{| Doubts and Discussions about Mahabharata - 2 |}

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ananyacool

@ananyacool

Voyager

Posted: 10 years ago

#671

Originally posted by: ashne
I recently read an article on boloji.com, where the author explains the same reasoning as above. Drau being the 'vak'' and it is natural for speech to be the first to go. Followed by the ones sense organs (Nak/Sah), the mind (Arjun), the Prana (Bhima and the Soul (yudhi). He also mentions how their pace slackens as they hear Drau fall and their heart is filled with great grief

I have read Indrajeet Bandyopadhyay's article 😊

The Upanishads and Brahmanas(Aitereya) are full of such allegories and were composed after war . PV.Vartak's research is also based on these words in upanishads and Brahmanas about the soul and vital breath talking.

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Vrish

@Vr15h

Stunner

+ 6

Posted: 10 years ago

#672

Originally posted by: ananyacool

Using the word concubine for Kunti is not only harsh on her but derogatory as well . Read http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m15/m15017.htm It explains why Kunti chose to follow them.

Kunti calls Dhrit & Gandhari as her father and mother in law and in next section Dhrit also calls her his daughter in law.

Manu smriti laws are not given by Manu the ancient king, the founding father of Suryavansh ; this Manu is different and the laws were written much later than the epic age so Manu smriti is not to be taken a benchmark on law and order or what women / men should do in the epic.

There are no laws on what widows should do, their going to forest or taking Jal Samadhi was voluntary( section 33 ) Yudhi is also called as Kuru king and technically Pandavas are also Kauravas so Uttara is daughter in law of Kauravas.

Describing the Pandavas as Kauravas is something akin to a news report about the Russia-Ukraine war describing the Ukrainians as Russians. After all, the Russian state did get founded in Kiev in pre-medieval times, and Ukraine was never an independent country until 1917. So if a news report described the war in the Donbass as being b/w Russians and Russians and said that Petro Poroshenko was the Russian president, would you give them a pass? Given that there was a war b/w the Dhartarashtras & the Pandavas, and that the former was customarily described as Kauravas, being the elder son, using the term to describe the latter just muddies the waters. Also, only the eldest son carried on the name of the dynasty, if there were multiple branches. Hence, only Dhristarashtra - and Duryodhan, had he succeeded him - would have been Kaurava kings, while Indraprastha was a fork of that dynasty. Note that in RC Majumdar's the Vedic Age, the dynasty is described as the dynasty of Puru (Yayati's son), since all the other branches got wiped out in the war.

Kunti was not Dhritarashtra's or Gandhari's daughter in law - that's horse manure. Vaisampayana is guilty of a lot of careless writing - he constantly describes Dhrishtadyumna, for instance, as the son of Prishatha, despite the fact that the former was his grandson. Anyway, my original point - Kunti had no business remaining in Hastinapur during the Pandava exile (she should have gone back to Purujit for those 13 years) nor should she have accompanied Dhritarashtra. In fact, he strongly urged her to stay w/ her sons, but she couldn't resist being a haddi in the kabab b/w D & G.

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AnuMP

@AnuMP

Rocker

Posted: 10 years ago

#673

Vrish

I had always heard that Kunti had gone along with them as penance for her sons having killed their sons?

Re: Dhristadyumna. Dont know if that was careless writing or careless reveal. Who is to say the twins werent actually late in life gifts from God for Grandpa Prishata who were adopted by Drupad. Happened a lot in the old days

Edited by AnuMP - 10 years ago

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Vrish

@Vr15h

Stunner

+ 6

Posted: 10 years ago

#674

Anu

For Dhrishtadyumna, it's clearly described that Drupada got him in the yagna, while he was king. Implicitly, a bit after Prishatha's death.

In Ashramvatika Parva, there is no mention of Kunti accompanying them in repentence for them killing their sons. As it is, it's mentioned that b4 the exile, Draupadi and all other Pandava wives served Gandhari like servants, even though they too had lost all their sons. So makes no sense. And unlike Gandhari's sons, the sons of the Pandavas didn't start the war or plot to cause lifelong suffering to either Dhritarashtra nor any of his descendants. Hence, the moral equivalency b/w Gandhari losing her sons and Draupadi hers is odious @ best, and sickening @ worst.

Which is why Kunti deserves opprobrium rather than praise for accompanying Dhritarashta & Gandhari to the forest.

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Surya Sundarraj Sriram

@Surya_krsnbhakt

Dazzler

Posted: 10 years ago

#675

Vrish, if it is somewhat pleasing for you to hear, Kunti doesn't accompany them in the Bhagavatam.😉

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AnuMP

@AnuMP

Rocker

Posted: 10 years ago

#676

Did she go along with them to rub salt in their wounds? Like Bheem cracking his knuckles? She comes across as a politically shrewd and ruthlessly manipulative woman. But I hadnt ever thought of her as vindictive. Could be. That would be preferable to her being Dhrit's concubine

Dhrisht/Drau - prefer to believe the stepping out of fire business was metaphorical. 'Born of fire' need not be taken literally. Prayers and sacrifices got him the children. Could be his much younger stepbrother/stepsister that he adopted, or unrelated children altogether

Edited by AnuMP - 10 years ago

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Vrish

@Vr15h

Stunner

+ 6

Posted: 10 years ago

#677

Anu, that's fine, but even then, fact remains that Dhrishtadyumna & Draupadi were children of Mr & Mrs Drupada.

I dunno where the ACK Drona gets its info from (but it's been there since the 80s) - but there, Bharadwaj & Prishatha were close friends, which was why the latter entrusted Drupada w/ Bharadwaj, which was how Drona became his friend. The fall-out b/w them happened when Drupada was king i.e. Prishatha was either dead, or had taken sanyas. In either case, he'd not have been anywhere near Dhrishtadyumna nor Draupadi. Shikhandini, maybe. (But ⭐️B's story of him having an enemity w/ Bheeshma was another invention of theirs)

Substituting the term 'son' when one means grandson is indicative of pretty careless writing.

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Vrish

@Vr15h

Stunner

+ 6

Posted: 10 years ago

#678

Surya, what exactly does Kunti do after the Yadava fratricide and the Pandava retirement? I didn't exactly get her role there.

B/w MB & SB, MB is sometimes more logical. For instance, for the fratricide, it starts randomly and anybody kills anybody - like Anirudha vs Satyaki, or some such thing. In MB, it unravels pretty logically. Everybody is drunk, and Satyaki decides to insult Kritavarma, bringing up the massacre of the Panchal Pandavas on night 18. Kritavarma brings up Bhurishrava, Satyaki brings up Satadhanva, and the arguments escalate. Finally, Satyaki grabs a sword & beheads Kritavarma, and starts attacking Kritavarma's friends, who surround & outnumber him. Pradhyumna gets in to save him, but both of them are killed by the Andhakas.

That's a logical explanation to how that started, as opposed to SB's description.

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JazzyM

@JazzyM

Rocker

Posted: 10 years ago

#679

I'm just wondering... Maharaja Dridashtan was not really proclaimed formally as the Maharaja. Maharaja Pandu had the Raj Abhishek proclaiming his as the Maharaja. If that's the case, Yudi as his 1st born should bear the Kuru surname...

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Vrish

@Vr15h

Stunner

+ 6

Posted: 10 years ago

#680

Comparing Kunti w/ Sita or Shakuntala is invalid above. In Sita's case, she was expelled from Ayodhya - staying there didn't arise. Shakuntala too was denied by Dushyant as a spouse. But Kunti was in a real danger - if Draupadi could be disrobed, so could Kunti. She was in the process of leaving for the forests w/ her sons, but Vidura talked Yudhistir out of it 😡 Quite different from the case of Sita (and in Shakuntala's case, she did return to her father), who were asked to leave/dropped there w/o her knowledge

I called Kunti a concubine simply b'cos she had no self respect - agreeing to stay w/ the king who allowed her DIL to be disrobed, and later following him into exile. Concubine is actually a mild term to describe her given this background factoids. The argument that they'd have remembered what happened is invalid - they did nothing of the sort, and that's why the war happened. It was only 15 years after the war, when Bhima insulted them, that Dhritarashtra & Gandhari had a realization. And yeah, I did read what Kunti said - and she was lying. So was Dhritarashtra in the next section

There was no Kaurava/Kuru dynasty after the war. Parikshit's dynasty got the title of being Purus - they didn't get Yayati's or Kuru's names. Again, names of dynasties by default went to the eldest sons, which is why Dhritarashtra's clan, rather than Pandus, got that name.

Edited by .Vrish. - 10 years ago

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