Redefining Power: Lessons from the Mahābhārata and the Bible
By Sharon Jacob, originally published by Good Faith Media.
There is a scene in the Mahābhārata that feels hauntingly relevant today. Exhausted and parched, the Pandava brothers come upon a shimmering lake guarded by a crane. One by one, the brothers ignore the crane’s warning not to drink before answering its questions.
Each falls dead by the water’s edge. Only Yudhiṣṭhira, the eldest, stops to listen.
The crane asks questions about justice, humility and duty. Yudhiṣṭhira responds with patience and reflection. His willingness to engage, to be questioned, restores the life of his brothers.
The story, known as the Yakṣa Prashna, is often read as a lesson in duty and moral order. Yet a closer reading unsettles that simplicity: a figure from the margins—a crane, not a king—holds power accountable. The crane reverses the expected order of power and knowledge, showing that wisdom does not belong solely to those at the center but often emerges from those who are rendered peripheral.
Across democracies today, that humility before questioning feels endangered. In both India and the United States, leaders treat inquiry as an attack.
Reporters are branded “anti-national.” Critics are silenced. Press briefings turn into monologues.
The urge to suppress questioning is the modern equivalent of drinking from the lake without listening to the crane — and what dies first is not the questioner but the conscience of the community.
A Conversation by the Well
Another story of power meeting the margins also begins beside water.
In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman drawing water at midday—a woman doubly marginalized by gender and ethnicity. She initiates the exchange: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”
Rather than silencing her, Jesus engages. The conversation flows between social boundaries and spiritual thirst, between history and hope. In the end, it is the woman—not the religious leaders or the disciples—who carries the conversation forward, becoming a witness to what she has encountered.
Like Yudhiṣṭhira before the crane, Jesus chooses to listen and learn through dialogue. Both moments unfold around water, a place of need and revelation, where those considered “less powerful” are unafraid to raise questions and speak back to power.
Faith as Accountability
Read together, these texts offer an interreligious reflection on accountability and humility. Yudhiṣṭhira’s strength lies not in his royal kingly status but in his willingness to engage the questions of a crane—a creature easily dismissed. Jesus’ strength lies not in asserting religious authority, but in conversing with a woman whom society had silenced.
In both narratives, power is redefined. It is not control or certainty, but the capacity to listen. Both Yudhiṣṭhira and Jesus model a leadership grounded in relational wisdom, a recognition that truth emerges through dialogue, not decree.
This article was originally published by Good Faith Media and is partially reproduced here with the permission of the author, who is not affiliated with this website or its views.
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