Book Review - The Difficulty of Being Good - By Gurcharan Das

At the centre of the book is Das’s quest to understand the elusive term dharma, a word which means at once duty and religion, justice and righteousness, law and goodness. Dharma lies at the heart of the ethical questions explored in The Mahabharata, and as Das puts it: “The conceptual difficulty is part of the point. Indeed The Mahabharata is in many ways an extended attempt to clarify what dharma is – that is, what exactly should we do, when we are trying to be good in the world.”

Both the strength and weakness of The Difficulty of Being Good lies in the sheer complexity of looking for clear moral teachings in the profoundly ambiguous teachings of an epic that is “about our incomplete lives, about good people acting badly, about how difficult it is to be good in this world”. It is true that the Pandavas’ gentle leader, King Yudhishthira, is admired for his unbreakable commitment to satya (truth), ahimsa(non-violence) and anrishamsya (compassion).

Yet much of the richness of The Mahabharata lies exactly in its Shakespearian refusal to give clear answers or to deal out simplistic rights and wrongs. Characters are constantly faced with competing claims on their sense of duty. The “heroes” of the epic, the five Pandava brothers, are profoundly flawed and fallible: Yudhishthira loses all his kingdoms and even his wife through his feckless addiction to gambling; and the Man-God Krishna, who guides the brothers in the war, brings them to victory through teaching them trickery, deception and the art of guile. Meanwhile the “villains”, the many Kaurava brothers, intermittently display great virtues: bravery, perseverance, generosity and loyalty.

There are, in short, few moral or spiritual certainties advanced in The Mahabharata that are not later profoundly modified and questioned. Most importantly, during the philosophical climax of the epic, The Bhagavad Gita, Krishna persuades the Pandava hero Arjun that it is his duty to wage war on his cousins, arguing that the world is an illusion, and all that one can do is to act with the right motives, according to yourdharma. Yet Arjun’s profound doubts about waging war on this basis are amply borne out by the results of Krishna’s advice: the almost complete destruction of the world and a genocide of 18m that leaves the Kauravas extinct and the Pandavas drifting childless and joyless through a charred landscape of death.

Trying to elicit clear moral guidance for modern politicians, civil servants and businessmen from such a spectacularly complex and ambiguous text, and one that is itself so very full of self-questioning, is a very difficult task, and the result is only a mixed success in terms of Sanskrit self-help. Yet Das’s deeply informed and learned musings on The Mahabharata and its moral dilemmas are invariably so penetrating and full of insight, and the questions he raises so important, that it barely matters. Above all, he draws us back to the text of The Mahabharata itself, one of the greatest of man’s literary achievements and one that, astonishingly, has yet to be translated into English in its entirety: a measure of the degree to which the west still continues to ignore the riches of ancient Indian classical culture.

Thanks to Das, however, I am now deep in the nearest thing we have to a complete English Mahabharata: the nine extant volumes so far translated by the Clay Sanskrit Library, a remarkable American project that aims to give access to the neglected riches of the Sanskrit classics, most of which, shockingly, still remain untranslated into any language. The project is the brainchild of Das’s old Chicago teacher Sheldon Pollock, and there is something appropriately and satisfyingly Indian in the work of the pupil leading readers back to the study of his guru.

The author relies excessively on western sources for translations and for interpretations. This is perhaps because he studied the Mahabharata at Harvard and naturally, more western sources would have been available to him than Indian ones. Apart from that, what struck me most is the critical look that Gurcharan Das takes at Krishna's role in the whole epic, without looking at him as God always. The concept of 'Nishkama Karma' (doing one's duty without thinking of the fruits of it) baffles the author and he concludes that very few people are actually capable of such an existence. Draupadi, Krishna and Yudhishtira are three principal characters that Das analyses in detail, principally because they are the prime movers in the epic and it is refreshing to have an author write about Yudhishtira in a non-simplistic way - that he was a king first and foremost and that he took decisions keeping in mind his 'dharma' to his subjects. 

The author, in my opinion wrongly calls Chanakya as the Indian 'Machiavelli'. Chanakya's Arthashastra was the Indian counterpart of Machiavelli's 'The Prince', but the objectives of the two works are worlds apart in nature. Chanakya says that the Sovereign must become powerful for the welfare of his subjects whereas Machiavelli recommends a king to the pursuit of power for power alone.

Another bone that I have to pick with Das is his lack of familiarity with Indian languages other than those of North India. He says outright in the preface that 'modern' Indian languages do not say Arjuna, but Arjun and that Dharma is pronounced as 'Dharam'. Frankly, I find it appalling that someone who has read so much about Indian epics hasn't made the effort to know more about India itself.

This book, as it is faithful to the epic, raises more questions than answer them, leaving the reader like me to conclude that this epic is essentially a clash between two mafia groups (Pandavas and Kauravas) over land, while including deep concerns (expressed by the characters) for the pursuit of an absolute universal dharma.

As we gradually realize that the epic is far from the simplistic good vs evil story that we had learnt in our childhood, it leads us into the realms of moral philosophy, discussing the merits of consequential-ist ethics (Utilitarianism) and the contradictions between the different moral duties laid down in the earlier moral texts like Vedas, Manusmriti etc; all of which come into conversations between its characters.

This book throws light on many uncomfortable truths that had been hitherto censored out during Television/Cinema adaptations.The author discusses prominent characters of the Indian Epic and the moral dilemmas, behaviours that they exhibit as the story of mahabharata progresses. The tone of the narrative is neutral. The author does not favour any one side or any particular character of the epic. In every chapter, the author compares the mahabharata situations with current day scenarios. He provides a thorough analysis of what can be argued as righteous and why is it so difficult to be righteous. As per hindu philosophy a human life(purushartha) consists of four phases – Dharma(righteousness), Arth(career,goals,commercial activities), Kama(pleasures), Moksha(renunciation). Without experiencing all four a person remains incomplete. Out of the four this book stresses on Dharma and why is it difficult to follow Dharma. The book is deeply introspective. A person who connects with mahabharata and is looking to derive the meaning of life hidden in the story will enjoy reading this excellent narrative/debate on Mahabharata. The author is fascinated(not biased towards) with Yudhishtira’s character and hence the title – “The subtle art of DHARMA” (Yudhishtira being the son of Dharma). The central theme of the book is Dharma.

What I liked about it -

1. The author has done good research of the epic. If you don’t give the prologue a miss, you will see how much the author has put in on this subject. His detailed analysis of the Indian epic is commendable.

2. Some of the chapters got me hooked to the book. Like Duryodhana’s envy, where the author discusses the emotion of envy – its merits and demerits (good envy vs bad envy) and how it affects the moral conduct of a person. Bhishma’s selflessness addresses the famous “Do your deeds without expecting the results” doctrine. This chapter argues if it’s really possible for a person to act without thinking of the results. In Karna’s status anxiety, the author debates the present day issue of reservations in Indian society.

3. The tone of the narrative – This book isn’t preachy at all. I like reading something wherein the author leaves it to the reader to come to a conclusion. When describing his point of view, the author uses “I think…” which keeps the tone open to argument.

4. “The difficulty of being good” – the title summarizes the essence so beautifully. When introspective on life and moral/ethical issues, this book will provide a whole new perspective to a reader.

5. The modern-day examples that the author discusses – Ambani brothers (Duryodhana’s envy), Ramalinga Raju (Dhritarshtra’s bias for his son), etc are engaging.

What I didn’t like -

1. The chapters sometimes become lengthy. For a reader, the topics that he is less interested in, those chapters will prove to lengthy and you start getting restless reading the same subtle argument again and again through different examples.

2. Every Mahabharata fan, who has known the story and admired his/her favourite character, would disagree at one point or the other with the author’s view. For me, the chapter on Karna and Arjuna were a let down. But when you complete the book you understand that the purpose is to discuss Dharma and hence whatever the author has written about these characters is in relation to moral righteousness.

3. The bibliography – it’s so huge that you cannot follow it throughout the book. I gave up after the first chapter. It is a result of the author’s excellent research so can’t blame him for it. It’s just that it was too heavy for a reader like me to go back and forth at every reference.

Read it if -

1. You like The Mahabharata and are game for a healthy introspective debate on the epic.

2. You have felt while reading the epic that it has more to offer than only the story

Here's an interesting perspective on the moral dilemmas faced by the principle characters of Mahabharata, the great Indian classic. The author explores Duryodhana's envy, Draupadi's courage, Yudhistir's duty, Arjuna's despair, Bhishma's selflessness, Karna's status anxiety, Ashwatthama's revenge and beautifully connects it to the social, political, economic and cultural challenges of current times. Indeed, all these characters exist in us too as we face life's challenges by struggling to answer the question - what is the right thing to do and why (or how to) be good?

This book reads a little bit like Gurucharan Das's freshman Intro to Philosophy essay. There's a lot of I feel and I agree with .. which seems a tad sophomoric. 

All said and done.. I always did think that the Mahabharata was a fun story and I am grateful that Gurucharan introduced me to the more subtler nuances of this epic. I really enjoyed Das' discussions on personal dharma versus societal dharma and unmotivated karma. Das does a great job of explaining why the concept of dharma in the context of the epic is complicated. However, he doesn't do a good job of explaining how subtle dharma can be in the 20th century. There is also the problem of Das' very evident America and free markets solve all problems bias. Case in point - he makes the claim that critics of America are more motivated by jealousy rather than logic. I paraphrase, but that was the argument in essence.