When knowledge meets power

Knowledge is always an asset but it is governance which sets the tone for knowledge to grow and be useful. When governance is all about power, those who rule are arrogant. When persons of knowledge hanker after rewards, the processes of learning could become compromised or there could be a feeling of humiliation. A crisis sometimes redefines these relations in a way that could benefit everyone.

A story from the Shantiparva, in the epic Mahabharata, reflects on this theme. A learned but poor man with ambition petitions the king many times for a donation. He also hopes to catch the eye of the king and maybe get some recognition as a person of learning. The arrogant king has no time for him and insults him by literally throwing a golden vessel at him. Deeply humiliated, the poor man takes the vessel but decides to never again ask for anything. He shrinks both his hopes and expectations and retires to the forest to dedicate himself to learning. Such is his austerity and concentration that he also shrinks in size and becomes hardly visible. His practice bestows on him the power to see the past, present and future. Eventually, even without his desiring it, his fame spreads far and wide.

Meanwhile, the king goes through a personal crisis. His only son has gone missing in a hunting expedition. The distraught king approaches the sage for help. The king does not recognise the man he had insulted but the sage remembers everything. He talks to the king at length about how hope could be a cause of sorrow. Mellowed by his grief, he does not command but pleads with the sage to find his son. The sage, who is now detached and without rancour, uses his knowledge and finds the prince. The overwhelmed king wants to honour him and give him wealth. The sage refuses. Suddenly in front of the assembled entourage he rises from his shrunken form and reveals himself as none other than Lord Dharma. He then disappears.

Yudhisthira, to whom this tale is narrated in an attempt to assuage his grief at the end of the battle of Kurukshetra understands. The man of learning will be generous with his knowledge when the king has respect for learning. Renunciation is for the sage, those who rule need to be compassionate.