________________
The Tales in Mahabharata
here is only this that Janamejaya's snake-sacrifice cannot be taken as an evidence to prove the existence of a ritual human sacrifice in ancient Indian society. If anything at all, it may be taken as metaphorising the mass burning of Naga tribes as comparison of the motifs, as we shall just see below, seems to indicate.
It will be seen that this raises a number of a questions. Where did Janamejaya perform the so called snake-sacrifice? Before Uttańka approaches him, he has already. conqured Taxila and returned to Hastinapura.58 He is not shown to go to Taxila again for performing the sacrifice. Towards the end of the MBh he is shown to return from Taxila 59 where he is shown to hear the entire principle narrative. Yet throughout the actual narration of Janamejaya-story-group, the mention of the place of is carefully avoided. Thus, Janamejaya goes to Taxila, wins it, returns to Hastinapura, is approached by Uttanka, performs the snake-sacrifice. is not shown to go to Taxila, yet returns therefrem. As it is, either we must accept the duplication of Janamejaya's visit to Taxila, or face the contradiction. Looking carefully at the evidence, however, it becomes obvious that the duplication arises on account of the Uttanka-story-group; if we remove it, the duplication disappears. That Janamejaya is not shown to go to Taxila and yet is shown to return therefrom is a contradiction which must either mean that the king actually attacked Taxila and his mass-burning of Naga-people there was metaphorised as a sacrifice, or that he mass-burnt them alive somewhere and the city of Takṣasila was mentioned as a place later on account of the similarity of its name with that of Tak şaka.
In either case mass-burning of the Naga-people by Janamejaya seems to be historical. There is not much difficulty in accepting Janamejaya as historical. But could the serpents be accepted as human Naga-tribals? It should be noted that in the epic. itself, at one place at least the Nagas are referred to as human beings. On seeing the fire consuming the Khandava forest, gods approached Indra saying: "Why,. O lord of immortals, are these 'manavah' being burnt by Fire? Has the end of the worlds come ?'"'60 We must also note that the epic-writers attempt to suggest some sort of hereditory animosity between the Nagas and the Kuru-princes. In the burning of the Khandava forest, Arjuna (and Kṛṣṇa also, of course) is shown to kill many serpents alongwith other animals. Takṣaka is said to be to be at Kuruksetra at that time,61 so he is saved. His son Asvasena is saved by his wife at the cost of her own life 62 Maya is allowed to escape,63 probably because he is na Naga, but a Danava. Then, Tak saka takes his revenge by biting Arjuna's grandson Parikşit. This is, again, avenged by the famous sarpa- satra in which the target is, of course Taksaka. By impli
58 AdiP. 3,179.
59 See above fn. 38.
60 AdiP. 217.16
61 AdiP. 218.4.
62 AdiP. 218.5-9.
63 AdiP. 219.35-39.
101
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
