Early Cultural Writings

Mahabharata

The problem of the Mahabharata, its origin, date and composition, is one that seems likely to elude scholarship to times indefinite if not for ever. It is true that several European scholars have solved all these to their own satisfaction, but their industrious & praiseworthy efforts [incomplete]

In the following pages I have approached the eternal problem of the Mahabharata from the point of view mainly of style & literary personality, partly of substance; but in dealing with the substance I have deferred questions of philosophy, allusion & verbal evidence to which a certain school attach great importance and ignored altogether the question of minute metrical details on which they base far-reaching conclusions. It is necessary therefore out of respect for these scholars to devote some little space to an explanation of my standpoint. I contend that owing to the peculiar manner in which the Mahabharat has been composed, these minutiae of detail & word have very little value. The labour of this minute school has proved beyond dispute one thing and one only, that the Mahabharat was not only immensely enlarged, crusted with interpolations & accretions and in parts rewritten and modified, but even its oldest parts were verbally modified in the course of preservation. The extent to which this happened, has I think been grossly exaggerated, but that it did happen, one cannot but be convinced. Now if this is so, it is obvious that arguments from verbal niceties must be very dangerous. It has been sought to prove from a single word suranga, an underground tunnel, which European scholars believe to be identical with the Greek σῦριγξ that the account in the Adi Purva of the Pandavas' escape from the burning house of Purochana through an underground tunnel must be later than another account in the Vana Purva which represents Bhema as carrying his brothers & mother out of the flames; for the

Page 342

former they say, must have been composed after the Indians had learned the Greek language & culture and the latter, it is to be assumed, before that interesting period. Now whether suranga was derived from the Greek σῦριγξ or not, I cannot take upon me to say, but will assume on the authority of better linguists than myself that it was so though I think it is as well to be sceptical of all such Greek derivations until the connection is proved beyond doubt, for such words even when not accounted for by Sanscrit itself, may very easily be borrowed from the aboriginal languages. Bengali for instance preserves the form suḍanga where the cerebral letter is Dravidian. But if so, if this word came into fashion along with Greek culture, and became the word for a tunnel, what could be more natural than that the reciter should substitute for an old and now disused word the one which was familiar to his audience? Again much has been made of the frequent occurrence of Yavana, Vahlika, Pehlava, Saka, Huna. As to Yavana its connection 'Iάων with does not seem to me beyond doubt. It had certainly been at one time applied to the Bactrian Greeks, but so it has been and is to the present day applied to the Persians, Afghans & other races to the northwest of India. Nor is the philological connection between and Yavana very clear to my mind. Another form Yauna seems to represent 'Iάων fairly well; but are we sure that Yauna and Yavana were originally identical? A mere resemblance however close is the most misleading thing in philology. Upon such resemblances Pocock made out a very strong case for his theory that the Greeks were a Hindu colony. The identity of the Sakas & Sakyas was for a long time a pet theory of European Sanscritists and on this identity was based the theory that Buddha was a Scythian reformer of Hinduism. This identity is now generally given up, yet it is quite as close as that of Yavana & Yauna and as closely in accordance with the laws of the Sanscrit language. If Yauna is the original form, why was it changed to Yavana; it is no more necessary than that mauna be changed to mavana; if Yavana be earlier & Yauna a Pracrit corruption, how are we to account for the short a & the v; there was no digamma in Greek in the time of Alexander. But since the Greeks are always called

Page 343

Yavanas in Buddhist writings we will waive the demand for strict philological intelligibility and suppose that Yavana answers to 'Iάων. The question yet remains when did the Hindus become acquainted with the existence of the Greeks. Now here the first consideration is why did they call the Greeks Ionians, and not Hellenes or Macedonians? That the Persians should know the Greeks by that name is natural enough, for it was with the Ionians that they first came in contact; but it was not Ionians who invaded India under Alexander, it was not an Ionian prince who gave his daughter to Chundragupta, it was not an Ionian conqueror who crossed the Indus & besieged [ ]. Did the Macedonians on their victorious march give themselves out as Ionians? I for my part do not believe it. It is certain therefore that if the Hindus took the word Yavana from, it must have been through the Persians and not direct from the Greek language. But the connection of the Persians with India was as old as Darius Hystaspes who had certainly reason to know the Greeks. It is therefore impossible to say that the Indians had not heard about the Greeks as long ago as 500 B.C. Even if they had not, the mention of Yavanas & Yavan kings does not carry us very far; for it is evident that in the earlier parts of the Mahabharata they are known only as a strong barbarian power of the Northwest; there is no sign of their culture being known to the Hindus. It is therefore quite possible that the word Yavana now grown familiar may have been substituted by the later reciters for an older name no longer familiar. It is now known beyond reasonable doubt that the Mahabharata war was fought out in or about 1190 B.C.; Dhritarashtra, son of Vichitravirya, Krishna, son of Devaki & Janamejaya are mentioned in Vedic works of a very early date. There is therefore no reason to doubt that an actual historical event is recorded with whatever admixture of fiction in the Mahabharata. It is also evident that the Mahabharata, not any "Bharata" or "Bharati Katha" but the Mahabharata existed before the age of Panini, and tho' the radical school bring down Panini [incomplete]

Page 344