📁Learning Objective
- The Critical Edition of the Mahabharata
- Kinship and Marriage Many Rules and Varied Practices
- Social Differences: Within and Beyond the Framework of Caste
- Beyond Birth Resources and Status
- Explaining Social Differences: A Social Contract
- Handling Texts Historians and the Mahabharata
- A Dynamic Text
The Critical Edition of the Mahabharata
- One of the most ambitious projects of scholarship began in 1919, under the leadership of a noted Indian Sanskritist, V.S. Sukthankar.
- A team comprising dozens of scholars initiated the task of preparing a critical edition of the Mahabharata, a colossal epic running in its present form into over 100,000 verses with depictions of a wide range of social categories and situations.
- It was composed over a period of about 1,000 years (c. 500 BCE onwards), and some of the stories it contains may have been in circulation even earlier. The central story is about two sets of warring cousins.
- The text also contains sections laying down norms of behaviour for various social groups. The critical edition meant collecting Sanskrit manuscripts of the text, written in a variety of scripts, from different parts of the country. The team worked out a method of comparing verses from each manuscript. The project took 47 years to complete.
Kinship and Marriage Many Rules and Varied Practices
Finding out about families
- Families are usually parts of larger networks of people defined as relatives, or to use a more technical term, kinfolk. While familial ties are often regarded as “natural” and based on blood, they are defined in many different ways.
- Historians also investigate and analyse attitudes towards family and kinship. They provide an insight into people’s thinking.
The ideal of patriliny
- Under patriliny system sons have claims to their father’s wealth when the latter died.
- In case the king did not have a son, he was succeeded by one of his brothers.
- Sometimes other kinsmen claimed the throne and it was a very exceptional case, that women exercised power (for e.g. Prabhavati Gupta.)
Rules of marriage
- Dharma sutras recognized eight forms of marriage. Out of these, four forms of marriage were considered as good.
- The remaining marriages were condemned because they do not follow Brahmanic norms. Women could not get any share in her parental property.
- Exogamy (marrying outside) was considered desirable. Kanyadana or the gift of a daughter in marriage was an important religious duty of the father.
The gotra of women
- People were classified according to their gotras. Two important rules about gotras were:
- Women were expected to give up their father’s golra and adopt their husband’s gotra.
- Members of the same gotra could not many in case of Satavahana rulers, it was evident that many of the wives of Satavahana rulers retained the names of their father’s gotra as against Brahmanical rule.
- Endogamy or marriage within the kin group was prevalent among several communities in South India.
Were mothers important?
- Satavahana rulers were identified through metronymics (names derived from that of the mother).
- Although this may suggest that mothers were important, we need to be cautious before we arrive at any conclusion.
- Satavahanas, we know that succession to the throne was generally patrilineal.
Social Differences: Within and Beyond the Framework of Caste
The “right” occupation
- The Dharma shastras and Dharma sutras contained rules about the ideal ‘occupations’ of the four categories or varnas.
- Brahmanas were supposed to study and teach the Vedas, perform sacrifices and get sacrifices performed; Kshatriyas were to engage in warfare, protect people and administer justice; Vaishyas were engaged in agriculture, pastoralism and trade; and Shudras were assigned to serve the three ‘higher’ varnas.
Non-Kshatriya kings
- According to the Shastras, only Kshatriyas could be the kings. But in reality, political power was effectively open to anyone who could muster (assemble) support and resources and rarely depended on birth.
- Gotami-puta Siri-Satakani was a Brahmana who destroyed the pride of Kshatriyas. He ordered that there was no inter-marriage amongst members of the four varnas.
Jatis and social mobility
- Jatis which shared a common occupation or profession were sometimes organized into shrenis or guilds. There were other categories like Nishada (people living in forest) beyond the four varnas in society.
- Ekalavya is supposed to have belonged to this class. Sometimes those who spoke non-Sanskrit languages were labelled as Mlechchhas and looked down upon.
Beyond the four varnas: Integration
- There were populations whose social practices were not influenced by Brahmanical ideas. They are often described as odd, uncivilized, or even animal-like in Sanskrit texts.
- These included forest-dwellers – for whom hunting and gathering remained an important means of subsistence. Categories such as the nishada, to which Ekalavya is supposed to have belonged, are examples of this.
Beyond the four varnas Subordination and conflict
- Brahmanical scriptures developed a sharper social divide by classifying certain social categories as ‘untouchable’.
- Those who performed ‘polluting’ activities like, handling corpses and dead animals were designated as ‘Chandalas’.
- The Manusmriti laid down the duties of Chandalas, these were—they had to live outside the village, use discarded utensils and wear clothes of the dead and ornaments of iron.
- Historians got hints of different social realities about the Chandalas from the non-Brahmanical texts.
Beyond Birth Resources and Status
Gendered access to property
- The access to resources sharpened the social differences between men and women. According to Manusmriti, the women were not eligible to claim a share in the parental property.
- The parental property was divided amongst sons after the death of parents with a special share for the eldest. However, the women could retain the gift they received on the occasion of their marriage as stridhana.
- This could be inherited by her children, without the husband having any claim to it. According to Manusmriti, women were not supposed to hoard family property and their own valuables without their husband’s permission.
- Both epigraphic and textual evidences suggest that while upper class women may have had access to resources, land, cattle and money were generally controlled by men.
Varna and access to property
- According to Brahmanical texts, the only occupation prescribed for Shudras was servitude. While a variety of occupations were assigned to the first three varnas.
- The wealthiest people would have been the Brahmanas and Kshatriyas. Buddhism recognized that division of society is prevalent in society, but did not regard these as natural or inflexible.
- They also rejected the idea of claim for higher status on the basis of birth.
An alternative social scenario: Sharing wealth
- The Tamil Sangam anthologies illustrate economic, social relationships, suggesting that while there were differences between rich and poor, those who controlled resources were expected to share them.
Explaining Social Differences: A Social Contract
- The myth found in Sutta Pitaka suggests:
- The institution of kingship was based on human choice, with taxes as form of payment for services rendered by the king.
- At the same time, it reveals recognition of human agency in creating and institutionalizing economic and social relations.
- It also recognizes the fact that since human beings are responsible for creation of the system, they could also change it in future. The king was elected by the whole people (mahasammata)
Handling Texts Historians and the Mahabharata
Language and content
- Language and content version of the Mahabharata we have been considering is in Sanskrit.
- Historians usually classify the content of present-day texts under two broad heads
- sections that contain Stories, designated as the narrative
- sections that contain prescriptions about social norms, designated as didactic
- This division is by no means watertight the didactic Sections include the stories and narrative often contains social messages.
Author(s) and dates
- The original story was probably composed by charioteer bards known as Sutas who generally accompanied kshatriya warriors to the battlefield and Composed poems Celebrating victory and other achievements
- From the 5th century BCE, Brahmanas took Over the story and began to commit to writing. This was the time when chiefdoms such as those of kurus and the Panchalas around whom the story of the epic revolves were gradually becoming kingdoms.
- Another phase in the composition of the text between C.200 BCE and CE, the period between when the worship of Vishnu was growing in importance and Krishna one of the important figures of the epic, was coming to be identified with Vishnu.
- Subsequently between C200 and 400 BCE, large didactic sections resembling the Manusmriti were added Composition of Mahabharata traditionally attributed to a sage named Vyasa.
The Search for convergence
- Mahabharata an epic contains vivid descriptions of battles, forests, palaces and settlements
- In 1951-52 the archaeologist B.B Lal excavated at village named Hastinapura Meerut (UP) it suggests that it may have been the capital that the Kurus mentioned in the text lal found evidence of five occupational levels
- Second phase (c. 12th 7th centuries BCE): “Within the limited area excavated, no definite plans of houses were obtained, but walls of mud and mud bricks were duly encountered.
- For the third phase (C.6th-3rd centuries BCE) “Houses of this period were built of mud brick as well as burnt bricks Soakage Jars and brick drains were used draining out refuse water, while terracotta ring well may have been used both wells and drainage pits.”
A Dynamic Text
- The growth of the Mahabharata did not stop with the Sanskrit version. Over the centuries, versions of the epic were written in a variety of languages through an ongoing process of dialogue between peoples, communities, and those who wrote the texts.
- At the same time, the central story of the epic was often retold in different ways and episodes were depicted in sculpture and painting. They also provided themes for a wide range of performing arts – plays, dance and other kinds of narrations.
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