The Mahabharata, Volume 2: Book 2: The Book of Assembly; Book 3: The Book of the Forest 9780226223681

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The Mahabharata Book 2

Book 3

The Book of the Assembly Hall The Boo k of the Forest

The The University of Chicago Press

Chicago and London

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

2 The Book of the Assembly Hall 3 The Book of the Forest

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 1975 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1975 Phoenix edition 1981 Printed in the United States of America 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07

7 8 9 10 11

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-84664-4 (paper, vol. 2) ISBN-10: 0-226-84664-4 (paper, vol. 2) 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. I. Buitenen, Johannes Adrianus Bernardus van, tr. PK3633.A2B8 294.5⬘923 72-97802 The relief sculpture on the title page, dating from the second half of the fifth century a.d., depicts Nara and Na¯ra¯yaana in Visnu temple, Deogarh, U.P., India, courtesy 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 Nina

Contents

Preface

ix

THE MAHABHARATA Translated Book 2. The Book of the Assembly Hall Introduction Contents Summaries and Translation

3

31 33

Book 3. The Book of the Forest Introduction Contents Summaries and Translation Notes to Text

1 73 217 219 809

Concordance of Critical Edition and Bombay Edition: Books 2 and 3

837

Index

839

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100

150

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The University of Mlnnesotll->

200

250

5

Preface

Since Book 2, The Book of the Assembly Hall, is considerably shorter than Book 1, The Book of the Beginning, it was decided to include in the second volume of my translation of The Mahiibhiirata not only Book 2 but Book 3, The Book of the Forest, in its entirety, even though this may seem to overbalance Volume I. It seemed wiser to do this than to divide Book 3 into two volumes. Although included in a single volume, the two Major Books, The Book of the Assembly HaIl (sabhiiparvan) and The Book of the Forest (iiralJ.yakaparvan), are treated as separate entities, each with its own Introduction. The annotations for both Major Books appear at the end of the volume, together with a consolidated index. Most of the additional apparatus of Volume I is not repeated in Volume II. The reader is referred to Volume I for a general introduction to The Mahiibhiirata as a whole, including a summary, as well as a genealogical chart, a note on the spelling and pronunciation of Sanskrit, a list of names of important persons, and a concordance of the Critical Edition and the Bombay Edition. But it was considered useful to repeat the map (somewhat enlarged) and that much of the concordance that pertains to Major Books 2 and 3. When this volume appears, it is hoped that the manuscript of Volume III will be ready for the press. Volume III will comprise Major Books 4 and 5, The Book of Viriita (viriitaparvan) and The Book of the Effort (udyogaparvan), with which well over a third of the entire translation will have been completed. This volume, and the enterprise as a whole, has been fortunate to find a patron in Haven O'More, director of The Institute for Traditional ix

The Mahiibhiirata

x

Science. Cambridge. Massachusetts. who generously provided a substantial subsidy toward the publishing costs of this volume. Once again I take pleasure in thanking Professor George V. Bobrinskoy for spending many hours with me in comparing my translation of The Mahabharata with the Russian translation to which I allude in the introduction to Volume I. And it is a privilege to record here my thanks to my students. In the give and take of several seminars to which the publication of The Book of the Beginning gave rise. they afforded me many insights I would not have gained by myself.

A Correction In my introduction to the first volume of The Mahabharata. when reviewing English translations past and present. I had occasion to comment on the lack of apparatus to be found in the so-called Roy translation (Calcutta. 1883-96) and remarked that one looks in vain even for a table of contents. This criticism should have been applied to the reprint of the original translation that appeared in 1952-62. Since then it has been pointed out to me that the original. to which I now have access. does have a table of contents of sorts-each Major Book is normally preceded by a list in which a one-line description is given of each adhyaya. I often consult the "Roy" translation. and mean no slight to my predecessors. I should also like to amplify my observation that the translation appeared as if by P. C. Roy but was in fact executed by K. S. Ganguli. Ganguli himself adds an enlightening "Translator's Post-Script" at the end of the translation (p. 2). He writes:

Before. however. the first fascicules could be issued. the question as to whether the authorship of the translation should be publicly owned. arose. Babu Pratapa Chandra Roy was against anonymity. I was for it. The reasons I adduced were chiefly founded upon the impossibility of one person translating the whole of the gigantic work .... I might not live to carry it out.... It could not be desirable to issue successive fascicules with the names of a succession of translators appearing on the title pages. These and other considerations convinced my friend that. after all. my view was correct. It was accordingly resolved to withhold the name of the translator. Roy then acted as the publisher and general fund raiser for the enterprise. reaping no personal benefit from it. in fact incurring a considerable debt in furthering the translation and publication of the work. which was mostly distributed gratis.

Preface

xi

Ganguli continues (p. 3): The entire translation is practically the work of one hand. In portions of the Adi and Sabha Parvas I was assisted by Professor Krishna Kamal Bhattacharya and about half a fasciculus. during my illness. was done by another hand. It is clear that not only Kesari Mohan Ganguli but Pratapa Chandra

Roy deserve our homage. 8 July 1974

J. A. B. van B.

The Mahabharata Translated Book 2

The Book of the Assembly Hall

Introduction

The Place of the Book in the Main Epic

The Book of the Assembly Hall is the pivotal one of the eighteen Major Books of The Mahiibhiirata; it is also one of the more diversified and interesting ones. * For all its length and variety, The Book of the Beginning has not done more than lay the groundwork of the epic as we now have it. We left it as a more or less closed whole: the ancestry of the protagonists and antagonists; their youth, early strife, and clouded claims on the succession; the attempts at assassination, and the safe deliverance of the PiiI;u;lavas; their self-exile and glorious reappearance at Draupadi's Bridegroom Choice; their consequent marriage, alliance with Piificiila, and recognition by the senior Kauravas; and finally the acquisition of the kingdom of Indraprastha by the partition of the Field of the Kurus. Peace was restored in the end between the two branches of siblings through the wise guidance of their elders. One might well close The Beginning and never expect a sequel to it. But The Assembly Hall makes all that went before just a beginning. Those were the pages of childhood and adolescence, in which the influence of the elders was strong and decisive. Now the heroes are on their own and begin to act in their own right; and their natures are willful. The Assembly Hall begins with establishing Yudhi~thira and his brothers as prosperous princelings at Indraprastha. But this is not much: so far the PiiQ.Q.avas have simply acquired a new home base. Now, at the suggestion of a visiting messenger of the Gods-though 'This Introduction abbreviates and expands matter set forth in J. A. B. van Buitenen. "On the Structure of the Sabhiiparvan of the Mahiibhiirata." in India Maior (Festschrift Gonda). Leyden. 1972. pp. 68-84.

3

4

The Book of the Assembly Hall

not sent by the Gods-the seer Narada. Yudhi~thira conceives the desire to perform the ancient Vedic ritual of the riijasiiya. the Royal Consecration. This. at first glance. appears as no more than the legitimization of his new. and so to say supernumerary. kingship by means of the old rite. It transpires. however. that there is much more to it than that; for through it Yudhi~thira wishes to aspire to nothing less than universal sovereignty by becoming samriij. an "all-king" or "emperor." to whom all other princes of the land will be submissive. It is not at all clear on what personal accomplishments Yudhi~thira could pretend to rest such a claim. After all. he has allowed himself to be ousted from the ancestral seat of Hastinapura in return for a parcel of wilderness that still had to be cleared. True. he has won the alliance of pancala. but merely by marriage. The end of The Beginning has left us with the mild satisfaction that some attractive noble youths. after some bad luck and some good. in the end did not fare so ill. But imperial ambitions all of a sudden? Still. perhaps his ambition stood in need of no justification; for he is to embark on a grand Vedic ceremony. the riijasiiya. and to qualify for it the performer's intention may suffice. Once his desire has taken hold. Yudhi~thira calls in KJ;'~I,la of the VJ;'~I,lis for counsel. He had already pOinted out the obvious: the performance requires the "unanimity of the baronage"! to be tributary to him. For the riijasiiya. 2 as it is presented in this book is not just the installation of a new king. it is the glorification of a king of kings. There can only be one such suzerain at the time. So it requires not only the assent of the baronage. but also the removal of the present suzerain. The one en titre is Jarasarpdha. the king of the more eastern land of Magadha. a populous and prosperous realm. So Jarasarpdha is indeed removed. and the rest of the world. not excluding Rome and Antioch3 and the "city of the Greeks." is made tributary. After the assassination of Jarasarpdha the performance takes place. but it is not concluded without resistance. While Yudhi~thira's preeminence is never disputed. the high ranking of KJ;'~I,la is. The challenger. Sisupala. is eliminated by KJ;'~I,la. and Yudhi~thira is suzerain indeed; but for a brief while. The title is wrested from him by the Hastinapura Kauravas in a game at dice. when Yudhi~thira loses on pain of an exile of thirteen years. Most of the proceedings of this book take place in an assembly hall. a kind of longhouse for the men in which to hold council and 1. K~atrasa/11pad: 2.12.13. 2. On the Vedic riijasiiya see J. C. Heesterman, The Ancient Indian Royal Consecration (Thesis Utrecht), The Hague, 1957. 3. See Franklin Edgerton, "Rome and (?) Antioch in the Mahiibhiirata" a.A.O.S. 38: 262 fT.).

Introduction

5

entertainment, and it is from such a hall that the book takes its title. There are two halls involved, the one at Indraprastha and that at Hastinapura. It is the Indraprastha hall that becomes a bone of contention; it is in the Hastinapura hall where it all ends. The hall at Indraprastha was newly built by an Asura, Maya by name, who had been saved from the fire of the KhaJ;lQ.ava Forest,4 which concluded The Book of the Beginning. So magnificent was that hall that it excited the envy of Kaurava's cousin Duryodhana, and this envy led to the game at dice on whose outcome the rest of The Mahiibhiirata hangs. When Yudhi~thira has reached the pinnacle of temporal power as the acknowledged suzerain of all the world, he is challenged to the game. Why he felt he had to accept the challenge will be discussed later; here it suffices to note that there is a conspicuous thread in the book: the settlement at Indraprastha needs a hall- the hall needs validation as a royal court through the Royal Consecration-it evokes the others' envy-and brings about a game in another hall where Yudhi~thira loses all. Clearly therefore the structure of The Assembly Hall is much tighter than that of The Beginning, where the insertions and additions are quite obvious. The Hall too has its fuzzy edges: Narada's long instruction in policy and administration is a clear instance. But otherwise the book hangs together remarkably well. May we raise the question whether this structure is inherent or derivative? I think we may. The Book of the Beginning was so leisurely told, with so many digressions (until the very end when we are regaled with the story of the Sarngaka birds), that we are entitled to wonder why nothing is allowed to interfere with the orderly progression of The Assembly Hall. The most faScinating, but puzzling, feature of the book is the question it inevitably raises: Why, when everything has been achieved, must it now be gambled away by the hero, in all of whose previous life there has not been so much as a hint of a compulsion to gamble, all of whose life has in fact been of exemplary rectitude and prudence? It is this disturbing contradiction in the character of Yudhi~thira that demands the question whether this was indeed a contradiction, or whether the events in his life may not have been modeled on a preexisting structure. In my opinion there is such a model: the events of The Assembly Hall follow fairly closely the principal moments of the very riijasuya ritual that is central to the book. In my view it cannot be coincidental that the Royal Consecration and Unction in The Mahiibhiirata are followed by a gambling match 4. MBh. 1 (19). I: 412 ff.

6

The Book of the Assembly Hall

and that dicing is prescribed as mandatory after the Unction (abhiljeka) in the riijasuya ritual. 5 There are other parallels between the book and the riijasuya sequence of events. to which we shall revert. Here at the outset I wish to submit that The Assembly Hall is structurally an epic dramatization of the Vedic ritual. It has been said that this book is pivotal to The Mahiibhiirata as a whole. The remaining epic can almost be predicted in outline: there are to follow thirteen years of exile and the adventures thereof. described in The Book of the Forest and The Book of Viriita. Is it likely that the molestation of the pa~Q.ava·s wife Draupadi at the hands of Dul).sasana and Duryodhana will remain unavenged? Or that Duryodhana will surrender half the kingdom to Yudhiljthira when he returns? We see looming The Book of the Effort. and the war books of Bhlljma. DrOl:za. Kan:za. Salya. and the rest.

The Hall at Indraprastha: Builder and Building In a way the pa~Q.avas come by their hall at Indraprastha about as absentmindedly as by the Kha~Q.ava Tract itself. So far - and this is where The Beginning ended - the Tract has been cleared by burning on a grand scale. This burning. ferociously fanned by KJ;'Ij~a and Arjuna. has produced a few strange survivors: the disputatious Sarngaka fledglings. the Snake Asvasena. and an Asura called Maya. The oddest of them all is Maya. that is to say. the oddest in an Indian sense. Not only is it curious that an Asura with his divine powers finds himself in a forest at a critical time - a fact not surprising in the case of birds and snakes - but also he is completely alone. which in the Indian context is an astonishing feature. While we tend to think of demons of any sort as natural loners. in India personages of any kind. however demoniac. come in families. The other survivors from the Kha~Q.ava fire. the birds and the snake. illustrate this point precisely. The birds are brothers. deserted by a philandering father. ineffectively protected by their mother. in the end saved by their wits and their father's forethought. The snake is rescued by its mother. But without any further explanation-which in the Indian epic style is itself inexplicable. because all circumstances must have preconditions - an Asura Maya turns up in the Kha~Q.ava. entirely alone. He is odd. Maya. in danger of being burned alive. darts forward from nowhere and seeks mercy from Arjuna. The Fire God was ready to pounce. KJ;'Ij~a himself had his discus raised. yet Arjuna extends his safety 5. Heesterman. chap. 17.

Introduction

7

without asking a question. This in spite of the fact that the Asuras are sworn enemies of the Gods, furtive, vindictive, treacherous creatures, an ever-lurking peril for humans. After having been spared Maya stays about, and at the beginning of The Assembly Hall he presses his gratitude on Arjuna. The hero however is noncommittal: "You have done everything, "6 he replies, and of course Maya has done nothing, not even anything wicked, an oddity among the Asuras. Maya in other words comes through curiously alien, without the background of family and habitat, not of the race yet not inhuman, to rescue whom seems to be reward enough in itself. The Asura patiently explains that he is a Visvakarman, a "God Architect,"? of the Danavas (in the context synonymous with Asuras), and a great artist (kavi). Arjuna again accepts his word without demanding amplification and replies, "Do something for K.r~I,la, that will be reward enough for me."B K.r~I,la in turn responds, "Build an assembly hall, Maya, where the designs of the Gods are laid out, and the designs of Asuras and men. "9 Maya is delighted. On a further occasion, when he is presented to King Yudhi~thira, he speaks of the "feats of the ancient Gods. "10 Who are these Gods? The Asura announces that for his building materials he must go north, "where all the Danavas (= Asuras) are to hold their sacrifices." There he has a cache of "precious stones," left there by King V.r~aparvan,l1 the ancient Asura king we have met in The Story of Yayiiti, where he gave that king of hoary antiquity his daughter Sarmi~tha - a rather human Asura. The northern location itself is described as an extremely ancient site where all the truly high Gods of the Vedic pantheon themselves go to worship "everyone thousand eons." God K.r~I,la has donated to this center countless "sacrificial poles and most splendid altars."12 When Maya has built the hall, it is a wonder of the world, "ten thousand cubits in perimeter,"13 or 62,500 square cubits, with golden pillars, "covering the sky like a mountain or monsoon cloud, long, wide, smooth, flawless and dispelling fatigue." Neither the fabled Sudharma Hall of the V.r~I,lis nor the palace of Brahma himself matches it. And Maya built this hall in a full fourteen months,14 a term not to be taken as short but extremely long. In building the hall he had an army of helpers and guards. 6. 2.1.3. 7. 2.1.5. 8. 2.1.7. 9. 2.1.10-11. 10. 2.1.15; piirvadevas. "previous Gods." is a regular designation of Asuras. 11. 2.3.2-3. 12. 2.3.14-15. l3.2.3.19. 14. Miisai/.! paricaturdasai/.!. 2.3.34.

8

The Book of the Assembly Hall

All these peculiarities surrounding the building of the hall and its builder have not failed to intrigue scholars. If we ignore a rather adventurous hypothesis. ls we may state a generally acceptable theory as follows. Maya is an alien. but his credentials are not called into question. He is an Asura. but not inherently evil. in fact open-handed and grateful. He tells myths of the ancient Gods with whom Yudhi~thira must have been vaguely acquainted; at least they are not outside the pale for him. He must return to a site in the remote north for his building materials. a site where ancient Indian Gods have been known to worship - if eons ago. The general theory that explains all this is that Maya hails from Inin. 16 Before they became synonymous with demons. the Asuras were a class of Gods common to the ancient Iranians and Indians. Ancient. but by no means forgotten. The Vedic Gods VarUJ;m and Mitra. truly high Gods. are proudly styled Asuras. 17 For reasons not as transparent as one would wish. the word eventually took on in India the value of anti-God. i.e .• anti-Deva. for a class of supernatural beings competitive with the deva Gods. disinherited. though never quite defeated and eradicated in the end. In Iran. too. in the eventual Iran of Zarathustra. the style of Ahura (= Asura) underwent a semantic transvaluation; it became the appellation of the God Mazda. who champions the good against Ahriman. who in turn represents the evil spirits - the Iranian anti-Gods. who are the daevas (= devas). It seems very likely that our apparently dispossessed Asura Maya - alone. required to return to the north for his materials - is not a common or garden variety of Indian Asura who is now growing wild in Indian nature. but a follower of Ahura. deserving of rescue and respect. The phonetic change from asura to ahura is slight; already in Sanskrit the sand 1;z are allophones; in some Prakrits the change of intervocalic s to straight h is normal. I8 This Asura. so responsive to the shelter Arjuna has vouchsafed him. works as an architect for the Par;H;!.avas and creates the wonder of this world. But wonders have predecessors: Maya must have built before. IS. Advanced by F. W. Thomas. "Dr. Spooner, Asura Maya, Mount Meru and Karsa" (J .R.A.S., 1916, pp. 262 ff.); he suggests that Asura is derived from the Ashur (Assur) of the Assyrians, whose might the Indo-Iranians supposedly had encountered. It would seem highly unlikely that the Indian bards retained the memory of the Assyrian palaces for more than a millennium before at last celebrating them. 16. The first scholar to raise the question was D. B. Spooner, "The Zoroastrian Period of Indian History" (J.R.A.S., 1915. pp. 68-89, 405-55), where he goes too far in asserting that Sanskrit Maya = Awestan Mazda. Spooner's views were instantly reviewed by Vincent A. Smith (ib. pp. 800 ff.), A. B. Keith (J.R.A.S., 1916, pp. 138 ff.) and F. W. Thomas (above). A balanced judgment of the entire discussion is rendered by A. Foucher, La vieille route de l'Inde (Paris 1947): 330. 17. As are many other major gods in the ~gveda; cf. A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, reprint Varanasi, n.d. 18. For this reason there is little merit in A. B. Keith's objection to Spooner's assumption asura = ahura.

Introduction

9

The theory that this Asura was Iranian finds support in the evidence that he was an architect. It is now accepted that early Indian stone architecture was an offshoot of that of the Achaemenid Empire of ancient Persia. After the Achaemenids were defeated by Alexander of Macedon and their empire was subsequently dismembered by the Seleucids - a goodly part of it going to King Candragupta Maurya of Magadha in exchange for five hundred war elephants - the old Zoroastrian dominion abandoned its artisans. artists. and architects to the outer world. notably to India. At this time a new. India-based empire was growing out of Magadha. reaching to the borders of the Seleucid satrapies in Afghanistan. Magadha seems to have welcomed the architects warmly: the style of Persepolis. wantonly sacked by Alexander. has been convincingly recognized in the architecture of the Magadhan capital of pataliputra. 19 There is nothing inherently improbable in the assumption that the description of Yudhi~thira's great hall. built by an alien Asura from the north with his own myrmidons. who fetched his necessaries from the north. was patterned on the "sumptuous palaces" that Megasthenes. the ambassador of Seleukos I. observed in 302 B.C. in the Pataliputra of Candragupta Maurya. the capital of a country that otherwise figures prominently in The Assembly Hall. For a brief while Indraprastha will be the capital of the entire world. as Pataliputra was of a good part of India in the third century. Pataliputra similarly displayed "the designs of Gods. Asuras. and men." If this view is correct. it throws light on the date of the present form of the book: it cannot have been composed at a date very far apart from the generation that saw Iranians helping to build up Pataliputra and knew the source of the new imperial style.

The Hall Put in Its Place No sooner has the hall been built than Narada comes visiting. the divine seer who so often acts as a messenger of the Gods. After a long series of questions about political and administrative matters. to which we 19. Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Civilizations of the Indus Valley and Beyond (London, 1966), p. 118, quotes Megasthenes to the effect that in the palace of Pataliputra much was "calculated to excite admiration, and with which Susa, with all its costly splendor, nor Ekbatana, with all its magnificence. can vie. In the parks tame peacocks are kept, and pheasants which have been domesticated: and cultivated plants ... and shady groves and pastures planted with trees, and tree-branches which the art of the woodman has deftly interwoven ... There are also tanks of great beauty in which they keep fish of enormous size but quite tame." Wheeler adds: "the whole description is significantly reminiscent of a Persian 'paradise,' and there can be no doubt as to whence the general character of Chandragupta's place was derived."

10

The Book of the Assembly Hall

shall return. Narada at Yudhi~thira's request gives a description of the halls of the World Guardians and Brahma. The World Guardians. lokapiilas. are the Gods who are the regents of the four points of the compass: Indra of the East. Yama of the South - in India the region of death. VarUl;ta of the West. and Kubera. the God of Riches. of the North. Narada enumerates the kinds of people and spirits that populate these halls and lists the attributes of the Guardians: Indra's hall houses the sages. with one exception; Yama·s. the warriors; VarUl;ta·s. an interesting assortment of groups of non-Gods. Snakes. and water denizens; and Kubera·s. the Yak~as. of whom he is the chief. as well as the God Siva. At last the palace of Brahma is described. At first this episode looks extraneous to the main narrative of the present Assembly Hall. but it is not really so. It may of course have been composed and included after the main book was done. but extraneous it is not. The episode is meant to put Yudhi~thira's hall in its proper place in cosmic space - hence the four points of the compass are significant- but this is a space that is visualized rather differently from the picture we have. Where are North. East. South. West. and what does this space look like? For us. if we give the matter any thought at all. the four compass points are surface directions. and we represent them somewhere on the horizon. The ancient Indians structured their space differently. Space was shaped like two pyramids joined at their bases. The four corners of the joint base represent the four points of the compass. the top of the upper pyramid the zenith. the top of the inverted. lower pyramid the nadir. At the zenith is the World of Brahma. "on the roof beam of heaven" ;20 at the nadir. which is here on earth. is the hall of Yudhi~thira. Each of these points is a dis. a direction. a word that therefore only in part corresponds with "points of the compass." Mention is frequently made of the "ten disas." the four main points of the compass. the four intermediate ones. the zenith and nadir. These ten disas. or the simple plural disas. are synonymous with "space." Hence such usages as dig-ambara. the name of a sect of Jains who went naked: they were "robed in space." Yudhi~thira's hall is put in its place at the nadir of space thus structured. but not in a pejorative sense. Rather. by the precise indication of its position in the configuration of the cosmos - and this in my view is the intention of the descriptions of the "worlds" of the World Guardians and Brahma-it is included in and made a structural component of cosmic space. Thus it epitomizes the entire mundane world. Like Rome. Delphi. or Jerusalem. it is "the center of the world." 20.2.11.12.

Introduction

11

i.e., of earth placed at the nadir of space. It is no doubt at the opposite pole from Brahmii's world, but nevertheless equally contained within the structure of the universe. This positioning of the hall in space has still another function. It prefigures the demand for a ceremony that is to validate the uniqueness of the king himself: "The title of suzerain partakes of everything."21 For, if his place is comparable in its spot to those of the regents of the other disas in theirs, he must be as much master of his world as the others are of theirs. He must be master of the earth universe, hence his need for the quest of universal sovereignty, which is the substance of The Assembly Hall. Niirada adroitly suggests this need by mentioning that Hariscandra is the only king among a host of seers to inhabit Indra's world. Yudhi~thira promptly questions him about this oddity, and the seer reveals that it is so because Hariscandra had offered up the sacrifice of the Royal Consecration. Here we should recall that on strictly Vedic terms the rajasiiya does not really bestow universal sovereignty, or samrajya; this claim is reserved for another ritual. Our authors may or may not have known this fact, but that is irrelevant. In my view they wanted the rajasiiya for the dramatic possibilities this rite offered.

The King Put in His Place We have seen that as soon as Yudhi~thira is installed in his hall at Indraprastha he receives a visit from the ubiquitous divine seer Niirada. The seer at once proceeds to interrogate the king with a string of rhetorical questions about his policies. A substantial part of this chapter, the kaccid-adhyaya or the "chapter of the perchances," also occurs in The Ramayat;za. 22 Niirada's questions take for granted the kind of political philosophy that is more precisely spelled out in The Arthasastra, "Manual of Policy," attributed to Kautilya, who was reputed to have been the prime minister and guiding spirit of Candragupta, the first of the Mauryas, on his rise to ascendancy in Magadha. The word that is used for "policy" is artha, the primary meaning of which is "the profit that one seeks out." It pictures the prince as a landowner who manages his estates for the primary purpose of turning a good profit. One is reminded that it is a frequent idiom that a king "enjoys" (the root bhuj) his realm. 21. 2.14.2. 22. Cf. E. Washburn Hopkins, "Parallel Features in the Two Sanskrit Epics" (I.A.O.S. 19: l38-51).

12

The Book of the Assembly Hall

The text as we have it presents about a hundred questions, which seem to be reducible to about ten categories. More work on the compendium is in order, but it might be useful to present a rough breakdown of these rubrics. There is first a general exhortation to practice Profit, but without neglecting the two other "Pursuits of man," Law and Pleasure: "You do not hurt the Law for Profit or the Profit for Law, or both for Pleasure ( Do you always pursue Law, Profit, and Pleasure, distributing them over time ("23 This admonition is followed by a more detailed investigation of guiding principles. Some of these come in numbers, presupposing a flourishing categorization of statecraft, so that a knowledge of the rubrics could be triggered by the numbers they carried. Stress is laid here on the importance of the king's alert and judicious use of council and councillors, and the necessity of his knowledge of ongoing affairs of state. The third category deals with the king's immediate entourage: the qualities of his guru, minister, intelligence officer, house priest, and astrologer. We next descend to the level of government officials, army officers, and the king's troops. Insofar as they exercise real power and are the most clearly visible representatives of the king, the question arises, "Do your councillors govern the kingdom without oppressing the subjects too much with heavy punishment (" followed by, "People do not despise you as sacrificial priests despise one who has lost caste, and wives a loving but overbearing husband ("24 Thus a fifth sequence of questions is in order, which emphasizes the importance of correct patronage and equitable treatment to all. Since the state of the realm is contingent on the attitudes of neighbors, who at all times are regarded as potential marauders, the questioning now moves into the area of foreign relations and war: war is to be eschewed at all costs, or at least until other means have been exhausted; even then it is to be waged without interfering with the farmers, a practice also noted by Arrian: "Do you attack the enemies in battIe without disrupting the harvesting and the sowing in their country?"25 Success in war in turn depends on intelligence, and the question of espionage arises. Espionage, however, goes both ways, and questions concerning the king's personal safety are in order. The neighbors being pacified, how well is the country faring? Are there sufficient checks on the king's extravagance: "Do they report to 23. 2.5.9-10. 24. 2.5.34-35. 25. Arrian. Indica XI. adfinem. trans!. E. I. Robson (London: Loeb. 1933). p. 33: "If there is internal war among the Indians. they may not touch these workers [i.e .. the farmers] and not even devastate the land itself. etc."; 2.5.54.

Introduction

13

you in the morning your vice-induced outlays for drink, gambling, games, and loose women ?"26 Are income and expenditures properly reported? The appointment of greedy and corruptible officers is to be sharply avoided, for they are potentially expensive. "So that the harvest is not mothered by the rains alone," the king should also see that the irrigating tanks are plentiful.27 If a farmer falls on hard times, he is to be given a loan to ensure that the seeding will be done in season. 28 On the local level the paficiiyuts should be composed of men who are "upright and sensible" and who "bring security to the countryside in cooperation with one another."29 The security of the rural areas is worth a further question or two. The questions then move to the king's daily work routine. The king should comfort his women at night, but by no means tell them any of his secrets. He should secure that he sleep safely, and then rise early. In the morning he should show himself to the people hearty and well, but not without a proper bodyguard. At his morning audience he holds court and hears cases, to which he should attend with impartial justice. Then, in the afternoon one presumes, he should see to his physical fitness. Of undeniable importance to the king's survival and the productivity of his estate is his personal popularity; he should inspire loyalty in all classes of his population - the townspeople by respectful treatment; the brahmins by feeding them properly and paying them stipends; the priests by performing the grand sacrifices. Homage should be paid to kinsmen as well as the deities and their sanctuaries. The king should be religiously just to all, and avoid the fourteen vices that are apt to beset him. Excise taxes should be equitable to traders, and the artisans should be shown due appreciation for their products. Finally there is the continuing education of the king: he should acquire an expertise in horse, elephant, and chariot lore, in weaponry, archery, and even city engineering. And generally act, as according to the Books of the Law any king should act, to protect his people from fire, war, pestilence, and poison. Mter nOne of his hundred-odd questions does Narada pause for an answer. No doubt a sagacious nod on the part of Yudhi~thira was sufficient reply. It is clear that Narada's message is that there is more to being a king than building a hall that is the wonder of the world. Once the hall has been put in its place its ruler must be put in his. 26.2.5.59. 27.2.5.67. 28.2.5.68. 29.2.5.70.

14

The Book of the Assembly Hall

Suzerainty: The Threat of Jarasarpdha of Magadha The thought that Narada has sown by extolling the riijasiiya finds fertile soil in Yudhi~thira's ambitions and rapidly grows into a desire himself to perform the Royal Consecration. KJ;'~Q.a advises him that this is not a mere matter of personal volition but is dependent on the consent (anumati) of the entire baronage. Indeed, in a desire to become the king of kings the concurrence of the other kings must loom large as life. So at the opening stage of Yudhi~thira's quest for suzerainty, the question of the consent is importantly raised; in the Vedic ritual of the riijasiiya, too, the ceremony opens with a prayer for consent, which is concretized in an offering to the Goddess of Consent, Anumati. Consent, though an agreement between two parties, goes both ways; in an interesting switch, it is not only the baronage that is to consent to Yudhi~thira, but also Yudhi~thira who has to consent to the baronage. Forever prudent, Yudhi~thira is about as reluctant a candidate for suzerainty as he will be a candidate for being the loser at the dicing match that inexorably follows it. KJ;'~Q.a is sent for, though not as a matter of course, as we shall remark below. Yudhi~thira "went out in his thoughts to KJ;'~Q.a Vasudeva, to seek a resolution regarding his task."30 The VJ;'~Q.i hero, now beginning to be elevated to close to divinity, arrives to make henceforth his presence felt at all important stages of the narrative except the dicing. The invitation was surely a matter of friendship, but not just that. The powerful, widespread, but oddly divided31 VJ;'~Q.i­ Andhaka-Bhoja tribes, who seem to go under the general appellation of Yadavas, were southern neighbors of the paQ.