Hari Om Parents,
We started our class by writing Likhitha jaapa (writing the name of any Ishta devata god's name), then followed by daily prayers (Page 11 of My Prayers book). We made children lead prayers and Ganesha Panchratnam for class this week. We request parents to help children to learn the Daily Prayers and Ganesha Panchratnam.
We had given students an assignment of Family Tree. Most of them were able to come back with at least three generations from both the maternal and paternal side.
Few students missed and forgot. We encourage parents to talk about their family tree, it helps children to know the names of their grandparents, aunts and their cousins.
We continued with the Mahabharata story.
Drona:-
Drona was a son of a Brahmin named Bhardwaja. When he was in Gurukula, Drupada, crown prince of Panchala was a fellow student in the ashram. They were very good friends and in his childish nature Drupada always used to tell Drona he would give him half the kingdom once he became the king.
After they grew up and parted ways Drupada was crowned the prince of the Panchala and Drona went on to marry Kripi the twin sister of Kripacharya. They had a son named Ashwathama. Drona was in utter poverty and had trouble making ends meet. He could not even get a glass of milk for his son and everyone used to tease Ashwathama of his poverty. Drona felt insulted and went to Drupada to remind of his older promise. When he reached Panchala, Drupada denied that Drona forgot to promise him anything. Drona feels more insulted and leaves the place to avenge this insult. He goes to Parasurama when he comes to know Parasurama is distributing all his wealth. When Drona reached Parasurama he had already distributed everything. Taking pity on Drona he teaches him Art of warfare to help him to secure an income. Drona goes to his brother-in-law to seek help to make him find a living as he was in Hastinapura court as royal priest for the Kuru Dynasty. He finds that a group of boys surround the well and are staring at it.
When he questions they tell him that there are 100 sons of Dhritarashtra and 5 sons of pandu who were playing together and their Ball fell into the well and they were wondering how to get it out.
Drona tells them that he can get it out for them, he picks up straws and using his power of mantras makes a string of them and sticks on the ball and gets it out for them.
All the kuru princes are surprised at this and when they ask him who he is then he is asked to go and tell this to Bheeshma. Bheeshma when he hears this instantly recognizes his virtue and valor and appoints Drona as the teacher to teach Kuru princes the art of war.
Of all the 105 kuru princes Arjuna is the favorite of Drona. Drona promises to Arjuna that he will make him the best archer in the world. After all the kuru princes are trained, one day they demonstrate their skills. Bhima and Dhuryodhana show their maze skills. Nakula and Sahadeva show their sword skills. Arjuna shows his skill in Archery. Everyone is thrilled to see the way Kuru princes show off their talents. Just then one person from the crowd challenges Arjuna. This person shines like a bright sun.
But upon asking he tells that he is the son of a charioteer and his name is Karna, then Bheeshma and other elders object as he is not a king. Dhuryodhana feels pity and then and there crowns this karna as king of Anga kingdom as Anga was not having king at that time.
But since it was about sunset the demonstration of skills was called off.
Drona after this skill demonstration asks the kuru princes that it is time for guru dakshina and tells that he wants to avenge the insult from Drupada and seeks to take his kingdom. Arjuna readily agrees and goes to war with the Panchala kingdom. Drupada is defeated by Kuru Princes and Arjuna ties Drupada and brings him to Drona's feet. Drona then tells Drupada that he is giving back half of his kingdom and he just wanted Arjuna to avenge his insult.
Ekalavya: - A tribal boy once is charmed to see the archery Drona is teaching and he and his father go to seek his blessings to accept the young boy as the student. But Drona tells that he cannot teach him. The boy and the father are disappointed and they head back. One day Kuru princes go hunting.
They hear dogs barking which would scare the other animals to run away which would cause them to be not able to hunt. Arjuna takes his bow and arrow to shoot in the direction of the Dogs barking but then suddenly he hears the dog barking is stopped, they all go to see what happened they see that the dog's mouth is shut with a bunch of arrows and because of which it was not able to bark.
Looking at this Drona and Arjuna are surprised. They look out for who has done this and find a young tribal boy prostrating before Drona and offering his respects as he is his Guru. The boy tells Drona is his teacher who taught him archery. This boy tells his name is Ekalavya and he is a tribal boy.
He takes Drona, Arjuna and other kuru princes to his home where he shows how he learnt archery. He shows Drona that he makes a statue of Drona and learns archery. Arjuna is jealousy looking at Ekalavya and Drona is reminded of the promise to Arjuna to make him the best archer.
Drona then sees all that is learnt by Ekalavya and at the end requests him to give guru dakshina. Ekalavya is readily happy to give. Drona asks him to give his right thumb as dakshina. Everyone is taken aback by this but Ekalavya is happy and cuts the thumb of right hand and offers it to Drona's guru dakshina. Arjuna is very happy looking at this and so is Drona.
Karna:-
The baby born to Kunti with the boon of Sun god is born with Earrings and Armor. Kunti being very young and unwed doesn't know what to do with this child and wraps the child in a box afloat This baby is found by a charioteer couple who were childless and is named as karna.
Karna decided to learn the art of warfare from Parasurama, but Parasurama was only teaching to Brahmins. Karna tells he is Brahmin and teaches him the art of warfare. One day while parasurama is sleeping on karna's lap. A worm crawled into Karna's lap and began to suck his thigh, but Karna didn't want to wake Parasurama. Eventually, blood reached Parashurama's ear and woke him up. Parasurama cursed Karna, knowing that Karna was actually a Kshatriya and had lied about being a Brahmin. The curse was that Karna would lose his knowledge of weapons when he needed it most.
After karna was insulted in an arena where kuru princes were showing their skills at that moment Kunti recognizes karna to be her first born looking at the armor and earrings.
Since Dhuryodhana crowns him as prince of Anga and supports karna, karna is the most loyal to Duryodhana. He stands and supports his friend in all his actions even though it is not the right act.
Karna is well known as Dana karna, whoever seeks his help and requests any charity he would readily give without a second thought. When the kurukshetra war is declared Indira knows that this armor of karna is the protector of him. He comes to Karna disguised as Brahmana and asks him to give his earrings and armor he readily gives it without second thought.
Kunti comes one morning and asks Karna a boon to allow her to have her sons, he tells her that he would not kill all the Pandavas except Arjuna and he promises her that after the war she would still have 5 sons, it would be either Arjuna or him being alive. This tells the very great giving nature of Karna.
It was time for our Gita Chanting by Swami Ji, we learnt slokas 8& 9 from chapter 5, and also we practiced chanting from 1-7 slokas of chapter5. As the Ashram was getting ready for the Annual Fundraiser event, we did Aarthi and Pledge in class.
Few Links for learning to chant.
1. Ganesha Panchratnam (Page 30 in My Prayers).
1.1. Link to rendition with lyrics in English https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4lZCKxeJFE or
1.2 Link: https://youtu.be/Oyo0FWP9fB8?si=ZaYVDepNkX0YWShI (play at lower speeds for kids to follow lyrics and hear clearly
2. Nirvana Shatakam (we will handover Printout in December.)
2.1 https://youtu.be/rKx7K13OvQ4?si=lM6g_ZtX0kdF5Sfo - Uninterrupted Line Guided Chant - YouTube
3. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 5 (1-29 shlokas) is available in the 2024-25 year handbook. The handbook was given to all kids. If your child doesn't have a handbook please collect it from the book store.
Please make sure to send the below to every Balavihar class.
1. An empty notebook to write Likhitha jaapa and notes.
2. Two sharpened pencils.
3. Daily Prayers book.
4. Balavihar Handbook
Please join the class WhatsApp group by using the link below
https://chat.whatsapp.com/E0cfUe3NUDYCBwYVKD7tyg
The WhatsApp group will be our primary medium of communication. Please feel free to reach us on our phones/ via WhatsApp or you can reply to this email as well.
With Regards,
Anuradha & Shivram
