Seminar in HSS Department

Title: ARJUNA’S PROBLEM AND ITS RESOLUTION IN TWO MAHABHARATAS

Location: L3

Time: 5 PM - 6 PM

Abstract:

ARJUNA’S PROBLEM AND ITS RESOLUTION IN TWO MAHABHARATAS

The two Mahabharatas in question are Vyasa Mahabharata and Sarala Mahabharata, a retelling of it in Odia. In the former, as Arjuna surveys the Kurukshetra battlefield, he becomes despondent and refuses to fight; in the latter, he is unwilling to start the fighting. The moral issues involved are different and Arjuna’s problem is resolved in the two narratives differently: Krishna intervenes in Vyasa Mahabharata to persuade the reluctant warrior to fight, but in Sarala Mahabharata he plays no part. Thus Srimad Bhagavad Gita is part of Vyasa Mahabharata, and there is nothing corresponding to this profound discourse in Sarala Mahabharata. Adopting a comparative perspective, this talk deals with some of the moral issues of clear relevance to each resolution.

It invites attention to certain straightforward moral issues that are not raised in Bhagavad Gita. It is suggested that had these been raised, the issue would perhaps have been resolved without the weakening of the link with the immediate context of the impending war and the introduction of deep and profound metaphysical matters into the discourse. This apart, what Arjuna did not see in the Universal Form of Krishna was arguably what he did not want to see. Or was what he would not have wanted to see concealed from him? Then there is hardly any mention of Gita in the narrative after the war started, although there were quite a few contexts for the same, even during the war itself. This is rather surprising and needs explanation. One tends to think that the Sacred Text is not well integrated into the Mahabharata narrative.

“No first strike”, which is a moral position, does not invite a Gita-like discourse; it calls for a different discourse, perhaps of a practical, rather than moral, nature or some inflammatory action. That is perhaps why in Sarala Mahabharata there is no Gita-like discourse, and Arjuna’s problem is resolved so differently in the narrative.

Bio-sketch of the speaker:

Prof. B. N. Patnaik (Retired Professor of English and Linguistics, Department of Humanities and Social
Sciences, IIT Kanpur ) is PhD in Linguistics from CIEFL, Hyderabad. He taught English, communication, computational linguistics and generative linguistics at IIT Kanpur (1978-2004). He has also been a Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor at Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla and Jadavpur University, among others. He has designed undergraduate, postgraduate, and research level courses for various institutes of international repute. He has extensively published in linguistics, literature and related areas. He is also author and co-author of several books including Noam Chomsky’s Architecture of Language. He is also credited to document the first generative linguistic description of Odia Language. He has served on various committees of the Government of India, UGC, Sahitya Akademi, and a number of universities. His current interests include Medieval Odia literature, Discourse linguistics and Literature-linguistics interface.

ABOUT SARALA MAHABHARATA

Mahabharata was first composed in Odia (till recently spelt as “Oriya”) in the fifteenth century by Sarala Dasa, who is celebrated as the adi kavi (“the first poet”) of Odia literature. He was not really the first poet, but the first major poet, with whom started the rich tradition of Odia puranic literature. Of the three puranas that he composed, Mahabharata is unquestionably his most creative, most profound and most popular work, and it is known as Sarala Mahabharata. To the best of my knowledge Sarala Mahabharata has not been translated into any language.

Sarala Mahabharata is not a “translation” of Vyasa’s Mahabharata. Sarala retold the story in Odia; we say “he ‘wrote’ Mahabharata in Odia”. He interpreted the story of Mahabharata; he reconceptualised the story. Thus Sakuni of Vyasa is different from Sakuni of Sarala. Thus Duryodhana died as the king, not the crown prince of Hastinapura. Thus Karna’s relationship with them was not a secret for the Pandavas; they knew he was their eldest brother all along. As he retold the story,Sarala introduced episodes into Vyasa’s narrative and deleted episodes that occur there. He conceptualized some episodes quite differently from Vyasa. There are differences too at a deeper level, for example, in the understanding of the human condition, of the form of a world where dharma reigns, and of the divine intervention in human affairs. These apart, in certain ways he localized the narrative, thus the Pandavas not merely came to Odisha (till recently, spelt “Orissa”) on pilgrimage, it so happened that Yudhisthira ended up marrying an Odia girl and stayed in Odisha for a few years. Incidentally, whereas Vyasa’s version contains about one lakh couplets, Sarala’s contain one lakh and forty thousand.