Can you please tell about what was the international politics scenario during Jarasandha, why Yudhishthir performed Rajasuya (I find the Narad, Pandu reasoning a bit lame). Do you think the Digvijaya costed the Pandavas in Kurukshetra as they made lot of enemies out of it? Except for Jarasandh vadh, there is not much krishna guidance on that part?
Thank you so much for this question! I was planning to make a full post on this anyway.
So, to get into the comprehensive situation of the entire Indian peninsula (and some in the wider radius), we must look at this map below (not a 100% accurate, but will do for our purpose):
The Aryans migrated inwards in a general south-east direction from primarily Central Asia.
Now, the exact mechanisms of this migration are not as important as the situation at cusp of Mahabharata’s timeline, when the ‘Aryan’ power/self-imposed moral authority is basically concentrated in the Ganga valley, shared primarily between Kuru, Panchala, Kosala, Videha, etc. the old guard in essence. This cluster, is considered to be the most pious, second only to Uttar-Kuru, where they believed their ‘heaven’ lied.
The second tier, is made up by kingdoms like Magadh, Vatsa, Chedi, Karusha, Avanti, Vidarbha, Matsya, Anga, Kalinga etc. These are made up of the kingdoms conquered by that one infamous king Uparichara Vasu, who himself was a son of the Paurava-Kaurava dynasty, who was the first prince who dared to venture farther- eastwards and southwards, marry a local girl and settle down, and fight for the acceptance of both the locals and his home kingdom.
The third tier is made up of the ‘forgotten’ kingdoms- the centres of former Vedic excellence- Madra, Gandhara, Sindhu, Sauvira, Shalva, Sivi, Kekaya etc. People from the first tier hold the belief that ever since the nexus of power has shifted inland, the people of these kingdoms have lost all their ‘culture’ and have become near-savages. Hence, rampant racism.
The fourth tier faces the worst discrimination, consisting of Vanga, Pundra, Suhma, Pragjyotisha, Andhra, Srigala (Karnataka), Pandya, Nishada etc. These are the kingdoms that have presented the maximum resistance to the incoming Aryans, and hence have been vilified to the maximum (Note: I am not defending all of the kings personally, especially Srigala and Naraka; I’m just pointing out the general attitude towards the lay population).
In addition to the above four-tiered ranking (there are other rungs on this ladder because people always find more reasons to hate, but I just gave four for brevity), there was another parallel way to rank kingdoms within the Aryan power nexus, which was: autocracy or democracy? The autocratic kingdoms (belonging to mostly the first tier), saw the others kingdoms whether oligarchical, tribe-based or quasi-democratic- to be lesser than and as a sort of a threat.
Among some of the most prominent oligarchical systems were Madra, Gandhara, Shalva, etc. Some of the kingdoms that were less democratic, but still not fully autocratic were Vidarbha, Chedi, Karusha etc.
Now, you would have seen that in the entire discussion above, the Yadavas are very conspicuously missing. That is because, they, as a group, tend to change government types pretty fast. The same overarching family that has given us nearly pan-Indian emperors like Shashabindu, Kaartaveerya, Taalajangha, Satvata, Shoora, Kamsa (kind of), etc., has also given us our very own parallel of the Roman senate in the form of the Sudharma parliament populated by the 18 families who individually ruled over the various ‘provinces’ marked in the above map as Surasenai, Abhira, Shudra, Saurashtra, Anarta, Haihaya, Gurjara, Malava and Kunti. Point to be taken, these provinces were not all contiguous, their rulers simply adhered to the same constitution. We can also look at Mathura as the mother-kingdom, with the other places mentioned above being colonies of that mothership.
Now, let’s come to Magadh. In the Vedic times, this region was called Keekkata, with a king called ‘Maganda’. It was demarcated as a ‘most unholy place’. Only in the time of Uparichara Vasu, he conquers it and places his oldest son Brihadratha on the throne. In his time, the kingdom is renamed to ‘Vasumati’ after his father. In time, after the Vedic king, the kingdom’s name falls back to the colloquial Magadh. The main advantage to holding Magadh, as people soon realized, even in the Mauryan and pre-Maruyan eras, is to have the benefit of a natural fortress. Surrounded by the hill ranges of Vipula, Vaihara, Varaha, Vrishabha and Chaitraka, and enriched by the river Shon and its confluence with Ganga, it was practically impossible to break into in an all-out battle. Hence, whoever held Magadh was nearly invincible.
Several generations later, another Brihadratha, approaches a rishi for a ‘magical’ child and receives it.
Now, we all know the next story, of the how the child is born in ‘two halves’ [or practically with some other infancy disease], and is saved/nursed back to health by a tribal woman Jara. The child grows up to take the name of the mother he found by chance. This, and some implied issues with his father indicates, that Jarasandha, when he becomes the King of Magadh, is much closer to the non-Aryan factions than any of his extended family has been so far.
He then starts rounding up kingdoms he considers similar to himself. To do so he uses all of the old tricks of saama (friendship), daama (bribery), bheda (discord) and danda (offence). Even Narada tells Yudhishthira later that these four tricks are to be used in this order itself.
Now, as I present the list, take a parallel look at the map as well. Paundraka, the king of (central and north) Bengal, is his best friend and right-hand man. They are extremely close to one another and are practically inseparable even on the battlefield. In the interest of defending one united eastern front, these two are pretty close to Pragjyotisha’s Naraka and Bhagadatta as well. Jarasandha also controls, through the younglings of the respective political families themselves: Chedi, Vidarbha, Karusha, and Shalva. Noting the discrimination against, and with a promise of utmost respect, he controls Madra, Gandhara, Srigala, Nishadas, Kashi, Sindh-Sauvira. In return for their partial loss of autonomy, Jarasandha gives them protection from the other two big names: Kuru and Panchala, or any other newly emergent threat. Put together, Jarasandha leads a pre-CE sort of a United Nations structure. Note how most of these kingdoms are in fact non-autocratic, which means, Jarasandha keeps the current ruling party in power, and they, in turn, keep him in power.
Whenever Jarasandha calls therefore, all these 10+ kingdoms unite at a moment’s notice. Hence, anyone who crosses this Emperor, has ten kingdoms to answer to, some of them their own neighbours. Diverse techniques, disciplined contingents, united front. This converged army could gobble up entire kingdoms in a matter of hours.
Now, Kuru and Panchala are themselves longtime rivals. Adding Jarasandha’s forces, now they find themselves in a three-way stand-off, where just like the triangle formula, the sum of any two sides exceeds the third. So, they mostly stay out of each other’s way since an attack is basically (sorry to be cliché) mutually-assured destruction. Looking at the map, you’ll see, that Jarasandha, in addition to having a proper scalable army, also controls enough kingdoms to have Kuru and Panchala nearly surrounded [although Drupada joins in some of his sieges on Mathura]. But, nearly. The main problem: the Yadavas.
At this time, headed by Ugrasena, the Yadavas have a geographically expansive empire they absolutely cannot manage, one that they’re rapidly losing control over, as their neighbours keep taking pieces of. There are implications that even before Kamsa, the other Yadavas were already conspiring to dethrone the old Ugrasena and put the younger, stronger Vasudeva in his place as the sangha-mukhya (PM). Still, when Jarasandha offers, they decline to become his vassal. They have too much in terms of ‘glorious history’ to settle for that.
Hence, Jarasandha wanders into the forests on the border of Mathura, and strikes up a conversation with their weakest link- Kamsa. Rejected, abused, humiliated, Kamsa is already primed for his taking. A slight hand on his shoulders, a few kind words, a couple daughters, and Kamsa is enthusiastic about the prospect of assuming full control of the kingdom, and avenging his entire life’s insults in one, solid blow. Jarasandha too, is ecstatic, given that he’s finally going to get control of Mathura, and then he’d be unstoppable, with most of the Indian subcontinent under his control. Maybe, then, he can finally take care of Bheeshma and Drupada.
Alas, Jarasandha bets on the wrong horse, and Kamsa turns out quite the loose cannon. Soon, the emperor finds himself growing more and more tired of making excuses for the rapidly escalating appalling behaviour of his son-in-law. The more Kamsa unravels, the more Jarasandha grows embarrassed of him. Finally, knowing about the blossoming conspiracy to assassinate him, the emperor practically rolls out the red carpet, withdrawing all his own troops from Mathura, for Krishna to come and do his thing.
Once Kamsa is murdered, Jarasandha is secretly happy but unable to admit it in front of his grieving daughters. Finally, egged on by them, and his own desire to own Mathura, he chucks saama, daama and bheda to the side, and launches a full offensive on Mathura, with his complete vassal-force.
As per legend, when Jarasandha announced his attack, he threw his mace a 100 yojanas (the exact distance between Girivraja and Mathura) to kill Krishna, but due to some reason it fell on the ground only 99 yojanas later. The place where it fell was named Gadavasana, and not even Krishna dared to remove it from there, knowing Jarasandha’s political reputation, and it remained continuing to strike fear into the hearts of the Yadava army. People started believing that the border of Magadh was indeed just 1 yojana from Mathura’s royal palace, much to Krishna’s annoyance.
Now, only once he’s on the battlefield does Jarasandha realize Krishna’s true potential. Standing against his overwhelming numbers, Krishna, supported by half of his parliament and only a handful of his cousins and Balarama, can’t defeat him exactly, but refuses to lose. No matter how hard he tries, or how violent he gets, Jarasandha is at a standstill at Mathura’s gate, unable to advance and too proud to retreat.
In one such conflict, Krishna and Balarama, use a unique grapevine technique to get Jarasandha’s most trusted commanders Hamsa and Dimbhaka to kill themselves, each reacting to a rumour that the other one had been killed.
Then, however, Krishna, along with a few trusted people, runs away, calling on Jarasandha to follow him, distracting him from his pursuit of Mathura, and Jarasandha, in the face of his daughters’ grief, is forced to shift his focus. He catches up with Krishna in the hillocks of Gomanta, after receiving a tip from Srigala (who Krishna made the mistake of trusting and who he then murders), where he faces a crushing defeat, when Krishna is able to use nature itself against him and his entire army.
From there, Krishna runs back to Mahendra in Kalinga, finds a Vishvakarma there on Parashuram’s advice and travels back to Kushasthali, on whose ruins he rebuilds a city and names is Dwarika/Dwaravati. Seemingly, learning from Jarasandha, Krishna too finds himself a natural fortress surrounded by the forest, a desert and the ocean.
In all these years, Krishna had also managed one more thing: he proved, falsely, yes, that Jarasandha doesn’t actually want Mathura, and that he wants Krishna. Now, looking at his tired, and rather annoyed allies, Jarasandha can’t really keep up his bid for Mathura, given he has so publicly spent the better part of the previous decade playing cat-and-mouse with this one guy all over the southern end of the Indian peninsula. Jarasandha is extremely aware and cautious of his public perception, and knows that most of his empire does rely on these smaller kingdoms’ goodwill towards him. He knows that he cannot push this issue further, especially since Krishna is already waiting with open arms to welcome all of the emperor’s allies into his own coalition.
Before retreating though, Jarasandha tries one last time, by sending Kalayavana, another Yadava cousin in to storm the newly built Dwarika. Krishna, however, in his usual manner, refuses to engage in conflict, and assassinates Kalayavana personally instead, leaving his army to fall back disoriented. Jarasandha is finally, forced to retreat, with now the reputation of having been outsmarted by one kid less than half his age. Maybe he realizes now that he too has gotten old.
Then, we start seeing Krishna’s offence. It starts with him whisking Rukmini away, right under the nose of Jarasandha, neutralizing Rukmi (although Bheeshmaka still remains loyal to Jarasandha). He then attacks and burns the city of Kashi to the ground- a message clear enough for Jarasandha, to stand back this time. Then, at Draupadi’s swayamvara, the moment that Krishna comes out, shoulder to shoulder with Drupada, to speak in his favour, it is clear to Jarasandha that the Panchala and Yadavas have struck an alliance. Then, of course, aligning with the Pandavas, and marrying Subhadra to Arjuna, Krishna also gains the alliance of a solid 50% of the rapidly fracturing Kuru household. He goes to Pragjyotishpura and kills Naraka. Krishna also marries girls from Kushasthali (Jambavati), Avanti (Mitravinda), Ayodhya (Nagnajiti), Kekaya (Bhadra), Madra (Lakshmana) and Gandhara (Gandhari). Krishna’s growing popularity as well as notoriety stops Jarasandha from even thinking about attacking him again.
It is at this stage that we see Narada land in Yudhishthira’s court, recommending a rajasuya. In those days it was considered a sign of incompetence for a king to not try and improve his social standing. Now Yudhishthira has turned Khandava into Indraprastha, but it is still a rather tiny kingdom, with major reliance on imports etc. Now, Narada’s main sell on the rajasuya is that if Yudhishthira wants any other king to take him seriously, he’s going to have to shed some blood. Now, the brothers could have just conquered kingdoms because they wanted to (like they had done before), but the yajna gave them a sense of legitimacy, and people were more likely to bow to this mandate if it carried religious signage.
Now, we see that Narada, when he came to Indraprastha, he was coming from Dwarika directly, so the mandate is actually Krishna’s, just delivered from Narada’s mouth to give it some extra weight. Predictably, Yudhishthira immediately sends his own friend and charioteer Indrasena to fetch Krishna at once. When Krishna reaches, he enthusiastically supports Narada (obviously, the idea’s 90% originated from his brain), but also cautions Yudhishthira that it will be impossible for him to become the samrat (emperor) without killing the current ruling emperor first. Krishna himself ran into the same problem with Paundraka in fact.
Yudhishthira tries to then back out of this like three separate times, but once Krishna decides, there’s no stopping him, really. Besides, in those days, if you didn’t swallow another kingdom, then another kingdom would most definitely swallow you. Krishna, for the most part, wanted a person as fair and conscientious as Yudhishthira (except that one time of course, but that hadn’t happened yet) in Jarasandha’s position, but simultaneously given how the threats to Dwarika-Mathura like Shishupala, Dantavakra, Shalva, Rukmi, Jayadratha and Vinda-Anuvinda were circling them like hyenas, Krishna was also personally anxious to finish off the ‘head’ behind this entire operation and then cut off the tails one by one. The yajna was a win-win for them both- the partial sovereignty of Mathura-Dwarika to Yudhisthira was a small price to pay for the elimination of so many other threats, especially since Krishna knew that Yudhishthira would dance to his tunes anyway.
Krishna then tells him about the previous samrats of India and how they got the post: Mandhata got it by invasion, Bhagiratha was the only one who achieved that by being a good king, Kartaveeryarjuna by tapasya, Marutta by his wealth and Bharata by diplomacy. In case of Jarasandha, Krishna says that he has been misusing diplomacy (The United Nations army-use) and that he has been rendered ineligible for the title by his unbridled greed (his pursuit of Mathura).
Krishna finds out that Jarasandha recently has been performing a yajna where he’s having to fast a lot, and decides that this, and considering his advanced age, will be the perfect time to kill Jarasandha. Krishna, when having gotten an audience with Jarasandha, intentionally starts an argument with him, quietly revealing that they’re not brahmins, thus prompting Jarasandha himself to give an angry, ill-thought proposal to fight Bheema. Thus, in normal course of war, Bheema is able to defeat him (note: the tearing into two pieces part is not there in main MB).
After killing Jarasandha, Krishna has his body thrown at the palace gates, and then takes his chariot (with Magadh’s royal flag), to go free the kings who were being kept prisoner, with a promise of their future alliance to Yudhisthira (Krishna’s been driving Arjuna around since then itself). This chariot belonged to Uparichara Vasu, from him, in inheritance, it had come to Jarasandha, and then finally Krishna gifts it to Yudhishthira (was this from where his ‘floating-chariot’ story came from? Because Vasu’s chariot did fly).
Knowing that after Jarasandha’s sudden death, that entire side is in shock, and very unprepared, Krishna advises the Pandavas to start the conquest part of their overall goal as soon as possible. Notably, not all people fought them.
Arjuna went northwards, to Kulinda, Kalakata, Anarta, Shakaladweepa, Vindhya, Pragjyotisha, Antargiri, Vahirgiri, Upagiri, Uluka, Paurava, Sanketa, Kashmira, Uraga, Bahlika, Darada, Kamboja, Loha, Parama, Uttara-Rishika, Kimpurushavarsha, Haataka, Harivarsha, and Uttara-Kuru.
Bheema went eastwards (he was intentionally sent there since many of Jarasandha’s allies were there, and were more likely to surrender easily out of Bheema’s fear/their own grief) to Panchala (by means other than war, did they make him dance?), Videha, Gandaka, Dasarna, Pulina (Bengal?), Chedi, Kumara, Kosala, Ayodhya, Uttara-Kosala, Gopalakaksha, Malla, Bhallata, Shuktimana, Kashi, Matsya, Malada, Pashu, Madadhara, Mahidhara, Somadheya, Vatsa, Bharga, Nishada, Dakshina-Malla, Bhogavana, Sharmaka, Varmaka, Shaka, Barbbara, Kirata, Sumha, Prasumha, Magadh, Anga, Modagiri, Pundra, Kushika, Vanga, Karkata, Tamralipta, Mlechha and Lohita.
Sahadeva went southwards, to Mathura, Matsya (leave him alone guys!), Karusha, Patachhara, apara-Matsya, Nishada, Goshringa, Shrenimaana, Navarashtra, Kuntirashtra, Poorvavairi, Seka, Aparaseka, Avanti, Vidarbha (took 2 tries), Kosala, Aranyaka,east-Ayodhya, Natakeya, Herambaka, Marudha, Munjagrama, Natavika, Arbuka, Vatadhi, Pulinda, Pandya, Kishkindha, Mahishmati, Paurava, Saurashtra, Surparaka, Talakata, Dandaka, Sagaradweepa, Bhoopati, Nishada, Rakshasa, Karna, Pravarana, Kalamukha, Kolagiri, Surabhipattana, Tamraksha, Ramaka, Timingila, Ekapada, Koraka, Sanjayanti, Karahataka, Dravida, Odra, Kerala, Andhra, Talavana, Kalinga, Ushtra, Kanika, Aatavi, Yavanapura and Sinhala.
Nakula went westwards, to Gokulasankula, Rohityaka, Sairoshaka, Mahaukha, Dasharna, Shibi, Trigarta, Ambashtha, Malava, Panchakapata, Madhyamakeya, Vaatadhana, Dvija, Pushkara, Aabhira, Shudra, Matsya (seriously, how did he not recognize them??), Panchanada, Amara-parvata, Uttarajyotisha, Divyakatapura, Dvarapala, Ramatha, Haaratrina, Prateechya, Dwarika, Madra, Shaakala, Smnechha, Panhava, Barbbara, Kirata, Yavana and Shaka.
As for Krishna’s guidance, it was minimal after killing Jarasandha. He was busy tackling Shishupala, Dantavakra, Shalva and your sundry Yadava drama. One thing that is mentioned is that for Nakula and Sahadeva especially, many of those places mentioned were already conquered/intimidated by Krishna, which made their job easier…so if you want to consider that to be any help?
In Kurukshetra, on the Pandavas side there were mainly:
Some Yadavas, Panchala, Matsya, Magadh, Chedi, Kekaya, Shibi, Kunti, Pandya.
On the Kaurava side there were mainly:
Kings of Prachya (East) and Daakshinatya (South), Sindh-Sauvira, Anga, Malava, Shambaka, Trigarta, Ayodhya, Yadava Kritavarma, Gandhara, Kaitava, Saaraswata, Kamboja, Mahishmati, Avanti, Pragjyotisha, Madra, Bahlika.
All in all, I’d not say that the rajasuya was the only point during Kurukshetra, a lot of equations had changed, specifically vis-à-vis Jarasandha’s faction being split down the middle. Some people stayed neutral, some kingdoms were wiped out by then. Many people joined the Kauravas just out of anger at Krishna.
However, the Pandavas had one thing going for them- that they always tried to put a member of the ruling family on the throne after they killed the king, this in some cases did gain them valuable alliances, like we see with Chedi and Magadh specifically.
