Reading Notes: The Mahabharata, Section A

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Mahabharata, Reading Notes A

This chapter is one long story of lineage told through a series of sexual encounters. A king, Santanu, falls in love with a woman, who later reveals herself to be a mortal incarnation of the river Ganges. In order to marry the woman, Santanu agrees to never question her actions, lest she leave him. As she births seven child and promptly drowns them, upon the eight birth, before she can drown her new born, Santanu questions her actions. As she leaves him she explains what she is and that she is fulfilling a prophecy to return seven celestial beings to heaven. The eighth child was once a celestial being, but will remain on the earth as a man to live out a full life before returning to heaven. The son’s name was Devaratha. The son was to be the heir apparent. Santanu, however, falls in love with the daughter of a fisherman. To marry her, the fisherman demands that a son born to his daughter must be the heir. Santanu eventually agrees. As a part of the process, Devaratha takes a vow of celibacy. The fisherman’s daughter is named Satyavathi. She bears two sons. One dies and the youngest, Vichitravirya, is still a youth when she decides that she must begin finding wives to maintain the royal bloodline. Although two wives, Ambika and Ambalika, are procured through kidnapping, Vichitravirya, is too young to mate. Satyavathi admits that she had previous bore a so, sired by an eminent rishis, named Parasar. The son’s name is Vyasa, and she has him mate with the wives to secure male offspring. The wives, Ambika and Ambalika, birth Dhritarashtra and Pandu respectively. Dhritarashtra is born blind and Pandu is born pallid. Also, Vyasa mates with a maidservant and she bares Vidura. Pandu is cursed to die if he has sex with his wife, which he does to his mortal demise. Pandu’s wife, Kunthi copulates with Yama, Indra, and Vayu end bares a son for each of them. A number of other offspring are born as well. This reads like a television soap opera nine seasons in. Genetic competition begins to occur. One wife is shared among the Pandava brothers. This is not your typical polygamous line.

Bibliography:
R.K. Narayan, The Mahabharata p1-39