Hari Om! Parents,
Balavihar class began with the class doing a deep breathing exercise and Shree Ram Jayaram chanting. After opening prayers, children revised Ganesha Pancharatnam. And two lines from the Pancharatnam were each assigned to the children. Those would be the lines that each kid will be singing at the monthly program. Please remind your child to practice and memorise their lines.
Mahabharata
Adiparva was completed by last class. We had a quick recap of the story covered last class to recollect why Maya was indebted to Arjuna.Today we started with Sabhaparva. We covered these chapters of Sabhaparva:
1. Maya Building the beautiful Hall. Maya wanted to do something for Arjuna to express his gratitude. Even when Arjuna told he was happy with thtem beign good friends now and there was no obligation, Maya insisted he asked for soemthing. Arjuna then sugests he could do something that would make Krishna happy and Krishna in turn, being fond of Yudhishtira suggested that Maya who was an amazing architect should build a beautiful place for Yudhistira. And that sabha must be unique. Krishna could foresee the future and all that was happening was for a reason and as destined to be. Krishna took Maya to Yudhistira and Yudhistira introduced Maya to all and showed the place to build the Assembly Hall. Maya gathers all the expensive material for the buildings, brings the rarest and shiniest of the stones and gems from his possessions which he had hid under the lake of Bindusaras near Mount Kailash. He also brings a gada for Bheema and a conch called Devadutta for Arjuna. The Hall was constructed beautifully. It had beautiful gardens of all flowers and shone from every direction. It beat even Sudharma, the Sabha of Indra in spledour. Pandavas were speechless at the marvel created. Maya took leave of them and gifted Arjuna with a special and powerful chariot with the 'monkey' emblem on the flag and told that Arjuna will hence forth be known as Kapidwaja because of that. Krisha leaves for Dwaraka.
2. Narada's visit to Indraprasta and the Hall
Many friends and relatives except the Kauravas visit the beautiful hall and rave about its beauty. Many students stayed with them to learn the skills fromm Arjuna. Narada also hears about the Hall and he also visits the Pandavas, enthusiastically looks around and approves the Hall as the best on earth. When asked by Yudhistira to share his knowledge of other halls in all three worlds, he tells the stories about the Assebly Halls of Varuna, Indra, Yama, Rudra and Yama. He describes the excellence of the Sabhas and the KIngs who lived there. Yudhistira notices that all the Kings including his forefathers of the Kuru dynasty, lived in the Palace of Yama. Only Harishchandra lived in Indraloka. And he asks Narada what made Harishcandra special and why not his forefatehrs. Narada explains that it was because Harichandra, the son of Trishanku, and a favorite of Viswamitra , after conquering all the Kingdoms had successfully performed the Rajasuya Yagna. And that is what had made him eligible to be in INdraloka. Narada also says that Pandu had mentioned that if the Pandavas performed the Rajasuya yagna, he also could go to Iddraloka. Saying so , Narada blesses the Pandavas that Pandavas are the only ones capable of this on the earth, blesses them and leaves.
3. Rajasuya Yagna
Ever since Narada's visit, Yudhistira is not able to think of anything else but the Rajasuya Yagna. He is very confused and immediately calls for Krishna who he knew could give him the best advice and clear his confusion. Krishna, foreseeing the inevitable and the reason for all the happening explains the possibilities and challenges to Yudhishtira. He says Yudhistira need not worry about all the other Kshatriyas. But Jarasandha was a really powerful one and is undefeated. Krishna had killed Jarasandha's son in law, Kamsa and hence Jarasandha had fought 18 times with Krishna. Yet Krishna coould not defeat Jarasandha. And that is the reason, to be away from him, Krishna and his folks had moved from Mathura to Dwaraka. And he was sure that all of Kauravas and Radheya will supporrt Jarasandha. But if they were able to kill Jarasandha, it is equivalent to defeating all the other Kings since nobody else would then dare to defy Yudhistira who has defeated Jarasandha. But Jarasandha was an ardent devotee of Sankara and was very righteous. He was also going to sacrifice the lives of the captive KIngs to Rudra. Hearing this, Yudhistira lost all hope and said it would be best to give up the idea entirely. Then Krishna, Bheema and Arjuna convince him that by attempting to fight against Jarasandha, they would also be helping the innocent Kings from being sacrificed. And God will favor those who stand up for the weak. And it is always better to die as warriors even if defeated. Yudhistira wanted to know what made Jarasandha so powerful that he could not be defeated even by Krishna whose very presence itself has the powerr to destroy the evil. The Krishna begins to tell teh story of Jarasandha.
Saints of India
Today, one of the students, Tanusri made an excellent presentation about Shri Gautama Buddha. The slides and the reference pictures used were very consistent and done very nicely.
We really appreciate the effort taken by the students and the parents in helping them with the research, preparing the slides and presentation.
Activity
Annual Program by Grade 5 kids Friday batch will be presented on Feb 26th. We discussed the plan for Saturday to have a rehearsal from 3:00 to 4:00 PM to assign the rroles and lines for each participants.
Geeta Chanting
Shlokas 19 and 20 of Chapter 2 covered today through Swamiji's Gita chanting video.
Class material needed: notebook, pencil, Balavihar Handbook, My Prayers book. Your child can also read from C Rajagopalachari's "Mahabharata" or Kamala Subramaniam's "Mahabharata". Both these books are available on Amazon.
Pranam
Rashmi and Shanthi
