Secondary Tales of the Two Great Epics

Author(s): Rajendra I Nanavati
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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Secondary Tales of the two Great Epics
tale is small, it is easy to maintain this unity and to discern it. But where the forms are massive like the novel or the epic, a greater genius is required to maintain the unity of design through the grander movement of the narrative which, taking its start -- its push from a knotty or conflicting situation, and then gathering momentum as it proceeds, reaches the climax -- the pinnacle of conflict, then resting or resolving in the denouement.
That epics, always and everywhere, take their starting push from such critical situation, is not difficult to show. Homer's Iliad, for example, takes its momentum from the episode in which Achilles withdraws from the contest as a result of which the tide of the Trojan war takes a turn showing how indispensable Achilles is to the Greek forces.
Even in the MBh itself we have a very good example in the Nalɔpākhyānamo? of what a real original epic of those days could have been like. This and such other upākhyānas are rightly called by Winternitz "epic within the epic". 48 It is a connected tale, complete in itself and, in a way, possessing all the dimensions and characteristics of a real artistic epic-narrative. That it is a real original epic-poem and not an abridgement of some other epic will be clear even from a cursory comparison of it with Rāmopākhyānani,' which is obviously an abridgement of the present RM. The narrative of Nala, after some barely necessary prefatory remarks (such as Nala was the king of Nişadha, was a great King etc.), takes its starting push from the critical situation of Kali's failure to obtain Damayanti, resulting in his jealousy and consequently the game of dice between the two brothers and then moves on in a straightforward and dignified manner. The course of narrative is entirely free from the impression of an undue haste so inevitable in an abridgement on the one hand and from any kind of unnecessary paddings in the form of secondary tales and discourses on the other. Nalopākhyānam is an epic in its own right.
Taking a closer look at Nalopākhyānam, therefore, leaves no doubt that the original forms of RM and MBh also must have shown characteristics similar to those of Nalopākhyānam itself, though somewhat on a larger scale. RM actually seems to corroborate our supposition. In it, the events of AyK show the real artistic beginning of original epic of Vālmīki, and the material of BK as well as UK is clearly marked out as secondary or interpolated by being appended into separate Kāndas in the beginning and at the end. Th: evidences of the text, style and internal contradictions further support our supposition.
The case of MBh is not as obvious as that of RM, but when we apply the same criteria to the MBh, it is not very difficult to see the artistic beginning of the original nucleus in the events of the SabP. Yudhisthira's Rājasūya sacrifice, with its 47 Van P. Adhyāyas 50-78. 48 History of Indian Literature, Vol. I, M, Winternitz, Tr. Mrs. S. Ketkar, Calcutta. p. 381, 49 VanP, Adhyāyas, 258-276.