Transcript Towards an Architecture of the Mahabharata

Vishwa Adluri
Hunter College, CUNY
[email protected]
du
WWW.Presocratics.Or
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Towards an Architecture
of the Mahābhārata
Paper presented at the International Seminar on:
The Mahābhārata: Its Historicity, Antiquity, Evolution &
Impact on Civilization
Organized by the Draupadī Trust, Delhi, April 2012
“Notre seule source, ce sont les manuscrits
eux-mêmes, donc, en dernière analyse, les
stemma. Nous n’avons donc pas le droit de
répudier leur témoignage sous le prétexte qu’il
nous paraît absurde.”
— R. Marichal, “La critique des textes”
“Our only source are the manuscripts
themselves, then, in the final analysis, these
stemma. We therefore do not have the right to
repudiate their evidence under the pretext that
it appears absurd to us.”
A. The Mahābhārata Archetype
A. The Mahābhārata Archetype
(contd.)
Slide 1: Textual tree of Ādiparvan versions, illustrating the stemmatic
relationships
Source: Sukthankar 1933
A. The Mahābhārata Archetype
(contd.)
Slide 2: Illustrating the distinction between the space of meaningful discourse
(sense and reference, and sense)
and nonsense (neither sense nor reference)
A. The Mahābhārata Archetype
(contd.)
Slide 3: Unrooted phylogenetic tree illustrating the separation of the
Mahābhārata tradition into three broad groups: Southern, Northern, Kaśmīri,
and the position of the CE vis-à-vis these three (source: Phillips-Rodriguez,
Howe, and Windram 2009)
A. The Mahābhārata Archetype
(contd.)
Vishwa Adluri & Joydeep Bagchee, eds., Reading the Fifth Veda: Studies
on the Mahābhārata, Essays by Alf Hiltebeitel, vol. 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
2011)
&
When the Goddess was a Woman: Mahābhārata Ethnographies, Essays
by Alf Hiltebeitel, vol. 2 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2011)
A. The Mahābhārata Archetype
(contd.)
Vishwa Adluri, ed., “The Critical Edition and its Critics: A Retrospective of
Mahābhārata Scholarship,” Special issue of the Journal of Vaishnava
Studies 19,2 (Spring 2011).
A. The Mahābhārata Archetype
(contd.)
Vishwa Adluri & Joydeep Bagchee, The Nay Science: A History of German
Indology (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Vishwa Adluri & Joydeep Bagchee, Philology and Criticism: A Guide to
Mahābhārata Textual Criticism (forthcoming).
A. The Mahābhārata Archetype
(contd.)
Slide 4: Illustrating the distinction between witness texts, source texts, and
archetype
B. From Archetype to
Architecture
B. From Archetype to Architecture
(contd.)
Slide 5: Structure and divisions of the constituted
text
B. From Archetype to Architecture
(contd.)
Slide 6: Division of the Mahābhārata into 3 triads of 6
chapters each
B. From Archetype to Architecture
(contd.)
Slide 7: The return to the Sauti-Śaunaka frame in the Nārāyaṇīya
B. From Archetype to Architecture
(contd.)
Slide 8: The circular narrative architecture of the epic, illustrating the exit
from the text of nivṛtti and the continuation on into pravṛtti
B. From Archetype to Architecture
(contd.)
Slide 9: Organization of pravṛtti into four “Gestalts” or “Genera,” each with
its respective remainder, form of immortality, and defect
C. Expansion versus
Architecture
C. Expansion versus Architecture
(contd.)
Slide 10: A fanciful interpretation of the epic’s genesis
(source: Gupta and Ramachandran 2007)
C. Expansion versus Architecture
(contd.)
Slide 11: Comparing interpreters’ different attitudes toward the epic
Part 1: Kṣatriya Epic versus Brahmanic Revision
C. Expansion versus Architecture
(contd.)
Slide 12: Comparing interpreters’ different attitudes toward the epic
Part 2: Addition versus Loss
C. Expansion versus Architecture
(contd.)
Slide 13: Comparing interpreters’ different attitudes toward the
epic Part 3: Versions versus Levels
C. Expansion versus Architecture
(contd.)
Slide 14: Comparing interpreters’ different attitudes toward the
epic Part 3: Versions versus Levels
C. Expansion versus Architecture
(contd.)
Slide 15: Vyāsa’s narrations of the Mahābhārata, showing how Śaunaka in
the Āstīkaparvan forges together the Āstīka narrative with Vaiśaṁpāyana’s
narration
1. The thesis of different versions of the epic is:
•
A creation of 19th century (German) Orientalism.
•
Part of a search for heroic Āryan origins.
•
Projection of German fantasies of a militaristic masculine
culture onto the ancient epic.
•
Part of a program of vilification of indigenous intellectual
traditions (as “Brahmanism” or “Hinduism”).
Slide 16a: Summary of the results of our investigation thus far
2. The thesis of different versions of the epic:
•
Lacks all support in the epic itself.
•
Ignores the fact that a text can have different levels of
meaning.
•
Ignores the epic’s explicit claim to being the “thought entire”
(mataṁ kṛtsnaṁ) of Vyāsa.
•
Makes no distinction between what can be shown
historically-archaeologically (e.g., settlements or Painted
Grey Ware, etc.) and what cannot be shown historicallyarchaeologically (i.e., is only a textual point).
Slide 16b: Summary of the results of our investigation thus far
3. This is a literary, poetical, and aesthetic claim:
•
It should not be caricatured to mean that there was a
historical Vyāsa and that we mean that this personage wrote
the entire thing.
•
It does not rule out historical or archaelogical investigations,
but shows that we must exercise caution regarding what
such investigations can show.
•
Specifically, we must be cautious against the attempt to take
the text hostage for a pugnacious political ideology such as
“Aryan theory” or “Indo-European theory.”
Slide 16c: Summary of the results of our investigation thus far
Slide 17: Motif of ascent and descent: The Vasu narratives
in the Ādiparvan and Nārāyaṇīya
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
The story of liberation. Garuḍa is born into servitude, along with his mother Vinatā. The very reason given for
his birth is to liberate Vinatā. In doing so, he also shatters the wheel of pain that separates mortals from the
pot of immortality.
Liberation occurs through the structural motif of an ascent. This ascent begins on a mountain.
The liberation includes two segments: one to Indra’s heaven to steal amṛta, and another to a height beyond
Viṣṇu. Let us call these two ascents the “Indra segment” and “Viṣṇu segment” respectively.
These two ascents are related to each other as a series, not as parallel alternatives.
A tree and a flag-pole are closely associated with these two ascents.
The tree turns out to be an unsteady support, and Garuḍa is forced to discard it. Viṣṇu’s flag-pole, in turn, is
achieved through equanimity (Garuḍa’s even-keeled flight) which impresses Viṣṇu.
The Viṣṇu segment is achieved by explicitly forsaking the Indra segment. Garuḍa explicitly asks for
immortality without the aid of amṛta. No one is saved by it in this narrative.
The Indra segment is antagonistic to ṛṣis who practice tapas. Indra mocks them but they best him by creating
Garuḍa. The antagonism reveals a deep divide, the one of pravṛtti and nivṛtti.
Indra’s sovereignty is one of pravṛtti, powered by sacrifice and vulnerable to fall. Such a sacrifice is the
pravṛtti-powering sacrifice.
Garuḍa’s attainment to a region above Viṣṇu is a different kind of achievement. It is one of nivṛtti.
In order to proceed on the path of nivṛtti, Garuḍa must overcome the four genera of becoming: sacrifice,
cosmology, genealogy and war.
Garuḍa represents a different kind of sacrifice, a non-Agni i.e., a non-pravṛtti sacrifice. Let us call it nivṛtticonducive sacrifice.
The Indra segment also prominently features a friendship: Indra seeks out Garuḍa’s friendship.
The Viṣṇu segment leaves the Indra segment intact. Indra is not unseated, his claim to the immortality of
amṛta is challenged but not toppled.
Slide 18: Summary of Garuḍa’s ascent
All this is rooted in Time, to be or not to be, to be happy or not to be happy. Time ripens
the creatures. Time rots them. And Time again puts out the Time that burns down the
creatures. Time shrinks them and expands them again. Time walks in all creatures,
unaverted, impartial. Whatever beings
there were in the past will be in the future, whatever are busy now, they are all the
creatures of Time—know it and do not lose your sense.
Mahābhārata 1.1.187-190.
In this book, Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana has uttered a holy Upaniṣad…. And Kṛṣṇa Vāsudeva is
glorified here, the self-eternal Blessed Lord—for He is the truth and the right and the
pure and the holy. He is the eternal Brahman—the supreme Surety, the Everlasting light
of whose divine exploits the wise tell tales.
From Him begins existence that is not yet, and the non-existent that becomes. His is the
continuity and the activity. His is birth, death and rebirth.
Mahābhārata 1.1.191, 193-195.
Slide 19: Time and Eternity as the basic concerns of the
epic
Vishwa Adluri
Hunter College, CUNY
[email protected]
du
WWW.Presocratics.Or
g
Towards an Architecture
of the Mahābhārata
Paper presented at the International Seminar on:
The Mahābhārata: Its Historicity, Antiquity, Evolution &
Impact on Civilization
Organized by the Draupadī Trust, Delhi, April 2012