LECTURE II

THE STORY ON THE MUNDANE PLANE

Whether we realize it or not, it remains a fact that we in India still stand under the spell of the Mahābhārata. There is many a different strand that is woven in the thread of our civilisation, reaching back into hoary antiquity. Amidst the deepest of them there is more than one that is drawn originally from the ancient Bhāratvarṣa and the Sanskrit literature. And well in the centre of this vast pile of Sanskrit literature stands this monumental book of divine inspiration, unapproachable and far removed from possibilities of human competition.

This dateless and deathless poem, which had evoked throughout Indian antiquity such wide interest and which forms the strongest link between India old and new,—what is it, what is this miracle of a book?

The learned philologist of the present day feels a deal of hesitation in answering this question, which to the unsophisticated Indian would present no difficulty whatsoever. If questioned, the latter will no doubt promptly and confidently answer that the Mahābhārata is a divine work recounting the war-like deeds of his ancestors, the god-like heroes of a past age, the unrighteous Kauravas on the one hand and the righteous Pāṇḍavas aided by Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa on the other,—of the Golden Age when gods used to mingle with men, when the people were much better off, much happier, than they are today. And the illiterate Indian is right, to a very large extent, as he far more often is than his "educated" brother. For, the Mahābhārata, as the poem itself tells us, arises out of the following question of Janamejaya addressed to the great Ṛṣi Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa on the occasion of the snake sacrifice (1.54.19):

katham samabhavad bhedas teṣām akhiṣṭakāriṇām /
tac ca yuddhaṁ katham vyttam bhūtāntakaraṇaṁ mahat //

"How arose the quarrel among those men of unblemished deeds? How occurred that great war which was the cause of the destruction of so many beings?"

It seems at first sight exceedingly strange that the answer to so simple and innocent a question should run into 100,000 couplets or 200,000 lines, a bulk which is eight times as great as that of the Iliad and the Odyssey put together, and three and half times that of the entire Bible. But even a cursory perusal of the work is sufficient to show one that its prodigious size is really due to the fact that, after the fashion of ancient literature, a thousand other tales and a mass of didactic material have been embedded in the interstices of the main narrative. The story winds its way leisurely, but with a steady aim, through masses of elaborate treatises on law, philosophy, religion, custom, even geography and cosmography, together with a formidable array of episodes and legends, piled up at various distances along its course. At places these digressions crowd together, rising up in big imposing piles, as in the Āraṇyaka, Śānti and Anuśāsana parvans; sometimes they are far and few between, when the story advances at a more rapid — and, to us, congenial — pace, as in the Sabhā, Virāta, Sauptika and Strī parvans. These excursions do not in reality disturb the architectonic beauty and harmony of the composition as a whole, though at first sight they may appear to do so. For, as Pisani has pointed out, at least the longer ones of these digressions have been introduced into the story in such a manner as to fill up "temporal hiatuses" consisting of uneventful years, hiatuses which are bound to occur in a very detailed and elaborate narrative covering a period of nearly two centuries. Notwithstanding the frequent — and, to us, often tedious — interruptions, the great drama moves on full of animation and colour, steadily, from one end of the poem to the other. The question of the exact relationship between the story (properly so called) on the one hand and the episodes and the didactic material on the other will occupy us later. In the meantime let us have a look at the story itself, which, like a thin thread running through a necklace, holds together loosely the diverse jewels, polished and unpolished, which make up the Epic of the Bhāratas.

The central narrative, which has rightly been regarded as the Indian national saga, is a remarkably well told story of a great war said to have been waged in ancient times for the throne of Hastināpura, the grand old capital of India, between two royal families of cousins and their friends and allies. Thus the central theme of the poem is, as in the Greek Iliad and the German Nibelungenlied, the tragedy of a futile and terrible war of annihilation. As a help to the discussion which is to follow, I will recount very briefly the main events.

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It will be seen that the story which has been very briefly and inadequately summarized above, centres round the fortunes of two rival branches of a royal family, whose jealousies and quarrels lead finally to a devastating war, which ends in an all but complete extinction of that large family along with the allies and supporters of both sides. It is, prima facie, a tale of a common fratricidal war for the possession of a throne, one of those murderous strifes which have been common in India and which have disfigured the pages of human history probably ever since there have been thrones to fight for. Notwithstanding that the theme is trivial and uninspiring, the story was told in such a way as to hold the reader, or rather the listener, perpetually in thrall. Stalwart intrepid warriors, beautiful courageous women, pious unworldly saints move to and fro in a glittering mêlée across the scenes of the poem, which abounds in inexhaustible details of Indian social, political and religious life, minute descriptions of ancient weapons and similar details. In spite of superficial deficiences such as prolixity, occasional differences and breaks of style and structure, the poem reveals abundant skill and creative power in dramatic composition. It is above all characterized by extraordinary vividness and richness of imagination.

It is this intensity of imagination which is the secret of the popular appeal of the Mahābhārata. For, it is the strength and fulness of imaginative faculty which makes a poet's work "real," as we might say. It is the intensity of imagination which works the miracle of bringing past scenes and characters before the mind of the reader with a wondrous reality. It spontaneously generates the feeling that we are in a different world and a world full of real — or at least semi-real — beings, who have the virtue of being able to interest us and to set vibrating a delicate chord of sympathy somewhere within us. The value to us of a work of art or literature depends, I think, primarily on two factors: firstly, the intensity with which we are transported to a new world; and, secondly, the nature of the world to which we are transported.

Consider for a moment the following description of Kṛṣṇā, the heroine of the poem, popularly known as Draupadī, she being the daughter of Drupada, king of the Pāñcalas:

vedimadhyāt samutpannā padmapatranibhekṣaṇā /
darśanīyānavadyāṅgī sukumārā manasvinī //

These winged words flying like arrows straight to the mark carry us with them to a new world and a beautiful world. The heroine, they tell us, sprang from an altar, the sacrificial fire-altar. Have you noticed that there can be no creation without a sacrifice? We consume, that is sacrifice, foodstuffs, and thereby create vital energy necessary for life. We have to sacrifice, liberally, men and material in the fire of ambition in order to create the phantom of an empire. When we transform physical energy, we sacrifice one form of energy for another. The whole order of creation turns on sacrifice. The awful purity of Kṛṣṇā, which was due to the sacrifice performed by her parents, was itself the cause of the rich and rare beauty with which she was dowered by Nature. She had a form exceedingly delicate and her limbs were faultless. Her beautiful eyes had the velvety softness and the subdued glow of the elongated lotus petal. She was "endowed with mind" (manasvinī), that is, she was intelligent, high-minded, determined. She was, in other words, a pure stainless virgin with a noble, exalted mind.

We are introduced to another character of the drama, the high-souled preceptor of the Bhāratas in the science of arms, the venerable Ācārya Droṇa, white-robed, with a white sacrificial thread, white sandal marks and garlands, with white locks crowning his head (1.124.17):

tataḥ śuklāmbaradharaḥ śuklayajñopavitavān /
śuklakeśaḥ sitasmāsruḥ śuklamālyānulepanaḥ //

The white colour has been emphasized, intentionally, the colour of purity and equanimity. The preceptor of the Kurus was devoid of unworthy sentiments, such as uncontrolled anger, greed and lust, and incapable of unworthy actions, and therefore a fit person for being entrusted with the education of the young and inexperienced princes.

Yet another character of this tragic drama is the ill-fated Karṇa whom Pṛthā yet unwedded bore. He was like a tusker in his fury, like the sun in noon-tide brilliance, like the all-consuming fire, lion-like in build and muscle, stately as a golden palm (1.126.4 f.):

siṁhaṛṣabhagajendrānām tulyavīryaparākramaḥ /
diptikāntidyuṭiguṇaḥ sūryendujvalanopamaḥ //

We are introduced in another place to two expert mace-fighters of this epic world, Duryodhana and Bhīma, wielding their powerful maces and facing each other in a mock fight, ranging in circles the spacious arena, like two intoxicated bulls (1.124.32):

tau pradakṣiṇasavyāni maṇḍalāni mahābalau /
ceratur nirmalagadau samādāu iva govṛṣau //

This little tourney at which the two mace-fighters meet in friendly rivalry, with only the people of Hāstināpura as spectators, was but a prelude in a minor key to the mighty symphony, roaring out its diapasons, those grand swelling bursts of harmony rising out of discords, which was going to be played on the battlefield of Kurukṣetra for the delectation of the gods, who love to watch from their aerial cars these combats between justice and injustice, between good and evil, and rejoice in the victory of the good and the just.

Here is a vivid scene in which one angry chieftain severs with his discus the head of a mighty-armed wicked warrior, who thereupon falls down like a thunder-riven mountain (2. 42. 21):

evam uktvā Yaduśreṣṭhās Cedīrājasya tathśanāt /
vyāpāhāraç chirah kruddhaś cakreṇāmitakarṣaṇaḥ /
sa papāta mahābāhur vajrāhata ivācalah /

Who that has once read his Mahābhārata freely, untroubled by difficulties of language, can forget the tall Āryan warrior standing erect like the standard of Indra (Indradhvaja ivocchritah), wearing leathern arm-protectors and finger-guards (baddhagodhāṅgulitrāṇaḥ), with his bow bent into a complete circle (maṇḍalikṛtakārmukah), and carrying in his quiver long straight-flying arrows feathered with Kāṇika plumes (kaṅkapatrair ajihmagaih)? Can he ever forget their shining chariots bright as the sun (rathenādityavarcasā), upholstered with tiger skins (vaiyāghraparivāraṇaḥ), and garlanded with net-works of little tinkling bells (kiṁkiṇījālamālinah); or their palaces redolent with the fragrance of sandalwood and scented aloe; or their pleasure parks bright with variegated lotus blossoms and frequented by flocks of flamingoes, kāraṇḍavas and cakravākas? He remembers unforgettably those thickly wooded penance-groves of anchorites of rigid vows, covered with thick carpets of wild flowers (puṣpasamastarasaṁsr̥tāḥ), echoing the hum of bees (śatpadodgitasaṁghuṣṭāḥ) sheltering birds of various kinds and harbouring even rutting elephants, ferocious tigers and king cobras, with their fire sanctuaries resounding with the holy recitation of Vedic chants (puṇyasvādhyāyaśaṁghuṣṭāḥ). When he recalls those scenes, pictures surge through his mind also of the bright little cities of the heroic age, garlanded on festive days with pennons and banners, and thronging with youths and maidens wearing highly-polished bejewelled kundalas and gaily waving their kerchiefs and scarves. He will remember even little details like the blooming kinsuka trees, the red Aśoka blossoms and the fragrant Lodhra forests dear to the heart of lovers (lodhraiḥ kāmijanapriyaḥ), so pregnant are their aromas and associations.

Let us turn for a moment from the amphitheatre of our grand epic to the side show of a little romantic episode, the Tale of Nala and Damayantī, one of the brightest gems in the golden treasury of Sanskrit verse. Who that has once read the beautiful tale of Nala can forget the golden swans which carried stealthily, unknown to anybody, the secret messages of the heart of the lovelorn Damayantī; or the noble steeds which were made by Nala to go down softly on their knees, as a gesture of homage to the gods, before starting on their eventful journey? Can a thoughtful reader forget how Nala entered Kundinapura, filling the directions with the rattle of his chariot? The familiar clatter was noticed by his own pensive horses long pent up in their new stables, who were thrilled by it. It was heard by the elephants tethered in their spacious stalls, and by the peacocks perched on palace tops, who raised their heads eagerly and, looking around, cried gleefully, thinking it was the rumbling of dark thunder-clouds at the welcome approach of the rainy season.

The great secret of the charm of the style of our epic is the remarkable condensation of thought and extreme vividness of expression achieved by the judicious use of well-chosen similes and metaphors. Here are a few examples to show what I mean. Quickness of retaliation and deadly enmity are visualized, in a flash as it were, by the felicitous image of the snake struck by a staff (daṇḍahāta ivoraṅgaḥ). Instantaneously the ire of the snake is aroused, and he neither forgets nor forgives, cherishing life-long enmity. The facility with which a warrior disperses his enemies is revealed by the parallel of the wind scattering clouds in the skies (divīvābhráṇi mārutaḥ). The ease and quickness with which he annihilates them are expressed vividly by the symbol of fire destroying a heap of cotton (tūlaraśim ivānalāḥ). The willing self-immolation of warriors fascinated by the din and turmoil of the combat, throwing themselves headlong in the thick of the fray, is brought home to us by the illustration of moths falling in a fire (yathā pradiptam jvalanam pataṅgāḥ). A young effeminate knight, partaking in a desperate and confused mêlée, appears to an experienced old veteran watching him "like a foam upon the billow when the mighty storm-winds roar." We are made to realize the utter inviolability and the fiery energy of a chaste woman, when outraged, by the picture of the kindled flame of a burning fire (dīptām agniśikhām iva), which one cannot trifle with without being scorched.

The last simile reminds me how frequently fire figures in the similes and metaphors of these poets. I have put together the following few as typical illustrations: didhakṣann iva pāvakaḥ, tam dīptam iva kālāgnim, bhasmachanna ivānalah, tam jvalantam iva śriyā, jājvalyamānam vapuṣā, ruddhyā prajvalamānena, alātacakravat sainyānām, kruddham agnim yathā vanani, kālāgnir iva mūrtimān, kālotstrṣṭam prajvalitām ivilokāṁ.

The number of these examples can be increased easily. But I will not weary you with further instances, for a bald list of phrases is wearying. These very phrases in the hands of our epic poets, placed with consummate art in appropriate settings, have a very different effect. The entire poem appears thereby shot through with fiery splendour: fire and light wringing with and subduing powers of darkness and ignorance. I do not suppose for an instant that these metaphors and similes were used by the epic bards with any special intent or that they were conscious of using them even. It was the spontaneous and inevitable product of their burning zeal and their fiery imagination.

We are reminded of the epithet jalanamitte (jvalanamitṛaḥ) applied by the poet Vākpati to the great dramatist Bhāsa, the "Friend of Fire." Well, our epic poets appear to have been just such "friends of fire," and that probably in a very literal and concrete sense. That would not be very surprising either, if the Bhṛgus did have a hand in the shaping of this remarkable poem, as I believe and have tried to show elsewhere. For, like Prometheus who stole fire from Olympus and taught men the use of it, the Bhṛgus, the priests of the firecult, are credited by Indian tradition with having discovered fire, who was hiding, and brought it to mankind (Rv. 10. 46. 2) :

guhā carantam usijo namobhir
icchanto dhīrā Bhrgavo 'vindan /

"Worshipping, seeking him with adoration, the wise Bhrgus, yearning in their hearts, found him where he was lurking."

Our poets knew how to relieve the severity of the highly wrought verses by a sparing use of musical effects. In the midst of a long series of ślokas of the severe epic pattern, we are agreeably surprised by the sudden appearance of alliterative phrases like aśoko śokanāśanaḥ, bhīmo bhīmaparākramah, bhrukuṭīkutilānanah, mattamātaṅgagāminam, jagrāhājagaro grāhah, satoya iva toyadah (2. 16. 42), nadir nadanadipatiḥ (2. 17. 16). Alliteration adds unction to the interested question addressed by a gallant to a young charmer: kāsi kasyāsi kalyani. Sound follows sense in niḥśvasantaṁ punaḥ punaḥ, used to describe deep panting repeated breaths. We have again an admirable example of the phonetic imitation of motion, stumbling, falling and dying in (B. 7. 146. 86) :

babhramuś caskhaluh petuḥ sedu mamluś ca Bhārata /

This series of glowing word-pictures and sound-pictures fashioned with remarkable skill and superb craftsmanship serves to bring the scenes and characters of this fascinating drama before the mind of the reader with wondrous reality and imprint them indelibly on his memory. We cannot help unconsciously identifying ourselves until we almost believe that we are indeed hearing and seeing the things of which we are reading.

And how irresistibly we are carried away to this new world! We can take a critical view and argue that it was a world as ugly and unjust and cruel as ours. Psychologists might tell us that these fanciful creations of poets and seers are but examples of compensation, of substitute or vicarious gratification. The Ego, they say, is for ever dissatisfied with the reality, especially with the small quota of happiness that is his allotted share in real life, and he makes up the deficit by freely imagining fictitious persons who have in abundance whatever he himself lacks and by identifying himself with them, being at the same time blissfully unconscious that he is doing so. The psychologists are probably right. And yet how fondly we cling to these dreams, which the poet by virtue of the intensity of his imaginative faculty has succeeded in endowing with the reality of life. We cling to the heroes and heroines of the epics especially so tenaciously because they are more splendid than any created by other men. Were there ever such valiant and self-sacrificing men, such beautiful and virtuous women, souls of such purity and power? It is a fairy world to which the poets transport us, and every remotest corner of it is interesting and vivid, every commonest experience in it shares somehow in the beauty and grandeur of the whole.

From the consideration of the contents let us turn for a moment, in passing, to the question of the medium of these thoughts and ideas, with which the former is intimately connected. The medium is, as is well known, the old venerable language of the Vedic Aryans, Sanskrit, the miraculous heaven-sent tongue which was the wonder and awe of Indian writers ever afterwards. At a very conservative estimate it continued to be the language of literature and culture in India for nearly three millenia, naturally adjusted from time to time to conform with changes in the milieu and provenance of its speakers. This inherited Vedic idiom was moulded by the epic poets to suit their own purpose, and what a really potent and readily adaptable instrument they have made out of it. With this new acquisition the poets are hardly ever at a loss for a word to suit the metrical context or the tonal pattern aimed at, or to bring out the nuances intended by them. The stores of the poets seem always full and brimming. For example, if the poet wants to speak about the king, there was no need to keep on repeating the word rājan, the common word for king, in stanza after stanza. He has a large stock of synonyms to choose from. He has in his store a monosyllabic consonantal stem rāj, which can be used at the end of a compound, as in nagarāj. Or if that does not suit him, he can use short words like nṛpa or bhūpa, ending in a vowel; or bhūbhṛt, kṣmābhṛt, ending in a consonant. He has at his disposal also a large number of longer words like nṛpati, bhūpati, bhūmipa, adhipa, pārthiva, rājanya, kṣatriya, mahiḳṣit, and so on. He can make words of four syllables like narādhipa, bhūmipati, kṣitipati, the latter with a row of four light syllables. He can even make up a word of five syllables like pṛthivīpāla, avanipati, the latter again with a row of five light syllables. And that, I am sure, does not by any means exhaust the list. I have picked out for the sake of illustration some of the commonest synonyms that have stuck to my memory. This amazing — I may say, unparalleled — richness of vocabulary enables the epic poets to paint continuous series of word-pictures of abundant variety and mellifluent tonal effects, illuminating at the same time diverse aspects and relations of the persons and objects described.

While we are on the topic of the linguistic medium I cannot resist the temptation of making a slight digression and saying a few words about the śloka, the epic metre par excellence. To my mind the creation and perfection of the epic śloka are among the outstanding achievements of the epic poets.

The capital difficulty of the epic in any language is the discovery of a measure which could be employed, continuously, in very long stretches of poetry and which would not grow monotonous. It has been my experience — I cannot say whether it is shared by you — that the reading of most epics tends to become sooner or later very tiring, if not exhausting. There are only two peoples in the world, to my knowledge, who have succeeded in evolving a simple and elegant measure that can be used in lengthy poems continuously and yet, owing to its endless variety appears ever new. And these peoples are the Indians and the Greeks.

I shall speak only of the Indian metre. In the Indian śloka the basic component is a tetrad (that is a group of four syllables) — as, in fact, in most of the old Indian metres — and the śloka consists of an asymmetrical combination of four pairs of tetrads. The first two of these tetrad-pairs form an organic whole, and constitute one line of the śloka, consisting of sixteen syllables. The line itself is made of two halves, which may be called the front half and the back half, and which stand in antithetical relation to each other. The other half of this distich or couplet is a duplicate of this line, having the same cadence (which is invariably diiamibic), but with a rhythm or scansion which may be entirely different. This variability arises from the fact that the quantity of the first four syllables of each of the two octosyllabic halves of any line or verse is always, theoretically at any rate, perfectly free, the quantity of only the four final syllables of these two halves being to some extent restricted. Originally these four final syllables of each of the two halves of the śloka-line were prevailingly iambic, as in the Vedic Anuṣṭubh; and this measure was quite suitable for the short emotional religious litanies for which it was primarily employed. But it would have been quite inadequate for the long continuous passages of the epopee, with a descriptive or narrative content; for, an interminable row of purely iambic pādas would have proved monstrously monotonous.

The genius of the creators of the epic śloka consists, it seems to me, in their restricting the iambic character (˘ — ˘ —) to the even pādas or the back halves, in other words, to the real cadence of the śloka-line; and making on the other hand the odd pādas or the front halves pointedly non-iambic, prevailingly of the type ˘ — — —. The real secret of the extraordinary charm and vitality of the epic śloka is thus due, I think, to the fact that the śloka, which as explained above is built up with a series of eight tetrads is nevertheless a progressive measure that appears to be constantly aiming at iambic rhythm but succeeds in achieving it through a series of obstacles. You will realize that, if you observe that the dynamic pattern underlying the metrical sequence of the above mentioned eight tetrads of the epic śloka is: free, non-iambic, free, iambic and then again free, non-iambic, free, iambic. The two iambic cadences of the stanza serve to characterize the measure as an iambic rhythm, while the four free elements provide abundant variety, ensuring against rigid monotony and unpleasant fixity. I have calculated that there are actually permutations possible with this scheme of the sequence of long and short syllables. You can imagine what a tremendous variety of rhythms one can obtain with this scheme. It appears to approximate to the freedom of the modern vers libre, free verse, unfettered alike by rhyme or rhythm, and yet it is perfectly regulated as regards the number of syllables in the whole stanza as well as in each of its four quarters, with a hypermetric variety arising out of the resolution of an initial long into two short syllables, as in prakrtir guṇān vikurute. Naturally not all permutations are of equal value : many of them have perhaps never been employed in the epic at all; quite a large number of them are probably sporadic; and a few are no doubt rare. There yet remains a sufficient number in common use to ensure variety and elasticity and to obviate the monotony of a rigid octosyllabic scheme, which would have made the recitation of 100,000 stanzas an ordeal both to the reciter and the audience.

Though the intensity of imagination of the epic poets and the perfected form of expression have made the work real, spontaneous and convincing, and therefore absorbingly interesting, it is really in the conception of character which it reveals that the epic becomes most significant.

The chief actors in the great Mahābhārata drama are distinctly and consistently characterized. The Pāndavas, with the single exception of Bhīma, are represented as just, moderate and generous; even Bhīma is not ungenerous, though somewhat hot-tempered and burdened with an unshakable confidence in his herculean strength. The Kauravas on the other hand are described as envious, arrogant and malignant. All the characters are drawn with a steady hand and a firm conviction. Arjuna and Bhīma, Bhīṣma, Vidura and Dhṛtarāṣtra, Droṇa and Śakuni, Draupadī and Gāndhārī, remain the same in all the eighteen books of the epic. As DAHLMANN has shown, the characteristics once chosen are preserved, and become only clearer as the drama develops and reaches its natural denouement. In Yudhiṣṭhira, we find charity, peace and self-control, leaning towards weakness and ineptitude; in Duryodhana, determination combined with envy, hate, cruelty and unscrupulousness; in Bhīma recklessness and wild impetuosity; in Arjuna dignity, chivalry and prudent heroism; in Karṇa pride, arrogance and malignity, with a strange streak of generosity; in Dhṛtarāṣṭra pernicious weakness and complaisance; in Śākuni and Duḥśāsana unmitigated wickedness and audacity; in Vidura and Droṇa sense of justice and loyalty; in Bhīṣma nobility, benevolence, asceticism and detachment; in Draupadī gracious womanhood, staunch loyalty and purity of character.

The high-water mark of epic idealism is reached in the magnificent conception of the Perfect Man, which has never been equalled in the whole range of epic poetry, the character of Devavrata Bhīṣma, son of king Śāntanu. This central character of the Mahābhārata fulfils a very subtle demand. He is placed by birth and circumstances in the station of a warrior and a king. Now the duties of a warrior imply the constant and relentless use of concentrated force; and those of a king the guardianship of manifold and diverse interests. But both these functions must be performed with a spirit of detachment, from a mere sense of duty, divorced from all personal interest, unmixed with motives of self-love, self-indulgence, self-aggrandisement, in fact all motives — especially hidden motives — which bear the vicious trade mark of "self." Admittedly, to act in this fashion is an exceedingly difficult task, one of those to which later Indian poets gave the name of "the vow of the sword-edge" (asidhārāvrata). But that is the first step in the perfection of character. It must be observed — and even emphasized — that interest is not to be eliminated. Far from it. Interest must be there and quite as intense as in the ordinary man; only the element of "self" — that is the "lower self" — is to be eliminated. That is virtually what may be styled "Gītā Spirit": selfless work, abandonment of the fruit of action, active renunciation. Call it what you like. The name matters little. It is what you do that matters; and above all how you do it, with what motive. Whether one is actuated by any of those unworthy sentiments mentioned above, one can easily find out for oneself: it needs only a little honest heart-searching introspection. The "Inner Monitor" (antaryāmin) registers silently but quite accurately the ethical value of every action; and gives a prompt, candid and unerring answer every time he is asked, because he is a constant and sleepless witness, and he is moreover afraid of nobody in this world or beyond it.

We have an illuminating analysis of the character of this rich saga figure from the pen of the gifted author of the Web of Indian Life. The discipleship of Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa had given Sister NIVEDITA an unerring insight into the intricacies of Indian life and culture. It is therefore not surprising to find that this devoted pupil of the Swami had a clearer vision of the real inner significance of the Mahābhārata than many a Mahābhārata specialist. These experts do indeed possess great erudition and can command huge stacks of neatly classified index-cards on every conceivable topic, but they lack, as a rule, the sympathetic imagination which is necessary for understanding most ancient traditional books. Sister NIVEDITA who was gifted with that spirit of imaginative sympathy has shown us the way to appreciate the subtle and consummate modelling of this titanic figure, which embodies one of the supreme ideals of the Indian people. It was mentioned above that Bhīṣma is intended for the type of a king and a knight. In order that he may expose to view all the greatness of character that is possible to man in these conditions, this noble scion of a royal family is made to renounce of his own accord, at the beginning of his life, the kingdom which is his by right in favour of the issue of a fisher-girl whom his father wanted to marry, renouncing at the same time the right of marriage also, with a view to avoiding possibilities of future dissensions in the family. The sacrifice is so vital and the provocation to it so trivial that when the son of King Saṃtanu made this vow, flowers rained down from the sky on Devavrata and invisible voices were heard from all directions murmuring the words "Bhīṣma! Bhīṣma!". Thus he got his nickname Bhīṣma, "the Terrible." From this point, having set aside the joys and the privileges of a parent and a sovereign, he is made to bear to the full the responsibilities of both. He has not merely to bring up his own half-brothers (who die prematurely), but also the sons and the grandsons of these, acting as their guardian and ruling the kingdom as regent during their minority. As we are nowadays accustomed to safe-guard first of all our own rights and privileges and to skip lightly over the duties and obligations attached to them, we are apt to regard as something obsolete and old-fashioned this high ideal — this inhuman sense of duty — visualized in the figure of Bhîṣma by the fashioners of our national epic.

Bhîṣma's attitude towards and behaviour during the Great War, which have been commonly misunderstood, were also striking and worthy of note. From his high position as the head of the great Kuru family Bhîṣma fulfils his duty as adviser by giving fearlessly and in an outspoken and unambiguous manner such counsel as he considered consonant with the dictates of truth and justice, trying to curb the rapacious policy of the hot-headed and truculent sons of the weak and indulgent Dhṛtarāṣṭra and to maintain peace between the warring cousins. But when against his advice and solemn warnings, war is decided on by the dominant party at the Kaurava court, Bhîṣma, despite his firm conviction in the matter of the justice of the Pāṇḍava cause, obeys, like a soldier, the call of the monarch and accepts, without any mental reservations, the position of the generalissimo of the Kaurava forces. In this capacity he fights valiantly and whole-heartedly, disposing his forces to their best advantage. Notwithstanding his unshakable belief in the ultimate victory of his opponents, he strikes not a single blow more or less for this consideration, carrying out his pledge to the best of his ability and powers. He fights nobly, like a god, with a calm head and a warm loving heart.

His end is remarkable and the only one that is described at great length in the Mahābhārata. On the tenth day of the battle, after performing prodigies of valour, Bhîṣma falls at sunset, succumbing to the injuries he had sustained in the war. At his death the din of battle suddenly ceased and the warriors laid down their weapons; the sun grew dim and the earth bewailed his fall. The chieftains of both armies, putting off their armour and forgetting the hatred and anger which had entered their souls, approached him reverently and did him homage; and he greeted them all equally with blessings. Though he was tortured by his wounds and burning with fever, yet prevailing over his agonies by sheer force of will, he applied himself to Yoga in his last moments. The epic tells us that the gratified soul of his happy father had given him the boon that death would never come to him as long as he desired to live. And we can quite easily credit that he had such power. This mighty man had vanquished Māra — had conquered and sublimated the indomitable urge of sex, — and therefore he could hold even death at bay. Lying on the bed of arrows where he had fallen on the battlefield, he had refused to be moved, scorning medicaments and surgical aid and even the comfort of a soft bed. In extreme bodily discomfort, with his head hanging down, the only thing he asked for was a pillow. But when they brought soft downy pillows such as he had used in the luxurious surroundings of his palatial residence, he put them laughingly aside, asking for a pillow such as is fit for a warrior. Only Arjuna, whom he loved dearly and who loved him dearly, understood what he wanted. Blinded with tears, Arjuna took three keen shafts out of his inexhaustible quiver and transfixed them in the earth so as to support the drooping head of the dying immortal, giving him a pillow becoming his bed of arrows :

"Such a pillow well beseems a Kṣatriya
Who all his life had walked uprightly, not
Transgressing the immortal laws of God,
Keeping his body stainless from desire
Of carnal lust........"

This unconquered and unconquerable Titan lay there on the bed of arrows to pay his last debt of agony with the body which, though consistently with its own exigencies, had yet fought against righteousness, waiting patiently the appointed end, the willing victim of his couch of pain. Such was the end of this mighty man.

This character was evidently the creation of a race of confirmed Stoics, who, inculcating rigid control of passions and complete indifference to the principles of pleasure and pain, teach us to regard detachment as a necessary element of moral grandeur. It is obviously this race of men who had dashed forward, far ahead of their fellow beings, in the stern competition of human development and progress and who had brought civilization and culture to the people of this subcontinent, dragging them, out of sheer pity for their fate, from out of the mire of mental sloth and the pitfalls of pitiful indulgence.

When we have realized this, the ingenious suggestion of some very advanced critics of the Mahābhārata that this idealistic picture which we find in the epic must needs be a distortion of the original saga, since there could be no question of renunciation of a claim to the throne in a primitive epoch which did not recognize the right of primogeniture, — or the equally audacious view of Higher Criticism that in the original "epic nucleus," in strict accordance with the custom of levirate (niyoga), nobody but Bhīṣma could have been "appointed" to procreate children on the widows of his deceased brothers, — these propositions, I say, strike us by their complete vacuity and absolute inanity. They do not help us in any way to understand this remarkable legacy of ancient India to the modern man, but serve merely to reveal the utter bankruptcy of modern literary criticism and to convince us of the futile spirit of vandalism which animates modern critics.

Few characters in ancient literature have been painted with such consummate skill and insight into human nature as Mahārathi Karna, a character which in the past has never been properly understood — has in fact been consistently misunderstood — though the epic has furnished us with details of his life with remarkable fulness, candour and clarity. The most significant factor of his life-history, which is generally ignored or glossed over by modern writers but which has far-reaching consequences, is that he was born out of wedlock and therefore cast away at his birth. The epic tells us in so many words that he came into the world as an indirect and undesired consequence of the almost irresistible curiousity (kautūhala) of his mother, Kunti, who, while yet an unmarried virgin living in the house of her parents, in her youthful indiscretion operated with a secret sexual charm which had been given to her by an erratic and irascible sage. The charm worked — to her surprise and dismay. On the god appearing before her in person in obedience to the call to satisfy her desire, she was frightened and begged him earnestly to depart and not compel her to become the mother of his son. But her entreaties were of no avail, because her suitor, the sun-god, would not be dissuaded from his purpose. Against her will and intention a child was born of her, refulgent as the sun, strong as though made of iron, and clad in natural armour, which was a sign of his invincibility. In great sorrow the young maiden took the radiant child of the sun-god, under cover of darkness, to the river-side and putting it in a bejewelled casket set it afloat on the river and left it to its destiny. The child was picked up on the outskirts of the enclave of the high-brow Society and brought up lovingly by the nameless Superintendent of Royal Chariots (Adhiratha) and his wife Rādhā. This is a plain and unvarnished story of the "unwanted child," a familiar figure of romantic literature, and the behaviour of the child when it grows up to manhood is absolutely correct to type.

This unfortunate foundling, not wanted by Society and sheltering itself under the wings of its foster parents, turns naturally, as soon as it gets the opportunity, to revenge itself on the Society, which had rudely thrust it aside, while still helpless, for no fault of its own. Karṇa's enmity is unconsciously but inevitably directed against his own brothers, the Pāṇḍavas, who have robbed him, equally unconsciously but irrevocably, of all the good things of life: wealth, position and the good opinion of society. But it is focussed especially against their common wife Draupadī, the visible embodiment of their worldly enjoyment and happiness, — the divine Draupadī who would have been his, had he not been unceremoniously cast away in his childhood. Driven by an inner necessity, he equips himself for the coming conflict, applying himself avidly to the acquisition of proficiency in the handling of arms along with his brothers and cousins, and easily excels everybody except his younger brother, Arjuna. Arjuna thus becomes another object of his special hatred and enmity. At the royal tournament, which had been arranged to test the proficiency of the young princes in martial accomplishments, he encounters his first public humiliation. He challenges Arjuna to a single combat, thinking that he would score an easy victory over his rival, but the friends of Arjuna evade the fight on the ground that Karṇa is not the equal of Arjuna in birth, the challenger being a parvenu, not fit to compete with princes with blue blood flowing in their veins. Karṇa resents to the death this slight levelled at his birth. The conflict could not however be avoided; it was only postponed. Arjuna had to take up the challenge many years later, when Karṇa again faces him, as the generalissimo of the Kaurava forces. And Karṇa and Arjuna meet then, not in mock fight as now in Hästinapura, but in a mortal combat on the field of Kurukṣetra. In the meanwhile Karṇa gives his ego full rein. His wounded vanity drives him to amass wealth, power and allies to help him in his secret vendetta. He attaches himself to the Kaurava court and plays willingly second fiddle to Duryodhana in order to have an opportunity to dispossess those who had dispossessed him. His inferiority complex makes him oppose and insult the noble Bhīṣma, who is to him the hateful symbol of smug decorum and prudery.

Karṇa was generous to a fault. But his generosity, which has become proverbial, was but a pose, albeit an unconscious pose, a clever artifice to outdo the accredited nobility in their vaunted virtue, liberality, and to hear himself lauded to the skies by the begging fraternity, as a compensation for the taunts and sneers of the highbrow nobles, at the Kaurava court, proud of their birth. He had no true generosity of heart. With his frustration complex un-resolved, he was incapable of real sacrifice or true charity. He joins with secret pleasure the ribald crowd at the court of Hästinapura during the fateful game of dice in relentlessly humiliating and persecuting the innocent Draupadī, who had herself done him no harm at any time. Again, when his mother, Kuntī, reveals to him his identity and beseeches him tearfully, on the eve of the Bhārata war, to be reconciled with the Pāṇḍavas, who were his own brothers, and thus help to stop the carnage which was about to take place, he remains unmoved, parading his obligations towards his foster parents and loyalty to his benefactor, Duryodhana. His pose of unbounded generosity leads in the end to his own undoing. Taking advantage of his vow of not refusing any request of a Brahmin, Indra, in the guise of a Brahmin mendicant, begs of him his natural coat of mail and his precious ear-rings, which had rendered him invincible. Karna is on the horns of a dilemma. To be or not to be: should he break his vow, as the sun-god, his putative father, had exhorted him to do; or should he surrender his invincibility? Characteristically he disobeys his father and chooses the second alternative. He hugs still more closely round himself the pretentious cloak of generosity and parts with his precious possessions, with apparent nonchalance. Were he capable of analyzing his motives and realizing that his vow of charity was but a sham pose, as the sun-god had evidently recognized, he would have known himself as he was and could have remained invincible. But that was not to be: indeed that could not be. For, the Ego in its conflict with the Self i.e. Superself, cannot remain invincible. One can inflate the Ego tremendously, inflate it frightfully, but not indefinitely. Nature has set limits everywhere. When inflated beyond a certain limit the bubble bursts. Who or what bursts it? It creates itself and brings into operation a subtle force that bursts it. The force, being just sufficient for the purpose, seeks out and attacks the very weakest point of the bubble. It is thus in nature. So it is with the human personality.

With overweening confidence in his own powers, Karna refuses to fight while Bhishma is alive, and remains sulking in his tent. His stupendous vanity thus deprives Duryodhana of whatever help he could have rendered during the first ten days of the war, a circumstance which did not fail to give the Pandavas a certain initial advantage over their enemies in spite of the heavy numerical odds against them. In technical skill Karna was the equal of Arjuna, if not his superior; but he lacked the spiritual strength which sustained Arjuna in the hour of trial. The virtuosity of Karna is foiled at a critical moment by a higher power, which taking advantage of some loophole in Karna's armour of invincibility, strikes him down, to help the struggling and down-trodden adherents of the cause of justice and righteousness.

Much capital has been made by modern critics of the fact that Sri Krsna urges Arjuna to kill Karna while the latter is engaged in releasing the wheel of his chariot, which had sunk into a hollow of the earth. Karna pleads for time, asking his opponent to wait until he has freed the wheel. He points out that it is unrighteous for a man to fight from a chariot against one who has no chariot; it is unbecoming behaviour in a cavalier as Arjuna called himself. How easy it is to pick faults in the behaviour of others, and how difficult to see the faults in one's own! But Providence, which rules over the destinies of men, has no such preference between one individual and another. It therefore unfailingly metes out justice with meticulous precision to all alike in appropriate ways and through devious channels. That is evidently the lesson which the epic poets want to teach.

Some writers who have been dazzled by the intrepid courage, deep loyalty and unbounded generosity of Karna have challenged the authenticity of the epic text, contending that the character of Karna as depicted in the present form of the epic is not consonant with his fate and with the criticism by the epic poets of his actions. They attribute this contradiction to an inversion of the epic theme already referred to, maintaining that in an earlier form of the epic Karna, the son of the sun-god, was himself the hero, a role usurped in the present epic by some other person or persons. The advice given to him by the sun-god was a test of his character, and Karna's refusal to act on it is sufficient evidence of the nobility of his character and his lofty idealism. This, the critic maintains, is in sharp contrast with the unchivalrous actions of the Pandavas, who abandon too easily the high ideals of knightly conduct and honour, and resort to unworthy means for bringing about the death on the battlefield of their honourable and chivalrous foes like Bhishma, Drona and Duryodhana. But such a view is quite baseless and shows little understanding of the epic and of the ideology of the epic poets. When one remembers the circumstances of Karna's birth and early life, one can readily account for the apparent contradictions in his character and understand his behaviour as also his fate. It is easy to recognize in his features, as explained above, the physiognomy of a man with frustration complex and therefore a clear case of abnormal mentality.

The secret which Kuntī wanted to preserve and which she thought she had skillfully buried, unknown to anybody, by severing her connection with her first child at its birth, could not be maintained for long, as no secret can. The ocean of life brings back to her, after the lapse of some time, the unwanted child which she had snatched away from her warm palpitating milkful breasts and unkindly set afloat on the insensible bosom of the cold indifferent river. In the end she had to divulge the secret to the very persons whom she wanted to screen from it and from its effects,— from those very people before whom she felt need to appear as a good, wise and virtuous woman, namely from her own children. First she had to recount the story of her youthful indiscretion to her eldest son, Karṇa, whom she had wronged. She had hoped that by telling him the great secret of her little life, she could avoid the consequences of that act recoiling on her other sons, the five Pāṇḍavas, whom she loved. In that she was destined to be disappointed, as Karṇa, in his turn, remained adamant, refusing, firmly but politely, to oblige her and make a scapegoat of himself. For her complete emancipation she had in the end to repeat the story with her own lips, after the death of Karṇa, to the surviving sons, in order that the last rites at least may be duly performed if the first had been neglected, in the pious hope that his life in the hereafter may not be a repetition of the hell in which he had lived on the earth. She had thus to acknowledge before the world her motherhood of the fatherless child after the death of Karṇa, which she had failed to do at his birth. Could anything be more silently tragic? When she had unburdened her soul to her sons, she was at long last freed from the torturing power of that secret which acting through devious channels had helped to grind to dust the flowers of youth and chivalry of the heroic age of India. Could the epic fulfil better and in a more poignant and emphatic manner its function of catharsis for those who can follow its language and understand its deep meaning and vital message to mankind?

Vidura is in many ways the exact counterpart of Karṇa. There are innumerable ways in which one can injure the mind of a growing child. One of them is by treating it on any other basis than that of its own individuality. Karṇa was the victim of such faulty and harsh treatment. The society which had treated him like an outcast had suffered the dire consequences of its own actions. Vidura was mercifully saved from such treatment. His birth was likewise of a somewhat shady character. Although he passed as the brother of Dhṛtarāśṭra and Pāṇḍu, he was as a matter of fact born of a slave girl employed in the royal household. But there was no secrecy about his parentage because his birth was quite legitimate according to the ideas prevailing in those times,— a somewhat unexpected result of a miscarried form of marriage by levirate. However, he was brought up for what he was, and treated with kindness and consideration in the house of his parents. His station in life was that of a major domo in the royal household, and he did not aspire to be anything else, performing the duties pertaining to the post with great efficiency and singular fidelity. Placed in an inferior and unenviable position from birth, he had overcome his ego, subduing it completely and sublimating it. Having resolved all the conflicts of his nature, he is represented and known in Indian antiquity as being gifted with deep insight into the mysteries of life and respected by all as a wise man. As such he advises his errant elder brother, who constantly turns to him, when in distress, for advice and consolation. Thus having been gifted with the boon of a peaceful and contented soul, his benign presence helps to tone down the conflicts and mitigate the sorrows which he cannot altogether prevent.

The blind king Dhṛtarāśṭra is a typical personality. He is neither wholly good, nor wholly evil, but he is definitely not beyond good and evil; rather he is very much in the grip of that tantalizing couple which has kept humanity on the whirl from the beginning of time. His besetting sin is just that he is weak and vacillating, oscillating continuously, like a pendulum, between good and evil. He has good impulses, but they are no more than impulses and very weak ones at that. Dhṛtarāśṭra throughout recognizes, or at least feels, that injustice is being done to the Pāṇḍavas, but he is ever prone to exonerate his own sons and explain away to himself and others their mischievous activities and wickednesses. As the clouds gather thickly over his head and he begins to be oppressed by a premonition of the approaching catastrophe, he develops the habit of lamenting over the mysterious and inscrutable workings of Destiny, the last resort of the feeble mind, philosophizing over the relation between daiva and pauruṣa, in order to explain the miscarriage of his designs and to ease his guilty conscience.

In the beginning, when the orphaned children of his brother are first brought over to him with their widowed mother, he is well disposed towards the young Pāṇḍava brothers and treats them kindly. But that mood does not last very long. He soon begins to get concerned over the increasing power and popularity of the new-comers, in whom he perceives dangerous rivals of his sons as successors to the throne; and he begins to fear for the future of his own sons. To safeguard their undivided and undisputed sovereignty, he readily falls in with Duryodhana's plans to get the Pāṇḍavas out of the way, and sends them away on some pretext or other to a distant part of his kingdom. When according to a preconcerted plan of the conspirators, the house in which the Pāṇḍavas are living is burnt down and it is believed that the Pāṇḍavas with their mother were burnt with it, he is genuinely alarmed and grieved. And when he subsequently learns that they have been saved and had married the Pāñcāla princess, he is visibly relieved and pleased. But in the next instant he falls a victim to the machinations of his evil genius, his son Duryodhana. He is pulled round again by the warning voices of his sage counsellors, Bhīṣma and Droṇa, and he decides to recall the Pāṇḍavas and to reinstate them. The old king reveals his full weakness in the scene of the fateful dice-play, which is the subject of the Sabhāparvan. He was approached by his son for formal permission to call Yudhiṣṭhira for a game of dice. Vidura warns him sternly, but the father in him is overpowered by acute partiality towards his own sons. All further remonstrance on the part of his advisers he meets with the sage remark that Destiny is supreme and one must bow before the Inevitable. As a concession to his conscience, he mildly reproves Duryodhana about the consequences of jealousy and greed, but does nothing himself to implement the counsel of his well-wishers. The game takes place and ends disastrously for the Pāṇḍavas.

Dhṛtarāśtra then suddenly becomes conscious of the injustice done to the Pāṇḍavas and heaps reproaches on Duryodhana. In that mood he takes the part of Yudhiṣṭhira and sets him free, pronouncing even blessings on him. Immediately afterwards, however, we find that he falls in cheerfully with the new plans of Duryodhana to dupe the guileless Yudhiṣṭhira. He agrees to call the Pāṇḍava prince for a second game of dice (punardyūta) and goes to the length of giving consent to the harsh condition about the exile of thirteen years. But no sooner have the Pāṇḍavas departed according to the stipulated condition of the game of hazard, the blind monarch is subject to real fear and deep penitence. And so it goes on, the details being worked out with great skill, elaboration and verisimilitude.

Dhṛtarāśtra is consistently under the influence of persons around him, who dominate in turn over him. His paramount idea is his own security and the continued well-being and prosperity of his sons at any price. His lack of discernment and decision is emphasized and visualized, so to say, by representing him as blind. His blindness is as much physical as mental. He is incapable of forming a judgment for himself and abiding by it. His attitude to life is important, being conceived as the very antithesis of the Gītā spirit. Destiny, about which Dhṛtarāśtra is constantly prating, is indeed a fact, and an inexorable fact, which cannot be denied. The one thing Dhṛtarāśtra, however, failed to realize is that man is himself the creator and the maker of his destiny, the architect of his own fortune. After initiating Arjuna into the mysteries of the Karma doctrine — the Gītā says, — Śrī Kṛṣṇa asks him to consider it carefully and having considered it to act as he will: yathecchasi tathā kuru, "as thou wilt, so act." The grip of destiny is thus shown to be illusory. Nothing can deprive the thinking man of his primary and inalienable right of the freedom of will and the freedom of choice.

It has not been possible in the course of this short review to do more than just indicate the way in which the epic poets have approached the problem of character on the empirical plane and the manner in which they have attempted to solve

it. It may be noted that these character-studies by our epic poets have been undertaken not primarily for the sake of poetic or artistic effect. They have been undertaken with a conscious didactic purpose and in a spirit of deadly earnest. The problem is always the same, the riddle of life; and the entire work is informed with the spirit of the conscious quest of the ideal life. A solution to the riddle is sought, in the first instance, in the inevitable law of Karma, a mighty law, one more important to mankind than the Law of Gravitation or the Thermodynamic Law or any other law of science. This much misunderstood law is commonly taken to imply that all events are predetermined by arbitrary decree, involving unquestioning submission to and acquiescence in all that happens as inevitable. A little reflection is sufficient to show that this is an absurd proposition, being in essence nothing more than just an easy and convenient way of ridding oneself of all irksome and unpleasant responsibilities. The real meaning of the law is just the opposite and may be simply stated as follows. As an oyster makes its own shell and imprisons itself, quite unconsciously, within the shell, so the mind of man creates and necessitates its own life and fate. In other words, man binds himself, hand and foot, of his own free will, with self-made ties. So much most people might understand and will probably admit. But that is only a partial truth. There is an important corollary to it, which people generally ignore, but which is an essential part of it, and that is this. By the self-same agency, within his control, by which a man binds himself, he can, if he will, cut those bonds asunder and set himself free. The mind of man, like Janus, is double-faced. It plays a double role: mana eva manuşyāṇām kāraṇam bandhamokṣayoḥ. It is the cause of bondage when it is turned outwards, and the cause of release when it is turned inwards.

We have passed rapidly under review the epic story on the mundane plane. The central narrative, as we saw, is essentially a story of the heroic age, ringing with battle cries and enlivened with thrilling vicissitudes of war. The clash of steel and the consequent devastation in this titanic struggle for the possession of a throne find here noble expression, which is characterized by a generous breadth of treatment and exhibits a true epic sweep. But that is not the only interest, not even the main interest. Indeed, few people who have read the Mahābhārata know or care to remember the innumerable and amazingly complicated details of that war, when the flower of the knighthood of Bhāratavarṣa was possessed of the fury of war — krūre me vartate matiḥ, confesses one Brahmin warrior (B. 6.112. 5) — and "hell was enacted." When we read the poem with attention we discover that from end to end the interest is held and centred on character. The poet chronicler seems to be describing events, but he does not for an instant forget that he is engaged in elucidating the history of souls.

The vast canvass of this gigantic epopee is studded with little instructive episodes dealing with all manner of relations and situations in life, which the epic tries to study by putting them under the microscope and illuminating them from its own point of view. We find there stories throwing light on the relations between a king and his subjects, between a master and his servants, between parents and children, between husband and wife, between man and man and, above all, between Man and God. The situations depicted are equally varied and numerous. As Sister Nivedita has so lucidly and incisively put it, the stories embody the endeavour on the part of the epic poets "to understand every man's relation to a given situation and to see in conflicting lines of conduct that same irresistible necessity which, acting from within, hurls each one of us upon its fate." We observe this in the life and fate of Bhīṣma and Dhṛtarāṣṭra, of Duryodhana and Vidura, of Kunti and Karṇa, of Yudhiṣṭhira and Arjuna.

Even so, I should say, the Mahābhārata would remain merely a literary composition of outstanding merit like Homer's Iliad or Milton's Paradise Lost or Dante's Divina Comedia. We should still find it difficult, I think, to explain the sustained interest which this great book has evoked among the people of India continuously for nearly two millennia. What did those successive generations of men and women in India, and even beyond the confines of India, in Greater India, seek and find in the Mahābhārata? What made Sir Charles Elliot say that the Mahābhārata was greater than the Iliad? Surely not the story of a futile war of annihilation ; not merely the magic of the heaven-sent language ; not merely the fleeting specimens of verbal embroidery ; not just the subtle play of capricious fancy or seductive imagination ; nor even, to be sure, character-study in the modern sense. There must be some more serious purpose in the work which gives the Mahābhārata its vitality, its universality, its immortality. What is that ?