Why do the natural, human and supernatural worlds freely interact in Mahabharata? One reason is that in India, as in many ancient cultures, non-human forms of life, birds, animals, and even trees were believed to have superhuman abilities and powers. They could possess special wisdom and have a relationship with the sacred. Indian thought and belief does not distinguish between human and non-human orders of being. Apart from being a spiritual formulation, this also contains a psychological truth as Joseph Gold has shown.[1] All are parts of a whole as human beings as well as everything else has the same spark of divinity. With such a worldview words of wisdom can come from both human and non-human characters and the two worlds can interact and mirror each other smoothly. The basic assumption of such a worldview is that all creation is interconnected because all individuals and beings are rooted in the same Brahman. There is a common Self behind all which is Brahman. The Yogavashishtha says, “How can the thought that some one is one’s brother and another is not hold good when there is one and the same all-pervading Self present in all of us?” [2]
The Speaking Forests
A large part of the action in Mahabharata takes place in the forests. Forests had a very special place in Indian culture. They have given rise to the literature of the Aranyakas deriving from the word aranya, or a forest. Some of the Upanishads, including the Brhadaranyaka are part of the forest literature. So great was the importance of forests, that retiring to them was recommended as the third stage of life, the Vanaprastha, prescribed to the Hindus. The forests have also been the abode of rishis (sages, hermits) with their ashramas. Tyaga or sacrifice, tapasya or penances and austerities and tapovana or a sacred grove where austerities and ascetic practices were undertaken have always been an essential part of the Indian culture and ideal.
Not only does a lot of action in Mahabharata take place in the forests, there is also constant interaction between the worlds of nature and human beings. How intimate is the relationship between the two can be seen from Yudhishthira’s refusing to go to heaven without the dog that has been following him on the last journey on the Himalayas. It turns out that it was Dharmaraja himself who was giving Yudhishthira his final test on earth before rewarding him with heaven. The swans carry Nala’s messages to Damyanti. Sarama the celestial she-dog curses Janamejaya. Kings and rishis fall because of hubris and are turned into snakes. Devatas like Agni and Indra come disguised as pigeon and hawk respectively to test the virtue of king Shibi. Indra in the guise of a bird lectures to the brahmana youth who want to become ascetics before going through the phase of being householders. Camels perform austerities and penances for which they are granted boons by Brahma. Apsaras turn into crocodiles because of wanton behavior and have to await Arjuna before they can be liberated. Worms ascend the ladder of being to become kings. A mongoose instructs Janamejaya on what is the true nature of a sacrifice. Examples can be multiplied.
Animals and birds may be `people’ of the woods and waters but they are like us in their variety, and do not necessarily conform to our perceptions of them. We, for example, see snakes as vicious and evil but that is not necessarily true of all snakes. They are not cardboard creatures of our imagination. If there is the malevolent Takshaka, there is also the wise and helpful Dundubha who is actually a fallen rishi waiting to be released from his curse. Then there is Shesha who has attained so much power by his asceticism that he balances the Earth on his head to help the world on the request of Brahma and is known as Lord Ananta. Vasuki, the naga king, is wise and virtuous seeking ways by which to save his race from the curse of their human mother Kadru. Sumukh is so gentle and handsome that Maitali, the wise charioteer of Indra chooses him above others in all the three worlds as a groom for his daughter. And above all is Astika the young ascetic naga, born to save his race. He is the key figure in persuading Janamejaya to end his naga sacrifice before it gets totally destructive.
The world of nature actually functions as a metaphor for the human world. The Earth is milked by Prithu in the form of a cow and she gives to all the beings in the three worlds whatever they desire according to their swabhava and swadharma, that is the natural inclinations and duties arising out of their station in life. It could be poison, knowledge of the supreme Brahma, or magical powers. After the war Vidura tries to make the grieving Dhritrashtra understand the nature of worldly reality and man’s insatiable desire for life in spite of its uncertainties and sorrows war to make him using the image of the forest of maya to portray the illusory nature of the world and its pleasures. All human beings, he explains, hanker after them even to their last breath and yet are never satiated.
The natural world is both cruel and kind. When the owl wantonly massacres the crows in a dense forest, the cruelty of nature inspires Ashwatthama to butcher the sleeping Pandava warriors in their camp after the war. Thus Draupadi loses all her sons. Yudhishthira and his brothers are miraculously saved as they were not present there at that time. There is hierarchy, conflict and egoism in nature and lessons to be learnt from it as in the story of the Shalmali tree and the god of the wind. Bhishma tells this tale to Yudhishthira to explain to him how a wise king should never openly challenge an adversary much stronger than him. A huge Shalmali tree growing on the peaks of Himavat grew very arrogant, recounts Bhishma, because it provided shade and rest to the powerful beasts of the jungle and innumerable birds that lived in its branches. Also, travelers and traders took shelter under it while even the ascetics rested there. One day Narada asked him why he was not affected by the powerful winds. Was it, he wanted to know because the god of the wind was his friend and protector. The tree arrogantly replied that he was more powerful than the god of wind himself and so could not be troubled by him. When Narada told this to Wind, he got very angry and demanded an explanation and an apology from the Shalmali tree. However, at first the tree refused to regret his words so the Wind decided to raise a storm to break the tree’s branches and uproot him. At this the tree realized his folly and before the Wind could harm him and threw down his own branches and leaves in repentance. Thus, explained Bhishma to Yudhishthira, using nature as an example, the weak can never challenge the strong openly whether in the human world or in the world of nature. They had to employ some other stratagem or act realistically according to the power they possessed.
To this story can be juxtaposed that of the she-Pigeon and the Fowler again narrated by Bhishma, in the Shanti Parva which propounds some absolute ethical values like respecting a guest at any cost. Here there is reversal between the animal and human world which is quite common. It is the Fowler who is cruel and mean whereas the natural creatures, the She pigeon and her husband uphold the highest dharma of hospitality. Their example transforms the Fowler who turns over a new leaf inspired by their sacrifice. Again, it is the Jackal in the same Parva, who gives wise counsel on the value of life to Kashyapa, the son of a rishi who has lost heart and will to live at a time of crisis. Through these stories obviously worldly wisdom, patterns of behavior, conduct in different situations, ethics to be followed at different times are being taught and illustrated through images and metaphors from nature. Underlying them are some key concepts and values of Indian culture and civilization that are sought to be transmitted to the hearers.
How quickly dharma is forgotten is evident from the Astika story in the Adi Parva which tells of Janamejaya’s naga sacrifice for his proposed revenge against Takshaka, the king of nagas who had bitten King Parikshit, his father and caused his death. The anger of Sarama, the celestial hound and the machinations of Utanka all combine to aggravate Janamejaya’s anger against Takshaka and the nagas. Takshaka himself has been provoked by the genocide of nagas in the Khandava forest by Arjuna and Krishna. In each instance, there is an error of judgment and a forgetting of dharma. But if Takshaka is evil, counterbalancing him are Dundubha, Shesha and Vasuki.
The motif of revenge is repeated over and over again as in the animosity of the nagas and garuda, children of Kadru and Vanita respectively. They, like the Kauravas and Pandavas, are brothers but rivals in their search for ambrosia. In fact nagas are the food for garuda. Also animosity and quarrel between brothers is repeated as both a major and a minor motif. For example, the elephant and the tortoise were rishis in their previous birth who quarreled and were reborn in the animal state but in spite of it they foolishly continued their animosity.
While some of the themes recur persistently like hatred, revenge and animosity, there are others like the dangers of pride and egotism. Hubris is continuously brought down. Bhima has to eat a humble pie in his interaction with Hanumana. Nahusha has to suffer as a serpent because of his pride. Examples of great kings like Shibi are put forward. The motif of political and ascetic power, their efficacy and sphere of action dealt with in the Nandini story in Adi Parva is explored further through the tale of the frogs and Vami horses in the Vana Parva. Sage Markandeya teaches the importance of doing good work continuously even after attaining heaven through the story of king Indradyumna. The nature and performance of sacrifice are explored through the stories of the three fishes and that of the mongoose.
The Udyog Parva deals with the preparation of war on both sides. Vidura cautions Dhritrashtra, Duryodhana and others of the dangers of disunity among brothers through the story of the birds and the fowler, a theme that was found in the earlier parvas too. The humbling of Garuda on various occasions is narrated at different times to make Duryodhana aware of his own hubris and the destruction it is likely to lead him into. In a similar vein, Karna is likened to crow who, blinded by his pride, tries to compete with the swans and so is doomed to failure.
Mortality has to be accepted. Time, fate, death are interrelated issues that are explored at different times in the text. . The jackal and the vulture debate how death of near ones is to be endured while the story of Gautami and her conversations with a hunter, death, destiny, time and karma provide an understanding of mortality. Bhishma explains dharma to the newly crowned king Yudhishthira in the Shanti Parva and elucidates on appropriate conduct at different times and in different situations, the meaning of a life of discipline, and duties at various times both normal and during crisis. All this is done through the use of stories rather than a straightforward discourse.
Telling of Tales
As is well known, The Mahabharata remained in oral form for many centuries and its textuality remains fluid to this day. Even after being committed to writing in major traditions in India, Mahabharata retains several characteristics of an oral text. Walter Ong has analyzed the characteristics of oral literature while accepting that language inevitably had to move to writing as society evolved into greater and greater degrees of complexity.[3]
In discussing the Mahabharata one must remember that the way imagination works in oral and written cultures is different. When a bard adds new material, he processes it in a traditional way. He is caught in a situation not entirely under his control. A group of people want him to sing and hence the oral song or the narrative is the result of the interaction between the singer, the present audience, and the singer’s memory of the songs sung. In working with this interaction, the bard is original and creative on different grounds from those of the writer.
The simultaneous existence of the Mahabharata in written form as well as in performance is unique and one must account for the epic’s connection with other traditions. Whatever may be said of the origins of the stories, the same story is often found with slight variations in different texts. For example, the story of the flood and the fish in the Vana Parva of Mahabharata is also found in the Shatapatha Brahmana which deals with the ritual of sacrifice.[4] A small fish comes accidentally in the hands of Manu. He pleads with him to save him from the rapacious other fishes and in return offers to save Manu’s life. When Manu asks how the fish could do that, he is told of the coming flood. Manu then wants to know how he should save the fish. He is instructed to keep transferring the fish as he grows bigger from a water pot to a tank, to the river Ganges and finally, when full-grown to the ocean. Before setting out in the ocean, the fish tells Manu when the flood will occur and instructs him to build a ship. The fish promises to return and to guide Manu through the flood.
So it happens. The fish has Manu tie the ship to the horn on its head and draws him safely across to a northern mountain where he is told to tie the ship to a tree and to descend gradually after the retreating waters. Since the flood has swept away all creatures and only Manu is left, he does not know how to set life in motion again. In the later versions of the story as in Mahabharata Manu carries all kinds of seeds in his ship.
Another story is common is about two sisters. In the Mahabharata, the two sisters Kadru and Vinata or Suparni of the Shatapatha Brahmana are both married to Rishi Kashyapa. Kadru’s children are serpents or nagas associated with the nether world whereas Vinata has Aruna and Garuda both associated with the skies. Garuda is Vishnu’s mount and the lord of the birds in the sky and his brother Aruna is the charioteer of the Sun. Hence, their cosmological significance of demons/nagas and Garuda/devas is more explicit. The nagas and Garuda are brothers but also enemies like the brothers, Kauravas and Pandavas in the frame text. The animosity between the snakes and Garuda parallels that between the gods and the demons. The white horse itself, the subject of the wager, has arisen out of the ocean churned by the gods and demons in which the gods cheat the demons of ambrosia. In the Mahabharata, the trust between Kadru and Suparni in the Shatapatha Brahmana has given way to Kadru’s enslaving Vinata through deceit. Rivalry, animosity and revenge, together with the suffering that these bring are the major motifs in the main text of Mahabharata as they are in the story of Kadru and Vinata. This theme is repeated over and over again in the animosity between the devas and asuras, in the rivalry of Kadru and Vinata, the enmity of Garuda and the nagas, the falling out between two brother-birds caught in the net of the fowler and the continuing quarrel between the rishi brothers even when reborn as the elephant and the tortoise to refer to some stories from the text.
Democratization of Knowledge
Kapil Kapoor has pointed out that India has always been a knowledge centered society and the dissemination of knowledge to all people was taken seriously.[5] Knowledge in India has not been confined to learned texts nor has it ever been the repository of the few. Along with the learned and scholarly traditions, there has always been a parallel katha, pravachana parampara which is a popular tradition of narration and exposition of texts. It has throughout mediated between the learned tradition and the ordinary masses. The attempt has always been to educate and transform so that values remain an integral part of day to day practical life and a balance is maintained between individual aspirations and the collective good. Even Adi Shankaracharya, as Kapoor points out, besides composing numerous intellectual texts was a pravachanakara or a popular expounder who traveled through the length and breadth of India addressing village congregations, explaining and sharing with them his understanding of Advaita Vedanta. In fact, there is strong reason to believe that Shankara’s learned commentaries originated in his popular discourses. Similarly, Sri Ramanujacharya expounded his Vishishtadvaita philosophy for twelve years in Tamil, the people’s language in his village of Melkote near Mysore. This tradition goes on till today. Norman Brown tells us that even the Europeans have done their share in the work of dissemination of religious texts and the stories embedded in them sometimes through religious propaganda and sometimes through the intercourse between their children and ayahs. These are the obvious means and there are doubtless others.
In fact, even the epics were written as the fifth Veda that is to expound the essential concepts and ideas of the Vedas in a popular format that could be easily understood and remembered by the masses. The Mahabharata is part of the tradition of teaching through stories of human and animal interaction the beginnings of which can be found in the Rg Veda but which carries on till about the seventeenth century through texts like the Panchatantra and the Hitopadesh. There is a continuous back and forth flow between the oral or folk and the written or literary tradition. Also, the structure of the texts in which these stories are embedded is of tales within tales, all put into a larger framework. This is conducive to stand-alone popularity of the individual tales that we grow up with. This also leads to the same story being found in different versions in different regions of the country as part of the oral tradition. But also the same story with variations is embedded in different texts. The frame text usually determines the changes evident in the story and the course that it takes. [6]
Conclusion
The tales embody important social concerns like hierarchy, deviant behavior and exploitation. Possible actions are suggested that can be taken in times of dilemmas arising out of conflicting affections or duties. The stories also communicate abstruse philosophical concepts that are debated upon in more abstract and learned terms in the scholarly literature of the shrutis, smritis, sutras and the learned commentaries. These are conveyed through interesting and exciting stories easily remembered and in language close to familiar everyday speech of common folk. The narration is a community event that unites people together in a group activity where there are no class distinctions. In fact often there is a reversal of the established hierarchies as the king and the people in authority may be laughed at while the narrator or the story teller, much lower down in the social scale, is worshipped. The continual process of localizing the Mahabharata and Ramayana through folk performance ritual and narrative all over India has maintained the culture unity of India.
However, the stories enable the ordinary people to story their own life events and so gain more control over them rather than remaining victims. It leads to a psychological empowerment as does the space that is provided in the course of the narration to social commentary and satirical and irreverent laughter. Fun is made of those in power and their pretensions are punctured. Family interactions and disputes are mirrored in these stories so as to make people non-threateningly aware of their own motivations and actions. Aesthetic norms and values are put forward to enable people to absorb what is beautiful and valuable. The mundane, the material and the worldly is dealt with cogently while ethical values are incorporated in daily living through these wonderful stories that we grow up with without knowing where they come from and the long journey they have undertaken to reach us. The speaking forests still whisper to us and the grand tales of fantasy and wonder, specially the perennial dilemmas embedded in the Mahabharata, still raise questions about cosmic order.
[1] Joseph Gold, Read For Your Life: Literature as a Life Support System, Markham, Ontario; Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2001.
[2] Cited by Suniti Kumar Chatterji, Bhikhan Lal Atreya, Alain Danieloue, Indian Culture, Delhi: A Universal Publication, see pages 1-33.
[3] Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, London and New York: Methuen, 1982, see in particular, pp. 31-40; pp. 139-155.
[4] Stuart H. Blackburn, “Domesticating the Cosmos; History and Structure in a Folktale from India,” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. XLV, No.3, May 1986, pp. 527-543.
[5] Kapil Kapoor, “Indian Knowledge Systems: Nature, Philosophy and Character,” Indian Knowledge Systems, Vol. I, Kapil Kapoor and Avadhesh Kumar Singh ed., Indian Institute of Advanced Study (Shimla) D.K. Printworld (P) Ltd. (New Delhi), 2003, pp.11-32.
[6] Norman W. Brown, “The Panchatantra in Modern Indian Folklore,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 39; 1-54, 1919.