In the last blog I wrote about relevance of Mahabharat by analyzing Bhishma and Dridharashtra. In Mahabharat every character and the actions of each character has more relevance today. Certainly I don’t think I have attained the stage of writing all the Characters as it may amount to writing entire Mahabharat which needs divine blessings of the God. I just planned to analyze few characters and the actions of few characters which have more relevance to our present life.
In addition to Bhishma and Dridharashtra, the character sketch and actions of Drona, Vidhura, Drupada, Kunti, Karna, Draupadi, Duryodhana, Arjuna, Sahadev, Salliya, Aswathama and finally Lord Krishna are extremely relevant. In my view the epic is relevant for every action of ours. We can learn from this epic as to how we should lead our life and how we should conduct ourselves. Lord Krishna’s actions in entire Mahabharat is great and it had strategy, blessings, protection and above all he gives answer to all of us to all our issues and questions.
Drona
In Mahabharata Drona is the most learned person. He not only read four vedas but also read fifth Veda which is art of archery, war strategy and use of weapons. Though by birth he is a Brahmin and he learnt Vedas but he also learnt the use of weapons and war strategy which is meant for Khashtriyas i.e Kings and the rulers. When a man of his stature has read so much he is expected to act in a more neutral way. Not only that he should control his senses and also he should preach what he learnt and never should he use of any of the art he learnt for his purpose. But did he do that? He too deviated from this path and his action started the downfall.
During his Gurukul days he and Drupada were friends. In that friendship Drupada promises to Drona that once he becomes king after completion of Gurukul days he would take care of Drona as Drona was poor Brahmin. As expected Drona goes to Drupada when Drupada becomes King and Drupada forgets the promise he made to Drona and insults Drona. Now Drona is upset and he wanted to take revenge on Drupada. Bhishma identifies Drona as a right teacher for both Pandavas and Gauravas. After teaching to Pandavas and Gauravas, Drona seeks “Gurudkashina” from Arjun, whom he considered as his favorite disciple. He request Arjun to go and fight with Drupada and also seeks Arjun to imprison Drupada. Arjun also does the same and he imprisons Drupada. Though Drona later releases Drupadha, Drupadha did not forget this insult heaped on him by Drona. He prays to Lord to bless him with a daughter and son; Daughter to marry Arjun and Son to kill Drona. In the end the King was blessed by Draupathi who marries Arjun later and Dristadhyumnan who later kills Drona.
Now let us stop and look at the action of Drona and Drupada
· When both are best friends both had a great understanding and relation. When Drupada forgets and insults Drona is upset.
· Drona seeks revenge and result is Drupada is imprisoned by Arjun.
· Drona who was a teacher and man who studied four Vedas should have the grace of forgiving Drupada. But he refused to do and he wanted to take revenge.
· The act of taking revenge by Drona leads to one more revenge from Drupadha and creates a permanent enmity between Drona and Drupadha.
· Drupadha had committed but he failed to honor the commitment
· Drona who was highly educated and most erudite person did not act according to his education and learning but deviated from the dharma suggested by Vedas which he should have followed but practiced the revenge which is the approach of a ruler or a warrior..
· In the end Drona creates his own enemy and he writes his own downfall.
Relevance to today
· Once it is committed and you are in a position to honor the commitment, never go back on the words.
· The best of friendship can be maintained only if one has the grace of forgetting and forgiving. If act of forgiving is replaced by act of revenge, it leads to dangerous consequences and leads to disaster.
· Any friendship or relation if is to be successful should be based on a good and sound understanding.
· If friendship or relation is to be successful one of the persons in the relation should have patience, and also should learn the art of forgiving because in any relation difference of views or failure to meet one’s expectations is inevitable.
· If revenge becomes the order then every act of revenge will lead to one more act of revenge and it will continue till last and it destroys both.
· That is what happened between Drona and Durupadha. A simple act of forgiving was not practiced. An act of revenge by Drona lead to another act of revenge by Drupada and it continued till last.
Drona and Eklavya
When Drona was teaching to his students’ i.e Pandava and Gauravas, Eklavya who was the King for a Tribal region approached Drona to teach him. Drona refused as Eklavya was not a Kshatriya as Drona was willing to teach only for Kshatriyas. When Eklavya persisted, Drona allowed Eklavya to consider Drona as his guru in his heart and permitted him to practice. So Eklavya embarks on self-study and becomes a good archer but he still considered Drona as his Guru. Drona comes to know about it and he wanted to protect his best pupil Arjuna as Ekalavya was considered as good as Arjun. Hence Drona in order to protect Arjun,asks Eklavya to sacrifice his right thumb as “Gurudakshnina” and Eklavya sacrifices his thumb as a “Gurudakshina”. Since Drona committed to Arjuna that he would be number 1 archer, he did not prefer competition to Arjun in any form. Hence he used Gurudakshnina as a route to kill competition to Arjun. The rat race and competition for number 1 slot was prevailing even in Mahabhrat days.
Again Drona is a teacher. A good Teacher’s trait is to encourage students and he should be impartial to all. Again Drona failed here. The impact is simple. It came to him in a different way in his end. Drona had a great son and his name was Aswathama. Aswathama was a great warrior and he was one of the most learned person in Gauravas side . He was considered next to Bhishma and Drona in knowledge of Shastras, Vedas and war strategy. But the death of Drona and the act of Aswathama in the end of Mahabharata must be due to the sins committed by Drona by deviating from the path of justice which we will see later.
Kunti
The life of Kunti is the most important and offers a great teaching. Whenever we read Kunti’s life Karna’s life is inseparable part of it. In this blog I intend to analyze Kunti’s life related to Karna as that is more important in my view.
Prior to marriage Kunti was blessed by Sage Duruvasha and was taught few mantras and whenever she recites those mantras thinking about a god, she will get blessed with a son with the qualities of god whom she worshipped. As soon as she got the blessing of the sage, she wanted to try and immediately she looked at Lord Surya (Sun God) and worshipped him with that Mantra. With the result she was blessed with a son and he became Karna. (I am not getting into debate on scientific analysis of these issues as to how a person can get all these and morality issues which I will give it in my final blog) Since she was not married she keeps Karna in a small box with her clothes and leaves it in river. This had a great impact on Kunti and Karna’s life . Let us analyse the consequences of this in their lives.
· Kunti was not even matured enough to understand the travails of birth of a child and she aspired for it. With the result neither she was happy nor did Karna.
· Till the end Kunti and Karna suffered due to this.
· Karna was acknowledged as son of Kunti only at the time of his death.
· Though Kunti and Karna come to know about this just prior to battle, Karna request Kunti not to divulge this.
· Karna knew Pandavas were his brothers and he wages battle against his own brothers to repay his gratitude to Duryodhana.
· Yudhishir in the end became inconsolable on hearing Karna was his eldest brother and they Killed Karna. He even goes to accusing Kunti and Krishna pacifies both Yudhishtir and Kunti at that stage.
· The moral is simple:
o In life God or Destiny decides what you should get. You need to put your efforts to achieve the goal. If you try to get it before it is due to you or you snatch before it is due to you neither it bestows happiness to you nor you will be successful. Further the position or the product which you get due to this will also suffer.
o Both the creator and illegitimate product will fail at the end. The fate of an illegitimate product despite the best of all characteristics will suffer at the end. Everything needs to be legitimate.
o In life what you are entitled and what you deserve you will get provided you are sincere to yourselves.
o Very often we pray to God and God does not answer the prayers immediately and he may answer very late. God has listened to our prayer but whether we deserve it or can we handle if we get it is the issue that we need to answer it to ourselves? God will give only when we can handle it. God will not give when we cannot handle it. If we still try to get it by any dubious method or means, it will lead to disaster.
o Sometimes due to luck you or by grace of God are bestowed with rare qualities. One should know how to practice and when to practice. If it is practiced in immature manner, the result will be bad.
Conclusion
As I said earlier every character in this great epic has a teaching and relevance to our present life. I will analyze some more characters in next blog.
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