mahabharata war&world history

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Mahabharata: The Great War and World History

Tattva Prakasha - Illuminations of TruthVolume One, Issue Eight - May 30, 2001The bi-monthly newsletter of IndiaDivine.org published by Bhaktivedanta Ashram, Mysore.Editor: Jahnava Nitai Das ([email protected])

Welcome to the eighth issue of Tattva Prakasha. This issue is certainly long overdue. We apologizefor not being able to publish an issue for the last two months. Due to a number of technical reasons

(mostly problems with our computer systems) we fell behind on releasing this issue. In the meantimethe number of subscribers has more than quadrupled to around 3,500. I would like to welcome all ofour new readers who are receiving Tattva Prakasha for the first time. In this issue I chose to focusmore on historical and Puranic topics. Those who have received other issues of Tattva Prakasha willbe familiar with our usual content. We try to alternate our writing style, sometimes giving veryphilosophical articles, sometimes technical articles, and sometimes articles on general history. Wehope that by this process we can satisfy all varieties of readers at least some of the time.

In a related manner, I would like to personally invite all of you to join our new discussion forums onspiritual topics, the Audarya Fellowship. For those who wish to actively discuss spiritual life, hinduism,or indology, it will be an ideal place to visit. There are many of us who will appreciate reading yourcontributions, so please come and share your realizations on spiritual life. Consider it your own forum

to broadcast your views and experiences, we are just there to facilitate the exchange of ideas:

www.indiadivine.org/

The topic of this issue is the Mahabharata war in relation to world history and culture. We will begin

the topic with a question we received sometime back:

"In the Mahabharata, the war seemed to have affected the whole world. We don't find so manyreferences to such of a huge event in other cultures. Why are there no references to a great world

event?"

There is reference to a great war both in the Mayan culture and in old Chinese traditions. They speakabout a huge war that happened long, long ago; but they give no details. They only knew that such a

war had occurred.

After any war two things happen. In certain regions, nothing develops for a long time; and in certainother regions everything expands very rapidly. The same thing has happened after the Kurukshetrawar. In some places everything just stopped; there was no communication. These places became

completely isolated from the rest of the world.

You can imagine the situation of those other kingdoms which were working under the fifty-fourkingdoms, the Aryan empire. When a huge war like this is waged on the other side of the globe, andnone of the kings ever returned, and their armies also didn't come back, what would be the state ofcommunication?

These kingdoms would have become completely alien to everything. No one would have known whathappened. The king with his entire army went to fight in the great war, and that's it. They justdisappeared, never to be heard from again. The agents from the ruling kingdoms no longer came to

collect taxes, no information was being sent from the world capital. Suddenly these former coloniesare isolated and free. They don't have to pay taxes anymore, nor do they have to be subservient.

Naturally the new king would try to make a lot of indigenous effort to put forth their own culture. And ifthere were any texts left that said his grand father was a slave of Kaikeya, he would just burn it. Theywouldn't want to keep such information.


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The same thing happened in the modern World War, which was actually just a war around the world.But the Mahabharata war was one massacre at one single place, and nobody went back. None of the

kings or soldiers returned to tell what happened.

It is described that the cremations were done there and the rituals were also done there. Even thewidows of the other kings were adopted there by the capital, Hastinapura. Seven different types ofcremations were done, like mass cremations, individual cremations, etc. After the cremations, the

widows were all adopted by Hastinapura there itself. There was practically no one going back to theirown countries, hardly a single channel of communication.

We can imagine if we were a distant country ruling under one of these fifty-four kings, the Aryanempire, and we see no one is returning from the battle, no communication is coming from the battle;what would we do? Immediately we would destroy the old information, that showed us as slaves to

these Aryan kings, and emerge as a great self-manifesting empire like Egypt. This is exactly whatthey did.

The destruction caused by the war was not only external. The destruction of the war was also in theminds of the people. After those heavy astras were used, in the minds of the people anything subtle,anything delicate, anything perfectional was completely burnt out. It is just like in Hiroshima andNagasaki, till today you find the children are disabled. How many years has it been? It was only twoprimitive bombs. They were so gross and physical, but the radioactivity of that is still being seen

today.

Then we can understand, according to the descriptions within the Mahabharata, what was thedestruction of the Brahmastras used in the war. What was the Agni-astras they were using? Whatwas the power of the wind in the Vayu-astra? It was not only blowing in Kurukshetra, it was blowing allover the planet. What would have happened to the people's minds because of the diffusion of allthese energies?

Everything became lost. Naturally people would not even be able to think that they were serving, orthey had been paying tax to the Aryan kings of such and such countries. The whole thing had nomeaning any more.

This is known as the "dark period" after the Mahabharata war. Kathacharit-sagara has stories about

this dark time. In the Tamil literature also it discusses this period. There was a dark period in betweenwhere no one knew what happened. Only the thieves, either through ship or through land, were rulingthe world. In Tamil it is known as "kalapirar kalam" which means the time of the unknown kings,unknown rulers. The Tamil literature gives 3,000 years for it. And then the Cheras, Cholas andPandiyas came to power. In between it was completely dark. And these Cheras, Cholas and Pandiyaswere actually descendants of the original Cheras, Cholas and Pandiyas who took part in theMahabharata war.

The Chola king was the one who ran the kitchen for the Pandavas. That is there in the Tamilliterature. Those people who ran the kitchen, they were not just cooks; they were all soldiers. Theywent to help in the war and when the division of work was given, they were given the kitchen. So theywere cooking. There are hundreds of Tamil verses glorifying that king who cooked for the Pandavas

during the Mahabharata war. It is there in the Tamil literature.

If this war never happened, if Kurukshetra was only symbolic of the body, mind and senses; whywould this Aryan king have spent twenty years of his ruling time in the North cooking for someoneelse. These are clear proofs. There was a dark time in between. The dark time was nothing but thereactions of the war. After the dark time, those who emerged powerful were not all the authenticrulers. Some were descendants, but most were just those who utilized this opportunity to gain power.This is why it is not mentioned in other cultures, it is not recorded. A great war is mentioned, but no

details are given.

Even in the mythology of the Greeks it is there, only the time is looking different. The time frame doesnot look like it is the Mahabharata war, but the great Achilles fighting and other such stories of Greek


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mythology have a very close similarity to stories from the Kurukshetra war. In Greek mythology someof these stories are internally dated much before the time of the Kurukshetra war. The reason isbecause they wanted to have a separate identity, therefore they told it as though it happened at amuch more ancient time. It may sound like mythology, but its just the histories which have been

handed down from the Kurukshetra war by the bards and entertainers.

The bards and entertainers were not killed. This is an important point in understanding how this

history has spread. At that time, war meant that during every evening they had theater, they haddance, they had jokers, etc. They had all varieties of entertainment, and none of these entertainerswere killed. That was the rule according to dharma-shastra, they were not supposed to be killed.Everyone died on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, but all of these bards, poets and entertainers lived.This is how the stories were spread.

The people who did street dances and folk dances, poetry and songs, they all went back. Butbecause the armies and kings were not there, they did not reach as far as they had come from. Theseentertainers had traveled along with the armies and kings, from distant lands. When the battle wasfinished, they had no king or army to take them back to their homeland, which in some cases was onthe other side of the world. They traveled on their own, alone, and managed to reach some distance,somewhere. They did not make it home to their own countries, but they traveled as far as they couldgo alone. And when they stopped, unable to go any further, there they would have searched for some

patron to perform for.

They must have been highly impressed with this war. Whatever had happened, whatever they saw,the battles between the heroes on both sides; it had impressed them so much. Naturally they would

dramatize this and make stories of wars, of great battles, of what they had just witnessed.

In this Great war, who would have come back? Only the entertainers; the nandis, vandis and mahatis;those people who woke up the king's everyday. They are the one's who lived to spread these stories.When their kings died they would leave. This was the tradition. The king goes to the battle with a fullentourage . If the king is killed in the second day of the battle, the king who killed him takes his army.This was the system in those days. This was not the case for those who made a pact; likeDhristadyumna was in a pact with the Pandavas. His army would not go to Duryodhana. But thoseindividual kings who came to the help the Pandavas, if the king is killed then everything that he has,including his ornaments, dress and animals, belongs to the king who killed him. Actually his countryalso belongs to that king. That was how the war was fought. Everything including the ornaments hewas wearing, his armor, they belong to the winner. Only his astras won't be taken, because astraswon't serve one unless you have done the proper upasana. The astras will go back to the rishi or thedeva who has given them. This was the rule of war.

Once their king was killed, what would the entertainers do? They would not continue sitting thereglorifying their dead king while the war was still continuing. As soon as their king died, they wouldleave the battle field. So for them, the outcome of the war was not even known. But when they leftthey had nothing, no escort, no entourage; they were alone. So they would travel as far as they couldand as quickly as they could, until they reached whatever place they could find. They would be

looking for a new patron. And if they found one, the first thing they will say is, "Have you heard? Therewas a war!" Once they have found a patron they will start performing. But the war was still running,and they would not want to be involved in politics, so to protect themselves they will begin, "Long,long ago..." And that would begin the dramatization of the Great War. This is how the informationspread. You can find in every ethnic culture in the world, without fail, there is discussion of a GreatWar. How does that come about? It may not go by the name Mahabharata, but the great war is there,everywhere.

There is an entire culture whose literature is based around crying, the Sumerian culture. All of theirancient writings are the cries of women who have lost their husbands in the war. Those who can readancient Tamil will see that their script is almost identical, it is similar to the Dravida alphabets; and

even the meanings of the sentences can be understood, it is so similar.

Their texts are saying the same thing as the Mahabharata. A city was built, there was gambling,another city was burnt, a lady was insulted, and because of that there was fire. The order may not be


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the same, but the elements are identical. After the war, there was crying by the widows. And thiscrying is the substance of the Sumerian writings. Each song is a cry. It is the same thing as found inthe Mahabharata. There is a chapter in the Mahabharata, "the crying of the queens in the war after

the kings died". It is identical. Everyone is talking about this same great war.

Even in regards to geography, the ancient cultures are speaking the same thing. There is alwaysmention of a river that is running on four sides of a mountain. They may make the map based on their

own idea of how the river is coming down from the mountain, but the substance is the same. Theymay not understand that it is referring to the four branches of the Ganga which go to the four differentlevels of the universe, but they have the basic concept. In China it is there. In the Maya culture it is

there. This is the same concept as found in the Bhagavatam and other Vedic texts.

There are many other parallels between the world cultures, pointing to a common source.Symbolically the Swastika is found all over the world - in Native American tribes, in Europe, in ancientIndia. Hitler was trying to revive the old Germanic and Norse tales of the Aryan kings, but he failed tounderstand the entire tradition. The Swastika represents life, but he chose to reverse it, thus signifyingdeath. Even linguistically, the Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and theirmany derivatives, have countless similarities. This all points out that there was originally one culture,one civilization. The Great War described throughout the world is the Mahabharata war.

One may ask, "Why don't the other countries present it in the exact same way?" It is because they

were countries working under the fifty-four kings. They were subservient to the Aryan empire, and thiswar made them free. It was their chance to rewrite the history, to make their civilization the center oftime.

The rulers in Hastinapura allowed it to happen by their negligence. Parikshit Maharaja did not functionas an emperor of the world for a long time, and as a result there was no unification of the countriesdone under him. And after him, Janamejaya spent his whole life trying to kill the snakes, until finally

he became sick of everything and left the kingdom. Because of this the Aryan kings became weak.

According to Kathacharit-sagara, after the dark period it was Bhima's grandsons who sprung to powerfrom Ujjain and other places. It was in their line that Vikramaditya later came. In Arjuna's line therewas no powerful descendant, although there were some in Kundinapura. But their line quickly becamediffused. The Indonesian city, Jakarta, which was actually known as Yajna-karta, was ruled byBhima's grandson. It was there that he performed one thousand yajnas, and that is how the city was

named. That was much after the war.

In some places the remnants of Vedic culture are more powerful. Their presence is felt more directly.But in other places the remnants are faint and more difficult to perceive. Just like the Sun worshipersof Japan. Previously it was part of a huge land mass in the pacific, but by the movement of the landand the sea it has become a tiny island. In that ancient land, they were worshipers of the Sun god. It

was the same with the Lemurian land mass that was between Africa and India. The Tamil literaturesdescribe a massive land going towards the west from the present Indian coast.

After every Yuga there is a change of land and sea. There is one chapter on this in the PratisargaParva of the Bhavishya Purana. It speaks about how the land and sea change by the influence oftime. This is how the flood of Noah described in the bible occurred. It was taken as a big dissolution,as a pralaya, but it was just the change of yugas. When Noah built the Arc, He was under the

mountain Tuhinachala. Today the Tuhinachala is now a desert. It is no longer a mountain.

There is another case from Bhima's time, when he went for collection for the Rajasuya sacrifice. Hewent from Puri to Burma by chariot by crossing two mountains. There was no Bay of Bengal. And nowthat there is a bay of Bengal, we see two tiny islands, Andaman and Nicobar. They were themountains that Bhima crossed, today they are just small islands.

It is the same situation with New Zealand. They were not islands, but the peaks of mountains. They

belonged to a giant land mass that connected to what was the Kimpurusha Varsha. But today theyare also islands because of the land changes that occurred when the yugas changed.


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So, with all this - the Great War followed by massive changes in the earth's geography - thecivilizations were heavily affected. Vyasadeva describes this war by saying, There had not been awar as heavy as this at any time in all the lands. He describes it this way because all of the demonsand all of the devas took part in this war at one place - Kurukshetra. It was the heaviest war in the

history, fought between universal powers. Thus its effects were felt in all places throughout the world.

Questions and Answers

Question:Was Sanjaya fighting in the battle of Kurukshetra, or was he with Dhritarashtra in Hastinapura

narrating the events?

Answer:Sanjaya fought in the battle, and was one of the few to return from the battlefield. He was the lastperson that Sahadeva was going to kill, but Arjuna stopped him and said, "No. He is our friend. Lethim go and report to the old, blind man, Dhritarashtra." So Sanjaya left the field of battle. On the wayhe met Duryodhana before reaching Hastinapura.

But there is also another description in the Mahabharata, where Sanjaya is sitting in Hastinapura andspeaking to Dhritarashtra while the battle is going on. How is it possible that Sanjaya is fighting on thebattlefield of Kurukshetra, and simultaneously speaking to Dhritarashtra in Hastinapura. It was by themercy of Vyasa that he was able to expand himself into two forms and act in both placessimultaneously. In those times it was not such an impossible task, especially for those who were

direct disciples of Vyasadeva. The Gita uses the words vyasa-prasadat. By the mercy of Vyasa it waspossible.

Question:

What was the role of non-vedic kings in the Mahabharata war?

Answer:In the Mahabharat there is mention of kings who were outside the levels of "civilization" who took partin the Great War. They would belong to the 10th, 11th, and 12th varnas. Vedic civilization is based onfour varnas (divisions of society), but there are people who do not fit within these four. They can notmeasure up to this high standard. The scriptures list a total of twelve designations, the four vedic

varnas, and eight additional non-vedic varnas. In the battle of Kurukshetra, Duryodhana took all of thelower fighters onto his side. It is stated that none of them fought on the side of the Pandavas.

Their warfare was throwing rocks and other very primitive actions. Among all of the great maha-

rathas, the astra fighters, these others were completely primitive. For example, they would go into theelephant division of an army and make the elephants sick. They were humans, but in comparison tothe maha-rathas they were like insects. Duryodhana sent many such people to disturb Bhima'smovements. Bhima was such a high-class physical fighter that when he saw these groups of peoplewalking with rocks, trying to hit him, he would become very much agitated. It would make him dothings which were completely inordinate. Because he was physically too powerful, he would get upsetand throw everything everywhere. Just to disorganize him Duryodhana was using them.

They would go and bite the elephant's legs, and because their teeth were poisonous, the elephantwould faint. This was their fighting. They wouldn't go in front of the elephants like Bhima and hold

them by the trunk to throw them. They would walk under the elephants, and do all kinds of annoyingthings like putting needles in the elephant's tail. In contrast to the great heroes fighting in the war, likeDrona and Kripa, who used their powerful astras, these others were exactly like insects.

Question:When Parashurama went around the world killing the kshatriyas, what does it mean and who did hekill?

Answer:Parashurama was killing ruling kshatriyas, which means rulers of all the fifty-four countries that made


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up Bharata-khanda and the Aryan empire. There is an Upa-purana which deals only withParashurama lila. There it is mentioned the names of whom he killed, and they are all within these

fifty-four countries.

Parashurama would kill only the kings, nobody lesser than the kings. But the kings had their armieswith them, so ultimately everyone was killed. Afterwards there was no kshatriya left to whom the

planet could be given, so Parashurama had to give it to the brahmanas.

When you take these fifty-four countries, it means you have the entire world. In the rest of the worldthere were only subservient kings who ruled under any one of these fifty-four.

Especially the distant kings, like after Kaikeya (Afghanistan) up-to the middle of Europe; those kingsruled the rest of the continents. If there was a king ruling in Kashyapa's tank, which is today theCaspian Sea, then he was also ruling out to the Northern and Western side of Europe. And thosepeople who were ruling under the Sun flag in Japan, which at that time used to be a part of the "otherland", they were ruling the previous America, which was in the Pacific ocean.

If you take the fifty-four countries, those kings, then you have all the six continents. The other landswere colonies and subservient kings of these Aryan kings. In those other lands the varnashrama waseither two-thirds or one-thirds practiced. Accordingly, those rulers were like chiefs. They were not likekings. They collected tax, they paid tax and then they enjoyed their ruling. For example, the presentBorneo, which used to be Parana Dvipa, or the present Fiji which which used to be the RamanikaDvipa. They were kings who were not in the Sun or Moon dynasties. They were kings who were

working under the rule of the fifty-four kings.

When we say world we must also understand that we are not talking about the world map which ispresently in existence. In the ancient times the geographical regions were completely different. Weare not talking about the present world. England was not an island; it was a part of Europe. We arespeaking of an ancient time, long ago. The geographical regions were very different. They did nothave to travel three months by ship to go to America from Europe. That was not the way. The waywas by land through the eastern side.

Question:

Why is varnashrama or Vedic dharma manifested only in India and not in the rest of the world?

Answer:To understand this answer we must study the philosophy of the history of the world, especially inreference to political geography - the various lands and countries. At the time of Yudhishthira

Maharaja the whole planet, all the six continents, were ruled under one flag. This rule lasted untilYudhishthira Maharaja. Before that it was even more perfect, and the Bharata-khanda or India wasfrom the Caspian sea up to Cambodia; and in the north, if you want to see in regards to the presentcountries, you can say from Lithuania to seven thousand miles south of Cape Comorin (in SouthIndia). That is what is meant by Bharata-khanda; that is fifty-four countries, the "India"; and then there

are other countries apart from India.

India was made up of these fifty-four countries, and there were also other countries existing at thattime. In those other countries the varnashrama was not perfectly practiced. In India (Bharata-khanda)

this varnashrama (Vaidhika-dharma) was perfectly in practice.

After the Mahabharata war, and after the "dark age" in between there was a lot of mixing up - peopleleaving from here and coming back from there. So we find that remnants are there only in India. Youcan practically say that even in India now it is not there. So, if in India it is not there, then you canunderstand why in other places it is not there. India is the heart of varnashrama, but the heart itself is

in a bypass surgery stage. So, naturally the rest of the body must be mute.

It's only a question of the changes of time. For example, today, due to the spreading of Krishnaconsciousness, varnashrama is being more perfectly practiced in the western countries than in India


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itself. So this is all due to the changes of time. If you look back in history, you can see that it was theother way before.

It is not that the varnashrama belongs to one country. Civilization starts with varnashrama.Sometimes civilization in one part of the world may be high, and sometimes in another part it may behigh. In which ever it is high or low, the closest remnants will be seen in the heart. This is why it looks

like varnashrama, or caste, or anything is Indian; but that's not so.

Anywhere in the world there is natural divisions - intellectual class, administrative class, businessclass and working class. That's what varnashrama means in its essence. However you see it, it is only

when people are civilized that it is functional; but if they are not civilized it is not functional.

Civilized means with a spiritual goal for life. This is the indication of civilization. But when that goal isnot spiritual, when it becomes materialistic, then naturally the divisions of varnashrama end up ascastes, tribes, clans and the like. It again changes wherever the spiritual goal is pinpointed in ahuman civilization. There the varnashrama becomes the first sign of civilization, the division ofsociety. But this is only if the spiritual goal is put as the target.

When discussing varnashrama we must understand the two classifications, namely daiva (spiritual)varnashrama and arthika (material) or asuri varnashrama.

Daiva varnashrama is the perfect ideal which we are talking about. Even in ancient India, it was notthat it was always daiva varnashrama being practiced. That is always fluctuating. And sometimes it iseven found that the demons follow daiva varnashrama more perfectly. For example, at the time ofMahabali, the asuras were following daiva varnashrama more perfectly than the devas. This is why

they were successful. So there are many details we must take into account.

The idea that varnashrama belongs to a particular geographic area is not correct. It is something to dowith the culture of a civilized society. They may not be having the same name, but still, it isvarnashrama. If the society is distinctly divided into the intellectual class, administrative class,business class and working class, even though they may not be using the Sanskrit words, it is stillvarnashrama. It may not be consisting of the rituals and other things, such as purificatory processes(samskaras) etc., but still it is the same.

mahabharata war&world history

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