Upabrmhana and Rgveda Interpretation

Author(s): T G Manikar
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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The Hymn of Mudgala Bharmyasva (X. 102)
and really are to be made and then collected. Hence we have bhare krtam vi ci'. It is for these reasons that one cannot accept the suggestions that we are dealing here with a 'race'. There is yet another supposition in Velanker's exposition which makes his view somewhat difficult for our acceptance. According to Velanker, the car had on one side the bull and wooden dummy with small wheels on the other, to serve as another bull and so it was the companion of the bull, vrṣabhasya yunjam as the drughana is described (9). Further Velanker feels that Mudgala himself drove the bull while Mudgalāni did the more difficult part of driving the dummy. It is clear from the hyma itself that the bull and the dummy serving as the bull were yoked to the car and they sped to victory. But the circumstance of two drivers at one and the same time driving two animals yoked to a car is something very rare as well as strange. Neither the Veda nor the Epics show a supporting illustration for such an incident. It is for these reasons that the 'race' theory has to be discarded.
In this manner we come to the conclusion that it is a war that we are dealing with here, a view that has been put forth by Bloomfield, Pargiter and others. Yet the views of Bloomfield and Pargiter cannot be accepted in their entirety. According to Bloomfield it is a mythological fight and not a human one. According to him the theme of the hymn is a battle and in the course of it a hammer, drughana, plays an important part, a singular role. The coupling of the forces of Senā and Vajra as male and female embodiments of Indra's forces is the rock-bed upon which the legend has grown up. In Indrasenā he sees the embodiment of the female forces and the drughaņa stands for the male forces. In conbination, these two forces win. This is, as a matter of fact going too far. The characters that participate are clearly treated as human individuals and it is difficult to think that symbolism is here resorted to. The Mahabharata and the Purānas as the earlier versions of the incident, though divergent in themselves, are yet uniform in making the characters historical persons and the incident a real happening. It is in this eontext that the view of Bloo. mfield becomes difficult to be accepted. Pargiter also is inclined to read a historical event and personalities as involved in this hymn but he introduces more characters in the incident than the hymn warrants. Pargiter (JRAS. 1910, p. 1328) in the light of the information supplied by the Purānas regards Indrasena and Mudgalānī as two different persons; for Mudgalāni is not mentioned in the Puranic geneology but, as the name clearly indicates, she inust be the wife of Mudgala. Indrasenā is given in the geneology as the daughter-in-law of Mudgala. Further the word 'vadhri' (12) in the hymn according to him refers to Vadbryaśva who in the geneology is the son of Indrasenā. Keśī is according to him a proper noun of the person who