The Story

The Beginning

The story of Mahabharata begins when Satyavati, a fishermen chief’s daughter, meets with Sage Parasara on a boat trip across the Yamuna. Parasara is vowed by the beauty of Satyavati and asks for her union. Satyavati agrees and gets 2 boons granted in return - that she will continue to be a virgin even after the union and that her body emit a sweet smell instead of the fishy smell. Shortly, Satyavati gives birth to Krishna (one with dark complexion) or Dwaipayana (Dwaipa means island born) or Vyasa.

Shantanu, the king of Hastinapur, has a son through goddess Ganga called Devavrata, or Bhishma. Devavrata is the heir apparent for the Hastinapur throne until Shantanu meets Satyavati, the fishermen chief’s daughter. Shantanu falls in love with her and asks the fishermen chief her hand in marriage. The chief accepts on the condition that Shantanu will appoint the child born to them as the heir. Shantanu refuses, but Devavrata convinces Shantanu and agrees to relinquish the throne and also takes a vow to be a life-long brahmachari(because of which he is called Bhishma meaning “the terrible” due to the terrible oath) to convince the fishermen chief. King Shantanu then gets acceptance from the chief and marries Satyavati. 

King Shantanu has two sons by Satyavati, Chitrangada and Vichitravirya. Upon Shantanu's death, Chitrangada becomes king. Chitrangada, before attaining maturity, is killed in a war with the Gandarvas, leaving way for Vichitravirya to ascend the throne. Bhishma, aimed at getting Vichitravirya married, abducts the king of Kashi’s 3 daughters, Amba, Ambika and Ambalika as potential brides for Vichitravirya during their swayamvara. Amba declines and hence Vichitravirya marries Ambika and Ambalika. Shortly thereafter, Vichitravirya dies at a very young age without producing any heirs to the throne. So Satyavati requests Bhishma to father the children for the 2 widows of Vichitravirya only for the purpose of extending the race. Bhishma refuses due to his vow of celibacy, so Satyavati approaches her other son Krishna Dwaipayana. Dwaipayana agrees. When he meets up with Ambika, she shuts her eyes out of fear, so she give birth to a child that is born blind called Dhritarashtra. When Ambalika meets up with Dwaipayana, she turns pale, so she give birth to a child named Pandu (the pale one). Not satisfied with the results, Satyavati asks Ambika to meet with Dwaipayana again. Out of fear, she send her beautiful maid to meet with Dwaipayana. The maid attends to Dwaipayana and takes care of him. Dwaipayana, happy with her service, releases her from being a slave and blesses her with a child. Shortly, she gives birth to Vidura. Vidura grows up to be very wise and highly knowledgeable in politics.

Since Dhritarashtra is blind, Bhishma crowns Pandu as the king of Hastinapur. Pandu gets married to Kunti and Madri. Dhritarashtra gets married to Gandhari. Gandhari blindfolds herself to feel the pain that her husband goes through. Once Pandu goes for hunting in the forest and kills a deer couple while they are mating. It so happens that one of the deer is a Rishi in a deer’s disguise. The Rishi then curses Pandu that he will die when he feels passion for a woman. After this curse, Pandu retires to the forest along with Kunti and Madri - thus making Dhritarashtra the king of Hastinapur.

The birth of Pandavas and Kauravas

Long before Kunti was married, she once attends to Rishi Durvasa during one of his visits. Durvasa is pleased by her service and teaches her a mantra that she could use to invoke any celestial to give her children. Out of curiosity, she uses the mantra and invokes Surya, through which she gives birth to a child with body armor and ear rings. Confused, and not ready to bring up a child, Kunti leaves the child in the water. This child was taken care of by Adhiratha and Radha and named him Vasusena, or otherwise named as Karna.

Because of Pandu’s curse and unable to bear child through Pandu, Kunti invokes the mantra and gets 3 children, Yudhishtra through God of Justice, Bhima through the God of Wind, Arjuna through Indra, the King of Gods. Kunti then divulges the mantra to Madri, who invokes the twin ashwins through which she gives birth to Nakula and Sahadeva. In the meantime, Dwaipayana visits Hastinapur palace and Gandhari takes care of him. Pleased with her service, Dwaipayana grants her a boon that will enable her to give birth to 100 sons. While she is pregnant for 2 long years, she hears that Kunti gives birth to Yudhishtra, and out of dejection and grief, she strikes her womb that results in a ball of flesh falling from her womb. Dwaipayana, then assists her in separating the ball of flesh into 101 pots (Gandhari requests for a girl over and above the 100 sons). In due course, 101 babies emerge out of the pots, the first one being Duryodhana. When Duryodana was born, ominous signs and wolf cries are heard - Dhritarashtra is advised by Vidura to destroy that child since the signs point out that he will become the exterminator of the entire race. Dhritarashtra disagrees to the proposition. Dhritarashtra has an affair with a maid servant who was attending to him - and she gives birth to another son, Yuyutsu. Incidentally, Duryodhana and Bhima were born on the same day.

The Animosity

The princes grow up together with jealousy throughout their childhood. While they study, learn royal duties and perform princely deeds and spend time together, the jealousy leads to rivalry throughout their youth. This, along with a few external forces adding to the rivalry, leads to the Kurukshetra war in later years.

While in the forest, Pandu dies when he feels passion to Madri due to the curse. Madri entrusts the bringing up of her twins to Kunti and alights the funeral pyre arranged for Pandu and dies along with him. After Pandu and Madri's death, Kunti returns back to Hastinapur with her five sons.

Since Yudhishtra is the eldest son of Pandu (who is the the righful king of Hastinapur), he is crowned king of Hastinapur by Dhritarashtra under severe social pressure, even though he wanted to crown his own eldest son Duryodhana as king. This upsets Duryodhana. Together with Shakuni and Dusasana, they develop a plot to kill the Pandavas and take over the kingdom. With the help of the architect Puroshana, the trio build a grand palace for the Pandavas and their mother, laced with highly flammable materials like lac and ghee. Their plan is to set the palace on fire with the Pandavas. However, Vidura, Pandava's uncle, comes to know of this plan and secretly alerts the Pandavas and uses a miner to build a secret tunnel that leads into a nearby forest.

As planned, the trio manage to set the palace on fire. Kunti and the Pandavas, as previously planned, escape through the tunnel to the other end of the forest and go into hiding. Meanwhile, The Kauravas presume the Pandavas dead and make Duryodhana as king of Hastinapur.

The Pandavas disguise themselves and go into hiding. During the course of their hiding, they learn of a swayamvara of a beautiful princess called Draupadi of the Panchala kingdom. Disguised as brahmins, the Pandavas enter the competition where the task is to string a mighty bow with an arrow that will have to pierce the eye of a rotating fish on the ceiling by looking at its reflection in the water below. While most of the competing princes fail, Arjuna succeeds to win the competition and takes Drapuadi's hand.

After successfully winning, the Pandavas return home and Arjuna tells his mother that he won a competition and brought home a prize. Kunti, busy on household chores, simple asks Arjuna that he should share whatever he won among his brothers. After explaining her previous life's happening (where she was destined to have 5 husbands in her next life), Draupadi marries all five brothers.

News of this wedding and the Pandavas being alive spreads and they are invited back to Hastinapur. Elders and advisers to the Kuru Family negotiate and broker a deal between the Pandavas and Kauravas and split the kingdom. Pandavas then build their capital at Indraprastha and Yudhishtra becomes king of that kingdom. However, both sides (Pandavas and Kauravas) are not happy with this split.

Yudhishtra gets Krishna's advise on regaining the whole kingdom back. Krishna counsels him to perform the Rajasuya yagna (a yagna that involves subduing as many kingdoms as you can), which would in turn establish him as a supreme king. In the meantime, Arjuna falls in love with Shubadra, Krishna's sister, and gets married to her after they both elope.

The 13 year banishment

Kauravas get invited to Indraprastha to visit the Pandava's new palace built by Danava. During the visit, Duryodana falls into a pool of water mistaking it for a polished floor - he gets humiliated when he sees Draupadi laughing and decides to avenge the insult. Sakuni, Duryodhana's cunning uncle, make use of Yudhishtra's weakness for betting and arranges for a game of dice, in which, due to cheating, Yudhishtra loses everything he has, including his kingdom and Pandava's wife Draupadi. Duryodhana tries to humiliate Draupadi by disrobing her, but Krishna intervenes by miraculously replacing Draupadi's clothes endlessly. In the final game, the Kauravas, again, manage to win and banish the Pandavas (including Krishna) to the forest for 12 years and a hidden life in the 13th year - should they be identified during that time, their exile would be extended for another 12 years.

For the Pandava brothers, the next 13 years would be spent in exile, many adventures and events occur during that time, including alliances built with many kingdoms. At the end of the 13th year, when the Pandavas try to negotiate their way back to Indraprastha, Duryodana rejects, since nothing was agreed earlier upon their return. War becomes inevitable due to failure of negotiations - both sides (Pandavas and Kauravas) amass vast armies and get to the brink of war in Kurukshertra. Krishna takes a non-combatant role and becomes Arjuna's charioteer. Balarama, Krishna's brother, unhappy with the war situation, decides to not take part in the war and goes on a pilgrimage.

The Great War

Arjuna, sees his great grandfather Bhishma and his Guru Drona on the opposing side and is reluctant to fight them. What follows is the core of Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna advises Arjuna about his duty to support the Pandavas. The War begins - while both sides start with practicing ethical war practices, they slowly move to unethical tactics in an effort to win the war. The battle ends after 18 days - the Pandavas emerge victorious. Only 11 people survive the war: the 5 Pandavas, Satyaki and Kritivarma(from the Yadava clan), Kripacharya(a teacher of the royal children), Ashwatthama(son of Guru Drona), Yuyutsu(Dhritarashtra's son through his wife's maid) and Krishna.

Seeing the carnage and losing all her sons, Gandhari (Kaurava's mother) curses Krishna to go through similar carnage of his own clan because even though he could, he did nothing to stop the war. The curse comes true 36 years later when the entire Yadava clan kill each other during a festival. Soon after, Krishna himself is killed by an arrow shot by a hunter named Jara who mistakes the sleeping Krishna for a deer.

The End

After the war, saddened by all the destruction, the Pandavas decide to renounce their kingdom and begin to ascend the Himalayas towards heaven. During their journey, the brothers begin to die one by one including Draupadi. Yudhishtra explains the reason they are unable to ascend further towards heaven. Only he and a dog, that followed them from the beginning, remain. The dog reveals himself as Dharamaraja, the god of justice. Being a virtuous king and having done everything he can to stop the war, Yudhishtra reaches heaven.

Epilogue

Many decades later, Arjuna's grandson Parikshit, when ruling the kingdom, dies bitten by a snake due to a curse. His son Janamejaya, determined to rid the world of all snakes, performs a snake sacrifice called Sarpasatra. During this sacrifice, the entire story of Mahabharata (the story of his ancestors) is recited to him by Vyasa.