I have been following your posts recently and loved the insights you offer.
Would really like to know your comments on these follow incidents
What was the relationship scenario btw Kuru and Panchala rivalry during the time of Drupad, there was Shikhandi aspiring to kill Bhishma, also parallely Drupad and Pandu were friends?
There is an interpretation of Ekalavya thumb incident, such that Dron did what he did because bitter relationship btw Kuru and magadh and nishada were there vasal, Mostly princes who belonged to kingdom that were in good ties with kuru studied in drona institute, but later we find Dury and co fighting with magadh and against Yadava, why do you think Pandavas didn't oppose that, as krishna sent akrur to support yudhishthir claim for throne, couldn't Pandavas not avoid kuru from aligning with Jarasandha as Yudhi was crown prince before varanvat
What's your opinion on krishna and Arjuna friendship, how did it start? What made Krishna like him ?
What do you think about Arjun accusation of being greedy when he made the half lie, although Krishna's intention behind the strategy was elimination of Drona was because of who ruthless the latter was turning into. What do you think about the psychology of Krishna, Yudhishthir, Arjun, Satyaki and Dhristadyumna towards this incident?
Did balaram being cousin to both Pandavas and Kauravas (Rohini) and Krishna being to only Pandavas affected their aligning
Thank you so much for the nice words and the lovely questions! <3
Kuru-Panchala were not fighting at that precise moment, when Drupada was king, primarily because everyone knew going up against Bheeshma was a bad idea. However, the enmity was still there, where Drupada kept Shikhandi [even after a 'divine' announcement that he'd kill Bheeshma] for the same reason that Bheeshma employed Drona [among other reasons]. A what-you-gonna-do-about-it, a kind of a non-violent escalation (especially after the Amba debacle where both parties considered themselves unfairly insulted). Also, I wouldn't call Drupada and Pandu friends, maybe they were civil in international settings, but they never would have set foot in each other's kingdom lest they set off a war. Also Pandu's death probably worsened their inter-kingdom situation, since neither Bheeshma nor Hotravahana (through Drupada) were ready to move on.
Actually, Kuru-Magadh relationships were downright cordial. Given Bheeshma and Jarasandha were, distant but still, cousins, they had an agreement: Magadh (Bihar-Chhattisgarh) will keep up the pressure on Panchala (Uttar Pradesh) alongside the Kurus (bits and pieces from Haryana to Bihar), and in return, Bheeshma will not get involved in any other expansionary efforts on King J's part (they even had agreed upon vassal turfs: this you can invade, this you can’t sort of). Personally, I think this is the reason why Bheeshma didn't intervene in Mathura etc. The Nishadas were not a single kingdom, but rather pockets of independent land that was not successfully colonized by the aryans. These communities then fought/allied with different kingdoms, as per their convenience. At this point, yes, Hiranyavarma and Ekalavya's tribe was allied with Jarasandha. In Drona's school, people from many places came, from Mathura, Anga, Magadh, and even Panchala. Neither Drona not Bheeshma had any issue with that. Hence, we can see that Ekalavya's case is purely one of caste-based discrimination since the hierarchy was that of {Devas > Brahmana > Kshatriya > Vaishya > Shoodra > Women of these castes > Nishadas (independent non-aryans) > Chandalas (hunters/butchers/cremation workers) Rakshasas (other tribes: mix of aryan/non-aryan) > Mlechhas (non-deva foreigners)}. We should remember that Drona was often accused of being a kshatropeta dvija (a brahmin pretending to be a kshatriya) due to his affinity for war and weaponry. Hence, he took special care to double down farther on other areas of caste-rigidity (maybe even to prove to himself that he is a true brahmin and therefore worthy of that respect). Drona refused Ekalavya because of this. What Drona did to his thumb was a different case. Many people blame Arjuna too, but I would differ on the grounds that Arjuna was still a child, and Drona, as the adult, had a greater responsibility which he grossly neglected. All Arjuna wanted was to learn the tricks (maybe from Ekalavya, with Drona’s approval), but his point came out wrong, and more accusatory than he had hoped. Also, seeing Ekalavya’s superior skill and fearing Bheeshma’s disappointment in him, Drona handicaps him. Even then, even four-fingered, Ekalavya became literally the stuff of Krishna’s nightmares (by his own admission too)! Since Jarasandha didn’t respect Krishna as an equal (since he was raised a cowherd), he earmarked Ekalavya-the-nishada, to finish off Krishna-the-aahira-gopa. On King J’s instruction, Ekalavya chased Krishna around the entire subcontinent, until finally Balarama was able to kill/chase him off to the Maldives. Even on the even of Kurukshetra, we see Krishna heave a sigh of relief because Ekalavya’s not there on the other side to exact his revenge on Arjuna. (b) When Duryodhana fights alongside Jarasandha, along with (in his generation) Karna, Shishupala, Dantavakra, Shalva, Jayadratha and Rukmi, he takes only a smaller portion of the army that is specifically allotted to him and his brothers. We see a similar arrangement in Dwarika, where none of Satyaki, Krishna or Kritavarma have to seek permission from their parliament before embarking on the war of Kurukshetra in any capacity, specifically because they only took ‘their’ portions of the army. It’s this same reason that the Pandavas have no say in what battles the Dhaartarashtras fight (so long as they’re not involving the entire army). Basically, the Pandavas (except Yudhishthira) all had their own ‘start-up’ conquests, while the Kauravas were basically all doing battle internships under the guidance of Jarasandha, Paundraka, Naraka, Shalva, Srigala etc. Also, Krishna didn’t send Akroora to support the Pandavas just then. Akroora was instructed only to reestablish a thread of communication with Kunti and her sons (on a personal capacity), and gather as much information about their situation as possible. Krishna didn’t lend his explicit support until Draupadi’s swayamvara, and Yadavas as a whole remained neutral throughout.
On Krishna and Arjuna’s friendship I’ve written in length before, so I am not going into it in much detail here. You can find most of those posts here: (x). The start of Krishna’s interest in Arjuna (and his brothers) starts one night when a semi-drunk Vasudeva calls Krishna and Balarama to his room and sobs into their arms about how much of a failure of a brother he was- given he could do nothing for Kunti when she was sent away by their father (she was 11, he was 7, no one but Vasudeva blames Vasudeva), or that he couldn’t provide shelter for her kids when her husband died and they were mistreated by Dhritarashtra (he was literally being held captive, again, no one blames him but him). Krishna is deeply moved by this confession of his father, and promises that he will be there for the Pandavas hereafter, no matter what (that he will “subjugate the world and put it at his auntie Pritha’s feet”). Very soon after this only, he sends off Akroora on priority and deploys an elaborate network of spies to start tracking them (this, and his subsequent close ties with Vidura and Vyasa, is how he already knows that they didn’t die in Varanavat and that Vyasa is herding them off to Panchala to get married). What attracted Krishna to Arjuna specifically, is a mixture of things: (a) Arjuna looks exactly like him, (b) he is also an introvert (believe it or not, Krishna is too, at least with people he doesn’t really know very well, and actually Arjuna is so quiet that he makes Krishna look like an extrovert), (c) they both (and the other brothers too) grew up with a relatively simple lifestyle, as opposed to either of their cousins, (d) they were both passionate archers, (e) Arjuna’s only sixish-months younger than him (and yet Krishna makes him touch his feet at every opportunity he gets), and they can relate to each other very well, and lastly (f) Arjuna is near-equally intelligent, and he really gets Krishna, and can follow his logic two/three/four jumps later as well, no matter what topic they might be talking about (his suitability for listening to and understanding Geeta in about 1.5/2-ish hours, basically as soon as Krishna says the words out loud).
Drona’s elimination was a matter of strategy, yes. Arjuna’s case is that for him, in the absence of his father (and the discouragement from Bheeshma), his entire father-worthy love had become concentrated on his flawed guru. He latches on to Drona in the same way as Yudhishthira does to Dhritarashtra. He had already forgiven all indiscretions, partiality, intentional sabotage- every such act that Drona had committed against him, and Arjuna still loved him like a father. It is therefore no surprise that he had also forgiven Drona for supporting the Kauravas and fighting tooth-and-nail on their behalf. The true reason why Arjuna couldn’t defeat Drona conclusively was not because Drona was better than him, but rather because from that very first moment, when Drona had pulled out their ball and his ring from a well with a trick of archery, before a 10/11 years old Arjuna, he pretty much worshipped the ground that Drona walked on- believing him to be, in the fatherly sense too, an infallible and immovable rock. Hence, when Krishna suggests his trick, Arjuna, knowing Drona and Yudhishthira both, knew this would work. Krishna, in fact has to threaten to drive back (since it was nearabout a split-second decision on the battlefield) and leave him tied up in the tents if he didn’t get with the plan (Arjuna threatened that when Yudhishthira lied, he would just scream over his brother and broadcast the plan). Krishna has to simultaneously convince both Yudhishthira and Arjuna of the suitability (as you mentioned, the rapidly rising casualty figure) of this lie. Bheema, Dhrishtadyumna and Satyaki are in favour, but they all still sort of afraid of Arjuna, because they know when it comes to Drona, Arjuna is not playing around. Finally, they lie and Drona basically k*lls himself, Dhrishtadyumna then severs his head (basically he desecrated his corpse, more out of a mechanical fulfilment of his proclaimed destiny than out of revenge for his father), and it is now that Arjuna actually loses it, and he lunges for Dhrishtadyumna. Arjuna would have legit murdered the guy with his bare hands right then if Bheema and Krishna hadn’t gotten in the middle (imagine, it took two of them to restrain Arjuna at that moment)! Later, at night, Ashwatthama says, frustrated with the Kauravas’ and Karna’s comabative and excusatory attitude, “No one but Arjuna is truly experiencing what I am, tonight.” And really, Arjuna, when he returns to the tent, he refuses to speak to even Krishna, or anyone else. I think he never even looks at Dhrishtadyumna again, as in his mind, somehow, Pandu and Drona having gotten mushed together, it's almost as if Dhrishtadyumna has murdered Pandu himself anew. Ashwatthama wants to go and grieve with Arjuna (maybe it would have averted all the mess later), but his attitude is more along the lines of, “How can I show him my face after the side that I’ve taken.” And this unfortunately gives Kauravas plenty of time to shift the narrative in his head wherein by the next couple of days, he fully believes that the Pandavas and Panchalas are the only ones to be blamed for his father’s death and not his lifelong Kaurava-association and their collective silence in the dyuta-sabha. For Yudhishthira, we know that story (most probably metaphorical), of how his chariot touches the ground post this lie. However, it was, in my opinion, not because of the lie, because even according to Yudhishthira’s own definition of dharma, it was the right thing to do, in order to save his sharanagata (under his refuge) soldiers’ lives. I believe, the chariot thing is in fact a manifestation of his own guilt, bubbling out of the love and respect that Yudhishthira has for his guru too (though nowhere near Arjuna’s level).
Yes, the two-way relationship (twice over, that too), is what kept Balarama neutral. Since Rohini is from the original 'biological' Kaurava lineage, Balarama doesn't think it approprieate for them to get involved in any havoc that the adopted ones wreak in Hastinapura.
