Mahabharat 📌

The tale of Mahabharata

Tale by sage Vaishampayana

Shantanu, the king of Hastinapura, had a short-lived marriage with the goddess Ganga and had a son, Devavrata (later to be called as Bhishma), the heir apparent to the throne. Many years later, when King Shantanu goes hunting, he sees Satyavati, the daughter of the chief of fisherman, and asks her father for her hand. Her father refuses to consent to the marriage unless Shantanu promises to make any future son of Satyavati the king upon his death. To resolve his father's dilemma, Devavrata agrees to relinquish his right to the throne and also takes a vow of lifelong celibacy to guarantee his father's promise.

Shantanu had two sons by Satyavati, Chitrāngada and Vichitravirya. Upon Shantanu's death, Chitrangada become king. But he lives a very short uneventful life and died. Vichitravirya, the younger son,became the ruler of Hastinapura. Meanwhile, the King of Kāśī arranges a swayamvara for his three daughters. In order to arrange the marriage of young Vichitravirya, Bhishma attends the swayamvara of the three princesses Amba, Ambika and Ambalika, uninvited, and abducts them. Ambika and Ambalika consent to be married to Vichitravirya.

The oldest princess Amba, however, informs Bhishma that she wishes to marry king of Shalva whom Bhishma defeated at their swayamvara. Bhishma lets her leave to marry king of Shalva, but Shalva refuses to marry her, still smarting at his humiliation at the hands of Bhishma. Amba then returns to marry Bhishma but he refuses due to his vow of celibacy. Amba becomes enraged and becomes Bhishma's bitter enemy, holding him responsible for her plight.

Further when king Vichitravirya dies young without any heirs, Satyavati asks her first son Vyasa who was born to her before marriage to father children with the widows. The eldest, Ambika, shuts her eyes when she sees him, and so her son Dhritarashtra is born blind. Ambalika turns pale and bloodless upon seeing him, and thus her son Pandu is born pale and unhealthy. Due to the physical challenges of the first two children, Satyavati asks Vyasa to try once again. However, Ambika and Ambalika send their maid instead, to Vyasa's room. Vyasa fathers a third son, Vidura, by the maid. He is born healthy and grows up to be one of the wisest characters in the Mahabharata. He serves as Prime Minister to King Pandu and King Dhritarashtra.

When the princes grow up, Dhritarashtra is about to be crowned king by Bhishma when Vidura intervenes and says that a blind person cannot be king.As he cannot control and protect his subjects. The throne is then given to Pandu because of Dhritarashtra's blindness. Pandu marries twice, to Kunti and Madri. Dhritarashtra marries Gandhari, a princess from Gandhara, who blindfolds herself so that she may feel the pain that her husband feels. Her brother Shakuni is enraged by this and vows to take revenge on the Kuru family. One day, when Pandu is relaxing in the forest, he hears the sound of a wild animal. He shoots an arrow in the direction of the sound. However the arrow hits the sage Kindama, who curses him that if he engages in a sexual act, he will die. Pandu then retires to the forest along with his two wives, and his brother Dhritarashtra rules thereafter, despite his blindness.

Pandu's older queen Kunti, however, had been given a boon by Sage Durvasa that she could invoke any god using a spell.Using the spell .In the forest, Kunti and Madri invoke varous gods to beget five sons - Yudhishthira, Bhima and Arjuna for Kunti, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva for Madri. They are known as the Pandavas. Pandu dies shortly, when the sage's curse took effect as Pandu and Madri, inflamed by passion, embrace. Madri burns herself on Pandu's pyre and Kunti returns to Hastinapur, the capital of the Kuru clan. Since the Pandavas are the rightful heirs to the throne of Hastinapur, this is deeply resented by the sons of Dhritarashthra, the Kauravas, especially Duryodhana the eldest.

Duryodhana’s bitterness and hatred boil, and he continuously seeks and wishes death upon the Pandavas. His hatred is nourished by his slippery uncle, Shakuni. Aided by Shakuni, Duryodhana executes many plots to kill the Pandavas, but thanks to their luck, capabilities and some outside interventions, they escape unscathed. Some of these outside interventions came from unusual quarters.

With hatred and animosity growing between them, the Pandavas and Kauravas grow up in Hastinapur and learn various martial skills from their teacher Drona. Karna, the eldest son of Kunti who was born to and abandoned by her when she was just a teenager, also enters the story. Though an extra ordinary archer, everyone believes him to be the son of a charrioter. No one but Kunti knows that he is her son born from the sun god before marriage but she keeps the information to herself out of shame and fear. Karna is befriended by Duryodhana, who sees his archery skills valuable to counter Arjuna's archery.

As the story progresses, the Pandavas are forced into hiding in the forest to escape the Kauravas’ assassination attempts. During their time in the forest, Arjuna wins the hand of Draupadi, the child of Drupada, the powerful king of Panchala. Due to an inadvertant reply from Kunti, Draupadi becomes the common wife of all the Pandavas. Guided by Krishna, the divine incarnate and the Pandavas' cousin, the Pandavas slip through the many traps laid by Duryodhana and return to claim one half of the kingdom. But Yudhisthara, the eldest Pandava, has a weakness for gambling, and Shakuni, a master of the dice game, tricks him into gambling away his wealth, kingdom and even Draupadi, whom the Kauravas attempt to dirobe. She is only saved by Krishna's Grace. In shame for allowing such a thing to happen to a woman's honor, the elders of the court cancel the entire game and return everything to the Pandavas, only to have Yudhishthira lose it all over again!

Bereft of their wealth and honor, the five brothers, their wife, are forced into an exile of twelve years, plus one year incognito (during which they narrowly escape detection), after which they return to reclaim their half of the kingdom. Of course, the Kauravas refuse. This inevitably leads to the battle of mahabharat

The two sides summon vast armies to their help and line up at Kurukshetra for a war.

Before war being declared Balarama had expressed his unhappiness at the developing conflict and left to go on pilgrimage; thus he does not take part in the battle itself. Krishna takes part in a non-combatant role, as charioteer for Arjuna.

Before the battle, Arjuna, seeing the opposing army includes many relatives and loved ones, including his great grandfather Bhishma and his teacher Drona, has doubts about the battle and he fails to lift his Gāndeeva bow. Krishna wakes him up to his call of duty in the famous Bhagavad Gita section of the epic.

Though initially sticking to chivalrous notions of warfare, both sides soon adopt dishonourable tactics. At the end of the 18-day battle, only the Pandavas, Satyaki, Kripa, Ashwatthama, Kritavarma, Yuyutsu and Krishna survive.

Gandhari, Dhrtarashtra and Kunti in their old age retire to the forest.

After "seeing" the bloodshed Gandhari, who had lost all her sons, curses Krishna to be a witness to a similar annihilation of his family, for though divine and capable of stopping the war, he had not done so. Krishna accepts the curse, which bears fruit 36 years later.

The Pandavas, who had ruled their kingdom meanwhile, decide to renounce everything. Clad in skins and rags they retire to the Himalaya and climb towards heaven in their bodily form. A stray dog travels with them. One by one the brothers and Draupadi fall on their way. As each one stumbles, Yudhishthira gives the rest the reason for their fall (Draupadi was partial to Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva were vain and proud of their looks, and Bhima and Arjuna were proud of their strength and archery skills, respectively). Only the virtuous Yudhishthira, who had tried everything to prevent the war and the dog remain. The dog reveals himself to be the god Yama (also known as Yama Dharmaraja), and then takes him to the underworld where he sees his siblings and wife. After explaining the nature of the test, Yama takes Yudhishthira back to heaven and explains that it was necessary to expose him to the underworld because (Rajyante narakam dhruvam) every ruler has to visit the underworld at least once. Yama then assures him that his siblings and wife would join him in heaven after they had been exposed to the underworld for measures of time according to their sins.

Sage told that later Karna, Pandavas, and Dhritarashtra's sons eventually ascended to swarga and "attained the state of the gods" and lived together — "serene and free from anger. And thus the story of mahabharta ended.