Short Story

My short story -

The Murder of Raj Verma

Published in Litizen

http://www.litizen.com/StoryReading.aspx?StoryId=114

http://litizen.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/the-murder-of-raj-verma-by-utkarsh-patel/

 

 

Death of Young Pandava Princes – Part of war Strategy (?)

Let me tell you three stories from Mahabharata, which shows Lord Krishna’s strategic moves during the war of Kurukshetra, all having a common theme.

First the stories.

Story # 1 –

In spite of all that Krishna had to tell Arjuna in the form of Gita, Arjuna still developed weak-knees when it came to attacking/fighting seniors like Bhisma and Drona. In the war, there were no seniors and no brothers, all were adversaries, was something Krishna was not able to instil in Arjuna. Krishna noticed how, Arjuna would avoid fighting Bhishma and Drona and somewhere lacked the ‘killer-instinct’. This was noticed by Drona and understood Arjuna’s predicament since Drona had been Arjuna’s teacher and understood him well. So he made a plan to strike the Pandavas knowing well that Arjuna wouldn’t attack him. He planned that Arjuna would be made to chase and fight the massive Narayani army of Krishna (which was fighting on behalf of the Kauravas), while they collectively attacked the other Pandavas elsewhere. Once, Arjuna was busy fighting the Narayani army single-handedly, Yudhishtir was getting surrounded by all the stalwarts of the Kuarava army, in what was known as the chakravyuh, or an entrapment. Breaching it and coming out of it unscathed was an art which needed a skill that many did not have. Arjuna’s sixteen year old son, Abhimanyu, knew how to breach it, as he had heard his father tell his mother about it when he was in her womb, but did not know how to come out of it, as his mother had fallen asleep, by the time Arjuna reached the breaching part and seeing Subhadra asleep, he stopped there.

Abhimanyu agreed to breach the chakravyuh and Yudhishtir promised to rescue him once he was in. As decided, Abhimanyu managed to breach the entrapment and release Yudhishtir, but once out, the entrapment surrounded Abhimanyu and the brave lad was killed by all the Kaurava seniors as Yudhishtir could not breach the chakravyuh. Many say, that though Arjuna was fighting elsewhere, Krishna was aware of this and he allowed this to happen. Why? Because of an effect that Krishna wanted out of Arjuna. The death of Abhimanyu enraged Arjuna so much that he lost all semblance of war-rules and went on a rampage the next day. Krishna had managed to light the fire, needed in a warrior, but Arjuna had lost his son in the war.

Story # 2 –

Just before the, the war of Kurukshetra began, Lord Indra under the instructions of Lord Krishna, came in the form of an ascetic and asked for two of the most precious thing from Karna, at a time, which Karna had reserved for doing acts of charity. This was the Kavacha, or the armour that he was born with and which also made him invincible. Seeing him dripping with blood as he cut off the armour which was part of his body, Indra was moved and gave him a spear, which would kill any one person he wanted to, and nothing, no craft nor magic could come in the way. Karna had kept the spear for his arch enemy, Arjuna. When Krishna came to know about this, he decided to unleash Bhima’s giant son, Ghatothkach on the Kaurava army, who ended up inflicting heavy casualty on the Kaurava army. With every step, he would kill thousands of soldiers and crush horses and elephants under his feet. With no option left, Duryodhan pleaded that Karna use his spear to stop the heavy destruction that the Kaurava army were facing and Karna had to give in and hurl the spear, killing Ghatothkach, but leaving Karna with less chances of killing his enemy, Arjuna.

Thus Krishna managed to save the life of Arjuna, but got Bhima’s son killed.

Story # 3 –

I will not delve into the details of the final story, as this has been discussed at length in my earlier articles. This pertains to the story of Barbareek (http://utkarshspeak.blogspot.in/2012/02/barbareek-aka-khatu-shyam-baba.html) and Iravan (http://utkarshspeak.blogspot.in/2012/03/iravan-south-indian-barbareek.html ). Both the characters were directly related to the Pandavas and were asked by Krishna to sacrifice themselves for the success of the Pandavas, which they did.

Conclusion –

So what are we to make out of these acts by Krishna? 

Sons of the Pandavas, being made to die young, to save the lives of their fathers or to ensure the success of the Pandavas? 

Was this fair on the part of Krishna who was also the master strategist in the war of Kurukshetra? 

Was this inevitable or was there some other way out? 

Or can we ascribe this to the age-old adage – “All’s fair in (love &) war”.

You tell me…..

Karna and his karma

In a couple of previous article we read about how ones present life was affected due to the acts of one’s past life, w.r.t. Dhritarashtra and Gandhari from the epic Mahabharata. Our epics are full of examples of Karmic destiny, especially Mahabharata. Nearly all characters have been subject to this, including Lord Krishna.

However, Karna was one character in Mahabharata whose tragedy had nothing to do with his past life (or so it seems as nothing has been found in any texts). His tragedy is due to his being good, yes; all that goes wrong with him is because he wanted to be of help to someone. Let’s see how.

It is said that Karna was training under the great ascetic-warrior, Parashuram (who was also an avatar of Lord Vishnu). Karna had told him the truth that he was raised by a charioteer and did not know his caste. Once, Parashuram went off to sleep with his head on Karna’s lap. A blood-sucking insect bit Karna on his thigh. It pained Karna, but he did not move, lest it woke up his Guru. When Parashuram came to know about it, he was shocked that someone could bear so much pain in spite of all the blood that had been lost. According to him, only a Kshatriya could have it in him to bear such pain and Parshuram hated Kshatriyas. This enraged Parashuram so much that he cursed him that, all that he had learnt from him would go in vain, as he would never be able to use it, especially when he needed the most.

Isn’t this tragic? Karna was honest enough to say what he did as he had no clue about his parentage and by not moving after the insect bite, he was only allowing his Guru a peaceful nap. Was this fair?

Another legend says that long ago, Karna saw a young girl crying as she had spilt milk on the ground. To stop her from crying, Karna is supposed to have taken soil from the ground where milk was spilt and squeezed out the milk so that the child could have it. This angered Bhoo-devi (Earth-deity) and she is supposed to have cursed Karna that it would be the same soil that would one day, hold him to his death, as he had squeezed out milk from her soil.

During the war of Kurukshetra in Mahabharata, at a very strategic point, the wheel of Karna’s chariot was stuck in the soil and no efforts would get it out of the soil. He got down the chariot to do so physically, as he had forgotten the magic formula taught to him by Parashuram to release a wheel if stuck on the ground, is when he gets hit by Arjuna. His end was brought by the act of kindness that he had shown to his guru and the crying girl.

This make one feel that Karna’s tragedy had nothing to do with his karma, but was some sort of a conspiracy to make sure that he suffers. The following story also lends credence to the same theory.

Karna’s charioteer was Shalya, the King of Madra. Shalya was the maternal uncle of the younger Pandavas, i.e. Nakula and Sahadeva. When Kings and regions were aligning themselves for the great war of Kurukshetra, Shalya left for the battlefield. On his way, he was pleased to see that arrangements were made for his army and was impressed at the thoughtfulness of the Pandavas. Later he learnt that he had been duped into accepting the hospitality, from the Kauravas, due to which he had to fight on behalf of the Kauravas. To humiliate him further, Duryodhan asked Shalya to be the charioteer of Karna, the arch-enemy of the Pandavas. On Krishna’s advice, Shalya would continuously praise Arjuna during the battle, to de-motivate and distract Karna.

Also, when anything goes wrong with a chariot, it is the responsibility of the charioteer to alight from the chariot and repair it. When Karna’s chariot got stuck on the ground, Karna is supposed to have asked Shalya to do so, but Shalya refused to alight as he was a King and it was below his dignity to such things, besides the fact that he did not know how to get the wheel out of the ground. It was only when Shalya refused to do anything, did Karna have to alight, disarming himself, which made him vulnerable to Arjuna’s attack.

All this lends credence to the theory of conspiracy. Where is karmic destiny here? Karna had been wronged from the time he was born to an unwed mother, Kunti. All through the epic he had been insulted about his lack of knowledge of his parentage, when two of the most important characters of the epic, Kunti and Krishna were actually aware of it but had opted to keep quiet. He is apprised of the truth at a wrong moment in the epic and that too as an effort to buy his support. At the end, he dies a heroic death. It is said that the day he was killed, the war came to an early end for that day, as all the charioteers from both the sides mourned his death, as he was raised by a charioteer.

Could the author of the epic have decided to create a tragic character and thus such characterisation? Or was it the ideal example of a good guy on the wrong side?

Whatever, be the case, Karna’s tragedy had nothing to do with his karma.

Gandhari’s Hundred Sons

One of my readers sent me the following after reading “Gandhari and her Karma ” dated June 25, 2012, –

“Hi Utkarsh………, had a question too. Gandhari had 100 sons, as we all know it takes 9 months for incubating a baby (unless they had machines for the same at that time) and if she had 1 baby at a time, by the time the 100th would be born the first one would be 75! So how old was Gandhari during the war? Or did she give birth to all 100 at the same time? In which case, biologically, it would be difficult for all 100 to survive. What do you think?”

An interesting question and often asked by many. How can someone have 100 sons together or even one after another? Could it be that she had many combinations of twins, triplets, quadruplets, etc. many times over?

Mythology is replete with instances which are known as supra-normal births (beyond the range of normal or scientifically explainable), where births have taken place from fire, any body fluids, like tears and sweat, or from body parts like thigh, etc. This is essentially done, to connote a sense of ‘difference’ on the said character and also to hint that the character is destined to do in-human acts or feats. This was the then author’s way of assigning an importance to the character in reference. We will not get into such instances as all heroes in mythology have had ‘different’ births, like Krishna, Jesus, Hercules, Rama, Ganapati, to name just a few. Mahabharat is full of supra-normal births, be it Dronacharya, Kripacharya, Draupadi and her brother, and of course, Gandhari’s hundred sons.

The birth of Gandhari’s hundred sons, in brief – After Gandhari had conceived it was close to two years and she had not delivered. When she heard the news of Kunti’s children being born in the jungles, she was frustrated and angry and in her state of rage, she started beating her stomach. Soon she delivered a mass of flesh. Vyas had once blessed her with a hundred sons (a common blessing in those days) and when she saw the mass of flesh, he was called. He immediately instructed her to assemble a hundred jars with ghee (oil) in it. Gandhari at this stage expressed her desire to have a daughter too. As soon as the jars were assembled, Vyas divided the ball of flesh into a hundred and one parts and distributed each into the jars. He asked her to cover them and leave them, and soon she was the mother of hundred sons and one daughter.

Many later day thinkers hint at the concept which is better known to us today as ‘in-vitro fertilisation’. Today we know of such methods of IVF and cloning whereby births can be ‘made’ through artificial methods. I am by no means saying that Vyasa was a gynecologist and nor am I saying that people then had knowledge of such modern methods of reproduction. It could just be the figment of a creative writer’s imagination who had imagined a possibility, without going into the intricacies of the method. Also, don’t forget what is said at the beginning of the epic Mahabharata – “What is found herein may also be found elsewhere; What is not found herein does not exist.”

Another theory says that there weren’t a hundred sons, but just two, i.e. Duryodhan and Dushsshan. This gains ground as in the entire epic; these were the only two whose names had cropped up time and again (though later, we have heard of Vikarna, the Kaurava who was against the war). Also, the pregnancy lasting for two years lends credence to this theory. People of antiquity had never quite been able to explain the concept of twins (You can read more about twins in mythology in my earlier series "Twins – A case of peaceful co-existence. " dated May 1, 2011). The two-year pregnancy could have been put in to explain the birth of twins.

Another version is that the evil of Duryodhan was equal to that of hundred people; a concept similar to that of Ravana’s ten heads which implied his immense intelligence and knowledge. Mythology, like fiction also thrives on hyperbole and on a more simplistic note, this could be just that.

Another version takes the help of etymology (the study of the origin of words). Duryodhan means one who is difficult to fight, (‘duh’ – difficult & ‘yodh’ – to fight) representing ego & Dushasana means difficult to control. Representing ‘huge ego’ and ‘lack of control’ as a hundred only gave a sense of proportion to the immense trouble that the duo could unleash.

A philosophic explanation is as follows – Dhritarashtra represented blind mind and Gandhari represented blind intellect following the blind mind. Together they breed unfulfilled desires, dreams and ambitions, all unleashed on what stood for reason and law (dharma). The result of such a clash could only be a war of epic proportions!

The sheer beauty of what the authors of antiquity wrote is brought out by such representations, which to a rationalist mind might seem ridiculous and jest-worthy! Modern thinking should be used to understand the deeper meanings in the myths and not to look down and make fun of what was written way back, when ‘science’ was not a subject. I guess this is what education is all about!

I hope I have been able to answer my readers query!!

Gandhari and her Karma

In a previous article - Dhritarashtra of Modern Times (dated June 12, 2012), we read about the karmic destiny of Dhritarashtra. How it was destiny that made him blind and made him endure the death of a hundred sons. Mahabharata has numerous such examples which give similar reasons for ones suffering in the present life.

From Dhritarashtra, let’s move on to Gandhari. Why was she destined to live a life of blindness, when she was not naturally blind and why did she have to endure such tragedy?

Dhritarashtra and Gandhari

Gandhari was the daughter of Gandhar, the modern day Kandahar, in Afghanistan. She tied a cloth on her eyes when she came to know that her would-be husband was born blind and vowed never to see what he couldn’t. Many say that she made a mistake and if she had not done this, she would have been a great help to her blind husband, and the course of Mahabharata would have been different. Gandhari’s logic however, was that she did not want to seem superior in any way from her husband and make him feel small, and this act of hers had made her his equal. Some even say that she did this as a silent protest to the high-handed behaviour of Bhishma, who despite Dhirtarashtra’s disability had nearly forced the King of Gandhar to agree to the alliance. In the modern world, her act could be questioned, but in Mhabharata, she was hailed as an ideal woman.

Her blindfold is supposed to have given her an inner view to the world around her and though she missed a lot, she never lost ‘sight’ of the fact that the Pandavas were not treated justly. On many occasions she is known to have advised her husband and chastised her son Duryodhan. At the end of the war of Kurukshetra, she is supposed to have asked Lord Krishna, whom she blamed for the war and the death of her hundred sons, especially Duryodhan, as to what had been the reason for such a tragic life.

According to Lord Krishna, long back, while cooking rice, she had poured hot water of the boiled rice on the ground outside her kitchen. This hot water killed all the hundred eggs laid by an insect. This act of hers had earned the wrath of the mother insect who is supposed to have cursed her that she too would have to endure the deaths of her sons, as she had. (In many villages women are advised not to pour hot water from the rice on the ground; they should pour it after it has cooled down or mix cold water before draining it off!). According another local rendition of Mahabharata from the East, she was cursed by the mother turtle whose eggs, Gandhari had once crushed one by one.

The above is a classic case of karmic destiny which has been illustrated time and again through various characters of Mahabharata. Rather, it seems to be an underlying theme of Mahabharata. This might have been done by the authors of the times to ensure that one takes care of one’s actions in the present life. Even if this is done out of a fear for the results in the next life, one will ensure that he or she does little or no harm. How would one react to ones shortcomings in this life? Well, one school of thought would feel that if the karmic theory is to be subscribed to, then people would stop making efforts to change the hardship and simply live with it. Contrary to this, one can say that one would accept it as destiny and not be unnecessarily self-critical. Accept and move on to face the new challenges that have been in store!

I guess this theory of Karmic destiny is a case of glass half full!

There are a number of such characters in Mahabharata, who were what they were, due to the theory of karma. All but one, who was a tragic character for no theory of karma.

We will discuss this character next time! Keep reading….