United States or British Virgin Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Pandavas had been victorious; and Duryodhana the Kurava king appealed to Bhishma to save the situation. Bhishma loved the Pandava princes like a father; and urged Duryodhana to end the war by granting them their rights, but in vain. So next day, owing his allegiance to Duryodhana, he took the field; and
Just as in the Iliad it is the Trojan Hector who is the most sympathetic character, so in the Mahabharata it is often to some of the Kurava champions that our sympathies unavoidably flow. We are told that the Kurava are thoroughly depraved and villainous; but not seldom their actions belie the assertion, with a certain Kshattriya magnamity for which they are given no credit.
Then in the course of the centuries, as learning in its higher branches became more and more a possession of the Brahmans, and since there was no feeling against adding to this epic whatever material came handy, Brahmin esotericists manipulated it with great tact and finesse into a symbol of the warfare of the Soul. There is the story of the death of the Kurava champion Bhishma.
For it would seem that of the original writers, some had been on the Kurava, some on the Pandava side; though in the symbol as it stands, it is the Pandavas who represent the Light, the Kurava, the darkness. There are traces of this submerged diversity of opinion.
Word Of The Day