Gods, Priests, and Warriors: The Bhrgus of the Mahābhārata. By Robert P. Goldman. New York: Columbia University Press (Studies in Oriental Culture No. 12), 1977. xii, 195 pp. Bibliography, Index. $9.00 (original) (raw)
Related papers
PhD thesis, 2016
The present doctoral dissertation collects materials pertinent for the text-historical evaluation of several unpublished commentaries on the Kirātārjunīya, a classical Epic Poem in Sanskrit. Although the collected data deal primarily with a single poem, their analysis presented in the current thesis can be considered exemplary for the study of other texts belonging to the same genre — namely, the Sanskrit epic poetry. In this way, the current dissertation contributes to the broader field of study of classical Indian literature. The first chapter of my doctoral dissertation is concerned with general methodological issues. I commence my work by laying out the method of structural analysis of the commentaries on mahākāvya and subsequently deal with several questions pertaining to the composition of these texts. The second chapter comprises an examination of several important unpublished commentaries on the Kirātārjunīya. In dealing with each of these texts, I provide a detailed description of its manuscripts first and, in the following step, survey and evaluate all the relevant historical information pertaining to the author and the composition of the respective work. The third chapter briefly examines various procedures adopted by individual commentators, by means of which the texts of their predecessors were integrated into their own works. The analysis of textual reuse described in this chapter can be applied, on the one hand, in order to examine other similar works and, on the other hand, in order to evaluate the manuscript transmission of individual texts, a problem that is dealt with in the subsequent chapters of my dissertation. In the fourth chapter, I describe the available manuscripts of a single commentary on the Kirātārjunīya, the Laghuṭikā by Prakāśavarṣa. In the fifth chapter, I attempt a detailed analysis of the data about the author's life and works available to us so far. In the sixth chapter, I finally turn to a text-historical analysis of the available versions of the Laghuṭikā. In so doing, I pay particular attention to highlighting various difficulties involved in the attempt to compare these versions with each other. In a short conclusion, I, therefore, propose possible strategies, which could aid in solving the problems thus described.
Religious Studies Review, 2013
At his untimely death in 2009, Behl left behind a blankverse translation of Mr • gā vatī ("The Magic Doe"), an old Hindi Sufi romance written in 1503 by Shaykh Qutban Suhrawardī. Doniger, his former teacher, has seen the work through to publication. The result is a delightful addition to the library of anyone interested in literary classics, particularly the fascinating Sufi romances from the medieval Indo-Persianate world. The text is at once a deep fount of esoteric wisdom and a highly entertaining love story full of adventures. The translation is accessible both to the undergraduate student of an introductory literature class and to the more advanced scholar of Indian Sufism. Surprisingly, there is no explanation of translation policies, nor clarification of what exactly constitutes the text translated. It appears that Behl relied heavily on D. F. Plukker's edition from his 1981 dissertation at the University of Amsterdam (available online in transliteration at http://hin.minoh.osaka-u.ac.jp/ griffithsa/etext/miragavati.txt). He also made extensive use of the edition, analysis, and Hindi translation by Mātāprasād Gupta (published in 1968 by Pramān • ik Prakāś an in Agra). It is unfortunate that he did not leave his own text to match the translation. Doniger drew on two of Behl's unpublished essays to create an introduction. The result feels like a patchwork. Still, the first part, which summarizes the narrative with reference to Indic, Islamic, and European storytelling motifs, can be fruitfully assigned to students. Presumably, Behl's second work to appear posthumously, as "Love's Subtle Magic," will develop some of the thoughts briefly introduced here.
2018
The dissertation is interdisciplinary: it is divided between South Asian studies (material, philological methods) and comparative literature (methods of narratology). Its special area is Sanskrit literature. It investigates the first frame structures in Vedic literature (ca. 1200-500 BCE) and follows the development of the frame to the age of the epics Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa (ca. 400 BCE-300 CE). The material consists of Vedic hymns and later Vedic texts, mainly of commentaries (Brāhmaṇas), and the two epics mentioned above. The "omphalos" and dialogue hymns of the Ṛgveda and complex narratives embedded in the Brāhmaṇas receive special attention, and later on the emphasis is on the frames, levels and narrators of the Mahābhārata. In the analysis methods of narratology are used, most of all theories and concepts concerning frame structures, with reference to such theorists as Wolf Schmid, Monika Fludernik and William Nelles. Samples from chosen texts are analysed paying attention to narrative technique, narrative levels, narrators, narratees and narrative situation. The questions of text types, defitions of the frame and the narrative, and the literalization of oral tradition are also discussed in the light of the material. Thus far there have not been any comprehensive studies of the history of frame in India. The aim of this work has been to provide one for the Vedic and pre-Classical era. It shows that framing structures are found already in Vedic literature, and that this literary strategy has roots in continuous tradition of preserving texts inside other texts. This means criticizing and refuting a theory according to which the frame device was copied from Vedic rituals. These results are reached by the narratological analysis mentioned above and by comparing early examples of Vedic literature with later Vedic and epic texts. The study gives information of various types, uses and functions of the frame, introduces a new theory of "tripartite narrative strategy" that is the basis of narration in the Mahābhārata and proposes three models for the literary frame in India: the Vedic, the Epic and the conversational frame. The last one is "a master model" which challenges the standard definitions of the narrative and the frame. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements A note on translations and transcriptions 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. The background and the aims of this study 1.2. The material 1.3. The methods and theoretical premises 1.4. Previous research on the subject 2. BEGINNINGS: THE VEDIC MODEL 2.1. First questions 2.1.1. The definitions for frame and embedding 2.1.2. The definitions for literariness and literature 2.2. The structure of Vedic hymns: is there one to be found? 2.2.1."Proto-framing" in the Ṛgveda 2.2.2. The saṃvāda hymns and the ākhyāna theory 2.3. Narratives in the Brāhmaṇas 2.3.1. "Something old, something new..." 2.3.2. Cyavana 2.3.3. Śunaḥśepa 2.4. Texts or rituals? 2.5. Frames, levels and narrators in the Ṛgveda 2.6. The conversational frame and the narrative levels in the Brāhmaṇas 2.7. The Vedic model 3. IN THE MAZE: THE EPIC MODEL 3.1. The overall scheme of the Mahābhārata 3.1.1. The frame of Ugraśravas (F(I)) 3.1.2. The frame of Vaiśaṃpāyana (F(II)) 3.2. The levels of narration in the Mahābhārata 3.2.1 The levels of F(I) 3.2.2. The levels of F(II): the frame of Saṃjaya 3.2.3. The levels of F(II): the frame of Bhīṣma 3.2.4. The levels of F(II): the Āraṇyakaparvan 3.3. The narrators and the boundaries 3.3.1. The narrators, the narratees and the narrative situation 3.3.2. "The Author" 3.3.3. The boundaries of narrative and the narrative time 3.4. The origin of the frames in the Mahābhārata 3.5. Other frame narratives of the Epic age 3.5.1. The Rāmāyaṇa 3.5.2. The Jātakas 3.5.3. The Bṛhaddevatā 3.6. The Epic model 4. CONCLUSIONS Texts and translations Bibliography I would like to thank my learned supervisors, Professor Xenia Zeiler and Associate Professor Klaus Karttunen, from the University of Helsinki, for their continuous interest, support and criticism of my work. I am greatly indebted to Professor Emeritus Asko Parpola, who together with Dr. Karttunen guided me through my graduate studies in Sanskrit language and literature and Indian culture at the University of Helsinki. I also wish to thank my friend and colleague, lic. phil. Petteri Koskikallio for his help and support; Professor Emeritus Hannu K. Riikonen for his interest and notes on my MA thesis, which have been useful also for this work; Professor Edwin Gerow for his acute criticism on the early phase of my dissertation; and Professor Pekka Tammi for his insightful lectures which first introduced me the discipline of narratology. At the final stage, when revising the manuscript, I have benefited enormously from the comments of the pre-examiners of the dissertation, Professor Markku Lehtimäki (the University of Turku) and Dr. Renate Söhnen-Thieme (SOAS). At the university of Helsinki I have for several years been happy to participate in the program for postgraduate students. I have been privileged to enjoy the sympathetic help and advice of the counsellors of postgraduate studies at the University of Helsinki, and I am especially grateful for the eager response, criticism and encouragement that my project received in the discussions during the Summer School of the Doctoral programme of History and Cultural Heritage in August 2015, presided by Professor Kirsi Saarikangas. I thank cordially the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, and The Soroptimist International Finland for funding my research. My warmest thanks go to my family for their patience and positive spirit. Professor Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila (University of Edinburgh) has not only given me his untiring support but also put his expertise in scholarly criticism and discourse to my service. Maria Hämeen-Anttila, a doctoral student at the University of Helsinki since 2017, has been a regular partner in inspiring discussions about methods and theories in humanities. She and my son Maxwell kept my spirits up during the last strenuous lap of the editing the manuscript. 8 Hämeen-Anttila 2001. This text can be dated to the 7 th or 6 th century BCE. In the article there was ethos of reconciliation between "the analytic/generic vs. synchronic/hermeneutic" approaches which I wish to retain also in this study. The text is treated and analysed as an organic whole, but also the sources and influences that have gone into its making are recognized to make note of the continuation of both structures and motifs. See chapters 1.3. and 3.1. below. 9 Hämeen-Anttila 2001: 207. 10 I read a paper which dealt with this text-centred model in the 12 th World Sanskrit Conference in Helsinki, July 2003. Unfortunately the paper, "Some notes on the origin of the frame-story device in Sanskrit literature", is not available in print, although I have found references to it (e.g. in Taylor 2007). I hope that those who were interested in the paper will find their way to this study which has grown from that small seed.