Rethinking the Mahabharata: A Reader's Guide to the Education of the Dharma King

Rethinking "'the

Mahabharata A Reader's Guide to the Education of the Dharma King

AU Hiltebeitel

.""

The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London

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A~;:

HllTESEITEl is professor of religion and director of ttfe Human Program at The George Washington University. He is the author .:-r e':itor of numerous books including the two-volume ellil of Drallpadi .::.::J Rt'lhi"kitlg Indicts Oral awl Classical Epics, bOlh published by the University of ChicOlgo Press.

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The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press. lid.. London © 2001 by the University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2001 Printed in lhe Uniled Stales of America 10 09 08 07 06 0504 03 02 01 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN: 0·226·34053·8 (cloth) ISBN: 0·226-34054-6 (p.pe,)

Library of Congress Cata]oging-in-Publication Data Hiltebeitel. AlE Rethinking. Ihe Mahabharata : a reader's guide

10

the edu~ation of (he

dharma king I AU Hiltebeitel. p_em Includes bibliographical references and index. IS8:" ()'226-34Q53-8 (cloth: alk. paper) -ISBN 0-226-34054-6 (pbk. : alk, paper) L .\lahlbharata-Criticism. interpretation. elc..l. Tille. Bll138,26 .H45 2001 29':.5'923046-' I will argue that while the Sanskrit epics do generate a new kind of oral rradition, orality in these epics is above all a literary trope that should be understood against a background of redartion and above all writiog: the activities that went into·"the making of these two Sanskrit epiCS. 21 This study thus attempts to get at the MahLibhtJrata not only for what it means but how it does what it does.'22 To the extent that there is value in some of the excavative projects mentioned above, it would be in asking less about the text's prehiStory, and more about what it does with some of the matters raised, how it makes such things as bards and goddesses and history important. To he sure, bards and goddesses and history existed hefore the MahLibhtJrata, but we cannot trace them lineally into the text, or back from the text. Rather, the profitable question to ask is: bow has the work presented them? Of what are they its literary figures? In this vein, I now helieve my erstwhile goal of tracing the goddess's ascendance through this text would he just one more dig in the dark. Chapter by chapter, the book takes up a series of enigmas: empire, author, transmission, the stars, noncruelty I love, the wife, and writing. Threaded through them, but especially chapters 2 to 7, is the education of king Yudhi~ra, the eldest of the five PiiI;t<java heroes. For the MahiJbhiirata is Yudhis~ra's education (cf. K1aes 1975; Bailey 1983; Bose 1986). And woven throughout is the question of the author, Vyasa, the ever-receding figure hehind this hero's education and the ultimate enigma of his own texl. These topics, laced through this book as they are through the epic itself, serve to invite a reading "against the grain" -and, to be precise, against grains that are as much the product of the Maht!bhtJrata's own craft as they are the results of its learned rnisreatlings. Indeed, rheMahLibhararo provides its own "grain" metaphor by which Yudllli;~ is invited to "glean" altemare meanings." I find this

2nSeeJ. D. Smith 1980 and 1989, followed by NaiY 1996a. 43-46; Blackburn 1989; Vassilkov 1.995; Sax 1994, 12 and 1995, 132 (an ongoing view). cr. Hiuebeitel 1999a. 11-47. 111 have found Handelman 1982 provocative on writing, orality, and reading. The Mbh justifies a "'Rabbinic henneueuti~ of its oral and written "'Torah" aDd the perfection yet indeterminacy of "the law" (dharirUl) it exposits in both legal and narrative ronn. To recall DahlmaIUl's nineteenth-century breakdown of the Mbh, one may liken halacha to what he called "'didactic" or Rechtsbuch and aggadah to "'narrative" or Epos-though rather than steessi.ng one in service of the other (Dahlmann thought the R~chl$b"ch more basic and the story designed to illustrate it), one may be attentive to their intertwinemenL ZZCf. Alles 1994, 104 and 151; Fitzgerald 1991. %31 refer to those who adopt the "way of,gleaning" (uficaw:tli); see § C, below, and chaps. 2. § C.19 and 34, and 4, § D.

5

metaphor of back and forth reatlings preferable to David Gitomer's norion

of "ruptures," "gaps," or "holes" in the text,24 through which he finds that "various strata of the epic text" (225) reflect opposing views over unnamed centuries of public discourse. No doubt rhe text does reflect opposing views, including, as Gitomer stresses, at least a conceptual opposition hetween K!"triya institutions emblematized in Yudhisthira's rival Duryodhana, with his defiance of 14s\lll, and 14sI,laite bhakti or devotion~ Butin "historicizing" this opposition through "strata," Gitomer makes the K!"triya strand older than· the ~te one, and allows that "texts from different ideological eras were simply left to jostle with one another, though such a view implies that epic textual growrh and redaction proceeded in an unconscious, mechanical fashion" (225)-the epic is now a mechanical monstrosity. On the contrary, I would argue rhat the passages GilOmer cites to suppon Duryodhana's defiance encompass Duryodhana in the very bhakti world that he defies." Indeed, Gitomer's conclusion recognizes an oppositiou between Yudhisthira and Duryndhana that hegs the question of how many strata his methOd would generate. It also nicely points to the task I have chosen for this book: Can we oot recognize, in our dialogue wirh rhe Indian past, that seeing the problem of Duryodhana does not indicate anything particularly villainous about rhe dilemma? Yudhis~ra, rhe dhtJrmaraja, also has his differences wirh Km1a (as well as, of course, with Duryndhana). He suffers terrible agonies over the hattie expediencies, and finally over the legitimacy ofassuming a kingship bought with blood. A study of his predicament in epic and drama wonld reveal a parallel rupture of meaning, from the side of goodness. (232) We must ask what it is in the MahLibharata and RtlmayllJ1
mat embeds many other stories and centers upon an emboxed narrative of a great "sacrifice of battle." Through a design of recurrence and deferral, apoca1ypses can coincide with the contingent and unlinalizable. These different types 'of shadowing involve narrative experiments with time. In dtis chapter I will bring such temporal dimensions to tile fore, reserving spatial ones for subsequent chapters. Both Sanskrit epics have common concerns with time. Rama leaves tile world by entering the Sarayii River with his brothers after be bas been visited by Time (Kala) (Rilm 7.95). But, as bas been appreciated by Yaroslav Vassilkov (1999), it is the MahtIblu1rata that formulates a "doctrine of time," or kLilavada. Yet conjuring up notions of "editing" and "blending" to dismiss passages in which kLilavada, :is I would rather see it, goes part and parcel with the

12Thus offering different "perspectives-; see Hiltebeilt! [1976J 1990, 127, n. 33, and 140. llMost notably, Vyasa will always have before him the shadow of his liberaled son Sub, while Rima lives with rumors in the last book of the Ram; on both, see chap. 8.

,.

14But it would appear also contradictorily. My views on these matten; remain the same as those in Hiltebeitel [1976] 1990, 34-35. U'fbetime-as-cooking metaphor, used frequenUy, also roundsofflheepic's end (17.1.3-4). Cf. Heest.ennan 1993, 175, on the sattra as a fonn of self-c:ooking; Malamoud 1996. 48: ·"nus then. is 'cooking the world.' ntis world, cooked by Ihe Brahman, is the 'created' world which he creates and organizes around himself in the sacrifice." But "the wood cooked by sacrificial activity" bas no raw natural opposite: "everything is already cooked such that aU that remains is to re-oook it. The sacrificial fire fed by the Brahman does nothing other than redouble the activity of the sun . .. ; 'That [sun] cooks everything in this world (efd lid IdLfJ!l sdrvam pocali), by means of the days and the nights, the fortnights, months, seasons, and year. And tlus [Agni] cooks what has been cooked by that [sun]: 'he is the cooker ofthat which has been cooked,' said Bharadvaja" (citing SB 10.4.2.19). If the sun is the measure of time, and if the year and its units are tbe means by which the sun cooks, it is but a shott step to say that "time cooks" ~ paauilo

The Author in the Works

-10 Chapter Two

41

MahahlUJrata scholarship. One is that if he is (or represents) the author, he must be (or represent) the author of the epic's kernel: a martial story for which the text itself conveniently gives what some have thought to be an early martial name, laya or "ViclOry." and also a length of eight thousand eight hundred verses. This idea, for many axiomatic, ignores two points well made by J. Brockington (1998, 21): "rather than the theory of an independent nucleus called laya." the tenn seems to be synonymous with B!UJrata; moreover, there would seem to be no connection between anything called laya and the enumeration of eight thonsand eight hundred verses that appear.; in a late passage describing Ga.t,1esa as Vyasa's scribe and "probably refers to the number of obscure verses meant 10 slow ~eSa down. "" Nowhere is Vyasa said to have authored a laya before the Ma!UJb!UJrata. The other notion is thar if Vylisa is a character in the MahtiblUJrata, most if not all of his interventions must be attributed to a process of textual growth. >J MahiiblUJrata scholar.;hip has been paralyzed before this gap of its own making and has invented solutions seriatim to avoid closing iL Sullivan also makes two positive claims about Vylisa that have been justly questioned by Fitzgerald. One is thar Vyasa personifies features of the creator god Brahma, that he bears a relation to BraJuna comparable to what Dumwl (1968) has in mind when he speaks of a divine-to-human or myth-to-epic "transposition."JI 1 agree with Fitzgerald (1997, 701) that Sullivan succeeds in showing a "parallelism" between Vylisa and Brahma but strains to find an incarnational relation between them that would confinn the Dumezilian expectations. Second, Fitzgerald rightly calls "hasty and incomplete" Sullivan's notion that Vylisa represents "the orthndox ideal which was then being fonnulated" of the "dhannic brahmin" (702). Indeed, where is Vyasa's wife? A dhannic Bralunan ought to have one. As we sbali see, not only does Vyasa have no wife; given all his stories, he would have been hard pressed to explain one. As we shall see in chapter 4, having wives is not an indifferent matter. Yet Sullivan detects some intriguing anomalies about Vyasa. These concern Vyasa's personal relation 10 the Veda, the relation of his

undertakes to perfonn acts like a powerless peasant. (kfnMa iva durbalnJi; 5.66.10-14)" And as to the author, Vylisa speaks of time's meaning and mysteries throughout, and manages its flows and joins. It is pointless to overlook -devotional" passages, ones in which author and deity are doing precisely the same "work," in favor of a supposedly prior "heroic" kiI/LIvada. That the epic occasionally attributes ki1/LIvada to demons and condemns it, and makes the Asura Vrtra, for instance, "a renowned calculator of time" (ki1lasa1!1khyana-san:!l
Buit.c.oen is wroni that "nothing is further known- ofVyfu. mourning a son, i.e.• Sub, his suggestion has merit if, by analogy with theme·repctition in Bhirgava stories (sec chap. 3, § C), one posits such repetition in the Visi~ha line that runs from Vasi~ha to Vyasa (see n. 32 above). But even granting such "conflalion," Vyisa's son must still be ~uka. nThe BhP spins from the same time warp the frame story that Sub recites that purar:tl to ~t., a story that has led Indian commentatora to suppose that the- two ~uka.s could not

The Author in the Works

45

(1.58-61)-"Vy~a is

named ... as ifhe were one of the gods who sent ponions of themselves down to earth! This sUtprising and anomalous statement is not supported by any other passage" in the epic (1990,67). Yet had Sullivan considered this passage in connection with his search for Vy~a's hermitage, which begins to look otherworldly, it might have seemed less anomalous. Sullivan shrewdly observes that D~'s birth from Vylisa is described in parallel with the births of so many other heroes and heroines from "particles" or incarnations of divine, other celestial, and demonic beings. It thus places Vylisa implicitly on a preexisting divine plane. But the siring of Dbrtaras!ra happens after Vy~ bas been born on earth. Indeed, one of the anomalies of the passage is that Vy~ is the only celestial or demonic being mentioned to have been born on earth prior to imparting a celestial or demonic "portion. " That be bas been born on earth, bowever, does not mean that he bas stayed on earth. Rather, he would seem to have gone to one of those mysterious hermitages "aCcessible [only] by thought. " It is precisely by memory or thought, by "thinking of him," that his mother Satyavat, brings him back inID the story to sire Dbrtaras!ra, Pawu, and Vidura (see § C.2 below). As if to heighten the implication that Vylisa is considered a celestial .\t5i in this passage, the oext incarnation mentioned is that of Vidura, who is said bere (and nowhere else) to have been "born into the world as Atri's son"-Atri being a celestial Vedic ~i: one of the Seven Sages of the Big Dipper. Like Mehta, Sullivan thus sees that Vy~ as author is posed as an enigma. As Mangels observes (see above, n. 13), it is as if the text cooceals him. But if that is so, how, and why? These scholars clarify things about Vy~ as "author" and character in "his own" story. But they say too little about the soteriological design and literary conventions that make these things narratively possible, textually effective, and so deeply mysterious. Yet one of these conventions is already evident. There are time-traveling intergalactic ~, wong whom Vy~ makes himself at bome. Several such ~is (PuIastya and LomaSa being already mentioned) extend the "function" by which the author self-
is this one seized? There's DO point in his living!" (ldm anena grhItena Ildnenartho 'sli jrvata). Hearing DIu;!adyumna's word, Sini's grandson, the great chariot fighter [satyaki], lifted his sharp sword and prepared to kill me. Having arrived (agamya),''' ~t;lll Dvaipayana of great wisdom said to him, "Let Sanljaya be released alive. In no way is he to be slain" (muqatam sar!ifrryo jrvon no hantavyah ktuha lllCana )· Having heard Dvaipay"";'s word, Sini's grandso~ folded his hands. Then, releasing me, he said, "May it be well, Sa1Jljaya. Go ahead." So permitted by him, taking off my armor, weaponless, wet with blood, I left at evening toward the city.

(9.28.35-39) On his way, Sa1Jljaya sees Duryodhana alone, weeping, disoriented. "For a while I could say nothing, overwhelmed with sorrow. Then I told him all. about my capture and release alive in battle through the graee of Dvaipayana" (dWlipayOlUlpraslUiiU: ca jfvato molqam ahave; 42cd-43). Although neither the smiling DIu;!adyumna nor the distraught Duryodhana is meant to understand what is at stake in these exchanges, we may understand the irony. Mangels (1994, 123) argues that Sa1Jljaya's rescue here contradicts Vyasa's boon to him of invnInerability, and notes that the rescue verses are not confirmed by the shorter Salada and KaSmIrf manuscripts usually (but not here) tilvored by the Critical Edition (see below, n. 128). True, but I take the scene as narratively suspenseful: Vyiisa keeps his boon from being contradicted precisely by intervening, just as he does to save that other indispensable character, Yu~-which Mangels does not IOI notice. Sa1Jljaya will continoe to live so that he can narrate, down to the bitter end, only by the author's grace. Vy~a portrays the blind old king as so passionate to hear about the struggles of his son that he barely allows his narrator to skip a beat to mention his own story, the main

lO6We may also suspect lhat he would catch D~ri~ off guard here. llI'JGaaguli (1884-96) 1970, Vol. 7, Salya ParVCl. 35, addi -just at that juncture.- Ct. Mehendale 1995b, 4: "he was saved by the timely intervention ofVyasa.l~f. Athavale 1946, 138-40, fancying that, rather than appearing to save his "war correspondent,· Vyisa must have given him "something like a passport.·

61

\. I!,~

1000lncluding the camp-following Kaurava women, who "tore their heads with their nails and hands and disheveled their hair (luJll\'uS ca tad4 WQtI), shrieking everywhere, crying out, •Ala,,' and beating their b......• (6c)avas' sleeping allies and children, A!vattbaman parts company with lbe other two Kaurava survivors and goes to Vyiisa's hennitage on a bank of the Ganges (10.13.120). Seeking to satisfy Draupaill's call for Mvattbaman's death and the gem on his forebead, the PilDdavas find him there sitting among many R~is. Mvatthaman releases ius doomsday weapon and Arjuua, at ~na's bidding, counteracts it with his own. Vyasa and Narada then save the worlds by intervening.

Why are you desirous of his and his brothers' and kin's death? A kingdom where the Brahma!iras (Head of Brabma) weapon strikes another high weapon gets no rain for twelve years. For thar reason the strong-armed powerful Pawava doesn't even strike this weapon of yours, desiring the welfare of creatures. The PaJ),c)avas, you, and the kingdom are always to be protected by us. Therefore, withdraw this divine weapon, great armed one. Let yourself be wrathless. Let the Parthas be free from ill. Surely the royal Piinc)ava sage'" doesn't desire to conquer by adharma. Give them the jewel that stands on your head. Taking thaI, the Pawavas will grant your life. (220-27)

When the two lofted weapons were burning the worlds with their energy (tejas), the two great ]lsis then appeared (darsayl1masatus) together there--Narada and the dharma-souled grandfather of the BharalaS-to appease (sam«yitum) the two heroes. . . . The two Munis, wishing all beings' welfare, knowing every dharma, of supreme tejas, stood in the middle (modhye sthitou) of the two hlazing weapons. Unassailable (anadh'D'ou), spleodrous, having approached thar interval (tadanJaTam •.. upagamya) to appease the weapons' tejas, desiring the worlds' welfare, the two best of Rsis ablaze there like fire, were unassailable (anadhrsyau) among the'living, esteemed by gods and demons. (10.14.11-15)

Presumably Vyasa speaks for himself and Narada as the protective "us"

here. but later, when he endorses

While the "omniscieot author" and the "eternal Brahmacatiu" position

themselves in the "interval"-a nuclear free zone, a nick of time, an empty authorial space-between the two weapons that could detonate the worlds, the author vouchsafes their unassailability not only by the weapons themselves, but "among the living"-by which he must, of course, mean his characters. At first the two speak in ODe voice:

"Formerly, there were great warriors past who knew diverse weapons, but they oever released chis weapon on men" (16). Then Arjuua, whose extraordinary brahmacarya enables him to do so, withdraws his weapon, but warns the ]lsis that unless they "lay hold (samJulrlum) of the worlds'

welfare and our own." the unscrupuled

llO

~atd)jJman

63

,. i

~~J;J.a's

curse of Mvatthaman,1l3 the

"us' might extend to Kffila. Vyasa thus sets the terms of appeasement while introducing a new twist, which puts new ideas into his characters' heads: Draupaill had asked not for Mvattbaman' s head-jewel but his life. To this, Mvatthaman now describes his jewel's incomparable value and its talismanic potencies: "I can no wise part with it. But whatever the lord (bhagavan) tells me is to be done by me immediately (anantaram). This is the jewel. This am I. The blade of grass will fall into the wombs of the PilnQa,va women. It has not been raised in vain" (10.15.300-31). Vyasa replies, "Do so, but not any other act on your mind. Having released it into the wombs of the ~va women, cease!" (32). Mvatthaman speaks in a rush here, as if he were cutting off Vyasa, whose command be cannot deny. Whatever Vyasa says, Mvatthaman must do it "immediately," that is, "without an interval," again using the term antaram as a time-space that only the author controls:'" there being "no interval" between the thoughts of author and character. Vyasa allows Mvattbaman to interrupt him to get

will "consume

us all without remainder" (15.1-10). "Seeing the two Rsis staixling before him," Mvatthaman tells Vyiisa, who from now on leaves Niirada speechless, that his fear (bhaya) and wrath (rosa) make him incapable of recalling his weapon. The mantra he uttered to impel it with such base motives-afJl11!4amya, which could

lIo~U1_ading" or -sinful" (pdpalarman) is the word used here (15.3) and repeatedly (16.1, 16.9) to describe ASvatthiman in this episode. He is" also "'ow-minded" (drnamanas; 15.12) and a "sin1iJ1 wretch" (kaPIlTfl¥J1" pdpam, 16.9).

, c

"

lllte., Bhima, who was the Ir:2:Yudhi~ra,

PI~ava

to first endangu him here.

who is a rija~i or "royal

R~."

113He says to ASvatthiman after ~l;l8. has spoken, "Since having disrt&arded us you have done this cruel act· (10.16.16). IUAs we shall see in chap. 3, the term is used ttclm.icaUy for intervals in a sacrifice, as for example Utose during which the Mbh is doobly narrated and ·Cramcd." It is also used for the four interVals or Buddhist cosmology.

64

The Author in the

Chapter Two

65

Touching clean and fragrant Gabga water, that supreme R!;i reached that region with the speed ofmind (talll defam upasOlTlpede paramar~ir manojaval1). Seeing with the divine eye and a humble mind,'" he fully cognized (samabudhyata) there the heart of every living being. l17 Kindly spoken. of great penance, he spoke to his daughterin-law in time (1a1le), rejecting the time of cursing, praising the time of peace (fapakaklm ovaks,ipya famakiJklm udfrayan). (1l.l3.3-6)

his words in edgewise, but be is at the same time shaping those words aruf prompting and limiting the thoughts behind them. '" VaiWnpayana then concludes the adbyaya: "Theu the intensely sick (bhrfaturah) Mvatthilman, having heard Dvaipayana's word, released that high weapon into the wombs" (10.15.33). Again, the author's word affects Kaurava women intemally in their wombs (as in § C.2 above). It now remains only for the "delighting" (hmamJ1JJtl) ~ to tell how he will make all this tum out well by reviving Aljnna's stillborn grandson Parik>it; for Krs\l'l to curse ASvatthilman to three thousand years of solitude (16.1-15); and for Vyasa to endorse this (16-I7). When ASvarthilman accepts his exile with the words, "May the speech of this Purusottama be true, a Bhagavan," we are again reminded of the interplay between the "two Bhagavans" (18), I4s\l'l and Vyasa, who are also twO ~ (Hiltebeitel1984, 1985a). Finally, DraupadI will accept ASvatthilman's jewel (33). 27. Tells Dhrtart4/ra about the lifting of the Earth's burden.

Inconsolable after the war, Dhftaras!fa tells S"'11jaya he should have listened to Vyasa and Narada, among others (11.1.13). Vidura then tries to console Dhftarastra, but when the old king falls senseless to the ground, Vyasa is present, without prelude, among those who sprinkle him with cool water (11.8.2-3). Bereft of his hundred sons, Dhrtariistra tells Vyasa, his own father, he will now end his own life (7-11), b~i Vyasa dissuades him. He says·Duryodbana was the root canse of the destruction, that all was fated. And he authenticates this by recalling his own presence at the unveiling of the cosmic drama: at a counsel in the Hall of Indra, he "visibly heard" (maya pratyalqaU1l! fruliJm) the goddess Earth calI for the lifting of her burden by the slaughter of warriors at Kuruksetra (19-26). Of some interest is Vyasa's arrival among the celestial gods and R!;is: "Formerly, overcoming fatigue, I went quickly (tvaritas) to the Hall ofindra . . ." (20ab). Perhaps he started from not so far away. Once D~!fa has agreed to stay alive and try to bear his grief, Vyasa "vanished then and there" (tatrmvantar adhtyata; 48). 28. Intervenes among the mourners. D~listra, having set off for the battlefield and shared grief with the PiiJXIavas, permits them to approach GllndMrr. But Gandhari wants to curse YudhiS!hira for her sons' deaths.

~orks

- i.

Vylisa can thus read his characters' thoughts before they have them, know the hearts of all the beings there (again, first and foremost, the hearts of his characters), and with the "speed of mind" intervene "in time" between their thoughts and actions. It is perhaps not insignificant that he touches Gabga water as he mentally takes flight.'" Vyasa more or less convinces Gllndban, of course. Sbe soon expends what's left of her anger with a glance below her blindfold that only blackens Yudhis!hira's fingernails (11.15.6-7). -Then "she views the battlefield and its personal horrors from a distance with the "divine eye" (divyena cak.flLfa) and "power of divine knowledge" (divyajfli1naballl) that Vyasa has given her (16.1-3). Dhftaras!fa is then "given leave" or "authorized" (abhyanujfli1ta) by Vyasa, who doesn't seem to have gone anywhere since speaking to Gllndban, to go with the P~tjavas, K1'S\l'l, and the Kaurava women to K~tra to "see" the battlefield directly (16.9). Shortly after Gandhar'r uses the "divine eye" to view thebattlefield, we learn that Yudhislhira also can avail it. D~!Ca feels certain that Yudhisthira is omniscient,'" and asks him the number of slain warriors and th~' worlds to which they have gone. Having answered, Yudhis!hira explains how be was Oble to do so: he gained the power of recollection (anus1WJi) from the R!;i LomaSa while on pilgrimage in the forest, and before that, "I acquired the divine eye (divyam calqur) through the yoga of knowledge" (jfli1nayogena; 11.26.19-20). Neither of these two fuculties"" is the "knowledge (vidya) called pratis1WJi" (3.37.27), another visionary power, more Vedic in its overtones, that Yudhisthita

1l6ManasilnUdiihaJoIa: or perhaps be has -an llOOPposcd mind." See MW, 33 S.v.

Seeing her sinful intention against the Pllndavas, Satyavafi's son, the R!;i, fully cognized it ahead of time (prageva samabudhyata).

amuldhara. II1Satwpr~htJd~ bhdvam (Il-I3.Set- literally "the heart, mind, or experience of all those bearing life or breath. '" I will sometimes render bMvam as "heart" to best catch this

..nge.

IUD. Sullivan is minimally corrcd. that Asvatthaman "was allowed by Vyasa to kill the PaI:l~avas' offspring" (1990, 47), but I think misses too much by his emphasis on Vylisa's mediation and failed reconciliation (62-63). cr. Mehta 1990, 106: Vyisa "again turns up in the company of Narada, to explain and to tiDd a solution to the difficult problem. "

lI'Ga6gi's watel1i embody the mingling of time and eternity; see Hiltebcitel in pfC$l5-d. u'I1.26.11: "To my mind you are surely aU-knowing (sarvajflo)." he says, '2OMangels 1994, 137, observes that Yudhi~!hira's words mark a distinction: the anus~ accounts for'the number of the fallen, whereas the '"divine eye" accounis for where the fallen have gooc.-a trait of the "divine eye" (dibba-eakkJw) also in Buddhist sources (132).

66

The Aulbor in lbe Works

Chapter Two

received from Vyasa at the beginning of the exile, and further passed on to Arjuna (see above, § C.15). By now Vyasa bas given the "divine eye" 10 Drupada, S",!,jaya, and Glindhlrl, and bas also offered it to D~!l". It is instructive that in contrast to the pratismrti and the anusl1l!1i, Yudhis!Jrira bas won lbe "divine eye" on his own by yoga. He seems to be lbe only hero of lbe main story to have done so. '"

bave lost lbeir husbands and children (26.2-3), Vyasa-"best of lbose who know yoga, knowing dharma, and fully conversant wilb Veda" -tells lbe "wise" king how lbe wise know how time always recycles thirst, suffering, and happiness (5_31).'25 He lben reiterates his points about kingly duties (32-36). But Yudhi~ra still agonizes over lbe deaths he caused and prepares to sit in lbe vow of prttya ("going forth 0) until be dies (27.1-25). Vyilsa briefly "dispelled his grief" (iokam apanudtlt; 28.1) by telling an "old story" about King Janaka (2-4). But Vyasa says nothing about the grieving womeu, although he does respond to Yudhis!Jrira's grief over his kinsmen:

29. Contributes to the beginning of Yudhi~!hira'spostwar edumtion. Once YudbIghira bas seen to lbe cremation of lbe hundreds of lbousands of slain kings (11.26.38), he heads from Kurulcgetra to lbe Gallga, putting D~tra before him and hringing lbe weeping Kaurava women along.'" Having reached lbe river and performed water rires for lbe deceased, culminating wilb Kan)a's, whom Kuna now reveals was Yudhis!Jrira's older brolber (11.27), lbe galbering remains beside lbe GaiJga as lbe Stre Parvan ends. As lbe Santi PaTVtlll begins, lbe P~vas determine to spend lbe monlb of purification (iaucam masam) !bere, whereupon a bast of Brahman ~s "arrived" (abhijagmur), headed by Vyasa, who does not seem to have made lbe mourners' trek from Kurukgetra. The albers mentioned are Nuada, Devala, DevastbIna, and Kaliva "and lbeil: disciples" (12.1.1-4), but we do not know whelber this includes Vyasa's disciples, or where any of lbern have come from. When hundreds of lbousands of Brahmans (8) sit down to console Yudhi~ra, Niirada-as so often, lbe moulbpiece of lbeaulbor's hitter iIonies-asks lbe leading question: "Now that by yoUl great heroism and Madbava's (Kmla's] grace this whole earth is won by dharma, Yudhisthira" (10), aren't you happy?"] Yudhis!Jrira is, of course, not happy, and Niirada's question is lbe opening for lbe posrwar phase of his education. Inclined to renounce his bard-won kingdom, Dbarmariija must first hear arguments to lbe contrary from Nuada, DevastbIna,'Z4 DraupadI, and his brolbers before Vyasa reinforces lbeir united message (12.23-28). Vyasa begins by stressing that lbe householder stage is foremost among lbe four lifestages (12.23.2-6), that wielding lbe staff of cbastisernent (tituy!adhiJ.rfJ/!lJlTl) is lbe principal Kgatriya and kingly duty (23.10-24.30), and that !be king bas sacrificial obligations. Then, in response to Yudhi~thira's grief at his loss of kinsmen and failure to find peace (tanti) among lbe weeping women who

Thousands of molbers and falbers, hundreds of wives and sons, are experienced in (lbe worlds at) saqtSm. Whose are lbey? Whose are

we? No one else can be anyone's own, nor can one become anyone else's own.'" This is just a meeting on lbe palb wilb hosts of friends, kin, and wives. Where am I? Where shall I go? Who am I? How am I here? Whom do I grieve for and why? So saying, the mind may be stabilized when companionship wilb lbose dear is transitory and saqtSm goes round like a wheel. (28.38-40)

y ~..

suhrdg~i1J.;

from "complete renuncia-

12.28.39. On similar questions, sec chap. 7. A boy who could spit gold, only to be killed like the loose that laid the iOlden CUi he could be resurrected, unlike Abhimanyu, because he left the world without having fulfilled all his vi""es (see Hillcbeild [1916} 1990, 341-48). DfTo Yudhi~. with variation~, to console him after the death of Abhimanyu. 1be presenc. -doublina-" by JJ,l3 intervenes, telling Yudhisthira to cease his "excessive obstinacy in grief" (atinirlxJlllJho.", Jake). He should do what "lord (bho.gaWln) VyiiSa" says (21) and heed his command (niyoga; 24). Yudhisthira then heads to Hastinapura for his coronation. There he begins his just rule protecting the women who lost their husbaods and sons in batt1e, as well as the poor, blind, and helpless, displaying thereby the quality of "noncruelty" (anrJa'?")'a) that is indeed one of the difficult and important teachings the author is trying to get across to the king (42:10-11; see chapter 5). 30. Present for most of BhfsIT/i1'S battlefield oration. Leaving no trace of his intermediate movements, Vyasa is next present among the ~s wbo surround BhIgma at Kurukgetrajust before and after Yudhi$!hira and

1»12.38.5-6. See Mangels 1994, 99, on this passage among others where Vyiisa "'authorizes" othec DamlOrs. I~e Rt2jatlharma and ApaddJuuma subparvans, which are to be follOWed by the

Mok¥uJharma. IS4BhI~ma did not visit Rima Jamadagnya's hennitage when he rought him over Ambii; they met at Kuru1q,etra (5.177-78), and in any case did not pause over stories. See Hiltebeitd

in press-d on the celestial implications. Note that Vasi¢ta is Vylsa's great grandfather.

KrnJa will also confinn thal Bhi~

was VasiW1a's disciple (12.46.10).

70 Chapter Two

The Author in the Works 71

company arrive there, and on through some of the AnuMsl1lUl Par.W1.'" Not2hly, he is there when Kr,;na gives BIU$wa the "divine eye" (eaksur divyam) or "eye of knowledge" (jlliJnaeaksus) with Which to see all things "truly like a fish in clear water. "13' 'Before Vylisa's pres;is that are to be recited at dawn and dusk, and Vyasa is mentioned not once but twice. First, along with Narada aod Parvata (8), be is counted amoug the gods (devacan; 29-30). Then, along wilb fonysix other ~~is wbo are numbered in groups by the celestial quarter they occupy, be is mentioned among the R>;is of the northern quarter {36}. "" I believe the poets leave it for us to understand that wben Vyasa and the other R>;is surround BbI~ for the final three adbyayas that follow, it is because he has just invoked their names at a twilight. Vyasa reeDters the scene a1DDg with, or through, a prolDDged silence: When BbI~ma became sileDt then, (it was) like a picture drawD Dn a woven clDth. And as if meditating awhile (mului.rtam iva ca dhyt1lvi1), Vyasa said to BbI~ lying there, "0 king, the Kuru king Yudhi~ra has regained his nature (praJa:tim t1pannah). . . . He bows to you, tiger amDng kings, together with the intelligent Kr~'!". You can give him leave to go back to lbe city." Thus addressed by lord Vyasa, lbe river's son gave leave to YudhiJ;!hira." ... (l52.1-4)

Your miod is not perfected, child. Again you are stupefied by childishness. Do we drone on and on into empty space?I.1 You know about the duties of ~triyas who live by warfare. . . . You have heard the entire moksadhanna. . . . Unfaithful, dull-willed, you are constantly losing y~ memory. I" (14.2.15-18)

In this beautiful momeDt, the poet pottrays himself iD midsceDe, meditating on the canvas of his own creation, before he allows himself 10 reemerge within the narrative to tell BhJ~ that this phase of Yudhi~thira's education is over. -BhJ~ma then tells Yudhisthira he should return to Hiistinapura and then come back to Kumkse~ when the sun begins to rise toward the north. When Yudhi~ does this fifty days later, Vyasa is still there, at the head Df the Rsis who surround BhJsma

(153.I3-17).

..

.

Amid his final words, BbImna will then remind Dhnariistra that he "heard from Vyasa the mystery of the deities" {f~ ,jevar~1Jl(l Ie Ja:snatJvaipayanad api; 153.32} and recall that be himself learned from Vyasa and Niirada that Arjnoa and Kr~'!" are Nara and Ni!ray"I!" (43). Vyasa is the first mentiDned of the R>;is present who see the miraculous healing of BhJ~'s arrow-ridden body as he leaves it fDr heaveD (154.3-4). Once BbI~ma is cremated beside the Galtga, Vyiisa follows the Pii¢avas to Hiistinapura with the Bhiirata women (bhar=trtbhir), among others, behind him (16). As the AnufilSana Parvan ends, he and ~ then console Galtga for her son's death (33). When, however, at the begimring of the Aivamedhikn Parvan, , Yu~ loses his "nature" once again and Wls back into grief-now over BbI~'s passing-Vyasa is still there. Krsna has some harsh words about the relapse: You have just heard from Bhi~ma, Vyasa, and others

,

~

",

Indeed, the author has more ctuelties in store for Yudhi~!hira that the god might have had the means to resolve. Rather, steering Yudhi~a toward a ritual solution to his problems instead of a devotional or yogic one, Vyasa tells Yudhi~!hira that he is not fully using his wits: 142 he has heard about all the expiatory rites at his disposal. Vyiisa would thus seem to remind Yudhi~!hira that the horse sacrifice was recommended for just this occasion. But Vyasa doesn't stop there. On the precedeDt that the gods gained ascendancy by sacrifices, Vyasa says, "Offer the IUjasiiya and Mvamedha, and the Sarvamedha, 0 Bhiirata, and the Nararoedha, 0 lord of men" (nnramedhaT(l ca ntpllte; 14.3.8). Then he immediately retracts to recommend the horse sacrifice only, as it was performed by IUma DiiSarathi and YudhiWrira's ancestor Bharata (9-10). Thus, as Bruce Sullivan nicely puts it. "only the Horse Sacrifice eDgaged the allention of Yudhi~!hira" (1990, 32). But Vyasa clearly does his prompting by upping the ante. From the conventional epic royal sacrifices-the IUjasiiya and Mvamedha-as a pair in the dual case, he mentions the Sarvarnedha in which "the sacrificer should give in

l"'Lit.eraUy, .. into aU space'": ~ ~ maris r4la punar bdiyOla mJJhyasd kim 4k4Je sarve pralapama muJumnuIwI!, (14.2.15). 1~114.2.18:

vay~

aSraddadhdno dIlrtnl!dJrd luptasnu:rir asi dhruWJm. yudh4!hira lam projM no SlJ1!fYag in 1M. mati~. KarJ:1a says the very same words to Duryodhana, wh.ich van Buitenen trlmlates, "Duryodhana, I do not lhint you en1irdy have your wits about you" (1973, 381; J,_I 94. lab). 1~1t4.3.1ab:

loor.omaha~J;1l and Ugrdf;lvas (151.39) are curiously both mentioned here among rhe -Brahmans" (viprdnj 151.30).

73

7-l

Chapter Two

The Author in the Works

daJinas all

he has conquered, and having resumed the fires in himself, ... betake himself to the forest" and "not return any more" (Heesterman 1985, 41), and the human sacrifice or Nar.unedha, which Vyasa punc= by addressing Yudhisthira as "lord of men (w)." 1 have long liked Thomas Hopkins's argument that ~J.l'l "is intentionally rude and. simplistic" in his preliminary arguments to Arjuna in the Bhngavad GftCi ",ten he tells him the half-truths that suppon the claim that it doesn't marter if you kill someone-wtich. as we have seen Krsna has exasperatedly just repeated to Yudhis!hira. '" Vyasa to ~gnize that Yudhis!hira will not find this argument persuasive, and brings him around to the same point by another means. In effect, by a process of elimination he leads the stubbornly confused Yudhisthira back to the Mvamedha that he, Vyasa, has already seeded in his ;;,md. Yudhisthira has already performed a Rijasuya. which has brougbtlrouble eoou8h'(see § C.12 above). His other options now are a Sarvamedha that would supply the very thing he wants-total renunciation of his kingdom and retrealto the forest-but is what the author and the god won't allow him; or. just what he doesn't want, he can offer a human victim-"Iord of men. offer a human sacrifice!"-as he has already done in millions in the sacrifice of battle. Yudhis!hira now weighs in: "No doubt the horse sacrifice purifies even the Eanh" (14.3. l1}-ifnot, perhaps. the mind? But he has no wealth to perform it. "Having medilated awhile" (muhtirtam anusa17lCintya; 19c). Vyiisa tells him where to find the riches left behind from a sacrifice on Mount Rimavat by the emperor Marutla. 14' whose story he tells. More specifically. the sacrifice was performed on "the big golden base (or foothill)" (kaflcanal! sumahan padas)'" that one reaches by approaching ~Iount Meru from the north side of Rimavat (himavatparlve uttare; 4.25): a monorain named Muiljavat "on the back of Monot Rimavat" (girer himavath prs!he) where Siva performs tapas in the company of uma and their hosts (8.1-3). No ordinary mounrain, Muiijavat glows like gold on all sides with the same radiance as the morning sun. and cannot be seen by the living with their "natural fleshy eyes" (prCikrtair mCinlsalocanail!; 7_10).147 Yudhis!hira is delighted to hear about' this

noexpected resource, and, after !C1:SJ.l'l offers some further spiritual guidance of the very sort that Vylisa seems to have so recently preempted...• the king is described as "conciliated (anWlfta) by the lord (bhngavatd) of wide fame himself [that is. by ~l, by Dvaipliyana ~," and by numerous others including various Rsis. the other Plindavas, and DraupadL Moreover, he has "left bebind that suffering born of grief, and also his mental anguish" (14.2-4). He now wants to undertake the sacrifice, and tells Vyasa, "Protected'" by you, grandfather. we slta1l go to Rimavat. Surely one hears the region is a great wonder" (9). All the Maharsis then give their assent. And with Vylisa presumably among them. those ~is "became invisible then and there to all who were looking" (paSyataJn eva sarve.>:Cinl tatraiVi1dllr~anaf1l yayuh; l2ed). 32. Rea>nfinns and safeguards Parilqit's miraculous birth. After !C1:sJ.lll, who is with his parents in Dvuakli. narrates the death of their grandson Abhimanyu, Vailampliyana describes the obsequies performed for Abhimanyu there and suddenly switches scenes to Hlistinapura where similar grieving continues for the same youthful hero:

seem;

--r. Hopkins 1971, 90. A1i. Sutton 2000. 92. ob&elvcs, Yudhistrura "is dissatisfied with NInda's explanalion" of Duryodbana's wiMing a place in hea·~cn by his dealh in battle (18.1.14)-one Of~J;li.'8 supporting arguments (BhG 2.32) on this point to Arjuna. 1oOJ14.4.23: a cakravartin, whose grandfather KlnJ!1dhama is also an emperor (saJ'!lrij; 18). lo06Cf. 7.55: Mime hi~ pack, as cited in SOrensen [19(4) 1963,471. ~Uftjavat, "having sedge geus. - In the Vedic Agnicayana, the Soma merchant brings Soma from Mount MOjavat (Sta.a11983, 347), which seems to have found this new speUing, loc:uion, and luminosity in theMbh. Thanks to T. P. Mahadevan for the reference. On the odlcr mountains and features mentioned, see chaps. 7, § D and 8.

75

So also the Pli¢ava heroes in the city named after the elephant found no peace without Abhimanyu. For a great many days, 0 lord of kings. the daughter of Virala [Vttam, Abhimanyu's wife) did not eat. afflicted with grief for her husband. There was great distress that the embryo in her womb was completely dissolved (sa'1lPralfyata). Then Vylisa came, having known with his divine eye.''' Having come. the visionary one (dhfmLln) said to large-eyed P!thii and to Ut:tari. "0 greatly illustrious one. let this grief be completely abandoned. Your son will be born. 0 illustrious one, famous lady. by the power of Vlisudeva and also by my utterance. III After the Plin
I"B. SuUivan thinks the Buddhist J4laka story, where it is Vylsa rather than ViSvimitn., K1-:lva, and Nirada, is the older account, and that the Mbh is oral up to the first few centuries A.D. (1990, 103-6). The Jdlaka has Vyisa killed, but not the AnhaS4stra. Possibly the Arthaidstra picks up part ofthc Jdlako version. I suspect the Buddhist variant is designed to "'kill the author" (cf. Hiltebeitd [1976] 1990, 64-65), wbeteas SUllivan thinks the Mbh bas evolved the story toward keeping the author alive. But that is quite a stretch. Cf. Sullivan 1990, 101-8: the Buddha was Diplyana in his former life. l_lS16.S.12_2S. Balarima is discussed in chaps. 3, § 0 and 4, § B. Biner 1998, 9, mak::cs the important point that the later name Balararna is not used in the Mbh, but I wiU continue to usc it since it is more familiar than Bat.cleva. IStlPrall"palsyali, wbich could also mean ·will consider" or ·convey; or, as Gaoguli translates, "'do what is best for'" ([1884-96' 1970, vol. 12, MausaliJ Parva. 265). It,Sa~a~, for which Ganguli translates "depart" (( 1884-96] 1970, vol. 12, Mausala Parva, 266), and which can mean "'passage into another world, decease, death" (MW). 'The prefix.lam· suggc:.sts that the action wiU be done '"together."

86 Chapter Two (14). But before he can set out, Vasudeva dies aod goes to heaven. Arjuna sees to his cremation and the salTs of four of bis wives (24-25); then be perfonns obsequies for all the slain Yadavas, including Balarama and K,S\Jll'S cremations (15-31). Finally a vast exodus of refugees sets out under his command, including all the widows: Krl:iJ;lli'S sixteen thousand, and the Bbojas, Andhakas, and Vrsnis' "many thousands of millions and ten millions" (ca saiulsrtllJi prayutanyarbUJiLlni co; 38ab). Dvilraka is flooded (40-41). When the marcb reacbes the Punjab (pailcaJUU1am) , "sinful," "covetous" AbhIra robbers see easy prey (43-48). Arjuna smiles at their audacity, but wben be can barely draw his bow and cannot invoke his celestial weapons, he is shamed (49-54). While women are being carried off, he can only pummel the Mleccha marauders with the curved ends of his bow (55-61). Considering fate (daivam) to have prevailed, he turns away, and with the remainder (ie~am) of the women and wealth, "descends to Kuruksetra" (kuroksetram avatarat; 62-65). From there he sets up residences where sons of the slain V~IJ.i and Bboja leaders can resettle with some of the women, while other women retire to the forest or-in the case of five of Krsna's wives-become saus at Indraprastha (65-72).''' That is wbere kj~na has last been wben, with nothing further to trace his movements, tlris awful adbyaya ends as follows: "Having done tlris as was suited to the occasion, Arjuna, covered with tears, 0 king, saw Kf~r;J.a Dvaipayana seated in a hermitage. "189 The next adbyaya, the last of the Mausalnparvan, then begins: "Entering the truth-speaker's bermitage, 0 king, Arjuna saw the Muni, Satyavau's son, seated in a lonely place" (astilam ekJ1n1e; 16.9.1). According to Mebta, whose powerful reading of tlris passage will oaw engage us, in "one of the most touching scenes of the epic, we see Dvaipayana for the last time, after all is over and the great sacrifice has claimed its last offerings, sitting alone, for once, in his own liSrama" (1990, 110). All the more remarkable, then, that when at last, and for his last intervention, we find Vyasa "alone, for once" in such a place. it could oat be anywhere more indefinite. We are, to be sure, in something called Vyasa's bermitage, but it could be that Vyasa is in a "lonely place" in a bermitage that is "his" only in the sense that be is there now. The

1'*1 carmot agree with Dhand (2000, 233) that "the number of satB is negligible" in the Mbh, and that "the characters who become sam are inconsequential. " See Hiltebeitel 1999b, 89 on the consequences of sali etiquette for low &taws wives such as Madri and Jambavati

and a "favorite" like Rukmil,li.

1"16.8.74cd: ~~ip4yana~rdjan dadariasrnamdiratnt. Ganguli [1884-96) 1910, vol. 12, Mausala Parva, 269, has "Arjuna ... then entered the retreat ofVyasa," as it is in the first verse of the next adhya:ya. But it 'is something more vague than thaL

The Author in the Works

87

impression is given that he is somewhere in north central India, in fact, not far from Delbi. I " · But for all he tells us, the author could have brought Arjuna to the back of Mouot Mern. Having approached the dharma-knower of high vows, he stood near (upatasthe). Having told bis name to him, "I am Arjuna, ""I be then saluted him. "Welcome to you," said the Muni, Satyavatr's son. "Be seated," spoke the great Muni of tranquil self. Having seen him sad of mind (apratltamanasam), sighing again aod again, despondent of mind (nirvinf!llmanasam), Vyasa said this to Piirtha. "Are you not born of a bero? Are you damaged?'9Z Has a Brahman been killed by you? Or are you defeated in battle? You look as if you've lost in '" I do not recognize you (na tva pratyabhijanami). What is this, bull.of the Bbaratas? If it is .to be beard by me, Piirtha, you can tell it quickly." (16.9.2--6)

All tlris is said as if Vyasa doesn't know what be is about to hear. For the moment, we must forget that wben Arjuna comes before him "sad of mind, despondent of mind, "'" Vyasa knows his characters' thougbts. Moreover, Vyasa affects not to recognize the change in his own most "perfected" character. As Mehta recognizes, Arjuna now tells the story "to his creator, the author himself!" (1990, 110). Instead of making the bero hear his own story, like RJirna, Vyasa makes himself momentarily bis hero's audience. ", Arjuna tells all that has happened, beginning with the death and departute to heaven of "be wbo has the form of a cloud. "196 ~\Jll's parting leaves AIjuna belpless and despairing: Like the drying of the ocean, like the moving of a mountain, like the falling of the sky, and also like the cooling of fire, I consider

l"'The part of Old Delhi around the Purana Khilla, supposedly the fort oflhe Pit:Jc:tavas. is usually identified with Indraprastha. Ifl Arjuoa "presents himself with Ute simple words: 'I am Arjuna'· (Mehta 1990, 110). 19l16.9.5ab: aVfhljo 'bhighiJras teo The Vulgate and some other northern and southern texts have a different readina: and prettdilli line (16.51-), both probably interpolated, where Vyasa begins by allkina: about Arjuna'lI ritual purity, including, aCCOrding to Nilakantha, whether he had sexual contact with a. menstruating woman (Kinjawadelcar 1929-33; 'VI, Mausalaparva, 11; Ganguli [1884-96] 1970, vol. 12, MausaJa Parva, 270). InSrfhas many pertinelll COnnolations here: prosperity, radiance, the favor ofVisnu's wife. 1M Manas. also "hean: as in Arjuna's "'heartbreak- (mano tnt d;;yare; 16. 9.1 Sc)~st below. '"Behind litis, he is also listenin& to Vaiiarnpiyana teU litis exchange to Janamejaya. 1·16.9.7a. Further along, deepening this devotional and iconic vein, Arjuna describes Krsn.a as "lItat Puroi?3 of immeasurable self. the bearer of lite conch, discus. and mace, fu~'r­ armed, ye.llow.. d ad, dart, with lana: lotus eyes- (19).

88

The Author in the Works

Chapler Two incredible (afraddheyam aham 11UllIye) the death of the wielder of the Samga bow. Made to be without ~na,'" I do not want to stay here in the world. And there's another more painful thing here, 0 stOrehouse of penances, by which my heart breaks from repealedly thinking about it. Hear it. While I was looking, thousands of V~ni wives, 0 Brahman, pursued by AbhIras, went, carried away by those wbo dwell in the land of the five rivers. (16.9.14-16)

to his proper status as a Muoi, one who meditates in silence. By virtue of his creative imagination . . . he gave shape to his narrative and to his characters, with only ~na as the reality lranscending his authorial grasp, oot at his disposal. (1990, 110) Mehta is right to feel that this is the first time Vyasa speaks "about that other ~'."'. in a certain way. Perhaps we could say it is with finality and interpretation. But it is hardly the first time he speaks about him. As

~'s deparrure

is "iocredible," "unbelievable," and, as such, a test of Iilith. Completely despondent (parinirvi1pJll), disoriented,''' Arjuna asks Vyasa to instruct him (22-24). Making now his last speech within the inner frame of the Malu1blUlrata's "main story," Vyasa has two messages. First, deepening the epic's theodicy, he explains that the destrucpon

comes from the

~is'

we have seen, one of his incessant reiterations, indeed, interventions, is to keep reminding characters and readers that Arjuna and ~na are Nara and NiiIiiy"."'. What Vyasa says here for the first time himself (Gandhati and Uttaflka say it elsewhere)'" is that, had ~ chosen, he could

curse; yet more important,

It was overlooked (upelqitam) by ~ even though he was able to negale it. Indeed, to do otherwise he might check (prasah£d mryatJu1 kmtum) the whole triple world of the stationary and moving. What then the curse of the insightful ones? He who went in front of your chariot holding the cakra and mace out of affection for you is the ancient ~i, the four-armed Viisudeva. Having achieved the removal of the broad earth's load, 0 broad-eyed one, bringing release to the whole universe, he is gone himself to the highest station. (260-29)

We are reminded that Vasudeva, using similar language, wondered how his son, "the lord of the universe," could have ·overlooked" the slaughler of his own kinsmen (7.11). But even from the moment of the ~is' curse, and with language that anticipates both Vasudeva's agony and Vyasa's closure, "the lord of the universe (jagatalJprabhuiJ) did not wish to achieve the termination otherwise" (krtantam anyatlUl naicchat kartum; 2.14cd). Mehta's reading deserves appreciation here: Then, for the !ip;t time, this ~na speaks about that other ~na: 'He, lbe Lord of the three worlds, could have prevented the disaster, but chose not to... .' Now that the story of the inter-play between the two, of this two-in-<Jne, has been told, the author too relinquishes his authorial function as a servant of the Goddess of Speech and reverts

1"16.9.14d:~.

One might ask, by whom would be: have been so -made"? I·-Hearing that Vi~ is gone, even the four directions confuse me'" (inllvai\l't1/ti ~ ~I!I mamdpi nuun.uhUT~; 16.9.23cd).

89

,.

have prevented disaster. But as usual, he leaves a loophole. He says ~na could bave prevented the destruction of the V~¢s," but unlike GlindMn and Uttaflka, he does not say whether or not ~na could bave prevented the destruction of the Kurus. Nor is il enough to say that ~ transcends the author's grasp and is DOl at his disposal. Yes, as a necessary grounding of the text in a transcendent reality; as a "reality effecl"; as a conventioual bbakti statement thai destiny lies in divine bands; as an authorly disavowal of ultimate accountability, and a way of letting him say his story is an act of god, and thus absolutely true. Vyasa cannot say "r made it all Up!"'01 But also, no. Kr.!na is at Vyasa's disposal. As wilb so many other characters from BbJ.ma on, the author has just disposed of him. Moreover, although the passage marks a parting of the ways for author and god, it is oot ultimate. In the N(JrQ'jO/lfya, when VaiSampayana explains Vyasa's relationship to Niiriiyana, he says, "Know that ~ Dvaipayana Vyasa is Niiray".'" the lord; for who other than the lord could be the author of the Malu1blUlrata" (malu1blUlrataJa:d bhavet; 12.334.9)? Second, Vyasa once again moves the story along. He tells Arjuna that, now that he and his brothers bave done the gnds' great work (16.9.30--31ab), The time is come for going. To my mind that is surely best. Strength, intellect, energy, and foresight, 0 Bbarata, arise when times of wellbeing conie to nought in reversal. All this has its root in time, the seed of the universe, Dliana'!'jaya. Time a100e takes everything away again

'"Gandhiri (11.25.36-42), cbariing (thrice) that ~ ·overlooked- (~kfila) the Kurus woose destruction he c:oold have prevented; similarty Uttadka (14.52.20-22). 200h ~ uys in confirmation ofGindhirI's QUSt, "the destroyer oftbe circle ofV~ is none other than myseJC- (s~rt4 ~cakrasya nanyo mad V/'dyau; 11.2S.44ab). 20lSee above, nD. 19 and 137, on the limits of Mbh fiction.

90

Chapter Two also by cbance (yadrcchaytI) . ... It is"time for you to go the foremost way, 0 Bharata. I think that is surely supremely best for you, Bharaca bull. (16.9.31c-33, 36)

This "word of the unlimitedly spleodored Vyiisa" (37ab) is a remioder to Arjuna of something that we know that he a1teady knew when he arrived in Dviiraka: 202 it is time for the Pii~davas' great departure. The Mausalaparvan closes with Arjuna's return to Hiistanipura to relay all this to Yudhi~thira.

Here too. however, it is not quite enough to say Vyasa is bencefonh silent. Through two more books of the Mahl1bhtIraUl, VaiMpiiyana and UgraSravas continue to recount his "entire thought. ".13 What he has told Arjuna is really directed at Yudhisthira, who will be the focus of the last two books. As Buddbadeva Bose perceives, Arjuna, who has heard little of what actually happened at Prahhiisa, can tell Yudhi~~ no more than the minimwn. Bur Yudhi~~ reads the whole. Suddenly decisive, it is his story from now to the ood (Bose 1986, 171-74). Of the two parts ofVyiisa's last speech, the first brings closure to Arjuna's role as I4~~'s great bhakta. The second is the author's last indirect message to Yudhis!hira, whom he now entrusts to take over the rest of the story with the final tests of his lifelong education. Tracking Vyasa in thi, fashion, especially a1nng with Yudhis!hira aod Arjuna and in relation to ~na, one familiarizes oneself with recurrent emploned patterns aod themes. A clear epic-long pattern is thar while the deiry and author work together, the god deals primarily with Arjuna and the author with Yudhis~."" Even in this last scene where Vyasa addresses Arjuna (something rare, in fact), his real message is to Yudhis!hira. Into these patterns are woven themes: vedic aod epic

intertextualities; tensions between author and characters; unsettling and antiphonal portrayals of character, including that of the "real hero" and "real king," or if one insists, the two "real heroes"; overlap between author and deity; rhythms of concealment and disclosure. These themes are carried along by compositional conventions that are built into the text: mirror effects, enigmas, including enigma verses; questions, including ones left unanswered;2Qj an author convention, or function, if you will;

-See above at n. 137. X13He also speaks "outside the text" in the BhiJrara Sdvilrf (see chap. 8, be&inning). -Cf. Sutton 2000,318, on Yudhi~~ra's "repeated insistence on placin& moral ethics above those of svadJuJnna" -in particular ~atriya svadharma. as preached by Kn'.1a to ArjuRa in they Gna (296), and as exemplified in Duryodhana (305-8; cf. Gitomer 1992). Sutton notes "a sympathy on the part of the authors for the goodness ofYudhiS(hira" (320), which. we might add, is communicated through "the aulhor." ~ec especially chap. 7.

The Author in the Works

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the divine eye by which the author, like the deity, can know everything-above all the thoughts of his characters, and which only the

auchor and deity ever impart to others;206 the author's intervention in his characters' thoughts; his "quick" disposals of characters, especially Kaurava widows; his "grace," which converges with the deiry's, doubled especially in giving us the BhtIgavatl Gaa; tropes of instruction via dialogue and narrative; messages especially to a Icing about grief and cruelty by an author who has griefs and cruelties of his own-among them, the spaces and moments he creates for this Icing and others to ponder the cruel aod wondrous ways of God; perspectival inversions of rime aod space; signifiers nf reversible thoe like the wink, blink, or moment (the ni"1£Sa) aod the interval (an/aram); double structures of recursivity aod deferral, contingency aod determinism, finality aod unfinaIizability. As we are drawn into the mechanics of the text, slow dramas like these, dramas of the text itself, can be a reader's delight.

lO6Narada also has the divine eye (§ C.3?), as does Sub (12.315.28; see chap. 8), and lhe ~i Ka'.1va knows with his what Sakuntala has been up to (1.67 .24d; Mangels 1994, 135). None of these seem to impart it to others. And Yudhi~!.h.ira wins his on his own (§ C.28).

Conventions of the Naimisa Forest 93 for storytelling and the frame story for the occasion of doing so. We will now consider the gathering place and the frame story as two interrelated MahiJblUJraJa "conventions." Indeed, Thapat anticipates our usage, observing that the serting of purana recitation at the uncertainly located Naimi~ Forest "may be just a convention. "3

3 Conventions of the Naimisa Forest

A. Narrative Conventions and Symposia The frame story has been noticed at its possible inception in the Br3hmaI)as by Witzel (1986, 1987c), in its great unfolding in the MahiJblUJraJa by Minkowski (1989), as a feature of the epic's literary composition by Snktbankat (1936, 72), or its written redaction by Mangels,' Oberlies,' and Reich.' Both Witzel and Minkowski suggesl that this device may have its origins in India, which I regard as highly unlikely,' though it is certainly the case that Indian epic anti postepic usages of it influenced other usages in the world's literalUres.' In any

Vyilsa's comings and goings from his "hermitage somewhere" have started us thinking about the Malu1blUJrara's outennost frame, We have also begun to understand some things about the inner frame, having located Janamejaya's snalce sacrifice at the historically and geographically incongruous site of T~i1a.' and noticed how VaiWnpayana's recitation there knits together seven lunar dynasty generations from the author as progenitor to his distant descendant and "first audience," King Janamejaya himself. Between these two frames, however, is what I call the outer frame, which has the possibility of telling US more than we yet know about the other two. Let us establish a few working definitions. The first frame, which I call the outennosl, can also be called the authorial frame, in that it allows the author to move in and out of the spatiotemporal constraints and possibililies of his text. The second, the inner frame, can also be called the historical or genealogical frame. It is a linear frame (the main story of a dynasty through seven generations) in which the author is present not only to sire the second generation, but to hear his story told to Janamejaya five generations later. The third, the oUter (and now also "nriddle") frame, can also be called the cosmological fuune, as it will be the task of this chapter and the next to show. II is this Unriddle frame," set in the Nainti~ Forest, that is most pivotal to the chronotope through which the Malu1blUJrara's fuses its "spatial and temporal indicators... 2 II is well known "thaI the Malu1blUJrara is recited at the Naimisa Forest and that many purii\Jas likewise make this spot both the gathering pi";

'1bapar 1991, 10 and n. 36. For a preliminary

Slatemenl on these mat1er5, $Cl: Hiltebeitel 1998a. For puril)ic unfo/dinas, see Parziter [l922J 1997,305: in Yay" PurdlJa 2.14-23,

Punlravas ".coveted the golden sacrificial floor of the risbis ofNaimi~a forest and was killed by them"; Hiltebeitel1999a, 90 n. 7, 220, 265-66, 281, 285-93.

".

.-: .::,:

ISee chap. I at n. 47. At leasllhat is where the poets locate it when they close the ilUler frame, having laoamejaya return from lhere (0 HiSlinapura when the rite is stopped (18.5.29). In theAdiparvan, however, nothing is saMi oflhis location. and illooks there like (he

rite would have occum:d somewhere near H3stinapura (see 1.3.177; 1.47.9-10).

zBakluin 1981, 101, as quoted in chap. 2, above n. 20.

".

·Mangels 1994, 42-44, diagl'311li the frames as a "box-structure" (SchadJJelstruburJ, and draws on Bailey's (1986, 4) differentiation of horizontal-sytagmatic and vctti.caJparadagmatic axes for puriJ).ic ftanlC:$ to dool1&Uish a puri~c style from the Mbh's. M "8 dialogic stmalice upon which the entire narrative can be bung" (Bailey 1987-88, 31; Mangels, 85), the puriJ:lic horizontal axis supplies an "architechtonic framework for the surface of the text" (Bailey 1986, 4 [my italics); Mangels, 85) to accommodate loosely if not arbitrarily connected vertical-paradigmatic dements; but in weMbh such a paradigmatic element, while not lacking, applies only to namtive and didactic digressions (86-&8, 92). Yet Mangels sees the epic's fnroe structure affected by late purir:Uc ·corrections" (144). 'Oberlies makes the fnme stories superficial-something I do not see in Mangels (whom he ignores) or Minkowski, and in any case disagree with myself. For Oberlies, the outer frame or "first dialogue levcl" is part of a re-"surfaciog" of the text. one that, with its Sdling at a sattn 5acrifice, reorienU it toward Vedic ritual and provides" a 8rahmaoized .. rouodcoating" (Unmanlthmg) of the epic by the same late author of the N(J~ who "riNalizcs" elsewhere in the name or Narada. ~g the outer frame as a "horizontal" arrangement linked with a "vertical· one whose ground principle is ·emboxing" (EinschachIdung), he suggests that framing in its entirety would not have been a feature of the '''old' namtive" (1998,128,138,140-41). cr. chap. I, D. 14; chap. 2 n. 41; o. 4 above on Bailey and Mangels; and Grilnendahl 1997, 240. 'Reich shows lbat Minkoww's notion of the frame structure as "the source of the epic's growth" (Minkowski 1989,406) can be "misleading" (Reich 1998, 61), and disUn&Uilihes usel\l1ly between the frames and other devices for expansion (1998, 56-75). 7Plalo uses frame stories in the nmaeus; see Derrida 1998, and below, chap. 8 § 8. -See Witzel 1986, 205-11; 1987c for Vedic pcecedents, especially in JR, of "rina composition" (1987c, 411), emboxing stories within stories, and even double frames (404), and Minkowski, sugge51ing (1989, 412-13) thai as a literary device, the frame convention may have been passed. on into other Indian texts (cf. R. M. Smith 1953, 282-83) and on

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case. as both observe.' it is likely that uses of the frame convention in the Sanskrit epics relate to the special attention given in India to the structured embeddedness of Brahmanic ritual." one feature of wbich is that the intervals of cenain rites-notably the year-long Mvamedba"-were a rime designated for the telling of stories. Rituals that embox other rituals around a central rite could thus also enframe stories that enframe other stories. And this could be done in reverse, as narratives could enframe rituals. As Witzel shows, this is one way to think about how a Slory about rituals in the Brahmanas also emboxes other stories (l987c. 413-14). More complexly, the Mah(JIJlUiratll makes the teeb.nique "self-referential" and turns it into one of literary composition: "An epic frame story is more than embedded: it is the story about the telling of another story" (Minkowski 1989, 402). For Minkowski, there are only two frames in the MahablUiratll: our inner and outer ones. Not conceiving of an outermos[ authorial frame, he considers our outer frame to be the "higbest, moSl inclusive frame" (1989, 407). Bu, be exerts his greatest ingenuity on the inner frame of Ianamejaya's snake sacrifice, and the persuasive bypothesis, already noted, that as a sacrifice of a type called sa/lra-a "sitting" or seated "session"-it supplies no' only the intervals in which Vai~payana recites, but a ritual source and model for the literary framing device that the epic poets deploy. But what about the outer frame of the Nainti~ FareS!, where Saunaka and the sages are again performing a sattra? Is it DO more than an allusion to an old site of Vedic sattra sacrifices (see Minkowski 1989, 416 and n. 72)? As Minkowski vividly puts it, the MahablUiratll plays "what may appear to be a dangerous game" by having two frames, and thus posing the "threa, of an infinite regression. "12 For if, as he says, a frame Slory "is a story about the telling of another Slory" (1989, 402), and if the story about UgraSravas recitation at the Naintisa Forest "answers the simple question: wbo is telling the SlOry of Vai~payana?" (406), the question of infinite regression-that is, who tells the story of UgraSravas?-is left unresolved and open. As Minkowski sees it, although "the presence of UgraSravas is felt throughout the epic" in every scene describing exchanges between Vai!ampayana and Ianamejaya (405), the

Conventions of the Naintisa . FareS!

poets Stop sbott of asking who recounts exchanges between UgraSravas and Saunaka. 13 Rather, "The infinite regression is the image of the transmission of the story through history" (421). But why the image of transmission through history? I believe a better preliminary image would be a message in a bottle. Minkowski underestimates the outer frame, considering it "brief and insubstantial" and "much less carefully elaborated and mucb less orgartically connected with the Bbiirata story" than the Ianamejaya frame (1989,407,405). Yet he formulates a philosophical conclusion that is of some interest: "But it is also true that in an ideological system that includes an absolute transcendent reality, nothing can regress indefinitely. It must always end up striking bottom. It appears lO me that the attribution of the story to Vyasa, and setting the story in the Naintisa forest, serve the purpose of fixing the text at a level beyond which, as the texts say, one can go no further" (420). But here again, I think the image is misleading. The Nainti~ Forest does not fix the text at a level beyond whicb one can go no further. It supplies a location that is not fixed at all but rather bottomless and open." Moreover, Minkowski leaves us in the dark as to what he sees as the connection hetween this alleged "fixing" and "the attribution of the story to Vyasa. " But let us not get ahead of ourselves. Realizing that the site of this potentially infinite regression is the Nairnisa Forest, let us ask wbere the Mahiibharata's likely innovation of this literary convention brings ns. Though few have given it much thougbt, Nairni~ is a forest with a giveaway name: "lasting for a moment, a twinkling" (from ni"""a, nimi~a, a moment or wink). Biardeau bas caught a sense of it: "The name of this place,. a proper one for sacrificial activity, derives from ni"""a, the 13Much of the interaction between Ugra~ravas and Saunaka occurs in the epic's opening

, "

parvans lhrough the As1i1caparvan as segue to the Janamejaya frame, and in the NtJrtlytll#Ya (Oberlies 1998, 138). But the poets sometimes remind us that Saunaka is limning, as ""·hen Ugramvls tells Saunaka now Vyisa fulfills Janamejaya's request to show him his deceased falher Pari~it (see chap. 2, § B.40). Saunaka is men1ioncd with one last vocative at the: epic's end (18.5.44) in a verse that a southern Grantha manuscript precedes with an outer frameutt (1895-1905. 1,1), and van Buiteoeo (1973, 20), also plausibly. utebrohmabhill4 hi 1M maldlJ as rcferrin& to the sage:ll being considered as Brahmi. 3ICC. Fitzgerald 1980, 7-8, 14; 1991, 163-64.

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something that has clearly passed through the hands of such Brahmans as themselves and taken its place among "books.• Indeed, UgraSravas soon confirms that the MahlJblUJrata weighs more on a scale than the four Vedas (1.1.208), which suggests a written book. It is the Brahman ~is of Naimi~ Forest, DOt the bard, who are in charge of this composition. The "bard" and all the others who figure in the epic's three frames are fictions of the text: fictions, let me propose, of real Brahman authors who must have enjoyed creating them in some complex image of themselves. n Of course it is nothing new to argue that the double introduction reflects Brahman redaction." But without establishing that we can talk about all MahlJblUJrata characters as fictional ones in a work of fiction, we resign ourselves tD a hopeless and nonsensical deatllock. 34 The poets have provided us DOt only with a fictional author, but two "umeliable narrators"J> as its oral performers. UgraSravas DOW begins. Or more accurately, he makes his first begiuning. His acrnai storytelling opens with a cosmogony that builds to "a somewhat austere vision" of the wheel of life, and a resume of the MahlJblUJrata that culminates in the insight that time "cooks all creatures."J< But before the storytelling !Ie lands the highest gods with "some mangaln stanzas" (Sukthankar 1936, 59) and announces, "1 will proclaim the thought entire of the infinitely splendid Vyasa (p1'Cl1llliqydmi mata'rl krtsflOJ?l vyasasyamitlltejasali)· Some poets (lcavaya4) have told it before, others tell it now, and others too will tell this history (itilUlsa) on earth. It is indeed a great knowledge established in the three worlds that is held (or "possessed": dlUJryate) by the twicehom in its particulars and totalities (vistaraiS ca samasai~)" (23-25). Since sUtas are not twicebom (dvija), the bard has made it explicit that the MahlJblUJrata belongs to the Brahmans, and no matter wbo the "poets" are who will continue to tell it on earth, they will henceforth have to get it ultimately from them. Yet what UgraSravas recites-"Vyasa's thought entire"-is something rather fine. We soon learn that VaiSampayana bad earlier impressed Janamejeya twice, in the

'.

.,.-

12SCC chap. 1 at n. 79. "See Sukthankar 1936, 68-70; Mehta 1973; and Fitzgerald 1991, 163-65,·who notes that §aunaka and his co-sattrins arc "cleverly" made to appear ignorant of military matten;, which, as will become clear, can hardly be the case. Cf. Shende 1943, 68, 73, 80-81; Goldman 1977, 140, on the Mbh as a Brahman vehicle for "control of the past." cr. Biardcau and Peterfalvi 1985, 26-32. SoIol make this point via Gellrich 1985, 26. On fiction, cr. chap. 2, § A. 1SScc Booth 1983, 158-59. 271-74, 295-96. or course. in bein& able to tell the author's lbougbl entire, \bey become his omniscient narrators, as do Sa'!ljaya, Bhi~, and various ~is; see chap. 2, § C. ''Cf. Shulman 199b, 11 on this passage, Mbh 1.1.27-190. cr. chap. 2, n. 25.

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Conventions of the Naimi!> Porest

company of Vyasa himself, with the very same words: "I will proclaim the thought entire of the infinitely splendid Vyasa" (1.55.2 and 1.56.12). But we have only Ugralravas' report of this (from the outer frame) to rely on. "Vyasa's thought entire" can never be handed over entirely. As something priO! and superabundant to the text-it includes not only all purana but the entire Veda, and may be considered as this epic's tenn for its own primary process. 37 With it, we may have one more hint that as the place where Vyasa's "whole thought" is now so fully at play and so universally promulgated, the Naimi~ Forest is a poetic convention for the conditions in whicb the epic's real poelS, Brahmans, attune themselves to this interplay between the "whole thought" of Vyasa, which the bard relays to them, and the words that the Brahman Rsis supposedly hear, which real Brahman poelS would have transmuted into writing. 2. Version two of Ugralravas' arrival (1.4.1-5.6) opens, as several have noted, with vinually the same prose lines as version one. l8 But things quickly take a different tum: one that, as far as 1 know, has drawn no comment. Ugralravas folds his palms as before. But now, rather than showing deference with a bow and a courteOUS pause to let his hosts resume their sealS before sittiog down himself, he asks (more briefly) what the sages want to hear, and is greeted with a deferral which seems rather haughty:

group (kulnpati). A truth-speaker, devoted to calm, an ascetic of strict vows, he is esteemed by us all. Meanwhile be must be waited for. When this gum is seated on the most bonorable seat, then you will say what the best of the twicebom asks. (1.4.3-7)

Very well, son of Lom~~. We will ask you and you will tell us. Let your Story repertoire be eagerly heard." But meanwhile the lord 5aunaka is seated in the fire hall. He is one who knows the divine stories told about the gods and Asuras. He knows the stories of men, snakes, and Gandharvas completely (sarvaSQS). And at this sacrifice (maklteJ, 0 Saud, the learned one-twicebom, skilful, finn in his vows, wise, and a gum in Sastra and AraI,lyaka-is the lord of the "On my use of this tum, see Hiltebeilel in press-a and below chap. 7, § D. For now. as Sauna.ka will later put it, lheMbh story (kalhd) is "sptUn, from the great ~i'$ oceanic mind (~agarasa11JbhiitiJntmaha~~~r

(1.53.34). cr. Shulman 1991 b, 10, whoukC! Vyasa's

-thought entire" as sugjesting "the fluidity and open-ended quality ofthis text. " Minkowski misses these senses in the tr3.ns1ating malatrf Ja:tmam as "entire composition." WJbus 1.1.1 (tnnslated above) is similar to 1.4.1. See the ever-inleresting Vaidya [1905] 1966, 11-12, who trace; this recognition to N'i1ata~: ""The commentator has seen the absurdity of these two beginnings . . . and gives the usual explanation based on the supposition of two SUra!! belonging to different Kalpas." See Kinjawadekar 1929-33, 1:54. Cf. SUkthankar 1930, 182-86; 1933, Ixxxvii; 1936, 59-60, 68-70. tracing recognition of BMrgava handling to Holtzmann 1893. 2:12; Mehta 1973, 547 (discussed inn. 27 above); Yardi 1986,7-8. 31 1.4.3: parama't' lomahar~~~ pra~amas rva~ vakryasi co ~ iuif"i4atd~ kalhttyogam. Apparently taking paramam as "later," van Builenen (1973,55) begins, "Lalec we shall ask yoo, son of Lomaha~ .. ." -which seems to get. lhe righl sense.

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Ugra!ravas can hard! y feel much esteemed at hearing that Saunaka already knows "completely" all such stories as Ugr~ravas might tell him. Rather than gathering round him to hear wonderful stories, these Naifui$a-dwellers put such interests well behind the pompous timetable of their guru's sacrifice and the loftiness of his seat. Again, it is not clear at what point in the ritual Ugralravas arrives. It could be that the wait here is for Saunaka to finish the entire sacrifice: "having finished the entire ritual (or all his duty) in the proper sequence" (lalryam krtvtl sarvtlJ!! yatMkramam) (1.4.9). Sukthankar takes it thalSaunaka has "duly perfonned his round of daily dnties" (1936, 60), and I will follow that traditional interpretation. «) Well portrayed as "reciting for a living," Ugr~ravas says, "So be it. When the great-souled. guru is seated, questioned by him, I will tell meritorious stories on varied topics" (1.4.8). At last Saunaka finisbes his· rites and approaches "the place of sacrifice where the perfected Brahman Rsis, going in advance of lbe sfila's son (SUUlputrapura1JsarlJ1]), were seated, finn in their vows. Then lbe leader of the sattrins (gf/wpaJi), Saunaka, seated among the seated priests and attendees, spoke" (10-11). Translators have given Ugrasravas a seat before the l:.t?is here,·l but it is clear that pura1JsaraJ; in the plural modifies the Rsis who are seated before Ugralravas. It is not clear wbelber Ugralravas is left standing or given a seat. 1 assume lbe fonner, and that at some point perhaps a simple hand gesture, unrecorded in the text, invites him to relax. 42 It is clear, however, that Saunaka-a gfluJpati now as well as a kulnpati-waits to sit on his most bonorable seat, which the seated priests and attendees (sadasyas: literally, "those seated" in the sacrificial enclosure) have kept waiting for him, before be says a word to Ugralravas. Let US note that we have precise Vedic designations for three different types of "seated" actors ar this sattta: a gfluJpati, literally "master of the house," primus inter pares among the saUrins (cf. Falk 1986, 34-35; White 1991, 96); the other saUriDS as priests (TJYijs); and '-lICf. 18, App. 2, line 17: a southern interpolalion also has the Naimiseya ~i!!listen to the bard "in the interval(s) of the sacrificial rites (yajifaJUJrmIlnJare)." (IGanguli [1884-96} 1970, 49; DUll 1895-1905. 29; van Buitenen 1973, 56. Q.There are, however, bards who sing while standine: e.g., those who perform in the. burrakarha style in Andhra Pradesh, and the Pliratiyars (Mbh-reciter) and assistants at the Kilvlikkam Kiittal;l!-lvar festival in Tamilnadu (Hiltebeitel 1999a, 417, n. 13; 438).

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the sadasyas. These terms come alive in the telling. In particular, it will become clear from the title gfhnpati that it bas beeu correct to translate Saunaka's other title kulnpati as "leader of the group.'" What Saunaka bas to say now only intensifies the hauteur expressed . by his group and the superfluity of the bard. "Your father, my boy (Mia), formerly learned the complete purana (purl1f!am akhilnm). Have you too learned it all, son of Lo~na? In the purana are divine stories and the original genealogies (lIJiiva1(lSah) of the wise. These were told before, and heard by us fOlDlerly from your father. First therein I wish to hear the Bhargava genealogy. Tell that story. We are ready to hear you" (1.5.1-3). Instead of winding up on the high note of the "whole thought of Vyllsa," the second overture directs attention to Saunaka's Bhargava v~, and begins with the descent of B~gu rather than the origin of the universe. UgraSravas assures Saunaka that he bas completely learned what his father learned, which was completely learned and narrated hy such great-sonled Brahmins as Vai§amp~yana, aud urges Saunaka to listen to the honored Bhargava genealogy-which UgraSravas now lauds with divine eocontiums while letting us know for the first time that it is of course Saunaka's owu genealogy-such as it is found in the purana (4-6). Again, but in shorter shrift, it is affirmed that the bard is a cOnduit between texts that originate with Brahmans (Vyllsa and Vai§ampayana) and the new intertextual situation (S3stra and Aranyaka) that BraIJmiins (represented by Saunaka and his group) control." Reduced to a convenient fiction, the bard is there to tell the R!is stories that they-wise Brahmans-already know, here, via Lomaharsana. But now we may recall that in the first opening, the sages tell Ugra§ravas they wish to hear the "ancient lore proclaimed by the suprente ~i Dvaipayana, that was revered (or 'approved') by the gods and Brahman J1.!is when they heard it" (15). When was this! Either way, certain sages already know the lore that the Nainti'i" Forest sages are about to hear. In the first opening, unnamed Brahmar!is know it along with the gods; in the second, the Nainti!Oya ~s know it through the bard's father. One caunot say whether we have two different prior ~i audiences here, or one. What one can say is that, whereas Jauamejaya bas something to learn from his listening to Vai§ampiiyana, the Nainti~ya ~is greet the bard with a certain sense of deja teOUIt. •3Van Buitencn (1973, 19 and 56) translates both kuJapati and g,:hapati as "family chieftain," a fudge in both cases. Ganguli ({1884-96] 1970, 1:1,49) and Dun. (l89S-J90S 1:1,29) treat "KuJapau- as a name aDd leave grhapmi untrans.lated. •

"I take Am:tyaka (the ·Porest Treatise") ben: not just as the body ofYedic texts by that name, but as a collective name reflecting the hiih profile given lhc Vioapraslha ("'FOft:Stdwellioi") mode of life in both epics; see Biardeau in Biardeau and Malamoud 1976 34-35, 70 (the Mbh attributes knowledge of AraJ:\yaka rather than Upanisad to its Rl>is' th~ Vinaprastba is" possibly an epic invention); and Bi.lrdeau and fetcrfalvi "1985, n." ,

Convemions of the Nainti\'O- Forest

C. Reconsidering

105

B~guization

We thus come back to Sulcthaukar's theory of B~guization." Drawing on his groundwork as chief editor of the MohiJblu1rara's Critical Edition, he writes 00 "a subject which, having engaged my attention for a number of years, has acquired considerable fascination for me": the "veritable thesaurus of Bhargava legends" dispersed throughout much of the MohiJblu1rata (1936, 3). Having traced such material through the epic's eighteen books. he saves the second opening (as nored) for his summation. It "totally ignores the first," he says, in order to introduce a "nest of Bhargava legends" that "the Siita obediently proceeds to relate" immediately upon Saunaka's prompting. The result is the eight chapters (5-12) that form the Poulnmtlporvan, which are "entirely consecrated to an account of the wonderfnl deeds of some of the Bhargavas, an account which is not even remotely connected in actual fact with the incidents or characters of our epic. It is a digression pure and simple ..." (1936, 60; author's italics).46 "Digression," however, is Sulcthaukar's ntisleading translation of upakhyano. (1936, 14; cf. 17), a term used for tales lold to the epic's heroes, including such famous ooes as the stories of Yay~ti, Nala, and RaIna; it means no more than "subtale" or "episnde." the latter being Sukthaukar's alternate translation (65, 70). He asks "how precisely this Bhiirgava element, which we find concentrated mostly in the upakhyl1JllJS, came into the cycle of the BMrata legends." His answer, adntittedly "a matter of speculation," is to run through the supposed cumulative "recensions" of the text. Roling out those he attributes (uncritically) to Vyiisa and Vai~piiyana. he finds the "case ... different with the next recorded recitation of the MaMbhiirata" by Ugra§ravas at the Naintisa Forest, "the sylvan retreat of the B~gus" (70)." Whatever he means by

"recorded." he

DOW

comes to his crucial question:

Is the Siita then responsible for the conversion of the Bharata imo the MaMbharata? Now 1 do not doubt that some of the Siitas probably were gifted versifiers, able to compose ex tempore short bardic poems and to improvise lays to suit them to varying tastes and requirements of the audience. But if we consider these Siitas capable of composmg ~5For an earlier version of this section, see Hiltebeitel 1999c, 158 ff. ~6For

a different view of the Paulomaparvan, see M. M. Mehta 1973, 549. ftll is a frequent fancy lbat Vyisa, VaiKmplyana. and Ugrasrav8s produced or provide CDvu-names for sequential Mbh recensions: see Vaidya [l90S) 1966, 31-36, 49; 1907, 20-21,29-44,69,98-99.180--81,200-21.261-64; Yardi 1986, passim; Gokalc 1990, 1; and Fitzgerald forthcoming-b, 48, tryin&, to relate the Vai~mpiyana and Ugrasravas fraD1C$ to two or "four, or more, distinct poetic or redactorial efforts." cr. above, chap. I, n. 100.

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Conventions of the Naimi~ Forest

Chapter Three

on the spur of the moment such masses of narrative episodes and didactic discourses· as we find in our Mahabharata, we sball be crediting these minstrels with an accomplishment far ·beyond their natural capacity. (71) "Spur of the moment" and "natural capacity" are rhetorical flourishes. With the former, which strangely (and no douht unintentionally) echoes the etymology of Naimi~a Forest as the Momentous Forest, Sukthankar ignores UgraSravas' assertion that he has hrought the "whole thought of Vyasa" with "'him from Janarnejaya's snake sacrifice: no spur of the moment malter, at least in any ordinary sense. With the laner, he does not anticipate the effects of the Parry-Lord thesis on oral epic formulaic verse, which has convinced some scholars that oral poets have the natural capacity to do JUSt about anything, ex~ept write.'" Yet Sukthankar is prohably right, even for today, that no one is "so credulous nowadays as to imagine the Suta as the author" of such "extensive innovations" as would have given the text its present dimensions. For that, he says, we must turn to Bhllrgava Brahmans: "The entire story that the Suta had heard the epic at its first recitation by Vaisamp~yana and reproduced it verbatim at 5aunaka's bidding, having committed it to hearing, is so ohviously unnatural and improhable !bar it seems clearly more appropriare to regard it merely as a poetic fiction, a .frame-story, • the most popular of Indian devices of literary composition" (1936, 72). UgraSravas is "kept on" as an "image" of the bards "who used to recite the poem in the Heroic Age" (73). Once having completed their "first important diaskeusis," the Bhllrgavas then undertook "further additions ... in the centuries that immediately followed," keeping the {ext "for some time" as their "exclusive property. '" These Bhargava "anchorites, full of age-old wisdom and wonderful masters of the art of myth-weaving, took from the SUtas the ·Bbiirata and gave back to the world the Mab~bbarata, the same hook yet different" (75). Suktbankar is caught between two irreconcilable worlds: his world of 1lIdian literature, in whicb he righdy recognizes the literary artistry of the frame story convention, and his world of Germartic higber and lower . texmal criticism (see Morgemoth 1978-79), in which literary artistry (that is, as much of it as is conceded) is at hest a screen the scbolar must penetrate to excavate historical truths behind pieces of the text that can he all too conveniendy separated to meel the demands of the argument." ~'See

chap. I, n. 74, and notc Sukthankar's remark, graluitous to his theory, that the slita's version must have been "recorded" (it sounds like he imagines some kind of fieldwork). 4¥Sce chap. 1. Again, Alter 1981 is most pertinent here; see especially "The Techniques of Repetition" (89-113), "Characteriution and the Art of Reticence" (114-30), and

107

As we have observed,'" Sukthankar's posthumously puhlished last work (1957) shows bim critical of the "European savants" (25) whose methods he had adopted. More than this; as Robert P. Goldman has pointed out," Suktbankar says nothing in dlis lasl work about his BMrgava hypothesis. Without renonncing it, be had in any case finally determined to say something about the MahilbMrata as having some literary, religious, and concepmal urUly after all. Quoting at the very begimting of these 1942 lectures on the text's "meaning" the verdict of Oldenherg that the MaMbMrata is a "monstrous chaos, ,," he saves for the very end the comment that "it would be a pardonahle byperbole to say that" the MaMbhiJrata is more a cosmos than a chaos (1957, I and 124). Yet Sukthankar's BhUgava argument has supplied a powerful instrument of MaMbMratJl interpretation, and, for some-including at least the "early" Goldman, Minkowski (1991), Bigger (199g, 105-7), and J. Brockington (1998, 155-57)-a persuasive myth about MaMbhiJratil mythmaking." 1 do nol suggest that MaMbharata scholarship will get beyond such mytbmaking in the mailer of the text's origins and authorship, so 1 consider both the tool and the myth to be major achievements. I attend to them closely hecause Sukthankar has identified a set of real problems, and because some of his solntions are close to my own. In mos< of my disagreements, I concur with criticisms made by others. N. J. Shende points out that references to AlIgirasa Brahmans (including B,rutspati, his incarnation Orona, and Orona's son MvanMman) are more numerous in the MaMbhiJratil than Bhiirgava references (1943,69-70), while for Sullivan, Sukthankar "overstates the impact on the epic of material about Bbargavas, material which constitutes about five per cenl of the texI" (1990, 19). Mebta argues thaI

',I

"Composite Artistry" (113-54). See further Alter 1992 on "the marginalization of the Bible's literary cbaracteristics" by "academic biblical studies" (26), and the cbapter "Allusion and Literary Expression"' (107-30); SullOn 2000, xiv-xv. »see chap. 1 above n. 57, and n. 20 above. ~. A1lhe Pondicherry cooference on the "'Soorce.s of History," January 1997. nSee chap. I, no. 1 and 2. 53See Goldman 1977, 81-147 on ·8hArgava mythmaken."' Other would·be follow-ups get lost in fantasies that BbWJ was a Dravidian or "lndid"' (Karmarbr 1938-39; Wclkr 1936-37), or that the Bhirgavas were among a riot of vested iDtUe$t &roops that fed interpolations i010 the Mbh in its final stages (Katz: 1989, II), or were partners with Materialists in -telling it like it is" (Alles 1994, 71). Belvalkar 1966, ceii attributes the epic's "dominant Bhatti colourina" to the Bhirgavas. Bhattaeharji's capaciou5 sense (see chap. I, n. 13) of "the Bhaq:ava section" or ·Bhlrgava interpolation" finds it offers for the "first time a theology and scripture for a sectarian religion, centering mainly around two gods, Siva and ~~t.la" (1992-93, 471), and the first seeds of superstitious, foreign, and royally reprel!sive notions that "later evolved into Hinduism" (482). Cf. Sbende 1943; Katz 1989, II; MUkherjee 1994,11-13.

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the first and secoDd OpeniDgS, with the story material each ties into, must be by the same archetypal "redactorial ageDcy" (1973, 549). And Minkowski makes three telling critiques: there is no evidence for "the existence of a distinct Bhargava movement"; "it lacks sensibility to maiDuin" that there is no connectioD betweeD "the Bh1'gu myth cycle and the Bh3rata Story," since there are countless parallelisms betweeD them;" and the theory suggests a kind of manipulatioD and conspiracy in the Iakeover of the text, and presumes a passivity of the "collective audience" faced with that ideological takeover, that are not adequately supported (1991,399-400)." . Although I agree (Hiltebeitel 1993, 19) with Minkowski's critique of conspiracy and Iakeover theories, I do Dot sbarebis "DO doubt" that the Bhargava cycle's "origins were separate from the Bh3rata story," or his DOtiOD that we should "reconsider the process that. brought the Bhrgu material into the Mababh3rata" (1991, 400). In fact, the scholarly conveDtioD that Suktbankar, Minkowski, and many others promote of some meaningful CODtrast betweeD Blu:Jrata (thought to have beeD liotited to • main Damltive) and MaJrabhIJrato (derivative, massive, and comprising narrative and iDterpolations) bas Little support from the text, wbere the two terms are with all but one exceptioD used iorercbaogeably (see 1.1.16-19 and 50), and BhlJrata never used with implications of priority. Far too much bas beeD made of the verse that says Vyasa composed a tweDty-four thousand verse BhlJratasamhitO without upakhyonos, which the wise call Blu:Jrata (1.1.61). It does not, coutrary 10 many scholars' assumptions (most tendeDtiously Hopkins 1898a) and van BoiteDeD's translatioD (1973, 22), say he did this "First"-as if it were done before a mohii-Blu:Jrata. Since the passage describes Vyasa's afterthoughts, it is more plausible to think of this as • digest. A hundredthousand verse BhlJrata is also meDtiooed (12.331.2). Yardi (1986, vi) and Reich (1998, 6), for instance, have tried to connect the tweDty-four thousand verse BhlJrato with the ODe recited hy VaiWrtpayaoa, but this comradicts VaiWrtpayaoa's statement that he recites Vyasa's "thought eDtire" (1.55.2). We thus cannot assume that the Bhargava material in bulk is origioally separate from the epic. ID fact, one of Sukthaokar's insights is that some of it is older than the epic and some is DOt. Here it seems better 10 suspect that some Bhargava material is created with the MaJrabhIJroto and related within it to older Vedic Bbargava material that is recalled within

so.Sl.IlIivan 1990, 19, also makes this point. Sukthanbr denies coMedions so many times (1936,4, 10, 13, 14, 17,30.33-35,60,62,65,67,69,70) that one bas the impression he "protests too much."

sSPorfurther criticism, see Reich 1998, 154, and FilZgerald 1999~ 2000, and fonhooming.b.

CODventions of the Naimi~ Forest

it. In particular. Sukthankar convincingly shows

~

109

wbat is most

strikiDgly new to the MaJrabhIJrato iD the repertoire of Bbargava stories is the figure of Bhargava Rama, and the relentless reiteratioD of stories and formulaic verses about him and his annihilatioD of the ~triyas: a demonstration that Goldman ricbly develops. Bbargava Rama is of course P~, "Rama with the Axe," although in the MaJrablu:Jrata he does not yet have this latter name or avatar stams." Yet although Suktbaokar recognizes Bhargava IUma as an epic novelty, he still argues that because he beLoDgs to a distiDct Bbargava cycle and comes from an earlier yoga,

he is to be distinguished from the "epic characters" he encounte[s;~7 But Bbargava IUma is an "epic character" DO less than the PiiJ?davas and Kauravas, and the multiple persons ideDtified with the processes of the text's authorship, transmissioD, and reception, including the ~ of the N~ Fores!. Indeed, let us observe that it is never staled that the other Naimi~ya ~~s are Bbargavas, although it is the scholarly consensus that they are. As we sball see, there are rather good reasons to suspect that the Naimisa Forest Rsis come from all gOlras." In any' case, 10' Support his distinctioD about "epic characters," Sukthaokar operates with a limitiDg notiOD of symbol and myth. That Bbargava Rama survives a yoga to become the gum of BbI~, Drol»., and Kan,>a "is only symbolical, but the basis of the symbolism is significant": he is the suitable guru because he is formulaically "the best of all weapoD-bearers" (sarva.lastrabhrtOtr/ varal1); "ODce the symbol is accepted, it is treated as real, and the myth is worked out in great detail" (1936, 13). To put it simply, Suktbaokar's symbol works diachronically !from symbol to myth) but DOt synchronically, where it would connect Bhargava IUma with other "epic characters" not only wheD they actually meet, but amid the parallelisms meDtioned by Miokowski, which enrich

the text. These are strange shoncomings, since Suktbaokar saw countless connections elsewhere. i6See Sukthankar 1936, 24, 48, on a passage where avatar ideatity is perhaps incipieoL h Sutton 2000, 156-57, observes, a1lhouib the term avaldra is never used in the Mbh. the "concept. is central to the narrative- (cr. 172). Moreover. the conc:epl is frequcm1y subject to allusion by usages ofthe verb ava~tr. cr. Biardeau 1999, 1621, n. 2. I do oot agree with Hacker 1960 or Fitzgerald forthcomina-b. 30, that there is one original meaning behind it. SJSukthankar 1936, 13. On Bhargava Rima's yu¥a-spannina appearances in the Mbh, see also 17-18, 21, 25, 35-37, 63, 65; Goldman 1977, 132; and especially Thomas 1996, . focusing additionaUy 00 the corrdation between his unusu.al temporal profile and IUs appearances in both epics as an indicator of early developments of avatira mythology. WYa~ dwells there, for one (Mbh I. App. I, No. 36, lines 42-43). For Pargiter [19221 1997,65, the ·wildest instances (of ·chronoloaical confusion·} art: the lists of rishls who assembled at the twelve·year sacrifice at Naimi~ forest" (in Padma PurdtJil 6.219.1-12).

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Chapter Three

With these remarks in mind, let me suggest a new lack. Rather than looking for what Sukthankar calls an "ulterior motive" (1936, 67), 1 suggest we look for an interior motive. More specifically, rather than thinking of Saunaka and the Brahman sages of the Naimisa Forest as signs of a final Bhargava redaction and ongoing takeover to allow fur further interpolations, I propose that we look at Saunaka (the only Naimisa sattrin explicitly a Bhargava) and other Bhiirgavas mentioned in the epic simply as characters i.Ir the MahabluJrata. No doubt the

I!

Conventions of the Naimi~ Forest

I I1

karal, and open hostility to the gods themselves. [n addition, several

I

of the Bhargava sages are shown ill the epic to have engaged with impunity in such activities as theft, drinking liquor, and killing a

woman. acts that are condemned unequivocally in the law texts as especially improper for brahmans. Olle of the greatest of tlle Bh.rgus is everywhere said to have served as the priest and chaplain of the asuras, the demon enemies of heaven and of order (dharma). ([977, 5)

composition reached some kind of compledon that is reflected in the epic~ opening Nairnisa Forest Stories, and no doubt it was done by Brahmans for whom this scene and its stories were symbolic. But there is nothing to suggest that the composing Bralunans were BMrgavas. Indeed, it is far more likely that they were not, or not just; or in any case, it is unlikely that the group was limited to a Bhargava movement or cabal. Our question then is: What do the Bhiirgavas symbolize in the MahabluJrata to Brahmans in general? Once we ask this question, we find that Sukthankar and especially Goldman have paved much of the way. With his notion of "metamyth: Goldman io particular calls anention to the dialogue betweeu Cyavaoa and King KU§ika (the Cyavanaku.!ikasll17!vdda; 13.52-56), a passage in which Cyavana figures as "the only B~gu who is himself a purveyor of B~guid mythology, ... [Who] becomes at once a model and an inspiration fur the whole cycle and the mythic personification of the mythmakers themselves" (1977, 104-11, 136-37)-Brahman mythmakers, that is, who tell stories about all kinds of Brahmans, Bhargavas included, who sometimes tell stories themselves. k bas been obvious to both Sukthankar and Goldman, Bhargavas are portrayed in an unfavorabLe light. Says Sukthankar, in their cycle of

"conflicts the Bhargavas are represented in our epic as irascible sages. domineering, arrogant, unbending and revengeful. To our epic bards they are at the same time omniscient and omnipotent Supennen, who had become so chiefly by their rigid austerities and the magical or spiritnal powers acquired by them" (1936, 64). Some of this could describe our friend Saunaka in the epic's second opening, although be is never among the Bhargava characters under Sukthankar's review." Goldman goes further: The central concerns of the B~gus appear from the mythology to have included death, violence, sorcery, confusion and violation of class roles (VOT1!l1SramadJuJrrnn), intermarriage with othervarnas (vamasa11l'

J'Cf. Shende 1943, 81: when Saunab asks UgraSravas to begin with his own Bhargava ,eneaIOiY, "'This is quite appropriate if we bear in mind the egotistical tendencies of the Bhrgus. ... "

: I:

These are not expressions of modem squeamishness, but perfectly accurate descriptions of important details and shadings of the Bhiirgavas in the text. Convinced, however, that this mythology of the BMrgavas is mythology by the Bhargavas, neither Sukthankar nor Goldman ever asks why Bhargavas would have portrayed themselves so unfavorably. Given all the other criticisms of the Bhrguization theory, the answers one might expect-their portrayal expresses the BMrgavas' power over the text, perhaps in combination with an omnipotence fantasy. or the determination to convince others of their omnipotence-are, [ tliink, hardly plausible. I caDOOt review here the many Bhargava details and shadings that hack up the quoted profiles, but some. patterns arise that suggest an answer to what Bhargavas symbolize in the epic. One such pattern becomes clear from an insight of Goldman's: such themes "unequivocally mark the Bhrgus as a group set aparr from their fellow brabmans" (1977, 4). They are repeatedly portrayed as "degraded Brahmans" (81-1l2, 85, 97, [41-42), military Brahmans (99), violent Brahmans, caste-mixiog Brahmans, nearly all of whose tnales marry ~triya women (98), and who-as Sukthankar notes (1936, 63)-provide for one of their daughters "the only pratiloma [hypergarnic or "against the grain"] marriage on record in Brabmanicalliterature"-the marriage of the Bhargava Sukra's daughter DevayilnI"down" to the Ksatriya king Yayiit;, k 1 see it, Bhargavas are portrayed as vehicles for defining, and if necessary correcting, the status relations ofBrahmans. Goldman shows that they vie constantly with princes and gnds ([977,93-128), but they never vie, as far as 1 can see, with other Brahmans (even 5ukra, opposite number as chaplain of the Asuras to Brhaspati, the Atlgirasa Brahman chaplain of the gods, accommodates Brhaspati's son Kaca in taking him on as his disciple and ultimately transmitting the mantra of regeneration to him). 60 I suggest that this is because Bhiirgavas represent those other Brahmans: they speak and act fur them in certain ways. And these ways are not far to seek. As has been repeatedly perceived, they are champions of the

"Beyond Sukthank.ar and Goldman's discussions ofSukra's myths, see Dumezil1971, 133· 238; Defoumy 1978, 57-105.

112

Conventions of the

Chapter Three

cause of Brahmans (Sukthankar 1936, 66). Linked with the Ahgirasas as Brahmans of the AtJuuva Veda, they are the Mahabhilrata's experts in black magic, curses, dhanurveda (the Veda of the bow), and mantra-sped divine missiles. 61 On this matter, it is instructive to consider ways in which the MahabhiJrata diffe" from the Ranulyl1J1a. Whereas the Ranulyl1J1a portrays Bhiirgavas only minimally," the MahilbhiJrara makes the Bhargavas a kind of last reson of the BrabmanicaJ world order, with Kffi>a descending from Bhrgu in his maternal line and revealing that among his "supernal manifestations" (vibhutis) he is Bhfgu himself among ~is. 63 Rama learns his divine weapons from Vi~vamitra, who, albeit a ~triya-turned·Brahman, is one of the augnst group of Seven ~is, ancesto" of the most exalted Vedic Brahman clans. Most of these Seven-the main exception is the Bhiirgava Jamadagni-parade through the Ranulyana to guide Rlima through his life." Presumably Jamadagni does not make such an appearance because he is deceased well before Rlima's career. Thus wben Bhiirgava Rlima avenges Jamadagni's death at the hands of the sons of Kartavlrya AJjuna, it is attributed to eaxlier times, ordinarily a previous interval between the K!U and Tretii yugas (Thomas 1996). YetJamadagni's absence is compensated for by Bhiirgava Rlima's singular appearance. When Rlima DMarathi meets him, he has exterminated the ~triyas "long ago" (Ram. 1.73.20; 74.24--26), and, as something he never quite completes, it looks as if he has come prepared to kill Rlima, a regenerate ~triya prince. Appearing just after Rlima and Sftii's wedding, he withdraws only after be has leaxned from seeing Rlima's prowess with the bow that Rlima is 00 mere ~triya but Vi~u (75.3-17)." In receding as no more than a kind of temporarily menace, he thus leaves other regulative Vedic ~is to supervise the martial as well as the moral educatiou of a prince who is also an avatar. In contrast, Mahabhilrata heroes learn their divine weapous primarily 'ISuktbaokar 1936, 66-67; Shende 1943, 71-78; Goldman' 1977, 99-101, 107, 147; Biardeau 1981, 8S. In Ibis light, it wiU not suffice to say that for the lkahmarnc redactors, -Ies Bhaq:avas &alent des bralunanes par exceUcnce" (Bigger 1999&. 4). COn Bbirgavas in the ~m. sec Sukthankar 1936, 69; Goldman 1976a; 1917, ISO, o. 13. uSee Defoomy 1978,67-68, 00 the Bhg:u-to-~a descent., which passes through Yayiti via Sum's daughter nevayini. On vibhatis, see BhG 10.25. "See Hiltcbeitell979b: Viivlmitra, V~a, and Bharadvlja instruct Rima ditealy; Atri indirc:ctl.y through the story onus wife Ahalya, and Jamadagni and Kasyapa more indirectly, through descendants. See also Hillebcitel 1977a, 347, on prowua ~is, the seven, and Agastya,linked with the south (to which be further dirtas Rima) and, as with all the rca, with the SW'S. 00 ViSvimitra's exceptional status in this group. see White 1991, 78-79. "On 'Rima Jimadagnya's incomplete job in both epics of etfa.cing the ~triyas and their lineages, see Hiltebeitel in press-c, and 1999a, 458-62.

-~

Naimi~

Forest

113

from Bhiirgavas and Ahgirasas, and their moral and military educations are split. The furmer is given by varied forest ~~is headed by Vyasa, but including such a ~i as Pulastya, ancestor of B ~ (see Koskilrallio 1999, 359); by ~,!", God and avatar; by B~, whose lengthy postwar oration has Vyasa's prodding and ~'s inspiration (see chap. 2, § C.29 and 30); and by their mixed-caste and in any case nonBralnnan uncle Vidura. And their martial instruction is left primarily to "flawed" Bhiirgava and Ahgirasa Brahmans: Bhirgava Rlima and the Allgirasa Dro'!". The dharma has so declined that these are the primary Brahmans left to help restore it, with the avatar secretly one with the primal Bhiirgava ancestor. Such a restoration can come only at a price, since Bhargava correctives are inherently violent. We see the cycles of violence begin to unfold with Bhiirgava involvements even in the epic's first beginning. UgraAravas' mainnarrative in this segment, the PaueYaparvan (1.3), culminates when. Uttaf>ka, a Bhlrgava, seeks revenge against the snake T~ for stealing a pair of earrings he has taken some trouble to get. Uttaf>ka goes to Jaoamejaya to tell him fur the first time that T~ had killed Jaoamejaya's father Pari~it, and thereby provokes the latter to nodenake his snake sacrifice as a double retaliation (although Uttaftka doesn't mention his own reasons; 1.3.136-195)." Then with the second beginning, the cycles truly stan to unravel when Saunaka demands to heax the Bhlrgava genealogy. What Ug~ravas tells of this in the Pau/omaparvan (1.4-12) concerns only one of the clan's less violent branches: the one that leads to Saunaka. 61 But the cuhninaring story about Saunaka's forefather" Rum further overdetermines the vendetta against snakes. Having leaxned that the only way to bring his snake-billen fiancee back to life is to give her half the lifetime still ahead of him, Rum does this, but then goes around clubbing snakes to death until he learns from a lizard, whom he is ready to kill as a snake, that he is acting more like a ~triya, and in particular like Jaoamejaya, than a Bralnnan. When Rum asks to bear about Jaoamejaya's sacrifice, the lizard-wbo is of course a ~i under a curse that has now been relieved by the sight of Rwu-tells him he will hear the SlOry from a Bralnnan. The lizard-~i disappears, and Rwu has to go heax the story from his father Pramati (1.8-12). -When a later A.snkapaMJatt passaie presents a rather different accoum of bow Ianamc:jaya tim bears that Ta~ka killed his father, Ianamejaya finally decides

00

a revenge that wiD

be for both Uttailka's·pleasure aDd his own (46.41). 00 the mation ofthcse accounts,:see

Mehta 1973, 548-49. On the snake sacrifice amid Mbh cycles ofvengeance, see Malamood 1989, 195-205, especially 197. ~On lhe three main branches of ~'s descent, see 511kthankar 1936,4. -ParvapitamaJuJ (1.5.8): forefather or "ancestor" (Ganauli [1884-96) 1970, I :50). Van Buitenen's "grandfa(her" (1973, 56) is unlikely. Th short aenea10gy a( 1.5.6-8 (B~ > Cyavana > Pramati > RUN > Sunaka) gives Sallnaka no father to close the descent line.

114

Chapter Three

While Pramari's 000-"authoritative" Bhllrgava account ofJanamejeya's sacrifice is dlereby quickly los' to us, Ugmravas continues to build up to bis own telling by uaositioning to the "large" (1.13.4) Astikllparvan, whicb his father Lnmaban;a\U taugbt him after bearing Vyasa himself recite it at the Naimi sa Forest, making Lnmabarsa\U in fact a sixth "disciple of Vyasa (Si~o vyasasya)" (6-7), though not necessarily the sixth in time. The Astikllparvan is thus "authorized" by Vyasa, but it comes from a differeD! time and place than the inner frame of the MaJUlbhtIraln, which Ugmravas has now already told us comes from Vyasa via VaiSampayana as it was narrated at Janamejaya's sacrifice. But what was Vyasa doing in the Naimisa Forest? All we can say for now is !hat this location seems once again available to resolve a literary leap, this time required by the fact !hat the events of Astikll build up to the sacrifice where Vaisampayana will recite what is now obviously his less complete

version of Vyasa's "thought entire" than Ugra.sravas's version. In the Astikllparvan, the cycle of vendettas now roles into it such inlerspecies feuds as those between Snakes and Birds, Gods and Demons (at the Churning of the Ocean), and Rahu (the eclipse demon) and the Sun and Moon. The snakes now consult as to how they might avoid their "compete extinction" (sarvavinaSam; 33.6) in Janarnejaya's sacrifice, which their mother Kadrii pronounced on them when they did oot do her immediate bidding in ber rivalry with her sister Vinata, mother of birds. 69 The snakes' solution requires them to DUrture a snake mother with the same name as her future husband, Jaratkaru, so that a son Aslilca can be born to become the snakes' savior. And so it becomes clear that all these vendettas underlie and enfold the rivalry between the Piindavas and Kauravas, which Saunaka will at last ask to hear at the heginning of the next parvan, the "Book of the Descent of the First Generations. " That the Pauloma and Aftika parvaos are a narrative continuum is made clear by Saunaka himself as he reaches this point: "You have told me the entire great story beginning from the genealogy of the Bhrgus, my boy (bhrguvamsat prabh1JYeva tvayd me knthi tant mahntl ilkhydnam okhillltrl taln). I am pleased with you, Sauti. I ask you further to tell me the story composed by Vyasa and recited at the snake sacrifice . . . " (1.53.27 -29). At I.ast UgraSravas can report how Vai~payana responds to Janarnejaya's question about the "breach" (bheda) !hat led to the "great war" between "all my grandfathers" (1.55.19-20), and get to the "real" MahtIbhdratn. But now, as Ugmravas narrates not only VaiSampayana's lesser version ofVyasa's "thought enme," but Janamejaya's deliberations in the course of a snake sacrifice !hat is to be the ultimate fulfillment of

-on the textual complications of Kadrii's curse. see Mehta 1972.

--1

j

Conventions of the Naimisa Forest

lI5

so many feuds against snakes, it becomes clear !hat there is an overhanging question. As one cycle of violence builds upon and revens back to another, as different species feed off each other in the cauldron of time, is there no appeasement? It forces the question of the Eumenides: have the Furies no end? And of course the answer is always yes, althougb the resolutions always leave' ambiguoUs remainders. In the case of Janarnejaya's sacrifice, the drama hinges on whether Taksaka, "Fashioner,"70 will be sucked into the !Tames like so many otbe"r snakes. The gruesome sattra is, at leasl implicitly. a rile of black magic (abhicdra) designed to kill an enemy. The priests are all dressed in black while the seated attendees (sadasyas), a group that includes Vyasa seated with his disciples and son-presumably Suka, though that will have to be explained"-and several sages well-known from the Upanisads, seem to be clothed ordinarily. We now see how this distinction becomes important. The Hot~. in charge it seems of invoking the snakes into the fire and the leading priest mentioned, is ODe Candabbargava, "Terrible Bhargava," and wben Aslilca arrives seeking to ask Janarnejaya for the boon that the sacrifice be stopped, the grim CanQabhargava makes Janamejaya wait until be is cerrain Taksaka is doomed. Bu, once Janarnejaya offers the boou, there is just an "interval" (anraram), a nick of time, for Astlka to make his request, and T~ is left banging in mid-air until his fare is determined by the sadasyas, who adjudicate that Aslilca's boon sbould be granted and are among those who joyously.applaud the rite's termina Moving along with the

Nairni~ya ~is

145

same teason." Balarama now gives away "ponions (daylln)," presumably to the ~is. "Having seen K~tra," he now approaches a "very large heavenly liSrama" (t1frama~1 surntJhad divyam) thick with trees of many kinds, including p~ and banyans (p!lJk.1anyagrodhosalTlku1llm) (53.1-2). Note, however, that while it has pl~ trees, it has no special pl~ tree. Having seen this asrama, he asks the ~sis whose it is, and learns that it is where Vis~u duly performed his eternal yajilas, and where, through yoga, an e,ceptiooal brahmaciriJ)I obtained the highest heaveo and the supteme yoga, as well as the fruit of a horse sacrifice (4-8)." The poets' refitting of yatsattra to pilgrimage thus centers the latter on yoga, bhakti, and more generalized notions of sacrifice. Balarama now salutes the ~is with a respectful adieu, and begins his approach to the neu 3Srama: "00 the side of Himavat, having made his entire entourage leave him, he ascended the mountain (pllr!ve himavato cyutnhl skmufhtlvarani Stl111t1ni nivartydruruhe 'calam)" (53.9)." He is highly amazed (virmayam pora/7lO11l gotal!) at seeing "the meritorious trrtha of PI~ PrasravaJ;l3, the source of the Sarasvatr" (10)," and we too might be surprised by the geography, since one does nol usually think of Himaval as rising from K~tra. Yet Witzel, who locates Pl~ PtiSraVaJ;13 in the Siwaliks (1984, 271, fig. 2), urges that we think of this source of the Sarasvatr as being "in the foothills of the Panjab Himalayas" (1995b, 8), and that may be within range of what is meant. Let us note that whereas plak.5a trees are mentioned at the previous trnha, none is mentioned at Pl~ PrasravaJ;l3. It is possible that the poets, unfamiliar with local features, have split such details between the two sites.

Sl9.54.3-7. Sec Bil&er 1998, 74-75; 1999a, 6. Again (lee n. 28 above), I see this as evidence of first~rder textUal adjm1men1 rather than belated maladjllStnlenl via interpolation. TIle same holds for the dialogue-shift to Balarima as primary audience for the stories about pilgrimage sites once he gets to Kuru~ra (9.51.25). I see this as a deepening of the narrative's purpose l1Ilhet Ihan evidence of another layer of interpolation (Bigger 1998,14). "nUs tirtha is evideolJy more powerful, or else more liberalized by the new ideology of yoga, than V~dhakanya TIrtha, the TIrtha of the Old Maid (number 30), where Balarfma hears of an old maid who learned that being a brahmaciriJ.lI was not enough to reach heaVeD, aDd had to marry first (9.50.51-51.24). ~ have accepted Andreas Bigger's translation of skaJuJh4w:'Irdf!J ~ nivartya (E-mail correspondence, September 6, 1999; ct. 1998, 52). Many northern texts have insaead saJrldhyakdrycl1# sarv4tJ.i nirvarrya (e.g., Vulgate 9.54.10), "having accompliShed all his evening rites"-which miaht lend support to Kavccshwar's thesilii of aD intervening Diehl (see n. 51 above). nPrabhava'!l ca sarasvarytJl!., with, however, numerous variants, ioc1uding most frequently prabh4vam (·cxoellence") for prabhavam \source"). One wondCl"S whether Dandebr as CE editor favors the Vedic precedcnt familiar to him. In any case, "source" is one of the readings. On this source's possible locations, see Bharadwaj 1986, 8-19.

Moving along with ti,e Naimiseya

146 Chapt Moving along with Ule Naimiseya Rsis

158 Chapter Four

of Vyasa. IOI ·Again, one is left to wooder whether this is the earthly Yamuna or the heavenly one.

MaM.bhOrata, as I am inclined to do, it would appear that U,e Mahilbharata is designed to set in motion die entire history of the

universe down to and just past the Mahabhilrata war, to the "dawn" (sanuihyO) of "our times," the Kali yuga (see n. 82).

But most informative is what the exiled

With this suspicion we come as far as we can toward considering the

.,spol on Lake Dvaitavana, he also urges YUdhi~~ira to obtain a purohita and let such Brahmans accompany him in the forest (3.27.5-25). See Koskikallio 1999, 326-29, on these

and other passages, one outside the CE, that affinn his watery habitats and old age. -Recall BhG2.32: "Provided as ifby chance,l.hc open doorway of heaven (Yadl:cdwyd co 'papannaml svargadvcJram apd'J(fllm). Happy warriors, P:irtba, obtain such a war.· "See 12.262.22-23 (they obtain the '"infinity· that is "Vedic·: dn.an1yam . .. vaidikam); 12.201 (Fitzgerald 1980,262,288); and 13.103.36-37 (they remain $0 10Ri a$lhe twinkles of their eyes; see HiltebeilC:1 1977a, 347-50 for this and other examples). IllO See Witzel 1984, 218-19, 223, 245-46, n. 38 on Varna's world; on Agastya, see HiltebeiLelI977a, 339-50; Kloetz1i 1985, 140-43.

and his brothers

purifies his lineage for seven generations"; one who dies there while liIsting "would rejoice, established in the heavenly world (sa modet svargalaknstha)" (3.82.53-57). The fruit of the Gavlimayana, which was

attained. I do not think that this "twinkling forest" is any more a precise

\l'I'Baka Dalbhya, along with Sunaka and ~mi¢avya (sec chap. 5, § B), is among the many timeless ~5 woo greet Yudhi~ra upon fimentering hissabhd (2.4.8-10); ata holy

YudJli~!-h-ira

(minus Arjuna) learn about Naimi~ Forest amid U,e rush of information they absorb-just after hearing the story of Nala-about pilgrimages that can take them to svarga loka and the door at the bark of the firmament: 102 Naimisa is "frequented by Siddhas; there Braluua always resides surrounded by hosts of gods";'OJ by dwelling there a month, bathing, and observing restraint and a meager diet, one "obtains the fruit of a Gavlimayana sacrifice (gavamayasya'''' yajflLlsya phalam) and

origins of Naimi~ Forest conventions. White is probably right that as the site for early sattcas such as Baka Dalbhya's," Naimi~ Forest begins its etymological history as "the 'twinkling' forest" (1991, 97), the place where the stars would shioe especially during darkening winter nights. Yet although it becomes increasingly clear that precise Imowledge of star . groups can be important in understanding Vedic and epic cosmologies, myths, and rituals, and although more such precision is surely to be constellation than it is a precise geographical location. Rather, I believe it is the entire eve«banging visible night sky, which gods, Brahmans, ~s (Brahman and Royal), warriors who die in bartle," Fathers, and also Nagas fill to all its reaches." There the heavenly SarasvatT can still appear, retaining her )i.g Vedic associations with the Milky Way, to symposia of Naimiseya Rsis virtually anywhere they happen to gather. As Witzel observes, the ascent of the SarasvatI as Milky Way correlates with the "path of the gods" (devayOlUl), and its descent with the "path of the Fathers" (pitryOlUl), but other stars range "above" it such as the Seven ~s, and "below" it such as Agastya and others associated with the "south" and the world of Yama."o Indeed Yama's satlIa at Naimisa Forest makes him a kind of Naimiseya god. A "bizarre interpolation" (Suktbankar 1933, ci) found in a few nonbern and southern texts also lets us know that the "Rsis who dwell in Naimi~ Foresr" (Mbh. I, App. I, No. 36, line 43) include Vasistha, one of the stars of the Big Dipper, and tells that he and his wife ArundhatI, a dim star beside his, come to the Yamuna to solemnize the marriage of ParMara and SatyavatI, the parents

159

to invigorate cows and the sun at the SOlstices, is now equivalent to the fruit of a yatsaltra: residence in the "shining world" of the Naimi~ Forest. Naimi~ Forest would thus provide many places-both in the night sky itself, and under it, "down to earth"-for Rsis to gather for symposia and

to "frame stories. ,.\0$ The ten-day sattra, whose ten days were

;"'..:,. ... ~

"

embedded in the twelve nights of the Vcllyas' twelve-days saltra ("actually ten nights of sacrifice, framed by two days" of sattra; White 1991, 105), is especially interesting in this regard for the consideration it has received as a prototype for the medieval "ten-day" Dasarli festival of Hindu kings. Several have argued for the intermediacy of the· royal Vedic rites of the RJijasiiya and Mvamedha, where the king becomes the dIksita and replaces the grhapali, and for which ooe finds plausible conrinuities at the folk levei. IO' Dasaril marks the end of the rainy season rather than the winter solstice, but as Falk argues, this can be

IQ'Couples are supposed to gaze at tlUs r.ithful pair during marriages to assure fidelity. teJ3.80_83; one would like lO know me connection between this infonnation and the Rsi who gives it: PuLast)'a, ancestor of R1~sas. .. IUTarra ni~nivasali brahma tkvagwyUr~; 3.82.53cd. Recall that Ugrasravas comes to Naimi~ Forest wishing 10 see the Naimi~ sages whom he considers to be brahman itself (chap. 3 at n. 30). UNUsed only two other times in the epic (13.109.44; 110.24) and equivalent to Gavlimayana. which the epic does nol use; the CE clean: away some misunderstandings (3.82.56 notes). '"This can only be proposed metaphorically for Vedic texts, then: being, 1believe, no Vedic passages connecting Naimi~ or Naimi~yilS with the late Bra~c (IB) composition of the earliest frame story namtives (see Witzel 1986, 1987c). On hosts ohtars as celestials compared to epic assemblages, see 2.31.25 (cited n. 85 above) and 15.31.20. I006palk 1986, 41; White 1991, 104-5; both discussing Sontheimer 1981 and 1984 on folk Dasams involving ritual and mythical dogs (cf. HillC:beitel 1988, 123-24, 365; 1991a, 369-70,390-93); Heemrman 1963, 13,36; 1993, 178, 183-84 on the intermediacy ofthc Vedic royal ritell.

Moving along with the Naimiseya ~sis

160 Chapter Four plausibly accounted for by changing experiences of geography, climate, and the seasons (1986, 43--44). Vratya sattras and Dasaras both end with the invitation to raid one's neighbors (that is, in the parlance of Dasara, with the opening· of the season for military campaigns). Two MaMbharata intelJlOlations say the epic is to be studied or recited during the four months of the rainy season.'''' So too with Alha (Hiltebeitel 19990, 310). No less interesting, with the end of the rainy season, lbe stars reappear in lbe sky. People can scay out:alI night and listen to stories (or, if the stories are told in the day, it is still the nightly half of lbe year). We know from Minkowski that saltras provided "intervals" for storytelling (1989, 402, 413-20), and that in its pariplllva-"whatever rushes on or is repeated again and again" -the Mvamedha provided for a revolving ten-day cycle of legends (akhyl1nas) during the whole year of the horse's wandering. The pariplllva consisted of ten topics, similar to those by which one might classify the akhyl1nns of the epics and especially the purl1r)apaika~ann or "five characteristics of the PwaI;Ias. " The topics rolated so that each would be covered thirty-six times during the year (Hazra 1955; cf. Karntarkar 1952). It is presumably during such pariplllva intervals in his Mvamedha that lUma hears his own story told to him by his sons at the Naimi~ Forest. Yet lbe Vedic precedent of the "twinkling forest" is most intriguing when we recall the story Balarama hears at the trrtha of the Naimi~ya Bowers. When the Naimiseya ~s break up their "great big twelve-year sattra" in the ~ Yuga, they come in such droves along the southern bank of the SarasvatI that by the time they reach Kuru1etra, the tIrthas along this bank look like cities, and at Kuru1etra there is so little space that they cannot properly perform their Agnihotras. The Agnihotra, like the Gavamayana, invigorates the sun, but daily (Witzel 1984, 215-16).

The constrained

~is,

however, are reduced to measuring their ritual

terrains with their sacred threads (perhaps an echo of the measurement of the journey by throwing a wooden §amyl1 peg, but also a foreshadowing of the crush of warriors at Kuru1etra). Since the Naimiseya ~is start their journey at the Sarasvatr's western

end, far from any of the

Naimi~

Forest's "known locations," we may

now suspect that t1iey do not begin this sattra in any earthly location at all, but, as it were, from one of the points where the SarasvatT has gone underground-VitWaoa or Prabhiisa-in the western ocean of the night

"'.,494· lines 1-2 (apud t.56.494)and. according to Hoptins(I90111969. 364, at 18.6.21 ff., which would be in a alorificatioo of the Mbh recitation omitted from the CE (1 do DOt find the merence in IGnjawldcbr 1929-33, 6).

161

sky. lOS Their movement up the southern bank of the SarasvatT is then an ascending movement through a night. And although they are ~is, their overcrowding and despair recalls something of the violence and hunger of the yatsattrin, whose "killing and cursing," it would now appear, involves a movement through the same nelherworld. This outburst of ~sis is also like the gods' raid into the world of hlDDaDS after Yama's Naimi~ Forest sattra, and like the encompassment of the battle of K ~ intO the end of a cosmic night that is measured from Balar.una's pilgrimage (a circling of the battlefield by the underworldserpent Se..'s "portion") to B~' s ascent to heaven. When the SarasvatI miraculously turns east to create bowers for the Naimi~yas, she is making their eastward countercurrent journey with them. The city-like crowds of ~is along her heavenly night-I

1~9See chap. 3, § B on the parents and on AstIka, and above, n. 114. 'Xll.36.3_5: jareti k.fayam dhur val ddrulJll~ kiJrusan.JiflitamJ sarfra'!1 kilru tasyasa tatsa dJu"'mMiCllUIiJ, iantJilJ/I ~apaytJmdSa 1ivre1Jll zapaseryata ucymel jararkArur iIi brahman vdsuker bhaginf lath4/1 evamukras lu dharmalmd sa~ prlJJuJsal tadal ugraJrava.saM amantrya upapannamili bruvan. U1Van Buiteneo (1973, 97) prefers ·monstrous" for dtJnu.tam; Ganguli ([1884-96] 1970, I :98) has "buge."

Clearly "It fits!"

or "That fits!"

175

is a good translation of

upapanrwmiti, '" whicb occurs just this once in the entire MaMblu1rata. m The commentator Nnaka9~ would even allow us to translate, "It joins!" (upapanna".1yuktam: Kinjawadekar 1929-33, I :88). But what an odd fit it is, as Nnakantha sbows by imagining further stories to make it fit: most noUbly that the female snake-Jaratkiru also withered ber body away as a young unnrarried lady (ibid). Ugralravas, will! his "likewise" (to.tJu1), never quite teUs us that the name "fits" ber for the same reason as ber busband, even though Nllakan!ha tries to fit tile bard's words to that expectation. Most of aU, the erymology is incongruous. One bas to look bard for other females with Sanskrit names that end in sbort "u. "'" Jarat from jara, "old age," is passably explained as ksayam,

"destruction. "I~j But Ugr~ravas's other gloss doesn't seem to fit the Sanskrit language. II looks like the bard ntigbt be speaking wittily from a vernacular with common -u eodings. Or perhaps be conceals an obscure pun on Vedic kdnl, " kind of hardic eulogisl or· "proclaimer" sometimes said to "praise (jarate) with bymns" (RV i68.9) or to "wander about praising (jaran)" (see Gonda 1969, 479-80). But ki2ru has no Sanskrit mearting that can be glossed by d0nDJlIlTl, "borrible, monstrous, barsh, etc." As Monier-Williams, citing this passage, puts it in dictionary shorthand: "(only etymological) horrible" (MW, 275). In other words, Ugralravas has made it up it for the occasionl Moreover, as van Buitenen says. one has the rigbt to wooder "how this etymology can inspire merriment" (1973, 444). Yet it is clearly the erymology that makes SaUDJlka laugh, and not, as Nllakal)!ha further invents, the marriage of two people whose deformity and old age are equal. '" Merriment indeed! Now as Minkowski has indicated, the epic poets playa "dangerous game" with their double frame, whicb invites thougbts of infinite regression. They usually make it appear that they suppress such an implication by reponing the exchanges between Ugralravas, Saunaka, and

WIt was van Buitenen's "That fits!« (1973, 97) that cauabt my eye. ct. Mangels 1994 72: ·Gclungen!" ("'Success!"). Mangels thinks that Saunaka is testing his bani (71-72). ' UJAt least, judging by the Tolrunaga machine-readable text of lhe Mbh baSCl1 on l& CE. IJ&Sce Whilncy [188911960, 123: feminine -u endings arc found, but "a special femininestem is often made by lengthening the u to a," as in Kadrti or SarayO. Women's names popular today like Bhanu and Madhu do not seem to be used in classical Sanskrit. lS5'Jbe element jam figures in destructive contexts in the hunter Jad who kills Krsna and in the R.a~sJ lara who ·puts togel.het" the two halves of the Magadhan despot JariUndha I~njawadekar 1929-33, 1:88. cr. Tschannert 1992, 112, who may be right thai wherea~ Ute male Jaratkiro's name suggests that his body becomes old and frail through his strict mortificatio~, the young woman Jaratklro's Dame suggests that her body would have grown old more qUickly because she lacked sexual activily.

l76 Chapter Four the other Naimisa Forest saurios rather matter-f-facdy, as if to prompt . such a questio~ would be gauche. But bere they force the questiou. Sauuaka and UgrMravas leap out of the outer frame. Who hears Saunaka's burst of laughter'? The author'? The reader'? Who takes sucb deligbt in bow dUngs fit'! Here we glimpse the MalUJbhiJraUl poecs tipping their band as framers wbo are both beyond and within the outer frame. What a strange, dark seose of humor, and what a daring sense of fit it is that they reveal. These authors, gbost-writing in collaboration with the fictional Vyasa under the cover of the Naimiseya ~is, set iu motion the beating of a new understanding of life as it begins from what is.

5 Don't Be Cruel

In a plainly Marxist study, Walter Ruben finds that "fighting against despots in old Indian literature" "plays a fairly big role" (1968, II). Sampling the epics, pl1Iii¥as, and some other texts, he lists thirty-ne literary despots beginning with Doryodbana, IUvaJ1'l, Karnsa, Jarasandba, and Arjuoa ~vIrya (all from the epics), and ends with the observation that only one, "Sarviirtbasiddhi, the last Naoda, was an historical king" (Il4). The other thirty are "mythological" (Ill). He concludes that there was "no revolutionary class in ancient India," and that, wliile Brahman literatures (including the epics) encouraged kings to be noodespotic and Buddhist Utakas even envisioned mass resistance, the people "suffering under despotism" were "consoled with religious stories" (Il6-17). TIlming to history, be runs througb the record of patricides and other assassinations that distinguisb early imperial Magadba, and suggescs the implications of dtis history for Indian mythology. Aocording to Buddhist tradition BimbisWi of Magadba was killed by his son Aj~~ttu and the four following kings were also patricides; then the people supplanted dUs dynasty of murderous despots by electing the minister Sis_ga as king. The last Saisunaga was killed by the first Nanda, allegedly a barber and paramour of the queen. The last Nanda [mentioned abovel was killed by the Brahmin Kau!alya. The last Maurya was killed by the Brahmin ~arnitra, fouoder of the Sunga- a

of his retaliatory vow. 13 But as Biardeau also sees, the epic represents lbe old order most insistently, weaving Vedic precedents and names into its narrative througb a complex or interrwining stories, in its PaiIca!a cycle: its stories or the

"Cf. Gitomer 1992, 229, and chap. I, D. 25. USee Chap. 2, § C.30. ~ has placed his buddhi ("intellect") in Bh1~ (12.54.27-30), co~oed.with him, a~ eased his pain, all for this purpose (Fitzgerald 1980, 139-44). Thi.s IS an Imponan!. pow.: the whole "instrUCtion" in the Santi and Anu.tdsana parvans, whicb often (but not always) seems like anything bUt bhalcti leaching, is inspired, according to the epic poets, by the same divine "intellect" that utters the BhG. t'See Wi~ 1987a on the agonistic character of Vedic (mainly Upani~dic) dialogues, which can result 10 a "shattered head" by asking ultimate questions that go "beyond the limil.s of one's ~owledge· (372). 'I'heK is no dialogue with "Old ~lta," but perhaps that is just the pOint.

~;

.,.

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people of DraupadJ." Indeed, the Paociila cycle is so deeply embedded in the MahabMrata's central narrative that some have cODvinced themselves that it formed the epic's original nucleus (see chapter I, n. 10), lb.t lbe nucleus was • Kuru-Paficala cycle wilbout the "parvenu" P~vas, who, along with 14l;'."', bave so often been targets for the scalpels of "higber critics." Once we recognize lbe PaiIc3la cycle as part of the epic's arcbetype and primary design, bowever; we fiod again a cycle of spiraling violeoce that would be uneoding" were it not for the conniving of 14l;na aod the intercession of Vyasa, "lbe aulbor." In

oudine: 16 1. Dro'."', a Brahman, and the Piifical. king Drupada, a ~triya, are childhood frieods. 2. Grown up, Dro'."', now a father of Mvarlhamau aod poor, seeks wealth from his former friend, but Drupada says insultingly that friendship is not possible between people of different status. 3. Having since cbosen • career of weapons obtained from BbUgava Rama, Dro'.'" trains lbe Kaurava aod P~va princes in weapons, and for his guru's fee asks that they conquer Pailcala. Victorious, Drona gives his "frieod" Drupada hack the southern half of his own kingdom aod keeps the northern half for himself. 4. Knowing bis sons to be DO matcb for Dro'."', Drupada hires two priests CO ritually produce a son for him wbo will kill Drona. When this son, Dhrgtadyumna, is born from lbe ritual fire, DraupadJ is born unasked for from the earthen sacrificial altar (veili). 5. DraupadJ marries the PiiD<javas, consolidating Kuru·PancaIa relations between Drupada and the PiIJ:1<javas (wbo are as mucb Kurus, descendants of Kuru, as are the Kauravas). This does not beal the enmity between Drupada and Dro'."', wbo sides with the Kauravas. 6. Drupada along with three of his grandsons is slain by Dro'.'" on

1·08 Vedic names connected with the Pancalas and their story cycle, see Biardcau 1976, 242, n. 2: while Dro'.1& is named for the Vedic soma vessel, Drupada is Darned for a synonym of the yQpa, the sacrificial post. Cf. CR 117 (1978-79), 153-55; 1985, 14; and Biardea.u and Petert'alvi 1985, 117, on these and other names (one need not accept. them all to accept the principle) in the Piincala line, which -evokes the ensemble ofthc socio-cQsmic order that comes unhinged"; cf. 1986, 146-47. UAs Reich 1998, 353, obSCI'Ve:!i, "the agonistic sacnfical p3l'3digm bets a mecbarusm for stoppina the cyete of vioJence." 111I1 do not encumber this outline with many citations. smcc the episodes arc well CfIOU&b known. For dlscussion and documentation. see Diardeau 1976.241-54; 1978. 120-26; 1993,214-31; CR 87 (1978-79). 151--60; Biardeau and Pit.erfatvi 1985, 116-17. 126-27, 154-56: 1986, 147-48. 272-73, 283-95: Hiltebeite1 (191611990, 250-54, 312-35: 1988, 192-95,419-35 esp. 427; Scheuer 1982, 293-339.

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the moming of the fifteenth day of battle at Kuruk$etra; Dbmadyumna vows CO kill Dro'.'" that same day (7,161.28-37). 7. Later that day, Dro'.'" kills niany more Pafic~as, including twenty thousand at once with his doomsday weapou (/JrahmLIstra), until Agni and the great R>;is appear in !he sky to dissuade him from sucb unrigbteous fighting (7.164.87-92). Dhrgladyumna bebeads Drona after Dro'.'" bas dropped his weapons aod sat down in prtfya (fasti~g uow death); he then hurls Dro'.""s "great bead" into lbe van of lbe now beadless Kaurava army (7.165). 8. Mvattbaman kills Dhrg!"dyumna, all DraupadJ's olber brothers, other Paficalas, and DraupadJ's and the P~vas' five SOns in a nigbt raid while lbey are sleeping in a camp lbat14l;'.'" bas knowingly ciIked the PiIJ:1<javas into abaodoning so as co protect the P~t;Idavas, but DOt lbe Paficalas. 9. DraupadJ demaods revenge: A§valthaman's death aod the forebead-jewel be was born with (10.11.20); sbe vows sbe will sit in praya until she gets il. 10. Out of love for DraupaW (Biardeau, in Biardeau aod P~terfalvi 1986,295), BbIma and Naknla go after Mvatthaman. But when 14l;'.'" warns that Mvattbaman will bold the doomsday weapon against them aod could destroy the world, KffiJa drives Arjuna aod Yudbistbira (10.13.5-6, 16) to confront Mvatlhamau (DraupadJ seems to ~ left with Sabadeva). Seeing the three PiIJ:1<javas assaulting him, Mvattbaman releases his doomsday weapon, aod Arjuna retaliates in kiod. Vyasa and Narada appear, seemingly in midair, between the weapons to prevent them from detonating. Urged by Vy~a to withdraw lbeir weapons, Arjuna can do so by his yogic power, but Mvatlhamau's wralb allows no sucb restrainl. Vyasa convinces him to give lbe PiIJ:1<javas his forebead-gem, but he still directs the weapon into the wombs of lbe PiIJ:1<java women-DraupadJ included-to make them barren. The "author" then tells Mvattbaman be must never use the weapon again (see chapter 2, § C.26). II. 14l;'.'" promises the PiIJ:1<javas be will revive the child in lbe womb of Uttaril, wife of the slain Abbirnanyu. The stillborn child Pariksit, revived, will thus be the remnant of lbe Kuru line. BbIma then convinces DraupadJ CO abaodon ber vow aod accept Mvattbaman's bead-gem without his dealb.

CI~ly, it bas been pointless to tty CO reclaim an original' kernel by cuttmg ~e P~vas and ~, not to mention the inrervening "author, .. from this cycle. But one can DOW see that the epic poets do describe a vicious cycle of violence at the beart of the story by representing the Paficalas as the central element of the old Ksatriya order. They recall the

184 Chapter Five early post-~g Vedic order of what Witzel calls India's first Slate, the Kuru realm in which Kuru-PaiicaJa, with KUIUk$etra as its ritual center, formed one of the cwo major groups among some sixteen kingdoms: 11 "Both tribes, the Kurus and the PaficiUas, form a 'people,' of two large 'tribes' with separate chieftains whose families, however, intermarry. In other respects as well, the twO tribes form a ritual union within a large chiefdom; it is based on competition between two moieties: for example, they exchange their roving bands of VIiityas. . . . "U Again, this is not a society that immediately precedes that of the epic poets, and which the poets might actively "transform";" rather,. it. is one they recall to life-often by deliberate techniques of archaizauon-only through thelt knowledge of Veda.'" Moreover, the epic poets portray the Kuru-PaiicAia relationshi~ much as Witzel reconstructs its Vedic past. The Kurus and PaiiciUas rard oneanother's territory. As among Vratyas, there is overlap between I4atriyas and Brahmans. Drupada and Dro,!" begin their friendship as youngsters without noticing their I4atriya-Brahman difference. Dro,!" accompanies the Kuru raiding party of young ~va and Kaurava princes." The young Pawavas appear at Drauparfi's svaY3J!lvara in the guise of Brahmans. And when the two "moieties" intermarry, the father of the bride allows his daughter to take five husbands when he hears not only that the five princes he thought were Brahmans are actually incarnations of five Indras, but part of a plan to resrore death to the human world that follows from a sattra of the gods in the Naimi~ Forest. If Dmpada exemplifies the PaiicA1as' position at the hean of the "old ~triya order," it is perhaps understandable that he is the one to hear this secret story, and that he "alone" should find it appealing. What is striking, however, is that while ~'!" guarantees the continuity of the Kuru line, he sees to it-along with Dro,!" and

1'1995a, 3-the other being Kosala-Videha, about which Rdm and Buddhist stories develop. u199Sa, 4; cf. 1987b. 182-205; 1989, 111, 243 [maps], 235-36, 247-51. Itwitzel argues that between the: Kuru realm and the emergence of Magadha, royal centen lolervc:ned at Paftc1la and Videha (1989a, 236, 241).

lOCf. Biardeau 1985, 13, n. 9. warning DOl to presume wnsecutive historicity between BrilunaJ;1ll ~ :ind epic Oneli tinting Kurus and PaAcalas. cr. Reich 1998 on -deliberate archaisms- (125) in the Mbh around -archaic 'qonistic' demen1s" (269; cf. 230, 259--{)9), including Vratya '"echoes- and -residues- (on which, bowever, see cha.p. 3, n. 121). On metrical and linguistic archaization, see chap. I, D. 70, and van Buitenen 1966, a dame slUdy of arcllaism in the BhgP. 211.128.3. His son ASvatthlmanjoins the princes' mining, but does not join the raid. A CuUer account in southern and some northern manuscripts (I, App. I, No. 78) bas Arjuna brine a halt to the raid because -Ute best oftings Drupada is a relative oflhe Kuru heroesOine 116}-this, before Ute: P~vas' marriage to Draupadi, al~ough it can be explained through the lunar vaQlSa.

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Mvatthliman-that the Paiic1las are exterminated. If, as seems evident, the old ~lriya order is represented by the agonistic dyad of the KuruPaiiciUas, the new order that emerges from it into a unified and miraculously continuing Kuru Slate is achieved by the eradication of its former PaiiciUa component. For like the Blmgava line of the Aurvas that goes no further than Blmgava IUma, the Paiic1las, as far as the epic is concerned, end with Draupadr, who loses not ooly her father and all her brothers and other kinsmen, but ber sons and her capacity to reproduce (cf. Katz 1991, 135). As Yudhi~ra says definitively to Gandharl when he is about to leave his elders to end their lives in the forest: "This whole earth is now empty. It is not pleasing to me, auspicious lady. Our kinsmen are diminished," our streugth not what it formerly was. The Pailcalas are utterly destroyed with a girl their ooly remainder." I see no family-founder anywhere for them, auspicious lady. They were all reduced to ash by Dro,!" alone in battle, and those that remained were slain by Dro,!,,'s son at night" (15.44.31-33). The Kuru line continues not through this "girl" DraupadI (how courtly of Yudhi!!h1ra to refer to the middle-aged heroine, who is present to bear him," as a girl or maiden [kanya)!), but through her co-wife Subbadr~ (sister of~) and the Marsya princess Uttar.i: Subhadra's daughter-in-law, wife of the slain Abhimanyu, mother of P~t, grandmother of Ianamejaya." If we ask, as we did with the Bbargavas, what this Paiic1la component represents, we have thus the beginnings of a useful answer-one that owes much to the work of Heesterman-in this elimination from the lunar dynasty of the principle of agonistic rivalry that lies at the heart of what

'l1Parikffr!a, implying that Pari~it will be their lone sUlVivor. Note thc contrast with those "unerty destroyed" ~~) in the next line, cited in the next note. upancaltJiJ subhrja'1t ~l~ kanyamarravaSe~itd# (32): Northern mss. have the equaUy interesting kalhil for kanya: the Plftcilas -remain only as a story." Cf. 5.47.93: Arjuna says elderly astrologers predict the "areat destruction oftbe Kurus and Srt'ljayas [Panealas], and victory for the Pfu;1t,1avas- (cited chap. 1 after n. 42). Cf. also Hiltebeitcl 1988, 210: at Draupadfs Svaya~vara, Kampilyl, the Panca:l. capitol, is just this once called the ..the City of the §iwmira," i.e., "of the child-killer," often translated -crocodilc": '"With thc mar of the surging ocean, all the citizens approached ~iSumarapunm, and the: kings assembled there'" (1.176.15). As sugges&ed, this odd OO(e for a marriage may be a foreshadowing of the fate of DraupadI's children, Pii\cila relatives, and the entire ~tra. :joI Amoni the party that leaves the capital to see lhc: c:ldc:rs, she: gets to see Vyasa nise Ute slain warriors, indudina her 80m and brothers, from the Glt\gi (15.36.13; 37.7; 38.2; 39.14; 41.4). h is sixteen years after Kuruqeua. See Hiltebeitd 1999a, 477~. :lSNcxe also that the Pifdlas' destiny is large1y paraUeJled by that of the Matsyas (15.44.34), whose king Viri~ is killed simullaDCOUsly with Dropada, and who are fully effaced with the Pifica"s during the night nid. After this, as Biardeau observes, "All that subsists of the two kingdoms PancDa and MalSya is the: [Wo princesses Draupadi and Uuari" (Biardeau and Peterfatvi 1986, 273). ct. Hittebeitel 198~b.

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the epic poets recall from the Vedic ritual and mythological system." But for us, a more pressing question now emerges. What does this tell us about Draupadr, who, with the death of all her kinsmen, becomes the sole Piiiicata survivor. Does she remain to represent that agonistic principle throughout her life? Or is she too "uansfonned"? Indeed, does the MahiJbhilratll offer her, too, an education? These are questions we can return to in subsequent chapters." For DOW, we may frame them by noting that wbile she begins her life emerging from this agonistic principle's comerstone, the sacrifice, saddled with some of its darkest implications, she at least, under the most trying circumstances, brings the Paiicala cycle of revenge to an end by dropping her demand for the death of Mvanhaman. Draupadi's "dark" assnciations are, of course, evident from birth and throughout her life by her name ~J.lO., "the Black (or Dark) Lady," through which she complements ~, Vyilsa, and others who spin out the poem's darker workings (HiJtebeitel [1976] 1990, 60-78; 1985b). Indeed, even before she is born, the luminous but weeping Srr whom she incarnates in the myth of the fonner Indras has ·come to be "of impoverished share" (17U11Ulnbhilgya; 1.189.13), the very tenn by which Yu~!hira describes DraupadI when he is about to tell her of the loss of her sons and brothers (10.10.26). But it is especially Draupadr's birth that demonstrates the epic poets' determination to identify her with a nefarious darkness that arises from the agonistic dimensions of her identity as a Pmcili, a daughter of Paiicala. The rite by which Drupada seeks reWiation against Dro\lll, which will involve him in returning to fight the Kaurava half of the Kurus at Kurula;etra, is by implication a rite of abhicdra-ublack magic." Like Janamejaya's snake sacrifice, it is designed to fulfill a desire to kill an enemy. Indeed, as Biardeau observes, not only is the rite of a type frowned on by the BraIunanical conscience for its intention of violence;
,'S.

~•• ,

unlike the human sage A¢m3J!
Chapter Five

die dying buck in a human voice, is not that he shot them (the ~i accepts havillg taken the risk of rurning inw deer), but that he lacked the "nollcruelty" (anfsa~a) w wait until they were finished making love; dlUs Pandu will die when overcome by love." Most interesting, however, is the sooty of the Muni and the dog whose heart (or disposition) had gone human." The Muni, the lone human in a great forest, secures a peaceable kingdom by sucb qualities as tranquility, Vedic recitation, and purity of soul. All the wild carnivorous animals" come and go, asking him agreeable questions and behaving like his humble and solicitous disciples. But one village animal (grllmyas ... paSus)-the dng whose hean has gone human-weak and emaciated from living peacefully off fruits and rnots like the Muni himself, becomes attaChed w the Muni nut of affection (sne/uJbaddho) and remains permanently at his side, ever the attaChed devotee (blwkto 'TlJQaktah satatam). One day the dog spots a cruel (knlra) leopatd preparing to eat him and tells the Muni,· "This leopard, an enemy of dogs, desires to kill me. By your grace, relieve my fear. ,," To allay this fear, the Muni turns the dog into a leopard, and as sucb he is able to roatD the forest fearlessly. But the problem only escaJates. The Muni turns the leopard into a tiger (who starts eating meat) w protect him from a tiger; the tiger intO an elephant to protect him from an elephant; the elephant into a lion w protect him from a lion; and the lion into a fierce eigbt-Iegged ~bha to protect him from a ~bha "prone w the killing of all creatures. ,,
C. The Question within the Episode Let US now look at the implications of DraupadI's question: first, maiuly within the episode itself, and then at what lies behind and follows from it at other points in the epic. Even as sbe is dragged into the sabhi decrying the··Kuru's loss of dharma that brings ber there, sbe attests to Yudhisthira's firmness in dharma and her knowledge that "dharma is subtle';' (60.3 1-33). Yet the.dharn1a is also what subjugates ber there in the sarcastic words of Kar1)a: "There are three who own 00 property: a slave, a student, and a woman are nonindependent (asvatantra). You are the wife of a slave, his wealth, dear-wilbout a master, the wealth of a slave, and a slave (yourself)" (63.1). These words resonnate with a famous verse in ThR. Laws of Manu (9.3) that describes women as "nonindependent" (asvatantra). DraupacII challenges this, speaking about, and perhaps for, women as a class: "These Kurus stand here in the hall, lords of their daughters and daughters-in-law, all considering even my word-answer this question of mine the proper way" (61.45). The men

are challenged to consider a question that questions their "ownership" of women." It is by appealing to dharma around a question that brings

.MOn the use of the vctb ujjah4ro here, see Hiitebeitel198Oa, 103, and Mbh 12.333.11: "Formerly this earth with her oc:ea.n-belt disappeared. Govinda, resorting to boar form, lifted her up." It is Nata and Nlriya~ who speak with this avataric vocabulary. "On the contrary, Karve 1974, 87-90. gives an astonishing reading of Draupadi's question as her "greatest mistake": DniupadT -tried (0 show off her learning-; "by putting on ain: in front of the whole assembly, she had put Dbmna (Yudhi~ral into a dilemma and

unwittingly insulted him"; "Draupadi was standine there arguing about legal technicalities like a lady pundit when what was happening to her was so hideous that she should only have cried out for decency and pity in the name of the KShatriya code. Had she done so perhaps things would not have gone so far." Karve compares Draupadi here with Sit!, as does a woman interviewed by Mankekar who, after seeing both heroines portrayed on Indian national television, "felt Draupadi was 'Westernized' because the heroine questioned and chaUenged her elders On the propriety of their adions- (1993, 552).

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both oven and hidden questions to life that she can save herself and the pandavas. 'S'akuni, Yudhi~ra's deceitful opponent, delivers the prohing verse: "There is surely your dear lady (priya devt), one throw unwon. Stake JCmII PMcalI. Win yourself hack by ber (taya 'tmanam pUlllJTjaya)" (58.31). "Your dear lady," priya devc. ... The first meaning of devcis of course "goddess," which would be an ovenranslation hut hardly an overestimation of the lady. More than this, devc is the goddess as "she who plays" (Biardeau 1985, 17), and PMcalI is a name for Drnupadr, used with beightened frequency in this scene (ibid., 11, 13-14), meaning "the puppet." As Yudhis~ra sels to wager her, he speaks from what feels like a reverie:" "She is not too shon or too tall, DOl too black or too red-r play you with her (taya dcvyamyahaT(l rvaya) . ..." Doll-like, iconic, she is bet and lost, and Yudhis~ will say nothing until her question frees him. Once in the forest, DraupadI will say we are all puppels, our strings pulled by the Creator-to which Yodhis~ will reply that she is eloquent with passion, but heretical. As Piii1caII, DraupadI is thus the doll or puppet who speaks, who even recognizes herself as such; as devf, she is the lady who is played who also plays. llut there is more to Yudhis~'s words as they l1D'D from revetie to silence: " •.. Eyes like the petals of aullDnD lotuses, a fragrance as of autumn lotuses, a beauty that wails on aullDnD lotuses-the peer of Sn in her beanty. Yes, for her noncruelty (anrSl1JrlSYa), her perfection of form, the straightness of ber character (s(/a), does a man desire a woman (yam icchet p~a1J striyam). ... Her waist shaped like an altar, hair long (vedimadhyadCrghakdt), eyes the color of copper, not too much body hair ... such is the woman, king, such is the slender-waisted PiiilcaJI, wbom r now throw, the beautiful Draupadr" (58.33-37). It is impottant that Draupadr is not in the sabila to hear these words; they are not for her to hear but for Yudhis~ to remember. We DOW see that while it is his hearing DamayantI tell Nala, "~ya is the highest dharma, so r heard from you" (3.67.15cd; see p. 228 above), that begins Yudhis~ra's long and painful edncation about ~ya, it is this unforgettable scene-the first to use the term in connection with him, and with be himself, like Nala, the speaker-that grounds "noncruelty" for him, we might say above all, in the big and little cruelties of his marriage. It is clear that in all this talk about betting oneself, Draupadr's question is a philosophical one about the nature of self, compounded by legal issues of mastery, lordship, property, olWlership, and slavery in the

.56f.,ipncr says that Yud~ra -[tlor a moment . . . muscs- here (1994, 203); but as we shall see, it is wrdy more than that

Draupadr's Question 261 hierarchical context of marriage, and symbolized around the figure of the ultimate lord, master, and owner, the king, in relation to a subjecthood and objecthood of the queen, his wife. These themes are discernible in the Sanskrit,'" as are those we have noticed in Na1lJ of possession of self verses possession by the madness of dicing, and, one senses, the theme of love and abandonment, of love between six people in one and the same marriage tested to the breaking.poim especially in BhIma's and Arjuna's different expressions of near-insubordination. Listen to what Yudhisthira says when he bets himself just before he wagers Drnupadr: "r am leit, so beloved of all my brothers. Won, we sball do work for you when the self is itself a deluge" (upap"'v.; 58.27). Slipping into his loving reverie, Yudhis~ descends into silence ooce he has lost ber. Here we see DraupadI's question from a new angle. Yudhis~'s loss of, self appears-it is only described so by others-to be a loss of consciousness, like Nala's. Yet is he unconscious? What is the nature of the "self at stake" in DraupadI's question? Here we seem to be in an agonistic multidialogical situation that reverberates with Upanigadic scenes in which fathers and sons, gurus and disciples, and even men and women churn the oppositional languages of rivalry and status to release the saving knowledge of what is one." (}arg!, whose questions to Yljilava1kya are like arrows; Y~iiava1kya to Maitreyi, renouncing the world and saying goodbye forever to his dearerthaJH:ver "knowledge-discoursing (brahmavildinI)" wife: "not for love of. the hnshand is a hnshand dear, but for love of the Mman •.. ; not for love of the wife.... "" We should not forget the limils such dialogues impose on the women speakers." But bere, where only one of the partners is speaking and the other is silent, the speaker is the woman. Does she speak, at least for now, for both of them, while Yudhisthira cannot, or will not, speak for himself! .. As Na'" has demonstrated, in the MahobhiJrata, the language of such questions and answers is compounded by proto-SllJ!Ikhya-Yoga and bhakri (see chapter 6, § B). AI Collins (1994, 3-4) shows how a sovereign self, male (pu~a), replicates itself in other selves through a "scale of forms"

"The main tenDs covering these meanings arc I1a and an.lJa, which I have cited freq.Jcdly. translating iJa as -mas1cr.· Attwo palm, DraupadiisaJso said to be "lordJc:ss- (an4lJravoJ) or, u·van Buitcoen tnnslates (1975.141, J46), ·without protcc:tors- (60.24cd. 61.52b). ~f. Witzcll987a. Ooe may uk whether Draupadi's ~cstioD ovetrQCbcs the limits ofher knowledge (371-n). Iwould UJUc that it does not; sec below on Oraupadi" and the question of Ilvid:y4, "ignorance,· and bet rccognitioo all • ·~it... "SceBAUp 3.6 and 8, balh p=oting GilJli, and 2.4 (esp. lllanZa 5).lId 4.5 (esp........ 6); bom the world (iukam . . : nivr:ttiniraram)"' and was ·delighting in the self (4Im4r4ma1J)"' (BhP 1.7.8 and 9}-i.e., before the story of Krsna could have happened. Cf. Hiltebeitel 1999a, 263-96, on the Bhavifya PuT'f2IyJ. ,. , ·'1t appean as R4m 7, App. 13. Althougb the editor U. P. Shab finds it uniVersally attested, he says, "StiU however we fed that it is an early interpolation.· and ·Wilhout this pusage of 56 lines, the COf1(jnuity of namboo between sargas 88 and 89 is DOl hampered and appears in bc:ner order- (1915. 29). This cdjtors feelings also fUide bim in rejecting 7, App. 7. aootber passage conoeming Kuia and Lava that requires §auughna and his anny lO keep (he secret of (he boys' birth from Rima. :lllSee chap. 3 at n. 99. and also chap. 4. § D, at n. 108.

.1,

Vyiisa and Suka: An Allegory of Writing

286 Chapter Eight only the UttarakiilJ4a sets this scene in the vicinity of Naimi1'l Forest. Nothing of this sort is said in the BillakalJ4a. It is thus precisely the UttarakiilJ4a that adopts and inverts this MahiJbhilrata convention. This could of course mean that it is late. Or perhaps the poet adopted it in midstream, or saved it for the end. Now as we have seen (chapter 3, § C), Ugrasravas, who of coorse brings the MahiJbhilrata to the ~is of the Naimisa Forest, supplies ns with what we might call a bit of sideshadowing (see chapter 2, § A). Sometime before his recitation there, his father LomaharsaI!" had taught him the Asttkaparvan after hearing Vyasa recite it too at the Naimi:?3Forest (1.13.6-7; 14.1-4). The Suka story may take ns back to Naimi~3Ia.J;lya,

but for the moment, it begins elsewhere.

B. Coming Here, Going There Brusma begins his stnry "in a !CaI1llkiira forest on the peak of Monnt Mem (meruSfllge)," where "Mahadeva sported, surronnded by his terrible hosts of spirits," in the company of "the daughter of the monntain king [piirvatr]." There Vyiisa "nnderwent divine tapas. Having settled himself by yoga, devoted to yoga-dharma, engaged in holding fast [in meditatinn: dJulrayan], he did tapas to get a son, 0 best nf Korns. 'Let my son be endowed with the energy (vfrya) of fire, earth, water, wind, and space, 0 superinr nne,' he said. Thus by a resolution hard to attain by nnperfected selves, engaged in the ansterest tapas, he cansed Siva to give a bnnn" (310.11-15). Vyiisa worships Siva living upon wind for a hnndred years snrronnded by such hosts as the heavenly ~is, world

regents, Gandharvas. Apsarases, gods, winds, oceans, and streams" Note that he resolves something difficult for those of "unperfected selves"-a tag that can refer here only to Vyasa himself, and which was nsed jnst a few lines earlier to describe those who will find it difficult to nnderstand this story. Vyasa's resolve and Yudhis!hira's (and oor) effort to nnderstand what he is up to are thns made comparable. Vyasa resolves to have a son with the "energy" of the elements, and when Siva, gratified by Vyiisa's tapas and bhakti, responds, he teUs him, "as if with a smile," that he will get jnst what he asked for. But theu Siva changes the terms: "Yoor sou will be great, as pore (suddhn) as fire, wind, earth, water, and space" (26-28). Although no nne seems to have noticed it, we must of course suspect that the change from "energy" to "purity" will go on to make all the difference. As the second adhyaya (311) opens, Vyiisa, choming a firestick'l to make fire, sees the lustrons celestial Apsaras GhftiicI radiating beauty by

her own tejas, and is suddenly befuddled with desire. Seeing him so, she becomes a female parrot (suki) and draws near him. Her parrot fonn excites him even more, and despite his best efforts to suppress a passion that pervades his every limb, and to work all the harder to start the fire, "his spenn suddenly feU dnwn on the firestick (artDJyilm eva sahasii tasya sukram aviipatat). Without mental scmples, the best of the twicebom churned the firestick (artDJfm mamantlul) and the Brahmarsi Suka was born from it. Of great tapas, Suka was born when the spenn was churned out (sukre nirmathyamane). That supreme ~i and great yogin was born from the womb of a firestick" (311.1-10). The implication that this scene wonld have elevated meaning to those of purified souls serves, for those who do not-the author as protagonist, the first listener (Yudhis!hira), and other audiences-to suggest that by its insistent restraints the text designs a kind of cautionary yet enticing screen. As Vyasa suppresses his desire, so Yudhis!hira sets the model for listeners and readers by suppressing any questions about the "lower" meaning of the enigma he has jnst heard. But for an enigma, lower

meaning is no less than higher meaning. and the screen invites one to look through it at both. What Yudhis!hira has jnst heard is a crescendo of spiraling complements or doubles: a subject treated by Doniger (1993b), but with a few things still left to notice. These include, first,

fire : desire, GhftiicI (whose name means "Sacrificial Ladle fnIl of Clarified Butter")" : a female patrot (suki), and the mother (an Apsaras and parrot) : a firestick (araJ!i). Yudhis!hira, who as we know is good at riddles, uses the smnewhat

impersonal termjananr, "genetrix," for "mother," and has left things open to the answer he now receives: that Suka has no biological mother but rather a series of manipulable female formations detached from any maternal body." Yudhis!hira will soon be able to infer that

motherlessness is a distinct advantage for a seeker of

mo~,

for as

Narada will teU Suka, "an embryo falls into the womb like a calamity"" and has no more control over its cooking, digestion, and emergence from a mother's body than does her piss and shit."

nSee Dowger 1993b, 41, on this along with the single firestick as a feminine symbol. 13Patton 1998 treats the increasing tendency in Vedic texts to detach female bodily elements and processes, most notably in relation to the term garbha (womb/embryo), from the biological domain to that of manipulable sacrificial ritual and symbolism, as we find here. 20'318.20: upadrava

2IArm:tfm, singular: 311.1.

287

iVdvi~!o

yoniJ!! garbhaJ!. prapadyate.

13"Where food and water are wasted and food digested, even in this belly, why is an embryo

··-r

288 Chapter Eight Although arl1l1( is a feminine rerm, it is a convention that the vertical churning stick is male and the "churned" one below it female.'" The male stick is ordinarily prescribed to be made of a§vattha wood, whereas the female "stick" shoold be tamfgarbhat, "from the womb of the ~. " Though some texts come to view this as referring to a ~ tree itself, the older meaning is that this stick shoold be made from au a§va!tha tree that has been eoclosed hy a ~. Both sticks are thus snpposed to be made of a§vattha. Z'I Since Soka is only hom from one of them, it is best to suppose that it is the feminine one. Indeed, the text woold seem to hold au echo of the Vedic prescription: Soka is "hom from the womb of au ar:l\II (arl1l1rgarbhn-sa/1lbhnvalj)" -the feminine aIllJ!I, one assumes. Soka is thus called AniJ)eya, "Son of the firestick" (12.311.21; 312.41; 314.25). "The narrative then confums some additional doubles: "A1; Agni kindled in sacrifice shines wben coosumiog the offering, so the beautiful Suka took binh as if hlazing forth with splendor. Bearing the nonpareil color and form of his father, 0 Kauravya, he of purified sool then shone blazing like a smokeless fire" (311.10-11). If Soka has his father's color, it must be dark or hlack, since one of Soka's epithets is Kars\ll, "son of ~\Ill," after his father's name ~\Ill Dvaipayana, which is itself explained hy Vyasa's dark complexion. But this might make Soka's "blazing like a smokeless fire" rather paradoxical, since what makes fires "dark," and more specifically "black-pathed" (Ia:~1)lIWUtma/l), is the dark smoke from the fat of animal sacrifices. Parrots, however, beiDg green, we may asSume a color chart that allows "dark," "green," and "fiery" to be ranged together. Thus the pairs fire : Soka dark: green dark fire : fiery radiance Indeed, the "smokeless fire" that Soka resembles evokes the "purified fire" of vegetal offerings produced by pouring ghee onto the flames from

DOt digested lib food? ~ passaiC of embryos, piss, and shit is regulated

by its own

nature. No ooe bas the power to bold them back or expel them" (garbhamlUraPM~ """'h4\ovoiya1d gaJih/ dhilrtmt '" ><sa'lt '" no k upon which the divine GalIga flowing by in her "own form" is by implication the celestial GalIga, the Milky Way. The "back of Meru" would seem to imply something hidden from the

course and is "conversant with the knowledge of mo~. n he then says,

"ordinary" vantage point from which one views the cosmic mountain,

"Go to King IanaIra, lord of Mithila. He will tell you the meaning of in its totality and particulars" (6). Vylisa's attitude is intriguing. Showing none of the mixed blessings he keeps for the Bhirala line, his dedication to Suka is unmixed and total. Vyasa's directions for Suka's journey are said to be "unsurprising (avismitali)." Yet they are anything but:" "Go by a huntan path. Don't go by !he power of moving through the air (manu.re~a tvam patha gacha ... nnprabhaveJ1agantavyam antarilqacareJ111 vair (312.8). Vyisa telIs his "parrot"-son to walk, not fly, but the directions and journey aie ambiguous on this very point. Suka should take a kind of yogic beeline: "Go straight, not by the path of desire for pleasure. Don't pursue distinctions, especially ones involving attachments. Don't exhibit ego (ahamkara) before that king who sponsors sacrifices" (9-lOb)." The mo~

31

12.224-47; Bedekar 1966, ccxiii--eexv; see chap. 2 at n. 138.

nI2.238.13b: anailihyamanagamam; cf. Ganguli({1884-96} 1970. t I:218, and NUakal.1!ha on 12.246.13b in Kinjawadckar 1929-33, 5:467. :HIn the Namya"f'ya too, Vyfsa teaches the Vedas and the Mbh to S~ka and the other four disciples "on Meru, best ofmountains, lovely, inhabited by Siddhas and Cara~s" (327.18). "'~~'s primary meanina: is cbact. hind part.'" A secondary rneanini. c upper _side.., surface, top, heigb1;" allows the uanslation cpeat" (Fitzgerald 1981, 1). But (he epic has many precise tcnns for "peat'" or "top" (e.g., iikhara, fikha, b:J\ga, ~, IUnga). At 1.106.8, the ditrentiation is clear: Pll)(,\u and his wives roam on Cthe southern side (dakfi'!LI~ pIlrlvam) of Himavat ... and on the backs of mountains (girip~~~he~u", -sug· gcsting an opposition between southern "sides" and "backll" in the other directions. In the Sub story too, «back" as the primary meaning simply makes sense, whereas "'top" is strained, incomplete, perhaps at best that which one needs to reach i~ order to gel 10 the back, 10 su it. Indeed, not only shall we find that other usages in the Mbh resonate wilh the meaning -back" as something "beyond," but so do several ~g Vedic usaies, according to Laurie Patton (whom I thank for these refen:nces and her COlJUDents on their ·polysemic" readings): e.g., Agni as gh~p~#W. -be whose back is brilliant wllh gbee"~ l?V 6.24.6: "From you, 0 Indn, they conduct (their processioo.?) with (lheir) hymns and rites, like waters from the ridge/back of the mountain (parvatasya pmMd)"; cf. 5.61.2; 6.73.5 (patton, personal communication, May 1998).

-.

ltUpatastJuu, literally, ~hey approached- him. They make themselves accessible to-rom with the result that be fuUy knows them.

s'llenlClllbct-. Vym is one of Bhi~'s sources. )lJanaka is Vyasa's sacrificial patron (312.11; 313.10), and Vyasa is Janab's gum (313.2-4)-a relationship and synchronism one does not hear of in the Rdm, where Janab is SM's father. Indeed, it is a synchronism about which Yudhi~ra is wise not to 18K.

292 Chapter Eight "unsurprising" itinerary alternates flightpaths with landscapes and mixes cosmography with geography. Suka heads off "on foot, though be was able to traverse the earth with her seas through the sky. Crossing mountains and fording rivers and lakes, as also varied woods filled with many beasts of prey, and the two var~as of Mern and Hari, as also gradually traversing Haimavat varsa, he came to Bllarata varsa. Traversing its regions inhahited hy Chinese and Huns," he came to this region, Aryavana, pondering (vicintayan)" (12-15). Suka thus leaves the forested heavens around his father's hermitage on the "back" of Mount Mern, in the vicinity of Naimisa Forest; crossing "down" into Bbaratavarsa, he arrives in Aryavarta, the Vedic heartland of northern India. Geography aside, he prohably takes the same "descending" route that Vyasa takes when he comes and goes into his story. One senses that the author's charge to his son to do it on foot is meant to cover his own lack of traces, to suggest that his flights of fancy are also grounded. Bhisma tells us that Suka keeps "pondering" the "unsurprising" directions. Not only does Suka "ponder" as he enters Aryavana. Walking "by the command of his filther's word, and also pondering its meaning," he traverses "the path like a bird going in the sky. Passing through delightful towns and thriving cities, seeing varied jewels, Suka did not notice" (312.16-18). We are told he is walking, but his path is like a bird's. His birdy walk across the universe takes "not so long a time" (aciret!aiva kalena; 19) to reach the Videhas (Plural): both the people and kingdom, and the "bodiless ones,"" making the destination as ambiguous as the starting place and the route. The phrase artham vicintayan, "pondering its meaning, " is recurrent: Suka passes by the flOurishing gardens of Mithila and "ponders the(ir) meaning, gratified with the pleasure-ground of self" (24). Reaching the inner palace's chambers, he finds no distraction in fifty ravishing courtesans and

reviews the experience before he sleeps by "pondering its meaning" (43).41 Vyasa gives his son riddles that we (no douht with Yudhis!hira) "ponder" with him. The fourth adhyaya (313) is filled with updated upanisadic teachings and set in the upanisadic frame of King Janaka's coun-Janaka being the Upanisadic king' who plays host to numerous Brahman sages. His

"As discussed in chap. t. § C. Va1:fo ordinarily refers to divisions of the earth separated by nine mountain ranees: Kuro. Hira~ya. Ramyaka"Divrta, Hari, KelUmili, BhadrUva, Kimna~. and Bbirata. SUk. thus travels at least from Hari to Bhirata. *'l'bc name has this explicit explanation in DBhP (Bcdekar 1965, 99, 102, 106); cf. Brown 1996, IS9-n. Franldin. 1944. SabMparvan. Introduction and apparatus. In SuIahankar el al. 1933-70, vol. 2. Erdosy, George, ed. 1995. The Indo-Aryans of ancient Soulh Asia: Language, material culJure and tlhnidty. New DeUli: Munshiram Manoharlal. Falk. Harry. 1986. Bruderschajl und Wuifelspiel. UoJersuchungen ",r EntwickIwlgsgeschichle der vedischen·Opfers. Freiburg: Hedwig Falli. - - . 1988. Goodies for India: Literacy, on.Iity, and Vedic culture. Erscheinungsjormenku1JereUerProz.esse. Jahrbuch 1988 des Sonderforschungsbereichs

"Oberginge und Spannungsfelder zwischen MOndlicbket und SchriftlicbkeiL" 103-20. Tiibingen: Gunter NaIT Verlag. - - - . 1993. Schrifl im allen Indien: Em Forschungsbericht mil Anmerkungen. TIibingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Falk. Nancy Auer. 1977. Draupaeli and the dharma. In Rita M. Gross, ed., Beyond androcenlrism: Newessayson m7men and religion. 89-114. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press. Peller, Danielle. 1999. Review of Bigger 1998. AS/EA. 53, 3:811-14. - - . 2000. '1b.e Sanskrit epics' representation of Vedic myths." Pb.D. dissertation. Lausanne: University of Lawanne. (See also Danielle Jatavallabhula.) Pinkelberg, Margalit. 1998. The birth of lilerary fiction in ancient Greece. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Fitzgerald. James L. 1980. "Tbe mok.1a anthology of the Greal Blulrata. An initial survey of structural issues, themes, and rhetorical strategies." PhD dissertation. Chicago: University of Chicago.

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Iliad. 2, 6, 21 n. 83, 33 n. 5, 40 28, 167, 215 n. 1

D.

Impalement, 191-94 100.., 150 n. 75 Indra, 44, 49, 52-54, 64, 68-70, 80, 119-20, 134, 135-37, 142, 144, 147-48, 150, 154-56, 164 n. 117, 167,171, 189c90, 197, 199,213, 223-24,236, 238 n. 51,246, 272, 274-77,290 n. 35, 305. See also Five Former Ind.raS Indraprastha, 11,49, 85-86, 264 . Indra,ena Nii
20, 69 n. 133; Pauloma. lOS, 113-14; P~a, 113, 170. 196; P>aradarsana, 68, 82;R~adha~ ma, 69 n. 133; Sabhd, SO, 244, 250, 252; Salya. 62; SIinIi, 13, 20. 28, 66. 67 n. 128. 69, 118, 155-56, 273 n. 90, 282; 290; Sauplika, 62; Strr, 66; SvargltroluuJa, 273, 277; Udyoga, 54,

252-53,256;

Vlr~,218,236-37

Parvata, 54, 72, 79, 81. POrvafi, 286, 3JO D. 107, 313 Paiupata weapoD, 58-59 PiJalipucra. 13-14, 16-17 Pataiijali, 27 Penelope, 218 D. 8, 222 D. J8, 235, .

264 n. 66, 322 u. 152 PJaksa Prlisravana, PJaksa ProSravans, 143-51, 153-55, 161 n. 108, 171; P1a~a.vatara~ lirtba, 44, 147-50 Plaro, 35, 93 n. 7, 167, 313-14 . Possession, 220-36, 253, 261--62 P5ttu Raja, 191-92 Prabblisa, 85, 90, 139 n. 27, 142, 151-52, 160 PrabbiltaralOa Buddha, 168 Prajapatl, 144, ISO, 157, 167,211 Pramati, 113-14 Pramas, questions, 218, 240, 270, 276-77 Prallsmrn, 52-53, 65-66 Primary process, 102

185, 198

D.

57,208,217

D.

5

RtlmdyaJ)a. 5-6, 9, 11. 14, 16, 19•.

22,38,53,73,94 D. 11, 112, 124-25, 179,205-6,208,221, 270 D. 80,285, 296 n. 52, 317-20,322 RavaJ.lll, 17 n. 60, 19 n. 71, 177, 318, 320 Rome, 6, 31,240 D. 3 ~is, celestial, 45, 64, 71-72, 285-86, 305 D. 86, 309, 321 D. 143 ~tuparna, 224c25, 230-35,239 Rudra, 134-36 RIIkm4ll, 86 n. 188, 254 Rum. 113. 119, 170, 196,204

sabha, 158 D. 97, 227, 240, 242, 244-47,249-50,252,254-55, 257,259-60,273-74,277,284 D. 16 Sacrifice Df baule, 137 Sadasya, sadasyas, 77.103-4, 115, 120, 135, 161, 163, 165 Sabadeva. 147 D. 60, 183, 239. 248, 266 Sairaudhrl, 229, 231, 234, 263 n. 63 sakas, 14, 30 Rabbis, Rabbinical hermeneutics, 4 D. Sakuni, 59, 211 D. 96, 220 D. 14, 247-49, 260, 262 21, 36 n. 19, 199 D. 60, 205 n. Salya, 211 n. 96,219 D. 11,296 D. 76,208 n. 88,215 D. 1 54 Rajagriba, 13 Samf, Samigarbha, 288, 314 D. 127 Rajasilya, 6, 8-9, 30 D. 25, 31, SamiIr. 119-20, 156 50-51, 73-74, 131 D. 2, 154 n. Sa1!'jaya, 34, 40 D. 26, 53-61, 64, 85,159,178,241 n. 6, 277 66, 79, 83, 101 D. 35,213-14, Riilc!asas, 53, 124, 159 D. 101, 173, 279, 316 175 n. ISS, 199,209,213,278, S~ya, S~ya-Yoga, 172,234 283 D. 13, 295, 301, 316, 321 D. D. 41, 261, 263-64, 272-74, 291, 143 299 D. 64, 311 D. 113 Rama, Rama Daiaratlii, 3, 8-9, 19, Sarasvati River, 44, 98 D. 24. 22,38,73,87,94 D. 11, lOS, J20-26, 128-30, 132, 138-43, 112, 124, 160, 178 D. lW, 206, 145-55, 157-58, 160-01, 173, 2OS-9, 218 D. 7, 221.285; 284 D. 16,310 D. 107; as 317-22; as Dbarmarlija, 321 Kiiica~i. 123j celestial, 151 n. Rama lamadagny., Bblirgava Rlima, 80, 153 n. 84; Sapta Slirasvata ParaSurima. 53 n. 80; 69. 108-9, 'rIIlba, 123-24 112-13, 116-18, 179, 180-82,

P!tbu Valnya, 9

PuJastya, PauJastya, 43-45, 53, 113, 159 D. 102. 173, 319 D. 138, 320 Punic Wars, 31 PuTU¥', 221. 234-35, 260-63 Pu~ottama. ~a, 64, 162, 213 ~kara, brother of NaJa, 224, 226 Puskara, Lake, 279 Sudga, 16, 26 n. 105, 177

Pu!yamitra

362

Index

Sarayii River, 38, 124 Sanlgaka birds, 131 n, 1, 199 Sarvamedha, 73-74 Sot(, suttee, 82-83, 86, 195 n. 51 Sattras, 26 n. lOS, 94, 98, 110, 132-39, 144, 155-60, 194, 282 n. 11; and Vratyas, 132-40, 148, 151. ISS, 159, 160, 166, 170-71; at Naim.i~a Forest, 94, 99. 110, 118-30, 131-32, 156, 158, 161, 165-66, 170, 176, 282 n. 11; Baka Diilbya's, 128-29; lanamejaya's at Ku~etra. 170; Janamejeya's Snake sattra at TaIqa.lilii, 100, ll5, 132, 135, 137, 139, 165, 174; of snakes in Paiicavin:l!a Briihmatta, 127 n. ll3, 168; Saunaka's, 94-95, 98-99,102, llO, ll8, 157, 167, 173; Yama's, 119-20, 124. 130, 131-38, ISS, 158, 161, 164, 168 n. 129, 171. See also Gavim-

• 107.311-13; Saiva, 18, 164 n. 118, In, 254 n. 43. See also Rudra .Sixteen Kings, 7. '9, 19 n. 71. 67 Snakes, 20, 84, 102, 106, 113-18, 124, 142, 162, 168, 170-71, 174, 195-97, 204, 229-30. 301; Snake sacrifIce, 12, 38, 42, 76. 84, 92. 94,98-100, 114-15, 117, 132. 135, 137, 139. 162, 165, 174, 279,284, 285 Socrates, 314 Sri, .in, 87, 120, 127 n. 108, 167, 219 n. 11,254 n. 43,260,265 Stars, 4, 9, 71, 80, 82, 148-SO, 153-54, 158, 160-61, 166 n. 122, 168. 271, 305 n. 68, 307 n. 94, 310 n. 107, 315; astrology, 9-10, 185 n. 23. See also Big Dipper; Dhruva; Ga~ga; Mountains. Meru; Na~a. Forest; ~i.s.

celestial Subhadrii, SO, 81, 142 n. 40, 185, soan., 132-35, 157, 161, 165, 267 167-68, 174 Sub, 29-31, 42-44, 50, 70, 115, Satyavati-Kili. 42, 45, 47-48, 270. 278-84,286-98, 300-13, 316-19 282 Sukra. 287, 289 SaUnaka, 12 n. SO, 29, 34 n. ll, 44, Sukra, U§anaa, 69, 111-12, ll6 n. 53, 94-95, 98-99. 102-6, 110, 74, ll7 n. 76 113-14, 117-18, 131-33, 156-57. SumaIllU. 50. n 161, 165-67, 169-76, 196,276, Sunda and Upasunda, SO, 265 282 n. 11; school. 173 n. 48 . Silla, 13 n. 151,34 n. 11,57.95 n. Seven J.qis. See Big Dipper 13, 99 n. 28, 102 n. 38, 105-6, Shadows, 297, 304. 312, 314, 317, 282 n. 12; Sauti, 12-14, 17, 29, 322 83-85, 102, ll4 Sideshadowing, 37-38, 58, 286 Sifras, 27, 204 TaIqaka, 113. ll5 S~umirapuram, 185 n. 23, 197 n. 56 Tak!alila, 11. 14.92. 170 S~upiila, 85, 211, 214 Tamil, Tamilnadn, 97, 103 n.' 42, sua, 19 n. 71, 124,208,218 n. 7, 121 n. 92, 167, 189, 191,200 n. 259 n. 55, 268 n. 76, 285, 291 n. 64, 215, 220 n. 13, 237, 253 38, 318-21 Ttu>-Ie ching, 315 Siva, Mahideva, 13, 49, 51, 53, Thought entire: Vasudeva and 58-59, 70, 74, n, 107 n. 53, AJjuna's, 54, 57; Vyisa's, 12, 120, 136, 139, 148-49, ISS, 54-55, 90, 96, 97 n. 19, 101-2, 178-79,189. 195 n. 51, 200 n. 108,114,157,168,314 67,215,237,286,304,310 n. Three Kr!I)IlS, 273 n. 90

ayana; Ydlsattra

Tilottama, SO, 265 Timaeu.s, 35 n. 16, 93 n. 7,313-14 Time, Kiila, 36-45, 55, 58, 62-65, 67-68,89,91. 96-97.114-15, 119-21, 138 n. 21, 158, 166, 223, 235 n. 43,264-65, 281-82. 284, 293-96, 298, 319; and place, 225, 232, 264, 281; darlc times, 48; cooks, 39, 101; playing for, 263 n. 63, 264, 270; three limes, 70, 77. See also Chronotope~ Interval;

43 n. 36. 53,69, 102 n. 37,109 n. 58, 112 n. 64, 139 n. 27, ISO, 158. 208, 253, 283 n. IS, 284, 313 n. 122

Vas~!ha,

Vasudeva, &5-86, 88 Vasudeva. See ~911

Viisuki, 174 Viiyu, 135, 137 Veda. See Athnrva Veda; Kdr'fI!<J Veda; MaMbhiirala, and Veda;

Vyasa as Vedavyasa

Vedi, 187 Vicitravlrya, 47, 126, 192 Videha, 29-30, 144, 184 n. 17, ll9 n. 82 292-93, 308 n. 100 Tf~bh verses, 18 n. 70, 242 n. 8 Vidura. 29, 45, 48. 52, 64, 79, 81-82, 84, 113, 163, 192-95, 202 Ugrakali, 191 n. 71, 210, 241, 243, 256-58, Ugra§ravas, 12,29, 34. 42, 72 n. 280, 282, 312: and Dharma, 140, 83, 90, 94-96. 98-106, 110 192-94,210,241,256,276; son n. 59, 113-14, ll7-18, 282 n. 11 of Atri, 45 UlCipI, 208, 266 n. 69 Vikafl)ll, 248-49 Umii,74 ViUip