40005876

The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahābhārata: A Tale about Women, Smelly
Ascetics, and God

Author(s): Arti Dhand
Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 72, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), pp. 33-
58
Published by: Oxford University Press
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The Subversive Nature of Virtue
in the Mahabharata: A Tale
about Women, Smelly Ascetics,
and God
Arti Dhand
This article focuses on one key episode of the great Hindu epic, the
Mahabharata: the scene in the first book in which the Bharata widows
Ambika and Ambalika are impregnated by their brother-in-law, Vyasa.
The article is composed of two parts. The first examines narratives
surrounding the practice of niyoga, or levirate, and reflects on its signifi-
cance to the construction of the epic plot. The second reflects on the
personality and motives of Vyasa, uncompromising brother-in-law,
formidable sage, and near-divine author of the text. The link between
the two parts is important for unpacking a key religious orientation of
the Mahabharata. The article argues that Vyasa' s curse of the Bharata
widows is not idiosyncratic but, rather, is a stern example of the author's
specific interpretation of virtue, which in turn bespeaks the overarching
religious worldview of the text - the karmayogic ideal of equanimity.
The REFLECTIONS CONTAINED in this article stem from an off-

hand comment shared with students in a Mahabharata seminar, to the
effect that the apocalyptic Mahabharata war, the central event of the
epic, could have been avoided had the ancient Indians had the means to
perform artificial insemination. I was alluding to that crucial scene of
Adiparva, book 1 of the Great Epic, the scene that surely is the "seminal"
Arti Dhand is an assistant professor of religion at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1K7.
My thanks go to Bruce M. Sullivan and Alf Hiltebeitel for their comments on earlier drafts of this
article, which was first presented at the 1998 Western Regional meeting of the AAR in San Francisco.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion March 2004, Vol. 72, No. 1, pp. 33-58
DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfh003
© 2004 The American Academy of Religion
34 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
point from which the central narrative is spawned. I argue in this article
not only that this scene is critical for being the hinge upon which the
principal plot of the epic swings - that is, the ancient sexual practice of
niyoga (levirate marriage) - but that it also provides us unique occasion
to discuss the elusive and highly enigmatic personality of the author,
Vyasa, who moves in and out of the epic narrative both as author and
character, with the prescience and mysterious ways of God. It is my
contention that Vyasa's apparently erratic predictions in this scene do
not represent the usual stuff of irate sages often found in the text but,
rather, are intended to impart a very explicit moral lesson, reiterated
variously in the epic. This gives us a clue to interpreting what I believe
to be the most fundamental religious orientation of the text - the
karmayogic ideal of equanimity. Let us begin by revisiting that scene.
Long before the advent of the war, the genealogy of the Bharata clan
is at a critical phase in its constitution. The king Vicitravirya has just
died, leaving behind a dynastic crisis. His two young widows grieve not
only because they have lost their husband but also because both of them
are childless; even after years of effort, Vicitravirya had not produced an
heir. The Bharata kingdom is therefore without a king, and SatyavatI,
Vicitravlrya's mother, cannot afford the luxury of grieving. She worries
about both the cosmic (lokottara) and the worldly (laukika) effects of
this: "In kingdoms without kings there are no gods, there are no rains.
How can a kingdom be preserved that has no king?" (1.99.40-41). A
kingless kingdom is a world without a center. Searching for solutions,
SatyavatI tries every logical one.1 First, she attempts to persuade her step-
son, Samtanu's firstborn son Bhlsma, to assume the throne and to rule as
king. Bhlsma, however, has long since renounced his title to the throne,
and he cannot be persuaded to assume the mantle now, even with the
help of Satyavatl's sophistry. SatyavatI then explores the next possible
solution. She asks Bhlsma to lie with his two young sisters-in-law and
to thus supply the lack of her own son. Bhlsma again refuses to rescind
his vow of lifelong celibacy and declines this invitation as well. Finally,
SatyavatI turns to her last recourse. She shares with Bhlsma her girlhood
secret, that before her marriage she had borne a son well known to the
world as Vyasa, sage of sages, great poet and visionary. She seeks
Bhlsma's permission to summon Vyasa to help out at this critical time.
Bhlsma approves, and Vyasa is enjoined to do the needful thing: that is,
he is asked to lie with the two young princesses and to "beget on them
children that are worthy of our lineage and of continuing our progeny"
1 Although there are several instances of adoption in the text, this episode does not entertain that
possibility.
Dhand: The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahabharata 35
(1.99.35). Initially, Vyasa protests, demurring that the princesses should first
observe a yearlong vow of self-purification (1.99.38-39). Urged to be practical
about the urgent situation, however, he is pressed into providing the service
right away, on the important condition that the princesses must bear with his
ugliness (1.99.42-43). The setting, then, is ripe with hope and promise.
This scene is one of the nodal points for the movement of the epic
plot, capturing as it does the crisis of the survival of the lineage. The
events that unfold here shape the direction of important future events in
the Mahabharata, in all its meanings as epic poem, heroic lineage, and
apocalyptic war. It is, for example, from this scene that all the conten-
tions of the next few generations ensue; we will return to this point
shortly. For now, let us read further: SatyavatI, relieved to have a solu-
tion, takes pains to counsel the elder widow Ambika on the need for
cooperation. She explains to her first that she has discussed the path of
niyoga with Bhlsma and that he has agreed that it is a respectable and
legitimate measure, sanctioned by tradition. Ambika, therefore, need
have no doubts about the propriety of this action. After some further
instruction on duty, SatyavatI leaves Ambika with an exhortation to
heroic action: "Restore once more the doomed dynasty of Bharata! Give
birth to a son whose splendor will equal that of the king of the Gods!"
(1.99.46-47). Later, when all the arrangements have been made, SatyavatI
returns to inform Ambika, "You have a brother-in-law who will come in
to you today. Be vigilant and wait for him. He will come at night"
(1.100.2). The reference to Bhlsma and the "brother-in-law" in Satyavati's
two communiques now creates a problem for Ambika, who, "lying on
her lovely bed, thought that it would be Bhlsma, or another of the bulls of
the Kurus" (1.100.3). Not expecting Vyasa, therefore, when she sees the
great rsi's dark matted orange hair, his fiery eyes, and his reddish beard,
she cannot look at him for fright and quickly closes her eyes. Ambika had
never been adequately informed about the identity of her guest, nor was
she apprised of the condition laid by Vyasa, that she should bear with
"my smell, my looks, my garb, and my body" (1.99.42) if she wanted to
conceive a superior child. The reasons for this need to be examined, but
the end result is that Ambika, reacting thus to Vyasa's appearance, sets
off a chain of consequences that seems far in excess of her actual offence.
She is promised a child who would grow to be "a man with the vigour of
a myriad elephants, a wise and great royal sage, of great good fortune,
great prowess, and great intelligence, and he shall have a hundred power-
ful sons. But because of his mother's fault of virtue, he shall be blind"
(1.100.9-10, emphasis added). So Dhrtarastra, the king of Kurujangala,
father of our prime antagonist, Duryodhana, is born with the fatal flaw of
blindness - at the behest of Vyasa.
Greatly dismayed, SatyavatI protests vigorously: "A blind man is not

worthy to be king of the Kurus, O Sage" (1. 100.1 1). And she appeals again
for an heir free of defects, this time to be fathered on the younger widow
Ambalika. Ambalika, no doubt forewarned by now not to close her eyes,
manages indeed to look at the great sage. Terror-struck as she is by his
appearance, however, she is unable to restrain herself from turning pale.
Noting her distress, Vyasa tells her, "Since you paled upon seeing my
ugliness, this son of yours too shall be pale. And so, beautiful one, he
shall be called Pandu ('the Pale')" (1.100.17-18). In due course, Ambalika
is delivered of a son who is indeed pale of face but "with the marks of
splendor and good fortune" (1.100.21). This is Pandu, the father of the
famous five Pandavas.
Now doubly disappointed, SatyavatI solicits Vyasa for Ambika one
more time, but this time she is outwitted by Ambika. As she thought
back on the appearance and the smell of the great seer, we are told, the
elder widow, "from terror, could not do as the queen told her" (1.100.22).
So she dresses a slave woman to impersonate her.2 The anonymous
dasi, perhaps already accustomed to providing sexual favors to men
without having any choice, serves him with all honor and humility, so
that the sage "was contented with the pleasure of love he found with
her" (1.100.25). He spends the entire night with her, enjoying her minis-
trations. As a result, the dasl is released from slavery and blessed with
an illustrious man-child, destined to become "the most sagacious man
in the world [loke sarvabuddhimatdm varahY (1.100.16). This is Vidura,
the sage whom the tradition holds beloved as mahatmdi (great spirit) in
recognition of his profound compassion, wisdom, and self-discipline.
The next generation of the Bharatas is thus complete. In this way,
Vicitravirya posthumously acquires three mighty sons, only biologically
indebted to Vyasa:3 three legal heirs through whom the line of kingship
may descend. But as the text explains it: "Dhrtarastra did not succeed to
the kingdom because of his blindness; Vidura did not, because he was of
mixed parentage. Pandu became the king" (I.102.23).4
2 This is one variety of what Wendy Doniger calls the Mahabharatas "bedtricks" (2000: 248-253).
Vyasa functions, says Doniger with customary irreverent wit, "as a kind of walking semen bank"
(2000:251).
It is curious that Vidura's parentage here should occasion such moment, when Vyasa's own
background would raise eyebrows. He is the product of the brahmana Parasara and Satyavati -
Satyavati, who is the abandoned daughter of a ksatriya and a fish and the adopted daughter of a
fisherman, a sudra. Her son's claim to pristine brahmanahood, therefore, is suspect. As Bruce
Sullivan observes, "That [the union between Satyavati and Parasara], in which the customary
distinctions between varnas was not observed, should produce in Vyasa the epic's most respected
brahmana, its most authoritative teacher of the Veda and a paradigm of brahmanahood, is striking
indeed"'(1999:53).
This single episode is rich with ironies and dark wit. Let us recap.
Bhlsma, firstborn son of Ganga and Samtanu, is the natural heir to the
throne, as well as the most eminently qualified with wisdom, virtue, and
skill. But he, in a stupendous act of self-sacrifice, renounces his claims both
to kingship and to progeny in favor of his future stepbrothers, to facilitate
the marriage of his father with Satyavati. For this extraordinary act of
personal sacrifice, he earns the title of Bhlsma, the "awe-inspiring one."
The stepbrothers in favor of whom Bhlsma makes his sacrifice, however,
prove to be patently unproductive. Citrangada dies young in a duel with
a gandharva, remarkably enough of the same name. Victiravlrya, allegedly
of "colourful virility,"5 proves infertile even after many years of dalliance with
his wives; eventually, he dies, not having elevated himself or his family to
any heights of greatness. The Bharata women, then, are left to restore the
family from crisis.6 Satyavati takes the lead - Satyavati, the parthenogenetic
progeny of Vasu, birthed by a fish and reared by a fisherman, a sudra, and
herself therefore a sudra7 - this Satyavati takes the lead and devises a plan
for the future of one of the most illustrious ksatriya families of ancient
India. Reduced at first to pleading with Bhlsma to revoke his formidable
vow, a vow undertaken solely to serve her father's ambition, she must then
plot to save her dynasty from decline. This is the karmic circle come com-
plete. Satyavati still succeeds in her father's ambition, of seeing her family
line thrive, but the descent occurs through Vyasa and not through her
other sons, for whose sake Bhlsma had made his tremendous but ulti-
mately unfruitful sacrifice.8
Therefore, the argument that this scene is pivotal to the epic plot
should not require much substantiation. But it is crucial for other reasons
as well, for it is in this scene that Vyasa makes his famous pronouncement
that the eldest son of the Bharata clan, Dhrtarastra, will be born blind. The
significance of this pronouncement for the future of the Bharata clan can
hardly be overestimated. For although Dhrtarastra accepts his fate with
resignation, being powerless because blind, his son Duryodhana is not so
easily conciliated. In the next generation, Duryodhana refuses to yield to
5 This is from van Buitenen's (xviii) witty translation.

This is a theme that will persist in the epic: the widows Ambika and Ambalika save the dynasty
from extinction in this episode; Kunti saves the Bharatas in the next; Draupadi saves the Bharatas in
a different way in the generation that follows (by extracting them from the jaws of servitude to the
Kauravas); and Uttara saves the dynasty in the succeeding generation by bearing the only male heir,
Pariksit.
7 See, e.g., Jayatri Ghosh's essay on Satyavati.
In one of the Mahabharata s typically ironic reversals, Bhlsma the brahmacann, who himself can
father no children, becomes the custodial parent of three young boys and eventually the guardian
and grandparent of all of the Kauravas (Pandavas included). The paradox of the parenthood of the
barren Bhlsma against the renunciation of the highly fecund Vyasa is discussed by Sullivan (1991).
the injustice suffered by his father and is vocal about his determination to
resist it. Nor is he either powerless or blind. "As long as I am alive," he tells
Krsna during the latter's famous embassy for peace, "they will never get the
portion of the kingdom that my father once allowed them. . . . Even if this
kingdom was once given away, whether from ignorance or fear, when I was
a child and dependent, it can no longer be had by the Pandavas
as I am alive, I shall not surrender even as much as a pin-prick of our land
to the Pandavas!" (V.125.22, 24-26). At the heart of the Mahabharata
war, then, we have a very basic issue: that of a son who is intractable in
his insistence on his rightful inheritance-a patrimony that was denied his
father because of his disability. This is the good ksatriya fight before
which few can demur, which undoubtedly is one of the reasons why
Yudhisthira finds Duryodhana enjoying the delights of heaven at the end
of the narrative. The point to highlight here, however, is that this plot is
predicated on a particular sexual custom, and this is the practice of
niyoga. Had there not been the need for the women to have sexual inter-
course with an unfamiliar male, had the women not reacted to the
ungroomed appearance of the male, the mahabharata dynasty could not
have persevered as it did. The Mahabharata conflict could not have
occurred as it did, and the Mahabharata epic could not have been
written. It is to understanding this phenomenon that we must next turn
our attention.
NIYOGA
Niyoga is the custom of levirate marriage, a special provision in th

sexual ethics of ancient and classical India. It allowed for a woman to obtain
children through the instrument of another man, if her husband were
diseased, infertile, or otherwise incapacitated. M. B. Emeneau and B. A. van
Nooten point to the antiquity of the custom. Noting references to it in
the Rgveda, they remark on changing attitudes to the practice, as well as
changing interpretations of who was qualified to participate in niyoga
and who was not.9 P. V. Kane undertakes a similar history of the term
in his History of Dharmasastra. He points out that the practice, while
clearly customary, became increasingly contentious. Some Dharmasutra
theorists (such as Gautama) approved the practice as a compassionate
and pragmatic allowance. Others (e.g., Apastambha) condemned it as
9 They argue, e.g., that the term devara, later taken to refer specifically to the younger brother of
the husband, in its most ancient usage had a broader meaning. It could refer to any brother, older or
younger (Emeneau and van Nooten: 483-485). The term niyoga occurs in Rgveda 2.3.9, 3.4.9, 4.25.1,
10.42.2, 10.42.9, 10.85.44, and 10.160.3.
immoral. Yet others, such as Manu and Narada, approved it with

caution, stipulating rules that would distinguish it from general sexual
licentiousness.10
The practice of niyoga has distinguished mythic referents in the
Mahabharata and can be found to have bled into the idiom of the
epic's language. The metaphoric appeal of it is apparent in statements
that say that just as a woman, in the absence of her husband, accepts
the husband's younger brother in his place, so Earth, in consequence
of the refusal of the brahmanas, accepts his next-born, the ksatriya, for
her lord (XII. 73. 12). In the Bhargava Rama complex of myths, every
time the ksatriyas are obliterated from the earth, the ksatriya women
are said to have revived their lineages through niyoga with the
brahmanas (1.98.4-6). Niyoga is thus a well-established custom in the
Mahabharata, given the sanction of both myth and tradition. For a
variety of reasons, I argue that it belongs best within the category of
practices excused by apaddharma, the "law of distress." These are
practices that, while not exactly honorable or righteous, may neverthe-
less be performed with impunity in the case of absolute necessity. In
this instance, niyoga represents an apparent violation of the ethic of
sexual fidelity to one's husband. It is excused, however, because the
circumstances under which it is performed are exceptional and the
need for the survival of the lineage supersedes the mores of sexual
chastity.11
Niyoga is employed under two circumstances. If a woman's husband
proves infertile, then she may resort to another man approved by his
family to father children on her. Alternatively, if a husband dies before
impregnating his wife, then she may take the same recourse. Most
commonly, the men chosen are brothers or other relatives of the husband;
accomplished brahmanas, however, are highly sought after for their reputed
mental and spiritual tejas (splendor) and high ascetic accomplishments
(tapas).12 In either case, the practice of niyoga is designed to realize a
socially recognized need for people to produce children within the same
10 These rules include considerations such as the following, stated by Manu: (1) the husband,
whether living or dead, must have no son; (2) the gurus in a family council should decide to appoint
the widow to raise issue for the husband; (3) the person appointed must be either the husband's
brother or a member of the same caste and lineage; (4) the person appointed and the widow must be
motivated not by desire but only by a sense of duty; (5) the person must not speak with, kiss, or
engage in amorous merriment with the woman; (6) the relationship must end after the birth of one
son or, according to others, two; and so forth (Kane, 2: 599-607).
These arguments are more fully developed in my doctoral dissertation (2000).
Doniger (1995: 179) differentiates between the two types ot niyoga candidates as older and
"later" forms of niyoga.
patriline, perhaps out of concerns for inheritance and property issues.13

Often, the person who most keenly experiences this need is the infertile
husband.14 This is the case with Pandu, the father of the Pandavas
(see below). In other examples, it is Queen Madayanti's husband,
Kalmasapada Saudasa, who invites the rsi Vasistha to father children on
MadayantI (1.113.21); and it is Queen Sudesna's husband, Balin, who
invites the blind DIrghatamas for niyoga with his wife (1.98.17-32). In
these cases the infertile husbands recognize the need and take the
initiative in procuring partners for their wives. In other cases, particularly
when the husband is deceased, children are solicited by concerned grand-
parents. The most famous instance of this we have already witnessed in
the opening episode of this essay.
In the majority of cases from the epic, the initiative to niyoga is taken
by people other than the women themselves and the choice of partners is
made by these authoritative others. In the case of KuntI, Pandu takes the
decision for his wife to pursue niyoga, determines the criteria for partners,
and is vitally involved in the process by undertaking fasts and austerities.
Similarly, in the case of Ambika and Ambalika, their mother-in-law,
Satyavati, makes the decisions, solicits partners of her own choosing, and
makes all the attendant arrangements. The women themselves have very
little say in any part of the process. They function as passive instruments
for the will of husbands and affinal kin and are primarily viewed as the
means for the patriarchal family to achieve its own ends. The woman is
the field into which the husband's family plants the seed for the protection
of its own lineage. Niyoga performed under these circumstances, under
which women have no share in the decision making and are given no
choice, appears to excite terror and misery in the women involved. The
story of KuntI, read alongside the story of Ambika, Ambalika, and Vyasa,
will sensitize us to some of these points.
In brief summary, King Pandu (Ambalika and Vyasa's pale-faced
son), while out hunting in the forest one day, is cursed by a deer/sage to
die the next time he approaches either of his wives sexually. This creates a
critical problem because Pandu is thus deprived of the most obvious means
of reproduction. Initially, this news devastates him, and he is distressed
13 This is generally understood in relation to men, as formalized in Vedic tradition in the

institution of the "three debts" that all men owe, to gods, gurus, and ancestors. There is, however,
some indulgence for the maternal desires of widowed women. As Doniger remarks: "The brother has
a duty to give an heir to his dead brother, but also has a duty to allow the woman, his brother's wife,
to fulfill her own duty to produce a child." In these cases, niyoga is practiced at the initiative of the
widow herself and appears not to be a frightening or repulsive act (1995, 173).
This is not related to whatever means by which they have become unproductive; Pandu, for
example, is not literally infertile but is so for all intents and purposes.
enough to consider renouncing the world altogether. The forest sages,

however, propose the timely solution of niyoga (1.111.18-20), and Pandu
seizes on it with enthusiasm. But first he must persuade his elder wife,
KuntI, to agree to it, and this is no easy task. Pandu goes to some contriv-
ances to convince KuntI that what he is proposing is a meritorious act. First,
he outlines to her the legalities of the matter, telling her about the six types
of legitimate heirs that are possible (1.111.27-28). Next, quoting Manu, he
assures her that any child of hers would legally be considered a child of his,
and in this way, they could both enjoy the joy of children (I.I 1 1.31). Finally,
to fully legitimize his proposal, he cites the story of Saradandayini, a
bereaved widow "who, pious-minded and clean, chose an accomplished
brahmana, with a flower in the night at an intersection" (1.111.34-35). She
lived with this brahmana and with his help produced three heroic sons. "So
you too, auspicious one," Pandu concludes, "at my instruction, must at
once conceive a child from a brahmana of superior austerities" (I.I 1 1.36).
KuntI, however, remains unmoved. Notwithstanding the explicit
blessing of both tradition and husband, as well as the promise of mother-
hood, KuntI refuses Pandu's offer. "You yourself," she tells him, "will
father on me heroic sons according to dharma
thoughts shall I go to any man but you in my season" (1.112.3, 5). Quite
as deft in debate as Pandu himself, KuntI cites a counterstory to match
Pandu's. This is the story of Bhadra Kakslvatl, who, deeply aggrieved at
the death of her husband, through fantastic resolve succeeds in having
her husband return periodically to life to father seven worthy sons on her
(1.112.6-33). The women of the Mahabharata never being shy of stern
hardship for a higher cause, KuntI proposes a similar course of conduct
for herself (I.I 12.34). Pandu, however, dismisses Kuntfs counternarrative
as naive, and the battle of narratives continues. Pandu launches a fresh one,
on the subject of how women had lost their freedom in the first place
(1.113.3-20). This story has a somewhat sinister twist, concluding with
the statement that "a wife who is directed by her husband to conceive a
child but refuses, shall incur the same evil [as one who aborts a child]"
(1.113.18) - a most grievous sin. Pandu increases the pressure, asserting
authoritatively, "Those who know, know this for dharma that at every
season the woman may not avoid her husband. At all other times, how-
ever, the woman may exercise her own choice [svatantryam strl kilarhati}"
(I.I 13.25, 26). Finally, he makes an assertion that will brook no argument:
"Those who know dharma know, princess, that whatever a husband tells
his wife, whether righteous or unrighteous, she must do it" (1.113.27).
The ideal of the pativrata woman is thus invoked as the final word; Pandu
presses the entire patriarchal establishment of ancient India into the
service of his argument, alternately cajoling and bullying KuntI. Eventually,
however, in bleak acknowledgment of his own immense helplessness, he

is reduced to pleading. In a truly extraordinary gesture, the parallel of
which is hardly to be found in any of the Indian epics, he cries: "I raise
my folded hands to my head, looking to you for favor [prasada] . Following
my directive . . . you must give birth to virtuous sons by a brahmana of
superior austerities. Through your doing, I may walk the path of those
who have sons" (1.113.29-30).
In this episode, Pandu goes from cajoling, to threatening, to finally
actually pleading, and it is this last that moves Kuntl. She is persuaded by
this plea. She shares with Pandu a vital secret from her youth, that she is in
possession of a mantra that will compel any god to come and father chil-
dren with her, and the process leading to the birth of the Pandavas begins.
If the exchange between Pandu and Kuntl tells us nothing else, it
allows us to surmise that the prospect of niyoga at somebody else's behest
must have been extremely unwelcome to a woman, both because it vio-
lates norms of chastity and because women had no control over the choice
of partner. Kuntl was fortunate; unlike Ambika and Ambalika, she had a
magical formula. Her sexual partners were all of her own choosing,
picked in consultation with her husband. As far as it is possible to deter-
mine, she only had to cohabit with them one time, and the desired result
was achieved.15 Not insignificantly, Kuntl's partners were all divine lovers!
That is to say, they were all gods, and gods, as we know from other con-
texts, do not sweat, or blink, or register dirt or grime in any way, and
their feet never touch the earth when they move.16 Nor do they wear dirty
clothes or matted locks or emit objectionable odors. In contrast, Ambika
and Ambalika, as we have seen, were less blessed.
Yet even Ambika and Ambalika escaped lightly in the respect that
they were only required to share their beds for one single night. Women
blessed with less exalted partners were not so lucky. In the case of Balin's
wife, Sudesna, for example, the blind and aged ascetic Dirghatamas is all
but permanently adopted into the family. He lives with them at least long
enough to father twelve children, to the queen's dismay.17 Ordinary
women did not possess special mantras to call on beautiful, well-scented,
15 This was certainly, and less joyfully, the case in her premarital liaison with Surya, the sun god. In
that instance, Surya appeared immediately in response to her use of the mantra and, overpowering
her girlish fears with some threats and some bribery, lay with her once. This one coupling yielded the
child Kama.
These are useful criteria for distinguishing gods from ordinary mortals, vouchsafed to us in the
Nala-Damayanti story.
17 Eleven of these children were fathered on Sudesna's maid, in an echo of the events in the
Ambika- Vyasa story; finding the ascetic old, blind, and repulsive, Sudesna repeatedly sent her maid
to the sage until her husband finally discovered the truth. At that point, she was forced to yield and
lie with the sage herself (1.98.22-32).
well-laved gods. Entirely at the mercy of other people's decisions, women

in these episodes view niyoga as a terrifying and unpleasant event.
This is most probably why Satyavati chose not to prepare Ambika more
thoroughly for the important rite. It is likely that Satyavati, ever shrewd,
anticipated mutiny if she gave Ambika an accurate description of Vyasa. So
Satyavati, "the Truthful," was reduced to trickery. By mentioning that she
and Bhlsma had agreed on a measure, and by subsequently leaving the
identity of the "brother-in-law" undisclosed (where there was only one
brother-in-law of whose existence Ambika was aware), Satyavati deliber-
ately misled Ambika into expecting Bhlsma, until it was too late.18 Face to
face with Vyasa, Ambika was in no position to resist, and this is something
of which Satyavati must have been confident. It is no wonder that Pandu
had to go to such lengths to cajole KuntI into consenting to niyoga and no
wonder at all that KuntI should have resisted his appeals with such energy.
NIYOGA, SAGEHOOD, AND THE QUALITY OF COMPASSION

Given the above context, in which niyoga performed at the behest of
another is almost invariably an unpleasant experience, we need to take new
account of our central story and, more specifically, of the role of Vyasa. Our
discussion raises disturbing questions about the predilections and powers
of Ambika and Ambalika's nocturnal guest, thanks to whom they both end
up with children with congenital defects. Taken at face value, Vyasa's pro-
nouncements to the two young widows seem to be a gross overreaction on
the part of the rsi; less generously, they seem to reflect a singular lack of
compassion for human failing - or perhaps, women's failing. How should
one understand Vyasa's predictions to the two widows? We know of no
karmic principle dictating that women with eyes shut during intercourse
are born with blind children; are we to suppose that Vyasa's pronounce-
ments are a variety of curse? The conclusion seems inescapable that Vyasa's
conduct with the two widows is harsh and irascible, and we might ask why.
In what follows, I explore three possible lines of analysis. One leads us into
an investigation of Vyasa's relationships with women. Another refers us
to the possibility of a larger ritual context for Vyasa's actions. A third points
to the ethical issue of virtue in the Mahabharata and to an exploration of
the identity and purpose of its author, Vyasa. It is, I believe, this third
possibility that provides the most interesting and complex answer of all.
18 We even have some reason to speculate that Ambika might not have found Bhlsma unwelcome,
had that option presented itself. But that was not to be. Satyavatl's actions also may be interpreted as
a variety of dpaddharma, undertaken in a time of extreme distress and therefore not carrying the
same moral culpability.
Vyasa and Women

When first solicited for his favor by Satyavati, Vyasa demands that the
two women should undertake a yearlong vow of self-purification,
"because no woman may lie with me who has not submitted to a vow"
(1.99.39). Vyasa supplies Satyavati with no reasons for why this should
be. This might therefore be an opportune moment to raise the provoca-
tive question of Vyasa's relationship with women. It is impossible not to
note that throughout the text, is at pains to emphasize Vyasa's self-suffi-
ciency from women. The first woman in his life, his mother, Satyavati,
served only as the most rudimentary instrument for his birth. He was
conceived and born the same day, spending only a minimum amount of
time in the womb (1.54.2-4). Satyavati does not nurse him or rear him to
adulthood. He reaches maturity by his own mettle, independent of the
nurturing hands of women. As an adult, Vyasa remains celibate all his life,
except for the three occasions during which he engages in sex with
women, strictly under the dictates of duty. Earlier in his life the apsara
GhrtacI serves as the merest of womanly sexual inspirations for him
(XII. 31 1.1-10). His seed alone gives birth to his son Suka, whom Vyasa
rears by himself, independent of all female influence. When Suka reaches
adulthood, it is specifically Vyasa's discourses against familial and sexual
life that urge Suka toward renouncing the world and shunning the
entrapments of women and family (XII. 309). Then Suka's mastery over
himself is demonstrated precisely through his immunity to the women of
King Janaka's court (XII. 3 12). Finally, interestingly, it is specifically upon
sighting Vyasa that the nymphs of the celestial regions become embar-
rassed about their nudity and cover themselves. This scene has always
been interpreted as indicating that Suka has achieved moksa, whereas
Vyasa has not; is it possible that there are other messages encoded in it?
A hermeneutics of suspicion might therefore prompt the question: So
from what is it that women need to be purified? Womanhood? Vyasa is not
a renunciant, and by all conventions he should have a wife. Valmiki, for
example, the author of the Ramayana, is said to have a wife. Why must
Vyasa have no connection with women? It would seem that there is a pal-
pable ambivalence in Vyasa's interactions with women, to the point that
few of his exchanges with them can be considered straightforward.19 For
example, he makes a promise to his mother, on the very day of his birth
and departure from her, that he will return whenever she thinks of him,
19 One occasion on which Vyasa's compassion for a woman seems unmixed is with Kunti, in the
Asramavasika. When she confesses her secret (as both Mehta and Hiltebeitel [2001] exclaim about
another episode, to her creator, the author!) of having birthed a premarital child, Vyasa is wry and
forgiving (XV.38.1-18).
and he keeps it. But the boons he gives her are bewildering and mixed;
whereas she repeatedly demands an exemplary ruler for the Bharata king-
dom, he gives her two heirs, both decidedly flawed. His "grace" to
Gandhari reflects similarly inscrutable motives. As a reward for her hos-
pitality, he promises her 100 sons (1.107.7-8). But then he perplexes and
confounds her by letting her pregnancy continue unfruitfully for two full
years, to the point where Gandhari is so frustrated that she attempts an
abortion. At that point, divining her thoughts, Vyasa appears to make
good on his promise: Gandhari gets her 100 sons but, very crucially, only
after the eldest Pandava has already been born. Gandhari, who had con-
ceived a year before her rival Kunti, is thus left bitterly disappointed, and
Duryodhana in this way loses any entitlement he might have had to the
throne by virtue of seniority over the Pandavas. Further, even though he
is born through the explicit blessing of the great seer, his birth is marked
by ominous and evil portents (1.107.29-30).
In the showdown between Arjuna and AsVatthaman, Vyasa's attitude
toward women and their wombs seems cavalier at best; without any
apparent compunction, he accepts AsVatthaman's solution that his mis-
sile should be redirected from the Pandavas to the wombs of the Pandava
women (X.15.32), thereby rendering them all barren. The lives of widows
seem to be of no more concern: in the As'ramavasikaparva, Vyasa resolves
the question of what to do with the Kaurava widows by proposing that
they all drown themselves in the river (XV.41.17).
There are admittedly many ways of interpreting all the discrete
episodes mentioned above. Taken together, however, they seem to indi-
cate a theme that merits attention. Although it would be hasty to offer
any judgments at this stage, one might remark on the fact that the
destructive design of the narrative seems to move through the wombs of
women: Ambika's and Ambalika's in the first generation and Kunti's and
Gandhari's in the next, with Uttara and the other Pandava women's
wombs afflicted at the end of the war - all through the direct intercession
of Vyasa. And as the author of the text, Vyasa would seem to be the more
culpable.
Vyasa and Ritual

The above is one possible angle of analysis, but other interpretations
are also viable. If we return to the text, we see that after Vyasa makes
his demand that the women submit to a purification vow, his mother
brushes it away: Satyavati is impatient, and so Vyasa concedes that the
women must at least agree to bear with his looks and smell. What seems
to be suggested by this exchange of dialogue, and by the require-
ments stipulated by Vyasa, is that the niyoga is to be approached as a
ritual act, with the women expected to undertake some ritual prepara-
tion. It is possible that at the time of his mother's summons, Vyasa was
in the midst of some ritual undertaking, was, in other words, in a state of
being diksita or bound by the requirements of a ritual - a state that gen-
erally prohibits sexual activity. The insistence that the women undertake
vows may have been a compromise on Vyasa's part; because his mother
was impatient and unwilling to wait until his ritual commitments were
concluded, Vyasa's demands may be read as a way for the women to
enter into the sacred space with him, by voluntarily binding themselves
to appropriate conduct. The women thus are expected to bring to the act
the same kind of solemnity they might have brought to a more typical
ritual act - to a sacrifice, for example.20 Just as they would prepare
themselves through physical and mental purifications, observing vows
and limits, for a sacrifice, so they are expected to gird themselves men-
tally and spiritually for the act of niyoga as well. This did not happen
because SatyavatI neither understood the need for this ritual preparation
nor communicated it to her daughters-in-law. Hence the widows suf-
fered - not because of the sage's idiosyncrasy in this reading, but
because they had unwittingly transgressed the boundaries of some
important rite.
Vyasa and Virtue

A third line of analysis stems from considering the larger ethical teaching
of the Mahabharata. Whatever one may conclude about Vyasa's interac-
tions with women or about the transgression of ritual conventions, what
seems cl/ear is that the final message of this episode is a profoundly ethi-
cal one, about the nature of virtue. In the worldview being urged by the
Mahabharata, personal virtue supersedes all karman (ritual action) in
effectiveness, no matter how meticulously it is performed. Action per-
formed with detachment, with a solemn sense of duty, carries far greater
weight than all ritual action. In this episode this is clear from the fact that
it is a humble servant girl who is being valorized. The widows, never having
been properly instructed, seem oblivious to the ritual nature of the act,
and, indeed, it would seem from Ambika's anticipation of Bhlsma that
their minds approached the matter not without a very worldly desire.
The dasiy on the other hand, is an exact foil to the royal widows.
Although she also does not undertake any special preparations, she does
approach the matter with a resolute detachment, and this is the critical
20 We note, e.g., that Pandu, KuntI, and Madri all undertake purificatory rituals to prepare for
their niyogic work. Pandu, in fact, undertakes a yearlong vow before the birth of Arjuna.
difference. Her actions eloquently proclaim the broader message of the

Mahabharata, reiterated abundantly in the epic, that mental purity,
disinterestedness, undercuts the need for physical acts of purification
and, indeed, supersedes them in overall worth.21 Thus, though the dasi
cannot participate in ritual acts as the royal ladies are privileged to do,
she nevertheless accrues the benefits of those acts through her mental
equanimity - with virtue, outdoing the ritual privileges of the upper-
class women. She is the outsider who displays the perfection of the
insider's moral code.
From this perspective, it would seem that Vyasa's pronouncements to
the two widows are indeed a kind of curse - the women provoke the
sage's anger by their "fault of virtue [mdtuh vaigunyat]" (I.100.10).22 The
niyoga is a kind of test. Finding the women undisciplined in their behavior
and, indeed, lustful and desirous, he curses them to bear children reflecting
their own flaws. The blindness and pallor of Dhrtarastra and Pandu are
ultimately only metaphors for their inherent faults of indiscipline and
lust: Dhrtarastra's worldly attachments lead to tremendous catastrophe,
and Pandu's lack of self-restraint leads to his death.
This explanation, however, raises more questions than it answers,
for one is then left to puzzle why Vyasa, as a character in the work and
as author, should concern himself to such a degree with the conduct of
two relatively minor figures. Indeed, in this episode Vyasa functions as
the arbiter of fate in making his pronouncements, assigning dire conse-
quences for ritual and moral frailties. So who is Vyasa? What is his
interest in the maintenance of dharma? Why should he care enough to
be angered by two women's trivial and all-too-human offences?
AUTHOR AS TEXTUAL CREATION
In her article "The Character of Authorship in the Sanskrit Epics" (19

Barbara Stoler Miller makes some inviting suggestions about the r
tionship between the poetic moods in which the epics are immers
the legends surrounding their composers. Miller argues that the m
and legends surrounding the Sanskrit poets are coextensive with t
poetic works, often sharing the same diction, style, and flavor tha
works themselves employ. This is so to the point, in fact, that one
suppose that the legends are themselves the works of the poets: "
mythic structure of the legends sometimes complements the conte
language of the poetry so well that it is possible to imagine that the leg
21 This message may be found, e.g., in the Grta (II.45, 49).

22 Vyasa elsewhere admits his anger (1.61.78).
were self-consciously elaborated by the poets themselves" (Miller 1992:

106).23 The legends surrounding the poet replicate the dominant rasa or
aesthetic flavor of the poetic work, and in this sense, "these texts 'create'
their authors" (Miller 1992: 106).24 The most obvious example is that of
the Ramayana.25 Whereas the dominant rasa (flavor) of the Ramayana is
said to be karuna (compassion), the legends surrounding the poet Valmiki
stress the quality that generates compassion: a deeply empathetic sharing
of another's experience of loss, which flavors his entire work with the
mood of bereavement and separation, as captured in the opening nar-
rative of the two Kraunca birds.26
If we take our cue for analysis from Miller's observations, we might con-
sider what the dominant flavors of the Mahabharata might be and propose
to read the personality of the Mahabharata s author in tandem with the text.
Prima facie, the text seems most to evoke the rasa of virya (heroism), and
there is, of course, no dearth of material in the text to support that interpre-
tation. Several generations of critical scholarship on the Mahabharata has
tended to view it in this way, that the Mahabharata was originally a "heroic"
work, onto which later interpolators grafted their own religious agendas.27
The Indian tradition, however, at least since the time of the ninth-century
Anandavardhana's aesthetic analysis, has tended to view the Mahabharata
as a text whose predominant flavor, perhaps counterintuitively, is that of
santi (tranquility).28 In Anandavardhana's analysis the richly emotional
heroic and tragic modes of the text are ultimately meant only to stimulate
the listeners' consciousness to such an extent that they come to realize the
futility of all worldly attachments.29 This densely compacted and intense
experience of life in the microcosm serves to prepare one for the calmness,
the sage equanimity, that bespeaks true spiritual understanding.
It would be difficult to substantiate the supposition that "texts create
authors" if the Mahabharata were interpreted primarily as a tale of
viryarasa. Although the narratives surrounding Vyasa do, of course,
23 Miller notes, however, that "textual evidence is uniformly against this" (1992: 106).
24 A similar point seems to be intended by Doniger when she says: "The choice of ... author tells
us a great deal about the text's image of itself; the nature of the author is appropriate to the nature of
the text" (1993: 31).
25 Miller explores this further in "The Original Poem" (1973).
Zb Whether the mate is male or female is debated. See Julia Leslie (1998).
Recently, this perspective has been elaborated by Yaroslav Vassilkov, who argues that the epic
originally possessed a "heroic didactics" onto which "Hinduist" ideas were later imposed (1999).
In Anandavardhana's analysis, supplemented by Abhinavagupta's commentary, santarasa
represents the hidden essence of the epic, whereas the worldly values represented by the other rasas
have a "preliminary and vincible position (purvapaksa) ... fit to be ignored" (Masson and
Patwardhan: 107). See also Bhattacharya and Tubb (1992).
29 In Abhinavagupta's commentary, "The description of the life of the Pandavas etc., gives rise to
vairdgya [the mood of renunciation]; vairagya is at the base ofmoksa" (Masson and Patwardhan: 108).
concern themselves with the heroic mode, on the whole Vyasa's counsel in
the Mahabharata rarely involves exhortations to war. Both in the epic
and in the broader tradition Vyasa is overwhelmingly associated with lit-
erary, intellectual, and religious work. In the handful of narratives sur-
rounding Vyasa in the epic itself,30 Vyasa is most often found counseling
people on religious matters, providing them solace or advice, and facili-
tating their religious education. We might then examine the content and
flavor of his teaching. What worldview does Vyasa promote? What values
does he represent?
There have been some studies focusing on Vyasa in the epic,31 and
Hiltebeitel's recent work discusses the contribution of Vyasa to the edu-
cation of Yudhisthira. To my knowledge, however, there is no systematic
analysis of the import of his teaching. Scholars have often viewed Vyasa
as a paradigm of pravrtti values (values encouraging continued engage-
ment with the world)32 or, at the very least, as advocating a pravrtti orien-
tation in his teaching, particularly to Yudhisthira, whom he insists should
take seriously his responsibilities in the world. Indeed, the lengthy education
of Yudhisthira has led scholars to propose that the Mahabharata itself is a
pravrtti text.33
Although there is no doubt that Vyasa does insist on Yudhisthira
shouldering his burden of kingship and, in many contexts, seems to pro-
mote pravrtti values,34 I cannot agree that Vyasa represents the pravrtti
path at all, much less that the Mahabharata does so. In my view, this is a
text that consciously articulates a "middle path" between pravrtti and
nivrtti (the path renouncing the values of the world), seeing the conven-
tional forms of both as ultimately inadequate. This is part of what makes the
Mahabharata innovative, even revolutionary.35 Its teaching of karmayoga
is intended to dissolve the polarity between pravrtti and nivrtti through a
path of scrupulously performed, detached action. Thus, though
Yudhisthira is no doubt counseled to continue performing his duties in
the world, he is to do it with the crucial difference that he renounce personal
self-interest.36 It can hardly be dismissed as an accident, for example, that
when Yudhisthira is given a thoroughgoing education on all aspects of
30 Mehta counted a rough thirty; Hiltebeitel (2001: 46), a more exact forty-one.
31 See, e.g., Sullivan 1999, Mehta, and Hiltebeitel 2001.
32 See Sullivan 1999: 34-43. Fitzgerald and Hiltebeitel contest this view but do not offer an
alternative analysis.
See, e.g., Mehta.
* Indeed, at one point Vyasa actually loses his temper with Yudhisthira (XIV.3.1-10); and he
seems to promote pravrtti, e.g., through his advocacy of and participation in sacrificial rituals.
35 These are arguments I have developed in better detail elsewhere (2000).
36 This is, of course, precisely Krsna's instruction to Arjuna as well, in the Gita episode.
statecraft in the Santiparva, the moksadharma section, the teaching on

personal salvation, is positioned at the end, representing the culmination
of his education, the final word.
Beyond this, one might look at other episodes that highlight Vyasa's
pedagogy. For example, although Vyasa is said in several instances to be
teaching the Vedas to his students - an activity that might be viewed as
reinforcing pravrtti themes - his most extended and most earnest teach-
ing is of his son, Suka. This would therefore seem to be Vyasa's highest
teaching. The content of Vyasa's instruction of Suka is very much that of
moksadharma: Suka is urged to leave worldly attachments behind and to
pursue soteriological goals single-mindedly (XII. 309). 37 Similarly, one of
Vyasa's other sons, the only one born through Vyasa's sexual pleasure
and with his explicit blessing, is Vidura, "the Wise." In episodes where
Vidura counsels people, the theme of his counsel is almost invariably that
of practicing the equanimity, balance, and mental discipline that are condu-
cive to santi. This is particularly so on Dhrtarastra's night of restless anxi-
ety (V.33-41), when Vidura "sends his thoughts" (V.41.7) to the sage
Sanatsujata, who instructs Dhrtarastra further on moksadharma (V.42-
45). Ultimately, although the telling is less spectacular than that of the
story of Suka, Vidura also achieves the peace sought by Suka. He
renounces the world and enters into Yudhisthira's body as the essence of
Dharma (XV.33).
There is, then, a good case to be made that much of Vyasa's teaching
is localized around the realization of santi, achieved through the assidu-
ous practice of karmayoga.38 Focusing more specifically on our title epi-
sode, there can be no doubt that the lesson being taught here is that of
karmayoga. The hero of this story is the young dasi who, less blessed her-
self in status and material privilege, is yet possessed of an equanimity and
grace worthy of the most accomplished spiritual masters. She represents
in this episode the highest ideal of the tradition, as it is rehearsed through
various characters (all Vyasa's characters): the pativrata (III. 196), the
butcher (III. 197-206), the merchant Tuladhara (XII.254)- a stoic
resolve to karmayoga. Time and again, while the upper classes maintain
their pride of social and ritual status, ultimately it is the equanimity, the
37 Vyasa says, e.g., "What use have you of wealth, relatives and children, when you are going to die?
Seek out your soul, which is hidden in a cave. Where have all your forefathers gone?" (XII. 309. 7).
One might dispute how well Vyasa is able to achieve santi himself - as scholars have pointed
out, Vyasa suffers from emotional attachments himself and exhibits moral failings (this is observed
in Sullivan 1999). Doniger characterizes Vyasa thus: "Vyasa is worldly; he wants a manly son, and he
is vulnerable to nymphs; he is a fire-maker, a hot character, a sacrificer rather than a renouncer"
(1993: 41). But that Vyasa holds the moksadharma ideal of equanimity as the highest value in his
teaching seems indisputable.
balance, the santi, of the karmayogin, however lowborn, that emerges as

religiously superior.
It would seem by this argument, then, that Vyasa's actions in this episode
are tendentious and put forward somewhat brutally the ideal of karmayoga.
But again, we have the question of why Vyasa should care. What is his
concern with ordering dharma and fate in this narrative?
AUTHOR AS GOD, GOD AS AUTHOR
From many angles it is tempting to read the Mahabharata as something

of a Vyasa-/z7a on the Puranic theological model of the Ilia of God, who origi-
nates the world out of the spontaneous and exuberant overflow of his own
joyfulness.39 Below, I would like to explore whether this reading is tenable.
The special relationship between the poet and the divine is, of course,
ancient in Hinduism; it is crucial to the Vedic worldview, in which the
poet is the extraordinarily gifted visionary who can hear the eternal pro-
cesses of the universe and, in his poetry, re-create it for his listeners. Several
scholars have more specifically suggested the relationship between Vyasa
and God in the Mahabharata™ and Hiltebeitel (2001: 33-91) takes this
the furthest, drawing, with reference to Foucault and Ricoeur, suggestive
connections between the author function and the God function, noting
that the two Krsnas echo each other in a number of scenes, often rein-
force and endorse each other, and seem to share many common pur-
poses. Is there anything one might add to understanding this knotty and
perplexing relationship that, in HiltebeitePs playful image, winks at us
from every corner and angle of the text?
We are told at several points in the text that God (Krsna Vasudeva
Narayana) is the author of all - the author of time and, indeed, time itself
(V.I 10.20), the source of the universe (V.129), the source of all beings in
the universe (V.129.1-15), and also their end (Gita 11.32).41 God, there-
fore, is the originator of the universe and all that is contained in it. By
their own logic, such statements affirm that God is also the author of the
author of the Mahabharata, that is to say, the meta-author; as he creates
all in the universe, so he also must create the creator of our text. Yet, in
39 Regarding lila, I propose as much in "Mystery, Play, and Polymorphism in the Fourth Book of
the Mahabharata' (2001). Further, Mehta speaks of Vyasa as "worthy of the deconstructive
lugubrations of a Derrida" (111). Any discussion of play and free play, of course, must again conjure
up the hovering host of Derrida.
40 See, e.g., Mehta, Hiltebeitel 2001, and Sullivan 1996, 1999.
Regarding time, see Vassilkov s comments on kalavada in the Mahabharata. Hiltebeitel (1976)
draws attention to the different modes of these theophanies in The Ritual of Battle.
the Mahabharata (as also in the Ramayana), we can never forget that
God himself is, in fact, a character of the author Vyasa (and in the
Ramayana> of Valmiki) and that the powers and functions he represents
are endowed on him by the author.42 The author, Vyasa, by virtue of his
creative control and direction of his artistic work, controls, directs, and
indeed authorizes the activities of God (even where God is said to autho-
rize the creative work of the author). Thus, while God is said to create the
author and, indeed, to solicit the creative activity of the author, the
author creates God in his literary work, and in a closed textual world we
can know of no God other than that vouchsafed to us by the author. This
mutual circle of authority can never be breached, creating a unique self-
contained, "interactive" process of text.
The relationship of author to God and God to author in a literary
work in which both author and God participate as characters has the
effect of creating a circularity of reference that richly evokes resonances
of the organic and cyclical processes of time, of the endlessly recurring
nature of the universe, of the continual creation and destruction of the
universe, creation containing within it the certitude of destruction and
destruction harboring within it the promise of regeneration. Within the
theistic strains developed by the text, all allusions to God inevitably
point to the author - imply, suggest, and indeed implicate the author - and
all consideration of the author similarly bespeaks God. Who comes first?
Who is secondary? Indeed, is there a duality? Is it not the case that the
personality and identity of God who is a character in the author's text
are really only the creation of the author and that, in fact, the real God,
the most absolute and powerful God, is, in fact, the author himself, the
author both of himself as a character as well as of God?43 Is the author
not ultimately a metaphor for God? Note, for example, that the author
ultimately is also responsible for the death of Krsna, the death of God.
Vyasa perseveres in the text, but God dies, and his death is devised,
necessitated, achieved, by the plot (plotting?) of the author.44 This deep
play makes for an inexhaustible text, in which interpretation is never
finished.
42 In this sense, Foucault's remarks about the author as existing outside the text, preceding and
transcending it, do not encapsulate the reality of the Sanskrit epics. In the epics, the author is
coexistent with the text, existing before, alongside, within, and after his creation.
Indeed, Vyasa is stated to be one form of Krsna in the Gita. (10.13) and again later in the
Mahabharata (XII.334.9).
44 Mehta asserts in relation to Vyasa that Krsna is the only reality "transcending his authorial
grasp, not at his disposal" (110). As Hiltebeitel (2001: 89) has noted, this is arguable. Krsna, as a
character in the Mahabharata, is clearly authored by Vyasa and ultimately also disposed of by him.
VYASAASGOD
To highlight this issue, we might draw attention to the fact that

the author of the Mahabharata not in one simple sense but, inde
least three. First, he is the composer, the poet, the kavi extrao
The Mahabharata epic is his creation. Real or imagined, the cha
are his, and the events are his; he is the master narrator, the poet c
of the misadventures of the Bharatas. Second, Vyasa is also the
the great Bharata clan. That is to say, at a time when the Bharat
in danger of expiring into oblivion, it was his seed that regener
rejuvenated it. All future Bharatas must henceforth claim him
progenitor, their biological parent; it is his creative agency that
the entire generation of warring cousins. He is in this sense the
the mahabharata, the Great Bharata clan. Finally, in relation to t
ing premises of this discussion, let us not beat about the bush a
Vyasa is also the author of the entire Mahabharata war. It is h
demnation of the elder Bharata widow that gives birth to the en
flict. The elder, most rightful heir by the prevailing conve
primogeniture was Dhrtarastra, the son of Ambika. But his leg
claim to the throne was denied because of his disability, and t
passed on to his younger brother Pandu. Dhrtarastra's son Dur
will not let us forget that in his perception it is the Pandavas wh
usurpers. In his view the patrimony rightfully belongs to him
father's disqualification from his inheritance on account of his
was a travesty that he is not content to have repeated on himself. V
the direct cause of his father's disability; from whatever angle one
he is the inescapable agent provocateur, the seed of the conflict.
Vyasa is thus triply the creator of the Mahabharata in all of
ious meanings, as epic text, heroic lineage, and cataclysmic
Mahabharata world is quintessential^ Vyasa's creation. He is its o
material (biologically), efficient (as the instigator of the confl
transcendent (as the author of the text). These theological meta
appropriate because Vyasa's role in the text replicates that of G
Isvara, God creates the world, refashioning it from existing materia
it new form, new shape, and new ethos, then this activity is par
Vyasa, creating his epic out of preexistent themes, now richly r
and recast with new particularities, novel form. If, as Brahma
the source, the raw substance of which the world is made, the u
essence of all, so then the children of Vyasa, the post- Vyasa Bha
all of the stuff of Vyasa, born of the same generative seed that bin
all in biological fraternity. If, as avatara, God acts in the world, so t
also have Vyasa, the poet sage who imagines the world, brings
creation, and then writes himself in as one of the participants of the

drama. It is his actions as a participant in this drama that have the most
impact on future events. Specifically, I argue, it is his pronouncements to
the two Bharata widows that set the parameters for the activities of all
future generations of the Bharatas.
The description of the Mahabharata as a Vyasa-/z7a is thus not quite
apposite, for the Mahabharata can hardly be termed free play - spontane-
ous, random, joyous; it can also hardly be described as a free play because of
its tendentious didacticism. The teaching of karmayoga is urged repeatedly,
and those who do not learn it suffer. Perhaps, then, we should speak not of a
free play but of a controlled play, a play that follows some scripts, a skeletal
script, perhaps, but calls for considerable improvisation on the part of the
characters.45 It is in this sense that we can best understand Vyasa's claim that
in cursing the two widows he was "impelled by fate [vidhi]" (1.100.8). It
would seem that, as "Fate" (which, from the characters' perspective, is
responsible for Dhrtarastra's blindness and Pandu's sickliness), he carefully
constructs the context for the happenings of the text. Beyond that, however,
he leaves considerable room for maneuvering. The contingent elements are
all there, but how they grow, and in which direction, is not predetermined;
the final outcome of the play is never assured and is left to the actors to
determine, through their intercourse with each other.46 Thus, we have room
for a doctrine of karmic retribution. This is why God himself is uncertain as
to which way it will go.47 Will there be a war, or is it possible to avoid it? This
is determined by the actors' mutual interactions, by the relationships they
build with each other over the course of the drama, and by the directions in
which they improvise as each new situation occurs. God, then, as writer and
creator, while he has a master script, must himself wait to see in which
direction his epic will develop. In this sense, he becomes the arbiter of fate.48
CONCLUSION
What I have attempted here is an analysis of one key episode of the

text. A discussion of the social elements allows us to appreci
45 The metaphor of a script is also used by Julian Woods.

Hiltebeitel makes the same point in a different way with his artful image of "sideshad
"The palpable tension between contingency and determinism opens the field of
possibilities. At every point we are given the possibility of many stories. No story is ever
story. Every version has another version" (2001: 38).
47 Matilal points this out in his "defense" of Krsna.
48 It is not my intention here to make any definitive statement about the Mahabharata
on free will or destiny. As Nick Sutton notes, "The epic's view of this matter is
straightforward" (367) and not always consistent. Indeed, perhaps a straightforward v
possible for the Mahabharata, and that may be part of its genius. See also Woods.
human dimensions of the story and to realize what is at stake: in this

case, the demands on women to engage in intercourse with rough and
frightening strangers for the sake of perpetuating a patriarchal lineage.
A reflection on the literary values of the scene allows one to glimpse
the larger principles being drawn. Given the social realities, it is evident
that Vyasa in this scenario visits a singular cruelty on these women.
Why is Vyasa cruel? I have offered some suggestions: the possibility of
an implicit misogyny, the exigencies of ritual consecration, and the
didactic karmayogic purpose of the text. I incline toward the last inter-
pretation. A literary approach to the text intimates that, apart from the
exigencies of advancing a plotline, there is an implicit but consistent
pedagogy in Vyasa's apparently enigmatic actions. The niyoga episode,
like numerous others in the text, is designed as a test of virtue. The
first two women failed because they were too much motivated by their
own desires and expectations. The ddsi excelled because she was free of
all desire and aversion, acting simply on the premise of duty. In my
view, this is the insistent and fundamentally subversive pedagogy of
the Mahabharata, which goes no small way to explaining why so
many of the most loquacious spokespeople of dharma are humble
characters.49
Nor should we forget that Vyasa himself, the author and the character,
is of mixed parentage. This cannot be a coincidence and is surely meant
to reinforce the perspective that while ritual action and social hierarchies
have their place in the orderly functioning of society, moral resilience
must always outweigh them. The one endowed with wisdom (the Gitas
sthitaprajna), who understands righteousness and serenity and knows
that these qualities lie in the disinterested performance of duty, can interrupt
all ritual conventions, all social hierarchies, and emerge morally superior.
It is this moral lesson that lies at the heart of this tale of two widows and
one smelly sage; the author-sage, Lord in his own domain, chastens the
worldly and rewards the wise, recognizing equanimity, balance, and
serenity as the hallmarks of virtue. Niyoga, then, might be seen as a meta-
phor for the Mahabharata as a whole, in that it represents a disruption of
the ideal order. It is through the disorder that ensues that there emerge
opportunities for the perfection of true virtue.
49 This is a theme I explore in a forthcoming article.
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The Subversive Nature of Virtue in the Mahābhārata: A Tale about Women, Smelly

Ascetics, and God

The REFLECTIONS CONTAINED in this article stem from an off-

Greatly dismayed, SatyavatI protests vigorously: "A blind man is not

5 This is from van Buitenen's (xviii) witty translation.

Niyoga is the custom of levirate marriage, a special provision in th

immoral. Yet others, such as Manu and Narada, approved it with

patriline, perhaps out of concerns for inheritance and property issues.13

13 This is generally understood in relation to men, as formalized in Vedic tradition in the

enough to consider renouncing the world altogether. The forest sages,

however, in bleak acknowledgment of his own immense helplessness, he

well-laved gods. Entirely at the mercy of other people's decisions, women

NIYOGA, SAGEHOOD, AND THE QUALITY OF COMPASSION

Vyasa and Women

Vyasa and Ritual

Vyasa and Virtue

difference. Her actions eloquently proclaim the broader message of the

AUTHOR AS TEXTUAL CREATION

In her article "The Character of Authorship in the Sanskrit Epics" (19

21 This message may be found, e.g., in the Grta (II.45, 49).

were self-consciously elaborated by the poets themselves" (Miller 1992:

statecraft in the Santiparva, the moksadharma section, the teaching on

balance, the santi, of the karmayogin, however lowborn, that emerges as

AUTHOR AS GOD, GOD AS AUTHOR

From many angles it is tempting to read the Mahabharata as something

To highlight this issue, we might draw attention to the fact that

creation, and then writes himself in as one of the participants of the

What I have attempted here is an analysis of one key episode of the

45 The metaphor of a script is also used by Julian Woods.

human dimensions of the story and to realize what is at stake: in this

49 This is a theme I explore in a forthcoming article.

"The Mahabharata: An Epic of Santarasa." In

Dhand, Arti "Poison, Snake, the Sharp Edge of a Razor: Yet

"Echoes of the Mahabharata: Why Is a Parrot

1995 "Adultery and Surrogate Pseudomarriage in Hin-

Fitzgerald, James Review of Sullivan 1990. Journal of the American

Foucault, Michel "What Is an Author?" In Textual Strategies: Perspec-

Ghosh, Jayatri "Satyavati: The Matriarch of the Mahabharata."

In Essays on the Mahabharata, 101-109. Ed. by Arvind

2001 Rethinking the Mahabharata: A Guide to the Education

Kane, P. V. History of Dharmasastra. 5 vols. Delhi: Motilal

Leslie, Julia I. "A Bird Bereaved: The Identity and Significance of

Santarasa. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research

Matilal, B. K. "Krsna: In Defence of a Devious Divinity." In Essays on

Mehta, J. L. "Dvaipayana, Poet of Being and Becoming." In The

1992 "The Character of Authorship in the Sanskrit Epics."

Sukthankar, V. S.,Mahabharata, 19 vols. Crit. ed. Poona: Bhandarkar

Sullivan, Bruce M. "The Epic's Two Grandfathers, Bhlsma and Vyasa." In

1996 "The Unworshipped Avatara: Vyasa's Relationships

1999 Seer of the Fifth Veda. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Sutton, Nick Religious Doctrines in the Mahabharata. Delhi: Motilal

Tubb, Gary "Santarasa in the Mahabharata" In Essays on the

"Kalavada: The Doctrine of Cyclical Time in the

Woods, Julian Destiny and Human Initiative in the Mahabharata.

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