Discrimination

When my fellow blogger K was talking about dangerous and scary stuff.. me and my friends were discussing about spiritualism and vedas.Hot tea , good day biscuits and vedas .. quite a combo. I asked my colleague if i could study them,as I find vedas interesting.He said yes but there are people who teach them only to Brahmins(A member of the highest of the four major castes of traditional Indian society, responsible for officiating at religious rites and studying and teaching the Vedas. ). The debate then moved on to "the discrimination". Example Ekalavya: From the net... Did you know that as a punishment, Ekalavya should have been beheaded. It is drONa who protected him from such severe punishment and the issue was settled with a finger. BTW, Ekalavya did lose his LEFT hand's thumb and he DID participate in the mahA- BArata war. As a matter fact, Ekalavya prepared his own bow to have the right grip with his thumbless left hand.He held a position of dhanurAkhya and was admired for his fierceful art of archery. He killed hundreds of mighty worriers of pAnDavas and was eventually killed in the end by Arjuna. Had DrONa been not sympathetic to this kid who learnt the art by having his guru pratima, Ekalavya would not have had a chance to participate in the mahABArata war. Weird ... More : It was the time when the Great War of Kurukshetra was being fought. Lord Krishna, supporting the Pandavas, was thinking about talented and heroic people who may join hands with Kauravas. Ekalavya's father Hiranyadhanu had died in the service of Kaurava kings. Now it was possible his son might also assist Kauravas. Though he had lost his right thumb, he was still one of the world's greatest archers, as Krishna knew. It is said in the Mahabharata that Lord Krishna, not wanting Ekalavya to assist the Kaurava army, killed him before the war erupted, ad blessed him with eternal salvation . So anyone out there know what the true story is ??