Blood; Mahabharata Generation 3, Part 2
Jul. 22nd, 2009 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Finally! It's been hard getting here this week, but here's a very short Blood is Thicker than Water.
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Last time, I talked about how Pandu the king had to give up being king because he was cursed not to sleep with his wives. No heirs pretty much meant you were out of the running to be king.
BUT (there's always a but in Indian mythology)
Pandu was married to two women, one named Kunti and the other named Madri. Kunti had a gift. She could become pregnant by summoning gods to make her so. She'd even tried this out before she married Pandu, and had a son named Karna with Surya the Sun God. Remember Karna for later.
When Pandu found out he was forbidden from fathering children, Kunti told him about her ability. Pandu encouraged her to call the gods, saying that he would take the children as his own. So Kunti gave birth to Yudhisthira, whose father was Yama, the god of judgment; Bhima, whose father was Vayu the god of wind; and Arjuna, whose father was Indra, the king of the gods.
Madri asked Kunti to share the trick with her, and Madri was the mother of two twins, Nakula and Sahadeva, whose father were the Ashwins, the horsemen of the gods.
Bhisma, the great uncle of the Pandavas, the five sons of Pandu, invited Kunti and her sons to court shortly after the deaths of Pandu and Madri. Rivalries and conflicts between the Pandavas and their cousins, the Kauravas eventually led to a great war.
Mirrored from Writer Tamago.