In the previous episode, we had witnessed King Jayathrada being handed over a crushing and a humiliating defeat in the hands of the Paandava brothers for the reason of abducting Draupati in broad daylight. As Bheemasena followed King Jayathrada, he made sure that King Jayathrada doesn’t get away so easily. Bheemasena showed a glimpse of what his raw muscle power can really achieve, and with this, King Jayathrada was bruised and torn apart! Unable to fight again, King Jayathrada was held captive and brought in front of Yudishtra. Even though Jayathrada had to be meted out with a harsh punishment for the heinous crime that he had committed, Yudishtra made him accept his mistake and let him scot free! Even though this act of Yudishtra irritated Draupati, Yudishtra is someone who follows “Dharma” verbatim as per the text book! There is no question of deviation! On the other side, unable to bare the defeat and insult in the hands of Yudishtra and Co., King Jayathrada sits on a deep penance towards Bhagawan Shiva, who warns him not to take on the Paandava brothers. Bhagawan Shiva reminds King Jayathrada that Arjuna is the owner of the “Paashupatha-Asthra”, before which, Jayathrada would not even be able to stand for a minute! Now what does King Jayathrada do? Does he leave this insult and injury here itself and move on with his life? Or, is he going to have other plans? Let us find out!
As we’ve also witnessed yesterday, Bhagawan Shiva explains how Bhagawan Krishna who is always around Arjuna is none other than Bhagawan Vishnu Himself from Vaikunta! Hence, with all these facts, Bhagawan Shiva advises King Jayathrada not to mess up with the Paandavas, which would invoke the anger of Bhagawan Krishna as well. Continuing thus, Bhagawan Shiva explains thus, “Oh Jayathrada! Please be careful! Do not indulge in these kind of “Adharmic” activities with the Paandava brothers. However, since you’ve performed an immense “Tapas” towards me, I cannot go away without giving you a boon. With your power, you will be able to win over the Paandava brothers, except Arjuna for 24 hours. Beyond that you cannot!”
Now, this might seem like a small boon given by Bhagawan Shiva, but this has enormous significance. In other words, Bhagawan Shiva says that King Jayathrada would be able to win over the Paandava brothers in a war, but that victory can sustain only for one day, post which, he would again be defeated / killed! However, this boon doesn’t apply to Arjuna. With Arjuna, King Jayathrada can never win even for that one day! Now this boon came handy for Duryodhana and Co. during the final Kurukshetra war, and using this boon, Abhimanyu was killed during the “Chakra-Vyuga” plan! Thus, Abhimanyu was the person who had to bear the brunt of Bhagawan Shiva’s boon to King Jayathrada. The connection might be very distant here, but readers should understand how boons work! In fact, this is how the entire Mahabharata works. We’ve to remember all these “connections” and “loops” very carefully, because at some later stage, we’ve to figure out this loop from somewhere! This is why I always keep advising readers to make notes while reading through our episodes. It would be of great help, because we would be referring to this particular episode maybe after 100-150 episodes from now! Hence, if we do not make notes today, we might not be able to find the link later on and we might not be able to understand the storyline properly. Hence, it is always advisable to take notes as we keep following the Mahabharata storyline.
We shall of course shed more light on this context while discussing the Kurukshetra war in a great detail later on, but for now, we should understand that the impact of Bhagawan Shiva’s boon to Jayathrada is going to fall on Abhimanyu later on! With this, Bhagawan Shiva bids farewell to King Jayathrada. As Bhagawan Shiva leaves, King Jayathrada wonders whether he had obtained a boon or a curse from Bhagawan Shiva! He doesn’t know how to proceed further, as he had got confused! Should he use the boon to go full throttle against Yudishtra and Co., or should he refrain from the pursuit because of Bhagawan Shiva’s warning? Lot of things run in King Jayathrada’s mind! So for today, let us understand this clearly and let us wait till the next episode to find out more! Stay tuned! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 