A Teacher to Both Sides
Balarama, Krishna's elder brother, had trained both Bhima and Duryodhana in gada yuddha, mace combat, treating both as genuine students rather than favouring one over the other, an arrangement covered in detail elsewhere in this series regarding the two men's childhood rivalry. He held real affection for Duryodhana specifically, and the marriage connections between the two families, including Duryodhana's own daughter or, in some accounts, the marriage of Balarama's own family members into the Kaurava line, deepened that bond further.
At the same time, Balarama's own brother Krishna was fully committed to the Pandava cause, and Balarama's sister Subhadra was married to Arjuna, an episode covered elsewhere in this series, meaning the Pandavas were also his own family by marriage. When war became unavoidable, Balarama found himself without a side he could join without betraying people he genuinely loved on both ends of the conflict.
Choosing the Saraswati Over the Battlefield
Rather than fight for either side, Balarama declared his neutrality openly to both camps and departed Kurukshetra entirely, announcing his intention to undertake a pilgrimage along the sacred Saraswati river, visiting its holy sites and tirthas from source to confluence over the course of the war.
The Mahabharata devotes an extended section, sometimes read as a standalone travelogue within the larger epic, to this pilgrimage, naming and describing the various sacred sites Balarama visited along the river's course, effectively giving the text a documented sacred geography of the Saraswati as it existed in tradition, much of which forms the basis for later understanding of the river's now largely dried course.
Throughout this pilgrimage, Balarama receives updates about the war's progress from travellers and other pilgrims, learning of major deaths and developments secondhand rather than witnessing them, a deliberate narrative device that keeps him informed of the conflict's stakes while physically and morally absent from its violence.
Returning for the Final Duel Alone
Balarama broke his pilgrimage and returned only once, specifically to witness the final mace duel between his two students, Bhima and Duryodhana, on the war's last day, unable to stay away entirely from the one confrontation that involved both people he had trained.
His presence at that duel, and his open fury when Bhima struck the illegal blow to Duryodhana's thigh at Krishna's signal, an episode covered in detail elsewhere in this series, is the clearest evidence the text gives that his neutrality was never indifference. He had genuinely hoped to avoid choosing, and when the duel's outcome was decided by a breach of the very rules he had taught both fighters, his anger fell equally on the unfairness of the moment rather than on either combatant's cause.
Balarama's pilgrimage stands in the epic as one of its few examples of a major figure opting out of Kurukshetra entirely on principle, a choice the text neither fully condemns nor fully endorses, presenting it instead as the honest, if ultimately incomplete, response of a man who loved people on both sides of a war he could not in conscience join.
Quick Answers
Did Balarama's neutrality upset Krishna?+
The text does not record significant conflict between the brothers over this choice; Krishna generally respects Balarama's decision even while himself being fully committed to the Pandava side.
Is the Saraswati pilgrimage section considered historically useful?+
Scholars studying the ancient Saraswati river's course and the tirthas along it have drawn on this section of the Mahabharata as one of the more detailed textual sources describing the river's sacred geography before it dried up.
Did Balarama forgive Bhima for the illegal blow?+
Krishna intervened directly at the duel's end to calm Balarama's fury, arguing Duryodhana's own long record of wrongs justified the departure from convention, and Balarama, though never approving, did not pursue further conflict with Bhima afterward.
About the author
Pandit Ravindra Sharma · Vedic Rituals & Bhakti, 22+ years
Pandit Ravindra is the Vandnaa editorial team's resident specialist on aarti, chalisa, and daily devotion. He has performed home and temple pujas across Varanasi and Delhi for over two decades and contributes the bhakti-focused articles on this site.
Meet the Vandnaa editorial team →