Has the Mahabharata ever been a "secular" epic?

www.knaw.nl, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2020

27th Gonda Lecture: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, November 2019. Once an epic arguing the good of manly heroism in battle, the Mahābhārata (MBh) remains an immensely popular narrative three thousand years later, long after the bold self-assertion of heroism expired as an ideal. The MBh still argues the good, that is dharma, but it is a greater Good than individual heroism. Rather than juxtaposing the human and the divine antagonistically, as did Homer’s Iliad, the ingenious poets of the Indian epic fused the human and the divine to argue that there is a greater Good than everlasting glory, that dharma is about larger matters as well—society and the world itself. And it made this move twice. My paper argues that its inspired emplotment invested the MBh successively with two different divine registers to make lasting arguments about the Good.

2018

This volume contains 20 papers emerging from the Epics and Purāṇas panel at the 15th World Sanskrit conference (New Delhi, January 2012). A body of scholars of international standing pursue a diverse range of inquiries into the Mahābhārata, Harivaṃśa, Rāmāyaṇa and the Purāṇas. Offering new and often provocative insights into their narratives, textual histories, ideological concerns, theological agendas and reception histories, these papers provide an excellent overview of the current state of epic and Purāṇic research. Twelve of the articles primarily concern aspects of the Mahābhārata and its khila, the Harivaṃśa. Two of these explore the relationship of the Mahābhārata to Buddhism. Two papers offer stimulating discussions of matters arising from the preparation of the concluding volume to the 30-year Princeton Rāmāyaṇa translation project, a landmark in Indological research. The remaining six papers analyse aspects of the Purāṇas, three within the broader mythological and ideological contexts shared by the epics and Purāṇas, and three in regard to the regional traditions represented by Sthala- Purāṇas and Māhātmyas. The sum of this volume’s parts demonstrate the vibrancy of the fields to which it contributes, a vibrancy underscored by the diversity of their methodological approaches and insights. Many of these insights will endure; some chart new and promising directions in Indological research. Above all, this volume further reinforces the foundational and enduring importance of these immense texts to the literatures, histories and cultures of South Asia and beyond.

The Mahābhārata: How to Endow Human History with Sense The Mahābhārata is a consistent — although complex — intellectual project developed by several generations of poets belonging to the same tradition. A reliable edition should highlight this global coherency rather than censure large passages as written later or earlier. Of course, the Mahābhārata might rely on some historical data like every epic tradition (see the example of Homer's Iliad and the ancient city of Trojas); but does the possible mention of true facts give a sufficient account of the consistency of this huge narrative? As well a mere transcription of historical data as an arbitrary fantasy would not produce such a well organized construction because the result of many convergent human actions is subject to contingency. In this paper I argue that the Mahābhārata as itihāsa is related to history in a deeper sense than merely registering concrete facts about what happened in definite points of the space and time where our everyday experience also takes place. Rather it undertakes a more general reflection on human condition, including human condition inasmuch as it is involved in time and history for ever. The second hypothesis would explain why many people from various cultures can still today be interested in the Mahābhārata. This question can be judged only by an internal examination of the epic. The possible concordance between archaeological findings and certain elements of the text cannot help us to determine the very nature of the text. Thus I suggest an alternative to the positivistic reading of the Mahābhārata: the question really answered by the Mahābhārata might ask under which conditions our action can overcome the absurdity of human condition which is ordinarily characterized by mortality and sin. How can our action not be vain, soon swallowed by nothingness? The epic answers: by embodying an archetypal myth in the earthly present. We can get individual salvation by inscribing our action in an impersonal and transcendental order. As Dumézil has shown, the doctrine of avatāra-s constitutes the original kern of the epic, so that the human drama can be read as a transposition of a Vedic — and maybe even pre-Vedic — mythology implying a kind of " twilight of the gods " and then a new dawn. Moreover this doctrine results from an extension and an inversion of the logic that organizes Vedic sacrifice, which is already supposed to maintain the correct order of the world. In the Vedas the concrete ritual performance must be experienced as a projection of a permanent intellectual archetype. Otherwise the sacrifice will not be efficient. The gvedic poet identifies through his " good thought " — he is su-mánas — with the very First Fathers who have established the rules of sacrifice. The historical poet mentally contemplates the first Institution as really present in another stratum of being and thus he personally acts in it. Reciprocally the human mind has to be defined as the part of a person that always can attend the Primordial Sacrifice. Thus the Vedic priest has to lift up his attention to an upper model, while in the epic the divinity comes down on earth. The direction of the movement is reversed. Therefore in the Mahābhārata Brahmins, representing Vedic power, have no longer a monopoly over the salvation of external and internal worlds. The Kṣatriyas can participate therein, so that History, like a large sacrificial area, can get a sense. In the Mahābhārata, every possible human history appears as no longer just " a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury " as Shakespeare's Macbeth says; rather, it becomes a sacred history, and opens a way to participating in the eternal paradigms seen by the sages.

The idea of this paper is to examine the variegated reality of texts classified under the notion "epic" in the Indian tradition. My aim is to study the relation between epics and various religious trends in Indian history, so I shall especially concentrate on the function of epic material as a bearer of religious ideologies. This subject includes diverse ideologies, on the one hand, and different texts, some of which might sometimes turn out not to be epics in the strict sense, on the other. In fact, the main question I want to present for discussion is the problematic idea of epic in the Indian context.

The paper deals with the relations between the Mahabharata and what we may call the Vratya tradition. First it analises some passages which characterise Krishna as the head of young warriors' brotherhood and represent him and his followers as "vratyas". Then it dwells on two episodes from the epic which give us grounds to believe that in the remote past Indian forest brotherhoods used the animal, in particular wolf and/or dog symbolism. First is the story of Trita (Mbh 9.35) of Indo-European antiquity. The second is the episode from the very end of the epic: the stoty of a mysterious dog who, as a bhakta of Yudhishthira, follows the Pandava brothers on their last journey. In conclusion, we try to answer the question why the elements undoubtedly very old and archaic by their origin are often met in those parts of the epic which are considered to be late.

This article discourages the idea that upakhyanas (subtales or side-tales) are late additions to the Mahabharata. It takes the position that they are part of the originally conceived whole, and examines the full 67 upakhyanas in the epic from a list drawn up in formulating the article.

2023

The Journal of Asian Studies, 1978

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