What If I Told You That The Mahabharata Was A Lie?

Has it ever occurred to you that the stories that have been narrated to us since childhood, could be flawed?

Flawed to the limits of covering up or making it suitable for you to understand the situation you find yourself in. While we have always believed in what our elders told us, and they, in what their elders might have, more than a few narrations question the theories that has been narrated in the epic for the first time.

As said earlier, we’ve always been told and narrated the story of the side which wins.

Today, no matter what the situation be, good or bad, no matter how heinous the crime is, no matter how close your loved ones were and yet they ended up conspiring, no matter whether the parents killed their own child, wisdom prevails only when both the sides have said their part. So should I assume that we’ve moved much ahead of the old times? Or is it that the occurrences are inspired by what we’ve conceived of the stories?

What if none of the narrations are true?

What if the idea of ‘dharma’ and ‘karma’ was never fulfilled in the epic?

What if every lesson in the epic is for us to learn and choose and not to teach?

What if it was all a lie? What if the Mahabharata was all a lie?

What does rearing children mean to the us, the present generation? Nothing more than a phase of life? Our ancestors, however, were of a different opinion. They believed that a person is reborn as any of their descendants in respective forms, i.e- men were reborn as boys and women as girls. If that were the case, did Bhishma not commit a sin, by not marrying and bearing children? Does this not explain the prevailing female foeticide system, that has reached its extremes with the last couple of generations?

That Draupadi loved just one of the Pandavas the most, is only partially true. Many historians and epic analysts believe that she mistook Karna to be Arjuna in her Swayamvar ceremony. However, Krishna knew that the consequences wouldn’t be the same if she married Karna. He also was very aware of the fact that Karna is not a charioteer’s son but is the eldest of Pandavas. Yet he manipulated her, so as to cause the greatest war known to mankind.

If by listening to all of those stories, you concluded Pandavas to be good and Kauravas to be bad, let me tell you that you were and are still delusioned. The truth is, that after yeras of exile, they learnt to be patient and change. However, the Kauravas did not let go of the kingdom like dogs don’t let go of bones. Connectively, Duryodhana, in the present day, is a presiding deity in one of the temples in Kerala, because he believed in equality of human beings. It may also surprise you that two of the Kauravas did not fight with their brothers. Yuyutsu, Dhritarashtra’s son from a palace maid and Vikarna, had thought that what Draupadi had to go through was sinfully wrong. 

That Shakuni, the prince of Gandhara, and the maternal uncle to the Kauravas, always stood by thier side to make them victorious is a lie. Shakuni only intended to take revenge from Bhishma, for once Bhishma had caused mass genocide in the kingdom of Gandhara and left one child alive. The child’s only aim, ever since he came to know of the killings, was the destruction of Kuru clan. Had Krishna wanted, he could have never let the war or the jealous feeling among brothers happen. But history had to be created, so as to narrate the stories to generation to come.

Does this not raise innumerable questions in your mind, regarding the history we’ve believed in since ages? The lessons from the stories contradict themselves, and things are made to take place to create history.

The prefix ‘Du’ was regarded as inauspicious in those times. Now why would a king name his children with the same prefix? (Duryodhana and Dussasna)

None of the Kuru grandsons were liable to ascend the throne, as, in none of them ran the blood of the clan. Why were they made to fight for the throne, then?

They call it the greatest war of all times. No side, Pandavas or Kauravas, stuck by the rules to win the war. While Abhimanyu was killed fighting more than one warrior at a time, Dhrishtadyumna and Pandava children were killed in the middle of the night, Duryodhana was hit below the waist by Bheem, and Karna was unarmed when killed by Arjuna. How, then is it the greatest war of all times?

The time has come to question history.