The Birth of the Kauravas
Where It All Began
The Mahabharata is a legendary Indian epic, and the Kauravas are the 100 sons of Dhritarashtra, the King of Hastinapur, and his wife Gandhari. It is claimed that Hastinapur represents the modern state of Haryana and that Gandhar, the home of Gandhari, represents the modern Afghan city of Kandahar. Following the Kurukshetra War, the Mahabharata describes how the Kauravas’ and their opponents’, the Pandavas’, deeds and behaviour altered the path of history. The Kauravas’ traditional timeline, which spans from 3138 BCE to 3229 BCE, is comparable to that of the Pandavas. In India and in Hinduism, the life narrative of the Kauravas is significant because their actions frequently give rise to a variety of interpretations about immoral and unethical excess and their effects.
The term “Kaurava” refers to the lineage of Dhritarashtra’s ancestor Kuru, a dynamic king and ruler of the entire planet. The five Pandavas and the later-discovered sixth Pandava, Karna, are among the Kauravas, who are the descendants of Kuru. Due to a curse, Pandu was forced to abdicate his throne as king of Hastinapur, and Dhritarashtra appointed his cousin-brother in his place. The five sons of Pandu chose the name Pandava over Kaurava. Dhritarashtra was born blind, but Gandhari, a woman of strong convictions who wanted to share in her husband’s blindness, tied a silk robe over her eyes when she wed him and promised to only untie it when she passed away.
‘The Birth of the Kauravas’ is an installation depicting 101 plastic cups with lumps of flesh inside them and materialistic things, commonly associated with the negative traits of human beings as with the Kauravas.
The Lore
Dwaipayana, a renowned rishi (sage) with a dark complexion and unmatched virtue, once occurred to pass through Hastinapur. When Gandhari attended to his needs and comforts, Dwaipayana was impressed and gave her a boon. The blessings bestowed by Rishis of celestial merit are always realised. He granted Gandhari the blessing of having 100 sons who would be equal in strength to her lord and her accomplishments. Surprisingly, Kunti, Pandu’s wife, discovered she was pregnant at the same time. She gave birth to their first son, Yudhisthira, before Gandhari could. To everyone’s dismay, Gandhari’s pregnancy continued for two years without any indication that the baby would be born. When Gandhari learned that Kunti had given birth to five divine-appearing sons, she grew enraged and struck her stomach violently. Soon after, she gave birth to a hard lump of mass that terrified everyone instead of even one son.
The urgency of having sons was concealed by the fact that, according to Kunti and Gandhari’s succession plan, the sons of whoever had them first would likely be given preference for the Hastinapur throne. Gandhari went to Dwaipayana and expressed her concerns regarding the lump of mass and her scepticism regarding the rishi’s blessing. Dwaipayana responded that he had never, not even in joke, spoken a lie.
He then instructed Gandhari to divide the mass into 100 pieces, distribute them among 100 clarified butter-filled pots, and wait. A daughter was asked by Gandhari to divide the parts into 101. The boon eventually came true, resulting in the birth of the first Kaurava, Duryodhana, his 99 brothers—of whom Dushasana became his favourite—and daughter Dussala. Since Duryodhana’s name meant “unconquerable,” Vidura encouraged Dhritarashtra to abandon the child, but Dhritarashtra refused. When Duryodhana was born, various animals howled, which Vidura interpreted as a terrible omen. Their future would be shaped by this choice.
101 Pieces of red clay are placed in plastic cups to depict flesh and each Kaurava
Materialistic objects placed in plastic cups
The Installation
We wanted to create a suspended installation, common to many modern artists and their work in today’s world.
The idea is to use a space with three walls, on the wall at the back, we would attach a painting of Gandhari, and emerging from her would be a suspended circle of the hundred and one Kauravas. The suspension would encircle Gandhari so that she would be visible at the back. Each Kaurava would be represented by an object we use in our everyday lives to symbolise the materialistic things we need to live. Through these things, we adopt emotions such as greediness, jealousy etc. This kind of wealth is indeed worthless and valueless, except we make it seem otherwise. These things are objects of burden, they do not provide human beings with any sort of satisfaction, only an illusion of what we perceive as satisfaction. The five well-known Kauravas, Duryodhana, Dushasana, Dussala, Yuyutsu and Vikarna, will be visually depicted as 5 masks, which portray their characteristics.
As for the work, the beauty behind creating suspended artwork is that it is closer to the human vision, compared to work that is created on the ground, and it creates a more incorporative space. As Ranjani Shettar, an Indian visual artist said, “I’m trying to breathe life into a piece, and then it is to be experienced”. It is important that the viewer experience the story we are trying to create and truly understand that once a person has experienced something, their opinion of it changes and becomes more real. They are closer to it than they have ever been before. This surreal experience is therefore enhanced with suspended installations, a person can almost become one with the piece and absorb all that they can from it in order to appreciate it. There is more engagement with the space around, as it is not confined to the floor.
Another part of creating such installations is the importance of lighting and space. The shadows that are created become a part of the piece. The light falling on certain areas brings out different characteristics of the artwork and compliments the atmosphere. The idea behind hanging the Kauravas around their mother is to show the bondage and their existence through her. She is the giver of life to them. Moreover, with suspended work, things are always dynamic in nature, nothing remains where it is. This is to show that the story moves forward from when the Kauravas were born and how they turn into the characters they were destined to become.
The material we use also becomes a metaphor in the process of creating art. The idea of using everyday objects to symbolize the materialistic things we need in order to live our lives prevents us from attaining a higher state of being. To associate this with the Kauravas is the metaphor we are using.
We decided to use red cellophane paper to create a different lighting which complements the atmosphere adequately. Gandhari was at a loss and was disappointed in being unable to conceive children. The red colour perfectly depicts her sorrow and once Sage Vyas cuts up the lump of flesh, to produce 101 bloody pieces of flesh, giving us more incentive to use the colour red.
The reason behind translating the metaphor as it is is due to the fact that there was a lot of meaning behind Diwakar’s perspective which we felt needed to be visually depicted to justify his means. Bad wealth and our dependence on materialistic things are highly relevant in today’s world and is an important things to address to an audience to send a message about how we can reduce our consumption patterns and dependence on materialistic things.
After having thoroughly discussed our individual thoughts and views on the installation, we felt that the final idea seemed to capture most of what we all agreed on. We wanted to make sure the installation was as inviting to our audience as it could be. The idea behind hanging the Kauravas around their mother is to show the bondage and their existence through her. She is the giver of life to them. Moreover, with suspended work, things are always dynamic in nature, nothing remains where it is. This is to show that the story moves forward from when the Kauravas were born and how they turn into the characters they were destined to become.
The idea behind a suspended installation is that it is not intended to be interactive, but inherently becomes so. The space and atmosphere make the viewer a part of the installation and invite them to live the story.
The group that worked on the project at Srishti Manipal Institute under the guidance of Aruldevan.
From Left to Right: Ajai, Isha, Ananya, Ishita, Anisha, Akanksha, Palak, Bhavya, Sundari
installation
Materials: Plastic cups, Red cellophane paper, Wheat, corn flour and salt, 5 masks for Duryodhana, Vikarna, Dushasana, Yuyutsu and Dussala, Plaster of Paris sheets (for the masks), Clay, Thread, A3 sheets, Acrylic paints (to paint Gandhari)