[INDOLOGY] Draupadii and polyandry

Sun Oct 28 21:13:34 UTC 2018

Dear All, "Thanks a lot" "Merci infiniment" "Dziękuję bardzo" and "অনেক
ধন্যবাদ" for sharing your information, references and viewpoints on- and
off-list.
I am particularly happy to have the very precise and useful textual
references of Simon Brodbeck.
Your reading and citations seem to confirm that polyandry was
contemporaneously indeed experienced as something "excessively" or "too"
innovative.
(To me this neither implies nor excludes layers in the text: an author may
in a single design adopt a different, traditional style for "battle scenes"
and compose a different style epic poetry for other passages; again, unless
the epic is inscribed and well-preserved in rock, we cannot be sure whether
successive author-transmitters may have overlaid an old blue-print with new
ones.)
I also thank Matthew and Asko for their useful references off-list to
practices in Himalayan societies (but attested only from the late first
millennium) and to Iran,
and esp. for the reference to
A. Parpola “Pandaíee and Siitaa: On the historical background of the
Sanskrit epics”, JAOS 122 (2), 361-373, and
A. Parpola  “The Roots of Hinduism” (OUP 2015), p. 148-149
which I have started to re-read.
Not everything needs to be explained through direct contact and exchange,
but I recently came across another (possible) link between Iran and
Himalayan societies in the study of Tibetologist and Bonpo specialist Henk
Blezer et al. "Where to look for the origins of Zhang-Zhung related
scripts" Journal of the International Association of Bon Research Vol. 1
(2013): 99-174, according to which one of the places where representatives
of Zhang-Zhung ritual and religion imagine their pre-Buddhist origin is "to
the west", more precisely "Ta zig" (cp. Tajik-istan) i.e. prob. ancient
"Greater" Persia.  A structuralist or even a psychoanalytic interpretation
of epic passages need not exclude an interpretation in terms of references
to "ethnic" realities contemporaneous to the authors and first transmitters
of a text, and neither the formation of "linguistic communities" nor the
formation of "ethnic communities" necessarily depends (exclusively) on
genes (which also means that current hunter-gatherers or nomads need not be
racially "the same" as the hunter-gatherers or nomads of 2000 or 3000 years
ago -- this seems to be either forgotten or insufficiently highlighted in
current genetic studies).
Jan Houben

On Thu, 25 Oct 2018 at 13:52, Simon Brodbeck via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear Professor Houben,
>
>
>
> In this connection there is a book by Sarva Daman Singh entitled *Polyandry
> in Ancient India* (Motilal Banarsidass, 1978). There are also some
> enthological comments on the last few pages of A. N. Jani’s paper
> (“Socio-Moral Implications of Draupadi’s Marriage to Five Husbands”) in
> Bimal Krishna Matilal, ed., *Moral Dilemmas in the Mahabharata* (Indian
> Institute of Advanced Study / Motilal Banarsidass, 1989).
>
>
>
> After the Pandavas have already decided they will all marry Draupadi, the
> link from this particular polyandric marriage to other such marriages is
> apparently made by Yudhishthira, in amongst a battery of other explanations
> for it, when he addresses Drupada at Mbh 1.187.28cd: *pUrveSAm
> AnupUrvyeNa yAtaM vartmAnuyAmahe* (“We follow one after the other the
> path that was travelled by the Ancient”, trans. van Buitenen). In context
> this is a general comment on what one can do given the subtlety of *
> dharma*: the previous line reads *sUkSmo dharmo mahArAja nAsya vidmo
> vayaM gatim* (“The law is subtle, great king, and we do not know its
> course”). But the comment can be taken to imply polyandric precedents.
> Drupada seems to deny that there are precedents (or at least respectable
> ones) when he says to Vyasa: *na cApy AcaritaH pUrvair ayaM dharmo
> mahAtmabhiH* (“Nor has this Law been practiced by the Ancient of great
> spirits”, Mbh 1.188.8ab). But Yudhishthira then gives the example (*zrUyate
> hi purANe 'pi*) of Jatila Gautami who “lay with the Seven Seers” (Mbh
> 1.188.14). Jatila as Draupadi’s precursor in this regard is mentioned also
> by the women of Hastinapura at Mbh 12.39.5. But this precursor is evidently
> in the realm of distant mythology, not the realm of contemporaneous
> practice.
>
>
>
> Simon Brodbeck
>
> Cardiff University
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* INDOLOGY [mailto:indology-bounces at list.indology.info] *On Behalf
> Of *Jan E.M. Houben via INDOLOGY
> *Sent:* 24 October 2018 21:59
> *To:* Indology <indology at list.indology.info>
> *Subject:* [INDOLOGY] Draupadii and polyandry
>
>
>
> Dear All,
>
> According to the Vedic Index of A.A. Macdonell and A.B. Keith, vol. I p.
> 479, "polyandry is not Vedic" (with obligatory references to extremely
> sporadic exceptions such as in the RV "wedding hymn"). Then in the
> Mahabharata there is suddenly the major character of Draupadii/Krsnaa
> marrying all five Pandava brothers. I am aware of the two volumes of Alf
> Hiltebeitel which are an excellent ethnographic study of the Draupadii cult
> in South India. However, what are currently the most important philological
> studies of the background of this character and of polyandry itself in late
> Vedic, post Vedic and epic/Puranic texts? Apart from purely/mainly
> structuralist approaches (Biardeau), I would be interested in explorations
> of whether the problematic presence of polyandry in the Mahabharata and
> elsewhere may imply a reference to contemporaneous (Mahabharata time)
> practices (just as the reference to Nagas burnt in the Khandava forest was
> taken as more than just an element needed in the narrative: it would also
> have been a reference to forest tribes and conflicting modes of resource
> use acc. to Irawati Karve and to Gadgil & Guha).
>
> With best regards,
>
> Jan Houben
>
> --
>
> *Jan E.M. Houben*
>
> Directeur d'Études, Professor of South Asian History and Philology
>
> *Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite*
>
> École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, PSL - Université Paris)
>
> *Sciences historiques et philologiques *
>
> 54, rue Saint-Jacques, CS 20525 – 75005 Paris
>
> *johannes.houben at ephe.sorbonne.fr <johannes.houben at ephe.sorbonne.fr>*
>
> *johannes.houben at ephe.psl.eu <johannes.houben at ephe.psl.eu>*
>
> *https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
> <https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben>*
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-- 

*Jan E.M. Houben*

Directeur d'Études, Professor of South Asian History and Philology

*Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite*

École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, PSL - Université Paris)

*Sciences historiques et philologiques *

54, rue Saint-Jacques, CS 20525 – 75005 Paris

*johannes.houben at ephe.sorbonne.fr <johannes.houben at ephe.sorbonne.fr>*

*johannes.houben at ephe.psl.eu <johannes.houben at ephe.psl.eu>*

*https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben
<https://ephe-sorbonne.academia.edu/JanEMHouben>*

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