Madhuvidya

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

Page 505

the bones (sarirāņi) were collected." (p. 3). He cites from the Baudhayana-pirmedhaSūtra (3.10) where the jar in which the bones (asthini pl.) of the cremated person are collected is addressed as sariram (sg.). Dr. Dange also refers to the Katyayana - Śrauta Sutra 21 3.7-13, and the Sankhayana-Srauta-Sutra (4.15.20), but in both these passages we do not have the use of the word sariram (sg.) in the sense 'bone"".
It will therefore be clear that the word sariram occurs only once in the singular and there it refers directly to the jar (kumbha) in which the bones are collected and not to the bones themsleves. The kumbha in which the bones are collected represents the body which has bones. Hence this occurrence of sariram in singular cannot be given as evidence to prove that in Sanskrit sariram in the sg. is used to convey the meaning 'bone'. In order to be able to derive support from the Baudh. Pitr. Sutra we have to assume that when the sages told the Kauravas ime tayoh sarire dve (1.117.30) they gave them two jars in which the bones were collected. If this were really the case the narrator would have most certainly mentioned that the sages collected the bones of Pandu and Madri in two separate jars and brough them to Hastinapura. The narrator was probably quite familiar with this mode of re-cremation. But the narrator does not say anything of the sort. Nor does he say that the sages asked the Kauravas to do the punaḥsaṁskära (Baudh. Pitr. Sutra 3.8) of Pandu and Mädri. Nilakantha on whom Prof. Dange so much relies does not make any reference to the jar. He simply says deham dehayor asthini, thereby interpreting the word deha straight away as asthini without bringing in the concept of a jar. For him the jar does not figure at all. Otherwise he would have said something like deham dehayoh kumbhayoh avahitani asthini.
Next, we have to note that in order to reconcile this 'jar' theory with the detailed account of the antyasamskära in the Mbh. Prof. Dange has to assume that the two small jars were remade into big jars which were later covered with cloth and decorated with ornaments to give them the semblance of actual bodies (p. 5). From this assumption I am glad to note that Prof. Dange shows awareness of the fact that the small jar in which the collected bones are supposed to have been brought could not look like bodies even when covered with cloth and ornaments. Hence the assumption of re-making them into big jars for which, as Prof. Dange notes, there is not even a distant allusion. But, in spite of this, Prof. Dange has no hesitation in giving his judgement on the silence of the text on this importatant point as 'unnecessary' (p. 5). 1 for one do not understand how a jar can be adorned with ornaments and even if this is somehow achieved how it can give the semblance of an actual body. All-in-all, this jar-theory of Prof. Dange, beginning with Nilakantha's changing deham (sg.) of the epic text to dehayoḥ (dual) and paraphrasing it as asthini and ending with remarking of small jars into big jars, is saddled with too many difficulties to inspire confidence. If the critically admitted text of the Mahabharata had only this single instance of internal contradiction between the two accounts of Pandu and Madri, perhaps, one would have accepted Nilankantha's suggestion to get rid of it as there was no other way out. But since the critical edition presents many instances of such
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