What will you answer, when your kids ask about Draupadi?

You may think, this is something irrelevant to my blog, but I tell you, this is relevant to my interest. Like many others, Mahabharatham is my fav epic and I started reading and listening to different versions of Mahabharatham from my school days. All the time, my perspectives used to keep changing, and every time, I observe something new in it. Then I realized, it is the nature of art, the beauty of any art lies  in the eyes of viewers. The same way, the quality of a literature elevate with the readers and their understanding ability. When I was 13 years old, I was not a bibliophile(still same), but Mahabharatham made me to sit and finish it in 2 days. That was a pocket size mahabharatham with only 150 pages. But I could remember many characters and also seeded the ability of character analysis in me.

As I said, when the years pass by, my views on Mahabharatam characters and incidents also keep changing. We all know that Star Vijay and Sun TV also came up with their version of Mahabharatham. Unanimously agreed fact is that Star group casting for Mahabharatham is extra ordinary and their faces only will come to our mind when we  think of any Mahabharatham character.  There is one another version of Mahabharatham that I heard was Suki Sivam's Mahabharatha Sorpozhivu. It is available on YouTube. Even after listening to the same story again and again, after getting so many advocacy for the happenings in Mahbharatha, one thing always made me not to agree to the story. Yes, "Why did Draupadhi marry 5 men?"

Now, I wish to carry forward my favorite story to my son and daughter, but this question stops me from doing it. What can I answer them, when they question me the same. Also, how will I tell them that the God's kids lost their woman in a gambling and went on an exile. Even after returning from exile, they again went back requesting for land and not to question for the injustice happened to their Woman. What will I say, if they come to a conclusion that, those warriors would have not battled at all on "justice for a woman", if they were given a piece of land.

Then I calmed down and thought for a while. "Where there is a will, there is a way". Sometimes your thoughts give you answers, else take you to the answers. Yes, I came across a newer version of Mahabharata and below are my present understanding from it.  This is purely different from all other versions we so far heard. This gives answers to all those were we considered as myth in Mahabharatham. Come, let us travel to the south of India.

South India? What is the relationship between Mahabharatam and South India?
Remember I assured you, what you are going to read is a different version. 

Mahabharatham is a fictional story or a true history?

Mahabaharatham is one of the two greatest epics in India. Still this doesn't end within India. People from many parts of the world are familiar with this epic and they continue to make so many researches on this. Though few see it as a well built story, many believe it as a true history. Because of a few unrealistic characters and incidents, not all could take it as a true history, but such an awesome story can't be purely imaginary. There must be a true incident and this story has to be framed based upon it. Now we see many movies based on true incidents.

Amarar Kalki is a veteran writer, written novels like Ponniyin selvan based on Chola Dynasty and Kalkiyin Sabatham based on Pallava dynasty. In that, the lead characters like Nandhini and Sivagami are fictitious. People who read those novels can’t digest it easily. Because the whole story will revolve around them. Even a famous movie Titanic, which talked about the history of true Titanic passenger ship, made us to talk more about the ice struck love story of Rose and Jack. They are after all fictitious characters built to get audience attraction and see the history of titanic from their eyes. Doesn’t it work out?

Now, you could have understood what I am trying to say. Yes I agree that Mahabharatham is a true history. I don’t say it has fictitious characters. But few characters are metaphor. Shockingly the main character Draupathi. I write this based on the research made by Tamil Chinthanayalar Peravai. He is a Tamil scholar, brought out a different dimension to Mahabharatam and answers to all questions that are considered as a myth in Mahabharata.

Mahabharata in Short: Though many knows this epic, let me give a brief line. It was a war between Kauravas and Pandavas for land.

Tamil Chinthanalyara Peravai findings:

1. Mahabharatham happened in Southern India

2. This is a war between Kuravas and Pandyas. Kuravas are people live in Kurinji Moutain range. Their main occupation is hunting. Pandi means Agriculture in Tamil. Pandyas are those who do cultivation.
3. 100 kuravas are the kings of 100 malanadu(presently in Kerala). 5 Pandyas are 5 Kings of Marutham(Agricultural lands). 
4. In that Dwapar yuga, the land between Kurinji and Marutham in South India are Mullai(Forest Area). People in forest area are cattlemen. They are called Aayar in tamil. Krishna belong to this community. From the landscape, it is understood, why does this community was called "Idayan" in south. It means middlemen. Since Cows are used in farming and food for cows can be acquired from agriculture, Krishna, the king supported Pandyas.

5. Reason for war: Kuravas are nature lovers and depend upon hunting for their food, whereas Pandyas were in a situation to expand their farming land by burning forest. Setting the forest on fire is the reason for the war.

Name meaning of Mahabharatha characters from Tamil

a.  Dhritarashtran - Thiruthirattan (திரு திராட்டன்). Thiru is an adjective of merit. Thirattan (Thirattu in English)means the one who assembles. Here, the one who forgathered 100 kuravar kings.
(In tamil, there is no dha sound, so dha has to be pronounced as tha. Example, dharumam in other language is tharumam in Tamil. Same way, There is no ‘sha’ in tamil, so it is ‘ta’. )
b. Duryodhanan - Thur + othanan means bad preacher. Obviously, no one can name a baby with anythng negative. There is also a history saying his original name is Suyodhanan. Proof: Othenen is a familiar name in Kerela. There is a warrior called Thacholi Othenen. A movie in his name also released in 1964. Newspaper evidence: The Hindu published an article dated Jun 11, 2005 “In the land of Othenen”. It is also about Thacholi Othenen. Ref: Thacholi Othenen, The land of Othenen
c. Duchadhanan - Thur + sadhanan. Sādhana literally means “accomplishing something". As I already said, Thur(Dur) means bad. So, Dhuchadhanan means, one who accomplished a bad deed. Sadhanai meaning achievement. Like Suyodhanan, he too may be originally named Suyochadhanan.
d. Saguni - Sam + guni; altogether + bow(bend). One who made everyone bow. From the sanskrit mahabharatha, it is clear that Saguni made pandavas bow in front of everyone with his gambling game. The researcher believes this Saguni character must be a trader from other nation(probably Jew). He might encouraged Kuravas to battle against pandyas. It is believed that traders don't want a community to be self dependent for living. Obviously that affects their trade business. You can compare today's corporate ideologies to it. 
e. Dharman: Tharuman. Tharuman the name in tamil derived from the word Tha, meaning giving. The one who gives/donates more is called Tharuman.
f. Bheeman - Must be derived from tamil word. Veeman. Vee - huge, man means, well built. So, Bheema means, Huge man. Powerful man. Researcher proves that people in those period follow sidhas, who provided panjama sidhis. One of the sidhi is Mahima sidhi. Mahima sidhi is the ability to increase one’s size. This Veeman must be knowing this Mahima sidhi and be able to grow gigantic. His son Gatodhkaja in sanskrit Mahabharatham does the same in the final battle. Mahima sidhi is not a fairy tale. These are proven and even there are evidence to show that bodhi dharmar used this Mahima Sidhi.
g. Arjuna: Ar and archery are the names derived from Tamil. The one who skilled in archery is the name meaning of Arjunan.
h. Draupathi: Tharai+Pathi. Tharai is a land and Pathi is the place of worship in Tamil. Draupathi is a metaphor to land.

War for land: As we already know, Mahabharata is all about a battle for land. Kuravas, being the native people of that land, claims it to be theirs and Pandyas indeed came from Sri Lanka and started doing agriculture in south India, claims that it is a natural process of evolution to increase agricultural land for all beings.

What to do to expand the agricultural land? Fire the forest region. Forest region has healthy soil for cultivation. It is difficult to cut more number of trees with less labor, so for time and labor optimization, the forest has to be set on fire. Pandyas did the same. Arjuna among the 5 kings, set fire on forest with his archery skill. The land occupied after the destruction of forest is then owned by all 5 kings. Hence it is Panchali. Panch - panja means 5 in tamil. Aali means ownership. A land owned by 5 kings is the name meaning of panchali. Draupathi as mentioned before is also means the land only. Since, they got this land from fire, the character also defined in the same way like Draupathi is from Yajna (yagam).

How does it affect Kuravas? This forest fire made huge loss to Kuravas, whose occupation of hunting was faced a great obstacle and fear of further agricultural expansion, made them to gather together and start a battle against Pandyas.

Abusing Draupathi - Can a land be abused?: We all aware that Draupathi was pledged in a gambling game and she was abused in a large gathering. This might be enacted to symbolize Kuravas act of spoiling agricultural inputs that Pandyas had to start cultivation. 

This could be explained with the following example. Let us find the name meaning of Subathrai. As per Mahabharata, Subatharai is a sister of Krishna and Balarama. We all know, Balarama is known for cultivation. His weapon is also plough. It shows that, they were already into cultivation and they own agricultural lands too. Subatharai when we split, subam+tharai. Subam means good and tharai means land. Subatharai means good land. This Arjuna king got some good land from Krishna and made cultivation and had good yield. That yield is their son called abhimanyu. In the war, he was killed by many in Kuravas side. Same way, during the war, Kuravas might have spoiled the yield of Arjuna, which burst out the war more fierce than the previous days of war The same way, the abuse to land was described as abuse to Draupathi character.

However the story revolved around Draupathi(wife of pandyas as per sanskrit mahabharatham),  if well noticed, they continued to give importance to land and not to their wife. Because both are the same in history. Even after their exile, they claim for land from Kauravas. Krishna was sent as a middleman(Idayan) for compromise and asked for a land settlement. Krishna in the epic says, "Give atleast5 villages to ignore war".   If they would have given that land, no one would have questioned about the injustice happened to Draupathi. It shows, Mahabharata battle is for land.

Draupadi -  The God of Agriculture: Pandyas treated their land as God. That too a land got from a big battle is a treasure. So, Panchali/Draupathi is their God. People in olden days treat land , water and anything that improvise their living as woman and worship as God. In the same way Worship places in and around agricultural lands(Marutham) with woman God and named them Pachai Amman. Pandyas, were ruling two vast landscapes. i.e., land and water. So, they painted their worship God Amman in green, remembering Pachai Amman and named her Meenatchi relating to their fishery occupation. (Recall Pandya's flag, it has 2 fishes in it). Still when you visit Meenatchi Amman, could see her green in color.

To confirm this idea of Pachai Amman, just think of your known Pachai Amman temples, you could see them located in agricultural lands. (If not now, at least, in past those places would be used for agricultural purposes only). For more clarity, check out Gangai Amman temple in your place. They all would have been located in and around water bodies. People in South and Sri Lanka had their own color concept and named their worshiping God after those 7 colors. They are also called Saptha Kannis.

Ritual to remember Draupadi: we should be aware that more than 800 Draupathi temple are present in South India and not even 100 in North India. In order to remember that Draupathi - the agricultural land was formed after forest fire and everybody walked on hot charcoals after the forest was completely burnt, still Draupathi temple has the practice to walk on fire as a ritual.

My point is not to prove where Mahabharata has happened. I’m not an archaeological researcher to provide those evidences too. I don’t try to bring any superiority to any place. Not an intention to stop criticism on Draupadi. But I seriously write this article for one reason that we should know our origin, for what we praise someone and why do we treat them as God. We all believe that our ancestors are highly intelligent, in the absence of written language, they encoded the history and facts in various forms and practices that helped us carrying forward them to 1000s of years. Idol worship is one among such things. Since, Many of us aware that any idol that we worship symbolizes a concept. It is a high time to decode them.

Remember, our parents believed when their parents told, "Someone cooks in Moon". We did not believe it but listened. Our kids won’t even listen, if we don’t provided facts.

People who believe on Vyasar version may find it stupid too, but people who really wanted to tell Mahabharata story to their kids and wanted to answer their kids question, “why Draupathi married 5 men” will surely tell this version of Mahabharata.

Watch the videos for more clarity Mahabharata research videos

Some of the facts to make you think deep about the topic…

1. Kerala has a place called Noornad meaning 100 countries.

2. Kerala has Duryodhana temple and nearby 99 mountain places has similar format temple saying temple for duryodhana(brothers). 

3. Temple for Shakuni in Kerela Pavitheeswaram. It is earlier called Pagutheeswaram, because, Kavravas divided their weapons in this temple. (paguthal in tamil means division). Shakuni temple. This temple also has the crown of Shakuni. 

4. In Madurai, Aadhichanllur has a temple, localites tell it has samadhi of pandavas and kauravas.
Also, that place has 2 acres of idukaadu where archelogy research is keep going on. This temple was built by Pandyas. 

5. Kerala has 5 temples built by pandavas. Click here for details