Sample Copy. Not for Distribution. Jaya-Samhita Book One : The Cause i Sample Copy. Not for Distribution. Publishing-in-support-of, EDUCREATION PUBLISHING RZ 94, Sector - 6, Dwarka, New Delhi - 110075 Shubham Vihar, Mangla, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh - 495001 Website: www.educreation.in __________________________________________________ © Copyright, Author All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of its writer. ISBN: 978-1-5457-0876-7 Price: ` 315.00 The opinions/ contents expressed in this book are solely of the author and do not represent the opinions/ standings/ thoughts of Educreation. Printed in India ii Sample Copy. Not for Distribution. Jaya-Samhita Book One : The Cause Karna Yadav EDUCREATION PUBLISHING (Since 2011) www.educreation.in iii Sample Copy. Not for Distribution. iv Sample Copy. Not for Distribution. Dedicated to W The God who said, „The soul is never born, it never dies. Come into being after birth, it does not, It is unborn, eternal and primeval. Even if the body is slain, the soul is not.‟ Without His invisible help this book would not have been possible. P v Sample Copy. Not for Distribution. About Jaya-Samhita W Ved Vyasa did not write the Mahabharata. The epic that he wrote was called Jaya-Samhita. Containing some 8800 verses, it was a treatise on war and politics. It was based on the great Kurukshetra war. The word Jaya means victory and Samhita means collection. As the name implies, it contained the principles of victory. It answered the fundamental question, why some people win while others lose? The Mahabharata on the other hand contains 100,000 verses and is a story within a story. The Mahabharata is a combination of two words, the Maha meaning great and Bharata refers to Arjuna, one of the chief protagonists of the Mahabharata. Arjuna was known by many names and Bharata was one of them. The word Mahabharata when literally translated means the great Bharata or the great Arjuna. It is apparent by the name itself that it was written with the sole intention of glorifying Arjuna. In the Mahabharata, Arjuna is the son of the chief of demigods, Indra. Arjuna is the favorite disciple of guru Dronacharya. Arjuna wins the beautiful Draupadi in a marriage ceremony after accomplishing a great feat in archery. Arjuna is a great archer and the chief commander of the Pandava army who single handedly defeats all the chief warriors of the Kaurava army. Arjuna is the man loved and worshipped by God Shri Krishna Himself. He receives the words of the God in the Bhagwadgeeta. All this is perhaps true or maybe the reality is different from what we are being led to believe. There is no evidence to prove this but there are enough reasons to make one doubtful. For example, vi Sample Copy. Not for Distribution. it is believed that Ved Vyasa wrote the Bhagwadgeeta separately as a dialogue between Nara (man) and Narayana (God). It was later on incorporated into the Mahabharata as a dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna. If there is some truth in this then it was not Arjuna, who received the message of the Bhagwadgeeta on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. After compiling the Jaya-Samhita, Ved Vyasa recited it to his disciple Vaisampayana. Vaisampayana elaborated his Jaya-Samhita into the Bharata. The Bharata contained 24000 verses. The Bharata is the story of Ved Vyasa‟s Jaya-Samhita being recited by Vaisampayana to king Janamajeya, great grandson of Arjuna, at Takshasila (modern day Taxila in Pakistan). The recital of the Bharata by Vaisampayana at the sacrifice being conducted by the great grandson of Arjuna, Janamajeya, is enough to raise eyebrows. It is said that history is written by the victors. The history written by the victors is rarely a true record of the events as and when they happened. It is written to glorify the victors, to iron out the inconsistencies in their characters and to project them as the heroes they weren‟t. Arjuna too was a victor of the Kurukshetra war. First, the Bharata and later the Mahabharata were written with similar aims. Both were written at the behest of the victors. A great fratricidal war like the Kurukshetra war would not go down in history unnoticed. People will ask questions. They‟d want to know what caused this Great War and who was responsible for it? Perhaps, the Pandavas were being blamed for this carnage. Now, why did Kurukshetra happen? At one time the Pandavas were ready to trade peace for five villages. When Duryodhana refused, Kurukshetra happened. So, the Pandavas killed their cousins and millions of other men, for what? Five villages? That is the flimsiest excuse or stupidest reason vii Sample Copy. Not for Distribution. for killing one‟s cousins. There is more to it then what we are being told. No matter how hard the Pandavas try, they cannot justify the killing of their cousins. Such actions will always be condemned by the general public. Perhaps, the Pandavas were being condemned as well. The real cause of the war was something else. Ved Vyasa knew and wrote the truth. Perhaps, unhappy with the truth written in the Jaya- Samhita by Ved Vyasa or in order to absolve his forefathers of the blame of fratricide or to glorify Arjuna, Janamajeya had his version of events written in the form of the Bharata. Then, in order to popularize it, he organized the great sacrifice. He invited sages from all over the land and had Vaisampayana recite the Bharata. The attending Brahmins thought they were listening to Ved Vyasa‟s Jaya-Samhita. Ved Vyasa was an authority by himself and not many dared to question him. It was not that king Janamajeya was conducting a sacrifice and sage Vaisampayana just happened to be there. So, Janamajeya asks Vaisampayana to recite the story of Ved Vyasa‟s Jaya-Samhita while the sacrifice is progressing. The sacrifice went on for many days by the way. The truth is that the sacrifice was deliberately conducted with the sole intention of propagating the myths about the Pandavas. Janamajeya succeeded in his attempts greatly. The thousands of attending Brahmins later travelled all over the land reciting these events to all those willing to listen. Janamajeya‟s version of the events became so popular that this is what people eventually ended up believing. Most of us take whatever is written in the Mahabharata as the truth. We rarely question the inconsistencies and the fantasies that are written in the Mahabharata. The Bharata was later elaborated into the Mahabharata (the great Bharata) by Ugrasrava Sauti, a viii Sample Copy. Not for Distribution. disciple of Vaisampayana. The Mahabharata that we know today is the story of Vaisampayana‟s Bharata being recited by Ugrasrava Sauti to a group of sages performing the 12 year snake sacrifice for King Saunaka Kulapati. Thus, the Mahabharata is a story within a story. What we know today as the Mahabharata is not the original Jaya-Samhita written by Ved Vyasa but the works of his disciples. These facts are mentioned in the Mahabharata itself. The Mahabharata of today is the corrupt form of Jaya-Samhita. However, if one studies the Mahabharata minus the legends and supernatural phenomenon, replacing these with simple, scientific explanations then the original Jaya-Samhita reveals itself in all its glory. Buried somewhere under the 100,000 verses of the Mahabharata are the 8800 verses of the original Jaya- Samhita. This book is an attempt to get to those 8800 verses of the original Jaya-Samhita. After so many centuries, it is difficult to reproduce the original Jaya- Samhita but it is not impossible to get somewhere near the truth. I do not claim that this is what the original Jaya-Samhita looked like but I firmly believe it is near the truth. I would still advise the reader to use his discretion if he finds something disagreeable. This book is not a historical record of anything. It is a modern interpretation of the Mahabharata. It is based on the Mahabharata but it is not the Mahabharata. P ix Sample Copy. Not for Distribution. x Sample Copy. Not for Distribution. About Ved Vyasa W Ved Vyasa is known as the author of the four Vedas, 18 Puranas, the Mahabharata and the Bhagwadgeeta. Ved Vyasa was born some 5000 years ago (exact date of birth unknown) to sage Parashara and his wife Satyawati. His father was a renowned Brahmin. His mother was a fisherman‟s daughter. Legend has it that his mother used to ferry people across the Yamuna as part of her religious duties. On one of these trips, sage Parashara fell in love with her and the two got married. A year later, Ved Vyasa was born to Satyawati. Since he was born on an island located in the middle of river Yamuna, he was named Dwaipayana or island born. He is also known as Krishna because of his dark complexion. When he came of age he was instructed in the religious texts. It was customary in those days for the son to follow in the footsteps of his father. Like his father he too was expected to learn the sacred scriptures by heart and then pass them on to the next generation. Ved Vyasa was a brilliant student and within a short span of time, mastered everything that his father and other sages taught him. Unlike others, who learned everything by heart and then recited it verbatim, without questioning or understanding what they were being taught, Ved Vyasa sought explanations and reasons behind everything.