Madhuvidya

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

Page 698

Annals BORI, LXIX (1988)
learnt from his father the epic as expanded by him by making additions to Vaisampayana's original text. There is no statement in the epic to this effect. According to the epic, Süta Lomaharsana does not figure at all in the line of transmission of the text.
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That Vaisampayana and Sara Ugrasravas (Sauti) are among the authors of the epic is admitted at all hands. Now what has the statistical analysis to say about their share of composition? It wants us to believe that Vaisampayana, the author of the Ur-Bharata, composed only 13 of the extant 18 parvans and, what is still more striking, he had no hand in the composition of the two very important parvans of the epic the Sabba and the Aranyaka ! How can Janamejaya understand the epic story if the Incidents of the Sabhāparvan are omitted from the narration? It is not known how Shri Yardi in his account of the Ur-Mahabharata can include the following lines if the original text did not have parvans 2-4: "... who (i. e. Asura Maya) in gratitude built for the Pandavas a celestial palace. Duryodhana, on beholding that palace, became jealous and desired to possess it. And so deceiving Yudhisthira in a dice game with the help of his maternal uncle Sakuni, he contrived to send the Pandavas to the forest to spend a period of twelve years in exile and one more year in disguise." (p. 5).
This much about the omission of the two entire parvans in the ori ginal composition. If one goes through the contents of the parvans ascribed to Vaisampayana one may come across some serious omissions. The one such is to be found in the Dronaparvan. Thus the original Bharata is supposed to have contained Adbyāyas 11-25, 50-51, but it did not contain 26-49. This means that the original epic had nothing to say about the killing of Abhimanyu. This would be a very glaring omission and it is hardly believable that none of those who heard the narration asked Veisampayana about the death of Abhimanyu on the battle-field. Even Süta, who according to Shri Yardi was the first to make additions did not think it necessary to say a word about the killing of Abhimanyu, and it was left to his son, Sauti Ugradravas, to make good the omission in his third redaction.
Since family discord (bheda) and the destruction of kingdom (rajyavināta) form the kernel of the epic story (1. 54. 19, 22-24; 55. 4-5), and since the brief narration of the incidents in 1-55 stops at the death of Duryodhana, it is likely that the Ur-Bharata ended there and that Vaisampayana had no hand in the composition of the parvans 11-18. But whereas the statistical analysis points to Vaisampayana as the author of some of the adhyayas of Santi- (12) and Anusasana-parvans (13), the contents of which Madhu Vidya/673