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Pradip Bhattacharya

Indologist, Mahabharata scholar

  • BOOKS
    • MAHABHARATA
      • The Mahabharata of Vyasa – Moksha Dharma Parva
      • The Jaiminiya Mahabharata
      • The Jaiminiya Ashvamedhaparva
      • The Secret of the Mahabharata
      • Themes & Structure in the Mahabharata
      • The Mahabharata TV film Script: A Long Critique
      • YAJNASENI: The Story Of Draupadi
      • Pancha Kanya: the five virgins of India’s Epics
      • Revisiting the Panchakanyas
      • Narrative Art in the Mahabharata—the Adi Parva
      • Prachin Bharatey ebong Mahabharatey Netritva O Kshamatar Byabahar
    • LITERATURE
      • Ruskin’s Unto This Last: A Critical Edition
      • TS Eliot – The Sacred Wood, A Dissertation
      • Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s Krishna Charitra
      • Shivaji Sawant’s Mrityunjaya: A Long Critique
      • Subodh Ghosh’s Bharat Prem Katha
      • Parashuram’s Puranic Tales for Cynical People
    • PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & MANAGEMENT
      • Leadership & Power: Ethical Explorations
      • Human Values: The Tagorean Panorama
      • Edited Administrative Training Institute Monographs 1-20. Kolkata. 2005-9
      • Edited Samsad Series on Public Administration. Kolkata, 2007-8
    • COMICS
      • KARTTIKEYA
      • The Monkey Prince
    • HOMEOPATHY
      • A New Approach to Homoeopathic Treatment
  • BOOK REVIEWS
    • Reviews in The Statesman
      • Review : Rajesh M. Iyer: Evading the Shadows
      • Review : Bibek DebRoy: The Mahabharata, volume 7
      • Review :The Harivansha – The Significance of a Neglected Text
      • Review : Battle, Bards and Brahmins ed. John Brockington
      • Review : Heroic Krishna. Friendship in epic Mahabharata
      • Review : I Was Born for Valour, I Was Born to Achieve Glory
      • Review : The Complete Virata and Udyoga Parvas of the Mahabharata
      • Review : Revolutionizing Ancient History: The Case of Israel and Christianity
    • Reviews in BIBLIO
    • Reviews in INDIAN REVIEW OF BOOKS And THE BOOK REVIEW New Delhi
    • Reviews in INDIAN BOOK CHRONICLE (MONTHLY JOURNAL ABOUT BOOKS AND COMMUNICATION ARTS)
  • JOURNALS
    • MANUSHI
    • MOTHER INDIA
    • JOURNAL OF HUMAN VALUES
    • WEST BENGAL
    • BHANDAAR
    • THE ADMINSTRATOR
    • INDIAN RAILWAYS MAGAZINE
    • WORLD HEALTH FORUM, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, GENEVA
    • INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE QUARTERLY
    • ACTUALITIES EN ANALYSE TRANSACTIONNELLE
    • THE HERITAGE
    • TASI DARSHAN
  • STORIES, ESSAYS & POSTS
    • Chakravyuha by Manoranjan Bhattacharya
    • The Head Clerk. A short story.
    • BANGLADESH NEW-BORN: A MEMOIR
  • GALLERY
  • PROFILE
    • About the Author
    • IN THE NEWS
      • Epic discovery: City scholars find lost Mahabharata in Chennai library – The Times of India (Kolkata)

Archives for August 2018

The Source of “janani janmabhumishca” in Anand Math

August 16, 2018 By admin

In Anand Math, just before the remarkable passage in chapter 10 about ‘Mother as she was, Mother as she has become and Mother as she will be’, the protagonist Mohendra is astonished with the song ‘Bande Mataram’ and asks the sanyasi Bhavananda “What Mother?…That is the country, it is not the Mother”.  Bhavananda replies that the only mother theSantans know is the motherland because, he quotes in Sanskrit, janani janmabhumishca svargadapi gariyasi‘mother and motherland are greater by far than even heaven. Here is the passage translated by Sri Aurobindo in chapter 10:

‘Bhavananda replied, “We recognize no other Mother. Mother and Motherland is more than heaven itself.”‘

I was intrigued by the half-shloka because I could not find it in any Sanskrit work readily to hand. And so began my search. My first port of call was the Bharatiya Sanskriti Kosh compiled painstakingly by Shri Liladhar Sharma ‘Parvatiya’ of Lucknow. Not finding it here, I wrote to him. The octogenarian freedom fighter responded that he, too, had no idea about its origins but had heard from people that Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya might be its author! What an anachronism!

Next I turned to the internet and the search engines threw up the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan website where a message by Swami Ranganathananda for the Rama Navami number of Bhavan’s Journal was reproduced. Here the venerable Swami exhorts: ‘We in India today need to be inspired by this important utterance of Sri Rama:Janani janmabhumisca svargadapi gariyasi – ‘Mother and Motherland are far superior to heaven’.*

Eagerly I e-mailed the Journal asking for chapter and verse from the Ramayanabecause I was unable to locate it in my edition of the epic. The reply I received was very interesting. They said that troubling the venerable Swami was out of the question and they were short-handed for scholars to hunt through the epic, but they would try. Nothing came of their efforts.

So I turned to a disciple of the Ramakrishna Mission, requesting that the Swamiji’s secretary be approached. The feedback was even curiouser. They virtually disowned what the Journal had published, because the material had never been cross-checked with them before publication!

Wondering what to do, I asked two scientists’a Tamilian mathematician, Professor Bhanu Murthy and a Malayalee nuclear physicist Dr. A. Harindranath’who were deeply immersed in Indian scriptures. Both of them were very familiar with the entire shloka and quoted it trippingly off the tongue. Apparently, in South India this is well known to Sanskrit school-teachers, all of whom say it is from the Ramayana and spoken by Rama in response to Vibhishana’s request that he should rule golden Lanka instead of returning to Ayodhya. I scoured the Adhyatma Ramayana, the Yoga Vashishtha Ramayana and enquired of the translator of the online Ananda Ramayana, all with no success.

Recalling that on an earlier occasion, having drawn a blank regarding the Pancha kanya shloka, I had requested the Indology Listserver on the internet for help (this is a website where Indologists post queries for eliciting information from the community of Indological scholars), I turned to it. I received a response from Professor Jan E.M. Houben of Holland who wrote, “I have the strong impression that jananii janmabhuumis ca svargaad api gariiyasii was a quotation, but it seemed to me part of the novel…Note that also the idea of Indian nationalism which was instrumental for the liberation of India was newly emerging in Bankimchand’s time. Both the idea and the expression are new, that’s why you don’t find an earlier source. For Shankara at least jananii was not so sacred: punar api jananam, punar api jananiija.thare ;sayanam, iha sa.msaare bahudustaare k.rpayaa’paare paahi muraare! An article on the emergence of Indian nationalism and Bankimchand’s role in it appeared in a book I edited (Ideology and Status of Sanskrit, Leiden: Brill, 1996), it was by V.A. van Bijlert. Jananii janmabhuumi;s ca svargaad api gariiyasii, is of course half (2×8 syllables) of a shloka; even then the formulation and the idea expressed seem to be new and suiting to the specific context of Bankimchand.”

But, if this be so, how was it so well known in the deep South and invariably attributed to Rama? Also, if Bankim had not composed it but had used something that was current in the public memory, why did it not occur anywhere in the Gaudiya recension of the Valmiki Ramayana?

Hearing that the famous Vamadeva (David Frawley) was in India, I tried to get in touch with him through N.S. Rajaram who told me that the epics were not Frawley’s forte. He added that he had memories of hearing this shloka in a Hanuman Natakamperformance. I checked Camille Bulcke’s monumental Ramkatha: Utapatti aur Vikasfor this, and found no reference to the shloka in the entries on Hanuman Natakamor, for that matter, elsewhere.

In the meantime I met Professor Julius Lipner of Cambridge University, who was completing a new translation of Ananda Math but had never seen Sri Aurobindo and Barindra Ghosh’s translation of the novel in the early decades of the 20th century. I provided him with a copy and arranged for his visit to Lalgola in Murshidabad district to see the image of Durga-Kali that had inspired Bankim’s vision of the mother-as-she-has-become. I put the problem to him, but he had not a clue. On his return to England he took the trouble of getting in touch with several scholars including Prof. J.L. Brockington of Edinburgh University who has studied the epic verse-by-verse (cf. my review of his Epic Threads). Professor Lipner writes, ‘They all say that this verse is not in any edition of the Ramayana known to them! Folklore.’ But, he added, had I noticed that the half-shloka was engraved on one of the entrances to the Dakshineshwar Kali temple? Now, that was something none of us, who visit the temple so often, have noticed. Rani Rasmoni, the fiercely independent zamindar, had completed this temple in 1855, several years before Ananda Math was written. Shri Kushal Chowdhury, trustee of the temple, informed me that Bankimchandra was known to have visited the Rani and would certainly have come to see this marvellous navaratna temple dedicated to Mother Kali. The question he could not answer is: was it the Rani who had this half-shloka engraved? Whose idea was it and from where were the words taken?

I now turned to Professor Sushil Mittal, editor of the International Journal of Hindu Studies and co-author of the encyclopaedic Hindu World project. He circulated my query to some prominent scholars. Here is the reply he received from Robert Goldman, editor of the English translation of the critical text of the Ramayana: ‘As I have seen the verse, it is apparent that it is from a version of the Ramayana story. Rama, it appears, utters the verse to Lakshmana at some point, probably in theYuddhakanda. The full verse runs:

Api svarnamayi lanka na me lakshmana rocate/ 
Janani janmabhumish casvargad api gariyasi//

I do not care for Lanka, Lakshmana, even though it be made of gold.
One’s mother and one’s native land are worth more even than heaven.’

Professor Goldman added, ‘but I am not really sure, off the top of my head, what the exact textual source is’I would suggest checking other Sanskrit versions such as theAnanda Ramayana, Kshemendra’s Ramayanamanjari, Campuramayana etc.’ As already stated, it is not to be found in the Ananda Ramayana. I do not have access to the others, but Bulcke’s study does not mention the shloka occurring in any version of the epic. Professor Jayant Bapat informed Dr. Mittal that he located the identical shloka ‘in a Marathi book called Marathi Bhashechi Sanskrit Leni (Sanskrit ornaments in the Marathi language).’ He adds, ‘The author does not specify where he got it from and says that the source is unknown.’

My argument is that as neither of our epics show evidence of any concept of a motherland, this attribution of the saying to Rama is anachronistic and apocryphal. Is it then a folk-memory of an anonymously composed masterpiece of a shloka born of patriotic fervour’something like the elusive Pancha kanya shloka? 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Anand Math, Bankimchandra, janani

Two Studies in Social Injustice

August 16, 2018 By admin

I – GHENA MRIDANGA

1. Pekepara is a small village forming part of Baganchara Anchal in Shantipur Police Station of Nadia District in West Bengal.  Ghrina—better known as ‘Ghena’—Mridanga was a resident of this village from his childhood. He had been working as a servant and day-labourer in the household and fields of Sagar Santra, a well-to-do farmer of Pekepara. The Santras had come to look upon him as part and parcel of their household and had even got him married.

2. Though working as a day-labourer, Ghena had dreams of standing on his own feet some day. Since 1969 he had been cultivating 0.7 acres in plot numbers 976 and 977 in Mouza Baganchara, Jurisdiction List 12, on behalf of Sagar Santra, handing over to him the entire produce. These lands originally belonged to the Maharaja of Krishnagar. During the last Settlement Operations Sagar Santra had managed to get himself recorded as a ‘jabar-dakhalkar’ (forcible occupier) of the plots since 1950.

3. When the Revisional Settlement Operations were announced, Sagar’s son Bhiku released that as these lands had since vested in the State he would have to manipulate matters in order to maintain his illegal possession of the plots. Bhiku’s initial plan was to enter into a ‘benami’ transaction by setting Ghena up as a landless agricultural labourer cultivating Government lands on his own. This would lead to the plots being settled with him formally, as Government policy was to hand over ownership rights to landless cultivators of vested lands. Thus while Ghena remained the formal owner and patta (land deed)-holder, the Santras would continue as the real beneficiaries with Ghena working as their day labourer and household servant.

4. Unfortunately for Bhiku Santra, Ghena Mridnga had matured and was beginning to use his mother-wit. Ghena had heard that the actual possessor of vested land would be eligible for getting right and title over it. He also got wind of Bhiku’s plan. Suddenly one morning he left the Santras, set up his own little hut and started living as a separate entity in order to uphold his individual claim, and not as a ‘front’ for the Santra vested interests. Finding his initial plan gone up in smoke, Bhiku quickly shifted to clever propaganda. He had it put he had it put about assiduously that these vested plots had been purchased by his father from the zamindar, the Nadia Raj Estate, decades back and that he was, therefore, the legal owner. When this news reached Ghena’s ears, he saw all his fond hopes dissipate and quietly handed back the plots to the Santras. Sagar Santra promptly obtained an agricultural loan from the BDO and in 1973 sank a shallow tubewell on plot No. 977—a tubewell which did not function for a single day but served as convenient proof of Santra’s occupation of vested land.

5. Only one thing was lacking to complete Santra’s triumph: legal right and title to the lands, which could be obtained only by  having the Government allot the plots in his favour. On the other hand, Ghena had not given up although he was now nothing but a landless agricultural labourer thrown out by his erstwhile employer. With the advice of some local villagers, Ghena applied to the Junior Land Reforms Officer (JLRO) of Shantipur Land Reforms Circle for allotment of these two vested plots. The Circle Inspector (Land Reforms) of this circle was sent by the JLRO on inspection to the area. He prepared a ‘math-khasra’ (record of field-possession) showing that Ghrina Mridanga, Bhiku and Krishnapada Santra (Sagar’s nephew) were in possession of both plots 976 and 977 since 1951 but that at present, i.e. in 1973, Bhiku alone was in possession of both plots. On the basis of this report, the Block Level Land Reforms Advisory Committee in its meeting held on 23-6-73 recommended settlement of the land as follows:

Plot 976 area 0.51  to Ghena Mridanga s/o Khedu. Own Land:  nil
Plot 977 area 0.18  to                   -do-
-do-     area 0.70  to Bhiku   Santra s/o  Sagar. Own land:  1.00
-do-     area 0.70  to Krishnapada Santra s/o Nakul. Own land:  0.99

6. This recommendation was duly approved by the SDO Ranaghat in Settlement Case No. 11-XII/SP/73-74 of Mouza Baganchara, J.L. No. 12. However, the pattas (title-deeds) were not distributed till 1975 and it was only on 10-2-75 that the local Tehsildar (a commission agent for collecting land revenue who keeps the local land records) handed over the pattas to the two Santras after physical possession had been formally made over to them by the Circle Amin on 7-2-75. Curiously enough, the Amin (Group D staff who measures the land) had signed the possession certificate on 6-2-75 but this was over-written to 7-2-75 and signed by the JLRO without giving any date. No patta was handed over to Ghrina Mridanga. During the subsequent enquiry, the JLRO claimed that these pattas had been distributed to the Santras without his knowledge. He failed to explain how, in that case, he had signed the possession certificate. In the Register of Patta Distribution the column pertaining to the date of distribution was blank. According to the Amin, Ghrina’s patta could not be handed over because Bhiku Santra would not allow him to do so. He claimed that he had informed the JLRO of this verbally.

7. After the state government had issued instructions for undertaking a crash programme for distributing all pending pattas, it was on 29-4-76—more than a year later—that the Circle Amin and the Assistant Revenue Officer of the Land Reforms Circle went to deliver Ghrina’s patta. Once again Bhiku objected and successfully confused the ARO (whose function is purely to recover government loans and who has nothing to do with land records) by producing a copy of the Record of Rights wherein Sagar Santra’s name appeared as forcible occupier of the lands retained by the Zamindar. The ARO quickly left the spot after perfunctorily issuing Santra a notice under Section 49(A) of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, asking him to vacate possession of the vested lands not allotted to him. He also ‘allowed’ Santra and Ghena three days time to settle the matter amicably.

8. However, on 2-5-76 Ghena took the law into his own hands and tried, ineffectually, to gain possession of the lands allotted to him three years back. Sagar Santra immediately sent off a complaint to the Land Revenue Minister who asked the Additional District Magistrate (Land Reforms) [ADM(LR)], Nadia to report. Santra claimed, in his complaint, that the plots had been vested in the State wrongly and that they rightfully belonged to him and were being cultivated by him and his forefathers for generations without break. He alleged that Ghena had ruined the vegetable crop he had grown on these plots with the help of a band of dangerous criminals, and that he apprehended danger to his life and property from this ‘terrible marauder’ Ghena.

9. On enquiry it was found that after the notice had been issued to Bhiku Santra by the ARO asking him to vacate the lands allotted to Ghena, no action was taken to lodge a complaint with a judicial magistrate, as provided in the WBLR Act, when Bhiku did not take any steps to comply with the order. Ghena, in turn, applied to the SDO Ranaghat—an IAS officer on his first posting—on 12-6-76 complaining that he had approached the JLRO for being given possession of the lands, and had been rebuked for attempting to take possession without having a patta. On subsequent occasions Ghena had been told by the JLRO that he had better approach the Block Development Officer and the ADM (LR) for getting patta since he had ‘dared’ to send petitions to them. He was also told that a case had been instituted against him in the Ranaghat Court and until this was decided, no patta could be given to him. The SDO Ranaghat passed on Ghena’s petition to the JLRO on 25-6-76 for ‘taking necessary action’. The JLRO noted on the petition on 1-7-76, “The patta cannot be handed over to the allottee at the present stage of the situation growing in the locality” and did not send any intimation to the SDO, who did not pursue the matter.

10. On 22-6-76 copy of a notice to the Collector, Nadia, under Section 80 of the Civil Procedure Code was received by the JLRO from one Gyanadabala Dasi, wife of late Rajendra Manna, stating that Sagar Santra was her caretaker appointed for 0.51 acres in plot 976 and 1.58 acres in plot 977, i.e. precisely the portions allotted to Ghrina and the Santras, and that it was she who had taken settlement of these lands from the Nadia Raj Estate. The notice warned the Collector to desist from distributing the said lands since the Records of Right were wrong and Gyanadabala Dasi intended to file a suit for declaring her title to the lands. The JLRO duly forwarded on 2-7-76 a skeletal statement of facts to the Revenue Munsikhana Section of the Collectorate which deals with civil cases involving government. The section took no action in the matter, as it was only a notice and no suit had yet been field. In the meantime, Bhiku Santra had lodged a number of complaints in the form of General Diary entries in the local Police Station against Ghena, alleging various types of intimidation on his part.

11. At this point the ADM (LR) decided to investigate the case in person. He had, in succession, sent two officers to look in to the case: one was a WBCS probationer who had been a Kanungo in the Settlement Directorate for over a year with field experience to his credit; the other a very senior WBCS officer who was a veteran of the Settlement Directorate. None of these reports could satisfactorily explain the mysterious appearance of Gyanadabala Dasi on the scene and the JLRO’s reluctance to hand over the patta to Ghrina. The SDO, who had then been asked to look into the matter, did not visit the spot but endorsed his JLRO’s report that the danger of breach of peace precluded handing over the patta. The SDO firmly expressed his view that subordinate officers should be backed up instead of being disbelieved.

12. Thereupon the ADM went straight to the village in question, visited the plots in dispute, the house of the Santras, the hut of Ghena and spoke to the villagers. He discovered that Gyanadabala Dasi was the masi (maternal aunt) of Bhiku and was the termagant ruling the Santra household with an iron hand. He found that the JLRO was in the habit of visiting the house of the Santras (a large pukka building) and that on his last visit, after the SDO had passed on Ghrina’s complaint to him for necessary action, he had first gone to see Gyanadabala Dasi, asked her why she had not sown anything on those plots yet. Then he had told Ghena that until the shallow tubewell was lifted from the plot, possession could not be given to him and also that this would have to wait till the case against him in the court was decided. The Santras had promptly sown both the plots with kalai (a type of pulse) in defiance of the notice under Section 49-A of the Land Reforms Act asking them to vacate vested land on penalty of eviction and payment of damages. As for the shallow tubewell, the only sign of its existence the ADM found was the pipe.

13. The ADM also found that both the reports sent by the JLRO on the complaint made by Sagar Santra to the Land Revenue Minister had been drafted by the JLRO himself, which was extremely unusual, and that the fair copies had been made out not by the assistant dealing with such matters but by the Issue Clerk and the Amin. Moreover, the details of the land records supplied in these reports were wrong. The correct RORs (Record of Rights) had been copied from the local Settlement Office later, but were sent to the ADM in original by the JLRO without keeping copies or correcting his own records. The JLRO’s style of functioning was an important clue which led to the ADM’s discovery of a mass of irregularities and serious lacunae in the land distribution carried out by this JLRO.

14. The ADM then took the SDO Ranaghat with him to the spot along with Amins, demarcated the area allotted to Ghena Mridanga and formally handed over both the patta and the land to this allottee in the presence of the villagers and the Santras on 28-9-76. He explained to Ghena that since Bhiku had already sown kalai in the plots, he should be allowed to harvest the produce without interference. The office copy of the patta was handed over to the JLRO who, by then, was at his wit’s and fell all over himself promising to protect the rights of Ghena.

15. On 5-11-76 the ADM was surprised to find Ghena in his office with a complaint of having been driven off his land by the Santras assisted by the Gram-Adhyaksha (village headman) of the village. The SDO Ranaghat was immediately informed. On 9-11-76 the SDO wrote to the Circle Inspector of Police, Shantipur, asking him to ensure peaceful possession of the lands by Ghena and wanting a report by 15-11-76. On 17-11-76 the SDO informed the ADM that the allegation made by Ghena was false, since the CI had reported that he was very much in possession of the land and (extremely significant) “he has harvested kalai on the land”.

II – NANDA DALUI

1. Nanda Dalui owns 3.56 acres of land at Assannagar in the police station of Krishnagar in West Bengal. He supports his mother, wife and 4 minor children. He inherited this land from his father the late Sudhanya Dalui and his uncle the late Surya Dalui. Both his father and uncle had taken a loan of Rs.3,600 jointly from the Nadia District Cooperative Land Development Bank Limited (NDCLDB) for sinking a shallow tubewell. They were also indebted to the tune of Rs.700 to Jitendra Nath Saha, a fertilizer and pesticide licensee who had no money-lending licence. Saha realised the debt in kind at about Rs.10 less than the prevailing market price. The money-lending transactions were entered by him in a hath-chita, a small account book bound in red cloth.

2. In March 1974 Sudhanya Dalui  received a notice from the NDCLDB for re-paying Rs.2,100.  He approached Jitendra Saha for advancing a further loan to meet the demand of the Bank. This was perhaps the opportunity Jiten Saha was waiting for.  He informed Sudhanya Dalui that he would not be able to advance this loan without security since Dalui had not repaid the earlier loan. Sudhanya was compelled to execute a registered sale deed for two bighas of his land for a loan of Rs.1,000,  whereas the market value of the land was around Rs.2,000 at that time. Sudhanya was also pressurised into executing a bainanama (sale-agreement) that he would sell his remaining land for Rs.3,000 should he fail to repay Rs.3,622 by Chaitra 1382 B.S. (April 1976) on payment of Rs.500 by Saha. The market value of this portion of land being irrigated with a shallow tubewell was not less than Rs.20,000. Dalui, however, did not hand over possession of any portion of his land to Saha. He went on repaying his loan to Jiten Saha by giving him a share of his produce. It is not possible to assess the fairness of the price determined by Saha for the crop since there was no entry in the hath chita about the quantity of crop received. At one place only, where an entry had been made, it was found that Dalui had given Saha 176 kg of paddy for Rs.220, but in the next page the balance brought forward omitted the amount wholly.

3. Sudhanya Dalui and his brother Surya Dalui both died soon thereafter. Nanda Dalui was faced with a nightmarish situation and had to approach Jiten Saha again to repay the outstanding dues of the Bank. Saha showed Nanda Dalui the bainanama and asked him to hand over two bighas of irrigated land. Nanda Dalui did not agree to the suggestion and was served with a pleader’s notice informing him that the bainanama would be converted into a registered sale deed unless the debt was repaid by Chaitra 1382 B.S.

4. Nanda Dalui submitted a petition to the Additional District Magistrate (Land Reforms), Nadia, on 10 March 1976 stating his problem and praying for succour. The Assistant Magistrate & Collector (a newly recruited Indian Administrative Service probationer) was entrusted with the enquiry into the case. He summoned the parties to the office of the Anchal Pradhan (elected head of the community development block-level panchayat samiti) on 13 March 1976 but the parties were not present at the appointed place. The Anchal Pradhan informed the Assistant Magistrate that the matter had been amicably settled. Sri Harinarayan Mallick, who had sponsored the petition of Nanda Dalui, also denied the facts stated therein. The Assistant Magistrate had, however, noticed Nanda Dalui hovering about in a hesitant manner near the office. On making enquiries about the antecedents of the Anchal Pradhan the Assistant Magistrate found that he had lands and properties in Assannagar, Krishnagar and Calcutta and was an unofficial agent of the local Marketing Cooperative Society for purchasing jute. It was found that local farmers did not get a fair price for their jute and the Anchal Pradhan had appropriated the money as middleman.

5. The Assistant Magistrate asked the Anchal Pradhan to produce the parties immediately as he suspected that the alleged settlement between Nanda Dalui and Jiten Sahu was spurious. Nanda Dalu and his witness confirmed his suspicions. On interrogation Jiten Saha became extremely nervous and made contradictory statements about the loan due to him from Nanda Dalui. He was informed of the moratorium on realisation of rural debts imposed by the West Bengal Rural Indebtedness Relief Act 1975 and was asked to settle the matter with Nanda Dalui forthwith. Saha asked for seven days’ time for the purpose.

6.  A week later Nanda Dalui reported to the Assistant Magistrate that Jiten Saha had given him hints that he should sell two bighas of his land and repay his debts with the sale proceeds. Saha also did not turn up before the Assistant Magistrate at the appointed time. The ADM (LR), along with the Additional Superintendent of Police and the Assistant Magistrate, thereupon visited Assannagar on 23 March 1976 but could not find Saha although prior intimation had been sent. The Anchal Pradhan and Jiten Saha’s elder brother Subodh Saha were asked to ensure that both the parties appeared before the ADM on the next day along with the sale deed and the bainanama.

7. On the following day, Jiten and Subodh Saha appeared, but without those documents which, they pleaded, were lying with their lawyer and were not easily available. Nanda Dalui was also present and recounted the entire history. It was pointed out to Saha that he was guilty of evading stamp duty and that action under Section 64 of the Indian Stamp Act could be taken against him, involving a penalty of Rs.5,000. Further, it was found that his fertiliser and pesticide licences had expired and had not been renewed so far. Moreover, he was lending money to many people. On all these facts being pointed out and on being reminded about moratorium on rural indebtedness, the elder brother, Subodh Saha gave a written undertaking that he was taking the responsibility to cancel the bainanama and retransfer the lands to Nanda Dalui by a registered sale deed. He also undertook not to press Nanda for repayment of the debt amounting to Rs.3,622.45 and agreed that it could be repaid by Nanda at his convenience. Accordingly, he was asked to execute the sale deed on the same day and arrangements were made for handing over it to Nanda Dalui. The bainanama was also cancelled the same day.

8. The Nadia Land Development Bank which had, in the meanwhile, taken steps to auction the lands for realization of its loan, was informed of the developments and it agreed to allow time till the next year when it was hoped that Nanda Dalui, freed from the burden of usurious demands, would be able to achieve a certain amount of financial solvency.

9. The local BDO was instructed to allot the wheat minikit and summer paddy seed package to Dalui under the agricultural extension programme for enabling him to start cultivating his land free from the crippling problem of obtaining basic inputs.

10. At the same time the ADM succeeding in persuading the U.B.I. (the Lead Bank) to finance Nanda Dalui. The first step they took was to pay off Dalui’s loan to the Land Development Bank. Then they deputed their field officer for supervising Dalui’s wheat and paddy cultivation on the field along with an agricultural input loan of Rs. 700 for the wheat and Rs. 1,000 for the summer paddy.

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The Date of the Mahabharata War

August 12, 2018 By admin

In Vyasa and Valmiki Sri Aurobindo refers to a “recent article of the Indian Review” on the date of the Mahabharata war praising it as “an unusually able and searching (or almost conclusive) paper”.  It was Velandai Gopala Aiyer’s “The Date of the Mahabharata War” published in Vol. II, January-December 1901 of this monthly journal (Indian Review) edited by G.A.Natesan. Sri Aurobindo was obviously fully convinced by Aiyer’s arguments, because elsewhere he writes, “It is now known beyond reasonable doubt that the Mahabharata war was fought out in or about 1190 B.C.”

Aiyer had published a previous paper in the same journal fixing the date of the beginning of the Kaliyuga from four different sources:

  1. Vedanga Jyotisha — 1173 B.C.
  2. Gargacharya — a few years prior to 1165 B.C.
  3. Classical historians — 851 years before Alexander’s stay in India, viz. 1177-76 B.C.
  4. which is confirmed by the Malabar Kollam Andu commencing in August/September 1176 B.C.

Aiyer concluded that the Kaliyuga began with the winter solstice immediately preceding the commencement of the Kollam Andu, or at the end of 1177 B.C. The Mahabharata War, he proposes, was fought a few years before the beginning of the Kaliyuga.

One would like to know if any reactions to Aiyar’s research were published in the “Indian Review”. Libraries in Chennai might yield the information. An abridgement is presented in Aiyer’s own words as far as possible.] – Pradip Bhattacharya

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According to the Mahaprasthanika Parva and the Vishnu Purana, the Kali age would not affect the earth so long as it was touched by Sri Krishna’s holy feet. When the Pandavas abdicated, Parikshit must have been about 16 years old (the age of majority according to Hindu lawyers). If Kali began in 1177 B.C., Parikshit would have probably been born in 1193 B.C. and the war should have occurred towards the end of 1194 B.C.

Again, the Mausala Parva says that the Yadava race was destroyed 36 years after the war and the Pandavas left soon thereafter at the beginning of Kaliyuga. On the other hand, the Bhagavatayana Parva states that Kali began at the time of the war itself. The Ashramavasika Parva states that when 15 years had expired after the war, Dhritarashtra, Gandhari and Kunti left for the forest. In the 16th year after the war, the Pandavas visited them along with Uttara who had recently become a mother and had her child in her lap. Now, Parikshit was in the womb during the war (Sauptika Parva), hence he could not have been an infant in the 16th year after the war. Therefore, this statement in the Ashramavasika is incorrect. Rather, in the 16th year after the war the Pandavas started not on a visit to the old people, but on their last journey. There is no mention of Parikshit’s marriage, which would have occurred later. If Parikshit were really 36 years of age when the Pandavas left, why should he be placed under the tutelage of Kripacharya as stated in Mausala Parva? It would be more consistent if Parikshit was about 16 when he was crowned, and the war took place 16 years before the beginning of the Kaliyuga. This conclusion is supported by other evidence.

Kalhana Pandit’s Rajatarangini, the well-known history of Kashmir written in 1148 A.D., is the only indigenous work in India that can pass for history. Verses 48-49 of the first Taranga state:

“Misled by the tradition that the Bharata war took place at the end of the Dwapara, some have considered as wrong the sum of years (contained in the statement that) in the Kaliyuga the kings beginning with Gonanda I (and ending with Andha Yudhishthira) ruled of the Kasmiras for 2268 years.”

This Gonanda I was, says Kalhana, the contemporary of the Pandavas. The 52nd in descent from him was Abhimanyu, son of Kanishka, whose successor Gonanda III was the first of a new dynasty “which came to power 2330 years before Kalhana’s time” (1st Taranga, verses 52 and 49). In the Rajatarangini the total for the reigns from the end of Andha Yudhishthira—the last of Gonanda III’s dynasty—to Kalhana’s own time is 1329 years, 3 months, 28 days, say roughly 1330 years. Kalhana would have presumed that the interval between the end of Abhimanyu’s reign and that of Andha Yudhishthira was 2330-1330 = 1000 years.

Clearly, in Kalhana’s time it was believed that 2268 years had elapsed from the time of Pandava Yudhishthira to that of Andha Yudhishthira. Hence, Kalhana gives 2268-1000 or 1268 years for the reigns of the first 52 kings from Gonanda I to Abhimanyu and 1000 years for the 21 kings of the dynasty of Gonanda III. This was the “tradition” Kalhana refers to in the excerpt above. The latter portion may well be a later addition because Kalhana himself says it is “thought” that the 52 kings down to Abhimanyu reigned in all “for 1266 years” (verse 54, Taranga I—obviously an error for 1268 years).

However, Kalhana accepts only part of the old “tradition”, namely that 2268 years elapsed from the time of Pandava Yudhishthira to that of Andha Yudhishthira. He does not accept the part that Pandava Yudhishthira lived at the end of the Dwapara Yuga because in Kalhana’s time, as now, the Dwapara was supposed to have ended and the Kali to have begun in 3102 B.C. Kalhana relied on Garga’s verse (quoted in Varahamihira’s Brihatsamhita, XIII. 3-4) which he erroneously interpreted as meaning that Yudhishthira commenced to reign 2526 years before the era of Salivahana, in 2428 B.C. As Abhimanyu lived 1268 years after Pandava Yudhishthira, Kalhana placed him in 2448-1268 = 1180 B.C. Since Kanishka and his successor Abhimanyu lived in the 1st century after Christ, the false figures given by Kalhana for Abhimanyu and all the subsequent kings down to the 6th century A.D. can be traced to his mistaken interpretation of Garga’s verse.

Almost all Sanskrit scholars agree that Kanishka lived in the 1st century A.D., though Cunningham thought that the Vikrama era from 57 B.C. began with Kanishka, and the Saka era beginning on 3rd March 78 A.D. dates from him. Coins show that Kanishka reigned down to 40 A.D. Irrespective of whether the era of Salivahana dates from Kanishka, clearly Abhimanyu must have been reigning about the commencement of this era in 78 A.D. If so, Yudhishthira, who lived 1268 years earlier, must have begun to reign about 1268-78 = 1190 B.C. Since his coronation took place soon after the war, it must also have been fought around 1190 B.C.

Aryabhatta — whose fame spread to Arabia as Arjabahr and Constantinople’s vast empire as Andubarius or Ardubarius — was born in 476 A.D. and the first to promulgate the theory that the earth revolved round the sun, calculate the circumference of the earth and explain the eclipses. According to him, “the line of the Saptarshis intersected the middle of Magha Nakshatra in the year of Kaliyuga 1910”, i.e. 1192 B.C. According to the Vishnu Purana, the Sapatarshis were in that very same position at the birth of Parikshit who was, therefore, born about 1192 B.C. Since the war occurred at the most a few months earlier than his birth, it might have taken place about 1193 B.C.

The same result is arrived at if we consider the number of kings who occupied the throne of Magadha from the time of the war to the accession of Chandragupta. According to the Vishnu Purana — which is mostly agreed to by the other Puranas — the 9 Nandas reigned for 100 years; the 10 Saisunagas of the next previous dynasty for 362 years; the 5 kings of the still previous Pradyota dynasty for 138 years succeeding the famous Barhadratha dynasty whose 22 kings sat on the throne since the date of the war. Thus, we get 100 years for the Nanda and 500 years for the 2 previous dynasties. Very probably the same number was reported to Megasthenes. However, what strikes one most is the large average for each reign. The same Vishnu Purana gives 137 years for the 10 kings of the later Maurya dynasty, 112 years for the 10 kings of the Sunga dynasty and 45 years for the 4 kings of the Kanwa line, i.e. an average of about 12 years against 28 for the Pradyota dynasty and 36 for the Saisunaga! For the Nandas, it is scarcely probable that a father and his sons could have reigned for 100 years, especially when the last sons did not die naturally but were extirpated by Chandragupta with the help of Chanakya. The Puranas may have left out insignificant reigns, or these ancient kings may have been longer-lived than those of the post-Chandragupta period, but even then the averages are too large. It would be unsafe to deduce therefrom the probable date of the war.

In England, from the Norman invasion to the 20th century, 35 monarchs had ruled for 835 years, the average being about 23 years. From Hugh Capet to the execution of Louis XVI, France was ruled by 33 kings for 1793-987 = 806 years, yielding an average of about 24 years. 8 kings ruled Prussia from Ivan III @ 23 years. In Russia 22 monarchs up to the present Emperor Nicholas II for 1894-1462 = 432 years giving an average of about 19 years. In Japan, the present Emperor Musu Hito is the 123rd, his ancestor Jimmu Tenno having established the dynasty lasting unbroken for 2500 years, which gives an average of 21 years for this long-lived dynasty. Thus, the averages for each of the 5 foremost powers of our hemisphere are 23 for England, 24 for France, 23 for Germany, 19 for Russia and 21 for Japan. The average of these, about 22 years, may be taken as the probable duration of each reign of the pre-Chandragupta dynasties. There were 22 Barhadrathas, 5 Pradyotas and 10 Saisunagas = 37 in all from the time of the war to the Nandas, and they might therefore have reigned for 37 x 22 = 814 years.

Moreover, according to the Buddhist Mahavamso, composed by Mahanama around 460 A.D., Mahapadma Nanda, called Kalasoka in the chronicle, reigned for 20 years and had 10 sons who conjointly ruled for 22 years. Then there were 9 brothers who reigned for 22 years. Thus, the Nandas reigned in all for 20+22+22 = 64 years, a figure more likely to be correct than the Puranic round figure of 100 years. Thus, the war must have happened about 814+64 = 878 years before Chandragupta, at 878+315 = 1193 B.C.

Against our reckoning of 814 years between the war and Mahapadma Nanda’s accession, the Vishnu Purana (IV.24) gives 1015 years. This seems based on supposing a round period of 100 years from the start of the Kaliyuga to the time of Nanda’s accession and presuming that the Kali began 15 years after the war. If so, the genuineness of an interval of a round period of 1000 years between the beginning of the Kali and the coronation of Nanda is suspect. The Purana period of 1015 years for the 37 kings between the war and the coronation of Nanda yields an improbable average of over 27 years. The author of the Vishnu Purana deals vaguely in round figures, giving 100 for the Nandas, 500 for the Pradyotas and Saisunagas and 1000 years (IV.23) for the Barhadrathas, the last figure directly conflicting with the statement about 1015 years intervening between the war and the end of the Saisunaga dynasty.

This Purana also states that the Saptarshis, which are supposed to move @ one Nakshatra for every 100 years (IV.24) had moved 10 Nakshatras from Magha to Purvashada during this interval, which therefore comes to 10×100 = 1000 years. Obviously, this supposed movement was arrived at by the author not by actual observation, for such a movement is astronomically impossible, but by his deducing it from the other statement in the preceding verse that 1015 years had elapsed during this interval. The author seems first to have had in mind that the Kali began 15 years after the war and that 1000 year elapsed from the beginning of the Kali era to the accession of Nanda, and then to havae deduced therefrom the proposition that the Saptarshis which were in Magha at the time of the war had moved on to Purvashada at the coronation of Mahapadma Nanda.

In Chapter XIII of the Brihatsamhita, Varahamihira, born in 505 A.D., deals with the Saptarshi cycles and quotes Vriddha Garga: “When king Yudhishthira ruled the earth, the seven seers were in Magha; the Saka era is 2526 years after the commencement of his reign.” The translator, Dr. Hultzsch (Indian Antiquary VIII, p.66) comments, “The coronation of Yudhishthira took place 2526 years before the commencement of the Saka era, or at the expiration of the Kaliyuga-Samvat 653 and in B.C. 2448.” This agrees with Kalhana in thinking that the Yudhishthira era is different from the Kali era.

On the other hand, Jyotirvidabharana, an astronomical work attributed to Kalidasa, but which scholars place in the 16th century A.D., states that in the Kaliyuga six different eras will flourish one after another: the Yudhishthira to last 3044 years from the beginning of Kali; the Vikrama to last for 135 years afterwards; the Salivahana for 1800 years thereafter; and the Vijaya, Nagarjuna and Bali ears to be current in the rest of the Kaliyuga. The three last are fictitious. This shows that Hindus have all along thought that the Yudhishthira era commenced with the Kali. So also Aryabhatta computes by the era of Yudhishthira, which corresponds to the Kaliyuga. Therefore, it is not possible to concur with Kalhana and Dr. Hultzsch in placing the beginning of the Yudhishthira era “at the expiration of the Kaliyuga-samvat 653 and in B.C. 2448.”

What does “Sakakala” really mean? It has been proved that Garga, the author of the shloka, lived about 165 B.C. Even granting Dr.Kern’s contention that Garga lived in the 1st century B.C., it is not possible that Garga could have meant by “Sakakala” either the Vikrama samvat, which began later in 57 B.C., or the Salivahana Sakabda, which commenced still later in 78 A.D. It has not yet been proven that the Vikramasamvat era had been in use ever since 57 B.C. Fergusson, Max Muller and Weber opine otherwise. Besides the Kali or the Saptarshi era, there was in the days of Garga only one other prominent era in existence, namely, the era of Nirvana, “which,” says Fergusson (in History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, p. 46), “was the only one that had existed previously in India.” The era of Mahavira beginning in 527 B.C. might have been then in existence, but the Jain religion was only confined comparatively to a few and its era was not much in evidence before the public. The era of Buddha’s Nirvana was, on the other hand, very widely known (being the State Religion during Asoka’s time). A Tibetan work records a schism having occurred under a “Thera Nagasena” 137 years after the Nirvana’ Chandragupta is recorded to have ascended the throne 162 years after the Nirvana; the inauguration of Asoka is stated to have taken place 218 years after the Nirvana; and the Dipawanso, a history of Ceylon written in Pali verse about the 4th century A.D., makes use of the era of Nirvana in its computations. Therefore, the era of Buddha’s Nirvana, which was in current use in the time of Garga, might have been probably referred to by him.

Gautama Buddha was known by the name of “Sakya Muni” and his paternal grandfather was also known by the name of “Sakya”. The race to which Gautama belonged was often called by the name of Sakyas. R.C. Dutt says, “A little to the east of the Kosala kingdom, two kindred clans, the Sakyas and the Koliyans, lived on the opposite banks of the small stream Rohini …Kapilavastu was the capital of the Sakyas.” The followers of Gautama Buddha were often spoken of as “Sakyaputriya Sramanas” in contradistinction possibly to the Sramanas of other sects. We may therefore infer that the era of Gautama Buddha was probably known as “Sakya Kala” in those times. The era could not have been called “Nirvana Kala” as the term might equally apply to the Nirvana of Mahavira.

The shloka is written in the usual Arya metre. Similarly, the first 2 slokas of the chapter are in faultless rhythm, but the third shloka under discussion satisfies the rhythmic requirements in only the first three quarters. The last quarter, shakakalastasya… is short by one “matra”. It is inexplicable how Kalhana and other scholars could overlook such a glaring slip. As the Rajatarangini also makes this mistake, we may infer that the error might have been in existence from a very long time. The only way of correcting the error is by insertion of the letter “Y” which has been somehow omitted, between the letter “K” and “A” in the word “Saka”, correcting “Sakakala” to “Sakyakala” which makes the shloka perfect and then we have the best of reasons to suppose that Garga refers to the era of Nirvana, the epoch of the Sakyas, or of the Sakya prince Gautama, or of the Buddha called Sakya Muni. Some early copyist, better acquainted with “Sakakala” than with “Sakyakala” changed the latter into the former, which he might have thought to be the corrector form. Even without such a correction, “Sakakala” may be considered a corruption of “Sakyakala”. Thus, in any case, the era of Buddha’s Nirvana is the one most undoubtedly referred to.

The expression shadadvikpancadvi means “twenty-six times twenty-five” or 650 and not “six two five two” denoting 2526 as Dr. Hultzsch interprets. The termination “ka” denotes “so many times”, and is not an expletive that a precise mathematician like Garga may be expected to use unnecessarily. Garga computed here by the Saptarshi cycle, which denoted the lapse of every 100 years by a new Nakshatra and gave 25 years for each Nakshatrapada, into four of which a Nakshatra was then usually divided. If the Saptarshis had moved 6 ½ Nakshatras from the time of Yudhishthira’s coronation to the Nirvana of Buddha, that would be more appropriately expressed as the movement of the Rishis through 26 padas and the period denoted thereby would be put down as twenty-six times twenty-five years.

Though Max Muller offers very fair reasons for fixing the date of the Nirvana in 477 B.C., yet as Bigandet points out in his life of Buddha, both the chronicles of Ceylon and Further India unanimously agree that Buddha attained Nirvana at the age of 80 in 543 B.C. The Dipawanso computes by the era of Nirvana beginning in 544-3 B.C. Burma, Siam and Ceylon are all unanimous in giving this date and such widespread unanimity of opinion cannot be expected unless the era of 544-3 B.C. had existed from a very long time.

Garga’s statement now indicates to us that the coronation of Yudhishthira, and therefore the Mahabharata War, took place in the year 544 or 543 + 650 = 1194-3 B.C.

Almost in all parts of India the Brihaspati 60 year cycle prevails from a very long time. In commenting on Taittiriya Brahmana, I.4.10, Sayana says that this cycle comprised 12 of the ancient 5 cycles, which are so often referred to in the Vedic works and in the Vedanga Jyotisha. The sun and the moon take about 5 years to return to the same position at the beginning of a year, which gave rise to the cycle of the 5 years known as Samvatsara, Parivatsara, Idavatsara, Anuvatsara and Idvatsara respectively. As Brihaspati makes a complete circuit of the heavens in about 12 years, all the 3 heavenly bodies were expected to return to the same celestial region on the expiry of every 60 years. Because of a corrector knowledge of Brihaspati’s motions, Northern India has been expunging 1 year of the cycle in every 85-and-65/211 years so that after one such period the name of the next year is left out and the name of the one following the next year is taken to be the next year’s name. As no such practice prevails in Southern India, the current year (April 1901 to April 1902) which is the year “Pramadicha” in the North, is the year “Plava” in the South.

When the names were invented, the year of the Mahabharata War, the only famous epoch in the history of Ancient India, was named “Prabhava”, the name of the 1st year of the cycle. But the dates given by the orthodox for the war or for the beginning of the Kaliyuga do not correspond to the 1st year of the cycle. But, if we adopt the date given by Garga for the epoch of Yudhishthira, i.e. 1194-3 B.C., we find that the corresponding year of the Brihaspati cycle for that date is “Prabhava”, the name of its very 1st year.

We have suggested that the Kaliyuga began at the winter solstice of 1177 B.C. We have also seen that, barring the argument based on Rajatarangini, which gives us about 1190 B.C. for the war, our other lines of discussion point to 1194-3 B.C. as the probable date of the war. This date is further confirmed by the application of the principles of the Vedanga Jyotisha to certain statements contained in the Mahabharata itself. We may here observe that these statements are not to be explained by the astronomical calculations of modern times, for these were unknown in the days of the War, but rather by the calculations of the Vedanga Jyotisha, which, though cruder, are better applicable to them, inasmuch as it is the oldest Hindu astronomical treatise known to us and its astronomical details, as we have seen, relate to the beginning of Kaliyuga.

In the Swargarohanika Parva of the Mahabharata, we are told that Yudhishthira having observed “that the sun ceasing to go southwards had begun to proceed in his northward course” set out to where Bhishma lay on his bed of arrows. After telling Yudhishthira that the winter solstice had set in, Bhishma said, “Yudhishthira, the lunar month of Magha has come. This is again the lighted fortnight and a fourth part of it ought by this be over.” Whatever historical weight may be attached to these statements, they may be at least taken to mean that the winter solstice then occurred on the expiry of the fourth part of the bright fortnight in the month of Magha, that is, on the fourth or the fifth day after new moon. Nilakantha, the commentator, thinks that the expression tribhagashesha pakshah denotes ‘Magha Sukla Panchami’ or the fifth lunar day in the month of Magha after Amavasya, the new moon.

As according to the Vedanga the winter solstice always occurred with the sun in Dhanishtha the Amavasya referred to by the Mahabharata must have occurred with the sun and the moon in Sravana Nakshatra; and as the winter solstice occurred on the fifth day after this, the moon must have been, on the solstitial day, in or near Revati Nakshatra. According to the Jyotisha, this position could have occurred only at the beginning of the fourth year of a five-year cycle, for it was then that the moon was in Aswayuja, next to Revati Nakshatra. The difference of this one Nakshatra is due to the imperfections of the elements of the Jyotisha. Thus we may infer that the winter solstice following the Mahabharata war, and just preceding Bhishma’s death, was the fourth of the five winter solstices of a five-year cycle. The particular five-year cycle in which the Mahabharata war took place appears to have been the fourth cycle previous to the beginning of the Kaliyuga in 1177 inasmuch as we have found that the Rajatarangini points to1190 B.C., and that all other lines of discussion lead to 1194-3 B.C. as the probable date of the War. Consequently, the winter solstice shortly following the War was the fourth of the fourth five-year cycle preceding the commencement of the Kaliyuga, which began, like the five-year cycle, with a winter solstice and with the sun and the moon in Dhanishtha Nakshatra. In other words, the Mahabharata war took place a little before the seventeenth winter solstice preceding the commencement of the Kaliyuga or towards the end of1194 B.C.

To summarize the arguments above set forth:

  1. We were first enabled by the Vedanga Jyotisha to place the beginning the Kali era approximately at about 1173 B.C.
  2. After enquiring into the date of Garga and of the Yavana invasion he spoke of, we noted that he fixed “the end of the Yuga” for the retirement of the Greeks from Hindustan. From this statement we inferred that the Yuga, which ended sometime before 165 B.C, must have begun a few years before 1165 B.C.
  3. In explaining the figures given by the classical historians, we concluded that the Kaliyuga must have begun in 1177-6 B.C.
  4. The Malabar era furnished us with another authority for fixing the commencement of the Kali era in1176 B.C.
  5. We found that if the Kali commenced at the winter solstice immediately preceding the year 1176 B.C., the details of the Mahabharata would lead us to place the war at the end of the year 1194 B.C.
  6. The Tradition recorded in the Rajatarangini, enabled us to fix the date of the war about 1190 B.C.
  7. From a statement made by Aryabhatta that the Rishis were in Magha in 1192 B.C., we inferred that the war might have taken place at about1195 B.C.
  8. The average duration of the reigns of the monarchs of the five foremost powers of our hemisphere served to assist us in fixing the date of the war at about1198 B.C.
  9. From a shloka of Garga quoted in the Brihatsamhita, we inferred that the war occurred in1194-3 B.C.
  10. We also found that the first year of the Brihaspati cycle of 60 years actually corresponds, as might naturally be expected, to the date of the war as given by Garga, i.e. 1194-3 B.C.
  11. We applied the elements of the Vedanga Jyotisha to a shloka contained in the Mahabharata, which fixes the day of the winter solstice occurring soon after the war, and concluded that the war should have taken place in the latter part of 1194 B.C.

Thus we find all this cumulative evidence derived from different sources converging to the result that the Kali era began at the winter solstice occurring at the end of 1177 B.C., and that the Mahabharata war took place at about the end of 1194 B.C. In arriving at these conclusions, we had the testimony of the only historian that India can boast of who lived in the twelfth century A.D., of the greatest of the astronomers of India who flourished at the end of the fifth century A.D., of another brilliant astronomer who shone in the second century B.C., and of a versatile Greek historian who was also an ambassador at the court of the first great historic Emperor of India who reigned in the fourth century B.C. We had also the authority of the oldest astronomical work of India which claims to be a supplement to the Vedas, of an ancient era which “forms such a “splendid bridge from the old world to the new”, and of the famous sixty-year cycle. We tested these conclusions by what we may call the common-sense process based on the lists of kings contained in the Puranas. We have met and disposed of the arguments of those that give an earlier date.

So far we have been treading on more or less firm ground. But if we attempt to fix the actual days of the year 1194 B.C. when the War may be supposed to have been fought, our authority will have to be the epic itself, by itself an unsafe guide. The Mahabharata is unfortunately neither the work of one author, nor of one age. It has been recently proposed to start an Indian Epic Society mainly for sifting out the older portions of our incomparable epic. But the labors of such a Society, when brought to a successful termination, will not militate against the authenticity of the texts we are presently to discuss. Most of these belong to the war portion of the Mahabharata, which, according to Weber, is recognizable as the original basis of the epic.

We have already referred to a shloka of the epic, which states that the winter solstice, which took place soon after the war, happened on the fifth day after new moon in the month of Magha. In the very next preceding shloka, Bhishma tells Yudhishthira that he has been lying on his ‘spiky’ bed for the previous fifty-eight nights. Among Hindus it has for long been considered good for one’s future state, for death to occur in the period between the winter and summer solstices. The grand old Bhishma did not allow the arrows sticking into his body to be removed lest he might die before the commencement of the auspicious period, but rather preferred to suffer the excruciating pain, to which one with a less magnificent physique would have speedily succumbed.

The war is expressly stated in the epic (Ashramavasika Parva X.30) to have lasted for eighteen consecutive days. Moreover, in the Dronabhisheka Parva (Sections II and V), Karna is said to have refrained from taking part in the war for the ten days during which Bhishma was the generalissimo of the Kaurava army. In the last chapter of Drona Parva it is stated that Drona, who was the next Commander-in- chief, was slain after having fought dreadfully for five days. Karna led the army for the succeeding two days (Karna Parva I.15), and on the night of the next day (Shalya Parva I.10-13) after Karna’s death, the war was brought to an end. When Yudhishthira was lamenting the death of Ghatotkacha on the fourteenth night of the war, Vyasa told him that in five days the earth would fall under his sway (Drona Parva CLXXXIV.65). From these references also it is clear that the war continued for eighteen consecutive days. As Bhishma was mortally wounded on the tenth day of the war, as the war lasted for eight days more, and as Bhishma is reported to have stated (Anushasana Parva CLXVII.26-27) on the day of the winter solstice that he remained on his bed of arrows for fully fifty-eight nights, the interval between the end of the war and the solstitial day was fifty days. As a matter of fact, this very number of days (ibid. 6) is stated as the period of the stay of the Pandavas in the city of Hastinapura which they entered on the next day after the war (Stri Parva XXVII, Shanti Parva XLI and XLV. Though the Pandavas desired to pass the period of mourning which extended for a month outside Hastinapura vide Shanti Parva I.2, their intention seems not to have been carried out) until they set out on their last visit to Bhishma on the day of the winter solstice. The epic says:

“The blessed monarch (Yudhishthira) having passed fifty nights in Hastinapura recollected the time indicated by his grandsire (Bhishma) as the hour of his departure from this world. Accompanied by a number of priests, he then set out of the city, having seen that the sun ceasing to go southwards had begun to proceed in his northward course” (Anushasanika Parva CLXVII. 5-6).

After Yudhishthira reached Bhishma, the latter addressed him in these words, “The thousand-rayed maker of the day has begun his northward course. I have been lying on my bed here for eight and fifty nights” (ibid. 26-27). We may therefore conclude that the winter solstice took place on the fifty-first day from the close of the war.

On the next day after the close of war, Sri Krishna and the Pandavas paid a visit to the dying Bhishma, whom Sri Krishna addressed in the following words: “Fifty-six days more, 0 Kuru Warrior, art thou going to live” (Stri Parva XXVII; Shanti ParvaXLI, XLV and LII). One need not be misled by the prophetic nature of this expression and declare it to be of no historic value. It might well have been a fact and put in the form of a prophecy by the compiler of the epic. But it may be asked how Bhishma could have lived fifty-six days after the close of the war, if only fifty days had elapsed from that time to the winter solstice when Bhishma hoped to give up his life-breath. But the explanation appears to me to be simple enough; though the winter solstice occurred fifty days after the close of the war, Bhishma does not seem to have died on the solstitial day, when the arrows were extracted from his body but appears rather to have lingered on till the sixth day after the winter solstice. We have seen that the solstice took place then on the fifth lunar day after new moon in the month of Magha. It was on the sixth day from this, that is, on Magha Sukla Ekadasi, that Bhishma, “that pillar of Bharata’s race,” seems to have “united himself with eternity.” Tradition asserts that Bhishma died on this very day, and our almanacs even now make note of the fact and call the day by name of “Bhishma Ekadasi.” To this day, death on the eleventh lunar day of the bright fortnight of the month of Magha is held in great esteem, and next to that, death on such a day of any other month. Possibly the supposed religious efficacy rests on the memory of the day of the royal sage’s death.

As the fifty-ninth day after Bhishma’s fall corresponded to Magha Sukla Panchami, Revati or Aswini Nakshatra, the day of Bhishma’s overthrow, which took place on the tenth day of the war, happened, in accordance with the 84 principles of the Vedanga, on Margasirsha Sukla Panchami, in Dhanishtha Nakshatra; and the Amavasya preceding it happened on the fifth day of the war in Jyeshtha Nakshatra. As a matter of fact, Dr. G. Thibaut gives this very Nakshatra for the last Amavasya but two of the third year of a five-year cycle, which particular new moon our Amavasya actually is. We may therefore conclude that the war began on the fourth Nakshatra preceding Jyeshtha or in Chitra of the month of Kartica and ended in Rohini Nakshatra in Margasirsa-month.

The Pandavas tried many milder means before they at last resorted to the arbitratement of war; they even proposed to sacrifice their interests to some extent, if war could thereby be averted. Shri Krishna was the last to be sent on a mission of mediation and he started for Hastinapura (Udyoga Parva, LXXXIII.7) “in the month of Kaumuda, under the constellation Revati at the end of the Sarad (autumn) season and at the approach of the Hemanta (dewy season).” According to the commentator and also to the translator, Kaumuda is the Kartica month. As the latter half of autumn corresponds to the month of Kartica, we may be certain that the statement means that Sri Krishna left for Hastinapura in the Revati Nakshatra of the month of Kartica. His efforts at reconciliation having been of no avail, he seems to have returned to the Pandava camp in Pushya Nakshatra for, as soon as he left Hastinapura, Duryodhana asked his warriors immediately to march the army to Kurukshetra (Udyoga Parva CXLII.18), “For to-day the moon is in the constellation of Pushya”. A little before Sri Krishna’s departure from Hastinapura, he proposed to Karna, “In seven days will there be new moon; let the war be begun on that day which, they say, is presided over by Indra.” As the commentator says, “Sakradevatam” denotes the Jyeshtha Nakshatra, which is presided over by Indra. The verse, therefore, indicates that the approaching Amavasya was to happen in Jyeshtha Nakshatra. This serves to confirm our inference drawn from other texts that the Amavasya, which occurred on the fifth day of the war, took place in Jyeshtha Nakshatra. But, to say that the new moon would occur on the seventh day seems to be certainly wrong, for Krishna was speaking to Karna in Pushya Nakshatra and the Amavasya was said to occur in Jyeshtha, the tenth Nakshatra from Pushya. Probably saptamat is an error for dashamat.

The war, however, did not begin in Amavasya as suggested by Sri Krishna for, Duryodhana moved out his army to Kurukshetra on Pushya Nakshatra. The Pandavas too seem to have marched out of Upaplavya on the very same Pushya. Both the contending parties were in such a hurry to march their armies to the battlefield, because Pushya Nakshatra was considered auspicious for such purposes. Yet, it was not possible to begin the actual fighting on the very same day. Much remained to be done before the armies could meet each other in battle array. If Sri Krishna returned from Hastinapura with the answer of Duryodhana on Pushya Nakshatra it is reasonable to allow some time for the marching of troops, for the ground to be cleared, for the pitching of tents, for the divisions of the armies to be properly effected, and most of all, for the allied princes to bring on their respective divisions to the field of battle. It appears to me that all these preliminary arrangements were gone through during the interval of the five days between Pushya and Chitra, in which Nakshatra the fighting actually began. But our epic says that both the parties were prepared for battle on the day when the moon had gone to the region of Magha (Bhishma Parva XVII). The natural interpretation of the expression is that on that day the moon was in Magha Nakshatra. In that case we have to suppose that though the armies were almost ready for war in Magha Nakshatra, the first shot was not fired till after the lapse of three more days. The armies began their march to Kurukshetra in Pusha, were organized in effective divisions in Magha, and actually engaged in battle in Chitra. Or, it may be that ‘Magha’ is an error for ‘Maghava’. The expression then would mean that the moon had entered the region of Indra, that is the star Chitra presided over by Indra. If the emendation proves to be correct we have here another testimony to the correctness of our conclusion that the war began in Chitra Nakshatra.

It must be borne in mind that the epic was cast into its present form more than a thousand years after the date of the war. There are many statements in the epic which conflict with one another, a circumstance which can be accounted for only on this historic basis. One such conflicting statement occurs in the Gadayudha Parva. On the last day of the war Balarama returned to Kurukshetra from his pilgrimage to the banks of the Sarasvati, whither he had gone on the eve of the war in utter disgust with this horrible fratricidal war. He said (Shalya Parva XXXIV.6), “Forty-two days have elapsed since I proceeded forth; I left on Pushya, I have returned in Sravana.” The Epic states expressly that the Pushya Nakshatra on which Balarama went away on pilgrimage was the one (Shalya Parva XXXV.10-15; Udyoga Parva CLVII.16-35) on which the Pandavas set out of Upaplavya to the field of battle. It also certainly implies that the Sravana Nakshatra on which Balarama returned happened on the last day of the war (Shalya Parva LIV.32). If these statements are to be taken as authentic, the obvious inference is that the war, which began with the marching of armies to Kurukshetra on Pushya, came to an end in Shravana forty-two days later.

This conflicts directly with the natural inferences we have drawn from the other statements,namely, that the winter solstice occurred on Magha Shukla Panchami fifty days after the close of the war, that the war lasted for eighteen consecutive days, that the Amavasya which occurred on the fifth day of the war took place in Jyeshtha Nakshatra, and that Sri Krishna left for Hastinapura on his errand of peace on Revati Nakshatra of Kartica month and returned to Upaplavya on the next following Pushya. To avoid such a contingency two explanations of this manifestly corrupt text are possible. We have either to suppose that the statements about Balarama’s departure on the eve of the war and about his return on the last day thereof are spurious as being opposed to the united testimony of other texts, or that the verse under discussion requires a little emendation. In the former case the inference to be drawn from the shloka is that Balarama left for the Sarasvati in Pushya Nakshatra twenty-seven days before the march of troops on the next Pushya Nakshatra to the battle field and that he returned to Kurukshetra in Sravana some days before the close of the war. If, however, the shloka is incorrect, we may best correct it by changing ‘forty-two’ into ‘twenty-four’. If Balarama had left on pilgrimage in Pushya and returned on the last day of the war, that being the twenty-fourth from the day of his departure, the last day of the war would happen in Rohini, a result which is identical with the one we have already deduced from other texts.

There is one other conflicting verse which we shall briefly discuss. On the fourteenth night of the war there was a tremendous battle between the contending parties. It is hinted in the epic (Salya Parva LIV.32) that the moon rose up on that night after three-fourths part of it had expired. This is certainly a mistake; for the new moon having taken place on the fifth day of the war, the moon should have disappeared below the western horizon about an hour and a half before three-fourths of the night was over. On the evening of the fourteenth day of the war, Arjuna’s vow to kill Jayadratha having been fulfilled, the Kurus, burning with revengeful thoughts, continued the strife far into the night. The epic would have us believe that during the first half of the night a tremendous battle raged in total darkness resulting in the death of Ghatotkacha, that both the armies therefore lay down to sleep for some time, and that on the rise of the moon at about three o’clock in the morning, both the sides recommenced their fighting. It is more probable that the war continued for as long as the moon was shining and that the armies rested when the moon had set. The poet was perhaps led to make this mistake by his anxiety to render the night sufficiently horrible for Rakshasa heroes to fight with their powers of illusion.

But, barring these two conflicting statements which too may be explained away, all other texts serve to support our conclusion. We are told that:-

  1. the winter solstice happened on Magha Shukla Panchami;
  2. the tenth day battle happened fifty-eight days before it;
  3. Bhishma, who died on Magha Shukla Ekadasi, gave up the ghost fifty-six days after the close of the war;
  4. a period of fifty days intervened between the end of the war and the winter solstice;
  5. the war lasted for eighteen consecutive days;
  6. the Amavasya, which occurred soon after the commencement of the war, happened in Jyeshtha Nakshatra;
  7. the armies began their departure to the field of battle in Pushya Nakshatra; and
  8. Krishna had proceeded to Hastinapura on his mission of mediation on the preceding Revati Nakshatra in the month of Kartica.

All these point but to one conclusion, namely, that the war, which lasted for eighteen consecutive days, concluded on the fifty-first night before the winter solstice.

At present the winter solstice falls on the 21st of December. The Gregorian system, which is the basis of the calendars of all Europe except Russia, Greece and Turkey, involves an error of less than a day in 3524 years. As the war took place in 1194 B.C., or 3094 years ago or 2776 years before the calendar was last corrected by Pope Gregory XIII, we may be certain that the winter solstice which occurred on the fifty-first day after the close of the war, would have happened, as now on the 21st of December (New Style). We may, therefore, conclude that the War commenced on the 14th of October, and was brought to a close on the night of the 31st of October, 1194 B.C. Whether or not this precise date, based as it is on data furnished by the Mahabharata alone, proves to be acceptable to the critical eye of a historian, we may at least be sure that the war took place in the latter part of the year 1194 B.C.

Filed Under: MAHABHARATA, STORIES, ESSAYS & POSTS Tagged With: date, Mahabharata, Sri Aurobindo

The Doomsday Epic Condensed

August 7, 2018 By admin

The Condensed Mahabharata of Vyasa by P. Lal, First published 1980, 3rd edn 2010 (Revised and Corrected) Price: HB Rs 600, FB Rs 400

We have in hand a gorgeously produced reprint of the 1980 Vikas edition of Padma Shri Dr. P.Lal’s condensed transcreation of Vyasa’s epic. R.C. Dutt, the first ‘condenser’ of the Mahabharata’s one lakh shlokas, chose to spare the Western reader the “unending morass’ and “monstrous chaos” of episodical matter by leaving out whatever he felt to be super-incumbent.

The result was a Tennysonian Vyasa rhythmically relating in Locksley-Hall metre his knightly tale of barons at war in two thousand English couplets.  

In the process Dutt sacrificed much that is integral to the Vyasan ethos: most of the Book of Beginnings and the Book of the Forest, and all of the Club, the Great Departure and the Ascent to Heaven books.

Here Prof. Lal has condensed the hard-core narrative of the Pandava-Dhartarashtran conflict, around which a vast collection of myths, legends, folklore, philosophy and homilies was woven to make up the great epic of Bharata. A complementary project, Mahabharata Katha, is underway, the first of which, The Ramayana in the Mahabharata, is out. Successive volumes will make available to the English-speaking world those peripheral episodes which are, nevertheless, integral parts of the Vyasan universe articulating leitmotifs that run as unifying themes linking the apparently chaotic medley of episodes.

To the modern reader who has neither the time, nor perhaps the inclination, to seek out the iridescent Ariadne’s thread to follow through the epic labyrinth, the Lalian approach is richly rewarding. Besides a valuable 67 page introduction, a family tree, a map showing India at the time of the Mahabharata, an annotated bibliography and an index to proper names, his condensation differs markedly from those of Dutt, Rajagopalachari, R.K. Narayan, Kamala Subramanyam, Meera Uberoi and Ramesh Menon in that he neither re-tells nor adds. Dr. Lal is the only condenser who also transcreates, giving the story ‘always in Vyasa’s own words, without simplifying, interpreting, or elaborating’ preferred Vyasan dialogue to straight narration and report.’

It is not his intention to narrate merely the essential story of the fratricidal war but also to communicate the ‘feel’ of the epic; that ineffable flavour which transforms a sordid account of a bloody clan-war into the Mahabharata. With this end in view, he incorporates a number of incidents which do not appear, at first glance, to have any link with the central story, e.g. the Arjunaka-serpent-Gautami episode in the 13th Book, the memorable parable of the Drop of Honey related by Vidura to Dhritarashtra in Book 11, and the repeated exhortation regarding ahimsa in this violent epic – so violent that, traditionally, it is prohibited reading for nubile women.

It is to correct the general impression that the Mahabharata is off limits to women that Kavita Sharma, principal of Hindu College, Delhi, has written her study of the royal epic women, pairing Satyavati and Amba (though the parallels are far more between the former and her grand daughter-in-law Kunti and between the latter and her daughter-in-law Draupadi), Gandhari and Kunti, Draupadi by herself and Arjuna’s wives whom she groups as ‘warrior queens’. In the last group her coverage of Alli, Pavazhakkodi, Minnoliyal and Pulandaran from the Tamil ballads is extremely valuable. One wishes that she had included the insights provided by Bhasa and Bhatta Narayana.

There are some glaring errors such as ‘Rishi Gavala’ instead of ‘Galava’ (p.4) and Vibhruvahana instead of ‘Babhruvahana’ (p.113). While discussing Draupadi, she fails to note (despite listing Hiltebeitel’s research on Rajasthani ballads in the bibliography) how the popular imagination reincarnated her in medieval times as Bela in the Alha. Puzzled by Draupadi’s silence when married off to five husbands, she proffers haphazard explanations, completely missing out that her appearance Kritya-like during a sacrifice is followed by a declaration that she will be the agent of the gods for the destruction of the warrior clans and she is called a puppet, ‘Panchali’ (her behaviour often suits that appellative). Her marriage to Yudhishthira, son of Yama-Dharma is ominously appropriate. She is the mysterious femme fatale who inveigles five Indras into being sentenced by Shiva to be reborn as the Pandavas with her as their wife to ensure that the intended holocaust occurs. The course of the epic is determined by the dark four and Kunti: Kali-Satyavati, Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, Vasudeva Krishna, Draupadi-Krishnaa, and Kunti. While Yamuna’s black waters link the first three, Satyavati, Kunti and Draupadi are prototypes of one another.

Superficial study of the epic is indicated when Sharma recounts Krishna saving Draupadi from being stripped where Vyasa refers to Dharma (another name for Vidura) having clothed her, the passage regarding Krishna being an interpolation consigned to an appendix in the Critical Edition.

While summarising Draupadi’s advice to Satyabhama, Sharma diligently lists all the chores of the dutiful wife, failing to note two interesting points: the complete account of income and expenditure of her husbands was in her grasp and she alone knew the extent of their wealth; she kept track of what each of the many maids attending on Yudhishthira was doing; and she took particular care never to surpass her mother-in-law in ornaments, dress and even the food taken, besides avoiding all criticism of Kunti (III.233. 38, 41).

Surprisingly, Sharma does not notice how skillfully Draupadi uses her charms to get her way time and again, particularly with Bhima and Krishna.

While her book is a sorely needed corrective and provides a popular overview of the role women play in the epic, it would have benefited considerably by reference to Sr. M.A. Hughes’ study, Epic Women: East and West (Journal of the Asiatic Society), Saoli Mitra’s Nathavati Anathavat and Katha Amrita Saman, Chitra Chaturvedi’s Mahabharat, Tanaya and Amba nahin mein Bhishmaa, the 2003 national conference on Pancha Kanya – the five virgins of India’s Epics and the 2005 MANUSHI-ICCR international panel on it in New Delhi. The bibliography contains references that have nothing to do with the subject (E.A.Johnson, Sheetan) and though dated 2006, is innocent of the most important work on the epic, Hiltebeitel’s 2001 ‘Rethinking the Mahabharata’.

The Lal condensation is distinguished by the inimitable choice of passages from the original which no other abridgement has incorporated. Thus, in the beginning of Book 12 is Yudhishthira’s lament over Karna’s death:

‘Even when Karna spoke harshly to us in the palace assembly room, my anger cooled when my eyes fell by chance on his feet. They were our mother Kunti’s feet’ And he goes on to utter words that sum up the existential angst at the root of the epic: ‘We have squabbled like a pack of dogs over a piece of meat, and we have won – and the meat has lost its savour. The meat is thrown aside, the dogs have forgotten it.’

This is precisely what the epic is about – or, at least, one of the many things it is about. This theme of a pyrrhic victory, in which the victors ‘instead of gust chew bitter ashes,’ is stressed again and again in passages omitted in other condensations: ‘Enjoy the barren world – it is now yours’, says Duryodhana at bay, bear-like at the stake surrounded by snarling, slavering Pandavas. ‘You have a world to yourself, a world without friends, horses, chariots, elephants, forts. Enjoy her.’

Yudhishthira shouts, ‘You rave like a madman’ – a desperate attempt to drown the grinning skull and the rattle of bones in lung-power. But truth will out, and it comes at the very end in Yudhishthira’s apocalyptic vision of his kinsmen in hell while his enemies loll on celestial couches.

This is the climactic episode of the theme stated un-compromisingly just before the holocaust begins when Arjuna states blandly that the war is being fought neither for avenging Draupadi, nor for ‘dharma’, but for an extremely mundane and selfish objective: land.

If, then, the epic is such a sordid affair, what lends it memorability and relevance today? It is those situations where characters are shorn of all their trappings and face the ultimate test, forced to play chess with death. Such is the dramatic moment when time stands still as Yudhishthira answers the Yaksha of the lake over the corpses of his brothers. Such is the incident where Yudhishthira, again, replies to his ancestor Nahusha crushing the invincible Bhima in his adamantine coils. Such, yet again, is that tremendous scene where Yudhishthira faces Indra and refuses to give up his canine companion for heaven.

Then there are those other intensely human episodes true for all time: the confrontation between Kunti begging Karna to join her other sons; Draupadi putting the entire peerage to shame with an unanswerable question; Draupadi’s upalambha to Bhima after Kichaka has kicked her; Arjuna facing his brothers finding Abhimanyu slain; Amba, rejected by Salva, facing Bhishma. It is woman and man in all their passionate intensity – all the blood, toil and tears that makes up this short and brutish life. And yet it is man who questions the Divine, wrestling with him, as Arjuna with Shiva physically, or intellectually as Arjuna with Krishna, till God has replies to logic with magic to stun him into submission, as Jehovah to Job out of the whirlwind. It is all this which lends this sometime-ballad of the Bharata clan its epic dimensions and eternal appeal.

The selection of incidents from the original for inclusion in this condensation is itself a feature which distinguishes it from other condensations. The choice is carefully guided by Dr. Lal’s overview of recurring themes or patterns. Take, for instance, the Gita itself, which is missing from most of the other abridgements. Lal carefully incorporates a dialogue between Draupadi and Yudhishthira in the forest which looks forward to the philosophy of nishkama karma and of following one’s dharma.

This is a passage providing rare insights into the respective speakers which readers of other condensations have missed.

The episode of the sage Brihadashva’s visit to the exiled princes appears unnecessary but on closer examination the links with the plot become clear. This sage imparts to Yudhishthira mastery in casting the dice, which is of crucial importance for maintaining his disguise in Virata’s court. It is also skillfully placed immediately after Urvashi cursing Arjuna with eunuch-hood, another boon for the period of ‘exile-in-disguise’. A valuable inclusion is Karna’s retelling of a dream to Krishna which all other condensers miss, completely in consonance with Prof. Lal’s awareness of the underlying theme of pyrrhic victory: ‘I saw you (Krishna) in that dream, busy scattering weapons of war on the blood-red earth. Then I saw Yudhishthira standing on a heap of bones, gladly licking thick sweet curd from a golden plate’.

A remarkable quality of the Lal condensation is the effortless shifting from prose to verse according to the demands of the original. The use of verse in describing Hidimba’s honeymoon, the Pandavas’ stay in the Dvaita forest, Bhima’s obtaining the golden lotus and the description of the rains, help to create and communicate the other-worldly and idyllic flavour of the original. On another unforgettable occasion Lal changes with a sure touch from prose to verse to describe Urvashi approaching Arjuna as abhisarika whose delicate nuances can hardly be communicated in prose. Vyasa also uses verse for rendering solemn ritualistic passages such as Sanjaya consoling the blind monarch, the women wailing over the corpse-strewn field, Gandhari upbraiding Krishna, and the tremendous calling-up of ghosts of the departed from the waters of the Bhagirathi in a translation redolent of the Odyssey.

Prof. Lal’s faithfulness to the original affords valuable insights into characters which other condensations miss. In the svayamvara of Draupadi, her joy at the Brahmin-Arjuna’s success vis-‘-vis her disgust at the Suta-Karna’s entering the contest reveals certain caste-snobbery. Lal carefully brings out Yudhishthira’s cussed mule-headedness in his sparing the rapist Jayadratha and in offering to surrender the kingdom if any of the Pandavas are worsted by Duryodhana in a duel. Krishna’s furious berating of such woolly-thinking is often missing in condensations: ‘It was foolish of you to gamble away our advantage now, just as you gambled everything away to Shakuni.’ Most interesting is Krishna’s inability to recreate the Gita experience when requested by Arjuna before he leaves for Dvaraka after the war: ‘I could not now recall what I said then, even if I wished. How will I get all the details right?’

There is the bland statement of Bhishma and Drona, omitted in other abridgements, explaining why they fight for Duryodhana: ‘A man is the slave of wealth though wealth is no one’s slave. The wealth of the Kauravas binds me to them.’ Then there is that solitary glimpse into Draupadi’s heart as she wails to Bhima in Virata’s court: ‘Any woman married to Yudhishthira would be afflicted with many griefs….What does Yudhishthira do? He plays dice…Look at Arjuna… A hero with earrings!

…You saved me from Jayadratha … and from Jatasura … I shall take poison and die in your arms Bhima.’

This is the source of Iravati Karve’s brilliant exposition of Draupadi’s thoughts as she lies dying and murmurs to Bhima, ‘Aryaputra, in the next birth, be born the eldest!’

It is the inclusion of such incidents and rendering them with careful exactitude which make the Lal version uniquely valuable. In addition there is the sheer readability of the transcreation.

There are, however, a number of omissions that detract from the plot interest. We are not told why the Vasus were cursed to be born as Shantanu’s sons, nor how the fish-odorous Satyavati acquires the lotus-scent which draws the king to her. There is a contradiction between pages 102 and 106 between who was born first and who was conceived first – Yudhishthira or Duryodhana. The Ekalavya episode does not mention how this rejected pupil used to practise archery before a statue of Drona. Drona’s birth is omitted though it provides insight into why he is virtually caste-less and spurned by Drupada. Page 120 conveys a mistranslation: the Pandavas do not flee to Varanavata on Vidura’s advice; they go there on Dhritarashtra’s insistence and flee from there with Vidura’s help. The killing of Baka is omitted with its remorseless scrutiny of family relationships and Kunti’s remarkable decisions as a leader. An unfortunate omission is Krishna’s Machiavellian strategy in deliberately throwing Ghatotkacha as bait to attract Karna’s infallible weapon. The atrocious killing of Bhurishravas by Arjuna and Satyaki, referred to on page 409, is another uncalled for omission.

The most critical lapse occurs on page 393 where at the end of Yudhishthira’s horse-sacrifice Prof. Lal unaccountably omits the story that the half-golden mongoose relates, making the ending of Book 14 trite and inexplicable. There is a cryptic reference on page 101 to Gandhari having once sheltered Vyasa when he was dying from hunger which is neither expanded nor found in the original. The story of Shikhandin-Amba’s birth is left out though it is one of the threads that link the Adi to the Bhishma Parva: Amba is the hamartia in Bhishma’s tragedy. The Arjuna-Shiva encounter is yet another memorable incident which has been omitted.

What is the final impression with which this condensation-cum-transcreation leaves us? It is the anguished cry of a man who has witnessed his progeny slaughter one another in insane strife:

I raise my arms and I shout- but no one listens!
From dharma come wealth and pleasure:
Why is dharma not practised?

This is the story of Vyasa and his descendants, all corrupted by that single consuming weakness – lust. With unerring instinct Lal has incorporated in his condensation a speech by Pandu which touches the core of this tragic flaw – a speech which most condensers drop – ‘Addiction to lust killed my mother’s husband, though the virtuous Shantanu gave him birth. And though truth-speaking Vyasa is my father, lust consumes me too’. The seed of lust runs through both sides of the family. It consumes Shantanu who marries a fisherwoman in his dotage, depriving his kingdom of its rightful and able heir, Devavrata. Mahabhisha is reborn as Shantanu for having looked lustfully on Ganga in Brahma’s court when the wind uplifted her dress. Vichitravirya, child of his old age, carries the same weakness and dies of sexual over-indulgence. Satyavati is a product of Uparichara’s lust. Vyasa is born of Parashara forcing himself on Satyavati mid-stream in a boat. Satyavati refuses to put her daughters-in-law through the year-long purificatory penance which Vyasa advises. They await their brother-in-law Bhishma lust-fully and, shocked at the advent of Vyasa, the union inevitably produces flawed progeny. The curse, like the Erinyes, pursues the entire family. It is the supreme irony of the epic that ultimately the Puru lineage and the dynasty Satyavati sought to found through Vyasa are extinct. No wonder Vyasa finally cries out in despair at man’s deliberate rejection of salvation and the remorseless working out of the tragic flaw ingrained deep within, driving him to destruction.

Filed Under: BOOK REVIEWS, MAHABHARATA Tagged With: Book Reviews, Mahabharata, P. Lal

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