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46
Secondary Tales of the two Great Epics
has never seen a woman in his life, and who, being ignorant of the sex-differences, tries to describe her also as a sage is full of humorous possibilities, and once again reminds one of and confirms the relation between Eros and laughter; of Sțngāra and Hāsya, so tacitly accepted by our prime Nātyācārya Bharata.74
(4) Finally, the question remains : why was Rsyaśộnga brought in when Vasiştha was already there? Vasistha is a famous Vedic Seer. He is fully capable of performing Aśvamedha which Dasaratha desires to do in order to obtain sons and which is expected to fulfil that desire as is attested by the rites of the sacrifice as well as by the textual evidence. What is more, he is the traditional family-priest of the Solar kings and in that capacity is supposed to have a right and a responsibility to perform the sacrifice. And he performs it! There is absolutely no necessity of any other sage. Why Rşaśộnga ?
One possible answer could be this : the Upaveśana ceremony and the vulgar dialogues of the Aśvamedha sacrifce which are the core of the sacrifice and which can rightly be looked upon as the direct causes of the birth of the epic-beroes might, at
some stage of the development of the culture and perhaps of the epic), have seemed abhorrant to the more refined tastes of the people. So the redactors might have brought in another sage to do the job. The reason for choosing this sage might be its popularity on account of its comic element as well as its being famous as the tale symbolising the fertility-rite. But that is exactly the reason which makes this answer unacceptable. If the Upaveśana and the vulgar dialogues seemed abhorrant, could the ludicrous comic and the symbolised motif of the fertility-rite be less so ? Actually, the fact of the sage being given the princess in marriage itself shows the epic-authors' attempt to suppress its seemingly unethical aspect of merely ritual mating. The author of the RM-version suppresses even the comic element of the tale; therefore, it could not have been brought in for its entertainment value either.
The more probable answer seems to be this : Rşyaśșrga is brought in with a purpose to perform Putreşti and this Putresti is said to be Atharvaņa.76 Vasiştha is a Rigvedic Seer and cannot be supposed to perform an Atharvaņa rite which can rightly be entrusted only to a sage who is either an expert of Atharvana rites or belongs to the Athārvavedic tradition. Therefore, Rsyśroga must be supposed to have close connection with the Atharvaveda. But the evidence of our Brāhmaṇic and Purāņic gensalogies does not show Rşyaśrnga to be in some very special relation to the Atharvana tradition.76 We have, however, seen in Chapter I that both the Atharvaveda and the Epics-Purāņas are very closely linked with the folk-literature
74 Ch. Śrngärād dhi bhaved dhāsyo. Naya'sāstra of Bharata, VI. 39; GOS, Baroda, II edn., 1956, 75 Cf. istim te'ham karişyāmi putriyam putra-kärapat
atharva-sirasi proktair mantraiḥ siddhäm vid hāna tah || BK. 14, 2. 76 See Pargiter-Pradhan, Vedic Index etc.
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