Mahabharata: Encyclopedia II - Mahabharata - The central story

Mahabharata - The central story

The core story of the work is that of a dynastic struggle for the throne of Hastinapura, the kingdom ruled by the Kuru clan. The two collateral branches of the family that participate in the struggle are the Kauravas, the elder branch of the family, and the Pandavas, the younger branch.

The struggle culminates leading to the Great battle of Kurukshetra, and the Pandavas are ultimately victorious. The Mahabharata itself ends with the death of Krishna, and the subsequent end of his dynasty, and ascent of the Pandava brothers to Heaven. It also marks the beginning of the Hindu age of Kali (Kali Yuga), the fourth and final age of mankind, where the great values and noble ideas have crumbled, and man is speedily heading toward the complete dissolution of right action, morality and virtue.Some of the history's most noble and revered figures end up fighting on the side of the Kauravas, due to allegiances formed prior to the conflict.

The epic employs the 'tale-within-tale' structure popular in many Indian religious and secular works. It is recited to the King Janamejaya by Vaishampayana, a disciple of Vyasa. Janamejaya's ancestor Shantanu, the king of Hastinapura has a short-lived marriage with the goddess Ganga and has a heroic son, Bhishma. Many years later, when the king wants to marry Satyavati, the daughter of fisherman, Bhishma vows to be a celibate lifelong, so that Satyavati's son can be the king as demanded by the fisherman for giving his daughter to the king.

Unfortunately Satyavati's son die young and her grandson Pandu ascends the throne as his elder brother Dhritarashtra is blind. But this brave king is cursed to be childless and he retires to the forest. Using a magical spell to summon the very gods, his elder queen Kunti gives birth to three sons Yudhishthira, Arjuna andBhima. His younger queen has the twins Nakula and Sahadeva. Pandu and his younger wife die in the forest and Kunti returns to Hastinapura with her sons. But Dhritarashtra’s sons, the Kauravas, lead by the eldest Duryodhana, detest their cousins and even plot to get them killed, even when young. But with the love and affection of Bhishma and their teacher Drona, the sons of Pandu ( the Pandavas) grow up to be exceptional - Yudhishthira is the wisest and most virtuous, Arjuna the bravest warrior, Bhima the strongest of all and the twins endowed with exceptional beauty and wisdom.

Dhritarashtra though partial to his sons, is quite dutiful and refuses to harm the Pandavas and even prepares to hand the kingdom back, much as he loves it. As they enter manhood Duryodhana's frustrated with his father tries to kill them secretly. The Pandavas escape and live in hiding for sometime. In course of this exile Arjuna wins the hand of the Panchala princess Draupadi. When he returns with her, Kunti not noticing the princess, imagines that he is back with some food and asks him to share it with his brothers. To ensure that their mother never utters a falsehood even by mistake, the brothers take her as a common wife. At this juncture they also meet Krishna, who would become their lifelong ally and guide.

Duryodhana who has now a friend in the peerless warrior Karna, resigns to the coming back of the Pandavas with their new royal ally. Soon they conquer the whole of India and its adjoining regions and Yudhishthira is crowned the emperor. This proves too much for Duryodhana who feels death would be better than watching ones foes prosper. His maternal uncle Shakuni, convinced that however brave his nephew may be, he was no match for his cousins, decides to use a ruse to destroy the Pandavas. He forces Dhritarashtra to invite the Pandavas for a game of dice in which he wins everything from Yudhishthira, including himself, his brothers and Draupadi. The jubilant Kauravas insult them in their helpless state and even try to strip Draupadi. Her honour is saved by the grace of Krishna. When the elders intervene and Dhritarashtra has to restore everything to the Pandavas, Shakuni forces another game of dice which he again wins. The losers are required to go into exile for 13 years.

When the Pandavas after many hardships and exile request for at least a few villages from their vast kingdom, Duryodhana refuses to give in. The two sides summon vast armies to their help and line up at Kurukshetra for a war. Seeing himself facing grandsire Bhishma and Drona on Duryodhana's side due to their compulsions, Arjuna is heartbroken at the idea of killing them. Krishna who has chosen to drive Arjuna's chariot wakes him up to his call of duty in the famous Bhagavad Gita section of the epic. Though initially sticking to chivalrous notions of warfare, the Kauravas soon start descending to butchery and the Pandavas to tricks. At the end of the 18 days slaughter only the Pandavas and Krishna survive with a few old warriors from the Kaurava side.

Beholding the carnage, the noble mother of Kauravas, Gandhari who had lost all her sons, curses Krishna to be a witness to a similar annihilation of his family, for though divine and capable of stopping the war, he had not done so. Krishna who had incarnated precisely to destroy the wicked kings accepts the curse and 36 years later sees it fructify. He then departs from the world and the Pandavas who had ruled righteously all along, now tired, decide to renounce everything. Clad in skins and rags they retire to the Himalayas and ascend the peaks. One by one they get exhausted, die and ascend to heaven. Only the virtuous Yudhisthira who had tried everything to prevent the carnage and never very happy with his kingship afterwards, ascends to the heaven in his physical body.

Arjuna's grandson Parikishit rules after them and dies bitten by a snake. His furious son, Janamejaya, decides to perform a sacrifice in which to kill all the snakes. It is at this sacrifice that the tale of his ancestors is narrated to him. (Incidentally, the sacrifice has to be stopped after sometime and the snakes are not annihilated.)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The central story", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki