Sabha Parva

Kannada translation

02_Sabhaparva_19 May 2021

Structure

Sabha Parva or the Book of the Assembly Hall – is the pivotal one of the eighteen Major Books of the Mahabharata: it is also one of the more diversified and interesting ones [J.A.B. van Buitenen, “On the Structure of the Sabhaparvan of the Mahabharata”, in India Maior (Festschrift Gonda), Leyden, 1972, pp.68-84]. In the Critical Edition, this second of the eighteen Maha Parvas has a total of 9 Upa Parvas (Sections), 72 Chapters and 2390 Shlokas.

According to the Critical Edition, this Parva (Book) has a total of 2,390 Shlokas (Verses) organized into 72 Adhyayas (Chapters) rolled into 9 Upa Parvas (Sections). The Upa Parvas are:

Sabhakriya Parva (11 Adhyayas 1-11; 429 Shlokas)
Mantra Parva (5 Adhyayas 12-16; 195 Shlokas)
Jarasandhavadha Parva (5 Adhyayas 17-22; 195 Shlokas)
Digvijaya Parva (7 Adhyayas 23-29; 191 Shlokas)
Rajasuya Parva (3 Adhyayas 30-32; 97 Shlokas)
Arghyabhiharana Parva (4 Adhyaya 33-36; 99 Shlokas)
Shishupalavadha Parva (6 Adhyayas 37-42; 191 Shlokas)
Dyuta Parva (23 Adhyayas 43-65; 734 Shlokas)
Anudyuta Parva (7 Adhyayas 66-72; 232 Shlokas)

Summary

For all its length and variety, Adi Parva – the Book of the Beginning- has not done more than lay the groundwork of the epic. It was more or less a 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 Pandavas; their self-exile and glorious reappearance at Draupadi’s bridegroom choice; their consequent marriage, alliance with Panchala, 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 Sabha Parva begins with establishing Yudhishthira and his brothers as prosperous princeling at Indraprastha. But this is not much: so far the Pandavas have simply acquired a new home base. Now, at the suggestion of a visiting messenger of the Gods – though not sent by the Gods – the seer Narada, Yudhishthira conceives the desire to perform the ancient Vedic ritual of the Rajasuya – 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 Yudhishthira wishes to aspire to nothing less than universal sovereignty by becoming Samraj, 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 Yudhishthira could pretend to rest such a claim. After all, he has allowed himself to be ousted from the ancestral seat of Hastinapura in return fro a parcel of wilderness that still had to be cleared. True, he has won the alliance of Panchala, but merely by marriage. The end of Adi Parva 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 Rajasuya, and to qualify for it the performer’s intention may suffice.

Once his desire has taken hold, Yudhisthira calls in Krishna of the Vrishnis for counsel. He had already pointed out the obvious: the performance requires the “unanimity of the baronage” to be tributary to him. For the Rajasuya, as it is presented in this Parva is not just the installation of anew 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 Jarasandha, the king of the more eastern land of Magadha, a populous and prosperous realm. So Jarasandha is indeed removed, and the rest of the world, not excluding Rome and Antioch and the “city of the Greeks”, is made tributary. After the assassination of Jarasandha the performance takes place, but is it not concluded without resistance. While Yudhishthira’s preeminence is never disputed, the high ranking of Krishna is. The challenger, Shishupala, is eliminated by Krishna, and Yudhisthira is suzerain indeed: but for a brief while. The title is wrested from him by the Hastinapura Kauravas in a game of dice, when Yudhishthira loses on pain of an exile of thirteen years.

Most of the proceedings of this Parva take place in an assembly hall, a kind of longhouse for the men in which to hold council and entertainment, and it is from such a hall that the Parva takes its title. There are two halls involved, the one at Indraprastha and that at Hastinapura. It is 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 Khandava Forest, which concluded the Adi Parva. 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 Mahabharata hangs. When Yudhishthira 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 is a question that is not fully addressed in the Parva. It is suffice to note, however, that there is a conspicuous thread in the Parva: the settlement in 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 Yudhishthira loses all.

Clearly therefore the structure of Sabha Parva is much tighter than that of the Adi Parva, where the insertions and additions are quite obvious. The Sabha Parva too has its fuzzy edges: Narada’s long instruction in policy and administration is a clear instance. But otherwise the Parva hangs together remarkably well.

It has been said that this Parva is pivotal to the Mahabharata as a whole. The remaining epic can almost be predicted in outline: there are to tollow thirteen years of exile and the adventures thereof, described in the Vana Parva, the Book of the Forest and Virata Parva, the Book of Virata. It is likely that the molestation of the Pandavas’ wife Draupadi at the hands of Duhshasana and Duryodhana will remain unavenged? Or that Duryodhana will surrender half the kingdom to Yudhishthira when he returns? We see looming The Book of the Effort (Udyoga Parva), and the war books of Bhishma, Drona, Karna, Shalya and the rest.

Sabha Parva

Sabha Parva

Kannada translation

Structure

Summary

Episodes/Stories/Spiritual Discussions

Resources

The other Maha Parvas