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Pradip Bhattacharya

Indologist, Mahabharata scholar

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

STORIES, ESSAYS & POSTS

He holds him with his glittering eye

September 6, 2024 By admin

RETURN OF THE RHAPSODE

Pradip Bhattacharya*

3rd November 2010 was a sad day for Mahabharata aficionados. That night saw the passing of Padma Shri Professor Purushottam Lal, 81, poet, publisher, teacher and transcreator of Vyasa’s greatest creation. Just a fortnight later his brother-in-law and classmate, Professor N. Viswanathan—thespian (stage and film), teacher, debater par excellance—also passed away. Both spent a lifetime teaching English in St.Xavier’s College, Calcutta. Those interested in the different facets of P. Lal’s personality will find much in the 70th birthday festschrift volume, Be vocal in times of beauty (Writers Workshop). Here let us share his contribution to Vyasa.

The attempts at translating in full the longest epic in the world began with H. Fauche’s French translation in 1863. He died in 1870 after finishing the 10th book (Karna Parva). L. Ballin took this forward till Book 12, when he too died. A new French translation by Guy Vincent and Gilles Schaufelbergerhas seen so far four volumes arranged thematically, not chronologically. The Russian translation started in 1941 by V. Kalyanov has completed 12 of the 18 books. In the USA, J.A.B. van Buitenen of Chicago University based his translation on the critical edition and died after finishing the first five books. A team of seven scholars is tackling the remaining parvas. The other American project of the Clay Sanskrit Library to translate the vulgate with Neelakantha’s commentary in diglot format has run out of sponsors after publishing eight parvas and parts of the rest in 15 volumes.

We have to revert to the 19th century for an almost complete English translation by Kisari Mohan Ganguli published by P.C. Roy (1883-1896). Another effort was undertaken a decade later by the Rector of Serampore College, M.N. Dutt (1895-1905). Both either omit or Latinise passages “for obvious reasons” in the Victorian ambience. In 1968 Professor P. Lal took up the first verse-by-verse transcreation of Vyasa’s monumental composition, revising it comprehensively in 2005. He had planned to finish it in 20 years, but 16 of the 18 books and half of the Shanti Parva have been published, leaving the Mokshadharma and Anushasana Parvas to be completed. In addition a Mahabharata-Katha series was published with introductions bringing out the significance of key episodes (eight have come out so far). Ganguli had P.C. Ray to sponsor him. Lal transcreated and published single-handed—a unique achivement. His is the only English version of Vyasa that shifts sensitively from verse to prose and vice-versa, following the complete vulgate text shloka-by-shloka.

No one, however, dreamt of recreating the epic as an oral-aural experience. Yet, that is what the Mahabharata is. The itinerant rhapsode Ugrashrava Sauti, son of the suta Lomaharshana (whose recitation horripilated the audience with a hair-raising experience), recites it to the hermits participating in sage Shaunaka’s great sacrificial ritual in the forest of Naimisha. Sauti reproduces what he had heard Vaishampayana recite to King Janamejaya in the presence of the composer during the intervals of the Naga-holocaust. It was in October 1999, near the turn of the millennium, that Padma Shri Prof. P.Lal, D.Litt., Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow, began to read his transcreation to a live audience. A twenty-first century Sauti had arrived in the Sanskriti Sagar library. Dictated to Ganesha, taught to Vaishampayana who recited it to King Janamejaya, that oral and aural experience was sought to be conveyed to an English-knowing audience, keeping the Indian flavour intact. Ratikanta Basu, CEO of TARA TV, realizing the signal contribution this was making in turning the world’s largest epic into a live experience, began to telecast the reading in segments. On the Writers Workshop completing fifty years of publication, the Governor of West Bengal, Shri Gopal Krishna Gandhi, released in early 2009 the first instalment of ten DVDs of the telecasts with the text in a companion volume in a gorgeously produced presentation box. Aficionados of Vyasa will be grateful to Tara TV.

Those who have read the professor’s earlier editions (beginning with monthly fascicules in 1968), or his riveting valedictory address to the Sahitya Akademi’s national seminar on the epic in 1987, will be mistaken if they give this recording a miss. The introductory talk is a completely new and brilliant overview of the key issues in the Mahabharata, unique as much for its insights as for its style. The Professor is, after all, at his best delivering a lecture. It is spiced with inimitable touches of punning sarcasm (“This is the mother of all epics; in fact, the grandmother of all epics”; “The battle of Kurukshetra—call it genocide, parricide, gurucide, suicide—whatever; such brotherly butchery!” Or, “The fathering of Yudhishthira by Vidura is one of the best kept open secrets”).

Prof. Lal begins with a question: “When, how why did a mini-Bharata, a katha of 20,000 shlokas (sic.  the figure is 24000) become a Mahabharata a kavya of more than one lakh shlokas?” Sauti tells us that it took three years for Vyasa, composing daily, to complete his kavya (1.62.55, 66). Perhaps the most famous shloka of the epic, the most quoted, says Prof. Lal, is the one that says, “What is in this epic on Dharma, Artha, Kama, Moksha may be elsewhere. What is not in this epic is nowhere else” (1.62.67). Is Vyasa, then, suggesting that the kavya has an answer to every problem in life, provide a cure-all for ills of world, a universal panacea? Strangely enough, that is what he is claiming. All scriptures and shastras were weighed against it and the Mahabharata tipped the scale, “heavier than all those other respected heavies. And as it was heavier, had more “bhaara” it was known as Bhaarata. The perfect panacea.” But there is another meaning of the word that Prof. Lal overlooks: “war” (cf. Bhasa’s Karnabhaara). Emperor Akbar knew this. That is why, when he commissioned the Persian adaptation in 1582, he named it Razm Nama, the Book of War.

“What, in medical jargon, is the Rx?” queries the Professor. This is what worries Arjuna on Kurukshetra, having the deepest conscientious objection to war. Krishna gives him options: various yogas, the bloody end of the Dvapara Yuga, the extinction of the Kshatriyas. Krishna will not fight for him—that is his business. “You decide what is right for you. You are free to choose—yatha icchasi tatha kuru”, he says. Arjuna responds, “You are confusing me with bewildering choices—this isn’t fair. Tell me that one truth by which I may know you.” The point, Prof. Lal asks, is there a one truth, a single magic formula, presented by Vyasa in this epic tale?

Perhaps because of the multiple layers of meaning Vyasa insisted that his stenographer, lekhaka, Ganesha understand each word before taking it down. “For what is the point of listening without understanding and assimilating? The language enshrines ideas and values; the style is only the tool. What matters is the meaning.” Take the four purusharthas, for instance, the fourfold goal of human life. What is Vyasa recommending: should we chase after money or the meaning of money (Artha); lust or love (Kama) and at the root of both is sex and you cannot do without sex; ritual or spirituality (Dharma); run away from life or transcend it (Moksha)? For Prof. Lal, Vyasa’s one message is: transform yourself— do not deny, do not denounce, do not blame. Transform money into the meaning of money; lust into love; ritual into spiritual; escape into liberation. But, as Krishna-Narayana (divinity in humanity), tells Arjuna-Nara (humanity in divinity), “You are free to choose.” Our problem is: why does pacifist Arjuna turn militarist? Why does Yudhishthira not refuse to lie? Why does Bhima hit below the belt? Why does Arjuna kill Bhishma and Karna unfairly? Why does Nara take the ignoble way to victory, which, each time, is suggested by Narayana? Questions that tease us out of thought into eternity.

So many characters; such a bewildering Cecil B. DeMilleian cast! Who is the hero to focus our attention upon? The benediction gives some hints— though not very satisfactory.

narayanam namaskritya, naramchaiva narottamam /

devim sarasvatim chaiva tato jaya udirayet //

“We namaskara Narayana, Nara and Narottama

We namaskara goddess Sarasvati and utter “jaya”, “victory”.

Prof. Lal chooses a different version occurring in the Bhagavata Purana where “Sarasvatim chaiva” is replaced by “Sarasvatim Vyasam”, a modification added by the Suta reciting the received epic, praising the composer who, by then, is seen as a part-avatara of Vishnu. Jaimini, one of the disciples to whom Vyasa taught the epic, also uses this benediction in his version of the Ashvamedha Parva, understandably paying tribute to his guru.

The clue, Prof. Lal says, lies right before us, as in the best detective stories, and we fail to see it. He points to the first word in the opening invocation, “Narayana”, who is Krishna, the crux of the Mahabharata, without whom it is Shakespeare’s Hamlet without the prince of Denmark. It is all about “wonder-working war” in which Krishna, the omniscient hero, is present but will not fight. Nara will get no direct physical help. Narayana knows the best route to travel, but will not take us until we, Nara, tell him where we want him to take us.

“He is the conscience that clarifies the confusion. If we still remain confused that is our problem, our karma, our tragedy, our hell. You can’t blame Krishna. It is Gandiva wielding Arjuna’s decision to fight even after he is convinced that killing gurus, relatives, friends is a heinous crime.”

The startling fact is that he is given a vishvarupa darshana of Krishna’s divinity on the battlefield, yet not one of the 18 akshauhinis of soldiers sees or hears a word of the dialogue. Only Arjuna sees and hears. “It is a private struggle between his good and anti-good gunas, an inspiring conflict of conscience.” Why does he decide to fight and choose war despite Krishna’s warning that it will lead to their clans’ extinction? Krishna is the omniscient hero who advises Yudhishthira how to get Drona to lay down arms. Yudhishthira could have refused to tell the half lie. Why did he not? Bhima cannot defeat Duryodhana in fair fight unless he follows Krishna’s hint to hit below the belt. Why does he take that hint? Unarmed Karna and Bhishma are slain by Arjuna also on his advice. Why does Nara take the expedient, selfish way and reject the noble?

Yet, we find that the first Arabic summary of the epic by Abu-Saleh in 1026 AD is astonishingly innocent of this overwhelming presence. Is Krishna’s role in the war a later interpolation?

After the war Vidura, having tried to console Dhritarashtra with the story of the man in the well (that travelled to Europe to become the biblical “Barlaam and Josaphat”), teaches Yudhishthira a lesson when he wishes to commit suicide after the war finding a devastated kingdom, all kith and kin dead, by suggesting that he first find out what is common to river, tree, earth and woman. Yudhishthira turns back from suicide because he finds this out: slice a river and it flows on, fertilising the land; cut a branch and new shoots sprout; pollute the land and it produces food; exploit a woman and she gives progeny and ensures the continuity of civilization—all without casting blame or taking revenge. Physical suffering is transformed into fruitful creativity. Yudhishthira will blame no one, neither himself nor Krishna, but rule nobly, creatively.

 “Learn! Vyasa urges. Learn from my life how to live as human beings should. For if you don’t, calamity awaits you and all around you. Utthishtha, stand up, wake up, learn and… charaiveti, keep moving. No regrets, no blame, no accusation; only transformation of pain and suffering into creativity and progress. That is the lesson of the Mahabharata.”

Yet, at the very end, in verses renowned as the “Bharata Savitri” why does Vyasa exclaim

urdhvabahur viraumyeṣa naca kashchich chhriṇoti me /

dharmad arthash ca kamash ca sa kimarthaṁ na sevyate //

“I raise my arms and I shout

but no one listens!

From Dharma come wealth and pleasure—

why is Dharma not practised?”

Prof. Lal provides a brief background before beginning the recitation. He gives the time of the war roughly at 3000 BC, the exact year being a matter of dispute. It is a pyrrhic victory. The kingdom is handed over to Parikshit, the grandson of Arjuna, but entrusted to Yuyutsu, Dhritarashtra’s youngest son by a Vaisya woman, to supervise. Indraprastha with its wondrous hall of illusions is left to the Yadava Vajra, Krishna’s great grandson. So who finally was the victor in this fratricidal holocaust? Duryodhana or Yudhishthira? In heaven Yudhishthira is shocked to find Duryodhana and his brothers ensconced on golden thrones, with no sign of his brothers and Draupadi! “This is not svarga!” he exclaims.

Parikshit rules for 60 yrs. His son Janamejaya organises a massive snake sacrifice to annihilate all snakes because one—Takshaka, a terrorist who plays a very important role in the entire Mahabharata—fatally bit his father. By this time a century has passed since the war ended. Janamejaya is very curious to know exactly what happened. He has heard conflicting reports about his ancestors; varying and worrying accounts about how, why and when the gruesome carnage began that ended the Dvapara Yuga, wiping out both armies.

“The entire epic is a flashback a century since the war. Janamejaya wants to know about his family tree, its roots, shoots and fruits—mula, sthula,and phula—whether sweet or bitter… The starting point of the greatest epic in the world is all about family roots, which one human being wants to know. For, how else can he know himself—for isn’t he the latest leaf on that tree?”

And so the narration by Vyasa’s disciple Vaishampayana during the intervals of the sacrificial ritual of “this story, which is also a history, an itihasa, (so it is, so it happened), the autobiography of one man (Vyasa himself), a record of one family (the Kaurava-Pandava cousins), a chronicle of one country Bharata that is India, and a symbolic universal drama of mankind slowly evolving through dissension and war to self-knowledge and peace— hopefully. It is fundamentally an aural epic spoken by Vyasa to his stenographer Ganesha who is pledged to understand every word before he takes it down.

Prof. Lal’s is the only English translation that sensitively shifts from verse to prose and vice-versa as the original demands, following the complete vulgate version shloka-by-shloka. As he does not leave out passages as the critical edition does, it is possibly the most complete edition of Vyasa’s composition that is available. However, it does not have many passages occurring in the southern and eastern recensions (such as Arjuna’s wooing of Subhadra disguised as a hermit, Draupadi’s previous births as Nalayani, Mudgalani, Vedavati, Abhimanyu’s marriage to Balarama’s daughter Surekha etc.). The discs cover the introduction (memorable for Dhritarashtra’s plangent lament tada nashamse vijayeya Sanjaya, “Then I no longer hoped for victory, Sanjaya”), the list of contents, the chapters on Paushya, Puloma, Astika (including the archetypal churning of the ocean, the wondrous story of Garuda and the snake sacrifice), the partial incarnations (including Vyasa’s birth and the war summarised), cutting off abruptly at verse 21 of section 66 of the Sambhava sub-parva recounting the descendants of Brahma’s sons.

The reading is uniformly mellifluous in Professor Lal’s impeccable Indo-Oxonian accent, interspersed with his recitation of significant Sanskrit shlokas from the original. The accompanying background music of temple bells and blowing of conches is delicately muted so that nothing interferes with the camera’s concentration on the rhapsode. One might feel that the unaltered sameness of the studio palls, but that is the price we pay in modern times for having replaced seating under verdant shadows of swaying branches with the unchanging décor of airconditioned recording studios. 

Do not look, however, for colophons, chapter headings, annotations, glossaries, list of contents—the rhapsode does not need them!

Let us thrill to the evocative verses describing Creation transcreated with biblical resonance:

“At first, there was no light,

no radiance, only darkness;

then was born the egg of Brahma,

exhaustless and mighty seed of life…

from which flow being and non-being.”

Savour the riveting descrip­tion of Meru, evoking profound archetypal memories:

“There is a mountain called Meru,

a flaming heap

of splendour.

Sunlight falls on it

and scatters

at the summit.

It is golden: it glitters:

It cannot be measured:…

Mind cannot

conceive of it.”

Delight in the lovely description of what happens when Garuda lets fall the massive bough on a mountain:

            They fell on the ground,

                        these gold-bright trees,

            They were coloured with the gold

                        of mountain minerals,

            They looked like the long rays

                        of the flaming sun.

*****


* International HRD Fellow (Manchester), Ph.D. on the Mahabharata; IIM Calcutta Governing Board member; editorial board member of Journal of Human Values (IIMC) and MANUSHI. Retired as Additional Chief Secretary, Chairman State Planning Board, Chairman Uttaranchal Unnayan Parshat, Govt. of West Bengal.

Filed Under: IN THE NEWS, STORIES, ESSAYS & POSTS Tagged With: Mahabharata

The Modern Sauti

September 5, 2024 By admin

P. Lal: The Mahabharata of Vyasa, Adi Parva-1, transcreated from Sanskrit, Tara TV, 10 DVDs + printed volume.

The 50th anniversary of Writers Workshop was celebrated in Kolkata in early 2009 with the Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi releasing the first instalment of Tara TV’s production of Padma Sri and Nehru Fellow Professor P. Lal’s recitation of his Mahabharata transcreation. These ten DVDs are unique. There are no other recordings of Vyasa’s monumental work in English, verse-by-verse. The packaging in a red box with the title embossed in gold in P. Lal’s signature calligraphy is a connoisseur’s delight. The discs carry an excellent photograph of the transcreator and are complemented by the printed text in a hardbound, gold-embossed edition.

Ratikanta Basu, P. Lal, Gopal Krishna Gandhi

The epic journey of the Lal transcreation began towards the end of 1968 taking the form of monthly fascicules. From 2005 he published extensively revised editions, each parva in a single volume. Now 16 ½ of the 18 parvas are in print, except for the Mokshadharma part of the Shanti and the Anushasana—the only modern English version to have gone that far.[i] Only K.M. Ganguli and M.N Dutt had complete prose translations in the late 1890s, but both omitted portions of the text. This is the only transcreation that incorporates what the Bhandarkar Critical Edition has omitted, and is also the only one to follow faithfully the original’s verse and prose formats (all others are only in prose). That is where Prof. Lal’s poetic genius lends a unique flavour to this version. Those who have read his monthly fascicules will be mistaken if they give this recording a miss. The spoken introduction is a new and brilliant overview of the key issues in the Mahabharata, unique as much for its insights as its style. The Professor is, after all, at his best delivering a lecture. It is spiced with inimitable touches of punning sarcasm (“The battle of Kurukshetra— call it genocide, parricide, gurucide, suicide— whatever; such brotherly butchery!” Or, “The fathering of Yudhishthira by Vidura is one of the best kept open secrets”). One turns to the accompanying volume to savour the rich feast of insights, only to find it missing.

Vyasa begins, Prof. Lal points out, with an amazingly pompous claim to have all the answers: “What is here may be elsewhere; what is not here is nowhere else.” All scriptures and shastras were weighed against it and Mahabharata tipped the scale, “heavier than all the respected heavies. As it had more “bhaara” it was known as Bhaarata.” But another meaning of the word the prince of transcreators overlooks is “war” (cf. Bhasa’s Karnabhara). Akbar knew this. When he commissioned the Persian adaptation in 1582, he named it Razm Nama, the Book of War.

Perhaps because of such multiple layers of meaning Vyasa insisted that Ganesha understand each word before writing it down. “For what is the point of listening without understanding and assimilating? The language enshrines ideas and values; the style is only the tool. What matters is the meaning.” Should we chase money or the meaning of money (artha); lust or love (kama); ritual or spirituality (dharma); escape from life or transcend it (moksha)? For Prof. Lal, Vyasa’s one message is: transform yourself—transform money into the meaning of money; lust into love; ritual into spiritual; escape into transcendence. But, as Krishna-Narayana (divinity in humanity), tells Arjuna-Nara (humanity in divinity), “You are free to choose.” Why does pacifist Arjuna turn militarist? Why does Yudhishthira not refuse to lie? Why does Bhima hit below the belt? Why does Arjuna kill Bhishma and Karna unfairly? Why does Nara take the ignoble way to victory?

The clue lies right in front, as in the best detective stories, and we fail to see it. Prof. Lal points to the first word in the opening invocation: “Narayana” who is Krishna, the crux of the Mahabharata, without whom it is Shakespeare’s Hamlet without the prince of Denmark. It is all about “wonder-working war” in which Krishna, the omniscient hero, is present but will not fight. Narayana knows the best route to travel, but will not drive until we, Nara, tell him where to take us. Yet, the first Arabic summary of the epic by Abu-Saleh in 1026 AD is astonishingly innocent of this presence. Is Krishna’s role in the war a later interpolation?

After the war Vidura, having tried to console Dhritarashtra with the story of the man in the well (that became the biblical “Barlaam and Josaphat”) teaches Yudhishthira a lesson when he wishes to commit suicide by suggesting that he first find out what is common to river, tree, earth and woman. Slice a river and it flows on, fertilising the land; cut a branch and new shoots sprout; plough the land and it produces food; exploit a woman and she gives progeny and ensures the continuity of civilization—all without blame or revenge. Physical suffering is transformed into fruitful creativity. “Learn! Vyasa urges. Learn from my life how to live as a human being should, otherwise calamity awaits you and all around you. Utthishtha, stand up, wake up, learn and charaiveti, keep moving. No regret, no blame, only transformation of pain and suffering into creativity and progress.” Yet, at the end why does Vyasa shout with arms uplifted, “From dharma come wealth and pleasure. Why, is dharma not practised?” Hastinapura is entrusted to Yuyutsu, begotten by Dhritarashtra on a maid, as the regent; Indraprastha is left to the Yadava Vajra, Krishna’s great grandson.

The entire epic is a flashback a century since the war. Janamejaya wants to know about his family tree, its roots, shoots and fruits, whether sweet or bitter. How else can he know himself—for he is the latest leaf on that tree. And so his ancestor Vyasa narrates his story which is also the history, itihasa, of a country, the chronicle of one family, a symbolic universal drama of mankind slowly evolving through dissension and war to self-knowledge and peace— hopefully.

Dictated to Ganesha and recited to Janamejaya, that oral and aural experience is sought to be conveyed to an English-knowing audience, keeping the Indian flavour intact. Aficionados of Vyasa will be grateful to Tara TV for this signal contribution. The advantage is that the ear catches what the eye has missed in print. In section 63, verse 102 the translation erroneously has Kunti emerging from a yajna-fire having misread” jajne” (“beget”; Surya and Kunti beget Karna) for “yajne” (“from yajna”). Prof. Lal’s is the only English version that sensitively shifts from verse to prose and vice-versa, following the complete “vulgate” shloka-by-shloka. The disks cover the introduction (memorable for Dhritarashtra’s plangent lament), the list of contents, the chapters on Paushya, Puloma, Astika (including the archetypal churning of the ocean, the wondrous story of Garuda and the snake sacrifice), the partial incarnations (including Vyasa’s birth and the war summarised). It cuts off abruptly at verse 21 of section 66 of the Sambhava parva. A bookmark would have been helpful to mark the page where a disk ends instead of having to hunt through the 264 pages every time. Do not look for colophons, chapter headings, annotations, glossaries, list of contents. The rhapsode does not need them.

We thrill to the evocative verses describing Creation transcreated with biblical resonance:

“At first, there was no light,

no radiance, only darkness;

then was born the egg of Brahma,

exhaustless and mighty seed of life…

from which flow being and non-being.”

Or savour the lovely descrip­tion of Meru, evoking profound archetypal memories within us:

“There is a mountain called Meru,

a flaming heap

of splendour.

Sunlight falls on it

and scatters

at the summit.

It is golden: it glitters:

It cannot be measured:…

Mind cannot

conceive of it.”

Pradip Bhattacharya, International HRD Fellow (Manchester), retired as Additional Chief Secretary, West Bengal. His PhD is on the Mahabharata.


[i] My translations of the Mokshadharma part of the Shanti Parva and the complete Anushasana Parva have been published by Writers Workshop.

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

FOUR PARABLES

May 4, 2024 By admin

The parable of the Kalpataru, the wish-fulfilling tree, narrated by Sri Ramakrishna.[1]

আয়ে মন বেড়াতে যাবি

কালী কল্পতরুতলে গিয়া

চারি ফল কুড়ায়ে খাবি—রামপ্রসাদ সেন

“Come my mind to go a-roaming.

Going to Kālī the Wish-Fulfilling-Tree

Pick up and eat four fruits.”—Ramaprasad Sen (mid-18th century, West Bengal)

The Spiritual Meaning of the Upside Down Tree

Into a room full of children at play walks the proverbial uncle, back from the city, who, of course, knows better. Laughing at their preoccupation with make-believe games, he asks them to lift up their eyes and go out to the massive banyan tree, which will grant them whatever they wish—the real stuff! The children do not believe him and remain busy with their toys. The uncle shrugs and leaves. And then they rush out, stand under the branches of this huge tree that cover the sky and ask for what all children crave: toys and sweets. In a flash they get what they want, but along with an unexpected bonus: the built-in opposite of what they wished for. With toys they get boredom; with sweets tummy-ache. Sure that something has gone wrong with their wishing, the children ask for bigger toys and sweeter sweets. The tree grants them their wishes and along with them bigger boredom and bigger tummy-ache. Time passes. They are now young men and women and their wishes change, for they know more. They ask for wealth, power, fame, sexual pleasure—and they get these, but also cupidity, insomnia, anxiety, and frustration/disease. Time passes. The wishers are now old and gather in three groups under the all-encompassing branches. The first group exclaims, “All this is an illusion!” Fools, they have learnt nothing. The second group says, “We are wiser and will wish better next time.” Greater fools, they have learnt less than nothing. The third group, disgusted with everything, decides to cop out and asks for death. They are the most foolish of all. The tree grants them their desire and, with it, its opposite: rebirth, under the same tree. For, where can one be born, or reborn, but within this cosmos!

All this while one child has been unable to move out of the room. Being lame, he was pushed down in the scramble and when he dragged himself to the window, he was transfixed watching his friends make their wishes, get them with their built-in opposites and suffer, yet compulsively continue to make more wishes. Riveted by this utterly engrossing lila of desire and its fruits, a profound swell of compassion welled up in the heart of this lame child, reaching out to his companions. In that process, he forgot to wish for anything for himself. In that moment of spontaneous compassion for others, he sliced through the roots of the cosmic tree with the sword of non-attachment, of nishkama karma. He is the liberated one, the mukta purusha.

In Anti-Memoirs Andre Malraux writes that in Varanasi an Indian suddenly came up to him and said, “Mr. Malraux Sahib, would you like to listen to a story?” Taken aback, Malraux muttered that he was going to an official meeting. “But this is a very good story,” was the insistent reply. Malraux, perforce, agreed and here is the story he heard:

Narada, the itinerant divine sage roaming the three worlds, sowing seeds of discord and inveterate experimenter, goes up to Vishnu and demands that Maya be explained to him. Vishnu is silent. Narada is not one to be denied. He insists so persistently that the god has to answer him. “Maya cannot be explained, it has to be experienced,” he says. “If you can’t explain what you create, then I won’t believe in you,” retorts the never-say-die sage. Quickly deserting his serpent couch—for the fate of gods in whom humans do not believe is shrouded in uncertainty–Vishnu beckons him to follow. Walking together, they reach a desert where Vishnu sits down under a tree and exclaims, “I am so tired, Narada! Take this lota and get me some water from that oasis. When you return I will explain Maya to you.” Eager to plumb the mystery, Narada speeds off to the oasis and finds a well there beside a hut. He calls out, and a lovely girl opens the door. Looking into her eyes, Narada is reminded of the compelling eyes of Vishnu. She invites him in and disappears indoors. Her parents come out and greet the guest, requesting him to rest and eat after his journey through the burning sands before he returns with the lota of water. Thinking of the lovely girl, Narada agrees. Night falls, and they urge him to leave in the cool morning. Awakening in the morning, Narada looks out and sees the girl bathing beside the well. He forgets about the lota of water. He stays on. The parents offer him their daughter’s hand in marriage. Narada accepts, and settles down here. Children arrive; the parents-in-law die; Narada inherits the property. 12 years go by. Suddenly the floods arrive–floods in the desert! —His house is washed away. His wife is swept away. Reaching out to clutch her, he loses hold of his children who disappear in the waters. Narada is submerged in the floods and loses consciousness. Narada awakens, his head pillowed in someone’s lap. Opening his eyes he gazes into the eyes of Vishnu, seated at the desert’s edge under that same tree, those eyes that remind him of his wife’s. “Narada,” asks Vishnu, “where is the lota of water?” Narada asked, “You mean, all that happened to me did not happen to me?” Vishnu smiled his enigmatic smile. [2]

The Drop of Honey

After the Kurukshetra holocaust, when the blind Dhritarashtra bewails the unjustified misery thrust upon him and turns to Vidura for consolation, this son of Vyasa and a maidservant narrates a gripping parable that provides yet another clue to understanding our existential situation[3]:

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.

This is the way the wise interpret the wheel of life; this is way they escape the chakra of life.

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 honey, 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; but inveterately, compulsively, perversely, strain every sinew to lick the honey.

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.[4]

If heeded, the doctrine of karma becomes a powerful instrument for building character, maintaining integrity and establishing a society that functions not on matsya nyaya [the big devouring the small] that celebrates individualism, but on dharma that upholds society and the world itself.

Determination & Free will

The whole point of comprehending this doctrine lies in perceiving that the much-vexed controversy over determination and free will is resolved if seen in perspective. Let us, once again, take recourse to a story to understand this complicated issue.[5]

Two friends, Shyam and Yadu, lived in a village. Shyam was an ambitious go-getter, and Yadu a happy-go-lucky, ne’er do well. Keen to know the future, they approached a hermit who lived apart in the forest. After much persuasion, he agreed to look into the future and tell them their fates. After a year, he said, Shyam would become a king, while Yadu would die. Returning to the village, the shocked Yadu turned to prayer and began leading an exemplary life. Shyam, immediately on reaching the village, started throwing his weight about, grabbing whatever he fancied from others, threatening anyone who dared to protest, vociferously announcing that soon he would be their king.

A year passed by. Shyam sought out his friend and asked him to help pick the site for his palace. As they walked along the river bank, Shyam stumbled over something and fell. Picking himself up, he found the mouth of a jar protruding from the sand. Digging it up, he found it full of golden coins. Hearing his shouts of celebration at finding such treasure, a robber ran up and tried to snatch the jar. Yadu rushed to Shyam’s help and clutched on desperately to the robber’s leg. Unable to tackle the joint resistance of both friends, the infuriated robber stabbed Yadu on his arm and ran off.

Days passed. Yadu did not die; Shyam found himself still no king. So, they went off to the forest and hunted out the hermit. Confronting him, they demanded an explanation for the failure of his prophecy. The hermit went into meditation and then explained: the conduct of each of them had altered what was fated. Yadu’s austerity and prayers had reduced the mortal blow into a stab injury. Shyam’s tyrannical conduct had reduced the king’s crown to a jar of gold coins.

Fate, therefore, is altered by the individual’s choice of the path. Those that have eyes can see; those that have ears can hear. To develop this intuitive sense one has to dive deep, beyond the superficial sensory perception to the manas and cultivate living in that peace within, that pearl beyond price.


[1] Pradip Bhattacharya: “Desire under the Kalpataru,” Jl. of South Asian Literature, XXVIII, 1 & 2, 1993, pp.315-35 & cf. P. Lal’s Introduction to Barbara Harrison’s Learning About India (1977).

[2] P.Lal: Valedictory Address in Mahabharata Revisited (Sahitya Akademi, 1990, p.291-302–papers presented at the international seminar on the Mahabharata organized by the Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi in February 1987).

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

[4] P. Lal: The Dhammapada, op.cit. p.157.

[5] Related by Prof. Manoj Das in an address at Sri Aurobindo Bhavan, Calcutta, in 2000

Filed Under: IN THE NEWS, STORIES, ESSAYS & POSTS Tagged With: Kalpataru, Mahabharata, Parables

SRI AUROBINDO’S FIVE DREAMS—SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER

August 13, 2022 By admin

15th August 2022 is the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo. On 15 August 1947 Sri Aurobindo had declared in a message to All India Radio, Thiruchirapalli, that he had five dreams in which free India would play a significant role. What can we make out regarding its status seventy-five years down the line?

  1. A revolutionary movement which would create a free and united India.

            As he had forecast, the communal divide that created the partition has now hardened further, raising walls within the country, and civil strife provoked by linguistic, caste and regional parochialism mar the fair face of Mother India. The language problem has been exacerbated by politicians into a formidable barrier. So much so that Indians from one region face increasing difficulties, as the years pass, to communicate with fellow-countrymen in other parts of India. The principle “for the children of the soil only” adopted by various states effectively ensures the growth of insularity and prevents the growth of familiarity with other cultures that makes for national unity. The north-east refuses to be integrated into a polity that it finds nothing in common with and a system of governance that has failed to carry it along on the path of development. Bihar, the centre of India’s greatest empires, has degenerated into a state notorious for mis-governance, leading the group of BIMARUH states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana)—an acronym coined by economist Ashis Bose) that drag the country back from progress. Bengal, once capital of India and torchbearer of the Indian renascence and the freedom movement, has declined steadily and steeply into intellectual mediocrity and moral decadence, quite decisively abandoning the spiritual. Perhaps its roots lie in the ancient myth of the hubris of Paundraka who proclaimed himself as the true Vasudeva and challenged Shri Krishna, only to be destroyed.

Sri Aurobindo had stated that the problem of the depressed classes would be solved “without schism or fissure”. Unfortunately, unscrupulous politicians with only short-term personal gains in view keep inflicting fresh wounds in the body politic, stoking the flames of linguistic and inter-caste animosity till the cauldron boils over. Moreover, as the N.N. Vohra Committee report submitted to Parliament on the Golden Jubilee of Independence stated bluntly, the perverse nexus among the politician, the criminal, the police, the executive and even the judiciary has imperilled the Indian polity, and corruption—intellectual and otherwise—has eaten into its very vitals. The highest court of the land once demanded an action-taken report on what the government had done about the recommendations made by Vohra, but strangely enough did not pursue the matter. Are the reasons self-evident? Resorting to shameless sophistry, governments unhesitatingly invest criminals with the formal authority of ministerial posts while renowned institutes of learning invite them to address their students. No statesmen remind leaders of Sri Aurobindo’s warning that the persistence of civil strife makes “even a new invasion and foreign conquest” possible. In the midst of the ever-darkening gloom, faith offers the only light. Fervently we pin all our hopes on Sri Aurobindo’s trenchant assertion, “the division must go; unity must and will be achieved…”

2.The resurgence and liberation of the peoples of Asia.

In the new millennium, it is a reality. The Far Eastern countries have overtaken the West in the twin fields of knowledge-engineering and money-making. The overwhelming success of tiny Japan’s business systems, now overtaken by China, has compelled the management savants of the West to study and teach the Zen and Confucian way to worldly success—in motorcycle maintenance, war or otherwise! Business concerns have compelled the USA to accord “most favoured nation” status to their sometime favourite whipping boy, the inscrutable mandarin. China itself has given a new content and form to Communism after the collapse of the Soviet block, while maintaining its totalitarianism and the unenviable world record for the largest number of executions of corrupt officials. At home, Capitalism is being vigorously pursued by both Union and State Governments.

3. A world union…multilateral citizenship, willed interchange or voluntary fusion of cultures.

After the United Nations, the European Union has shown the way and gone a step farther by introducing a common currency. Business concerns have led to the forging of regional country-blocs that will usher in a common citizenship and currency. Food, mankind’s first production of culture, is integrating widely disparate cultures through the phenomenon of fusion which is also reflected in humanity’s most sublime art-form: music. The Millennium Development Goals subscribed to by most member countries of the United Nations aim precisely at the “fairer, brighter and nobler life for all mankind” that Sri Aurobindo spoke of in his message. The problem is the absence of “that larger statesmanship which is not limited by the present facts and immediate possibilities but looks into the future and brings it nearer (which) may make all the difference between a slow and timid and a bold and swift development.” As a matter of fact, the word “statesman” itself appears to be as much a misnomer in India today as in most of the other countries. Otherwise we would not have to witness pogroms and the most horrific civil wars going on for years in the Middle-East, Africa, Myanmar and now in Ukraine with the powerful nations either looking the other way or doing nothing significant to put a stop to the supply of illegal arms to the combatants.

“And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.” –Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”.

Indeed, T.S. Eliot seems to have been so very right in wondering,

“Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”—T. S. Eliot, “The Rock”

As Sri Aurobindo put it so pithily, “only human imbecility and stupid selfishness can prevent it (the unification of nations).” Both, unfortunately, are in evidence in abundant measure. Quite uncannily, Vyasa’s description of Kali Yuga in the Harivamsha (chapter 116) fits the twenty-first century to a “T”: climate change, ponds ploughed over, drought, infertile soil, misrule, beggars proliferating, sexual depravity and education being sold.. The saving grace lies in Sri Aurobindo’s assurance, “but these cannot stand for ever against the necessity of Nature and the Divine Will.” Only, the ordinary human being, thrashing about frenziedly as he is sucked remorselessly into the depths of these Serbonian bogs, sobs aloud, “How long, O Lord, how long!”

4. The spiritual gift of India to the world.

The evidence of this is far too well known to need spelling out. The UN declaring 21st June as the International Day of Yoga is the most recent evidence. Even within the country the powerful resurgence of popular interest in the mantras of the Vedas and Upanishads and in the epics and puranas pervading the entire gamut of media and the sudden proliferation of yajnas holds forth hope that it will foster a deeper search for the spiritual truths lying behind the glitzy packaging and the fascination with ritual. There is, however, a new phenomenon that has emerged threatening to overshadow the pristine truth of India’s spirituality by a cloud of fundamentalist confusion, “red in tooth and claw”, hiding behind the transparent excuse of battling communalism. While in artha and kama, profit and pleasure, India appears to be soaring higher and higher in the spiralling gyre of development, it seems, indeed, to have lost touch with its spiritual roots. The falcon can no longer hear the falconer. In terms of dharma, things seem to be falling apart, the centre does not hold. When we look around for comfort in the fellowship of good men, what we experience instead is:

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.” —W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”.

5. A step in evolution which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness.

Indirect evidence of the advancement in evolution is scattered around the globe in the astonishing advancements in technology in all fields, shrinking the globe to a situation where one can indeed say “the earth is flat”, in a world-wide reaching out from the heart to succour the distressed, and in the remarkable intelligence right from infancy displayed by the children of the new millennium.

Filed Under: IN THE NEWS, STORIES, ESSAYS & POSTS Tagged With: dreams, Sri Aurobindo

WHY THE HARIVAMSHA?

July 3, 2022 By admin

Dvaraka c. 1585 from the Razmnama

In Parvasamgraha (I.2.378), the Mahabharata (MB)’s list of contents, Harivamsha (HV) is called its khila of 12000 slokas, consisting of two parts:-

“The Harivamsha and Bhavishya sections form the epilogue.

In the Harivamsha the maha-rishi composed twelve thousand slokas.”[1]

Young Ramayana aficionado Saikat Mandal has noticed that there is a similarity here with Valmiki’s mahakavya. The Tilaka commentary on the Ramayana writes about the final “kanda”, “Uttarakanda” annotating I.2.43:

“The Uttarakanda is its khila as Harivamsha is to Bhaarata”.

Khila does not mean “appendix” i.e. superfluous, hence discardable, as most Western scholars render it. Rather, it is a complement or supplement essential for realising the significance of the main work, as we shall see.

Although Razmnama, the Persian translation of MB commissioned by Akbar supposedly includes HV, this portion has never been studied to verify its contents vis-a-vis the Sanskrit original, which would have helped determine the state of the text in the 1590s. However, when Kaliprasanna Singha produced the first translation of MB in Bengali (1858-66), he omitted this supplement, commenting that its language was distinctly later. The first English translation by K.M. Ganguli (1883-96) also did not include it. V.S. Sukthankar did not propose to include HV in the Critical Edition (CE) of MB, but later it was edited by P.L. Vaidya and published by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) in 1969. The Chicago University MB translation project omits HV although the earliest known list of its parvas (the Spitzer manuscript c. 130-200 CE) includes the khilas. Since Ashvaghosha quotes some verses from the MB that are found only in HV, the text—at least the Harivamsha Parva—is dated to c. 1st century CE. Andre Couture in his Krishna in the Harivamsha (vol. 1)[2] places it in the Kushan era (1st to 3rd century CE).

Translations

A complete Malayalam translation in verse of HV was done by Kodungallur Kunhikkuttan Tampuran over a period of 3 years (1894-1897) and was published in 1906. Manmatha Nath Dutt was the first to translate HV into English prose (1897) which, unlike the vulgate in three books, contains two parts: Harivamsha Parva (incorporating Vishnu Parva) and Bhavishya Parva. This work, long out of print, contains many errors, such as locating Dvaraka “in the country of Kanyakubja or Kanouj” (chapter 35, fn.68). Only in 2008 was a sloka-by-sloka English translation by Dr. K.P.A. Menon IAS (Sanskritist and retired Defence Secretary of India) published by Nag Publications, New Delhi. It is not clear which text he used as there are numerous omissions and the CE is followed haphazardly. Editing and proofing are absent. It is riddled with gross typographical errors and textual hiatuses, the translator having passed away well before the publication. The Menon translation is unique for rhythmically rendering into English each half-verse of every sloka with the caesura in-between. One wishes this arrangement had been followed in other translations instead of resorting to pedestrian prose. Harindranath and Purushothaman’s translation of the vulgate is available online.[3]

Simon Brodbeck translated the CE of HV in 2019[4] in prose with a brief Introduction and an elaborate genealogical appendix which is extremely helpful in clarifying relationships. His lengthy paper on the details of the translation, which would have served as an excellent Introduction, has been published separately.[5] Occasionally, Brodbeck successfully attempts a rendering in free verse, e.g.  Section 30, verses 19-20 and 110.73:-

            Fever flew through the air decked in wonderful gold,

            but the lord of the world, in battle in bodily form,

            used the bracelet on his arm to crush him in the heat of battle

            and send him towards Yama’s domain.

While maintaining the division into three books, the CE is only a third the length of the vulgate (118 chapters containing 6073 slokas against 318 chapters and around 16,000 slokas). For instance, where the CE’s Bhavishya Parva is just 5 chapters, the vulgate runs to 135! Andre Couture,[6] A. Purushothaman and A. Harindranath[7] have strongly criticised the extensive excisions e.g. Jarasandha’s battle at Gomanta mountain with Krishna and Balarama, the elaborate account of the robbing of the Parijata tree, Pradyumna’s protracted battle with Shambara and his troops, how Dhanvantari came to propagate Ayurveda as king of Kashi in the second Dvapara Yuga and acquired godhood, which was denied him when he appeared at the churning of the ocean with the name Avja. It also omits the fascinating story of how Shiva by fraud got Raja Divodasa and his subjects to vacate Varanasi so that he and Parvati could live there away from the incessant bickering of his mother-in-law Mena. Later, Varanasi is said to have been depopulated by the rakshasa Kshemaka and re-established by Alarka by the grace of Lopamudra.

A very significant excision is Vishnu’s invocation of the goddess Arya Vindhyavasini although it occurs in all versions of the HV, except just three in Malayalam script, and is present in both the Sharada and Newari texts which Vaidya relies upon the most. This violates the very principles upon which the CE is based. The hymn is definitely pre-695 CE when it features in a Chinese translation of the Suvanabhassottama Sutra. This devi, under the names Nidra and Ekanamsha, plays a critical role in Krishna’s birth. Vishnu provides a lengthy description of the goddess of sleep to be born to Yashoda (47.39-45) and be named Kaushiki (her other name is Ekanamsha). She will be installed in the Vindhyas, decorated with peacock plumes, to destroy the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha, and be worshipped with pitchers of wine and flesh. Flying to the sky when smashed against a rock by Kamsa, like Durga she drinks and laughs loudly, foretelling that she will tear open his body and drink his blood. Kamsa’s verses in response (48.41) are memorable:

“It is Time that is people’s enemy; it is Time that rings the changes.

It is Time that carries away all. People like me are mere causal agents.”[8]

Vaidya, editor of the CE, finds the story of the Syamantaka gem peculiar and omits it. However, Andre Couture has shown that every element of it constitutes a carefully constructed narrative depicting the supreme sovereignty of Krishna. Indeed, he is the Yajna-Purusha, the lord of sacrifice (Agni and Soma), of the sun and the moon and through them of the two major royal lineages. It is as the Yajna-Purusha that he overcomes the three Vedic fires that confront him in the battle with Bana, an incident that makes no sense otherwise. Moreover, Yaska’s Nirukta refers to Syamantaka, proving its antiquity. Its appearance coincides with the founding of Dvaraka and it has a solar as well as an oceanic (i.e. lunar) origin. Krishna’s possession of it indicates his mastery of both these yajnic principles. Indeed, Janamejaya states that Vishnu contains both. Further, the Krishna-Jambavan duel inside a cave with Balarama posted outside is a clear parallel of the Vali-Mayavi duel with Sugriva standing guard in the Ramayana and should not be omitted.

Structure of the Text

HV begins with the rishi Shaunaka telling the wandering rhapsode Ugrasravas Sauti that he has forgotten to recount the history of the Vrishni and Andhaka clans. Despite Krishna being the key figure in MB, it is silent about his life before his first appearance in Draupadi’s bridegroom-choice ceremony and does not provide details about his lineage and family. Janamejaya, the befitting audience for narration of MB as the great grandson of Krishna’s sister Subhadra, justifiably asks Vaishampayana about his ancestral maternal uncle’s life and clan. At Janamejaya’s prompting, Vaishampayana also narrates the deeds of Krishna’s elder step-brother Sankarshana/Baladeva. Sauti states that having heard the HV, Janamejaya was freed of sins.

There is a distinct difference in the narrative structure between MB and HV. The outermost framework of Sauti narrating to Shaunaka and his followers is intact but, unlike in MB, Vyasa does not feature by way of bidding his disciple to recount it. There is also a change in the structure from chapter 101 to 104 where Vaishampayana quotes Arjuna who, at Bhishma’s behest from his bed of arrows, recounts Krishna’s greatness to Yudhishthira. In the tale of the rescue of a Brahmin’s sons the roles of Krishna and Arjuna are reversed: Arjuna becomes Krishna’s charioteer, driving through the northern sea-bed, the waters parting as with Moses leading the Exodus. At the end of this, Krishna proclaims to Arjuna that he is all creation and destruction, echoing the cosmic manifestation in the Gita. Thereafter, responding to Janamejaya’s request, Vaishampayana provides a brief list of Krishna’s deeds, viz. killing Vichakra, Naraka, Dantavaktra, Hayagriva, Kalayavana, robbing Indra of the Parijata tree, defeating Varuna, Bana, Shalva, Mainda, Dvivida and Jambavat, restoring to Sandipani his dead son, lifting the curse from Nriga, freeing kings imprisoned by Jarasandha, burning down Khandava, presenting Arjuna the Gandiva, consoling the exiled Pandavas, promising Kunti that he would protect them in the war, becoming their envoy too, and destroying all kings in his supernatural form. It is significant that Vishnu Parva is named Ashcharya Parva, the Book of Marvel, at 113.82 (p. 347). It reminds us of Hiltebeitel’s rhetorical query: does not the marvellous and the sense of wonder apply to the entire MB “better than heroism, or a peacefulness resigned to disillusionment?”[9] At the end his recital of the Vishnu Parva, Vaishampayana tells Janamejaya (113.81) that the rite has been completed, referring to the snake-sacrifice. The same completion is stated in the last book of MB. Thus, HV is, in Brodbeck’s words, “as it were a flashback, which here catches up with itself. The rite is simultaneously the rite of reciting the tale (fn. p. 347).” Vishnu Parva ends with the bard Suta telling sage Shaunaka that he has recounted the HV as Janamejaya had heard from Vaishampayana.

Significant Data

HV supplies some chronological data connecting with MB events. Omitting the popular tale of Satrajit obtaining the sun-like Syamantaka gem, the CE has his brother Prasena obtain it from the sea. Krishna visits Varanavata after the supposed death of the Pandavas and Kunti in the House-of-Lac conflagration. That is where Satyabhama rushes to complain that Shatadhanva has murdered her father Satrajit and stolen the gem. Krishna hastens to Dvaraka and with Balarama chases Shatadhanva. Balarama suspects Krishna of taking the gem after killing Shatadhanva near Mithila. Disgusted, he leaves Dvaraka for Mithila where Duryodhana arrives for training in mace-battle. Sixty years later Krishna succeeds in persuading Akrura (to whom Shatadhanva had given the gem) to give up the jewel in public. This timeline needs to be collated with the MB. Some geological data is also found in HV: Balarama dragged the Yamuna to make it flow through Vrindavana; Hastinapura leans towards the Ganga since he dragged its rampart with his plough when Duryodhana refused to release Krishna’s son Samba.

Harivamsha and Mahabharata

HV takes care not to repeat MB. It leaves out the Pandava-Dhartarashtra conflict, the massacre of the Yadavas and the submerging of Dvaraka. HV’s goal is to establish and propagate Krishna’s avatarhood, reaching its acme in portraying him in the battle with Banasura with eight arms and a thousand heads, complemented by Balarama with a thousand bodies. That is a battle unique of Shiva and Skanda fighting Krishna, Balarama and Pradyumna which makes for fascinating reading (chapter 112). Here the CE is very erratic in excising verses about the goddess Kotavi who manifests to block Krishna from Skanda at 112.49, following which there is an abrupt hiatus. Then, as if this has not occurred, at 112.97 she stands naked between Krishna and Bana. The vulgate makes far better sense: she appears naked to protect Skanda, whereupon Krishna indignantly shoos her away and she vanishes with Skanda. Later, Shiva and Uma send her again to protect Bana from Krishna’s discus. Krishna shuts his eyes so as not to gaze upon her nudity and severs Bana’s thousand arms. Bleeding from his severed thousand arms, Bana dances for Shiva who makes him immortal, whole and grants him his desired name “Mahakala” (Great-Ender) among the pramatha hordes. Shiva also grants that devotees who dance thus, dripping blood, will be blessed with sons. That might be the origin-myth of the folk festival of “charak” towards the end of the the month of Chaitra in which devotees whirl around a pole suspended by hooks through their backs and pierce their tongues etc.

In Krishna’s confrontation with the mountain fires, since Brodbeck retains their original names, it would have been only appropriate to retain ahavaniya too instead of rendering it only as “offertorial” (110.16) which primarily refers to the Eucharist—an incongruous association here. Shiva does not say, “if I get close to gangs of tormentor fiends my mind gets unsettled,” as translated. The pramathas (tormentor demons) being his constant companions, he says, “I will stay with the pramathas; I do not wish to fight,” (112.84).

The killings of Jarasandha and Shalva do not feature, having already been told in MB. The reason why in MB Krishna insists on Jarasandha being killed is explained in HV, viz. his relentless attacks on Krishna and Balarama. Raja Ekalavya is said to live on mount Raivata near Dvaraka. However, no details are given of how Ekalavya was killed, which in MB Krishna claims he did. In MB Arjuna, while escorting the Ashvamedha horse, kills Ekalavya’s son. HV mentions the intriguing fact that Naraka is born of the Earth Goddess by the Varaha (boar) avatar. Its implications need to be teased out. The commentator Nilakantha comments that Krishna took Satyabhama along with him to fight Naraka because he could be slain only with her consent, she being a portion of the Earth Goddess. The Southern Recension of HV contains a detailed account of Satyabhama battling Naraka when Krishna is knocked down,[10] which the CE omits simply because the editor, P.L. Vaidya, felt that women in Puranic literature do not fight! The Kalika Purana mentions Naraka being so named as the baby was found resting with its head on a human skull.

There is also the theme of an earlier avatar (Parashurama) being worsted by a later one (Rama). Further, just as Arjuna Kartavirya, disciple of an earlier avatar Dattatreya, is killed by the later avatar Parashurama, so the deaths of Parashurama’s disciples (Bhishma, Drona, Karna and Rukmi), are brought about by the new avatars Krishna and Balarama. Parashurama’s severing of Arjuna Kartavirya’s thousand arms is replicated by Krishna with the demon Bana. Actually, during this duel Krishna specifically refers to that incident.

The vulgate contains fascinating descriptions of the Yadavas’ sports in the sea and elsewhere and the delectable food they enjoy in picnics. Jaimini’s Ashvamedhaparva has similar lists of food-items. HV contains the tale of Bhanumati’s ever-renewable virginity and fragrant body from Durvasa’s boon which recall Satyavati and Kunti. She is married to Sahadeva, but there is no mention of progeny. Here, after the internecine massacre with reeds that devastated the Vrishnis, Gada, Pradyumna and Samba resettle in Vajrapura on the northern flank of Mount Meru, which was the kingdom of the demon Vajranabha whom Pradyumna killed after marrying his daughter Prabhavati secretly. In MB, however, none of them survive the massacre at Prabhasa. MB merely mentions that the son of Yuyudhana (Satyaki) was settled by Arjuna on the banks of the Sarasvati with old Yadava men, women and children. HV names him as “Asanga” whose son was Bhumi and Bhumi’s son was Yugandhara. MB also states that Arjuna settled Kritavarma’s son with the Bhoja women in Marttikavata (on river Parnasa in Rajasthan).

The first book of HV is very much of a Purana narrating the creation of the cosmos, the great war between gods and demons and the solar and lunar lineages. The second book, Vishnu Parva, is devoted to Krishna deeds other than those in MB: killing Putana, uprooting twin Arjuna trees, moving from Vraja to Vrindavana, taming Kaliya, killing Dhenuka, lifting Govardhana, killing Arishta, Keshin, Kuvalayapida, Chanura, Kamsa, resurrecting Sandipani’s son and a Brahmin’s sons, establishing Dvaraka, killing Kalayavana, abducting Rukmini, killing Paundra, Naraka with his generals, Nikumbha, Shambara and defeating Shiva’s disciple Bana after defeating Shiva and Skanda.

A link with Kalanemi is carried over from the deva-asura war through his six sons being born to Devaki and ironically being killed by Kalanemi reborn as Kamsa because of the demon king Hiranyakashipu’s curse. Varuna’s exhortation to Krishna (113.28-40) asking him to “Remember the unmanifest primordial matrix…” is very well translated. 40.17 is a fine sloka with echoes of the Rig Veda:

“Who is awake here, who is asleep? Who breathes, and who stirs not?

Who has pleasure? Who has splendour and who is darker than dark?”

He is said to fall asleep at the end of summer, and rites cease. He awakens, like goddess Durga, in autumn and his rites resume (40.23-24).

Mayavati’s falling madly in love with Pradyumna, whom she has nursed from infancy, is a unique event in puranic lore, carefully skirting the incestuous. Similarly, son-less Raja Jyamagha is so afraid of his only wife Chaitra that he introduces a young woman won in a fight as the future wife of their unborn son. Chaitra then gives birth to Vidarbha who fathers sons on that woman (called Kausalya in the next chapter) who is much older than him, very much like Pradyumna marrying his nurse Mayavati.

There are interesting details such as Vishnu’s chariot being two-wheeled (32.27) while the demon Maya’s is four-wheeled, drawn by bears, and Taraka’s has eight iron wheels drawn by donkeys. A curious detail regarding the barbarian invader Kala-yavana is that his horses’ foreparts were bull-like. Indra’s chariot fitted with a pennant atop a bamboo pole and his annual festival celebrated by Uparichara Vasu’s raising such a flag resemble the occidental Maypole festival. Varuna brandishes the snares of death, a memory of his supreme status in the Rig Veda. Another feature is that many gods and demons have the same name, e.g. Varaha, Hayagriva, Vamana, Vaishvanara. Svarbhanu (the name used in HV for Rahu, the eclipse) is extolled repeatedly. Surya has not much of a role. Catapults and machines that kill a hundred at a time (shataghni) are mentioned often.

HV states that Brihaspati’s sister Yogasiddha was mother of Vishvakarman and it was the 8th Vasu Prabhasa who became Bhishma. It provides alternative accounts of famous incidents such as Bhishma’s boon of death-at-will. While in MB Shantanu bestows it being pleased with Devavrata’s abdication and vow of lifelong continence, in HV Shantanu’s departed spirit bestows it because Bhishma strictly observes the rules of how shraddha offerings are to be made. HV further records that Vyasa’s son Shuka, celebrated as a lifelong celibate in MB, had four sons and a daughter by Pivari, mind-born daughter of the Barhishad manes. Shuka’s son-in-law is Anuha, king of Kampilya of the Panchalas. The chronology is completely garbled here because Bhallata, fourth in descent from him, is killed by Karna “long back”. Bhallata’s son Janamejaya is slain by the usurper Ugrayudha wielding a deadly discus, who demands that Bhishma give up the newly widowed Satyavati to him. Bhishma kills him and restores the Panchala kingdom to Drupada. MB does not know this episode. Soon thereafter Arjuna defeats Drupada and gives Ahichhatra and Kampilya to Drona.

A very interesting episode is the tale of how Lake Acchoda came to be born as the fish-born daughter of Vasu and Adrika in the 28th Dvapara Yuga. Another is that after Brahma created the gods, expecting they would worship him, they made offerings to themselves instead, whereupon ignorance overwhelmed creation. On their repenting, Brahma directed them to seek knowledge from their children, explaining that the gods and their offspring were fathers of one another. That is the origin of the manes and the reason for offerings to be made to them first in any rite.

The rishis are not vegetarians. Satyavrata, exiled by his father from Ayodhya, provides deer, boar, cow and buffalo meat to Vishvamitra’s family in his absence and liberates the rishi’s son Galava who was being sold by his mother to sustain the family during a 12 year drought. In Kurukshetra, seven sons of Kaushika sent out to graze their guru’s cow eat it up driven by hunger. Offering the flesh of animals in yajnas is highly extolled.

Interesting light is thrown on barbarians. The Shakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Paradas and Pahlavas, sought to be exterminated by Sagara, take refuge with Vasishtha. Sagara spares them but prohibits these kshatriyas Vedic rites, so also for Kolisarpas, Mahishakas, Darvas, Cholas and Keralas. He enforces half-shaven heads for Shakas, fully shaven for Yavanas and Kambojas, unshorn hair for Paradas and uncut beards for Pahlavas. Central Asian tribes who invaded India had such strange appearances. It is these very mlecchas that Vasishtha calls upon to defeat Vishvamitra’s onslaught. The lands Sagara conquers are of interest too (the CE omits this): Khasa, Tukhar/Tushara, Cheen, Chola, Madra, Kishkindhak, Kauntal, Banga, Shalva and Kaunkan. This indicates that the north-west, north-east, east and south were beyond the Vedic pale.

The birth of Sagara’s sons prefigures that of Dhritarashtra’s. Rishi Aurva grants Sagara’s junior wife the boon of 60,000 sons. She delivers a bottle-gourd containing embryos that are placed in ghee-filled pots, just as Vyasa does later with Gandhari’s embryo. In Sagara’s lineage Rama’s son is named Kusha and the line follows his descendants, ending with Sahsvat. There is no mention of his twin Lava. The CE omits the verses that take the line up to Brihadbala who is killed by Abhimanyu at Kurukshetra.

Soma the moon is the first to perform the rajasuya yajna and waxes arrogant, even abducting his guru Brihaspati (Jupiter)’s wife Taraka (asterism) called Tara in the vulgate. Ushanas-Shukra (Venus) and the demons espouse Soma’s cause while Rudra (Orion) wields his bow on Brihaspati’s side. Tara’s son by Soma is Budha (Mercury) who rises opposite him in the sky. The references to celestial events are clear. Budha is the progenitor of the Lunar Dynasty whose capital is founded by his son Pururavas at Pratishthana. The CE unfortunately omits the fascinating tale of how Pururavas obtains the heavenly threefold fire from the Gandharvas on Urvashi’s advice, finding it hidden within a fig tree and kindled by churning its wood.

HV resolves the puzzle why Indra is also called Kaushika in MB and elsewhere. Inspired by the ascesis of King Kushika, Indra takes birth as his son who is also named Gadhi. How Jamadagni, Parashurama, Vishvamitra and Shunahshepa came to be born is also told here, which the CE omits. When Indra loses his kingdom to King Raji’s sons, Brihaspati leads them astray into abandoning the Vedas and righteousness whereby they lose power and can be slain by Indra. This is the reference to Brihaspati as the author of atheistic doctrine (Buddhism, Jainism, Charvaka) that culminates in Kautilya’s Arthashastra.

HV provides a detail missing in MB. It specifies that while installing Puru in the centre as king, Yayati appointed the eldest Yadu in the north-east, Turvasu in the south-east, Druhyu in the west and Anu in the north, where their descendants continued to govern. Another origin story is that of the eastern gangetic delta peoples. Anga, Vanga, Suhma, Pundra and Kalinga are sons of the eponymous Bali, the demon monarch reborn as human. A link is found with the Ramayana because Anga’s descendant Dasharatha was known as Lomapada whose daughter Shanta (said to be daughter of Ayodhya’s Dasharatha) produced Chaturanga Dasharathi by Rishyashringa. Chaturanga’s son is Champa who made Malini his capital renaming it as Champaa, which was later Karna’s capital. Among Chaturanga’s descendants (or successors) Karna and Vikarna are named.

An important detail regarding the questionable royal pedigree of the Bharatas is that Bharata’s sons were destroyed because of their mothers’ rage and he adopted either the sage Bharadvaja himself or his son named Vitatha (“In Vain”) as his successor. Thus, Janamejaya, who is listening to the recital, is actually of Brahmin descent. A curious omission while naming Ajamidha’s descendants is that although Jantu is named, there is no mention of his being sacrificed in a yajna to obtain a hundred sons for Somaka as in MB. It is clarified that the genealogy contains two Rikshas, two Parikshits, three Bhimasenas and two Janamejayas. Only Vichitravirya is named as Shantanu’s son, not Chitrangad and Devavrata, presumably because neither had any progeny. Of Pandu’s sons only Arjuna is mentioned since he is the direct ancestor of Janamejaya.

Here Pandyas, Cholas, Kolas and Keralas are said to be sprung from Duhshanta’s grandson Sharutthama. Duhshanta, descendant of Yayati’s son Turvasu, gets absorbed into Puru’s lineage to become king and fathers Bharata. Gandhara is named after Yayati’s son Druhyu’s eponymous descendent and is famed for its horses. Yayati’s son Anu’s line is traced only up to Suchetas in the fifth generation. It is ironic that the lineage of Yayati’s disinherited eldest son Yadu should include Arjuna Kartavirya, the most famous emperor ruling over the seven lands and a disciple of Vishnu’s avatar Dattatreya. Vasishtha’s curses him that because of destroying his ashram he will be surpassed by Arjuna Pandava and slain by a Bhargava Brahmin (the next avatar Parashurama). The Rama-avatar occurs in the 24th yuga and the killing of Lavana is credited to him instead of Shatrughna. Through Yadu’s progeny the Hehayas several clans emerge (Vrishnis, Madhavas, Bhojas, Avantis, Talajanghas etc.) who dominate western India. Krishna descends from Yadu’s son Kroshtu by his second wife Madri. His grandson Shura had Vasudeva and nine other sons, plus Pritha and four other daughters (Prithukirti, Shrutadevā, Shrutashravā and Rājādhidevi) from whom Kamsa, Shishupala, Dantavaktra and Ekalavya wre born–Krishna’s cousins and mortal enemies. Jara, Krishna’s killer, was his step-brother from Vasudeva’s Shudra wife and became lord of Nishada bowmen. Ekalavya was the son of Vasudeva’s brother Devashrava, but being brought up by Nishadas was called Naishadi, and lived on mount Raivata near Dvaraka.

The rate of taxation was fixed as one-sixth of the produce. Those not paying tax had to be looked after by the ruler. HV explains the necessity for devastating wars. Over-population burdens the earth, which has no space left. Brahma recommends that, retaining the virtuous people, only kings be killed. That, of course, means that their fourfold armies will also have to be slaughtered.

A new origin story of the primordial demons Madhu and Kaitabha is given. After they emerge from Vishnu’s ears like logs, Brahma has the wind vivify them, naming the softer one Madhu and the hard one Kaitabha. Vishnu squeezes them to death and their fat, absorbing the primordial ocean, becomes the earth. There is an additional tale to the MB account where the earth states that after Parashurama eradicated Kshatriyas 21 times, she begged Kashyapa for kings, whereupon the Ikshvaku dynasty ruled over her. Again, it is when Brahma is listening to Kashyapa narrate ancient tales that the ocean and Ganga drench him. Brahma curses the ocean (and not Mahabhisha as in MB) to be born as Shantanu (because he ordered the ocean to calm down and be embodied) with Ganga as his consort.

An interesting chronological clue is provided: the meeting of the gods on Mount Meru with Vishnu and Brahma occurs when Pandu and Dhritarashtra have got married. The gods are commanded to distribute themselves as their progeny and cause a massacre of royalty to relieve the earth’s burden. Brahma prescribes that Dharma’s portion must go to Kunti or Madri and that of the god Kali to Gandhari. Reassured, the earth departs with Kala (time or death). Here Vasudeva is a portion of Kashyapa born as a cattle farmer at Govardhana mountain. Brahma asks Vishnu to be born to both Devaki and Rohini. Leaving his ancient body in Parvati (an inaccessible cave on Meru) Vishnu takes birth in Vasudeva’s house. How Vasudeva manages to evade guards and take the infant to Yashoda, returning with her new-born girl, is not told. It is Vasudeva who informs Kamsa that a girl has been born. Vasudeva makes Nanda shift to Vraja, not revealing that Yashoda’s boy is actually his own son, asking him to avoid Vrindavana. That is where Krishna has the community shift to later when Vraja gets deforested, polluted with cowdung and urine and is attacked by wolf-packs that he creates to make them leave. In chapter 96, however, Narada says that using wolves Krishna scared away Kamsa’s brother Sunaman who came with troops to capture him. It is strange is how Nanda, keeper of Kamsa’s cows, is able to shift station to Vraja and then to Vrindavana without his master’s knowledge.

The cart baby Krishna overturns and the two trees he uproots while crawling are not superhuman beings in HV as they are in the later Bhagavata Purana. Sankarshana is named Baladeva (the strong god) after he shatters the demon Pralamba’s skull with his fist. It is in this chapter 58 that Krishna reminds Sankarshana of his true self as Ananta the Endless and Shesha the Remainder, the serpent upon whom the world rests.

Chapter 59 in its explanation of the Shakra festival at the end of the monsoon provides a fine interpretation of the Rig Vedic myth of the celestial cows and their liberation by Indra riving apart the clouds, thus milking the sun’s cows. Just as Brodbeck glosses Parjanya as “the water-giver” (59.17) he should not have omitted Purandara before “smasher of citadels” (59.7). He does not gloss Shatakratu (78.41, performer of a hundred rites). At the three-day-long mountain-festival Krishna introduces, first buffaloes are killed for food. The cowherds feast on seasoned meats with rice. This Govardhana episode includes the mini-myth of Indra relinquishing two of the four monsoon months to create the season of autumn when the sun will move into the Southern Cross (Trishanku) and the star Canopus (Agastya). Indra tells Krishna about Arjuna’s birth as his portion and requests that he befriend and protect him for the Bharata War. Replying, Krishna reveals his awareness of the birth of the Pandavas and Karna, promising to do whatever Arjuna asks him to. Chapter 64 describes milkmaids dancing and romancing Krishna that became famous later as “raasa-leela” in the Krishna-bhakti movement, but there is no mention of Radha.

There are thematic similarities with the Ramayana, such as Krishna breaking the massive bow of Kamsa’s yajna and his killing numerous demons in the forest, but the moonlit dancing with milkmaids is all his own. There is also the strange incident of his smashing the skull of Kamsa’s dhobi simply because he will not give him clothing dyed for Kamsa. The two wrestlers who try to kill Krishna and Baladeva are from Andhra and Karusha ( in Central India). Krishna’s manner of dealing out death is quite horrific: splitting Keshin in two, ripping out Arishta’s horn and Kuvalyapida’s tusk and beating them to death with those, smashing Chanura’s skull so that his eyes pop out (as Sankarshana does with Mushtika). From the lament of Kamsa’s wives we learn that he had destroyed Jarasandha’s troops (77.26). Kamsa’s mother in her lament quotes a verse uttered by Ravana that it is relatives that bring misfortune despite all one’s potency (77.44-45). Krishna even repents hearing all the lamentation (78.2-6).

There is a detailed description of how a stadium should be prepared for tournament in Kamsa’s instructions (72.2-11 and 74.2-15) which is not found in the epics. Kamsa reveals that he was actually fathered by the demon Drumila, lord of Saubha, deceiving his mother Suyamuna by assuming Ugrasena’s appearance, very much like Uther Pendragon deceiving Igraine to produce Arthur. Of course, Vishnu himself deceives Vrinda by assuming the form of her husband Jalandhara.

During the stay in Mathura, Balarama revisits Vraja by himself where the cowherd community appears to have resettled from Vrindavana after having abandoned it initially under Krishna’s urging. On this occasion, Baladeva changes the course of the Yamuna so that it flows through Vrindavana.

Gonarda, the king of Kashmir, the only monarch missing from the Kurukshetra War, is mentioned as besieging Mathura as an ally of Jarasandha, along with Virata (with whom the Pandavas live in disguise later), Ekalavya (a cousin of Krishna like Shishupala, Dantavaktra and Jara), Shalya (maternal uncle of Nakula and Sahadeva) and the Kauravas. One wonders how Bhishma permitted this. Was he apprehensive of Jarasandha? Did the Kauravas include the Pandavas? How did Kunti countenance an alliance against her brother’s son and her kin?

In sections dropped by the CE Vikadru narrates how the Ikshvaku dynasty’s Haryashva was exiled from Ayodhya by his elder sibling and settled in his father-in-law Madhu’s town inhabited by Abhira cowherds. This kingdom came to be called “Anarta/Surashtra”. Haryashava’s son was named Yadu, whence the Yadavas. Yadu’s great grandson Bhima is Rama’s contemporary and his son Andhaka is Kusha’s. Mathura is not fortified, its moats are dry with no stores of materials to withstand a siege because of Kamsa’s neglect. The troops are disheartened facing repeated onslaughts (as many as 18 plus Kalayavana’s attack). Thereupon Krishna and Balarama proceed south-west to the Sahyadris to meet Parashurama on Mahendra mountain, who has established the town of Shurparaka by “pushing back the sea”. He advises them to take shelter on Gomanta peak and fight Jarasandha there.

Krishna leads the Yadavas away from Mathura to the mountain Raivataka in the far west. Ekalavya’s home is nearby. On a large piece of land like a gaming board named Dvaravati Krishna establishes the city of Dvaraka marking it out with measuring tapes, with three-and-four-way crossroads. Such details are not found in MB for Indraprastha whose construction is quite mythical. As with the earlier avatar Parashurama establishing Shurparaka reclaiming land from the sea, here the new avatar Krishna reclaims an area of the sea-bed 10 yojanas-by-2 yojanas (86.36). Krishna sets out codes of conduct for citizens, constitutes guilds, appoints troop-commanders and, a council of ten elders with Raja Ugrasena.

Kalayavana, the deadly barbarian, attacks leading a horde of Shakas, Tusharas, Daradas, Paradas, Tanganas, Khashas, Pahlavas and Himalayan barbarians. There is a very interesting passage about embassies here. Krishna sends Kalayavana a sealed pot containing a vicious snake. The pot is sent back filled with ants who bite the snake to death. Finding himself trumped, Krishna leads the Vrishnis away to Dvaraka. After the ancient king Muchukunda has consumed Kalayavana, Krishna intimates a strange fact: at present it is the Kali Yuga (85.59). However, according to MB the Kurukshetra War occurs at the end of the Dvapara Yuga with Kali beginning after Krishna’s death. This is yet another piece of information that needs to be reconciled with MB. In HV the Kali Yuga is called Maheshvara’s age in which people worship him and Kumara (significantly, both are non-Vedic gods), are ruthless and short-lived.

HV explains Shishupala’s loyalty to Jarasandha. Shishupala’s father Damaghosha had given him away to his kinsman Jarasandha who treated him like his own son (87.22). To please his foster father, Shishupala made mischief against his maternal uncle’s clan, the Vrishnis, because Krishna had killed Jarasandha’s son-in-law Kamsa. Jarasandha was overlord of Anga, Vanga, Kalinga and Chedi, i.e. Bihar, Bengal, Orissa and Bundelkhand. Rukmini’s father Bhishmaka was king of Vidarbha (Nagpur area). In the battle following Krishna’s abduction of Rukmini, Balarama killed the king of Vanga and his elephant with a tree (which we find Bhima doing frequently in MB). As we find in MB as well, elephant armies were the speciality of Vanga, Kalinga and Pragjyotishpura (Assam).

After the marriage with Rukmini, seven other wives of Krishna are specifically named and 16,000 other wives are mentioned. Despite the enmity with her brother Rukmin, there is no problem in Rukmini’s son Pradyumna marrying his maternal uncle’s daughter Shubhangi, and Pradyumna’s son Aniruddha wedding Rukmin’s grand-daughter Rukmavati. In the dice-game engineered by Rukmin after the wedding he defeats Balarama by cheating—a parallel to the MB dice-game—and insults him, whereupon Balarama kills him with the gaming-board.

Chapter 96 introduces Ekanamsha as Devaki’s daughter, though born to Yashoda, as she grew up with the Vrishnis. She stands with Balarama holding her right hand and Krishna her left, exactly as depicted in the icons in Puri’s Jagannatha temple and also in a sculpture in Mathura from the early common era.

In Krishna’s battle against Naraka’s hordes it is abruptly mentioned that many fell to his plough, conflating him with Balarama. When Krishna goes to Svarga to return Aditi’s earrings stolen by Naraka, abruptly, without any reason, he carries off the celestial Parijata tree (Mandar/Kovidar) to Dvaraka. The reason has been explained at length in the vulgate, viz. to fulfil Satyabhama’s desire to observe the “punyaka” vow to outdo Rukmini, instigated by Narada. This episode, describing Satyabhama’s sulking, is very similar to that of Kaikeyi in the Ramayana. After the tree has been replanted in Dvaraka, Krishna brings the Pandavas, Draupadi, Subhadra and Kunti there, as also Shishupala with his mother, Bhishmaka and Rukmin. Therefore, this occurs during the Indraprastha period before the rajasuya yajna. After a year, Krishna returns the tree to Svarga. Satyabhama is celebrated as the best of women (Brodbeck’s “in terms of beauty” is gratuitous) and the most fortunate, while Rukmini is the supreme mistress of the household (94.27). After this, Narada recounts to the Yadavas Krishna’s deeds and foretells that the sea will reclaim Dvaraka after his death (chapter 97).

Krishna’s killing of two spies of Ravana (97.8) is puzzling and Brodbeck has not annotated this. Krishna is said to have defeated Yama and brought Indrasena’s son back (97.12) as he did Sandipani’s, but no details are given about Indrasena’s identity. Krishna is also said to have defeated Arjuna in Kunti’s presence (97.17) as also Drona, Ashvatthama, Kripa, Karna, Bhima and Duryodhana all together. Again there is no annotation of this intriguing mention. This tale, not told in HV, is found in Girish Chandra Ghosh’s Bengali play “Pandav Gaurav” (1901) which is based upon the apocryphal Dandi Parva of the MB (cf. my “When The Eight Vajras Assembled” https://pradipbhattacharya.com/2022/09/14/when-the-eight-vajras-assembled/). At a yajna performed by Duryodhana, all the attending kings, hearing of Krishna’s glory, proceed to Dvaraka to establish alliances with him. Here HV mentions the Dhartarashtras, Pandavas, Panchalas, Pandyas, Cholas, Kalingans, Bahlikas, Dravidas and Shakas.

Problems of Translation

Those unfamiliar with Tolkien’s world will be unable to make out what Brodbeck intends to convey by rendering Gandharvas as “light-elves”. The elf is a tiny, delicate, magical creature in human form with pointed ears while Gandharvas are magical warriors and celestial musicians. Yakshas are termed “dark-elves,” although these demi-gods are not always malevolent and might be rendered better as “ogres” who are treasure-guardians too. The analogous Guhyakas become “trolls”; the horse-faced Kinnaras and Kimpurushas are called “mountain-elves” and “wild-elves”; Vidyadharas (sorcerers), become incongruous “sylphs”. Although rakshasa, pisaca, apsara, ashrama, rishi and dharma feature in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), Brodbeck needlessly translates them as “monster”, “fiend/devil”, “celestial nymph”, “estate”, “seer” and “virtue,” but he does not translate “Danava” and “Daitya” who are demons.

In the high-seriousness of the epic environment, his use of slang, like “crikey” and the colloquial, “daddy’, “capable fellow”, “slowcoach”, “broad-bottomed (for women)” are jarring. “Rampant” as an adjective for women (92.35) is inappropriate. He also provides English translations of Sanskrit names inconsistently, similar to the TIME magazine’s hilarious “Red Brave Lion” for “Lal Bahadur Singh”, but not for “Rukmakavacha” (gold-armoured) and Kambalabarhisha (blanket of sacred grass). Where “Vaivasvata” is rendered as “the sun’s son Yama”, why is “Vaishravana” merely “Kubera Vaishravana” and not “Vishrava’s son” (34.48)?  In the same verse the army is not ‘tossed about” by Varuna as translated, but is “encircled” (parikshipta) by “the king of the waters”. Pashu, destroyed by Rudra, is translated as “cattle” instead of “beasts” (10.38). In 31.133 Brodbeck has Brahmins attending upon Kshatriyas whereas it is the other way about. When Krishna is called “maha-yogi’ by Janamejaya (85.5), it can hardly be rendered as “great trickster” as if he were another Loki. Moreover, both “maha” and “yogi” are in the OED. In 31.153 “yoga tricks” is an unfortunate translation of “yogamaya” (yogic illusion), as is rendering “yogadharmina” (whose dharma was yoga) as “tricks were his business,” when “maya” and “dharma” are in the OED. In 32.27 “bandhura” has been translated as “driving seat” whereas it means “crest” or “adorned with”. Kubera as “vimanayodhi” (34.17) is not “conqueror of aerial chariots” but “aerial-chariot-warrior”. His appellative, “naravahana” (carried by men) has been mistranslated as “transported by spirit-elves” (34.17). In 34.21 the Sun revolves from rising to setting, with no reference to the eastern and western mountains as rendered. Vishnu does not make Danava women “stray beyond their boundaries” (38.8) but removes the auspicious mark in their hair-parting, i.e. makes them widows. The demons are not “roasted” (“nirdagdha” 38.53) by Vishnu’s mace and discus, but “consumed”. Diacritical marks are unnecessarily used for “vina” when “veena/vina” is very much in the OED. “Vatsa” is certainly not “calf” when Devaki addresses Kamsa, but rather “child” (48.44). “Sarasa” (59.33) is not “flamingo” but “crane”; “japya” (86.1) is not “textual recitation” but “murmured prayers”; the dust raised by Keshin is not “sweet pale” but “honey-pale” (67.27) and it is his jaws that are split, not hips when Krishna thrusts his arm into his mouth (67.35). In 72.8 the correct rendering of “karisha” is not “cowdung” but “dry cowdung”. By replacing the original “Vraja” by “cattle station,” Brodbeck deprives the reader of the name of the place renowned for Krishna’s childhood. In 99.19 he describes Pradyumna as “young brave” as though he were a North American Indian warrior. In the Tarakamaya war, Brodbeck has Ushanas launch the Brahmashiras missile at the gods, whereas the vulgate appropriately has Rudra launch it at the demons causing great destruction.

Brodbeck’s translation for 26.27-8 makes no sense: “The Mother was born…The Mother’s wife was a descendant of Ikshvaku…”. The reference is to a son named “Maatu” (“Sattvan” in the vulgate, thus avoiding the confusion with mother). In the next verse (27.1) Brodbeck’s adding “the Mother” to “Satvat” is gratuitous. The translation of 27.20 about Ahuka is not correct and should read: “An entourage of eighty wearing white with leather shields marched ahead first of the great one energetic as a colt.” Brodbeck does not annotate the reference in 66.5 to a prince of the Ikshvakus who left. This is Sagara’s son Asamanja who was exiled for his wickedness. 98.24 is mistranslated as, “But Vajra was born before that. Vajra was the son of Aniruddha and Anu.” It should read, “Aniruddha had two sons Sanu and Vajra, but Vajra was born earlier.” In 99.3 “kala” Shambara is not “dark” but “deadly” and in 99.4 Krishna does not “practise the magic of the gods,” but “complying with deva-maya” he does not seize the demon. At 108.3 Aniruddha is compared to “Ilavila’s son Kubera,” which is confusing in the absence of the gloss that Ilavila is sage Vishrava’s wife.

In 3.63 Bana does not ask Shiva for a pleasure garden near him, but wishes to enjoy, staying by his side. The appellative “shitikantha” for Shiva is more appropriately “dark-throated” instead of “dark-necked” (106.19) as the poison he had drunk turned his throat dark blue. Bana captures Aniruddha by immobilising him with snake-nooses just as Indrajit did with Rama and Lakshmana (108.84). The Aniruddha-Usha episode is like a fairy tale replete with the magical and the erotic, similar to the Kathasaritsagara tales.

One of the delights of HV is Brodbeck’s splendid translation of the war between the gods under Indra and the demons led by Maya spanning several chapters. The gods are not immortal, nor are the demons. They are decapitated, chests smashed, cut to pieces. Yama, despite wielding the fatal rod, cannot destroy demons. Soma the moon and Varuna lord of waters join to freeze the Daityas. The demon Kalanemi (Death’s Rim) features prominently, even immobilising immortal Yama the all-destroyer. In the Adhyatma Ramayana Kalanemi is Marich’s son and is killed by Hanuman. Later, he is reborn as Kamsa along with other demons for killing whom again, at Narada’s urging Vishnu has to take birth where Brahma specifies. No Occidental epic other than Milton’s has anything like the exciting description of the Tarakamaya war between gods and anti-gods. Only Bali and Svarbhanu escape Vishnu’s onslaught. There is repeated reference to weapons made of the finest iron, which indicates that the composition is post-bronze age. Chapter 54, describing the monsoon and the description of the beauty of boy Krishna in Chapter 55 are mellifluously translated.

Bhavishya Parva

Bhavishya Parva starts with Shaunaka querying the bard Suta about Janamejaya’s descendants. Brodbeck’s translation of 114.10, “the august child’s storm clouds were made manifest” makes no sense. The last name in the Pandava dynasty—traced back to Puru—is the orphan Ajaparshva raised by two Brahmins in a weaver’s house.

The story of how Janamejaya came to prohibit performance of the horse-sacrifice is told. First he points out to Vyasa that the destruction of the Kurus arose from Yudhishthira’s rajasuya rite, which has always brought destruction in its wake beginning with Soma, followed by Varuna and Harishchandra. He asks Vyasa why he did not guide Yudhishthira. Vyasa replies that as he was not asked about the future, he did not reveal it and anyway time’s course is unalterable. Vyasa warns Janamejaya that he ought not to perform the horse sacrifice as Indra would attack it and Brahmins would be antagonised. Vyasa also foretells that in the Kali Yuga a Brahmin army general will revive the ashvamedha and also perform the rajasuya. This is a clear reference to Pushyamitra Sunga (c. 185 CE). Typically, Janamejaya forgets Vyasa’s warning and holds the horse-sacrifice in which Indra animates the suffocated horse and has coitus with the queen lying beside it. The priest reveals the truth whereupon the furious king bans the ashvamedha and exiles the priests.

A description of the degenerate social conditions of that age follows. An interesting feature of it is that nanny goats (not Brodbeck’s male “billy-goats” who cannot give milk) will be kept as milch animals, reminiscent Mahatma Gandhi’s preference. It also tells of climate change, ponds ploughed over, drought, infertile soil, prevalence of Shiva-worship, beggars proliferating, shudras following Buddha of Shakyas wearing ochre robes with shaven heads and collyrium-marked eyes (not Brodbeck’s “uncowed eyes”) and education being sold. In 116.33 the original of Brodbeck’s “he-men” is not found. He translates “gavedhuka” (116.35) as “tear-grass” whereas it is a mallow plant (Sida Alba). The name for this yuga used in 117.11-14 is “kashaya,” one sense of which is the ochre robe worn by Buddhist monks, i.e. this evil era will witness prevalence of Buddhism besides neglect of Vedic deities. Conversely, Vyasa also foretells that pure people will attain salvation quickly (117.13) at the time of the ochre affliction. Refugees will flee across the River Kaushiki (Kosi) and abound in Anga, Vanga, Kalinga, Kashmir, Mekala (Deccan) and hilly Rishika (not “River Rishika” 117.29), on Himalayan slopes, sea shores and forests, reverting to hunting from agriculture. Clearly, these places were considered outside the Vedic pale. The tide will turn when, with the proliferation of sadhus, people will be obsessed with having their darshan and give up desires to pursue truth (117.40), whereby the golden age will be renewed. The CE ends with Suta extolling the benefits of listening to this Purana and asking what else Shaunaka would like to hear. Brodbeck provides a fine rhythmic translation of the conclusion (117.51):

            “The cycles of ages were set up of old

            by nature and command,

            so not for a moment do creatures stay put:

            changing they fall and they stand.”

This is where the vulgate takes off with a different version of creation, the deva-asura wars and Vishnu’s avatars till Vamana, the dwarf. Then it suddenly recounts Krishna’s ascesis at Kailasa to please Shiva for obtaining a son as Rukmini desires. HV does not repeat the account of Krishna’s similar ascesis for fulfilling Jambavati’s desire for a son, Samba, related in MB. At Badari occurs a fascinating encounter with two pisacas eager to meet Krishna for salvation as advised by Shiva. They are the Ghantakarnas, bells hanging from their ears to drown out any mention of Vishnu whom they used to hate. With great devotion they offer Krishna half the corpse of a Brahmin. Politely declining, Krishna transforms them into celestial beings and proceeds to Kailasa to practise ascesis for 12 years. When Shiva appears, the hordes appearing with him are led by Ghantakarna (chapter 86). Harindranath and Purushothaman have found temples dedicated to this pisaca (cf. http://www.dvaipayana.net/krishnanattam/ghantakarna.html). Tagore’s short story “Shey (He)” mentions the two Ghantakarnas also. Shiva grants Krishna and Rukmini a son, Pradyumna, who is the god of love Kama reborn. Later, Shiva’s destruction of the triple cities of demons is narrated.

In Krishna’s absence Paundraka Vasudeva attacks Dvaraka with Ekalavya who, fighting against Balarama, flees to an island after Krishna kills Paundraka. Ekalavya’s death is not mentioned. At Durvasa’s request at Pushkara, Krishna kills Hamsa and Dimbaka of Shalva city, allies of Jarasandha. They scorn Bhishma as aged and weak and demand that Krishna surrender all his riches and provide salt for their rajasuya yajna. In this battle Balarama kills the rakshasa Hidimb exactly as Bhima kills his namesake in MB. Hamsa and Dimbaka proceed from Pushkara to Govardhana mountain and Krishna drowns the former in Kaliya’s lake in the Yamuna, whereupon Dimbaka commits suicide. It is after this that Yudhishthira performs his rajasuya yajna (chapter 29.10), which is another chronological milestone to be collated with MB. Nanda and Yashoda come to meet Krishna here. There is no Radha.

The gifts to be given to the narrator at the end of each MB parva are enumerated, specifying a book with gold. However, like in the Spitzer manuscript list, Anushasana Parva (32.68) is not mentioned. It might be subsumed in the Shanti Parva. At the end of HV the king is asked to feed a thousand Brahmins and present a cow along with gold coins. After extolling MB and HV, a summary of the HV episodes is given in chapter 34. The Padma Purana contains 5 chapters on the glory of HV plus one on the mantra for obtaining progeny.


[1] P. Lal: The Mahabharata of Vyasa, The Complete Adi Parva, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2013, p. 70.

[2] D.K. Printworld, New Delhi, 2015.

[3] http://mahabharata-resources.org/harivamsa/harivamsa-cs-index.html

[4] Simon Brodbeck: Krishna’s Lineage—The Harivamsha of Vyasa’s Mahabharata, Oxford University Press, 2019, pp. 420, Rs.1295.

[5] https://alt.cardiffuniversitypress.org/articles/abstract/10.18573/alt.45/

[6] Krishna in the Harivamsa, vols. 1 (2015) and 2 (2017), DK Printworld, New Delhi.

[7] “Why Harivaṁśa calls itself the Khila of Mahābhārata? – A Critique of the BORI Critical Edition of Harivaṁśa” in Mahabharata Manthan, vol. 2, pp. 319 ff.,  ed. Neera Misra, Rajesh Lal, BR Publications, Delhi, 2019.

[8] I have amended Brodbeck’s translation in the interests of rhythm.

[9] A. Hiltebeitel: Freud’s Mahabharata, OUP, 2018, p. 4.

[10] A. Purushothaman and A. Harindranath: “Fight between Narakasura and Satyabhama in Harivamsa…” in Aesthetic Textures, Living Traditions of the Mahabharata, ed. Molly Kaushal, S. Paul Kumar, IGNCA & DK Printworld, New Delhi, 2019.

Filed Under: IN THE NEWS, MAHABHARATA, STORIES, ESSAYS & POSTS Tagged With: Harivamsha

The Face of Ashoka

June 12, 2022 By admin

H.G. Wells in his A Short History of the World (1922) called Asoka, “greatest of kings…His reign for eight-and-twenty years was one of the brightest interludes in the troubled history of mankind.” (https://www.bartleby.com/86/29.html) However, despite his numerous rock edicts scattered all over the Indian peninsula, no sculpture had been found depicting his features.

As the Kalinga war led to Ashoka’s transformation to the Dhamma King, it is only befitting that finally a unique bust of Ashoka should be discovered in Orissa at Langudi Hill near Jajpur district. The Orissan Institute of Maritime and South East Asia Studies has unearthed this remarkable find in 2000-2001at Langudi Hill which has been identified as Pushpagiri Vihara mentioned by Xuanzang, the Chinese pilgrim (c. 700 CE).[1]

The Prakrit inscription on the back of the bust has been deciphered as “chhikarenarāñjaaśokhena” that is, “śrīkarenarāñjaaśokhena” in Sanskrit, meaning “by the doer of prosperity King Ashoka”.[2] The writing has been dated to the 2nd century BCE. The bust is made of khandolite stone and was found in the stupa region. Its size is 34 x 29 x 14 cms. Ashoka is shown seated with earrings, necklace.

Another find was a stone sculpture 52 x 50 x 12 cms showing a seated male with a crown flanked by two women of whom the one on the left was a broken image. Here the inscription reads “rāñjoaśoka” and is dated to the 2nd century BCE as well.[3] The royal figure wears a turban or crown with earrings and an upper garment on neck and shoulder. There is a belt and armlets as well.

So now we know what Ashoka looked like.[4]

Ashoka Seated

The Face of Ashoka

chhikarenarāñjaaśokhena

rāñjoaśoka


[1]Dr. B.N. Mukherjee, “An Early Inscription from the Langudi Hill Area”, in UtkalPradip, vol. II, No.1, June 1998, Utkal University, Vani Vihar, Bhubaneswar.

[2]Dr. B. N. Mukherjee, letter of 22.7.2000 to Dr. D.R. Pradhan, Secretary, Orissan Institute of Maritime and South East Asian Studies, Bhuvaneswar, Orissa.

[3]N. N. Swamy, Dy. Superintending Epigraphist, Archaeological Survey of India, Mysore, letter of 1.6.2001 to Dr. D.R. Pradhan op.cit.

[4]The photographs and other details were made available by Shri R. Balakrishnan, IAS, Commissioner, Tourism & Culture Department, Govt. of Orissa.Also see Dr. D.R. Pradhan’s “Two Rare Statues of Aśoka Discovered at Langudi Hill” in the CIAA Newsletter, Issue #13, SOAS, London, June 2001.

Filed Under: IN THE NEWS, STORIES, ESSAYS & POSTS

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