Sri Aurobindo. Notes on the Mahabharata [2] // Early Cultural Writings (1890-1910)

Sri Aurobindo

Early Cultural Writings

(1890 — 1910)

Part Two. On Literature — The Poetry of Kalidasa

On the Mahabharata

Notes on the Mahabharata [2]

It was hinted in a recent article of the Indian Review, an unusually able and searching paper on the date of the Mahabharata war that a society is about to be formed for discovering the genuine and original portions of our great epic. This is glad tidings to all admirers of Sanscrit literature and to all lovers of their country. For the solution of the Mahabharata problem is essential to many things, to any history worth having of Aryan civilisation and literature, to a proper appreciation of Vyasa’s poetical genius and, far more important than either, to a definite understanding of the great ethical gospel which Srikrishna came down on earth to teach as a guide to mankind in the dark Kali yuga then approaching. But I fear that if the inquiry is to be pursued on the lines the writer of this article seemed to hint, if the Society is to rake out 8000 lines from the War Purvas¹ and dub the result the Mahabharata of Vyasa, then the last state of the problem will be worse than its first. It is only by a patient scrutiny and weighing of the whole poem, disinterestedly, candidly and without preconceived notions, a consideration Canto by Canto, paragraph by paragraph, couplet by couplet that we can arrive at anything solid or permanent. But this implies a vast and heartbreaking labour. Certainly, labour however vast ought not to have any terrors for a scholar, still less for a Hindu scholar; yet before one engages in it, one requires to be assured that the game is worth the candle. For that assurance there are three necessary requisites, the possession of certain, sound and always applicable tests to detect later from earlier work, a reasonable chance that such tests if applied will restore the real epic roughly if not exactly in its original form and an assurance that the epic when recovered will repay from literary, historical or other points of view, the labour that has been bestowed on it. I believe that these three requisites are present in this case and shall attempt to adduce a few reasons for my judgment². I shall try to show that besides other internal evidence on which I do not propose just now to enter, there are certain traits of poetical style, personality and thought which belong to the original work and are possessed by no other writer. I shall also try to show that these traits may be used and by whom they may be used as a safe guide³ through this⁴ huge morass of verse. In passing I shall have occasion to make clear certain claims the epic thus disengaged will possess to the highest literary, historical and practical value.

It is certainly not creditable to European scholarship that after so many decades of Sanscrit research, the problem of the Mahabharata which should really be the pivot for all the rest, has remained practically untouched. For it is not⁵ exaggeration to say that European scholarship has shed no light whatever on the Mahabharata beyond the bare fact that it is the work of more than one hand. All else it has advanced, and fortunately it has advanced little, has been rash, arbitrary or prejudiced; theories, theories, always⁶ theories without any honestly industrious consideration of the problem. The earliest method adopted was to argue from European analogies, a method pregnant of error and delusion. If we consider the hypothesis of a rude ballad-epic doctored by “those Brahmins” — anyone who is curious on the matter may study with both profit and amusement Frazer’s⁷ History of Indian Literature — we shall perceive how this method has been worked. A fancy was started in Germany that the Iliad of Homer is really a pastiche or clever rifacimento of old ballads put together in the time of Pisistratus. This truly barbarous imagination with its rude ignorance of the psychological bases of all great poetry has now fallen into some discredit; it has been replaced by a more plausible attempt to discover a nucleus in the poem, an Achilleid, out of which the larger Iliad has grown. Very possibly the whole discussion will finally end in the restoration of a single Homer with a single poem, subjected indeed to some inevitable interpolation and corruption, but mainly the work of one mind, a theory still held by more than one considerable scholar. In the meanwhile, however, haste has been made to apply the analogy to the Mahabharata; lynx-eyed theorists have discovered in the poem — apparently without taking the trouble to study it — an early and rude ballad epic worked up, doctored and defaced by those wicked Brahmins, who are made responsible for all the literary and other enormities which have been discovered by the bushelful, and not by European lynxes alone — in our literature and civilisation. Now whether the theory is true or not, and one sees nothing in its favour, it has at present no value at all; for it is a pure theory without any justifying facts. It is not difficult to build these intellectual cardhouses; anyone may raise them by the dozen who can find no better manner of wasting valuable time. A similar method of “arguing from Homer” is probably at the bottom of Professor Weber’s assertion that the War Purvas contain the original epic. An observant eye at once perceives that the War Purvas are far more hopelessly tangled than any that precede them except the first. It is here and here only that the keenest eye becomes confused and the most confident explorer begins to lose heart and self-reliance. But the Iliad is all battles and it therefore follows in the European mind that the original Mahabharata must have been all battles. Another method is that of ingenious, if forced argument from stray slokas of the poem or equally stray and obscure remarks in Buddhist compilations. The curious theory of some scholars that the Pandavas were a later invention and that the original war was between the Kurus and Panchalas only and Professor Weber’s singularly positive inference from a sloka which does not at first sight bear the meaning he puts on it, that the original epic contained only 8800 lines, are ingenuities of this type. They are based on the Teutonic art of building a whole mammoth out of a single and often problematical bone, and remind one strongly of Mr. Pickwick and the historic inscription which was so rudely, if in a Pickwickian sense, challenged by the refractory [Mr. Blotton.] All these theorisings are idle enough; they are made of too airy a stuff to last. ‘Only a serious scrutiny of the Mahabharata made with a deep sense of critical responsibility and according to the methods of patient scientific inference, can justify one in advancing any considerable theory on this wonderful poetic structure.’

Yet to extricate the original epic from the mass of accretions is not, I believe, so difficult a task as it may at first appear. One is struck in perusing the Mahabharata by the presence of a mass of poetry which bears the style and impress of a single, strong and original, even unusual mind, differing in his manner of expression, tone of thought and stamp of personality not only from every other Sanscrit poet we know but from every other great poet known to literature. When we look more closely into the distribution of this peculiar style of writing, we come to perceive certain very suggestive and helpful facts. We realise that this impress is only found in those parts of the poem which are necessary to the due conduct of the story, seldom to be detected in the more miraculous, Puranistic or trivial episodes, but usually broken up by passages and sometimes shot through with lines of a discernibly different inspiration. Equally noteworthy is it that nowhere does this poet admit any trait, incident or speech which deviates from the strict propriety of dramatic characterisation and psychological probability. Finally Krishna’s divinity is recognized, but more often hinted at than aggressively stated. The tendency is to keep it in the background as a fact to which, while himself crediting it, the writer does not hope for universal consent, still less is able to speak of it as of a general tenet and matter of dogmatic belief; he prefers to show Krishna rather in his human character, acting always by wise, discerning and inspired methods, but still not transgressing the limit of human possibility. All this leads one to the conclusion that in the body of poetry I have described, we have the real Bharata, an epic which tells plainly and straightforwardly of the events which led to the great war and the empire of the Bharata princes. Certainly if Prof. Weber’s venturesome assertion as to the length of the original Mahabharata be correct, this conclusion falls to the ground; for the mass of this poetry amounts to considerably over 20,000 slokas. Professor Weber’s inference, however, is worth some discussion; for the length of the original epic is a very important element in the problem. If we accept it, we must say farewell to all hopes of unravelling the tangle. His assertion is founded on a single and obscure verse in the huge prolegomena to the poem which take up the greater part of the Adi Purva, no very strong basis for so far-reaching an assumption. The sloka itself says no more than this that much of the Mahabharata was written in so difficult a style that Vyasa himself could remember only 8800 of the slokas, Suka an equal amount and Sanjaya perhaps as much, perhaps something less. There is certainly here no assertion such as Prof. Weber would have us find in it that the Mahabharata at any time amounted to no more than 8800 slokas. Even if we assume what the text does not say that Vyasa, Suka and Sanjaya knew the same 8800 slokas, we do not get to that conclusion. The point simply is that the style of the Mahabharat was too difficult for a single man to keep in memory more than a certain portion of it. This does not carry us very far. If however we are to assume that there is more in this verse than meets the eye, that it is a cryptic way of stating the length of the original poem; and I do not deny that this is possible, perhaps even probable — we should note the repetition of वेत्ति — अहं वेद्मि शुको वेत्ति सञ्जयो वेत्ति वा न वा (vetti — ahaṃ vedmi śuko vetti sañjayo vetti vā na vā). Following the genius of the Sanscrit language we are led to suppose the repetition was intended to recall अष्टौ श्लोकसहस्राणि (aṣṭau ślokasahasrāṇi) etc. with each name; otherwise the repetition has no raison d’être; it is otiose and inept. But if we understand it thus, the conclusion is irresistible that each knew a different 8800, or the writer would have no object in wishing us to repeat the number three times in our mind. The length of the epic as derived from this single sloka should then be 26,400 slokas or something less, for the writer hesitates about the exact number to be attributed to Sanjaya. Another passage further on in the prolegomena agrees remarkably with this conclusion and is in itself much more explicit. It is there stated plainly enough that Vyasa first wrote the Mahabharata in 24,000 slokas and afterwards enlarged it to 100,000 for the world of men as well as a still more unconscionable number of verses for the Gandhurva and other worlds. In spite of the embroidery of fancy, of a type familiar enough to all who are acquainted with the Puranic method of recording facts, the meaning of this is unmistakeable. The original Mahabharata consisted of 24,000 slokas, but in its final form it runs to 100,000. The figures are probably loose and slovenly, for at any rate the final form of the Mahabharata is considerably under 100,000 slokas. It is possible therefore that the original epic was something over 24,000 and under 26,400 slokas, in which case the two passages would agree well enough. But it would be unsafe to found any dogmatic assertion on isolated couplets; at the most we can say that we are justified in taking the estimate as a probable and workable hypothesis and if it is found to be corroborated by other facts, we may venture to suggest its correctness as a moral certainty.

But it is not from European scholars that we must expect a solution of the Mahabharata problem. They have no qualifications for the task except a power of indefatigable research and collocation; and in dealing with the Mahabharata even this power seems to have deserted them. It is from Hindu scholarship renovated and instructed by contact with European that the attempt must come. Indian scholars have shown a power of detachment and disinterestedness and a willingness to give up cherished notions under pressure of evidence, which are not common in Europe. They are not, as a rule, prone to the Teutonic sin of forming a theory in accordance with their prejudices and then finding facts or manufacturing inferences to support it. When therefore they form a theory on their own account, it has usually some clear justification and sometimes an overwhelming array of facts and solid arguments behind it. German⁸ scholarship possesses infinite capacity of labour⁹ marred by an irresponsible¹⁰ and fantastic imagination, the French a sane acuteness of inference¹¹ marred by insufficient command of facts, while in soundness of judgment Indian scholarship¹² has both; it should stand first, for it must naturally move with a far greater familiarity and grasp in the sphere of Sanscrit studies than any foreign mind however able and industrious. But above all it must clearly have one advantage, an intimate feeling of the language, a sensitiveness to shades of style and expression and an instinctive feeling of what is or is not possible, which the European cannot hope to possess unless he sacrifices his sense of racial superiority and lives in some great centre like Benares as a Pundit among Pundits. I admit that even among Indians this advantage must vary with the amount of education and natural fineness of taste; but where other things are equal, they must possess it in an immeasurably greater degree than an European of similar information and critical power. For to the European Sanscrit words are no more than dead counters which he can play with and throw as he likes into places the most unnatural or combinations the most monstrous; to the Hindu they are living things the very soul of whose temperament he understands and whose possibilities he can judge to a hair. That with these advantages Indian scholars have not been able to form themselves into a great and independent school of learning, is due to two causes, the miserable scantiness of the mastery in Sanscrit provided by our Universities, crippling to all but born scholars, and our¹³ lack of a sturdy independence which makes us overready to defer to European authority. These however are difficulties easily surmountable.

In solving the Mahabharat¹⁴ problem this intimate feeling for the language¹⁵ is of primary importance; for style and poetical personality must be not indeed the only but the ultimate test of the genuineness of any given passage in the poem. If we rely upon any other internal evidence, we shall find ourselves irresistibly tempted to form a theory and square facts to it. The late Rai Bahadur Bunkim Chundra¹⁶ Chatterji, a genius of whom modern India has not produced the parallel, was a man of ripe scholarship, literary powers of the very first order and a strong critical sagacity. In his Life of Krishna (Krishnacharitra), he deals incidentally with the Mahabharata problem; he perceived clearly enough that there were different recognizable styles in the poem, and he divided it into three layers, the original epic by a very great poet, a redaction of the original epic by a poet not quite so great and a mass of additions by very inferior hands. But being concerned with the Mahabharata only so far as it covered the Life of Krishna, he did not follow up this line of scrutiny and relied rather on internal evidence of a quite different kind. He saw that in certain parts of the poem Krishna’s godhead is either not presupposed at all or only slightly affirmed, while in others it is the main objective of the writer; certain parts again give us a plain, unvarnished and straightforward biography and history, others are a mass of wonders and legends, often irrelevant extravagances; in some parts also the conception of the chief characters is radically departed from and defaced. He therefore took these differences as his standard and accepted only those parts as genuine which gave a plain and consistent account of Krishna the man and of others in their relation to him. Though his conclusions are to a great extent justifiable, his a priori method led him to exaggerate them, to enforce them too rigidly without the proper flexibility and scrupulous hesitation and to resort occasionally to special pleading. His book is illuminating and full of insight, and the chief contentions will, I believe, stand permanently; but some parts of his argument are exaggerated and misleading and others, which are in the main correct, are yet insufficiently supported by reasons¹⁷. It is the failure to refer everything to the ultimate test of style that is responsible for these imperfections. Undoubtedly inconsistencies of detail and treatment are of immense importance. If we find grave¹⁸ inconsistencies of character, if a man is represented in one place as stainlessly just, unselfish and truthful and in another as a base and selfish liar or a brave man suddenly becomes guilty of incomprehensible cowardice, we are justified in supposing two hands at work; otherwise we must either adduce very strong poetic and psychological justification for the lapse or else suppose that the poet was incompetent to create or portray consistent and living characters. But if we find that one set of passages belongs to the distinct and unmistakeable¹⁹ style of a poet who has shown himself capable of portraying great epic types, we shall be logically debarred from this²⁰ saving clause. And if the other set of passages show²¹ not only a separate style, but quite another spirit and the stamp of another personality, our assurance will be made doubly sure. Further if there are serious inconsistencies of fact, if for instance Krishna says in one place that he can only do his best as a man and can use no divine power in human affairs and in another foolishly uses his divine power where it is quite uncalled for, or if a considerable hero is killed three or four times over, yet always pops up again with really commendable vitality but without²² warning or explanation until some considerate person gives him his coup de grâce, or if totally incompatible statements are made about the same person or the same event, we may find in either or all of these inconsistencies sufficient ground to assume diversity of authorship. Still even here we must ultimately refer to the style as corroborative evidence; and when the inconsistencies are grave enough to raise suspicion, but not so totally incompatible as to be conclusive, difference of style will at once turn the suspicion into certainty, while similarity may induce us to suspend judgment. And where there is no inconsistency of fact or conception and yet the difference in expression and treatment is marked, the question of style and personality becomes all-important. Now in the Mahabharata we are struck at first by the presence of two glaringly distinct and incompatible styles. There is a mass of writing in which the verse and language is unusually bare, simple and great, full of firm and knotted thinking and a high and heroic personality, the imagination strong and pure, never florid or richly-coloured, the ideas austere, original and noble. There is another body of work sometimes massed together but far oftener interspersed in the other, which has exactly opposite qualities; it is Ramayanistic, rushing in movement, full and even overabundant in diction, flowing but not strict in thought, the imagination bold and vast, but often garish and highly-coloured, the ideas ingenious and poetical, sometimes of astonishing subtlety, but at others common and trailing, the personality much more relaxed, much less heroic, noble and severe. When we look closer we find that the Ramayanistic part may possibly be separated into two parts, one of which has less inspiration and is more deeply imbued with the letter of the Ramayan²³, but less with its spirit. The first portion again has a certain element often in close contact with it which differs from it in a weaker inspiration, in being a body without the informing spirit of high poetry. It attempts to follow its manner and spirit but fails and reads therefore like imitation of the²⁴ great poet. We have to ask ourselves whether this is the work of an imitator or of the original poet in his uninspired moments. Are there besides the mass of inferior or obviously interpolated work which can be easily swept aside, three distinct and recognisable²⁵ styles or four or only two? In the ultimate decision of this question inconsistencies of detail and treatment will be of great consequence. But in the meantime I find nothing to prevent me from considering the work of the first poet, undoubtedly the greatest of the four, if four there are, as the original epic.

It may, indeed, be objected that style is no safe test, for it is one which depends upon the personal preferences and ability of the critic. In an English literary periodical it was recently observed that a certain Oxford professor who had studied Stevenson like a classic, attempted to apportion to Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne their respective work in the Wrecker, but his apportionment turned out [to] be hopelessly erroneous. To this the obvious answer is that the Wrecker is a prose work and not poetry. There was no prose style ever written that a skilful hand could not reproduce as accurately as a practised forger reproduces a signature. But poetry, at any rate original poetry of the first class is a different matter. The personality and style of a true poet are unmistakeable²⁶ to a competent mind, for though imitation, echo and parody are²⁷ certainly possible, it would be as easy to reproduce the personal note in the style as for the painter to put into his portrait the living soul of its original. The successful discrimination between original and copy depends then upon the competence of the critic, his fineness of literary feeling, his sensitiveness to style. On such points the dictum of a foreign critic is seldom of any value; one would not ask a mere labourer to pronounce on the soundness of a great engineering work, but still less would one ask a mathematician unacquainted with mechanics. To a Hindu mind²⁸ well equipped for the task there ought to be no insuperable difficulty in disengaging the style of a marked poetic personality from a mass of totally different work. The verdict of great artistic critics²⁹ on the genuineness of a professed Old Master may not be infallible, but if formed on a patient study of the technique and spirit of the work, it has at least considerable chances of being correct. But the technique and spirit of poetry are far less easy to catch by an imitator than those of great painting, the charm [of] words being more elusive and unanalysable than that of line and colour.

In unravelling the Mahabharata especially the peculiar and inimitable³⁰ nature of the style of Vyasa immensely lightens the difficulties of criticism. Had his been poetry of which the predominant grace was mannerism, it would have been imitable with some closeness; or even had it been a rich and salient style like Shakespeare’s, Kalidasa’s or Valmekie’s³¹, certain externals of it might be³² reproduced by a skilled hand and the task of discernment rendered highly delicate and perilous. Yet even in such styles to the finest minds the presence or absence of an unanalysable personality within the manner of expression would be always perceptible. The second layer of the Mahabharata is distinctly Ramayanistic in style, yet it would be a gross criticism that could confuse it with Valmekie’s³³ own work; the difference as is always the case in imitations of great poetry, is as palpable as the similarity³⁴. Some familiar examples may be taken from English literature. Crude as is the composition and treatment of the three parts [of] King Henry VI, its style unformed and everywhere full of echoes, yet when we get such lines as

Thrice is he armed³⁵ that hath his quarrel just

And he but naked though locked³⁶ up in steel

Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted,

we cannot but feel that we are listening to the same poetic voice as in Richard III

shadows tonight

Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard

Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers

Armed in proof and led by shallow Richmond.

or in Julius Caesar

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interrèd³⁷ with their bones.

or in the much later and richer vein of Antony and Cleopatra

I am dying, Egypt, dying; only

I here importune death awhile, until

Of many thousand kisses the poor last

I lay upon thy lips.

I have purposely selected passages of perfect simplicity and straightforwardness, because they appear to be the most imitable part of Shakespeare’s work and are really the least imitable. Always one hears the same voice, the same personal note of style sounding through these very various passages, and one feels that there is in all the intimate and unmistakeable³⁸ personality of Shakespeare. We turn next and take two passages from Marlowe, a poet whose influence counted for much in the making of Shakespeare, one from Faustus

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

and another from Edward II

I am that cedar, shake me not too much;

And you the eagles; soar ye ne’er so high,

I have the jesses that will pull you down;

And Aeque tandem shall that canker cry

Unto the proudest peer in Brittany.

The choice of words, the texture of style has a certain similarity, the run of the sentences differs little if at all; but what fine literary sense does not feel that here is another poetical atmosphere and the ring of a different voice? And yet to put a precise name on the difference would not be easy. The personal difference becomes still more marked if we take a passage from Milton in which the nameable merits are precisely the same, a simplicity in strength of diction, thought and the run of the verse “What though the field be lost”.³⁹ And when we pass farther down in the stream of literature and read “Thy thunder, conscious of the new command”⁴⁰ we feel that the poet has nourished his genius on the greatness of Milton till his own soft and luxurious style rises into epic vigour; yet we feel too that the lines are only Miltonic, they are not Milton.

Now there are certain great poetical styles which are of a kind apart; they are so extraordinarily bare and restrained that the untutored mind often wonders what difficulty there can be in writing poetry like that; yet when the attempt is made, it is found that so far as manner goes it is easier to write somewhat like Shakespeare or Homer or Valmekie⁴¹ than to write like these. Just because the style is so bare, has no seizable mannerism, no striking and imitable peculiarities, the failure of the imitation appears complete and unsoftened; for in such poets there is but one thing to be caught, the unanalysable note, the personal greatness which like⁴² everything that comes straight from God it is⁴³ impossible to locate or limit and precisely the one that most eludes the grasp. This poetry it is always possible to distinguish with some approach to certainty from imitative or spurious work. Very fortunately the style of Vyasa is exactly such a manner of poetry. Granted therefore adhikara in the critic, that is to say a natural gift of fine literary sensitiveness and the careful cultivation of that gift until it has become as sure a lactometer as the palate of the swan which rejects the water mingled with milk and takes the milk alone, we have in the peculiar characteristics of this poetry a test of unquestionable soundness and efficacy.

But there is another objection of yet more weight and requiring as full an answer. This method of argument from style seems after all as a priori and Teutonic as any other; for there is no logical reason why the mass of writing in this peculiar style should be judged to be the original epic and not any of the three others or even part of that inferior work which was brushed aside so contemptuously. The original Mahabharata need not have been a great poem at all; it was more probably an early, rude and uncouth performance. Certain considerations however may lead us to consider our choice less arbitrary than it seems. That the War Purvas⁴⁴ contain much of the original epic may be conceded to Professor Weber; the war is the consummation of the story and without a war there could be no Mahabharata. But the war of the Mahabharata was not a petty contest between obscure barons or a brief episode in a much larger struggle or a romantic and chivalrous emprise for the rescue of a ravished or errant beauty. It was a great political catastrophe implying⁴⁵ the clash of a hundred nations and far-reaching political consequences; the Hindus have always considered it as the turningpoint in the history of their civilisation and the beginning of a new age, and it was long used as a historical standpoint and a date to reckon from in chronology. Such an event must have had the most considerable political causes and been caused by the collision of the most powerful personalities and the most important interests. If we find no record of or allusion to these in the poem, we shall be compelled to suppose that the poet living long after the event, regarded the war as a legend or romance which would form excellent matter for an epic and treated it accordingly. But if we find a simple and unvarnished though not necessarily connected and consecutive account of the political conditions which preceded the war and of the men who made it and their motives, we may safely say that this also is an essential part of the epic. The Iliad deals only with an episode of the legendary siege of Troy, it covers an action of [ ]⁴⁶ days in a conflict lasting ten years, and its subject is not the Trojan War but the Wrath of Achilles. Homer was under no obligation therefore to deal with the political causes that led to hostilities, even supposing he knew them. The Mahabharata stands on an entirely different footing. The war there is related from beginning to end consecutively and without break, yet it is nowhere regarded as of importance sufficient to itself but depends for its interest on causes which led up to it and the characters and clashing interests it involved. The preceding events are therefore of essential importance to the epic. Without the war, no Mahabharata, is true of this epic; but without the causes of the war, no war, is equally true. And it must be remembered that the Hindu narrative poets had no artistic predilections like that of the Greeks for beginning a story in the middle. On the contrary they always preferred to begin at the beginning.

We therefore naturally expect to find the preceding political conditions and the immediate causes of the war related in the earlier part of the epic and this is precisely what we do find. Ancient India as we know, was a sort of continent, made up of many great and civilised nations who were united very much like the nations of modern Europe by an essential similarity of religion and culture rising above and beyond their marked racial peculiarities; like the nations of Europe also they were continually going to war with each other; and yet had relations of occasional struggle, of action and reaction, with the other peoples of Asia whom they regarded as barbarous races outside the pale of the Aryan civilisation. Like the continent of Europe, the ancient continent of India was subject to two opposing forces, one centripetal which was continually causing attempts at universal empire, another centrifugal which was continually impelling the empires once formed to break up again into their constituent parts: but both these forces were much stronger in their action than they have usually been in Europe.

The Aryan nations may be divided into three distinct groups, the Eastern of whom the Coshalas⁴⁷, Magadhas, Chedies⁴⁸, Videhas and Haihayas were the chief; the Central among whom the Kurus, Panchalas and Bhojas were the most considerable; and the Western and Southern of whom there were many, small, and rude but yet⁴⁹ warlike and famous peoples; among these⁵⁰ there seem to have⁵¹ been none that ever became of the first importance. Five distinct times had these great congeries of nations been welded into Empire, twice by the Ixvaacous⁵² under Mandhata son of Yuvanuswa⁵³ and King Marutta, afterwards by the Haihaya Arjouna Cartoverya⁵⁴, again by the Ixvaacou Bhogiratha⁵⁵ and finally by the Kuru Bharata. That the first Kuru empire was the latest is evident not only from the Kurus being the strongest nation of their time but from the significant fact that the Coshalas⁵⁶ by this time had faded into utter and irretrievable insignificance. The rule of the Haihayas had resulted in one of the great catastrophes of early Hindu civilization; belonging to the eastern section of the Continent which was always apt to break away from the strict letter of Aryanism, they had brought themselves by their pride and violence into collision with the Brahmins⁵⁷ with the result of a civil war in which their Empire was broken for ever by Parshurama⁵⁸, son of Jamadagni, and the chivalry of India massacred and for the time broken. The fall of the Haihayas left the Ixvaacous⁵⁹ and the Bharata or Ilian⁶⁰ dynasty of the Kurus the two chief powers of the continent. Then seems to have followed the golden age of the Ixvaacous⁶¹ under the beneficent empire of Bhogiratha⁶² and his descendants as far down at least as Rama. Afterwards the Coshalans⁶³, having reached their highest point, must have fallen into that state of senile decay, which once it overtakes a nation, is fatal and irremediable. They were followed by the empire of the Bharatas. By the times⁶⁴ of Santanou⁶⁵, Vichitravirya and Pandou⁶⁶ this empire had long been dissolved by the centrifugal force of Aryan politics into its constituent parts, yet the Kurus were yet among⁶⁷ the first of the nations and the Bharata Kings of the Kurus were still looked up to as the head of civilisation. But by the time of Dhritarashtra the centripetal force had again asserted itself and the idea of another great empire loomed before the imaginations of all men; a number of nations had risen to the greatest military prestige and political force, the Panchalas under Drupada and his sons, the Bhojas⁶⁸ under Bhishmuc and his brother Acrity who is described as equalling Parshurama⁶⁹ in military skill and courage, the Chedies⁷⁰ under the hero and great captain Shishupala, the Magadhas, built into a strong nation by Brihodruth⁷¹; even distant Bengal under the Poundrian Vasudave⁷² and distant Sindhu under [Vriddhakshatra] and his son Jayadrath⁷³ began to mean something in the reckoning of forces. The Yadava nations counted as a great military force in the balance of politics owing to their abundant heroism and genius, but seem⁷⁴ to have lacked sufficient cohesion and unity to nurse independent hopes. Strong, however, as these nations were none seemed able to dispute the prize of the coming empire with the Kurus, until under King Jarasundha⁷⁵ the Barhodruth⁷⁶ Magadha for a moment disturbed the political balance. The history of the first great Magadhan hope of empire and its extinction — not to be revived again until the final downfall of the Kurus — is told very briefly in the Sabhapurva⁷⁷ of the Mahabharata. The removal of Jarasundha⁷⁸ restored the original state of politics and it was no longer doubtful that to the Kurus alone could fall the future empire. But here a contest⁷⁹ arose between the elder and younger⁸⁰ branches of the Bharata house. The question being then narrowed to a personal issue, it was inevitable that it should become largely a history of personal strife and discord; other and larger issues were involved in the dispute between the Kaurava cousins; but whatever interests, incompatibilities of temperament and differences⁸¹ of opinion may divide brothers, they do not engage in fratricidal conflict until they are driven to it by a long record of collision and jealousy, ever deepening personal hatreds⁸² and the worst personal injuries. We see therefore that not only the early discords, the slaying of Jarasundha⁸³ and the Rajasuya sacrifice are necessary to the epic but the great gambling and the mishandling of Draupadie⁸⁴. It cannot, however, have been personal questions alone that affected the choice of the different nations between Duryodhana and Yudhisthere⁸⁵. Personal relations like the matrimonial connections of Dhritarashtra’s family with the Sindhus and Gandharas and of the Pandavas with the Matsyas, Panchalas and Yadavas doubtless counted for much, but there must have been something more; personal enmities [counted] for something as in the feud cherished by the Trigartas against Arjouna⁸⁶. The Madras disregarded matrimonial ties when they sided with Duryodhan⁸⁷; the Magadhas and Chedies⁸⁸ put aside the memory of personal wrongs⁸⁹ when they espoused the cause of Yudhisthere⁹⁰. I believe the explanation we must gather from the hints of the Mahabharata is this, that the nations were divided into three classes, those who desired autonomy, those who desired to break the power of the Kurus and assert their own supremacy and those who imbued with old imperialistic notions desired an united India. The first followed Duryodhana because the empire of Duryodhana could not be more than the empire of a day while that of Yudhisthere⁹¹ had every possibility of permanence; even Queen Gandhari, Duryodhan’s⁹² own mother, was able to hit this weak point in her son’s ambition. The Rajasuya Sacrifice had also undoubtedly identified Yudhisthere⁹³ in men’s minds with the imperialistic impulse of the times. We are given some important hints in the Udyogapurva⁹⁴. When Vidura remonstrates with Krishna for coming to Hastinapura⁹⁵, he tells him it was highly imprudent for him to venture there knowing as he did that the city was full of kings all burning with enmity against him for having deprived them once of their greatness, driven⁹⁶ by the fear of him to take refuge with Duryodhan⁹⁷ and all eager⁹⁸ to war against the Pandavas.

आशंसते वै धृतराष्ट्रस्य पुत्रो महाराज्यमसपत्नं पृथिव्यां ।

तस्मिञ्छमः नोपलो नोपलभ्यो बद्धं सन्तं मन्यते लब्धमर्थम् ॥

पर्यस्तेयं पृथिवी कालपक्वा दुर्योधनार्थे पाण्डवान्योद्धुकामाः ।

समागताः सर्वयोधाः पृथिव्यां राजानश्च क्षितिपालैः समेताः ॥

सर्वे चैते कृतवैराः पुरस्तात्त्वया राजानो हृतसाराश्च कृष्ण ।

तवोद्वेगात्संश्रिता धार्तराष्ट्रान्सुसंहताः सह कर्णेन वीराः ॥

त्यक्तात्मानः सह दुर्योधनेन हृष्टा योद्धुं पाण्डवान्सर्वयोधाः ।⁹⁹

āśaṃsate vai dhṛtarāṣṭrasya putro mahārājyamasapatnaṃ pṛthivyāṃ

tasmiñchamaḥ kevalo nopalabhyo baddhaṃ santaṃ manyate labdhamartham

paryasteyaṃ pṛthivī kālapakvā duryodhanārthe pāṇḍavānyoddhukāmāḥ

samāgatāḥ sarvayodhāḥ pṛthivyāṃ rājānaśca kṣitipālaiḥ sametāḥ

sarve caite kṛtavairāḥ purastāttvayā rājāno hṛtasārāśca kṛṣṇa

tavodvegātsaṃśritā dhārtarāṣṭrānsusaṃhatāḥ saha karṇena vīrāḥ

tyaktātmānaḥ saha duryodhanena hṛṣṭā yoddhuṃ pāṇḍavānsarvayodhāḥ

This can have no intelligible reference except to the Rajasuya sacrifice. Although it was the armies of Yudhisthere¹⁰⁰ that had traversed India then on their mission of conquest, Krishna was generally recognised as the great moving and master mind whose hands of execution the Pandavas were and without whom they would have been nothing. His personality dominated men’s imaginations for adoration or for hatred; for that many abhorred him as an astute and unscrupulous revolutionist in morals, politics and religion, we very clearly perceive. We have not only the fiery invectives of Shishupala but the reproach of Bhurisravas¹⁰¹, the Vahlika¹⁰², a man of high reputation and universally respected.

येषु येषु नरः पार्थ यत्र यत्र च वर्तते ।

आशु तच्छीलतामेति तदिदं त्वयि दृश्यते ॥

कथं हि राजवंश्यस्त्वं कौरवेयो विशेषतः ।

क्षत्रधर्मादपक्रान्तः सुवृत्तश्चरितव्रतः ॥

इदन्तु यदतिक्षुद्रं वार्ष्णेयार्थे कृतं त्वया ।

वासुदेवमतं नूनं नैतत्त्वय्युपपद्यते ॥

को हि नाम प्रमत्ताय परेण सह युध्यते ।

ईदृशं व्यसनं दद्याद्यो न कृष्णसखो भवेत् ॥

व्रात्याः संश्लिष्टकर्माणः प्रकृत्यैव च गर्हिताः ।

वृष्ण्यन्धकाः कथं पार्थ प्रमाणं भवता कृताः ॥

Krishna himself is perfectly conscious of this; he tells Vidura that he must make efforts towards peace both to deliver his soul and to justify himself in the eyes of men.

न मां ब्रूयुरधर्मिष्ठा मूढा ह्यसुहृदस्तथा ।

शक्तो नावारयत्कृष्णः संरब्धान्कुरुपाण्डवान् ॥

The belief that Krishna’s policy and statesmanship was the really effective force behind Yudhisthere’s¹⁰³ greatness, pervades the epic. But who were these nations that resented so strongly the attempt of Yudhisthere¹⁰⁴ and Krishna to impose an empire on them? It is a significant fact that the Southern and Western peoples went almost solid for Duryodhana in this quarrel — Madra, the Deccan, Avanti, Sindhu Sauvira, Gandhara, in one long line from southern Mysore to northern Candahar¹⁰⁵; the Aryan colonies in the yet half civilised regions of the Lower valley of the Ganges espoused the same cause. The Eastern nations, heirs of the Ixvaacou¹⁰⁶ imperial idea, went equally solid for Yudhisthere¹⁰⁷. The Central peoples, repositories of the great Kuru Panchala tradition as well as the Yadavas, who were really a Central nation though they had trekked to the West, were divided. Now this distribution is exactly what we should have expected. The nations which are most averse to enter into an imperial system and cherish most their separate existence are those which are outside the centre of civilisation, hardy, warlike, only partially refined; and their aversion is still more emphatic when they have never or only for a short time been part of an empire. This is the real secret of the invincible resistance which England has opposed to all Continental schemes of empire from Philip II to Napoleon; it is the secret of her fear of Russia; it is the reason of the singular fact that only now after many centuries of great national existence has she become imbued with the imperial idea on her own account. The savage attachment to their independence of small nations like the Dutch, the Swiss, the Boers is traceable to the same cause; the fierce resistance opposed by the greater part of Spain to Napoleon was that of a nation which once imperial and central has fallen out of the main flood of civilisation and is therefore becoming¹⁰⁸ provincial and attached to its own isolation. That the nations of the East and South and the Aryan colonies in Bengal should oppose the imperialist policy of Krishna and throw in their lot with Duryodhana is therefore no more than we should expect. On the other hand nations at the very heart of civilisation, who have formed at one time or another dominant parts of an empire fall easily into imperial schemes, but personal rivalry, the desire of each to be the centre of empire, divides them and brings them into conflict not any difference of political temperament. For nations have very tenacious memories and are always attempting to renew the great ages of their past. In the Eastern peoples the imperialistic idea was very strong and having failed to assert a new empire of their own under Jarasundha¹⁰⁹, they seem to have turned with one consent to Yudhisthere¹¹⁰ as the man who could alone realise their ideal. One of Shishupal’s remarks in the Rajasuya¹¹¹ sacrifice is very significant

वयं न तु भयादस्य कौन्तेयस्य महात्मनः ।

प्रयच्छामः करान्सर्वे न लोभान्न च सान्त्वनात् ॥

अस्य धर्मे प्रवृत्तस्य पार्थिवत्वं चिकीर्षतः ।

करानस्मै प्रयच्छामः सोऽयमस्मान्न मन्यते ॥

vayaṃ na tu bhayādasya kaunteyasya mahātmanaḥ

prayacchāmaḥ karān sarve na lobhānna ca sāntvanāt

asya dharme pravṛttasya pārthivatvaṃ cikīrṣataḥ

karānasmai prayacchāmaḥ so'yamasmānna manyate

We remember that it was an Eastern poet who had sung perhaps not many centuries before in mighty stanzas the idealisation of Imperial Government and Aryan unity and enshrined in his imperishable verse the glories of the third Coshalan¹¹² Empire. The establishment of Aryan unity was in the eyes of the Eastern nations a holy work and the desire of establishing universal lordship with that view a sufficient ground for one of the most self-willed and violent princes of his time [to] put aside his personal¹¹³ feelings and predilections in order to farther it. Shishupal had been¹¹⁴ one of the most considerable and ardent supporters of Jarasundha¹¹⁵ in his attempt to establish a Magadhan empire; that attempt having failed he like Jarasundha’s own son turned in spite of his enmity with Krishna to Yudhisthere as the coming Emperor. Even the great quarrel and the summary slaughter of Shishupal by Krishna could not divert his nation from its adhesion to the new Empire. The divisions of the Central nations follow an equally intelligible line. Throughout the Mahabharata we perceive that the great weakness of the Kurus lay in the division of their counsels. There was a peace party among them led by Bhishma, Drona, Kripa and Vidura, the wise and experienced statesmen who desired justice and reconciliation with Yudhisthere¹¹⁶ and a warparty of the hotblooded younger men led by Karna, Duhsasana and Duryodhana himself who were confident of their power of meeting the world in arms; King Dhritarashtra found himself hard put to it to flatter the opinions of the elders while secretly following his own predilections and the ambitions of the younger men. These are facts patent on the face of the epic. But it has not been sufficiently considered what a remarkable fact it is that men of such lofty character as Bhishma and Drona should have acted against their sense of right and justice and fought in what they had repeatedly condemned as an unjust cause. If Bhishma, Drona, Kripa, Aswatthaman¹¹⁷ and Vikarna had plainly intimated to Duryodhan¹¹⁸ that they would support Yudhisthere¹¹⁹ with their arms or even that they would stand aloof from the war, it is clear there would have been no war at all. And I cannot but think that had it been a question purely between Kuru and Kuru, this is the course they would have adopted. But Bhishma and Drona must have perceived that behind the Pandavas were the Panchalas and Matsyas. They must have suspected that these nations were supporting Yudhisthere¹²⁰ not out of purely disinterested motives but with certain definite political objects. Neither Drupada nor Virata would have been accepted by India as emperors in their own right, any more than say Sindhia or Holkar would have been in the last century. But by putting forward the just claims of a prince of the imperial Bharata line, the descendant of Bharata Ajamede¹²¹ connected with themselves by marriage, they could avoid this difficulty and at the same time break the power of the Kurus and replace them as the dominant partners in the new Empire. The presence of personal interests is evident in their hot eagerness for war and their unwillingness to take any sincere steps towards a just and peaceful solution of the difficulty. Their action stands in striking contrast with the moderate, statesmanlike yet firm policy of Krishna. It can hardly be supposed that Bhishma and the Kuru statesmen of his party were autonomists; they must have been as eager for a Kuru empire as Duryodhana himself.

At any rate they eagerly welcomed the statesmanlike reasonings¹²² of Krishna when he proposed to King Dhritarashtra to unite the force¹²³ of Pandava and Kaurava and build up a Kuru empire which should irresistibly dominate the world. “On yourself and myself” says Krishna “rests today the choice of peace or war and the destiny of the world; do your part in pacifying your sons, I will see to the Pandavas.”

सहायभूता भरतास्तवैव स्युर्जनेश्वर ॥

धर्मार्थयोस्तिष्ठ राजन्पाण्डवैरभिरक्षितः ।

न हिशक्यास्तथाभूता यत्नादपि नराधिप ॥

न हि त्वां पाण्डवैर्जेतुं रक्ष्यमाणं महात्मभिः ।

इन्द्रोऽपि देवैः सहितः प्रसहेत कुतो नृपाः ॥

यत्र भीष्मश्च द्रोणश्च कृपः कर्णो विविंशतिः ।

अश्वत्थामा विकर्णश्च सोमदत्तोऽथ बाह्लिकः ॥

सैन्धवश्च कलिङ्गश्च काम्बोजश्च सुदक्षिणः ।

युधिष्ठिरो भीमसेनः सव्यसाची यमौ तथा ॥

सात्यकिश्च महातेजा युयुत्सुश्च महारथः ।

को नु तान्विपरीतात्मा युध्येत भरतर्षभ ॥

तस्य ते पृथिवीपालास्त्वत्समाः पृथिवीपते ।

श्रेयांसश्चैव राजानः सन्धास्यन्ते परन्तप ॥

स त्वं पुत्रैश्च पौत्रैश्च पितृभिर्भ्रातृभिस्तथा ।

सुहृद्भिः सर्वतो गुप्तः सुखं शक्ष्यसि जीवितुम् ॥

एतानेव पुरोधाय सत्कृत्य च यथा पुरा ।

अखिलां भोक्ष्यसे सर्वां पृथिवीं पृथिवीपते ॥

एतैर्हि सहितः सर्वैः पाण्डवैः स्वैश्च भारत ।

अन्यान्विजेष्यसे शत्रूनेष स्वार्थस्तवाखिलः ॥

तैरेवोपार्जितां भूमिं भोक्ष्यसे च परन्तप ।

यदि संपत्स्यसे पुत्रैः सहामात्यैर्नराधिप ॥

sahāyabhūtā bharatāstavaiva syurjaneśvara

dharmārthayostiṣṭha rājanpāṇḍavairabhirakṣitaḥ

na hi śakyāstathābhūtā yatnādapi narādhipa

na hi tvāṃ pāṇḍavairjetuṃ rakṣyamāṇaṃ mahātmabhiḥ

indro'pi devaiḥ sahitaḥ prasaheta kuto nṛpāḥ

yatra bhīṣmaśca droṇaśca kṛpaḥ karṇo viviṃśatiḥ

aśvatthāmā vikarṇaśca somadatto'tha bāhlikaḥ

saindhavaśca kaliṅgaśca kāmbojaśca sudakṣiṇaḥ

yudhiṣṭhiro bhīmasenaḥ savyasācī yamau tathā

sātyakiśca mahātejā yuyutsuśca mahārathaḥ

ko nu tānviparītātmā yudhyeta bharatarṣabha

tasya te pṛthivīpālāstvatsamāḥ pṛthivīpate

śreyāṃsaścaiva rājānaḥ sandhāsyante parantapa

sa tvaṃ putraiśca pautraiśca pitṛbhirbhrātṛbhistathā

suhṛdbhiḥ sarvato guptaḥ sukhaṃ śakṣyasi jīvitum

etāneva purodhāya satkṛtya ca yathā purā

akhilāṃ bhokṣyase sarvāṃ pṛthivīṃ pṛthivīpate

etairhi sahitaḥ sarvaiḥ pāṇḍavaiḥ svaiśca bhārata

anyānvijeṣyase śatrūneṣa svārthastavākhilaḥ

tairevopārjitāṃ bhūmiṃ bhokṣyase ca parantapa

yadi saṃpatsyase putraiḥ sahāmātyairnarādhipa¹²⁴

But the empire of Yudhisthere¹²⁵ enforced by the arms of Mutsya¹²⁶ and Panchala or even by the armed threats meant to Bhishma and Kripa something very different from a Kuru Empire; it must have seemed to them to imply rather the overthrow and humiliation of the Kurus and a Panchala domination under a Bharata prince. This it concerned their patriotism and their sense of Kshatriya pride and duty to resist so long as there was blood in their veins. The inability to associate justice with their cause was a grief to them, but it could not alter their plain duty. Such as I take it is the clear political story of the Mahabharata. I have very scantily indicated some of its larger aspects only; but if my interpretation be correct, it is evident that we shall have in the disengaged Mahabharata not only a mighty epic, but a historical document of unique value.

What I wish, however, to emphasize at present is that the portions of the Mahabharata which bear the high, severe and heroic style and personality I have described, are also the portions which unfold consecutively, powerfully and without any incredible embroidery of legend this story of clashing political and personal passions and ambitions. It is therefore not a mere assumption, but a perfectly reasonable inference that these portions form the original epic. If we assume that the Ramayanistic portions of the epic or the rougher and more uncouth work precede these in antiquity, we assume that the legend was written first and history added to it afterwards; this is a sequence so contrary to all experience and to all accepted canons of criticism that it would need the most indisputable proof before it could command any credence. Where there is a plain history mixed up with legendary matter written by palpably different hands, criticism judges from all precedents that the latter must be later work embodying the additions human fancy always and most in countries where a scrupulous historic sense has not been developed weaves round a great event which has powerfully occupied the national imagination. Moreover in judging the relative genuineness of different styles in the same work, we are bound to see the hand of the original writer in the essential parts of the story as we have it. It makes no difference to this question whether there was an original ballad epic or not, or whether it was used in the composition of the Mahabharata or not. We have a certain poem in a certain form and in resolving it to its original parts we must take it as we have it and not allow our judgment to be disturbed by visions of a poem which we have not. If the alleged ballad epic was included bodily or in part in the Mahabharata, our analysis will find it there without fail. If it was merely used as material just as Shakespeare used Plutarch or Hall and Holinshed, it is no longer germane to the matter. Now the most essential part of a story is the point from which the catastrophe started; in the Mahabharata this is the mishandling of Draupadie and the exile of the Pandavas; but this again leads us back to the Rajasuya sacrifice and the imperial Hall of the Pandavas from which the destroying envy of Duryodhan took its rise. In the Sabhapurva therefore we must seek omissis omittendis for the hand of the original poet; and the whole of the Sabhapurva with certain unimportant omissions is in that great and severe style which is the stamp of the personality of Vyasa. This once established we argue farther from the identity of style, treatment and personality between the Viratapurva and the Sabhapurva, certain passages being omitted, that this book is also the work of Vyasa. From these two large and mainly homogeneous bodies of poetical work we shall be able to form a sufficient picture of the great original poet, the drift of his thought and the methods of his building. This we shall then confirm, correct and supplement by a study of the Udyogapurva which up to the marching of the armies presents, though with more but still separable alloy breaking in, the same clear, continuous and discernible vein of pure gold running through it. Thus armed we may even rely on resolving roughly the tangle of the Adi and Vana Purvas and it is only when the war begins, that we shall have to admit doubt, faltering and guesswork; even here however we shall not be without some light even in its thickest darkness. That the poem can be disentangled, I hold then to be beyond dispute, but it can only be done by a long and voluminous critical analysis, and even this must be supported by a detailed edition of the whole Mahabharat in which each canto and chapter shall be discussed on its own merits. At present therefore I propose to pass over the method after once indicating its general nature and present certain definite results only. I propose solely to draw a picture, in outline merely, of the sublime poetical personality which an analysis of the work reveals as the original poet, the Krishna Dwaipayana who wrote the Bharata of the 24,000 [slokas] and not the other Vyasa, if Vyasa he was, who enlarged it to something approaching its present dimensions. And let me express at once my deep admiration of the poetical powers and vast philosophic mind of this second writer; no mean poet was he who gave us the poem we know, in many respects the greatest and most interesting and formative work in the world’s literature. If I seem to speak mainly in dispraise of him, it is because I am concerned here with his defects and not with his qualities; for the subject I wish to treat is Krishna of the Island, his most important characteristics and their artistic contrast with those of our other greater, but less perfect epic poet, Valmekie¹²⁷.

I have said that no foreigner can for a moment be trusted to apply the literary test to a poem in our language; the extraordinary blunders of the most eminent German critics in dealing with Elizabethan plays have settled that question once for all. Educated Indians on the other hand have their own deficiencies in dealing with Vyasa; for they have [been] nourished partly on the curious and elaborate art of Kalidasa and his gorgeous pomps of vision and colour, partly on the somewhat gaudy, expensive and meretricious spirit of English poetry. Like Englishmen they are taught to profess a sort of official admiration for Shakespeare and Milton but with them as with the majority of Englishmen the poets they really steep themselves in are Shelley, Tennyson and Byron and to a less degree Keats and perhaps Spenser. Now the manner of these poets, lax, voluptuous, artificial, all outward glitter and colour, but inwardly poor of spirit and wanting in genuine mastery and the true poetical excellence is a bad school for the appreciation of such severe and perfect work as Vyasa’s.

Earlier edition of this work: Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library: Set in 30 volumes.- Volume 3.- The Harmony of Virtue: Early Cultural Writings — 1890-1910.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Asram, 1972.- 489 p.

¹ 1972 ed.: Parvas