There’s no council without wise old,
Nor old that vouch dharma nor virtue,
No virtue, truth would not uphold,
Nor truth free from fraudulent hue!
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Translation |20.10.2024|assembly, old, virtue, truth, trickery
Poet’s note: Sanskrit has thousands of verses of wisdom called Subhashhitam. This verse is taken from Mahabharata, Sabha Parva. Draupadi was molested in the royal court despite the presence of wise old people like Bheeshma, Drona, Vidur, and Kripacharya. They were all talking about dharma while allowing such a thing to happen. (What Draupadi said is valid; what Duryodhan argued is also not invalid…) The transliteration of the Sanskrit verse follows:
Na saa sabhaa yatra na santi vriddhaah,
vriddhah na te ye na vadanti dharmam |
Dharmah na vai yatra cha na asti satyam,
satyam na tat yat chhala na anu-viddhyam ||
Categories:
drona, mythology, old, truth,
Form: Quatrain
My Li(f)estyle
If Yudhisthira* can have Drona* killed with a lie,
Can I not, a small guy, follow the path I desire.
With small lies it was a quick and easy try,
out of the mess I saw myself fly.
When I got away with a bolder and bigger lie,
delighted I was, that I did not have to cry.
These lie wins gave me instant Joy.
Oh! I said ‘This is the Life of my way, that I need to enjoy’.
Later journeys in Life got me pain I did not ask for,
Marking wins I celebrated on lies with an unseen scar.
My mind is forever quick
and plays a ploy;
So, I now always ask my honest friend ‘my Heart’,
if Truth is what I am out to destroy.
‘When you lie, Truth you may cover,
making the heart holding it suffer’, he avers.
I stopped asking if Yudhisthira ever did lie,
Truth as my path is all that I Aspire.
PS: *In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, Yudhistira and Drona are some of the key characters. Yudhistira in the epic is the epitome of Truth.
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Truthfully Yours,
Sathya
Categories:
drona, truth,
Form: Prose Poetry