Bhima

Bhima and Draupadi. A scene from the play.

Bhima ( Skt. भीम , Bhīma ^IAST , “terrible”) or Bhimasena - the hero of the Indian epic Mahabharata , the second oldest and the strongest of the Pandavas . The son of Queen Kunti and the wind god Vayu , was considered a partial incarnation of him. The infant Bhimasena fell from Kunti’s knees, smashing the rock on which he fell. The rivals of the Pandavas of Kaurava tried to deal with the young Bhimasena: they drowned, admitted poisonous snakes, but the boy strangled the snake and the servant who brought them (compare with the baby Heracles , who strangled the snake allowed by the Hero ). Together with other brothers he was the husband of Draupadi , whom he tenderly looked after: he was ready to fight with monsters in order to pick a flower that his wife liked. During the exile, he met Hanuman , the king of monkeys, who was also the son of the god Vayu, that is, the half-brother of Bhima. After the fateful dice game, when Draupadi was insulted by the sons of King Dhritarashtra Kauravas, cousins ​​of the Pandavas, Bhimasena vowed to destroy the entire hundred Kauravas with his own hands.

P. A. Grinzer sees in the image of Bhima the manifestation of self-will, riot of an epic hero, comparing him with Gilgamesh , Roland and Vasily Buslaev ^[1] . During the exile of the Pandavas, when they lived incognito at the court of the king of Matsyev Virata , the gluttonous Bhimasena was named after Wallava and was the chief cook , and also performed in fights of fighters to amuse Virata. Defending Draupadi, kills her brother-in-law, Virata, commander Kichaku.

Bhimasena bears the features of an archaic hero: he is distinguished by tremendous physical strength and gluttony (one of his nicknames is Vrikodara, that is, “Wolfbrewer”), he kills enemies with his bare hands or trees uprooted (allusion to his heavenly father), he fights with monsters (rakshasas) , while fleeing, carries the whole family on his shoulders. During the Battle of Kurukshetra, he kills his cousin Duhshasana and (fulfilling the oath previously given after insulting Duhshasana Draupadi ) drinks his blood, knocks two other cousins ​​with his fist and tramples his feet with death. At the very end of the battle, in a duel on the clubs, using the forbidden method on the advice of Krishna , mortally wounds the king of the Kauravas, Duryodhana . In the battle, the twin of Duryodhana Karna defeated Bhimasena, but gave him life, having humiliated and ridiculed first. Bhimasena, the only one of the Pandavas, even after death, could not forgive Karna, their half-brother, who fought on the side of the Kauravas. Also, Bhimasena never reconciled with the unfortunate king Dhritarashtra , who had lived her age at the court of the Pandavas, who had lost all his sons, grandchildren, shuryev and his only son-in-law in the battle. It is because of the insults of Bhimasena that the old Dhrtarastra, who lived in honor at the court of the elder Pandava Yudhishthira , leaves the capital and retires to the forest as a hermit.

His sons: Ghatotkach from Rakshashi Khidimbi, Sutasoma - from Draupadi , Sarvatrag - from Princess Kasha.

His epithets : Vrikodara ("wolfbrew"), Bahushalin ("long-armed").