This was published in The Indian Journal of Eco-criticism, but unfortunately I cannot find a web-link for that version.

1. A Social Ecological Perspective on some Episodes from the
Mahabharata
Kamesh R. Aiyer
Abstract
Without doing violence to Vyaasa, the Mahabharata can be properly viewed through an
ecological prism, as a story of how Dharma came to be established as a result of a conflict over
social policies in response to on-going environmental/ecological crises. This article selectively
reviews some episodes in the Mahabharata to identify the crisis and the social policies implicitly
advocated by the contending Pandavas and Kauravas. The Pandavas’ proposals helped their
culture survive the crises and became the Dharma for the new age that followed the war. As
elements of Hindu orthodox religion, some of these policies operate to the present day.
Biographical Note
The author received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University in
1981 and was a B.Tech (BSEE) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 1974. Like
many Indians, he has been fascinated by the Mahabharata since childhood but did little about it.
In 1990, he realized that various episodes appeared to illustrate themes explored by the
anthropologist Marvin Harris (Harris, 1975) and that this hinted at a continental-scale
environmental disaster in the background akin to the planetary-scale “global warming” disaster
that humanity now faces. He has been exploring the role of religion, both positive and negative,
in addressing the crisis, and hopes we can do better this time.
Introduction
The Great War of the Mahabharata (Vyaasa, 1933-1966) is traditionally considered a
Dharma-Yuddha, a war to establish the rule of Law. The problem for the skeptic arises when the
details of the epic story are examined – one is tempted to exclaim, “Law? This is Law”? Both the
victors, the Pandavas (the miraculously born sons of Pandu), and the villains (the Kauravas, the
natural sons of Dhritarashtra, Pandu’s brother, named after their common ancestor Kuru) of the
epic are shown acting in their own self-interest. Of what we moderns might consider Lawful,
there is scant evidence. Krishna, revered by modern Hindus as the God Vishnu, befriends and
helps the Pandavas; goes through the motions of negotiating a peace deal; ultimately, acts to
defeat the Kauravas. There is little of our commonsensical notions of righteousness or Law or
even Dharma to be found.
But an alternative reading of the story is possible – without doing violence to Vyaasa, the
Mahabharata can be properly viewed through an ecological prism, as a story of how Dharma
came to be established as a result of a conflict over social policies in response to on-going
environmental/ecological crises. In this article, we selectively review some episodes to identify
the crisis and the social policy implicitly advocated by the Pandavas. Some of these policies will

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Kamesh R. Aiyer
shock or repel us, as they have shocked others through the ages; it is important to realize that it is
the victors of the epic who supported these policies. The Pandavas’ proposals helped their
culture survive the crises and became the Dharma for the new age that followed the war. As
others have pointed out (Feller, 2003, pp. 10-11), the epics (the Mahabharata and the Ramayana)
represent the end of Vedic religion and the beginning of “Brahmanism”. As elements of Hindu
orthodox religion, some of these policies operate to the present day.
The policies and related episodes discussed here are:
1. Forced migration to new lands, with attendant deportation of the original inhabitants
represented by the two episodes in which the Nagas (“Snakes”) are massacred.
2. Infanticide controlled population growth, represented by the story of the
goddess Ganga drowning her children by Santanu, King of Hastinapur, and
grandfather of Pandu and Dhritarashtra.
3. Jaatis (endogamous castes) enforced social segregation and controlled
consumption, represented by the story of Karna and the multiple times he is
rejected and humiliated and the story of Ekalavya.
4. Forest “commons” that recognized the rights of forest-dwellers and limited the
growth of towns, represented by episodes during the exile in the forest, the
most compelling being the episode called the “Questions of the Crane
Demon”. These forest-dweller rights survived many years despite constant
population pressure, and it is only in the last hundred or so years that the
system has broken down.
Policies not discussed here, but discussed elsewhere (Aiyer, 2009) include:
1. Cow protection, providing insurance against the frequent droughts and famines.
2. The iron-clad plough to support migration into the Gangetic plain.
3. The need for and limits to empire in northern India.
4. Polyandry, represented by the single wife common by the Pandavas –
however, we discuss this peripheral in association with infanticide.
5. Adoption, possibly represented by the Pandavas themselves, but also
discussed peripherally along with infanticide.
The crises of the second millennium B.C.E.
A series of tectonic events in the Himalayas (Valdiya, 2002, pp. 52-60) resulted in
repeated floods of the Indus and changes in its course destroying great urban centers. Meanwhile,
the Yamuna shifted course to the east and the Sutlej to the west thus starving the then great river
Saraswati of its major sources of water. Refugees from settlements along the Indus and the
Saraswati migrated to the existing upper Gangetic settlements of Hastinapur and Panchala
stressing the ability of those regions to support them. Prior to this forced movement, the slow

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Kamesh R. Aiyer
eastward expansion of the Indus-Saraswati culture had stalled because their agricultural
techniques were inadequate to till the Gangetic plain.
In the last fifty years, scientists have obtained evidence for the tectonic events of about
4000 to 5000 years before the present. The change in direction of the Yamuna has been
established. The Saraswati, formerly considered mythical is now identified with the bed of a
great river visible in satellite photos. Abandoned settlements along this bed have been identified
and classified as part of the Indus Valley civilization that was discovered in Mohenjo-Daro and
Harappa. We have no contemporary records that help us understand what happened. We do
know that a thousand years later, by 1000 BCE, the entire Indo-Gangetic plain was densely
populated by a physically similar people who had developed a way of life and a society that we
now call Hindu. That way of life was governed by “Dharma”, usually translated as “Law”.
Numerous texts, including the Mahabharata, seek to elucidate the concept of Dharma. The crisis
had been resolved by Dharma.
We surmise that the following elements constituted the crisis:
a) Over-population: The population was crowded into safe regions that could sustain
agriculture using techniques developed in the older settlements but not appropriate in
the Gangetic plain to the east. The dense forests of the south depended on erratic
rainfall rather than a steady supply of water from snow-fed rivers and water
management was critical.
b) Wars over resources: The forests and other non-urban lands were occupied by an
aboriginal population that resisted the expropriation of their lands. They needed to be
dealt with.
c) An energy crisis: Cities and towns in the Indus plain were built with kiln-fired bricks.
This practice was initially continued when refugees moved to the Gangetic plain -- as
the refugee population continued to grow, the land around the main cities of
Hastinapur and Kampilya became deforested. Age-old practices had to change.
d) A food crisis: There was a scarcity of food. People had not changed their eating
habits and meat continued to be a prized food. The land was insufficient to produce
both fodder for domesticated animals and plant products for human consumption.
Dietary and consumption patterns had to change.
The crisis in the Mahabharata
Forced migrations and Genocide
Over-population and a shortage of productive resources set the stage for the Great War.
The Mahabharata provides mixed evidence for the elements of these crises. There are multiple
stories that associate one or more gods promising to redress the problem of over-population. For
instance, when the Pandavas are faced with the problem of obeying Kunti’s demand that they all
share Draupadi, Vyaasa appears and tells them the story of the five Indras.

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Indra and the gods attend a sacrifice sponsored by Yama, the god of Death. Yama being
thus pre-occupied, stops killing the mortals on earth. They grow numerous, the earth cannot
sustain them, and the balance between the immortal gods and mortals is upset. Indra’s efforts to
restore the balance results in him being paralyzed and imprisoned with four other prior Indras
who had similarly interfered with Yama. All five Indras are then sent to earth to redress the
balance and it was ordained that they marry one woman, an incarnation of Lakshmi. The Great
War then becomes the means by which over-population is resolved.
Other religious texts, the Harivamsa (Dutt, 1897) and the Vishnu Purana (Wilson, 2006),
though not as old as the Mahabharata, have similar stories. The Vishnu Purana depicts Bhumi-
devi, Mother Earth, imploring Vishnu to save her for she is overpopulated, the people have
become evil, and are ruled by criminals. Vishnu promises that he will be incarnated as Krishna,
kill the criminals, and cause a great war to bring down the population. Krishna is not a god in
most of the Mahabharata, though he is a compelling leading character and the popular versions of
many episodes ascribe miracles to him.
In Book 6 of the Mahabharata, in the Bhagavad-Gita chapters, Krishna asserts that
whenever evil dominates in the world, he (i.e., the supreme being Vishnu) incarnates himself to
eradicate the evil. He goes on to encourage Arjuna to fight for what he is doing is Dharma, even
if it does not fit with past interpretations of right behavior.
Resolving the problem of over-population, then, is part of the divine rationale for the
story emphasized by multiple variations on the theme. But over-population, by itself, is not evil.
Over-population creates imbalance between the urban human and other beings. It exacerbates the
struggle for resources. War becomes inevitable which then changes priorities and values. The
story of the establishment of Indraprastha, the capital city of the Pandavas, shows such a war.
The Mahabharata culture is overwhelmingly urban and the forest is a place of exile for
civilized people. There are forest-dwellers, portrayed as backward or demonic or child-like.
Scattered among the forest-dwellers are urban people who have gone to the forest in search of
something – enlightenment, perhaps, or to live out the last years of their life. What is apparent
from the Mahabharata itself is that the urbanites do not move around.
Contrast this with the Rig-Veda (Arya, 2001) (Wilson, 1990) where the people depicted
are constantly on the move, nomadic even if not migrating. There are battles and victories, lands
to be won and cattle to be gained. The rishis occupy the forests, busy in meditation, determining
balance. In the Mahabharata, on the other hand, ownership and rule of all but the forest has been
settled. A host of cities are mentioned, all described in glowing terms as great, beautiful, large,
well-laid out, veritably heaven on earth. There are forests, dark and deep, and populated by
animals, Nagas, Rakshasas, Danavas, Gandharvas, and other non-humans. Cities are safe and
comfortable; forests are dangerous and uncomfortable.
The Khandavaprastha is such a forest. Settled at one time by the mythical ancestors of the
Kurus themselves, Yayati and Nahusha, it was abandoned in favor of Hastinapur (though the
Mahabharata does not explain why). The old city had gone back to forest and the area was a

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dense, impenetrable tract – a “terrifying” place. The dreaded Nagas (mythical snake people)
occupy it, making the land poisonous.
Despite all the virgin lands available, establishing a new settlement does not appear to
have been easy. When the Pandavas are given the forested half of the kingdom as their share,
they do not establish a small settlement that grows organically into a great city. They burn the
forest, kill the existing inhabitants, and import an architect to design and build a complete new
city and fort with palaces, buildings, and all. The Mahabharata gives an additional divine
rationale for burning the forest and killing its inhabitants – the god of Fire comes to Krishna and
Arjuna and begs them to do this for he has been starved!
Vyaasa, the poet, is said to have made parts of the Mahabharata difficult to understand.
This seems to be one of those parts. What could be meant by this story of Fire being starved of
offerings? What analogy or metaphor, if any, is being proposed? Possibly, the massacre of the
inhabitants may have been born of the imagination of a later raconteur, but the Mahabharata
leaves no doubt that this was a new city constructed de novo. The Mahabharata does not explain
where and how the new city is populated. But it is, and soon becomes a great city that evokes the
jealousy of the Kauravas. There are some inferences we can make:
1. Hastinapur was over-crowded – émigrés from there populated an equally great new city.
2. The population wanted to continue in a comfortable urban life, not move to new small
settlements in virgin lands.
3. Cost was no barrier to creating a great new city.
4. The native forest-dwellers had no rights and were massacred to create the city.
5. Finally, they “burn” an entire forest to create this city.
The émigrés are no longer pioneers inventing themselves as they go. They want to leave a
crowded city but being colonizers, they want to build a clone of what they leave behind. They are
prodigious consumers, people who burn the land for that is how they have lived. This attitude
leads to resource wars, for they inevitably conflict with the people who already occupy the land.
The slaughter of Khandavaprastha is not the only evidence of genocidal war over
resources in the Mahabharata. The great Naga, Takshaka, was absent from Khandavaprastha
during the slaughter. His family was completely wiped out, except for a son who escaped
through his mother’s heroism in protecting him. Takshaka vows revenge on Arjuna’s progeny.
The Nagas play no role in the Great War, but the self-inflicted slaughter of the Kurus does not
slake Takshaka’s anger. Takshaka kills Parikshit, Arjuna’s sole surviving grandson. But the cycle
of revenge continues as Parikshit’s son Janamejaya vows to kill all the Nagas. He conducts the
Naga Sacrifice, a magic ritual that induces the Nagas to jump into the sacrificial fire. Janamejaya
is finally induced to stop by a sage, Astika. The cycle is halted, but the mythical Nagas are no
longer a hindrance to urbanization.

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Nor for that matter are the modern Nagas of India a hindrance to urbanization. They are
a tribal people, mainly located in the Northeast. There are references to Nagas in historical
documents who appear to be the ancestors of the modern Naga even though they were not
confined to the Northeast. We do not know if the historical Nagas of India are the descendants of
the mythical Nagas of the Mahabharata, but we can take note of the remarkable continuity of
caste communities in India over a few thousand years. The traders opposed to Indra called Pani in
the Rig-Veda (Arya, 2001) (Wilson, 1990)seem to be the Bania of modern India who have been
traders for centuries. The Brahmins in the Vedas exist today with claims of paternal descent to
named persons...Almost every ethnic group or category mentioned in mythological literature can
be found in real-life India today.
The burning of Khandava forest is the mass killing of forest-dwellers by a king bent on
finding land for urban settlements. The Snake Sacrifice of Janamejaya portrays the mass killing
of forest-dwelling tribes by a vengeful king. Between these events is the killing of a king by a
vengeful forest-dweller. These stories from the Mahabharata portray the eternal battle for land
that has marked the growth of human civilization.
Infanticide
Santanu, the King of Hastinapur, watches in horror as his wife drowns her children in the
river. Infatuated by her, he had asked to marry her and she had extracted a promise that he would
never question her actions. She drowns seven boys born of that marriage and as she is about to
drown the eighth, Santanu stops her and demands to know what she is doing and what kind of
monster she is.
This is the stuff of fairy tale (the wicked witch who kills babies), but (again!) the
Mahabharata charts new territory as one of the earliest fairy tales. Santanu’s wife reveals that she
is the river Ganga and she was fulfilling a promise made to seven minor gods that she would give
birth to them but kill them so they did not have to suffer a long earthly life. They, along with an
eighth god, had been cursed to be born as humans. The eighth god could not avoid a long life on
earth and enters the story as the prince Devavrata. The god does not desire children – a god does
not need children to avoid the dreaded hell occupied by people without descendants – for children
would be a bond. So, Devavrata vows eternal celibacy so that his father can re-marry and promise
the kingdom to the children of his new wife. In recognition of this terrible vow, Devavrata is
called Bhishma (“the terrible”) in the rest of the epic.
Vyaasa has gone to a lot of trouble, conjuring a complicated story with gods, goddesses,
and terrible vows to explain the deaths of seven babies and Devavrata’s decision not to have
children. It is not as though married couples had not been barren before. It is not as though
infants did not die. The plot is not advanced by the death of the seven babies. Why does this story
lead off the epic? Unlike the other causes of infant death, both Santanu and Ganga are culpable in
the murder of the children. Though Santanu is portrayed as passive, he is a king used to rule, not
a slave. Even a slave to passion makes insistent demands of the object of that passion, and this
king is not exempt from that. What the Mahabharata hides from us with its fairy-tale explanation
is that the king is guilty of these murders.

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What happened in Hastinapur was state-sponsored infanticide, more specifically female
infanticide, a guaranteed-to-succeed mechanism for controlling population growth (Harris, 1975).
The population crisis was multi-generational; it threatened all social classes and levels of
prosperity; and the city was hemmed in by natural or other boundaries. Hastinapur was under
pressure internally from immigrants and externally by enemies in all directions (Panchala to the
north-east, Salya to the west, Chedi and Magadha to the south and east, and Naga-infested
Khandavaprastha to the south-west). The king, whether to protect his own wealth or to provide
an example to the rest of the public arranged to kill his female children as infants. Kill, because
abortion was not yet sufficiently safe; infants, so as to limit the investment in children who were
doomed to die; female, because the fertility of a population is directly proportional to the number
of child-bearing women and this was a long-term plan to control population growth. In addition,
the spouses of a king’s daughters might harbor ambitions and threaten any sons, so this action
protected Devavrata. Sons born after Devavrata may also have been killed (I surmise Devavrata
was the eldest, not the youngest), though killing brothers may also kill natural allies.
If the king’s plan succeeded, other families would have similarly curtailed the number of
daughters and sons. The collateral damage might be loss of political support from these other
families in a time of need. In later years, Santanu himself may have lost faith in his policy and
that would account for his desire to re-marry and have more children.
Of course, other explanations are possible for the specifics of Santanu’s behavior.
However, the later history of Santanu’s family leading to the Great War reinforce the hypothesis
that population control was his goal. Santanu’s grandson, Pandu chose to avoid sex and adopted
his five children of unknown parentage (“born of gods”). Pandu may be contrasted with his
brother Dhritarashtra, who had a hundred sons by one mother. Without belaboring the obvious,
the Mahabharata makes it clear that Pandu and Dhritarashtra were on the opposite sides of the
population debate. That later raconteurs forgot this distinction while remembering the miraculous
story of how Gandhari gave birth to a hundred sons tells us how stories evolve.
In the next generation, Pandu’s children, the Pandavas, jointly marry their first wife
Draupadi. This is a simple, low-tech means to limit the number of children per man. But it only
works if the many spouse-less women do not bear children, or if the proportion of women in the
population is low. These two policies result in diametrically opposed societies, with different
attitudes towards women. A society in which women do not automatically bear children is one in
which the woman’s time and activities are valued more than child-birthing or rearing. Implicitly,
women are valued highly and not encouraged to have children unless they can afford them and
want them. A society in which the proportion of women in the population is kept low is one in
which females are culled, directly or indirectly, at a young age. Investing in a boy child is valued
much more highly than investing in a girl child, resulting in discrimination against women and a
low valuation for women.
If a woman has many acknowledged husbands, she must be valued highly. The Pandavas
opt for a society that values women. Dhritarashtra with his 101 sons and one daughter
exemplifies a society that proposes to keep fertility low by discriminating against women.
Implicitly if not explicitly, the Kauravas sponsor the female infanticide that Santanu may have
supported.

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Unfortunately, the Pandava approach is unsustainable under short-term pressures and that
has been the history of the treatment of women in India. The payoff from preferring males comes
within a generation as the marginal male advantage in warfare wins the resource wars and
justifies discrimination against women. The payoff from valuing women highly only comes over
many generations during which a relatively peaceful society builds, innovates, trades with its
neighbours, and grows organically. Thus radical patriarchy spelled the end of the Pandava
experiment in polyandry.
Caste
Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas, has hidden the existence of an illegitimate son. That
son, Karna, bursts out into the Mahabharata stage at a tournament held to display the prowess of
the young princes. He matches and exceeds Arjuna’s feats at archery, arousing wonder at his
skills. Egged on by Duryodhana, he challenges Arjuna to a duel, but is brought up short when he
is asked to validate his fitness to compete by naming his parents and his caste. He believes
himself to be the child of his foster-parents, a lower-caste chariot driver. Arjuna and Bhima mock
him for his pretensions and the duel never takes place.
At that instant, it is easy to feel sympathy for Karna, for as the eldest son of Kunti he
should have been showered with honors. And one wonders at the Pandavas for their easy
acceptance of something so fundamentally unfair. In fact, the only voice raised against the
humiliation of Karna was that of Duryodhana. He anoints Karna the King of Anga in a failed
attempt to get around Karna’s lack of caste status; he befriends him, is close to him, and is the
brother Karna never had.
But the Mahabharata does not let the Pandavas off easily. The lower-caste forest-
dweller, Ekalavya, learns archery from a statue of their teacher Drona because Drona cites caste
as the reason for not teaching him. When the Pandavas discover Ekalavya, Arjuna is disconsolate
for he fears that he is no longer the best archer in the world. To satisfy Arjuna, their teacher
Drona demands his thumb from Ekalavya as guru-dakshina (the traditional gift from a pupil to a
teacher). Ekalavya cuts off his thumb but is forever crippled as an archer, so that Arjuna can still
be the best archer in the world. Yudhishthira, the wise older brother, does not raise a question
about these actions.
Why is caste so important in the Mahabharata? Caste in the Mahabharata is not the
formalized four-caste system of the intellectual Hindu, but closer to the messy four thousand-plus
jaatis encountered in practice. (When most Hindus refer to “caste”, they mean “jaati”. In this
paper, we will employ this common use rather than the formal definition). A Hindu caste has
been described in many ways – regional endogamous groups with rights to employment in certain
traditional occupations and corresponding prestige. This description does not capture how central,
ubiquitous, and long-standing caste has been in Hindu society – recent as yet unpublished
analysis of DNA data seems to indicate that many castes/jaatis have existed for hundreds of
generations (2000 to 4000 years old)! This is not just another institution, it has deep roots.
Indian castes are not simply class divisions, though there is a correlation; they are not
simply endogamous groups (for certain violations are accepted); they are not simply

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occupational. What is unique about the Indian caste system is the extent to which intra-family
behavior is caste determined. Along with this, the average Indian is unfamiliar with and incurious
about family behavior in other castes. Caste corresponds closest to “ethnic group” in Western
parlance, but no Western sociologist would recognize an ethnic group in an Indian caste. One’s
caste determines, to a very large extent, what one considers a reasonable way of life and this did
not differ dramatically between the rich, poor, or middle-class member of a caste. Members of
certain caste groups live high-on-the-hog even when they are poor; members of other caste
groups live like comparative misers even when rich. Certain castes consume addictive drugs
more than others. Certain castes tolerate a rich man who has lower-caste mistresses and even
families with those mistresses though the families never mixed. Even if a caste was associated
with a particular occupation, a member’s caste did not change just because they followed a
different occupation. Membership in a caste was not a good predictor of the member’s income.
However, membership in a caste was a very good predictor of the average level of consumption
of that person or family.
I argue that the Mahabharata’s ratification of caste came out of a need to moderate the
overall consumption footprint of the culture. As discussed above, caste in India exists to
moderate the consumption patterns of the great majority of the population. The richest members
of the upper consuming castes, generally classifiable as Kshatriya, Vaishya, or Brahmin in the
formal model of caste would exhibit extreme consumption patterns; even then, labor was
consumed rather than capital or goods. The result is a system that radically limits the overall
footprint of the culture. The fear is that if, during flush times, everybody consumed like these
richest consumers, there would be nothing saved for the periods of drought and famine. Caste,
however unfair, is Dharma and that is what the Mahabharata is about.
Commons
During the Pandavas’ exile, they wander through the forest of Dvaitavana and wreak
havoc to the fauna. Every day they kill animals in the hundreds. At one point (Vyaasa, p.
3/40.244), Yudhishthira dreams that a group of deer plead with him to stop killing them as only a
small seed group is left. Thereupon, he recognizes that they have over-hunted the forest and
persuades his brothers and wife to move to the edge of the desert (the forest of Kamyaka by Lake
Trnabindu) further away from their lost kingdom. This minor episode highlights the beginning of
Yudhishthira’s recognition that the world is shared with other beings with rights to be recognized.
His brothers and Draupadi agree to move but they have not achieved his insight. Kamyaka forest
is not a safe haven for the Pandavas and they have to fight the Sindhu king Jayadratha to rescue
the abducted Draupadi. So they return to Dvaitavana and subsist on fruits.
They are no longer killing deer but there is yet more to learn. This time, a deer steals the
fire-starting tools of a brahmin who appeals to the Pandavas for help. This episode is commonly
called Yaksha-prashna, or the “The Questions of the Crane demigod” (Vyaasa, 1933-1966, pp.
3.44/295-299). The Pandavas chase the deer and fail to catch it. Exhausted they split up in search
of water. One by one they come to the same forest lake. A yaksha in the form of a crane denies
each Pandava access to the lake, claiming ownership. One by one, the younger Pandavas defy the
yaksha and are killed, apparently by magic. When Yudhishthira comes upon his brothers lying
dead by the lake and tries to drink from the lake, the yaksha demands that Yudhishthira answer

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some questions before he attempts to drink. Upon being challenged on his right to bar
Yudhishthira from a common resource, the yaksha claims the lake as his creation and his
property. Thereupon, Yudhishthira agrees to answer his questions.
Four times a Pandava does not accept the yaksha’s claim of ownership and dies as a
result – the fifth time, Yudhishthira respects the claim. The rest of the episode does not matter
for the point I wish to make – that Yudhishthira accepts that water and natural resources like
lakes can be subject to somebody else’s authority. The lake was not private property in the sense
we understand it now – the yaksha did not bar other creatures from the water. But nor was it a
“commons” shared by all. The Pandavas did not pay anything or barter anything to get access to
the water, nor could they have. Instead the yaksha asked them some metaphysical and
philosophical questions as a test of their fitness to share in the water. The lake was a “managed
commons”, managed by the local forest dwellers and not by a remote urban king.
Yudhishthira’s acceptance of the yaksha’s rights is a far cry from the carnage that
preceded the creation of Indraprastha that we discussed earlier. The lesson that the younger
Pandavas did not learn engendered a crisis that, for the first time in the Mahabharata, was averted
by Yudhishthira’s judgment. Arjuna may be the warrior but Yudhishthira is the king and the
crane-yaksha episode marks the transition of real power from the arrogant instrumentalism of the
warrior to the judicious wisdom of the king.
But there is more. Sharing forests as commons with forest-dwellers means that the urban
dwellers must limit their consumption. The forest is no longer a deep and infinite resource that
can be exploited without limit. The city cannot grow without limit for it is bounded by forests that
belong to others. If the urban population grows, it will migrate to lands elsewhere, not encroach
on nearby land.
Conclusion
We have reviewed some events in the Mahabharata from the point-of-view of an
alternative narrative. The claim is that the Mahabharata tells the story of a violent dialectic
between two sets of social policies responding to an environmental crisis. We looked at various
episodes in the Mahabharata as illustrating state-sponsored infanticide, a state-sponsored caste
system, state-sponsored genocide, and finally state-sponsored cooperation to create sustainable
commons. The final synthesis is Dharma as it evolved over the centuries. The culture survived
because of the policies espoused by the Pandavas. Some of these policies seem repugnant to us,
others seem wise; as part of Hindu orthodox religion, these policies have survived for many
years.
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11. MBh: Social Ecological Perspective 11
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