Ashwathama, the elephant, is Dead !

A Lie ! What is wrong with a Lie! Indeed.  It is a question that has resided in our collective human conscience forever. And it has been with me since my childhood.My mother used to say never lie to anyone and then one day she told me the famous story of Ashwathama, the elephant, is Dead . I still cannot narrate the way she did it to me. But it had a great impact on me as the ambiguous nature of the moral order of the universe first became apparent to me.

The broad details of the story that will refresh your memory are as follows:

In the epic, there is this part where one of the greatest warriors of all time, Drona, is on a rampage through the Pandava ranks. Related to both sides as an uncle, for various reasons, he chose to align himself with the Kauravas in this battle. If he isn’t stopped, the Pandavas fear it is only a
matter of time before their army is in shreds. The oldest of the five Pandava brothers, Yudhisthira, then turns to their spiritual and philosophical mentor Krishna for counsel.

Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu, the supreme god, tells Yudhisthira this is a war that must be won. And that if a lie ought to be told to win it, then the lie must be told. In this instance, Krishna knows Drona’s only weakness is his son Ashwathama. So, he asks Yudhisthira to spread the
word that Ashwathama is dead. But Yudhisthira has a problem with that. His morality and reputation do not permit him to lie. He despises it as dishonest.

But even as Yudhisthira is thinking through Krishna’s proposition and its implications, Bhima, one of the Pandava brothers, kills an elephant named Ashwathama and screams: “Ashwathama is dead”. Word reaches Drona. The man thinks it is his son Bhima is talking of. Stunned, he refuses
to believe the news until he hears it from Yudhisthira and summons him.

Krishna’s words still ringing in his ears, Yudhisthira goes over to his uncle’s camp.

“Is it true,” Drona asks him, “that Ashwathama is dead?”

“Yes,” Yudhisthira says. And then trails off inaudibly, “Ashwathama the elephant.” (अश्वत्थामा हतो नरो वा कुञ्जरो वा)

The last part, he says under his breath and so Drona who knows that Yudhisthira can never tell a lie, believes that his son is dead. He bows his head,full of grief, and then, his head gets chopped off.
As a child, when I first heard the story, I felt strangely betrayed by the good guys, Yudhisthira and Krishna. Like every child I wanted my heroes to be heroes, and the villains to be the villains.

And this was the first time that I sensed that life is not always like that, that what is right and what is wrong is not always obvious, and perhaps not even definable, and that the good and the bad sometimes blur.
But now when I think of the story as an adult, one detail of the story that strikes me as strange, and therefore possibly symbolic, is the elaborate nature of the lie.

In Vedic society, this is the worst possible crime. The Pandavas killed an unarmed Brahmin on the back of subterfuge who in their younger years was a teacher to them as well. But it had to be done for the sake of “dharma”, argues Krishna.

When looked at from Krishna’s perspective, it makes sense. All of the brothers are killing each other, too many people are dying and the war has to end in everybody’s interest. To that extent, morality demands that Yudhisthira lie.Psychology has it that Krishna makes this call without compunction because he is emotionally more evolved.

But then social ethics make it abundantly clear that a lie is a lie, no matter what the intent is. There is no room for a lie in any shade.Telling a lie, even a white lie, is a violation of one’s own dignity. And that is what we are taught to live by.

But do exceptions to the rule exist? When is ambiguity possible? For instance, if your friend were hiding inside your home, and a person intent on killing your friend came to your door and asked you where he was, would it be wrong to tell a lie? If so, would it be moral to try to mislead the murderer without actually lying?

This is the time when I believe we should revisit the dictum : "Honesty is the best policy". Instead, we ought to understand when we should lie. “When does honesty actually harm trust and seem immoral? And when can deception actually breed trust be seen as moral?”

The reason this is pertinent is because many times we have to balance between benevolence and honesty, where benevolence is about being kind and providing supportive feedback. Honesty, on the other hand, can be critical and harsh. Not everybody is built to handle honesty. To that extent, it makes sense to err on the side of benevolence for building trust and relationships.

There are a lot of domains in which individuals face this conflict between honesty and benevolence very, very intensely. One example is in healthcare. Doctors frequently have to deliver very negative news to patients. And actually, prior research has found that oftentimes, doctors do lie.

They inflate the positivity of these prognoses. We seem to think this is bad, and I think doctors feel a lot of tension and conflict around how to handle the situation.

My mother frequently used to tell me, ‘Never lie’. But once before visiting grandma’s house, she said , ‘Remember, thank grandma for that gift, and tell her how much you like it, even though we both know you will never use it’.”

This is the kind of ambiguity and tension Krishna nailed with precision almost 3,000 years BCE when the Mahabharata was written.

Krishna  is direct. From his perspective, the war has to be won. Too many people are dying, and he feels like the moral justification is on his side, and so he sees nothing wrong with lying. The ends, from Krishna’s perspective, justify the means.

So maybe the moral of the story is that untruths and misdeeds are occasionally necessary, if the ends are justified.

But then you consider this and the story turns around once again – The man who was beheaded, Drona, was a man of principle, a man to be admired. He should have died a noble death if at all.

But wait a minute. Drona is on the side of the bad guys, and so his manner of death is justified. Or is it?