History Literature / Mahabharata

* EverybodysDeadDave: Also kind of KillEmAll. After the 18 day long battle of Kurukshetra, involving just shy of ''four million!'' warriors, [[spoiler: only eight of the Pandavas and three of the Kauravas remain alive.]]

* MyRulesAreNotYourRules: Krishna is practically a PoisonousFriend as since he's a living god, any treachery perpetrated by the Pandavas, no matter how objectively heinous, is made honorable by his divine right. These include, but are not limited to, shooting your enemy in the back, hitting below the belt, and outright flagrant deception.

* ChickMagnet: Krishna, UpToEleven.

* DemotedToExtra: Nakula and Sahadeva can come across like this. Arjuna has many, many side-stories, while Bhima and Yudhisthira get leading roles and feature rather prominently in the story. Nakula and Sahadeva, said to be [[TakeOurWordForIt the best swordsmen]] and [[{{Bishounen}} the best-looking]] amongst the Pandava brothers, hardly get any screen time. Of course, it can also be attributed to the LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters the prose must cover.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: What is listed here are just some of the more important ones.

Subject to countless AlternativeCharacterInterpretation, mostly because of MoralDissonance and most characters being JerkAss or worse, or some characters being [[YouCantFightFate Screwed by Destiny]]. Countless adaptations have taken place; this epic is often compared to the works of Creator/{{Homer}}.

* BeCarefulWhatYouSay: When the Pandavas brought Draupadi home, Kunti asked them to share whoever they brought equally, thinking that they bought alms. Much confusion ensued and all the five Pandavas married Draupadi. Also can be subject to MoralDissonance.

* MoralDissonance - Cannot even count.

* CelibateHero: Traditionally, abstinence matters a lot in Hinduism, but usually it's fasting in various forms (vows of indefinite prohibition are another matter entirely). Thus celibacy is defined differently in the Mahabharata than almost anywhere else. It is described most of all as [[{{Asexuality}} a lack of sexual lust]]. Thus, Arjuna, TheHero, is described to be a bramhachari ('celibate') despite marrying Draupadi and Subhadra, sleeping with Chitraganda and various other Naga Princesses [[LieBackAndThinkOfEngland because he is sleeping with them only for procreation]]. Also, warriors were not supposed to refuse any female request for sex. Highly subject to ValuesDissonance.

The Epic starts with King Shantanu, the ancestor of the Kurus falling in LoveAtFirstSight with (unknown to him) River Goddess Ganga whose condition for marrying him is that he should refrain [[ThePromise from questioning her about anything that she does]]. Ganga however appears to be a {{Jerkass}} and [[OffingtheOffspring drowns every single child she bears as soon as they are born]]. Shantanu finally asks her to stop, only to find out that her sons are holy souls that, who, due to a crime of vandalism that they had committed, were forced to be born as mortal humans, and that [[BlueAndOrangeMorality by drowning them, she's letting them go back to the place where souls go after having transcended the cycle of rebirth]]. Ganga leaves and her son, Devavrata, becomes the apparent heir. Shantanu finds his SecondLove, a young fisherwoman named Satyavati whom he cannot marry due to ParentalMarriageVeto. TheWisePrince Devavrata promises to step away from the throne and to remain celibate for the rest of his life so that Satyavati's children can inherit the throne. Satyavati is allowed to marry Shantanu. Devavrata is hence called Bhishma or the 'one with a terrible vow'.

Later on, he abducts three princesses from the kingdom of Kasi during a Svayamvara (a marriage ceremony where the princess gets to choose her husband), for his half-brother (the son of Satyavati and Shantanu) Vichitravirya, to marry. Two of the princesses agree to wed his half brother. Amba, the eldest refuses but her lover, Salva, the king of Saubha, refuses to take her back. She is unable to persuade Bhishma to wed her (and thus gain the respect that comes with marriage) and she takes up austerity, vowing to take her revenge on Bhishma which she eventually does.

Vichitravirya dies without an heir to the throne, and as [[ThePromise Bhishma is unwilling]] to procreate, Satyavati calls on the [[AuthorAvatar sage Ved-Vyasa]] to impregnate the two widowed queens. Ved-Vyasa is the illegitimate offspring of Satyavati and Parashara, a wandering sage, before her marriage to Shantanu who was brought up by his father. Two children result which are deemed to be the sons of Vichitravirya. Blind Prince Dhritarashtra is the older, but due to his blindness, the right to be an emperor is passed down to the second son, Prince Pandu. Dhritarashtra marries the queen of Gandhara, Gandhari who brings along her brother, ChessMaster Shakuni. Pandu, the second son is sickly. He marries Princess Kunti and a second woman named Madri. Vyasa's visit also results in a son being born to a servant in the palace called Vidura. He is wise, but since his mother is not a princess, he cannot rise beyond the rank of Prime Minister.

Pandu is cursed by a sage to die childless. As a result, he exiles himself to the forest and Dhritarashtra remains king. Pandu eventually begets five sons by magical means - his wife Kunti has the power to call any God to father her children. Pandu then dies and his sons return to the kingdom. The children of Dhritarashtra are called Kauravas and the children of Pandu are called Pandavas. A rivalry quickly develops and Duryodhana, the oldest of the Kauravas, resolves to eliminate his cousins. When Duryodhana attempts to wipe out the Pandavas by tricking them into living in a palace made of lac and then burning it down, they escape and resolve to hide their identity till they are in safe territory. On the way, they marry [[EngagementChallenge Draupadi, the Princess of Panchala]]. Meanwhile, King Dhritarastra learns of the plot to kill the Pandavas and, obviously displeased with the infighting, gifts them with half the kingdom. This does not please the Kauravas, and only adds to their dislike of the Pandavas. Duryodana and his uncle, Shakuni, challenge the Pandavas to play a dice game where the Pandavas stake and lose their kingdom, wealth, themselves and even temporarily their wife Draupadi (who is married to all five of the brothers). After being humiliated, they are exiled for thirteen years. King Dhritarashtra promises to give back their kingdom if they are not caught by the end of the exile. His sons, however, are desperate to prevent this. Peace is exhausted and a war ensues.

'''The Pandavas''' are five brothers, plus Draupadi, their wife; and Krishna, [[GodInHumanForm the eighth incarnation of Vishnu]].

* RealityEnsues: Despite divine intervention occurring left and right, there is still a whole lot of reality biting people in the posterior.
** Sage Kidamba and his wife decide to transform into tigers, then go really close to Pandu’s vacation home for their tryst. Did it not occur to him that humans might see and hear a pair of tigers prowlin’ and growlin’ and not retaliate violently to protect themselves?
** Karna fires off an arrow into the wild, due to a noise he imagines to be a wild animal, without checking if it is indeed what he thinks.
** Krishna admonishes the Pandavas to play dirty when necessary to win. This leads the other side to play dirty to win too, hence their slaying of Abhimanyu, their commando raid at night etc.
** The Pandavas sneak into Jarasandha’s court pretending to be poor supplicant Brahmins. However, all the saffron robes can’t disguise the calluses in Arjuna’s hands from all that archery. No wonder they get found out.
** Krishna tells Karna that Kunti is his real mother, in an attempt to get him to end the war. The thing is that she abandoned him and raised his younger brothers so that he was raised by charioteers; while Karna is respectful towards her, he in turn points out that they haven't been the nicest towards him and that the only mother he knows is the one who took him in and showed him love. He says that no one must know because Duryodhana has his loyalty, and says he'll only kill Arjuna. Kunti understandably is devastated that she made things worse.

* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: All of them!

* FriendlyEnemy: Played straight with Bhishma and Karna. Given the age of the poem, an UnbuiltTrope with Krishna who, while ever-affable, you shouldn't listen to if he's on the opposing side as no matter how good his suggestions are, he is still your enemy and everything he does is in service of his allies. Part of the leadup to the Bhagavad Gita is him delivering a deconstruction of this trope from the other side: a FriendlyEnemy is still an enemy. Just because Arjuna's friends and family are among the Kauravas doesn't mean they're not still a threat to the preservation of ''dharma'' on Earth.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Ashwatthama. Krishna curses him with immortality, a painfully deteriorating body, and with becoming an {{Unperson}} who is ignored by all.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Ashwatthama. Krishna curses him with immortality.

* FriendlyEnemy: Played straight with Bhishma and Karna. Ultimately deconstructed with Krishna who, while ever-affable, you shouldn't listen to if he's on the opposing side as no matter how good his suggestions are, he is still your enemy and everything he does is in service of his allies.

** Krishna does all that he can to prevent a war between the Pandavas and Kauravas by serving as an emissary. Even so, Gandhari points out that he could have stopped it outright by using his full powers as an avatar or his kingdom's military might which was larger than the forces of the Pandavas and Kauravas combined, and curses him for not doing that when the war is over and no one has truly won.

-->--'''The Book of the Beginning'''

The 'Mahabharata' is a great Indian epic, part of Myth/HinduMythology and a NarrativePoem primarily about the CivilWar between two factions, the Kauravas and the Pandavas of the Kuru dynasty who are [[CainAndAbel Royal Cousins]]. It is popularly said to be written by the sage and AuthorAvatar "Ved-Vyasa" (meaning the Arranger of the Vedas).

The ''Mahabharata'' is a great Indian epic, part of Myth/HinduMythology and a NarrativePoem primarily about the CivilWar between two factions, the Kauravas and the Pandavas of the Kuru dynasty who are [[CainAndAbel Royal Cousins]]. It is popularly said to be written by the sage and AuthorAvatar "Ved-Vyasa" (meaning the Arranger of the Vedas).

* AchillesHeel: the Big Bad Duryodhana's Achilles heel is his thighs and to hit it is to break the rules of War. [[spoiler: Not that Bhima cared anyways]]. Karna's was existing without putting on his earrings and armor that he had and wore since birth since his earrings and armor made him immortal.
* AchillesInHisTent: Bhishma was so pissed at Karna that Karna was sent to his tent and didn't participate for a part of the War, at least until Bhishma's death.
* AlasPoorVillain: Many from the Kaurava side got an honorable sent-off, one way or another. Because for the khsatriya, if the option is between [[ToBeLawfulOrGood honor and dharma]], then [[HonorBeforeReason honor is the better answer]].
** Bhurishravas, otherwise a staunch enemy of Krishna's clan the Yadava, proves himself more honorable than his Yadava rival Satyaki for not striking down his helpless opponent. Everyone condemns Satyaki forever and the Yadava is cursed to be annihilated by their own hands.
** Bhisma's fall stops the war for a moment so both sides could come to his side and mourn him.
** Karna's generosity shames Lord Indra so much in both his life and death, Lord Indra personally praises Karna in front of other Gods and never again comes to Arjuna's aid.
** Beaten and dying, Duryodhana rants about his misfortunes and loses despite trying to uphold dharma as a khsatriya. None of the Pandava could retort back and the Gods agree with him, showering his dying body with flowers and ascending him to heaven.

* AnythingThatMoves: Almost all the Purus have this as a flaw. Pandu died because he could not help keep his hands to himself. Satyavati's youngest son died because of this. Satyavati's husband had a particular weakness for women near rivers.

** Drona was born artificially as well. Draupadi was born from a sacrificial fire.

* AttemptedRape: Kichaka attempts to rape Draupadi in the Matsya Kingdom. Jayadatha attempts to rape Draupadi as well when she is exiled in the forest. After the dice game incident, Duryodhana, and Dushasana try to rape her in front of their royal court...and her husbands
* AvengingTheVillain: [[spoiler: Pandavas's five young children are killed in their sleep by Aswattama, Duryodhana's friend. [[InnocentBystander Those poor kids!]]]]

** The ''Baghavad Gita''. Krishna literally stops time in order to explain the nature of dharma and humanity's relationship with the gods to Arjuna. Not a bad thing of course-- it's one of the most popular parts of the epic and often treated as a stand-alone religious text in its own right.
** As Bhishma lies on his deathbed, the Pandavas turn to him for advice. Because he can delay the time of his death, he spends weeks there waiting for the proper moment, and uses the time to stop all action and deliver many chapters' worth of parables about how to live. Many of these parables have aesops about repsecting and supporting Brahmins, who of course were the people editing and compiling different versions of the text.

* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Purus are screwed up. In more ways than one.

** Draupadi, the Pandavas's wife, in the Mahabharata yearned for a husband in her previous life. In one version of the story, she wanted her husband to be as strong as Vayu, as talented as Indra, as moral as Dharma and as beautiful as the Ashwini twins. She forgot to specify that she wanted ''one'' husband. As a result, in her next incarnation, she married five men and was the wife of five husbands simultaneously. Her qualities of an ideal husband were satisfied in that the five princes were conceived by Kunti with the aid of five different gods (Bhima from Vayu, Arjuna from Indra, Yuddhistira from Dharma, and Nakula and Sahadev from the Ashwins).

* BigBad: Duryodhana, with Shakuni as GreaterScopeVillain.

** Bhishma, the Patriach of the Purus, has the power to decide the time of his death. Keep in mind, this does not make him immortal and that he still experiences pain. [[spoiler: He dies in the Kurushetra War after lying on a bed of arrows for a number of days. He willed his death of course but it is a very very sucky power.]]
** [[TheDragon Karna]] had earrings and armor that made him immortal yet it never does much for him until the Kurushetra War. [[spoiler: And before he can use it in the war, Indra/Krishna asks him to give away his amulet and earrings as charity. He accepts, as it's in line with his vows.]] Thus, immortality proved to be useless and temporary.

** This happens to Draupadi a lot because of her legendary beauty. Kichaka, the errant brother of the queen Sudeshna of the Matsya Kingdom tries to assault her when she disguises herself as a servant and when repulsed kicks her in open court. [[spoiler: Bhima teaches him a nice lesson in manners later, by stomping him till he dies]]

** Several Arjuna tales outside of the war have him suffer this; in one case he claims that a bridge of arrows that he builds would withstand a monkey's weight (Hanuman in disguise) and nearly burns himself when he fails.

** After surviving Duryodhana's attempt on his life, Bhima is told by Vidura to keep it a secret as the sequence of events (getting drugged, tossed into a river, rescued by Naga who removed the poison and gifted him with SuperStrength) would sound too contrived to be believable.

* TheCorrupter: Shakuni, also crossed with HeWhoFightsMonsters; he's the cause of everything that turn shit in the epic, all because the Kuru destroyed his dynasty and Bhisma made his sister Ghandari marry a blind man.
* {{Cosmic Plaything}}s: Everyone in this Epic without exception.
* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: The Kurushetra War can be avoided in several ways [[ForegoneConclusion alas...]]
** Krishna does all that he can to prevent a war between the Pandavas and Kauravas by serving as an emissary. Even so, Gandhari points out that he could have stopped it outright by using his full powers as an avatar or his kingdom's military might which was larger than the forces of Ondavas and Kauravas combined, and curses him for not doing that when the war is over and no one has truly won.
** The Pandava offer that they and their descendants will never again push for their claim for the throne if Duryodhana gives them five small villages so their sons could at least inherit something. Duryodhana rejects it, claiming that nothing less than throwing the Pandava into another exile could possibly satisfy him.
** After the negotiation fails, Sahadeva consults with his omnipotent wisdom on other way the war can be avoided. The wisdom claims that the war can be prevented by giving the throne to Karna, imprisoning Shakuni and Khrisna forever, and then exiling both the Pandava and Duryodhana. It is rejected because a. Karna would never accept that his best friend is deprived of his rights and b. the Pandavas are too prideful to let [[DramaticIrony the son of a charioteer become king]].
* CurbStompBattle: Karna is not that powerful or most of the story, but [[TookALevelInBadass takes many levels in badass]] by the time of the battle of Kurukshetra, where his defeat by Arjuna requires a pile of curses activating in the critical moment, direct intervention by multiple gods, and his best weapon being already expended to kill one of the most powerful enemy heroes. He also stomps into the ground the rest of Pandavas, before battling Arjuna.
* CursedWithAwesome: Arjuna is cursed by a miffed Goddess to look like a eunuch, but his father Indra changes the curse to make it last exactly one year, to be chosen at Arjuna's behest. It comes in very handy during the year the Pandavas have to live in disguise.

** Ashwatthama, the son of Drona and a friend of BigBad Duryodhana [[spoiler: kills the five children of the Pandavas, Draupadi's father and brothers when they were sleeping in a tent at the end of the Kurushetra battle]] to avenge the unjust death of his father and the Kurus in general.
** He also tries to kill Abhimanyu's unborn son, but (depending on version) the child is revived by Krishna or Ashwattama got caught first.
** Essentially, this is the reason of the Kurushetra War in a nutshell beside the SuccessionCrisis. Bhisma fought, defeated, and left the Ghandara dynasty to starve in dungeon. This makes Shakuni fan Dhuryodhana's hatred for the Pandavad that started from Bhima bullying the Kaurava in their childhood, and it just escalates from there.

* DeadpanSnarker: Karna. To quote Yuddhistira, he was "one whose teeth are spears and arrows and whose tongue is a sword".
* DefeatByModesty: Ghandari's last-ditch blessing to Duryodhana would have made him completely invulnerable had Krishna not shamed him into covering his thighs and privates as he claimed appearing before his mother buck-naked would have been a shameful thing to do.
* DemotedToExtra: Nakula and Sahadeva can come across like this. Arjuna has many, many side-stories, while Bhima and Yudhistira got leading roles and feature rather prominently in the story. Nakula and Sahadeva, said to be [[TakeOurWordForIt the best swordsmen]] and [[{{Bishounen}} the best-looking]] amongst the Pandava brothers, hardly got any screen time. Of course, it can also me attribured to the LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters the prose must cover.

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Karna managed to knock back Arjuna's chariot despite [[RealityWarper the protection of two gods at once]]. Which also involved moving Avatar against his will--thus [[AchievementsInIgnorance obliviously doing a wonder]] while just trying to get at Arjuna.

* DisproportionateRetribution: Panchali laughed at Durodhyana. So he attempts to rape her.
* DoorStopper: '''And how!''' The Mahabharata itself Lampshades this, saying it was supposedly so long that a God had to be brought in as the scribe.

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: Ulupi drags Arjuna underwater and propositions him, threatening to commit suicide after his initial refusal. Even though she's a total stranger, Arjuna considers this romantic and sexy. Compare this to the scene where Durodhyana threatens to rape Draupadi, a show of cruelty so enraging that several other Kshatriya (including Krishna, who is literally virtue incarnate) declare war on him.
* DownerEnding: How to list the ways. [[spoiler: All the Kauravas die but they die with almost all the Pandavas's mentors, teachers and revered patriarchs. Then the Pandavas's five children are killed during sleep due to Ashwattama, the son of their teacher Drona, who wanted to revenge the villain. Of their many children and grandchildren, only the unborn child of teenage Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna, survives. The Pandavas's mother dies in a forest fire. After their death, they ascend to the heavens but not before being put through a crazy amount of tests. Duryodhana, the BigBad is enjoying himself in Heaven. Their last heir dies sometime after the Kurushetra War due to a snakebite because he tried to mock a meditating sage.]]
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Duryodhana loves his mother Gandhari though he never listens to her. [[spoiler: Subverted in the case of Karna though not completely as he promised Kunti that he would only try to kill Arjuna out of her five children and will not spare the other four though he won't kill them.]]
** Duryodhana accidentally sets the stage for the war when, during their childhoods, he insulted the Pandavas about how their mothers were "whores" as they had been impregnated by five different gods instead of their actual cursed father, Pandu. Yudhishthira, famed for his honesty, retaliated by calling his mother a "widow." This scared Duryodhana, who believed that his father had somehow died when he wasn't looking or that he would die very soon, so he went to Bhishma for help. The following investigations caused Bhishma to imprison and torture Gandhari's family, leading to Shakuni's grudge against both clans and his schemes to exacerbate the coming conflict to catastrophic levels.
* EverybodysDeadDave: Also kind of KillEmAll. After the 8 day long battle of Kurukshetra, involving just shy of ''4 million!'' warriors, [[spoiler: only 8 of the Pandavas and 3 of the Kauravas remain alive.]]
** Actually, it was spread over 18 days, but that does nothing to help the probability of getting ''4 million'' men of fighting age in one battle. That doesn't count any support personnel.
*** The Mahabharata isn't explicit on how its calculated, but Yudhisthira tells Dhritharashtra that the official head count at the end stood at ''an astounding 1,660,020,000'', including animals. ''One billion six hundred and sixty million''. It is explained off by auxiliary books that the 4 million only consisted of the core army while the actual was 'way bigger'. No need to imagine the old king's response...

* EvilCounterpart: Ashwatthama was an avatar to Shiva like how Krishna was to Vishnu. However, while Krishna was a ManipulativeBastard, Ashwatthama was DumbMuscle at best.
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: Inverted... if you ask a Filipino anyway. Mainly because "Mahabarata" kinda sounds like "Mahaba ata" (or This is long) considering that this is an Epic, it makes sense.

* FanFic: Local adapters of ''Mahabharata'' tend to add their own spin to the legends, ranging from the subtle to the not. One of the most pronounced aspect of this is Draupadi's status: in the original version she was the wife of all the Pandavas, while in the Javanese version she is the wife of Yudhistira alone. This fact bit her on the behind in the end; she died during the Pandava's pilgrimage to the Mahameru in the foothills of Himalaya, because she had feelings for Arjuna throughout her marriage.

** Dhritarashtra's excessive love for his 100 sons made him emotionally blind to realize which direction they were going and frequently forgave them for their transgressions.
** Bhisma's extreme but blind loyalty to the kingdom prevented him from criticizing his superiors, most notably when he refused to intervene in the dice game.
* FateWorseThanDeath: Ashvathama. Krishna curses him with immortality.

* GentleGiant: Ghatotkacha, Bhima's son by Hidimba who is a giant (as in the giant race) princess.

** Yudhistira's ability to solve riddles and his philosophical knowledge gets all five brothers out of sticky situations more than once.
** Vidur is able to reason with and manipulate the weak-willed Dhritarashtra on several occasions to obtain a favourable bargain for the Pandavas.

* HeirClubForMen: Heirs are wanted very badly by Purus. VERY VERY BADLY.

** Arjuna just before the battle, when he faced the fact it is going to involve killing his teachers and most of his family. Lead to a major lecture in the ''Literature/BhagavadGita''.

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Happens to all the Pandavas during the Kurushetra battle. Leads to Yuddhistira's [[spoiler: MyGodWhatHaveIDone speech]].

** Nearly everyone, including the BigBad, take their vows extremely seriously. So when both sides break mutually agreed rules of war during the battle of Kurukshetra it is a ''very big deal''.

** Arjuna absolutely loses his shit after his son is killed by the strongest warriors of the Kaurava faction. Later, he gleefully shoots off Karna's son Vrishasena's arms before decapitating him with a massive smile on his face.
* IGaveMyWord: Yuddhishtira gave his word never to back down from a challenge; this is a doubly huge issue because he is a ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kshatriya Kshatriya]]'', for whom such promises are very much SeriousBusiness. He is challenged to a rigged game of dice and has to gamble away his brothers, his wife, and everything he possesses or rules.
* {{Irony}}: Draupadi had wished in her past life for a husband who was strong, talented, morally upright, and good-looking, and Shiva told her it was very difficult (though not exactly impossible) to find one man with all those qualities. Karna is the one guy with all those qualities at once...and he can't be with Draupadi [[TypeCaste because of his social status]].

* IWantGrandKids: The conflict in the epic is set in motion because of the Puru desire to have as many grandkids as possible. Queen Satyavati wants Puru heirs really really soon and she is willing to do anything to get them. So she makes her very teenage son sleep with two adult women until he dies. Then she makes her stepson Vyasa impregnate his two widowed wives almost immediately even when Vyasa asks her to wait for a year. Of course, the sons who were born were blind and sickly. The first son conceives his sons artificially and the second son asks his wives to bear children from the Gods.

** Drona is this to lower-caste boys that want to be his pupils. He even orders Ekalavya to chop off his thumb when the latter surpasses Arjuna!

** Duryodhana gets support from Karna, TheAce in combat, because the Pandavas made it a point to KickTheDog with Karna for being a "charioteer's son". You don't disrespect those below you, because it may come back to haunt you later. He also raises a very valid defense in his withholding of the kingdom from the Pandavas due to the fact that because none of them were conceived by their father Pandu, none of them have any royal blood to lay claim to the throne with.
** Yudhisthira in his NeverMyFault moment points out that Kunti SHOULD have told the brothers before the battle that Karna was her son as well and thus their half-brother, because they unknowingly committed fratricide. Though it may not have helped since when she told Karna, he decided to kill only Arjuna.

* LamarckWasRight: Dhritarashtra is born blind because his mother kept her eyes shut during his conception, and Pandu is born sickly because his mother was pale and trembling with fear.

* LetThemDieHappy: Karna goes into the war knowing that either Duryodhana wins or Yudhisthira does, and either way it will be a bloodbath. Then he has to waste a celestial weapon on a victory, and senses that it was his last chance to kill Arjuna. The night before he dies, Parashurama comes to him in a dream. Karna bitterly calls him out for cursing him, since he didn't even know he was a kshatriya when serving as the man's student, but Parashurama had an explanation for the cruelty. He says that if Karna weren't cursed, then Duryodhana would win and the world would fall into chaos. This allowed Karna to go into battle, knowing that he wouldn't return alive.
* LightIsNotGood: Krishna and the Pandavas are divine creatures of great beauty and strength. In the end, they wind up being less honorable and just than the vaguely demonic and less sightly Kauravas.
* LongLostRelative: Karna, the Pandavas's other half-brother. He was informed only in a context of the possibility to overtake the whole mess from the Pandavas as the first child of Kunti, rendering the whole conflict moot and from this position resolve it as he see fit. Being a HotBlooded warrior as opposed to a MagnificentBastard, he met such news without any enthusiasm and chose to stick with his feudal obligations, friends and his stables-bound foster family.
* LoopholeAbuse: Ghandari was fated to have her first husband die prematurely. To circumvent this, her family had her marry a goat and kill it to have this destiny harmlessly play out. Unfortunately, to maintain her viability as a bride of high-standing, they withheld that information from her horoscope and when Bhishma found out about the deception, he had them imprisoned and slowly starved them to death with Shakuni as the only (and very vengeful) survivor.
* LostHimInACardGame: The infamous dice game; see IGaveMyWord. Earlier, Vinata loses ''herself'' to her sister Kadru betting on the color of the tail of a horse [[SchmuckBait whose fur Kadru had replaced]].

* MeaningfulName - Pandya means "pale". He was a sickly child. Bhishma means "terrible vowed". Draupadi "daughter of drupad" is called Yagnyaseni which means "born of fire" and "Ayonija" which means that "one is not born of a woman". Naturally she is a fearsome character to behold.

** Kind of a bilingual subversion is "Arjuna" - you could think it means "Archer", since the words are so close. (Nope, it's "bright", "shining" or such.)

* MyGirlIsNotASlut: AuthorAvatar Vyasa is sympathetic to women in the epic who have to transgress monogamy or have had children out of wedlock. His mother Satyavati gave birth to him before marriage. Kunti was pregnant before marriage and she was absolved of any wrongdoing by Vyasa. Similarly when Kunti consults the scriptures on whether having three sons with various gods could lead to a bad reputation, he states that as long as the number of ''gods'' she summoned were less than four, she would not have a problem with her reputation. Draupadi is insulted by Karna for having five husbands and is condemned in the eyes of the Kaurava audience because of this though she is considered holy by the Brahmins (who refused to work for a day because of the insult to her honor) and worshiped as part of the five "virgins". According to the philosophy advocated in the Mahabharata, virginity is a state of mind.

* MyRulesAreNotYourRules: Krishna is practically a PoisonousFriend as due to how he's a living god, any treachery perpetrated by the Pandavas, no matter how objectively heinous, is made honorable by his divine right. These include, but are not limited to, shooting your enemy in the back, hitting below the belt, and outright flagrant deception.
* MySisterIsOffLimits: {{Inverted}}. Krishna is perfectly happy to have Arjun fall in love with his sister Subhadra. He goes out of his way to encourage Arjun to [[AbductionIsLove abduct]] her, as the quickest way to put an end to all arguments with his brother about whether Subhadra should be married to some other prince. Krishna's elder brother Balarama is annoyed by this.

** Dronacharya's doting over his pet apprentice, even against Pandava's own long-term interests. Eklavaya is a potential rival to our star? Let's ''cripple'' him! The guy can be taken into the ranks effortlessly instead? Never mind, the championship is what's important. Karna wants to lock horns with our buffalo among the men? Let's tell him off in the worst way possible. It sounds like an invitation for anyone with land to spare, grudge against Pandava and half a brain to get an alliance or feudal obligations from the lad who (Drona suspects) have a good chance to wipe the floor with Arjuna? Oh, Suyodhana-Duryodhana is here too? Never mind, it's all about the sport. Never mind what can happen in the ''next'' tournament, too.
** Kunti attempts to get Karna to reveal himself as her oldest son to rout the battle. This only makes Karna promise not to kill most of his brothers, which leads to his death in turn as he faces Arjuna and Krishna. What's more, Arjuna is horrified when he learns that he committed fratricide and was gleeful about it.

* NonIndicativeName: Both Kunti and Draupadi are lauded as holy virgins, both in an out of universe. Neither one of them are ''actually'' virgins.
* OffingTheOffspring: The Goddess Ganga does this by killing her children. She later explains that she did this because the children were souls of cursed saints who wanted to be liberated from this birth. She could have at least informed her husband.
* OOCIsSeriousBUsiness: Duryodhana is motivated by a desire to claim the throne. He refuses to share or even give a small portion. Then he finds out after Karna's death that Karna was actually the rightful heir and refused to tell anyone because he promised to serve Duryodhana. In fact, this revelation would have made the Pandavas stand down since they would give the throne to their oldest brother. The man tearfully says that if Karna had told him, Duryodhana would have ceded his claim and supported his best friend as the king.
* ParentalAbandonment: TheDragon Karna's and Pandava's mother Kunti abandoned him as she was unwed. Kunti herself was given in adoption by her real father to his close friend and was thus abandoned.
* ParentsAsPeople: Much later on, Kunti tries to reason with Karna and ask him to reveal himself, to atone for abandoning him and to stop the war before it begins. She means well in wanting none of her sons to die, but as Karna points out, his "brothers" haven't exactly been brotherly or kind and they want this fight. Plus, if she truly cared, she wouldn't have abandoned him in the first place. The most she can do afterward is ensure that he gets a proper funeral.

** Sage Kidamba and his wife decide to transform into tigers, then go really close to Pandu’s vacation home for their tryst. Did it not occur to him that humans might see and hear a pair of tigers prowlin’ And growlin’ and not retaliate violently to protect themselves?
** Karna fires off an arrow into the wild, aimlessly, to vent his frustration at being unfairly cursed by Parashurama. Did it not occur to him that this stray shot May end up hitting something? Or someone?

* ResetButton: Although Draupadi has (and sleeps with) 5 husbands, her virginity is restored whenever she takes a bath. Thus she is worshipped as one of the Five Holy Virgins.
* RevengeBeforeReason: On the 18th Day, Duryodhana is completely defeated and knows it. He surrenders to the Pandavas when they corner him, saying that he'll peacefully retire to the live in the wilds of the kingdom after he gives dominion of it over to them. The wrathful brothers reject his offer and challenge him to a DuelToTheDeath to make his loss official. Duryodhana is a good sport about it, even picking Bhima as his opponent to settle their old grievances despite how he'd have a huge advantage over any other Pandava brother, but when they cheat to win and leave him to die from his injuries, he uses the last of his strength to instruct Ashwatthamma to murder the Pandavas in their sleep. Because of the night's low visibility, Ashwatthamma kills the Pandavas' ''sons'' by accident, imperiling the lineage of the victors and making it fragile enough that their legacy ends in anticlimactic squalor.

* RevengeByProxy: Aswathamma

* ScrewTheRulesTheyBrokeThemFirst: The Pandavas justify their increasing deviation from the rules of warfare with the way Abimaniyu was unlawfully overwhelmed by Kaurava warriors. By the time the war's over, every side has broken the rules so many times you'd be surprised there were any in the first place.

** Another beautiful woman is Satyavati who used her beauty to her advantage (became a queen and had a learned illegitimate son who could give her offspring.).

* StoryBreakerPower: Karna, which is part of why he was AchillesInHisTent'd for the first eleven days of the war. He's so strong and skilled that he can match Arjuna and Krishna simultaneously with seemingly ease even after losing his armor, and Krishna claims that even if all the world's men, Deva and Asura were to battle him at once, they would be defeated. Some versions of the epic even illustrate Karna as a [[MemeticBadass Mahamaharathi]], a title of combat prowess otherwise reserved for Vishnu and Shiva.

* StrongerWithAge: Bhishma is one of the best examples in Hindu mythology. He was absolutely invincible on the battlefield and the Pandavas had to ask '''him''' for advice on how to defeat him. (He promised them that they could always meet him for advice after sunset, and he ''kept'' his promises.) Even after being impaled on a ''bed of arrows'' he had the grace to choose the time of his death, and he lay there for days to wait for a time which was considered holy (the start of the period when the length of nights start reducing and length of days start increasing i.e around middle of January) before he finally decided to leave the world.
** Bahlika, who counts on the virtue of being of fighting capability despite being Bhishma's uncle, i.e, '''the older brother of Bhishma's father.
** Brihadatta, who is so old that he had to tie a headband to keep his skin folds from obscuring his vision, yet while riding his elephant (itself a basically a fierce creature who can make Bheema, who kills elephants for sport, run for his life), sent Ghatotkacha running for his life and nearly killing Arjun if not for Krishna taking the arrow aimed at Arjun.

* SuperPowerfulGenetics: Sons of Kunti inherited aspects of their real fathers, Gods. Pandavas got superhuman amounts of all the qualities [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor Draupadi]] wished for. Karna was so magnamimous that he is described to be exactly like his real father, the Sun God Surya.
* TheWisePrince: Bhishma but he could not be the heir because of ThePromise. Yuddhistira of the Pandavas also qualify.
* ToHellAndBack: Yuddhishthira finds that his enemies are enjoying themselves in Heaven. He decides to visit Hell as he could not find his family in heaven and finds his brothers, Draupadi and Karna in hell. He refuses to leave Hell until he finds out that this is another test and goes back to Heaven with the rest of his family.

** Krishna goes temporarily berserk when he learns that Arjuna was fighting Patriach Bhisma half-heartedly.

** Duryodhana on [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes Karna's death and his brothers']]. His whole body is wet with crying.

* WhatTheHellHero: [[spoiler: Krishna receives this from Gandhari after Karna dies. She curses him that, just as her house was destroyed by strife, so too will his house. It worked. He accepts his fate with grace.]]
* WarIsHell: Probably the oldest known example. The battle between Pandavas and Kauravas not only ends up in a horrible bloodbath of mutual annihilation, many previously honorable characters are so consumed by hatred and desperation, that they betray their principles even Karna (who, mind you, gave up the gift of immortality and invulnerability before the battle, to live in accordance with his vows and not have an unfair advantage in battle), stains his honor when he participates in dogpiling Abhimanyu; Yuddhistira who was basically defined by his honesty, resorted to participating in cruel deception, as described below.

* WholesomeCrossdresser: Arjuna dresses as a female in his thirteenth year in disguise. This is not treated as something unnatural mostly because Arjuna is badass.
* WillNotTellALie: Yuddhistira was renowned for his honesty and his resolve in never telling a lie. Krishna figures out that the only way to kill Drona, their teacher, who was fighting on Duryodhana's side, was to state falsely that his son Aswatamma died. Bhima killed an elephant named Aswatamma and proclaimed loudly that he killed Aswatamma. Not believing him, Drona turned to Yuddhistira. Yuddhistira at that time lied, saying that Aswatamma, the elephant died, whispering the word elephant. This led to Drona losing heart and his subsequent death. Yudhistira's chariot that floated an inch above the ground as a sign of his godly nature fell back to earth.

* WomanScorned: Amba. She venges herself by reincarnating herself as Shikandi whose only purpose is to kill Bhishma.

* YearOutsideHourInside: ''Mahabharata'' mentions king Kakudmi a.k.a. Raivata, who went to Brahma to ask for advice on to whom he should marry his daughter. After waiting a short time, Kakudmi was able to plead his request to Brahma. Brahma laughed, informing him that while he had waited, 108 ''yugas'' had passed on earth, and all the candidates that Raivata had considered suitable son-in-laws had died long ago.
* YouCantFightFate: Poor Karna! [[spoiler:He is rejected by the Princes for being a commoner and was rejected by his teacher for being a Prince. Since he opted for a disguise in order to learn from his renowed mentor, his teacher cursed him, saying that he would forgot all the things he learned at the time of his most critical need. If that was not enough, taking advantage of his generosity, Indra asks him for his armor and earrings that made him immortal. His mother finally confessed he was her child and extracted ThePromise from him that he would not kill any of his halfbrothers save Arjuna. Then his charioteer flees when the wheel of his chariot is stuck in mud. All these mindscrews by fate changes him from an AntiHero to a TragicHero.]]

TheChick - Draupadi. Instead of a peacemaker however, she brings them closer to war. Closer in personality to TheDarkChick.
TheDarkChick — Shikhandi, formerly Amba, the eldest princess of Kasi, in his previous life. Once Bhishma rejected her, Amba became reborn as Shikhandi to exact revenge for her humiliation.

Vichitravirya dies without an heir to the throne, and as [[ThePromise Bhishma is unwilling]] to procreate, Satyavati calls on the [[AuthorAvatar sage Ved-Vyasa]] to impregnate the two widowed queens. Ved-Vyasa is the illegitimate offspring of Satyavati and Parashara, a wandering sage, before her marriage to Shantanu who was brought up by his father. Three children result, and are deemed to be the sons of Vichitravirya. Blind Prince Dhritarashtra is the oldest, but due to his blindness, the right to be an emperor was passed down to Prince Pandu. Dhritarashtra marries the queen of Gandhara, Gandhari who brings along her brother, ChessMaster Shakuni. Pandu, the second son is sickly. He marries Princess Kunti and a second woman named Madri. He begets five children by magical means - his wife Kunti has the power to call any God to father her children. The third son, Vidura is wise, but since his mother was a servant of the Palace and not a princess, he cannot rise beyond the rank of Prime Minister.

Pandu dies shortly after he exiles himself to the forest and Dhritarashtra remains king. The children of Dhritarashtra are called Kauravas and the children of Pandu are called Pandavas. A rivalry quickly develops and Duryodhana, the oldest of the Kauravas, resolves to eliminate his cousins. When Duryodhana attempts to wipe the Pandavas off by tricking them into living in a palace made of lac and then burning it down, they escape and resolve to hide their identity till they are in safe territory. On the way, they marry [[EngagementChallenge Draupadi, the Princess of Panchala]]. Meanwhile, King Dhritarastra learns of the plot to kill the Pandavas and, obviously displeased with the infighting, gifts them with half the kingdom. This does not please the Kauravas, and only add to their dislike of the Pandavas. Duryodana and his uncle, Shakuni, challenge the Pandavas to play in a dice game where the Pandavas stake and lose their kingdom, wealth, themselves and even temporarily their wife Draupadi (who is married to all five of the brothers). After being humiliated, they are exiled for thirteen years. King Dhritarashtra promises to give back their kingdom if they are not caught by the end of the Exile. His sons, however, are desperate to prevent this. Peace is exhausted and a war ensues.

TheLancer[=/=]ArcherArchetype — Arjuna. Filled with doubts regarding the justness of war, he seeks guidance from Krishna in the most famous book of the ''Mahabharata'', the ''Literature/BhagavadGita''.\\

TheDarkChick — Shikhandi. Was Amba, the eldest princess of Kasi, in his previous life. Once Bhishma rejected her, Amba became reborn as Shikhandi to exact revenge for her humiliation.

** After the negotiation fails, Sahadeva consults with his omnipotent wisdom on other way the war can be avoided. The wisdom claims that the war can be prevented by giving the throne to Karna, imprisoning Shakuni and Khrisna forever, and then exiling both the Pandava and Duryodhana. It is rejected because a. Karna would never accept that his best friend is deprived of his rights and b. there's no way the Pandava let [[DramaticIrony the charioteer's son became an emperor]] out of pride.

* AbductionIsLove - Played straight with Ambika and Ambalika. Subverted with Amba who reincarnates as Shikandi. See NoManOfWomanBorn
** D[[SnakePeople Naga]] Princess Uloopi abducts Arjuna into her underwater kingdom. Naturally, Arjuna did complain.

** Draupadi, the Pandavas's wife, in the Mahabharata yearned for a husband in her previous life. In one version of the story, she wanted her husband to be as strong as Vayu, as talented as Indra, as moral as Dharma and as beautiful as the Ashwini twins. She forgot to specify that she wanted * one husband* . As a result, in her next incarnation, she married five men and was the wife of five husbands simultaneously. Her qualities of an ideal husband were satisfied in that the five princes were conceived by Kunti with the aid of five different gods (Bhima from Vayu, Arjuna from Indra, Yuddhistira from Dharma, and Nakula and Sahadev from the Ashwins).

* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: Both the Pandavas and the Kauravas break the rules of combat during the war. While they don't suffer at the time, they certainly do after. Aswathamma wipes out the Pandava children, ensuring no one will enjoy the spoils of war. He is then cursed with immortality and permanent outcast status. Meanwhile, only a handful of Kauravas survive, including Karna's youngest son.

* FateWorseThanDeath: Ashvathama.

** Karna refuses to stop supporting Duryodhana, even after learning that he will be fighting his brothers, because he swore fealty to the latter.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Dronacharya's doting over his pet apprentice, even against Pandava's own long-term interests. Eklavaya is a potential rival to our star? Let's ''cripple'' him! The guy can be taken into the ranks effortlessly instead? Never mind, the championship is what's important. Karna wants to lock horns with our buffalo among the men? Let's tell him off in the worst way possible. It sounds like an invitation for anyone with land to spare, grudge against Pandava and half a brain to get an alliance or feudal obligations from the lad who (Drona suspects) have a good chance to wipe the floor with Arjuna? Oh, Suyodhana-Duryodhana is here too? Never mind, it's all about the sport. Never mind what can happen in the ''next'' tournament, too.

* BadassGrandpa: Bhishma is one of the best examples in Hindu mythology. He was absolutely invincible on the battlefield and the Pandavas had to ask '''him''' for advice on how to defeat him. (He promised them that they could always meet him for advice after sunset, and he ''kept'' his promises.) Even after being impaled on a ''bed of arrows'' he had the grace to choose the time of his death, and he lay there for days to wait for a time which was considered holy (the start of the period when the length of nights start reducing and length of days start increasing i.e around middle of January) before he finally decided to leave the world.
** Bahlika, who counts on the virtue of being of fighting capability despite being Bhishma's uncle, i.e, '''the older brother of Bhishma's father.
** Brihadatta, who is so old that he had to tie a headband to keep his skin folds from obscuring his vision, yet while riding his elephant (itself a basically a fierce creature who can make Bheema, who kills elephants for sport, run for his life), sent Ghatotkacha running for his life and nearly killing Arjun if not for Krishna taking the arrow aimed at Arjun.

* ShesAManInJapan: In the Javanese version, Shikhandi's known as Srikandi, a full-blown ActionGirl who just traded her femininity to become Shikhandi instead of a girl who literally changed her sex into a man.