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168
Annals BORI, LXXVIII (1997)
nada is able to kill Virăța with his ministers and the entire army there is no necessity of imagining the rise of evil forces from the drops of his blood fallen on the ground. And apart from this the parallelism sought to be established between the epic and the Purăņı incidents does not stand scrutiny, It was not Sairandhri who really stopped the blood from falling on the ground. It was Yudhişthira himself who did it. Sairandhrl came into the picture a little later ( 4.63. 45-47). In the Purāņa incident Candika fights with Rakta. bija, her enemy. She hits the demon and asks Kāli not to let the blood drop down. When this is cione Candikā kills Raktabija. In the epic Virăța hit Yudhisthir, his friend, in a fit of anger, not his real enemy. Yudhişthira, who is at the receiver's end, and not Virāța, the bitter, who asks Sai. randhri to hold the blood in a vessel. When this is done, Yudhisthira does not kill Virāta.
H. meets with a formidable difficulty with regard to Draupadi's hair in an incident in the Ajñātavāsa. When Sairandhri ran to Sudeşņā's quarters she untied her hair loose (kesän mukıvā 4. 15. 36).14 This expression indicates that before Sairandhri loosened her hair they were tied up in some way. This clearly goes against H.'s view that Draupadi's hair were all along loose. He, therefore, takes kesän muktvā to mean “Draupadi spreads or shakes loose her already unbound hair.” (p. 197). This is impossible. That H. himself is not satisfied with his interpretation is seen from his next statement that "there is no precise and evident consistency in every epic reference to Draupadi's hair" (p. 198). This means that according to H, too kesän muktvå means "having loosed her hair" (which were tied up before ). But he would explain it away simply as an example of epic inconsistency,
But there is no real inconsistency. The expression in its normal sense is easily understood. When Draupadi was insulted by Kicaka in the presence of her two husbands, she was understandably wild with anger, her eyes red and burning (4,15. 14, 36 ). In this state of mind, no wonder if she suddenly decided to set her hair loose to indicate that she considered her husbands as good as dead.
In this connection it is necessary to consider another piece of evidence which H. brings forward in support of his contention of Draupadi's deliberate neglect of her hair. According to him, although there is no consis
11 The Southern recension reads instead keson pramuktan salyamya (4. 338* ). This
will not help H. (p. 197). As a variant to kešan in ktva, keśan pramuktan samyanya can only mean that Sairandhri gathered together her hair which she had (just) loosened.
Madhu Vidyā/518
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