Archives for May 2017

Review : Battle, Bards and Brahmins ed. John Brockington,

Motilal Banarsidass,

Rs.750, pp.461

 

The 13th World Sanskrit Conference held in Edinburgh had 14 sections of which 5 papers on the mahakavya Ramayana, 13 on the itihasa Mahabharata and, alas, only one on its khila-appendix Harivamsha have been edited by John Brockington, an authority on Valmiki’s great poem. The Dubrovnik conferences on epics and puranas have been focusing, lately, on the neglected appendix. The presence of a scholar from India, Urmi Shah of Ahmedabad, though solitary, is most welcome. The title, however, begs the question as the only paper discussing battle is the editor’s and brahmins are not a major concern in the rest, several of which discuss the narrative art.

Both Brodbeck and Allen discuss the Mahabharata genealogy. The former raises questions about Vaishampayana’s two versions, the first in verse up to Shantanu, the second in prose down to Janamejaya, its listener. Brodbeck makes the very interesting interlinking of Bhishma, Dhritarashtra and Yudhishthira as the overtaken eldest sons. The Bharata patriline faces disaster thrice: Vichitravirya dies childless (Vyasa rescues); Pandu is sonless, cursed with coital death (Kunti rescues); Bhishma is killed by Arjuna (the Kuru lineage is extinct); Arjuna is killed by his son Babhruvahana (Ulupi Naga rescues); the Pandava heir Parikshit (the sons by other Pandava wives are nowhere!) is killed in the womb (Krishna rescues) and a second time by Takshaka Naga (of which his son Janamejaya is peculiarly unaware till vengeful Uttanka tells him). Bharata, Bhishma, Abhimanyu and even the Pandavas are brought up by their mothers—a point worth mulling over.

Allen examines Vyasa’s four sons in terms of the Indo-European pentadic ideology (representing wisdom, force, wealth, above the triad and below it) bringing out the centrality of Vidura in the narrative right from his birth, which is recounted before that of his brothers and at greater length. He relates Vidura-Yudhishthira-Kripa to Aryaman, Pandu-Chitrangad-Bhima to Varuna, Dhritarashtra-Vichitravirya-the twins-Yuyutsu to Bhaga. Above this triad are Shuka-Bhishma-Arjuna as the positive aspect (what about Vyasa, Krishna?) while Shakuni-Duryodhana-Karna are below it as the negative aspect. Allen investigated the marriages of Vidura-Dhritarashtra-Pandu in a paper in Gender and Narrative in the Mahabharata (reviewed here earlier). We look forward to his research into the parallels in Greek myth with the sons of Iapetos (Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Menoetius).

Angelika Malinar’s paper is an engrossing presentation of Duryodhana’s claims, showing that he projected the future on the basis of his finding that whatever he had wanted did happen in the past. Therefore, he is not boasting. Nor is he going beyond defending the integrity of his kingdom, by right of primogeniture. He is also a master of yoga in being able to freeze the waters around him. Malinar proposes that the Gita opposes his absolute sovereignty and supernatural power. In the historical context, a post-Ashoka period is suggested for the text (Ashoka criticized former cruel kings). It is interesting that in the late 19th century Holtzmann identified Duryodhana with Ashoka, while now G.von Simson identifies Dhritarashtra and others equate Yudhishthira with Ashoka. However, when we find Kautilya’s Arthashastra in pre-Ashokan times referring to Mahabharata characters, one wonders how the epic can be post-Ashoka.

Danielle Feller examines Bhima’s two quests for flowers drawing an interesting parallel with the lotuses in an earlier story of the five Indras and Shri the femme fatale. There is another parallel with the seizing of amrita which never reaches earth (so too Draupadi, the earth, never gets the celestial flowers). This quest is always most dangerous and is followed by abduction (Draupadi by the demon Jatasura disguised as a hermit when Bhima is absent; Sita by Ravana similarly disguised in Rama-Lakshmana’s absence). The mythic message, says Feller, is that women (the earth) cannot obtain immortality that is heaven’s despite sending the wind (Garuda, Bhima, Hanumana) for it.

The quest for immortality is also the core element in the intriguing Uttanka episode occurring twice in the Mahabharata. Paolo Magnone shows that beyond the didactic purpose of inculcating model discipleship lies the layer of the folktale hero’s fabulous adventures and beyond that the archetype of the hero’s descent into the netherworld for amrita. In the Ashvamedhika Parva Uttanka refuses the ambrosia offered by Indra disguised as an untouchable showing, again, that immortality is not for the mortal.

A particularly valuable paper is on the integration of sacred pilgrimage spots (teerthas) into the narrative. James Hegarty successfully argues that they construct the past and contextualize and interpret narrative. Teerthas are paradigmatic venues for recitals and ritual, connecting Kurukshetra and Naimisha with Vedic Sarasvati. Through them, the epic incorporates all past and current religious discourse. No teertha is dealt with in isolation but always in relation to others, being part of a circuit. Pilgrimage is established to be as essential as sacrifices for the maintenance of society. The climax occurs in Vyasa’s exclamation, “What need has the listener (of the epic) of the waters of Pushkara?” establishing recitation of the epic as surpassing pilgrimages, even replacing Vedic rituals. Thus, “Vedic ritual…was transformed into more portable and multi-applicable formats…by narrative means.”

Hiltebeitel’s paper on mapping bhakti with dharma takes off from the proposition (that Malinar echoes) that the Mahabharata is a response in post-Ashokan times by Brahmanical culture to the imperial espousal of Jainism and Buddhism. He focuses on the twin themes of hospitality (who hosts Rama and Krishna?) and friendship. The latter concept of “well-wisher, suhrid” ultimately incorporates the bhakta audience and readers of the epic. A new Brahmanical dharma is being made familiar through Rama, Krishna and their hosts, the sangha of Rishis. The “suhrid” concept, however, is already there in the Rig Veda, as Indrajit Bandopadhyay points out elsewhere. How, then, is this is new?

Adheesh Sathaye argues that the epic uses Vishvamitra to engage with a folk theme: the wish-fulfilling cow and the king-turned-ogre. The former is common to both epics, the difference lying in the treatment. Valmiki stresses the power of Vishvamitra’s weapons and traces how lust and anger vitiate his ascesis. Vyasa emphasizes the superiority of Vasishtha’s ascetic power in routing the army, supplementing it by showing the sublimity of his forgiveness in the case of the cannibal king Kalmashpada. Sathaye relates this to the 2nd century BC situation of a flux in the social class system where the Brahmin Pushyamitra usurped the throne. The epic engages with this by having king Vishvamitra become a great sage, simultaneously establishing the supremacy of brahmin Vasishtha’s ascesis. The portrayal of several brahmins who, like Pushyamitra, abandon their vocation to become take up arms (Jamadagni, Parashurama, Sharadvat, Drona, Kripa, Ashvatthama) might well reflect this historical situation.

Questions are being raised now about the sanctity of the Bhandarkar ‘critical edition’ of the Mahabharata text. The central problem lies in mapping the interrelationships among manuscripts. Wendy Phillips-Rodriguez has put forward a fascinating schema called “uprooted trees” like the Gita’s cosmic tree whose roots are upwards and branches downwards. Through this paradigm she finds that the southern manuscripts are more widely dispersed than the northern, indicating their independent evolution. This upside-down tree model opens up the study of the epic’s variations as having “an independent cultural value”. Very pertinently she asks, “Why privilege one version over the others?” The variations are separate interpretations, and the study of how each evolved will enable greater understanding of the cultural roots of the epic.

Antonella Cosi’s close study of style and syntax reveals that a fixed set of similes is used in insults, more frequent in dialogues than in speeches or descriptions. Vyasa follows certain stylistic principles. For abuse, he uses impure animals and combines them with improbable situations in the Karna Parva to create more sophisticated insults!

Seeking to construct an ‘epic psychology’, Sven Sellmer analyses how the heart (hrid, hridaya) is depicted in the Mahabharata at the physical, psychosomatic and abstract levels. James Fitzgerald, who is translating the Shanti Parva, takes up the Sankhya-Yoga discussion in its Mokshadharma part to show that Narayana stands at the end of both, beyond whom lies liberation, moksha. Sankhya’s disembodied kshetrajna, whose knowledge is non-sensory, is shown as superior to the embodied yogeshvara.

Yaroslav Vassilkov, translator of the Stri and the Ashvamedhika parvas into Russian, contributes a valuable examination of how the myth of the boar incarnation has Munda tribal roots. He proposes that archaic Indo-Aryan folk traditions ran alongside Sanskrit culture which borrowed such myths from them—a phenomenon of ‘archaization’.

Horst Brinkhaus’ is the solitary paper on the Harivamsha. It deals with the 16,108 wives of Krishna arguing that this appendix to the epic predates the Puranas as it shows Rukmini as Krishna’s predominant wife. He is unaware that back in 1894 Bankimchandra Chatterjee had examined this issue in detail in Krishnacharitra (available in English since 1991) and dispelled the figment of 16108 wives quite conclusively.

Mary Brockington’s Ramayana paper is an excellent analysis of the narrative art of Valmiki bringing out his careful planning. She shows how tension is heightened and the audience—on occasion the characters—are shocked by surprises not only in the plot but also in the characterization.

John Brockington examining weaponry in Valmiki concludes that swords are not important. Arrows are the most significant (particularly the speed and numbers shot, not accuracy) followed by javelins and, much less, clubs. The monkeys use branches, trees, boulders besides teeth, nails, fists. Defensive armour and fortifications are rare. Chariots feature quite often, but not charioteers. It is clearly a society less advanced than the Mahabharata’s.

Sally Goldman, co-translator of the Sundara and Yuddha cantos of the Princeton Ramayana project, takes up Indrajit’s rites at the grove of Nikumbhila intrigued by the word being unique to Valmiki. What are the implications of linking the rakshasas with a mother-goddess figure, the demonic with the feminine? Several malignant female figures people the Ramayana right from the palace to the forest and through the sea to Lanka. Sita, though mysteriously born, is never deified except at the end of the war when Brahma tells Rama that she is Lakshmi incarnated. The fire ritual in Nikumbhila’s grove has demonic women in attendance and offerings are made to evil spirits. The destruction of the ritual by Lakshmana is the defeat of the mother-goddess and the dangerous feminine world.

Urmi Shah, the solitary Indian scholar, presents a comparative study of polity in the Nitiprakashika (contemporaneous with the Mahabharata?) and the Ramayana. This text, narrated by Vaishampayana to Janamejaya, is a treatise on governance for the Kali epoch. Hence it concentrates on weapons and military organization for maintaining law and order. The section on faults of kings is practically identical with both epics.

The Anandaramayana is a 15th century text extremely popular in Maharashtra and southern India and among the Ramnamis and Rasik Sampradaya in the north. Vidyut Aklujkar argues that its composition occurred around the river Godavari near Nasik and the composer was a Marathi as it concentrates on pilgrimage spots of Maharashtra, especially around the Godavari. Several words and phrases and myths typical of Marathi occur in it. It is ahead of its times in its feminist attitude. For the first time we find the 108 names of Sita and the stipulation that Rama must not be worshipped without her. Clever and morally superior women are praised over their husbands.

The book has a valuable index of epic passages cited and is free from misprints. It is sad that there not a single paper that discusses the women in the epics. Even the female scholars do not seem inspired to research this aspect. Missing, also, are contributions by noted Ramayana scholars like Paula Richmann, Arshia Sattar and Sheldon Pollock; but, then, there is more than enough for a rich repast! It is symptomatic of our loss of identity that though India is the home of Sanskrit our government does nothing to encourage such international conferences. Otherwise it would not take six years for the papers to get published. One wonders when the papers of the 15th conference held in New Delhi in 2012 will be available.

 

Review : Bibek DebRoy: The Mahabharata, volume 7,

Penguin, 2013,

pp. xxxviii+562,

Rs. 599/–

 

“How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle,

and the weapons of war perished!”—David’s lament over Saul

 

Bibek Deb Roy, professor of economics in New Delhi, has shouldered the massive enterprise of translating into English prose the “critical edition” (CE) of the Mahabharata (nearly 74,000 shlokas). As a single-handed effort, it surely deserves admiration. The 7th volume covering the deaths of Karna (“I have been born for valour and for fame,” p.140), Shalya (“The two Krishnas, stationed on their chariot…though united, they are not my equal in strength of arms,” p.336) and Duryodhana (“Who can be more fortunate than I am?… I will go to heaven…You will sorrow here,” p.545), brings the formal war to an end, closing with Duryodhana lustrating Ashvatthama as general.

The first attempt to English Vyasa’s massive magnum opus was begun possibly in 1872 by Kishori Mohon Ganguli who was commissioned by Pratap Chandra Roy. Why Roy chose Ganguli we have no idea. The publication began in 1883 and was complete in 1896. From Ganguli we learn that, as a specimen, he had been handed a draft of an attempt by a German friend of Max Muller’s done in the 1850s, which he found very clumsy. The enormous enterprise was completed single-handed except for parts of the Adi and the Sabha Parvas where Charu Charan Mookerjee and Krishna Kamal Bhattacharya helped, and another portion by an unnamed person. Ganguli depended largely on the Bengal recension and also used the Bombay recension.

The Rector of Serampore College, M.N.Dutt, authored another translation (1895-1905) drawing largely on Ganguli, immediately after completing his translation of the Ramayana (1889, 1892-94). Both Ganguli and Dutt provided only prose renderings, Latinising or omitting passages that would shock Victorian sensibilities. There has been no complete English translation as yet.

Romesh Chunder Dutt ICS produced the first verse condensation in Locksley Hall metre in 1893, following that up with a similar one of the Ramayana. R.T.H. Griffith had already rendered Valmiki into verse during 1870-75. J.A.B. van Buitenen began translating the so-called “Critical Edition” produced by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, for the Chicago University but could complete only the first five books and the Gita (1973-1981). In continuation, out of sequence, James Fitzgerald’s translation of books 11 (Stri) and part of 12 (Shanti) has been published. The Clay Sanskrit Library started publishing different parts of an English translation of the Bombay recension in pocket-sized diglot editions from 2005, but ran out of funds after publishing 8 books and parts of some others. All these have been prose translations. In December 1968 Professor P.Lal of St.Xavier’s College, Calcutta, published the first fascicule of his verse-and-prose translation of the complete Mahabharata, known in academia as the “vulgate,” from his Writers Workshop. He not only translated all by himself but also published single-handed, combining Ganguli and P.C.Roy! Before his death, he had published revised editions of all but the Shanti and Anushasana Parvas.

In this 7th volume, for the first time we find Sanjaya fighting in the war, losing his armour and being saved by Vyasa as Satyaki is about to behead him. He reports to Dhritarashtra on returning from the battlefield following the death of each general. The “divine vision” is his ability to know not only what is occurring everywhere in the field but also the thoughts of the combatants which vanishes after the death of Duryodhana as does his role as rapporteur that began in the Udyoga Parva.

Stylistically, Karna Parva is a highlight of poetic beauty. That is why the prose translation dissatisfies and the Lal version scores. Look at the translations of the deaths of Karna and Shalya:

“The body-less head of Karna

blazed on the battlefield

like a mountain peak

downed by a storm,

like a yajna-flame extinguished,

like the sun-orb setting

in the Asta hills.” — P.Lal

“It was as if the untainted and extinguished fire was lying down in the expansive sky, after the end of a sacrifice. Karna’s body was beautiful, like the rays of the sun in the firmament” — Deb Roy

“Like a fire scattered by a great wind when it is at rest in the morning at the termination of a sacrifice. Karna’s body shone like the sun with its rays.” — Hiltebeitel

“The bull among men fell down affectionately on the ground, like a beloved wife who falls down on the chest of her dear husband. The lord had enjoyed the earth for a long time, like a beloved wife. He seemed to go to sleep now, clasping her with all his limbs.” — Deb Roy

“And the earth

lovingly clasped

that bull-brave hero

to herself,

Like a lovelorn girl

embracing her lover

to her breasts.

Long did he lie there,

passionately enjoying

the earth,

Covering her

with all his limbs,

sleeping with her peacefully.” — P. Lal

Just before Karna’s chariot wheel sinks into the boggy ground, Krishna lifts the Kapidhvaja chariot out of the ground, which Karna is unable to emulate because his charioteer, Shalya (whose name we learn here is ‘Aartayaani’), does not stir a finger. The relationship between charioteer and warrior is revealed as the secret underlying victory or defeat, where the fighters are equally matched. Even at the end Krishna protects Arjuna by making him descend first. The moment Krishna steps down, the chariot goes up in flames (p.547).

Karna critiques dharma: “But instead of protecting one who is devoted, it (dharma) is now bringing me down. I think that dharma does not always protect” (p.299). In the Sabha Parva, Bhishma’s reply to Draupadi’s anguished query was: “What a strong man says/ often becomes the only dharma;/ a weak man may have dharma on his side,/ but who listens to him? (P.Lal).” Yudhishthira voices the cold truth after Duryodhana falls: “Pandava has accomplished his desire. How does it matter whether it was dharma or adharma?”

Karna’s character remains a puzzle. His motto “I have been born for valour and for fame” (p.140) supersedes the professed dedication to Duryodhana. For glory he releases four Pandavas after defeating them. It would be wrong to ascribe this to the promise he had made to Kunti, because to her he had pledged not to kill any of the brothers save Arjuna. Nothing had been said about imprisoning them. Had he captured Yudhishthira (as Drona had planned), the war would have been over. Strangely enough, Arjuna and Krishna never worry about this where Karna is concerned. We have to look back to the secret meeting between Krishna and Karna at the end of the Udyoga Parva to understand why.

Karna’s picture of society in Gandhara (Kabul valley), Bahlika (Bactria-northern Afghanistan) and Madraka (northern Punjab in Pakistan) is violently vituperative, reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah. Hence it is curious that Bhishma chose princesses from there for Dhritarashtra and Pandu. Sahadeva’s wife Vijaya is also from Madra. Further, easterners are regarded as slaves while southerners are considered contemptible. Hence, the sudden paean to the Pandya king’s valour is singular. In the Southern recension Chitrangada is the Pandya princess of Manilura. The Kaurava allies are from the East, the South and the North-west.

We discover why Shiva is called Mahadeva: the gods gave him half their energy for destroying the triple cities (chapter 24). Here Duryodhana emerges as a riveting narrator of the cosmic myth. The universe is figured forth as a chariot and the gods empower Shiva with weapons, a motif recurring in the crowning of Skanda in the Shalya Parva, and in Durga’s investiture in the Devi Bhagavata.

It is interesting that each Pandava has a designated opponent as his “share” — even Yudhishthira whom Krishna exhorts to kill Shalya and not drown in this puddle having crossed an ocean. Nakula alone has none.

The war descriptions follow a formula of metaphors and similes, the predominating one being a river of blood, similar to the picture in the Iliad (Book 21) of the river Scamander, but poetically far more elaborate. Like the Valkyries, Apsaras take dead warriors to heaven. Unique to the war books is the deliberate conjunction of lovely pictures from nature with the violence of death, reminiscent of the English metaphysical poets’ technique: bloody arms are like golden standards, lopped-off heads are like crimson flowers, bloodied bodies are like flames-of-the-forest. The deities invoked are all Vedic, like Indra, Surya, Soma, Vayu, Agni and the later Skanda. Vaishnavism is not prevalent in the war books, which is one reason for their being regarded as the ‘original’ epic.

Arjuna is generally considered invincible, yet in the Karna Parva the Trigarta king Susharma knocks him unconscious, injures Krishna and immobilises their chariot. His warriors climb on to it and physically grab hold of Arjuna and Krishna (chapter 37). Ashvatthama and Karna both succeed in injuring Krishna and we notice that although charioteers were unarmed, there was no compunction in killing them. The code of battle Bhishma had prescribed no longer obtained.

When Arjuna is about to kill Yudhishthira (chapter 49), Krishna reads him a homily on non-violence being the supreme virtue (which is what the dundubha snake had told Ruru in the Adi Parva, Arjuna argued in the Gita, and Yudhishthira always stresses). Lying is preferable to killing and Dharma is subtle, he says, echoing Bhishma’s reply to Draupadi in the gambling hall. Twice Krishna repeats when one should lie: when being robbed of everything, when in mortal danger, during enjoyment and in marriage! Krishna says, “A person who is always based on truth is but a child. A person who can differentiate between truth and falsehood can alone follow dharma… Everything is not laid down in the sacred texts.” This is where he defines dharma: “Dharma is so called because it holds everything up.”

From Ashvatthama we learn that he and Kripa cannot be killed (p.289) but the reason is not given. As with Richard Crookback, Duryodhana’s horse is slain under him, a unique instance of an equestrian hero, Shakuni’s Gandharans being the only cavalry division. Only then is he described as fearfully taking shelter within a lake. When discovered, he offers the kingdom to Yudhishthira who, for a change, scornfully refuses and insists on a fight to the death. But then, to Krishna’s fury, the gambler in him takes over, and he promises that should Duryodhana defeat any one of them, the kingdom will be his! Krishna furiously berates Yudhishthira for placing the enemy on equal footing, as Duryodhana is more skilled than any Pandava with the mace. “It is almost as if the ancient and unequal gambling match between you and Shakuni is being enacted again,” exclaims Krishna.

Chapter 2 of the Shalya Parva contains a deeply moving plangent lament by Dhritarashtra repeatedly calling out to Duryodhana, “Come to me…where have you gone!” that harks back to his memorable lament that begins the Mahabharata: “Then I no longer hoped for victory, Sanjaya!”

There is an interesting footnote Deb Roy provides about Narada’s lute: the original word is kacchapi, i.e. it is made of the shell of a tortoise. This recalls the Greek Hermes whose lyre was made out of tortoise shell and who, like Narada, was the celestial messenger. When Bhima lists Duryodhana’s crimes, he mentions having slain the “Pratikami” (servant) who dragged Draupadi by the hair which is puzzling unless he is demeaning Duhshasana. More intriguing is the absence of any reference to the greatest offence viz. the attempted stripping of Draupadi anywhere outside the Sabha Parva. Was it added later? Chapter 38 of the Shalya Parva (p.465) provides a mini-myth about Rama that is missing from the Ramayana: Rama had shot off a rakshasa’s head which got stuck in the thigh of sage Mahodara. This embedded skull fell off when he bathed in the Aushanasa tirtha of the Sarasvati, which came to be known as “Kapalamochana”. Deb Roy’s footnote 66 on p.17 mentions that Abhimanyu slew one of the six who encircled him, namely Brihadbala, but does not add that he was king of Kosala and possibly the last in Rama’s lineage.

To avoid taking sides in the war, Balarama goes on a pilgrimage which reveals the pre-eminence of Sarasvati among rivers, even though it no longer flowed to the sea having disappeared at Vinasana. The tirthas bring out the unique ability of Bharatavarsha to hold together two diametrically opposite beliefs: one pilgrimage celebrates Shrucavati attaining heaven unmarried, while another is holy because Kuni-Gargya’s aged daughter bought a husband with half her merit for one night because spinsters cannot reach heaven! The Jaigishavya-Asita story extols sanyasa above the householder’s dharma, whereas elsewhere it is dutiful domesticity that is said to surpass renunciation. A fascinating insight into the predicament of gods is provided in the account about Kurukshetra (p.516). If by dying there men reach heaven, they will no longer sacrifice and so the gods will cease to exist! The problem is that the boon Indra grants Kuru to offset this seems to be the same thing: “great merits to those who give up their lives here.” Do “great merits” preclude heaven and make sacrifices obligatory? Janamejaya does not ask Vaishampayana to clarify.

Balarama condemns Krishna’s prevarication and Bhima’s cheating. Sanjaya bluntly calls it, “deceptive exposition of dharma by Keshava” and describes a heavenly shower of celestial blossoms, divine music, fragrant breeze and clear sky celebrating Duryodhana’s last words to Krishna, “I will go to heaven…You will sorrow here.” The Pandavas are said to be ashamed and distressed. Is their morale restored by Krishna declaring that he had strategised thus because in a fair fight the Kaurava heroes were undefeatable, confirming Duryodhana’s indictment, “Had you fought (us) through fair means, it is certain that you would not have been victorious. However, you adopted ignoble and deceitful methods”? When Krishna restrains the furious Balarama by saying, “Their prosperity is our prosperity,” the Yadava interest is revealed. It is Krishna’s great grandson Vajra who is installed at Indraprastha, the Pandava capital, with the Yadava survivors. Duryodhana trusts that Charvaka will avenge him which is of a piece with his contemptuous treatment of rishis and the absence of a priest in the Hastinapura court. Duryodhana was a materialist. Hence all the sages backed the Pandavas to preserve their hegemony in society.

It reflects adversely on the professionalism of the publishers that they not only misspell “Shalya” as “Shalaya” throughout the page headings (pp. 319-377) but have not bothered to correct the errors in the Introduction reprinted from the first volume. The genealogical chart has serious errors, showing Yayati married to Anantaa who is his son Puru’s daughter-in-law. Ganga is shown born to Pratipa and Sunanda, i.e. sister to Shantanu whom she marries. Kuru is not the grandson of Bharata (p.xix) but at least five generations after him. Nowhere is it said that the original “Jaya” was of 8,800 verses. This is the number of riddling shlokas (Vyasa-kuta) Sauti mentions and his name is Ugrashrava, not Lomaharshana, which is his father’s name (p.xxi). The critical edition (CE) does not “eliminate later interpolations” (p.xxii) but only retains readings that are common to the maximum number of manuscripts, taking the Kashmir Sharada manuscript as the basis. In the process, the editors created gaps in the narrative which Deb Roy bridges very helpfully by supplying missing links. On p. 209 he points out an important editorial oversight: Ashvatthama is described as of Bhrigu lineage whereas he is of Bharadvaja lineage. The translations by Ganguly and Dutt are not unabridged (p.xxvii) but Latinised or omitted objectionable passages. Deb Roy pats himself on the back for being one of the Bengalis who alone have translated the entire epic into English, but in the process transforms the Punjabi P.Lal into a Bengali! He claims that Ramayana is post-Mahabharata as it depicts a more sophisticated society where rocks stones and fists are not used in battle. However, that is precisely how the vanara fight the rakshasa, and so do warriors in Kurukshetra in his own translation (p. 88). Footnote 795 mistakenly states that Parashurama had cursed Karna his chariot would be stuck in the earth. That was the curse of a Brahmin whose cow Karna had killed by mistake. On p.435 “parshni charioteers” and on p. 496 “nairrtas” have not been glossed. “King of deer” (p.323) is an inaccurate translation of mrigendra which means, “Indra/Lord of beasts”, as mriga means “wild beasts,” not merely, “deer”.

Review :The Harivansha – The Significance of a Neglected Text

Andre Couture: Krsna in the Harivamsha, vol. 1—the wonderful play of a cosmic child,

DK Printworld, New Delhi, 2015

Pages. 362,

Rs. 990/-

 

Mahabharata (MB) scholars tend to dismiss the Harivansha (HV) as a superfluous “appendix” (as they interpret the word khila which the MB applies to it). When Kaliprasanna Singha got the MB translated into Bengali (1858-1866), he omitted the HV finding it to be obviously a later composition on the basis of its language besides being inferior in style. Possibly, because of this K.M. Ganguli did not include it in his English prose translation of the MB (1883-1896). The first English translation of the complete HV was done in prose in 1897 by Manmatha Nath Dutt, the Rector of Keshub Academy, Calcutta, who was the second translator of the MB (1895), besides the Ramayana and the Agni and Garuda Puranas. Dr. K.P.A. Menon’s translation (Nag Publishers 2008, of which Couture appears to be unaware), is of P.L. Vaidya’s “critical edition,” which drastically shortens the extant text from 18000 to 6073 slokas. Recently, an unfinished English prose translation of the complete HV (Chitrashala Press, 1936) by the late Desiraju Hanumanta Rao, A. Harindranath and A. Purushothaman is available online at a site maintained by the nuclear scientist Dr A. Harindranath of Calcutta.

It was left to the French scholar Andre Couture (professor at the Laval University, Quebec, Canada) to show that khila actually means “a complement, or supplement” essential for revealing the significance of the main work. This book collects updated versions of thirteen papers written over a period of three decades analyzing Krishna’s birth and childhood deeds. Usually dismissed as a hodge-podge of pastoral myths, Couture shows that the HV is a carefully crafted narrative with a definite goal. His investigation reveals the importance of Nilkantha Chaturdhara’s commentary, ignored by Indologists, for reaching a proper understanding of the work. Nilkantha explains khila as an addition to a Vedic corpus for a specific reason. The HV is added to the MB because it completes the glorification of Krishna’s deeds: “the meaning of the MB is not complete without the HV.” Couture is the first to state uncompromisingly, “the fact that its parts do not exactly fit the order Western Indologists would prefer is of little consequence…it is more constructive to try to understand the logic underlying the composition of the text as we now find it rather than to resort to radical surgery each time a narrative challenge arises.” Instead of a mechanical comparison of texts to arrive at an “Ur-Text” it is the contents that need to be analyzed to identify recurrent themes and how the episodes are sequenced. It is refreshing to find a Western scholar who dismisses the prevailing theory that Krishna was an ancient vegetation deity whose name “Damodara” refers to wheat sheaves tied with straw. Instead, writes Couture, “only the Indian explanations are worth consideration.”

Couture shows the error in Vaidya’s conception of the HV as a late and random collection of appendices, from which he shears away whatever he deems non-essential. Actually, the HV presents Vishnu as the only god who ensures the welfare of the three worlds, complementing the “Narayaniya” of the MB. His dark form is Shesha who, as Sankarshana, is Krishna’s necessary complement, the shesha (remnant) of Vishnu the shesin. Brahma is the form he takes when creating, Rudra when destroying. Both the HV and the MB regularly allude to the four forms of Vishnu: with one he performs ascesis on earth; another is a witness to all that happens; the third acts in the world; the fourth is in yogic sleep, awakening to emit the cosmos. Couture is critical of Vaidya’s unjustifiable omission of Vishnu’s invocation of the goddess Arya Vindhyavasini that occurs in all versions of the HV, except just three in Malayalam script, and is present in both the Sharada and Newari texts upon which Vaidya relies the most. The hymn is definitely pre-695 CE when it features in a Chinese translation of the Suvanabhassottama Sutra. This goddess plays a critical role in Krishna’s birth under the names Nidra and Ekanamsa, on whom there is a valuable discussion.

The representation of the Kshatriya Akrura as a devotee, bhagavata, suggests a new social environment in which this class led bhakti movements seeking to subsume ritual Brahminism in their views. This a world of kings and of Brahmins visiting courts to make a living. These Brahmins represent Vishnu as the supreme sovereign over all monarchs, to whom total bhakti is due, as seen in the bhagavata Shesha who supports the world and serves as Narayana’s couch. To compete with the onset of Buddhism and Jainism, the concept of a Universal Divine was welcomed by the newly urbanized society which found that the traditional rituals had outlived their day. The period for this development is suggested as the closing centuries BCE. At this time, the Vedas were being enlarged by adding a fifth (the Chhandogya Upanishad’s itihasapuranam panchamam) from which legitimacy was sought. The tales in this fifth category relate to genealogies, royal conduct, gods and heroes. The reciters of this lore sought to re-establish the challenged social order on the basis of shruti and the puranas, as the MB clearly states at the beginning.

Correctly, Couture discounts the prevalent dating of the HV to the first or second century CE merely on the basis of the single occurrence of the word dinarika (Roman denarius). Vaidya argued that Kshemendra’s Bharatamanjari contains summaries of both the MB and the HV which, therefore, must have been completed by 1046 CE. Couture finds no cogent basis for Vaidya’s dating of the HV to 300 or 400 CE. The recent conclusions of scholars like Hiltebeitel, Bailey, Sutton, Biardeau and Fitzgerald that the MB was compiled between 200 BCE and 200 CE as a response to Buddhism, would apply equally to the HV. According to J.L. Masson and Ingalls, the language of the HV cannot be later than the 2nd or 3rd century CE and could go back to the 1st century CE. Ashvaghosha’s Buddhacharita (1st century CE) refers to a story found only in the HV about Bhishma killing Ugrayudha. Couture finds that several similes in it are paralleled only in the HV. Such is the epithet rathavistirnajaghana (chariot-like hips) describing gopis in the HV and shroniratha in Buddhacharita applied to lovely ladies. Further, Kushana iconography from the 2nd century CE reflects descriptions about the Man-Lion avatar and Sankarshana found in the HV. Moreover, only in India did the Kushana kings use the epithet devaputra which is used in the HV to describe Krishna and Balarama. However, on what evidence does Couture conclude that the Mathura described in the HV is evocative of cities of the Kushana era (1st to mid-3rd century CE) and not of the end of the Dvapara Yuga (for which we have no descriptions)?

It would be interesting to see Couture’s reaction to Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s clear opinion in his remarkable Bengali study of the Krishna corpus, Krishnacharitra (1892, available in English translation since 1991 [1]) that the HV is later than the Vishnu Purana. Couture’s bibliography is unaware of this work. It is intriguing that Couture has nothing much to say about the nocturnal sport of Krishna with the gopis. Bankimchandra’s Chapter 6 is “The Gopis of Vraja” as described in the HV. He points out that they are mentioned only in the 76th/77th chapter of its Vishnu Parva, just as they only occur in the 13th chapter of the 5th book of the Vishnu Purana. Instead of the famous raasa, it is the word hallisha that is used in the HV whose chapter-heading itself reads Hallishakridanam. Both words connote a type of dance and there are verses here identical with the Vishnu Purana. The HV account is shorter (usually it embellishes and expands the Vishnu Purana accounts). Bankim opines, “Comparing in detail the poetic quality, high seriousness, scholarship and magnificence of both works, it is clear that the Harivamsha is far inferior in these respects to the Vishnu Purana. The Harivamsha composer has been unable to comprehend the profound truth inhering in the Vishnu Purana’s description of raasa and the achieving of union with the divine Krishna through the bhakti-yoga practiced by the gopis…. The vivacious girl of the Vishnu Purana is restless with joy, while the Harivamsha’s gopis express the sensibility of wantons. In many places the Harivamsha composer is found to display a fondness for the sensual to an excessive degree.”[2] Kaliprasanna Singha must have had the same reaction, because of which he did not include the HV when he translated the MB into Bengali.

Couture analyzes the HV account of the birth and childhood of Krishna in conjunction with the versions in the allied puranas. Couture contends that these are not a hotchpotch of legends taken from pastoral tribes like Abhiras, nor are they purely symbolic, but draw upon Brahminic Vedic tradition to address concerns of their audience. The Bhagavatas (formerly called smaarta) played the major role in constructing a coherent mythic narrative of a hagiography based upon a specific religious ideology. The murder of Devaki’s six new-born sons and her aborted seventh pregnancy leading to the birth of Sankarshana follow precedents of the birth of Martanda in the Rigveda and the Maitrayani and Taittiriya Samhitas, and the births of Bhishma, Aruna and Garuda in the MB. The device presages the birth of a deity or a semi-divine being.

Couture has a very interesting discussion on the place of Sankarshana in Krishna’s birth-story. He is the remnant (shesha) after the pralaya (universal destruction) symbolized by the killing of Devaki’s six sons at birth, which is followed by the supreme divinity, as is the pattern after cosmic dissolution. Recreation is not possible without the collaboration of Yoganidra, who emerges from Rohini in this case, and is named Ekanamsa, to whom Couture devotes a separate chapter. Couture argues that since her birth follows Sankarshana’s and is coterminous with Krishna’s, this evokes the union of Purusha-Spirit and Prakriti-Matter. Thus, no detail in the birth-story is arbitrary.

Similarly, after seven years in the cow-settlement (vraja), wolves emerge from Krishna’s pores, causing destruction. Therefore, they move to Vrindavana, to a new life with the miracle of the Govardhana-lifting to save it from a deluge. Again, this is the pattern of gestation and a new birth. Couture has not noticed that the reasons Krishna gives to his brother for the move are similar to those advanced by Krishna-Dvaipayana-Vyasa to Yudhishthira for moving from Dvaitavana to Kamyaka forest (MB.3.36.37). The black and white hairs Vishnu plucks, manifesting as Krishna and Sankarshana, are, Couture suggests, from the antelope skin used in rites of rebirth for the patron of the sacrifice, not his head. Krishna being the cosmic Purusha and his brother the remnant of the cosmic sacrifice, what is being symbolized in this myth is the cosmic sacrifice. Moreover, at the end of the MB, Jara shoots Krishna taking him to be an antelope. Balarama gets reabsorbed into the ocean as a white snake. The manner of their deaths completes the circle that began with the white and black hairs plucked by Vishnu.

Couture’s research reveals a very important finding: gokula, used so often in the HV and in puranas, is not the name of a particular village but designates a cow-settlement, a synonym for vraja, ghosha, and goshtha. Nanda heads the cow-settlement, which moves from one forest to another. Vrindavana is not a particular forest but simply another great forest like the mahavana in which gokula was first located.

The MB is familiar with some of the childhood deeds and the names Damodara, Govinda and Keshava (cf. Bhishma and Shishupala’s speeches in the Sabha Parva, Dhritarashtra’s in the Drona Parva). In the HV, when Indra names Krishna “Govinda,” he begs him to protect Arjuna, thus linking to the Kurukshetra holocaust beyond the re-establishment of dharma in Mathura by killing Kansa (the asura Kalanemi) and his band of re-born demons. Akrura forecasts that the dying Yadava line will be revived by Krishna whose childhood narrative has local as well as cosmic dimensions. That is why Krishna is the gopa, the herder who protects Earth, the cow. Hence, he is Gopala the cosmic cowherd, who replicates Narayana’s killing of Kalanemi by destroying Kansa. Leading up to this is his breaking a cart as an infant, accompanied by his crying (rud, referring to Rudra the destroyer), emitting wolves who devour all (like Kala-Time of the Gita) and breaking the great bow of the Mathura festival. These signify “the inevitable destruction preceding all renewal.”

In a challenging interpretation, Couture equates Vidura’s parable of the man in the well with the taming of Kaliya naga. Krishna is also walking through the forest of samsara. The pool of the Yamuna in which the five-headed snake Kaliya resides is the world threatened by Kala-Time. Unlike the Brahmin, Krishna is not lost, nor dangling helplessly upside-down from a vine, oblivious of the gaping maw of the serpent, engrossed in the honey dripping down. From the fragrant kadamba tree, not distracted by its scent and the bees, Krishna dives into the pool, gets free of the serpentine coils and dances on the five hoods of the senses. Kaliya reverts to the ocean, just as Indra, defeated at Govardhana, returns to Swarga. The cowherd settlement is preserved by the supreme divinity making all perform their svadharma instead of brutalizing others.

Couture analyzes the Govardhana episode at length, bringing out its replication of several Vedic myths about Indra clipping mountains of their wings and Vishnu as the boar uplifting the submerged earth. However, he is less persuasive when arguing that in tearing off the giant (bird) Putana’s breast Krishna is replicating Indra cutting off the wings of mountains to stabilize the earth and that Govardhana becomes a “mountain bird” sheltering all in its belly. In that feat, Krishna literally becomes a pillar of the earth. Thus, the childhood narrative up to Kansa’s death follows the pattern of the mythic deeds of an avatar and is not a mere entertainment. Like black Agni, Krishna swirls up to engulf Kansa on the throne and ploughs the soil with him. He is, thus, a sacrifice and Krishna’s childhood in the forest is an initiation (manushi diksha, HV 58.8) for this. For making the meaning of the manifestation of Vishnu as the Kshatriya Krishna clear, the Brahminical tradition composed this narrative which brings together the cosmic acts of the deity as creator, preserver and destroyer in the human world. It is not a borrowing from primitive pastoral myths.

In translating the Brahmavaivarta Purana passage about the hunchback woman cured by Krishna, Couture translates kanya as “a twelve-year old virgin” (p. 231), whereas it ought to be “ten-year old virgin”. The discussion provides an interesting nugget of information: in the Brahmavaivarta Purana, the hunchback is Shurpanakha reborn, her disfigurement removed by Rama reborn as Krishna, who also fulfils her unrequited love for Rama. By straightening her back, Krishna is replicating Prithu, the archetypal king, levelling the uneven earth. The curvaceous, fragrant Earth (kubja carries unguents for the king) is the handmaiden (sairandhri in the Bhagavata Purana) to the Raja, but Kansa’s adharmic rule has deformed her. Her breasts are sunk into her belly, her back is a hump, so that though young she appears old. The stinking, gigantic Putana is another symbol of this malformed, aged, infertile earth. Both resemble the sunken, submerged Earth rescued by Vishnu as the boar. In the HV the Earth is a woman who complains to Vishnu that after Parashurama’s slaughters she is stinking with gore (like the dead Putana), impure like a menstruating woman. This is the Earth Krishna rescues by becoming a pillar (Govardhana) upholding her in a deluge, straightening her hump to make her high-breasted and heavy-hipped, fertile, and by sucking out the poison in her (Putana). As Vishnu-the-boar had coupled with the Earth, so Krishna later makes love to kubja, which the Brahmavaivarta Purana typically describes in erotic detail. Their son is Upashloka, according to Ezhuttacchan’s Malayalam re-telling of Bhagavata Purana and the Sanskrit Naryaniyam (a summary of Bhagavata) by his contemporary Melputhur Narayana Bhattathiri, as pointed out by Harindranath and Purushothaman on their Harivamsha resources page. Couture also points to a possible connection with the tantric goddess Kubjika who is young, attractive, dark and hunched and presages the kundalini that has to be uplifted from the base of the spine to join the purusha atop the skull. He suggests that Shaiva tantrism may have appropriated this Vaishnava figure of Earth.

The rope tied around the child Krishna’s belly, Couture shows, is part of the Puranic tradition and not a foreign vegetation myth. It evokes Shesha, Krishna’s inseparable brother Sankarshana. The splitting of the two arjuna trees refer to the twin trees of dharma and adharma (Pandavas and Dhartarashtras) that Krishna refers to in the Udyoga Parva (29.45-46), an image that the MB begins with (1.1.65-66). Krishna is the supreme divine who cannot be bound, who is at play shattering both dharma and adharma, inextricably linked to the remnant of creation.

There is a very interesting chapter on how the winged mountains are a variation on a Vedic theme, with which Couture compares Hanuman’s flight to Lanka and his encounter with the submerged winged mountain Mainaka. Further, he shows how the Govardhana episode mirrors cosmic deluge, preservation of the earth and restoration. Shesha and Vishnu, Sankarshana and Krishna, replace the Vedic mountains as pillars of the earth. Couture even draws in the Buddhist aspect contemporary to the HV, pointing out how Buddha preached Mahayana from the summit of Gridhrakuta, dominating the peak wholly and enlightening the universe.

In discussing the presentation of Vishnu as hamsa, Couture renders it as “goose” whereas “swoose” (a swan-goose hybrid) would be more appropriate. Cowherds are like the freely roaming migratory swoose, as are yogis in the Pushkarapradurbhava section of the HV. Vishnu in human form said roams all the worlds as a master. Krishna is the perfect yogi, the cowherd of the cosmos, Gopala. The simple cowherd Krishna by yoga transforms Govardhana into a vraja (cow settlement) to shelter all. He is seen as the mountain itself, just as Markandeya first saw Narayana in the cosmic ocean, and then saw him as an infant at play on a banyan leaf. The HV reverses the sequence: Krishna is first the child cowherd and then the huge mountain sheltering all. The uplifted mountain peak touched by clouds resembles a swoose, which is the nature of Narayana. This is a passage from the chaos of deluge to ordered svadharma. In the HV, “a Vishnu first described as a goose but who appears as a gopa; a marvelous young cowherd who changes into a winged mountain; cowherds and ascetics who are compared to birds,” form a web of symbols representing total freedom of the supreme divinity that underpins the HV stories.

In sum, Couture’s position is against making a distinction between the cowherd god and the Kshatriya hero. The Rigveda calls Vishnu gopa; the HV refers to the cosmic gopa Vishnu, and the cowherd boy of gokula and vrindavana. The book is valuable for the lengthy excerpts translated from the HV and allied puranas that show how well they are parts of the same tradition. There is a valuable bibliography and an excellent index. There are some errors of idiom in translating from French into English. These, however, are few and far between. One hopes that Couture’s research will prompt a new English translation of the complete HV in verse. We await his exciting revelations about the adult Krishna in the second volume.

Reviews in INDIAN BOOK CHRONICLE (MONTHLY JOURNAL ABOUT BOOKS AND COMMUNICATION ARTS) :

• XIX No, 3 March 1994, THE DRIFT OF PINIONS….AT OUR CLAY- SHUTTERED DOORS pg 6-11, Review of VIGNETTES and MORE VIGNETTES OF SRI AUROBINDO & THE MOTHER By Shyam Kumari
• Vol XVIII No.2 No. 2 February 1993 “THAT HORRIBLE WOMAN” UNDERSTOOD AT LAST pg 11-16, Review of KAIKEYI by Amreeta Syam
• Vol XVIII No, 3 March 1993, THE MAHABHARATA- T.V. FILM SCRIPT in 10 Volumes (A long Critique) MYTHOLOGY- A CONTEMPORARY APPROPRIATION by Champak Chatterji pg 4-5
• XVIII No. 11& 12 Nov-Dec 1993 A TREASURE OF HONEY THE COMBS OF GOD pg 22-24, Comment on HOW THEY CAME TO SRI AUROBINDO AND THE MOTHER by Shyam Kumari (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry)
• MAHABHARATA SAMSHADHANA PRATISHTHANAM –Encyclopedia of the Mahabharat project funded by The Ministry of Human Resourse Development, Govt of India
• NATIONAL WORKSHOP for REGIONAL EDITORS 5th and 6th of January 2008 at Bangalore: Variations of the great epic story found in Bengal by Pradip Bhattacharya
• Vyasa Smriti A Quarterly Journal
• The First Bengali Mahabharata in verse and prose –Vol 1 Issue 4 Jan-mar 2008, pg 6-11
• Encyclopedia of the Mahabharata, Great Women of Mahabharata SATYAVATI – vol1 Aprl-Jun 2007 pg 14-16

 

Reviews in INDIAN REVIEW OF BOOKS And THE BOOK REVIEW New Delhi :

 

 

• TWO MAHABHARATA THEMES pg 25-27, Review of 1) THE CULT OF DRAUPADI: Mythologies from Gingee to Kurukshetra ( vol.1) by Alf Hiltebeitel 2) THUS SPAKE BHISHMA By MM Thakur both by Motilal Banarasidas
• No godsend this, pg 12-13 Review of The Voice Of Krishna by Mathuram Bhoothalingam, Krishna Literary Trust, 16 Dec 1994 -15 Jan 1995
• THE BOOK REVIEW vol IX. No.5 March-April, 1985 ‘RAMAYANA ANALYSED’ pg 16-19 a review on ‘Righteous Rama:’ The Evolution of Epic by J.LBROCKINGTON Oxford University Press.
• THE BOOK REVIEW Vol VI No 3 January 1982 Special! WORLD BOOK FAIR ISSUE;   ‘BIASED INTERPRETATION’ pg 165-169, a review on The Bhagvad Gita by NITYA CHAITANYA YATI
• THE BOOK REVIEW Vol VI No 1 July/Aug 1981 ‘The Harappan Culture & Rigvedic Aryans ‘ pg 5-16, a review on The problem of Aryan origens from an Indian point of view’ by K.D Sethna.
• THE BOOK REVIEW Vol No 5 march/april 1981 “Mahabharata Transcreated” pg 37-42, a review on the Mahabharata of Vyasa condensed from Sanskrit & translated from English by P.Lal Writers Workshop Kolkata