mahabharat

Episode 71 - Vyasa finishes his comforting storytelling, and then vanishes, leaving it up to Yuddistira to deal with breaking the news to Arjun that his son is dead.  Arjun comes home expecting a party, only to find the camp in mourning over the loss of his son.  He responds by swearing to kill Jayadratha by sunset tomorrow.

The Kauravas find out about his oath and hastily make plans to keep the prince safe long enough for Arjun's vow to fail.  That is all it will take to get the Pandava out of the war!

Now Arjun is a bit worried, but still he's got Krishna to help out.  Even though the oath was sworn without Krishna's advice, he arranges a meeting with Shiva.  Shiva provides a magic missile that should take care of everything.  Arjun still has a long row to hoe-- we'll see how it works out tomorrow!

Episode 70 - Drona has been in charge now for two days, and so far he has failed in his mission to capture Yuddistira.  This despite the fact that they have sacrificed a whole nation of warriors just to keep Arjun away long enough for them to grab his brother.  The Trigartas are nearly all dead so they need to come up with a new idea.  This time, Drona implements a fancy new formation, based on a wheel, which few know how to break.

It turns out that Abhimanyu is one of those who know its secrets.  But with Arjun busy, he is the only one.  Helpless to protect himself and his followers any other way, Yuddistira sends the boy wonder into the jaws of death.  Even then, they could have protected the boy, except they were stopped by old Jayadratha of Sindh.

Remember this guy?  He's actually related in marriage to Duryodhana-- he married Duryodhana's sister.  But one wife wasn't good enough for him, and he stupidly tried to run off with Draupadi, without first defeating the Pandavas.  He paid the price of humiliation for his impudence: he was beaten severely and had his head shaved by an arrow head by Bhimasena.  Too humiliated to return home, Jayadratha remained in the woods, praying to Shiva.  When he finally coaxed Shiva to grant him a wish, he asked for the ability to kill all five Pandavas!

This was a bit too much even for Shiva. The best he could do was grant him the ability to stop the Pandavas briefly, but not Arjun.  Obviously, now was a perfect moment to use this boon, so Jayadratha rode out to forstall the Pandavas, while Drona, Krpa, Karna & Ashvatthaman ganged up on young Abhimanyu and killed him in an ambush.  It was Dushasan's son, Daushasani, who dealt the death blow.

What is Arjun going to say when he finds out they let his son get killed?!?

Episode 69 - Bhisma is out of commission, and his book is nearly over.  In one last scene, Karna comes to meet his fallen nemesis.  Bhisma is quite affectionate toward his prodigal nephew, and he tells him that he was only pretending to be antagonistic.  He really didn't mean it, he just wanted to discourage Karna from enabling Duryodhana's evil ways.

Bhisma begs Karna to forget his grievances and to join with his brothers and end the war this moment.  But Karna is too far gone.  He owes Duryodhana too much, and he has nursed his grievances for far too long to ever reconcile with the Pandavas.  It is better that he exit this world in the most honorable manner possible-- on the field of battle, at the loving hands of his famous brother, Arjuna.

This scene ends the Bhisma Parva, and we pick up the story the next morning, in the Drona Parva.  Drona is made commander of the Kaurava army, and their strategy is to kidnap Yuddistira.  If they get him, then they could force him to gamble and send the Pandavas back to the forest.  But Arjun presents a major problem with this plan.

After one fruitless day of battle, the Kauravas decide to distract Arjun with a suicide squad.  The entire army of the Trigartas volunteer to go to their deaths in order to keep Arjun away from protecting his brother.  On day 12, they almost pull it off, sacrificing the lives of one half their numbers, but Arjuna is too much for them, and he breaks away just when it seemed Yuddistira would be taken.

Now, at the end of day 12, there is still another half of the suicidal Trigartas, so a final attempt will be made on grabbing Yuddistira on day 13.  13 is an unlucky number, and someone will have to pay for Yuddistira's freedom!

Episode 68 - I know it feels like this war is really dragging on; but I think that is precisely how Vyasa wanted us to feel by this point in the battle.  We are all getting tired of the unending violence.  Even the main cause of all the violence, Bhisma, is getting tired of this, and he has begun looking for a way out.

On day 9, the old Kuru apparently relieved himself of the last of his commitments, which was to wipe out the army of the Saumakas.  Now the only thing left for him to do was to find the most noble way to meet his death.  On the evening of the ninth day, the Pandavas visit their grand-uncle in his tent and walk away with the old man's permission and even blessing to kill him on the tenth day.

So this is it-- Arjun is finally committed to this action, and Sikhandin is put at the head of the attack.  By the time they are done, Bhisma is literally a human pincushion.  He is impaled by so many arrows that his body does not touch the ground when he finally falls.

Arjun kindly provides a pillow of arrows and a nice little drinking fountain, so Bhisma may wait until the seasons change and the sun finally resumes its northward course in the heavens.  Until then, he's content to hang out on his prickly bed and watch the action from the sidelines.

Episode 67 - On the previous day, Duryodhana was quickly losing faith with his uncle.  He began to suspect that Bhisma was throwing the contest in favor of the Pandavas.  Karna didn't help any when he offered to take charge in place of the old man.  So Duryodhana asked the old man to either fulfill his oaths or get out of the game.  Now today, on the 9th day, Bhisma sets out to finish off his Dharma so he could move on to the next phase in his life.

On the battlefield, he kills hundreds of thousands, including the entire nation of the Saumakas.  Bhisma takes out a large chunk of the Pandava army.  If he keeps this up another day or two, there will be no one left to fight on the Pandavas' side.

So that night, after the battle, they go unarmed to Bhisma's tent and ask him what they should do about this and how they should win the war.  Of course, they've known what they needed to do all along, but it's nice to have Bhisma tell you himself and to even give his blessing!  We'll see tomorrow if Arjun finally carries through with his duty...

Episode 66 - The seventh and eighth days of the War.  Bhisma kills a few more Dhartarastras, king Virata loses another son, and we meet Arjun's son Iravat, a Naga prince from Arjun's tour of the holy places, long long ago.

We meet Iravat only to see him killed by the demon Alambusha.  Alambusha is also the son of a famous father-- none other than the peculiar half-deer Rshyashrnga!  In the story we get from the epic, Rshyashrnga's son is the child of a Kshatriya princess, and becomes Raja of the kingdom.  We are not told where or on whom he begot this demon!

Arjun and Bhisma seem ready to get down and fight, but it never seems to happen.  Maybe on day 9?  Duryodhana is quickly losing faith in his general, and Karna is making trouble on the sidelines, so he'd better do something big on day 9...

Episode 65 - The fifth and sixth days of the great war.  Arjun wipes out an army of 25,000, and we find out Satyaki has 10 fully grown sons.  Soon after we learn about these sons, they get decapitated by King Bhurishravas.  In return, Satyaki kills off the king's entire army, but the pair are too well-matched and both must be dragged off of the battlefield after sunset.

Bhima can't resist an opportunity to kill more cousins, but risks getting himself killed or captured behind enemy lines.  Dhrstadyumna rescues him, only to require rescuing by Abhimanyu.

Episode 64 - The third and fourth days of the great war.  It seems like the tide may be turning somewhat, since both days of fighting were dominated by Arjun and Bhimasena.  Despite having the honor of receiving Krishna's teaching firsthand, Arjun still seems to be holding back somewhat.  His lassitude gets so bad that Krishna finally gets annoyed with him, and takes matters in his own hands.

Contrary to the way I've always heard the story told, Krishna does not take any consideration for his oath not to fight, and does not use a chariot wheel as his weapon.  Instead, he just pulls out his Sudarshana Chakra, and sets out to destroy the Kauravas in one blow.

Arjun does not explain why this cannot happen.  He just dives for his friend and tries to tackle him before any damage could be done.  Meanwhile, Bhisma is waiting with open arms to receive his lord.

Having made his point, Krishna puts out his frisbee and takes up the reins again.  Arjun promises to do better next time.  But it still seems like he's holding back!

Aside from that drama, many heroic feats are performed, especially by Abhimanyu & friends.  Also, Bhima gets to make a big showing, fighting off the combined Kaurava forces almost single-handedly, and to top it off, he gets his hands on 14 of his odious cousins and sends them straight to Yama for safekeeping!

Episode 63 - The second day of battle comes and goes.  If the first day went to the Kauravas, the 2nd day certainly belonged to the Pandavas.  The day ends with Bhimasena and Arjun dominating the field, and the Kaurava soldiers crapping their pants.  The cream of Kalinga manhood has been exterminated on the field, and even their enemies are forced to admire the way the two brothers cleared the field of all comers.

Lots more people died, but so far, not much has been accomplished.  Maybe day 3 will go better?  I doubt it!

Episode 62 - Let's admit it, we were all impatient for this war to get started.  Like the characters in the story, we concluded many episodes back that there was never going to be a peaceful solution, and it would take nothing less than a massive bloodletting to make sure the bad guys were punished and the good guys got their rightful honors.

But now that the war has started, those frustrating days of exile in the forest are looking more attractive.  Sure, we all feel that Duryodhana deserves a good kick in the ass, but wars are never that satisfying.  Entire nations of warriors will be extinct before Duryodhana gets his first bruise.  And then there are the other 98 Kaurava brothers.  Sure, they might have collectively done some sneaky things, but how exactly did they earn the fate of preceding their elder brother into the underworld, like some primitive escort?

We might have learned thousands of years ago that war can never have a satisfactory outcome, and by now we should have found better ways of resolving our differences.  But here we are today, a bunch of "civilized" readers, looking forward to the battle books and anticipating the final denouement of the evil Kaurava brothers.

There is no such satisfaction on this, the first day of war.  Instead, Virata was deprived of both of his sons, and we found out too late that his second son Shveta was a fine Kshatriya and would have made a great ally.  But now he's dead; another life wasted.

Brace yourself, however, because there is much more of this yet to come...

Episode 61 - It is the morning of the first day of battle.  Already Krishna has revealed his great song to Arjuna, and now there are some final formalities, as Yuddistira runs to his elders on the enemy side for their blessings.  Krishan tags along and tries to tempt Karna over to the Pandava side, just until Bhisma is dead.  It must have been tempting, since it would have given him the chance to even kill the old bugger.  But Karna is too loyal to go for such an under-handed thing.  He turns Krishna down without a second thought.

Finally, just as Yuddistira returns to his lines, he invites anyone who'd like to change sides.  Yuyutsu, Dhrtarastra's 101st son, the illegitimate son of a serving girl, volunteers to change sides.  Now at least the old king can reasonably hope to have a son who survives this war and can make offerings to his ghost.

With this betrayal, Duryodhana starts the fight with a raid directly on his cousins.  What follows is a litany of the numerous duels, none of which ended in a fatality, and the violent slaughter of the un-named masses.  There is a bloody stalemate until the sun reached mid-day, and Bhisma launched a frontal attack on his enemies.  More on that next time!

Episode 60 - This concludes Krishna's dialog with Arjun about Dharma, Bhakti, Yoga, and the Gunas.  During the course of this, Arjun is granted divine sight, and is able to catch a glimpse of Krishna's true appearance; it nearly blows his mind.

Getting back to Arjun's original question-- Does Arjun's Dharma really require him to kill his relatives and gurus? and how can this can be a good thing?  It seems like a lot of Krishna's teaching is addressed to posterity, because advice to meditate more often isn't exactly going to propel Arjun into the battlefield.  I think the convincing part of it for Arjun was the divine vision in which he saw his enemies rushing inexorably to their deaths. Whether he followed his Dharma, or ran away, these guys were dead men walking.  So the decision to fight was a personal one.  Whether he fired the arrow that killed his grandfather or not, the sin of murder would not be on his conscience.

This ends the Gita.  We have only one small formality to take care of, and then finally the battle will begin-- next episode!

Episode 59 - We begin the famous holy book, the Bhagavad Gita.  The scene for this revelation is the midst of the fateful battlefield of Kurukshetra.  Arjun surveys the field, seeing his relatives, friends, cousins, uncles, elders and gurus, all ready to draw each other's blood and die for the sake of his dynastic dispute.  For the good guys to win, Arjun will personally be responsible for the death of the people he respects the most in the whole world.

He simple cannot go on with it.  Arjun drops his bow and sits down.  Better to die than to go forward with the slaughter.  Fortunately, Krishna is right there to remind him, and us, what life is really about.  It is not about sitting around, worrying about the outcomes of our actions.  We are here to get on with the story, keep moving, and most of all, follow our Dharma.

We get a lesson in cosmology, philosophy and even advice on how to meditate.  It's good stuff, and there's more to come.  We're about half-way through the Gita.  We'll get to the remainder next time!

Episode 58 - The Battle Books, but not the battle, begin here.  Since we are at the second most important beginning of the epic, aside from the very beginning, there is a lot of unnecessary material stuffed into the narrative.  I tried my best to make sense of it, and to leave out the voluminous details that had nothing to do with the story at hand.  I also tried to iron out the repeated descriptions of the armies' dispositions, and the scene of the two sides lined up prior to battle.  This is one of the most difficult episodes I've had to produce, so I hope I was able to make some sense out of it.

We also belatedly get an explanation for Sanjay's magic vision.  It turns out Vyasa popped in and granted him that ability.  Maybe this scene really occurred when Krishna was still in town for negotiations, because it was Krishna's conversation with Karna that Sanjay was first able to report on without actually being there.  Otherwise, there is no explanation for those earlier feats of clairvoyance.

This confusing little prelude leads right up to the Bhagavad Gita, which is the very next chapter in the Bhisma Parva.  We'll begin on that in the next episode.

It is also worth repeating the observation J.A.B. van Buitenen made about the composition of the two armies facing off at Kurukshetra.  It turns out that the armies that allied with the Pandavas all came from kingdoms to the south and east of Hastinapur, while the Kauravas' allies were all from the north and west.

The timeless pattern of Indian migrations and invasions has always been a flow of people coming out of the northwest and conquering or settling in the richer lands of the south and east.  If there is some macro-economic or demographic movement happening behind the human drama, perhaps we are looking at a folk recollection of some past invasion, which was stopped by the Indian heroes and their advisor Krishna.  Maybe Alexander was in there somewhere, on the Kauravas' side?!?

Episode 57 - Bhisma finishes bringing us up-to-date on who Sikhandin is, who he used to be, and why Bhisma won't fight him.

This also finishes the Udyoga Parva; the Book of the Effort.  Next time, we start in on the Bhisma Parva, the first of the eight Battle Books.  Don't assume that the war is about to start, just because we end off on the dawn of the first day of the war.  We still have a lengthy introduction in the Bhisma Parva, and then there is the Bhagavad Gita, which will take a few episodes-- we don't want to rush things!

Episode 56 - Bhisma begins telling the story of Amba/Sikhandin-- the only person, barring the Pandavas, whom he will not fight in the coming battle.  The reason for this is that Sikhandin had once been a female.  She was not just any female at that-- she was Draupadi's sister, and in her past life, she'd had a bad run-in with Bhisma, making her his sworn enemy from beyond the grave.

We begin the story with Amba's abduction, along with her sisters Ambika and Ambalika, by Bhisma to provide wives for his brother.  When she announces her pre-arranged betrothal with Shalva, she is freed to go to him.  A comedy of errors ensues when he questions her virtue, and then she breaks from her escort, ruining her reputation.  But this is a deadly serious matter.  The girl is now unmarriageable, and her father would be unlikely to take her back.  She has died to her caste and is possibly the most vulnerable person in all of India.

Amba seeks shelter with the Brahmins & ascetics, and finally enlists Rama Jamadagni as her champion.  Bhisma is too stubborn to even allow his own guru to make him take a woman of questionable virtue into his house, so Rama kills him.  Bhisma has a near-death experience and is reminded of his past existence as one of the divine Vasus, and discovers that his holy brothers are still looking out for him.

Bhisma cannot die now, because his appointment with Destiny has already been set with the incarnation of the Primeval God, Nara Prajapati-- Arjuna Kaunteya.

Episode 55 - As if intending to seal his fate, Duryodhana warms up the Pandavas by sending over an odious gambler Uluka as a messenger to goad them into fighting.  Then Bhisma kindly gives us an inventory of the fighters who will take place in the coming battle.

There are a bunch of guys who I've never heard of, and do not seem to have any important role to play in the story, so I've left them out, trying to keep the cast of characters under control.  As for the rest, they are all rated between Rathas and Atirathas.

Finally, Bhisma assures the Kauravas that he could personally beat anyone on the opposing side, except for Arjun, but not to worry about Arjun, because he would never kill his elders or gurus.  The others he would not kill: the Pandavas, any women, and anyone who used to be a woman.   It turns out, there is one of these trannies on the Pandava side-- it's Drupad's 2nd son, Sikhandin.  Next episode, Bhisma will tell us why it is he cannot kill this particular warrior.

Episode 54 - Krishna returns from his mission to Hastinpur with war on his mind.  Yuddistira, having spent the last 12-14 years undergoing massive hardship to prevent this war, is reluctant to accept this truth.  He begs for more information, trying to find any way out of this situation.  So Krishna obliges by giving us the details of a few more speeches made in the Kuru court, but none of it helps.  War is truly inevitable.

So both sides round up their armies and march on Kurukshetra.  When they arrive, each side appoints a Commander in Chief.  It is Bhisma on the Kaurava side, and King Drupad on the Pandavas' side.

From this point until the end of the war, the main narrative frame of the story will be told in terms of a conversation between Sanjay and Dhrtarastra.  The Epic has so far not explained how it is that Sanjay knows what is going on at the far-off battlefield, but somehow he knows everything, and is able to relate it all to his king.  Occasionally, Dhrtarastra will interrupt with questions or react to the events, so it will be through his blind eyes that we shall perceive the coming war.

But don't be deceived that just because we are on the eve of war, that we will be soon getting to it.  The Epic always takes its time, and there will still be quite a few more episodes before the action really starts.  After al, we still need to get through the Bhagavad Gita!!!

Episode 53 - This episode is devoted to the classic scene of the Mahabharata in which Krishna reveals to Karna his true descent.  He never was the Son of a Suta, which everyone called him with scorn.  No, he was in fact the eldest of the Pandavas-- the original Partha.  Now that the truth was out, all Karna needed to do was embrace his Dharma, join his brothers, and assume the title of King of India.

Poor Karna, always the victim of bad timing.  It was way too late for such an offer.  Perhaps if Kunti had stood up and claimed him as her son during the Pandavas' first military exhibition, he might have come around then, but now there was too much water under the bridge.  Karna had been tossed out as a baby like the day's garbage, and had been scorned as a Suta when he tried to display his Kshatriya nature.  His modest Suta parents and the evil Kauravas had been the only ones to come to his aid, and he would never give them up.

Krishna failed in turning Karna, but somehow he allowed Sanjay to know of the entire conversation, so the story of Karna's descent and temptation was made known to all the Kauravas.  Kunti caught wind of the encounter, and she made a go at turning him.  She also failed, but she at least got the promise that he would spare her other sons, and should Arjun die, Karna would take his place as her fifth son.

Episode 52 - The peace talks break down completely.  It starts well, when no one can come up with a rebuttal to Krishna's speech.  Narada and Kanva tell a couple of parables to help with the decision making, but Duryodhana was not interested.  It seems he believed that the terms of the Dice Game were that the Pandavas were to go to the forest forever, not just 13 years.  Maybe it's true?  What if the Pandavas had indeed been banished for life, but they decided to change the rules when Krishna & Drupad offered to help them overthrow their cousins?  How would we know, since we only get the version of the story as told by the survivors of this war!?!

In any case, Duryodhana stuck to his story, and was adamant about refusing to bow to threats.  They began talking of restraining the boy and sending him in fetters to the Pandavas, and Duryodhana in turn planned on capturing Krishna. When news of this arrived at the palace, Dhrtarastra blew his top and yelled at the boy.  Then Krishna revealed his true nature, in front of the Kuru court.

The peace talks have failed.  There is nothing more to do but get ready for war.  But Krishna will stick around a little longer to meet with Kunti and then stir up some trouble by telling Karna about his true descent...