The Draupadi Episode
Some of the things I've been reading these past few days reminded me of questions I had toyed with earlier.
Most of us know that when Arjuna won Draupadi's hand, and the five Pandavas brought her home. This excerpt does most of my work for me in the narration, so I'll just reproduce it below:
Reaching their small hut, Pandavas announced their arrival and told the mother Kunti to guess what they have brought that day. Innocently, Kunti, thinking that her children must be talking about the food they had received, said, "O my dear sons, I know you bring wonderful things; as usual divide the gift amongst yourself and enjoy."
This terrible command applied to Draupadi now. As the custom went they had to obey every word of their mother as final order. Kunti also became worried about the difficult predicament. Can a wife ever divided amongst five brothers!
Sri Krishna came to know all about and he advised the Pandavas to accept Draupadi as common wife of all the five brothers. Thus Draupadi, also known as Panchali, became wife of five brothers.
Sage Narada advised the Pandavas to honour the privacy of Draupadi when she was alone with any other brother. Whosoever entered the room of Draupadi when she was with other brother would be forced to self exile as the punishment. All the brothers agreed. Thus the problem of one wife and five husbands was solved!
The lesson we are all supposed to draw from this is to follow the lead of the Pandavas, and obey our parents unquestioningly. At least, that's what I think the popular lesson is.
However, if Kunti's words were to be obeyed as the final order, surely she had powers to revoke such orders? Was there no such thing as "Sorry sons, my mistake! Please rescind earlier command and follow what I say now".
Or was the lesson actually to think before you speak?
On another note, was this episode simply a touched-up version of the solution to the woman-to-man ratio problem that threatens India even today? Quite some time back, I read about a village where a similar solution had been implemented.
Just some things to air out of my attic! :))
Most of us know that when Arjuna won Draupadi's hand, and the five Pandavas brought her home. This excerpt does most of my work for me in the narration, so I'll just reproduce it below:
Reaching their small hut, Pandavas announced their arrival and told the mother Kunti to guess what they have brought that day. Innocently, Kunti, thinking that her children must be talking about the food they had received, said, "O my dear sons, I know you bring wonderful things; as usual divide the gift amongst yourself and enjoy."
This terrible command applied to Draupadi now. As the custom went they had to obey every word of their mother as final order. Kunti also became worried about the difficult predicament. Can a wife ever divided amongst five brothers!
Sri Krishna came to know all about and he advised the Pandavas to accept Draupadi as common wife of all the five brothers. Thus Draupadi, also known as Panchali, became wife of five brothers.
Sage Narada advised the Pandavas to honour the privacy of Draupadi when she was alone with any other brother. Whosoever entered the room of Draupadi when she was with other brother would be forced to self exile as the punishment. All the brothers agreed. Thus the problem of one wife and five husbands was solved!
The lesson we are all supposed to draw from this is to follow the lead of the Pandavas, and obey our parents unquestioningly. At least, that's what I think the popular lesson is.
However, if Kunti's words were to be obeyed as the final order, surely she had powers to revoke such orders? Was there no such thing as "Sorry sons, my mistake! Please rescind earlier command and follow what I say now".
Or was the lesson actually to think before you speak?
On another note, was this episode simply a touched-up version of the solution to the woman-to-man ratio problem that threatens India even today? Quite some time back, I read about a village where a similar solution had been implemented.
Just some things to air out of my attic! :))
posted by thoughtraker at 9:17 PM
6 Comments:
or the lesson is not to make guesses as kunti made,lol,ano u r brilliant,now lets put it across the political cirlces and they will make a committee to discuss the pros and cons and comeup with the right words{will they!!!}
happy Pongal
by the way it sounds good to me abt that men to women ratio,which village they followed this;)
Moral of the story- "Don't call sleazy saree-supplier Krishna when you have relationship issues."ROTFL...this has to be the best one...:-))
Actually a version I read, suggested it was a form of "be careful what you wish for" mixed with predestination. Seems Draupadi prayed to God (I dont remember which one, probably the god of lawyers) for a righteous man, a fine warrior, an extremely strong man, someone whos good with animals, someone who has great insight into medical application of common herbs. And God said unto her - "No problemo" ...
Later on when the Pandavas decide to share the booty (no pun intended), Draupadi invokes God and says "What the ...?" God says "I'd like to help you kid, but you forgot to specify you wanted all the qualities in the same man." "D'oh!!" said Draupadi.
T.O.T.C.S
lol to all of u!! trust the "moral" brigade to come cruising along with a completely new set of morals!! :)))
and if i go by what TOTCS wrote (sorry TOTCS, just cldn't help myself!) - if only DOH had been around, this problem cld have been completely avoided! :D
'yet another one' more of your wise ruminations!! :D
the post and comments are equally hilarious!! i dont know about kunti, but if i went home with a new husband and said "mom, guess who I got home for dinner tonight" i would have had a different set of problems to deal with for the rest of my life. *sigh* people were a lot more understanding and accomodating those days, looks like!!
This could be an opportunity to write a compelling paper/thesis about 'the status of women in India (circa 1500 BC) vis a vis their being likened to food products'.
You got me thinking - first Kunti decides to 'experiment' with her boon which results in Karna. Then this. She's generally not one to think things through before acting/speaking eh?
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