In the Mahabharata, the Pandava are the five acknowledged sons of Pandu, by his two wives Kunti and Madri. They are Yudhishtira Bhima Arjuna (sons of Pandu's first wife Kunti), and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva (sons of his second wife Madri). As Pandu is cursed with death if he ever has intercourse with his wives, the actual fatherhood of the children is traditionally attributed to various gods, by the boon that was given to Kunti by Durvasa. According t ...

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Pandava:

Pandava (Paandava). Sons of Pandu; family of 5 brothers that fought the Kauravas: Dharmaraja, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva. See Mahabharatha.

(See also: Pandava , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Draupadi (Sanskrit) The wife in common of the five Pandava princes and brothers. In the allegory of the Mahabharata, she stands for the terrestrial life of the personality and, as such, she is made very little of and is allowed by Yudhistthira to be insulted and even taken into slavery during a wager at a game of dice. Yudhishthira was the eldest of the Pandava brothers and Draupadi's chief lord. In this relation he represents the higher ego.

(See also: Draupadi , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Pandavarani (Sanskrit) [from Pandava son of Pandu + arani figuratively mother]

Matrix or mother of the Pandavas; a title given to Kunti in the Mahabharata. Similar to surarani (matrix or mother of the gods) because surarani is used for Aditi (space).

(See also: Pandavarani , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Karna (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root kri to pour forth, scatter, throw out)

Radiant; a son of Kunti by Surya, the sun, before her marriage to Pandu. Therefore, Karna was a half-brother of the Pandava princes, but sided with the Kurus in the great conflict of the Mahabharata.

(See also: Karna , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Arjuna:

Arjuna ("White"): one of the five Pandava princes who fought in the great war depicted in the Mahabharata, disciple of the God-man Krishna whose teachings can be found in the Bhagavad Gita

(See also: Arjuna ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Panduranga:

Panduranga: A name for Vitthala, Vishnu and Krishna, which means: the pure Lord and leader of the Pandava's. Under this name, Krishna is adored in the city of Pandharpur, India. (SSS-II)

(See also: Panduranga , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Pandu (Sanskrit) The pale one; a son of Vyasa by the wife of Vichitra-virya. The brother of Dhritarashtra and Vidura, and the father of the five Pandava princes of the Mahabharata.

(See also: Pandu , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

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Arjuna [Phalgunah, another name for Arjuna, meaning 'One who is pure and unsullied, white']: Son of queen Kunti and King Pandu. Friend and cousin of Krishna. One of the five Pandava brothers; Krishna became his chariot driver and spoke to him the Bhagavad Gita. [see The Bhagavad Gita of Order] also Vijaya, another name for Arjuna.

(See also:   , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Bhagavata Purana (Sanskrit) One of the most celebrated and popular of the 18 principal Puranas, especially dedicated to the glorification of Vishnu-Krishna, whose history is given in the tenth book. It consists of 12 books or skandhas, of 18,000 slokas, and is narrated by Suka, the son of Vyasa, to King Parikshit, the grandson of Arjuna, one of the Pandava brothers and hero of the Bhagavad-Gita.

(See also: Bhagavata Purana , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

The stoic philosopher Seneca wrote a short manifesto in AD 49 against dawdlers, procrastinators and other 'time-killers' that seems as fresh and relevant today as it was 2,000 years ago.

He began with what in those days was a common complaint: That we are cursed with too short a life span, which often seemed to end just when we were getting ready for it.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Perfecting The Art of Killing Time

Pandavarani (Sanskrit). Lit., the "Pandava Queen"; Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas. (All these are highly important personified symbols in esoteric philosophy.)

(See also: Pandavarani , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Arjuna

The third of the five Pandava brothers. A great bowman, he figured prominently in winning the Kurukshetra battle, with Krishna driving his chariot. It was to Arjuna that Krishna spoke the Bhagavad-gita just before the battle.

(See also: Arjuna , Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Sakti (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root sak to be powerful, energetic, have force]

Universal energy, the feminine aspect of fohat; one of the seven forces of nature, of which six are manifest and the seventh partly manifest. It is energy that proceeds through itself, not being due to the active or conscious will of the one that produces it. Popularly, the wives or consorts of the gods -- the energies or active powers of these deities represented as feminine influences.

"These anthropomorphic definitions are unfortunate, because misleading. The Saktis of Nature are really the veils, or sheaths, or vehicular carriers, through which work the inner and ever-active energies. As substance and energy, or force and matter, are fundamentally one, . . . it becomes apparent that even these Saktis, or sheaths, or veils, are themselves energic to lower spheres or realms through which they themselves work.

"The crown of the astral light, as H. P. Blavatsky puts it, is the generalized Sakti of Universal Nature in so far as our solar system is concerned" (OG 150).

Sakti in another sense is soul-power, the mental-psychic energy of the god as of the adept. In the Mahabharata, Draupadi, the wife or sakti of the five Pandava brothers, represents a spiritual power they all possessed in common. In legends and tales of the ancient peoples, the wives of the great heroes mystically represent the aggregate of the saktis or spiritual powers that the heroes had individually attained.

Considering the saktis as more or less conscious forces in nature, gives a picture of not only the turbulent and ever-active movements in the lower planes of nature, but likewise the calm and stately measures of spiritual activity. It is common in the West to associate power, activity, energy, and force with masculine correlations; but this is quite arbitrary, and an impassionate viewing of nature will show it to be continuously moved by vehicular as well as inspiriting causes.

Cosmically sakti or the saktis originate in the summit of the astral light or akasa, which in one sense may be considered as not only the womb of the cosmic saktis, but as their playground and in another sense as the saktis collectively themselves. In man, sakti is the buddhi in its higher aspect, and the activities of the various pranas in the human constitution in its lower aspect. There is no essential distinction between any divinity and its consort, between Brahman and pradhana, Brahma and prakriti, or between parabrahman and mulaprakriti. Furthermore, all the saktis are either conscious entities in nature, or vital effluxes or emanations, cosmic fluids, with which nature is infused throughout.

The reason the occultist of all ages looks askance at the tantric practices, or the Tantras dealing largely with the saktis, is because these tantric books and practices are almost wholly occupied in relations and correlations both in nature and in man of the saktis in their lower aspect. The kundalini, for instance, is likewise born in the buddhi in man, but descending through the human constitution has its pranic or psychovital physical representations in the various chakras or vital centers of the human frame, and thus the kundalini is an example of sakti or of its fluidic effluxes in the lower portions of the human constitution.

The early Christians looked upon the Holy Spirit as of distinctly feminine characteristics, influence, or svabhava, as the center not only of vital but of spiritual and intellectual activity, whether in the universe or man, so that the Holy Spirit corresponds to a divine sakti. A notable instance in Hinduism is the Sakti or goddess Durga, having both a lofty or spiritual, and an inferior or distinctly material, function in nature, and therefore a beneficent as well as a terrible action therein -- the very name Durga meaning "terrible in action," or "terrible in going." And yet Durga is the consort or sakti of Siva, often called the Mahesvara (Great Lord); and the name of this goddess arises from the utterly impartial, infinitely just, and yet often simply terrific action of the forces in nature, particularly when karmically directed to works of regeneration, often called destruction. Cosmic operations or cosmic justice are often indeed to human vision terrible in their operation, which can never be set aside, stayed, or diverted. Hence Durga is often represented in iconography as surrounded with a necklace of skulls or by similar ghastly emblems -- a series of ideas which the pragmatic West misinterprets and consequently depicts as horrible and revolting.

(See also: Sakti , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Yudhisthira:

Yudhisthira: the eldest Pandava, who Lord Krishna established as emperor of the entire earth.

(See also: Yudhisthira , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Vasudeva (Sanskrit) Father of Krishna and husband of Devaki, likewise brother of Kunti (the mother of the five Pandava princes). He belonged to the Yadava branch of the Somavansa or lunar race.

(See also: Vasudeva , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Bhima (-sena)

The second and strongest of the five Pandava brothers, a great club fighter, voracious eater, and intolerant punisher of wrongdoers. In the Battle of Kurukshetra he fulfilled his vow to kill Duryodhana and all the Kaurava brothers.

(See also: Bhima , Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Indraprastha:

Indraprastha (Indhraprastha). City of residence of the Pandava brothers.

(See also: Indraprastha , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Dharmaraja:

Dharmaraja (Dharmaraaja). Name for Yudhistira, eldest of the five Pandava brothers; also, a name for Yama, God of death.

(See also: Dharmaraja , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Arjuna:

Arjuna. Krishna's disciple, in the Bhagavad Gita; third of five Pandava brothers. See Mahabharatha.

(See also: Arjuna , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)