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thighs took this as an act of wilful violation of the rule and not as an inevitable result of a vow (or a curse).20
The only conclusion that can be drawn from the above account is that the two episodes related to the vow and the curse must be interpolations. The interpolations occurred very early in the oral epic tradition giving them time enough to spread to all the versions. And since they are now found in all the versions they could not be set aside and have found place in the critical edition of the epic. The critically edited text is no doubt free from the obvious interpolations which were revealed by the comparison of the versions, but the critically edited text is not free of all interpolations. Dr. V. S. Sukthankar has asked the readers to take note of this fact. He writes that there are many old and new elements in the critically edited text, sometimes even side by side.21 It is now for the future scholars to bring to light the hidden interpolations by a careful reading of the text.
The motivation for the interpolation of the vow and the curse is not far to seek Bhima's act of hitting Duryodhana below the navel was inevitable on account of his inferiority to Duryodhana in a mace duel. But the act involved adharma. In order to absolve Bhima from the sin of this adharma an incident was interpolated in the Sabhäparvan in which Duryodhana bared his thigh to show it proudly to Bhima. This enraged Bhima to proclaim his famous vow. Apparently, at some stage, it was felt that the vow was not quite enough to fully absolve Bhima from the adharma. It is true that as a Kṣatriya it was his duty to fulfil the vow. But why did he, even in a fit of anger, take the vow which involved adharma? Hence another incident was interpolated in the Aranyakaparvan in which Duryodhana stroked his thigh in the presence of the sage Maitreya. Duryodhana was cursed by the sage for his insolence, 22 and the curse of the sage must prove true. Now there was no question whether Bhima was inferior to Duryodhana or not, or whether he had taken the vow or not. Even if Bhima was superior to Duryodhana, and could bring him down by fighting strictly according to the rules, and even if he had not taken the vow, Duryodhana's thighs had to be hit by his mace so that the words of the sage proved true.
It was said above that the account of the war as reported in the epic does not show that any one of the principal characters involved in the war was aware of the vow of Bhima. There are, however, a few exceptions.
One exception is found when Krsna suggested to Arjuna that Bhima must take recourse to some adharma to win the duel.23 He then made a casual reference to Bhima's vow, but not to the curse.24 It is quite clear that Krsna would have welcomed Bhima's winning the duel without having to take recourse to adharma. He waited for quite some time to see if that could happen. It was only when he realized that that was not possible that he alerted Arjuna. Madhu Vidya/529
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