hinduwoman

R. C. Zeehner in "The Greatness Of Man And Wretchedness Of God" writes,
"the god krishna represents the old order in which the Ksatriya dharma and all that it entials of trickery and violence, has an honourable place, whereas the man Yudhistira, the king of dharma, starting from the premises of his time, slowly comes to realize that it is fraught with injustice and plain stupid in that to seek vengeance is to bring vengeance on oneself"

anyone who knows the Mahabharata has any opinion about this?

for myself there are three flaws in this ---
Mahabharata does not present anyone so simply, in shades of black and white.
Much of the chapters dealing with battle centre round the question whether certain tactics are honourable or not. It is not simply a binary between old ideas and new.
Many hindu apologists managed to come up with a very sophisticated explanation. When God becomes man, he assumes the nature of man and so often has faults seen in man. When his divine nature shines forth that is another matter. But as long as he assumes flesh he is subject to the law of karma and is punished or rewarded according to his actions. Zeehner does not address this explanation.

Seraphim

"the god krishna represents the old order in which the Ksatriya dharma and all that it entials of trickery and violence, has an honourable place, whereas the man Yudhistira, the king of dharma, starting from the premises of his time, slowly comes to realize that it is fraught with injustice and plain stupid in that to seek vengeance is to bring vengeance on oneself"

My reply : Where's the trickery part? I don't see trickery here.

Seraphim

What? No reply?

Sarpedon

In the story, seraphim, during the last battle, Krishna becomes conseler to the Pandavas, and he engages in all manner of trickery to get them to win. For example, getting drona to lose his fighting spirit by tricking him into thinking his son had been killed, fooling the man who killed arjuna's son into leaving the safety of his camp by blocking the sun with his discus, making it seem like night. There were other instances of his trickery in the book, but those are the two I remember. She asked for replies by people who know the story, if you are interested, Naryan has done an excellent abridgement. I don't think that any complete english translation exists, there was one guy who was trying to do it, but he died before he finished. If anyone knows of a complete english translation, please tell me!

In response to the question, I think that it is important to note that Yudhistira consented to the trickery of Drona, and even lied to him to make it work (Drona knew that yudhistira had never lied in his life) His justification was that it was his duty as leader of the Pandavas to win the battle, and even if he goes to hell for lying, he must lie if that will make him win. So if yudhisira felt that way about his duty as leader, how could Krishna feel differently about his duty as advisor? If trickery was the only way to win (and it was) then it is his job to come up with a good trick. (and he did) This author therefore has only a limited understanding of Dharma. Drona was a good man, but he was fighting for the wrong cause. Therefore he had to be eliminated. Yudhistira and Arjuna and the rest still loved him, but they had to do their duty, just as krishna did. Keep in mind that Krishna was impartial. Duryodhana could have picked Krishna instead, and then he would have had the benefit of the war-winning advice. It was because of his moral and intellectual inferiority that he picked the troops instead. This is a far more sophisticated moral model than this Zeehner (Weiner?) seems to think. He is selectively editing the work to make it conform with his thesis. I have seen this sort of thing before.

Sarpedon (my other online name is Dristyadumnya)

hinduwoman

The interesting thing is that Yuddhistir and Krishna both get punished.
Yuddhistir's chariot used to fly above the ground, but after he lied to Drona, it dropped to the ground.
Krishna was cursed by Gandhari to see the destruction of his clan. Though Krishna makes it clear that as God he is allowing this to happen, the curse was fulfilled because of the requirements of dharma. I think it implies that since Krishna was as a mortal, he too was bound by karma.

Seraphim

"The interesting thing is that Yuddhistir and Krishna both get punished.
Yuddhistir's chariot used to fly above the ground, but after he lied to Drona, it dropped to the ground."

My reply : Yudhistra also had to suffer for a moment in hell before reunited with others in heaven for his lie.

"Krishna was cursed by Gandhari to see the destruction of his clan. Though Krishna makes it clear that as God he is allowing this to happen, the curse was fulfilled because of the requirements of dharma. I think it implies that since Krishna was as a mortal, he too was bound by karma. "

My reply : And destruction of Dwarka was necessary and Gandhari's curse was needed for that as well. Krishna knew this and accepted as his punishment.

Sarpedon

....exactly as Yudhistira knew that his lie would be punished, but did it anyway. I think that we have agreed that both K. and Y. are perfectly moral in a higher sense, what I term "meta-moral". The ability to commit offenses AND accept punishment for the higher moral principles can be termed meta-moral because it transcends normal morality, which is entirely based on individual good-bad.

So anyway, both Krishna and Yudhistira are moral paragons, and Zeehner is a Weiner...Some kind of bizarre PC drone who is trying to overturn all the past in the name of his ideology, which will come to be regarded as no more than a pathetic branch of commercial post-modern philosophy when all is said and done.

trientalis

Sorry for the nitpick but would that author be R.C. Zaehner?

Back to lurking.

hinduwoman

Oh yes trientalis, sorry, that would be Zaehner.

Serpedon, it does not seem to be PC of any kind. Maybe it is some kind of anti-god viewpoint instead.
However I think he is not going deep enough into the whole text and devotional commentaries.

Sarpedon

So Zeehner's anti-god, whats your point? the fact that he doesn't look at the commentary is irrelevant. I imagine that the "devotional commentaries" are a form of apologetics. The thing that irritates me about this fellow is that he obviously hasn't bothered to read the rest of the myth. The Bhagavad-Gita and the rest of the final battle cannot be understood without knowing the gist of the rest of the Mahabharata. That kind of sloppy scholarship is a hallmark of the PC movement. The problem here is that Zeehner is trying to go across the board, making all gods look like bastards, and in most cases, he's probably right. He could make a lot of different criticisms of Krisna, his sexual exploits for example, or his blatant favoritisms. Also, I don't care about hindu apologetics and their ingenuous god-man arguments. The hindu gods for the most part are flawed enough already without having to pick up more flaws from humans. When I read a lot of hindu myths, I am struck by the fact that these deities are so stupid. Much the same way as I am struck by the O.T. Anyway, the bizarre parts of Zeehner's argument is that he attacks the character of the gods, not their existence. This is peculiar.