Episode # 276 – Ghatodgaja meets Vibhishana at Lanka – A special reference!!!

In the previous episode, we had witnessed Bheemasena finally taking control over King Jaraasandha and killing him. With Bhagawan Krishna at the helm of affairs in terms of guidance, Bheemasena split Jaraasandha’s body into two and made sure that both the halves aren’t able to stick together again. With this, Jaraasandha breathed his last and the entire world hailed Bheemasena’s victory over Jaraasandha. A major source of “Adharma” in this world was depleted in this way. With this, Bhagawan Krishna instated Sahadeva (Jaraasandha’s son) as the successor of the Magadha Desha and Sahadeva henceforth performed the “Dharma-Rajya” there. Thus, the trio returns back to Indraprastha and with this, the decks are cleared for the grand “Raaja-Suya Yaaga” to be performed by Yudishtra. Till this point, Jaraasandha was a stumbling block, and now that Jaraasandha has been killed, the “Raaja-Suya Yaaga” had no hinderances. 

Thus, the preparations begin in full swing. Indraprastha slowly starts getting a festive color and grandeur as the Paandava brothers go in different directions from the kingdom to collect the necessary “funds” and materials to commence the “Yaaga”. Arjuna was sent in the northern direction towards the Indrapatna. Bheemasena went towards the east. Nakula came all the way down south. In fact, Sage Veda-Vyaasa adds an important reference here – He says that Nakula has come all the way till the banks of River Tamraparni, which is in the famous city of Tirunelveli in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. However, Nakula did not advance further from here. This is because of the fact that south of Tamil Nadu is Sri Lanka, which was a “Raakshasa-Pradesha”, or the abode of Raakshasas. Hence, the Paandavas changed their strategy a bit – We’ve already witnessed that Bheemasena had married Hidimbi once upon a time, and had a son called Ghatodgaja with her, isn’t it? Bheemasena now calls Ghatodgaja for help as he was the son of a Raakshasi. Thus, Ghatodgaja was instructed to proceed towards Lanka to meet Vibhishana and to inform him of the Raaja-Suya Yaaga that was taking place at Indraprastha. 

We can witness another surprise here – It seems that Vibhishana was still alive when the Mahabharata story took place! Vibhishana was Ravana’s brother and he had an important role to play during the Ramayana time. Now even after so many thousands of years, Sage Veda-Vyaasa explains that Vibhishana was still alive! He was doing the “Dharma-Raajya” at Lanka after Ravana’s demise. We might wonder how Vibhishana was still alive even during Yudishtra’s and Bhagawan Krishna’s tenure, which is so many thousands of years after Bhagawan Rama’s incarnation. This shows how much of divine Anugraha Bhagawan Rama and Mother Sita had given him! We’ve witnessed during our Ramayana project that when Bhagawan Rama and Mother Sita enter into the “Pushpaka Vimaana” after killing Ravana at Lanka, Bhagawan Rama requests Mother Sita to have a divine look at the entire “Lanka-Patna” (Lanka City), because Vibhishana is going to rule the kingdom henceforth. Thus, with the divine “Anugraha” of Mother Sita and Bhagawan Rama, we should understand that Lanka is still ruled by the “Dharma-Aatman” called Vibhishana. 

Thus moving further, Ghatodgaja meets Vibhishana and informs him of the Yaaga that was going to take place shortly. Vibhishana was extremely happy upon hearing this, and gifted Ghatodgaja with enormous prize materials and gold. With this, we move into the next Upa-Parva called “Dig-Vijaya Parva”, wherein we are going to witness in detail as to how the Paandava brothers went to each kingdom including the Cheras, Cholas and Paandyas in the south and how all the kings received them happily by gifting them with enormous amounts of gold and other precious materials. We shall commence the “Dig-Vijaya Parva” in the next episode and continue this further! Stay tuned! 🙂