Assignment On

Mahabharata Ethics

SEMESTR-3 BATCH: 2012-14

Xcellon Institute School of Business

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY: Kamlesh Soniwal (114) Pintu Maharana (127)

Prof. Vivek Raina

Acknowledgement
We owe a debt of gratitude to our learned and eminent faculty Prof. Vivek Raina for giving us this opportunity .we owe great thanks to great many people who have helped and supported us during this report. We would once again like to express our deep sense of gratitude to our faculty, for his kind help, support and valuable guidance during the report. His help, stimulating suggestions and encouragement helped us.

Executive summary
Mahabharat teaches us the art of living. It brings proper perspective to our thought process and guides your action towards success and fulfilment. It shows us the way forward. Knowledge gives you proficiency. Applied knowledge is efficiency. Right knowledge applied at the right time, right place and right way gives us effectiveness. Effectiveness leads us to success and glory and that is what Mahabharat teaches us. In this report we try to mention the ethical path which Lord Krishna took during the Great War The Mahabharata and try to reflect the leadership quality which Lord Krishna showed during the war and guided Arjuna to achieve the victory and Lord Krishnas obsession throughout the entire Mahabharata was to establish a society where dharma was the guiding principle. This is a society where there is protection and happiness for all, and where people live in a balanced, spiritually orientated way, with respect for other people, creatures and all of nature.

Introduction
The Mahabharat is considered among the greatest spiritual books in the world by eastern and western scholars.

Main characters:
Vyasa [veeyasha]: narrator of the story and father of Pandu and Dhritarashtra Bhishma: half-uncle by marriage of Pandu and Dhritarashtra Dhritarashtra: blind king, father of Duryodhana and the Kauravas Gandhari: wife of Dhritarashtra Kunti: wife of Pandu and mother to the five Pandavas and Karna Yudhishthira: leader of the Pandavas, rightful heir to the throne Bhima: strongest of the Pandava brothers Arjuna: mightiest of warriors Nakula and sahadeva: Pandava twins Draupadi: wife to the five Pandavas Duryodhana: leader of the Kauravas Duhsasana: brother to Duryodhana Krishna: supporter of the Pandavas and avatar of Vishnu Drona: teacher of the Pandavas and Kauravas Karna: warrior, secret son of Kunti, ally of the Kauravas

Talking about ethics

Krishnas obsession throughout the entire mahabharata was to establish a society where dharma was the guiding principle. This is a society where there is protection and happiness for all, and where people live in a balanced, spiritually orientated way, with respect for other people, creatures and all of nature.

Ethical dimensions
In Mahabharat Bhagawad geeta is the message of Lord Krishna given to his friend arjun, there was fight of evil and unethical between kauravs and pandavas. Managers who resort to unethical means to grab the immediate results are successful only for short time like dhuryoddan. The lord advices that one is born into this life to play his part and whatever the role is assigned to human, one has to perform his prescribed duties with the utmost devotion, sincerity and humility. If people feel that the organization which they are working is unethical, they are caught in more dilemmas like karna faced in fight. In Mahabharat, Arjuna asks Lord Krishna What is the force that binds us to selfish deeds, o Krishna? What power moves us, even against our will, as if forcing us? Lord Krishna replied: It is selfish desire and anger, arising from the state of being known as passion; these are the appetites and evils which threaten a person in this life. Just as fire is covered by smoke and a mirror is obscured by dust, just as an embryo is developed in the womb, knowledge is hidden by selfish desire. Arjuna, this unquenchable fire for self satisfaction is the biggest enemy of the wise. Selfish desire is found in the senses, mind and intellect misleading them and burying wisdom in delusion. Fight with all your strengths, o Arjuna, controlling your senses, conquers your enemy, the destroyer of knowledge and realization.

Ethical aspect of Krishnas teaching

Mans attitude towards people, all other living beings, and towards the entire environment; they possess a developed consciousness and are advanced spiritually who
are well-disposed both to friends and to foes, to neutrals, to strangers, to the envious, to relatives, to the pious, to the vicious.

Attitude towards god; Lord Krishna suggests regarding everything existing in the universe
as a manifestation of god in the aspect of the absolute. Love for god in this aspect implies our love for the creation as for his integral part.

Attitude towards ones own path to the perfection; god suggests that we regard our
lives as the opportunity to approach perfection by making efforts on transformation of ourselves, as well as through active creative love-service to god, which is manifested as our service to people

Learning from Mahabharat

The Mahabharat talks of types of dealing with people Saam (Treating equally) Daan (Rewarding) Dand (Punishment) Bhed (Discrimination) E.g. TATA nano Manneshwer plant: - TATA nano have plant in Manneshwer some months ago. There is major issue was labour issue. In this TATA nano plant there is some labours are permanent and some are temporally so, temporally labour wants a permanent job there and company is giving salary to permanent labour was three times of temporally labour. So labour is not satisfying them, so they was demanding permanent job in this plant. Company managers said to them that is not possible because we not require this many labour. Because of that both kind of labour was come on strike so, company thought that they reward in salary for temporally labour. Through that also labour was not happy so that they all labour go together and fired to managers. Then plant of TATA nano in Manneshwer it was closed. Colleague Kauravas: Centralized power system but not many powerful colleagues, except from old relations like Shakuni, jayadrath. Pandavas: No wealth, no power of their own, but powerful colleague all over India. E.g. America protect to Japan: - Japan dont have they own army but America is given protection to Japan on behalf of importing and exporting some goods. E.g. Maruti & Suzuki: - Maruti is Indian company and Suzuki is a Japan. Maruti many years ago this company is dont have a good techno logy so at that time Japan wants to enter in India. So Suzuki given an offer to Maruti for partnership and Maruti is ready with that proposal. Means they are helping to each other. Team Spirit Kauravas : No team spirit Pandavas : one team, one goal E.g. Teamwork succeeds where individual effort fails.

 Misuse of knowledge Shakuni : have a magical dice

E.g. A raja: have good knowledge about telecom sector:- he was a telecom minister, so he have very good knowledge in telecom. Thats way he has done scam in telecom around rs. 1076 crore. Individual Motives Kauravas: Except for Duryodhana nobody wanted the war. Pandavas: common goal, but individuals had their target. E.g. the right team is made by selecting the right individuals. Get the right man for the right job. Leadership Lord Krishna changed his leadership style according to the situation recognising the people and their potential. He clearly knew what appealed to whom and how to get work done. Equally outstanding are the ways in which he handled men like Duryodhana and karna at very crucial points in mahabharata. He effectively used different leadership styles such as authoritative, directive, participative or even attractive styles of leadership, changing sometimes as a chameleon but always safeguarding dharma and always working towards what is right. Most importantly, being the people oriented leader that he was, he guided and facilitated people to perform or achieve their goals. Imagine mahabharata for a while without Lord Krishna and then we realise the vacuum in the absence of leaders.

Authoritative style of leadership The story is about the fight between bheema and jarasandha in the presence of Lord Krishna and Arjuna. Jarasandha picks bheema as one worthy to fight. Bheema and jarasandha fight for days, matching each other. Every time bheema kills jarasandha, miraculously, jarasandhas body rejoins. Bheema realising that jarasandha was more than an equal match, looks up to Lord Krishna for direction. Lord Krishna, who knew the story of jarasandhas birth, picks up a stick, breaking it in two halves and throws the two halves far away from each other and in opposite directions. Bheema understands and throws jarasandha to the ground, and splits his body in two. He then throws the two halves of jarasandhas body far away from each other in opposite directions killing him. Lord Krishna appropriately uses authoritative style of leadership in this instance.

Conclusion
Lord Krishna was thus a great pragmatic and clever leader, using the resources of men and material most efficiently and proactively. A leader in corporate world attempts to do exactly the same, as increasingly, businesses are getting more people oriented. Therefore there is great potential and opportunity to gain wisdom by drawing examples from our great epics and use them as our guiding philosophy in the corporate world as well as in our day to day life. While facing short term and long term challenges, a leader is continuously working towards influencing people, making powerful allies and neutralising competitors. A corporate leader is a visionary working towards the well being of all stakeholders while being on a righteous path (the dharma) Lord Krishna always followed an ethical path as it should be noted that there was neither advice nor any incident in the mahabharata where Krishna would accept or justify the killing on non-combatants. The struggle was only ever directed against the individuals who were directly involved in upholding duryodhanas powers through the force of arms.