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The Bhagavad Gita1392
inhabited a region beyond the Himalayas, and afterward emigrated into
the northwest of the peninsula, and there founded the nucleus of a race
who called themselves the Arya, or exalted, the term being intended to
distinguish them from the lower tribes whom they conquered, and whose
territory they wrested from them and occupied.
The history of the people immediately preceding the great war, and from
the occurrences of which the war itself arose, is as follows:
At the capital of the country, a city called Hastinapura (supposed to be
modern Delhi), reigned the king Vichitravirya. He married two sisters, but
he died shortly after the dual-marriage, leaving no children. Following the
custom of the ancient Oriental peoples, and moved by love and respect
for his deceased brother, his half-brother, the Vyasa, married the widows,
and begat two sons named Dhritarashtra and Pandu. The eldest son,
Dhritarashtra, had one hundred sons, the eldest being named Duryodhana.
The younger brother, Pandu, had five sons, all great warriors, and known as the
“five Pandu princes.” Dhritarashtra became blind, and, although remaining
nominally king, his real power passed to his eldest son Duryodhana, who
influenced his father and caused him to banish from the land his cousins, the
five Pandu princes.
After many vicissitudes, travels, and hard-ships, these princes returned
to their native land, surrounded by their friends and sympathizers, and
reinforced by warriors furnished by neighboring friendly kings, the whole
forming a mighty army. They marched on to the plain of the Kurus, and
began a campaign against the older branch of the family, the partisans and
followers of Dhritarashtra, who gathered under the leadership of the eldest
son of the latter, named Duryodhana, who was in command by reason of his
father’s blindness; and under the general name of the family, “the Kurus” the
elder branch began a determined resistance to the invasion or attack of the
younger branch, the Pandus.
This brings us to the scene and time of the battle. The Kuru faction led
by Duryodhana (acting for his blind father, Dhritarashtra) was arrayed on