Gita 01.05 – Affiliations were shaped by long-term affinity not short-term antipathy

Hare Krishna Bhagavad Gita chapter 1 verse 5 so here Duryodhana is continuing the description of the Kaurava forces and he described Dhrishtaketu Dhrishtaketu was the son of Shishupal the king of the Chedis now Shishupal was an anomaly in his dynasty was his dynasty was not demoniac and that's why when he was born and his mother saw that actually he had some extra heads and hands and those heads and hands fell away when Krishna saw him so his mother had known from a prophecy that the person on seeing whom Shishupal's heads and hands would fall away, extra heads and hands that person would eventually kill Shishupal so she had asked him for a benediction that please don't kill him even if he offends you so Krishna said I won't kill him even if he offends me up to 100 times more than that I will not tolerate so now Shishupal went on a rampage of incites in the Rajasuya Yajna assembly when Krishna was chosen for being the recipient of Agra Puja for being deemed the most worshipable person in that exalted assembly and when he spoke when Shishupal in that rampage lost track, lost count and spoke more than a hundred imprecations then Krishna uses Sudarshan Chakra to stop his offences by beheading him by doing a bloodless head surgery not a drop of blood spilled and that's how the Yajna was not defiled, its sanctity was not lost which would have happened if even a drop of blood had fallen over there. Now is it that Krishna didn't want to be insulted? Is insult such a thing that you can kill another person for that? No, the point is not just the insult, the point is the mentality behind the insult and the point is the demoniac nature of the person which is manifested through the speech so Krishna saw all that and based on that and based on, despite giving him many opportunities to reform to check himself or to at least keep him keep him within a civilized restraint.

Shishupala did not accept any of those so Krishna eventually decided to purify him of that sinful mentality by separating him from his sinful body. Now his son Drishyuketu eldest son, Shishupala had many sons, eldest son Drishyuketu was subsequently enthroned as the king now it may seem a little odd that Drishyuketu the son of Shishupala is fighting on the side of the Pandavas but actually as I said Shishupala was an out of character person within their dynasty their dynasty overall was virtuous and in Shishupala when prior to the war prior to the Rajasthani Yagya when the Pandavas went in different directions to conquer over the world so that all the world's emperors would come and offer tribute to Yudhishthir so at that time Shishupala welcomed the Pandava army and he said that I respect the Pandava Yudhishthir as a virtuous ruler and I'll come and I'll offer tribute there is no need to fight so Shishupala's animosity was towards Krishna not the Pandavas and that's why he came to the Pandava Rajasthani Yagya but that animosity was fueled when the Pandavas had Krishna selected nominated as the person to receive the Agra Puja so however after he was killed his son Drishyuketu of course he was grief struck when his father was killed like that but he knew that it was the duty of any self respecting man to not let so many insults in a public assembly go unchallenged and because Shishupala had invited that death upon himself and Krishna had actually tolerated it hugely and kept his word to his mother so Drishyuketu did not bear any resentment towards the Pandavas although it was during the Pandava Rajasthani Yagya that his father had been killed and he sided with the Pandavas and Drishyuketu actually was one of the formidable commanders and that's why here it was nice mentioning him and further Drishyuketu should not be confused with Drishtadyumna Drishtadyumna is not mentioned in this list explicitly by the name but that's how Duryodhana began his speech in the third verse in the first verse that he spoke there he is mentioned so Drishyuketu is the son of Drupada and he was the chief commander of the Pandava army Drishyuketu is the son of Shishupal Shishupal is dead whereas Drupada the father of Drishyuketu is still alive and is very much there on the battlefield so Drishyuketu fought gallantly on the side of the Pandavas and Drishyuketu we are discussing about he fought gallantly on the side of the Pandavas and eventually he was killed by Drona in an extremely fierce battle and slaying Drishyuketu was one of the heroic achievements of Drona because Drishyuketu was not an easy opponent to slay and then Chekitana Chekitana is the son of Drishyuketu so Prabhupada explains that actually both Krishna and Arjuna were nearly of the same age so Krishna was about more than 100 years old and Arjuna was also more than 100 years old so there were not only sons grown up but that generation was sufficiently grown up to also have sons who were grown up and their grandsons were also grown up even Lakshmana who was the son of Duryodhana he was fighting and he had sons also who were fighting they were referred to as Pautrana later on when we come to the relevant verses we will discuss that so Chekitana was the son of Drishyuketu and he was also a formidable warrior in fact Chekitana was one of the commanders of the Pandava army commanders means there were 7 Akshahunis on the side of the Pandavas and he was the commander of one of the Akshahunis so there were from the oldest generation there were Drupada and Virata who were commanders of one one Akshahuni then Bhima was the commander of one Akshahuni that is in the main Pandava generation then in that generation there was Dhristadyumna also who was the commander of one one division and he was also selected as the commander of the overall army so he was a commander of the whole army and a commander of one division also and then after that there were from the next generation there were or from relatively younger people actually there was Shikhandi who was also a brother of Dhristadyumna and he was also the commander of one division then there was Satyaki who was also of that same generation but these are all relatively considered younger to the Pandavas so he was also a commander we discussed about him Yudhana he was called, not so known by that name and then there was Chekitana so and of course one commander was Bhima, one division was headed by Bhima so like that Drupada, Virata Dhristadyumna, Satyaki Chekitana, Shikhandi and Bhima so Chekitana was also a formidable commander and he actually fought valiantly on the side of the Pandavas and Duryodhana on the last day of the battle killed him as a final desperate act of heroism. Duryodhana was devastated and practically defeated in spirit when on the 17th day Karna fell but still he came back to battle on the 18th day and as he saw his remaining forces falling, he saw Shalya falling, then he saw Shakuni falling, he practically fled seeing his troops being routed and his commanders his few remaining commanders being killed so one of the heroic things, practically very few warriors Duryodhana himself killed so he killed Chekitana then the father and son both gave up their lives for the Pandavas on the and the relationship between the Pandavas and the Chedis were relatively cordial Dhrishtaketu also had his daughter named Karenumathi who was married to Nakula and sorry he had a sister Karenumathi who was married to Nakula, they were in the same generation and now Chekitana Kashi Raj is Chaviryavan Viryavan is one who is filled with virya Bhagyavan is one who is very fortunate Dhanavan is one who is possessor of dhana so Viryavan is one who is the possessor of virya or great strength Kashi Raj now sometimes some kingdoms were more famous than their specific kings who were there and just being the king of that kingdom was itself considered famous, so Kashi is a sacred place and to be the king of that place is also considered a great fortune of the kingdom surrounding that place also, so the king is sometimes known by the personal name or the king may be known by the common name, common name is the name of the particular area to which he belongs or over which he is ruling so Kashi Raj is not described much further in the Mahabharata but the fact that a person will be the king of an influential and important kingdom like Kashi is itself significant and that also is a matter of concern for Duryodhana there is a Kashi Raj who is mentioned in the Bhagavatam who was Indimangal to Balramji and his mouth was smashed by Balramji so here there is a Kashi Raj who is fighting on the side of the Pandavas Purujit Kuntibhojascha Purujit again not much is described about Purujit by the commentators but the name suggests that Purujit Purujit often refers to a kingdom so Purujit, one who has conquered a kingdom so one who is the ruler of a kingdom Kuntibhoja so there was a we know the word Kunti as the name of the mother of the three elder Pandavas of course she is often considered the mother of all the Pandavas because she took care of all of them after Madhuri who was the mother of Nakul and Sahadev passed away early, passed away in their childhood that is what we identify the word Kunti with Queen Kunti but Kunti was also a kingdom and the kingdom was ruled by the Bhoja dynasty so the Bhoja who ruled the kingdom Kunti came to be celebrated as Kuntibhoja so names often in the Vedic culture were fluid one person would have sometimes many names and one particular name would sometimes become prominent so Kuntibhoja was the ruler of the kingdom Kunti and he was a close friend of Shurasen who was the father of Vasudev who was the father of Krishna now Kuntibhoja despite having a flourishing kingdom somehow could not get a child and so Shurasen out of his affection for his friend gave him his own daughter now this daughter had for the birth name as Prutha but when she used when she came to the kingdom of Kuntibhoja at the request at the instruction of her father she accepted Kuntibhoja as her father for all practical purposes but then whenever anyone would call her Prutha then that itself would bring out because that name was given by her birth father Vasudev so that would remind her and remind others of her her actual birth father and that would sort of act against, minimize sort of or remind everyone that Kuntibhoja is not not her actual father and Kunti was so sensitive and she was so respectful to her adoptive father Kuntibhoja that she said that this name which reminds everyone of my birth father, let me put aside this name and let me adopt a name that will reinforce my connection with you because you are taking care of me, you are my father now so she came to be known as Kunti and that's how she reinforced her connection with Kuntibhoja, so Kuntibhoja is also a formidable warrior who fought on the side of the Pandavas and he was the mother he was the father of Kunti adoptive father but for all practical purposes he is considered to be the father and Kunti also accepted her as her actual father for all practical purposes by adopting that name it's like when we take initiation so we adopt a new name to indicate that our relationship with our spiritual father our spiritual master who is akin to our spiritual father that has a significant importance one of the most primary privileges of a parent is naming a child giving an identity to a person of course the soul has its own identity but in this world we are not known as souls we are known through our bodies so giving a person an identity is one of the most deepest closest acts of intimacy of relationship between two people so that is the act which the parents do for their children and similarly that's the act that the spiritual master does for the disciples so by now because Prutha already had a name she didn't have to do that but she did that to make her bond with her father more intimate Kuntibhojastra and then Shaibhastra Narapungava Shaibhastra Shaibhya is also one of the kings now Shaibhya the name was quite common in fact one of the Ashtabharyas of Krishna one of the six queens of Krishna was Mitravinda and her name was also Shaibhya and Shaibhya basically refers to Kaunteya refers to a son of Kunti similarly Shaibhya refers to a son or descendant of Shiva, now we know Shiva was a famous king who sacrificed for others and celebrated in the Bhagavatam also so Shaibhya was also a commander who was fighting on the side of the Pandavas, so this Shaibhya of course is a male, he is different from Mitravinda who also had the name of Shaibhya sometimes some names are non-gender specific and those names can be used by males as well as females Narapungava oh they are they are all leaders among men, now Pungava can mean most eminent among that's how it's normally translated but literal translation of the word Pungava is bull oh bull among men now in today's culture in the western culture especially bull is not considered to be anything very respectable in fact when people want to use a foul word when they are upset about something they use bull and s star star star so they consider bull not to be a respectable animal but cows and bulls are in the same family of animals and just as cows are considered are seen with a reverential attitude similarly bulls are also considered with quite respectful attitude in fact bulls are decorated and celebrated in the traditional culture and just as a lion is considered to be the strongest of animals among the wild animals lions, elephants, tigers like that so among the domesticated animals bull is celebrated as extremely strong in fact bull also is a formidable animal, bull fights were often quite popular spectator sports and bull riders, rodeos that's quite a dangerous sport because bulls can run so fast and they have horns and they can throw off riders so bull riding is considered quite a difficult and dangerous sport because bulls have so much strength so for a king to be compared to a bull is not in any way minimizing as it might seem to the modern mind so the bull we call the bull among men is the leader among the domestic animals that means that one is being referred to in laudatory terms as the best among all men so these are all this is an adjective which is used for narapungava, they are all eminent leaders so Duryodhana in this way speaks about the formidable warriors on the side of the Kauravas, on the side of the Pandavas so as to alert Drona and alert his forces to fight cautiously and knowing the strength of their opponents in the next verse he will continue his outlining of the Pandava forces and we will discuss that in our next talk thank you.