THE MAHABHARATA

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THE MAHABHARATAS SOCIOCULTURAL IMPACT IN
INDIAMichel Danino (micheldanino_at_gmail.com)
a A i I u U
Presented at a seminar on The Mahabharata Its
Historicity, Antiquity, Evolution Impact on
Civilization, New Delhi, 26 27 April 2012
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The Mahabharata is not just a gripping epic and a
great teaching of Dharma. It is also a mine of
anthropological information. Left Some of the
states mentioned in the text. (Source K.S.
Valdiya, Geography, Peoples and Geodynamics of
India in Puranas and Epics, 2012)
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1. Ethnographic data in the Mahabharata

• Socially, the Epic presents a mixed society
  numerous different languages, cultures, rulers
  and regions.
• 363 people are listed on different occasions, as
  janas or jatis.
• Jana people, especially those forming a state.
• Jati a community of people, basically a segment
  of a jana (e.g., Kiratas, a jana, have several
  jatis).
• The Epic does not distinguish between caste and
  tribe, in fact has no concept of a tribe in the
  usual sense, which is a colonial construct.
  (Neither do the Pura?as.) K.S. Singh There is
  hardly any evidence to show that in the
  collective consciousness of India there is any
  difference between the two sets of janas.

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• The janas appear in the Epic (after R. Shafer,
  1954)
• as part of geographical lists 231
• the digvijaya list (Yudhi??hiras victories won
  by his four brothers in the four directions)
  212
• those paying tribute to the Pa??avas 296
• those part of army formations 158
• other data 108

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• The 363 janas are defined
• in geographical terms (with reference to
  Jambudvipa). Some of the regions are regarded
  as holier than others, for instance the
  Kuru-Pañcala and Matsya.
• in political terms, territorial units such as
  janapadas, var?as or ra??ras.
• In ecological terms living in mountains (Khasas,
  Haimavatas, Arbuadas, Vindhyamulakas...), near
  rivers (Kausijakas, Saindhavas...), from deserts
  (Marudhas...), from pastoral lands (Pasupas,
  Govindas...).

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• Janas in the East Angas, Vangas, Kiratas,
  Chinas, Pundras...
• Janas in the North (Himalayas) Trigartas,
  Khasas...
• Janas in the West Daradas, Pisachas, Vahilkas,
  Yadavas, Surashtras...
• Janas in the South Cholas, Pandyas, Keralas,
  Andhras, Dravidas, Karnatas, Mushakas...
• Janas in the Northwest Pahlavas, Sakas, Hunas,
  Yavanas, Kambojas ...

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2. The Mahabharata and the making of India
Everywhere I found a cultural background which
had exerted a powerful influence on their lives.
This background was a mixture of popular
philosophy, tradition, history, myth, and legend,
and it was not possible to draw a line between
any of these. Even the entirely uneducated and
illiterate shared this background. The old epics
of India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and
other books, in popular translations and
paraphrases, were widely known among the masses,
and every incident and story and moral in them
was engraved on the popular mind and gave a
richness and content to it. Illiterate villagers
would know hundreds of verses by heart and their
conversation would be full of references to them
or to some story with a moral, enshrined in some
old classic. Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of
India, p. 67.
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Mechanisms of integration

• Repeated attempts (in the Epic as in early
  history) to build empires.
• Marriage alliances across janas.
• Storytelling (e.g. Harikatha) traditions often
  received royal patronage.
• Complete freedom was given to local cultures to
  adopt, adapt, transpose, translate, re-create the
  two Epics.
• Creation of a sacred geography related to the
  Epics.
• Overall, an organic process beyond the control of
  a caste or political power. The result was the
  cultural entity called India, and the thought and
  belief system called Hinduism (which may be
  defined as the interface between Vedic and
  regional folk and tribal cultures).

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The Mahabharata and the South

• In the Epic, Cholas, Pa??yas, Dravidas are often
  mentioned.
• Sarangadhwaja, king of the Pa??yas, fights in the
  war on the side of the Pa??avas.
• In inscriptions, Chola and Chera kings proudly
  claim descent from the lunar or the solar
  dynasties.
• An inscription records that a Pa??ya king led the
  elephant force in the Great War on behalf of the
  Pa??avas, and that early Pa??yas translated the
  Mahabharata into Tamil (the translation is lost).
• The first named Chera king, Udiyanjeral, is said
  to have sumptuously fed the armies on both sides
  during the Bharata war.

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Pancha Pandavar hero stone, Benagudi Shola,
Nilgiris (Tamil Nadu), maintained by Irula
tribals to commemorate the Pandavas passing
through the area.
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• Near Kodaikanal, a few caves bear the name of
  Pancha Pandavar Parai, the rock where the five
  Pandavas stayed.
• Numerous Draupadi shrines in Tamil Nadu and
  Kerala.
• Folk traditions of the South generated numerous
  retellings of the two northern epics in the form
  of popular ballads, some of which have been
  preserved in manuscripts.
• In Tamil Nadu alone, a recent survey (by A.A.
  Manavalan) enumerated about a hundred versions
  of the Mahabharata that have come down to us in
  folklore forms.
• From the ninth century at least, a few
  inscriptions record the grants of lands and
  revenue for poets and discourse scholars on
  Mahabharata.

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The Mahabharata and the Northeast

• The two Epics have left numerous landmarks in the
  region. The Kiratas correspond broadly to the
  Indo-Mongoloids of the Northeast.
• Pragjyoti?a founded by Naraka and his son
  Bhagadatta (who fights Arjuna in the Epic).
  Bhagadatta is a historical figure he is
  mentioned in inscriptions, such as the Nalanda
  seal of Bhaskaravarman.
• After the war, Arjuna goes out to Manipura on a
  mission to placate the Nagas and marries Ulupi.
• A tradition identifies Gha?otkacha, Bhimas son
  from Hi?imba, with the Kachhari kingdom in Assam
  (whose capital Dimapur was a corruption of
  Hi?imbapur).
• The Bodos have a tradition of having given
  Rukmini, a Kirata woman, to Krishna. They claim
  Bhagadatta and Hi?imba among their ancestors.

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• K.S. Singh If the Bodos have a view of their
  relationship with pan-Indian traditions, this
  cannot be described as something imaginary, but
  has to be seen as peoples efforts to link with
  historical traditions.
• Ajay Mitra Shastri Ancient Pragjyotisha or the
  North-East had very intimate relations with the
  rest of India, of which it was an integral
  component, geographically and culturally, despite
  its own distinctive culture and physical
  elements.

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The Mahabharata and Kashmir

• Kalhanas Rajatarangini traces the origin of
  Kashmirs kings to Gonand I, a contemporary of
  the Great War.
• Krishna is portrayed as helping the widow queen
  Yasovati ascend the throne after the kings death
  in a war.
• Jammu has numerous traditions related to the
  Epics and a folk version of the Mahabharata.
  There is a tradition of Naga worship which claims
  that a Naga tribe lived there Arjuna came,
  married Ulupi and lived there for some time.
• Some of the tribals there worship the Pa??avas
  and Draupadi as ishtadevata.

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Conclusions on the Epics ethnography

• A rich human tapestry thriving on endless
  diversity, but united through certain
  ethico-cultural concepts, such as dharma, mutual
  respect.
• No separate status for tribes.
• K.S. Singh The Mahabharata notion of jana or
  people of a territory still endures. ... People
  continue to identify themselves with the epic
  traditions, associate places with the visits of
  the epic heroes and to recall peoples own role
  in the growing and developing epic traditions.
  This may be bad history but it is good myth and
  therefore good anthropology. ... Indians are
  reported to have relatively large eyes. This may
  me because our eyes are popping all the time
  there is so much beauty, so much diversity to
  behold!

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3. Can the Mahabharatas ethnographic landscape
help date the Epic?

• In the 3rd / 4th millennium (a traditional date
  such as 3100 BCE), the Northwest is in the Early
  Harappan phase, which is hardly reconcilable with
  the Epic.
• As per current archaeological record, this phase
  is free from weapons of war, armed conflicts and
  military structures.
• It is a phase of convergence, not of
  disintegration as reflected in the Epic.

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In the 3rd / 4th millennium, the Ganges valley is
in the Neolithic, pre-iron era, with rural
communities slowly spreading and establishing
networks. This appears incompatible with the
listing of numerous competing sociopolitical
units with an advanced material culture.
Map First-millennium BCE sites in north India
compatible with the Epics sociopolitical context.
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The 16 Mahajanapadas or "proto-republics"
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This is true also of central, east, northeast and
south India, where material cultures are even
more rudimentary in the 3rd / 4th
millennium. Map first-millennium BCE sites
elsewhere in India
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• A date in the 3rd / 4th millennium BCE for the
  Epics events would demand a massive amount of
  re-creation and embellishment so massive that
  those events might as well be taken to be
  fiction.
• The Mahabharatas ethnographic map belongs either
  to the late 2nd or the early 1st millennium BCE
  more likely the latter, if we consider the
  archaeology of east, northeast and south India in
  particular.
• It bears repeating that the Epics ethnographic
  landscape is intimately woven into its very
  fabric the lists of janas cannot be mere
  interpolations.

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French historian Michelet on Indias Epics
India, closer than us to the creation, has
better preserved the tradition of universal
brotherhood. She inscribed it at the beginning
and at the end of her two great sacred poems, the
Ramayan and the Mahabharat, gigantic pyramids
before which all our small occidental works must
stand humbly and respectfully. When you grow
tired of this quarrelsome West, please indulge in
the sweet return to your mother, to that majestic
antiquity so noble and tender. Love, humility,
grandeur, you will find it all gathered there,
and with such simple feelings, so detached of all
miserable pride, that humility never even needs a
mention. Le Peuple (in the 1860s)