nArAyaNaM namskR^itya naraM chaiva narottamaM

dEvIM sarasvatIM vyAsaM tato jayamudIrayEt^[i]

Having bowed down to Narayana and Nara, the most exalted male being, and also to the Goddess Saraswati and Vyasa, must the word jaya be uttered^[ii].

“There exist two colossal, two unparalleled, epic poems in the sacred language of India, – the Mahâbhârata and the Râmâyana, – which were not known to Europe, even by name, until Sir William Jones announced their existence; and one of which, the larger, since his time, has been made public only by fragments, by mere specimens, bearing to those vast treasures of Sanskrit literature such small proportion as cabinet samples of ore have to the riches of a mine. Yet these most remarkable poems contain almost all the history of ancient India, so far as it can be recovered; together with such inexhaustible details of its political, social, and religious life, that the antique Hindu world really stands epitomized in them. The Old Testament is not more interwoven with the Jewish race, nor the New Testament with the civilization of Christendom, nor the Koran with the records and destinies of Islam, than are these two Sanskrit poems with that unchanging and teeming Population which Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, rules as Empress of Hindustan. The stories, songs, and ballads; the histories and genealogies; the nursery tales and religious discourses; the art; the learning, the philosophy, the creeds, the moralities, the modes of thought, the very phrases, saying, turns of expression, and daily ideas of the Hindu people are taken from these poems. Their children and their wives are named out of them; so are their cities, temples, streets, and cattle. They have constituted the library, the newspaper, and the Bible-generation after generation-for all the succeeding and countless millions of Indian people; and it replaces patriotism with that race, and, stands in stead of nationality, to possess these two precious and inexhaustible books, and to drink from them as from mighty and overflowing rivers. The value ascribed in Hindustan to these too little known epics has transcended all literary standards established in the West. They are personified, worshipped, and cited as being something divine. To read or even listen to them is thought by the devout Hindu sufficiently meritorious to bring prosperity to his household here, and happiness in the next world; they are held also to give wealth to the poor, health to the sick, wisdom to the ignorant; and the recitation of certain parvas and shlokas in them can fill the household of the barren, it is believed, with children. A concluding passage of the great poem says:-

“‘The reading of this Mahâbhârata destroys all sin and produces virtue; so much so, that the pronunciation of a single shloka is sufficient to wipe away much guilt. This Mahâbhârata contains the history of the gods, of the Rishis in heaven and those on earth, of the Gandharvas and the Rákshasas. It also contains the life and actions of the one God, holy, immutable, and true, – who is Krishna, who is the creator and the ruler of this universe; who is seeking the welfare of his creation by means of his incomparable and indestructible power; whose actions are celebrated by all sages; who has bound human beings in a chain, of which one end is life and the other death; on whom the Rishis meditate, and a knowledge of whom imparts unalloyed happiness to their hearts, and for whose gratification and favor all the daily devotions are performed by all worshippers. If a man reads the Mahâbhârata and has faith in its doctrines, he is free from all sin, and ascends to heaven after his death.'” 

– Sir Edwin Arnold, The Iliad and Odyssey of India (1875).

A four-day workshop on the Mahabharata conducted by professional scholars in the humanities that is open to the laity is admittedly a rare occurrence.  So, when this workshop was announced by the Indic Academy, I, decidedly a card-carrying member of the latter category, had no second thoughts about attending it.  Lest it is misconstrued that this was merely a meeting of dilettantes and amateurs without rigour or commitment to scholarship, I would like to list the study materials given for this course:

1. The prolegomena to the critical edition of the Mahabharata by its editor, V.S.Sukthankar.  Available online at GRETIL – Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages. 
2. Adluri VP and Bagchee J (2016).  Paradigm lost: The application on the historical-critical method to the Bhagavad Gita.  International Journal of Hindu Studies, 20 (2): 199-301.
3. Adluri VP (2017).  Hindu studies in a Christian, secular academy.  International Journal of Dharma Studies. 5:6. doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40613-016-0037-5.
4. Kosambi DD (1961).  Social and Economic Aspects of the Bhagavadgita.  Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient.  4(2):198-224. 
5. Winternitz M (1924).  The Mahabharata.  The Visva Bharati Quarterly, v.I, No. 4, January, 1924.  pp.392-408.
6. Selections from the Adi Parva of the Mahabharata, translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli. 
7. Sukthankar VS (1942).  On the meaning of the Mahabharata.  Motilal Banarsidass, New Delhi, third edition, 2016.
8. Adluri VP and Bagchee J (2014).  The Nay Science: A History of German Indology. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

For the record, the audience was almost evenly split between professional scholars and interested laymen. This indicates the strong fascination for the great epic prevalent among individuals from either category, some of whom travelled across India^[iii], and some even from abroad^[iv],[v] to participate in this workshop.

[The audience for the workshop was an interesting mix from different walks of life]

Prologue

The workshop was preceded by an informative lecture on the influence of the great Bharata on Tamil culture by Dr. R. Nagaswamy, retired archaeologist, Government of Tamil Nadu.  Dr. Nagaswamy is a scholar of immense erudition, diligent in paying due attention to detail, and at home in both Sanskrit and Tamil.  His lecture, interspersed with photographs of amazing physical relics and detailed references to the Tamil epic silappadikAram served much to whet our collective appetite for yet another retelling of the Mahabharata.  It was interesting to note that the locality of the cattle-herders in Madurai where Kannagi, the heroine of the Tamil epic stayed for some time was quite familiar, if not saturated, with Krishna lore.  Upon witnessing ill omens indicating approaching tragedy, the cowherdesses organize an impromptu group dance depicting Krishna’s idylls at Gokul.  They compare the conjugal love between Kannagi and her husband Kovalan to that between Nappinnai and Krishna respectively, much as northerners might effortlessly compare them to Radha and Krishna.  And, lest we forget, ’Madurai’ is but the sister city of ‘Mathura’ in the north, the home of Krishna’s Yadava clan, just as ‘New’ York in the U.S.A. is related to York in the British Isles.  This close identification of cattle-rearing groups with Krishna is ancient and pan-Indian indeed.  Adulatory references to Balarama and Krishna are available in Sangam literature itself, the earliest known Tamil literary works^[vi], indicating the antiquity and extent of the Sanskritic cosmopolis permeated by the great epics, its deep and ancient roots in Tamil country, and not just among the elites.  That an epic based essentially on a war of succession, a common enough event in history, in the northern Kuru-PanchAla country (roughly corresponding to the Ganga-Yamuna river valley) should evolve over time with such profound meaning and cultural significance for such diverse peoples in different regions^[vii] evokes the succinct and euphonious statement of the late historian Sita Ram Goel on the sublime import of the epics:  “The terrestrial enlarged in the image of the transcendental.”  The profound influence of the great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, on the people of India and the Indosphere and India’s own flowering as a civilizational entity over ages can hardly be overstated.  Dr.Nagaswamy’s lecture was gratefully received and deeply appreciated.     

A brief (and perhaps incomplete) profile of the workshop faculty

What, we may justifiably ask, were the credentials of the two scholars who conducted the workshop?  For those who go by titles and degrees, they have a formidable range of academic attainments to their credit.  Prof. Vishwa Adluri holds two doctoral degrees:  In philosophy from The New School for Social Research, New York (U.S.A.) and in Indology from Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany.  His linguistic proficiency includes not only English, but also “reading knowledge of Ancient Greek, German, and French; advanced knowledge of Sanskrit^[viii].  Dr. Joydeep Bagchee received his doctorate in philosophy from New School for Social Research, New York, and is currently  “a Fellow at the research program Zukunftsphilologie:  Revisiting the Canons of Textual Scholarship at the Freie Universität Berlin,” Germany^[ix].  His linguistic proficiency includes English, German, and Sanskrit.  Both scholars have to their credit studies on both Greek and Hindu philosophy.  By any yardstick, this should comprise an adequate formal preparation for their task. 

[Dr. Joydeep Bagchee (L); Dr. Vishwa Adluri (R)]

Entering Naimisharanya – within and without

The great Bharata is said to have been recited to sages in the sacred forest of Naimisharanya, located in the modern state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India.  Now, ‘nimisha’ also means the blinking of the eye, and the Devas are described as ‘a-nimisha-chakshushah’ – of unblinking eyes.  The word ‘naimisha’ is the adverb form of ‘nimisha,’ which gives the sense of ‘pertaining to.’ If the eyes are windows to the soul, and the Mahabharata is being played out in the forest of nimisha…what suggestive correspondence!  This is but one instance of the kind of word-play that the Sanskrit poets employed to telling metaphoric and philosophical effect.  In passing, this one instance again harks back to the truism that all translation is travesty – for ‘Naimisharanya’ would not really preserve its connotations in English.  Sanskrit is designated ‘well-made’ or ‘refined’ (more accurately, samskŗtam) for a reason, especially its facility with compound words, nouns that can be used as adjectives with minimal or no modifications, and the ability to coin new words using a set of root words.          

And, when we are talking about the eyes, can the topic of perception be far behind?  And where perception is analyzed…well, that’s the bread and butter (or roti and ghee) of Hindu philosophy.  The basic question ko’ham (who am I?) is, after all, the entry point into the inquiry into the errors of perception, self-identification and superimposition.   Of course clearly didactic sections like the Bhagavadgita (‘BG’ in references) or the Anushasana parva explicitly grapple with these issues.  But then, like naturalists turning stones in a tide pool to reveal the wealth of marine life underneath, our two teachers led us in detail through some of the legendary accounts of the Adiparva, the very first parva of the Mahabharata, uncovering direct correspondences with well-beloved Upanishadic metaphors, most notably the rope misperceived as a snake, and the two birds on a tree.  And, truth be told, what made the teachers’ virtuosity even more enjoyable was their interactive style of asking questions of the audience, thereby facilitating enthusiastic and often able complementation by members of the audience who vied with each other in identifying the Upanishadic motif in a given situation.

Indeed, we realized yet again the value of not just the Sanskrit language, but language in general and its metaphoric content.  As Robert Lawlor noted:

“One can consider that metaphor is to language as resonance is to sound:  the metaphoric highlighting of similarities between widely divergent areas of experience creates an inner resonance, a musing over the mysterious connectedness of all things…Our conditioning has tricked us into believing that language is supposed to provide clear absolute statements concerning factuality or truths.  With language denied the sense of metaphor, we easily forget that there is no such thing as an external objective world, separate from the perceptual and linguistic processes through which we experience and describe that world.  We forget that everything in our perception exists only in relationship to another thing…As with metaphor, all language, whether poetic or scientific, can only highlight aspects of our experiential world while obscuring others^[x].” 

Therefore, a well-structured and well-worded text, especially in Sanskrit, can display layers of meaning for the connoisseur and seeker alike.  This is what V.S. Sukhtankar discussed at length in his four lectures, progressively moving from a review of textual criticisms of the Mahabharata to the interpretations of the epic on the mundane, ethical and metaphysical planes.  In one sense, the great war, the contrary pulls of competing obligations, the furious storms of desire and disappointment, likes and dislikes, rAga and dvEsha – are all as much within as without. 

Throughout the text, advancing inexorably like a great unseen and unsuspected wave arising from the unfathomable deep, whose power is manifest only as it bears down on the shallows, is the creative tension between pravR^itti and nivR^itti.  pravR^itti is all there is, visible, perceptible, objective and transactional; and subtle dharma, difficult of understanding, verily a razor’s edge, permeates pravR^itti as warp and weft permeate cloth, underlying interactions between its various components wherein the individual must forever make choices with a trepidation in direct proportion to his awareness of the problem of doing what is ‘right.’  With such complexity, many are the missteps and failures, and many would rather not bother with the whole business of trying to do the ‘right thing.’  As Vyasa himself bemoans the state of affairs:

Urdhva-bAhur viraumyEsha na hi kashchit shR^iNoti mAM

dharmAt arthaschcha kAmashcha sa kimarthaM na sEvyatE?^[xi]

 “With upraised arms I proclaim, but nobody listens to me!  From dharma arise both artha (means) and kAma (desires). Why then is dharma not served?”

Verily the apposite lament of one whose biological descendants slaughtered each other before his very eyes!  But, unlike the blind king Dhritarashtra’s laments that end in self-pity and, to some extent, self-justification, this lament is permeated with the awareness of the violation of principle in pursuit of the proverbial power and pelf, and an overpowering compassion for all beings.  It is this epic awareness of evil in the terrestrial plane even while focusing on the transcendental and soteriological goal that is greatly compromised in later Hindu literature, as S.R.Goel so perceptively pointed out:

“The sacred and philosophical literature produced by Hindus from the 5th century onwards compares very unfavourably with similar literature of an earlier age – like Mahabharata, the Ramayana…In the eyes of this highly vigilant spirituality (i.e., the itihAsa literature – R.S.), evil is as much present in human nature as the good, and manifests itself in as many ways as the good. This spirituality is, therefore, wide awake to every eruption of evil, individual as well as collective. It can spot evil at the ideological and the psychological level as easily as at the level of its physical manifestation or concrete action. And it recommends a combat with evil, devAsura-saMgrAma, in every sphere of life. In this spirituality, there is no place for suffering evil silently, or for explaining it away, or for facing it with a subjective sanctimoniousness, howsoever elevated the language that sanctimoniousness may employ.^[xii]” 

Beyond all this, beyond even dharma, is nivR^itti, where all dharmas are given up – sarvadharmAn parityajya – as the Gitacharya puts it^[xiii].  This is attainable only by a few, and the rest keep going through the eternal cycle of being and becoming, hopefully trying their best to work out their karma in accordance with diverse aspects of dharma – from the inescapably collective level to the stubbornly and idiosyncratically individual level.     

History or story?

The metaphorical and philosophical interpretations of the great Bharata outlined by our teachers were truly elevating and invigorating.  In fact, the epic genre aims precisely at such an effect, whether it happens to be Hindu or Greek.  In pre-Christian Greece and Rome ‘Homer says so’ was an expression of authority in philosophical circles (cf. shruti or shabda in the Indian context).  The English poet William Cowper describes the successive advents of Homer, Virgil and Milton, epic poets of Europe as follows:

Ages elapsed ere Homer’s lamp appear’d,

And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard;

To carry nature lengths unknown before,

To give a Milton birth, ask’d ages more.

Thus genius rose and set at order’d times,

And shot a day-spring into distant climes,

Ennobling every region that he chose;

He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose;

And, tedious years of Gothic darkness pass’d,

Emerged all splendour in our isle at last.

Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main,

Then shew far off their shining plumes again^[xiv].

We in India are lucky not to be condemned to wait ‘tedious years’ for an epic poet – the two great epics have been eternal springs of inspiration from which poets in the Sanskrit language and her regional sisters greedily drank.  Works like the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas or Ramavataram of Kambar may tower like great pyramids over lesser-known compositions, but all of these nevertheless add to the treasures bequeathed us by our ancestors.  And, all this is not counting the recensions in Indo-China and south-east Asia…   

But, does that mean that the epic text is completely devoid of any terrestrial components, any material reality and therefore, bereft of ‘history’ in the modern sense of the word?  Well, we think not, and the clues are in the epic itself.  Firstly, it itself contains mention of the gradual inflation of the epic from about 8800 verses to the figure of 100,000 in vogue today.  So, there may well have been an epic nucleus, only that it is now lost and current manuscript evidence does not allow us to reach back that far, as Sukthankar pointed out.  Secondly, references to natural phenomena and geography that are corroborated on the ground as it were, enable us to assign a temporal window to the main events^[xv].  Along with the Puranas, the Mahabharata contains the most extensive and detailed textual account we have (in a material sense) of the little-known period from the decline of the Harappan cities of the Sarasvati-Sindhu river valley to the rise of kingdoms in the Ganga-Yamuna plains.  And, all around us are the regions, forests, villages, towns, cities, rivers, and mountains that, living tradition informs us, are often doubly sanctified by the ancient visits of the Vedic deities and epic characters. Thirdly, at the snake-sacrifice, Janamejaya asks Vaishampayana what may be considered a very simple and unremarkable question about his forefathers namely, how their quarrel ballooned into a great war, to which Vaishampayana responds with a very accurate summary of all the essential and important events that could easily fit into a normal conversation.  This material can be reasonably accommodated in a few hundred verses at most, qualifying as an ‘epic nucleus’ in the most mundane sense.  No Pandavas, no Kauravas, no Mahabharata. 

But then, why the hundred thousand, or even thousands of verses?  And why pray, so many versions?  Janamejaya again gives us the reason.  He listens politely to Vaishampayana’s summary, and expresses his dissatisfaction that deserves to be quoted in full:

“O excellent Brahmana, thou hast, indeed, told me, in brief, the history, called Mahabharata, of the great acts of the Kurus. But, O thou of ascetic wealth, recite now that wonderful narration fully. I feel a great curiosity to hear it. It behoveth thee to recite it, therefore, in full. I am not satisfied with hearing in a nutshell the great history. That could never have been a trifling cause for which the virtuous ones could slay those whom they should not have slain, and for which they are yet applauded by men. Why also did those tigers among men, innocent and capable of avenging themselves upon their enemies, calmly suffer the persecution of the wicked Kurus? Why also, O best of Brahmanas, did Bhima of mighty arms and of the strength of ten thousand elephants, control his anger, though wronged? Why also did the chaste Krishna, the daughter of Drupada, wronged by those wretches and able to burn them, not burn the sons of Dhritarashtra with her wrathful eyes? Why also did the two other sons of Pritha (Bhima and Arjuna) and the two sons of Madri (Nakula and Sahadeva), themselves injured by the wretched Kurus, follow Yudhishthira who was greatly addicted to the evil habit of gambling? Why also did Yudhishthira, that foremost of all virtuous men, the son of Dharma himself, fully acquainted with all duties, suffer that excess of affliction? Why also did the Pandava Dhananjaya, having Krishna for his charioteer, who by his arrows sent to the other world that dauntless host of fighting men (suffer such persecution)? O thou of ascetic wealth, speak to me of all these as they took place, and everything that those mighty charioteers achieved.” 

The epics thus address head on the very purpose of narrative history, and explicitly suggest that their aim is not only to inform but to elevate and ennoble the audience, as would be the objective of all great art. As Alain Daniélou noted: 

“History is conceived in the form of stories telling the lives and adventures of ancient kings and revealing various aspects of civilization and culture in a far-removed, idealized past.  These epics are usually envisaged as a philosophy of history, seeking to discern the laws of its development, its logic and teaching, in order to draw ethical and political conclusions to serve as an example for mankind.  A simple recital of facts proving nothing and interesting to no one in particular has always appeared purposeless to the Hindu historian^[xvi].” 

No wonder Janamejaya was highly dissatisfied with the ‘simple recital of facts’ (cf. epic nucleus) underlying the old family quarrel!  Likewise, contemporary Hindus don’t repeatedly attend recitals of the epics (or even workshops like the one under review) to find out whether or not Shri Rama recovered his wife, or the Pandavas their kingdom.  The very recital of this sacred lore in all its complexity is viewed in the Hindu world as an act of piety and merit, and a way to repay the individual’s debt towards the Rishis or sages (Rshi-ŗNa).  As Daniélou remarks:

“…learned men, wandering monks, and philosophers are met with everywhere, teaching metaphysics and philosophical systems in the village square, or commenting on the sacred texts or the notions of traditional science.  This has been highly important in India in giving even the poorest, most humble, and apparently least cultivated a level of philosophical and religious knowledge; a breadth of view; an interest in cosmic, divine and human laws; and a spirit of tolerance, which is all the more surprising in comparison with the intellectual level of the working classes in countries that consider themselves more technically and economically advanced than India, but where the level of intellectual interest is that of the television^[xvii].”     

Such then, are the reasons why the ancients repeatedly studied and relived their traditional histories through arts and festivities, through solemn ritual and philosophical disputation, while we moderns study history to understand some physical and temporal details (like origins, art, architecture or more rarely, music, drama and literature) that may have a bearing on contemporary society or on the understanding of the ancients within the circle of academic specialists.  The Mahabharata is thus truly ‘history’ in one sense, but transcends history and becomes entirely a-historical in another.  As these two excellent teachers highlighted, the projection of the family conflict on a cosmic screen enables it to become a veritable universe in itself, encompassing all, and excluding nothing. In Prof. Adluri’s memorable words, “the book is the universe, and the universe is the book.” 

Not to be left unmentioned was a very interesting session during which the significance of the ‘double beginning’ in the Adiparva was discussed in some detail.  The double beginning occurs in the critical edition as well, and there is the formal possibility that this could well be part of an intentional internal logic of the epic as it is known today, not merely a consequence of scribal error and editorial confusion.  Prof. Adluri provides a philosophical rationale for this:

“…these two textual levels address different themes – cosmology and genealogy – and​ thus are “alternative” beginnings only in the strictly defined sense that they constitute alternative points of entry into the narrative of ‘becoming.’ They are not ‘alternatives’ in the sense that we could excise or do without one of the two beginnings. The double beginning, in fact, splits the text from the very outset: like the forked tongue of a snake, we have two beginnings that run parallel to each other until they finally come together in the Āstīkaparvan to give us the main body of the epic. Cosmology and genealogy, which are two ‘knowledges of becoming’ or two ‘genera of becoming,’ unite to create sacrifice (Janamejaya’s sarpasatra), and it is within that sacrificial setting that the raṇa or the battle of Kurukṣetra must ultimately be placed – and understood^[xviii].”

All the same, perhaps the overall form and structure (or lack thereof) of a ‘fluid’ epic (as Sukthankar pointed out) is only a sideshow?  This has likely given the Mahabharata, in Will Durant’s words, “…a formlessness worse, and a body of thought richer, than can be found in either the Iliad or the Odyssey^[xix].”  The ‘body of thought’ is anyway the primary concern of the votaries of the epic, and not its ‘structural correctness’ in an editorial sense.  Dr. Bagchee very ably and with great facility provided us with an overview of the painstaking process of preparing a critical edition, of how manuscripts are arranged in terms of relatedness and plausible common ancestry.  Notably, he also highlighted Friedrich August Wolf’s trenchant observation (in the context of the critical edition of the Illiad) that the critical edition is not really the ‘correct Mahabharata,’ but merely a reflection of the most ancient manuscript that we can reach by inference^[xx].   

Now, with the two scholars being specialists in Greek philosophy as well, they provided us with tantalizing, but all too brief indications about the parallels with Greek epics^[xxi], especially the tension between the individual’s welfare and the objectives of the collective that occurs in the tale of Iphegenia in the Iliad^[xxii].  Of course, this brevity is not to be grudged, for the Mahabharata is a vast enough topic for four days. However, those who are curious and willing could pursue with much profit a study of both the Hindu and Greek Epics; for the Greek epics can speak to a conscious Hindu in certain unique ways due to historical contingency.  Porphyry’s Cave of the Nymphs might be a good place to start^[xxiii]. 

It must be remarked that the sessions were seamlessly put together in a manner that seemed unbelievably spontaneous.  Drs. Adluri and Bagchee good-naturedly confessed that the seeming spontaneity was the result of much preparation, which is indeed the case with all good teaching.  I must not leave unmentioned the fact that it was touching to see the respect and love that this instance of the guru-shishya tradition presented us with.   At the conclusion of the workshop, Dr. Bagchee was felicitated by Prof. Adluri for being a worthy student, and to a standing ovation from the audience.  May vishva and jaya continue their retelling of the Jaya for many more years to come!  And yes, simply unforgettable was the elevating leaven of gentle humor that permeated the bread of philosophy throughout the duration of the workshop without loss of rigor.  One instance that stands out in my mind was the episode of the burning of the Khandava forest by Arjuna and Shri Krishna.  Associated with this incident is the story of the shArngaka fledgelings that survived the conflagration by praying to Agni, Fire Himself.  Their adulterous father (mandapAla – roughly, dim-witted), who had been gallivanting with lapitA (‘talkative’) suddenly developed pangs of paternal concern and returned to inquire after the welfare of his abandoned children, only to be ignored by his long-suffering and abandoned mate (jaritA – ‘the aged one’).  Frustrated by jaritA’s rebuff, he arrives at the sage conclusion that ‘all females are just like this once they have children.’  Dr. Adluri took us through this scene of a less than amicable family reunion and pointed out that, based on their names at least, mandapAla’s taste in the fair sex was nothing to crow about, and that all this domestic bickering is going on while “The whole forest has just burned down, people!”   Indeed the humour and irony of the situation recalled with telling effect the self-absorption, and elevated self-opinion of humans in their petty affairs contrasted against the great movements of Nature and Fate as though seated on the machine spun by Maya – bhrAmayan yantrArUdhAni mAyayA  (BG 18.61).  In the context of the conflagration, I was also irresistibly reminded of Swami Chinmayananda’s introduction to his inspired commentary on Shri Adi Shankaracharya’s Bhaja Govindam, wherein he characterizes the work as an expression of the acharya’s “…love for the welfare of the beloved disciples sleeping in samsAra sorrows when the house of life is ablaze with death.^[xxiv]”  Thus, from this vantage point, the Mahabharata is, as our scholars pointed out, a profound meditation on the tragedy of the human condition.  Of course, but it is not without its moments of comedy, irony, mirth, and humour.  Let us recall that even Shri Krishna cannot resist responding to Arjuna’s lamentations and expatiations in a friendly and ironical riposte that one cousin may deal another but a few months younger than himself:  ‘You speak like a learned man’ – pragyAvAdAnscha bhAshasE (BG, 2.11).

Instead of a Conclusion

And finally, I realized yet again that this great epic of India, revered as the fifth Veda, an object of awe and a source of wonder for untold numbers of human beings over centuries and across the Indosphere, would continue to effortlessly weave its magic at every retelling.  The traditional praise of Vedavyasa as ‘vishAlabuddhi,’ I humbly understood, is not all hyperbole – fact can be stranger than what fancy can conjure or fiction muster.   

We spare our readers a detailed account of our lingering impressions and desultory thoughts long after the conclusion of the workshop.  Instead, we quote as representative of our feelings for the Mahabharata the words of Sanjaya who, upon finishing the narration of the Bhagavadgita to Dhritarashtra, cannot help the intrusion of his own feelings into his narrative (rather like the great Vyasa himself):

rAjan samsmR^itya samsmR^itya samvAdaM imaM adbhutaM

kesavArjunayoh punyaM hR^ishyAmi cha muhur muhuh

tachcha samsmR^itya samsmR^itya rUpaM atyadbhutaM harE

vismayo mE mahAn rAjan hR^ishyAmi cha punah punah

yatra yogEswaro kR^ishNo yatra pArtho dhanurdharah

tatra shrIvijayo-bhutir-dhruvA-nitir-matir-mama.  (B.G. 18:76-78)

And aye, when I remember, O Lord my King, again

Arjuna and the God in talk, and all this holy strain,

Great is my gladness: when I muse that splendour, passing speech,

Of Hari, visible and plain, there is no tongue to reach

My marvel and my love and bliss. O Archer-Prince! all hail!

O Krishna, Lord of Yoga! Surely there shall not fail

Blessing, and victory, and power, for Thy most mighty sake,

Where this song comes of Arjun, and how with God he spake^[xxv]. 

Aum tat sat.

Notes and References

[i] Opening invocation to the Mahabharata, present in the southern recensions of the epic.

[ii]There is an untranslatable pun here – jaya is also another name for the Mahabharata, and means success or victory; thus success will attend those who remember the said divinities before commencing a reading. 

[iii] Nithin Sridhar, ‘Mahabharata as a manual of Advaita Vedanta,’ IndiaFacts, August 4, 2017. 

[iv] Charu Uppal, ‘Workshop on Mahabharat: Some perspectives,’ Yugaparivartan, September 15, 2017. 

[v] Aditi Banerjee, ‘Rechurning Turbulent Waters of Mahabharata Studies: Removing Poison, Revealing Nectar, ’IndiaFacts, August 9, 2017.

[vi]R Nagaswamy, ‘Balarāma and Vāsudēva Krishna in Alagarkōyil’, Tamil Arts Academy

[vii] The original ‘Ganga-Jamuni’ culture!

[viii] URL

[ix] PDF

[x] Lawlor R (1992).  Introduction to Daniélou A (1993).  Virtue, success, pleasure and liberation.  Inner Traditions, Vermont. pp. 5-6.

[xi] The bhArata sAvitri, v. 89.

[xii] Goel SR (1982).  The story of Islamic imperialism in India, Chapter 9.  Voice of India, New Delhi

[xiii] sarvadharmAn parityajya mAmEkam sharanam vraja

    Aham tvAm sarva pApEbhyo mokshayishyAmi mA shuchah. (BG. 18.66)

And let go those —

Rites and writ duties! Fly to Me alone!

Make Me thy single refuge! I will free

Thy soul from all its sins! Be of good cheer!  [Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold as The Song Celestial (1885)].

[xiv] Table talk by William Cowper (1782).

[xv] See, for example, archaeologist B.B.Lal’s identification of the Mahabharata events with the Painted Grey Ware Culture (PGW) based on a textual mention in the Matsya and Vayu Puranas of a verifiable flood in the Ganga that necessitated the shifting of the capital from Hastinapura to Kaushambhi by the king Nichakshu. [Lal BB (2013).  Historicity of the Mahabharata, evidence of literature, art and archaeology.  pp. 83, 93-94.  Aryan Books Internation, New Delhi].

[xvi] Daniélou A (1993).  Virtue, success, pleasure and liberation.  Inner Traditions, Vermont. p. 167.

[xvii] Ibid. p.89.

[xviii] Adluri V (2011).  Frame narratives and forked Beginnings: Or, how to read the Ādiparvan,” Journal of Vaishnava Studies 19(2):143–210.  However, this view has been critiqued in some detail.

[xix] Durant W (1935).  The story of civilization: Our Oriental heritage.  Simon and Schuster, New York. 

[xx] “A true, continuous, and systematic recension differs greatly from this frivolous and desultory method. In the latter we want only to cure indiscriminately the wounds that are conspicuous or are revealed by some manuscript or other. We pass over more [readings] which are good and passable as regards sense, but no better than the worst as regards authority. But a true recension, attended by the full complement of useful instruments, seeks out the author’s handiwork at every point. It examines in order the witnesses for every reading, not only for those that are suspect. It changes, only for the most serious reasons, readings that all of these approve. It accepts, only when they are supported by witnesses, others that are worthy in themselves of the author and accurate and elegant in their form. Not uncommonly, then, when the witnesses require it, a true recension replaces attractive readings with less attractive ones. It takes off bandages and lays bare the sores. Finally, it cures not only manifest ills, as bad doctors do, but hidden ones too.” F. A. Wolf, Prolegomena to Homer, trans. with an introduction and notes by A. Grafton, G. W. Most, and J. E. G. Zetzel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 43–44.

[xxi] See for instance, Aduri VP and Bagchee J (2012).  From poetic immortality to salvation: Ruru and Orpheus in Indic and Greek myth.  History of Religions 51(3):239-261. 

[xxii] Agamemnon, leader of the Greek expeditionary force to Troy, accidentally killed a deer in the sacred grove of Artemis (Roman:  Diana) because of which the Goddess stilled the wind, resulting in the becalming of entire Greek fleet at Aulis (identified as modern Avlida).  Agamemnon’s daughter Iphegenia was thereupon sacrificed to appease Artemis’ anger and restore favourable winds.  

[xxiii] Taylor T (1917, translator). On the Cave of the Nymphs in the thirteenth book of the Odyssey.  From the Greek of Porphyry.

[xxiv] Swami Chinmayananda (1965).  Adi Sankaracharya’s Bhaja Govindam: Commentary by Swami Chinmayananda.  Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, Mumbai.  pp. 8.

[xxv] Sir Edwin Arnold, (1885). The Song Celestial. 

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed herein do not represent the views of the TERI School of Advanced Studies or TERI.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, we are indebted to the entire lineage of gurus from Vyasa downward, who have nurtured the mighty banyan tree of the Mahabharata.  We bow in homage to those unnamed scribes and editors from all over the Indian subcontinent who would rather err on the side of inclusion for fear of losing some precious tract.  Mr. Srinivas Udumudi of the Indic Academy and volunteers such as Mr. Ashish Dhar of Pragyata, Mr. Harish Kumar Meena of Srijan Foundation and Ms. Dimple Kaul of Indic Book club (and several unnamed others besides) richly deserve the collective gratitude of all participants for organizing and managing this workshop.  I would like to dedicate this article to my parents, Mr.G. Sitaraman and Mrs. Indubala, who provided me with a Hindu upbringing and a liberal education.  I thank Dr. Meenakshi Jain for informing me about this workshop well in advance, but for which I would have remained unaware of its occurrence and signficance.
References / Footnotes