A correction to the previous episode that I’d like to call out. I called Chandragupta Maurya a King in Medieval India. Actually he was a King in Ancient India.
In addition, I’ll also point out in response to some listener feedback that there are other versions of the Shivaji stories. Notably one of them takes the opposite view – the old lady taught Shivaji a defence trick, not an offence one. It had to do with building a little well with rice walls to prevent the curry from overflowing.
In today’s mini-episode, we’ll meet Jarasandha. Jarasandha is a character from the Mahabharat. He was Krishna’s uncle’s father-in-law. He has an interesting birth story. I like to think of him as the Lego King because when he was born, he came with a “some assembly required” label! Ultimately, he was killed by Bheem who basically just disassembled him.
Brihadratha was the King of Magadh.
Back in the Ancient Indian days when marriages were more of a trade deal between royal families, Brihadrath had just married the twin daughters of the King of Kashi.
As time went on and Brihadratha aged, he continued to worry about not having an heir.
So when a visiting Rishi, Chandrakaushik, was passing by, Brihadratha plied him with the finest hospitality package in his palace and prayed for a son in exchange.
Chandrakaushik gave him a mango in exchange.
“What am I going to do with the mango? Is this like the mango from the Vikram Betaal episodes?” he asked the Rishi.
“No! Just let your wife eat it, and that might solve your problems” replied the Rishi.
“But how will it solve my problems if she eats it?” asked the King, but the Rishi had already departed.
The Rishi had said ask your wife to eat it, not wives.
Well, he couldn’t really discriminate between his wives, could he? So he split the mango and gave half to each of his wives.
And much later, his wives gave birth! For a King who ended up marrying two princesses instead of one, imagine the disappointment when instead of two babies, each of his wives gave birth to half a baby instead.
This was a horrifying sight! The half-babies were motionless. Brihadratha and his wives were disappointed. But no one was curious enough to try bringing the two halves closer together.
No one except a Rakshasi. The Rakshasi Jara found the disposed halves of the baby in the city dumpster. She showed a little bit more curiosity. The moment she brought the two halves closer, they clicked together! Just like a magnet. And miracle of miracles! The baby began to cry.
The Rakshasi was sensible. She took the baby back to the King. This time the King welcomed his crying son with open arms.
He called the baby Jarasandha. Jarasandha grew up to be a strong man. Undefeatable.
Jarasandha’s daughters were married to Kansa, Krishna’s evil uncle. Jarasandha looked on Kansa as his own son. So when Krishna fought Kansa, that automatically made Jarasandha his enemy.
As I said, Jarasandha was undefeatable. People had tried. But every time anyone tried to disassemble him, he would magically assemble again. Except when Bheema tried. Bheem was the strongest of the Pandav brothers and challenged Jarasandha to a duel. He had no problems disassembling Jarasandha, but Jarasandha kept assembling back. Bheema was getting frustrated now.
Krishna provided a bit of ringside coaching. He picked up a little branch, broke it in half and tossed the left one to his right, and the right one to his left!
Ah its just like a magnet thought Bheem. Reverse the polarity and the pieces dont attract, they repel! He did to Jarasandha what Krishna had done to the branch. And this time Jarasandha stayed disassembled!
That’s all for this mini-episode.
Next Time
In this weekend’s full episode do a folk tale from Rajasthan! We’ll meet a little girl who gets into big trouble because she forgot to lock one door at night, even though there were 6 other locked doors between her and two hungry demons!
I’ll see you next week!