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A History of Indian Literature v1.c9.s2: What Is the Mahābhārata?

A History of Indian Literature v1.c9.s2

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English

What Is the Mahābhārata?

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¹ For information on the contents of the epic, the best help is H. *Jacobi*, Mahābhārata, Inhalts-Angabe, Index und Konkordanz der Kalkuttaer und Bombayer Ausgaben. Bonn 1903. For the problems of the Mahābhārata see especially E. W. *Hopkins*, The Great Epic of India, Its Character and Origin, New York 1901. A rich, though unfortunately not handy, collection of materials, is contained in A. *Holtzmann*, Das Mahābhārata und seine Teile. In 4 vols. Kiel 1892-95. The value of this great work is considerably prejudiced by the untenable theories of the author upon the remodellings of the Mahābhārata. Untenable, too, are the opposite theories upon the origin of the epic as one work, which *Joseph Dahlmann* has upheld in his books "Das Mahābhārata als Epos und Rechtsbuch," Berlin, 1895, "Genesis des Mahābhārata," Berlin 1899, and "Die Sāṁkhya-Philosophie als Naturlehre und Erlösungslehre, nach dem Mahābhārata," Berlin 1902. The first of these books, however, has the great merit of having given new life to studies of the epic; it has given rise to a veritable "Dahlmann-literature." *Cf.* H. *Jacobi* in GGA 1896. No. 1 and 1899, No. 11; A. *Ludwig* in Sitzungsber. der kgl. böhmischen Ges. der Wiss. cl. f. Phil. Prague 1896; C. H. *Tawney*, Asiatic Quarterly Review 1896, pp. 347 ff.; J. *Jolly*, Ind. Ant. 25, 1896, 343 f. A. *Barth* in the Journal des savants, April, June and July, 1897, and RHR, t. 45, 1902, pp. 191 ff. (Oeuvres II, 393 ff.) ; M.*Winternitz* in JRAS, 1897, pp. 713 ff. and WZKM XIV, 1900, pp. 53 ff., E. W. *Hopkins* in the American Journal of Philology, 1898, XIX, No. 1, W. *Cartellieri* in WZKM, 13, 1899, pp. 57 ff.; J. *Kirste* in Ind. Ant., 31, 1902, pp. 5 ff. Among the older literature on the Mahābhārata (it is summarized by *Holtzmann*, loc. cit., IV, pp. 165 ff.) the following deserve special notice: Monier *Williams*, Indian Wisdom, 4th edit. London 1893; Sören Sörensen, *Om Mahābhārata's stilling i den Indiske literatur* (with a "Summarium" in the Latin language), Copenhagen 1893; A. *Ludwig*, Uber das Râmâyaṇa und die Beziehungen desselben zum Mahâbhârata (II. Jahresbericht des Wiss. Vereins f. Volkskunde und Linguistik in Prague 1894). See also *Hopkins*, ERE VIII, 1915, 325 ff. and H. *Oldenberg*, Das Mahabharata, seine Entstehung, sein Inhalt, seine Form, Göttingen, 1922.

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It is only in a very restricted sense that we may speak of the Mahābhārata as an "epic" and a "poem." Indeed, in a certain sense, the Mahābhārata is *not one* poetic production at all, but rather *a whole literature*.

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*Mahābhārata*¹ means "the great narrative of the battle of the Bhāratas." The *Bharatas* are already mentioned in the Ṛgveda as a warlike tribe, and in the Brāhmaṇas we encounter Bharata, the son of Duḥṣanta and Śakuntalā, who is regarded as the ancestor of the royal race of the Bhāratas. The home of these Bharatas or Bhāratas was in the country of the Upper Ganges and the Jumnā. Among the descendants of Bharata, a ruler named *Kuru* was specially prominent, and his descendants, the *Kauravas* (Kuruides), were so long the ruling race of the Bhāratas, that the name Kuru or Kaurava in the course of time assumed the character of a name for the tribe of the Bharatas, and their land is that *Kurukṣetra* or "Kuru-land" with which we are already acquainted from the Yajurveda and the Brāhmaṇas.² A family feud in the royal house of the Kauravas leads to a bloody battle, a truly internecine struggle in which the ancient race of the Kurus, and with it the family of the Bhāratas, is almost entirely ruined. The history of this bloody battle, which we shall probably have to regard as an historical event, though we hear of it only in the Mahābhārata, was told in songs, and some great poet whose name has been lost, combined these songs into an heroic poem of the great battle in the field of the Kurus. Thus, as in the Iliad and in the Nibelungen-song, the tragedy of a terrible war of annihilation forms the actual subject of the heroic poem. This old heroic poem forms the *nucleus* of the Mahābhārata.

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¹ Bhārata means "battle of the Bharatas" (bhārataḥ saṃgrāmaḥ, Pāṇini IV, 2, 56). In the Mahābhārata itself we find mahābhārata-yuddha (XIV, 81, 8) "the great Bharata battle," and Mahābhāratākhyānam (I, 62, 39)," "the great story of the Bharata battle" the title "Mahābhārata" being an abbreviation of the latter.

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² See above p. 196.

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In the course of centuries, however, an enormous mass of the most diverse poetry has collected *around this nucleus*. First numerous legends whose connection with the old heroic poem is more or less casual, legends referring to the early history of the heroes, or giving reports of all kinds of adventures of these men, without having any reference whatever to the great battle, were added to the poem. Then, too, fragments of other heroic legends and cycles of legends, which refer to various famous kings and heroes of primeval times, found their way into the poem, even though they had nothing at all to do with the song of the great Kuru battle. How much of this old bard poetry already belonged to the original poem as secondary tales (*episodes*) and how much was only added later, will probably never be determined. We have reason to believe that in ancient times many of these episodes were recited by the minstrels as independent poems.¹ In any case, our Mahābhārata is not only the heroic poem of the battle of the Bhāratas, but at the same time also a *repertory of the whole of the old bard poetry*.

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¹ It seems that individual bards made a speciality of the recitation of certain poems; for Patañjali (Pāṇini IV, 2, 60) teaches the formation of words like Yāvakrītika, "one who knows the story of Yavakrīta" Yāyātika, "one who knows the story of Yayāti etc. *Cf.* F. Lacôte, Essai sur Guṇāḍhya et la Bṛhatkathā, Paris, 1908, pp. 138 f.

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However, it is very much more than this. We know that the literary activity of ancient India was for the most part in the hands of the priests, the Brahmans; and we have seen how they brahmanised the old popular magic songs of the Atharvaveda, and how they intermingled with their priestly wisdom, the philosophy of the Upaniṣads which was really foreign, even antagonistic, to the priesthood.² The more the heroic songs grew in favour and the more popular they became, the greater the anxiety of the Brahmans to take possession of this epic poetry also; and they had the art of compounding this poetry which was essentially and purely *secular* in origin, with their own *religious* poems and the whole stock-in-trade of their theological and priestly knowledge. Thus it happens that legends of gods, *mythological narratives of brahmanical origin*, and to a great extent even *didactic sections referring to brahmanical philosophy and ethics and brahmanical law*, were received into the Mahābhārata. This priestly caste welcomed the popular epic as the very medium for the propagation of their own doctrines, and thereby for the strengthening and consolidation of their influence. It was they who inserted into the epic all the numerous myths and legends (Itihāsas)¹ in which wonderful feats are related of the famous seers of ancient times, the Ṛṣis, the ancestors of the Brahmans, how by dint of sacrifices and asceticism, they obtain tremendous power not only over men, but even over the gods, and how, when they are offended, their curse causes the fall of princes and great men, and even of the kings of the gods.

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² See above pp. 123, and 231 ff.

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¹ Some of these legends can still be traced. In Brahmanic texts, for instance, the story of Bhaṅgāsvana who was changed into a woman, in Mahābh. XIII, 12, is found in the Baudhāyana-Śrautasūtra; s. *Winternitz* and *Caland* in WZKM 17. 1903, 292 f.; 351 ff.

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The Mahābhārata was, however, too much of a popular book, too much the property of extensive circles of the people, in particular of the warrior caste, for it ever to have become an actual brahmanical work or the property of any one Vedic school. And it was not so much the Veda-knowing and learned Brahmans who took part in the development of the Mahābhārata; hence the noticeably scanty knowledge of actual brahmanical theology and sacrificial science, which we find even in those parts of the epic in which brahmanical influence is unmistakable. It was the *Purohitas*, the court-priests, who like the Sūtas (bards) were in the service of the kings, and on that account came more into contact with epic poetry. It was this less learned class of priests, too, which later on furnished temple-priests at famous holy places and places of pilgrimage, mostly dedicated to the gods Viṣṇu or Śiva, and devoted itself to the literary cultivation of local myths attached to such sacred spots, and the legends woven around the gods Viṣṇu and Śiva. This, as we shall see, was done chiefly in the Purāṇas, but also in the Mahābhārata, into which crept numerous *local myths in true Purāṇa style*, *Viṣṇu and Śiva myths*, *and Purāṇa-like cosmologies*, *geographical lists and genealogies*.

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But an epic poetry seems to have been cultivated more in those regions of India where the worship of Viṣṇu as the highest deity prevailed. This accounts for the fact that, in the religious-didactic portions of the Mahābhārata, this god stands so prominently in the foreground, that the work at times gives the impression of a *religious book dedicated to the worship of Viṣṇu*. It is true, *Śiva-legends* and passages referring to the Śiva cult are not wanting, but they are in every case easily recognisable as later additions. They were inserted as the epic was propagated also over regions in which Śiva worship had its home.¹

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¹ Cf. H acobi in *GGA* 1892, pp. 629 f.

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But there existed yet other religious circles in India which, already in early times, showed literary activity, and tried partly even more than the Brahmans, to win over the great masses of the people. These were the ascetics, forest-hermits and mendicants, the founders of sects and monastic orders, which at the time of Buddha were already very numerous in India. These, too, had their own poetry; *legends of saints*, *aphorisms*, in which they preached their doctrines of renunciation and contempt of the world, of self-sacrifice and love for all beings, and also *fables*, *parables*, *fairy-tales*, *and moral stories*, which were intended to illustrate the philosophy and ethics of the ascetics by means of examples. This *ascetic poetry*, too, was incorporated into the Mahābhārata to a considerable extent.

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To such an extent had the Mahābhārata become a compendium of narratives of all descriptions rather than an epic, that even *prose pieces*, brahmanical legends and moral tales, some entirely in prose form and others partly in verse and partly in prose, were incorporated into the epic.¹

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¹ In the Pauṣyaparvan (Mahābh. I, 3), in the Mārkaṇḍeya section of the Vanaparvan, and in the sectarian Nārāyaṇīya. All these are pieces which are really outside the scope of the epic proper. I therefore cannot agree at all with *Oldenberg* (Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa, pp. 65 ff.; Das Mahabharata, pp. 21 ff.) in seeing an earlier stage of the epic in these very pieces. *Cf*. Hopkins, The Great Epic of India, pp. 266 ff.; *Winternitz*, DLZ 1919, No. 44.

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We find, then, in this the most remarkable of all literary productions, side by side and intermingled, warlike heroic songs with highly coloured descriptions of bloody battle-scenes; pious priestly poetry, with dissertations, which are often tedious enough, upon philosophy, religion and law; and mild ascetic poetry full of edifying wisdom and full of over-flowing love towards man and beast.

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Therefore the Indians themselves regard the Mahābhārata, though always as an epic, as a work of poetic art (kāvya), but also at the same time as a manual (Sāstra) of morality, law and philosophy, supported by the oldest tradition (smṛti) and hence furnished with incontestible authority; and since more than 1,500 years it has served the Indians as much for entertainment as for instruction and edification.

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At least 1,500 years ago,² this Mahābhārata was already just as we possess it to-day in our manuscripts and editions—or at least very similar—*one work* which was of about the same extent as our epic of to-day. Like the latter, it already contained a long introduction with a framework, a story of the legendary origin of the poem and a glorification of it as a text-book of religion and morals; it was divided into eighteen books called *Parvans*, to which a nineteenth book *Harivaṃśa* had already been added as a "supplement" (Khila);

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² See, further on, the chapter on the age and history of the Mahābhārata.

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and it attained the extent of about 100,000 verses (Ślokas). And up to the present day this gigantic work, in spite of all the diverse elements of which it consists, is regarded by the Indians as a unified work, complete in itself,¹ whose author is the most venerable Ṛṣi *Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana*, also called *Vyāsa*. This same Ṛṣi is also said to be the compiler of the four Vedas² and the author of the Purāṇas. According to the legend, he was not only a contemporary, but also a close relative of the heroes of the Mahābhārata, and occasionally also appears in the action of the poem. His history is told us in great detail in the Mahābhārata.

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¹ Therefore, too, it is called a *saṃhitā*, *i.e.* "a (complete) compilation," "a connected text," thus Mahābh. I, 1, 21.

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² Hence his name *Vyāsa* or *Vedavyāsa*, *i. e.* "classifier" "classifier of the Veda This is the explanation of the name given in the Mahābhārata itself (1, 63, 88: Vivyāsa vedān yasmāt sa tasmād Vyāsa iti smṛtaḥ, cf. I, 60, 5; 105, 13).

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He is the son of a famous ascetic, the Ṛṣi Parāśara. This great saint one day catches sight of Satyavatī, who came into the world in a fish and was brought up by fisherfolk, and is so charmed with her beauty that he desires her love. But she will yield to him only on the condition that, after she has borne him a son, she may regain her maidenhood. The great saint grants her this wish, and also the wish that she may lose her fish-odour and may diffuse a wonderful perfume. Immediately after he has co-habited with her, she gives birth to a son, on an island in the Jamnā, who is named Dvaipāyana, "the island-born." The boy grows up and soon gives himself up to asceticism. When taking leave of his mother, he tells her that he will appear immediately at any time she, needing him, thinks of him. Satyavatī, however, once more a virgin, later on became the wife of the Kuru king, Śāntanu, and bore the latter two sons, Citrāṅgada and Vicitravīrya. After the death of Śāntanu and Citrāṅgada, Vicitravīrya was appointed heir. He died young and childless, but left two wives. In order that the race may not die out, Satyavatī decides to call her illegitimate son Dvaipāyana, so that, according to the legal custom of the Levirate, he may beget descendants by his sisters-in-law. Now although this Dvaipāyana is a great ascetic and saint, yet he is an extremely ugly man with bristly hair and beard and darkly rolling eyes, dark in complexion (hence probably his name Kṛṣṇa, "the black one") and an evil smell emanates from him. Therefore, when he approaches the one princess she cannot bear the sight of him, and closes her eyes: the consequence of this is that her son is born blind. He later became king *Dhṛtarāṣṭra*. The saint then approaches the second lady, and she grows pale at sight of him. As the result of this she gives birth to a son who is pale, and is therefore called *Pāṇḍu*, "the pale one." He is the father of the five principal heroes of the epic. Once again Dvaipāyana is to approach the first woman; but grown wiser, she sends her maid to the saint, who notices nothing of the substitution, and with the maid he begets *Vidura*, to whom in the epic is allotted the part of a wise and well-wishing friend of Dhṛtarāṣṭra as well as of the sons of Pāṇḍu.[^1)

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This saint, Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana *Vyāsa*, whom legend has made into a kind of grandfather [^2) of the heroes of the epic, is regarded by the Indians, up to the present day, as the author of the whole Mahābhārata. Only after his three "sons" had died, so says the introduction to the Mahābhārata,[^3) did Vyāsa publish among the people the poem composed by him. He imparted it to his pupil *Vaiśampāyana*, and the latter recited the whole poem in the intervals of the great snake-sacrifice of King Janamejaya. On this occasion it was heard by the Sūta Ugraśravas, the son of Lomaharṣaṇa; and our Mahābhārata

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[^1): Mahābh. I, 63; 100 ff. [^2): According to the law of the Levirate, Vyāsa is only the progenitor, not the father, of Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Pāṇḍu. The deceased husband of the two widows is regarded as their father. [^3): I, 1, 95 ff.

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commences with the Ṛṣis, who are assembled at the twelve-yearly sacrifice of Śaunaka in the Naimiṣa forest, entreating the Sūta Ugraśravas to tell them the story of the Mahābhārata as he has heard it from Vaiśampāyana. The Sūta declares himself willing, and tells the story of the snake-sacrifice of Janamejaya, before proceeding to the repetition of the narrative of Vaiśampāyana.

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The fact that the Mahābhārata consists almost entirely of *speeches* is certainly a trait of antiquity.¹ Ugraśravas is the reciter of the outline story, and in the poem itself Vaiśampāyana is the speaker. Within the narrative of Vaiśampāyana innumerable inserted tales are put in the mouth of various persons, this insertion of stories within stories being a very popular device in Indian literature. In most cases the narratives, as well as the speeches of the persons appearing, have no introduction but the prose formulae: "Vaiśampāyana spake," "Yudhiṣṭhira spaken, "Draupadī spake," and so on.

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¹ "We may observe in the Iliad, too, that the old epics all contain very much dialogue; only in the later epics does this dramatic element recede further into the background ... But the epic poem only reaches completion when, in addition to the speeches, the outline of the narrative, too, is composed in metrical form. The final stage is the withdrawal of the speeches, and the narration of events only in the form of verse." Ernst *Windisch, Māra und Buddha* (Abhandl. der philolog.-histor. Klasse der K. sächsischen Ges. der Wiss. Leipzig 1895), pp. 222 ff. The Mahābhārata is still a long way from that "final stage."

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Fantastic as is all the information imparted to us in the introduction to the Mahābhārata about its supposed author, yet we find a few noteworthy statements in it. Thus we are told that the Ṛṣi Vyāsa narrated his work in a short summary as well as in detailed presentation; further, that different reciters begin the poem at three different places, and that its length was not always the same. Ugraśravas says that he knows the poem as consisting of 8,800 verses, while Vyāsa declares that he composed the Saṃhitā of the Bhārata poem in 24,000 verses, "and without the secondary stories the Bhārata is recited in this length by the experts." Immediately afterwards it is said, rather fantastically, that Vyāsa also composed an epic of 60 hundred thousand verses, *viz.* 30 hundred thousand for the gods, 15 for the fathers, 14 for the Gandharvas and *one* hundred thousand for man.¹ Of course this only hints at the present extent of the Mahābhārata, which has also acquired for it the designation *śatasāhasrī saṃhitā*, "collection of one hundred thousand verses." One sees from these statements that the Indians themselves, in spite of their firm belief in the unity of the work, have at least retained a recollection of the fact that the Mahābhārata only gradually grew, from an originally smaller poem, to its present extent.

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¹ Mahābh. I, 1, 51 ff.; 81; 101 ff.

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What the Mahābhārata means *to the Indians*, the introduction to the work tells us in the most extravagant fashion. It is there said, for example:

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"As butter excels among curds, as the Brahman excels among Aryans, as the Āraṇyakas among the Vedas, the drink of immortality among medicines, the ocean among all waters, and the cow among four-footed beasts, even so the Mahābhārata is the best of all narrative works (Itihāsas)."
"Whosoever has once heard this story, can no longer take pleasure in any other story though it be well worth hearing; just as he who has heard the song of the kokila² can take no pleasure in the harsh voice of the crow."
"The thoughts of the poets arise from this most excellent of all narrative works, as the three realms of the universe from the five elements."
"Whosoever presents a veda-knowing and deeply learned Brahman with a hundred cows with gilded horns, and he who hears daily the sacred stories of the Bhārata poem—these two acquire equal (religious) merit."
"Verily this narrative work is a song of victory: a king who desires victory, should hear it, and he will conquer the earth and triumph over his enemies."

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² The Kokila, the Indian cuckoo, is to Indian poets what the nightingale is to our poets.

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“This is a sacred manual of morals (dharma); it is the best manual of practical life (artha), and Vyāsa, of boundless wisdom, recited it also as a manual of salvation (mokṣa).¹

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¹ Dharma, “law and custom” or “morality,” artha “utility,” “advantages” “practical life” and *kāma*, “sensual gratification” are the three aims of life, to a certain extent the be-all and end-all of human existence, according to Indian ethics. The final aim of all striving, however, is *mokṣa*, “deliverance,” to which the various sects and philosophical systems indicate different paths.

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“All sins, whether of thought, word or deed, depart immediately from the man who hears this poem.”

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“The sage Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana, rising daily (to perform his devotional and ascetic exercises) composed this marvellous story, the Mahābhārata, in three years. What we find in this book relating to morals, relating to practical life, relating to sensual pleasure and relating to salvation, ²) can be found elsewhere; but what is not written therein, can be found nowhere else in the world.” ²

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² I, 1, 261 f.: 2, 382 f., 393; 62, 20 f., 23, 25, 52 f. To the last verse compare the Bengali saying: “Whatever is not in the Mahābhārata is not to be found in Bharatavarṣa” (*i.e.* in India).

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*For us*, however, who do not look upon the Mahābhārata with the eyes of believing Hindus, but as critical historians of literature it is everything but a work of art; and in any case we cannot regard it as the work of *one* author, or even of a clever collector and compiler. The Mahābhārata as a whole is a literary monster. Never has the hand of an artist attempted the well-nigh impossible task of combining the conflicting elements into one unified poem. It is only unpoetical theologians and commentators and clumsy copyists who have succeeded in conglomerating into a heterogeneous mass parts which are actually incompatible, and which date from different centuries. But in this jungle of poetry, which scholarship has only just begun to clear, there shoots forth much true and genuine poetry, hidden by the wild undergrowth. Out of the unshapely mass shine out the most precious blossoms of immortal poetic art and profound wisdom. The very fact that the Mahābhārata represents *a whole literature* rather than one single and unified work, and contains so many and so multifarious things, makes it more suited than any other book, to afford us an insight into the deepest depths of the soul of the Indian people.

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This may be shown by the following survey of the contents of the Mahābhārata and its various component parts.)¹

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¹ The whole of the Mahābhārata has been translated into English prose by Kisori Mohan Ganguli and published by Protap Chandra Roy (Calcutta 1884-1896), and by Manmatha Nath Dutt (Calcutta 1895-1905). A fine poetical rendering, partly in metrical translations, partly in prose extracts, has been given by Romesh Dutt in his "Maha-Bharata, the Epic of Ancient India condensed into English Verse," London 1899. Extracts from the Mahābhārata will also be found in John Muir's "Original Sanskrit Texts" (1858-1872), and "Metrical Translations from Sanskrit Writers" (London 1879), and in Monier Williams, "Indian Wisdom," 4th ed., London 1893. A Summary of the 18 Parvans has been given by Monier Williams, Indian Epic Poetry, London 1863; an outline of the story and extracts by J. C. Oman, The Great Indian Epics, London 1899, pp. 93 ff. Books I-X have been translated into French by H Fauche, Paris, 1863-1870, a collection of larger extracts by Ph. E. Foucaux, Le Mahābhārata, onze épisodes tirés de ce poème épique, Paris, 1862. Several episodes have been translated into Italian by P. E. Pavolini, 1902, and into German by F. Bopp (Berlin, 1824), by the poet Friedrich Rückert (s. R. Boxberger, "Rückert-Studien," 1878, pp. 84-122 and "Rückert-Nachlese" I, 270; II, 315 ff.), by A. Holtzmann, Indische Sagen, 1845-1847 (new edition by M. Winternitz, Jena, 1912, and 1921), by J. Hertel, Indische Märchen, Jena, 1919, No. 10-14, and by W. Porzig in the series "Indische Erzähler" (Vols. 12 and 15, Leipzig 1923, 192 ff). The philosophical texts of the Mahābhārata have been translated into German by O. Strauss and P. Deussen, Vier philosophische Texte des Mahâbhâratam: Sanatsujâtaparvan, Bhagavadgîtā, Mokshadharma, Anugîtâ, Leipzig 1906.

Cites (5)