Today I finished up reading the Five Tall Sons of Pandu by Wilson, which was a pretty quick and easy read. However, first we need to talk about how it wasn't until I saw this image did I get that Bhishma was laying on a bed of horizontal arrows, not vertical ones. This confused me for a long time. But now I get it. Horizontal arrows. Not... Not like a bed of spikes. Got it. That would have been pretty painful. Honestly wasn't sure how he was still alive after that long besides the fact that he was essentially immortal. Fortunately, we're clear now.
What mostly struck me about this week was how bitter Duryodhana was towards the sons of Pandu. Multiple times he had quotes about how he had hated them all this time, and would continue to hate them... It ended up being a really interesting perspective on how hatred can turn someone into a shell of a person.
I also really, really enjoyed how it was much more political this time instead of battlefield-strategic. In Narayan's edition, a lot of time was spent on how this commander did this formation, and how that worked, etc, and he even mentioned that he cut a lot of that out. This time, Wilson focused far more on the decision making process. I really liked to see how Krishna left it open to the brothers to decide if they should send a message of peace or go straight to war, with the opinion that a better answer will come from the crowd of wise princes, instead of just one. Krishna's smart enough to know that he doesn't know everything, and that he should let the princes figure this one out for themselves.
I've got a couple things in mind to write about this week, and I'm excited to get to it tomorrow!
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