Krishna and Yudhishthira - Should a King Lie?

Yudhishthira sat apart from the others, staring at his chariot. Its wheels now touched the ground. For his entire life, his adherence to truth had been so absolute that the earth itself could not bear his weight—his chariot had floated four fingers above the surface. Now it sat in the mud like any common cart.

Yudhishthira: "I have fallen,"

he said as Krishna approached.

Krishna: "You have chosen."

Yudhishthira: "I lied. 'Ashwatthama is dead'—I said that knowing it was a half-truth. I am no better than Shakuni now."

Krishna: "Shakuni lied for personal gain. You spoke for dharma."

Yudhishthira: "Is dharma served by lies? I was always told that truth is the highest dharma. 'Satyameva jayate'—truth alone triumphs. And I believed it. I lived it. And now..."

Krishna: "Now you have learned that there are dharmas higher than speech-truth."

Yudhishthira: "What dharma could be higher than truth?"

Krishna: "The dharma of protection. Let me ask you: if a murderer came to you and asked which way his victim fled, would you tell him the truth?"

Yudhishthira: "I... The shastras say to not lie."

Krishna: "The shastras also say to protect the innocent. When two dharmas conflict, you must choose the higher. Is speech-truth higher than protecting a life?"

Yudhishthira: "No."

Krishna: "Then truth is not absolute. It is a means to an end—the end being harmony, protection, flourishing. When truth itself becomes a weapon of destruction, it ceases to be dharmic."

Yudhishthira: "But Drona was not a murderer chasing a victim. He was a warrior in battle."

Krishna: "He was slaughtering your army by the thousands. The Pandava forces were about to break. If Drona had continued, there would be no Pandavas left to establish dharma. Would that outcome be more truthful? More righteous?"

Yudhishthira was quiet.

Krishna: "You are torturing yourself, not because you made the wrong choice, but because you made a choice at all. You wanted to remain pure—unblemished by the messiness of real decisions. You wanted to be above the battle even while fighting in it."

Yudhishthira: "Is that wrong?"

Krishna: "It is impossible. The moment you picked up a sword, you accepted that you might have to do things that violate your ideals. A king who refuses to make ugly choices is not a righteous king—he is an abdicated one."

Yudhishthira: "Then why does my chariot no longer float?"

Krishna: "Because floating was easy. It required only passive virtue—don't lie, don't cheat, don't harm. Now you must learn active virtue—choose, act, bear consequences, keep moving. The chariot doesn't float because you're not supposed to be above the earth anymore. You're supposed to be in it. With all its mud and blood and compromises."

Yudhishthira: "I don't know how to be that king."

Krishna: "No one does. That's why you learn. Every day. Every choice. Getting it wrong sometimes. Getting it right sometimes. Never being certain which is which."

Yudhishthira looked at his mud-stuck chariot.

Yudhishthira: "I thought righteousness would feel clean."

Krishna: "Righteousness feels like doubt. Like staying awake at night wondering if you chose correctly. Like carrying the weight of consequences you can never fully know. If it felt clean, it would mean you weren't paying attention."

Yudhishthira: "How do you bear it?"

Krishna: "I don't. I just keep moving. And when the weight becomes too much, I remember that even gods make choices they regret. Even gods carry guilt. The difference between the fallen and the rising is not the absence of guilt—it's the decision to keep going despite it."

Yudhishthira stood. His chariot remained on the ground, but somehow, that felt right now. He was a king of earth, not of heaven. Earth was where the work was done.

Yudhishthira: "I will keep going."

Krishna: "Then that's enough. For today, that's enough."