Adi Parva illustrates to perfection all the issues that the Mahabharata as a whole raises. Parts of it are manifestly components of the main story; others are equally obviously accretions that have no organic relationship to the story whatever; still others are difficult to determine one way or the other.
The Parva itself takes cognizance of the fact that it may well contain unrelated Chapters: “There are Brahmins who learn the Bharata from Manu onwards, others again from the tale of the Astika onward, others again from the tale of Uparichara onward” [MBh. 1.1.50]. When we look at the main story, it is reasonably clear that originally it could hardly have begun before 1.90, and all that went before, roughly half of the entire Book, was added at a later time. In the latter half, too, quite a few additions are evident: the narratives of 1(11), the Section of the Chaitraratha, have nothing to do with the story; the story of the five Indras in 1(12) is a justification of the polyandrous marriage of the five Pandava brothers; Arjuna’s sojourn in the forest, a clear premonition of the twelve-year exile of the Pandavas, and therefore presupposing it, can hardly be original; nor is the story of the Saranga birds in 1(19).
It is important to discuss these accretions, these exterior portions, first before turning to the implications for the whole epic of what appears to be the central story of Adi Parva. For to call them “exterior” is not to dismiss them; it does not dispense with the task of seeking out why these portions were added.
The inclusion of some of the stories contained in the Paushya and Pauloma Parvas, was at least partly motivated by a desire, first, to set the place of the last recitation of the Mahabharata, and second, to set the place of the previous recitation at the Snake Sacrifice of Janamejaya from which the Naimisha account expressly derived. The inclusion of Astika Parva is to establish the authenticity of the original setting. Whatever else it does, in the large cadre of the “descent” of the epic the entire long Astika Parva serves to establish that a Snake Sacrifice was in fact held by king Janamejaya, a descendent of the Pandava heroes, and this fact is important only insofar as at that ritual the Bharata saga was recited by Vaishampayana in the presence of the original author, Krishna Dvaipayana. The pouring on the hatred for the snakes through Paushya, Pauloma and Astika Parvas is extremely effective in helping us to accept the historical reality of Janamejaya’s Snake Sacrifice.
The Parvasangraha Parva or the Summaries probably is composed after the Mahabharata had been constituted, more or less in its present form. Considerable interest, therefore attaches to the counts of verses that are given in this Upa Parva, and they have excited lovely discussion [V.S. Sukthankar, “Epic Questions, II the Parvasangraha Figures,” ABORI 23:549 ff.; D.D. Kosambi, “The Parvasamgraha of the Mahabharata,” JAOS 66 (1946); E.D. Kulkarni, “The Parvasamgraha Figures,” JAOS 66 (1946); M.V. Vaidya, “The extent of the Mahabharata,” Festschrift Karmarkar, pp.77 ff.].
The best and the simplest explanation could be this: “Manuscript copying is a business in India even today; and since the dimensions of the leaves are so variable, the easiest way of computing labour costs was, and is, to count the actual syllables transcribed; and since the bulk of transcribed material is in Shlokas, the tedious process of counting every syllable was abbreviated by counting them by the number they have in Shlokas, namely, thirty-two, usually called a grantha. Give or take a few, the set number of granthas counted was the basic price for the transcription, and it was found expedient to enter the price, so to say, into the body of the text itself, so that it could not be quarreled with. The counts therefore seem to hold little authority, for the manuscript from which they were computed, however honestly, would have been as omissive or permissive as any other.”
The Paushya Parva is one of the few portions of the Mahabharata that is composed in prose, and its placement right at the beginning is intriguing. The rambling narrative, clearly deriving from some old Vedic Brahmin lore, is, in the main, meant to introduce us to king Janamejaya, a descendent of the heroes of the epic. The reference is authentic, for the names of the king’s brothers are quoted as they are in the far older Shatapatha Brahmana [1.3.5.4.1.]. It is to this king that the Brahmin Uttanka protests the way he was maltreated by the Snake Takshaka; he exhorts Janamejaya to avenge him, as well as the assassination of Janamejaya’s father Parikshit by the same snake.
In Pauloma Parva, the story seems to start all over again: once more Suta Ugrashrava arrives in the Naimisha Forest and finds the Bhrigu Brahmin Shaunaka who with his colleagues is engaged in a 12-year Sacrificial Session. Once more there is a Vedic reference to this event: the Panchavimsha Brahmana [25.6] reports on such a session in the Naimisha Forest, and the report is made credible by the additional mention that it was never completed.
There is even more: scholars like Sukthankar and Vaidya [V.S. Sukthankar. “The Bhrigus and the Bharata: a text historical study,” ABORI 18: 1 ff.] have pointed out the significance of the fact that Shaunaka is a member of the Bhrigu clan, and have argued that our present text shows many traces of “Bhrigu” influence, not hesitating to speak of the Bhriguization of the original. However that may be, it is noteworthy that right at the beginning of the text a report is found that the retelling of the Bharata story was carried out with who knows what collaboration from the Brahmins present. The story we are told was the story narrated in priestly surroundings. It was reported by Ugrashrava as he remembered it told by Vaishampayana at the Snake Sacrifice of King Janamejaya. What we have is what was told in the Naimisha Forest.
Being a Bhrigu, Shaunaka typically asks for a narrative of the origins of the Bhrigus, and this includes the curious tale of the sacrificial Fire being cursed to become omnivorous; the charming story of Ruru who sacrifices half his life to revive his bride, who had died of snakebite, and Ruru’s consequent hatred of the snakes: the ultimate message of the Paushya Parva. So, in the end, Pauloma Parva returns to the theme of Janamejaya, who is said to have held a Snake Sacrifice.
While it is easy, and indeed natural, to be skeptical of the authenticity of many of the beginnings of the true beginning, the fact that they are there carries its own relevance. At an early enough date the Mahabharata was conceived as standing close to the beginning of history of a People, so that it was only appropriate to include right at its beginning all kinds of still earlier matter. Thus the Mahabharata became the central storehouse of Brahminic lore; it could only have done so if it were widely considered to be what the editors of the critical edition of the text proudly proclaim it is: “The National Epic of India.”
Astika Parva is an extremely interesting narrative. It takes the beginnings of Janamejaya’s ritual killings of snakes close to the beginning of creation, when two sisters, both mothers of egg-laying races, mother Kadru of snakes, mother Vinata of birds, lay a wager on the colour of the archetypal horse Ucchaishravas, which had appeared on the horizon. This stallion’s appearance leads to the story of how it originated, and so to the narrative of the Gods and Anti-Gods, who churned the ocean for the Elixir of Immortality; a by-product of their labour was that Horse of Might Sound. Returning to the wager, Kadru commands the snakes (her sons) to insert themselves into the tail of the horse, and thus to blacken it (cobras, for that is what the snakes are supposed to be, are considered to be black). The snakes refuse, a terrible curse is put on them, yet they do their mother’s bidding: the wager is won, and Vinata is reduced to slavery. But Vinata had a son, the bird Garuda, whose hatred for the snakes is proverbial. And so, in the end, the Astika Parva not only authenticates Janamejaya’s sacrifice as the setting of Vaishampayana’s recitation of the epic; it also reconfirms the evil of the snakes.
Once the place has been set, and the fact of Janamejaya’s Snake Sacrifice and its causes have been established, the Adivamshavatarana Parva – The Descent of the First Generations – opens with the question of what kind of stories were told during the ritual: The answer is that “in the pauses between the rites, the Brahmins told tales that rested on the Veda; but Vyasa told the wondrous epic, the grand Bharata.” [MBh. 1.53.32] Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa visits king Janamejaya at his religious site in the company of his pupils. The king asks him to relate the breach between the cousins. Vyasa turns to his student Vaishampayana, who then begins the recitation.
As so frequent in the epic, the story is preceded by a summary. At Janamejaya’s bidding Vaishampayana then begins the story in earnest with the story of Uparichara, which at one time was one true “beginning” out of several [MBh. 1.1.50]. Uparichara merely serves to introduce the miraculous birth of Satyavati, matriarch of the Kauravas, her encounter with Parashara, and the subsequent birth of Krishna Dvaipayana. This inspires the narration of more miraculous births, which in turn leads to a wholesale catalogue of miracles, introduced by the tyrannization of Earth by the Asuras, or Anti-Gods. To relieve Earth of her burden, Brahma asks the Gods to incarnate themselves with a part of their being.
Sambhava Parva or the Book of the Origins – is quite complex. The Sambhava contains, first of all, the origins of the Gods and Demons and continues with those of the seers, among whom the Bhrigu dynasty, as usual, predominates. Then follows the partial incarnations of Gods and Demons, who become kings and princes on earth, many of whom will eventually participate in the Bharata war.
But who were the Bharatas? The story of Shakuntala gives the answer: descendants from the Bharata borne by Shakunatala to king Duhshanta, the “ill-tamed one,” himself dynastically a Paurava. Considerable interest attaches to the Shakuntala, if only for the freedom of women that it illustrates. This story has been sublimated, and its tone and thrust completely reversed, by Kalidasa in his famous play Abhijnanasakunatala, which Indian tradition considers the greatest single work of art in the history of Sanskrit literature.
Duhshanta and thus Bharata, was a Paurava; and this occasions a question on the part of king Janamejaya about the origin of the dynasty, which began with Puru, a son of king Yayati. No less than two stories can suffice to do justice to this most remarkable personality, Yayati – Yayati Charita (the story of Yayati) and Uttara Yayati (the latter days of Yayati). The first one takes us back to yet another hoary account of the struggle over the Elixir of Immortality between the Gods and the Asuras. Kacha, an emissary of Gods, tricks the teacher of the Asuras out of the secret by inspiring the infatuation of his daughter Devayani, who has complete command of the affections of her father. Spurned by the trickster, she marries king Yayati, who, in the end, is less faithful than his authoritarian wife confidently expects. Yayati subjects his sons, by his queen and his concubine, to a severe trial; out of which his youngest son by his concubine, named Puru (we see that the theme of the “disqualified eldest” is by no means limited to the Kauravas), emerges the victorious heir. The story of Yayati is almost entirely told in dialogue, so vividly that it can practically be divided into acts: it is easy to see how Sanskrit theater could have developed out of such dramatic bardic dialogues.
All this experience does not exhaust Yayati’s capacity for it; his life continues after his dilatory death, when his arrogance in heaven causes him to return to earth again in Uttara Yayati Charita, in what assuredly is the oldest narrative account of the actual circumstances of transmigration, clearly linked with Upanishadic accounts of the theory of transmigration [J.A.B. van Buitenen. “Some Notes on the Uttara-yayata,” Festshrift Raghavan, Adyar Library Bulletin, 31-32 (1967-68): 617 ff.]. It has nothing to do, however remotely, with Sambhava – the Origins, of which the story forms part; but it is delightful that it has survived as a kind of appendix.
At this point, the Sambhava Parva begins once more with the dynasty from Puru down, including the incidents in the life of king Samvarana and his bride Tapati, which brings Vasistha, a famous Vedic seer, into the history of the dynasty; of him we shall hear more. And then the Sambhava begins a second time with a prose chronicle that has scarcely more than nodding acquaintance with the previous one. At last the Sambhava settles down to the narrative of the more directly relevant beginnings of the conflict of the Mahabharata with the narration of the birth of Bhishma, from whose fateful self-abnegation the events of the epic follow.
The remaining part of Sambhava Parva takes us from the reign of king Shantanu, and his son Bhishma’s birth, down to the apprentice years of the Pandavas and Kauravas. The epic tone is very much its evidence in the vicissitudes of Bhishma: his vow; and his abdution, on his half-brother’s behalf, of the Kashi princesses Amba, Ambika and Ambalika. The enemies he makes are no less epic: king Shalvya, who had been chosen as bridegroom by princess Amba; and Amba herself who, having been released by Bhishma but then rejected by Shalva, will eventually reappear in a tragic story [MBh. 5.1.70].
When Vichitravirya, for whom the damsels were abducted, dies childless, mother Satyavati seeks to persuade Bhishma to beget sons on his widows; Bhishma refuses, while upholding the rightness of the injuction itself. Then the matriarch reveals that she had a premartial son, Krishna Dvaipayana; the latter agrees to do the service, and begets the blind Dhritarashtra, the (probably leukodermic) prince Pandu whose name means “pallid,” and the bastard Vidura. During Bhishma’s regency the kingdom prospers. The regent finds wives for Dhritarashtra and Pandu. Pandu’s senior wife is Kunti, an aunt of Krishna Vasudeva; she had had a premarital son Karna by the sun.
Pandu goes on an expedition of conquest, and returns laden with booty. For reasons unexplained, Pandu decides devote his life to hunting in the forest. With great difficulty a hundred sons are born to Dhritarashtra, of whom Duryodhana is the eldest; but Kunti gave birth to Yudhishthira before that, also not without difficulty. Pandu had shot a buck while it was meeting with a doe; the buck was a disguised seer, who cursed Pandu that he would die under similar circumstances. Henceforth Pandu remains continent, but has Kunti bear children by various Gods: Yudhishthira by Dharma, Bhima by the Wind God, Arjuna by Indra; his other wife Madri bears twins by the Ashwins. After his curse, Pandu resigns the kingdom to the regency of Dhritarashtra, and becomes a hermit. One day he forgets himself with Madri and succumbs. Madri follows him into death. Fellow-recluses take the Pandavas and Kunti to the Kaurava court at Hastinapura where they are warmly received and grow up.
Bhima proves to be a bully, and Duryodhana reacts with assassination attempts in order to win the kingdom. Bhishma judges it is time for the boistrous princes to be educated and engages a teacher Kripa. Soon another Brahmin, Drona, appears on the scene, impresses the prices with his marksmanship, and wins a position as a teacher. Arjuna becomes Drona’s favourite.
Jatugriha Parva – the Book of the Fire in the Lacquer House – starts off with a trial tournament, in which Drona’s pupils display their fighting skills. Bhima is locked in a wrestling battle with Duryodhana, until Drona order them separated; Arjuna dazzles the audience with his brilliance at war games. Suddenly a stranger presents himself, Karna, the unknown half-brother, who challenges Arjuna to a duel. When he cannot present proper aristocratic credentials, he is laughed out of the court. But Duryodhana quickly bestows a principality on him. The duel proceeds and ends undecided. But Karna is now the implacable enemy of the Pandavas and the ally of the Kauravas.
Duryodhana continues his plotting and persuades Dhritarashtra to send the Pandavas into quasi-exile in a provincial town [Varanavata, present Barnawa, Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh]. He lodges them in a house he had built to burn, but this is found out; and the five brothers and their mother make good their escape, disappearing incognito into the forest.
In the forest, a demon Hidimba is slain by Bhima, who marries his sister [Hidimbavadha Parva]. Bhima sets a Brahmin free from the awful obligation to feed himself to the Demon Baka by killing the fiend [Bakavadha Parva].
The Pandavas hear that Drupada, king of Panchala, is holding a tournament for the hand of Krishna Draupdadi, his daughter. Krishna Dvaipayana, their grandfaterh, appears and advises them to join the tournament. In Chaitraratha Parva – the Book of Chitraratha, they trespass at night on the playing ground of a Gandharva on the bank of the Ganges. Arjuna bests him, but spares his life. The grateful Gandharva addresses him as Tapatya – which occasions the story of the ancestress Tapati, whose marriage to the Kuru Samvarana had earlier been mentioned in the Sambhava Parva. Since the seer Vashishtha is involved in the matchmaking, the story of Tapati leads to the story of Vashishtha and his battle with Vishwamitra; this story includes the tale of his irascible grandson Aurva.
The Pandavas merge disguised as young Brahmins at the court of Drupada in Svayamvara Parva – the Book of Druapdi’s Bridegroom Choice. All kings fail at the feat demanded, but Arjuna succeeds. Draupadi follows him home. Kunti, their mother, had been superbly unaware that her sons were off tourneying; she was under the impression that they had gone begging. Arjuna, coming home with Draupadi, triumphantly shouts: “Look what we found!” Kunti, without looking up, replies, “Now you share that together!” And so it befell that the five brothers shared the same wife. Drupada is aghast, but is persuaded by Krisha Dwaipayana that it has been so ordained with the story of the five Indras. The marriage is celebrated in the Vaivahika Parva – the Book of the Wedding.
The strength and imporance of alliance between Pandavas and Panchalas gives second and third thoughts to the Hastinapura Kauravas. One party favours preemtpive warfare but is overruled by saner minds who want to try partition first. Thus Vidura is sent as envoy in Viduragamana Parva, and on their concilliatory return to the capital of the Land of the Kurus, the Panavas accept the Khandava Tract on the river Yamuna, in the Rajyalabha Parva – the acquisition of the kingdom. They settle down, are lectured by the divine messenger Narada on the perils of brothers loving the same woman (the story of Sunda and Upasunda) and make a compact that anyone interrupting a brother with Draupadi shall forthwith exile himself to the forest. Promptly an occasion presents itself for Arjuna to do so, when he has to go in aid of a Brahmin whose cattle has been stolen. In spite of Yudhishthira’s pleas, Arjuna absents himself at onec, has loverly amorous adventures [Arjunavanavasa Parva], and ends abducting Subhadra, Krishna Vasudeva’s sister and a princess of the Vrishnis in Subhadraharana Parva – the abduction of Subhadra. Feeling insulted at first, the wild warriors are talked out of retribution by the wily Krishna, who says that the alliance is an honorable one. He and his elder brother Baladeva, and the other Vrishni potentates, then bring a nuptial present in Haranaharana Parva – the fetching of the gift. After his fellow-tribesmen have departed, Krishna Vasudeva tarries, and, with Arjuna, is summoned to tender the entire Khandava Forest as food to the Fire God in Khandavadaha Parva – the burning of the Khandava Forest. This rather grisly venture is at the end relieved by the narrative of four exceedingly skeptical and precocious little birds, that prefer future danger to present disaster.