[INDOLOGY] Draupadii and polyandry

Sat Oct 27 17:41:39 UTC 2018

Dear Discussants,

In his letter (the first *re*) Jan E.M. Houben writes: "Then in the
Mahabharata there is suddenly the major character of Draupadii/Krsnaa
marrying all five Pandava brothers."

Suddenly. The unexpected appearance of the motif.

Unexpected – and seen as such in the Mbh. (I, CLXLVIII);  the two
mythological precedents given there seem to be unknown to those who
participate in the exchange of opinions on the project.

The creation of the epic is in itself a political act. Why, then, shouldn't
we treat the acts of its heroes as mirroring the political ethos of the era?

The question arises – why? Why would the epic makers want Draupadi to marry
'all five Pandava brothers'? To my mind – a signal, directed to the
prospective audiences of the epic, confirming their *belonging to*.

You were kind enough to kill my supposition – using the
philological/logical arsenal of counter-arguments.

The Mahabharatian stratigraphy. A difficult subject, in itself.

But – to my mind (again) – what is unexpected, devoid of precedents, might
be rightly treated as belonging to the epic's later stratum. As something
disturbing, a novelty, unsettling in its very unexpectedness. Demanding
explanations – and given them, but – unconvincing and weak. Opening the
space for the appearance of successive, ever new concepts of feminine
power. And freedom. Vide the popularity of the motif of the Draupadi's
*svayamvara* – in its modern film-and-theatrical versions.

https://www.google.pl/search?source=hp&ei=LZrUW4fFNLLPrgScvZHAAg&q=draupadi+swayamvar&oq=Draupadi+&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0l10.1903.4327.0.8316.10.7.0.2.2.0.177.634.6j1.7.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..1.9.642.0...0.Tidik47OxuA

[About 108,000 results !!!!]

A bit more on *unexpectedness* – no one called my way of thinking on the
nature of Indian cultural processes (with their search for the ways of
intercommunication) as *racist*. Not so far.

Regards –

Artur Karp

2018-10-27 1:30 GMT+02:00 Joydeep via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
:

> Dear Andrew,
>
>
>
> I agree that Oliver has done some careful and interesting work. But in
> “Stratifying the Mahābhārata,” he makes no claims about the MBh’s dates.
> Cf. the remark: “I would like to emphasize that these findings do not imply
> any statement about the sequence of events that led to the composition of
> the BhīP or of the Mbh. They can be reconciled [both] with theories that
> postulate a relatively short duration of composition [and] with temporally
> more extended models […], because the algorithm does not contain a temporal
> component” (ibid., 134). Oliver explicitly emphasized this point in our
> conversation in Vienna. See *Philology and Criticism*, 100, n. 81. I
> haven’t examined the other articles yet, but now that you have drawn my
> attention to them I will. A quick perusal reveals that “A Chronometric
> Approach to Indian Alchemical Literature” doesn’t mention the MBh at all,
> whereas “Etymological Trends in the Sanskrit Vocabulary” only places the
> MBh as a whole within a broad period (500 BCE–300 CE) and doesn’t make any
> claims about strata *within*the MBh. Oliver’s work is valuable precisely
> because it avoids speculation as to “redactors,” their motives, assumed
> sequence and rationale for interpolation, *Besitzwechsel*, etc.
>
>
>
> All best,
>
> Joydeep
>
>
> Dr. Joydeep Bagchee
> Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
> Academia.edu Homepage <https://fu-berlin.academia.edu/JoydeepBagchee>
>
> The Nay Science
> <http://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-nay-science-9780199931361;jsessionid=94DFF6B197750DBE7C7E64A4FB8B28D2?cc=de&lang=en&>
> Argument and Design
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/argument-and-design-unity-mahabharata>
> Reading the Fifth Veda <http://www.brill.com/reading-fifth-veda>
> When the Goddess Was a Woman <http://www.brill.com/when-goddess-was-woman>
> Transcultural Encounters between Germany and India
> <http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415844697/>
> German Indology on OBO Hinduism
> <http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399318/obo-9780195399318-0147.xml>
> ___________________
> What, then, is Philosophy?
> Philosophy is the supremely precious.
>
> Plotinus, Enneads I.III.5
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 6:20 PM Andrew Ollett via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> Oliver Hellwig has written some very interesting articles on applying
>> various statistical techniques to Sanskrit texts (including the
>> Mahābhārata) in order to determine "authorial structures" and hence
>> relative dating:
>>
>> https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqp034
>> https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqn043
>> https://doi.org/10.1163/15728536-06002001
>>
>> The last article presents a technique for distinguishing sections of a
>> text based on several features (lexical, syntactic, metrical, etc.) while
>> controlling for differences introduced by changing topics.
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 5:25 PM Harry Spier via INDOLOGY <
>> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 12:18 PM Joydeep via INDOLOGY
>>>
>>>> How are you identifying the “earlier strata” of the epic?
>>>>
>>>
>>> 1) I'd be interested if someone could  point out the scholarly articles
>>> on  relative dating of different parts of the Mahabharata.?
>>>
>>> 2) Could the techniques Michael Witzel pointed out years ago in this
>>> posting  to relatively date the books or the Ramayana  be used.  I.e
>>> relative occurance of  vai or similar words in vedic position 2 versus
>>> elsewhere. ?
>>> http://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology_list.
>>> indology.info/2000-March/020863.html
>>>
>>> 3) Could a similar technique be used with other linguistic
>>> characteristics.I.e. relative occurance of linguistic characteristics  that
>>> are uncommon in vedic but common in classical sanskrit.  Whitney noted use
>>> of passive constructions,  participles instead of verbs, substitution of
>>> compounds for sentences as characteristic of the change from vedic to the
>>> classical language.
>>>
>>> Harry Spier
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>
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