Posted:
@Rasyafan,
Agree with what you said!
@whitewitch & SayaneeH.Lecter,
I can agree to disagree with you guys, because for me it is impossible to take out the spiritual elements of Mahabharat or Ramayan. They are in each and every pore of the story, and yes, in my belief the essence is lost if we try to dissect the story without taking into consideration the religious aspects, especially since Lord Krishna was much more "divine" in his incarnation than Lord Ram was. Perhaps we can analyze Ramayan without thinking of divinity, because Ram always behaved like a human, but Lord Krishna was very much divine. Every action of his was divine. To take away divinity from an epic like the Mahabharat is to disregard a very important portion of it. How can one explain the divine births of the Pandavas? If we take away the spiritual element, then it looks like Kunti slept with four different men to have sons (including Surya), which greatly diminishes her character. On the other hand, when we take into consideration the spiritual elements of the story, we understand that the conception of the Pandavas was very different from the conception of other human beings. Kunti did not have sexual intercourse with the Gods. She conceived a portion of their radiance and gave birth to a son that was a part of them. The character of Kunti is very different when we see her through divine lens versus a very basic human lens.
Think of the Virgin Mary from Christianity. Christians believe that she conceived Jesus Christ without have sexual intercourse with God. If we try to analyze the bible taking away its spiritual element, it seems impossible that a woman could become pregnant that way, whereas if we see it through a spiritual lens, it makes sense and glorifies her character.
According to the Bhagavata Purana, one of the most revered scriptures of Hinduism, Krishna and Arjuna were the incarnations of Nara and Narayana, both of which are aspects of Vishnu. According to the Bhagavata Purana, Nara Narayana were two sages who were born to kill the demon Sahasrakavacha. However, this demon eluded them and was reborn as Karna, so Nara Narayana re-incarnated as Krishna and Arjuna to kill Sahasrakavacha.
If one is a staunch follower of the Bhagavata Purana and believes in this story, then it makes sense to them why Karna had to die at the hands of Arjuna despite being his eldest brother. Otherwise, the story of Karna is quite sad since he became an enemy of his own brothers and died at their hands. My basic point is that the spiritual essence of our puranas puts a lot of stories in perspective. When we think simply with our human mind, we find faults with the characters and put blame here or there. We treat it like any other storybook in which one character is our favorite and another one we hate. We put blame even on God, which is quite laughable since God is blameless. When we come to a point where we find guilt with God (or his incarnations), that means we are making him Earthly, because only Earthly beings can make mistakes. How then can we claim ourselves to be close to him?
Anyway, I'm not disrespecting your beliefs or anything, but this is what I believe. For me, the spiritual essense of our puranas is what makes them more special and symbolic than other epics. The moral of the story is completely lost if we take away the spiritual essence from it.
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