Dr.King - Author of books on Yoga, Spirituality and Indology

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We often justify our wrong ways by quoting this adage. Many of the wars fought these days stealthily follow this principle. Even the terrorists use this to justify their dastardly acts. They even claim the support of their religious scriptures which apparently preach them that way!

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I was talking about war preparations and all of a sudden, I now am talking about Bhagavad Geetha! Were you surprised?

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 Having failed to convince Duryodhana about the futility of the war, Krishna set out on the next strategy namely Bheda or ‘divide and rule’. He wanted to weaken Duryodhana and force him to give up war.

[Quick links] [Pause] We were discussing the plans of Krishna to go to Hastinapur as a peace maker. It was a strange situation. On one hand, Krishna very well knew how futile his attempts were. He also predicted the end game and assured Draupadi that war was going to happen and her revenge would be taken. On the other hand, Krishna wanted to play his role as a human being. He set off to Hastinapur as an envoy of Yudhishthira who wanted to avoid war at any cost. Yudhishthira was even prepared to give up his claim for the Kingdom.

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As we discussed in the previous episode, Sanjaya reaches Upaplavya with a message from the Kauravas. He informs the Pandavas, that Dhritarastra wants peace and not war. The only condition is that the Pandavas should forget whatever had happened and live in peace with Duryodhana. But there was no talk about giving back their kingdom to them which Duryodhana had snatched from them deceitfully.

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       The Pandavas finally completed their 13 years of exile. They went through lot of hardships both when they spent their 12 years in the forests as well as when they spent a year incognito. Especially the last year was quite tough.

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       In a gender biased world, one’s gender is usually associated with what that person is. Normally men are considered to be brave, logical and dashing; while women are assumed to be emotional, weak and indecisive. Though this characterization is baseless, we often tend to unknowingly use this generalization.

[Quick links] [Pause]  In the previous episode, we saw how the wicked Dhushasana dragged Draupadi, the Queen of the Pandavas, to a fully assembled court. Her husbands had lost not only themselves but also her, to Duryodhana. As per the rules of the unfair dice game, all of them were now the slaves of Duryodhana who could treat them in whatever manner he felt right. Draupadi was pleading for help. But none had the guts to take on Duryodhana. Not even his blind father Dhritarastra.

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The purpose of Bhagavata was to instill devotion in God and assure helpless people that God would always come to their rescue. But Mahabharata had a different focus. It was a complex plot where intricate ideas of right and wrong are dissected and contrasted to bring out the subtle nuances of righteousness. Many a times it is difficult to give a verdict on what is right in a given complex situation.

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       We were discussing about Krishna’s stories from Bhagavata. Now all of a sudden, I seem to shift from Bhagavata to another Indian Epic namely Mahabharata. It is not without reason though.