Saif : " we will justify abduction of Sita and war with ram" - Page 9

Originally posted by: .Lonewalker.

Yudhishthira & Duryodhana are hardly analogous to Harry Potter & Voldemort.P Pandavas& Kouravs collectively yes, but not just them.

And Nara - Narayana is not just interpretation. There's clear mentions about Arjuna being Nara & Krishna being Nara Narayana.

Krishna himself had explained to Arjuna about this in Vana Parva

You are mine and I am yours. All that is mine is yours too. He who hates you also hates me. He who follows you also follows me. O invincible one! You are Nara and I am Hari Narayana. We are the rishis Nara and Narayana, born from that world in this world. O Partha! O descendant of the Bharata lineage! You are no other than I. I am no other than you. O bull among the Bharata lineage! No one can know any difference that exists between us.”

Even Vyasa himself, Bhisma, Parashuram & Lord Shiva have mentioned this. It is not any "interpretation".

1. I don't believe in avatars.

2. Even if I did, it doesn't matter.

The terms protagonist and hero come from Greek plays. Protagonist is the main character while heroes are human who may be semi-divine.

Arjuna and Krishna are considered heroes, but the protag of MBh - the one who makes the key decisions and drives the plot - is Yudhishtira.

FYI. Krishna also threw plenty of insults at Arjuna during war.

Originally posted by: .Lonewalker.

You very probably do not see Mahabharata the same way as me if you think Subhadra's marriage was not of any importance or Arjuna simply "gets to be Nara" to his descendant. 😆

So of course our opinions differ. It's okay. Peace. This thread is not the place to continue this argument anyway.

I have seen people going Karna vs Arjuna all the time....& my belief has always been it was the Krishna - Arjuna duo. The Nara - Narayana pair. And I still stand firm on it. This argument about Yudhishthira was a new experience to me.

How did subdhara s marriage effected anything ?? Apart from gaining ip s alliance for Dwarka had subdhara not married Arjuna or had she married either nakul or sahadeva things still would have been gone the Same all the major events would have happened. Had panchali not married Pandavas then the story drastically changed but not subdhara

And mb text itself had many instances where janemya specifically wamts to know only about arjuna ofcourse his grandfather gets to play nar

You might not dislike yudi but i certainly do still he was the protagonist it is his birth that led to chain of events. That ultimately culminated into the great war.

Originally posted by: .Lonewalker.

You very probably do not see Mahabharata the same way as me if you think Subhadra's marriage was not of any importance or Arjuna simply "gets to be Nara" to his descendant. 😆

So of course our opinions differ. It's okay. Peace. This thread is not the place to continue this argument anyway.

I have seen people going Karna vs Arjuna all the time....& my belief has always been it was the Krishna - Arjuna duo. The Nara - Narayana pair. And I still stand firm on it. This argument about Yudhishthira was a new experience to me.

If you're interested in going beyond IF arguments, you could join the epic discussion groups on FB. Any serious student of MBh will tell you the same.

Trust me, I detest the character. But he is the protag.

Heck, the original form of Mahabharata is called Jaya which was the name Pandavas used to call Yudhishtira during incognito stay. How much clearer can it be that it is his story?

Errmmmm let it be. I did not intend to start an argument....and I still believe in my opinion. It's not gonna change. Let's not continue an out of the topic discussion in this thread.

I have read the Bibek Debroy's translation of the BORI Compilation myself & I see Mahabharata as Shri Krishna's grand scheme of eradicating Adharma & establishing Dharma and Krishna - Arjuna being Nara Narayana & MB being their joint mission is not just someone's interpretation. There are several mentions in the epic from different persons. From the mouth of Vyasa himself & also Lord Shiva as well. Shrugging it off saying it's just a ploy to make Arjuna look greater to his great grandson doesn't sit well with me because that way then you can question the whole narration & ultimately you can cherry pick between what to accept & what to not.

As for Subhadra's marriage, yes, it does have its importance. In the sense that ultimately it helped putting someone with Yadava blood on the throne. Something, which Shri Krishna was ultimately aiming for. Mahabharata didn't start merely with Bhisma's vow. It started since Puru was given the throne in place of Yadu. Krishna seeked to correct that. Kunti herself was a Yadava & hence all her biological sons were half Yadavas. Shri Krishna planned for a union between Subhadra & one of the Kunti's sons because Krishna knew from before, or dare I say, planned to make the off spring from that marriage sit on throne. That's why I feel if Yudhishthira really held that much importance in Krishna's grand plan, he would have aimed for Subhadra - Yudhishthira marriage, not Subhadra - Arjuna's. Ultimately it made Parikshit the King, who was Arjuna's grandson. Not Yudhishthira's. After the slaughter of the Upa Pandavas, Yudhishthira's bloodline died off, while Arjuna's survived through Abhimanyu's unborn son. And Abhimanyu was Subhadra's son, not Panchali's.

Mahabharata is very complex & it can be interpreted in many ways. It's not a simple black & white war between Yudhishthira & Duryodhana for inheritance. I like to see it as Shri Krishna's grand scheme as that shows his intellectual, shrewd self & proves what an enigma he was.

Anyway. It's going seriously off topic here. I did not know a single comparison between the fictional representation of Karna & Ravana will lead to this 😆

Wait if we are considering parikshit as a yadava descendent then kunti was too and by stretch so was yudi so there you have a yadava progeny on the throne no need for subdhara Arjuna marriage plus when subdhara married Arjuna there was no way to know that they will have a child or the child will turn out be a son or that son will marry and have a child etc etc

And if we are assuming that Krishna deliberately aimed for it then we will also have to consider that krishna had some role to play in murder of draupadi s babies as she was empress and there was no way any of subdhara s son would have been considered before yudi drau. Which i refuse to believe i refuse Krishna had anything to with that cold blooded murder

Plus if krishna would have really aimed for yadava dominance he would definitely have aimed for subdhara yudi s marriage.why go for a mere third brother there was no way any of Arjuna s child to get the throne when he already had two elder brothers The fact that it did not happen itself proves this yadava dominance theory null and void

Subdhara s marriage was no important at all apart gaining alliance for Dwarka.

Originally posted by: HearMeRoar

If the question is serious and not sarcasm, here is a simplified version:

Mahabharata (MBh) was handed orally from generation to generation, as were Ramayana, vedas, puranas, etc.

Even the oral version was not authentic Vyasa version because Vyasa dictated the poem (with all its hyperbole and metaphors) to 4 people - including his son and disciples.

Out of the versions, what we have in complete form is only the Suka version. Parts of Jaimini version are also around.

Suka version was narrated by Ugrasravas Sauti to the rishis in the forest at their conclave.

So what we have is actually narration (Ugrasravas Sauti) of a narration (Suka) of a narration (Vyasa) of events the purported chronicler was only partial witness to.

From there, it continued in its oral transmission mode until about the Gupta age when it began to recorded in written form.

By this time, it had altered considerably. How do we know this? Because the written versions discovered have been in Panini Sanskrit. He lived between 6th and 4th century BCE, a few centuries after Iron Age when MBh would've happened.

Things continued to change. How do we know this? Because mentions of MBh in texts of the time show us a diff picture. For ex, Arthashastra (Chanakya, 3rd C CE) mentions Vyasa being attacked by Yadavas, something not seen in canon MBh.

Regional versions abounded. In an attempt to make some sense of it all, BORI collected manuscripts from all over north India. Of the 1600 plus manuscripts collected, the Kashmiri version (Sharda script) and Nepali versions were considered the most authentic because there was less historic evidence of invaders inserting their point of view into the story. One version that was not included was Razm Nama, the version ordered into creation by Akbar. Which is a pity, IMO, as it might've shown us which interpolations came after.

Southern recension has its own critical edition. There are non Indian versions as well which were not included - Indonesian and Persian. The oldest existing manuscript was found in China (Spitzer manuscript).

The northern recension CE - ie, the BORI CE - was curated after study of 1600+ manuscripts. Their method of study has been well documented in a Prologmena. If you're interested, here is the link:

http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil_elib/Suk933__Sukthankar_ProlegomenaMBh1.pdf

So you're absolutely right in saying we don't have an *authentic* version.

But when out of 1600+ versions, the sexual assault on a woman (on more than one, actually) is documented, when some famous verses like "suthaputra" comment (in all but 4) and "andhe ka putra" comment (in 100% of the manuscripts) are missing, chances are those were interpolations FROM THE TIME MBH BEGAN TO BE DOCUMENTED.

Then, there is the matter of linguistic analysis. Panini Sanskrit also continued to evolve as language does. verses seen in newer lingo is appropriately considered likely interpolation.

The literature itself has been analyzed by multiple scholars and non-scholars. Take the Bhagavad Gita. Iravati Karwe opined that only first 4 chapters are authentic. Why? Because that part actually sounds like a conversation between friends while the rest is clearly a discourse between God and devotee.

So even without an authentic Vyasa version, MBh text has been studied to a great extent to dismiss some things as interpolation.

That being said, my peeve is not with prior interpolations. They're done. Also, interpolations do have their value. 3-fold actually, in showing the changes in Indian civilization. 1) Literary evolution 2) Linguistic evolution 3) Sociopolitical evolution.

I'm upset about what message these shows are conveying. Let's face it: India is a movie-mad country. Our actors are called heroes.

When a powerful woman is sexually assaulted deliberately to rip away her power, it is still assault. When a supposedly lower caste person (Karna was a suta, not a shudra or lower caste; Eklavya was a Yadava and Krishna's 1st cousin to boot, Ravan was a brahmana) does something inexcusable such as wanton murder or sexual assault, it is highly irresponsible to find reasons to blame the victim.

When a popular actor justifies such unconscionable conduct, the mango people buy it. The production houses know this, too. They still go ahead and do it because they know it will make them 2 extra bucks.

So a Karna (known as suta - son of a brahmana father and kshatriya mother) becomes rejected by an upper caste Panchali whose sexual assault is then justified on screen. A Sita becomes the victim in a tussle between men, but this gets justified in the hearts of the masses. An Eklavya (a Yadava adopted by a Nishada KING) can steal military secrets from Hastinapuri and his minimal punishment (current nations usually hand out capital punishment to spies) becomes a crime against humanity.

Somehow, the female characters (Panchali, Kunti) are usually at the receiving end of such interpolations, and the rapists/kidnappers/tyrants (Karna, Ravana) are the ones who get whitewashed. Even when non-villains are involved, women get the short end of the stick.

1. In the critical edition of MBh, KRISHNA is one of the people who laugh at Suyodhana for falling into the pool. Somehow, Panchali gets the blame. The sentence 'andhe ka putra" is not there in canon text in any version. It started in a 20th century play, IIRC where, again, male Krishna says it. Once again, blame transfers to female Krishna.

2. Canon text says Panchali rescued herself in dice hall. Modern interps show Krishna sending a sari from above.

3. Pandu is said to have raped Madri before he died. But shows portray her seducing him to his death.

4. Surya rapes Kunti in Vyasa's words (as we know it); this gets changed to a magic baby.

5. Balram rapes Yamuna... so on and so forth.

Anyway, I've said more than I intended to. The prologmena is a good read if you're interested in such things.

Eklavya did not steal any secrets. What happened to him was a caste crime, as simple as that. No need to whitewash it.

Kunti was a yadava woman but her children were only Half Yadava. Half Kunti + Half the Devas (Or Niyaga Rishis) who fathered them. So yes, Yudhistira, Bheema & Arjuna were half Yadavs. Get one of these married to a Yadava woman & the children born from that marriage will have dominant Yadava blood. Seeing how ultimately Parikshit, Subhadra's grandson became the heir to the throne & with that the whole Yadu - Puru debacle came to a full circle, she had definitely a very important role to play in the overall scheme of events. She was not a mere side character.
And who says Krishna did not know anything beforehand? I am a believer of divine interventions & I believe Krishna was the divine Deity on earth. Of course he knew everything beforehand. And not only knew, but played active parts in shaping up the destiny the way it did. He did not actively "murder" anyone, but he could definitely stop some of the unfortunate events if he wished to, like he stopped Parikshit from dying in Uttara's womb. But he refrained from doing so frequently because that would sabotage his overall plan. He intervened only in such events which needed his intervention. This might look very cruel to us now, but he simply saw it as something that's needed to be done. To achieve the righteous goal, it's okay to perform some unrighteous acts if the need of so arise. And on the way to achieve the righteous goal, nothing should stop you, not even relations. Wasn't this his beliefs?
And since I am a believer of the divine interventions, I believe in Arjuna Krishna being the Nara - Narayan pair. If I remember correctly, Vyasa himself, Parshuram & even Lord Shiva vouched for it. Even Bhisma knew about it. I would have let it go as a myth had it been removed from the BORI edition, but BORI retained this part. Krishna - Arjuna being Narayana - Nara is an integral part of the story. It's not simply anyone's interpretation, unless you start to question the text itself.
This also explains why Arjuna lost his skills & prowess post Krishna's demise. In the Moushala parva, while protecting the Yadava women, he could not even string the Gandiva properly. That's because his other half had already left & his purpose on this earth was also fulfilled. Vyasa himself explained so.

None of my above arguments is my brainchild. There are people, a good chunk of them, including quite a few scholars who have studied Mahabharata believe in them. I simply agree with them because that made sense to me.
I am sure there are other groups whose beliefs differ from the one I believe in and that is okay. We can agree to disagree.
But you should not brand something, specially those things which are mentioned in the scripture, as fake or certify that your beliefs is the ultimate truth. If you question the narrator himself, then what's the point of discussing his narration anyway?

Originally posted by: HearMeRoar

1. I don't believe in avatars.

2. Even if I did, it doesn't matter.

The terms protagonist and hero come from Greek plays. Protagonist is the main character while heroes are human who may be semi-divine.

Arjuna and Krishna are considered heroes, but the protag of MBh - the one who makes the key decisions and drives the plot - is Yudhishtira.

FYI. Krishna also threw plenty of insults at Arjuna during war.

@Bold : Well... I do 😆 I am a firm believer of the Divine interventions & Avatars. So it's obvious your & my opinions will differ. That's okay.

@Italic : Well...if you separate the technicalities of the terms "protagonist" & "hero" like that, then maybe you are right. But even then, to me the Pandavas collectively (at least the first 3) along with Shri Krishna are the Protagonists. If you take away Krishna & Arjuna even then the story will stand still. Draupadi's swayamvar will be a totally pointless exercise as no one will win there....without Krishna - Arjuna & the divine interventions, parts like the Khandava Dahana, Arjuna visiting Indralok & collecting weapons, Arjuna's exile & the marriage with Subhadra etc wouldn't have taken place. Kurukshetra wouldn't have been the same without the Krishna - Arjuna duo. The outcome will be very different. Krishna & his grand schemes are the main driving force of Mahabharata. Honestly Yudhistira rarely took key decisions himself. It was mostly Krishna's decisions & Yudhistira agreeing to it. Even if you do not wish to give Arjuna the status of Protagonist, you cannot exclude Krishna. Without Krishna there wouldn't have been any Mahabharat & Yudhistira would have just spent his whole life in exile.

@ Red : I am fully aware of that 😆 By quoting that I didn't mean that this sole dialogue proves my point. I posted that because that was from Krishna himself. But that's not the sole mention of Arjuna being Nara. Lord Shiva, Parashurama & even Vyasa himself said so. Even Bhisma knew it. One or 2 statements can be ignored. Not all these. Especially the ones coming from Vyasa.

Then Parashara’s son spoke to Yudhishthira alone and that eloquent of speakers told him words of grave import. “O supreme among those of the Bharata lineage! The time for you to regain your fortune will come. Partha Dhananjaya will overcome the enemies in battle. Accept from me this knowledge known as pratismriti, as I recount it to you. It is success personified. On receiving it from you, the mighty-armed Arjuna will be successful. O Pandava! For the sake of weapons, he must go to the great Indra, Rudra, Varuna, the lord of riches and Dharmaraja. Because of his austerities and valour, he has the power to see the gods. He is an immensely energetic rishi. He is the ancient, eternal and everlasting god who is Narayana’s companion and a part of Vishnu. When he has obtained weapons from Indra, Rudra and the Lokapalas, the mighty-armed one will perform great deeds……”

• Source - Section Thirty Seven : Markandeya Samasya Parva (Vivek Debroy's translation)

No one knows the MB characters better than Vyasa. If we are questioning him, then there's no point in reading & discussing Mahabharata itself.

i am sorry what?? righteous letting a group children getting murdered is not righteous its a crime i love krishna and i also beilieved he is divine but to accept that he let cold blooded murder happen because he had some ulterior motive of his clan s dominance is far fetched because that makes him look demon not a god i am sorry krishna was not a demon he was good god and a good human being there is nothing in the entire text that suggest that krishna was aiming for yadava dominance that just s theory and i find it bullcrap

Originally posted by: Krishnapanchali

i am sorry what?? righteous letting a group children getting murdered is not righteous its a crime i love krishna and i also beilieved he is divine but to accept that he let cold blooded murder happen because he had some ulterior motive of his clan s dominance is far fetched because that makes him look demon not a god i am sorry krishna was not a demon he was good god and a good human being there is nothing in the entire text that suggest that krishna was aiming for yadava dominance that just s theory and i find it bullcrap

Umm...Upa Pandavas were not children. They were all born well before the 13 years exile & were more or less in the similar age group as Abhimanyu. All of them participated in the War, which implies they were capable warriors by the time the war happened.

I did not say Krishna actively murdered them or plotted their murder. That was destiny unfolding into what it's meant to be. Krishna simply did not intervene. There are difference between the two. He made sure to punish Asshwatthama for this heinous crime. But him being the deity, he could have stopped it if he wished that. Gandhari cursed him stating the same & Krishna accepted her curse with grace.

@Bold : Good & bad are subjective terms. What looks unrighteous to you, might look righteous to someone else. Didn't Duryodhana complain that they were defeated unrighteously & Pandavas were the evil gang? From his pov he was not wrong. All the Kaurava Maharathis were killed through tricky measures & Duryodhana himself was brought down unrighteously. But we don't find these unrighteous because it helped achieve the greater good. Handling something of this level & yet being goody 2 shoes is not possible simultaneously. Krishna in no way will be "demon God" in the Yadava bloodline ruling theory because Krishna did not seek to put Yadava blood on the throne simply to make "his clan" dominant. It was not for his personal pleasure. Personal agenda, personal pleasure....or putting your own before others....Krishna was above of all these mortal stuffs. His only aim was to right a wrong that happened long ago. Yayati cursing Yadu & putting Puru on throne was unfair & that's how it all started. By putting Parikshit on throne, Krishna seeked to correct that. He did not do it for any personal satisfaction.

Your opinion might differ, but that necessarily does not nullify this explanation of the course of events. Different opinions can exist. Nothing is the ultimate truth.