Sept 29th Class

Beginning prayers

• 3 times ॐ chanting, Meditation
• Daily Prayers (click here for script)

Gitaa chanting

• bhagavadgItaa 14th adhyaaya 1 - 5 shlokas

Brain Storming

• Review from last class with a quiz

Story time

• paaNDava-s and kaurava-s
• droNa enters (intro)

Ending prayers and pledge

• sarve bhavantu sukhinaH, pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
• aarati and pledge 

Synopsis:

Rashmi aunty and Sitaram uncle's class:

Today we did a shloka competition between the two tables and had a tie. Then we reviewed some shlokas and learned new ones too. After that we learned a little about how to read Sanskrit. Then we did gItaa chanting. We went over the last week’s three shlokas and learnt 4 and 5.

After that, we learnt more of Mahabharata. Satyavati who was married to king Shantanu had two sons. Their names were ChitraaNgada and VichitravIrya. Sadly ChitraaNgada died in war. Then VichitravIrya married Ambika and Ambaalika, but unfortunately died of illness. So Satyavati went to Veda Vyaasa so Ambika and Ambaalika could have gifted children. When Veda Vyaasa gave them a blessing, Ambika gave birth to Dhritaraashtra who was blind by birth. Ambaalika gave birth to PaaNdu. The, daasi, a servant of Ambaalika gave birth to Vidura. Since Dhritaraashtra was blind PaaNdu became king and Vidura became minister. Then Dhritaraashtra married Gandhari. Gandhari had a boon from Lord Shiva to have a hundred sons. She had a hundred sons and a daughter. Three of the most important sons in the story were Duryodhana, Dushshaasana, and VikarNa. The daughter’s name was Dushshala. The 100 sons were called the Kauravas. PaaNDu got married to Kunti and Maadri.

When Kunti was young, she took care of Duurvaasa maharshi. Then he taught her a mantra that could invoke any god to give her a son that had similar powers of that God. So Kunti, wanting to know if the mantra worked, she tried it on the Sun god. He appeared and Kunti said she was just trying the mantra. But the Sun god gave her a son and left. The baby was born with natural earrings and armor. Kunti didn’t know what to do with the baby, so she put him in a box and let it float away in the river. A charioteer found him and named him Vasusena (who became karNa later on). Then, after Kunti married PaaNDu, she had three sons - Yudhishtira by invoking Yama, BhIma by invoking Vaayu, and Arjuna by invoking Indra. She also taught this to Maadri and she had two sons who were born by invoking the Ashwini Devatas. Their names were Nakula and Sahadeva. These five sons were called the PaaNDava-s. The whole Mahabharatha was started by Duryodhana’s jealousy when both the Kauravas and PaaNDavas were young. Duryodhana was jealous of BhIma’s strength, so he poisoned him!!!!!! Then BhIma fell into PaataaLa-lokam. There, the snake god gave him ambrosia. BhIma drank eight cups of the syrup and got the strength of eight thousand elephants. So what we can learn from this is that there is a consequence for every action.  Either good or bad, one HAS to face the consequences of his deeds!

Then we spoke briefly about how guru DroNa entered into the picture.  We will discuss more next week.

Written by Sukruthi Thunga