Lesser Known Stories of Mahabharata: You Tube Series

Hare Krishna! After completing the 12 Mahajans, their life and pastimes, as promised in the last episode, we are now starting a new series on Mahabharata Lesser Known Stories.

Mahabharata, the greatest epic poem of the world with more than 100,000 shlokas and 18 chapters, is the most read book even today. In our Vedic scriptures, it falls in the category of Itihas. Itihas (history) is told to us as a demonstration of Vedic principles. Vedas, Vedanta, and Puranas sometimes become difficult to comprehend, and stories of past heroes and anti-heroes help us to learn. Mostly, I see Ramayana and Mahabharata have three streams inbuilt, as we see Yamuna, Ganga, and Saraswati in Prayag. While Yamuna is entertainment, Ganga is the knowledge, the Saraswati part is the lesson we learn, which quite often we miss. When we read Mahabharata, we miss that the objective of stating the Mahabharata was to create a background so that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Krishna, can sing Gitopanishad, popularly known as Bhagavad Gita, to us. Srila Prabhupada compares the cowherd boy Krishna to milking the cow "Vedas," and the calf Arjuna is drinking the milk: "The knowledge & wisdom," and the commoners like us are also drinking the remnant. So Mahabharata we should see as a method of knowing how to lead life in the path of unadulterated Bhakti as done by Pandavas & Draupadi. However, in these episodes, I shall not deal with all these philosophies. Rather, I will tell you many interesting short stories not in any specific sequence and will try to derive the lessons of Bhakti from them. I promise some of the stories are far more powerful than Harry Potter stories, but we miss appreciating them. Please go through the videos, and all glories to Srila Prabhupada and Shrimad Bhagavatam, which I have referred to the maximum to coin these stories. Yours aspiring servant.

As and when new Episodes will be added I will add the same here. Kindly comment and let me know if you want more discussion

Happy to Server you

Yours Aspiring Servant

Suman Basu