Reading The Mahabharata

*

I wanted to start on my document first thing today
but since I did not deal with the allergy with self-
discipline, feeding Friday night’s dinner to the cat
and not eating a full meal on Saturday, enjoying
an illegal rusk and a rich ice-cream and my own
version of yuk-butter and tea á la Tibetan custom
according to Lobsang Rampa, I got up with head-
ache - must make a plan to clear my head

It is just as Paul Twitchell said, the only mastery we
ever have is victory over the self yet my tongue al-
ways wins, whether in talking too much or eating
lovely, illegal stuff; I must have chosen this life as
James Redwood blissfully claims with his Birth
Visions to learn the patience of a Buddhist, the
self-discipline of an Eckankar chela without the
aid of a Living Master - and the work ethic of a

Good Calvinist, just for good measure I started reading
The Mahabharata as retold for children for the first time
though I know De Santillana and Von Dechend* claim it
is another version of the celestial events of precession
its culture is strange to my ears, the names are long
and sing with a strange intonation – Hastinapura and
Hangadatta and King Pratipa – three names sing:

Amba, Ambika and Ambalika – I wonder why I never read
this in my youth, yet it is never too late
to start anything new...


*Santillana, Giorgio de and Hertha von Dechend
Hamlet's Mill: an Essay on Myth and the Frame
of Time. Boston: Godine, 1977
(transcribed by Clifford Stetner)


p.76 CHAPTER V

V. The Unfolding in India 76

Quotes shortened:

"The fire brothers, with Draupadi forming the sixth
[she was the joint wife of the brothers], and a dog
forming the seventh, set out on their journey

One by one the pil¬grims sank exhausted and expired,
first Draupadi, but Yudhishthira still pressed on, followed
by the faithful dog who turns out to be Dharma (the Law),
in disguise and entered Heaven in his mortal body, not
having tasted death

The epic Indian myth of twelve volumes, The Mahabharata,
states a tremendous war was fought between the Dvapara
and the Kali Yuga

This "dawn" between two world-ages can be specified further

When that portion of Vishnu (born by Vasudeva and Devaki)
returned to heaven, the Kali age commenced. As long as
earth was touched by his sacred feet, the Kali age could
not affect it

As soon as the incarnation of the eternal Vishnu had departed,
the son of Dharma, Yudhishthira, with his brethren, abdicated
the sovereignty - The day that Krishna shall have departed
from the earth will be the first of the Kali age which will
continue for 360,000 years of mortals"
*