In his new book, Gurcharan Das turns to the Mahabharata in order to answer the question, 'why be good?', and discovers that the epic's world of moral haziness and uncertainty is closer to our experience as ordinary human beings than the narrow and rigid positions that define most debate in this fundamentalist age of moral certainty.

Most of us spend our lives wrestling with day-to-day questions of right and wrong and these either unanswered or have no easy answer. This book turns to the Sanskrit epic, Mahabharata, in order to answer the question, ‘why be good?’ and it discovers that the epic’s world of moral haziness and uncertainty is closer to our experience as ordinary human beings rather than the narrow and rigid positions that define most debate and discussion today after 9/11.

The Mahabharata is obsessed with the elusive notion of dharma—in essence, doing the right thing. When a hero does something wrong in a Greek epic, he gets on with it; when a hero falters in the Mahabharata, the action stops and everyone weighs in with a different and contradictory take on dharma. The epic’s characters are flawed; they stumble. But their incoherent experiences throw light on our day to day emotions of envy, revenge, remorse, status anxiety, compassion, courage, duty and other moral qualities.

Gurcharan Das's best-selling book India Unbound examined the classical aim of artha, material well being. This, his first book in seven years, dwells on the goal of dharma, moral well being. It addresses the central problem of how to live our lives in an examined way-holding a mirror up to us and

forcing us to confront the many ways in which we deceive ourselves and others. What emerges is a doctrine of dharma that we can apply to our business decisions, political strategies and interpersonal relationships-in effect, to life itself.

About The Author
Gurcharan Das is an author and management consultant. He is author of three plays, which have been performed Off-Broadway, at the Edinburgh Festival and in many cities in India and around the world. He graduated with honours in Philosophy from Harvard University