“a solid, original work of scholarship...unusually well written, with flare and elegance, and carefully edited...l actually enjoyed reading it, and learned much from it...And I welcomed the continuous concern to present the agency of women throughout the Epic, a focus on the strong women in the story.” — Dr. Wendy Doniger, Chair of the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations. University of Chicago.
“This is a most valuable and original contribution to the field of Hindu Studies. It contributes to new understanding...l learned a lot from this work.” — Dr. Sushil Mittal. Associate Professor of Hinduism, James Madison University, USA.
One does not very often come across a work of such elegance and depth...Thematic analysis and highlighting have made it an experience of a special kind.” — Maj. Gen. 5K. Sen. VSM, translator of the Jaiminiya Ashvamedhaparva.
“(His) observations are insights what really help us to get glimpse of the Vyasan Vision and Master’s mastery of his epic art in all its nuances?’ — Prof. (Dr.) Gauri Dharmapal, renowned Sanskrit scholar.
The study analyses the baffling nebulous mass of material with which the epic begins, bringing out the central theme of each of the sub-parvas to provide insights into the Vyasan Vision and the Masters mastery of his epic art, It helps the reader to understand the intricate web of inter-connections of events and characters so that a clear, logical and intelligible picture emerges of the very involved and confused panorama of the Mahabharata. Parallels from comparative mythology and literature enrich the study and there is a continuous concern to highlight the agency of women throughout the epic.
Pradip Bhattacharya, International HRD Fellow (Manchester), retired in 2007 as Additional Chief Secretary (Development and Planning), Government of West Bengal. Chaired the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre’s National Symposium on “The Pancha Kanya of Indian Epics”, Dec. 2003; panelist for the 2nd International Conference on Indic Culture and Civilization’s panel on “Pancha Kanya” organised by MANUSHI and the ICCR, Dec. 2005: chaired sessions on “the Mahabharata and Media” in the National Manuscript Mission’s national seminar, Feb.2007 and on “Narrating the Mahabharata” and Cultural rooting of Mahabharata” in the IGNCA’s international conference, Feb.2011.
Now Regional Editor (East) for the Mahabharata Encyclopaedia Project of the Mahabharata Pratishthanam, Bangalore; Member, Board of Governors, IIM Calcutta and of the editorial boards of the Journal of Human Values and MANUSH!. Edited and authored thirty books and numerous articles on values in management, public administration, ancient history, comparative mythology.
Vyasa, master raconteur, weaves together a bewildering skein of threads to create a many-splendoured web from which there was no escape for the listener of those days and there is none even for the reader of today. The thousands of years that separate us from Vyasa have not, surprisingly, dimmed the magic of his art that had entranced Janamejaya and Shaunaka. Here is stunning evidence of the power the epic exerts:
“Shells were exploding over Leningrad. Enemy bombs were falling on the streets stirring up clouds of dust. On one of those spring days during the siege, Sanskrit language was being heard in the building of the Academy of Sciences on the Neva River embankment, in a room overlooking the side that was safer during the artillery strikes. First, in the original, and then in translation, Vladimir Kalyanov, a specialist on India, was reading Mahabharata, a wonderful monument of Indian literature, to his colleagues, who remained in the besieged city. He had started the translation before the war. He translated during the hard winter of 1941, with no light, no fuel and no bread in the city. Two volumes of books—one published in Bombay and the other in Calcutta—were lying on the table in the room. In the dim light of a wick lamp, he was comparing these two editions of Mahabharata, trying to find the best and the most accurate translation of the Sanskrit into Russian.
“When, after the war the first book of Mahabharata—Adi Parva was published in Leningrad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India, noted with great satisfaction that, even during the hardest times, the translation of the Indian epic into Russian was never interrupted.”
What is it in this epic-of-epics, eight times larger than the Iliad and the Odyssey combined—denounced as “a literary monster” by Winternitz, and as “monstrous chaos” by Oldenberg—that appeals so irresistibly to the modern man in search of his soul, when the audience for which it was composed—the enthroned monarch and the forest-dwelling sage—has long sunk into the dark backward and abysm of time?
Seeking answers to questions such as these, I found a storyteller par excellence lying bare, at times quite pitilessly, the existential predicament of man in the universe. If, later in the epic, Vyasa shows us what man has made of man, here, in the very first book, he plumbs the depths of the humiliatingly petty preoccupations of the Creator’s noblest creation. Indeed, the dilemmas the characters find themselves enmeshed in cannot even be glorified as ‘tragic’. Perhaps, that is why we find the epic so fascinating—for, how many of us are cast in the heroic mould? We do not have to strain the imagination to reach out and identify with Yayati or Shantanu. We need no willing suspension of disbelief to understand why the Brahmin Drona should sell his knowledge to the highest bidder, or why Drupada does not protest too much when his daughter is parceled out among five brothers who had routed him in a skirmish. Passions do, indeed, spin the plot and we are betrayed by what is false within. Then, as now, there is no need to look for a villain manoeuvring without.
If we resonate in empathy with the sense of tears in human things, we also thrill with joy on meeting the indomitable spirit of woman in an epic that many misconceive as celebrating a male chauvinist outlook. Whether it is Shakuntala proudly asserting her integrity and berating the cowardly Dushyanta in open court; or Devayani demanding that Kacha return her love and imperiously brushing aside a lust-crazed husband; or Kunti refusing to pervert herself into a mindless son-producing machine to gratify the twisted desires of a frustrated husband— time and again it is woman standing forth in all the splendour of her spirited autonomy as a complete human being that rivets our attention and evokes our admiration.
I have pursued a method that allows the epic to grow, as it were, upon the reader. Taking the P. La) transcription as the peg on which to hang the analysis, I have gone through the Mi Parva chapter by chapter, section by section, bringing out the delicate nuances of meaning, the deft dovetailing of one tale into another, the underlying thematic unity, the incisive and at times relentless exposé of the frailties that the flesh is heir to, that make up the genius of Vyasa. Begun in 1968 and brought out in monthly fascicules, a completely revised transcreation, each Parva contained in a single volume, was published from 2005 correcting all the errors of commission and omission I had noted in my studies. I have followed this revised edition. Why the P. Lal transcreation? It is the only English version to follow the complete “vulgate” shloka-by-shloka, eschewing the not very consistent text of the Critical Edition with its numerous excisions in favour of the extant complete redaction. Possibly because of the same reason the Clay Sanskrit Library based its translations on the edition with Nilkantha’s commentary, but they are almost all in prose. Further, Prof Lal’s is the only translation that is a transcreation, consciously attempting to provide a sense of the original by effortlessly shifting from verse to prose as Vyasa’s text demands, simultaneously preserving the Sanskrit ethos. We are not brought up short by jarring medieval turns of phrase that are anything but Vyasa as with J.A.B. van Buitenen’s “barons”, “chivalry” and the like. Mahatma, pranama, namaskara, ashrama and similar words, redolent with the flavour of Bharatavarsha’s air and earth and water, abound. The Lal version does not, however, have many passages occurring in the Southern and the Bengal recessions (such as Arjuna’s wooing of Subhadra disguised as a hermit, Draupadi’s previous births as Nalayani, Mudgalani and Vedavati, the chariot duel between Krishna and Shishupala, etc.)
The attempts at translating the longest epic in the world in full began with H. Fauche’s French translation (1863-1870). Unfortunately, he died leaving it incomplete. Now L. Ballin continues the work. A new French translation by Guy Vincent and Gilles Schaufelberger has brought out four volumes so far arranged thematically, not following the original chronological schema. In St. Petersburg, the Russian translation was started in 1941 by V. Kalyanov and is nearing the end. In the USA, J.A.B. van Buitenen of Chicago University died after finishing the first five Parvas. Two other American Universities are continuing the work, but do not follow the sequence of the original. The other American project by the Clay Sanskrit Library has run out of sponsors. We have to revert to the 19th century for an almost complete English translation by KM. Ganguli published by P.C. Roy (1 883-1893). A parallel effort was undertaken by the Rector of Serampore College, M.N. Dutt slightly later. Both are vitiated as they either omit or Latinise passages “for obvious reasons” in the prevalent Victorian ambience. In 1968 Professor P. Lal took up the first verse-by-verse transcreation of Vyasa’s monumental composition in English. As of now, 16 and a half of the 18 books have been published before Prof. Lal passed away in November 2010, leaving the moksha-dharma portion of the Shanti Parva and the Anushasana Parva in its entirety to be completed.
I have avoided use of diacriticals as they impede the flow of the text, except where necessary to indicate elongaged vowels: “a” instead of “aa” as in “arm”, “1” instead of “ee” as in “see”, “u” instead of “oo” as in “too”.
From the Jacket:
This book represents the first attempt of its kind to present a detailed, systematic analysis of the upamana dharmas (Tertia comparationis) of the various objects of comparison found in the Mahabharata. It also critically examines the position of the Great Epic as a fascinating specimen of Oral poetic composition abounding, as it does, in the repetitions of the poetic formulae of the various categories. A study of some of the major figures of speech also provides an authoritative material useful for further research of the evolution of Tertia comparationis in the successive stages of Indian literary tradition.
"In any case Sharma's research has led us to a pre-height from where we can see the Gauri-Shankar of the Mahabharata." - Friedrich Wilhelm
About the Author:
Dr. Ram Karan Sharma (born March 20,1927) was initiated to Vedic and Vedangic studies he worked with Prof. M.B. Emeneau in the University of California.
He is an M.A. (Sanskrit and Hindi) from Patna University, Sahityacarya, Vedanta Sastri and Navya-Vyakarana Sastri from Bihar Sanskrit Association. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Founder Director, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Vice Chancellor, K.S.D. Sanskrit University, Darbhanga and Sampurnananda Sanskrit University, Varanasi, Secretary, Central Sanskrit Board, Organising Secretary, First and Fifth World Sanskrit Conferences, a participant in several world Sanskrit conferences and oriental conferences, and associated with many academic bodies of various organizations Dr. Sharma has all along been making distinct contributions to the cause of promotion of Sanskrit studies in India and abroad.
Author of six publications including creative writings in Sanskrit and about one hundred research papers/poems etc. Dr. Sharma is a recipient of the award of Certificate of Honour from the President of India (for distinguished services for promotion of Sanskrit Studies).
THIS WORK IS BASICALLY THE SAME as that submitted in partial satis- faction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of California in June, 1959. It owes its present shape to the esteemed guidance of my learned guru, Murray Barnson Emeneau, Professor of Sanskrit and General Linguistics of the departments of Classics and Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. I cannot express in words my sense of indebtedness to his intellectual gifts in connection with the work. All that is good in it is his; the rest is mine: punas ca bhuyo 'pi namo namas te.
I must record my grateful thanks to Professors Madison S. Beeler, Joseph E. Fontenrose, John J. Gumperz, Arthur E. Hutson, S. M. Katre, V. Raghavan, and the late Professor Ferdinand D. Lessing for their kind suggestions and generous help with the work.
My visit to the University of California was made possible by a grant of leave from the University of Bihar and by financial grants from the State Department of the United States under the Fulbright and Smith- Mundt acts through the United States Educational Foundation in India and the Institute of International Education. To add to this, the Com- mittee on South Asian Languages of the Association for Asian Studies granted me a fellowship for the year 1958-59. My special obligation is due to all of them.
I wish also to offer my sincere thanks to the Editorial Committee of the University of California, which has so kindly agreed to undertake the publication of the work.
THE PRESENT STUDY IS BASED ON MATERIALS from the Mahabharata (Critical Edition, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poena), Books 1 (Adi, 1933) and 3 (Vans, 1941) edited by Vishnu Sitaram Sukthankar, and Book 6 (Bhisma, 1947), edited by Shripad Krishna Belvalkar. An attempt is made here to present a detailed account of what we may call poetic expressions of the corpus. It is not a rhetorical discussion of the soul of the poetry of the Mahabharata. It rather aims at enumerating the symbolic, alliterative, paronomastic, or repetitive linguistic features that beautify the body of the Mahabharata.
Chapter 1 deals with the similes (upama) of the corpus; the arrange- ment of the sections is based on the fields from which the objects of comparison (upamana) are collected. Chapters 2 through 8 deal with the metaphors and other figures of meaning (arthalamkaras) that are found. Chapter 9 presents some specimens of popular idioms found in the corpus, arranged again according to the fields from which they are collected. Chapter 10 is the compilation of the passages representing typical figures of sound (Sabdlalamkaras). To complete the study, chap- ter 11 analyzes passages representing the techniques of oral poetry.
AB J. Gonda informs us, Arnold Hirzel in his Gleichnisse und Meta- phern im Rgveda tried to collect as completely as possible the similes in the Rgveda; he arranged the materials "nach sachlichen Gruppen." Mrs. Rhys Davids took practically the same point of view in her "Similes in the Nikayas."! No such study seems yet to have been made of the Mahabharata. E. W. Hopkins in his The Great Epic of India merely sug- gests that "on epic similes and metaphors an interesting essay remains to be written."! Of course, he lists many examples of epic similes and metaphors (pp. 403-444);but the purpose there is to show the parallel- ism in the two epics rather than to present a study of the epic figures. Emeneau in his paper "The Sinduvsra Tree in Sanskrit Literature" suggests that the compilation of an encyclopedia of traditional Sanskrit stock-in-trade comparisons "would be an aid to the scholar who occupies himself with the interpretation of Sanskrit literature."! The present study of the Mahabharata may be said to be an attempt in that direc- tion, viz., a study of the figures in Sanskrit literature.
As Hopkins rightly points out, "the presence in the epic of rupakas, metaphors, of this or that form, no more implies acquaintance with a studied ars poetica than do such phenomena in other early epic poetry.":' What Patanjali says about language in general:
ye punah karya bhava nirvrttau tavat tesam yatnah kriyate tad yatha ghatena karyam. karisyan kumbhakarakulam gatva 'ha kuru ghatam karyam anena karis- yami 'ti/ na tadvac chabdan prayoksyamano vaiyakaranakulam gatva 'ha kuru sabdan prayoksya iti/
An effort has to be made for the accomplishment of things that are to be made; for example, one who needs a pot goes to the family of a potter and says, "Make me a pot; I will use it." But nobody who wants to use words goes to the family of gram- marians and says, "Make me words; I will use them.'
applies to the figurative language of epic poetry as well. It does not follow, however, as stated for epic grammar by Kulkarni and Yarrow, that many 'aberrant' poetic usages exist in the Mahabharata.! Any discussion of aberrancy implies a previous canonical formulation of some rigid norm. Such a canon did exist in the field of grammar, in the prescriptions of the great grammarians (munitraya). But the tradi- tion of rhetoric has been somewhat different. The definition and concept of poetry have always been changing and growing, from the time of Bharata (first century A.D.) to the time of Panditaraja Jagannatha (seventeenth century A.D.). What is still more significant from our point of view is the fact that the poetic techniques as evolving in the works of rhetoricians through the ages and those successively adopted by the poets concerned have not been synchronous. We cannot say, for example, that as Sriharsa belonged to the twelfth century when the dhvani school was at its highest peak, his poetry would be necessarily based on the principles of dhvani.
Poets have been traditionally regarded as unrestrained persons (nirankusah kavayah). Their poetry is free from the restrictions of nature (niyatikrtaniyamarahitam, Kavy. Pr 1.1). As a seed is to the growth of a creeper, the earth and irrigation being just accessories, so is the poetic intuition (imagination) to the growth of poetry; study and practice are accessories thereof (pratibhai 'va srutabhyasasahita kavi- tarp prati/hetur mrdambusambaddhabijamala latam iva, Candraloka 1.6). The poetic defect arising from a poet's lack of learning can be hidden by the excellence of his poetic intuition; but failure in imagina- tion is too apparent to be hidden (avyutpattikrto dosah Saktya samvri- yate kaveh/yas tv asaktikrtas tasya jhag ity eva 'vabhasate, Locana on Dhvanyaloka 3.6).
In every community, poetry appears first. Rhetoric may follow. If a community's language of poetry is rhythmical, allegorical, or alliter- ative, it is not because of a rhetorician's prescription. By nature, a com- munity's emotional language of lamentation, honor, anger, wonder, etc., is what we call poetic in the real sense of the term. We can always hear, for example, the so-called elements of alliteration, repetition, introduc- tion, refrain, rhythm, rhyme, and allegory, even in the language of lamentation of an illiterate village woman. Thus Visvanatha's definition of poetry (vakyam rasatmakam kavyam SD 1.3, poetry is a language of emotion) seems to be a universally recognized fact.
The result of the above discussion may be summarized thus: Firstly, if the language of the Mahabharata is poetic, it does not follow that there is some influence of the science of rhetoric in it. Secondly, even if we do not get evidence of a well-developed science of rhetoric prior to the composition of the Mahabharata, we should not deny the poetry of the Mahabharata the place it deserves, in the light of what has been said about its poetical virtues by later rhetoricians, poets, critics, or other writers.
Raghavan? presents the views of Anandavardhana, Abhinavagupta, Ksemendra, and the author of the Bhagavata that the Mahabharata is essentially and primarily a work (prabandhakavya) of the sentiment of tranquillity (santa rasa). As these critics have shown, all the struggles of the Pandavas, their wars, victories, and sufferings, lead to one central theme, that peace, quietude, and tranquillity are the summa bona of human life.
A. Idioms in General
I have read this small, but interesting book. Much has been written about the Mahabharata, in big volumes, in various European and Indian languages, but the present work, as the title shows, is a study of the Epic from the literary point of view. The author begins by saying something about the metres used in the Epic and here many of his observations are based partly on the Suvrttatilaka of Ksemendra and partly on his own observations. He is sensitive to the impressions which verses written in particular metres make on us when we read them and knows to use them for their esthetic assessment. He is fully aware that the Epic is full of sabdalankaras and arthalankaras and in his observations on them and other literary features, he is first of all guided by the Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana and then by the Vakroktijivita of Kuntaka. In a small section entitled "Points of Style", the author says a few words about the laksandvyapara to enhance the effect of the poem. He also points out the use of the dialogue method borrowed from the Vedas to enhance literary and didactic effect. He has picked out the Yaksaprakarana dialogue to show that "the poet of the Mahabharata has used the dialogue style only when he has to convey, though indirectly, some deeper sense which cannot be conveyed in an ordinary manner." (p.96)
Though small in size, this work can be a guide for a detailed and deep study of the Mahabharata. I hope it will find enough readers to take advantage of it.
The object of presenting this literary study of the Mahabharata is to examine the great Epic poem purely from the literary point of view without getting involved in the controversies regarding its authorship, date, authenticity etc. These latter topics have been dealt with at length by Indian as well as foreign scholars, the chief ones among whom are C. V. Vaidya, Winternitz, Macdonell, Keith and a few others.
In the present context, however, it will not be out of place to give by way of introduction a brief resume of the traditional view regarding the Mahabharata's authorship, development and extant.
According to the traditional view, the Mahabharata was composed by the sage Krsna Dvaipayana Vedavyasa in the beginning of the Kali age. It is said that after Vedavyasa had composed the Great Epic, the sage Vaisampayana, acting on the latter's instance, narrated the same, dividing it into as many as one hundred sub-parvan-s, before Janamejaya on the occasion of the Serpent-sacrifice performed by him. It is further averred that later on Ugrasravas divided the same into eighteen main parvan-s and recited it before the sages assembled at Naimisaranya. Scholars hold divergent views regarding the number of verses that have formed part of the Mahabharata. According to one set of scholars there were three successive recessions of this great poem. They believe that the first recession contained twenty four thousand verses and in support of this view they cite the following verse of the Mahabharata itself:
Caturvimsatisahsrim cakre bharatasamhitam / Adiparvan, 1. 102
Sauti and Saunaka. They hold that it is this third recension which is now extant and is known as the Mahabharata, The orthodox view is quite different from this. According to that view, the Mahabharata originally contained one lakh verses and was dictated by Vyasa to Ganesa, the scribe, who put the same into black and white. The holders of this view support their contention by citing the following other verse again from the Mahabharata :
Tribhir varsaih sadotthayi krsnadvaipayano munih I Mahabharatamakhyanam krtavanidmaplutam II Adiparvan, 62.52
i.e., 'sitting constantly at work Krsnadvaipayana completed this narrative, known as the Mahabharata, in full three years' and argue that if the number of verses had not been one lakh then a poet like Vyasa with a scribe like Ganesa would not have taken so much time in composing the whole thing.
The importance of the Mahabharata has been emphasised from the earliest times. It has been treated as a very comprehensive encyclopedia. The Brhaddharma Purana eulogises it as a holy treatise equal in status to the Vedas, saying that one who possesses the Mahabharata is sure to be victorious over the entire world. It further goes on to say that as there is no end to the virtues of Narayana, to the waters in the seas and to the number of caves in the mountains so there is no end to the merit earned by a study of the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is a compendium dealing with subjects like Economics, Politics, History, Philosophy and Theology. The same Purana says that just as it is not possible to live without food so there is not the least possibility for any story to come into existence without the aid of the Mahabharata. According to the Visnudharmottara Purana, the Mahabharata is so efficacious that its study can prevent a person from going to hell, unless, of course, he is not a sinner to the core.
At several places in the Mahabharata itself, the work has been described as a monumental work of history, theology and quite a large number of other subjects; but our interest lies only in such statements contained in the Mahabharata as relate to its poetic value. In the words of Sauti, Krsnadvaipayana himself claimed this work to be a kavya of the highest order. Sauti adds that, according to Brahma, Vyasa never told a lie and so what he has said cannot be without foundation; the work of Vyasa is bound to attain the status of a kavya and a writing of even the greatest among poets will never excel the poetic merits of the Mahabharata. The niceties of the Mahabharata from the literary point of view have been enumerated in the following verse:
Alankrtam subhaih. sabdaib samayairdivyamamusaih | Chandovrttaisca vividhairanvitam vidusam priyam II Adiparvan, 1.28
i.e., 'this poem is adorned with auspicious words and (poetic) conventions relating to gods as well as men, is studded with various kinds of metres and is (consequently) loved by the scholars.'
In the following chapters it has been tried to prove with the help of appropriate illustrations from the Mahabharata the truthfulness of the above-mentioned statement of Sauti. As a matter of fact, it is this very verse which has inspired the present author to view the Mahabharata from a literary angle of vision.
The book was originally submitted as thesis for Ph.D. degree in Sanskrit of the University of Lucknow under the same title as it bears now, viz., The Mahabharata A Literary Study. It has been thoroughly revised before being published in the present form. As mentioned before, in this work my aim has been to critically examine the Mahabharata from a purely literary point of view. To the best of my efforts, I have tried to avoid entering into the various controversies regarding the authenticity of the text, the extent of the number of verses and the question of interpolations. I have also not entered into the questions relating to the reality or otherwise of the epic characters, like those of Kauravas and Pandavas, Likewise, the philosophy, too, of the Mahabharata could not engage my attention.
The present study of the Mahabharata is based mainly upon the text published with Nilakantha's commentary by the Chitrashala Press, Poona; but wherever necessary I have also consulted the texts published by the Bhandarkar Orientals research Institute, Poona, the Gujrati Printing Press, Bombay (only the Virata and Udyoga Parvan-s) and the Gita Press Gorakhpur (with Hindi Translation) as well as the Calcutta Edition of the same. I have also drawn upon the two available English translation, viz., those of P.C. Roy and M.N. Dutta.
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