Secondary Tales of the Two Great Epics

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

Page 31

Secondary Tales of the two Great Epics invitation, not to visit the palace, but to attend the sacrifice. Therefore, Rajasuya is essential to the story, the palace is not.
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Why then is the incident introduced in the story? Actually, Maya's building the palace for the Pandavas comes as return, in some way, of Arjuna's obligation in letting him alive at Khaṇḍava-burning. This Khandava-daha episode occurs at the end of AdiP. The obligation and its return occur chronologically, one immediately after the other, and the two, as forming a unit, would naturally be expected to occur at one place. But the redactor is clever. He puts the obligation at the end of the AdiP, its return in the beginning of the SabP and thus achieves a feeling of continuity between the incidents of AdiP as well as SabP. This serves to connect up the entire AdiP, in a seemingly inevitable manner, with the rest of the epic; the chain of events being as follows: (a) Khändava-daha Arjuna's obligation Maya's escape his gratitude-building the palace - (b) Narada's visit - describing divine palaces incidental rhention of Hariścandra also Pandu's instruction-(e) Yudhisthira's thinking of Rajasuya. It will be seen that there is no essential link between (a) and (c) since the incidents in (b) are all, as we have seen above, dispensable.
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Thus, it seems extremely probable that almost entire SabP (from Mantra subparvan onwards) is essential to the central event and forms part of the original epic, while the entire AdiP, together with the incident of Maya's palace-building for the Pandavas, is a subsequent addition. This has an exact parallel in the RM where the entire BK, like AdiP, is of an interpolatory nature and rather clearly marked out by being put into an entirely separate Book. On the other hand, the motifs of jealousy (both of Kali and of Puşkara) and dice between the brothers-bhrätṛdyuta - giving a starting push to the Nala-story provide an exact parallel to the same motifs of jealousy and dice between cousins starting the MBh-story. That such a parallel is intended. is also confirmed from the fact that, when Nala has lost everything in dice to Puskara, the latter refers to Damayanti who can still be pawned. Nala merely swallows the insult but does not pawn her. This clearly hints at the famous incident of Draupadī being pawned and lost by Yudhisthira and dragged and insulted by the Kauravas into the open court.
It should be noted here that the SabP is almost entirely free from the Bhrguizing elements which are so profusely strewn throughout the epic. Even that famous line referring to the imaginative feat of the Bhargava Rama - trih saptakṛtvah prthivi kṛta nihkṣatriya pura- repeated in the epic in season and out of season does not occur in the SabP even once. The only minor reference to Bhrgus is in SabP, 13.1 where all the contemporary so-called royalties are said to be only of a lower origin. since Räma Jamadagnya had annihilated the entire Kṣatra-class. This freedom from
50 here called 'Suhṛd-dyuta', vide MBh-SabP 51.1, 52.8 etc.
51 vide 'The Bhrgus and the Bharata', V. S. Sukthankar, Sukthankar Memorial Edition, Vol. I, pp. 278-337.