Secondary Tales of the Two Great Epics

SR No.: 001566
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Rajendra I Nanavati
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1982
Total Pages: 210
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Literature, Mythology, & Story
File Size: 15 MB

Page 108

The Tales in Mahabharata
95
About the other inconsistency, he says : "It seems to me that two accounts of the same events are taken into the text side by side. The first is much briefer, and is no doubt truncated; it includes only adhy. 45. Note the significant fact.... that this adhyāya ends with a statement that Vidura, who has just been commanded to carry the challenge to Yudhişthira, goes instead, full of misgivings, to Bhişma. Now the rest of our text has no reference to any interview between Vidura and Bhīşma. But surely there must have been one in the version which began as in our adhy. 45. Such references in the MBh. always lead to something; they are not left hanging in the air ..... But our text has no more of this version ... ... it seems to me clear that our text contains duplicate accounts of a story which (aside from that incident) is essentially the same, and this can be reasonably accounted for only on an assumption that it was composed with the use of different versions, parts of which were incorporated side by side in this text, the ancestor of all our known MSS.":29
The case of the duplication of the introductory-story-groups is slightly different from the above cases which are only different versions of the same stream of events with only small differences in details. Our case is different in that the stories are entirely different. But the fact that they are both used for the same purpose creates the duplication in the sense that the principal story with its framing Sarpa-satra episode is sought to be introduced by two different story-groups in two different versions, and in our text both are incorporated side by side. It may be argued that of the two at least Uttanka-story-group does have a reasonable connection with the Sarpa-satra-story. Uttanka also wants to avenge upon Takşaka and hence joins hands with Janamejaya.30 But, that is exactly the point. Does he really join hands with Janamejaya? He does not play any active or significant or even mentionable part in the actual satra. To be sure, the redundance of the Uttanka-story-group is sought to be glossed over by making only a passing reference or two31 to him. The duplication, therefore, seems to indicate an attempt to incorporate side by side two different introductions to the frame-story from two separate versions.
That brings us to Janamejaya to whom Uttanka comes and instigates against Takşaka. Janamejaya then decides to perform the Snake-sacrifice in which the entire MBh is narrated. Now, "Janam-ejaya ('man-impelling') is the name of a king, a Pārīksita, famous towards the end of the Brāhmaṇa period. He is mentioned in the Śatapatha Brahmana as .... a performer of the Aśvamedha .. .. His capital, according to a Gathā quoted in the Satapatha and the Aitareya Brāhmaṇas, was Āsandivant. His brothers Ugrasena, Bhimasena and Srutasena are mentioned as having by the horse sacrifice purified themselves from sin. The priest who performed the sacrifice for him was Indrota Daivāpi Saunaka ... ... Aitareya .... names Tura Kāva şeya as
29 ibid. pp. xxxii-xxxiii. 30 See above fn.12. 31 Supra fn.19.