PANDU AND DRITARASHTRA

It was a grim situation for Queen mother Sathyavathi when her son Vichitraveerya, the king of Kuru dynasty died without  any successor to the thrown.  Such grave situations in the epic Mahabharatha always threw up an unexpected answer which would affect the dynasty greately later on.  Perhaps it was the script prepared by fate that eventually led to the Kurukshetra war where in good prevailed over evil.

Queen mother asked her step son Bheeshma to retract from his vows that he would not become king or and he would not marry, and marry her son’s Vichitraveerya’s widows Ambalika and Ambika to get children from them to avoid succession crisis.  Bheeshma refused to retract from his vows.  Queen mother, then meditated upon her son Vyasa, the great sage, to present himself before her to bless the widows to get children by yogic power. 

Events were waiting to happen.  The story of the birth of the 3 important male characters, Pandu, Dhritarashtra and Vidura was the origin of the epic Mahabharata.  When Ambalika went before the sage Vyasa she closed her eyes to avoid the brightness of the sage.  This is how blind Dritarashtra was born.  Queen mother was greately unhappy about this.  This time she sent Ambika before the sage.  Seeing the great sage, Ambika became pale.  Thus pale Pandu was born.  Queen mother asked Ambika to see the sage once again, but Ambika was unwilling.  Instead she sent her maid servant in the queens dress before the sage.  Thus Vidura was born to maid servant.

As Dritarashtra was blind his yunger brother Pandu was made the king.  This is the origin point of jealousy and heatred between Kauravas and Pandavas.  Bheeshma, brought Gandhari from Gandhara kingdom for Dritarashtra and Kunti married Pandu.  Gandhari tied a silk piece of cloth around her eyes and remained blind throughout her life because her husband Dritarashtra was blind.Dritarashtra got 100 sons and a daughter from Gandhari who were called Kauravas.  Pandu because of a curse by a sage could not touch his wives and hence, Pandu asked kunti to invoke a Mantra which was given to her by sage Durvasa.  By invoking this mantra and praying a particular god she would get a son from him.  In this way Kunti became mother of Yudhishtira, Arjuna, Bheema.  She has encouraged Madri, the second wife of Pandu to invoke the mantra to get Nakula and Sahadeva.  They were called Pandavas. Kauravas and Pandavas  were never on friendly terms.  Duryodana eldest brother of Kauravas was always planning to destroy Pandavas. 

After king Pandu’s death, Dhritarashtra divided the kingdom into 2 parts and gave one each to his sons and Pandavas.  Duryodana retained Hastinapura.  Pandavas built their own capital Indraprastha.  Duryodana defeated Yudishtira in the game of dice with the help of Shakuni.  As perthe  agreement of the game, Pandavas went to forest to spend 12 years of exile and 1 year in Agnyatavasa (incognito life). 

Pandavas spent 13 years (including 1 year agnyatavasa) and returned to Hastinapura and demanded their part of the kingdom.  Duryodana refused to keep up his own words of the game of dice, resulting in the Kurukshetra war and distruction of Kauravas. 

In his inner mind, Dritarashtra knew that his son Duryodana did not follow dharma yet because of his love for his son, he encouraged Duryodana to go ahead in his crucked thinking.  After the death of his sons Dhritarashtra along with Gandhari, Kunti and Vidura went to forest to do the penance and they died in the forest fire.