MAHABHARAT IS NOT A HOAX. IT HAS HAPPENED. ITS THE HISTORY AND SCIETIFIC FACT. TH EONE WE SEE IN MOVIE WITH DIFFERENT KIND OF WEAPONS USED IN THE WAR MIGHT BE HOAX OR ARTISTIC IMAGINARY. BUT STORY IS REAL. READ THIS ARTICLE.
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 many references 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 speak about 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
certain other regions everything expands very rapidly. The same thing
has happened after the Kurukshetra war. 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-four kingdoms, the Aryan empire. When a huge war like this is
waged on the other side of the globe, and none of the kings ever
returned, and their armies also didn’t come back, what would be the
state of communication?
These kingdoms would have become
completely alien to everything. No one would have known what happened.
The king with his entire army went to fight in the great war, and
that's it. They just disappeared, 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 colonies are 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 if there were any texts left that said his grand
father was a slave of Kaikeya, he would just burn it. They wouldn't
want to keep such information.
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 the widows of the other kings were adopted there
by the capital, Hastinapura. Seven different types of cremations 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 their own 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 Aryan
empire, 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 what they did.
The destruction caused by the war
was not only external. The destruction of the war was also in the minds
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 and Nagasaki, till
today you find the children are disabled. How many years has it been?
It was only two primitive 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 the destruction of the Brahmastras used in the war. What was the
Agni-astras they were using? What was the power of the wind in the
Vayu-astra? It was not only blowing in Kurukshetra, it was blowing all
over the planet. What would have happened to the people’s minds because
of the diffusion of all these energies?
Everything became lost.
Naturally people would not even be able to think that they were
serving, or they had been paying tax to the Aryan kings of such and
such countries. The whole thing had no meaning 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
between where no one knew what happened. Only the thieves, either
through ship or through land, were ruling the 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 and Pandiyas came to power. In between it was
completely dark. And these Cheras, Cholas and Pandiyas were actually
descendants of the original Cheras, Cholas and Pandiyas who took part
in the Mahabharata war.
The Chola king was the one who ran the
kitchen for the Pandavas. That is there in the Tamil literature. Those
people who ran the kitchen, they were not just cooks; they were all
soldiers. They went to help in the war and when the division of work
was given, they were given the kitchen. So they were 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 Kurushetra was only
symbolic of the body, mind and senses; why would this Aryan king have
spent twenty years of his ruling time in the North cooking for someone
else. These are clear proofs. There was a dark time in between. The
dark time was nothing but the reactions of the war. After the dark
time, those who emerged powerful were not all the authentic rulers.
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 does not look like it is
the Mahabharata war, but the great Achilles fighting and other such
stories of Greek mythology have a very close similarity to stories from
the Kurushetra war. In Greek mythology some of these stories are
internally dated much before the time of the Kurushetra war. The reason
is because they wanted to have a separate identity, therefore they told
it as though it happened at a much more ancient time. It may sound like
mythology, but its just the histories which have been handed down from
the Kurushetra 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 had dance, they had jokers,
etc. They had all varieties of entertainment, and none of these
entertainers were 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. But because the armies and kings were not there, they
did not reach as far as they had come from. These entertainers had
traveled along with the armies and kings, from distant lands. When the
battle was finished, they had no king or army to take them back to
their homeland, which in some cases was on the 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 could go 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 full entourage . 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; like Dhristadyumna was in a pact with
the Pandavas. His army would not go to Duryodhana. But those individual
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 country also belongs
to that king. That was how the war was fought. Everything including the
ornaments he was wearing, his armor, they belong to the winner. Only
his astras won't be taken, because astras won’t serve one unless you
have done the proper upasana. The astras will go back to the rishi or
the deva 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 there glorifying their dead king while the war was
still continuing. As soon as their king died, they would leave the
battle field. So for them, the outcome of the war was not even known.
But when they left they had nothing, no escort, no entourage; they were
alone. So they would travel as far as they could and 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? There was 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 information spread.
You can find in every ethnic culture in the world, without fail, there
is discussion of a Great War. 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 their ancient writings are the cries of women
who have lost their husbands in the war. Those who can read ancient
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 the same, but the elements are identical.
After the war, there was crying by the widows. And this crying is the
substance of the Sumerian writings. Each song is a cry. It is the same
thing as found in the 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 always mention 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.
They may not understand that it is referring to the four branches of
the Ganga which go to the four different levels 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
ancient India. Hitler was trying to revive the old Germanic and Norse
tales of the Aryan kings, but he failed to understand the entire
tradition. The Swastika represents life, but he chose to reverse it,
thus signifying death. Even linguistically, the Indo-European
languages, such as Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and their many 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 this war made them free. It
was their chance to rewrite the history, to make their civilization the
center of time.
The rulers in Hastinapura allowed it to happen
by their negligence. Parikshit Maharaja did not function as an emperor
of the world for a long time, and as a result there was no unification
of the countries done 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 power from Ujjain and other places.
It was in their line that Vikramaditya later came. In Arjuna's line
there was no powerful descendant, although there were some in
Kundinapura. But their line quickly became diffused. The Indonesian
city, Yogyakarta, previously known as Yajna-karta, was ruled by Bhima’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 worshippers of Japan.
Previously it was part of a huge land mass in the pacific, but by the
movement of the land and the sea it has become a tiny island. In that
ancient land, they were worshippers of the Sun god. It was the same
with the Lemurian land mass that was between Africa and India. The
Tamil literatures describe 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 pratisarga parva of
the Bhavishya Purana. It speaks about how the land and sea change by
the influence of time. 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. He went from Puri to
Burma by chariot by crossing two mountains. There was no Bay of Bengal.
And now that there is a bay of Bengal, we see two tiny islands, Andaman
and Nicobar. They were the mountains 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 they are also islands because of the land changes that occurred
when the yugas changed.
So, with all this - the Great War
followed by massive changes in the earth's geography - the
civilizations were heavily affected. Vyasadeva describes this war by
saying, “There had not been a war as heavy as this at any time in all
the lands.” He describes it this way because all of the demons and 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 AnswersWas Sanjaya fighting in the battle of Kurukshetra, or was he with Dhritarashtra in Hastinapura narrating the events?Sanjaya
fought in the battle, and was one of the few to return from the
battlefield. He was the last person that Sahadeva was going to kill,
but Arjuna stopped him and said, "No. He is our friend. Let him go and
report to the old, blind man, Dhritarashtra." So Sanjaya left the field
of battle. On the way he met Duryodhana before reaching Hastinapura.
But
there is also another description in the Mahabharata, where Sanjaya is
sitting in Hastinapura and speaking to Dhritarashtra while the battle
is going on. How is it possible that Sanjaya is fighting on the
battlefield of Kurukshetra, and simultaneously speaking to
Dhritarashtra in Hastinapura. It was by the mercy of Vyasa that he was
able to expand himself into two forms and act in both places
simultaneously. 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 was possible.
What was the role of non-vedic kings in the Mahabharata war?In
the Mahabharat there is mention of kings who were outside the levels of
"civilization" who took part in the Great War. They would belong to the
10th, 11th, and 12th
varnas.
Vedic civilization is based on four varnas (divisions of society), but
there are people who do not fit within these four. They can not measure
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 the lower
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 the elephant division of an army and make the elephants
sick. They were humans, but in comparison to the maha-rathas they were
like insects. Duryodhana sent many such people to disturb Bhima’s
movements. Bhima was such a high-class physical fighter that when he
saw these groups of people walking with rocks, trying to hit him, he
would become very much agitated. It would make him do things which were
completely inordinate. Because he was physically too powerful, he
would get upset and throw everything everywhere. Just to disorganize
him Dhuryodhana was using them.
They would go and bite the
elephant’s legs, and because their teeth were poisonous, the elephant
would 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 annoying things
like putting needles in the elephant's tail. In contrast to the great
heros fighting in the war, like Drona and Kripa, who used their
powerful astras, these others were exactly like insects.
When Parashurama went around the world killing the kshatriyas, what does it mean and who did he kill?Parashurama
was killing ruling kshatriyas, which means rulers of all the fifty-four
countries that made up Bharata-khanda and the Aryan empire. There is an
Upa-purana which deals only with Parashurama 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 armies with 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 world there 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 kings ruled the rest of the continents. If there was a
king ruling in Kashyapa's tank, which is today the Caspian Sea, then he
was also ruling out to the Northern and Western side of Europe. And
those people who were ruling under the Sun flag in Japan, which at that
time used to be a part of the "other land", 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 lands were colonies and subservient kings of
these Aryan kings. In those other lands the varnashrama was either
two-thirds or one-thirds practiced. Accordingly, those rulers were like
chiefs. They were not like kings. They collected tax, they paid tax and
then they enjoyed their ruling. For example, the present Borneo, which
used to be Parana Dvipa, or the present Fiji which which used to be the
Ramanika Dvipa. 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 is presently in existence.
In the ancient times the geographical regions were completely
different. We are not talking about the present world. England was not
an island; it was a part of Europe. We are speaking of an ancient time,
long ago. The geographical regions were very different. They did not
have to travel three months by ship to go to America from Europe. That
was not the way. The way was by land through the eastern side.
Why is varnashrama or Vedic dharma manifested only in India and not in the rest of the world?To
understand this answer we must study the philosophy of the history of
the world, especially in reference 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 until Yudhishthira Maharaja. Before that it was even more
perfect, and the Bharata-khanda or India was from the Caspian sea up to
Cambodia; and in the north, if you want to see in regards to the
present countries, you can say from Lithuania to seven thousand miles
south of Cape Comorin (in South India). 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 that time. In those other countries the varnasrama was not
perfectly practiced. In India (Bharata-khanda) this varnasrama
(Vaidhika-dharma) was perfectly in practice.
After the
Mahabharata war, and after the "dark age" in between there was a lot of
mixing up - people leaving from here and coming back from there. So we
find that remnants are there only in India. You can practically say
that even in India now it is not there. So, if in India it is not
there, then you can understand 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 Krishna consciousness, varnasharama is being more
perfectly practiced in the western countries than in India itself. So
this is all due to the changes of time. If you look back in history,
you can see that it was the other 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 be high. 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, business class 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 is not spiritual, when it becomes materialistic,
then naturally the divisions of varnashrama end up as castes, tribes,
clans and the like. It again changes wherever the spiritual goal is
pinpointed in a human civilization. There the varnashrama becomes the
first sign of civilization, the division of society. But this is only
if the spiritual goal is put as the target.
When discussing
varnasrama 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 not that it was always daiva varnashrama being
practiced. That is always fluctuating. And sometimes it is even found
that the demons follow daiva varnashram more perfectly. For example, at
the time of Mahabali, 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 do with the culture of a civilized society. They may
not be having the same name, but still, it is varnashrama. 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 still varnashrama. It
may not be consisting of the rituals and other things, such as
purificatory processes (samskaras) etc., but still it is the same.
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