durga & parvati

[Guest guest]

[i forwarded Ramakrishnan's note to Mr. Bharat.

Here is his reply.]

 

Dear Mani

 

I also have the Southern Recension of the

Mahabharata.The Durga Stuti is there.So I

went to the library and looked up the Poona

Critical Edn quoted by your correspondent.

And it clears up the matter.

 

There are these three chapters in Bhishma

Parva in the Southern Rec.:

Ch 22 - Yudhishtira sees his army

Ch 23 - Krishna asks Arjuna to pray to Durga

Ch 24 -(just 10 lines)between Dhritarashtra and

Sanjaya.

 

In the critical edn the intervening Chapter 23

is scrapped and 22 and 24 are made into one Ch.

And the following comment is given:

"The only purpose served by this chapter(23) is

to initiate the conversation between Krishna and

Arjuna which was the needful preliminary for the

interpolated Durgastuti chapter."

 

Actually in my view the strongest argument in

favour of the theory that Durga and Parvati were

merged much later is the following:

Kalidasa is accepted without question as the official

biographer of the Siva Family.In Kumarasambhava Ch 7

he describes Parvati's marriage.Vishnu is also present

- as a guest along with others.In Raghuvamsa Kalidasa

specifically mentions Krishna's play on the banks of

Kalindi.So at this time both stories were current.But

there is not even a mention in the Parvati Kalyanam

episode which goes into great detail re the ceremony

that Vishnu was ever related to Parvati(even though K

refers to Vishnu as Krishna more than once in RV); even

more so when in RV in a similar context while describing

Indumati's marriage(where many stanza's from Parvati's

marriage are used)Indumati's brother is given a major

part in looking after the guests etc

with best wishes

BHARAT