Sri Krishna not only restored the Sanatan Dharma in its original glory and splendour, but also gave it a new body and a new form. The established custom of the birthright of the king was changed. The king had to be a servant of the people. His life had to be an embodiment of dharma, otherwise the common folks, the gwal bal, the cowherdmen, had the right to overthrow him. Secondly, Sri Krishna established the nation unit. India was reborn through the Mahabharata. Of course, Bharatvarsha is as old as the Himalayas but its name has changed several times. The Jambudweep of Lord Rama, the Bharatavarsha of the mighty kuru clan born of the coming together of a Rishi and a Rishika, Shakuntala whose son Bharata ruled the ancient land of India mightily and wisely, changed into Aryavarta, Aryabhumi. As we know by now, the Aryan was not a physically distinct type, as certain section of politically motivated scholars insists holding the corpse of a now dead Aryan invasion theory. It was rather a psychological type of humanity epitomised in Bhishma, Arjuna, Vidura and Sri Krishna himself. In brief, it was the ideal of true and complete manhood embodying the triumvirate of Wisdom, Strength and Love. This is the kind of divine humanity that Sri Krishna envisages in the Gita and the way shown towards it by following the triple path of Knowledge, Works and Bhakti.
We see a similar crisis in the previous century which saw two goriest and bloodiest of wars that man could ever imagine. It was as if all the rot and pus shimmering within the belly of humanity came out in one dark flow. Kali descended to drink it and in the process destroyed the Asuras whose names were Nazism, Imperialism, Scientific Materialism, Freudianism and its like. Communism too, it has been destroyed though, there still exist pockets of political units that thrive on wearing its mask and capitalise on its dead body erecting upon it the tomb of a political cult with its zealot , faithful followers who aggressively attack and threaten and pull down all that contradicts their idea of another kind of hegemony upon the world, an ideological hegemony has no essential difference from a religious hegemony and conversion except that the gods and the gospel are replaced. All the rest is the same with as dangerous consequences as the effort at religious domination of one cult or group over another. But the same previous century, also saw once again the descent or the advent of the Avatara who steered humanity through this narrow gorge into which civilisation had entered and was being stifled into death. He rescued it in the Age of Kali, even as Sri Krishna in the previous age, Dwapara, restored the eternal truths of Sanatan Dharma, breathed a new life in the spirit that gave birth to it but also gave it a new form consistent with the yuga dharma. He opened the ways to the future and showed the way for man to navigate through this crisis towards a luminous future. We know whom we are referring to here. It is none else but Sri Aurobindo. He did in our age what Sri Krishna did in the Dwapara yuga.
The story of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana though appear as crisis of outer events, is in its bottom an evolutionary crisis wherein humanity is called upon to make a choice depending upon which it will find itself on one side of the history or the other. Each of the main characters in the Mahabharata represents one such archetype of humanity who stands either on the side of the intended progress or who resists the human advance by its obstinate refusals, denials or simply inaction, when destiny demands it to act aligned to the Time Spirit. We can take them one by one.
