The Ramayana is a Sanskrit epic poem ascribed to the Hindu sage and Sanskrit poet Valmiki. It is regarded as one of the two great works of Indian literature, along with the Mahabharata. The Ramayana also plays an important role in Hindu literature. It depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal father, the ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal wife and the ideal king. On the other side Mahabharata depicts characters like Krishna, who always breaks the rules, Yudhishtir who always follow the rules. But the question arises when we compare rama and Krishna. Whom should we follow? Rama, who strictly follow the rules? Or Krishna, who breaks the rules? And what can be drawn from these two great epics and applied to the current business situations?
Ramayana and Mahabharata, they exists in two different contexts. Ramayana can be termed as early stage of an organization and Mahabharata as the stage after that. In the early stage of an organization there are no politics, everyone is humble to the organization , an ideal leader(Rama) and ideal employees, i.e., and ideal environment. In such a ideal environment ,where people are so humble, they never knew or tried to use the rules for their own good. Where as Mahabharata is the later stage of an organization, where people are not so humble, and rules are being used to cause harm others.
Let me explain the difference with an example. When rama leaves ayodhya and goes to the forest, in that situation bharath had a chance to become the king of ayodhya. But he denied to be the king of ayodhya. Because he don’t want to be the king. He want his brother rama to be the king. Where as in Mahabharata both kauravas and pandavas are brothers but kauravas didn’t want pandavas to become king. This lead to a war between the brothers. In that war all kauravas were killed by pandavas with the help of Krishna. If you compare both the scenarios, in both of the cases rules were followed. But in Ramayana rules were not used for ad deeds. Where as in Mahabharata rules were used for bad deeds. That is the difference between Ramayana and Mahabharata.
Now
let’s compare Ramayana and Mahabharata using this 2*2 matrix. On one side we
have dhrama (+ is Dharma Upheld. – is Dharma is not upheld). On the other side
we have Rules (Followed, not Followed).
From the matrix rama is a person who follows
the rules and thus dharma is upheld (Rama is the ideal leader of an
organization which is in its early stage.). Ravana is a person who never
follows the rules and thus dharma is not upheld. Krishna is a kind of leader
who bends the rules to upheld dharma. If you compare both rama and Krishna now,
Rama is the leader of an organization where there no politics. Krishna is a leader
of an organization which is in the later stage. Aim of both the of them is to
upheld dharma. But the way they did it was different as the situations are
different. This again lead to another interesting question. Is breaking rules
in order to achieve or upheld dharma correct or not?
Let me tell you one thing. Rules are been
written in order to achieve or upheld dharma. If that is not happening then
there is no use of following rules. In short,
RULES=GOOD
This is what
differentiates Ramayana and Mahabharata. In Ramayana rama followed the
rules and thus the others . So, Finally rama became the king. In Mahabharata
kauravas used rules in order to take away kingdom from pandavs. i.e., rules are
followed but good is not happening. Thus when good is not happening, A leader
like Krishna will end the rules to upheld dharma. This is what the difference
between Ramayana and Mahabharata. In the next article I will try to explain
some other business implications from these
two great epics.
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