Hari Om Parents,
We started our class with our Likhitha jaapa followed by daily prayers and then Ganesha Panchanatham.
We recapped the story thus far, how Bheeshma brought Amba/Ambika/Ambalika for his brother vichitravirya . how vichitravirya died hireless. How Satyavathi calls her elder son Vyasa and asks him to grandchildren. How Vyasa blesses Ambalika and Ambika and their servant with boys . The blind one son born to Ambika who was named Dhirtarstra, Ambalika had a pale son who was named as Pandu.
The wise servant bore a wise son and he was named Vidhur. Vidhur was a noble and wise man and was appointed later as the minister of Hastinapura. There was always unseen hatred for Pandu by Dhritarstra as Dhritarashtra could not be crowned as king of Hastinapur even though he was the eldest as he was blind. Dhritarstra married Gandhari the Princess of Gandhara, since her husband was blind she chose to be blindfolded throughout her life to be a pativrata. Pandu married Kunti the daughter of KuntiBhoja and also Maadri who was sister of Shalaya.
We then continued with our Mahabharata story by Popcorn reading where kids took turns to read.
Story of Vidhur
Once, there was a Sage named Mandavya. He was very knowledgeable and righteous. Once, Mandavya Rishi was doing a vow of silence. He sat under a tree and spent hours in meditation. At that time, some robbers had stolen money. They were being chased by the royal guards. The robbers came across Mandavya's house. They decided to hide inside his house. The soldiers also came there. They asked Mandavya if he had seen some robbers as they were chasing them.Since Mandavya was in meditation he could not respond to them. The soldiers finally gave up and searched his house. Eventually, they found the robbers and the loot hiding inside the house. The soldiers then doubted Mandavya and along with the robbers, they arrested Mandavya.
They were all presented in front of the king, who sentenced them to death. Thus, Mandavya was impaled on a stake and left there. However, Mandavya since was in the meditative state remained alive. When the king realized that Mandavya was a powerful sage, he realized his mistake. He ran to Mandavya and asked him to forgive him as he could not realize his greatness and acted in haste.
Mandavya went to Yamaloka and asked Lord Dharmaraja for the reason of his suffering and why he was punished?
Dharmaraja then replies that when Mandavya was young, he once pierced an insect with a piece of grass and this was the punishment for that action.
Sage mandavya then gets angry at dharmaraja and curses him to be born to a low caste servant on earth.
This was the backstory of Vidhur.
Story of Kunti
Surasena had a daughter named Pritha who was given as adoption to the childless kuntibhoja who was the brother of Sura. Since then Pritha was named as kunti after her father kuntibhoja.
One day sage Durvasa visited Kunti Bhoja in his palace. Kunti was devoted to sage Durvasa and Durvasa was very pleased with Kunti's service and granted her a mantra by which she could invoke any god and they would grant her the boon of son. Foreseeing the future of Kunti Sage Durvasa granted this boon.
After the sage left back, Kunti out of her curiosity wanted to test the mantra. One morning Kunti saw the rising beautiful son and wanted to test it out. Chanted the mantra looking at Sun god. Then the sun god appeared before her and granted her a son, who was born with golden armor and earrings.
The son was beautiful and radiant as Sun god. Kunti tells the sun god that she is a young unmarried girl and the society will laugh at her for having a child without being married. Sun god tells her that the son would not bring her any bad name. Sun God also says that this mantra will be useful to her in her future. Kunti then takes the little child wrapped in a cloth and then puts the child in a box and lets it float.
A charioteer hears the child's cry and finds this box and raises this little boy as his own as he was childless, thus the child raised by charioteer was named Karna or was called Radhye as his mother was Radha.
Later when Kunti comes of age for marriage, Kuntibhoja arranges for a swayamvaram for her. King Pandu also is invited to this swayamvara. Kunti is well known for her beauty and also her intelligence. Kunti on the day of swayamvara put the garland in the neck of King Pandu and later they are wed in ritualistic manner.
After some days King Pandu married Madri, the sister of Shalya. The people of Hastinapura are overjoyed with both the king pandu and his wives.
One day King Pandu goes hunting and, suspecting that there was a deer behind the bushes, pulls his arrow. Then he realizes that it was sage and his wife in disguise getting killed while they were in intimacy. The sage curses king pandu that whenever he approaches his wives for pleasures would die.
Hearing this king pandu is very depressed and leaves the kingly affairs to his brother Dhirtarstra and vidur leaves to forest with his wives. The king lives the life of a hermit in the forest. But he is sad that he does not have children.
Looking at Pandu's sight, Kunti informs him of the boon which sage Durvasa granted her. King Pandu pleades Kunti to use the mantra and bore him sons. Kunti calls upon the lord of dharma and he blesses her a son who is named Yudhistira, next she prays to lord of wind Pavan , with whose blessings she gets Bheema, next she prays Indra and has Arjuna with his blessings.
She shares this mantra with Madri who prays to twin gods Ashwini and gets blessed with Nakula and sahadeva. Pandu is blessed with 5 children. One fine spring morning pandu looks at madri and is attracted towards her beauty. Even though Madri tries to remind him of the curse he gets carried away and the minute he hugs Madri he dies. Madri blames herself for the cause of the death of Pandu and along with Pandu does Sahagamana and sits in the pryes along with Pandu handing over her children to kunti and requesting her to treat them as her own.
The news of Pandu's death is sent to hastinapura and everyone is saddened by this news. Vysa tells Sathyavathi that it is better she and her daughter in laws Ambika and Ambalika go to forest and lead the life in Prayers and not to be in hastinapura anymore as more sorrow is to befall on them.
Bheeshma and Vidhur bring back Kunti along with the 5 children to Hastinapura so that the children can be raised well in a princely manner.
We finished reading about the kunti story and it was about time for our Bhagavad gita chanting by swami ji. We learnt shlokas 7 and 8. Please make the children practice the shlokas and also kindly record and send them to the gita chanting team to get points for themselves and also for the house.
email:- geeta@chinmayavrindavan.org
We will try to start Nirvana Shatakam next class( December 8th 2023).
With Om and Pranams
Anuradha & Shivram
Important Information:
Link to join whatsapp groupchat
https://chat.whatsapp.com/E0cfUe3NUDYCBwYVKD7tyg
List of things that we need the kids to bring to the class
1. An empty notebook to write likhita japa and notes
2. Two sharpened pencils
3. Daily Prayers book
1. Curriculum for 5th graders
1. Mahabharata By Raja Gopalachari
2. India the sacred land (handouts will be provided by teachers)
3. Bhagavad Gita - Chapter 4. Sholkas 1-28
4. Slokas- Ganesha panchartnam and Nirvana Shatakam.
