The point about Gandhara Dwaraka confict is a very good observation. Connection of Gandhari's curse with Dwaraka's destruction seems to be a Gandhara Gandharva conspiracy as you said. But I have doubt on your point about the intent of Krishna in promoting trader community over the warrior community. There is nothing of that sorts mentioned in Mahabharata
Thanks for your remarks. Krishna was not favoring any community, but he was favoring trade over war. This may feel like ironical since he was considered by many as the cunning architect of the Kurukshetra War. But this war was not Krishna's making. It was the result of several contributing factors that culminated into a clash of the liberals represented by the Pandavas and the conservatives represented by the Kauravas. Krishna was in favor of the liberals anticipating that it will promote trade and prosperity and give freedom to the people from rigid laws of the conservatives.
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You have made an interesting connection between anceint trade and Mahabharata war. This is a good starting point for further research. However you have not given any references in Mahabharata to substantiate that trade-relationships was the motive or one of the motives that contributed to the war. General notion is that this war is fought to establish righteiousness and to destroy unrighteiousness. Mahabharata war was fought for the sake of 'Dharma'.
Mahabharata epic dealt primarily with lives of kings and warriors and their battles, but unfortunately mentions very little about other facets of society including trade, industry and agriculture. What ever inferences I derived about ancient trade from Mahabharata are thus indirect derivatives. However one proof or rather point I can bring forth is the statement that Vyasa had put forth describing his work, in which he refer Dharma (righteousness), Artha (wealth), Kama (fulfillment of desires) and Moksha (liberation or salvation) as equally important. This statement also applies to Kurukshetra War which is the core of Mahabharata. So this war was fought not just for righteousness (Dharma) alone, but also for wealth (Artha). I consider wealth indirectly refers to trade, commerce, industry and agriculture. It is a fact that Gandhara and Dwaraka had trade routes connecting them with other trading kingdoms. It is also a fact that the Gandharas, through Sakuni and the Dwaraka-Yadavas through Krishna had influenced the Kuru state-of-affairs siding with the opposing parties:- respectively the Kauravas and the Pandavas.
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Hi
You said:-
The Kamboja's of Simhapura, near Kashmir (visited by Arjuna during his northern military campaign, as per the epic Mahabharata), as part of their sea-trade established colonies in Lanka as Sinhalas.
Can you give more information on this?
Hi Arawinda,
I regret I am replying very late, due to other works.
Kamboja Kingdom lied to the north-west of Kasmir. They engaged in trade. They traded even their warriors. Kamboja was well connected with ancient trade routes of India. They were connected to the western shore of India through the Kamboja-Dwaraka route that run parellel to Sindhu Saraswati rivers. They were connected to the eastern shore of India through the Uttara-path route that run through Kamboja and ended in the Vanga kingdom in the eastern shore of India. Kambojas had a city called Simhapura, probably their capital. See Mbh.2.26. They brought the names Kamboja and Simhapura to all places where they later ruled. They had settlements in the western shore of India attested by the names like Gulf of Cambay (Cambay = Kamboja) in Gujarat. They had settlements in in the eastern shore of India as well in Vanga kingdom (West_Bengal). Here we can see names like Singur (short form of Singha-pura) and Singhbhum (Singha-Bhoomi).
Kambojas also came to Srilanka, probably as traders from Vanga (West-Bengal), and became the Sinhalas of this island country. Simha-la:- observe the name Simha; Simha-la could mean the land of the Simhas (of Simha-pura) like in the name Kera-la, the land of Kera (coconut) trees. The Dravidian ala and Sanskrit aalaya denote 'abode' or 'habitation' or 'the land of'.
Kambojas then went as far as Southeast Asia, where they formed Cambodia or Kampuchea Kingdom and the city of Singapore.
Thus the Kambojas had a vast trade network spreading to eastern and western shores of India through land routes and to islands like Srilanka and South-East Asian peninsula through sea route. I guess they had trade with China too through the silk route that passed through their territories.
Arjuna went and defeated the Kambojas since he wanted wealth for the Rajasuya of Pandava king Yudhisthira. Kambojas had enormous wealth that they amassed through trade. He collected much wealth from them and thus later earned the title 'Dhananjaya', the one who won much wealth.
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Hi Jijith,
I am posting the question that I had placed in the Chat, as suggested by you.
Vrishaketu, son of Karna get a single mention in the main text, however there are few more
stories told as he too survived the war apart from Pandavas, Krishna and few yadavas, ofcourse Pariksheet.
Similarly what happens to Ashwathama post war is also left unknown. (Pallavas claim to be the descendants of Ashwathama).
The main intent of asking this question is to understand what are your other textual sources apart from Vyasa's epic. Do you also consider a list of work which have regional flavor when you research?
Thanks and Regards
Arvind
Hi Arvind
As per my understanding, there are several heroes in Mahabharata, whose many a battles were not mentioned in the main versions of Mahabharata but found mention in songs of folklore. Most prominent among them are the stories of Babruvahana and Iravan, the sons of Arjuna. There are also stories about most of the sons of Pandavas like Ghatotkacha and Abhimanyu too. I guess history of Karna's son Vrishaketu is associated with Babruvahana.
As I have expressed in this site, Vyasa assembled and compiled together war-songs from bards who witnessed Kurukshetra War . Each bard sang songs on his favorite war-hero. Not all of them have reached Vyasa and his disciples who were busy organizing and combining all of them into the great work of Vyasa called Jaya (which later grew into Bhaarata and finally into Mahaabhaarata, which then contained not only narration of actions of the heroes in Kurukshetra war, but their full life history). Among the sons of Karna, Vrishasena is mentioned extensively in main versions. Others sons of Karna like Satrunjaya and Vipatha, Sushena, Satyasena and Chitrasena were also mentioned extensively. As you mentioned vrishaketu is referred only once.
I have with me versions of Mahabharata in Malayalam language, and the narrations of Mahabharata used in Katha-Kali (Kerala) and Yaksha-Gaana (Karnataka). I have some Sanskrit Versions too. However in this site I am using Ganguli's English translation, subjecting it to a parsing software which I developed. Using the software I am able to recognize nouns in Mahabharata; parva-wise noun-signatures, noun-to-noun affinity(bonding) and other patterns in Mahabharata. This enable me to study layering of Mahabharata, addition of new topics into existing topics of Mahabharata etc. I am yet to extend such rigorous studies to other versions of Mahabharata and to folklore stories.
In my opinion, folklore stories too have value, as they extend the horizon of information from beyond what what Vyasa was able to tell. We should also not forget that Mahabharata had lost some verses after its creation. Mahabharata itself tells at one point that it contains 100,000 verses. This need not be an exact number but rounded off. But now we do not find 100,000 verses in Mahabharata. It also contains references stating that Mahabharata was published in other regions containing may more verses and versions.
Secondly we should also consider that folk lore information (as well as original Mahabharata) can have distortions. For example a person mentioned as a son of Karna, becomes a brother or Karna in another story. Sometimes, the protectors of Karna's car-wheels (every warrior is fighting in a chariot, protected by warriors at wings (viz on the sides of the chariot) and are essential for their success in battle) were attributed as Karna's sons, since they protect Karna as sons protecting their father.
Mahabharata mentions that Ashwathama survived the Kurukshetra war. So it is possible he had heirs. I will check about the Pallava claim. Thanks for this info. If yes, they should have some connection with northen Panchala and Ahichatra, because Ashwathama was like a ruler of this city of Panchala, under the command of Duryodhana.
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