The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s2.18

c2.s2.18

Unless we are willing to reject upon a theory and then theorize upon the rejection, we must admit that the same book and age that contain the reproaches heaped upon the Kurus contain similar reproaches against the Pāndus. Now, passing for a moment the question of the relative sinfulness in the rôles of each party as given by the earliest poem, let us ask why it should naturally follow that the Pāndus alone were justified by the poet? We find many cases where the Pāndus do wrong, are reproached, and are then excused. The inversion-theory says that they sinned in the old poem, and that the poem was rewritten to make them appear good. Suppose we imagine the possibility of the poem being simply what it pretends to be—an account of the Pāndus' conquest of the Kurus. Imagine this poem added to from time to time, as we know it must have been, by the hands of priests bound to glorify, for religious or other reasons, the conquerors in the war. Is it not likely that they would have excused wrongs committed by their own party, which a more naive moral sense had long before depicted without shame? Is it likely, on the other hand, that in excusing their own side they would have taken the trouble to excuse the other, or to exalt their opponents' virtue? It seems to me that up to this point (given an old poem containing records of barbarous deeds done by both parties) it is not necessary to assume an inversion of theme merely because the conquering side is exalted and excused by the conqueror's bards. The inversion-theory, however, assumes that such one-sided extolment obliges us to believe in an original poet who painted the victors black, and in a new poet who re-painted them white. It is perhaps scarcely well to criticize Schroeder's poetical fancy of the sorrowing child of the Kuru-land; but it is a fair question to ask, considering the conditions under which Epic poetry was produced in India, what object a poet would have in writing a poem for public recitation or private circulation with the intent of vilifying those that now ruled his land?