26 October 2004
Ghandi and Yudhistira
In the forties, Gandhi liberated India, and arguably saved and reformed the Hindu tradition. He has been compared to Yudhishtira, his sense of Dharma and faith to that of the great king of Indraprashtha, setting him as a modern day example of a Dharma-raja . The sense of imminent doom in the final scenes of the Mahabharata resonate today with both Indian and Western readers or audiences, as the threats of nuclear war threaten to destroy the world, as when Arjuna and Ashvatthama invoke ‘astras’ to fight each other, placing the three worlds – heaven, earth, and hell - in peril. Controversially, one could also seek to justify the actions of George Bush in the context of Dharma, by saying that, like Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita, is following the Dharma. Indeed, the largest part of the Mahabharata, taking up twelve to thirteen of the eighteen parvas (chapters), all deal with the great battle and imminent destruction of the worlds and the spiritual departure of the main characters from their worldly roles. The last two parvas of the Mahabharata, the Mahaprasthanik parva, and the Swargarohan parva, deal with the aftermath of the Great War, and the work that the Pandavas must do to restore peace to the world before they finally make their journey to paradise . Finally, even in Paradise, Yudhishtira encounters layers of deception to test him, as Gandhi encountered the split of his motherland into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India .
To the character Yudhishtira, Dharma is of great importance, and this central goal of knowing the true path can be applied to Gandhi:
“He described himself as a sanatani Hindu, one who follows the sanatana dharma, the eternal law once embodied in the dharma-raja, Yudhishtira. And Gandhi's dilemma was the same as Yudhishtira's: what and where was the sanatana dharma he claimed to follow? Was it in his heart or was it in what the Brahmans proclaimed?”
One of Peter Brook's influences in his theatrical work is George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1877–1949) and his tri-cerebral structure of the person. Gurdjieff describes the person as a triangle possessing of three sides: The base as the emotional centre, or “locus of reconciliation”; one side as the intellectual centre, or “locus of affirmation”; and the other side as the instinctive motor centre, or the “locus of negation”. A state of harmony results when there is a balance between these three centres. Peter Brooks applies the same ternary structure to theatre: using for the base the audience’s consciousness; for the two sides the inner life of the actors, and the actor’s relations with their partners.
Given this balanced view of theatre, Brook’s approach was not to engage the actors in his production of the Mahabharata in extensive readings on Hinduism, as this would be an unbalanced focus on the “locus of affirmation” or intellectual centre. Peter Brook chose instead to immerse his caste in the Hindu culture, allowing them to develop relations relevant to the Mahabharata with their acting partners, incorporate elements of ‘Indianness’ to their inner life, and thereby be able to more completely influence the audience’s consciousness.
Brook’s work with Carriere was an attempt at bringing the stories of India to a western audience , in such a manner that modern theatregoers could assimilate the ideas and stories into their own lives, without losing the central lessons in the original text. However, it seems natural that as the text passes from one culture to another, the story is moulded to fit the culture of the recipients. The tradition of sacred texts the world over has been an oral one, deeply linked to an evolutionary process. This evolutionary process ensures the survival of culture, for in the transient nature of the world, what is stagnant will ultimately die. Even though tradition has it that the Mahabharata was originally a vision that came to the sage Vyasa, with Ganesha as the scribe , the story has always been an integrative staged experience, or an oral one, the majority never having read the text. As these words of wisdom pass from one generation to the next they are interpreted and assimilated, retaining the main ideas and characters, but shedding from them antiquities that would alienate the audience from the texts. The threads of Dharma and global destruction running through the original, which are core concepts of the Mahabharata, retain their strength.
Peter Brooks has been criticized in his adaptation of the Mahabharata of falsely portraying Indian culture, and of taking an imperialist view of India, and leaving the Bhagavad-Gita, the core of the teaching of Dharma, as nothing more than a whispered exchange.
My goal in staging the final scene of the Mahabharata is not one that is designed to introduce the concepts of the Mahabharata and Hinduism to the audience. I assume an audience that is already familiar with the concept of Dharma and somewhat familiar with the story of the Mahabharata. The idea is to draw direct correlations between events of the world following world war two until the present day and present them as questions of Dharma and global destruction. It is to homage the resounding chords of truth that were struck by the sage Vyasa over two thousand years ago, which resonate accurately with the political strings of the world today.
This performance of the Mahabharata is to be an indoor one, with a stage empty except for a white curtain spanning the entire length at the back of the stage, from whence the characters of the play will emerge and introduce themselves, and with a dim oil lamp in the centre, as in the traditional Indian style. Also in the traditional Indian style, a man on either side will hold up the sheet. The men should be dressed as modern day military men standing tall and still. The sheet will serve a double role, also functioning as a screen where a political scene comparable to the interactions in the play will be projected.
The actors of the play, in contrast to the minimalist and modern setting of the stage, should be garbed in traditional Indian style. This is to highlight the message of this production: that the state of the world is not divorceable from the history and folklore of mankind. Since the focus in the final scene of the Mahabharata is on Yudhishtira, the idea is to compare him and his actions to relevant and universally known political figures and actions. These may include figures such as Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and more controversially, George Bush and Osama Bin Laden. What all these men have in common is that they all claim to follow their duties (Dharma) as leaders fighting for what they view to be the right thing to do.
This sort of staging, comparing Yudhishtira to relevant political figures, raises the question of the search for truth, also a resounding theme within the Mahabharata. Not only is it necessary to follow the path of Dharma, but to also to discover it. How is it possible to know what the true Dharma is, especially in a modern day setting where there are so many conflicting views on what is right? Who is following the path of Dharma? Is anyone? By showing images of these political leaders, I am inviting the audience to ask these important questions, asked equally by Yudhishtira as by Gandhi.
As Yudhishtira, who in his life patiently suffered humiliation and exile, ascends to heaven, his brothers Bhima and Arjuna, their wife Draupadi, and his cousins Nakula and Sahadeva, as well as a dog follow him. The mountain Himvana (in the Himalayas) claims the bodies of all but Yudhishtira, who has the privilege of entering heaven in his bodily form. This is easily compared with the struggles of Gandhi in his fight to liberate India, with Nelson Mandela’s struggles to fight apartheid and Martin Luther King Jr.’s freedom marches. Where Yudhishtira will not falter from his path of Dharma, and will not abandon those who love and support him, neither will Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, or Martin Luther King Jr. Finally, Yudhishtira is liberated from the deception which is put to him as his final trial, and is allowed to rest eternally in heaven, as Gandhi, the modern day Yudhishtira, liberates India, Nelson Mandela leads his country in an apartheid-free age, and Martin Luther King Jr. peacefully ends racial segregation in the U.S.A.
To introduce thought and controversy, modern political scenes of Bush’s invasion of Iraq, or Osama Bin Laden’s attack on the twin towers should be juxtaposed with those of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr., making the audience question whether to accept that these are men who are following their Dharma, or whether it is possible to know, in the midst of action, what the true path is.
Gandhi said “Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.” Yudhishtira, who consistently advises his brothers against war, wanting instead to resolve issues between the Pandavas and Kauravas in peace, also preached this message of non-violence. Gandhi’s quote would make for a thought-invoking finale to the play. After Yudhishtira has passed through a contrived hell to retrieve his brothers, cousins and wife, and the Pandavas are finally admitted to heaven, everything should fade to black, leaving only the projection of Gandhi’s quote on the white sheet.
“Most of what is called theatre anywhere in the world is a travesty of a word once full of sense. War or peace, the colossal bandwagon of culture trundles on, carrying each artist’s traces to the ever-mounting garbage heap… We are too busy to ask the only vital question which measures the whole structure: why theatre at all? What for? Has stage a real place in our lives? What function can it have? What could it serve?”
These words of Peter Brook are especially relevant in my modern-day staging of the Mahabharata. For the sacred concepts to survive into the world today, they need to be contextualised, and the audience must, by the familiarity of the cast with politics and their relations with each other on the stage, be influenced to think of these important questions.
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