#mahabharata bros

[enden-k]

fgo doodle dump (rashuozy ft merlin + mahabharata bros)

[stxrrynxghts]

Satyabhama killing Narakasura, ft. Baby gurl Kanha: a thread

[krsnaradhika]

All the people calling Arjuna-Subhadra's marriage as incestuous as they're cousins should note that it's exactly why we have the system of gotra. They both had different ones (no shit) and hence their union isn't problematic (the gotra concept came up as people with same gotra tend to have too similar dna because of shared ancestor. If not adhered to this custom, marriage in the same gotra causes biological issues in the offspring). Arjuna's mom Kunti is Subhadra's paternal aunt— not maternal. They're cross-cousins, not parallel ones. They're sure to have some matching dna but not too the extent that it would cause issues (my lad Abhimanyu is fine and dandy). Now, would you object to Kanha-Shri Mitravinda and Kanha-Shri Bhadra's marriage? (Both of the pairs had around 20 children in total, all of them which are mentioned to be equal to their dad in prowess in the Harivamsha. So . . . )

[stardustkrishnaverse]

okay inspired by this post

🦚 MY HCS ABT HOW KRISHNA TEXTS 🦚

- sends you cheesy rizz like 'did it hurt when you fell from swarg 😩💘✨️' BUT IT WORKS EVERY TIME

- AND SOMETIMES ITS RLY SMOOTH FR

- sends outdated memes

- when you send meme spam he reacts to each one of them individually

- the most charming sweetheart texter ever

- wants all ur attention

- *sends cute couple activities or cafes* thought of you sakhi~ 🥰

- dramatic af

- also top quality advice for literally every life problem

- pvt snapchat story for gopis and gopas where kanha posts daily fit pics hahaha (he know its the 💅kanha thirst💅 grp fr lool)

-- > takes a selfie with radharani literally every time he sees her and posts it with caption 'RADHE ❤️'

-- > (leads to some rly funny candids of radharani 🤭🤭)

y/n: *sends cute pic of self*

krishna : *sends selfie of him swooning* caption: AAAAAAHHHHHHH MY HEARRTTTTT 😩😩😩😩😩😩🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵🥵💘💘💘💘💘🫶🫶🫶🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺💞💞💕💕💕💞💞😍😍😍😍💕💕💕💕💕💓💓💓💓💝💝💝💝💝

krishna : SAKHI IM DYING

y/n : OMG WHAT

y/n : KANHA???

y/n : ?????

y/n : WHERE R U

y/n : BALDAU DOESNT KNOW HWERE U ARE EITHER ��😭😭

y/n : TELL ME IF UR OKAY

[10hrs later]

krishna : dying without ur love 😩👌

[left on seen]

krishna : SAKHI COME BACK

krishna : 🚨🚨🚨 DANCE PARTY DROP EVERYTHING NOW 🕺💃🪩 🚨🚨🚨

y/n : *sends a meme that's not even that funny tbh*

krishna: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

krishna : you're so funny sakhi~~

krishna : 🤣🤣😂😂

krishna : hey sakhi have u seen my flute anywhere i can't find itttt 😭😭😭😭

krishna : nvm it was in my dhoti waistband

krishna : silly me !

krishna : 😆

krishna : got worried for a sec !

- its all for the attention of his beloved sakhis 🥰

y/n : ...yknow u don't have to try so hard u already got me whipped 😂

BONUS BALARAM:

- literally everyones contact name for him is 'Dau'

- sophisticated texter, reacts to all ur msgs with 👍 emoji

- replies either the second u msg him or 5mins after with profuse apologies for late response

- daily hydration reminders

- daily bedtime reminders

- daily "Sorry, but have you seen Kanha anywhere?"

- "I have posted you some herbal tea and face masks. Take care of yourself, you deserve it!"

- will cook for u in exam szn

- 'Some positivity for your day 🥰' *sends 7 cat vids*

- on ur speed dial

- on everyones speed dial

[savrr]

Arjuna . Dhanañjaya (धनञ्जय) – one who conquered wealth and gold .

[zeherili-ankhein]

#mahabharat podcast

If I had a nickel for each time Shantanu went near the river and fell in love at first sight with a woman, I'll have two nickels which isn't much but it's weird (or is it?) that it happened twice...

[fanfictionroxs]

Draupadi: You don't think I can fight because I'm a girl!

Satyajit: I don't think you can fight because you're wearing a wedding dress. For what it's worth, I don't think Drishtadyumn could fight in that wedding dress either.

Drishtadyumn: Perhaps not. But I would make a radiant bride.

Shikhandi, supportive bro-mode on: Yes, you would.

[h0bg0blin-meat]

Krishna: Did it hurt?

Arjun: (turns to him)

Krishna: When you-

Arjun: Yes.

Krishna: -Fell from that tree today?

Arjun:

Arjun: Fuck. You.

Krishna: Only after the council meeting.

Arjun: What?

Krishna: What?

[thrill-seeker-vn]

Barbenheimer season: would the ROs watch Barbie, Oppenheimer, both or neither?

Oh man, this has been in the drafts for a while.... but it's time for a clean out!

Hannie isn't much of a movies person, so wouldn't mind going to either movie. Would enjoy Barbie more, though! They don't like Christopher Nolan movies (they think they're really boring).

N is doing a double feature for SURE, if only for the outfit swaps. Would definitely enjoy Barbie more, too!

Oli is in the TRENCHES. They know that if they watch Oppenheimer you will probably bring up their emo phase. But they really wanna watch. Olivia didn't play with dolls much as a kid (vice versa, Oliver didn't play with action figures and the like) even though they were around the house (emo phase, I'm not like other girls/boys), so Barbie wouldn't be first choice, but they'd love to watch it with the others.

[vivienna-vivid]

Y'all, I'm so emo over Yudhisthira today.

[me-is-manny]

Bro literally changed my entire perspective-

Do you ever wonder how much shorter The Mahabharata would’ve been if the people simply decided to ignore Yudhishthir?

@askhindumyths @incorrectmahabharatquotes

[stxrrynxghts]

Yudhishthira: truth or dare? Arjun: truth Yudhishthira: how many hours have you slept this week? Arjun: Arjun: ....dare. Yudhishthira: go to bed. Arjun: I don't like this game

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

Recently I saw this post by @god-has-adhd (I'm not reblogging it because I saw the people they tagged and realised very quickly that it's quite likely that us reblogging the post will be unwelcome, to put it mildly. I'm tagging the OP here anyway since it's a direct response to the post and it seemed only fair to engage in the conversation. I hope they don't mind.) OP urged everyone to watch the video regardless of the political leaning so in the spirit of giving everything a fair shot, we watched it. 'We' here refers to both me and Mod G. There are things we agree on with the guy speaking in the video and there are things we disagree with/think he didn't properly research. However, there is one thing that's most relevant to this blog and to me, personally so I'll be talking primarily about it. This is your long post warning, I'm afraid.

------------

"The Real Story of Eklavya"

The context for people who haven't watched the video is that the guy brings up two stories, one of Satyakama Jabali from the Upanishads and that of Eklavya from the Mahabharata. He brings up both these stories in the context of caste, he helpfully titles it and everything.

What I found interesting is that he frames himself talking about the story with the words "The real story of Eklavya". If you know even the basics of storytelling or filmmaking, you know that this is quite important. This implies that you, the viewer, do not know the real story and the one you know is either incomplete or false.

He begins, in a memorable instance, by asking ChatGPT for a summary to grasp the popular interpretation of the story of Eklavya and Drona. I have THOUGHTS about using a machine learning tool that is trained on data that is infamously biased and lacking when it comes to anything that isn't American, but that would be digressing from the point. ChatGPT provides him a summary that mentions that Eklavya was denied Drona's tutelage because he was of a lower caste. After this, the guy proceeds to recite the lines where Eklavya is mentioned in the Adi parva of the Sanskrit Mahabharat that we refer to as Vyasa's Mahabharat. He expresses surprise at how Eklavya is introduced as being the son of the "king" of the nishads (I think leader is a better word that should've been used but the Sanskrit text has a notorious habit of having just really questionable ways of referring to people, if you've read it you know.) Which is found HILARIOUS. Bro, what do you mean you're surprised? This is COMMON knowledge, I fear.

He mentions how being the son of the nishaad's leader/king effectively puts him on the same level as Arjun and that they're both princes. He says that this means Eklavya isn't shudra or dalit (there is a word that's curiously absent here that I'll mention in a bit.) Now, this one of those parts where the choice information he presents the viewer with is bizarre. Since I promised I'll give it a fair shot, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and assume this is a fault of him not researching enough and not willful omission. Maybe he just doesn't know. The information he's given here is correct, mostly. What he DOESN'T explain is who the nishads, as a group are. I'll fill in the blanks for him.

The nishad are said to be a group of tribal people who reside in the hills. The text he reads out even has the word "tribal" in it but the guy sort of glosses over it? The nishads are sort of like an aggregate grouping of different tribal populations and not the name of a specific tribe. Kind of. But the mention is still significant. See, the Mahabharata, especially the Sanskrit text, has this Thing™ that it does where it's incredibly rare to find a mention of tribal populations who are said to be human, many of the other mentioned tribal groups are demi-humans or non-humans or just straight up rakshahsas.

Eklavya is said to be the adopted son of Hiranyadhanus, the aforementioned king/leader of the nishads. The Harivamsa Purana part of the Sanskrit text (which is a giant-ass genealogy section where it traces the family line from the start of existence to the birth of Krishna) mentions that biologically he's the son of Devashrava, Vasudev's brother, which makes him Krishna's cousin by blood. Eklavya was abandoned by Devashrava in the forest and Hiranyadhanus found him and raised him as his own.

This makes Eklavya a tribal boy, I would use the word adivasi but people might disagree so I'll just say he has a tribal heritage, not by blood but by his upbringing. The man in the video says that Eklavya isn't a shudra, or dalit or untouchable, which is technically true. There's a missing word here that's doing a lot of heavy lifting for him, though. He says that Eklavya is a Kshatriya, which is DEBATEABLE because in the epic we've seen time and time again that blood doesn't matter and it's the society that does. With this, hopefully not to y'all, new information we might understand how the guy's assertion that Arjuna and Eklavya are on equal footing is shaky at best.

He continues to explain that in the text the reasoning why Drona refuses Eklavya is because he'd already promised he'd make Arjun The Best Archer. Since, he's bound by obligation to the Kurus, he can't afford to let Eklavya outshine his kuru students. The man proceeds to assert that in the text there is no caste-based discrimination happening here. Ergo, he concludes, the story of Eklavya doesn't have a caste aspect to it. If you believe otherwise, you're uneducated and need to learn the Truth and not fall into Propoganda. (I'm trying to be charitable to the guy but his tone when he says the word "propoganda" is dripping with disdain and it's making it very hard for me to remain charitable.) He ends this section this way.

This guy says he's given you all the facts. He's cited his source and he's said the complete truth. He hasn't. In this man's viewpoint, the complete and true Mahabharat is the Sanskrit text. Which, as you know, ISN'T what the entirety of the Mahabharat is and claiming that it is is a narrow perspective to see it. (Which is FUNNY considering this guy has a whole section towards the end of the video about Nuance and it's ironic that he's unwilling to provide the same nuance about the epic to his trusting audience.) Maybe he just isn't insane enough like me to know that it isn't the entire Mahabharat. It's possible.

There is a viewpoint that declares that the Sanskrit Text is the primary source and everything else isn't "canon". There's a SPECIFIC word for it but I will not say it because it's like a boogeyman word on hindublr, at least, so I'll omit the word in this post. This man, from what I've seen, shares this viewpoint.

I disagree.

The Mahabharat, is first and foremost a collection of oral traditions of storytelling that were written down much later. This means that the entire corpus of work that is this mammoth of an epic consists of the thousands of written texts, poetry, plays, songs, folk tales, recently it also includes cinematic adaptations, bedtime stories that your elders might have told you, and lastly, popular culture for better or for worse. This is my viewpoint and I feel it provides for a much better lens to engage with the story. Otherwise, you're denying the story of the rich tradition and heritage it was forged in.

The guy in the video wonders why the story of Eklavya is more popular than Satyakama Jabali and there are a lot of reasons for it. First is that the epic is simply more popular and, in many ways, more fun than the upanishad stories. Second is that the story of Eklavya captured people's minds because it's a story that has strife and the ending is unsatisfactory. Tragedies inspire emotions and connection in a way that comedies do not. There are many more reasons but I'll stop listing them.

It's not a coincidence or happenstance that there are caste dynamics added in the popular interpretation of the story. There are even seeds of this in the Sanskrit text, if this guy is truly only looking at that alone, Eklavya being a tribal kid, the way his physical appearance is described in the text, the way he's stopped from sharing a space with the kuru princes etc. If a variety of people who have historically faced similar things especially when it comes to education and find themselves mirrored in Eklavya? That's not Propaganda, as the guy puts it. It's just how stories naturally evolve and grow. It's people reading between the lines. There's no conspiracy at play. Just people finding something to relate to when they cannot relate to any other character.

I can write essays on how caste and varna show up in the Mahabharat (and I might, if even ONE person asks me for it) but to sum it down, it's a task of examining exactly who and what KIND of people are absent from the story. The Invisible People, if you will. You can count on your fingers how many shudra, dalit and adivasi figures are in the Mahabharat.

Drona is a teacher who fails at being a teacher in this instance. (The Mahabharat in many ways is a story of people failing to do their Duty. There's a certain peacock feather wearing guy who does a whole song and dance about it. It can cover a whole book. It's quite popular. Maybe you've heard of it?) Even if you ignore the caste dynamics reading of it, you cannot deny that the man just sucked at being a teacher in that moment when he denied education to a student, whatever his reasoning may be. He brutally asks for the kid to maim himself and again, even the Sanskrit text describes this action of Drona as cruel. He creates a barrier for Eklavya to stop him from continuing to practice his archery.

It's not surprising that Drona is read as a stand in for an education system that sucks at being an education system that does its job. Again, it's not a conspiracy or propaganda. It's people trying to connect to a story through the prism of their life experiences.

It is not my place to tell people what to believe and what not to believe. It's not the guy in the video's either, despite what he says. People's interpretations are personal to them. What is my place is to remind people that it's wrong to deny people their interpretations. There are versions and interpretations of the story that I hate or dislike but I'm not standing here and telling you they're not the Truth. This is the nuance that Mahabharat requires that the guy lacks. This is also why I believe his sources and research is lacking in this department.

------------

Beyond Eklavya

There's a lot of other thoughts and things I want to share about the rest of the video. I'll try to summarise the highlights.

There's a part where he doesn't understand what systemic patriarchy means, exactly, even though he himself gave an EXCELLENT example of it towards the start of the video with Satyakama Jabali's mother's heritage not being considered when it comes to his gotra. It was frustrating because he SAID it. He said the perfect example himself. I almost thought he set it up as a complete circle moment but he hadn't.

I appreciate him bringing a Shaivite perspective because I'm honestly tired of so much Vaishnavism at all times. I love to see different schools of Hinduism actually being practiced and not just one dominating and subsuming the others.

Towards the start of the video, Mod G predicted that the man would go on a "Periyar sucks" rant and I was so delighted that G was so right.

The guy in the video neglects to look at any contemporary research and scholarship about the linguistics and the Aryan migration theory(which he calls the invasion theory, obviously) including the genetic studies.

There's a funny bit where whenever the guy mentions Ambedkar he has to assert that he thinks Ambedkar is anti-hindu. Even when he's praising him. It happened multiple times.

-------------

TL;DR The man in the video fails to provide his viewers with the full picture about the story of Eklavya even when he claims he is.

- Mod S

ALSO

The structure of his arguments are poor especially in the section where he talks about why the North-South divide came about. Does he not know about the field of linguistics and how root languages are established? Telugu as a language has a 'Dravidian' (he seems to hate that word, even though Dravida is not just the anglo word for the southern parts of India) root because of certain features it has. Notice how North Indian languages use Gender. And then, notice how Southern/central or even Adivasi languages use gender. One main reason why Dravidian languages have been speculated to have another root language different to Sankskrit is the counting systems. Its not wrong to say Telugu has sanskrit INFLUENCE, but again, look at WHICH people within the language group use that type of Telugu (spoiler alert, its the 'proper' upper castes). He dismisses that entirely and makes it a whole issue about how the North South divide happened.

Its very clear to me that he has no intention of representing any of the counter arguments to his premise in an honest manner and is instead single mindedly trying to create more propaganda.

-Mod G

[krsnaradhika]

I know I'm gonna attract a lot of speeches and stuff with this statement but I'll tell you something-

Both Arjuna and Kanha are incarnations of Shri Narayana so shipping them with each other romantically is not fun y'all (they are also the twin sages Nara and Narayana so that makes it more yikes? Twincest bro? Why?)

It's weird, and while I do fully support the lgtbq+ (bhai I'm demisexual myself), please don't insert it in itihāsa scriptures where it's not. Yes, I know about Sudyumna and Ila and how King Bhagiratha was born. Even Khajuraho has homoerotic sculptures and yes the community deserves respect just as any heterosexual personality does. Yes hinduism embraces homosexuality openly and there's nothing to be ashamed of it. But jahan hai vahan hai, jahan nahi don't put it there. Imagine labeling a person with wrong pronouns and wrong sexuality, not respectful right? Why do it with divine people? I know Kanha's everybody's buddy here and I'm nobody to tell people how they should worship him and what bhāva should they harbour, but like? It's not canon? Don't do it? People can be platonically very affectionate with each other and we should normalise it? And not term them as someone they're not? Fandom nahi hai bro, culture hai, dharma hai. Jise dhaaran kiya jaye, vahi dharma hai. Our ethics, morals and principles are our dharma. We have evidences of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. So it's not like they're fictional, are they? I know Tumblr pe we're all having fun and aisa hota hai yahan, I myself adore #ParAv very much but seriously writing smut on them? Making sexual jokes? Painting them as some people they're not? Why? Just because a large number of people are doing it, doesn't make it right.

(If somebody's posting hate comments or any stuff they're getting blocked.)

[eremin0109]

"They're freaking brothers" someone kill me please this is like the 8068392820th time I've seen this argument can't y'all come up with something more creative?

Because it's just factually wrong. In the canon, AT BEST, Arjun and Krishna are very distant cousins (what with Kunti being Vasudev's biological sister but because she was adopted by Kuntibhoj, she would carry his name and lineage and her children would be like 3rd cousins to the Yadavas or some shit)

and anyway do I REALLY need to remind y'all that this same "They're related!!!!!" logic can be applied to Arjun and Subhadra seeing as to how they're fucking married in the canon and no one seems to bitch about that.

We have Krishna repeatedly stating how Arjun is the most important person in his life, how he cannot imagine a life without him, how he would sacrifice the world, even himself for Arjun's sake. He calls him his other half, CANONICALLY.

We have Arjun putting his utmost faith (almost blindly so) in Krishna, spending a lot of time going on secret outings with him where they are said to have shared a bed frequently, being the only person to have witnessed Krishna in his complete essence: body, heart and soul, the Vishawaroop (well, there were other people who saw the avatar too but the display was quote blatantlyfor Arjun and Arjun only). I don't even have to go into the story of "Arjuni" in the Padma Purana where Arjun genderswaps to go "sport" with Krishna in Vrindavan (during one of the Raas-Leelas). The entire episode is gay as fuck.

And all of this is just off the top of my head. Nara and Narayan may have been "twin saints", but they also literally symbolise the union of mortality and divinity, in every single way. They're the embodiment of "Two Bodies, One Soul" And the interpretation of what that means is left up to the reader. Not to mention, they're the deities of the Satya-Yug, when everything was perfect. There were no vices or sins or pleasure or pain (or sex, at least not explicitly lmao). The nature of their relationship then represented the ideal of that era.

But when they were reincarnated as Krishna and Arjun, obviously they were bound to change, shaped by this new, much darker era. You can't expect them to feel about each other the same what they felt back then. It's a much different time, wildly different circumstances. There's obviously still that camaraderie and connection there, a residue from their previous lifetimes, but Krishna and Arjun are Narayan and Nara only in spirit. Otherwise they have nothing in common.

Anyway, I went off on a rant there but what I really wanted ro emphasize is that the Mahabharata is a story, first and foremost, a sprawling, enchantingly complex tale of well, everything really. The origin of it is unknown and we could go all day about whether it actually happened or not but that is not the point at all. It doesn't matter if it was the exaggerated retelling of what happened in India's ancient past or the brainchild of a prodigious bard. The fact remains that it's a glorious artifact that not only represents India's long-standing culture of discussion, debate and tolerance but also begins with a line that says "what is found here can be found elsewhere, but what is not found here is found nowhere".

So pray tell me, OP, is such a text really not capable of accomodating a few headcanons, silly drawings and fanfiction? Some "controversial" (read: different that the mainstream) opinions or hating certain characters or even shipping characters is not gonna "ruin" the glory of the epic. Hell, all of that, whatever outrageous thing you can think of, has probably happened in some or the other story of Mahabharata, in some or the other way. Hence the quote.

So there's nothing wrong with having alternate interpretations of the text, as long as you're not being an asshole about it, smh.

There are people who hate Bhisma Pitamah?

THE BHISMA PITAMAH???

[zeherili-ankhein]

#mahabharat podcast

Poor Uttar he was just not made for fighting.... He was a pookie who should have done something like dancing with his sister