Kishkindha to Kurukshetra: Vishnu’s Hand in the Cosmic Rivalry Between Surya and Indra

The cosmic confrontation between Karna and Arjuna in the Mahabharata is more than just a clash between two heroic warriors—it can be interpreted as the continuation of an ancient and symbolic rivalry between two celestial powers: Surya, the solar deity, and Indra, the king of the heavens. 

As the sons of these two deities, Karna and Arjuna embody this cosmic antagonism on the mortal plane. Karna, born of Surya, and Arjuna, son of Indra, are cast into opposing roles in the great war of Kurukshetra. Their destinies culminate in Karna’s death, brought about by Arjuna with the indispensable guidance of Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu.

This divine pattern of conflict, however, has an antecedent in the Ramayana, set in an earlier Yuga. There, the cosmic rivalry between Surya and Indra is mirrored in the fraternal conflict between Vali and Sugriva. Vali, the mighty vanara king and son of Indra, is opposed by his younger brother Sugriva, born of Surya. Once again, Vishnu—this time in his seventh avatar as Rama—intervenes decisively. Siding with Sugriva, Rama slays Vali and restores Sugriva to the throne of Kishkindha.

A striking symmetry emerges from these narratives. In the Ramayana, Surya’s son (Sugriva) triumphs over Indra’s son (Vali) with the help of Vishnu as Rama. In the Mahabharata, Indra’s son (Arjuna) vanquishes Surya’s son (Karna), aided by Vishnu as Krishna. In both epochs, the conflict between the celestial lineages is resolved not through the independent might of either side, but through divine intervention. It is the avatar of Vishnu who tilts the scales of fate, suggesting that dharma, not mere lineage, dictates the course of victory.

These epic patterns invite a deeper reflection: is there a cosmic balance being maintained between the houses of Surya and Indra, mediated by Vishnu across Yugas? Or does the repetition serve to highlight the futility of divine rivalry when set against the larger arc of Vishnu’s dharmic mission?

Ultimately, the question of superiority between Surya and Indra remains unresolved, perhaps deliberately so. For it is not the triumph of one deity over another that the epics foreground, but the recurring centrality of Vishnu—the preserver—whose avatars uphold the moral and cosmic order. The epics suggest that in the theatre of divine drama, power alone is insufficient without dharma, and destiny bows to the will of the divine incarnate.

Visha and Amrita: The Fragile Boundary Between Intellectualism and Barbarism

Churning of Cosmic Ocean

The boundary between medicine and poison, between what heals and what harms, has long been recognised in Indian thought as subtle and deeply contextual. In the Atharva Veda, one of the earliest Indian texts concerned with healing, disease and remedy are treated as forces that can both originate in and be dispelled by divine or natural means. 

The same herb, the same mantra, the same force—ojas or tejas—may bring either vitality or destruction, depending on its application, intention, and measure. This duality is also reflected in the Sanskrit term visha, meaning poison, which is etymologically and symbolically close to amrita, the nectar of immortality—both are born of the same cosmic churning (samudra manthan), the same act that yields the divine and the deadly.

This paradox of opposites—where poison and nectar, good and evil, often emerge from a common source—provides a potent metaphor for the relationship between the intellectual and the so-called barbarian. Much like the Vedic Rishi, who isolates himself to gain higher knowledge and then re-engages with society as a moral guide, the intellectual presumes a role of healing: to shield the body politic from ignorance, chaos, and violence. 

Yet the tradition also warns us against false ascetics and hollow scholars—those who pursue knowledge not for satya (truth) but for svārtha (self-interest). As the Bhagavad Gita cautions, those entrenched in avidya (ignorance) often masquerade under the guise of wisdom, and even tamas, the quality of inertia and decay, can wear the robe of sagacity.

The Mahabharata abounds with such inversions. The Kauravas, educated in the shastras, trained by royal gurus, are heirs to the throne. Yet it is Pandavas with their raw force and naturalistic values, and Krishna, with his cosmic vision, who preserve dharma. It is not the cultivated or the learned who uphold civilization, but often the forgotten, the exiled, the so-called barbarians whose strength lies in their unyielding will and raw power.

The history of empires in India, too, follows this rhythm. From Chandragupta Maurya—who rose from obscurity under the guidance of Chanakya—to the founders of the Gupta and Chola empires, it is often those from outside the sanctified elite who inject new energy into a stagnant polity. The decline of great kingdoms, conversely, is marked by excesses of ritualism, philosophical abstraction, and detachment from the realities of statecraft—a condition vividly described in Kautilya’s Arthashastra and critiqued implicitly by later Bhakti poets, who rejected hollow scholasticism in favour of lived, experiential truth.

The distinction between the intellectual and the barbarian is not absolute but cyclical, even illusory. When intellectualism ossifies into elitism and complacency, it ceases to be a healing force and becomes a poison. Conversely, what is dismissed as barbaric or uncivilized may contain within it the latent energy necessary for renewal. The same cosmic churning that produces poison also yields nectar. The task of any civilization is not to suppress the churning, but to recognize when its medicines have become its poisons—when its savages may be its saviours.

History’s Iron Law: The Fall of Empires to Their Former Colonies

The arc of imperial history is replete with ironies, none more persistent than the recurring phenomenon of great empires being undone by forces once subordinated to their power. This historical inversion—the return of the periphery to challenge and often supplant the core—has played out repeatedly across centuries and civilizations, suggesting a structural dynamic embedded within the very nature of empire.

Consider the fate of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Once the dominant power of the ancient Near East, it fell not to a rival civilization but to a coalition led by its former western vassals—the Macedonians under Alexander the Great. Similarly, the Roman Empire, which extended its control across vast swathes of Europe, North Africa, and the Levant, was ultimately overwhelmed not by a peer polity but by a convergence of Central Asian and Germanic tribes—Visigoths, Vandals, and Huns—many of whom had once served as auxiliary forces or client states within the imperial framework.

The Byzantine Empire offers another poignant example. It once exercised suzerainty over various Turkic and Balkan groups, including the ancestors of the Ottomans. Yet by 1453, it was these very Ottomans—former vassals—that delivered the final blow to Constantinople, signaling the definitive end of Roman imperial continuity. Likewise, the Islamic conquests of the Iberian Peninsula, which lasted nearly 800 years, were initially facilitated by political factions in Italy and Byzantium. These powers supported Arab-Berber incursions into Visigothic Spain in a bid to weaken their rivals—only to see a new Islamic civilization emerge on European soil.

This pattern is not confined to the ancient or medieval world. The Zengid dynasty, instrumental in the rise of the Kurdish commander Saladin, was eclipsed by him as he established the Ayyubid Sultanate. In turn, the Ayyubids were overthrown by the Mamluks—former slave-soldiers of Turkic and Circassian origin—who forged one of the most enduring military regimes in Islamic history. Similarly, the Mongol Empire, which spanned from the Pacific to the Danube, was ultimately supplanted by successor states in Russia and China—regions that had once existed under Mongol dominion.

In the modern period, the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries was not solely the result of European power but also of nationalist movements and regional actors who had once been subordinate to Ottoman rule. From the Balkans to the Levant, former provinces became crucibles of resistance and eventual independence.

These historical precedents point to a cyclical law of reversal: the imperial center, in time, becomes vulnerable to the energies it once harnessed and subordinated. Empires are seldom felled by foreign equals; they are more often eroded from within or overtaken by those they once ruled.

This historical logic may once again assert itself in the decades ahead. The post-World War II Western order—led by the United States and upheld by former colonial powers such as Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain—now faces demographic, economic, and ideological challenges emerging from the very regions they once colonized. Migration flows, capital investments, and technological diffusion from Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America are beginning to reshape the political and cultural landscapes of Europe and North America.

The prospect, then, is not merely one of geopolitical rebalancing but of civilizational inversion. The imperial core—once the agent of global domination—may, within the next fifty years, find itself increasingly subject to the influence, and perhaps even the ascendancy, of forces and populations it once ruled. If history remains a reliable guide, the next wave of transformation may well be led not by the heirs of empire, but by the children of its margins.