Mahabharata Podcast

Episode 40 - This one starts with some girl talk.  Draupadi and Satyabhama get bored of Markandeya's endless mythologies, and sneak off for a more private conversation.  Satyabhama wants to know how Draupadi maintains her hold over all five husbands.  Draupadi then advises us on the behaviors a woman should perform to keep her husband from straying to other women's beds. Krishna too finally gets bored of Markandeya and decides it is time to head for home.  He loads up the wife and they head out.  If he knew of the impending attack on his friends, he didn't bother to tell them.  The scene then changes to the court at Hastinapur, where Dhrtarastra is getting news of Arjun's return from heaven with the WMD and how they seem intent on waiting out their exile before taking revenge. Duryodhana overhears Dhrtarastra's lament, and calls a meeting of his cronies.  Karna suggests they go out to watch the Pandavas in their misery and laugh at them.  What ensues is the Cattle Expedition.

Episode 39 - Two more stories from the Sage Markandeya.  The first is a rousing fight story, where the king of Ayodhya gets super powers from the god Vishnu and defeats a dragon. I find the second story more interesting.  Yuddistira wants to know about the specific problems that women and servants must have in following their dharma.  Markandeya replies with a story about a short-tempered Brahmin Kaushika, who encounters a particularly wise peasant woman, whose devotion to her husband grants her great wisdom and insight.  Noticing that the brahmin could use some advice on dharma, she sends him to the local butcher, who, it turns out, knows even more about dharma than the woman. We are nearly through with Markandeya.  Next episode we'll get back to the main protagonists, with a tete-a-tete between Draupadi and Krishna's wife Satyabhama.

Episode 38 - The Sage Markandeya continues with his storytelling.  He begins with his own version of the Four Ages or Yugas.  One interesting point is that in his reckoning, the Kali Yuga lasts 1,200 years in total.  Since we are told elsewhere that the Kali Yuga began for us on the death of Krishna, then the Kali Yuga must have ended centuries ago, and we happy people have made it into the next Golden Age! After an apocalyptic vision of the future, Makandeya gives us the Tale of the Frog, which culminates in a showdown between the brahmin Vamadev and a pair of stubborn kings.  The brahmin, of course, comes out the victor! There are more stories to come in the next episode, so the Markandeya Sessions will continue...

Episode 37 - While Krishna is still hanging out at the camp, the sages Narada and Markandeya show up.  After some prodding, Markandeya finally opens up and gives us his take on reincarnation, sin and the afterlife.  He follows that up with two stories about Brahmins, and then gives us his rendition of the Fish, Manu, and the Flood. I also present my theory that the five Pandavas are somehow correllated with the five extremities of the human body.  Yuddistira is clearly the head, while Bhima is associated with the right arm.  Arjuna, the "Left-Handed Archer", seems pretty clearly to be linked with the left arm, and the twins make up the pair of legs.  Since they are all incarnations of a single being-- Indra-- perhaps Indra had himself dismembered and each limb became a different Pandava. There is also something sexual about Arjun that is different from the others.  We haven't gotten to that part of the story yet, but during the year in hiding, Arjun is disguised as an hermaphrodite, Brihanala, which literally means "Woman with large penis".  Much later in the story, we'll discover that of the five sons of Draupadi, it is Arjun's son and grandson who carry on the line of kings. Markandeya is still telling stories, so we'll have more from him next time.

Episode 36 - The Pandavas journey south, out of the Himalayas and back to the plains.  Along the way, Bhima goes hunting and finds himself captured by a giant magical snake.  The Snake takes his time and tells Bhima his life story before proceeding to eat the hero.  Meanwhile, Yuddistira sees dark omens and heads off to look for his brother on his own.  For the purposes of the later story, Arjun stays at home and Yuddistira does the rescuing. When Yuddistira gets to the scene, Bhima tells him what is going on, and that the snake is under a curse.  If Yuddistira can answer the snake's question, then all would be well.  Yuddistira is good at quiz games; the question is basically whether one is a Brahmin by birth or by behavior. The Snake and Yuddistira hit it off really well, and the two discuss questions of the Soul and Karma for a while.  Finally, the snake releases Bhima and then dies, his soul returning to heaven.  The brothers return to the camp, where the Brahmins scold Bhima-- "He shouldn't have been out hunting anyway!  Hunting is bad!" The Pandavas then journey onward to the Kanyaka forest-- the place where they began their exile 10 years earlier.  At the Kanyaka forest they meet up once again with Krishna.  This time he brings his first wife Satyabhama, and they intend to stay a while. Krishna brings news of the Pandavas' five sons.  They are teenagers now, and are all being raised at Dwarka, learning the arts of war with Krishna's eldest son Pradyumna. Finally, two more guests arrive; Narada and Markandeya.  Markandeya has appeared several times in the past, but he has always been a man of few words.  This time he apparently has a lot he wants to say.  We'll get started on it next time!

Episode 35 - It's deja-vu all over again, as the Pandavas move from the hermitage of Nar-Narayan to another one on the slopes of Mt Kailash, named for Arstisena.  Another flower wafts down the hill, and Draupadi again sends Bhima off in search of the source.  Bhima completely forgets Yuddistira's injunction about making trouble and he invades Kubera's kingdom, starting a war with the god's "genial leprechaun" army. There's no Hanuman this time around, but we do at least get an explanation for Kubera's toleration of Bhima's vandalism and slaughter-- it turns out that Kubera's buddy Manimat had been cursed by Agastya, and was doomed to die at the hands of a mortal.  Bhima was only fulfilling the inevitable. During the course of this adventure, the fifth year of Arjun's mission comes to an end.  He comes flying in on Indra's chariot, with a load of WMD in the back.  After a joyful reunion, Arjun tells us of his last mission for Indra.  This story is another replay.  It is basically the same story as Krishna's battle with Shalva and his Saubha "flying city".  This time the flying city is inhabited by Nivatakavacas ("beings clad in air-tight armor"), and Arjun fights them to the death, breaking in his new weapons. Now re-united, the brothers hang out in the gardens of the far north for another four years, making it a total of 10 years they have spent so far in exile.  Next time, they will begin heading south and making preparations for their year in hiding.

Episode 34 - The Pandavas resume center stage as the main characters of this episode.  They continue their trek through the mountains until the going gets too rough for Draupadi.  Bhima summons his half-Rakshasa son, Gatotkacha, who can fly, and they are carried the rest of their journey to the Ashram of Nar-Narayan. While hanging out at this heavenly retreat, Draupadi sends Bhima off to find her some special lotus blossoms.  Along the way, Bhima meets up with Hanuman, who it turns out is his brother (both are sons of the Wind God). The quest for the Lotus Blossom finally leads Bhima to Kubera's Pleasure Garden, which is guarded by hordes of Rakshasas.  Bhima makes short work of them and takes a dip in Kubera's pond. Yuddistira gets suspicious and has Gatotkacha take them to Bhima.  Kubera takes the destruction of his gardens and the death of his guards pretty lightly, and he allows the Pandavas to stay in his garden as long as they like.  We leave them there until next Episode, when Arjun finally makes his return.

Episode 33 These are the last three stories of the long series of tales in the Book of the Forest.  The Pandavas are finishing up their pilgrimage across India and are moving northward for their rendezvous with Arjun.  The first story, Yavakrita, is particularly interesting in that the protagonist is not a Twice-born.  In this case, he's a rude and uppity Vaishya, but he's the main character nonetheless.  I find the little detail about the Shudra gaurd particularly interesting.  He works for Yavakri's father, and he inexplicably blocks the boy from getting to safety, which results in Yavakri's death.  I can only guess that it was thought fitting that a Vaishya rapist be killed at the hands of an even lower-caste menial. Jantu seems to fit in among these stories in that it is another case of a Brahmin helping a king with his fertility problems.  In contrast to many of the other stories, the king's wives are distinctly un-heroic. The last story, the Hawk & the Dove, stands out as the most unusual of all the stories so far, especially because it involves a king, two gods, but NO BRAHMINS!  Where are the Brahmins?  The Book of the Forest is a very strong piece of propaganda about the importance of having well-bred Brahmins for all occasions, but then this strange tale caps them all off. This story has the strongest feel of Buddhism that I've seen so far in the Mahabharata.  The king's self-sacrifice is strongly reminiscent of other Buddhist stories in which the Boddhisatva sacrifices his own life for another's benefit. Next time, we'll finally get back to the deeds of our heroes, as they make their way to the hermitage of Nar-Narayan way up on the slopes of Mt. Kailash.

Episode 32 - Two more stories from the Book of the Forest.  The first involves another Bhrgu Brahmin with a Kshatriya wife.  The second story, about Mahdhatar, is short, but interesting in how it differs from all the other stories we've had so far from Lomasha. The first story in this series, Nala, is about a King and his very loyal wife.  The subsequent stories were by and large about Brahmins with very loyal (Kshatriya) wives.  So each story so far has the element of an obedient wife despite hardship.  Mandhatar breaks strongly from this pattern in that the boy doesn't even have a mother (he is born from his father's side), and Indra gives the boy his finger to suckle, thus the boy was entirely free from any female influence. If this lack of a woman's touch had any influence on his life and later events, we cannot say, because we are given a very stereotypical summary of his later career.  He's just another super king who conquered the world, far back in the past.

Episode 31 - The Pandavas continue their pilgrimage to all the holy sites of India.  With Lomasha as their guide & storyteller, they hear the stories of Rshyashrnga and then the story of Rama Jamadagnya, or "Battle-Axe" Rama, who cut his own mother's head off and single-handedly killed off the entire race of Kshatriyas 21 times! Also, J.A.B. Van Buitenen, our translator for most of the podcast so far, gives us a hypothesis that the story of Rshyashrnga made its way to Medieval Europe in the form of the Unicorn myth.  It is certainly interesting that it took a virgin to capture the unicorn for the king.