I was thinking about the gita and the mahabhharath, and something struck me as odd.The mainline text of the Mahabharata seems to be a historical document,detailing the lineage of various dynasties,and in general has a very descriptive tone to it.Specially when its describing events which seems to be in a moral grey zone,it never judges,just describes. The narrative tends to be let the reader decide the morality of an action. But this pattern seems to break down when Krishna comes in. He sorts of picks the right side because,well..he is supposed to be incarnation of God.
It seems to me,and maybe I am wrong, but maybe,the text related to krishna was added later. Maybe the original mahabharata was just a historical document with krishna described as a brilliant strategist and diplomat. But once the pandavs won,over the next few centuries,the text was rewritten,sort of,with krishna being elevated to godhood, and a morally correct stature provided to the actions of pandavs by making krishna support their point of view.
History is proof of the fact that it is always written by the Victor. The actions of the losers always gets vilified and looked down upon,whereas the actions of the victor given a halo.
So it seems to me that the mahabharata is a superb tale. I said tale because from the 21st century's point of view it becomes very difficult to separate fact from fiction, a lot of the latter surely creeping in as the centuries passed by.
Now it would seem very natural to anybody with logical reasoning that krishna surely was not an incarnation. My apologies to anyone who may have been offended by the last sentence.but assuming he was not,it seems to me the person,or persons, who mixed the facts with fiction,did a tremendous disservice to mankind. By corrupting a historical document,they not only casted doubts on its accuracy,but also created a myth which is now accepted as fact by millions because they are taught exactly that from early childhood.
Similarly with the Ramayana, it seems very strange to me,as to why a learned scholar like Ravana,would abduct someone else's wife. He has been described in the epic itself as a great devotee of Shankar. His works are of great literary value. Is it just me or it really is difficult to swollow the yarn about him abducting sita, and triggering a war between two nations?
Once again it seems to me that the cultural clash between north indain empire and a southern power resulted in that epic clash being recorded as a great historical document which was later,ummm, befouled(?),by a description which elevates the Victor to god status and the vanquished to suffer being portraited in bad light for eternity.
Maybe the people who set store by these epics,would do themselves a favour by trying to look under the surface and see the discrepancies in them, thereby, hopefully, deciding to use their own intelligence and good moral values to decide the morality of actions around them. It seems to me that would do justice to the 'villains' in the epics.at least a little bit.
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iamvaibhavsrivastava 