Between History and Divine Plan
The Mahabharata’s Royal Patriline in Context
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v5i1/2.103Keywords:
Ambā, Bhīṣma, divine plan, Gaṅgā, itihāsa, Kālī, Mahābhārata, Rāmāyaṇa, Satyavatī, VyāsaAbstract
The Mahabharata royal patriline is tracked and contextualized here in relation to two prominent themes: its concept of a divine plan (somewhat paralleled in the Ramayana) and its chief genre term itihasa or ‘history’. It is found that these two themes intersect in the Mahabharata at the point where the goddess Ganga ‘descends’ into the royal line as the wife of King Samtanu. Ganga’s intervention then provides new means to interpret the part played by Samtanu’s second wife, Kali Satyavati. Attention is given to etymological clues to the ways these two mothers, and their sons Bhisma and Vyasa respectively, supply continuity to the dynastic line.
References
Harivamsa. P. L. Vaidya (ed.), The Harivamsa: Being the Khila or Supplement to the Mahabharata, for the First Time Critically Edited. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1969–71.
Mahabharata. V. S. Sukthankar, S. K. Belvalkar, P. L. Vaidya, et al. (eds), The Mahabharata for the First Time Critically Edited. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933–66.
Ramayana. G. H. Bhatt, U. P. Shah, et al. (eds), The Valmiki-Ramayana Critically Edited for the First Time. Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1958–75.
Austin, Christopher R. 2009. ‘Janamejaya’s Last Question.’ Journal of Indian Philosophy 37.6: 597–625. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10781-009-9075-y
Biardeau, Madeleine. 1981. Études de mythologie hindoue, 1: Cosmogonies puraniques. Paris: École Française d’Extrême Orient.
— 2002. Le Mahabharata: Un récit fondateur du brahmanisme et son interprétation. 2 vols. Paris: Seuil.
Bigger, Andreas. 1998. Balarama im Mahabharata. Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz.
Brodbeck, Simon. 2009. The Mahabharata Patriline: Gender, Culture, and the Royal Hereditary. Farnham: Ashgate.
— In this volume. ‘Solar and Lunar Lines in the Mahabharata.’
van Buitenen, J. A. B. (trans.). 1973. The Mahabharata, vol. 1. 1. The Book of the Beginning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
— (trans.). 1975. The Mahabharata, vol. 2. 2. The Book of the Assembly Hall; 3. The Book of the Forest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chakravarti, Uma. 2006. Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories: Beyond the Kings and Brahmans of ‘Ancient’ India. Delhi: Tulika Books.
Couture, André. 2001. ‘From Visnu’s Deeds to Visnu’s Play, or Observations on the Word Avatara as a Designation for the Manifestations of Visnu.’ Journal of Indian Philosophy 29.3: 313–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1017540311388
Doniger, Wendy. 1995. ‘Begetting on Margin: Adultery and Surrogate Pseudomarriage in Hinduism.’ In Lindsey Harlan and Paul B. Courtright (eds), From the Margins of Hindu Marriage: Essays on Gender, Religion, and Culture: 160–83. New York: Oxford University Press.
— 2009. The Hindus: An Alternative History. Delhi: Penguin Books India.
Fitzgerald, James L. 2007. ‘Bhisma beyond Freud: Bhisma in the Mahabharata.’ In Simon Brodbeck and Brian Black (eds), Gender and Narrative in the Mahabharata: 189–207. London: Routledge.
Ganguli, Kisari Mohan (trans.). 1970 [1884–96]. The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Translated into English Prose from the Original Sanskrit Text. 12 vols. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.
Ghosh, Jayatri. 2000. ‘Satyavati: Matriarch of the Mahabharata.’ In Mandakranta Bose (ed.), Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval, and Modern India: 33–47. New York: Oxford University Press.
Goldman, Robert P. (trans.). 1984. The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India. Volume I: Balakanda. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Goldman, Robert P., Sally J. Sutherland Goldman and Barend A. van Nooten (trans.). 2009. The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India. Volume VI: Yuddhakanda. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hiltebeitel, Alf. 1990 [1976]. The Ritual of Battle: Krishna in the Mahabharata. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
— 2001a. Rethinking the Mahabharata: A Reader’s Guide to the Education of the Dharma King. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
— 2001b. ‘Bhisma’s Sources.’ In Klaus Karttunen and Petteri Koskikallio (eds), Vidyarnavavandanam: Essays in Honour of Asko Parpola (Studia Orientalia 94): 261–78. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society.
— 2009. ‘Authorial Paths through the Two Sanskrit Epics, via the Ramopakhyana.’ In Robert P. Goldman and Muneo Tokunaga (eds), Epic Undertakings: 169–214. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
— 2011a. Dharma: Its Early History in Law, Religion, and Narrative. New York: Oxford University Press.
— 2011b. Reading the Fifth Veda: Studies on the Mahabharata. Essays by Alf Hiltebeitel, Volume 1, eds Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
— 2011c. ‘The First Reading of “Sakuntala”: A Window on the Original and the Second Reading by Kalidasa.’ In Saswati Sengupta and Deepika Tandon (eds), Revisiting Abhijñanasskuntalam: Love, Lineage and Language in Kalidasa’s Nataka: 17–37. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan.
Hopkins, E. Washburn. 1969 [1915]. Epic Mythology. New York: Biblio and Tannen.
Jamison, Stephanie. 1996. Sacrificed Wife/Sacrificer’s Wife: Women, Ritual, and Hospitality in Ancient India. New York: Oxford University Press.
Johnson, W. J. (trans.). 1998. The Sauptikaparvan of the Mahabharata: The Massacre at Night. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kinsley, David. 1975. The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krsna, Dark Visions of the Terrible and the Sublime in Hindu Mythology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Pollock, Sheldon. 1984. ‘Atmanam manusam manye: Dharmakutam on the Divinity of Rama.’ Journal of the Oriental Institute, Baroda 33: 505–28.
— 2006. The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. Delhi: Permanent Black.
Scheuer, Jacques. 1982. Siva dans le Mahabharata. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Slaje, Walter. 2004. Medieval Kashmir and the Science of History. Austin: University of Texas.
Sörensen, Sören. 1963 [1904–25]. An Index to the Names in the Mahabharata, with Short Explanations and a Concordance to the Bombay and Calcutta Editions and P. C. Roy’s Translation. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Türstig, Hans-Georg. 1985. ‘The Indian Sorcery Called Abhicara.’ Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Sudasiens 29: 69–117.
Wilson, H. H. (trans.). 1972 [1840]. The Vishnu Purána: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition. Calcutta: Punthi Pustak.
Winternitz, Moriz. 1933–34. ‘The Critical Edition of the Mahabharata: Adiparvan.’ Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 15: 159–75.
Wulff Alonso, Fernando. 2008. Grecia en la India: El repertorio griego del Mahabharata. Madrid: Ediciones Akal.
