Disorienting Dharma: Ethics and Poetics of Suffering in the Mahabharata

In presenting this dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Emory University, I agree that the Library of the University shall make it available for inspection and circulation in accordance with its regulations, governing materials of this type. I agree that permission to copy from, or to publish, this dissertation may be granted by the professor under whose direction it was written, or, in hidher absence, by the Dean of the Graduate School when such copying or publication is solely for scholarly purposes and does not involve financial gain. It is understood than any copying from, or publication this dissertation which involves potential financial gain will not be allowed without written permission.

6%dkd Emily T. udson

Disorienting Dharrna: Ethics and the Poetics of Suffering in the Mahabharata

Emily T. Hudson Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Division of Religion

Laurie L. Patton Adviser

Paul Courtright Committee Member

aq~& Pam Hall Committee Member Accepted:

Dean of the Graduate School

Disorienting Dharma: Ethics and the Poetics of Suffering in the Mahdbharata

Emily T. Hudson B.A., University of Texas, 1987 M.A., St. John's College, 1994 MA., University of Chicago, 1998

Adviser: Laurie L. Patton, Ph.D.

An Abstract of A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy

Graduate Division of Religion 2006

Abstract The Sanskrit Mahdbhdrata, one of the longest narratives ever composed, is a notoriously difficult text Indeed, stories about its "knots," or complicated passages, is part of the epic tradition. In this dissertation, I develop and implement a method for locating meaning, particularly religious and ethical meaning, in the epic that focuses not on hermeneutics, but rather on aesthetics. Drawing from Sanskrit poetics and EuroAmerican reader-response theory, I argue that the epic conveys its messages predominantly through its "narrative strategies." On my use of the term, a narrative strategy refers to the complex interaction between the form and content of the text, and their impact on a reader or listener. Through the deployment of its narrative strategies, I contend that the Mahobhdrata makes a specific argument about the existence of suffering, the forces that cause it, and the processes that lead to its elimination. Ultimately, my goal is to show that an exploration of the Mahabharata's narrative strategies is generative not only for thinking about how the epic conveys its ethical and religious messages, but also for developing a new method in the study of religion for locating meaning in complex literary texts both belonging to and extending beyond the South Asian religious tradition(s).

Acknowledgements This project is infused with the encouragement and support of many, many largehearted individuals. I am grateful to my parents, Bill and Betty Hudson, for letting their only daughter venture to far away places and who were loving and supportive (if not befuddled) when she chose an ancient Sanskrit epic over going back to Texas. To friends and colleagues at St. John's College in Santa Fe where I first met and fell in love with the Mahdbhdrata, especially Robert Bart, Bruce Perry, Carolyn Reed, Nancy Westheimer, Veena Howard, and Marty Cohen. They all, in their own way, fell in love with the epic with me. To Wendy Doniger for her enthusiasm for the project when it was just a seed and to fellow Mahdbharata enthusiasts, Aditya Adarkar, Patricia Greer, Michael Wolfe, and Lawrence McCrea. A special thanks to Lawrence McCrea, who guided me through the Dhvanydloka and who is always eager for a good fight about the Mahabhdrata. To my mother and father-in-law, Lalita and G.P. Patil, for their loving support and their phone-calls at every milestone. Each member of my dissertation committee made this a better project. Thanks to Laurie Patton, Alf Hiltebeitel, Paul Courtright, Wendy Farley, and Pam Hall. A special thanks to Laurie Patton, my advisor, who has been a friend, a patient listener, and, what is most valuable to me, a sympathetic critic. I am also grateful to Alf Hiltebeitel for his extensive and very helpful comments and to Pam Hall and Wendy Farley for introducing me to many of my intellectual heroes. This dissertation would be, like the Mahabhdrata, an open-ended, perpetual work-in-progress if it was not for the efforts of Anne Monius who met with me regularly

in my new-found home of Cambridge and read through innumerable drafts. Her tireless and heroic efforts both inspired many of the ideas in the following pages and kept me going in a much-needed straight line. To Michael Puett whose chapter deadlines inspired the fear of God in me and whose support has meant so much. He is surely one of the most big-hearted people in academics today.

I dedicate this dissertation to my husband, Parimal Patil, whose love, encouragement, and mental ferocity kept me from losing my way when I ran into blind alleys, and to our twins, Anand and Anjali, who were two months old when I began to write this dissertation two years ago and who have brought endless joy into our lives.

Disorienting Dharma: Ethics and the Poetics of Suffering in the Mahabhcirata

Emily T. Hudson B.A., University of Texas, 1987 M.A., St. John's College, 1994 M.A., University of Chicago, 1998

Adviser: Laurie L. Patton, Ph.D.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Graduate Division of Religion 2006

UMI Number: 3234026 Copyright 2006 by Hudson, Emily T.

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Table of Contents

Chapter One: Locatin? Ethical Meaning in the Mahabhdrata Introduction The Argument: Suffering, Ethics, and Narrative Strategies A Poetics of Suffering and ChapterDescription A Brief Note on Terminology Chapter Two: Appreciating the Mahdbhdrata as Literature: Text. Method. and Audience The Text and its Structure Method Scholarly Location and Contributions The Central Story Suffering in the Dicin? Scene Introduction Summary of the Dicing Scene The Decision to Dice: Proximity and Estrangement in the Dicing Scene Unprotected Amongst Her Protectors:The Depiction of Draupadi in the Dicing Scene Draupadi's Question and the Silence of the Elders: Rupture in the Dicing Scene Conclusion Chanter Four: The Eyesight of Insi~ht:Dhrtarastra. Moral Vision. and the Narrative's Construction of Time Introduction D-8@a9s "When I heard. . . Dirge:" The Lament as Summary [email protected]'s Role in the Failed Peace Negotiations Samjaya Narrates the Battle Events to The Blind King The End of the War and The Moment of Advice: Three ArgumentsAgainst-Grief Conclusion Chaoter Five: Time that Ripens and Rots All Creatures: Temporality and Its Terrors Introduction Two Theories of Time: Yugas and Kdlavdda Narrative Strategies of Temporal Manipulation: Consuming, Dismissing, Collapsing, and Stretching Time Conclusion Chapter Six: Heaven's Riddles or the Hell Trick: Theodicy and Narrative Strategies Introduction Fate and Human Exertion in the Game of Dice Karma and Suffering

Q ~ n the a Devious Deity Heaven's Riddles or the Hell Trick: the Two Conclusions of the Mahabhdrata Conclusion Chapter Seven: Conclusion: Dharrna and Protection Biblio~raohy

Chapter One Locating Ethical Meaning in the Mahlibhlirata So, then, hear from me in full the news of the slaughter of the horses, elephants, and kings of immeasurable splendor in the battle. And while you are hearing, king, what happened in the great war that gave rise to the destruction of all the world, remain calm and do not despair. Samjaya to Dhg-tara$$ra,5.156.12-13.

1. Introduction Almost everyone who is familiar with the Sanskrit Mahdbhdrata knows the tale of its composition. Once upon a time, Vyaa, the compiler of the Vedas, conceived the

Mahdbhdrata in his mind and sought out Gqeia, Lord of Obstacles, to serve as his scribe.' G q e i a agreed but with one condition: Vyaa dictate his story without pause. Vyasa consented but with a condition of his own: G a e i a had to first grasp the meaning of his verses before transcribing them. G q e i a agreed and the recitation and writing began. Whenever Vyasa needed time to think about what was to come next, he mysteriously wove "knots" or complicated passages into his composition in order to stump Gqeia. This strategy gave V y a a ample time to compose many verses in his

The Mahabharata is not just one text but a tradition. Its story has been told and retold in a variety of mediums: dance, song, sculpture, painting, novel, and theatre. My discussion will be limited to the Sanskrit text. For scholarship on the diversity of the Mahdbhdrata tradition, see Suresh Awasthi, "The Mahdbhdrata in Performance: Forms and Tradition," in The Mahiibhdrata Revisited, edited by R.N. Dandekar (New Delhi: Sahitya Akaderni, 1990), 193-200; Rai Anand Krishna, "Depiction of the Mahdbhdrata Scenes in Indian Art," in The Mahdbhdrata Revisited, 201-214; Richard Frasca, The Theatre of the Mahdbhdrata: Terukkutu Performances in South India (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990);and William S. Sax, Dancing the Self: Personhood and Performance in the P w a v Lild of Garhwal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). For scholarship on Gqeia's role as the Mahdbhdrata's scribe, see Paul Courtright, Ganeia, Lord of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 151-53.

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head. As a result, it is said that no one "even today is able to penetrate that very tightly woven collection of verses because of the depth of their secret meaning." This story highlights, among other things, the fact that the Mahdbhdrata is notoriously difficult to comprehend. This is the case for several reasons. To begin with, it is vast. With 100,000 verses, it is approximately nine times the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, making it one of the longest narratives ever c ~ m p o s e dFurther, .~ the epic's scope is ency~lopedic:~ it contains stories within stories, and many of its sub-stories include legends, ritual lore, myths, folk tales, and philosophical discourses-passages that are only loosely connected to its central story. Thus, the Mahdbhdrata boasts, in perhaps one of its well-known passages, "whatever exists here, exists elsewhere, but what does not exist here exists nowhere.'* Another reason that the Mahdbhdrata is so perplexingly difficult is due to its "riddle-designyy7(which the Gqe5a story highlights). J. A. B van Buitenen encapsulates this design beautifully in the following statement:

tacchlokakU~arnadydpi grathitam suddham bhettum miakyate 'rthasya gudhtvdt prairitasya ca, 1.1.82. This verse appears in the Vulgate (Nilakan.tha's text; see Chapter Two, Section Two). 4 The Kumbakonam Edition (Southern Recension) contains approximately 100,000 verses. The Critical Edition of the Mahabhdrata has about 75,000 verses. 5 For a justification of the use of the term "epic" for the Mahdbhdrata, see Alf Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahdbhdrata: A Reader's Guide to the Education of the Dharma King (Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 2001), 2-15; 34-38. 6 yad ihasti tad anyatra yan nehdsti no. tat kvacit. 1.56.33. Citations are from the Critical Edition of V.S. Sukthankar, et. al., eds, The Mahabhdrata (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933-70) unless otherwise noted. All translations are my own. 7 For scholarship on riddles in Sanskrit literature see Durga Bhagavat, Riddle in Indian Life, Lore and Literature (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1955); Ludwik Sternbach, Indian Riddles: A Forgotten Chapter in the History of Sanskrit Literature (Hoshiarpur: Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute, 1975); and Galit Hasan-Roken and David Shulman, eds, Untying the Knot: On Riddles and Other Enigmatic Modes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), chaps. 8- 12.

the epic is a series of precisely stated problems imprecisely and therefore inconclusively resolved, with every resolution raising a new problem until the very end, when the question remains: whose is heaven and whose is hell?8 Finally, its central story is relentlessly dark. Simply put, the Mahiibhdrata tells the tale of a war between two sets of cousins, the PQdavas (headed by Yudhi@lira) and the Kurus (headed by Duryodhana and his father D-aspa)

over the kingdom of the

Bharatas. Many characters attempt to avert this war, but to no avail. After eighteen days of a devastating fratricidal battle, the fighting ends in the near decimation of both armies and the entire batriya clan. In the final books, the Pwdavas, our heroes, never enjoy their Phyrric victory, but rule a desolate land mourning the loss of their friends and family members, many of whom were slain in battle at their own hands. After thirty-six years in power, they renounce their kingdom, take to the mountains, perform yogic concentration, fall to the earth, and die. Given that open-endedness and riddle constitute the epic's style; a tragic fratricidal war its content; the entire world its terrain: how does one to approach such a text? What is such a text about? In the first half of the twentieth century, a great deal of Western scholarship on the Mahdbhdrata was based on the premise that the epic was " a huge and motley pile,"10

J.A.B. van Buitenen, The Mahdbhdrata: Book 2: The Book of the Assembly Hall; Book 3: The Book of the Forest, vol. 2 (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1975), 29. 9 Commenting on the "whatever exists here" passage David Shulman writes, "Vyasa, it is said, left behind him (in his work) the entire world (vydsocchigtamjagat sarvam). So the Mahdbhdrata is conterminous with the world-not a modest claim, perhaps, but one that does help to clarify the aims of this text. There is no escape built into it from its relentless, bleak vision. It presents itself not as a work of art but as reality itself. No boundary marks off this text from the world." David Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets: Studies in Tamil Telugu, and Sanskrit (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 26. E. Washburn Hopkins, The Great Epic of India (Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1%9), 363.

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a monstrous chaos,"" "a literary unthing."12 Such a perspective allowed scholars to

design "a Mahdbhdrata of convenience,"13 to make the Mahobhdrata into a site in need of excavation for its historical, philological and mythological treasures. "The epic," Alf Hiltebeitel writes, "has been mined for Indo-European myth, Indo-European epic, IndoEuropean goddesses, non Indo-European goddesses, oral epic, a prior epic cycle, a preBrahmanic Ksatriya tradition, an historical kernel; a textual kernel; the "old" narrative beneath the final written 'surface'; etc."14 While such "excavative scholarship" yielded valuable information about the text's prehistory, it failed to adequately address the question of what the Mahiibharata was actually about. In the past decades, scholars such as David Shulrnan, Alf Hiltebeitel and A.K. Ramnujan have advocated an alternative approach, one that employs what I call " a hermeneutics of respect."" A hermeneutics of respect seeks to "listen to" rather than to "disembowel" the text;16 it allows the Mahobhiirata itself to speak for and about the Mahdbhdrata. Such an approach requires reading the text as a literary whole and attending to "its intricate sense of structure and unity."17 Following this emerging trajectory in Mahdbhdrata scholarship, this dissertation will treat the epic as a complex literary object and will argue that by asking questions about the text's content, form and structure, some of the epic's many riddles may be fruitfully engaged. More specifically, I

' ungeheuerliches Chaos," Hermann Oldenberg, Das Mahapbhaprata: Seine Entstehun, sein Inhalt, seine Form (Gottingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, 1922), 1. l 2 "literarisches Unding," Moriz Winternitz, Geschichte der indischen Literatur. 3 vols. (Leipzig: C.F. Amelangs Verlag, 1908-22), 272. l3 Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabhdrata, 1. l4 Ibid., 2. See Hiltebeitel's notes for an extensive bibliography. 1 am grateful to Paul Courtright for this phrase. l6 Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets, 136. 17 A.K. Ramanujan, "Repetition in the Mahabhdrata," in Essays on the Mahdbhdrata, ed. Arvind Sharma (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991), 421.

argue that close attention to the text's literarylaesthetic features yields some insights into what the epic is ultimately saying about the moral life. The emerging field of Hindu ethics has struggled with the problem of the virtual absence of what Euro-American scholars term "moral philosophy" in the Indian philosophical tradition(s). Such an absence has led scholars to question whether "ethics" exists in the Hindu tradition at all, and if it does, precisely where. B.K. Matilal has addressed these concerns by arguing that the Sanskrit epics, the Rdmayaw and the

Mahabhdrata in particular, "can be used for any illuminating discussion of moral philosophy in India" because they provide critical inquiry into the nature of dharma." Indeed, the Mahabharata has long held a high position in the Indian tradition precisely because of the text's exacting exploration of "dharmasya g a t i v or the path of dharma. Here, however, questions emerge. Even a cursory reading of the epic would lead many to suspect that it is less interested in moral pedagogy and more dedicated to exploring the manifold ways that virtue can be transgressed." It is a story, after all, that

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B.K. Matilal writes, "Certainly, there exists a lacuna in the tradition of Indian philosophy. Professional philosophers of India over the last two thousand years have been consistently concerned with the problems of logic and epistemology, metaphysics and soteriology, and sometimes they have made very important contributions to the global heritage of philosophy. But, except some cursory comments and some insightful observations, the professional philosophers of India have very seldom discussed what we call moral philosophy today." B.K. Matilal, Ethics and Epics: The Collected Essays of Bimal Krishna Matilal, ed. Jonardon Ganeri (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), 22. And further: "On the other hand, the tradition itself was very self-conscious about moral values, moral conflicts and dilemmas, as well as about the difficulties of what we call practical reason or practical wisdom. This consciousness found its expression in the epic stories and narrative literature which can, therefore, be used for any illuminating discussion of moral philosophy in India." Ibid., 22. l9 See A.N. Bhattacarya, Dhurma-Adhurma and Morality in the Mahiibhiirata (De1hi:Amar Prakashan, 1985). In this book Bhattacarya is concerned with the fact that there are so many immoral incidents in the epic and the kind of "moral w o r k that they do.

involves familial strife; irresolvable dilemmas; a virtuous queen's violation at the hands of her cousin-brothers; a brutal war in which fratricide and patricide become the norm; and a god, or more specifically God (VimuJQsna), who incarnates on earth, ostensibly to aid the side of dharma, but who encourages some of the most virtuous characters in the epic to lie, deceive, and violate the rules of battle. In particular, the principle of dharma, which throughout the epic is placed in tension with other potentially more powerful forces such as fate and time is presented in a purposefully inscrutable manner. The narrative voice describes the path of d h m as "s~k~rrui"("scarcelydiscernable") and depicts this path as being so subtle that it resists straightforward interpretation; characters who struggle to determine the virtuous path often lose their way, and frequently dharma is transgressed with disastrous consequence^.^^ Given dharma's elusive depiction, does the text ultimately say anything definitive about d h a r m or, for that matter, anything definitive about ethics more broadly? If it does, where does it do so and how? In short, where is ethical meaning located in the Mahdbhdrata? In this dissertation, I argue that the epic conveys its messages less through what it says and more through what it "does," that is how it interacts with its audiences through its aesthetic features, or, what I will call its "narrative strategies." If this is the case, then the implications for locating ethical and religious meaning are enormous. A "narrative strategy" refers to the dynamic interaction between the form and content of the text and

As A.K. Ramanujan aptly puts it, "Not dharma, the good life of right conduct, but dharmasuksmtd or the subtle nature of dharma that mixes good and evil in every act, the impossible labyrinth of the moral life, is the central theme of the Mahdbhdrata" ("Where Mirrors are Windows: Towards an Anthology of Reflections," History of Religions 28/3: 200).

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its impact on a reader or li~tener.~'Significantly, there are numerous instances in the epic where form undermines content. Here meaning proceeds from the asymmetric relation between the two and the way that this impacts the reader or listener. A helpful description of the kind of work that this asymmetrical relation "does" comes, surprisingly enough, from the musician Philip Glass. He describes film-music art (or composing musical scores for film) as "observing accurately the distance between the image and the music." Alex Ross elaborates: "In other words, instead of trying to make image and music serve the same ends, you play one against the other, letting the disparity become an emotional experience in itself."22Similarly, the narrative strategy creates distance between the image (or content) and the telling (or form), and the emotional experience comes from the disjunct between the two. More simply stated, a narrative strategy is a set of instructions that a text deploys to guide its audiences." "Instructions" are those features in a text's literary landscape that "reach out" from the world of the text to the world of the audience in order to effect some transformation; I refer to those who allow themselves to be guided by these

For a helpful discussion of the ways in which the epic's formal properties may be part of its message, see Laurie L. Patton, "Trita's Tumble and Agastya's Ancestors: On the Narrative Construction of Dharma," in Boundaries, Dynamics and Construction of Traditions in South Asia, ed. Frederico Squarcini (Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2005), 133-157. 22 Alex Ross, "Sound and Vision: Glass's 'Koyaanisqatsi' and the art of film scoring," The New Yorker, 27 June 2005; available from http://www. newyorker.com/critics/music/?050627crmu-music.html; Internet; accessed 1 November 2005. " See Umberto Eco, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1993 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 15 and Helen Vendler, Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson,Yeats (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2004), 5. Instructions in audience reception occur in the Mahabharata. S q j a y a provides such instructions to [email protected] 5.156.12- 13; 6.16.5; and 6.73.1-5, as does NFirada to Yudhis.thira at 15.45.9. 21

instructions as "model audience^."^^ A primary function of the epic's narrative strategies is, then, to "reach out" and effect a radical disorientation in the model audience, rupturing conceptual categories that are used to order and comprehend the world in the process.25 Through this process, the epic's strategies are then able to reorient the audience to a new way of understanding. This "disorientinglreorienting effect," has ethical implications since the categories that these strategies attempt to rupture are ones that have serious implications for the moral and religious life, categories such as time (kala), fate (daiva), human initiative (purusakdrd), heaven (devalokd), hell (nurakd), god, and dharma.

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Significantly, these ideas (i.e., narrative strategy and model receiver), which are taken from Western literary theory, are remarkably similar to ideas found in Indian poetics. Built into the concept of the narrative strategy is the notion of an interactive relationship between text and audience. Indian poetics provides a complex and highly developed articulation of that relationship. Many of the most well-known Indian aestheticians, such as Bharata and Abhinavagupta , were acutely interested in understanding how a unified work of art produces rasa, or aestheticized emotion, in the audience. Further, Bhaata's concept of the prebaka (the ideal spectator) and Abhinavagupta's notion of the sahrdaya (the sensitive reader) are similar to the idea of

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For a discussion of the model receiver, see Chapter Two, Section Two. See Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vol. 3, trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1985), 163. 26 Following the example of B.K. Matilal, I take the term "dharma" to mean moral virtue. (See B.K. Matilal, Ethics and Epics, 50). For a good overview of the complex use of the term in the epic, see James L. Fitzgerald, "Dharma and its Translations in the Mahdbhdrata," Journal of Indian Philosophy 3215-5 (2004): 671-85. For scholarship on the basic ways the term has been used in classical texts, see Paul Hacker, "Dharma in Hinduisms," Zeitschriftfur Missionswissenschaft und Religionswissenschaft 49 (1965): 93-106 and Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding (New York: State University of New York Press, 1988), 3 10-33. 25

the model audience. Thus I hope to bring Indian poetics and modem literary criticism, specifically reader-response theory, into a "background conversation" with one another. One of my overarching goals is to show how an exploration of the Mahdbhdrata's narrative strategies is generative for thinking about the location of ethics in the Mahdbhdrata, as well as for understanding how the tradition practiced its moral discourse. Further, I hope to suggest a new method in the study of religion for locating meaning in complex literary texts. The fact that the epic delivers much of its ethical primarily through its narrative strategies shows us that meaning in such texts is expressed not only through content, but also through the complex interaction of content, form, and receiver. Thus a study of the Mahdbhdrata's narrative strategies might help us discover new ways of reading and listening to texts that are historically and geographically "proximate" to the epic, like the works of Valmiki and Ahaghosa, as well as texts that are historically and geographically "distant," like The Book of Job, The Brothers Karamazov, and The New Testament.

2. The Argument: Sufferin?. Ethics. and Narrative Strategies In her recent book Poets Thinking Helen Vendler writes: When, as a young student, I read literary critics, I longed for them to dwell on, and above all to explain, the aesthetic intent governing the unfolding of an individual poem, and wanted as well to see them track the aesthetic determinants of an entire oeuvre. What I did not find, I have tried to create-a criticism guided by the poem as an exemplification of its own inner momentum ....27 Bringing Vendler's "longings" to the Mahabharata, what, we may ask, are "the aesthetic determinants," if any, generating the inner momentum of the great poem? In this

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Vendler, Poets Thinking, 4.

dissertation I argue that one of the central leitmotifs, as well as one of the dominant aesthetic principles guiding the unfolding of the Mahdbhdrata is human despair. My concern is not simply with the fact that the Mahdbhdrata focuses on the theme of sorrow (which it does quite a bit, as I will argue),28but with how its depiction does moral work, that is how it "disorients and reorients" our understanding of other important conceptual categories (such as dharma, daiva, kala, etc.), as well our relationship to many of the epic's principal characters. In the chapters that follow I argue that the method that the epic employs to impart its messages (i.e., its use of narrative strategies) is often intertwined in significant ways with the issue of human sorrow. More concretely, I contend that through the careful deployment of its narrative strategies, the Mahdbhdrata makes a three-fold "argument" about the existence of suffering, the forces that cause it, and the processes that lead to its elimination. The epic's purpose in making this argument is to refigure29the way that its audiences see and hence respond to the world. The transformative impact of the audience's refiguration, I believe, has both epistemological and ontological implications. The discovery of Truth (i.e., the insight generated by the text's messages about suffering as conveyed through its narrative strategies) involves a change in being, that is a radically new orientation to the world.30

Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets, 42. Refiguration, a term borrowed from Paul Ricoeur, refers to "literature's effects on selfunderstanding" and "to the healing and transformative potential of narratives." Charles Hallisey and Anne Hanson, "Narrative Sub-Ethics and the Moral Life: Some Evidence from Theravada Buddhism," Journal of Religious Ethics 2412 (19%), 308-309. 30 Steve Collins writes, "Buddhist thought, like many other forms of Indian religion, blends what might otherwise be distinguished as epistemology and ontology; that is, when the saint realizes the Truth, he or she has not simply acquired a piece of knowledge, but rather, that knowledge instantiates a new existential state or condition." Steve 28

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The project of refiguring our understanding of suffering (and by extension refiguring our understanding of the world) is primarily ethical. "Ethics" here is conceived as the three-fold task of understanding, recognizing, and eliminating suffering. By "recognizing suffering," I refer to the task of seeing suffering as an objective fact. The Mahdbhdrata devotes a tremendous amount of attention to scenes of enormous suffering and grieving (e.g., Draupadi's abuse in the dicing scene; the cruel slaying of Abhirnanyu and its impact on Arjuna, Yudhisthira, Subhadra, and others; the grieving of the women in The Book of the Women, etc). In this dissertation, I am in interested in precisely what such scenes are "doing." "Understanding suffering" involves cultivating a clear sense of the factors that contribute to human misery. The epic explores a plethora of potential causes of sorrow (e.g., fate, time, God, human initiative), but we learn the most about the causes of sorrow through watching characters as they triumph and fail (particularly as they fail). Often in these contexts the narrative voice focuses on the quality of a character's state of mind andlor ability to see. Why? "Eliminating suffering" refers to the techniques and solutions that cause suffering to come to an end. The didactic portions of the text are filled with discussions of techniques that are said to bring an end to sorrow (techniques such as mental restraint and contentment). In this dissertation I will discuss a genre of discourse called "the agumentagainst-grief." In these "arguments" advisors attempt to eliminate suffering by

Collins, "Nirvana, Time, and Narrative," History of Religions 3 113 (1992): 235. I believe that the Mahdbhdrata assumes a similar relationship between epistemology and ontology.

encouraging grieving characters to overcome their sorrow. What kind of rhetorical techniques are used in these discourses and to what effect? In arguing that one of the Mahabharata's overarching tasks is to refigure our understanding of suffering (and, by extension, suffering's impact on a whole host of key conceptual categories in the epic), this dissertation seeks to de-center discussion of ethics in the Mahdbhdrata from the topic of dharma and re-center it on the issue of suffering. A key component of this move will be to consider the relationship between dharma and suffering. Ultimately, I believe that this relationship is one of the overarching preoccupations of the epic and, in part, drives the internal momentum of the narrative.

3. A Poetics of Sufferinp and Chapter Description In his essay "Toward a Historical Poetics of the Sanskrit Epics" David Shulman develops the idea of a "contrastive poetics" which he applies to the Ramdyana and the Mahabhdrata, characterizing them in terms of a "poetics of perfection" and a "poetics of dilemma" respectively: The Ramdyana . . . illustrates the tragedy always consequent on the perfection or the search for perfection, just as the work as a whole could be characterized by what I would call the 'poetics of perfection.' It creates a sustained, lyrical universe peopled by idealized heroes whose very perfections involves them---and the audience-in recurrent suffering. The Mahdbhdrata's heroes, by way of contrast, are anything but perfect; they are deeply flawed human beings, torn by terrible inner conflicts, confused by reality, and driven by a combination of forces towards ultimate disaster. The poem that tells their tale is equally ambiguous and unresolved, with an open-ended quality, on many levels, that distinguishes it from the other epic. I shall refer to the Mahdbhdrata's design - as the 'poetics of dilemma.l''

31

Shulman, The Widsom of the Poets, 24.

While these distinctions are helpful for capturing the differences between some of the "aesthetic determinants" driving the inner momentum of the two epics, for the purposes of this dissertation I would like to slightly shift Shulman's language by supplanting his "poetics of dilemma" with that of a "poetics of suffering." (It is clear from the above quote that Shulman, at a more general level, would characterize both epics in terms of such a poetics.) To me, the idea of the "poetics of suffering" provides a framework for articulating how specific literary features in the epic-namely, characters; themes; and narrative strategies-are related to and impacted by the epic's treatment of the issue of human sorrow. (By the term "poetics" I refer to the nature, form, and laws of poetry -that is, how the poem works. "Aesthetics," on the other hand, refers to the psychological responses to artistic expression-that is, what the poem does. These two approaches, of course, are closely aligned.) 3.1 Characters As Shulman notes, the characters in the Mahobharata are flawed human beings, torn by conflict and confused by reality; their frailties and confusions often lead them into various predicaments that are marked by sorrow and grief. Indeed, characters in the Mahabharata tend to play one or more of four roles vis-a-vis the issue of suffering: 1) the victim (characters who experience pain, either physically or psychologically) ; 2) the agent (those who cause others to suffer); 3) the passive witness (those who observe others in distressful situations and do nothi~g);~' and/or 4) the advisor against grief (those who attempt to dispel the despair of others, i.e. eliminate their suffering). For the most

32

A.K. Ramanujan divides the cast of characters in the Mahdbhdrata into watchers and actors. See Ramanujan, "Repetition in the Mahdbhdrata," 180.

part, the principal characters in the epic fall into more than one of these ~ a t e g o r i e s . ~ ~ Yudhisfhira, for example, is both a victim, a passive witness, and potentially an agent of suffering (see Chapter Two). One way that the text is able to refigure our understanding of suffering is through the depiction of characters vis-a-vis these four roles. In the chapters that follow I hope to show how the epic, through its presentation of the victim, agent, and advisor is able to implement its three-fold ethical project of recognizing, understanding, and eliminating suffering respectively. Further, I will discuss how the presentation of the passive witness "disorients and reorients" our understanding of dhurma. Indeed, the presence of the passive witness is one of the primary locations in the epic where the issue of dharma collides with that of suffering. 3.2 Themes/ Conceptual Categories Another way that the text implements our refiguration is through the presentation of themes, or conceptual categories, some of the most important being fate (daiva), time (kala), previous action (karma), heaven (svarga), hell (naraka), and dharma. Indeed, many of these categories are called upon by characters in moments of crisis in order to help them come to terms with the causes of their despair. For example, when characters lament the death of a loved one, they often blame their loss on time, fate, and/or karma

For an example of a character typology in Sanskrit literary theory, see Manmohan Gosh, tr., The N@yaSistra: A Treatise on Hindu Dramaturgy and Histrionics, 201-213. Bharata distinguishes between three kinds of male and female characters: the low; middle; and high, from less to more virtuous. More significantly, he defines heroes and heroines as those who experience misfortune; they are classified according to their responses to distressful situations. Thus, the four classes of heroes are the self-controlled and vehement, the self-controlled and light-hearted, the self controlled and exalted, and the self-controlled and calm. The four classes of heroines are the self-controlled, the light-hearted, the exalted, and the modest.

33

(less frequently), or they comfort themselves with the thought that the deceased will now enjoy heaven. In this context, then, the categories are summoned to either explain, justify, or make suffering palatable in some way or another. Further, many of these categories become the subject of the Mahabhdrata's many riddle-questions; these questions often pivot on the issue of suffering. 34 The epic answers these questions, as van Buitenen has pointed out, with more questions (hence the term "riddle-question" or praina).35 One of my basic arguments is that when specific conceptual categories (such as fate, time, karma, etc.) come into contact with suffering that it tends to explode our understanding of that category. This is especially true of dharrna; a fundamental question that the epic raises is "Why is the dharmic path implicated in so much sorrow?'(For example, Yudhis.@ira agrees to the disastrous dice game because of his commitment to dharma; the Pwdavas fight the war with their cousins for the sake of dharma, etc.)

3.3 Narrative Strategies The third narrative feature of the Mahabhdrata's poetics-of-suffering framework is one that I have already discussed: the narrative strategy. While the Mahiibharata contains many different strategies, in this dissertation I will focus on six: 1) proximity; 2) estrangement; 3) ambiguity; 4) deferral; 5) rupture; and 6 ) temporal manipulation (the -

34 Most of these riddles-questions revolve around two related issues: the question of human agency and the complexities of the moral life. To what extent do human beings have freedom to make decisions and act, and to what extent to are they bound like puppets on a string (a common motif in the Mahabharata) to forces beyond their control? To what extent does being good and following the right course of action (i.e, following dharma) insure happiness? If the path of virtue, does not lead to happiness or perfection, or worse, leads to suffering, is it worth it? 35 For a discussion of the distinction between a riddle and a p d n a , or question, see David Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets, 43. For a discussion of p d n a s in the Mahabharata, see Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabhdrata, 240.

first two often work together, as do the third and fourth).36 I have chosen to focus on these particular strategies because they are effective tools in refiguring our understanding of suffering. "Proximity" refers to those strategies that direct our sympathies towards the actions and fortunes of a specific character; "estrangement," points to those strategies that encourage our emotional and critical distance from characters. "Ambiguity" refers to the ways in which the Mahdbhdrata provides several, contradictory accountsfor one issue while "deferral" refers to the ways in which the text postpones resolving the ambiguity (thus turning the questions into riddle- question^).^^ By my use of the term "rupture" I refer to those aspects of the text that create abysses or gaps in semantic meaning;38by "temporal manipulation" I point to the ways in which the text undermines notions of temporal linearity (i.e., the movement of past to present to future) and forward progression.

3.4 Chapter Outline Chapter Two sets up my reading of the Mahabhdrata vis-a-vis the poetics of suffering framework by considering the various dimensions of approaching the Mahdbhdrata as a work of sophisticated literary art. Chapters Three through Six will explore some combination of the components of the poetics-of-sufferingframework in

Proximity and estrangement tend to impact how we feel and think about characters; ambiguity, deferral, rupture, and temporal manipulation tend to determine how we think and feel about conceptual categories. 37 Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabhdrata, 277. 38 For a slightly different application of the concept of rupture to the epic, see David Gitomer, "King Duryodhana: The Mahdbhdrata Discourse of Sinning and Virtue in Epic and Drama," Journal of the American Oriental Society 11212 (1992): 225 and 232. See also Alf Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahdbhdrata, 5. 36

order to show how the text uses these features to build its "argument" about the existence of suffering, the forces that cause it, and the processes that lead to its elirninati~n.~~ Chapter Three focuses on the presentation of four characters and one theme in the dicing scene. First I examine how the actions of three characters (Duryodhana, Dwarii@a, and Yudhighira) lead to the game of dice and Draupadi's subsequent abuse. Here I argue that the strategies of estrangement promote insights into the causes of suffering as well as the processes that promote its elimination. Next I focus on the relentlessly detailed description of Draupadi's violation in the assembly hall and how the strategies of proximity encourage us to recognize the existence of suffering. Finally, I explore Draupadi's question to Yudhis.thira concerning the validity of his stake, examining what this question tells us about d h a r m and about suffering. Here I contend that the strategies of rupture provide an "argument" about the forces that blind us from the presence of sorrow. Chapter Four investigates the depiction of a single character, Dwariigra as both

an agent and a victim of suffering. More specifically, I examine the relationship between the characterization of the blind king, the narrative's construction of time, and the issue of grief. I consider four instances in the epic where the depiction of Dlqtariigra is important with respect to these issues: (1) DWriis.tra's lament in the epic's outermost frame in The Book of the Beginning; ( 2 ) DwrZis.tra's role in the failed peace negotiations in The Book of the Effort (3) Dhpuiis.tra's articulations of grief in the frame of the battle books; and (4) Dmiis.tra's despair after the war and the three "argumentsThe point of these chapters is not to provide a comprehensive account of how all the literary features of the poetics of suffering function in the Mahdbhdrata; nor is the goal to show all the ways the narrative strategies handle this issue. Rather, the goal is to simply show how the poetics of suffering drives the internal momentum of the epic. 39

against-grief that he receives in The Book of the Women. At the same time, I consider three types of narrative strategies and their role in the text's "argument" about the causes of despair estrangement, ambiguity, and temporal manipulation. Chapter Five explores the theme of time. First I examine two dominant "theories of time," the system of world ages or "yugas" and what scholars have called the epic's "doctrine of time" (kiilavada) and what I will refer to as the epic's "account" of time. I focus on these two conceptions of time because both depict time as an oppressive, destructive force that is implicated in the presence of suffering. I argue that the passages that discuss the idea of the yugas are, for the most part, not fundamental to the epic's plot and do not directly address some of the epic's deepest riddle-questions. The passages that discuss the epic's account of time, however, are located at pivotal moments in the epic and are central to the moral and aesthetic dimensions of the text. Second, I consider what the text's narrative strategies "do" with time. Here I examine four different strategies that manipulate time and how they encourage specific insights into the nature of time and its role in the production of suffering and the elimination of despair. Chapter Six analyzes the epic's treatment of several important themes through considering whether or not the Mahdbhdrata provides a rationale for the existence of suffering (i.e., a theodicy). First, I consider the epic's treatment of both fate (daiva) and human endeavor ( p u r u M r a ) as potential theodicies by examining their role in the dicing scene. Next I investigate whether or not karma and Qsna provide rationales for the existence of suffering. Finally, I examine the epic's enigmatic conclusion (when the

Pandavas journey to h e a ~ e n )1. argue ~ that, due to the strategies of ambiguity, neither fate, human endeavor, karma, nor Q s n a provide conclusive answers to the theodicy question. Rather, the epic rejects a "straightforward" approach and addresses the issue in a more dramatic fashion. Through the deployment of the strategies of rupture, proximity, and estrangement in the journey-to-heaven episode, I argue that the epic prepares its audiences for its stark revelation of the structure of the world, a revelation that I will argue is the epic's response to the theodicy problem. Finally, in my concluding chapter (Chapter Seven) I consider in more detail the relationship between dharma and suffering and its implications for locating ethical meaning in the Mahdbhdrata. 4. A Brief Note on Terminoloffv By the term "suffering," I refer to the state of feeling pain or distress (either physical or mental) due to loss, injury, harm, or any other unwanted condition. Synonyms include agony, woe, sorrow, misery, grief, unhappiness, affliction, dissatisfaction, and pain. Several Sanskrit terms are employed in the Mahdbhdrata to denote the idea of suffering. These include d u w (sorrow, grief, difficulty):' lamentation, wailing, deep anguish):'

40

ioka (grief, distress,

drti (distress, affliction, ~uffering):~durmanas

This takes place in the epic's last two books, books seventeen and eighteen, The Book of the Great Departure and The Book of the Ascent to Heaven, respectively. 4' Vaman Shivaram Apte, The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Kyoto: Rinsen Book Company, 2003), 3 19. 42 Ibid., 1669. 43 Ibid., 355.

(troubled in mind, dispirited, sad),44vimanas (out of one's senses, downcast, disconso~ate)~~ and the verbs Jdah (to burn, scorch, consume, destroy, pain, torment, distress, grieve)%and Jtao (to shine, be hot, suffer pain, hurt, injure, torment, mortify the body)?7 A number of the epic's didactic passages discuss the nature of suffering as well as its causes and re me die^.^ While Chapters Three, Four, and Five will focus on different dimensions of these discussions, several recurring ideas are expressed in them. First is the notion that suffering is an unavoidable part of existence, a condition to which all human beings are subject.49Further, according to many of these passages, the condition of human sorrow is due, in part, to thirst (tmw), or attachment (sneha) to youth, beauty, wealth, and loved ones-objects that by nature are transitory.% Sorrow or grief due to the loss of any one of these objects is a grave danger because it leads to confusion, madness, inaction, and further sorrow. Thus Vidura says to DQtaras.tra:

Ibid., 322. 45 Arthur Anthony Macdonell, A Practical Sanskrit Dictionary (New Delhi: Munishiram Manoharlal, 2003), 287. 46 Apte, The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 806. 47 Ibid., 760. 48 These include (but are not limited to) ~aunakaand Markaqdeya's discourses to Yudhis.thira in The Book of the Forest (3.2.15-3. I), 'The Colloquy of the Brahmin and the Hunter," also in The Book of the Forest (3.198.1-207. I), Samjaya's speech to Yudhis.thira and Vidura's words of "comfort" to Dlqxaras.tra in the The Book of the Effort (5.23.1-30.1 and 5.33.15-41.I), and the various discourses that fall under the rubric of "the-argument-against-grief (e.g., Vyasa's discourse to Yudhis.thira after the death of Abhimanyu in The Book of Droqa [Appendix 1, no.81; Swjaya and Vidura's discourses to D m a s + t r aafter the death of Duryodhana and the defeat of the Kauravas in The Book of the Women [ l 1.1.21-2.1 and 11.2.1-8.11, Vyasa's discourse to Yudhis.thira in The Book of the Peace [12.26.1-27.11). 49 See, for example, Samjaya's statements to Yudhis-thiraat 5.27.3. % See, for example, ~aunaka's statements to Yudhis.thira at 3.2.26-27. 44

Grief destroys beauty, grief destroys strength, grief destroys wisdom, from grief one acquires disease. Nothing is gained by sorrow; it afflicts the body and one's enemies rejoice. Do not yield to sorrow.51 The means to eliminate suffering (both for oneself and in terms of one's proclivity to harm others) is through mental restraint or contentment (samtosa, prasdnti). The contented person is described as "that person who greets everything (including suffering and happiness) with equanimity, who is not troublesome, who speaks truthfully, and who is indifferent to worldly objects."52 Two important distinctions are embedded in this formulation; the first is between physical and mental suffering. While both types of suffering are discussed in the e p i ~ ~ ~ e m p h aiss given is to mental suffering, particularly in terms of locating both the source and the remedy for human s ~ r r o w Thus, . ~ when the y a b a (a supernatural being who is the god Dharma in disguise) asks Yudhis.thira "What does not grieve when tamed?'Yudhislhira answers, "the mind" ( m a n ~ s ) . ~ ~ Second is the distinction between what I will call "reflexive" (i.e., self-directed) and "transitive" (i.e., other-directed) suffering. The depiction of suffering in the Mahdbhdrata reveals the close alliance between these two phenomena. Once a person succumbs to mental despair (i.e., self-directed suffering), one literally loses one's mind and makes decisions and takes actions that have disastrous consequences both for oneself and for others. sarqkipad bhraiyate rupam samtapad bhraiyate balam I sumtapad bhraiyate jmnam samtdpad vyadhim rcchatill anavapyam ca sokena sariram copatapyatel amitra ca prahgyanti ma sm joke manah krth*. 5.36.42-43. 52 sarvasamyam anayasah satyavdkyam ca ...nirvedaS. . . 12.17 1.2-3. 53 See Saunaka's discourse to Yudhis.f.hira at 3.2.15-3.3.1. 54 See, for example, Bhima's speech to Yudhis.thira at 12.16.1- 17.1 and Qsna's speech to Yudhighira at 14.12.1. 55 3.297.54-55. 51

Some might assume that since I am exploring the literary representation of suffering in the Mahdbhdrata that I will argue for a Buddhist influence on the epic. Quite the contrary, as Louis Gonzales-Reimann points out, suffering was a preoccupation of many pre-modern brahmanical texts? In general terms, much of the new religious thought of the time [of the composition of the Mahdbhdrata] centered around the transitory nature of worldly existence, and the inevitability of death. This, in turn, painted a picture of the world as a place of suffering and hardship, a place of bondage from which one sought to be freed by one method or another. For the nascent Buddhism, the depiction of the world as a place of suffering was of central importance, but such a portrayal was also strongly present in brahmanical circles, as is made clear by some Upanisads and the foundational texts of the classical systems of Yoga and Saqd~hya.~~ Suffering has long been considered an important category in the study of religion (as Jack Bemporal points out, "suffering, more than any other fact of human life, raises the philosophical questions that religion is customarily called to answer).% However, "Hinduism(s)" is often omitted in discussions on the topic,59Even when suffering is

1 do not mean to deny the fact that the authors of the Mahdbhdrata were most likely in conversation with Buddhist interlocutors on this issue and I would welcome any study on the topic. I only mean to steer the conversation away from the notion that suffering is predominantly a Buddhist category in the South Asian context and not a pan-Indian one. 57 Luis Gonzalez-Reimann, The Mahdbhdrata and the Yugas: India's Great Epic Poem and the Hindu System of World Ages (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), 206. In a footnote to this passage, Gonzalez-Reimann writes, "The well-known Buddhist expression that everything is suffering or pain, duhkha, requires no further comments. The term ( d u w a ) is used with similar intentions in the Yoga Szitra of Pataiijali (2.15-16), and in -I5varabsna's Swkhya Kdrikd (1). For the Upanipds, see expecially the Maitrdyawa 1.3-4; the earlier Chwdogya (7.1.3) uses the equivalent term ioka." Ibid., 209. % Jack Bemporad, "Suffering," in The Encyclopedia of Religion, 2d ed, vol.13., ed. Lindsay Jones (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005), 8804-8809. 59 For example, the entry on "suffering" in the Encyclopedia of Religion focuses on Christianity and Islam (Ibid., 8804-8809); The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics considers only Christian doctrine (T.B. Kilpatrick, "Suffering" in The Encyclopedia of Religious Ethics, vol. 12, ed. James Hastings [New York: Scribner, 19611, 1-10); in The Harper Collins Dictionary of Religion, again only Buddhism is considered ("Suffering" in The Harper Collins Dictionary of Religion, ed. Jonathan Z. Smith [San Francisco: 56

discussed in the context of Hinduism(s), the Mahdbhdrata is rarely c o n ~ i d e r e dThus .~ my aim is to add the Mahdbhdrata to the list of "sacred texts" (i.e., those texts that are important to us in the study of religion) that offer powerful meditations on the philosophical, theological, and ethical issues raised by the phenomenon of human sorrow.

Harper Collins, 19951, 1028-29); and The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy includes only Buddhist points of view on the origination of suffering (Marek Mejor, "Suffering, Buddhist Views of Origination o f in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol.9, ed. Edward Craig [New York: Routledge, 19981,215-19). For discussions on suffering in the Hindu context, see John Bowker, Problems of Suffering in the Religions of the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 193-237; Arthur Herman, The Problem of Evil and Indian Thought (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976); Kapil N. Tiwari, ed., Suffering in Indian Religions (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986); Brian K. Smith, "Hinduism," in Evil and Suffering, ed. Jacob Neusner (Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press, 1998), 7-35. A notable exception is Greg Bailey's article in Tiwari, ed., Suffering in Indian Religions, 38-60.

Chapter Two Appreciating the MahabhZruta as Literature: Text, Method, and Audience I believe that the largest inadequacy in Mahdbharata scholarship,including my own up to 1991, is simply the failure to appreciate the epic as a work of literature. Alf Hiltebeitel, "Reconsidering B~guization"

In this chapter I chart a course for reading the Mahabharata as a work of sophisticated literary art. First I provide a brief overview of the compositional details of the text. Next I lay out the methodology that grounds my analysis of the Mahabharata as well as this project's intended audience members. Finally, I provide a brief summary of the epic.

As mentioned, the Mahabharata is a sophisticated, lengthy narrative, labyrinthine in character and encyclopedic in scope. Divided into eighteen books (parvan),which are further divided into chapters (adhydya),it also possesses a parallel division into one hundred minor books or sub-parvans.'

The eighteen books are 1 ) Adiparvan, The Book of the Beginning (7,196 verses and 156 prose units in 225 adhydyas), 2) Sabhaparvan, The Book of the Assemble Hall (2,390 verses in 72 adhyciyas), 3 ) Aranykaparvan, The Book of the Forest (10,141 verses and 84 prose units in 299 adhydyas), 4) Virdtaparvan, The Book of Viraa (1,834 verses in 67 adhydyas), 5) Udyogaparvan, The Book of the Effort (6,063 verses in 197 adhydyas), 6 ) Bhipnaparvan, The Book of Bhijrna (5,406 verses in 117 adhydyas), 7 ) Drowparvan, The Book of Droga (8112 verses in 173 adhydyas), 8) Karya arvan, The Book of Karga (3871 verses in 69 adhydyas), 9) Salyaparvan, The Book of alya (3293 verses in 64 adhydyas), 10) Sauptikaparvan, The Book of the Night Massacre (772 verses in 18 adhydyas), 1 1 ) Striparvan, The Book of the Woman (730 verses in 27 adhydyas), 12) $antiparvan, The Book of Peace (12,890 verses and 57 prose units in 353 adhydyas), (13) Anusdsanaparvan, The Book of the Instruction (6536 verses in 154 adhydyas), 14) hamedhikaparvan, The Book of the Horse Sacrifice(2862 verses in 94 adhydyas), 15)

,"

Most of the text is composed in verse, usually two-line stanzas which follow a metrical pattern of anq~ubhor "after-praise" of thirty-two syllables or trigtubh "threepraise" of forty-four meters. There are also verses in other meters and some prose

passage^.^ Historically, very little is known about the composition of the Mahdbhdrata. Even the most basic questions, such as where the text was composed or who composed it are difficult to answer. Most scholars agree that the oldest portions of the epic as we have it now are probably not older than 400 BCE and the latest portions are not later than 400 CE.

Recently, Alf Hiltebeitel has argued for a narrower chronological span of

composition from the mid-second century BCE to the year zero." Tradition assigns the authorship of the Mahabhdrata to Vyiha, who is also a character in the story (he is the father of DWaas@a,Pwdu, and Vidura, and thus the grandfather of the Pmcjavas and Kurus). However, most scholars agree that Vyba is a symbolic author and that the epic is the product of many authors working over a period of several cent~ries.~ More recent scholarship has begun to view the text as we have it now

firamika~dsika~atvan, The Book of the Stay in the Forest Hermitage (1062 verses in 47 adhydyas) 16) Mausalapatvan, The Book of the Club-Battle (273 verses in 9 adhydyas), 17) Mahdprasthanikapatvan The book of the Great Departure (106 verses in 3 adhydyas), and 18) Svargarohanaparvan, The Book of the Ascent to Heaven (194 verses in 5 adhydyas). For scholarship on the meter of the Mahabhdrata, see Barend van Nooten, The a Vydsa (New York: Twayne Publishers, Mahabharata, Attributed to K c ~ Dvaipdyana 1971), 50-51; John Brockington, The Sanskrit Epics (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998), 117-30; James L. Fitzgerald, "The Mahdbharata," in The Hindu World, ed. Sushi1 Mittel and Gene Thursby (New York: Routledge, 2004), 52-74. Fitzgerald, Ibid,, 55. Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabhdrata, 18. For a good discussion of the scholarly debates involving dating the epic, Ibid., 10-17. scholarship on the role of Vyasa in the Mahabhiirata, see Krishna Chaitanya, The Mahdbhdrata: A Literary Study (New Delhi: Clarion Books, 1985), 25-45; J.L. Mehta,

or

as the careful composition of a final redactor or group of redactor^.^ According to this view, the Mahabharata is, despite being the product of many authors over a significant span of time, a work of conscious d e ~ i g n . ~ 1.1. The Structure of the Mahabhdrata Perhaps the most innovative feature of the Mahabharata, compositionally speaking, is its use of frame storie~.~ The Mahabhdrata possesses an embedded structure of stories within stories. One story often leads to the telling of another so that they are embedded in a complex web of interlocking narratives, which exist at varying points in time. The effect is dizzying; one often feels that one has completely lost track of where one is in the grand scheme of the narrative. Further, as Chris Minkowski points out, a frame story is self-referential, it is a story about the telling and reception of another story.' The frame stories in the Mahdbhdrata tell us when, where, by whom, and to whom a particular story was told.

"Dvaipayana: "Poet of Being and Becoming" in The Mahobharata Revisted, 101-11; Bruce Sullivan, KGUI Dvaipdyana Vyha and the Mahdbhdrata: A New Interpretation (Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1990); Alf Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahdbharata, 32-92; and Arti Dhand, 'The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahdbhdrata," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 7211 (2004), 44-54. ti Hi1tebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabharata, 19. Other Euro-Ameriean scholars who have argued that the Mahabhdrata is a work of conscious design are A.K. Ramanujan, "Repetition in the Mahdbhdrata" and Patricia Greer, "Kama Within the Net of the Mahabharata," (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Virginia, 2001). 1 use the term "innovative" because some scholars argue that the Mahabharata is the first text to employ this device. See Christopher Z. Minkowski, "Janamejaya's Sattra and Ritual Structure," Journal of the American Oriental Society 10913 (1989): 412. For scholarship on the framing device in the Mahobharata, see Minkowski, Janamejaya's Sattra, 401-420; Tamar Reich, "A Battlefield of a Text: Inner Textual Interpretation in the Sanskrit Mahdbharata" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1998), 4-6,56-64; and Alf Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabharata: A Reader's Guide to the Education of the Dhurma King (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 92- 130. 9 Minkowski, "Janamejaya's Sattra," 402.

Thus, audience reception is built into the design of the Mahabharata; "textualized audiences" are created whenever a character tells a story to another character. Indeed, many of the epic's stories, sub-stories, and retelling of stories are woven together through questions prompted by a built-in audience member to his or her narrator. For example, the Mahabhdrata contains two outer frames that introduce the narrators and the audience members of the first two tellings of the epic.'' The outermost frame (as well as the Mahdbhdrata itself) begins when Ugrairavas, a siita and pauraniku, that is an expert in telling stories about kings, meets a group of brahmins, headed by Saunaka, in the Naimisa forest who ask him to tell them the story of the Mahabhdrata: We want to hear that ancient legend promoting dharma and dispelling all fear and evil that was related by the eminent sage Dvaipayana, which the Gods and seers of Brahman honored when they heard it! That divine language of the most excellent of stories, with many words and books, possessing logic and subtle meaning, decorated with the meaning of the Veda, the sacred account of the Bh-tas, composed of purposeful wording, ruled by refinement and reinforced by all the sciences. ...11 UgraSravas agrees and begins by recounting the story of where, when, and with whom he first heard the story of the great Bhaatas. This took place at Janamejaya's snake sacrifice (Janamejaya is a descendent of the ~hiiratas)'~ where VaiSqpayana told the story of the

lo Hiltebeitel adds a third frame, which he calls variously the outer/middle/cosmological frame. However, I believe that Hiltebeitel and I disagree on what constitutes a frame. I am using the term "frame" to refer to a story about the telling of another story, a story which, by definition, opens and closes the story which it frames. Conversely, Hiltebeitel seems to use the term to refer to different levels of the narrative; these levels being "historical or genealogical" (his inner frame); cosmological; and authorial (his outermost frame). See Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabharata, 94. l 1 dvaipdyanenu yat proktam purdnam paramaryiw Isurair brahmur.$bhiS caiva Srutva yad abhipajitam II tasyakhyanuvari&sya vicitrapadaparva@ / sakpuirthanyayayuktasya vedarthair bheitasya ca // bharatasyetihasasyap u m brahmim ndnOsostropab~hitm.. . Srotum grantharthasamyutam/ sa+ropagatm icchdmo dharmym pdpabhaydpahdm. 1.1.15-19. l 2 He is Parksit's son and Arjuna's great grandson.

Mahabharata to King Janamejaya in the presence of the epic's ostensible author, VyW.

Ugrahavas says:

I heard the many auspicious stories, possessing diverse meanings contained in the Mahdbhdrata, taught by Q$ga Dvaipayana and narrated according to the rule by Vaisargpayana in the presence of the great-spirited, royal seer Janamejaya, best of kings and son of Pariksit, at his snake sacrifice.13 This context, that of Janamejaya's snake sacrifice where the first telling of the Mahabhdrata took place, is the inner frame story of the Mahdbharata. When Ugrairavas

introduces Vaisargpayana's narration of the Mahabharata, then Vaihargpayana's voice as narrator takes over; this is signaled by the words "Vaiiargpayana u v W or "Vaifiampayana said."14 Once it begins, the Vaiimpayana-Janarnejaya frame story is carefully maintained throughout the epic.'' At almost every transition in the story, the reader1 listener is reminded of this frame because Janamejaya, an active participatory listener, often asks a question or requests elaboration of a story that Vaisargpayana has narrated.16 Thus, Janamejaya's questions often prompt the direction of the story. For example, in the dicing scene, Vaiiargpayana provides a rather brief account of the events that lead up to D-iispa's

decision to sanction the fateful dice game. After he finishes, Janamejaya

requests to be told in more detail how the game came about. He says: How did that disastrous game between brothers come about where my grandfathers the Padavas fell victim to calamity? Who were the kings who were

13

janamejayasya rajarseh sarpasatre mahatmanah I samipe pdrthivendrasya samyak

pdrik;itasya ca I1 kppidvaipdyanuprokt@ supunyd v i v i d w kuthahi kuthitOS cctpi vidhivad ya vaiiampdyanena vai I1 Srutvah4q td vicitrartha mahabhdratasa@rit@. 1.1.8-10. l4 This takes place at 1.55.1. l5 Minkowski, "Janamejaya's Sattra," 403. l6 Ibid., 403

the assistants of the assembly, most learned of brahmins? Who sanctioned it and who disapproved of it? I want you to tell me this in more detail." This request prompts Vaih~payanato narrate the story of the events that led to the game all over again; this time in more detail. The presence of the outermost ugra&avas-3aunaka frame is less pervasive. For the most part, Ugrahavas' presence as narrator is cited in the first fifty-four adhydyas or chapters of The Book of the Beginning. Once Vai3a~payanais introduced as the narrator, Ugrahavas is mentioned rarely.18 Minkowski argues that the ~~rasrvas-Saunaka frame is less organically connected to the Bhiirata central story than the Vai6a~payana-Janamejayaframe; I will argue for a deeper connection than Minkowski suggests. Specificall ~~rairavas-Saunaka frame allows the text to make an "argument" about one of its great themes: time. Through this particular frame the text is able to manipulate the audience's experience of time. One reason the text is able to do so is precisely because Ugrasravas is rarely mentioned. Thus, his presence is forgotten and his sudden re-insertions "disorient" our assumptions about our temporal location in the story." The Mahdbhdrata's framing technique does not exist only at the text's borders; it is pervasive throughout. For example, the four battle books, books six through nine, have a frame story. In the frame of these books, Swjaya narrates the events of the war to the

17

kathaq samabhavad dytttaq b h r a t m e tan mahatyayam / yatra tad v y a s a n q praptaq p@qhvair me pitamahaih I1 ke ca tatra sabhostara rajano brahmavittama I ke cainarn anvamodanta ke cainam pratyasedhayan II vistare@tad icchami kathyamnum tvaya dvija. 2.46.1-3 l8 But not never, as Minkowski suggests. ' Ugrairavas reappears infrequently. Two important places in the text where he does so are in the dicing scene (see Chapter Five, Section Three) and in the Putradarianaparvan of The Book of the Stay in the Forest Hermitage (15.42.1 and 15.42.6).

oft-lamenting [email protected],20 Some scholars consider the Sqjaya-Dh@u&tra frame to be "the most highly elaborated of the frame stories" as well as the most "tense and emotional" since the lamenting Dl@ara$.tra often blames his son Duryodhana for the war, and Smjaya insists that D m & $ r a must face the fact that he (D-g.tra)

is to blame. 21

Minkowski calls the Mahiibhiirata's use of frame stories "an inalienable part of the Mahabhdrata's narrative identity."22 I believe that much of what the Mahdbhiirata "does" it achieves through its framing-embedding technique. The frame stories allow the text to foreground the significance of audience reception since Janamejaya's questions in many cases drives the narrative. Further, these framing devices provide the text with the opportunity to present itself in specific ways. The epic not only begins by telling us when and where it was told, but it also tells us what it is about (i.e., d h a r m ~ , ~ ~ a"that nd which concerns the soul"24),the merits of listening to it(to purify one's sins;25to cause one to never despair, even in dire situation^^^), and its genre (kathd, purdga, akhydna,veda, Sdstra, etc?). Third, as I suggested above, the framing device gives the text the ability to manipulate time, a trajectory that will be explored in more depth in Chapters Three and Four.

Thus V.B Athavale calls the Mahiibhdrata "a triple dialogue." V.B Athatvale, 'The Role of Vyasa, Smjaya and Sauti in the Kuru War Narration," The Journal of the Ganganatha Jha Research Institute 3 11 (1945), 12141. 21 Minkowski, "Janamejaya7sSattra," 406.See Chapter Four for a more extensive discussion of this frame. 22 Ibid. 1.1.14. 24 adhydtma. 1.1.%. 1.1.191. 26 nu kpxhrejvavasidati. 1.1.199. " 1.1.8-20. 20

"

2. Method As mentioned above, this project approaches the Mahdbhdrata as a literary whole and argues that attention to the epic's content and structure yields answers to some of its many riddle-questions, many of which have a direct bearing on what the text is ultimately saying about the moral life. My method entails bringing together those interpretive practices that serve to best train my eyes to read in a historically and philologically responsible manner, and yet in a way that is particularly attuned to questions that are pertinent to literary theory and moral philosophy. With these aims in mind, five categories of interpretive tools are employed: 1) close, careful and attentive reading of the Sanskrit Critical Edition and other major recensions;2) use of and occasional references to traditional commentaries; 3) Sanskrit poetics; 4) modern literary criticism, specifically reader-response theory; 5) and finally, the work of contemporary moral philosophers who have begun to explore the ethical value of literary texts. While these interpretive tools ground my reading of the Mahabharata, they are not thickly woven into my analysis. Their purpose is to help me gain access to various dimensions of the text, not to overtake the spotlight.

2.1 The Critical Edition This project relies upon the Critical Edition of the Sanskrit Mahdbharata and its variants as the base text.28 While scholars agree that the Critical Edition should not be

28

The Critical Edition was begun at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune under the general direction of V.S. Sukthankar in 1925. Publication was carried out between 1933 and 1966. 1,259 manuscripts were examined and 734 used. The manuscripts were classified first as either Northern or Southern recensions, and then, on the basis of the scripts used, into versions. The main basis for inclusion was occurrence in both recensions, which means that the Critical Edition is on the whole closer to the

regarded a version of the Mahabhdrata that ever existed anywhere at any time in India:9 the Critical Edition itself is invaluable in that it provides a common starting point for Mahdbhdrata scholarship in the Sanskrit textual traditioa30 Further, it provides a remarkable scholarly apparatus with the variants that it provides in the footnotes and appendices.31Using the Critical Edition as my base, I will also consult the other major recensions from Calcutta, Bombay and South India.32

Northern Recension, since the Southern Recension is longer. The aim was to reconstruct the oldest possible form of the text. For an extended criticism of classical stemmatics as it was implemented by the editors of the Critical Edition, see Tamar Reich, "A Battlefield of a Text." For scholarship on the Critical Edition, its aim, method, and historical context, see V.S Sukthankar, ed., "Prolegomena." In The Adiparvan: Being the First Book of the Mahabhdrata (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933) i-cx; Brockington, The Sanskrit Epics, 58-59; Reich, "A Battlefield of a Text," 13-21; and Fitzgerald, 'The Mahabhdrata," 68-70. 29 John Dunharn writes, "The text of the Mahdbharata as it appears in the C.E. cannot be regarded as a version known in any part of India at any time in the past. To accept it as such would be to ignore what has been shown about the 'regionalism' of every version of the Mahdbhdrata for which there is evidence." John Dunham, 'The Mahdbhdrata: A Survey and Discussion" in Essays on the Mahdbhdrata, edited by Arvind Sharma (Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1991), 17. Madeline Biardeau had a similar critique. According to her, 'The editors up till now have concentrated on the reconstruction of a single text out of the several known recensions, but it is recognized by everybody, including the editors themselves, that such a text never existed. It never represented the actual beliefs of any particular group, nor could it claim to stand for the minimum common beliefs of the Hindus." Madeline Biardeau, "Some More Considerations about Textual Criticism," Purciqa 10.2 (1968): 115-123. Biardeau proposed the preparationof a synoptic edition in which all versions will be represented side by side. 30 Fitzgerald writes, "the Pune edition has been an immense scholarly advance in the study of the written Sanskrit Mahdbhdrata tradition and is today the starting point of all serious investigation of this part of the Mahiibhdrata tradition." He further notes that the Japanese scholar Muneo Tokunaga spearheaded the digitization of the Pune text in 1996, which was reworked by John Smith three years later. These searchable computer files have offered tremendous new advantages for Mahdbhdrata scholarship. Fitzgerald, 'The Mahdbhdrata." 31 Sukthankar writes: "the Mahabhdrata is the whole of the Epic tradition, the entire Critical Apparatus. Its separation into the constituted text and the critical notes is only a static representation of a constantly changing epic text." Sukthankar, "Prolegomena," cii. 32 The best known version of the Mahobhdrata-the Vulgate- was established in Varanasi by Nilakaqtha, a Marathi Brahman, in the last quarter of the seventeenth century

The concerns of the Critical Edition mentioned above could raise specific concerns about a narrative-strategy approach to the Mahdbhdrata, since it suggests that my focus will yield insights into a text that never existed. To address this problem, I argue that it might not be unreasonable to assume that a narrative-strategy mechanism is operating in all the editions. (According to Biardeau, if we go from one version to another, "we are struck much more by the identity of the narrative than its variant

reading^.")^^ Another difficulty is that my focus could raise concerns about dismissing the oral aspects of the Mahdbhdrata tradition. Many would argue that the Mahdbhdrata, after all, is an oral composition and one of the primary ways that it has been transmitted over the centuries is through oral performance: it, most likely, has been danced and sung and performed dramatically since its inception. My response to this difficulty is two-fold: First of all, a narrative-strategy approach could be especially attuned to the performative aspects of the text. Hence a narrative strategy approach could also be applied to dance, art, drama etc. For practical purposes, I am limiting myself to the Sanskrit text.34

and is usually identified with the Northern Recension; Nilakargha also wrote an extensive commentary on the epic. The first printed edition of the Mahabhdrata was published in Calcutta from 1834 to 1839, which also presented a "northern" version of the epic. This was followed by the publishing in Bombay in 1862-63 of Nilakq.tha's text. The longer Southern Recension was first published at Kumbakonam from 1906 to 1910. Mohan Ganguli's English translation of the Mahabhdrata (1884%) is based on the Northern Recension. 33 Madeline Biardeau, "Some Remarks on the Links Between the Epics, the Purdyzs and Their Vedic Sourses," in Studies in Hinduism, ed. Gerhard Oberhammer (Wein: Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1997), 69-177. 34 See Joyce Flueckiger and Laurie Sears's Introduction to their edited volume Boundaries of the Text: Epic Performance in South and Southeast Asia (Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Studies, University of Michigan, 1991) for a good discussion of the relationship between epic performances and written texts, Focusing on indigenous concepts of the relationship between oral performance and written text, they

Second, it is very likely that the Mahiibhdrata was committed to writing relatively early in its textual history; thus, the Mahdbhdrata in its written incarnations also has a long history within the tradition. 35 2.2 Commentaries on the Mahdbhdrata My ability to read the Mahabhdrata closely and carefully has been enhanced by the use of the available commentaries on the epic. The only published commentaries are those of Devabodha (before 1100) and Nilakaqtha (c. 1700 A.D.). The unpublished commentaries are those of Arjunamisra (c. 1450-1500 A.D), Caturbhujamisra (c. 1350 A.D.), Ratnagarbha (?), Sarvajfia-Naayana (c. 1100 A.D.) and Vidyasiigara (c. 1350 A.D.). Unfortunately, these unpublished manuscripts are very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain.36

argue that these categories force us to rethink our assumptions about the clear-cut distinctions between oral and written texts. 35 Tamar Reich puts the oral vs. written problem well: "To say that the Mahdbhdrata is 'really' an oral text is absurd. With such masses of manuscripts, how can anybody deny that writing is a factor? Writing and all that it implies culturally and politically is constitutive to the Mahiibhdrata. That is not to say that only writing is a factor. Parts of the Mahdbhdrata may have been composed orally. The Mahdbhdrata has been and still is performed orally. Techniques originally used by oral performers may have played a significant role in determining the form and content even of parts that were not strictly orally composed. But all this does not mean that the Mahdbhdrata 'is really oral.' The Mahabhiirata was produced in an environment in which writing and orality were intertwined in very complex ways." Reich, "A Battlefield of a Text,"27. More radically, Alf Hiltebeitel argues that orality in the epics is a literary trope "that should be understood against a background of redaction and above all writing." Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabhiirata, 4. 36 Christopher Minkowski laments the absence of well-edited versions of all the epic's commentaries, which he views as "rather shocking" given the amount of ongoing interest in the Mahabhiirata, Such a scholarly project, according to him is necessary for gaining access to "the history of the meaning of the Mahiibhdrata to its community of readers in later periods, and thereby, potentially, for clarifying the meaning of the epics in earlier periods." Christopher Z. Minkowski, "Nilakq.tha in His Historical Context," Orient, forthcoming, 15. ,

Therefore, my use of commentaries has been limited to the works of Devabodha and Nilakag-tha. Questions that have informed my interest in these commentaries are: What expectations did these commentators bring to the Mahdbhdrata? Which verses generated their most detailed discussions and why? What did reading entail for these particular commentators? 37 Christopher Minkowski's recent spate of articles on NilakaQtha provide some helpful answers to these questions. According to him, early commentaries on the Mahdbhdrata, such as Devabodha's, were composed in order to explicate difficult passages and entailed predominantly, if not exclusively, the commentarial practice of gl~ssing.~'Nilakatha's commentary, by contrast, is, according to Minkowski, innovative: though it does provide simple glosses and explications of individual terms and sentences ( as Devabodha's commentary does), it also contains three distinctive features that Minkowski argues were quite new: vedanticizing (i.e., making allegorizing comments in the Vedantic mode, from the perspective of Advaita---the doctrine of radical

See Chapter Six of Anne Blackburn's Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice in Eighteenth-Century Lankan Monastic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) for her discussion on the contrast between manuscript textuality and our contemporary experiences of the printed word. Also, see Chapter Five of Paul Griffiths' Religious Reading (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) for his discussion on commentary and anthology in Buddhist India and his articulation of the ideal reader in this context. For further scholarship on South Asian commentarial traditions, see Francis X. Clooney, Theology After Vedanta: An Experiment in Comparative Theology (Albany, State University of New York Press, 1993) and idem, Seeing Through Texts: Doing Theology Among the Srivaiinuvas of South India (A1bany : State University of New York Press, 1996). 38 These early "commentaries" were a less discursive textual genre called "the compendia of difficult words and passages.' Minkowski, "Historica1 Context," 8. 37

non-dualism of self and ultimate being)39,vedicizing (in which verses from the Rgveda are introduced and read in such a way as to introduce passages in the epic, particularly the Hariva&),@and anachronizing (the best known example is Nilakqtha's explanation of epic weaponry with reference to the technology current in his own day, such as cannons and musket^).^' While Nilaka.@ha's innovations are interesting and clearly worthy of study in their own right as acts of intellectual creation, they provide perhaps a clearer window through which to view Nilakq-tha than perhaps they do to view the Mah~%hdr-ata.~~ Therefore my interest in Nilakan.tha's commentary (as well as Devabodha's) has been limited primarily to his use of more standard commentaria1 practices, such as clarifying syntax, providing semantic glosses, and supplying missing elements and words whenever relevant. 2.3 Indian Poetics In addition to the traditional commentaries on the Mahdbhdrata, the works of Sanskrit literary theorists have helped me understand and articulate the strategies that the Mahdbhdrata uses to convey meaning; a further interpretive tool that this dissertation 39

Nilaka@ha's declared hermeneutic program was to interpret the Mahdbhdrata as a Vedantic text, to be understood in terms of non-dualism. See R.K. Sharma "Salient Features of Nilaka@ha's Introduction to the Mahdbhdrata," P u r w 43 (2001): 95-100. @ The intention stated at the beginning of Nilaka,tha's commentary is to treat the Mahdbhdrata as though it had the textual authority of the Veda, literally to make it the Veda, and then to study it and explain it. Christopher Z. Minkowski, "Nilakaqtha's Instruments of War: Modern, Vernacular, Barbarous," Indian Economic and Social History Review 4114 (2004): 370. 41 Ibid. 42 Minkowski's declared project is to "to shift the focus from the epic to the commentary on the epic; to treat the commentary not as a clear window through which to view the Mahdbharata, but rather as a window in stained glass, with its own interesting opacities, refractions, and distortions, as an intellectual creation of its own sort. . . ." Minkowski, "Historical Context," 2.

makes use of, therefore, is Indian poetics (alaqduirasdstra). Built into the idea of the narrative strategy is an interactive relationship between text and audience, and, as I stated earlier, Indian poetics provides a complex and highly developed articulation of that relationship. Because a comprehensive study of Indian poetics is beyond the scope of this project, my focus here is two-fold. First, I concentrate on the theoretical vocabulary provided by Sanskrit literary theorists that pertain to indigenous ways of thinking about what a literary text is and how it does its work. Pour concepts in particular are relevant to my approach: rasa (aestheticized emotion, particularly sdntarasa or the aestheticized emotion of peace), dhvani (poetic suggestion or suggested meaning), sah&ya (the sensitive audience member), and prekqaka (the ideal spectator). Second, I focus specifically on those Sanskrit literary theorists who apply their ideas directly to the Mahabharata. I have in mind handavardhana's discussion of the Mahiibharata in the Dhvanydloka in particular. 2.3.1 Indian Poetics: Pour Concepts: Rasa. Dhvani. Sahrdava. and Preksaka In his famous work the Dhvanydloka the ninth-century Kashmir! critic, handavardhana identified rma, or aestheticized emotion, as the goal of poetry and dhvani, or suggestion, as its means.43 An earlier text, the N@yasdstra, or "Treatise on the Dramatic Arts," had provided a standard list of eight possible rasas: : the erotic (irngdra), the comic (hasyd), the tragic (karuga), the furious or cruel (raudra), the heroic (vira), the fearsome (bhaydnuka), the gruesome (bibhatsii) and the wondrous ( a d b h ~ t a ) . ~

For an excellent study of the Dhvanydloka, see Lawrence McCrea, "The Teleology of Poetics in Medieval Kashmir," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1998). The earliest portions of the Ndtyaidstra have been dated to the 2ndcentury BCE.

43

According to B h h t a , the NQtyaSdstra's author, each rasa is based on the aesthetic transformation of an underlying human emotion termed a sthayibhdva (literally, a "permanent feeling"). The erotic is based on sexual desire (rati), the comic on laughter (hiisa), the tragic on grief (sokd), the cruel on anger (krodha), the heroic on exertion

(utsaha), the fearsome on fear (bhaya), the gruesome on disgust (jugupsd), and the miraculous on astonishment (vismaya). handavardhana added a ninth rasa to BhWata's list of eight: itintarma, the aestheticized emotion of peace, which he claimed was the dominant rasa of the Mahdbhdrata. Its sthaibhdva, or underlying human emotion, according to handavardhana, is the happiness that comes from the extinguishing of all desires; according to Abhinavagupta, the 10'" century Saivite mystic and philosopher who wrote a commentary, Locana, on handavardhana's Dhvanydoka, the sthdyibhdva of sdntarasa is knowledge of reality."5 These two texts, the Dhvanydoka and the Locana, or 'The Eye," have proven over the centuries to be the most influential works of India on the theory and practice of literary criticism. A rasa is a mood, an emotional consciousness, something very different from an ordinary emotion. It is something tasted or experienced, not felt. As A.K. Ramanujan explains, "Rasa is a depersonalized condition of the self, an imaginative system of relations.

... It is not a "worldly" state, for in the world pity, disgust, and horror are not

enjoyed, as they are in poetry ... as they are enjoyed in the rasa state. The reader experiences the rasa not just as himself, but as all men [sic] of adequate experience and

45 Gary Tubb, "hntarasa in the Mahabhdrata," in Essays on the Mahabhdrata, ed. Arvind Sharma (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 199l), 177-78; V. Raghavan, The Number of Rasas, Adyar Library Series, vol. 21 (Madras: Adyar Library and Research Center, 1975), 16.

sensitivity and training appreciate that experience: man is spoken to by man.'*

Here

Ramanujan points to a crucial element in the production of rasa: for poetry to be properly appreciated, a "distancing" (what Daniel Ingall's called a "supernormal relishing") should ideally occur between what is represented by a text and its appreciator; thus the sorrow of a character can evoke aesthetic experience, or revelation, even delight, in an audience member.7 But precisely how does a poem or a drama convey rasa? While Bhibata was silent on this issue, handavardhana, provided an answer. In his Dhvanydloka, he attempted to demonstrate that words have the power to convey meaning in a way that is different from literal meaning (abhidha) and from metaphorical/metonymical meaning (guquvrtti; labat@; this third way of conveying meaning is dhvani, poetic suggestion or more literally, the power of revelation. According to handavardhana three major literary elements can be suggested: a situation (vastudhvani), a figure of speech (alafikaradhvani), and most important of all an emotional situation (rasadhvani). Jeffrey Masson explains how, according to handavardhana, suggestion is crucial for the elicitation of rasa: without the elaborate descriptions that conjure up the emotional atmosphere, a mere use of a word such as 'love' will not enable the audience in any way to actually involve themselves in an aesthetic experience of that emotion.. .. It is not only that one must not directly name the emotion one seeks to create, but the poet must also be careful not to betray his intention through a too direct use of words in generaLa

A.K. Ramanujan, "Dramatic Criticism," in The Literatures of India, ed. Edward Dimock et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 128. 47 Selby, Grow Long Blessed Night: Love Poems/rom Classical India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 30-3 1. 48 Masson, " 'Telling Not Conveying'-Svaiabhdavdcya" Journal of Indian Philosophy 2.2 (1973): 146. 46

handavardhana was aware of the fact thatthe rasa conveyed by a verse is not apparent to everyone. This is due to the fact, he argued, that rasa is not a property of literal meaning but of suggested meaning. Therefore, he held that the appreciation of rusa requires aesthetic competence,an aesthetic sensitivity (sahrdayatvd) not common to all people.49 His term for the aesthetically competent audience member is the sahfiya (lit., "having the same heart9'---i.e. capable of sharing the aesthetic experience crafted by the poet).50 Abhinavagupta in his Locana defines the sahrdaya as: those people who are capable of identifying with the subject matter, since the mirror of their hearts have been polished constantly through constant recitation and study of poetry and who sympathetically respond in their own hearts are known as sensitve readers.51 While handavardhana has been credited as being the first literary theorist to seriously examine the requirements for the audience of poetry, Bhaata developed similar ideas about aesthetic competence in the realm of dramaturgy, particularly with his notion of the prehaka, or ideal spectator. According to Bhiirata, there are four types of audience members; these four types are divided into two categories. First is the category of those spectators whose experience of the drama is human (mdniji). This category is made up of three types of people: the lower, the middle and the superior.52Second is the category of those spectators whose experience of the drama is divine (daivikl). This

McCrea, "Teleology of Poetics," 133. Ibid., 136. ' J.L. Masson and M.V. Patwardhan, Aesthetic Rapture: The Rasadhydya of the Nd.tyaidstra. vol. 1 (Poona: Deccan College, 1970), 5-6. 52 According to Bhhata, there are a variety of dispositions belonging those who fall into this category of "human" spectators. Those aspects of the play that will delight such spectators are those that appeal to these various dispositions. So, for example, the young are pleased to see romance (or the presentation of love), the wealth-seekers are pleased to see plays that concentrate on the topic of wealth, the old delight in seeing purdws or old stories, and the heroic are pleased with battle-scenes. Gosh, tr., The Nqtyaidstra, 519. 49 50

category belongs to the preksaka, the ideal spectator alone. The prek&u is "[hle who attains gladness on seeing a person glad, and sorrow on seeing him sorry and feels miserable on seeing him These four categories (rasa, dhvani, sahrdaya, and prekjaka) foreground several ideas about literary texts and how they work that will be important for this dissertation. First is the idea that literary texts convey meaning in ways other than the literal and the metaphorical. For handavardhana and Abhinavagupta the transmission of meaning also occurs through poetic suggestion or revelation (dhvani, particularly rasadhvani), and both authors privilege this type of meaning in works of literary art. Further, both argue that aesthetic distance is necessary for this revelation (Abhinavagupta, in particular, emphasized this point). Similarly, in this dissertation I will describe the importance of distance in terms of the "work" of the Mahdbhdrata's narrative strategies, particularly with respect to the strategies of estrangement Finally, Bh&ata, hdavardhana, and Abhinavagupta all emphasize the importance of audience reception in the transmission of poeticldramatic meaning. According to all three thinkers, aesthetic competence is required for the communication of rasa; this experience is restricted to the prebaka, in Bhaata's formulation, and the sahylaya, in hdavardhana and Abhinavagupta's formulation. Another way of articulating my approach to the Mahdbhdrata is to ask, using hdavardhana and Abhinavagupta's vocabulary: What happens to our reading of the epic if we attend to it as the sahpiaya would? 2.3.2 Indian Poetics: handavardhana and the Mahdbhdrata

53

Ibid., 5 19.

One additional innovative featureof handavardhana's Dhvanydloka was his unprecedented use of "exemplification," his tendency to cite examples from the classics of Sanskrit in order to show that suggested meaning (dhvani) is pervasively present in them.% Earlier Alan$arikas such as Bh-aha,

Vamana, and Udbha.ta quoted examples

from verses from existing literature rather than composing examples of their own, but these citations were employed as illustration, rather than evidence.% Thus, in the Dhvanydloku, Andavardhana was calling upon and citing the classics of poetry in an entirely new way. Most significant to our purposes are his specific references to the Mahdbhdrata. h a n d a brings up the Mahdbh&ata in the context of several different discussions. Overall, these referencesserved to buttress his two most important assertions: that dhvani exists and that a work of poetry should employ a single overriding rasa for the sake of beauty and freshness. hdavardhana's first reference to the Mahdbhdrata occurs at the beginning of the Dhvanydloku where he endeavors to prove the existence of dhvani. Here he asserts that the ~ahdbhdrata(along with the RarmiyQm, the very first poem) is a work of literature that employs dhvani: For the nature of this dhvani, which is the secret of all good poets' poetry, which despite its extraordinary beauty has not been opened to view by the subtle minds of the ancient makers of definitions of poetry, which moreover, is clearly seen to be at work in such great poems as the Mahdbhdrata and the Rarmiyana will here be reavealed ...%

McCrea, 'The Teleology of Poetics," 127. 55 Ibid., 128. 56 handavardhana, The Dhvanyaloka of humdavardhana with the Locana of Abhinavagupta, Harvard Oriental Series, no. 49, trans. Daniel H.H. Ingalls, J.M. Masson, and M.V. Patwardhan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 68. 54

hdavardhana also refers to the Mahobharata in the context of his discussion about the "freshness" that rasa provides, even when an author recycles old plots. To prove his point, hdavardhana turns to the battle-scenes in the Rdmdyaw and the Mahabhdrata arguing that even though these scenes are repetitive, they always appear new because of the rasa that they Finally, in his most famous and influential reference to the Mahobharata, hdavardhana argues that a work of literary art must have a single predominant rasa that gives it special meaning and beauty.58The single predominant rasa conveyed by the Mahdbhdrata is, he argues, &intarma, or the aestheticized emotion of peace or tranquility. He writes, Furthermore, one primary rasa, being woven into a work, gives it special meaning and extra beauty. Do you ask for an example? As in the Rdmdyaw and the Mahdbharata. In the Rdmdyapz, the karuyarasa (flavor of compassion of tragic mood) is prepared by the first of poets himself, where he says that his "grief became verse." He carries out the same rasa throughout his composition up to Rama's final, irreversible separation from Sita. Again, in the Mahabhdrata, which has the form of a didactic work although it contains poetic beauty, the great sage who was its author, by his furnishing a conclusion that dismays our hearts by the miserable end of the Vrsds and Pwdavas, shows that the primary aim of his work has been to produce a disenchantment with the world and that he has intended his primary subject to be liberation (mukgz) from worldly life and the rasa of peace.59 From these statements, it is clear that hdavardhana considered the Mahabharata to be a M a , or poem, a unified whole that conveys one overriding rasa. Before h a n d a no one had considered the possibility of looking at work of literature as a unified 57

Ibid., 690. In a note, Masson explicates, "handa's view is that what makes the battles, for example, seem original each time is not merely the use of dhvani in the descriptions, but also their subordination to a more general aesthetic goal. In the Mahdbhdrata the more battles that are described, the more distasteful war becomes and the more firmly grounded becomes our feeling of detachment of world weariness (vairdgya)." Ibid., 694. 58 For a critical analysis of hdavardhana's ideas here, see Tubb, "~dntarasa,"179-202. 59 handavardhana, The Dhvanydoka, 690-91.

whole with a single dominant rasa, and certainly not something as gigantic as the

In arguing that the Mahabharata conveys &intarasa, handavardhana expresses his sense of the overriding experience,or "guiding aesthetic principle" that the epic evokes. Masson and Patwardhan capture the mechanics of how the Mahdbhdrata conveys this rasa in its concluding scene in the following statement: As unhappiness and doom succeed one another in a seemingly endless display of the vanity of the world; as we slowly become aware of the folly of trusting to the external world to bring happiness; as one after another the heroes of the epic whom we have come to know over volumes and volumes fade from existence and everything seems to dessicate and near its end, the reader is invaded by a sense of doom, a sense of the uselessness of strife, and he is eventually instilled with a craving for tranquility, for an end to human suffering and misery. If our reading is extensive enough, concentrated enough, with no distractions from the outside world, then we can induce in ourselves a profound imaginative experienceof tranquility, s d n t a r a ~ a . ~ ~ Certainly hdavardhana's understanding of the dominant goal of the Mahdbhdrata, the aestheticized emotion of tranquility, overlaps in interesting ways with what I have called "the poetics of suffering." In his statements about the Mahdbhdrata in the Dhvanydloka, hdavardhana points to the kind of "work" that suffering does as the guiding aesthetic principle of the text. For him, it elicits a kind of quietisim, or tranquility, a mental orientation that would inspire one to respond to a variety of external events calmly and with full control of one's mental and emotional faculties. According to the Vigudharmottarapurdv, "~dntarasais that wherein one feels the same towards all

^ ~ u b b"&intarasa^l'~l. , J.L. Masson and M.V. Patwardhan, &intarasa and Abhinavagupta's Philosophy of Aesthetics, Bhandarkar Oriental Series no.9 (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1969),x.

creatures, where there is no pleasure, no sorrow, no hatred, and no envy.'*2 One question that this dissertation will pursue that is in line with hdavardhana's comments about the dominance of antarasa in the Mahabhdrata is "What kind of 'work' is the text doing through depicting so much grief, mental anguish, and suffering?"

2.4 Reader Response Theory My ability to understand and articulate the ideas of the Indian aestheticianshas been enhanced, I believe, by my fourth category, reader-response theory, particularlyas it is represented by the works of Wolfgang Iser, Stanley Fish, and Umberto Eco. While reader-response theory is not a conceptually unified position, all reader-responsetheorists argue that a poem or a novel can best be understood in terms of its result; its "effects," psychological or otherwise, are inextricably linked to its meaning.63 In Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, Eco distinguishes between the "empirical" author and reader and the "model" author and reader. The empirical author is the historical author. The empirical reader is a reader who is free to read a text in many ways for there is no law that tells them how to read, since they "often use the text as a container for their own passions, which may come from outside the text or which the text may arouse by ~ h a n c e . ' ~

Ibid., 38. Jane Tompkins, "An Introduction to Reader-Response Criticism,"in Reader-Response Criticsm: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, ed. Jane P. Tompkins (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1980), ix. Umberto Eco, Six Walks in the Fictional Wood, Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1993 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 15. For more on Eco's conception of the model reader as he or she who follows the "set of instructions" encoded in the narrative style and strategies of the text, see idem, The Role of the Reader (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), 8. 62 63

The model author, on the other hand, is a voice that "wants us beside it;" it is "manifested as a narrative strategy, as a set of instructions which is given to us step by step and which we have to follow when we decide to act as the model reader.'%' The model reader is " a sort of ideal type whom the text not only foresees as a collaborator but also tries to rea ate.'^ He or she is the reader who is guided by the model author's rules. While the model reader's task is to follow the text's set of instructions, the reader's role is not passive since, according to Eco, "every text is a lazy machine asking the reader to do some of its work.'67 Unable to say everything about the world, the text has gaps; the reader's task is to fill in these gaps. The model reader is the person who fills in these gaps responsibly through allowing himself or herself to be guided by the text's hints. Similarly, Wolfgang Iser argues that the reader actively participates in the production of textual meaning. For Iser, the reader is the co-creator of the work because slhe supplies that portion of the text that is not written but only implied. "By reading," Iser writes, "we uncover the unformulated part of a literary work and what we uncover "represents the text's intenti~n.'~ Stanley Fish's seminal work Surprised By Sin serves as an example and a model for demonstrating how a work of literature, here Paradise Lost, creates its model receivers in the ways that Eco suggests in his Six Walks. According to Fish, Paradise Lost is a primer designed to teach the reader how to interpret it. The reader's experience is divided into two parts: her humiliation and her education; these two parts are connected

''Ibid., 15. Ibid., 9. ''Ibid., 3. 66

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As quoted in Tompkins, Reader-Response Criticism,xv.

by the growing relationship between the reader and the poem, the reader has to submit to this relationship. More specifically, Fish argues that Milton's Paradise Lost is constructed as a series of traps for the reader who is lured into reacting in tempting but "wrong" ways to "devilish" actions (which the reader is encouraged to find attractive) and to "godly" actions (which the reader is encouraged to find dismaying). The narrative voice by leading the reader astray causes her to reflect back on herself and ask why she was so tempted. In the process the reader fosters intense self-consciousness,which is the goal of the text. Similarly, I argue that the Mahiibhdrata provides instructions for how it is to be read. In so doing, it guides us and essentially "teaches" us how to become its model audience members. One of the ways that it does so is by setting us up to have certain expectations about important conceptualcategories and about characters and then undermining those expectations (what I call "narrative strategies of rupture"). In the process we are first "disoriented" and then "reoriented" to these categories and characters in a completely new way. As I mentioned earlier, Eco's concept of the model reader resonates with Bhaata's concept of the preksaka and Abhinavagupta's idea of the sahrdaya. Readerresponse theory and Indian poetics share other commitments as well: both foreground the role of the emotions in the transmission of meaning, both share the conviction that the meaning of a text is expressed through the interaction of text and audience, and both promote the importance of implication in signification ("dhvani," or suggestion, in hdavardhana and Abhinavagupta's terminology,and "gaps" in Eco and Iser's). Given

these resonances, one important dimensionof this project will be to put Indian poetics and reader-response theory into a kind of "background conversation" with one another. Reader-response theory, I believe, provides a set of conceptual tools in English that helps one to better understand the theories of the Indian aestheticians and how they are relevant to the M~hiibhdrata.~~ Reader-response theory also provides ways of articulating why I, a woman living in the twenty-first century in the United States have interpretive access to the Mahabharata, a text that was most likely conceived and composed in India in the last centuries BCE and the first centuries of the CE. One of the potential dangers of this project is that ultimately I will be saying more about myself and the interpretive practices that I bring to bear on the epic than about the Mahdbhdrata itself. However, if the Mahdbhdrata contains instructionsfor how it is to be received, and if through careful implementation of my interpretive tools, I am able to train my eyes in such a way that I may identify them, then ultimately I will be saying something about the Mahiibhdrata. Eco discusses the metaphor of the common woods through which all readers of a particular text travel. The world of the narrative, he says, brackets the larger "real world." In the narrative world, the model author tells the model readerlreceiver what she needs to know to walk through that world. The Mahdbharata I believe shares ideas that are remarkably similar to Eco's, particularly through the implications that can be drawn from the inclusion of the epic's two outer frame stories, which contextualize the

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Scholars who have brought these two discourses together are K.M. Tharakan, Western ami Eastern Poetics: A Comparative Study of Reader Response in I.A. Richards and Abhinavagupta (New Delhi, Prestige Books, 1998);Anne E. Monius, Imagining a Place for Buddhism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Greer, "Kama Within the Net of the Mahdbharata."

Mahdbharata's telling and reception. And yet these outer frame stories are part of the Mahabhdrata. If we take this insight and extend it logically, the Mahiibhdrata seems to be suggesting that the circumstancesunder which it is told or received, become part of the Mahabhdrata itself.70 In other words, all readersllisternersof the text are invited into its common woods. By inviting us into its woods in this way, I believe the Mahiibharata also provides the tools with which we may navigate its many landscapes. Thus in Chapters Three through Six I will discuss the effects of the epic's narrative strategies on its audiences. To do so I will employ personal pronouns such as "we" and "us" to refer to the epic's model audiences/sahrdayas(i.e., the readers and/or listeners that the Mahdbhiirata's strategies encourage"us" to become). I adopt this language for the purpose of inclusivity. My intention in these chapters is to invite the reader into the Mahobharata's literary landscape (as I argue that the Mahiibhdrata itself does) not to exclude him or her by suggesting these woods are accessible only to some "model" or historical other.

2.5 Moral Philosophy and Literature Reader-response theory focuses on the ways in which literary texts guide (even coax, trick, cajole, manipulate) the experiences of the receiver. Because of this focus, many would argue, Paul Ricoeur above all, that there is a necessary connection between reader-response theory and ethics. This dissertation explores this connection by discussing the ideas of contemporary moral philosophers who have begun to explore the ethical value of literary texts. My discussion here will be divided into two parts. First, I discuss the ideas of Paul Ricoeur, and then I will turn to three modem proponents of For slightly different interpretations,see Minkowski, "Janamejaya's Sattra," 406 and Hi1tebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabhdrata, 95.

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virtue ethics who discuss the relationship between tragic literature, aesthetics,and ethics: Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch and Martha ~ussbaum.'~ For Paul Ricoeur the narrative project implies the ethical project. In Time and Narrative he writes, "The strategy of persuasion undertaken by the narrator is aimed at imposing on the reader a vision of the world that is never ethically neutral, but rather implicitly or explicitlyinduces a new evaluation of the world of the reader as well."72 Central to the relationship between narrative and ethics is Ricoeur's notion of narrative identity. Narrative identity, constitutiveof self-constancy, is the fruit of an examined life, and "an examined life is, in large part one purged, one clarified by the cathartic effects of narrati~e."~~ Encouraged by Ricoeur's ideas, we may ask, how, to use Ricoeur's language, does the Mahdbhdrata's mimetic activity of narrative refigure the moral life to create "a new evaluation of the world?'And how does this new evaluation lead to action?74 Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch and Martha Nussbaum. All focus on the relationship between tragic literature, aestheticsand virtue, a connection that I will argue is crucial to ~ ~ we forget that the reading and thinking about ethics in the ~ a h d b h d r a t a .Lest

While it may be a stretch to characterize Simone Weil as a proponent of virtue ethics, I include her in this way because she influenced Murdoch, who in turn influenced Nussbaum so greatly. 72 Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vol. 3, 249. 73 Ibid., 247. Narrative identity is "the fragile offshoot" of narrative time, which is "a third time" (a bridge between phenomenological time and cosmological time) constructed by the mimetic activity of narrative. Hence for Ricoeur, narrative, ethics, and time are all closely related. This triadic relationship will be crucial for Chapter Five. 74 For Ricoeur, narrative leads not just to ethical vision, but to ethical action, to ethical justice. He writes, "...narrative already belongs to the ethical field in virtue of its claiminseparable from its narration -to ethical justice." Ibid., 249. 75 Wendy Farley writes, "While there is no complete agreement on what constitutes tragedy, two themes emerge with some regularity: attentiveness to suffering and freedom

Mahiibhdrata is a story about a war in which cousins kill cousins, a war where almost an entire race of people is extinguished,and lest we forget that the path of dharma, which is described as ''s11~mii''is so subtle that it seems to resist straightforward interpretation so that it seems that it is impossible for characters to discern the right course to take, we might also forget that the Mahabhdrata is a dark story indeed. This is a darkness that contains both tragic suffering and tragic conflict.76And it is precisely by presenting the truth of this darkness and asking its audiences to accept it, that the Mahiibhdrata attempts to induct its audiences into a new way of seeing the world, a way of seeing that I will argue has moral implications. More specifically, the way in which Murdoch and Weil connect the insights offered by tragic literatureto virtue speak to the "disorienting effect" of narrative strategies. Both Murdoch and Weil hold that tragic literature "disorients" us by revealing to us the reality of tragic suffering, a revelation which is effected, in part, through the shattering of those very conceptual categories which make this reality more palatable. For Weil, seeing the truth of tragic suffering, which is equivalent to seeing the reality of

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and responsibility along with a world order that distorts that freedom." Wendy Farley, Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion: A Contemporary Theodicy (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990), 23. These themes share striking resonances with the preoccupations of the Mahdbhdrata. For a good discussion of the parameters of tragedy, particularly with respect to how I am using the term, see Farley, 19-65. For a critique of applying the category "tragic" to the Indian epics, see Greg Bailey, "Introductory remarks on future research on the Sanskrit Epics and Puruas," in Composing a Tradition: Concepts, Techniquesand Relationships, ed. Mary Brockington and Peter Schreiner ( Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 1999), 6. For a defense, see Masson and Patwardhan, AestheticRapture, 30. 76 Murdoch and Weil focus on tragic suffering while Nussbaum focuses on tragic conflict. These different foci lead these thinkers to a different understanding of the ethical value of tragic literature. The Mahdbhdrata, I believe, focuses on both these aspects of tragic literature.

the human condition, is the ultimate moral stance towards the world.77 Building on Weil's ideas, Murdoch argues that to understand tragic suffering without any consoling conceptual overlay is to understand that life is chancy and incomplete, that there is no goal or telos, and that every single thing including one's mind is subject to the vagaries of chance, a way of seeing that she calls "realism."78 Virtue for her starts with this realistic way of seeing the world. Similarly, I have argued that the disorienting aspect of narrative strategies begins a process of eroding certain commitments to particular categories that are used to order and understand the world. Perhaps the Mahdbhdrata is suggesting that it is precisely our commitmentsto these categories that keep us from seeing the world as it is. Many of the categories that the narrative strategies are targeting and undermining, I will argue, are categoriesthat, among other things, provide a rationale for the existence of suffering, such as daiva, kiila, karma and dharma (with its implied notion of ~ d h a r m a ) . ~ ~ In arguing that "[s]tyle itself makes its claims," Martha Nussbaum alerts us to the fact that in the Mahdbhlirata's sheer size, the longest narrative ever told, a view of the world is expressed, a way of seeing the world in all its infinite particularity and complexity is artic~lated.~' In the Mahobharata no subject, concept, or character is closed from further interpretation. While this view opens humans up to the richness and diversity of the world, it also renders them vulnerable to tragic conflict. Why? Because

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Weil uses the term "affliction" for what I am calling "tragic suffering." See "Iliad: Poem of Might" and "The Love of God and Affliction" in The Simone Weil Reader, ed. George Panchinas (London: Moyer Bell, 1977), 153-83 and 439- 68. 78 Murdoch uses the term "the void" for what I am calling "tragic suffering." See in particular her essay, "Void," in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (New York: Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1993), 498-503. 79 These ideas will be explored in Chapter Six. 80 Martha Nussbaum, Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 3.

when all alternatives must be considered in their own right and not in terms of some overarching principle, the task of deliberation becomes much more complicated, if not at times impossible. The Mahabhdrata brings us into a world in which the particular is prioritized and context-sensitiveperceiving is extolled. It is precisely because tragic literature teaches this way of perceiving the world that Nussbaum argues that it is morally edifying. Tragic literature, accordingto her, teaches us to become people who are "finely aware and richly responsible," people "on whom nothing is lost.7s1 Throughout this dissertation, I will be concerned with articulating the ways in which the Mahdbhiirata's narrative strategies serve to sharpen our moral perceptions and reshape our values and ideals. Finally, all three thinkers to some extent, but Weil and Murdoch in particular, situate suffering at the center of ethics (as does, I argue, the Mahabharata). For Murdoch and Weil, it is the ability to recognize suffering-to have the courage to face the truth about the human condition- that opens up the ethical transformation in the self. This transformation is characterized by the silencing of the ego and the purification of one's consciousness,and results in a "just and loving gaze directed upon an individual reality.'*2 Similarly, in the Mahdbhdrata, seeing realistica11y~~-which means seeing the truth of the prevalence of suffering amongst all earth-bound creatures-is a way of achieving "the highest goal;" this involves undergoing a radical purification of consciousnesswhere all things, both the sublime and the horrific, are regarded with

Ibid., 134. Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 34. I am using the term "realistic" here as Karve does, that is as "a harsh, bare, stark and demanding philosophy of life." Irawati Karve, Yugdnta: The End of an Epoch (New Delhi: Sangam Press, 1974), 197.

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perfect eq~animity.~ With this "heightened" state of mind, one would never lose one's senses in extreme or dire situations and thus, presumably, one would never be a victim of further suffering. (One of the stated merits of listening to the Mahiibhdrata is that it will cause one never to despair, even in dire situation^.)^^ 3. Scholarly Location and Contributions One way of describing this project with respect to contemporary discourse in the academy is in terms of five concentric circles of scholarly discussion. In what follows, I will describe these "circles" and discuss what I hope my project could contribute to the

discourses that they represent. The innermost circle consists specificallyof scholarship on ethics in the Mahabhdrata. In examining the role of ethics in the epic, scholars have, for the most part, adopted a character-based approach andlor a thematic approach.86One

See "The Colloquy of the Brahmin and the Hunter" in The Book of the Forest (3.198.1207.1) 1.1.199. 86 Thematic approaches include Greg Bailey, "Suffering in the Mahdbhdrata," Collection Purqdrtha 7 (1983): 109-29; B.K. Matilal, ed., Moral Dilemmas in the Mahdbhdrata (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989); Bhattacharya, Dharma-Adharma and Morality; Mukund Lath, 'The Concept ofAnflamsyain the Mahdbhdrata " in The Mahabhdrata Revisited, ed. R.N. Dandekar (New Delhi: Sahitay Akaderni, 1990), 113-19; David Shulman, "Devana and Daiva" in Ritual, State and History in South Asia: Essays in Honour of J.C. Heesterman, ed. D.H.A. Kolff, A.W. van den Hoek, M.S. Oort (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), 350-65; Robert Goldman, "Ep Dharmab. Sanatan*: Shifting Moral Values and the Indian Epics" in Relativism, Suffering and Beyond: Essays in Memory of Bimal K. Matilal, ed. P. Bilimoria and J.N. Mohanty (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 187-223; Peter Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action in the Mahdbhdrata: A Study in the History of Ideas (New Delhi: Munishiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2001); and Julian Woods, Destiny and Human Initiative in the Mahiibhdrata (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001). Examples of character analyses include Nancy Falk, "Draupadi and the Dharma" in Beyond Androcentrism: New essays on Women and Religion, ed. Rita M . Gross (Missoula, MT:Scholars Press, 1977), 89-11, J.N. Bose, Bhipm, His Life and Teachings: On the Problems of Religion, Polity and Morality (Delhi: Durga Publications, 1984);David Gitomer, "King Duryodhana: The

small contribution that this project hopes to make to this discourse is to provide an alternative place to look for ethics in the Mahabharata-in its narrative strategies. With such an end in mind, I intend to be in conversation especially with those scholars who have reflected upon the subtle and seemingly inscrutable way that dhurma and ethics have been depicted in the Mahabharata, such as A.N. Bhattacarya, Robert Goldman, and B.K. Matilal. To Matilal in particular this project owes a great intellectual debt. Through his exploration of the moral dilemmas that are presented in the epic, Matilal makes three pertinent points: first, that the Mahdbharata gives expression to the tradition's selfconsciousness about moral values and moral conflicts; second, that the epic exemplifies the "internal criticism" of the tradition on the nature of dharma itself; and finally, that the Mahabhdrata exposes the problems that are presented by a rigidly conceived ethical system constituted by a set of fixed moral principle^.^^ Matilal's insights grant us considerable room for critical reflection about what the epic ultimately is saying about the concept of dharma and about ethics; certainly they suggest that a flat-footed and rigid understanding of either in the Mahabharata is misguided. Taking Matilal's intuitions in the direction of reader-response theory, this dissertation will raise questions like: "How does the presence of moral dilemmas in the Mahdbhdrata impact the audience's understanding of ethics?'Such an approach requires reading the epic self-consciously as a work of literature, an approach that Matilal takes Mahdbhdrata Discourse of Sinning and Virtue in Epic and Drama" Journal of the American Oriental Society 112.2 (1992): 222-32; and Mary Brockington, "Husband or King? Yudhi$.thira's Dilemma in the Mahabharata," Indo-Iranian Journal 4413 (2001): 253-63; Aditya Adarkar, ''Kanp in the Mahabharata," (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2001); and Greer, "Kaqa Within the Net of the Mahabhdrata." 87 B.K. Matilal, Ethics and Epics, 3-72.

implicitly, not explicitly. Scholars who have already begun to think about the epic vis-Avis its literary qualities are A.K. Ramanujan, Alf Hiltebeitel, David Shulman, Arti Dhand, Aditya Adarkar, and Patricia Greer.@Building on such work, this project will explore how a focus on the literary dimensions of the Mahdbharata not only renders the ethical dimensions of the work visible, but shows how literary art and ethical questions can deepen and extend one another.89 The second and somewhat larger circle is constituted by those scholars who think about Hindu ethics more generally. In the past, scholarship on Hindu ethics tended view dharma as a set of rigid principles or codes of a given society and as a subject that is most fruitfully explored in the D h a d d s t r a s or in the "didactic" portions of the M~hdbharata.~~ Recently, scholars have begun to look to the narrative portions of the Sanskrit epics as a locus for moral discourse in the tradition. My growing suspicion is that in the Hindu context, moral discourse and narratives, such as the epics, are inextricably linked. While others have hinted at this same intuition, in my view, no one has been able to adequately argue for why this is the case." This dissertation seeks to explore and defend this intuition by providing such an argument

See Ramanujan, "Repetition in the Mahdbharata;"Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabharata; Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets, 21-63; and Arti Dhand, 'The Subversive Nature of Virtue," 33-55. Dhand in this article explicitly links the literary and ethical concerns of the text 89 Stephanie Paulsell, "Dreaming the King, Writing God:Hope, Desire and Fiction in Maguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls," in Literature, Religion, and East/West Comparison: Essays in Honor of Anthony C. Yu, ed. Eric Ziolkowski (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005), 35-50. See Arti Dhand, 'The Dharma of Ethics, The Ethics of Dharrna: Quizzing the Ideals of Hinduism," Journal of Religious Ethics 30/3 (2002), 359-360. 91 A relevant discussion on this point, however, comes from Laurie Patton who shows how dharma is constructed in the epic from Vedic narrative precursors. See Patton, Trita's Tumble."

The third circle comprises the work of scholars of South Asian literature. The argument that the Mahabhdrata is capable of expressing truths relevant to moral philosophy must be grounded in a broader consideration of how South Asian narratives convey meaning, that is, how they are doing their work. My discussion of the Mahdbhdrata on this point will be informed by Indian poetics (see section two) and by the work of scholars of South Asian literature, such as David Shulman, Sheldon Pollock, Laurie Patton, A.K. Rarnanujan, and Anne Monius. I hope to contribute to this discourse by showing how the insights and conceptual categories provides by such scholars are relevant to an examination of moral discourse in the Mahdbhdrata and South Asian texts more generally. For example, through his ideas of context-sensitivityand reflexivity, Ramanujan take us deep into the function and location of meaning in South Asian texts, particularly the Rdmdyaw and the MaWhdrata?* 1 am interested in exploring how such concepts may be used to help us think about ethics. Such an exploration would be informed by the following types of questions: How might the concept of reflexivity inform a reader-responseapproach to the Mahdbhdrata? Or, by extension, how does such a concept effect our understanding of what happens experientially to the sahpiaya, that is the rasa aesthete who allows herself or himself to be guided by the strategiesof the text? What might the ethical implicationsof such a self-reflectivemode entail? The fourth circle encompasses the work of contemporary moral philosophers who have begun to explore the ethical value of literary texts. In the last section, I laid out how this discourse will be helpful for my project. What do I hope to contribute to it?

See A.K. Ramanujan, "Is There an Indian Way of Thinking? An Informal Essay" in Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan, ed. Vinay Dharwader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 32-5 1 and idem, "Where Mirrors are Windows."

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Nussbaum's idea that a text's style plays an important role in expressing "what matters" opened my eyes to the possibility of new textual frontiers to excavate in the search for meaning, a trajectory that culminated in the idea of narrative strategies.- Because I am convinced that the Mahiibharata's narrative strategies operatein unique ways, it is my hope that this project could generate some exciting new possibilities about ways in which form and content interact in the production of meaning in literary texts. Given my indebtedness to Nussbaum, I see this project in many ways as a cross-cultural testing of her philosophical reading of literature.% To be sure, a task that lies before me is to articulate what constitutes criteria for 'moral philosophy." This project intends to probe some conventions regarding the nature of moral philosophy both within the discipline of Western moral philosophy and within the sub-disciplineof religious ethics, including contemporary discourse on Hindu ethics. What is at stake in this enterprise involves making contributions to all three fields of discourse through my attempt to discover the ways in which the Indian tradition reflected critically on moral issues. My assertions that the Mahdbhdrata, a literary work, is a form of moral discourse and that it does its "moral work" primarily through its narrative strategies, offers such an instance.

My fifth and broadest circle is the discourse of religious studies. While I place my efforts primarily under the rubric of the history of religions, I also point to some

93 Ramanujan's

ideas of context-sensitivityand reflexivity offer another way of expressing Nussbaum's insights into the ways in which form and content interact in the dissemination of meaning in works of literature. These two concepts provide a useful bridge between Nussbaum's ideas and South Asian literature. %These ideas are inspired by Francesca Cho Bantley's book Embracing Illusion: Truth, and Fiction in the Dream of the Nine Clouds (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 3-11.

notable variations. These variations arerelated to the ways in which my project pushes beyond the boundaries of the history of religions and impinges on the sub-disciplinesof religious ethics and religion and literature. In Imagining Religion, J.Z. Smith lays out the normative preoccupationsand strategies of the historian of religion. This entails, most centrally, the importanceof selecting an "exemplum" (i.e., a religious category; myth, for example) in the service of illuminating the scholarly work on that particular category both within and across traditions. To put Smith's point about the task of the historian of religion another way, how might my project be relevant to a New Testament scholar? Through a close study of the narrative strategies in the Mahabhdrata, this project seeks to advance new ideas about how religious texts do their work by pointing to the importance of the relationship between form, content and receiver in the dissemination of meaning. While Nussbaum and others have already paved the way for these ideas, most scholars have not emphasized the relevance of those instances where form actually undermines content. Here meaning proceeds from the complex interaction between the two, that is between form and content, and the way that this interaction impacts the receiver. This complex dynamic between form, content and receiver, which has not been adequately studied within the history of religions, suggests that a narrative-strategy approach has the potential to make new inroads into meaning in religious texts. This possibility, I hope, speaks to the interests and concerns not only of those historians of religion who focus on South Asian religious traditions, but those who study other religious traditions as well. Further, this dissertation calls for a reassessment of the Mahabharata, a text that has held the fascination of historians of religion for quite some time. Historians of

religion, for the most part, have viewed the Mahabhdrata through the conceptual lenses of history and myth, but, for the most part, have been silent on the religious, ethical and aesthetic dimensions of the text and the way in which these dimensions interact. Significantly,Matilal suggests that within the Indian context, the concepts of ethics, aesthetics and religion are well-integratedg5 Conversely, within the history of religions, there has been a tendency to divide phenomenon up into manageable units of analysis (e.g. "myth", "ritual", etc.), a procedure that perhaps has often denied scholars access to dimensions of the text that live and breathe in organic relationships. Approachinga text with narrowly-circumscribedcategories places the historian of religion at risk of loosing interpretive access to the intentions of the text itself. Some may say that this is the Achilles' heel of any intellectual pursuit; that the scholar's vision is so colored by his or her own desires that she is denied access to the phenomenon that she seeks to study. However, one of my chief goals in this project is to develop an arsenal of interpretive practices that are specifically geared to begin to allow the MahdbMrata to speak for itself. While such a goal perhaps can never be reached, my hope is that new conceptual categories and new ways of understanding the relationships between, for example, ethics and aesthetics, will emerge that will be of use to historians of religion in the future. Finally, addressing the "history" aspect of the history of religions, I recognize the ways in which this project can and cannot make contributionsto our historical understanding of the Mahabhdrata. Since the historical record of the time in which the Mahdbhdrata was most likely composed is at best fragmentary,even the most basic questions-when the text was composed or who composed it, for example-are difficult

^Matilal, Ethics and Epics,37.

to pin down. In light of this fact, a question emerges: In the absence of concrete material data, how is one to use this complex and multi-faceted text to think about history? Jacques Le Goff, a historian of medieval Europe, argues that literary works were not produced to serve as historical documents but are "a historical reality unto themselves."% Calling for a "history of the imagination," Le Goff argues that taking into account the unique nature of literary and artistic works provides access to the profound mental images of a society. Works of imagination play an important role in historical scholarship because "[tlhe imagination nourishes man and causes him to act. It is a collective, social and historical phen~menon."~~ Adapting Le Goff's ideas to the South Asian context, Steve Collins focuseson the "Pali imaginaire9'-the consistent, stable universe of pre-modern Theravada literat~re.~' Both Le Goff and Collins argue that "a history of the imagination" is a legitimate object for history and historiography. Such an approach could provide a useful model for historians of religion who work on texts whose relations to their historical contexts are as underdetermined as that of the Mahdbhdrata's. In this dissertation, I will stipulate that the "Mahabhdrata imaginaire" is the world of the epic's model authors and model receivers. A narrative-strategyapproach to the Mahdbhdrata, therefore, is a way of doing "a history of the imagination" since such an approach, with its explicit agenda of uncovering the text's own instructions for how it is to be read, can tell us something

Jacques LeGoff, The Medieval Imagination, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 3. 97 Ibid., 5. 98 Steve Collins, Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of the Pali Iinaginaire, Cambridge Studies in Religious Traditions, no. 12 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). %

about who the text's model authors were and who they "imagined" their model receivers both to be and to become. In Rethinking Intellectual History Dominick LaCapra charts a course that is intended to keep intellectual history in touch with the questions of great literature. To this end, he distinguishes between two aspects of texts: the "documentary" and the bbworklike."LaCapra writes: 'The documentary [aspect of a text] situates the text in terms of factual or literal dimensions involving references to empirical reality and conveying information about it. The 'worklike' supplements empirical reality by adding to it and subtracting from it. . . . With deceptive simplicity, one might say that while the documentary marks a difference, the worklike makes a difference-one that engages the reader in recreative dialogue with the text and the problems it raises.""

What LaCapra

suggests here is that attention to the worklike aspects of a text that incite the historianreader's attention and imagination has a place in the project of intellectual history. Here we encounter "a performative notion of reading and interpretation in which an attempt is made to 'take on' the great texts and to attain a level of understanding and perhaps of language use that contends with them."lm Emboldened further by LaCapra's comments, I believe that a narrative-strategy approach to the Mahdbhdrata has a contribution to make to intellectual history since it focuses precisely on the worklike aspects of the text. A narrative-strategy approach by definition "engages the reader in recreative dialogue with the text and the problems that it raises.''

99

Dominick LaCapra, Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1983), 30. Ibid., 64.

The task of reconstructing the "Mahdbharata imaginaire," which focuses primarily on what Steve Collins calls the "inside" of the text, will not, however, mean that I intend to sidestep the issue of context. What I will mean by "context" in this dissertation, however, is something beyond socio-economic or historical rnileau; contexts can be intellectual, religious, or even self-reflexive. With this broader understanding of context in mind, I will argue that the Mahdbhdrata creates its own context; it does so in

three ways. First, through its use of what Stuart Blackburn terms "dialogic frames" the Mahabhdrata creates textualized audiences; these dialogic frames occur whenever a character tells a storyto another character, a trope that occurs innumerabletimes in the Mahdbhdrata.lol Second, following Laurie Patton's use of context in Myth as Argument,

I argue that the Mahdbhdrata creates intratextualcontexts.102 Third, grounding my discussion in one of the most-well known claims found in the Mahobhdrata ("Whatever is here may be found elsewhere, but what is not here does not exist anywhere"),lo31 argue that the Mahdbhdrata establishes itself as the context for the Mahdbhdrata. One cannot

101

Stuart Blackburn, Inside the Drama-House: Rdma Stories and Shadow Puppets in South India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 14. lo2 By "intratextual context" I am referring to the fact that the structure of the Mahdbharata creates a situation where no story is to be viewed independently; rather they are to be understood as interdependent. Through the devices of frame-stories, substories, nested stories as well as mirroring, distorted mirroring, inversion and repetition, the structure of the Mahdbhdrata creates a context (or, better, innumerable contexts) through which each individual story is to be interpreted. In Myth As Argument, Laurie Patton examines the significanceof the intratextual context (which she calls "location") of the myth in the Brhaddevatd, an ancient Sanskrit text composed, most likely, around the time of the Mahdbhdrata. Here she argues that the location of a myth and its relation to the passages that precede and follow it makes a certain kind of argument This, however, is only one way that Patton uses "context" in her book; she argues for a multidimensional understanding of context as well. lo3 yad ihdsti tad anyatra yan nehdsti nu tat kvacit. 1.56.33.

ignore the impulses found in the text to consume everything that exists outside of it;lo4 these impulses seek to explode the dichotomy of interiority and exteriority. I have already noted the way in which the Mahdbhdrata's frame stories set up an interesting logic: the circumstances in which the Mahabhdrata is told or received become part of the Mahdbharata. A narrative-strategy approach to the ~ahabhdrata,which focuses on the worklike dimensions of the text, forces us to seriously consider what kind of "work" these impulses are attempting to do.

4. The Central Story For those who are not familiar with the central story of the Mahabhdrata, in what follows I offer a brief summary of the epic, concentratingespecially on the details that provide the necessary background information for Chapters Two through Five. For those who wish to consult a more detailed summary, I recommend the works of John Brockington and Barend Van ~ooten.l~' Our story begins with three brothers and a throne. These brothers, Dmarasjra, Pan&, and Vidura belong to the ruling family of the Bhilratas (hence the title of the epic, which means "the story of the great Bh&atas7'). Because Dwarils.tra, the eldest, is born blind, he is ineligible to become king.lo6 Thus his younger brother Pi@@ is given the throne. Vidura, the youngest of the three is the son of a fidrd, a lower class woman, and

Shulman, "Towards a Historical Poetics," 26. See Brockington, The Sanskrit Epics, 28-34 and van Nooten, The Mahdbhdrata, 5-43. lo6 The biological father of all three brothers is Vyasa, the epic's author. When Vy%a impregnated Dmils.tra's mother, Ambika, she closed her eyes out of fear due to his frightful appearance. Thus, her son, Dh@irils$ra, was born blind. Balar-a links Dhytarasjra's physical blindness with his moral blindness at 3.1 19.11. lo4

thererfore is also ineligible. (This is unfortunate for Vidura is the wisest of the three brothers; he is also the incarnation of the god Dharma). '07 After a successful reign, P@du repairs to the forest with his two wives, Kunti and

Madri. Dtytaragra takes over as king, but the precise nature of Dh@was,tra's regency is left open to question. What is not clear is whether or not DhgtariQJra is actually given the throne (with his sons standing in the line of succession) or whether he is simply watching over the kingdom until P@du's heirs come of age. One day while hunting for sport in the forest, P@du shoots two mating deer, which are really a sage and his wife. The dying sage curses Pan@: if he ever makes love again, he will die in the act. This curse is especially severe since PWdu has no children. Kunti, however, has a solution. When she was young, she acted as a hostess to a wandering ascetic who gave her a magic mantra that allowed her to summon any deity she wished. To test the mantra, Kunti called upon the sun God S w a . The result of their liason was a son K w a . Terrified of being found out (Kunti is still very young at this point-and unmarried), she placed the infant in a basket and set it afloat upon the river. He is discovered on the banks of the river by a lower-class charioteer, a suta, and his wife, and K a r p is raised by them. When Pwdu learns of Kunti's boon, he begs her to use it to produce his heirs. She calls upon the gods Dharma, Vayu, and Indra giving birth in successive years to Yudhisthira, Bhima, and Arjuna. Kunti allows Madri to use the mantra as well and Madri calls upon the two Aivins, subsequently giving birth to twins, Nakula and Sahadeva. These five boys are the P&&vas, the heroes of the epic.

lo7

Vidura is also the incarnation of the god Dharma.

Soon after the births of his sons, Pmdu takes Mgdri into his arms and attempts to make love to her. The sage's curse is activated and P@du dies in Madri's embrace. Grief-stricken,Madri follows her husband to the funeral pyre leaving Kunti to raise the Pwdavas alone. Meanwhile, Dhgtaraspa marries the virtuous princess Gmdhari, who out of devotion to her blind husband blindfolds herself for life. After two years of a painful pregnancy, Gmdhari attempts to abort her fetus and discharges a single ball of flesh. Vyasa (the epic's ostensibleauthor and father of Paqdu, Dlytariigra, and Vidura) arrives and divides the ball into a hundred and one clay pots from which are born the Kauravas: one hundred sons and a daughter. The eldest son, Duryodhana, although conceived before Yudhisthira is born after him, making Yudhighira, ostensibly, the rightful heir to the kingdom. Duryodhana's birth is accompanied by inauspiciousomens. Seeing the ominous portents, Vidura informs Dwarastra that his son will cause the exterminationof the Bhiiratas. He urges him to abandon Duryodhana since the peace of the family depends on it. D m @ $ r a refuses to listen to him, because of his "love for his son."108 The PiQ@vas and Kauravas are raised together in Hastinapura under the tutelage of their grandfather, Bhisma and their uncle Vidura. They are all trained in the art of war by Drona and Q a , brahmins who are skilled in the art of weaponry. However, the Kauravas, led by Duryodhana, are jealous of the Pwdavas and plot to kill them in various ways. On one occasion Duryodhana ties Bhirna up in fetters and throws him into the river.

'08

putrasneha. 1.107.33.

With Yudhis.thira's approaching maturity, the problem of royal succession becomes pressing. Duryodhana urges his father to take measures to secure the kingdom. Dhytariis~raat first refuses, worried that their subjects would kill them if they ousted the much-loved ~ u d h i s @ i r a . ~Duryodhana ~~ assures his father that he has a plan: they will send the PQ@vas off to the city of Varaqiivata so that their subjects will forget them. Dhpira$ra readily agrees with his son. After Duryodhana makes a particularly vicious attempt on their lives, the PQ@vas fake their deaths and go into hiding disguised as brahrnins. During this time, they hear that King Drupada is holding a svayamvara, or marriage contest, for the hand of his daughter, Draupadi, and decide to attend. At the svayamvara, they first meet m n a Vasudeva, their cousin (he is the son of Kunti's brother). Arjuna wins the contest, and when the Pwdavas bring Draupadi home to meet Kunti, she instructs Arjuna to share his prize with his four brothers (Kunti's back is turned so she is unaware of what the prize is). Thus Draupadi becomes the wife of all five P@@vas. When news spreads that the Pwdavas are still alive and that, further, they have grown powerful due to their alliance with Drupada, Dl~%~as$ra reluctantly decides (at Bhisma's prompting) to give them half the kingdom, the eastern half, in the region called Khw@vaprastha, which he calls "a frightful forest" There the P@davas establish their capitol at Indraprastha. A magnificent palace is built for Yudhis.thira, and he, proud of his sumptuous

abode, sets his mind on performing the royal consecration, a lavish ritual asserting his 1.130.1-8.Notice that D m a s . t r a provides conflicting reasons for not banishing Piigdavas. One has to do with loyalty; the second concerns his fear of not getting away with it (implying that he has similar designs on the P@@vas as his son). This sort of ambivalence is characteristic of him throughout

universal kingship. He seeks the advice of Qsna on the matter (it is at this point in the story that m n a ' s divine status as the creator of the universe is revealed1'') and Q s ~ a urges him to undertake i t Rulers from across the land attend bearing gifts and swearing allegiance to Yudhis.thira. This arouses the jealousy of Duryodhana once again and when he returns to HBtinapura, he plots with his uncle hkuni of a way to rob the PQdavas of their kingdom. They settle upon the idea of challenging Yudhi$.thira to a game of dice, a proposal that Dmiis.tra first refuses (primarily because he knows his wise brother Vidura is against it) and then agrees to. Yudhisthira is summoned to Hiistinapura. In the "riggefllll game that follows, Yudhis.thira pledges and loses his kingdom, his wealth, his brothers, himself, and finally Draupadi. Draupadi is subsequently dragged into the assembly hall, her hair undone, her one robe stained with menstrual blood, and is insulted and humiliated by Duryodhana, Kama (Kunti's son with Surya and thus the Pwdavas' half-brother who has re-entered the story through forming an alliance with Duryodhana), and D&&sana (Duryodhana's brother). Finally, the howls of jackals prompts D W Z i g r a to intervene and grant Draupadi her freedom as well as the freedom of her husbands. As the Pwdavas journey back to Indraprastha, Dmras.tra calls them back for one last "all or nothing" throw. If the P@@vas win, their kingdom will be returned to them, if they lose the must live in exile for twelve years in the forest and one year in disguise. Yudhis-thira unwillingly returns and when the game is resumed, he loses once again. The

110

See, for example, 2.12.20-30. Whether the game is really rigged or not is open to question. Sakuni claims he was playing fairly, but who can trust Salami? Most characters believe that Yucihighira was tricked, but not all do. David Shulman explores this question in his article "Devana and Daiva. "

Pwdavas and Draupadi prepare to depart for the forest. Clad in deerskins they form a sorry procession as they file away from the capital. Evil omens accompany their departure while D r o p assures Duryodhana that thirteen years from now, the Kauravas will be massacred by the P@&ivas. D-@tra

meditates with his siita, or charioteer,

Samjaya, on the calamity that has befallen his family, blaming it all on Duryodhana and his followers who dragged Draupadi into the hall. In the forest, a dejected Yudhis.thira reflects on his sorrowful state repeatedly asking why he, who is virtuous, suffers such misfortune while his enemies, who lack virtue, prosper. He is visited by a variety of sages who "narrate beautiful stories about the instability of man's [sic] fate and the unhappiness of other people."112 Meanwhile, Arjuna journeys to heaven to procure weapons and receive instruction in the art of battle. Draupadi is abducted by the Sindhu King Jayadratha, but is quickly rescued by her husbands. To console a very upset Yudhis~hira,Markagdeya, a visiting sage, recounts the story of a woman who was in even greater distress than Draupadi, that is Sit& wife of Rama, and heroine of the Rdmdyaqa. After successfully carrying out their twelve years in the forest, the Pwdavas find refuge in the kingdom of Vira,ta, the king of the Matsyas for their last year in exile, which is to be carried out in disguise. The disguises they assume are ironic, given each character's history and personality: YudhisJhira becomes the expert dice player of the court, Bhima (known as Wolf-Belly because of his gargantuan appetite) becomes the cook; the virile Arjuna becomes a transvestite dancing master in the girl's court; Draupadi, who has refused to bind her hair since the day of her humiliation in the

van Nooten, The Mahdbhdrata, 20.

assembly hall, becomes the queen's hairdresser. Nakula and Sahadeva become the caretakers of the livestock. Their year in Virija's kingdom passes uneventfully until Draupadi attracts the attention of the commander of Virata's army, Kicaka. Draupadi attempts to shun his advances by running into Vira.@'s assembly hall where Yudhis.thira is sitting. Kicaka grabs her by the hair and, while Yudhis.thira looks on, he throws her down on the floor and kicks her with his foot Because he is afraid of revealing their true identity, Yudhisthira does nothing. Draupadi complains to Bhima about the miseries of being married to Y u d h i s - ~ a who cares about nothing but dharma. Moved to tears Bhima promises to seek revenge. The next evening, he lies in wait for Kicaka and kills him by breaking every bone in his body. After their thirteen-year exile, the Pwdavas send an envoy to Hatinapura to demand that Duryodhana keep his end of the covenant and return their kingdom. Otherwise, they will declare war. Dmas.tra, in turn, sends Saqjaya as his ambassador to the Pw&vas, instructing S a ~ j a y to a secure peace from them but to offer them nothing in return. Samjaya and Yudhis-thirasubsequently engage in one of the intense discussions in the epic, with each character scrutinizing the moral issues underlying the Pwdavas' threat of war. S a ~ j a y emphasizes a the evils of fighting with one's family and the universal nature of suffering and Yudhisthira emphasizes the virtue of action. Afterwards, an empty-handed Saqjaya returns to Hastinapura and berates Dwaras.tra for his weakness. Unable to sleep, D w a s . t r a requests that Vidura discourse

to him on the morality of kings. Vidura urges Dmr@,tra to make peace with the Pandavas and to return their kingdom to them, but D m a s p a does not heed his advice. Yudhis,thira, in a desperate attempt to avert war, alters his demands. The Kauravas need only give them five villages and the PZQ&ivas will lay down their arms. Duryodhana refuses, saying that he will not give the Pwdavas so much as a pin-prick of land. After peace negotiations fail, and war is clearly inevitable, Dwaraspa asks Samjaya to narrate the events of the war to him. Swjaya accepts but offers the king instructions in how he is to hear the narrationhe is to remain calm and not allow his mind to succumb to sorrow.114 Vyasa visits [email protected] and offers him the gift of vision so that he may see the battle-events. Dmas.tra refuses Vyasa's offer telling him that he does not wish to witness the deaths of his kinsmen; he prefers to hear the events. Therefore, Vyaa bestows upon Swjaya the gift of a divine eye so that Samjaya may observe all the events of the war and report them in full detail to the blind king. Samjaya's account of the great battle begins when he rushes to Hastinapura from the field of battle and reports to D a a g r a that Bhisma has been felled. Saqjaya subsequently describes in great detail the eighteen- day battle. By the end of the war, only ten warriors remain standing, three on the side of the Kauravas and seven on the side of the Pii&avas, including our five heroes. Hundreds of thousands have been beheaded, mutilated, cried out for life, and died cursing themselves and the Kauravas for carrying out the war.

sthiro bhiitvd

. . .Srutvd md vimand bhava.5.156.13.

JQsna's role in the war becomes increasingly alarming. Even though he vowed to be a non-combatant, as the war progresses, he urges the Pwcjavas to commit a number of dishonorable acts. He convinces the virtuous Yudhighira to lie to Draw in order to bring about Drona's death. He encourages Arjuna to kill Kaqa while the latter's chariot wheel is stuck (an act that violates the rules of battle), and he urges Bhima (through Arjuna) to break Duryodhana's thigh in the mace battle (another violation of the rules of warfare). After the war, D-as.tra Swjaya, Vidura, and Vy-

mourns the loss of Duryodhana and his other sons. offer him words of advice in an attempt to console him.

Gandhari is given a divine eye by Vyasa so that she may witness the carnage of the battlefield (thus she never sees her sons in the full bloom of life, but only as corpses). Movingly, she describes to m n a the details of the carnage as well as her own mixture of emotions-sorrow and resignation-upon seeing Duryodhana's body. She also mourns the loss of other sons. These laments concerningher personal loss are interspersed with her detailed descriptionsof the shock, horror, and suffering of the other women as they happen upon the limbs and heads of their husbands, brothers, and fathers. At the end of her description of the battlefield, Giindhari, "her judgment afflicted by suffering,"115blames m q a for the disaster. Accusing him of having ignored the mounting hostility between the Kauravas and Pwdavas, she curses him: In thirty-six years he will slay his own kinsmen and then die. In perhaps the greatest blow of all to the Pandavas, particularly Yudhiy.thira, Kunti finally reveals K q a ' s true identity as their brother. Yudhighira says that his grief at knowing that he was responsible for the slaying of his brother is a hundred times greater

than his grief at the deaths of his nephew, Abhirnanyu, or his sons.l16 Together with Kaqta's family members, Yudhis.thira performs sacred water rites for K q . With the time for mourning over, Yudhis.thira finds himself unable to move on and assume his role as king. He blames himself for the deaths of his kinsmen, loses his will to live, and yearns to go to the forest to expiate his sins. Arjuna, Bhima, Nakula, Sahadeva attempt to dissuade him from his renunciatory yearnings but to no avail. Vyasa offers a discourse on the universal nature of suffering to assuage his grief. Finally IQsna persuades Yudhisthira to seek words of advice from Bhigma, who is still lying near death on a bed of arrows in the field of battle. In a state of illumination granted by Qsna, Bhisma instructs Yudhig.thira on a variety of topics including the duties of kings, the nature of dharma, the means to eliminate sorrow, and the path to heaven. Bhisma finally succumbs to death. Despite, his lengthy discourse, Yudhighira is still disconsolate. Vy%a suggests that he perform a horse sacrifice to expiate his sins. Yudhis.thira does so and, afterwards, is ready to rule at last. Fifteen years after Yudhsthira's rule, DWas.tra, still mourning the deaths of his sons, decides to retire to a forest hermitage. Gwdhari, Vidura, and Kunti accompany him. The P@cjavas, disconsolate in their absence, visit them. Upon seeing Yudhighira, Vidura, emaciated and with matted locks, uses his yogic power to enter his nephew. Vyasa arrives and Ghdhari tells him that they (Gihdhari, Dwariis,tra, and the P@@vas) have been suffering for sixteen years and have not been able to forget their loved ones who died in battle. She requests that they be given a vision of their sons. Vy%a agrees and after bathing in the river, he summons the deceased warriors. A deafening sound is

heard and thousands of kings rise up out of the river, dressed in celestial robes. Reunited for one joyful night, the PQdavas reconcile with K q a , and Dwaraspa sees his sons for the first time. Soon after, Dwax%~,tra's abandoned sacrificial fire ignites the surrounding forest and the old king, his wife, and Kunti are consumed. S a j a y a escapes and heads for the Himalayas. Thirty six years after the Bhaata war, ominous portents appear. The Pwdavas receive news that Giindhari's curse of Qsga has been fulfilled. In DvZiraka, a number of noisy youths from Kysna's clan, the Andhakas and Vrsas, attempt to trick some holy sages by disguising one of Qsna's sons as a pregnant woman. The sages curse him to give birth to an iron club that will be the destruction of his people. The club is ground up and thrown into the sea. Later a drunken brawl breaks out, and the Vrsds and Andhakas begin to fight. Kgna remains a passive observer until he witnesses the slaying of his own son. He then picks up blades of grass and each blade turns into an iron mace. Qsga wipes out every last person in his clan. Afterwards, IQyga departs for the forest. As he sits in meditation, a passing hunter named Jara, or "old age," mistakes him for a deer and fatally shoots him. Arjuna hears the news of Qsna's death, and, heartbroken, he journeys to the hermitage of Vyba for comfort. Vyasa tells him that his work in the world, like Qsga's has come to an end and it is time for the Pwdavas to depart. Vy&a says: All this has time as its root. Arjuna, time is the seed of the universe. Time withdraws everything at its pleasure. One who was powerful once again becomes weak. One who was a ruler is once again subject to the commands of others. Your weapons, having achieved success, have today gone to the place from which

they came. They will come into your hands again when the time is right The time has come for you, Bhiirata, to attain the highest goal.'" Hearing of the slaughter of the Vp$s and Andhakas, YudhisJhira too decides that it is time to renounce the world, telling Arjuna that time that cooks every creature. Arjuna agrees, by simply replying, 'Time, time."118 The five brothers with Draupadi as the sixth and a dog as the seventh set out for their final journey. They first circumambulate the world then proceed northward into the mountains until one after another Draupadi, Sahadeva, Nakula, Arjuna, and Bhima fall down dead. Yudhi@ira leaves them where they fall, without looking down or back. Indra appears and tells Yudhighira to climb into his chariot so that he may escort him to heaven. Yudhighira refuses to leave the dog. Indra insists that he do so, but Yudhis.*a

refuses. Suddenly, the dog is transformed into the god Dharma,

Yudhighira's father. He tells Yudhis.thira that assumed his disguise in order to test Yudhis.thira. Dharma is pleased with his son and urges him to enter heaven. In heaven, Yudhisthira does not see his brothers and Draupadi; instead he encounters Duryodhana! Enraged, Yudhis.thira tells Indra that he wants no part of heaven, if he has to share it with Duryodhana, since it was because of Duryodhana that his friends and kinsmen were killed and that Draupadi was so horribly mistreated.'19 Instead, Yudhis~hirawants to see his brothers and his wife.

kdlamdlam idam sarvam jagadbijam dhanamjayal kda eva samddatte punar eva ca bhdtveha yadrcchayd I1 sa eva balavdn bhfitvdpunar bhavati durbalah Isa eve&& parair djfidpyatepu@ llkrtak^tydnicdstrmi gatdny adya yathdgatam I punar esyanti te hustam yada &lo bhuvisyati I1 kiilo gantw gatim mukhyw bhavatdm apt' bhdrata. 16.9.33-36. 11* 17.1.4. 'I9 17.18.8-9.

A celestial messenger is called to lead Yudhis.thira to his family. The messenger takes Y u d h i s . ~ aon a path that is "inauspicious and dangerous and frequented by evildoers."120After traveling on this path for some time, Yudhis.thira decides to turn back. As he does so, he hears the voices of his brothers and Draupadi crying out in pain, suffering the torments of hell. At first stupefied and then enraged, Yudhis.thira censures the gods and Dharma. He tells the messenger to return to heaven without him; he will remain in hell since his presence eases the suffering of his loved ones. Instantaneously, the darkness disappears and an auspicious breeze blows. All the inhabitants of heaven appear. Indra tells Yudhis.thira that his experience of hell was an illusion that all kings must experience. Now he may enter heaven and join his family members. Yudhisjhira does so and beholds Qsna, Arjuna, Bhima, Draupadi, PNdu, Kunti and others.

Chapter Three Unprotected Amongst Her Protectors: Draupadi, Dharma, and Suffering in the Dicing Scene The account of Draupadi's molestation is in essence the story of the epic as a whole. Greg Bailey, "Suffering in the Mahdbhdrata." A wife is supposed to be supported and protected by her husband. Both you neglect, but why as you are so wise in dharmd? Damayanti to Nala, 3.67.13.

1. Introduction The dicing scene in the Mahabhdrata contains one of the most poignant images of affliction in Indian literature: Draupadi's violation at the hands of the Kauravas in the presence of her husbands and elders who do nothing to save her. What does the motif of the unprotected wife, which is pervasive in the Mahdbhdrata, reveal about suffering and about dharma? Significantly, the Kauravas' despicable treatment of Draupadi in this scene, in part, makes the fratricidal Bhwata war, as well as the concomitant despair it causes, inevitable. What does an analysis of the motives and emotional states of the Kauravas, particularly Duryodhana and Dh@ira@ra,before and during the game, tell us about human sorrow and the forces that cause it? This chapter focuses on the depiction of suffering in the dicing scene through examining four characters (Duryodhana, Dmar@$ra, Yudhisthira, and Draupadi) and one

The dicing scene takes place in The Book of the Assembly Hall (Subhaparvan), 2.43.172.37.

theme ( d h a m ) . More specifically, it explores how the depiction of human despair contributes to the Mahobharata's threefold ethical task of recognizing, understanding, and eliminating suffering. I argue that the text accomplishes this task through its narrative strategies, specifically the strategies of sympathetic proximity, emotional estrangement,and semantic rupture. Following a brief summary of this scene, I examine how the actions of three characters (Duryodhana, Dh@irii@ra,and Yudhighira) lead to the game of dice and Draupadi's subsequent abuse. Here I argue that the narrative strategies of estrangement promote specific insights into the factors that lead to sorrow and, as a consequence, the processes that promote its elimination. Next I focus on the relentlessly detailed and repetitive description of Draupadi's violation in the assembly hall and how the narrative strategies of sympathetic proximity encourage us to critically reflect on the nature and existence of suffering in a particular manner. Finally, I explore Draupadi's question to Yudhi$.thira concerning the validity of his stake and the silence of the elders as a response to this question. What does the PMcalii princess's question, which leads to a tangled discussion about the nature of dharma among the elders in the assembly hall, and its answer, or lack thereof, tell us about dharma and about suffering? Here I contend that the narrative strategies of semantic rupture provide a specific argument about the task of recognizing suffering.

..

2. Summary of the Dici@cen e

2

For a definition of these strategies, see Chapter One, Section Three.

At the opening of the dicing scene, Duryodhana, the Kaurava prince, has just witnessed his cousin Yudhis.thira's spectacular rise to Universal Sovereign at the Royal Consecration and is "b~rning"~ with envy. Due to this impassioned state, he falls prey to the "tricks9*of Yudhighira's grand hall, falling into ponds that he mistakes for land, and lifting his skirts upon crystal pavements that he "sees" and "thinks" are ponds.' Arjuna, Bhima, and their servants witness these "mistakes" and ridicule him, adding to Duryodhana's humiliation. Note that the themes of illusion, mockery, and public humiliation that are present here will resurface later when Draupadi, upon Duryodhana's orders, is brought into the Kauravas' own assembly hall. Now Duryodhana wants revenge; specifically, he wants to wrest Yudhis.thira's glory and power from him, but he knows he cannot do so through force; the Pwdavas are too powerful. &&mi, his uncle, comes up with another idea: a game of dice. Yudhis.thira, according to hkuni, is fond of dice6 but does not know how to play;7 hkuni, on the other hand, is an expert at dice: and he assures Duryodhana that he will be able to wrest Yudhi$hira's kingdom from him. Duryodhana approaches his father, King DlytarasJra, in order to elicit his approval for ~akuni'splan. Dlqtarasfla refuses; gambling, he says, will lead to a division in the family. Duryodhana heatedly persists; D W a s t r a waivers, ultimately gives in, and sends his brother and wise councilor Vidura to summon Yudhisthira to the Kaurava

dahyamdna. Literally, "being tormented." 2.43.21. pralambha. 2.43.11. ddri ,^/man. The use of these two verbs here suggests that Duryodhana's mistake has to do with how cognitively responds to what he sees. 6 dyz.itapriya. 2.44.18. 7 na jandti devitum. 2.44.18. ak~akuiala.2.22.20.

assembly hall. Yudhi&ira submits to [email protected]'s summons unwillingly (he feels that he has no choice but to accept, appealingto both fate, daiva, and dharma as forces that bind him ) and upon his arrival in Hatinapura, the game begins. Yudhis.thira's first stake is a modest string of pearls. Sakuni wins; Yudhighira accuses him of defeating him with a "trick"9 and begins to stake wildly. In the course of the next seventeen throws, he gambles away his entire kingdom, his four brothers, and himself. His nineteenth stake is his wife and queen, Draupadi; he loses and Duryodhana orders Draupadi to be brought into the hall as his slave: Come, steward, bring Draupadi, the beloved, honored wife of the Pibpjavas, Let her sweep the house and let her go quickly. What a joy for us- with the female slaves!i0 Draupadi, at her most magnificent, responds to her summons with a question for Yudhi&ira: "Who did you lose first-yourself or me, Bharata?"ll This question, posed several times to Yudhis-jhiraand to the elders in the hall, is met with stupefied silence. Draupadi is dragged into the hall, manhandled, and violated by Duryodhana and his cronies in the presence of the kings and elders in the assembly hall who watch but do nothing to help her. Finally, the howls of jackals and other inauspicious omens prompt [email protected] put an end to the madness. He gives the Pii&iva queen three boons, and she requests Yudhisthira's freedom first followed by the freedom of her other four husbands. The Pwdavas, free again, leave for their kingdom, Indraprastha, but are then summoned back by Dhrtarash-a (at Duryodhana's prompting) for one last throw. After

kuitavaka. 2.54.1. ehi ksattar draupadirn anuyasva ;priyw bharydm sammutdm pdwvanam I sammrjatiirg v e h paraitu STghram; anundo r&t sahu dasibhir astu. 2.59.1. l 1 kim nu piirvam pardjaisir dtmdnam mdtq nu bharata. 2.60.7. lo

losing yet again, they are exiled for twelve years in the forest and for one year in the city, where they are to live in disguise; if they are recognized during this year, they are to spend another twelve years in the forest At the conclusion of the dicing scene, there is a sense of impending doom. Almost every character knows that war between the two sets of cousins is inevitable; it is only a matter of time.12 Further, a sensibility which I call the "weight of affliction" enters the text in this scene, which is sustained throughout the remaining sixteen books. Before the dicing scene, suffering, particularlythe PZqhvas' suffering, is punctuated by resolution; misfortune is followed by periods of happiness and fruition. However, beginning with the dicing scene, the PZupjavas (and most of the characters who are sympathetic to them) experience unyielding suffering. From here on out there is no end to the Pwoavas' misfortune, just as there is no end to their despair; this is borne out in the narrative by the continuous line of travails that they undergo during and after the game: loss of kingdom, exile, failed peace negotiations, war, victory at unthinkable cost, a joyous return to power as rulers of an empty kingdom, and death. From the point of the "fated" dice game onward, sufferingfor the P@&iva family is followed by suffering, and then finally death.

3. The Decision to Dice: Proximitv and Estr-ent

b the Dicing S c m

In the opening passages of the dicing scene, the narrative strategies forewarn the audience about two narrative outcomes: they tell us that the dice game will take place and

l2

Matilal, Ethics and Epics, 121,

they tell us that it will have disastrous consequences. For example, early on in the dicing scene Janamejaya interrupts the narrator Vampayana and asks him, How did that very unfortunate dice game between brothers come about, where that calamity was obtained by the Pw&vas, my paternal grandfathers? . . . I want you to tell me this in great detail, brahmin, for this was the root of the destruction of the earth. l3 Here Janamejaya, whose perspective is informed by the future, tells us that the game will indeed take place and that it will have tragic and violent consequences. Why do the epic's strategies forewarn us about the outcome of both the game (familial division and war) and the scene (the game will take place) and rob us of the opportunity for suspense about these matters? I believe that they do so in order to arouse curiosity aboutissues that extend beyond the question of "what happens next" in the dicing scene. Of course, one must assume that most audiences would already know the outcome of this scene, since, as A.K. Ramanujan has famously said, no one ever "reads" the Mahabhdrata for the first time.14 Still, by beginning in this way, the text sets us up to pay attention to certain things, namely to the question of precisely what caused the game. How did it come about? Why did it lead to such division and strife? Thus, suspense is transferred from the "what happens next" question to questions about how and why certain events happened, that is questions about the details. The epic's strategies provide answers to the "how" and the "why" of the game through a carefully crafted presentation of the decision-making processes of the three 13

katsamabhavaddyiitam bhratrndm tanmahatyayam/ yatra tadvyasamq prdptam p&@avairrne pitamdhaif} 11. . . vistarenaitadicchdmi kathyamdnq tvayd dvijal mfilam hyetadvindsasya prthivyd dvijasattama. 2.46.1-3. This break occurs after Vaifian@iyana has narrated the events of the dicing scene up to the point where Dmas.tra submits to Duryodhana's request. Janamejaya's question causes Vai5awpayana to retell the conversation between Duryodhana and D W Q t r a in more detail. 14 Ramanujan, "Repetition in the Mahabharata," 419.

principal characters whose combined decisions lead to the game: Duryodhana, Dhgtari?is.pa, and Yudhisjhira. Here, the closely related motifs of vision and blindness on the one hand and mental clarity and confusion on the other are particularly important. The manner in which the epic's narrative strategies present these three characters in the dicing scene encourages proximity and/or distance from them. Further, our emotional ties to these characters, or the lack thereof, has a great deal to do with what we ultimately learn from them about suffering, both their own and the sorrow that their decisions and actions causes others.15 In this section I explore how the epic's narrative strategies depict the mental states and decision-making processes of Duryodhana, DWariQtra, and Yudhighira. In the context of this discussion, I will focus on four issues: 1) how the narrative strategies depict the characters and how these characters make their decisions, 2) how the narrative strategies present the behavior of these characters after they make their decisions, particularly with respect to their treatment of Draupadi 3) how they encourage either proximity andlor estrangementfrom each character, and 4) the "work" of the estrangement. Our journey with each one of these characters begins with sympathetic proximity and ends with emotional distance. This distance is inevitable because each one of these characters makes decisions that lead to the dice game, and because the epic's narrative strategies have forewarned us that the game will lead to a great disaster, to

15

My use of personal pronouns such as "we" and "us" in this context refers to the model audience/sahrdaya. See Chapter Two, Section Two.

large-scale suffering, we are encouraged to feel alienated from whoever in the narrative promotes the game. 16 3.1 Duryodhana Prince Duryodhana is the driving force of the dice game. While the game is originally his uncle hkuni's idea, Duryodhana seizes upon it and mobilizes those around him to effect its implementation. Therefore, an analysis of his emotions and mental states is crucial for understanding why and how the game came to be, as well as why it had such disastrous consequences. Such an analysis also provides clues as to how the narrative strategiesof proximity and estrangement encourage us to understand the forces that promote suffering. At the opening of the dicing scene, Duryodhana surveys the P@&vas' grand assembly hall along with $akuni and falls prey to the deception^"^^ of the hall. He "thinks" he sees a pond where only a crystal slab exists, and he pulls up his robe to avoid l6 For the symbolic import of dicing in ancient India, see Don Handelman and David Shulman, God Inside Out: Siva's Game of Dice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). This work suggests that the dicing motif is, in some sense, the antithesis of order. It represents the destructive aspects of the cosmos. Similarly, I believe that the Mahdbhdrata is interested in the dicing motif because it, like war (to which it is compared often), brings out extreme emotions in people. It provides a context where people lose control of their senses and become violent and destructive. The text is very interested in examining how people respond psychologically to extreme situations. The gambler's lament in the Rg Veda (10.34) also explores the dicing motif vis-a-vis the destructive emotions that gambling can elicit. See Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, tr., The Rig Veda: An Anthology (Harrnondsworth: Penguin Books, 198l), 239-241. For scholarship on the particulars of the dice game in Ancient India, see A.B. Keith, "The Game of Dice," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1908): 824-28; K,de Vreese, 'The Dice Game in Ancient India," Orientalia Neerlandica: A Volume of Oriental Studies (Leiden: A. W . Sitjhoff, 1948), 349-62; N.N. Bhattacarya, "The King and the Dice: A Study in the Rituals of the Rajasiiya," Journal of the Oriental Institute of Baroda 2314 (1974), 288-307; C. Panduranga Bhatta, Dice Play in Sanskrit Literature (De1hi:Amar Prakashan, 1985);and David White, "Dogs Die," History of Religions 2314 (1989): 283303. l7 pralambhu. 2.43.1 1.

getting wet. Next, he falls into a pond that he mistakes for crystalline water. Witnessing this, Bhima, Arjuna, and the twins laugh mockingly.18Ashamed, Duryodhana roams the hall dejected.19 Again, he mistakes dry land for water, pulling up his robes; again, his cousins mock him. What do the epic's narrative strategies encourageus to feel towards Duryodhana in this opening section of the dicing scene? Certainly he is a sorry sight, a victim, but at the hands of what or whom we are not sure. A related question: why does Duryodhana fall prey to the "deceptions" or tricks in the Pwdavas' hall? The epic's narrative strategies do not provide an explicit answer to this question, so we are left in the dark as to whether "the divine designs"20are intentionally planted there by the Pwdavas (or by Maya for that matter)21to shame Duryodhana or whether there is something about Duryodhana that makes him susceptible to the power of these objects.22In any event, Duryodhana is humiliated; the Pwdavas and their servants mock him cruelly, and their actions contribute to his misery. Duryodhana is presented as a victim here and by depicting him in this manner, the epic's narrative strategies encourageus to sympathize to some extent with his plight.=

p a + ^/has. 2.43.7. l9 durmanas. 2.43.4. 20 divydn abhiprdydn. 2.43.2. 21 Maya is an asura who Arjuna saves from the fire of the Kh@&va Forest. To return the favor, Maya builds the Pwdavas a great assembly hall. For more on Maya as the architect of the Padavas' assembly hall, see van Buitenen, The Mahdbhdrata, vol. 2,69. 22 See 2.3.30. There is something "fishy" about this hall and some kings are fooled by its ponds for mysterious reasons. For examples of other literary texts that encourage us to sympathize with "villains," see Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), 243-64. This scene is undoubtedly meant to be funny, but it is the human dimension of Duryodhana that is being brought out here, not the villainous side. For an overview of l8

"

As Duryodhana returns to Hastinapura with Sakuni, he is preoccupied and deep in thought; his uncle asks him the source of his distraction. Duryodhana's long response to Sakuni together with his extensive speeches to his father about the powerful emotions he experiences as a result of witnessing Yudhi$.thira's Royal Consecration provides one of the most extensive windows into the inner-workings of Duryodhana's mind in the entire epic. By opening up Duryodhana's internal world to us, the epic's narrative strategies encourage us to understand his situation from his point of view. These speeches contain three basic themes: 1) that Duryodhana suffers bitterly; 2) that the cause of Duryodhana's suffering is the PZiqdavas' spectacular rise to power and glory; and 3) that he intends to ease his suffering by seeking revenge. In these speeches, Duryodhana movesfrom the persona of victim to that of would-be aggressor; at the same time, he moves from a figure of tentative sympathy to a subject of suspicion, encouraging first proximity and then estrangement from him. In his speeches to his father and his uncle, Duryodhana emphasizes his misery, and thus the epic's strategies depict him as a victim of despair. Duryodhana tells hcuni that he "suffers bitterly"24that he is "~uffering"~~ night and day, "drying up like a small pond during the hot summer."26 To Dh@irZispa, Duryodhana communicates that he is "pale," "miserable," "yellowish," and "feeble."27 He tells his father that he can find no peace in his mind which is "sufferi~g"~~ and that he no longer finds himself firm.29 For

humor in Sanskrit literature,see Lee Siegel, Laughing Matters: Comic Traditions in India (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987). 24 s w k h i t a . 2.43.36. 25 duhyamdna. 2.43.23. 26 iuciiukrcigame kale w e toyam ivdlpakam. 2.43.21. 27 vivama, dina, hariw, kria. 2.45.16. sdntim na parigacchcimi dahyamdnena cetasa. 2.45.35.

Duryodhana this is a matter of life or death, because he cannot bear to go on suffering like this. He tells sakuni that he will enter the fire or drink poison or drown himself, for he will not be able to go on living. 30 What is the source of Duryodhana's despair? Duryodhana tells hkuni that since he saw Yudhi$hira's grand sacrifice, during which he witnessed the entire earth under Yudhis.thira's sway, that he has fallen prey to "resentment," which he is tormented by. 31 Likewise, Duryodhana tells Dlytarqea that it is because he saw sri in ~udhis.thira~~ and not in himself, that he has become pale and wasted.33While jealousy is not an emotion in a character that encourages proximity,what keeps us from feeling alienated from Duryodhana, and indeed what encourages us to sympathize with him here is the fact that a) he is suffering and b) we have just witnessed the Pwdavas treat him cruelly (with the exception of Yudhisjhira of course).34 In this momentary reversal of roles (the Pwdavas as "bad guys" and Duryodhana, briefly, as their prey) the epic's narrative strategies encourage us to question our assumptions about who is victim and who aggressor, toying with our sympathies in the process. To see the P-vas

briefly from this less than

flattering perspective gives us the opportunity to see them from Duryodhana's point of

nu vinde dpjhamdtmdnam aham. 2.47.2. vahnim eva praveksydmi bhakjayisydmi vd v i ~ lapo m vdpi pravebydmi na hi Sakyydmi jivitum. 2.43.27 31 amarja. 2.43.2 1. 32 2.45. 15-16. van Buitenen translates the use of the locative here as "at Yudhighira's place" instead of "in Yudhis.thira." 33 For scholarship on the royal value of iri in both Vedic and post-Vedic texts, see Jan Gonda, Aspects of Early Vimuism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1969), 176-231. 34 Yudhighira does not laugh at Duryodhana in the crystalline ponds scene; neither does Draupadi. See 2.43.7. 29 30

view, and while Duryodhana is not a figure to be admired here, he is still, in both his anguish and his envy, granted the full measure of his humanity. However, as Duryodhana seizesupon the idea of revenge and tries to convince his father to sanction the game, he begins to spin out of control and looses his grip on his reason and on reality. At the same time, he begins to arouse our suspicion, which encourages alienation from him. Duryodhana's rising anger and hatred towards Yudhis.thira contributes to a steady yet illogical, progression of thought that leads him to the dangerous conclusion that he must take the Pwdavas' wealth away from them at any cost, a line of thought which leads him ultimately to the decision to implement the dice game.35 The steps in his thinking, all extracted from his speeches to his father and his uncle, run something like this: 1) I suffer:6 2) I suffer because I "saw" Yudhis.thira's immense wealth:7 3) In order to stop my suffering I must win even greater glory or kill myself, ^4) I must take the Pwdavas*wealth away from them or die, because a man who watches the prosperity of his enemies without acting is (a) not human?9 (b) is evil

pa),^ and finally because (c) if I do not my enemies are sure to destroy me. 41 This progression of thought is not only illogical, but delusional. There is absolutely no indication in the text that Yudhighira has had any intention of destroying the Kauravas.

For a slightly different interpretationof Duryodhana's reasons for inciting war with the Pfipjavas, see Matilal, Ethics and Epics, 109-22. 36 2.43.21, 2.45.16, 2.45.35, 2.47.2. 37 2.43.19-21. 38 2.43.7. 39Hesays, "If I were to tolerate such wealth that has come (to them) now, I would be neither a woman nor not a woman, neither a man nor not a man." so'ham na stri na cdpy astri na pumdn ndpumdn api/ yo'ham t&y w a y d m y adya tadrsim iriyam dgatdm. 2.43.29. 2.48.18 41 2.50.23-24.

Indeed, it seems that Yudhi@hira's intentions were quite the opposite, for there is textual evidence that Yudhighira intended to bring the families closer together.42 As Duryodhana spins more and more out of control, he moves from victim to villain, further encouraging distance. He becomes increasingly childish and spoiled as he tries to convince Dhytar+.tra to sanction the game, using his suicidal impulses, which seemed genuine in his speeches to kikuni, as a tool to manipulate his father. He says to his father, If the steward were to come, he would turn you back. When you desist, I will die, let there be no doubt, best of kings. When I am dead, be happy with your Vidura, king! You will enjoy the entire earth, why bother about me?'*3 During the actual dice game, he commits the defining act of cruelty (nrsamsya) in the epic: he causes Draupadi to be brought into the assembly hall opening the flood gates to her molestation and desecration. It is the almost absolute inconceivability of this act that forecloses any possibility of lingering sympathetic proximity to him; our estrangement from him at this point is total and complete. 44 Proximity and estrangement in the Mahdbhdrata are almost always connected to characters and their relation to two thematic elements: suffering and comprehensibility. We sympathize with those characters who are either victims of or prevent suffering and are distanced from those who cause suffering. Similarly, we feel close to characters whose motives and modes of behavior make sense to us, and we feel estranged from During the Royal Consecration, Yudhi$hira invited the Kauravas to participate as members of his family. However, he might have been "sticking it" to Duryodhana a bit by assigning him the duty of receiving the gifts of homage. Surely YudhisJhira knew this would incite Duryodhan's greed and envy. 2.32.1-10. 43 nivartayisyati tvdsau yadi kpattd samepyatil nivrtte tvayi rdjendra rnaripye'hum asar@ayamll sa mayi tvam mrte rdjan vidurega sukhi bhaval bhoksyase prthivitq krtsrtdq~ kim mayd tvam karisyasi. 2.45.43-44 Matilal, Ethics and Epics, 112. 42

those characters who motives and modes of behavior do not. It is in part due to moments of great distance from and great proximity towards characters that our apprenticeship in recognizing, understanding,and eliminating suffering occurs. What is the purpose of our estrangement from Duryodhana? By creating this distance between the audience and the character, the narrative strategies encourage us to stand back and question Duryodhana's almost inconceivable behavior. Here the question is obvious: What caused Duryodhana to go so horribly astray? The narrative strategies provide us with clues that help to answer this question through their careful depiction of Duryodhana in the opening scenes of the dicing scene, particularly in the way they focus on 1) what Duryodhana sees, 2) what he thinks, 3) and the condition of his mind (manas, mati). So what precisely does Duryodhana see and how does this contribute to his moral decline? In his speeches to his father and his uncle, Duryodhana refers self-reflexively to the act of seeing at least ten times:5

While the objects of his

vision range from treasures that he saw at Yudhighira's Royal Consecration to the "tricks" of the lotus pond built by Maya, what he focuses on as the source of his suffering and resentment is the fact that he "saw" sri , or royal splendor, in Yudhis,thira and not in him~elf."~ Similarly, the objects of his thoughts centers on Yudhis{hira's magnificent wealth and power, symbols of his iri, which he thinks about continu~usly~~ What the narrative strategies provide in the dicing scene through their depiction of Duryodhana is a meditation on the psychological effects of greed and envy (closely related emotions in the Mahdbhdrata). The text notes that once Duryodhana "saw" the magnificent wealth of the

45

dd$. 2.47.1-2.49.1.

46 47

2.45.15- 16. For example, 2.43.35.

Piigdavas, that his mind became evil. 4S Duryodhana himself speaks of becoming mentally unsteady and confused. This confusion causes him to settle upon a lose-lose solution to his troubles: suicide or victory at any cost through the game of dice, which he pursues with monomaniacal blindness to the point of madness, and which, of course, culminates in the cruel abuse of Draupadi. To return to our question, what caused Duryodhana to go astray? A close analysis of the epic's narrative strategies suggeststhat the turbulent quality of Duryodhana's mind, caused by his responses to what he witnesses in the world, lead to his despicable behavior.49 At the same time, these strategies suggest that virtue and vice have less to do with conduct and more to do with quality of mind.50This point may be articulated differently in light of our concern with the Mahdbhdrata's depictionof human sorrow: Those who generate suffering (both for themselves and others) do so as a result of confusion caused by an unbalanced mind. In terms of the Mahdbhdrata's threefold ethical task, it is now possible to articulate how the epic's strategies of estrangement contribute to the second component of this project, that of understanding suffering (and by "understanding" suffering here I mean understanding the specific factors that contribute to suffering). The suggestion here is that suffering is generated by mental

duryodhanasya nrpateh papa. matir ajayata. 2.43.13 Dmarfqfla provides a similar analysis of Duryodhana's behavior at 1.1.98. 50 The quality of one's mind (manas,mati) or one's intelligence (buddhi) receives much attention in the Mahabharata. Characters are often described as losing their wits to grief (see, for example, 11.9.15 and 11.25.34) to jealousy (Duryodhana is the prime example of this in this scene), and anger (primarily during the war, consequently relatives and close friends do not "know" one another and thus kill one another, 6.44.2-3). Two very important passages on this point are Bhima's speech to Yudhighira at 12.16.21-25 and Qsna's speech to Yudhisthira at 14.12.1-14. Both characters, in an effort to persuade YudhisJhira to stop grieving and agree to rule, tell him that the battle he now must wage is one with his mind (manas). 49

confusion which itself is generated by improper responses to what one sees outside in the world.

3.2 Dhrtarastra DW@$ra's role in the dice game is crucial for two reasons. First, Duryodhana would not be able to move forward with his plan without his father's approval. Second, Yudhis.thira would not accept the invitation to play dice if it were extended by anyone other than his uncle. Therefore, an analysis of Dwaras.tra's emotions and mental states in the dicing scene is also critical for understanding why the disastrous game took place. With Dl@ara$ra, we take a journey that begins with clear vision, lapses into blindness, and then returns to clear vision again5' What does this journey reveal about suffering? When hkuni and Duryodhana first approach Dlq-taraspa and present their plan to him, [email protected] exhibits remarkable farsightedness. He immediately recognizes the dangers of the game, which he believes will divide the family. He also recognizes that his son is not of sound mind, but operates out of del~sion.'~ Based on these correct assessments, he refuses to grant his approval of the game. He even offers Duryodhana sound advice telling him that longing for another's property is "a fruitless path."53 Thus, Dmar&s$ra'spreliminary response to his son's request of sanctioning the dice game displays wisdom and insight, and in so far as he seems genuinely interested in obviating a family quarrel, we are encouraged to stand by him and to even feel a sense of relief that he is going to check Duryodhana, who, at this point, is spinning out of control.

While I am referring to Dmaraspa's moral blindness here, remember that the king is also physically blind. See Chapter Two, Section Four. 52 moha. 2.50.3 53 anarthdcarita. 2.50.6

However, Dwaras.tra suddenly changes his mind and submits to Duryodhana's request, saying mysteriously, Your speech does not please me, but do what you want, best of men. You will suffer afterwards when you recall this speech.% Dm&tra's reversal here is abrupt; there is no narrative event that explains his sudden change of heart. Attention to the narrative sequence does not seem to help us here because directly before it, Duryodhana tells DlqtariQtra that if they gamble with the P@&vas, then they can stand on equal footing with them.55Duryodhana has made similar points before, so it is difficult to see why this statement in particular persuades D-aspa.

What makes Dmas.tra's sudden change of heart so puzzling is that he gives

in at the precise moment that he sees clearly that the game will have disastrous

consequence^.^ So why does Dwaras.tra give in? The epic's narrative strategies suggest several causes without privileging one.Was he beaten down by Duryodhana's relentless h a r a n g ~ e ?Did ~ Duryodhana's threats of suicide tug at his heart?58Did wisdom finally give way to greed? Was he impelled by fate?59 Or by his affection for his son?60

vdkyam na me rocate yat tvayoktam;yat te priyam tat kriyatliqt narendral padcdt tapsyase tad updkramya vdkyam. 2.5 1.14. 55 2.51.13. 56 Immediately after [email protected] submits to his son he says, "For all this was previously seen in just this way by Vidura who follows wisdom and intelligence. It is just this that leads to the great calamity of the one who is free, destroying the seeds of the katriyas." d@am hy etad vidurenaivam eva sarvam piirvam buddhividydmgenal tad evaitad avaiasydbhyupaiti;mahad bhayam ksatriyabijaghdti. 2.5 1.15. 57 Duryodhana expends considerable verbal and emotional energy in an effort to convince his father to sanction the game. Almost one hundred ilokas are devoted to his report to his father concerning the treasures that he received on Yudhighira's behalf at the Royal Consecration. 58 See 2.45.45. 59 2.45.55,2.45.57, and 2.51.25. See Chapter Six, Section Two for a discussion of the role of fate in the dicing scene.

Whatever the cause of D-as~ra's

change of heart, the narrative strategies, by flooding

the text with possible causes without privileging one, transformthis question into a riddle-question. In so doing, they deliberately keep D w a p p a ' s reasons and emotions hidden from us. At the same time, they encourage our emotional distance from him.61 Once D m s p a acquiesces to his son's wishes, he descends into confusion. His confused state of mind and the unfortunate decisions that he makes as a result further encourage alienation from him. His conversation with Vidura right after he agrees to allow the game illustrates his befuddlement most clearly. Here Vidura who has just learned that DWaras.tra has given into his son, tells Dhparagra that he (Vidura) does not approve of the game because dicing will lead to a quarrel.62D-Mpa

refuses to listen

to Vidura's advice, even though he expressed similar concerns earlier. Mysteriously, he says to his brother: Steward, there will be no quarrel between my sons,64the gods in heaven will favor us, there is no doubt6' What is curious about [email protected]'s response to Vidura here is that where he saw danger before moments before, he now sees the favor of the gods. In a very short period of time, it seems, DWaragra's vision of the world has been upended; this begs the question, again, of the source of his sudden reversal.

sutapriya. The narrative voice suggests this at line 2.66.27and D m a g r a suggests this at line 2.72.36. 61 See pp. 87-88. 62 kalaha. 2.5 1.a. 2.46.12. 64 Literally, "by my sons on my other sons" (putrep4 putrairme). 65 ksattah purtresu putrair me kalaho na bhavisyatil divi dev* prasddam n& karisyanti na satqiayah. 2.45.53.

Dh@ariisp-a's silence during the dice game encourages complete estrangement from him. The fact that Dmasp-a says nothing as the unthinkable events unfold, as Draupadi is summoned into the hall by Duryodhana, dragged by her hair, stripped, and abused, is astounding; other charactersnote his silence and take him to task for it (Draupadi does so at 2.60.34 and Vikarga does so at 2.61.13). In spite of their admonishments, DWarQ-tracontinues to say and do nothing. Since he is perhaps the only character who has the power to stop Duryodhana, his silence is a tacit approval of his son's actions. And while Dhytam-trais the one who finally offers Draupadi the boons that save her and her husbands, this act does not encourage proximity to him, because the epic's strategies are careful to note that he does so only at Vidura and GZtndhari's bidding." It is not at all clear that he would have done so on his own. At the end of the dicing scene, after the P@&vas have left for the forest and after the enmity between the PQxjavas and Kauravas seems irreversible, clarity of vision returns to D m & t r a just as suddenly and inexplicably as blindness struck earlier. His lucidity here is staggering. He sees that a war between the P@davas and Kurus is ine~itable:~he understands that Vidura's advice was correct and that he was unable to heed it because of his attachment to his son (literally, "his desire for that which is advantageous for his son").68What is so heartbreaking about Dh@ar&tra's clarity here is that it comes too late. If he only had been able to maintain a balanced mind as the events unfolded and restrain his son as a result, the outcome of this scene could have been so different and untold suffering, not only Draupadi's, but that of virtually every other

character in the epic (caused by the war and its devastation), could have been avoided. Because the epic's narrative strategies deliberately emphasizethe abruptness of the return of [email protected]@ra's mental clarity and provide no real account of its sources, they encourage us to remain distanced from him. What kind of work does this estrangement from DWrasp-a do? From this distanced viewpoint, I argue that we are directed to question what motivated Dl@ara@a's sudden reversals from clear vision to blindness and then from blindness to clear vision again. Dhpariis-trahimself provides a partial answer to this question at the very end of this scene. Listen as he speaks to Sargjaya: When the gods deal defeat to a person, they remove one's intelligence so that one sees matters backwards. When destruction is imminent and one's intelligence is perverted the wrong course appears as the right one and does not leave one's heart. When destruction is near that which is fruitless appears fruitful and that which is fruitful appears fruitless and one is pleased. Time does not raise a rod and clobber, a person's head. The power of time is just this inverted vision of matters.69 While [email protected] makes several important points here, I want to highlight two of them: First, Dwaras.tra focuses on the mind as the root of misfortune. Second, Dhparas-tra provides an account of the confused or "perverted" mind which he says causes the right

yasmai dev* prayacchanti puru@ya pardbhavam/ buddhim tasydpakarjanti

69

so 'pacindnipaiyatill buddhuu hluJabhUtdydm v i m e pratyupasthitel amyo nayasamkdio hrdaydn mipasarpati' anarthi cdrtharupew a t M cdnartharupinah/ u t t i w n t i vinaSOdntenaram taccdsya rocatell na kalo da&m udyamya iirah krntati kasyacitl kdlasya balam etavad viparitdrthadarianam. 2.72.8- 11. According to Nilakqtha, avdcimini (for apdcindni) means viparitdni or "reversed," "turned around," "perverse." Ramachandra Kinjawadekar, ed, Mahdbhdratam with the commentary of vol. 2 ( Poona: Chitrashala Press, 1929-33).Interestingly, in the Vulgate, this Nilah*, speech is put in the mouth of Sqjaya. Vidura repeats this speech almost word for word to Dmas.tra when he offers words of comfort and advice to the blind king in The Book of the Effort.

course to appear wrong (or more precisely, fruitless, anartha) and the wrong course to appear right (fruitful, arthd). What we learn about the role of mental confusion in human suffering from DWiZisJra's speech here conjoined with what we learned about the significance of the quality of a person's mental attitude in our analysis of Duryodhana, provide specific insights into the forces that impel human beings to commit acts of cruelty and thus promote suffering. How? In our analysis of the depiction of both Duryodhana and Dwariigra in the dicing scene, we noticed that both characters were overcome by powerful

subsequently they succumbed to mental confusion which, as in

Dbtariis,tra's words, caused them to see "the wrong course7'as "the right one" and vice versa. As a direct result of this inverted vision, both characters committed acts and/or made decisions that resulted in cruelty, acts and decisions which caused the suffering of others (Draupadi in particular), and these characters did so without seeing their actions as cruel; instead they saw them as somehow proper. We must understand, however, that while both Duryodhana and Dwariigra are agents of suffering?l they are also victims of despair. Their own inner turmoil impels them to make the decisions that that they do. Suffering, it seems, only begets more suffering. More precisely, once one succumbs to sorrow (caused by one's emotional responses to what one sees in the world), one becomes confused, one's vision becomes inverted and the wrong course appears as the right one and vice versa. Consequently, one commits acts of cruelty (acts that cause 70

Duryodhana is overcome by jealousy and despair due to the grand success of his cousins; DwaflsJra is overcome by sorrow caused by witnessing Duryodhana's anguish and possibly his own greed. 71 To be more precise, one might say that Duryodhana is an active agent, while D m i i s p a is a passive one because he "gives into" his weakness for his son, his greed, etc. See Matilal, Ethics and Epics,61-62.

others to suffer), without seeing these acts as wrong, but, on the contrary, seeing them as somehow proper.72

3.3 Yudhisthira The presentation of Yudhis.thira in the dicing scene constitutes a somewhat special case. While we have witnessed Duryodhana and Dlq%iriispa commit morally questionable acts before the dicing scene (and hence experienced estrangement from both)73Yudhis.thira, up to this point, has been, for the most part, a paragon of virtue. Significantly, he is the son of Dharma and is frequently referred to as "the king of Dharma" (dharmurdjan). Therefore, at the outset, we have, a tremendous amount of trust in him and his abilities to perceive dharma. Further, we have been encouraged by the epic's strategies to travel with him. Up to this point he has served, for the most part, as our eyes and ears for discerning right and wrong in the epic. However, in this scene, Yudhis.thira, for perhaps the first time in the text, explicitly displays morally troubling behavior: he accepts the invitation to dice for mysterious reasons, he gambles irresponsibly,and he passively watches as Draupadi, his queen, is violated in the assembly hall.74 In what follows I explore how the text employs strategies that encourage estrangement from Yudhis.~a. Like D m i i s ~ r aYudhis.thira's , journey begins with clear vision and then degenerates rapidly into confusion. However, unlike D w a s t r a ,

72 See 2.62-63 of the Bhugavadgitd where K ~ g discusses a a similar chain of events that lead to a person's downfall. Irawati Karve comments on this passage in Yugdnta, 136. 73 Most notably, Duryodhana attempted to kill Bhima and both Duryodhana and Dhrtarastra exiled the Pm&vas to VZwagiivata in order to gain control of the throne. 74 van Buitenen argues that the motivating factors of Yudhisthira's remarkablebehavior can be found in the structure of the Vedic rdjasuya ritual. See J.A.B van Buitenen, "On the Structure of the Sabhaparvan" in India Maior: Congratulatory Volume Presented to J. Gonda, edited by J. Ensink and P. Gaeffke (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972), 68-44 and van Buitenen, The Mahobharata, vol.2,5.

clear vision never returns to Yudhis.thira in the dicing scene; we do not witness him return to balance and control until we meet him again in the next book, in The Forest Book, when the P@&ivas begin their thirteen years in exile. When Vidura approaches Yudhis.thira to summon him to Hbtinapura, Yudhis.thira sees the dangers of the game immediately and is reluctant to acquiesce. He tells Vidura: Dicing will bring destruction, steward. Who, knowing this would agree to a game?75 Next, he asks Vidura to name the specific gamblers that he will play. After Vidura tells him, Yudhis-thiraremarks that they are all very dangerous and play with tricks.76 At the very outset, then, YudhisJhira seems to assess the situation correctly,just as we might expect him too. He even seeks Vidura's advice, and Vidura tells him that although the game will bring disaster,"Yudhi#hira is "wise," and he should do as he sees fit.78 Therefore, there is every indication that Yudhisfhira has the means and the opportunity to act wisely in this situation. However, instead of refusing the game, Yudhis.thira informs Vidura that he will accept the challenge because he feels obligated to do so. Why? Again, the epic's narrative strategies provide several answers without privileging any one. Yudhis.thit-a himself gives three reasons: 1) because he must obey his father (presumably in accordance with kula, or family, dharma):9 2) because he has vowed to accept all

^dyute ksattah kalaho vidyate nah; ko vai dyiitam rocayed budhyamanah. 2.52.10 76 miya. 2.52.14. 77 Literally, Vidura says that the dice game is the root of meaningless (anarthamiila). 2.52.1 1. vidvdqs. 2.52.1 1. 79 2.52.15.

challenges (in accordance with ksatriya dharma),mand 3) because of fate (dl~3tr).~' Taken together, these reasons generate more questions than answers.82 Was Yudhis.thira motivated by only one of them, or by all three? If the answer is the latter, then what does it mean to be impelled by dharrna and by fate at the same time? What is the relationship between the two? Is Yudhi$hira simply confused here? If so, why? By flooding the text with several possible motivating forces without privileging one, the epic's strategies transform the question of what caused Yudhi$.thira to accept the challenge to dice into another riddle-question. By rendering Yudhis.thira's reasons and motives a mystery to

us, the text encourages us to feel estranged from Yudhighira, King Dharma, for what may be one of the first times in the epic. Once Yudhis.thira agrees to play dice, he, like Duryodhana and D-as.tra

before

him, begins to spin out of control; his erratic behavior further encourages distance from him. When Yudhis.thira first sits down to play with hkuni, he is wary, telling hkuni, that gambling is evil.% He begins the game cautiously: his first stake is a string of pearls. But after he loses the first throw, he seems to become unhinged for mysterious reasons. Accusing calami of "confusing" him with a "trick,'^5 he stakes a thousand jars full of gold pieces. In the following seventeen throws, Yudhisjhira loses all his wealth, his kingdom, his brothers, himself, and his beloved wife, Draupadi. Such reckless behavior is utterly disconsonant with the calm, judicious character that we have come to know up

'2.52.16 and 2.53.13.

2.52.18. Later, in the forest in an astonishing moment, Yudhisjhira tells Bhima that he accepted the dice game because he wanted to take the Kauravas' kingdom away from Duryodhana. 3.35.2. 83 See pp. 89-90 for an explanation of thematic elements that cause estrangement. papa. 2.53.2. 85 matta. kaitavaka. 2.54.1. 82

to this point in the text; this sudden shift in Yudhi@hira's character heightens our growing estrangement from him and makes the question of the source of his mysterious behavior even more pressing. After staking and losing Draupadi, Yudhi$hira's behavior takes another surprising turn. His confused and reckless behavior gives way to stupefied silence. When the usher poses Draupadi's famous question to Yudhis.$hira (whom did you lose first yourself or me?), Yudhighha is "motionless," b'lifeless,"and fails to reply.86 His failure to respond mobilizes Duryodhana who orders Draupadi to be brought into the hall a third and final time. Du@asana complies, and Draupadi is molested and humiliated before all the kings including Yudhi@hira. When Bhigma finally calls on Yudhi$hira to decide the matter according to his interpretation of dharma, that is whether Draupadi has really been won or not, Y u d h i s . ~ adoes not utter a single word. Indeed, the text does not even register a reaction from the Dharma King. What is so troubling about Yudhis.thira's silence is that it paves the way for further abuses that his wife must endure, which makes his behavior seem not only puzzling, but cruel. 8? The obvious question is why is he silent? Is he too dejected to speak? Does he know that he will entrap himself if he answers Draupadi's question?= Is he simply unfeeling? This question is another of the dicing scene's many riddle-questions, and because the epic's strategies do not provide an

86

niicegta, gatasattva, 2.60.9

* Yudhigfiira makes this point himself at 3.35.17; it haunts him. See van Buitenen, The Mahabhdrata, vol. 2, 817 and Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabharata, 262.

explicit reason for Yudhighira's silence, his failure to speak up and attempt to stop the molestation of his wife renders our alienation from Yudhighira complete. 89 Disengaged from Yudhisma, we are encouraged to reflect on the sources of his erratic and mysterious behavior. Much is at stake in this question for Yudhis.thira is, after all, King Dharma. With respect to the depiction of Yudhighka in the dicing scene, the epic's narrative strategies make two things clear: that Yudhi$hira felt obligated to accept the game of dice because of dharma and because of fate and that once he began to play dice, he became maddened (or confused) by the dice game.90The rub is this: like Duryodhana and Dlqtarastra, Yudhis,thira makes a decision that leads to the dice game, but unlike his cousin and his uncle he makes this decision, at least in part, in the name of dharma, that is, because of his commitment to upholding virtue. Several uncomfortable implications follow. First, the path of dharma potentially leads to suffering and/or second, Yudhisthira's ability to perceive dharma is somehow flawed, for how could Yudhisjhira feel morally obligated to accept the invitation to dice at the same time that he knew that it would lead to a division in the family and to di~aster?~' By encouraging us to contemplate both these possibilities, the epic's narrative strategies direct us to question our assumptions and expectations with respect to dharma as a category that helps us successfully navigate the world and with respect to Yudhis-thiraas a moral guide.

89

For a different interpretation of Yudhis.thira's silence, see Mary Brockington, "Husband or King? Yudhis.thira's Dilemma in the Mahdbhdrata" Indo-Iranian Journal 4413 (2001): 253-63. 90 He himself says he was confused (matta) by $akuni9strick (at 2.54. I), so does the usher (at 2.60.4). Draupadi says that he was bewildered (m&iha) and maddened (matta) by his passion (mada). She says this, however, when she first learns of his stake and before she sees him. 2.60.5. 91 Perhaps Yudhighira is overly attached to dharma and his desire obstructs his vision. Draupadi suggests this at 3.3 1.1-10.

Perhaps we have too much confidence in either the category or the character, or both. An important question that we should keep in mind is "What is the reason for eroding our confidence in both conceptual categories (particularly moral ones) and in characters (particularly "virtuous" characters) in this manner?One thing, however, is clear from the depiction of Yudhighira in the dicing scene: from this scene forward, we are encouraged to abandon our unhesitating trust in King Dharma as a moral guide. What, if anything, is offered as a replacement? What sort of "clues" do the narrative strategies provide to help us decipher Yudhisjhira's mysterious behavior? Do they suggest that he became confused and succumbed to inverted vision as Duryodhana and Dmas.&a before him? While the text does not explicitly state that he became confused before he entered the game, his behavior seems to indicate that this is the case. When Yudhisthira accepts the invitation to the dice game, he repeats Dwara$.&a's fatalistic statements almost word for word. At

2.5 1.25 when D w a s J r a tells Vidura that he must sanction the game, he says mysteriously, "Certainly this [world] is under the control of destiny through the Ordainer.'m At 2.52.14 Yudhisthira tells Vidura exactly the same thing. This parallel suggests that whatever motivated Dhparaspa to sanction the game (confusion, as noted above), most likely motivated Yudhisthira to agree to participate,in it.93

3.4 The Work of Estrangement In light of our analysis of the depiction of Duryodhana, [email protected], and Yudhighira in the dicing scene, we can now stand back and ask: what is the purpose of dhdtrd tu d&tasya vase kiledam. Whether or not these parallel statements mean that these characters actually were impelled by fate or by other forces is a question that is left unanswered by the text.

93

the distancing effect that the epic's narrative strategies encourage? As discussed above, I argue that this estrangement promotes "a moment of reflection." By creating distance between the audience and the characters, the epic's strategies direct us to stand back and question why each one of these characters made the disastrous decisions that he did. While the narrative strategiesdo not provide an explicit answer to this question (instead they mystify the issue by flooding the text with several possible causes in order to effect the distance), they do provide "clues" that enable us to reflect critically on the mystery through their strategic deployment of the motifs of clear vision and blindness on the one hand, and mental clarity and confusion on the other. These clues, aggregativein their effect, encourage specific insightsinto the forces that promote despair. If we piece together these clues, we see the following dynamic at work. Each character who agreed to either implement, sanction, or participate in the game of dice was overtaken by powerful emotions.%Subsequently, each character succumbed to mental confusion and inverted vision.95As a result of this inverted vision, each character made decisions and took actions (that is to move forward with the game) that had disastrous consequences, decisions and actions that caused great suffering both to the character and to those around him, and each did so without seeing these decisions and actions as "wrong," or fruitless (anarthd). Instead, each saw his decisions and actions as somehow "good," or fruitful (artha) or necessary. In sum, what the narrative strategies of estrangement encourage in the dicing scene is the following insight into the forces that promote suffering, which can be articulated in the form of a chain of events: improper 94

Duryodhana was overtaken by jealousy and greed, D-asJra by anxiousness over the well-being of his son and possibly greed, and Yudhi$hira by anger and possibly greed (see his statement at 3.52.2). 95 For each character the "right course" appears as the wrong one, etc.

responses (like greed, envy or anger) to what one "sees" in the external world generates mental turbulence. Mental turbulence, in turn, causes inverted vision (where the wrong course appears as the right one and vice versa). Inverted vision, in turn, leads to bad decisions; bad decisions have disastrous consequencesand can lead to great suffering. this case, the misguided decisions of the three characters under review lead not only to Draupadi's suffering, but to the suffering of virtually every character in the epic, since the dice game provides a direct route to war. The text, then, provides a certain kind of argument about the existence of suffering and the forces that cause it through its strategies of estrangement. To probe into the work of estrangement even further, let us consider its implicationsfor eliminating suffering: If one participated in the abovementioned insights into the roots of suffering, one would both be motivated to change in way "x" by the content of the argument and changed in way "y" by the form of the argument. First, let us look at how one would be motivated to change by the content of the argument. The assumption here is that if one "saw" into the nature of the roots of suffering, then one would at the same time be encouraged to transform in such a way that one would no longer be subject to despair. In what specific way would one be encouraged to change? The abovementioned argument not only provides an account for the forces that promote suffering (i-e., strong emotions and a turbulent mind), but also, at the same time, contains implicit recommendationsfor how to free oneself from suffering (i.e., by cultivating a balanced mind that is not subject to being overwhelmed). Here the concept of contentment (sumto*, iamu) that is praised by Swjaya, Vidura, and other

advisors (i.e. those characters in the text who work to, among other things, eliminate suffering) seems particularly relevant.% Further, one is changed in way "y" by the form of the argument. Just as important as the content of this argument (articulated two paragraphs above) is the form in which it is delivered. To determine this argument's form, it is helpful to think about the way that the "clues" discussed above were presented to us. They were not "spoon-fed" to us; no explicit answers were provided by the text with respect to the motivational forces that led each of the three characters discussed above to make their disastrous decisions. Instead, we noted that the text directed us to work for our insights into why the characters behaved in the way that they did. This "work" took place at the moment of estrangement where, as I argued above, the narrative strategies disengaged us from the characters and directed us to reflect for ourselves on the forces that caused Duryodhana, Dhpragra, and Yudhis.thira to make the decisions that they did, decisions that caused suffering both for themselves and for those around them. This moment of reflection is where the "real work" of the narrative takes place because it precisely at such moments that the text directs us to search inside ourselves for understanding. Further, it is precisely this reflexive activity that is encouraged by the text's narrative strategies that attempts to make us not only active and open participants in the drama of the characters, but For statements on the concept of contentment in the Mahabhdrata, see, for example, Saunaka's discourse to Yudhis.thira at the beginning of the The Book of the Forest (3.2.15-3.3.1); the discussion of the hunter in 'The Colloquy of the Brahmin and the Hunter," a story told by Miirkqdeya in The Book of the Forest (3.198.1-3.207.2); Vidura's "argument-against-grief' to Dlytaraspa after the Kaurava defeat in The Book of the Women (1 1.3.1-7.20.) Related to the notion of contentment is Sqjaya's advice to Dl-qtarQ@aas he narrates the events of the war to him: to refrain from grief and remain calm and in control of his mind (5.156.13 and 6.16.6). Arti Dhand argues that equanimity is the overarching worldview of the epic. Dhand, 'The Subversive Nature of Virtue," 47. %

encourages us to develop the faculties, reflexive in nature, that will transform the act of "seeing" i t ~ e l f . ~

- iction of Draup- Her Protectors: The Den 4. Unprotected &nonest

-. the D. I.

C ~ ~

&em As I mentioned earlier, the depiction of Draupadi's abuse in the dicing scene is one of the most poignant images of affliction in Indian literature. 9S In this section I want to consider the "work" of this depiction and how the text's strategies encourage us to critically reflect on the nature and presence of sorrow in a particular manner. Immediately after Yudhigthira stakes and loses Draupadi, Duryodhana orders her to be brought into the hall. In one garment, weeping, and in her menses, Draupadi stands before her husbands and elders: The Pancala princess, wearing one garment whose waistcloth was below, weeping and having her menses, went into the hall and stood before her father-in-law." She pleads the injustice of her treatment and urges the members of the hall to save her from Duryodhana's cruelty. Her entreaties are met with absolute silence. This silence provides Duryodhana and his cronies with the freedom to proceed with their villainous designs:

97

Abhinavagupta uses the image of the heart being polished like a mirror to describe what happens to the sahrdaya, or the model readernistener, when he or she becomes able to sympathetically respond to the poem or drama. See Masson and Patwardhan, Aesthetic Rapture, 5-6. 98 See Nancy Falk, "Draupadi and the Dharma," in Beyond Androcentrism: New Essays on Women and Religion, ed. Rita M. Gross (Missoula, MT:Scholars Press, 1973), 89- 114 and Sally J. Sutherland, "Sita and Draupadi: Aggressive Behavior and Female Role Models in the Sanskrit Epics," Journal of the American Oriental Society 10911 (1989): 63-79. " ekuvastrd adhonivi rodamdnd rajasvalal sabhdmdgamya pdncdil SvaSurasydgrato'bhavat. 2.60.15

Then IA@%sana forcefully pulled at Draupadi's robe, king, and in the midst of the assembly began to undress her.'' Draupadi is subsequently violated as her husbands and elders watch and do nothing. She laments:

I who formerly the PNdavas could not bear to be touched by the wind in my house, now they allow me to be touched by this villain. The Kurus allow their undeserving daughter-in-law to be tormented. I think of the changes brought about by time. For what is more wretched than that I, a virtuous woman was brought into the middle of the assembly hall. Where is the dharma of kings?lO' Through the relentlessly repetitive description of Draupadi's violation, the epic's strategies engage the audience's senses and sympathies for her plight to their fullest. Draupadi is described as being "dragged," "seized," "held down," "shaken," "laughed at," "ridiculed," called "a slave" and "a whore," and " ~ t r i p p e d . " ~Further, ~ the text repeatedly describes her despair by noting "her pallid face," "her bleak spirits," "her shame," and "her fury."103 By emphasizing the fact that she is violated precisely where she should be most safe, (literally, that is she is "unprotected amongst her protectors )104 99

the Mahabharata's strategies point to a dark truth: if Draupadi can be treated in this way, among these people, then no one is protected from affliction. 100

tat0 du&sano rdjandraupadyd v a s a n q baldtl sabhamudhye samdkfipya vyupakra~twqpracakrame. 2.61.40. Draupadi is never fully stripped, however, because of her miraculous, inexhaustible saris. For a good discussion of this scene and its variants, see Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabharata, 250-257.Both the Northern and Southern recensions include Draupadi's appeal to Q$na during the time of her stripping, implying that K g ~ was a the source of the miracle. This plea to Qma, however, is not included in the Critical Edition. 101 yam nu mpyanti vdtena spflyamdmiq pura grhe I s p ~ y a sahante'dya m ~ pa&avas t&q durdtrnana l/rn~yantekurava$ ceme munye kdlasya paryayaml snupiqt duhitaram caiva kliSyamanam anarhatrmll kim tv atah krpapqi bhuyo yad a b strr sati Subhd sabhamadhyam vigdhe 'dya kva nu dharmo muhiksit~m.2.62.6-8. lo2 ^/krs2.60.24and 2.60.25;pard 2.60.24;ni dgrah 2.60.26;vi ava ddhii, d ddha 2.60.28and 2.60.37;dhas2.60.37 and 2.60.38;dm, 2.60.27;and vi apa dkus 2.61.41. lo3 vivarna mukha, 2.60.21 ; durrnanus, 2.60.21 ;hrimant, 2.60.28; 2.60.35. lo4 ndthavatimuruithavat. 2.60.24.

However, more should be said here about the kind of sensitivities and intuitions that the narrative strategies of proximity effect here for it could be maintained this one scene transforms the sensibility of the entire epic by introducing an aesthetic of despair which permeates the remaining sixteen books of the text105Why does Draupadi's violation cut so deep? What is it about this scene that is unsettling not only for us, but for almost every character in the text?lo6 I suggest that it is due to the presence of those elders and kings in the assembly hall who witness Draupadi's abuse and who do nothing. These elders, who have studied the Sdstras and performed the rituals, are speechless in the face of what appears to be a gross trangression of dharma.lW Draupadi's husbands and protectors, perhaps the most powerful men in the world, are mute and powerless before this unthinkable violation of their wife. They fail her in one of their most important dharmic duties as kings: protection.108Not only do Draupadi's husbands and her elders fail her, but, by extension, Sdstric learning fails her; ritual sacrifices fail her; familial ties fails her; her standing in society fails her. So too does her virtue fail her; dharma fails her. By calling into question the validity of these categories so fundamental to human life and flourishing, the depiction of Draupadi in the dicing scene encourages us to reflect on the effectiveness of precisely these categories, categories that, among other things, serve to maintain and uphold societal structures. What are we meant to See Section Two of this chapter. Examples of characters who refer to Draupadi's violation and how it haunts them are Kunti (in a very moving speech at 5.8. 84-7), Q?na (3.13.5-6); and Yudhisthira (5.26.15 and 18.1.7-7) lo7 Draupadi says: "In the hall are men who have studied the books. All follow the rites and are like Indras." ime sabhdydm upadistasdstr*; kriydvantah sarva evendrakulpdf}. 2.60.29. 108 For more on the significance of raksaqa in the Mahdbhdrata, see James L. Fitzgerald, The Mahabharata, vol. 7: Book 11: The Book of the Women; Book 12: The Book of the Peace, Part 1 (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 2003), 10-13. lo6

think about their effectiveness in light of Draupadi's treatment in the dicing scene? For example, what use is "status" if a queen can be treated in this way? What becomes of the categories "wife," "husband," "daughter," when Draupadi is treated thus before her husbands and her father-in-law? Draupadi later in the forest will say that she has no husbands, no father, no friends precisely because these familial ties failed her during the dice game.lo9 If such categories are shown to be ineffective, as they are for Draupadi here, then the question becomes "Precisely what protects human beings from cruelty and suffering?" Nothing? At the most basic level-stripped of all protective categorieswhat is a human being?l1ÂWhile these questions, implicit components of Draupadi's question to Yudhi$.thira, ostensibly render the elders in the hall mute, an answer is given by those strategies that encourage our proximity to Draupadi. Their answer: a human being is that which is vulnerable to great suffering and nothing, not even dharma, offers protection. This "answer" directs us towards the first component of the Mahdbhdrata's ethical project, the recognition of suffering. Through encouraging our proximity to Draupadi, the epic's narrative strategies encourageus to see that suffering is a fact of life. In this relentlessly repetitive scene, we hear the voice of suffering, we are brought uncomfortably close to the violence that the afflicted undergo. The fact that Draupadi is treated in the way that she is, among the people with whom she is most intimately connected shows us that affliction is a possibility for every person. Thus, the image of Draupadi in the hall is the quintessential image of human fragility to impenetrable forces. - -

3.13.59-110. Or, as Hiltebeitel formulates it, "What is the self?'See Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabhdrata, 260-61. '09

Ill Through the masterful ways the narrative strategies depict her, Draupadi represents not just a woman, a queen, in a moment in time, but every human being in every moment in time. One of the overarching questions that the epic's narrative strategies encourage us to ask in light of Draupadi's depiction of affliction is "How does one conduct oneself in a world that holds out the possibility of extreme suffering?" None of the epic's characters forget what happened to Draupadi in the assembly hall. Nor do the epic's narrative strategies ever allow us to forget: the trope of the abandoned, unprotected wife is reenacted over and over, but never as masterfully, never as poignantly, and never as dramatically as here.l

5. Drau~adi'sOuestion and The Silence of the Elders: Rupture in the DicNow I leave the topic of character (the first category in the poetics of suffering) and turn to that of thematics (the second category). Specifically, I focus on the presentation of dharmu in the dicing scene. This discussion will center on Draupadi's question to Yudhi@ira concerning the validity of his stake, its impact on the hall, and its impact on us, the audience. What does this question, which leads to a tangled discussion about the nature of dharmu among the elders in the assembly hall, and more significantly its answer, or lack thereof, teach us about dharmu, human sorrow, and their relationship? How does this contribute to the ethical task of recognizing suffering?

'I1 Draupadi is "abandoned" and violated twice more. Once in The Book of the Forest (3.248-257) and once in The Book of Virqa (5.13-24). See also 'The Story of Nala" where Damayanti is abandoned by her husband, Nala (3.50-80) and ''&&untal~'' in The Book of the Beginning. (1.62-70).

Before we embark on a discussion of dharma in the dicing scene, let us first revisit the details of Draupadi's question to Yudhis.thira and to the assembly hall and the response that it receives. After Yudhi$hira stakes and loses Draupadi to the Kauravas, Duryodhana orders an usher to bring Draupadi into the hall as slave to the Kauravas. When the usher approaches her, Draupadi, not missing a beat, quizzes him about the details of Yudhi#hira's stake. Upon learning the relevant information, she sends the usher back with a question for Yudhighira and for the hall: "Who did you lose firstyourself or me.o w 1 12 Upon returning to the hall, the usher asks Yudhis-ma: "Whose lord were you when you lost us? Who did you lose first-yourself or me?'113Notice the subtle shift in emphasis in the way that the usher poses the question and the way that Draupadi did. Draupadi's question focused on the issue of sequence, and the usher's question focuses on the issue of ownership. 114 Once the usher brings Draupadi's question to the hall, a tangled discussion about dharma takes place between the kings and elders in the assembly. This discussion centers on two intimately connected questions. The first is whether Draupadi's forced entrance into the hall was a violation of dharma. The second is the validity of Yudhis.thira's stake. Vidura, the first to raise the issue of the legality of Yudhis.thira's stake, urges the kings kim nu pUrvam pardjai@rdtmdmmmdq nu bhdrata, 2.60.7. van Buitenen called Draupadi's question "the ultimate riddle." For scholarship on Draupadi's question, see M. Mehendale, "Draupadi's Question," Journal of the Oriental Institute, Barodu 35/34 (1985): 179-94; S.M. Kulkarna, "An Unresolved Dilemma in 'Dyzita-Parvan:' A Question Raised by Draupadi," in Moral Dilemmas in the Mahdbhdrata, ed. B.K. Matilal (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989) 150-56; Alf Hiltebeitel, Draupadi's Question," in Is God a Feminist? The Politics of South Asian Goddesses, ed. Alf Hiltebeitel and Kathleen Erndl (New York: New York University Press, 2000) 113-122;Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahdbhdrata, 240-277; and B.K. Matilal, Ethics and Epics, 20. l3 kasyeio n& pardjaisir iti tvdm aha draupadil kim nu pardjaisir dtmdnum atha vdpi md. 2.60.8. 114 Arjuna also reformulates it at 2.63.21.

and the elders to answer Draupadi's question. Bhisma tries and fails, deeming dharma too subtle (szZ&a) to be interpreted.''* Vikarga, one of Duryodhana's ninety-nine brothers, declares Draupadi free because Yudhis.thira was under the influence of the dice when he staked her, but V i k m is summarily dismissed by the others in the hall.'16 Desperate to provide Draupadi with an answerto her question, Bhigna appeals to Yudhis.thira as "the authority"'" in these matters, but Yudhis.thira, mysteriously, refuses to say a word. Despite Vidura, Vikaqm, and Draupadi's pleas, Drow, m a , and the fail to respond; they either refuse or are not able other elders in the hall, like Yudhi~~thira, to speak to Draupadi's question. Why is practically no one in the hall willing or able to provide an answer to Draupadi's question? The epic's strategies, once again, do not supply us with an explicit answer to this question. Indeed, by rendering the reasons for the elder's silence mysterious to us, the epic's strategies encourageour estrangement from them just as I argued that they encouraged our distance from Duryodhana, Dwara@ra, and Yudhisjhira above. The "work" of this estrangement, however, is somewhat different in nature. Here the narrative strategies are not just targeting our confidence in specific characters, but our beliefs about the category of dharma itself. The elders in the assembly hall, ostensibly among the wisest men in the land, are, we presume, specialists in interpretingd h a ~ m a . ~ ~ ~

'I5 2.60.4-0. Draupadi echoes this at 2.60.3 1. For scholarly assessments of Bhisma's behavior in the dicing scene, see Karve, Yugdnta, 14; Mehendale, "Draupadi's Question," 194; M.M. Thakur, Thus Spake Bhi~ma(Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992),141-47; and Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabharata, 247. '' 2.61.23-25. 'I7 pram&a. 2.62.2 1. They have after all studied the sdstras.

The implication is that if anyone in the world of the text would be able to determine the dharma of a situation, aside from Yudlughira, it would be them. However, they are either unable or unwilling to do so, and the point in the epic where they respond to Draupadi's question with utter silence is one of the most hauntingly disturbing passages in the epic. There are few other places in the text where the presence of absence is more felt and undoes so much. What is so disturbing about the elders' silence of the elders? First, it calls into question their ability to perceive dharma. This raises the question of whether or not dharma can be perceived at all, an implicit anxiety that runs throughout the text119 Second, this silence creates a rupture, and by "rupture" I mean a gap in meaning, in both the assembly hall and in the text. In the assembly hall, the silence of the elders leads to the suspension of judgment, which provides Duryodhana with the freedom to move forward with his villainous designs. In the text, the silence of the elders creates a rupture, or gap in meaning, with respect to the category of dharrn~.'~~ By pulling the rug out from underneath our expectations and assumptions about dharma (specifically,that the wisest men in the kingdom should be able to interpret the right course of action, and, by extension, dharma should be an interpretable force) the epic's narrative strategies "disorient" us. In so doing, they disengage us from the world of the text in the same way that I argued that they encouraged our disengagementabove. Here the disengagement invites us to reflect on the fact that the most eminent brahmins in the hall, the Vedic

See, for example, Yudhi$hira's famous statement that "the truth of dharma is hidden in a dark cave" at 3.3 13.117 in the Vulgate. 120 For a similar interpretation, see Bhattacarya, Dharma-Adharma and Morality, 27.

scholars, the gurus, the ritual performers, are unable to determine the right course of action. The larger issues here are, of course, "What is dharma?" and "What is its relationship to suffering?'The rub is this: No one in the hall with the exception of Duryodhana and his companions believe that Draupadi should be dragged to the hall, stripped, and abused. It is because they are trapped by their inability to speak to her question, possibly because of their inability to interpret dharma, that they fail to act. This would suggest that dharma's inscrutability paves the way for what would seem to be one of dharma's greatest transgressions, the abuse of Draupadi. If this is the case, then the category of dharma itself gets implicated in Draupadi's molestation and affli~tion.'~' Draupadi herself seems to have assumed that her virtue would have protected her from such treatment. 122 Did we assume this as well? Now we are forced to ask ourselves, if the path of dharma, not only does not protect one from misfortune and suffering, but, on the contrary, potentially leads to or causes suffering, is the dharmic path worth it?123 What does this unsettling link between dharma and suffering have to do with the Mahdbhdrata's ethical project? I suggest that the process of disorientation effected by the narrative strategies of rupture is intimately linked with the process of recognizing suffering. How? Through targeting and disorienting our expectations and assumptions about key conceptual categories, here dharma, the narrative strategies suggest that there is some problem with these categories, particularly in light of the issue of suffering.

Bhattacarya, Dharma-Adharma and Morality, 27 and Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahdbhdrata, 259. 122 2.62.5-10. For a slightly different interpretation of how dharrna is called into question in this scene, see Hiltebeitel,Rethinking the Mahabhdrata, 240-41. 12'

Dharma is a category that, supposedly, grants conceptual clarityabout the way the world is ordered and to be navigated; it also, ostensibly, provides some degree of security against suffering. Hence, the epic's strategies, in targeting dharma, suggest that dharma, and categories like it (that is, categoriesthat provide conceptual clarity and security) are, in part, what blind us to the pervasive existence of suffering. The fact that the text also contains ruptures, or gaps in meaning, that target these very categories, dharma especially and most pervasively, implies that these categories must undergo a radical reevaluation. Why? Because they do not provide us with the conceptual clarity and security that we long for. The work of the rupture, then, directs us to recognize not only the failure of these conceptual categories in this regard, but exposes, at the same time, our longing for these categories not to fail, that is our longing for them to provide us with the comfort, security, and conceptual clarity that we require in order to believe that we are protected from affliction. Through the process of rupture, the epic's strategies orient usto a new way of seeing, a way of seeing that is free from the confines of this longing. The implication here is that the transformationof our relationship to these categories is crucial to the task of recognizing suffering. For it is precisely our sense of security and our belief (which is false) that we possess some degree of conceptual clarity about the world and the way it is ordered that protects us, to some extent, from suffering and that keeps us from recognizing, by extension, the extreme urgency in the task of suffering's elimination.

Conclusion In this chapter I have examined four characters and one theme in the dicing scene, arguing that the text's strategies of proximity (primarily with Draupadi) and estrangement (primarily from Duryodhana, D m a g r a , and Yudhighira) encouraged insights into the forces that promote human sorrow (namely, a turbulent mind and inverted vision) and the processes that lead to its elimination (namely, a calm mind and clear vision). I also showed how the text, through the strategies of rupture, disorients us, encouraging us to question our assumptions and beliefs about dharma. I further suggested that this disorientation is intimately linked with the task of recognizing suffering by calling into question our beliefs about specific conceptual categories that we assume protect us from misfortune and despair. My method in this chapter has been to adopt a "hands-on" approach to analyzing how the narrative strategies function vis-a-vis the issue of suffering. In the chapters that follow I will "back-off slightly in my analysis in order to provide more space for the poetics of suffering to happen to the reader. The next chapter, Chapter Four, builds on the discussions of estrangement in Chapter Three by focusing on a character, now familiar to us, DmQ.tra, and his role as both an agent and victim of suffering. This will be explored primarily through a discussion of his three characteristic activities: vacillating, blaming, and lamenting.

Chapter Four The Eyesight of Insight: Dhflariistra, Moral Blindness, and the Narrative Construction of Time The angry Duryodhana is the great tree, K w a its trunk, h k u n i the branches, Duhhana the plentiful blossoms and fruits, and the foolish King [email protected] root. 1.1.65

In Chapter One I laid out a typology of characters (i.e., the victim, agent, passive witness, and eliminator of sorrow), arguing that one way that the text is able to refigure our understanding of suffering is through the depiction of characters vis-a-vis these four roles. In this chapter I concentrate on the character D m a @ a in order to investigate how the presentation of the blind king,specifically, and characters in the Mahdbharata, more generally, contribute to the epic's three-fold ethical task.' The depiction of D m a g r a is intertwined with the theme of sorrow for several reasons. First, Dhpaagra is both an agent and a victim of suffering. On the one hand, he is blamed for the war and its consequent devastation (moreso than any other character, I would argue): and, on the other, he is utterly broken by the holocaust. After the battle, having lost all of his sons save one: DWaras-trafalls victim to an intense

1

Surprisingly, very few scholars have focused on Dma8.p-a and his significance in the epic. One notable exception is Krishna Chaitanya's The Mahabharata: A Literary Study (New Delhi: Clarion Books, 1985), 45-64. Chaitanya, The Mahabharata, 45-64; Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 292. m n a blames him at 9.62.37-55; Samjaya blames him throughout the battle books (see Sections Three and Four of this chapter); and Vyasa implies that he is to blame at 6.4.6. He, of course, is not the only character who is blamed. Only Yudhisthira's grief after the war rivals Dmaragra's post-war malaise. Dhftarastra does have one son who survives the war: Yuyutsu, a bastard son.

and protracted grief, a state from which he never truly recovers. Because he is such an extreme example of both agent and victim, Dhrtarastara plays a significant part in our moral refiguration. Second, the characterizationof Dmas.tra is interwoven with the issue of time.5 In this chapter, I will be referring to three kinds of time-cosmological time (time as the creator and destroyer of all beings in the world): sequential time (past, present, and future time relative to the sequence of the events of the narrative), and causal time (the inextricable link between past, present, and future time and between act and consequence). At two important points in the story, D-as-tra

appears in the epic's

frame, in The Book of the Beginning (Adiparvan) and in the four war books. In both cases Dig-tar@tra expresses his sorrow in the context of a dialogue with Saqjaya. Time is a central theme in these discussions. It is targeted as the cause of Dlqtariigra's suffering

5

For scholarship on the subject of time in the Mahabharata, see Nicholas Sutton, Religious Doctrines in the Mahobharata, 247-267; Yaraslov Vassilkov, "Kalaviida (the Doctrine of Cyclical Time) in the Mahabhdrata and the Concept of Heroic Didactics," in Composing a Tradition: Concepts, Techniques, and Relationships, ed Mary Brockington and Peter Schreiner (Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Sciences and the Arts, 1999), 17-34; Peter Hill, Fate, Predestination,and Human Action, 196-223; Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahdbhdrata, 38-39,89,95, 166,97; and Gonzalez-Reimann, The Mahdbhcirata and the Yugm: India's Great Epic Poem and the System of World Ages, (New York: Peter Lang, 2002). For scholarship on time in the Indian tradition, see Anindita Balslev, A Study of Time in Indian Philosophy (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1983); Anindita Balslev, 'Time and the Hindu Experience" in Religion and Time, ed. Anindita Balslev and J.N. Mohanty (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993), 163-181; Ariel Glucklick, The Sense of Adharma (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 38-66; Romila Thapar, "Linear Time in Historical Texts of Early India," India and Beyond: Aspects of Literature, Meaning, Ritual and Thought: Essays in Honour of Frits Stall, ed. Dick van der Meij (London: Kegan Paul International, 1997), 562-574; and Alf Hiltebeitel and Randy Kloetzli, "Kda," in The Hindu World, ed. Sushi1 Mittal and Gene Thursby, 553-586. 6 With cosmological time there is an emphasis on time's destructiveand oppressive capabilities. In Chapter Five, I refer to this type of time as the epic's ''kdlavada" or account of time. 7 For a discussion of frames in the Mahobhcirata, see Chapter Two, Section One.

(as a destructive force, the agent of the death of his sons) and it is identified by Samjaya as the key to the elimination of Dh.@~@tra's grief. How does D m a @ - a ' sunderstanding of time contribute to or cause his grief? How does Samjaya attempt to extinguish Dlq$aras.tra's despair through encouraging insight into the nature time? How does our temporal relationship to Dlqtarasfra impact the way we view events in the epic, particularly in terms of suffering? Third, D-sp'a

rarely appears in the text without an advisor by his side (most

often Vidura or Samjaya) whose advice to him often centers on the issue of suffering. They encourage him to avoid making decisions that will lead to despair (both his own and others') and urge him to overcome his grief. The extent to which Dlqtaras.tra heeds their advice influences both our relationship to him and what we learn from him about sorrow. What do these advisors tell DmQ.tra and why? Why is he deaf to their words of counsel? To answer these questions, I will examine four narrative episodes:1) Dwaras$ra's "When I heard.

. ." lament in the epic's outermost frame in The Book of the Beginning

(Adiparvan), 2) D~ariQ.tra'srole in the failed peace negotiations in The Book of the Effort (Udyogaparvan),3) Dmas.tra as war spectator in the frame of the battle books, and 4) D-Q.tra's

reactions to the news of the Kauravas' defeat and the advice that he

receives in The Book of the Women (Striparvan). At the same time, I will consider the text's skillful deploymentof two types of narrative strategies and their role in the text's presentation of suffering: estrangement and temporal manipulation.

2. Dhrtastra's "When I heard.. .

e J,=nt

dummary

As I mentioned in Chapter Two, the Mahdbhdrata begins when Ugrasravas, a szita and a paurbnika, that is, an expert in telling stories about kings and gods,8 encounters a group of brahmins performing a sacrifice and agrees to narrate the story of the Mahabhdrata to them. Ugrahavas begins with introductory comments about the glories of the story, its origin, its author, and its contents. In the context of these introductory comments, Ugrasravas provides a brief summary of the epic. This summary begins with P@&I's decision to renounce his kingdom and live in the forest and ends with the decimation of the ksatriyas in the war. Directly after Ugrasravas's summary, Dh@ra@ra, a character whom we have not yet met, suddenly speaks for the first time and provides a second summary of the Mahabhdrata. DhykxZigra's summary is presented in the form of a lament articulated by an aged father who has learned that the last of his surviving sons, Duryodhana, is dead and his army vanq~ished.'~ Dwar&tra responds to this devastating news by reflecting on the past events that portended in his mind the Kaurava defeat and the deaths of his sons.

In what follows I consider three aspects of D r n a g r a ' s "When I heard . . ." lament in The Book of the Beginning: 1) the lament itself and the way that Dh)[email protected] characterized by it; 2) Samjaya's response to the lament; 3) and the location of the lament in the epic's introductory passages. 2.1 The Lament Dhparagra opens his lament by "reflecting" on his own role in the events that led to the war. He attempts to absolve himself of blame, assuring Samjaya that he did not

Minkowskil, Janamejaya's Sattra, 404. 1.1.67-95. The exact timing of this lament is not made explicit by the text.

intend the death of the ~auravas,"his sons, and that he did not favor them over his nephews.12 Poignantly, Dlq-tarZis.traspeaks of his sons killed in the war in the present tense, as though he is not yet able to cognitively accept the fact of their deaths. He tells S~jaya: My sons who are overcome by anger resent me who am old. But I, who am blind, endure it because of my affection for my sons, which is a weakness. 13 D-@tra

blames his eldest son Duryodhana for the war, arguing that a

"be~ildered"'~ Duryodhana caused him to "become be~ildered"'~ and, therefore, to make the bad decisions that led to the conflict. Further, because Duryodhana "lost his mind,"16 he counseled the crooked dice game, which caused the conflict. Attempting to distance himself further from culpability,Dlq-taraspa tells Smjaya All along he has foreseen that he is wise: he has the eyesight of insight (prajficicak~us).'~

na vigrahe mama matir. 1.1.97. l2 na me vise& putresu svequ pciglusfite.y ca. 1.1.97. This statement, we will come to discover, is false. Is Dlq-tar&tra a victim of self-deception or consciously lying here?We do not know. l3 vrddham mdm abhyasfiyantiputrd rnanyupardyaq@ilahum tv acaksuh kdrpanycit putraprityd sahdmi tat. 1.1.98. The grammar and style of this lament is entirely different from other Mahabharata laments, which are characterized for the most part by a string of questions concerning the circumstancesof the loved one's death, the tendency to juxtapose the condition of the deceased now with how the loved one appeared in life, and a meditation on the causes of the victim's misfortune (which Dwaras.tra does do here). No other lament in the epic, to my knowledge, employs this strange use of the present tense that refers to the loved one as though he or she is still living. For some "characteristic" Mahabharata laments, see Yudhighira's lament at 7.49.1-21; AivatthZiman's lament at 9.64.12-38; and GZindhari's lament at 11.16.1-26.1. l4 dmuh. 1.1.98. l5 a n d m u h . 1.1.98. l6 acetana. 1.1.98. l7 This term is a polite epithet for a blind person. However, it takes on a broader (even ironical) meaning in the Mahabharata, particularly with respect to its application to Dlq?ar&tra. The narrative voice applies this term to DWaras.tra frequently (for example at 2.45.2, 3.5.1, 3.8.23,9.1.21, 11.10.2.) The term is also linked to knowledge of karma l1

the approaching war and the defeat of his sons. D m a s . t r a says: S q j a y a , hear from me whatever I know about it so that when you have heard my words which are truly informed with wisdom, then, son of a siita, you will know that I possess the eyesight of insight.18 Dh@iriis@a defines wisdom in a particular manner here, as "seeing" the outcome of an event from the event's inception, a virtue that I will refer to as "far-sighted vision." To prove his point, Dh@u-&tra lists some fifty-five events, which, according to him, portended the inevitable war and the defeat of the Kurus. Because he "foresaw" a Kaurava defeat with each event, his point is that in spite of being blind, he has the special ability to see with insight. Significantly, this list also doubles as a summary of the central events of the epic. Dh@iraspa's list begins with Draupadi's svayayvara and ends with Aivatthaman's curse of Pariksit in the womb,19suggesting that he sees these two events as the "book-ends" of the Kaurava-PiQdava conflict and the defeat of his sons. His list focuses predominantly on the Pwdavas' feats of strength and virtue and the losses suffered by the Kauravas. Examples are: Yudhis.thira7sdefeat by $akuni in the game of dice (and yet, still, his brothers remained united in their support for him):' forced entry into the assembly hall:'

Draupadi's

Arjuna's acquisition of the Paiupati missile and his

(in Mfirkqdeya's discourse to Yudhis.thira) at 3.181.26 and knowledge of impermanence at 3.200.48 (in the hunter's discourse to the brahmin). l8 tatra yad yad yathd jfidtam mayd samjaya tac c h ~ Iuirutvd hi mama vdkydni buddhyd yuktdni tattvatah I tato jndsyasi m&q saute prajiidcakpqam ity uta. 1.1.101 l9 In the story, AivatthZman hurls his weapon not just at Uttara's womb, but the wombs of all the Pfqdava women. Q s n a assures everyone that Pariksit will be revived in Uttarara's womb. See 10.15.28-31 and 10.16.1-15. 1.1.105. *'1.1.106.

sojourn in heaven with Indra?' the Pqdavas' alliance with ~ira~ta,* and the various slayings of the Kaurava generals during the war.24 Dlq%aragrapackages each event in the formula, "When I heard "x", I lost hope of victory."25His repetition of this formula some fifty-five times fashions the lament into a despairing, mournful meditation on the seeds of the Bhilrata conflict and the defeat of his sons.26 Thus, his lament encourages us to see each of the epic's major events from his point of view, that is from the perspective of a father grappling with the deaths of his sons, the end of his line, and the loss of his kingdom. However, it also encourages us to ask certain questions of him. One obvious question is if he "saw" each event as portending a Kaurava defeat, why didn't he do something to stop the building animosity between his sons and the Pwdavas? What is the use of insight if it does not lead to action? In the concluding section of his lament, Dtytaras.tra succumbs to despair. Reflecting upon the grief of his queen, GZindhari, and the other women who lost their husbands and sons in battle, he tells Samjaya that darkness pervades him and his mind is unsteady. He laments: Woe! I hear ten have survived the war, three of ours and seven of the PQdavas. Eighteen armies were destroyed in the battle, that war of ksatriyas. Now dark confusion seems to overpower me. I have no clarity. SQta,my mind is unsteady.27 1.1.109-10. 1.1.115. 24 For example, 1.1.126, 1.1.144, and 1.1.147. 25 yadarausam.. . tadd naSarye vijaydya samjaya. See, for example, 1.1.102. 22

1 should stress that D m a g r a ' s main preoccupation here is with whether or not the Kauravas' final defeat could have been avoided, not with whether or not the war could have been avoided. 27 kmtam yuddhe daia ie& h t a . me; trayo 'smdcarg.pwavdiuim ca sapta I dvyuna viMatir ahat@auhininiim; tasmin samgrme vigrahe kgatriydnam I/ 26

Tormented, he falls to the ground in a faint. Upon regaining consciousness, he tells S q j a y a that he sees no profit in continuing to live.% What are we to make of the shift from the almost prideful arrogance that [email protected] exhibited in his prefatory remarks (he did, after all, claim to have special wisdom) to his despair here? Remember, Smjaya has told Dh.j%ar&trathat Duryodhana, the last of his one hundred sons to survive the battle and the head of the Kaurava army, is dead. Whatever lingering hopes that he harbored that the Kauravas would prevail have been utterly dashed, and Dh.j%ar&trais struggling to come to terms with this devastating news.

2.2 The Response As I mentioned earlier, D w s , t r a ' s lament in the Adiparvan appears in the context of a dialogue with Samjaya, his charioteer and advisor. Sqjaya responds to DMarCisp-a's words of despair by urging him not to grieve. Swjaya makes his "argument-against-grief' by also discussing the war's cause. However, while D-iQpa

blamed Duryodhana, Samjaya considers several other candidates, which he

focuses on with varying inten~ity.~'First, Smjaya points a finger at the destructive power of time, particularly as it effects even the most mighty:

tamasd tv abhyavastirno moha dvisatrva rndm hamjtkim nopalabhe suta mano vihvalativa me. 1.1.158-59. 28 1.1.161. 29 There are four other major arguments-against-grief that espousea view of time that is consistent with Swjaya's view here. Three are delivered by Vyaa (6.2-4; 12.26; 16.9) and one by Vidura (1 1.2) Kysna's statements to Arjuna in the Bhagavadgitd could be considered an argument-against-grief as well since Kys~aargues that Arjuna should not grieve for those "he" is going to kill because Q s ~ a ,as time, has already killed them. Thus, the Gitd becomes both an argument-against-grief and an argument for war. For a more detailed discussion of the genre of the argument-against-grief, see Chapter Five, Section Two.

You have heard about many kings, kings of great energy and strength. You have heard talk of them from Dvaipliyana [Vyasa] and wise NWada. They who were born in great lineages, who were endowed with virtues, skilled in weapons, possessed splendor that resembled Indra's. They who conquered the earth with dharma, offered up sacrifices with many gifts, and acquired fame in this world all succumbed to the decree of time.m Samjaya recites the names of twenty-four kings, and a second list of sixty-five kings, making the point that despite their strength, wisdom, and virtue they all succumbed to death.3tSecond, Samjaya targets Dhytar&tra's sons whom he calls "wicked" and "consumed by anger" and therefore should not be m0urned.3~Third, Swjaya more quietly and indirectly implicates [email protected] in the events since the blind king "knows [how to implement] both restraint and favor"33implying that he went too far in protecting his son ~uryodhana.3~ Fourth, S q j a y a turns to the topic of fate: "It was to be thus and therefore you must not grieve. With [even] superior wisdom who can divert fate?"35 Finally, Swjaya returns to the theme of time in one of the epic's signature statementson the subject: Time ripens creatures and time rots them. Time again extinguishes the time that burns creatures. Time alters all beings in the world, virtuous or not virtuous. Time destroys them and creates them again. Time moves in all creatures, unchecked and impartial. Those beings who were in the past will come again and those that exist now, they are all fashioned by time. Know this and do not abandon your intelligen~e.3~ 30

Srutavdn asi vai rdjfio mahotsahdn mahdbaliinl dvaipayanasya vadato ndradasya ca dh~rnatahllmahatsurdjavaqtieju gunaih samuditesu cal j&in divydstravidusah Sakrapratimatejasah/fdharmew prthivim jitvd yajhir igiuiptadaksinaih /asmi& loke yaSah prapya tatah kdlavaSam gat*. 1.163- 165. 31 Literally "they all went to their destruction." nidhunam gat*. 1.182. 32 tava putrd d u r d t m d e prataptds caiva manyund . . . na t& iocitmq arhusi. 1.1.183. 33 nigrahdnugrahau cdpi viditau te narddhipa. 1.1. 185. 34 natyantam eviinuvrttih srfiyate putrarabane. 1.1.185. 35 bhavitavyam tatha tac ca ndtah Socitum arhasil a'uivam prajndviSesepz ko nivartitum arhati. 1.1. 186. 36 kdlah pacati bhfitdni kalah samharati prajdhlnirdahantam praj* kdlam kalah hinayate punaw kdlo vikurute bhavdn samiqd loke SubhdSubhdnl kdlah s a w i p a t e

Samjaya devotes the most time and art to his first and last point, both of which have to do with the destructive power of time. He also targets fate (which he seems to assume is closely related to time), Dh@u-iispa's sons, and [email protected] (implying that he did not do enough to restrain his wicked sons in spite of the fact that he "knew better"). In locating the cause of the war predominantly in the destructive power of time, I

Smjaya attempts to dispel Dmas.tra's grief by helping him to see that he should not grieve over the death of his sons and the destruction of the Bhikata line because time does not just bring death and destruction selectively. Time brings death to every living creature since all life is fundamentally characterizedby time. In making this point, S a j a y a is attempting to shift D-iQtra's

focus from the narrow lens of his own

particular situation, the loss of his sons, to the level of the experience of all living creatures. From this vantage point, D m a s p a ' s view of things would look radically different. He would be encouraged to see that the sorrow he that feels now has been experienced by every creature on earth since all creatures are creatures of time. Accordingly, he would be directed to see that his grief is just a tiny drop in the ocean of sorrow caused by the ravages of all-destroying time. Such a shift would, presumably, snap D m a g r a out of his despair by distancing him from his own situation and opening his eyes to the condition of all living creatures. It would also, presumably, encourage a transformation in DIgtaras.tra's emotional responses from grief and self-pity to emotions like stoic acceptance and fortitude.

sarv* prajd visrjate punay kdlah sarvesu bhUtesu caraty avidhrtah samahll atitdn dgatd bhdvd ye ca vartanti sdqpratam/ tdn kdlanirmitdn buddhvd na samjhm hdturn arhasi. 1.1.188-190.

To state clearly the key points of my analysis so far, Dwaragra in his lament focuses, among other things, on the issue of who or what is responsible for the destruction of the Bhiiratas and places the blame squarely on Duryodhana. He does so to distance himself from responsibility and to make his current situation more bearable. At the same, Dhpras@a7srush to absolve himself of blame raises certain questions, even suspicions, about his ability to see situations correctlyand about his role in the catastrophic end of the Bhiiratas. In his response to Dl@ara$.tra's despairing words, Saipjaya discusses the cause of the destruction of the Bhiiratas as well, but instead of blaming Duryodhana, he targets time; his aim is to extinguish [email protected]'s grief. 2.3 The Location of the Lament and the Response Let us now consider the significance of the location of this lament and response as well as the form of the lament as a summary of the epic. In what follows, I will argue that the placement of DwarZis-&a'slament in the text's outermost frame in conjunction with its form signals to the audience that Dma$.tra's grief concerning the death his sons is a dominant epic motif which introduces an emotional tone or rasa (grief due to loss) that colors our reception of the central events to come. In terms of the lament's placement, it is helpful to make a distinction between where Dhymas@aand Samjaya's dialogue takes place in the text and where in the story. While this dialogue is located in the beginning of the text, in the story, it takes place directly after the death of Duryodhana, which occurs in The Book of the Night Massacre (book ten) at the conclusion of the war in the latter half of the story. Therefore, an event

that takes place well into the story is placed at the beginning.37 To determine what kind of "work" this placement is doing, it is necessary to reflect briefly on the function of the text's framing device. As I mentioned earlier, the Mahabharata does not begin with the central story of the great BhZiratas. Instead it begins with two outer frames that introduce the circumstances of the epic's first two tellings, that is where it was first told, by whom, and where. Further, these frames provide the epic's two main storytellersUgra6ravas and VaiSmpiiyana with the opportunity to reflect on the Mahabhdrata's genre, its central messages, its contents, e t ~Thus, . ~ these ~ framing devices allow the text to present itself in specific ways and thus gain control, to some extent, of the way the audience views it.39 They also grant the text the power to manipulate time by giving it the ability to move backwards and forwards in time (i.e., sequential time).40 In the case of the location of Dlytaras.tra's lament, these devices manipulate time by manipulating the sequence of events in the story. To put this differently, an event that has yet to come (the lament) is placed at the beginning of the text. Thus it impacts the way that the audience understands the text as a whole as well as events as they come.41 It does so in several ways.

This particular lament is not repeated in the battle books. However, Dwr&.tra does lament Duryodhana's death and the defeat of his army at the beginning of The Book of Salya (when he first hears the news of it from Samjaya) and at the beginning of the Striparvan (when the news has sunk in). See 9.2.3-9.2.47and 11.1.10-20respectively. 38 See Chapter Two, Section One. 39 For slightly different interpretations,see Minkowski, "Janamejaya's Sattra;" Reich, "A Battlefield of a Text," 4-6,56-64; and Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabhdrata, 92-130. ""For my definition of sequential time, see the introductionto this chapter. For more on frames in the Mahabharata and their relation to time, see Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabharata, 38. 41 For a good discussion on the significance of the introduction and its impact on interpretation in works of literature see Christina Swanson, "Narrative Temporality and the Aspect of Time in Franz Kafka's Short Fiction," Ph.D. dissertation (Universityof 37

First, it encourages the audience to see each of the major events that the blind king mentions through the lens of his grief and regret, namely the sorrow of a father broken by the deaths of his sons. The form of the lament, as a summary of the epic, plays a crucial role in this effect since Dmfigra's expressions of despair encapsulatethe epic in miniature. Second, Dlq%ar@tra's lament reveals the outcomeof the conflict (war and devastation on a massive scale) at the very beginning. In so doing, it suggests that each of the major events listed in the lament are, in some sense, foreordained stepping stonesthat inevitably lead to the inescapable outcome of the conflict: the catastrophic end of the great Bhaatas. Time as a force that drives all creatures towards a foreordained doom is thus woven into the narrative fabric itself. Third, Samjaya's speech on the destructive nature of time provides a critical interpretive lens as well since his argument for why DMar2s.tra should not grieve, prepares the epic's audiences for how to properly deal with their grief. This preparation is intimately linked with Saxqjaya's meditation on the destructive aspect of time, a major theme of the epic. Just as Smjaya tells D m Q . t r a that he should not grieve because death comes even to the most mighty, so too the text tells us that we should not despair of the deaths of the mighty kings in this tale because death is inevitable for all beings. Indeed, the Mahabhdrata could be viewed as containing an extended argument for why

California Irvine, 1999), 107-116. On this point she writes, "Because the literary narrative is an aesthetic medium of communication, the manner in which the narrative opens is furthermore significantin determining the reader's reception of the narrative's entirety. The passage that is presented first thus possesses not only a discursive primacy, but also a primacy in the reader's understanding and interpretation of all that follows .., It also follows that the central function of a narrative's beginning is to serve as a point of entrance into the fictional world of the story and the character's situations." Ibid., 110.

one should not grieve for the losses that are inevitably brought about by time.42 Finally, DWZisfra's lament and Sa.rgjaya's response both focus on the cause(s) of the deaths of DwZigra's sons and the destruction of the BhWatas, but do not supply a consistent account.43 Since no explicit answer is given, but several possibilities are suggested, the text raises at the very outset, but does not answer, the question "Who or what caused the deaths of Dh@ua$ra's sons and the end of the great BhZiratas?' One possibility is of course Dhrtari3g.x-ahimself, an open-ended question that renders DWar&tra's expressions of despair multi-dimensional,even ironical, and encourages our distance from him. Because the Mahabharata war brings death not only to Dmarasfra's sons, but wreaks devastation on a universal scale (universal in terms of the world of the text, because no one is untouched by it), the broader question here is "Who or what is responsible for death?" or, even more to the point, "Who or what is responsible for grief

For discussions on the perils of grief in the epic, see, for example, 3.206.20-25and 5.36.42-43. 43 The source of the Mahdbhdrata war is undoubtedly overdetermined. The possible candidates in the text are almost endless. Various characters are blamed (e.g., Duryodhana, DmZi$ra, and less frequently IQyp[see 18.1.7-9;6.62.38-54;1.1.92; 2.33.19; 15.5.71). Impersonal forces like time, fate, and karma are also blamed. For a good discussion of fate, time, and karma as causal forces of the war in the epic, see Peter Hill, Fate Predestination and Human Action, 193-230.There is even a cosmic explanation for why the war had to take place. According to this explanation, the battle is really a conflict between the Asuras and the Gods, whose mission is to relieve the earth of her burden. (1.58.25and 11.8.20-26).See Simon Brodbeck, "Husbands of Earth: Ksatriyas, Females, and Female Ksatriyas in the Stripaman" (Paper presented at the 12th World Sanskrit Converence, Helsinki, July 2003. To appear in the proceedings, ed. Petteri Koskikallio, pub. Motilal Banarsidass). However, I would caution those who want to see this cosmic explanation as all-encompassing for it overshadows the human dimension of the conflict, which the epic narrative undoubtably emphasizes. Ramanujan cautions us on this point as well. See Ramanujan "Repetition in the Mahabhdrata," 434 note 4. 42

and sorrow?'* Therefore the placement and form of Dmas,tra's lament in addition to the content of Samjaya's response signals to the audience that DmZis.tra's grief over the loss of his sons-and simply grief itself--is a central concern of the epic; it is so in several ways: as a major theme, a hermeneutic, a central driving question, and a topic that governs, to some extent, the aesthetic intent of the epic (to instruct the audience in how to move beyond despair).

3. Dhrtarastra's -ed

..

Peace N e ~ o m

In this section I put Dmas.tra on trial as a potential agent of suffering by examining his role in the failed peace negotiations in the The Book of the Effort. Significantly, the text devotes much attention to Dh}taras.tra in this parvan, especially as he agonizes over whether or not to take measures to avert war.45Therefore, the context of the peace negotiations provides us with the opportunity to watch Dmas.tra as he deliberates, doubts, listens to good advice, and squanders his last chance to treat his nephews as sons not enemies and thereby avert war. With this aim in mind, I will explore the depiction of D m a g r a in three different instances: as he reveals his inner Upon the death of Abhimanyu, Yudhigthira, heartbroken, asks VyZisa, "What is the cause of death?" Vyasa responds by making a reference to a famous dirge, 'The Passing of the Sixteen Kings," recited by the seer NZirada to King Sfijaya, who mourned the death of his young son. This speech, similar to Smjaya's in the Adiparvan in many ways, appears at 12.29and Appendix I (no.8) in the critical edition. For a discussion of the two epic contexts for this passage and their significance,see Reich, "A Battlefield of a Text," 1 10-152. ^van Buitenen suggests that the decision to make peace with the Pwdavas is up to Duryodhana. (see van Buitenen, The Mahdbhdrata, vol.3, 133.) However, the narrative focuses on Dwarftgra's decision-making process during the peace negotiations, not Duryodhana's. Yudhis.thira also assumes that the decision is up to Dwaragra (see 5.2332.) 44

thoughts to Sargjaya (here his envoy) about the merits of the two parties involved;&as he receives advice about how to treat the Pwdavas from his wise brother ~ i d u r aand ; ~ as ~ he makes his final decision about whether or not to give the P@@vas their kingdom back.@ My aim here is quite specific. Several characters blame Dh@x&tra for the conflict between the P@&vas and Kauravas and the consequent destruction of the ~ h i i r a t a s They . ~ ~ cite his failure to listen to good advice during the dice game and during the negotiations for peace as e~idence.~' Therefore, an examination of Dh@xa@a's actions and decisions here will help us assess these

accusation^.^'

At this point in the text, we have traveled far from the The Book of the Beginning. Briefly, Yudhi~~thira has gained and lost a kingdom; the crooked gambling match has occurred; and the P@&vas, having honored the conditions of losing this match (thirteen years in exile), now demand their kingdom back. The Kauravas, however, are stalling. Thus, the two sets of cousins stand on the brink of battle. Armies have been amassed on both sides and only decisive action will avert war. At the opening of The Book of the Effort, the PQ@vas send an envoy demanding that the Kauravas honor the terms of their agreement.52 Warning them "not to let this time forsake [them],"53the P@davas7envoy assures the Kauravas that if they do not act now, it will be too late. After the envoy leaves, DhytarZigra, worried, decides to send his 5.22.1-3.1. 47 5.33.1-42.1 @ 5.46.1-60.1. 49 Most notably, S a j a y a (5.156.9 and 6.14.13) and Ky?~a (at the end of The Book of salya, 9.62.37-55). 50 See, for example, 6.16.4 and 9.62.37-55. 51 See Chapter Three for an analysis of Dh@xa@a's behavior in the dicing scene. 52 On the conduct of diplomacy in ancient India, see van Buitenen, The Mahobharata, vol. 3, 134-138. 53 md vah kalo 'tyagdd ayam. 5.20.21.

&

own envoy, Sqjaya, to assess the PQ&ivas' position. Dmii$.tra's words of instruction to Sarqjaya concerning how to negotiate with the Pmdavas expose a critical moral flaw in the blind king: the wide gap between how Dhgtariis-pa"sees" on the one hand (in this scene he sees the situation with stunning clarity) and the course of action that decides to take on the other. DWiispa's speech opens with instructions about how Saqjaya should greet the Pwdavas. Rather quickly, however, he veers off track into an extended meditation on the virtues of the Pwdavas (they are blameless, wise, disciplined, and gener~us)'~ which he contrasts with the "villainy" of Duryodhana whom D-astra

calls "wicked," "uneven,"

and "foolish."55 D W a s p a further reflects on the unparalleled might of the P@@vas, particularly Yudhighira's whose "anger" he fears most.56 He says,

I am not as afraid of Arjuna, Kgna Not even of Bhima and the twins, As I am always afraid, bard, of the Anger of that fury-excited king. He possesses austerity, self-controlHis plans are sure to succeed, Knowing his anger about the conflict is just, I am utterly fearful now, Samja~a.'~ Finally, Dhytariispa briefly tells Sarqjaya what he should say to the P&&ivas: He should kindly salute them, calling them blessed for "having completed the miserable sojourn that

5.22.4. papa, visama, mandabuddhi. 5.22.7. 56 5.22.33. 57 nahary tatha hy arjundd vasudevad; bhimod vapi yamayor va bibhemilyatha rdjnah, krodhadiptasya siita; munyor aham bhitatarah sadaiva llalam tapobrahmacaryew yuktah; samkalpo 'yam manasas tasya sidhyetltasya krodharq samjaydwp samike; sthane janan bhflam asmy adya bhitah. 5.22.33-34. 54

55

they did not de~erve."'~ After asking about the Pwdavas' health and speaking with affection about whatever is opportune for thems9and profitable for the ~hZiratas,~' he should assure them that D-aspa

wants peace6' and say nothing that will rouse them

towards war.62 Given Dhytaras.tra's speech to S a j a y a here, one would assume that Dhytaras.tra would decide to give the P@@vas their kingdom back, since he believes that their cause is just and that they have not deserved the treatment that they have received from the Kauravas. Instead, D m a g r a tells S a j a y a to ask about their health! He does not say one word about what he is willing to give the P@&vas because he is willing to give them nothing. In spite of his correct assessmentsof the moral qualities of the P@@vas and the vices of his son, he refuses to take the obvious proper course of action and give the P@&vas back what he sees is rightfully theirs. Dlq%arfis.trais unable (or unwilling) to connect his insight with his actions, even when understands the enormity of what is at stake. We know from his speech that he sees clearly how powerful the Pandavas are and that they will most likely destroy the Kauravas if war breaks out.63 (Specifically, he says that no one is more powerful than Arjuna and Bhirna and that the twins, Nakula and Sahadeva, will leave no Kuru alive.)64Dhytarfqpa's unwillingness to connect his actions with his insights, even in the face of enormous and disastrous consequences, is perplexing. It begs the obvious question: "Why does D@tarfispa refuse to make the krccham vdsam atadarhci nirusya. 5.22.2. prdptakdlam parebhyas. 5.22.39.Note he refers to the Pwdavas as the "enemy" (para) here. a b h a r a t m hitam. 5.22.39 61 5.22.2. 62 5.22.39. See 5.22.10-34. 64 5.22.10-16. 58

59

effort to prevent a war that he knows will devastate him and his family?" As Dh@r&graawaits Samjaya's report about his mission, he has premonitions that Smjaya will bear bad news. Upset, tormented with doubt, fearful of the future, D m a g r a calls upon his wise brother Vidura to discourse upon dharma in order to ease his mind.65 Vidura's discourse to his blind brother is remarkable in it sheer length and scope. In this "vigil" (van Buitenen it calls "one of the longest longeurs of the Mahabharata so far9')* Vidura discusses what seems to be every topic under the sun. Each lecture, however, ends with a peroration on the justice of the Pwcjavas' cause and specific advice about how they should be treated: D-agra

should consider them as

his sons and return to them what is rightfully their^.^' When Dhptrii$ra asks Vidura specifically what he should about the Pwcjavas, Vidura says, As actions have consequences, one should look at the consequences and having deliberated, act. One should not act with haste.68 Then, applying this general principle to Dhpu3is.h-a's particular situation, Vidura tells his brother that he should make peace with the PFqqlavas because he will rue the consequences of his bad decisions. Failure to give the Pwdavas what they want will lead to war.@ Samjaya assures D-as.tra

that if there is war, either the Kauravas or

Dmiisjra's sons will perish, and either result will cause Dwara$.tra despair. Saqjaya tells Dwarqpa:

5.33.12 and 5.33.15. * van Buitenen, The Mahabhdrata, vol. 3, 180. 67 5.33.103-105. anubandhan avebeta sdnubandhe~ukarmasul sampradhdrya ca kurvita na vegena samdcaret. 5.34.8. 69 5.39.20-30. 65

Behold the bad consequences of quarreling with the P@@vas for whom even ^laha and the gods tremble: enmity with sons, an ever-anxious life, the loss of fame, and the joy of your enernie~."~' In his speech to Dh@irfi,ytra,Vidura highlights the connection between act and consequence. Let us mark this point; it will return to haunt the blind king, especially through the mouth of Samjaya in the battle books. According to Swjaya, understanding this intimate link between act and consequence will be crucial for DWaras.tra for two reasons: It will help him to see how and why the destruction of the Bhbatas was his fault (Samjaya, however, does not only blame Dh@irftgrafor the war, he also blames time and fate):'

and it will help him move beyond his grief. Not surprisingly, Dwarfistra does not heed his brother's advice. In the assembly

hall the next morning, when Samjaya reports that the P@&vas will declare war unless the Kauravas return their kingdom to them, Dhgarfigra still refuses to give in. Instead, he questions S w a y a about Yudhighira's battle-plans. When Dh@araspa poses these questions, all the characters in the Kauravas'assembly hall "lose hope of their lives."72 They realize that the blind king has no intention of taking the necessary actions to avert war, even though war is upon them. Even the perennially composed Swjaya faint^.^ What makes Dmfispa's intransigence in the face of the imminent prospect of war so perplexing is the fact that he himself sees (and has seen) very clearly that the P@@vas will slaughter the Kurus. In spite of these premonitions, he refuses to take measures to avert war, that is until it is too late.

70

paiya dosan p w a v a i r vigrahe tvaq yatra vyatherann api dev* saiakrah putrair vairam nityam udvignavdso; yaia(zpra@o dvisatm ca h a r d . 5.37.38 71 See my discussion in Section Four of this chapter. 72 nir&i jivite 'bhavan.5.48.47. 73 5.49.10- 13.

Shortly after, in a remarkable about-face reminiscent of his return to clarity in the dicing scene,' Dh&=iras.tradecides that peace should be made with the Pwdavas. Otherwise, he realizes, the destruction of the Kurus is imminent. He says to Sqjaya, I think that no war with them is best-hear this, Kurus! If there is war, the destruction of our entire lineage is assured. This is my last [attempt] at peace, which will appease my mind. If war is not desired, let us strive for peace! Yudhis.thira will not ignore you of learning for he loathes vice, pointing at me alone as the cause [of the conflict]. 75 Samjaya, however, tells [email protected] that his change of heart has come too late; the P@&vas at this point have suffered too many wrongs. Maharaja Bhaata, it is just as you say: it is foreseeable that [Arjuna's bow] will destroy the kyatriyas in battle. But this I fail to understand in you who are always courageous: that, in spite of knowing the power of the Left-handed Archer, you submit to the will of your son. This is not the time, This seems an odd thing for Swjaya to say. Only moments earlier, Bhisma and Droga tried to convince Dhpar&tra to make peace, which suggests that there was still time then to avert war. So, at what point did it become too late for Dlqtaragra to change his mind? While the text does not give us an explicit answer to this question, it does make "a narrative point" through this sudden and inexplicable point of no return. The point is this: Dh@u%s.traalways decides to the right thing when it is too late to reverse his course See Chapter Three, Section Three. ^tair ayuddhum sadhu manye kuravas tan nibodhatal yuddhe v i n w krtsnusya kulasya bhavitd dhruvam// esa, me paramd Santir yayd Sdmyati me martaw yadi tv ayuddhum istam vo vayam Sdntyai yatdmahe/l na tu n d Sik;amdpindm upekseta yudhisthirah// jugupsati hy adharmew mdm. evoddiSya karawm. 5.52.14.- 16. ^evam etan maharaja yatha vadasi bharatat yuddhe vinOsah ksatrasya gd&ivenu prad$yate// i d m tu nabhijanami tava dhirasya nityaSah/ yat putravaSam agaccheh sattvaj* savyasacinah llnuisa kalo maharaja . . 5.53.1-3. Note that van Buitenen translates this last line as "It is now too late, Maharaja!" while Ganguli translates it as: "Now is not the time [to grieve]." What I interpret S q j a y a to be saying here is that there was a time where peace negotiations were possible, but this time has passed [email protected] by. 74

.

of action. Not only is it too late to reverse his negotiations with the Pwdavas, it is also too late to reverse Duryodhana' course. Now Duryodhana (who has been for the most part silent in this parvan) declares that he too is determined to go to war, and nothing will stop him.77 Therefore, despite his change of heart, DWar&.tra is now powerless to make peace because both the PZiqdavas and Duryodhana have passed beyond the point of no return. By focusing on the brooding, doubting, hesitatingDly-tara@raas the events escalate to this point, the text shows us that the momentum that [email protected] now unable to reverse has much to do with his own actions and decisions. Specifically,he is unable to "see" and hence act upon the consequences of his actions, even when the disastrous consequences of his actions are directly upon him. At the same time, the text's strategies present us with the paradox of D-iis.tra:

that he sees with insight but does not act with

insight. This paradox, which lies at the core of Dbtarii$ra, will have grave consequences. Just how horrific they will be, we, at this point in the story, can hardly fathom.

Before I move on to a discussion of the depiction of the blind king in the battle books, I want to return briefly to Vidura's discourse on dharma discussed above. There I noted that Vidura's dhamw-talk touched upon a vast array of topics. The fact that it does so raises a troubling question about dharma. If a discourse on dharma given by a master/specialist of dharma ( the incarnation of Dharrna no less)78includes such a wide

77 5.57.10-20.

The god Dharma is cursed by an angry seer to be born in the womb of a sudra. The result is Vidura. 1.57.77-8 1.

78

range of topics, then what is dharmu? To put this question another way, if dharma is everything, then is it anything? Thus, one possible reading of Vidura's discourse is that, through the strategies of excess:9 the text attempts to undermine our confidence in the category dharma (once again). Another possibility, which does not necessarily negate the first, is that these strategies provide a clue about the way that dharma functions in the epic. This possibility rests on the supposition that there is a method to Vidura's discourse, namely to overwhelm the blind king with what van Buitenen calls Swjaya's "rainy-season pitterpatter peanuts of wisdom." The point in so doing would be, ostensibly to open him up and make him receptive to what Vidura has to say (for Vidura interrupts his rambling discourse, every now and then, to give Dlq%am$ra very specific advice-namely

to

consider the consequences of his actions and to return the Pwdavas' kingdom to them). If this is the case, then Vidura's "strategies" suggest that dharma is less a straightforward set of strictures and more an orientation to the world, a way of seeing, if you will, that is characterized by receptivene~s.'~Vidura's "method" would also suggest that what words "do" is as important as what they signify since here Vidura would be using words to "do work," by attempting to make Dlqtaragra receptive through sheer volume, just as I argue that the strategies "do work" by attempting to transform us in a variety of ways.

79

Maria Heim, 'The Aesthetics of Excess," Journal of the American Academy of Religion

7 113 (2003): 53 1-554. 80

See Matilal's discussion of dharrna and perception in Ethics and Epics, 85-159. David Shulman talks about the epic as a "vehicle for realistic insight." Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets, 26.

4. Samiava Narrates the Battle Eventsto the Blind King

Now let us turn to Dbataragra's laments in the frame of the battle books.811 am interested in the the fact that we "hear" the events of the war as we are sitting next to [email protected] as he listens to Sanjaya's narration. As Dwriis.traysfellow listeners, we are privy to his reaction^.'^ Since most of the events that Smjaya narrates concern the deaths of D a @ . t r a ' s sons, friends, family members, and allies, D-aspa's

responses

are responses of despair. What do we learn from Dlq-taEis.tra about his grief by sitting next to him as we listen to Smjaya narrate the events of the war? As I discussedin Chapter Two, the Mahdbhdrata has not one, but several principal narrators, who exist at different levels of embeddedness in the text Ugrairavas narrates the story of the Bhilratas to the brahmins of the Nairnisa Forest in the epic's outermost frame. Vaiktmpayana tells the story to Janamejaya in the text's inner frame (Vaisampayana is the most present of all the narrators), and Smjaya narrates the events of the war to Dmas.tra in the epic's four battle books. What is the significanceof the fact that Samjaya, not Vaiiampiiyana, is the principal narrator of the battle books and [email protected], not Janamejaya, is our fellow audience member? Since both Samjaya and DWarasJraare characters in the central story, they are familiar to us in ways that Vaiiaq%iyanaand Janamejaya are not. While we know very The four battle books are in order: The Book of B h i v (Bhipuparvan), The Book of Drona (Drowparvan), The Book of Kapta (Karnaparvan), and The Book of $alya (salyaparvan). 82 DWarQpa's immediate fellow listeners are, of course, the women of the court. We know this because in the beginning of the Salyaparvan, D&aras.tra dismisses them when he hears the news of Duryodhana's death at 9.2.1. Also, the text notes their response to Kaqa's death at 8.3.1-8.

little about Vaibpiiyana, we know Samjaya as Dlq-hriigra's charioteer, bard, and critic. Further, we know that he criticized the king several times for his role in the conflict;83 now Samjaya will narrate the events that he predicted and tried to pre~ent.'~ Similarly, while we know very little about Janamejaya, we have traveled far with Dwiis.tra. We have watched the blind king agonize, waiver, fail to make good decisions about how to treat the Pwdavas, and thus fail to avert the events that he will now hear Smjaya's narrate. Therefore, as audience members of the battle books, we not only know more about our narrator and fellow audience member, but we also know something about their relationship to the events being narrated. In what follows, I offer a brief analysis of two narrative episodes: Dh@irii@a's request that Saqjaya narrate the events of the war to him in the The Book of the Effort and Dlq~iigtra'slament at the news that Bhisma has fallen in the frame of the battle

books in the The Book of ~ h i p z aNext, . ~ ~ I turn to a consideration of two structural features of the battle books, backshadowing and frame-switching,that involve the framing device and the narrative construction of time.

4.1 DhrtraraStra's Reauest At the end of the The Book of the Effort, when it is clear that the peace negotiations have failed and war is inevitable, Dhpuiis.tra asks Saqjaya to tell him everything that happened in the armies of the Kurus and the P&&vas. (Remember that 'Dmriis.tra is blind and cannot witness these events himself.) In the course of posing this request, Dwariigra also makes several revealing comments. He tells Samjaya that he

5.32.10-30. Chaitanya, The Mahiibhdrata, 29. 85 Bhisma lies mortally wounded on a bed of arrows throughout the rest of the battle. He does not die until the end of book thirteen, The Book of the Instruction. 83

thinks "fate is supreme and human effort is u ~ e l e s s ,because '~ despite the fact that he knows the evils of war, he cannot restrain "his deceitful son.'s7 Upon further reflection he offers, "I do have the wisdom to perceive evil, but when I am with my son, it is concealed from me.'@ Sargjaya chastises DWara$.tra, telling him that he should not put all the blame (dosa) on Duryodhana. Further, "the person who obtains that which is inauspicious because of his own misdeeds" should not blame time or fate.89After reprimanding the king, Smjaya agrees to report the details of the war. Significantly,he provides instructions for how D w r a g r a should listen: he should remain calm and not despair. (To my knowledge Sqjaya is the only narrator in the epic who instructs his audience in this manner, with the exception of Naada, who, interestingly, is reporting to Yudhi$.thra the news of Dhytaragra's death in the forest fire). Sargjaya tells Dhytaraspa: So, then, hear from me in full the news of the slaughter of the horses, elephants, and kings of immeasurable splendor. And while you are hearing, king, what happened in the great war that gave rise to the destruction of all the world, remain calm and do not despakw Why should D m g r a remain calm? Because, according to Swjaya, A person is not the agent of his good and evil acts; slhe is not free and is manipulated like a wooden puppet. Some [acts] are assigned by God, some by chance, and still others by previous acts .. 91

.

distam eva param paursam cdpyanarthakam. 5.156.4. 87 nikrtiprajputram. 5.156.4-5. bhavaty eva hi me siita buddhir dojdnudariinil duryodhanamsamdsddya punah sd parivartate. 5.156.6. 89 dtmanu ddcaritdd aiubham prdpnuydn narah. 5.156.9. whayandm ca g a j a n q ca rajflam ccimitatejasadvaiiasam samare vrttam yat tan me S r ~ usarvdah I/ sthiro bhdtvii maharaja sarvalokakjayodayam/ yathdbhiitam mahayuddhe irutvd md virnand bhava. 5.156.12- 13. 91 na hy eva kartd puru& karmanoh subhapdpayohl asvatantro hi purusah luiiyate daruyantravatll kecid iivaranirdigcih kecid eva yadrcchayd pdrvakarmbhir apy anye ... 86

5. 156. 14-15.

Thus, at the very outset of the war, we see that DWa9.h-a is preoccupied with his role in the conflict. On one level, he accepts some degree of responsibility. However, by presenting himself as a passive agent who is directed to act by fate and by Duryodhana (it is not clear whether or not Dh@ar&tra connects these two forces in his mind), he accepts responsibility only minimally. S a j a y a focuses on the cause of the conflict as well, but his statements are ambiguous. On the one hand, Saqjaya implies that the roots of the war have nothing to do with human influence and he does so in a manner that suggests that human power is severely if not completely limited. On the other, he blames Duryodhana for the conflict, suggesting,of course, that human beings have the power to act. 4.2 Dhrtarastra Laments Bhisma's Fall

The narration of the war events commences in the The Book of Bhipa when the "grief~tricken'~ Samjaya, rushing from the battlefield to Hhtinapura approaches the " b r o ~ d i n g [email protected] '~ and tells him that "Bhismahas fallen. Smjaya says,

I am Sajaya, great king. My homage, bull of the Bh&atas! BhQma, son of Samtanu, the grandfather of the Bh&atas, hasbeen killed! The chief of all warriors, the light of all archers, the grandfather of the Kurus now lies on a bed of

arrow^.^

To drive the magnitude of this point home, Smjaya juxtaposes many of Bhigma's great feats of strength with the fact that he now lies helpless on a bed of arrows: He who on a single chariot conquered all the assembled kings in a great battle in the city of the K S i , the great warrior, the offspring of the Vasus, who fought

92

duhkhita. 6.14.2.

*94 dhyiiyant.6.14.2.

samjayo 'hamrnaharajd namus te bhdrataiyabhal hato b h i w -tanavo bhdratd- pitiimuhahlf kakuduq sarvayodhiindqz dhdma sarvadhunupnatiim/ Saratalpagatah so 'dya Sete kurupitdmahah. 6.14.3-4.

R-a

Jamadagnya and was not killed by him, now has been felled by ! % . k h a ~ ~ d i n . ~ ~

Significantly, Samjaya concludes his opening speech by blaming Dh@ir@@a for what has come to pass: [Bhisma] lies on the ground, groaning, undeserving of his fate, because of your ill-advised plan, Bhdrata!% Dlqtaras,tra responds to the disastrous news by voicing his grief. First he expresses his despair through a string of questions. How was Bhiyma killed? How did his father fall from the chariot? [email protected] also talks also about how he feels. "Profound grief overwhelms [him],'m and he "knows no peace?

only sorrow. He reflects on how

his sons must feel now that Bhisma is dead, worries about the safety of his army (saying, "the army of my son is now like a woman whose hero has been killed ),99 and questions Ã

how this could have possibly happened to one as mighty and powerful as Bhisma. First he blames himself,100but later comes to the conclusion that time is resp~nsible.'~'At the end of his lament, he exhorts Smjaya to tell him everything that happened, blaming it all on Duryodhana once again: Tell me everything to me that happened to the kings of the earth in battle, whether it was well-conducted or misguided as a result of the ignorance of that fool [i.e., ~uryodhana].lo2

yah sarvan prthivrpalan samuvetan mahamrdheljigayaikarathenaiva kciiipurydm mahdrathah//jamadagnyam rune ramam ayodhya vasmqbhavah Ina hato jamadagnyena sa huta' dya Sikhadind. 614.6-7, 96 sa jete nijtanan bhiimuu vdtarugna iva drumuh tava durrnantrite rdjan yathd tuirhah sa bhdrata. 6.14.13. 97 art$ para mdviiati. 6.15.4. 98 na hi me iantir astiha. 6.15.69. "yoseva hatavird me send putrasya. 6.15.49. 95

6.15.15.

kalo niinmq. mahdviryah sarvalokaduratyayah. 6.15.56. samgrdme prithiviidndm mandasydbuddhisa~bhavamlapanltam sunitam vd tan mum dcakpa samjaya. 6.15.73. lo' 102

While Samjaya agrees to report the details of Bhisma's slaying in full, he first berates D-asfia.

DhjrtarNfla, Sargjaya says, should not place all the blame (dosa)on

Duryodhana, for "a man who is faced with misfortune because of his own evil actions must not suspect someone else."lo3 The P w v a s suffered deceit because of their loyalty , ~ ~ ~exhorting DlytarQtra to listen to what he, Smjaya, has seen with to ~ h J G i r i l g r aNext, his own eyes or through "the power of yoga,"105he instructs him ''not to indulge his mind in sorrow" because "surely all this was destined long ago."lm The exchanges between DhprZtgra and Sargjaya in the frame of the four battle books follows the format of this exchange closely. This format is as follows: Smjaya reports the details of the war to DhJGirZtgra,DMaras.tra responds with a lament in which he, among other things, turns to the issue of the responsibility for the war and blames variously himself, fate, time, and Duryodhana (most frequently). Sargjaya chastises him for not accepting his responsibility; and tells him that he is reaping the results of his bad acts since he didn't listen to good advice,lmand since he allowed the Pwdavas to be treated so cruelly by his son.lo9Sargjaya then exhorts Dwar@$rato listen to what he has to tell him and to remain calm and not to grieve because the war and the destruction of

ya dtmano duicaritdd a i u b m prdpnuydn narahl enasd tena ndnyam sa updiankitum arhatL 6.16.2. lo4 6.16.4. lo5 6.16.5. According to Devabodha this phrase is a reference to Smjaya's divine eye, which he received from Vyaa so that he could report the full details of the war to Dbtar2s.tra. Devabodha, Dewbodha's Commentary on the Bhippparvan from the Mahdbhdrata, edited by S.K. Belvakar (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1947), 8. See also, idem, "Samjaya's 'Eye Divine,' Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 27 (1946): 323-26. md ca ioke manah k r t w . 6.16.6. lo' distam etat purd niinum. 6.16.6. 6.61.20-21. lo9 5.156.11 and 6.16.4. lo3

the Bhaatas was foreordained andlor because man is not the agent of his acts.l1Â D m s . t r a and Saqjaya's exchanges in the frame of the battle books are noteworthy because both characters focus on the issue of the war's cause and both provide inconsistent accounts, but their speeches are inconsistent for different reasons. D-iQpa,

it is clear, refuses to come to terms with his hand in the war. It is simply too

much for him. Therefore, he blames whatever person or force is convenient for him.lll Samjaya's inconsistencies, on the other hand, are due to a distinction that he makes between how D-iis-tra

should think about the causes of the war (i.e., DMa.rfis.tra

should blame himself), and how DWarZ&tra should listen to his narration of the battle events (i.e., the king should view the unfortunate events as the work of destiny). While the event remains the same (the war), the king's responsive acts are different (blaming versus listening).l12

4.3 Backshadowing and Frame-switch in^ in the Frames of the Battle Books Moving now to the topic of the battle books' structure, let us now consider how certain structural features related to the text's framing device, backshadowing and frameswitching, make an "argument" about Dm&tra's hand in the war. Each battle book begins with a flashforward in which Saqjaya rushes back from

5.156.14,6.16.6. Note that while D W a s p a sometimes points the finger at himself, he never ends a speech on this note. He always settles upon some other force. According to Lawrence McCrea, there is a rationale behind Smjaya's ambiguous statements: Samjaya employs two different rhetorical strategies for two different purposes. When Dmas-traattempts to play "the blame game," Samjaya stops him short by pointing to his own culpability; but when DmrQtra begins to wallow in despair, Smjaya points to the inexorability of fate and the universality of death and loss. In both cases, "his aim is essentially therapeutic-to lead him away from self-destructive emotions and towards stoic acceptance and fortitude." Personal communication. l o

111

the battlefield to announce to Dma$.tra the death of the Kaurava general of the book (each book is named after a Kaurava general who is killed). The rest of the book entails Smjaya's narration of the days of the battle that conclude with the general's killing.'13 What is worth noting about this structure is that each book begins with a declaration of its own outcome (i.e., the news of the death of the Kaurava general) and the rest of the book involves the narrative's effort to "catch up" with this outcome. I will refer to this device as "backshadowing" since Swjaya's reports are after-accounts, not running commentaries.

While this narrative technique is similar to the placement of

Dwariis.tra's lament in The Book of the Beginning discussed above, it does not function in the same manner. Therefore, I will adopt different language to discuss it.l15 The second aspect of the battle books' structure that I want to focus on is the device of frame-switching. While frame-switching is used throughout the Mahabhdrata, the use of this device is particularly effective in the battle books because, as I mentioned earlier, the audience is so well-acquainted with S a j a y a and D-gra.

Further,

Dwarii$ra and Sajaya's conversations provide a framing meta-commentary on the events. Significantly, this conversation is between the character who is, ostensibly, an For a slightly different interpretationof the chronological arrangements of Sargjaya's reports, see Belavalkar, "Sargjaya's 'Eye Divine," 323-26. See M.A. Mehendale, Reflectionson the Mahiibhdrata War (Shimla: 1995), 3. In Section 1,I discussed the use of this device in the Adiparvan. Here I am focusing on slightly different dimension of its use in the battle books. On my use of the term "backshadowing," see Alf Hiltebeitel and Randy Kloetzli, "Time," in The Hindu World, ed. Sushi1 Mittal and Gene Thursby (London: Routledge,2004)' 582. The difference has to do with the fact that Duryodhana's fall-the source of [email protected]'s grief in the Adiparvan-is not the outcome of the epic story (the events that the lament frames), but only a later event. Bhis~a'sfall-the source of Dhrtarastra's grief in the Salyaparvan-on the other hand, is the outcome of the book. Thus, while the technique is similar in both instances, it is saying something fundamentally different about time in each case (namely, it is making a point about cosmological time in the first instance and about causal time in the second). l 3

agent of the war ( D W Q p a ) , and the character who forces [email protected] to see himself as such (Sargjaya). Backshadowing and frame switching are narrative devices that manipulate time, and therefore make specific points about it. These points have to do with the implicit connection in the text between causation (seed and fruit), a theme that has been surfacing throughout this chapter, and time (here understood as the inevitable march from past to present to future).'I6 Backshadowing is a convention that encourages us to view the events that occur in a particular battle book as informed by the outcome of the book (i.e., the death of the Kaurava general, the news of which opens each book). The outcome, in this way, becomes the defining hermeneutic of the book. All the events that occur in that book are seen as an inevitable progression leading to the death of the Kaurava general. Accordingly, backshadowingis a structural feature that "treats the past as though it inevitably led to the present;" it suggests that "the present, as the future of the past, was already immanent in the past in a more or less straight line."117 The use of backshadowing in the battle books involves "backwards causality" because it makes a past catastrophe (the death of the general) visible in temporal advance. By treating the present as already immanent in the past, backshadowing makes the point that the fruit of an act is contained in its seed (i.e., in the seed's inception). This device, then, provides us with a clue concerning Dlq%uiis.tra's role in the war, a topic of Samjaya For examples of two discussions of karma in the epic that incorporate this metaphor, see 3.225.22-27(where, interestingly,[email protected] himself is speaking about the likelihood that the Pi@@vas will defeat the Kurus in battle) and 5.34.1-25(where Vidura is attempting to convinceDh@ir@tra to make peace). Gary Morson, Narrative and Freedom: The Shadows of Time (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 3 and 234.

and D-@tra's

framing conversations. Following this structural logic, Dh@vastra's

fatal error was that he did not have a proper understanding of time and therefore of causation. When he made his decisions to give into his sons and allow the Pwdavas to be treated unfairly, D W a g r a did not properly understand this intimate connection between past and present (as the future of the past), and therefore between seed and fruit.118Or, if he did understand this intimate connection, he failed to act based on this knowledge. Either way, his failure contributed significantly to the great tragedy for in the decision to cheat the Pmdavas contained the fruit of the war and the death of his sons. It was not a question of whether or not the war would come to pass (and D m a s J r a held out hope against hope that it would not, as we know from his "When I heard . . ."dirge), it was just a matter of time. The second structural feature, the strategy of frame-switching, plays with time by placing two different narrative moments, the time of the war and the time of the war's telling and Dmas.tra's grieving, in close proximity to one another. What this device provides, then, is the juxtaposition of two narrative moments, one in which a character (DwZis.tra) is forced to see that he is the agent of an event (the war) and one that involves the details of the event (the war) itself. This switching back and forth between agent and event, or seed and fruit, suggests that the present (as the future of the past) and future are inextricably linked, that the effectand its cause are inseparable. As in the case above, the point is that Dhparas.tra did not have a proper understanding of this intimate connection between the past and the present (as the future of the past) as well as between seed and fruit; because of this fundamental misunderstanding,he now he finds himself 'I8

Vidura and Samjaya make this very same point to Dh@ariis,traat 5.34.1-25and

11.1.30-35 respectively.

facing inconceivable consequencesfor his misguided actions and his over-indulgent affection for his sons. As I noted above, Dhytaragra claims to have the eyesight of insight, which he defines as the ability to see the consequences of an action at an event's inception. However, if this is the case, then we encounter (once again) the paradox of the blind king: that he sees with insight but does not act with it. The reason why he fails to make the connection between insight and action, following the logic of the structure of the battle books, is because he is blind to the intimate link between act and consequence. He fundamentally misjudged this connection by clinging to the small hopes he harbored that he would not reap the bad consequences of the seeds that he sewed, even though he was able to "see" these consequences in temporal advance.ll9It was this error, this moral blindness, that cost him and virtually every other character in the epic so much because it contributed significantly to the war and its devastation. Experienced in this way, the text provides an argument for why we should see in the way that D a a s . t r a does not see. Blindness to this fundamental characteristicof time and causality, the text argues, is at the heart of the source of affliction.

vice: Three Arsuments-AP After the war and at the opening of The Book of the Women, we find DMarQtra at a crossroads. Devastated by the defeat of his army, the deaths of his sons, and the loss of his kingdom, he is a broken man. It is unclear at this point whether or not he will ever rise above his grief. To help him do so, three "advisors" (Samjaya, Vidura, and Vyasa)

For a discourse on the evils of hope in the epic, see 12.126.

arrive to deliver three different arguments-against-grief. I will assess these arguments in order to determine which one(s) D W & t r a is persuaded by why. The end of the war represents a crossroads for us as well. Like Dlqtarastra, we have just emerged from the battle books and have experienced "the massive shock that the account of the war produce^."^^ Just as [email protected]'s advisors present him with three different arguments for why he should not grieve, the text provides us with three arguments for why we should not grieve. Which arguments, if any, are we persuaded by and why? As I stated earlier, the Mahdbhafata contains an extended argument for why its audiences should not grieve. One way that the text makes this argument is through the characterization of the grieving king who receives advice concerning why he should not grieve. In this context, the text presents some of its most powerful cases against despair. Why does the text present many of its arguments-against-grief through the depiction of a character who himself ultimately fails to overcome his own sorrow? 5.1 Three Arguments-Against-Grief

At the opening of The Book of the Women S a ~ j a y approaches a Dlq-tara5.h-a and tells him that it is time to perform the funeral rites for the warriors who have died in battle. DMaragra, "pained because of the killing of his sons and grandson^,"'^' responds by falling to the earth and lamenting: My sons have been killed! My relatives have been killed! All my allies have been killed! Obviously I will be miserable as long as I move upon this earth! What is the use of living now that I am deprived of my relatives? Without them, I am like

'20 121

Fitzgerald, The Mahobharata, vol.7, xvi. putrapautravadharditah. 11.1.9.

decrepit old bird whose wings have been ~1ipped.l~~. .. Is there a person in the world more miserable than First DMarQ-trablames himself for not heeding the advice of his friends124and for giving into his bad judgment125Then he turns around and blames his misfortune on the machinations of karma and fate (this instance is the one time that Dlqhr&j$rablames karma for his misfortune to my knowledge):126 Sargjaya, I do not remember committing bad acts in the past the fruit of which I am receiving now, fool that I am. But certainly I did something wicked in previous births since the Ordainer has joined me with deeds fated to bring misery. The destruction of all my kinsmen and allies, growing old, all this has come upon me through the operation of fate. Is there a person in the world more miserable than In response, S a j a y a attempts, once again, to extinguish Dl-qtar&.tra's grief. Samjaya argues that Dh@arQtra should not grieve because the source of his grief, the death of his sons, is his own fault Because Dwaragra did not follow his friends' advice1=and because he was too greedy and "eager for results,"129he now finds himself in this miserable position. Sargjayafurther points out that DMarasJra's son, 122 This image of extreme vulnerability to the implacable forces of the world is a quintessential image in the Mahdbharata. See my discussion of Draupadi's depiction in the dicing scene in Section Four of Chapter Three. hataputro hatdmdtyo hatasarvasuhrjjanahf duhkham nunam bhavisydmi vicaranp~thivimimdmf/kim nu bandhuvihinasyajivitena samddya vail liinupa&asya iva me jardjirnasya pakjinaf} . . . ko 'nyo'sti duhkhitataro mayd loke pumdn iha. 11.1.10- 11 and 11.1.19. 125

11.1.13-14. 11.1.15.

Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 33. na smarcimy atmanah kirgcit pura samjaya du&pamlyasyedam phalam adyeha maw mudhenu bhujyatell n i i n q hy apakrtam kimcin maw piirvesu janmasul yena m d q ~ duhkhabhageau dhdtO. karmasu yuktavdnHpari~&naSca vayasah sarvabandhuksayaS ca melsuh~nmitravina~ ca daivayogcid upagatahl ko 'nyo 'sti dubkhitataro maya loke puman iha. 11.1.17-19. Yudhisthira asks this same question ("Is there anyone more miserable than I?) several times in The Book of the Forest. 126

127

11.1.23. 129 11.1.23.

Duryodhana, was irreverent and out of control and Dh@r&$ra did not do enough to restrain him.130 Summing up Dl-@[email protected]'s moral failure with the following principle: "A person should enter upon a course of conduct properly in the very beginning so that slhe does not regret the matter afterwards,"131S a j a y a concludes his sermon with a warning about the dangers of grief: One cannot obtain wealth while grieving, nor can one find happiness while grieving. One cannot obtain royal splendor when grieving, nor can one who is grieving find the Ultimate. 13' To understand Sarqjaya's point, we should consider why accepting responsibility for his hand in the war would dispel Dh@ri?@ra's

grief. First, what is grief for S a j a y a ?

It seems that, from Samjaya's perspective at least, grief is not simply sadness over the death of a loved one. Grief, like other negative responses to external events (such as greed or anger), is a potentially paralyzing emotion that overwhelms the senses and skews one's vision of reality. Thus, it prevents one from taking the proper course of action. Further, grief is an emotion to which one succumbs; it is an indulgence that entails a fundamental rejection of the way things are. Understood from this perspective, it becomes clearer why S w j a y a might assume that telling D m Q # r a that the war was his fault might persuade Dlqtar8s.h-a to overcome his despair. Samjaya's point is that Dh@rii@-a, of all people, should not grieve since he was not a victim but an architect of his own misery.133 By forcing D m a s . t r a to see his hand in the war, Samjaya is attempting to snap the blind king out of his brooding and to motivate him to act There 11.1.27. 131 addv eva munusyerp vartitavyam yathd ksarnami yathii ruititam artvai pascdttdpena yujyate. 1 1.1.28. 13' arthan nu socan prdpnoti na Socan vindate sukhad nu Socati sriyam dpnoti na socan vindate param. 11.1.3 1 . 133 Karve, Yugdnta, 70. 130

is a time for sadness and there is a time for action. Samjaya tells Dl-qtar5s.h-athat there is much to be done; it is time to perform the funeral rites. What is required now is acceptance and forward motion. Smjaya concludes his speech by urging Dhytariigra to "take hold of himself' and rid his grief by means of intelligence (buddhi).13* Before Dhpu-Zi8.h-ahas a chance to respond, Vidura jumps in and begins to speak with "intelligence." Vaisampiiyana (our narrator) says: After the exalted Samjaya encouraged the king in this way. Vidura told him more that was based on intelligence, burner of enemies.13' Vidura's speech, the longest of the three, focuses on two related themes: the destructive quality of time and the misery of the cycle of rebirth. Vidura exhorts D-agra

to take a hold of himself since death is the final

conclusion for all mortal beings. All accumulationsend in dissolution, all unions end in separation, all life ends in death.136The warriors who died in the battle did not belong to

-

134 Buddhi has a range of meanings including perception, comprehension, intellect, understanding, intelligence, knowledge, discrimination,judgment, mind. Apte, Practical Sanskrit-EnglishDictionary, 1169. Fitzgerald translates it as "insight and understanding." Explaining why, Fitzgerald writes that the term buddhi "is also a technical term in Sargkhya enumerationsof psychic faculties" and " represents one of the major philosophical themes explicit in the MBh-relying on insight into or understanding of the deeper structure of what appears in the world experienced through the senses in order to escape pain." This idea focuses on revising one's understanding of one's experience. He sees this theme as being prominent in many places in the epic (e.g. Yudhis.thira's argument with his family over his desire to renunciate at 12.17.19-20; the "Song Sung to King Senajit" at 12.168; and Niirada's sermon to ~ u k aat 12.316-18) and "in many other speeches." Fitzgerald notes that the word prajnd is also sometimes used to express this theme. Fitzgerald, The Mahiibhdrata, vol.7,663. 13' evarn aSvasitas tena samjayena mahatman<%/ viduro bhuya evaha buddhiparvam paramtapa. 11.1.37 136 11.2.3.

D m i i g r a , nor he to them, so why does he grieve?I3' Suffering and death are simply fundamental aspects of e x i ~ t e n c e . 'Time ~ ~ drags everyone and everything off,13'making all things in life temporary; knowing this, D-&.tra

should slay his mental misery with

wisdom. Next, Vidura discusses the forces of karma and s a m r a , painting the picture of smsZira in the most unpleasant terms through the following story.la Once upon a time, a brahmin enters an impenetrable wood that is filled with gigantic beasts of prey who hunt him. Running for his life, the brahmin discovers that he is trapped by a large net that covers the forest. T o his horror, he also notices a gigantic, hideous-looking woman who embraces the forest with her arms and five-headed snakes whose heads touch the sky. The brahmin falls into a well and becomes tangled up in vines. In this unfortunate predicament, he discovers several additional dangers threaten him: a sixheaded elephant; a cluster of bees gathering honey (which the brahmin licks greedily); black and white rats that gnaw at the vines that hold him; and a snake at the bottom of the well, coiled in anticipation. Moved by the plight of the brahmin, DhJtaragra asks Vidura how he can escape. Vidura explains that the story is an allegory for rebirth.14' The forest, according to Vidura, is the vast cycle of rebirth, the wild beasts are diseases, and the giant woman is old age that destroys beauty. The well is the physical body and the vines from which the brahmin hangs in the well are the desire to stay alive that all human beings have. At the

bottom of the well, lies the snake, time, the destroyer of all beings, that which takes everything away. Capitalizing on [email protected]'s sympathy for the brahmin, Vidura urges DWaras.tra to save himself from the misery of rebirth, as represented in the story, by resorting to "misery medecine."14*According to Vidura, misery medicine is mental restraint Through mental control a person is able to move beyond suffering which is caused by the endless cycle of rebirth: "not courage, not riches, etc. can free one from misery the way that the self that is firmly restrained can."la Vidura's lecture is too intense for the old king, and at its conclusion, DWar&tra faints away. When he is revived, he repeats his intentions to commit suicide and Vyasa, Dh@aragra's father, now steps in. Vyasa tells Dwaragra that he should not grieve because the slaughter was "de~tined.'"~~ To explain, Vy%a tells Dmas.tra that he visited Indra's assembly hall in heaven.14' There he overhead a conversation between the Gods and the Goddess Earth. During this conversation,Earth requested that the Gods fufill the promise they made to her and help to relieve her burden. Viyp told the Earth that Duryodhanawould soon make his appearance in order to take care of that job. According to Vyasa, Visnu told the earth, For the sake of him (i.e., Duryodhana), the kings will gather on the field of the Kurus and attacking each other with mighty weapons, they will kill one another. Thus, Goddess, your burden will be destroyed in the war.146 d u w b h a i j a j y a . 11.7.17. na vikramo nu cdpyartho na mitram na suhrjjanahl tathonmocayate duhkhddyathdtmd sthirasamyam&. 11.7.18 144 11.8.16, 11.8.28, 11.8.35. 14' 11.8.20-26. tasyiirthe prthivipal@ kuruk~etresamdgat* I anyonyam ghatayi~yantidr-ih 142 143

Vyasa then lectures D m a g r a on his sons' wickedness and urges him to recognize the fact that his sons were born on earth in order to destroy it.14' Knowing that the destruction of the Bhwatas was fated, Dh@Wi$ra should abandon his grief, keep his life, and reconcile with the ~ i Q & v a s . ' ~ Dmi&tra, moved by his father's speech, agrees to try to abandon his despair. He tells Vyasa: Driven by a huge net of grief and incessantly perplexed, I have not known myself. But having heard this statement of yours about what was ordained by fate, I will keep my life. I will try not to grieve.149 Vyasa, satisfied, disappears on the spot, and D m a $ r a summons Gandhari and prepares to visit the battlefield. Why, among all three speeches, is VyZisa's speech successful (or at least partially successful since Dlq-tara$ra never truly overcomes his grief)?'%et us consider these three arguments together. Saqjaya, Vidura, and Vyiisa all provide D m @ , t r a with a framework for understanding the destruction of the Bhwatas and its cause; they do so with the intention of dispelling Dh@aragra's despair. Most simply put, these three arguments are in chronological order: 1) Dmas.tra should not grieve because the source of his grief, the

Sastraih prahdrinahlltatas te bhavita devi bhdrasya yudhi nctsanam. 1 1.8.25-26. 11.8.27. 148 11.8.34-35. 149rnahatdSokajdena pranunno 'smi dvijottamalndtmdn arnavabudhydmi muhyamiino muhurmuhuh/l iday tu vacatuq Srutvd tava daivaniyogajaml dhdriysydmy aham prdmn yatisye ca na Socitum. 11.8.46-47. See 15.36.26-33 where Dlq-taragra, at the end of his life, still speaks of being tormented by the memory of the destruction of the Bhftratas and where he still blames Duryodhana for the catastrophe.

'41

death of his sons and kinsmen was his fault (Swjaya's argument); 2) Dwaras.tra should not grieve because the source of his grief, the death of his sons and death more generally, is a fact of life to which all living creatures are subject (Vidura's argument);and 3) Dlq?aras.tra should not grieve because the source of his grief, the death of his sons and kinsmen, was brought about by a divine design in order to relieve the earth of her suffering. Therefore it was out of his hands; there was nothing he could do to stop it (Vyasa's argument). Saqjaya provides D m a s p a with a framework for understanding the war's cause that is based on Dwrastra's particular situation and that encourages self-understanding. Through directing [email protected] see his hand in bringing the war about, Samjaya encourages D?qtaras.tra to face reality and move on. Swjaya's strategy fails, however, because, Dbatrag.ra has neither the strength of mind nor the courage to accept his role in the events that led to the war. Vidura encourages Dlq?ar@tra to understand the devastation through the dual lenses of time and saqsira. Since destruction comes to all creatures, why does D m a s t r a grieve? He is by no means the only person who has experienced sorrow because of loss and death. Since all life is characterized by suffering, because all creatures are endlessly born into a world where they face the ravages and sorrows of time, then why would one be shocked and overwhelmed when it comes one's way? This argument, like Swjaya's, fails to persuade [email protected] to abandon his grief. Dwrastra is not ready to face this vision of "the way things are." In fact, it almost breaks the blind king completely. Vyasa encourages Dbtaras-trato understand the war and devastation through the

framework of fate. What is worth noting about Vyasa's account is that it "explains" the destruction of his kinsmen in terms of a higher good: relieving the earth of her burden. Vyasa's account also frees D m a s p a from the burden of responsibility since Vyasa's main point is that there was simply nothing that Dhytaraspa could have done to stop the war; it was the product of a divine design; this is why he should not grieve. VyBa's account does not, therefore, requireD w a s f r a to take a hard look at his own life. Neither does it require him to reflect deeply upon the human situation. Vyba's account, therefore, stands out because it is the only argument among the three that provides Dwaras.jra with some level of comfort. It places a positive spin on the tragic war by contextualizing it in terms of the greater good of relieving the Earth of her burden and by absolving Dl-@iras.&a of blame. Vidura and Sqjaya's arguments, by contrast, are bitter pills for the blind king to swallow. Given the fact that [email protected], at least in part, is presumably moved by VyW's account because "it makes him feel better," are we are supposed to be persuaded by Vyasa's argument as well? While Vidura's "greater good" account certainly provides a satisfying spin on a dark subject (who or what caused the destruction of the Bharatas and why?), it does not provide a satisfactory answer to the existential questions that are raised by the battle books. For one thing, the weight and darkness of the battle books and the ease and comfort of Vyilsa's "greater good" account simply do not match up. Further, those of us who have allowed ourselves to be guided by the mechanisms of the text intuit at this point that the pages and pages of the gruesome and horrifying details of the battle cannot be explained away by such a rose-colored-glasseshermeneutic. Vyasa's account is too tidy of an answer for a text that operates predominantly through the strategies of riddle,

ambiguity, and deferral. (We know that Vyasa agrees with both Sqjaya [at 6.4.4 he urges D&ar&tra to prevent the war] and with Vidura [at 6.2.5 and 6.4.2-3 he urges D m s . t r a not to grieve for those about to die in battle because time brings an end to all things]. This begs the question of whether or not Vyasa actually believes what he is saying here. Is he simply saying something that he knows will cheer D-Qpa

up?

Kysga too is capable of such tactics.) However, now we face another important question: Are D&ariis.tra's responses meant to serve as a model for ours? The answer is clearly "no." The text's strategies have encouraged us to view him increasingly as morally wanting, particularly in three contexts: as he makes decisions,151listens to advice, and deals with his sorrow. Therefore, rather than being moved by arguments that persuade Dhj%iraspa,we are encouraged by the text's strategiesto be moved by those arguments that fail to persuade him. Further, the fact that Dhytariigra fails to be moved by Samjaya and Vidura's arguments provides a window into the inner-workings, particularly the potential blindspots, of the human mind. The fact that Saqijaya's speech fails to persuade Dhftaras-trato abandon his despair exposes the fact that Dl@[email protected] is simply unable to see and accept his role in the war. Similarly, the fact that Vidura's speech fails shows us that Dbtaraspa is unable to face fundamental truths about existence. In Dhj%iragraYs failure to be persuaded by Smjaya and Vidura's arguments lies a hidden truth now exposed for us to see: how loathe the human mind is to accept agency in suffering (both one's own suffering and the sufferingof others) and to accept the fact that life is characterized by Once the P@&vas come of age and the question of kingship becomes pressing, D-asp-a makes three fateful decisions: 1) he exiles the P2ndavas to V&qiivata, 2) he challenges them to a game of dice, and 3) he fails to return the kingdom to them after their thirteen-year exile.

implacable temporality and hence inevitable loss and despair.152By exposing this resistance, the text provides us with the opportunity to reflect upon whether or not we harbor the same kind of resistances that [email protected]. What would be the purpose of encouraging this self-reflexivemove? Ostensibly, such self-reflection would initiate the process of the dissolution of the resistances that prevent us from seeing and coming to terms with the world as it is.

Conclusion As I mentioned earlier, D m a s f l a never truly rises above his grief.lS3Although he spends his last days in the forest performing austerities, he still speaks of being tormented by the memory of the destruction of the Bhaatas and still blames Duryodhana for the cata~tr0phe.l~ Thus he remains "blind" to the very end save for one brief and joyous night when Vyksa, his father, grants him the power to see his sons (along with the other warriors) rise up from the river and embrace one another. To return to a question that I raised earlier, why, then, does the text make an argument against despair througha character who himself ultimately fails to overcome his sorrow? An implicit argument running throughout this chapter is that the text encourages our increasing estrangementfrom Dh@x&fra. Our suspicions are first raised at the very opening of the story in his "When I heard . . ." speech, since his attempts to 15* Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch both write passionately about the fact that humans are unable to face the prevalence of suffering and death in the world. For them, the ability and courage to do so is the highest ethical achievement. See Simone Weil, "The Love of God and Affliction," in The Simone Weil Reader, 439-468 and Iris Murdoch, "Comic and Tragic," in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (New York: Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1993), 90-146. lS3 Chaitanya, The Mahabharata, 62. 15.36.26-33.

prove that he possesses the eyesight of insight raise troubling questions about him. Namely, if he was able to "foresee" the defeat of the Kauravas and the deaths of his sons, why didn't he do something to stop the building animosity between the Kauravs and the P&.qkivas? In The Book of the Effort, we watch him waiver, doubt, "see" and, at the same time, refuse to see, squander precious time, and lose the opportunity to make peace. During and after the war, we watch him refuse to "own up" to his hand in the conflict and rush to blame other forces. Thus we "learn" from Dh@ir&tra not because he is a moral paragon, but because he is a flawed human being.155Accordingly, we are not encouraged to identify and emulate him, but to stand back and critically reflect on his moral-and very humanfailings (for filial weakness and losing one's mind to grief are very human pitfalls). From this distanced space of critical reflection, we are directed to see parts of ourselves mirrored and greatly magnified. This amplification "does work" because the extremity of what Dh@iriis$rahas to face (moral responsibility for wholesale slaughter) renders bearable what we ourselves have to face, and loathe to face, which will almost certainly not be as extreme as what the blind king must face. Thus the characterization of Dlq-taras.tra creates "a moral space" for us to face and bear our own places of contact with sorrow, either as agents, or victims of despair, or both. Further, Dmariis.tra's failure to rise above his grief creates a context for wise characters in the epic to make arguments about the pitfalls of despair. While it is clear that these arguments will fall on D-a$ra's

deaf ears, they are not meant to fall on our

deaf ears. Thus Dmi3s.h-a's character creates an opportunity in the epic for advice155

See Matilal's assessmentof Dh@zii$ra's moral failings. Matilal, Ethics and Epic$, 6061.

particularly arguments-against-grief. In asking us to watch Dmas.tra-who we increasingly see as morally wanting-fail to listen to goodadvice, the text makes a powerful case for why we should adopt the ways of seeing and of understanding the world recommended by Dh@u&stra'swise advisers. D w s p a is not the only character who "instructs" through his flaws. Indeed, the principal characters in the epic, for the most part, serve as negative examples, especially in terms of their responses to suffering.lS Almost all the principal actors are moral failures in this respect (Gilndhari, Dh$xas.tra's wife is one possible exception, see postscript). They either refuse to see their role in contributing to sorrow ([email protected]), are crazed by the experience of it (Draupadi and Asvatthfman, who both descend into a psychology of re~enge),~~'or are paralyzed by being implicated in it (Yudhisthira, Dmaras.tra, and Arjuna in the Bhagavadgitd). The point of supplying numerous examples of inappropriate responses-responses which clouds characters' vision and leads to further misfortune-is to persuade us why it is imperative not to respond in these ways. Fortitude, courage, realistic vision, stoic acceptance, and tranquility-these are the mental attitudes that will enable us to steer clear of the fog of despair and the furthering of despair.'%

As a postscript to Chapter Four, I want to briefly note that Gandhari's post-war laments provide an interesting counterpointto D-as.tra's.

I also want to entertain the

Bharata provides a typology of heroes and heroines in his Wtyaidstra that is based on characters' responses to events. See The N@yaSdstra,201-213. 157 Sutherland, "Sita and Draupadi," 67. Dhand, "The Subversive Nature of Virtue," 34.

idea that they provide a model in the epic for how to grieve. G&dhari is D m a @ a ' s wife who blindfolded herself on the day of her marriage so that she would not be superior to her husband in any way. After the war, both she and her husband find themselves in analogous situations; both respond to these situations similarly. Sinceeach is a parent of Duryodhana, both must face the fact that the war and its devastation was due, in part, to their inability to restrain their son. Both characters have a difficult time coming to terms with this, and this, in part, accounts for the reason why they blame a variety of causal forces for the catastrophe: Giindhari, like Dwaragra, blames variously time,15' karrna,lm Duryodhana,16' herself16' (as DWariis.tra blames himself)163and Kysna (who DlqtarasJra never blames).'@ Further, both Dh@u&c$.ra and Giindhari respond to their overwhelming grief with anger (D-iisfra

attempts to crush Bhima in a violent embrace;16' Giindhari

contemplatescursing Yudhis~hira'~ and actually does curse Q ~ n a ' ~Finally, ~ ) . both receive the gift of vision in the context of filial loss. In The Book of the Women, Vyaa grants G&dhiiri a divine eye so that she may witness the carnage of the battlefield (thus she never sees her sons in the full bloom of life, but only as corpses).168In The Book of the Stay in the Forest Hermitage, as I already mentioned, Vyba bestows the gift of

11.15.17. '60 11.16.58-59. 16' 11.17.16. 162 11.15.20. YudhisJhira also blames himself in his post-war laments. In this regard, he is an interestingjuxtaposition to Dlqtarastra. While Dh$u%s.trahas a tendency to blame others and avoid coming to terms with his own hand in the war, Yudhi&hira goes too far in the opposite direction: He blames himself entirely for the war and the deaths of his kinsmen and consequently loses his will to live and desire to rule. (12.7.1-8.1; 12.27.1-25) 11.25.36-42. 11.11.13-21. 11.13.2. l 7 11.25.36-42. 168 11.16.1-3.

'@

vision on D-as.tra

so that he may see his dead sons rise up from the river Gang%for

one brief night.169 Yet it is in GiIndhWi's ability to respond to and express her grief from the perspective of a mother that sets her apart from her husband. In the teeth of her own despair, GiIndhari never ceases to be moved by the grief of those around her, even her enemies." When she first encounters the Pwdavas after the war, we are told that she

it

comforts them "like a

It is like a mother, too that she, "who is suffers

acutely,"17' comforts the grieving Draupadi, "who suffers even more,"172telling her in words that echo Sqjaya's speech to [email protected] the Adiparvan, Daughter, do not be tormented with grief! See how I am also suffering. I think that this devastation of the world was brought on by the turning of Time. . . Do not grieve for something that cannot be averted and especially not for what is past.173 Directly after she comforts Draupadi (and perhaps because of it?) she sees the field of battle with the divine eye bestowed upon her by Vyiisa. Movingly, she describes to Qsna the details of the carnage as well as her own mixture of emotions-sorrow and resignation-upon seeing Duryodhana's body: Look at my son, Madhava, as he lies on a hero's bed-impetuous, the best of warriors, an expert shot, intoxicated with war. The Scorcher of enemies who went

169

15.43.1. Before the war, Vy%a approaches Dh@ara@raand offers to bestow upon him the ability to see the battle-events. [email protected] refuses. He tells Vyasa that he does not want to behold the deaths of his kinsmen. (6.2.6-7) 170 miitpat. 11.15.8. 171 drta. 11.15.15. ^drtatara. 11.15.15. 173 . . . rnaivam putrlti iokdrtd paiya mdm api duwhitdm/1 manye lokavindso 'yam kdlaparydyacoditah . . .tasminn aparihdrye'rthe vyatlte ca visesatah I md Suco . . . . 11.15.16-19.

at the head of the consecrated kings now lies in the dust. See how Time turns!174 She also mourns the loss of other sons, Du@%sana, Vikqa, and Durmukha in particular. These laments concerning her personal loss, however, are interspersed with her detailed descriptions of the shock, horror, and suffering of the other women on the battlefield. Even more painful than the sight of the mangled bodies of her own sons, Gmdhari says, is the vision of the grieving women on the battlefield; these women who gasp, shriek, wail, and drop to the earth as they happen upon the severed limbs and heads of their husbands and fathers. She says, And look, what is even more distressing to my than the slaying of my son is these women who surround these heroes killed in battle.'" Thus, encapsulated in her lament to Kgna in the Striparvan are the laments of countless others, the voices of wives, mothers, sisters, and lovers. In this scene, Gmdhari is more than just a mother who laments the loss of her sons; she is a mother to all grievers lamenting the loss of their loved ones. In her concern for the sorrow of others in the midst of her own despair, she becomes a model for how one should grieve-that is, one should never lose sight of the fact that human sorrow is a universal experience, not an isolated personal one, a truth that the "short-sighted" D m a @ a never seems to glean in spite of S ~ j a y a ' s(and other's) exhortations that he do so.176

174

a m a q a m yudhdqt ires,tham krtdstram yuddhadurmadaml Say-

viraiayane

paiya miidhava me sutamll yo 'yam miirdhdvasiktdndm agre ydti paramtapahl so'yay p d r p ~ ~Sete u 'dya paiya kdlasya paryayam. 11.17.9-10. 17' idam krcchrataram paiya putrasydpi vadhdn mama/ yad imdy paryupdsante hat* h d n rune striyah. 11.17.22. 176 See Vidura's argument-against-grief,which he delivers to Dmas,tra at 11.2.1-8.1.

Chapter Five Time that Ripens and Rots All Creatures: Temporality andIts Terrors We might, in fact, regard the [MahZbhdrata]as an extended essay carried along on a complex narrative frame, on time and its terrors. David Shulman, Wisdom of the Poets.

1. Introduction At the opening of the Mahdbhdrata, Ugrasravas, the bard of the brahmins in the Naimisa forest, makes an astute observation about the Mahabhdrata and how it is meant to affect its audiences. He says, 'The great-spirited author has composed this story of the Bharatas to produce tears and terror in the minds of good people.'" There is perhaps no more terrifying "character" in the epic than the specter of time (kala). Throughout the text, time appears in the guise of several horrifying forms and incarnations: a rat gnawing on a rope;2 a snake coiled at the bottom of a pit;3 an old woman smeared with crimson

... bhdratdkhyancirq kartrd hy atra rnahdtrnanal pramtam sajjanamanovaiklavyd^rupravartkakam.1.2.195. Ugrasravas here is speaking specifically about how The Book of the Women is meant to affect its audiences, but the statement certainly pertains to the epic as a whole. This image appears twice in the context of a story about Jaratkaru an ascetic and the father of Astika. The story line runs as follows: One day Jaratkaru wandered into a cave. There he discovers his ancestors hanging upside down and suspended by a blade of grass which is being devoured by a rat. When Jaratkaru asks them why they are in this horrible predicament, they reply that because he, the last of their descendants, has chosen the life of asceticism and refused to procreate, their line will be destroyed. The rat, they inform him, is time. Soon it will gnaw through the rope, they will die, and the line will become extinct. (1.13 and 1.41). 3 See Vidura's argument-against-grief in the The Book of the Women ( 1 1.2.1-11.8.1).

ointments, chanting dismal tunes;4 a bald man with a black and tawny complexion who peers into the houses of his imminent victim^,^ Time is also terrifying because of the adverse ways that it impacts the lives of individuals. Characters often attribute their misfortunes to the forces of time.6 Further, when characters walk open-eyed into certain doom, the narrative voice declares that they were impelled by time. For example, when Yudhighira makes the fateful decision to journey to Hastinapura and play dice with the Kauravas, the narrative voice notes that he "was summoned by Dlqtarilgra and the covenant of time."7 At the end of the epic, when the still-dejected Dharrna King decides to renounce his kingdom and perform yogic austerities in the Himalayas, he tells Arjuna that he thinks everything that happened, the war and the deaths of their kinsmen, was due to time.8 Arjuna replies simply, "Time, time."9 Paul Ricoeur in his seminal work Time and Narrative writes, "All fictional narratives are tales of time inasmuch as the structural transformations that affect situations and characters take time. However only a few are "tales about time" inasmuch as in them it is the very experience of time that is at stake in these structural transforrnati~ns."~~ The Mahdbhdrata, in addition to being a "tale about time" since it is

10.8.64-5. 16.3.2. Peter Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 225. For example, Dlq-taragra blames time frequently as I discussed in Chapter Four. 'dhrtaragtrenu cdhutah kdlasya sarnayena ca. 2.52.21. 17.1.3. 17.1.4. Paul Ricouer, Time and Narrative, vol. 2, 101. Italics mine.

what Sukthankar calls "a conscious work of literary art,"" is also "a tale about time" since, as I will argue in this chapter, the experience of time that it produces is central to the moral and aesthetic messages of the text Indeed, transforming our understandingof time is at the heart of its ethical project of refiguring our understandingof suffering. Without doubt, time is one of the most complex, multi-faceted themes in the epic. Not only does the text contain a variety of conceptions of time (e.g., time is closely associated or equated with a~trology,'~ co~mology,'~ causality,14historical chr~nology~~), it also expresses its views on time in a variety of ways (e.g., as a theme,16a narrative construct, and as a poetic motif17). Because of the diversity and range of the conceptions of time in the text, I will narrow my focus in this chapter to three concerns: First, I will explore two dominant theories of time, the system of world ages or "yugas" and the

V.S. Sukthankar, On the Meaning of the Mahabharata (Bombay: Asiatic Society of Bombay, 1957), 20. Sukthankar is speaking from the perspective of Dahlmann here, but it is clear that he agrees with Dahlmann on this point. l2 For example, Bhisma is said to be able to calculate time because he can read the heavens. See, for example, his calculations in the The Book of Virdta (4.47). For more on the astrological aspects of time in the Mahabharata, see Paula Lemer, Astrological Key to the Mahabharata: The New Era, trans. David White (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1988). l3 Time is said to be the creator and destroyer of the universe. I discuss this dimension of time and its depiction further in this chapter. l4 See Chapter Four. The Mahabharata is after all a chronicle of the lineage of kings of the great Bhfmtas. One way that the text explores time thematicallyis through characters and their relationship to time. Bhisma, as noted above, is able to calculate time. m n a is of course time (6.33.32), and Vyasa is able to see past, present and future simultaneously-as is Saqijaya when he posseses his divine eye bestowed upon him by Vyilsa. (6.2.2 and 6.14.1) Further, Vyasa is called the b'kdla~ddin,"or the speaker of time (at 6.4.2), and he provides some of the most moving sermons on time in the text (see Section Two). See Sullivan, Seer of the Fifth Veda, 3 1-36. l7 Beyond the "terrifying" images mentioned above, time is also depicted as a wheel (suggesting time's cyclical nature); a rope; an ocean (in which the whole world sinks); and a mighty wind or river (which carries all things away). See Vassilkov, "Kalaviida," 17-24. l'

epic's "account of time," (kala~dda).~~ Second, I am interested in what the epic's narrative strategies "do" with time, that is how the text through its strategies impacts our experience of time. Third, I will consider what insights these two avenues of inquiry bring to bear on the relationship between time and human sorrow in the text

One unique aspect of the Mahdbharata is its "riddle design," which, as I mentioned in Chapter One, van Buitenen characterizes in the following way: the epic is a series of precisely stated problems imprecisely and therefore inconclusively resolved, with every resolution raising a new problem until the very end, when the question remains: whose is heaven and whose is hell?19 Most of these riddles or questions to which van Buitenen refers center on two related issues: human agency, its powers and limits and the complexities, if not impossibilities, of the path of virtue. To what extent do human beings have the freedom to make decisions and act, and to what extent to are they bound like puppets on a string (a common motif in the ~ahlibhdrata)~' to forces beyond their control? To what extent does being good and following the right course of action (i.e, following dharma) insure good results? Precisely why in spite of many characters' good intentions did events turn out in the disastrous way that they did? More to the point, who or what is responsible for the Mahdbhdrata war and the tragic devastation of the great Bhiiratas?

l8 See Vassilkov, "Kdlavdda," 17-33. I use the term "account" rather than "doctrine" to highlight the flexible manner in which the text handles this idea. l9 Van Buitenen, The Mahabharata, vol. 2,29. 20 See, for example, Draupadi's statement at 3.3 1.22.

One among several answers that the text provides is because they were caused by Precisely how and why is time responsible? To answer these questions, I

time

will examine two major "theories" of time in the Mahabhdrata: the system of four world ages or "yugas" and the epic's "account of time" (kdlavada). I focus on these two theories because both emphasize the destructive and oppressive powers of time. In the course of my discussion, I will be interested in the extent to which they overlap, the context in which each is discussed, and the centrality of each to the epic's overall worldview. 2.1 The Theory of the Yueas in the Mahdbhdrata The term "yuga" refers to a mythical-historical system of four world ages, beginning with the Kfta yuga and ending with the Kali y ~ g aEach . ~ ~yuga is preceded and followed by "dawn" and a "twilight" that connect the ages together. According to one formulation, the IQh yuga lasts 4,000 years plus 400 years of dawn and as many of twilight; then comes the Treta of 3,000 years, the Dvapara of 2,000, and finally the Kali of 1,000 years (plus their corresponding dawns and twilights). Thus, the ages are of unequal duration, the longest appearing at the beginning of the cycle and the shortest at the end. At the conclusion of this four-yuga-cycle, that is at the end of the Kali yuga, the world is destroyed and then recreated, and the whole cycle begins anew.2

The text, of course, raises other possible sources for the war and for suffering in general. See Chapter Six. 22 As Sutton notes: "... the word yuga in the Mahdbhdrata has two meanings, sometimes indicating an entire span of creation, but more commonly referring to one of the 1,000 temporal divisions into which each creation is divided." Sutton, ReligiousDoctrines in the Mahdbhdrata, 255. For scholarship on the yugas in the Mahdbhdrata, see Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (Princeton, PrincetonUniversity Press, 197I), 113-115; Heinrich Zimrner, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization (Princeton, princeton University Press, 21

"

The four yugas are named after the throws of the Vedic dice game and their names indicate the gradual moral and physical degeneration of humankind. While dharmu is said to stand on four legs in the m a yuga, it stands on three in the Treta, two in the Dvapara, and finally only on one leg in the Kali yuga . Much has been made of the relationship between the Mahdbhdrata and the theory of the yugas. According to the tradition, theMahiibhdrata war occurred just before the commencement of the Kali yuga, which began on the day of m n a ' s death on February 18,3102 BC.

Perhaps because of this dating, which is not supported by the text, both

Euro-American scholars and traditional scholars have tended to "blame" the influence of the approaching Kali yuga for the Mahdbhiirata war and the degeneration of dharma that takes place both before and during the battle. As Luis Gonzalez-Reimann writes: According to tradition, [the yuga theory and the Mahdbhdrata] are inextricably linked, as the events described in the Epic are said to have inaugurated the present, decadent age of Kali. The nature of the tragic confrontation described in the poem, as well as its consequences, are attributed to the influence of the impending dark Kali yuga. The assumption that the influence of the Kali yuga is an essential narrative element of the Mahdbhiirata story is also shared by most modern scholars, who then seek to explain different components of the story through the gloomy background imposed on the Epic by the Kali y ~ g a . ' ~ Given the tendency of both modern scholarship and received tradition to explain various narrative events, particularly the tragic conflict and the war, in terms of the

1972); Madeleine Biardeau, "etudes de Mythologie Hindoue (IV)," Bulletin de 1'kcole Franqaise d 'Extreme- Orient 63 (1976): 111-262; Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 255-26 1; Gonzalez-Reimann, The Mahabhdrata and the Yugas. For a good synthesis of the theory of the yugas as it is presented in the Purwas, see Cornelia Dimmet and J.A.B van Buitenen, trs. and eds., Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Purdpzs (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978), 38-44. 24 M. Krishnamachariar, History of Classical Sanskrit Literature, Ixvii. There is some discrepancy on this point. According to some traditional scholars, the Kali yuga began during the Mahdbhdrata war. 25 Gonzalez-Reimann, The Mahdbhdrata and the Yugas, 2.

influence of the Kali yuga, it is surprising that there are only two extensive discussionsof the yugas in the Mahdbhdrata. Neither are located "in the thick of things," that is in the midst of the heat of the action of the central narrative; rather both are located in the third book, The Book of the Forest, where the exiled P&@ivas wander for twelve years in the forest traveling to hermitages and pilgrimage sites, listening to the stories and teachings of the various sages whom they visit. Further, as I will demonstrate, neither of the two passages mentioned above link the war or any other key narrative event explicitlyto the approaching Kali yuga. 2.1.1 The Hanihn&IEpisode

The first major discussion of the yugas in the epic occurs in The Book of the Forest when Bhima encounters Hanumiin in a banana grove near Mount Kailasa. Hanihniin, the chief of monkeys who aided R&na in the conquest of Lanka, is a major figure in the R&naydna. His most famous feat was jumping over the ocean to Lanka in order to locate Sita, Riima's kidnapped wife. When Bhima recognizes Han&n&I,he asks him to assume the form that he possessed when he jumped over the ocean.26 H a m @ , however, tells Bhima that it is impossible for him to do so because he assumed that form in another age, an age that is no more. He says, Neither you nor anyone else can see that form for that was another condition of time that does not exist at the present time.27 Time, according to Hanumiin, is different in each yuga. Because the present age is the time of deterioration (most likely, the Kali yuga), 28 he no longer possess that form.

26 Hanumiin and Bhima have a special relationship since they are half-brothers; both were fathered by Pavana, the Wind God. 27 nu tac chakyam tvayd drastum rUpam ndnyem kenaciti kalavastha tada hy anyd vartate sd nu swpratarn. 3.148.5.

Bhima then asks HaniimW about the specifics of the four world ages, and Hanihniin's discourse on the yugas follows. In this discourse, Hantimiin focuses primarily on the quality of life, virtue, and religious devotion in each yuga, which he points out, decrease as the yugas progress. In the &?a yuga, according to HanihnW, dharma does not decay, and creatures do not die. There is no illness, no ageing, no discontent, no sorrow, no pride, no hatred, hostility, and no fear. The four classes are well-defined, and there is one single Veda. In the Treta yuga, however, dharmu decreases by one quarter, and sacrifices appear, along with different religious systems, and people perform their duties according to svadharma. In the Dvlipara yuga, dharmu survives by half. The Vedas are now fourfold; some people know all four, some three, some two or one, while some know none at all. Passion arises and dishonesty and diseases follow. In the Kali yuga, only one quarter of dharma survives. The Vedic life-rules, law, sacrifice, ritual come to an end. Crops fail and diseases and vices take over,29 Hanilmiin concludes his teaching by warning Bhima that the Kali yuga will arrive soon. When Bhirna pleads with HaniimW one last time to assume his great form, HanihnW, giving a smile;'

finally acquiesces. Once HaniiinW assumes his divine form,

28 pradhvamsana, or "the time of the destroyer." 3.148.6. It is not clear whether or not this is a reference to the Kali yuga or to the twilight of the Dvapara yuga. I have decided to read it as a reference to the Kali yuga because all the yugas except Kali are mentioned in this verse. 29 3.148.10-37. 30 3.149.2. It is always important to note when a character smiles in the Mahabharta. It is almost always an indication that "something is up." For example, N&ada smiles at the opening of The Book of the Assembly Hall when Yudhighira asks him about the greatness of his assembly hall at line 2.6.9. It is as though Nlirada knows that this one small moment of pride on Yudhis.thira's part means that trouble is on its way.

he delivers a second teaching, this time on dharma. In this speech he emphasizes the virtues of non-~iolence.~' The fact that Hanilmiin states at the end of his "yuga talk" that the Kali yuga will arrive soon is worth noting, especially since he implied earlier that it had already arrived. More surprising is the fact that immediately after his speech, he performs an action that, at least on the surface, calls into question his teaching on the yugas: he assumes his great form, precisely what he said he could not do since time conditioned by the progression of the yugas would not allow it. (Hanuman's inconsistency here is not simply an issue of his being persuaded by Bhima since his argument was that he could not assume his old form, not that he would not. Nor should we assume that he is able to assume his old from simply because it is the transition period between the Dvapara and the Kali, for Hanthniin mentions nothing of this and we are assessing his argument. ) So, according to Hanthniin, precisely which age is it at the time of his meeting with ~ h i m a ? 3And, ~ why does he say that he could not assume his old form because time would not allow it and then turn around and assume his old form? What are we to make of Hanilmiin's ambiguous statements, especially in light of what he says about time, the yugas, and their influence on humankind? At the very least, they should make us uneasy. Significantly, in the few places that the text refers to the approaching Kali yuga, it often does so in an ambiguous, even confusing manner, just as it does here, as if to propose the idea and then call it into question.

..

-

arkandeva on the Yugas

Directly before his meeting with Hanthniin, Bhima behaved in a particularly aggressive manner, trampling and killing whatever was in his path as he searched for flowers for Draupadi. 32 According to tradition, the events of the Rdmaydna take place in the Treta yuga.

31

The second extensive discussion of the yugas in the epic also occurs in the The

Book of the Forest when Yudhighira is visited by the sage Miirkwdeya. Markwdeya, gifted with a long life, has had the unique experience of living through and witnessing the dissolution of the universe at the end of the Kali yuga. Yudhighira questions him, therefore, about his apocalyptic experienceas well as about ultimate causation.33This question prompts Markwdeya's discourse on Q s ~ a ' role s as both creator and destroyer of the universe as well as his reflections on the yugas, particularly what happens at the end of the Kali yuga. Mihkqdeya begins his discourse by briefly outlining the time-span of each yuga, as well as that of the whole yuga cycle. Next, he describes in great detail what happens at the end of the yuga-cycle, that is at the end of the Kali yuga. According to Miirkwdeya people degenerate both morally and physically. They become liars and thieves. Members of one caste perform the duties of another. Barbarian kings rule the earth. Young girls become pregnant at the age of seven or eight People have shortened life-spans, become weak-bodied and diseased. The population increases, cows yield little milk and trees produce few fruit^.^â Many natural disasters occur at the end of the eon as well. First, there is a drought, and then a fire devastates the earth. Finally, "wondrous-looking" clouds gather and flood the earth with rain for twelve years until there is nothing but one desolate ocean.35

33

Literally, "the causes of everything" (sarvahetu). 3.186.1 1. 3.186.25-55. 35 3.186.56-77. Note the poetic description of the clouds. For a brief discussion of the poetic language that is commonly employed in the scenes that describe death and destruction on a large scale, see Section Three of this chapter. 34

MZirkmdeya describes his own experience of wandering about the desolate ocean. He journeys with great fear and dread until he comes upon a child sitting on the branch of a banyan tree, who offers him refuge inside his mouth. There, in the child's mouth, Mtirkqdeya discovers the world, just as it was before the deluge, which he explores for more than a hundred years. After being emitted from the child's mouth, he learns that the child is NiiriiyqaJQyna, creator and destroyer of the universe, who creates himself whenever dharma languishes in the world. After Markqdeya praises the merits and powers of m g a extensively, Yudhi&ira presses him for more details about life at the end of the Kali yuga. Markqdeya expands upon the moral and physical depravity of human beings as the universe comes to an end. After the termination of the Kali yuga, the world is regenerated. Kalki, a brahmin, who brings tranquility back to the world, is born. M a k ~ d e y concludes a his speech by warning Yudhi@hira that he should heed dharmu: Always embrace dharma, best of upholders of dharmu, for a dharrna-spirited king enjoys happiness here and hereafter.36 Significantly, both the Hanuma and the Miirkaqdeya episodes are immediately followed by a discourse (however brief) on dharma. This suggests that both teachings were not delivered to inspire a kind of hopelessness about the possibilities of the life of virtue in the Kali yuga. Rather, it suggests that these yuga talks were delivered, at least in part, to inspire a sense of urgency with respect to the task of cultivating virtue since the Kali yuga either has arrived or will arrive soon. Further, as I noted above, neither speech

36 dharme tvaydtmd samyojyo nityam dharmubhrtm varal dhurmdtmd hi sukham raja pretya ceha ca nandati. 3.189.17.

explicitly links the epic events to the Kali yuga. More significantly, neither suggest a causal link between the epic conflict and the Kali yuga. 2.1.3 Other Discussions and References to the Yusa

In addition to these two passages, briefer discussions and references to the yugas are scattered throughout the text; they are most frequent in The Book of the Forest and The Book of Peace. These passages can be categorized in terms of the following themes: 1 ) References to the end of the yuga. These references are the most numerous; they

are most prevalent in "the massacre narratives," that is those passages in the text that describe death and destruction on a large scale. Most, if not all, compare a specific warrior, weapon, or scene of battle to some aspect of the destruction of the world at the end of the yuga. However, these references do not indicate that it is the end of the yuga; rather they are metaphors expressing the idea that the

particular phenomenon being described is "like" (iva) some aspect of the end of the yuga. For example, in The Book of Bhipna, the first of the four battle books, the encounter between the two armies is described as being "like" (iva)the encounter between two oceans at the end of the yuga'37in The Book of the Assembly Hall, an angry Bhima is said to be like time destroying all creatures at

the end of the yuga-38 and in The Book of $alya, a dart emitting flames is described as being "like" a meteor falling from the sky at the end of the ~ u g a . ~ ~ 2 ) References to Krsnal Ndrdyatp. Like the Markwdeya passage discussed above,

these passages focus particularly on Qsna's role as creator and destroyer of the

6.1.24. iva. 2.29.12. 39 iva. 9.17.43. 37

universe at the beginning of the

yuga and the end of the Kali yuga. Ky?na's

role as avatar is also discussed, but less frequently. These passages discuss how Qsna assumes different forms in different yugas in order to uphold dhurm.40 3) References to the time of the Mahabhdrata war. There are several passages in the text that state explicitly that the war took place at the juncture of the Dvapara and Kali yugas. Such passages, of course, suggest that the Dvapara yuga has come to an end and that the age of Kali is close at hand. They also suggest a link between the war with the approaching Kali yuga. I have located two such passages. The first is in The Book of the Beginning when Ugrasravas tells the brahmins in the Naimisa forest that the war between the Kauravas and the P@$avas was fought at the juncture of the Dvapara yuga and the Kali y ~ g a . ~ ' However, no specific causal relationship between the two is indicated. The second occurs in the The Book of the Effort when Kfsna tells K a a that when the battle begins, there will be no more Kgta yuga, no more Treta yuga, and no more Dvapara yuga, implying that what will be left is the Kali y ~ g a . ~While ' the causal relationship between the war and the Kali yuga in Qsna's statement is not exactly clear, Qsna seems to be suggesting that the war will be responsible for bringing about the Kali yuga, not the other way around. This would mean that the moral depravity that leads to and is prevalent during the war is not a result of the Kali yuga, but rather causes the Kali yuga. If this is the case, then Qsna's statement is

40

See, for example, Qsga's conversation with Utanka in The Book of the Horse Sacrifice

at 14.53. antare caiva samprdpte kalidvdparayo rabh~itlsamntapaficakeyuddham kurupd&avasenayoh. 1.2.9.

41

42

5.140.6-15.

not an account of why the war occurred, but an account for the presence of the Kali yuga.

4 ) References to the decline in dharma in the Kali yuga. While these passages are fairly numerous, relatively few suggest that the Kali yuga is explicitly linked to the moral decline that takes place in the epic. However, there is at least one

passage that does so. It occurs in The Book of Salya when Bhima defeats Duryodhana in a mace battle by resorting to unfair means: he strikes him in the thighs, an action that violates the rules of proper warfare. Balarma, mna's brother, furious with Bhima for fighting dirty, berates both Bhima and Qsna. Qsna, in an effort to explain Bhirna's actions, tells his brother that what Bhima did was justified since the Kali yuga has arrived43 This brief statement, however, is only one among five reasons that Qsna provides to plead Bhirna's case. 44 Also, Sa~jaya,our narrator here, refers to K p ~ a ' sstatements as "de~eptive."~~

5 ) References to Siva. These passages concern Siva's role as destroyer and creator of the universe. 46

Literally, IQyna tells Balariima, "Know that the Kali yuga has arrived." prdptam kaliyugam viddhi. 9.59.21. See P.V. Kane, History of the Dharmasdstra (New Delhi: Sangam Press, 1974)for similar arguments that justify the performance of certain acts due to the presence of the Kali yuga. 44 9.59-60. For similar interpretationsof this scene, see Robert Goldman, "Ept Dharm* Sangtanah: Shifting Moral Values and the Indian Epics" in Relativism, Suffering, and Beyod: Essays in Memory of B.K. Matilal, ed. Bilimoria and J.N. Mohanty (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997),91- 108 and B.K. Matilal, Ethics and Epics, 91- 108. Qsga is notorious for flooding his case with a plethora of reasons even though these reasons are often contradictory. This suggests, of course, that m ~ a ' goal s is to get the result that he wants and he cares little for which reason in particular is actually convincing. Lawrence McCrea, personal communication. 45 Literally "a deception of dharma." dharmacchula. 9.59.22. 46 These are most prevalent in 13.14, particularly in the Northern Recension. 43

6) References to the relationship between kingship and the yugas. These passages

make the point that the quality of the age depends upon the quality of the king.47 The yuga theory is without a doubt prevalent throughout the Mahdbharata. Further, it does provide an account for the existence of suffering. Most simply put, as time progresses (and remember, we are talking about very large periods of time here), human beings degenerate morally and physically and hence the quality of their condition decreases. However, very few passages explicitly link major narrative events to the yugas, particularly the Kali yuga. Where they do so, they are often called into question by the text i (e.g., HaniirnZin assumes his old form even though he said he could not in the Kali yuga and Swjaya calls K ~ q a ' sspeech about the Kali yuga "deceptive"). Therefore, while the yuga theory does implicate time in the problem of human moral and physical depravity, in most cases, it not one of the primary suspects in the epic's whodunnit quest, posed in the form of riddle-questions, of why things went so horribly wrong.& This is reserved for another theory of time found in the Mahabharata. 2.2 Kdlavdda: the Account of Time in the Mahdbharata

In addition to the yuga system, the epic provides another theory for why time is terrifying: the epic's "account of time" (kalavdda). The Mahabhdrata's kdlavdda expresses the idea that time revolves or turns (kdlaparydya) inevitably bringing about decay, destruction, and death. As Luis Gomez-Reiman writes, 'The Mahabharata views time as an oppressive, overpowering forcethat relentlessly pushes all beings towards

47

48

See Kunti's comments to &$na at 5.130.14-18. This "who-dunnit quest" will be approached head-on in Chapter Six.

their eventual death. ... So intense is the concern with its destructive nature, that time virtually becomes a synonym of death and d e s t r ~ c t i o n . ' ~ ~ Alf Hiltebeitel captures the range of the images and ideas associated with the epic's account of time in the following statement: The epic's kalavdda includes frequent references to the "wheel of time," to time's "revolving" (parydya).The idea that those about to die are "already slain" and the theme that time "swallows" beings with its "gaping mouth" are not only combined in the Bhagavad Gitd, but found elsewhere in the text (22-28). Not only does the Mahdbharata make the phrase "time cooks" one of its signatures: there is an "ocean of time" (kdlasdgara; 12.28.43). The whole world is kaldmtaka or "has time as its "self (13.1.45). Time is "the Supreme Lord" (parameivara). Caught in "time's noose," always "bewildered" and "impelled by the law of time" (coditah kaladharmqd), heroes and heroines should act knowing that although one cannot counter time, fortune does have its favorable moments.. .50 Building on the work of Vassilkov, Gonzalez-Reimann, and Hiltebeitel, I will focus my discussion on the context and import of the Mahabhdrata 's account of time. I hope to show that expressions of this account surface at pivotal moments, particularly moments of crisis when characters are reeling from sudden reversals in their fortune." In the context of these moments, two sub-genres of discourse express the kdlavada account: the lament and the argument-against-grief. In the lament, characters, who are victims of misfortune, often blame the disasters that they encounter on time and express shock in response to what they understand to be the power of all-destroying, impartial time. In the argument-against-grief, characters, most often "advisors," focus on the omnipotence and destructive capability of time as well. 52 However, they argue that it is simply a fact of life

Gonzalez-Reimann, The Mahdbhdrata and the Yugas, 20. Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahdbharata, 39 Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 199. 52 Particularly those characters who fall into the wide-ranging rubric of friend, wise advisor, and/or family member. 49

to which all living creatures are subject, a dimension of existence that the needs to be faced and accepted. Implicit in the argument-against-griefarticulation of the kiilavada account is the idea that if one truly understands and accepts the fact that "time revolves" and therefore everything in the world is transitory, then one would no longer be a victim of the pain that this dimension of life brings; one would no longer be "terrorized by time."

2.2.1 Kdlavdda and the Lament Because the Mahabhdrata contains a series of catastrophic events that impact characters in a variety of adverse ways, the text also contains many accompanying passages where characters express their grief. I refer to such expressions as "the lament" (vildpa). While the lament most often occurs when characters mourn the death of a loved one, they arise in other contexts as well, such as when a character is aware of some impending doom. In many if not most cases, the lamenter offers a reflection on the transitory nature of life due to the reverses brought about by time. Several recurring ideas are expressed in these laments. First and foremost, the lamenting character expressesan understanding of a fundamental truth about existence in terms of time and how it functions, that time turns or revolves (kalaparydya) bringing about irreversible changes.53 No matter how dear, powerful, virtuous, or precious, nothing is permanent. The attitude towards this realization is a mixture of incredulousness, shock, disbelief, awe, and immense sorrow. Further, in the throes of this realization, the lamenter often juxtaposes past circumstances with present ones. For example, when a character laments the death a loved one who has just died, he or she

53

Vassilkov, "Kdavdda," 24.

juxtaposes the way that the loved one appeared in the full bloom of life with how the deceased appears now. These juxtapositions lead to further remarks about time's immense power, which the grieving character finds almost incomprehensible, and the fact that he or she now sees the vulnerability of all things to time. For example, in The Book of the Effort, when D m @ a has a premonition of the war and the deaths of his sons, events that he knows that he cannot stop, he blames time for what will inevitably take place. According to him, all creatures are at time's mercy. Speaking to S a j a y a , he says of the war and its impending doom: This I think is the dharma of the turning of time, which is eternal. There is no escape for those who are fixed to its wheel like a rim. What am I to do? How am I to do it? Where am I going, Smjaya? The foolish Kurus, who are controlled by the power of time, are being destroyed.54 In The Book of D r o p , in one of the epic's most heartbreaking scenes, Subhadra, Arjuna's wife and m n a ' s sister laments the death of her son, Abhimanyu. Expressing shock and disbelief at the news that her son has been tricked and defeated by some of the Kauravas most honorable warriors, she reflects upon past moments when her son enjoyed youth, beauty, and the finest comforts. Now he is fodder for beasts of prey: 0, son, how does your face, which is dark like a blue lotus and endowed with beautiful teeth and lovely eyes, appear now that it is covered with the dust of battle!. ..Alas, you whose bed whose bed used to be covered with expensive sheets, accustomed as you were to ease, how do you sleep on the bare earth now, [your body] pierced [with arrows]. That mighty-armed hero who formerly was waited upon by the most beautiful women, how can he now, lying on the field of battle, be in the company of jackals?55 manye parydyadharmo 'yam kdlasydtyantagdminah/ cakre pradhir ivdsakto ndsya Sakyam paldyitum/1 kim nu karyam kutham k u r w kva nu gacchdmi samjayal ete naiyanti kuravo m a n m kdlavahqt gatah. 5.50.58-.59. 55 kathamindivaraSydmam sudaqqtram cdrulocanam/ mukhuq te driyate vatsa gu~hitam ranarenund . . . Sayaniyam purd yasya spardhydstarapsamvrtam/bhumdv adya katham Seje vipraviddhah sukhocitah I1 yo'nvaSyata purd viro varastribhir mahdbhujah Ikatham anvdsyate so 'dya Sivdbhih patito mrdhe.7.55.3,7.55.6-7.

54

After denouncing the might of Bhima, Arjuna and the rest of the Pwdava warriors who failed to protect her young son, she meditates on the transitory nature of life and the inscrutability of time: 0, hero, to me you are like a dream that is seen and lost. Alas, the human condition is transitory, as unstable as a bubble of water ...Without doubt the course [of time] ...is very difficult to understand, even for the wise.%

In The Book of the Women, when Gh&dh&i, Dh&vQ{ra9s queen, surveys the battlefield strewn with corpses, she marvels at the contrast between the heroes' former splendor and their wretched condition, She says, nhose heroes] who were used to soft, clean beds, now they have been slain and lie on the open earth. They who used to be constantly celebrated by bards singing their praises from time to time now they hear the inauspicious, horrible cries of jackals. Those famous heroes who used to lie upon beds, their bodies annointed with sandal-paste and aloe, now lie in the dust, and the vultures, jackals, and crows toss their ornaments while screeching their gruesome, horrid calls over and over again?' When Ghmdhm sees her son Duryodhana's body, she, "withered with grief,"% drops to the ground and faints. After regaining consciousness, she gives voice to her sorrow by reflecting upon the reversals that time's revolutions bring:

Look at my son, Madhava, ... the scorcher of the enemy who would go in the van of the specially consecrated fighters now lies in the dust. See how time turns!5g hd vira dpto nu$aica dhunam svapna ivdsi me / ah0 hyanitya~M n u ~ y a m jalabudbudzcaricalarn .,. .nihum gatih ... tasya prdjhir api sudurvidk 7.55.16 and 7.55.19. 57 iayaruiny ucitdh same mrdfini vimuldni ca / vipannds te'dya vasudhdm vivrtdm adhiderate // bandibhih satatam k d e stuvadbhir abhinunditdh / iivdndm aiivd ghordh irnvanti vividhd girah I1 ye purd ierate virdh iayane~uym'asvinuh 1 candaruigurudigdhdtigds te 'dya pdtiyusu ieratell tepim dbharaqdny ete g~dhrago~yuvdyasd(d dbipanty aiivd ghord vinandantah punah punah. 1 1.16.31-34 % iokukariitd. 1 1.17.1. 59 pasya m-dhava me sutam . . .yo'yaq mdrdhdvasiktdndm agre ydti paramtapah 1 so ' y a y pdquu~uiete 'dya paiya kdlasya paryayam. 1 1.17.10

In The Book of the Stay in the Forest Hermitage, when Niirada informs Yudhighira that DW&tra has been killed in a great forest fire: Yudhi~~thira responds with a lament that expresses many of the same ideas and motifs found in the previous laments:

I see that the lot of human beings is difficult to discern since D m & t r a was burned to death by the forest fire. He had a hundred sons who possessed great strength and royal splendor. The king himself had the strength of elephants, but even he has been burnt to death in a forest-fire! In the past, beautiful women fanned him with palm leaves. Now vultures fan him [with their wings], he who has been devoured by the forest fire. ...Best among brahmins, the course of time is certainly very s ~ b t l e . ~ The lament underscores just how difficult it is for characters to come to terms with the finality of death, particularly the deaths of those so precious or mighty. " Death is comprehensible when it is an objective fact, a phenomenon "out there" that touches the lives of others. It is a different matter entirely when one is forced to see it as a fundamental, irrevocable truth that touches one's own life in devastating ways. The lamenters marvel at the juxtaposition of their loved ones in the full bloom of life with their status now, as corpses on the battlefield, fodder for the vultures and jackals. What separates these two images, of course, is increments of time and the sudden realization of time's immense power sends characters reeling. Many of the epic's most moving durvijfieya hi gatayah purupindm matd mama1 yatra vaicitraviryo 'saudagdha evam davagnind llyasya putraiatam $rimad abhavad bdhu$dlina~ migi.iyutaba10 raja sa dagdho hi davdgnindlyam purd paryavijanta talavrntair varastriyaw tam grdhrah paryavijanta ddvdgniparikdlitamll... s u s ~ k ~ m kila i kdlasya gatir dvijavarottama. 15.46.2-4 and 15.46.9 'l Examples of other laments in the epic are Draupadi's lament in the dicing scene (2.62.4-14), Yudhi$hira9slament upon the news of Abhimanyu's slaying 7.49.1-21; Ahatthihnan's lament after Duryodhana has been defeated 9.64.12-38; and G&dh&i's lament in The Book of the Women at 11.16.-26.

passages involve the lament since it gives voice to the characters deepest feelingsfor one another; often, sadly, when it is too late, The fact that many of the Mahdbhdrata's laments share common motifs and ideas, particularly ideas about temporality,reveals that grief has an idiom in the Mahdbhdrata and this idiom, to a large extent, centers on the language that captures the awe, shock, and sorrow that one feels when confronted by the irrevocable ravages of all-destroying time:' 2.2.2 Kdlavdda and Arguments-Acainst-Grief A closely related sub-genre of discourse that employs this same idiom of grief is the "argument-against-grief." The argument-against-grief is a sermon delivered by a wise advisor at moments of great crises in order to b'comfort" a grieving character. I use the term "comfort" loosely because what the advisor provides is not solace, but a bitter pill for the griever to swallow. The advisor transforms the idea of the transitory nature of life, the essence of the &lavdda account, from being a realization that is inextricably linked with the emotion of grief, as it is in the lament, to being a fact of life that must be recognized and accepted so that sorrow may be overcome. There are five major "arguments" in the epic that incorporate the kdavdda worldview; three are delivered by V y i i ~ aone , ~ by Sawjaya, and one by Vidura.

Studies on the psychological effects of grief are too numerous to mention, but recent work on the subject is worth noting: Jean-Yves Lx Naour, The Living Unknown Soldier: A Story of Grief and the Great War, translated by Penny Allen (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002); Joan Didion, The Year of Magical 27zinking (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005); Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler, On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of k s s (New York: Scribner, 2005); and Sandra M. Gilbert, Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Way We Grieve: A Cultural Stmfy(New York: Norton, 2006). a For scholarship on Vyasa's teachings in the epic, see Sullivan, Seer of the F$h Veda, 38,45 and Dhand, "The Subversive Nature of Virtue," 49-50.

62

These five speeches, considered together, express the following cluster of ideas. First, time is the root of everything; it is inherently destructive and impartial. No one no matter how virtuous, powerful, or wealthy is protected from time's oppressive decree. Second, time is also cyclical; whatever or whoever dies will return to life again, only to be subject to the same miseries as before. Third, time is linked to suffering since it

destroys everything that is precious and does so over and over again. Fourth, time is closely associated with fate (daiva, distam); it is so in at least two different ways. Some passages indicate that fate just is the inevitability that time will bring about adverse reversals. Others indicate that time brings about ("cooks" or ripen^")^ that which has been fated!'

Fifth, because time is omnipotent and will inevitably bring sorrow, the

goal is to move beyond time and hence beyond misery. If the lamenter realizes the truth of the transitory nature of life due to the destructive nature of time, a truth to which all living creatures are subject,then he or she will be reoriented to the world in such a manner that she or he will no longer be subject to the despair caused by time's turning. In The Book of the Beginning, for example, when DWariQtra mourns the death of his eldest son Duryodhana as well as the defeat of his son's army, Smjaya responds to

dpac. For scholarship on ''the cooking time" image in the epic, see Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mah&hdrata, 39 and Gonzalez-Reimann, The Mahdbhdrata and the Yugm, 34-35. For scholarship on the cooking motif in the Vedic context, see Jan Heesterman, The Broken World of Sacrflce: An Essay in Indian Ritual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 175 and Charles Malamoud, Cooking the World: Ritual and Thought in Ancient India, trans. David White (Delhi: Oxford University Press, lW6). 65 Fate is multivalent category in the Mahiibhdrata that is sometimes closely linked with the concept of time and sometimes is not. Gonzalez-Reimann views the two as synonymous (The Mahdbhdrata and the Yugm, 26-39), but even when they are linked, I think that there are subtle important differencesbetween them. However, GonzalezReimann is right to note that the narrative voice does refer to them synonymously at times. @

Dh@arZi@a3slament with a speech that attempts to dispel DWZi$.tra7ss ~ r r o w First, .~ Swjaya appeals to the destructive power of time, particularly as it effects even the most mighty: You have heard about many kings, kings of great energy and strength. You have heard talk of them from DvaipZiyana WyZisa] and wise Niirada. They who were born in great lineages, who were endowed with virtues, skilled in weapons, whose splendor resembled Indra's. They who conquered the earth with d h a m , offered up sacrifices with many gifts, and acquired fame in this world all succumbed to the decree of time?' Sargjaya recites the names of twenty-four kings, and a second list of sixty-five kings, making the point that despite their strength, wisdom, and a host of other virtues, they all succumbed to timesa Next he reflects not simply on the destructive aspect of time, but time in both its destructive and creative roles, This, as I have mentioned before, is one of the epic's signature statements on time: Time ripens the creatures and time rots them. Time again extinguishes the time that burns the creatures. Time alters all beings in the world, virtuous or not virtuous. Time destroys them and creates them again. Time moves in all creatures, unchecked and impartial. Those beings who were in the past will come again and those that exist now, they are all fashioned by time. Know this and do not abandon your intelligence?' In The Book of Bhisma, when the two armies stand on the battlefield readied for war, Vyaa approaches Dmii$.tra and informs him that all the warriors will kill one

a See also Chapter Four, Section Two.

irutavdnusi vai rdjfio mahtsdhdn muhdbaldn/ dvaipayanusya vadato niiradasya ca dhmtuta(d/muhutsurdjavav'e$u gunuih samuditesu c djdtdn divyiistravidusah $akrapratimutejasah//dharmequ prthivim jitvd yajhir i~tvdptadak~iqaih /asmid loke yajah priipya tatah kdlavaiaqt gatdh. 1.1.163- 165. a Literally "they all went to their destruction." nidhanapz gatdh. 1.182. 69 kdah pacati bhiitdni kdlah sapharati prajdh/nirdahantam prajdb k d l a ~ kdlah iamuyate punu(d/ k d o vikurute bhhdn sarvdml loke iubhdiubhdn/ kzilah sumkipate sarvdh prajd visrjute punav kdah sarvep bhute~ucaraty avidhrtah samuw/ atitcin dgatd bhdvd ye ca vartanti sdmpratam/ tdn kdlanirmitdn buddhvd nu samjiiam hdtum arhasi. 1.1.188- 190. 67

another. Vyasa argues, however, that this news should not cause Dmas.tra grief. Why? Because the impending massacre is not simply a personal tragedy for [email protected], this is just the way the world, dictated by time, works. Vy%a says, Knowing the changes brought about by time, do not allow your mind to grieve ... Without doubt, 0 best of kings, time destroys the world; time creates the world again. [The wise person] knows that nothing here is eternal. 70 In The Book of the Women, when Dmas.tra grieves intensely for his dead sons, Vidura, his brother, urges him to relinquish his sorrow, providing him with an argument for why he should do so. In this argument, Vidura emphasizes the transitory nature of all existence. Death and decline are simply facts of life for all living creatures: This is the final conclusion of all mortal beings, both mobile and stationary. All accumulations end in dissolution, all risings end in decline, all unions end in separation, and life ends in death.71 Because time is impartial, all creatures are subjectto its reversals, D m Q p a should not view his situation as a personal tragedy, but simply a universal truth. Therefore, he should not grieve: 0 best of the Kurus, time has no favorite and no enemy; time is neutral towards none. Time drags everyone off. ...One should not grieve over the sorrow that is common to all people.72 Vidura urges Dwaragra to face the finality of death in the starkest terms, telling him, "If something has ceased to exist, it will never come back."73According to Vidura, grieving is useless since it will not bring Dhftarastra's sons back to life.

kdlaparydyam djndya md sma ioke manah krtdhj . . . asarqiayam pdrthivendra kdlah sa&ipate jagat11 srjate ca punur lokdnneha vidyati sdsvatam. 6.2.5 and 6.4.2-3. 71 sthirajafigarnamurtydndm sarve@m esa nirwyah //sarve ksaydntd nicay* patanant@ samucchray& Isamyoga viprayogantd rnaragcmtam hi jivitam. 1 1.2.2-3. 72 na kdlasya priyah kdcinna dvesyah kurusattamaf na mdhyastah kvacit kdah sarvam kdlah prakarsati . . . na jdnapadikam duhkham ek& socitum arhasi . . .11.2.14and 16. O '

In The Book of Peace, Yudhis.thira, overwhelmed by grief at the slaughter of his kinsmen, becomes "radically disaffected from e~erything,'"~ and expresses the desire to renounce the kingdom and go to the forest. Vy%a, his grandfather, approaches him and delivers a sermon on time in order to dispel his grief. First, Vy&a points out that time is the cause of all things, both the actions of men as well as natural processes: No one gains anything from his or her deeds. ...A person acquires all that is ordained for him or her through time by means of the Ordainer from the [operation of its turning]. Through time swift winds blow, through time moisture reaches the clouds, through time bodies of water possess lotuses, through time trees flourish in the forests.75 Next, Vy%a recites a song sung by King Senajit when he was overcome with sorrow. This song expresses the idea that all living creatures are subject to time's turnings.76Therefore a person should see his or her own misery and fear as the miseries and fears of all living creatures. Such a transformation in vision would reveal the selfcentered foolishness of grief.77When Yudhis.thira's sorrow persists, Vyasa discusses the transitory nature of existence: The unions and separations of living creatures are immutable. Like bubbles in water, they are there and then they are not. All accumulations end in dissolution, every ascent ends in a fall, all connections end in separations, all life ends in death.%

apy abhavena yujyeta tac cdsya na vivartate. 11.2.16. Qsga makes a similar argument in the Bhagavadgitd at 6.24.1. 74 Fitzgerald, The Mahobharata, vol. 7, 168. 75 na karmuyi labhyate kaicit parydyayogdd vihitam vidhdtrd kdlena; sarvm labhate rnanujyah . . kdlenu sigh@ pravivdnti vat@; kdlena vmir jaladdn upaiti I kdlena padmotpalavaj jalarn cat kdlena pujyanti nagd vaneju. 12.26.5and 12.26.8. 76 12. 26.14. 77 12.26.18. 78 samyoga viprayogOs ca jutprqinam dhruvam I budbuda iva toyeju bhuvanti nu bhuvanti callsarve kjayanta nicay* patanant* samucchrayah/ samyoga viprayoganta maranantam hi jrvitam. 12.27.28-29. 73

In The Book of the Mace Battle, after m w ' s death, a dejected Arjuna seeks solace from Vy&a, his grandfather. Arjuna tells Vyasa that now that Kqga is gone, he is filled with grief and feels that he has nothing left to live for. Vy&a responds, once again, with a sermon on time:

Arjuna, all this has time as its root Time is the seed of the universe. Time withdraws everything again at its pleasure. One who was powerful once again becomes weak. One who was a ruler is once again subject to the commands of others. Your weapons, having achieved success, have today gone to the place from which they came. They will come into your hands again when the time is right. The goal of each of the five advisors in these arguments is essentially therapeutic, that is to dispel the lamenters' sorrow. However,on the face of it, at least, it is not exactly clear why a sermon on time's destructive capabilitieswould extinguish a person's despair. How, then, are these arguments meant to work? Each advisor, either implicitly or explicitly, makes the point that time is impartial, that it brings death and decay to every living creature. Viewing the world in this way would encourage the lamenter to see that the sorrow that he or she experiencesnow has been felt by every creature on earth. Accordingly, the lamenter would see that his or her grief is just a tiny drop in the ocean of sorrow caused by the ravages of all-destroying time. Such a shift would, presumably, snap the lamenter out of his or her despair by re-contextualizing her situation and opening her eyes to the condition of all living creatures in the world.80Such a shift would also, presumably, encourage an emotional transformation in him or her from grief and self-pity 79

kdlamiilam idarn sarvam jagadbijam dharmqjayal iuila eva samddatte punar eva ya&cchayd /I sa eva balavdn bhi.itvd punar bhavati durbalah Isa eveM ca bhutveha parair djndpyate punah Ilkflakrtydni cdstrdpi gatdnyadya yathiigatam I punare;yanti te hustam yadd kalo bhavisyati. 16.9.33-35. 80 Chaitanya, The Mahabhdrata, 58-59.

to normative feelings like acceptance, fortitude, and even contentment, one of the most lauded virtues in the epic.''

2.3 Conclusion Both the theory of the yugas and the Mahabharata's kdlavcida view time as an oppressive, destructive force. Both provide accounts for why time is implicated in the problem of human suffering. However, these two theories of time diverge in two important ways. First, they address fundamentally different levelsof human experience. While the Mahabharata's luilaviida is concerned with time as it appears in an individual's immediate awareness (one moment something exists and the next, it is gone), the yuga theory addresses large periods of time or "times." Another way to put this is that while the account of time is concerned with time at the microcosmic level, the theory of the yugas addresses time at the macrocosmic level since it is concerned with large cycles of social tran~formation.'~ The second way that these two theories differ concerns how they are explored in the epic. As I have attempted to show, the passages that discuss the idea of the yugas are, for the most part, not fundamental to the epic's plot and do not directly address some of the epic's deepest riddle-questions. The passages that discuss the epic's account of time , however, are located at pivotal moments in the epic and are integral to how the narrative voice and how the characters themselves understand the catastrophes that lead to the war and the whole-scale destructi~n.~~ Therefore, while the idea of "times" is explored in the

See Chapter Four, Section Two for a similar discussion. Gonzalez-Reimann, The Mahabharata and the Yugas, 3. 83 Ibid., 45 and Peter Hill, Fate, Predestination and Human Action, 199. 82

epic, it is the epic's account of time, not the cosmic idea of "times," that is central to the moral and aesthetic dimensionsof the text.% 3. Narrative Strategies of Temporal Manipulation: Consuming. Dismiss&

Calla* and S-ng

Time

Now that we have established some of the predominant statements that characters make about time, let us now consider what the text's strategies "do" with time. How does the text through the skillful deployment of its narrative devices impact our experience of time? I hope to show that while the text emphasizes the themeof destructive, oppressivenature of time as discussed above, it also makes what, on the surface at least, seems to be a quiet different point, that time may be manipulated and therefore in some sense overcome. Through its strategies the text collapses, overturns, engulfs, reverses, eradicates, and stretches time.85 To what end? In what follows I discuss three ways that the text manipulates time through strategies that are closely associated with the text's framing device: consuming, dismissing, and collapsing time. Next I discuss a fourth way the Mahdbhdrata manipulates time through the art of narration: stretching time. 86 Finally I am interested in determining the "arguments" that these narrative strategies are making about time, particularly in light of the issues discussed in Section Two, the epic's account of time and its connection to human sorrow. 84

Vassilkov and Gonzalez-Reimann agree that the epic's account of time is the dominant paradigm of time in the Mahdbhdrata. ''In this section, I will be referring to four interrelated kinds of time: 1) the epic's account of time, 2) sequential time (see chapter four), 3) the characters' experience of time, and 4) the audiences' experience of time. 86 The distinction that I am making here is between the art of telling and the art of structuring the story, two narrative impulses which are, of course, closely related.

3.1 con sum in^ Time

In order to discuss what the Mahdbhdrata "does" with time, it is necessary to return, once again, to the issue of the framing device, As Alf Hiltebeitel writes, "The frame story is probably the leading device through which the text supports its vast and complex meditations on time.''m Through the use of the framing device, the text moves back and forth in time as well as into "simultaneous mean while^."^ As I have mentioned several times, the Mahijbhrata contains two outer frames, both of which contextualize the epic's telling: the ~gra4ravas-~aunaka frame, the outermost frame where Ugrairavas narrates the story of the Mahdbhtirata to a group of brahmins in the Naimisa forest and the Vaibpiiyana-Janamejaya frame, the epic's inner frame, where Vaiiaqpfiyana narrates the story of the Mahiibhiirata at Janamejaya's snake sacrifice. The fact that these two outer frames contextualize the epic's narration tells us something about the Mahdbhdrata's relation to time. Since these stories that tell the circumstances (the where, when, why, and by whom) of the epic's first two tellings are contained in the Mahdbhrata, they are also part of the Mahiibhdrata. If we take this insight and extend it logically, the design of the epic suggests that whenever, wherever, or whoever tells or receives the story of the great Bhmtas becomes part of the Mahdbhdrata. In other words, through the art of its design, the text explodes the boudary between interiority and exteriority. As David Shulman writes, So the Mamhiirata is coterminous with the world-not a modest claim perhaps but one that does help to clarify the aims of the text. There is no escape built into

Hiltebeitel and Kloetzli, "Kdla," 578. Ibid. According to Hiltebeitel and Kloetzii, the Mahdbhiirata is one of the first texts to explore framing and its narrative possibilities in relation to the theme of temporality.

it from its relentless, bleak vision. It represents itself not as a work of art but as reality itself. No boundary marks off this text from the Through exploding the boundary between the insides and the outside of the text, the Mahdbhdrata makes a powerful statement about what a literary text is and can do. Namely, it weighs in on the thorny issue of interpretive access for if whoever reads or hears the Mahdbhdrata becomes part of the Mahiibhdrata, then they, no matter where they exist in space or time, are invited into and thus provided access to its literary terrain. In this way universal interpretive access is built into the text's design, provided that a person becomes a reader, listener, or narrator of the epicWw Furthermore, the eradication of these boundaries gives the text the ability to consume time, for if the Mahiibhdrata is reality itself, then it has the potential to contain all of timeq9'Thus, through the art of its design, the text has the capacity to draw into itself and take control of a central theme in its own story: time. This suggests that the allpowerful destructive nature of time, the central point of the kxilavdda account, is not the epic's last word on this issue.

3.2 Dismissing Time The framing device allows the narrative to move backward and forward in time; stories merge into other stories with deliberate disregard for chronal boundaries. For example, in the Pulomunparvun of The Book of the Beginning, Saunaka asks Ugrairavas

Shulman, Wisdom ofthe Poets, 26. See Chapter Two, Section Three. 91 Certainly the size and the scope of the Mahiibhiirata underscores this point as well. 89

90

to recite the origins of his lineage, the Bbgu lineage.= Ugragravas agrees and narrates the story of Ruru, Bbgu's grandson. Rum falls madly in love with a young woman named Ramadvarft. A wedding is arranged and several days before the wedding, Pramadvaril, who is playing with her friends fails to notice a sleeping snake and steps on it. Significantly,the narrative voice notes, "she was prompted by time.'m The snake "pressed by the degree of time" sank its fangs into the body of the "careless" girl, and Ramadvarft dies immediately.w Rum, grief-stricken, lamentsthe death of his bride. Calling upon the gods and summoning his ascetic power, he suggests a deal: he will give up half of his life in order to revive his wife. The gods agree and the deal is struck. Pramadvarft is restored to life. Ruru, however, angry at the high price that he had to pay to be reunited with his wife, vows to seek revenge on all snakes. Indeed, whenever he sees a snake, fury overtakes him and he beats it to death with a club. One day, he happens upon a lizard. Mistaking the lizard for a snake, Ruru smashes it on the head with a stick. The lizard, understandably startled, questions Ruru about his motives since he, the lizard, has never done Rum any harm. Ruru informs the lizard about his vendetta against all snakes, and the lizard, in response, delivers a sermon lauding the virtues of non-violence and telling Rum that he has been conducting himself like a k~atriya,not a brahmin. To make his point he refers to King Janamejaya and his great sacrifice, an example of course of a king (i.e., a k~atriya),who has a similar

For scholarship on the Bbgus, see Robert Goldman, Gods, Priests, and Warriors: The Bhrgus of the Mahdbhdrata (New York: Columbia University Ress, 1977). mluilacodita: 1.8.15 coditah luiladhrrnuqci. 13-16.

vendetta against snakes and for similar reason^.^' Quite unexpectedly, the lizard (now a brahmin released from a curse) disappears, and ~ u r runs u to his father and begs him to

tell him the story of Janamejaya's sacrifice; his father agrees. % Thus Rum's story ends, but this ending is no simple ending in truth since it completely dismisses the rules of temporal boundaries. How? Ugrahavas, the bard who is situated in the outer frame of the Mahdbh&-atatells the brahmins of the Naimip forest that he recently attended Janamejaya's snake sacrifice. Ruru's father, Pramati, is $aunaka's great-great grandfather. He tells Rum that he is going to tell him about this same sacrifice. Since obviously Aaunaka and Ugrairavas are contemporaries(and by

"contemporary" I mean that they are situated at the same point in time in the text) and Ugrairavas witnesses this sacrifice, which has just happened, this means that Pramati is going to tell Ruru a story about a sacrifice that occurs approximately three generations in the fiture.

3.3 Collapsing Time Another strategy that the text employs to manipulate time is the direct address formula. The direct address formula is the device that the text employs to signal a change in narrators, "X uvdca" or "X said," "X" being the speaker. It is also a strategy that the text uses at specificjunctures to collapse time. One such instance occurs in the Mahdbhdrata's pivotal scene: the dicing scene. As you will recall, it is in this scene that Y u d h i s . ~ agambles away himself, his four -

The snake Takpka killed Janamejaya's father, Pariksit (Arjuna's grandson). % 1.12.4-5. 97 This happens approximately three times in the epic. Once in the dicing scene, as discussed here; once in The Book of the Stay in the Forest Hermitage at 15.42.1 in the Critical Edition, and at 12.341 in the Northern Recension.

95

brothers, and his wife, Draupadi, in a crooked dice game. Duryodhana and his followers subsequently violate Draupadi, and the seeds are sewn for the bitter enmity between the Pwdavas and the Kauravas, seeds which ultimately culminate in the war.%

A quarter of the way into Vaiimpiiyana's narration of the dicing scene, Janamejaya interrupts Vai6aqpiiyana and asks him a question, which Vaiiaqpiiyana answers. Interestingly, for the second time in the text, Vaiiarppiiyana's comments are introduced by an outer narrator called "the Bard" (szita). Therefore at this point in the story, the direct address formula introduces back-toback four different speakers who are situated in varying points in the story.%The sequence of these direct speakers runs as follows: 1) Janamejaya, 2) the Bard, 3) Vai6apiiyana and 4) Duryodhana. Directly before this passage, Vaiiaqpiiyana has outlined the events that have led up to Dhpira@a9sdecision to sanction the fateful dice game.lW Now Janamejaya requests to be told in more detail how the dice game came about; his request is followed by a statement by ''the Bard" who says, Thus addressed by the king, Vyiisa's majestic student, who knew everything, narrated it all as it ha~pened."'~' The Bard's statement is followed by Vai6ampllyana's voice; Vaiiampilyana, in response to Janamejaya's request, begins to tell the story of the events which lead up to the dice game all over again; this time in more detail. Vaifiampiiyana's voice is followed by Duryodhana's, who is now speaking to [email protected] in an attempt to convince him to sanction the game. See Chapter Three for an extensive discussion of this scene. 2.46.1-7. loo See Chapter Three. lo' evam uktas tadd rdjM vydsa.fisyahpraidpavdn dcacakse yathdvptam tat sarvam sarvaveddavit. 2.46.4.

The insertion of the Bard's very brief comments is significant because it is not clear at all who "the Bard" is.lo2 The text does not give us the name of a specific person; the word "siita" simply appears. "Siita" here means storyteller. So, the question is who is "the Bard?'The narrative provides one clue about who the Bard is: the Bard informs his audience that Vaisampayana is the narrator. Because Vaisampayana is the narrator in the inner frame, only someone in the outer frame is in a position to refer to Vaiiwpayana as a narrator. This clue leads us to our answer: the Bard is Ugrahavas, who is narrating the story of the Mahcibhdrata to the group of brahmins in the epic's outer frame.lo3 (My logic here runs as follows: For the Bard to be able to refer to Vaihqpayana as the narrator, the Bard has to know who Vaiiaqpayana is and the circumstances under which he acted as the narrator of the Mahabhdrata; that is, he must also know about the snake sacrifice. For the Bard to know about the snake sacrifice, the Bard must be speaking at a point in time that either overlaps with the snake sacrifice, or the Bard must exist in "future time" with respect to the snake sacrifice. Because no other person acts as a direct speaker at the snake sacrifice other than Janamejaya and Vaiiqpayana, the Bard must be speaking from the perspective of a future time. The only context in the Mahdbhdrata where this is possible is the epic's outer frame. Hence the Bard must be Ugrairavas.) Remember, Ugrairavas, at this point in the story, has not appeared since Vaiiampayana took over as narrator approximately two hundred and seventeen chapters van Buitenen also finds this insertion strange; he writes, "this bard can only be Ugrairavas, who is recounting to the hermits of the Nairnisa Forest Vaiiampayana's account to Janamejaya, His unexpected appearance here is interesting. van Buitenen, The Mahabharata, vol. 2,815. lo3 Beyond the opening passages of the Mahdbhdrata, Ugrasravas rarely appears as a direct speaker. At this point in the story, the audience's memory of Ugrairavas, the outerframe narrator, is rather faint; I believe this is intentional. See Chapter Two, Section One for a more extensive discussion of the epic's outer frames. "

ago.lMAt this point in the story, we have completely forgotten about him. Thus the realization that the Bard is Ugrahavas brings with it a potential moment of disorientation, which is, of course, is intentional. It is as though the text is prompting us to ask ourselves "Where are we in the narrative really?'Are we inside the story witnessing Duryodhana as he speaks passionately and despairingly to his father in an effort to convince him to sanction the game (tl )? Are we at the level of the inner frame where Vaisampayana narrates the story of the Mahiibharata to King Janarnejaya at the snake sacrifice (t2)? Or are we at the level of the outer frame where Ugrasravas narrates the story of the great Bhiiratas to the group of brahmins (t3)? Each one of these narrative levels exists at different points in time: the time that the story takes place (tl), the time that the story is first publicly told (t2), and the time that the story is retold (t3).'05 However, through the close proximity of these different levels of time, the Mahiibhdrata creates the effect of their occurring simultaneously,that is it creates the effect of the collapsing of time.'% More specifically, what the sequence of speakers in lines 2.46.1-2.47.1 presents us with is the insertion of the future (t3) into the present (which is either t2 or tl; the text makes the present here ambiguous). In so doing, the present moment (which is dyadic as mentioned above; that is, either t2 or tl) is made into the past due to the future's (t3's) insertion, which then frames it. This is further complicated by the presence of this dyadic present, which itself contains a future (t2) and a present (tl), and here again the future

lM

1.55.1.

T3 is "future time" from the perspective of t2 because Ugrasravas is narrating the story of the Mahabharata after he heard Vaiki~payananarrate the story at the snake sacrifice. T3 and t2 are "future time" from the persepective of t l because they both contain narrators who are telling the events which happened in tl. '06 The temporal representation of the sequence of narrators in this particular passage is t2, t3, t2, and tl.

(t2) inserts itself into the present (tl), making the present moment the past by displacing it.lo7 What point is the text making by creating this dizzying experience of time? Let us take a look briefly at how time (Ma)is working in the dicing scene. The word "kala" comes up on a number of occasions; most relevant to our concerns, it appears in places where the text seems to explicitly suggest that the characters make the disastrous decisions that they do, decisions that lead to the game and ultimately to war, because they are being impelled to do so by time. For example, when Yudhis.thira begins his journey to Hastinapura, the text says, "[Yudhis~hira]was summoned by Dh@ara@a and the decree of time."108 In so doing, the text encourages us to ask specific questions about the nature of time. Does it determine human action? Worse, is it a force that impels human beings to their doom? By effecting the experience of the collapsing of time through the insertion of the future into the present moment, the Mahdbharata's narrative strategies provide a dramatic response to these fundamental concerns. After all, how can we have complete confidence in the notion of the all-consuming power of time after the Mahdbhdrata's narrative strategies have produced the experience of the collapsing of time?

3.3 Stretching Time

107

Consider Ricoeur's statement about the remarkable property of the narrative voice: "Indeed we can consider anticipations about the future as anticipated retrospections, thanks to the remarkable property of narrative voice that it can place itself at any point of time which for it becomes the quasi-present, and from this observation point, it can comprehend as a quasi-past the future of our present." Paul Ricouer, Time and Narrative, vol. 3, trans. Kathleen Blarney (Chicago:. University of Chicago Press, 1988), 260. 108 dhrtara#rena cdhutah kalasya samayena ca. 2.52.21.

Aside from the framing device, the Mahdbhdrata has other means at its disposal for manipulating time. One such means is narrative delivery, particularly when the delivery slows down, takes its time, delays time, essentially stopping time. This strategy appears most often in the "massacre narratives," that is those passages in the epic that depict death and destruction on a massive scale.109 In these episodes the narrative voice employs two strategies that stretch time: intricate description and repetition. Considering the size, shape, and scope of the Mahdbharata, whose story begins with creation and "ends" with the reign of Janamejaya, the fact that the eighteen days of battle consumes five books (including The Book of the Night Massacre) or more than one quarter of the epic gives us a sense of what happens to time in these books. Indeed, the battle scenes contain some of the most intricately detailed and carefully crafted passages in the entire epic; these same passages describe horrifying scenes of savage slaughter and wholesale deva~tation.~'~ Consider for example the following passage: A river was seen on the battlefield that flowed to the other world. Its waters were blood, its whirlpools were chariots, its trees were banners, its pebbles were bones. Its crocodiles were arms, its streams were bows, its rocks were elephants and its stones were horses. Its mud was fat and marrow, its swans were umbrellas, and its boats were maces. Covered with armor and turbans, its beautiful trees were flags. Abounding in wheels and filled with three-bannered poles, the horrifying river rose up full of Kurus and Sfijayas, inspiring delight in the heroes and increasing the dread of the fearful.'"

109

Examples of massacre narratives include the burning of the Khwdava Forest (1.214220); the cattle expedition (3.225-244 ); the cattle raid (4.25-63);and, of course, the five battle books, including The Book of the Night Massacre (Sauptikaparvan)where Aivatthman viciously butchers the sleeping Drupadas. 'I0 Chaitanya, The Mahdbhdrata, 38-39. Ill samjajiie rawbhiimau tu paralokuvaha nadi I Sonitodd rathavartd dhvajav&y&hiSarkard I1 bhujanakrd dhanubrotd hastiiaild huyopald I medomajjdkardaminichatrahaqsd gadocjupd I1 kavacog@asamchunnd patakdruciradrumd Icakracakrdvalijustd triveniidupjakdvrtd IlSItrdnO.~harsajanani bhir-m bhuyavardhini I prdvartata nadi raudrd kurusp?'jayasa~ulii.9.8.29-32.

Because the description is so thick in these books, the progression of the plot slows down, and we are encouraged to pause and take in, with eyes wide open, the various horrifying ways that the soldiers lives are cut short and how the body, which is vulnerable to so many abuses, can be torn apart: Some were pierced by spears and some by battle-axes, and some by were crushed by elephants and others were trampled by horses. Some were cut by car-wheels and some by sharp arrows, and they cried out for their relatives, king. Others cried out for their sons, and others for their fathers and for their brothers. ...And their entrails were scattered and their thighs were broken, BhZmta. And others, with arms torn off or their sides pierced were seen desiring to live. And some, who were weak and thirsty, 0 king, who had fallen on the battlefield on the bare ground, begged for water. 112 Through slowing down the tempo of the narrative at these points in the story, the narrative voice encourages us to pause and take in the ravaging effects of violence, decay, and destruction, the effects, in essence, of time: Hundred and thousands of severed heads and adorned arms fell upon the ground and moved [in convulsions]. And some brave warriors who were headless continued to stand ready with weapons grasped .'I3 Another strategy that the text employs to delay time is the repetition of various motifs throughout the war books. The most prevalent ones are: 1 . The loss of recognition motif. During the battle books, Samjaya frequently

describes how, as the war progresses, the warriors lose the ability to recognize one another. Again and again, we are told, that fathers no longer recognize their Saktibhir darit* kecit sumchin@ ca paraivadhaih I hastibhir mrditah ke cit @unna6 cmye turamgamaih I1 rathaneminikrttds ca nikrtta niSitaih Saraih IvikroSanti nara raja@ tatra tatra smu bandhavan /I putrtin anye pitrn anye bhratf-qf ca vikir~ntrah subahavo bhagnasakthci.9ca bharata I bahubhih subhujacchinnaihptirhesu ca vidarit* I1 kranduntah samad@anta tgita jivitepsavah I tcydparigat@ ke cid alpasattva v i m pate I1 bhamau nipatit* samkhye jalam eva yaymire. 6.44.34-38. I i 3 patitany uttamdfiganibahavai ca vibh@itdh I vyaceganta mahim prapya Sataio 'tha sahasraiah I/ hrtottamdflg* kecit tu tathaivodyatakzirmu~I pragfitdyudhaicdpi tasthuh [email protected].

sons, brothers no longer recognize brothers, nephews no longer recognize their uncles. Consequently, they kill one another. 114

2. The river of blood motif. Another recurring motif is the description of the river of blood that forms as a result of the extensive carnage. Filled with the flesh and blood and entrails of the corpses of the soldiers, horses and elephants, it carries the bodies to the realm of Yama, the God of death.l15 3. "The battlefield looked beautiful trope." Samjaya repeatedly comments upon the aesthetic dimensions of the battlefield strewn with the corpses. For example, he compares the battlefield littered with bodiesto a field of flowers,'16an autumnal sky,l17a beautiful young woman adorned with various ornament^,^" a field of gold-colored lotuses, and a painted figure on a canvas.l19 The irony here lies in the fact that Samjaya is narrating the events of the war to DwarZqtra and is, therefore, essentially asking him (as well as us) to see the carnage of his own army as beautiful.lZ0 Indeed, Saqjaya describes a wounded Duryodhana to 4. DmZistra in the following somewhat shocking manner: "Deeply pierced your son looked beautiful like a k i ~ ' u k aflower in the spring season."121 5. The omens motif. Scattered throughout these books are passages that describein

great detail the dreadful omens that appearfor all the warriors to behold. 122

114

See, for example, 6.44.2-3. See the previous page for example. 6.50.55.

117 6.55.15.

6.92.65. 6.42.25.

^/subh. 121

8.40.29.

Examples of such omens are meteor showers, dust-storms, flashes of lightening in a cloudless sky, howling jackals, moving headless trunks, showers of blood or pieces of bone and flesh, the tears of the Kurus' animals, lakes and wells that vomit blood. These omens create a kind of recurring dread, not only in the characters, but also in us, since they indicate that events are only going to get worse as we move forward in the narrative. 6. The scattered weapons motif. The narrative voice repeatedly pauses to catalogue

the battle weapons that are strewn upon the field. The expense, size, shape, and design of the weapons are described, highlighting the futility of such mighty and costly weapons to their now-deceased owners.124 7. The hungry jackals motif. Most of the battle episodes conclude with a brief

description of all the hungry beasts of prey (jackals, dogs, rdk$asas, and ghouls) howling in anticipation of their nightly feast and gorging upon the fat and blood of the victims of the battle, dancing about in glee. The point that the repetition of such motifs makes is that in war there is no progress towards a brighter future, there is only a steady decline in the humanity of the characters. This decline is marked by the slow unbearable march towards inevitable whole-scale destruction. The repetition of these motifs throughout the battle books has a numbing effect. Ultimately, death, violence,and even cruelty are not only aestheticized,

See, for example, Vyiisa's extended description of the omens at the beginning of the war at 6.2-6.3. For a discussion of the relationship between omens and time, see Hiltebeitel and Kloetzli, "Kda," in The Hindu World, 578. 124 See, for example, 6.92.47-9.

but rendered mundane. They become boring, a tedious fact of life, an everyday occurrence, and thus are drained of their shock value.125

Let us now stand back and consider in more detail why the text would want to manipulate our experience of time in these varying ways. On the surface at least, the strategies that manipulate time appear to undermine the central thesis of the kdlavdda account, which is that time is an overpowering, oppressiveforce that leads all creatures to their doom. For if time really possesses these qualities, then how could the text give us the experience of consumed/dismissed/collapsedtime? But is this really the case? Do the strategies of temporal manipulation truly unravel the epic's account of time? To answer this question, we should turn to and reflect upon the central point of the advisors' perspective on the kdlavada account, which they articulate in their arguments-againstgrief. According to S ~ j a y aVyW, , and Vidura, the person who faces and accepts the fact that time "revolves'' and that therefore everything in the world is subject to radical transitoriness will no longer be subject to the sorrow that time brings. Thus the person who is no longer swayed by the strong emotional responses that time's ravages cause would in essence move beyond time in the sense that he or she would no longer be psychologically terrorized by time. Viewed from this perspective, the text's temporal manipulations do not undermine the epic's account of time but support its implicit recommendation for overcoming sorrow: psychologically moving beyond time. They support this implicit recommendation by producing in us the very experience that the advisors attempt (and fail) to produce in their own audience members-that is the See Masson's interpretation of handavardhana's statements concerning the use of repetition in the battle books. Ingalls et al. tr., The Dhvanydloka, 694.

experience of overcoming temporal boundariesand hence psychologically moving beyond time. If the strategies of consuming, dismissing, and collapsing time do not unravel but indeed support the epic's account of time, what about the strategies that stretch time? Earlier I mentioned that these strategies appear most often in the massacre narratives. By delaying our experience of time at these points in the story, the strategies force us to become intimately familiar with death and its many dimensions: the susceptibility of the body to violence, the look of terror in the eyes of a mortally wounded victim, the gory details of the decaying corpse, the grief that loss causes others and how this emotion can so easily cause a person to slip into madness. By presenting us with these violent scenes and by doing so again and again, the text encourages us to face and accept the vulnerability of the human condition to time and decay. It does more than make us face these truths. It guides us through these scenes so that the aggregative effect of the delaying devices is that they provide instruction in how to respond to a world that is characterized by all-powerful, all-consumingtime. Guided by the text, shock, horror, and despair give way to contemplative distance, stoicacceptance, even peaceful contentment, emotions that would enable us to face such a world with courage and forbearance rather than falling into the pitfall of insanity, as do so many characters in the text.

Weil makes a similar point about the benefits of tragic literature in her essay "Morality and Literature" in The Simone Weil Reader, 290-95. As Ugrairavas says, the Mahdbhdrata will cause one to never despair, even in dire situations (na krcchresvavasidati). 1.1.199.

In this chapter I examined what the Mahabhdrata says about time versus what the Mahdbhdrata "does" with time. Further, I have suggested that the disjunct between these two "approaches" to time is reconciled if we consider the recommendations of the advisors-against-grief who encourage their audiences to undergo a radical reorientation to the world. This reorientation entails an onotological/psychologicalshift from the experience of time as an agent of suffering to the experience of psychologically moving beyond time and hence beyond sorrow. In my discussion of the Mahdbhdrata's account of time (kdlavdda), I hinted at, but did not emphasize, the fact that time is not the only suspect in the epic's who-dunnit question for the cause(s) of the war. Time's role in this regard is placed in tension with other possible forces, most principally fate, karma, puru;akara, and God. Chapter Six examines the epic's depiction of these other possible suspects in order to assess whether or not the epic ever settles upon a final answer to one of its ultimate question(s)-"Who or what caused the war?'and, by extension, "Who or what is responsible for suffering?"

Chapter Six Heaven's Riddles or the Hell Trick: Theodicy and Narrative Strategies The full significance of suffering in the epic derives its meaning only within the total ensemble of speculations about fate, dharma, karma, human effort (purupkjt-a) and adharma; these constitute part of the thematic web of the epic. Where notions of suffering are expressed most clearly in the Mbh., questions about dharma and fate are usually in the background. Greg Bailey, "Suffering in the Mahdbhdrata."

Each chapter has implicitly considered a similar question: "Who or what was responsible for the BhCirata war-and, by extension, who or what is responsible for suffering?" Did it begin with the dice game? (Chapter Two) Was it Dwaragra's fault? (Chapter Three) Is time the culprit? (Chapter Four) In this chapter I approach this question head on by asking whether or not the epic provides an account for why suffering exists. In short, I am interested in whether or not the Mahobhdrata delivers a theodicy.' According to Ronald Green, the problem of theodicy arises when the reality of human suffering is juxtaposed with two sets of beliefs traditionally associated with ethical monotheism: 1) God is absolutely good and compassionate and 2) God is

In the first part of the twentieth century, many scholars argued that the Indian tradition was silent on the problem of evil. This was due, in part, to their belief that the doctrines of karma and maya satisfactorily address the problem. However, karma has never been unanimously accepted as a satisfactory answer (see Section Two of this chapter). Further, the doctrine of maya, the belief that evil is unreal, could hardly be considered the Indian tradition's explanation of the problem of evil because it belongs to only one strand of Indian thought: Vedanta. In her book The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology, Wendy Doniger countered the prevailing academic opinion that the problem of evil and suffering was largely ignored by the tradition by showing that myths of theodicy are perennial in India. See Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology (University of California Press, 1976).

omnipotent and omniscient2 However, as Green asserts, some writers have expanded the term beyond its classical western philosophical usage. Max Weber redefined it in order to make it applicable to religious traditions that do not believe in just one, omnipotent deity. According to Weber, "the theodicy problem" refers to any situation of inexplicable suffering and "theodicy" itself refers to any rationale for explaining ~uffering.~ For the purposes of this chapter, I will adopt Weber's use of the term. In order to explore the issue of theodicy so defined in the Mahabharata, this chapter is divided into four sections. First I consider fate (daiva) and human endeavor (purzqakdra) as potential theodicies by examining their role in the events of the dicing scene. Next I explore whether or not karma and Q s ~ provide a rationales for the existence of suffering. Finally, I examine the epic's enigmatic conclusionwhen the Pwdavas journey to that, due to the strategies of ambiguity and deferral, neither fate, human h e a ~ e n1. argue ~ endeavor, karma, nor m g a provide conclusive answers to the theodicy q~estion.~ Rather, the epic rejects a "straightforward" approach and addresses it in a more dramatic fashion. Through the deployment of the strategies of estrangement and rupture in the journey-to-heaven episode, the epic prepares its audiences for its stark revelation of the

Ronald Green, "Theodicy," in The Encyclopedia of Religion, 2d ed, vol. 12, ed. Lindsay Jones (Detroit: Macmillan, 2005). Ibid. This takes place in The Book of the Great Departure and The Book of the Journey to Heaven, books seventeen and eighteen, respectively. One additional theodicy that theMahabharata considers is time. See Chapter Four for a discussion of time in the Mahabharata, particularly vis-a-vis the issue of suffering. There I mentioned but did not emphasize the fact that the power of time is placed in tension with other potentially more powerful forces like fate and human exertion. Thus, in the context of the concerns of this chapter, I would argue that it is handled with the same strategies of ambiguity that I argue fate, human exertion, and Q s ~ aare. 2

structure of the world, a revelation that I will argue is the epic's response to our question concerning the causes of despair.

2. Fate and Human m

. n In . the Game of Dice

As I mentioned in Chapter Three, the dicing scene is one of the pivotal scenes in the Mahdbharata. In this scene, as you will recall, the PZqlavas are tricked and cheated by their cousins, the Kauravas, their kingdom is taken from them and their wife Draupadi is violated and humiliated. These horrible actions make the war between the Kauravas and P&p$tvasine~itable.~ So precisely why did this "very ~nfortunate"~ game take place? Both characters and the narrative voice (here VaGampAyana) point fingers at destiny (daiva). However, close scrutiny of this scene reveals that the principal characters' desires and volitions are also operative (puru;akdrd).

To what extent, then,

are either fate, human endeavor, andlor some combination of the two depicted as the primary cause of the dice game and the resultant suffering that it causes? To answer this question, I will examine, once again, the depictionof the three characters whose decisions lead to the "fateful" game and who themselves claim that these decisions were determined by fate: Duryodhana, DwarAg.tra, and Yudhi&ira. While I investigated the psychological states of these three characters vis-a-vis the strategies of proximity and estrangement in Chapter Three, I am now concerned with a slightly different set of issues: the tension between their desires and the role of fate in their decisions and actions. Because the question of the power of fate versus human endeavor is explicitly under investigation in this scene (more so than in any other dramatic scene in the epic I would 6

For a brief summary of the dicing scene, see Chapter Three, Section Two. Janemjaya calls the game "mahdtyayam" at 2.46.1.

argue) I will consider the epic's treatment of the dynamic between these two forces as representative. 2.1. Terminology Before I turn to the dicing scene, let me first briefly clarify the terms under investigation. The word daiva (derived from the old words for "God" [deva] and "the sky" or "heavens" [dyu/div])8has a range of meanings; it can mean "related to or dependent upon the gods;" "divine;" "royal;" and "fate." Puru&dra, on the other hand, means literally "that which is done by human being^."'^ In the epic's endless quest for causation (i.e., why things happened the way they did), these two forces are often pitted against one another. Most scholars agree that the question of their relationship is one of the central concerns of the epic." However, they disagree about which side, if any, the epic ultimately comes down on. For example, according to R.C. Zaehner, "the Mahdbhdrata stresses time and time again the primacy of fate over human endea~or."'~ Conversely, according to Peter Hill,

Fitzgerald, The Mahabhdrata, vol.7,661. For scholarship on the role of fate in the Mahabhdrata, see E. Washburn Hopkins, Epic Mythology (Strassborg, 1915), 73-77; Bruce Long, 'The Concepts of Human Action and Rebirth in the Mahdbhdrata" in Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, ed. Wendy O'Flaherty (University of California Press, 1980);Saroj Bharadwaj, The Concept of Daiva in the Mahdbhdrata (Nag Publishers, 1992); David Shulman, "Devana and Daiva" in Ritual, State and History in South Asia: Essays in Honour of J.C. Heesterman, ed. A.W. van den Hoek, D.H.A. Kolf, and M.S. Oort (Leiden: E.J.Brill), 350-65; Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 367-84; Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 85-230; and Julian Woods, Destiny and Human Initiative in the Mahdbhdrata (New York: State University of New York Press, 2001). lo Woods, Destiny and Human Initiative, 4. l1 For scholarly discussion of the constant tension between these opposed "poles" in the epic, see Bharadwaj, The Concept of Daiva, 78-96; Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 232-34; and Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 367- 84. For statements in the epic that reflect this tension, see Bharadwaj, The Concept of Daiva, 28-96. R.C. Zaehner, Hinduism (London: Oxford University Press, 1%6), 106.

Despite the very wide variety of views to be found in the Mahdbhdrata on the problem of fate and human action, it is the consistent, albeit varying, emphasis placed by Indian thinkers upon the important and meaningfulness of human effort and freedom that most stands out.13 Perhaps more wisely, scholars like Nicholas Sutton argue that there is no clear solution to the question of which force is supreme; rather the epic presents different possible "accounts" of their dynamic in order to engender in the reader a clear sense of the stakes involved in the issues raised by the power (or lack thereof) of each.14

2.2. Duryodhana and Fate As I mentioned in chapter three, Prince Duryodhana is the driving force of the dice game, but what motivates him to rush towards certain disaster? The text suggests that fate is implicated; let us investigate precisely how. At the opening of the dicing scene, Duryodhana is smarting. Having just witnessed Yudhisthira's Royal Consecration and his glorious rise to the position of universal sovereign, he is publicly humiliated by the illusions of Yudhighira's assembly hall. He burns because of his humiliation. Duryodhana cannot understand why, in spite of his repeated efforts to defeat them, the Pwdavas continue to rise in glory while his situation remains stagnant. His only explanation is that it is due to fate; he says: I think that fate alone is supreme and human action is useless when I see such radiant fortune given to [~udhi&ira].'~ Along with Sakuni, his crafty uncle, Duryodhana plots to defeat the Pandavas and win their kingdom; he shall do it through a game of dice. bkuni claims that Yudhi$hira, who loves to gamble, does not really know how to play. He, on the other hand, is so Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 37 1. l4 Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 384. daivam eva param m n y e pawusam tu nirarthakaml d ~ t v kuntisute a Subhrm Sriyam tam tathd. 2.43.32. l3

skilled at gambling that there is no one like him on earth (indeed, in all the three worlds).16 Therefore, if Yudhi*ia

can be persuaded to enter into the game, $akuni

assures Duryodhana that he will be able to take Yudhi~.thira'skingdom from him. The fact that Duryodhana tries to act against that which he believes is ordained by fate puts him in an antagonistic relation to it. In trying to defeat the PZq&ivas, whose triumph he believes is fated, he is attempting to defy fate. Paradoxically, the way that he intends to defy fate, through the game of dice, is exactly what other characters (namely Dwaragra and Yudhis.thira) think is ordained by fate, as we shall see.17 So precisely what is Duryodhana's relation to fate here? Is he acting against it (and thus exercising his freedom) or in accordance with it (indicating that his freedom is limited)? Since the answer to this question depends on character-perspective(i.e., Yudhis.thira and [email protected] that he is acting in accordance with fate; however, according to Duryodhana, he is not), it is handled ambiguously by the text.

2.3. Dhrtarastra and Fate When Duryodhana and hakuni approach DhprasJra and urge him to sanction their plan, D W @ t r a first waivers and then acquiesces. DWas$ra, himself, provides three reasons why he feels that he cannot allow the dice game to take place: 1) Vidura is

l6 2.44.19. Many scholars have attributed Yudhighira's astonishing behavior in this scene to a weakness for gambling, based on $akuni9sstatement here. Why so many have taken Sakuni's word at face value has always baffled me. There is very little evidence in the text that Yudhishira is a compulsive gambler. (Arjuna does accuse Yudhis.thira of having a weakness for gambling in The Book of K a w , but he does so out of anger, and it is not clear whether or not we are meant to take his words at face value). Further, Sakuni is a very shifty character who the text suggests should not be trusted. Indeed, there is textual evidence to refute Salami's claim. Draupadi says that Yudhis.thira had rarely played: "mitikrtaprayatn&." 2.60.43. l7 See 2.45.57 and 2.52.14.

against it,'* 2) it will lead to a division (bhedd) in the family,^and 3) he does not want to fight with people who are stronger then they are.20 However, Duryodhana is wasting away with envy and Dlqtaragra cannot bear to see him suffer. Because there are two versions of the conversation between Duryodhana and D m Q @ a ,the text provides two different contexts in which D&Q.tra

gives in to

Duryodhana. In the first version, he gives in when Duryodhana threatens suicide.21This version indicates that D m a s p a gives in to his son because he is both weak and overly fond of his spoiled son. (Duryodhana is certainly hamming it up a bit and manipulating his father when he says, "When I am dead, be happy with your Vidura, king." )22 According to the second version (which includes an extended version of Duryodhana's detailed account of the extravagant gifts that Yudhi~~thira received at the Royal Consecration), Dwaraspa relents when Duryodhana points out that if they win the game, the Kurus will stand on equal footing with the ~ i i ~ ~ a vThis a s .version ~ ~ suggests that DlqtarZqpa gives in for reasons beyond his concern for Duryodhana's happiness or well-being. It suggests that he does not like watching the P&&ivas outshine his own sons, and, further, that listening to his son's account of the magnitude of the Pwdavas' wealth has perhaps incited his greed.

2.4-6.7. l9 2.46.12. 20 2.51.10. 21 Specifically, Duryodhana tells D m @ athat Vidura will urge him to turn away from this idea, and if Dmiis,tra follows this advice, Duryodhana will kill himself. 2.45.43. 22 sa mayi tvaq~mrte rdjan vidureyz sukhi bhuva. 2.45.44. 2.51.13. l8

"

D m i i g r a , however, claims that he submits to his son's request for an altogether different reason that the ones suggested above. He says that he agrees to the game because it is fated (digam). He tells Vidura,

I think it is supreme fate alone by which this occurs.~ But what exactly does he mean? Is he saying that he agrees to Duryodhana's request because the game is fated? If so, how does he know this? Does it suddenly occur to him or is he being tricked by fate so that he suddenly "sees" the game in this light? Or, is he justifying his own weakness (his failure to stand up to his son) by stating that the game is fated and therefore something that cannot be avoided anyway? More to the point, does he agree to the game because he wants to or because he is compelled or even forced to by fate? The Mahdbhdrata suggests that Dmiis.tra is motivated by a complicated, even contradictory,dialectic between these two factors. The text states explicitly that he submits because of his attachment to Duryodhana: D m a g r a , knowing the evils of dicing, was drawn to it because of his love for his son,25 However,'it also suggests that Dh@aras,tra'smind is "bewildered by fate."26D m i i g r a himself claims that he has been blinded and confused by an inexorable force beyond his ken that causes him to "see" things incorrectly and impels him to act against his will. 28

24

daivam eva param manye yenaitad upapadyate. 2.45.57.

"dyUtado.ym ca jdnan sa putrasnehdd akfsyata. 2.45.49.

daivasaqumidhacetas.2.5 1.16. 2.72.8-11. In this speech, Dhjtar@tra uses the term "time" (kdla) and seems to use it interchangeably with fate. In his commentary to verse 2.52.21, Devabodha glosses 'ckdlasya"as c'duivasya"(Devabodha's Commentary on the Sabhdparvanfrom the Mahtibhdrata, ed. R.D. Karmarkar [Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, 1949],35). Time, like fate, has a range of meanings in the Mahdbhdrata (see Chapter Five for a 26 27

By intentionally blurring the extent to which Dlqtarii$ra "knew" what he was doing, the text presents us with one more conundrum: D w i i g r a , it seems, agrees to the game both because he did as he desired, in which case he has agency, and because he was confused and impelled to do so by fate, in which case his agency is called into question. 2.4. Yudhisthira and Fate In this scene, Yudhi$hira is the most baffling character of all. Why does he accept Dhprii$Jra's invitation when he knows that the game will divide the family and most likely cause a war? And why does he, King Dharrna, the paragon of virtue, who has faced every one of the P@&vas' trials with complete equanimity suddenly lose his wits once he enters the game and gamble away his entire kingdom, his brothers, himself, and his wife?29These questions bring us to the heart of the issue of the power of fate in driving events towards the game. When Dwariigra sends Vidura to Indraprastha to invite Yudhis.thira to the dice game, Yudhighira immediately senses danger. He tells Vidura, At dicing we will certainly quarrel. Knowing this, who would agree to the game?30

discussion of this range). For scholarship on time and fate as synonymous terms in the epic, see Long, "The Concepts of Human Action and Rebirth, 295; Bharadwaj, The Concept of Daiva, 19; Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 369; Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 196-200; and Gonzalez-Reimann, The Mahabhdrata and the Yugas, 2639. 28 2.5 1.25. 29 van Buitenen focuses on the structure of the rdjasiiya ritual in order to explain Yudhisthira's inexplicabledecision to accept the invitation to dice in his article "On the Structure of the Sabhdparvan in the Mahdbharata" in Indian Maior: Congratulatory Volume Presented to Jan Gonda, ed. J. Ensing and P. Gaeffie (Leiden, Brill, 1972), 6884. 30 dyute ksattah kalaho vidyate & n ko vai dyiitam rocayed budhyamdi@ 2.52.10.

Instead of refusing the challenge, however, as one might expect, he accepts it. Why? Yudhig.thira himself provides three reasons: 1 ) because as the "son" of Dm&.tra, he must obey his father's command:'

2) because he has vowed to accept all challenge^:^

and 3) because he believes that the game is fated and that he must obey that which has been decreed.33 Yudhis.thira's first two reasons involve moral obligations that he feels bound by. His third reason involves an outside force beyond his control: fate ( d l ~ d t r )Yudhis.thira .~~ tells Vidura, It is said that this [world] is controlled by fate which is determined by the Placer. I do not refuse to gamble with those cheats now?' And as he leaves for Hastinapura to take part in the game, Yudhis.thira says, to no one in particular: Fate robs wisdom like light blinds the eye. A person follows the authority of the Ordainer as though bound with fetters.36 Once he enters the dice game with Sakuni, Yudhis.thira does act like a man who has been robbed of his reason, overtaken by some exterior force such as fate. He begins

2.52.10. This is of course highly ironic because it is precisely because D@tar&tra chooses to treat Yudhighira as an enemy rather than as his son that Yudhis.thira has been placed in this situation in the first place. 32 2.52.14. 33 In The Book of the Forest Yudhisthira gives one additional reason why he agrees to play. He tells Bhima that he wanted to take Duryodhana's kingdom from him. 3.35.2. The term dhdtr means variously supporter, preserver, ordainder; Creator; fate. Macdonell, A Practical Sanskrit Dictionary, 132. In this passage, Yudhighira suggests that the dhdtr is the agent of fate. For more on the role of the d m in the Mahdbhdrata, see Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 233-37 and Hill, Fate, Predestination and Human Action, 164- 179. 35 dhdtrd tu digtasya vase kiledam; nddevanaq kitavair adya tair me (literally "there is no no gambling for me with them today"). 2.52.14. 36 daivam prajfidm tu mufidti tejai caksur ivdpatat/dhdtuSca v d a m anveti paair iva narah sitah.. 2.52.18.

31

with a sober stake: a set of pearls. But when hhmi cries "Won!" Yudhis.thira loses his composure. Nineteen throws later he has staked and lost his entire kingdom, his four brothers, himself, and Draupadi, thus opening thefloodgates to his wife's hurnilation and desecration?' So precisely why does Yudhis.thira accept the challenge? One way of interpreting Yudhis-thira's statements is that he considers fate to be that which he believes he is obligated to do but does not want to do. If this is the case, then while he might feel forced to act, he is still to some extent in control of his situation and thus a free agent. However, Yudhisthira believes that he is being confused and impelled towards the game by fate. The narrative voice supports Yudhi@hira's view by suggesting that he is being impelled towards the game against his will. 38 So, did Yudhi@hira accept the game of dice because of his sense of moral obligation (in which case while constrained, he still has agency) or because he was impelled by fate (in which case his agency is called into question)? Again the text supports two readings whose conjunction places fate in an unresolved tension with human agency.

A close examination of the characters' decisions and actions in this scene reveals that characters express the conviction thatfate is a force that clouds their mind and drives them?9 The narrative voice supports these views by suggesting that fate both strikes out at individuals and makes decrees that characters are subject to.40 However, characters also express intentions and give reasons why they willfully agree to the game (i.e.,

See Chapter Three for a discussion of the horrendous ramifications of Yudhis,thira's stake of Draupadi. 38 2.52.21. 39 2.51.25,2.52.14,2.52.18, and 2.72.8-11. 40 2.51.16 and 2.52.21. 37

[email protected] indicates that he submits to Duryodhana's wishes because of his devotion to his son4' and Yudhighira indicates that he agrees to participate in the game, in part, out of moral obligation), and the narrative voice indicates that these intentions are motivating factors as well:'

To return to the original question concerning the extentto which either

fate and/or human endeavor provide answers to the theodicy issue, the answer is an ambiguous "both do, in part" The above analysis reveals that the dice game took place because of a complicated dialectic between both forces. What is the nature of this dialectic? Which force is more powerful and which is responsible for the suffering that takes place in this scene and in the epic at large? Since these questionsare not answered conclusively, they join the ranks of the epic's multiple riddle-questions (that is, questions that are raised and then raised again, but never conclusively answered). And because the power of fate is placed in an ambiguous relation with human endeavor, the text defers answering whether or not either force on its own (or a definitive combination of the two) Thus we must search elsewhere is a sufficient explanation for the problem of ~uffering.4~ for answers to the theodicy question.

3. Karma and Suffering

He says this explicitly at 2.72.36. 2.45.49. 43 Sutton writes, 'There can be no simple solution to the problem of destiny and free will and the stature of the epic is surely raised by the fact when viewed as a work in its entirety, it makes no such attempt Rather, it offers different perspectives ... each of which contributes to the development of the reader's comprehension." Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 384. For a catalogue of references to daivu in the Mahabhdrata, many of which point to the pervasive tension between the power of fate and human endeavor in the epic, see Bharadwaj, The Concept of Daiva, 28-96. 41 42

Unlike the power of fate and human endeavor, the impact of karma on the lives of individual characters is not explicitly examined in one dramatic scene. Instead, karma is explored predominantly in two epic contexts: a) in didactic passages where the details of the machinations of karma are discussed; and b) through characterization, particularly in terms of how characters are depicted as acting and reaping the consequences of their actions.44 Before I turn to an examination of karma's role in the prevalence of suffering in the epic, let me first clarify what karma is and how it pertains to the theodicy issue. According to Peter Hill there is no single theory of karma in the traditi~n.~'However, a distinctive feature in most, if not all, definitions is the strict connection between act and consequence. Further, according to Hill, most theories of karma contain the idea that every individual in the course of successive existences (i..e., saqzsara, or cycle of rebirth)&reaps the fruit of his or her own actions performed in previous existences. As Hill writes, "as a person desires, so does he [or she] act and as he acts so does he incur or store up consequences that must come to fruition in future existence^."^' More succinctly, A.K. Ramanujan defines karma in terms of three basic principles: "(I) causality (ethical or non-ethical, involving one life or several lives); (2)

44

Hill associates karma's presentation in the epic also with the themes of boons/curses and sinlmerit. See Hill Fate, Predestination and Human Action, 39-40 and 42-72. 45 Ibid., 2. 46 The term "satpara" literally means to wander or pass through a series of states or conditions; it describesthe beginning-less and endlesscycle of cosmic or universal death and rebirth. 47 Ibid., 3.

ethicization (the belief that good and bad acts lead to certain results in one life or several lives); and (3) rebirth.'* Some Euro-American scholars, the great sociologist Max Weber in particular, have argued that the concept of karma provides a logical solution to the conundrums of t h e ~ d i c y .Weber ~ ~ considered karma to be "the most complete formal solution to the problem of the~dicy."~" For him, the doctrine "solves" the problem of the prevalence of suffering by blaming evil on itself: one's present experience is the direct result of the action (karma), good and bad, accumulated in past lives and affixed to the transmigrating soul. 51 In Weber's own words: "What may appear from the viewpoint of a theory of compensation as unjust suffering in the terrestrial life of a person should be regarded as atonement for sins in a previous e~istence."'~ In the Mahdbhdrata karma is linked to suffering in two distinct but related ways. First, in accordance with Weber's ideas, characters invoke the concept in order to explain why they (or others) suffer gross and unexpected misfortune (i.e., it is invoked as a theodicy). The reason, of course, is that the character must have performed some sinful act either in a previous life or in the past of his or her current lifetime and is now reaping Wendy Doniger, ed., Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions (Berkely: University of California Press, 1980), xi. 49 However, the law of karma has never been unanimously accepted as a satisfying answer to the theodicy problem. Margret Chatterjee enumeratessome reasons why many have found the concept so dissatisfying: "The problem is that the wicked prosper and the good suffer and even if things were to be evened out in the future, this provides no explanation, let alone justification of unmerited suffering now. It provides no explanation of natural evils or wholesale destruction like the holocaust." Margret Chatterjee, "Some Strands of Thought Relating to the Problem of Evil" in Relativism, Suffering, and Beyond: Essays in Memory of Bimal K. Matilal, ed. J. Mohanty (Oxford University Press, 1977), 329. Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 145. O'Flaherty, The Origins of Evil, 14. 52 Weber, The Sociology of Religion, 143.

the consequences of those bad actions. However, this use of the concept occurs surprisingly infrequently in the text.53 Sa~jaya'scomments to Dhrtara9.h-a in the battle books are a notable exception (see below).54 The second manner that karma is linked to suffering is that it, along with the closely-associatednotion of saqura, is invoked by characters (predominantly sagesor advisors, often "advisors against grief ') as a concept that provides descriptive content to the idea that the world and more specifically the human condition is characterized by suffering.55In this context, the concept is invoked predominantly to provide an account for, indeed to describe, "the way things are," as opposed to providing a rationale or reason for the prevalence of human sorrow. The purpose of providing such an account is to make a compelling case for why either the path of dharma and/or the techniques for escaping rebirth should be adopted. Significantly, when karma is linked to suffering specifically for the purposes of providing a theodicy, its power is often placed in an ambiguous relation with other potential theodicies (like fate, time, etc). In what follows, I will examine the depiction of karma in the two types of epic contexts mentioned above (i.e, didactic passages and characterization)in order to assess karm's precise role in the problem of suffering. 3.1 Three Teachings on Karma

Hi11, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 3 1-36,72. 54 Two other notable exceptions are Dmiis.tra and GZmdhari's laments in The Book of the Women. Both attribute their miserable circumstancesto their previous actions. See 11.1.17, 11.16.59,and 11.18.11-12. 55 The distinction that I am making here is between invoking the concept of karma to provide a reason for why characters suffer and invoking the concept in order to describe an ontological fact. The difference is between the urge to solve the problem as opposed the urge to describe the problem. Another way of saying this is that the issue shifts from being about causality to being about ontology. 53 See

Significantly, there are only a handful of major teachings on karma in the ~ a h d b h d r a t a The ; ~ three that I will examine are Markqdeya's discussion of karma in

the The Book of the Forest, the hunter's discussion of karma in 'The Colloquy of the Brahmin and the Hunter" (also in The Book of the Forest), and Vidura's teaching on karma in The Book of the Women. My main concern is determining precisely if, how,

and why karma is linked to suffering. Yudhis.thira prompts Markacjeya' s teaching on karma in the Aranyakaparvan by posing the following question to the great sage: Seeing myself fallen from happiness and the evil sons of DWari$.tra prospering in every way, the thought occurs to me that a person is the agent of action, both good and evil, and that one enjoys one's own fruit; but if this is so, how is God the agent? Best of Brahman scholars, do the acts of human beings, in happiness and suffering, follow them in this life, or again in another body?57 The heart of Yudhis.Ua's question is whether or not previous acts determine future fortunes, whether bad or good. In short, his question is whether or not karma provides a theodicy, and if it does, how it does so. (Notice how Yudhisthira's question betrays how much he suffers in exile. His use of the verb pro, diks [to see, silently suffer or endure] in the phrase "seeing myself' suggests that in the forest he not only has to stand by and

According to Peter Hill, there are five major discussions of karma in the Mahdbhdrata: the Uttaraydydta section of The Book of the Beginning (1.81.1-89.1); Markqdeya's teaching to Yudhis.thira in The Book of the Forest (3.181.1-185.1); 'The Colloquy of the Brahmin and the Hunter" also in The Book of the Forest (3.198.1-207.1); Brhaspati's teaching to Yudhis.thira in The Book of the Instruction (13.1 12.1-1 13.1); and Qsna's teaching to Arjuna the Anugitd (14.13.1- 17.1). See Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 5-29. I would add a sixth discussion to Hill's list: Vidura's argument-againstgrief to D-iQtra in The Book of the Women (1 1.2.1-8.1). j7bhavaty eva hi me buddhir dptvdtrminuq sukhdc cyutam I dhdrtards,trdms ca durvttdn rdhyatah preksya sarvaiah I1 karmanah purusah kart&Subhasdpy aiubhasya calsvaphalam tad updsndti katham kartd mid iivarah I1 atha vd sukhaduhkhesu n m brahmaviddm varal iha vd kctam anveti paradehe 'tha vapunafy 3.181A-6. 56

"watch" the prospering of Duryodhana and his cronies, but that it causes him great

In response, Markagdeya turns to a discussion of the beginning of creation, providing a kind of history of the origins of human suffering. In the beginning, according to Markqdeya, Prajapati, Lord of the Creatures, created pure beings who were devoted to dharma and thus free from suffering. Living with the gods in heaven, they went back and forth to earth as they pleased. However, as time progressed, human beings became vulnerable to lust and greed and committed sinful acts. Consequently,they became victims of suffering, reaping the fruits of their evil deeds: Then, in another interval of time, human beings walked on the surface of the earth, and were overcome by lust and anger and lived off tricks and deceit. Overpowered by greed and confusion, they were abandoned by the gods. These evil ones, because of their bad karma, went to hell or animal form and were roasted again and again in various transmigrations. Their wishes were fruitless, their plans were fruitless, their knowledge was fruitless, and because of their confusion, they were distrustful of everything, and they reaped their share of suffering, marked for the most part by their evil acts. Ill-born, disease-ridden, evil-spirited, and dull, the wicked became short-lived, gathering the fruit of their terrible deeds. Begging for all their desires, they became unbelievers and burned their bridges. 0 son of Kunti, a dead person's course is [governed] by his own deeds here.58 Next Markagdeya responds more directly to Yudhighira's question, asserting that human beings, and not God, are responsible for their happiness andlor misery because they reap the consequences of what they sow in previous existences:

tatah kdldntare'nyasrninpphivitalacdriM I1 kdmakrodhdbhibhutdste miydvydjopajivin&l lobharnohdbhibhutds ca tyaktvd devais tat0 narc@dl aSubhaQt karrnabhih papas tiryafi narakagdmir& /saqsdre$u vicitresu pacyama-ndh punah punah// moghq,tti moghasaykalpd rnoghujiidnd vicetasah/ sarvdtiimikind caiva samvrtt@ kleiabhdgi* aiubhaih karmabhii cdpi p r d y a w paricihnitdhll dmqkulyd vyddhibahuld durdtmmo ' pratdpina bhuvanty alpdyusah p @ i raudrakarmaphaloday@d ndthantah sarvakdmdndm mistikd bhinnasetavahlljantoh pretasya kaunteya gatih svair iha karrnabhih. 3.181. 16-21. 58

A person in his or her original, God-created body accumulates a lot of good and bad deeds. At the end of life one abandons one's mostly exhausted body and is instantly reborn in a womb; there is no intermission. There, one's acts, which always follow one like a shadow, fructify, and one is born deserving happiness or ~uffering.~' Finally, Markweya discusses the course of action followed by the wise.60 Marka&eya defines "the wise" as those who understand that what will happen to them in the future is determined by their current behavior. Thus wise people live according to virtuous actions in order to be born into better wombs in the next life. According to Markqgeya, the superior course of the wise involves practicing austerities, devotion to learning, speaking the truth, subduing one's passion, forgiveness, and self-~ontrol.~' After Markqcjeya establishes the fact that karma is the sole operative force in determining the lot of human beings (specifically,their happiness andlor sorrow), he seemingly pulls the rug right out from under his teaching by asserting, quite out of the blue: King, some things come from fate, some from chance, and some from previous deeds; what men acquire, do not think more about it.62 Thus he calls into question (or as Hill writes "dern~lishes")~~ his teaching on karma and its tyrannical grip on the lives of individuals by placing its so-called predominant power in an ambiguous relation with other forces that he also claims controls the lives of individuals. 59

ayam adiiarirev devaswena mdnavahl Subhiindm aiubhdndm ca kurute samcayam mahati ayiqo'nte prahdyedam k&wprdyam kalevaram/saq.bhuvatyeva yugapad yonau ndsty antardbhuvahf tatrdsya svakrtam karma chdyevdnugatam sadd I phalaty atha sukharho vd d u w r h o vdpi jdyate. 3.18 1.23-25 jiidnavat. 3.18 1.28-32. 62 kiycid daivad d h a m t kirryit kimcid eva svakarmabhih / prdpnuvanti nard rdjan md te 'stv anyd vicdrand. 3.18 1.32 Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 13.

The second teaching on karma that I want to examine involves a story that Markagdeya tells Yudhighira about a brahmin who visits an unusually wise hunter in order to receive the hunter's teachings on dharma. Upon meeting the hunter, the brahrnin asks the hunter why he pursues his vile occupation. The hunter explains that he does so because of his past deeds:

No doubt, this activity that I do is terrible, but, brahmin, what is ordained is powerful and our previous deeds are hard to overcome. This is the bad consequence of the of the evil that I did before, and I do my best to destroy this evil. When it is determined before by ordinance, the slayer is but the instrument, for we are the instrument of this [i.e., previous] karma, supreme among the twiceborn. a The hunter then proceeds to instruct the brahmi'n in, among other things, the nature of karma. In his teaching on karma the hunter makes four basic points. First, the hunter emphasizes karma's power to determine human fortune. Karma, according to the hunter, governs and is responsible for everything (including, of course, suffering); human beings are but the instrument of previous karma; according to him, " no one is master of his own lot, supreme brahmin; [what] appears here is the maturity of one's original deeds.65 Second, the hunter discusses the details of birth, death, and transmigration in order to explain the mechanics of how acts follow the soul from one life to another. He tells the brahmin that when the body perishes, the soul migrates to another body, bound

a yad aham hydcare karma gbrametadasa~ayamllvidhistu balavdnbrahmandustaram

hi purdkrtam I purdkrtasya pdpasya karmadoso bhuvaty ayami dosasyaitasya vai brahmanvighate yatru~dnahamllvidhimi vihita piirvam nimittam ghdtako bhavet nimittabhiitd hi v a y q karimqo 'sya dvijottama 3.199.1-3. 65 na kdcidsate brahmansvayamgrdhasyasattamal karma@ prdqtdmim vai ihu siddhih pradriyate 3.200.22

by the fetters of his deeds." Further, he explains how karma determines the quality of one's birth: As a result of virtuous acts, one becomes a God; due to mixed acts, one becomes a human, due to deluded acts, one becomes an animal; and due to criminal acts, one goes below, to hell.67 Next, the hunter describes the misery that the cycle of transmigration, generated by karma, entails. He labors upon this point extensively: A person is cooked in transmigration and continually assailed by the miseries of birth, old age, and death, because of his or her evil deeds. Bound by the fetters of their deeds, souls revolve going to thousands of animal wombs and to hell. A creature, having died, suffers because of his or her deeds that he or she has performed. One receives an inauspicious womb for the sake of destroying one's (previous] wretchedness. Then again one collects many more new deeds and therefore is cooked all over again like a sick person who has eaten what does not agree with him or her. Continually afflicted with sorrow [but] called happy and not suffering, one wanders around a wheel of lives in transmigration, suffering much pain because the state of bondage has not come to an end and one's former deeds prevail. a Finally, the hunter discusses the means to escape the world of suffering generated by the forces of karma and saqara through controlling the senses and cultivating serenity, which is in accordance of the behavior of the followers of dharma. According to the hunter, the path of dhurma leads one to realize that the world is by nature transient and therefore it is expedient to renounce everything and strive for release.69

3.200.24. 67 3.200.32. a jatimrtyujaraduhkhaih satatam samabhidrutah Isaqmire pacyamnaS ca dosair atmakrtair nurah I1 tiryagyonisahusr@i gatva narakam eva ca I jiv* samparivartante karmubandhanibandhan* I1 jantus tu karmabhis tais taih svakrtaih pretya duhkhitah I taddumpratighatarthum a p u w yonim ainute I1 tatah karma samadatte punur anyan navam bahu I pacyate tu punas tena bhuktvapathyam ivaturah I1 ajasram eva duhkharto 'duhkhitahsukhasamjriitahI tat0 'nivptabandhutvat karmagam udayad api lparikrdmati satpare cakravad bahuvedand 3.200.33-37. 69 3.200.40-52. 66

In this discourse the hunter clearly implies that karma is responsible for human fortune and misfortune (since according to him karma governs everything), but this is not his principal point His main point is to describe the misery of human existence due to the forces of karma and sarpara in order to convince the brahmin to follow the path of

dharma and to escape the cycle of rebirth. Such a path entails disciplined mental control and practicing austerities. Because such path ultimately leads to union with Brahman, the paths of dharma and moksa are thus united, or at least brought closely together, in the hunter's discourse. The third teaching on karma that we will consider is located in The Book of the Women. When [email protected] is grieving over the death of his sons in battle, Vidura approaches him and urges him not to despair." In this argument-against-grief, Vidura focuses on the universal nature of suffering which he attributes to several forces, karma and samsara among them.71 Vidura begins his argument by emphasizing the vulnerability of all living beings to the ravages of all-destroyingtime, which he discusses as the root of suffering:72 Best of the Kurus, no one is dear or hateful to time. Time is never indifferent Time drags everything off. Life is temporary, and so are beauty, youth, wealth, health, and loved ones-the wise person should not be overly fond of these things. One should not grieve over the misery that is common to all. If something should cease to exist, it will never come back.73

1 have already discussed this speech in Chapters Four and Five. 71 Julian Woods calls this speech "perhaps the purest enunciation of karma in the Mahdbhdrata." Woods, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 120. 72 See Chapter Five for a full discussion of time conceived in this way. 73 nu kalasya priyah kaicin nu dvesyah kurusattama Ina madhyastw kva cit kalah sarvam kalah prakar~atiI1 anityam jivitam rilpam yauvamq dravyasamcayah I arogyam priyasamvciso grdhyed esu na patgiitah I1 na jampadikam d u m m ek& Socitum arhasi llapy abhavena yujyeta tac cays na nivartate. 11.2.14- 16. 70

Seamlessly, Vidura shifts his focus from pointing his finger at time as the cause of suffering to targeting karma and sarqsara, providing one of the clearest articulationsof karma in the epic:

Deeds that one did in the past lie down beside a person who lies down, stands next to a person who stands, and run after a person who runs. In whatever state [of life] one does something,whether good or bad, then in that same state, one enjoys the fruit of that deed.74 And, like Markqdeya and the hunter before him, Vidura points out that misery as well as happiness is a product of one's past deeds: Son of Vicitraviirya, beings obtain their condition here, whether, miserable or happy, through the deeds that they alone have done. Heaven is reached through one's deeds, and so are happiness and misery, Bhilrata. So one carries one's load, willingly or un~illingly.~~ Further elaborating on this point, Vidura discusses the impact of karma and samsara on the lives of individuals, describinghuman existence, which he argues is

determined by them, in very unpleasant terms. He begins with the topic of conception in the womb, then moves to life in human form which, according to him, is characterized by disease, sin, vices (due to karma) all of which make one susceptible to the clutches of Yama (i.e., death). Thus one lives, acts, suffers the consequencesof one's actions and dies, and then is reborn again only to live, act, suffer, and die again. In making this

iayanam canuiayati t i w n t a m canutimti I anudhavati dhavantam karma p~rvakrtamnaram I1 yasym yasyam avasthaydm yat karoti iubhaiubham I t a s y m tasyam avasthaydrq tat tat phalam upaSnute. 11.2.22-23.Note that, according to Vidura, one reaps the consequences of one's actions performed in the past of a current life not in a previous life. It is not clear how much the concepts of time and karma overlap in Vidura's argument. Sometimes Vidura seemsto be talking about them synonymously and sometimes they seem to refer to different things. However, they do seem very closely linked here. 75 vaicitrav~ryavosay hi du(&ham va yadi va sukham I prapnuvantrha bhutani svakrtenaiva karrnqa I1 karmatgz prdpyate svargam sukharg d u w m ca bharata I tat0 vahati tam bhdram avaSah svavaio 'pi va". 1.3.7-8. 74

strong connection between karma, saysara, and human suffering, Vidura's purpose is not to further depress Dmas.tra, but to encourage him to see the truth and thus travel "the farthest course." To support his account of the misery of human existence, Vidura tells Dmas.tra a terrifying story, which I have already discussed at some length in Chapter

our. To

review, a brahmin enters an impenetrable wood filled with gigantic beasts of prey. Running for his life, the brahmin discovers that the forest is covered by a large net and that a gigantic, hideous-lookingwoman embraces the forest with her arms. The brahmin falls into a well and becomes tangled up in vines. In this unfortunate predicament, he discovers that several additional dangers threatenhim: a sixheaded elephant making its way over to the well; a cluster of bees gathering honey, which the brahmin licks greedily; black and white rats that gnaw at the vines from which the brahmin hangs; and a snake coiled in anticipationat the bottom of the well. Vidura explains to [email protected] that the story is an allegory for rebirth: the forest is the vast cycle of rebirth, the wild beasts are diseases, and the giant woman is old age that destroys beauty. The well is the physical body and the vines from which the brahmin hangs in the well are the desire to stay alive that all human beings have; the bees that encircle him are his desires. At the bottom of the well, lies the snake, time. 77 To save himself from the miseries of rebirth, Vidura urgest DWaras.tra to engage in mental restraint. Vidura tells Dmas.tra "not courage, not riches, etc. can free one from misery

the way that the self that is firmly restrained can."78

In their speeches both Vidura and Markapjeya assert that karma is responsible for suffering and, at the same time, both call this assertion into question by pointing the finger at other forces as well (fate and chance in the case of Markdeya and time in the case of Vidura, though it is not clear to what extent that Vidura sees time and fate overlapping). Further, out of these three teachings, only one focuses on karma primarily for the purposes of discussing it as a theodicy. In his speech, Markadeya's chief concern is to point out to Yudhi~~thira that karma is responsible for the lot of human beings, both good and bad. By contrast, while both the hunter's teaching and Vidura's teachings imply that karma is responsible for suffering, this point only serves as a stepping stone, if you will, to a larger ontological point about the fact that rebirth and karma simply constitute (rather than simply cause) universal suffering.

3.2 Characterization and Karma Detailed teachings on the subject of karma are not the only way that this concept is explored in the epic. The nature of the relationship between act and consequence, partic-ularly with respect to the issue of human suffering, is explored through the depiction of characters as well. Here too we find that the concept is treated somewhat ambiguously. The most dramatic and telling way that the epic explores the relationship between act and consequence through characterization is through the depiction of

'*

nu vikram na cdpyartho nu mitram nu suhrjjanah/ tathonmcayate duhkhddyathdtmd sthirasamyarn& 1 1.7.18.

~Jq-tara$.tra.'~D-as.tra

is a compelling character study in this regard because he is

one of the few characters, if not predominantly the only character, in the epic who is consistently told that he is reaping or will reap the consequences of his actions. As I have discussed at some length in Chapter Four, Smjaya tells Dh@ira@athroughout the battle books that the war and the deaths of his sons is his fault and a direct result of his past actions, namely his weakness for his son andlor his refusal to listen to good advice.80 For example, in The Book of the ~ffort,days before the great battle, Samjaya tells Dmaras.tra that the king finds himself in the present situation (i.e., facing war and the possible deaths of his sons) because of his own misdeed^."^^ In The Book of Bhijmu, directly after he informs [email protected] that Bhisma has fallen, Samjaya again tells Dwaras.tra, who blames Bhisma's fate as well as the war on Duryodhana that, a person who receives bad consequences because of his own misconduct should not blame another for his own misfort~ne.~~ Again, in chapter seventy-three of the Book of Bhijma, Smjaya tells [email protected] that the war and the senseless deaths of his sons and family members is his own fault King, it is your own fault that this calamity has befallen you because Duryodhana did not see the faults that you, king, saw in your unrighteous course of action, lord of the people. It is your fault that the dice game took place as well as this war with the Pijqqlavas. Having committed these sins, now reap their fruit. One enjoys the consequencesof one's own actions. Therefore, what you receive, king, is appropriate to your actions, both here and hereafter.83 79

See Chapter Four for a more extensive discussion of [email protected] vis-a-vis the topic of act and consequence, particularly as it intersects with issues of narrative structure. Other characters tell Dwaras.tra that the war was his fault too. Most notably m ~ at a 9.62.37-55 duscaritam. 5.156.9. 82 ya dtmuno ddcaritdd aiubham prdpnuydn nuraw enusd tern niinyam sa u p W k i t u m arhati. 6.16.2. 83 dtmadosat tvayd rdjan priiptam vydsanum idfiam I nu hi duryodhunas tdni padyate bhdratarjabha I1 ydni tvay dgtavan rdjan dharmasaqkarakdrite I tava d o g t purd vrttam dyiitam etad v i m pate I tava dopya yuddham ca pravrttam saha pddavaih I

And as I also pointed out in Chapter Four, Sargjaya's message to Dhytariis.tra in most of these passages is anything but straightforward. In many cases Samjaya complicates his point about the intimate relationship between act and consequence by telling Dlq-tarasjtra, in the same breath, that the war and the death of Dmariisjtra's sons was fated and that there was nothing that [email protected] could have done about it. Remarkably, Sqjaya seems to take responsibility out of the hand that he just placed it in. At the same time, he seems to call into question the correlation between act and consequence, suggesting, rather, thatno matter how Dlq-tariis.tra behaved in the past, the war would have taken place because it was fated. 84 The most stunning example of Swjaya's ambiguous statements occurs in the The Book of the Effort when Dma$.tra asks Sargjaya to be his war correspondent. Swjaya accepts the job, but tells Dhytara$.tra that he finds himself in the present situation because of his own misdeeds; therefore the war and the imminent deaths of his sons is his own fault. Immediately after he says this, however, Saqjaya tells Dmiis.tra to listen to his narration of the war and as he does so, not to grieve. Why? Because, according to Samjaya, man is not the agent of his good and evil acts; he is helplessly manipulated like a wooden puppet. Further, some acts are caused by chance, some by fate, and some by previous action. Specifically, Sargjaya says to Dhpariis.tra: So, then, listen to me in full the news of the slaughter in the war of horses, elephants, and boundlessly august kings. And while you are hearing, great king, about what happened in the great war that gave rise to the destruction of all the world, remain calm and do not despair. Fora person is not the agent of his good or evil acts. We are not independent but are manipulated like wooden puppets. tvam evddya phalam bhuiikpa krtvd kilbisam dtmand I dtmand hi krtam karma d t m i v o p a b h u j y a t e I iha vd pretya vli nijarp tvayd prdptam yathdtatham. 6.73.1-3. In the The Book of Bhiynu alone, Smjaya tells Dhytariistra this some five or six times. See Chapter Four, Section Four,for an interpretation of Saqjaya's method here.

Some [results] are foreordained by God, others by chance, and others by previous acts.85 Again in The Book of Bhigma, directly after Sqjaya tells D m a $ r a that the war and the deaths of his loved ones is a direct result of his own wickedness, he urges him not to indulge his heart in sorrow. Why? Because "surely all this was destined long ago"= (whereas earlier Sqjaya told Dlq?ariis.tra specifically not to blame de~tiny).'~ What are we to make of Samjaya's statements?Just like Markagdeya and Vidura, Swjaya speaks about the power of karma ambiguously. Does Saqjaya understand fate and karma to be somehow linked or in collusion with one another? The answer seems to be "no" for Saqjaya tells Dma8,tra explicitly not to blame fate (or time for that matter),

only himself and his past actions, for what has come to pass, and then, having said this, Sqjaya, inexplicably turns around and blames fate himself.88

While this brief survey of the epic's examination of karma is not exhaustive, my intention has been to bring to light two points about karma's treatment in the epic. First, karma is not invoked as a means to provide a reason for the existence of suffering and misfortune frequently in the text. Surprisingly,there are only approximately five major teachings on karma in the epic; only a few of these number focus on the concept specifically as a theodicy. And while the relationship between act and consequence is

85

huyandtq ca gajamirq ca rajikiq ciztnitatejasamI v a i h a m samre vrttam yat tan me Smu s a M a h II sthiro bhatva maharaja sarvaloka~ayodamIyathabhataq mahayuddhe Srutvd md vimana bhuva II na hy eva karta purugah karmanoh Subhapapayoh Iasvatantro hi purufah karyate daruyantravat I/ ke cid iivaranirdim ke cid eva yadpxhaya I purvakarmabhir apy anye. 5.156.12-15. 86 digtam eva purd n m m . 6.16.6. 87 5.156.9.

5.156.9.

examined implicitly in the case of many characters (as it is in any good work of literat~re)'~ it is examined explicitly (and by "explicit" I refer to the presence of terminology, like ''karvm," "fruit" [phala] and fault [dosa]) in relatively few cases. Second, when the concept of karma is invoked for the purpose of understanding the reason for the presence of suffering, it is often placed in an ambiguous relationship with other forces that either vie for its power or possibly work in tandem with it in ways not made explicit by the text. To return to the larger question of whether or not karma provides a theodicy in the Mahabharata, the answer is, once again, "not conclusively." Why not? First, it is not a major "theodicy-suspect" in the Mahdbhdrata and second, in the relatively few cases that karma is treated as such, it is often handled ambiguously and thus any definitive answer of karma's precise role in the prevalence of suffering is deferred. We must, therefore, look elsewhere for more conclusive answers to our theodicy quest. This search leads us now to perhaps our most perplexing suspect of all: God in the form of the trickster Qsna.

4. Krsna the Devious Deity Rsna Vasudeva, cousin to the P@@vas and Lord of the Universe, is an enigmatic deity if there ever was one. Why, for example, does he stand back and watch the slaughter occur? And why does he urge the Pwdavas to commit deceitful acts during the war? More disconcerting is the fact that the text leaves open the question of whether or not Qsna is actually on the side of human beings or if he is plotting against them,

89

See E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1956), 59.

driving everyone towards an apocalyptic doom. In what follows I will consider what role Qsna actually plays in the existence of suffering, examining two aspectsof his divinity: his power and his m~rality.~' 4.1 Krsna's Power Several passages in the epic portray lQ-sga as an omnipotent deity who creates and controls the cosmos. Depicted as such, he is, by implication, responsible for the presence of suffering, since he is considered to be the cause of everything. For example, in the Bhagavadgitd, m n a tells Arjuna that he is the " great lord of the world" and that "happiness and unhappiness" 91 along with everything else spring from him alone.%In The Book of the Assembly Hall, when Yudhigjhira consults &sga about whether or not he should perform the Royal Consecration, ~~~~~thira turns to him precisely because he is God and thus "superior to all the world."" In the same book, Bhisma defending his decision to give m n a the guest gift, tells the assembly of kings that Kgna alone is the origin of the world^.^â Further, in The Book of the Effort, Smjaya (who has special knowledge of &sna)''

tells [email protected]

that Q s ~ makes a the wheel of

For scholarship on the depiction of m q a in the Mahdbhdrata, see S.N. Tadpatrikar, T h e Qsga Problem," Annals of the Bhandarkur Oriental Research Institute 10 (1929): 269-343; Alf Hiltebeitel, The Ritual of Battle: Krishna in the Mahabharata (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1976); idem, " m n a and the Mahdbhdrata (a Bibliographical Essay)," Annals of the Bhandarkur Oriental Institute 60 (1979): 65- 107; Karve, Ywnta, 159-82; Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 143-80;Brockington, The Sanskrit Epics, 256-67; Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 143-53; and Matilal, Ethics ' and Epics, 91-108. 91 sukhum duhkham. 6.32.4 93 sarvalokdt parah,. 2.12.25. 94 kpm eva hi lokanam utpattir api. 2.35.22. 95 See 5.67.2. 90

the world go around, and governs all things, including time, death, and all the creatures.% Finally, in the battle books, as the war progresses and the Kauravas suffer heavy losses, Bhisma, Draw and others in the Kaurava camp tell Duryodhana that victory for the Pwdavas is certain because they have Qsna, who is the all-powerful divinity, on their side. Indeed, Qsna even uses his divine powers to intervene on the PZqqIavas' side (although this occurs rarely). For example, in The Book ofKarqu, &-$ria uses such powers to save Arjuna from Kaqia's snake-mouthed arrow. And when Qsna alights from Arjuna's chariot after the war, it is immediately consumed by fire. To the awed Pagdavas Qsqa explains that the chariot had already been burned several times over by the various weapons by which it had been struck. Because Kgna had stood upon it in battle, it had not broken apart. While Qsna is portrayed as the omnipotent creator of the universe in some passages, in others he is depicted as possessing limited power.97 When Qsna is portrayed as limited, he is often depicted as the avatdr (i.e., incarnation) of Lord Vimu.% Perhaps the clearest articulation of &-$ria portrayed in this light occurs in the The Book of the Horse Sacrifice when Krishna is journeying home to DvFu-aka after the war. In the deserts of Rajasthan, he encounters the great hermit Utanka. Regarding m n a as the all-powerful deity, Utanka asks him if he was able to resolve the differences between the Pihpjavas and Kurus and establish peace. Qsna replies that although he tried, he was %

97

5.66.14.

Note that there is a distinction between how Qsqa talks about himself when he is revealing his divine form and when he is not. 98 For a discussion of the role of the avatar in the Mahabharata, see Nicholas Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 156-81; Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 141; Sukthankar, On the Meaning of the Mahabhdrata, 70-7 1. Note that this concept is not well-developed in the epic. The term "avatdr" itself never appears in the Critical Edition (See Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 156).

not able to because "it is impossible to overcome destiny through either intelligence or might."" When he hears this, U W a becomes furious and accuses Qsna of being responsible for the suffering and carnage caused by the war. Because Kgna could have stopped the war (because he is God), Utanka argues, he is to be held accountable for allowing it to happen. Utanka, therefore, threatens to curse m n a : Qsna, since the P&pjavas and the Kurus who were your relatives and dear to you were not protected by you even though you were capable of it, I will curse you, have no doubt The best of the Kurus who were virtuous and who honored you, Madhva, were not forcibly turned back by you though you had the power. Therefore, they were conquered. You who behave deceitfully neglected them. Therefore, I am filled with anger and will curse you, slayer of Madhu. 100 Calmly, &sna explains to Utanka that although he is "the soul" of "all that exi~ts"'~~and that everything emanates from him, he takes birth in diverse wombs in order to uphold dharma.lO^When he is born among the Gandharvas then he acts like a Gandharva, and when he is born among the gods, then he acts like the gods.lo3 Likewise, when he is born as a human, he acts and is limited to the actions of human beings.lW Thus even though he took measures to avert the war, he acted as a human being, not as a god. As a human, all that he could to was counsel the Kauravas and encourage them to avoid war, but because they were "unrighteous"105and "assailed by the law of time"lo6 they all perished in battle.

99

na digtam abhyatikrcintumSakyaiq buddhyd balena vd. 14.52.16. loo yasmdc chaktenu te k m a nu trcita kurupci&avcih/ saMandhin& priyds tasmdc chapsye 'ham tvlim asaq.rhyam/f na ca te p r a s a b w yasmdt te nigrhya nivartitw "tasmdnmanyuparitas tvdqt hpsydmi rnadhusadanal/tvaya hi iaktena satd mithydcdrena mddhava/upacir@~ kurdreghd yas tv etdn samupeksath*. 14.52.20-22. 14.533 lo2 14.53.12. l o 14.53.16-17. lo4 14.53.19. lo5 adharma. 14.53.21. lo'

The Utanka episode explicitly raises the question of Qsna's omnipotence and rejects it; according to this passage, Qsqa did not stop the war because he lacked the power to do so. Limited by his human form, all that he could do was attempt to counsel the Kauravas, but because they were "assailed by time," they did not listen to him.lo7 Thus we see that the passages that depict IQgna as the all-powerful godhead are placed in an ambiguous relation with those that suggest that his power is limited.lo8This ambiguity is underscored by Kaqa's (humorous) assertion in The Book of Karqu that although m n a is the creator of the universe, $alya is a superior chairoteer!lWSimilarly, Yudhis.thira states that Qgna is the protector and master of the universe, but he still feels that Arjuna may need others to protect him.'1Â While, in some cases, the text resorts to the nascent idea of the avatar to resolve these kinds of paradoxical statements, in most cases, the tension is left unresolved (i.e., sometimes Q s ~ isa depicted as all-powerful and sometimes he is not) and the question of the extent of m q a ' s power is one more issue or "knot" that joins the ranks of the epic's many riddle-questions. I l l

4.2 Krsna's Morality Equally perplexing is the question of Qsga's morality. One question that hovers ominously in the background of the epic is whether or not Q s ~ isa "good" (i.e., working for the benefit of human beings) or whether he is "evil" (i.e., working against them).

parit* kaladharmenu. 14.53.21. lo7 Matilal, Ethics and Epics, 101. log Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 175 and Hill, Fate, Predestination, and Human Action, 144-45. lW 7.85.86. Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 177. While this statement is humorous, it still underscores the ambiguity surrounding Qsna's divine status. lo 8.22.53. See also, Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 177. Ill For scholarship on the paradoxes surrounding m n a , see Sukthankar, On the Meaning, 24,26 and Sutton, Religious Doctrines, 176-77. lo6

Certainly there are passages in the epic that suggest that m g a actively endeavors to cause the war and its concomitant suffering. For example, Ugrairavas in his summary of the epic in the The Book of the Beginning explicitly states that Kgna encouraged the quarrel between the cousins. He

Then D m s . t r a , who was fond of his son, sanctionedthe dice game. Hearing this, the son of Vasudeva [i.e., m n a ] became very angry. The wise one was very displeased and he encouraged the dice game and the other terrible events and looked them as they de~eloped."~ In The Book of the Assembly Hall, NWada tells to the assembled kings that Kysna will eradiate the ksatriyas: Alas! The self-created God himself will once again seize the k~atriyaswho have become so strong. In The Book of the Stay in the Forest Hermitage ,Dlg-tara#ra tells Yudhighira that Kgqa saw the destruction of the k~atriyasas a favorable outcome: The eldest brother of Gada [i.e., m n a ] saw the destruction of all the kings. Janiirdana, the Supreme One, however, regarded that as highly desirable.'14 And in the The Book of the Women, when GUdhari curses Qsna for failing to prevent the destruction of the batriyas (the curse is that in thirty-six years Qsna will kill his own kinsmen), Kysna, "smiling slightly,"115tells her that the destruction of the Yadavas is part

112

anvajanat tat0 d y u t a ~dhytaragrab sutapriyah/ tac chrutva vasudevasya k o p a samabhavan mahiid/ natipritaman& casid vivadm5 cmvamodata/ dyiitadin anayan ghorm pravpidhw capy upaiksata. 1.1.92-93. ah0 bata mahadbhiitam svayambhuryad idaq svayam I adiisyati punafi batram evam balasamunvitam. 2.33.19. 'I4 v i a a m paiyamdno hi sarvariijiiiirq gaddgrajah I etac chreyah sa paramum arnanyata jandrdanah. 15.5.7 Another interesting smile.

of his plan, which he himself has already set in motion, a declaration that upsets even the

When he heard this terrible speech, the high-minded [ m n a ] said to Queen Gandhari smiling slightly, "Good woman, no one but I will be the destroyer of the circle of the Vysnis. I know this to be so. Ksatriya woman, you are doing what has already been done. The Yadavas cannot be killed by other men, nor even by the Gods or the Dfmavas. So they obtain their destruction by killing one another. When [Qsna] said this, the Pwdavas' minds became afraid. They were extremely upset and lost all hope of living.l16 The real irony here of course is that m ~ himself a claims that his main objective in walking among human beings is to uphold dhurma (see the above discussion of the Utanka episode). For example, in the Bhugavadgita, Qsna tells Arjuna: Whenever there is a decline in dharrnu, Descendant of Bh&ata, and an increase of adharrna, then I manifest myself. In order to protect the virtuous, destroy the sinful and sustain dharrnu, I am born yuga after yuga. 117 But if Qsna's main goal is to uphold dharma, then why does he allow practically everyone to die? And why does Qsna encourage the PQ&vas to act dishonorably during the war? Qsna plays a hand in the killing of the following Kuru heroes: Bhisma, Drona, K w a , Bhurisravas and Duryodhana. In each case, Kgqa violates (or, more often, encourages others to violate) the moral code of warriors: &sna tells Yudhighira to lie to Drona; he encourages Arjuna to kill K u a while Kaqa is fixing the wheel of his chariot; he urges Satyaki to butcher Bhuriiravas when the latter is incapacitated, and he prods Bhima, through Arjuna, to break Duryodhana's thighs in the mace battle. tac chrutvd vacanam ghoram vdsudevo mahamum I uvdca devim gdndhdrim isad abhyutsmuyann iva I1 sa&rtd vmnicakrasya ndnyo mad vidyate iubhe I jdne 'ham etad apy evam c i r w carasi kaatriye I1 avadhyds te nurair anyair api vd devadiinavaih I parasparaly-tamnSam at& priipsyanti yiidav* // ity uktavati d&he p&&ivaS niraSaS ciipi jivite. 1 1.25.43-46. trastacetas* / babhUvur bh@asa~vignii yada yadd hi dhurmusya gldnir bhuvati bhdratal abhyutthdnam adhurrnasya taddtmdnuq srjdmy ahamll paritrd@ya sddhunam vindsdya ca duskrtdml dharmusamsthdpandrthdyasambhavdmi yuge yuge. 6.26.7-8.

The epic provides several answers to each of these two questions (i.e., why m n a allows everyone to die and why he encourages the Piigdavas to lie and cheat during the war). According to the text, m n a allows the devastation to take place in order to relieve the earth of her burden,ll'in order to issue in the next yuga,l19and/or because he was helpless to stop it (see the above discussion of the U W a episode). a several reasons why he was justified to In The Book of Salya K p ~ provides encourage Bhima to break Duryodhana's t h i g h s . (We can presume that m n a would give similar reasons for encouraging the other adharmic acts mentioned above.) To Balarama, his brother and Bhima and Duryodhana's teacher, he argues that Bhima had made a vow to do so when Draupadi was violated.121 To the Papcjavas he argues that Duryodhana would have defeated Bhima and the Kurus would have won the war (thus Qsna argues that in order to ensure that justice triumphs in the end, sinful acts may be permitted).12 To Duryodhana he argues that Duryodhana, having violated dharrna, lost his moral right to be treated according to it (thus Qsna argues that in order to defeat adharma, adharmic acts may be used).123 Each one of these answers, particularly the last two, raise confounding moral questions. If, as &sna argues, in the fight for justice, unjust acts may be perpetrated, then how much "evil" is acceptable to insure that goodness prevails, and when does such "evil-for-the-sake-of-goodness" become just plain evil? Similarly, if in order to combat injustice, unjust acts may be employed, then how does one decipher the line between Vyasa suggests this at 11.8.20-26. See, for example, 8.70. 120 Goldman, "E;a D h a r w Sandtanu~,"208-10. 12' 9.59.14-15. l 2 9.60.57-62. 9.60.39-46.

119

right and wrong? More pressingly: how much human suffering is morally acceptable to insure that dharma triumphs in the end?12" Not surprisingly, the depiction of Qsqa in the epic raises, but defers answering such questions.125 What role, then, does Qsqa actually play in the existence of suffering? The text provides several possible answers, without privileging any one; thus, m n a ' s precise role in the existence of suffering is handled ambiguously by the text.126What are some of these possible answers? Qsna as the divine Destroyer masterminds the war, its devastation, and its concomitant suffering. m ~ a ' possible s reasons for doing so are to lighten the burden of the earth, to issue in the pralaya, to insure the victory of the gods over the demons. Or, alternatively,m n a , the Master of Yoga, offers liberation from suffering to those who are devoted to him.127Or, finally, m n a as avatar of Visnu is powerless to stop the war but tries in any way that he can to insure that dharma prevails, even at the cost of perpetrating adharma.

- 5. Heaven's Riddles or the Hell Trick: The Two Conclusionsof the Wabhara& So far I have considered four possible theodicy candidates (fate, purzqakdra, karma, and Qsqa) and have attempted to illustrate how each is handled ambiguously by the text. Thus I have argued that each candidate is, in some sense, a "non-answer" since

This is the subject of Yudhisthira and Samjaya's heated debate in The Book of the Effort. 5.23.1-32.1. 125 For more on the enigmatic portrayal of Qsna vis-a-vis dharma, see Matilal, "In Defense of a Devious Deity," 401-2; Hiltebeietel, The Ritual of Battle, 248. 126 Karve argues that because of Qsna's enigmatic depiction, we are estranged from him throughout the epic. She writes, "We cannot feel close to the Mahdbhdrata Krishna . . . [he] remains a figure for thought and search but never touches one emotionally as do the other figures in the epic." Karve, Yugdnta, 181-82. 12' 6.40.52. 124

each fails to provide a definitive solution to the question, of the cause of suffering. At this point, one might wonder if the quest for any answer in the epic is doomed to fail. If the epic raises questions only to resolve them with more questions, then are there any answers? I argue that there are answers, but they are not the kind of answers that are resolved by the straightforwardappeal to philosophical concepts. Rather, they are resolved "narratively" through the dynamic interactionbetween form, content and audience member, that is through the epic's narrative strategies. Section Five considers how certain narrative strategies in the epic's conclusion create patterns that both draw us in and disengage us from the text's narrative world. Through the deployment of these narrative strategies, I argue that the epic sets us up so that we are prepared for the revelatory disclosurethat takes place in the epic's last two books, The Book of the Great Departure and The Book of the Ascent to Heaven. The answer is not "straightforward," rather the text provides a "methodological theodicy," that is it creates a cognitive space in the reader or listener where a revelation of the structure of existence may take place. Through this disclosure, the text revealsits "answer" to the theodicy question.12'

Prince's Dictionary of Narratology defines "end" as follows: "Students of Narrative have pointed out that the end occupies a determinative position because of the light it sheds (or might shed) on the meaning of events leading up to it. The end functions as the (partial) condition, the magnetizing force, the organizing principle of narrative: reading (processing) a narrative is, amongst other things, waitingfor the end, and the nature of the waiting is related to the nature of the narrative." (G. Prince, Dictionary of Narratology [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press], 26. For scholarship on the significance of narrative endings to the interpretation of a literary work, see Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (London: Oxford University Press, 1967); Paul Ricouer, Time and Narrative, vol. 1 , trans, Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 60; and Christina Swanson, "Narrative Temporality and the Aspect of Time in Franz Kafka's Short Fiction," Ph.D. dissertation (Irvine: University of California Irvine, 1999). 12'

To facilitate a discussion of the epic's conclusion, I will divide it into five parts. In discussing each part, I will provide a brief summary and then an analysis. These analyses will attempt to show how each part builds towards the final resolution (which takes place in part five) where the epic's theodicy is revealed. Summary of Part One: After ruling for many years, the Pudavas decide to retire from the world, and the five brothers with Draupadi as the sixth and a dog12' as the seventh set out to perform the mahdprasthdnika or "great journey."130When they reach Mount Meru, Draupadi "loses her yogic c~ncentration,"'~~ falls to the earth, and dies. Bhima asks why, and Yudhis.thira tells him that Draupadi fell because she was partial to ~ r j u n a .Leaving '~~ Draupadi where she lies, the Pudavas continue on. Next Sahadeva, Nakula, Arjuna and Bhima fall and die successively. Each time, Bhima asks the cause (even when he falls), and each time Yudhis-thirapoints to a moral flaw involving pride (Sahadeva falls because he was proud of his wisdom, Nakula of his beauty, Arjuna of his heroism, and Bhima of his strength).133After his brothers and his wife have fallen, Yudhis.thira, then, proceeds on alone, not looking down or back,134accompanied by the dog. Analysis: Draupadi's death is jarring for several reasons. First, it is exceedingly strange that the Pwdavas leave her where she falls and do not mourn her. Neither does This dog is very interesting because it appears out of nowhere. Nor have dogs played a significant role in the epic up to this point 130 According to Fitzgerald, "the great journey" or mahaprasthanu is a "journey of suicide 12'

on which one walks until he or she drops of exhaustion or lack of nourishment." Fitzgerald, The Mahdbhdrata, vol. 7, 661, note 1.20. However, note that Bhima seems surprised when each of his loved ones drops to the earth. 17. 2.10,2.16,2.21, and 2.25. 134 anavalokayan. 17.2.26. l 3

the narrative voice (here Vaihqipiiyana) mourn her; it notes her death and then falls silent. This silence, both on the part of the characters and the narrative voice, is a narrative strategy that directs us to feel distanced, not only from the characters, but from the world of the text, since we feel are encouraged to feel a sense of grief and loss that is neither shared nor satisfied by it (After all, we have traveled a long and arduous journey with Draupadi, and while the epic gives us two entire books to prepare for Bhisma's death, Draupadi falls without any warning at all.) These emotions of loss and grief are not only not shared by the narrative voice, it also presents these emotions as a sign of human weakness, noting that when both Nakula and Arjuna fall, each does so because he is overwhelmed with sorrow: When the warrior Nakula saw that Draupadi and Sahadeva the Pwqava had fallen, he was distressed, for he loved his family, and he himself fell.13= And: Having seen [Nakula, Sahadeva, and Draupadi] fall, Arjuna, the P@&va who rode on the white horse and who killed his enemies, fell to the earth, tormented by grief.'% At the same time, the text ensures that our own grief will be intensified since we are encouraged to feel grief with each abrupt (and unrnourned) loss of the five characters. Further, the narrative voice highlights Yudhighira's detachment from the deaths of Draupadi, Nakula, Sahadeva, Arjuna, and Bhima by noting several times that he does not look down or back, a detail which serves to estrange us emotionally from him.137In these

13' k ~ g i m nipatitdm d m d sahudevam ca pd&avam/ drto bandhupriyah Suro nakulo nipapdta ha. 17.2.12. 136 tasmirp tu prapatitdn dxtvd p e a v a h Svetavdhunahf papdta Sokasamtaptas tat0 'nu paraviraha. 17.2.18. 13' Since the dice game, we have, of course, been emotionally drawn in by other strategies. Note that Yudhis-thiracries when he sees his brothers lying dead on the

ways, the narrative strategies in part one of the conclusion create a kind of distance between the audience and the world of the text.13' Summary of Part Two: As Yudhighira proceeds on with the dog, Indra appears inviting him to enter heaven in his human form. "Burning with grief

because of the

deaths of his family members, Yudhis-thirareplies that he will not go to heaven without his brothers and Draupadi. Informing Yudhis-ma that they are already in heaven (Indra is careful to note that the others have shed their bodies),14 Indra urges Yudhi&ira "not to be sad" and to proceed to heaven.l4l Yudhishthira requests that the dog be allowed to accompany him, but Indra refuses. Yudhis-thirainsists. Then, as if by magic, the dog is transformed into the God Dharma, who tells Yudhisthira that he disguised himself in order to test Yudhighira. Yudhighira has passed this test and may proceed to heaven in his human form.142Dharrna says: And you abandoned the celestial chariot, for you insisted, 'This dog is devoted to me.' Therefore, great king, there is no one equal to you in heaven. Hence the

ground in 'The Drilling Woods" in The Book of the Forest (3.295.1-299.1). The drillingwoods scene mirrors the ascent-to-heaven scene in many ways (Shulman calls them "narrative twins"). For a discussion of the resonances between these two scenes, see Shulman, Wisdom of the Poets, 50-62. 13* One additional narrative strategy that encourages our estrangement from the world of the text is the abrupt insertion of the narrator (here Vaiiampayana). This takes place at 17.2.26 where Vaisampayana says, "When he said this, the great-armed Yudhis-ma went on, not looking down. Only the dog followed him, the dog that I have already told you about quite a lot." ity uktva tam mahobahur jagamvalokayani Sva tv eko 'nuyayauyas te bahu* kirtito m a p . It is as though Vaihqpilyana is saying, "Remember I am the narrator, this is only a story, you are the audience, and you are about to return to your lives.'' 139 Sokasaqtapta. 17.3.2. 17.3.6. 141 ma vsuc.17.3.5. 142 svasarirena. 17.3.21.

imperishable worlds are yours. You have obtained the supreme path of heaven with your own body, best of ~ h & - a t a s . l ~ ~ Analysis: In part two we are drawn back into the narrative world through our proximity towards Yudhighira. Yudhisjhira's behavior makes more sense now that he exhibits grief at the absence of his brothers and his wife and wants to be reunited with them in heaven. However, there are still things about him that are troubling. Should he have insisted on staying with the dog or not? Because the dog is really Dharma, the text seems to indicate that Yudhis$hira's decision to remain with it is the right one. Dharma praises his loyalty and tells him that he may now enter heaven in his human body. The fact that Yudhisthira is to enter heaven in his body is presented by Indra, Dharma, and Nfirada as a rare feat.144However, it is not clear whether or not we should take their word at face value. Indra told Yudhis-thirathat he was to enter heaven in his human body even before he "passed" Dharma's test, indicating that this "feat" is not necessarily a product of Yudhi$.thira's virtue. Further, we know from previous examples in the epic (i.e., Yayati and Arjuna) that going to heaven in one's human body, at least in some cases, means imminent return to the world of human beings.145 Considered in this light, this episode is a strategy that sets us up for the literary terrain that we are now entering. This is a world where there are tests (i.e.,the dog was a test) and tricks (i.e., the dog was really Dharma).

143 ayam svd bhakta ity eva tyakto devarathas tvaydl tasmdt svarge na te tulyah kdcid asti narddhipal/ atas tav%ayd l o w svaiarirew bhdratal prdpto 'si bharataire& divydg gatim anuttamdm, 17.3.20-21. 17.3.6, 17.3.21, and 17.3.27. 145 1.70-1.89 and 2.161-2.173. I am grateful to Lawrence McCrea for this insight.

Summary of Part Three: In heaven Yudhisthira does notsee his brothers or Draupadi, but he encounters Duryodhana! Enraged, Yudhisjhira states that he does not want to share heaven with Duryodhana because of the death and suffering that he caused: I do not desire these worlds together with greedy, short-sighted Duryodhana, for whose sake the entire world, and my friends and family members were killed violently in battle, killed by us after we had suffered in the great forest. And Draupadi, who lives in accordance with dhurma, our wife of flawless form who suffered great distress in the midst of the assembly in the presence of our gurus.'* Instead Yudhs.thira wants to see his brothers and Draupadi. Indra demurs but Yudhis-thira insists, so Indra orders a celestial messenger to take Yudhis.thira to his immediate family. Analysis: In part three the texts' strategiesfurther encourage our proximity towards Yudhighira, since his reaction to finding Duryodhana in heaven understandably mirrors and guides our own. Yudhishtira tells Indra in no uncertain terms that if Duryodhana is in heaven he wants no part of it because Duryodhana caused great suffering to him and the people he loved. Yudhis.thira repeats the word "suffering" several times and brings up the dice game and the war as examples of the disastrous events caused by Duryodhana's egregious behavior, statements that encourage our own outrage that he is in heaven. Further, Yudhis~hira'sconcern for the whereabouts of Draupadi, Arjuna, Bhima, and the twins intensify our own concerns for their whereabouts. Here the strategies of proximity are setting us up for the realization that we, along with Yudhis.thira, have a lot at stake concerning where they are. Summary of Part Four: Yudhisjhira follows the celestial messenger on a path that gradually becomes dark. Presently, Yudhis~hiranotices that it is covered "with hair for its ni?haq duryodhunenu vai Isahitah kdrnaye lok&ql// lubdhenddirghudariind yatkrte prithivi sarvd suhrdo bdndhavds tat& / hatasmdbhihprasahydjau kligaih p h a m patni mahavane //draupadi ca sabharnadhye pdicdli dharmacdrim/parikli~navady~gi no gurusaqtnidhuu. 18.1.7-9.

moss and with flesh and blood for its mud"14' and that it permeated by the smell of rotting corpses. Growing concerned, Yudhisma begins to turn around. As he does so, he hears voices: Stay near, great-armed one, even for a moment, BhZirata. When you are here, Kauravya, the tortures of hell do not torment us!148 Not recognizing the voices of "those wasted suffering p e o p l e , " Yudhig.thira asks, "Who are you?' He hears: "I am Bhima!" "I am Draupadi!" "I am Arjuna!" First disbelieving (Yudhisthira asks, "Am I asleep or am I really awake? Although I am thinking, I do not think. Alas, this may be an affliction of my mind or a mental error )150 99

and then angry, Yudhis-thira"curses" the gods and even dharma.15' He tells the messenger to return to heaven without him; he will remain here since his presence comforts his brothers and his wife. Analysis: The text does not state outright that YudhisJhira is being taken to hell. Instead, it appeals to our senses of sight, smell, and sound in order to gradually bring us to this realization. The sights of hell are horrible and given in great detail. The path we are told is "[covered] with severed arms, thighs, and hands, all covered in fat and blood

'41

18.2.17.

samtigthusva mahabdho muhiirtam api bhdratal tvayi tis.thuti kauravya ydtandsmdn nu bddhate. 18.2.35. 149 gldndmim duhkhitdndm. 18-2-38. kim nu supto 'smijagarmi cetayanu na cetaye/ a h cittavikdro'yam svdd Va me cittavibhrarn& 18.2.48. David Shulman makes much of Yudhisthira's curse here, particularly in terms of what it says about dharmu and suffering. He sees it as a "rejection at the end of the day of the whole world of d h a m with its contradictions and cruelties, its subtle meaning now exposed as little more than a veil for unbearable suffering.'' Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets, 58. Shuiman also notes that since Yudhis.thira is the Dharmaraja, this curse must include himself. Ibid., 57. 151 krodham dhdrayac caiva tivram dharmusuto nrpahl d e v w ca garhydm dsa dharcaiva yudhighirah. 18.2.50.

and with severed stomachs and feet that were scattered about here and there."152The horrible smells that emanate from this inauspiciousplace are referred to repeatedly. However, it is the sounds of hell that are the most horrifying of all: They are the sounds of Arjuna, Bhima, and Draupadi suffering torments in hell. When Yudhis-thirafirst hears the voices that cry out in pain, he does not recognize them. He cannot accept that ~~ his loved ones, virtuous as they were on earth, are now in this horrid ~ 1 a c e . lWhen Yudhisthira realizes to whom these voices belong to, the narrative has taken him (and us) to a very dark place. Their presence in hell creates a rupture, or gap in meaning, since it forces Yudhis.thira (as well as us) to come face to face with the unimaginable possibility that the "good" are doomed to suffer torments in hell and the "bad are rewarded with glorious lives in heaven. Just as we are encouraged to identify with Yudhis.thira as he grapples with the fact that many of the categories that he has held dear have been upended, so too are we encouraged to sympathize with his condemnation of these categories that have now failed him. For, if the virtuous go to hell and the sinners to heaven, then these categories, dharma in particular, are rendered meaningless. Thus, the strategies are now doing their "work" by encouraging us to experience Yudhisthira's questions, doubts, and fears as our own. Summary of Part Five: Instantaneously Indra appears, and the darkness disappears. Urging Yudhis.thira not to be angry, Indra gives him three reasons why he

modorudhirayuktaiica chinnabdhurupwibhihf nikrttodarapiidaiica tatra tatra praveritiah. 18.2.21. 153 Specifically, he says, "What filthy deed was done by these great-souled ones, by Kaqa or by the sons of Draupadi or by slim-waisted Draupadi? Those who are in this evil-smelling place that is so terrible, I don't know what evil was done by those whose deeds are virtuous." 18.2.43-44. 152

had to go to hell: because all kings must see hell,154because of the lie he told Drona,lS5 and because sinners enjoy heaven first and then are taken to hell, while those who are virtuous endure hell for a moment and then are taken to heaven.lS6 Next Dharma appears and tells Yudhighira that this was another test that he passed brilliantly since he was determined to stay in hell for the sake of his brothers and Draupadi. Because Yudhi@ra has now been "purified" and all his stains removed, he urges his son to bathe in the river and shed his body. After doing so, Yudhis.thira encounters his family and his friends in heaven.1571will call this heaven "heaven #2," in contrast to the earlier heaven where he encountered Duryodhana, which I will call "heaven #1."lS Analysis: In what follows, I will argue that there are two distinct interpretationsof the epic's conclusion.The interpretation that an audience member receives depends upon the extent to which slhe has allowed herself to be guided by the epic's strategies. The first interpretation I will call "the literal interpretation." Here the audience takes the text and Indra at face value. According to this interpretation, Yudhis.thira goes to heaven #1 and finds Duryodhana, then to hell where he encounters his brothers and Draupadi and then to heaven #2 where he is reunited with his family and loved ones.

18.3.11. 18.3.14. 156 18.3.12-13. 157 He also encounters "the sons of D&ara$ra," including Duryodhana, but notice how the text downplays this fact. 18.4.19. 158 For a description of both the merits and faults of heaven in the epic, see 'The Measure of Rice" in The Book of the Forest (3.247.1-35). For an overview of the concept of heaven in Indian thought, see Frederick M. Smith, "Heaven, Indian Conceptions of," in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 4, ed. Edward Craig (New York: Routledge, 1998), 253-57. 154

However, according to "the model interpretation," each one of these steps has been problematized by the text.lS9Tobegin with, is heaven #1 really heaven? Indra justifies Yudhis.thirafsjourney to hell by telling him that the good have to go to hell first before they journey to heaven. But the text tells us that Yudhis.thira went to the heaven #1 first, not to hell. So who is right? Indra or the text? And if Indra is right, then heaven #1 was not really heaven, but part of Yudhighira's experience of hell.

And why do Indra and Dharma make such a fuss about the fact that Yudhighira goes to heaven #1 in his body, especially in light of the fact that when Yudhi~.thiragoes to heaven #2, he has to shed his body? Does this indicate that because Yudhisjhira remained in his body when he went to heaven #1 that it was not really heaven? Dharma does say, after all, that it isonly after Yudhis.thira passes his third test (i.e.,the hell trick) that he has been purified and all his stains removed. These ambiguities lead us to question whether or not Yudhisjhira's body was really so pure that he achieved the rare feat of winning heaven in it. Furthermore, was Yudhis~hira'sexperience of hell really hell? Dharma tells Further, Yudhiswa that his experience was not real, but an illusion (maya).160 immediately after Yudhis.thira decides to stay with his brothers and Draupadi, if you will recall, hell is instantaneously transformed into heaven #2, which not only begs the question of whether hell was really hell, but also whether or not heaven #2 is really heaven. According to the "model interpretation," once we are taken to heaven #2, our confidence in the distinction between heaven and hell has been seriously undermined, for

lS9 See my discussion of the concept of the model reader and the sahrdaya in Chapter Two, Section Two. 18.3.34.

how can we believe that heaven #2 is really heaven after we has just witnessed heaven and hell blur into one another? Given the fact each of these steps is undermined by the text, we are not able to accept what I have called "the literal interpretation." In fact, what the epic shows us is that the distinction between heaven and hell is a ruse. And because we are not confidant that Yudhis.thh-a is really taken to heaven #2, we are suddenly distanced from the narrative world of the text as we were in part one. Our estrangement from the text is potentially jarring since the beliefs that the text set us up to have, have now been undermined, or "ruptured," by it. When the text took us to heaven #1 and then to hell, it showed us that we, along with Yudhsithira, had certain expectations, specificallythat we would find the P@&vas in heaven and Duryodhana in hell. However, these expectationswere not met by the text. Instead it presented us with a heaven that contained Duryodhana and a hell that contained the P@&vas. Thus, we were encouraged to feel disappointment,even outrage, just like Yudhighira. Furthermore, by promoting our distance from the narrative world when Yudhis-fiiragoes to heaven #2, the text encourages us to reflect upon what we have at stake in finding Duryodhana in hell and the P@&vas in heaven. Isn't it because then we, like Yudhi@hira, could make some sense of the awful suffering that Duryodhana caused the Padavas, and that we could be comforted by the fact that there is some justice in the world? The text, therefore, shows us that heaven and hell are conceptual frameworks that we adhere to because, on some level, they soften the blow caused by the fact that the world contains a tremendous amount of suffering. After the text reveals to us that heaven and hell are illusions, however, we are encouraged to grapple with the possibility of

existing in a world without such conceptual frameworks to provide us with this comfort. This opens us up to the disclosure effected by what I have called "the model interpretation" of the conclusion of the Mahdbhdrata: that all the suffering in the epic simply took place and that is it. In the end, the text does not grant us the solace of divine retribution, or justice, or even an explanation for the tremendous suffering that many of the characters endured. Rather, through settingus up to have certain expectations about who would be in heaven and who in hell, and then rupturing them, the text reveals to us the extent to which we yearn for such comforts. It does so ostensibly for the purposes of dissolving such yearning, and thereby opening us up to the following radical insight, that a fundamental feature of human existence is that suffering exists on a monumental scale and that is it.16' Suffering is not a phenomenon that can be understood, or justified, or rationalized away; it simply exists. Further, the text encourages us to respond to this insight not with grief (for grief was shown to be the undoing of virtually all the characters in this scene), but profound, radical acceptance.Thus, the epic's conclusion constitutes one more argument-againstgrief, but here the "argument" targets our grief, rather than a character's grief and encourages our acceptance. The simplicity of this disclosure and its acceptance is deceptive because, in truth, it is a vision of the world that is very hard, if not impossible, to face.162This disclosure is the tragic theodicy, and by "tragic" I mean the starkly realistic vision that is revealed to us by the text.163(I am using the term

161

See my discussion of handavardhana's reading of the Mahiibharata, particularly his interpretation of the "work" of the epic's conclusion in Chapter Two, Section Two. l 2 1n her essay *TheLove of God and Affliction" Weil argues that it is almost impossible for humans to psychologically and cognitively face the presence of radical suffering. To do so is the highest ethical achievement. SimoneWeil, The Simone Weil Reader, 439-68. 163 See Chapter Two, Section Two for a definition of tragedy and a discussion of its application to the Mahabharata.

"realistic" in the sense that Irawati Karve and David Shulman apply the term to the Mahabharata, as a "harsh, bare, stark, and demanding philosophy of life. )164 Ã

But how, one might ask, does the Mahabhdrata's theodicy provide a rationale for the existence of suffering? I argue that the epic's response undermines the very formulation of the theodicy question itself. For why else would one seek a rationale for suffering other than to attempt to understand why suffering exists? But according to the Mahabharata, attempting to understand why suffering exists is the coward's way out The person who seeks this kind of a rationale for suffering is the person who refuses to face the harsh reality of life, that suffering exists simply and totally and that there are no conceptual frameworks within which one can make sense of this suffering.165Therefore, the Mahdbhdrata addresses the theodicy issue by criticizing the question "is there a rationale for suffering?' and instead of providing a straightforward answer ,it brings about a starkly realistic vision of the structure of existence.

Conclusion This chapter has examined several possible answersto the theodicy question (three themes-fate, purusakara, and karma-and one character, mna)and argued that each is in essence a non-answer because each is placed in an ambiguous relation with other potentially more powerful forces. I further argued that through the strategies of

164

Karve, Yugdnta, 197. Levinas calls theodicy-that is the impulse to find meaning in suffering-a temptation. He calls for the end of theodicy, arguing that the disproportionbetween suffering and every framework that has tried to make sense of it was shown in Auschwitz "with an obvious clarity." Emanuel Levinas, "Useless Suffering," in Entre Nous: Thinking-ofthe-Other, trans. Michael B. Smith and Barbara Harshav (New York: University of Columbia Press, 1998), 91- 104.

proximity, estrangement, and rupture in the journey-to-heaven episode, the epic's audience members are directed to recognize a fundamental truth -that suffering exists on a monumental scale. Further, the text encourages us to respond to this insight with courage and acceptance-not with grief. This vision is the epic's "answer" to one of its most pervasive riddle-questions: "What is the cause of suffering?"

Chapter Seven Conclusion: Dhurma and Protection Not the sorrow of the theft of the kingdom, not that defeat at the dice, not the banishment of my sons have caused me such suffering as the knowledge that the large, dark woman stood in the hall in her single garment and had to listen to those abusive words! What could hurt me more? That virtuous beautiful woman who was ever devoted to the dharma of the lqatriyas, was in her period and she found no one to protect her, though her protectors were there. Kunti to Qsna, 5.88.84-86. Misfortune has neither limit nor cause. Dharma distributes it to both good and bad. Yudhisthira to Nakuta, 3.2%. 1 And the problem of meaning-what is the point of all the suffering?-lurks in the background [of the Mahabha-rata],surfacing at critical moments of the debate. This is a battle in which there are only occasional,always temporary victories. David Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets

Throughout this project I have been centrally concerned with the following question: How does the epic's poetics of suffering contribute to its threefold ethical task of recognizing, understanding, and eliminating sorrow? Let us now gather up our findings.

Chapter Three argued that the depiction of the three characters whose decisions and actions led to the dice game -Duryodhana, Dwaragra, and Yudhi@ira promoted insights into the factors that lead to sorrow and thus contributed to the project of understanding suffering. These insights centered on the issue of the quality of the characters' minds. In our analysis, all three characters succumbed to mental confusion and inverted vision. This in turn led to their misguided decisions, which in each case had disastrous consequences and led to great suffering. Indeed the mental turbulence and misguided decisions of the three characters contributed greatly to the suffering not only

of Draupadi but to the sorrow of virtually every character in the epic, since the dice game provided a direct route to war. Chapter Three further argued that the presentation of Draupadi's violation in the assembly hall encouraged the recognition of suffering. Through their relentlessly detailed and repetitive description of the Paiicalii princess' plight, the epic's strategies reveal the inescapable truth of the presence of human sorrow in the world. The fact Draupadi is violated where she is, among her elders and husbands, her staunchest protectors, further makes the point that affliction is a possibility for every human beingeven those whose virtue and standing in society ostensibly safeguardsthem from such an experience.

Chapter Four argued that the characterizationof Dmrii?.tra as both an agent and a victim of suffering contributed to the epic's ethical project in two ways. First, his depiction as agent reveals the role of moral blindness in the production of human despair, thus contributing to the second component of the epic's ethical project. The fact that Dbtariig.tra fails to see the intimate link between act and consequence-or, more precisely, sees this connection but fails to act based on it-renders him not only physically blind, but also morally blind. His "blindness" to the power of cause and effect, or seed and fruit, causes him to make decisions that contribute significantly to the enmity between his sons and his nephews and the subsequent large-scale devastationthat this enmity produces.

'

Draupadi is described as "amithavat, " literally one who does not possess a protector. (See Chapter Three, SectionThree.) A song based on this motif inspired B.K. Matilal to write about ethics in the Mahiibharata. Arindam Chakrabarty, personal communication.

Second, as a victim of grief, DlqtarQfla creates a context in the text for wise characters to make arguments to him about the pitfalls of despair and to offer recommendations for eliminating his grief. These recommendations centeron the destructive quality of time and the universal nature of suffering. They do so in order to shift Dhparilspa's focus from the narrow lens of his own particular situation to the level of the experience of all living creatures. Such a shift would entail transforming Dlqtari%$.tra9s emotional responses from grief and self-pity to acceptance, fortitude, and contentment, emotions that would allow him to see and accept the world as it is (a shift which he, sadly, never makes).

Chapter Five explored the epic's presentation of time as an agent of misfortune and sorrow and thus its role in the project of understanding suffering. Time is considered to be a culprit because it inevitably brings death, loss, and decay. In the genre of discourse called the lament, characters often blame their grief and misfortune on time and its "turnings" (paryaya). However, Chapter Five also argued that time is a key factor in the task of eliminating sorrow. According to the epic's several arguments-against-grief, if one realizes the truth of the destructive nature of time, and therefore the universality of suffering, then one would be reoriented to the world in such a manner that one would no longer be subject to the despair caused by time's turning. Chapter Rve further argued that the epic's strategies of temporal manipulation support the orientation towards time recommended in the arguments-against-grief. By granting us the experience of

consumed/dismissedcollapsedtime, they produce in us the experience of overcoming temporal boundaries and hence psychologically moving beyond time, and thus beyond sorrow.

Chapter Six examined the epic's presentation of several potential causes of suffering-fate, human exertion, hrrnu, and Krgqu-by asking whether or not they provide a rationale for the existence of suffering (i.e., a theodicy, a concept closely linked to the task of understanding suffering). It argued that due to the strategies of ambiguity and deferral none of these potential candidates provide conclusive answers to the theodicy question (as I would argue, for that matter, neither do time nor DmZi$ra, due to the same strategies). Chapter Six further argued that through the strategies of estrangement and rupture in the journey-to-heaven episode (in books seventeen and eighteen), the epic encourages the audience to recognize the fact that suffering exists in the world on a monumental scale. Further, we are directed to see that the conceptual categories that attempt to justify, rationalize, andlor explain this fundamental truth are, in the end, useless. Ultimately, Chapter Six shows how the three components of the epic's ethical project ideally come together. It does so by arguing that the (mental) act of recognizing suffering dissolves the impulse to understand the sources of despair (an impulse that easily shifts into blaming) and "reorients" the mind away from negative emotions like grief and despair and towards normative emotions such as acceptance, fortitude, tranquility, emotions that would, in effect, eliminate sorrow.

Greg Bailey has argued that "an epic view of suffering" cannot be developed in isolation of other principal epic themes such as dhurmu, lcum, human effort (puru~akdra)and fate? While we have considered suffering's relationshipto most of

Bailey, "Suffering in the Mahiibhiirata," 39.

these themes-as well as its connection to specific characters(DmFi$ra and lQ8na)we have not yet focused sufficiently on suffering's relationship to d b r m . Here the following question is pressing: Why does a story that is, ostensibly, "replete with

d h ~ r m , "contain ~ so much suffering, grief, and despair? First, let us review some of the places discussed in this dissertation where these two categories come into contact, often with dark ramificationsS4Chapter Three considered Yudhi@hira9sactions in the dicing scene. Here we saw that the Dharma King, a moral paragon and the son of Dharma, chose to participate in the dice game- which he knew would lead to disaster-gambled away his brothers and his wife, and then stood by while Draupadi was violated by the Kauravas without lifting a finger to help her. He did so, ostensibly, because he was in some sense trapped by dhurmu.' Chapter Three further discussed the role of the elders in the dicing scene. We observed that these men who studied the idstras were unable to answer Draupadi's question about the validity of her stake. Why? Because they deemed the nature of

dhurma too subtle? Their silence provided Duryodhana with the freedom to move forward with his cruel treatment of Draupadi, suggesting that dhurm's inscrutability paved the way for Draupadi's violation and subsequent anguish. Chapter Six considered Kpga's hand in the war. There we noticed that several passages in the epic suggest that m ~ drove a the events towards the holocaust and that he did so in the name of dhurmu.

1.1.14. See also Shulman, "The Yak~a's Questions," 40-59. See Chapter Three, Section Two. 6 See Chapter Three, Section Two. 4

Dhurrnu and suffering come into contact in other ways as well. For example,

Yudhighira, who is devoted to dharmu, suffers great misfortune and mental anguish throughout the text (particularly from the dicing scene onward). Thus his depiction encourages us to question the purpose of pursuing dhurmu if it does not lead to happiness, and, indeed, is possibly implicated in misfortune. (Balarma raises this precise question to m a when they visit the dejected P@&vas in the forest.17Vidura who is an incarnation of the god dharmu often provides instructions about how to follow the virtuous path? However, his instruction inevitably falls on deaf ears and characters suffer tragedy and misfortune in spite of his warnings. Since no one can "hear" Viduraand by extension dharmu-we are encouraged to wonder if d h r m is effectively mute, then is it useful at all? In many of these cases, and others that I have not mentioned here, the net effect of dhurmu 's contact with sorrow is that it undermines or "ruptures" our cod~dencein it. Thus the beliefs and assumptions that we have been set up to have about it are "disoriented." Perhaps the most significant one, at least for our purposes, is the assumption that dharmu offers protection from sorrow. Many characters in the epic harbor this assumption and express despair when they are faced with a world that negates

it9 Thus, for example, in the drilling-woods scene when the Pwdavas are faced with yet another unfortunate predicament,Nakula says to Yud&.$hira: Dharma never sinks low in our family. ... We have no equal among living beings.

3.1 19.5-120. See, for example, Chapter Three, Section Two; Chapter Four, Sections Three and Five. 9 Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets, 42. Shulman sees unmerited suffering as "clearly a central issue in the epic."

Why then are we again in danger, king?" While the assumption that dhurmu offers protection is undermined throughout the epic, this occurs most dramatically in the dicing scene. Draupadi's violation haunts virtually every character in the epic precisely because she, a virtuous woman, was not protected amongst her protectors. Thus, in effect, she was not protected by dharmu." In some sense, the scene of Draupadi's violation is the moment to which all other subsequent moments in the epic are a response, From this event onward, characters struggle to regain a world of meaning-that is a world in which dharmu still make sense in spite of the presence of unjust suffering.12 In the end, the text leaves open to question whether the characters' confidence in dharmu is ever fully recovered (if it leans one way, in my opinion, it tilts towards the negative). What about our cod~dence? To come at this question from a different angle, why is dharmu veiled in the epic? As Yudh${hira says in the Vulgate, "the truth of dharmu lies in a dark cave."13 The text presents the concept to us through the strategies of riddle-question, paradox, and rupture. Thus it seems that the work of the text lies not in revealing to us what dhurmu is, but in showing us what it is not (Thus two of the most lauded virtues in the epic-ahiqzsa and iinpfamya, non-injury and non-cruelty-are negative ~ategories).'~ The implication here is that all our old notions about dhurma must be renounced and transcended for a wider

' niismin kulejiitu mamaj~adharmo; ... anuttar4h sarvabhiite;~bhiiyah; sampriiptiih

s m h saqzs'ayam kena riijan. 3-295. See Kunti's statement at the opening of this chapter. l2 Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets, 41. l3 3,313.17 in the Vulgate. l4 See Mukund Lath, "The Concept of Anriamsya." According to Shulman and others dnriamsya is Yudhis.thira's proclaimed ideal. YudhisJhira calls it the highest dharmu at 3.297.55.

experience of dharmu to be accessed.15 Why? Perhaps there is some problem with these beliefs, particularly with respect the issue of suffering. The fact that the epic forces us to face time and time again the uncomfortable truth that dharmu offers no protection from misfortune suggests that a wider experience of dharma entails active participation (not just the perception) in the presence of radical unmerited suffering and the understanding that no conceptual categories-dharma above all-protects us from this truth. (I say "above all" because it could be that dharrna offers the greatest illusion of security.) Accordingly, a wider experience of dharrna would be available to the person who did not act in the name of dharmu for the sake of anything, above all in the name of protection from anguish, grief, and misfortune. Several scholars have focused on the two concepts noted above, ahiqzsa and dtq-iamsya, arguing that they constitute the supreme moral principles in the epic.16 However, I want to caution against overstepping a crucial link in the chain of ethical transformation in the epic." The Mahdbhdrata's strategies first and foremost are not trying to change how we act, they are attempting to reorient our minds and thus refigure how we see.'* The recognition of the truth of the pervasive presence of suffering in the

Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets, 57-58. Shulman speaks about this process with respect to Yudhis.thira, whose view of dharmu by the end is "badly battered." Shulman suggests that as a result Yudhi&ira undergoes a "shift in consciousness" which opens him up to a wider experience of dharmu. l6 Mukund Lath, "The Concept of Anflarnsya,"l14; Hiltebeitel, Rethinking the Mahabharata; Dhand, 'The Dharmu of Ethics, The Ethics of Dharma," 354-355; Fitzgerald, The Mahdbhdrata, vol.7, 111-112. 17 Shulman argues that Yudhisthira's ideal of dtqdarnsya crumbles in the journey-to heaven-episode, suggesting that there is more to dharma than simply the ideal of noncruelty. Shulman, The Wisdom of the Poets, 50-59. As Gary Tubb notes, handavardhana considers the primary end of the Mahdbhdrata to be state of mind in the reader. Tubb, "¤dntarasa,"l98 Woods writes, 'The purpose and function of the text is clearly designed to be more than exemplary or even didactic;

world involves a change in being.'' However, the idea that the text's strategies might encourage a transformation in behavior follows logically from this ontological shift2' Being highly attuned and richly observant of the sorrow of other creatures, would presumably lead to, at least in most cases, the avoidance of all actions that would contribute to the ocean of sorrow that the Mahdbharata's strategies direct us to recognize. However, there might be extreme cases where violence must be committed for the sake of some greater good, such as protecting the world from being overtaken by power-hungry aggressors-even if these aggressors are one's own kin; Arjuna's situation in the Gitd is an example of such an extreme case.

At the close of this project let us turn to my title, "disorienting dharmu," in order to briefly consider three levels of meaning that are embedded in it. The first level pertains to the epic's characters. As actors in the Mahdbhdrata struggle to determine the path of dharma, they are often "disoriented" by this pursuit because of dharma's subtle nature. (In the journey to heaven episode, for example, when Yudhis.thira discovers that his virtuous brothers and wife are suffering the torments of hell, he states that his mind is di~oriented.)~' As a result, characters often lose their way and frequently dharma is transgressed with disastrous consequences. The second level pertains to the epic's audiences. As I have discussed in this conclusion and throughout the dissertation, one function of the epic's narrative strategies

the intent is therapeutic in seeking to prompt the mind to a great awareness of spiritual truths ... ." Woods, Destiny and Human Initiative, viii. 19 See Chapter One, Section Two. 20 Dhand agrees, see "The Dharrna of Ethics, The Ethics of Dharma," 356. 21 18.2.48.

is to disorient and reorient our understanding of dharrna. What might this reorientation entail? Here I believe it is imperative to turn to the pervasive genre of discourse that I have termed "the-argument-against-grief' (which I have argued is one of the primary modes of discourse that the text employsfor its project of eliminating suffering). As I have already mentioned, these "arguments" are delivered by wise advisors at moments of crises in order to comfort a grieving character. Many of the epic's most powerful didactic discourses, often centered on dhurm, fall into this rubric. Even the Bhugavadgitd is an example of this genre since it constitutes IQsna's argument for why Arjuna should overcome his grief. As I discussed in Chapter Five, the goal of these arguments is to transform how one sees and thus responds to the world. They attempt to do so by pointing out the fact that every living thing on earth is subject to decay, death and loss (i.e.,suffering). Viewing the world in this way directs one to see that sorrow due to loss has been experienced by every creature on earth, since all creatures on earth, after all, are creatures of time. Accordingly, one would be directed to see that one's grief is just a tiny drop in the ocean of sorrow caused by the ravages of all-destroying time. Such a shift in vision is meant to snap a person out of his or her despair by re-contextualizing her situation and opening her eyes to the condition of all living creatures. Such a shift is also meant to encourage an emotional transformationfrom grief and self-pity to normative feelings like acceptance, fortitude, and contentment, one of the most lauded virtues in the epic. More specifically, viewing the world from this perspective would entail regarding all things, both the sublime and the horrific, with perfect equanimity. With this "refigured" state of

mind, one would never lose one's senses in extreme or dire situationsand thus one would never be a victim of further suffering (see Chapter Three for an analysis of the relationship between characters' states of mind and suffering; see Chapters Four and Five for the significanceof responding properly to extreme situation^).^^ Finally, the third level pertains to academic discussions of dharmu and entails a recommendation. In this dissertation I have suggested that it might be fruitful to "disorient" such discussions from the isolated topic of dharma and reorient them on the issue of suffering, particularly dharmu's relationship to suffering. What's at stake in many, if not most, discussions of dharma in the Mahdbhdrata, either explicitly or on the level of context, is the issue of human despair. Sorrow, we could say, is a primary ground for ethics in the epic.

According to Matilal, the tragic dimensions of the epic are what impart the moral and religious lessons, generating indifferencein the audience towards everything. Matilal, Ethics and Epics, 120. What Matilal calls "indifference" I refer to as "tranquility." Later he characterizes this indifferenceas "an active self-aware non-participation-a state of mind, an attitude, call it serenity, in which you act and do what is expected of you, but you do not participate. It is like this, you act in a play but do not participate in the lives of characters." Matilal, Ethics and Epics, 389. Dhand also focuses on tranquility, or what she calls "equanimity" and "mental purity" as the heart of ethics in the Mahabharata. See Dhand, "The Subversive Nature of Ethics," 33.

22

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