Week 10 Reading Diary: The Pandav Princes continued

The Pandav Princes by Wallace Gandy

As this week is coming to a close, I finally finished the reading I started last week, The Pandav Princes. Wallace Gandy wrote this in order to highlight the lives of the five Pandav brothers. His work highlighted many important aspects of the epic Indian story, The Mahabharata. The last section I read discussed the Holy Song and how Krishna convinced Arjun that he must fight for what is right. In these last chapters, Gandy discusses many of the important events that happened during the battle at Kurukshetra. He talks about how Bhishma dies and also how Drona dies. He also talked about how Abhimanyu dies. The chapter that I focused on was The War Ends. At the beginning of this chapter, Yudhishthir comes from the battlefield to talk to Arjun and Krishna. He asks Arjun if he had killed Karna yet. Yudhishthir goes on to insult Arjun, saying he is only mighty in looks, not action. At this, Arjun becomes very angry and almost slays his own brother/king. Krishna intervenes and told Arjun not "to give way to sinful anger." After both Yudhishthir and Arjun calmed down, Arjun left to go defeat Karna. He was ruthless in his attempts, but so was Karna. The only reason Arjun gained an upper hand was because, at one point, Karna's chariot wheel got stuck in some mud. After some time, Arjun had so much anger in him that he sent a mighty arrow through Karna, finally killing him. The war had finally ended. I would write a story and change up the part where Karna's wheel got stuck. This would make the end of the battle more fair. 

(Arjun slays Karna. Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Bibliography. The Pandav Princes, Wallace Gandy. (1915)