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 The role of
fate-9
Nor sitting at his hearth at home doth man escape his appointed doom.
--Aeschylus (525-456 BCE), Greek dramatist
IX. Fate and fury-contd.
Throughout the course of humanity we read about the code of conduct containing prescriptions and proscriptions. There are actually more proscriptions (“Thou shall not…”) than positive reinforcements. Adam and Eve were allowed to exert their free will but a restriction was imposed on them. After failing to comply with the restriction they were deemed to have committed a sin and humanity was slapped with that primordial sin forever. In the Indian mythology too, when the word karma is mentioned it invariably means bad karma. In Thamizh language epics there is greater mention of “valvinai”, “teevinai”, and “vevvinai” (bad karma) than “nalvinai” (good karma).
In everyday life when people talk about karma it is always a regretful remark. A news item is considered important and worthy of dissemination only when it involves murder, massacre, assassination, arson, political misdeeds and other destructive activities. Very rarely philanthropic, charitable, Good Samaritan or other virtuous activities get attention.
In Ramayanam and Mahabharatham we have so many incidents that are linked to bad karma. Perhaps good karma is taken for granted when the beneficial consequences are doled out. It is not written about in any detail. The moment a tragedy occurs, such as sending Rama to the forest, or the dice game is arranged between Yudhishtra and Shakuni, a discussion of fate (bad karma’s consequence) comes into the picture. In all the epic episodes that are around, there is an imbalance between good karma and bad karma, with the latter in abundance. Upon further introspection, it appears that all those episodes were written and used as didactic instruments to shape human behaviour. When a proscribed activity is committed and no recourse was taken to rectify that, then fate enters the picture (it may even be that fate conspired to induce the proscribed activity) and joins with fury to exact a punishment. The “fury” can be quite silent, determined, and lasting. Let us examine one such case from
Mahabharatham.
ambA vis-à-vis Bheeshma
 ambA was the oldest of the three princesses of the Kashi kingdom. When Bheeshma was asked by his step-mother Satyavati to find some bride(s) for her second son Vicitraveerya, Bheeshma went to Kashi, fought with several kings/princes and kidnapped the three princesses, ambA, ambika, and ambalika, and brought them to Hastinapur to get them married to Vicitraveerya. It turned out that ambA was in love with king Shalva. Bheeshma sent her back but king Shalva refused to accept her since she was carried away by Bheeshma. ambA tried in vain to convince Bheeshma to marry her. ambA decided to take revenge on Bheeshma, did excruciating penance and got a lotus garland from Lord Kartikeya which when worn by anybody would confer the ability to slay Bheeshma. Nobody would come forward to wear that garland and take on Bheeshma. She then went on doing perilous penance after which she was given the boon by Lord Shiva that she would slay Bheeshma herself in her next birth. She then lit a pyre and plunged into it thus accelerating her next birth. In due course she was reborn as a daughter to king Drupada (as Sikhandini) and then exchanged her gender by virtue of the boon to become a man
(Sikhandin).
Later Sikhandin joined the Pandava army and was recruited to be with Arjun. Eventually Arjun, using Sikhandin as a cover, was able to kill Bheeshma. The fury that was consuming ambA all her life and in her rebirth got doused at the death of Bheeshma. ambA’s fury did not explode like that of KaNNagi in Madurai or even Draupadi in the assembly hall. She was so determined to avenge her shame that she went to extraordinary measures of ascetic self-denial and finally immolating herself in a fire in order to be reborn as a man to cause Bheeshma’s death. But was it all due to human effort alone? It appears not.
The fury was there all along. Where did the fate come from? The kidnapping of the princesses (especially ambA) was perhaps engineered by fate in order to enable Bheeshma’s killing in the war utilising the fury of ambA as a means. ambA’s gender exchange with the yaksha was supposed to be temporary but it was destiny that made it permanent in order to comply with Shiva’s boon to Drupada. Was ambA’s fate alone responsible for Bheeshma’s death? It does not seem so. It took a coupling with Bheeshma’s fate too.
 Bheeshma’s vow of celibacy in the process of negotiating the marriage of his father with Satyavati’s father became an obstacle in trying to render justice to ambA when she demanded that Bheeshma must marry her after her predicament (being kidnapped by Bheeshma and then rejected by Shalva). Bheeshma knew that ambA was reborn as a female first and then transformed as Sikhandin and he could not dissociate the image of ambA from Sikhandin. He called her Sikhandini. He told the Pandavas that ambA was reborn as Sikhandin. Bheeshma even revealed the secret of how he himself could be killed. This is one of the instances where the involved individual knew his participation in the game to be played out by fate. Bheeshma also said that he would lay down his weapons if confronted by a woman on the battlefield. It suited the Pandavas, urged by Krishna, to utilise the services of Sikhandin knowing Bheeshma’s predilection. He was finally slain by Arjun using Sikhandin as a cover for his protection.
Could Bheeshma have avoided getting killed in the war? He could have if he stayed away from the warfront. But he also took the vow to protect the throne of Hastinapur under all circumstances and it would be unbecoming of a great warrior to decline the leadership of the army. The combination of fate and fury played havoc with Bheeshma’s life. ambA’s fury was the means by which Bheeshma’s fate was executed. It also required divine intervention from Shiva and Kartikeya. The gods played a leading role in steering fate onto appropriate individuals.
Sethuraman Subramanian
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