Bits of life

S-3 Words-2000

Krishna did not come back to Brindavan, she accused Devaki for not allowing him to come back. Nanda convinced her that her son was going to visit her soon for sure because he could not live without the butter churned by his mother. Nanda also told her that Krishna was now a big boy and that he needed to be educated. Soon he and Balarama would join the ashram of sage Sandipan to get their formal education completed.

To understand and appreciate how Krishna shaped out to play an important role in the royal families of Kuru dynasty, we need to go back to the lives of Dhratarashtra and Pandu, the two brothers. Let us recall the time when Pandu went away to the forest with Kunti and Madri his two wives as means of punishment for his sins. The five children that Kunti, two of whom belonged to Madri, was able to get through the blessings of different deities, were growing fast like the young saplings of plants. They were of the same age group as Krishna and Balarama.

Pandu’s death and later events:

When Madri went to the forest to fill her water pot in the stream, she was tempted to have shower in the waterfall. Half drenched Madri looked desirable to Pandu who observed her from a vantage point. When she came out of water looking too attractive to the male eye, Pandu was not able to control his desire to possess her. As he ardently embraced her, his heart gave way and he dropped dead on the spot.

It was a shocking event for Kunti and Madri. Kunti realized that they could not fight against fate. She expressed her desire to die in the Pandu’s funeral fire. But Madri stopped her and said that as she was responsible for Pandu’s death, she would go into the funeral fire. Things moved on with a rapid speed. Pandu’s physical body was consigned to fire and Madri too died on the funeral bed of Pandu.

Kunti was left alone to fend for herself and her children. Her brother Vasudeva, Krishna’s father came to attend to Pandu’s funeral and offered to take her along with him to Mathura. The widow’s refuge was always her mother’s place in the Indian social set up. The sages in the forest however, advised Vasudeva, Kunti’s brother to send word to Hastinapur, Pandu’s country. They felt that Kunti and her children who were left defenseless after the death of Pandu now became Dhritarashtra’s responsibility. He was Pandu’s older brother and now ruled the kingdom of Hastinapur. Pandu’s children were also the descendants of the Kuru dynasty and thus had a claim to the throne. In fact, Yudhishtar, the eldest son of Pandu should become the king of Hastinapur after he came of age. He was the eldest of all the brothers including his cousins, the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra. But for now, Dhritarashtra ruled the kingdom and he was slowly becoming intoxicated with power and the authority to sit on the most powerful seat in Hastinapur.

When Pandu’s death was reported to Dhritarashtra, he and his wife Gandhari were in tears. They mourned the death of Pandu with great feeling. Dhritarashtra ordered his ministers and minions to escort Kunti and her children to Hastinapur with due care and respect. When they arrived at the gates of Hastinapur, Dhritarashtra was ready to receive them personally. But Bhishma, his uncle offered to receive them himself.

Kunti and her five sons arrived at the gates of Hastinapur and were duly received by Bhishma. Dhritarashtra’s eldest son Duryodhan resents the arrival of his cousins from the forest. When he was told by his father that half of everything they had needed to be shared by them. Duryodhan hated the idea of his palace being shared by his cousins. The seeds of animosity were sewn.

Satyavati, the wife of Shantanu had become frail and weak due to advancing age. She and her two daughters-in-law received Kunti with tearful eyes. Satyavati cried her heart out and thought of the sin she and her father had committed in order to harness power and the kingdom of Hastinapur. She remembered the deaths of her two sons and now the death of her grandson, Pandu. She thought of the injustice she had done by seizing the throne from its rightful heir, Bhishma otherwise known as Devavrata or Ganga putra (the son of Ganga). She felt she was paying for her and her father’s sins. Time took revenge even though Devavrata was ever graceful and beneficent.

She looked at the crying and mourning Kunti and cried with her for their misfortune. Time was like a tidal wave. It stopped for no one and went on its relentless gyres. So did the lives of the Pandavas and Kauravas.
Let us what future held for Pandu’s children known as Pandavas and Dhritarashtra’s children named Kauravas. While Pandavas were five in number, Kauravas were a hundred. Surprised? Naturally. Who would ever hear of a man siring a hundred kids?

As is well-known, an epic contains certain issues which need suspension disbelief. One of many such issues in the Maha Bharata was the birth Kauravas. We already know how the Pandavas were born.
Coming to the story of Kauravas, we already know that Gandhari was married to the blind king Dhritarashtra and they were childless for a long time. Once sage Vyasa came to the palace of Dhritarashtra. He was served by Gandhari with care and attention. Having been pleased with her service, he asked Gandhari to ask for a boon from him. Gandhari requested him to grant her a hundred sons and a daughter.

“So be it,” said the sage and departed from the palace.

Soon afterwards, Gandhari became pregnant and she carried her fetus for two years and then gave birth to a large piece of flesh without any limbs. She was about to throw it away in disgust when sage Vyasa appeared and said not to throw it away. He made hundred parts of it and one more for a daughter and put them all in separate jars. After two more years, he reappeared and opened the jars to let out Gandhari’s hundred sons and a daughter named, Dushala.

All hundred sons of Dhritarashtra were strong and good at martial arts. The eldest son of Gandhari was named Duryodhana. It means one who was difficult to win over. When Kunti came back to Hastinapur, Duryodhana and his brothers were being trained in formal education as well as martial arts under the guidance of Kripacharya.
Dhritarashtra asked Kripacharya to take Pandavas too as his disciples and train them in all faculties. Kripa accepted all the princes as his disciples and was prepared to train them as he was asked. Then he had to leave for sometime to attend to some issues of his own.

The Pandavas and the Kauravas were not able to get on well with each other. Duryodhana, the eldest of the Kaurava princes and Bhima the second of the Pandava princes were never able to bear with each other. There was rivalry and animosity between the cousins. They made fun of each other and tried as much as possible to insult one another.

Once, Bhima was poisoned by Duryodhana and his brothers. Due to his immense strength and resistance, Bhima was able to digest the poison and had not been harmed by the evil plan of Duryodhana. The motivation behind Duryodhana’s jealousy of the Pandavas was his maternal uncle Shakuni.

Shakuni’s story-

Shakuni was the son of the king of Gandhar and the younger brother of Gandhari, wife of the Kuru king Dhritarashtra. Some of the customs and beliefs that existed during that period could be out of the ordinary and might sound meaningless. However, if believed in that custom it became tradition.

When Gandhari was born, the court astrologers of Gandhar predicted that the evil effect of the star constellation at the time of her birth, could be diverted and diluted. They said that she would become a widow after marriage. So just to avoid this dire event, the priests suggested that she should be married to some inanimate object like a tree or a sacrificial animal. The king agreed to that and when she came of age she was married to a goat. The goat was killed later and Gandhari was rendered a widow technically. Later, when Bhishma came to the king of Gandhar to seek Gandhari’s hand for the marriage of Dhritarashtra, the blind prince, his stepbrother’s older son. The king of Gandhar was pleased to get this match for his daughter. However, he was not happy with the fact that the bridegroom was blind. So he wanted to reject the alliance. When told about Dhritarashtra’s blindness, Gandhari had no objection to that and in fact was eager to get married to him. Thus Gandhari’s marriage to Dhritarashtra was a success. She even went to the extreme of tying her eyes and brought blindness on herself because she wanted to share the dark world of her blind husband. She went down generation as a woman who made willing sacrifice of the light of her eyes.

After coming to the Kuru kingdom of Hastinapur, Gandhari was leading the life of queen. Bhishma came to know the secret behind Gandhari’s marriage. He was immensely furious because Gandhari’s father had hidden the facts of her background. He too wanted play the same game and pay them with the same coin, meaning foul play. He invited the clan of Gandhar along with the king and other royal relatives without the knowledge of Gandhari. When they came to Hastinapur, he took them into captivity and told them they were going to pay for what they had done. He kept them in prison for long years. He used to let them have a fistful food each day and that was all.

So the clansmen of Gandhar put their heads together and decided to give all their food to the youngest of their extended family. Shakuni, the prince of Gandhar was the chosen one. He was the youngest as well as the most intelligent of the whole family. His father and others instigated him to stay alive and take revenge on the Kuru dynasty. Gradually, the clansmen of Gandhar died of starvation and heartbreak. At the time of his demise, the king of Gandhar, Shakuni’s father hit him hard on his leg so he would remember the shame that was brought on the family, whenever he walked and he was thus reminded of his duty to take revenge on the Kurus. He then made pieces of dice out of the bones of his father’s body. These are very powerful pair of dice. Whichever number he wanted they would show because they would listen to the command of Shakuni and act accordingly. The dice became a part of Shakuni and he carried them with great care, wherever he went.
Shakuni was injured and was lame for as long as he lived. When everyone died and only shakuni was alive, Bhishma took pity on him and sent him back to Gandhar. He often visited his sister Gandhari because he was very fond of her. Gandhari, however, did not know of the dark tragedy that her family suffered and died at the hands of Bhishma.

There was another legend that said that it was not Bhishma but Dhritarashtra himself who subjected the Gandhar clan to torture and death in the underground cells of Hastinapur. it was also said that shakuni promised Dhritarashtra at the time of his release that he would always be loyal to him and his children, the Kauravas. But in his heart of hearts he always worked to wreak revenge on them. All he wanted was the end of their kingdom and death to all the Kurus. He was always instigating Duryodhana to act against the Pandavas and show them that the kingdom belonged to the Kauravas alone.