Quest for the Original Bharata Samhita and Mahabharata Story

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

While studying the original Mahabharata edited by Ramachandra Shastri Kinjawadekar and published from Pune during 1929 to 1933, I was struck by many discrepancies. These were obviously the result of many interpolations in the manuscripts by minstrels or scribes or authors anxious to preserve their own work by incorporating the same in the Mahabharata, knowing that the Mahabharata with all additions would survive, but independent poetical or dramatical stories had little chance of survival. Kalidasa in his "Malavikagnimitram" had eulogised Bhasa, Saumillaka and Kaviputra as well—known dramatists, but the works of the last two are wholly lost while manuscripts of some dramatic works of Bhasa (probably with changes made by a repertoire theatre group) were accidentally found in 1909 in a monastery near Padmanabhapuram in Kerala by Ganapati Shastri, the manuscripts being in Malayalam script. Even in this age of printed books many good books circulate for a while and then get lost. Some of the interpolations in the Mahabharata are unrelated to the main story and were introduced as told to the main characters, chiefly the Pandavas, to amuse or comfort them when they were depressed, e.g. the story of Nala Damayanti, of Savitri Satyavan etc.; we are thankful to the authors of these stories for inserting them in the epic and so preserving them for posterity, but they are not parts of the main story, and must be omitted when seeking to separate out the main story from all additions, though they must be preserved as separate books. Other interpolations are parts of the main story retold by ambitious authors, but the authors have departed in some details from the main story or added frills and thus introduced discrepancies. These additions must be discarded after carefully deciding which version is part of the main story. There are also instances where long passages or whole chapters or groups of chapters have been shifted from the proper place in the story; these lapses may be corrected by proper rearrangement of the passages or chapters. These discrepancies and displacements are irritating to any serious reader. One instance may be cited as illustration. In the Adi Parva it is stated at first that Rishis living in Ashramas in the high mountains escorted Kumi and five boys to the Hastinapura palace, and saying only that the boys were sons of Pandu they departed without another word; that some remarked how the boys could be Pandu's sons, as Pandu was long dead ‘but there were some unusual manifestations like flowers dropping from the sky, and Bhishma accepted the boys as Pandu's sons and arranged their being brought up with Dhritarashtra‘s sons. In a subsequent chapter of the same Parva it is stated that the Rishis brought the bodies of Pandu and Madri along with Kunti and five boys, that they stated that Pandu had expired seventeen days before and that Madri had thrown herself into Pandu‘s Pyre, and that the boys had been sired by gods Dharma, Matariswa (Vayu), Puruhuta (Indra) and twin Aswinikumars as Pandu was firm in his detachment from sex enjoyment (brahmacharya vrata), and that funeral rites for Pandu and Madri were to be performed; and that saying all this the Rishis suddenly disappeared. There is no doubt that the accounts are widely different and they have to be weighed carefully to decide what really happened; But a choice has to be made and the Mahabharata story retold in a consistent manner.

I also felt that all supernatural elements must be omitted in retelling the main story. Indian poets and dramatists have frequently mixed up human affairs with acts of gods, as if human beings and gods had frequent contact in the world. Thus we find gods 'called upon to sire babies for maidens and married women, and celestial nymphs bearing babies to human sages and kings; human kings sometimes fighting for gods and gods giving special weapons to human heroes so that they may win their battles. Even in the 7th century A.D. the poet, Banabhatta in Kadambari made a mix—up of the gods and the humans, and adopted the erroneous belief of the untaught masses that by a Rishi’s curse a man may be turned into a bird or animal or insect, or be born as such. Belief in the ` effectiveness of curses of Rishis is an everpresent check on the masses to normal behaviour and action. People believed that a brahman's curse could cause the wheel of a hero’s chariot to sink into the ground, or make him forget the proper use of his weapons. Such beliefs ultimately lead men to lose the power to distinguish between the real mundane world and the realm of phantasy. By praying to gods for supernatural help Indian kings have sometimes wasted valuable time in which to prepare their armies to meet the enemy without. It is essential that all such supernatural tales be ruthlessly eliminated from people's minds and the epics.

While studying Ramachandra Shastri's edition of the Mahabharata I was trying to work out how the discrepancies and supernatural tales might be eliminated. I then came to know of the work of the Samsodhaka Mandal of Bhandarkar Research Institute of Pune, under the leadership of Dr. Sukthankar and other savants who succeeded him. This Mandal or Committee was appointed to find the earliest common reading of the epic. Interpolations having been added independently wherever the manuscripts were written, wide variations in the texts of the Northem and Southern versions of the epic had come about and smaller differences in the texts of Western and Eastern India. The Mandal, by their labour extending from the beginning of the century published the critical edition of the Mahabharata in 22 volumes between 1933 and 1966. Thereby they reduced the number of verses by nearly ten thousand and removed copyists' errors which had made many verses almost unintelligible. But necessary and laborious as the work was, the committee did not have before it the objective of elimination of discrepancies and supernatural tales woven into the story, though by discarding the late additions they did get rid of some discrepancies and supernatural tales. I therefore decided to proceed with my work of searching for the original Bharata Samhita purged of discrepancies and supernatural tales.

In the course of my work I noticed a remark made by Prof. E.W. Hopkins, an American Indologist, in the journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1905, pp 384 - 389 that Indians, when telling a story or setting out a discourse, did not pay much attention to consistency; that he had studied the Mahabharata, and found how very full of discrepancies were the episodes of the main story told in it. Many of the discrepancies are the- result of interpolation, but that does not excuse them, for they have been suffered to exist; The remarks of Prof. Hopkins strengthened my resolve to proceed with the task of eliminating discrepancies as well as supernatural episodes from the Mahabharata.

I published my work in Bengali in 1983. After viewing the interesting televised serial of the Mahabharata I ventured to begin the preparation of an English version, so that a wider circle of scholars might be interested in the unvarnished original Mahabharata story, and correct the mistakes I may have made. Part deals with some discrepancies in the Mahabharata which struck me when I first studied the Pune edition of Ramachandra Shastri. Part II deals briefly with the corrections that the Samsodhaka Mandal has effected. It is a pity that they did not deal with the Harivansa, Part III is a more ambitious attempt to search out the original Bharata Samhita after discarding the late additions and interpolations. Part IV sets out the story purged of additions and discrepancies with a supplementary chapter giving a brief account of Krishna's life and teaching, rejecting or interpreting some of the supernatural tales which have become woven around his life and work.

I now humbly submit my work to the notice of the congnoscenti and of the general readers of India.

The chapter and verse numbers of the few quotations from the Mahabharata are the numbers as in Ramachandra Shastri‘s edition.

About the Author

Shri Sisir Kumar Sen was born on 31st January, 1903, in a gifted family of Kalia in Jessore Dist. Of East Bengal. His father, late Jnanada Kanta Sen was a respected Medical Practitioner in Delhi; his mother used to keep in close touch with Bengali literature and wrote and published some books of Bengali Poems. The author joined the Indian Civil Service and worked as a Judge of Calcutta High Court from May 1952 to the end of January 1963.

He had become interested in the life and work of Shri Krishna after reading the late Bankim Chandra Chatterji’s book “Krishna Charitra”. It contains an analysis of the story of Shri Krishna in the Mahabharata and the Puranas. The Author re-read “Krishna Charitra” and made a careful study of the original Mahabharata and agreed with the view of the late Bakim Chandra Chatterji that the Mahabharata, in spite of many later additions, was the best source for the true life story of Shri Krishna.

The Author spent several years in the study of the critical edition of the Mahabharata published by the Sansodhaka Mandala of Bhandarkar Research Institute. He published in 1981 the true life story of Shri Krishna and in 1983 the original Mahabharata story in Bengali. After viewing the television serial of the Mahabharata the Author decided that a wider audience could be reached if the true Mahabharata story were to be published in English, shorn of the various myths that had grown through the centuries.