Mahabharata and English Proverbs

(written on January 18, 2020)

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

Curiosity killed the cat is a saying that is used to warn people that inquisitiveness about matters that seem dangerous or that may not apply to you may get you in trouble. The dictionary defines this phrase specifically as being curious about other people’s affairs, but the statement itself is used widely in many other contexts. One example of this saying is the story of a tailless monkey from the Panchatantra. One day, a carpenter, or a woodworker, was working on cutting a long piece of wood and he kept a wedge, or a triangular piece between the two ends of the wood to keep it open until he came back. After the woodworker left his studio, a monkey entered and began monkeying around, doing nonsense. The monkey came to the wedged piece of wood and became interested in the object. He pulled out the wedge and the two ends of the wood snapped together, cutting of the monkey’s tail which happened to be stuck in the wood during the event. That is the story of the tailless monkey. This is an example of the saying, “curiosity killed the cat” because the monkey was being curious about things which were not even applicable to him.

Another great example of this phrase is the story of how Queen Kunti begot her first son, Karna. Once upon a time, when the powerful rishi Durvasa Muni came as a guest at the house of Kunti’s father, he was extremely pleased by the service which Kunti-devi performed unto him. Pleased with her service, Durvasa Muni gifted Kunti a mystic power which allowed Kunti to call any demigod who would bless her with children. Out of impetuous curiosity, Kunti-devi summoned the Sun-god, just to see what would happen. Surprisingly, the Sun-god appeared in front of Kunti-devi. She apologized to the Sun-god and told him that she was simply examining the effectiveness of the powers which Durvasa Muni had given her. However, the Sun-god told Kunti-devi that her meeting with a demigod could not be fruitless and hence, Kunti-devi had to give birth to a child, even though she was not married yet. Even though the Sun-god had made sure that Kunti-devi would keep her virginity intact (since she was not married at the time), this is still an example of the saying “curiosity killed the cat” because Kunti-devi still begot a child when she was still unwed. If Kunti-devi had been under normal circumstances where she understood not to play with the mystical powers, she could have avoided the circumstance of having a child in her unmarried years. This event caused her much difficulty and suffering in the following events of her life.

“Look before you leap.”

This phrase means understanding the weight of the situation and the consequences before acting on the situation. It is used to warn people before taking big decisions. An example of this story is a man who decided to invest in stocks. Someone told him that investing all of his money into the stocks from a certain company would make him rich, and he followed the person’s advice without thinking twice. He invested all his money in the stocks but unfortunately the company he invested in ended up going bankrupt not much later. The man lost all of his money and he no longer had stability in life. What was even worse was that he put his wife and children into a terrible situation along with him. This man is a great example of a person who did not look before they leaped. He did not think twice about his actions and hence ended up in dangerous consequences.

“Before you go in, think about how you can come out.”

An example of this phrase is Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna. When Abhimanyu was in the womb of his mother, Subhadra, he learned how to get into the Padmavyuha, or a certain military formation which was used in war. However, he was unable to hear how to escape from the spiral of the Padmavyuha. During the Kurukshetra war, Abhimanyu had entered the Padmavyuha, trying to break the formation to exhaust the amount of soldiers on the Kauravas side. He entered the formation, but within some time, Abhimanyu was trapped because he was unable to get out of the formation. Dhuryodhana took advantage of this situation and broke the rules of dharma-yuddha (or the rules of warfare) and had his commanding generals all team up and have Abhimanyu killed. This is a perfect example of the phrase “before you go in, think about how you can come out.” Abhimanyu did not consider the dire consequences when he reached the center of the Padmavyuha not knowing how to break out of the formation. This caused his death on the thirteenth day of the war of Kurukshetra.