We began with Gurustotram
We played a kahoot game about the history of the Pandavas
We recapped the previous class which was the end of Drona and death of Karna.
We proceeded with the story of the last day of the war. Duryodhana makes King Shalya the commander in chief. Shalya fights valiantly. The armies on both sides have now been reduced to a much smaller number. Yudhishtira fights with Shalya and kills him. Duryodhana is heart broken and also wounded and runs away to a lake in the Kurukshetra. He wants to take some rest and enters the lake. Before he does so, he speaks with Ashwattama, Kripacharya and Kritavarma. Hunters who have come to the lake to drink water see Duryodhana entering the lake and report this to the Pandavas. They arrive there and challenge him to come out of the water and fight. A terrible fight with maces results between Duryodhana and Bhima. Both are tired and repeatedly faint but Krishna can see that Duryodhana is clearly better than the two. In a loud conversation with Arjuna, he talks about the oath Bhima took and Arjuna pats his thigh. Bhima sees this and when Duryodhana jumps up to strike, he crushes his thigh with his mace and Duryodhana falls to the ground in pain.
Balarama who had come to witness this final battle of his favorite student is enraged at the injustice and rushes to attack Bhima but is stopped by Krishna who reminds him of all the wrong that Duryodhana had done. An arguement ensues with Duryodhana accusing the Pandavas of cheating and Krishna making him see that he was the one who brought this on himself and caused the death and destruction of so many friends and family. The Pandavas proceed to the Kaurava army camp to spend the night there. When they get there, Krishna asks Arjuna to first alight from the chariot after which Hanuman flies away from the flag on the chariot. When Krishna gets down, the whole chariot and the horse are consumed by fire. Arjuna is shocked. Krishna tells him that the chariot had been destroyed by the arrows of Karna and that it was Krishna's own presence that had kept it together.
We saw a video about the significance of Shankranti. We covered shlokas 15 and 16 of Gita chanting.
We ended with aarti and pledge.
