topics: |  india | myth | religion |

v.s. sukthankar was a noted expert on sanskrit epics, the editor of the well-known bhandarkar "critical edition" of the mahAbhArata.

in 1942 sukthankar was invited by the university of bombay to deliver four lectures on the "meaning of the mahabharata". however, in january 1943, on the day of the fourth and last lecture, well after a large number of people had reached the lecture-hall, they received the shocking news that prof. sukthanar had passed away that very morning. the audience then converted the meeting "into a condolence meeting and paid their respects to the memory of this distinguished devotee of the great epic."

a dozen years later, the manuscript of these lectures were obtained from his son and they were published as this book.

the first lecture traces the history of mahAbhArata scholarship in the west, and is quietly critical of many of western scholars. it would take several more decades before edward said opened our eyes to to some of these moves which are now well-understood as part of the orientalist stance.

the essay is hardly known, and i am excerpting large chunks from it, since it makes for great history, and you get a glimpse into the mind of a very superb, contrarian scholar.

lecture I: the mahAbhArata and its critics

"the mahAbhArata," wrote hermann OLDENBERG [1854-1920], " began its existence as a simple epic narrative. it became, in course of centuries, the most monstrous chaos."

a forceful and imaginative writer, oldenberg has drawn for us a vivid pen-picture of this chaotic epic or epic chaos, as it appeared to him, which is worth quoting in extenso as a piece of fine rhetoric :

	Neben der Haupterzahlung gab es dort wahre Urwälder kleinerer
	Erzählungen, dazu zahllose und endlose Belehrungen über
	Theologisches, Philosophisches, Naturwissenschaftliches, Recht,
	Politik, Lebensweisheit und Lebensklugheit. Ein Gedicht voll
	tiefsinnigen Träumens und Ahnens, zarter Poesie, schulmeisterlicher
	Plattheit - voll von funkeln-dem Farbenspiel, erdrückenden, sich
	zerdrückenden Massen von Bildern, vom Pfeilregen endloser Kampfe,
	Gewimmel über Gewimmel todesverachtender Heiden, übertugendlicher
	Mustermenschen, berückend schoner Frauen, Jähzorniger Asketen,
	abenteuerlicher Fabelwesen, toller Mirakel -- von leerem Wortschwall
	und von weiten, freien Blicken in die Ordnungen des Weltlaufes.

[a forest of smaller narratives were mixed into the main tale, along with
ruminations on theology, philosophy, science, law, politics, life wisdom.
profound poetry mixed with the tender, the pedantic and the platudinous.
one is overwhelmed by the sparkle of colours - one picture after another
like an endless stream of arrows.  swarms of death-defying tribes run
through its pages, along with enchanting women, irascible ascetics,
adventurous imaginary creatures, and great miracles.  empty verbiage runs
side by side with perceptive passages on how the world works.]

this quizzical verdict of the great german indologist - a veritable prodigy
of industry and erudition - appears indeed to be justified.
... there are indeed noticeable, winding in and out of the capacious and
multitudinous folds of this prodigious and remarkable tapestry, unmistakable
traces of some great and complex action. but on account of the mass of
legends and disquisitions in which the main theme lies embedded, it is
difficult to make out even the main outlines of the story underlying the
action.

"swollen by these inventions," as one sympathetic critic of the mahAbhArata
touchingly protests, "the portentous volumes are enough to damp the spirit
of the most ardent who, starting off gaily upon their journey, are soon
faced by the deserts of levitical doctrine and the morasses of primitive
speculation, interesting only to the antiquarian."  owing to these
digressions, which seem to have grown like a malignant parasite on the
original heroic story and which do in a sense hamper the free movement of
the great drama, the poem appears not only to lose in artistic value but to
be even lacking in bare unity.

even such an ardent and passionate admirer of the mahAbhArata as romesh
chunder DUTT felt constrained to admit this defect in the poem, and bemoan
most eloquently the loss of the original primitive epic.  he has told us how
he pictured to himself the lamentable process of this progressive
deterioration.  he wrote (1898):

	the epic became so popular that it went on growing with the growth
	of centuries. every generation of poets had something to add;
	every distant nation in northern india was anxious to interpolate
	some account of its deeds in the old record of the international
	war; every preacher of a new creed desired to have in the old epic
	some sanction for the new truths he inculcated.  passages from legal
	and moral codes were incorporated in the work which appealed to the
	nation much more effectively than dry codes; and rules about the
	different castes and about the different stages of human life were
	included for the same purpose.  all the floating mass of tales,
	traditions, legends, and myths .... found a shelter under the
	expanding wings of this wonderful epic; and as krishna worship
	became the prevailing religion of india after the decay of buddhism,
	the old epic caught the complexion of the times, and krishna-cult is
	its dominating religious idea in its present shape. it is thus that
	the work went on growing for a thousand years after it was first
	compiled and put together in the form of an epic; until the crystal
	rill of the epic itself was all but lost in an unending morass of
	religious and didactic episodes, legends, tales and traditions." p.2-3

if romesh DUTT, a thoroughbred "native" of india with just a thin veneer of
western culture, had after a life-long study of the epic failed to grasp the
real significance of what he elsewhere describes as "the greatest work of
imagination that asia has produced" [suthankar suggests that one may just as
well say "that the world has produced"] -- there is nothing strange in the
circumstance that most of the Western critics have like~ wise failed to do
so.  They have uniformly felt and exhibited a characteristic uneasiness -- I
may even say helplessness -- when faced with the -- to them, unnatural --
phenomenon of an avowedly narrative poem in which the "moral", so to say, is
nearly four times as long as the story itself. Their researches have,
consequently, revolved almost invariably 'round the idea of finding criteria
for distinguishing between the "early" and the "late" portions of the epic,
between the original and the interpolation, criteria for cutting away what
they naturally regard as the asphyxiating parasite and exposing the old,
primitive saga in its pristine purity and glory.

this definitive direction seems to have been given to western studies in
connection with the mahAbhArata almost from the beginning.  franz BOPP
[1791-1867], the father of indo-germanic philology, (who was also the first
in modern times to edit from manuscripts selected episodes from the
mahabharata and make them available in a printed form, had expressed this
opinion as early as more than a century ago -- in 1829 -- that all parts of
the epic were not of the same age, -- which is in a way no doubt quite true.

[BOPP was followed by LASSEN [1800–1876]- erudite analysis of
mahAbhArata... ]
in the MahAbhArata we have pieces belonging
to very different periods and of very different colour and content.
He tried therefore to separate the various strata and
to date them -- a very hazardous venture at any time.

to us these stratificatory adventures and chronological speculations of
LASSEN appear crude and puerile in the extreme; they were taken very
seriously by his contemporaries, and regarded as a stupendous advance in
their knowledge of the great epic of india.

owing to his very perfunctory study of this prodigious poem, the learned
author of the indische alterthumskunde had failed to realize that
eliminating the "krishnite " elements from our mahabharata was a not less
serious operation than removing all the vital elements from the body of a
living organism; and that consequently the residue would no more represent
the "original" heroic poem than a mangled cadavre, lacking the vital
elments, would represent the organim in its origin or infancy.

another notable attempt at reconstructing the original epic was made between
1883 and 1894 by the scandinavian scholar soren SORENSEN, to whom we also
owe the excellent index to the names in the mahAbhArata (london 1904-1925),
a solid contribution to mahAbhArata studies, indispensable to every serious
student of the great epic.  his attempts at reconstruction of the epic
kernel have unfortunately not proved equally valuable. [...]  [ss attempts
to construct an ur-text] the number of stanzas in sorensen's "ur-text" is
strangely close to the so-called "kUTashlokas" mentioned in an oft-cited
stanza which is a patent interpolation found in some very late Devanagari
manuscripts and which has consequently been rejected in the critical edition
of the mahAbhArata.

Auguste BARTH [1834-1916], on Sorensen's ur-text: "le methode de I'auteur,
malgre toutes le precautions possible, est arbitraire et ...... le probleme
tel qu'il le pose, est en realite insoluble."  [the methods of the author,
despite all precautions, remain arbitrary... and the problem he poses is in
fact insoluble.]

later european scholars [did not pursue the idea of the ur-text, but]
contented themselves with theorizing about the nature and the character of
the "nucleus" and perfecting their criteria for distinguishing between the
"old" and the "new," the original and the spurious in the epic text.

[LUDWIG ?[1904-1978]: focus on how the text was joined together - is it harmonious or
clumsy?  [but clearly such a study cannot give dependable results, since it
would be subjective.]

this atomistic method reaches its culmination in tbe researches of the great
american indologist e. washburn HOPKINS [1857-1932], who had specialized in
the mahAbhArata and who, as a result of an intensive study of the epic
extending over many years, made the interesting discovery that there was no
text there at all.

he could see only a nebulous mass of incongruities, absurdities,
contradictions, anachronisms, accretions and interpolations ! " in what
shape," asks hopkins, " has epic poetry (in india) come down to us?" and his
own answer is: "a text that is no text, enlarged and altered in every
recension, chapter after chapter recognized even by native commentaries as
praksipta, in a land without historic sense or care for the preservation of
popular monuments, where no check was put on any reciter or copyist who
might add what beauties or polish what parts he would, where it was a merit
to add a glory to the pet god, where every popular poem was handled freely
and is so to this day."

the learned labours of
hopkins ultimately crystallized in the preparation of a complicated table of
approximate dates of the work in its different
stages, which he probably regarded as his greatest contribution
to the study of the epic and the final solution of the mahAbhArata
problem. here is the scheme of dates rigged up by
hopkins:

400 b.c. : bhArata (kuru) lays, perhaps combined into
	one, but with no evidence of an epic.

400 to 200 b.c. : a mahAbhArata tale with pANDu heroes,
	lays and legends combined by the puranic diaskeuasts ; kr^SNa
	as a demigod ; no evidence of didactic form or of kr^SNas divine
	supremacy.

200 b.c. to 200 a.d. : remaking of the epic with kr^SNa
	as all-god, intrusion of masses of didactic matter, addition of
	Puranic material old and new ; multiplication of exploits.

200 to 400 a.d. : the last books added with the introduction to the first
book, the swollen anushAsana separated from
shAnti and recognized as a separate book ; and finally,

400 A.D. :+ : occasional amplifications.

without wishing to detract from the merits of the work done by hopkins in
other fields, which may have its own value, i will say candidly that for all
intents and purposes this pretentious table is as good as useless "all
dates," says whitney, "given in indian literary history are pins set up to
be bowled down again." this was never more true than in the case of the
dates given by hopkins, which are in fact, one and all, quite hypothetical
and perfectly arbitrary. indeed there is not one figure or one statement in
the above table which can be verified or which can lay claims to objective
validity.

let me state here more fully, for the sake of clarity, the view-point of the
modern analytical criticism of the mahAbhArata.  modern criticism begins
with the assumption that the epic is definitely not the work of any one
poet, like most works of antiquity.  no one can write unaided a poem of
100,000 stanzas. we cannot possibly conceive any one man being equal to the
task attributed to the kr^SNadvaipAyana vyAsa.  the poem is therefore
unquestionably a compilation, embodying the work of many writers of varying
abilities -- some of them even real poets -- who have added to the original
corpus from time to time as it pleased them. The result is naturally a
confused assemblage of heterogeneous matter originating from different hands
and belonging to different strata.

a careful analysis of the poem from this view-point reveals the fact that in
its present form at least, the work has a radical defect in so far as it
consists fundamentally of two mutually incompatible elements, namely, a
certain "epic nucleus" and an extensive and undigested mass of
didactic-episodical matter, elements which are but loosely hinged together
and which form moreover an unbalanced combination.

the first element, the epic nucleus, is naturally the older component and is
presumably based on an historical reality, which is preserved in a highly
distorted and tendentious form but which retains nevertheless certain
genuine archaic features in fossilized condition such as polyandry and
levirate [a form of marriage in which the brother of a deceased man is
obliged to marry his brother's widow, and the widow is obliged to marry
him.]
-- these latter are of immense interest and importance for the study of
indian ethnology and prehistoric antiquity.

the nucleus mentioned above was now unfortunately used - or rather misused-
by wily priests, tedious moralists and dogmatizing lawyers as a convenient
peg on which to hang their didactic discourses and sacerdotal legends, which
have naturally no organic connection with the epic nucleus. this nucleus of
the epic, a kSatriya tale of love and war, does possess a sort of unity,
which is lacking entirely in the other element, the priestly episodes and
the moralizing discourses, which latter by themselves, loosened from their
moorings, would neatly and automatically fall apart. The epic story is in
part at least a fairly well-constructed narrative, worthy of our attention,
and produces the impression of having been yet more virile - a real "human
document" - before it was distorted in the process of assimilation with the
moralistic pabulum and legal claptrap of a grasping and degenerate
priesthood.

the mahAbhArata is in short a veritable chaos, containing some good and
much useless matter. it is a great pity that a fine heroic poem, which may
even be found to contain precious germs of ancient indian history, should
have been thus ruined by its careless custodians.

but it is not quite beyond redemption. a skilful surgical operation -
technically called "higher criticism" - could still disentangle the
submerged "epic core" from the adventitious matter - known to textual
critics as "interpolation" - in which it lies embedded. the mahAbhArata
problem thus reduces itself to the discovery of criteria which will enable
us to analyse the poem and to dissect out the "epic nucleus" from the
spurious additions with which it is deeply incrusted. this is the
"analytical theory" of the origin and the character of the mahAbhArata,
which was espoused by the majority of the western critics of the great epic
of india, chief among them being LASSER, WEBBER, LUDWIG, SORENSEN, HOPKINS
and WINTERNITZ.

this theory is obviously the outcome of superficial study.  the epic at
first sight does produce upon a casual observer the impression of being a
bizarre and meaningless accumulation of heterogeneous elements.  this first
impression, however -- as has been pointed out by HELD -- soon makes room for
a second, that of astonishment, as one realizes that this massive monument
of indian antiquity may undoubtedly lay claim to being more or less flawless
from the constructional view-point and withal perfectly balanced.  this fact
appears to have been clearly realized also by LUDWIG, himself an ardent
advocate of the atomistic theory, who was honest enough to admit the organic
unity of this stupendous poem. notwithstanding his preconceptions, which led
him to support the analytic theory, he confessed openly his inability to
explain how, in spite of the extreme complicacies' of mechanism, it operated
in a manner so precise that no crass contradictions were discernible in
this prodigious work, there being at most only vague traces here and there
of what might be regarded as such.

kauravas more heroic than pANDavas? internal inconsistencies

but that is not the end of the story. there is another little odd twist in
the poem, we are told: a subtle sort of topsy-turvydom underlying the story
and vitiating it from beginning to end.  the poem has obviously a didactic
purpose. it sets out clearly to inculcate a moral.  its method is to
contrast the life and fate of the righteous pANDavas and the unrighteous
kauravas, and to induce peqple to lead a good and virtuous life by
demonstrating that, in spite of appearances to the contrary, truth and
virtue do triumph in the end (yato dharmas tato jayaH).

This is undoubtedly a very laudable objective.  And yet even this simple and
clear aim is scarcely achieved by the poem. The characters do not
consistently act the parts which they are advertised to do.  The "heroes" of
the poem are indeed constantly talking about Dharma, but their actions belie
their hollow professions and do not conform even to the most elementary
standards of common morality.  They are not real heroes, with pure white
shining souls. They give one the impression rather of being "villains," who
have been liberally whitewashed by interested poets.

[e.g. yudhiSTira's lie to droNa about the death of ashvatthama, or bhIma's
hitting duryodhana on his thighs.
and even arjuna kills his grandfather bhISma while hiding behind an
efffeminate warrior with whom the old knight would not fight, and he kills
karNa while the latter is disadvantaged and pleading for time.]

can we regard these pANDava brothers as models of heroism, chivalry,
nobility or righteousness ?

the kauravas on the other hand unquestionably behave more honourably and on
the whole more magnanimously. they never stoop to employ such base and
ignominious tricks on the battlefield against their enemies.  they are
manly, courageous, chivalrous and noble.  these great scions of an old
aristocratic family could play more worthily the distinguished role of the
heroes of the indian epopee than the treacherous and sanctimonious pANDavas,
who show themselves to have been in reality ignoble parvenus and usurpers,
glorified by a later generation. the poem itself naively records that at the
moment of duryodhana's death, though the ungenerous and brutal bhIma was
mean enough to kick and trample on the annointed head of the fallen monarch,
the gods themselves showered flowers on the defeated hero. and this
duryodhana is now the villain of the piece! it is unnecessary to multiply
examples.

here is a paradox. the book gives itself out as a dharmagrantha.  with
uplifted arms, we are told, vyAsa proclaims that dharma is supreme in this
world. but that is a high ideal which even his characters -- his own
creations -- do not fulfil!

the poem does contain explanations condoning the "sins" of the pANDavas. but
that is a special pleading, sheer casuistry, which fails to carry conviction
to any but the most simple-minded of the readers.

the talented discoverer of this set of facts was ADOLF HOLTZMANN. it was to
explain this element of contradiction in the story that he thought out his
ingenious theory, which HOPKINS later styled the " inversion theory " and
which found many adherents. this

inversion theory

this criticism, which bases itself on the supposed want of unity in the
characters, is an effort to prove not merely a change but a complete
inversion (in our present story) of the original theme, which explains its
name "inversion theory."  "starting with the two-fold nature of
krishna-vishnu as man and god," as HOPKINS says in describing the theory,
"and with the glossed-over sins of the pandus, the critic argues that the
first poem was written for the glory of the kurus, and subsequenly tampered
with to magnify the pandus; and that in this latter form we have our present
epic, dating from before the fourth century b.c."  the first poem would thus
be completely changed, or, as one writer has expressed it "set upon its
head."

the indefatigable author of this theory, who had taken immense pains to
study the epic from various angles in search of arguments to support and
fortify his pet thesis, ultimately arrived at the following recondite
reconstruction of the epic, as summarized  by HELD :

	right back in the most ancient times there was a guild of
	court-singers who extolled in their professional poetry the mighty
	deeds of their monarchs. then came a talented poet who made of the
	original epic, composed in honour of the renowned race of the
	kauravas, a poem in praise of a great buddhist ruler, perhaps
	asoka. but now the new teaching, coming into conflict with the
	growing pretensions of the brahmins, begins to decline, and the
	priests convert the now popular poem to their own use, but reverse
	the original purpose of the work as a whole. now it is no longer the
	kauravas. who are lauded but their very adverseries, the pandavas,
	to whom a decided predilection for the brahmanical doctrine is
	ascribed.  the epic is subjected to further revision.  buddhism is
	eliminated altogether, both vishnu and krishna are thrust into the
	foreground, the epic is assimilated to the ancient and sacred
	chronicles of the puratnas and portions of a didactic character are
	interpolated. and in this revised and irrecognisably altered
	recension the epic was non-existent until the twelfth century a.d."

these wild aberrations of HOLTZMANN... hardly
deserve the name of a theory.  15

Buhler: epigraphic and other evidence for mahAbhArata dates

they are, as was pointed out by BARTH, not only at variance with the
probable course of the religious and literary history of India, but they
also stand in crass contradiction with positive and dated facts. The latter
relation was brought out especially by the quite independent investigations
of BUHLER regarding the mahAbhArata, which were more of a factitive
character...  as buhler showed, already in the eighth century the poem must
have had a form not very different from the one in which we now possess it,
namely, as a dharrnasastra or a smr^ti work, that is, a book of sacred
lore. the epigraphic evidence, moreover, clearly proved that the epic was
known as early as the fifth century a.d. as a work consisting of 100,000
stanzas and composed by the great r^si vyAsa.  from this clear and
unequivocal evidence, buhler drew the important conclusion that the work
must unquestionably have been extant in practically the same shape as at
present, several centuries prior to 400 a.d. this finding of BUHLER
demolished completely the rickety chronological framework of HOLTZMANN'S
fantastic reconstruction and made it clear that the historical background of
the thesis was, fundamentally, as unsound as it was absurd.

HOLTZMANN's theory found, however, a doughty champion
ih the Viennese Professor Leopold von SCHROEDER, who by
pruning away the more patent absurdities set it once more on
its legs, and even popularized it through the persuasive quality
of his felicitous style and suave mannerism.
... the inversion theme was retained and strengthened.

remodelled by the genial SCHROEDER, the inversion theory
took the following shape, as described by hopkins.

	the  original poet .... lived at a time when brahma was the highest
	god (700 to 500 or 400 b.c.) ; and this singer was a child of the
	kuru-land.  he heard reports of the celebrated kuru race that once
	reigned in his land, but had been destroyed by the dishonourable
	fighting of a strange race of invaders. this tragical overthrow he
	depicted in such a way as to make his native heroes models of
	knightly virtue, while he painted the victors (pandus, panchalas,
	matsyas), with krishna, hero of the yAdavas, at their head, as
	ignoble and shamefully victorious.  this is the old bharata song
	mentioned in AchvalAyana.

	after a time krishna became a god, and his priests, supported
	by the pandus, sought to make krishna (vishnu) worthy to
	be set against buddha. their exertions were successful.

	vishnu in the fourth century became the great god, and his grateful
	priests rewarded their helpers, the hindus, by taking the bhArata
	 poem in hand  and making a complete change in the story, so as to
	relieve them of the reproaches of the old poet. finally they worked
	it into such shape that it praised the pandus and blamed their
	opponents. about this time they inserted all the episodes that
	glorify vishnu as the highest god.  the pandus then pretended that
	they had originally belonged to the kuru stock, and the cousinship
	portrayed in the poem was invented ; whereas they were really an
	alien, probably a southern race.".)

this ill-conceived theory, though advocated by LASSEN, WiNTERNITZ and
J. J. MEYER, has been discountenanced for different reasons, by even BARTH,
sylvain LEVI, PISCHEL, JACOBI, 0LDENBERG, and. HOPKINS.

dishonourable conduct by the pANDavas

bhiSma, droNa, karNa and duryodhana were all killed in the war by
subterfuges or tricks which violate the strict axle of chivalrous and
knightly combats. but the kauravas are just as unscrupulous, if not indeed
more so ; only they are discreet and diplomatic in the extreme. their
"sins," as HOPKINS has pointed out, smack of cultivated wickedness. they
secretly try to burn their enemies alive.  they seek to waylay and kill the
ambassador of the pANDavas.  they form a conspiracy and send out ten men
under oath (saMshaptakas) to attack arjuna.  they slay arjuna's son first in
order to weaken arjuna's heart.  are these dark deeds worthy .  of models of
royal and knightly honour?  the truth is that the kauravas are crafty and
designing; they are shrewd enough not to break the smaller laws of
propriety. they plot in secret, hiding their deceitfulness under an
ostentatious cloak of justice and benevolence. they sin at heart, and
present to the world a smiling and virtuous face.

the pANDavas are on the other hand represented throughout as being truly
ingenuous and guileless they do "sin" they are human for that ~ but their
"sins" are palpably overt and markedly evident. .the   kauravas are
sanctimonious hypocrites; the wrath and animosity of the grossly outraged
pANDavas stare us in the  face.

HOPKINS: "society had advanced from a period when rude manners were
justifiable and tricks were considered worthy of a warrior to time when a
finer morality had begun to temper the crude royal and military spirit.
this is sufficient explanation of that historical anomaly found in the
great epic, the endeavour on the part of the priestly redactors to palliate
and excuse the sins of their heroes."

HELD has rightly rejected this specious explanation  of HOPKINS, pointing
out that there is no reason  to picture to ourselves those more primitive
cultures as a barbarian state of society in which "brutal warrior kings"
were rampant.

the atomistic methods of the advanced critics of the mahAbhArata having
proved barren of any useful or intelligent result, some attempt was ·made to
understand the poem as a whole. the most notable of these legitimate
endeavours was that of joseph DAHLMANN; and as such it deserves special
reoognition. a certain underlying unity of aim and plan in this gigantic
work was postulated and dogmatically emphasized by this great jesuit
scholar, who of all the foreign critcs of the mahAbhArata may be said to
approach nearest to any real understanding of the great epic of india.

[this theory] categorically repudiates as utterly fantastic the notion
that the great epic is but a haphazard compilation of disjointed
and incoherent units. it insists on the other hand  that the MahAbhArata
is primarily a synthesis, a synthesis of all the various aspects
of Law, in the widest sense of the term, covered by the Indian
conception of dharma, cast by a master intellect into the alluring
shape of a story, of an epic. in other words, the mahAbhArata
is an epic and a law-book (rechtsbuch) in one.
the poem is, as indian tradition has  always implied, a conscious product of
literary art (kAvya) of the highest order, with a pronounced unity of
conception, aim, and treatment.

Undismayed by the barrage of hostile and even mocking criticism which
greeted his first work on the subject, "Das MahAbhArata als Epos una
Rechtsbuch" (1895), he continued his labours, defending his favourite thesis
again, with great eloquence and enthusiasm, in a second volume, "Geneszs des
MahAbhArata" (1899), which met with no better reception at the hands of
his intolerant and opinionated colleagues...

in these earnest and thought-provoking bpoks, DAHLMANN has shown, on the
basis of well selected and oonvincing examples, that the relation between
the narrative and the didactic matter in our epic was definitely not of a
casual character, but was intentional and purposive, concluding therefrom
that it was impossible to separate the two elements without destroy1ng or
mutilating the poem...

the didactic matter of the epic, DAHLMANN insisted, was a necessary -- nay,
an essential- element of the poem, of which the -- fable itself was in fact
largely invented just for the purpose of illustrating certain well defined
maxims of law, certain legal, moral and ethical principles underlying the
fabric of indian society. thus, for example, there is, according to
DAHLMANN, in the crucial instance no historical basis for the polyandric
marriage of draupadi with the pANDava brothers, which is to be understood
only symbolically. the pANDavs themselves symbolize the undivided or joint
family; and draupadi, their common wife in the story, stands for the ideal
embodiment and representation of the unconditional unity of the family.  a
tribal confederacy may perhaps have formed the historical basis of the unity
of the pANDavas.

DAHLMANN's conclusions:
  - the epic is a well defined unity
  - each part has a specific purpose
  - the unity of plan was conceived by a single person, who carried out the
	  work.
  - date of the poem is NOT later than 5th c. BC

with DAHLMANN the pendulwn had clearly swung to theother extreme. We owe
very impartial and searching criticisms of DAHLMANN'S views to JACOBI and
BARTH, who have exposed certain weaknesses of the theory.

we must also admit now that DAHLMANN's views regarding the unity and
homogeneity of the text of the epic were much exaggerated.  It can now be
demonstrated, with mathematical precision, that the text of the mahAbhArata
used by DAHLMANN - the bombay or calcutta edition of the vulgate - is much
inflated with late accretions and moot certainly does not, as a whole, go
back to the fifth century b.c.  it may even contain some furtive additions
which had been made as late as .  1000 ad. or even later. the critical
edition of the mahAbhArata, which is being published by the bhandarkar
oriental research institute, shows that large blocks of the text of the·
vulgate must on incontrovertible evidence be excised as comparatively late
interpolations.

the brahmA-gaNesha complex and the kaNika nIti in the Adi and the hymns to
durgA in the virATa and the bhISma parvans occur to our mind readily as
examples of such casual interpolations.  but the southern recension offers
us illustrations of regular long poems bejng bodily incorporated in the
epic, like the detailed description of the avataras of viSNu put in the
mouth of bhISma in the sabhA, and the full enunciation of the vaiSNavadharma
in the Ashvamedhikaparvan, two passages comprising together about 2500·
stanzas.  when we know that these additions have been made in comparatively
recent times, even so late as the period to which our written tradition
reaches back, can we legitimately assume that our text was free from such
intrusions during that prolonged period in the history of our text which
extends beyond the periphery of our manuscript tradition ?

the riddle of kr^SNa

it will be noticed that DAHLMANN had no explanation to offer of the paradox
of kr^SNa, who looms so large in the world of the epio poets as to
overshadow the entire poem, who is to be found in the beginning, in the
middle, and in the end of the entire epopee.  with his eyes fixed on the
dichotomy of dharma and adharma, the most characteristic creation of indian
genius, who was above dharma and adharma, beyond good and evil.

who is kr^SNa, indeed ? that paradox of paradoxes! a philosopher on the
battlefield! an ally who gives away his powerful army to swell the ranks of
his opponents; and himself, though the omnipotent lord of all weapons, takes
a vow, before the commencement of the war, not to hold a weapon in his
hands! a god who avows impartiality towards all living beings, and yet like
a wily and unscrupulous politician secretly plots for the victory of the
pANDavas and the annihilation of the kauravas!  standing on the field of
battle, this self-styled avaiara preaches the lower morality and the mere
man (arjuna) the higher!  a grotesque character who claims to be the highest
god and behaves uncommonly like a "tricky mortal"!

this bizarre figure can certainly not belong to the original heroic poem,
which must have been a straightforward work free from all contradictions of
this kind. european savants are -agreed that he must needs be an innovation,
introduced secondarily into the original " epic nucleus." how could european
savants, lacking as they do in their intellectual make-up the milleniums old
back-ground of indian culture, ever hope to penetrate this inscrutable mask
of the unknowable pulling faces at them, befooling them and enjoying their
antics?  however we shall leave the matter there for the present.

The question of the historicity

Opinion is sharply divided on this point.

The work claims itself to be an Itihasa, a history; but criticism, both
ancient and modern, has been loth to take this statement at its face
value. Opinion has thus vacillated from the standpoint of categorical
acceptance of perfect historicity to complete scepticism.

a very novel interpretation of the epic we owe to principal THADANI,
professor of english in the hindu college of delhi, embodied in an ambitious
work comprising five volumes entitled the mystery of the mahAbhArata : a
difficult book which no layman can hope to understand.  professor thadani is
a philosopher and a poet. accordingly his great work is both poetical and
philosophical. it deepens and intensifies the "mystery" of the mahAbhArata
rather than solves it.

the whole story of the mahAbhArata is, according to this learned scholar,
"but an account of the connection and conflict between the different systems
of hindu philosophy and religion."  this is especially so in regard to the
principal systems. thus there is a conflict between principal vedanta
(vaiSNavism) and principal yoga (saivism); principal yoga and principal
sAMkhya (buddhism and jainism); and sAMkhya and vedanta.

professor THADANI is right in insisting that for debate or discussion there
must be a common ground of agreement between opposing views, without which a
discussion is impossible. i have none with the learned professor, nor have i
had the good fortune of coming across anybody who had.  professor thadani
stands unchallenged.

let us now look at the matter from yet another angle.  is it not passing
strange that, notwithstanding the repeated and dogged attempts of western
savants to demonstrate that our mahAbhArata is but an unintelligible
conglomerate of disjointed pieces, without any meaning as a whole, the epic
should always have occupied in indian antiquity an eminent position and
uniformly enjoyed the highest reputation? it was used, we are told, as a
book of education for the young bANa's time, like the iliad in hellenic
greece.  it has inspired the poets and dramatists of india as a quarry for
their plots and ideas. it has attracted in the past celebrated indian
philosophers like acarya saMkara and kumArila, famous indian saints like
jnaneshwar and ramdas, and distinguished indian rulers like akbar and
shivaji. this epic of the· bhAratas had moreover penetrated to the farthest
extremities of greater india. it had conquered not only burma and siam, but
even the distant islands of java and bali. the immortal stories of this epic
have been carved on the walls of the temples of these people by their
sculptors, painted on their canvasses by their artists, acted in their
wayongs by their showmen.

what is more remarkable still is that this epic - along with the ramAyaNa --
is still living and throbbing in the lives of the indian people -- not
merely of the intelligentsia, but also of the illiterate and inarticulate
masses, the "hewers of wood and the carriers of water."

instead of searching for an elusive original nucleus, i believe we shall
find in the poem itself something far greater and nobler than the lost
paradise of the primitive kSatriya tale of love and war, for which the
western savants have been vainly searching, and which the indian people had
long outgrown and discarded. 31


links: Romila Thapar on the mahAbhArata

to contribute some excerpts from your favourite book to book excerptise. send us a plain text file with page-numbered extracts from your favourite book. You can preface your extracts with a short review.
email to (bookexcerptise [at] gmail [dot] com).

We reply to all feedback!