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We now come to brothers and sisters and ask if there can be any fruitful teacher-student relation between them.
Unfortunately our epics are of no help here. They are all male-dominated. The society then must have been heavily patriarchal and biased against the girl-child. Maybe there was even female infanticide that was cleverly hidden.
Consider the fact that Pandavas were all of 5 but had no sister at all. When Kunti and Madri were offered kids they invariably chose boys...even before they were legally wed like Kunti wanted Karna, a bonny boy whom she abandoned reluctantly. He was later adopted happily by Radha and Suta. It is a thought if they would have equally gladly adopted their foundling if it were a girl.
So the score there was 6-0.
And the 5 Pandava's begot only a boy each from their common wife, Draupadi...no girl. They were called Upapandavas, a title that I would have resented, like if I were named: Mini-Radhakrishnaiah...ok ok, they did have their individual names:
Shrutavindhya, Sutasoma, Srutakirti, Satanika and Srutakarma.
Well, each of our great Pandavas had what the Telugu movies of my time charmingly called: 'Second Setups', apart from their common wife Draupadi: Bhim had 2 and Arjuna had all of 3.
And they all had sons from them:
Yaudheya; Ghatothkacha & Sarvaga; Abhimanyu, Babhruvahana & Iravanta; Niramitra; and Suhotra.
And their cousin, Karna, had 2 wives and altogether NINE sons between them.
No daughters at all:
...Strangely enough, no mention is made of female progeny of the Pandavas, although there MUST have been some...
http://pvravi.blogspot.in/2013/12/the-pandavas-their-matrimonial.html
I am not surprsied; for, Kauravas were all of 100 (century) of brothers with but one feeble excuse of a sister, Duhsala, whose influence on them seems to be minimal.
Let us now come to Krishna who had an elder brother called Balaram and a much younger sister, Subhadra. The two brothers had a tiff: Balaram wanted his sister to be married to his fond student, Duryodhana, while Krishna wanted her to be the wife of his friend, Arjun. Krishna won as usual. But of course it would have made no mighty difference to Mahabharat either way: Subhadra turned out to be an unwilling student going to sleep when her hubby was narrating to her the tricks and treats of warfare.
We now come to Krishna himself and his kids. I have done some Googling on this and got this fascinating info (a must read):
Krishna married 16, 108 wives as requested by them! Out of 16,108 wives of Krishna, every wife had 10 children who had the same nature of Krishna! Thus, Krishna had totally 1,61,080 Children. Let us see the list of the 80 children born through the first 8 wives! (1) The names of the children of Rukmani: Prathyumnan, Charudeshnan, Sudheshnan, Charudehan, Seecharu, Saaraguptha, Bathracharu, Charuchandharin, Visaru & Charu! (2) The names of the children of Sathyabama are: Banu, Subanu, Swarabanu, Prabanu, Banuman, Chandrabanu, Pragathbanu, Athibanu, Sribanu & Prathibanu! (3) The 10 sons through Krishna’s third wife Jambhavathi: Samban, Sumithra, Prujith, Sadhajith, Sagasrajith, Vijayan,Chitrakethu, Vasuman, Dravidan & Kirathu. Krishna had more attachment with the sons through Jambhavathi. (4) The 10 sons through Krishna’s Fourth wife Sathya, who was the daughter of the king of Nagnajith: Veera, Chandra, Ashvasena, Chitragu, Vegavan, Virusha, Aman, Sangu, Vasu, Kunti. Kunti was very mighty among these ten sons. (5) The 10 sons through Krishna’s fifth wife Kalindhi: Shrutha, Kavi, Vrusha, Veera, Subahu, Bathra, Santhi, Dharsha, Pooranamashu & Somaha. (6) The 10 sons through Krishna’s Sixth wife Lakshmana, who was from the present Tamilnadu & then Madras State: Pragosha, Gathravaan, Simma, Bala, Prabala, Oorthuvaga, mahashakthi, Saga, Oja, & Abarajith. (7) The 10 sons through Krishna’s Seventh wife Mithra Vindha: Viruga, Harsha, Anila, Kiruthra, Varthana, Anandha, Mahamsa, Bhavana, Vahni and Shoothi. (8) The 10 sons through Krishna’s Eighth wife Badhra: Sankramajith, Brugathsena, Soora, Pragarana, Arijith, Jaya, Subathra, Vama, Ayu and Sathyaga.
However, the grandson and successor of the Lord Krishna was Vajranabh. It was considered that this person was the one who built the Dwarakanath Temple that was called Trilok Sundar today.
http://www.quora.com/Mahabharata/Does-Lord-Krishna-had-any-children-which-later-became-his-successor
The partial list above mentions the tedious names of 80 of Krishna's children (out of 16,800). I guess they were all boys by their names...no girls.
Hey! Krishna!
Balaram on the other hand has a scanty entry in wiki which mentions no child of his from his only wife, Revati. But the great Telugu movie, Mayabazar, is about the marriage of Abhimanyu with Balaram's sole daughter, Sasirekha...maybe it is all folklore...I have to check Bhagavata Puranam.
Ramayan is no better.
The King of Ayodhya, Dasarath, went in for only sons when asked a wish for kids after his Putrakameshti Yag (according to my father). So Sri Ramjee had no sister to teach him not to go deep into the forest needlessly...just the other side of Sarayu would do. There are of course rumors in the cyber-world that Dasarath had a secret daughter, but let secrets stay secret.
Let us now turn to Ravanji.
His sister, Surpanakha, became very famous and was the root cause of all Ravanji's troubles in Ramayan. She was said to be very beautiful and hence jealous of Sita. I don't think she was a great teacher to his brother. But why blame sisters? Where did his native intelligence go?
Ravan apparently had another beautiful sister called Kumbhini:
Kumbhini - sister of Ravana and the wife of the demon Madhu, King of Mathura, she was the mother of Lavanasura. She was renowned for her beauty and later retired to the sea for penance.
Sigh!
Apparently Vali and Sugriv didn't have any sister...not that it would have changed the course of Ramayan either way.
And Hanuman of course was a single child. There are rumors that he married a lady called Suvarchala but didn't consummate it in his pursuit of knowledge:
...Human did marry Suvarchala Devi. At the same time he is also considered as Brahmachari as he did not have any marital relationship with her...
http://qna.rediff.com/questions-and-answers/true-or-false-suvarchala-devi-is-name-of-lord-ha/14589066/answers
This detail of course is vital if Hanumaji were to stand for elections in India...how would he have answered the intricately personal question of his marital status by our CEC in a small box.
All this shows that our epics belittle sisters.
I often wonder what would have been the course of the Mahabharat War if Kaurava's were 100 girls with one brother while Pandava's were 5 sisters and no brother...and Karna too was a girl.
Obviously the 5 girls would have had no chance against the 100 (+1) of their cousins. The war which lasted all of 18 days would be over in 18 seconds...
The sole brother of the Kaurava's 100 sisters would have had nothing to do...except furiously blog like me...
...Posted by Ishani
************************************************************************************************************
Unfortunately our epics are of no help here. They are all male-dominated. The society then must have been heavily patriarchal and biased against the girl-child. Maybe there was even female infanticide that was cleverly hidden.
Consider the fact that Pandavas were all of 5 but had no sister at all. When Kunti and Madri were offered kids they invariably chose boys...even before they were legally wed like Kunti wanted Karna, a bonny boy whom she abandoned reluctantly. He was later adopted happily by Radha and Suta. It is a thought if they would have equally gladly adopted their foundling if it were a girl.
So the score there was 6-0.
And the 5 Pandava's begot only a boy each from their common wife, Draupadi...no girl. They were called Upapandavas, a title that I would have resented, like if I were named: Mini-Radhakrishnaiah...ok ok, they did have their individual names:
Shrutavindhya, Sutasoma, Srutakirti, Satanika and Srutakarma.
Well, each of our great Pandavas had what the Telugu movies of my time charmingly called: 'Second Setups', apart from their common wife Draupadi: Bhim had 2 and Arjuna had all of 3.
And they all had sons from them:
Yaudheya; Ghatothkacha & Sarvaga; Abhimanyu, Babhruvahana & Iravanta; Niramitra; and Suhotra.
And their cousin, Karna, had 2 wives and altogether NINE sons between them.
No daughters at all:
...Strangely enough, no mention is made of female progeny of the Pandavas, although there MUST have been some...
http://pvravi.blogspot.in/2013/12/the-pandavas-their-matrimonial.html
I am not surprsied; for, Kauravas were all of 100 (century) of brothers with but one feeble excuse of a sister, Duhsala, whose influence on them seems to be minimal.
Let us now come to Krishna who had an elder brother called Balaram and a much younger sister, Subhadra. The two brothers had a tiff: Balaram wanted his sister to be married to his fond student, Duryodhana, while Krishna wanted her to be the wife of his friend, Arjun. Krishna won as usual. But of course it would have made no mighty difference to Mahabharat either way: Subhadra turned out to be an unwilling student going to sleep when her hubby was narrating to her the tricks and treats of warfare.
We now come to Krishna himself and his kids. I have done some Googling on this and got this fascinating info (a must read):
Krishna married 16, 108 wives as requested by them! Out of 16,108 wives of Krishna, every wife had 10 children who had the same nature of Krishna! Thus, Krishna had totally 1,61,080 Children. Let us see the list of the 80 children born through the first 8 wives! (1) The names of the children of Rukmani: Prathyumnan, Charudeshnan, Sudheshnan, Charudehan, Seecharu, Saaraguptha, Bathracharu, Charuchandharin, Visaru & Charu! (2) The names of the children of Sathyabama are: Banu, Subanu, Swarabanu, Prabanu, Banuman, Chandrabanu, Pragathbanu, Athibanu, Sribanu & Prathibanu! (3) The 10 sons through Krishna’s third wife Jambhavathi: Samban, Sumithra, Prujith, Sadhajith, Sagasrajith, Vijayan,Chitrakethu, Vasuman, Dravidan & Kirathu. Krishna had more attachment with the sons through Jambhavathi. (4) The 10 sons through Krishna’s Fourth wife Sathya, who was the daughter of the king of Nagnajith: Veera, Chandra, Ashvasena, Chitragu, Vegavan, Virusha, Aman, Sangu, Vasu, Kunti. Kunti was very mighty among these ten sons. (5) The 10 sons through Krishna’s fifth wife Kalindhi: Shrutha, Kavi, Vrusha, Veera, Subahu, Bathra, Santhi, Dharsha, Pooranamashu & Somaha. (6) The 10 sons through Krishna’s Sixth wife Lakshmana, who was from the present Tamilnadu & then Madras State: Pragosha, Gathravaan, Simma, Bala, Prabala, Oorthuvaga, mahashakthi, Saga, Oja, & Abarajith. (7) The 10 sons through Krishna’s Seventh wife Mithra Vindha: Viruga, Harsha, Anila, Kiruthra, Varthana, Anandha, Mahamsa, Bhavana, Vahni and Shoothi. (8) The 10 sons through Krishna’s Eighth wife Badhra: Sankramajith, Brugathsena, Soora, Pragarana, Arijith, Jaya, Subathra, Vama, Ayu and Sathyaga.
However, the grandson and successor of the Lord Krishna was Vajranabh. It was considered that this person was the one who built the Dwarakanath Temple that was called Trilok Sundar today.
http://www.quora.com/Mahabharata/Does-Lord-Krishna-had-any-children-which-later-became-his-successor
The partial list above mentions the tedious names of 80 of Krishna's children (out of 16,800). I guess they were all boys by their names...no girls.
Hey! Krishna!
Balaram on the other hand has a scanty entry in wiki which mentions no child of his from his only wife, Revati. But the great Telugu movie, Mayabazar, is about the marriage of Abhimanyu with Balaram's sole daughter, Sasirekha...maybe it is all folklore...I have to check Bhagavata Puranam.
Ramayan is no better.
The King of Ayodhya, Dasarath, went in for only sons when asked a wish for kids after his Putrakameshti Yag (according to my father). So Sri Ramjee had no sister to teach him not to go deep into the forest needlessly...just the other side of Sarayu would do. There are of course rumors in the cyber-world that Dasarath had a secret daughter, but let secrets stay secret.
Let us now turn to Ravanji.
His sister, Surpanakha, became very famous and was the root cause of all Ravanji's troubles in Ramayan. She was said to be very beautiful and hence jealous of Sita. I don't think she was a great teacher to his brother. But why blame sisters? Where did his native intelligence go?
Ravan apparently had another beautiful sister called Kumbhini:
Kumbhini - sister of Ravana and the wife of the demon Madhu, King of Mathura, she was the mother of Lavanasura. She was renowned for her beauty and later retired to the sea for penance.
Sigh!
Apparently Vali and Sugriv didn't have any sister...not that it would have changed the course of Ramayan either way.
And Hanuman of course was a single child. There are rumors that he married a lady called Suvarchala but didn't consummate it in his pursuit of knowledge:
...Human did marry Suvarchala Devi. At the same time he is also considered as Brahmachari as he did not have any marital relationship with her...
http://qna.rediff.com/questions-and-answers/true-or-false-suvarchala-devi-is-name-of-lord-ha/14589066/answers
This detail of course is vital if Hanumaji were to stand for elections in India...how would he have answered the intricately personal question of his marital status by our CEC in a small box.
All this shows that our epics belittle sisters.
I often wonder what would have been the course of the Mahabharat War if Kaurava's were 100 girls with one brother while Pandava's were 5 sisters and no brother...and Karna too was a girl.
Obviously the 5 girls would have had no chance against the 100 (+1) of their cousins. The war which lasted all of 18 days would be over in 18 seconds...
The sole brother of the Kaurava's 100 sisters would have had nothing to do...except furiously blog like me...
...Posted by Ishani
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