Mahabharata Reading Notes A
Ramayana pg: 1-39
Santanu was the ruler of a kingdom with the capital of
Hastinapura. He meets a young woman and falls in love with her. When she reciprocates
his feelings, she tells him that she is willing to marry him only if he lets
her to whatever she wants. Furthermore, he is not allowed to stop her from
doing anything. Santanu agreed with her wishes and they get married. However,
whenever the woman became pregnant and had a child, she immediately drowned the
child in a river. She does this with seven children until Santanu tells her to
stop killing their children. She agrees with his demand, but she takes the
child away from him and tells him that she will return the child once the child
has grown up. She keeps her word and returns the child to her husband.
Four years later, Santanu meets the daughter of a fisherman
and falls in love with her. He asks the fisherman to give his daughter to him
as his wife. The fisherman agrees, but tells Santanu that he will give his
daughter only if her offspring became Santanu’s heir to the throne. Devavratha,
Santanu’s son, promises the fisherman that he will remain a bachelor for the
rest of his life, so that Santanu’s offspring can be the heir to the throne.
Santanu has two more sons: Chitraganda and Vichitraviyai. Vichitraviyai had two
wives Ambika and Ambalika who are the daughters of the ruler of Kasi. Vichitraviyai
dies after seven years. Vyasa, a sage has children with both Ambika and
Ambalika in order to provide heirs to the kingdom.
They have three children: Dhritarashtra, Pandu, and Vidura.
Dhritarashtra is blind and marries a princess of Gandhara named Gandhari. Since
her husband was blind, Gandhari decided to cover her eyes to respect her
husband. The couple had one hundred children, the oldest being Duryodhana. Pandu
is pallid and marries Kunti and Madri. Pandu is cursed so that he cannot have
children to carry on his name. However, Kunti was blessed with a gift in which she
can have children with the gods. Kunti had a child named Karna with Surya, the sun
god. However, since Kunti was not married then so she abandons the child in a
basket along the river. Pandu tells her to have children, so Kunti has three
sons with various gods and Madri has twins. Kunti’s children are known as the
Pandavas.
Bibliography: R.K. Narayan, Mahabharata: A shortened modern prose version of the Indian epic, 1978.
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