Archive for mahabharath

Cheer Haran

{ December 11, 2008 @ 3:52 am } · { hinduism, mahabharath }
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Everyone in India knows the horrendous episode of the vastra haran. there is enough emotion in there to overwhelm any self respecting woman. However , the reason why it is so poignant in the story is because it irreversibly marks the turn towards the war. Contrary to what may seem obvious, the Great War is essentially a huge tragedy propounding peace and not war. It shows war in all its glory to make us realize that war is cruel, there is no winner and there is nothing called a righteous war. Yudhishtira says this from the beginning, Bhima after ghattotkach dies  and Arjuna  after  Abhimanyu’s slaughter realizes that. The only person who remains unfazed is draupadi. She takes her sorrow on the stride and seeks revenge for her humiliation. She is not to be understood as a war mongerer ; she was well learned and well versed. She says clearly she feels for bhishma, drona and all the others but that they need to pay for their sin of siding with the wrong side.she even consoles herself on the murder of the upapandavas saying it’s the cruel side to a war.

The clear demarcation in the story is the vastra haran which sets the wrong apart from the right, unpardonable from the pardonable and justifies the carnage that follows. the issue in the story of inheritance is a tricky one .Duryodhana’s claim to the throne is as justified as yudhishtira’s. even the wax palace incident could be dismissed as political conspiracy but what cannot be dispelled is cheer haran. it is so crucial to the story with the miracle so very important that I sometimes wonder if it’s a concoction of the poet or a true incident. If the war was for mere territory  kurukshetra would have never become a dhramakshetra  .All the great moments of drama emanate from that single incident, its matched not in its entirety by Abhimanyu’s death. What anointed draupadi as a godess and a sati is also that single chapter. Mahabharatha is great as a story because it’s a magnum opus with a moral. Morals are important because they streamline the society. That an outrage on womanhood is unpardonable can be understood. what is righteousness and why it pays dividends  can also be seen. Practically morals help a society to function smoothly. Years before in less advanced communities they held the social fabric together and eased functioning.

What is right and wrong is relative and subject to the society. If burglary is taught to be right then it shall be right but the point to be noted is that it was crucial for only one to be right either burglary or being against it. The great war chose its own standards of morality and that’s why it is appealing. While the illiad and odissi are great they don’t measure up to the Indian epics because there is nothing you learn from them. What do you come to know? That beautiful women are treacherous? For  Helen goes back to Minalaus. That makes a farce out of the entire war and you feel sorry for the valiant Hector.

All stories need not have a moral but epics that are passed down generations and define a nation need to, for they are the mirrors of an ancient world and you want to see a pretty face there.

 

Yagnyaseni by Pratibha Ray

{ October 2, 2008 @ 1:56 pm } · { QTB, hinduism, mahabharath }
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A highly sucessful oriya novel, yagnyaseni tells the story of draupadi.infact we are shown the entire story of Mahabharat from the perspective of the story’s heroine. The author strongly sympathises with draupadi and atempts to unravel the different layers of her character from the viewpoint of a woman.Thus a large part of the novel is drawn from folk lore and some parts i suppose are the author’s own interpretations and suppositions.The book also deals with the eternal story of love between Arjun and Panchali.It also potrays the friendship between Krishney and Krishna strongly.

Draupadi has arguably, always been the most oustanding and enigmatic of all heroines the world has ever known.The author uses this fact brilliantly to flesh her character out.she explores the hurt in Arjuna for having to share his wife and Draupadi’s great affection for Arjun.Infact this is something that the original Mahabharat hints at too. While it blatantly states that Draupadi’s favourite husband was Arjun and the latter preferred Draupadi of all his wives, it hints at Arjun’s frustration in two places. The Mahabharat also makes it obvious that Yudhishtir desired Draupadi , something that Arjuna sensed. Yudhishtir was well aware that his mother would ask the alms to be split, afterall it was repeated everyday. Yet, he chose to call the princess won by Arjun as a gift.That later Arjun decides to enter the chamber of Yudhishtir and Draupadi and undertake a piligrimage has always been very curious. he didnt need his bows and arrows to catch a thief and that he couldnt find weapons elsewhere is also incongrous. What perhaps was the reason for that was his hurt at having to share Panchali thus deliberately moving away and subtly hinting at it. His subsequent piligrimage for one year saw him marry three times. Incidentally the novel mentions the duration of this tour of  his to be 12 years. the versions i have read so far place it at one year which afterall makes more sense.The second and perhaps the last time we are given an insight into this hurt of his is in the Karna Parva where Arjun accuses Dharamaraj of enjoying the fruit of his labour. He sights Draupadi svayamvar as an example and also states that Yudhishtir was the root cause of their and Panchali’s suffering.This book by Ray however deliberates upon that aspect elaborately.In parts its unneeded. The pandavs and panchali accepted their fate as such and realsied that they were the tools to establish dharma. That Arjun sulked all the time  and Draupadi thought only about him is perhaps a bit difficult to digest. Afterall given their sufferings its highly improbable they could do it even if they so wished.

The other aspect of the novel is Draupadi’s regard and affection for Karna.It also states that Karna’s animosity towards Arjun was because the latter was Draupadi’s favourite. The original Mahabharat mentions no such incident. It only states that Karna was hurt by the insult at the svayamvar ,the reason why he participates in the cheer haran. That he subsequently repents that act is also elaborately stated.The disrobing is thus the low point of Karna’s character along with that of Bhishma, Drona and others.But Krishna asking Karna to give up Duryodhan states that while doing so he will obtain Panchali as his wife. Thus perhaps Karna nurtured a soft corner for her. But then she was the supremely desired woman of her time.

As for draupadi’s attraction towards Karna there is no such incident in Vyasa’s story. Its only the later folk lores which mention that. Infact Draupadi goades Arjun to kill Karna and Arjun also promises her that he shall do so to assuage her insult.

That Draupadi was an example of total supplication to Shri Krishna is something that is well known and we again see a great deal written about it, here too.

The Mahabharat is great because it does not hide the grey shades in any character. It portrays no person as purely good or no one as the epitome of evil. The sanskrit version provides ample scope for writing about Draupadi as such. There is perhaps no need to draw on folk lores and build imaginary situations. This is perhaps Prathiba Ray’s greatest fault.While mirroring Draupadi in today’s women the author has missed out in places on the true nature of her heroine. Yet it is perhaps the best book on draupadi ever written.

Karna-the tragic hero of the great epic?

{ October 10, 2007 @ 12:29 pm } · { mahabharath }
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to-do lists the day before the long weekend after mid sem:

1.Finish assignments

2.Write lab reports

3.figure out transport phenomena

4.wash clothes

5.clean the room

the end result -high fever and in bed for all of the 5 days.Of course to do lists are always meant to be what they are-to do,so no complaints there.the end result of that viral fever was that i had to spend a lot of time in bed and often with a thermometer sticking out of my mouth.i even developed a strange affection to the Hicks Thermometer.what a poor life it must be leading,faithfully recording people’s temperature.when you have no work to do and are forced to stay in bed such thoughts crop up,after-all there is a limit to the maximum number of hours a person can sleep even with fever.i could have gone on and written a poem on that instrument after those fruitful ruminations,instead chose not to partly because i couldn’t think past farenheit101.

 

I have always realised that when you are sick you want to be next to people whom you love or if that’s not possible as in a hostel ,I tend to read books which I must have anyways read a hundred times .In my case that means the Mahabharata.I have always wondered about Karna -praised so much yet the epic versions I have read have never substantiated the proposed valor.That might be due to two reasons,one that Karna’s stories of prowess had been marginalised over the years as the ballads were passed down or as the epic suggests he was indeed the perennial underachiever.I have never harbored a soft corner for Karna as so many people do partly because of the taunt at Draupadi in the chapter of the vastra -abharana and also because I have always felt that his philosophy was flawed.It sometimes takes great courage to stand up to your friends than your enemies as Dumbledore puts it in Harry Potter and Karna clearly lacked that.Yet Karna was great in so many other ways-an altruist,always a radheya,unflinching loyalty,selfless and in every sense of the word a martyr.He was one of those heroes who are so often doomed from birth yet remembered over the ages.Abandoned by the mother when born,prince by birth yet eternally the charioteer’s son,cursed by the teacher,deprived of all the prestige and honors that he so richly deserved,his suicidal generosity towards indra,humiliated by draupadi and perennially put down by salya, Karna indeed fell as the greatest of all tragic heroes in the epic.if not for his valor Karna shall forever be remembered for such a cruel comeuppance that he so didn’t deserve-his is undoubtedly the most cruel tale in the great epic poignant with irony.its funny that it must take a viral fever for me to realise this!

Draupadi-the heroine of mahabharath

{ May 19, 2007 @ 8:36 am } · { hinduism, mahabharath }
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The greatest and largest classic ever written the Mahabharath underneath all its glory and grandeur primarily is a story of psychological warfare. Vyasaa deals brilliantly with the human mind in its darkest and deepest crevices. In a story that bears the stamp of irony no one else except its heroine, Draupadi showcases best the spirit of Mahabharath.

Born of the sacrificial altar Draupadi or yajnaseni as she was known it is said was born on this earth to quell the arrogance of wicked men and re-establish dharma. Born like the dark cloud pregnant with waters that bends the rays of the sun to radiate light, joy and danger Draupadi too was born. As this dark hued damsel of incomparable beauty emerged from the flames it is said that the gods in heaven, the apsaras, the three worlds and even the rishis stared momentarily, dumbstruck at her beauty. Indeed it is very sad that this very beauty of hers proved to be the root cause of the Great War that claimed millions of lives.

In retrospection,one could say she had everything and curiously nothing. She married Arjuna only to be cruelly wed by four other men. The possible wound that this could inflict upon a woman is beyond measure. Draupadi’s anger at this injustice and at Arjuna for failing to protect her, and arjuna’s frustration at Draupadi when she accepted the proposal is sparingly made known to us. The love story between these two is very subtly dealt with. Indeed one cannot blame Draupadi for loving only Arjuna the most, a fact that she herself accepts. Maybe she found consolance in the fact that she had wed the five greatest heroes, and pride in that fact that she was Krishna’s dearest friend and the empress of bharathavarsha. But once again fate betrayed her .in the treacherous game of dice Dharma raja not only lost himself but also Panchali. How could he pledge his wife? Couldn’t he have pledged any other queen that he or his brothers may have married? Were the questions that draupadi raised in that august assembly.they have never been satisfactorily answered since then.

Her black cascades of hair that had been purified by the holy waters of rajasuya, when dragged by dushasana the poet describes , looked like a storm crossing the sea and a black serpent that coiled over the kuru vamsa.its more apt to say that it looked like a snake coiling around mother earth herself.

What endears draupadi to me is that she chose to brave grievious tribulations in a humanely manner.she screamed,vented her anger ,wanted revenge and finally refused to wash dushassan’s blood off her hair.she was a daughter of this smelly earth more than anything else.thats why the idea of draupadi transcends generations and stands timeless till today.she was a woman of this earth and hence of today so unlike sita who chose to bear her sufferings with an tolerance and quiet that can hardly be imagined let alone seen today.

The story of draupadi is also a lesson of courage, determination, faith, hope and victory and the loss that comes with it all. And if you are a believer in God she stands as the epitome of unshakeable faith .Many a heroine may have been scripted in many a story but none can equal this great Draupadi!

The Mahabharath

{ May 18, 2007 @ 9:16 am } · { mahabharath }
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the mahabharath or the great indian epic according to me is the most erudite work on human psychology ever composed.The monumental piece consisting of 18 chapters each of one lakh verses which inturn contain four lines each,baffles imagination in its grandeur and volume.Historians have commonly agreed that the epic battle did take place.But,did it take place in the scale described is debatable.