Literary assessment of the Mahabharata. Indian mythology Epics and comics

A shadow dances on the wall,
snow is dancing outside the window,
Someone's gaze in the dark mirror.
Leap night on your machine
Weaves a forgotten ancient pattern.
On the tops of the mountains, closing the loop
Endless circle
The four-faced god is dancing...
Kali Yuga...
Illet (Natalia Nekrasova)

Today we will talk about two legends with a paradoxical fate. Despite the fact that an entire civilization has grown and lives on their basis, most of us are familiar with them at best by hearsay. These stories are certainly fascinating, but too complex for European perception. And yet, without them, the world's collection of great legends would be incomplete. Let's talk about two famous epics of Ancient India - the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

BOOK ABOUT EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD

The Mahabharata, or translated as The Great Tale of the Descendants of Bharata, should be the envy of all fantasy epic writers. They cannot write so much in their entire lives, unless with the involvement of a whole platoon of literary blacks. This grandiose canvas consists of one hundred thousand poetic lines. The Mahabharata is four times longer than the Bible and seven times longer than the Iliad and Odyssey combined.

Its authorship is attributed to the semi-mythical poet Vyasa, who is also called the compiler and editor of the Vedas, the main sacred books of Hinduism. He, according to legend, was the ancestor of the heroes of the Mahabharata, observed the events of the poem personally, and outlived many of its heroes. The scribe who recorded the poem was Ganesha himself, the elephant-headed god of wisdom and enlightenment. He agreed to this secretarial position on the condition that Vyasa would dictate this whole thing to him without interruption - and the poet really did it.

However, the Mahabharata would not have been so huge if it had been reduced only to the plot. This book says about itself that it has everything in the world, and in this it almost does not exaggerate. In addition to wars and intrigues, you can find many hymns and songs, discussions on philosophical, religious and political topics. The main plot occupies only ten books out of eighteen, and even that is constantly interrupted by inserted legends.

TRUE ARYANS

The central story in the epic tells of the rivalry between the noble Pandava family and the evil Kaurava family for the Kuru kingdom with its capital at Hastinapura. It all started with the fact that Duryodhana, the eldest of the Kauravas, won his kingdom from King Yudhishthira of the Pandava family... in dice. True, not forever, but for thirteen years, after which the kingdom must be returned.

Of course, the treacherous Kauravas did not fulfill this condition. Thus begins the war, the outcome of which was the grandiose 18-day battle of Kurukshetra. The Pandavas gained the upper hand, but at a terrible cost: they lost all their friends and relatives in the battle. It is with this catastrophe that the countdown to Kaliyuga, the “Iron Age” of human fall, begins.

In the war for the kingdom, the decisive role was played by the hero Krishna, an avatar (earthly incarnation) of the god Vishnu himself, the Guardian of the Universe. Krishna offered the parties a choice - his army or himself, but unarmed. The greedy Kauravas chose an army and miscalculated. Krishna became the charioteer of one of the Pandavas, the great warrior Arjuna, and taught him many military tricks. And most importantly, when Arjuna wanted to give up the fight, seeing his friends and relatives in the enemy’s ranks, it was Krishna who, with a fiery speech, convinced him of the need to fight. Krishna's preaching, Bhagavad-gita, is nothing but a condensed exposition of all the principles of Hinduism.

Despite the seemingly clear distinction between villains and heroes, the Mahabharata is not at all black and white. Even the treacherous Kauravas are depicted as brave warriors, and the noble Pandavas win the battle through dishonest tricks and are haunted by remorse for the rest of their lives. For the author of the poem, what is important is not which side the hero takes, and not even the means by which he achieves his goal, but how he fulfilled the duty of a warrior and ruler. After all, this is the only thing that matters for karma and subsequent lives, or even complete liberation from a series of reincarnations - the transition to Nirvana.

If you remove the gods and miracles from the Mahabharata, what remains is a completely plausible story of the struggle for the throne, an epic about war, similar to the Iliad. According to modern historians, the plot of the struggle between the Kauravas and Pandavas grew out of a real war between the alliances of tribes that inhabited Northern India in the Ganges Valley: the Kurus and the Panchalas. These are the tribes of the Aryans - newcomers from the west who conquered the peninsula in the 2nd millennium BC. Having assimilated some of the legends of the indigenous people, the Aryans reworked them in the spirit of their own ethical and religious views, borrowed something from their neighbors and guests - this is how the Vedas and subsequently the Mahabharata began to take shape.

The kingdom of Kuru with its capital in the city of Hastinapur, for whose throne the heroes of the poem are fighting, was located in the area of ​​​​modern Delhi in the 12th-9th centuries BC. The land of Kuru (Kurukshetra) was considered sacred: the most educated Brahmin priests who composed the Vedas and the first Indian epic lived here. Around the 9th century BC, judging by the genealogies of the rulers, the battle on the Kuru field could have taken place.

The bloody battle must have killed many men of the ruling Kshatriya caste. This probably led to troubled times in India at that time, which they hastened to call the beginning of the joyless Kali Yuga. So, perhaps, there is no need to panic about the “terrible era” in which we supposedly live. It was common for ancient peoples to consider themselves the center of the Universe, and consider all the troubles that happened to them to be universal. Take, for example, the biblical stories about the Tower of Babel and the Flood: rumors about their global nature were greatly exaggerated.

BY THE WAYS OF THE BALAMUT

Although the first translations of the Mahabharata appeared in Europe in the 18th century, they did not cause much excitement. Indian philosophy in the West was perceived separately from Indian legends about noble knights and beautiful ladies. Philosophy has always had fans, especially in the twentieth century, but “action films,” oddly enough, were much less interesting. Probably because European folklore also had an abundance of such goodness.

It’s funny, but the Mahabharata achieved real popularity among the masses thanks to all kinds of ufologists and cryptohistorians. They searched and managed to find evidence in the descriptions of gods and heroes that they were actually aliens from other planets or representatives of a powerful lost civilization. The epic of Indologist historian Dmitry Morozov “Twice-Born” (1992) is built on one of these pseudoscientific concepts. This book, written in a ponderous language typical of esotericism, promotes the fantastic idea that the heroes of the Mahabharata possessed supernatural powers thanks to the ability to control “brahma” - for Morozov this is not the name of God, but the name of universal energy. To be fair, you can find in it quite reliable information about the life, philosophy and way of life of the ancient Indians.

Given the rarity with which science fiction writers turn to Indian mythology, Henry Lyon Oldie’s epic novel “The Black Troublemaker” (1997) turns out to be especially valuable - a cult book that still causes fierce controversy. She not only gave the fandom the catchphrases “It’s good, and it’s very good!” and “The law has been observed, and the benefit is undoubted,” but also showed the world a fundamentally new look at the events of the Mahabharata.

According to Oldie, the Pandavas were not noble warriors at all - rather unfortunate madmen, and the Kauravas were completely victims. Both of them simply found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time - at the turn of the era, when the relationship between gods and people was changing. In the world of Bharata, people could become equal to the gods by accumulating, through humility and suffering, a sufficient amount of “heat-tapas” - spiritual energy.

But everything changed when Krishna came to Earth. His full name - Krishna Janardana - is translated from Sanskrit as “black troublemaker.” He is an avatar of Vishnu, a minor god, who learned to derive tapas not from suffering, but from universal love. Vishnu dreamed of becoming the only god, which led to a cataclysm that changed the universe. Oldie will return to the theme of the “divorce of Heaven and Earth” in the “Achaean dilogy” (“There Must Be One Hero” and “Odysseus, Son of Laertes”).

With all the merits of The Black Troublemaker (bright, lively characters, wonderful style, erudition and sense of humor of the authors), judging the Mahabharata only by it is the same as judging Tolkien by the Black Book of Arda. However, we have not written anything so close to the Indian epic and at the same time so far from it.

Critics called Ian Macdonald's novel River of the Gods (2004) a “Mahabharata” in cyberpunk style. The book takes place in India in the near future, which has broken up into several small states, one of which is called Bharat. Here there are sarisins (short for “self-developing artificial intelligence”), intelligent machines that are superior to humans in intellectual development. And as if this were not enough, an asteroid is also approaching the Earth, carrying a small but very formidable black hole. It seems that Brahma decided to die along with this world ahead of schedule... There is little left of Indian mythology in “River of the Gods,” but with the multidimensionality of the narrative and the subtlety of the details of the described world, MacDonald is definitely related to the great Vyasa.

It seems that we still have to wait for a full literary treatment of the legend of the Pandavas and Kauravas. As well as a truly interesting film adaptation. Of course, Bollywood has filmed the main Indian epic and individual stories from it countless times. The most famous adaptation is the 94-episode television series Mahabharata, directed by Ravi Chopra in the 1980s and becoming India's most successful television show of all time. For those who don't have the patience for that many episodes, English director Peter Brook's version of The Mahabharata (1989) is a six-hour film with an international cast. However, criticism did not rate it highly.

FROM SUNSET TO DAWN

Hindus think globally when it comes to time. They measure time in kalpas, “days of Brahma,” each of which is equal to 4.32 billion years (according to the Guinness Book of Records, this is the largest unit of time measurement). Kalpa is divided into 1000 mahayugas, and each of them into four more yugas (epochs):

  • Satya Yuga- “golden age”, an era of purity and knowledge of truth, an era of peace and unity of all people.
  • Treta Yuga- “Silver Age”, when people begin to be interested in sensual pleasures, but mercy and nobility are still alive in them. The Ramayana takes place in Treta Yuga.
  • Dvapara Yuga- “Bronze Age”, transitional period. The lifespan of people is shortening, and their cleanliness is becoming less and less. The action of the Mahabharata is placed at the very end of Dvapara Yuga.
  • Kali Yuga- “Iron Age”, or “machine age”, when people lose moral and cultural ideals; an era of hypocrisy and spiritual degradation. At the end of Kali Yuga, Kalki, the last avatar of Vishnu, should come to Earth, marking the “translation of the universal clock.” At the end of the kalpa, the “night of Brahma” will begin, equal in duration to the “day”.

The yugas in it will be repeated in reverse order. It is interesting that the supreme god Brahma is mortal: his life is measured exactly one hundred “years” (in terms of our years, this is 311 trillion 40 billion years), after which the death of the Universe will occur. However, now Brahma is only 51 “years old”, so there is nothing to worry about yet.

Prince Siddhartha, better known as Gautama Buddha, is considered by Hindus to be the penultimate avatar of Vishnu. Thus, Buddha was included in the Hindu pantheon. Roger Zelazny was certainly familiar with this concept - it was the inspiration for one of his most famous novels, the Hugo Award-winning Prince of Light (1967).

The action of "Prince of Light" takes place on another planet, colonized by earthlings. Having defeated the indigenous inhabitants - energy entities (“demons”), people remain to live here. They are ruled by mutants with paranormal abilities, like the X-Men. They become the rulers of the planet and organize society on it according to the model of the ancient Indian one. Karma and the transmigration of souls are completely real things here: the electromagnetic essence of a person (“soul”) can be transferred to another body, which one is determined by the “gods” based on the results of a brain scan.

The “Gods” try to keep all other people at the level of the ancient Indians for as long as possible, holding back progress. All except Sam, one of the First, who, wanting to give people the knowledge of the gods, recreates Buddhism. The other gods do not like this at all - which means that the reader is in for a fascinating and poetic story about battles, intrigue, love and betrayal. It is Indian only in its surroundings, but it perfectly conveys the style of Zelazny’s ancient epic.

DATE WITH FRAME

When King Yudhishthira was depressed about his lost kingdom, he was told the story of the legendary couple, Rama and Sita, as a consolation. This story was later called the “Small Ramayana”, as opposed to the complete “Ramayana” (“Journey of Rama”), a poem that is not inferior to the “Mahabharata” in popularity in India and its environs.

All the peoples inhabiting India and their neighbors have their own versions of the Ramayana. The names of her heroes have become household names. The plot of this fairy-tale story attracts interpreters like a magnet, and even Europeans understand it more clearly than the intricate and eloquent epic of the Mahabharata. There was also some religious content here: Prince Rama was the seventh avatar of the god Vishnu, just preceding Krishna.

Even in 3392, Rama would be easily recognizable by his blue skin.

The author of the Ramayana is considered to be the sage Valmiki, who lived in the 4th century BC. This was a very colorful personality. He was a robber until he met seven sages who set him on the right path. While meditating on the name "Rama", he fell into a trance, in which he spent several years. During this time, an anthill formed around his body, for which he received his name - “Valmiki” literally means “who came out of the anthill.” After awakening, he either composed or wrote down a poem about Rama and Sita, based on the retelling of another sage. This amazing man also passed away in an original way: while meditating, he attained perfect knowledge and froze in place, and his body, which had become unnecessary, was eaten by the same ants.

It would seem that the story about Rama, included in the Mahabharata, should indicate that the Ramayana was created earlier. However, some realities of the poem suggest that it appeared later, after the Vedic period, and was included in the Mahabharata as an inserted episode, of which there are many. This may indicate that the Ramayana was pure fiction, a “historical fantasy” about legendary times, written, however, based on realities contemporary to the author. The fairy-tale plot of the poem only confirms this hypothesis, although Rama is believed to be a real historical figure.

“DID YOU PRAY AT NIGHT, SITA?”

The king of the Rakshasa demons, Ravana, received from the god Brahma the gift of invulnerability from gods and demons - and abused it, conquering almost the entire world with its help. God Vishnu decided to end this. For this, Vishnu incarnated in a mortal - Prince Rama. He grew up to be a valiant warrior, and divine power helped him win the competition for the hand of the beautiful princess Sita.

Rakshasa in the game Heroes of Might and Magic V.

Later, due to a conflict over succession to the throne, Rama, along with Sita and his faithful brother Lakshmana, went into exile in the forest, losing the throne to his half-brother Bharata. There Sita was kidnapped by Ravana, captivated by her beauty. Rama, along with his brother brother, the monkey king Hanuman, rushed to search. With the help of an army of monkeys, he defeated Ravana, and upon returning home he became king.

However, the drama doesn't end there. At first, Rama, doubting Sita's loyalty, subjected her to the test of fire, and later was forced to expel her from the palace because the people did not believe her innocence. Instead of their father, Sita's sons were raised by the same sage Valmiki. Many years later, Rama met his ex-wife and children again. But instead of reuniting with his family, the restless king for the third time demands proof of his wife’s fidelity. She prayed that Mother Earth would accept her into her arms if she was innocent. The earth opened up and swallowed Sita. Now, according to Brahma, Rama will meet her only in heaven.

It is the complicated story of Sita's loyalty that may indicate that the Ramayana was written later than the Mahabharata. This view of family relationships is in no way compatible with the polyandry described in the Mahabharata. At the same time, as befits the epic, Rama’s actions are not condemned: he is an ideal example of following the path of dharma, even though he is an avatar of the god Vishnu. His reign, according to legend, lasted ten thousand years, and it was an era of universal peace and prosperity.

EPICS AND COMICS

Despite the fact that the Ramayana simply begs for a high-budget film adaptation, its plot most often ends up in cartoons and comics. However, Indians film their favorite story often and with pleasure: the most famous is their 78-episode television series “Ramayana” (1988-1989), as well as its 2008 remake. And in 2010, the Indian division of Warner Brothers released the full-length cartoon “Ramayana: An Epic.”

This is not the only way Indians have made the ancient epic interesting for the younger generation. In 2006-2008, the American-Indian publishing house Virgin Comics published the luxurious graphic novel “Ramayana 3392”. Here Rama, the prince of the last human kingdom, battles the demonic invaders, mainly their ruler Ravana. There is a lot of dynamic action in this story, although the philosophy - in particular, the concept of dharma - is presented in it rather weakly. But, despite this, the comic received excellent reviews from critics who appreciated the original reading of the epic and the work of the artists.

Rama's colorful brother-in-arms, the monkey king Hanuman, received many of his own plot threads, in which he covered almost all of Asia. In China and Japan he is known under the name Sun Wukong; he became a character in the famous novel “Journey to the West” by Wu Cheng’en, ​​as well as its numerous film adaptations. Among them are the Sayuki anime and the upcoming new Chinese adaptation, which will be written by Neil Gaiman.

HUSBAND AND WIFE - ONE KARMA

The Mahabharata is full of interpolated stories that the characters tell each other. This principle of storytelling is familiar to us from The Thousand and One Nights, the roots of which grow precisely from the Indian epic. This simple and touching story was told to console Yudhishthira when he lost the kingdom at dice.

King Nal and Princess Damayanti fell in love even before they met, based on stories about each other's beauty and virtue. However, the happiness of the young spouses was short-lived. Nal's envious brother won the kingdom from him at dice and offered to put his wife on the line, but the king refused. Together with Damayanti they wandered and suffered hardships. Finally, Nal returned his wife to her father, so as not to bring her more misfortune, and he himself entered the service of the king of another country as a charioteer.

But Damayanti did not give up hope of returning her beloved husband and resorted to a trick. She publicly recognized her husband as dead, and herself as a widow, and announced a new gathering of suitors, to which Nalya’s new owner also came. Finally, the couple managed to meet and explain. For a complete happy ending, Nal returned to his kingdom and, having successfully played dice with his brother, became king again.

The Mahabharata and Ramayana deserve attention for the fact that for many millennia they have served as a source of spiritual culture for the second most populous country in the world. Perhaps, thanks to globalization, the whole world will get to know these stories better and will be impressed, if not by the philosophy, then at least by the scale of the events, the beauty of the style and the exciting plots. Many young science fiction fans will do well to know that the word “avatar” was not invented by James Cameron.

The amazing structure of the Mahabharata, with all the diversity of elements incorporated into it, forms an artistic whole, which had a huge influence on all later literature in ancient and modern Indian languages, and partly on the literature of adjacent countries. So eg. The Persian poet Jalaluddin Rumi retells the above-mentioned parable of the “man in the well.”

The plot of the Mahabharata has a dual impact on European literature. On the one hand, in European folklore it is possible to establish a filiation of fables and parables of the Mahabharata, influencing book Christian didactics through Arabic-Jewish didactic literature. The ways of this transmission of plots are not entirely clear; the most likely is the presence of a number of intermediary links and common sources, and in some cases the possibility of polygenesis of such plots cannot be ruled out. On the other hand, at the beginning of the 19th century. the development of the Mahabharata by European literature begins through the translations of Bang, Rückert, Zhukovsky, Gubernatis and others. If the huge structure of the epic remained generally insufficiently mastered, then individual fragments (like “Nal and Damayanti”, “Savitri”, etc.) entered the treasury of the world literature.

Indian literary tradition considers the Mahabharata to be a single work, and its authorship is attributed to the legendary sage Krishna-Dvaipayana Vyasa.

The Mahabharata is a truly unique phenomenon in the literary history of not only India, but the whole world. It is enough to remember its volume. The Mahabharata in its current form contains 100 thousand slokas (couplets). Therefore, it is the greatest literary work known to mankind. The following comparison will certainly help to imagine its enormous volume. The Mahabharata is eight times larger than the Iliad and Odyssey combined; it is greater than all the epics in European languages ​​combined. Even more striking is the information from tradition about the different types of Mahabharata given in the epic itself. It is said that the great Vyasa created Mbh, consisting of six million slokas. Of these six million, three million are narrated among the gods, one and a half million among the ancestors, one million four hundred thousand slokas among the Gandharvas, and the remaining one hundred thousand slokas are meant for humans. If we ignore the mythical nature of the tradition, then, without a doubt, it contains some

indications of the history of the Mahabharata text. Based on this tradition, we can confidently assume that throughout the long history of the Mahabharata, the literary activity of the creators of the epic was manifested either in its contraction or in its expansion. In this regard, I would like to draw attention to another remarkable feature of the Mahabharata. Despite its gigantic volume, this epic poem does not give the impression of chaos and diversity. Without dwelling on the literary merits of the Mahabharata, we can say with confidence that upon closer acquaintance, this epic work as a whole turns out to be a surprisingly proportionate and harmonious structure.

However, it is not only the grandeur of its volume that makes the Mahabharata one of its kind. Its content is also unique in many respects. Even the unprepared reader of the Mahabharata is amazed by its encyclopedic nature. We can say that it contains almost all the knowledge of that time about religion, mythology, laws, ethics, philosophy, the art of government and warfare, history, and ethnography. The Mahabharata is a very complete historical account of a long period of India's past, written, moreover, with an excellent understanding of the lives of men and women of all walks of life. The epic, with truly cinematic precision, frame by frame unfolds before us a living picture of the cultural life of Indians over several centuries. Nobody expressed this “Indianness” of the epic more eloquently than the comprehensively competent German Indologist Hermann Oldenberg, who wrote the words: “In the Mahabharata, the single soul of India and the soul of every Indian individual breathe.” Therefore, Mbh can be called the national saga of India in its fullest sense of the word. It is not surprising that the Indians elevated their epic to the rank of the fifth Veda, thereby recognizing it as the same sacred authority as the four Vedas. This obviously means that in reality the Mahabharata has greater significance than all the Vedas and others sacred books of India.

The pathos of the Mahabharata is not limited to the framework of one India, one people, it has truly acquired a universal, universal sound. And a careful study of the Mahabharata convinces that there is no exaggeration in this statement. Truly, the Mahabharata is a wonderful testimony of the collective conscious, unconscious and subconscious in man. Perhaps there is no human thought and feeling that is not captured in the epic; There is not a single conceivable situation in human life that is not described in the epic. Perhaps the most amazing feature of the Mahabharata is that any reader finds lines that seem to be addressed directly to him. In this sense, the Mahabharata belongs not only to Indians, but to all people of the Earth.

The author of the epic never loses sight of the main conflict. The enmity between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, which forms the central theme of the poem, is not, according to Dahlmann, historically accurate. Otherwise, Indian history would certainly have preserved traces of this enmity in one way or another. It seems that the author set himself exclusively didactic goals, i.e. wanted to depict the conflict between good and evil and show that good ultimately triumphs over evil.

In the history of ancient Indian literature, we can thus trace the development of two main literary traditions. One of them, the tradition of mantras, very quickly consolidated due to, so to speak, its overtly religious-priestly content and, accordingly, quickly acquired a fixed literary form. The Sut tradition, on the contrary, remained “fluid” for a long time, perhaps because its keepers did not find such a central plot or a corresponding literary core that could unite around itself all the diversity of its elements. However, over time, such a plot, which made it possible to unify and combine the epic material, appeared. It was the most important event in the history of ancient India. As a result of the famous Vedic “Battle of the Ten Kings,” the Bharata clan gained a certain power over other states and principalities created by both the Aryans and the indigenous population. The descendants of this powerful clan probably reigned supreme over a large part of Northern India until the 13th - 12th centuries. BC, until a seemingly insignificant “family” feud hung over the political horizon of the entire country like a menacing cloud. The story of the conflict between the Kauravas and their cousins ​​the Pandavas is too well known to be repeated here. The conflict arose due to the fact that the Pandavas began to lay claim to part of the kingdom of Hastinapura, which was ruled by the blind king Dhritarashtra. Due to the high position of the house of Bharatas in the political life of India at that time, ordinary family feuds soon assumed the proportions of a national calamity. The kings and leaders of the entire country were divided into two warring camps depending on who they were loyal to. The epic battle took place on the famous field of Kurukshetra. The battle lasted only eighteen days, but these days shocked the entire country. Both armies, the flower of Indian youth, perished on this field. In the end, victory went to the Pandavas, and the war quite rightly received the name of the Bharata war.

The World History. Volume 3 Age of Iron Badak Alexander Nikolaevich

Ancient Indian epic. Mahabharata and Ramayana

During the Vedic period, the history of ancient India saw the formation of epic creativity. Epic poems belong to written monuments and are one of the most important and significant sources on the history and culture of ancient India of the first half of the 1st millennium BC. e. Epic poems were composed and edited over many centuries; they also reflected the phenomena of the Vedic era. The main epic monuments of ancient India include the poems “Mahabharata” and “Ramayana”. These late Vedic works of literature are huge in size, heterogeneous in composition and varied in content.

In both works, truth, fiction and allegory are intertwined. It is believed that the Mahabharata was created by the sage Vyas, and the Ramayana by Valmiki. However, in the form in which these creations have come down to us, they cannot belong to any one author and do not belong to the same century in terms of the time of creation. The modern form of these great epic poems is the result of numerous and continuous additions and changes.

The largest in size is the Mahabharata, it is 8 times larger than the Odyssey and Iliad combined. Due to the richness and diversity of its content, it is called an encyclopedia of ancient Indian life. The Mahabharata contains a wealth of material on economic and social development, government and forms of political organization, rights, customs and culture. Of particular value is information of a cosmological and religious nature, philosophical and ethical content. All this information reflects the process of the emergence of Indian philosophy and religion, the formation of the fundamental features of Hinduism, the cult of the gods Shiva and Vishnu. In general, the Mahabharata reflects the stage of development of ancient Indian society associated with the strengthening of the Kshatriya class and their struggle with the Brahmins for a leading position in society.

The plot of the Mahabharata (the Great War of the Descendants of Bharata) is the struggle for power within the royal Kuru family, which ruled Hastinapur. The Kuru clan was one of the most powerful in Northern India, descended from Bharata, a king from the Lunar dynasty. In this family there were two brothers Dhritarashtra - the eldest and Pandu - the younger. Everyone had a family and children.

The sons of Pandu were called Pandavas (descendants of Pandu), and the sons of Dhritarashtra were called Kauravas, since he was the eldest in the clan and the family surname passed to him.

The ruler was Panda, since due to a physical disability - blindness, Dhritarashtra could not occupy the throne. The panda dies, leaving young heirs. This is taken advantage of by the sons of Dhritarashtra, who wanted to destroy the Pandavas and establish their power. However, certain circumstances do not allow them to do this and the Kauravas were forced to cede part of the kingdom to their cousins.

However, the Kauravas do not give up their idea to deal with the Pandavas and thus deprive them of part of the inheritance. They use various tricks. The Kauravas challenged the Pandavas to a game of dice; at that time these were a kind of duels from which it was not customary to refuse. To sort things out, the Kshatriyas had such peculiar duels, where they measured their strengths, abilities, and determined their position. As a result of several rounds of the game, the Pandavas lost all their wealth and, based on the conditions of the game, their part of the kingdom passed to the Kauravas, and they were forced to go into exile in the forests for thirteen years.

After this period, the Pandavas demanded their share of the kingdom, but Duryodhan, the eldest of the Kauravas, refused them. This led to an internecine war, the fate of which was decided by the famous battle on the Kurukshetra plain. The battle was brutal, bloody and lasted eighteen days. Almost all the Kauravas were killed. Yudhishthira, the eldest of the Pandavas, became the king of Hastinapura. After some time, the Pandavas renounced worldly life and transferred their power to Parikshit, the grandson of Arjuna, one of the Pandava brothers.

The Mahabharata includes a religious and philosophical treatise - “Gita” or “Bhagavad Gita” (“Song of God”), which was Krishna’s teaching to Arjuna. During the battle on the plain of Kurukshetra, Arjuna did not dare to take up arms against his relatives. The fact is that, according to the ideas of that era, regardless of the reason, the murder of relatives and friends was considered a sin and was subject to the strictest prohibition.

God Krishna gave a commandment, explaining to Arjuna that he is a kshatriya, and the duty of a kshatriya is to fight and kill the enemy, that he is deluded into thinking that in battle he is killing his relatives. The soul is eternal, nothing can kill or destroy it. If you fight and win, you will gain kingdom and happiness; if you die in battle, you will reach heaven. Krishna showed the confused Arjuna the right way to combine his interests with duty, which was contrary to these interests. Krishna then explained to him his divine mission. The Gita deals with many issues that are universal in nature. It is the most popular work of Indian thought and occupies a place of honor in world literature.

Examples of bronze (left) and stone (center and right) sculpture. Harappan culture.

In terms of size and historical data, the Ramayana (The Tale of Rama) is inferior to the Mahabharata, although it is distinguished by a more harmonious composition and better editing.

The plot of the Ramayana is based on the life story of Rama - an ideal son and an ideal ruler. There was a ruler in Ayodhya, Dasharatha, who had four sons from three wives. In old age, he appoints his eldest son Rama, who was superior to his brothers in intelligence, strength, courage, bravery and nobility, as his successor (nowaraja). But his stepmother Kaykein opposed this, she sought to appoint her son Bharat as heir, and Rama left the country for fourteen years in exile. With his wife Sita and younger brother Lakshmana, he retired to the forests. Distressed by this event, Dasharatha dies, Bharata renounced the throne, but agreed to rule the country until Rama returned.

During the wanderings of Rama, Ravana, the king of the rakshasas (demons) and the ruler of Lanka (Ceylon), kidnapped Sita. This led to a long war between Rama and Ravana. Ultimately, Ravana was killed, Sita was released, and Rama, whose period of exile had expired, returned with Sita to Ayodhya and assumed the throne. Some in Ayodhya doubted the purity of Sita, Rama expels her, she retires to the cell of Rishi Valmiki, where she gives birth to two boys, Lava and Kusha. Rama later recognizes them as his sons and heirs.

Possessing historical and literary value, the poems “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” became the national treasure of the Indian people, who found moral support and support in them during difficult periods of their history. These poems provide guidance on laws and morals. The moral character of the characters in these works has become an example for many generations of Hindus.

From the book The Newest Book of Facts. Volume 3 [Physics, chemistry and technology. History and archaeology. Miscellaneous] author Kondrashov Anatoly Pavlovich

From the book Tsar of the Slavs. author

4. The “ancient” Indian epic Mahabharata about Christ building a water supply For a detailed analysis of the Mahabharata, see our book “New Chronology of India”. Here we will touch upon only one isolated plot - how the construction of a water pipeline by Andronicus-Christ was reflected in

From the book Reconstruction of True History author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

From the book Reconstruction of True History author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

34. Cossack-Aryans: from Rus' to India, Epic of the Mahabharata Above, we mentioned the famous “ancient” Indian Epic of the Mahabharata. Here is a summary of the results of our research. The epic draws heavily on the Bible. It was created in the era of the XIV–XVI centuries and was finally edited

From the book History of the Ancient East author Lyapustin Boris Sergeevich

Ancient Indian epic The process of settlement of Indo-Aryan tribes throughout Hindustan was finally completed in the Mauryan era. The central events of the ancient Indian epic go back to the late Vedic era. But it was during the Gupta period that the text of the two

author Vasiliev Leonid Sergeevich

Rama and Ramayana Rama is the hero of the ancient Indian epic Ramayana. This classic epic took shape in its completed written form several centuries BC and came into widespread use, becoming one of the foundations of Indian culture during the formation of Hinduism at the beginning of our era.

From the book History of Eastern Religions author Vasiliev Leonid Sergeevich

Tales and myths. Mahabharata Traditions and myths have firmly entered the life of every Indian, becoming an important part of Hinduism. Among the wide-ranging epic tales, besides the Ramayana, Indians know the Mahabharata, the great story of the battle of gods and heroes. This is a legend of great volume with

author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

Part 1 When the famous epics “Mahabharata” and “Ramayana” were created and what they tell about 1. Scaligerian chronology of India In the book “Foundations of History”, ch. 7:8, in the section “Problems of the Scaligerian chronology of India”, we point out the fact that the chronology of ancient and

From the book Cossacks-Aryans: From Rus' to India [Battle of Kulikovo in the Mahabharata. "Ship of Fools" and the Revolt of the Reformation. Veles's book. New dating of the zodiacs. Ireland author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

2.1.Mahabharata It is believed that “Mahabharata is a grandiose epic of ancient India, which took shape about 2500 years ago. The plot of the epic is the tragic struggle of two related royal dynasties of the Pandavas and Kauravas. On this plot basis a huge number of

From the book Cossacks-Aryans: From Rus' to India [Battle of Kulikovo in the Mahabharata. "Ship of Fools" and the Revolt of the Reformation. Veles's book. New dating of the zodiacs. Ireland author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

2.2. Ramayana Let's move on to the Ramayana. The Encyclopedic Dictionary reports: “The Ramayana is an ancient Indian epic poem in Sanskrit. Attributed to the legendary poet Valmiki. It acquired its modern appearance by the 2nd century. n. e. Dedicated to the exploits of Rama. Source of stories and images of many

From the book Cossacks-Aryans: From Rus' to India [Battle of Kulikovo in the Mahabharata. "Ship of Fools" and the Revolt of the Reformation. Veles's book. New dating of the zodiacs. Ireland author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

3. The famous Aryans, about whom the Mahabharata and Ramayana tell, came to the Hindustan Peninsula from the north. These are the Cossacks-Horde XIV

From the book Cossacks-Aryans: From Rus' to India [Battle of Kulikovo in the Mahabharata. "Ship of Fools" and the Revolt of the Reformation. Veles's book. New dating of the zodiacs. Ireland author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

3.1. “The Tale of Rama” or “Small Ramayana” as part of the “Mahabharata” speaks of the colonization of India by the Aryans. The fact that the “most ancient” Aryans = Yuri = Ardents came to the Hindustan Peninsula from the north is reported by historians themselves. B.L. Smirnov sums up the research on this matter as follows:

From the book Tsar of the Slavs author Nosovsky Gleb Vladimirovich

4. “ANCIENT” INDIAN EPIC MAHABHARATA ABOUT CHRIST BUILDING A WATER PIPEL For a detailed analysis of the Mahabharata, see our book “Cossacks-Aryans: from Rus' to India.” Here we will touch upon only one isolated plot - how the construction of a water pipeline by Andronicus-Christ was reflected in

From the book Ancient East author

Epic literature of ancient India. “Mahabharata” Like many literatures of the world, ancient Indian literature has its own epic, glorifying the “heroic era” of Indian history. The ancient Indian epic is represented by two large poems composed in ancient times, but extremely

From the book Ancient East author Nemirovsky Alexander Arkadevich

"Ramayana" The second epic poem - "Ramayana" - tells about the exploits of King Rama. Forced into exile from his father's house, Rama lived in a secluded forest abode with his wife Sita. The demon Ravana, the ruler of Lanka, heard about her beauty. The demon accepted

From the book General History of the World's Religions author Karamazov Voldemar Danilovich

“Mahabharata” and “Ramayana” A serious role in the development of the religious doctrine of Hinduism belongs to Indian epic works - the poems “Mahabharata” and “Ramayana”. What initially developed and was passed on as local legends was eventually written down and

November 23rd, 2014 , 02:48 am

Millions of viewers around the world are fascinated by the developments in the talented Indian television series “Mahabharata” - 2013. Compared to previous film adaptations, this version is most attractive to viewers due to the fact that computer graphics and special effects were used in the filming of the series.

We must pay tribute to the high quality of the actors' performances. Compared to previous film adaptations of the Mahabharata, it was performed brilliantly!
There is only one sad thing - only a handful of people around the world know that the Mahabharata is the greatest chronicle monument of the Cultural Heritage of Ancient Rus'. Yes, dear reader! MAHABHARATA IS THE GREATEST CHRONICLE MONUMENT OF THE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF ANCIENT Rus'. But to be convinced of this, you will have to read this article to the very end.

I'll try to be brief. You will read the main evidence in the listed primary sources and see in the documentaries created on their basis, which are attached to this article. Therefore, referring to them, I will try to present ready-made conclusions. You can REVIEW YOURSELF with the information on which they are based. The benefit of this for you will be that these will be YOUR PERSONAL CONCLUSIONS, made BASED ON YOUR SANE.

In accordance with the Slavic-Aryan Vedas, published in Omsk by the Patriarchate of Orthodox Old Believers and the video lessons of their Asgard (Omsk) Theological School, as well as the chronicles stored in the hermitages and skufs of the Old Believers, our Ancestors - the Slavic-Aryans first arrived on this planet 1.5 billion years ago, calling our Mother Earth Midgard. They lived at the North Pole in Da'Aria (Arktida, Arktogea), where the climate, in those days, corresponded to modern subtropics. In the center of this continent, surrounded by the ocean, stood the Mount of Peace (Meru). The mainland was divided into 4 parts by 4 rivers: Kh'Arra, Svaga, Rae and Tule. Two fraternal peoples lived there: Aryans (Kh'Aryans and Da'Aryans) and Slavs (Rasen and Svetorus). The capital of Da'Ariya was Asgard-Da'Aryan.

The level of their consciousness allowed them to have not only a military and civilian SPACE FLEET, which provided them with the opportunity to communicate with relatives from their home planets in the constellations Ursa Minor and Big Dipper, Leo, Cygnus and Cassiopeia, but also GATES OF BETWEEN WORLDS (devices for teleportation), which helped to instantly transfer “ Trojan's Path" to other constellations, using the natural properties of the Navi world.



More than 600,000 years ago, our Ancestors, who lived on Midgard-Earth, observed 3
Suns: Suryu-Yarilu and two more powerful Suns located outside our Solar System. About 143,000 years ago, 3 moons revolved around Midgard-Earth: Lelya, Month and Fatta. Two of them - Month and Fatta - were installed in an orbit around the Earth by our Ancestors. This was done to correct the Earth's geomagnetic field.

As a result of this disaster, the continent of Da'Aria (Arctida, Arctogea) began to slowly sink into the ocean, and our Ancestors were forced to settle in the subpolar region rising above the waters of the global flood, and then the rest of the Urals, as well as the highlands of the planet, using whitemans ( light surface-to-surface spacecraft). You can read more about our ancient space fleet in my article “Heavenly Ships of Our Gods and Ancestors.” Part 1. and “Heavenly ships of our Gods and Ancestors.” Part 2.
The climate of Midgard-Earth has changed. The waters of the world's oceans at the planet's poles were bound by eternal ice. The overall level of the world's seas has dropped. Our Ancestors began to settle from the Urals - all the northern lands of the Eurasian continent freed from the flood along the retreated coastal line of the ocean - as close as possible to the Ancient Homeland, as well as the lands on both sides of the Ural ridge. More than 106,780 years ago, at the confluence of the rivers Iriya Quishaish (Irtysh) and Oum (Omi), they founded their new capital - Asgard-Iriysky.

Since those ancient times, all the peoples of the world have had legends not only about Da’Aria (Arctida, Arktogea), but also about Hyperborea - as the heiress of Da’Aria. Therefore, until now, the entire land of the Russian North (Behold: this, this. Faith: Knowledge of Ra - the Primordial Light of the Progenitor) and the Urals (u-Ra - La: enlightened soul, i.e. The place where enlightened Souls comprehend Ra - The Primordial Light of the Progenitor) is literally crammed with artifacts that confirm this, but are carefully hidden by modern “science,” as you can see by visiting the website of the International Club of Scientists “ALL ABOUT HYPERBOREA.”

I will list the main authors - recognized authorities who testified to the existence of Da'Aria and her successor - Hyperborea in European chronicles and historical sources:
BEFORE the 7th century BC. - Homer, Hesiod.
7th CENTURY BC - Aristaeus, Alcman.
6th CENTURY BC - Alkay.
V CENTURY BC - Cratinus, Heraclitus, Bacchylides, Damaste of Sigea, Herodotus.
IV CENTURY BC - Hecataeus of Pontus, Aeschylus, Pindar, Hellanicus, Plato, Phanodemus.
III CENTURY BC – Simmias of Rhodes, Sophocles, Simmias of Rhodes, Hecataeus of Abdera, Pytheas, Theopompus, Aristotle, Lycurgus, Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, Theophrastus of Eres, Philostephanes of Cyrene.
II CENTURY BC - Eratosthenes, Mnasaeus of Patras.
1st CENTURY BC - Apollodorus, Diodorus Sicilian, Pherenik, Cicero, Horace, Timagenes of Alexandria, Dionysius of Halicarnassus.
1st century AD - Trog Pompey, Strabo, Ovid, Pliny the Elder, Celsus, Apollonius, Pomponius Mela.
2nd century AD – Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Pausanias, Plutarch, Ptolemy, Lucian, Apuleius, Dionysius.
3rd century AD – Diogenes Laertius, Claudius Aelianus, Gaius Julius Solinus.
4th century AD - Porphyry, Themistius, Iamblichus, Eusebius, Himerius, Horapollo, Stephen of Byzantium, Gregory the Theologian, Ausonius Decimus Magnus.
5th century AD – Hesychius, Cyril of Alexandria, Marcian.
12th century AD – John Tzetz, Eustathius.
XIII century AD – R. Bacon, Nikephoros Blemmead.
XIV century AD – R. Nero.
16th century AD – M. Greek, T. More, C. Munster, O. Magnus, Diogo Riogo Ribeira, Paracelsus, Nostradamus, O. Phineus, G. Mercator, A. Ortelius, G. Becanus, D. Di, A. Saknussem, G Humphrey, Gerard de Jode, M. Frobisher, Hadji Ahmed, Francesco da Collo, Petro Planco.
17th century AD – T. Campanella, O. Rudbeck.
18th century AD – J.S. Bailly, N.I. Gnedich.
19th century AD – N.M. Karamzin, A.S. Pushkin, V.V. Kapnist, W.F. Warren, Saint-Ives D'Alveidre, A.N. Afanasyev, E.P. Blavatsky, Delphic Paean, K. Balmont.
20th century AD – B G. Tilak, E.A. Jelacic, N.K. Roerich, R. Guenon, G. Wirth, A.F. Losev.

In August 1845, the Russian Geographical Society was established in St. Petersburg, one of whose tasks was to search for the Northern Ancient Home of the Russian people. 155 years after its founding, the Comprehensive Northern Search Expedition, organized by this society, successfully participated in the search and discovery of evidence of the existence of Hyperborea in the North of Russia.

At the end of the 20th century AD. Numerous scientific articles were written about Da’Aria and her successor, Hyperborea, as well as the origin of Sanskrit from the Old Russian language, by Doctor of Historical Sciences Natalya Romanovna Guseva, an Indologist, historian and ethnographer, a famous specialist in the culture of India, laureate of the international prize named after. Jawaharlal Nehru, member of the Writers' Union of Russia. You can get acquainted with some of them on the Rodobozhie website: “Aryans and ancient Aryan traditions.” N.R. Gusev. 2010, “The Russian North is the ancestral home of the Indoslavs.” N.R. Gusev. 2010, “Russians through the millennia, Arctic theory.” N.R. Gusev. 2007, “Antiquity: Aryas. Slavs". N.R. Gusev. 1996
As an example, I will give her short story about the origin of Sanskrit from the Old Russian language.
There you can also find many scientific articles and speeches by Svetlana Vasilievna Zharnikova, a candidate of historical sciences, art critic, and ethnographer. Some of her books and speeches are published on the Rodobozhie website: “Archaic roots of the traditional culture of the Russian North.” S.V. Zharnikova. 2003, "Golden Thread". S.V. Zharnikova. 2003

But the main information about the one and a half billion Slavic-Aryan Vedic Heritage of our Ancestors on Midgad-Earth is contained in the Slavic-Aryan Vedas, published in 1998-2002. Omsk Patriarchate of Orthodox Old Believers, in video lessons of the Asgard (Omsk) Theological School, and in the book by Vedaman Vedagor Trekhlebov “Blames of Finist - the Clear Falcon of Russia”. The largest evidence base is given in “Finist’s Blasphemy” on 650 pages of text.
The information presented in the listed publications is also confirmed in the 5-volume work of the historian and writer G.A. Sidorova: “Chronological and esoteric analysis of the development of modern civilization.” His video lectures on this topic are widely distributed on the Internet.

The first wave of settlers from the sinking Da'Aria more than 111,800 years ago, using their aerospace fleet, populated the mountainous parts of the Eurasian continent, which rose above the “global flood” as islands. The Irian (Iranian) Highlands, Tibet (For You - This or That - For You), Nepal (Not scorching, i.e. not hot), and the Himalayas (Winter Lagi, i.e. lying down) were inhabited.

When the ocean waters receded, it became possible to inhabit the mountain valleys. Having descended from the Iranian plateau and the Himalayas, our Ancestors settled in Dravidia (Do Ra See), that is, the Inde Stan (Hindustan) peninsula. Some of the Light Elders and Elders, who had reached the level of consciousness of the Gods of the World of Glory, remained to live in high-mountain ashrams (spiritual abodes). Knowing this, it is not difficult to guess who the Maha (Great) Atamans (Atmans) are, in modern terms - the Mahatmas who inhabit the legendary Shambhala of the Himalayas. N.K. Roerich and E.I. Roerich communicated with some of them personally.

While settling in Dravidia (India), our Ancestors gave the Vedic Wisdom of the “Book of Radiances” to the local black residents who had escaped from the flood in the mountains (who had previously been rescued by our Ancestors from the dying Earth Days). And so that they could study this part of Vedic Knowledge, they were taught a simplified form of the Old Russian language, calling it Sanskrit: San - Light, Shining; Skri - Tablets, Runic Writings; T - hard. It turns out that Sanskrit is not a word, but a phrase: “What the Light Tablets affirm.”

From the Vedas given to them, local residents of Hindustan learned about the Polar Homeland of our Ancestors, about the Polar Star - Tara, the Northern Lights, about the polar day and night, about the Earthly Paradise (part of Arctida). At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, having honestly and impartially studied the Vedas, the Indian scientist Bal Gangadhar Tilak wrote a scientific work: “The Arctic Homeland in the Vedas,” where he convincingly proved all of the above.

After reading 2 pages of printed text, you, dear reader, have the right to ask: “Well, okay, with Arctida and Hyperborea - it’s clear. What does Mahabhatara have to do with it? Despite the fact that the battle of the Great Character Warriors (Mahabharata) began long before our Ancestors settled on Midgard-Earth. In accordance with the Slavic-Aryan Vedas, it began with the Universal Battle of Chernobog and Belobog, into which first the Gods of the world Slavi and Navi, and then people, were drawn.

As mentioned above, for the FIRST TIME the Mahabharata thundered on our Earth more than 111,800 years ago, which led to the destruction of the moon Leli and the Flood. 40,000 years ago, the Forefather of all Slavic-Aryans, God Perun, visited Midgard-Earth and told about the future for his descendants 40,000 years in advance. He warned that the SECOND Mahabharata was coming on Earth, which would take place not only between the Gods (with the help of people) and demons, but also between the people themselves, incited by demons. This fratricide will lead to severe karmic consequences for His descendants, which will manifest themselves during the onset of the Night of Svarozh.
Forefather God Perun told us that the SECOND Mahabharata will be followed by the THIRD, FOURTH and so on until we wake up with the onset of the Morning of Svarog and stop our crimes for Kon. Forefather God Perun told us the Heavenly Commandments (Santi Vedas of Perun) and called on all his children to sacredly honor Kon, the Commandments of the Progenitor Family, Native Gods and Goddesses, living according to Conscience and in harmony with Nature, which will allow us to pass these tests of the Soul and Spirit with Honor and Dignity.

The SECOND Mahabharata thundered on Midgard-Earth more than 13,000 years ago and led to new natural disasters. This was the first civil war on this planet between the Slavic-Aryans, provoked by demons who seduced the Priests and Princes of the continent of Antlan (the Country of the Ants - Atlandids) to oppose the will of the Tsar of the World Slavic-Aryan Power. The causes of the war were, firstly, the attempts of the Ants and demons to establish the demonic planet No-World (Ni-World - Nibiru) in a favorable orbit of rotation around the Sun, and, secondly, the unauthorized use of gravitational, tectonic, climatic factors by the Priests and Princes of the Ants and nuclear weapons against the Priests and the Royal squad of the World Slavic-Aryan Power, who remained faithful to the Native Gods-Ancestors and opposed the demonic plan of the Ants, seduced by the reptilians.

From “orbital experiments”, burdened by the use of gravitational weapons, the moon Fatta split into pieces, and its fragments, unable to stay in orbit, fell onto Midgard-Earth, causing colossal destruction and new movements of continental plates. This time Antlan sank. Its civilians (who did not participate in the civil war) were saved by our Ancestors. Volcanic eruptions caused by tectonic weapons darkened the atmosphere with volcanic ash. All taken together, taking into account the use of nuclear weapons, plunged the Nature of Midgard-Earth into a “nuclear winter”.
From the second ice age, our Ancestors fled to the lands of the equatorial belt of the planet. This is where, “by leaps and bounds,” the cultures of the country of Ta-Kemi (Egypt), Peru (land named after the God Perun), Bolivia, etc. flourished.

The Culture of Dravidia (India) also flourished even more. The settlers of the “first wave” already lived there; now they accepted the settlers of the “second wave”. To this day, there is a long-standing tradition of our people to call the main hydronyms and toponyms in new habitats by old names. Therefore, it is not surprising that the main names of the mountains, rivers and lakes of Dravidia (India) correspond to the names of the mountains, rivers and lakes of first Da’Ariya, then Hyperborea, and then the Volga-Oka basin of central Russia.

When climatic conditions began to improve and the glacier began to retreat, some of our Ancestors gradually began to return from Dravidia (India) to their old places of residence. Thus, the entire Eurasian continent was repopulated and inhabited and the World Slavic-Aryan Power was restored.
The THIRD Mahabharata, written evidence of which is now considered the “Ancient Indian Epic”, in accordance with the Slavic-Aryan Vedas, occurred 5,000 years ago. This was the second (after the war with the Antes) civil war between the Slavic-Aryans, which was again provoked by demons. But now it turned out to be much easier for them to do this, since they had already skillfully manipulated those karmic sins and knots that arose between the Slavic-Aryans as a result of their first civil war. Taking into account the Vedic Knowledge about Karma and Reincarnation, you, dear readers, even without me, can draw the correct conclusion that for the third time the SAME HEROES participated in it as in the first and second, plus new ones drawn into this “meat grinder” by both Gods and demons.

Since the demonic thirst for bloodshed is understandable (they feed on gavvah - the energy of death and suffering), I will explain why new people were also drawn into the third Mahabharata by the Gods. Knowing that all earthly wars are projections of the Universal Battle of Belobog and Chernobog, one must also understand that, in accordance with Rock, all Great Warriors NEED lessons, tests and exams, which they take not in classrooms, but on the Field Scold. Without passing the exams as a Great Warrior, it is impossible to become a Worthy Clergyman. Therefore, Popular Wisdom says: “War is like a knight’s mother.” The Ancestors were not afraid of death, knowing that they would be incarnated again. To a greater extent, they were afraid of losing Honor, Dignity and Truth. They also condemned fratricide. Due to this, the demons tried to seize power on Midgad-Earth 5,000 years ago, as well as 13,000 years ago. They incarnated in the royal family of the Knights of Kursk (Kuru) as 100 sons of the blind king Dhritarashtra, hoping that as brothers of the Pandava Gods they, under the guise of “brotherly ties” with the Gods, would be able to do evil.
Speaking about the need for wars for the Knights, it is necessary to clarify that the Vesi and Smerds never participated in wars (with the exception of the last 2 centuries). These were the lessons of only Warriors, Knights (one against 10,000 Warriors) and Maharaths (one against 100,000 Warriors). Ordinary people can be Warriors, but can they be Knights and Maharathas? Of course, these are the Gods of the world of Glory, who incarnate among people to gain the experience of becoming the Gods of the world of Rule. And the Gods of the world of Rule constantly come to the Manifest World in order to restore Dharma (Righteousness, Honor, Dignity and Order).

This time it was true. In the royal family of the Yadavas, the Avatar of the God of the world, Rule the Highest, was born - Krishna. And in the family of the Knights of Kursk (Kuru), 100 great demons were born from Dhritarashtra (the plot tells that his wife Gandhari gave birth to a formless “something”, from which the Veduns cloned 100 creatures in male bodies), and the wives of King Pandu, at his request, gave birth he has 5 sons from the Gods of the worlds of Rule and Glory. These Gods and demons became the main characters of the third Earthly Mahabharata. But, after all, they were born among the Slavic-Aryan people, which means that their human relatives were drawn into the war along with them. And people had a choice - on whose side they would fight, which varna-ashram (social order) to give preference to - Divine (in accordance with the Law of the Progenitor) or demonic (civilizational).
By the way, the answer to the natural question of how demons were able to incarnate among people, and even in one of the best families of the Knights of Kursk, dear readers can be found in the article by Veledar Nevogradsky “The ability of spouses to spin the whirlwind of Childbearing Power.”
For a complete understanding, it must be said that since then the “waves” of the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and so on, the Mahabharata, have been rolling across the Earth constantly in exact accordance with the Universal rhythms of the struggle of Belobog and Chernobog. Even if you look at the scraps of information contained in modern history textbooks, you can easily see the largest “waves”:
the breakaway from Rus' of its western province - Venea, which could not resist the temptation of the descendants of reptilians, who left the path of Vedic Culture - Rodobozhiy and took the path of a demonic civilization under a new name - Europe, constant civil wars between the former Venea (which became Europe) and Russia,
the forced Christianization of Rus', accompanied by a civil war between Kievan and the rest of Russia, the war with Napoleon of 1812 is a civil war of the Slavic-Aryans, since the Ancient Franks (at that time called the French) are one of the tribal branches of the united Slavic-Aryan people .

We must understand that all indigenous European peoples are our Slavic-Aryan brothers, who (for many reasons) have forgotten that they are representatives of various branches of the SINGLE SLAVIC-ARYAN FAMILY TREE. Therefore, both the 1st and 2nd World Wars of the 20th century (the Germans - also Slavic-Aryans) - were also civil wars between the tribal branches of a single Slavic-Aryan people, both internationally (Russia-Europe), and at the domestic Russian (1918-1921) level. Realizing this is painful.

However, let's return to the THIRD Mahabharata. We have established that this was a Slavic-Aryan civil war and that the Hindu brothers could only participate in it as warriors of the province of Dravidia, which was part of the World Slavic-Aryan Power. But there is another purpose of this article - to determine whether the Mahabharata really thundered on the Hindustan Peninsula or 5,000 years ago, as (in accordance with Karma), in 1943 Kurukshetra took place on the territory of modern Russia - on the Kursk field and was called the Battle of Kursk ?
Based on the information already presented, we can conclude that most likely the third Mahabharata 5000 years ago thundered not in India, but in Rus' near Kursk. After all, karma (like facts) is a stubborn thing: “What you sow is what you reap.” But, even if Kurukshetra (Battle of Kursk Field) in the 3rd Mahabharata took place not in central Russia, but on the Hindustan Peninsula, what does this change? Indeed, in those days, Dravidia (India) was still part of the World Slavic-Aryan Power of our Ancestors.

In order not to seem unfounded, I invite readers to watch a short video about what the Hindu Brahmins said about this. It is clear that someone can reproach me for trying to assign Military Glory to Russia from India. But how can the Hindus themselves be blamed for this? If you watch the film, you will see that they themselves admitted that the end of the Battle of Kursk in Russia in 1943 marked the end of Kali Yuga and the beginning of Krita Yuga. Since they said it themselves, that means it is so! If 5000 years ago the Battle of Kursk Field (Kurukshetra) had taken place in India, then, in accordance with the Rules of Karma, in 1943 the Battle of Kursk would have taken place not near Kursk in Russia, but on Kurukshetra in India.
Video film “S. V. Zharnikova: Mahabharata – Battle of Kursk.”

But not only S.V. Zharnikova and the other above-mentioned scientists speak about this. Vedaman Vedagor also writes about this in his book “The Blasphemy of Finist - the Clear Falcon of Russia”:
“Among the many legends most known to people is the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata. This is “The Tale of the Great Character Warriors” (“maha” - great; hence: swing, wave, etc.; “b” - large; “hara” - energy umbilical center; hence: character, grub, hara-kiri - rise energy of the hara to Iriy - the Heavenly Kingdom of the Russian people, etc.) is considered the Greatest Monument of Slavic-Aryan Culture.
The Mahabharata contains almost 200 thousand lines of verses in 18 books. In one of them, called “Forest”, the illuminated springs (wells) are described - rivers and lakes of the Slavic-Aryan country, called by the epic “Bharata”, that is, the land of the Da’Aryans and Kh’Aryans. The largest river in Central Russia, the Volga, was called Ra until the 2nd century AD; in the Avesta it is called “Rankha”, and in the Rigveda and Mahabharata it is called “Ganga”.

As the Avesta narrates, along the shores of the Voorukasha Sea (“Milk Sea” of the Mahabharata, that is, the White Sea) and Ranhi (Volga) there were a number of Aryan countries - from Aryan-Vedzh (Vezha, Veda) in the Far North (Hyperborea) to seven Indian countries in southeast beyond Ranha. The spiritual center of these countries, as stated by the Rigveda and Mahabharata, is the lands between the Ganga (Volga) and the Yamuna (Oka), on Kurukshetra. It is said about them: “Illustrious Kurukshetra. All living beings, one has only to come there, get rid of sins,” or “Kurukshetra - the Light Altar of Brahma (Dazhbog); there appear the bright Brahmanas-Sages.”
Ancient Indian legends call the Yamuna the only major tributary of the Ganga (Volga), flowing from the southwest, which corresponds to the modern Oka. It is no coincidence that the tributaries of the Oka and the rivers of the Volga-Oka basin are named: Yamna, Yam, Ima, Imiev, Yaran (Solnechnaya, Svetlaya), Urga (Movement of Light), Sura (Solnechnaya), Alatyr (Illuminated Stone), Lama (Spiritual Teacher), Moksha (Enlightenment, Spiritualization), etc. According to the Slavic-Aryan texts of ancient India, the second name of the Yamuna river was Kala, and to this day the mouth of the Oka is called the mouth of Kala by local residents.

Other major rivers and cities are mentioned in the Rig Veda and Mahabharata. Thus, not far from the source of the Yamuna (Oka) is the source of the Sindhu River (“Sindhu” in Sanskrit means stream, sea), the modern Don, flowing to the east and south and flowing into the Red Sea. In Irish and Russian chronicles, the Red Sea is also called Cheryomny, that is, Red. Therefore, its northern part still bears this name. On the shores of this sea lived the people of Sind and the city of Sind (Anapa) was located. The city of Manusha is correlated with modern Moscow, the city of Rama corresponds geographically to Kolomna, Sita to Serpukhov, Shiva to Ryazan, Soma to Suzdal, Vamana to Murom, etc.
In the Volga-Oka interfluve there are many rivers, the names of which have been lost for millennia. To prove this, no special effort is required: it is enough to compare the names of the Poochya rivers with the names of the “illuminated springs” in the Mahabharata, more precisely in the part of it that is known as “Walking along the springs.” It is in it that a description is given of more than 200 illuminated reservoirs of the Slavic-Aryan country of Bharata in the basins of the Ganges (Volga) and Yamuna (Oka) as of 3150 BC:

Economist, ecologist and geographer A. Vinogradov and candidate of historical sciences S. Zharnikova argue that not only the names of the sacred springs of the Mahabharata and the rivers of Central Russia coincide, but also their relative locations. So in both Sanskrit and Russian, words with the initial letter “F” are extremely rare: from the list of rivers of the Mahabharata, only one river has “F” at the beginning of its name - Falguna, which flows into the Tsarasvati River. According to the Slavic-Aryan texts of ancient India, Tsarasvati is the only large river flowing north of the Yamuna (Oka) and south of the Ganges (Volga) and flowing into the Yamuna (Oka) at its mouth. Only the Klyazma River, located north of the Oka and south of the Volga, corresponds to it. Among hundreds of its tributaries, only one has a name starting with “F” - Falyugin. Despite 5 thousand years, this unusual name has hardly changed.

Another example. According to the Mahabharata, south of the illuminated forest of Kamyaka, the Praveni River (that is, the Pra-river) flowed into the Yamuna, with Lake Godowari. And to this day, to the south of the Vladimir forests, the Pra River flows into the Oka and Lake Godd lies. One more example. The Mahabharata tells how the sage Kaushika, during a drought, flooded the Paru River, which was renamed in his honor. But further the epic reports that ungrateful local residents still call the river Para, and it flows from the south to the Yamuna (that is, to the Oka). And the Para River still flows from the south to the Oka, which the locals call it the same way as many thousands of years ago.
The description of the springs five thousand years ago speaks of the Pandya River, flowing near Varuna, a tributary of the Sindhu (Don). The Panda River today flows into the largest tributary of the Don - the Vorona (or Varona) River. Describing the path of pilgrims, the Mahabharata says: “There are Jala and Upajala, the rivers flowing into the Yamuna” (“jala” in Skt. - river). These are the Zhala (Tarusa) river and the Upa river, flowing next to each other into the Oka. The Mahabharata also mentions the Sadanapru (Svetoy Danapr) - Dnieper river flowing west from the upper reaches of the Ganga (Volga).

In the Mahabharata, Rigveda and Avesta, the inhabitants of Bharata are constantly mentioned - Ras, Rasyane (Russians), Rusa (Rus). This country has another, constantly mentioned name - the Illuminated, Light or Light Land, and in Sanskrit “Rusa” means “bright”. The Mahabharata says that to the north of the Pandya country, lying on the banks of Varuna, is the country of the Martyas. But it is precisely to the north of modern Panda and Vorona, along the banks of the Moksha and Sura rivers, that now lies the land of the Mordva (Mortva of the Middle Ages) - a people speaking a Finno-Ugric language with a huge number of Russian, Iranian and Sanskrit words.
The country between Yamuna, Sindh, Upajala and Para was called A-Vanti. That’s exactly what Arab travelers, Byzantine chronicles and Russian chronicles called the land of the Vyatichi between the Oka, Don, Upa and Para. The Mahabharata and Rigveda mention the people of Kura and Kurukshetra (literally “Kursk field”).
It is in the center of this field that the city of Kursk is located, where “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” places the Kuryans - noble warriors. The warlike Krivi people are also mentioned in the Rig Veda. Latvians and Lithuanians call all Russians this way - “Krivi”, after the name of the neighboring Russian family of Krivichi, whose cities were Smolensk, Polotsk, Pskov, present-day Tartu and Riga.

From all of the above, the conclusion follows: THE SLAVIC-ARIANS, WHO ONCE LIVED ON THE LANDS OF CENTRAL RUSSIA AND THEN SET UP ON THE LANDS OF INDIA, TRANSFERRED THE NAMES OF THE RIVERS AND CITIES OF THEIR HOMELAND TO THE NATIVE RIVERS AND CITIES.”
Now, having secured the listed conclusions of authoritative researchers of the past of the Slavic-Aryan peoples, I can repeat what I started this article with: MAHABHARATA IS THE GREATEST CHRONICLE MONUMENT OF THE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF ANCIENT Rus'.

In the attached video films you will find confirmation of what you read in this article:
“Fragments of Da-Aria – the Ancestral Home of Russia”!
"Russian version. The Mystery of Hyperborea."
“The Moon Moon is a spaceship.”
“Russia is the ancestral home of humanity. Diring-Yuryakh".
“Rus' was all over the globe.”
"Asgard-Iriysky - Capital of the Rus."
"Hyperborean expedition of V. Demin." Part 1.
"Hyperborean expedition of V. Demin." Part 2.
"Hyperborean expedition of V. Demin." Part 3.
"Unity of the Russian language and Sanskrit."
"Antediluvian cities in the North of Russia."
“Where did the Russian Land come from?”
“Ancient Russian Mahabharata. A prophecy about Russia’s salvation of the whole world.”
“The true history of mankind has been preserved”!
"Perun's visit to Midgard-Earth."
“Sanskrit (SamSkryt) is a simplified form of the Old Slovenian language.”
“Slavic Aryan Vedas. Death of the Moon of Fatta."
“The pharaohs of Egypt wore clothes made of Russian linen.”
"Aryans of Assia (Asia)."
"Northern Rus and Arias of the Mahabharata".
"Vedaman Vedagor - about the Mahabharata."
“Vedaman Vedagor. Mahabharata. Ramayana".
"Vedaman Vedagor - about the events in the Mahabharata."

Vseslav - ally of the Rodobozhie project

India... seems to us a wonderful kingdom, enchanted by the world.
Hegel

This is how India appeared to the European imagination. Luxurious, fabulously rich, she seemed to conceal within herself all the blessings of the world. Two deep rivers, the Indus and the Ganges, irrigate its fertile plains, and its southern borders are washed by the ocean.

Lush, crowded cities come into contact with impenetrable jungles, primeval forests, and lush tropical vegetation. And man in India lives in constant, indissoluble proximity to the natural world, with its flora and fauna. Now, as in ancient times, he is full of respect for her, reverence for her. He glorifies the sun, the life-giving water source, the air, every living creature.

The culture, morals, customs, and religion of India seem unusual and outlandish to the eyes of Europeans. From ancient times to the present day, all living things have been considered sacred in India. An Indian will not kill any animal, insect or bird. In the parks of Indian cities, cows roam freely and monkeys frolic. An Indian will not allow himself to step on an ant. All living things are sacred.

In the most distant times, separate castes (varnas) arose in India. The highest of them - the brahmanas (servants of Brahma) enjoyed the greatest influence and honor, followed by the caste (varna) of the kshatriya warriors, then came the vaishyas - the craft and merchant people, the last - powerless - the shudras and the most despised stratum of the population - the pariahs (untouchables) .

Religion perpetuated, first of all, class differences, creating impenetrable barriers between individual social groups. Once upon a time, about two thousand years ago, a tribe of Aryans came to the Indus and Ganges valleys from behind the mountain ranges from the north. The newcomers brought with them a fairly developed culture. They already knew metals and mastered agriculture and cattle breeding.

Having conquered the local tribes, they merged with them.

Until recent times, science knew almost nothing about the life of the tribes that inhabited India before the arrival of the Aryans. But in the early 20s of the 20th century, Indian archaeologists carried out excavations in the Indus River valley. Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa were discovered. It is believed that these cities were destroyed two thousand years ago. The culture of the city residents was very high; writing already existed. (It hasn't been deciphered yet.)

The cultural foundation of India from the early days of its history is contained in its most ancient books, the Vedas (compare with the Russian word “vedat”). This is, in fact, an encyclopedia of all her knowledge of that distant time, her ideas about the world, her ideals.

They were created in the most distant times, in the first, and perhaps even in the second millennium BC. e. in the processed and canonized literary language of antiquity - Sanskrit. In essence, these are collections of ritual materials - hymns to deities:

“Rigveda”, containing more than a thousand hymns, “Samaveda” - a collection of melodies, “Yajurveda” - proverbs pronounced during sacrifices, “Atharvaveda” - spells, etc.

The significance of these books for Indian culture has not been lost to this day. Russian artist Ilya Glazunov, who painted a portrait of Indira Gandhi, recalls: “Thanks to Indira Gandhi, I personally, as a Russian artist, discovered the world of India. Indira Gandhi told me what the Rig Veda means for Indians and gave me four volumes of this ancient monument of Indian literature published in abridged form in English.”

Indian theologians (Brahmin priests) in ancient times created original interpretations of the sacred books (Vedas) “Upanishads”, in which, in the form of conversations of sages, interspersing poetry with prose, they explained the hidden secrets of religion, the essence of deities, and the symbolism of myths. The numerous pantheon of the ancient Indians was reduced to three main deities - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. The philosophical meaning of this triad expressed three eternal ideas that worried humanity and were somehow reflected in the historical consciousness of every people - creation, preservation and destruction.

Brahma is the creator god, the creator of all things. Vishnu is the guardian god of everything that Brahma created, a kind, helpful god, benevolent to man. Shiva is a destructive god, but in the end also useful, for without destruction there is no creation. The essence of the gods became more complex. To a certain extent, they have already turned into philosophical abstractions, hardly understandable to the average Hindu. Their interpretation has already become a monopoly of “initiated” persons, the authors of the Upanishads. The word itself means “secret teaching.”

In the interpretations of the Upanishads, Brahma is the incomprehensible world soul (his name is given in the neuter gender), this is a special essence, without a specific appearance and any possible qualities. This is a kind of “it” that created the world visible to man, but the world is unreal, a ghost world (Maya).

We are, however, interested in the poetic side of the book, which brings to us through the distance of time the artistic fantasy of the people. We find ourselves in the world of poetic communication between man and nature. Nature is mysterious, full of deep meaning. The meaning of its existence is closed from human eyes, human imagination - pre-scientific, poetic imagination - creates a fairy tale, captivating in beauty:

Earth and Sky and the space between them
Full of the grace of life from the Sun.
Behind the Maiden of the Morning - radiant Ushas -
The Sun comes like a groom to a bride.
There are hosts of spirits and holy rickshaws
The horses are harnessed and the service is performed.
The golden horses raced up the mountain,
In a drunken run from the steepness they sparkle.

In the Hindu religion, the god of love is Kama, the son of the goddess of love Lakshmi. She sits on a symbolic elephant, all parts of which consist of female bodies. The people believed that Kama's gifts should be used. Arjuna, who refused the love of Urvashi, was punished (he was a eunuch for a year).

Here is admiration of nature and fear of it, here is true admiration and sly flattery of the deity (sacrificial verses).

The people created the world of the gods, like a poet, like an artist, embodying them in concrete sensual forms of real life.
Initially, the idea of ​​​​a deity arose as an attempt to understand and explain the world around us. The idea of ​​God in the minds of wide circles of the people took on plastic forms. The painter, architect, and sculptor embodied it on canvas and in stone.

The Supreme God Brahma is the creator of everything. He is the “firstborn”, he is the “highest”, he is the “lord of existence”, he is “like a thousand suns”. This is how the Indian expressed his admiration for the world, which stood before him in all its splendor and of which this god was the personification.

Brahma lives on the top of the mountains, he sits on a swan, the most beautiful of birds. His birth was miraculous: he spent a year in the egg, with the power of his thoughts he split it into two halves, one formed the sky, the second the earth, and an air space appeared between them. Then he begins to create all the diversity that makes up our world.

The ancient man could not yet imagine eternity: reality constantly reminded him of the beginning and end of things, therefore the world itself is not eternal. Time passes and fire burns the universe. Everything is destroyed, this happens when Brahma falls asleep (the night of the god), but when he wakes up, he again creates a new world (the day of the god).

In terms of numbers, the world of gods and deities, spirits, demons, and monsters is huge. Among them are the god of death Yama, the god of winds and rain Indra, the goddess of beauty and happiness Lakshmi, the sacred cow and the supreme king of monkeys who helps people, etc.

The most ancient part of the Vedas, the Rig Veda, describes the act of birth of the living and inanimate world, “all that exists.” In the hymn about the creation of the world (X, 129) it is sung:

There was no carrier then, and there was no being.
There was then neither the space of air nor the sky above it...
There was neither death nor immortality then,
There was no sign of day or night.
Something alone was breathing, without vibrating the air, according to its own law,
And there was nothing else but him.

However, the poet and philosopher of antiquity, having said this, stopped in deep doubt and ended his hymn with the questions:

Who truly knows? Who will proclaim this?
Where did this creation come from, where did it come from?
Then the gods appeared, for the gods created the world.
So who knows where he came from?
Where did this creation come from?
Either it created itself, or it didn’t.
Overseeing the world in the highest sky,
Only he knows it or not.

Years passed. Centuries passed. People joined vast societies. Castes appeared, slavery appeared. In human society, special, social problems arose; they were sometimes more important for a person than the problems of the universe that previously worried his mind. However, the old religion still existed, lagging behind the new problems of social life. And then a man named Siddhartha Gautame, a prince from the Shakya tribe, appeared - hence his second name Shakya-Muni (“hermit of the Shakyas”) - and founded a new religion. It is unlikely that he himself thought about it. We must assume that he was a talented preacher and thinker (Jawaharlal Nehru called him “the great son of the Indian people”). He condemned the injustice of dividing people into castes and, perhaps for the first time in the world, proclaimed the idea of ​​equality as a moral principle, although equality in a rather abstract form - in suffering and in the possibility of getting rid of it.

There is no exact information about him: his first biography was written approximately five centuries after his death. However, the quite accurately designated years of his life are called - 623-544 BC. e. Whether this is so, no one can say.

He rejected the idea of ​​God as a creative force and, in general, the idea of ​​a supreme being. But this was not the basis of the religion associated with the name - his name, and the people called him Buddha, which translated from Sanskrit means “enlightened one.” Siddhartha Gautama based his teaching on the idea of ​​suffering. “What do you think, O disciples,” he said in one of his sermons, “what is greater, the water in the four spring oceans or the tears that you shed while you wandered and wandered on this long pilgrimage, and grieved and wept because what you hated was your portion, and what you loved was not yours?”

What human heart would not respond to such a sermon, especially the heart of the despised, oppressed, ever-hungry, ever-suffering poor man? Hence the conclusion is drawn: since life is suffering, one must despise it and strive for deliverance from all desires, for self-forgetfulness (nirvana).

Buddha statues depict a man sitting cross-legged. His face is round and feminine. There is a wart between the eyebrows. The eyes are lowered and half-closed or directed forward into the distance - the eyes are absent, indifferent. The hair is beautifully collected and forms a diadem of curls. The ears are disproportionately large with elongated lobes, and there are luxurious earrings in them. The whole figure breathes eternal peace. Buddha is immersed in himself, he is not visible to the world around him, he is in nirvana. Nirvana is a state of bliss, and it consists of not wanting anything, not striving for anything, not undertaking anything, and being distracted from everything that exists. Self-contemplation, self-immersion, departure from the world of suffering, passions, desires - this is the path to nirvana, as Buddhists understood and understand it.

I have renounced all desires
Completely abandoned all hatred,
All illusions are over for me,
I'm decaying, burning out...

I thank death without fear,
Life leaves me without joy,
Patiently I wear out the body,
Wise, lucid.

From Buddhist chants

Indian literature of antiquity brought to us a huge number of works with new content after the Vedas. They came from a different religious worldview and are all in one way or another connected with the Buddha and glorify his hermit, ascetic lifestyle.

The young prince from the Gautame family, born somewhere near the borders of what is now India and Nepal, “saw the path of peace,” “cast aside doubts,” cast aside desires, “finding delight in contemplation,” “neither blasphemy nor praise bothers him.” “Chaste, he lives alone, in the prime of his youth he is not attracted to anything.” The prince “chose to renounce the world”, “from sins committed by the body”, “ate alms - modest”, “pure, tall and beautiful, full of virtues”.

The lyrical poem “Therigatha” tells how a certain young man met a follower of the Buddha, a young beauty, and persuaded her to share his love:

You are young, impeccable, beautiful,
What can renunciation give you?

The girl, in the spirit of Buddha's sermons, rejects love, human beauty and her own beauty; in everything, and even in the beauty of nature, she sees “emptiness,” “a precious fake.”

The young man, on the contrary, praises beauty. With ardor and passion, he tells her how good she is, how much he loves her, how much joy she will find both in his house and in communication with him:

How long are the eyelashes, how clear is the gaze!
And far from you I will remember them,
For there is nothing sweeter to me
Those eyes of yours, tender as kinnari’s!

The girl speaks with contempt about her eyes. What is an eye? “Just a lump made of mucus and secretions,” “a bubble with tears.” And, tearing out one eye, he hands it to the young man. He is shocked. Horror gripped him, “as if he had embraced a cruel fire and embraced a cobra with his bare hands.” He bows down before the hermit, asks for forgiveness and wishes her happiness.

The philosophy preached in such poetry is, of course, extremely pessimistic. It was generated by the hopeless situation of the poor man, who, not knowing how to avoid the troubles that awaited him everywhere, willingly followed those who told him about general, universal suffering and called on him to renounce all searches for happiness. In this idea of ​​“extinction” (nirvana), self-forgetfulness, the poor man found a kind of consolation.

In 250 BC. e. King Ashoka declared Buddhism the state religion. Buddhism turned into a world religion; it conquered the territory of Tibet, Indochina, Japan and other countries.

Its external form appears as a cult of Buddhas (there are about a thousand of them) and bodisattvas (deities). Among the Buddhas, the main founder of the religion is the prince and hermit from the Shakya tribe, Siddhartha Gautame.

Buddhism as a religion in modern India already has few adherents, but some of its elements have entered Hinduism.

In Hinduism, the ideas of the ancient religion of Brahmanism and Buddhism, which replaced it, are intertwined. And, according to the Hindu religion, a person must free himself spiritually, suppress all desires in himself, as if to rise above the world of everyday worries, only in this way can he supposedly avoid endless rebirths and achieve nirvana - eternal bliss, eternal peace.

In the Hindu religions, the general complex of which received the name Hinduism in science, the idea of ​​samsara predominates. According to this idea, a person does not seem to die at all, but is born again and again, only in a different guise. He may be born as a person of a higher caste if he led a virtuous life, and, conversely, as a lower or even the dirtiest animal if he was vicious and violated the laws of society.

The authors of the tales admire the beauty and strength of the combatants. The warriors of both camps are dear to their hearts, because these are brothers who, by tragic coincidence, raised swords against each other. “Invincible, both of them were like the sun and the moon in beauty and brilliance, both were seized with rage, and each of them longed to kill the other.” Here is the goddess of love and happiness Lakshmi, here are the gods and demons - rakshasas “with eyes the color of red copper.” The terrible Shiva is the “destroyer of the Universe,” his formidable wife Durga, the yellow-eyed sister of Krishna, the god of war, the god of death Yama, the sun god Surya and the omnipotent god Brahma himself.

“Then Indra called to the highest Brahma: “Decide, O lord! I pray you, give victory to Pandava.” And Brahma replied: “So be it!”

The storytellers also described the ancient army and its equipment. “You can’t count, you can’t look at Duroyodhan’s formidable war elephants. For every elephant there were one hundred chariots, for every chariot there were one hundred horsemen, for every horseman there were ten archers, and for every archer there were ten foot soldiers armed with swords.”

The image of the god of war Krishna himself is also impressive.

“Flames erupted from the mouth and eyes of Krishna, the earth shook under everyone’s feet, and peals of thunder shook the vaults of heaven.”

The physical appearance of the heroes of the poem is always beautiful; they are strong, beautiful people. “The dark-skinned beauty Draupadi,” whose eyes are like lotus petals, the sons of Pandu “with a proud lion’s gait, wearing antelope skins on broad shoulders.”

Sometimes we notice in some way that a poem contains images and motifs that are familiar to us from other ancient myths. Thus, we recognize the image of the baby Moses in a basket floating on the waves of the Nile in the story of the hero of the Mahabharata, Karna. “You don’t know the secret of your birth, I will reveal it to you. You are the son of Surya, the sun god; I'm your mother. I gave birth to you in my father's house and secretly threw you into the river in a basket. The sun god did not let you die, and the waves carried the basket ashore.”

The ideas of samsara (rebirth) find their application in legends. The blind king Dhritarashta, Duroidhana's father and Yudhishthira's uncle, cries over the bodies of his dead sons, nephews and friends: “In one of my previous births I committed a great sin, and for this the gods are now punishing me with such terrible and immeasurable grief.”

The religious philosophy of the Vedas is visibly visible in the epic tales of the Mahabharata. One of the heroes of the poem, the warrior Arjun, talks with the god Krishna, the earthly incarnation of the god Vishnu. Krishna explains to him the new, after the era of the Vedas, cosmic and moral philosophy. It is already quite abstract: Brahma, or the Absolute, that is, the whole world with its components, has neither beginning nor end, it is infinite and eternal:

Where there is infinity, there is no cessation,
Does not know eternal destruction.
Brahma is everything:
It does not burn in fire and does not drown in the sea,
He does not die from arrows and does not groan in pain.
He is unburnt and invulnerable,
And unmoistened, undry.
He is all-understanding and omnipresent,
Immovable, stable, forever living.

A person is subject to rebirth or transitions from one state to another. This can be likened to changing clothes:

Look: we will throw off the threadbare dress,
And then we’ll put on another one and wear it.
So the Spirit, having rejected the decayed body,
It is embodied in another, throwing off the old.

Krishna’s conversation with Arjun began with the fact that the young man refused to kill his loved ones on the battlefield (“Why will I kill my relatives?”). The poet painted a charming image of a man full of good feelings, he put into his mouth a truly wonderful speech in defense of humanity. Arjun did not want to kill not only for earthly goods, but even “for power over the three worlds,” that is, heaven, earth and underground, as the ancient Indians imagined the universe. We are, truly, full of sympathy for the kind-hearted young man, whom even the thought of participating in a massacre and the need to kill someone led to complete confusion:

And, covering my face, drenched in tears,
He dropped his arrows and the famous bow.

In the most distant times, even in the turmoil and turmoil of wars, the idea of ​​goodness, philanthropy, humanity lived in people, as in the poem “Mahabharata”, in the roar of battles, colliding war chariots, faces distorted in hatred, the cries and groans of the defeated and dying, this impulse arose noble Arjuna, who refuses to kill.

RAMAYANA

The second epic tale of Indian antiquity, “Ramayana” (“Acts of Rama”), was created, apparently, later. The poem is much shorter than the Mahabharata, compositionally more harmonious and, perhaps, reflects a higher aesthetic culture. Its main theme is love and fidelity; its main characters are Rama and his beautiful wife Sita.

Rama is a young prince. Power should have passed to him from King Dasharakht, but the evil will of unkind people is preventing him. Numerous demons (rakshasas) and the evil ten-headed monster Ravana, who kidnapped Sita, intervene in the events. There are many, many troubles and misfortunes on the path of two loving beings - Rama and Sita.

The poem is a wonderful fairy tale, a dazzling dream of the people about better people, better feelings. And at the same time, it contains one of the main sacraments of art - the synthesis of two feelings, fear and compassion, evoking in the souls that ennobling and morally elevating state that the Greek philosopher Aristotle called catharsis.

Rama was distinguished by “unprecedented beauty of face, greatness of heart”, was “always cheerful, affectionate, friendly”, “remembering for good, but forgetful for bad, appreciated services and was always responsive at heart”, “did not boast of his courage, shunned arrogance”, “he was merciful to his subjects and accessible to the poor,” “he maintained constancy in friendship.” In addition, Rama did not tolerate idle talk or idle talk, but, if necessary, he spoke well. To develop his mind, he constantly sought the company of wise elders, reasoned and thought well, and his thought was not limited to the contemplation of what surrounded him closely, but also rushed to the very foundations of the universe. “He managed to grasp Time and Space with his mind,” that is, he was also a philosopher.

Rama was brave, “full of health,” was excellent with a bow and, of course, was an excellent warrior - in a word, he concentrated in himself all conceivable human virtues.

For those who created the famous poem (and it, of course, was not created immediately and not by one person), Rama is an example of a perfect personality, or a positive hero, as we would say. Rama is honest and incorruptible. Condemned to exile, he did not want to return before the appointed time, so as not to violate the will of his father. The father (Dasharahta), having expelled him, dies of grief. The culprit of all the troubles is Rama's stepmother; it was she who, by deceit and deceit, achieved his expulsion in order to place her son in the kingdom. But Bharata was burdened by the shameful service his mother had rendered him. He begged Rama to return and when he refused to do so, he placed his elder brother's shoes in front of his throne to show that he, Bharata, was just a temporary substitute for Rama, nothing more.

While wandering through the forest in exile, Rama works miracles. Thus, he touched the stone into which Ahalya, the wife of Gautama, one of the seven sages mentioned in the Vedas, was transformed. She had to be a stone statue for a thousand years, but the touch of Rama brought her back to life. The stone came to life.

It is difficult to say what becomes the initial principle in poetic tales: a fiction-event that has become an idea, or, conversely, an idea gives rise to fiction, but a certain meaning is always clearly visible behind the fantasy. Here we see new colors in the image of Rama (how beneficial he is if his one touch transforms things!) and a rather transparent idea about the limitless possibilities of man, an idea-dream. Do we not recognize in the technical achievements of our days many fabulous fantasies of distant times?

The poem often depicts miraculous transformations. The demon (rakshasa - S.L.), hostile to Rama, turns into a beautiful golden deer in order to appear in this form before Sita, the wife of Rama, and kidnap her. The poet enthusiastically paints a new image of the previously terrible and ugly rakshasa:

A deer ran through the grass between the shady trees,
Diamonds sparkled on the tips of the branched horns.
He frolicked near the huts, taking on a radiant appearance,
To lure Sita into a snare, this rakshasa is treacherous.

People have long amused themselves with wonderful inventions. Illusion adorned a life full of worries, anxieties, misfortunes, and more often than not, tedious monotony. The imagination drew both the ugly faces of insidious enemies, whom, of course, not without a fight, the heroes always defeated, and the beautiful images of these heroes, whom one could love, with whom one could sympathize, and for whom one could be sad in the days of their misfortunes and rejoice in the moments of their happiness . This fantasy was sometimes childishly naive, but always morally pure and sublime.

The creators of the Ramayana sang the beauty of Sita in poetic ecstasy. Through the lips of the king of demons himself, the evil and treacherous Ravana, her name was glorified. He compares her with Lakshmi, the goddess of beauty, the wife of the god Vishnu, with the majestic Kirti, the goddess of glory:

The malevolent one marveled at her unspeakable beauty.
O maiden! I have never seen your equal in the three worlds!
Trembling like a seductive pond full of radiance,
Your figure is delightful in a yellow silk robe.
In a garland of tender lotuses, you shine like
On gold and silver with dazzling skin.

The terrible ten-headed Ravana kidnapped the beautiful Sita, he carried her over the mountains and forests, and nature mourned, sympathizing with her - “rocks like hands raised in a sorrowful cry”, “fish scurried in fear between the astringent lotuses”, “waterfalls in tears” . The king of the hawks, Jotayu, stood up for her, but Ravana cut off his wings and killed him.

Rama was bitterly sad about the loss of his wife. His appearance and sadness are poetic:

An abyss of azure and pink lotuses in the mirror
Contemplating the water, the sad prince began to cry.

The poet's story, of course, is naive and full of fantasy, but he is redeemed by the luxury of verse. And the luxury of imagination. Here Rama, together with his brother, frees a headless, monstrous demon, who was once a demigod, from the magic. He asks his liberators to burn him at the stake, and when the flames engulfed the rakshasa and consumed him, a wonderful vision appeared before the eyes of the shocked young people. A young demigod rose above the fire in a blaze of courage and beauty. In a golden chariot drawn by white swans, he ascended into the sky. The whole poem sounds like a hymn to nature and man:

There is freedom for wild animals there, and it spreads wonderfully
A flowery carpet of petals on the emerald grass,
The fragrant month of lovers is captivating
With an abundance of fragrant flowers and fragrant fruits!
Like a host of clouds pouring down blessed rain,
The trees give us a shower of fragrant petals.
And the wind, which covered the valleys with a flowery cover,
In the forests, honey bees are buzzing.

Many trials befell Rama and his beautiful wife Sita. But the fairy tale never ends with the defeat of the hero. And Rama eventually meets on the battlefield with the mighty king of all evil and dark forces of nature, Ravana. The god of war Indra hands him a magic arrow, and with it Rama strikes Ravana in the heart. With the death of Ravana, peace, eternal and blessed, reigns on earth. Sita returns to her husband. But Rama hesitates to accept her, because the gaze of Ravana touched her. Inconsolable Sita decides to burn herself at the stake. But a miracle occurs: the god of fire Agni himself takes her out of the flames unharmed. Sita is pure.

Frame! Wonderful Rama! Liberator of people from filth on earth! This, it turns out, was his main mission, because he is “the eternal Vishnu in human form,” a “guardian god,” one of the mighty trinity of gods.

However, why did the god Vishnu need to be born as a man in order to fight Ravana and destroy him? Couldn't he do this as a god? It turns out he couldn't. The gods were unable to destroy earthly monsters without human help. Human participation was needed. That is why Vishnu appeared in the world in the form of Rama.

I wonder what path human thought took to create such a basis for a myth? And not only the ancient Indians had such a myth. In Ancient Greece, the gods of Olympus were also powerless without the participation of mortals in the fight against the giants. The strength of Hercules was needed. And in Christian myth-making, it is no coincidence that the savior of the entire human race turned out to be the son of a carpenter from Nazareth. Did this not reveal an understanding of the high role of man in nature?

The creation of the Ramayana is attributed to the poet Valmiki. A wonderful legend is told about him: once in the forest he admired the tender affection of two birds, but some hunter hit the male with an arrow from a bow. The female’s grief was so great that a curse burst out from Valmiki’s chest:

“Hunter, may you forever lose your shelter
For killing one of this pair of crowns, spellbound by love.”

The curse unexpectedly took the form of poetry, a couplet (sloka), and the god Brahma ordered Valmiki to describe the story of Rama with this verse.

In 1881, the young Rabindranath Tagore recounted this legend in his play The Genius of Valmiki. The poet depicted Valmiki's moral regeneration under the influence of a feeling of compassion (Valmiki was previously a robber). “The music of compassion and pity, which dissolved your stony heart, will become the music of all humanity, pacifying and softening human souls. Your voice will be heard from the Himalayas to the blue sea... and other poets will merge their songs with your song.”

Antiquity never dies. The best traditions of the people pass from generation to generation, they live on for centuries, millennia, just as the wonderful poem “Ramayana” lives on today, full of fabulous miracles that aesthetically embody noble feelings and noble ideas.