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Book Reviews
The two cantos take Vedic mythology to a new stage where Indra has been reduced to being worsted by the bird Garuda and the men Krishna and Arjuna, powerless to protect Takshaka who seeks sanctuary, paying the price of arrogance by being imprisoned in a cave by Shiva and forced to incarnate on earth. He is no longer the mighty Vedic rescuer of the celestial herds stolen by the Panis, riving open Vritra or Vala to release the celestial streams and shattering a hundred forts (a feat credited to Krishna by Bhishma). The accent has shifted to a new duo of divine sages: Nara and Narayana. By identifying Krishna and Arjuna with them, beginning with the invocatory verses, the new myth is given more ‘body’ and appeals powerfully to the popular imagination. The day of Vedic Indra, Agni and Varuna is past and the puranik Shiva-Vishnu rivalry is implied through the strenuous attempts to make each extol the greatness of the other in the Anushasana and Shanti parvas. How does the Adi Parva leave us where the story of the Kurukshetra War and the Pandava-Kaurava conflict are concerned? The seeds of the fratricidal feud are sown during the childhood sports, culminating in the lacquer-house episode. In the meantime, a new figure has been introduced: Karna, who will figure prominently in the coming feud. The Drona-inspired attack on Drupada has laid the basis of a deep hatred of the Kurus in the defeated king that moves him to seek alliance with the Pandavas as a counterpoise against the Dhartarashtras and Drona. The intervening period, occupied by the Hidimba, Chitraratha and Baka episodes, is the training ground for the future inheritors of the Kuru kingdom. The marriage with Draupadi and the coming of Krishna provide the Panchala-Vrishni-Pandava triangular set-up to oppose the Kurus of Hastinapura. This alliance is strengthened through Arjuna’s exile during which Krishna has him abduct and wed his sister (and Arjuna’s maternal cousin) Subhadra. The confrontation becomes inevitable with the establishment of a new court at Khandavaprastha on the Yamuna facing Hastinapura on the Ganga. The Sabha Parva is concerned with these two capitals and their two Halls of Kings. Against the capital of the Lunar Dynasty, Hastinapura, is set Indraprastha, founded on the holocaust of the Khandava forest (duly censored in the TV version out of environmental sensitivity!). Curiously, Khandavaprastha was the capital of Yayati’s kingdom, and it is here that the Pandavas establish Krishna’s grandson Vajra when they retire, thus restoring to Yadu’s lineage his original heritage. In this parva, we are in the thick of political intrigue. Krishna uses the Pandavas to remove the greatest threat to his clan: Jarasandha of Magadha, clearing the way for Yudhishthira being crowned emperor. Then, in the coronation ceremony, he removes a rival clansman, Shishupala. The doomsday bell begins to toll with the insult to Duryodhana coming from the magical Pandava assembly hall, where the Pandavas behave like the noveau-riche, much in the manner of the “night-grown mushroom” Gaveston in Edward II’s court. The devastating reply to the thoughtless slight is tortuously prepared and delivered in the Kaurava Sabha in Hastinapura, repeating the earlier exile-gambit. Nothing prepares Krishna and the Pandavas for the catastrophe of the game of dice in which Yudhishthira’s greed (as he admits in the Vana Parva) for winning Hastinapura leads to Draupadi (significantly, called “Panchali” here, one meaning of which is “puppet”) being staked and lost. But this puppet breaks out of the assigned role and exposes the feet of clay of the colossi we imagine the Kuru elders to be, putting a question that remains unanswered to the very end of the epic — has she been rightly won or not? It calls forth an admission from Bhishma:
The deadly riposte this time is not a sugar-coated poison-pill like Varanavata, but full thirteen years in exile in the forests. This Yudhishthira secretly welcomes, glad in his heart of hearts to be free from the burden of kingship. We find him ill at ease in the Sabha Parva and most himself in exile amid the sylvan surroundings of Vana Parva, which we look forward to in the P Lal transcreation. January 8, 2006 The Mahabharata of Vyasa Books 1 and 2: The Complete Adi and Sabha Parvas transcreated from Sanskrit by P. Lal, Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2005, pp. 1218 and 499. Rs 1200 and Rs 600 (hardback), Rs 800 and Rs 500 (flexiback). (A special numbered-and-signed edition has original hand-painted frontispieces by a patua-artist of Jagannatha temple, thematically appropriate for each volume)
The Week of January 8, 2006
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