Notes on the Mahabharata
[SECOND VERSION]
It was hinted in a recent article of the Indian Review, an unusually able and searching1 paper on the date of the Mahabharata war that a society is about to be formed for discovering the genuine and original portions of our great epic. This is glad tidings to all admirers of Sanscrit literature and to all lovers of their country. For the solution of the Mahabharata problem is essential to many things, to any history worth having of Aryan civilisation & literature, to a proper appreciation of Vyasa's poetical genius and, far more important than either, to a definite understanding of the great ethical gospel which Srikrishna came down on earth to teach as a guide to mankind in the dark Kali yuga then approaching. But I fear that if the inquiry is to be pursued on the lines the writer of this article seemed to hint, if the Society is to rake out 8000 lines from the War Purvas & dub the result the Mahabharata of Vyasa, then the last state of the problem will be worse than its first. It is only by a patient scrutiny & weighing of the whole poem, disinterestedly, candidly & without preconceived notions, a consideration Canto by Canto, paragraph by paragraph, couplet by couplet that we can arrive at anything solid or permanent. But this implies a vast and heartbreaking labour. Certainly, labour however vast ought not to have any terrors for a scholar, still less for a Hindu scholar; yet before one engages in it, one requires to be assured that the game is worth the candle. For that assurance there are three necessary requisites, the possession of certain, sound and always applicable tests to detect later from earlier work, a reasonable chance that such tests if applied will restore the real epic roughly if not exactly in its original form and an assurance that the epic when recovered will repay from literary, historical or other points of view, the labour that has been bestowed on it. I believe that these three requisites are present in this case and shall attempt to adduce a few reasons for [my] judgment. I shall try to show that besides other internal evidence on which I do not propose just now to enter, there
1 Or almost conclusive
are certain traits of poetical style, personality and thought which belong to the original work and are possessed by no other writer. I shall also try to show that these traits may be used and by whom they may be used as a safe guide through this huge morass of verse. In passing I shall have occasion to make clear certain claims the epic thus disengaged will possess to the highest literary, historical and practical value.
It is certainly not creditable to European scholarship that after so many decades of Sanscrit research, the problem of the Mahabharata which should really be the pivot for all the rest, has remained practically untouched. For it is not exaggeration to say that European scholarship has shed no light whatever on the Mahabharata beyond the bare fact that it is the work of more than one hand. All else it has advanced, and fortunately it has advanced little, has been rash, arbitrary or prejudiced; theories, theories always theories without any honestly industrious consideration of the problem. The earliest method adopted was to argue from European analogies, a method pregnant of error & delusion. If we consider the hypothesis of a rude ballad-epic doctored by "those Brahmins"—anyone who is curious on the matter may study with both profit & amusement Fraser's History of Indian Literature—we shall perceive how this method has been worked. A fancy was started in Germany2 that the Iliad of Homer is really a pastiche or clever rifacimento of old ballads put together in the time of Pisistratus. This truly barbarous imagination with its rude ignorance of the psychological bases of all great poetry has now fallen into some discredit; it has been replaced by a more plausible attempt to discover a nucleus in the poem, an Achilleid, out of which the larger Iliad has grown. Very possibly the whole discussion will finally end in the restoration of a single Homer with a single poem subjected indeed to some inevitable interpolation and corruption, but mainly the work of one mind, a theory still held by more than one considerable scholar. In the meanwhile, however, haste has been made to apply the analogy to the Mahabharata; lynx-eyed theorists have discovered in the poem—apparently without taking the trouble to study it—an early and rude ballad epic worked
2 Here the MS reads: ... as a moral certainty. The following passage (to the bottom of p. 127) is repeated from the first version of Notes on the Mahabharata, written earlier in the same notebook (see Archives and Research 13 [1989]: 2-6).
up, doctored and defaced by those wicked Brahmins; who are made responsible for all the literary and other enormities which have been discovered by the bushelful, and not by European lynxes alone—in our literature and civilisation. Now whether the theory is true or not, and one sees nothing in its favour, it has at present no value at all; for it is a pure theory without any justifying facts. It is not difficult to build these intellectual cardhouses; anyone may raise them by the dozen who can find no better manner of wasting valuable time. A similar method of "arguing from Homer" is probably at the bottom of Professor Weber's assertion that the War Purvas contain the original epic. An observant eye at once perceives that the War Purvas are far more hopelessly tangled than any that precede them except the first. It is here & here only that the keenest eye becomes confused & the most confident explorer begins to lose heart & selfreliance[.] But the Iliad is all battles and it therefore follows in the European mind that the original Mahabharata must have been all battles. Another method is that of ingenious, if forced argument from stray slokas of the poem or equally stray & obscure remarks in Buddhist compilations. The curious theory of some scholars that the Pandavas were a later invention and that the original war was between the Kurus and Panchalas only and Professor Weber's singularly positive inference from a sloka which does not at first sight bear the meaning he puts on it, that the original epic contained only 8800 lines, are ingenuities of this type[.] They are based on the Teutonic art of building a whole mammoth out of a single and often problematical bone, and remind one strongly of Mr Pickwick and the historic inscription which was so rudely, if in a Pickwickian sense, challenged by the refractory [Mr. Blotton.]3 All these theorisings are idle enough; they are made of too airy a stuff to last. Only a serious scrutiny of the Mahabharata made with a deep sense of critical responsibility and according to the methods of patient scientific inference, can justify one in advancing any considerable theory on this wonderful poetic structure.
Yet to extricate the original epic from the mass of accretions is not, I believe, so difficult a task as it may at first appear. One is struck in perusing the Mahabharata by the presence of a mass of poetry which bears the style and impress of a single, strong and original,
3 Blank in MS.
even unusual mind, differing in his manner of expression, tone of thought & stamp of personality not only from every other Sanscrit poet we know but from every other great poet known to literature. When we look more closely into the distribution of this peculiar style of writing, we come to perceive certain very suggestive & helpful facts. We realise that this impress is only found in those parts of the poem which are necessary to the due conduct of the story; seldom to be detected in the more miraculous, Puranistic or trivial episodes, but usually broken up by passages and sometimes shot through with lines of a discernibly different inspiration[.] Equally noteworthy is it that nowhere does this poet admit any trait, incident or speech which deviates from the strict propriety of dramatic characterisation & psychological probability. Finally Krishna's divinity is recognized, but more often hinted at than aggressively stated. The tendency is to keep it in the background as a fact to which, while himself crediting it, the writer does not hope for universal consent, still less is able to speak of it as of a general tenet & matter of dogmatic belief; he prefers to show Krishna rather in his human character, acting always by wise, discerning and inspired methods, but still not transgressing the limit of human possibility. All this leads one to the conclusion that in the body of poetry I have described, we have the real Bharata, an epic which tells plainly and straightforwardly of the events which led to the great war and the empire of the Bharata princes. Certainly if Prof. Weber's venturesome assertion as to the length of the original Mahabharata be correct, this conclusion falls to the ground; for the mass of this poetry amounts to considerably over 20,000 slokas. Professor Weber's inference, however, is worth some discussion; for the length of the original epic is a very important element in the problem. If we accept it, we must say farewell to all hopes of unravelling the tangle[.] His assertion is founded on a single & obscure verse in the huge prolegomena to the poem which take up the greater part of the Adi Purva, no very strong basis for so far-reaching an assumption. The sloka itself says no more than this that much of the Mahabharata was written in so difficult a style that Vyasa himself could remember only 8800 of the slokas, Suka an equal amount and Sanjaya perhaps as much, perhaps something less. There is certainly here no assertion such as Prof Weber would have us find in it that the Mahabharata at any time amounted to no more than 8800 slokas.
Even if we assume what the text does not say that Vyasa, Suka & Sanjaya knew the same 8800 slokas, we do not get to that conclusion. The point simply is that the style of the Mahabharat was too difficult for a single man to keep in memory more than a certain portion of it. This does not carry us very far. If however we are to assume that there is in this verse [more] than meets the eye, that it is a cryptic way of stating the length of the original poem; and I do not deny that this is possible, perhaps even probable—we should note the repetition
Following the genius of
the Sanscrit language we are led to suppose the repetition was intended to recall
अष्टौ श्लोकसहस्राणि etc with each name; otherwise the repetition has no raison d'etre; it is otiose & inept. But if we understand it thus, the conclusion is irresistible that each knew a different 8800, or the writer would have no object in wishing us to repeat the number three times in our mind. The length of the epic as derived from this single sloka should then be 26,400 slokas [or something] less, for the writer hesitates about the exact number to be attributed to Sanjaya. Another passage further on in the prolegomena agrees remarkably with this conclusion and is in itself much more explicit. It is there stated plainly enough that Vyasa first wrote the Mahabharata in 24,000 slokas and afterwards enlarged it to 100,000 for the world of men as well as a still more unconscionable number of verses for the Gandhurva and other worlds. In spite of the embroidery of fancy, of a type familiar enough to all who are acquainted with the Puranic method of recording facts, the meaning of this is unmis-takeable. The original Mahabharata consisted of 24,000 slokas, but in its final form it runs to 100,000. The figures are probably loose & slovenly, for at any rate the final form of the Mahabharata is considerably under 100,000 slokas. It is possible therefore that the original epic was something over 24,000 and under 26,400 slokas, in which case the two passages would agree well enough. But it would be unsafe to found4 any dogmatic assertion on isolated couplets; at the most we can say that we are justified in taking the estimate as a probable and workable hypothesis and if it is found to be corroborated by other facts, we may venture to suggest its correctness as a moral certainty.
4 Or base
But it is not from European scholars that we must expect a solution of the Mahabharata problem. They have no qualifications for the task except a power of indefatigable research and collocation; and in dealing with the Mahabharata even this power seems to have deserted them. It is from Hindu scholarship renovated & instructed by contact with European that the attempt must come. Indian scholars have shown a power of detachment and disinterestedness and a willingness to give up cherished notions under pressure of evidence, which are not common in Europe. They are not, as a rule, prone to the Teutonic sin of forming a theory in accordance with their prejudices and then finding facts or manufacturing inferences to support it. When therefore they form a theory on their own account, it has usually some clear justification and sometimes an overwhelming array of facts and solid arguments behind it. German scholarship possesses infinite capacity of labour marred by an irresponsible & fantastic imagination, the French a sane acuteness of inference marred by insufficient command of facts, while in soundness of judgment Indian scholarship has both[;] it should stand first, for it must naturally move with a far greater familiarity and grasp in the sphere of Sanscrit studies than any foreign mind however able & industrious. But above all it must clearly have one advantage, an intimate feeling of the language, a sensitiveness to shades of style & expression and an instinctive feeling of what is or is not possible, which the European cannot hope to possess unless he sacrifices his sense of racial superiority and lives in some great centre like Benares as a Pundit among Pundits. I admit that even among Indians this advantage must vary with the amount of education and natural fineness of taste; but where other things are equal, they must possess it in an immeasurably greater degree than an European of similar information & critical power. For to the European Sanscrit words are no more than dead counters which he can play with and throw as he likes into places the most unnatural or combinations the most monstrous; to the Hindu they are living things the very soul of whose temperament he understands & whose possibilities he can judge to a hair. That with these advantages Indian scholars have not been able to form themselves into a great & independent school of learning, is due to two causes, the miserable scantiness of the mastery in Sanscrit provided by our Universities, crippling to all but born scholars, and
our lack of a sturdy independence which makes us overready to defer to European authority. These however are difficulties easily surmountable.
In solving the Mahabharat problem this intimate feeling for the language is of primary importance; for style & poetical personality must be not indeed the only but the ultimate test of the genuineness of any given passage in the poem. If we rely upon any other internal evidence, we shall find ourselves irresistibly tempted to form a theory and square facts to it. The late Rai Bahadur Bunkim Chundra Chatterji[,] a genius of whom modern India has not produced the parallel[,] was a man of ripe scholarship, literary powers of the very first order and a strong critical sagacity. In his Life of Krishna (Krishnacharitra), he deals incidentally with the Mahabharata problem; he perceived clearly enough that there were different recognizable styles in the poem, and he divided it into three layers, the original epic by a very great poet, a redaction of the original epic by a poet not quite so great and a mass of additions by very inferior hands. But being concerned with the Mahabharata only so far as it covered the Life of Krishna, he did not follow up this line of scrutiny and relied rather on internal evidence of a quite different kind. He saw that in certain parts of the poem Krishna's godhead is either not presupposed at all or only slightly affirmed, while in others it is the main objective of the writer; certain parts again give us a plain, unvarnished & straightforward biography & history, others are a mass of wonders and legends, often irrelevant extravagances; in some parts also the conception of the chief characters is radically departed from and defaced. He therefore took these differences as his standard and accepted only those parts as genuine which gave a plain & consistent account of Krishna the man and of others in their relation to him. Though his conclusions are to a great extent justifiable, his a priori method led him to exaggerate them, to enforce them too rigidly without the proper flexibility & scrupulous hesitation and to resort occasionally to special pleading. His book is illuminating and full of insight, and the chief contentions will, I believe, stand permanently; but some parts of his argument are exaggerated & misleading and others, which are in the main correct, are yet insufficiently supported by reasons. It is the failure to refer everything to the ultimate test of style that is responsible for these imperfections.
Undoubtedly inconsistencies of detail & treatment are of immense importance. If we find grave inconsistencies of character, if a man is represented in one place as stainlessly just, unselfish & truthful and in another as a base & selfish liar or a brave man suddenly becomes guilty of incomprehensible cowardice, we are justified in supposing two hands at work; otherwise we must either adduce very strong poetic and psychological justification for the lapse or else suppose that the poet was incompetent to create or portray consistent and living characters. But if we find that one set of passages belongs to the distinct and unmistakeable style of a poet who has shown himself capable of portraying great epic types, we shall be logically debarred from this saving clause. And if the other set of passages show not only a separate style, but quite another spirit and the stamp of another personality, our assurance will be made doubly sure. Further if there are serious inconsistencies of fact, if for instance Krishna says in one place that he can only do his best as a man & can use no divine power in human affairs and in another foolishly uses his divine power where it is quite uncalled for, or if a considerable hero is killed three or four times over, yet always pops up again with really commendable vitality but without warning or explanation until some considerate person gives him his coup-de-grace, or if totally incompatible statements are made about the same person or the same event, we may find in either or all of these inconsistencies sufficient ground to assume diversity of authorship. Still even here we must ultimately refer to the style as corroborative evidence; and when the inconsistencies are grave enough to raise suspicion, but not so totally incompatible as to be conclusive, difference of style will at once turn the suspicion into certainty, while similarity may induce us to suspend judgment. And where there is no inconsistency of fact or conception and yet the difference in expression & treatment is marked, the question of style & personality becomes all-important. Now in the Mahabharata we are struck at first by the presence of two glaringly distinct & incompatible styles. There is a mass of writing in which the verse & language is unusually bare, simple and great, full of firm and knotted thinking & a high & heroic personality[,] the imagination strong and pure, never florid or richly-coloured, the ideas austere, original & noble. There is another body of work sometimes massed together but
far oftener interspersed in the other, which has exactly opposite qualities; it is Ramayanistic, rushing in movement, full & even overabundant in diction, flowing but not strict in thought, the imagination bold & vast, but often garish & highly-coloured, the ideas ingenious & poetical[,] sometimes of astonishing subtlety, but at others common & trailing, the personality much more relaxed, much less heroic, noble & severe. When we look closer we find that the Ramayanistic part may possibly be separated into two parts, one of which has less inspiration and is more deeply imbued with the letter of the Ramayan, but less with its spirit. The first portion again has a certain element often in close contact with it which differs from it in a weaker inspiration, in being a body without the informing spirit of high poetry. It attempts to follow its manner & spirit but fails and reads therefore like imitation of the great poet. We have to ask ourselves whether this is the work of an imitator or of the original poet in his uninspired moments. Are there besides the mass of inferior or obviously interpolated work which can be easily swept aside, three distinct & recognisable styles or four or only two? In the ultimate decision of this question inconsistencies of detail & treatment will be of great consequence. But in the meantime I find nothing to prevent me from considering the work of the first poet, undoubtedly the greatest of the four, if four there are, as the original epic.
It may, indeed, be objected that style is no safe test, for it is one which depends upon the personal preferences & ability of the critic. In an English literary periodical it was recently observed that a certain Oxford professor who had studied Stevenson like a classic, attempted to apportion to Stevenson & Lloyd Osbourne their respective work in the Wrecker, but his apportionment turned out [to] be hopelessly erroneous. To this the obvious answer is that the Wrecker is a prose work and not poetry. There was no prose style ever written that a skilful hand could not reproduce as accurately as a practised forger reproduces a signature. But poetry, at any rate original poetry of the first class is a different matter. The personality [and] style of a true poet are unmistakeable to a competent mind, for though imitation[,] echo & parody are certainly possible, it would be as easy to reproduce the personal note in the style as for the painter to put into his portrait the living soul of its original. The successful
discrimination between original and copy depends then upon the competence of the critic, his fineness of literary feeling, his sensitiveness to style. On such points the dictum of a foreign critic is seldom of any value; one would not ask a mere labourer to pronounce on the soundness of a great engineering work, but still less would one ask a mathematician unacquainted with mechanics[.] To a Hindu mind well equipped for the task there ought to be no insuperable difficulty in disengaging the style of a marked poetic personality from a mass of totally different work[.] The verdict of great artistic critics on the genuineness of a professed Old Master may not be infallible, but if formed on a patient study of the technique & spirit of the work, it has at least considerable chances of being correct. But the technique & spirit of poetry are far less easy to catch by an imitator than those of great [painting,]5 the charm [of] words being more elusive & unanalysable than that of line & colour.
In unravelling the Mahabharata especially the peculiar & inimitable nature of the style of Vyasa immensely lightens the difficulties of criticism. Had his been poetry of which the predominant grace was mannerism, it would have been imitable with some closeness; or even had it been a rich & salient style like Shakespeare's[,] Kalidasa's or Valmekie's, certain externals of it might be reproduced by a skilled hand and the task of discernment rendered highly delicate and perilous. Yet even in such styles to the finest minds the presence or absence of an unanalysable personality within the manner of expression would be always perceptible. The second layer of the Mahabharata is distinctly Ramayanistic in style, yet it would be a gross criticism that could confuse it with Valmekie's own work; the difference as is always the case in imitations of great poetry, is as palpable as the similarity.6 Some familiar examples may be taken from English literature. Crude as is the composition & treatment of the three parts [of] King Henry VI, its style unformed & everywhere full of echoes yet when we get such lines as
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just
And he but naked though locked up in steel
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted,
5 MS poetry
6 Here an incomplete sentence was written between the lines in the MS: This unanalysable quantity is as sure
we cannot but feel that we are listening to the same poetic voice as in Richard III
Shadows tonight
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard
Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers
Armed in proof and led by shallow Richmond.
or in Julius Caesar
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
or in the much later & richer vein of Antony & Cleopatra
I am dying, Egypt, dying; only
I here importune death awhile, until
Of many thousand kisses the poor last
I lay upon thy lips.
I have purposely selected passages of perfect simplicity and straightforwardness, because they appear to be the most imitable part of Shakespeare's work & are really the least imitable. Always one hears the same voice, the same personal note of style sounding through these very various passages, and one feels that there is in all the intimate & unmistakeable personality of Shakespeare. We turn next & take two passages from Marlowe, a poet whose influence counted for much in the making of Shakespeare, one from Faustus
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
and another from Edward II
I am that cedar, shake me not too much;
And you the eagles; soar ye ne'er so high,
I have the jesses that will pull you down;
And Aeque tandem shall that canker cry
Unto the proudest peer in Brittany.
The choice of words, the texture of style has a certain similarity, the run of the sentences differs little if at all; but what fine literary sense does not feel that here is another poetical atmosphere and the ring of a different voice? And yet to put a precise name on the difference would not be easy. The personal difference becomes still more marked if we take a passage from Milton in which the nameable merits are precisely the same, a simplicity in strength of diction, thought & the run of the verse "What though the field be
lost["].7 And when we pass farther down in the stream of literature & read "Thy thunder, conscious of the new command"8 we feel that the poet has nourished his genius on the greatness of Milton till his own soft & luxurious style rises into epic vigour; yet we feel too that the lines are only Miltonic, they are not Milton.
Now there are certain great poetical styles which are of a kind apart; they are so extraordinarily bare and restrained that the untutored mind often wonders what difficulty there can be in writing poetry like that; yet when the attempt is made, it is found that so far as manner goes it is easier to write somewhat like Shakespeare or Homer or Valmekie than to write like these. Just because the style is so bare, has no seizable mannerism, no striking & imitable peculiarities, the failure of the imitation appears complete & unsoftened; for in such poets there is but one thing to be caught, the unanalysable note, the personal greatness which like everything that comes straight from God it is impossible to locate or limit and precisely the one that most eludes the grasp. This poetry it is always possible to distinguish with some approach to certainty from imitative or spurious work. Very fortunately the style of Vyasa is exactly such a manner of poetry. Granted therefore adhikara in the critic, that is to say a natural gift of fine literary sensitiveness & the careful cultivation of that gift until it has become as sure a lactometer as the palate of the swan which rejects the water mingled with milk & takes the milk alone, we have in the peculiar characteristics of this poetry a test of unquestionable soundness & efficacy.
But there is another objection of yet more weight & requiring as full an answer. This method of argument from style seems after all as a priori & Teutonic as any other; for there is no logical reason why the mass of writing in this peculiar style should be judged to be the original epic and not any of the three others or even part of that inferior work which was brushed aside so contemptuously. The original Mahabharata need not have been a great poem at all; it was more probably an early, rude & uncouth performance. Certain considerations however may lead us to consider our choice less arbitrary than it seems. That the War Purvas contain much of the
7 Paradise Lost 1.105. This sentence and the next were written in the margins of the manuscript. Sri Aurobindo may have intended to make longer quotations.
8 Keats, Hyperion 1.60.
original epic may be conceded to Professor Weber; the war is the consummation of the story & without a war there could be no Mahabharata. But the war of the Mahabharata was not a petty contest between obscure barons or a brief episode in a much larger struggle or a romantic & chivalrous emprise for the rescue of a ravished or errant beauty. It was a great political catastrophe implying the clash of a hundred nations and far-reaching political consequences; the Hindus have always considered it as the turning-point in the history of their civilisation and the beginning of a new age, and it was long used as a historical standpoint and a date to reckon from in chronology. Such an event must have had the most considerable political causes and been caused by the collision of the most powerful personalities and the most important interests. If we find no record of or allusion to these in the poem, we shall be compelled to suppose that the poet living long after the event, regarded the war as a legend or romance which would form excellent matter for an epic and treated it accordingly. But if we find a simple and unvarnished though not necessarily connected & consecutive account of the political conditions which preceded the war and of the men who made it and their motives, we may safely say that this also is an essential part of the epic. The Iliad deals only with an episode of the legendary siege of Troy, it covers an action of [about eight]9 days in a conflict lasting ten years; & its subject is not the Trojan War but the Wrath of Achilles. Homer was under no obligation therefore to deal with the political causes that led to hostilities, even supposing he knew them. The Mahabharata stands on an entirely different footing. The war there is related from beginning to end consecutively & without break, yet it is nowhere regarded as of importance sufficient to itself but depends for its interest on causes which led up to it & the characters & clashing interests it involved. The preceding events are therefore of essential importance to the epic. Without the war, no Mahabharata, is true of this epic; but without the causes of the war, no war[,] is equally true. And it must be remembered that the Hindu narrative poets had no artistic predilections like that of the Greeks for beginning a story in the middle. On the contrary they always preferred to begin at the beginning.
9 Blank in MS.
We therefore naturally expect to find the preceding political conditions and the immediate causes of the war related in the earlier part of the epic and this is precisely what we do find. Ancient India as, we know, was a sort of continent, made up of many great & civilised nations who were united very much like the nations of modern Europe by an essential similarity of religion and culture rising above & beyond their marked racial peculiarities; like the nations of Europe also they were continually going to war with each other; & yet had relations of occasional struggle, of action & reaction, with the other peoples of Asia whom they regarded as barbarous races outside the pale of the Aryan civilisation. Like the continent of Europe, the ancient continent of India was subject to two opposing forces, one centripetal which was continually causing attempts at universal empire, another centrifugal which was continually impelling the empires once formed to break up again into their constituent parts: but both these forces were much stronger in their action than they have usually been in Europe. The Aryan nations may be divided into three distinct groups, the Eastern of whom the Coshalas, Magadhas, Chedies, Videhas & Haihayas were the chief; the Central among whom the Kurus, Panchalas & Bhojas were the most considerable; and the Western & Southern of whom there were many, small, & rude but yet warlike & famous peoples; among these there seem to have been none that ever became of the first importance. Five distinct times had these great congeries of nations been welded into Empire, twice by the Ixvaacous under Mandhata son of Yuvanuswa and King Marutta, afterwards by the Haihaya Arjouna Cartoverya, again by the Ixvaa-cou Bhogiratha and finally by the Kuru Bharata. That the first Kuru empire was the latest is evident not only from the Kurus being the strongest nation of their time but from the significant fact that the Coshalas by this [time] had faded into utter & irretrievable insignificance. The rule of the Haihayas had resulted in one of the great catastrophes of early Hindu civilization; belonging to the eastern section of the Continent which was always apt to break away from the strict letter of Aryanism, they had brought themselves by their pride & violence into collision with the Brahmins with the result of a civil war in which their Empire was broken for ever by Parshurama, son of Jamadagni, and the chivalry of India massacred and for the time broken. The fall of the Haihayas left the Ixvaacous & the Bharata or
Ilian dynasty of the Kurus the two chief powers of the continent. Then seems to have followed the golden age of the Ixvaacous under the beneficent empire of Bhogiratha & his descendants as far down at least as Rama. Afterwards the Coshalans, having reached their highest point, must have fallen into that state of senile decay, which once it overtakes a nation, is fatal & irremediable. They were followed by the empire of the Bharatas. By the times of Santanou, Vichitravirya and Pandou this empire had long been dissolved by the centrifugal force of Aryan politics into its constituent parts, yet the Kurus were yet among the first of the nations and the Bharata Kings of the Kurus were still looked up to as the head of civilisation. But by the time of Dhritarashtra the centripetal force had again asserted itself & the idea of another great empire loomed before the imaginations of all men[;] a number of nations had risen to the greatest military prestige & political force, the Panchaalas under Drupada & his sons[,] the Bhojas under Bhishmuc & his brother Acrity who is described as equalling Parshurama in military skill & courage, the Chedies under the hero & great captain Shishupala, the Magadhas, built into a strong nation by Brihodruth; even distant Bengal under the Poun-drian Vasudeva and distant Sindhu under [Vriddhakshatra]10 and his son Jayadrath began to mean something in the reckoning of forces. The Yadava nations counted as a great military force in the balance of politics owing to their abundant heroism and genius, but seemed to have lacked sufficient cohesion and unity to nurse independent hopes. Strong, however, as these nations were none seemed able to dispute the prize of the coming empire with the Kurus, until under King Jarasundha the Barhodruth Magadha for a moment disturbed the political balance. The history of the first great Magadhan hope of empire and its extinction—not to be revived again until the final downfall of the Kurus—is told very briefly in the Subhapurva of the Mahabharata. The removal of Jarasundha restored the original state of politics and it was no longer doubtful that to the Kurus alone could fall the future empire. But here a contest arose between the elder & younger branch[es] of the Bharata house. The question being then narrowed to a personal issue, it was inevitable that it should become largely a history of personal strife & discord; other & larger issues
10 Blank in MS.
were involved in the dispute between the Kaurava cousins; but whatever interests, incompatibilities of temperament & differences of opinion may divide brothers, they do not engage in fratricidal conflict until they are driven to it by a long record of collision & jealousy, ever deepening personal hatreds & the worst personal injuries. We see therefore that not only the early discords, the slaying of Jara-sandha & the Rajasuya sacrifice are necessary to the epic but the great gambling & the mishandling of Draupadie. It cannot, however, have been personal questions alone that affected the choice of the different nations between Duryodhana and Yudisthira[.] Personal relations like the matrimonial connections of Dhritarashtra's family with the Sindhus and Gandharas and of the Pandavas with the Matsyas, Panchalas & Yadavas doubtless counted for much, but there must have been something more; personal enmities [counted] for something as in the feud cherished by the Trigartas against Arjouna. The Madras disregarded matrimonial ties when they sided with Duryodhan; the Magadhas & Chedies put aside the memory of personal wrongs when they espoused the cause of Yudishthere. I believe the explanation we must gather from the hints of the Mahabharata is this, that the nations were divided into three classes, those who desired autonomy, those who desired to break the power of the Kurus and assert their own supremacy and those who imbued with old imperialistic notions desired an united India. The first followed Duryodhana because the empire of Duryodhana could not be more than the empire of a day while that of Yudhisthere had every possibility of permanence; even Queen Gandhari, Duryodhan's own mother, was able to hit this weak point in her son's ambition. The Rajasuya Sacrifice had also undoubtedly identified Yudhisthere in men's minds with the imperialistic impulse of the times. We are given some important hints in the Udyogapurva. When Vidura remonstrates with Krishna for coming to Hastinapura, he tells him it was highly imprudent for him to venture there knowing as he did that the city was full of kings all burning with enmity against him for having deprived them once of their greatness, driven by the fear of him to take refuge with Duryodhan and all eager to war against the Pandavas.
This can have no intelligible reference except to the Rajasuya sacrifice. Although it was the armies of Yudhisthere that had traversed India then on their mission of conquest, Krishna was generally recognised as the great moving & master mind whose hands of execution the Pandavas were and without whom they would have been nothing. His personality dominated men's imaginations for adoration or for hatred; for that many abhorred him as an astute & unscrupulous revolutionist in morals, politics & religion, we very clearly perceive. We have not only the fiery invectives of Shishupala but the reproach of Bhurisravas, the Vahlika, a man of high reputation & universally respected. Krishna himself is perfectly conscious of this; he tells Vidura that he must make efforts towards peace both to deliver his soul & to justify himself in the eyes of men. The belief that Krishna's policy & statesmanship was the really effective force behind Yudishthere's greatness, pervades the epic. But who were these nations that resented so strongly the attempt of Yudishthere & Krishna to impose an empire on them[?] It is a significant fact that the Southern and Western peoples went almost solid for Duryodhana in this quarrel [—]Madra, the Deccan, Avanti, Sindhu Sauvira, Gandhara, in one long line from southern Mysore to northern Candahar; the Aryan colonies in the yet half civilised regions of the Lower valley of the Ganges espoused the same cause. The Eastern nations, heirs of the Ixvaacou imperial idea, went equally solid for Yudhishthere. The Central peoples, repositories of the great Kuru Panchala tradition as well as the Yadavas, who were really a Central nation though they had trekked to the West, were divided. Now this distribution is exactly what we should have expected. The nations which are most averse to enter into an imperial system & cherish most their separate existence are those which are outside the centre of civilisation, hardy, warlike[,] only partially refined; and their
11 These lines from Udyoga Parva 92.23—26 were written at the top of the page in the MS. They were apparently meant to be inserted here. Several more lines of Sanskrit are found at the top of the next two pages. They include one verse (Udyoga Parva 93.16) from Krishna's reply to Vidura. The other verses have not been identified and their intended place of insertion is uncertain.
aversion is still more emphatic when they have never or only for a short time been part of an empire. This is the real secret of the invincible resistance which England has opposed to all Continental schemes of empire from Philip II to Napoleon; it is the secret of her fear of Russia; it is the reason of the singular fact that only now after many centuries of great national existence has she become imbued with the imperial idea on her own account. The savage attachment to their independence of small nations like the Dutch, the Swiss, the Boers is traceable to the same cause; the fierce resistance opposed by the greater part of Spain to Napoleon was that of a nation which once imperial & central has fallen out of the main flood of civilisation & is therefore becoming provincial & attached to its own isolation. That the nations of the East & South and the Aryan colonies in Bengal should oppose the imperialist policy of Krishna & throw in their lot with Duryodhana is therefore no more than we should expect. On the other hand nations at the very heart of civilisation, who have formed at one time or another dominant parts of an empire fall easily into imperial schemes, but personal rivalry, the desire of each to be the centre of empire, divides them and brings them into conflict not any difference of political temperament. For nations have very tenacious memories and are always attempting to renew the great ages of their past. In the Eastern peoples the imperialistic idea was very strong and having failed to assert a new empire of their own under Jarasandha, they seem to have turned with one consent to Yudhisthere as the man who could alone realise their ideal. One of Shishupal's remarks in the Rajsuya sacrifice is very significant
We remember that it was an Eastern poet who had sung perhaps not many centuries before in mighty stanzas the idealisation of Imperial Government & Aryan unity and enshrined in his imperishable verse the glories of the third Coshalan Empire. The establishment of Aryan unity was in the eyes of the Eastern nations a holy work and the desire of establishing universal lordship with that view a sufficient ground for one of the most selfwilled & violent princes of his time [to] put aside his personal feelings & predilections in order to farther it.
Shishupal had been one of the most considerable & ardent supporters of Jarasandha in his attempt to establish a Magadhan empire; that attempt having failed he like Jarasandha's own son turned in spite of his enmity with Krishna to Yudishthere as the coming Emperor. Even the great quarrel and the summary slaughter of Shishupal by Krishna could not divert his nation from its adhesion to the new Empire. The divisions of the Central nations follow an equally intelligible line. Throughout the Mahabharata we perceive that the great weakness of the Kurus lay in the division of their counsels. There was a peace party among them led by Bhishma, Drona, Kripa & Vidura, the wise & experienced statesmen who desired justice and reconciliation with Yudhisthere and a warparty of the hotblooded younger men led by Karna, Duhsasana & Duryodhana himself who were confident of their power of meeting the world in arms; King Dhritarastra found himself hard put to it to flatter the opinions of the elders while secretly following his own predilections & the ambitions of the younger men. These are facts patent on the face of the epic. But it has not been sufficiently considered what a remarkable fact it is that men of such lofty character as Bhishma and Drona should have acted against their sense of right and justice and fought in what they had repeatedly condemned as an unjust cause. If Bhishma, Drona, Kripa, Aswatthaman & Vikarna had plainly intimated to Duryodhan that they would support Yudhisthere with their arms or even that they would stand aloof from the war, it is clear there would have been no war at all. And I cannot but think that had it been a question purely between Kuru & Kuru, this is the course they would have adopted. But Bhishma & Drona must have perceived that behind the Pandavas were the Panchalas & Matsyas. They must have suspected that these nations were supporting Yudhisthere not out of purely disinterested motives but with certain definite political objects. Neither Drupada nor Virata would have been accepted by India as emperors in their own right, any more than say Sindhia or Holkar would have been in the last century. But by putting forward the just claims of a prince of the imperial Bharata line[,] the descendant of Bharata Ajamede connected with themselves by marriage[,] they could avoid this difficulty and at the same time break the power of the Kurus and replace them as the dominant partners in the new Empire. The presence of personal interests is evident in their hot eagerness for
war and their unwillingness to take any sincere steps towards a just and peaceful solution of the difficulty. Their action stands in striking contrast with the moderate, statesmanlike yet firm policy of Krishna. It can hardly be supposed that Bhishma and the Kuru statesmen of his party were autonomists; they must have been as eager for a Kuru empire as Duryodhana himself.
At any rate they eagerly welcomed the statesmanlike reasonings of Krishna when he proposed to King Dhritarastra to unite the force of Pandava & Kaurava & build up a Kuru empire which should irresistibly dominate the world. "On yourself & myself says Krishna "rests today the choice of peace or war & the destiny of the world; do your part in pacifying your sons, I will see to the Pandavas.["]
But the empire of Yudishthere enforced by the arms of Mutsya & Panchaala or even by the armed threats meant to [Bhishma]12 &
12 MS Bhema
Kripa something very different from a Kuru Empire; it must have seemed to them to imply rather the overthrow & humiliation of the Kurus and a Panchala domination under a Bharata prince. This it concerned their patriotism and their sense of Kshatriya pride & duty to resist so long as there was blood in their veins. The inability to associate justice with their cause was a grief to them, but it could not alter their plain duty. Such as I take it is the clear political story of the Mahabhar[ata.] I have very scantily indicated some of its larger aspects only; but if my interpretation be correct, it is evident that we shall have in the disengaged Mahabharata not only a mighty epic, but a historical document of unique value.
What I wish, however to emphasize at present is that the portions of the Mahabharata which bear the high, severe and heroic style and personality I have described, are also the portions which unfold consecutively, powerfully and without any incredible embroidery of legend this story of clashing political & personal passions & ambitions. It is therefore not a mere assumption, but a perfectly reasonable inference that these portions form the original epic. If we assume that the Ramayanistic portions of the epic or the rougher & more uncouth work precede these in antiquity, we assume that the legend was written first and history added to it afterwards; this is a sequence so contrary to all experience and to all accepted canons of criticism that it would need the most indisputable proof before it could command any credence. Where there is a plain history mixed up with legendary matter written by palpably different hands, criticism judges from all precedents that the latter must be later work embodying the additions human fancy always and most in countries where a scrupulous historic sense has not been developed weaves round a great event which has powerfully occupied the national imagination. Moreover in judging the relative genuineness of different styles in the same work, we are bound to see the hand of the original writer in the essential parts of the story as we have it. It makes no difference to this question whether there was an original ballad epic or not, or whether it was used in the composition of the Mahabharata or not. We have a certain poem in a certain form and in resolving it to its original parts we must take it as we have it and not allow our judgment to be disturbed by visions of a poem which we have not. If the alleged ballad epic was included bodily or in part in
the Mahabharata, our analysis will find it there without fail. If it was merely used as material just as Shakespeare used Plutarch or Hall & Holinshed, it is no longer germane to the matter. Now the most essential part of a story is the point from which the catastrophe started; in the Mahabharata this is the mishandling of Draupadie & the exile of the Pandavas; but this again leads us back to the Rajasuya sacrifice & the imperial Hall of the Pandavas from which the destroying envy of Duryodhan took its rise. In the Sabhapurva therefore we must seek omissis omittendis for the hand of the original poet; & the whole of the Sabhapurva with certain unimportant omissions is in that great & severe style which is the stamp of the personality of Vyasa. This once established we argue farther from the identity of style, treatment & personality between the Viratapurva & the Sabhapurva[,] certain passages being omitted[,] that this book is also the work of Vyasa. From these two large & mainly homogeneous bodies of poetical work we shall be able to form a sufficient picture of the great original poet, the drift of his thought and the methods of his building. This we shall then confirm, correct & supplement by a study of the Udyogapurva which up to the marching of the armies presents, though with more but still separable alloy breaking in, the same clear, continuous & discernible vein of pure gold running through it. Thus armed we may even rely on resolving roughly the tangle of the Adi & Vana Purvas and it is only when the war begins, that we shall have to admit doubt, faltering and guesswork; even here however we shall not be without some light even in its thickest darkness. That the poem can be disentangled, I hold then to be beyond dispute, but it can only be done by a long and voluminous critical analysis, and even this must be supported by a detailed edition of the whole Mahabharat in which each canto & chapter shall be discussed on its own merits. At present therefore I propose to pass over the method after once indicating its general nature and present certain definite results only. I propose solely to draw a picture, in outline merely, of the sublime poetical personality which an analysis of the work reveals as the original poet, the Krishna Dwaipayana who wrote the Bharata of the 24,000 [slokas] and not the other Vyasa, if Vyasa he was, who enlarged it to something approaching its present dimensions. And let me express at once my deep admiration of the poetical powers & vast philosophic mind of this second writer; no mean poet was he who
gave us the poem we know, in many respects the greatest and most interesting & formative work in the world's literature. If I seem to speak mainly in dispraise of him, it is because I am concerned here with his defects and not with his qualities; for the subject I wish to treat is Krishna of the Island, his most important characteristics and their artistic contrast with those of our other greater, but less perfect epic poet, Valmekie.
I have said that no foreigner can for a moment be trusted to apply the literary test to a poem in our language; the extraordinary blunders13 of the most eminent German critics in dealing with Elizabethan plays have settled that question once for all. Educated Indians on the other hand have their own deficiencies in dealing with Vyasa; for they have [been] nourished partly on the curious and elaborate art of Kalidasa and his gorgeous pomps of vision and colour, partly on the somewhat gaudy, expensive & meretricious spirit of English poetry. Like Englishmen they are taught to profess a sort of official admiration for Shakespeare & Milton but with them as with the majority of Englishmen the poets they really steep themselves in are Shelley, Tennyson & Byron and to a less degree Keats & perhaps Spenser. Now the manner of these poets, lax, voluptuous, artificial, all outward glitter and colour, but inwardly poor of spirit and wanting in genuine mastery and the true poetical excellence [is] a bad school for the appreciation of such severe & perfect work as Vyasa's. For Vyasa is the most masculine of writers.14
13 Or mistakes
14 Cf. Archives and Research 13 [1989]: 7. The main part of the first version of Notes on the Mahabharata beginning with "Vyasa is the most masculine of writers" was apparently meant to be worked in here.
Mahabharata.
The problem of the Mahabharata, its origin, date and composition, is one that seems likely to elude scholarship to times indefinite if not for ever. It is true that several European scholars have solved all these to their own satisfaction, but their industrious & praiseworthy efforts1
In the following pages I have approached the eternal problem of the Mahabharata from the point of view mainly of style & literary personality, partly of substance; but in dealing with the substance I have deferred questions of philosophy, allusion & verbal evidence to which a certain school attach great importance and ignored altogether the question of minute metrical details on which they base far-reaching conclusions. It is necessary therefore out of respect for these scholars to devote some little space to an explanation of my standpoint. I contend that owing to the peculiar manner in which the Mahabharat has been composed, these minutiae of detail & word have very little value. The labour of this minute school has proved beyond dispute one thing and one only, that the Mahabharat was not only immensely enlarged, crusted with interpolations & accretions and in parts rewritten and modified, but even its oldest parts were verbally modified in the course of preservation. The extent to which this happened, has I think been grossly exaggerated, but that it did happen, one cannot but be convinced. Now if this is so, it is obvious that arguments from verbal niceties must be very dangerous. It has been sought to prove from a single word suranga, an underground tunnel, which European scholars believe to be identical with the
Greek
that the account in the Adi Purva of the Pandavas'
escape from the burning house of Purochana through an underground tunnel must be later than another account in the Vana Purva which represents Bhema as carrying his brothers & mother out of the flames; for the former they say, must have been composed after the Indians had learned the Greek language & culture and the latter, it is to be assumed, before that interesting period. Now whether suranga was derived from the Greek
or not, I cannot take upon me
1 This sentence was left unfinished. The following passage begins on the same page of the MS.
to say, but will assume on the authority of better linguists than myself that it was so though I think it is as well to be sceptical of all such Greek derivations until the connection is proved beyond doubt, for such words even when not accounted for by Sanscrit itself, may very easily be borrowed from the aboriginal languages. Bengali for instance preserves the form sudanga where the cerebral letter is Dravidian. But if so, if this word came into fashion along with Greek culture, and became the word for a tunnel, what could be more natural than that the reciter should substitute for an old and now disused word the one which was familiar to his audience? Again much has been made of the frequent occurrence of Yavana, Vahlika,
Pehlava, Saka, Huna. As to Yavana its connection with
does
not seem to me beyond doubt. It was certainly at one time applied to the Bactrian Greeks, but so it has been and is to the present day applied to the Persians, Afghans & other races to the northwest of India. Nor is the philological connection between
and Yavana very clear to my mind. Another form Yauna seems to represent
fairly well; but are we sure that Yauna and Yavana were originally
identical[?] A mere resemblance however close is the most misleading thing in
philology. Upon such resemblances Pocock made out a very strong case for his
theory that the Greeks were a Hindu colony. The identity of the Sakas & Sakyas
was for a long time a pet theory of European Sanscritists and on this identity
was based the theory that Buddha was a Scythian reformer of Hinduism. This
identity is now generally given up, yet it is quite as close as that of Yavana &
Yauna and as closely in accordance with the laws of the Sanscrit language. If
Yauna is the original form, why was it changed to Yavana; it is no more
necessary than that mauna be changed to mavana[;] if Yavana be earlier & Yauna a
Pracrit corruption, how are we to account for the short a & the v; there was no
digamma in Greek in the time of Alexander. But since the Greeks are always
called Yavanas in Buddhist writings we will waive the demand for strict
philological intelligibility and suppose that Yavana answers to
.
The question yet remains when did the Hindus become acquainted with the
existence of the Greeks. Now here the first consideration is why did they call
the Greeks Ionians, and not Hellenes or Macedonians? That the Persians should
know the Greeks by that name is natural enough, for it was with the Ionians that
they first came in
contact; but it was not Ionians who invaded India under Alexander, it was not an Ionian prince who gave his daughter to Chundragupta, it was not an Ionian conqueror who crossed the Indus & besieged [ ].2 Did the Macedonians on their victorious march gives themselves out as Ionians? I for my part do not believe it. It is certain therefore that if the Hindus took the word Yavana from IatOV, it must have been through the Persians and not direct from the Greek language. But the connection of the Persians with India was as old as Darius Hystaspes who had certainly reason to know the Greeks. It is therefore impossible to say that the Indians had not heard about the Greeks as long ago as 500 B.C. Even if they had not, the mention of Yavanas & Yavan kings does not carry us very far; for it is evident that in the earlier parts of the Mahabharata they are known only as a strong barbarian power of the Northwest; there is no sign of their culture being known to the Hindus. It is therefore quite possible that the word Yavana now grown familiar may have been substituted by the later reciters for an older name no longer familiar[.] It is now known beyond reasonable doubt that the Mahabharata war was fought out in or about 1190 B.C; Dhritarashtra son of Vichitravirya, Krishna, son of Devaki & Janamejaya are mentioned in Vedic works of a very early date. There is therefore no reason to doubt that an actual historical event is recorded with whatever admixture of fiction in the Mahabharata[.] It is also evident that the Mahabharata[,] not any "Bharata" or "Bharati Katha" but the Mahabharata existed before the age of Panini, and tho' the radical school bring down Panini3
2 Blank in MS.
3 End of page in MS. The sequel has not been found. The next page in the notebook is unrelated to this.
Notes on the Mahabharata
by Aurobind Ghose
dealing with the authenticity of each
separate canto, ie whether it belongs or not to the original
epic of 24,000 slokas on the great catastrophe of the
Bharatas.
Udyogpurva.
Canto I.
1 कुरुप्रवीराः..स्वपक्षाः. This may mean in Vyasa's elliptic manner the great Kurus (ie the Pandavas) & those of their side[.] Otherwise "The Kuru heroes of his own side" ie Abhimanyu's which is awkward
3 वृद्धौ this supplies the reason of their preeminence
5 प्रद्युम्नसाम्बौ च युधि प्रविरौ. This establishes Pradyumna & Samba as historical sons of Krishna
विराटपुत्रैश्च Virata has therefore several sons, three at least.
7 The simile is strictly in the style of Vyasa who cares little for newness or ingenuity, so long as the image called up effects its purpose. The assonance रराज सा राजवती is an epic assonance altogether uncommon in Vyasa & due evidently to the influence of Valmekie.
[8] strong brief & illumining strokes of description which add to the naturalness of the scene eg
ततः कथास्ते समवाययुक्ताः while also adding a touch that reveals the inwardness
of the situation
[9] संघट्टिताः surely means "assembled" and nothing else. P. C Roy in taking it as "drew their attention to" shows his usual slovenliness. Lele also errs in his translation. He interprets it "as soon as the talk was over Krishna assembled the kings for the affairs of the Pandavas." But the kings were already assembled & seated; not only so but they were waiting for Krishna to begin. It is absurd to suppose that as soon as Krishna began speaking they left their seats and clustered round him like a pack of schoolboys. Yet this is the only sense in which we can
take Lele's rendering. I prefer to take the obvious sense of the words. "As soon as they had reached an end of talk, those lion kings assembled by the Son of Modhou in the interests of the Pandava listened in a body to his high thoughted and fateful speech."
सुमहोदयं having mighty consequences.
10 अयं here beside me See v[erse] 4. Yudhisthere is sitting just by Krishna, separated by him [from] Virata.
अक्षवती not given by Apte.
11 तरसा. तरस् expresses any swift, violent & impetuous act; anything that has the momentum of strength & impulse or fire & energy1
सत्यरथैर् This is a word of doubtful import[.] It may [mean] "of unerring chariots" ie skilful fighters, or else "honourable fighters", रथः being used as in महारथः, अधिरथः = fighter in a chariot. Cf सत्यपराक्रमः In the first case the epithet would be otiose & ornamental & an epic assonance. I cannot think however that Vyasa was capable of putting a purely decorative epic epithet in so emphatic a place. It must surely mean either 2 [i.e. "honourable fighters"] or "making truth their chariot"; रथ being used as in मनोरथ etc. The latter however is almost too much a flight of fancy for Vyasa.
[12] त्रयोदशश्चैव—agreeing with संवत्सरः which the mind supplies from वर्षाणि in the last line; a verb also has to be supplied from चीर्णं. This is the true Vyasa style.
निविष्ट. निविश् to abide. This sense, though not given in Apte may be deduced from निवेशः Impersonal. It has been dwelt
13. It will be seen from Krishna's attitude here as elsewhere that he was very far from being the engineer & subtle contriver of war into which later ideas have deformed him. That he came down to force on war & destroy the Kshatriya caste whether to open India to the world or for other cause, is an idea that was not present to the mind of Vyasa. Later generations writing when the pure Kshatriya caste had almost disappeared, attributed this motive for God's descent upon earth, just as a modern
1 Another gloss: तरसा energy, speed, violence, force. The word always gives an idea of swiftness & strength.
English Theosophist, perceiving British rule established in India, has added the corollary that he destroyed the Kshatriyas (five thousand years ago, according to her own belief) in order to make the line clear for the English. What Vyasa on the other hand makes us feel is that Krishna, though fixed to support justice at every cost, was earnestly desirous to support it by peaceful means if possible. His speech is an evident attempt to restrain the eagerness of the Mutsyas & Panchalas who were bent on war as the only means of overthrowing the Kuru domination[.]
14. Krishna's testimony to Yudishthere's character is here of great importance.
That Yudishthere has deserved this character to the letter so far anyone who has followed the story will admit. If he acts in diametrical opposition to this character in any future passage we shall have some ground to pause before we admit the genuineness of the passage.
बुभूषेत् would wish to obtain in the second sense of भू get, obtain.2
15 मिथ्योपचारेण by dishonest3 procedure; not in according with straightforward & chivalrous rules of conduct.
16. That is, if Duryodhana had taken the kingdom from the Pandavas in fair war by his own energy & genius (wJsrar), he would not have transgressed the ordinary «r»$ of the Kshatriya. In that case the Pandavas might have accepted the verdict of Fate and refrained from plunging the country in farther bloodshed.
17 This seems to point to the Digvijayapurva; but the reference is general & may apply to the Rajsuya generally.
प्रपीड्य by force, pressure; as a result of conquest in open battle.
18 बालास्त्विमे An allusion to the early persecution of the Pandavas by Duryodhana. If we accept this purva in its completeness, we must accept the genuineness in the main of the early narrative
2 Another gloss: बुभूषेत् desiderative of भू in the sense of "get, obtain" would aspire after
3 Or fraudulent
of the Adi Purva in so far as it [is] covered by this sloka. Notice especially विविधैरुपायैः
तु The force is "But you know what the Dhartarastras are, their fierceness, falseness & landhunger; how even in the childhood of the Pandavas these, their banded foemen, sought to slay them by various means.["]
22 तथापि = for all their good will. It is part of the inverted commas implied in इति
एव = at least.
यतेयुरेव would at least do their utmost.
23 यथावत् definitely; though they may form a shrewd guess.
24 राज्यार्धदानाय Krishna does not, at present at any rate suggest a compromise; let them first make their full claim to which they are entitled. (Notice Genitive).
पुरोहितयान This title is evidently a misnomer; there is no mention of the Purohit, far less does he set out as yet nor need we suppose he is hinted at in the description of a suitable envoy. It is doubtful whether Krishna would have singled out a Panchala Purohit as the best intermediary between the Kurus for he evidently desired to try conciliation first, before resorting to threats. The choice of the Purohita was that of King Drupada and the leaders of the Brahma-varta nations who desired to break the supremacy among them of the Kurus.
This Canto is in the very finest & most characteristic style of Vyasa; precise, simple & hardy in phrasing, with a strong, curt decisive movement & a pregnant mode of expression, in which a kernel of thought is expressed & its corollaries suggested so as to form a thought-atmosphere around it. There is no superfluous or lost word or sentence, but each goes straight to its mark and says something which wanted to be said. The speech of Krishna is admirably characteristic of the man as we have seen him in the Sabhapurva; firm & precise in outlook and sure of its own drift, it is yet full of an admirably disinterested & statesmanlike broadmindedness.4
4 A briefer statement is found in the other notebook used for these notes: Every line of this Canto is characteristic of Vyasa in style, atmosphere & thought. It is also indispensable to the conduct of the epic.
Canto 2.
[11] दीव्यमानेन प्रतिदीव्य Can this not mean "being challenged to dice played against Saubala or in acceptance of the challenge" or must it mean "gambled & that against Saubala["?]