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Okay, so before i begin with this, i want to make some things clear. Firstly, i do not like the character of shakuni from the mahabharat,i mean we alll dislike him in one way or the other. I am making this post only because i was gravely disturbed, in fact irritated by the characterization of shakuni in SPK, and it has far crossed the limit.I could not bare the extent to which certain characters are being butchered in this show and one of the major ones is shakuni. My objective is only to understand and present something about the real shakuni, the gandhar naresh shakuni, pretty much as he was presented by the great Krishna Dwaipyana himself and to discuss about some lose ends and major aspects of this complex and a very much negative character. The following are just my opinions after honest analysis with whatever little knowledge i have of mahabharata, according to whatever i have read and known of him and everyone is free to have his or hers. I want some constructive and healthy discussions here and a strict no-no to bashing.
To begin with, i would like to start with the meaning of the name 'Shakuni' which essentially means a bird. Shakuni was also called Suabala that is son of king subala and gandhararaj, the king of gandhar. As it has been shown in the serial and also finds citations in some texts, shakuni was lame and had a wound on his left foot. However he was not born lame and there are two versions to the story of how he got that limp. According to the first one gandhari was a 'manglik' and so the family decided to get her married to a goat and then killed the goat before her marriage to dhirthrashtra to get rid of this shortcoming in her horoscope. When dhritrashtra came to know of this, he grew furious and he imprisoned Subala along with his 100 sons including shakuni and gave them one grain of rice each to feed on. The brothers decided to gather all the grains and feed them to shakuni who happened to be the strongest of the lot. Subala before dying either twisted shakuni's knee bone or shakuni himself created that wound so that he would forever be reminded of the revenge he intended on taking. On subala's instruction, shakuni made a pair of dice from subala's thigh bone which would obey his command and which he used to fulfill his vow of destroying the kuru lineage. Another version states shakuni's extreme hatred for bheeshma for it was because of him that his sister gandhari had to marry a blind man and therefore he took an oath to cause the destruction of all the kauravas.However, none of these stories owe their origin to the original vyasa's mahabharata and therefore are considered to be folklore or later additions.
Shakuni was a well-built strong man with a good physique. He was a good warrior too and many say he was a devotee of lord shiva. He can be labelled as vindictive, a schemer, an extremely manipulative and wicked man . It won't be wrong if we say that he was the major cause as well as the shrewd mastermind of the mahabharata war. It was him who incited his nephew against his cousins, the pandavas, always somewhere adding fuel to the fire, and in this process satisfying his own revengeful motives.The game of dice or the dyut sabha which is a turning point in the great immortal epic by vyasa has every credential in this cruel man's favour.
Okay, so this was what we all know of gandhara raj and this has already highlighted some of things wrongly shown in the serial. But now i want to go a step ahead. My post also aims at analysing the man not only by his actions but also by the head and the heart behind his so called ill-deeds.This would certainly not decrease or reduce the number or extent of his sins but it is just an attempt to comprehend him even better.
If we move on to his family, we are known that he had a son named ulooka who finds a clear mention in the epic mainly at two places. One is on the eve of the battle where he acts as a messenger to duryodhana and carries all those challenging and at the same time insulting words to the pandava camp from the kauravas. And the second mention is his killing by sahadeva, the youngest pandava. There is another son too who is called vrikasur. But he naturally did not focus his attention to his children, so engrossed was he with his sister's children.However, no where is his wife mentioned nor her name which is indeed strange.I am not very well versed on this subject but if anyone knows about this please do include that in your reply.
Now coming to the Gandhara Naresh. This is again a point where we cannot be sure of anything. You can find shakuni in hastinapura at almost every point in the epic probably. It was as if shakuni had made hastinapur his residence. And wherever duryodhana and dushasana go, shakuni seems to accompany them everywhere.So it is indeed very confusing as to how he managed his duties as the king. Do you think he was a good ruler to his people?
Shakuni in the epic as i already said can be always found with his nephew duryodhana. But then he kind of dedicated his whole life to avenge his parents and his siblings going by the common stories. So, we tend to be sceptical as to whether his love for his nephew was genuine.If all he wanted was just the destruction of kuru race, it was obvious that he used his nephew as a pawn at every point for his retaliation. He climbed up the ladder of fulfilling his ultimate vow with duryodhana and dushasana for supports. But at the same time, if we decide to stick to the mahabharata alone, this turns out to be the other way round. The love suddenly seems deep and a one where you can do anything for the one you love. In this view, shakuni was a doting uncle who could go to any lengths to see his nephew happy and ruling as the supreme emperor of aryavrat. And if this is the case, every deed of this man including lakshagrah, the game of dice, pandavas exile and the war, every thing seems to be an outcome of just blind love. So while the first view is difficult but still acceptable as the motives are clear and the ones which carry weight in the eyes of a human being, the second view looks like that of an obsessed lover and the one which in the end leads to ones own destruction. I do not know which view is true but whichever one is true, no view can justify the misdeeds of shakuni and that i can be sure of.
Again, the same thing applies to his love for his sister gandhari, which was undoubtedly heart felt. He loved her deeply and probably did everything for her but the problem was that he did not understand her or obey her.And in the process to prove his love, he destroyed her familial life, caused the death of her children and put her to great shame as a woman too.
So,on a concluding note, shakuni would always remain one of my most hated characters from the mahabharata but one thing that i still would find good in him is that he was a man true to his words. But his ill-deeds are far too many and so he met his end at the hands of sahadeva in the great war of kurukshetra, which was still a very puny punishment against the sins he had incurred in his lifetime.
Please feel free to share your views.
To begin with, i would like to start with the meaning of the name 'Shakuni' which essentially means a bird. Shakuni was also called Suabala that is son of king subala and gandhararaj, the king of gandhar. As it has been shown in the serial and also finds citations in some texts, shakuni was lame and had a wound on his left foot. However he was not born lame and there are two versions to the story of how he got that limp. According to the first one gandhari was a 'manglik' and so the family decided to get her married to a goat and then killed the goat before her marriage to dhirthrashtra to get rid of this shortcoming in her horoscope. When dhritrashtra came to know of this, he grew furious and he imprisoned Subala along with his 100 sons including shakuni and gave them one grain of rice each to feed on. The brothers decided to gather all the grains and feed them to shakuni who happened to be the strongest of the lot. Subala before dying either twisted shakuni's knee bone or shakuni himself created that wound so that he would forever be reminded of the revenge he intended on taking. On subala's instruction, shakuni made a pair of dice from subala's thigh bone which would obey his command and which he used to fulfill his vow of destroying the kuru lineage. Another version states shakuni's extreme hatred for bheeshma for it was because of him that his sister gandhari had to marry a blind man and therefore he took an oath to cause the destruction of all the kauravas.However, none of these stories owe their origin to the original vyasa's mahabharata and therefore are considered to be folklore or later additions.
Shakuni was a well-built strong man with a good physique. He was a good warrior too and many say he was a devotee of lord shiva. He can be labelled as vindictive, a schemer, an extremely manipulative and wicked man . It won't be wrong if we say that he was the major cause as well as the shrewd mastermind of the mahabharata war. It was him who incited his nephew against his cousins, the pandavas, always somewhere adding fuel to the fire, and in this process satisfying his own revengeful motives.The game of dice or the dyut sabha which is a turning point in the great immortal epic by vyasa has every credential in this cruel man's favour.
Okay, so this was what we all know of gandhara raj and this has already highlighted some of things wrongly shown in the serial. But now i want to go a step ahead. My post also aims at analysing the man not only by his actions but also by the head and the heart behind his so called ill-deeds.This would certainly not decrease or reduce the number or extent of his sins but it is just an attempt to comprehend him even better.
If we move on to his family, we are known that he had a son named ulooka who finds a clear mention in the epic mainly at two places. One is on the eve of the battle where he acts as a messenger to duryodhana and carries all those challenging and at the same time insulting words to the pandava camp from the kauravas. And the second mention is his killing by sahadeva, the youngest pandava. There is another son too who is called vrikasur. But he naturally did not focus his attention to his children, so engrossed was he with his sister's children.However, no where is his wife mentioned nor her name which is indeed strange.I am not very well versed on this subject but if anyone knows about this please do include that in your reply.
Now coming to the Gandhara Naresh. This is again a point where we cannot be sure of anything. You can find shakuni in hastinapura at almost every point in the epic probably. It was as if shakuni had made hastinapur his residence. And wherever duryodhana and dushasana go, shakuni seems to accompany them everywhere.So it is indeed very confusing as to how he managed his duties as the king. Do you think he was a good ruler to his people?
Shakuni in the epic as i already said can be always found with his nephew duryodhana. But then he kind of dedicated his whole life to avenge his parents and his siblings going by the common stories. So, we tend to be sceptical as to whether his love for his nephew was genuine.If all he wanted was just the destruction of kuru race, it was obvious that he used his nephew as a pawn at every point for his retaliation. He climbed up the ladder of fulfilling his ultimate vow with duryodhana and dushasana for supports. But at the same time, if we decide to stick to the mahabharata alone, this turns out to be the other way round. The love suddenly seems deep and a one where you can do anything for the one you love. In this view, shakuni was a doting uncle who could go to any lengths to see his nephew happy and ruling as the supreme emperor of aryavrat. And if this is the case, every deed of this man including lakshagrah, the game of dice, pandavas exile and the war, every thing seems to be an outcome of just blind love. So while the first view is difficult but still acceptable as the motives are clear and the ones which carry weight in the eyes of a human being, the second view looks like that of an obsessed lover and the one which in the end leads to ones own destruction. I do not know which view is true but whichever one is true, no view can justify the misdeeds of shakuni and that i can be sure of.
Again, the same thing applies to his love for his sister gandhari, which was undoubtedly heart felt. He loved her deeply and probably did everything for her but the problem was that he did not understand her or obey her.And in the process to prove his love, he destroyed her familial life, caused the death of her children and put her to great shame as a woman too.
So,on a concluding note, shakuni would always remain one of my most hated characters from the mahabharata but one thing that i still would find good in him is that he was a man true to his words. But his ill-deeds are far too many and so he met his end at the hands of sahadeva in the great war of kurukshetra, which was still a very puny punishment against the sins he had incurred in his lifetime.
Please feel free to share your views.
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