the Mahabharata War as a war between cousins, but rather a war between dharma and adharma. According to the epic itself, the Mahabharata War is the expression of a state of tension between two ideal orders of beings, a moral (dharmic) where in gods become incarnate as heroic individuals, and an immoral (adharmic)-or rather unmoral-type which it is the object of the former to destroy (Sukthankar 1998, 62).It is also more evident by now that the Pandavas represent dharma and the Kauravas adharma. Therefore, Pandavas are said to be incarnations of gods; and it is very obvious in the case of the five brothers. Yudhisthira, the eldest of five, is the son of Dharma and, therefore, is said to be Dharma incarnate. Bhima is the son of Vayu; Arjuna, the son of Indra; Nakula and Sahdeva, sons of the Asvins. The Kauravas are likewise incarnations of Asuras or Anti-gods. There are many other characters in the epic that are said to be incarnations of the other gods. One of the most important that is worth mentioning is Krsna who is seen to be the incarnation of the Supreme God, Visnu himself. Since, Krsna gives the Pandavas support throughout the epic and is said to be incarnation of Visnu who has come down to earth for the purpose of restoring dharma; the Pandavas are regarded as to be the ones representing dharma in the battle.From the epic, one of the points that becomes evident is that dharma must be of universal importance for it led the Supreme God himself to incarnate as a lowly human. The epic does treat the concept as if it is the ultimate goal of human existence. According to the Indian conception, there are four ends or goals of human existence: dharma, artha, kama, and moksa. Even though, moksa (release from the otherwise unending cycle of birth and death) is the ultimate end of life (Gupta 1991, 41); it is attained in any particular life only by the few. Thus, that leaves us with three that are considered in the epic as bein...
