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Synopsis: MAHABHARATA

 

Image credit @ Tamil and Vedas

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Vyasa recited, without meditation

Ganapati scribed, grasping tradition

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The Universe froze, for the coming

Mahabharata, the beginning

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This transpired, when memories

Were history’s repositories

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From devas, gandharvas, rakshasas

The epic flowed to humans via yakshas

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Vyasa conceived and Ganapati brought it forth

Janamejaya evoked, Suta the story told

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For all Humanity to embrace

Pendulum swings for the human race

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Vichitravirya beget two sons

Dhristarashtra, the first born, blind

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Hastinapura, jewel in the crown

Went to Pandu, his younger son

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The seeds of discord thus sowed

The cosmic stage for blood ploughed

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Of players, playing fleeting parts

To enlighten and light a path

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Pandu’s offense led to years of penance

To the forest with his two wives he went

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Kunti and Madri, bore him sons five

The seeds of Pandu, the Pandavas

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Pandu’s soul to Swarga Loka departs

His sons to the holy Rishis, to play their parts

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To school the princes in Vedanta, Vedas

The code of the kshatriyas and the arts

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The Brothers Pandavas led by Yudhishthira

Age sixteen, return home to Hastinapura

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They quarrel with the hundred Kauravas

Sons of the blind steward, Dhristarashtra

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Bhishma, the celibate, the perfect knight

Intervened, their heritage to divide

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The Kauravas remained in Hastinapura

The Pandavas retired to rule Indraprastha

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Affection feigned without, enmity festered within

Stoked by many, especially by Uncle Sakuni

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A trap laid, an invitation to wager all in a lottery

Yudhishthira the honest played old Sakuni who lacked probity

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In keeping their date with destiny

The Pandavas lost their everything

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Justice stood still, as covenant ran wild

The Pandavas and wife again exiled

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After twelve harvests and the thirteenth out of sight

The Pandavas returned to reclaim their birthright

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Denied by Duryodhana, the Kauravas’ first born

Lands turned wet with blood and tears, kith and kin asunder torn

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As foretold, the Kauravas worsted, the Pandavas bested

The mighty and the meek, their songs into history, vested

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This, the sketch on living lives, O People, it will swell

With sublime teachings drawn from an ever brimming well

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——————————— Copyright @ Eric Alagan, 2013 ———————————

It is presumptuous for anyone to write a ‘synopsis’ of so great and rich an epic as the Mahabharata.

Please pardon the great white spots.

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