SANTOSH 9702: Known

Showing posts with label Known. Show all posts

Thursday, February 26, 2026

What are some lesser known/interesting stories in Mahabharata?

Kauravas were not 100 they were actually 101.

100 brothers and 1sister

The story goes like this:-

Queen Gandhari : once, sage vyasa came to visit gandhari in hastinapur. Indeed, gandhari took great care of the comforts of the saint and tried to ensure that he had pleasent stay in hastinapur. The saint pleased with gandhari, granted her a boon.

Gandhari expressed her wish for a 100 sons who could as powerful as her husband. Vyasa, in turn granted her the boon and in due course of time, gandhari was pregnent. However,even though two years had passed, still the baby remained unborn.

Then, one day, gandhari gave birth to a hard piece of lifeless flesh that was not a baby at all. Gandhari was devastated as she had expected a hundred sons according to the blessing of rishi vyas.

.Gandhari was about to throw away the piece of flesh. Ved vyas appeared and told her that his blessings could not have been in vain. He asked gandhari to arrange for 100 jars to be filled with ghee.

Before the process could start gandhari pressed her desire for having a daughter. Ved vyas agreed and then chopped the piece of flesh into 101 pieces and placed them in the jars, promising them that they would develop into the 100 sons and 1 daughter she desired.

What are some lesser known/interesting stories in Mahabharata?

1.Identity of Vidur as we all know

As we all know that Vidur was the prime minister of Hastinapur as well as the major advisor to the king Dhritarashtra.
He was often called as the embodiment of Dharma and the Pandavas had been rescued by Vidur from the cunning plans of Duryodhan and Shakuni in many instances.

But who is Vidur???

Many years ago a bunch of thieves took something valuable from their king’s palace while he was sleeping and kept them in Rishi Mandavya’s hermitage while he was in meditation.
After a search operation all the stolen things were collected from Mandavya’s place and the king gave him the insane punishment of impalement.

[Yamamaraja and the sage Mandavya]

After death he asked Yamaraj about the injustice done to him.
Yamaraj replied that some insects were impaled by you during your childhood and so that was the cause behind your mode of death.
Then Mandavya told Yama that his extent of punishment far exceeded his childish sin as an ignorant child.
Then he cursed Yamaraj to burn in the mortal world in the personification of Dharma as a sudra and to be helpless during the war between Dharma & Adharma in front of you.
And may be that was the reason why he was born to the maid of Ambalika by sage Vyasa and was appointed as a prime advisor to the king of Hastinapur.
Eventually when the war was on the verge of commencement,he was helpless for being unable to stop the war because he had not the authority to take any decision regarding the war. At last he resigned from the position.

So we can see that life is all about cause and effects. “When there is a cause,you can’t avoid its effect and if there is an effect,there must be a cause behind it.”

2. When Yudhisthir entered heaven he found all the Kauravas there

Yes you have listened right. It sounds shocking ,right? Well,there is a story behind it. Let’s jump to that story without wasting any more time.

What is the story?

When the Pandavas along with Draupadi started their journey to heaven one by one died on the way because of their sins except Dharmaraj Yudhisthir accompanied by a dog in the personification of Dharmaraj.
When Yudhisthir entered heaven,he was shocked to find all the Kauravas there welcoming him. He even shocked more to get to know that his brothers along with Draupadi were in hell suffering their punishment for their respective sins in the mortal world.

Story behind it….

Actually some generations ago ,king Kuru choose this land(kurukhetra: Land of Kuru) to settle there.
He performed many yangyas and rituals there for embedding spirituality with the 8 virtues.
By impressing with this Lord Vishnu gave him a boon that “ Any person dying here doing his/her duty will go to heaven irrespective of other factors”
As Kshatriya the Kauravas died on that land doing their duty of fighting as warrior. So eventually all of them found themselves in the heaven after their death.

Well,this is the real story.

3.Bheesma: The one and only legitimate heir to the Hastinapur throne

Well,we all know the story of Mahabharat and its result. In the entire story, all of we are revolved around the Hastinapur throne.
Sometimes it was Duryodhan and sometimes Yudhisthir. Moreover we fight against ourselves to give resaons for whosoever was eligible for the throne or not.
I was also shocked and amazed when I got to know about the true fact.
The fact is that Ganga putra Bheesma was the one and only legitimate heir for the throne of Hastinapur. Let’s rewind from the beginning.
Bheesma was the 8th son of Hastinapur king Shantanu and Ganga. Then after sometime Shantanu was attracted by the charm and beauty of Satyavati and wanted to marry her.
So here Bheesma’s vow came into picture to remain celibate for the entire life as Satyavati’s father put a condition before marriage that Satyavati and Shantanu’s son will be the prince of Hastinapur.
But 2 of their sons Vichitravirya and Chitrangada died early in their life leaving Hastinapur throne empty.
Here Sage Vyasa came into picture. Vyasa was begeted to Satyavati by Rishi Parasara before marrying to Shantanu.
So Satyavati requested his son Vyasa to beget his daughter-in-laws.Then Dhritarashtra,Pandu and Vidur were begeted to Ambika,Ambalika and a maid respectively.[NOTE-This was a practice of that time called NIYOGA. Whenever there was a situation of no heir to the throne, because of death of the King, a very pious and pure tapasvi (sage / rishi), who doesn't hold or have even an iota of lust, used to make the queen conceive with one union.]
Then their lineage continued from Dhritarashtra and Pandu in the form of Kauravas and Pandavas and they continued to fight among themselves for the throne.
Also another fact is that Even Shantanu was not a Kuru. Bharata lineage was stopped when Bhoomanyu was adopted and made the king of Hastinapur. That was many generations before Shantanu. But considering the time of Mahabharat war,Bheesma was the only legal heir to the Hastinapur theone.

But the fact remains the same that none of them were legally eligible for the throne.

NOTE: All types of comments,suggestions or compliments to improve and modify the answer are welcome.

I will be adding more interesting stories of Mahabharat to my above answer,whenever I find something interesting as well as lesser known.

Thank you for reading.

Special thanks to Thyagarajan KR , Sandesh Balan , Pallavi Alai for their valuable comments for improvement of the answer.

SOURCE:Wikipedia and other internet sites.

Friday, February 20, 2026

What are some lesser known facts about Antarctica?

The Future Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent. It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14,000,000 square kilometres (5,400,000 square miles), it is the fifth-largest continent. For comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages 1.9 km (1.2 mi; 6,200 ft) in thickness, which extends to all but the northernmost reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Now coming to some of the information that I gathered from various websites about Antarctica

You cannot work in Antarctica unless your wisdom teeth and appendix are removed. (Appears to me that your very wise, wisdom teeth could not hang out with your other stupid teeth . LOL)

Antarctica is also the world’s driest place.

Antarctica has its own domain .aq

53 million years ago, palm trees were growing along its shores.

Metallica played a gig in Antarctica called Freeze ‘Em All

There used to be a nuclear power station in Antarctica.

The existence of Antarctica was completely unknown until 1820, it was considered to be just a group of islands.

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was the first human to reach the South Pole on December 14, 1911.

The Transantarctic Mountains of Antarctica divide the continent into East and West sections.

Deep Lake in Antarctica is so salty that it cannot freeze, even in temperatures as low as -4° F.

I'll be adding more facts and amazing pictures for you awesome guys and gals based on the response.

Source:-Antarctica - Wikipedia

15 interesting facts about Antarctica

20 Facts You Never Knew About Antarctica

What are some of the most interesting little-known things?

1. A 2 litre bottle before it's filled with compressed air :-

2. A burning candle at Zero gravity :-

3. Hypothetically, you could reach the moon with paper.

If you folded 0.1 millimeter-thick paper 42 times, the resulting paper would theoretically be thick enough to reach the moon. You can't actually do that, though, so don't try.

4. The sacrifice for poo is great :-

127,000 trees are chopped down every day to make enough toilet paper for everyone on the planet. Conserve, people (or just take a shower if it's that bad).

5. Water can boil and freeze at the same time (at the triple point) :-

6. 99% of the Earth's gold is inside its core :-

7. There's even less platinum available :-

All the platinum ever mined by humans would fill an average-sized house.

8. All the religions of India collectively let every citizen to say proudly :-

What are some little known facts about McDonald's?

1. McDonald’s originally sold hot dogs, not hamburgers.

sunnyyq.wordpress.com

In 1937, brothers Dick and Mac McDonald launched the Airdrome hot dog stand with a $5,000 loan. It wasn’t until 1948 that they revamped their business and turned it into a burgers and milkshakes joint.

(In the 1990s, the restaurant tested hot dogs at several Midwestern U.S. locations. They’ve also been spotted in Japanese locations — see photo above.)

2. The company’s golden arches are recognized by more people than the Christian cross.

randomperspective.com

A survey by Sponsorship Research International of 7,000 people in six countries found that 88 percent could identify McDonald’s famous arches, while only 54 percent could name the Christian cross.

3. 1 in 8 Americans has been employed by a McDonald’s.

allkindofgifsforyou.tumblr.com

(source)

4. 87,000 people recently petitioned McDonald’s to add a veggie burger to their menu.

Flickr: cbrunn

“Adding plant-based protein options at McDonald’s will appeal to workers out for a quick lunch, families with health-conscious members out to dinner, children on field trips, and anyone looking for something different than the current menu at McDonald’s where even the french fries contain beef flavoring,” reads the petition. The company currently sells veggie burgers in India, but not in the U.S.

5. McDonald’s is the world’s largest distributor of toys.

peteneems.tumblr.com

The reason? About 20 percent of McDonald’s sales involve Happy Meals.

6. The Egg McMuffin was modeled after eggs benedict.