SRIMAD BHAGVAD GITA-THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY

Abstract

The great literature transcends the boundaries of nations, cultures and languages and manifests an aura of universality, catholicity and essential oneness of human family. The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are two great literary creations that have been cherished heritages of India for more than three thousand years and they are to the present day interwoven with the thoughts, beliefs and moral ideas of our nation. Mahabharata is one of the mightiest literary creations in human history. This vast epic, an immortal creation of Ved Vyasa, unfolds India of a heroic and creative age. It describes the great war between Kauravas and Pandavas, two branches of the royal clan of Kuru who lived in Northern India thousands of years ago. The war of Mahabharata was a series of eighteen battles, fought for eighteen consecutive days. In the Mahabharata, each hero has a distinct individuality, a character of his own. On the canvas of Mahabharata we find the old Kuru monarch Dhritarashtra, sightless and feeble, but majestic in his ancient grandeur; the noble grandsire Bhisma, revered guru Drona, noble minded Pandavas, great archer Arjuna, valorous Karna, Dharamraj Yudhishthir, the proud and unyielding Duryodhana and the wicked Dushasana. Women are as stately as the menfolk. Kunti the worthy mother of Pandavas, Gandhari, the devoted wife and sad mother of wicked sons, Draupadi nursing her anger till her wrongs are fully revenged, and the vibrant Subhadra. We also have the Lord Krishna, a rare hero, the great God Himself in the incarnation of a human being. Lord Krishna’s divinity radiates through his human form. His character dominates the galaxy of heroes by loftiness and brilliance.
The characters are quite impressive in the epic and so are the incidents. Every scene of the gigantic text is perfect with an impressive picture. The tournament of princes in which Arjun and Karna first met, gorgeous bridal of Draupadi, the fatal game of dice and scornful wrath of Draupadi against her insulters, and the council of war on the occasion of the great contest - each scene of this great epic impresses itself on the mind of the astonished reader. Then follows the war of eighteen days.  
The war ends in a midnight slaughter and the death of Duryodhan. In the Mahabharata, every human dilemma and conflict finds expression as sage Sauti, one of the narrators of the tale said that 'which occurs here occurs elsewhere,   that   which    does    not    occur    here     occurs    nowhere    else (Swargarohanka Parva, Section 5)'. Mahabharata, the epic of Maha (great) Bharata (India), discloses a rich civilization of a highly evolved society in the grand simplicity of the narrative.