The Mahabharata, Volume 1: Book 1: The Book of the Beginning 9780226217543

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The Mahabharata Book 1

The Book of the Beginning

The University oj Chicago Press

Chicago and London

Translated and Edited by J.A.B. van Buitenen

1

The Book of the Beginning

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The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 1973 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1973 Paperback edition 1983 Printed in the United States of America 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07

10 11 12 13 14

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-84663-7 (paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-84633-6 (paper) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Maha¯bha¯rata. English. The Maha¯bha¯rata. Includes bibliographical references. CONTENTS: v. 1. The book of the beginning. v. 2. The book of the assembly hall. The book of the forest. v. 3. The book of the Vira¯ta. The ˙ book of the effort. I. Buitenen, Johannes Adrianus Bernardus van, tr. PK3633.A2B8 294.5923 72-97802 ISBN 0-226-84648-2 (v. 1, cloth); 0-226-84663-6 (v. 1, paper) ISBN 0-226-84649-0 (v. 2, cloth); 0-226-84664-4 (v. 2, paper) ISBN 0-226-84650-4 (v. 3, cloth); 0-226-84665-2 (v. 3, paper) The relief sculpture on the title page, dating from the second half of the fifth century a.d., depicts Nara and Na¯ra¯yan.a in Visn.u temple, Deogarh, U.P., India. Photo by courtesy of Pramod Chandra. ø The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

For Corrie, Hansje, and Jenny van Buitenen To remember our last year in India when this book was done

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Mahiibhiirata 1.55 .2

Of Vyasa the wise great seer. Whose spirit is boundless, Whose fame is spread in all three worlds. I shall proclaim The thought entire.

Contents

Preface

xi

The Mahabharata: Introduction

xiii

Spelling and Pronunciation of Sanskrit

xlix

The Mahabharata: Summary

xlv

THE MAHABHARATA Translated Book 1. The Book of the Beginning Introduction Contents Summaries and Translation Notes to Text Names of Important Persons

1 17 19 433 469

Concordance of Critical Edition and Bombay Edition

475

Index

479

o

50

100

150

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200

250

Preface

The reader will understand that the present work was not undertaken without great apprehension and much deliberation. Rarely has a translation in a modern European language been completed. Nevertheless. the importance of The Mahiibhiirata for our knowledge of Indian civilization and the paucity of knowledge about it in the West persuaded me to go ahead with what wr,s bound to be a very long task. The present .volume is the first installment of that task. At the date of this writing. close to two more volumes like the present one are ready in translation. so it is no longer unreasonable to hope that the entire Mahiibhiirata may be available in the not too interminable future. I am particularly pleased that the work is being published by the University of Chicago Press. It is at this University that the work is being done. and it has been at this University too that my concourse and discourse with colleagues in history. art. anthropology. history of religions. political science. and even demography convinced me that an Indologist owes as much to other disciplines bearing on India as to his own. It was out of this conviction that the decision arose to open up the great epic of India to all of us. Nevertheless. with all the encouragement I have received from everyone. I could not have gone ahead with the publication had it not been for the substantial subvention it received from a private donor and from a foundation-supported University committee. The donor is George V. Bobrinskoy. Emeritus Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Chicago. warm. ever-helpful. most generous colleague and friend. The committee is the Committee on Southern Asian Studies. which. largely with the aid of the Ford Foundation. has been responsible for the development of Indian studies at this University. xi

xii

The Mahiibhiirata

Circumstances could not have conspired more happily to arrange that those to whom lowe so much have earned an even greater claim on my gratitude.

J. A. B. van Buitenen 3 August 1971

The Mahiibhiirata Introduction

The Central Story The central story of The Mahiibhiirata takes its matter from the legitimacy of the succession to the kingdom of Kuruk~etra in northern India. This kingdom was the ancestral realm of a clan known by several styles, the most common being that of Bharata. The last king whose succession was unclouded was Saqltanu. He left three sons; the firstborn was Bhi~ma, whom he begot on the river goddess Ganges; Bhi~ma was the legitimate heir. In a second alliance with Satyavati, the daughter of a fisher tribe chieftain, Saqltanu had two younger sons, Citrangada and Vicitravirya. All the complications start with the second alliance. It was no less peculiar than the king's first alliance with a deity: it was a baron's infatuation with a low-class girl. The king tries to disown his amour, but his heir finds out and sells his birthright of succession for his father's privilege to indulge himself. Driving a hard bargain, the girl's father, the chieftain, demands the promise that Bhi~ma will stand aside and allow the girl's sons to inherit; and, as a second promise, that Bhi~ma himself will not have sons that could rival the junior branch. Bhi~ma agrees to both conditions, and is hence known by his name, which means "awe-inspiring." In the junior line, Citrangada dies unmarried and without heir. Vicitravirya, his younger brother, on the other hand, marries two sisters, Ambika and Ambalika, yet dies childless. Extinction of a line so precariously begun faces the erstwhile fisher girl, now Queen Satyavati. But Satyavati had been a virgin only symbolically when she married old King Saqltanu; she had had a son, Kr~lJ.a Dvaipayana, after a brief encounter with a seer, Parasara, a passenger on a ferry she plied on the river Yamuna. After Bhi~ma's refusal to oblige his xiii

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The Mahiibhiirata

younger brother's wives, Satyavati calls on this other elder brother by the law oflevirate to service them for offspring. By the elder widow, Ambika, he fathers Dhrtara~tra, by diminishing rights the heir; by the younger widow, Ambalika, he fathers paI}.Qu. He also begets a bastard son of the household, Vidura. Dhrtara~tra is born blind, and thus excluded from direct succession. paI}.Qu becomes king, and, with divine intervention, fathers five sons, the paI}.Qavas, on a senior wife and a junior one. The eldest of the five is Yudhi~thira, who, to boot, has been born ahead of the senior Dhrtara~tra's eldest son, Duryodhana. Meanwhile, paI}.Q.u has fallen under a curse, renounces the throne, and retires to the forest, where his children are born and grow up. Dhrtara~tra, whose name means "he who holds the kingdom," assumes the regency for heirs that by now are hardly identifiable. He agrees that Yudhi~thira continue to have first claim to the realm, but does not commit himself to the cause of Yudhi~thira's issue. After paI}.Q.u's death, the hermits of the forest to which he had retired bring the princes and the one surviving mother. the senior wife Kunt!, to the Bharata court at Hastinapura, their principal fastness . While the paI}.Q.avas's legitimacy is never called into doubt. Duryodhana, eldest son of Regent Dhrtara~tra, has designs on the throne and attempts to remove his cousins, first by assassination, and, when that fails, by semi-exile to a provincial town. There he plots to burn them in a house fire , but, with their bastard uncle Vidura's help, the paI}.Q.avas discover the plot, leave substitute bodies burned for theirs, and escape with their mother. After an adventurous period in hiding - they are disguised as young brahmins-they reappear at the court of King Drupada of South Pancala, who is having a tournament for the hand of his daughter Kr~I}.a DraupadL Arjuna, the third of the paI}.Q.avas, wins her for them all. They have thus entered into an alliance with the Pancalas, who border the Bharatas down the river Ganges. Inevitably the Hastinapura Bharatas take notice: the paI}.Q.ava claimants have not only survived, but have also secured a powerful alliance with a neighboring kingdom. To make matters worse, Baladeva and KJ,"!?I}.a Vasudeva, champions of a people living to the west on the parallel river Yamuna at the fastness of Mathura, have entered into an alliance of friendship with the paI}.Q.avas. A council is held at once in Hastinapura. Preventive warfare is urged, but great-uncle Bhi~ma upholds the paI}.Q.avas's rights. Yet, Duryodhana, having for so long been in actual possession of the realm that he is king de facto , will not be budged. They arrive finally at the only possible compromise short of war, partition of the kingdom. The paI}.Q.avas are offered the uncultivated and forested

Introduction

xv

Khaq