Argument and Design: The Unity of the Mahabharata

495 Pages·2016·2.2 MB·English

by  Vishwa Adluri

i
Argument and Design
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004311404_001
ii
Brill’s Indological Library
Edited by
Johannes Bronkhorst
In co-operation with
Richard Gombrich, Oskar von Hinüber,
Katsumi Mimaki, Arvind Sharma
VOLUME 49
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bil
iii
Argument and Design
The Unity of the Mahābhārata
Edited by
Vishwa Adluri
Joydeep Bagchee
LEIDEN | BOSTON
iv
Cover illustration: František Kupka (1871–1957), Hindu Motif, also known as Graduated Red (1919–23). In
the collection of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Adluri, Vishwa, editor. | Bagchee, Joydeep, editor.
Title: Argument and design : the unity of the Mahabharata / edited by Vishwa
Adluri, Joydeep Bagchee.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2016. | Series: Brill’s Indological
library, ISSN 0925-2916 ; volume 49 | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015044374 (print) | LCCN 2016008134 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004311398 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9789004311404 (e-book) | ISBN
9789004311404 (E-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Mahabharata--Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Epic
literature, Sanskrit--History and criticism.
Classification: LCC BL1138.26 .A75 2016 (print) | LCC BL1138.26 (ebook) | DDC
294.5/923046--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044374
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ContentCsontents v
Contents
Foreword vii
Robert P. Goldman
Notes on Contributors  xii
Introduction: From Supplementary Narratives to Narrative
Supplements 1
Vishwa Adluri
1 Not without Subtales: Telling Laws and Truths in the Sanskrit
Epics 10
Alf Hiltebeitel
2 On the Upatva of Upākhyā nas: Is the Uttarakāṇḍa of the Rāmāyaṇa an
Upākhyā na of the Ma hāb hā ra ta? 69
Robert P. Goldman
3 The Epic’s Singularization to Come: The Śakuntalā and Yayāti
Upākhyā nas in the Southern Recension of the Ma hāb hā ra ta  83
Joydeep Bagchee
4 Introductory Notes on the Literary Structure of the
Mārkaṇḍeyasamāsyāparvan 127
Greg Bailey
5 Of Daddies and Demons: The Rāmopākhyāna and the Rakṣovaṃśa of
the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa 161
Sally J. Sutherland Goldman
6 The Tale of an Old Monkey and a Fragrant Flower: What the Mahā­
bhārata’s Rāmāyaṇa May Tell Us about the Ma hāb hā ra ta 187
Bruce M. Sullivan
7 Supernatural Conflicts, Unanimities, and Indra in the Main Story and
Substories of the Ma hāb hā ra ta 206
Fernando Wulff Alonso
vi Contents
8 Pride and Prostitution: Making Sense of the Mādhavī Exhibit in the
Ma hāb hā ra ta Museum 237
Adheesh Sathaye
9 The Divine Androgyne: Crossing Gender and Breaking Hegemonies in
the Ambā­Upākhyā na of the Ma hāb hā ra ta  275
Vishwa Adluri
10 Reflections on the Upākhyānas in the Āpaddharmaparvan of the
Mahābhārata 320
Adam Bowles
11 The Status of Upākhyānas in Madeleine Biardeau’s Reflections on the
Mahābhārata 359
Nicolas Dejenne
12 Toward a Geography of the Mahābhārata’s Uñchavṛtti Brahman 378
Thennilapuram Mahadevan
13 Upākhyānas and the Harivaṃśa 388
Simon Brodbeck
14 The Geography of the Mahābhārata’s Upākhyānas 428
Alf Hiltebeitel
Index 471
CICOCTCSCTCPRCTCFRNIFCNCOCTCTCUCTICRnnnuoorrhhhhheeehhhhhhhohhhhhhhoopfnottdiwrp fafeeeeenaaaaaaaaaaaaaattdārrD llemete de ooeeppppppppppppppaktWeTEDSGhwxasericcddrtttttttttttttth atpen —dnaSeindeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoottaiuulyv ntiuiigodarrrrrrrrrrrrrreU rttncāoocciha s4dutpdg in45673891211111a’ ttnopnn eu—osC312407Grso pine Pfaasssaour 1Sorlo ed satrAapnevaootiynvfo on l namnh RnnnS atNgUsCgn ydru edO trettouoiop di tabhhrobnDtlflthnā opdtuafeet eutUeakif ghhr a tstntlMUUmlhiyi hipeoryeozokcnyypp āresooaHnotni āse:āāk nNsntn Mf :nTa:,tkki— h g kMasothCUerahhay :heriwnl esrāxTyyvhnarlye o iaiiāāa niLkthāa nntiasMotnnṃaiibnhesgin nt aaMsvCih i ea śRdtn:gLmsse rāahhoIa āagsaiiSar—sāmiednn mw rat te Gb tFyeio Atnehstte3ohrea l hh S:bsNese8aap’ nāsTetee,ih g8n arā Udrna hUraoiāĀdurkeneantertpfp chtprn Tada a Baat tŚāya’atrvt hsurdkaiIāi udna aaFnvreUkhdntdddrekel duhyhGañdohv ā orBSān sawecaaṇāaa fnurrthaiinlr ḍeenapmitpaaumandrhaalvā spv’:āta s k— eayattohWṛl pahhe a iRptfEMenatnnm ee4ahe tixgSrd a ā2rhfaMRBvhe alv8—rH eteaYniranak a bctnaaeRktnsahivtihysgknṣṇā tii—eoāeomo irm ḍi StfmivnMnite at1atā s oUyoEnthaṃy horanp h—epaysneśi ṇiāā aMae ca Mbk3atm ssnho7 ah h —aiad8fāehynān h s tāā rSM 1 yhtāaU nb0uhābe taahpbpea hhsVāās’ as Aāātrāik ron rRabmlvhamrt hāaty taibhmneāaāī—ākser n—Mā­a i oaUS 3ytRu f1oaā2op 2āst0—ṇufā7ehm taktueh h3āhMm JGSBRFVACVAANTSAe5Meyoyeairhroii9oddllria amy—āssffrMcnuleabehaṇyd hhnln noHHgc h nyoe meReawwaalT2aet rnnaāiieBeJ— h3e enll taa.e Mso bpsitt B aB7clāSlPd hee n flAAa hDioeB1b.urbb. o l UpS6ttowāddGenSeeeta h hWauydh1 rslljuiisslogāeuuttaeet rbeileelcAun rhorrsal t drellMhiaiialnalvbmncmfa te—fayeko aaen o eaAnM?u hdfn2—ltā oa0tG bthnh6h6o hseal9eoā ddM rMmeava taaa ha hnnā —ābb h2 hā7ā r5 raa t taa ——81837
Reading and Rethinking with the Abhinavadvaipāyana vii
Foreword
Foreword
Reading and Rethinking with the
Abhinavadvaipāyana
Among my favorite memories of my early years in Western India are those of
months spent together with Alf and his family in Pune, where we spent a year
engaged in our respective research projects on the great Sanskrit epics, I on the
Rāmāyaṇa and he, of course, on his beloved Mah āb hā ra ta. Pune, and indeed
India, was a much calmer and quieter place in the pre-liberalization, pre-glo-
balization days of the mid 1970s and, as we were, as I recall for the most part,
the only two American Sanskrit scholars resident in town with our families in
1974–75, we had a lot of time to spend with each other both discussing our
work and watching our then young sons, my oldest, Jesse, and his youngest,
Simon (whom I fondly remember by Jesse’s name for him, Sai Moon), play.
My warmest memories of those youthful days were during the hot season
when Alf visited me when I was staying for some time in Mahabaleshwar. We
would sit, surrounded by the vānara-haunted woodlands of the Sahyadri Hills,
reading Vālmīki just for the pure pleasure of it, but, at the same time, further
honing our skills in the language and ideologies of the Sanskrit epics and the
ways in which they were read, interpreted and debated by their oldest recover-
able readers, the authors of their Sanskrit commentaries. It is this last exposure
that I think has led us in our own ways to be cautious and even downright
skeptical of the received wisdom concerning these extraordinary literary, so-
cial, political, and religious works, wisdom at the basis of much of the western
scholarship we read as students.
We were both young scholars, just at or just past the terrifying ordeal of the
tenure review and, given our mutual scholarly interests, similar career tracks,
and similar familial situations, we became, and have remained ever since, fast
friends, even when, as has not infrequently been the case, we differed in our
analyses of the poems, their relationship, and their genetic histories. A favorite
and longstanding discussion has, of course, been the complex and still unset-
tled friendly debate on the relative chronology and interrelation of the two
epics.
And so we became close friends enjoying many intellectual and social
moments together, corresponding by email, and meeting at innumerable
scholarly meetings and conferences. But just now, looking over Alf’s extraor-
dinary record of illuminating books and articles on the Vyāsa’s great Bhārata
viii Foreword
and many of its versions and re-representations in the regional performative
cultures of India down to the modern day, I am put in mind of Arjuna’s well-
known words to his friend and alter ego Kṛṣṇa after being granted a vision of
the latter’s aiśvara rūpa:
sakheti matvā prasabhaṃ yad uktaṃ
 he kṛṣṇa he yādava he sakheti |
ajānatā mahimānaṃ tavedam
 mayā pramādāt praṇayena vāpi ||
yac cāvahāsārtham asatkṛto ‘si
 vihāraśayyāsanabhojaneṣu
eko ‘tha vāpy acyuta tatsamakṣaṃ |
 tat kṣāmaye tvām aham aprameyam || (Bhagavadgītā 11.41–42)
Whatever, thinking you as merely a friend, I may have said carelessly or
out of affection, calling you, in my ignorance of your greatness, “Hey
Kṛṣṇa! Hey Yādava! Hey my friend!” or if, for the sake of a joke, I ever
treated you disrespectfully while we were eating, lounging, or sitting
around, or just enjoying ourselves, whether alone or in front of others, I
beg your pardon, for you are incomparable, Acyuta.
But seriously, the record to which I refer encompasses Alf’s long and extraordi-
nary journey along the authorial paths that wend their way through the two
great epic poems of ancient India and out along the many and diverse streams
of literary, artistic, and performative cultural production that they have in-
spired from the time of their first circulation to the present day. He began this
journey as an undergraduate studying religion at Haverford College and moved
on after graduation to the University of Chicago, where he had the good for-
tune to work with such notable scholars as Mircea Eliade and J.A.B. van Buite-
nen, who guided his studies and gave him his grounding in Sanskrit. His
dissertation, “A Study of the Ma hāb hā ra ta in Relation to Indian and Indo-Euro-
pean Symbolisms,” gives a very early indication of where his scholarly interests
lay and in what direction they would lead him. He also has been profoundly influ-
enced by the work and example of the late, great epic scholar Madeleine Bi-
ardeau.
Along with only a very small cadre of academicians of his generation—schol-
ars such as Jim Fitzgerald and John Brockington—Alf has focused virtually all of
his attention on India’s extraordinary cultural legacy that is the great, ancient
Sanskrit epic poems and the incalculably enormous influence they have exerted
for millennia over the arts, literatures, religions, and societies of a vast sweep of
Reading and Rethinking with the Abhinavadvaipāyana ix
southern Asia stretching from Iran in the west to the Philippines in the east. He is
also all but unique among scholars of Vyāsa’s prodigious poem to have moved
beyond the philological and interpretive approach into some of the modern,
lived, and performed legacies of the epic, most notably the South Indian cult of
Draupadī.
Most noteworthy, I think, is Alf’s welcome call to “rethink” the epics. For, the
fact is that the grand and complex texts, in all their virtually innumerable forms,
that we classify simply as “epics” form by themselves a category that—like ani-
mals in Lévi-Strauss’s famous phrase—are “good to think with.” That is to say
that within the vast corpus of Indic texts they form a distinct, if difficult to define,
genre deeply imbricated with many other kinds of text and yet undeniably and
unmistakably of a particular type, whether we call that type itihāsa or kāvya, two
terms that have been used in various contexts of both works.
From the earliest commentaries on the poems and their fragments through
the sectarian traditions of their reception in the medieval period, down to the
huge corpora of modern scholarship and apologia in India and around the world,
the epics have presented a pertinent example of the andhagajanyāya, “the max-
im of the blind men and the elephant,” according to which people with differing
views, beliefs, and agendas impose their own restricted views on a topic that is
vast, variegated, and complex. This is especially the case with the Ma hāb hā ra ta, a
work so capacious and, in its own words, so comprehensive that, when it comes
to the myths, legends, and the ideologies of religious, social, military, and political
life that formed the core of its author’s worldview, ṛṣi Vyāsa’s boast,
dharme cārthe ca kāme ca mokṣe ca bharatarṣabha |
yad ihāsti tad anyatra yan nehasti na tat kvacit || (Ma hāb hā ra ta 18.5.38)
In regard to all matters of righteous conduct, wealth and political power,
pleasure and desire, and the final emancipation of the soul, O bull among
the Bharatas, whatever is found here may be found elsewhere, but what-
ever is not, will be found nowhere else.
Students of the epic and its receptive history know how, for example, Indian
thinkers have read the text variously as a tract illustrative of advaitavedānta or
dvaitavedānta, a poem imbued with the sentiment of detached tranquility
(śānta rasa), an allegory of the conquest of the passions or an exhortation to
militant revolution. Similarly, scholars from the nineteenth century onward
have understood it variously as a nature myth, an expanded vedic legend, an
inverted anti-Pāṇḍava history, a dharmaśāstra, a confused and inconsistent
pastiche of a long tradition of bards and redactors, and as a single, unified work