|| Indian Mythology:: Doubts & Discussions || - Page 10

Originally posted by: .Vrish.

Actually, as per the rules of succession, after the king's eldest son, his younger sons would be in the line of succession. That makes sense, but once Ramji became the King, Dashrath would not be considered that, would he? So in this case, the King's sons would be Kush and Luv. Only thing is that they weren't born yet so it did kind of make sense to have a Yuvaraj lest something happened to the King before he could have children, but what would happen to the Yuvaraj afterwards? Let's just say that Sita was not exiled and LuvKush were born in the palace itself. Would Ram have told Bharat that his reign as Yuvaraj was over and it was time to step down? That sounds kind of mean.😳 If not, that would mean that the throne would go from brother to brother as per tradition, not from father to son.

P.S. LJR, the book I took it from was a brief biography of about all the dramatis personae that one can find in the Mahabharata. If I see what Adi Parva has to say, I'll reproduce it here. Or maybe someone else can. Would it be in the Adi Parva or somewhere else, perhaps as a background story? When exactly was Bharat's story told in the Mahabharat?

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Originally posted by: .Vrish.

Actually, chances are likely that even if Sita had given birth to Kush in Ayodhya itself, Rama would have left Bharat as the yuvraj. I don't think it would have been mean though, had Rama decided that say, 10 years before he steps down, he'd make Kush the king (unless they agreed for Bharat to succeed him). Incidentally, Dasharath made him yuvraj, not king, and that was the title Kaikeyi wanted for Bharat.

I know that the dynasties were different, but in the Pandava case, Yudhisthir knew that whenever he retired, Bhima and his other brothers would more likely follow him than succeed him. Yet, he never made Parikshit the yuvraj, and you can bet Bhima wouldn't have minded had he done so. Maybe it just wasn't the protocol to remove an yuvraj, but just supercede him w/ someone else when the actual time for succession arrives.

On your next question, in Valmiki only, Sugriv told him that the dispute w/ Mayavi was over a woman.

However, VR is quite nebulous on the question of whether the female in question was Mayavi's wife, or another woman that both had their eyes on.

P.S. In Mahabharata, if it has anything about Bharat, one would find it in Adi Parva.

Originally posted by: .Vrish.

Well, Ravan couldn't make Kumbhakarna the yuvraj, since he was always asleep, and he had fundamental problems w/ Vibhishan, so the latter was out of the question as well. So it automatically fell to Indrajit.

I think that had Abhimanyu survived, Yudhisthir might have made him yuvraj, instead of Bhima. Or else, maybe Prativindya. There is some confusion about whether the sons that the Pandavas had from their other wives - Nakul's son from Karenmati - Nirmitra, Sahadev's son from Vijaya - Suhotra and Yudhisthir's son from Paulomi - Yaudheya - whether those 3 fought and died in the war, or were too young to fight and therefore didn't participate in it. I was under the impression that Abhimanyu's entire generation of his brothers were wiped out, but that may or may not have been the case. For more details, see the last few pages of the Doubts & Discussions on the Mahabharata.