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[ind-Arch] Against the Critical Edition of the MahÄbhÄrataIndia Archeology <indiaarchaeology >

 

 

 

 

 

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25.)

Against the Critical Edition of the MahÄbhÄrata

April 21, 2008 by arvindsharma

Indian scholarship,

pursuing a trend set by Western scholarship, has produced a 'critical

edition' of the MahÄbhÄrata. Let us take a

closer look at the whole idea, shielding our eyes from the blinding

glare of the Western sun for a moment.

One immediately

notes that the idea of a critical tradition in the Hindu context is

an artificial

concept. Can there be a 'critical edition' of the kind of

oral transmission that the itihÄsa

represents? Similarly, it is futile to seek out 'the

original text' of either epic. Critical

editions of oral epics are the constructs of scholars; with variant

readings and addenda as footnotes they give us an idea of the main

story-line as it has developed over time in style and content. This

has its uses as we shall see, but on a level which sacred narrative

often transcends.[1]

The point is fine as

far as it goes, but does it go far enough? The

text of an oral epic is not meant to be fixed in the same sense as the

Vedic text – part of the point of the epic text could well be the scope

permitted for improvisation – albeit formulaic, if one insists. The

text is meant to be a magnet, which draws material to it and not a

crystal, which must stand in pristine purity. And

if the text of the epic is thus even conceptually somewhat fluid, and

actually perhaps even more fluid – then does not the critical text end

up in creating a text which

did not exist in the first place? Western writings

on Hindu themes often carry allegations of fabrication. Has

the cycle turned full circle and the misguided pursuit of Western

methodology have culminated in the recreation of what never existed?

One

does not wish to run down the enterprise of which the critical

tradition is an outcome, but such considerations need to be taken into

account.

The situation gets

worse before it gets better. We are presented with a

critical text of the MahÄbhÄrata. Let us now

turn to the MahÄhbhÄrata itself and see what it has to say

about it. According to the Ādiparva (I.57. 74-75) of

the critical text, VyÄsa the "great lord, eminent granter of boons,

taught the Vedas, and the MahÄbhÄrata as the fifth Veda,

to Sumantu, Jaimini, Paila, and his own son Åšuka as well as to

VaiÅ›ampÄyana. It is they who in their separate ways made

public the collections of the BhÄrata."[2]

To begin with then,

the MahÄbhÄrata

is plural document available in at least five recensions according to

the critical edition; now how can there be one critical edition of a

text with five recensions to begin with? This conclusion

is a bit overwrought but it makes an important point. It

is overwrought because the critical text claims to restore only one

version of it – the one publicized by VaiÅ›ampÄyana.

One is not out of

the woods yet, however.

The

introduction of the great epic informs us that VyÄsa imparted his poem

first to his pupil VaiÅ›ampÄyana, who in his turn recited the whole of

it at the time of the great snake-sacrifice of king Janamejaya. It

was then heard by the Sūta Ugraśravas who, being entreated by the Rishis

assembled at the sacrifice of Åšaunaka in the Nimisha forest,

narrates to them the whole poem at he learnt it on that occasion.

Even

according to this tradition, recorded in the epic itself, before it

reached its present dimensions, it had passed through three recitations.[3]

It has plausibly

been suggested that the work grew in size with each recitation. Could

it then not be proposed, in view of this, that the MahÄbhÄrata

as a Hindu text is supposed to grow and not diminish, that its telos as

it is understood in the tradition is at odds with the very goals of

modern text-critical scholarship and to that extent, once again, the

critical text, in rendering a great service to Indology has done a

grievous harm to Hinduism by trying to convert a lengthening sari

into a shortening skirt? Here again the blow can be

softened. It

might be urged that the critical text is only an attempt at a snap shot

of one stage of the growth of the text – in the time of the Gupta

period or roughly around 500 A.D. Nevertheless it is clear that, at

every step, the idea of a critical text seems to go against the grain

of the tradition – it is an example of pratiloma Indology.

 

 

[1] Julius Lipner, Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs

and Practices (London and New York: Routledge, 1994) p. 336,

note 39.

 

 

[2] J.A.B. van Buitenen, tr., The MahÄbhÄrata (London and

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973) Vol. I, p. 134.

 

[3] M.A. Mehendale, "Language and

Literature", in R.C. Majumdar, ed., The Age of Imperial Unity

(Bombay: Bharativa Vidya Bhavan, 1951) p. 246. Also see Klaus K.

Klostermaier, A Survey of

Hinduism (second edition) (Albany, NY: State University of New

York Press, 1994) P. 83-84

 

 

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