Episode 91 - The Death of Bhisma

Episode 91 - We get treated to a last handful of the Final Teachings, and then Bhisma dies.  The poor guy set quite an objective for himself.  It must have been mid autumn when he was shot through with arrows, yet he clung to life until the Winter Solstice before finally giving up the ghost. He says he lived on the bed of arrows for a total of 58 days.

Following his death, Yuddistira has another one of his fits of sorrow & regret, but he's snapped out of it by hearing a story about how the ancient king Marutta left a pile of gold in the mountains as part of his Ashwamedha sacrifice.  Yuddistira needs this gold, since his treasury was depleted by the war, and now everyone is telling him he needs to perform a super-expensive sacrifice!

Episode 88 - The Book of Peace

Episode 88 - This episode begins the voluminous Last Teachings of Bhisma.  As Bhisma lies on his bed of arrows, the Pandavas, Krishna & Satyaki gather around to listen.  Yuddistira poses the questions, which mostly revolve around Dharma and kingship, and Bhisma answers.

These teachings are exceptionally difficult to convey in the form of a podcast, mostly because they are so boring.  There are very few stories, and most of the stories revolve around conversations in which one character instructs the other on good behavior.  I have tried to extract the more interesting details from the book, and I included the most interesting of the stories.  Hopefully this is enough to convey the nature of this part of the epic, which makes up nearly a third of the entire text!

Episode 87 - Rama's Famous Genocide

Episode 87 - Yuddistira is finally convinced that he should remain king, and he gets down to business.  He marches straight to the palace and has himself anointed and consecrated.  He appoints his council and gets his kingdom in order.  As soon as he has a chance to catch his breath, Krishna suggests that they hurry over to uncle Bhisma, who isn't long for this world.

Along the way, Krishna tells the story of Battleaxe Rama, who wiped out the race of Kshatriyas 21 times in succession.

The podcast may be taking something of a hiatus after this episode.  We are now entering the section of the Mahabharata that is dedicated to Bhisma's teaching on Dharma.  This constitutes nearly one-third of the entire text, and from what I've seen so far, is extremely legalistic and detailed.  This means I will need to pour over a lot of text to extract enough information to make a full episode.  That may take a while.

On the positive side, once we are through this section of Bhisma's teachings, we are almost at the end of the story!

Thanks for sticking with me on this long journey.  I'll be sure to keep you posted as things develop.  Just keep watching this blog!

Episode 54 - The March on Kurukshetra

Episode 54 - Krishna returns from his mission to Hastinpur with war on his mind.  Yuddistira, having spent the last 12-14 years undergoing massive hardship to prevent this war, is reluctant to accept this truth.  He begs for more information, trying to find any way out of this situation.  So Krishna obliges by giving us the details of a few more speeches made in the Kuru court, but none of it helps.  War is truly inevitable.

So both sides round up their armies and march on Kurukshetra.  When they arrive, each side appoints a Commander in Chief.  It is Bhisma on the Kaurava side, and King Drupad on the Pandavas' side.

From this point until the end of the war, the main narrative frame of the story will be told in terms of a conversation between Sanjay and Dhrtarastra.  The Epic has so far not explained how it is that Sanjay knows what is going on at the far-off battlefield, but somehow he knows everything, and is able to relate it all to his king.  Occasionally, Dhrtarastra will interrupt with questions or react to the events, so it will be through his blind eyes that we shall perceive the coming war.

But don't be deceived that just because we are on the eve of war, that we will be soon getting to it.  The Epic always takes its time, and there will still be quite a few more episodes before the action really starts.  After al, we still need to get through the Bhagavad Gita!!!

Episode 6 - No Good Deed Unpunished

Episode 6 - In this episode, Bhisma's extreme oath comes back to bite them all, when both his brothers die childless and there is no one to continue the Dynasty.  But never fear, because Satyavati has another son, the very author of this story, and he can step in from time to time to set things right.  In this case, he gives us the three brothers, blind, pale & bastard!
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Episode 5 - Shantanu & Sons

Episode 5 - I briefly give my opinion of the previous episode on Shakuntala and Dushanta, and then get going with the birth of mighty Bhisma and his two not-so-mighty brothers.

This is an important episode, because in many ways, it is Bhisma's over-reaction to his father's desires that ultimately sets the whole tragedy in motion.