Study Of Mahabharata

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong

Page 16

#**it (105) rilineal grouping, each phratry by itself is composed of a male and a female half. In this respect, therefore, each phratry constitutes in itself a perfect whole, which, in the classificatory system is expressed, as we have already seen, by male-female. So it can be said, that the two phratries together constitute the tribe as a whole; it can also be maintained, that the whole is also constituted by each phratry in itself, by each half or moiety of the tribe. The two patrilineal phratries are to one another as man to woman. But when we turn to matrilineal descent we are equally justified in saying, that the two phratries are identical, the patrilineal dual division being intersected by the matrilineal. Here, then, with the literal facts of the case before us we are confronted with the to all appearances illogical logic of A being the same as but not identical with B." (pp. 170-171).
Many scholars have considered those portions of the epic in which divine homage is rendered to Krşņa as later interpolations. Held remarks that they are so closely related to, so essentially interwoven with the rest of the work that they do not admit of being separated from the context without further ado (p. 22). He points out that in the Purāņas Krsna and his brother Balarāma represent the two tribal moieties; they constitute the couple, of whom one is the benefactor, the other the arch-deceiver or trickster, the two culture heroes. However, in the epic Krşna himself is both benefactor and the trickster in one and the same person. He is a bene. factor because he assists Arjuna in battle and aids the Pāndavas with good advice. As Vişņu-Nārāyaṇa he is also the demiurge, the creative god himself, who, aroused from sleep, starts the Cosmos "turning again". He is a trickster and is continually represented as an imposter who manages to carry his point by employing all kinds of fraudulent means. He not only has a dual nature on the mental plane, but also on the physical plane because he is often represented as a child. According to Held, his doings as a child are not a later addition to the Krşņa legend and he points out that the Kamsavadha, the struggle between Krşna and his maternal uncle, is mentioned already by Patañjali. The Kamsavadha, in Held's view, is the dramatic representation of a ritual antagonism between the two phratries and calls to mind the ceremony of initiation in which the mother's brother is the initiatordesignate (p. 178). Arjuna is the initiate, being one with, and yet not the same as, the god-initiate, Kışņa (p. 186). According to Held, essential for the study of the epic is the identification of Krşņa and Arjuna with Nārāyaṇa and Nara, each couple being the essential complement of the other (p. 164). Kșşna is one with Arjuna as Nārāyaṇa is with Nara.
Held agrees with Sylvain Lévi, who considered the Bhagavadgitā to be the central part of the epic ("le coeur et le noyau de l'ouvrage "). In the Gitā, Krşņa