In the first part of The Story of Mahabharata we learnt about the two brothers — Dhritarashtra and Pandu. Since Dhritarashtra was the elder brother, he was supposed to get the throne of Hastinapur, but because he was blind, Pandu was chosen as the rightful heir.
The marriage life of the two brothers was no less interesting. Pandu had a cursed bestowed upon him that whenever he would try to get intimate with either of his two wives, Kunti and Madri, he would die. This was because once he killed an antelope that was making love with its partner. As it turned out, the antelope was actually a sage who was trying to make love to his wife — and hence the curse.
Dhritarashtra, the elder brother, was married to Gandhari. Initially she was not aware that her would-be husband was blind (she found out after the marriage), so it was a kind of betrayal. When she did find out the truth, she decided to remain blindfolded for life. Her brother, Shakuni, could not forgive his brother-in-law for hiding the truth and turning his sister virtually blind. The fault-lines had started to emerge within the family. Nevertheless, the couple gave birth to one hundred sons, the eldest of whom was called Duryodhana.
After a while, the king Pandu decided to live in the forest with his two wives. Now that he was getting desperate to have a son, he asked his wives for the solution. Kunti told him that she possessed a magical power through which she could summon a god and bear a child with him. That is what she did next. She summoned different gods and had sons with them. She had a son called Yudhishthira sired by Yama (god of death), Bheem by Vayu (god of wind) and Arjuna by Indra (god of lightning). She also helped Madri to bear two sons who were called Nakula and Sehdeva. So Pandu had five sons in total, or five Pandavas, as they were called.
After Pandu’s death, Dhritarashtra kept ruling Hastinapura, for the time being. It was understood that Pandavas were the deserving heir to the throne and they would get the honour once they grew up. This gave rise to a feeling of jealousy in the mind of Duryodhana, among other Kauravas, and the feeling grew more bitter as the boys grew up.
What happens next? Keep following this space to read the next part of The Story of Mahabharata.
Kalampedia 