Pradip Bhattacharya

Indologist, Mahabharata scholar

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Review of Mokshadharma Parva translation in ROSA by Satya Chaitanya

By

Religions of South Asia 11.2-3 (2017) 345–347 ISSN (print) 1751-2689
https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.37027 ISSN (online) 1751-2697
© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2018, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX.
Review
The Mahabharata of Vyasa: Book XII The Complete Shanti Parva. Part 2: Moksha-Dharma. Translated from Sanskrit by Pradip Bhattacharya. Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 2015. 1112 pp., Rs. 2000. ISBN 978-9-350-45122-9.
Reviewed by: Satya Chaitanya, Mythologist, Corporate Trainer, Visiting Professor, XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur, India, satyachaitanya@yahoo.com
Keywords: brilliant women; devotion; liberation; Mahabharata; meditation;
unconventional spirituality; yoga.

All human pursuits have for their end, said ancient India, either one or a combination of the four ultimate human goals: wealth (artha), pleasure (kāma), the common good (dharma) and spiritual awakening (mokṣa). The Mahabharata is an enquiry into these human goals in the context of the sad family saga of the Bharatas.
The epic has 18 parvans or books, of which the Śānti Parvan is the largest and has three subsections: the Rājadharmānuśāsana Parvan, the Āpaddharma Parvan and the Mokṣadharma Parvan. The biggest of these is the Mokṣadharma Parvan, bigger than the other two put together. It is this Parvan that Pradip Bhattacharya has brilliantly translated into English.

Mokṣadharma Parvan has devotion, yoga, meditation, dispassion, the ascetic way of life and other forms of spirituality for its subject matter. One of the most fascinating aspects of the Parvan is that, while it does speak
of conventional spirituality, much of its teachings are irreverent to tradition and it takes very unconventional stands. The very second chapter has a son teaching spirituality to his father. Later the brāhmana Jājali who has
become proud of the frightful asceticism he has performed for years is sent to the merchant Tulādhāra to learn from him, reversing traditional roles completely!

We have another story of role reversal in the Parvan in which a woman teaches the highest spirituality to a man—a story that introduces to us one of the most fascinating spiritual teachers in the entire Indian lore: the great
yogini Sulabhā. She arrives at the court of King Dharmadhvaja Janaka, reputed to be an awakened man, engages him in a debate and countering all his arguments, ends by declaring bluntly that he is no master but just a pretender.
You are not liberated
yet you are proud of being
liberated, O King! You should be prevented
by your well-wishers, as
the unconscious indeed is from drugs.

Sulabhā’s main argument is that Dharmadhvaja has not developed anāsakti—detachment while being fully engaged—the true mark of enlightenment. Sulabhā points out to Janaka that he is still attached to his body and identifies
with his gender, caste, position as king and so on.

We have several Gītās in the Mokṣadharma Parvan. In the short sparkling Bodhya Gītā, a great sage in another role reversal declares that his gurus are a prostitute, an arrow smith, a young girl and so on:
Pingalā, the osprey, the snake, the bee
Searching in the woods,
the arrow-maker and the virgin, these six
are my gurus.

Apart from the Bodhya Gītā, the Parvan has the Manki Gītā, Parāśara Gītā, Hamsa Gītā, Sampāka Gītā, Harita Gītā, Vr̥tra Gītā and so on, each enriching the Parvan in its own way. As the Upanishads do, the spirituality of the Parvan holds heaven in contempt equating it to hell in comparison to mokṣa. The Parvan rejects animal sacrifice. Though hermit spirituality too is discussed, the stress is on what can be practised while living the family life. In fact, one of the questions Yudhishthira asks Bhīṣma in the Parvan is if a man living with a wife at home can climb to the highest peaks of spirituality—a question that is very pertinent to all of us. In response, Bhīṣma tells him the fascinating story of Suvarcalā who chooses Svetaketu as her husband and lives with him a life leading both to the heights of spirituality. In this story we have a rare Brahmin svayamvara (a woman choosing her husband from a number of eligible suitors), usually limited to royal kṣatriya families.

The women of the Parvan are all brilliant, be it Suvarcalā who tells her father she would choose her husband by herself, Yogini Sulabhā who using yoga enters Janaka’s head to debate with him staying within himself, the wife
of Nāgarajā who teaches her anger-prone husband the importance of managing anger.

While Bhattacharya’s translation is basically in verse, he has translated the prose in the original into prose, which makes this the only verse-and-prose sloka-by-sloka translation of the Parvan. The translation is a monumental piece of work as well as a superb literary achievement. One of the unique aspects of the translation is the retention of Sanskrit words that are in the Oxford English Dictionary. An example for this could be found in the parvan-opening question itself which Yudhishthira begins with ‘O Pitāmaha-Grandfather’. A new reader finds this rather unsettling, but once you are used to it, you discover it has a charm of its own, giving the entire work a surreal quality. And of course, it avoids, as the translator points out, the need for annotations, colophons and
dovetailing explanations.

Bhattacharya’s mastery of the English language is astounding. With amazing fluidity, the mighty torrent of the translation flows on for 1077 pages, carrying us with it. Occasionally though the intentional literalness of the translation introduces a grating note into the otherwise beautiful harmony. For instance, I would have preferred the simple ‘all doubts cleared’ to the literal ‘all doubts severed’ (Section 320.25).

I also feel a Contents section at the beginning and chapter titles would have made the book more useful to researchers, though the translator does explain why he has omitted these. The Index appended does not meet with
this need.

Apart from these minor complaints, the Mokṣadharma Parvan is a superb example for what encyclopedic knowledge, hard work, superb literary talent and total commitment can achieve. The work is a masterpiece of Sanskrit translation. As a translator Bhattacharya eminently succeeds in achieving all the aims he sets for himself.

Review of Mokshadharma Parva by Indrajit Bandyopadhyay in Indologica Taurinensia

By

Indologica Taurinensia 43 (2017)

PRADIP BHATTACHARYA, trans. from Sanskrit, The Mahabharata of Vyasa: The Complete Shantiparva Part 2: Mokshadharma, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2016, pp. 1107, Rs. 2000/-

The book reviewed here is Pradip Bhattacharya’s translation of Mokṣadharmaparvan in the Śānti-Parvan of Mahābhārata, which starts from Section 174 of the Śānti-Parvan in Kisari Mohan Ganguli’s (KMG) prose translation, and corresponds to Section 168 of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) or Pune Critical Edition (C.E).

Padma Shri Professor Purushottam Lal, D. Litt. began the first ever attempt to a verse “transcreation” of the Mahabharata in 1968; unfortunately, his timeless ongoing work lost to time in 2010 with his untimely demise, so that “transcreation” of sixteen and a half of the epic’s eighteen books could be published. Bhattacharya takes up the unfinished job of his Guru, and offers this verse-prose Guru–Dakṣiṇā to his “much-admired guru and beloved acharya”, Prof. Lal. He however, is on his own in that he does “translate rather than transcreate”.

Bhattacharya proposes to “keeping to the original syntax as far as possible without making the reading too awkward” and sets out on his translation venture “in free verse (alternate lines of ten and four-to-six feet) and in prose (as in original) faithful to Prof. Lal’s objective of providing the full ‘ragbag’ version.”

Mokṣadharmaparvan being the philosophic and soteriological culmination of Mahābhārata and Ancient India’s message and wisdom, Bhattacharya’s work is culturally important in bringing to the English speaking world this very important parvan.

The idea of Mokṣa that Kṛṣṇa teaches Arjuna in the Gītā (Udyoga Parvan) and found elsewhere (though mostly in the sense of liberty from any Tyrannous Power) is elaborated in Mokṣadharmaparvan through Itihāsa-Puraṇa, narratives, recollections and fables. Mokṣa is the final of the Four Puruṣārthas – following Dharma, Artha and Kāma; yet it would not arrive automatically or inevitably by law of chronology unless Puruṣakāra blends with Daiva, and Daiva may favour only when Balance of Puruṣārthas – Dharma-Artha-Kāma – is attained through Buddhi, Upāya (Strategy/Policy), Will and Karma.

The parvan stands out as unique in its advocacy of Liberal Varṇa System (portraying non-Brāhmiṇ characters like Sulabhā, prostitute Piṅgalā and Śūdras as qualified for higher merit and social status through wisdom), and carries the important and interesting message that understanding Gender Relation or Evolutionary Nature of Gender is essential for Prajñā leading to Mokṣa. Yudhiṣṭhira learns all these theoretically from grandfather Bhīṣma, who is then on his Bed of Arrows. This is not without significance. Bhīṣma’s physical life-in-death or death-in-life is apt parallel and metaphor for Yudhiṣṭhira’s mental state. Yudhiṣṭhira and his brothers and Draupadī qualify to gain knowledge on Mokṣa–Dharma only after their growing realization through dialogues, debates, experiences and feelings that victory in war has been futile, and Kurukṣetra War is as much external as internal. Yet, at the end of Śānti-Parvan, theoretical knowledge does not suffice, and the Pāṇḍavas and Draupadī emerge Dynamic in their quest for more quests – that sets the stage for further of Bhīṣma’s advice in Anuśāsana Parvan. The message that emerges from Mokṣadharmaparvan is that, one has to actually attain Mokṣa; mere theorizing is only furthering Bandhana.

Bhattacharya has long been a critic of the C.E considered almost sacrosanct by perhaps most of the Videśi and Svadeśī scholars alike, while, ironically, even V.S. Sukhtankhar (1887-1943), the first general editor of the project, was tentative in calling it an approximation of the earliest recoverable form of the Mahākāvya. Bhattacharya’s taking up the massive project of translation is, in a way, his critical commentary on C.E through action; he boldly declares about his project “whatever the C.E. has left out has been sought to be included” – ringing like Mahābhārata’s famous self-proclamation – yad ihāsti tad anyatra yan nehāsti na tat kva cit (1.56.33).

Bhattacharya’s project is thus, what James Hegarty calls “(recovery of) embarrassment of riches” and perhaps more, because it is “a conflation of the editions published by the Gita Press (Gorakhpur, 9th edition, 1980), Āryaśāstra (Calcutta, 1937) and that translated and edited by Haridās Siddhāntavāgiś Bhattacharya in Bengali with the Bhāratakaumudī and Nīlakaṅṭha’s Bhāratabhāvadīpa annotations (Bishwabani Prakashani, Calcutta, 1939).”

Bhattacharya has done an invaluable job to English readership by providing four episodes found in Haridās Siddhāntavāgiś (Nibandhana-Bhogavatī, Nārada, Garuḍa and Kapilā Āsurī narratives) and many verses not found in the Gorakhpur edition. Of these, the Kapilā Āsurī Saṃvāda at Section 321-A (p-815) is only found in Siddhāntavāgiś edition (vol. 37, pp. 3345-3359). Just as in archaeology, every piece of human-treated rock delved from earth is beyond value, I would say that every unique variation or every narrative in Mahābhārata recensions is of similar value particularly in marking a curious interaction point between Classical and Folk Mahābhārata – that no serious Mahābhārata scholar can ignore.

Bhattacharya deserves kudos for bringing into light the stupendous work and name of Siddhāntavāgiś, an almost forgotten name even to most Bengalis, and an unknown scholar to most Mahābhārata scholars or readers, almost eclipsed by the other popular Bengali translator Kālī Prasanna Siṃha.

Translation is a difficult and complex ball-game, particularly when it comes to Sanskrit. India and the Mahābhārata-World have witnessed much Translation Game all in the name of scholarship. The Translation Game as a part of Colonizer’s Agenda as well as the Game-calling is already cliché – having been pointed out and criticized by stalwarts from Rsi Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay to Edward W. Saïd. Sometimes Agenda sometimes peculiar whims have done injustice to Sanskrit. While Alf Hiltebeitel’s constant rendering of Itihāsa as “History”, or Mahākāvya as “Epic”, or translation of Dharma as “religion” or “law” or “foundation” (the latter also in Patrick Olivelle) is the most common example of the former, Van Buitenan’s rendering of Kṣatriya as “Baron” is a signal case of the latter.

The whole Vedic (later, Hindu) tradition is contained in culturally sensitive lexicons that should not be subjected to Free Play in the name of translation. Needless to say, Dharma holds the Key to Bhāratiya Itihāsa as also understanding Mahābhārata. Given the inclusion of Dharma in Oxford dictionary, and given definition of Itihāsa in Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra (anywhere between c.a 300 BCE – 300 CE) and Kalhana’s (c. 12th century) Rājātaraṅgini, I wonder why Dharma has to be translated at all, or why Itihāsa has to be translated as “History”, a signifier that falls shorter to the signified of Itihāsa. Bhattacharya arrives at a compromise by rendering “Itihāsa-history” (e.g. Section 343, p- 998).

Bhattacharya’s translation venture has to be understood at the backdrop of above-mentioned translation-scenario. He declares he has been cautious on the matter of translation in having cross-checked with Kaliprasanna Sinha’s Bengali translation (1886), KMG’s first English translation (1883-96) and the shorter BORI edition. Such crosschecking with available translations in different languages of a time-tested Sanskrit work is no doubt the safest and most appropriate translation-methodology that every aspiring translator of already rendered works should follow. Mahābhārata can neither be reduced into simplistic narratives, nor it can be thought in terms of Grand Narrative; more so because Sanskrit denies singular and straightjacket interpretation of signifiers. Varied translations are actually explorations of various narrative possibilities in the Sanskrit lexicon and Ślokas. The wise way therefore, is to keep open to different narrative possibilities.

As one reads Bhattacharya’s translation, one finds that his work is as much experimentation with translating Sanskrit into English, as much with English language itself. If Sanskrit is not a translatable language, then English must transform into a worthy receptacle language – this, it seems, is Bhattacharya’s underlying purpose and belief. He retains Sanskrit words that are in the Oxford English Dictionary, and following Prof. Lal’s style of rendering some Sanskrit words and giving their common or contextual English synonym with a hyphen, also coins Sanskrit-English compounds or retain Sanskrit word as it is. In latter cases, initially, the unused eye and ear may miss the rhythm; however, the Sanskrit-English compound has a rhythm of its own, adds to poetic flavor, enables Bhattacharya to maintain syllable counts in feet, and also enables him to be the simultaneous translator and reader.

Bhattacharya’s Sanskrit-English compounding is utilitarian and perhaps Political too, and surely comes under the purview of Skopostheorie. The reader has the option either to make sense of the Sanskrit on his/her own, or take the English suggested by Bhattacharya. In ‘pure’ translation, this option is unavailable and the reader has to be at the receiving end.

At times, however, over-use of Sanskrit-English compounds makes the reading strenuous and breaks the rhythm. For example, “Likewise by force do I Pṛthivī-earth verily for the welfare of all creatures” (Section 339, verse 71, p- 936) is not a sonorous rendering. Similarly, in “Niṣāda-tribals” (Section 328, verse 14, p- 863), compounding ‘tribal’ is neither politically correct, nor historically or Mahābhāratically correct, because Niṣāda is Varṇasaṃkara (12.285.8-9), and sometimes considered Kṣatriya – though “fallen”, and overall a very complex entity.

In some cases, where the Śloka itself offers the explanation to an epithet or name, Bhattacharya’s retaining the Sanskrit word for what is already explained in the Śloka is a laudable strategy to introduce the Sanskrit word into English vocabulary. For example, “śitikaṇṭha” (verse 98) and “Khaṇḍaparaśu” (verse 100) at Section 342 (p- 990). However, the “ś” in former is small, but “K” in later is in capital; consistency should have been maintained, as also in the case of “maha”. For example, mahāprājña (12.200.1a) rendered as “Maha-wise” is with capital “M” (verse 1, 12, p- 157, 159), whereas it is not in other 6 cases like “maha-rishis” (p- 1026, 1027). ‘P’ in Puruṣottama is not capitalized at Section 235 verse 39 (p- 908), but capitalized at page- 910 (verse 53). Guṇa is not transcripted (Sec- 205, verse 10-12, p- 142); it is with small “g” in most cases, even at page-143, verse 17 where once it is small and once with a capital “G”. Kāla is transcripted but in same verse-line saṃsāra is not (Sec- 213, verse 13, p- 217). Similarly, “atman” (Ātmā) is sometimes with small “a” sometimes capital “A” (e.g. p-386-7).

Bhattacharya may address these minor issues in his next edition; minor, because his laudable retention of culturally exclusive words like “arghya” (e.g. Section 343, p- 1000) and “āñjali” [“palms joined in āñjali” (e.g. Section 325, verse 30 & 32, p- 846)], as also Praṇāma in “pranam-ed” (verse 19, p- 176) and “pranam-ing” (Sec- 209A, verse 25, 28, 29, 33; p- 177), outweighs occasional capitalization-italicization inconsistency or misses.

Even if it is not “inconsistency” but deliberate, Bhattacharya’s dual strategy of transcripting Sanskrit words in IAST, and non-transcripting Oxford accepted Sanskrit words, may appear confusing to readers. For example, he does not transcript the prefix ‘maha’ or italicize it. Similar is “rishis”. In my opinion, the recurrence of the prefix ‘maha’ could have been avoided in some cases. For example, “maha-humans” (Section 343, p- 999) and ‘mahāyaśāḥ’ (12.200.33a) translated as “maha-renowned” (Sec- 207, vn. 33, p- 161) sounds odd and breaks the rhythm.

The translation experimentation is Bhattacharya’s commentary too – which Sanskrit words English should accept in vocabulary instead of futile indulging in Translation Game. Take for example the word Puruṣa, which is a Key word in the Mokṣadharmaparvan and in the doctrine of Puruṣārthas. Puruṣa has been translated in various ways. Renowned scholars like Julius Eggeling, Max Muller, Arthur Berriedale Keith and Hanns Oertel have mostly translated Puruṣa as “man” or “person” in their renderings of ancient Vedic texts. Needless to say, these renderings are misleading because originally, it is a non-gendered concept. Bhattacharya has it both ways; he retains Puruṣa and offers different compounding in different contexts – Puruṣa-Spirit (e.g. Sec- 348, p- 1026), “Puruṣa-being” (e.g. Sec- 321, verse 37, p- 817; Sec- 343, p- 1000), and “Puruṣa the Supreme Person” (Sec- 334, verse 29, p- 900). While the contextual compounding offers the reader the choice to make his own sense of Puruṣa, in my opinion, Bhattacharya could have retained Puruṣa as it is, because the compounded English translation is at times etymologically problematic. For example, Bhattacharya translates ekāntinas tu puruṣā gacchanti paramaṃ padam (12.336.3c) as “those exclusive devotees, reaching Puruṣa-spirit the supreme station” (Sec- 348, p- 1026). But, ‘Spirit’ from PIE *(s)peis– “to blow” does not go well with Puruṣa (though “ru” connotes “sound”), and though the Latin spiritus connotes “soul” (other than “courage, vigor, breath”), the modern English connotation (since c.1250) “animating or vital principle in man and animals,” and Puruṣa is indeed identified with Prāṇa in Brāhmaṇas and Āraṇyakas, yet Puruṣa is much more than all those combined connotations and significances. Perhaps, Bhattacharya could have left Puruṣa as Puruṣa, and Pada as Pada given the immense significations of Pada. “Supreme station” does not seem to be an adequate translation of paramaṃ padam. ‘Station’ from PIE base *sta– “to stand” is rather Static, whereas, Puruṣa is a Dynamic principle in Vedas with “thousand feet” (RV- 10.90). Bhattacharya seems to have followed Griffith’s translation of Paramaṃ Padaṃ as “supreme station” (e.g. Griffith’s trans. in RV- 1.22.21 – “Vishnu’s station most sublime” for viṣṇoḥ yat paramam padam). Further, the punctuation ‘comma’ is missing after Puruṣa-spirit.

Bhattacharya has sometimes quoted the whole Sanskrit Śloka and then given its translation. Mostly these are well-known and oft-quoted famous Ślokas; at times, it seems these are his personal favourites. This strategy is a severe jolt to conventional translation. Bhattacharya makes the point that despite reading translation, the reader must have the reminder of the original. In some renderings, he has used popular English idioms in addition to the translation, which carry the sense of the Śloka though not literally implied. Such experimentation makes the communication forceful. For example, he translates karoti yādṛśaṃ karma tādṛśaṃ pratipadyate (12.279.21c) as “as is the karma done, similar is the result obtained”; and then further adds, “as you sow, so shall you reap” (verse 22, p- 639). This being a popular idiom, succeeds in better communication with the reader, which is no doubt the translator’s achievement.

Bhattacharya’s translation is crisp, compact and lucid. For example, KMG renders – manoratharathaṃ prāpya indriyārthahayaṃ naraḥ / raśmibhir jñānasaṃbhūtair yo gacchati sa buddhimān (12.280.1) as “That man who, having obtained this car, viz., his body endued with mind, goes on, curbing with the reins of-knowledge the steeds represented by the objects of the senses, should certainly be regarded as possessed of intelligence.” The result is loosening and dispersing of the original sense; besides, “curbing” adds negative dimension. Bhattacharya translates this as “obtaining this chariot of the mind drawn by the horses of the sense-objects, the man who guides it by the reins of knowledge…” – which is a more practical and easy-flowing rendering, retaining the poetic flavour; besides, “guiding” instead of KMG’s “curbing” is positive and does justice to the optimistic philosophy implied here.

Bhattacharya’s task is indeed a “Himalayan task” (preface, p-6) as he is aware of the “challenge”. With all humbleness that befits an Indian scholar’s Śraddhā to Indian tradition, Bhattacharya is open-minded to revise towards perfection and admits “all errors are mine and I shall be grateful if these are pointed out” (Preface, p- 6).

As an experimentation in translation, Bhattacharya’s methodology is here to last; future translators of Sanskrit may improve the system, but surely cannot indulge in whimsical translations without mentioning the original Sanskrit words that hold the key to the overall meaning of a Śloka or a section or even the whole Text.

The annexures provided at the end of the translation work is useful and enlightening. Annexure-1 gives the internationally accepted system of Roman transliteration of the Devanāgari. Annexure-2 is Prof. P. Lal’s sketch of the Mahābhāratan North India (based on the Historical Atlas of South Asia) showing important places and rivers; however, one feels, the sketch could have been magnified a bit for better legibility. This document and Annexure-3, another sketch of the whole of India, is historically valuable as reminiscence of Prof. P. Lal. Annexure-4 provides a comprehensive list of all the episodes of Mokṣa–Dharma parvan courtesy Madhusraba Dasgupta. This document is an instant information provider of what is contained in Mokṣa–Dharma parvan. One wishes, Bhattacharya could have provided the corresponding page numbers to the episodes of his translation.

In final analysis, Bhattacharya’s rendering is a must in library for serious scholars and readers alike.

Indrajit Bandyopadhyay

Associate Professor, Department of English, Kalyani Mahavidyalaya, West Bengal, India

Mokshadharma Parva translation reviewed by Kevin McGrath

By

The Mahābhārata of Vyāsa, Book Twelve, Part Two, Mokṣa Dharma. Translated from the Sanskrit by Pradip Bhattacharya. Writers’ Workshop, Kolkata, 2016. 1107, pp.,

ISBN 978-93-5045-122-9

Review by Kevin McGrath, Harvard University in Journal of Vaishnava Studies, vol. 26, No. 1, Fall 2017.

Pradip Bhattacharya is the foremost Sanskrit scholar in India today in the field of Mahābhārata Studies. This present volume accomplishes a work of many year’s duration with a translation of the Mokṣa Dharma text of the Śā nti parvan, spoken by Bhīṣma Śā ṃtanava. In this task Bhattacharya is completing the work of P. Lal’s translation of the whole epic; Lal expired before finishing the work.

The text which Bhattacharya has chosen to translate is that of the Gita Press (1980), not the Pune Critical Edition (BORI) nor the Bombay Edition; these are 168 to 353 in the former text and 174-366 in the latter. There is no apparatus given which means that the book cannot be used as a reference body for those wishing to work exactly with the Sanskrit language of the Pune or Bombay editions and who do not have access to that Gita Press version, although the GP text is presently available online.

This is a book designed for those who wish to simply read the most succinct and extensive of ancient classical commentaries on Mokṣa Dharma or for those who work in the field of religious studies and theology. There is no index although there is a contents page at the rear of the book which indicates the substance of each of the fifty-five parts. Bhattacharya also supplies three essays at the back of the book which situates this treatise on Mokṣa Dharma within the context of the complete Great Bhārata.

As the author himself says: “BORI was used to adopt its version whenever the Gita Press śloka was different in a significant way. That is because BORI is accepted as the holy of holies by Indologists . . . The Gita Press uses the Bombay edition and adds from the Southern Recension, which can be verified from the BORI critical apparatus. I added the Bengali Haridāsa Siddhāntavāgiśa edition which contains passages not found in BORI whose editors did not consult this manuscript which was in Haridāsa’s family.” These auxiliary passages drawn from the Southern Recension or from Haridāsa are always indicated by footnote. As the author says, “Whatever the C.E. has left out has been sought to be included.” Such a method of approach makes for a definitive translation.

Some of the earliest mentions to dhyānayoga or ‘meditation’ occur in this division of Bhīṣma’s magnificent monologue upon the various aspects of practical dharma, and here Bhattacharya sustains the profound subtlety of the original and extremely compressed words. This is given at adhyāya One Hundred and Ninety-Five, or the ninth in the book’s series. Bhattacharya likewise captures well the extremely complex dramatic quality of so much of Bhīṣma’s vast monologue in which the old warrior imitates the hundreds of different voices who inhabit and who express the narrative; this great event of mimēsis is fully conveyed by the translation wherein Bhīṣma the poet enacts innumerable characters and voices.

The prophets Nārada and Bhṛgu play significant roles in this section of the Great Bhārata as does Kṛṣṇa himself at times. There are also many episodes that are given in the style of faunal allegory where animal speech and behaviour are important components of communication. The great Naranārāyaṇīya, which comes at the end of the book is beautifully translated and finely captures the tone and flavour of that long anthem which lies at the heart of early Hinduism.

At times the author frequently leaves within his translation certain words in the Sanskrit which brings to the text a much larger authenticity and authority and where the intrinsic vitality of the original language effects—both sonorously and linguistically—a quality that might evade perfect translation. This is a crucial aspect of the book’s effectiveness as a medium not simply of specific communication but also of cultural significance. In the Three Hundred and Thirty-Eighth adhyāya where Nārada speaks in list form this replication of Sanskrit terms is extremely useful insofar as the text here lacks poetry as it is given in serial and nominal fashion only and requires some rendering by the translator in order to bring vigour to the terms which are being engaged.

This wonderful, thoroughly well-composed, and masterful book is faultlessly printed and handsomely bound and will become a uniquely useful reference text for those non-Sanskritists who work in both Mahābhārata Studies and in the field of Divinity; it is surely to become a matchless title on the shelves of any library of theology. This mighty work will long remain as one of Pradip Bhattacharya’s most renowned and paramount contributions to current Indology, both in Asia and in the West.

JAYA by Devdutt Pattanaik

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Devdutt Pattanaik: Jaya, Penguin, 350 pages, Rs. 499/-.

How shall vibrant shoots of the future come forth unless we go to our roots? That is why Janamejaya, king of Hastinapura, requests Vyasa, his ancestor, to tell him about his lineage. Retellings of Indian mythology have been many but for the first time we have a medical doctor ministering to the spirit by evoking archetypal memories through his retellings. Of his work, the most significant is this attempt to re-tell the Mahabharata in a new way.

A.K. Ramanujam spoke of 300 Ramayanas—and was taken off the Delhi University syllabus for it. There are possibly as many Mahabharatas; each of our languages with its own version, besides the Indonesian and Malayan. Retellings of it are legion, from 12-year old Samhita Arni’s to economist Bibek Deb Roy’s, but none includes glimpses of regional variations like this one which, hopefully, will not attract the ire of fundamentalists. For instance, for the horse-sacrifice; Pattanaik—like Akbar in1592 for the Razm Nama and the Bengali and Assamese Mahabharatas—follows the composition of Vyasa’s pupil Jaimini. Sensitively split into 18 chapters like the original, with a prologue and an epilogue, each has a bulleted addendum in a grey box—management manual style—providing insights, commentary and additional information. Lest the “maha”-ness of the work put off the modern reader, the style is kept simple, unpretentious and focused on communicating the significant events clearly (though calling Shiva “the great hermit” is awkward, as is “the father of the planet Mercury is the planet Jupiter”). Fine sketches by the author (assisted by his chauffer), and an attractive, reader-friendly layout enliven the read. His interpretation of the difference between “vijaya” and “jaya” is meaningful indeed: the former connotes victory over others; the latter is spiritual conquest of oneself.

A few omissions detract from the retelling’s dramatic effect, e.g. Keechak chasing Draupadi into Virat’s court and kicking her before Yudhishthir and Bhim. More important is the absence of the overarching themes that are so crucial to Vyas’ weltanschauung: Time, Desire and its fruits, the eidetic image of the cosmic tree that occurs in the Shanti Parva and the Gita. And what about the Bharata-Savitri, that unforgettable anguished cry with which Vyasa ends his great epic, asking a question which remains as pertinent today as millennia ago: “From dharma flow wealth and pleasure. Then why is dharma not practised?”

While making this very commendable effort to reach the world’s longest epic to today’s reader whose attention span is so short, misleading distortions of fact could have been avoided. Vyas’ Shakuntala is not Kalidas’ love-smitten teenager who promptly succumbs to Dushyant’s blandishments, as Pattanaik retells. She first gets him to promise that their son will inherit the throne. For the story of Chitrangada Pattanaik abandons Vyas for Rabindranath. There are departures from the original without any indication of the source for such a different account, e.g. the gods, instead of Shantanu as in Vyas, decree that Bhishma will be able to choose the time of his death. And when was he ever engaged to marry the Kashi king’s sister? It is Pandu, not Kunti, who speaks of women in olden times being promiscuous yet blameless and it is he who worships Indra for a son. Kunti never invokes any god on her own after the fiasco with Surya. All her sons are called “Partha”, not just Arjuna.

Satyavati does not elect to retire to the forest; it is Vyas who asks her to do so as “the green years of the earth are gone/do not be a witness to the suicide of your race.” How is Nanda the brother of Vasudev’s wife Rohini? It is not Balarama’s plough but his pestle (musala) that possibly became Vishnu’s club. Krishna has no role in Dhritarashtra’s giving Khandavprastha to the Pandavas. It is before and not after the burning of the forest that Agni gives Krishna and Arjuna their weapons and chariot, obtaining them from Varuna, which they use in the massacre.

The bard who listens to Vaishampayan’s recital of Vyas’s composition at the snake-sacrifice is not Romaharshan but his son Ugrashrava Sauti, who narrates it to Shaunak (not “Shonak”) and other sages. Shuk narrates it to Parikshit not “as he lay dying”, but while he ekes out the days till he is fated to die.

Bhim’s marriage with Hidimba occurs immediately after the Pandavs escape the house-of-lac, not after the killing of the ogre Bak as Pattanaik has it. Kunti is not uncomfortable with the Hidimba-Bhim marriage; actually, she welcomes it so that the friendless Pandavs obtain allies.

As precedents for Draupadi’s polyandrous marriage Yudhishthira cites Varkshi and Jatila, not Vidula. The Pandavs are not sent to Varanavata at Vidura’s instance to create a safe distance between the cousins, nor does he visit the inflammable dwelling. It is Dhritarashtra who insists the Pandavs go there to celebrate the festival of Shiv. Yudhishthira does not stake Draupadi on his own but only when Shakuni suggests it. The Brihannala-Uttara episode is not just burlesque but anticipates Arjuna’s refusal to fight and Krishna’s exhortations. If Abhimanyu married Balaram’s daughter Vatsala, then what happened to their progeny who and not still-born Parikshit should have been the successor? Parikshit’s revival occurs after the Pandavs return with the treasure of Marutta to perform the horse-sacrifice, not before it.

The account of Parikshit’s resuscitation is disappointingly drab, particularly where the original is so inspiring. Krishna performs an act-of-truth, “If have I turned away from battle; if truth and dharma are ever firm in me; if I am ever devoted to truth and Brahmins; if I have never I quarrelled with my sakha Arjuna; then, by the power of these truths, may Abhimanyu’s dead son live!” Krishna’s miraculously saving the Pandavas from the hungry Durvasa and his disciples occurs after the magical cooking vessel is given by Surya to them, not before as retold. After Ulupi resurrects the dead Arjun, there is no question of his not recognizing her. He thanks her for purifying him of the sin of killing Bhishma by devious means and sends her with Chitrangada and Babhruvahan to Hastinapur for the ashvamedha ceremony after which Yudhishthir loads his nephew with wealth.

Lakshman does not chop off Surpanakha’s breasts, but her nose. It is not Indra but Vishnu who humbles Garuda and prevents him from devouring Sumukha. Drona does not trap Pandava warriors within the wheel formation. They find it impossible to break into it. That is why they cannot follow Abhimanyu who alone knows how to enter it. Arjuna does not slice off Bhurishrava’s arm on his own but only on Krishna insisting he intervene to save the supine Satyaki. At no stage does Krishna shout “Kill him!” about Drona, certainly not after he lays down his weapons. Arjun rushes towards Dhrishtadyumna shouting in vain that he must not kill the guru. Everyone on the battlefield condemns the beheading of meditating Drona.

Pattanaik contradicts himself by writing that Krishna stands before Uttari (sic.) and prevents the unborn child from being harmed by Ashvatthama’s missile, while later he speaks of her delivering a dead child. The Mahabharata does not know of the former incident. Pattanaik attributes Markandeya’s vision of an infant on a banyan tree leaf sucking its toe, afloat on the waters of dissolution, to Arjun. Krishna’s great grandson was Vajra, not Vajranabha, a demon whom Pradyumna killed and married his daughter Prabhavati. After Krishna’s death all the Yadavas were not settled in Mathura by Arjun. He established Vajra in Indraprastha and Satyaki’s son Yauyudhani in the plain of Sarasvati.

There are several misspellings: “Vishaparva”, “Hastinapuri”, “Adiratha”, “Yudhishtira”, “Jayadhrata”, “Uttari”, “Lakshmani”, “Arshitsena”, “Vajranabhi” are not the correct names of Vrishaparva, Hastinapura, Adhiratha, Yudhishthira, Jayadratha, Arshtisena, Uttara, Lakshmana and Vajranabha.

Pattanaik enriches the proceedings by including stories from puranas and regional sources, e.g. Abhimanyu marrying Balaram’s daughter Vatsala with Ghatotkach’s help (made into a landmark film “Maya Bazar”), Krishna’s son Samba marrying Duryodhan’s daughter Lakshmana, Arjun and Krishna confronting each other over Gaya, Arjun and Hanuman at odds. He could have mentioned the Bengali “Dandi Parba” [presented on stage as “Pandab-Bijoy” by Girishchandra Ghosh] in which the Pandavas and Kauravas jointly oppose Krishna who attacks Raja Dandi for possession of a mare that is actually the apsara Urvashi. There is a similar bhakta-vs-bhagavan episode from a regional source regarding Hanuman protecting Raja Shakunt of Kashi from Rama. Krishna reprimanding Draupadi in exile for being responsible for her misery is Pattanaik’s own concoction. However, he provides a new insight by comparing Vikarna and Yuyutsu with Kumbhakarna and Vibhishan. He includes the remarkable tale of Krishna as Mohini marrying Iravan for a night before the Pandavas sacrifice him that is not known outside south India. Sensitively, he includes the fascinating tale of Bhangashvana who experienced life as male and as female and the riveting parable of the drop of honey Vidura tells that found its way into medieval biblical lore as the tale of the man in the well in Barlaam and Joshaphat. Pattanaik concludes on a profound note, evoking the lesson that anrishamsya, non-cruelty, universal compassion, is the secret of a meaningful life.

Kurukshetra as Adharmakshetra: Hitler mirrors Arjuna’s thinking

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Meena Arora Nayak: Evil in the Mahabharata, Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 355, Rs. 650/-

Lately one has noticed a trend among American scholars of arguing that ancient Indian texts instead of celebrating the primacy of Dharma as the foundation of a meaningful life are actually subversive. Beginning with Emily Hudson’s Disorienting Dharma in 2013, it has been followed up by Naama Shalom’s Re-ending the Mahabharata: The rejection of Dharma in the Sanskrit epic in 2017, and in 2018 by Wendy Doniger’s Against Dharma and the book under review. One is reminded of Lytton Strachey’s debunking of Eminent Victorians by highlighting their warts.

“Where there is Dharma, there is victory,” so says the Mahabharata (henceforth, MB). Nayak, professor of English in the USA and a novelist, has marshalled a long litany of accusations to prove that MB “calls all in doubt.” Her thesis is best stated in the words of Karna (which strangely she does not quote):-

“Those who know dharma

Have always proclaimed

That dharma protects those

Who cherish dharma.

I have always cherished dharma

As best as I could.

It has harmed me.

It forsakes its bhaktas.

It protects no one.” –VIII.90.88 (The P. Lal translation)

What she chooses to overlook is Krishna’s comprehensive demolition of Karna’s claim in the very next section. Of course, she sees Krishna and the semi-divine Pandavas as metaphors created by Brahmins to absolve people from accountability for immoral acts. She sees “dharmayuddha” as a dangerous paradigm for the ends justifying the means. She claims that the (MB) has been used to exploit women and “the others” by deifying characters exemplifying unrighteous conduct; that people never realise that the Gita tradition and the narrative do not tally. She begins by making much of the long discredited Aryan invasion hypothesis propounded by Mortimer Wheeler in the 1920s. She splits this into three waves: Old (pre-5th century BCE); Middle (5th century BCE to 100 CE) and New (post 1st century CE). To this she adds a euhemeristic interpretation of the Devas being these Aryans who split from the Ahura-mazda worshippers, invaded India, demonised the indigenous people and “usurped” the wealth of these Asuras, Nagas and Rakshasas, i.e. the “others”, the Nagas being targeted as devotees of Buddha (there is no such reference in the MB). The original inhabitants were the “dasyus”, later called Asuras and assigned the Shudra caste. In that process she makes some astonishing claims such as, “the atheistic, amoral Vedic system” (despite all the hymns lauding multiple deities); the epic was first “2,400 verses” (actually 24,000); eating beef was “considered reprehensible” (the MB celebrates Rantideva  for his sacrifices of cattle so huge that the river running red with their bloody skins was named Charmanavati); there is little evidence of moksha-dharma (it is as large as the raja-dharma portion of the Shanti Parva); the Aryans moved “westward from the Indus Valley…(to) Kashmir” (the geography is puzzling); “myth is empirical truth”; The first Kaurava to fall is “Bhima”.

She asserts that the Vedic ethical “rita” (she has just called the Vedas amoral) was replaced by a theistic, “desire-oriented concept of purushartha” in the MB and that dharma “subverts” the cosmic rita to “a wholly earthly scheme.” By extolling sacrifices, the MB “promote(d) violence against the ‘other’…resurrected evil practices that the system had already expunged.” This in the face of constant exhortations to pursue righteous conduct, as it leads to Svarga, and non-attachment leading to moksha. She refers to M.N.Dutt (1934) while the bibliography has “P.N.Dutt”. There are Sanskrit spelling mistakes: “Shanti” with both vowels elongated instead of only the first; “daivya” where “daiva” is meant; “mahatamaya” instead of “mahatmya”, “vasva” instead of “vasava”; “asidharavrata” is not “fine-edged as an arrow” but “sharp as a swordblade”. Despite being a professor of English she uses peculiar words like “egoity”, “capsuled”, “intestine feuds”, “slayed”. What happened to the editors of OUP (India)?

Nayak takes flagrant liberties with the text, possibly presuming that the general reader will accept her assertions as facts. The snake sacrifice is “diabolic” because it is “necrophilic” (coitus with corpses of snakes?). In the Uttanka story he is said to create fire from the “horse’s nostrils” whereas smoke issues on blowing into its anus. She turns the moon and soma into the “lunar earth goddess slandered as Nirrti”, whereas it is always a male deity. In the myth of Garuda she interprets the slavery of Vinata as the time the Aryans took to replace indigenous female deities by their solar male gods, although her slavery is to her co-wife Kadru, not to any male. She has Gandhari abort herself by hitting her belly “with an iron rod” which is nowhere in the text.. Nayak invents this to link up with the iron bolt causing the destruction of the Yadavas and, more far-fetched, as “a reversal of Eliade’s sacred pole symbolism” of consecration. She misquotes the Vana Parva where Markandeya does not tell Yudhishthira in the first person that he will create a new yuga, but that Kalki will do so. There is no use of the first person singular in the passage at all. When Brihaspati rapes his sister-in-law Mamata, he does not curse her but the son in her womb to be born blind.

The logic followed is also flawed: following dharma means doing good; the idea of goodness leads to attachment (why?) i.e. ignorance and therefore to evil! Since nishkama karma has liberation as the goal, it injures those in relationships, which is adharma! She ought to have paid attention to the story of how Shuka attains moksha. She asserts that by linking detached action with accomplishing wealth and pleasure “an ethical trap” was created. A person was encouraged to enjoy worldly life while karmic life condemned it. The only solution is to cease to act, or to follow desireless action, both being impossible.

Nayak makes an excellent point that while the ethics envisage pursuit of four-fold “purushartha” (dharma, artha, kama, moksha), morality is left to the individual and is situational. It is more “apad-dharma” being practised—when anything is justifiable for saving one’s life and property—than a Hegelian adherence to a superordinate goodness. However, her definition of morality as “what is done” as opposed to ethics which is “what ought to be done” is questionable. Further, she holds, the MB hardly follows the tenets of the Gita, which, along with the didactic Shanti and Anushasana Parvas, were interpolations. The concept of Karma she finds realized not in the Pandavas but in the Kauravas, and that the former are held accountable, condemned to suffer after the war while Duryodhana goes to Svarga. The Pandavas are morally depraved, killing cousins “for wealth on sanctimonious grounds”. So Duryodhana’s attempts to murder them and cheat them of their inheritance are above board. Nayak finds that the MB has deepened the differences between traditional beliefs leading to creation of “morally corrupt customary laws” and “societal inequities”. Further, with no evidence she asserts that the Shaivic elements (Shiva’s presence is quite significant) are “all later interpolations”. Arjuna’s acts in Khandava forest are heinous, being purposeless violence, while Ashvatthama’s nocturnal massacre of sleepers is avenging his father and fighting for victory. In his condemnation Nayak sees Vaishnava condemnation of Shaivism, and the epic’s bias justifying violence by Krishna and his followers as necessary. To her, Shishupala is another Shaiva and Shiva’s collaboration with Krishna and Arjuna is an interpolation, for which no evidence is advanced. Arjuna’s release of the Brahmashiras to counter Ashvatthama’s makes him culpable as “it reeks of abuse of power” reflecting “how Vaishnavas behaved whenever they gained advantage.”

Nayak even misreads the epic as when claiming that Bhishma refuses to let Karna fight being jealous that he may turn out to be the greater warrior. The reason is very clearly stated by Bhishma from his bed of arrows to Karna. Karna, she claims, was only paying Draupadi back for humiliating him although he brought down the mark in her svayamvara. Actually, he never shot the arrows, nor does Draupadi ever insult Duryodhana as “the blind son of a blind father”. Krishna’s violence in response to Shishupala’s abuses “is shocking; no mythical justification…excuses it.” Duryodhana, she finds, has no free will to change his karma and, therefore, no matter what he does he is condemned as evil! That flies in the face of his deliberate machinations from adolescence to destroy his cousins. For Nayak, despite his adharmas, he is distinguished by “secularity” and “purusharthic dharma” in pursuing dharma, wealth and pleasure. But where is his pursuit of dharma and secularism seen? Duryodhana, she asserts, is portrayed as “a warrior supreme” but never Arjuna. Duryodhana is “aghast” at Yudhishthira staking Draupadi. Bhasa portrays the true nobility of Duryodhana not the Brahmin-redacted MB. Is all this not special pleading? Finally, “Krishna not only makes the victory of dharma imperfect, he also makes the dharmakshetra an adharmakshetra.” In teaching society how to act the MB tradition fails because its “exemplars of dharma…are deeply deficient dharma heroes.”

As dharma is ambiguous the characters are guided not by universal ideals but by their relationships. Universal good being fought for would be dharmayuddha—but that is not so. In this, Nayak overlooks the very reason for the war having been structured to relieve the earth sinking under the burden of oppressive rulers. She argues it is a war against a previous form of dharma by the new Vaishnavism. She asserts that by epic times animal sacrifice was seen as adharmic vide ahimsa paramo dharma. The repeated emphasis placed on this implies the existence of widespread violence and leads to sanction of himsa as “good violence”! Violence being approved in emergencies, the idea of goodness was in flux then as now. She posits a clash between the ethics of Kshatriya conduct justifying lying and morality whereby such action is immoral and lands one in Naraka. Arjuna fails to resolve his moral dilemma: he will not kill Drona, hesitates to kill Bhishma and grieves for Abhimanyu, failing to sunder his relationships of self. He does gain freedom from doubt and the victory of unequivocal dharma. Unquestioning practice of inherited traditions like varnashrama led to varna-based dharmayuddhas against peoples beyond the vedic fold named by Bhishma and Karna. Nayak confuses race with caste in asserting that the concept of ‘the other’ was based on people’s birth, whereas it is clearly those following non-Vedic practices. She even says, “Hitler’s words almost mirror Arjuna’s warning about deterioration of Aryanism” from miscegenation (p. 292) and equates Nazis with twice-born Hindus perpetrating violence upon lower castes. Sectarian violence based upon religion is another facet of Nayak’s dharmayuddha e.g. Vaishnavism vs. Shavism and Shramanic traditions.

Nayak finds that the MB proves that claim to ownership can cause dharmayuddha (cf. Kunti’s advice to her sons via Krishna). The question of who is the legitimate ruler of Hastinapura remains unresolved, hence the Pandava claim to dharmayuddha is negated. Further, for the Pandavas the end justifies the means: “just the fact that the Pandavas destroy the peace and happiness of an entire land proves that their yuddha is an adharmayuddha.” (p. 309). Bhishma’s advice to Yudhishthira never to forgive an enemy plunges people into a cycle of endless wars, almost wiping out a race or community: “The whole MB war is a series of so many blood feuds that it reduces the ideology of a dharma war to gratuitous war-mongering.” The code of conduct in war laid down by Bhishma is constantly violated. Nayak quotes Cicero in “Pro Milone”: silent enim lēgēs inter arma— silent is law during war. What Kautilya recommends is what both Kauravas and Pandavas practise. Nayak’s presentation of this is very interesting, specially breaking the enemy by ruining his reputation (constantly condemning Duryodhana as wicked) and spreading rumours about one’s own power e.g. Pandavas being born of gods, Krishna’s divinity.

Finally, Nayak points out that the MB is an allegory of the yuddha of the self, destroying the baser impulses for self-realization. It is the only MB tradition that succeeds. Opponents disguise themselves as goodness, hence the need of deceit to destroy them. Preserve the Higher Self by destroying the baser self. The violence is figurative. War is a metaphor acting “as a catalytic goad to elicit deep questioning about moral and immoral behaviour.” In that case, is it a parallel “Pilgrim’s Progress”? Duryodana is evil because he knows only his social self, has no internal life. Only after winning the internal war should the external war be undertaken, otherwise it will have an evil causality injurious to self and others. The victories will be those of the lower self. Conflict with desire is yuddha.

The greatest tragedy, according to Nayak, is that when clear guidance is needed the MB tradition supplies ambiguities leading to confusion but no clear answers. However, its internal war is relevant today to lead everyman to victory over the lower self. Actually it convolutes the path. Thus, “the dharmayuddha of the Mahabhrata fails in its practicability…The only tradition the Mahabharata actually institutes is one that makes enquiry customary.” As Dharma is subtle, only the consequence of conduct reveals whether it is right or wrong and this is often different from the expectations of the agents. Not only are their intentions unrealized but the ideologies are also not uniform or absolute. Incomplete executions of good and evil action create paradoxes. The MB provides not answers but ways of contextualizing enquiry according to place, time and circumstance.

Nayak plots the evolving thought through the example of Vritra, an evil power withholding waters in the Rig Veda, but in the MB a Brahmin whose murder is condemned. Nahusha asks gods why they did not stop Indra from cruel and vicious deeds. He even says Vedic hymns are not authentic. Nothing was sacrosanct during the melting pot situation when social changes were occurring. There was conflict between old Vedic dharma and the new Krishna-ized dharma. The Purusharthic goals of artha and kama are misused for selfish gain because dharma’s parameters were flexible. Misogyny is disguised as wisdom when Bhishma denounces women as sunk in tamas who stupefy men, objectifying them as to be blamed for men’s immorality.

The MB calls itself “collyrium” which is the wisdom of questioning what is right and wrong, eradicating the ignorance of narrow-mindedness. It created a tradition of fluid enquiry to question evils in every era. Its becoming a Shastra stopped its evolution. Nayak argues the necessity “to re-examine the text as a chronicle of its time…not binding traditions but metaphors of enquiry into the changeable human condition.”

LIMERENCE AND LUST AS ANANKE IN THE MAHABHARATA

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This paper was published in The International Journal of Cultural Studies & Social Sciences, Vol. IX, No. XII released on 8th September 2018 in the ICCR, Kolkata. The comments of the editors, Bryan Reynolds and Amitava Roy, on the paper are reproduced below.

ABSTRACT[1]

[Vyāsa, master raconteur, creates a many-splendoured web from which there was no escape then nor is there any now. The millennia separating us from Vyāsa have not, surprisingly, dimmed the magic of his art that had entranced commoner, king and sage.

The Mahabharata articulates several themes: Time, Fate, the Quest for the Secret of Immortality and Eternal Youth, Dharma, Blindness, the Disqualified Eldest, the Royal Vices (Desire with its subsets Lust, Greed, Pride and Anger) etc.

In Greek mythology Ananke (Destiny/Daiva), caught in the serpentine coils of Kronos (Time/ Kāla) encompasses the universe and is the mother of the Moirae,[2] the three fates. In the Mahabharata lust and limerence shape the destinies of men. Beginning with Uparichara Vasu, the paper traces how the mortal coils of lust crush generations of Kurus and strangle the Yādavas, virtually decimating the Kshatriyas.

Today humanity is no less enraptured with the erotic, psychedelic mirages created by lust and limerence. We may not be driven to our destruction like the Kurus if we heed Vyāsa’s warning.]

He holds him with his glittering eye

Vyāsa, master raconteur, weaves together a bewildering skein of threads to create a many-splendoured web from which there is no escape, whether then or now. The millennia separating us from Vyāsa have not, surprisingly, dimmed the magic of his art that had entranced Janamejaya the king and Shaunaka the sage:

“Shells were exploding over Leningrad. Enemy bombs were falling on the streets stirring up clouds of dust. On one of those spring days during the siege, Sanscrit language was being heard in the building of the Academy of Sciences on the Neva River embankment, in a room overlooking the side that was safer during the artillery strikes. First, in the original, and then in translation, Vladimir Kalyanov, a specialist on India, was reading Mahabharata, a wonderful monument of Indian literature, to his colleagues, who remained in the besieged city. He had started the translation before the war. He translated during the hard winter of 1941, with no light, no fuel and no bread in the city. Two volumes of books—one published in Bombay and the other in Calcutta—were lying on the table in the room. In the dim light of a wick lamp, he was comparing these two editions of Mahabharata, trying to find the best and the most accurate translation of the Sanscrit into Russian.

“When, after the war the first book of Mahabharata—Ādi Parva was published in Leningrad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, noted with great satisfaction that, even during the hardest times, the translation of the Indian epic into Russian was never interrupted.”[3]

Indubitably, “the story’s the thing, catching conscience of commoner and king.”[4] But what is it in this epic-of-epics, eight times larger than the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, denounced by Winternitz as “a literary monster” and by Oldenberg as “monstrous chaos”, that appeals so irresistibly to modern man in search of his soul, when its immediate audience—the enthroned monarch and the forest-dwelling sage—has long since sunk into the dark backward and abysm of time?

Seeking answers to questions such as these, I find a storyteller par excellence pitilessly laying bare the existential predicament of man in the universe. If, later in the epic, Vyāsa shows us what man has made of man, in the very first book he plumbs the depths of the humiliatingly petty pre-occupations of the Creator’s noblest creation. Indeed, the dilemmas the characters find themselves enmeshed in cannot even be glorified as “tragic”. Perhaps, that is why we find the epic so fascinating—for, how many of us are cast in the heroic mould? We do not have to strain the imagination to reach out and identify with Yayāti or Shāntanu. We need no willing suspension of disbelief to understand why the Brahmin Drona should sell his knowledge to the highest bidder, or why Drupada does not protest too much when his daughter is parcelled out among brothers who had routed him in a skirmish. Passions do, indeed, spin the plot and we are betrayed by what is false within; then, as now, one need not to look for a villain manoeuvring without.[5]

If we resonate in empathy with sunt lacrimae rerum (the sense of tears in human things), we also thrill with joy on meeting the indomitable spirit of woman in an epic that many misconceive as a paradigm of male chauvinism. Whether it is Shakuntalā proudly asserting her integrity and berating mealy-mouthed Dushyanta in his court; or Devayānī passionately demanding that Kacha return her love and imperiously brushing aside a cheating husband; or Kuntī refusing to pervert herself into a mindless son-producing machine to gratify her husband’s twisted desires— time and again it is woman standing forth in all the splendour of her spirited autonomy as a complete human being that rivets our attention and evokes our admiration.

The Mahabharata articulates several themes: Time, Fate, the Quest for Immortality and Eternal Youth, Dharma, Blindness, the Disqualified Eldest, Desire with its sub-sets Limerence, Lust, Greed, Pride and Anger, etc. In Greek mythology Ananke (Destiny or Daiva) entwined in the serpentine coils of Kronos (Time or Kāla) encompasses the universe and is the mother of the Moirae (the three Fates). In the Mahabharata, we find Ananke manifesting as Lust and Limerence[6] in the Lunar Dynasty.

The Beginnings

Sauti the rhapsode tells Shaunaka and his followers that Vyāsa’s kāvya (poem)—which is also an itihāsa (‘thus it happened’)—has three beginnings: “Some read the Mahabharata from the first mantra, others begin   with   the   story of Āstīka; others begin with Uparichara” (Anukramanikā, sloka 53). Section 63 of the Book of Beginnings (Ādi Parva) tells the story of Uparichara Vasu, whom Indra made king of Chedi. Why begin with him? Well, having introduced the poem (Sauti does so too at the beginning of section 60), Vaishampāyana is providing Janamejaya with an introduction to his ancestor Vyāsa whose maternal grandfather Uparichara Vasu fathered fish-odorous Matsyagandhā  on Adrikā, an apsara-turned-fish, in the dark waters of the Yamuna:-

“Desire stirred in him.

Girikā was not near.

Desire maddened him.

Maddened with visions of Girikā…

the semen fell in the waters of the Yamuna…

Adrikā rushed to Vasu’s semen…and swallowed it.”[7]— I.63.46, 50, 57, 59

Girikā, his queen, is herself the product of Kolāhala’s rape of Shuktimatī. Thus, romantic and sexual obsession, the keynote of Limerence, is struck and its maddening impact voiced. Catching but a glimpse of fish-odorous[8] Matsyagandhā such lust inflames rishi Parāshara that he needs must rape her in a boat mid-stream in the Yamuna, in public view, at daytime. Yojanagandhā, now made lotus-fragrant and a virgin again by the satiated sage’s boon, keeps secret the birth of their son Vyāsa. Later, her granddaughter-in-law Kuntī, raped by Surya, is left holding the baby with the cold comfort of that same boon of virgo intacta. With no family support, she has to consign Karna to the mercy of the waters of Ashvanadī. Indeed, the story of the Lunar dynasty is a series of seductions, abductions and rapes: Tārā, Urvashī, Sharmishthā, Shakuntalā, Tapatī, Ganga, Shuktimatī, Satyavatī, Ambā, Ambikā, Ambālikā, Kuntī, Mādri, Ulūpī, Subhadrā.[9]

The seeds of lust were sown much farther back, the first instance being recounted by that paradigm of misogyny Bhīshma to Satyavatī, herself a fruit and a victim of this compulsive, obsessive passion. Brihaspati, guru of the Devas, rapes his elder brother Utathya’s pregnant wife Mamatā.[10] Brihaspati’s disciple Chandra or Soma elopes with his wife Tārā. As with Helen’s abduction, this results in a terrible war between Devas and Asuras, the titans espousing the cause of Chandra. Chandra, like his descendant Vichitravīrya, falls victim to consumption because of being obsessed with Rohiṇī. Chandra and Tārā’s son Budha is the first Chandravanshī, a branch of which comes to be known later as the Kurus or Kauravas.

In ancient times, Pāndu tells Kuntī, women were free:-

“They slept with any men they liked

from the age of puberty;…

for the dharma of those times

was promiscuous intercourse.”— I.122.5,8

Kuntī then recounts the story of Vyusitāshva and Bhadrā (section121) pointing out that Bhadrā was able to have seven sons by lying with the corpse of her husband and therefore she might well have Pāndu’s sons despite his curse of coital death. The irony lies in the close parallels between that king’s life and that of Pāndu’s putative father Vichitravīrya. For both sexual over-indulgence resulted in death:-

“So strong was their passion,

So frequent their indulgence,

that he soon fell a victim

to consumption;”— I.121.17-18

A cardinal feature of the worm of Limerence is obsession, which makes its host oblivious of his duties. Budha’s son Pururavā, the first king of the Lunar dynasty, neglecting his royal responsibilities chases after the apsara Urvashī and meets his end at the hands of sages when, greed-driven, he tries to snatch their golden vessels. His grandson Nahusha, the first mortal to be chosen as king of the Devas, lusts after Indra’s wife Shachi and falls to perdition.[11] Nahusha’s son Yayāti, learning nothing from his forefathers’ tragic flaw, becomes an archetype of desire-driven man, never satiated with sensual pleasure, ever thirsting for more. Limerence baits the hook with Sharmishthā and he is cursed by his father-in-law Shukra with senility. That is when a profound realisation dawns upon him that speaks to all humanity:-

“Kāma never ends,

Kāma grows with feeding,

Like sacrificial flames

Lapping up ghee.

Become the sole lord of

The world’s paddy-fields, wheat-fields,

Precious stones, beasts, women–

Still not enough.

Discard desire.

This disease kills. The wicked

Cannot give it up, old age

Cannot lessen it. True happiness

Lies in controlling it.

For one thousand years,

My mind lusted for pleasures.

Now, instead of resting,

I lust for more pleasure”— I.85.12-15

The exhortation is followed more in the breach. Rejuvenated by his vampiric assumption of his youngest son Puru’s youth, Yayāti dallies with the apsara Vishvāchī, although he had begged Shukra to restore his vigour because he was still infatuated with the sage’s daughter Devayānī. Like his father Nahusha, doomed by lust, he is thrust down from Swarga. Only then does he realise that craving only brings the “bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit”[12] and exclaims:-

“The wise say: Seven massive gates,

Tapasyā, charity, serenity,

Self-control, modesty, simplicity,

and compassion for all creatures

lead to heaven.

Pride cancels all these….

I gave so much,

I performed many yajñas,

I am learned,

I keep my vows’—

All vanity, all pride.

Fearful.

Give it up, absolutely.”— I.90.22, 26

His descendant Krishna repeats this lesson later to Arjuna:-

‘“I am rich, I am high-born,

There is none like me.

I sacrifice, I give, I rejoice.”

Deluded by such ignorance…

They fall into a foul hell….

Hell has three gates:

Lust, anger and greed.

They ruin the ātman.

Therefore, give up these three.’— Gita 16.15, 16, 21.

Limerence and lust hound the Lunar dynasts down the generations like the Furies because they are doubly doomed. Their ancestress Devayānī was obsessed with Kacha who cursed her that no Brahmin would wed her. That is why she seizes upon Yayāti the Kshatriya ruler and browbeats him into marrying her. Her eldest son Yadu is disinherited and it is his descendants, the redoubtable Yādavas, who give in to lust and liquor and end up slaughtering one another in a drunken frenzy with the participation of Krishna himself.

Samvarana, Kuru’s father, is so possessed by the craze for hunting that his horse dies under him. Then he glimpses Tapatī:-

She stood, a black-eyed beauty

on the hill-top,

statuesque;

like a golden girl.

The hill, its creepers,

its bushes, all flamed

with the golden beauty

of the golden girl.”— I.173.27-28

Like Pururavā with Urvashī, Samvarana exhibits the classic symptoms of Limerence:-

“his heart aflame with kāma,…

Like one possessed, he kept repeating

his love for her…

Like a man crazed

he wandered in the woods,

desperately searching…

the foe-chastising, love-smitten king

fell on the ground…

the king seemed to have shrivelled

into ashes”— I.173.41-43; 174.1; 174.4

Like Antony with Cleopatra, lost to the world in Tapatī’s arms on the banks of the Sindhu, Samvarana remains oblivious of the twelve-year-long drought afflicting his kingdom. Taking advantage of this, the Pānchālas take it over and Samvarana’s priest Vashishtha has to win it back (I.94.38-46). Samvarana and Tapatī’s son is Kuru, the dynast, who ploughs the field called Kurukshetra after him that becomes the scene of the bloodiest of battles in our annals.

Vyāsa pitilessly lays bare the tainted generations of Kauravas from Shāntanu onwards, all afflicted with the same disease, Limerence and lust, that speeds them on inexorably to their doom, bringing home to us that,

“The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is Lust in action…

Mad in pursuit and in possession so…

A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe.”— Shakespeare, Sonnet 129

Kuru’s descendant Shāntanu is so infatuated with strange riverside women that he remains a mute spectator to Ganga drowning their seven sons, and approves his surviving heir abdicating his right to obtain Satyavatī for him. In Shāntanu’s earlier birth as Mahābhīsha his lust got the better of him in Brahmā’s court where Ganga did a Marilyn Monroe as “gusty winds uplifted her moon-white dress” (96.4) while he leered and she gazed back. Both are thrust down to earth. Ganga herself is sexually promiscuous—only in the Puranas will she become Shiva’s wife—seating herself wantonly on the right thigh of Pratīpa while he is engaged in austerities and says, “I love you. Take me, my lord.” He, however, is untainted with the lust that overwhelms Ganga and Mahābhīsha:

“Beautiful one,” said Pratīpa,

“I have never lusted for another’s wife,

or for women outside my caste.

This is dharma, this is my vow.”— I.97.6

Ganga persists:-

“I am not ugly”, she said,

“I do not bring ill fortune, O rājā

No one has cast a slur on me,

I am not unfit for sexual enjoyment.

I am celestial, I am beautiful,

I love you. Take me, my lord.”— I.97.7

She has no problem in shifting her “love” from father to son. Significantly, the limerent object for Pratīpa’s son Shāntanu is women who are not of his class. Both Ganga and Satyavatī are non-kshatriya river women, one celestial, the other a fisher-girl; one far superior, the other much inferior. Of his father, Devavrata might well say, echoing Rama, “I think kāma is much more potent than either artha or dharma. For what man, even an idiot like father, would give up a good son like me for the sake of a pretty woman?”[13] It is Devavrata who sets up a unique and utterly different paradigm at the opposite extreme of Yayātian lust. He attains the acme of misogyny, abjuring women wholly, earning the sobriquet “Bhīshma, the terrible”.

The origin of Devavrata, however, is also rooted in Limerence. Dyau, eldest of the eight Vasus, was so obsessed with his wife that without a second thought he stole rishi Vashishtha’s cow to please her, calling down upon the Vasus the rishi’s curse of mortal birth.

According to Wendy Doniger, “the four major addictions (are often called) the vices of lust…gambling, drinking, fornicating, hunting…the royal vices…were also associated with violence, in the double sense of releasing pent-up violent impulses and being themselves the violent form of otherwise normal human tendencies (to search for food, take risks, drink, and procreate).”[14] The other facet of Kuru character that goes hand-in-hand with Limerence is lust for blood. It is while hunting to the point of exhaustion that Dushyanta, Uparichara and Samvarana fall victims to Limerence. Shāntanu, too, spends most of his time hunting. It is while feeding this blood-lust that he meets Ganga and, swept away by Limerence as his ancestor Dushyanta was with Shakuntalā, accepts her conditions unquestioningly. It is not, however, a one-sided affair. Ganga, the limerent object, is similarly afflicted:

“He stood there,

Entranced,

All his body

In horripilation.

With both eyes

He drank in her beauty,

And wanted

To drink more.

She saw the rājā,

In shining splendour.

She was moved

With tenderness and affection.

She kept gazing

and gazing

and longed to gaze

even more.”— 97.28-29

Excess is the key word. At the entrance to the Delphic oracle two phrases were inscribed: gnothi seauton “Know yourself” and meden agan “Nothing in excess”. These principles ensure a meaningful life. To ignore them is to invite Ananke to step in.

It is ironic that Shāntanu, whose name means “the child of controlled passions” (97.18), should be such a slave to Limerence:

 

“Captivated by her skilful love-making,

the raja was not conscious of

the months, seasons, years that rolled by.

He enjoyed her sexually in every possible way.”—I.98.12-13

Ganga is like the celestial nymphs who discard their offspring. Urvashī makes this clear to Kukutstha when he reproaches her for deserting their daughter:-

“O King, my body does not change

when offspring are born.

True to my nature as a courtesan,

I do not rear children I give birth to.”[15]

Shāntanu is so besotted that he ignores one of his primary duties as a king: ensuring an heir to the throne. Instead, lest she abandon him, he lets Ganga drown seven sons in succession. It is only when his sexual addiction is conquered by his concern for the fate of his eighth son that the spell cast by la belle dame sans merci is broken. Like the ensnared knights-at-arms, Shāntanu is left wan and forlorn, the dry husk of a hero, a hollow man, his heroism sucked out by Ganga like a succubus. Inevitably, in his late middle age he cannot control yet another grande amour, this time for a fisher-girl. Shāntanu’s reaction to Gandhakālī parallels that of Parāshara:

“She was fragrant,

beautiful,

smiling.

Shāntanu saw her,

and desired her.” (100.49)

The king differs from the sage in his desire to possess for himself this beauty, unable simply to enjoy and pass on. The flaw in Shāntanu’s character is stressed again:-

“the fire of desire

ravaged his body…

Desire maddened him

He kept thinking

of the daughter of the Dāsa chief.”—I.100.56-57

Limerence maddens. Yayāti’s warning has fallen on deaf ears.

Herself a child of sexual incontinence and a victim of it as well, Satyavatī sees her adolescent son die as Vichitravīrya, like Agnivarna the last of the Raghus,[16]

“driven by passion, became a kāmātmā,

a victim of his own lust.”— I.102.64

She,  “hungry for grandsons/but whose words/strayed from Dharma” (I.103.24) overrules Vyāsa’s advice that the widowed queens observe a year long vow to purify themselves of the dregs of seven years of sensuality and insists that he impregnate them immediately. Ananke strikes. Expecting Bhīshma, shocked by the forbidding looks and piscean odour of the sage, they give birth to blind Dhritarāshtra and sickly Pāndu.

Like Yayāti and Shāntanu, his lustful ancestors, Pāndu is addicted to the indiscriminate slaughter of animals, for, lust is

“murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel…”— Shakespeare, sonnet 129

Perversely killing a copulating deer-sage, he is cursed with coital death.[17]

It is now that Vyāsa explicitly voices the underlying theme through Pāndu’s lament that he has learnt too late that,

“Noble blood is of little help.

Deluded by passions, the best

of men turn wicked, and reap

the punishment of their karma…

My father was deep in dharma,

his father was too,

But kāma was his ruin, he died

while still a youth.

And in the field of his lust

I was sown…

And I am a victim of the hunt!

My mind is full of killing,”— I.119.2-5

The tragedy of the diabolic fascination Limerence exercises is precisely what Shakespeare put so memorably:-

“All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.”

The misery—it is no longer tragedy on a heroic scale—of the Kuru kings Shāntanu, Vichitravīrya and Pāndu is that of all men, whether prince or pauper.

Pāndu himself, despite his desperate resolve to seek moksha by renouncing all pleasures, is overtaken by his karma. Clotho spins the thread of life; Lachesis measures it out and Atropos decides Limerence will cut it:-

“passion overpowered him,

it seemed that he wanted

to commit suicide, as it were.

First he lost his senses,

then, clouded by lust,

he sought the loss of his life.

Kāla-dharma ordained it…

Perished in the act of intercourse”— I.125.12-14

He falls victim to mort d’amour while raping Mādrī who “fought against him fiercely” (125.10).

Of these generations of Kauravas we can say with Milton,

“…they, fondly thinking to allay

Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit

Chewed bitter ashes.”— Paradise Lost, X.564-566

When Karna shouts in the dice-game hall about Draupadī,

“The gods have ordained one husband only

for a woman; she has many;

that’s proof enough she’s a harlot…

…strip her naked.”— II.68.37, 40

And when, encouraging Karna, Duryodhana lewdly bares his left thigh to Draupadī (II.71.11-13) it is lust that becomes Ananke. The retribution is terrifying: of eighteen armies only ten men survive.

Draupadī is the mysterious femme fatale in the Ādi Parva (I.196), weeping tears that turn into golden lotuses in the Ganga, who leads the infatuated Indra away from Yama’s yajna into the presence of Shiva playing dice with his consort. His discrimination overcast by Limerence, Indra does not recognise Shiva, arrogantly berates him and is imprisoned in a cave with four earlier lustful, arrogant Indras (Vishvabhuk, Bhutadhāmā, Shibi, Shānti and Tejasvi). All are sentenced to earthly life as the Pāndavas accompanied by the cherchez la femme Shrī who becomes Draupadī. Limerence has determined their destiny.

Draupadī, in particular, is a locus of Limerence. She is the only woman to be described in some physical detail in the epic as she emerges gratuitously from the yajna-altar, full-grown:-

“eye-ravishing Pānchālī,

Large-black-eyed,

Dark-skinned Pānchālī,

Lotus-eyed lady,

Wavy-haired Pānchālī,

Hair like dark-blue clouds,

Shining coppery carved nails,

Soft eyelashes,

Swelling breasts

Shapely thighs…

…        Blue lotus

Fragrance for a full krosha

Flowed from her body.”— I.169.44-46

A skyey announcement proclaims her as the cause of the destruction of the Kshatriyas and the terror of the Kauravas (I.169.49).

The second occasion is when Yudhishthira describes her before staking her in the gambling match:-

“…neither short nor tall,

neither dark nor pale,

who has wavy dark-blue hair,

Eyes like autumn lotus-leaves,

fragrant like the autumn lotus,

lovely like autumn itself,…

never offending anyone,

graceful and patient and gentle,

Gifted with all the gunas,

soft-spoken and sweet-speaking,

the ideal wife for the pursuit

of dharma, artha and kāma.

She is the last to sleep,

The first to wake,

even earlier than the early-rising

cowherds and shepherds…

Her sweat-bathed face is lovely

Like the lotus, like the jasmine;

She is slim-waisted

Like the middle of the sacred vedi,

Long-haired, pink-lipped,

With not excessive body-hair…”— II.65.33-37

Jatāsura, who abducts her, is warned by Yudhishthira,

“You will be like one who drinks poison

after shaking the vessel.”— III.157.27

Bhīma voices the interlinking of Ananke, Kronos and Limerence:-

“…today wonder-working Kāla

Has possessed your mind

to ravish Krishnā-Draupadī.

You have swallowed the bait

on Kāla’s hook—

you are caught like a fish,

you will die like one.”— III.157.44-45

Like Helen of Troy, she is fully conscious of her sexual power but is never a slave of her libido. Satyabhāmā begs for the secrets of female sexuality by which she keeps her husbands at her beck and call (III.222.7), but finds she does not need any drugs or mantras to do so.  We see telling examples of how she gets her way with Bhīma in Virāta’s kitchen (IV.20) and succeeds with Krishna in turning his peace-embassy into a declaration of war (V.82).[18] The captivating pose she strikes when alone in Kāmyaka forest that so enchants Jayadratha is another instance. Leaning against a kadamba tree, holding a branch with an upraised hand, her upper garment displaced, she flashes like lightning against clouds, or like the flame of a lamp quivering in the night-breeze (III.264.1). Jayadratha craves her because,

“…women and jewels

are meant for frivolous enjoyment…

Jayadratha attempted

To remove her breast-garment…”— III.267.27; 268.24

She condemns him as a “lustful rascal” (III.271.45) whose libido only brings utter humiliation crashing down upon his head.

Next it is Kīchaka for whom Draupadī becomes the limerent object:-

“The fire of my passion consumes me

like a merciless forest-blaze;

all it desires is to be one with you,

O lovely one…

I am driven wild

By the arrows of Manmatha

and the hope of intercourse with you.”— IV.14.24,26

Limerence takes away even the basic instinct of self-preservation. Kīchaka was

“Lust-maddened, adulterous-minded

though aware of the consequences”.— IV.14.44

His sister Sudeshnā’s warning falls on deaf ears:

“You have completely forgotten

what is good for you.

You have allowed yourself to become

a slave of kāma.

Your end is near. That is why kāma

grips you so strongly….”

The absolute fool had a single obsession:

intercourse with Draupadī.”—IV.15.17-18; 28

The end Ananke visits upon him is horrifying: Bhīma pounds him into a shapeless lump of flesh.

Why should Draupadī be such a locus of Limerence? Clues are found in the kathas of her previous births. The Kumbakonam edition of the epic records that in an earlier birth as Nālāyanī-Indrasenā (daughter of Nala and Damayantī?)[19] she was married to Maudgalya, an irascible, leprous sage. Her devotion to him was so absolute that even when his thumb dropped into their meal, she took it out and calmly ate the food without revulsion. Pleased by this, Maudgalya offered her a boon, and she asked him to make love to her in five lovely forms. He obliged, but as she was insatiable, he reverted to ascesis. When she remonstrated and insisted that he continue their love-making, he cursed her to be reborn and have five husbands to satisfy her sexual craving. Thereupon she practised severe penance and pleased Shiva who blessed her with five husbands and the boon of regaining virginity after being with each husband.[20] The Jaina Nayadhammakahao tells of suitorless Sukumarikā reborn first as a celestial courtesan because of her sexual craving and then as Draupadī.[21] In the Brahmavaivarta Purana[22] we find that she was the reincarnation of the shadow-Sita who, in turn, was Vedavatī reborn after being molested by Rāvaṇa. This Chāyā-Sita became the Lakshmī of the fourteen Mahendras in Svarga, five of whom incarnated as the Pāndavas. After the fire ordeal, the lovely and youthful shadow-Sītā was advised by Rama and Agni to worship Shiva. While doing so, kāmātura pativyāgrā prārthayanti punah punah (tormented by sexual desire and eager for a husband), she prayed again and again, asking the three-eyed god five times for a husband (14.57). In each of her many origins, therefore, Draupadī’s nature is characterised by high libido.

However, as with the previous generations of the lunar dynasts, no lesson has been learnt about the deadly coils Limerence winds about its victims while immobilising them with its basilisk stare. Even Krishna, the Purushottama, cannot save his kith and kin from self-sought annihilation. Thirty-six years after the Kurukshetra holocaust, the Yādavas, Bhojas, Kukuras, Vrishṇis and Andhakas (all descendants of that archetype of pride and lust, Yayāti and his lustful queen Devayānī) rush like mindless lemmings into mass suicide. The extreme penalty Krishna and Balarāma impose to prohibit manufacture of liquor (impalement of the violator and his entire family) fails. In their very presence at Prabhāsa the clans plunge into a drunken orgy. The cardinal flaw in the character of the Vrishnis, as with Yayāti, is arrogance which blinds discrimination:-

“They mocked Brahmins

and pitris and gods.

They insulted gurus and elders…

Pouring wine in the food

prepared for mahātmā Brahmins,

the Yādavas fed the wine-flavoured dishes

to vānara-monkeys.”— XVI.2.10; 3.14

With arrogance and drunkenness went lust hand in hand:-

“Wives cheated on husbands,

and husbands

cheated on wives.”— XVI.2.11

To this deadly combination was added the explosive spark of anger as Satyabhāmā, learning who had killed her father,

“burst into angry tears.

She sat in Keshava-Krishna’s lap,

and instigated Janārdana-Krishna.”—XVI.3.24

As Krishna glanced angrily at Kritavarmā, the murderer of his wife’s father, Sātyaki lopped off his head. The carnage exploded:-

“Demented with drink,

the warriors butchered one another…

falling like fleas in a flame.

Not one of them had the good sense

to flee the carnage.”— XVI.3.42-43

The roots of man’s doom are revealed in the parable Vidura narrates to solace-seeking Dhritarāshtra in the Strī Parva which travelled to the West to feature as the story of “The Man in the Well” in the tale of Barlaam and Josaphat:-[23]

“Take a certain Brahmin who loses himself in a dense jungle filled with wild beasts. Lions and tigers, elephants and bears…Yelling and trumpeting and roaring…a dismal scene to frighten even the god of death, Yama. The Brahmin is terror-stricken. He horripilates. His mind is a bundle of fears. He begins to run, helter-skelter; he looks right and left, hoping to find someone who will save him. But the fierce beasts—they are everywhere—the jungle echoes with their weird roaring—wherever he goes, they are there, ahead of him.

“Suddenly he notices that the fearful forest is swathed in a massive net. In front of him, with open arms, is a horrendous-looking female. Also, five-headed snakes hiss at him—tall snakes, their hill-huge bodies slithering up to the sky.

“In the middle of the forest is a well covered with grass and intertwining creepers. He falls in that well and dangles there, clutched by a creeper, like a jackfruit ripe for plucking. He hangs there, feet up, head down.

“Horror upon horror! In the bottom of the well he sees a monstrous snake. On the edge of the well is a huge black elephant with six heads and twelve feet hovering at the well’s mouth. And, buzzing in and out of the clutch of creepers, are giant, repulsive bees surrounding a honeycomb. They are trying to sip the deliciously sweet honey, the honey all creatures love, the honey whose real taste only children know.

“The honey drips out of the comb, and the honey drops fall on the hanging Brahmin’s tongue. Helpless he dangles, relishing the honey drops. The more the drops fall, the greater his pleasure. But his thirst is not quenched. More! Still more! ‘I am alive!’ he says, ‘I am enjoying life!’

“Even as he says this, black and white rats are gnawing the roots of the creeper. Fears encircle him. Fear of the carnivores, fear of the fierce female, fear of the monstrous snake, fear of the giant elephant, fear of the rat-devoured creeper about to snap, fear of the large buzzing bees…In that flux and flow of fear he dangles, hanging on to hope, craving the honey, surviving in the jungle of samsara.

“The jungle is the universe; the dark area around the well is an individual life span. The wild beasts are diseases. The fierce female is decay. The well is the material world. The huge snake at the bottom of the well is Kala, all-consuming time, the ultimate and unquestioned annihilator. The clutch of the creeper from which the man dangles is the self-preserving life-instinct found in all creatures. The six-headed elephant trampling the tree at the well’s mouth is the Year—six faces, six seasons; twelve feet, twelve months. The rats nibbling at the creeper are day and night gnawing at the life span of all creatures. The bees are desires. The drops of honey are pleasures that come from desires indulged. They are the rasa of Kama, the juice of the senses in which all men drown.”[24]

Dhritarashtra, of course, misses the point Vidura is making: man, literally hanging on to life by a thread and enveloped in multitudinous fears, is yet engrossed in the drops of the honey of the senses, exclaiming, “More! Still more! I am alive! I am enjoying life!” And, like the blind king, we tend to miss the point too. Ignoring the law of karma, taking that other road, we fall into the pit and rale; yet inveterately, compulsively, perversely, strain every sinew to lick the honey of Limerence. The Buddha figured it forth in a characteristically pungent image:

“Craving is like a creeper,

it strangles the fool.

He bounds like a monkey, from one birth to another,

looking for fruit.”[25]

In a marvellously eidetic image Vyāsa portrays the secret:-

“A wondrous kāmavriksha grows in the heart,

a tree of desire, born of attachment.

Anger and arrogance its trunk,

impulse to act its irrigating channel.

Ignorance its root; negligence nourishes it.

fault-finding its leaves, past misdeeds its pith.

Grief, worry and delusion its branches,

fear its seed.

Vines of craving clasp it around

creating delusion.

All around this fruit-giving mighty tree of desire

sit greedy men,

shackled in iron chains of desire,

craving its fruit.

He who snaps these bonds of desire

slices this tree

with the sword of non-attachment.

He transcends grief-giving age and death.

But the fool who climbs this tree

greedy for fruit,

it destroys him;

even as poison pills destroy the sick.

The roots of this tree reach far and wide.

Only the wise can hew it down

with the yoga-gifted

sword of equanimity.

One who knows

how to rein in desires,

and knows study of desire itself binds,

he transcends all sorrow.”— Shānti Parva 255. 1-8 (my transcreation)

In an analogous image, the cosmic fig tree itself is figured forth by Krishna in the Gita (15.1-3) along with the remedy:-

“Mention is made of an eternal ashvattha

whose roots are above, whose branches are below

whose leaves are said to be the Vedas.

The knower of this tree

is the knower of the Vedas.

Its branches reach out below and above,

nourished by the gunas.

Its flowers are sense-pleasures.

Below the tree in the human world

flourish more roots

binding man to karma.

You may not see its real shape,

nor its end, birth and presence.

Slice this firm-rooted ashvattha

with the sharp sword of non-attachment.” [26]

Despite this, Bhishma’s lengthy discourse on Dharma and Krishna’s Anugītā what does the creator of this greatest of epics cry out at the very end?

“I raise my hands and I shout

but no one listens!

From Dharma come Artha and Kama–

Why is Dharma not practised?”— Svargārohana Parva, 62

A question that does indeed tease us out of thought into eternity. But, is anybody listening? Is there anybody there? Or, are we a host of phantom listeners, kin to the decimated Kurus, who listen but do not answer Draupadī’s question in the dyūta-sabhā? 

[1] Sanskrit words occurring in the OED have not been italicized.

[2]  “Alottted Portions”. The three females were Clotho “the Spinner,” who spun the thread of life, Lachesis “the Apportioner of Lots”, who measured it, and Atropos (or Aisa) “Who cannot be turned,” who cut it short.

[3] http://www.300.years.spb.ru/eng/3_spb_3.html?id=5

[4] P.Lal, Preface to The Complete Ādi Parva, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2005, p.6. All extracts from the Mahabharata are from the P. Lal transcreation unless indicated otherwise.

[5] cf. George Meredith’s “Modern Love”.

[6] Coined by Dorothy Tennov in 1977: an obsessive need to have one’s romantic feelings and sexual attraction for another reciprocated, the state of being completely carried away by unreasoned passion or love, even to the point of addictive-type behaviour. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerence#Limerent_reaction

[7] P. Lal, The Complete Adi Parva, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2005.

[8] The medical term is “trimethylaminuria”, a syndrome associated with psychosocial reactions including social isolation.

[9] Wendy Doniger, The Hindus, Penguin Books, India, 2009, p. 295, which I have amplified.

[10] Adi Parva 104.9-15. Mamatā’s son is the blind Dīrghatamas, ostracised for publicly following the practices of the cow-race, i.e. indiscriminate sexual intercourse. He makes a living out of insemination. He looks forward to sightless Dhritarāshtra, father of a hundred and one sons.

[11] Indra himself suffers serious consequences after his adulterous union with Ahalyā (losing his testicles and being covered with marks of the vulva). His attempt at another liaison with Ruchi, wife of the sage Devasharmā, is foiled by the disciple Vipula.This is where Indra’s “fate” differs markedly from that of the Greek Zeus and the Norse Odin who are also lusty kings of the gods but do not suffer for their adultery unlike the tragic Norse hero Siegmund and the Greek Paris.

[12] T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” in Four Quartets http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=435714070

[13] Rāmāyana 2.47.8-10, Wendy Doniger, The Hindus, Penguin, New Delhi, 2009, p.225.

[14] Doniger op.cit. p. 320-321. Laws of Manu  Book 7 states: “[47] Hunting, gambling, sleeping by day, malicious gossip, women, drunkenness, music, singing, dancing, and aimless wandering are the group of ten (vices) born of desire. [48] Slander, physical violence, malice, envy, resentment, destruction of property, verbal abuse, and assault are the group of eight (vices) born of anger.” Vikarna addressing the Kauravas in the Sabha Parva says, “Kings have four major vices—hunting, drinking, gambling and womanizing.” (II.68.20) (personal communication from Doniger)

[15] Kālikā Purāna, 49.67, Nababharat Publishers, Calcutta, 1384 BS, p.462, my translation.

[16] Kālidāsa paints a detailed portrait of this voluptuary ruler, the last of the dynasty of Raghu: “it was the disease resulting from sexual excess which consumed him…paying no heed to the doctors’ advice, he did not give it up.” The Dynasty of Raghu, XIX.48-49, translated by R. Antoine, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 1972, p.216.

[17] Saudāsa Kalmāshpāda who killed a copulating hermit was cursed similarly by his wife— coitus interruptus with a vengeance!

[18] P. Bhattacharya, Pancha-kanya, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2005, pp. 73, 77-78.

[19] In the Rig Veda X.10.2 there is an Indrasenā-Mudgalānī, a heroic lady who bravely drives her chariot and helps her husband to win numerous cattle (cf. H.C.Chakladar, “Some Aspects of Social Life in Ancient India”, The Cultural Heritage of India, vol.2, 1962, 2nd ed., Kolkata.

[20] Satya Chaitanya’s translation of the Kumbakonam edition of the Mahabharata, Ādi Parva, sections 212-213 http://vyasabharata.blogspot.com/2010/12/nalayani-past-life-of-draupadi.html . Vettam Mani, Puranic Encyclopaedia (Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1975, p. 549) and M.V. Subramaniam, The Mahabharata Story: Vyasa & Variations (Higginbothams, Madras, 1967, pp. 46-47) mention this story without providing the source.

[21] B.N. Sumitra Bai, “The Jaina Mahabharata” in Essays on the Mahabharata ed. A. Sharma, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1991, p.253.

[22] Prakriti khanda, 14.54 and Krishna Janma khanda 116.22-23.

[23] The Golden Legend, http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/golden329.htm

[24] P. Lal: The Mahabharata (condensed & transcreated) Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1980, p. 286-7.

[25] P. Lal: The Dhammapada, op.cit. Farrar Straus & Giroux, New York, 1967, p.157

[26] Conflating the P. Lal transcreation, Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1969 and P.Lal, The Complete Bhishma Parva, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2006, p.261.