Secondary Tales of the Two Great Epics

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

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Introductory Now, when we exmine the two sets of incidents -- those included in the summary and those excluded from it - the homogeneous character of both the sets becomes too persistently obvious to be neglected. The incidents included in the summary are all, though not connected with the actual epic story, at least directly connected with the epic-heroes. They are the incidents occurring in the lives of the heroes prior to the point from which the actual epic-story starts. The incidents excluded from the summary are, with a few unimportant exceptions, all related to the ancestors of the epic-heroes, and therefore only remotely connected with the heroes.
Considering the nature of the incidents included in the summary, we feel that they are very characterstic of the folk-curiosity which is so child-like, which expects to hear everything about the hero, from the beginning to the end, and which completely ignores considerations of artistic or formal unity of a tale. It is only natural and common-sense to think that these incidents must be the first and the oldest interpolations to the original epic. From a unified connected narration of an original tale, the most natural next step towards its expansion is the inclusion of events connected with the tale in some way or the other, if not with the central theme, at least with the.central heroes. And the events included in the summary testify to this commonsense conclusion. For one, the events form a homogeneous group, and they are all clustered at one place in the latter half of the Adip, or are rather prefaced to the original epic. Then, as we have already seen above, the summary is accompanied by its author's attempt to justify the inclusion of these events by making them appear as inevitable in the scheme of the entire epic, but the very necessity of such a justification creates suspicion. The author tries to conceal their secondary nature by trying to provide links in the events of Maya's palacebuilding and Nārada's visit. But the separated placement of the former event and the innecessity of the latter render the links rather weak. The index, therefore, must be taken to represent the very first redaction of the original epic, K is rather difficult to see how else can we explain or justify the position, the nature and the purpose of such an index-summary.
The confirming parallel can also perhaps be found in the two indexes of RM, where the first index (BK. 1) mentions the incidents of the central original Kāndas while the second (BK. 3) includes the incidents of BK and UK also. The second index thus represents the second stage in the develop nent. of the epic. Similarly, the third index of the Adip, in a slightly different manner must represent a later stage when the events, external to the central epic, yet connected with the lives of the heroes, were introduced into the original epic of Vyāsa.
Perhaps, the very name Adip gives out a lie to its being interpolated. It is important to note here that BK, which is accepted by all to be a later addition to RM, is also called in some manuscripts Adi Kānda. The fact can be confirmed from the critical apparatus of the colophon of any Adhyāya of BK as well as the colophon to passage 1 relegated to the Appendix I of BK, which reads : ity ārse rāmāyane