Re: [MinTamil] JAOS (2002) paper - Indian epics (by Parpola)
Narayanan Kannan
the resolution is poor, hard to read. If it is >300 dpi I could even
OCR it and place it as text in MinTamil. Is it possible to rescan it?
tks.
K.>
2008/12/10 N. Ganesan <naa.g...@gmail.com>:
> Parpola, Asko, 2002. Pandaíê and Sîtâ: On the historical background of
> the Sanskrit epics.
> Journal of the American Oriental Society 122 (2): 361-373.
N. Ganesan
the Sanskrit epics.
Journal of the American Oriental Society 122 (2): 361-373.
Here is A. Parpola's JAOS (2002) paper on Indian epics.
It tells about his summary of opinions about North-South Indian relations
and history.
நண்பர் அசோகன் பார்ப்போலா அவர்களின் ஆய்வுக் கட்டுரை.
அமெரிக்க ஓரியண்டல் சொசைட்டி 122-ஆம் ஆண்டு மலரில்
வெளிவந்தது. தங்களுடன் பகிர்ந்துகொள்வதில் மகிழ்வெய்துகிறேன்.
ஆஸ்கோ எனக்கெழுதும் கடிதங்களில் தமிழில் அசோகன் என்றே
கையெழுத்திடுவார்கள். வேதவியலில் உலகில் ஒரு சிறந்த நிபுணர்.
சிந்துசமவெளி நாகரீகத்தை பல தொல்லியல், மொழியியல்
கோணங்களில் 40 ஆண்டுகளாக ஆராய்பவர்.சிந்து நாகரீகம்
(இந்தியக் கலாச்சாரத்தைத் தோற்றுவித்த ஒன்று) கட்டமைத்த
சமூகம் தொன்மையான திராவிடர்கள் என்பதில் அசையா உறுதி கொண்டவர்.
அவரது வலைப்பக்கம்:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~aparpola/
சிந்து எழுத்து:
http://www.harappa.com/script/
அதில் அசோகன் (ஆஸ்கோ) கட்டுரைகள்:
http://www.harappa.com/script/indusscript.pdf
http://www.harappa.com/script/indus-writing.pdf
அன்புடன்,
நா. கணேசன்
Narayanan Kannan
Please find the "plain text" version of Prof.Parpola's article. While
converting the PDF to text the dielectric marks are lost. Sorry about
it. However, the English text is converted to our satisfaction. I
didn't have time to 'proof read' this text. I present it here, mainly
for wider readership using search engines. As it may impinge the
copyright of this publication, the purpose is mainly for wider
academic discussion of the content which is closely connected to Tamil
Heritage.
N.Kannan
IIANAAIH AND SITA:
ON THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE SANSKRIT EPICS
ASKO PARPOLA UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
The Mahabhdrata (MBh) and the Rdmiyana (R) reflect the exploits of the
"Pandavas" following the arrival and dispersal of the "Megalithic
culture" c. 800-400 B.C. The Vedic (Yadava) trio of the two Asvins and
Usas, integrated with agricultural and pastoral deities, became the
Vaisnava trio.
THE MAHABHARATA AND THE MEGALITHS
THE RGVEDA WAS MOSTLY COMPOSED in the Punjab c. 1500-1200 B.C. The
focus of the MBh is in the upper Ganges Valley, c. 900-700 B.C.
(Buitenen 1973: xxiv). In Valmiki's R, the hero's domicile is in the
middle Ganges Valley, and the old core is dated to c. 750-500 B.C.
(Goldman 1984: I, 23) or c. 500-300 B.C. (Brock-ington 1998: 379). The
texts reflect a gradual eastward move of the cultural center of the
Indo- Aryan speakers (cf. Brockington 1998: 198).
King Janamejaya Pariksita's horse sacrifice is glorified in AB 8,21,3
= SB 13,5,4,2 = SSS 16,9,1, one of the rare samples of "proto-epic"
verses recited in Vedic royal rit-uals (cf. Weber 1891; Horsch 1966).
According to its own testimony (1,40ff.), the MBh was first recited at
King Janamejaya's snake sacrifice (sarpasattra), in which snakes were
victims thrown into fire. In the Vedic sar-pasattra, kings and princes
of the snakes in human form officiated as priests, and Janamejaya was
one of the two adhvaryus, and the Brahman priest was Dhrtarastra
Air-avata (PB 25,15; BaudhSS 17,18). In the MBh, Dhrtaras¬tra is not
only a Kuru king, but also an ancestor of the snakes sacrificed at the
sarpasattra (1,52,13). The MBh thus both preserves and distorts Middle
Vedic traditions connected with Janamejaya and Pariksit, whose
descendants are referred to in BAU 3,3,1-2 as a vanished dy¬nasty
(Weber 1852: 121, 177; 1891: 774; Buitenen 1973: I, xxivf.; Shulman
1980: 120f.; Minkowski 1989; Brock-ington 1998: 6).
The culture distinguished by the use of iron, horse, and Painted Grey
Ware (PGW) (c. 1000-350 B.C.) is found lowest at all major sites
associated with the main story of the MBh. It thus offers a suitable
archaeological correlate to the earliest layers of the MBh (cf. Lal
1981; 1992; Buitenen 1973:I, lf.; Erdosy 1995: 79ff.; Brock¬ington
1998: 133, 159-62). I have suggested that the early PGW culture with
few and small towns (c. 1000-700 B.C.) represents the Middle Vedic
culture and its Kuru kingdom, and the late PGW culture with many more
towns including Mathurf (c. 700-350 B.C.) the Pand.ava period (Parpola
1984: 453ff.).
King Pandu and the five Pandavas are never once mentioned in any Vedic
text (Weber 1853: 402f.; Hop¬kins 1901: 376, 385, 396; Horsch 1966:
284; Brocking¬ton 1998: 6). The Pandavas, therefore, have arrived on
the scene only after the completion of Vedic literature. They could
crush the Kurus by making a marriage alli¬ance with the Kurus' eastern
neighbors, the Paficalas. To consolidate their rule, the victorious
Pandavas let them¬selves be grafted onto the Kuru genealogy and be
repre¬sented as cousins of their former foes (Lassen 1847: I, 589-713;
Weber 1852: 130-33; 1853: 402-4; Schroeder 1887: 476-82; Hopkins 1889:
2-13; 1901: 376).
The war was over and the epic in existence by c. 400-350 B.C.: Panini
refers to the joint worship of Vasudeva and Arjuna (4,3,98), and
mentions also Yudhisthira (8,3, 95), Hastinapura (6,2,101),
Andhaka-Vrsnayah (6,2,34), and Mahabhdrata (6,2,38) (Weber 1852: 176;
Hopkins 1901: 385, 390f.; Jaiswal 1981: 64f.; Brockington 1998: 257).
Apart from the absence of their mention in Vedic texts, there are
other indications pointing to the foreign, and specifically Iranian,
origin of the Pandavas (cf. Par-pola 1984). Their polyandric marriage,
which shocked the people present (MBh 1,197,27-29; Hopkins 1889:
298f.), can be compared to the customs of the Iranian Massagetae
(Herodotus 1,216). Hanging their dead in trees (MBh 4,5,27-29;
Brockington 1998: 227) resem¬bles the Iranian mode of exposure of the
corpse to birds.
Foreign, northerly origin is suggested by their pale skin color, which
the MBh (1,100,17-18) connects with the name of Pandu, literally
'pale'; the name Arjuna likewise means 'white' (Lassen 1847: I, 634,
641-43). Sanskrit pandu-, pandura-, pandara- 'white, whitish,
yellowish, pale', attested since c. 800 B.C. (SB, SA), are loanwords
going back to the same Dravidian root as Sanskrit phala- 'fruit' (cf.
Tamil palam 'ripe fruit') and pandita- 'learned' (differently
Mayrhofer 1996: II, 70f., 201f.), namely pal- / pand- 'to ripen,
mature, arrive at perfection (as in knowledge, piety), change color by
age, (fruit) to become yellow, (hair) to become grey, to become pale
(as the body by disease [esp. leukoderma])' (cf. DEDR 4004; Parpola
1984: 455).
This appellation probably originated in Gujarat and Maharashtra, where
there is considerable evidence of a strong Dravidian substratum (cf.
Parpola 1994: 170ff.). The Pandavas' hiding in Viratanagara (Bairgat
near Jai¬pur), their alliance with Krsna Vasudeva, and the loca¬tion
of their first kingdom in the wooded southern half of Kuruksetra
suggest that they probably entered the subcontinent from the west, via
Sindh, Gujarat, and Ra-jasthan. The MBh (2,23-29) and early northern
Bud-dhist texts (cf. Weber 1853: 403) speak of the Pandavas as
marauders over wide areas, also in north India.
I
f the Pandavas were foreigners of Iranian affinity coming to India c.
800-400 B.C., do they have any coun-terpart in the archaeological
record? In my opinion (cf. Parpola 1984), a good match is the
"Megalithic" culture, first attested c. 800 B.C. at sites such as
Mahurjhari and Khapa in Vidarbha in NE Maharashtra. These oldest
graves are simple stone-circles, in which people were buried with
weapons and horses; the horse-furniture es-pecially has parallels in
Central Asia, the Caucasus, and western Iran. The circular huts with
wooden posts and a fireplace are similar to the yurts used by the
nomads of Central and Inner Asian steppes.
After their arrival in western India, the carriers of the Megalithic
culture adopted the Black-and-Red Ware pot-tery (of local Chalcolithic
origin) and during the fol¬lowing several centuries spread over wide
areas, mainly southwards to the Deccan, south India, and Sri Lanka. In
many regions, folklore associates the megaliths with the Pandavas.
Numerous iron tridents suggest a Saiva re¬ligion. Martial traditions
of Megalithic origin still continue in the Deccan, where horsemen
accompanied by dogs worship Saiva deities with tridents in yurt-like
shrines (Sontheimer 1989: 26ff.). In Tamil Nadu the Megalithic culture
continued till the second century A.D. and is reflected in the Old
Tamil heroic poetry. (Cf. Deo 1973; 1984; Leshnik 1974; 1975; Allchin
& Allchin 1982: 344f.; McIntosh 1985; Ghosh 1989:, 110-30 and 243-51;
Maloney 1975: 6ff.; Parpola 1984: 458f.)
THE RAMAYANA AND THE MEGALITHS
Most notable among the attempts to correlate archae-ological cultures
with the R (cf. Brockington 1998: 398-400) is that with the early
Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW). This was suggested by B. B. Lal
after exca¬vating sites identified as being R's Ayodhya, Nandi-grama,
Sfigaverapura, and Bharadvaja's asrama. George Erdosy (1995: 100-105)
in his assessment of all radio¬carbon dates places the early NBPW at
550-400 B.C., which nearly agrees with Brockington's date for the
first phase of the R, 500-300 B.C.
Christian Lassen (1847: I, 535) proposed that the R "contains the
legend of the first attempt of the Aryans to extend their power
southwards by warring expeditions." Albrecht Weber (1871: 3-5) was
inclined to accept this view, though it was clear to him (p. 29f.)
that the poem was composed in north India and that its author did not
have any exact knowledge of the southern parts of the subcontinent.
Present-day research agrees on this rela¬tive ignorance of the south,
which has led many scholars to locate Lafika somewhere in Madhya
Pradesh; while John Brockington (1998: 420, 423) opts for this
alter¬native, Robert Goldman (1985: 28) finds it unlikely, not¬ing
that "the poet knew of an island kingdom, whether real or mythical,
said to lie some distance off the coast of the Indian mainland."
Indeed, as early as the second or third century A.D., an Old Tamil
poem (Akananuru 70) refers to Koti (= Dhanuskoti, the tip of mainland
opposite to Adam's Bridge in Ceylon) as the place from which the
victorious Rama crossed over to Lanka (cf. Hart 1975: 61f.).
The archaeology of early historical Sri Lanka, so far largely ignored
in this connection, has become much clearer than before only recently.
Robin Coningham (1995: 159-69) gives a detailed analysis of the
strati¬graphy of Anuradhapura and a rapid survey of other sites
(170ff.). The oldest, "Mesolithic" period is evidenced by locally
manufactured stone tools. In the second, "Iron Age" period the
habitation area of Anuradhapura was c. 18 hectares with circular huts
indicated by post-holes. People had "typical Black and Red burnished
ware," iron, and cattle. Radiocarbon-based dates are c. 600-450
B.C., but the period may have started as early as c. 800 B.C. In the
"Early Historic 1" period (c. 450-350 B.C.), the site and the circular
huts are larger, and there are strong similarities with South Indian
Mega-lithic burials. The pottery is still dominated by Black and Red
burnished ware. Horse bones are found, and in¬dications of a major
expansion of trade and manufac¬turing of conch shell, iron ore,
amethyst, and quartz. In the "Early Historic 2" period (c. 350-275
B.C.), the site is more than 66 hectares and surrounded by a defensive
wall. Finds include mother of pearl, cowrie and conch shells, lapis
lazuli from Afghanistan, and carnelian from Gujarat, five Brahmi (!)
inscriptions on potsherds, and, towards the end, coins stamped with a
single arched hill or caitya. The "Early Historic 3 and 4" periods (c.
275-225 and 225-150 B.C.) have also yielded typically Hel¬lenistic
objects.
Widespread evidence covering the entire island sug¬gests that Sri
Lanka was inhabited only by tribes of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers
until c. 800-600 B.C., when agriculture and cattle-raising were
introduced by an Iron Age culture characterized by "Megalithic"
burials and Black-and-Red Ware. It is so similar to the Iron Age
Megalithic culture of the Indian mainland that its spread must be
ascribed to actual movements of people. But where exactly did these
settlers come from? It is sensi¬ble to seek an answer from the legends
in the chronicles of Sri Lanka (cf. Coningham 1995: 156-59).
COLONIZATION OF SRI LANKA
The legend of the colonization of Sri Lanka is related in the
Dipavamsa (Dip, chs. 9-11) and with slight varia¬tion in the Mahavamsa
(Mhv, chs. 6-10), written c. A.D. 400 and 500 respectively, but based
on older records (cf. Geiger 1912: ixff.; Hinuber 1996: 87-91; Lamotte
1958: 129-35). This legend derives the Simhalas from Gu¬jarat, which
is most reasonable on the basis of linguistic evidence, for the best
experts classify Sinhalese with Gujarati and Marathi (cf. Lamotte
1958: 132; Masica 1991: 451-49). Pali, too, is closest to Asoka's
inscrip¬tions at Girnar in Gujarat, and is generally considered
nowadays to have originated in western India (cf. Hi¬nuber 1986: 20).
Gujarat and Maharashtra are also pre¬cisely the areas where the
Megalithic culture seems to have spread first.
At first seven hundred Sim.halas led by Prince Vijaya came to Sri
Lanka from Sihapura (Simrhapura) in Lala (Lata in southern Gujarat).
"Prince Vijaya was daring and uneducated; he committed most wicked and
fearful things, plundering the people." He was therefore ex¬pelled by
his father, King Sihabahu. Vijaya and his men sailed down the west
coast, stopping at the cities of Bharukaccha (Broach in Gujarat) and
Suppara (Surpa-raka = Sopara near Mumbai). In both places they were
offered hospitality and honors, but during their months-long sojourns
Vijaya and his men exasperated the in¬habitants with their "cruel,
savage, terrible and most dreadful deeds" which included "drinking,
theft, adul¬tery, falsehood, and slander." Finally they arrived at the
island of Lafika. This happened when the Buddha reached the
parinirvana. In nine months Vijaya and his men destroyed the host of
the Yakkhas who had earlier occupied the island. Vijaya founded
Tambapanni, the first town in the island of Lanka. After having ruled
thirty-eight years, Vijaya sent a message to his brother Sumitta in
Sihapura, asking a relative to take over the rule of Lafka after his
death.
Vijaya is usually dated to the years 1-38 from the Buddha's
parinirvana or c. 486-448 B.C., Pandu-Vasu-deva to 38-39/448-447 B.C.,
and so on (thus Lamotte 1958: 134). However, Lafika is said to have
been king-less for one year (Mhv, ch. 8), and Pandu-Vasudeva came from
Simhapura on a separate mission. The Vijaya story may be just an
attempt to fill the earlier history with a vague memory of the first
immigration much ear¬lier: it seems to me that the regular dynastic
record was started only with the arrival of Pandu-Vasudeva,
where¬after it was continuous (with regard to the oldest period,
Geiger [1912: xxf.] felt "a certain distrust of the tradi¬tion and
traditional chronology from the very fact that Vijaya's arrival in
Ceylon is dated on the day of the Buddha's death"). Indeed Lassen
(1852: II, 96f.) has suggested that Vijaya does not actually refer to
any specific person but to an event, the "conquest" of Sri Lanka. In
any case, the statement that Vijaya found the island occupied by
yaksas only cannot be reconciled with both the archaeological and the
historical chronol¬ogy, if the yaksas denote small-sized ancestors of
the later Veddas, the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Like the "cruel and
savage" Vijaya, the Ravana of the epics may symbolize the early rulers
of the island.
The Mhv (chs. 8ff.) records some events soon after Pandu-Vasudeva had
arrived and married Bhadda-Kaccana that could have given rise to the
theme of the R: it was predicted that the son of the queen's daughter,
the lovely Citta, would destroy his maternal uncles and usurp the
power. Princess Citta was therefore kept as a prisoner in the palace,
in an apartment built on a single pillar, accessible only through the
dormitory of the king, and the entrance was guarded by a female
servant in¬side and by one hundred armed men outside. Bhadda-Kaccana's
mother sent her seven sons (one called Rama according to the
commentary) from India to Lafika to see their sister, and one of them,
prince Dighayu, had a
son who conceived an ardent passion for Citta. v
Weber (1871: 3-5) has already suggested that Ravana probably hails
from north India, as he is described as worshipping Brahmanical
divinities, and his father is Sage Pulastya, ancestor of a Brahmanical
clan and a son of the Brahmanical God of Creation, Prajapati (MBh
3,258,11). Moreover, Hanuman sees in Ravana's palace in Lanika noble
horses from countries in the northern Indus Valley, Aratta, Kamboja,
and Valhika (Weber 1871: 29f.). In this paper, I cannot pursue the
study of Ravana much further, but will add a few observations. The
term used by the Sri Lankan tradition of the previous inhabi¬tants,
yakkha / yaksa, is of course of North Indian origin and tells
something of the religion of the earliest immi¬grants. Most probably
it was Vijaya who introduced the impressive yaksa cult of exorcism and
sorcery that is still alive in Sri Lanka (Kapferer 1991, 1997). Ravana
himself is a magician, and propitiates Prajapati with asceticism and
human sacrifices for the sake of boons (MBh 3,259,15ff.).
The yaksini Kuveni, with whom Vijaya had a liaison, helped him to
victory over the yaksas; Sinhalese myths identify her with Goddess
Kali (cf. Kapferer 1991: 167). In order to obtain victory in battle,
Ravana's son Indrajit sacrifices at a terrible-looking banyan tree
connected with Goddess Nikumbhila, alias Bhadra-Kali (R 6,71,13-22;
6,74,2-4; 7,25,2ff.). This has a parallel in the human sacrifices to a
banyan tree for the sake of victory that the Dhonasakha Jataka (no.
353) reports from Taxila in northern Indus Valley (Parpola 1994: 259).
The Puranas associate Ravana and his brother Kubera with the
Himalayas. When people migrate, they often transfer the name of their
old domicile to their new hab¬itat. Simhapura, Vijaya's home town in
Gujarat, has a namesake, Simhapura, in the Indus Valley, conquered by
the Pandavas (MBh 2,24,19); according to Xuan-Zang, this Simhapura was
c. 200 km SE of Taksasilf (Beal 1884:I, 143). In the next verse
(2,24,20), the MBh men¬tions the Cola as a people crushed by the
Pandavas, and people called Cola are otherwise known only from Tamil
Nadu in south India (Parpola 1984: 452). More¬over, Vijaya's brother
Sumitta, King of Simhapura, mar¬ried a princess of the Madra country
in upper Indus Valley (cf. also Lassen 1852: II, 102, n. 4).
PANDYAS OF SOUTHERN MADHURA
The second Simhala king was called Pandu-Vasudeva. Pandu(ka) figures
in names of other Sinhalese kings as well, and associates them with
the Pandavas of the MBh (thus also Lassen 1852: II, 102f.), whose
father Pandu is called Pandu (Cullavagga 64,43) or Panduraja (Jataka
V, 426) in Pali texts. Pandu-Vasudeva's father-in-law, who ruled in a
kingdom on the Ganges river, was like¬wise called Pandu. He belonged
to the Sakya clan, being a relative of the Buddha. Sakya is derived
from Saka, one of the principal names of Iranian steppe nomads. Its
association with the name Pandu is an additional hint of the Iranian
origin of the Pandavas.
The beginning of the second phase (c. 450-350 B.C.) of the Megalithic
culture of Sri Lanka coincides almost exactly with the traditional
dates for Pandu-Vasudeva's rule. This phase is said to resemble
greatly the Mega¬lithic culture of South India. These archaeological
par¬allels are mirrored in the chronicles. According to Mhv (ch. 7), a
fierce demoness (yakkhini) called Kuveni or Kuvanna had fallen in love
with Vijaya and helped the invader to kill the Yakkhas who lived in
their cities of Laiikapura and Sirisavatthu. They had children. But
when his companions wanted to perform the royal consecration for
Vijaya, he said he would accept the proposal only if he obtained a
queen of high rank. The companions sent a delegation with jewels and
other presents to Southern Madhura (dakkhina-madhura); the king ruling
there, called Pandu and Pandava, decided to send his daughter Vijaya
in marriage to Vijaya and seven hundred daugh¬ters of his nobility to
Vijaya's retinue of seven hundred men. After marrying Pandava's
daughter, Vijaya rejected Kuveni, sending her off from his house but
promising to maintain her with a thousand bali offerings.
Southern Madhura is moder Madurai in Tamil Nadu, the capital of the
Pandya kings, whose dynastic name is irregularly derived from Pandu
(Pat. on Vartt. 3 on Pan. 4,1,168). The Sri Lankan kings kept contact
with this city also later on (cf. Malalasekera 1937: II, 439).
Megasthenes, writing c. 300 B.C., refers to the Pandya country when
speaking of the Indian Heracles:
this Heracles . . . had only one daughter. Her name was Pandaea
[Pandaie], and the country in which she was born, the government of
which Heracles entrusted to her, was called Pandaea after the girl. .
. . Some other Indians tell of Heracles that, after he had traversed
every land and sea, and purged them of all evil monsters, he found in
the sea a new form of womanly ornament... the sea margarita [pearl] as
it is called in the Indian tongue. Heracles was in fact so taken with
the beauty of the ornament that he collected this pearl from every sea
and brought it to India to adorn his daughter . . . among the Indians
too the pearl is worth three times its weight in refined gold.
(Arrian, Indica 8,6—13, trans. Brunt 1983: 329-31).
The Arthasastra (2,11) mentions as sources of pearls several places
along the coasts of southernmost India and northern Sri Lanka, among
them Pandya-kavata and Tamrapamii. Tfmrapamii is the name of the chief
river of the southernmost (Tirunelveli) district of Tamil Nadu, at the
mouth of which was the Pandya port town of Korkai famed in Old Tamil
literature for its pearl fishery (cf. Subrahmanian 1966: 329).
Tamrapami is also the name of the first Sinhalese capital on the north
coast of Sri Lanka, called Tambapanni in Mhv 7,38-42 and Tap-robane by
Onesicritus, the admiral of Alexander the Great, who learned it as the
name of the whole island in 325 B.C. in the Indus Valley. (The
Anuradhapura ex¬cavations have confirmed the contact to Indus Valley
at this time.) Vijaya's contacts would have been with Kor¬kai, before
the capital was moved to Madhurai inland (Maloney 1970: 604-6; Parpola
1984: 450).
The Pfindya capital is called "southern Madhura" to distinguish it
from "northern Madhura," i.e., Mathura, the famed domicile of Krsna
Vasudeva, after which the Pandya Madhura obviously was named (cf.
Dessigane et al. 1960, I: xiv; Sircar 1971: 27 n. 1; Hardy 1983: 156).
This is suggested also by the name of the second Simhala king coming
from Gujarat, Pandu-Vfsudeva. It seems to me that it was this second
wave of Pandu princes coming by sea to Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu who
brought with them the Vaisnava religion to the south. This is
suggested also by the legend of the God Uppala-vanna (= Sanskrit
Utpalavarna 'having the color of blue lotus') being appointed by the
Buddha as the guardian deity of the island and taking the immigrants
under his protection, even if the Mhv (ch. 7) associates this with
Vijaya (cf. Lassen 1852: II, 98ff.). According to Cham-pakalakshmi
(1981: 34), the earliest form of Vaisnava religion in south India is
the Paficavira cult, i.e., the worship of the five Vrsni or Yfdava
heroes, in particu¬lar Krsna Vasudeva and his elder brother Bala-Rama,
worshipped both independently and together in Tamil Nadu in the early
centuries of the Christian era (p. 35). Such a migration of the
Yadavas is known from the northern Sanskrit sources too: Krsna
Vasudeva moved from Mathura to Gujarat, where he founded the coastal
city of Dvfraka or Dvaravati. Sanskrit dvdra 'door' corresponds to
Tamil kava.tam / kapatam 'fold of a door', found in the names
Pan.dya-kavata, one of the pearl sources in the Arthasastra (2,11,2),
as well as Kapatapuram, legendary seat of one of the ancient Tamil
literary academies (Maloney 1970: 612f.; Parpola 1984: 453). According
to the Old Tamil tradition, Sage Agastya brought the eighteen Velir
chiefs and the rul¬ers of the Aruvala country from Dvaraka. The Ay
rulers of the eighth-ninth century south Travancore likewise traced
their descent from the Yadavas (Champakalakshmi 1981: 34).
NORTHERN MADHURA AND BALA-RAMA
This Heracles is chiefly honoured by the Surasenians, an Indian tribe,
with two great cities, Methora and Clisobora [Kleis6bora]; the
navigable river Iomanes flows through their territory. Megasthenes
says that the garb this Heracles wore was like that of the Theban
Heracles by the account of the Indians themselves; he also had a great
many sons in this country, for this Heracles too wedded many wives,
but he had only one daughter. Her name was Pandaea. . . . (Arrian,
Indica 8,5-7, trans. Brunt 1983: 327-29)
Practically all scholars have identified the Indian Hera¬cles with
Krsna worshipped by Surasenas in Mathurf on the Yamunf river. A
singular exception is James Tod, who in 1835 identified Heracles with
Bala-Deva, the god of strength (bala). Strength is a distinctive
charac¬teristic of Greek Heracles, and there are other reasons as well
that make me think Tod was right. Textual and iconographic evidence
from c. 400 B.C. onwards show that Bala-Rama was in early Visnuism a
very important deity, especially in the Mathura area (see Sircar 1971:
16ff.; Jaiswal 1981: 52ff.; cf. Brockington 1998: 261f., 266f.).
Andreas Bigger (1998) has criticized this "re¬ceived" view, but his
own deconstruction of Bala-Rama, based on a text-level analysis of the
MBh, is not always convincing and rather contradicted by the Old Tamil
po¬ems of the first centuries A.D. (not considered by Bigger):
In Pur. 56, Krishna is invoked for his fame, Balarama for his
strength. Krishna is described as having a body like blue sapphire,
having a bird (presumably the garuda) on his flag, and being
accompanied by Balarama, who has a body the color of a conch, a plow
for his weapon, and a palmyra for his banner. (Hart 1975: 57)
Mathurf is called Madhurd 'sweet' not only in Pali sources but also by
Patafijali in his Mahabhasya c. 150 B.C. (cf. Weber 1873: 380f.). The
form Madhurf figures in the MBh too, where the name is explained as
com¬ing from the demon Madhu, who lived in Madhu-vana on the Yamuna
river but was slain by Krsna, "the killer of Madhu." The "demoniac"
god earlier worshipped at Madhura seems to have been a snake deity
connected with plowing and identified with Siva (see further be¬low),
whose names listed in the MBh include Madhu and who was addicted to
drinking wine (madhu). His cult was then absorbed into that of Krsna
Vasudeva by transferring all the attributes of this earlier local god
to Krsna's "elder brother" Bala-Rama, who is, among other things, a
great wine-drinker. Demon Madhu (with Kaitabha: cf. Pali ketubha
'Brahmin ritualist') is said to have robbed from Brahma the Vedas
regained by Visnu; a Vedic tradition therefore prevailed at Mathura
before Krsnaism.
THE VAISNAVA TRIO
In the Veda, madhu is specifically associated with the Asvins (cf.
Macdonell 1897: 49f., 52; Zeller 1990: 119). These divine charioteers,
twin sons of the Sky (divo nd-pata), probably represent (white) day
and (black) night (as was suggested by Max Miller, cf. Zeller 1990:
7f.). In RV 3,55,11, day and night are spoken of as twin sis¬ters
(yamyd) who have assumed different colors, one shining bright (tdyor
anydd rocate), the other black (krsndm any dt); the Asvins, too, are
twins and are identified with day and night (MS 3,4,4 ahordtre va
asvind). The Asvins drive around the world in a triple chariot
accompanied by the fair goddess of Dawn (Usas), daughter of the Sky or
Sun (Sure / Suro duhita, Surya), their sister and wife (cf. Zeller
1990: 100ff.). This trio has a counterpart in the divine horsemen of
the Greeks, Kastor and Poludeukes (originally Poluleukes 'much
shining'), who are sons of the sky god Zeus and brothers of Helen, as
well as in the Lithuanian twin gods expressly identified with the
morning and evening star wooing the daughter of the sun (cf. Zeller
1990: 8, 97f.).
Many of the Asvin hymns of the RV belong to the Kanva family of poets
that was associated with the early Vedic tribes of Yadu and Turvasa,
from whom the Yad-(a)vas are descended. It therefore appears very
likely, as has been proposed by Sen (1976: 124-27), that the trio of
Asvins and their sister / wife is the model of the early Vaisnava trio
consisting of two brothers connected with the colors white and black
and their sister / wife. Cha-riotry can be added to the common
characteristics mentioned by Sen. In the MBh, the 'black' Vasudeva is
the charioteer of the 'white' car-fighter Arjuna; their joint worship
is mentioned by Panini (4,3,98) c. 400-350 B.C. I suspect that the
name of the Simhala king Pandu-Vasudeva means 'devotee of Pandu ('the
white one' = Arjuna or Bala-Rama) and Vasudeva'. The two brothers
Vasudeva and Bala-Rama and their sister (called variously Ekanams'a,
(Su)Bhadra, or Afijana) were a popular trio in early Vaisnava
iconography and still in Puri (cf. Jaiswal 1981: 68f.; Brockington
1998: 341; Yokochi 1999: 74). In the MBh (1,211-12), Arjuna marries
Vasudeva's sister Subhadra; but in the Skanda-Purdna, Subhadra is both
the sister and wife of Vasu¬deva. A whole chapter of the Old Tamil
epic Cilap-patikdram describes the pastoral dance performed by Krsna,
his beloved Pinnai, and Balarama at Dvaraka (cf. Champakalakshmi 1981:
47). Rama, Laksmana, and Sita, too, are usually depicted as a trio in
the iconography (cf. Ramachandra Rao 1992: VI, 26-28), and in the
Dasa-ratha Jdtaka, Sita is a sister of the two brothers, yet mar¬ried
by Rama (cf. Weber 1871: 1; Jaiswal 1981: 142).
fIav6air AND SITA
Oskar von Hinuber (in Wirth and Hinuber 1985: 1110) has suggested that
Greek Pandaie may correspond to Sanskrit Pandeya 'daughter of Pandu'.
In Mega-sthenes' account, Heracles is both the father and hus¬band of
Pandaie:
In this country where Heracles' daughter was queen, the girls are
marriageable at seven years, and the men do not live longer than forty
years. There is a story about this among the Indians, that Heracles,
whose daughter was born to him late in life, realizing that his own
end was near, and having no man of his own worth to whom he might give
his daugh¬ter [ouk ekhonta hdtoi andri ekdoi ten paida heoutoiu
epa-ksidi], copulated with her himself when she was seven, so that
their progeny might be left behind as Indian kings. Thus Heracles made
her marriageable, and thenceforward the whole of this line which began
with Pandaea inherited this very same privilege from Heracles.
(Arrian, Indica 9, 1-3, trans. Brunt 1983: 331)
When doing research on the Savitri legend, I stumbled upon a Sanskrit
parallel to this account. (For the follow¬ing, see Parpola 1998;
2000.) Princess Savitri's father, King Agvapati of Madra, fails to
marry off his daugh¬ter in time, and therefore sends her to search for
and choose a husband on her own. The texts do not directly indicate
that the king had had an incestuous relation¬ships with Princess
Savitri, but they do quote in this context a Smrti stating that if a
girl sees her first menses in her father's house, the father incurs a
great sin. Ac¬cording to MBh 3,277,32, Agvapati asks Savitri to find a
husband "equal to herself" (sadoram atmanah) as no wooer is
forthcoming, but according to the Skanda-Purana (7,166,16), Asvapati
says that however much he looks, he cannot find for his daughter a
bridegroom who in worth is equal to himself (vicarayan na pasyami
varam tulyam ihdtmanah).
In the Savitri legend, the human couple (Princess Savitri and Prince
Satyavat) corresponds to the divine couple (Goddess Savitri and God
Brahma). It was through the grace of Goddess Savitri and her husband
that the princess was born, and both the human and the divine Savitri
along with their husbands are to be wor¬shipped in the ritual of
vata-sdvitri-vrata that is asso¬ciated with the legend. Even the fate
of the human couple has its counterpart on the divine level. In
accor¬dance with the prophecy of Sage Narada, the husband (Satyavat
alias Citrfs'va, the young "alter ego" of Sa-vitri's father Asvapati)
dies after one year has passed from his wedding, with his head on the
lap of Princess Savitri. Savitri as a faithful wife, Sati, follows her
hus¬band to death when Yama comes to fetch him, and with her loyalty
gains his life back.
Parallel to this, the Skanda-Purana (3,1,40) tells how the creator god
Brahma alias Prajapati has sex with his own daughter Vac and is
therefore killed by Siva, but Brahma's wives Sarasvati and Gayatri
pacify Siva and make him join Brahma's severed head with the body.
This myth is directly based on a Vedic myth most ex¬plicitly told in
AB 3,33: Prajapati is guilty of incest with his daughter Vac and is
killed by Rudra in punishment. Vac 'speech, voice, sound' is another
name of Goddess Savitri, known best as the holiest stanza of the Veda
composed in the Gayatri meter: its recitations at sunrise and sunset,
and (later) at noon, are considered to mani¬fest the Goddesses
Gayatri, Savitri, and Sarasvati.
Prajapati thus had an incestuous relationship with his daughter Vac,
who is explicitly identified with the god¬dess of Dawn (Usas or Surya
or Savitri) and had to die in punishment for this sin. Pandaie's
incestuous father Heracles also died soon after the copulation. Pandu,
the father of the Pandavas, after he had killed a mating deer, was
cursed to die if he ever copulated again, which came to pass when he
had intercourse with his wife Madri. Madri was a princess of the Madra
country, and ascended the funeral pyre of Pandu, resolute as the
god¬dess Dhrti. In both respects Madri resembles another princess of
the Madra country, namely Savitri, who is the prototype of a Sati, and
the human counterpart of Goddess Savitri, the wife-daughter of Brahma
/ Praja¬pati. We have seen that the female member of the early
Vaisnava trio (Krsna's sister Subhadra, Rama's wife Sita) seems to
continue the Goddess of Dawn (Surya / Savitri) in the trio that she
forms with the two Asvins. Not only Savitri but this entire earlier
trio appears to have been worshipped in the Madra country, because
Nakula (clever like Krsna) and Sahadeva (whose name is a synonym of
Baladeva), the Pandavas sired by the Asvins, had Madri as their
mother. Madri's brother Salya, King of Madra, had Goddess Sita in his
banner, and TB 2,3,10 mentions Sita Savitri as the daughter of
Prajapati. All this suggests that Pandaie, Usas / Sirya / Savitri, and
Sita are each other's aliases.
FURROW AND PLOW
Albrecht Weber considered Rama's spouse Sita to be at least partly
mythical. An agricultural goddess Sita, the personified furrow, is
known from the Rgveda (4,57,6-7), and her worship is described in
detail in PGS 2,17; according to the GGS (4,4,27-29), she was to be
wor-shipped at plowing. It makes sense that the husband of 'furrow' is
the god of plowing. Weber therefore kept asking already one hundred
fifty years ago, has the hero of the R developed from Rama Halabhrt,
i.e., was he originally just a personification of an agricultural
divinity like Sita? (Weber 1850: 175; 1871: 7ff.). Bala-Rama's
distinctive iconographic emblems, the plow (liigala, hala, phala) and
pestle for pounding grain (musala), definitely mark him as primarily
an agrarian deity. The agricultural connection is also plain from his
alternative name Samkarsana, which is derived from the activity of
plowing (krsi). Weber's hypothesis is sup¬ported by the fact that
Bala-Rama (this name is not found in the MBh) is actually 143 times
called just Rama in the MBh (cf. Bigger 1998: 9).
The plow is instrumental in placing the seed in the womb of the earth,
and plowing thus symbolizes sex¬ual intercourse. But the plow also
creates the furrow, thus representing its generator. In R 1,66,14-15,
Sita emerges out of the furrow when Janaka the king of Mithila is
plowing a field, and is given the name Sita and raised as his daughter
by Janaka:
atha me krsatah ksetram ldngaldd utthita tatah
ksetram sodhayata labdhi namna siteti visruta
bhatalad utthita sa tu vardhamdnd mamatmaja
viryasulketi me kanya sthapiteyam ayonija
In the Uttarakanda (R 7,88,9-14), Sita finally returns to her mother
Earth: the goddess comes to fetch her and the two disappear
underground. In the Uttararama-carita, Janaka is called siradhvaja,
'having the plough in his banner' (Weber 1871: 8).
Janaka's name denotes 'progenitor, father'. It is one of the names
used in the Puranas of the Hindu creator god Brahma, and Brahma
directly continues Vedic Prajapati, whom TB 2,3,10 mentions as the
father of Sita Savitri. On the other hand, as noted above, the plow
and the field plowed (or the furrow) form a couple, so that Pra¬japati
is also Sita Savitri's husband through incest. In the R, a plow-god
seems to be both Sita's father (Janaka) and husband (Rama =
Bala-Rama).
KINGS JANAKA AND ASVAPATI
But in the R, Janaka is the king of Mithila and not a god; the above
quoted passages clearly belong to a late layer (cf. Brockington 1998:
379ff.) and do not reflect Valmiki's Sita, but the popular conceptions
current at that time (cf. Bulcke 1952). Even so, the king was
re¬sponsible for the fertility and welfare of his country and
represented a god, a specific god in each country. King Janaka of
Videha, who is often mentioned in Middle Vedic texts, may or may not
be identical with the R's Janaka. The Puranas know a Janaka dynasty
that ruled in Mithila-Videha after the MBh war but before the Buddha
(Horsch 1966: 382, 386f.). Janaka's Videha was no longer an
independent kingdom by the sixth century B.C. (Brockington 1998: 421).
In SB 10,6,1,1 and ChU 7,11, King Janaka of Videha is mentioned along
with Asvapati, the king of Kekaya. This suggests a connec¬tion, since
Savitri's father Asvapati is the king of Madra, and the Madra and the
Kekaya or Kaikeya peoples are often mentioned together in the epic,
and the Madra king Salya had Goddess Sita in his banner.
Rama's brother Bharata brings to his father Dasaratha, the king of
Kosala, enormous dogs as presents from Dasaratha's brother-in-law,
Asvapati, the king of the Kekayas. The dogs had been grown in the
palace, equalled the tiger in strength and fought with their teeth (R
2,64,21 antahpure 'tisa.mvrddhdn vydghraviryaba-lanvitdn /
damstrdyudhdn mahdkaydn sunaS copdyanam dadau). The Greek authors
report a gift of similar dogs to Alexander from King Sopeithes:
Writers narrate also of the excellent qualities of the dogs in the
country of Sopeithes. They say, at any rate, that Alex¬ander received
one hundred and fifty dogs from Sopeithes; and that, to prove them,
two were let loose to attack a lion, and, when they were being
overpowered, two others were let loose upon him, and that then, the
match having now be¬come equal, Sopeithes bade someone to take one of
the dogs by the leg and pull him away, and if the dog did not yield to
cut off his leg; and that Alexander would not con¬sent to cutting off
the dog's leg at first, but consented when Sopeithes said that he
would give him four instead; and that the dog suffered the cutting off
of the leg by slow amputa¬tion before he let go his grip. (Strabo
15,1,31 p. 700, trans. Jones 1931: II, 55, Loeb ed.)
Lassen (1847:I, 300; 1852: II, 161) identified the Greek name
Sopeithes with Sanskrit Asvapati (and Prakrit *Assapati) and concluded
that, like Poros [= Sanskrit Paurava] and Taxiles, it was the
inherited royal title of the Kekaya king rather than his proper name.
Quintus Curtius Rufus (8,12,4) explicitly states that Taxiles was a
hereditary title of the kings of Taxila [= Sanskrit Taksasild-]:
sumpsit. . . more gentis suae nomen quod patris fuerat; Taxilen
appellavere populares, sequente nomine imperium in quemcumque
transiretpeithes most probably renders Indo-Aryan -pati-h, transformed
by contamination with similarly sounding Greek or Macedonian names,
such as Peith6n, one of Alexander's generals. So- for Sanskrit asva-
or Prakrit assa- 'horse' is more difficult to explain. Sylvain Levi
derives S6peithes from the unattested Sanskrit word *Saubhuti 'king of
Saubhuta' (cf. Ganap. on Pan. 4,2,75) (cf. Karttunen 1997: 35, 53).
Because this king is asso-ciated with dogs in both Greek and Sanskrit
sources, the first part So- of S6peithes could rather render Gandhari
*so- (cf. Hiniiber 1986: 78 Gandhari monaso = Sanskrit mdnaso) for
Pfli sd- 'dog' (in a compound: sa-cakka-) from Sanskrit sva (sg.
nom.), svan- 'dog'; cf. also Pali so-pdka = Sanskrit sva-pdka-
'dog-cooker', 'dog-eater'. Svapati 'Lord of the dogs' is known from VS
16,28 as an epithet of Rudra, the Vedic god of hunters and robbers. In
Sanskrit, svapati can after -o / -e in sandhi be in¬terpreted as
asvapati. Both meanings, however, make sense: Prajapati, whom Asvapati
represents, is the lord of the horse, especially the sacrificial
horse; and both the horse and the dog are connected with Rudra /
Bhai-rava and related folk deities, for example in Maharashtra
(Sontheimer 1989).
MINAKSI OF MADURAI
Queen Pandaie of Megasthenes has been compared with the guardian
Goddess of the Pandya capital Madurai, Minaksi. In the local
Tiruvilaiydtar-Puranam (shorter version from the twelfth, longer from
the six-teenth century), she is the daughter of a Pandya king of
Madurai and his queen, who was the daughter of a Cola king called
Suirasena. Childless, they performed a Vedic sacrifice to obtain a
son, but received from the sacrificial fire a girl. (The birth of
Princess Savitri to King Asva-pati in the Indus Valley was similar.)
The girl had three breasts, and a voice from heaven told that she
should be educated in military arts like a prince, and that she would
conquer the whole world. The third breast would disappear when she met
her future husband. All this happened, and finally when fighting at
Mount Kailasa, she met God Siva and the third breast disappeared.
After their marriage, Siva ruled Madurai as King Sundara-Pandyan. Here
the spouse of Minaksi is called Sundaresvaran 'Beautiful Lord' and
considered to be Siva. However, there is in Madurai a local form of
Visnu called in Tamil Alakar 'Beautiful Lord'. Alakar is the brother
of Minaksi, who gives the bride away to the groom. The Alakarmalai
temple with a standing form of Visnu dates to pre-Pallavan times, and
is one of the oldest in Tamil Nadu (Champakalakshmi 1981: 50).
Especially in a city called Madhura, Alakar could have been both the
brother and the husband of the Goddess in ancient times, as was the
case with Rama and Sita according to the Dasaratha-Jdtaka. Both
Sundara and Alakar might render Sanskrit rdma, which in classical
Sanskrit means 'pleasing, charming, handsome, lovely, beautiful'.
Icon-ographic manuals prescribe that Rama is to be de¬picted as
beautiful (sundara), others that both Rama and Laksmana are to be
exceedingly handsome (ativa rupa-sampannau) (Ramachandra Rao 1992: VI,
26, 28). According to BhP 10,2,13, Bala-Rama was called Rama because
he charmed people (with his beauty) (rameti lokaramanad).
Vijaya's Sri Lankan yakkhini wife Kuveni or Ku-vanna likewise had
three breasts, and she had also been told that one of them would
vanish when she saw her future husband, which happened when she saw
Vijaya (Shulman 1980: 204f., quoting Davy 1821: 293-95). As Shulman
has pointed out, the Tamil word kan included in Minaksi's vernacular
name Afi-kayar-kann.-ammaiyar 'Lady of the beautiful carp-eyes', means
both 'eye' and 'breast-nipple'. In the Srividydrnava-Tantra, Sita is
three-eyed and wears the crescent of the moon on her head; she has
four arms holding a noose, a goad, a bow, and an arrow (Ramachandra
Rao 1992: VI, 269). Sita Savitri is an aspect of the warrior goddess
Durga, as is sometimes made explicit in texts (see Parpola
1992,1998,1999). In the case of Minaksi, this relationship with Durga
is clear from her local legend. This legend must be old, for in the
Mhv (c. A.D. 500), the daughter of King Pandu of Southern Madhura is
called Vijaya, which designates her as the Goddess of Victory.
The legend of a three-breasted princess recurs even at Nagapattinam in
Tamil Nadu: here this 'Lady of the long dark eyes'
(Karun-tatafi-kanni) is the daughter of Adi-Sesa, King of the snakes,
an ardent worshipper of Siva. Of her, too, it was prophesied that the
third breast would disappear as soon as she saw the king who would wed
her, in some variants a Nagaraja (cf. Shulman 1980: 205). Shulman
(1980: 200-211) has discussed her rela¬tionship with Minaksi and with
Kannaki, the heroine of Cilappatikaram who destroys the city of
Madurai with one of her breasts, all multiforms of the three-eyed
war¬rior goddess Durga-Kali. At Madurai, too, the bride groom appears
to have been the local Siva-related snake god, called in Tamil Ala-vay
(Sanskrit Halasya) (cf. Shul-man 1980: 123ff., 206).
BALA-RAMA HAS REPLACED RUDRA-SIVA
Bala-Rama incarnates a snake deity connected with fertility and the
subterranean regions, called Sesa 're-mainder' (the name seems to
refer to the seed grain left over for next sowing) or Ananta
'endless'. Serpent Sesa drinks palm-wine, and has the palmyra palm
(Sanskrit tala, a loanword from Dravidian) and the wine cup as his
iconographic attributes. In this regard he is like Bala-Rama, who in
turn has the three-bend (tri-bhatiga) pose associated with snake
deities (cf. Ramachandra Rao 1991: IV, 121-25). Buddhist Sanskrit
texts know Pan-duka, Panduraka, Pandulaka, and Pandaraka as names of a
naga king, one of the guardians of the great treasures.
The Mathura region is considered to be "the strong¬hold of
Safikarsana-Baladeva worship" (Jaiswal 1981: 60). The identity of
Bala-Rama is likely to have been pasted onto the earlier local
divinity there. The myth of Krsna's subduing the snake Kaliya living
in the Yamuna river and driving him away from his home has been
explained to symbolize the replacement of a snake cult earlier
prevalent at Mathura with the cult of Krsna. The excavations at Sonkh
have confirmed that snake worship still prevailed to a remarkable
degree at Mathura around the beginning of the Christian era. The only
major shrine discovered is an apsidal Naga temple. The asso¬ciated
finds comprise images and panels representing serpent deities and
inscriptions referring to their cult. Naga, Naga Bhumo, and Nagaraja
Dadhikarnna are mentioned by name (cf. Hartel 1993: 413-60).
Although Safikarsana appears as a Vaisnavite divinity in the
Mahabharata and the Puranas, there are traces of his close connection
with the cult of Rudra-Siva also. The Paficaratra Samhitas often
identify Safikarsana with Rudra-Siva. The Brahmanda Purana states that
Rudra was known as Ha-layudha. The Visnu Purana speaks of
Safikarsana-Rudra, who comes out of the mouth of the serpent Sesa at
the end of every aeon . . . Siva also is intimately associated with
the nagas. (Jaiswal 1981: 54)
In Bengal Siva is worshipped as Lanigalesvara (cf. Smith 1999), and
the most important phallic god of Hinduism could really be expected to
be the god of plowing and generation. Megasthenes' account of the
worship of Di-onysos in India underlines Siva's connection with
agri-culture and the plow c. 300 B.C.:
The Indians, he [Megasthenes] says, were originally nomads . . . until
Dionysus reached India. But when he ar-rived and became master of
India, he founded cities, gave them laws, bestowed wine on the Indians
as on the Greeks, and taught them to sow their land, giving them seed.
(. . .) Dionysus first yoked oxen to the plough and made most of the
Indians agriculturalists instead of nomads, and equipped them also
with the arms of warfare. . . . (Arrian, Indica 7, 2-7, trans. Brunt
1983: 325-27)
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I offer the following provisional recon-struction as a
first approximation of the historical back-ground that led to the
creation of the earliest versions of the Mahdbharata and the Rdmdyana.
This is of course open to improvement and modification in the light of
other evidence.
From 800 B.c. onwards, groups of Iranian-speaking, pastoralist and
marauding horsemen started arriving from the steppes of Eurasia and
Central Asia in Iran, Af-ghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Their main
route to South Asia seems to have been via the Indus Valley to
Guja¬rat, Rajasthan, and northern Maharashtra. These Iran¬ians brought
with them their own traditions, such as polyandric marriage, circular
yurt-like houses, and fu¬neral customs including exposure and
megalithic bur¬ial. The newcomers were so fair-skinned that the local
population called them 'pale' (pandu), using a word taken over from
Dravidian languages then still spoken in these regions besides
Indo-Aryan. While they adopted the local Black-and-Red Ware pottery,
the invaders es¬sentially continued living as before in Central India
and the Deccan, spreading also further south and adopting there the
local Dravidian speech. Around 600 B.C., some megalithic raiders
became maritime in Gujarat and col¬onized the coasts of Sri Lanka and
Tamil Nadu.
Meanwhile some megalithic Pandus turned towards the culturally more
advanced northern India. Through marital and other alliances they
eventually gathered such a force that one group, the Pandavas, took
over the rule even in the mightiest kingdom of north India. Another
successful group was the family to which the Buddha belonged: the
Sakyas, too, were Pandus, ulti¬mately of Saka origin, as their name
reveals. In north India, the Pandus quickly adopted the earlier local
cul¬ture and language. Their newly won positions were le¬gitimated
with fabricated genealogies that made them a branch of the earlier
ruling family, and with the perfor-mance of royal rituals. The
propaganda was dissemi¬nated by professional bards, leading to the
creation of the Mahabharata.
The alliance of the Pandavas and the Yadava chief Krsna Vasudeva
during the Mahdbharata wars led to the birth of a new Vaisnava
religion, at the center of which was at first a trio that succeeded
another with Vedic and older Indo-European roots (the Asvins and their
sister): two heroic brothers (the 'strong' white el¬der brother Arjuna
/ Baladeva and the black younger brother Krsna Vasudeva) and their
sister, whom the el¬der brother marries. This trio amalgamates the
earlier cult of another trio worshipped from the upper Indus Valley
(Madra, Kekaya, Bahlika) through Gujarat (Pra-bhfsa) and Rajasthan
(Puskara, Malava) to Prayaga at the confluence of Yamuna and Ganga and
eastwards up to Gaya (cf. Parpola 1998: 217ff.), evidently including
Mathura.
The earlier trio thus absorbed into Vaisnavism con¬sisted of the
incestuous couple of father (Prajapati = Brahma = Janaka = Asvapati)
and daughter (Vac = Usas = Savitri = Sit = Vijaya = Durga) and the
dying and res¬urrected young prince-husband (Satyavat = Kumara = Rudra
= Siva) to whom the father married off his daugh¬ter (an alter ego of
the father). These agricultural divin¬ities were represented by the
king and the queen and by such fertility symbols as the plow and
furrow, pestle and mortar, and snake and earth. In a recurring new
year festival, a young hero (representing the king and the dy¬ing sun,
etc.) was sacrificed after his "sacred marriage" with the queen;
wine-drinking, feasting with the meat of sacrificial victims, singing,
dancing, and sexual orgies were essential elements of this festival
(cf. MBh 8 and Parpola 1998).
As a result of the amalgamation, Arjuna / Baladeva was transformed
into (Bala-)Rama and his wife-sister into Sita. Around 450 B.C. the
new Vaisnava religion was taken from Mathura via Dvaraka by sea to Sri
Lanka (by Pandu-Vasudeva) and to Tamil Nadu (where southern Madhura
became the new Pandya capital). Ru¬mors about the princess held
captive in the royal palace of Sri Lanka (Mhv ch. 9) reached Ayodhya
soon hereaf¬ter, and Valmiki composed his epic in which the local
royalties played the roles of Janaka (the father of Sita), (Bala)Rama,
and Sita, and Rama's younger brother (Laksmana thus replacing Krsna of
the early Vaisnava trio).
REFERENCES
Allchin, F R. 1995. The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia. With
contributions from George Erdosy, R. A. E. Coningham, D. K.
Chakrabarti, and Bridget Allchin. Cam¬bridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Allchin, Bridget, and Raymond Allchin. 1982. The Rise of Civilization
in India and Pakistan. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Beal, Samuel, trans. 1884. Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western
World, Translated from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang (A.D. 629). 2 vols.
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
Bigger, Andreas. 1998. Balardma im Mahdbhdrata: Seine Darstellung im
Rahmen des Textes und seiner Entwick-lung. Beitrage zur Indologie,
vol. 30. Wiesbaden: Harras-sowitz Verlag.
Brockington, John. 1984. Righteous Rdma: The Evolution of an Epic.
Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press. 1998. The Sanskrit Epics. Handbuch der
Orientalistik, sec. 2, vol. 12. Leiden: Brill.
Brunt, P. A., ed. and trans. 1983. Arrian with an English Translation,
vol. 2. Loeb Classical Library, vol. 269. Cam¬bridge, Mass.: Harvard
Univ. Press.
Buitenen, J. A. B. van, trans. 1973. The Mahabhdrata Trans¬lated and
Edited. Vol. 1: The Book of the Beginning. Chi¬cago: Univ. of Chicago
Press.
Bulcke, C. 1952. La naissance de Sita. Bulletin de l'Ecole franCaise
dExtreme-Orient 46: 107-17.
Burrow, X, and M. B. Emeneau. 1984. A Dravidian Etymolog¬ical
Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [= DEDR]
Champakalakshmi, R. 1981. Vaisnava Iconography in the Tamil Country.
New Delhi: Orient Longman.
Coningham, R. A. E., and F. R. Allchin. 1995. The Rise of Cities in
Sri Lanka. Chap. 9 in Allchin 1995.
Davy, John. 1821. An Account of the Interior of Ceylon and of its
Inhabitants with Travels in That Island. London. [Quoted from Shulman
1980.]
DEDR = Burrow and Emeneau 1984.
Deo, S. B. 1973. Problem of South Indian Megaliths. Kannada Research
Institute, Research lectures, New Series, vol. 4. Dharwar: Kannada
Research Institute. 1984. Megalith Problems of the Deccan. In South
Asian Archaeology 1981, ed. Bridget Allchin. Pp. 221-24. University of
Cambridge Oriental Publications, vol. 34. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ.
Press.
Dessigane, R., P. Z. Pattabiramin, and Jean Fillozat. 1960. La legende
desjeux de (iva a Madurai d'apres les textes et les peintures. 2 vols.
Publications de l'Institut Fran9ais d'In-dologie, vol. 19. Pondich6ry:
Institut frangais d'Indologie.
Erdosy, George. 1995. The Prelude to Urbanization: Ethnicity and the
Rise of Late Vedic Chiefdoms and City States of North India and
Pakistan at the Time of the Buddha, Chaps. 6 and 7 in Allchin 1995.
Geiger, Wilhelm, assisted by Mabel Haynes Bode, trans. 1912. The
Mahdvamsa, or The Great Chronicle of Ceylon, Translated into English.
Pali Text Society, Translation Se¬ries, vol. 3. London: Oxford Univ.
Press.
Ghosh, A., ed. 1989. An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeol-ogy. 2 vols.
New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.
Goldman, Robert P. 1984. The Riimyana of Valmiki, An Epic of Ancient
India, vol. I: Bdlakanda. Introduction and translation by Robert P.
Goldman. Annotation by Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland.
Princeton Library of Asian Translations. Princeton: Princeton Univ.
Press.
Hardy, Friedhelm. 1983. Viraha-bhakti: The Early History of Krsna
Devotion in South India. Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press.
Hart, George L., III. 1975. The Poems of Ancient Tamil: Their Milieu
and Their Sanskrit Counterparts. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of
California Press.
Hairtel, Herbert. 1993. Excavations at Sonkh: 2500 Years of a Town in
Mathura District. With contributions by Hans-Jiirgen Paech and Rolf
Weber. Monographien zur in-dischen Archaologie, Kunst und Philologie,
vol. 9. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.
Hinuber, Oskar von. 1986. Das altere Mittelindisch im Uberblick.
Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische
Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, vol. 467. Wien: Verlag der Osterreichischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften. 1996. A Handbook of Pali Literature.
Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.
Hopkins, Edward W. 1889. The Social and Military Position of the
Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic;
with an Appendix on the Status of Woman. Repr. JAOS 13: 57-376. New
Haven: American Oriental Society.. 1901. The Great Epic of India: Its
Character and Origin. New York: Charles Scribner. Horsch, Paul. 1966.
Die vedische Gdtha- und Sloka-Literatur. Bern: Francke Verlag.
Jaiswal, Suvira. 1981. The Origin and Development of Vais-navism:
Vaisnavism from 200 BC to AD 500. 2nd revised and enlarged ed. New
Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.
Joshi, N. P. 1979. Iconography of Balardma. New Delhi: Abhinav.
Kapferer, Bruce. 1991. A Celebration of Demons: Exorcism and the
Aesthetics of Healing in Sri Lanka. 2nd ed. Oxford: Berg; Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
. 1997. The Feast of the Sorcerer: Practices of Con¬
sciousness and Power. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Karttunen, Klaus. 1989. India in Early Greek Literature. Stu-dia
Orientalia, vol. 65. Helsinki: The Finnish Oriental Society.
. 1997. India and the Hellenistic World. Studia Ori¬
entalia, vol. 83. Helsinki: The Finnish Oriental Society.
Lal, B. B. 1981. The Two Indian Epics vis-a-vis Indian Ar-chaeology.
Antiquity 55: 27-34 and pls. I—III.
. 1992. The Painted Gray Ware Culture of the Iron
Age. In History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. 1: The Dawn of
Civilization: Earliest Times to 700 B.C., ed. A. H. Dani and V. M.
Masson. Pp. 421-40 and 514-16. Paris: Unesco Publishing.
Lamotte, ltienne. 1958. Histoire du bouddhisme indien: Des origines a
l'ere Saka. Bibliotheque du Mus6on, vol. 43. Louvain: Institut
Orientaliste.
Lassen, Christian. 1847-1852. Indische Alterthumskunde. 2 vols. Bonn:
Verlag von H. B. Koenig.
Leshnik, Lawrence S. 1974. South Indian 'Megalithic' Buri-als: The
Pandukal Complex. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag . 1975. Nomads and
Burials in the Early History of
South India. In Pastoralists and Nomads in South Asia, ed. L. S.
Leshnik and G. D. Sontheimer. Pp. 40-67. Schriften-reihe des
Siidasien-Instituts der Universitat Heidelberg, vol. 1. Wiesbaden:
Franz Steiner Verlag.
Macdonell, A. A. 1897. Vedic Mythology. Grundriss der Indo-Arischen
Philologie und Altertumskunde, vol. 3.1.A. Strassburg: Karl J.
Triibner.
Malalasekera, G. P. 1937. Dictionary of Pali Proper Names. 2 vols.
Indian Texts Series. London: John Murray.
Maloney, Clarence. 1970. The Beginnings of Civilization in South
India. Journal of Asian Studies 29: 603-16 . 1975. Archaeology in
South India: Accomplish¬
ments and Prospects. In Essays on South India, ed. Burton
Stein. Pp. 1-40. Asian Studies at Hawaii, vol. 15. Honolulu: Univ. of
Hawaii Press.
Masica, Colin P. 1991. The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cam-bridge Language
Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Mayrhofer, Manfred. 1992-2001. Etymologisches Worterbuch des
Altindoarischen. 3 vols. Indogermanische Bibliothek, 2nd Series:
Worterbucher. Heidelberg: Universitatsverlag Carl Winter.
McIntosh, Jane R. 1985. Dating the South Indian Megaliths. In South
Asian Archaeology 1983, ed. Janine Schotsmans and Maurizio Taddei. Pp.
467—93. Istituto Universitario Orientale, Seminario di Studi Asiatici,
Series minor, vol. 23. Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale.
Minkowski, C. Z. 1989. Janamejaya's sattra and Ritual Struc-ture. JAOS
109: 401-20.
Oldenberg, Hermann, trans. 1879. The Dipavamsa, an ancient Buddhist
Historical Record, Edited and Translated. Lon¬don: Williams and
Norgate.
Parpola, Asko. 1984. On the Jaiminiya and Vadhila Traditions of South
India and the Pandu / Pandava problem. Studia Orientalia 55: 429-68..
1992. The Metamorphoses of Mahisa Asura and
Prajapati. In Ritual, State and History in South Asia: Es-says in
Honour of J. C. Heesterman, ed. A. W. van den Hoek, D. H. A. Kolff and
M. S. Oort. Pp. 275-308. Mem¬oirs of the Kern Institute, vol. 5.
Leiden: E. J. Brill.. 1994. Deciphering the Indus Script.
Cambridge:Cambridge Univ. Press. 1998. Savitri and Resurrection.
Studia Orientalia 84: 167-312. 1999. Vac as the Goddess of Victory in
the Veda
and Her Relation to Durga. Zinbun: Annals of the Institute for
Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, 34:101-43. 2000. The
Religious Background of the Savitri Leg-
end. In Haranandalahari: Volume in Honour of Professor Minoru Hara,
ed. Ryutaro Tsuchida and Albrecht Wezler. Pp. 193-216. Reinbek: Dr.
Inge Wezler Verlag.
Ramachandra Rao, S. K. 1988-1992. Pratima-kosha: Ency-clopaedia of
Indian Iconography. 6 vols. Bangalore: Kal-patharu Research Academy.
Schroeder, Leopold von. 1887. Indiens Literatur und Cultur in
historischer Entwicklung. Leipzig: Verlag von H. Haessel.
Sen, Sukumar. 1976. The Ramayana: Its Origin, Authorship and Early
Development. Indian Literature 19: 122-30.
Shulman, David Dean. 1980. Tamil Temple Myths. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
Sircar, D. C. 1971. Studies in the Religious Life of Ancient and
Medieval India. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Smith, William L. 1999. Siva, Lord of the Plough. In Essays on Middle
Bengali Literature, ed. Rahul Peter Das. Pp. 208-28. Calcutta: Firma
KLM Private Limited.
Sontheimer, Giinther-Dietz. 1989. Pastoral Deities in Western India.
Trans. Anne Feldhaus. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Subrahmanian, N. 1966. Pre-Pallavan Tamil Index: Index of Historical
Material in Pre-Pallavan Tamil Literature. Madras Univ. Historical
Series, vol. 23. Madras: Univ. of Madras.
Tod, James. 1835. Comparison of the Hindu and Theban Her¬cules.
Illustrated by an Ancient Hindu Intaglio. Transac¬tions of the Royal
Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 3: 139-59.
Weber, Albrecht. 1850. Zwei Sagen aus dem ;atapatha-Brahmana iiber
Einwanderung und Verbreitung der Arier in Indien, nebst einer
geographisch-geschichtlichen Skizze aus dem weissen Yajus. Indische
Studien 1: 161-232. Ber¬lin: Ferd. Diimmler's Buchhandlung.
. 1852. Akademische Vorlesungen iiber indische Lit-
eraturgeschichte. Berlin: Ferd. Diimmler's Verlagsbuch-handlung.
. 1853. Berichtigungen, Erwiderungen und Nachtrage
zum ersten und zweiten Bande. Indische Studien 2: 390-
418.
. 1871. Uber das Ramayana. Abhandlungen der
Koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Aus
dem Jahre 1870, Philosophisch-historische Klasse: 1-88.
Berlin. . 1873. Das Mahabhashya des Patafijali. Benares
1872. Indische Studien 13: 293-502..
1891. Episches im vedischen Ritual.
Sitzungsberichte der Koniglichen Preussischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Historisch-philologische Klasse, Jahrgang
1891: II, 769-818.
Wirth, Gerhard, and Oskar von Hiniiber, eds. and trans. 1985. Arrian,
Der Alexanderzug; Indische Geschichte, Griechisch und Deutsch
herausgegeben und iibersetzt. Sammlung Tusculum. Miinchen:
Tusculum-Verlag.
Yokochi, Yuko. 1999. The Warrior Goddess in the Devi-mahatmya. In
Living with Sakti: Gender, Sexuality and Religion in South Asia, ed.
Masakazu Tanaka and Musashi Tachikawa. Senri Ethnological Studies,
vol. 50. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.
Zeller, Gabriele. 1990. Die vedischen Zwillingsgotter: Unter-suchungen
zur Genese ihres Kultes. Freiburger Beitrige zur Indologie, vol. 24.
Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
Narayanan Kannan
மிக விரிவான ஆய்வுக்கட்டுரை. முழுவதும் படிக்க வாரக்கடைசி தேவை. அவரது
முடிவுகளை வைத்துத்தோன்றும் சில எண்ணங்கள். பேரா.அசோகனுடன் நானும்
தொடர்பு கொண்டிருக்கிறேன். ஐரோப்பாவிலுள்ள திராவிட இயல் பேராசிரியர்களுள்
மிகவும் புகழ் பெற்றவர் இவர். என் மதிப்பு ஒருபுறம் இருக்கட்டும்.
எனக்குப் பல நேரங்களில் தோன்றுகிறது, ஐரோப்பியர்களால் இந்திய உளவியல்
ஞானத்தை அவ்வளவு எளிதாகப் புரிந்து கொண்டுவிடமுடியுமா? என்று. இவர்கள்
வேத, இதிகாசங்களை நேரடிப்பொருளாகப் பார்த்து அதற்கொரு சரித்திரப்
பின்புலம் தர முயற்சிக்கும் போது நம் ஞானம் கொச்சைப்படுகிறது.
இப்படித்தான் இவர்கள் ஏசுவையும் பார்த்து, திருச்சபையை உருவாக்கி உலகின்
பாதி அழிவிற்கு இட்டுச் சென்றார்கள். There is no historicity to Vedas
or Maharabaratha. நம்மவர்கள் கூட இப்பிழையைச் செய்கின்றனர். இராம ஜென்ம
பூமி என்பது வெறும் குறியீடுதான். இராமனைச் சரித்திர புருஷனாகப்
பார்த்தால் பல குழப்பங்கள் வரும். அசோகனது முடிவுகளில் கூட முதலில்
கிருஷ்ணாவாதாரம் சொல்லிவிட்டு பின் இராமாவாதாரத்திற்கு வருகிறார்.
ஆனால், கத்தி முனை போல் கூர்மையுள்ள வேதாந்த விசாரத்தில் விற்பன்னரான
ஆதிசங்கரர் வேத, இதிகாசங்களை உயர் மனத்தில் உருவாகிய "அகக்காட்சி" என்றே
காண்கிறார். பிறப்பிலியான பரம் என்றும் மனிதன் எனும் சிறுகட்டுக்குள்
அடைபடாது. ஆண்டாள் "வாரணமாயிரம்" பாடியது போல் இராமாயண, மகாபாரதம் ஓர்
அகக்காட்சியே. மகாபாரத சூட்சுமம் அறிந்தவர்களுக்குப் புரியும் அக்கதை
சும்மா, பீமன், அர்ஜுனன் பராக்கிரமத்தைச் சொல்ல வந்த கதையல்ல.
நமக்கெல்லாம் பின் சூத்திரதாரியாக ஒருவன் உள்ளான் என்பதைச் சொல்ல வந்த
கதை அது. ஓர் இலக்கிய உத்தியாக வியாசர் பல கதைகளைச் சொல்லி மக்களை
ஈர்க்கிறார்.
வேதாந்த சம்பிரதாயத்தில் வரும் இராமானுசரும் ஒரு இடத்தில் கூட
பகுத்தறிவிலிருந்து பிறழவில்லை. இறைவனைக் கண்டேன், கண்டேன் என்பதெல்லாம்
அருளாளர்களின் அகக்காட்சியே என்று தெளிவாகச் சொல்லிச் செல்கிறார்.
ஆனால் மிஷனரி வழியில் வரும் வெள்ளையர்கள் நம் வேத, இதிகாசங்களை ஓர்
ஒற்றைப்பரிமாணத்தில் காணப்புகும் போது 'பகுத்தறிவு" பாதையிலிருந்து தவறி
இல்லாத ஒன்றைப்பற்றி பேசுவதாக அமைத்துவிடுகிறார்கள்.
Miles to go before I sleep..Miles to go before I sleep...
கண்ணன்
2008/12/10 N. Ganesan <naa.g...@gmail.com>: