What changes would have happened had Duryodhan won the war - Page 3

Originally posted by: .Vrish.

First of all, if Duryodhan had won the war, I'm assuming that all the Pandavas - not just Bhima and Arjun - would have been dead at the end. Probably slain in battle. Along w/ all their sons.

Then the question would have arisen about the casualties on the Kaurava side. May not have been much: w/ Bheeshma, Drona, Kripa, Ashwatthama, Bhurishrava, Shalya, Bhagadatta, Jayadrath, Susharma, Alambusha around, assuming that Krishna didn't salvage the Pandavas w/ various stratagems on how to kill them, chances are that the Pandavas would have been done in within the first 10 days, w/o Karna even entering. W/o anybody from the Kaurava side, except perhaps Alambusha, dying.

If Duryodhan's descendant inherited the throne, I wonder what the occasion would have been to get to do the yagna to destroy the Nagas. But assuming that there did arise the occasion for Vyasa's disciples to narrate the story, I think the focus would have shifted as follows:

• Duryodhan being an ausara son to Dhritarashtra and Gandhari, as opposed to the Pandavas who were kshetrajya sons of Pandu
• Duryodhan becoming yuvraj of Hastinapur after the Pandavas disappeared in a fire in the house of lac
• Pandavas getting Indraprastha after marriage to Draupadi
• Pandava marriages to the daughter of Jarasandha and sister of Sishupala
• Pandavas losing Indraprastha in the game of dice, and being exiled to the forest (it may have edited out the vastraharan and other unsavory details)
• Then the 13 years would have focused more on Duryodhan's reign (which actually the citizens of Hastinapur fondly remember when Dhritarashtra retired to the forest), until the war
• May have covered Krishna's visit w/o the viraatroop
• May probably have left out the fact about Karna being born to Kunti (incidentally, if the Pandavas were gonna die, Indra would have known about it in advance, in which case, would he have bothered to deprive Karna of his kavach-kundalas?)
• Would have covered the war and the destruction of the Pandavas
• Duryodhan would have been coronated after the war, and his rule would have been covered
• All the kingdoms of Pandava allies - Panchala, Matsya, Mathura, Magadha, Chedi, Kekaya, Srinjaya, et al would have all gone to Duryodhan's brothers to start kingdoms of their own. Not sure where they'd have gotten 100 kingdoms
• Karna would have started a dynasty at Anga
  
• Gandhari wouldn't have cursed Krishna, but the rishis still would have, in which case, when Dwarka got destroyed, all the Yadavas would simply have drowned. It would have been more like the end of Ayodhya after Rama's reign, when everyone took jaal samadhi. There may or may not have been a fratricide
• Duryodhan and his brothers would have probably died of boredom
  

Hey you raised good points, but I meant that Duryodhan just somehow escaped to win at the last day and did put his son on the throne, the casualties remaining the same, with only expectation that all the Pandavas died by the last day. ..

Anyhow I don't think they could have completely ignored something as important as Vastraharan and the Lakshagriha conspiracy. Yes they could have focussed on the Pandavas failing to fulfill the Agyatwaas rule yet claiming for their return

OMG while replying to all the posts I made a page all of myself I hope that's not against rule

Originally posted by: FlauntPessimism

If Vyasa was about to write history, he would have definitely done some research before penning it down.

He wouldn't have just wrote whatever he felt. Meeting the real people who would have been available in those instances. Yes I do agree there could have been some biases in the minds of the sources who might have responded to him, but still the major events could not have been avoided. For example Vyas did mention the KhandavDahan where both the protagonists of Jaya (I agree to Chiilli that the Nara and Narayan angle was added by Vaishampayan or even later, in Vyas' narration they would have been great and pious men) had been completely wrong and killers.

He could alter the inside information to suit the winner, but while writing history the facts couldn't have been altered.

So even if Duryodhan won, Vyas orb even Vaishampayan couldn't have avoided the fact that Duryodhan poisoned Bheem or planned for Lakshagriha and could have definitely not ignored the Dice hall events among others

Just wanted your views, would these be just mentioned and passed on? What justification could have come for these

That's why I asked, are we considering everything which happened as real events? I take Mahabharata as a story, I do think there's a possibility of war and characters being real but winners were protagonist

Nara-Narayan would have been added after The Geeta got its acceptance

1 We don't have Vyasa's documents, Did Vyasa Pen everything down?

2 What we read is V narrating the story to J, was he reading it or just telling him what he remembered?

3 If he was reading it to Janmejaya then Janmejaya could have cross verified from the book so we can't say there was any addition from V's side

4 If he was telling a story he remembered, is there any source where Janmejaya would have cross verified it?

5 We need to understand that poems we read today are not written by Vyasa, they contain name of Janmejaya and V, clarifying that these poems are noting down the event of storytelling not documenting events leading to war, there's huge difference, again the authenticity depends on point 2-3, we can't infer anything from the writing style because Vyasa did not write it

6 If Dury had won, why do you think that the event would have been documented/narrated to his ancestors which portray him as a villain? The story of winner is not of someone who poisoned his brother, Duryodhana was written as an antagonist

Forest burning is bad for us not for someone like Janmejaya who went on crusade against Nagas, so V wasn't telling something bad about Krishna and Arjuna, he was telling him about a common practice

If Dury had won, You have to erase everything we know because we are changing the history

"History is written by winners"

Vyasa wrote it - We don't read it

We read V telling it to grandson of winners, changing winners means changing history as you don't have any other document to cross verify

Originally posted by: FlauntPessimism

Interpolation can not be ruled out. But if we talk about the Vaishampayan narration, it was mostly that he was narrating Jaya Kavya to him, the events were all true, as I said Vyas would definitely had done his research before penning down the narration.

Definitely Vaishampayan added and gave more importance to the stuff which interested Janmayey.

For example if we start saying Mahabharata story to our next generation, they would definitely want us to start from the Kaurav Pandav birth, the events prior to it including Bheeshm's birth and Pratigya or Vichitraveerji's life might not interest them. So it's natural that those parts would be quickly passed on to come to the more important parts. AdiParva is something most of the Mahabharata narration of today wouldn't even find a mention.

But that doesn't mean that the criminal acts of someone could have been ignored. Those definitely had to be mentioned

Chilli said that Mahabharata was real because of Vyasa's writing style, please read her post, I was arguing that what we read is not Vyasa's writing style because he didn't write these poems as these poems are about event of V telling the story to Janmejaya so we can't infer the authenticity on basis of writing style

If I narrate story of Harry Potter and my narration is documented, it doesn't mean that document is JK Rowling's writing style, the writer is different

The writer is someone who wrote down the event of narration, not Vyasa

"Vyasa never does that. He is actually narrating things he saw or he heard from somebody.

His work does not show him using his imagination or creativity"

That's what Chilli wrote

"It appears that the writer is narrating things he saw or heard is because The Mahabharata we have is not work of Vyasa, it is description of a conversion between two people, these two people are part of poems.

This was my reply to it

What we are reading is not Vyasa's work, he did not write it

Mahabharata is a poem,

Vaishyampayana was reciting the poems, the verses that Vyasa had composed.

He was not reciting his own creation. He specifically says so.

A renowned Rishi will not try to pass of publicly his work as Vyasa's specially when Vyasa had also taught the same poem to three of his other students. One of whom was Vyasa's son.

Also being a poem interpolation is possible but the whole epic cannot be changed completely.

For eg... Most of you would have heard the song

Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram

Patita Pavan Sita Ram

Ishwar Allah Tero Naam

Sabko Sanmati De Bhagwan

The poem was composed by Sri Laksmanacharya

The original lyrics of the poem are

Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram

Patita Pavan Sita Ram

Sundara Vigraha Meghashyam

Ganga Tulsi Shalagram

Mahatma Gandhi interpolated the last two lines

Vyasa's work is not just an art. It is a technically bound metered poem. Words were carefully chosen and placed.

So just like in Gandhi's interpolation you can observe difference in the language as well ryhming word in the end which does not match up in the original. In Vyasa's work too, interpolations are observed. BORi researchers used this as one of the methods of finding if a particular verse was interpolated or not. But this was not the only method they used. They did word, grammar analysis, they also matched for consistency with nearly 1200 manuscripts.

If Mahabharata had not been a poem, rather a story in prose paragraphs. It would be easy to change it completely. Fortunately it wasn't. Because answering questions and cooking up a story is easy. Composing a poem is not.

Other wise everyone could be Jawed Akhtar or Gulzar

Originally posted by: NoraSM

Chilli said that Mahabharata was real because of Vyasa's writing style, please read her post, I was arguing that what we read is not Vyasa's writing style because he didn't write these poems as these poems are about event of V telling the story to Janmejaya so we can't infer the authenticity on basis of writing style

If I narrate story of Harry Potter and my narration is documented, it doesn't mean that document is JK Rowling's writing style, the writer is different

The writer is someone who wrote down the event of narration, not Vyasa

Ok got your point now.

But even if you narrate the story of Harry potter to someone you wouldn't excuse yourself from narrating the thought of the character which was mentioned by JK Rowling. If at any place Harry potter's thoughts/feelings was demonstrated/mentioned by her you would definitely narrated by you. So if no thought has been mentioned to have been mentioned by Ugrashrawa about Vaishampayan mentioning, that means even in Vyas' work no thought element was added

Originally posted by: FlauntPessimism

Ok got your point now.

But even if you narrate the story of Harry potter to someone you wouldn't excuse yourself from narrating the thought of the character which was mentioned by JK Rowling. If at any place Harry potter's thoughts/feelings was demonstrated/mentioned by her you would definitely narrated by you. So if no thought has been mentioned to have been mentioned by Ugrashrawa about Vaishampayan mentioning, that means even in Vyas' work no thought element was added

Agreed!!!

The core story will remain same, big incidents too

Your question was changing the story from Harry winning in the end to Lord V winning, winner is The Protagonist because we need happy ending or only end changes and we don't have happy ending

1 Whole story changes

2 End changes

One can cross verify Harry Potter, if I lie, like people write good things about Duryodhana in Orissa but we can cross verify it using KMG and CE

If the story was being told to Dury's child then after 1000 years to us, and the only thing we have in name of Mahabharata is this particular incident then we cannot cross verify and have to accept everything which was told to Dury's son

If Dury had won and everything he did wrong was documented as it is then Mahabharata would not have been a part of Hindu Mythology and not as popular

Janmejaya didn't cross check what was told to him to know if everything V narrated was correct or not because he wasn't reading from a book

Harry Potter was just 7 books of paragraph. Vyasa's Mahabharata was 18 books of nearly 1 lakh verses of poem

Starting from Vaishyampayana to Ugrashava to every bard later who recited it orally till it was finally written down on a script

It is impossible for someone to change the epic completely

Because Vaishyampayana narrated Mahabharata publicly and continuously over a period of several days. .Ugrashava was only one of the listeners. There were many others.

Similarly when Ugrashava recited he was addressing thousands of Rishis in Naimisha

Thousands of people had heard it by the time the first few bards recited it.

So like any other song of any substantial change is made it would immediately be noticed and criticized. Though minor changes would pass through

For eg. Take any popular classic song, and see how many cover versions exist. The cover versions have difference but not so much that the original becomes unrecognizable.

Because the selling point of these remixes and cover versions is the original song.

People only listen to it because it is a version of the original.

Eg. Song Humein Tumse Pyar Kitna... The movie itself had two versions. By now there must 100s of them. But bulk of the original lyrics and meter as well ragini has to be the same otherwise people will not consider it a version of the song. They will think it as a completely new song

Originally posted by: Chiillii

Mahabharata is a poem,

Vaishyampayana was reciting the poems, the verses that Vyasa had composed.

He was not reciting his own creation. He specifically says so.

A renowned Rishi will not try to pass of publicly his work as Vyasa's specially when Vyasa had also taught the same poem to three of his other students. One of whom was Vyasa's son.

Also being a poem interpolation is possible but the whole epic cannot be changed completely.

For eg... Most of you would have heard the song

Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram

Patita Pavan Sita Ram

Ishwar Allah Tero Naam

Sabko Sanmati De Bhagwan

The poem was composed by Sri Laksmanacharya

The original lyrics of the poem are

Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram

Patita Pavan Sita Ram

Sundara Vigraha Meghashyam

Ganga Tulsi Shalagram

Mahatma Gandhi interpolated the last two lines

Vyasa's work is not just an art. It is a technically bound metered poem. Words were carefully chosen and placed.

So just like in Gandhi's interpolation you can observe difference in the language as well ryhming word in the end which does not match up in the original. In Vyasa's work too, interpolations are observed. BORi researchers used this as one of the methods of finding if a particular verse was interpolated or not. But this was not the only method they used. They did word, grammar analysis, they also matched for consistency with nearly 1200 manuscripts.

If Mahabharata had not been a poem, rather a story in prose paragraphs. It would be easy to change it completely. Fortunately it wasn't. Because answering questions and cooking up a story is easy. Composing a poem is not.

Other wise everyone could be Jawed Akhtar or Gulzar

Well her point isn't on interpolation. It's on a different point.

Vyas had already written his Kavya by the time of Nagmedh Yagya which Vaishampayan narrated to Janmayey, Ugrashrawa having heard from him narrated to Rishi Shaunak and his associates.

The epic that we currently have is not of Vyas, but of a person who might have heard Ugrashrawa/known about him narrating the events. This is a poem about the Ugrashrawa narrating the recitation of Vyas'epic with some additional information by Vaishampayan to Janamejay. It need not have all the verses and writing styles of Vyas intact

For example if I have written a big historical account on a top politician of Today after having done my research. Nora is narrating it to HearMeRoar, may Vrish Bhai who heard this narration liked it and went to Bishti and tells her about the things that happened. You being a great poetess, either hear Vrish Bhai's narration or having come to know about it, decide to write about Vrish Bhai's narration.

Your poem would definitely have elements of my poem in that case but it wouldn't be completely my poem, nor are you under any compulsion to follow my style. Your poem would in that case be completely different from mine excluding the fact that it retains the basic premise and pointers of my story/poem

If this was completely Vyasji's poem then it wouldn't have had Ugrashrawa saying that Vyas asked Vaishampayan to narrate it to Jahmejay.

It is like a character in the movie Koi mil Gaya asking another character to tell him the story of Koi mil Gaya. That would no way be logical. However there is a possibility that after having watched Koi Mil Gaya another movie is directed where a character asks other to tell him the story of Koi mil Gaya. The second movie here isnt the work of Rajesh Roshan but it has retained the major elements of his movie

FP replied 😋