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    Duryodhana: The Father King
    Duryodhana: The Father King
    Duryodhana: The Father King
    Ebook144 pages2 hours

    Duryodhana: The Father King

    By Indrajit Bandyopadhyay

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    About this ebook

    If both Duryodhana and Draupadi are Shiva’s creation; if both Duryodhana and Pandavas share Darpa, why did Krishna oppose him? Why, even Vyasa, at times, seems partial against him? Why was Duryodhana’s downfall and death necessary for establishing Krishna-conceived Dharma-Raajya? Why couldn’t Krishna’s Dharma-Raajya include Duryodhana? Actually, Krishna red-carded Dhritarashtra-Duryodhana for the same reasons we all, at times (perhaps, too often), want to oust our Rulers. Duryodhana is our most familiar contemporary Ruler; the one who gives us Security by keeping us Insecure Within; the Ruler, with whom some of us are Content with in unique Self-Deception of being Content; the Ruler, who poses to speak for Woman but creates a patriarchal society; the Ruler whom we elect to power being duped by promises of a Static future of Contentment, and soon seek his downfall once the Myth starts waning.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu.com
    Release dateMar 22, 2015
    ISBN9781329008380
    Duryodhana: The Father King

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      Book preview

      Duryodhana - Indrajit Bandyopadhyay

      Duryodhana: The Father King

      Duryodhana: The Father King

      Indrajit Bandyopadhyay

      Copyright © 2015 Indrajit Bandyopadhyay

      All rights reserved.

      ISBN:  978-1-329-00838-0

      Dedication

      I dedicate this work to the Mahabharata Lovers

      Content

      Preface

      1. Duryodhana, the Ambiguous Character

      1.1. The Other Duryodhana in Tradition of Ancient Bhaaratavarsha

      1.1.1. Kautilya’s Arthashaastra

      1.1.2. Duryodhana in Ancient Grammar

      1.1.3. Duryodhana in Ancient Indian Literature

      1.2. The Other Duryodhana in Western Scholarly Tradition

      1.3. The Other Duryodhana in Bengal Air

      2. The other side of Duryodhana in Classical Mahabharata

      2.1. Vyasa sings Duryodhana’s glory too

      2.2. Vyasa’s eulogy

      2.3. Praise for Duryodhana’s Rule

      2.4. Duryodhana: Shiva’s creation

      2.5. Duryodhana compared with Shiva

      2.6. Blessings of God-incarnations

      2.7. God Duryodhana

      2.8. Duryodhana as Indra

      2.9. Duryodhana’s Rational Mind

      2.10. Duryodhana – the Believer

      2.11. Duryodhana: The Emotional Man

      2.12. Duryodhana the Leader

      2.13. Duryodhana’s Character

      3. Dharma-Yuddha: What is it? Dharma vs Adharma, or Dharma vs Dharma?

      3.1. Old Indra, Tyrannous Indra and New Indra

      3.2. Dharma-Yuddha ≠ Dharma vs Adharma; Dharma-Yuddha = Dharma vs Dharma

      4. Dhritarashtra-Duryodhana Raajadharma

      4.1. King’s Strategy of Contentment

      4.2. Raajadharma: The Kali Yuga Symptom

      5. Paandu-Yudhishthira and Dhritarashtra-Duryodhana – a study in contrast

      5.1. Duryodhana’s transformation to Vrtra

      5.2. Duryodhana’s transformation, the deficit of the Mother/Feminine and Brahmana Text

      5.2.1. Duryodhana and Venus!!!

      6. Conclusion

      Preface

      Duryodhana is traditionally considered a villain; sometimes even Ravanized! He is often portrayed as a vain-boasting person – sort of one with Personality Disorder. Think of the recent Star Plus portrayal. This Duryodhana cannot even pronounce Bhima … he snarls, Bhyaaaaam!

      Ravanizing Duryodhana, (a ‘short-cut’ seeking symptom of Human Psyche to make birds of a feather flocked together) though empowered by Perception of Popular Power, is problematic considering the very Paradox that Ravana represents.

      Doesn’t our Civilization and Culture have an ambiguous attitude to Ravana? If he was an abductor of Sita, the other man’s wife, and for that has gained perpetual notoriety, one can never consider him an absolute villain even in that abductor-role. For one, Ravana never exerted physical power over Sita after settling her in Ashoka-Vana. This is indeed one great Ravana-Paradox that thwarts Modern Real-life Villains from iconizing Ravana.

      I think none will disagree that Ravana had several redeeming qualities. He was a great devotee of Shiva.

      We know, the Shiva-Taandava Stotra - is attributed to him (though in all Realistic and Prosaic probability, it was composed by Shankaracharya); there are temples of Ravana; and Ravana himself is a commoner in Major Temple Sculptures. Think of Ellora, Halebidu, Belur, Pattadakal temples … and the ten headed Ravana holding Kailash is indispensable …

      The irony is: to remember Shiva, is to remember Ravana. Even the person, who hates Ravana, has to enlist Ravana as Shiva’s foremost devotee.

      What I want to point out is: Our Civilization and Culture subconsciously knows there has been nothing like Absolute Villain; and the corollary is therefore, equally true.

      Ravanizing Duryodhana associates him with Shiva – an association that gains further strength by Duryodhana’s association and friendship with Drona’s son Ashvatthaamaa, considered one Avataara of Rudra; further bolstered by a lesser known fact of Mahabharata that Duryodhana was indeed Shiva’s creation.

      And here, Duryodhana shares the strangest of affinity with none other than Draupadi – because Mahabharata hails Draupadi too as Shiva’s creation.

      And perhaps, the Mother of that irony lies in our contemporary culture that one stream of Gadvaalii Folk Mahabharata has indeed transformed their traditional God Duryodhana into Someshvara, one name of Shiva.

      Well, Mahabharata is impossible without Shiva even from Mythical perspective. After all it is Shiva’s Dice Game with Paarvatii that occasions the four ex-Indras’ and Indra-Shakra’s birth as Pandavas! And Einstein was never right that God does not play Dice …

      No doubt, the idea about Duryodhana being evil-villain incarnate springs from Mahabharata itself, because his birth onwards he has been marked as such by none other than Dharma-incarnate truthful Vidura. Perhaps the natural extension of this is Duryodhana’s being hailed as Kali-incarnate.

      If Kali Yuga-people regard Kali-incarnate Duryodhana an evil isn’t that normal and natural?

      Why do we, Kali Yuga-people, need villain? Is it because of our Programmed-Brain (of WE, the Common People) that always thinks in terms of versus?

      This versus mentality perceives Reality in terms of poles like Good/Evil, White/Black etc. From this Point-of-View, if Vishnu-incarnate Krishna sides with Pandavas and our Reverence-Bhakti-Admiration go with Vishnu, then Pandavas must be heroes, and therefore, Duryodhana must be the damned villain, the Asura.

      Going by our uncommonly common Thought Pattern, this is OK.

      However, would Vyasa’s child Mahabharata allow us that complacency?

      Every Text has at least Dual Entity – the Text as-it-is, and the Text as-is-perceived. We are more often engrossed with the latter, and forget the former, because the former involves an arduous task of actually swimming in the Ocean with no shore in view. And indeed here we are in Vyasa’s Oceanic Mind.

      How many of us would willingly accept a life of Uncertainty and Insecurity?

      Therefore, the shortcut is to go by Beliefs – unexamined Beliefs – at the cost of Mahabharata itself.

      It is this Power of popular perception that has eternally damned Duryodhana. Well, I am not saying here that I have taken upon myself the noble task of redeeming damned Duryodhana; rather, my humble approach is to try to examine the Text as-it-is and the Text only and then try to come to a conclusion even if it is tentative.

      Needless to say, Popular Myth, a domain of Power sans Responsibility, stems from what I call Text

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