Lecture: Living by the Mahābhārata – a New Approach to a Very Old Story

We want to know what great and important stories mean. We want to know what they are telling us and how we might learn from them. We also want to interpret the world around us and the events that take place in it. These are common, understandable and commendable desires. They are also often the root of misunderstanding and conflict. If I find one thing in a great story and you find another, how do we resolve our differences? If you or I take that story to be the word of God, or sacred to a tradition of interpretation that we accept, how do we proceed? Beyond great stories, in the world of day-to-day experience, how do we reconcile different interpretations of the significance of the events occurring around us? In this lecture, I will explore how the Mahābhārata -with a little bit of modern cognitive psychology- can help us to answer these important questions. I will argue that we need to approach moral and political debate in the Mahābhārata in a new way; instead of asking ourselves what the central teaching of this great and remarkable story is, we must explore all of its teachings. This includes those that are in opposition to one another. It is only seeking to experience the Mahābhārata through the totality of the views that are expressed within it that we can begin to understand and be transformed by it. I will demonstrate this by exploring the debates and arguments that take place on the eve of the great war that sits at its heart. These are told in the fifth book of the Mahābhārata, the Udyogaparvan.