CULTURAL QA05-2021-11 Being a compilation there may be errors
Q1 Why was Shakuni bent ondestroying the Kuru race? A1 The Xennial Mon, 10 May,2021, The uncle of the Kauravas played a long game... One of the first things that comes to mind when one says Mahabharata isthe epic war at the very end. Indeed, even though it’s just one of the only twoepics to have been written in India, Mahabharata is considered bysome a book that shouldn’t be kept in one’s home since it’s the story of afamily going to war. For most part, the war gets blamed on Duryodhana’s ambitionbut also to a great degree Shakuni’s machinations. While Shakuni did indeed play a large part in egging on an influenceableDuryodhana into seeking the throne, he did so because he sought revenge. To know why Shakuni hatedthe Kuru race so much, wemust go back in time when Bhishma was still a young man. At the time, Dhritarashtra was single and Bhishma was seeking alliancesfor him. His search led him to Gandhara and asked for the hand of its princess,Gandhari, for the blind Hastinapur prince. At first Subala was hesitant but eventually agreed, inpart because he knew he couldn’t afford to anger the great Bhishma.In any case, neither he nor his son Shakuni was particularly happy with thematch. Shakuni was the youngest ofSubala’s 100 sons and, by all accounts, also the most intelligent too. He loved his sister Gandhari more than anyone else inthe world and was obviously angry with the idea of her marrying a blind prince.When she was a child, Gandhari would be afraid of the dark and hence theGandhara palace would always be fully lit up on all nights. So when she choseto blindfold herself, it broke Shakuni’s heart to see her spend her entire lifein darkness. However, knowing better, Shakuni let his resentment againstBhishma slide and went with the plan. During the wedding preparations, Bhishma is said to have discovered thatGandhari was a manglik, which is to say she was born under a signthat would’ve meant an early death to her first husband. As was the practice,Gandhari was first married off to a goat, which was then beheaded and thenmarried off to Dhritarashtra. However, Bhishma was angry that Subala had chosen to keep this a secretand so he imprisoned the king and his 100 sons. They pleaded that they be fed but Bhishma only granted them a grain each.Together, they agreed that Shakuni,being the most intelligent of them all, must stay alive. So they donatedtheir share of the grains to him. One by one all the Gandhara princes died in prison as did Subala whoreached an agreement with Bhishma to let Shakuni live. As a result, out of the 100 Gandhara princes, only one survived. And hewas filled with vengeance against Bhishma: first for being forced to marry his beloved sister toDhritarashtra and then for imprisoning and killing his entire family. As he stepped outof the prison, Shakuni promised himself to avenge their death and beganplotting a series of elaborate plans to drive a wedge in the empire that haddone him wrong. Q2 What is the incrediblestory of Sahadeva, the youngest Pandava A2 The Xennial 14 April2021· Relegated to the backdrop, this Pandava prince was no small fry. Nakula, a legendary warrior in Hindu myth, supposedly followed Sahadevato a lake, where he discovered Sahadeva dead. In the lake a crane, named Baka,warned Nakula that drinking from the water without first answering his riddle would lead to death.Nakula ignored the crane, drank, and also died. The thing about being raised alongside luminaries such as Arjuna, Bhimaand Yudhishthira is that you tend to get relegated to the backdrop. For mostpart, this was true of the twins, Nakula and Sahadeva. In fact, chances areyou’d never have even thought of them as two separate people what with most ofthe story being focussed on the three brothers and their warring cousins. Yet, both Nakula and Sahadeva were luminaries in their own right. Bothwere experts in wielding the sword, sure, but Sahadeva was singularly intelligent, perhaps more thananyone else in the epic. It was something he was aware of and wasarrogant about it. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start at thebeginning. Sahadeva was born alongsideNakula to Madri one of Pandu’s two wives, the other, of course, being Kunti. As you may remember, Kunti wasgranted a boon by Sage Durvasa due to which she could invoke any god she wantedand beget a child from them. Pandu, who was cursed byanother sage, was unable to bear a child and therefore turned to Kunti to useher boon. It was thus that Kuntibore three children: Yudhishthira from Dharma, Arjuna from Indra, and Bhimafrom Vayu or the God of Wind. Using the same boon, she was able to get Madri impregnated by the Ashwinitwins, the gods of health, dawn and sciences. The story goes that Pandu’s knowledge, one that he hadgathered due to years of meditation, got passed down to Sahadeva just beforethe former’s death. It was a lot of knowledge for one person to handle.Even so, the young Sahadeva seemed unfazed. Due to theknowledge he inherited, he was able to see the past as well as the future. As a result, he knew everything that was going to happen – the fact thatthere would be several attempts on his and his brothers’ lives, the fact thatthey would be challenged to a game of dice where they would be cheated of theirempire, the fact that there would be a war, and that they would in fact win. Asa result he was the greatest astrologer in the entire land. However, soon after he receivedthis knowledge, Krishna approached him and made him promise that he’d neverreveal the entire truth to anyone. Sahadeva pointed out that this wouldn’t be possible. And that shouldsomeone ask him, there was no way he could lie. Krishnaagreed but told him that he couldn’t reveal more than what was asked. In returnSahadeva made Krishna promise that he would protect him and his brothers at allcosts and that should something happen to any one of them, Krishna too wouldhave to kill himself. In another version of the story, Sahadeva was granted the visionto see into the past as well as the future but the price for revealing it toanyone unless asked was his head exploding. Either way, Sahadevaremained the quietest of all the Pandavas for good reason. Sahadeva was, in fact, asked if there was a way to avoid the war and he replied that there indeed wasone way: to imprison Krishna and Shakuni, for all the Kauravas and Pandavas togo into the forest after making Karna the king. And while this mayhave well been the only way to avoid the gruesome war, Sahadeva knew well thatit wasn’t going to be. So, like a good Kshatriya, he went to war. He vowed to kill Shakuni for Draupadi’shumiliation and he fulfilled his wow. After the war, he carried the flag of Hastinapur all the way down tosouth India and beyond into Lanka and brought them under Hastinapur’sprotection. And he did allof this, while carrying the impossible weight of knowing the inevitable. Q3 What is the information- Duryodhana would have won the war if he hadn’t beentricked. A3 The Xennial 12 April2021·The Kaurava prince had a boon but he was tricked... As the Kurukshetra war raged on, the casualties increasing with eachpassing hour, it became evident to everyone that the Kauravas were going tolose. Most of the veteran generals on the Kaurava side had been slain by nowand the war was in its endgame. After the death of Shalya(Pandavas’ uncle who was tricked into fighting on the side of Kauravas)Duryodhana goes into hiding. By now he’s the only Kaurava prince surviving. Bhima challenges him to amace duel in order to ultimately bring the war to an end. Duryodhana agrees. When Gandhari hears of this challenge, she decides to break her vow ofbeing blind folded for life for just one brief minute. It was just days after she’d lost her son-in-law,Jayadrata, husband to Dushala due to Krishna’s deviousness so she felt itimportant to give her son an unfair advantage. Now, Gandhari was a very piouswoman and a Vishnu devotee, which is also why she was angry withKrishna for not having done anything to prevent the death of her sons and evencursed him. The curse didn’t just kill Krishna, it brought down his entire dynasty.Even in the little that’s written about Gandhari’s powers you can get a senseof her superpowers. There are only two recorded instances during which she removed herblindfold. The first was when she summoned Duryodhana before his mace duel withBhima. Her only order to her firstborn was that he come to her asthe day he was born. And so following those orders, Duryodhana took a bath in the lake andbegan walking towards his mother’s chambers. It was late in the night and noone was around so he didn’t think much of his state of nudity. But suddenly, Krishna appears from seemingly nowhere and looks at the Kaurava prince bemused. Aflummoxed Duryodhana blurts out the reason why he’s without clothes. The everastute Krishna realises that something is up and pretends to chide Duryodhana. Let’s not forget despite the animosity, Duryodhana was aware that Krishna wasn’t one to be messedwith. He nods his head in agreement – Krishna had argued as to how a Kauravaprince could go to his mother stark naked – and wraps some leaves around histhighs. When he reaches his mother’s chambers, Gandhari asks him if he was ready.Duryodhana replies in the affirmative and Gandhari removesher blindfold for the first time in her life. Just a brief look from Gandharicovers all of Duryodhana in an invisible armour… except theparts he had hidden from her view. Gandhari realises her son wasn’t in fact in the nude and is extremelyangry. It was, after all, the one instruction he had to carry out. Howdifficult could it have been to understand it, she thunders. A sheepish Duryodhana explainsthat he ran into Krishna on his way to her chambers and it was he that hadconvinced him to wrap something around him before appearing before her. An incensed Gandhari scolds Duryodhana for falling for Krishna’s deviousways. The armour, sheexplains, would have protected Duryodhana during his duel with Bhima the nextday. Duryodhana is upset, ofcourse, but assures his mother that the rules of a mace duel preventparticipants from attacking each other below the waist. Gandhari, of course, knows better and dismisses herfoolish son from her chambers. The next day when Bhima and Duryodhana face off in the ultimate duel, therules are reiterated. Balarama, a friend and teacher to Duryodhana and a maceexpert, agrees to referee the duel. As the duel begins, it becomes clear that Bhima’s blows were notaffecting Duryodhana in any manner at all, let alone hurting him. Krishna realises what may have happened and signals to Bhima to attackDuryodhana on his thighs. Remember, this was against the rules of the duel and it would have beenagainst a warrior’s ethic to attack in such a manner. However, seeing that hehad no choice, Bhima followed Krishna’s orders and dealt a fatal blowto Duryodhana on his thighs. Since that was the part of Duryodhana’sbody that wasn’t covered in a divine invisible armour, Duryodhana collapses and eventually dies. Balarama protests that the blow was against the rules of the duel butKrishna argues that the Kauravas had broken several rules during the warincluding one that cost his son-in-law Abhimanyu his life. With this duel, the war of Kurukshetra comes to an end. If only Duryodhana had followed hismother’s instructions, it was quite likely he would have emerged undefeatedand maybe even turned the war around single-handedly. All the above QA are based on newsitem in Yahoo opening page on 11-05 - 2021. Yahoo answers need not be 100% correctanswers Compiled and posted by R. Gopala krishnan on 11-5-2021 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1184666202.1773966.1620717134329%40mail.yahoo.com.
