Surprised? What can an ancient scripture from India offer to students of management? Amazingly, quite a lot. We bring to you today an article by Swami Samarpananad, Monk of the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur Math, which gleans learning from the scripture relevant to the modern manager.
Mahabharata, or ‘the great tale of the Bhārata dynasty’ is the longest sanskrit epic ever written. The epic consists of over 100,000 shloka or over 200,000 individual verse lines (each shloka is a couplet), and long prose passages. About 1.8 million words in total, the Mahabharata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. As per historians and scholars, the epic was written between as 3339 BC and 1000 BC.
Swami Samarpananda was born in 1960 and became a monk by the time he was twenty years old. He teaches scriptures at Vivekananda University at Belur math, in Howrah, West Bengal. He also teaches management students in his spare time and has taught students of the One year MBA (EPGP) at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Indore. He has authored books such as Tiya: A Parrot’s Journey and Param, which deal with complex Indian philosophies but which communicate their message simply through an allegorical framework.
Today the world resembles a vast organisation, where everyone seems to have become either an employer, or an employee, and sometimes, both. So, they need to have a good knowledge of organisational behavior, which Management institutes are trying to cultivate.
But how did our ancestors handled the issue in the ancient times? The Mahabharata and other books have discussed various issues related to organisation. For example, Yuddhisthira became the king of Indraprastha (much before the Mahabharata war). As the luck would have it, he had to become a mere courtier at a king’s court just before the war.
Later, he won the war, and became the king of Hastinapur. In his chequered career as the leader, and also as the led, he was instructed by great sages like Narada, Dhaumya and Bhishma on how to perform his duties. These instructions give a peep into the attitude that should be adopted by the managers of various levels.
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Here is given a summary of those instructions. Some of these instructions were in question form, which have been retained here. The term ‘king’ here means the person in charge, and associates mean subordinate.
Part 1 – When one is the Leader
Need for temperance
Is the wealth you are earning spent on proper objects? Is your expenditure always covered by a fourth, a third or a half of your income? Do you take care of relatives, superiors, needy, aged, and the distressed?
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Does your mind take pleasure in virtue? Are you enjoying the pleasures of life carefully, or does your mind sink under their weight? Do you maintain right attitude in your conduct towards the three classes of objects, (viz., good, indifferent, and bad)? Never neglect religion for the sake of wealth, or both religion and wealth for the sake of pleasure that easily seduces. Do you practise dharma (religion), artha (wealth), kaama (pleasure) and moksha (salvation) dividing your time judiciously? Do you try to attain success with six qualities (cleverness of speech, readiness in providing means, intelligence in dealing with the foe, memory, and acquaintance with morals and politics) of a leader?
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Have you become a slave of sleep? Do you get up at an early hour, and plan your day. Do you spend spend at least some of those precious hours on finding methods of optimising your profits?
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The king should avoid all those evil practices that are called Vyasanas (addictions of a powerful person like gambling, drinking etc.). One may indulge in them once in a while, but he must not get attached to them. He who gets attached to these vices, gets prevailed over by everyone.
Need for having the right counselors
Success is always attributed to good counsels. So, have you chosen as assistants who are like yourself, are wise, continent in behaviour, and capable of understanding the correctness of things? Do you run your administration with the help of persons that are incorruptible, and also have practical experience? Have experienced teachers been appointed to instruct the next of the generation? Do you believe in keeping a single learned man by giving in exchange a thousand ignorant individuals? The man that is learned confers the greatest benefit when distress comes.
Do not decide things all alone, nor consult too many. And, the decisions you have taken, must not get publicised beforehand. People should know only the measures that are already accomplished, and those that are awaiting completion. They must not know about the projects that are only in contemplation stage, or those that have not yet begun.
Taking care of the underprivileged
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The king who cherishes no love for his people inspires the latter with anxiety. The king should always bear himself towards his subjects as a mother towards the child of her womb. As the mother, disregarding those objects that are most cherished by her, seeks the good of her child alone, similarly, without doubt, should kings conduct themselves (towards their subjects).
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Are you approachable to the have nots of the system, on whom the success of the system depends? You must not oppress your people with cruel and severe punishment, and you must make sure that your subordinates do not do the same in your name.
Make sure that no one for whom you are responsible, is ever ruined on a false charge by your administrators. Similarly, see that they do not accept favours to let go a culprit. I hope, your ministers are never won over by bribes, nor do they wrongly decide the disputes that arise between the powerful and the less powerful.
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Subordinates
Have respectable associates been employed by you in offices that are respectable, indifferent ones in indifferent offices, and low ones in offices that are low? Have you appointed to high offices administrators that are guileless and of well conduct above the common run?
You should not indulge in jests with your associates. If the master mingles too freely with them, the subordinate (including the associates) begin to disregard him. They forget their own position and start making serious transgressions. When ordered to do a thing, they hesitate and delay the work. They also divulge the master’s secrets. They ask for things that should not be asked for, and take the food that is intended for the master. They go to the length of displaying their wrath and seek to outshine the master. They even seek to predominate over the king, and by accepting bribes and practicing deceit, obstruct important work. They cause the state to rot with abuses by falsifications and forgeries. They cheat on their masters and also dress in the same style as them. They become so shameless as to indulge in eructations and the like, and expectorate in the very presence of their master. They do not fear to speak of the king with levity before others.
If the king becomes mild and disposed to jest, his associates, disregarding him, ride on steeds and elephants and cars as good as the king’s. His counselors, assembled in court, openly indulge in such speeches as: “This is beyond your power. This is a wicked attempt.”
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If the king becomes angry, they laugh; nor are they gladdened if favours be bestowed upon them, though they may express joy for other reasons. They disclose the secret counsels of their master and go on speaking of his evil acts. Without the least anxiety they set at naught the king’s commands. Whenever the king is in urgency, these subordinates do not show the least anxiety. They do not take what rightfully belongs to them. On the other hand, without being content with what has been assigned to them, they appropriate what belongs to the king. They wish to sport with the king as with a bird tied with a string, And always give the people to understand that the king is very intimate with them and loves them dearly. If the king becomes mild and disposed to jest, O Yudhishthira, these and many other evils spring from it.'”
Essential virtues of the ruler
Keep yourself free from the fourteen vices of kings: atheism, untruthfulness, anger, in-cautiousness, procrastination, indifference to the wise, idleness, restlessness of mind, taking counsels with only one man, consultation with persons unacquainted with the science of profit, abandonment of a settled plan, divulgence of plans, non-accomplishment of beneficial projects, and undertaking everything without reflection. These vices can unsettle even the most successful monarchs firmly seated on their thrones.
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The king who has accomplishments and good behavior (self-restraint, humility, and righteousness), who has his passions under control, and is not too enquiring, never loses prosperity. By administering justice, by attending to these three: concealment of his own weaknesses, ascertainment of the weaknesses of foes, and keeping his own counsels, as also by the observance of conduct that is straightforward, obtains prosperity. If the king becomes mild, everybody disregards him. On the other hand, if he becomes fierce, his subjects become troubled. “If the king happens to be always forgiving, the lowest of persons prevails over him, even as the driver who sits on the head of the elephant he guides.” The king, therefore, should not always be mild. Nor should he always be fierce. He should be like the vernal Sun, neither cold nor so hot as to produce perspiration.
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The selection of honest men (for the discharge of administrative functions), heroism, skill, and cleverness (in the transaction of business), truth, seeking the good of the people, producing discord and disunion among the enemy by fair or unfair means, the repair of buildings that are old or on the point of falling away, the infliction of corporal punishments and fines regulated by observance of the occasion, never abandoning the honest, granting employment and protection to persons of respectable birth, the storing of what should be stored, companionship with persons of intelligence, supervision over the subjects, steadiness in the transaction of business, filling the treasury, strictly watching the associates and officers, personal observation of the establishment, distrust of associates, comforting the enemy with assurances, steadily observing the dictates of policy, readiness for action, never disregarding an enemy, and casting off those that are wicked, are the essential traits of a ruler.
Need for hard work
Effort and exertion brings success. Vrihaspati, the mentor of gods has said, ‘By exertion the amrita (nectar) was obtained; by exertion the Asuras were slain, by exertion Indra himself obtained sovereignty in heaven and on earth. The hero of exertion is superior to the heroes of speech. The heroes of speech gratify and worship the heroes of exertion.”
The king that is destitute of exertion, even if possessed of intelligence, is always overcome by foes like a snake that is bereft of poison.
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One of the interesting courses by Swami ji in IIMI.
The characters from Mahabharata are complex, full of emotions and when their individual thoughts are entangled with the thoughts of others, amazing lessons in management comes out.
Tia - Must read for everyone who wants to explore himself /herself.