A Being perspective of the Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is the largest epic poem ever written some time in the 8th or 9th century BCE, comprising over 100,000 shlokas (couplets). It narrates the story of the Kuru empire of ancient Hastinapura, spanning over several generations, and interweaving several other stories within it. The main feature of the Mahabharata is the Kurukshetra war that lasted over 18 days, involving several kingdoms of ancient India, bringing forth great bloodshed and destruction. The epic narrates events leading up to the war, as well as the aftermath of the war. The epic has captured the imagination of Indians for almost 3000 years now, and even today several authors continue to analyze and provide commentaries about the intricacies of the story. Here is one such perspective, based on my understanding of cognition and the theory of Being. At the face of it, the Mahabharata war is a war between cousins -- the Pandavas on the one side, fighting the Kauravas. Events that lead to the war are many...