The Problem of Indifference to Suffering in the Mahābhārata Tradition

In the Mahābhārata, Kṛṣṇa is regularly accused of ignoring harm that befalls its various characters. In fact, the Sanskrit verb upekṣ (“to overlook, disregard, or ignore”) is applied more consistently to Kṛṣṇa than any other figure in the epic. Through its use, both the Mahābhārata and the tradition raise a question: how can Kṛṣṇa be indifferent to two genocides (the massacre of the Kurus and the Yādavas) and the mistreatment of Draupadī? Although previous studies on theodicies in the epic have focused on the issue of Kṛṣṇa’s omnipotence (or lack thereof) in the Mahābhārata, this article argues that the question of omnipotence is irrelevant because Kṛṣṇa does not want to prevent the suffering of a large-scale war—his neglect is intentional. From this question of (intentional) neglect, the theological problem of indifference to suffering arises for these early readers of the Mahābhārata: under what circumstances is it justified for Kṛṣṇa to neglect the suffering of others, despite being able to prevent it? In presenting this problem, this article also draws attention to the importance of commentaries on the epics and Purāṇas as a source of study for vexed ethical and theological questions such as this one.

hungry tigress in order to prevent her from eating her own cub. The Buddha's reasoning is that he must intervene and not ignore the potential suffering (duḥkham upekṣyate) of the innocent cub. Hemacandra's Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacaritra, a collection of narratives about famous Jaina heroes, includes a story about the Tīrthaṁ kara Neminātha and a similar conundrum. When Kṙṡṅa abandons his Yādavas in battle with Jarāsaṁ dha, his cousin Nemi is faced with a dilemma: should he compromise his commitment to nonviolence and lead the Yādavas in battle, or should he remain true to his values and stay out? In a scene that curiously mirrors the opening of the Bhagavad Gītā, Nemi's charioteer convinces him to join the battle by arguing that a failure to lead the Yādava contingent would be tantamount to him letting his clan perish in battle, and one should not ignore (nopekṣyam) that. 1 In each of these instances, the moral exemplars-Buddha and Nemi-face the dilemma of ignoring harm, and they each respond differently. These examples also hold something else in common-they use the verb upekṣ ("to overlook, disregard, or ignore") to indicate that someone has ignored or might ignore harm. The previous examples conceive of indifference ethically as more than just overlooking harm, they probe whether the bystander is ever morally justified in not acting and if the bystander is even capable of preventing the harm at all.
We are told in the Mahābhārata that Kṙṡṅa disregards two genocides-the massacre of the Kurus and the Yādavas-and also turns a blind eye to Draupadī when she is being forcefully disrobed by the Kauravas. The verb upekṣ is used ten times to signal Kṙṡṅa's indifference. In fact, upekṣ is used more consistently with regard to the god than any other character in the Mahābhārata. At face value, these charges evoke an image of a detached Kṙṡṅa looking on as millions massacre each other.
Are we to understand that Kṙṡṅa stood by dispassionately as a genocidal war and the massacre of his own clan took place? This becomes a problem in the vein of the Buddhist and Jaina examples if these are events Kṙṡṅa could have prevented. These two issues-Kṙṡṅa's indifference and his ability to prevent harm-are inextricably tied to the question of his divinity in the epic and the nature of divinity itself. 2 In his essay "Defence of a Devious Divinity," Bimal Krishna Matilal (1991: 405) argues that Kṙṡṅa must resort to trickery to win the Bhārata War because he is not omnipotent, and omnipotence is not an important concept in Indian philosophy. If Kṙṡṅa were omnipotent, Matilal says, the god could have ended the Bhārata War in a single day, instead of using various crooked strategies to steer the Pāṅḋavas to victory over eighteen days. While this explanation may satisfy the modern reader's ethical concerns about Kṙṡṅa's trickery, both the Mahābhārata and the tradition (here represented by the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, its commentaries, and commentaries on the Mahābhārata) question Kṙṡṅa's neglect. The Mahābhārata tradition raises a question: how can Kṙṡṅa permit two genocides and the disrobing, or cīraharaṇa, of Draupadī? Emily T. Hudson (2013) has argued along similar lines that the Mahābhārata does not always present Kṙṡṅa as omnipotent, and therefore the epic hedges on whether Kṙṡṅa can alleviate the suffering of the characters. As I show in this article, the question of omnipotence is irrelevant because Kṙṡṅa does not want to prevent the suffering of a large-scale war-his neglect is intentional. From this question of (intentional) neglect, the theological problem of indifference to suffering arises for these early readers of the Mahābhārata: under what circumstances is it justified for Kṙṡṅa to neglect the suffering of others, despite being capable of preventing it? An important component of this problem is the forceful disrobing of Draupadī. This tests the limits of Kṙṡṅa's indifference, and in fact, the tradition's reworking of this story suggests that it would be cruel for Kṙṡṅa to not ultimately intervene and help her if he is capable. In presenting this problem, I also draw attention to the importance of commentaries on the epics and Purāṅas as a source of study for ethical and theological questions.
I begin by looking at all instances where the term upekṣ is used with regard to Kṙṡṅa in the Mahābhārata. In particular, I look at the three principal instances where Kṙṡṅa is accused of turning a blind eye to suffering-the genocides of the Kurus and the Yādavas and the disrobing of Draupadī. Although there is a discussion about whether he is capable of preventing harm, I argue that the Mahābhārata is not questioning his omnipotence. Instead, there is a moral expectation that he would do the right thing. In the second section, I look at the defense that the Mahābhārata tradition mounts in response to the problem of indifference. Kṙṡṅa's neglect, I maintain, is intentional. I conclude by looking at the Draupadī episode.

Upekṣ in the Mahābhārata
The term that will anchor this study-upekṣ-has a wide semantic range and is not always used in other genres to mean indifference. 3 More than other Sanskrit texts, it is the Mahābhārata that fleshes out a nuanced understanding of indifference and its ethics. In the Sanskrit epic, the verb upekṣ is used seventy-eight times, and mostly in this context. Although there are a host of candidates who could be accused of ignoring harm in the Mahābhārata, a tale riddled with violence and genocide, the epic applies upekṣ most consistently to Kṙṡṅa. While this term had wide currency at the time of the Mahābhārata's composition and it was certainly being used in a clearly ethical sphere, the upekṣā that Kṙṡṅa is accused of is not "equanimity." 4 Within the Mahābhārata itself, upekṣ sometimes means "to overlook, disregard, or ignore" something or someone. 5 For example, when Karṅa was suddenly bitten by a worm, he ignored it (tam upaikṣata) because his teacher was resting in his lap. 6 In the war books, Duryodhana and others frequently accuse their key warriors of partiality, particularly when it seems that they are intentionally trying not to kill certain enemy combatants. For example, Duryodhana accuses Droṅa of "ignoring" his favorite student Arjuna in battle (bhavān upekṣāṁ kurute) instead of killing him. 7 Upekṣā is briefly mentioned as a stratagem in war in the Śāntiparvan. 8 It is used in a legal context as well to describe overlooking (or excusing) a crime or unpaid dues. Of the seventy-eight instances of upekṣ, the verb is used sixty times to signal that someone has overlooked harm or suffering. Various epic figures-from Dhṙtarāṡt˙ra to Yudhiṡṫhira-are accused of overlooking suffering or misconduct.
There are other Sanskrit verbs that the Mahābhārata occasionally uses to indicate that someone "looked on" as something terrible happened, but these verbs are not used as consistently as upekṣ to be considered systematic. The verb prekṣ is occasionally used in this context, particularly upaprekṣ, which comes from the same root (īkṣ) as upekṣ. The construction referred to as the "anādare ṣaṣṭhī" in grammatical literature, where the genitive case conveys disregard, is also used with regard to Kṙṡṅa. For example, in the Strīparvan (11.13.17), Gāndhārī complains about Bhīma's treachery in the mace battle but notes that this all happened "as Vāsudeva looked on" (vāsudevasya paśyataḥ). These verbs, however, do not recur frequently enough in an epic (or larger Sanskrit) context to be a systematic marker of indifference like upekṣ. Aside from being used in the Mahābhārata, upekṣ is also used in this way in other classical Sanskrit narratives, including the Jātakamālā and the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa. As I show, commentators also engage in a systematic discussion of indifference using upekṣ specifically over any other verb. For these reasons, I focus on the recurrence of this specific verb as it relates to Kṙṡṅa in the Mahābhārata.
There are two other notable examples of wanton massacre that deserve mention, namely, the burning of the Khāṅḋava Forest and its inhabitants in the Ādiparvan and the slaying of the Pāṅḋavas' five young sons by Draupadī (the Pāṅḋaveyas) in their sleep in the Sauptikaparvan. I do not focus on the Sauptikaparvan's massacre because Kṙṡṅa is not involved and upekṣ is not used to question his indifference to the slaughter of the innocent boys. The burning of the Khāṅḋava Forest does not involve indifference on the part of Kṙṡṅa. In this episode he, along with Arjuna, is an active party to the massacre of animals and inhabitants of the forest. While upekṣ or any notion of indifference to suffering is not raised in this context, there are structural similarities between Kṙṡṅa's massacre of creatures in the Khāṅḋava Forest and the massacre of his clan, which will be discussed later.
I will explain three major examples-the disrobing of Draupadī, the Bhārata War, and the massacre of the Yādavas-two of which are genocides. In the very beginning of the Mahābhārata-the first adhyāya of the Ādiparvan, to be exactthe bard Ugraśravas provides the seers of the Naimiṡa Forest with a brief synopsis of the epic's narrative. It is here that the theme of indifference is first addressed. When the narrator summarizes the dicing match, he touches on Kṙṡṅa's reaction upon hearing about what happened: nātiprītamanāś cāsīd vivādāṁś cānvamodata | dyūtādīn anayān ghorān pravṛddhāṁś cāpy upaikṣata || (1.1.93) Though he [Kṙṡṅa] was not very pleased, he permitted the disputes, and also overlooked (upaikṣata) the other terrible misconduct that increased, beginning with the gambling match.
Here we have, at the highest narrative level, a summary of the issue that the Mahābhārata frequently wrestles with. The narrator draws a distinction between permitting something and overlooking it but finds Kṙṡṅa culpable in both cases. The terrible conduct that the bard describes from there on-the dicing match, the disrobing of Draupadī, and so on-are all framed as acts that Kṙṡṅa allows to take place.

Two Genocides and a Disrobing
In this section, I look at the instances in the Mahābhārata where Kṙṡṅa appears to be indifferent to suffering and is explicitly accused of being so. In each of these cases, the epic uses the verb upekṣ to flag his indifference. There are four episodes where Kṙṡṅa is accused of indifference in the Mahābhārata: in the disrobing of Draupadī, the Bhārata War, the mace battle of Bhīma and Duryodhana, and the Yādava massacre. Of these four, three are recurring and serious concerns: the disrobing of Draupadī, the massacre of the Kurus, and the genocide of the Yādavas. In each of these passages, using the verb upekṣ, Kṙṡṅa is accused of neglecting harm. I begin first with a relatively minor example. In the Sauptikaparvan, Aśvatthāman sees Duryodhana slain and laments the foul means of his defeat. Not only does Bhīma break the rules of war by breaking Duryodhana's thighs, he also crushes his head. Aśvatthāman then berates Kṙṡṅa and Arjuna for allowing this kind of impropriety: dhig astu kṛṣṇaṁ vārṣṇeyam arjunaṁ cāpi durmatim | dharmajñamāninau yau tvāṁ vadhyamānam upekṣatām || (10.9.30) Damn the evil-minded Kṙṡṅa of the Vṙṡṅis and Arjuna. They fancy themselves to be knowers of Dharma, [yet] they ignored you (upekṣatām) as you were being killed.
Kṙṡna allows Bhīma to break Duryodhana's thighs, and even advises him to do so. But he does not tell Bhīma to crush his head and signals his opposition to such a move after it is done. Though Kṙṡṅa had not condoned the crushing of Duryodhana's head, Aśvatthāman faults him and Arjuna for not intervening in the mace battle that broke the rules of war.
The second example of neglect is the disrobing of Draupadī. We have already seen in verse 1.1.93, how the Mahābhārata uses the verb upekṣ with Kṙṡṅa to signal his culpability for ignoring misconduct beginning with the dicing match (dyūtādīn anayān ghorān). Kṙṡṅa is not present for the gambling match because he returns to his capital, Dvārakā, before the match begins. In the critical edition, Kṙṡṅa does not intervene in Draupadī's plight and we are told that extra clothes magically appear to prevent her from being stripped naked. Though Draupadī is spared the humiliation of being fully disrobed in public, Kṙṡṅa appears to be absent in her moment of crisis. The famous version of this story, where she prays to Kṙṡṅa and he appears and prevents it, is a later interpolation. As we will see, this interpolation is important for the commentator Nīlakaṅṫha Caturdhara and others. In the critical edition, the Kauravas attempt to disrobe Draupadī but their efforts are thwarted by the sudden appearance of endless clothing to cover her. Though Kṙṡṅa was not present in the sabhā (court) when she was abused, Draupadī still holds him responsible for ignoring her mistreatment, perhaps hinting at his omniscience. Kṙṡṅa justifies his absence from the dicing match by explaining that he had to protect his kingdom from a foreign invader. In the Telugu and Grantha manuscripts, Draupadī appeals directly to Kṙṡṅa before being disrobed and makes the problem of indifference explicit: hā kṛṣṇa dvārakāvāsin kvāsi yādavanandana | imām avasthāṁ saṁprāptām anāthāṁ kim upekṣase || (2*550.1-2) Look here Kṙṡṅa, resident of Dvārakā, where are you, beloved of the Yādavas? Why do you ignore me (upekṣase) who is without a protector when I am in such a state?
In some ways, the interpolated passages resolve the issue of culpability by having Kṙṡṅa appear and protect her from being completely disrobed, instead of having him remain absent. Her complaint to Kṙṡṅa after the disrobing, however, still remains in the critical edition. Kṙṡṅa's involvement in and prevention of Draupadī's disrobing is a sign that redactors were not comfortable with him looking on indifferently as she was mistreated.
The allegation that Kṙṡṅa sat idly by and looked on during the genocidal Bhārata War is the epic's most serious and recurring accusation about the god. In this third instance, the verb upekṣ is used four times by two different characters. With few exceptions, the Dhārtarāṡt˙ras and those fighting for them are massacred in the Bhārata War. After the war, it is Kṙṡṅa who is held responsible for not only ignoring the human cost of the war, but also for not preventing it despite being able to. In contrast, Kṙṡṅa's brother, Balarāma, excuses himself from battle, saying that he cannot overlook the destruction of the Kurus. 10 After the war, the grieving mother of the slain Kauravas, Gāndhārī, asks Kṙṡṅa why he ignored the mutual destruction of the Kauravas and Pāṅḋavas and curses him for doing so. Upekṣ is used three times here: Kṙṡṅa, the sons of Pāṅḋu and the sons of Dhṙtarāṡt˙ra hated each other. Why did you ignore (upekṣitā) them as they perished, Janārdana? You who were able to do something, who had many retainers, who stood in the midst of an extensive army, who had equal interest in both sides, who had heard all that was said? And since you neglected (upekṣitās) the destruction of the Kurus, O Slayer of Madhu, because you wanted it.…Take the result of that. Since I have come to have some ascetic power because of my obedience to my husband, I will curse you with that.…Since you ignored (upaikṣanta) your kinsmen, the Kurus and the Pāṅḋavas, as they were killing each other,…you shall slay your own kinsmen. Even you,…when the thirty-sixth year is at hand, shall wander in the woods having slain your own kinsmen, having slain your own family, having slain your sons. You shall arrive at your end by an ignominious means (11.25.36-41;Fitzgerald 2004: 70-71). 11 Kṙṡṅa will recall Gāndhārī's words at the time of his death. Indeed, he dies ignominiously thirty-six years after the war. The queen of the Kurus is not the only person to confront Kṙṡṅa in this way; the sage Uttaṅka also voices his concern that Kṙṡṅa overlooked the violence of the war.
As a result, the sage angrily blames Kṙṡṅa for deceitfully overlooking (samupekṣathāḥ) the carnage and vows to punish him with a curse. 12 Kṙṡṅa urges Uttaṅka not to curse him, because an insincere curse would destroy the merit accrued by the sage's austerities. He then gives a Gītā-esque sermon about his divinity and shows Uttaṅka his universal form, which satisfies the sage. In his sermon, Kṙṡṅa explains that he incarnates to establish and protect dharma. When he is born as a human, he must act like one (14.53.13, 14.53.19). Even though Uttaṅka does not follow through with cursing Kṙṡṅa, this is the second instance where Kṙṡṅa is criticized for allowing the Bhārata War to happen. One feature common to both episodes is that both Gāndhārī and Uttaṅka agree that Kṙṡṅa had been capable of preventing the war. Gāndhārī says that he had the power-with a great army (śaktena bahubhṛtyena) and many other means at his disposal-to prevent the calamitous war. Uttaṅka merely says that he had the power to stop it (śaktena). Indifference becomes unethical when someone is capable of preventing harm but neglects it without reason.
The final atrocity that Kṙṡṅa overlooks is that of his own clan in the Mausalaparvan. Following Gāndhārī's curse (and another curse by the sages towards Sāmba that he will give birth to an iron rod that will destroy the Yādava clan [16.2.4-11]), the Yādavas slaughter each other in a drunken brawl. Kṙṡṅa, as predicted by Gāndhārī, watches as this happens and even participates in the destruction. In this case, Kṙṡṅa's father holds him responsible for the carnage. After listing all the people that his son defeated, Vasudeva says: prācyāṁś ca dākṣiṇātyāṁś ca pārvatīyāṁs tathā nṛpān | so 'bhyupekṣitavān etam anayaṁ madhusūdanaḥ || (16.7.11) [Having conquered] kings in the east, south, and the mountain regions, Madhusūdana overlooked (abhyupekṣitavān) this calamity! Following Gāndhārī's curse, we have a curious case of mirroring: Kṙṡna is cursed not only to die, but to ignore the genocide of his Yādava clan because he ignored the genocide of the Kurus. As Gāndhārī predicts, he ignores the carnage in the sense that he looks on as it happens without doing anything to prevent it.

Intentional Neglect? Questioning Kṛṣṇa's Omnipotence
The verb upekṣ is used for the last time in the Mahābhārata by the epic's author himself while in a discussion with Arjuna about Kṙṡṅa. In the Mausalaparvan, Arjuna rushes to Vyāsa's hermitage to complain about the preceding events-the destruction of the Yādava clan, Kṙṡṅa's death, and the suffering of the Yādava women-and expresses his helplessness. In his response, the epic's author addresses the vexing question of overlooking the destruction. Vyāsa says: bhavitavyaṁ tathā tad dhi diṣṭam etan mahātmanām | upekṣitaṁ ca kṛṣṇena śaktenāpi vyapohituṃ || trailokyam api kṛṣṇo hi kṛtsnaṁ sthāvarajaṅgamam | prasahed anyathā kartuṁ kim u śāpaṁ manīṣiṇām || rathasya purato yāti yaḥ sa cakragadādharaḥ | tava snehāt purāṇarṣir vāsudevaś caturbhujaḥ || kṛtvā bhārāvataraṇaṁ pṛthivyāḥ pṛthulocanaḥ | mokṣayitvā jagat sarvaṁ gataḥ svasthānam uttamam || (16.9.26-29) Everything was ordained to be for those great men, yet it was overlooked (upekṣitaṁ) by Kṙṡṅa, even though he could have stopped it. Because Kṙṡṅa can destroy the entire three worlds with everything movable and immovable, how much more easily the curse of sages. He who went in front of your chariot because of friendship, was none other than the mace holder, the primeval ṛṣithat four-armed Vāsudeva! The large-eyed god who descended to lift the earth's burden freed the entire world and went to his own supreme abode.
The epic's author himself makes the same point that Ugraśravas does in the earlier verse: Kṙṡṅa overlooked the destruction (in this case, of the Vṙṡṅis), but in this case he provides a justification for why it was permissible. According to Vyāsa, Kṙṡṅa disregarded the slaughter of the Vṙṡṅis (upekṣitaṁ kṛṣṇena), but Vyāsa also refers to a divine plan, saying that Kṙṡṅa departed after lessening earth's burden. 13 Nonetheless the point is clear: Kṙṡṅa had been capable of preventing the genocide of the Yādavas but opted not to. This is a key detail that the tradition reflects upon, and often echoes. For example, Nīlakaṅṫha Caturdhara, the seventeenth-century commentator on the Mahābhārata, points out in his Bhāratabhāvadīpa that although Kṙṡṅa and his brother Balarāma were capable of preventing the massacre of their family, they opted not to overstep the rules of time (kāla), which sealed the massacre as inevitable. 14 Vyāsa is suggesting that not only does Kṙṡṅa sit idly by as his family perishes, he intended that death to happen. 15 This argument of Vyāsa raises the question of why a capable god would intentionally neglect a genocide of his own clan? Implicit in this question is the assumption that Kṙṡṅa is capable of preventing the genocide. It is often in this context that omnipotence enters the scholarly discussion. A passage from the Uttaṅka episode specifically has been used to prove that Kṙṡṅa is claiming that he is not omnipotent, and was thus powerless to stop the massacre of the Bhārata War. I quote the passage in question: kṛto yatno mayā brahman saubhrātre kauravān prati | na cāśakyanta saṁdhatuṁ te 'dharmarucayo mayā || (14.52.15) Brahmā, I made an effort towards the Kauravas for good brotherhood, but I could not reconcile those who prefer adharma.
Matilal and Hudson interpret this verse as proof that Kṙṡṅa is not always capable of preventing the Bhārata War, and thus is not omnipotent. 16 While Kṙṡṅa claims that he attempted without success to bring about peace, even that is questionable. On two occasions, the god admits during the peace talks that his entreaties about peace are only a formality and that war is inevitable. 17 There is little evidence in the narrative to support what Kṙṡṅa is saying, and we have reason to doubt the sincerity of his argument to Uttaṅka that he was unable to prevent the war. Kṙṡṅa does not defend himself to Gāndhārī, but he does claim to Uttaṅka that he tried to bring about peace. If we take the narrator Ugraśravas's warning in the beginning of the text seriously, we should question the veracity of his claim.
Kṙṡṅa is held responsible for overlooking or ignoring harm consistently in the Mahābhārata, all instances of which have been examined above. The charges range 14 Nīlakaṅṫha, Bhāratabhāvadīpa on Mahāhbārata 1.2.356 (vulgate edition): rāmakṛṣṇau mahatparaṁ brahmāpi santau kālaṁ nāticakrāmatuḥ | samarthāv api maryādāṁ nollaṅghitavantāv ity arthaḥ | 15 The editor of the critical edition of the Mausalaparvan, S. K. Belvalkar, pays attention to Vyāsa's defence of Kṙṡṅa and is unsatisfied with it. He suspects that this defense was important because the devotee of Kṙṡṅa expects that he prevents their suffering. Belvalkar further notes, in his introduction to the Mausalaparvan, that this explanation of Kṙṡṅa's conduct "would not probably fully satisfy the layman, who expects the divine Avatāra to always do the right thing and save the sufferers" (Mahabharata 1927(Mahabharata -1966(Mahabharata , 19 [1959: xxxiv). 16 Hudson: "The Uttaṅka episode explicitly raises the question of Kṙṡṅa's omnipotence and responds negatively. According to this passage, Kṙṡṅa did not stop the war because he lacked the power to do so" (2013: 201). Based on the above verse (14.52.15), Matilal says that "Kṙṡṅa in the Mahābhārata did not always claim to be omnipotent.…He admitted before the hermit Utaṅka how powerless he was to stop the devastating war, and restore friendship between the two warring families. For as he said, the war was inevitable, and he had the power to stop the inevitable" (1991: 410). 17 See, for example, 5.29 where Kṙṡṅa specifically advocates war with the Kauravas, and this is before his "peace mission" has begun. In 5.91 Kṙṡṅa confides to Vidura that he knows that the peace talks are futile, and adds in 5.91.16: na māṁ brūyur adharmajñā mūḍhā asuhṛdas tathā | śakto nāvārayat kṛṣṇaḥ saṁrabdhān kurupāṇḍavān || ("Kṙṡṅa, though capable, did not restrain the enraged Kurus and Pāṅḋavas." Those fools, enemies who know adharma, should not speak in this way about me.) I thank Simon Brodbeck for this reference. Compare Hiltebeitel 2001: "We know that Kṙṡṅa does not undertake the final negotiations before the war to bring about peace or practice ahiṁ sā, as Yudhiṡṫhira thinks and wishes" (214). from the mundane (overlooking Bhīma cheating in the gadāyuddha) to the serious (ignoring Draupadī's plight, the Bhārata War, and the Yādava genocide). In the case of the latter charges, for Draupadī, Gāndhārī, Uttaṅka, and Vasudeva, the issue is that Kṙṡṅa did not prevent the harm despite being capable of doing so. In asking why Kṙṡṅa did not prevent these events or outright ignored them, are these characters posing an explicitly theological question about his omnipotence? When viewed through the lens of "upekṣ" we see that Kṙṡṅa is not the only one who is accused of overlooking the war or the disrobing of Draupadī. Dhṙtarāṡṫra is also frequently accused of ignoring the brewing conflict between the Kauravas and the Pāṅḋavas that leads to the war. 18 There is also the story of Aurva in the Ādiparvan  (1.169-171), where the Bhṙgus take collective responsibility for willfully ignoring their own genocide. Still, Kṙṡṅa's neglect remains a recurring question, and the one requiring the most justification. Gāndhārī and Uttaṅka in particular note that Kṙṡna is "capable" (śakta), and there are very few counterarguments to suggest that he was not capable of preventing the violence. I suggest we read capability here not as questioning his omnipotence. Rather, when viewed within the larger context of this debate, all of these figures-from the Bhṙgus, to Dhṙtarāṡṫra, to Kṙṡṅa-were capable of preventing harm as bystanders. Gāndhārī says, for example, that Kṙṡṅa was capable with "a large retinue" at his disposal (bahubhṛtyena). She is arguing for Kṙṡṅa's own political capability to bring about peace, not necessarily for the use of supernatural powers. Indifference thus becomes an ethical problem when someone is capable of preventing harm but instead opts to merely look on. The other moral exemplars (Buddha and Nemi) have each faced dilemmas of indifference and responded differently. There is a moral expectation that Kṙṡṅa would see harm and act accordingly to prevent it.
The editors of the Strīparvan and the Āśvamedhikaparvan include the Gāndhārī and Uttaṅka episodes in the critical edition of the text based on the manuscript evidence, but they still view them with suspicion from the perspective of "higher criticism." The editor of the Strīparvan, Vasudev Gopal Paranjpe, finds that the block of text that includes Gāndhārī's reproach of Kṙṡṅa seems to interrupt a speech of Kṙṡṅa, which would indicate that it might be a later addition to the text. He notes, however, that the manuscript evidence supports its inclusion in the text and any question of its authenticity "belongs to the pre-history of the Mbh" (Mahābhārata 1927(Mahābhārata -1966(Mahābhārata , 12.2 [1956: 120). Gāndhārī's curse, he posits, is yet another reason for the Yādava genocide and Kṙṡṅa's death. The editor of the Āśvamedhikaparvan, Ragunath Damodar Karmakar, finds the whole Uttaṅka episode-his accusations against Kṙṡṅa, Kṙṡṅa's resulting defense and sermon-to be "irrelevant and absurd." 19 He presents his own theory for why it might have been added into the epic. Though both editors present interesting justifications for the inclusion of these episodes that they think are interpolations, they note that there is no textual basis to 18 In fact, upekṣ is used almost as much with Dhṙtarāṡṫra for this reason. See, for example, 2.65.12, 5.53.6, 3.48.11. 19 "This whole episode appears to be irrelevant and absurd.…The only plausible explanation appears to be that as the Anugītā did not refer to the Viśvarūpa (which forms an important episode in the Bhagavadgītā), some one thought that the lacuna ought to be filled in some way" (Mahābhārata 1927(Mahābhārata -1966(Mahābhārata , 18 [1958: 468). exclude them from the critical edition. They are well attested in the manuscript traditions, and thus part of the earliest recoverable Mahābhārata available to us.

Commentarial and Purāṇic Defenses of Kṛṣṇa's Indifference
The previous section raised several points. The Mahābhārata, through upekṣ, flags episodes where characters disregard or ignore harm. The verb is used most consistently with regard to Kṙṡṅa, who overlooks the misconduct and suffering of various figures and ignores two large-scale genocides that he could have prevented. Although scholarship has used this to question Kṙṡṅa's omnipotence, his neglect of these episodes is intentional. The commentarial tradition and post-Mahābhārata texts examine whether this type of neglect on the part of a god is justified, and if so, what type of defense would justify Kṙṡṅa's indifference. Read with a spirit of receptivity, I look at the solution to the problem of neglect that the Mahābhārata and its commentaries present. Kṙṡṅa's indifference in the Mahābhārata, like Rāma's humanity in the Rāmāyaṇa, is not a barrier to his divinity, but a requirement of it.
Vyāsa also hints in his speech at a larger divine plan of which Kṙṡṅa was a part, which would require Kṙṡṅa to intentionally neglect the suffering of others. In his conversation with Kṙṡṅa examined earlier, he uses the term bhārāvataraṇa, "removal of the burden." It is a phrase that recurs throughout the epic and refers to a story that "remain[s] firmly in the background of the epic" (Brodbeck 2009: 52) but is nonetheless important to understanding the text. 20 The defense of Kṙṡṅa's indifference, as we will see, hinges on this story. The terms of Kṙṡṅa's descent into the world are dictated in this section of the Mahābhārata, literally called the descent of the portions (aṁśāvataraṇa). In brief, the aṁśāvataraṇa is first narrated in full in chapter fifty-eight of the Ādiparvan. After Rāma Jamadagni massacres the Kṡatriya men, the Kṡatriya women are forced to father children with Brāhmaṅas in order to continue the lineage. With the help of these Brāhmaṅa progenitors, a new Kṡatriya race is birthed. This, we are told, is a better class of kings-they are righteous, and as a result dharma prospers. The peace is disturbed by demons who overrun the kingship by being born as Kṡatriyas. The earth, as a result, becomes overburdened with corrupt rulers and desperately seeks the help of the creator god, Brahmā, to unburden her of these demons. It is here that the burden of the earth is explained: tām uvāca mahārāja bhūmiṁ bhūmipatir vibhuḥ | prabhavaḥ sarvabhūtānām īśaḥ śaṁbhuḥ prajāpatiḥ || yadartham asi saṁprāptā matsakāśaṁ vasuṁdhare | tadarthaṁ saṁniyokṣyāmi sarvān eva divaukasaḥ || 20 Pollock, writing about Rāvaṅa's boon in the Rāmāyaṇa, argues that "authentic meaning, however, is not found only au pied de la lettre, in what is explicitly, directly signified in any given (and unstable) verse. It is often discovered to be inscribed in higher-level (and stable) narrative features, in the larger and significant motifs and themes, for instance which make necessary and meaningful implications both intrinsically and as a result of their literary-historical associations" (1984: 508). The bhārāvataraṇa, like Rāvaṅa's boon, is one of those higher-level narrative features in the Mahābhārata. ity uktvā sa mahīṁ devo brahmā rājan visṛjya ca | ādideśa tadā sarvān vibudhān bhūtakṛt svayam || asyā bhūmer nirasituṁ bhāraṁ bhāgaiḥ pṛthak pṛthak | asyām eva prasūyadhvaṁ virodhāyeti cābravīt || tathaiva ca samānīya gandharvāpsarasāṁ gaṇān | uvāca bhagavān sarvān idaṁ vacanam uttamam || svair aṁśaiḥ saṁprasūyadhvaṁ yatheṣṭaṁ mānuṣeṣv iti || (1.58.43-47) Great king, the supreme lord of the earth, the origin of all beings, the master, giver of happiness, Prajāpati, said to the earth: "For that purpose for which you have come to me, earth, I will assign all the gods." Having said that to the earth and dismissed her, the god Brahmā, himself the creator of all beings, ordered all the gods: "in order to relieve the burden of the earth, manifest as portions one by one there [on the earth] to stop them" he said. In this way, having brought together the groups, the gandharvas, and the apsarās, bhagavān [Brahmā] said these words to all of them: "be born among men according as you desire." The divine plan is to have the celestial beings descend to earth to rid her of corrupt political rulers, in order to stop them (virodhāya). The strife will take the form of the Bhārata War. It is at this point that the gods summon Nārāyaṅa for help: atha nārāyaṇenendraś cakāra saha saṁvidam | avatartuṁ mahīṁ svargād aṁśataḥ sahitaḥ suraiḥ || te 'marārivināśāya sarvalokahitāya ca | avateruḥ krameṇemāṁ mahīṁ svargād divaukasaḥ || (1.59.1, 3) Then Nārāyaṅa and Indra made a pact to descend on the earth from heaven as a portion along with the gods.…They descended in order, from the heaven of the gods to the earth, for the benefit of the whole world, in order to destroy those enemies of the immortals.
The Mahābhārata occasionally gives this as the justification for the war. The other celestial beings descend as various important epic figures who play a role in either instigating or fighting in the war. Nārāyaṅa descends as Kṙṡṅa and Indra descends as Arjuna. The Bhārata War that precipitates the massacre of the Kurus is elevated to a higher, mythical level: it is a necessary evil to rid the world of corrupt rulers. By using the term bhārāvataraṇa in his speech, Vyāsa implicates the slaughter of the Yādavas in this larger divine plan. The idea is that the Yādavas had become part of the corrupt class of Kṡatriyas who were wearing the earth down, hence their destruction was imperative. 21 Although it is not explicitly stated, it is strongly implied that the Yādavas have become part of the "earth's burden." Kṙṡna says to Gāndhārī in the Strīparvan that only he will decide the end of his clan. Still, there are hints in the Mahābhārata and elsewhere that the Yādavas have become part of the corrupt Kṡatriyas that the gods descend to the earth to remove. In the lead-up to their eventual massacre, the Yādava princes try to trick a group of sages into thinking one of them is a pregnant woman. This act of disrespect, followed by their drunken brawl, is an example of the behavior of the Kṡatriya class that burdens the earth. In fact, Kaut˙ilya's Arthaśāstra (1.6.9), which was composed around the same time as the Mahābhārata, supports the idea that the Yādavas are good Kṡatriyas turned bad. The story of the disrespectful Yādavas is used as a cautionary example of Kṡatriyas who have not mastered their senses, and thus brought about their ruin. Kṙṡṅa's intentional neglect, as the incarnation of Nārāyaṅa, is a necessary step to achieving that noble end.
Some find a parallel here with the other massacre that Kṙṡṅa participates in-the destruction of the Khāṅḋava Forest along with its inhabitants. Christopher G. Framarin (2013), following Madeline Biardeau, argues that Kṙṡṅa's (and Arjuna's) wanton massacre of the creatures in the Khāṅḋava Forest represents the pralaya, the cosmic dissolution of the world. They find structural similarities between the episode and the explanation of the pralaya. Framarin argues that in that episode, Kṙṡṅa is acting as kāla, or time, destroying the world to start anew. There is a curious parallel here with the justification of Kṙṡṅa's intentional neglect. We are told by Vyāsa and others that the massacre and other events that Kṙṡṅa overlooks are done to destroy corrupt Kṡatriyas who have burdened the earth. The image of pralaya is frequently evoked whether Kṙṡṅa is intentionally overlooking or actively (and happily) participating in a massacre. Despite the differences in the two episodes raised earlier, the logic behind the justification is the same: to make a better world, Kṙṡṅa oversees the destruction of a previous order.
To fully appreciate how the burden of the earth helps us understand Kṙṡṅa's indifference, we can take cues from how the tradition uses the metamyth to answer some of the epic's most vexing moral questions. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa, a central devotional text to Kṙṡṅa, is aware of Kṙṡṅa's indifference in this context and responds directly to the questions that the Mahābhārata raises when upekṣ occurs, particularly the question of whether he was able to prevent war. In the third skandha of the Bhāgavata, we are told that Duryodhana exiles Vidura from the Kuru court, and as a result he embarks on a pilgrimage. Eventually, Vidura meets Uddhava, a friend of Kṙṡṅa's, after the war. Vidura inquires about Kṙṡṅa and the Pāṅḋavas and reflects on the war. While Vidura is questioning Uddhava, he notes Kṙṡṅa's indifference to the war: nūnaṁ nṛpāṇāṁ trimadotpathānāṁ mahīṁ muhuś cālayatāṁ camūbhiḥ | vadhāt prapannārtijihīrṣayeśo 'py upaikṣatāghaṁ bhagavān kurūṇām || (Bhāgavata Purāṇa 3.1.43) Certainly, even though he wished to remove the pain of those who came to him for refuge, the illustrious god overlooked the offences (upaikṣatāgham) of the Kurus due to the killing of those kings who were misguided by their threefold arrogance in repeatedly shaking the earth with their armies.
Using upekṣ, Vidura is added to a long list of epic figures (Draupadī, Gāndhārī, Aśvatthāman, Uttaṅka, and Vasudeva) who accuse Kṙṡna of ignoring suffering or wrongdoing. Vidura agrees that Kṙṡṅa ignored the offences of the Kauravas, which were sources of suffering for the Pāṅḋavas.
Far from being unconcerned about some of the ethical questions that indifference raises, some commentators on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa-including the well-known Ś rīdhara-weigh in and address them. Ś rīdhara writes: nanu hareḥ kim evaṁ līlayā yena svabhaktānāṁ vanavāsādikleśā bhavanti svasya ca dautye bandhanodhyamādiparābhavas tadvaraṁ teṣām aparādhānaṁtaram eva hananaṁ nāparādhopekṣety ata āha | …prapannānām ārtijihīrṣayeśodhasamaya eva hantuṁ samartho 'pi kurūṇām agham upaikṣata | tadānīmeva teṣāṁ vadhe sarvaduṣṭarājavadho na syād ity āśayenety arthaḥ | (Bhāvārthabodhini on Bhāgavata Purāṇa 3.1.43). Now someone might object that "surely, what is the point of Hari's play, whereby his own devotees underwent hardships such as exile in the forest and he was insulted during his [peace] embassy by attempts to imprison him and so on? Far better to slay them as soon as they transgressed than to ignore their trespasses (aparādhopekṣā)." In anticipation of this question, the verse says, "with a desire to relieve the suffering of those who surrendered [unto him]." God, although he was able to kill [the Kauravas] right at the time of transgression, overlooked (upaikṣata) the faults of the Kurus. If he had killed them at that time, the destruction of all the terrible kings would not have been [possible]. This is what the verse means to convey.
In opening his commentary with that issue, Ś rīdhara anticipates the question that Matilal asks centuries later about Kṙṡṅa's omnipotence-that is, "why wouldn't Kṙṡṅa, if he is omnipotent, just kill all the kings in one day and end the war?" The destruction of the terrible kings is key to the aṁśāvataraṇa, the partial descent of the gods. The argument that Ś rīdhara is making is that Kṙṡṅa's neglect is a precondition for fulfilling the larger aim of unburdening the earth. What does this line of reasoning mean for Kṙṡṅa's omnipotence? Nārāyaṅa has incarnated with the sole mission of relieving the earth's burden. The way to do this is through sowing strife (virodha) like the war. Much of the grief that Kṙṡṅa neglects is in service of the Bhārata War (or in the final case, the Yādava massacre), which Ś rīdhara points out involves all the kings that needed to be killed. The bhārāvataraṇa forces us to consider another option that is particularly salient when thinking about Kṙṡṅa's exchange with Uttaṅka in the Āśvamedhikaparvan. Kṙṡṅa's claim that he tried unsuccessfully to bring about peace can be brought into question, not because he lacks omnipotence, but because he did not want to prevent the war in the first place. This intentional neglect, brought about by the divine plan, sidesteps the question that Gāndhārī and Uttaṅka raise-"why did he ignore harm despite being able to prevent it?"-in favor of an argument that Kṙṡṅa did not want to prevent the war and the Yādava massacre to begin with. In fact, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa explicitly ties the Yādava massacre to the destruction of corrupt Kṡatriyas. We are told that the Yādavas, who in the lead-up to their destruction are not only drunk but disrespect Brāhmaṅas, have become part of the corrupt class of Kṡatriyas. Kṙṡṅa decides that after freeing the earth of her many burdens in the forms of demons and corrupt kings, he must now destroy his own clan-the last remaining burden. Both the Bhāgavata verse and Śrīdhara's commentary on it rely on the metamyth implicitly to justify Kṙṡṅa's indifference and its connection to the genocide of Yādavas.
There is support for this argument that the Bhāgavata Purāṇa and Śrīdhara make in the Mahābhārata and its commentarial tradition. The earliest known commentary on the Mahābhārata dates back to the twelfth century written by Devabodha. From then on, there has been a series of commentaries, including those of Arjunamiśra (fourteenth century) and Nīlakaṅt˙ha (seventeenth century). The earliest commentaries on the Mahābhārata were straightforward ṭīkas written to explain difficult verses of the epic, and 1.1.93 appears to be one such verse in the tradition. As we have seen, in this verse Ugraśravas warns the reader from the outset that although Kṙṡṅa was not pleased, he allowed various quarrels and overlooked the dicing match and other misconduct. Devabodha says that the arguments (vivāda) that Kṙṡṅa overlooks are the seed for the destruction of the villains. In his own commentary, Arjunamiśra builds on Devabodha's interpretation of the verse by explicitly connecting an event that Kṙṡṅa ignored, the dicing match, with the god's objective of destroying the evil Kṡatriyas. He writes in his commentary that this dicing match, a contrived disagreement which resulted in the disrobing of Draupadī, was in fact "the seed for the war whose motivation was the destruction of the spoilt Kṡatriyas" (duṣṭakṣayanimittayuddhabījatvād). 22 Commenting on that verse, Nīlakaṅt˙ha argues that Kṙṡṅa allowed the quarrels and overlooked suffering in order to destroy the Kṣatriya class. The commentator also brackets this issue within the avatāra doctrine to bolster his point. He adds that killing wicked people is the purpose of Kṙṡṅa's incarnation as an avatāra. 23 These Mahābhārata commentators deploy a consequentialist argument that recognizes Kṙṡṅa's indifference but argue that it is in the service of a greater good. This greater good is a deadly war that "drains the swamp" of corrupt rulers.
In the case of the Yādava genocide, the seventeenth-century Mādhva commentator Vādirāja accepts Kṙṡṅa's indifference. In the Mausalaparvan, Arjuna returns to Dvārakā after hearing of Kṙṡṅa's death and the slaughter of the Vṙṡṅi clan in a drunken brawl. This is the verse, followed by the commentary of Vādirāja: tato 'rjunas tān āmantrya keśavasya priyaḥ sakhā | prayayau mātulaṁ draṣṭuṁ nedam astīti cābravīt || (16.6.3) Then, Arjuna, that beloved friend of Keśava, saluted them and went to see his maternal uncle [Vasudeva]. "This is not so," Arjuna said.
In the version of the Mahābhārata upon which Nīlakaṅṫha comments, Kṙṡṅa appears and saves Draupaḋī from being disrobed after she desperately pleads for his intervention. This saves the commentator from having to explain why Kṙṡṅa neglected Draupadī's plight. The disrobing and Kṙṡṅa's intervention allow Nīlakaṅṫha to instead raise the question of why Kṙṡṅa should intervene to help Draupadī.
Embedded in this commentary is the theological problem of whether Kṙṡṅa is capable of preventing the disrobing. Nīlakaṅṫha uses Draupadī's prayers to delve into this debate, making the case that not only is Kṙṡṅa capable of preventing her suffering, but that he ought to do so. For example, in 2*543.2, Draupadī refers to Kṙṡṅa as the "resident of Dvārakā" (dvārakāvāsin) in her plea for help. Nīlakaṅṫha sees in this an admission, or even expectation, that Kṙṡṅa must be able to intervene in her distress. The commentator notes that if Kṙṡṅa can shift all the Vṙṡṅis from Mathurā to Dvārakā in one night, then how can he not be able to help her? 25 The second epithet of Kṙṡṅa that Draupadī uses in the verse is "the beloved of the cowherd people" (gopījanapriya). Nīlakaṅt˙ha, again, says that if Kṙṡṅa is nearby (saṃnihita) and capable (śakta), he should protect against defilement. If Kṙṡṅa can favor people of such low social status as the cowherdesses, 26 he can certainly favor Draupadī. The implication of this verse, rooted in the epithets that Draupadī uses to call out to Kṙṡṅa, is that he is capable of preventing her misery. It is through these interpolated (but famous) verses that Nīlakaṅt˙ha makes an argument for Kṙṡṅa preventing Draupadī's miseries.
In the next verse of Draupadī's plea, Nīlakaṅt˙ha makes Kṙṡṅa's choice clear. In his reading of the situation, Draupadī sees only two ways to resolve her plight: either Kṙṡṅa remains indifferent like an enemy, or he intervenes and helps her by producing more clothing to cover her. 27 Kṙṡṅa's explicit intervention at this crucial moment proves that he is capable of protecting Draupadī, and also that he does not overlook the misery of one of his devotees. In his commentary, Nīlakaṅṫha quotes a verse also found in the Mahābhāratatātparyaprakāśa, which says that the dicing episode shows that a devotee of Hari should not be ignored. The disrobing of Draupadī-and Kṙṡṅa's intervention-are important for Nīlakaṅṫha because it solves problems not only of the god's indifference, but his ability to prevent such a thing from happening. The two questions, as we have seen, are closely interlinked. For although Kṙṡṅa is capable of stopping the misery of his devotee, he does not overlook harm to her. Like Vasiṡt˙ha in the Ādiparvan story, however, Nīlakaṅṫha argues through these interpolated verses that Kṙṡṅa is capable and is not indifferent. The primary question of Kṙṡṅa's indifference to harm is raised here for Nīlakaṅṫha and he reasons through it. One must wonder what the exegete would make of the critical edition version of the epic, where Kṙṡṅa is absent from the proceedings. It is important for the tradition to interpolate verses that include Kṙṡṅa's intervention into Draupadī's misery because it presents the biggest challenge to the problem of indifference. While the other examples of indifference are easier to justify, this is more difficult. Nīlakaṅṫha's close attention to the importance of Kṙṡṅa's intervention gives us a hint as to why that is.

Conclusion
Through a study of the verb upekṣ, we see that overlooking violence and suffering is a common concern in the Mahābhārata and the word is used more consistently with regard to Kṙṡṅa than any other character. This is not coincidental, or some type of sloppy accident brought about by interpolations. Scholars have and continue to dispute Kṙṡṅa's divinity in the Mahābhārata. Working from the critical edition, I see no inconsistency in his characterization and the mention of his neglect. In fact, by questioning his neglect, Kṙṡṅa joins a group of other exemplars such as Buddha and Nemi, who are held to a high moral standard. I have also shown that the problem raised here is not one of omnipotence, but one of neglect. There is an expectation that Kṙṡṅa, like other figures in the Mahābhārata, would prevent suffering if he was capable of doing so. From a close reading of the verb upekṣ in the Mahābhārata, I suggest that the problem is not one of omnipotence, but indifference to suffering.
While I agree that omnipotence in the sense of "maximal power" is not a requirement of divinity in the Mahābhārata, the question raised here is not related to omnipotence. We see both in the Mahābhārata and in its reception a robust and recurring discussion of Kṙṡṅa's capability, but very rarely is there any serious argument that he was incapable of preventing the calamities he is accused of neglecting. Through a study of the Mahābhārata's reception, we see that the issue for the commentators is a pronounced theological problem of neglect.
The question of capability implies that Kṙṡṅa wants to prevent these events in the first place. The argument deployed in the tradition, with the help of the Mahābhārata, is that Kṙṡṅa must rid the world of its corrupt rulers, and this requires him to selectively neglect suffering. The question of omnipotence is sidestepped by the argument that Kṙṡṅa's neglect is intentional.
The tradition does not ask why an omnipotent god could not prevent the suffering of others, it instead asks why a capable Kṙṡṅa would intentionally neglect the suffering of his devotees and what are the limits of that argument? Nīlakaṅṫha Caturdhara's commentary on the cīraharaṇa reveals where this intentional neglect becomes a problem. In justifying Kṙṡṅa's intervention in the disrobing of Draupadī, Nīlakaṅt˙ha implicitly argues for a Kṙṡṅa who does not always neglect his devotees. In fact, according to him, the moral of that story is that a follower of Kṙṡṅa like Draupadī should not be overlooked. This explains the logic behind the popular interpolation, which places Kṙṡṅa at the scene of Draupadī's disrobing to explicitly prevent it. It also encourages us to look at a committed Advaitin like Nīlakaṅṫhawho is no doubt aware of arguments in the Brahmasūtras that god cannot be accused of being partial or cruel because of karma-as an exegete who is thinking through the meaty theological problem of indifference to suffering not in a commentary on the Brahmasūtra, but in his commentary on the Mahābhārata.
A secondary aim of this article is to draw attention to the value of commentaries on the epics and Purāṅas and what they have to offer on these ethical and theological questions. In scholarship, Itihāsa commentaries have been neglected in comparison to the authoritative commentaries of various śāstric disciplines, like the commentaries on the Bhagavad Gītā, Upaniṡads, and Brahmasūtra in the Vedānta traditions. 28 This is primarily because these smṛti commentaries "do not generally form part of the education of the western Indologist and, in fact, are often dismissed by scholars trained in the traditions of European philology as derivative, late, sectarian, biased and, in brief, unworthy of the scholar's attention" (Goldman 2006: 7). A symptom of this problem (or some may argue a reason for it) in the case of the Mahābhārata is that there exists no fully published and widely circulated commentary on the text other than that of Nīlakaṅt˙ha. 29 The Mahābhārata has a rich commentarial tradition, dating back to the twelfth century with Devabodha's Jñānadīpikā, which merits consideration.
What can these series of commentaries on the Mahābhārata, along with commentaries on the Purāṅas, offer? The question of Kṙṡṅa looking on as others suffer in the Mahābhārata is an important question for these commentators, all of whom view Kṙṡṅa as the divine with some capability to prevent suffering. It is an opportunity for them to address a concrete theological problem in a way that few other genres are able to do. On the philosophical and theological question of god's role in the suffering of others, they offer answers and solutions that are sometimes vastly different from the Brahmasūtras, for instance. Engaging with the Mahābhārata, even at its most basic level, cannot be removed from engaging with the ethical and theological issues it presents.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.