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the tales in Mahabharata
Fire, the king gave away the princess to him. Substantially the tale remains the same.
The cultural implications of the tale are interesting. Women in the south used to become priestesses in the temples. Their society was female-centred. When the Vedic religion reached in that matri-centric country, the fire was kindled by women only. They bad the right of performing the daily worship-ceremony which was gradually taken over by the Brāhmins. The priestesses have now remained merely as templedancers or Devadasis. But the above tale indicates that though the original Vedic tradition would have frowned upon such practices, yet when the Aryans reached these countries, they had no other alternative than to come to an understanding with them, and accept the customary practices of the female-centric societies willy-nilly.344,
In Adhyāya 61, there is an interesting tale told by Vidura. Draupadi has been won over by Sakuni for Duryodhana in the famous gam: of dice. Her pertinent question is : Had Yudhisthira lost his own self first in the game of dice or had he lost Draupadi first? The intricacy of the problem is this. If Yudhişthira loses his own self first, he becomes a slave and loses all rights to property in which a wife is also included. He then has no property even in the form of a wife whom he can stake; if at all he does so, the stake may not be considered legal. Consequently Draupadi may not be considered as won as a stake in the game of dice, may not be considered as a slave and be ill-treated. Karņa takes the view that if Yudhisthira has lost everything and himself and become a slave, whatever property that belonged to him (including a wife, Draupadi) formerly now automatically becomes the property of the winner who is free to treat of his booty in a way he likes. Karna then asks Duhśāsana to take away the clothes of all the Pāndavas as well as of Draupadi. Then follows the famous episode of Draupadi-vastraharaṇa in which Duhýāsapa struggles hopelessly to insult Draupadi by disrobing her but fails. Vidura then urges the members of the assembly to express their dispassionate opinion about the problem posed by Draupadi, and narrates the episode of Prahlada.345 The episode runs thus : Prabláda was the king of Daityas. His son Virocana had an argument with Sudhanvan, a descendent of Angiras, about their relative supremacy over each other for the sake of a girl. They had a bet of their lives. For decision, they approached Prahlada. But Sudhanvan warned that if the latter gave a false judgment, Indra would shatter his head. Prahlada, afraid at this, asked Kaśyapa about the fruit of not answering a question or answering it falsely. Kaśyapa enunciates to him the fruit of not answering a question either personally or in an assembly, and of answering it wrongly. Prahlada then gives the judgment in favour of Sudhanvan.
The tale becomes still more interesting when we notice that the rules enunciated by Kaśyapa about answering a problem are almost entirely taken verbatim from 344 For a fuller treatment, read "Bharat mān Anek Sanskritio no Sangam". Gujarati (Confluence
of Many Cultures in India). Ksitimohan Sen, Tr. R. Raval, Buddhiprakash, Vol CXVI.
No. 6, June 1969. 345 SabP. 61,58-78.
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