Mahabharata- The war of cousins and Bhagavat Gita

Mahabharata was written by Sage Vyasa and deals with the war of contention of the cousins of two families. Mahabharata contains innumerable stories and my father used to tell me many of them when I was young.

Pandavas and Kauravas  were cousins and Pandavas  were disputing the right to the kingdom passed over from their father Pandu. Pandavas were five in numbers and Kauravas were numbering one hundred. Pandavas were born to Kunti by the boon given by Maharishi (Sage) Durvasa. The boon was that when she recited the Mantra and pray to any one of the five Gods, the god to whom she prayed  would come in person and give her a child who will have heavenly powers and beauty and characters of that God. She could have five children from the five Gods. 

Kunti’s husband’s name was Pandu  who had a curse from a blind man . The curse was that if he made physical contact with his wives he would die immediately. This boon came handy for Kunti since she cannot have her husband’s children and  she made use of the mantra and delivered children .  Kunti had four sons from the four mantras namely Karna, Dharma, Bheema and Arjuna  and she gave the last one Mantra to  the Pandu’s second wife Mathuri, from which she had two sons Nakul and Sahadev. 

Kunti in her eagerness to test the mantra used it before her marriage and prayed to SUN who came to Kunti and gave a child to her. Afraid  of bad name Kunti immediately put the baby in a cradle and sent it in river Ganga to be lost for ever.So after her marriage  the five Pandavas were born with special powers and third brother Arjuna became so powerful he could not be vanquished by anybody. The Pandavas were Dharma, Bheema, Arjuna,Nakula and Sahadeva.

 When King Pandu  died his elder brother Dhiruthurashtra, who was blind became the King. Duryothana, Dhiruthurashtra’s eldest son defeated the Pandavas by treachery in a game of Chess  and drove them to forest for thirteen years.

After the thirteen years Pandavas came back and demanded their country Pandavas wanted to avoid war and tried to get back the country they ruled that was  taken away by the Kauravas by deceit. Kauravas refused to give even an inch of land to them. Lord Krishna who was related to both the faction but had a soft corner for the Pandavas went as an emissary and pleaded their case with Duryodhana . Dhiruthurashtra, the father of the Kauravas  was blind and had been the king only for name sake and  Duryodhana was ruling the country.

Since Duryodhana was not interested to give back their country and refused to part with even an inch of space, the Pandavas had no other option other than fighting the Kauravas. They contacted and collected all the kings who sympathized with them and with an army of supporters met Kaurava army in the battle field at Kurushetra . Both armies were ready to fight with each other. Arjuna has requested lord Krishna to be his charioteer in fighting the Kauravas.

Now the auspicious  time set by astrologers had come  to start the war. When Arjuna saw the Kauravas army he was grief stricken to find his cousins, grand father, Gurus (Teachers), uncles and other relatives on the other side and could not control his emotion in fighting and killing them. He told Krishna that he could not fight the war with all his relatives whom he respected and loved. He detested the situation  where he would have to kill them. He added that what he  was  going to achieve  by winning the war and the country without the relatives. It  would be worth nothing and he could never enjoy the fruits of the victory of the war. He threw away his bow and arrows and got down from the chariot and sat in the middle of the battle field.

Now Krishna smiled, understood his mental agony  and started to advice and preach  Arjuna which is called Bhagavat Geeta and contains so many slokas ( erses)  in eighteen chapters.

Krishna said "Arjuna you have to fight, It is your duty to fight , if not all the valour and expertise you have gained and achieved in all these years would go waste and people would call you a timid and weak person".

"Killing is your duty. Do it. Do not think about the results"

"I am the actuator and controller and you will act as per my wish"

"The whole world is controlled by me and nothing happens without my desire"

"The persons whom you were  going to fight  were all killed by me  already and you would only kill their bodies while the athma (soul) cannot  be killed". “So kill their body.”

“Even if you do not  kill them the bodies will perish one day.”

'The Athma has gone from me and would come back to me"

“There is no death for Athma. Only the body dies.”

 “ Fire does not burn it (Athma) , water does not drench it, wind does not cool it,

no weapon can harm it."

"The body is like a dress for the Athma, it takes the body and lives in it. When the body becomes old and useless the Athma takes another body as   the old dress gets discarded and new dress bought."

"  There is no birth or death for the Athma"."It has not appeared from nothing or was present and disappeared later."

"The body has childhood, youth and old age but Athma does not have any of these."

'Whenever Justice (Dharma) dies and Injustice (Adharma) rises I would reproduce myself and come in human form  and destroy all those indulging in injustice".

"In Each generation (Yuga) I take birth for the protection of good and destroy the bad."

" So Arjuna get up, take your bow and fight, This is your duty and do it"

Hearing this Arjuna got up. All his doubts had been cleared and he mounted the Chariot and blew his conch and started the war.

(Bhavat Geeta  is having more than eighteen chapters, each chapter with many slokas (verses) and cannot be told in just two  pages so only a few important verses are mentioned here.