THE MAHĀBHĀRATA’S SOCIOCULTURAL IMPACT IN … con/Mahabharata/Dr... · (Source: K.S. Valdiya, ... • As per current archaeological record, ... THE MAHĀBHĀRATA’S SOCIOCULTURAL

THE MAHĀBHĀRATA’S SOCIOCULTURAL

IMPACT IN INDIAMichel Danino

([email protected])

Presented at a seminar on “The Mahābhārata: Its Historicity,

Antiquity, Evolution & Impact on Civilization”, New Delhi, 26 &

27 April 2012

The Mahābhārata is

not just a gripping

epic and a great

teaching of Dharma.

It is also a mine of

anthropological

information.

Left: Some of the

states mentioned in

the text.

(Source: K.S. Valdiya,

Geography, Peoples

and Geodynamics of

India in Puranas and

Epics, 2012)

• Socially, the Epic presents a mixed society: numerous

different languages, cultures, rulers and regions.

• 363 people are listed on different occasions, as janas or

jātis.

• Jana = people, especially those forming a state.

• Jāti = a community of people, basically a segment of a

jana (e.g., Kirātas, a jana, have several jātis).

• The Epic does not distinguish between caste and tribe,

in fact has no concept of a tribe in the usual sense, which

is a colonial construct. (Neither do the Purāṇas.) K.S.

Singh: “There is hardly any evidence to show that in the

collective consciousness of India there is any difference

between the two sets of janas.”

1. Ethnographic data in the Mahābhārata

The janas appear in the Epic (after R. Shafer,

1954):

• as part of geographical lists — 231

• the digvijaya list (Yudhiṣṭhira’s victories won by

his four brothers in the four directions) — 212

• those paying tribute to the Pāṇḍavas — 296

• those part of army formations — 158

• other data — 108

The 363 janas are defined:

• in geographical terms (with reference to

“Jambudvīpa”). Some of the regions are regarded

as holier than others, for instance the Kuru-Pañcāla

and Matsya.

• in political terms, territorial units such as

janapadas, varṣas or rāṣṭras.

• In ecological terms: living in mountains (Khasas,

Haimavatas, Arbuadas, Vindhyamulakas...), near

rivers (Kausijakas, Saindhavas...), from deserts

(Marudhas...), from pastoral lands (Pasupas,

Govindas...).

• Janas in the East: Angas, Vangas, Kiratas, Chinas,

Pundras...

• Janas in the North (Himalayas): Trigartas, Khasas...

• Janas in the West: Daradas, Pisachas, Vahilkas,

Yadavas, Surashtras...

• Janas in the South: Cholas, Pandyas, Keralas,

Andhras, Dravidas, Karnatas, Mushakas...

• Janas in the Northwest: Pahlavas, Sakas, Hunas,

Yavanas, Kambojas ...

“Everywhere I found a cultural background which had exerted

a powerful influence on their lives. This background was a

mixture of popular philosophy, tradition, history, myth, and

legend, and it was not possible to draw a line between any of

these. Even the entirely uneducated and illiterate shared this

background. The old epics of India, the Ramayana and the

Mahabharata and other books, in popular translations and

paraphrases, were widely known among the masses, and every

incident and story and moral in them was engraved on the

popular mind and gave a richness and content to it. Illiterate

villagers would know hundreds of verses by heart and their

conversation would be full of references to them or to some

story with a moral, enshrined in some old classic.”

Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, p. 67.

2. The Mahābhārata and the making of India

• Repeated attempts (in the Epic as in early history) to

build empires.

• Marriage alliances across janas.

• Storytelling (e.g. Harikatha) traditions often received

royal patronage.

• Complete freedom was given to local cultures to adopt,

adapt, transpose, translate, re-create the two Epics.

• Creation of a sacred geography related to the Epics.

• Overall, an organic process beyond the control of a

caste or political power. The result was the cultural entity

called India, and the thought and belief system called

Hinduism (which may be defined as the interface between

Vedic and regional folk and “tribal” cultures).

Mechanisms of integration

• In the Epic, Cholas, Pāṇḍyas, Dravidas are often

mentioned.

• Sarangadhwaja, king of the Pāṇḍyas, fights in the war

on the side of the Pāṇḍavas.

• In inscriptions, Chola and Chera kings proudly claim

descent from the lunar or the solar dynasties.

• An inscription records that a Pāṇḍya king led the

elephant force in the Great War on behalf of the

Pāṇḍavas, and that early Pāṇḍyas translated the

Mahābhārata into Tamil (the translation is lost).

• The first named Chera king, Udiyanjeral, is said to have

sumptuously fed the armies on both sides during the

Bhārata war.

The Mahābhārata and the South

“Pancha Pāndavar”

hero stone, Benagudi

Shola, Nilgiris (Tamil

Nadu), maintained by

Irula tribals to

commemorate the

Pāndavas’ passing

through the area.

• Near Kodaikanal, a few caves bear the name of “Pancha

Pāndavar Pārai”, “the rock where the five Pāndavas

[stayed]”.

• Numerous Draupadi shrines in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

• Folk traditions of the South generated numerous

retellings of the two northern epics in the form of popular

ballads, some of which have been preserved in

manuscripts.

• In Tamil Nadu alone, a recent survey (by A.A. Manavalan)

enumerated “about a hundred versions [of the

Mahābhārata] that have come down to us in folklore

forms”.

• From the ninth century at least, a few inscriptions record

the grants of “lands and revenue for poets and discourse

scholars on Mahābhārata.”

• The two Epics have left numerous landmarks in the

region. The Kirātas correspond broadly to the Indo-

Mongoloids of the Northeast.

• Prāgjyotiṣa: founded by Naraka and his son Bhagadatta

(who fights Arjuna in the Epic). Bhagadatta is a historical

figure: he is mentioned in inscriptions, such as the Nalanda

seal of Bhaskaravarman.

• After the war, Arjuna goes out to Manipura on a mission

to placate the Nāgas and marries Ulūpī.

• A tradition identifies Ghaṭotkacha, Bhīma’s son from

Hiḍimba, with the Kachhari kingdom in Assam (whose

capital Dimapur was a corruption of “Hiḍimbapur”).

• The Bodos have a tradition of having given Rukmini, a

Kirāta woman, to Krishna. They claim Bhagadatta and

Hiḍimba among their ancestors.

The Mahābhārata and the Northeast

• K.S. Singh: “If the Bodos have a view of their

relationship with pan-Indian traditions, this cannot be

described as something imaginary, but has to be seen as

people’s efforts to link with historical traditions.”

• Ajay Mitra Shastri: “Ancient Pragjyotisha or the North-

East had very intimate relations with the rest of India, of

which it was an integral component, geographically and

culturally, despite its own distinctive culture and physical

elements.”

• Kalhana’s Rajatarangini traces the origin of Kashmir’s

kings to Gonand I, a contemporary of the Great War.

• Krishna is portrayed as helping the widow queen

Yaśovati ascend the throne after the king’s death in a

war.

• Jammu has numerous traditions related to the Epics

and a folk version of the Mahābhārata. There is a

tradition of Nāga worship which claims that a Nāga tribe

lived there; Arjuna came, married Ulūpī and lived there

for some time.

• Some of the tribals there worship the Pāṇḍavas and

Draupadī as ishtadevata.

The Mahābhārata and Kashmir

• A rich human tapestry thriving on endless diversity, but

united through certain ethico-cultural concepts, such as

dharma, mutual respect.

• No separate status for “tribes”.

• K.S. Singh: “The Mahabharata notion of jana or people

of a territory still endures. ... People continue to identify

themselves with the epic traditions, associate places with

the visits of the epic heroes and to recall people’s own

role in the growing and developing epic traditions. This

may be bad history but it is good myth and therefore good

anthropology. ... Indians are reported to have relatively

large eyes. This may me because our eyes are popping all

the time; there is so much beauty, so much diversity to

behold!”

Conclusions on the Epic’s ethnography

3. Can the Mahābhārata’s ethnographic landscape help date

the Epic?• In the 3rd / 4th millennium (a “traditional” date such

as 3100 BCE), the Northwest is in the Early Harappan

phase, which is hardly reconcilable with the Epic.

• As per current archaeological record, this phase is

free from weapons of war, armed conflicts and

military structures.

• It is a phase of convergence, not of disintegration

as reflected in the Epic.

In the 3rd / 4th

millennium, the

Ganges valley is in

the Neolithic, pre-iron

era, with rural

communities slowly

spreading and

establishing

networks. This

appears incompatible

with the listing of

numerous competing

sociopolitical units

with an advanced

material culture.

Map: First-millennium BCE sites in

north India: compatible with the Epic’s

sociopolitical context.

The 16 Mahajanapadas or "proto-republics"

This is true also of

central, east,

northeast and

south India, where

material cultures

are even more

rudimentary in the

3rd / 4th millennium.

Map:

first-millennium

BCE sites

elsewhere in India

• A date in the 3rd / 4th millennium BCE for the Epic’s

events would demand a massive amount of re-creation

and embellishment — so massive that those events might

as well be taken to be fiction.

• The Mahābhārata’s ethnographic map belongs either to

the late 2nd or the early 1st millennium BCE — more likely

the latter, if we consider the archaeology of east,

northeast and south India in particular.

• It bears repeating that the Epic’s ethnographic

landscape is intimately woven into its very fabric — the

lists of janas cannot be mere “interpolations”.

“India, closer than us to the creation, has better preserved

the tradition of universal brotherhood. She inscribed it at

the beginning and at the end of her two great sacred

poems, the Ramayan and the Mahabharat, gigantic

pyramids before which all our small occidental works must

stand humbly and respectfully. When you grow tired of this

quarrelsome West, please indulge in the sweet return to

your mother, to that majestic antiquity so noble and tender.

Love, humility, grandeur, you will find it all gathered there,

and with such simple feelings, so detached of all miserable

pride, that humility never even needs a mention.”

Le Peuple (in the 1860s)

French historian Michelet on India’s Epics