Who were the The Pandavas and Kauravas

Krishna was the son of Vasudeva. Vasudeva’s sister was Kunti. Kunti was married to Pandu-The king of Hastinapur-and a descendant of Puru. Kunti had received a boon from a sage, Rishi Durvasa, that she would bear five sons sired by whichever gods she chose.

She had tested the boon in haste and the sun god-Surya-had given her a firstborn, Karana. Shamed by the fact that she was unwed, Kunti had set the infant Karana afloat on a river in a basket. Luckily, he was found by a charioteer and was brought up by him. After her marriage to Pandu, Kunti used the boon to produce three more sons-Yudhistira, by Dharma; Bhima, by Vaayu; and Arjuna, by Indra. Kunti gifted the remainder of the boon to Pandu’s second wife-Madri-who produced twins, Nakula and Sahadev from the Ashwin twins. The five recognized children of Kunti and Madri were the Pandavas-Krishna’s first cousins.

Pandu soon died and Krishna’s aunt moved back into the Hastinapur palace of the blind King Dhritarashtra-Pandu’s brother. Dhritarashtra and his wife Gandhari were the parents of one hundred sons known as the Kauravas, the eldest of whom was Duryodhana. Also in the palace lived Bhishma, the king’s uncle, who had renounced the throne and had taken a vow of celibacy so that his father, Shantanu, could marry a fisherwoman Satyavati who had insisted that she wanted the throne for her own children by him.