In the previous episode, we had witnessed Sage Vyaasa announcing to the world that the advent of Kali Yuga is nearing, and the Dwaapara Yuga is coming to a close. As a result of this change in “Yuga”, the amount of “Dharma” that is performed in the world is going to drastically decrease and this is going to be replaced by all sorts of “Adharma” from all sides. With this, he instructs his mother Satyavati to leave for her “Vaana-Prastha-Ashrama” to spend her last days and subsequently attain the “Svarga Lokha”. Satyavati too understood her son’s important words and she took both Ambika and Ambaalika with her to the forest. This marks the end of the initial two generations of the Mahabharata text. As Sage Vyaasa had said, from that point onwards, various forms of “Adharma” started creeping into Hastinapura itself. Duryodhana’s jealousy towards Bheemasena’s enormous muscle power was only going up northwards and there was no relent to it. At one point, Duryodhana and his Kaurava brothers couldn’t tolerate Bheemasena’s growing popularity amongst the kids and the respect he was receiving from all of them! He thus decides to take the extreme step of killing Bheemasena!
Readers should remember here that when Duryodhana decided to kill Bheemasena for the first time, the children were barely twelve or thirteen years old! This shows how much of vengeance Duryodhana was born with! During the innocent childhood days itself, if one has to take the extreme step of killing his own brother, we can see how much of “Adharma” has already started creeping inside. Let us witness this accord further. Duryodhana convened a meeting with all his Kaurava brothers to chart out an action plan to go about killing Bheemasena. What could they possibly do? Of course, they’re not fit enough to go on an all out war against Bheemasena yet. The easiest way to get rid of Bheemasena is to push him into the River Ganges and let the water take care of him to drown him off! Accordingly, the plan was set and Bheemasena was pushed into the river during the middle of the night! Since he was fat and sturdy, he immediately went deep into the river waters and was about to get drowned! However, with Bhagawan’s divine “Anugraha”, Bheemasena woke up at the right time, only to see himself at the water floor. Immediately Bheemasena used his swimming skills and managed to come up the water! He was safe and secure and nothing happened to him. When Duryodhana woke up next morning to celebrate Bheemasena’s disappearance, he was shocked to see him alive and walking down just as if nothing had happened last night!
As this happened, Duryodhana’s frustration grew further. His plan was completely thwarted and he looked like a joker in the middle of everyone! He again planned a different strategy this time – He wanted to mix some poison along with the food that Bheemasena consumed. He did that, and subsequently Bheemasena’s stomach digested the entire food, including the poison! Thus, Bheemasena escaped again from the wrath of Duryodhana’s hands! This made Duryodhana even more frustrated. Subsequently Duryodhana decided that Bheemasena should somehow be bitten by a poisonous snake. Accordingly a snake was brought inside the palace and was let into Bheemasena’s room while he was fast asleep. The snake bit him, but due to the enormous fat that Bheemasena had in his body, the poison couldn’t penetrate into his body to do any harm to him! Thus, this plan was also foiled!
Frustrated even more by this, Duryodhana charted out another plan. These kinds of snake poisons, pushing into the river, etc. are not going to work against Bheemasena’s strength! Duryodhana thus decided to take a different route this time – He arranged a big festival on the banks of the River Ganga and arranged enormous food for Bheemasena to consume. In the food, a treacherous poison was mixed. The poison was in such a way that if one consumes even a drop of it, the poison would infect the person immediately, which would result in death straightaway! The plan was made – Bheemasena would consume that extremely poisonous food and he would die on the spot. Subsequently to make things clearer, Duryodhana also had a “Plan B” this time! As Bheemasena would faint down, he would be pushed into the river waters, wherein some extremely poisonous snakes would be present. They would also bite him and inject poison into his body. Thus, the food poison and the snake poison would work simultaneously to kill Bheemasena!
As Bheemasena consumes the food, now the poison starts to do its job. Bheemasena starts feeling giddy and is about to faint! Using this opportunity, Duryodhana and Co. pushed him into the fast-flowing river water and Bheemasena was drowned into the deep waters! As time passed, the festival got over and people started searching for Bheemasena. As Kunthi Devi and the Paandava brothers were unable to find Bheemasena anywhere, they became concerned! The search became more frantic and more and more people joined them with the search operation! As there was a lot of chaos around, Duryodhana announced to all of them that Bheemasena had already gone back to Hastinapura and there’s no need to wait for him! As Duryodhana made this loud announcement, Yudishtra and the others believed his words! Yudishtra was an embodiment of “Dharma”, and he believed that all the others would also be like him! Believing Duryodhana thus, the entire family was about to return back to Hastinapura, sans Bheemasena, who was drowning into the deep waters of the river!
Now what is going to happen to Bheemasena next? Is he going to be protected this time? Who is going to intervene now and protect him? Let us wait for an interesting accord in the next episode! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 