913. Treatise of Convenience...!

A lawyer placed his argument before the judge, “Your Honour, my client is innocent he should not be rewarded with any kind of punishment. Yes, I agree he did steal but if you know the details you too will agree with me. My client is unemployed and he stole because his family would starve if not. With the money he got by stealing he not only helped himself but also his family of four. He did not destroy any property to steal in fact he did not even break the lock he used a duplicate key to enter the house. Also the money he stole from the house is too little compared to the rich man’s hoard of black money. My client did what the income tax department could not do unearth the black money. Above all this ugly rich man has so much cash that a little loss in his treasury would not be a big thing to him.”

Now do you wonder how that Judge might respond???

He would presumably declare thus: “I as a judge would not be interested to know why your client had to steal and what he did with that or where he went to steal. He has ignored the law of the land. Stealing is an offence in my country. Even you admit that your client did steal. So, I am duty-bound to punish him according to the law of this land.”

Then he would hold the man guilty and sentence him to jail for 6 months.

If we observe how judges decide whether an act is a punishable offence or not we can pin point on the Penal Code. This Penal Code does not give room for fanciful arguments it is a comprehensive code intended to cover all substantive aspects of criminal law. Likewise to know about the Law of Cosmos we must turn to the Vedas. The Penal Code, having been formulated by humans and hence it may require occasional amendments. However, the Vedas which consists mainly the Law of Cosmos emerged from the flawless and so is superlative.

Vedas being tough to comprehend were palliated as Upanishads. When even Upanishads became difficult to understand the essence of Vedas was articulated in the form of Puranas and itihasa. The Puranas and itihasa in the form of stories could visualise the Law of Cosmos.

But the Puranas and itihasa gave different views of those laws and the ignorant branded them as Anukula Shastra (Treatise of Convenience). In Ramayana killing of Vaali or sending Sitadevi to forest has the justification of that law. Likewise killing of Karna or depriving archery lessons to Ekalavya too could be approved when viewed from the realm of that law.

Those who are ignorant of the Law of the Land or as well as the Law of Cosmos give excuses to abide the Law and blame them as the Treatise of Convenience. Those who are living the life of righteousness do not need the shelter of treatise of convenience.....what say???