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88 | Indian Literature
Draupadi? It is really a question of finding justification for an act which went against the rules of marriage sanctioned by tradition (1.187.26-27). Jani sees the solution of the problem in an 'ethnological fact' (p.72). For this Jani simply relies on the statement of Yudhisthira in which he says that in suggesting a polyandrous marriage he was merely going the way his ancestors did (1.187.28). But we are entitled to ask: Who were these ancestors of Yudhithira who entered into a marriage of this type? How were Jațilä, Värkşi or even Saibyä related to the Pandavas? It is going too far when Jani says: "Polyandry was in vogue in their (i.e. of the Pandavas) family" (p.73) because Kunti had three sons, one each from Dharma, Vayu and Indra. As we know this had happened apparently because Kunti was acting under constraints of the mantra received by her-each, mantra could be used only once, and as a corollary the same deity could not be invited a second time (1.104.3). Would Jani say that Kunti was the 'wife' of the three deities whom she invited? Yudhisthira, no doubt, is called 'Dharmaputra', but is Kunti ever referred to as 'Dharmapatni', or for that matter Vayupatni or Indrapatni? If not, how can we say that Kunti had entered into a polyandrous marriage? And granting that to be the case, why does Yudhisthira then not justify the marriage on the ground that his mother had done the same?
Jani looks down upon polyandry as an uncivilized custom (p.73). This means that whether a community is civilized or not depends on its marriage customs. Will the author then be prepared to accept that Indians, as against the communities who practise monogamy, were uncivilized because they, until recently, were polygamous?
The author at one stage suggests, as has been suggested by other scholars before him, that since Pandavas had lived on the Himalayas for some years and that since some Aryan tribes. who came to India via the Himalayas practised polyandry, Pandavas too chose that form of marriage. But there is no reason why the Pandavas should not have followed the customs of their own family and adopted alien ones. It is hardly necessary
Nov.-Dec. 1990
Madhu Vidya/702
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