Is Jesus a Type of Yudhishthira? A Reflection on Dying Heroes, Messiahs, and the Overcoming of Sin

In the last parva (section 18) of the Mahabharata, the hero-king Yudhishthira,  whose actions trend towards the accomplishment of pure virtue, becomes the likely “hero” of the story as he is the only one who is worthy of deathlessness.

According to Dr. Nick Sutton:

Let us remember that at the end he is the only character who is carried up to the gods without first tasting death and that this is due entirely to his undeviating adherence to virtue. Moreover, at the end of the Mahabharata we are told that the only wicked deed Yudhishthira ever performed in his life was telling the lie that led to the death of Drona—and even there he was following the advice of Krishna, who is God!

Of course, it is this connection with deathlessness that is the result of overcoming sin. Jesus dies not because of his own sin but in substitution for ours!

 

Subsequently, it is Yudhishthira’s absolute adherence to sanatana dharma (the highest form of dharma virtue) that makes virtue more important than “duty”, i.e., loyalty to family. And, here too, we think of Jesus’ words:

Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:37)

That said, Jesus and Yudhishthira share a form of virtue that trumps loyalty.

But one might object that this saying of Jesus is qualitatively different than the sanatana dharma followed by Yudhishthira. In doing so, however, I think we rob Peter to pay Paul. Lay theologians revel in the continuity of scripture. And I might drive home the problem with this understanding  in the following way:

 

In Matthew 10:37, are we assuming  that Jesus was talking about his physical being or his teaching? It's an important question, because loving the historical Jesus is much different than loving what he comes to stand for, and its a question I believe more thoughtful Christians would identify as love for "his teaching or way" because he immediately follows the verse with a verse about carrying one's cross, emphasizing "teaching" not "person." Suffering (dukkha) is a continual theme in the disciple's orientation to God in Christianity. BUT, when confronted with similar logic on the question of Jesus being "the way, truth, and life, so that no man comes to the father but by him" (John 14:6),  Christians  assume we're now talking about his divinity." Why? Because in the more developed theology of the gospel of John, the writer had time to develop a theology of the incarnation, years after Matthew's gospel was written. Jesus becomes the Word, thus when he says I am the way, he really does mean himself! Think about it!

 

Of course, there is not a direct parallel to the heroism of the cross (call it martyrdom or sacrifice, if you will). While it is true that the Yudhishthira story, where ascension allows him to avoid death, does not replicate the chronology in the biblical story of Jesus’ passion precisely, because Jesus’ ascension comes in the post-Resurrection context, we are nevertheless struck by a deep compatibility that rises past the details.

Christian apologists work overtime to demand that parallels are only approximations, and because they lack in some detail, they cannot be squared up with the Jesus story. One of the better known attempts that apologists love to skewer comes in the story of the Egyptian Horus. Yet, should we grant that the two stories, certainly developed in isolation, do not possess a shared undercurrent of theological intrigue? Why is it that sin is related to death, so that by implication, deathless features into some form of virtue? From a socio-religious point-of-view, parallels seem important, except when it comes to theology, where they are often trammeled by those often personally invested in their own system of doctrines.

The work of a Paul Knitter, John Hick, or even a Marcus Borg (whose work in Biblical theology was much more influential to scholar’s than his work in comparative theology) shows that despite the lip service these men received, resolving the divine oracles  of one's own intimate faith to the influence of other religions is a hard edge, not easily traversed. On the other hand, because there is little in the way of scientific criteria dealing with cross-religious influence, the mission remains an open one. A person may say that the details don’t all fit neatly, but that would be an unfair standard, especially for one who believes that the gospels all stand in the same tradition of Christianity despite their legitimate differences (e.g., take the narratives on the tomb of Jesus). Often then, the criteria are much more unforgiving when in comes to East-West religious relationships. Lest we forget, the sharing done by Matthew and Luke is based on the existence of a hypothetical document (known as the Quelle "Q" Source), the fact that absence of evidence is deduced by what is there, remains a significant way of doing scholarship.