Fwd: dont be a eunuch

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ananthanarayanan Vaidyanathan <kvananthanarayanan@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, May 23, 2010 at 8:48 PM
Subject: dont be a eunuch
To: kanfusion blogger <kannan54.karthik@blogger.com>

kanfusion blogger <kannan54.karthik@blogger.com>

Do not be a eunuch ,  Arjuna

                                                                                                                                K.V.ANANTHANARAYANAN

Here my treatement of the subject  requires a digression, I feel.   As we see Arjuna's present state of Impotency and mental breakdown started  when he collapsed on the floor of the chariot telling  his friend, "I do not intend to fight, Govinda" .  The statement comes first and the concocted justifications follow one by one.  

It is for the consideration of the psychiatrists and counsellors of all ages whether the much touted brave warrior Arjuna was  prone to occasional impotency and emotional breakdown all through his life. First , we have to consider his  pedigree for that.  In puranas and Itihasas , creation of complications and resolution of such  catch 22 positions both would be credited to the account of some handy  sage who passed by.  Arjuna's  father Pandu was the most unwanted child for his mother.  After being snatched away from a decent life by Bheeshma, another madcap who would not marry, she was engaged in wedlock with a tuberculosis patient by name Vichitraveerya,  an  apparent  eunuch who could not sire a progeny  in spite of having two beautiful wives and innumerable women in the harem who were all meant for his use as per the day's custom.  He died,  thank God ,  but the old hag Satyavathi who destroyed the Kuru   Race by demanding that Bhishma should not marry ,  was now shedding tears of a crocodile to have some heir to the throne fully knowing that only the childless widows of her deceased son and the eccentric Bhishma were alive and  there was practically no way out.  Then the pundits dusted out some old law books and declared that the widows could beget children through either Bheeshma or a noble Brahmin.. Bheeshma would have nothing of it. So the search was for a noble Brahmin. The noble Brahmin recruited for the job was Vyasa, the Krishnadwaipayana,  the fellow who was impossibly black and ugly, and he sprouted out of the illegitimate affair between Parasara and Satyavathi, who did the act together  in a dweepa or island,  in fog.  Vyasa was duly summoned and  he tried his luck first with Ambika the first wife of his half brother and as she would not open her eyes to see the ugliness of her studbull,  she delvered  Dhritarashta the eternal  blindman.  The next turn was availed by Ambalika, the second wife of Vichitraveerya, and seeing the ugly dwaipayana  she received him with her face and body devoid of any lively colour and the product  was Pandu, the one afflicted with leucoderma.  In time Pandu, married Kunthi and Maadri, but had not  yet tried to have a baby but it is described that Pandu and his two wives  went on rampage in a mountain range where some sage was also doing some business.  Pandu got cursed that his head will bread into thousand pieces if he tried to have any relation with his wives.  Then the wonderful boon received by Kunthi  from Durvasa came in handy.  What a boon!  She could call any celestial being for copulation with a mantra  and she had tried it once already while quite youngs  with the sungod with disastrous effect of delivery a bastard child Karna whom  she stealthily disposed off.  Now, to oblige Pandu(?)  she called the death god  Yama and begat  Yudhitira.  The next to oblige was the wind god and  Bheemasena was the product.  Finally she wooed the most promiscuous of the devas, the Indra himself and he gifted her with Our Arjuna.  By now she might have got bored by her promiscuity and she passed on the mantra to Madri, who achieved a double with the Ashwini  twins  and there stood Nakula  and sahadeva. 

The first question is whether it was the effect of a curse or the natural impotency of Pandu  which led to this situation.  Then we have to admire the chastity of Kunthi who could sleep with anyone  to beget a child.  The character of Indra who never missed a chance to ensnare a female--see the Ahalya episode or the  Damayanthi episode--and one need have no doubts about the credentials of Arjuna either on the paternal side of maternal side.

While growing up into manhood, Arjuna had to suffer another trauma.  He had won Yagnaseni or Draupadi as his wife in a tournament of prowess but with a view not to split the family, the wily hag Kunthi  hatched out the plan that the girl should be shared by all the five brothers taking turns.  This must have been the first major  mental shock to Arjuna  who was already bearing the brunt of illegitimacy of generations.  What right any of the Pandavas or Kauravas has to the Kuru  throne.  The dyanasty has  become a dried stump with Bheeshma.

This diffidence and uncertainty of his credentials always nagged Arjuna.  True, he was very bold and virile on occasions.  He is said to have travelled all over India and sired at least one child through a woman of any race….uppermost to the lowliest.   But there was always the very apparent swing in the psyche. Once he went  to his fathers abode , the heaven on a visit and there one of the paramours of Indra, Urvasi started to cast lustful eyes on him and finally he received an open invitation.  It is described that he declined the offer because the  prostitute in his fathers custody was like a mother to him.  He was cursed to become a eunuch for this, by Urvasi, and  the period of impotency was later on amended and restricted to the period he spent  as the  ajnatavasam . It was during  this period that   Arjuna enacted the role of the eunuch Brihannala teaching dance to Uttarakumari  the Virata  princess   The reality may be that Arjuna experienced the impotency of his race on the face of such a beautiful woman and judging by the nature of Indra and Arjuna neither would have hesitated to share the same woman if they were in normal health.  Maybe it is that Arjuna suffered a bout of impotency during his stay in heaven,  for which he might have even been treated, so that his potency was extended upto the period of ajnatha vasam. 

Even while living as a eunuch in the harem of Virata, may be due to another bout of depression,  Arjuna was triggered into action when the Kauravas attacked the  kingdom  the prince Uttarakumara was incapable of protecting the  Country. 

From the above background it would transpire that Arjuna was  a person susceptible to occasional mood swings  and  unbearable depression coupled with impotency.  This would be evident from the fact that when Dwaraka was attacked by enemies after the demise of Krishna,  Arjuna could only watch in impotency, even unable to lift his celebrated Gandeevam.

It was with such  a person with morbid depression that the Blessed Lord had to content with and drag him  to normalcy  to win  the war.  And the inimitable Krishna achieved it is syle.   For this alone he has to be worshipped for generations as the greatest psychiatrist  history has ever produced.   The methods adopted by him will unravel in subsequent editions.