Connections Between the Mahabharata, Greek Mythology, and the Bible

When watching the production of the Mahabharata today in class, I was surprised to see that I could draw a number of connections between the religious beliefs expressed in this epic and ones I had already been exposed to through Greek mythology and the Christian Bible. I was previously aware that most religions have some aspect of similarity between them, but the comparisons surprised me nonetheless.

            One instance in which I drew a connection between Greek mythology and the Mahabharata was the similarities between the birth of the Kaurava brothers and the myth of the Dragon’s teeth from which were born the warriors called the spartoi. The Kaurava brothers were born from a ball of flesh that had been cut up and buried. Similarly, the spartoi were born of dragon’s teeth that had been sowed in the ground and then sprung up into ferocious warriors. Also, half-god, half-human children like the Pandava brothers are a common theme among Greek myths. Zeus, the king of the gods, fathered many sons and daughters by a number of mortal women. Most of these children went on to become powerful heroes and warriors, such as Heracles and Perseus, just as the Pandava brothers did.

            The most striking similarity I could draw between the Mahabharata and the Bible was the similarity between the early lives of Moses and the first son of Kunti before her marriage to Pandu, Karna. Like Moses, as a young baby, Karna was set adrift in a basket down a river in hopes that another family would find and care for him. However, the difference between the two was that Karna was trying to protect her reputation as a unwed mother by abandoning Karna whereas Moses’s mother was trying to protect him from the wrath of the Egyptian pharaoh. Another connection I drew between the two religious traditions was between the conception of Kunti’s sons by the gods and the conception of Jesus by the Virgin Mary. Neither woman was ever physically united with a god/God, however both were able to conceive sons in an untraditional manner.