________________
that the author of the Mahābhārata suggested the continuation of the line of the Pāņdavas through Uttară with garments of the Kauravas is something preposterous.
If the author of the Mahabharata did want to convey a suggested meaning by the use of the word pāñcālikārtham it could only be 'bring the garments of the Kaurava heroes for Draupadi, i.e. bring them to avenge the insult done to her by trying to remove her upper garment in the Sabhā'. Neither the garments of the first nor of the second episode have anything to do with rebirth or the continuation of the line of the Pandavas.
NOTES: 1. Alf Hiltebeitel : Draupadi's Garments, Indo-Iranian Journal, 22.97-112 (1980). 2.
I have argued this point at length in a Marathi article published in the Navabhärata (Wai, Dt. Satara, Maharashtra) April 1987. Hiltebeitel's translation (p. 98) of the
above line“ strip the Pandava's and Draupadi's clothes" goes beyond the text. 3. nānārāgavirágāni vasanāny atha vai prabho prădurbhavanti Sataso dharmasya
paripälanāt 2.61.553.* For Draupadi taking recourse to satyakriyā on a different
occasion see Mbh.4.14.18. 4. For a detailed and very instructive account, see H. Lüders, Varuna, I 308-314,
5.
In the Virāțaparvan (35.23), the garments, in a different context, are similarly described as citrāni (variegated -- virāga of the interpolated Sabhāparvan passage) and vividhāni (of different colours = nānārāga of the same passage). Mahābhārata : Das Geschehen und seine Bedeutung, Bonn, 1975-206-207;224225. This work is not accessible to me. Mbh. 4.35.23.
7.
Madhu Vidya/471
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