​Why did the Kauravas and the Pandavas have to involve the whole world in their mutual fight?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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The Kauravas and Pandavas are cousins. If they have a fight among themselves, they could have fought among themselves. Why did they have to engage the whole world in it, in the war? A fair question.
The main reason was that Duryodhana knew that he could not win a straight war against the Pandavas. Duryodhana felt that he could match Bhima, but he had no one to match Arjuna. When he got Karna on his side, he felt that Karna can match Arjuna.
But if you look at the Mahabharata, on several occasions whenever Karna and Arjuna have a fight, it is Arjuna who comes out superior. And Shakuni told Duryodhana that you cannot win against the Pandavas in a fair fight. And that’s why the Kauravas always tried to do in a crooked way.
When they tried to do in a crooked way, so they eventually exiled the Pandavas. And after that, when the Pandavas finished the term of exile and then they came out, the Kauravas showed no sign of giving them their kingdom back as per the original condition. Instead, the Kauravas started forming alliances and started spreading rumours against the Pandavas.
See what happened? The Kuru kingdom was a very powerful kingdom. And there is also the politics involved. That means if somebody is very powerful, few people are ready to oppose them publicly.
That’s what happened. The Kauravas, they started forming alliances through threats, through temptations. The biggest kingdom is going for war and they invite someone for an alliance.
And if someone says no, there is a significant political risk over there. So because of the sheer might of the Kaurava forces and when they started asking for alliance, not many kings could refuse them. So Duryodhana wanted to intimidate the Pandavas by his military might.
And it was he who had started forming alliances right from the beginning itself. As soon as the Pandavas had been exiled, he started forming alliances. And by the time the Kurukshetra war had happened, because he had royal power at that time, royal treasures and royal power, so he had formed a lot of alliances.
And that’s why he had a huge army by that time. So he knew that in a straight fight, although there were 100 Kauravas and 5 Pandavas, he could not win against them, even if he had Karna. So he thought if I have a huge army with me, now he thought his chances of winning would be better.
And the Pandavas never wanted a fight. But when the Pandavas saw that the Kauravas were determined for a fight, then they had to themselves form alliances. And although their side was virtuous and although many people agreed that they were clearly virtuous, but still, because the Kauravas had power at that time, they got far greater allies.
And that’s why the Pandavas army was only two-third of the Kauravas army. So basically, it was a conflict between the two of them. But because Duryodhana expanded the scope of the conflict, because he knew that in a direct conflict he would not win, so he tried to get more and more allies involved.
And because they could not weasel their way out of the alliances, so eventually the war became practically a huge war, with their internal conflict escalating beyond all proportion. Does that answer your question? Yes. Okay.