Racing the Sun: The Fourteenth Day Parva Part 13 Bhima Karna 3 (DevinaAbhishtha Parva 13) Bhima Karna III Previous parts: https://facebook/MahabharatKiGalatiyan/posts/580241315422088 https://facebook/MahabharatKiGalatiyan/posts/580240972088789 https://facebook/photo.php?fbid=580301518749401&set=a.452358121543742.1073741828.440861902693364&type=1 Bhima Karna Part 3 Lot of people asked me recently that why was Jayadratha chosen instead of any other “real” killers of Abhimanyu. The answer I can give is psychology. They have just killed one of best Pandava warriors; the means do not matter to ordinary soldier who has trekked from outskirts of Madurai, Tripuri in Chattisgarh, Girivraja in Magadha, the sea coast of Bengal or beauteous locale of Abhisara in the northern mountains. That common soldier has run behind the chariots of Abhimanyu, Draupdeyas, Panchalas, Ghatotkacha, Arjuna and Bhima, they have run 20 miles day in day out like the defenders on a football field, doing the hard leg work setting up the kill to enable the rathis to reach their “goal”. The success of the rathis is their success. The death of rathis is their low point, their morale is linked to the few stars in the Dharmaraja’s firmament. Abhimanyu the Pandava is dead. That is bound to affect morale. So, to rouse the common soldier, to enthuse the cavalry, to aim the archers, to frame the rathis, to encase the castles of elephants, they have targeted a famed opponent. They selected Jeejaji!, the son in law. They identified and deliberately set a deep and difficult goal. Such a goal raises morale, they have done similar great achievements in past, what is a mere eleven akshuhinis and 32 miles of packed infantry to separate them from achieving their goals. This is war, this the fire which will forge the legends of future, even in the mundane slaughter and day in day out percentage killing of armies, This goal stands out. This is the glorious Endeavour, not a mere revenge killing. This is the excuse for Yamaraja, the half of Dharmaraja to let loose his yamadootas, his Berserkers, his choosers of the slain. Bhima, Arjuna and Satyaki are unleashed in timed releases. The targeting of Jayadratha was an excuse to accelerate the Ragnarok of Kaurava army, its very twilight, the Kurudammerung of the Kauravas. youtube/watch?v=V92OBNsQgxU In case one has 5 hours to spare: youtube/watch?v=_ww4JHkloa8 The targeting of Jayadratha, the damaadji, has a salubrious effect on Pandava army and the unwholesome effect on the Kaurava army. After all, Dussala is also like a daughter to Pandu. Battle Number 5 (Why is Karna alone?) Sanjaya states that Karna made chariot less and weaponless by Bhima thus defeated by him yet again, did not give up hope and acquired yet another Chariot and accosted Bhima as he went about his career of reaping the cropped heads of the suchimukhavyuha defenders. Bhima is 30 plus miles from his supply lines and inside a Chakravyuha. Karna is operating right next to the Kaurava camp now a city some people will say was named for him, Karnal. Karna has been defeated four times and continued to come back shows two things. One, the Kaurava intra-warrior support system was totally flawed. I know it is fourteenth day, I know they have lost a lot of heroes and warriors, I know that their Maharathis and leadership has specially been targeted and whittled down but no other warrior comes to Karna’s aid. They still have almost 2 million troops, they would still have 3000 senior sergeants alive if losses in non-comms match the losses in manpower. Actually Pandava active targeting of officers would have left less non-comms and senior officers alive than we would expect at this stage. If we hark back to the Bheeshma’s initial list in Udyoga Parva, we see that they still have alive Salya, Vikarna, Asvathhama, Karna, Kripa, Trigartas, Vrishasena, Drona, Kritvarma, Jayadratha, Somadatta, Bhurishrvas, Sala, Bahalika Senajita, Sakuni, Ulluka and Saraswata. The three top Yuthapatipatis are still alive Drona, Kripa and Bhurishravas. Four top Atirathis are still alive Bahalika, Salya, Paurava, Kritvarma. They still have Vrishasena, Alambusha and Satyavan alive in next rung. Jayadratha is still alive, the lone dwirathi of Kaurava side. They still have Shakuni, his brother Brihadbala, Dandhara, Neela Duryodhana, Vinda Anuvinda and several Kaurava brothers with rank of Maharathis especially Chitrasena still alive. They still have Asvwathamma. I just named 32 warriors of top level skills who are still alive and in battlefield. See the effect of targeting Jayadratha by Pandavas. The three top yuthapatipatis are in defense of the damaadji, Again, two top Atirathis as well as Asvathhama and Karna are also tied in defence. Vrishasena is also associated with defense. Hardly any top officers are in proactive role or aggressive role, Kaurava army is reacting to Pandava moves and stratagems. They are fighting defensively and hence losing. Losing very badly. Granted Jayadratha the target and his protectors are not counted. Drona is busy trying to hold Chakravyuha door intact. Granted Kritvarma today got beaten by Satyaki twice, Arjuna, Bhima and others so is not in fit shape to help out. That still leaves Bahalika, Sala, Bhuri, Somadatta, Paurava son of Drona, Satyavan, Shakuni, Brihadbala, Dandhara, Neela Duryodhana, Vinda and Anuvinda. Plus several Kaurava brothers. What are they doing? Bahalika family is uninterested or does not intervene, either to help Drona fight in Shakata or in Chakravyuha. Shakuni had become lukewarm to Kaurava cause since the Gandharva war and so we can see that He and his family may have held back here but Jayadratha is related to them also. Maybe they are defending him, Shakuni’s 10,000 rathis are part of Suchimukha vyuha. Dandhara, Neela Duryodhana, Vinda-Anuvinda are visiting kings and seeing how reluctant Duryodhana is to himself engage, they have simply kept away. Duryodhana is definitely a leader by example. When going gets tough, the “toughs” are gone!! None of them come to help Karna not even the Hastinapur commander and army chief fellow Sutaputra Satyavan comes to Karna’s aid. We can only speculate to the motives of Paurava whose son Damana had died gallantly in battle on 4th day. Karna the commander of Akshauhini has no second rung of officers except his sons and brothers. And Karna will not risk the lives of his relations against Bhima. So, he comes again and again alone, hoping Bhima runs out of arrows or tires out!! If Kaurava top 5 warriors are in defense mode, of the five Pandava Yuthapatipatis, Abhimanyu is dead, other four are giving serious offense to Kauravas. Arjuna, Bhima and Satyaki are inside the Kaurava Chakravyuha!!! Ghatotkacha is only odd one out. Pandavas have lost 1 of their eight Atirathis but six are there in active offense lead by Dhrishtadamyun battering the Kaurava forces of Shakata vyuha against the walls of Chakravyuha. The eighth one Yudhamanyu is standing inside the Chakravyuha whistling “Le jayenge le jayenge teri jeejaji ki mundi le jayenge!!”. Where is Ghatotkacha? Another question posted was that what is Ghatotkacha doing so far this day? Why is he not with Bhima? Well he cleaned off couple of top Rakshasas and destroyed some of dangerous Rakshasa forces ranged against Pandavas today, while his brothers the Draupdeyas, made sure that Vyasa loses lot more of his greatgrandsons today to make it manageable for Vyasa to write their names down in case, he do decide to chronicle this war someday in future! Vyasa had some 8000 kaurava great grandsons at start of day, a number counted too quickly by the end of day when everyone would be looking at the sky and saying “Is it a bird?” “Is it a vimana?” “Is it a gandharva?” “No it is the Saindhava-munda”. The Rakshasas were the only group which was not ambiguous in their support. The Bahalikas may hum and haw and see some of their brethrens leave for Pandava camp. The Yadavas were divided. Even Kuru royals had the second son of Dhritrashtra choose the Pandava camp. Kekayas were mixed in their initial loyalties. But one group was expected to back the Kauravas completely, the Rakshasas. Bhima had winnowed their ranks. It was his past time. Boys and ladies, before there was WWF, there was WRF. Wrestling Rakshasas for Fun. Bhima’s fun that is, none of Rakshasas looked upon it as fun. People collected tiger heads, they collected china dolls, some collected Krishna wedding invites, some collected Kaurava name cards (collect all hundred and you get Bhima’s card free), Bhima collected Rakshasa warriors kills as if there were bounty awards on them, for a few rakshasas more, a fistful of rakshasas, the Good, the bad and the Rakshasa! . youtube/watch?v=mLXQltR7vUQ Bhima’s exploits plus the Danavas throwing in their lot against the Deva born Pandavas meant Rakshasas will fight for Kauravas. But here too there was division in their ranks. Shalakantaka, Alayudha, Alarka, Alambusha, Alaghu, Alambala, Arshyasranga came to fight for Kauravas. Yeah, the education may have been scant in their regions so they learnt only A and named all children or warriors with it apparently!! Those who learnt B were Plan B of Danavas and those who learnt “C” were sent as software engineers on H-1B and L-1 visas!! Hand raised!! (Those who learnt “D” are hired by Argentina for the finals against Black, Red and Yellow wearing sons of cooks and millers and schweinsteiger flying like wind towards their “goal”.) Hand has not been lowered. On the oldest map that showed the word America, the eastern coast of India is called Argentina!! It was drawn by Walldesmueller (like a combo of Rahul Dravid and Thomas Mueller!!) memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/gmd:@field(NUMBER+@band(g3200+ct000725C)) Vyas and his amazing book Champa Srinivas just wrote a beautiful article on Vyasa and I would like to show the beauty of his construct (yeah, enough great grandsons were killed so he could write his Magnum Opus!!) with a passage from Vana Parva. Bear with me, Karna is still waiting for his next charioteer to get ready so we can meanwhile indulge me. In the high mountains, Pandavas, Draupadi, Lomasha, Dhaumya and few Rishis having left all servants at Subahu’s palace and all artifacts at Vishala ashrama of Nara and Narayana, were travelling through mountain terrain and heavy forests when suddenly there was a freak wind and rain storm. It caught them unaware as it does many an alpine trekker in the mountainous fastnesses of Himalayas. The dust and leaves blown by the strong wind hid the Pandavas from each other and rain assaulted them. The sounds of large trees falling and rocks crashing filled the dark atmosphere. Blinded, all the travelers, by touching trees and earth mounds, slowly separated and moved away from each other. Yudhishthara and Dhaumya ran with the sacrificial family fire to a nearby crevasse in mountainside protecting the flames from downpour, Sahadeva found an over hanging rock to crawl under while Nakula and Lomasha lead the Rishis to a thick copse of trees to shelter inside. Bhima extending the arm holding the bow picked Draupadi like an arrow as they embraced under a tree, the storm outside separating them, hiding them from rest of the world, like calm in the eye of the storm That is his uhm grandson and granddaughter-in-law and how delicately the poet handles the narration. Few days, later Draupadi faints because of shortness of breath, nausea, fatigue and dizziness. I don’t remember the exact plans (I remember the Amar Chitra Katha version) but it involved Bhima and Sahadeva staying back looking after Draupadi and Nakula-Dharmaraja moving on alone. Here, Bhima finds the solution in using Ghatotkacha Pawanhans service to keep them together. Ghatotkacha and his fellow rakshasas turn up and then spend the next few months and years helping out and living with Pandavas. They see and hear Dharmaraja on daily basis and see their modest living conditions, their easy acceptance of daily travails, the camaraderie of the brothers, the teachings of the Rishis, the joy and funny antics the brothers got up to, their defending their friends and fighting the yakshas, and Rakshasas went back home and told their fellow Rakshasas. “He, Arre, They are like us, only less meat eating!!” One Rakshasa Akshauhini came to fight on the side of Dharma in this war. Religion, Race and occupation was no bar to chose the right side for you in Vyas’s Epic. A missionary had travelled to eighth/ninth century Java and said that rural audiences are always glued to hearing “Virata Parva” and celebrating the brothers. They still do in rural Java, rural Karnataka, rural Chattisgarh, rural Uttar Pradesh, maybe those rakshasas liked to hear Vana Parva in those days!! The humanization of devaputras, the normalization of warrior Kshatriyas, the humbling of the princes and their genteel acceptance of plebeian way of life, the rounding of their characters in Vana and Virata Parvas are a fantastic device of Vyasa which has enamored the audiences to the Pandavas ever since. Bhima Karna resumes next chapter!! Hum Bhi Bhayya Preview dikha ke, kahani badal sakte hain!! P.S. In Starbharatakabhartaa episode of July 9th telecast in USA; Duryodhana harangues Karna for not killing Abhimanyu and states “Kya tum Gandharva ho!”. I mean this is the height of irony!! The writers have so scant knowledge that they use term Gandharva as an abuse to denote a weak warrior! The same Gandharvas who had put Karna to flight and who easily bonded Duryodhana, his brothers and their wives as slaves, ready for farmer’s market at discount rates. Gandharvas who defeated them so easily that Duryodhana wanted to do shuicide!! (Shuicide: jab Kaurava log marne ka natak karte hain to usse shuicide kehte hain !) That Duryodhana is looking down on the valor of Gandharvas!! Bhaai!! Bashi-bazouks!! Caterpillars! Bald headed budgerigars!!
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 07:59:35 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015