40005876
40005876
40005876
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Journal of the American Academy of Religion
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
The Subversive Nature of Virtue
in the Mahabharata: A Tale
about Women, Smelly Ascetics,
and God
Arti Dhand
This article focuses on one key episode of the great Hindu epic, the
Mahabharata: the scene in the first book in which the Bharata widows
Ambika and Ambalika are impregnated by their brother-in-law, Vyasa.
The article is composed of two parts. The first examines narratives
surrounding the practice of niyoga, or levirate, and reflects on its signifi-
cance to the construction of the epic plot. The second reflects on the
personality and motives of Vyasa, uncompromising brother-in-law,
formidable sage, and near-divine author of the text. The link between
the two parts is important for unpacking a key religious orientation of
the Mahabharata. The article argues that Vyasa' s curse of the Bharata
widows is not idiosyncratic but, rather, is a stern example of the author's
specific interpretation of virtue, which in turn bespeaks the overarching
religious worldview of the text - the karmayogic ideal of equanimity.
Arti Dhand is an assistant professor of religion at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1K7.
My thanks go to Bruce M. Sullivan and Alf Hiltebeitel for their comments on earlier drafts of this
article, which was first presented at the 1998 Western Regional meeting of the AAR in San Francisco.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion March 2004, Vol. 72, No. 1, pp. 33-58
DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfh003
© 2004 The American Academy of Religion
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
34 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
point from which the central narrative is spawned. I argue in this article
not only that this scene is critical for being the hinge upon which the
principal plot of the epic swings - that is, the ancient sexual practice of
niyoga (levirate marriage) - but that it also provides us unique occasion
to discuss the elusive and highly enigmatic personality of the author,
Vyasa, who moves in and out of the epic narrative both as author and
character, with the prescience and mysterious ways of God. It is my
contention that Vyasa's apparently erratic predictions in this scene do
not represent the usual stuff of irate sages often found in the text but,
rather, are intended to impart a very explicit moral lesson, reiterated
variously in the epic. This gives us a clue to interpreting what I believe
to be the most fundamental religious orientation of the text - the
karmayogic ideal of equanimity. Let us begin by revisiting that scene.
Long before the advent of the war, the genealogy of the Bharata clan
is at a critical phase in its constitution. The king Vicitravirya has just
died, leaving behind a dynastic crisis. His two young widows grieve not
only because they have lost their husband but also because both of them
are childless; even after years of effort, Vicitravirya had not produced an
heir. The Bharata kingdom is therefore without a king, and SatyavatI,
Vicitravlrya's mother, cannot afford the luxury of grieving. She worries
about both the cosmic (lokottara) and the worldly (laukika) effects of
this: "In kingdoms without kings there are no gods, there are no rains.
How can a kingdom be preserved that has no king?" (1.99.40-41). A
kingless kingdom is a world without a center. Searching for solutions,
SatyavatI tries every logical one.1 First, she attempts to persuade her step-
son, Samtanu's firstborn son Bhlsma, to assume the throne and to rule as
king. Bhlsma, however, has long since renounced his title to the throne,
and he cannot be persuaded to assume the mantle now, even with the
help of Satyavatl's sophistry. SatyavatI then explores the next possible
solution. She asks Bhlsma to lie with his two young sisters-in-law and
to thus supply the lack of her own son. Bhlsma again refuses to rescind
his vow of lifelong celibacy and declines this invitation as well. Finally,
SatyavatI turns to her last recourse. She shares with Bhlsma her girlhood
secret, that before her marriage she had borne a son well known to the
world as Vyasa, sage of sages, great poet and visionary. She seeks
Bhlsma's permission to summon Vyasa to help out at this critical time.
Bhlsma approves, and Vyasa is enjoined to do the needful thing: that is,
he is asked to lie with the two young princesses and to "beget on them
children that are worthy of our lineage and of continuing our progeny"
1 Although there are several instances of adoption in the text, this episode does not entertain that
possibility.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 35
(1.99.35). Initially, Vyasa protests, demurring that the princesses should first
observe a yearlong vow of self-purification (1.99.38-39). Urged to be practical
about the urgent situation, however, he is pressed into providing the service
right away, on the important condition that the princesses must bear with his
ugliness (1.99.42-43). The setting, then, is ripe with hope and promise.
This scene is one of the nodal points for the movement of the epic
plot, capturing as it does the crisis of the survival of the lineage. The
events that unfold here shape the direction of important future events in
the Mahabharata, in all its meanings as epic poem, heroic lineage, and
apocalyptic war. It is, for example, from this scene that all the conten-
tions of the next few generations ensue; we will return to this point
shortly. For now, let us read further: SatyavatI, relieved to have a solu-
tion, takes pains to counsel the elder widow Ambika on the need for
cooperation. She explains to her first that she has discussed the path of
niyoga with Bhlsma and that he has agreed that it is a respectable and
legitimate measure, sanctioned by tradition. Ambika, therefore, need
have no doubts about the propriety of this action. After some further
instruction on duty, SatyavatI leaves Ambika with an exhortation to
heroic action: "Restore once more the doomed dynasty of Bharata! Give
birth to a son whose splendor will equal that of the king of the Gods!"
(1.99.46-47). Later, when all the arrangements have been made, SatyavatI
returns to inform Ambika, "You have a brother-in-law who will come in
to you today. Be vigilant and wait for him. He will come at night"
(1.100.2). The reference to Bhlsma and the "brother-in-law" in Satyavati's
two communiques now creates a problem for Ambika, who, "lying on
her lovely bed, thought that it would be Bhlsma, or another of the bulls of
the Kurus" (1.100.3). Not expecting Vyasa, therefore, when she sees the
great rsi's dark matted orange hair, his fiery eyes, and his reddish beard,
she cannot look at him for fright and quickly closes her eyes. Ambika had
never been adequately informed about the identity of her guest, nor was
she apprised of the condition laid by Vyasa, that she should bear with
"my smell, my looks, my garb, and my body" (1.99.42) if she wanted to
conceive a superior child. The reasons for this need to be examined, but
the end result is that Ambika, reacting thus to Vyasa's appearance, sets
off a chain of consequences that seems far in excess of her actual offence.
She is promised a child who would grow to be "a man with the vigour of
a myriad elephants, a wise and great royal sage, of great good fortune,
great prowess, and great intelligence, and he shall have a hundred power-
ful sons. But because of his mother's fault of virtue, he shall be blind"
(1.100.9-10, emphasis added). So Dhrtarastra, the king of Kurujangala,
father of our prime antagonist, Duryodhana, is born with the fatal flaw of
blindness - at the behest of Vyasa.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
36 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
2 This is one variety of what Wendy Doniger calls the Mahabharatas "bedtricks" (2000: 248-253).
Vyasa functions, says Doniger with customary irreverent wit, "as a kind of walking semen bank"
(2000:251).
It is curious that Vidura's parentage here should occasion such moment, when Vyasa's own
background would raise eyebrows. He is the product of the brahmana Parasara and Satyavati -
Satyavati, who is the abandoned daughter of a ksatriya and a fish and the adopted daughter of a
fisherman, a sudra. Her son's claim to pristine brahmanahood, therefore, is suspect. As Bruce
Sullivan observes, "That [the union between Satyavati and Parasara], in which the customary
distinctions between varnas was not observed, should produce in Vyasa the epic's most respected
brahmana, its most authoritative teacher of the Veda and a paradigm of brahmanahood, is striking
indeed"'(1999:53).
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 37
This single episode is rich with ironies and dark wit. Let us recap.
Bhlsma, firstborn son of Ganga and Samtanu, is the natural heir to the
throne, as well as the most eminently qualified with wisdom, virtue, and
skill. But he, in a stupendous act of self-sacrifice, renounces his claims both
to kingship and to progeny in favor of his future stepbrothers, to facilitate
the marriage of his father with Satyavati. For this extraordinary act of
personal sacrifice, he earns the title of Bhlsma, the "awe-inspiring one."
The stepbrothers in favor of whom Bhlsma makes his sacrifice, however,
prove to be patently unproductive. Citrangada dies young in a duel with
a gandharva, remarkably enough of the same name. Victiravlrya, allegedly
of "colourful virility,"5 proves infertile even after many years of dalliance with
his wives; eventually, he dies, not having elevated himself or his family to
any heights of greatness. The Bharata women, then, are left to restore the
family from crisis.6 Satyavati takes the lead - Satyavati, the parthenogenetic
progeny of Vasu, birthed by a fish and reared by a fisherman, a sudra, and
herself therefore a sudra7 - this Satyavati takes the lead and devises a plan
for the future of one of the most illustrious ksatriya families of ancient
India. Reduced at first to pleading with Bhlsma to revoke his formidable
vow, a vow undertaken solely to serve her father's ambition, she must then
plot to save her dynasty from decline. This is the karmic circle come com-
plete. Satyavati still succeeds in her father's ambition, of seeing her family
line thrive, but the descent occurs through Vyasa and not through her
other sons, for whose sake Bhlsma had made his tremendous but ulti-
mately unfruitful sacrifice.8
Therefore, the argument that this scene is pivotal to the epic plot
should not require much substantiation. But it is crucial for other reasons
as well, for it is in this scene that Vyasa makes his famous pronouncement
that the eldest son of the Bharata clan, Dhrtarastra, will be born blind. The
significance of this pronouncement for the future of the Bharata clan can
hardly be overestimated. For although Dhrtarastra accepts his fate with
resignation, being powerless because blind, his son Duryodhana is not so
easily conciliated. In the next generation, Duryodhana refuses to yield to
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
38 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
the injustice suffered by his father and is vocal about his determination to
resist it. Nor is he either powerless or blind. "As long as I am alive," he tells
Krsna during the latter's famous embassy for peace, "they will never get the
portion of the kingdom that my father once allowed them. . . . Even if this
kingdom was once given away, whether from ignorance or fear, when I was
a child and dependent, it can no longer be had by the Pandavas
as I am alive, I shall not surrender even as much as a pin-prick of our land
to the Pandavas!" (V.125.22, 24-26). At the heart of the Mahabharata
war, then, we have a very basic issue: that of a son who is intractable in
his insistence on his rightful inheritance-a patrimony that was denied his
father because of his disability. This is the good ksatriya fight before
which few can demur, which undoubtedly is one of the reasons why
Yudhisthira finds Duryodhana enjoying the delights of heaven at the end
of the narrative. The point to highlight here, however, is that this plot is
predicated on a particular sexual custom, and this is the practice of
niyoga. Had there not been the need for the women to have sexual inter-
course with an unfamiliar male, had the women not reacted to the
ungroomed appearance of the male, the mahabharata dynasty could not
have persevered as it did. The Mahabharata conflict could not have
occurred as it did, and the Mahabharata epic could not have been
written. It is to understanding this phenomenon that we must next turn
our attention.
NIYOGA
9 They argue, e.g., that the term devara, later taken to refer specifically to the younger brother of
the husband, in its most ancient usage had a broader meaning. It could refer to any brother, older or
younger (Emeneau and van Nooten: 483-485). The term niyoga occurs in Rgveda 2.3.9, 3.4.9, 4.25.1,
10.42.2, 10.42.9, 10.85.44, and 10.160.3.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 39
10 These rules include considerations such as the following, stated by Manu: (1) the husband,
whether living or dead, must have no son; (2) the gurus in a family council should decide to appoint
the widow to raise issue for the husband; (3) the person appointed must be either the husband's
brother or a member of the same caste and lineage; (4) the person appointed and the widow must be
motivated not by desire but only by a sense of duty; (5) the person must not speak with, kiss, or
engage in amorous merriment with the woman; (6) the relationship must end after the birth of one
son or, according to others, two; and so forth (Kane, 2: 599-607).
These arguments are more fully developed in my doctoral dissertation (2000).
Doniger (1995: 179) differentiates between the two types ot niyoga candidates as older and
"later" forms of niyoga.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
40 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 41
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
12 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
15 This was certainly, and less joyfully, the case in her premarital liaison with Surya, the sun god. In
that instance, Surya appeared immediately in response to her use of the mantra and, overpowering
her girlish fears with some threats and some bribery, lay with her once. This one coupling yielded the
child Kama.
These are useful criteria for distinguishing gods from ordinary mortals, vouchsafed to us in the
Nala-Damayanti story.
17 Eleven of these children were fathered on Sudesna's maid, in an echo of the events in the
Ambika- Vyasa story; finding the ascetic old, blind, and repulsive, Sudesna repeatedly sent her maid
to the sage until her husband finally discovered the truth. At that point, she was forced to yield and
lie with the sage herself (1.98.22-32).
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 43
18 We even have some reason to speculate that Ambika might not have found Bhlsma unwelcome,
had that option presented itself. But that was not to be. Satyavatl's actions also may be interpreted as
a variety of dpaddharma, undertaken in a time of extreme distress and therefore not carrying the
same moral culpability.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
44 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
19 One occasion on which Vyasa's compassion for a woman seems unmixed is with Kunti, in the
Asramavasika. When she confesses her secret (as both Mehta and Hiltebeitel [2001] exclaim about
another episode, to her creator, the author!) of having birthed a premarital child, Vyasa is wry and
forgiving (XV.38.1-18).
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 45
and he keeps it. But the boons he gives her are bewildering and mixed;
whereas she repeatedly demands an exemplary ruler for the Bharata king-
dom, he gives her two heirs, both decidedly flawed. His "grace" to
Gandhari reflects similarly inscrutable motives. As a reward for her hos-
pitality, he promises her 100 sons (1.107.7-8). But then he perplexes and
confounds her by letting her pregnancy continue unfruitfully for two full
years, to the point where Gandhari is so frustrated that she attempts an
abortion. At that point, divining her thoughts, Vyasa appears to make
good on his promise: Gandhari gets her 100 sons but, very crucially, only
after the eldest Pandava has already been born. Gandhari, who had con-
ceived a year before her rival Kunti, is thus left bitterly disappointed, and
Duryodhana in this way loses any entitlement he might have had to the
throne by virtue of seniority over the Pandavas. Further, even though he
is born through the explicit blessing of the great seer, his birth is marked
by ominous and evil portents (1.107.29-30).
In the showdown between Arjuna and AsVatthaman, Vyasa's attitude
toward women and their wombs seems cavalier at best; without any
apparent compunction, he accepts AsVatthaman's solution that his mis-
sile should be redirected from the Pandavas to the wombs of the Pandava
women (X.15.32), thereby rendering them all barren. The lives of widows
seem to be of no more concern: in the As'ramavasikaparva, Vyasa resolves
the question of what to do with the Kaurava widows by proposing that
they all drown themselves in the river (XV.41.17).
There are admittedly many ways of interpreting all the discrete
episodes mentioned above. Taken together, however, they seem to indi-
cate a theme that merits attention. Although it would be hasty to offer
any judgments at this stage, one might remark on the fact that the
destructive design of the narrative seems to move through the wombs of
women: Ambika's and Ambalika's in the first generation and Kunti's and
Gandhari's in the next, with Uttara and the other Pandava women's
wombs afflicted at the end of the war - all through the direct intercession
of Vyasa. And as the author of the text, Vyasa would seem to be the more
culpable.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
46 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
ritual act, with the women expected to undertake some ritual prepara-
tion. It is possible that at the time of his mother's summons, Vyasa was
in the midst of some ritual undertaking, was, in other words, in a state of
being diksita or bound by the requirements of a ritual - a state that gen-
erally prohibits sexual activity. The insistence that the women undertake
vows may have been a compromise on Vyasa's part; because his mother
was impatient and unwilling to wait until his ritual commitments were
concluded, Vyasa's demands may be read as a way for the women to
enter into the sacred space with him, by voluntarily binding themselves
to appropriate conduct. The women thus are expected to bring to the act
the same kind of solemnity they might have brought to a more typical
ritual act - to a sacrifice, for example.20 Just as they would prepare
themselves through physical and mental purifications, observing vows
and limits, for a sacrifice, so they are expected to gird themselves men-
tally and spiritually for the act of niyoga as well. This did not happen
because SatyavatI neither understood the need for this ritual preparation
nor communicated it to her daughters-in-law. Hence the widows suf-
fered - not because of the sage's idiosyncrasy in this reading, but
because they had unwittingly transgressed the boundaries of some
important rite.
20 We note, e.g., that Pandu, KuntI, and Madri all undertake purificatory rituals to prepare for
their niyogic work. Pandu, in fact, undertakes a yearlong vow before the birth of Arjuna.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 47
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
48 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
23 Miller notes, however, that "textual evidence is uniformly against this" (1992: 106).
24 A similar point seems to be intended by Doniger when she says: "The choice of ... author tells
us a great deal about the text's image of itself; the nature of the author is appropriate to the nature of
the text" (1993: 31).
25 Miller explores this further in "The Original Poem" (1973).
Zb Whether the mate is male or female is debated. See Julia Leslie (1998).
Recently, this perspective has been elaborated by Yaroslav Vassilkov, who argues that the epic
originally possessed a "heroic didactics" onto which "Hinduist" ideas were later imposed (1999).
In Anandavardhana's analysis, supplemented by Abhinavagupta's commentary, santarasa
represents the hidden essence of the epic, whereas the worldly values represented by the other rasas
have a "preliminary and vincible position (purvapaksa) ... fit to be ignored" (Masson and
Patwardhan: 107). See also Bhattacharya and Tubb (1992).
29 In Abhinavagupta's commentary, "The description of the life of the Pandavas etc., gives rise to
vairdgya [the mood of renunciation]; vairagya is at the base ofmoksa" (Masson and Patwardhan: 108).
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 49
concern themselves with the heroic mode, on the whole Vyasa's counsel in
the Mahabharata rarely involves exhortations to war. Both in the epic
and in the broader tradition Vyasa is overwhelmingly associated with lit-
erary, intellectual, and religious work. In the handful of narratives sur-
rounding Vyasa in the epic itself,30 Vyasa is most often found counseling
people on religious matters, providing them solace or advice, and facili-
tating their religious education. We might then examine the content and
flavor of his teaching. What worldview does Vyasa promote? What values
does he represent?
There have been some studies focusing on Vyasa in the epic,31 and
Hiltebeitel's recent work discusses the contribution of Vyasa to the edu-
cation of Yudhisthira. To my knowledge, however, there is no systematic
analysis of the import of his teaching. Scholars have often viewed Vyasa
as a paradigm of pravrtti values (values encouraging continued engage-
ment with the world)32 or, at the very least, as advocating a pravrtti orien-
tation in his teaching, particularly to Yudhisthira, whom he insists should
take seriously his responsibilities in the world. Indeed, the lengthy education
of Yudhisthira has led scholars to propose that the Mahabharata itself is a
pravrtti text.33
Although there is no doubt that Vyasa does insist on Yudhisthira
shouldering his burden of kingship and, in many contexts, seems to pro-
mote pravrtti values,34 I cannot agree that Vyasa represents the pravrtti
path at all, much less that the Mahabharata does so. In my view, this is a
text that consciously articulates a "middle path" between pravrtti and
nivrtti (the path renouncing the values of the world), seeing the conven-
tional forms of both as ultimately inadequate. This is part of what makes the
Mahabharata innovative, even revolutionary.35 Its teaching of karmayoga
is intended to dissolve the polarity between pravrtti and nivrtti through a
path of scrupulously performed, detached action. Thus, though
Yudhisthira is no doubt counseled to continue performing his duties in
the world, he is to do it with the crucial difference that he renounce personal
self-interest.36 It can hardly be dismissed as an accident, for example, that
when Yudhisthira is given a thoroughgoing education on all aspects of
30 Mehta counted a rough thirty; Hiltebeitel (2001: 46), a more exact forty-one.
31 See, e.g., Sullivan 1999, Mehta, and Hiltebeitel 2001.
32 See Sullivan 1999: 34-43. Fitzgerald and Hiltebeitel contest this view but do not offer an
alternative analysis.
See, e.g., Mehta.
* Indeed, at one point Vyasa actually loses his temper with Yudhisthira (XIV.3.1-10); and he
seems to promote pravrtti, e.g., through his advocacy of and participation in sacrificial rituals.
35 These are arguments I have developed in better detail elsewhere (2000).
36 This is, of course, precisely Krsna's instruction to Arjuna as well, in the Gita episode.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
50 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
37 Vyasa says, e.g., "What use have you of wealth, relatives and children, when you are going to die?
Seek out your soul, which is hidden in a cave. Where have all your forefathers gone?" (XII. 309. 7).
One might dispute how well Vyasa is able to achieve santi himself - as scholars have pointed
out, Vyasa suffers from emotional attachments himself and exhibits moral failings (this is observed
in Sullivan 1999). Doniger characterizes Vyasa thus: "Vyasa is worldly; he wants a manly son, and he
is vulnerable to nymphs; he is a fire-maker, a hot character, a sacrificer rather than a renouncer"
(1993: 41). But that Vyasa holds the moksadharma ideal of equanimity as the highest value in his
teaching seems indisputable.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 51
39 Regarding lila, I propose as much in "Mystery, Play, and Polymorphism in the Fourth Book of
the Mahabharata' (2001). Further, Mehta speaks of Vyasa as "worthy of the deconstructive
lugubrations of a Derrida" (111). Any discussion of play and free play, of course, must again conjure
up the hovering host of Derrida.
40 See, e.g., Mehta, Hiltebeitel 2001, and Sullivan 1996, 1999.
Regarding time, see Vassilkov s comments on kalavada in the Mahabharata. Hiltebeitel (1976)
draws attention to the different modes of these theophanies in The Ritual of Battle.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
52 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
the Mahabharata (as also in the Ramayana), we can never forget that
God himself is, in fact, a character of the author Vyasa (and in the
Ramayana> of Valmiki) and that the powers and functions he represents
are endowed on him by the author.42 The author, Vyasa, by virtue of his
creative control and direction of his artistic work, controls, directs, and
indeed authorizes the activities of God (even where God is said to autho-
rize the creative work of the author). Thus, while God is said to create the
author and, indeed, to solicit the creative activity of the author, the
author creates God in his literary work, and in a closed textual world we
can know of no God other than that vouchsafed to us by the author. This
mutual circle of authority can never be breached, creating a unique self-
contained, "interactive" process of text.
The relationship of author to God and God to author in a literary
work in which both author and God participate as characters has the
effect of creating a circularity of reference that richly evokes resonances
of the organic and cyclical processes of time, of the endlessly recurring
nature of the universe, of the continual creation and destruction of the
universe, creation containing within it the certitude of destruction and
destruction harboring within it the promise of regeneration. Within the
theistic strains developed by the text, all allusions to God inevitably
point to the author - imply, suggest, and indeed implicate the author - and
all consideration of the author similarly bespeaks God. Who comes first?
Who is secondary? Indeed, is there a duality? Is it not the case that the
personality and identity of God who is a character in the author's text
are really only the creation of the author and that, in fact, the real God,
the most absolute and powerful God, is, in fact, the author himself, the
author both of himself as a character as well as of God?43 Is the author
not ultimately a metaphor for God? Note, for example, that the author
ultimately is also responsible for the death of Krsna, the death of God.
Vyasa perseveres in the text, but God dies, and his death is devised,
necessitated, achieved, by the plot (plotting?) of the author.44 This deep
play makes for an inexhaustible text, in which interpretation is never
finished.
42 In this sense, Foucault's remarks about the author as existing outside the text, preceding and
transcending it, do not encapsulate the reality of the Sanskrit epics. In the epics, the author is
coexistent with the text, existing before, alongside, within, and after his creation.
Indeed, Vyasa is stated to be one form of Krsna in the Gita. (10.13) and again later in the
Mahabharata (XII.334.9).
44 Mehta asserts in relation to Vyasa that Krsna is the only reality "transcending his authorial
grasp, not at his disposal" (110). As Hiltebeitel (2001: 89) has noted, this is arguable. Krsna, as a
character in the Mahabharata, is clearly authored by Vyasa and ultimately also disposed of by him.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 53
VYASAASGOD
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
54 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
CONCLUSION
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 55
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
56 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
REFERENCES
Emeneau, M. B., and B. A. "The Young Wife and Her Husband's Brother:
van Nooten Rgveda 10.40.2 and 10.85.44." Journal of the
1991 American Oriental Society 111/3: 481-494.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 57
Miller, Barbara Stoler "The Original Poem: Valmlki Ramayana and Indian
1973 Literary Values." Literature East and West 17/2-4:
163-173.
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
58 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
van Buitenen, J. A. B., The Mahabharata, 5 vols. Crit. ed. Chicago: University
trans, and ed. of Chicago Press.
1973-1978
This content downloaded from 103.27.164.5 on Fri, 26 Apr 2019 08:19:15 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms