the great Ithihasa purana ~ "Maha Barath" .. .. அகிலம் போற்றும் பாரதம்: 'கிருஷ்ணனின் மகிமையும் , கீதையின் பெருமையும் '

Rawalpindi   is a city and capital of Rawalpindi Division located in the Punjab province of Pakistan.  Rawalpindi lies adjacent to Pakistan's capital of Islamabad, and the two are jointly known as the "twin cities" on account of strong social and economic links between the cities.  Following Rawalpindi's capture by the British East India company, 53rd Regiment of the company army took quarters in the newly captured city. The decision to man a permanent military cantonment in the city was made in 1851 by the Marquess of Dalhousie.  During the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, the area's Gakhars and Janjua tribes remained loyal to the British.  Numerous civil and military buildings were built during the British era, and the Municipality of Rawalpindi was constituted in 1867.  The city was also connected to railways that offered connection to other parts of India and the northwest frontier in Peshawar in the 1880s. The Commissariat Steam Flour Mills were the first such mills in Punjab, and supplied most of the needs of British cantonments throughout Punjab.

Taxila (Sanskrit: Takṣaśilā)‎ meaning "City of Cut Stone"  is a significant archaeological site in the modern city of the same name in Punjab, Pakistan. It lies about 32 km (20 mi) north-west of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, just off the famous Grand Trunk Road.  Gandhāra was an ancient region in the Peshawar basin in the far north-west of the ancient Indian subcontinent, corresponding to present-day north-west Pakistan and east Afghanistan. The centre of the region was at the confluence of the Kabul and Swat rivers, bounded by the Sulaiman Mountains on the west and the Indus River on the east.  .. .. all connected with the epic Ithihasa ‘Mahabarath’. 

The  great ithihasa purana uniquely has stories woven within stories within story structure, was first recited at Takshashila by the sage Vaiśampāyana,  a disciple of Vyāsa, to the King Janamejaya who was the great-grandson of the Pāṇḍava prince Arjuna.  

அகிலம் போற்றும் பாரதம் , இது இனை இல்லா மகா காவியம் ,

தர்ம அதர்ம வழியினிலே , நன்மை தீமைக்கு இடையினிலே ,

விளையும் போரினில் சத்தியம் வென்றிடுமாமாமா,

சத்தியையும் பக்தியையும் ,  ஜென்மத்தின் முக்தியையும் ,

அகிலம் போற்றிடும் அற்புத காவியம் ,

கிருஷ்ணனின் மகிமையும் ,  கீதையின் பெருமையும் ,

ஒன்றாக சங்கமிக்கும் புண்ணிய காவியம் , மஹாபாரதம்ம்ம்

 

இது  மகாபாரதம் விஜய் தொலைக்காட்சியில்  2013ல் ஒளிபரப்பான காவிய தொடரின் தலைப்பு பாடல்.   திங்கள் முதல் வெள்ளி வரை இரவு 7 மணிக்கு ஒளிபரப்பான இத்தொடருக்கு து.  வி. பாலகிருஷ்ணன் வசனம் எழுத, பாடலாசிரியர் ருக்மணி ரமணி பாடல் எழுதி இருந்தார்.  இந்த தொடர் ஸ்டார் பிளஸ் தொலைக்காட்சியில் ஒளிபரப்பான 'மகாபாரத்' என்ற தொடரின் தமிழாக்கம் ஆகும்.  

நமது இதிஹாச புராணங்களிலே  மிக சிறப்பானது மஹாபாரதம்.   இந்த தீஞ்சுவை இதிகாசத்தை இயற்றியவர் வியாசர். சமஸ்கிருதத்தில், ஒரு லக்ஷத்துக்கும் மேற்பட்ட பாசுரங்களை கொண்ட  இதனைத் தமிழில் "வில்லிபாரதம்" என்ற இலக்கியமாகப் படைத்தவர் வில்லிபுத்தூரார் ஆவார். பாரதியார் மகாபாரதத்தின் ஒரு பகுதியை பாஞ்சாலி சபதம் எனும் பெயரில் இயற்றினார். வியாசர் விருந்து என்ற பெயரில் இராஜகோபாலாச்சாரி அவர்கள் மகாபாரதத்தினை உரைநடையாக இயற்றியுள்ளார் . வில்லிப்புத்தூரார், . பெயர்தான் வில்லிப்புத்தூராரே தவிர, இவரது ஊர் விழுப்புரம் மாவட்டம் திரு முனைப்பாடி அருகிலுள்ள ஊர். இவர் பழுத்த வைணவர். இவரது தந்தையார்  பெரியாழ்வார் மீது கொண்ட பற்றினால், ஸ்ரீவில்லிப்புத்தூரில் வசித்த அவரது பெயரை தன் மகனுக்கு சூட்டினார்.  வியாசர் எழுதிய 18 பருவங்களை 10 பருவங்களாகச் சுருக்கி 4351 பாடல்களுடன் மகாபாரதத்தை எழுதி முடித்தார்.   மகாபாரதப்போரில் ஈடுபட்ட வீரர்கள் எண்ணிக்கை முப்பத்தொன்பது லட்சத்து முப்பத்தாறாயிரத்து அறுனூறு. பதினெட்டு நாட்கள் போருக்குப்பின்...10 பேர் தவிர..அனைவரும் மாண்டனர் !!!

 

The cities associated with the great epic lie scattered   - the battlefield of the Mahabharata, Kurukshetra lies in Haryana, 50 km to the east of the Ambala city in Punjab.  The capital of Gandhar Desh, Takshashila was near current Rawalpindi in Pakistan.  Magadh kingdom of Jarasandha is in present day South Bihar.  Hastinapur –  th grand city and  the capital of the Kauravas and Pandavas, is in present day  Meerut in Uttar Pradesh is.   

Moving away, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that lasted from the 13th century  to 1795,  when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria. The state was founded by the Lithuanians, a polytheistic nation born from several united Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija.  This man was  born in the Turnham Green area of Chiswick, London, the second son of Simon Brook and his wife Ida (Jansen), both Lithuanian Jewish immigrants from Latvia.  Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Peter Stephen Paul Brook,   is an English theatre and film director who has been based in France since the early 1970s. He has won multiple Tony and Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, the Praemium Imperiale, and the Prix Italia. He has been called "our greatest living theatre director".   He first directed Dr Faustus [The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus] an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about the title character Faust. It was written sometime between 1589 and 1592. 

In 1989 the film version of the epic Mahabaratha directed Peter Brook hit the screens.   Brook's original 1985 stage play was 9 hours long, and toured around the world for four years. In 1989, it was reduced to under 6 hours for television (TV mini series). Later it was also reduced to about 3 hours for theatrical and DVD release. The screenplay was the result of eight years' work by Peter Brook, Jean-Claude Carrière and Marie-Hélène Estienne.

Three years after British playwright and screenwriter Peter Brook staged his French production of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata by the river Rhône at a quarry in Avignon, France, the   massy version of the great epic beamed from our Dyanora and Solidaire TV sets in India.  and Onida TV sets in Hindi. That was 32  years ago, in the October of 1988. We didn’t know much about the French version of Mahabharata then, and that the play also had an English version soon afterwards. The Mahabharata that played on Doordarshan was an instant hit. The good people in Doordarshan were building up a reservoir of some of the best screenwriting ever produced in India.

The original airing of ‘Mahabarath, Mahabarath !’  consisted of a total of ninety-four episodes and were broadcast from 2 Oct 1988 to 24 June 1990 on Doordarshan. It was produced by B. R. Chopra and directed by his son, Ravi Chopra.  The music was composed by Raj Kamal. The script was written by Pandit Narendra Sharma and  poet Rahi Masoom Raza, based on the original story by Vyasa. Costumes for the series were provided by Maganlal Dresswala. Each episode was  approximately 60 minutes and begins with a title song that consisted of lyrical content and two verses from the Bhagavad Gita.  The title song was sung and the verses rendered by singer Mahendra Kapoor. The title song is followed by a narration by Indian voice-artist Harish Bhimani as a personification of Time, detailing the current circumstances and highlighting the spiritual significance of the content of the episode. It is the most successful Mahabharata series ever produced for television.

Today thoughts flowed in a different direction – normally my posts on Kairavini Karaiyinile will be on Emperuman purappadu or of divyadesangal laced with divyaprabandha pasurangal.  Today it is somewhat different – yet for us, everything is Sriman Narayana.  The quintessential purpose of Ithihasapuranam Mahabaratham is emancipation of mankind with the knowledge and guidance of Bhagwan Sri Krishna through His utterances, more emphatically Bhagwad Gita.

The Lord who gave us Geetha at Gurukshetra was a charioteer to Arjuna having vowed not to fight the war, yet stood by Dharma and ensured elimination of evils. He stands as Sri Parthasarathi [charioteer of Arjunan – sarathi of Parthan] at Thiruvallikkeni and we are fortunate to have His darshan.  Here are some photos of Karthigai Ekadasi purappadu on 18.11.2017.

 

adiyen Srinivasa dhasan
Mamandur Veeravalli Srinivasan Sampathkumar
10.12.2020