Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

LITERATURE. ] SANS
enter into an alliance with Sugriva, king of the monkeys ; and,
with the assistance of the monkey-general Ilanuman, and Ravana’s
own brother Vibhishana, they prepare to assault Lanka. (Y.) The
monkeys, tearing up rocks and trees, construct a passage across
the straits— the so-called Adam’s Bridge, still designated Rama’s
Bridge in India. (YI.) Having crossed over with his allies, Rama,
after many hot encounters and miraculous deeds, slays the demon
and captures the stronghold ; whereupon he places Yibhishana on
the throne of Lanka. To allay Rama’s misgivings as to any taint
she might have incurred through contact with the demon, Sita
now undergoes an ordeal by fire ; after which they return to
Ayodliya, where, after a triumphal entry, Rama is installed.
(VII.) In the last book—probably a later addition—Rama, seeing
that the people are not yet satisfied of Sita’s purity, resolves to
put her away ; whereupon, in the forest, she falls in with Yalmiki
himself, and at his hermitage gives birth to two sons. "While
growing up there, they are taught by the sage the use of the bow,
as well as the Vedas, and the Rfim&yana as far as the capture of
Lanka and the royal entry into Ayodhya. Ultimately Rama
discovers and recognizes them by their wonderful deeds and their
likeness to himself, and takes his wife and sons back with him.
The Mahdbh&rata,1 i.e., “ the great (poem or feud) of
the Bharatas,” on the other hand, is not so much a uni¬
form epic poem as a miscellaneous collection of epic
poetry, consisting of a heterogeneous mass of legendary
and didactic matter, worked into and round a central
heroic narrative. The authorship of this work is aptly
attributed to Vyasa, “ the arranger,” the personification of
Indian diaskeuasis. Only the bare outline of the leading
story can here be given.
In the royal line of Hastinapura (the ancient Delhi)—claiming
descent from the moon, and hence called the Lunar race (somavamsa),
and counting among its ancestors King Bharata, after whom India
is called Bharata-varsha (land of the Bharatas)—the succession lay
between two brothers, when Dhritarashtra, the elder, being blind,
had to make way for his brother Pandu. After a time the latter
retired to the forest to pass the remainder of his life in hunting ;
and Dhritarashtra assumed the government, assisted by his uncle
Bhishma, the Nestor of the poem. After some years Pandu died,
leaving five sons, viz., Yudhishthira, Bhima, and Arjuna by his
chief wife Kunti, and the twins’ Nakula and Sahadeva by Madri.
The latter having burnt herself along with her dead husband,
Kunti returned with the five princes to Hastinapura, and was well
received by the king, who offered to have his nephews brought up
together with his own sons, of whom he had a hundred, Duryodhana
being the eldest. From their great-grandfather Kuru both
families are called Kauravas ; but for distinction that name is
more usually applied to the sons of Dhritarashtra, while their
cousins, as the younger line, are named, after their father, Pdndavas.
The rivalry and varying fortunes of these two houses form the
main plot of the great epopee. The Pandu princes soon proved
themselves greatly superior to their cousins ; and Yudhishthira,
the eldest of them all, was to be appointed heir-apparent. But,
by his son’s advice, the king, good-natured but weak, induced his
nephews for a time to retire from court and reside at a house where
the unscrupulous Duryodhana meant to destroy them. They
escaped, however, and passed some time in the forest with their
mother. Here Draupadi, daughter of King Drupada, won by
Arjuna in open contest, became the wife of the five brothers. On
that occasion they also met their cousin, Kunti’s nephew, the
famous Yadava prince Krishna of Dvaraka, who ever afterwards
remained their faithful friend and confidential adviser. Dhrita¬
rashtra now resolved to divide the kingdom between the two
houses; whereupon the Pandavas built for themselves the city of
Indraprastha (on the site of the modern Delhi). After a time of
great prosperity, Yudhishthira, in a game of dice, lost everything
to Duryodhana, when it was settled that the Pandavas should
retire to the forest for twelve years, but should afterwards be
restored to their kingdom if they succeeded in passing an additional
year in disguise, without being recognized by anyone. During
their forest-life they met with many adventures, among which
may be mentioned their encounter with King Jayadratha of
Chedi, who had carried off Draupadi from their hermitage. After
the twelfth year has expired they leave the forest, and, assuming
various disguises, take service at the court of king Virata of Matsya.
Here all goes well for a time till the queen’s brother Kichaka, a
great warrior and commander of the royal forces, falls in love with
1 There are several complete editions published in India, the
handiest in 4 vols., Calcutta, 1834-9. Numerous episodes from it have
been printed and translated by European scholars. There is a French
translation, by H. Fauche, of about one half of the work ; but it
must be used with caution. An English translation is being brought
out at Calcutta by Pratap Chundra Roy.
K R I T 281
Draupadi, and is slain by Bhima. The Kauravas, profiting by
Kichaka’s death, now invade the Matsyan kingdom, when the
Pandavas side with king Vir&ta, and there ensues, on the field of
Kurukshetra, a series of fierce battles, ending in the annihilation
of the Kauravas. Yudhishthira now at last becomes yuva-raja, and
eventually king,—Dhritarashtra having resigned and retired with
his wife and Kunti to the forest, where they soon after perish in a
conflagration. Learning also the death of Krishna, Yudhishthira
himself at last becomes tired of life and resigns his crown ; ’ and
the five princes, with their faithful wife, and a dog that joins them,
set out for Mount Meru, to seek admission to Indra’s heaven. On
the way one by one drops off, till Yudhishthira alone, with the dog,
reaches the gate of heaven; but, the dog being refused admittance,
the king declines entering without him, when the dog turns out to
be no other than the god of Justice himself, having assumed that
form to test Yudhishthira’s constancy. But, finding neither his
wife nor his brothers in heaven, and being told that they are in
the nether world to expiate their sins, the king insists on sharing
their fate, when this, too, proves a trial, and they are all reunited
to enjoy perpetual bliss.
Whether this story is partly based, as Lassen sug¬
gested, on historical events,—perhaps a destructive war
between the neighbouring tribes of the Kurus and Pan-
chalas,—or whether, as Dr A. Holtzmann thinks, its prin¬
cipal features go back to Indo-Germanic times, will pro¬
bably never be decided. The complete work consists of
upwards of 100,000 couplets,—its contents thus being
nearly eight times the bulk of the Iliad and Odyssey com¬
bined. It is divided into eighteen books, and a supple¬
ment, entitled Harivamsa, or genealogy of the god Hari
(Krishna-Vishnu). In the introduction, Yyfisa, being
about to dictate the poem, is made to say (i. 81) that so
far he and some of his disciples knew 8800 couplets;
and further on (i. 101) he is said to have composed the
collection relating to the Bharatas (bMrata-samhita), and
called the Bhdratam, which, not including the episodes,
consisted of 24,000 slokas. Now, as a matter of fact, the
portion relating to the feud of the rival houses constitutes
somewhere between a fourth and a fifth of the work; and
it is highly probable that this portion once formed a
separate poem, called the Bhdrata. But, whether the
former statement is to be understood as implying the
existence, at a still earlier time, of a yet shorter version of
about one-third of the present extent of the leading narra¬
tive cannot now be determined. While some of the
episodes are so loosely connected with the story as to be
readily severed from it, others are so closely interwoven
with it that their removal would seriously injure the very
texture of the work. This, however, only shows that the
original poem must have undergone some kind of revision,
or perhaps repeated revisions. That such has indeed taken
place, at the hand of Brahmans, for sectarian and caste
purposes, cannot be doubted.
The earliest direct information regarding the existence
of epic poetry in India is contained in a passage of Dion
Chrysostom (c. 80 a.d.), according to which “ even among
the Indians, they say, Homer’s poetry is sung, having
been translated by them into their own dialect and
tongue; ” and “ the Indians are well acquainted with the
sufferings of Priam, the lamentations and wails of Andro¬
mache and Hecuba, and the prowess of Achilles and
Hector.” Now, although these allusions would suit either
poem, they seem on the whole to correspond best to
certain incidents in the Mahdbhdrata, especially as no
direct mention is made of a warlike expedition to a remote
island for the rescue of an abducted woman, the resem¬
blance of which to the Trojan expedition would naturally
have struck a Greek becoming acquainted with the
general outline of the Rdmdyana. Whence Dion derived
his information is not known; but as many leading names
of the MaMbharata and even the name of the poem itself 2
are already mentioned in Panini’s grammatical rules, it is
2 Viz., as an adj., apparently with “war ” or “poem” understood.
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