Episode 100 - Summing up

Mahabharata Podcast - Lawrence Manzo

In this milestone 100th episode of the Mahabharata Podcast, host Lawrence Manzo reflects on his comprehensive journey through the unabridged

Key takeaways

• The Mahabharata's author, Vyasa, may have been absent during key political transitions, explaining gaps in the narrative such as Dhritarashtra's ascension to power.
• Ambiguities around Yudhishthira's behavior in the dice game challenge traditional interpretations; his actions may reflect detachment rather than addiction or greed.

Main topics

• Reflections on completing a full retelling of the Mahabharata
• Narrative gaps and inconsistencies in key plot points

Notable quotes

I always tried to err on the side of being too boring rather than risk leaving something important out.

Conclusion

Manzo concludes this landmark episode with gratitude to his family, ac

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:13) This is the Mahabharata Podcast, Episode 100. Summing up. So, this is it. We've covered the unabridged Mahabharata from end to end. I even threw in most of the tenth book of the Bhagavata Purana, or the Srimad Bhagavatam, which had the backstory of Krishna's birth and childhood. Aside from the flowery language, I tried to leave nothing of significance out. What I considered significant was any detail directly pertaining to the characters or storyline, plus anything interesting or remarkable, plus every story that I could make sense of or convey to you. I always tried to err on the side of being too boring rather than risk leaving something important out. In fact, there's only one detail that I later reconsidered. I must confess that I never got the chance to fit it in. At the risk of being boring, I'll tell you what it is. When the Pandavas were younger, before the war, and they greeted their elders, such as Bhishma, it would say that Bhishma would smell their heads. It seems to be something parents do out of affection for their children, but I've never heard of it. Maybe this is still commonplace in India. I don't know. As for the major things I left out, it would be a lot of the legalistic gibberish from the final teachings, and especially the telling of the Ramayana by Hanuman. Having skipped over that part of the Arnya Kaparva, it has begun to gnaw at me that maybe I should go back and cover it as a supplement to this podcast. But then I think I might as well go all the way and do the Valmiki Ramayana. But then I think I ought to read both versions concurrently, and that's a serious undertaking not to be taken lightly. So I'll keep thinking about it, and I'll definitely crack open that tome and see where it leads me. Speaker 1 (1:47) Looking back over the story, there are a few points in the plot where the author is surprisingly parsimonious with the details. I think the first part that really bothered me was the way it describes, or fails to describe, the exact transfer of power between the brothers Pandu and Dhritarashtra. The problem goes back to the original decision to bypass the eldest son Dhritarashtra because of his blindness. It only says that he was not given the crown due to his blindness. This statement is made in a completely passive sense. Who made this decision? Was it Bhishma or Satyavati? Or was it just so obvious that there was no need to discuss it? This becomes problematic later, when Pandu goes into retirement in the forest. The ambiguities pile up, because at some point it seems that blind Dhritarashtra begins to act like the king, and then eventually he is actually the king. If Dhritarashtra had been formally barred from the throne, then why did they change their mind later and make an exception? And when exactly did this happen? Pandu's exit appears to have happened in stages. First, he was away making war, and then he took up hunting, which gradually turned into a kind of retirement. The final stage in his withdrawal was when he was cursed by the ascetic. It says that Dhritarashtra handled matters of state while Pandu was away, but when exactly did he take on the crown? For a story that can oftentimes be obsessive to cover every detail, this lateral transfer of power remains a mystery. Is it possible that our author was himself unclear on what exactly happened? Only one theory presents itself. Given that all we can know about this text is what the text itself tells us, our only choice is to take it at its word. We can only speculate on the gaps in the story. Perhaps primogeniture was not so fixed in the Kuru dynasty, and the crown could go to a brother before it goes to the king's heirs. The thing is that such speculation is empty. It might help us to feel like there are no gaps in the story, but it can never be definitively proven. So let me present an explanation that might be justified by what is in the text. We are told that this story was written by Krishna Dvipayana Veda Vyasa, who also fathered the protagonists of the story. I'm sure that even the most pious Hindu living today has at least considered that perhaps the Mahabharata wasn't really written by that Vyasa. And I'm equally sure that most educated readers of the epic pretty much assume that it was not written by Vyasa. Probably most people figure it was either written by a guy named Vyasa, who got confabulated with the character in the story, or it was written by someone else altogether and falsely ascribed to Vyasa. But again, this is empty speculation. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we can only take the text at its word, that it was indeed written by one of the characters in the story. Taking that as a given, then let's go back to the question at hand, which is, why is the story so vague on the details of how Dhritarashtra became king instead of Pandu's eldest son? All I can observe is that Vyasa was not around at that time in the story. If that Vyasa really wrote this story, it doesn't seem that he was hanging around with the Kurus at that time. We know that from the day of his birth, Vyasa headed straight for the forest, where he remained as a dedicated ascetic all his life. He came to court briefly to sire the sons of Ambika and Ambalika, Pandu, Dhritarashtra, and Vidur, but then immediately left for the forest again when his work was done. To the best of my recollection, Vyasa does not appear again until the wedding of the Pandavas. More on that later. So, assuming Vyasa is indeed our source for these events, maybe he was far off in the woods when this took place, and was himself unclear on what had gone on at court. As an ascetic, I doubt he had much interest in subjects like dynastic inheritance or primogeniture. So maybe he wasn't really sure how the crown ended up on Dhritarashtra's head, and had never bothered to ask. So he left it sort of vague in his retelling. The next problem in the text is the wedding of Draupadi to the Pandavas. I've talked about this before in episode 76, when I was trying to sort out the soul nature of each of the brothers. Up to that point, we knew that they were the sons of Dharma, Vayu, Indra, etc., and that Vyasa explained that each possessed the soul of Indra. That was called the tale of the five Indras. I had thought that maybe we could accommodate both of these facts, but now, having finished the book, it appears to be a flat-out contradiction. Without grasping for some esoteric explanation that both can be true, the brothers are either their father's incarnate or they are Indra incarnate. To add to the mystery, Arjuna is also said to be Nara incarnate, eternal twin and companion to Narayan, who is Krishna. The ending of the story, as the brothers return to heaven, seems to endorse the theory that they share their father's souls and are not at all Indra. Really, I do not know what to make of it. Speaker 1 (6:35) The story often gets ambiguous at some of the most crucial moments of the plot. This is especially true in the case of the dice game. There's no question that the dice game is the catalyst that makes the whole story move forward. There would be no story if it were not for the dice game. So why are some of the details so vague? Why do the characters act so strangely? And why is there so much ambiguity regarding Yudishira's motivation? First of all, according to one of our translators, Van Butenen, The oldest sources that describe the Rajasuya sacrifice include a dice match as part of the ritual. But of course, in our story, the dice game is completely separate from the Rajasuya. The Pandavas Rajasuya made the Karvas jealous, and they hosted the dice game in retaliation. It is understandable that Yudhishthira felt compelled to attend, since he had been invited by his uncle. But there is no explanation for why he decided to gamble away the freedom of his wife and brothers. I've talked about Yudhishthira's gambling habits before, that there's no mention elsewhere that he ever enjoyed gambling of any sort, let alone dice, and he's never accused of being a gambler, only for having staked inappropriate bets. So there remains, unanswered, the question of Yudhishthira's motivation for his outrageous behavior. Also strange is the amazing winning streak on the part of the Kharavas. It is not at all clear what the rules of that game were, but it's hard to believe that they could win so many rounds in a row. It is so easy for us to assume that Shikuni was cheating somehow, but you know what? No one in the text ever makes that accusation. So why not? It is clear from his behavior that Shikuni is an odious fellow, so why not say that he used weighted dice or some kind of magic? I have been watching for it, but somehow no one ever accuses him of having rigged the game. The odd behavior extends in all directions. Yudhishthira seems to be in a kind of trance as he gambles away all his possessions. Even though he loses every single throw of the dice, he never questions the fairness of the game itself. I've noticed that most people simply explain that Yudhishthira had a gambling addiction, but that makes little sense if you look at it. First, as I've said before, no one in the text ever accuses him of that. But more importantly, that would be completely out of character for him. Gamblers are enslaved to attachments and desire. They are unwilling to let go of the things they have lost, and they have uncontrollable desire for what they stand to win at the next throw. But Yudishra has never shown any sort of avarice or attachment in the past. In fact, his readiness to stake his own family after the impossibility of having lost dozens of rolls of the dice in a row strongly indicates that he was a man of very few attachments. If we can attribute any sort of motivation to our hero, it must be the opposite of greed. Speaker 1 (9:16) We can only surmise that he was deliberately trying to shed his possessions and attachments, perhaps out of a desire to give up his crown and retire to the forest. But even that explanation doesn't work very well, because gambling away the freedom of his wife and brothers is hardly a good way to resign. So that doesn't make sense either. The only other motivation that might make sense is that perhaps Yudhishthira was trying to shame his uncles by throwing himself completely at the mercy of his cousins. But that seems awfully reckless and irresponsible to his immediate family. This strange behavior extends outward to the other characters as well. This is especially true for Bhishma. His whole existence was dedicated to protecting the dynasty and the heirs of Shantanu, his father. But here, at the moment his dynasty began to self-destruct, he seemed incapable of taking action. He just sat there dumbly and let the outrages continue. Even Draupadi behaves inexplicably. Throughout the scene of her torments, she continues to make strangely legalistic arguments, such as asking whether her husband was free when he staked his wife. It's difficult to even guess what she was working at. It seems she would have been better off appealing to their own sense of dignity and reputation, rather than seeming to scold her husband. But let's not be too hard on Pordropity. The problem is that everyone seems to behave as if they were in a trance until Vidor somehow snaps out of it and gets Dredorastra to revoke the worst of the outrages. Only Dredorastra tries to explain it by lamely blaming fate for the whole thing. So here we are once again at a most crucial turning point in the story, and the narrative becomes surprisingly ambiguous. Everyone acts strangely out of character. So let's again apply our hypothesis. Where was the author when all this was going on? He definitely was not at the gambling