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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)

McGrath

Vyasa a Polymorphic, Multi-textual, Omni-dimensional Persona

January 20, 2022 By admin

Kevin McGrath: Vyasa Redux—Narrative in Epic Mahabharata, Anthem Press, London, 2020, pp.121

This is the 8th book by Dr. McGrath of Harvard University investigating different aspects of the Mahabharata, supplementing his 2011 book, Jaya: Performance in Epic Mahabharata. Intriguingly titled, it studies in detail the multiple roles played by this seer-poet who composes and participates in this autobiography which is also the biography of his descendants, turning the narrative into “a facsimile of (human) consciousness.”

Vyasa and Sanjaya are the only two dramatic persons who are also creative poets. It is true that Bhishma displays no dramatic persona in the two Books of Peace and Instruction (Shanti and Anushasana). In the former, however, McGrath overlooks the tragic persona of Vyasa himself desperately seeking his beloved son Shuka in vain.

It is Vyasa who gifts Sanjaya supernatural sight, inspires Bhishma to instruct, grants Gandhari sight of the corpses in Kurukshetra and shows blind Dhritarashtra his slaughtered kith and kin (akin to Odysseus’ viewing of the dead heroes, with Achilles silently turning away from him, whereas the Pandavas are reconciled with Karna). Yudhishthira will encounter them again twice over in Naraka and Svarga. Vyasa’s sudden appearances and disappearances always direct the plot and impact the emotions of characters. Sanjaya explicitly attributes his audio-visual experience of the Gita to Vyasa’s grace. Bhishma’s hymn to Krishna repeats what he had heard from Vyasa. The interlinking of Dvaipayana-Krishna and Vasudeva-Krishna is profoundly significant, as is that of Ganga-born Bhishma and Yamuna-island-born Vyasa. Vyasa is the only epic poet to move even to Svarga. In the Stri Parva he hears Vishnu telling the Earth how the kings would slaughter one another at Kurukshetra (it is not the Earth who forecasts this, as McGrath writes on p. 62), lending a cosmic inevitability to the happenings. In McGrath’s words, he is “a literary super-catalyst affecting the plot variously” and functions like Athena in the Odyssey, virtually like a director-cum-script-writer-cum-actor. Adept at flashbacks as well as flash-forwards, he is gifted with both foresight and hindsight. His absence from the crucial Sabha Parva (and Krishna’s during the dice-game), Virata Parva (Krishna is absent too) and the Udyoga Parva (but for two by-the-way interjections) is a feature that needed further. Vyasa also presides at four (not three vide p. 81) critical rituals: the royal anointing; the war as yajna; the horse-sacrifice and the snake-holocaust.

While Vyasa is “an acutely polymorphic and multi-textual figure” whose personal is only approximated by Homer’s Athena, both the Mahabharata and the Odyssey are polytronic. The unity is not of time but of narrative structure. Human time is quite vague in both except for the 18 days of the Kurukshetra War. The forest exile and the Shanti and Anushasana Parvas seem to be timeless. By ending with the snake-sacrifice where the epic was first recited, the poem creates cyclical “poetic time”. Both epics are also “multi-texts”, made up of numerous traditions (historical, geographical, social, mythological etc.) that are different yet coherent.

The structure of the Mahabharata is possibly the most complicated of any epic. Ugrashrava Sauti narrates to rishi Shaunaka and his monks what he heard Vaishampayana recite at Janamejaya’s snake-sacrifice at Takshashila as Vyasa had taught him (McGrath erroneously places it in Afghanistan, vide pp. 23, 46, instead of Northwest Pakistan). Sauti had also heard it from his father Lomaharshana. Further, we hear all this from a nameless rhapsode. So we have: anonymous rhapsode-> Sauti-> Lomaharshana-> Vaishampayana-> Vyasa. In the Odyssey it is: poet-> Muse-> Zeus-> Athena (who, unlike Vyasa, is a shape-shifting narrator and actor)-> Odysseus. Within these concentric circles there are numerous other narrators: Sanjaya in the Udyoga and the war books; Markandeya and Lomasha in the forest-exile; Bhishma primarily in the Udyoga, Shanti and Anushasana Parvas; Narada and Vyasa himself. The entire narrative is an extended flashback, artistically so rendered that the events acquire an immediacy. The narrative repeatedly moves back and forth. For instance, the tale of Shakuntala and her son the eponymous Bharata precedes the chronologically anterior account of Yayati and his sons.  Again, despite prophesies, protagonists lose awareness of these and proceed to take decisions that are character-driven, yet fulfil what has been foretold. Beginning with Yayati the great ancestor of the clans, this persists right up to Janamejaya’s sacrifice that was foretold to remain incomplete.

McGrath makes the very interesting point that Sauti’s summary (Parvasangraha) mentions 23,783 slokas for the war books including the Sauptika, approximating the 24,000 of the Jaya that Vyasa composed first. Sanjaya narrating the War Books is akin to the Greek aoidos, a poet of preliterate Bronze Age times, while Vaishampayana is a rhapsode of the literate period. The archaic war books became the Maha-Bharata through Vyasa’s act of supreme dhyana. It is very interesting that for this act of poetic inspiration McGrath should find an analogy in Bob Dylan who felt that his songs came to him from somewhere else. Sri Aurobindo has documented at length the process of poetic inspiration for his Savitri. Dhyana is also an act Bhishma performs before instructing Yudhishthira. Krishna’s Gita is divine afflatus. The evolution of the epic’s plot seems to be through meditative experiences of these three. Added to this is Krishna’s theophany in the Hastinapura court and on the battlefield. These, argues McGrath, “supply the core narrative poem with its ethical and spiritual force.” In enumerating Krishna’s strategies he overlooks the pains taken over Drona’s killing. He claims there is no solemn ritual (p. 27) despite the repeated extolling of yajnas.

The preliterate traditions that were compiled into one epic in classical times covered a vast geography to supersede specific locales and regimes for appealing to the commonalty, becoming “geopolitically uniform”. McGrath ascribes to this the absence of references to Buddhism, that was surely contemporary, to the heritage of the Harappan Civilization, to idol-worship and to money. The epic world is artificial, not reflecting material reality. Even the weather and physical details about characters are left vague. There are five places that are particularly important: Hastinapura, Indraprastha (curiously unoccupied by the Pandavas post-war, as Rama’s sons abandoned Ayodhya), the forest, Matsya and Kurukshetra. Although the last features as a field of blood (beginning with Parashurama celebrating his massacre of Kshatriyas in five pools called samantapanchaka), its initial fame is because Brahma performed a yajna there. Later Raja Kuru obtained the boon that Svarga was assured to anyone dying there, Krishna recited the Gita and Bhishma instructed Yudhishthira from the bed-of-arrows. Dvaraka should be added as significant because Krishna commutes between it and wherever the Pandavas are.

Despite the rivers of blood that flow, Homer and Vyasa’s poetry encapsulates it in similes and metaphors that invest death with beauty (note that Sauti begins with the tree image for the epic and the warring fraternities). Vyasa goes further than Homer and shows us the heroes beyond death glorious in Svarga. Neither does Homer have the very powerful moral dimension that Vyasa stresses repeatedly as his poem’s efficacy. Again, although the Iliad covers forty days and the Odyssey decades, there is little significance day-wise in either.

McGrath makes the very important point that Kshatriya lineages found in the Mahabharata are actually of matrilineal descent as all males had been killed by Parashurama and the women approached Brahmins for progeny. Vyasa’s direct descendants through Dhritarashtra are wiped out too. Janamejaya, descended from Yayati’s eldest son Yadu’s lineage through Subhadra, rules in Hastinapura and Indraprastha is given to Vajra, Yadava Krishna’s descendant. Thus, the bheda, division, that started when the youngest son Puru replaced the eldest Yadu is ended, lending another cyclical dimension to the epic.

McGrath argues that till the war ends the type of governance portrayed is fraternal (he cites the modern example of Saudi Arabia), what Romila Thapar calls “a lineage society”, whereas the Shanti Parva features a later development: the classic monarchic state instead of oligarchic rule.  However, if in the Iliad Agamemnon’s word is final, is that not true for Duryodhana and Yudhishthira as well? In both the Homeric and Indian epics, it is women who drive the plot: Helen, Chryseis, Briseis, Circe, Calypso, Penelope, Kaikeyi, Sita, Satyavati, Kunti, Gandhari. McGrath erroneously states that Draupadi, Sita and Penelope conduct svayamvaras to select a husband. It is actually viryashulka: the bride is the prize to be won in an archery contest. Helen’s marriage is an exception.

Bhishma’s lengthy discourse on peace and donating does not preclude war. Immediately thereafter, preceding the horse-sacrifice, is the Anugita by Krishna to Arjuna and then Arjuna’s battles accompanying the roving steed, paralleling the Gita and the Kurukshetra war. As McGrath points out, the vision of the Anugita and the society pictured in the Shanti and Anushasana Parvas is far from the Vyasan weltanschauung of the Gita and the Sabha Parva.

There is a very significant transition that usually goes unnoticed which McGrath mentions. Hearing of the living meeting the dead who emerge from the Bhagirathi, Janamejaya wishes to see his dead father. Suddenly, the narrator is no longer Vaishampayana. The anonymous reciter states, Sauti reporting that through dhyana (misspelled as “mediation” on p. 67 instead of “meditation”) Vyasa produced Parikshit.

In the very first book Sauti flashed forward to report Dhananjaya’s plangent lament to Sanjaya listing the key events of the plot even before the Mahabharata had begun to be recited. As McGrath writes, “it is absolutely proleptic.” On the basis of these first two books being largely in prose, McGrath feels that they are “editorial addition” setting the stage for the recitation at Takshashila. However, that is not where Vyasa composed and declaimed it as McGrath states on p.73. We are never told where Vyasa composed it, only that it took him three years. The Pauloma Parva is a fresh beginning, reporting Sauti’s arrival at Bhargava Shaunaka’s ashram, where he launches into a recital of the Bhrigu lineage (whence Sukthankar’s theory about the Bhargava Brahmins being the editors of the Mahabharata). Sauti further states having heard the story of Astika, composed by Vyasa, from his father Lomaharshana, Vyasa’s disciple, as he recited it to sages in the Naimisha forest. Thus, yet another concentric circle of narration is added. Although, initially, Sauti stated that its first public declamation was by Vaishampayana at Vyasa’s bidding to recite the poem of bheda (division), after the Astika Parva he states that during intervals of the snake-sacrifice Brahmins told Vedic tales while Vyasa recited the Bharata. Vaishampayana tells Janamejaya that he will tell how the bheda arose out of the dice-game for sake of the kingdom, the forest-exile and the war—the three crucial stages of the epic—and provides a summary (a fifth one) that, curiously, omitting the rajasuya yajna, ends with Duryodhana’s death and the Pandavas’ jaya (victory) that completes the tale of bheda. Vaishampayana’s own beginning is with the tale of Uparicara Vasu, father of Matsyagandha. These several beginnings are evidence of “editorial bricolage”, writes McGrath, seeking to include all possible traditions. The narrative repeatedly moves back and forth. For instance, the tale of Shakuntala and her son, the eponymous Bharata, precedes the chronologically anterior account of Yayati and his sons.

Janamejaya puts several questions to Vaishampayana before the recital begins: why the mighty Pandavas tolerated the misery inflicted; why Bhima controlled his rage; why Draupadi did not consume the Dhartarashtras; why the brothers obeyed Yudhisthira though cheated; why Yudhishthira bore undeserved wretchedness; why invincible Arjuna, with Krishna as charioteer, suffered so much? McGrath does not examine why these six questions are never answered. Surely, this is a moot question.

McGrath mentions with admiration the retellings by Shashi Tharoor (The Great Indian Novel) and Karthika Nair (Until the Lions). Amreeta Syam’s long poem “Kurukshetra” should be added to these. While quoting approvingly from Girja Kumar’s study The Mahabharatans, he could also have referred to Krishna Chaitanya (K.K. Nair)’s superb work The Mahabharata—a literary study. McGrath ends with a splendid discussion of the Odyssey (and a brief but insightful overview of the Iliad celebrating the Karna-like Achilles intent upon earning fame) drawing out the similarities in theme and structure with the Mahabharata. In all three epics the deaths of the heroes are foretold, but the Homeric poems do not include their deaths. Both are concerned not merely with a multi-dimensional narrator and a hero but also with family dynamics and divine agency. The template they follow is similar. McGrath’s work of just 104 pages with a striking cover and beautifully printed is densely packed with rich insights and is an immensely rewarding read.

cf. https://epaper.thestatesman.com/3357170/Kolkata-The-Statesman/20TH-JANUARY-2022#page/11/1

Filed Under: BOOK REVIEWS, IN THE NEWS, MAHABHARATA Tagged With: Book Reviews, Mahabharata, McGrath

Karna–I Am Myself Alone

January 22, 2019 By admin

Kevin McGrath: Karna the Sanskrit Hero, (Brill, 2004)

In this fascinating work, McGrath seeks to study how Karna has been portrayed as a heroic-Aryan ideal from both archaic and classical viewpoints in the Mahabharata and attempts to illustrate how the typology still obtains in modern society, as evinced in Tagore’s poem on Karna and Kunti composed in response to scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose’s request to adopt Karna as mythic paradigm for the modern Indian, and in songs about Karna in Gujarat celebrating him as a hero who brings water and fertility to the community. Even in Indian cinema, the tragic figure of Karna has a perennial appeal, his story being woven into various film scripts in modern guise. The occidental indologist’s interest in Karna and the tendency to look upon him as the epic hero is understandable because he displays quite a few resemblances to Achilles, the hero of the Iliad. Both have special, divinely crafted armour; both have a celestial parent; both sulk and stand aside from the battle initially out of wounded amour proper; both are ultimately struck down by archers.  

Adopting Blackburn’s paradigm of epic aetiology in contemporary India as developed by Gregory Nagy where the epic is seen as evolving from ‘uneven weighting’ towards ‘even weighting’, McGrath finds Karna’s epic being subsumed under the weightier Arjuna-epic in the written tradition. Underlying their confrontation is an ancient Vedic substratum: the antagonism between Surya and Indra pointed out by Georges Dumezil (Indra detaches Surya’s chariot wheel; Surya’s natural mother abandons him and the adoptive mother brings him up). McGrath does not notice that in the Ramayana the same rivalry is perpetuated through Bali and Sugriva, the sons of Indra and Surya respectively, the situation being reversed. It is Surya-Sugriva who has Indra-Bali slain by Vishnu-Rama while, usually, Vishnu helps Indra to slay his adversaries through a trick. This issue warrants deeper examination.

A good point made is that we never find out how the name of Karna is given. Adhiratha and Radha name him Vasushena and appropriately he is indiscriminately liberal like the Sun. In a footnote, McGrath makes an important point that deserved exploration in the book: the only other ‘ear-ringed’ heroes are Skanda, and the Maruts. Indra makes the one general of the celestial host against the Titans and has the others as his assistants after an abortive attempt to destroy them in the womb. While in exile, Bhima refers to the enemies being led by Karna as a helmsman steering the Dhartarashtra boat across the raging sea of battle. In the same passage Skanda is celebrated as a great donor. Both unhesitatingly gift Indra what he craves. McGrath does not, however, investigate why Karna becomes infused with the demon Naraka following Duryodhana’s capture by the Gandharvas. In the 18th century Tullal songs of Kerala he is the demon Sashrakavacha (thousand-armoured) reincarnated. No Indo-European hero has this demonic aspect. Yet, at the end of epic, Karna is very much a solar hero, celebrated by Kunti as ‘A hero, ear-ringed, armoured, splendid like the Sun’, seen by Yudhishthira as attended by twelve suns (dvadashaditya sahitam) and finally merging with the Sun (ravim).

McGrath overlooks how Surya browbeats adolescent Kunti into submit to his sexual needs. It is a measure of her strength of character that even as an adolescent girl that she is able to stand up to him partially and obtain boons ensuring her impaired virginity and her son being special. In this, she parallels her grandmother-in-law Matsyagandha vis-‘-vis the importunate sage Parashara. In saying that Karna is seen in action first when he accompanies Duryodhana to count cattle in the forest, McGrath forgets the confrontation in Draupadi’ssvayamvara where he retreats, astonished at the ‘brahmin’ Arjuna’s bowmanship. Nor does he note that Karna’s much-vaunted prowess is decisively undercut here as also twice more in the cattle-counting and rustling episodes, which Bhishma, Drona and Kripa taunt him with. The contradiction between fidelity to Duryodhana as Karna’s declared paramount value and his refusal to fight so long as Bhishma is in the field, and later not taking Yudhishthira prisoner despite having him at his mercy, also remains unexplored.

The most rewarding part of the book is McGrath’s exploration of Karna’s critical relationships. Like the typical epic hero, Karna has an opposite number who is designated as his ‘share’: Arjuna. The parallelism is articulated in the very first appearance where Karna does all that Arjuna has displayed in the tournament and then challenges him to a duel. At Kurukshetra, they kill each other’s sons. Karna is the only hero on the Kaurava side who converses with gods (Surya, Indra), as Yudhishthira does with Dharma and Kubera, Arjuna with Indra and Shiva. The Krishna-Karna interaction before the war is a clear parallel to and a reversal of the Krishna-Arjuna dialogue that follows. The difference, as McGrath points out, is that here it is Karna who tells Krishna what is going to happen, including his own death, rising to an apocalyptic level that is never Arjuna’s. The Karna-Shalya colloquy is yet another variation that stands the Krishna-Arjuna model on its head. Karna’s last speech to Shalya is a unique passage in the epic conflating a multitude of emotions: insult, confession, boating, abuse, threat, forgiveness, summing up ‘the strange imbalance between potence and irresolution that is so part of his make-up.’

Karna’s fidelity to his word and to liberality for winning fame ‘ his pre-eminent concern ‘raise him to heroic levels that no other character reaches. Yet, Karna is far more mundane in his sufferings and conquests than Arjuna who destroys hosts of Daityas whom the gods cannot defeat, and duels with Shiva himself. Nor is Karna brutal and unfeeling like Bhima who does not even mourn Ghatotkacha and is quite demonic in his deeds. This humanity is what makes him more appealing as an epic hero and is the secret behind the numerous vernacular compositions celebrating him. Karna is defined by two crucial relationships: with Duryodhana it is one of inseparable confidante and advisor, paralleling that of Krishna with Arjuna; with Bhishma it is one of contention arising out of a curious similarity. The origin of both is linked to the heavens (Surya, Dyaus); both emerge out of the Ganga; both are Parashurama’s disciples; both are advisors of the Hastinapura court’Bhishma of the titular monarch and Karna of the actual ruler; both command the Kaurava army in turn and are regarded as the major hindrances to Pandava victory.

McGrath isolates six crucial speeches Karna makes to Surya, Indra, Krishna, Kunti, Kripa and Shalya, concluding that his use of speech as a form of assault sets off the epic’s movement towards the battlefield. Dhritarashtra refers to Karna as one characterised by bitter speech while Yudhishthira speaks of him as ‘one whose teeth are spears and arrows and whose tongue is a sword’. McGrath identifies four levels in Karna’s persona where loss increasingly overwhelms him. In the interactions with Indra and Kripa he lacks nothing. In the speech to Krishna a sense of doom looms which he repeats when declaiming to Duryodhana on fate, for he is no longer invincible. Ultimately, shedding tears at his son’s death, he is vulnerable like Achilles weeping over Patroklos, and Ravana over Meghanada. His own death soon follows, for the epic hero needs must succumb to mortality to be celebrated eternally.

McGrath makes a valuable point regarding the cult of the hero that is common to occidental and oriental myth when he notes the large number of hero-stones existing in Maharashtra celebrating heroes killed while protecting cattle. He quotes Bhishma from the Shanti Parva stating that heroism is the supreme value in the three worlds, for all is based on the hero. Seeking for sculptural proof of this as in Greek society, he points us to two singular references in the Bhishma and Drona parvas to statues of Kuru kings housed in the temple trembling, laughing, dancing and weeping and to the banners of Draupadi’s sons exhibiting images of the Ashvins, Indra, Martus and Dharma. Karna’s qualification as a hero is borne out by the fact that both enemies and friends sing laments for him. Further, like the Indo-European hero, Karna is the eternal solitary. Like the Senecan tragic hero, he can very well have as his motto, ‘I am myself, alone!’  

 

Filed Under: BOOK REVIEWS, MAHABHARATA Tagged With: Karna, McGrath

Mokshadharma Parva translation reviewed by Kevin McGrath in Journal of Vaishnava Studies

November 22, 2018 By admin

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

ISBN 978-93-5045-122-9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Filed Under: BOOK REVIEWS, IN THE NEWS, MAHABHARATA Tagged With: McGrath, Mokshadharma

Phalguna-Katha and the Yadava Hegemony

November 18, 2018 By admin

Nara-Narayana, Deogarh 5th c.AD

Kevin McGrath: Arjuna Pandava: The Double Hero in Epic Mahabharata, Orient Blackswan, 2016, pp.207, Rs. 835/-

Dr. Kevin McGrath, poet and Harvard professor of Sanskrit, engaged in fieldwork in the Kacch on kinship and migration, began investigations into the Mahabharata with his study Karna: the Sanskrit Hero in 2004. Thereafter, in Stri (2009) he switched to Vyasa’s women, following up with performance in the Mahabharata in Jaya (2011). Then, in swift succession, came his studies of Krishna (2013), Arjuna (2016) and Yudhishthira (forthcoming, though completed earlier). An irritation in the book under review is the repeated references to his study of Yudhishthira which cannot be fully appreciated as it is under publication. McGrath follows the Harvard school of epic poetics founded by Milman Parry, Gregory Nagy and Albert Bates Lord which concentrates on the text qua text and envisages epic society as a Bronze-Age-Indo-Aryan-pre-literate-pre-monetary culture.

The only other full-length study of Arjuna is the 1989 book by Ruth Katz who found him to be triple-layered as hero, human and devotee. She rejected the idea that contradictions in his character are a result of layers of composition, accepting them as indicative of the complexity of his nature.

McGrath, however, looks at Arjuna as dual in nature, uniquely godly and humanly heroic, wherein lies the secret of his cult status. He provides a fascinating appendix on Achilles who, a late Bronze Age hero like Arjuna, attained cult status by virtue of the same characteristic of bestriding two worlds, the mortal and the celestial. One might well enquire why it does not hold equally true for Bhima and Karna, shrines to both of whom exist. Well, Arjuna alone lives at length in Swarga and interacts repeatedly with the devas and Rudra-Shiva. He alone shares Indra’s seat, rides in his chariot and slaughters the demons whom the Devas cannot defeat. Achilles may interact with gods, but he never lives in Olympus. Of the others, Kunti has intimate contact with four gods, Madri with two, Karna with Indra in disguise, and Yudhishthira with Dharma as a crane and as a dog. McGrath overlooks Devavrata, brought up by celestial Ganga, taught by deva-guru Brihaspati and uniquely blessed with the supernatural gift of death-at-will.

Arjuna is defined by dualistic patterns: with Krishna (often referred to as a compound, or as the two Krishnas, or as Nara-Narayana); with Karna as his chief adversary; with Yudhishthira (as wielder of his danda, rod of chastisement); and finally in his double deaths. Further, he is uniquely ambidextrous, savyasachin. Even sexually, he is both male and neither-male-nor-female, like Ardhanarishvara Shiva, a persona in which his double is Shikhandi, born as Shiva’s boon to Drupada. McGrath finds that a similar dual pattern with Krishna and Balarama is “strangely obscured”. However, the Harivansha does develop this, which is why it is called the khila, appendix, to the epic.

McGrath’s argument is that doubling is typical of the poetic thought process of pre-literate-pre-monetary cultures while fashioning their poetry. The Iliad has similar sequences of counterpoised speakers presenting dual acts and thoughts. But is it so with the Odyssey too, whose hero has much in common with Arjuna? Such a culture’s literature operates more in terms of metaphor, barter, poetry and syntax, whereas a literate society’s favours metonymy, money, prose and grammar. “Polymorphic duality” or “twofold bivalence” lies at the core of the Arjuna narrative, reaching its acme in the Gita where Arjuna simultaneously experiences two worlds: the human and the cosmic. He is the sole liminal figure in the epic. Moreover, while here he achieves enlightenment and supposedly engages in nishkama karma, detached action, yet he is called “Bibhatsu” for his terrifying violence. Repeatedly Krishna has to shake out of depression. He even forgets the Gita, is soundly berated for it by Krishna who has to impart to him the Anugita. McGrath proposes: “This kind of polarity is an aspect profoundly inherent to both the psychic and the narrative composition of heroic Arjuna.” He suggests that perhaps there was a Phalguna–Katha (a name by which he is called whenever weapons are concerned) which was woven into the Mahabharata. But how can he argue that Arjuna is not a moral figure in the context of his repeated reluctance to proceed against his elders?

Is it not curious that this unique hero is never considered for kingship? Even more intriguing is that Bhishma does not enumerate him among the atirathis (supreme warriors) or maharathis (great warriors) but mentions him as an ordinary rathi(chariot-warrior). A similar triple ranking occurs in Book 12 of the Iliad. Yet, it is Arjuna’s grandson—whose grandmother is a Yadava—who is installed in Hastinapura. Parikshit, like Arjuna, dies twice and is resurrected. Why were the sons of the elder brothers Yudhishthira (Yaudheya) and Bhima (Sarvaga) not considered, nor his sole living son Babhruvahana who alone laid Arjuna low?

The argument that Parikshit’s investiture is “the victory of the matrilineal clan system—Pandavas—over the patrilineal model—Dhartarashtras—represent(ing) the triumph of the indigenous over the intrusive Indo-Aryan,” is founded upon the premise that Arjuna’s marriage to Subhadra “is a Dravidian type,” being matrilineal, while patrilineal marriage is Indo-Aryan. The proposition is questionable being based upon the discarded Aryan invasion hypothesis. McGrath suggests that bheda (division) between two lineage types represents two separate traditions of heroic poetry which were combined early in the 1st century CE. Evidence for substantiating this challenging notion is not produced. It is undeniable, however, that the Yadava link is crucial: through Kunti Arjuna is half-Yadava; he marries Kunti’s Yadava niece; he is devastated by the death of his son by his Yadava wife, not by those of his other two sons; the Yadava Vajra is installed in Indraprastha and Parikshit—part-Yadava in lineage—at Hastinapura. McGrath mistakenly calls Vajra Krishna’s son (p. 78, fn.10) while he is his great grandson, being Aniruddha’s son by Usha. McGrath is the first to call the Mahabharata, “the charter myth of the victorious Yadava clan,” and the Gita “a truly influential Yadava song,” statements that invite vigorous discussion. Hopefully, we will see this in the near future.

According to McGrath, Arjuna alone has sexual relations with three females of whom only one is human (Chitrangada) “and with an apsara” (p. 9). What about the human Subhadra? Moreover, Arjuna refuses to be seduced by Urvashi in Swarga. In abiding by the mortal value of regarding the ancestress of the Lunar Dynasty as a mother, despite her curse, Arjuna abjures his godly heritage from the libertine Indra. Similarly, Gilgamesh refused the advances of the goddess Ishtar, thus inviting her wrath. Arjuna is also the only one to rescue the apsara Varga and her four friends from the curse of a crocodile existence. In Tamil ballads, he is very much of an inveterate philanderer, even masquerading as a snake to seduce three princesses with the help of Krishna during this period of self-imposed exile.

McGrath is incorrect in asserting that none of the Dhartarashtras receive cult status except one temple to Duryodhana in Uttarakhand. Karna is worshipped in Netwar village of the Tons valley in Uttarakhand. Down south, a Duryodhan temple exists in Edakkad Ward (Kara) of Poruvazhy village in Kunnathoor Taluk of Kollam District, Kerala. The legend is that tracing the Pandavas in exile, Duryodhana reached Malanada hill. Tired, he went to Kaduthamsserry Kottaram, where Malanada Appoppan, the priest and ruler of the land was staying. An elderly woman gave him toddy, the customary mark of respect. He enjoyed the drink, but realized after seeing the ‘Kurathali’ worn by the woman that she belonged to an untouchable caste named ‘Kurava’. He appreciated the divinity of the place and its people who possessed supernatural powers (Siddha). Thereafter, he sat on the hill and worshipped Shiva, praying for the welfare of his people. As an act of charity, he gave away hundreds of acres of agricultural land and paddy fields as freehold to the temple. The land tax of this property is still levied in the name of ‘Duryodhanan’. The king also ensured that Gandhari, Duhshala, Karna, Drona and the other members of his family were worshipped nearby by the Kurava caste. There is a temple dedicated to Shakuni in Pavitreshwaram in the same district. Shakuni travelled with the Kauravas and when they reached the place where the temple is situated, they divided their weapons amongst themselves, whence the place came to be known as ‘Pakuteshwaram’, which later became Pavitreshwaram. Shakuni returned here after the battle and attained moksha with the blessings of Shiva and became Lord Shakuni. The other deities of the temple include Bhuvaneshwari Devi, Kiraat Murti and Nagaraj. Further, there is a Gandhari temple in Hebbya village, Nanjangud, Mysore. A Duryodhana (Periyantavar) festival enacting his death is held at T. Kuliyanur village near Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu. Draupadi is said to have granted permission for him to be worshipped for a single day.

The half-divine nature of Arjuna, along with his celestial arms and chariot and the avatar as charioteer, makes him a hero in the ancient Indo-Aryan tradition. When he speaks to Sanjaya in the Udyoga Parva, the verse is in irregular trishtubhform, the oldest part of the epic, with frequent mention of chariots, indicative of the Bronze Age (the chariot evolved at the end of the 3rd millennium BCE). Significantly, with the spontaneous combustion of the chariot after the war, Arjuna begins to lose the superhuman qualities characterizing the old Bronze Age hero, becomes more and more mortal and even suffers death. McGrath does not explore his unheroic pettiness vis-à-vis Ekalavya, nor his obsession with Jayadratha though Drona made the inviolable discus formation. Why is he not vengeful against the seven chariot-heroes who combined to kill Abhimanyu? McGrath writes that Arjuna alone is so furious with Yudhishthira as to draw his sword to kill him, overlooking Bhima’s command to Sahadeva in the dice-game to bring fire to burn Yudhishthira’s gaming hands.

According to McGrath, Arjuna alone is able to overcome the moral dilemma of killing a guru, but so is it with Yudhishthira regarding Drona, and he suffers from the guilt throughout, expiating it through the vision of hell at the end. Equally, he is tormented by the death of Karna, unlike Arjuna. On the other hand, despite his name “Bibhatsu” (as when violating the warrior-code by cutting off Bhurishrava’s arm when he was fighting Satyaki) Arjuna rejects Krishna’s advice to lie so that Drona abandons his arms. There is also his peculiar Bhishma-like adherence to a number of vows that no one is aware of, e.g. feeling compelled to pursue the Samsaptakas despite his commitment to guard Yudhishthira against Drona’s machinations, and drawing his sword to kill Yudhishthira. These McGrath does not deal with.

In his chapter on the Gita, McGrath describes its doctrine as departing from the pastoral Bronze Age Indo-Aryan culture and approaching the “urban beliefs” of Jainism and Buddhism with their stress on puja with bhakti for salvation instead of sacrificial offerings. How this is “urban” in nature has not been explained. However, we must not forget that the doctrine-of-the-hero emerges from the interaction of a warrior duo, and that Buddha too was a Saka Kshatriya prince. The Gita’s teaching was initially imparted to King Ikshvaku, whence it became hereditary knowledge of seer-kings. The Mahabharata tells of the supreme knowledge of liberation being known only to such rajarshis whom moksha-seeking Brahmins approached for instruction. Significantly, as the Gita prepares Arjuna for the battle of Kurukshetra with the assurance that the atman does not die, so does the Anugita precede his journey protecting the dedicated horse, during which he dies and is resurrected. Why McGrath describes Ulupi here as a “spiritual figure” is not clear. This time Arjuna neither has his divine chariot, nor Krishna as charioteer. He is Nara, man, without Narayana, the Divine. At least twice the Gandiva bow drops from his hand and he is knocked unconscious.

McGrath finds it significant that Krishna announces he is Bhrigu among the maha-rishis in the context of the argument that the Bhargava community inhabiting the area around Dvaraka dominated by the Yadavas redacted the Song of Arjuna (viz. Jaya, covering the four war books), embedding it in the Mahabharata. He also suggests that the books following Kurkshetra where Arjuna is merely a “meme,” a pale copy of the earlier glorious figure, come from a different poetic tradition far removed from the original heroic one, more concerned with evoking pity and fear than horripilation and heroism. Indeed, Krishna describes Arjuna as bahusangramakarshitam, “much emaciated by battle,” on his return with the horse. Also, the picture of kingship after the Stri Parva is of an urban polity, not the earlier archaic form. This assertion requires elaboration. Arjuna, having reached his nadir against staff-wielding Abhiras, consults Vyasa who tells him that the time has come for departure, kalo gantum gatim. The last words Arjuna speaks are, kalah kalah, “time, time,” reminding us of his cosmic vision of Krishna as Kala-Time. Giving up his bow and quivers, he shrinks to the purely human and collapses silently, shorn of the duality that characterized him so memorably. Earlier, Krishna has died an ordinary, human death. In hell Arjuna mutters, “I am Arjuna” to Yudhishthira who ultimately sees him, dazzlingly brilliant, in Swarga adoring Krishna (McGrath gives the reference here as XII.4.4 which should be XVIII.4.4).

The Arjuna-Krishna duo, one semi-divine, the other born of human parents, is an archaic Indo-European “twinning” archetype that we see in Mitra and Varuna and in the Greek Castor and Pollux, Heracles and Iphicles. Vyasa tells Satyavati that he will provide Vichitravirya with sons like Mitra and Varuna while Madri has twins by the Ashvinikumaras. McGrath is mistaken in stating that Krishna receives his discus from Mitra, for it is given to him by Agni. Nor is Krishna’s bow called “Srinjaya” (p. 120); it is “Shaaranga”. McGrath proposes that Arjuna and Krishna’s bows made of horn (as their names signify) connects with the Kushanas who settled at Mathura, whence the Yadavas migrated to Dvaraka.

The origin of the “two Krishnas” is the ancient duo of Nara and Narayana who rush into our sight in the very first book during the churning of the ocean for amrita, Nara wielding a celestial bow and Narayana the Sudarshana discus, slaughtering the demons. Here Nara is the human while Narayana is the Divine. The Khandava massacre is a doubling of the same scenario with the nature of the two reversed. The Vedic deities attacking them withdraw on hearing that they are that ancient duo. In the Nara-Narayana myth narrated by Parashurama in theUdyoga Parva, Nara counters a king’s attack with deadly reeds, while Narayana remains still. McGrath does not notice that this is reversed in the Mausala Parvawhere reeds are what Krishna uses to slaughter the Yadavas. This use of reeds recurs in the Jaimini Mahabharata’s Sahasramukharavanacarita where Sita uses mantra-infused reeds to destroy the thousand-headed Ravana who has knocked down Rama. Such “twinning” is also seen in Achilles-Patroklos and Achilles-Diomedes. Like Krishna driving Arjuna’s chariot and speaking to him, Athena drives Diomedes’ chariot and talks to him.

We can see the Nara-Narayana duo represented in sculpture in the oldest Indian temple which is located in Deogarh, (circa 5th century CE). The antiquity of the Mahabharata is seen in the solitary reference to images of divinities in the Kaurava temple shaking, laughing, dancing and weeping. The first statuary found in India is Buddhist in the 3rd century BC, co-terminus with the appearance of writing. McGrath is wrong in saying that there is no reference to writing in the epic. There is explicit mention of the benefits accruing from gifting a copy of the Mahabharata.

In the very beginning, Dhritarashtra states that Narada declared to him the divinity of Arjuna and Krishna as Nara-Narayana. Then, in the Vana Parva Krishna announces that Arjuna is Nara and that they are inseparable, indistinguishable. In the Shanti Parva they speak in unison—a unique phenomenon. Thus, this epic duo replaces the Vedic Mitra-Varuna pair. At the end of the Drona Parva, Vyasa declares Narayana as a deity “older than the oldest,” born of Dharma, who deludes the world. Nara is a product of his ascesis. McGrath suggests that this duo is Dravidian in origin, turning an archaic concept of divine twins and double heroes into a later idea of conjoint deity-and-hero. To him this becomes “a perfect metaphor for how the preliterate and the literate aspects” of the Mahabharata were combined in early Gupta times. The world of the Shanti Parva “is of a historically later order of culture and society.” Indeed, in the Puranic world Narayana becomes the Supreme Being, equated with Vishnu, giving rise to Vaishnavism. McGrath further proposes that this represents a union of the Kshatriya and the Brahmin orders, of worldly puissance and ritual power. A parallel is visible in the figures of Parashurama, Drona and Kripa—all Brahmins who choose to be mighty warriors and teachers in warcraft.

A character who shares in the doubling of Arjuna and Krishna is Narada, incessantly moving through the celestial and earthly worlds and joining the past to the future through his speeches, knowing all the done and the undone in the world, loke veda kritakritam. Narada also forms a duo with his sister’s son Parvata—again a matrilineal connection. He is the first to use the term omkara(XII.325.83) and is the first to interact with Nara and Narayana, being virtually their first priest. Krishna declares that among the deva-rishis he is Narada. Like Krishna’s theophany to Arjuna, Narayana’s to Narada is hundred headed and thousand armed, vishvarupadhrik, containing all forms, divine and otherwise. As such, opines McGrath, Narada is “thoroughly imbued with that inchoate world of emergent Hinduism” representing “the poem’s own internal oral tradition,” for others recollect what he had said in the past. Vyasa— whom for some unexplained reason McGrath calls a rajarshi although he is no royal seer— and Narada shape the epic narrative “towards crisis and resolution.” Just as Narada understands Narayana and is closest to him, so is Vyasa an avatar of Narayana.

As Vyasa is to the Kuru clan, so is Narada to the Yadavas. He advises Yudhishthira, who promptly complies, to perform the rajasuya yajna. Conversely, when he advises Duryodhana in the Udyoga Parva to ally with the Pandavas, he refuses. In the Stri Parva Dhritarashtra regrets having ignored the advice of Narada and Vyasa. After advising Yudhishthira, Narada leaves for Dvaraka, reappearing during the rite, satisfied that Hari-Narayana, the Supreme Lord Self-Born, will destroy the Kshatriyas in the form of the human Krishna. Then Krishna kills Shishupala, following which Vyasa foretells the apocalyptic Kurukshetra war. It is Narada who informs Bhishma about the true gender of Shikhandin, because of which he does not fight the transvestite and dies. Just before the Gita, it is Narada who makes the renowned pronouncement: yatah krishnas tato jayah, “where is Krishna, there is victory.” Narada narrates Vyasa’s composition to the devas and summarizes the eighteen days of war for Parashurama in the Shalya Parva. The Vyasa-Narada pair informs Bhishma of Karna’s true identity and stands between the all-destructive missiles of Ashvatthama and Arjuna, speaking in unison—like Nara-Narayana—to prevent annihilation. Narada tells Yudhishthira of Karna’s deeds which are unknown elsewhere in the poem. McGrath does not mention that it is only to Narada that Krishna confesses the misery he is subjected to by the Yadavas. Narada foretells when Dhritarashtra, Gandhari, Sanjaya and Vidura will die, tells Yudhishthira of having witnessed Dhritarashtra’s death, and predicts the destruction of the Yadavas. He is, thus, part of the epic’s process of closing the bheda, alongside Vyasa who sends the Pandavas off on their last journey. Finally, it is Narada who brings about “calm of mind, all passion spent,” telling Yudhishthira, distressed on seeing Duryodhana, “This is Swarga; there is no enmity here.”

On the other hand, McGrath points out, Narada’s quoted speeches do not influence the narrative. His is thus a twofold presence: one that is effective and another that brings past oral tradition to comment on the present. His presence derives from the Puranic tradition, “indicating a late acquisition” featuring most in the Shanti and Anushasana Parvas (the latter is the richest in Bhargava material and at some time formed part of the former). He is unique in that no other character is mentioned and quoted so much. To McGrath, “He is a fine exemplum of how preliterate Mahabharata poets once functioned, as they in their performances likewise drew upon what had been formerly heard.”

McGrath asserts that there are three figures of a-temporal consciousness influencing the poem’s movement: Krishna who conducts the political narrative, Vyasa the maker of the poem, and Narada who omnisciently draws upon the past and the future to perfect the narrative. The epic is entirely retrospection and recollection, a characteristic typical of Narada. However, McGrath is mistaken when he says that the only two figures alive when the epic is being sung are Vaishampayana and Janamejaya. Vyasa is very much there, granting permission to the former to recite his composition. In the Jaiminiya Ashvamedhaparva, he grants it to Jaimini. As at the beginning, so at the end we find the statement that Narada recites the Mahabharata to the devas. For McGrath, through Narada’s performance the poem becomes an imperishable, unmatched tradition making Arjuna the epitome of the ancient heroic warrior to be worshipped.

While scholars like J.A.B.van Buitenen feel that the Virata Parva is a burlesque composed later, according to McGrath its account of chariot fighting is highly archaic, as also the scenes about Draupadi and Bhima. Unfortunately, he does not explain how. Sri Aurobindo was also of the opinion that the style here is typical of Vyasa’s style that is “bare, direct and (of) resistless strength (going) straight to the heart of all that is heroic in a man.” Vyasa, Narada and Krishna do not appear in it. More variant readings exist for this book than for any other. Is it, then, a combination of various Bharata traditions inserted after the Vana Parva?

McGrath makes a number of telling points regarding the character of the Mahabharata. The absence of reference to the Indus civilization and to Buddhism suggests a purposeful avoidance. The references to Hari and his being four-armed, to Krishna as maha-yogi, to bhakti (when such devotional practice is depicted nowhere) are all typical of classical Hinduism. Yet, Vedic figures like Indra, Agni, Surya and Rudra move easily in and out of the narrative, showing a remarkable conflation of cultures and periods. McGrath proposes that the poem supports a heroic religion that based itself on chariot warfare characterizing the old Bronze Age heroic world to express new views exemplified by the duo Arjuna-Krishna and Nara-Narayana, semi-divine and immortal. Arjuna, a late Bronze Age persona, is initiated into cosmic knowledge so that he becomes a myth of ritual devotion, connecting “as a metonym…the mortal with the supernatural,” fading out once bheda, the partition, has ended. Hence he is still worshipped. The Yadavas, the Bhargavas and the Gupta rulers changed the Mahabharata “from an old and polymorphic verbal and performative tradition to a uniform and synoptic written text.”

McGrath’s book is a fascinating slim volume that everyone interested in the Mahabharata will benefit from.

A shorter version of this review was published on 20th November 2016 in the 8th Day supplement of The Sunday Statesman.

 

Filed Under: BOOK REVIEWS, IN THE NEWS Tagged With: Arjuna, Mahabharata, McGrath, Yadava

The Mokshadharma Parva Reviewed

September 29, 2018 By admin

Journal of Vaishnava Studies, Vol. 26, No.1, Fall 2017

Book Review III

The Mahābhārata of Vyāsa, Book Twelve, Part Two, Mokṣa Dharma. Translated from

the Sanskrit by Pradip Bhattacharya. Writers’ Workshop, Kolkata, 2016. 1107, pp.,

ISBN 978-93-5045-122-9

Review by Kevin McGrath, Harvard University

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

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

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

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

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

who express the narrative; this great event of mimēsis is fully conveyed by the translation wherein Bhīṣma the poet enacts innumerable characters and voices.

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

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

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

Filed Under: BOOK REVIEWS, IN THE NEWS Tagged With: Mahabharata, McGrath, Mokshadharma

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