- Ramesh Mukhopadhyaya
It has been said that Vedavyasa the composer, at the
instance of Brahma the creator invoked Lord Ganesha to take
down the narrative. Lord Ganesha agreed to act as a stenographer
of Vedavyasa. But if Vedavyasa faltered to dictate continuously
Lord Ganesha would give up the assignment. Well, Vedayasa
agreed to the terms of Lord Ganesha on condition that the latter
must not write a single verse without understanding its import.
Consequently, whenever Vedavyasa had to stop a while in course
of his dictation, he would introduce a riddle known as Vyasa-
Kuta in the course of his narration. And the Lord had to panse a
while to decode the same. In this way it is said that there are
some 8200 verses scattered through-out the narrative, that baffle
the readers. If 8200 verses scattered all about the narrative are
ambiguous, the whole of the narrative becomes ambiguous. It is
claimed that Vyasa, Ganesha and Sukdeva only three persons
know the real import of those verses. Consequently by admission
of the Mahabharata itself the whole narrative is ambiguous.
(This is an excerpt from the book on Gitas by Ramesh Mukhopadhyaya)
Sir
ReplyDeleteIt think it would take a leap of logic to cocnlude that the entire text of Mahabharata is ambiguous if 8200 verses are ambiguous. First of all the nature of ambiguity of these Vyaas kuta verses needs to be understood. Is the objective to mislead/confuse the reader by saying something in one part of the epic and then directly contradicting it in the Vyaaskuta. Or are the verses just sitting there as an inert piece of text that is simply hard to comprehend. If its the latter then the reader would usually just skim over this specific verse and continue onward on his journeu through the rest of the document. Now I am a regular reader of the Mahabharata and do admit not being able to understand certain parts of the text. Lack of understanding a specific verse , however, so far does not confuse my understanding of the rest of the text. I just highlight that verse as 'Not understood' and carry on reading. A problem would definitely arise if there was a 'virodhaabhas' ie a contradition between what is being said in that verse and other verses that I have read thus far. So far that has not happened. So, if indeed, the concept of the Vyaas kuta is authentic then I must presume that its impact on the reader is fairly innocuous.
My own understanding of Mahabharata's objective is that rather than being a historical narrative it is primarily meant as a document that explains the 'Varnashram
dharma' to the reader who finds the language of the Vedas, Upanishads, etc hard to comprehend. The story is used to serve as an interesting background to this explanation of the Varnaashram dharma.
An oft repeated argument used to disparage the Mahabharata is the lack of conclusive archaeological evidence to support the existence of the characters and the kingdoms. But to me the lack of evidence is inconsequential because as far as I understand, Mahabharata was never meant to be a historical narrative
Now we may debate about the 'ambiguity' or otherwise of the 'Varnaashram Dharma'as propounded by the verses of Mahabharata and that would be a debate befitting a document as grand as the Mahabharata
Dear Navin Right glad to receive your comments They are charged
ReplyDeletewith insight and educative You have rightly observed that if we
debate over the ambiguities of the Mahabharata it will be as
voluminous as the Mahabharata itself It is great that you are at
present reading the Mahabharata and you are highlighting the slokas
that baffle you I fully agree with what you say And I want to add
the following for your kind consideration -- language itself is
always ambiguous We make sense of a given language in the light of
its context The context has to be either culled from the text Or
the reader might add a context to the text The reader might read a
text from both standpoints In fact one wonders where is the text
Is it not in the readers mind? Or else it is half created and
halfperceived Thus the true meaning of a text is unknown and
unknowable Has any text some essential meaning at all? Very
naturally debates over the meaning of any text could be there Fine
since a text doesnot have any absolute meaning any meaning of the text
is as good as any other meaning In other words a text is capable
of meanings on n levels When a debate crops up it means that the
text could be read from more than one standpoints Cant we take both
into account and enrich ourselves? Man is a slave of his
perspective When I see a child from below I will find his head small
and his legs long When I see the same child from above I find the
head big and the legs short Both the views are correct and yet not
enough That is we always search for new meanings in any text
And we would be only too grateful if you share your interpretation
from the standpoint of Varnashram Be a member of the google groups
Sefirah and to our fund of knowledge with your fresh findings I
always enjoy a close reading of a text which does not take into
account any extratextual context If one writes a poem is not the
poem a manifesto of what apoem should be And I always try to find
what clue is there woven into the text that will help me decode the
text The Mahabharata itself acknowledges that there are vyasakutas
woven into its matrix It has not however pointed out which are the
vyasakuta Consequently there are gaps to be filled in by the reader
In this context Roland Barthes comes to mind Barthes observes that
there are two types of text in the readerly text and the writerly text
Readerly texts are the like of the soap operas where the readers
neednot toil for meaning On the contrary writerly texts are full
of gaps to be filled in by the reader Barthes opines that every
classic in literatture is a writerly text where the reader must add
to its meaning And surely a text is not there in the printed matter
There are as many texts as there are readers of a text And therefore
the meaning of the text is elusive To quote Krisna in the
Bhagavadgita ---aascharyavat pashyati kaschid aascharyvat shrinoti
tathaiva chaanyah etc When we are not aware of these facts about
language and we often stumble on contradictions But contradictions
make paradoxes Our language has inherent limitations So what we
cannot express in language we try to express the same in terms of
paradoxes Paradoxes can express perhaps those thoughts which are
too deep for tears If anyone says that the Mahabharata is not
history I will not argue with him But the historians take literature
as one of the most significant sources of history That is obvious
But more to it A novel however fictitious its characters might be
is rooted in the very culture and the society where it is born
Again a book of history might have real men and women in it But the
society about them is as good as that of fiction And the activities
of the protagonists of history are as ambiguous as those of a fiction
That is why our evaluation of Stalin Hitler or Churchil is never
final Even today can we grasp globalisation Reality seems to be
always elusive Any serious effort to decode the text from any angle
of vision will therefore enrich our understanding of the text be it
the real world or be it the Mahabharata So we are looking forward
to your explication of the Mahabharata
With deepest regards Ramesh
Naveen you are wonderful
ReplyDeleteThanks for this interesting viewpoint. I have always wondered why there are contradictory verses in Mahabharat. For eg. one passage in MB says that Pandu and Kunti's bodies were brought to Hastinapur, another says they were cremated at Shatshrung and only there ashes were brought to Hastinapur...
ReplyDeleteApart from such verses which Vyas probably dictated to confuse Ganesh, there are some riddles which Vyas has woven in the story proper. I have written a blog on these riddles. I hope it is ok to post the link here rather than write it all over again. http://riddlesinmahabharat.blogspot.in/
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteComposing a blog is a touch of craftsmanship and the writer has definitely aced this inclination.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.brainteasingriddles.com/
We are still evolving in understanding of the wonderful samskrutam Deva bhasha, thanks to the Westerners and the Left liberals or pseudo intellectual in India. However in the recent years several institutions and organisations have embarked on the act of revival of the great language. Surely many of the Vyasakuta slokas will become an intellectual quest for even general public
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