Madhuvidya

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

Page 527

tells us. According to it Yudhisthira played twenty games to lose his possessions, brothers, himself, and wife in a certain order. Vikarna had never argued that Yudhisthira staked his sarvasva, and had not mentioned Draupadi by name," therefore she could not be looked upon'as won. It is therefore necessary to assume that what Karņa said to Vikarņa belongs to a different version of the event and that these stanzas are interpolated in the standard version.
4) In the narration of the Sabhāparvan, stanza 58.30 must be considered interpolated. In that stanza Vaišampāyana tells Janamejaya : “Having said this, (Sakuni) who was fond of dice, defeated all those known heroes of the world (i.e. the Pandavas), who stood staked, by throwing the dice, (winning) each one of them separately.
(evam uktvã matiksas tăn glahe sarvẫn avasthitần/ parājayal lokavīrān aksepena prthak pethak)
The point of narration where this incongruous stanza occurs is as follows: After Yudhisthira had staked his brothers, one after the other, and finally himself, and played and lost the games immediately after the declaration of each one of the stakes, Sakurti suggested the stake of Draupadi in two stanzas. In the first stanza, he blamed Yudhisthira for having lost himself when he had some 'wealth' left (2.58.29). In the second, Sakuni specifically suggested to Yudhisthira to stake Draupadi and "win yourself back''8 (panasva krsņām pāñcălim tayātmānam punar jaya (2.58.31). These two stanzas of Sakuni should have occurred one after the other. Instead, between the two (29 and 31) occurs Vaišampāyana's stanza noted above (30) which is not only out of the place but is inconsistent with the main narration.
Stanza 30 is out of the place because the narrator has already told us that Śakuni had won all the five brothers by playing five games. Now Śakuni had started to suggest to Yudhisthira to stake Draupadi. There is thus no occasion for Vaišampāyana to intervene and tell what he has already told before.
The stanza is incongruous because it tells a different story about the progress of the game. According to the standard version Yudhisthira and Sakuni played the games immediately after the stake of each one of his brothers and of Yudhisthira himself was announced. According to Vaiśarpāyana's stanza, however, all the five stakes were deelared first, in a certain order, and when that act was completed the two players played five games one after the other. Stanza 30 of Vaišampāyana opens with the words evam uktva. This indicates that in the lost version, before stanza 30, there must have been a stanza in which Sakuni told Yudhisthira something as follows: "Now that you have staked all your brothers and yourself, let us play the games for those five stakes". Only under the assumption of some such course of events Vaišampāyana's stanza beginning with 'Having and said thus ...." will be consistent. In the standard version it is obviously interpolated.
Once we assume that stanza 2.58.30 is interpolated in the standard version we recognize some more factors which support such an assumption. We notice that
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