Recent Russian Publications On Indian Epic

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong

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similarity of theme in different parts of the epic and without being connected with the concrete epic situation. This occurs in the case of groups of maxims, of stereotyped glorifications of narrators and of references to widely known legends or myths. Not only single verses but also whole passages are repeated when the same episode is being told twice or more. Often a story is first told by the narrator and later repeated in the same or almost the same words by one of the heroes. In other instances, the same events are described both in a detailed and a short version. In such cases the short version is, as it were assembled' out of the verses of the detailed version (cf. the birth of Drona and his enmity with king Drupada in M 1. 121-128 and 1. 154). The cause of the duplication of an episode can be simply the desire of the poet to single out the most important and pathetic scenes but, more probably, repetitions result from the special nature of the oral performance of the epic. Two possibilities must be taken into account. 1. The epic singer continues his performance during many days. Therefore it is very probable that at the beginning of a new session and before a partly new audience he repeats an episode which he had already told before in order to connect the events of the story with each other. 2. The same traditional epic topics are related by many different singers and often in substantially different versions. The singer who knows these versions sometimes wishes to incorporate in his performance two or three versions of the same epic event.
RUSSIAN PUBLICATIONS ON THE INDIAN EPIC
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