Wilfried Huchzermeyer - Studies in the Mahabharata

Wilfried Huchzermeyer

Studies in the Mahabharata

Indian Culture, Dharma and Spirituality

In the Great Epic

With Many Original Sanskrit Texts

edition sawitri

Karlsruhe

Verlag W. Huchzermeyer

Lessingstraße 64

D-76135 Karlsruhe

sawitri@t-online.de

www.edition-sawitri.de

1st eBook Edition 2018

ISBN 978-3-931172-44-2

© 2018 edition sawitri – Verlag W. Huchzermeyer, Karlsruhe

All rights reserved

Contents

Preface Preface The present book is based on my dissertation titled Essential Features of Indian Culture and Spirituality, As Presented in the Mahābhārata, submitted to the University of Pune in 1985 under the guidance of Dr. S.D. Laddu. The text has been newly edited for the purpose of this title; several chapters were omitted and numerous passages have been rewritten. I have also given my own translations of all the Sanskrit quotations in the text. In the Appendix, I have added a summary of the complete action in the Mahābhārata. Readers who are not familiar with the epic are recommended to read this summary at first. Moreover, I also present some of the more important original Sanskrit texts in full length.1 In this way, the whole book is a new creation which aims at presenting the original content in a more interesting and accessible form. Wilfried Huchzermeyer Whenever this is the case, English translations are marked “SKR” at the end and the respective footnote refers to the Appendix.

Introduction

1. Arjuna’s Marriages

Ulūpī

Urvaśī

Citrāṅgadā

Subhadrā

2. Śrī Kṛṣṇa – The Ritual of Departure

Kṛṣṇa in the Ādiparvan

The Ritual of Departure

3. Śrī Kṛṣṇa – Guru and Leader of the Pāṇḍavas

Kṛṣṇa’s Dialogue with Yudhiṣṭhira

The Execution of Kṛṣṇa’s Plans

Śiśupāla’s Intervention

4. Psychological, Philosophical and Legal Aspects of the Dice Game

Preliminary Events

Śakuni’s Role

The Game Starts

Nala’s Dice Game

The Deeper Cause of Yudhiṣthira’s Losses

Draupadī’s Battle

Bhīṣma’s Commentary and Bhīma’s Fury

Vikarṇa’s Pleading for Draupadī

The Miracle

Vidura’s Vain Intervention

Draupadī’s New Appeal and Bhīṣma’s Response

Duryodhana’s Interjection

Bhīma’s Response

Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s Intervention

Karṇa’s Commentary and Bhīma’s Reaction

Summary

Epilogue – Kṛṣṇa’s Commentary

5. The Mahābhārata’s Synthesis of Revenge and Forgiveness

Draupadī’s Opening of the Debate

Prahlāda’s Teaching

Yudhiṣṭhira’s Rebuttal

Draupadī’s Criticism of dharma

Draupadī’s Philosophy of Divine Determinism

Dharma for the Sake of Itself

Draupadī’s Pleading for Dynamic Action

Bhīma’s Pleading and Yudhiṣṭhira’s Rebuttal

Conclusion

6. Saints Sages and Ascetics – The Creative Function of Curses and Blessings

Saramā Cursing Janamejaya

The Clash of Uttaṅka and Pauśya

King Parikṣit and Śṛṅgin’s Curse

Bhṛgu cursing Agni

A Brāhmin Cursing Ruru

Kadrū and Vinatā

Garuḍa and the Vālakhilyas

The Modification of Kadrū’s Curse and Further Events

7. Jaratkāru and Agastya

I - Jaratkāru

Jaratkāru Meeting His Forefathers

Jaratkāru’s Brief Marriage

II – Agastya and Lopāmudrā

8. Aṇīmāṇḍavya and Durvāsas

I - Aṇīmāṇḍavya

II – Durvāsas and Kuntī

Supernatural Conception

Durvāsas and Mudgala

Durvāsas and Kṛṣṇa

Durvāsas, Kṛṣṇa and the Pāṇḍavas

9. Saṁvarta

King Marutta and Nārada’s advice

Marutta meeting Saṁvarta

Indra’s Counteraction and Saṁvarta’s Defence

10. Vasiṣṭha and Viśvāmitra

Vasiṣṭha Āpava

Vasiṣṭha Suvarcasa

Vasiṣṭha Maitrāvaruṇi and Viśvāmitra

King Kalmāṣapāda

11. Ṛśyaśṛṅga, Yavakrīta and the Brāhmin Saint

I – Ṛśyaśṛṅga

II - Yavakrīta

III – The Nameless Brāhmin Saint

12. Sanatsujāta

Kriyā Yoga

The Sanatsujātīya

“Distraction is Death”

On the Veda

13. Śuka

Śuka’s Birth

At the Court of King Janaka

Nārada’s Talk on Sanatkumāra’s Wisdom

Śuka’s Path to Complete Liberation

Appendix I - Sanskrit Original Texts

1 – Draupadī in the Assembly Hall

2 – Vikarṇa’s speech

3 – The Miracle of endless skirts

4 – Kṛṣṇa’s commentary on the dice game

5 – Yudhiṣṭhira’s sermon on forgiveness

6 – Draupadī’s philosophy of divine determinism

7 - Yudhiṣṭhira on dharma for its own sake

8 – Draupadī’s rejection of fatalism and accidentalism

9 – Śuka’s Life

Appendix II - A Summary of the Mahābhārata

I – The Main Action

II – The Structure

Literature

Preface

The present book is based on my dissertation titled Essential Features of Indian Culture and Spirituality, As Presented in the Mahābhārata, submitted to the University of Pune in 1985 under the guidance of Dr. S.D. Laddu. The text has been newly edited for the purpose of this title; several chapters were omitted and numerous passages have been rewritten. I have also given my own translations of all the Sanskrit quotations in the text.

In the Appendix, I have added a summary of the complete action in the Mahābhārata. Readers who are not familiar with the epic are recommended to read this summary at first. Moreover, I also present some of the more important original Sanskrit texts in full length.1 In this way, the whole book is a new creation which aims at presenting the original content in a more interesting and accessible form.

Wilfried Huchzermeyer

Whenever this is the case, English translations are marked “SKR” at the end and the respective footnote refers to the Appendix.

Introduction

The Mahabharata, although neither the greatest nor the richest masterpiece of the secular literature of India, is at the same time its most considerable and important body of poetry. Being so, it is the pivot on which the history of Sanskrit literature and incidentally the history of Aryan civilisation in India, must perforce turn.2

Sri Aurobindo

Whether we realize it nor not, it remains a fact that we in India still stand under the spell of the Mahābhārata. There is many a different strand that is woven in the thread of our civilization, reaching back into hoary antiquity. Amidst the deepest of them there is more than one that is drawn originally from the ancient Bhāratavarṣa and the Sanskrit literature. And well in the centre of this vast pile of Sanskrit literature stands this monumental book of divine inspiration, unapproachable and far removed from possibilities of human competition.3

V.S. Sukthankar

Vyasa’s epic is a mirror in which the Indian sees himself undeceived.4

P. Lal

With the Greeks the dominant passion was the conscious quest of ideal beauty: with the Indians it has invariably been the quest of ideal life.5

V.S. Sukthankar

The Mahābhārata is one of the most impressive creations of the Indian mind. If it cannot compare with the Upaniṣads in philosophic depth, with Kālidāsa’s poetry in refinement and splendour, it yet has a quality of its own and is unequalled in its comprehensiveness, the mass of material offered and the variety of subjects discussed – ranging from history, philosophy and law to yoga, spirituality and psychology.

Indeed, the volume of knowledge expounded in this epic is so immense that most critics have rightly assumed that it can hardly be the product of a single brain howsoever gifted. Some great scholars of the Mahābhārata such as a modern translator of the text, J.A.B. van Buitenen, and India’s great yogi-poet Sri Aurobindo, agree that the Mahābhārata was originally a smaller epic of about 24,000 verses, and that this nucleus was subsequently enhanced by an endless series of later additions made by authors who deemed Vyāsa’s genial creation a fit vehicle for their own less inspired poetic expressions, philosophic ideas, dogmatic teachings and religious beliefs.