Sutas, Nastikas and Retellling the Mahabharata

About the Speaker

Naina Dayal teaches history at St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi. Her research interests include the period c. 320 BCE-300 CE, during which the Sanskrit Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata took shape.

Abstract

Hinduism is often represented as tolerant and non-violent. In my presentation, I look at the Mahābhārata of Vyāsa, a central text of Hinduism, which is about extreme violence at many levels. The Mahābhārata took shape during a period when a range of belief systems was competing for followers and patrons. To this end, the text recommends different ways of dealing with what it perceives as the menace of the nāstikas (unbelievers). An example of this is teaching the Mahābhārata even to those who are not nāstikas, possibly to prevent them from being led astray by the unbelievers. In this paper, I look at the outer frame of the Mahābhārata where the sūta Ugraśravas narrates ancient lore to brāhmaṇa sages who are already familiar with it. I argue that listening to such narratives repeatedly, asking questions and answering them, is a way of strengthening a tradition and transforming it. By looking at Ugraśravas's role in the transmission of the stories encompassed by the Mahābhārata, I argue that, contrary to popular belief that the sūta was a despised social category by the turn of the Common Era, a type of sūta is most definitely not portrayed as contemptible in the Mahābhārata.

Report

In her work, Professor Dayal details the role of the sūtas in telling as well as re-telling the Mahabharata alongside her rebuttal of the common perception of Hindu tradition as an inherently nonviolent one. One key theme Professor Dayal emphasises is the cyclical nature of Kāla(time) and the ways in which it “cooks” the plethora of characters in the Mahabharata. An action has multitudes of consequences- some that may eventually return to the person of its origin.

Despite this, Professor Dayal believes that time does move forward with considerable speed alongside the unfolding of the plot. It is in no way fixed or static at any given instance. The Bhargava clan plays a significant role in the engineering of the tale itself; both within and outside. The endonym of the Mahabharata is the “Dharmashastra”- a text that should have a strict disapproval of breaking caste barriers, as is common for Brahminical sources. Ironically, the Bhargava clan is notorious for these same acts by breaking the rules of endogamous marriage within one’s birth caste. Indeed, a descendant of the Bhargava clan is Krishna himself- one of the chief architects of the great war between the Kuru and Pandava clans resulting in the annihilation of the Kshatriya clans. In Dayal’s opinion, the Bhargava clan is supposed to have been key in brahminising the text of an essentially Kshatriya work.

The role of the Sūtas as bards in retelling the Mahabharata is also seized and supplanted by the brahmins- essentially reinventing the Vedic tradition which the Mahabharata also represents. From bards of high esteem in Vedic thought, the Sūtas are referred to as lowly chariot drivers in the Mahabharata. In this sense, the epic represents the darkness of the age of Kali that is imminent.

By Akshaj Awasthi, Undergraduate Batch of 2021