Mahabharat being an epic permanently etched in our memories, always manages to amuse us.
The epic and its conclusive war, both are of enormous lengths. Going by the popular narrative, the footfall of the magnanimous war lies around 4 million people fighting it from either sides including all ranks of warriors.
Given the vast setup, the thought often trespasses through our minds as to who was the best warrior ?? And rightly so as we have sound mental conditioning to view stories as tales of protagonists !!..... Isn't it ??
Do we not start looking for hero as soon as we come across a story ?? !
Of course the warriors had different ranks and skills with their respective weapons but archers get an advantage as they can target larger distances and cause more casualties in one single blow. For instance, Arjuna killing Jayadratha and at the same time dispatching his severed head to a far off place. This takes the likes of Karna, Arjuna , Drona, Bheeshma etc few notches above the rest. But ultimately who is the best of the lot ?
Karna in this context, has always enjoyed much attention who appears to be a perfect candidate to satiate the craving of an entire strata of readers who would always want to celebrate unsung and tragic heroes more than the winning heroes.
(Well there's another blog post dedicated to Karna coming soon..)
The question here remainss is who is the mightiest of all the warriors ?
Backdrop being set, let’s delve deeper.
But I have a bigger question here, is the first question even valid ?
Upon pondering who was the best, I at last made peace with the fact that this question simply cease to exist.
Let’s see why. I think of two reasons primarily.
1) There is glorification of characters.
2) There is nothing absolute and the concept of relativity existed even then.
The war/narrative has umpteen number of instances which upon contemplation, come out as attempts made for glorification of the warriors/characters and subsequenly the war itself. Going just by the brain, the Mahabharata war was no battle for any individual to be complacent. So what takes the cake according to me for one to deliver his best is so called the “D Day” of his life. When with all one's heart, soul and all kind of consciousness, he/she knows that yes this is it...!!
Often, being underdog also propells one further to unleash his true strength and thus there are instances in battles wherein the underdog came out to be dominat at the end.
Let's go about some of the warriors one by one and discuss the instances which I found were fateful for them
I mentioned few of the many instances which I personally found defining. However, there might be many more as the epic is a treasure trove in itself. Needless to say, there are many more class apart warriors like Drishtadyumna,Satyaki, Barbarik just to name a few with each having their own share of exploits.
Coming back to the comparison, above instances depicts the relativity I am talking about. Observing above instances looks like things coming in a full circle. Considering an similar analogy of a sports tournament, it in a way sounds like team A beats team B, team B wins over team C but on a fateful day, team C convincingly defeats team A!
Arguably, it can be as simple as that. Literally !! There are certain categories of warriors as per their overall prowess. After they are already categorised, their theoretical prowess hardly matter much. They dominate each other for reasons which appear either circumstantial or part of some master plan of higher dimensions.
In essence, these all characters are simply pieces of a greater jigsaw puzzle, each of which holds significance only when put together as a complete solution. Put alone, they simply appear shapeless,clueless. Anyone of them individually is neither inferior or superior, but just essential. Question of superiority has thus been given a wide berth.
Comparison stands null and void.
Hope my blog answers some of your questions. If it creates more questions....even better !
Please like/share/comment if you found the content intriguing and do leave your comments behind. Stay tuned for this blog post series of "Curious case of epics".....
Extending my gratitude to the almighty!
Please find the same blog in Hindi here -
https://blogofpankaj.blogspot.com/2019/08/blog-post.html
(Views are personal and no blasphemy whatsoever is intended)
The epic and its conclusive war, both are of enormous lengths. Going by the popular narrative, the footfall of the magnanimous war lies around 4 million people fighting it from either sides including all ranks of warriors.
Given the vast setup, the thought often trespasses through our minds as to who was the best warrior ?? And rightly so as we have sound mental conditioning to view stories as tales of protagonists !!..... Isn't it ??
Do we not start looking for hero as soon as we come across a story ?? !
Of course the warriors had different ranks and skills with their respective weapons but archers get an advantage as they can target larger distances and cause more casualties in one single blow. For instance, Arjuna killing Jayadratha and at the same time dispatching his severed head to a far off place. This takes the likes of Karna, Arjuna , Drona, Bheeshma etc few notches above the rest. But ultimately who is the best of the lot ?
Karna in this context, has always enjoyed much attention who appears to be a perfect candidate to satiate the craving of an entire strata of readers who would always want to celebrate unsung and tragic heroes more than the winning heroes.
(Well there's another blog post dedicated to Karna coming soon..)
The question here remainss is who is the mightiest of all the warriors ?
Backdrop being set, let’s delve deeper.
But I have a bigger question here, is the first question even valid ?
Upon pondering who was the best, I at last made peace with the fact that this question simply cease to exist.
Let’s see why. I think of two reasons primarily.
1) There is glorification of characters.
2) There is nothing absolute and the concept of relativity existed even then.
The war/narrative has umpteen number of instances which upon contemplation, come out as attempts made for glorification of the warriors/characters and subsequenly the war itself. Going just by the brain, the Mahabharata war was no battle for any individual to be complacent. So what takes the cake according to me for one to deliver his best is so called the “D Day” of his life. When with all one's heart, soul and all kind of consciousness, he/she knows that yes this is it...!!
Often, being underdog also propells one further to unleash his true strength and thus there are instances in battles wherein the underdog came out to be dominat at the end.
Let's go about some of the warriors one by one and discuss the instances which I found were fateful for them
- Abhimanyu :
Talking about the youngest of them - Abhimanyu, he reportedly fought even with Bhishma but couldn’t stun him though he won later's respect. Abhimanyu had his day when he died after ravaging the Chakravyuh. He stunned everyone present on the field including Drona. This elevates Abhimanyu who didn’t make any mark as indelible for nearly two weeks on battlefield as much as he made on one single day. - Ghatotkach :
Ghatotkach similarly had his day when he was introduced in the the battle field after Jaydradh's death when war continued post sunset as well. Even the nugatory of his skills wrecked enough havoc on opposition.
Arguments can be made that Ghatotkach was a rakshas but were there no weapons in likes of Drona’s and Karna’s combined arsenal to kill Ghatotkacha other than the one which was given to later by Indra ?
Or was it just an episode to either glorify Ghatotkach or to humble likes of Karna, Drona or it was a plan to save Arjuna from Indra’s weapon ? - Arjuna:
Talking about Arjuna, he had his D-day (or one of his D-days) on 14th day of the war when he was headed towards killing Jayadratha to avenge the merciless killing of his son Abhimanyu.
He had no half measures as he had a mammoth task at hand and limited time till sunset. Dronacharya reportedly safeguarded Jayadratha in a padma or lotus view such that Arjuna had to literally win over each and every opponent coming on his way. Though Arjuna couldn't kill Jayadratha all on his own, but the carnage he did on that day is by no means ordinary.
Jayadratha episode again raises questions on Karna as warrior as Arjuna must have cleared Karna too on his way to Jayadratha. What's even more surprising here is, Karna had already obtained the so called infalliable weapon from Indra before the battle even began. Why did Karna not use that weapon then ? Arjuna seems glorified here after killing Jaydhrath. - Karna :
Like wise Karna seemingly had his day when he finally battled Arjuna on 16th and 17th day of the war. The one on one battle he waited his entire life. The backdrop was set, it was a mega war in full swing, Bheeshma/Drona had already fallen. As commander in chief, on his shoulders lay all hopes of his beloved friend Duryodhana. As popular narrative goes, Karna prowess in that duel with Arjuna even put Krishna to discomfort and Karna couldn’t have been won by means of overpowering.
What made Karna so menacing in that duel that Arjuna strived even to survive let alone winning it ?? All this despite the fact that Arjuna himself had upper hand over Karna in previous battles and given that Abhimanyu, Ghatotkach already gave tough time to Karna in the war ? Sounds like glorification of Karna. - Drona:
The guru was simply Lord Yama himself at one point of time and was by no means manageable for Pandava army. He alone annihilated ranks of armies. But the episodes of Abhimanyu and Ghatotkach in the war very subtly put the glory of Drona and Karna as warriors to lesser esteem. More so because the might of these two boys was not much heard of before the war while rest many of them were celebrated and established warriors already. Karna and Drona had their “not really invincible” moments in the war but the trickery used to kill them at the end again promoted the status of their warriorship to "unbeatable". Looks like yet another case of glorification. - Bhishma:
Bhishma had his day when he defeated his guru Parashurama. This episode glorifies Bhishma and arguably subdues Parshurama as previous killings of Parshuram included Kartivirya Arjun too.... the one who even had defeated Ravana......!!
But what about Virat war wherein entire Kaurava army including Bhishma himself was single handedly dominated by Arjuna ?
But then again, what let Arjuna be defeated by Vabhruvahana at a later stage post war ?
So here's how the equation looks like -
Conquerer of conquerors, imprisoner of 'grahas'(not solar system planets) is mighty Ravana, one who is defeated by Kartivirya Arjun who in turn is killed by Sage Parshuram who in turn is defeated by Bhishma who in turn (on an ocassion along with his whole army including other warriors) is single handedly dominated by Arjuna who in turn is defeated by Vabhruvahana.... Phew !!
Conquerer of conquerors, imprisoner of 'grahas'(not solar system planets) is mighty Ravana, one who is defeated by Kartivirya Arjun who in turn is killed by Sage Parshuram who in turn is defeated by Bhishma who in turn (on an ocassion along with his whole army including other warriors) is single handedly dominated by Arjuna who in turn is defeated by Vabhruvahana.... Phew !!
Coming back to the comparison, above instances depicts the relativity I am talking about. Observing above instances looks like things coming in a full circle. Considering an similar analogy of a sports tournament, it in a way sounds like team A beats team B, team B wins over team C but on a fateful day, team C convincingly defeats team A!
Arguably, it can be as simple as that. Literally !! There are certain categories of warriors as per their overall prowess. After they are already categorised, their theoretical prowess hardly matter much. They dominate each other for reasons which appear either circumstantial or part of some master plan of higher dimensions.
Like wise, another debate which often arise is who died the most painful death in the war ?
Was it Duryodhana who lay nearly dead did not let himself die till he heard the news of Pandavas death ?
Or was it Abhimanyu who was cruelly killed after a day long of torturous war ?
Or was it Bhishma who spend weeks bedridden on arrow-bed with his whole body peirced ?
Or was it someone arbitrarily among the countless, lesser known foot soldiers ?
In my opinion, there is no clear answer as such questions themselves are blurred.
Was it Duryodhana who lay nearly dead did not let himself die till he heard the news of Pandavas death ?
Or was it Abhimanyu who was cruelly killed after a day long of torturous war ?
Or was it Bhishma who spend weeks bedridden on arrow-bed with his whole body peirced ?
Or was it someone arbitrarily among the countless, lesser known foot soldiers ?
In my opinion, there is no clear answer as such questions themselves are blurred.
In essence, these all characters are simply pieces of a greater jigsaw puzzle, each of which holds significance only when put together as a complete solution. Put alone, they simply appear shapeless,clueless. Anyone of them individually is neither inferior or superior, but just essential. Question of superiority has thus been given a wide berth.
Comparison stands null and void.
Hope my blog answers some of your questions. If it creates more questions....even better !
Please like/share/comment if you found the content intriguing and do leave your comments behind. Stay tuned for this blog post series of "Curious case of epics".....
Extending my gratitude to the almighty!
Please find the same blog in Hindi here -
https://blogofpankaj.blogspot.com/2019/08/blog-post.html
(Views are personal and no blasphemy whatsoever is intended)
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