All is fair in love and war

Mahabharata: The Rules of War

•   Fighting must begin no earlier than sunrise and end exactly at sunset.

•   Multiple warriors may not attack a single warrior.

•   Two warriors may duel, or engage in prolonged personal combat, only if they carry the same weapons and they are on the same mount (no mount, a horse, an elephant, or a chariot).

•   No warrior may kill or injure a warrior who has surrendered.

•   One who surrenders becomes a prisoner of war and will then be subject to the protections of a prisoner of war.

•   No warrior may kill or injure an unarmed warrior.

•   No warrior may kill or injure an unconscious warrior.

•   No warrior may kill or injure a person or animal not taking part in the war.

•   No warrior may kill or injure a warrior whose back is turned away.

•   No warrior may strike an animal not considered a direct threat.

•   The rules specific to each weapon must be followed. For example, it is prohibited to strike below the waist in mace warfare.

•   Warriors may not engage in any ‘unfair’ warfare whatsoever.

•   The lives of women, prisoners of war, and farmers are sacred.

•   Pillaging the land is forbidden.

All is fair in love and war, it is said, and are “rules made to be broken?’. What is dharma and adharma really. The Mahabharata is no exception, yet it was termed as “dharma-yuddha”.

Consider the following:

·       Bhishma was the first person to break the rules of war by killing 10,000 soldiers. (only a car warrior can battle a car warrior )

·       The merciless slaying of Abhimanyu was the first major violation of rules of war in the Mahabharata. The common rules of war state that no warrior should be attacked by more than one person at any point, not at all be attacked if he is not in the chariot and does not have a proper weapon. Abhimanyu enters the Chakravyuha, a martial formation devised by Dronacharya, the Kaurava military chief and is unable to break out of the ring like formation trap. Though he fights valiantly and single handedly, the Kauravan top warriors (seven of them) surround him from all the sides and attack him to death. Abhimanyu‟s charioteer and horse were attacked and killed by Karna, departing away from the rule of fighting against the equal ranks. Also Abhimanyu‟s horse was killed, disregarding the code of not attacking the non-combatant. When Abhimanyu was assaulted and killed, he was without any arms or armour. As per the norm, a warrior without arms or armour should not be attacked. After the killing of a warrior, his dead body is treated with respect. But this wasn‟t the case with Abhimanyu‟s body over which people were dancing and celebrating, like savage hunters exuberating over their prey.

Here Dronacharya becomes the reason for one of the biggest war rule violation, since he also devised the plot of skillfully engage Arjuna and Krishna away from the main battle scene, where he later builds the Chakravyuha Spiritually,this incident is also dubbed as the arrival of Kaliyuga on Earth.

·       Under the supervision of the now returned Balarama, a mace battle took place between Bhima and Duryodhana. Bhima flouted the rules (under instructions from Krishna) to strike Duryodhana beneath the waist in which he was mortally wounded.

·       Not only Abhimanyu, the killing of Dronacharya, Karna, Bhisma, etc. were also against the agreed codes of conduct.

·       Now, we all know that Yudhishthira was the most honest man who ever walked the earth, a reincarnate of ‘Dharma’ himself. In fact Yudhishthira was so honest that the wheels of his chariot never touched the earth. So when he uttered the first lie of his life in the battle of Kurukshetra, his chariot fell down to earth with a resounding thud.

Let me now explain the circumstances when he reluctantly lied. Dronacharya, the Guru of both the Pandavas and Kauravas was a fearless warrior. He had a son named Ashwathama. Drona was proving to be invincible in Kurukshetra and was slaying enemy soldiers left, right and centre. And in an opportune moment an elephant also named Ashwathama fell dead. Instigated by his compatriots, the Dharmaraj uttered “Ashwathama hata iti gaja”. (Loosely translated it would mean “ Ashwathama was killed, P.S.- it was the elephant). Now Drona was grief stricken and lost all drive to battle, He was promptly killed off. And here we thought that a little white lie would never hurt.