SrI: SrImathE satakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama: SrI vAnAchala mahAmunayE nama:
krishNa taught pANdavas the way to kill the best warrior, dhrONa. dhrONa is very attached to his son aSvaththAmA. If he is killed, dhrONa will lose his strength automatically. But he is a chiranjIvi, who has a long life. He cannot be easily killed. Hence, krishNa gave them an idea that they can kill an elephant named aSvaththAmA and get dhrONa killed through that. As per that suggestion, bhIma killed an elephant named aSvaththAmA and announced to dhrONa that he killed aSvaththAmA. Though dhrONa became very worried hearing that, he wanted to confirm the news from the mouth of yudhishtira. Since yudhishtira is always truthful, dhrONa will accept his words only. When asked, yudhishtira, without any choice, said “Yes. This is truth”. Hearing that dhrONa dropped all his weapons. dhrushtadhyumna, who was the son of dhrupadha, killed dhrONa at once. In this manner, dhrONa also got killed. Hearing that, aSvaththAmA became very angry and launched the most powerful nArAyaNAsthra. krishNa asked everyone to bow their heads before that and they followed that. The weapon left them alone without doing anything.
Then, karNa became the commander-in-chief. He caused great damage to pANdavas’ army. In the meanwhile, bhIma killed dhuSSAsana and gave his blood to dhraupadhi. She applied that blood on her hair and fulfilled one of her vows.
As per krishNa’s advise, kunthi revealed the secret of karNa being her son to him and requested him not to kill the pANdavas. He then vowed that he will not kill any one other than arjuna. Finally he was killed by arjuna.
In the end, on the eighteenth day, bhIma and dhuryOdhana were engaged in a great battle. krishNa signalled to bhIma to kill dhuryOdhana by attacking his thigh. bhIma understood that and killed dhuryOdhana in that manner.
Subsequently, aSvaththAma came to pANdavas’ tent and killed upa-pANdavas (pANdavas’ five children) mistaking them to be pANdavas. In this manner, except for pANdavas and a few among the kauravas, most of the warriors got killed in this war.
nammAzhwAr in his thiruvAimozhi explains how bhagavAn performed this amazing battle in “thIrppArai yAm ini enganam nAdudhum? annaimIr! OrppAl ivvoNNudhal uRRa nal nOy idhu thERinOm pOrppAgu thAn seydhu anRaivarai velviththa mAyappOrth thErppAganArkku ivaL sindhai thuzhAyth thisaikkinRadhE” ([The friend says] Oh mother! After her (parAnkuSa nAyaki‘s) disease is not being cured, how to find those who can cure (this disease)? By checking now, I clearly understood that this girl with beautiful forehead is affected with this laudable disease. Her heart became bewildered and she lost her mind for the one [krishNa] who stood as the charioteer in arjuna’s chariot during the battle; on that day, krishNa who has the abilities for the warfare and performed amazing activities in the form of deceit, himself engaged to have those five pANdavas victorious).
Essence in this incident:
- krishNa remained pANdavas’ protector, minister and friend, and gave them apt ideas and eliminated the burden of the earth, by conducting this mahAbhAratha war.
- To eliminate the sorrow of dhraupadhi, he conducted a great war. If someone commits an offense towards his devotees, to punish those who committed such offense, he will perform great tasks.
Source – https://granthams.koyil.org/2023/11/01/krishna-leela-56-tamil/
adiyen sarathy ramanuja dasan
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