construct to incite

fear. It is a construct to show to that kindness can result to lasting legacies transcending

death, that is, memories. This profoundly contrasts the description of death in religious

hell as a passageway to eternal life or to reincarnation.

Some modern phrasing of hell deems it as a state of suffering and not a place,

nor is it strictly for the dead. This view does not heed religion, rather, it is born from the

suffering made by man. “A hell on earth" is a fitting phrase for such a definition. Hell by

this meaning is the countless wars, epidemics, struggles, discriminations, starvations

rife throughout history. This hell does not happen after death, it happens before death.

This hell shows the power humans can yield and the suffering born from its misuse.

All depictions of hell, by the descriptions above, are man-made constructs for

man. Although, believers may say otherwise, however, how can you truly say that the

hell told by a man is the words of an otherworldly being? No matter how sincere the
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storyteller is in sharing the truth, the full account will never be truly known like a

photocopy of the reality.