Announcements

HARI OM!!

Happy summer break to all!! See you in September at the ashram premises, for a new balavihar year!

Check the thumbnail on the left for the video and stills from the play.

Grade 6 teachers.

Jun 1st class

Beginning prayers
Gitaa chanting
  • bhagavadgItaa 14th adhyaaya 1 - 27 shlokas
Story time
  • bhishma the great
  • abhimanyu’s valor
  • arjuna and ghatotkacha
Discussion/Quiz
  • Pizza party! :)
Ending prayers and pledge
  • sarve bhavantu sukhinaH, pUrNamadaH pUrNamidam
  • aarati and pledge 
Synopsis:
Rashmi aunty and Sitaram uncle's class:

Today in balahvihar we did our beginning prayers and the geeta
chanting. After this we continued with our story. Today in our story
we learned about the war between the pandavas and kauravas. The first
day, of the war began and Bhishma was shooting arrows at pandavas and killing a lot of their army. Bhishma didn't want to be in the war and even if he was,
he wanted to be with the pandavas.  But he was forced to be with the
kauravas due to his vow. The first day of the war ended and the pandavas were very
scared to go to war the second day cause of Bhishma. In spite of fighting, duryodhana accused Bhishma that he was being easy on the pandavas.  Bhishma got mad and
started fighting even more ferouciously the next day. Bhishma was a very big
devotee of Krishna.  He had challenged Krishna that he will make Him pick up a weapon
during the war! Krishna had promised to not pick a weapon, but he would break his word
to uphold that of his devotees. Krishna picked up his sudarshanachakram and
was running to kill Bhishma but Arjuna stopped him. On the 8th night of
the war the pandava's went to Bhishma and asked him what would make him
stop fighting. Bhishma said if you put a lady in front of me I will
stop fighting. The next day the pandavas put a shikhandi in front of
Bhishma and when Bhishma put his weapons down the pandavas immedietly
shot arrows at him. Bhishma was laid in a bed of arrows.  After a while Trigartha king
challenged Arjuna to a duel so Arjuna went with him. The chief of kaurava army Drona arranged their army in a Chakra Vyuha.  Only arjuna knew how to break it and he was away.  But then, Abhimanyu had learnt to enter a chakra vyuha while in his mother' womb.  But he did not know how to come out of it.  He had asked the rest of the army to follow him, so that they could scatter the formation.  Abhimanyu broke it and went in. At that time Jayadratha closed the Chakra Vyuha and Abhimanyu was killed, helplessly by many warriors, together.  That was the biggest adharma they had ever done.   Arjuna came back and heard that his 16 year old son, Abhimanyu was dead. Arjuna said he would kill Jayadratha and if he didnt he would kill himself. Jayadratha hid through out the day.  Krishna held his sudarshana chakra to the sun and made everyone feel it was sun set.  Jayadratha came out then.  At that time, krishna took his chakra away and jayadratha was exposed to arjuna.  Also, Jayadratha had a boon that who ever was the reason for his head to touch the ground, that persons head would break into 1000 pieces. Krishna told Arjuna about this boon and he said to shoot him that his head would land on his own father's lap. Arjuna did this and  his father dropped Jayadratha's head.  So his father's head broke to pieces.
Bhima's son ghatotkacha was ferocious.  Nobody could stop him.  duryodhana pleaded karna to get rid of him.  karna had no choice and he had to use the weapon shakti, that was given to him by indra.  It would not miss the target.  But then, that was given to him to use only once.  He was saving it for arjuna.  Now he had lost that power.  Krishna was happy that ghatotkacha had saved arjuna's life, by sacrificing his own!
On the 15th day, drona was unstoppable.  Hence krishna asked the pandavas to make him believe that his son ashwatthaama was dead.  To do that, bhima killed an elephant called ashwatthaama and rejoiced loudly.  On hearing that, drona asked yudhishthira to confirm, as he would never lie.  Krishna asked yudhishtira to agree.  At that time, yudhishthira said 'Dead is ashwatthaama....the elephant'.  He whispered the last two words, so that drona would not hear it.  On this drona threw his weapons and sat down.  Drishtadyumna, drupada's son, went and slayed his head at that time.

We stopped the story at this and went outside to have pizza party.  We are almost at the end of the year and we had a fun celebration outside!

Written by Aditi Suresh

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