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14 LITERATÛRZINÂTNE, FOLKLORISTIKA, MÂKSLA
mundane nature. Purely human and even noble is Karna’s attitude to the three older
Pândavas after he hears from his mother Kuntî that Judhisthitira, Bhîmasena and
Arjuna are his half– brothers. Karna promises to her: “I shall not kill such of your
sons as are capable of being withstood and killed by me, in the battle. There are
Yudhisthira, Bhîma and the twins, in fact everyone save Arjuna; Arjuna alone in the
army of Yudhisthira is worthy to fight with me. Having killed Arjuna I shall achieve
a reputation for great prowess; or being myself killed by Savyasachin I shall be endued
with renown.” 22 . “Mahâbhârata”, reflecting, indeed, natural human weaknesses
as much as merits, may not always be an example of military nobleness. Yet Manu
asks any soldier: “Fighting in a battle, he should not kill his enemies with weapons
that are concealed, barbed or smeared with poison or whose points blaze with fire.
He should not kill anyone who has climbed on a mound, or an impotent man, or
whose hair is unbound, or anyone who is seated or who says: “I am yours”; nor anyone
asleep, without armour, naked, without a weapon, not fighting, looking on, or
engaged with someone else; nor anyone whose weapons have been broken, or who is
in pain, badly wounded, terrified, or fleeing– for he should remember duties of good
men.’’ 23 . Is this not purely wordly ethics? One only should note: if such injunctions
were at least partly observed in the many battles Indian kings fought against each
other, then that was something positively and humanely unique in world history. Especially
in so very ancient times.
As one could expect, earthly aims in human life most ardently are defended by
Kautilya in his famous “Arthashâstra”, written in the beginning of our era. After declaring
that it is necessary for the people to fix the bounds of the Aryan rule of life,
to establish securely the varnas and the stages of life, follow the assertion that material
well–being alone is supreme. We meet with phrases like “wealth is the root of
virtue”, “virtue is attained by wealth and wealth by virtue”, “morality as means to
serve political ends”, “strengh is power, success is happiness”. Duties common to all
are: abstaining from injury (to living beings), truthfulness, uprightness, freedom from
malice, compassionatness, and forbearance.
Even more than in “Arthashâstra”, whose influence on the Hindu’s everyday life
may be very much questioned, worldly values predominate in the wonderful beast
fables of “Pancatantra” and “Hitopadesha”. Their philosophy, which must have been
true to life, was acceptable not only to Indians, but also to many other nationalities.
Not in vain in Europe it was once thougt that all fairy–tales originated in India.
It is extremely easy to find evidences in literature that women were regarded to
be much lower than men and that wives could be treated as something like the property
of their husbands. In this connection Manu – a specific authority on the questions
of marriage and family life– says: “Horses and chariots, elephants, parasols,
money, grain, livestock, women, all sorts of things and non–precious materials belong
to the man who wins them.” 24 We know well how the widows of the three upper
varnas are treated even now or what the child marriage means for a girl. At the same
time, if we regard Hinduism as an ancient creed, it is obvious that women’s position
in China or Greece, for example, was hardly better. The very humane Indian injunction
not to kill a woman in any circumstances seems to have been strictly observed.
Bhîshma allowed himself to be slaughtered because he thought that he had to fight a
person whom he knew as a woman. For killing of a woman capital punishment is