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59. BALARAMA
The dishonest ones of the earth have no
such problems, guided as they are solely
by their own attachments and desires, that
is, by self-interest.
Not so the great men who have renounced
all desire. Witness the great trials to
which, in the Mahabharata, Bhishma,
Vidura, Yudhishthira and Karna were put.
We read in that epic how they solved their
several difficulties. Their solutions did not
conform to a single moral pattern but
reflected their several individualities. The
conduct of each was the reaction of his
personality and character to the impact of
circumstances.
Modern critics and expositors sometimes
forget this underlying basic factor and
seek to weigh all in the same scales,
which is quite wrong. We may profit by
the way in which, in the Ramayana,
Dasaratha, Kumbhakarna, Maricha,
Bharata and Lakshmana reacted to the
difficulties with which each of them was
faced.
Likewise, Balarama's neutrality in the
Mahabharata war has a lesson. Only two
princes kept out of that war. One was
Balarama and the other was Rukma, the
ruler of Bhojakata. The story of Rukma,
whose younger sister Rukmini married
Krishna, is told in the next chapter.
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