FOR YOUR INFORMATION, FRIENDS

I have posted a manuscript - Ruminating Sarala Mahabharata -  the link to which is the following: https://works.bepress.com/bibudhendra_patnaik/17/

Written more than ten years ago, this manuscript was partially edited (the first 50 pages) two years ago. It is also incomplete. The last chapter is yet to be written. I hope I will re-work on this manuscript some day soon. I have posted it in this incomplete and unedited form all the same. Barring, perhaps, a very few, this manuscript deals with episodes not discussed elsewhere, to the best of my knowledge.

LAZY NOTES (IN LOCKDOWN)

 V

DHRITARASTRA’S ANGUISH

 

In the darkness of the night, Duryodhana, rattled, scared, intensely lonely and blood all over his body, fled from the battlefield. All his brothers had been killed, as had been Sakuni, his mighty generals and other celebrated warriors and his beloved son, Lakshmana Kumara. He directly went to Bhishma, lying on a bed of arrows, waiting for the auspicious moment to come when he would wish for his death. Duryodhana told him that he had lost everyone in the war and had come to him to take refuge in him. He prayed to him to save him. A kshatriya does not abandon the one who had surrendered to him and a grandfather cannot see his grandchild perish, no matter how wicked he might have been. Bhishma did not upbraid him but he did tell him, in much sorrow, how he had been responsible for his misery. He advised him to go to sage Durvasa, who was in charge of Vyasa Sarovara (the lake named Vyasa), take refuge in the venerable sage and with his permission, enter the lake. Once in the lake, none could harm him; be they mortals or immortals, he told him. He urged hm to hurry. The night was in its last phase. Once the day broke, the Pandavas would start looking for him, he said. Duryodhana thought of meeting his parents; so he headed to Hastinapura.

Earlier that night, Sanjaya had told Dhritarashtra about Duryodhana’s plight. The distressed father asked Vidura and him to go to the battlefield right then and bring his son to the safety of Hastinapura, taking advantage of the thick darkness of the night.  That was not possible, Sanjaya old him; the Pandava army was everywhere.

When Duryodhana arrived at his palace in Hastinapura, he found his wife Bhanumati waiting to welcome him ceremonially but when he told her that he alone of the Kauravas was alive and their son had fallen, she was completely devastated. But he consoled her, saying that not all was over. It was just that he was extremely tired and desperately needed rest. Having rested, the following morning he would return to the battlefield and win the war. Bhanumati couldn’t hear any of this; she had passed out.

Then he went to his parents. Sanjaya told Dhritarashtra that his son was in front of him. The father, who had been so very worried for the safety of his only surviving son, now that he was there with him, was missing the rest of his sons. He upbraided his eldest. He had come alone; where were his brothers, he asked him. He reprimanded him for not having given their due to the Pandavas, his brothers, for having listened to the wicked Sakuni instead of the wise Vidura, and for insulting Krishna – Narayana Himself! Because of him, he told him, his begetting a hundred sons had become futile. Utterly sad, defeated and mourning for his brothers himself, who he knew had sacrificed themselves for him, there was nothing meaningful that Duryodhana could say to his father by way of consolation.

Overcome with grief, the father continued in the same vein: having started the jajna of war (war viewed as sacrificial fire), he should not have wished to live alone. Looking at Krishna, he should have fallen in the war, fighting, and attained Vaikuntha (the abode of Vishnu). Then the devastated father said something he had never told him before. That moment of loss was too unbearable for him, an ordinary mortal in spiritual terms, to control himself. This is the best that can be said for him.

He should have listened to the sage counsel of the wise Vidura, he told his son. Vidura had advised him to have his infant eldest killed. If he lived, he would attain much prosperity and greatness but would bring him great grief by becoming the cause of the utter ruination of the entire family. If he was killed, his ninety-nine younger brothers would live, Vidura had said. Duryodhana’s killing would have ensured the continuance of his lineage and he, Vidura, was willing to perform that act of sacrifice himself. Dhritarashtra had turned down his brother’s advice. He told Duryodhana that he was regretting having done so now. Hurt by those cruel words, the son said,” Father, why are you being so merciless? At this difficult moment of mine, instead of pity, you are giving me pitiless words. Protect me for the night. I will win the war the following day.”

When he uttered those unfeeling and insensitive words to his eldest, he seemed to have forgotten why he had not allowed Vidura to kill his eldest born. As he gave the infants, one after the other, to the blind father to feel him, Vidura said of hm that he would be wicked. Much before he could hold all his sons, Dhritarashtra stopped him. If that was what he was forecasting for each infant, why must he sacrifice his eldest, he had asked Vidura. He would rather accept whatever destiny would bring him - that was what he had told Vidura, which he seemed to have forgotten. There is absolutely no suggestion in Sarala Mahabharata that Dhritarashtra’s decision was wrong. It just cannot be, if we think about it. Can it be a good reason for a father to sacrifice his eldest born so that his lineage continued with ninety-nine wicked sons?

Returning to the meeting of Dhritarashtra and Duryodhana, the troubled father expressed his helplessness to give him protection, even for that night. With the all-knowing Sahadeva, there was no place in the three worlds where he could be safe, he told his son. He told him then what Bhishma had told him: “take refuge in sage Durvasa and enter Vyasa Sarovara”. The difference was that Bhishma had given him that advice with kindness and Dhritarashta’s advice was expressed in hurtful language: jamaku dekhi darilu palai pasa ja ja - seeing Yama’s face, you got scared. Now, go away and enter (the lake).  Very harsh, unfeeling, unkind and unfair words for the one, who, even his worst enemies never considered to be a coward, who was afraid of death. And those were the parting words of the father to his son.

How very comforting it is to put the blame on someone else for one’s suffering! The blind king had forgotten that when he was the king, he had been grossly unfair towards the Pandavas and had deprived them of their due - long before his son did so.

 

LAZY NOTES (IN LOCKDOWN)

 IV

VIDURA"S SILENCE

For the Great War at Kurukshetra there was no one person in Sarala Mahabharata who everyone blamed as being solely or primarily responsible. For Gandhari and Dhritarastra, it was Sakuni - when the war was on. After the war, when she saw Krishna, she told him that he was solely responsible for the war since it was entirely within his powers not to allow the war to happen in the first place - no one would have gone against his words had he firmly told everyone concerned that there was to be no war. Arjuna squarely blamed Duryodhana, but the venerable Kuru elder, Bhishma, disagreed.  On the battlefield itself, when this exchange took place between them, Bhishma told him that the Pandavas’ commitment to peace was not total; had it been so, they would have given the kingdom to Duryodhana and returned to the forest. In a family, an unreasonable person is accommodated, not destroyed, he told his grandson.

In a technical sense, it was Duryodhana who started the war. The two armies were face to face, neither attacking the other. When his brother Durdasa declared that he would change sides and fight for the Pandavas and gave protection to the unarmed Yudhisthira, a furious Duryodhana ordered his army to attack Durdasa and that was how the war started. However, from this, it does not follow that he was responsible for the war.

At the same time, he could have stopped the war. In Sarala Mahabharata, it was Yudhisthira himself who made a genuine effort – the only one to do so - to avoid war. When Krishna told him on the battlefield that Arjuna was unwilling to fight, he told Krishna that he was right and then, unarmed, he went to the Kaurava side of the battlefield to negotiate peace with Duryodhana. He told him that he was not asking him now to give him five villages; all he wanted was just one. Duryodhana refused. About this exchange Gandhari surely did not know; had she known, she would not have thought that the Avatara alone could have stopped the war.

Now, who did the embodiment of Dharma on earth blame for the war? For Yudhisthira, it was Draupadi. When she fell to her death, he told the grieving Bhima that she was a sinner. By keeping her hair untied, she had instigated her husbands to take revenge. In her word and deed, she had goaded them, in a manner of speaking, to the battlefield. He also held Sahadeva responsible for much that had gone wrong. Being the knower of the past and the future, had he alerted him in time as to what was going to happen, things might have been different. But knowing everything, he would keep mum. He was a sinner, said the son of Dharma to Bhima.

Yudhisthira did not say anything about which situations he had in mind, with respect to what he had said about Sahadeva. In any case, that was neither the time nor the occasion for such things.

But let us think. When the first game of dice took place, Yudhisthira was alone in the Kaurava court. When the second game of dice took place, which led to his exile, he was not alone. In fact, that time, at Duryodhana’s instance, it was Sahadeva who rolled the dice for them both. And the two sticks this time were not Sakuni’s (see “The Second Game of Dice” in this blog, posted on May 7, 2010). Had Sahadeva alerted his eldest, the events might not have taken the turn they did.

Now, were there others in Sarala’s narrative who could have been held responsible but were not? Consider this:

This happened after the fire at the wax palace incident, in which, but for a very few, everyone knew that the Pandavas and their mother had perished. The family had performed the funeral rites. Along with the members of the Kuru family, Balarama and Krishna had wept. At that point of time, none but Vidura and Sakuni knew that Krishna’s tears were fake. But Vidura did not know that Sakuni knew that the Pandavas were safe.

Not long after the wax palace incident, Dhritarashtra decided to hand over the kingdom to Duryodhana. On earlier occasions, his proposal to do so had been resisted by the Kuru elders, who had firmly told him that Yudhisthira must be the crown prince, not Duryodhana. Now since they knew that the Pandavas were dead, they consented to the coronation of Duryodhana.

Had Vidura told them then that the Pandavas were alive, the coronation of Duryodhana would not have taken place. The Kuru elders would not have allowed it. Duryodhana would have been exposed. He would have received condemnation from the Kuru elders, the sages who used to visit Hastinapura, the Yadavas and the people of Hastinapura. Sakuni would not have been able to weave a story to protect him at that moment.

The Kuru elders would have decided to crown Yudhisthira, if not as the king, as the crown prince. In due course, he would have become the king. Duryodhana would not have been able to organize a revolt against him, let alone a war, at any time later. Who would have supported him? Maybe only Karna? None else of any significance from Aryavarta would have joined him at a battlefield against Yudhisthira.

Viewed thus, wouldn’t one say that Vidura’s silence, when he should have spoken, started a chain of events that led the Kurus to the battlefields of Kurukshetra? If Draupadi’s untied hair or Sahadeva’s silence could be viewed as responsible for the devastating war by the embodiment of virtue, whose judgement in Swargarohana Parva of the narrative has the status of the judgement of Dharma himself, why not Vidura’s silence?

  

 

 

LAZY NOTES (IN LOCKDOWN)

III

BHIMA'S OATH

In Sarala Mahabharata, Kunti and Yudhisthira thought of Bhima as dusta. It would be grossly unfair to translate “dusta” as wicked, in the given context. Wicked, he was certainly not. When he was a child, he was naughty and sometimes for fun, he would tease and torment his Kaurava cousins. He was totally devoted to his mother and his brothers and no one had done for them more than him to make their life a bit easier when they spent years in the forest. With him around, they were safe. After his wedding, whenever Draupadi needed his help, he did not disappoint her.

He was totally committed to Yudhisthira and obeyed him but did not hesitate to denounce him, when he found his action insufferable. He was deeply devoted to Krishna. Unlike Yudhisthira and Arjuna, he obeyed him unquestioningly. In Sarala Mahabharata, Krishna was the only one who feared but it was not out of fear that he obeyed him. He did not understand Krishna, neither did he ever try, but readily did what he asked him to do. His relation with the Avataa was not based on jnana (knowledge) but on bhakti (devotion) of a kind. He had surrendered to him but it was not a conscious act of his; neither was he conscious of it. Through his characters, the bhakta (devotee) poet Sarala explores the many forms of relationship between nara and Narayana.

Krishna thought of him as dusta as well, as someone who was thoughtless and was inclined by nature to be violent. No one thought he was vicious and sinful. That he certainly was not. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that he was virtuous. It was merely that full of energy, he was impatient and impetuous and could be excited easily. When provoked, he could be really wild and very destructive.

Now, despite all their suffering caused by the Kauravas and despite the oaths that he had taken during Draupadi’s humiliation in the Kaurava court, when the time came to decide on a conclusive war with the Kauravas, he was unenthusiastic.  He did not want a fratricidal war. He felt it was wrong. He told Krishna that he would be content if Duryodhana gave him one village for his subsistence. Krishna had to provoke him to give up that attitude and think in terms of war. Inciting him wasn’t difficult. Yudhisthira, Arjuna and Nakula also did not want war if Duryodhana gave them what they wanted: Yudhisthira wanted one village for himself and his brothers, Arjun, one village for himself and Nakula, two, one for himself and one for his brother, Sahadeva. Krishna did not try to incite any of them, the way he did to Bhima. He knew who to incite. This episode shows why it would be justified to call Bhima essentially virtuous and at the same time, why Krishna thought he was dusta in the above sense of the word.

In the war, he redeemed his oaths: he killed all the Kaurava brothers who were fighting against the Pandavas and tore off Dussasana’s arm and washed Draupadi’ hair with his blood. Still wild with rage and going beyond his oath, he tore open his chest and drank his blood. Later he must have felt guilty or at least embarrassed about it. After the war, when Gandhari asked him how he could drink the blood of the warrior he had defeated, Bhima said that fearing condemnation, he did not drink the blood; he just touched it with his lip.

Incidentally, when Bhima hit Duryodhana’s thighs and felled him, he didn’t redeem any oath. In Sarala Mahabharata, Duryodhana hadn’t suggested to Draupadi to sit on his lap and Bhima hadn’t taken an oath to break his thighs. Clueless about how to tame Duryodhana when they were fighting, Bhima looked at Krishna for help, the way he had done during his fight with Jarasandha. Like then, Krishna had come to his help. He had indicated to him that he had to hit Duryodhana on his thigh.

In the “Mahabharata” world, be it the world of Vyasa Mahabharata or of Sarala Mahabharata, taking revenge was considered to be the moral duty of a kshatriya at least. Bhima had fulfilled his oath. He had done his sacred duty. Of course, in Sarala Mahabharata, he went beyond his oath, as mentioned above, when he tore apart Dussasana’s breast and drank his blood. Arguably, this event satisfied the requirement of the narrative at that stage. We will return to this part of the episode in a future note.

Nobody in Sarala Mahabharata ever said that the oath itself was terribly, terribly wrong. It was an oath that dreadfully dehumanized the utterer and his target both. None said that the utterance itself was a degrading act – a papa (sin).

 

LAZY NOTES (IN LOCKDOWN)

II

ARJUNA'S REVENGE

In the episode of “The Mango of Truth” (see the post on June 9, 2005 in this blog), Arjuna had told Krishna this truth, among others, about himself in the presence of his brothers, Draupadi, sage Vyasa and the imposter Gauramukha: he would never target an enemy who was fleeing from the battle (sangrame shatru pithidele sahasra na marai – in the battle – enemy – if turns his back – arrows – not – shoot = if the enemy turns his back on the battle, I do not hit him with my arrows). When the mother, who is going for her bath, tells her child to protect the butter from the crow till her return, she does not mean that he could allow a pigeon or a cat to eat it. Likewise, Arjuna’s declaration is not to be taken literally. What he said would cover situations like the enemy being without weapons or for some other reason, not being in a position to defend himself, having surrendered to him, etc.  Now, he didn’t say this to Krishna on that occasion but a reader of Sarala Mahabharata knows that this virtuous warrior would not attack unless he is attacked. He had refused to start a battle at least twice. In the Kurukshetra battlefield, when Krishna asked him to attack Bhishma and start the war, he had told him that he would respond only after he was attacked. Later, when he faced the army of the mlecha king Mayasura and Krishna asked him to attack them, he told him the same thing: he would wait for them to attack him and would fight with them only then.   

Now think of what he did when he came face to face with Jayadratha the day after Abhimanyu’s death. He had taken a vow that he would consign himself to the fire if he failed to kill Jayadratha by evening that day and avenge the killing of his son. Jayadratha was so well-protected in the battlefield that he could not penetrate through the layers of his defence before it became dark. Arjuna requested Duryodhana to light the funeral fire. The fire was lit and Arjuna was readying himself to enter it when Sakuni asked Jayadratha to come out of his protective ring and witness the event and he came out.

The sun suddenly appeared, as unknown to every mortal, Krishna withdrew his divine chakra, Sudarshana which had covered the sun.  Duryodhana asked his brother-in-law to flee from the battlefield and save himself. He ran for his life and Arjuna and Krishna abandoned their chariot and chased him. With one arrow, Arjuna cut off his bow and destroyed his quiver. Jayadratha stood unarmed and defenceless.  

Jayadratha begged for mercy. “Save me, O Partha,” he said, “You are known to be the noble warrior, who spares his enemy when he abandons fighting and surrenders to him. I have surrendered.  I am your servant from now on. Save me. Save me”. Arjuna felt sad. Jayadratha was his brother-in-law. “There is no merit in killing one’s relations, O Krishna, said Arjuna. “Those who kill their kin for their selfish gains, head to narka (hell). Why did we start this fratricidal war, O Keshava?”, said Arjuna in grief.

Krishna told him that the man was vile and insincere. If he spared the vile wretch, he would mercilessly kill his brothers and he would not be there to save them, having entered the fire for failing to redeem his promise. Besides, he was the killer of his son and not avenging one’s son’s killing was a grievous sin. One would suffer in narka for that. “Jayadratha is doomed,” the Avatara told him. “I have saved him for you, O Partha”, said Krishna, “if you don’t kill him, someone else will; if no one does, then I will”. In this assertion, one hears the echo of Krishna’s words in Srimad Bhagavad Gita – Bhishma, Drona and the others were already dead, killed by Him, had said He, in His Viwarupa Form. He, Sabyasachi was to be only a nimitta.    

That last sentence has a narrative purpose; it brings Abhimanyu again into the discourse in a different way.  This was Krishna’s strategy to provoke Arjuna – to keep reminding him of Abhimanyu so that his mind would be filled with the image of his dead son and he would forget for that moment his warrior-dharma. He succeeded. How Jayadratha was killed, let that remain for another note. From another perspective, in the Bhagavad Gita, it was the Essence of the Avatara Krishna in His Supreme manifestation who was speaking to Arjuna; here it was the Avatara speaking. The Avatara has human relations; his Essence has none.

In Sarala Mahabharata, no one blamed Arjuna for the death of Jayadratha. The Kauravas blamed Krishna – on suspicion. If impossible things happened, Krishna must be the reason, they thought. Who didn't! As for Arjuna, it never occurred to him during the many years he lived after his brother-in-law’s death, that he had compromised with his warrior-dharma.  

 

 

    

 

LAZY NOTES (IN LOCKDOWN)

I

YUDHISTHIRA'S HALF-TRUTH

Yudhisthira was persuaded to tell Drona “The man or the elephant Aswasthama was dead’ but utter “elephant” in a low voice (nara ki gunjara aswasthama marana / Kariba dhire gunjara sabda uchcharana). Krishna told the virtuous shishya that his guru, in the terribly disturbed state he would be in at that time, would suspect nothing and would act on what he would be allowed to hear.  Thus, when Drona asked Yudhisthira about his son, to cut a long question unfairly short (we will return to it in another note), he told him this: nara ki gunjara je aswasthama hata (man or elephant Aswasthama is dead). The expected happened: Drona collapsed and the sword fell from his hand. The rest is too well known for a recount here (see Part II of the article in this blog “The Killing of the Guru in Two Parts”, posted on December 1, 2019) and in any case, it is not relevant for the present purpose.  

Of late I have wondered what difference it would have made had Yudhisthira not uttered the “elephant” part in a low voice. I think it would have confounded the bewildered guru. He had come looking for a definite answer. Now, his shishya was giving a reply which was entirely unhelpful. Maybe, he would have thought that the virtuous man was suggesting that his son was alive and the elephant, named Aswasthama, was dead. But it seems unlikely. If his son was alive, why did Yudhisthira not say so, he would have wondered. Why did he bring in the elephant at all? One would use a hedge when one has to say something which is likely to trouble the addressee. So, Drona might have inferred that his son was indeed dead and Yudhisthira was informing him indirectly. But the chances were that father would have still looked for a definitive answer, given to him in a direct, straightforward language.

So he would ask the same question again to Yudhisthira, pleading with him to give him a clear, unambiguous answer. Yudhisthira would give him the same answer the same way, i.e., uttering “elephant” in a low voice. What option did he have? He obviously could not tell him that Aswathama was dead, without bringing in the elephant. Could he tell him just that the elephant, Aswasthama, was dead: gunjara je aswasthama hata? No mention of “nara”. That would have been risky; it was possible that even in that mental state, the guru would have figured out that his shishya had indirectly told him that his son, Aswasthama, was live. He couldn’t have chosen to speak in a roundabout way; in that case, suppressing part of that answer would have been difficult. Instead of just one word, he would have to utter more words inaudibly. That would most likely have made his guru request him to speak audibly. What could Yudhisthira have done then? He would have only repeated what he had told him and in the same way. The distraught father would have been even more confused, wondering why he wasn’t answering him properly and out of frustration, leading to anger, he might have cursed him. Who knows!

It occurs to me that Yudhisthira’s half-truth or lie had saved both his guru and himself. His guru’s fate had been decided; he was to die as his shishya, on whom he had such absolute trust, had already chosen victory in the war over staying steadfast to dharma. Now, his guru did not have to go through the agony of uncertainty any longer and as for him, he wouldn’t risk being doomed by a curse from his guru.

A LIST OF ARTICLES ON SARALA MAHABHARATA

These articles deal with the creativity of Sarala as the re-teller of the canonical text and the richness and the depth of his poetic vision.

Forthcoming

“The Tribal Theme in Sarala Mahabharata”

 “Exploring the Possibilities of a Theory of Meaning for a Theory of Discourse Structure”

 “On Variations in Mahabharata”

 “Bhakti in the Times of Darkness and Bliss: A Study of Bhakti in Sarala Mahabharata” 

 “Peace or War? Remarks on the Pre-war Deliberations in Sarala Mahabharata”

(With Vikas Kumar). “Situating Sarala Das’s Mahabharata in the Story Space that is India”. Indian Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.

Published

(2020). “Explaining the Story-within-Story Structure of the Puranic Narratives in terms of a Theory of Meaning”. Konark, Vol IV: 1. pp. 165-178.

(2020). “On Bad Language (According to Sarala Mahabharata)”. Proceedings of the International Seminar on Sarala Mahabharata. Sarala Bishwabhasa Sammilani. Bhubaneswar. January 14-16.

(2019). “The Way Power Talks”. Occasional Paper -1. Bhubaneswar: Utkal University of Culture. pp. 1-16 (e-publication).

 (2018). “Bhishma in Two Episodes in Sarala Mahabharata”. Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature, Vol 54. pp. 23-34.

(2018). “Drona in the Ekalavya Episode in Sarala Mahabharata”. In Chandra, Sibesh, Vrinda Dalmiya and Gangeya Mukherji (eds.) Exploring Agency in the Mahabharata: Ethical and Political Dimensions of Dharma.  New Delhi: Routledge India. pp. 232-246.

 (2018). “Interaction between the Forest Dwellers and the Urbanites in Sarala Mahabharata and Some Select Works of Gopinath Mohanty”. The Critical Endeavour: Vol XXIV, pp. 233-243.

(2018). “On Three Women Characters in Odia Puranic Literature”.  The Critical Endeavour: XXV, pp. 259-268.

(2018) Vikas Kumar and B.N.Patnaik. “Sarala Mahabharata: Reading the Whole in the Part”. margASIA, Summer 2018. pp. 11-12.

 (2017). “Sarala Mahabharata: Eka ‘Bandi-Pratishodha’ ra Gatha”. Paurusha: 50^th year, 8^th issue. pp. 59-63. (with Vikas Kumar (first author) and Dharmapada Jena) (in Odia)

 (2017). “A Bhuta named Babana”.  In Abbi, Anvita (ed.). Unwritten Languages of India. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. (pp. 94 -105).

(2017). “Observations on an Instance of Negative Interaction in Sarala Mahabharata”. In Garg, Shweta Rao and Deepti Gupta (eds.) The English Paradigm in India. Palgrave Macmillan. (pp. 285-292). 

(2017). “Observations on Action and Its Ethicality”. In Majhi, R.C. et. Al. (eds.). Morality, Objectivity and Defeasibility. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company Pvt. Ltd. (pp. 162-176).

(2017) (with Vikas Kumar, the first author). “Reading Sarala Mahabharata as a ‘dharmasastra’”. PBD Special Supplement on Sixth Anniversary. October 31.

 (2016) (with Vikas Kumar, the first author). The “Sarala Mahabharata” as a Novel “Prison- Revenge” Story. PBD. July 17, 2016.

(2014). “Arjuna’s Problem and Its Resolution in Two Mahabharatas”. Lokaratna, Vol VII. ISSN 2347-6427, pp 1-13. (E-journal) -http://www.yumpu.com/document/view/27256081/lokaratna-vol-vii

 (2012). “On the Great War in Kurukshetra in Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata”. In (Danda, A.K. and R.K.Das eds.) Alternative Voices of Anthropology. Kolkata: Indian Anthropological Society.

 (2009). “On the Notion of Progress in the Knowledge Domain of Humanities”. In Ramanan, Mohan, Panchanan Mohanty, Tutun Mukherjee (eds.). Humanities in the Present Context. Hyderabad: Allied Publishers. pp. 242-263.

(2009). “Remarks on Baabarapuri”. In Tomar Sristir Path. Kolkata: Apana Book Distributors. pp. 533-37.

 (2007). “Orwell’s Problem and Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata”. The Critical Endeavour. Vol. XIII. pp. 12-21.

Video Course

(2019) “The Tradition of Retelling of the (Vyasa) Mahabharata: An In-Depth Study of Odia Mahabharatas”. Course Duration: 10 hours (UGS in the terminology of IITs and PGs)

Prepared, in 2019, at IIT Kanpur for Swayam Prabha, free DTH Channel for Education. Telecast in January, 2020.