Pradip Bhattacharya

Indologist, Mahabharata scholar

IN THE NEWS

An Epic of Wonder, not of War and Peace

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Alf Hiltebeitel: World of Wonders: The work of Adhbutarasa in the Mahabharata and the Harivamsa. Oxford University Press, 2022, pp. 343.

When Akbar commissioned a Persian rendering of the Mahabharata (MB), he named it Razmnama, the Book of War. Centuries earlier, however, the Kashmiri aestheticians had argued that the dominant flavour (“rasa”) of MB is shanti, peace, with its stable emotion (“sthayi bhava”) of “vairagya”, detachment. Alf Hiltebeitel, the most prolific scholar on MB, who passed away in January 2023, presents a challenging thesis in his most recent foray, namely that neither the heroic (“vira”), as generally presumed, nor peace (shanti), but rather wonder (“adhbhutam, ashcarya”) is the primary flavour along with its stable emotion of surprise (“vismaya”). He is building on a realisation recorded in the last chapter of his earlier book, Freud’s Mahabharata, about the replenishing of Draupadi’s garment (referring to it anachronistically as “sari” repeatedly) being termed the greatest wonder in the world, “adhbhutatamam loke”. His search of the electronic text for the cluster “adbhutam-ashcharya-vismaya,” in MB and the Harivamsha (HV) confirmed the preponderance of the wondrous and showed that HV is part of the epic, not a mere appendix. He finds roughly 592 occurrences of “adbhutam-ashcharya” and 339 of “vismaya-vismita” distributed fairly evenly across both HV and MB. It is this dominant “rasa” that makes for the unity of the epic.

Hiltebeitel points out that the last three books of MB, with a total of eighteen chapters (like the Gita’s and the 18 books ot the epic), expose us to a series of rude shocks, presenting “unexpected outcomes”. The deaths of Krishna and Balarama, the submergence of Dvaraka, the looting of Arjuna’s caravan that destroys his heroism, Yudhishthira’s condemnation of dharma and the gods after his vision of hell and Janamejaya’s last question are analysed in detail. After Vaishampayana has explained that every hero (the women are not mentioned) merged into his original identity, Janamejaya was highly astonished (“vismito ‘bhavad atyartham”). The dominant flavour “wonder” and its stable emotion “surprise” are repeatedly evoked. The epic ends with the “Bharata Savitri” of the concluding statement by Vyasa “of wondrous deeds” to his son Shuka.

Varying perceptions about MB existed contemporaneously with the Kashmiri aestheticians of the 9th and 10 centuries CE. The first regional retelling of MB saw it as a heroic narrative, which is why Peruntevanar made Krishna his hero in the Tamil Paratavenpa (9th century CE) and Pampa had Arjuna crowned king at the end after Yudhishthira’s abdication in the Kannada Vikramarjunavijaya (10th century CE). Hiltebeitel finds that the “adbhutam” clusters are fairly evenly distributed in both MB and HV, missing only from Book 17 (the Great Departure). He concludes that the element of surprise is as evident as the didactic and other elements like Krishna and the divine plan, Vyasa’s role, the snake sacrifice, the ending of Janamejaya’s tale, Sauti and Shaunaka.

The two lists of contents identify sections as “wondrous”, not referring to any other “rasa”. Vyasa’s miraculous summoning of the dead in Book 15 is described as exceptionally and uniquely wondrous, while Books 5, 8 and 4 are called particularly “adbhutam”. Before Hiltebeitel, no had one noted these. Analysing the occurrences in each book he finds that Book 3 (Forest Exile), is the most wonder-laden book. Among the four war books, the largest wonder-cluster occurs in the Book of Drona while the Book of Karna is the only one of them to be described in the list of contents as “full of meanings and wonders” and to devote an adbhutam-cluster to Karna. In the Bhishma Parvan they are applied to Arjuna; in the Mokshadharmaparvan they occur in the Shuka story and the Narayaniya, and in the Anushasana Parvan in the Uma-Maheshvara dialogue.

In most of the wonder passages the focus is mostly on the three Krishnas: Krishna (Books 5-9), Vyasa (Book 1, alternating with Krishna in Books 10-13 and dominating in 14-15, 17-18), Krishna (Book 16) and Draupadi (end of Book 1 to Book 4). The others focussed upon are Arjuna, Karna, Bhima and Shiva. It is the three dark Krishnas who represent, writes James Fitzgerald, “wondrous realities of the world.”

Most episodes in Book 14 (the horse-sacrifice) have the wondrous quality. Vyasa’s pupil Jaimini’s version of the book is chock-full of magic and marvels, which is possibly why Akbar chose this to be translated into Persian for his Razmnama instead of Vyasa’s original composition and why regional Mahabharatas often do the same. This book culminates in the utterly surprising debunking of the horse-sacrifice by the episode of the mongoose. This Ashvamedha Parva is surpassed by the “very great wonder” of Book 15, as the list of contents describes the Forest Ashram. Here Vyasa not only conjures up all the dead heroes, but also gets all the widows to commit suicide in the river to meet their husbands, ridding the new monarchy of the sound of endless lamentation Much earlier he had made his mother and two sisters-in-law leave the world too. Nowhere in any epic world does the epic’s composer kill off so many of his characters himself.

Hiltebeitel commits a major mistake in glossing Satyabhama as Kamsa’s sister (p. 259). On p. 289 the printer’s gremlin is very much in evidence (“Virad”, “Vior”, “vita”, “Vi”, “amring the en”, “Vieap’s” etc.), p. 292 (“amatamanthana”) and footnotes 161 (“collerium”) and 162 (“Markakrsnadeya”). Footnote 191 refers to “Haberman” who is missing from the references.

At the very beginning of HV Shaunaka praises the MB for its extremely wondrous deeds and amazing discourses. HV is replete with amazing revelations of Krishna’s divinity to Akrura et.al. that tie-up with Narada’s visions in MB’s Narayaniya. Hiltebeitel notes that the 36 clusters of surprise and wonder in HV “speak the same language as the MB”, not that of bhakti rasa. Both works stress “devotion to the vigorous heroic deity in the same world of wonders and not on his being at the centre of the devotions of his parents, sons, friends, lovers, or admiring sages.” It is by looking at MB and HV as works of literature and not primarily as theological and ethical texts that their wonders and surprises work, hinting at “a below-the-surface sense of sacrificial beauty.”

Hiltebeitel explores this aspect through the conflagration set off by Krishna’s Vaishnava energy during his ascesis and by that of Shiva when Uma covers his eyes, that consume life on the Himalayas. The same Vaishnava tejas decapitates Shishupala, whose energy merges into Krishna. The production of amrita by churning the ocean that destroys all life on Mount Mandara, mingling their “rasas” and by the Nara-Narayana duo killing asuras is analogous to this. In HV the acme is Krishna uplifting Mount Govardhana and simultaneously becoming the mountain as Indra drenches it, just as he did Mount Mandara. The Govardhana incident would have been a far more appropriate cover than the Kalighat painting depicting Krishna with Yashoda milking a cow. Hiltebeitel shows how HV is original in “thematizing an aesthetic of sacrifice” in which the Earth becomes “sacrificially beautiful…it is through her that all forms of life and death flow meaningfully together.” The Harivamsha Parva closes emphasizing that Krishna is the sole wonder and that all wonders emerge from Vishnu, the most blessed. HV is as much an adbhutarasa text as MB and is part and parcel of the epic.

DRAUPADI THE GODDESS VIRA-SHAKTI

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Alf Hiltebeitel: The Cult of Draupadi: Mythologies from Gingee to Kurukshetra Vol.1 (Motilal Banarasidass, Delhi, pp.487, Rs.200/-)

The 1980s witnessed a remarkable resurgence of Indian mythology in literary, theatrical and academic spheres. If in literature we saw the gripping Hindi dodecalogy of Ram Kumar Bhramar on the Mahabharata while novels on the epic came in Bengali from Kalkut and Dipak Chandra, in Oriya from Pratibha Ray, in Kannada from S.L. Bhyrappa, and in English from Maggi Lidchi Grassi and Elaine Aron, on the stage the agony of Draupadi, five-husbanded-yet-husbandless, was unforgettably brought home in Shaoli Mitra’s one-woman performance, Nathavati anathavat. In academia, Dr. Alf Hiltebeitel produced the first volume of his profound study of the cult of Draupadi in 1988 which is now finally available in an Indian edition from Motilal Banarsidass.

Tracing the South Indian cult of Draupadi to Gingee (it also exists in Sri Lanka, Fiji and Singapore), Hiltebeitel launches an elaborate investigation into how it incorporates dimensions of a multiplicity of cults relating to village goddesses, heroes, lineage/caste/boundary deities, possession and even those of the supreme triad of the Hindu pantheon: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. The Draupadi cult is a fascinating combination of the folk and the classical traditions, which the scholar investigates chiefly through the Terukkuttu dramas (street plays) reaching out to the classical and vernacular epic traditions as well as analogous cults for further insights. To provide a focus for this considerably involved phenomenon Hiltebeitel inspiredly seizes upon an 18 verse invocatory song sung at the beginning and the end of Draupadi festivals. It is the ramifications of these 18 verses that are brought out painstakingly in the study, of which this is only the first volume.  

Hiltebeitel finds that Draupadi is actually a multi-form of Durga and Kali as Vira Shakti/Vira Panchali with her virginity repeatedly stressed. In this aspect, her power is destructive and dangerous even to her husbands. Her children are born out of drops of blood pierced out of Bhima’s hand with her nails as she returns after nocturnal foraging. Like her sister-goddess Ankalamman, whose cult shares the same region, Draupadi roams Kali-like in forests and crematoria. The Telegu tradition has Krishna explain to Bhima that Draupadi is the primal Shakti whom he had promised to satiate with human flesh and that is why he has arranged the Kurukshetra War, during which she roams the battlefield at night consuming corpses. Sensing that Krishna has lent part of his energy to Bhima to solve his problem of satisfying her sexually, Draupadi demands that Krishna now marry her, which he promises to do in future as Jagannatha of Puri. To Hiltebeitel it remains a mystery how this promise is kept.

However, the answer is available in Charolette Vaudeville’s 1982 paper on ‘Krishna and the Great Goddess’ in The Divine Consort  which notes that Ekanamsa/Subhadra/Durga is found in the consort’s position, that is the left side, of Jagannatha when the icon of Baladeva is absent, and that the original temple in Puri was occupied by Maha-bhairavi Adishakti under the name Vimala-devi. Draupadi’s Shakti aspect is conclusively established at the end of the Terukkuttu cycle in the stance Draupadi takes atop Duryodhana’s thigh or chest, like Durga atop Mahishasura, pulling out his intestines while Krishna braids her hair. The 18-day war covered by the Terukkuttu cycle marks the end of a festival that can, therefore, be said to recapitulate the Navaratri or Vijayadashami festival of Durga. 

In Draupadi’s victory a critical role is played by the folk-figure of Pottu Raja/Pormannan, the Buffalo-demon/king turned devotee, who brings her the five instruments required for her victory. A unique feature of the cult is the icon of the Muslim devotee Muttal Ravuttan who is analogous to the Marathi Khandoba. Draupadi defeats Muttal is after he has imprisoned the Pandavas and becomes the guardian of the north. Another fascinating instance of local myth-making is the second birth of Draupadi invoked by King Cunitan (Sunitha), a descendant of the Pandavas, to save the kingdom from the hundred-headed demon Rochakan/Acalamman. As the demon has the boon that whoever cuts off his hundredth head will die if it touches the ground, Pottu Raja agrees to hold it forever. At the spot where Draupadi disappeared after killing the demon, the Gingee temple was built with a figure of Pottu Raja before it holding the demon’s head. Hiltebeitel perceptively notes how the cult splits into two the functions of Bhairava: the role of the dog who keeps the blood of Brahma’s head from touching the ground and the position of kshetrapala go to Muttal Ravuttan; the all-destroying Brahmic head stuck to his hand goes to Pottu Raja, keeping in hold the destructive power and reminding us of the severed head of the buffalo-demon Mahisha.  

The Terukkuttu cycle also reveals a different facet of Krishna. His overwhelming concern is that the Pandavas fulfil their war vows without being upstaged by their sons who are seen as rakshasic. Hence, he brings about the deaths of Aravan (Iravan), Ghatotkacha, Abhimanyu ‘ each of whom would have destroyed the Kaurava army in a day ‘ and of Draupadi’s five sons.

There are a couple of issues that remain unresolved in Hiltebeitel’s thesis. On page 323, he speaks of the coalescence of serpent and elephant in Aravan’s ancestry by making out that Ulupi belongs to the line of Airavata ‘the elephant mount of Indra.’ This is incorrect. This Airavata is the name of a serpent and is not identical with Indra’s mount, as the Adi Parva of the epic makes abundantly clear while listing the major serpents. On page 397, he expatiates on the theme of flawed caste-character of the five Kaurava generals, which certainly cannot apply to Bhishma and Shalya. He does not provide any evidence for the alleged rakshasic nature of Draupadi’s sons. Again, on page 288 he states that only Villi has the nelli (myrobalan) episode in which Draupadi’s desire for a sixth husband is exposed. However, this occurs also in the Bengali Mahabharata composed by Kashiram Das where, using a mango, Krishna gets Draupadi to confess her desire for Karna as her sixth husband. While elaborating the South Indian myths about Krishna’s role in Karna’s death he does not take into account the rich myths regarding the last moments of Karna prevalent in the vernacular traditions in western and eastern India which enhance his nobility to sublime heights as in the Bengali play Nara Narayana by Kshirodeprasad Bidyabinode and in Shivaji Sawant’s epic Marathi novel Mrityunjay. 

These, however, hardly detract from the major contribution made by Dr. Hiltebeitel to the understanding of our own mythic traditions ‘about which our own intelligentsia are criminally insouciant’, as kept alive even in the twenty first century through the folk theatre, which is swiftly dying out in the absence of financial support. Enriched with 34 invaluable plates recording key events in Terukkuttu performances and a number of maps laying out the cult territory, this thesis ought to awaken the South Zone Cultural Centre to the need of reviving our dying tradition by providing the necessary support. Otherwise Draupadi the goddess might again have to bewail her fate as nathavati anathavat, ‘many-husbanded yet husbandless’!

Book Review of Fr. Camille Bulcke’s THE RAMA STORY: ORIGINS AND GROWTH (2022)

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Trans. (from Hindi) by Pradip Bhattacharya. Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Hardbound.

ISBN: 9789355481108

Oshin Vipra Sagar, Avinash Kumar

Kalākalpa, Vol. VII, No. 2(2023)

With some variation, the story of Rama is told not just across different parts of the Indian subcontinent but also in Southeast Asia with just as much fervour. Not to forget, Ram and his supposed birthplace have become a part of the politico-religious fabric of India over the last few decades. Therefore, a historical inquiry into the story of Rama is a pertinent endeavour now more than ever. However, no systematic historiographical work on Rama’s tales was available for general readers and academics alike until a Belgian Jesuit priest Father Camille Bulcke accomplished the task of comprehensively tracing the origin and development of the narratives around Rama in his magnum opus “Ramkatha: Utpatti Aur Vikas” published in 1950. The work, however, remained accessible only to readers and researchers proficient in Hindi. The translation by Pradip Bhattacharya bridges that gap for the anglophone public through his work ‘The Rama Story: Origins and Growth’, published by Sahitya Akademi in August 2022.

Pradip Bhattacharya’s ambitious translation has surveyed the major available editions of Father Bulcke’s original work. He has taken into cognisance the printer’s gremlins (in the 16th ed.) and tried his best to critically examine the errors and omissions before producing his translation based primarily on the third edition of Bulcke’s work published in 1971 by Hindi Parishad Prakashan, Allahabad University. Bhattacharya also acknowledges the original writer’s lack of awareness of his predecessors’ work relating to Ramayana at large such as those by Akshoy Kumar Maitreya, who, for example, has dealt with the subjects Bulcke deals with (say, Ramayana’s relationship with Greek and Buddhist stories) or Rajasekhara P.Basu’s ‘Surpanakha Reminiscences’ and ‘the Rule of Rama’ or Kumudini’s ‘Sita’s Letters.’

Father Bulcke’s omissions of the verse number and translation of Sanskrit verses too, have been supplemented in the translated work by Bhattacharya, making it fairly corroborated and accessible. Nonetheless, the translator has ensured that they stay true to the original and preserve its appearance while addressing the need to rectify some inconsistencies in referencing style.

‘The Rama Story: Origins and Growth’ wholeheartedly follows the structure of Bulcke’s “Ramkatha: Utpatti Aur Vikas”, wherein the work is divided into four main parts, each corresponding to the four major stages of the evolution and expansion of the Rama story. The first part (consisting of chapters 1 to 5) concerns itself with the extant ancient literature such as the Vedic, Buddhist and Jain corpus – scrutinising the references to the Rama story they present. The first chapter reviews the Vedic literature for the presence of characters like Iksvaku, Dasaratha, Janaka, and Sita as the presiding deity of agriculture while also presenting an apparent absence of Rama in the corpus. The second chapter examines the three recensions of Valmiki’s Ramayana and attempts to gauge the time of its composition historically. It also disambiguates the identity of the author of Ramayana, the poet Valmiki and sheds light on the various Valmikis. The third chapter brings some fascinating insights to the table regarding the timeline of Valmiki’s Ramayana with reference to the other epic of the subcontinent, i.e., the Mahabharata (hence, Mb). Verses from the primary text of Mb have been used to illustrate how the composers of Mb were aware of Valmiki and his work – while maintaining a distinction between the stories of Bharata and the Mahabharata. At the same time, the readers are also provided with quantitative cues to the popularity of the Rama story: for example, how approximately fifty references to Rama or characters related to his story are found in Mb.

In part two of the work, chapter 6 critically examines the origins of the story of Rama: addressing the problematic nature of “Dasaratha Jataka” and the question of the authenticity of the Pali “Jatakakathavannana.” In the consecutive chapter, the discussion follows through on the matter by taking into consideration the views of scholars such as Dr. Weber, Jacobi and Dineshchandra Sen. Chapter 8 and 9 remarks on the main interpolations in Valmiki’s Ramayana and how the concept of the ‘avatar’ contributed to its wide dispersal.

The third part of the book provides an overview of the wide and deep penetration of the Rama story across medieval literature from the subcontinent across Sanskrit, modern Indian languages, and other Asian languages. In this part, chapter 10 elucidates on the development of Rama-bhakti and the Rama stories in Puranic literature (Harivamsa, the Mahapuranas and the minor Purana) as well as the sectarian Ramayanas and other religious literature from the period. The subsequent chapter 11 traces and maps the Rama story across an elaborate list of Sanskrit belle letters beginning with Raghuvamsa, Setubandha and covering about 17 major works, including epic poetry and plays, while further covering some minor works. Chapter 12 of the work is divided into two parts: the first discusses the Ramayana across Southern languages of Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada, including the tribal tales related to Rama from the region; the second discusses the Rama story in the literary works produced in northern Indian languages as well as Sinhalese. The two parts of this chapter correspond to Bulcke’s rough categorisation of linguistic groups as Dravidian and Aaryan, which could be better titled in the translation to be technically more accurate and not appear anachronistic. The last part, chapter 14, discusses the Rama story abroad in the Tibeto-Khotanese, Indonesian, Indo-Chinese (Vietnamese), Siamese and Burmese traditions while briefly touching upon the Western narratives.

The fourth and final part of the book expounds on the growth of the Rama story spread over seven Kandas (Bālakāṇḍa, Ayodhyakāṇḍa, Araṇyakāṇḍa, Kiṣkindakāṇḍa, Sundarākāṇḍa, Yuddhakāṇḍa, Uttarakāṇḍa) in chapters 14-20. It ends with concluding remarks in the 21st and the last chapter of the volume. This part of the book, from pg. 341 to pg. 892 amounts for the bulk of the volume that closely engages in dissecting the minutest details of themes and episodes of each Kanda and the variations of each, if any, across the three recensions of Valmiki’s Ramayana.

As for relevant original additions, Bhattacharya (supplementing Bulcke’s original list) brings to the readers an organised exhaustive bibliography comprising ancient texts as well as modern works across Indian and foreign languages in Appendix I. Appendix II sheds light on the story wherein Rama had to shoot an arrow at Hanuman on Viswamitra’s command, an intriguing episode relating to Rama that Bulcke skipped in his almost encyclopaedic work. In Appendix III, Bhattacharya elucidates on the large yet relatively less-known Ramayana frescoes in the Silver Pagoda at Phnom Penh, Cambodia, commissioned between 1903-04. The frescoes depict the Khmer story of Rama being abducted by Ravana’s nephew Waireab and his rescue by Hanuman. Finally, in Appendix IV, he reviews Paula Richman’s ‘Questioning Ramayana’ and Amreeta Syam’s ‘Kaikeyi.’

Overall, the book is worth all the attention at present and for times to come. Priced at INR 1500/- this 990-page book is a comprehensive wellspring of information on the narratives surrounding the character of Rama, which historically traces their antiquity while critically examining its growth through the ages.

Freud, Bose and the Mahabharata

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Alf Hiltebeitel: Freud’s Mahabharata. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp. xxiii+298, Rs. 650.

The cover of Hiltebeitel’s “Freud’s Mahabharata” has an interesting personal involvement on my part. Alf had emailed me in desperation having failed to trace this sketch drawn from a portrait of Freud (sent by Freud to Bose in 1926) by a Bengali artist Jatindra Kumar Sen commissioned by Dr. Girindrashekhar Bose which he used as the cover of the first edition of his Bengali work, “Swapna” (1928). With some difficulty Smt. Sunita Arora of the National Library (who had been put on the job by my young colleague Shri Raghavendra Singh IAS, its Director) traced it to a very fragile copy, repaired their high-resolution camera for taking a good photograph and sent that to me which I emailed Alf. That is how a Bengali artist’s sketch ended up on a work published abroad and in India. Bose removed the sketch from subsequent editions of “Swapna” possibly because he fell out with Freud around 1931. Dr Bose had sent Freud an icon of Vishnu seated on Ananta which Freud kept on his desk. This features as the cover of Hiltebeitel’s “Freud’s India”.

Hiltebeitel’s new work follows up on his “Freud’s India” where he explored personal experiences following his father’s death and his divorce that recalled Freud’s life. The cover of the book has an interesting story. Hiltebeitel had emailed me for help having failed to trace this sketch drawn from a portrait of Freud by a Bengali artist, Jatindra Kumar Sen commissioned by Dr. Girindrashekhar Bose, founder of the Indian Psychoanalytic Society, from a portrait Freud had sent him in 1926. Bose used it as the cover of the first edition of his Bengali work, “Swapna” (1928). With some difficulty Smt. Sunita Arora of the National Library (who had been put on the job by its Director, my young colleague Shri Raghavendra Singh IAS) traced it to a very fragile copy, repaired their high-resolution camera and sent me a photograph which I emailed Hiltebeitel. Bose had sent Freud an icon of Vishnu seated on the serpent Ananta, which Freud kept on his desk. This features as the cover of Hiltebeitel’s book, “Freud’s India”. Bose removed the sketch of Freud from subsequent editions of “Swapna” possibly because he fell out with Freud around 1931. Freud had referred to Bose in 1922 as an extraordinary professor who had founded a local psychoanalytic group in Calcutta.

The book immediately stimulates interest by its intriguing title since Freud never mentions the Mahabharata (MB). Dipping into it we find that it is in three parts of which the middle portion consists of chapters 2 through 5. Chapters one and six are the first and third parts. Beginning with Freud’s essay, “Das Unheimliche” (The Uncanny, as translated by James Strachey), Hiltebeitel links the MB by arguing that its dominant flavor (“rasa”) is the uncanny, as Sheldon Pollock translates “adbhuta”, and not the heroic (“vira”). He interprets the story of the five Indras immured in a cave as a pre-Oedipal intra-uterine fantasy of being buried alive, which Freud called “the most uncanny thing of all”. Hiltebeitel misses out Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying take on this in “Tomb of Ligeia”.

In an elaborate examination of the myth of Aravan/Iravat/Kuttantavar, Hiltebeitel links his overhearing in the womb about Krishna’s wish to kill him and then emerging feet first to kick Krishna into the ocean with Freud’s theory about the return to the womb in sleep. Hiltebeitel sees in this ocean a reflection of “the oceanic feeling” that Romain Rolland wrote to Freud about, troubling him no end. There are analogous stories about Ahiravana in the Bengali Ramayana of Krittibas and Vivek in the Bengali Mahabharata of Kavi Sanjay which would have added grist to Hiltebeitel’s mill.

Influenced by Freud’s “Moses and Monotheism”, Hiltebeitel theorizes that the MB’s core myth of the divine plan to unburden the Earth reflects the trauma experienced by rural Vedic Brahmin communities of foreign invasions and the impact of “India’s second urbanization” after 500 BCE in the Gangetic plain, the first having been the Harappan civilization. This is the “urban unconscious” of Brahmanism, like Freud’s Judaism. Interestingly, the demons-on-earth (Jarasandha, Kamsa etc.) occupy the chief cities (Rajagriha, Mathura etc.). Hence, the extolling of forest-living gleaners.

It is surprising to find Hiltebeitel supporting the long discredited theory, revived by F. Wulff Alonso, of Indian epics drawing upon the Greek mythic corpus for their matter of the divine plan to relieve Earth’s burden. He does admit, however, that the MB’s myth is apocalyptic unlike the Homeric. This myth that is practically the frame story is repeated five times. First by Vaishampayana in his genealogical account, next twice by Vyasa narrating the five Indras myth and while consoling Dhritarashtra after the war, the fourth time by Narada during the rajasuya yajna and finally at the end by Vaishampayana.

Hiltebeitel finds a parallel to Freud’s “phylogenetic myth-making” with the MB’s combining myths of genealogy, cosmology, sacrifice and war in the ontogenesis of its divine plan. Freud’s assertion that the primal patriarch drove his sons out when they came of age, virtually castrating them, whereafter they could remain in the horde as harmless labourers (a stage corresponding to dementia praecox), is paralleled in the MB’s myth of Yayati disinheriting and banishing all but one of his sons. Hiltebeitel even suggests that at 23 volumes Freud’s work is larger than the MB, both texts looking to forge a new consciousness of a civilization, both heterogenous in relating myth to narrative, stylistically varied , dialogical, propounding a heroic persona with a prominent role for women.

Hiltebeitel juxtaposes the MB’s three tales about dead mothers (Madri, the Nishada woman, the corpse supposedly of their 180 year old mother strung up on a tree by the Pandavas) with Freud’s three texts dealing with the dead mother complex. Kunti is seen in the role of a dead mother to Yudhishthira, staying aloof from him and finally abandoning her sons, just as Gandhari never looks upon her children and finds Duryodhana rejecting her in open court. Hiltebeitel posits that it is Satyavati or even her fishy mother Adrika (Acchoda in the Harivamsha) to whom the Pandavas refer, as the corpse of their 180 year old “mother”, its stink being linked to her fishy birth. The dead mothers stack up over five generations (5 x 36 years per generation = 180) beginning with Satyavati (from the Yamuna) and Ganga, ending with Draupadi’s ultimate sonlessness. Satyavati is known by her fishy odour inherited by Vyasa. She is dark like the river Yamuna across which she plies a ferry, as contrasted with the pellucid celestial river, the Ganga. That she is originally called “Kali” is very significant. In iconography, Vishnu’s two wives are the Earth goddess and Shri-Lakshmi, both of whom are at the core of the MB’s divine plan.

Hiltebeitel devotes considerable space to examining how Freud’s interests are paralleled by the knowledge about Indian goddesses of Dr. Girindrashekhar Bose (who sent Freud an icon of Vishnu and had his portrait sketched which forms the cover of this book). Differing from Freud, Bose said that in India the wish for castration occurs early in childhood when, identifying with the mother, he wishes to be female. Dread of castration comes later in the Oedipal identification with the father. Hiltebeitel posits that Kali fits the profile of Bose’s “Oedipus mother”. Issues of castration come up in the cult of Aravan/Kuttantavar who sacrifices himself to Kali before the MB war.

Bose theorized that the wish to be hit always accompanies a wish to hit. In “Freud’s India” Hiltebeitel had wondered whether this wish to be struck characterizes snakes. Aravan’s mother is the female serpent Ulupi. Snakes who “infest the MB”, argues Hiltebeitel, largely represent not tribals but the unconscious, “basic raw wishes, hostilities, or desires” of the unconscious. Analysing three versions of the Aravan/Iravat/Kuttantavar tale, Hiltebeitel finally admits that his self-sacrifice before the war (“kalappali”) cannot be said to involve a wish to be struck. However, this Tamil cult, much celebrated by Hijras, has evidence of a link between the castration wish and a desire to be female that Bose posited as occurring in the pre-Oedipal stage. In this phase the “Oedipus mother” has a powerful role, as seen in Aravan’s multiple mother figures (Ulupi, Draupadi, Kali). Hiltebeitel concludes that Bose’s theory explains these Indian cults which Freud’s does not.

Examining Freud’s work on Moses and on Jokes, Hiltebeitel links the discussion to the tales of gleaners in MB, claiming that the epic was the composition of “a committee of ‘out of sorts Brahmins’” (hence the extolling of gleaners) in the 2nd century BCE in Kurukshetra. Vyasa’s stink and disagreeable appearance makes him “the consummate out-of-sorts Brahmin.” This period of second urbanization (600-300 BCE) saw the rise of towns vis-à-vis forest life. Gleaners in the Naimisheya grove near Kurukshetra complete a twelve-year yajna during which, because of the numerous rishis, the tirthas got urbanized (“tirthani nagarayante”). Hiltebeitel imagines them traumatized by foreign invasions (hence the prominence of the north-west in MB) and the challenge of heterodox movements backed by royal patronage (Chandragupta and Jainism, Bimbisara and Ajivikas, Ashoka and Buddhism). He argues that they “projected features of current second-or first-century urban architecture back into” the Vedic world whose memories lay in their subconscious. They developed the Rig Veda’s ten mandalas (16th to 11th century BCE) into the ritualistic three other Vedas (11th to 9th century BCE) and then their branches (8th to 3rd century BCE) climaxing in the encyclopaedic MB in the fourth stage in the 2nd century BCE. The references in MB to Greeks, Chinese and Shakas, but not the Pahlavas or Kushanas, indicates a completion of composition before the end of the pre-Common Era, by the late Shunga or Kanva times. Support is found in the MB’s reference to the land being dotted with “edukas” (Buddhist mounds of relics). In the Book of the Forest, one Shaunaka discourses to the Pandavas on the Buddhist eight-fold path; a butcher speaks the Jain version of ahimsa and in the Shanti Parva Bali lays out the Jain doctrine of six “leshyas” (colours) of matter.

Seeking to find correspondences in MB with Freud’s theory about jokes, Hiltebeitel makes a laboured argument that Vyasa’s levirate episode with Ambika and Ambalika contains an innuendo: the two “mahishis” (chief queens/female buffaloes) unite with the smelly, unkempt Vyasa in the role of the horse of the ashvamedha rite. In the “Narayaniya” narrative Vyasa reveals that he is born of Harimedhas, the essence of the Horse-headed avatar. The year-long vow Vyasa wanted them to observe parallels the horse-sacrifice’s prescription of abstinence for a year. By rejecting this, Satyavati renders the queens impure for the rite. Hiltebeitel hazards a bad joke of his own: “Vyasa’s shaggy-dog story has turned out to be a shaggy-horse or a talking-horse story.”

A very rewarding read is Hiltebeitel’s analysis of the narrative structure of the “Narayaniya” identifying how the dialogue level shifts thrice from the inner frame (Janamejaya querying Vaishampayana, within which Vyasa speaks to the former too across six generations) to the outermost (Vyasa discoursing to his five pupils) through the outer frame (Rishi Shaunaka querying Ugrashravas Sauti) via the intermediate dialogues (Yudhishthira querying Bhishma). Ultimately, Hiltebeitel sees the MB as “the recovered memory” of a Vedic past replete with “partially unconscious and forgotten meanings about that past”. —Pradip Bhattacharya

Breaking the All-India Railway Strike 1974

By

1. It was 1974. Mihir Kumar Das, an officer of the West Bengal Civil Service (Executive) cadre, was posted in Chandernagore sub-divisional headquarters of Hooghly District in West Bengal, as one of three Deputy Magistrates on duty. He had spent about one and a half years in the Subdivision. He used to perform Treasury work in the first half and Court work as Executive Magistrate in the second half of the day. He was also assigned magisterial duty in law and order problems either at Telenipara or at Champdani as and when required. These were communally the most sensitive places of the Subdivision.

2. Chandernagore was then otherwise a very beautiful place to live in. It had been a French colony and was culturally rich with a heritage background. It was additionally attractive for its excellent riverside strand. The Subdivision consisted of three rural blocks viz., Singur, Haripal and Tarakeswar and two municipalities viz., Champdani, Bhadreswar and the Chandernagore Corporation.

3. In May 1974, the All India Railway Men’s Union called for an indefinite strike of the Indian Railways all over the country under the leadership of George Fernandes, later a Central Minister. The strike started from 7th May.  Pradip Bhattacharya, an Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1971 batch, was the Subdivisional Officer (SDO) since mid-1973, aged 26. He deputed Das for law and order duty at Kamarkundu Railway Station (RS) on the Tarakeswar-Sheoraphuli line. Kamarkundu was a very important business hub.

4. It was Bhattacharya’s first subdivision. He strongly believed in teamwork, successfully rehabilitating about thirty thousand evacuees from Malda to Rajshahi in Bangla Desh in 1972. On account of the prevailing severe crisis in cement, Petroleum Oil and lubricants (POL), baby food, rations and electricity, and the strike in numerous jute mills, work had to continue well after office hours. The SDO made it a point to arrange for refreshments in the late evenings for sharing with his officers so that their energy level did not flag and the massive workload could be handled. When his officers had to camp out­side headquarters for law and order duty, as during Muharram etc., he would drive out to them with magazines and food to maintain their morale.

5. Das reached Kamarkundu RS by the office jeep early in the morning of 7 May 1974. An Inspector of Police had also reached by then along with a group of other police personnel and was holding a temporary camp office in a tent. There was a Rest Room meant for railway officials at Kamarkundu RS and Das put up there.

6. None of the railway employees attended to their duties but many of them were standing outside the station watching the situation. Das asked them to come in and join their duties but it was of no use. There were constant announcements over the microphone outside, urging the employees to make the strike a success. But Das had something else in his mind. From the very beginning, his mission was to run the train services at least be­tween Sheoraphuli and Tarakeswar, which is a major pilgrimage centre with a Shiva temple. Moreover, Tarakeswar is the terminal station of this railway line and the farthest point of the Subdivision. The region was very rich in agriculture and the produce was sold in different parts of the state. Indefinite strike would result in heavy economic loss.

 The first day was uneventful.

7. From 8.5.1974, the second day of strike, Das began do­ing ground work. He tried to convince the employees to join their duties and assured them of their security. At the same time he contacted the concerned officers of the Divisional Superintend­ent’s Office, Howrah Railway Division (DS Office) asking for their help and services in resuming a shuttle train service between Sheoraphuli and Tarakeswar during the strike.

8. The groundwork started yielding results from 9th May. The Station Master and one or two sweepers joined duty on that day. More were in the queue. Overhead electrical wires had been either removed or damaged. Das re­quested the DS Office, Howrah, to repair and restore the overhead electric wires and to repair the rakes lying at Tarakeswar RS by sending technical staff through a dummy train. The police officer camping at Kamarkundu RS was requested to arrange patrolling in the residential area of the railway employees, the road between the residential complex and the Railway Station and the Bazaar area where the staff willing to join duty were expected to go.

9. On 10th May, in response to Das’s suggestions, DS Howrah sent a train with extra staff to Tarakeswar. They took one of the three rakes lying at Tarakeswar RS for using them in shuttle service. It was noticed that miscreants had cut the motor cables. Therefore, the rakes had to be sent to the workshop for repair. Overhead electric wires were replaced and/or repaired and electric connection restored. Some passengers were put into the dummy train that ran on that day as a signal to both the striking employees and the regular commuters. It helped a lot to boost confidence among the public.

10. In response to Das’s request on 10 May, telephone con­nections between Howrah Control and Tarakeswar and Kamarkundu RS were restored. Electricity in Tarakeswar RS was also restored.

11. There was no arrangement of tea, breakfast, lunch or dinner where Das was put up. The SDO used to send his lunch from Chandernagore everyday. When he came to meet Das to review the latest situation on 10th May, he him­self carried his lunch to Kamarkundu. Das had left behind his aged mother, wife and a three year old son at Chandernagore while proceeding to Kamarkundu.  There was no male member to look after them in his absence. The SDO regu­larly looked after Das’ family in his absence. Unlike now, the telecommunication system was then very poor. Das could not keep direct contact with his family. The SDO regularly kept him informed about his family members.

12. On reaching Tarakeswar RS on 11th May, at 8.15 a.m. Das found the Station Master and the Commercial Transportation Inspector (CTI) deputed from Bandel to provide phone connection with Howrah Control and electricity at Tarakeswar RS. By then, a group of technical personnel viz. Permanent Way Inspector (PWI), Signal Inspector (SI), Traction Driving Inspector (TDI) etc. had reached Tarakeswar RS with a patrol-special. Two rakes were found sta­bled on the first railway track on Tarakeswar. Das requested the PWI, Signal Inspector and the TDI to spike the other subsidiary lines and keep open only one line i.e. the 3rd line so that a shuttle service between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli could be run. They informed him that the rake was in operative condition and could run as shuttle up to Howrah.

13. Through interaction with them, Das learnt that the TDI was initially a Motorman. At his earnest request, the TDI hesitatingly agreed to drive the train but requested him to take the approval of the Divisional Operating Superintendent (DOST), Howrah. The DOST Howrah immediately approved of the scheme and desired to talk to the TDI who in turn told him that the rake was not in a condition to move to Howrah and that the Magistrate (Das) was unnecessarily forcing him to drive the defective rakes. He further stated that being a Senior TDI he could not drive a rake without getting clearance from the TXR (Train Examiner). When the discussions between the DOST and TDI were over, Das again talked to DOST and informed him that the TDI had earlier certified that the rake was all right for moving to Howrah and that he was willing to drive it.

14.  After the conversation, Das asked the TDI why he made such a contrary statement to the DOST. In reply he stated that he could not run a rake based on the orders of a Magistrate and what he required was a permission from the Chief Op­erating Superintendent (COST), the superior of DOST. He also denied that he had agreed to drive the rake if he got the permission from the DOST. As no force been applied on him, he was asked to explain why he used the words ‘unnecessary force’ while talking to the DOST. He then begged apology. Das made it clear to him that what­ever he was doing was in the exclusive interest of the public at large and that if a shuttle service could be run between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli great public confidence could be earned. He found the TDI most unwilling. Das could not understand if his request to run the rake had hurt the ego of the TDI. Perhaps, he felt that he was no more a Motorman to run a train as he was holding a higher post.

15. So, Das started thinking about some other alternative. He asked the PWI and the driver on the Steam Engine carrying the Patrol-Special if the Steam Engine could carry the rake making it a ‘Special’ to run up to Sheoraphuli. Both of them thought it to be a good idea and assured him of taking necessary action in the matter. PWI, SI and the Driver concerned arranged every­thing and the rake was ready for movement. Das decided to start the train immediately. It was about 10.30 a.m.

16. Meanwhile, most of the railway employees posted at Tarakeswar RS assembled and expressed their willingness to join their duties. It was learnt that all of them had reported sick and remained absent since 3rd May. Das first talked to everyone to ascertain their willingness to work. He also made it clear to them that there was no pressure on them from the Civil Administration to join under duress. All of them expressed their firm willingness to join. They joined their duties willingly.

17. In the course of this Das had announced that a ‘special’ train would leave for Sheoraphuli shortly and requested passengers to board. There was a good response from the public. The rake, which had been declared unfit by the TDI over phone to the DOST, left Tarakeswar Station at 11.10 a.m. as the first Special drawn by the steam engine of the Patrol-Special carrying a good number of passengers. Before the train left, Das sent a message through the Emergency Control of the railways to D.S., Howrah with a copy to SDO, Chandernagore, District Magistrate, Hooghly etc. which is reproduced below:

FROM: DAS, DY. MAGISTRATE, CHANDERNAGORE, CAMP TARAKESWAR.

TO: DIVISIONAL SUPERINTENDENT, HOWRAH.

                TO MEET PUBLIC DEMAND ONE RAKE WITH PASSENGERS BE­ING MOVED UP TO SHEORAPHULI WITH THE HELP OF STEAM EN­GINE OF PATROL SPECIAL WITH LIMITED STOP AT HARIPAL, NALIKUL, KAMARKUNDU, SINGUR AND DIARA (.) THE SAID RAKE MAY RUN AS SHUTTLE BETWEEN TARAKESWAR AND SHEORAPHULI AT LEAST 4  TIMES A DAY ON UP AND DOWN LINE EACH (.) THIS IS REQUIRED FOR EARNING PUBLIC CONFIDENCE (.) TWO ASMS THREE TCS TWO BOOKING CLERKS ALL SWEEPERS, PORTERS, SHUNTERMAN, BOX-PORTER, ONE GATEMAN AND ONE CABIN-MAN REMAINING ON SICK LEAVE AND AVAILABLE HERE ARE ALLOWED TO JOIN THEIR DUTIES PEND­ING FURNISHING FIT CERTIFICATE FROM AMO, KAMARKUNDU WHEN AVAIIABLE (.) EXPECTED MORE PERSONS TO JOIN (.) THEY WILL ALSO BE ALLOWED TO JOIN (.) D.S. WILL KINDLY APPROVE OF THE AR­RANGEMENT (.) MESSAGE ENDS (.)”

18.  Enormous popular support was received when the first ‘Special’ was started. Das got the station cleaned up by the sweepers after they joined. At 11.45 a.m. the Engineer-in-Chicf (EIC) ar­rived with his team at Tarakeswar RS in response to the radio­gram message to D.S. Howrah sent on 10.5.74. Another rake was then run on 3rd line, which was also spiked by the PWI’s men for making the said line operative for running one shuttle only. The EIC, Mr. Banerjee approved of Das’s action. He then engaged his men to get the rake examined and certified. Mr. Banerjee informed Das at about 12.05 hours that the rake was ready for movement. He also acknowledged that 80% of the work had al­ready been done by Das. He was surprised and most delighted to learn that most of the railway employees had joined their duties sportingly. He then desired to start the rake at 12.20 hours but Das proposed to start it at 12.30. Thereafter he contacted the Station Master, Tarakeswar RS and the local PS and requested them to make a public announcement that a train would leave as ‘Special’ between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli at 12.30 hours. At this, many passengers, including pilgrims, boarded the train which ultimately left with an escort at 12.45 p.m. The vendors’ compart­ment was full of vegetables. The local people rejoiced.

19. Das requested the EIC to ensure that the rake would henceforth serve as shuttle between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli till the strike was over or any better arrangement was made. He assured it by issuing an order to the Sheoraphuli RS.

20. Das instructed the Officer-in-Charge (O/C), Tarakeswar PS in the Inspection Register maintained in the PS to guard the Railway Station and the rake that would be lying at night in Tarakeswar RS, to patrol the Railway colony and the railway Running Room in order to boost the morale of the employees who joined duties that day. He also asked the O/C to make the Railway employees feel that they were not insecure.

21. Das arranged a lunch for the Engineer-in-Chief and his Assistant Engineer Mr. Pillai. They left at 14.00 hours. The EIC remarked that he never dreamt of leaving Tarakeswar before 16.00 hours and thanked him.

22. On his way back to Kamarkundu Command Post, Das found Haripal and Nalikul RS abandoned. All the Railway Quar­ters were found under lock and key. He thought that he would try the next day if he could find out some willing employees to work in those stations.

23. He came back to Kamarkundu at 16.00 hours and sent an R.T. message to SDO Chandennagore informing him of the running of two shuttle services between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli with an available EMU Rake being drawn by the Steam Engine of a Patrol Van, one at 11.00 a.m. and the other at 12.45 p.m. leaving Tarakeswar. He informed about the necessary arrange­ment made to run regular shuttle services between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli with the available rake.

24. The District Magistrate (DM) Hooghly with the Superintendent of Police (SP) visited Kamarkundu RS at about 16.45 hrs. Das narrated everything to the DM as to how the shuttle services could be run. The DM praised his action and was very happy. In fact at that time a shuttle was moving towards Tarakeswar. The DM saw the train in motion and the result of Das’ action.

25. As per the arrangement made by the DM, Das’ duty finished at 14.00 hours but he could leave Kamarkundu RS only at 18.00 hours for Chandernagore. Then he reported the whole mat­ter in detail to the delighted SDO Chandernagore.

26. Das’ five day stay at Kamarkundu ended in success. His attempt to run at least shuttle services between Tarakeswar and Sheoraphuli succeeded. He had been sent to Kamarkundu RS simply on law and order duty. Neither the SDO nor the DM had asked him to try for keeping the train service in the Tarakeswar line operative. There was great risk in doing so. His life would have been endangered by the extremists amongst the strikers—but that did not happen. Das felt that his conscience prompted him to do so and saved him too. On the recommenda­tion of the SDO, the Home (General Administration) Department of the State Gov­ernment sent him a ‘Letter of Appreciation’ in recognition of the services rendered.

27. When he had left for Kamarkundu RS, Das had thought that it would be a job of one or two days, but it actually went on for five days. He felt that he would not have completed his mission successfully but for the support of his SDO.

Annexure: 1

The Railway Strike

Abbreviations and special terms used in the Railways :-

1. R.S.                         :Railway Station

2. D.S. Office             :Divisional Superintendent’s office, Railways

                                                – Now-a-days Divisional Railway Manager was called

                                                Divisional Superintendent Railways during the period    

                                                under report.

3. P.W.I                       : Permanent Way Inspector

-His function is to examine the railway-track, find out defects / faults, if any, to repair the same and also to undertake regular maintenance. While examining the track he uses the Trolley being drawn by men i.e. Trolleymen       

4. CTI                          : Commercial Transportation Inspector

                                                -Looks after transportation of goods through Railways

5. S.I.                          : Signal Inspector

                                              – Looks after signaling system

6. T.D.I                       : Traction During Inspector

               -Superior officer of the Motorman (the Driver of the EMU train is 

                called Motorman)

7. DOST                      : Divisional Operating Superintendent

                                        – The first officer of a Railway Division Controlling the 

                                           operating work of the Division

8. COST                      : Chief Operating Superintendent

                                       – Operating head of the Zonal Railways i.e. Eastern Railways,  

                                         Central Railways etc.

9 TXR                         : Train Examiner

                                       – Before a train is put into run, a train is thoroughly examined.

10. EIC                       :  Engineer in-Chief

                                          -Chief of the Engineering Wing of a Railway Division

11. Spike                     : To arrange the Railway track for movement of a train by

                                       shifting the track. It is operated from the cabin.

12. Patrol – special      : A train that carries technical staff for examining the

                                      Railway track to ensure that those are in good working 

                                      order.

‘“This is not Heaven,” said Yudhishthira. He reviled the gods and dharma.’

By

Wendy Doniger: After the War—The Last Books of the Mahabharata. Speaking Tiger, 2022, pp. 221. Rs. 499/-

Doniger’s “After the War” immediately brings to mind Mahashweta Devi’s three brilliant short stories entitled “After Kurukshetra,” a unique imagining of the post-war scenario that, strangely, does not feature in Doniger’s bibliography. Doniger’s latest work is an exciting prospect for Mahabharata aficionados. English translations of these short closing “parvas” of the Mahabharata are limited to the turgid Victorian prose of K.M. Ganguly and M.N. Dutt of the Vulgate and Bibek Deb Roy’s pedestrian version of the Critical Edition which drops many passages. The far superior rendering, and the only one in verse and in prose faithfully following the Vulgate text, of Padma Shri Professor P. Lal is surprisingly, is missing from Doniger’s bibliography as well. The succinct and insightful prefaces of Prof. Lal to each volume are not to be missed. While Doniger’s is a prose translation, the language flows and her style is most engaging.

This book is practically her lecture-notes to the last class she taught at the University of Chicago to second year Sanskrit students translating Books 15-18: the Ashramavasika (Forest Life), Mausala (Clubs), Mahaprasthana (Great Departure) and Svargarohana (Ascent to Heaven) Parvas drawing upon the commentator Nilakantha whose edition is the Vulgate and adding passages from various manuscripts as she wishes, possibly to make the narrative more complete. She omits the 6th and final chapter of the last book which details the benefits of listening to the Mahabharata and how it is to be recited and heard, specifically including the Harivamsha. So this is Doniger’s Wikipedia-text of the last four books, not adopting the Critical Edition which she considers “misguided” and as leaving “the patient in a critical condition…Like Frankenstein’s monster…”  Her omission of the frame story in every case deprives us of the interaction between Janamejaya the audience and Vaishampayana the narrator as well as the outermost frame where Ugrashravas Sauti recites the epic in the Naimisha forest.  It is Sauti who brings the narration to a full circle stating that when Vaishampayana’s recital ended so did the snake-holocaust and Janamejaya returned from Taxila to Hastinapura. Repeating from the opening chapter (Anukramanika), Sauti calls it “Jaya-Victory,” explains why it is called Mahabharata (it narrates the great birth of the Bharatas and is highly profound), that it outweighs the four Vedas and the 18 Puranas and took Vyasa three years to compose. He repeats the claim: “Whatever there is here—about dharma, politics, pleasure and liberation—you can also find elsewhere; but what is not here is nowhere.”

A very illuminating and provocative Introduction running to 60 pages teases out implications of the narrative that we generally overlook. Appendices provide cross-references to the Critical Edition, explain Sanskrit adjectives qualifying characters, list the names of major and minor players, provide a summary of the earlier books and a valuable bibliography. However, there is no index. The cover of this Indian edition of her book is somewhat pedestrian compared to that of the Oxford University Press edition which is a full-colour reproduction of a medieval illustration of Yudhishthira’s vision of hell.

Doniger sees the book split into three parts, each beginning with the arrival of Narada. Therefore, she chooses to begin with chapter 26 (chapter 20 of the Vulgate) in Book 15, omitting the Pandavas’ futile arguments to dissuade their old, grief-stricken uncle who insists on retiring from royal life to live out his last days in the forest and his lengthy advice to Yudhishthira on good governance. Left out also is Bhima’s unremitting assault on Dhritarashtra’s sentiments by repeated loud mentions in his hearing of killing all his sons. When Dhritarashtra needs wealth for the shraddha of the slain, Bhima refuses to part with any. Then Yudhishthira and Arjuna who share their personal riches. Dhritarashtra donates gold, gems, slaves, sheep, goats, cows, blankets, villages, fields, horses, elephants and lovely virgins in the names of Bhishma, Drona, Somadatta, Bahlika, all his sons and Jayadratha:-

                        All the four castes,

            one after another, were gratified

                        with abundant food and drink.

Vestures and wealth and jewels

                        were its billows,

            the mridanga-drumbeats

                        its maha-reverberations,

            cows and elephants its makara-creatures

                        various gems its whirlpools,

            Villages and gifted lands

                        were its islands,

            diamonds and gold

                        were its rippling waves,–

            such was the plenitude

                        of the cornucopious Dhritarashtra-ocean. 14.12-14 (P. Lal).

Vyasa sees poetic justice here, comparing the departure of the aged royal couple to that of the exiled Pandavas. The Pandavas’ shock when their mother decides to accompany Dhritarashtra and Gandhi to the forest and the reason Kunti gives for her decision are part of this omitted portion revealing the emotional backlash suffered by the victors. Her directive to Yudhishthira to respect Sahadeva, to remember Karna always by donating generously in his honour and always to please Draupadi is also omitted. Having enjoyed the kingdom with her husband, Kunti does not desire that of her sons. This remarkable heroine never desired anything for herself—a true parallel to her nephew Krishna. Sanjaya and Vidura accompany the three.

Dhritarashtra is instructed in the way of forest-life by the royal rishi Shatayupa, former king of Kekaya, at Kurukshetra. Gandhari, Kunti and he, wearing bark-cloth and deerskin, mortify their bodies, attended by Vidura and Sanjaya. Narada visits them and assures him and Gandhari of going to the world of gandharvas and rakshasas after three years, of Kunti joining Pandu who is with Indra, of Vidura entering Yudhishthira’s body and Sanjaya attaining Svarga. Narada mentions one king Shailalaya as the grandfather of Bhagiratha. However, it is Asamanjasa who is the grandfather in the puranic lineage.

All joy is driven from the lives of the Pandavas, Draupadi and Subhadra, their sole consolation being Parikshit. They are unable to carry out royal duties, immersed in grief for their mother, uncle and aunt. Finally, importuned by Sahadeva and Draupadi, Yudhishthira decides to visit them in the Kurukshetra ashram of Shatayupa. Leaving Yuyutsut and the priest Dhaumya in the city, the Pandavas wait outside their capital for five days for citizens to join. Kripa leads the army, crossing the Yamuna to reach Kurukshetra. The meeting of Sahadeva and Kunti brims over with pathos. Yudhishthira runs after Vidura into the dense forest. Vidura is skeletal, naked, filthy, matted-haired, pebbles in his mouth, starving himself to death like a Digambara Jain. By yogic power Vidura joins his self to Yudhishthira’s, as a father does to his son, and dies standing against a tree, proceeding to the Santanika world. There is no mention of Vidura merging into Dharma. A skyey voice prohibits his cremation as he was a world-renouncing “yati”.

Book 15 begins with three questions put to Vaishampayana by Janamejaya: how did his victorious forefathers treat vanquished, forlorn Dhritarashtra; how did Gandhari behave; how long did his ancestors rule. Yudhishthira never objected to the old king pardoning condemned people, going on pleasure trips, spared no expense and ordered his brothers to ensure that the son-less monarch never felt desolate. The Pandavas (except Bhima) were apprehensive that Dhritarashtra might die of despair. The Pandava ladies, Kunti, Draupadi, Subhadra, Ulupi, Chitrangada along with the daughters of Shishupala and Jarasandha, attended on Gandhari. After bearing 15 years of Bhima’s boasting about how he killed the Dhartarashtras, the old king and queen take to eating on alternate days and then twice a week, sleeping on a grass mat on the ground (of which, strangely, Yudhishthira was ignorant). Vyasa urges Yudhishthira to accept their decision. Dhritarashtra discourses to Yudhishthira over three chapters on how to govern. The material is drawn, quite appropriately, from Bhishma’s lectures on raja-dharma lying on his bed-of-arrows, to Yudhishthira. When Dhritarashtra bids farewell to the citizens, they declare how well they had been governed by him and by Duryodhana.

At the request of the ashramites, Sanjaya describes the appearance of the Pandava men and women (Chapter 32; 25 Vulgate), a very rare glimpse indeed. Yudhishthira is golden, lion-like, long-nosed, eyes large and copper-bright. Bhima’s complexion is like molten gold; he is broad-shouldered, massive-armed, wolf-waisted. Ajuna is dark-skinned with leonine shoulders and eyes like lotus leaves. Nakula and Sahadeva are innocuous—simply good looking. Draupadi is middle-aged, dark as a blue-lotus, lotus-eyed. Krishna’s sister (Subhadra) has golden skin shining like the moon. Ulupi’s complexion is like pure gold while Chitrangada’s is like the madhuka blossom. Blue lotus-like in colour is Bhima’s unnamed chief wife (Balandhara), sister of Krishna’s inveterate foe who is left nameless (Shishupala or the Kashi king?). Sahadeva’s wife is the champak-complexioned daughter of Jarasandha. Nakula’s wife with large lotus-leaf eyes has blue lotus-like complexion. With skin like molten gold is Virata’s daughter (Uttara), her son in her lap. Yudhishthira’s wife Devika of Shaibya, mother of Yaudheya, is not mentioned and remains just a name in the Mahabharata.

Vyasa’s appearance in this ashram is a narrative tour-de-force. At Janamejaya’s snake-holocaust at Taxila, it is at his request and on Vyasa’s bidding that Vaishampayana narrates the Mahabharata in which its author himself appears as an actor at critical junctures. Here Vyasa makes some crucial observations regarding the births of Vidura and Yudhishthira. Doniger’s mistranslates “Ordered by Brahma” as “through the Levirate arrangement with a Brahmin,” he fathered Vidura. Vyasa conclusively states that Vidura procreated Yudhishthira “by the power of his yoga,” that “Dharma is Vidura / and Vidura is Pandava Yudhishthira,” and that again “by the power of his maha-yoga” Vidura has entered Yudhishthira’s body.

At this point the narrative re-starts (chapter 36; 29 in the Vulgate) and Doniger inserts a passage from one manuscript to begin that tale afresh with Yudhishthira arriving in the forest-ashram with his entourage. The frame-story passage she omits provides the rationale for this re-telling in questions Janamejaya puts to Vaishampayana about what they subsisted upon and for how long. He is then informed that the Pandavas stayed for a month in that forest-ashram living on varied food and drink. This time several Gandharvas are mentioned by name as being present. Why is Doniger baffled (in a footnote) by the presence of such celestials when celestial sages are also present? After all, celestial beings and humans rub shoulders throughout the epic.

Gandhari begs Vyasa to grant peace of mind to them all. Kunti confesses to him about Karna’s birth, adding that she gave in to Surya only when he threatened to consume both her and Durvasa, as she wished to protect the sage. In earlier accounts she is virtually raped by Surya. Vyasa absolves her of guilt making this astonishing statement, made earlier by Bhishma to Draupadi when she was molested in the assembly:-

“Everything is within bounds for those who have brute power; everything is pure for those who have power. Everything is dharma for those who have power; everything of those who have power is their own.”—Doniger 15.38.23

“The path of the powerful

            is always right.

Everything connected with the powerful

            is pure.

Everything the powerful do,

            is dharma.

Everything there is,

            belongs to the powerful.” 15.30.24—P. Lal

In other words, might is right.

Vyasa then informs them of the celestial origins of the protagonists. Doniger gratuitously makes Pandu Indra, which is nowhere in the text. An unexplained, intriguing feature is that the god Surya is Karna on earth, yet he is aligned with rakshasa-Duhshasana, Kali-Duryodhana and Dvapara-Shakuni. Conversely, rakshasa-Shikhandin is on the Pandava side with Agni-Dhrishtadyumna. It is clearly not clean-cut black and white, good and bad. Shades of grey prevail. Both celestial bodies, Surya and Soma, split themselves in half, one part staying in the sky, the other becoming Karna and Abhimanyu respectively.

Now occurs a stunning miracle. Vyasa causes all the dead to appear before the assembly out of the river Bhagirathi, a scene similar to Odysseus seeing the dead appear in Book 11 across a trench full of sheep-blood:

“What a tumultuous clamour

sprang from the waters!

It resembled, O Janamejaya,

the combined uproar

of the battling armies

of the Kauravas and Pandavas.” (P. Lal)

“Then the sound of a great commotion arose from within the waters, like the sound when the two armies of the Kurus and Pandavas met in the past.” (Doniger)

The point is that there was,

“No more bitterness,

no more ahamkara-ego,

no more hatred,

no more jealousy.” (P. Lal)

“They were free from enmity and free from egoism, and they had lost their rage and their vengeful pride.” (Doniger)

This is repeated a few slokas later. As he had done with Sanjaya for the war, Vyasa grants Gandhari and Dhritarashtra divine sight to enjoy the sight. Reconciliation takes place and all spend the night in amity, as if in Svarga. Then they vanish in a trice in the waters of the Bhagirathi.

At this juncture an event occurs that is unique in literature. As Hiltebeitel has pointed out, no author has ever become a character in his own work, killing off his own characters. Here Vyasa urges widows who wish to join their husbands to commit suicide in the river. Believing him, they all do so. The chapter (41; 33 Vulgate) concludes with a recital of the benefits accruing to the listener, which always ends a book. Doniger feels that this is where the second part of this “parva” originally ended. She does not translate the subsequent two chapters in which Janamejaya questions how the bodiless can be seen in the same bodies and then obtains a vision of his father Parikshit. In this narration, twice it is Sauti who narrates, thus reminding us of the original setting of the epic’s recital. Delighted, Parikshit tells Astika (thus the narrative recalls how the snake holocaust began in the first book) that his grief is gone. Astika tells him that the snakes who perished, save Takshaka, have attained the state of his father.

Despite the epiphany, Yudhishthira’s depression persists and he tells Kunti:-

            “Hollow is this earth now,

devoid of delight.

            Kinsmen dead, strength sapped.” (P. Lal)

“This whole earth is empty and gives me no pleasure…Our relatives have been decimated and our power is not what it used to be.” (Doniger)

Sahadeva too (Yudhishthira says Kunti loved him the most) pleads to be allowed to remain. Once again it is Kunti who persuades him and the others to leave as their staying back will hinder her ascesis. Her’s is the role unexceptionable.

Two years later Narada arrives with news of their mother, uncle and aunt being consumed in a random fire as they were wandering in the forest at Haridwar, with no fixed habitation. Kunti, who had burnt a Nishada woman and her five sons alive in the house-of-lac, meets with poetic justice, as does Dhritarashtra who had consented to its construction to consume the Pandavas. Like Vidura, Dhritrashtra starved, pebbles in his mouth. Their tragic death occurs eighteen years after the War (the epic has 18 books; the war lasts 18 days; the Gita has 18 chapters; Krishna dies 18 x 2 = 36 years after the war). Why the sons and daughters-in-law maintained no surveillance, with their fervid protestations of devotion, remains a puzzle. Sanjaya escapes and departs for the Himalayas. What mystifies Yudhishthira most is why they should have been consumed in an unconsecrated fire, not a holocaust, specially when Arjuna had granted Agni a favour long back. Narada offers consolation by spinning a yarn about this forest-fire having arisen from Dhritarashtra’s own sacrificial fire. People are sent to perform rituals with the bones of the dead at Haridwar, while the Pandavas and Yuyutsut do the same at the Ganga outside Hastinapura. Yudhishthira somehow continues to rule, bereft of pleasure. Strangely enough, in their misery they do not turn to Krishna as they always used to.

Years pass. Again, it is the 18th year (36 years after the war as Gandhari had cursed) that sees ominous portents and Yudhishthira receives news of Krishna’s death and how his people slaughtered one another. There is a problem with translating “vimukta” here as applied to Krishna and Balarama. “Freed” or “escaped” cannot be correct, as Ganguly, Dutt and Lal have rendered it. Doniger correctly translates as “finally freed”, i.e. “dead”. Again we wonder why the Pandavas were not in touch with their beloved “sakha” and mentor and the growing social disorder in Dvaraka. Doniger glosses Jambavati as “the daughter of a monkey chief” (fn. p. 116) whereas she was the bear-chief Jambavan’s daughter. She translates Krishna’s killer Jara as “Old Age” although he was his step-brother born to Vasudeva’s fourth wife and was brought up by the Nishadas. By order of the raja (Doniger’s naming him Ahuka is wrong, for he was never king of Dvaraka) the iron club Samba delivers is pulverized and flung into the sea. Prohibition for the first time is imposed on pain of impalement of the brewer and his family, which still prevails in Gujarat. The society begins to degenerate in morals. A lunar eclipse occurs duplicating the Kurukshetra War. Krishna makes a puzzling reference to what Yudhishthira had said on that occasion. Doniger fills in the gap from a manuscript, viz. the best course is to donate, offer oblations to pacify and act righteously. Wishing to fulfil Gandhari’s curse, Krishna orders a pilgrimage to Prabhasa on the seaside. Instead, the citizens pack food and drink for a picnic. The Sudarshana discus and the standards of Balarama and Krishna disappear into the sky. Krishna’s chariot is taken by the four steeds to the sea. At Prabhasa the first to depart is Uddhava who divines the impending carnage.

Once again it is an instance of cherchez la femme. As Draupadi was the immediate cause of the great war, here it is Satyabhama in tears hugging Krishna, reminded by Satyaki of Kritavarma’s role in her father’s murder, infuriating him. To avenge her, Satyaki beheads Kritavarma, setting off a mad frenzy of killing. It is Krishna who, furious at Pradyumna and Satyaki being killed, seizes a handful of reeds that transmute into adamantine clubs and lays about him indiscriminately. Then seeing his other sons and grandson Aniruddha killed, he uses his mace, bow and discus to kill everyone except Daruka his charioteer and Babhru. Balarama does not engage, as he had not at Kurukshetra. Daruka is despatched to summon Arjuna and Krishna rushes to his father in Dvaraka asking him to protect the women. Then he returns to join Balarama only to find him merging with the ocean as the serpent Shesha. Krishna withdraws into yoga and, fulfilling Durvasa’s prophecy of only the soles of his feet being vulnerable, is shot by his step-brother Jara precisely there, as Achilles was by Paris. Doniger is mistaken in her footnote (p.130) that Krishna is the only avatar of Vishnu who dies. Rama dies too as is mentioned twice in the Mahabharata in the account of sixteen great rajas who died and also in the Ramayana. Unnecessarily Doniger inserts at the end of chapter 5 a long passage occurring only in a couple of manuscripts incongruously having four-armed Vani (Speech) asking Krishna to join her in Bhanu the sun where gods cannot enter.

According to the Bhagavata Purana (III.3.15), Krishna realised the earth’s burden persisted even after the great war because of the massive Yadava forces guarded by Pradyumna. None but they could destroy themselves in drunken frenzy. Hence, he organised what follows. In this version Krishna does not engage but rests under a tree. The Jain Bhagavati Sutra (7.9) describes two battles in Mahavira’s time (6th century BCE?) involving King Kuniya/Ajatashatru. One is “the battle of thorns like great stones” in which the touch of thorns was like blows of great stones. The other was “the battle of chariot and club”, Kuniya’s automated chariot with club that killed. The manic violence is as in the Vrishni massacre. The time of composition of the Mausala Parva might be the same.

Krishna refers to Arjuna as “Vibhatsu” which Doniger translates as “the Disdainful” whereas it connotes both “dreadful-deed-doer,” (P. Lal) and “not acting dreadfully”. Vasudeva tells Arjuna about Krishna foretelling that immediately following Arjuna’s departure for Indraprastha Dvaraka will be submerged. Arjuna announces that the Pandavas have realised it is time to move on. Vasudeva’s four wives join his corpse on the pyre. Although Arjuna locates the bodies of Balarama and Krishna, strangely enough there is no account of what he saw. After seven days he leaves the city with all Krishna’s widows, other women, children, youths and the aged in carriages led by Krishna’s great-grandson Vajra. Here Doniger unaccountably introduces a speech by the sea that is found in just one manuscript declaring that it will protect the city with all the people’s treasures for the next avatar in the Krita Yuga.

Now we face a shock. In Punjab invincible Arjuna, unable to summon his special weapons, strings the Gandiva with great difficulty and fails to prevent staff-wielding Abhira dacoits from looting the wealth and abducting the women.

            “His divine weapons nullified,

                        his physical strength sapped,

            his bow refusing to nock,

                        his inexhaustible quiver empty…

            O raja, in frustration he said:

                        ‘All is uncertain. Nothing lasts.’” –P. Lal

“The loss of his magical weapons and the waning of the manly power of his arms and the uselessness of his bow and the exhaustion of his arrows broke the heart of Kunti’s son Arjuna…said, ‘This no longer exists.’” –Doniger

Arjuna settles the surviving old men, women and children in Indraprastha with Vajra as ruler; Kritavarma’s son in Martikavat with the women and others of the Bhojas and Satyaki’s son on the banks of the river Sarasvati with old men, women and children. It is not Babhru’s widows as Doniger translates but Akrura’s who retire to the forest. Nor is Rukmini of Gandhara, rather it is Shaibya of Gandhara who, along with Haimavati and Jambavati, enter the funeral pyre. Satyabhama and other women of Krishna enter the forest for ascesis (in the village of Kalapa beyond the Himalayas, as Doniger adds from three manuscripts).

Arjuna approaches Vyasa and reports of five hundred thousand Yadavas perishing and his own humiliating defeat. Vyasa consoles him that Krishna has lightened earth’s burden and that Arjuna has accomplished his divine mission with the help of Bhima and the twins. It is significant that he does not include Yudhishthira here. The time has come for them to leave for the final destination. The inexorable end is at hand.

            “The root of all

                        is Cosmic time Kala.

            Cosmic time Kala

                        is the seed

            of the universe.

                        Kala is the giver,

            and Kala is the taker.

                        That which is strong

            is that which becomes weak.

                        He who rules

            becomes he who is ruled.” –P. Lal

“All of this has Time as its root. time is the seed of the universe. And it is Time that once again draws things together into annihilation, spontaneously. Someone who becomes powerful once again becomes powerless; someone who becomes a ruler here once again is commanded by others.” –Doniger

The Book of the Great Departure is profoundly ironic. Abdicating, the Pandavas leave the kingdom in the hands of their nemesis Dhritarashtra’s sole surviving son Yuyutsu, born of a Vaishya maid as regent, installing Parikshit as raja in Hastinapura with Kripa as guru. Note that Parikshit is 36 years of age at this point and should need no regent. Yudhishthira warns Subhadra not to consider taking over Indraprastha where Vajra rules, but to protect him. As once before, the six leave dressed in bark-cloth, followed by a dog. Ulupi enters the Ganges, Chitrangada returns to Manipura. Arjuna cannot let go of his bow and quivers, although they have failed him. When they reach the surging red sea (Lauhitya-Brahmaputra?) Agni appears in human form and takes back the weapons which belong to Varuna. From the east they go south till the salty sea, then turn west to Dvaraka, and thence northwards, thus circumambulating the earth. Doniger needlessly adds passages from a solitary manuscript elongating the journey. Approaching Meru, starting with Draupadi, one by one each collapses. Bhima alone is shocked and enquires—not any of the others. Yudhishthira cites reasons for their fall. His jealousy of Draupadi’s fondness for Arjuna is blatantly exposed. Never once does he look back at his fallen wife and brothers. Vaishampayana for the only time refers to himself in the first person, saying that he has often mentioned the dog following Yudhishthira. When Indra invites him to board the chariot, Yudhishthira begs that his brothers and lovely Draupadi accompany him. Indra assures that having discarded their bodies they are already in Svarga, but he will enter there with his body.

Yudhishthira now refuses to go without the faithful dog despite Indra’s repeated urging that dogs are prohibited in heaven. He explains that he left the others only after their death, but cannot desert a faithful living companion. The dog assumes his true form as the god Dharma and blesses Yudhishthira to reach Svarga in his physical body, which, however, does not happen. Yudhishthira has to give up his physical form by bathing in the heavenly river and only then is he escorted to Svarga by the divine fathers of the Pandavas—Dharma, Indra, Maruts and the Ashvins.

We recall that it all began with the bitch Sarama cursing Janamejaya’s yajna in Book 1. Curiously, Indra is associated with a dog elsewhere. In the Ashvamedha Parva he appears as a Chandala with dogs before Uttanka. Again, In the Anushasana Parva, chapter 93, Indra appears to the primordial Seven Rishis disguised as a wandering mendicant named Sunahsakha accompanied by a dog and saves them from a demoness. Doniger has not commented on this peculiar feature.

Reaching Svarga, Yudhishthira is furious at finding Duryodhana gloriously ensconced and no sign of his brothers and Draupadi and allies there, insists on joining them wherever they might be. He waxes eloquent about his guilt over Karna, whose feet always reminded him of Kunti’s. “This is not Svarga in my view,” he says.

“I want to go there where my brothers have gone and where big, dark Draupadi has gone, a woman of intelligence, goodness and virtue, the best of women, the woman I love.” –Doniger

“I want to be

            where my brothers are.

I want to be where Draupadi is—

            the lovely ample-bodied lady,

the dark-blue-cloud-complexioned lady,

            the sattva-guna-endowed lady,

the lady who is youthful.

            Take me to my Draupadi.” –P. Lal  

Yudhishthira is then ushered into horrendous hell where he finds them. Enraged, he reviles the gods and dharma, insisting on remaining there, rejecting Svarga once again. In this condemnation of dharma he is echoing his elder sibling Karna who, when his chariot-wheel got stuck, censured dharma repeatedly for not protecting its devotee. This is a stunning reversal of the entire ethic he has represented and defended stubbornly against all odds throughout, which readers mostly overlook. Vyasa rectifies the balance immediately as Dharma re-appears and the horrors vanish. Truly, as Milton’s Satan proclaimed,

“The mind is its own place and in itself

 Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”

This is Dharma’s third test (the first was Dharma as a crane during the forest-exile) and expiation of the lie Yudhishthira told to trick Drona. Now he has to give up his physical body in the skyey Ganga, abandoning which his vengeful pride also disappears. Entering Svarga, he sees Draupadi and is about to question her when Indra stops him. There are no questions in heaven. Each hero merges into a divinity, except Shikhandi who is not mentioned, while Pradyumna, who was supposed to be Kama reborn, here enters Sanatkumara. Krishna’s 16000 wives commit suicide in the Sarasvati and become apsaras staying with him. But here Kunti and Madri are not given any celestial origin (in the Adi Parva they are Siddhi-Success and Kriti-Action, while Gandhari is Dhriti-Constancy). They simply accompany Pandu to Indra’s realm.

But the narration has a stinging shock at the end—the Bharata Savitri. Sauti says that having taught his composition to his son Shuka, Vyasa exclaimed,

“I myself cry out with my arms up, but no one hears me. From dharma comes politics and also pleasure; why is it not practised?”—Doniger

“I raise my arms and I shout

            but no one listens.

From Dharma comes Artha and Kama—

            why is Dharma not practised?” –P. Lal

Is anyone listening? Or is it a host of phantom listeners?