SITUATING "SARALA MAHABHARATA" IN OUR PURANIC LITERATURE

Aadi Kavi Sarala Das’s Mahabharata, popularly known as Sarala Mahabharata, is a truly creative retelling of Vyasa Mahabharata. However, when “Sudramuni” (Sudra Sage) Sarala called his narrative “Vishnu Purana”, began it with the question of how to attain moksha, and towards the end, described the emergence of Lord Jagannath, the composition crossed the boundaries of “retelling”, and even went beyond the canonical Mahabharata, composed by Sage Vyasa and became a different Mahabharata narrative. If dharma is the concern of Vyasa Mahabharata, moksha is the concern of Sarala Mahabharata. We do not propose to engage with our observation about the shift in genre here because it is extrinsic to our present purpose.

The poet Sarala reimagined and reconceptualized the ancient story of the last phase of the Kuru clan for his retelling. Therefore, innovations are to be expected.  There are significant innovations that are not forced into the narrative but gracefully integrate into it and enrich it. And many of these embody profound insights into various issues of timeless concern: from life and death, to human nature and human situation in the world, the nature of agency in a pre-determined world, dharma, action and its consequences (karma and karma phala), to the nature of divine intervention in the affairs of the mortals. As a consequence, the narrative transcends its temporal and spatial limitations. The following constitutes a brief attempt to substantiate this assertion about Sarala Mahabharata, and situate it in the Puranic literature.

But before that, we wish to say a few words in justification of Sarala’s repeated characterization of his Mahabharata story as “Vishnu Purana”. In our view, Sarala Mahabharata is composed in the bhava (spirit) of the great Sanskrit classic Srimad Bhagavata, in the sense that it celebrates the mahima (glory, magnificence), and the leela (doings) of Sri Krishna, and expectedly, there is a distinct tone of bhakti (devotion) in the narrative. Sarala’s narrative ruminates on various shades of bhakti in the process of explication of this notion. A detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this discussion.

(a) When he learnt that his elder brother, Dhritarashtra, was depressed and dejected, because not he, but his younger brother, became the king of Hastinapura, and was considering ending his life, King Pandu readily abdicated in favour of him and went to the forest with his wife, from where he protected the kingdom of Hastinapura, a task beyond the powers of his brother Dhritarashra, blind from birth.

When the great sage Agasti (Agastya) met him in the forest, he praised brotherliness and his sacrifice for his brother. He said that all this would disappear in the flow of time, but the story will remain: katha rahithiba in the sense that future generations would talk about his great sacrifice.

On a certain occasion, setting aside details, Yudhisthira said the same thing to Arjuna. In the world, everything is temporary, and so is life. Therefore, one must do things that would be remembered, long after the act is over: katha ruha a pruthvira (make the story, ie, the story of the act, live in the world). This expression is a version of “katha rahithiba”.

Katha rahithiba articulates a notion of eternal life, amaratwa, namely, “immortality in the mortal world without being alive”. This notion of immortality does not exist in the entire Puranic literature, either in Sanskrit or in the regional languages, to the best of my knowledge. 

(b) Aswasthama had killed the five sons of Draupadi by mistake. He thought he had killed the five Pandava brothers. He brought the severed heads to Durodhana as he lay dying, and told him that those were the heads of the Pandavas. The dying king was pleased, but when he knew the truth in the morning, he was disconsolate. Holding the heads on his lap, he breathed his last.

This was an affirmation of kulatwa (bondedness with the family). In Vyasa Mahabharata, kula consciousness is viewed as a moral weakness. In contrast, Sarala Mahabharata celebrates it. Thus, Sarala Mahabharata reevaluates the tradition and advocates a paradigm-changing concept of virtuous action.

(c ) It was not Krishna, but Yudhisthira, who made the last effort for peace with the Kaurava King Duryodhana. This he did as the Kaurava and the Pandava armies faced each other on the Kurukshetra battlefield, ready to start fighting. When he failed in his mission and realized that war was inevitable, he told Duryodhana that only the hundred Kaurava brothers and the five Pandava brothers must fight, and the rest should leave the battlefield. It was not their war. Duryodhana disagreed with Yudhisthira.

Yudhisthira’s suggestion embodies the idea that if a war cannot just be avoided, then sincere efforts must be made to minimize the damage. From this, it follows that only those who would directly gain from the war must fight. This concern about the unnecessary killing of those whose war it is not, on the battlefield, has no parallel in the classical war literature.

(d) In Sarala Mahabharata, war is considered to be sinful. There are no restrictive qualifications on this. That is, there are no situations in which it can be justified in terms of dharma. It is viewed as such because the blood of the “innocents”, in the sense mentioned above, flows on the battlefield.

The term “dharma yuddha” (just war) is used in Sarala Mahabharata by Duryodhana and Yudhisthira. The latter uses it, keeping in view the cause. If the cause is justified, the war is justified. In Vyasa Mahabharata, the term “dharma yuddha” is used in this sense. Yudhisthira calls the Kurukshetra War dharma yuddha because he was fighting for what he believed was a just cause. For Duryodhana, who first used the term in Sarala Mahabharata, the War was dharma yuddha because of the presence of Sri Krishna on the battlefield. The entire war field had become sacred land because of Sri Krishna. All those who came to fight for him told him that they aspired to fall looking at the Avatara on Arjuna’s chariot and would attain swarga. This view implicitly rejects the Vyasa Mahabharata view of dharma yuddha. In Sarala Mahabharata, Duryodhana did not step on the battlefield, deciding that he was fighting for adharma.   

Sarala Mahabharata questions, in fact, rejects the notion of dharma yuddha based on cause. In doing so, it boldly takes a stand in opposition to the entire Puranic literature in Sanskrit and the regional languages.

(e ) In Sarala’s narrative, Sakuni is not the embodiment of evil as in Vyasa Mahabharata. In Sarala’s retelling, he was condemned to do what he did. Setting aside gory details, Duryodhana had starved Sakuni’s father, King Gandharasena and his brothers and relatives, one hundred ninety-seven of them, to death. Before he died, his father, Gandharasena, had made him promise to avenge their death. He was to destroy the Kaurava brothers, and his father had told him how to make it possible. Sakuni had no choice. Only Sri Krishna, Sahadeva and Sanjaya knew Sakuni’s intention. Sakuni was an ardent devotee of Krishna.

All except Duryodhana had been killed. As he was fighting with Sahadeva, the latter told him that Duryodhana’s fall would happen anytime. Since he had accomplished his objective, he should return to his kingdom, Gandhara and rule there.

Sakuni told him that although he had redeemed his promise to the dead, he had committed the grievous sin of getting his nephews killed. He held himself responsible for the war and for the killing of many great warriors and a large number of soldiers, all of them innocent in the sense above, on the battlefield. He considered himself to be a great sinner. He told Sahadeva that he would have to atone for that by getting himself killed on the battlefield. In that fight between them, Sahadeva killed him. Unlike Vyasa’s Sakuni, Sarala’s Sakuni committed “virtuous suicide”.

Thus, it was not Yudhisthira alone, but Sakuni too was deeply concerned about the killing of the soldiers on the battlefield, who were fighting, not for themselves, but for their kings. There is no comparable concern for the soldiers in Vyasa’s immortal composition.

(g) On the battlefield of Kurukshetra, Sri Krishna asked Arjuna to attack Bhishma and thereby start the war. Arjuna refused. He would not start the war, but if he were attacked, he would retaliate. When he met the army of the Mlechas during the Kurukshetra war, at a different location from the Kurukshetra battlefields, he said the same thing to Sri Krishna. He would not start the war.

Earlier, on a different occasion, the Kuru priest Dhaumya had advised Yudhisthira not to start the war against the Kauravas but to wait for them to attack the Pandavas. It was believed that the sins of the war accrue to the one who starts it.

This “war dharma (war ethics)” is Sarala’s own. There is no convincing evidence that Vyasa Mahabharata upholds this ethical position on war.  

(h) This explains the non-occurrence of Srimad Bhagavad Gita or any comparable discourse by Krishna to Arjuna. In Sarala Mahabharata, Arjuna was not hesitant to kill the Kaurava warriors, including Bhishma and Drona, but he would not shoot the first arrow in the war. The “Gita” discourse had a place in the narrative in which Arjuna was not willing to kill relatives, preceptor, etc. But in a narrative where Arjuna’s moral position is very different, there was just no room for this or a comparable discourse for Arjuna.

In consonance with his philosophy of war, Sarala articulates a different war ethic and creates a persuasive narrative to situate it judiciously and harmoniously. In Sarala Mahabharata, the omission of the “Gita” or a comparable discourse is a creative act by the poet. The strategy he adopts is creative too – he renders such a discourse irrelevant in his narrative.

(I ) Sarala Mahabharata questions the inevitability of war in certain situations. In both Vyasa  Mahabharata and Sarala Mahabharata, war becomes inevitable. But in the latter, an alternative position is emphatically articulated. When Bhishma and Arjuna met for the first time on the battlefield, Bhishma disagreed with Arjuna that the Kauravas had thrust a war on the family. Bhishma told him that the Pandavas were responsible too. He asked him whether an enlightened family should abandon or accommodate a member of it who has gone astray. He told Arjuna that if the Pandavas were steadfast in their commitment to the kula (family), they should have left the kingdom to Duryodhana and returned to the forest. For performing kula dharma, that sacrifice was necessary.

Although the following event in the Kuru family is not mentioned in the narrative at this point, it would be on the minds of the Sarala Mahabharata readers. In the Kuru family, such a sacrifice as mentioned by Bhishma was by no means hypothetical. King Pandu had abdicated in favour of his elder brother.

Sarala Mahabharata questions the idea of war's inevitability, which Vyasa Mahabharata accepts. The alternative may be exceptional, but not beyond human capability. It is a highly comforting idea for humankind that humans are not doomed to an optionless existence.  

(j) In the “Vastraharana” episode in Sarala’s narrative, Draupadi’s honour is protected, neither by her dharma, the result of her karma, as in Vyasa Mahabharata, nor by Sri Krisna’s kripa (grace), as in some bhakti-centric regional language narratives, but a combination of both. Responding to her prayer, Krishna appears in the sky, but does not provide her with clothes. He asks her to pray to god Surya (Sun god) for relief. He does not tell her why he was asking her to do so, and she, a true devotee, does not ask him about it. She prays to god Sun, and he asks Chhaya and Maya to clothe her. What Krishna did was direct god Sun to come to her help. He reminds him that in her earlier incarnation, Draupadi had given him clothes and tells him to help her at the time of her need. This episode embodies a creative resolution of the conflicting theories of karma and kripa, without undermining either.

(k) Bhaktas (devotees) in our Puranic literature can be defined in terms of the Navada Bhakti (Nine types of devotion) and the popular notion of bhakti, or Virodha Bhakti (negative devotion, where intense enmity, intentional or unintentional,  becomes a form of bhakti). Sage Narada, Prahlada, Shabari, the gopis, Dasia Bauri, and Salabega are bhaktas of the former category. Sarala Mahabharata’s Jarasandha is an example of the latter category. Jarasandha’s hostility towards Sri Krishna was his strategy to be killed by him, so that he would attain moksha. Shishupala’s intense hatred of Sri Krishna made him totally Krishna-conscious within, and that was a form of bhakti. Thus, he was a bhakta unintentionally. When Sri Krishna killed him, he attained the state of ultimate bliss. What is common between the bhaktas of both categories is the bhakta’s desire, conscious or not, to be bonded with the object of his or her devotion. For their love, devotion or hatred, they sought Narayana.

Sarala creates a character, namely, Jara, in the episode on the emergence of Lord Jagannath in “Musali” Parva of his Mahabharata. Jara is a Savara (a community of forest dwellers, considered as low caste in the caste system, ignoring details). Incidentally, more than one character of the Savara community in Sarala Mahabharata has the name “Jara”. We are concerned here with the one in the said episode.

What is interesting about him is that neither does he seek nor does he need Narayana; it is Narayana who needs him. The Wood from which the Murtis (Icons) would be made would not move to the temple. The Voice from the  Sky asks King Indradyumna to involve Jara in the process. Jara did not ask for it, nor even want it. When he joins the effort, The Wood moves. When the King worries about who to make the Murtis, Lord Jagannath tells him in a dream that Jara would do so. It was not Jara’s choice or desire to be the maker of the Murtis. In fact, he was completely bewildered. Once inside the temple, all alone, with the door closed, he wondered what to do since he had not even seen an idol or a picture. Further details about the making of the Murtis do not concern us here. We would only say that he joined the divine carpenter, who manifested himself in the temple, in the process.

Now, Jara belongs to neither category of bhaktas mentioned above. In sum, his story is about God’s need for man, rather than man’s need for Him. The bhaktas in the Puranic literature embody the latter. None, bhakta or not, embodies the former in this vast and rich body of literature. Thus, Jara constitutes a very creative invention in Sarala Mahabharata.

These are only a few instances in Sarala’s narrative that demonstrate the paradigm-changing concepts and ideas in Sarala Mahabharata, viewed in the context of the Puranic literature. An outstanding storyteller, he created entirely convincing narrative contexts for their natural expression.