Shivji in Mahabharat - Page 3

Thanks, was not aware about this. This is a very less known fact.

hello everyone, I am a new member here and I am very fond of Parth and Madhav, I don't know why I like them but yes I do.

I must say there are a few things about the Epic about which I was unaware and I am still unaware about so many things, so looking ahead to learn new things.

Thanks for tagging me here.

Welcome. Good to see new members participating here.

Originally posted by: devashree_h

Welcome. Good to see new members participating here.

Thank you so much

Actually, I wanted to participate, but I thought that all the forums might have been locked. First, I visited the Mahabharat forum, and there, almost all the topics were locked as well. Then, I went to the Dharam Kshetra thread, and I wasn't sure whether it was locked or not, I wasn't sure if I was too late . However, I came across an active topic on the Mahabharat forum and decided to post something. I created a separate topic and asked if anyone liked Parth Madhav. Trust me, after posting, I forgot about it because I thought no one would reply. But yesterday, I noticed that the topic suddenly appeared, so I clicked on it. To my surprise, @BrhannadaArmour had replied. I got really excited, and the rest is history. And now, here I am.

Originally posted by: IWasHareeshFan

Thank you so much

Actually, I wanted to participate, but I thought that all the forums might have been locked. First, I visited the Mahabharat forum, and there, almost all the topics were locked as well. Then, I went to the Dharam Kshetra thread, and I wasn't sure whether it was locked or not, I wasn't sure if I was too late . However, I came across an active topic on the Mahabharat forum and decided to post something. I created a separate topic and asked if anyone liked Parth Madhav. Trust me, after posting, I forgot about it because I thought no one would reply. But yesterday, I noticed that the topic suddenly appeared, so I clicked on it. To my surprise, @BrhannadaArmour had replied. I got really excited, and the rest is history. And now, here I am.

That forum was related to the show. So, normally forums get locked after show ends.

This is a private forum created for discussing everything related to Mahabharat.

And yes, I like Parth and Madhav.

OK so as this topic is related to Shiv Jee so I had a question

When Lord Shiv granted Gandhari the boon of having 100 sons, was he literally meaning that she would give birth to 100 children? Or did his words have a different meaning, perhaps related to the lump of flesh? or he meant something deeper?

Originally posted by: devashree_h

That forum was related to the show. So, normally forums get locked after show ends.

This is a private forum created for discussing everything related to Mahabharat.

And yes, I like Parth and Madhav.

Yes, I know, I have read your posts on various threads

Yes, I'm over-analyzing a work of fiction.

Before I stop, let's look at the list of names of Dhṛtarāṣṭra's sons, which is supposed to be according to jyeṣṭh'ānujyeṣṭhatā ... ānupūrvyeṇa - birth seniority in chronological order (Ādiparvan 108.1). The list begins with Duryodhana, Yuyutsu, Duḥśāsana ... So, although Duḥśāsana functioned as next in line of succession to Duryodhana (Āraṇyakaparvan 238.21-22), the actual secondborn son was Yuyutsu, a karaṇa child conceived by a vaiśyā who attended Dhṛtarāṣṭra while Gāndhārī's pregnancy dragged on for an extra year.

This detail raises the question, if Gāndhārī hadn't aborted her pregnancy, would all of her hundred sons have been born before Yuyutsu? Or, did the abortion in response to Yudhiṣṭhira being born first ensure that Duryodhana was born before Yuyutsu?

The three cousins' or half-brothers' names, all derived from the same dhātu - root, which is yudh - battle, suggest that we should consider them as a set: Yudhiṣṭhira - firm in battle; Duryodhana - difficult to battle; Yuyutsu - ready for battle. Whoever named Yuyutsu expected warlike behaviour from him, like a kṣatriya, despite his mother being a vaiśyā. Yuyutsu was undefeated by kings who fought with him for six months at Vāraṇāvata, according to Dhṛtarāṣṭra (Droṇaparvan 9.54-55). Just before the war began, Yuyutsu the mahāratha defected from Duryodhana to Yudhiṣṭhira (Bhīṣmaparvan 41.90-95). On the twelfth day of war, Yuyutsu cut off the arms of his brother Subāhu in battle (Droṇaparvan 24.13-14), presumably preventing Bhīma's fulfilment of his vow to kill all one hundred sons of Gāndhārī. Yuyutsu was defeated by Gāndhārī's nephew Ulūka on the sixteenth day of war (Karṇaparvan 18.1-11). Yudhiṣṭhira ultimately bequeathed the entire kingdom to Yuyutsu the vaiśyā's son (rājyaṃ paridadau sarvaṃ vaiśyā-putre Yudhiṣṭhiraḥ; Mahāprasthānikaparvan 1.6), twenty-one years after expressing his wish to do so so that Dhṛtarāṣṭra wouldn't retire to the forest (Āśramavāsikaparvan 6.7).

If Duryodhana had been born after Yuyutsu, would the cousins' competition for the kingdom have been averted entirely?

The list of Dhṛtarāṣṭra's sons ends with Kuṇḍāśin - pit-eater and Virajas - free of dust, names that suggest that the penultimate son took his time to absorb all of the clarified butter in his pit, and the youngest son absorbed every last particle so that nothing was stuck to him by the time he was born.

Many other characters in Mahābhārata are said to have a hundred sons, to the point that Nārada counts these among the royals attending Yama's assembly (Sabhāparvan 8.21-22):

śataṃ Matsyā nṛpatayaḥ śataṃ Nīpāḥ śataṃ Hayāḥ

Dhṛtarāṣṭrāś c'aika-śatam aśītir Janamejayāḥ

śataṃ ca Brahmadattānām Īriṇāṃ vairiṇāṃ śatam

A hundred Matsyas, leaders of men, a hundred Nīpas, a hundred Hayas, and one-and-a-hundred Dhṛtarāṣṭras, eighty Janamejayas, and a hundred of Brahmadattas, a hundred of feuding Īris.

It was customary to refer to a paternal uncle as one's father, and to nephews as sons. Thus, a king who led a hundred princes of his clan could be said to have a hundred sons. Yet we find literal explanations of how a king himself begot a hundred sons: "Hehaya had a hundred renowned, brave, undeterred sons from ten women" (Anuśāsanaparvan 31.8) or "in ten months, a hundred sons were born to Somaka from all those women" (Āraṇyakaparvan 128.6). The same urge to explain literally how one woman could have a hundred sons led to the imaginative story of Gāndhārī's childbirth.

so has any women in history (in Mahabharat history) given birth to 100 children through the natural process?