Yudhishthira Comforted

Yudhishthira's pain grew with each passing day, and the grand halls of Hastināpura seemed to echo with the silent screams of the fallen, and the throne and its soft cushions were mockeries of a hollow victory.

And at last, stricken with remorse, he announced his decision to renounce it all: I see no joy in kingship or in worldly enjoyment, he said; monstrous sins have been committed for the sake of this passing wealth; I shall go to the deep forest, wrap myself in bark, and perform penances to expiate my sins; rule the land yourselves, and let me depart.

But his family would not have it, and one by one they rose to contest his renunciation, and their arguments together form the story's great defence of active duty over withdrawal. Arjuna spoke of the immense good a righteous king can do. Bhīma spoke with his characteristic force: you talk like a dull-witted man who has memorized the scriptures without understanding them; renunciation is not the dharma of a warrior; the warrior's duty is to live an active life and protect his people, not to flee to the forest abandoning his task.

Nakula and Sahadeva argued that the path of active, selfless work is the true foundation of the soul's growth, and that withdrawal is often a hidden trap of the ego; and Sahadeva fell at his brother's feet, pleading, you are my father, my mother, my teacher, my brother; do not leave us.

And Draupadī added her voice, imperial and grief-worn together: the just punishment of evil-doers is an essential part of a king's duty; you have punished the wicked justly; there is no cause for your contrition; your sacred duty now is to govern this land according to dharma; cease grieving.

And at last Vyāsa spoke, and settled it, explaining that a king's highest penance is precisely the selfless, unattached performance of his royal duties; that to flee the ruined kingdom would itself be a kind of cowardice, a betrayal of the people who depended on him for protection.

And this is the deep resolution the story offers to Yudhishthira's despair, and it is the very teaching of the Gītā made flesh: that the answer to the horror of action is not the flight from action, but action purified, action done as duty without grasping at its fruits, action offered as service.

Yudhishthira wished to flee his duty because its fruits had been so terrible; and the wisdom of all who loved him called him back to the harder and truer path, to take up the burden and rule, not for himself, but for the people who needed a righteous king. And he yielded, and agreed to be crowned.

But before he took up the reins of the state, he sought the deepest wisdom he could find; and led by Krishna and Vyāsa, the Pāṇḍavas came again to the field of Kurukshetra, where the grandsire Bhīshma still lay upon his bed of arrows, waiting for the turning of the sun to release his life; and there, at the feet of the dying patriarch, Yudhishthira received the great instruction in dharma and in kingship and in the deepest truths that forms the section of peace, the Shāntiparva.