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 …
FAKE PEOPLE (In the world of Sarala Mahabharata)
Made of the three gunas, namely, satwa, raja and tama, and destined to live enveloped in maya, humans lack the necessary clarity of vision to make sense of the world and even one’s own small world. If this view of the human predicament is unpalatable to someone, he (or she or they), might like to …
Continue reading "FAKE PEOPLE (In the world of Sarala Mahabharata)"
FAKE VIEWS
“Fake views” are views one advocates but does not really subscribe to them. The expression is used in this broad sense here. One could express fake views for a number of reasons: from enlivening a boring conversation, to protecting oneself in a situation where telling what one really believes or knows for certain would most …
NARAYANA AND HIS GRACE
Deeply offended by Krishna’s plain speaking, Duryodhana lost his temper and started abusing him. To be fair, his feeling humiliated and even being angry at what Krishna had told him is not un-understandable, although one could hardly deny that he had asked for it. But his being abusive was certainly inappropriate, at least in view …
WHEREFORE “THE MANGO OF TRUTH”?
I am rephrasing a question a young researcher-participant at a Sarala Mahabharata conference asked me the other day: what purpose – narrative, philosophical, aesthetic, etc. – does the episode of “The Mango of Truth” serve in Sarala’s Mahabharata? It was heartening that he was thinking beyond the familiar enumeration of the differences between Vyasa’s Mahabharata …
THE KILLING OF THE GURU
PART I The only father, who had entered the battlefields of Kurukshetra, making a promise onto himself that he would give up weapons on knowing that his son had been killed, was Drona, the venerable guru of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. It would not matter to him at all if someone took advantage of …
WHAT MADE THE SON OF DHARMA CHOOSE WAR?
He was a wise and compassionate man, a man of peace, who thought of no one as his enemy, and had no desire for kingship. Yet that very embodiment of virtue chose to go to a conclusive war against his cousins. Why, asked a young Odia writer and scholar, who does not want to be …
TALK ON GREAT INDIAN EPICS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_A0aVtDIoo#action=share Talk at International Seminar held on 15th-16th Feb at JNU on Great Indian Epics.
Sarala Mahabharata 