Mahabharata – 175
by
Sankar Mukherjee
and Dr Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya
 Aadivamsavatarana Parva

The Legitamation of the Mandavya story

Silence is a recurrent motif in the Mahabharata The Mandavya episode is significant on many counts. Firstly the episode tells us of a society where there was no wise method to distinguish the saints from a criminal as it is with us today.Neither the king nor his men can distinguish a saint who observes a vow of silence from a person who does not respond to the enquiries of the kings or the police people. We do not know why the king Parikshit punished a saint who was plunged in silence. What wrong did the saint do for which he was oddly punished by Parikshit? One wonders whether the kings like Parikshit were like Lactogen feeding babies of today! Can’t the kings of those days tolerate thirst for an hour or so? Because their horses were not ordinary ones but pegasus. Mandavya was also punished in the same way because of his maintaining silence. But the narrator however probes into the case and tells us that he was punished because of his doings in childhood. Mandavya can resist death and endure torture by virtue of his penance. But he cannot prove his innocence in front of the king or the police surgeant. He can argue with the god of death and justice. But he cannot argue with a king. As it is with Mndavya, many innocent persons are brought to books for no fault of theirs in the present legal system as well. Be that as it may Mandavya could communicate with numerous sages with extra sensory powers that baffle our imagination. And those sages flocked to Mandavya in the disguise of birds.This adds a fairy tale motif to this episode.The episode points out that one has to reap one’s actions.Mandavya pinned an ant when he was a child.And for that his anus was pierced with an iron rod when he was pretty old and a saint by occupation. As a saint he wished  no one any harm.It is a pity that the god of justice paid no regard to the life and activities of Mandavya as a saint which should have redeemed offences if any commited by Mandavya unknowgly when a child. Consequently in his conversation with the god of justice he said that no child up to the age of fourteen should be punished for wrong doing if any.In our time also if children do any offence they are not sent to jail. Instead they are sent to juvenile court and to reformatories. We have to mark that the god of justice had to acknowledge the ruling of Mandavya. Since that time on the surface, crime if any, committed by children were not taken into account. It seems that the notions of right or wrong are not always properly developed in children. But if we pin our faith on transmigration of soul children do not come empty handed. They bring the clouds or the resultant of their actions from their earlier births. How can law judge on such a priori inclinations?  It is a moot question. However it is said that Mandavya cursed the god of justice for doing wrong to Mandavya.So even the god of justice enjoys no immunity from the decrees of man. But ironically enough the sages and saints will only those things that are beneficial to the world. When the god of justice incarnates  as sudra or one among the working class and when in the mortal shape of Vidura he proves that he is the fountain of good will, common sense, wisdom and knowledge, should we not go to the working class men to purge ourselves of the grossness and crudities from which we upper classes do suffer?