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The war had laws. That few were broken does not mean the war was lawless. The rules of engagement in the Wikipedia article is a mere summary. The original criti
by tn13 12y ago
The war had laws. That few were broken does not mean the war was lawless. The rules of engagement in the Wikipedia article is a mere summary. The original critical edition of Mahabharata published by BORI has even more details. For example how the wounded had to be moved and what is to be done with dead bodies of men and animals etc. The laws mattered and were followed.
Wendy's summary of Mahabharata was as merely "lawless war" is thus completely false.
- srean 12y agoHi tn13 I agree with every bit of what you said except the last bit, I think you are over scrutinizing. A situation where I break the law whenever it is advantageous for me to break them is pretty 'lawless' to me. A murderer is still a murderer even if there are thousands of people he / she did not murder. Whether something is lawful or lawless matters only when it flies against convenience / dominance (much like free speech). The laws might, in such a situation, exist on paper but in practice that is not how things got executed. So if the execution of the war was being described, it would not be an unfair adjective to use. More so because the fact that all fair use rules were dropped plays an important narrative role in the epic. The reader is supposed to shudder that this happened, it is a deliberate plot point, if you will, to show the fall from grace of humanity.