The Tradition of Kshaatra in India – Awareness of Kshaatra in the Itihasas
The maxims that can be gleaned from the Ramayana and Mahabharata are predominantly destruction of the wicked and protection of the righteous. Investigating into what is the predominant rasa of the Itihasas, the great aesthetician and scholar Anandavardhana says that the karuna rasa dominates in the Ramayana while the dominant rasa in the Mahabharata is shanta rasa. To this, we may add another rasa, that of ‘dharmavira’ – it would not be incorrect to do so. It is a predominant rasa in our epics.