Traditions Ripen Like Mangoes

The Mahabharat is a record of customs at different stages of ripeness. Some are shown working — the obligations of hospitality, the counsel owed to a king. Others are shown having outlived whatever they were for, and the epic is willing to let them be broken: Bhishma's vow is honoured to the letter and is a catastrophe.

The test the story keeps applying is not age but whether the practice still does the thing it was for. A tradition is not defended in the Mahabharat by being old, and it is not dismissed for being old either.