Madhuvidya

Author(s): S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 440

274
R. N. Dandekar Felicitation Volume
Dr. Mrs. Iravati KARVE was perhaps the first to call attention to this cruel slaughter of the denizens of the Khāndava forest. She has tried to explain the slaughter in two ways : (1) The bitds and beasts killed were not really birds and beasts but were human beings with certain birds and beasts for their to. tems (devakas). The forest was burnt down for farming, and it was necessary to see that none of the natives living in the forest survived to claim the ownership of the land. Hence every one had to be killed. (2) In her second explanation, Mrs. KARVE suggests that Krsna and Arjuna did not feel any scruples in killing the residents of the forest since they looked upon them as aliens. The rules implicitly adopted by the Ksatriyas for fairness in war - such as prohibition of killing one who has no weapons, who is running away for life, who is crying for help!-- need be observed only within one's in-group, i. e. while fighting with those who were looked upon as one's own', and not with the aliens. But this explanation, as noted by Mrs. KARYE herself, is not satisfactory since the Nāgas at any rate could not be looked upon as aliens by those born in the house of the Kurus. Mrs. Karve, then, asks a question, but fails to come up with a clear answer : Did Krsņa and Arjuna feel that the people and the animals living in the forest were fit to be burned down or butchered by powerful weapons? It is time the answer yes', however unpalatable, is explicitely stated. Instead of trying to save living beings from fire, these two heroes did everything to throw them back into it. The author of the Mahabharata is outspoken in his description. He records that Arjuna laughed smugly when he saw pieces of birds, cut down by his arrows, fell into the fire (1.217.11 ). This was an extremely cruel act. It is strange that none of the women who went to the river-side with Krsna and Arjuna objected to what the two were doing. Even Yudhisthira, who permitted Krsna and Arjuna to spend a day at Yamunā, did not ask them on return why they stayed away for six days, and if he knew what had happened, as he must have, ask the two an explanation. The question about the justness of this act has apparently never been raised in our history.
One wonders whether the persons responsible for such heinous acts escaped without punishment. We have been tirelessly told in our moral exhortations that
1. In the chapter on Mayasabhä in her book Yugānta (in Marathi) pp. 128ff,
2. Mrs. KARVE has not made it clear why she disfavours this explanation. We may think of a few grounds to reject this theory. (1) First, the forest was so large it took six days to burn down. Hence it was not impossible to preserve a part of it and burn the rest for agriculture ; (2) Asvasena, the only Nāga who escaped, never came forward to claim his land ; (3) It does not appear that the area surrounding the Khāndavaprastha was so thickly populated that it was necessary to burn down a big forest for making land available for agriculture ; (4) Finally, ift the forest was burnt for using it as a farm land why did the author of the Mahabharata not say it so plainly?
3. These are, e. g., made explicit io Mbh. 6. 1. 26 ff.
Madhu Vidya/415