Book Reviews

Review : I Was Born for Valour, I Was Born to Achieve Glory

 

Book:  The Mahabharata of Vyasa: The Complete Karna Parva

Transcreated from Sanskrit by Padma Shri Prof. P. Lal,

Writers Workshop, 2007,

pp. 1036,

Rs.1000 (hardback).

Special edition of 50 copies each with an original hand-painted frontispiece Rs.2000/-

 

The Battle of Kurukshetra has a double climax: the Karna-Arjuna duel and the final confrontation between Bhima and Duryodhana. By the time we come to the third book of battle, the elder generations have fallen, and along with them their obsessions. Drupada’s craving for vengeance against Bhishma and Drona has been achieved through his two sons, each specifically engendered for that purpose. Before he is beheaded, Drona lays low the two major allies of the Pandavas: Drupada and Virata. Ancient Bahlika, Bhagadatta, Bhurishrava —all are gone. Nothing stands in the way of Duryodhana’s eagerness to have Karna command his forces, a desire that he has had to put off twice over. Despite Karna having fled the field at least thrice during Drona’s generalship, Duryodhana holds fast to a blind faith in his invincibility with a drowning man’s desperation.

Karna’s undying appeal as a heroic Aryan ideal is reflected in Tagore’s poem on Karna and Kunti composed in response to Jagadish Chandra Bose’s request to adopt Karna as a mythic paradigm for the modern Indian. Earlier, Bankimchandra had sought to do the same with Krishna in “Krishnacharitra”. The typology was carried onto the Bengali stage with famous plays like “Karnarjun”, “Nara-Narayan” and in many an Indian film, both mythological and modern. The trait for which Karna is celebrated is his unparalleled greatness as an undiscriminating donor, never refusing anything to anyone, even butchering his son to provide a Brahmin (Krishna disguised) with his chosen meal. Songs about Karna in Gujarat celebrate him as a hero who brings water and fertility to the community. The Western Indologist is understandably fascinated by Karna who, like Homer’s Achilles, has divine armour, a godly parent, initially sulks away from the battle and is ultimately struck down by an archer.

The reader will notice a unique feature about Prof. Lal’s style of transcreation: the use of doublets in proper nouns. Thereby, with masterly skill he interweaves explanations doing away with the need for annotations. Thus, “river-born Apageya-Bhishma” explains the original’s “Apageya”, simultaneously indicating that this is another name for Bhishma. In all cases where Vyasa does not use the usual name, Lal provides the doublet. He does so for technical terms too: “Aksha-axles”, “Kubara-poles”, “Isha-shafts”, “varutha-fenders”. Where explanations of weaponry are needed e.g. the fourfold science of weaponry, this is provided in the transcreation itself in rhythmic free verse [2.16]:

The free

Those released by the hand

Like arrows;

The unfree

Those clutched by the hand

Like swords;

The machine-free

Those shot by machines

Like fire-balls;

The free-and-unfree

Those which return after released

Like Indra’s thunderbolt.

Doublets make abstruse weapons self-explanatory: prasa-barbed darts, risti-swords, parigha-spiked iron clubs, shakti-spears, tomara-javelins, pattisha-pointed spears, bhushundi-firearms tanutra-armour. So, too, for ornaments: angada-armlets, keyura-bracelets, hara-necklaces, nishka-gold coins,. However, “33-lord Indra” (p.237) is hardly mellifluous!

The images used in this book have a distinction of their own. With Arjuna’s arrow stuck in his forehead Ashvatthama looks “like the rising son/with its rays shooting upward” (17.3). Shikhandi, with three arrows in his forehead, is like a triple-peaked silvery mountain (61.18). An elephant struck with 100 arrows glows like a mountain with its trees and plants aflame in a forest-fire at dead of night (18.14). Like countless bulls attacking a single one to mount a cow in season, warriors target Arjuna (19.5). The battlefield blossoms like a lake lovely with white lily and blue lotus faces of beheaded warriors, glowing with splendour as if decorated with garlands of constellations in autumn. Bloodied faces are as lovely as split pomegranates, their teeth the seeds. Headless bodies stand erect in bloody uniforms and armour like crimson pieces of cloth dyed red and drying (28.43). Like a monsoon field with red shakragopa-beetles, or a young dark-skinned girl’s white dress dyed with red turmeric (52.9), or a free-roving courtesan flaunting a crimson dress, crimson garland and gold ornaments—such was the earth (94.26). Arrows pierce like snakes burrowing into an ant hill (59.54). Fallen soldiers look as lovely as pollen-filled kadamba blossoms (81.39). Karna’s snake-arrow blazes in the sky “like the centre parting/in a woman’s hair” (90.30).

The parva begins with the Kauravas musing over how they dragged and demeaned Draupadi. Although, at different stages in the battle, Dhritarashtra, Bhima, Duhshasana, Krishna all recall the dragging and insulting of Draupadi, none refers to any attempt to strip her. That episode could be an interpolation to accentuate the wickedness of the Kauravas and exalt the divinity of Krishna.

An intriguing feature of the battle is that attacking and even killing weaponless charioteers draws no criticism. Even Krishna is wounded by Ashvatthama, Karna and Satyasena whose javelin pierces through his left arm making him drop the whip and reins. The charioteer’s role as advisor is well brought out where he advises Dhrishtadyumna who is bewildered by Kripa’s assault. Section 26 is a rare picture of Kripa in irresistible full flow.

In the beginning, in just five verses the death of Vrisha (Karna) is wrapped up. Janamejaya questions Vaishampayana about Dhritarashtra’s reaction on hearing of the deaths of Drona and Karna. In section 2 we learn that the night after Karna was killed, Sanjaya rushed to Dhritarashtra and related the aftermath of Drona’s death till the fall of Karna, his sons and brothers and how Bhima slew Duhshasana and drank his blood. Struck to his very marrow with horror, the blind king wants to know what is left of both armies. From the reply a pattern emerges: the inhabitants of regions where Krishna was born and brought up—Surasenis and Narayanas of Mathura and Gokul—chose to fight against him alongside the kings of the east and north-east (Kalingas, Bangas, Angas, Nishadas) who were anti-Pandava and led elephant armies. Satyaki killed the Banga ruler, Sahadeva the Pundra ruler, Nakula the Anga ruler. Those from the south, west and north-west suffer annihilation at Arjuna’s hands. Among southerners, Pandya alone is pro-Pandava and Sanjaya calls him world-renowned. Dhritarashtra asks him to justify this and we have a sudden description of his savage attack on the Kauravas in section 20 in 44 verses, till he is killed by Ashvatthama. This looks very much like a command performance. It is interesting that Chitrangada is a Pandya princess in the southern recension of the epic.

We are given new information in 2.13 that Parashurama had taught Drona from early childhood. Confirmation regarding the relative novelty of the Mahishamardini myth is found in 5.56 where, as in the Vana Parva, it is Skanda, not Durga, who is the buffalo-demon’s slayer. A typical epic exaggeration occurs in 5.4 where Sanjaya says that Bishma slew an “arbuda” (a crore) of soldiers in ten days. As he slew ten thousand daily, the total is a lakh and not “ten crores” as translated (p.24). In 5.14 Sanjaya says that Draupadi’s son (unnamed) slew Duhsasana’s son—possibly the nameless killer of Abhimanyu—but there is no other account of this. Paurava, a Kaurava ally whom Van Buitenen regards as a historical reference to Poros, had been defeated by Abhimanyu and now falls victim to Arjuna (5.35). We usually overlook the fact that Kunti too was a loser in the battle. All Kuntibhoja’s descendants were slain by Bhishma who also accounted for the Narayanas and Balabhadras (6.22). Drona slew both brothers of Kunti, Virata, Drupada and their sons and most of the notable kings in just five days. Bhishma in ten days mostly concentrated on reducing the Pandava army.

The Karna-Arjuna battle is obviously the high point since Sanjay compares its carnage as rivalling the mythical duels of Indra-Vritra, Rama-Ravana, Kartavirya-Parashurama, Mahisha-Skanda, Andhaka-Rudra, Indra-Bali, Indra-Namuchi, Vasava-Shambara, Mahendra-Jambha and Krishna-Naraka-Mura. Karna becomes infused with the Naraka following Duryodhana’s capture by the Gandharvas. In the Tullal songs of Kerala he is the demon Sashrakavacha (thousand-armoured) reincarnated. Underlying the Arjuna-Karna duel lies the Vedic myth of Indra routing Surya and taking his wheel (Rig Veda 1.175.4; 4.30.4; 10.43.5). Its epic reversal occurs in the Ramayana where Surya’s son Sugriva brings about the death of Indra’s son Vali. On both occasions, it is Vishnu’s avatara who plays the decisive role in ensuring the death.

Ironically, Dhritarashtra’s lament (9.21):

“You plan something

Fate plans differently.

Aho!

Fate is all-powerful.

Kala

cannot be questioned.”

– is no different from what Krishna had told Yudhishthira before the peace embassy: “What is possible for man, I can exert to the utmost; but over fate I have no control.” Dhritarashtra makes the telling point (9.39) that both Bhishma and Drona were killed by exceptional deceit: Shikhandi shot down Bhishma who was not fighting him and Drona was beheaded when in yoga, weaponless. Significantly, Dhritarashtra points to the Panchalas as responsible for both heinous deeds, exposing what underlies the Pandava-Dhartarashtra rivalry. Often he mentions the awe in which the Pandavas held Karna, especially Yudhishthira who went sleepless for 13 years, reminiscent of Lakshmana in the Ramayana (for a different reason). Fear of Karna haunts Yudhishthira wherever he goes. Even Bhishma, Kripa, Drona have never shamed him in battle like Karna (66.22). Twice Dhritarashtra recalls Karna taunting Draupadi that she is husbandless in the very presence of the Pandavas—such was his self-confidence. He calls Karna “the never-retreating hero”, overlooking how he was routed from the field several times.

Arjuna’s laxity is a recurring phenomenon here, lending support to the argument that the Gita is a later addition. In section 16 Ashvatthama’s feats wax, Pinaki-like, while Arjuna’s wane, enraging Krishna who berates Arjuna for being sentimental about fighting his guru’s son. Arjuna flares up only after Krishna, with blood streaming from his body, asks him not to spare Ashvatthama. In section 19 Krishna has to exhort him to stop playing games with the suicide squad of Samsaptakas and to proceed to fight Karna. The suicide squad even catches hold of them. Susharma succeeds in making Arjuna slump down (53.15, 36). Keshava fells them bare-handed while Arjuna displays his unique skill in repulsing the enemy with arrows at extreme close quarters. In section 56 Ashvatthama nonplusses Arjuna again, infuriating Krishna who exhorts:

“very strange, Partha-Arjuna

Very strange—what I am seeing now.

…Drona’s son

Seems to be the better man today….

Is your fist

a little flabby or what?” (56. 135-138).

The carnage after Arjuna has been tongue-lashed becomes the occasion for a survey of the field by Krishna (19.28-53), repeated in 58.10-41, as after Jayadratha’s death in the Drona Parva (section 148). This anticipates Gandhari’s heart-wrenching lament in the Stri Parva and ends with Krishna praising Arjuna’s performance as worthy of the king of the gods. The field becomes such a morass that even Arjuna’s chariot-wheels get stuck (27.40-41)—a doublet of Karna’s plight later. In 90.57 Krishna lifts the embedded chariot wheels out of ground with both hands, which Shalya later fails to replicate. Indeed, he does not even make the attempt and leaves it to Karna to fight and extricate the wheel. Karna is also called Bibhatsu (49.25) after he recovers having been knocked unconscious by Yudhishthira’s arrow, deliberately equating him with Arjuna.

Section 29 has a rare duel between the rivals for the throne. The normally diffident eldest Pandava knocks Duryodhana unconscious but, surprisingly, Bhima stops him from administering the coup de grace because that would nullify his vow. Similarly, when Bhima knocks Karna unconscious in section 50 and rushes to slice his tongue for his insults, Shalya stops him, reminding him of Arjuna’s vow. Shalya does a fine job as a double-agent by saving Yudhishthira from being captured twice (sections 49, 63): once by warning Karna not to touch him as he may be reduced to ashes and then exhorting him not to be diverted from the goal of slaying Arjuna who is the main danger. Strangely enough, Dhritarashtra does not ask Sanjaya why, despite defeating Yudhishthira, Karna did not take him captive, which would have ended the war as Drona had realised. To comprehend Karna’s complicated psyche we have to recall what he told Krishna in the Udyoga Parva. Karna is a man at war with himself, so memorably portrayed in Shivaji Sawant’s  epic novel Mrityunjaya. One part of him knows that the victor has to be Yudhishthira, the righteous ruler; the other’s very life is bound by gratitude to Duryodhana. Every Kaurava general suffers from the same dilemma, but in Karna it has been portrayed in extremis.

We discover that following Jarasandha’s death, Girivraja and Magadha have separate rulers. Arjuna kills Dandadhara of Girivraja. Jayatsena, king of Magadha, was killed by Abhimanyu. There is an interesting exchange of roles: in section 18 Arjuna emerges as elephant-killer while elsewhere Bhima shows off mastery of archery. Just as six had surrounded Abhimanyu, so Dhristadymna, Draupadi’s 5 sons, the twins and Satyaki attack Karna jointly. He successively routs them, looping his bow round the Pandavas’ necks and, to their profound chagrin, letting them go, as he had promised Kunti. Dhrishtadyumna berates Ashvatthama who is routing Pandava forces as Bhima had done Drona: “You have no love, no gratitude, you are a fake Brahmin” (55.33). Not only does Ashvatthama make Yudhishthira turn tail but, when Arjuna topples his charioteer, he continues fighting while holding the reins (64.30).

Prof. Lal succeeds admirably in conveying the variety in battle descriptions as in 28.36-40—an excursion into vigorous vivid description of fist-fights compellingly Englished:

Hands raised high

Brought crashing down

On the foe!

A battle of tugged

And ripped hair-tufts!

A battle of bodies

grappling and wrestling!

Smell, touch, rasa-taste—

Stench of blood!

Feel of blood

sight of blood,

gush of blood,

Everywhere crimson blood (49.104).

Like Valkyries, Apsaras take the dead soldiers in chariots to heaven (49.93). Alongside this, Vyasa repeatedly stresses the horrific meaninglessness of war: the soldiers who died, killing friend and foe, did not know who and what weapons killed them (28.41).

The greatest challenge Duryodhana faces is Karna’s request for a charioteer who will equal Krishna, for he finds that he cannot equal Arjuna without this. Duryodhana lays flattery on with a trowel to persuade Shalya, extolling him as superior to Karna and comparing him to Brahma whom the gods considered Shiva’s superior and therefore chose as his charioteer in the Tripura war. In his lengthy exhortation we find a mini-myth in section 34 of Shiva engaging Parashurama to annihilate the Daityas. Shalya finally succumbs when Duryodhana declares that he considers Shalya Krishna’s superior and that, should Karna die, the Kaurava army will be in his hands.

Sections 40-45 contain Karna’s lengthy diatribe against Shalya’s people, the Madras, for being wicked like the mlecchas, promiscuous, utterly untrustworthy. He particularly condemns the women (tall, fair, dressed in soft blankets and deer skin) for urinating while standing like camels and donkeys and being indiscriminately lustful, gluttonous and drunk. He tars the people of Gandhara and Aratta/Bahika (those in the land of five rivers) with the same brush. It is curious that Bhishma should have paid heavy bride-price for a Madra princess for Pandu and a Gandhara one for Dhritarashtra! Karna voices the prevailing prejudices: the Kauravas, Panchalas, Shalvas, Matsyas, Naimishas, Koshalas, Kashis, Angas, Kalingas, Magadhas and Chedis are the civilized peoples, while the Bahikas/Madras are the filth of the earth, located along Vipasa (Beas) and Sakala (Sialkot); the easterners are servants, the southerners bastards, the Saurashtrans miscegenous. Shalya’s retort is far less violent and throws into relief the bitter gall spewing from Karna. No wonder his sword is said to be his tongue.

It is in the course of the exchange of abuse with Shalya that Karna recalls the two curses that alone trouble him and is confident that unless his chariot wheel gets stuck, Arjuna’s death is assured (42.35). In this context he voices the sentiment that sums up his goal:

“I was born for valour, I was born

to achieve glory” (43.6).

Krishna, wanting Karna to tire himself out fighting before he meets Arjuna, drives to meet the demoralised Yudhishthira, leading to Arjuna’s peculiar attack on Yudhishthira reprimanding him for insulting him from the comfort of Draupadi’s bed. Do we notice suppressed jealousy peeking out here? The clash also reveals the high-pitched tension that war has brought about. It is not only in the Kaurava camp that Kripa, Bhishma, Drona and Ashvatthama revile Karna and Duryodhana insults them. In the Drona Parva the crackling tension in the Pandava camp was first exposed in the clash between Satyaki and Dhrishtadyumna after the killing of Drona. Now the tension has bored deeper, wearing thin the unity between the brothers. Bhima’s sudden loss of morale on finding himself all alone facing the enemy army is another indication of this. In resolving the issue between Arjuna—who won Draupadi—and Yudhishthira—who appropriated her—Krishna makes a signal pronouncement that is quite distinct from the philosophy of the Gita: to lie (anrita) is better than to kill (69.23) because ahimsa is the supreme virtue (69.57). It is a childish vow that is taken without going into the subtleties of dharma and prompts the killing of the elder brother. The secret of dharma, he says, is known to very few such as Bhishma, Yudhishthira, Vidura and, most unexpectedly and significantly, Kunti. He enumerates the occasions on which lying is permissible: marriage, love making, to save life, when all one’s wealth is being stolen, to benefit a Brahmin or when joking (69.33, 62). It is childish to think that truth should be spoken no matter what:

“He knows dharma who knows

when to speak the truth

and when to lie” (69.35).

This is no Kantian categorical imperative. To illustrate, he narrates the stories of the hunter Balaka and of the learned hermit Kaushika, vowed to truth-speaking, but lacking knowledge of practical dharma:

“shruti is not everything.

The precepts of dharma

are meant for the welfare

of all creatures” (69.56).

Dharma is so called because it supports and protects—this is incontestable (69.58) hence lying to protect dharma is not a lie (69.65).

Section 72 is a long harangue by Krishna to lift Arjuna out of the morass of depression following this encounter. Krishna provides a fascinating reason why Karna must be killed: because his hatred of Pandavas is not motivated by self-interest (72.34). Krishna tells Arjuna that Karna is possibly his superior, has all the qualities of a warrior, is 168 finger-lengths tall, long armed, broad-chested, proud, very strong. Like a wall of water shivering into rivulets when striking a mountain, the Pandava army disperses before Karna’s might. His sword is his tongue, his mouth the bow, arrows his teeth (72.38). Dhritarashtra too mentions his acid tongue. It is his profound sense of injured merit that fuels this vomiting of poisonous speech.

In section 73 Krishna states that the massive massacre had continued for 17 days now. He burns with fury recalling that Karna—so mangled and dazed by Abhimanyu’s arrows that he wanted to flee—caused the boy’s death by slicing his bow on Drona’s advice so that 5 others could kill him (there is no mention of Duhshasana’s son smashing his head). Krishna has frequently to provoke Arjuna by reminding him how Karna abused Draupadi and the Pandavas vilely. He bids him kill Karna’s son to demoralise him. Arjuna now abandons his self-flagellation saying, as in the Gita: “Govinda, you are my lord and master” (74.1-3). When Karna’s Bhargava missile counters Arjuna’s Indra missile and decimates the Panchalas, Arjuna needs to be enthused first by Bhima and then by Krishna who reminds him that in every era he has killed demons specially Dambodhbhava (whose overweening pride Krishna narrated in the Kuru court). The Arthashastra VI.3 also cites him as one of those monarchs who perished due to arrogance. Krishna even bids Arjuna use the razor-edged Sudarshana discus. Again, as in the Gita, Arjuna awakens to his life’s mission and uses the Brahma missile—which Karna promptly neutralises! In disgust, Bhima advises him to try some other weapon. Never have we seen Arjuna thus foiled.

Characteristically, Arjuna is the true hero who always admires his opponent, as in 79.9,11: how splendid raja Duryodhana looks beside Karna with Shalya urging the horses! Shalya encourages Karna repeatedly to kill Arjuna who is alone with no protectors, reminding him of his great feats. Karna acknowledges that Shalya seems finally to have found himself (79.51). After Duhshasana’s death, Shalya encourages Karna in true heroic style: “Win and gain glory, lose and gain heaven” (84.16).

Section 76 paints a unique picture of a demoralised Bhima. “I am troubled”, he says, being all alone, surrounded by enemies. He seeks encouragement from his charioteer Vishoka, who re-inspires him and is gifted 14 villages, 100 slave girls, 20 chariots. Bhima creates a river of blood. Shakuni suddenly emerges as a mighty warrior who kills Bhima’s charioteer, destroys his flag and umbrella, catches Bhima’s lance in mid-flight and flings it back, piercing his left arm. Bhima knocks him down but does not kill him, because he is Sahadeva’s portion.

However, in section 82 all Karna’s prowess cannot prevent Duhshasana’s horrific death, or that of his son Vrishasena whom Arjuna kills at the behest of Nakula who has been humiliated by him. Unrepentant Duhshasana mocks Bhima, reminding him how the Pandavas fearfully lived in the lac house, scrounged for food in the forest obsessed with fear, hiding in caves and deceived Draupadi “to choose as husband Phalguna” (82.39). Then he hits hard:

“Then you scoundrels

did something similar

to what your mother did.

Draupadi chose only one,

but all five of you

shamelessly enjoyed her.” (39-40).

It is another matter that Draupadi did not even murmur a protest. Her silence, like her origin and her unanswered question in the Kuru assembly, remains an unresolved enigma. Duhshasana even fells Bhima, who is temporarily unable to hit back. Finally, Bhima strikes him down and invites Karna, Duryodhana, Kripa, Ashvatthama, Kritavarma to try to stop him from killing Duhshasana. Though laid low, Duhshasana smiles with fury and proudly displays the hand by which he dragged Draupadi by her hair in public. Bhima rips out that arm, pummels Duhshasana with it, rips open his chest, drinks the blood, beheads him and roars that nothing is as sweet—not mother’s milk, honey, ghee, flower-wine, sweet curd, butter, nectar. Sipping the blood he dances, terrifying onlookers who flee. One vow fulfilled, he looks forward to offering the yajna-beast Duryodhana as sacrifice, crushing his head with his foot before all Kauravas (83.50). This image of war as a sacrifice, repeated at critical intervals, is rooted in the panchagni vidya celebrated in the Brahmanas as a symbol of Prajapati the Creator’s self-devouring to create the cosmos, another symbol of which is the serpent biting its tail.

Krishna paints a lovely picture of Karna advancing (86.6-10) and encourages Arjuna by reminding him that he has Shiva’s blessings. As in the Gita Arjuna says that he will win “Because you, the guru of all the worlds are pleased with me” (86.17). Karna and Arjuna are both like Kartavirya Ajruna, Dasharathi Rama, Vishnu, Shiva, with the finest chariots and best charioteers driving white horses. While warriors watch,

“the two heroes

played the dice-game of war,

for victory/or defeat.” (87.36).

The sky goddess Dyau and the Adityas favour Karna, born of Surya, while the earth Bhumi (symbolised in Pritha the wide one), Agni, Indra, Soma and Pavana favour Arjuna—a curious split among the Adityas indeed. Karna, the hero of “the other”, is backed by Asuras, Yatudhanas, Guhyakas, Pishacas, Rakshasas, minor serpents, Vaishyas, Shudras, Sutas and the mixed castes. Brahma and Shiva jointly foretell Arjuna’s victory. The line-up of celestial beings shows clear evidence of repetitive interpolation from shlokas 39 to 63 and again from verses 64 to 99 in section 87. Shalya boasts that if Karna falls, he will alone slay Krishna-Arjuna. Krishna-Janardana (transcreated appropriately as “punisher of the people” in 87.119) announces that if Arjuna falls, which is impossible, he will crush them barehanded. When Arjuna routs the finest of Shaka, Tushara, Yavana and Kamboja cavalry Ashvatthama pleads with Duryodhana to make peace and rule jointly, undertaking to persuade Arjuna, as the whole world will benefit from renewed friendship.  Duryodhana refuses as the Pandavas will never trust him, for he has heaped too many insults on them. He believes that Arjuna is tired and Karna can kill him.

Suddenly, Arjuna’s bowstring snaps and Karna pierces him and Krishna. The Pandavas are ripped apart like a pack of dogs by a lion: “invulnerable the bow/of Karna and tremendously/strong its bowstring” whereby he pulverises all of Arjuna’s missiles (90.3). Arjuna slices off Shalya’s armour, wounds him and Karna severely. Bathed in blood, resembling Rudra dancing in a cremation ground, Karna pierces Krishna’s armour with arrows that are the five sons of Takshaka’s son Ashvasena whose mother Arjuna killed at Khandava. Infuriated, Arjuna riddles Karna’s vulnerable parts so that he is in agony, yet he stands straight. Unable to excel Arjuna, he uses the snake-mouthed arrow which Ashvasena enters by yogic powers. Shalya tries to disturb Karna at the critical moment by urging him to re-aim the arrow. Krishna saves Arjuna from being beheaded by pressing down the chariot so that only his diadem is knocked off. Karna arrogantly refuses to re-shoot the same arrow even if it could kill a hundred Arjunas. His armour shredded with arrows, Karna faints, glowing like a hill “covered with a wealth of blossoming ashoka, palasha,/shalmali and sandalwood”, dazzling like a mountain “bursting with the beauty/of entire forests/of blossoming karnikaras” (90.77-78). As Arjuna does not press the advantage despite Krishna’s repeated urging, Karna recovers. Suddenly his morale plummets as fails to recall Parashurama’s missile. Simultaneously his chariot wheel gets stuck. Raising his arms, he laments repeatedly that though dharma-knowers proclaim that dharma protects its cherishers and he has always cherished dharma, it is not protecting him—it protects none (90.88). This is a remarkable echo of Vyasa’s Bharata-Savitri at the end of the epic: “I raise my arms and I shout/but no one listens! From Dharma flows wealth and pleasure–/ why is Dharma not practised?” Vyasa urges not giving up dharma up for the sake of pleasure, out of fear, for greed, or to save one’s life—which is precisely what Karna is doing.

Arjuna’s arrows had bewildered Karna and Shalya; his mutilated body refused his bidding. Here an interpolation occurs. In verse 90.82 Arjuna readies the Raudra missile and Karna’s wheel sinks in the next shloka. This happens again in verse 106. In-between is a passage in which Karna succeeds in wounding Krishna and Arjuna, cutting Arjuna’s bowstring 11 times. Failing to extricate the wheel (Shalya does nothing), Karna weeps in frustration and begs for time from Arjuna appealing to his heroic code. It is Krishna who responds, knowing Arjuna’s weakness where the heroic code is concerned. Thrice he recalls the insult to Draupadi and other un-dharmic deeds of Karna, who is shamed into silence. Krishna’s words arouse Arjuna’s fury, but Karna successfully continues countering whatever he shoots and simultaneously tries to free the wheel. Hit hard, Arjuna lets slip the Gandiva and Karna tries with both hands to free wheel. This is exactly what Krishna had done earlier successfully. Krishna commands Arjuna to behead Karna before he climbs back into his chariot. Here shlokas 34-40 are interpolated because, instead of beheading Karna, Arjuna shatters his flag. The death-dealing dart is described as charged with Atharva-angiras energy. From Karna’s body a radiance shoots into the solar orb and his headless corpse blazes like the sun. Vyasa specifically identifies Karna with Surya, saying,

“The arrow-rayed Karna-sun,

after scorching its enemies,

was forced to set

by valiant Arjuna-Kala.” (91.62)

In a later parva Kunti celebrates Karna as “A hero, ear-ringed, armoured, splendid like the Sun”, a solar hero whom Yudhishthira sees attended by twelve suns. Karna lies headless, hundreds of arrows sticking in him like Bhishma:

“He was all adazzle,

like molten gold,

like fire, like the sun.” (94.34)

Spectators wonderingly exclaim, as for Shakespeare’s Cleopatra,

“But he is alive!…

he looked

so alive!

To whoever asked,

he gave;

he never said no …

always the giver” (94.34, 36, 45, 47).

Yudhishthira feels reborn and able to sleep in peace that night.

Like the Indo-European hero, Karna is the eternal solitary who can make the Senecan tragic hero’s motto his own: “I am myself, alone!”

After Karna’s death Shalya, who had boasted he would slaughter Krishna and Arjuna should this happen, flees. Duryodhana takes a stand behind an army of 25000 which Bhima decimates. Failing to rally his troops, Duryodhana all alone faces the Pandavas and Dhrishtadyumna. Shalya paints a dismal picture of the battlefield for Duryodhana in section 94 in 20 shlokas. The end is impending.

Review : Heroic Krishna. Friendship in epic Mahabharata,

Kevin McGrath, Harvard University Press.

 

Indologists intrigued by Krishna usually begin with Walter Ruben’s 1941 study, ignorant of the keen insights Bankimchandra Chatterjee provided long back in Krishnacharitra (1892), the first analytical enquiry seeking to sift reality from myth (available in my English translation since 1991 from M.P. Birla Foundation). Harvard professor Kevin McGrath has not availed of that research in his fourth book on the Mahabharata which views Krishna through the lens of friendship and how Rudra is connected to the recurring image of “two Krishnas on one chariot”, a phrase that has been elaborately investigated by Alf Hiltebeitel.[ii] It occurs 81 times, of which 85% is in the war books —mostly in the Drona and Karna parvas — the rest being linked to scenes of combat. For Krishna, the primary human relationship is with Arjuna, not with family or kin and this is reciprocated. Once Krishna dies, Arjuna too becomes powerless. Further, the pristine Vedic gods Rudra, Shakra, Vaishravana, Yama, Varuna, Pavaka and Hrishikesha underlie this sakhitva. That term, McGrath points out, is also used for the Karna-Duryodhana relationship — a fact seldom realised.

There are other instances of this word being used more than once. Sharmishtha, the Asura princess enslaved by her playmate Devayani uses this one-sidedly to justify taking her sakhi’s husband as hers and declares this to be the established tradition. Drona infuriates his childhood playmate Drupada by introducing himself as his “sakha” — again a sentiment not reciprocated. Again, the intimate relationship between charioteer and chariot-rider is first seen when Devavrata turns to his father Shantanu’s charioteer to find out why the king is malingering. Even the minister does not know the secret. McGrath needed to study these vis-à-vis the Arjuna-Krishna model. He notes that the Vedic pair Mitra-Varuna is an apt parallel, for the former wields a discus while the latter supplies Arjuna the Gandiva bow. Their closest comparison, of course, is the Puranic duo of Nara-Narayana who feature first in the Adi Parva decimating the asuras in the battle over amrita.

Krishna is never shown concerned over his kith and kin. Beginning by killing his maternal uncle, he then beheads his cognate cousin Shishupala. He fixes it so that Duryodhana chooses his army, feeling no compunction in its destruction in the war. Finally, he destroys his own clan, demonstrating an “extraordinary facility for streamlined and fatal violence.” It is the Kaunteyas—sons of his abandoned aunt—who are his chief concern. Repeatedly he consoles and guides them.

In Krishna, McGrath visualises the prototype of the Bronze Age Indo-Aryan charioteer. Other charioteers are scarcely mentioned, except Bhima’s conversation with Vishoka and Karna’s with Shalya (who is surely atypical). In his earlier book, McGrath focused on the unusual charioteer Sanjaya Gavalgani who never drives Dhritarashtra’s chariot but is the narrator of the war books. Here he focuses on Krishna-as-warrior (a role developed in the oral stage of the narrative), not as the supernatural avatar (a product of the literate period, he argues). Speech, McGrath shows, plays a major role in accomplishing Krishna’s goals.

According to McGrath, friendship being a purely human emotion, humans cannot be friends with deities. However, at the core of the Bhagwan-bhakta relationship is the bond of sakhitva, as seen between Indra and Uparichara Vasu, Krishna and Sudama. It also begs the question regarding the same bond between Draupadi, supernaturally born, and Krishna.

The first eleven books of the epic depict a warrior-dominated world where adharma prevails, whose concomitant emotion for the audience is grief. What follows (except the Mausala and Ashvamedhika parvas) is didactic, Brahminical, concerned with dharma, evoking tranquillity that resolves the preceding anguish. McGrath also makes the telling point that in the list of contents, parvasangraha, books one to eleven (the Kshatriya narratives) are cited as belonging to the Bharata, not Mahabharata. Thereafter, as the didactic Brahminical books take over, there is no reference to Bharata.

The contrast between Yudhishthira and Krishna is well brought out: the one obsessed with the dharma of withdrawal from action, yet going into battle; the other a non-combatant strategising victory through devious means, yet expounding dharma (the Bhishma and Ashvamedhika parvas) and revealed as a devotee of Rudra in the Anushasana parva. The major strategist in the war is Krishna. Rudra features in its closure through the holocaust of the Panchalas and Draupadeyas, besides being worshipped by Krishna.

If Krishna does not experience human sorrow, as McGrath claims, what of his anguished confession to Narada regarding the misery he suffers at the hands of family and kin which Bankimchandra, with remarkable insight, had seized upon to portray the human Krishna and which McGrath himself quotes on page 141? He exclaims that in Dvaraka he is friendless. Sakhitva, therefore, is a core need for Krishna and he finds it not with his kin but with Arjuna and Draupadi. Further, as Indrajit Bandopadhyay has pointed out [iii] in the Shalya parva when Krishna meets Dhritarashtra, we find him weeping — the only instance in the epic. Holding the blind monarch’s hand, “he burst into tears/ loud and long” (63.38).

No other pair in the epic is depicted in situations that are relaxed, even indulgent. There are at least three such memorable instances: before the Khandava conflagration; in their private apartments in the Udyoga Parva; and prior to the Anugita. One could argue that the role-reversal depicted in the Virata Parva where Brihannala (coaching Uttara in music and dance) acts as charioteer and morale-booster to Prince Uttar is another instance, but sakhitva is absent between them.

It is interesting to see the change in the Ashvamedha Parva where Krishna returns to the Pandavas, having left them after the war. Who drives Arjuna’s chariot in the expeditions? Is the supreme strategist and speaker par excellence no longer required? Attacked in Sindhu and Trigarta, the Gandiva twice slips from Arjuna’s hand. It is not Krishna but seers who restore his morale. Sakha-less, Arjuna is killed and resurrected not by his sakha, but by his wife Ulupi! As McGrath says, “All this is a dissimilar kind of narrative from what the audience has been listening to”. This disconnect in the narrative ethos could well have led to Jaimini’s version of this parva, full of Krishna-wrought miracles, being preferred in the regional versions of the Mahabharata. But has the earlier intimacy with Arjuna vanished, as McGrath claims? Section 87 contains a double-entendre in Krishna’s use of the word pindaka to explain Arjuna’s inveterate wandering, much to the amusement of Bhima and Yudhishthira laugh, while Draupadi is annoyed.

There is an excellent discussion of the pre-literate elements, the narrative syntax that reveals bricolage in the case of Vaishampayana, while in Sanjaya’s case bricolage is evident in the lexicon and phraseology. Where the former’s displays “greater narrative heterogeneity”, the latter’s has “greater metaphorical range”.

There is an error in note 6 on page 20: Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice is performed not at Kurukshetra but in Takshashila (vide the Svargarohana parva). Again, the epic does not bear out McGrath’s assertion that only the first marriage is attended with great show of wealth, while taking a co-wife is bereft of this. In Pandu’s case it is the opposite. There is but a cryptic reference to Kunti choosing him in the svayamvara, while Madri is brought by paying heavy bride-price. Again, when Subhadra marries, the Yadavas shower riches plentifully.

McGrath overlooks the role of Krishna as a mahout goading the faltering elephant. The Gita recital produced only a temporary effect. On the third and ninth days Krishna in frustration jumps off the chariot to kill the patriarch Bhishma. In the succeeding parvas, too, on a number of occasions Krishna and even Bhima berate Arjuna for faltering.

An excellent insight offered in the research is that in Jara being Krishna’s slayer the “ring composition for this hero” is established, Krishna’s first strategic victory having been the killing of Jara-sandha (joined by Jara). There is, however, an additional dimension: Jara was Vasudeva’s son from a Shudra wife who became a lord of Nishadas (Harivansha, Vishnu Parva, 103). As Krishna killed his agnate cousin Ekalavya (also a Nishada lord), so was he slain, in turn, by his step-brother Jara. The Nishada blood of Satyavati ran in the Dhartarashtras through Vyasa. Is it the Nishadas’ revenge on the architect of the Kurukshetra holocaust?

What is of great interest is the abrupt withdrawal of Krishna after the horse-sacrifice. He suddenly becomes distant and will not even approach Emperor Yudhishthira for permission to leave, but has Arjuna do it for him. He even takes Subhadra away to Dvaraka, leaving Arjuna alone with his brothers and Draupadi. Has Krishna, then, served his purpose?

There is a curious prevarication in Krishna’s account of the war to his father regarding Abhimanyu’s death, omitting Yadava Kritavarma’s role, and the unfair means by which the Duryodhana and his generals were slain. This McGrath has not studied.It is not possible in this short compass to survey McGrath’s extremely perceptive analysis of Krishna’s strategies and his superb use of speech (lethal, persuasive, honeyed—even making a field of carnage poetically beautiful) to mould characters and events to his desired ends. The climactic example of this power of the word is his resurrection of still-born Parikshit.

McGrath establishes that Krishna is a unique figure in Indo-European epic poetry: princely charioteer, master-strategist, wizard with words, ambassador, inspired seer, intimate friend, moving effortlessly between these varied roles. It is this remarkable picture that led to the development of a Krishna cycle in the Puranas, expanding on these roles, leaving aside that of the master charioteer which remains unique to the Mahabharata.

Review : Battle, Bards and Brahmins ed. John Brockington,

Motilal Banarsidass,

Rs.750, pp.461

 

The 13th World Sanskrit Conference held in Edinburgh had 14 sections of which 5 papers on the mahakavya Ramayana, 13 on the itihasa Mahabharata and, alas, only one on its khila-appendix Harivamsha have been edited by John Brockington, an authority on Valmiki’s great poem. The Dubrovnik conferences on epics and puranas have been focusing, lately, on the neglected appendix. The presence of a scholar from India, Urmi Shah of Ahmedabad, though solitary, is most welcome. The title, however, begs the question as the only paper discussing battle is the editor’s and brahmins are not a major concern in the rest, several of which discuss the narrative art.

Both Brodbeck and Allen discuss the Mahabharata genealogy. The former raises questions about Vaishampayana’s two versions, the first in verse up to Shantanu, the second in prose down to Janamejaya, its listener. Brodbeck makes the very interesting interlinking of Bhishma, Dhritarashtra and Yudhishthira as the overtaken eldest sons. The Bharata patriline faces disaster thrice: Vichitravirya dies childless (Vyasa rescues); Pandu is sonless, cursed with coital death (Kunti rescues); Bhishma is killed by Arjuna (the Kuru lineage is extinct); Arjuna is killed by his son Babhruvahana (Ulupi Naga rescues); the Pandava heir Parikshit (the sons by other Pandava wives are nowhere!) is killed in the womb (Krishna rescues) and a second time by Takshaka Naga (of which his son Janamejaya is peculiarly unaware till vengeful Uttanka tells him). Bharata, Bhishma, Abhimanyu and even the Pandavas are brought up by their mothers—a point worth mulling over.

Allen examines Vyasa’s four sons in terms of the Indo-European pentadic ideology (representing wisdom, force, wealth, above the triad and below it) bringing out the centrality of Vidura in the narrative right from his birth, which is recounted before that of his brothers and at greater length. He relates Vidura-Yudhishthira-Kripa to Aryaman, Pandu-Chitrangad-Bhima to Varuna, Dhritarashtra-Vichitravirya-the twins-Yuyutsu to Bhaga. Above this triad are Shuka-Bhishma-Arjuna as the positive aspect (what about Vyasa, Krishna?) while Shakuni-Duryodhana-Karna are below it as the negative aspect. Allen investigated the marriages of Vidura-Dhritarashtra-Pandu in a paper in Gender and Narrative in the Mahabharata (reviewed here earlier). We look forward to his research into the parallels in Greek myth with the sons of Iapetos (Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Menoetius).

Angelika Malinar’s paper is an engrossing presentation of Duryodhana’s claims, showing that he projected the future on the basis of his finding that whatever he had wanted did happen in the past. Therefore, he is not boasting. Nor is he going beyond defending the integrity of his kingdom, by right of primogeniture. He is also a master of yoga in being able to freeze the waters around him. Malinar proposes that the Gita opposes his absolute sovereignty and supernatural power. In the historical context, a post-Ashoka period is suggested for the text (Ashoka criticized former cruel kings). It is interesting that in the late 19th century Holtzmann identified Duryodhana with Ashoka, while now G.von Simson identifies Dhritarashtra and others equate Yudhishthira with Ashoka. However, when we find Kautilya’s Arthashastra in pre-Ashokan times referring to Mahabharata characters, one wonders how the epic can be post-Ashoka.

Danielle Feller examines Bhima’s two quests for flowers drawing an interesting parallel with the lotuses in an earlier story of the five Indras and Shri the femme fatale. There is another parallel with the seizing of amrita which never reaches earth (so too Draupadi, the earth, never gets the celestial flowers). This quest is always most dangerous and is followed by abduction (Draupadi by the demon Jatasura disguised as a hermit when Bhima is absent; Sita by Ravana similarly disguised in Rama-Lakshmana’s absence). The mythic message, says Feller, is that women (the earth) cannot obtain immortality that is heaven’s despite sending the wind (Garuda, Bhima, Hanumana) for it.

The quest for immortality is also the core element in the intriguing Uttanka episode occurring twice in the Mahabharata. Paolo Magnone shows that beyond the didactic purpose of inculcating model discipleship lies the layer of the folktale hero’s fabulous adventures and beyond that the archetype of the hero’s descent into the netherworld for amrita. In the Ashvamedhika Parva Uttanka refuses the ambrosia offered by Indra disguised as an untouchable showing, again, that immortality is not for the mortal.

A particularly valuable paper is on the integration of sacred pilgrimage spots (teerthas) into the narrative. James Hegarty successfully argues that they construct the past and contextualize and interpret narrative. Teerthas are paradigmatic venues for recitals and ritual, connecting Kurukshetra and Naimisha with Vedic Sarasvati. Through them, the epic incorporates all past and current religious discourse. No teertha is dealt with in isolation but always in relation to others, being part of a circuit. Pilgrimage is established to be as essential as sacrifices for the maintenance of society. The climax occurs in Vyasa’s exclamation, “What need has the listener (of the epic) of the waters of Pushkara?” establishing recitation of the epic as surpassing pilgrimages, even replacing Vedic rituals. Thus, “Vedic ritual…was transformed into more portable and multi-applicable formats…by narrative means.”

Hiltebeitel’s paper on mapping bhakti with dharma takes off from the proposition (that Malinar echoes) that the Mahabharata is a response in post-Ashokan times by Brahmanical culture to the imperial espousal of Jainism and Buddhism. He focuses on the twin themes of hospitality (who hosts Rama and Krishna?) and friendship. The latter concept of “well-wisher, suhrid” ultimately incorporates the bhakta audience and readers of the epic. A new Brahmanical dharma is being made familiar through Rama, Krishna and their hosts, the sangha of Rishis. The “suhrid” concept, however, is already there in the Rig Veda, as Indrajit Bandopadhyay points out elsewhere. How, then, is this is new?

Adheesh Sathaye argues that the epic uses Vishvamitra to engage with a folk theme: the wish-fulfilling cow and the king-turned-ogre. The former is common to both epics, the difference lying in the treatment. Valmiki stresses the power of Vishvamitra’s weapons and traces how lust and anger vitiate his ascesis. Vyasa emphasizes the superiority of Vasishtha’s ascetic power in routing the army, supplementing it by showing the sublimity of his forgiveness in the case of the cannibal king Kalmashpada. Sathaye relates this to the 2nd century BC situation of a flux in the social class system where the Brahmin Pushyamitra usurped the throne. The epic engages with this by having king Vishvamitra become a great sage, simultaneously establishing the supremacy of brahmin Vasishtha’s ascesis. The portrayal of several brahmins who, like Pushyamitra, abandon their vocation to become take up arms (Jamadagni, Parashurama, Sharadvat, Drona, Kripa, Ashvatthama) might well reflect this historical situation.

Questions are being raised now about the sanctity of the Bhandarkar ‘critical edition’ of the Mahabharata text. The central problem lies in mapping the interrelationships among manuscripts. Wendy Phillips-Rodriguez has put forward a fascinating schema called “uprooted trees” like the Gita’s cosmic tree whose roots are upwards and branches downwards. Through this paradigm she finds that the southern manuscripts are more widely dispersed than the northern, indicating their independent evolution. This upside-down tree model opens up the study of the epic’s variations as having “an independent cultural value”. Very pertinently she asks, “Why privilege one version over the others?” The variations are separate interpretations, and the study of how each evolved will enable greater understanding of the cultural roots of the epic.

Antonella Cosi’s close study of style and syntax reveals that a fixed set of similes is used in insults, more frequent in dialogues than in speeches or descriptions. Vyasa follows certain stylistic principles. For abuse, he uses impure animals and combines them with improbable situations in the Karna Parva to create more sophisticated insults!

Seeking to construct an ‘epic psychology’, Sven Sellmer analyses how the heart (hrid, hridaya) is depicted in the Mahabharata at the physical, psychosomatic and abstract levels. James Fitzgerald, who is translating the Shanti Parva, takes up the Sankhya-Yoga discussion in its Mokshadharma part to show that Narayana stands at the end of both, beyond whom lies liberation, moksha. Sankhya’s disembodied kshetrajna, whose knowledge is non-sensory, is shown as superior to the embodied yogeshvara.

Yaroslav Vassilkov, translator of the Stri and the Ashvamedhika parvas into Russian, contributes a valuable examination of how the myth of the boar incarnation has Munda tribal roots. He proposes that archaic Indo-Aryan folk traditions ran alongside Sanskrit culture which borrowed such myths from them—a phenomenon of ‘archaization’.

Horst Brinkhaus’ is the solitary paper on the Harivamsha. It deals with the 16,108 wives of Krishna arguing that this appendix to the epic predates the Puranas as it shows Rukmini as Krishna’s predominant wife. He is unaware that back in 1894 Bankimchandra Chatterjee had examined this issue in detail in Krishnacharitra (available in English since 1991) and dispelled the figment of 16108 wives quite conclusively.

Mary Brockington’s Ramayana paper is an excellent analysis of the narrative art of Valmiki bringing out his careful planning. She shows how tension is heightened and the audience—on occasion the characters—are shocked by surprises not only in the plot but also in the characterization.

John Brockington examining weaponry in Valmiki concludes that swords are not important. Arrows are the most significant (particularly the speed and numbers shot, not accuracy) followed by javelins and, much less, clubs. The monkeys use branches, trees, boulders besides teeth, nails, fists. Defensive armour and fortifications are rare. Chariots feature quite often, but not charioteers. It is clearly a society less advanced than the Mahabharata’s.

Sally Goldman, co-translator of the Sundara and Yuddha cantos of the Princeton Ramayana project, takes up Indrajit’s rites at the grove of Nikumbhila intrigued by the word being unique to Valmiki. What are the implications of linking the rakshasas with a mother-goddess figure, the demonic with the feminine? Several malignant female figures people the Ramayana right from the palace to the forest and through the sea to Lanka. Sita, though mysteriously born, is never deified except at the end of the war when Brahma tells Rama that she is Lakshmi incarnated. The fire ritual in Nikumbhila’s grove has demonic women in attendance and offerings are made to evil spirits. The destruction of the ritual by Lakshmana is the defeat of the mother-goddess and the dangerous feminine world.

Urmi Shah, the solitary Indian scholar, presents a comparative study of polity in the Nitiprakashika (contemporaneous with the Mahabharata?) and the Ramayana. This text, narrated by Vaishampayana to Janamejaya, is a treatise on governance for the Kali epoch. Hence it concentrates on weapons and military organization for maintaining law and order. The section on faults of kings is practically identical with both epics.

The Anandaramayana is a 15th century text extremely popular in Maharashtra and southern India and among the Ramnamis and Rasik Sampradaya in the north. Vidyut Aklujkar argues that its composition occurred around the river Godavari near Nasik and the composer was a Marathi as it concentrates on pilgrimage spots of Maharashtra, especially around the Godavari. Several words and phrases and myths typical of Marathi occur in it. It is ahead of its times in its feminist attitude. For the first time we find the 108 names of Sita and the stipulation that Rama must not be worshipped without her. Clever and morally superior women are praised over their husbands.

The book has a valuable index of epic passages cited and is free from misprints. It is sad that there not a single paper that discusses the women in the epics. Even the female scholars do not seem inspired to research this aspect. Missing, also, are contributions by noted Ramayana scholars like Paula Richmann, Arshia Sattar and Sheldon Pollock; but, then, there is more than enough for a rich repast! It is symptomatic of our loss of identity that though India is the home of Sanskrit our government does nothing to encourage such international conferences. Otherwise it would not take six years for the papers to get published. One wonders when the papers of the 15th conference held in New Delhi in 2012 will be available.

 

Review : Bibek DebRoy: The Mahabharata, volume 7,

Penguin, 2013,

pp. xxxviii+562,

Rs. 599/–

 

“How are the mighty fallen in the midst of battle,

and the weapons of war perished!”—David’s lament over Saul

 

Bibek Deb Roy, professor of economics in New Delhi, has shouldered the massive enterprise of translating into English prose the “critical edition” (CE) of the Mahabharata (nearly 74,000 shlokas). As a single-handed effort, it surely deserves admiration. The 7th volume covering the deaths of Karna (“I have been born for valour and for fame,” p.140), Shalya (“The two Krishnas, stationed on their chariot…though united, they are not my equal in strength of arms,” p.336) and Duryodhana (“Who can be more fortunate than I am?… I will go to heaven…You will sorrow here,” p.545), brings the formal war to an end, closing with Duryodhana lustrating Ashvatthama as general.

The first attempt to English Vyasa’s massive magnum opus was begun possibly in 1872 by Kishori Mohon Ganguli who was commissioned by Pratap Chandra Roy. Why Roy chose Ganguli we have no idea. The publication began in 1883 and was complete in 1896. From Ganguli we learn that, as a specimen, he had been handed a draft of an attempt by a German friend of Max Muller’s done in the 1850s, which he found very clumsy. The enormous enterprise was completed single-handed except for parts of the Adi and the Sabha Parvas where Charu Charan Mookerjee and Krishna Kamal Bhattacharya helped, and another portion by an unnamed person. Ganguli depended largely on the Bengal recension and also used the Bombay recension.

The Rector of Serampore College, M.N.Dutt, authored another translation (1895-1905) drawing largely on Ganguli, immediately after completing his translation of the Ramayana (1889, 1892-94). Both Ganguli and Dutt provided only prose renderings, Latinising or omitting passages that would shock Victorian sensibilities. There has been no complete English translation as yet.

Romesh Chunder Dutt ICS produced the first verse condensation in Locksley Hall metre in 1893, following that up with a similar one of the Ramayana. R.T.H. Griffith had already rendered Valmiki into verse during 1870-75. J.A.B. van Buitenen began translating the so-called “Critical Edition” produced by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, for the Chicago University but could complete only the first five books and the Gita (1973-1981). In continuation, out of sequence, James Fitzgerald’s translation of books 11 (Stri) and part of 12 (Shanti) has been published. The Clay Sanskrit Library started publishing different parts of an English translation of the Bombay recension in pocket-sized diglot editions from 2005, but ran out of funds after publishing 8 books and parts of some others. All these have been prose translations. In December 1968 Professor P.Lal of St.Xavier’s College, Calcutta, published the first fascicule of his verse-and-prose translation of the complete Mahabharata, known in academia as the “vulgate,” from his Writers Workshop. He not only translated all by himself but also published single-handed, combining Ganguli and P.C.Roy! Before his death, he had published revised editions of all but the Shanti and Anushasana Parvas.

In this 7th volume, for the first time we find Sanjaya fighting in the war, losing his armour and being saved by Vyasa as Satyaki is about to behead him. He reports to Dhritarashtra on returning from the battlefield following the death of each general. The “divine vision” is his ability to know not only what is occurring everywhere in the field but also the thoughts of the combatants which vanishes after the death of Duryodhana as does his role as rapporteur that began in the Udyoga Parva.

Stylistically, Karna Parva is a highlight of poetic beauty. That is why the prose translation dissatisfies and the Lal version scores. Look at the translations of the deaths of Karna and Shalya:

“The body-less head of Karna

blazed on the battlefield

like a mountain peak

downed by a storm,

like a yajna-flame extinguished,

like the sun-orb setting

in the Asta hills.” — P.Lal

“It was as if the untainted and extinguished fire was lying down in the expansive sky, after the end of a sacrifice. Karna’s body was beautiful, like the rays of the sun in the firmament” — Deb Roy

“Like a fire scattered by a great wind when it is at rest in the morning at the termination of a sacrifice. Karna’s body shone like the sun with its rays.” — Hiltebeitel

“The bull among men fell down affectionately on the ground, like a beloved wife who falls down on the chest of her dear husband. The lord had enjoyed the earth for a long time, like a beloved wife. He seemed to go to sleep now, clasping her with all his limbs.” — Deb Roy

“And the earth

lovingly clasped

that bull-brave hero

to herself,

Like a lovelorn girl

embracing her lover

to her breasts.

Long did he lie there,

passionately enjoying

the earth,

Covering her

with all his limbs,

sleeping with her peacefully.” — P. Lal

Just before Karna’s chariot wheel sinks into the boggy ground, Krishna lifts the Kapidhvaja chariot out of the ground, which Karna is unable to emulate because his charioteer, Shalya (whose name we learn here is ‘Aartayaani’), does not stir a finger. The relationship between charioteer and warrior is revealed as the secret underlying victory or defeat, where the fighters are equally matched. Even at the end Krishna protects Arjuna by making him descend first. The moment Krishna steps down, the chariot goes up in flames (p.547).

Karna critiques dharma: “But instead of protecting one who is devoted, it (dharma) is now bringing me down. I think that dharma does not always protect” (p.299). In the Sabha Parva, Bhishma’s reply to Draupadi’s anguished query was: “What a strong man says/ often becomes the only dharma;/ a weak man may have dharma on his side,/ but who listens to him? (P.Lal).” Yudhishthira voices the cold truth after Duryodhana falls: “Pandava has accomplished his desire. How does it matter whether it was dharma or adharma?”

Karna’s character remains a puzzle. His motto “I have been born for valour and for fame” (p.140) supersedes the professed dedication to Duryodhana. For glory he releases four Pandavas after defeating them. It would be wrong to ascribe this to the promise he had made to Kunti, because to her he had pledged not to kill any of the brothers save Arjuna. Nothing had been said about imprisoning them. Had he captured Yudhishthira (as Drona had planned), the war would have been over. Strangely enough, Arjuna and Krishna never worry about this where Karna is concerned. We have to look back to the secret meeting between Krishna and Karna at the end of the Udyoga Parva to understand why.

Karna’s picture of society in Gandhara (Kabul valley), Bahlika (Bactria-northern Afghanistan) and Madraka (northern Punjab in Pakistan) is violently vituperative, reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah. Hence it is curious that Bhishma chose princesses from there for Dhritarashtra and Pandu. Sahadeva’s wife Vijaya is also from Madra. Further, easterners are regarded as slaves while southerners are considered contemptible. Hence, the sudden paean to the Pandya king’s valour is singular. In the Southern recension Chitrangada is the Pandya princess of Manilura. The Kaurava allies are from the East, the South and the North-west.

We discover why Shiva is called Mahadeva: the gods gave him half their energy for destroying the triple cities (chapter 24). Here Duryodhana emerges as a riveting narrator of the cosmic myth. The universe is figured forth as a chariot and the gods empower Shiva with weapons, a motif recurring in the crowning of Skanda in the Shalya Parva, and in Durga’s investiture in the Devi Bhagavata.

It is interesting that each Pandava has a designated opponent as his “share” — even Yudhishthira whom Krishna exhorts to kill Shalya and not drown in this puddle having crossed an ocean. Nakula alone has none.

The war descriptions follow a formula of metaphors and similes, the predominating one being a river of blood, similar to the picture in the Iliad (Book 21) of the river Scamander, but poetically far more elaborate. Like the Valkyries, Apsaras take dead warriors to heaven. Unique to the war books is the deliberate conjunction of lovely pictures from nature with the violence of death, reminiscent of the English metaphysical poets’ technique: bloody arms are like golden standards, lopped-off heads are like crimson flowers, bloodied bodies are like flames-of-the-forest. The deities invoked are all Vedic, like Indra, Surya, Soma, Vayu, Agni and the later Skanda. Vaishnavism is not prevalent in the war books, which is one reason for their being regarded as the ‘original’ epic.

Arjuna is generally considered invincible, yet in the Karna Parva the Trigarta king Susharma knocks him unconscious, injures Krishna and immobilises their chariot. His warriors climb on to it and physically grab hold of Arjuna and Krishna (chapter 37). Ashvatthama and Karna both succeed in injuring Krishna and we notice that although charioteers were unarmed, there was no compunction in killing them. The code of battle Bhishma had prescribed no longer obtained.

When Arjuna is about to kill Yudhishthira (chapter 49), Krishna reads him a homily on non-violence being the supreme virtue (which is what the dundubha snake had told Ruru in the Adi Parva, Arjuna argued in the Gita, and Yudhishthira always stresses). Lying is preferable to killing and Dharma is subtle, he says, echoing Bhishma’s reply to Draupadi in the gambling hall. Twice Krishna repeats when one should lie: when being robbed of everything, when in mortal danger, during enjoyment and in marriage! Krishna says, “A person who is always based on truth is but a child. A person who can differentiate between truth and falsehood can alone follow dharma… Everything is not laid down in the sacred texts.” This is where he defines dharma: “Dharma is so called because it holds everything up.”

From Ashvatthama we learn that he and Kripa cannot be killed (p.289) but the reason is not given. As with Richard Crookback, Duryodhana’s horse is slain under him, a unique instance of an equestrian hero, Shakuni’s Gandharans being the only cavalry division. Only then is he described as fearfully taking shelter within a lake. When discovered, he offers the kingdom to Yudhishthira who, for a change, scornfully refuses and insists on a fight to the death. But then, to Krishna’s fury, the gambler in him takes over, and he promises that should Duryodhana defeat any one of them, the kingdom will be his! Krishna furiously berates Yudhishthira for placing the enemy on equal footing, as Duryodhana is more skilled than any Pandava with the mace. “It is almost as if the ancient and unequal gambling match between you and Shakuni is being enacted again,” exclaims Krishna.

Chapter 2 of the Shalya Parva contains a deeply moving plangent lament by Dhritarashtra repeatedly calling out to Duryodhana, “Come to me…where have you gone!” that harks back to his memorable lament that begins the Mahabharata: “Then I no longer hoped for victory, Sanjaya!”

There is an interesting footnote Deb Roy provides about Narada’s lute: the original word is kacchapi, i.e. it is made of the shell of a tortoise. This recalls the Greek Hermes whose lyre was made out of tortoise shell and who, like Narada, was the celestial messenger. When Bhima lists Duryodhana’s crimes, he mentions having slain the “Pratikami” (servant) who dragged Draupadi by the hair which is puzzling unless he is demeaning Duhshasana. More intriguing is the absence of any reference to the greatest offence viz. the attempted stripping of Draupadi anywhere outside the Sabha Parva. Was it added later? Chapter 38 of the Shalya Parva (p.465) provides a mini-myth about Rama that is missing from the Ramayana: Rama had shot off a rakshasa’s head which got stuck in the thigh of sage Mahodara. This embedded skull fell off when he bathed in the Aushanasa tirtha of the Sarasvati, which came to be known as “Kapalamochana”. Deb Roy’s footnote 66 on p.17 mentions that Abhimanyu slew one of the six who encircled him, namely Brihadbala, but does not add that he was king of Kosala and possibly the last in Rama’s lineage.

To avoid taking sides in the war, Balarama goes on a pilgrimage which reveals the pre-eminence of Sarasvati among rivers, even though it no longer flowed to the sea having disappeared at Vinasana. The tirthas bring out the unique ability of Bharatavarsha to hold together two diametrically opposite beliefs: one pilgrimage celebrates Shrucavati attaining heaven unmarried, while another is holy because Kuni-Gargya’s aged daughter bought a husband with half her merit for one night because spinsters cannot reach heaven! The Jaigishavya-Asita story extols sanyasa above the householder’s dharma, whereas elsewhere it is dutiful domesticity that is said to surpass renunciation. A fascinating insight into the predicament of gods is provided in the account about Kurukshetra (p.516). If by dying there men reach heaven, they will no longer sacrifice and so the gods will cease to exist! The problem is that the boon Indra grants Kuru to offset this seems to be the same thing: “great merits to those who give up their lives here.” Do “great merits” preclude heaven and make sacrifices obligatory? Janamejaya does not ask Vaishampayana to clarify.

Balarama condemns Krishna’s prevarication and Bhima’s cheating. Sanjaya bluntly calls it, “deceptive exposition of dharma by Keshava” and describes a heavenly shower of celestial blossoms, divine music, fragrant breeze and clear sky celebrating Duryodhana’s last words to Krishna, “I will go to heaven…You will sorrow here.” The Pandavas are said to be ashamed and distressed. Is their morale restored by Krishna declaring that he had strategised thus because in a fair fight the Kaurava heroes were undefeatable, confirming Duryodhana’s indictment, “Had you fought (us) through fair means, it is certain that you would not have been victorious. However, you adopted ignoble and deceitful methods”? When Krishna restrains the furious Balarama by saying, “Their prosperity is our prosperity,” the Yadava interest is revealed. It is Krishna’s great grandson Vajra who is installed at Indraprastha, the Pandava capital, with the Yadava survivors. Duryodhana trusts that Charvaka will avenge him which is of a piece with his contemptuous treatment of rishis and the absence of a priest in the Hastinapura court. Duryodhana was a materialist. Hence all the sages backed the Pandavas to preserve their hegemony in society.

It reflects adversely on the professionalism of the publishers that they not only misspell “Shalya” as “Shalaya” throughout the page headings (pp. 319-377) but have not bothered to correct the errors in the Introduction reprinted from the first volume. The genealogical chart has serious errors, showing Yayati married to Anantaa who is his son Puru’s daughter-in-law. Ganga is shown born to Pratipa and Sunanda, i.e. sister to Shantanu whom she marries. Kuru is not the grandson of Bharata (p.xix) but at least five generations after him. Nowhere is it said that the original “Jaya” was of 8,800 verses. This is the number of riddling shlokas (Vyasa-kuta) Sauti mentions and his name is Ugrashrava, not Lomaharshana, which is his father’s name (p.xxi). The critical edition (CE) does not “eliminate later interpolations” (p.xxii) but only retains readings that are common to the maximum number of manuscripts, taking the Kashmir Sharada manuscript as the basis. In the process, the editors created gaps in the narrative which Deb Roy bridges very helpfully by supplying missing links. On p. 209 he points out an important editorial oversight: Ashvatthama is described as of Bhrigu lineage whereas he is of Bharadvaja lineage. The translations by Ganguly and Dutt are not unabridged (p.xxvii) but Latinised or omitted objectionable passages. Deb Roy pats himself on the back for being one of the Bengalis who alone have translated the entire epic into English, but in the process transforms the Punjabi P.Lal into a Bengali! He claims that Ramayana is post-Mahabharata as it depicts a more sophisticated society where rocks stones and fists are not used in battle. However, that is precisely how the vanara fight the rakshasa, and so do warriors in Kurukshetra in his own translation (p. 88). Footnote 795 mistakenly states that Parashurama had cursed Karna his chariot would be stuck in the earth. That was the curse of a Brahmin whose cow Karna had killed by mistake. On p.435 “parshni charioteers” and on p. 496 “nairrtas” have not been glossed. “King of deer” (p.323) is an inaccurate translation of mrigendra which means, “Indra/Lord of beasts”, as mriga means “wild beasts,” not merely, “deer”.

Review :The Harivansha – The Significance of a Neglected Text

Andre Couture: Krsna in the Harivamsha, vol. 1—the wonderful play of a cosmic child,

DK Printworld, New Delhi, 2015

Pages. 362,

Rs. 990/-

 

Mahabharata (MB) scholars tend to dismiss the Harivansha (HV) as a superfluous “appendix” (as they interpret the word khila which the MB applies to it). When Kaliprasanna Singha got the MB translated into Bengali (1858-1866), he omitted the HV finding it to be obviously a later composition on the basis of its language besides being inferior in style. Possibly, because of this K.M. Ganguli did not include it in his English prose translation of the MB (1883-1896). The first English translation of the complete HV was done in prose in 1897 by Manmatha Nath Dutt, the Rector of Keshub Academy, Calcutta, who was the second translator of the MB (1895), besides the Ramayana and the Agni and Garuda Puranas. Dr. K.P.A. Menon’s translation (Nag Publishers 2008, of which Couture appears to be unaware), is of P.L. Vaidya’s “critical edition,” which drastically shortens the extant text from 18000 to 6073 slokas. Recently, an unfinished English prose translation of the complete HV (Chitrashala Press, 1936) by the late Desiraju Hanumanta Rao, A. Harindranath and A. Purushothaman is available online at a site maintained by the nuclear scientist Dr A. Harindranath of Calcutta.

It was left to the French scholar Andre Couture (professor at the Laval University, Quebec, Canada) to show that khila actually means “a complement, or supplement” essential for revealing the significance of the main work. This book collects updated versions of thirteen papers written over a period of three decades analyzing Krishna’s birth and childhood deeds. Usually dismissed as a hodge-podge of pastoral myths, Couture shows that the HV is a carefully crafted narrative with a definite goal. His investigation reveals the importance of Nilkantha Chaturdhara’s commentary, ignored by Indologists, for reaching a proper understanding of the work. Nilkantha explains khila as an addition to a Vedic corpus for a specific reason. The HV is added to the MB because it completes the glorification of Krishna’s deeds: “the meaning of the MB is not complete without the HV.” Couture is the first to state uncompromisingly, “the fact that its parts do not exactly fit the order Western Indologists would prefer is of little consequence…it is more constructive to try to understand the logic underlying the composition of the text as we now find it rather than to resort to radical surgery each time a narrative challenge arises.” Instead of a mechanical comparison of texts to arrive at an “Ur-Text” it is the contents that need to be analyzed to identify recurrent themes and how the episodes are sequenced. It is refreshing to find a Western scholar who dismisses the prevailing theory that Krishna was an ancient vegetation deity whose name “Damodara” refers to wheat sheaves tied with straw. Instead, writes Couture, “only the Indian explanations are worth consideration.”

Couture shows the error in Vaidya’s conception of the HV as a late and random collection of appendices, from which he shears away whatever he deems non-essential. Actually, the HV presents Vishnu as the only god who ensures the welfare of the three worlds, complementing the “Narayaniya” of the MB. His dark form is Shesha who, as Sankarshana, is Krishna’s necessary complement, the shesha (remnant) of Vishnu the shesin. Brahma is the form he takes when creating, Rudra when destroying. Both the HV and the MB regularly allude to the four forms of Vishnu: with one he performs ascesis on earth; another is a witness to all that happens; the third acts in the world; the fourth is in yogic sleep, awakening to emit the cosmos. Couture is critical of Vaidya’s unjustifiable omission of Vishnu’s invocation of the goddess Arya Vindhyavasini that occurs in all versions of the HV, except just three in Malayalam script, and is present in both the Sharada and Newari texts upon which Vaidya relies the most. The hymn is definitely pre-695 CE when it features in a Chinese translation of the Suvanabhassottama Sutra. This goddess plays a critical role in Krishna’s birth under the names Nidra and Ekanamsa, on whom there is a valuable discussion.

The representation of the Kshatriya Akrura as a devotee, bhagavata, suggests a new social environment in which this class led bhakti movements seeking to subsume ritual Brahminism in their views. This a world of kings and of Brahmins visiting courts to make a living. These Brahmins represent Vishnu as the supreme sovereign over all monarchs, to whom total bhakti is due, as seen in the bhagavata Shesha who supports the world and serves as Narayana’s couch. To compete with the onset of Buddhism and Jainism, the concept of a Universal Divine was welcomed by the newly urbanized society which found that the traditional rituals had outlived their day. The period for this development is suggested as the closing centuries BCE. At this time, the Vedas were being enlarged by adding a fifth (the Chhandogya Upanishad’s itihasapuranam panchamam) from which legitimacy was sought. The tales in this fifth category relate to genealogies, royal conduct, gods and heroes. The reciters of this lore sought to re-establish the challenged social order on the basis of shruti and the puranas, as the MB clearly states at the beginning.

Correctly, Couture discounts the prevalent dating of the HV to the first or second century CE merely on the basis of the single occurrence of the word dinarika (Roman denarius). Vaidya argued that Kshemendra’s Bharatamanjari contains summaries of both the MB and the HV which, therefore, must have been completed by 1046 CE. Couture finds no cogent basis for Vaidya’s dating of the HV to 300 or 400 CE. The recent conclusions of scholars like Hiltebeitel, Bailey, Sutton, Biardeau and Fitzgerald that the MB was compiled between 200 BCE and 200 CE as a response to Buddhism, would apply equally to the HV. According to J.L. Masson and Ingalls, the language of the HV cannot be later than the 2nd or 3rd century CE and could go back to the 1st century CE. Ashvaghosha’s Buddhacharita (1st century CE) refers to a story found only in the HV about Bhishma killing Ugrayudha. Couture finds that several similes in it are paralleled only in the HV. Such is the epithet rathavistirnajaghana (chariot-like hips) describing gopis in the HV and shroniratha in Buddhacharita applied to lovely ladies. Further, Kushana iconography from the 2nd century CE reflects descriptions about the Man-Lion avatar and Sankarshana found in the HV. Moreover, only in India did the Kushana kings use the epithet devaputra which is used in the HV to describe Krishna and Balarama. However, on what evidence does Couture conclude that the Mathura described in the HV is evocative of cities of the Kushana era (1st to mid-3rd century CE) and not of the end of the Dvapara Yuga (for which we have no descriptions)?

It would be interesting to see Couture’s reaction to Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s clear opinion in his remarkable Bengali study of the Krishna corpus, Krishnacharitra (1892, available in English translation since 1991 [1]) that the HV is later than the Vishnu Purana. Couture’s bibliography is unaware of this work. It is intriguing that Couture has nothing much to say about the nocturnal sport of Krishna with the gopis. Bankimchandra’s Chapter 6 is “The Gopis of Vraja” as described in the HV. He points out that they are mentioned only in the 76th/77th chapter of its Vishnu Parva, just as they only occur in the 13th chapter of the 5th book of the Vishnu Purana. Instead of the famous raasa, it is the word hallisha that is used in the HV whose chapter-heading itself reads Hallishakridanam. Both words connote a type of dance and there are verses here identical with the Vishnu Purana. The HV account is shorter (usually it embellishes and expands the Vishnu Purana accounts). Bankim opines, “Comparing in detail the poetic quality, high seriousness, scholarship and magnificence of both works, it is clear that the Harivamsha is far inferior in these respects to the Vishnu Purana. The Harivamsha composer has been unable to comprehend the profound truth inhering in the Vishnu Purana’s description of raasa and the achieving of union with the divine Krishna through the bhakti-yoga practiced by the gopis…. The vivacious girl of the Vishnu Purana is restless with joy, while the Harivamsha’s gopis express the sensibility of wantons. In many places the Harivamsha composer is found to display a fondness for the sensual to an excessive degree.”[2] Kaliprasanna Singha must have had the same reaction, because of which he did not include the HV when he translated the MB into Bengali.

Couture analyzes the HV account of the birth and childhood of Krishna in conjunction with the versions in the allied puranas. Couture contends that these are not a hotchpotch of legends taken from pastoral tribes like Abhiras, nor are they purely symbolic, but draw upon Brahminic Vedic tradition to address concerns of their audience. The Bhagavatas (formerly called smaarta) played the major role in constructing a coherent mythic narrative of a hagiography based upon a specific religious ideology. The murder of Devaki’s six new-born sons and her aborted seventh pregnancy leading to the birth of Sankarshana follow precedents of the birth of Martanda in the Rigveda and the Maitrayani and Taittiriya Samhitas, and the births of Bhishma, Aruna and Garuda in the MB. The device presages the birth of a deity or a semi-divine being.

Couture has a very interesting discussion on the place of Sankarshana in Krishna’s birth-story. He is the remnant (shesha) after the pralaya (universal destruction) symbolized by the killing of Devaki’s six sons at birth, which is followed by the supreme divinity, as is the pattern after cosmic dissolution. Recreation is not possible without the collaboration of Yoganidra, who emerges from Rohini in this case, and is named Ekanamsa, to whom Couture devotes a separate chapter. Couture argues that since her birth follows Sankarshana’s and is coterminous with Krishna’s, this evokes the union of Purusha-Spirit and Prakriti-Matter. Thus, no detail in the birth-story is arbitrary.

Similarly, after seven years in the cow-settlement (vraja), wolves emerge from Krishna’s pores, causing destruction. Therefore, they move to Vrindavana, to a new life with the miracle of the Govardhana-lifting to save it from a deluge. Again, this is the pattern of gestation and a new birth. Couture has not noticed that the reasons Krishna gives to his brother for the move are similar to those advanced by Krishna-Dvaipayana-Vyasa to Yudhishthira for moving from Dvaitavana to Kamyaka forest (MB.3.36.37). The black and white hairs Vishnu plucks, manifesting as Krishna and Sankarshana, are, Couture suggests, from the antelope skin used in rites of rebirth for the patron of the sacrifice, not his head. Krishna being the cosmic Purusha and his brother the remnant of the cosmic sacrifice, what is being symbolized in this myth is the cosmic sacrifice. Moreover, at the end of the MB, Jara shoots Krishna taking him to be an antelope. Balarama gets reabsorbed into the ocean as a white snake. The manner of their deaths completes the circle that began with the white and black hairs plucked by Vishnu.

Couture’s research reveals a very important finding: gokula, used so often in the HV and in puranas, is not the name of a particular village but designates a cow-settlement, a synonym for vraja, ghosha, and goshtha. Nanda heads the cow-settlement, which moves from one forest to another. Vrindavana is not a particular forest but simply another great forest like the mahavana in which gokula was first located.

The MB is familiar with some of the childhood deeds and the names Damodara, Govinda and Keshava (cf. Bhishma and Shishupala’s speeches in the Sabha Parva, Dhritarashtra’s in the Drona Parva). In the HV, when Indra names Krishna “Govinda,” he begs him to protect Arjuna, thus linking to the Kurukshetra holocaust beyond the re-establishment of dharma in Mathura by killing Kansa (the asura Kalanemi) and his band of re-born demons. Akrura forecasts that the dying Yadava line will be revived by Krishna whose childhood narrative has local as well as cosmic dimensions. That is why Krishna is the gopa, the herder who protects Earth, the cow. Hence, he is Gopala the cosmic cowherd, who replicates Narayana’s killing of Kalanemi by destroying Kansa. Leading up to this is his breaking a cart as an infant, accompanied by his crying (rud, referring to Rudra the destroyer), emitting wolves who devour all (like Kala-Time of the Gita) and breaking the great bow of the Mathura festival. These signify “the inevitable destruction preceding all renewal.”

In a challenging interpretation, Couture equates Vidura’s parable of the man in the well with the taming of Kaliya naga. Krishna is also walking through the forest of samsara. The pool of the Yamuna in which the five-headed snake Kaliya resides is the world threatened by Kala-Time. Unlike the Brahmin, Krishna is not lost, nor dangling helplessly upside-down from a vine, oblivious of the gaping maw of the serpent, engrossed in the honey dripping down. From the fragrant kadamba tree, not distracted by its scent and the bees, Krishna dives into the pool, gets free of the serpentine coils and dances on the five hoods of the senses. Kaliya reverts to the ocean, just as Indra, defeated at Govardhana, returns to Swarga. The cowherd settlement is preserved by the supreme divinity making all perform their svadharma instead of brutalizing others.

Couture analyzes the Govardhana episode at length, bringing out its replication of several Vedic myths about Indra clipping mountains of their wings and Vishnu as the boar uplifting the submerged earth. However, he is less persuasive when arguing that in tearing off the giant (bird) Putana’s breast Krishna is replicating Indra cutting off the wings of mountains to stabilize the earth and that Govardhana becomes a “mountain bird” sheltering all in its belly. In that feat, Krishna literally becomes a pillar of the earth. Thus, the childhood narrative up to Kansa’s death follows the pattern of the mythic deeds of an avatar and is not a mere entertainment. Like black Agni, Krishna swirls up to engulf Kansa on the throne and ploughs the soil with him. He is, thus, a sacrifice and Krishna’s childhood in the forest is an initiation (manushi diksha, HV 58.8) for this. For making the meaning of the manifestation of Vishnu as the Kshatriya Krishna clear, the Brahminical tradition composed this narrative which brings together the cosmic acts of the deity as creator, preserver and destroyer in the human world. It is not a borrowing from primitive pastoral myths.

In translating the Brahmavaivarta Purana passage about the hunchback woman cured by Krishna, Couture translates kanya as “a twelve-year old virgin” (p. 231), whereas it ought to be “ten-year old virgin”. The discussion provides an interesting nugget of information: in the Brahmavaivarta Purana, the hunchback is Shurpanakha reborn, her disfigurement removed by Rama reborn as Krishna, who also fulfils her unrequited love for Rama. By straightening her back, Krishna is replicating Prithu, the archetypal king, levelling the uneven earth. The curvaceous, fragrant Earth (kubja carries unguents for the king) is the handmaiden (sairandhri in the Bhagavata Purana) to the Raja, but Kansa’s adharmic rule has deformed her. Her breasts are sunk into her belly, her back is a hump, so that though young she appears old. The stinking, gigantic Putana is another symbol of this malformed, aged, infertile earth. Both resemble the sunken, submerged Earth rescued by Vishnu as the boar. In the HV the Earth is a woman who complains to Vishnu that after Parashurama’s slaughters she is stinking with gore (like the dead Putana), impure like a menstruating woman. This is the Earth Krishna rescues by becoming a pillar (Govardhana) upholding her in a deluge, straightening her hump to make her high-breasted and heavy-hipped, fertile, and by sucking out the poison in her (Putana). As Vishnu-the-boar had coupled with the Earth, so Krishna later makes love to kubja, which the Brahmavaivarta Purana typically describes in erotic detail. Their son is Upashloka, according to Ezhuttacchan’s Malayalam re-telling of Bhagavata Purana and the Sanskrit Naryaniyam (a summary of Bhagavata) by his contemporary Melputhur Narayana Bhattathiri, as pointed out by Harindranath and Purushothaman on their Harivamsha resources page. Couture also points to a possible connection with the tantric goddess Kubjika who is young, attractive, dark and hunched and presages the kundalini that has to be uplifted from the base of the spine to join the purusha atop the skull. He suggests that Shaiva tantrism may have appropriated this Vaishnava figure of Earth.

The rope tied around the child Krishna’s belly, Couture shows, is part of the Puranic tradition and not a foreign vegetation myth. It evokes Shesha, Krishna’s inseparable brother Sankarshana. The splitting of the two arjuna trees refer to the twin trees of dharma and adharma (Pandavas and Dhartarashtras) that Krishna refers to in the Udyoga Parva (29.45-46), an image that the MB begins with (1.1.65-66). Krishna is the supreme divine who cannot be bound, who is at play shattering both dharma and adharma, inextricably linked to the remnant of creation.

There is a very interesting chapter on how the winged mountains are a variation on a Vedic theme, with which Couture compares Hanuman’s flight to Lanka and his encounter with the submerged winged mountain Mainaka. Further, he shows how the Govardhana episode mirrors cosmic deluge, preservation of the earth and restoration. Shesha and Vishnu, Sankarshana and Krishna, replace the Vedic mountains as pillars of the earth. Couture even draws in the Buddhist aspect contemporary to the HV, pointing out how Buddha preached Mahayana from the summit of Gridhrakuta, dominating the peak wholly and enlightening the universe.

In discussing the presentation of Vishnu as hamsa, Couture renders it as “goose” whereas “swoose” (a swan-goose hybrid) would be more appropriate. Cowherds are like the freely roaming migratory swoose, as are yogis in the Pushkarapradurbhava section of the HV. Vishnu in human form said roams all the worlds as a master. Krishna is the perfect yogi, the cowherd of the cosmos, Gopala. The simple cowherd Krishna by yoga transforms Govardhana into a vraja (cow settlement) to shelter all. He is seen as the mountain itself, just as Markandeya first saw Narayana in the cosmic ocean, and then saw him as an infant at play on a banyan leaf. The HV reverses the sequence: Krishna is first the child cowherd and then the huge mountain sheltering all. The uplifted mountain peak touched by clouds resembles a swoose, which is the nature of Narayana. This is a passage from the chaos of deluge to ordered svadharma. In the HV, “a Vishnu first described as a goose but who appears as a gopa; a marvelous young cowherd who changes into a winged mountain; cowherds and ascetics who are compared to birds,” form a web of symbols representing total freedom of the supreme divinity that underpins the HV stories.

In sum, Couture’s position is against making a distinction between the cowherd god and the Kshatriya hero. The Rigveda calls Vishnu gopa; the HV refers to the cosmic gopa Vishnu, and the cowherd boy of gokula and vrindavana. The book is valuable for the lengthy excerpts translated from the HV and allied puranas that show how well they are parts of the same tradition. There is a valuable bibliography and an excellent index. There are some errors of idiom in translating from French into English. These, however, are few and far between. One hopes that Couture’s research will prompt a new English translation of the complete HV in verse. We await his exciting revelations about the adult Krishna in the second volume.