[Advaita-l] Re: Thanks

[Anbu sivam2]

Thank you Vidyasankarji for the succession story of Mahabharata.  You have
written "Santanu, father of bhIshma, was the second prince. His elder
brother, devApi, had renounced the world at a young age."  I am interested
to know more about this prince DevApi brother of Santanu.  Could you please
enlighten me.

Regards,
Anbu

On 10/15/06, Vidyasankar Sundaresan <svidyasankar at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Re: eating vegetarian food, there is no single injunction that is binding
> on
> all people. Generally speaking, the vast majority of human beings (even in
> India) eat meat of one kind or other. It is only recommended that to give
> up
> tAmasika and rAjasika elements, one should also withdraw from meat eating
> and move towards sAttvika vegetarian food.
>
> The mahAbhArata is a marvel of the complexity that can arise in deciding
> questions of dharma. Additionally, bhIshma's personal situation in the
> mahAbhArata is most complex. When he took the vow to renounce his claim to
> the kingship in favor of the children of satyavatI, he also undertook to
> protect the kingdom of hastinApura as long as he lived. As such, there was
> a
> very strong reason for dhRtarAshTra and his sons to call upon bhIshma to
> fight on their side in any war.
>
> The other thing to note is that at the time of the war, the situation was
> such that much could be said on both sides, on the question of who should
> have been the rightful king. The ideal situation was that the eldest son
> of
> the king would succeed to the throne. duryodhana being the eldest son of
> dhRtarAshTra, who was the elder to pANDu, had a very strong claim to
> becoming the king. On the other hand, as pANDu was the one who was crowned
> king, yudhishThira, his eldest son, also had a very strong claim to the
> kingship. This ancient rule of succession did not say anything about the
> character of the eldest son - all that was needed to inherit was the
> primacy
> of birth. It was because of this very complicated scenario that bhIshma
> and
> vidura had advised a partition of the kingdom with the pANDavas ruling
> from
> indraprastha. However, bhIshma's original vow still bound him to protect
> hastinApura.
>
> In fact, if one traces the history for a few generations before the
> kauravas
> and pANDavas, the eldest son had always been set aside for one reason or
> the
> other. Santanu, father of bhIshma, was the second prince. His elder
> brother,
> devApi, had renounced the world at a young age. bhIshma was the youngest
> son
> of Santanu and gangA, but the oldest surviving son. He too renounced the
> throne in favor of the sons to be born to Santanu and satyavatI,
> citrangada
> and vicitravIrya. Here again, citrangada, the elder son, was killed in a
> battle and vicitravIrya, the younger son became king. In the next
> generation, the only reason for not formally crowning dhRtarAshTra was
> that
> he was born blind, so pANDu was named king. After this long history of
> complicated succession, a war was perhaps inevitable within the kshatriya
> norms of the day.
>
> bhIshma had a very tough choice, but in the end, he had to honor the vow
> he
> had taken of protecting hastinApura. So also with droNa - although he knew
> that yudhishThira was a better person than duryodhana to become king, and
> arjuna was also his favorite student, he was indebted to the court that
> had
> given him patronage. He also felt duty bound to fight on the side of
> duryodhana. Take the case of Salya, uncle of nakula and sahadeva. He was
> essentially tricked by duryodhana, because he originally came to
> kurukshetra
> to fight on the side of the pANDavas. However, he was bound by his word,
> althogh it was originally given in an ambiguous manner. It was a matter of
> personal integrity and honor, at a time when people did what they said and
> said what they meant.
>
> Regards,
> Vidyasankar
>
> >Namaste Kathirasanji,
> >        Thanks for pointing out the book on vegetarianism in the Hindu
> >dharma. I could not reply earlier as I was away on a trip.
> >
> >Could you also (or someone else) point out a good analysis of the
> episodes
> >in the mahAbhArata for learning about issues of dharma  -- reasons why
> >bhIShma did fight with the kauravas, whether it was dhArmic or not, etc.
> >Thanks.
> >
> >A.Siddhartha.
>
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