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The Tales in Mahabharata
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or ancestors is the central element in the tales of Parāśara and Janamejaya also. Aurva, Parāśara and Janamejaya, further, are checked by ancestors or sages, who are related either to the aggrieved or the afflicted party. Aurva is said to have only heated the worlds with his penance intended to destroy the worlds, but Parāśara is reported to have actually instituted a sacrifice of Rāk sasas just as Janamejaya did that of Nāgas. Thus, the tales of Cyavana, Aurva, Parāśara and Janame jaya form a cluster which reveals a gradual shift in the motif structures, leading to the tale of Janamejaya.
The story of Kalmāşapāda and other episodes connected with the ViśvāmitraVasiştha-controversy are already referred to above.273 The story of Tapati is interesting in two ways. (1) It seems to have some connection with the present river Tāpți. It will not be missed that the present city of Surat is often referred to as Süryapura and the sub-town on the opposite bank of Tapti is called Rander, the seat of Rannāde or Randaldevi---the wife of the Sun-god. The area of South Gujarat is still known among the traditional brāhmins as Bhrgu-kşetra; Sukthankar has shown that the final edition of MBh was prepared under a very strong influence of the Bhārgava Brāhmins. It is quite likely that the Bhārgava redactors might have left in the epic some imprints of their geographical associations in the form of such tales. (2) It is said in the latter part of the tale, that after his marriage with Tapatī, king Samvaraņa enjoyed himself in her company for twelve years in the mountains and during those twelve years it did not rain in his capital and kingdom. Then Vasiştha brought bim to the town and all was well again. Apparently it reminds us of the tale of R$yaśộnga. But the case is reverse here. The king himself has to be brought back to to his kingdom by his priest so tbat it may rain.
It is then said that Tapati eventually gave birth to Kuru in whose line finally the epic-heroes appeared. This Kuru is famous through the Kuruksetra the land of which, it is said, he tilled with his own hands,274 The story has, therefore, twofold releyance : it is the birth-story of the progenitor of the race of the epic-heroes, and of the person who tilled the field which finally became the battlefield of the epic-heroes.
We may be pardoned, however, if we suspect some agricultural myth even in this tale. Tapati has often been called in this tale the "younger sister of Sāvitri"275 She is another aspect, the heat, of the sun. Sarvarana (derived from saṁ+v vr-'to cover, cover up',) taking her into the mountains may symbolise the heat of the sun being covered up by the clouds. So long as the clouds are away, it does not rain. Only when they return, it rains. And only then the heat covered up with clouds gives birth to Kuruthe tiller of the field. 276 Whether this interpretation be acceptable or not, the
273 See above p. 61 ff. 274 SalP. 53. 275 "Savitry-avaraja'. Cf. Adip. 160.7, 161 20, 163.1. 276 The name Kuru has a protonym Kurus in Avesta. Whether it has some connection
with the root krs - 'to plough' is still a matter of research,
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