The Real Reason Behind Mahabharata

We all know that the famous battle of Mahabharata was fought between the Kouravas and the Pandavas, and also that it was fought for the throne of the kingdom Hastinapur. Well, while all this is true, there is another less-known fact that the seeds of the battle had been sown long before it actually took place. Lets us explore how.

There is a belief in Hinduism that the situations that we get in the present life have already been eared by us in the past life. So, all that we get in this life corresponds to the deeds we did in the past life. Following this rule, there is a story which tells why Dhritarashtra , the father of the Kouravas was a blind man.

Dhritarashtra In His Previous Birth

Dhritarashtra was a wicked king in his past life. He, along with his army, had gone for hunting. When they were tired, they stopped under a tree near the river to have some rest. Lying there having rest, he saw a swan with her babies playing there. Following his wicked mind, he ordered his men to destroy the eyes of the swan and kill her babies. His men did the same. As a result of which, the swan cursed this wicked king to have a similar fate in the next birth.

Birth Of Dhritarashtra and Pandu

On the other scene, King Shantanu and his wife Satyavati had two sons, Chitrangad and Vichitraveerya. Chitrangad had died in a battle. Therefore, Bhishma Pitamah got the girls Ambika and Ambalika both married to Vichitraveerya. Soon after the marriage, Vichitraveerya too fell ill. His long-term illness resulted into Chitrangad's death too.

Worried about their succession, the queen Satyavati went to see the famous saint of those times, Maharishi Valmiki. Maharishi Valmiki then gave them the blessing as a result of which the girls gave birth to one son each.

It is believed that when Maharishi Valmiki was using his divine powers to bless the girls, Ambika had closed out of fear. This is why, the boy born was blind since birth. This boy then came to be known as Dhritarashtra, the father of the Kouravas. At the same time, the other girl too became pale due to the fear why the boy was born weak since birth. This boy later became the father of the Pandavas.

To Know What Determines The Qualities That We Possess

Dhritrashtra's Marriage

Dhritarashtra was married to the daughter of the Gandhara king Subala. The girl was called Gandhari. This girl seeing that her husband is a blind man, vowed to intentionally become blind and covered her eyes with a black strap and remained like this forever since then.

Gandhari was praised for her decision. However, there was one fact that nobody knew till then. The fact was that there was some astrological inauspiciousness in her birth chart. To remove the ill effect of this, she had already been married to a male goat once, who was then killed, as a remedy.

When the king Dhritarashtra came to know about this, he was badly enraged. Out of anger, he captured the Gandhar king Subala and his sons and kept all of them in his jail. He often tortured them and in fact did not even give them food to eat. After some time, the Gandhar king and his sons died. The only son that survived was Shakuni. He is the same Shakuni whom we know as a clever villain in the Mahabharata.

It is believed that when it was the last day of the king Subala, he was asked for his last wish. His last was that Shakuni be freed. And due to this Shakuni was freed finally. Yet another belief says that Subala had once asked his son Shakuni that when he dies, the spine of his bone should be used to make dices used in the game of gambling.

Now, these dices were the ones that Shakuni secretly controlled through black magic and later gave them to the Pandavas when they were to begin the famous game of gambling. The black magic performed on these dices was such that every chance the Pandavas took to throw the dices, they only lost it.

Not only this, Shakuni had started creating distances between the Kouravas and the Pandavas soon after he came out of the jail. He had the burning desire to take the revenge of the death of his kins, and destroy any scope of the king Dhritrashtra's succession.

Outwardly supporting the Kouravas, inside his clever brain, he had the aim of destroying the whole kingdom and the kins of Dhritarashtra. This is how the Mahabharata took place and thus became a famous legend.