When you have been granted a favour by anyone in your hour of need, you almost instinctively wish you would sooner or later have occasion to return it in one form or another. Does it not then amount to wishing to see your benefactor in some distress? Regardless of whether or not it does, you tend to treat that favour as a debt you must someday repay.
In Valmiki’s Ramayana, Lord Rama deals with this issue in his parting words to Hanuman thus: “Mayyieva jeernathaam yaathu /Yatthwayopakritham harae/Narah pratthyupa- karaarthee/ Vipatthimabhikaamkshyati (May the great deeds you have done for me — locating Sita, helping Rama vanquish Ravana — perish within me. He, who wishes to recompense for favours received, effectively wishes hard times for his benefactor).”
A sane sentiment, that! In fact, it’s too sane to be readily digested by those keen to recompense their benefactors.
Our very concept of ‘debt’ and ‘repayment’ are intriguing. There is, for instance, this shloka (verse) by Adi Sankara about the ‘ordeal’ of a mother from conception to childbirth and after: ‘Aasthaam thaavadiyam prasootisamaye doorvaara shoolavyathaa/Nairutchiam, thanushoshanam malamayee shayya cha samvatsaree/Aekasyaapi na garbhabhaara bharana kleshassya yassiah kshamo/Datum nishkrithimunnathopi thanayah thassieye janannieye namah.’
In sum, it says no son, however great he may be, can ever recompense his mother for even one of her many pregnancy- and childbirth-related ordeals.
Childbirth is a natural phenomenon. There is no question of any son or daughter ‘recompensing’ their mother for her ‘labour of love’. And yet, coming from the mouth of Sankara, the verse had many takers!
There are debts of different kinds though. Take the case of Karna of the Mahabharata. He was the eldest son of Kunthi, but illegitimate and therefore abandoned at birth by his mother. He was fostered by a childless charioteer couple. Karna grew up to be an unrivalled archer. He once took part in a martial arts show sponsored by the Kaurava-Pandava guru Dronacharya. There he matched or surpassed Arjuna in feat after feat until Dronacharya was alarmed that Karna would steal the show.
He then asks Karna about his ancestry. When he learns Karna is a charioteer’s son, Drona disqualifies him stating that the martial arts show was only for the royalty. Recognising Karna’s prowess and his potential as a foil to Arjuna, the Kaurava prince Duryodhana crowns him then and there the king of Angarajya, a Kaurava possession, and earns Karna’s eternal gratitude for thus saving his honour.
On the eve of the Mahabharata war, Kunthi secretly approaches Karna and reveals to him the truth of his origin. She tries her best to persuade Karna to switch loyalties but he declines because of his debt to Duryodhana.
Lord Krishna also tries to persuade Karna to switch sides. As he was returning after his failed mission to Duryodhana to avoid a war and arrive at a compromise with the Pandavas, Krishna asks Karna to take a ride with him in his (Krishna’s) chariot. On the way, Krishna uses all his persuasive powers to get Karna, his close friend, to switch sides but Karna declines.
The twists and turns of the tales in the Mahabharata are mind-boggling. There is, for instance, the story of King Shalya, an ally of the Pandavas. On hearing of their impending war with the Kauravas, he is on his way to Kurukshetra to fight on the Pandava side. All along his way he is feted by men he thought were Pandava allies but turned out to be players in a Kaurava ploy to rope him in to their side. He thus feels obliged, much against his wish, to align himself with them. He offers to serve as Karna’s charioteer. During the war, he keeps taunting, denigrating and maligning Karna till the latter’s end, thus proving his ‘loyalty’ to the Pandavas!
There is also the story of the fleeing Moghul king Humayun being saved from drowning by a Saqqa (water carrier) by name Nizam. To show his gratitude to Nizam, Humayun makes him king for a day!
Hindus recognise several dharmic debts to deities and ancestors. We are born in debts and die in debts!
One can’t help recalling Oscar Wilde’s last words, “I am dying beyond my means. I can’t even afford to die.”
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