{"id":24813,"date":"2021-01-23T11:32:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T15:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=24813"},"modified":"2021-02-05T15:40:54","modified_gmt":"2021-02-05T19:40:54","slug":"battle-of-kurukshetra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/battle-of-kurukshetra\/","title":{"rendered":"The Battle of Kurukshetra: History &#038; Role in The Gita"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What was the battle of Kurukshetra? Why is this battle so important in <em>The Bhagavad Gita?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The battle of Kurukshetra is one of the central conflicts in <em>The Bhagavad Gita<\/em> and has an important history. It&#8217;s important to understand why this battle is so important to main character Arjuna and why he seeks guidance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more about the battle of Kurukshetra in <em>The Bhagavad Gita<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The History Behind the Battle of Kurukshetra<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a great deal of history drawing these two armies to Kurukshetra.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A man named Pandu, of the Kuru dynasty, was the king of Hastinapura. While he ruled he shared power with his brother Dhritarashtra. However, Pandu died young, and Dhritarashtra was born blind, so he couldn\u2019t be named king under the laws of Hastinapura.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Therefore, Pandu\u2019s son Yudhishthira should have been the next king, but he was too young to take the throne. Dhritarashtra continued to rule in Yudhishthira\u2019s stead until he became old enough to take the throne himself. However, when Yudhishthira came of age, Dhritarashtra began plotting for his own son Duryodhana to succeed him instead. That scheming led to the current conflict between the Pandavas, the supporters of Yudhishthira who call themselves the sons of Pandu; and the Kauravas, the supporters of Duryodhana and so-called sons of Kuru\u2014though, in reality, both sides are part of the Kuru dynasty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before the battle begins, prince Duryodhana of the Kauravas studies the opposing army. He reports that there are many great heroes among the Pandavas, but that their own army has equally great men and is much larger. He ends with a call for his soldiers to stand firm and support Bhishma, the eldest of the Kurus and the leader of their army. Bhishma responds to this by blowing a conch horn\u2014a call to arms, which is taken up by the rest of his army. The Pandava army responds with horns and drums of their own.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Sanjaya and Dhritarashtra<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Bhagavad Gita <\/em>is framed as a story-within-a-story. <strong>Sanjaya, an advisor to king Dhritarashtra, is having a vision of the conversation between Arjuna and Krishna and telling the king what he sees.<\/strong> This is possible because Sanjaya has been blessed with the gift of divine sight, so he\u2019s able to see everything that happens at Kurukshetra as if he were there in person.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dhritarashtra refers to Kurukshetra as the \u201cfield of <em>dharma<\/em>.\u201d Dharma, which can be loosely translated as both duty and law, refers both to the cosmic rules of the universe and to people\u2019s individual destinies. Calling Kurukshetra the field of dharma implies that what\u2019s about to happen isn\u2019t only a physical battle, but a spiritual struggle over what is right and just. This helps explain the framing and purpose for the battle of Kurukshetra in <em>The Bhagavad Gita.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What was the battle of Kurukshetra? Why is this battle so important in The Bhagavad Gita? The battle of Kurukshetra is one of the central conflicts in The Bhagavad Gita and has an important history. It&#8217;s important to understand why this battle is so important to main character Arjuna and why he seeks guidance. Read more about the battle of Kurukshetra in The Bhagavad Gita.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":14448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,6],"tags":[197],"class_list":["post-24813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-spiritual","tag-the-bhagavad-gita","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Battle of Kurukshetra: History &amp; Role in The Gita - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What was the battle of Kurukshetra? 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