secrets of the Mahabharata
1) The first one is: Karna was a racist!
The main essence of Mahabharata is: It covers up politics, diplomacy, economy, war strategy, ethics, morality, justice, philosophy & human psychology.
Many Indian liberals and intellectuals criticize Mahabharata by saying- It encourages caste discrimination.
On the contrary, Mahabharata don’t encourage any evil aspects, but it is actually meant to aware people of the evils of human nature and selfish politics. Until and unless you can’t explain what evil is, you can’t aware the people about it.
Coming back to Karna, we all know how he was treated for being a Sut-putra. We all know the caste discrimination he had to face. He is depicted as a sympathetic hero(won’t call him an antihero because of wiki’s definition of antihero) who was on the wrong side. It is expected that a person who faced caste discrimination himself, should emerge as a person with high heart and free of racist mentality, because hey, he faced how it feels when being mocked for one’s birth or class.
But Karna had a tinge of racist attitude at the core of his heart. To know more about this, we have to study the map of the empires of Mahabharata period.
A more detail map of Mahabharata period is this one:
We can clearly see the empires of Vanga, Kalinga, Pragjyotishpur, etc. I specifically mentioned these empires because they had major roles in Mahabharata’s politics and these kingdoms don’t fall under the Aryavarta belt of Mahabharata period. Also look at the empires of Gandhara and Madra which is under the Aryavarta belt.
Madri, the second wife of Pandu, was the princess of Madra kingdom. She had a brother named Shalya who fought on Kaurava’s side. He was charioteer of Karna and Karna used to abuse him based on his race.
Karna rebuked Shalya and his race, and all the other tribes who had slightest similarity with Shalya's race.
- One should always avoid the Karashakas, the Mahishakas, the Kalingas, the Keralas, the Karkotakas, the Virakas, and other peoples of no religion.
- It is in consequence of the absence of Brahmanas from among them that the Sakas, the Yavanas, the Kamvojas and other Kshatriya tribes have become fallen and degraded into the status of Sudras. The Dravidas, the Kalingas, the Pulandas, the Usinaras, the Kolisarpas, the Mahishakas and other Kshatriyas, have, in consequence of the absence of Brahmanas from among their midst, become degraded into Sudras.
- As a brahmana that assists at the religious ceremonies of a Shudra suffereth degradation, as one that hateth brahmanasalways suffereth degradation, even so a person by making an alliance with the Madrakas becometh fallen [Taken from Kisori Mohan Ganguli’s translation]
This indicate that Karna had slight tint of racism within himself.
2) Second secret is: Shalya conspired with Sri Krishna and Yudhisthira to demoralize Karna on battlefield.
As previously said, Shalya was Karna’s charioteer. But how did the uncle of Pandavas end up with Kauravas?
When Shalya heard of the impending Kurukshetra War, he marched with his army to join his nephews. On his way, he was tricked by Duryodhana who arranged a feast for him and his army. Shalya though the host is Yudhisthira, and out of generosity he wanted to meet him and grant him a boon. Then Duryodhana revealed that he is the host. By then Shalya was compelled to grant a boon due to the hospitality. Duryodhana asked him to fight for Kauravas.
Prior to the start of the war, Yudhisthira met with his elders on the Kaurava side, asking for their blessings. Shalya gave Yudhisthira blessings to emerge victorious in the war. He also granted him a boon.
On Sri Krishna’s advise, Yudhisthira demanded from Shalya that he would demoralize Karna and dampen his spirits when he eventually became Karna's charioteer. Shalya promised to do so.
As already stated, Karna used to rebuke Shalya. The situation went like this, Shalya used to dampen Karna’s spirit by mocking him of his archery skills. Karna used to rebuke him and his race as a retaliation.
Still, this can’t be ignored that Karna not only mocked Shalya(who was acting on behalf of Pandavas) but he also mocked his whole race and other races similar to his.
3) Yudhisthra killed only one Great warrior(atirath, maharath, etc) in the entire Mahabharata. That person was Shalya.
Apart from his involvement in the death of Drona, Yudhisthira killed only one warrior in entire battle of Kurukshetra. After death of Karna, Shalya was made the commander of Kaurava army. By that time, Bhishma, Drona, karna, etc all were dead. Shalya fought fiercely and nobody could kill him. So Krishna insisted Yudhisthira to fight and kill Shalya.
Krishna considered Shalya a great warrior, equal to Bhishma, Drona, Karna, etc. So he chose Yudhisthira to fight Shalya. Nakul and Sahadeva were on both sides of Yudhisthira protecting him. Yudhisthira was a calm person, only his calmness could match Shalya’s aggression. Moreover Nakul & Sahadev were Shalya’s own nephews. As such, that had led to quite an amount of distraction. Yudhisthira took the opportunity to slain Shalya.
4) Shakuni had no animosity with Pandavas. He was carrying out his own agenda of destroying the Kaurava lineage.
The exact reason for Shakuni’s animosity towards Kaurav line varies as per depiction in different folklore:-
- It is said that in a military campaign by either Bhishma, Pandu, or Shantanu, Gandhara came under attack from Hastinapur. Hastinapur conquered Gandhar, killed the king Achala Suvala, and imprisoned all the male members of his line, saying that line was full of adharma. This included Shakuni and his 100 brothers. All of them were sparsely fed with one grain of rice each per day in the prison. The family decided that at least one of them could survive and gave all the rice to Shakuni, the most cunning of them all, so that he could live on to take revenge. Eventually, King Subala, accepted the supremacy of Hastinapur to make a permanent mark of the injustice. Considered a man of dharma, his family is allowed to live.
- The second reason for animosity towards Kauravas was the marriage of Gandhari with the blind Dhritarashtra who was not even the king that time because a well-bodied Pandu was alive. This, along with the first theory, ignited the hatred of Shakuni.
- Another legendary story goes like this- Shakuni was the youngest of 100 children, Gandhari being his sibling. Gandhari was predicted to have a 2 marriage in her future. To avoid this, she was married to a goat which was killed later. Bhisma and family knew this fact only after her marriage to Dhritrashtra was commenced. Hence the entire Gandhar royal family was jailed. They were given only single grain to eat daily. Instead of having it, they gave it to young Shakuni to become strong and take revenge. Also Shakuni's father made dice from his hip bone which was later used in the game leading to the epic war.
- Another instance of the above ‘Gandhari’s marriage to a goat’ is that, Gandhar royal family was jailed by Duryodhana, not Bhishma. Bhima once lambasted Duryodhana saying that he is son of a widow.
Whatever be the aspect is, it’s true that Shakuni had his own agenda.
5) Shakuni had deep respect and love for Sri Krishna.
Though Shakuni and Sri Krishna were from different campaigns, Shakuni had enormous respect for Krishna in his heart.
Shakuni was master mind behind the war. Sri Krishna tried to stop the war, but he too knew that the war in inevitable. In fact, Mahabharata war was the main objective for the birth of Krishna in Dwapar Yug.
So, Shakuni was actually working for the main objective of the Krishna incarnation. In fact, it was Shakuni who was constructing the plot where Krishna had to come to rescue to save Dharma.
Shakuni new that Krishna could foil his plans. Krishna new that Shakuni will make the war inevitable. They were both working on an inevitable destiny.
6) A folklore depicting Draupadi’s curse to dog leading to a mythology:
Pandavas had agreed that only one brother must enter Draupadi’s chamber at a time and during that time no other Pandava must enter her chamber. The brother who entered her chamber was to keep his shoes outside the door. The violation of this condition had a strict penalty - the offender was to leave immediately for year long exile.
One day when Yudhishthira was in Draupadi’s chamber, a dog stole his shoes from outside the door. Arjuna, unaware of this, entered the chamber and saw his elder brother with Draupadi. According to the agreement, Arjuna had to leave for the exile. Embarrassed, Draupadi became furious with the dog that had stolen Yudhishthira’s shoe, thereby cursing all dogs – “All the world will see you copulate in public, stripped of all shame.”
Note: This isn’t mentioned in Ved Vyasa’ Mahabharata.
7) Radha is never mentioned in Ved-Vyasa’ Mahabharata.
Not only in Mahabharata, Radha isn’t mentioned in Harivansh puran also.
8) Vibhishana, the brother of Ravana from Treta Yuga, was alive during Mahabharata:
Vibhishana was Ravana’s brother who takes the side of Rama during the war. Even though he was crowned the king of Lanka after the war, he knew he would pay the price of betrayal. So in Mahabharata when Yudhisthira sent his forces to Lanka, Vibhishana readily accepted the takeover and also sent jewels.
9) Mayasura, the father in law of Ravana as alive during Mahabharata too:
Mayasura was the father of Mandodari, the wife of Ravana. He also built the magnificent palace for Yudhisthira in Indraprastha. He built a grand assembly hall around a pool of water. The floor of the assembly hall was built with marble that looked just like water. It was studded with gems shaped like fish, and was at the same level as the pool at the center. The whole floor looked like a pool. The palace also had a door that looked like a wall. Yudhisthira was amazed to see the palace. The Pandavas were very pleased with Mayasura.
10) Kunti and Yudhisthira discouraged caste -discrimination on personal lives.
We all remember the fact that Draupadi objected to Karna’s participation in the Swayamvar because he was sut putra. However, we generally ignore the fact that Bhima agreed to marry Hidimbaa when Kunti permitted. That is a sort of inter-racial and inter-caste marriage because Hidimbaa was no Arya.
These are some of the secrets of Mahabharata. Would add some more once I gather some new facts.
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