LAZY NOTES V (IN LOCKDOWN) In the darkness of the night, Duryodhana, rattled, scared, intensely lonely and blood all over his body, fled from the battlefield. All his brothers had been killed, as had been Sakuni, his mighty generals and other celebrated warriors and his beloved son, Lakshmana Kumara. He directly went to Bhishma, lying …
VIDURA’S SILENCE
LAZY NOTES IV(IN LOCKDOWN) For the Great War at Kurukshetra there was no one person in Sarala Mahabharata who everyone blamed as being solely or primarily responsible. For Gandhari and Dhritarastra, it was Sakuni - when the war was on. After the war, when she saw Krishna, she told him that he was solely responsible …
BHIMA’S OATH
LAZY NOTES III (IN LOCKDOWN) In Sarala Mahabharata, Kunti and Yudhisthira thought of Bhima as dusta. It would be grossly unfair to translate “dusta” as wicked, in the given context. Wicked, he was certainly not. When he was a child, he was naughty and sometimes for fun, he would tease and torment his Kaurava cousins. …
ARJUNA’S REVENGE
LAZY NOTES II (IN LOCKDOWN) In the episode of “The Mango of Truth” (see the post on June 9, 2005 in this blog), Arjuna had told Krishna this truth, among others, about himself in the presence of his brothers, Draupadi, sage Vyasa and the imposter Gauramukha: he would never target an enemy who was fleeing …
YUDHISTHIRA’S HALF-TRUTH
LAZY NOTES I (IN LOCKDOWN) Yudhisthira was persuaded to tell Drona “The man or the elephant Aswasthama was dead’ but utter “elephant” in a low voice (nara ki gunjara aswasthama marana / Kariba dhire gunjara sabda uchcharana). Krishna told the virtuous shishya that his guru, in the terribly disturbed state he would be in at …
Sarala Mahabharata 