Week 11: Buck's Mahabharata (pp. 1-91)Assignments - Reading Guide A - Reading Guide B - Mahabharata Resources |
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Your Reading A for this week is Buck's Mahabharata, pp. 1-47.
p. 1. Invocation. Buck begins his version of the Mahabharata
with an invocation to Narayana
(Vishnu), while also invoking Nara-Narayana, which is a term used to refer
to the pairing of Krishna (an avatar of Vishnu) and his friend Arjuna. Buck
also invokes Saraswati,
the goddess of words and writing.
p. 5. Vyasa and Ganeśa. The sage Sauti has heard the Mahabharata
recited at the snake sacrifice of King Janamejaya and he now recites the story
to another sage, Śaunaka. In order to explain how the Mahabharata was composed,
Sauti begins by explaining that Vyasa composed the Mahabharata in his mind,
and then asked the elephant-headed god Ganeśa to write it down while Vyasa
dictated. Ganeśa is the son of the god Śiva and the goddess Parvati (also called
simply Devi, "Goddess"). Śiva got angry at Ganeśa and tore off his
human head, and he then used an elephant head to replace the missing one.
Ganeśa is the god of thieves and of writers, which is why Vyasa asks his help
in writing down the Mahabharata.
p. 9. The churning of the Ocean. Before it turned to salt,
the ocean was milk.
Vishnu proposed that the gods (devas) and the asuras churn
the ocean to obtain
amrita, the nectar
of immortality. They wrapped the serpent Śesha around Mount
Mandara in order to churn the ocean's waters. Many things emerged:
Lakshmi the goddess
of good fortune; Rambha,
the first apsaras (remember Rambha
and Ravana?);
Airavata, the
white elephant and
Surabhi, the
wish-giving cow. The physician Dhanwantari also
emerged, holding the cup of amrita. Poison also was churned up, and Śiva swallowed
the poison to save the world (and the poison turned Śiva's neck blue).
p.
10. The snake sacrifice of Janamejaya.
When
King Parikshit killed
a serpent in the forest, the serpent put a death curse on him. The
naga prince Takshaka arrived
to tell Parikshit that he was going to kill him. To escape the curse Parikshit
remained hidden away in his house for seven days, but Takshaka arrived in disguise
and killed him. Janamejaya became king after his father, Parikshit, was killed
and he planned to hold a sacrifice to destroy the Takshaka.
Takshaka therefore sought refuge with Indra in
heaven. Meanwhile, Astika,
who was the son of a serpent woman, revealed Takshaka's hiding place to Janamejaya.
But just as Takshaka was about to be cast into the flames, Astika asked Janamejaya
to halt the sacrifice. Janamejaya agreed to Astika's request, and released
the serpent Takshaka.
Vyasa rejoiced that the serpent Takshaka went free and at peace with Janamejaya.
Janamejaya asked Vyasa to tell him the story of his ancestors. Instead of
telling the story himself, Vyasa asks his young companion, Vaiśampayana,
to recite the Mahabharata. This is the snake sacrifice of Janamejaya where
Sauti heard the Mahabharata recited.
p.
15. The Mahabharata finally begins. There is a king
in heaven who glimpses Ganga and
falls in love with her.
In order to consummate his love for Ganga, he reincarnates again as
a human being, the son of a king and becomes the son of King Pratipa,
named Śantanu.
Meanwhile, Ganga comes to King Pratipa and tells him that she is in love with
his son Śantanu. After his father Pratipa dies, Śantanu becomes king. He meets
Ganga in human form beside the Ganges river and falls in love.
Ganga tells Śantanu that he can never ask her name or question her actions
if they were married. Ganga has already agreed to give birth to Prabhasa and
the seven other Vasus who
were cursed by the sage Vasishtha to
be born into human form.
For seven years, Ganga gives birth to a child each year and throws the child
in the river.
When she gives birth to the eighth Vasu (Prabhasa), Śantanu begs her to let
the child live. Ganga gives the eighth child to Śantanu and then disappears
into the river. This child is Bhishma.
p. 19. Satyavati.
Uparichara is the ruler of the kingdom of Chedi. One day, far from home, he
dreams about his wife and his semen spurts out.
Uparichara asks a hawk to carry his semen back to his wife, but the semen
instead falls into the river where it is swallowed by a fish. Later, a
fisherman catches a fish with a baby girl inside. He raises the child as his
own daughter and names her Satyavati. The sage Paraśara falls in love with
Satyavati, and they have a child together named Vyasa. As a gift, Paraśara
takes away Satyavati's fish smell and makes her smell like flowers instead. King
Śantanu later discovers Satyavati because of her beautiful scent and he marries
her. Bhishma renounces the kingship so that Satyavati's child can be Śantanu's
successor as king. As a reward,
Śantanu gave Bhishma the boon of being able to choose the moment of his death.
p. 22. Amba, Ambika, and Ambalika.
Śantanu and Satyavati have a son named Vichitravirya who becomes King after
Śantanu.
Bhishma obtains three wives for Vichitravirya: Amba, Ambika, and Ambalika.
Amba, however, explains that she has vowed herself to King Śalwa, so she is
sent away, leaving Vichitravirya with two wives: Ambika and Ambalika.
Vichitravirya dies before he can have children with his wives, so
Bhishma proposes that Satyavati summon her son Vyasa to father sons with Ambika
and Ambalika.
Dhritarashtra is the son of Ambika and Vyasa, Pandu is the son of Ambalika
and Vyasa, and Vidura is the son of a maidservant and Vyasa.
Because Dhritarashtra is blind, Bhishma decides that Pandu should be king.
p.
27. Kunti and Madri, the wives of Pandu. Before her marriage
to Pandu,
Kunti obtained
a mantra from the sage Durvasas that
allows her to summon a god and have a son by him.
Kunti tested the mantra by summoning the sun
god, Surya.
Kunti set their son adrift in the river in a basket where he was found by
Adhiratha the
charioteer and his wife. The took the child in and gave him the name Karna.
Later, Kunti chooses Pandu as her husband at her swayamvara.
Bhishma obtains Madri,
the daughter of King Śalya,
as a second bride for King Pandu.
Then one day in the forest Pandu kills a doe and a stag caught in the act of
love. The deer curses Pandu so that he would die the next time that he made
love. Pandu therefore renounces the kingship and goes away
to the Himalyas with
Madri and Kunti.
p. 32. Dhritarashtra and Gandhari. Dhritarashtra becomes
king when Pandu went goes self-imposed exile. To share her husband's blindness,
Gandhari wears
a blindfold. Dhritarashtra becomes worried when Gandhari has been pregnant
for one year but still has not given birth.
Vyasa explains that Gandhari is pregnant with one hundred sons.
After two years, Gandhari gives birth to a hard ball of flesh.
Vyasa cuts the ball of flesh into one hundred pieces that are sons, plus one
piece that is a daughter. He seals the pieces of flesh in separate jars
for two more years.
The children are then born. Duryodhana is
the first-born son of Dhritarashtra and Gandhari. Yuyutsu is
a son of Dhritarashtra and a maidservant, born on the same day as Duryodhana.
Dhritarashtra and Gandhari also have one daughter, Duhsala.
p. 34. The Pandavas. Pandu asks Kunti to use her mantra to
summon the gods and get sons.
Because Yama judges the souls of the dead, one of his titles is Dharma-Raja,
or King Dharma. Kunti summons Dharma (Yama)
and gives birth to Yudhishthira.
Next she summons Vayu,
the wind god, and gives birth to Bhima.
Next, she summons Indra and
gives birth to Arjuna. Madri then
uses Kunti's mantra to summon the twin gods, the Aświns,
and gives birth to the twins Nakula and Sahadeva. Finally, Pandu can no longer
resist and makes love to his wife Madri. He dies, and she joins him in death.
After the death of her husband, Kunti takes the five boys to Hastinapura (which
means "Elephant City"). The five sons of Pandu are
called the Pandavas.
The sons of Dhritarashtra are referred to as the Kauravas, or the "descendants
of Kuru" (
Kuru was a distant ancestor of Pandu and Dhritarashtra, but the term "Kauravas"
is usually used to refer exclusively to the sons of the Dhritarashtra).
p. 36. Kripa and Drona.
Kripa and Kripi were
a brother and sister abandoned at birth and raised by King Śantanu. Drona is
the son of the sage
Bharadwaja.
Bharadwaja saw an apsaras while bathing and he
ejaculated into a bucket or "drona" which is how his son,
Drona, was born and got his name.
As a child, Drona became friends with Prince Drupada who was a pupil of Drona's
father Bharadwaja. Later,
Drona came to Hastinapura and asked to marry Kripi, the sister of Kripa.
Kripi and Drona had a son named Aśwatthaman. Kripi and Drona were so poor that
they did not have milk to give their son to drink.
Drona went to see his old friend, King Drupada, to ask him for help.
When Drona asked Drupada for help, Drupada treated him cruelly and repudiated
their friendship.
Kripa became the archery teacher to the sons of Pandu and the sons
of Dhritarashtra. Bhishma was so impressed by Drona's skills that he also employed
Drona as a teacher to the princes.
p. 39. The exploits of the princes. Arjuna is Drona's best
pupil, and is the only one of the princes who is able to pass the test set
by Drona of shooting at the bird made of straw. When their studies are complete,
Drona demands his teacher's fee: he tells the princes to capture
King Drupada. Arjuna manages to capture Drupada and brings him back to Drona.
Drona takes half of Drupada's kingdom for himself. Drona then arranges a public
presentation of his students' skills. Arjuna surpasses all the other princes
in his military skills, but a stranger arrives - Karna - who is
able to duplicate all the military feats of Arjuna, and to do so without effort. When
it is discovered that Karna does not have royal parents, he is excluded from
the demonstration. Duryodhana, however, makes Karna the ruler of Anga so that he could claim royal status.
Bhima nevertheless continues to make fun of Karna because his father is
a chariot driver. Karna speaks defiantly to Bhima, and night brings an end
to their confrontation.
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