Mahabharata Introduction
Mahabharata is a great epic. Ithihaasa and Purana are two different things. Ithihaasa is what is written about some people who are living. Purana is a thing written much later than people who are living. Epic is a great asset for the country in which it is written. India has 2 great epics Mahabharata and Ramayana. Both were really Ithihaasas. They were not Puranas. People have seen and written these epics. There is 1 major part of Mahabharata. There is nothing there in the world which is not there in Mahabharata. What is not there in Mahabharata is there nowhere else. This is a great statement on Mahabharata by great scholars. Mahabharata is a great story. Where to start. Particularly a person who is new, the idea is to make it in a simple way about Mahabharata story.
Jokoparishi’s Plan to tell Mahabharata
We have a plan of telling Mahabharata only up till the Mahabharata war only, because it goes after the war, and 36 years, Parikshit is the new emperor, all this is beyond the scope of our story for children. Santanu was a great maharaja. He married Ganga. Ganga is a celestial lady from the other world, she is personified as Ganga. They had a son named Bhishma. There was a Satyavati, who was the wife of Santanu, after Ganga left him. She had a son earlier, named Vyasa, from Parashara muni. So Santanu had 2 more sons, Chitrangada and Vichitraveerya. They both died early. Santanu had 3 grandchildren through Vyasa- Dhritarashtra, Pandu and Vidura. Dhritarashtra is senior but blind. Pandu is younger but eligible. Vidura was made the minister.
The saga begins
Satyavati was the grand old lady who was administering all these things, with the help of Bhishma, who was helping her in the administration of the kingdom called Hastinapur. Dhritarashtra was blind so Pandu was made the king. But for some reason, Pandu went to the forest with his wives, Kunti and Madri. They were in the forest for quite some time and Dhritarashtra was the temporary King. But Pandu died because of some curse, after having 5 children- Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva. Just after their birth, Gandhari, the wife of Dhritarashtra, had 100 sons and 1 daughter. The daughter is Dusshala. The sons’ names start with Duryodhana, Dushasana, etc. They were called the Kauravas. The 5 sons of Pandu were called Pandavas.