BOOK REVIEWS

The Mahabharata as a Whole

October 24, 2017 By admin

RECONSIDERING THE MAHABHARATA

Vishwa Adluri (ed.): Ways and Reasons for thinking about the Mahabharata as a Whole, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, 2013, pp. xxv+201, Rs.500/-

One of the signal achievements in Indology that Indian scholars can be proud of is the publication by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune, of the Critical Edition (CE) of the Mahabharata (MB) and the Harivansha (HV) in 22 volumes, along with a Pratika Index and a Cultural Index. However, scholars the world over have turned this into another instance of “Others abide our question; thou art free!” It was the French scholar Madeline Biardeau who, in the 1990s, stated her preference for the Vulgate text, free of the CE’s excisions and for treating the MB as a whole instead of as a hotchpotch of materials. Actually, way back in 1901-2 Aurobindo Ghose, had done this in his Notes on the Mahabharata” which scholars are unaware of. A case for taking a second look at the CE was made out by Alf Hiltebeitel, the American scholar and the most prolific writer on the MB. Wendy Doniger and David Shulman “have also expressed reservations about the CE.” A justification for revising the CE was advanced by me in a national conference held by the National Mission for Manuscripts in 2007. Papers relating to this trend of thought, which is gathering momentum, have been compiled in this important publication edited by Vishwa Adluri of Hunter College, New York, with an elaborate Introduction and a 16 page Bibliography. Two essays bring out the thematic unity of the epic while others explore historico-textual issues and the question of Greek influence.

In a thought-provoking lengthy Introduction, Adluri critiques the tradition of “higher criticism” (a philological term denoting matters influencing the text) and prefers the “hermeneutic method” which focuses on the CE text to interpret it. This approach takes the epic as a whole, discounting the theory of “layers” and the search for the “Ur text” exemplified by Hopkins and German scholars who were importing Biblical research methodology on the Old Testament into the MB.

The first essay is a riveting study of the Uttanka story at the beginning of the MB, recurring in the Book of Horse-Sacrifice, which apparently has nothing to do with what follows, bringing out its symbolism as an “education in becoming” and its relevance in the epic. All on a sudden, why should Sarama, the hound of heaven, curse Janamejaya that his sacrifice will face a serious impediment? Here Adluri painstakingly lays out the narrative structure of the Adi Parva, the Book of Beginnings, showing how Vyasa’s epic has two sacrifices (Shaunaka’s and Janamejaya’s) in two tales, one embedded within the other. There are other sacrifices he overlooks: Parashara’s to annihilate rakshasas, Drupada’s two rites birthing Shikhandi, Dhrishtadyumna and Draupadi leading to the Kurukshetra war, repeatedly referred to in terms of a holocaust. And it all has its origins in yet another yajna: the sacrificial ritual the gods hold in Naimisha forest with Yama as the butcher-priest. Adluri highlights the multiple levels of the text: Vaishamapayana’s narrative; the allegorical sacrificial rites and, thirdly, Uttanka’s interpretative tale, the last providing the key to how the story is to be read. Besides this, however, the Uttanka tale also contains Vedic symbols related to a spiritual journey, which Adluri does not touch upon. Vyasa states he has retold the secrets of the Veda in the MB, an aspect explored utilizing nirukti (etymology) in my Secret of the Mahabharata (1984).

Hiltebeitel’s fascinating paper investigates the possibilities of the MB as history, itihasa, as it calls itself 8 times (which the Ramayana never does, always referring to itself as kavya). From 2001 onwards, several Western scholars besides himself, like Biardeau, Fitzgerald and Sutton, have agreed that the MB is a post-Ashokan composition. He argues that references to Cinas suggest a date post 221 BC of China’s first emperor. It is curious that he does not cite the reference to denarius, which would also date the MB to early Roman times in the 3^rd century BC. Hiltebeitel shows why the MB predates Ashvaghosha’s Buddhacharita (1^st-2^nd century AD), suggesting that it was composed between 150 BC and 100 AD.

Hiltebeitel accepts T.P. Mahadevan’s thesis that the MB was composed by Purvashikha Brahmins (wearing tufts on the front of their heads) of the Kuru-Panchala area, taking historical data from the Vedas, between 300 and 100 BC. The Yuga Purana dated around 60-25 BC has 12 slokas on the MB, refers to Greek-Panchala-Mathura forces sacking Pataliputra (the end of the Mauryas c. 190 BC), to Shaka invasions and to safe havens in the south where the Purvashika Brahmins migrated during the Tamil Sangam culture, carrying the MB. From this, written on bark or palm-leaf in Brahmi script, the elaborate Southern recension was created, drawing upon the HV, in Grantha script in the Tanjavur area. A subsequent migration from eastern Haryana and Malva, fleeing the Huna raids c. 6^th century AD, occurred in the 7^th century AD by Aparashikha Brahmins (wearing tufts on the back of their heads) carrying the Northern Recension of the MB text in a northern variety of Brahmi that influenced Tamil script. under the Pallavas who produced the inflated version in Telegu Grantha script. Meanwhile, in the 5^th century AD, in the context of the Kalabhra Interregnum, a chaotic period in Tamil history, some Purvashikha Brahmins (the future Nambudiris) moved to Malabar region carrying the MB where it is found in the Aryaeluttu script. Here an entire section, the Sheshadharmaprakaranam, was added to the Harivansha (available thanks to Purshothaman Avaroth at http://www.dvaipayana.net). One branch of the Purvashikhas remained under the Cholas creating the Krishnaism of the MB borrowing from the HV. Mahadevan analyses as a case in point the presentation of argha to Krishna in the Sabha Parva (2.35.6-29). He shows that around 300 CE three texts exist simultaneously in the Sangam Tamil region: a Sharada text (the foundation of the Critical Edition) with an additional Krishna-bhakti portion called “A-21”, a similar section in P.P.S.Sastri’s Southern Recension in the process of construction drawing upon the Harivansha’s sections 38, 41 and 42 in response to the Alvar bhakti movement. The killing of Madhu and Kaitabha is the main part of this insertion. Mahadevan draws attention to an untraced complete text of the MB lying in the Bharat Itihasa Sanshodhaka Mandal of Pune referred to by Edgerton, editor of the Sabha Parva of the CE. It is a great loss that the National Mission for Manuscripts has not pursued this. An exciting development is mention of a joint project by Hiltebeitel and Mahadevan to compare the Sastri southern recension with the CE to reveal how the text took shape.

Taking off from an earlier paper by Adluri on Ruru and Orpheus using etymology (nirukti) to plumb the symbolism, Joydeep Bagchee shows that the myth of Ruru is part of the epic’s response to the philosophical problem of time and eternity. The introduction itself states that one who knows the etymology of the MB is liberated from all sin, niruktam asya yo veda sarvapapaih pramucyate (1.209). Salvation inheres in turning to self-knowledge. The entire Bhrigu cycle (Pauloma and Astika Parvas) is about a fall from being into becoming. It is the snakes who form the interpretative apparatus for comprehending the action of time amongst humankind.

Simon Brodbeck analyses the analytic and the synthetic approaches to the MB suggesting that with the CE it is the latter that is appropriate. The former seeks to outline the historical process by which the MB came to be built, varying from a thousand years (400 BC to 400 AD) to a couple of generations (150 BC to 100 AD). The focus is on the “original” form of the MB. He critiques Tokunaga’s paper on Bhishma’s advice to Yudhishthira to expose weaknesses in the analytic approach, such as Yudhishthira being enthroned twice, which does not occur. The search for historical clues within the text blinds the analyst to narrative subtleties within it. Brodbeck points out the basic flaw in the assumption of the CE, viz. that scribes only add to and do not subtract from texts they copy. There is a case for re-examining the decisions of the CE’s editors about including and leaving out passages.

The book ends with F.W. Alonso’s paper arguing that the MB drew upon a vast quantity of Greek materials, particularly the Homeric cycle and the myths about Heracles. He finds as many as seven parallels between the former and the design of the MB. There are numerous commonalities between Achilles and Bhishma, Helen and Draupadi, Alcmaeon and Parashurama, the lament of Yudhishthira over Karna and of Menelaus over Agamemnon, Arjuna and Rama with Odysseus in the contest for Draupadi/Sita/Penelope. Alonso finds as many as 11 themes common to the tenth book, the Sauptika Parva, and the tenth book of the Iliad. He claims there are 8 clear borrowings from the account of the fall of Troy. But why can it not be the other way around? From this evidence, Alonso suggests that the epic was written after Alexander’s invasion which provides the historical basis for relationships with Greek and early Roman culture. During the same time (1^st century BC), writing pervades Roman culture and the Aeneid is composed with Greek materials.

This is truly a very important book, which every Indologist dealing with the epics ought to study. Unfortunately, for such a significant collection, BORI has produced a disappointingly shoddy publication. There is not a word about the editor and any of the six contributors, nor any index; the cardboard covers are of the poorest quality; the typeface used is shabby; some articles are followed by a blank page, others by none, suggesting that each article was printed separately and the lot stitched together without regard to consistency in composition and printing. For an institution that will be a hundred years old in 2017, this is a lamentable display indeed.

The Bhishma and Drona Parvas–the P. Lal Transcreation

October 19, 2017 By admin

A Zero-Sum Game:
Where Ignorant Armies Clash by Night

The publication of the P. Lal transcreation of the first two of the five battle-books is an important event. After K.M. Ganguli’s prose translation in the late 1890s, followed by M.N. Dutt’s replication, the world has not had access to an English version of these in their entirety. J.A.B. van Buitenen passed away without touching them and his successors have, so far, published part of the Shanti Parva. The Clay Sanskrit Library’s diglot edition has brought out half of the Drona Parva. The Lal transcreation stands apart from all others particularly because of none of them dare to set the translations to poetic rhythm, something that comes so naturally to Prof. Lal, who brings to the work a unique Indian flavour by working into the transcreation many Sanskrit words. The great Ganguli had a P.C. Ray to take care of the manifold problems of publishing such a gargantuan work; van Buitenen had the University of Chicago Press; the Clay series has the New York University Press’all well established institutions with trained manpower. Here is another Abhimanyu taking on the awesome challenge of transcreating-and-publishing Vyasa’s hundred thousand verses, working through the epic-of-epics steadily, relentlessly.

Reading the first two battle-books together is rewarding because of the varied insights such an approach provides. In the first place, the second book, despite covering half of the duration of the first, is longer by half because the battle is far more sanguinary and varied. Both the Kaurava commanders-in-chief’appointed by Duryodhana reluctantly because of Karna’s refusal’are Vyasa’s expose of deeply flawed elders and their narrow dharma. We have here a patriarch who signally fails to provide protection to his foster brother’s wife and sons from murderous attacks in childhood and youth. Later, he and the two gurus of the grandnephews remain silent onlookers to the spectacle of a granddaughter-in-law being molested publicly by their employer, the heir-apparent. It is supremely ironic that the prince who earned the sobriquet of ‘Bhishma’ and came to be renowned as the greatest of renouncers should be so hopelessly bound to his father’s throne as not only to preside over the suicide of the dynasty, but to actually participate in it on the side he knows to be in the wrong! Indeed, Devavrata-Gangadatta-Bhishma is another Prometheus, bound in adamantine chains to the icy Caucasian peaks of the Hastinapura throne, wracked in immortal agony as the Dhartarashtra-Pandava fratricidal strife eats into his vitals endlessly. For, perversely, he cannot, or will not, die till liberation comes in the form of mortal arrows showered by a grandchild who loves him. And the person whom the Indian government holds up as the model of a guru is one who unhesitatingly indulges in sharp practice to ensure that his son gets exclusive tuition and his favourite pupil is not outdone by a talented tribal; who abandons his calling as a non-violent Brahmin to take up arms to acquire power and pelf for his son’no different from the blind king of Hastinapura in his paternal obsession.

It is in the first war book that both patriarch and guru acknowledge, ‘I am tied to the Kauravas by need.’ Bearing out Gandhari’s warning to her son in the Udyoga Parva, Bhishma and Drona fight for Duryodhana, but not with their hearts, announcing that they will not kill any of the five Pandavas. Duryodhana is caught in a zero-sum game: he has no option but to appoint them as the commanders-in-chief. His best bet, Karna, sulks Achilles-like in his tents, determined not fight so long as the patriarch is in command. Yet, this same Karna rushes to the fallen Bhishma begging his permission and blessings to fight against his brothers’what a marvellous vignette Vyasa presents us with! Even thereafter, aware that everyone is unlikely to accept his overlordship and for once letting his discrimination prevail over his egotism, he advises that Drona be made supreme commander. Fifteen days pass and every other day Duryodhana’s desperation mounts and he berates first Bhishma, then Drona for not killing the Pandavas’all to no avail. He directly indicts the guru (VII.94.14) in gravely insulting terms:

‘We ensure your livelihood
Yet you harm us.

I did not know
You are a honey coated razor.’

Drona’s flawed character is exposed as Sanjaya tells Dhritrashtra that in order to impress Duryodhana (VII.94.40) Drona encased him in golden armour made impervious mantrically. In the duel that follows, Arjuna, unable to pierce this armour, displays his unique bowcraft by wounding Duryodhana’s palms and underneath his finger-nails, forcing him to retreat (VII.103.31-32). However, this incident of encasing in magical armour seems to be an interpolation because in sections 116 and 120 Satyaki and in section 124 even Yudhishthira have no problem in wounding his chest so grievously that he is forced to flee the field.

Dhritarashtra’s perplexity over the failure of his army provides the reader with interesting information about how it was administered (VII.114): ‘We treat our soldiers well’Only after passing extensive tests’has their pay been determined, Not because of family connections, personal favour or nepotism. None is conscripted, none is unpaid’we spoke to them sweetly. Not one’has been unfairly treated. Each, according to his ability, gets paid and receives rations’we give presents, we honour them with the best of seats. Even these veteran warriors face defeat.’

In the duels with Dhrishtadyumna we are treated to martial acrobatics of a special type as he jumps on to the guru’s chariot and rapidly shifts position, foiling all Drona’s attacks (VII.97.26-28). Bhima’s duel with the guru is also memorable as he overturns Drona’s chariot repeatedly’as much as eight times! If he is defeated and spared by Karna (VII.139), he also succeeds in forcing the latter to retreat twice (VII.131, 145) and after Drona’s death Karna flees the battlefield out of fear (VII.193.10). The battle for Jayadratha reaches a high point with Arjuna single-handedly holding back the entire army while Krishna refreshes the horses in a hall-of-arrows. Sanjaya exclaims (VII.100.12, 21):

‘O Bharata! Krishna, smiling,
stood gracefully in the arrow-hall
created by Arjuna,
as if he was in the midst of women’
In a single chariot, clad in armour,
facing the Kshatriyas,
the two played with our warriors
like children with toys.’

As we wade through rivers of blood and gore these 15 days, we notice a gradual breaking down of codes of conduct as the stress mounts steeply. Chariot, cavalry and elephant divisions no longer refrain from attacking infantry and even unarmed charioteers and fleeing soldiers or from killing the charioteer to perplex the chariot-rider. After Bhishma’s fall, the battle even carries beyond midnight first by torchlight, then by moonlight, with warriors killing their comrades in the confusion:

‘And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.’

As in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, fathers slay sons, maternal uncles kill nephews and vice-versa. Warriors intervene in duels, attack from behind, many encircle a lone fighter: ‘Dignity was lost/In that crazed clash’ (VII.169.50).

The Udyoga Parva had closed with Yudhishthira taking a measure of his strength after hearing from his spies that Bhishma and Drona had announced that each could wipe out the Pandava army in a month, Kripa in two months, Ashvatthama in ten days, Karna in five. He puts the question specifically to Arjuna who claims that using Shiva’s weapon he can annihilate all opposition in a flash, but adds that its use is improper against humans. He avoids declaring how many days of normal warfare he would take to defeat the opponents. It is Arjuna’s initial assurance that constitutes the backbone of Yudhishthira’s morale because he knows full well that Arjuna’s fulsome estimate of Virata and Drupada equaling Bhishma and Drona is nothing but bombast. The former was cowed down by Kichaka and routed by the Trigartas, as was the latter by the teenaged Pandavas. Sanjaya exclaims to Dhritarashtra:

O raja! Then erupted the battle
Between the Kauravas and Pandavas
Whose origin was the dice-game,
Whose end was all-embracing doom. ‘VI.103.44

Planning for a war is one thing; coming face-to-face with the imperative of killing a beloved patriarch and a revered guru is quite another. It is this existential angst that pierces through Arjuna’s moral armour, effectively unmanning him and becoming the occasion for the recital of Krishna’s Gita transcreated by Prof. Lal in 1947 in rhymed verse, in 1952 in prose, in free verse in 1965, revised in 1968. Intrigued by Arjuna’s uncharacteristic collapse and not finding answers in theGita, he embarked upon the epic journey of transcreating the entirety of Vyasa’s composition verse-by-verse. I will skirt this much-commented-upon text and deal with the rest of the parva. Both in VI.51.6 and in the Gita (1.10) there is a verse that remains intriguing. Duryodhana tells Drona that his forces led by Bhishma are ‘aparyapta’, inadequate, while the Pandava army led by Bhima is ‘paryapta’. This has been transcreated as ‘vast’ and ‘limited’, which is to twist the natural meaning of the word. If Duryodhana feels his army is innumerable, why should it be necessary for Bhishma to revive his spirit in the very next verse?

Prof. Lal’s Preface to the first war-book deals only with the Gita, seeing it as the core of the Bhishma Parva. Reading it is a gripping experience as the reader follows a sensitive and incisive modern mind grappling with Krishna’s recital to extract meaning, savours the delight of the memorably retold parable of the Kalpataru and is surprised by joy to come across gems of insight through a spectrum spanning Vyasa, Dante, T.S. Eliot and Ramprasad Sen. The Preface to the Drona Parva is another scintillating piece teasing out the many shades of the guru-chela relationship: neither will harm the other, yet ‘both must face each other, courtesy of Mahakala’. Against the ideal of the guru-shishya bond given in the Bhagavata Purana, here Vyasa shows us the ground reality of excruciating dilemmas: Drona trying to balance Arjuna-Ekalavya-Ashvatthama; Bhishma caught between Duryodhana-Karna-Pandavas-Krishna. And was Vyasa himself not the greatest victim of this, asks Prof. Lal, when his son almost drove him to suicide by not following his wishes?

Section 1, verse 7’describing the vast empty field of battle’is virtually identical to verse 25. The critical edition overlooks this duplication. Historically, Vyasa’s reference to icons of gods in 2.26 is of interest, as prior to the epic such references are almost absent.

For making sense of the divya drishti gifted by Vyasa to Sanjaya we need not conjure up theories of India having television cameras recording the war. The secret of the supranormal vision is revealed in Vyasa’s announcement at the very beginning that none will harm Sanjaya and his access to everything and everyone will be unfettered. In sections 4-12, Sanjaya gives the king a cosmography that theVishnu Purana copies. There is a detailed description of 7 continents (dvipa, i.e. land with seas on two sides) with their mountains, the countries (varsha) in-between the mountains, 6 oceans. Man is associated with Bharatavarsha, which has 7 ranges, 161 rivers and 228 peoples among whom there is an intriguing reference in 9.56 to Romanah people in the northern region. In 6.14-15 we find a mini-myth of Garuda leaving Meru because all birds there are golden plumaged like him. 8.10 mentions Shandili living at Shringavat, winging us back to Garuda’s traumatic meeting with her in the Udyoga Parva. However, in 8.16 the reference to Hari’s golden chariot of eight wheels has no puranic correspondence. There is a moving reference in 9.5-8 introducing Bharata as a land loved by Indra and 16 famous kings, ‘all these kings and other powerful Kshatriyas/Have deeply loved the territory of Bharata.’ Astronomical data provided in these parvas are hopelessly garbled and have led to a wide variety of dates being fixed by scholars keen to pin down the date of the war, each claiming to have interpreted the dubious references correctly. Deliberate changes appear to have been made in the data around the time of Devabodha’s commentary (mid-18th century CE), each statement conflicting with the others.

Section 13 is virtually a new beginning of the Bhishma Parva as though the lesson on geography had not occurred at all. Reverting to the original narrative pattern of the epic, we find Vaishampayana stating that Sanjaya rushed back to the king to announce that Bhishma ‘lies dead, sprawled on a bed of arrows’. This is repeated in section 1 of the Drona Parva. In both cases, as well as in Dhritarashtra’s extended laments, the references are quite plainly to death and not to awaiting death. Therefore, it is in later times that the concept of Bhishma waiting for the auspicious stellar conjunctions for giving up life was added along with the elaborateShanti and Anushasana Parvas. From Day 1 to Day 10, from the 11th day till the death Abhimanyu, then till the 15th evening and from Day 16 till the end of the 17th day, Dhritarashtra had no news till Sanjaya rushed back to report that Abhimanyu, Drona, Karna and Shalya had fallen. Sanjaya’s narration begins from VI.15 stating that ‘this long-distance hearing and vision, this insight into people’s mind and into past and future, this power of flaying in space, this immunity to war-weapons’ are his by Vyasa’s grace. His presence on the battlefield is testified to in VI.94.46 where he says, ‘though I and Devavrata kept shouting’ at the soldiers not to flee from Ghatotkacha’s illusions, they paid no heed. In section 30 of the Drona Parva he mentions hearing the twang of the Gandiva to his right and speaks of joining Drona’s division as the Kauravas are beaten back, of facing Chekitana in the field and in section 200 of witnessing Bhima’s incredible tackling of Ashvatthama’s attack. He is one of the five (the others being Arjuna, Kripa, Krishna and Yudhishthira) who alone saw the ascent of Drona’s soul to Brahma’s abode (VII.192.57-58). An intriguing bit of information contained in theDrona Parva is usually overlooked amid the welter of action: the blind king was not closeted in Hastinapura but was at least sometimes in Kurukshetra. After Abhimanyu’s death Dhritarashtra’s enquires of Sanjaya why he cannot hear any joyous sounds of dancers, bards and minstrels from the Kaurava camp as he used to while sitting in Somadatta’s camp.

Before the battle begins, we are given detailed descriptions of the Kaurava array led by Bhishma in a white helmet, white armour, under a white umbrella, in a silver chariot with his white palm-tree-symbolled flag fluttering. It is not Arjuna but Yudhishthira who is demoralised, vishadamagamad, at the sight of Duryodhana’s huge army and, as with Uttara, it is Arjuna who restores his morale, drawing upon on an ancient god-vs-demon battle narrative whose lesson is, ‘Victory is where Krishna is’ (VI.23). The next section is abruptly cut off at the seventh stanza with the exultant adversaries about to clash and the Gita begins, continuing till the fifth stanza of section 43. In the sixth shloka we find armies surging forward, as though the 20 sections in-between had not occurred, and are treated to a unique spectacle: Yudhishthira steps down armourless and weaponless from his chariot and proceeds on foot to the Kuru elders! Were Arjuna’s vishada and laying down the bow suggested by this? Each patriarch repeats a formulaic phrase: ‘a man is the slave of need’I am tied to the Kauravas by need’I say this like a eunuch.’ Later Drona and Bhishma recall the bread eaten in Duryodhana’s house (VI.77.71; 109.29). As with Krishna and Kunti’s master stroke of strategy that succeeded in weakening Karna’s animosity, this action of Yudhishthira’s wins him a signal moral advantage. By obtaining the blessings of the elders for victory, Yudhishthira fulfils Gandhari’s prophetic warning to her son in theUdyoga Parva that though the elders may fight for him with their bodies, their hearts and good wishes will ever be with the Pandavas. At this stage Krishna once again approaches Karna, trying to persuade him that since he will not fight so long as Bhishma is alive, he might as well fight on the Pandava side. Karna resolutely refuses to be part of such sophistry and undermine his friend in any way. Then, in a final master stroke aiming at demoralising the enemy, Yudhishthira openly invites defection and succeeds with Yuyutsu, born of a Vaishya handmaid to the blind king, of whom we have not heard anything till now. The reader would expect Vikarna, who spoke up so powerfully against his elders in the dicing match, to have responded instead, but his fraternal loyalty obviously holds, ending finally when Bhima reluctantly kills him. In the Drona Parva we suddenly find Dhritarashtra revealing a heroic feature about Yuyutsu that is never mentioned elsewhere: there was a bitter six-month-long battle in Varanavata where he remained undefeated and slew the Kashi king’s son, a notorious philanderer (VII.10.58-60). He is specifically mentioned by Krishna as severely rebuking the Kauravas for rejoicing after killing a boy (VII.72.63-67).

Sanjaya, in VI.9.74-75, uses an image that recurs at significant points of the epic, spoken by different protagonists: ‘Like dogs snarling over a chunk of meat,/These rajas are squabbling over this earth./And they cannot be satiated.’ The dice-game image is brought in towards the end (VI.115.45): ‘It was victory or defeat, with Bhishma as the stake,/It was a game of dice played by two armies.’ Drona shows Duryodhana the battle in terms of the dice-game (VII.130.20-21) with warriors as gamblers, arrows the dice, Jayadratha the pawn.

As with Abhimanyu later, Arjuna is unaware of his son Iravat’s death till informed by Bhima and then he tells Krishna that though he may be branded a weakling (VI.96.5, 11):

‘This has been a heinous war’
all for the sake of wealth’
we have killed for property!
Dhik! Shame on the wealth that comes
from killing kinsmen!…
But this killing of my kinsmen
is not to my liking.’

This could be referring to Krishna’s reprimand in the Gita. He curses the Kshatriya code and himself again in abject disillusionment after knocking Kripa unconscious:

‘Is there anyone
Like me
Hating a Brahmin and an acharya?…
My karma today deserves that hell’ (VII.147.16-27).

Following Drona’s death, he laments that the little of life left to them will be stained permanently because they killed their guru

‘to enjoy briefly a kingdom’
Because I too
Lusted for a kingdom
I failed to prevent
The murder of my guru.
Head lowered in shame,
I will go to hell’ (VII.196.46, 53).

This is hardly the Gita’s ‘sthitaprajna’ in practice! Arjuna will repeat this sentiment to Duhshala in the Ashvamedhika Parva blaming the warrior’s way of life in the same terms. In its 15th verse the Drona Parva states that the cousins re-examined Kshatriya dharma after Bhishma died, each condemning his sva-dharma. This introspection recurs after Abhimanyu’s death with Dhritarashtra exclaiming (VII.33.23), ‘How terrible is this war-code called Kshatriya dharma/that makes power-hungry men kill a small boy!’

In section 23, at Krishna’s instance, Arjuna invokes Durga for blessing him with victory, a passage occurring only in the Bengali and Devanagari manuscripts. The episode is repeated at greater length in the Mahabhagavata Purana where Krishna is an incarnation of Kali or Bhadrakali (the first appellatives by which Arjuna invokes Durga in the epic passage). Arjuna’s invocation resembles that in the Devi Mahatmya and markedly differs from Yudhishthira’s to Durga in the Virata Parva, where she is addressed as Krishna’s sister and of Nandagopa’s family.

Day 1 goes in favour of Duryodhana. We, who usually shrug the eldest Pandava away as a pacifist, are surprised to find Yudhishthira complaining to Krishna that Arjuna fights like uninvolved spectator (possibly following the letter, not the spirit of detached karma!), indifferently watching the destruction of own forces. That is when he announces that Dhrishtyadumna will command the Pandava forces and all ponder the meaning of the announcement till he explains that Dhrishtyadyumna is ordained by Shambhu to slay Drona. We now come to know that Drupada’s black-magic abhichara rite had invoked Shambhu, producing Dhrishtadyumna and Draupadi. Similarly, in the Drona Parva we are told that Shikhandi was the result of Shiva’s boon to Drupada for a Bhishma-killing son as was Bhurishrava to Somadatta to take revenge on Shini. The shadow of destructive Rudra looms over Kurukshetra. Bhima is specifically compared to Shankar, Rudra, and trident wielding Shiva during his grisly exploits, as is Arjuna repeatedly in his destructive fury. Significantly, Ashvatthama is identified with Rudra, looking forward to the horrific carnage he perpetrates in the Sauptika Parva. The climactic touch comes at the end of the Drona Parva where Arjuna tells Vyasa that though the opponents thought they were being routed by him, it was really a dazzling male form, trident in hand, who preceded him and created havoc whichever way he turned. Vyasa reveals that this was the primal lord, Ishana-Shankara, carried by Durga in her arms in the form of a babe with five tufts of hair. The myth of Barbarika rings a change on this when his bodiless head tells the Pandavas’who are disputing over who routed the enemies’that he saw the Sudarshana discuss whizzing through the battlefield, beheading thousands, and Draupadi in Kali form running behind, drinking up all the blood.

The first major casualty is Virata’s son Shveta who, due to some differences with his father, sought refuge with Pandavas (VI.49.4-5). Shveta must have had some connection with eastern India as the episode is not known beyond a few Bengali and Devanagari mss and the 11th century Old Javanese recension. On the second day there is an interesting elaboration on the charioteer’s role and on Bhima’s grisly swordsmanship. We learn that eastern India was renowned for its war elephants and had no liking for Krishna and his instruments the Pandavas. The Kalinga and Vanga kings and Bhagadatta of Pragjyotishpura (Assam) are important allies of Duryodhana. The Tamraliptas (today’s Tamluk in West Bengal) are clubbed along with mlecchas like Shakas, Kiratas, Daradas, Barbaras’all on the Kaurava side. Finding Satyaki unstoppable, Duryodhana finally turns loose the hill-tribes (Daradas, Tanganas, Khasas, Lampakas, Kulindas) expert in stone-warfare, of which both armies are ignorant (section 121), but Satyaki routs them. Indeed, this parva becomes a celebration of Yadava prowess, represented by Abhimanyu and Satyaki who equal Arjuna and Krishna in their battlecraft. Krishna, seeing Satyaki chariotless and about to face Karna, provides him his own chariot driven by Daruka.

On Day 2 Yudhishthira advises adopting the krauncha formation, a never before used vyuha, and the day goes to the Pandavas. This is the only occasion on which all the conches of the Pandavas are named (VI.51.26-27): Krishna’s Panchajanya, Arjuna’s Devadatta, Bhima’s Paundra, Yudhishthira’s Anantavijaya, Nakula’s Sughosha, Sahadeva’s Manipushpaka. Day 3 sees a breakdown of the codes of battle, which recurs on the 10th day, with confusion prevailing and no quarter given regardless of the status of the opponent. Arjuna uses a celestial missile for the first time: Mahendra, followed by Vayavya and then Aindra. The reason is that Krishna, losing patience with Arjuna’s half-hearted fighting, leaps off the chariot and rushes to kill Bhishma, the discuss miraculously appearing in his hand. Without turning a hair, the patriarch welcomes him, glorying in dying at the hands of the Lord of all:

ehyehi devesa jagannivasa namohastu te madhava cakrapa’e
prashya ma’ pataye lokanatha rathottama’ sarvasara’ya sa’khye

The incident is repeated on Day 9, where the description is less elaborate and more realistic with Krishna flourishing his charioteer’s whip. Bhishma’s welcome to Krishna is less exaggerated:

ehyehi pundarikak’a devadeva namohastu te
mamadya satvatasre’ha patayasva mahahave

This later incident must have been the inspiration for a later Vaishanavite composer to insert the episode, with miraculous embellishments, into the third day. Krishna breaks his vow again in the Drona Parva when, to save Arjuna, he receives Bhagadatta’s Vaishnava missile on his chest, where it turns into a celestial garland. To assuage Arjuna’s bruised ego, he recounts the vyuha doctrine of his four-fold existence’ a sure indication of interpolation. Following Drona’s murder, the infuriated Ashvatthama releases the invincible Narayana missile which is neutralised by Krishna. The name of the weapon and Krishna’s intervention bereft of any miraculous transformation indicates that this was the incident on which the Vaishnava missile incident was modelled subsequently to introduce a miraculous element and deify Krishna.

On Day 4 Bhima makes his first kill of the Dhartarashtras: Senapati, followed by seven more. When Duryodhana asks Bhishma to explain the secret behind the Pandavas’ success, he is told about the Pancharatra cult. Bhishma’s account of the creation of the four varnas harks back to the hymn to Purusha in theRig Veda. An intriguing reference is made to Vishnu killing only Madhu, with no mention of Kaitava, and being called Janardana, the people-churner (it could be a reference to the wielding of the rod of punishment to control the wicked, which Arjuna later celebrates as the foundation of dharma). Duryodhana is uncharacteristically impressed and thinks highly of Krishna and the Pandavas’again a sure sign of interpolation.. The 3rd day incident, Bhishma’s discourse to Duryodhana, Dhritarashtra extolling Krishna’s divinity in VII.11 and, at the end of this book, Ashvatthama being similarly impressed by Vyasa’s explanation that Krishna is Narayana who is Rudra are obvious Vaishnavite interpolations.

Sanjaya minces no words in telling home truths to Dhritarashtra, reading him a lecture (VI.65.22-26) in the law of karma’ reaping as he has sown, suffering the fruits of his own misdeeds, tasting the fruit in this life and later. Often he repeats his admonition that the king is like a dying man refusing medicine and that he ought not to blame his son now for his own sins of commission and omission. He also explains that Krishna decided war was the only option on finding that despite his proposing peace the blind king was devious in dharma and, motivated by envy of the Pandavas, persisted in making crooked plans against them (VII.114.51-53).

In the battle descriptions certain formulaic metaphors occur frequently, such as of son and father, brothers, nephew and maternal uncle non-recognition and mutual slaughter, the horrific river of blood, wounded warriors looking like flames-of-the-forest etc. The reader is often taken aback by Vyasa’s use of conceits where two completely different objects are brought into violent conjunction: an arrow stuck in the forehead is like a lotus on a long stem; elephants drag chariots as if uprooting lotuses in a lake, the Kaurava army is vulnerable as a tipsy girl on a highway or standing senseless like a lovely limbed weak willed girl, the battlefield is as beautiful as the autumn sky flecked with red sunset clouds, or a haunting sight, glowing everywhere with softly flaming fires of blood stained armour and gold ornaments; littered with handsome faces with well-trimmed beards and ornamented, the earth looks like the sky scintillating with stars or like a lovely girl adorned with multiple jewels, strewn with golden girdles, glittering necklaces, gold-plated darts, golden breastplates. Arrows speed gracefully like flocks of birds settling on a tree with delicious fruit or slide into a body like swans gliding into the waters of a lake, or shoot up like birds from trees at early dawn. The princes slain by Abhimanyu are like five-year-old mango trees about to fruit shattered by a severe storm. Warriors pierced with golden-feathered arrows are like trees full of glow-worms. The transcreator lends a fine Shakespearean touch to the description of supine heroes who, ‘though dead, looked as if they were alive’ (VI.96.54). An unusual image surfaces on Day-9 of the Pandavas chasing Bhishma like the Asuras attacking Indra and, conversely, like the gods staring at Danava Vipracitti, facing Bhishma who is Death (VI.108.34, 39). The ineffable beauty of the description of exhausted warriors lying asleep and of the rising moon spreading its radiance over the battlefield (VII.184) is brought into violent clash with the blood-letting that follows. There is the unique passage of pathos embedded in the narrative when Duryodhana recalls the sweet childhood days Satyaki and he shared when he faces him in battle.

In VI.110.31 we come across a lost myth of Indra fighting the Asura Maya. The duel with Shrutayudha becomes the occasion for recounting the mini-myth of Varuna’s wondrous mace (Krishna’s Kaumodaki mace and Sudarshana chakra are also Varuna’s gifts). The brief battle with Shrutayu that follows has one of those extremely rare instances of Arjuna fainting (VII.93.12-19). VI.90 supplements the account of the Arjuna-Ulupi romance in the Sabha Parva. In recounting Iravat’s history, Sanjaya states that Garuda having killed Ulupi’s husband, she was in despair. Her father Airavata gave her to Arjuna, whom she desired. Iravat, abandoned by his wicked maternal uncle who hated Arjuna (possibly Takshaka), met his father in Indra’s realm and was requested to join the war. Curiously, Babhruvahana does not join his father in the battle. Iravat is the first Pandava scion to die, killed by the rakshasa Alambusha in the form of a garuda. Iravat is a very important figure in the south Indian cult of Draupadi, where, because his body carries all the auspicious signs, he becomes a willing sacrifice prior to the war to ensure the victory of the Pandavas. In the Drona Parva first Arjuna and then Bhima lose their sons, while Ghatotkacha loses his son Anjanaparva to Ashvatthama.

There is a misconception that Abhimanyu fighting six warriors alone is a unique situation. We find Bhurishravas taking on Satyaki’s ten sons simultaneously and beheading the lot. Bhishma is attacked by 6 or 7 warriors together frequently. In VI.86.16 there is a circular stranglehold of chariots around Bhishma, similar to what Abhimanyu faces. The difference is that where, in the Bhishma Parva, Abhimanyu pierces through the Kaurava ranks, leading Draupadi’s sons, the five Kekayas (sons of Kunti’s sister) and Dhrishtaketu in a needle-point formation to rescue Bhima, the latter is unable to replicate this in the Drona Parva where Jayadratha frustrates all attempts to aid Abhimanyu.

The special regard Krishna has for Arjuna is brought out more than once in these two books. In VI.107.36 Krishna tells Yudhishthira:

‘Arjuna is my sakha
my love-and-loving friend,
my relative and pupil.
I will cut off my flesh
for Phalguna.’

In VII.79 he tells Daruka that the world means nothing to him without Arjuna and whoever injures him, harms Krishna, for Arjuna is half of him. In VII.182.43-44 he tells Satyaki that his parents, brothers, his own life are less dear to him than Arjuna, and that he would not want to possess at the cost of losing Arjuna something more precious than all the three worlds. An interesting parallel to this duo (often called the two Krishnas on one chariot, as in VI.81.41) occurs when Dhrishtadyumna exclaims (VI.77.31-34) that life is meaningless without Bhima, ‘my sakha, my loved-and-loving friend, my devoted bhakta as I am his’. Like Arjuna in the Virata Parva, Dhristadyumna uses a special weapon to make the Kauravas fall senseless (VI.77.48).

At the end of Day 8, which goes very badly for Duryodhana, with many of his brothers slaughtered, he reproaches Karna for standing aside. Defying the much-touted virtue of undying loyalty to his friend, Karna’s pride takes precedence and he stands firm on not joining so long as Bhishma fights. It is this egotistical obduracy that erodes whatever chances Duryodhana has to win the war in the first ten days. Karna’s much-vaunted heroism stands exposed as he has to flee the field several times. Even Dhritarashtra exclaims that he has lost every battle fought against the Pandavas, ‘But my stupid son seems to be unaware of this’ (VII.133.9). Kripa mocks him for his empty bombast and when he insults Kripa, Ashvatthama pounces on him with drawn sword recounting how he has often been routed (VII.158).

Bhishma is truly a man at war with himself: he will neither kill any Pandava, nor will he stand aside from fighting for Duryodhana. He insults Karna grossly, ensuring that he opts out of battle. It is as if he were hoping to cause so much slaughter that, exhausted, both sides will agree to disengage. Otherwise why should he go on killing for the longest period among any of the Kaurava generals? Day 10 is a deeply moving narrative, with Bhishma repeatedly urging Yudhishthira to kill him as he has lost the desire to live (VI.115.15). The battle rages around him as if the patriarch were the stake in a dice-game. Turning away from Shikhandi, Bhishma smiles and tells Duhshasana that the arrows wounding him mortally must be Arjuna’s and cannot be Shikhandi’s for they strike his weakest spots deep, ‘Like baby-crabs emerging/after cannibalizing their mother/they are devouring me’ (VI.119.66). Ultimately, there is not even two-fingers-breadth of exposed skin left on his body!

Curiously, Dhritarashtra and Gandhari make no move to meet the fallen patriarch until the war gets over, which argues for his having been killed as indeed is often stated quite bluntly. At the end of the Bhishma Parva and again at the beginning of the Drona Parva Sanjaya describes Karna rushing to meet the fallen Bhishma to get his permission to fight. The patriarch unveils for him the secret of his parentage which Karna already knows from Krishna. Bhishma considers his birth adharmika,jatohasi dharmalopena. It may very well indicate that the story of the god Surya engendering him was not believed by the patriarch who frowned upon this instance of unwed motherhood. Bhishma tells Karna that such a birth warped his discrimination so that he chose to mix with the mean and was jealous of the noble (VI.122.12-13). Though Arjuna’s equal, these undermined him. This is substantiated in the Drona Parva when Arjuna berates Karna for his ignoble conduct in abusing Bhima although the latter had never spoken a harsh word to him despite uncharioting him repeatedly:

‘You must have a low mind
To speak as you do.
You say things
That should never be said.’ (VII.148.19-23)

Karna’s response to Bhishma is that of a tragic hero: fate is inevitable, struggle cannot overcome it, but he is obliged to pay with his life for the favours received. When Duryodhana complains about Drona’s failures, Karna’s reply sounds surprisingly like Krishna’s to Arjuna on performing kartavyam karma:

‘Do your duty,
And do it fearlessly.
Whether what you do
Succeeds or fails’
That’s in the hands of fate.’ (VII.152.31)

Envy of the much younger Arjuna is the driving force of his being and he remains obsessively true to his ‘sva-dharma’ of being the egotistical sublime till the bitter end. We recall that Duryodhana had declared him ruler of Anga, but here we come across Bhima killing the ruler of Anga who is called a ‘mleccha’ (VII.26.17).

Duryodhana’s soldiers can only imagine Karna as Bhishma’s replacement, not Drona. Karna discerns that he may not be universally acceptable as the commander and, for once swallowing his pride and listening to reason, advises the reluctant Duryodhana to install as Bhishma’s successor the guru: ‘Ear-long white hair,/shyama-dark the complexion, eighty-five years old,/Drona moved like a boy of sixteen’ (VII.125.73)’a description Sanjaya repeats when he is beheaded (VII.192.64-65). With this the horrors of war abruptly exacerbate. The first warning bell is rung with Satyaki beheading the armless, meditating Bhurishrava, presaging the manner of Drona’s death. That incident reveals that strong opposing views prevailed about the Vrishnis. When Arjuna suddenly intervenes in the duel and slices off his arm, Bhurishravas is astonished at his uncharacteristic conduct and attributes it to his keeping company with the Vrishnis and Adhakas who ‘are mean and vicious’ and making them his models (VII.143.16). Sanjaya counters this by extolling the nobility and virtue of the Vrishnis to explain their invincibility to Dhritarashtra (VII.144.26-32). Then there is the horrendous battle at night, fought by lamp-torch-and-moon-light. Next, six heroes combine to kill a sixteen year old. One cannot believe one’s ears when the revered guru advises Karna to cut Abhimanyu’s bow and armour from behind so that he can be killed. We recall how he played favourites, disabling Ekalavya and giving his own son special coaching, used his pupils to grab half of Drupada’s kingdom (if he was such a mighty hero, why did he not do this by himself?), uttered no protest when Draupadi was abused. Bhima brutally tells him to his face that, obsessed by love for his son, he forgot his dharma of ahimsa to chase after wealth and killed thousands (VII.192.38-40). Drona is no different from Dhritarashtra in this respect. This is the person after whom India has named the award for its best sports coach! His brother-in-law Kripa (a foundling reared by Shantanu) is no better. Despite being the first guru of the family, not only does he join in the killing of the youth, but assists Ashvatthama in the horrific carnage of sleeping combatants. Strangely, Vyasa has not a single word to say against Kripa!

After Jayadratha is killed, a gruesome picture of the battlefield is described to Arjuna by Krishna (VII.148) which is comparable to that in the Stri Parva. Ghatotkacha and Alambusha’s chariots are in a class apart, made of iron, of huge size, drawn by massive beasts and their duels are truly horripilating. Sauti may seem to be nodding when Alambusha, who has already been pummelled to death Bhima-style by Ghatotkacha (VII.109) is again beheaded by Satyaki (VII.140). However, in the latter instance, the rakshasa killed is ‘Alabala’ according to the Critical Edition.

There is no epic evidence for the popular tale of Abhimanyu learning the secret of penetrating the discus formation while in Subhadra’s womb. Arjuna’s behaviour is most curious. He knows that his primary responsibility is to prevent Yudhishthira from being captured by Drona, yet when the Trigarta suicide-squad challenges him, he suddenly announces his vow never to refuse a challenge and follows them far away, resulting in Abhimanyu’s death. Not only does Krishna remain silent, but later he praises Arjuna, as never elsewhere, for surpassing the gods in killing, single-handed, innumerable samshaptakas. Satyaki, Arjuna’s disciple, similarly suddenly recalls a vow to justify killing the meditating Bhurishrava. However, when Arjuna announces his vow to kill Jayadratha before sunset, Krishna does reprimand him for the rash decision taken without consulting him. In his dreams, Arjuna himself becomes apprehensive that he will fail and must commit suicide. This becomes the occasion for Krishna taking him to Shiva to obtain the Pashupata weapon. Once again at a critical juncture Shiva intervenes. However, it is a weapon never used except by Drona and is then ineffective! Similarly, when Ghatotkacha flings the spike-studded Rudra weapon at Karna, he throws it back at him incinerating the rakshasa’s chariot.

Then comes the gut-churning killing of Abhimanyu, grandfather of the yajamana of the snake-holocaust during which the epic is recited. The reader should note that there has been no lamentation earlier when Abhimanyu killed Duryodhana’s son Lakshmana. On Drona’s advice, Karna slices the youth’s bow from behind, Kritavarma kills his horses, Kripa slays his two escorts, Drona slices his sword, Karna shreds his shield, all jointly splinter the wheel he wields. Undeterred, Abhimanyu’Bhishma-like resembling a porcupine’attacks Ashvatthama who leaps away from his mace that pulverises his horses and both escorts. It is particularly puzzling that Duhshasana’s son, who smashes to pulp the recumbent Abhimanyu’s skull, should remain nameless and Vyasa never tells us what happened to him. One of the opponents Abhimanyu routs is of interest because of a possible historical reference: Paurava, whom van Buitenen links to Alexander’s Poros. Another instance is when Satyaki routs the Shurasenas referred to by Megasthenes (VII.141.9). In a rare instance of puranic irony, the Surya dynasty of Ayodhya is wiped out by Abhimanyu, incarnation of Chandra’s son, when he slays its last descendant Brihadbala. If we keep in mind theAmsavatarana, several conundrums surface where divinities clash, reminding us of the Iliad: Indra-Arjuna kills Vasu-Bhishma and Surya-Karna; Agni-Dhrishtadyumna kills Brihaspati-Drona and is killed by Shiva-Ashvatthama. Dhritarashtra’s lament over Abhimanyu’s death contains a cryptic statement in which lies the seed of a wonderful tale to be told later by Vidura to console the king that travelled over continents to be known in the Occident as the story of the man in the well told by Barlaam to Josephat: ‘In my eagerness to lick honey/I failed to foresee the fall from the tree.’ (VII.51.15)

The other major incident is Krishna getting Karna to expend his infallible missile on Ghatotkacha. Following this, Vyasa paints for us a picture that is literally horripilating. Krishna roars with joy, hugs Arjuna repeatedly, thumps his back and dances about ‘like a tree swaying in the wind.’ Arjuna is shocked and the explanation provided needs to be read carefully. With his skin-armour and earrings and then with Indra’s weapon, not even Krishna and Arjuna together could have defeated Karna. That is why Krishna did not allow Arjuna to face Karna so far (VII.147.34-35). In that context, section 148 is clearly inconsistent where, hearing Bhima’s complaint of being abused by Karna, Arjuna goes up to him and reads him a lecture on his meanness of mind. Perceptively, the blind monarch exclaims,

‘When a dog and a boar fight
It’s the hunter who gains.
In the clash between Karna
And Hidimba’s son Ghatotkaca,
The winner was Vasudeva-Krishna.’ (VII.182.8)

To his question as to why Karna never used the infallible missile against Arjuna, Sanjaya responds that night after night he, Duryodhana, Shakuni and Duhshasana used to advise Karna to use it against Krishna, ‘the root of the Pandavas’. But, during battle Krishna invariably confused them by making others face Karna. Sanjaya goes on to narrate that Satyaki also asked Krishna the same question and was told ‘It was I who confused/The son of Radha’ (VII.182.40). Krishna now reveals (VII.181) that in order to lighten the balance of forces against Arjuna, he had systematically got rid of Jarasandha (who could be killed because Balarama destroyed his infallible mace), Shishupala and Ekalavya (this remains an untold tale) and would have killed Ghatotkacha one day since he was a dharma-destroyer:

‘I will destroy all
Who destroy dharma’
Brahma-sacred texts, truth, self-
Control, purity, dharma, humility,
Shri-prosperity, patience, constancy’
Where these are,
There I am.’ (VII.181.28-30)

Krishna’s clarity of focus becomes unnerving at times, as when he urges Arjuna to kill Kritavarma’a Yadava’without consideration of the relationship. At such times we need to recollect that his career began with killing his maternal uncle, then his cousin Shishupala and that Ekalavya who is another cousin of his. Moreover, Kritavarma was a rival of Krishna for the hand of Satyabhama in the Syamantaka gem affair and was one of Abhimanyu’s killers.

As we read the parva it becomes clear that stoking the flames of the Pandava-Dhartarashtra rivalry is the animosity between two classmates, Drona and Drupada, fed by the smouldering embers of the ancient Brahmin-Kshatriya conflict that Parashurama had drowned in lakes of kshatriya blood. When pressed to use his celestial weapons for victory, Drona agrees to do so, though aware that this is ignoble because the warriors are ignorant of these, to please Duryodhana. As he assures Duryodhana (VII.185.12), Parashurama’s disciple Drona gives no quarter to the Panchalas. He kills his arch-enemy Drupada, the three sons of Dhristadyumna and Virata. The major allies of the Pandavas, two of their sons and one grandson are, thus, slaughtered by their guru and his son who will finally exterminate the entire Panchala clan. Curiously enough, none of the Pandavas mention Duhshasana’s son as Abhimanyu’s killer, not even Yudhishthira in his extremely significant complaint to Krishna that instead of attacking Drona, the architect of his son’s death, Arjuna targeted Jayadratha who merely prevented help from reaching the youth. Yudhishthira is so infuriated that he sets out to kill Karna and has to be restrained by no less a person than Vyasa. Thereupon he commands Dhrishtadyumna to kill Drona whom Arjuna always bypasses. It is as though Krishna’s sermon had not happened (which, indeed, may very well be the case in the Ur-text).

Sanjaya has a very revealing comment about the Pandavas when they jointly attack Drona. Bhima and the twins were ‘crooked-minded’ and separated the Kauravas from the guru so that the Panchalas could kill him. Dhrishtadyumna cuts off the head of the meditating preceptor, just as Satyaki had beheaded Bhurishrava. Here it is important to dispel the popular misconception that following Yudhishthira’s lie (it is interesting that Arjuna refused to do so), Drona laid down his weapons. Bankimchandra Chatterjee analysed the text at length in Krishnacharitra (1892) to show that Drona did not stop fighting but began using the Brahmastra unethically. When Drona was rebuked by seers for the heinous act of using celestial weapons against those not conversant with them and directed to discard his weapons, he continued to destroy thirty thousand soldiers and even defeated Dhrishtadyumna who had to be rescued by Bhima. It is only after Bhima abused him for abandoning his dharma out of greed for the sake of his son that he discarded weapons. There was, therefore, no impact of the false news of Ashvatthama’s death. Neither theAnukramanika nor the Parvasamgraha refer to it. Krishna’s narrative to his father in the Ashvamedhika states that the guru was worn out by the strain of battle. On a very sound basis, therefore, Bankimchandra classified it as an interpolation. After his father’s death, Ashvatthama erupts in fury but, disorientated at Arjuna foiling his Agneya missile, he flees to Vyasa for an explanation. Hearing that Narayana, who is Krishna, is one with Rudra (whose devotee Ashvatthama is), he retreats with his army. The parva ends, ominously, with an elaborate paean to Rudra, the shatarudriya chant.

Bhishma’s fall had not led to any acrimony, but now Arjuna bitterly berates his brother-in-law for killing the guru and is soundly reprimanded in return. The Pandava camp now erupts in violence, bursting through the lid of compromise Krishna repeatedly weighs down over the seething cauldron of hidden agenda. Arjuna blames Yudhishthira and Dhristhadyumna who retorts and then Satyaki and the Panchala prince trade insults and come to blows, having to be restrained by Bhima and Sahadeva with great difficulty. Dhrishtadyumna bluntly states that both sides have used adharma as convenient for the sake of victory. Worse is to come in the Karna Parva where the smouldering resentment among the brothers, only a spark of which emerged during the game of dice, bursts out into the open.

The Complete Bhishma & Drona Parvas transcreated from Sanskrit
by Padma Sri P.Lal, Writers Workshop, Calcutta.

What the Ancillary Stories do in the Mahabharata

October 17, 2017 By admin

V. Adluri and J. Bagchee: Argument and Design—the unity of the Mahabharata. Brill, 2016, 478 pages, price not stated.

Traditional Indological scholarship has believed in early Kshatriya ballads being edited into the Mahabharata (MB). Alf Hiltebeitel, once of the most prolific and provocative of MB scholars, has persistently been advocating that it is the written work of a committee of Brahmins of the Panchala area between 150 BCE and 100 CE. A few years ago Adluri, his devoted shishya, and Bagchee, Adluri’s nephew-cum-chela in the parampara, collected the guru’s papers in two volumes running to over 1200 pages. Now they have edited a superb collection of papers by twelve MB scholars from Europe, Australia, Canada and the USA with two articles by Hiltebeitel preceding and rounding off the set. As usual with conferences held abroad, India is not represented although the epic is grounded there. In India, on the other hand, no seminar on her ancient traditions is considered worthwhile unless some foreign scholars feature, irrespective of the standard of their contribution.

What provoked this book’s riveting outpouring is Hiltebeitel’s proposition that the “sub-tales” are not fringe episodes or “digressions” as Sukthankar, the editor of the Critical Edition, called them, but are central to the architectonics of the MB. The papers, all focusing on this argument, featured in the 41st annual conference on South Asia in Madison, Wisconsin, in October 2012. From the excellent Foreword by R.P. Goldman, editor of the translation of the Ramayana’s Critical Edition (R), it is clear that the book is very much of a Festschrift from loving friends, admiring colleagues and students. Adluri provides a fine Introduction happily titled, “From supplementary narratives to narrative supplements,” presenting a succinct survey of the highlights. As Goldman points out, thematic proximity is what characterizes these stories which are by no means lesser or subordinate tales. Adluri proposes that they are the best way to rethink the nature of the MB as the repository of all knowledge.

Hiltebeitel notes that among the various terms the MB applies to itself one is upakhyana, a non-Vedic word which might be used for the first time here and not occurring in the R. He lists 67 stories (almost 15% of the epic’s total slokas) that are so termed, taking “the reverberations between them as a kind of sonar with which to plumb the epic’s depths.” Bowles and Brodbeck in their papers locate 5 more. Whereas akhyana is a long narrative often interrupted, the upakhyana is a major tale that is not broken up. These are almost all addressed to the Pandavas (primarily Yudhishthira) and a few to Duryodhana and Karna. In saying that only one is narrated by a woman (Kunti to Pandu) Hiltebeitel overlooks the fiery tale of Vidula she tells Krishna for retelling to her sons for screwing their courage to the sticking place so as not to fail. Where tales are repeated, they are always from a different angle. Because of this, Hiltebeitel argues for reading the Shanti and the Anushasana Parvas as part of the total design, not as the consequence of “an anthology-by-anthology approach.” It is relevant that the MB’s oldest parva list occurring in the Spitzer manuscript (c. 250 CE) does not have the Anushasana. It might have formed part of the Shanti at that time as it does in the Indonesian MB. These stories build up a nexus of values such as anrishansya (non-cruelty), friendship, hospitality, gratitude. This is not so clear in the R. In discussing the Parashurama-Rama encounter, Hiltebeitel erroneously states that the former demands that the latter break Vishnu’s bow and he does so (p. 50). Actually, Parashurama challenges him to shoot an arrow with the bow, which Rama does, blocking his path to Swarga. There is a pattern in the encounters Rama has with sages: Hiltebeitel claims that he meets all the eight founders of Brahmin lineages, arguing not very convincingly that Rishyashringa is a substitute for his grandfather Kashyapa and Parashurama for Jamadagni. Childless Parashurama cannot be considered a gotra-founder. Seven of these rishis make up the Saptarshi constellation, pointing Rama southwards. Hiltebeitel argues that the two epics have similar designs and therefore the MB’s story of Rama, beginning with material from canto 7 of the R, cannot be an epitome of Valmiki’s epic. Valmiki went beyond it to posit new values about dharma based upon a bhakti relationship between subjects and monarch, bolstered by rishis of Vedic antiquity. In the course of this discussion, Hiltebeitel very uncharacteristically calls for correcting the Critical Edition of the MB (held sacrosanct by him and his ilk), for having turned the 18 chapter “Narayaniya” section of the Mokshadharma Parva into 19, thereby spoiling his ideal “18” paradigm. This smacks of that very “higher criticism” which he is wont to condemn. He contends that these upakhyanas aim at churning out the secret of achieving liberation through dharma and truth, something that Shuka attains and finally Yudhishthira too. But does he? After all, in Swarga he is prevented from putting a question to Draupadi-Shri.

Robert Goldman argues that upakhyana does not connote subordinate tales but rather complementary or supplementary narratives that are instructive in nature, repeating motifs in the main story. He examines the R’s Uttarakanda as such a narrative encapsulating core components of the MB’s central story. Here the poet appears to be attempting to project Rama as the chakravartin who achieves universal imperium through conquest as idealised in the MB. It is only in this last canto that we find mention of armies of 300 rajas massing, too late, to help Rama in besieging Lanka. After the rajasuya yagya Yudhishthira’s sway extends from Antioch in the West to China in the East. But why should this imperial concept be seen as emulating the Persian Empire? Further, Yudhishthira certainly does not “lay waste to all rival kingdoms” and commit “wholesale slaughter” for the rajasuya. Unlike the Dharmaraja, Rama does not annex kingdoms (not even Lanka). He establishes Shatrughna to rule in Mathura. Bharata conquers Gandhara by releasing a WMD annihilating thirty million gandharvas— veritable ethnic cleansing— and establishes his sons at Pushkaravati (Peshawar) and Takshashila. Then Rama commands Lakshmana to take over Karupatha without bloodshed. He refrains from the rajasuya because Bharata convinces him that the world is already under his sway. The horse-sacrifice which he performs instead at Lakshmana’s suggestion emulates Dasharatha’s in being devoid of conquests or battles. It is not only Bhavabhuti (8th century CE) who sought to remedy this omission by introducing the battle with Lava and Kusha in Uttararamacharita, as Goldman notes, but also Jaimini who did the same in his MB’s Ashvamedha Parva. Rama is the ideal pacific and righteous emperor, very different from Dharmaraja Yudhishthira who does not shrink from imperial conquests. The Uttarakanda fails to remodel Rama “in the model of the idealized chakravartin, Yudhishthira, held up as an ideal template for Kshatriya rule in the Mahabharata.” Goldman believes that its authors were familiar with the MB. He goes further to suggest a probable chronology as Pushkaravati and Takshashila were major towns of the Persian satrapy of Gandaris and then under Alexander (4th c. BCE) and Menander (2nd c. BCE). Their importance would have inspired the authors to claim them as part of the Kosalan Empire. Would that not hold equally true for the MB which is recited to Janamejaya in Taxila?

Bagchee focuses on the variations in the Shakuntala story in the northern and southern recensions. Like Yagyavalkya defying his maternal uncle-and-guru Vaishampayana, he challenges grand guru Hiltebeitel’s views and proposes a novel concept, viz. that southern scribes composed extra slokas restoring a better sequential order of chapters in terms of Paurava genealogy. He asserts, they “heal the breaches in the text” as they had “an architecture in their heads” (emphasis in the original). This is very much like the “higher criticism” which he condemns strongly otherwise. The order in the southern recension is superior to the northern in which “the transitions…are quite awkward.” He also alleges that the scribes deleted entire segments, as in the beginning of chapter 90. To him the southern version is “a more complete retelling of the Mahabharata.” Hence he suggests rethinking the relation between the two recensions. As he and Adluri are revising the Critical Edition, we will be seeing the results of their editing work seeking to preserve the tradition of the Indian scribes, as they claim. Bagchee asserts that the southern is not descended from the northern, as argued by T.P. Mahadevan and strongly backed by Hiltebeitel. In proposing a common source for both he is reverting to the German theory of an “Ur-Mahabharata”. According to him, Mahadevan is mistaken in saying that Sukthankar chose the shortest text as the archetype because of his training in the German school of Philology. Bagchee himself reveals his own Germanic affiliations by speaking of this being “a case of Vorlage that makes a certain Vorgabe”.

Greg Bailey shows how the section in the Vana Parva dealing with Markandeya’s narratives mirrors the use of multiple and mixed genres in the MB text, besides aiming at providing a “totalistic view of things.” There is theogony, cosmogony, tyrannical rajas, raging rishis and differing views of dharma. There is no overarching plot holding this part together, except that all of it educates Yudhishthira. This is particularly interesting because nothing happens to the Pandavas who are the interlocutors all through. The only actors are the sage and Krishna. The focus appears to be on presenting Brahmins with a unified interpretation of dharma through tales of widely varied content.

Sally Goldman examines the MB’s Ramopakhyana and the R’s account of the Rakshasas in the Uttarakanda to show that sexual transgression by females and misogyny inhere in the demonic in Valmiki’s imagination, not in Vyasa’s. Vyasa is not bothered about Rakshasa women and even omits Ravana’s mother Kaikasi. She holds that the Ramopakhyana is refashioning the Uttarakanda to fit in with its views. Why can it not be the other way round, particularly when it is quite certain that the Uttarakanda is later (cf. Hiltebeitel)? Goldman does not notice that the MB’s version of the R matches its conception of a divine plan played out on earth. Here Brahma sends an apsara to become Manthara in order to ensure Rama’s forest exile.

Bruce Sullivan seeks to find out what Bhima’s encounter with Hanuman can tell us about the MB. Firstly, the MB mostly uses the name “Hanoomaan” instead of “Hanumaan”. Sullivan makes the excellent point that there is no reason to assign several centuries for the size of the MB, or a committee as Hiltebeitel proposes, when Isaac Asimov could write 500 books on subjects covering all ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System while working as a professor of biochemistry. This episode is the only instance in which Bhima cites knowledge of the quality-less supreme soul (nirgunah paramatmeti) as the reason for not jumping over the monkey, and refuses the amrita-like food offered. Further, he mentions this meeting to no one, not even Hanuman’s presence on Arjuna’s pennant. Even later, when the Pandavas hear the Ramopakhyana, Bhima does not mention that he has met Hanuman. Yet, when he meets Hanuman, he says he is aware of his exploits in the R. Hanuman refers to Rama as Vishnu and uses the word avatara. Besides this, it is a parallel to first Arjuna and then Yudhishthira meeting their fathers, with Bhima’s encounter with Hanuman appropriately in the middle. It also links up with the burning of Khandava when Arjuna received the celestial chariot with a divine ape on the flagstaff, which we are now told is Hanuman. This episode, therefore, seeks to explain Hanuman’s presence on Arjuna’s flagstaff. In this episode Hanuman is linked four times to Indra. In the Rigveda Indra is “Vrishakapi,” the bull-ape. Nowhere else in the MB is the ape on the banner known as Hanuman, which suggests that this episode was added at the very end of its composition. Hanuman’s assuming his incomparable form to teach Bhima about dharma and the yugas, advocating puja with bhakti, is modelled on Krishna’s Gita, as is the forgiveness both brothers beg of the deities. Just as Arjuna alone can see this form of Krishna and hear him, so it is with Bhima and Hanuman, Yudhishthira and Dharma. Sullivan sees a parallel between Bhima’s double quest for wondrous flowers on Gandhamadana and Indra’s mountain-climbing to seek the source of golden lotuses floating in the Ganga. Since here Hanuman is depicted as more divine than in the R, does that indicate composition at a time when he was worshipped as a deity (c. 1st century BCE – 400 CE)? Possibly not, as evidence of such worship comes much later.

Fernando Alonso’s thesis is that the committee writing the MB was presenting an answer to competing ideologies like Buddhism and bhakti following Alexander’s invasion. He focuses on “the architectures of power and the role of Indra”. In doing so he surveys the epic of Gilgamesh where the heroic king is punished by gods for misrule. Both the MB and this epic deal with kings who are intermediaries between men and gods and need to be righteous. Though Alonso asserts that both epics have a divine plan of massacre, in the MB this affects not all humanity, as in Gilgamesh, but only Kshatriyas. Further, how is the good side “degraded…paving the way for their slaughter” when the Pandavas are left unscathed with a resurrected heir? Nor do bad kings or the absence of kings imply attacks by demons or perversion of the social order and a lack of yagyas. None of these occur during Duryodhana’s reign which is extolled by the subjects when they bid tearful farewell to Dhritarashtra. An excellent insight is how sages contribute to the daivic plan through rape (of Matsyagandha), boons (to Kunti, Gandhari, Drona), curses (on Dyaus-Bhishma, Dharma-Vidura, Karna), engendering (by Bharadvaja, Vyasa). Besides incarnating, the gods empower both parties (Arjuna, Shikhandi, Dhrishtadyumna, Draupadi, Jayadratha and Ashvatthama) while the demons possess Duryodhana and Karna. In this list, Alonso misses out Duryodhana whose torso is adamantine being Shiva’s creation but waist-downwards is delicate having been made by Uma. As for Indra, he is much more of a figurehead than Homer’s Zeus who actively intervenes in the Trojan War. In the upakhyanas he is shown as lecherous and scared, never as the demon-smiting Rigvedic hero, but a god who bows to Brahmin-dom. The tirtha stories show that the gods are not all that superior and can be overcome by rishis, asuras and even humans. Their inferiority to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, to kings like Kuru and even to asuras like Bali and Namuchi is made amply clear. The bhakti trinity has overtaken the Rigvedic deities and Indra has no place in the new bhakti ideology. His Swarga is rejected as inferior to moksha. The critical role is played by Kshatriyas who act like Brahmins (Bhishma’s celibacy, Yudhishthira’s ahimsa) and vice-versa (Drona, Kripa, Ashvatthama) the latter being all on the Kaurava side: “there is no MB without out-of-role Brahmans.” The very onset of the Dvapara epoch is because of Brahmin Parashurama’s massacres, while Yudhishthira’s obsession with nonviolence ushers in Kali Yuga. Alonso proposes that the makers of the MB made it a war story so that it was closed off to competing groups like the Shramanas and their cycles of tales. Thus, the Samyutta Nikaya shows Indra as a devotee of Buddha and the gods as inferior to arhants. It would have been similar in Jain texts.

Adheesh Sathaye tries to make sense of the Madhavi episode by using a unique approach. He conceptualizes the architectonics of the MB as resembling a modern museum whose text panels guide the audience’s reaction to the exhibit. He argues that the story of Galava and Madhavi provides “a unique fusion of morality and political discourse” advocating gathering power through friendship, not conquest. He notes Dumezil’s linking of Madhavi with the Celtic epic heroine Medb, both names deriving from the Indo-European root “medhua” meaning “intoxicating”, which we hear still in the Santhal “mahua,” the Sanskrit “madhu”. It is not cognate to the English “mead” as Sathaye says, that word being Germanic. Sathaye argues that Garuda is shown to be “a morally problematic friend and guide” as he disrespects women in the encounter with the female sanyasi Shandili, foreshadowing Galava’s “pimping” of Madhavi. As he is a pupil of the arch-rebel Vishvamitra, we are predisposed to accept his operating at the fringes of social propriety and his being as stubborn as his guru. Here a story about a different kind of Brahmin is glued on to the Vishvamitra meta-myth. Vishvamitra’s very birth is linked to the black-eared horses he demands from Galava which is also the name of Vishvamitra’s son in the Harivansha. Ashtaka, his son from Madhavi, is a Rigvedic seer. The yagya the grandsons of Yayati perform for him is the epic’s version of the Rigvedic verse 10.179 attributed to three of the same kings (Shibi, Pratardana and Vasumanas) ruling over Kashi, Ayodhya and Bhojapura plus Ashtaka at Kanyakubja, all important sites in early Buddhist and Jain literature. Shibi, in particular, is an epitome of moral kingship in both Brahminical and Buddhist traditions. Sathaye suggests that linking these kingdoms through matrilocal genealogy constructs a new way of looking at consolidating power through regional alliances instead of conquest following the collapse of the Mauryas. To these Sathaye adds Pratishthana, Yayati’s capital, identifying it with the Satavahana capital of Paithan in the post-Mauryan period, known as important commercially in Buddhist texts. He overlooks that Khandavaprastha is given to the Pandavas as having been the capital of their ancestor Yayati. Simultaneously, the Galava-Garuda tale highlights the supremacy of Vishnu which is stressed in the story of Dambodhbhava that follows.

This arrogant king is trounced by Nara with a fistful of grass. This is very interesting because in the Mairavana and the Sahasramukharavana tales from the Jaiminiya Mahabharata, both Hanuman and Sita use similar mantra-infused grass to destroy the demons. Vaishnava theology is thus being brought to the fore. As these stories focus on obstinate pride leading to destruction, the audience is guided to realise the anxieties of post-Mauryan rulers in whose despotic times the MB is tryingto push a new vision of moral rule, dharmartha, for governing effectively, ruthless conquest no longer being a feasible option.

The lengthiest paper, running to 45 pages, is by the editor Adluri: a provocative contribution claiming that Amba-Shikhandi represents Ardhanarishvara. The name, of course, is that of the Goddess-as-Mother, but how does her turning male recall Shiva’s “gender ambiguity”? Nor does ardhanarishvara mean “half woman” but rather “the-half-woman-God.” The MB does not know the Ardhanarishvara concept. Adluri argues that Arjuna, empowered by Shiva, and Shikhandi resemble the Purusha-Prakriti dyad. However, the Purusha is always a witness, never acting, whereas it is Arjuna’s arrows, not Amba-Shikhandi’s, that bring down Bhishma. It could be argued that by using Shikhandi as a stalking horse, Arjuna is, in effect, pretending to be witness, but Adluri does not resort to that. For him, the “ultimate androgyne” Shikhandhi challenges the “ultimate masculine figure” Bhishma (but does not celibacy undercut this maleness?), and the ultimate mortal (Nara-Arjuna) opposes the ultimate immortal (Bhishma). There is no evidence that Amba/Shikhandi remembers “to become the divine androgyne.” Adluri calls the Arjuna-Shikhandi pair “the double androgynes” referring to the former’s year as Brihannada. He could have added the instances of Bhangashvana (man to woman by Indra), Ila (woman to man by Shiva), particularly as the story of the former is related by Bhishma and of Samba (born by Shiva’s boon) whose cross-dressing results in the doom of his clan. Adluri, while making the perceptive point that feminist interventions alter the Kshatriya dynasties, as through Ganga, Satyavati, Draupadi, forgets the most important of these, viz. Kunti. If Satyavati abruptly replaces the dynasty sought to be founded through Ganga and the heavenly Vasus by her own, Kunti substitutes her grandmother-in-law’s designs by reverting to the gods for progeny. Merely by producing offspring how can Ambika and Ambalika be parallels to Vinata and Kadru when they are not rivals in any way? Pandu abdicates in favour of Dhritarashtra. If progenition makes a character a symbol of “the sristi aspect of the pravritti cycle,” then why leave out the amazingly fecund Gandhari? The point is well made that the rejection of Amba creates the void in which the epic action occurs—a space that “rapidly folds in on itself” with her return, for she symbolizes the laya (destruction) motif. Germanic study of the New Testament, which is what informs the Critical Edition of the MB, again rears its head with Adluri’s reference to “the Wirkungsgeschichte of this text”. Adluri reaches out very far indeed in claiming that as a crocodile-infested river Amba symbolizes the MB at whose end Arjuna sees Krishna and Balarama as dead crocodiles. In agreeing with Hiltebeitel that the text never allows anyone to run amuck (even Parashurama), Adluri overlooks Parashurama and Ashvatthama who do exactly that, the latter with the support of Rudra. Instead, he claims that the story of Amba shows Shiva and the Devi acting jointly as the divine androgyne, overcoming gender. He adds a section showing how the number five is significant: the fifth Veda, the five Pandavas, Shuka as the fifth son (the 4 pupils being like sons) who attains moksha, the five elements that combine for creation, the five-tufted Shiva in Uma’s lap as the symbol of birth whom Indra seeks to strike and is paralysed.

Adam Bowles focuses on 3 ancillary tales about fish, doves and the ungrateful man. The first of these does not feature in Hiltebeitel’s list, because, Bowles finds, the list of colophons in the Critical Edition is erroneous (all the more reason for a properly revised edition, a proposal being stoutly resisted by Western Indologists who will only correct typos). These tales are mirrors for rulers on the art of governance, and resemble those in the Buddhist Jatakas, in which the fish tale occurs (as well as in the Panchatantra), and shares concerns found in the Arthashastra rather than the dharmashastras. These impart lessons on proper alliances, distinguishing traitors from friends and right action. The doves’ tale with its motif of sheltering the refugee recurs often, climaxing in Yudhishthira not abandoning the dog accompanying him (but what about abandoning his dying wife and brothers?) Like the female dove, Draupadi exhorts her spouses to practice appropriate dharma. However, to equate the female dove’s burning herself on her mate’s pyre with Draupadi adopting sahagamana is incorrect, because she does not follow her dead spouse. On the contrary, at Yudhishthira’s command all the husbands abandon her when she falls. The tale of the ungrateful Brahmin is not the only instance of a Brahmin acting abnormally, as Bowles thinks. Parashurama, Sharadvat, his son Kripa, Drona, his son Ashvatthama, Raibhya, Paravasu and Aravasu all violate the Brahmin code. Further, though this tale comes after the end of the war, it precedes the internecine massacre of the Yadavas where the harbingers of death are, again, Brahmins. These are the arch-rebel Vishvamitra, father of Shakuntala founder of the Bharata dynasty, Kanva her foster father, and the ubiquitous mischief-maker Narada. Thus, the founders of the Bharatas usher in the decimation of one of its descendant branches.

Nicolas Dejenne deals with Madeleine Biardeau’s crucial contribution in highlighting ignored aspects of the upakhyanas. Thus, she considered that Damayanti, a reflection of Draupadi and suffering earth, takes up the role of the avatara, bringing in a new dimension to the epic. That, in turn, prompts rumination on the connection between Krishna as avatara and Draupadi. Biardeau argued that the MB was an ideological instrument countering the prevalence of Buddhism in society. In the R, she posited, the Buddhists were displaced to Lanka as rakshasas. She focused on the “mirror-stories” noting how the Virataparva reflects part of the epic plot. Without these tales we would miss significant analogies. It is a great pity that her major study of the MB has not been translated into English.

T. Mahadevan’s paper is on Mudgala, the gleaning Brahmin of the MB, the ideal ritualist whose story Vyasa himself narrates in the Vanaparva and again in the Mokshadharmaparva. He features in the Rigveda’s Shakala branch in east Panchala and Kosala. These gleaners are presumed by Hiltebeitel to be in small kingdoms like the Shungas in the 2nd century BCE, interfacing with Vyasa and writing out the first draft of the MB. Mahadevan finds Mudgala to be a real person with a gotra identity, part of a distinct Brahmin group found in the Rigveda and continuing through the epic into the future. Vaishampayana, the reciter, is also the redactor of the Taittiriya Samhita belonging to Panchala where the elaborate Soma rituals developed. Vyasa’s other pupils Jaimini and Paila are founders of Vedic schools of rituals. Mudgala rejects being sent bodily to Swarga, preferring to practise serenity on earth for nirvana. These gleaners were part of Brahmin migrations of whom the Purvashikhas came south around 150 BCE (mentioned in Sangam poetry) followed by the Aparashikhas (6th to 17th centuries CE), both carrying the MB. Epigraphic evidence for them exists. They still exist performing complex soma rituals and narrating the MB in Srirangam, covering a remarkable history of nearly 3000 years and providing evidence of organised Brahmin migrations of at least four gotra affiliates—a unique phenomenon. There is a major error here when the 8th regnal year for Rajendra Chola is given as 1929-31 instead of 1022-23.

Simon Brodbeck is the only scholar in this collection to study the upakhyanas in the Harivansha (HV). Andre Couture is the only other foreign Indologist to research this neglected text. Dr. A. Harindranath and A. Purushothaman have been researching it within India. Brodbeck asks the reader to consider what these ancillary stories might mean to him, for we are as much receivers of the tales as Yudhishthira (to whom 49 of the 67 are addressed) but even more so Janamejaya who, like us, hears them all. Thus, the frame-story is an integral part of the MB. At no stage was it merely a Kuru-Pandava story. Shulman and Hiltebeitel argue that the statement that Vyasa made a Bharata of 24,000 verses without upakhyanas could mean a digest, not an “ur-text” that was later enlarged. There is no reason why an upakhyana-less MB should be a bizarre idea as Brodbeck feels. After all, all the retellings for children in Indian languages are precisely that. Like Couture, Brodbeck argues that the HV is part and parcel of the MB, as it is mentioned in the list of contents of 101 parvas, the last being called “the greatly wondrous Ashcharyaparva”. Hiltebeitel’s list of upakhyanas leaves out those of the HV, chiefly the ancillary story of Krishna and his clan. Brodbeck points out that even the MB itself is called an upakhyana at 1.2.236, which indicates the risk in treating it as a technical genre. Hence, to depend upon the colophons for the classification is erroneous, especially as they were added much later. Brodbeck adds 4 sub-stories from the HV to Hiltebeitel’s 67, two which are alluded to in the Shanti Parva. He shows how these four stories serve “as stepping stones” through the text and are inter-related, suggesting a new approach to the upakhayanas. For instance, the “Dhanya upakhayana,” which is the last one, contains the birth of Samba by Shiva-Uma’s boon, whose dressing as a woman (a parallel to the androgyne Amba-Shikhandi, Arjuna-Brihannada) precipitates the curse leading to the destruction of Krishna’s clan.

The final paper is Hiltebeitel’s study of the geography of the ancillary stories proposing, as suggested by Rajesh Purohit of the Sri Krishna Museum Kurukshetra, that they fit the main story into the spatial and temporal geography of the MB, constructing a Bakhtinan “chronotype”. He suggests that this is the first text to project the Ganga-Yamuna doab “as a total land and a total people,” while the R “envisions India as a total land but not as a total people”. Unfortunately he does not elaborate. These tales also help to build “its cosmograph into its geography” (a concept formulated by R. Kloetzli). Hiltebeitel asserts that Kuru and his parents Tapati and Samvarana are invented by the MB composers because the stories are “especially dreamlike and elliptical”—hardly an objective criterion! He shows how the story of Shakuntala is part of accomplishing the devas’ plan by engendering the Bharata dynasty. So is the story of Yayati who divides the world among his five sons, assigning four to the north-western lands and Puru to rule in the heartland. There is another series of stories centred on Kurukshetra that imply familiarity with it on part of the composer(s) who “may actually be writing a Mahabharata ethnography out of their own experience there.” Here he adopts Mahadevan’s thesis of the Purvashikha Brahmins of this area composing the MB around the second to first century BCE.

What we have here a scintillating necklace of twelve iridescent gems with a Hiltebeitel solitaire at either end. It is a collection that no Mahabharata acolyte can afford to miss.

A shorter version of this was published in the 8th Day supplement (p. 2) of The Sunday Statesman of 15th October 2017.

Review: Buddhacharita Drew Upon Mahabharata for Dharma

July 31, 2017 By admin

Alf Hiltebeitel: Dharma: Its early history in law, religion and narrative

Oxford University Press, pp. 748, Rs. 1800/-

The period from 300 BCE onwards marks a watershed in ancient history. It is not only the time of Ashoka, but also that of Qin Shi Huang, uniter of China and founder of the Great Wall, and of Rome’s triumph over Carthage assuring its supre macy in the Mediterranean. Hiltebeitel assigns to this period the writing of the Mahabharata by Brahmins of Haryana in the 1 st century BCE and Ashvaghosh’s Buddhacharita which, he shows, draws extensively upon the epic in its depiction of Dharma. Both the epics and the Buddhists use the literary trope of oral origins of their texts. He discounts the theories of Gupta patronage for the Mahabharata’s composition and of Doniger’s assertion that it continued in oral form for a millennium.

The term “dharma texts” (Hiltebeitel lists 12 starting with the Ashokan edicts) relates to the period between the Mauryas and the Kushans when these were composed in several languages: Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit and Tamil by propagators of both Brahmanical and non-Vedic Shramanic soteriology. Ashvaghosh uses “dharma” in ways not found before the dharmasutras and the epics, using it “as a term of civil discourse with his Brahmanical counterparts.” The Tamil Draupadi temples are often called Dharmaraja temples, personifying the concept as a god. Bengal has an analogous folk tradition of worshipping Dharmadeb that should have been included in this discussion. In several shrines it is an icon of Buddha, sometimes of Shiva or a Tirthankar, that passes by that name. Among “dharma texts” Hiltebeitel includes the Yuga Purana and the BuddhistProphecy of Katyayana (late 1 st to early 2 nd century CE). Why he places their composition in Central Asia is not clear. Both share the background of invasions by Greeks, Shakas and Pahlavas (the last are absent from the Yuga Purana). Where the Buddhist text speaks of dharma disappearing, the purana assures its continuance as a seed. Hiltebeitel does not explore the reasons for this, which lie in the puranic concept of universal dissolution leaving a remnant symbolized by Shesha-naga from which the world’s great age begins anew. Buddhism has no concept of pralaya and re-creation.

Hiltebeitel devotes significant space to pointing out where Wendy Doniger, Madeleine Biardeau, Georges Dumezil and David Shulman are mistaken in rejecting the Bhandarkar Critical Edition (CE) in favour of the Vulgate text of the Mahabharata (MB) and postulating bardic paeans to warriors as the early tribal epic. But why should the “Sharada” script text be accepted axiomatically as the earliest version simply because it is the shortest? Hiltebeitel builds on B.K. Matilal’s treatment of MB “as the locus of a paradigm shift on dharma.” While Ramayana [R] is founded on formal ethical norms, with Rama exemplifying it in action, MB is far more complex, embodying it in Yudhishthira’s dilemmas as the son of the deity Dharma.

A very telling and interesting point made is that what Krishna says in the Gita is not cited as the ultimate pronouncement on dharma anywhere in the MB. The arguments Krishna uses to persuade Arjuna first not to kill Yudhishthira and then not to kill himself out of guilt are founded on the premise that saving life is superior even to truth and to keeping an oath. How is this to be reconciled with the carnage he encourages on Kurukshetra and participates in at Prabhasa? Such complicated questions are not found in the Buddhacharita (BC). In explaining Krishna’s speech to Arjuna, telling him that he had blundered being unfamiliar with the decisions of those who pursued dharma, (the “kavayah”) Hiltebeitel makes the mistake of translating this as “poets” (p. 24). In the Vedas, “kavi” means “seer”, one who sees through the appearance into the reality. The MB is Vyasa’s rendering of the Vedas for the common reader. Krishna is referring not to “the imaginative poet” but to the seers who have proclaimed what is dharma.

Yet, Krishna also says that prescriptions do not exist in all cases. Then what does one take recourse to? Reason? But reason, “tarka” is not extolled in the MB. Bhishma urges that it be shunned as a worthless branch of knowledge. What is of interest is to see Yudhishthira justifying Bhima’s kicking prone Duryodhana’s head when Krishna rebukes him for countenancing this. Krishna has no option but to accept Yudhishthira’s viewpoint. When Hiltebeitel says that such a relaxation of dharma is absent in Rama’s case he overlooks the onslaught Tara launches upon him, and before that the reproaches Bali showers upon him. Unlike Krishna, Rama has no moral compunctions about killing Bali from hiding, or in killing the Shudra ascetic Shambuka. Rama and Yudhishthira share one interesting feature: both favour the traitors, Vibhishana and Yuyutsu, by making them ruler and regent respectively of the conquered kingdom.

Ashoka used “dhamma,” the Prakrit for “dharma,” 111 times, inscribing it in Kharoshthi for the north-west and in Brahmi for the rest. He appointed dharma spies not only for the officials but even for royalty and enumerated seven texts as expressing the true dharma (“saddhamma”). He sought to advance dharma in everyone, irrespective of religion and class. Basically this was showing respect and being generous to Brahmins, Shramanas (monks), parents, teachers, elders, servants, slaves, the weak and the poor. He dismissed Brahmanical rites and women’s rituals as meaningless and insisted on not killing animals. Progress in dharma occurred by following its rules and meditating, the latter being most important. The new imperial ideology was a major threat to Vedic religion. Chandragupta and Bindusara had already favoured Jainism and Ajivika-ism. This would have spurred the composition of new dharma texts by Brahmins such as the Apastamba, Gautama and Baudhayana Dharmasutras.

Hiltebeitel holds that our epics are not tribal bardic lore about chiefs but written documents constructing an imaginary history of monarchs. In the early books of the Rig Veda (II, IV, V and VI) dharman is the foundation of the cosmos that is both above and below, and is linked to Varuna and Mitra, described as asura, representing the foundation of authority that structures society. It is parallel to rita, the truth expressing the proper structuring of the world. In the later Book X Soma establishes the material foundation and Varuna the social. The Atharva Veda departs from the Rigvedic “dharman” to use “dharma” in an abstract sense as custom or law. The Maitrayani Samhita invokes gods as upholders of dharma, “Dharmadhritas” to make the king emulate them. The Taittiriya Samhita explicitly identifies the king with Varuna whose dharma is true, “satyadharma”. Both Samhitas state that in the Rajasuya sacrifice a formal proclamation is to be made, “This is your king, Bhaaratas” which the Apastamba Shrautasutra explains as signifying Kurus-Panchalas, or just people. That leads directly to the MB. It is in the Taittiriya Brahmana that the first reference occurs to “adharma” as a deity to whom a deaf man is to be dedicated in the Purushamedharite, while a member in the assembly is offered to “dharma”. Here is the first reference to dharma in the context of a royal “sabha”. Here Shri is also called “dharmapatni”, the wife of dharma and also of Indra. This links to the MB where Shri-Draupadi is the wife of both Yudhishthira and Arjuna. The Aitereya Brahmana celebrates the king as protector of dharma, “dharmasya gopta”.

“Dharma” occurs in only ten passages in the four oldest Upanishads, specially in the Brihadaranyaka and the Chandogya, all in the context of Brahmanical concerns. Their geographical horizon stretches from Afghanistan to Bihar but no picture of the changing socio-political conditions is found in them. In the Brihadaranyaka, Brahman creates dharma in order to develop itself fully. Nothing, it says, is superior to dharma to which a weak man appeals as to a king. Here dharma is the law enforced by the monarch, and is identical to truth. In the later Katha Upanishad in the story of Nachiketa, Yama instructs in “subtle dharma” which is distinct from dharma-adharma. Yama compliments Nachiketa for rejecting Vedic rites as the foundation of dharma, and imparts to him the far more profound knowledge of the atman gained through yoga. Kings say nothing about dharma in the Upanishads. Indeed, it is Gautama Buddha, of royal Ikshvaku lineage, who expounds dhamma to both Brahmins and kings in the Ambattha Sutta. The Brahmins are of two types: those having great halls (Brahmana mahasala) and those with matted hair (jatila). Buddha compares dhamma to a raft used to cross over to the other shore and then left behind, not to be held on to. The king governs with dhamma as co-ruler. “For the first time dharma is presented as a tactic of civil discourse for engaging Brahmins.”

Some of the Buddha’s most profound discourses—as many as six suttas—were delivered to the Kurus in a town (nigama) named Kammasa-dhamma or Kammasa-pada (ogre with spotted feet, MB’s Kalmasha-pada). The Kurudhamma Jataka refers to Bodisatta as king of the Kurus after his father Dhananjaya’s death. He follows five principles strictly, as do all his subjects, because of which the kingdom is ever prosperous. It is interesting to find Buddha moving from Magadha to bring his dhamma to the Vedic heartland. The Mahaparinibbana Sutta documents that despite the Vajji republic following the seven Vinaya precepts preached to the monks, Ajatashatru of Magadha destroys them. Buddha has nothing to say about this. The Pali Vinaya text records people criticising Buddha for causing families to die out as they turn to Buddhist life. Indeed his own royal Shakya line becomes extinct. That may well be the reason why the Puranas depict him as the avatar who brings destruction to the asuras by deluding them into practising non-Vedic dharma.

The early dharmasutras (Gautama, Baudhayana) claim that the householder’s ashrama is the only one since it alone produces progeny. Later, Vasishtha Dharmasutra, Manava Dharmashastra and both the epics hold that the householder’s ashrama is the best of the four, being their support. Hiltebeitel holds Manava Dharmashastra (Manu) to be the earliest, an early Sunga or late Kushana text. The Buddhist Vinaya Pitaka (which often refers to writing) condemns coitus since it leads to living in houses and to storing food. The Ambattha Sutta accuses Brahmins of slandering Brahma when they claim to have issued from his mouth whereas actually their birth is vaginal. It carries a reference to the Baudhayana Dharmasutra in describing how good Brahmins live, which is absent from the Apastamba and Gautama Dharmasutras. Thus, the Buddhist text is referring to a dharmashastrarule that is not earlier than the 2 nd century BCE, i.e. not pre-Mauryan. The MB, too, has the same description of the life of a renunciant Brahmin.

The Shrauta, Grihya and Dharma sutras—in that chronological order—constitute a genre called kalpasutras linked to specific Vedic schools in which dharma means specific rituals, a technical meaning not found in the Brahmanas and Upanishads. Svadharma means the rules specific to a particular rite, which later denotes duties specific to particular groups or persons. Manu attempts to create a dharma specifying standards coordinating the differing traditions of Vedic schools to set up a common Brahmanical order. Possibly this was called for with the growth of trading urban settlements in the eastern regions. In this the most important place was assigned to five maha-yagyas with five rituals which radically simplified the elaborate Vedic Soma sacrifice: bali (food offering to spirits); hospitality; wood as fire-offering saying “svaha”; water to ancestors saying “svadha”; and Vedic recitation in solitude (svadhyaya) as the offering to Brahman. These would secure one all the fruits of a pious life. To these are added the concept of four debts to rishis (by study), devas (by sacrifice), ancestors (through progeny) and hospitality. Manu specifies that only after these have been discharged, through following the various ashramas in sequence, is the pursuit of moksha through renunciation permissible, whereas the Buddha did not limit monkhood to any stage of life.

Buddha in the Subha Sutta favours five Brahmanical pursuits as meritorious, viz. truthfulness, austerities, celibacy, study, charity, which are “as old as Vedic culture itself” and recommends a sixth: compassion (anukampa). The Apastamba lays down the duties of a Brahmin which are carried into Manu and the MB, combining the lifestyles of the wealthy householder and the ascetic: study, teach, sacrifice and officiate at sacrifices, give and take gifts, inherit, glean. Manu replaces the three shrauta fires by the domestic fire. He also ushers in non-violence by describing the householder’s slaughter-houses as: fireplace, grindstone, broom, mortal-and-pestle and water pot, all of which can be performed by meditative means by the sense organs, speech, breath, or knowledge (mind). In the MB (12.12.23) Nakula recommends domestic life to Yudhishthira after the war where maha-yagyas are performed just with the mind.

For Hiltebeitel, Manu and the R overlap with the MB composed by a committee led by Vyasa over a period of not more than two generations from 150 BCE. He suggests that Valmiki and Manu could be names taken by contemporary poets from the MB and that both texts could have been begun before the MB was finished. In each case the poet is present to listen to his work recited: Valmiki by Rama’s sons, Vyasa by Vaishampayana, Manu by Bhrigu. Manu is early Shunga or late Kushana, focussing on the dharma of Brahmanical kings, which is what both epics also do. This was a counterpoint to the term having been appropriated by Buddhist and other monks and made into an imperial ideology by Ashoka. Only the two earliest dharamashastras, Apastamba andGautama, draw upon purana as an authority for dharma. Vasishtha Dharmashastra is the only one to refer to a sloka from Manu and is possibly later than it, while the MB alone uses the phrase itihasam puratanam. None of the others link dharma with itihasa, whereas all except Apastamba use the term itihasapurana once. The MB’s stock phrase while citing dharma prescriptions is atrapy udaharanti which is absent from Manu, R and Gautama. Hiltebeitel suggests that this second group claims authority independent of early dharmashastras and the MB which cites itihasa as precedent to support its views on dharma.

The MB depicts sanyasa in two ways. In the story of Shuka it shows that the four ashramas need not be lived in sequence. Instead one can directly attain moksha. Yet, it also speaks of the sequential pursuit of four stages of life. Manu, however, insists on the latter. All the texts hold that domestic life is the best, as it supports the others and produces progeny, a concept that the Buddha counters in the Agganna Sutta.

The linking of social classes (varna) to the ashramas is first done by Manu in chapter 7, Rajadharma. Whereas Apastamba and MB permit learning dharma from Shudras and women, Manu drastically abjures this, using terminology found in the Arthashastra for describing punishments for them, as also in describing how the king should think, “chintayet”. Both MB and Manu hold that the raja’s thinking must be dharmic. The Apastamba, prior to Manu, recommends the raja should have a fort (puram) and provides a floor plan with a gambling table in the middle of the assembly hall (sabha) and a capital complex, both of which feature in the MB. Hiltebeitel argues that Manu is drawing upon the MB in recommending that soldiers be drawn from the lands of the Kurus, Matsyas, Panchalas and Surasenas, and in mentioning a forested area for building a capital, as in the epic’s Indraprastha. Hiltebeitel refers to Manu’s ruler as an “upstart king,” reflecting early Vedic chiefs and later Vedic Vratyas (Brahmin and Kshatriya) anticipating the medieval Rajput. The Pandavas can be viewed as “vratya” like the Rajputs, who only assert rulership after disguising themselves as “snatakas” who have just completed Vedic study and kill Jarasandha. So that they are not seen as parvenus, both Manu and MB, specially the latter, want their kings to be Kshatriyas. Manu recognises the existence of non-Kshatriya rulers in warning snatakas not to live where a Shudra rules, nor accept gifts from a king following a wrong shastra (Jainism, Buddhism).

New territory is explored by contrasting how Buddhist and Brahmanical cosmologies relate change in dharma to the concepts of kalpa in the former and yuga in the latter. Kalpa denotes cyclical time in the Magadha area’s Jain, Ajivika and Buddhist concepts, while yuga is linear time. Hiltebeitel disputes the finding that the yuga theory is a late addition to MB. The epic links dharma with yuga and the manvantara (a Manu’s epoch), while Buddhism linked dharma with kalpa as in Ashoka’s rock edicts. Through this linkage, Buddhism gave the kalpa complexity, which Brahmanical texts gave to the yuga. Gonzalez-Reimann, studying the MB and the yugas, notes that in the Mokshadharma Parva’s Narayaniya section Vishnu speaks of the devas fulfilling their duties till the kalpa ends, which is similar to Ashoka’s inscriptions that practising dhamma will increase and improve life in the world till the kalpa’s end. This seems to be the Brahmanical dharma’s answer to Ashoka’s proclamation regarding Buddhist dhamma, both using the same expression, “yavat kalpakshayat”, until the destruction of the kalpa. Nowhere else in the epics is kalpa used thus. Manu (9.301-2) restates the MB’s doctrine that the raja is or makes the yuga, and describes the decline of dharma through the yugas.

James Mitchiner studying the Yuga Purana, which alone refers to the Indo-Greeks, holds that after the Shakas invaded, a new Krita Yuga dawned and the era of 58 BCE was founded by the Indo-Scythian king Azes. This era of renewed prosperity was under the Shatavahana Empire between the Vindhyas and the river Krishna. Parallel to this is the Buddhist text, Prophecy of Katyayana which is told from a Bactrian perspective whence the Nikaya school of Dharmaguptakas with four Pitakas and the Mahasanghikas would have spread it through Central Asia. Both Katyayana and the Yuga Purana depict Magadha in decline. Where the Yuga Purana assures that dharma will continue through history, the Buddhist text depicts a disappearance of the true dhamma and its replacement by a semblance of dhamma.

Where Stridharma is concerned, Apastamba and MBH state that dharma can be learned from women and Shudras. But Baudhayana, Vasishtha and Gautama are as negative as Manu in denying women any independence. This might be a reaction to the growing phenomenon of independent and religiously unorthodox women, viz. the heterodox nuns of Buddhism and Jainism. Hiltebeitel makes a novel point that in the MB from the entry of Ganga the law of the mother prevails as crisis mounts among the Kuru males. This is not found in the R which stresses the importance of upholding the father’s pledge.

Hiltebeitel mistakenly states that Mahabhisha picks Devapi to be his father (p. 346), and refers to “Bhishma’s paternal grandmother, the wife of Devapi,” (p. 365) whereas it is Pratipa, whose eldest son is Devapi. Nor does Vasishtha curse Mahabhisha but only the Vasus (p. 353).

Ganga tells Shantanu that her acts were to accomplish the work of the devas—the first statement of what the Kurukshetra holocaust is all about. With her departure begins the “itihasa” of the MBH, with events occurring not in the world of gods but on earth. Shantanu is linked to the solar dynasty not only because of having been Mahabhisha of that lineage in his previous birth, but also because of his relationship with Ganga who had been brought down to earth by Bhagiratha of that dynasty. Hiltebeitel puts much store by the word “samaya” (compact, arrangement) in the interventions by these women: Ganga’s with the Vasus and Pratipa; Satyavati’s foster-father with Bhishma. Both of Shantanu’s marriages are the result of “restrictive samayas” introducing “a supervening Law of the Mother” into a dynasty whose continuity is disrupted by curses (Mahabhisha-Shantanu and Vasu-Dyaus-Bhishma). Moreover, Ganga and the Yamuna (on which Satyavati plies the ferry) encircle the doab that is the land of dharma. Ganga brings liberation by killing; fish-odorous Satyavati suggests connections with both the law of larger fish eating the smaller and the ferrying across the waters of samsara. Both Ganga and Satyavati make crucial decisions that ensure the continuance of the dynasty. The dharma in which Bhishma and Satyavati engage is “rough and discordant” “co-improvising it with the author” (Vyasa).

In a brilliant insight Hiltebeitel links the two mothers, bright Ganga and dark Satyavati-Kali, to Dhatri and Vidhatri in Uttanka’s story who weave the black and white threads of night and day on the loom of Kala-Time. Very significant is the forcible induction of the Kashi princesses named after the three mothers who are specific to the horse-sacrifice where the chief queen has to simulate coitus under a blanket with the slain horse to which she is led by her co-wives (Taittiriya Samhita). Hiltebeitel indulges in flippancy here following Jamison, translating the names as “Mama, Mamita and Mamacita or Mummy, Mummikins, little Mummy”. Not only is their induction violent, but so is their impregnation. They are also the three Ambikas of Rudra Tryambaka who is invoked in the ritual of pati-vedana (husband-finding) to obtain progeny with some rites similar to the horse-sacrifice. Hiltebeitel suggests that malodorous and terrifying Vyasa is taking on the role of the resurrected sacrificial horse for impregnating the queens. The year-long vow he urges the widows should maintain before impregnation is the same in the Ashvamedha stipulation that the king and queens must remain celibate for the full year the horse wanders. Vyasa assures that if this is done he will give the widows sons like Mitra and Varuna—an unusual Vedic echo in the MB. The Rajasuya sacrifice invokes Mitra as “lord of truth” and Varuna as “lord of dharma”. The Ashvamedha identifies the king with dharma. In both epics progeny are the result of the horse-sacrifice (Parikshit, Lava and Kusha). However, in the MB, Satyavati’s hurry distorts this paradigm. Instead of Amba, the other two “mothers” are joined by a Shudra maid-servant to be impregnated by Vyasa. They are subsequently paralleled by Gandhari, Kunti and Madri. The eldest of both generations (Amba, Gandhari) is linked to Shiva and destruction. Kunti carries the Ashvamedhic paradigm further in urging Pandu to emulate Bhadra who lay with the corpse of her husband Vyushitashva (as the queen does with the slain stallion).

Where the life-goals (purushartha) are concerned, it is significant that while artha is displayed by the martial exploits of Chitrangada and Pandu, and kama by Vichitravirya and Dhritarashtra, the function of dharma is not discharged properly either by Bhishma or by Vidura as they are not rulers. Hiltebeitel is mistaken in saying that Bhishma brings in the three new queens. He has nothing to do with Pandu being chosen by Kunti in her svayamvara. Both Kunti and Gandhari win boons by satisfying the rishis Durvasa and Vyasa, emanations of Shiva and Vishnu respectively. Thus, two of the Trinity act in conjunction to accomplish the work of the gods to remove the earth’s burden of wicked warriors. Like the ancient duo of Kadru and Vinata, Gandhari and Kunti are rivals.

Hiltebeitel makes a fascinating finding in showing that the way in which Rama and Yudhishthira’s lives are organised follows a common blueprint through the first five books in both epics. He argues that the poet of the R was familiar with the design of the MB and refined it. Thus, in the R version told in the MB, Kabandha was formerly the Gandharva Vishvavasu. Valmiki turns this in his R into Viradha who was the Gandharva Tumburu, and makes Kabandha a nameless Danava. He draws a revealing comparison between the two protagonists on four points: their introduction; their status relative to sub-stories (almost nil in the R); their second encounter with monsters that end their forest exile; and how they handle duplicitous killing (this last section is particularly illuminating). A fine point is made that when Yudhishthira sees his four brothers fallen at the Yaksha’s lake like guardians of the world yugante (end of a yuga), there is a correspondence between the four fallen brothers and the four yugas, while Yudhishthira is the king who has to make a new yuga. Hiltebeitel alone has linked the Yaksha-crane to Bagalamukhi, the Tantric goddess, who paralyses, which is what has been done to the Pandavas. In ensuring that his step-mother Madri has a living son, Yudhishthira is true to a law of the mothers, whereas Rama deals solely with that of fathers. Further, whereas Rama never has any doubts about his actions, however cruel, Yudhishthira often questions his. To the former the highest virtue is truth, while to the latter it is non-cruelty, non-violence and truth. “Yudhishthira’s dharma biography comes from within. Unlike Rama’s and like the Buddha’s, it is one of ongoing reflection.”

Sita’s birth being described as “like a crest of fire on a vedi” suggests that Valmiki is making her resemble Draupadi, with the difference that Sita has no knowledge of the divine plan. To that end he adds the svayamvara too. Both features are absent in the R narrated in the MB. Hiltebeitel erroneously cites Sita calling upon “the four mothers plus her own mother as well,” (pp. 499, 505) whereas she mentions only three: Sumitra, Rama’s mother and her own mother. Making a suggestion that is novel indeed, Hiltebeitel argues that in Draupadi’s debate with Yudhishthira about karma, Jain doctrines discounting a Creator are being voiced under a Vedic cover (Brihaspati’s materialistic shastra) in a woman’s voice.

In discussing the Manu’s point that by being married to Brahmins low-born women improve their gunas, while noting that the Mandapala-Jarita example is drawn from MB, Hiltebeitel overlooks that Vidura is the best example of Manu’s pronouncement that progeny of an Arya man by a non-Arya woman becomes an Arya because of the father’s gunas. Manu also gives Vasishtha a low-born wife named Akshamala, which occurs in the Skanda Purana. She is said to be the second birth of Arundhati, or having been so named by her husband because of her radiant beauty.

Hiltebeitel provides interesting statistics: Kshatriya/Kshatra-dharma is found about 175 times in MB except in the Mausala and Mahaprasthanika Parvas. Curiously, in the R they occur only 12 times and not in the Yuddhakanda, which is about the war! Brahmanadharma is mentioned only once, in Shanti Parva, Vaishyadharma 9 times, Shudradharma 6 times. What is of great significance is that the innovative meaning the Gita gives to svadharma is not to be found elsewhere in the MB. Neither is karmayoga the same in Manu (where it relates to desire-impelled ritual rites) and the Gita. Actually, in the Anugita in the Ashvamedha Parva Krishna never mentions the phrase! Hiltebeitel’s point is that “Krishna’s teaching to kill with indifference runs the risk of winning the warrior who has not quite mastered it the same prize—heaven being just a favourable rebirth—as the sacrificial goat.” He is, however, mistaken in claiming that Arjuna loses track of his question, “Then why to violent action?” Krishna answers that quite conclusively: death is inevitable and he is to act as the instrument of the divine plan. Draupadi’s birth was for the same purpose and she acted without hesitation. He discusses the Gita as presenting dharma “through a ring structure,” with ripples moving outwards.

The Arjuna-Krishna dialogue is the only one amidst the plethora of samvadas making up the MB that is described as “dharmya”. The Manu refers to the place of the Kurus as sacred and Buddhist texts mention it as a place of Kurudhamma where Buddha imparted special teachings. “Kurudharma” occurs six times in the MB and its limits are said to have been reached kurudharmavelam in the attempted stripping of Draupadi. Buddha in the Samyutta Nikaya contradicts Krishna’s assurance to Arjuna about those falling in battle being assured of Swarga by stating that a warrior goes to hell, his mind being depraved by violence. Indeed, the Nikayas condemn kshattavijja (Kshatriya science) in no uncertain terms. Chapter 14 of the Gita speaks of attaining brahma nirvana, becoming Brahman, which is a term used in early Buddhist texts to describe nibbana, but Krishna means something quite different from what the Buddha does.

Hiltebeitel believes that the Manu and the R are a little later than the MB which does have an element of bhakti. The former leaves out bhakti and focuses on prescribing what dharma consists of, while the latter arranges both dharma and bhakti around the perfect king. There is less of a riposte in the R than in the MB to Buddhism but there is the same condemnation of Shudras seeking to move up as in the Manu. Biardeau holds that the danger from Buddhists has been displaced on to the Rakshasas of distant Lanka. Hiltebeitel points out that to fulfil the heavenly plan of relieving the earth of being overburdened and urbanized Brahma directs the devas to be embodied without passing through wombs. He lists among those not-of-woman-born Dhrishtadyumna, Draupadi and Drona but overlooks Kripa and Kripi.

Hiltebeitel is one of the very few scholars to discuss the Harivansha as completing the MB and, therefore, not composed much later as is the prevailing view. He focuses on the seminal query Janamejaya poses to Vyasa: despite his omniscience and his being the guide of the Kuru-Pandavas, how did they depart from dharma? Vyasa replies and forecasts that Janemejaya’s horse-sacrifice will impact all Kali Yuga ashvamedhas. Indeed, Janamejaya abolishes the ashvamedha for Kshatriyas. The first to be celebrated after Yudhishthira’s successful horse-sacrifice is by a Brahmin, Pushyamitra Sunga (185 BCE), which Vyasa also foretells. Pushyamitra performs it twice. Is Vyasa referring to him in the Harivansha (115.40) as the “army-leader, a Kashyapa Brahmin who will again restore the Ashvamedha in the Kali yuga”? Markandeya’s description of Kali yuga to Yudhishthira in the forest-exile paints a society without sacrifices and festivals, Brahmins having abandoned the Veda for logic. This may refer to Ashoka’s prohibition of religious assemblies and the land being dotted with edukas (stupas) worshipped by people instead of temples of gods. The passage about Kalki, a Brahmin, as king re-establishing social roles and classes does for the ideal Brahmin what the Gita does for the ideal Kshatriya, with the same concept of “just war” for both.

Hiltebeitel opens up a new theme: how the heavenly plan ties in with themes of friendship, hospitality and separation. These supplement the strains of bhakti and dharma in the epics, calling for “a three-dimensional map that can plot vertical and horizontal movements, temporo-spatial coordinates and textual and geographical terrains.” In a very interesting sidelight the deities Dhatri the Placer and Vidhatri the Ordainer are distinguished at some length by the way their functions are referred to. They are involved in seeding, forming character, karma-dharma-svadharma, fate and, fifthly, the food chain.

The two epics are discussed as two dharma biographies whose approach is different from Ashvaghosha’s in Buddhacharita (1 st or 2 nd century CE) which is the first “close and critical reading of the Sanskrit epics.” Hiltebeitel argues that Valmiki copied features of the Kabandha story in the Ramopakhyana of the MB in his tale about the encounter with Viradha. However, where both are cursed Gandharvas in Vyasa, in Valmiki Kabandha is a Danava which argues against this proposition. In both epics the second encounter with a monster marks the hero’s exit from the forest and his re-entry into society (of apes, of Virata). How his dharma changes with circumstances is depicted.

There is a major typographical error on page 599 in the quotation from the Shanti Parva (53.23.25), where instead of “Bhishma” we find “Bhima” in line 4. Hiltebeitel makes a questionable point that Krishna’s display of friendship for Draupadi comes in only two scenes where her problem occurs because of “Vedic ritual injunctions”, namely the attempted stripping and the horse-sacrifice (p. 605). However, the Critical Edition, which Hiltebeitel swears by, has no Krishna in either case. There is no indication that he intervenes to save her from the “humiliation” of simulating intercourse with the slain horse, or from being stripped (if he had provided clothes, why is she wearing the blood-stained cloth when leaving on exile?). Moreover, the translation of “kalabhis tisrbhi” as “three minutes” (the period for which she lay beside the horse?) by Jamieson which he accepts is incorrect.

Why Hiltebeitel feels that Rama’s ancestry sounds occasionally “like a spoof on the lunar dynasty’s early genealogy” is not clear. He feels that in performing the horse-sacrifice with a golden statue of Sita as her substitute, he is mocking the ceremony too. Valmiki might have the Kurukshetra carnage in mind when he has Bharata urge Rama not to perform the Rajasuya which leads to the destruction of royal lineages.

An interesting point is made that the Seven Rishis common to the two epics point Rama to his destination whence Sita will be abducted. Four of them play host to him. This group is also the author of the oldest hymns in the Rigveda. These seven are Vishvamitra, Gautama, Atri, Bharadvaja, Vasishtha, Jamadagni and Agastya, who are first mentioned in the Jaiminiya Brahmana. Hiltebeitel adds Kashyapa merely because he is the ancestor of Rishyashringa who brings about Rama’s birth and also because the Brahmin gotras stem from these eight. Kashyapa, actually, is added to the list in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad which drops Agastya.

Where James Fitzgerald posits a post-Ashokan bitter political animosity at the core of the MB, Hiltebeitel suggests that its mingling of bhakti and dharma reflects a post-Mauryan clever way of spreading a new Brahmanical dharma depicted through great rishis extending hospitality to the two avataras and by the son of Dharma listening to the advice of Krishna and the rishis on the subject. Ashvaghosha, familiar with both epics, weaves bhakti into the Buddha’s quest for true dhamma. By his time (pre-Kanishka, 1 st century CE) both Brahmanical and Buddhist streams of bhakti were running side by side. By studying Ashvagosha’s treatment of dhamma it is possible to estimate the type of MB and R that he was responding to. In Ashvaghosha’s world Brahmanical ideas prevail, he refers to Brahmins with great respect, drawing from their myths and couches Buddhist views in terms that recall Brahminical sources. There are specific references to events and characters from both the MB (Shanti Parva) and the R (cantos 1 and 7) only to show that, while they might be parallels, they are irrelevant to what Buddha achieves. One of the references that Hiltebeitel refers to as “unknown and uncertain” is to Karalajanaka (p. 636 n. 34) although a discourse with this king exists in the Mokshadharma Parva of the MB in the Haridas Siddhantavagish edition, which I have translated.

An analysis of BC reveals familiarity with the Ayodhyakanda as we have it today, comparing Siddhartha and Rama in leaving the palace, as also borrowing from the Sundarakanda the description of women asleep in Siddhartha and Ravana’s palaces. Seven of the thirteen proponents of Brahmanical dharma recall the R, and the R-link is perceptible in the first nine cantos of BC. Patrick Olivelle states that Ashvaghosha is presenting Buddha as the new Rama.

Where the MB is concerned, the BC’s stance that dhamma can be chosen at any time goes against the Manu’s emphasis on the four ashramas being consecutive, while the MB is aware both of this and the earlier doctrine of the earliest dharmasutras (pre-150 BCE) that they are four independent ways of life. Ashvaghosha is quite familiar with the Shanti Parva, as we have it now, particularly the Rajadharma and Mokshadharma portions, specially in his cantos 9 and 10 (the former transiting from the R to the MB). Vishnu’s prophecy to Mandhata (Shanti Parva) links the free choice of ashramas to the spread of Buddhists (bhikshavo linginas) after the Krita yuga. Ashvaghosha does refer to several characters and episodes of the MB and to Bhishma killing Ugrayudha which occurs only in the Harivansha, which, therefore, is much earlier than usually presumed. Siddhartha’s dress as a mendicant on Rajagriha’s Pandava mountain is precisely the guise adopted by Krishna, Bhima and Arjuna when they enter Girivraja by the Chaityaka mountain (a Buddhist reference), and by Ravana and Hanuman. Vyasa refers to the peak as a “horn”, which the Pandavas shatter and kill Jarasandha. Conversely, In Ashvaghosha Buddha rejects Bimbisara’s prayer to fight his foes and is described as the restored “horn” of the mountain (of dhamma) broken by those following Brahmanical dharma in the MB. Ashvaghosha uses the Jarasandha episode to convey that “where Krishna was, there now is the dharma looking personally like the horn of a mountain.” BC introduces the term mokshadharma from the MB as a way to render Nirvana. It does not appear in Buddhist texts before him and the Manu never uses it. Yudhishthira and Siddhartha both wish to abandon kingship and pursue moksha, but where the former is persuaded not to do so, the latter rejects the same arguments and does. Mara’s challenge to Buddha is couched in the language of the Gita, urging Kshatriya svadharma (a term not found in Buddhism), placing “Krishna’s words into the mouth of the devil.” In remarkable insight, Hiltebeitel brings in Ismaili ginans in which Buddha appearing before the Pandavas as a monk looking like a Muslim warrior, who is an untouchable and a sinking leper, teaches bhakti as dharma, denounces the Brahmanical sacrifice as useless, and convinces them to make a shared meal of the Kamadhenu (wish-fulfilling cow) to gain liberation.

At the end the BC states that Ashoka distributed the relics of Buddha in over 80,000 stupas, which tallies with Markandeya’s prophecy that in Kali yuga the land will be covered with edukas (the oldest term for Buddhist reliquaries) instead of devasthanas(temples). The converse if found in the Manjushrimulakalpa where Buddha foretells to the parricide Ajatashatru that the land will be invaded by Devas and Tirthikas, with people turning to Brahmins and violence. To Ashvaghosha both Buddha and Ashoka are Dharma-Rajas propagating a universal value, to which the epics and the Manu provide ripostes.

This valuable and extensive study would have been enriched by an examination Bankimchandra Chattopdhyaya’s Dharmatattva(1888) and his commentary on the Gita available in translation since 2001.

Reviews in The Statesman

June 1, 2017 By Author

Krishna in the Harivamsa, Vol 2, The Greatest of all Sovereigns and Masters by Andre Couture. DK Printworld, New Delhi. The Sunday Statesman 15. 04.18

Click the link ===> http://epaper.thestatesman.com/m5/1614823/8th-Day/15th-April-2018#dual/2/1

What the Ancillary Stories do in the Mahabharata. V. Adluri and J. Bagchee: Argument and Design—the unity of the Mahabharata. Brill, 2016. The Sunday Statesman 17.10.2017

Click the link ===> http://www.thestatesman.com/books-education/ancillary-stories-mahabharata-1502511514.html

Management by Mythology. 14 Principles of Management to live by. By Utkarsh Patel. The Sunday Statesman 06.07.2017

Click the link ===> http://www.thestatesman.com/features/myths-behind-management-1501980032.html

The Song of Arjun and the Hegemony of the Yadavas: Arjun Pandava: The Double hero in Epic Mahabharata by Kevin McGrath: Orient blackswan. The Sunday Statesman 20.02.2016

Click the Link ===> http://www.thestatesman.com/features/the-song-of-arjuna-and-the-hegemony-of-the-yadavas-1479602871.html

150^th Anniversary of a translator, Kaliprasanna’s greatest literary feat. The Sunday Statesman 23.10.2016

Click the Link ===>http://www.thestatesman.com/8th-day/150th-anniversary-of-a-translation-172326.html

A Treasure Trove in English: evading the shadows by Rajesh M Iyer. Kriscendo media, Frog Books. The Sunday Statesman 6.11.2016

Click the Link ===> http://pradipbhattacharya.com/2017/05/26/review-rajesh-m-iyer-evading-the-shadows/

Reconsidering the Mahabharata: Ways and Reasons for Thinking about the Mahabharata as a Whole, ed, V. Adluri, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute Pune. The Sunday Statesman 7.8.2016

Click the Link ===> http://www.thestatesman.com/supplements/reconsidering-the-mahabharata-158618.html

The significance of a neglected text: Krishna in the Harivamsha Vol. 1 – The wonderful play by a cosmic child, Andre Couture. DK Printworld, New Delhi. The Sunday Statesman 3.7.2016

Click the Link ===> http://pradipbhattacharya.com/2017/05/27/review-the-harivansha-the-significance-of-a-neglected-text/

A landmark in Indological studies, Samsad Companions to the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, MADHUSRABA DASGUPTA, Sishu Sahitya Samsad. The Sunday statesman 19.04.2015

Click the Link ===> http://www.thestatesman.com/8th-day/a-landmark-in-indological-studies-58362.html

A revolutionary thesis – The Mahabharata Patriline: Gender, culture and the royal hereditary, S.P. Brodbeck, Ashgate, UK. The Sunday Statesman 12.04.2015

Click the Link ===> http://www.thestatesman.com/supplements/a-revolutionary-thesis-57126.html

Did Vyasa adapt Homer, Mahabharata and Greek Mythology, Fernando Wulff Alonso, Motilal Banarasidass. The Sunday Statesman 15.03.2015

Click the Link ===> http://www.thestatesman.com/8th-day/did-vyasa-adapt-homer-52588.html

Victory is the name of this history Jaya – Performance in epic Mahabharata, Kevin McGrath, Harvard University Press. The Sunday Statesman 17.11.2013

Click the Link ===> http://www.thestatesman.com/8th/victory-is-the-name-of-this-history-24918.html

The mighty fallen in the midst of battle, The Mahabharata, volume7, Bibek Deb Roy, Penguin India. The Sunday Statesman, 06.10.2013

Click the Link ===> http://pradipbhattacharya.com/2017/05/27/review-bibek-debroy-the-mahabharata-volume-7/

The Epic Psychology, Battle, Bards and Brahmins Ed by John Brockington, Motilal Banarasidass. The Sunday Statesman, 17.03.2013

Click the Link ===> http://pradipbhattacharya.com/2017/05/27/review-battle-bards-and-brahmins-ed-john-brockington/

Perspective: Was Hindu angst over Doniger book justified, The Hindus, An Alternative History, Wendy Doniger. The Statesman, 17.02.2014

Click the Link ===> http://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/was-hindu-angst-over-doniger-book-justified-39708.html

The Unique Figure in Indo-European epic poetry, Heroic Krishna-friendship in epic Mahabharata, Kevin McGrath, Harvard University Press. The Sunday Statesman, 26.01.2014

Click the Link ===> http://pradipbhattacharya.com/2017/05/27/review-heroic-krishna-friendship-in-epic-mahabharata/

Born for Valour, Born to achieve, The Mahabharata of Vyasa: The Complete Karna Parva, Transcreated from Sanskrit P.Lal, Writers Workshop. The Sunday Statesman, 07.09.2008

Click the Link ===> http://pradipbhattacharya.com/2017/05/27/review-i-was-born-for-valour-i-was-born-to-achieve-glory/

A Zero-Sum Game on a A Darkling Plain, The Complete Drona Parva, Transcreated from Sanskrit, P. Lal, Writers Workshop. The Sunday Statesman, 10.02 2008

Click the Link ===> http://pradipbhattacharya.com/2017/05/31/review-the-complete-bhishma-drona-parvas/

Interlude – the – Incognito: The Complete Virata Parva of the Mahabharata: transcreated from Sanskrit by P. Lal, Writers Workshop. The Sunday Statesman, 19.08.2007

Click the Link ===> http://pradipbhattacharya.com/2017/05/31/review-the-complete-virata-and-udyoga-parvas-of-the-mahabharata/

Revolutionizing Ancient History: The Case of Israel and Christianity. The Statesman Festival Issue 2004, Pages 130- 135

Click the Link ===> http://pradipbhattacharya.com/2017/05/31/review-revolutionizing-ancient-history-the-case-of-israel-and-christianity/

Review : Revolutionizing Ancient History: The Case of Israel and Christianity

May 31, 2017 By Author

Review : Revolutionizing Ancient History: The Case of Israel and Christianity

The Statesman Festival Issue 2004, Pages 130- 135

Becoming a poet, a political commentator, a literary critic while editing a monthly journal of culture without stirring out of an ashram in South India may not be a matter provoking comment let alone arousing wonder. But to revolutionize the very chronology of the ancient world based on minute examination of the latest archaeological findings and texts from within such confines – that, too, in the pre-internet era – could not but astonish. It becomes all the more amazing when the subject is not just the prehistory of one’s own country but so distant a subject as the beginnings of history for Israel and Christianity. The short compass of this paper does not permit examination of both; so, we shall restrict ourselves to the “foreign” sphere of scholar-extraordinaire K.D. Sethna’s research.

Taking his point of departure from the 1968 lectures Professor Chaim Rabin of Hebrew University delivered in India placing the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt in the mid-13th century B.C., Sethna, in The Beginning of History for Israel challenges this as well as archaeologist W.F. Albright’s dating of the Exodus to c, 1294 B.C. and his identification of the Pharaoh responsible for this as Ramses II. While painstakingly taking Albright apart over 227 pages, Sethna also takes on – and demolishes – a completely different type of antagonist who is himself denounced by orthodox historians as “the other” because of his revolutionary reading of Egyptian history: Immanuel Velikovsky, notorious author of Worlds in Collision and Ages in Chaos.[1]

The paradox that stumps one in studying Jewish history-is that it presents a paradox that is the converse of what we find in Indian history. Our records have no mention of Alexander’s invasion by which Western historians set such store in determining our chronology. On the other hand, although the Exodus is such a watershed for the Israelites, the Egyptian records are innocent of it. Two Pharaohs are prominent in the context of the Exodus. The first is the “Pharaoh of the Oppression” under whom the Jews suffered; the other is the “Pharaoh of the Exodus”. Albright conflates the two in Ramses II (1304-1238 B.C.) who enslaved the Jews to build the store-cities of Raamses and Pithom leading to the Exodus in c. 1294 B.C. This leaves Ramses II living for 46 years more, whereas the Bible states that the oppressive Pharaoh died before Moses returned to Egypt. On the other hand, if the Exodus occurred in the reign of his successor Merneptah and the Jews wandered for 40 years en route the Promised Land, how could this Pharaoh defeat them in Palestine? Further, as the mummies of both Pharaohs have been found, how can either be the one who was drowned in the yam suf in the miraculous parting of the waters?

Sethna alone points out that nowhere does the Bible say that it was the Pharaoh who went into the sea. It was his horse and horsemen, while he rode in a chariot. Sethna conclusively demolishes F. Mayani’s special pleading, showing how he distorts the Biblical text to make Seti I the ruler who oppresses and dies. A critical inscription lists the ‘Apiru as labouring at Per Re-emasese that the Albright school (Werner Keller, G. Ernest Wright) has interpreted as referring to the Hebrews of Egypt although this word is found in other epigraphs too and nowhere connotes Hebrews. Rather it means foreign warriors and prisoners of war reduced to slaves.

Sethna takes his point of departure from the phrase “the land of Rameses”, from where the Exodus began, as marking the original settlement of the Israelites, identifying it as the Biblical Goshen where Jacob’s people were allowed to settle by Joseph’s Pharaoh. Sethna examines the several Biblical sources (termed J, E, D, P, etc.) to show that the city Raamses is not only delinked from Ramses II but is relevant to the Exodus. “What remain are Goshen/’ writes Sethna, “and Moses parleying with the Pharaoh in some city to which he comes from the Israelites and which, not having to be Raamses, could be anywhere in Egypt.” This city he identifies as Memphis, the capital of Thutmose III and his two successors Amenhotep (Amenophis II) and Thutmose (Tuthmosis IV), located near Goshen. It is evidence of Sethna’s unflinching dedication to seeking out the truth that he imports a possible hurdle into the smooth course of his thesis: can this be reconciled with the Pharaoh’s injunction that the Israelites should find their own straw? This needs harvested fields. He studies ancient Egyptian agriculture to present a picture of such areas ready first in southern Egypt (usually called Upper Egypt), then shifting northwards to Middle Egypt and concluding in Lower (northern) Egypt. That is why the Israelites have to range far and wide, says the Bible, to gather stubble. Goshen, with its rich alluvial clay is ideal for brick-making.

Sethna, the Devil’s Advocate par excellence, now asks: “But is there any Egyptian evidence of this when the word ‘Goshen’ has not surfaced in any record?” Why this word, there is absolutely no allusion to the Israelites and hardly to bricks (references to stones are found), certainly not in the time of Ramses II. Sethna marshals evidence to identify the Bible’s Shamgar Ben-Anath as the one who got his daughter married to a son of Ramses II. Ben-Anath being far removed from the time of Moses, neither Ramses II nor Merneptah can be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. A possible synchronism that can upset this is the date of the Song of Deborah and the Song of Miriam, describing the victory of Israel over Sisera, with whose rule Ben-Anath is linked. Here, again, Sethna shows Albright’s dating to be contradictory in placing the Song of Miriam in the time of Ramses II. Both are triumphal poems celebrating victories that is a form going back to the victory Stele of Tuthmosis II from Karnak, whose phrases were re-used by many later Pharaohs like Amenophis III, Seti I, Ramses III. The songs, therefore, need not be forced into the 1300-1100 B.C. bracket but can easily be older, at least to the time of Tuthmosis II who is pre-1400 B.C.

Sethna cites a frontier official’s letter under Merneptah describing the peaceful passage of Bedouins through a fortress to graze their herds in Pithom, just as the Hebrews did in Joseph’s time. This is certainly not a state of affairs we can associate with the Pharaoh of the Oppression or of the Exodus. Rather, it indicates a continuation of a system prevalent in the time of this Pharaoh’s predecessor Ramses II.

To fix upon the date of the Exodus, Sethna takes his clue from the Bible’s computing of Solomon starting to build the Jerusalem Temple in the fourth year of his reign, which came 480 years after the Jews had left Egypt. Starting with an authentic date – that of the Battle of Qarkar on the Orontes in 853 B.C. (the 6lh year of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser Ill’s reign) in which Ahab fought – Sethna arrives at 964 B.C. for Solomon’s accession, whereby the Exodus is fixed at 1441 B.C.

The schema has now to be fitted into Egyptian history. This is the period of Amenophis II. Therefore, his predecessor, the 5th king of the 18th dynasty, Tuthmosis III was the Pharaoh of the Oppression. The only representation of slave-labor in Egypt comes from Tuthmosis Ill’s reign in a rock tomb west of Thebes, showing Semitic foreigners as bricklayers. Working backwards, Sethna fixes on the “Pharaoh’s daughter” who brought up Moses as the famous Hatshepsut, daughter of Amenophis I (1546-1525 B.C.), with Moses being born in 1521 B.C. and she dying in 1482 B.C. to be succeeded by Tuthmosis III.

On the other hand, following the Albright school, if Ramses II was ruling during the Exodus and Seti I was the Pharaoh of the Oppression, Moses would have to be born in 1373 to be 80 years old in 1294 B.C. (Albright’s date for the Exodus) well before Seti I’s reign and quite out of sync. Sethna expands on the unique role of Hatshepsut – inevitably, when we recall that she is supposed to have been one of the Mother’s avatars – to show that Moses’ monotheism had its roots in the new religion of Amon that she established, merging all the temples into a single organization. He points out how Moses’ dialogue with God in the burning bush episode echoes the colloquy between Amon, speaking from his shrine about God’s land and living among the trees there, and Hatshepsut. Punt, of which she speaks so lovingly, was approached through the Promised Land. Albright himself points out that the Hebrew Yahweh, the Biblical “I am what I am”, actually means, “He causes to be what comes into existence”, Yahweh asher yihweh; a formula occurring repeatedly in Egyptian texts like the 15th century B.C. hymn to Amon.

A digression is in order here. In order to make Hatshepsut contemporary with Moses, Sethna has to demolish a powerful challenge: Immanuel Velikovsky’s revised chronology identifying Hatshepsut with the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon in the latter half of the 10th century B.C[2] Sethna is able to show that:

Velikovsky’s interpretation of the Papyrus Ipuwer and the Ermitage Papyrus is biased; there is little to support his arguments for dating the Exodus a few weeks prior to the Hyksos invasion of Egypt; the Amalekites are certainly not the Hyksos; Saul cannot possibly be contemporaneous with Ahmose I who drove the Hyksos out of Egypt; Velikovsky has doctored evidence to make it seem that Hatshepsut, who did not journey abroad, is Queen of Sheba who did; “God’s Land” is not Punt as the two are mentioned separately in the great hymn to Amon of the 15th century B.C. and vii) the Egyptian king Shishak who looted Jerusalem after Solomon cannot be identified with Hat-shepsut’s successor Thutmose III, as Velikovsky strives to by tinkering with the evidence.

Sethna proposes that the Queen of Sheba is the Queen of Ophir (the Somalia shore of Ethiopia) that is Punt. Her capital appears to have been in Saba (Yemen) from where she travelled to Jerusalem by land on camels (1 Kings and 2 Chronicles). He suggests that Shishak can be recognized as Pharaoh Sheshonk or Sosenk, centuries after Thutmose III.

We can return to the matter of the Exodus now. A remarkable piece of detective work by Sethna brings to the fore the only Egyptian record that can be equated with the Exodus. The earliest Egyptian historian, Manetho (c. 250 B.C.), recounts that 240,000 Shepherds (the Hyksos) left Egypt and built in Judaea a city later called Jerusalem. The Egyptian king, told by a prophet to chase away the “unclean ones” if he wishes to see the gods, drives out 80,000 of them under their chief Osarseph (Moses) who directs them to avoid worshipping the gods and eating consecrated meat. Helped by the Shepherds, they defeat Pharaoh Amenophis II’s son (Amenophis III) in battle who has to seek refuge in Ethiopia while the Unclean Ones and their allies spread over the entire land.

Having established correspondence between the Bible and Egyptian history satisfactorily, Sethna examines another puzzle: what was yam suf, the “red” or “reed” sea and how to explain the miraculous “parting of the waters”? Many have hazarded that the ten plagues of Egypt tally with the phenomena (red rain, fish poisoned, whirlwinds, swamps, water turning rusty red) attendant upon the volcanic explosion on Santorini in the Mediterranean that destroyed a 4,900 feet high mountain c. 1400 B.C. Sethna cites Glanopoulos’ identification of the yam suf as Sirbenis Lake that is separated from the Mediterranean by a narrow isthmus across which the Israelites could flee during the 20 minutes interval when the sea was drawn back towards the Aegean as the cone of Santorini dropped into the sea, the Egyptians drowning in the returning tidal wave. However, like the uncompromising truth-finder that he is, Sethna demolishes this evidence that would have clinched his thesis. He finds that the explosion had no effect in the southern direction, for it did not even affect nearby Crete lying south, but produced tidal waves that travelled east towards Palestine. It did not lead to flooding of the Nile delta. Finally, the explosion probably occurred between 1475 and 1450 B.C., which does not tally with the date for the Exodus. Therefore, Sethna leaves the ten plagues a puzzle and Serbenis Lake vies with the Papyrus Marsh as a candidate for the “Reed/Red Sea”.

After finishing with the Exodus, Sethna takes up the question of fixing the time of the wandering Israelites conquering Palestine, drawing upon rich archaeological evidence for his conclusions. Once again, Albright’s chronology is weighed and found wanting in the light of Kenyon’s excavations. Around the time Albright proposes for the Exodus, both cities of Bethel and Hazor actually fell (c. 1350-1325 B.C.). Even if we accept Kenyon’s date c. 1325 B.C. for the fall of Jericho, it rules out Albright’s dating of the Exodus to 1294 B.C., whereas it is closer to the Israelites entering Palestine in 1401 B.C. (40 years of wandering after the Exodus). Another city, Debir, shows destruction first in c.1350 B.C. that could have been the work of Israelites. The last city in the list of conquests is Lachish whose date is debatable (either the end of the 13th or in early 12th century). Sethna points out that the fall of Jericho has to precede that of Debir and Bethel, i.e. before 1350 B.C. and that Kenyon’s comments in Digging up Jericho permit such an earlier date. Further, he shows that the El-Amarna Letters support the Bible’s picture of “the lands of Seir (Edom)” as not hostile to the Israelites though capable of defending themselves. The excavations of Glueck support this picture of Edom, Moab and Ammon before c. 1300 B.C., who allowed the newcomers to pass through peacefully. Therefore, nothing contradicts Sethna’s proposed dating of Joshua’s conquests in consonance with the Exodus in 1441 B.C.

Working back from here, based on the Biblical 430 years of sojourn in Egypt, Jacob’s arrival can be dated to 1870 B.C., in the reign of Pharaoh Sesostris III of the 12th Dynasty. Supporting evidence for interaction between Semitics and Egypt in the 12th Dynasty is found in the Beni-Hasan tableau dated to 1892 B.C. that depicts 37 semi-nomadic Palestinians led by a chief with the Semitic name Absha bringing stibium (kohl) from Shutu in central Transjordan to the court of the “nomarch” (provincial nobles). Albright finds this illustrating the story of Lamech’s family in Genesis IV.19-22. Joseph’s supreme position tallies with the practice of Sesostris III who made the vizier superior to the nomarchs whom he suppressed totally. The vizier combined the functions of the governor and the superintendent of granaries who presented to the Pharaoh the account of the harvests that were the key to Egypt’s wealth. Joseph calls himself “father to Pharaoh” which is the epithet used by Ptahhotep, the name borne by five successive viziers of the 5th Dynasty, showing that it was a familiar title. It is significant that the earliest record of this title comes from a text dating to the Middle Kingdom which included the reign of Sesostris III. It was during his reign that there was marked interaction, because of his campaigns, between Egypt and Asiatic countries, with large numbers of Asiatics serving as domestic help. This reminds us of the slave-trade mentioned in Joseph’s story. Sesostris III also moved his capital into the Delta-area that features in the story of the Pharaoh and Joseph. Finally, the name “Potiphar” is the Egyptian “Potiphera” i.e. “Gift of Ra”. So, Joseph’s father-in-law is a priest of On (Heliopolis, the centre of Ra worship). Joseph married into Egypt’s most exclusive nobility and was named by the Pharaoh “Zaphnath-paaneah” i.e. “God says: he is living”. Unfortunately, the Egyptian records do not give the name of Sesostris Ill’s vizier, which would have clinched the identification. If Joseph became vizier to Sesostris III, he had to see 7 years of plenty and 2 of famine before Jacob entered Egypt in 1870. Thus, the first year of Sesostris Ill’s reign, 1878, coincides with Joseph’s appointment. Working backwards from this, Sethna fixes that Jacob was 92 when Joseph was born (“the son of his old age” says the Bible), that Joseph was 30 when he became vizier, and Jacob entered Egypt at the age of 130.

Depending on the introduction of horse and chariot by the Hyksos, Albright fixes Joseph at a much later date in the early 18th Dynasty. Sethna shows that the use of the horse and of the chariot in Egypt cannot be attributed to the Hyksos as there is no evidence of these before 1570 B.C. If Albright’s chronology for Joseph is to be accepted, we have to reject the sojourn of 430 years by the Israelites in Egypt as it would take us to 1140 B.C. for the Exodus, leaving no time for the numerous Judges preceding Saul, who is dated between 1020 and 1000 B.C. Sethna proceeds to demolish conclusively Albright’s thesis of Joseph existing in the period of a Hyksos Pharaoh by mounting a seven-point attack combining ammunition from the Bible and history, culminating in showing that even Joseph’s oath tallies only with a regular Egyptian Pharaoh of at least the Middle Kingdom and certainly not the hated Hyksos usurpers.

Sethna closes with the patriarch and founder of the Jewish nation: Abraham, again working back from when the Israelites entered Egypt. He fixes on 2085 B.C. for Abraham the Habiru (a people mentioned in the Babylonian records of the 21st century B.C. as present in every Near Eastern land) proceeding to Palestine and thence to Egypt in 2081-80, harassing Amraphel of Babylonia (Shinar)’s rear guard before 2075 B.C. His original name “Abram” (the Father is exalted) occurs in Babylonian texts. According to the Bible, he settled in the Negeb in the southern area in the plain of Mamra in Hebron. Glueck’s explorations have shown that the period when the Negeb was settled tallies with Abraham’s residence at Hebron in the 21st century B.C. To crown the demolition of Albright’s chronology, Sethna calculates from his proposed dating of the Exodus back to Abraham (645 years). Albright attributes Abraham’s departure from Ur to its destruction by the Elamites about 1950 B.C. But no such calamity is cited in the Bible, which states that Abraham’s father left behind one of his sons and his family in Ur. Actually, Ur is not even featured in the Greek Septuagint (c. 3rd century B.C.) which simply has “in the land of the Chaldeans”. The city is first mentioned in a work dated to around 150 B.C. The Israelite tradition prefers Haran in north-west Mesopotamia as the original land of the Patriarchs. It is from there that Rebecca is brought to wed Isaac. Nothing, therefore, prevents Abraham’s departure from being earlier, c. 2085 B.C., and not linked to the fall of Ur.

From the Old Testament Sethna turns to the New and takes up what is no less a formidable challenge than flying in the face of orthodox historical opinion to prove that the Rig Veda preceded the Indus Valley Civilization and that the Gupta Empire has to be pushed back in time by 600 years.[3] In Problems of Early Christianity (Integral Life Foundation, 1998) and The Virgin Birth and the Earliest Christian Tradition (-do-2001) he deals with the hypersensitive issues of immaculate conception, the question of Jesus’ historicity and whether it was a resurrection or a resuscitation that Jesus underwent, drawing much from the writings of Sri Aurobindo. However, as archaeology is not a tool in this investigation, what we have is only literary evidence and that detracts considerably from the conviction that his arguments are supposed to carry. Dissecting Biblical literature piecemeal with great pains in the finest tradition of scholarship Sethna strives to prove his case. We are strongly reminded of his correspondence with Kathleen Raine where he exerts every intellectual sinew to convince her that Aurobindonian poetry is great English literature – but fails. With the NT, too, the final decision will have to rest with the reader of these books.

Sethna begins his examination of the birth of Jesus by pointing out that neither Protestant nor Catholic theologians exclude the fatherhood of God in case of the physical fatherhood of Joseph as Jesus’ divinity is not so much a biological fact as an ontological verity out of time in God’s eternity. That, however, is hardly something that will carry the field with a non-Christian as a decisive argument. A better point is that only the narratives of Matthew and Luke speak of the immaculate conception. It is Pauline and Johannine Christology that creates the idea of Divine Sonship quite independent of the gospels. The infancy accounts, unlike the rest of Jesus’ life, provide no evidence of eyewitness testimony. There is also the issue that Jesus had brothers and sisters (Mark 6:3, Matt 13:55, John 2:12, 7:5) and the fact that no special sanctity is accorded in the NT to the state of virginity, nor does the virginal conception preclude normal marital relations thereafter. The Gospel of Luke describes the conception of John the Baptist using the same phrases as for that of Jesus, although the former was a product of Zechariah’s normal marital relationship with Elizabeth. Mary chose to marry Joseph when she had conceived and lived with him as his wife. Joseph and Mary are designated as Jesus’ parents when they seek him in the Temple and she tells him that he has worried his father, meaning Joseph. Both fail to comprehend Jesus’ reply that he is busy with his Father’s affairs. Mary has no insight into her son’s special nature or mission. The parallel passages in Mark (3:31-35) show a clear rejection by Jesus of any special place for Mary in his scheme of things, least of all his considering her as “blessed among women” or being aware of any extraordinary experience on her part at his conception. The mother-son relationship is quite clearly unsympathetic and lacks mutual understanding. Sethna examines considerable theological evidence between 100 and 200 A.D. to prove that the alternative to the Virgin Birth account of Matthew was not any accusation of adultery on Mary’s part, but simply asserting that Jesus was normally born of Joseph and Mary (as in “Acts of Thomas”, Cerinthus, the Carpocratians, Irenaeus and later Gnostic and Jewish Christian Ebionites). Paul does not suggest any special manner of Jesus’ birth while describing him as “God sent his Son, born of woman, born a subject to the Law” which indicates a normal conception. Sonship-to-God does not exclude sonship-to-man. The nature of Jesus’ mission stresses not the manner of his conception but the fact of his being born of a woman, emphasizing his human experiences and his assuming “sinful flesh” for the sake of mankind (2 Corinthians 5:2, Romans 8:3, Philippians 2:6).

Sethna concludes that everything about the virgin birth in Matthew and Luke “has an air of fiction”. There is no trace of any family tradition of the virginal conception of Jesus till it appears in two gospels towards the end of the lst century A.D. Mary does not appear to have spoken of it to the apostles. Peter, the foremost disciple, is silent about it. Further, there is the complete absence of any scandalous rumor regarding Mary in every source till c.178 A.D. Matthew alone introduces Joseph thinking of divorcing Mary on finding her pregnant, because that is the only way in which he can propose a virginal conception.

Sethna seeks to correct a very important misconception that the OT prophesied Jesus’ virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14. Actually, the reference is to the birth of a child to a young woman about 700 years before Jesus signifying the continuance of David’s lineage. Matthew imported the Greek mistranslation of the Hebrew “a young woman” as “virgin” to show the OT prophesying his account of Jesus’ virgin birth. Unfortunately, Sethna fails to clinch this issue because he neither tells us who this “young woman” was nor the name of her son who is the subject of so momentous a prophecy.

Inevitably, Sethna ends his study on an Aurobindonian note, pointing out that the dogma regarding Mary rising bodily into Heaven specifies the event as having occurred on 15 August. Sri Aurobindo interpreted it as Mary, representing Mother Nature, raised to Godhead. He looked upon the Virgin-Birth doctrine as representing the manifestation of the Primal Shakti, the Creatrix. The appearance of such an avatar does not call for virgo intacta. The attribute of virginity is essentially symbolic of the para-prakriti. Sri Aurobindo explains that what it symbolizes becomes clear from the name of the Buddha’s mother, Mayadevi or Mahamaya, i.e. the Goddess-Force. We may add that the traditional shloka celebrating five much-married women as virgins (pancha kanya)[4] can only be understood if this symbolic meaning of kanya is kept in mind. This symbol got attached “by a familiar mythopoeic process to the actual human mother of Jesus of Nazareth”. In a stirring conclusion, Sethna states that somehow she7 who did not comprehend her son’s mission in his childhood, came to assume in the post-crucifixion generations a role far beyond what she played in his life, carrying a great spiritual truth known to India into the heart and soul of the Occident.

When was Jesus actually born and was he a historical figure or fiction? This is possibly the most satisfying of Sethna’s excursions into NT territory because it conflates evidence from ancient Babylonian astronomy with textual testimony to prove his case. It was only in c. 354 A.D. that Christ’s birthday was made to coincide with the traditional Roman festival known as Vies Natalis Invicti (“the birthday of the unconquered”) on 25 December to placate converts while weaning them away from old associations. Analysing all available historical and astronomical evidence, Sethna dates the birth to 7 B.C. at the latest, between March and November (the fields would have been frostbitten in December and no shepherds would be grazing their flocks) synchronizing with Herod’s reign and the governorship of “Cyrenius” (the Roman Quirinius under whom the census was held in 6 A.D.) in the reign of Augustus Caesar. The conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces occurred on May 29 and October 3 in 7 B.C., tallying with the legend of the Magi following the star. Augustus’ birthday was celebrated as tidings of joy, “euangelion” – precisely the word used for the birth of Jesus in the NT – connoting the birth of the divine savior of the world. The Pax Romana Augustus established ensured the means for disseminating the Christian euangelion.

It is here that Sethna dispels a prevalent misconception that Sri Aurobindo had stated his having been Leonardo da Vinci and the Mother Mona Lisa in a previous birth. He quotes Sri Aurobindo’s written reply: “Never heard before of my declaring or anybody declaring such a thing.”

Objections raised regarding the historicity of Christ are taken up by Sethna and shown to be without foundation. For Ramakrishnaites, however, a stumbling block remains in the dream Swami Vivekananda recounts having seen near Crete while travelling back from Almora: one of the Therapeutae of Crete appeared to say that their teachings had been propagated mistakenly as those of Jesus who never existed. Even Eusebius (3rd-4th century A.D.) remarks on the remarkable similarity of Therapeutae to Christian monks and feels that their writings (referred to by Christ’s contemporary Philo of Alexandria) might be the Epistles and Gospels of the NT. It is, however, important to note that even the opponents of Christianity have never questioned Jesus’ existence, but only doubted his divinity and criticized his followers’ practices.

Taking up the problem of the Turin Shroud, Sethna painstakingly analyses all the pros-and-cons to conclude that there is no evidence for questioning the Carbon-14 test made independently by three laboratories in different countries dating it between 1260 and 1390 A.D. The description of how Jesus’ body was wrapped given in the gospel of John 206-7 clearly has his body and his head “wrapped in separate pieces of cloth using linen bands (othonia) not a single piece (sindon). Thus, there is no question of the shroud being the cloth in which Jesus was wrapped. Sethna also lays to rest the popular myths that Luke and Mark were friends of Paul, that the former was a medical man and that he also wrote the “Acts of the Apostles”.

The controversy about when the NT envisages Christ’s Second Coming interests Sethna. The earliest writing, Paul’s epistles, clearly envisages that it is due anytime. There is a crisis of faith mentioned in Peter’s Second Letter because the expected return has not occurred. Everything in the NT points to the Second Coming being fixed c. 1st century A.D. It is most unlikely that any apostle would, therefore, leave for so distant a shore as India, as Thomas is supposed to have done. Whatever happens thereafter is not part of Christ’s schema, therefore! Thus, another myth is laid to rest.

What engages Sethna at length is the examination of the dogma regarding the resuscitation of the crucified body as distinct from the resurrection of Jesus in a different form. The extreme physicality Luke and John attribute to the appearance of Jesus after the burial is suspect. Paul does not support it despite having spent time with Peter and James the brother of Jesus and referring to six contemporary instances of Jesus’ appearance. The NT stresses that his form was different and disciples could not recognize him till he announced himself. Paul says, “Even if we did once know Christ in flesh, that is not how we know him now… there is a new creation; the old creation has gone…” (2 Corinthians 5:16-17). What appeared from the dead mortal body was a divine being, the Messiah, who had descended into the body at baptism by John. Sethna shows that there is no evidence of any rock-hewn tomb in a garden as described in Mark/ Luke nor of Joseph of Arimathaea, who is supposed to have used an exorbitant hundred pounds of myrrh to embalm the body, nor of any feminine witness. Crucifixion being the most cursed of executions, the criminals used to be thrown into a common pit for burial. Paul states that Christ accepted being cursed as a slave for mankind’s sake as the scripture (Galatians 3:11) says “Cursed be everyone who is hanged on a tree.” Sethna turns to Albright the archaeologist to show that even prior to Mark – in the late 60s of the 1st century -there were practically no Christians left in Jerusalem to testify regarding Jesus’ burial, the Romans having driven them all out in crushing the Jewish revolt of 66 A.D.

In short, Paul’s account of Jesus’ resurrection in a non-physical body is the earliest and only first-hand evidence available to us. There is no evidence of any special burial or entombment or feminine witness to resurrection. We are left with a series of appearances to some people of a spiritual form identified as Jesus.

Sethna caps this discussion by daring to hazard what the nature of the form was in which Jesus appeared after death. Drawing upon Sri Aurobindo’s pronouncements, he identifies this as a subliminal reality, apprehended by the inner vision of mystics like Paul, of a subtle physical substance, a causal body, descending from Paul’s “third heaven” (the ideal or spiritual plane, beyond the vital and the mental). It is a remarkable conclusion, unprecedented and calling for serious attention, bringing to bear on Christian tradition the full weight of the experiential evidence of modern world’s Master of Integral Yoga.

In these three books Sethna has embarked upon a unique journey through territory none have dared to explore with such dedication, refusing to take any statement at face value, testing every claim against all possible evidence till only the incontrovertible truth shines forth. His Problems of Ancient India (Aditya Prakashan, 2000) is an outstanding fourth in the series, complementing the revolutionary Ancient India in a New Light.[5] Unfortunately, space constraints do not permit us to discuss its findings in this paper. Perhaps sometime, in some other forum, readers will be able to savor the riches it contains.

References

Waterford, U.S.A.: The Integral Life Foundation, 1995.
7s Velikovsky’s Revised Chronology Tenable?, A Scrutiny of Four Fundamental Themes, Waterford, U.S.A.: The Integral Life Foundation, 2002.
“Karpasa” in Prehistoric India: A Chronological and Cultural Clue, New Delhi: Biblia Impex, 1981; Ancient India in a New Light, New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1989, reprinted 1997; The Problem of Aryan Origins, -do-1980, reprinted 1992.
Ahalya Kunti Draupadi Tara Mandodari tatha/ Panchakanya smarenityam mahapataka nashaka/

See my “Riddle of the Pancha Kanya” in Mother India elaborated further in “Panchakanya: Women of Substance” (See Boloji.com : Hinduism)

cf my “High Adventure in Historiography” in Amal-Kiran: Poet and Critic, 1994.

The Mahabharata as a Whole

The Bhishma and Drona Parvas–the P. Lal Transcreation

What the Ancillary Stories do in the Mahabharata

Review: Buddhacharita Drew Upon Mahabharata for Dharma

Reviews in The Statesman

Review : Revolutionizing Ancient History: The Case of Israel and Christianity

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