The Wagon of Death Keeps on Rolling

James L. Fitzgerald
Professor of the Religions of Ancient India, Department of Religious Studies University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (May 2004)

In the wake of the massive war that stands at the center of Indias ancient epic Mahbhrata, its main protagonist, Yudhihira, utters a grim speech that is as pertinent for us today as it was more than 2000 years ago. At a time when we weigh the human toll of our war in Iraq against the human toll of Saddam Hussein; while we debate the patriotism of calling the roll of the American dead in this war; while we pay scant attention to the count of innocent Iraqis killed in it, we might ponder this short speech of Yudhihiras, which stands as one of the most poignant laments of wars waste of life found in the worlds literature. In this grand epic story, which frequently reaches mythic levels of significance, most of the warriors of known lands had gathered on one side or the other as two sets of cousins who were more like brothers went to war over land, riches, rule and honor. Many hundreds of thousands of warriors had fought and died in a brutal battle of eighteen days. Only a handful had survived to inaugurate a new era of Right-Rule on the earth under the victor Yudhihira and his younger brothers. But once the carnage was done Yudhihira wanted to disown the war and his victory; he wished to withdraw to a life of penance and contemplation in the wilderness. There is layer upon layer of complication in the character of King Yudhihira, but fundamental to the artistic design of this epic hero is the deep ambivalence about violence that took firm root in many niches of the civilization of India in the first millennium B.C. That tenderness of spirit led Yudhihira to condemn the war and grieve for its human losses. He led up to his attempted abdication of the victory and the kingship with a moving lament for the men killed in his war, many of them young men flush with promise. "Full of desire and passion and anger and indignation, they climbed up on the wagon of Death and went to the house of Yama, the Lord of the Dead, he started. But Yudhihira did not dwell upon the fate of the dead; his main object of pity was the parents who had watched their sons leave on that wagon of Death. Seeking great prosperity, fathers strive to get sons by making ascetic observances, by periods of continence, by praising the Gods with hymns, by patient forbearance and fasting, by making sacrificial offerings, taking vows, participating in holy festivals, and reciting blessings. Mothers receive the embryos and bear them for ten months. Driven by their hopes of gaining some benefit from them, the poor wretches think, 'If they are born all right, and if when born they survive, and if when nourished they are vigorous, they should give us comfort in this world and the next.' But when their sons are cut down and go to the house of Yama while they are still young men wearing shining earrings, before they have experienced the privileges lords of the earth enjoy, before they have discharged their debts to their ancestors and the Gods, then this entire enterprise of their parents is frustrated and bears no fruit. At their births their mothers and fathers were filled with desires for them; but then, when they had become handsome and strong princes, they were cut downfull of desire, passion, anger, and exhilaration.1 Yudhihira had himself lost a son in the war, so he knew well the heartbreak of a dead warriors parents. The Mahbhrata has moving passages that register the grief of mothers, fathers, and wives eloquently in the first person, and its Book of the Women does call the roll of the main princes killed in the war. But no other passage conjures up so chilling a general image of war itself as Yudhihiras wagon of Death. But Yudhihiras family and elders did not allow the man who was now to be king to act on his intended abdication. Soon after he made this speech Yudhihira, who shares the epithet Dharmarja with that Lord of the Dead, Yama, learned that he was obligated to accept as right the war and his victory and his kingly role. And he learned that as a king his role in life was more deeply intertwined with Yamas realm than suited his kindly spirit. One of the ideological purposes behind the Mahbhrata was the desire to provide a charter for pious
1

Adapted from The Mahabharata: Book 11: The Book of the Women Book 12: The Book of Peace, Part 1. Translated, edited, and annotated by James L. Fitzgerald. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004: 12.7.12-19, page 181.

Hindu kingship, and to some extent the habitual gentleness written into the character of Yudhihira was a foil to argue better the necessity as well as the limits of state violence. But though he did comply with the demands of his brothers and his advisors and did again lead others to their deaths, Yudhihiras protest of the sorry departure of the dead is one of his shining moments. And it is one we should recall often as the wagon of Death keeps on rolling through the world today.