The Greatest Indian Epic - Mahabharath

Here, someone is really taking things lightly:

Yes, the reference to Ekalavya. For people not au fait with Hindu mythology, Ekalavya was this dude who wanted to learn archery from Dronacharya. Dronacharya was the guy who taught the Kauravas and Pandavas their martial warfare. (The Kauravas and Pandavas were the cousins who had this big-ass 18-day battle where they annihilated each other. The Pandavas were the good guys, and survived.) Anyway, one of the Pandavas was named Arjun, and he was unstoppable with a bow and arrow. (Probably attributable to his great sex life - he had at least 10 wives, by my last count.)

But Ekalavya, an earnest villager, also wanted to learn archery. (He had a great upside.) He asked Dronacharya to teach him. Dronacharya said no. So Ekalavya made a statue of Dronacharya, and by praying to that, he became an awesome archer. He showed Dronacharya how awesome he was at some contest where Arjun was fighting. Arjun got pissed, and went crying to Dronacharya, who had promised Arjun that he would let no-one surpass him. So when it came time for Ekalavya to give Dronacharya "guru dakshina" (tuition fees, I guess), Dronacharya demanded Ekalavya's thumbs. As a result, Ekalavya couldn't shoot with a bow and arrow more, and Arjun remained the best.

In short, Ekalavya was jobbed. That shows you what happens when you learn archery from a statue. As a post-script, Arjun's older brother lied to Dronacharya about Dronacharya's son having been killed on the battlefield. (But it was only a half-lie, since they'd killed an elephant with Dronacharya's son's name. So Arjun's virtuous eldest brother only spent a half-second in hell.) As a result Dronacharya lost interest in the battle, and was killed (I think by Arjun). 2nd moral of the story: don't demand thumbs as tuition fees.

http://usenetsports.com/showthread.php?t=750183

I am genuinely intending to keep away from such topics. However, I could not resist posting something that I believe, at least in principle, must be mentioned here so as to bring things in a better perspective.

Should anyone get upset by this, I do apologise for that, but I must do and say what I morally think must be done and said, which I genuinely believe would correspond more with the actuality and thus with the truer sense of morality.

Ramayan and Mahabhrat, the two classic Indian epics, are nothing more than just the creations of human minds, possibly remotely based on the lives of ancient Indian kings, their kingdoms and the way of priestly life in those days. But undoubtedly both portray the two ever-contrasting human ideologies, rightly or wrongly suited to the demands of those times.

No doubt, they both are great narrative poems, but it will be ignorant of us to treat them as universal landmark in human conceptions, prescribing what were extravagantly believed to be defining the milestones in normative human values, human conducts and human behaviours. The zeal to idealise and define social, moral, cultural as well as political blueprints for society from such narrative stories that would not and could not keep up with the demands of changing times, would only amount to a dogmatism, leading not only to social degeneration/stagnation of society but cognitive degeneration/stagnation too.

No one would ever deny that the social, cultural and political landscape of India has undergone massive historical turmoil and along with that, began the diminishing role of those moral values that were based on the scenarios and situations encountered in those ancient days.

I would wonder how many of modern human beings would seriously subscribe to what were very subjectively and controversially described as moral in such ancient and obsolete stories, while the morality itself is an essential part of human evolutionary process, which is necessarily a learned process? A learned process that is based on the cognitive development of individuals and thus of society.

Many instances and events described in both stories, while some of them have already been discussed elsewhere and some of them are being discussed here, have turned out to be morally too controversial to be right when viewed from present perspectives. It only proves them to be “right” as long as they were viewed by some as bringing “good” outcomes irrespective of whether those “good” outcomes were at the cost of miseries of countless innocents. While in reality, the genuine concepts of right and wrong do not necessarily follow from such good and bad outcomes.

The evidential proofs of such irrational and selective choices of moral values are numerous. There are countless examples of some of the most outrageous and deplorable actions and behaviours of individuals and/or society that were/are justified as good/right when such actions and/or behaviours had their deep roots in certain aspects of conceptual, social, cultural, political and/or religious life of a people. Such being the highly subjective nature of morality, no epic or story could, can and will ever succeed in encompassing the evolving nature of morality in its entirety and in its true sense. :)

his Topic is taking a different turn, pls put a stop to it!!!


Dear Viggop,

As of now still no War between Bansur & Lord Krishna, regarding Anirudh

SRS

Go here to say something about geetha
http://forumhub.mayyam.com/hub/viewt...t=3563&start=0

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Originally Posted by sbadri99

Legend (from which you quote the vamana avatharam) has it that Mahabali was not killed, but is still the ruler of the Netherlands, where Vamana himself has agreed to act as a door keeper for all eternity.

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Mahabali is the ruler of the Netherlands? :shock:

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Originally Posted by aravindhan

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sbadri99

Legend (from which you quote the vamana avatharam) has it that Mahabali was not killed, but is still the ruler of the Netherlands, where Vamana himself has agreed to act as a door keeper for all eternity.

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Mahabali is the ruler of the Netherlands? :shock:

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I think he means nether lands meaning below.

It is not Nederlands but Pathala Lokam.

Dear Pradheep,

Gita verses with Explanations,can be posted here as Gita is the back bone of Mahabhartha


Dear Vigop

Regarding Bansur, from all the episodes I am closely following, there is not yet a war, Anirudh(lord Krishna's grand son) is in love with Banasur's daughter Usha, her friend Chitralekha tries to kidnap Anirudh to unite with Usha, while Anirudh is sleeping in his chamber, but as soon she appraoches, dwaraka, Lord Krishna's Sudharsanachakaram prevents her from entering the city, but maha rishis naryana explains to chitralekha that she must offer her prayers to Lord Krishna in order to go past it, hence she offers prayers, and the chkaram disappears, in the mean time, Banasur has sent tow spies to keep an eye on Anirudh, these two spies were distroyed by chitralekha using her maya shakthi.

Chitralekha has her own story, she was a maiden to Matha Parvathi, once Maha Iswar and matha parvathi was playing dice game, Maha iswar plays a trick (leelai) he makes Matha parvathi win and him loose the game, so after he lost he got angry and walks away from matha Parvathi, this develops into an argument and they are both angry between each others, seeing this the maiden(chitra lekha) disguises her self as matha parvathi(using her illusive power) and plays the game with Maha Iswar, seeing this Matha Parvathi got angry and cursed Chitra lekha to be born as a demon, hence she was born as Usha's maiden & friend.

Maha Iswar grants mukthi to Chitra lekha in this birth, to be continued....

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Originally Posted by Raghu

Dear Pradheep,

Gita verses with Explanations,can be posted here as Gita is the back bone of Mahabhartha

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Kindly refrain from doing so. This thread has been redone and only story references have been retained. Kindly discuss the Mahabharatha Epic as a story.

Let us not go back to another debate on religion/caste etc. using the Mahabharatha as an excuse.

The Bhagwad Gita does form a part of the Mahabharatha, but since we cannot discuss that without discussing religion, this thread is certainly not the place to do so.

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Originally Posted by aravindhan

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sbadri99

Legend (from which you quote the vamana avatharam) has it that Mahabali was not killed, but is still the ruler of the Netherlands, where Vamana himself has agreed to act as a door keeper for all eternity.

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Mahabali is the ruler of the Netherlands? :shock:

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Sorry about that! Never struck me that I was actually writing Netherlands!! It is the nether regions, pathala as viggop and SRS have corrected!!