Oh dear! The Kauravas and Pandavas conflict yet again.

A nasty piece of work he was, from cheating at dice to burning down the Pandavas palace. It was sheer luck they weren’t inside at the time.

He recruited demons and wizards and used every kind of dirty trick to wage war, but the Pandavas were no pushovers and fought back so rigorously that Duryodhana decided to flee after they had killed 99 of his brothers and decimated most of his army. He hid in a lake with snakes, and surrendered in a cowardly cringing way when discovered.

Yudhishthira, leader of the Pandavas, being honorable to the point of stupidity, decided there should be a one-against-one play-off with the winner taking all. Bhima the selected Pandava brother had different ideas and won on a foul that crippled Duryodhana so there was no chance of a re-match. Even then Dirty D was treacherous to the last — and it was he who urged Ashwatthama to go on his vengeance rampage against the Pandavas.

This gives a twist to the tale of Ashwatthama: what we didn’t tell you was that Shiva was indeed guarding the Pandavas camp, and had spirited the brothers away to safety even though peace negotiations were in progress, and the heads that Ashwatthama cut off in his night raid and tied together like onions were all previously owned by Kauravas including Duryodhana’S last five nephews. It gave him a fatal heart attack. No more Kauravas, thank the Gods. In this case Shiva.

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Article last revised on September 18, 2018 by Rowan Allen.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

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