ABSTRACT
We will now return to dharma. We have already considered this action concept as embodying the tension between order and chaos. We have seen that ideally and practically, prescriptively and descriptively, this tension takes in the relationship between being and non-being, the sexes, var a and jāti (from Brahmin to untouchable) and purity and impurity. But as already noted, there is another tension in the Hindu understanding of dharma-that between chance and necessity on the natural level, and freedom and determinism on the human. We shall concentrate on the latter, and it will be instructive to do so by means of a story. This is the tale of one of the best-known and important episodes of the Mahābhārata narrative (see Chapter 5). The episode appears in the second book of the epic, the Sabhā Parvan or Book of the Assembly Hall (sabhā=assembly hall, assembly), and is about a dicing match played between Duryodhana, the arrogant, ambitious eldest son of king Dh tarā ra, who reigns from Hāstinapura, and law-minded Yudhi hira, Dh tarā ra’s nephew, eldest of the five Pā ava brothers and regent of the adjoining Khā ava territory with its seat at Indraprastha. Now for the story.1
