when in Sarala’s narrative he knew right from his childhood that he was his brother? Why was he so focused on killing him? In the Kurukshetra War brothers didn’t kill brothers; cousins were the targets. Incidentally in Vyasa Mahabharata too Karna was no less determined to kill Arjuna. It is just that he got to …
WHAT DID SARALA SAY ABOUT THE PURPOSE OF HIS COMPOSITION?
He said more than once in his Mahabharata that he was born to write Vishnu Purana. He repeatedly called his composition “Vishnu Purana”. For him the story of the Kurus was worth telling because it gave him the opportunity to describe the lila of Vishnu in his avatara as Krishna. His Mahabharata incorporates episodes from …
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RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS, COMMENTS AND OBSERVATIONS
Some of my friends and well-wishers, quite a few of whom I have not yet had the opportunity to meet, have asked me questions and made comments and observations on Sarala Mahabharata in their correspondence with me over a period of time. I am grateful to them for their interest in Sarala Mahabharata and for …
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YUDHISTHIRA IN SWARGA
When Yudhisthira reached the top of Himagiri, he saw around him four distant, tall, snow-clad mountains which, he had heard from the sages, were sacred: one was associated with the Sun god, the other three with Indra, Ananta Narayana and Shiva. Above him was the sky, and above the sky was swarga. The top of …
THE KILLING OF KARNA
In a significant sense his mother Kunti had killed him before the Kurukshetra War started. Indra had done so even before. In the guise of a brahmin. Responding to the pleadings of his son, Arjuna, he had taken away from him his divine protections, which were part of his body. He had to tear open …
THE DEATH OF ARJUNA, NAKULA AND SAHADEVA
There was nothing dramatic about the death of Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva in Sarala Mahabharata. Unlike Bhima’s death. Weak, hungry and tired in the extreme, these three brothers were unable to cope with the terrible weather in the snowy, windy Himalayas and one after another Sahadeva, Nakula and Arjuna in that order slipped as they …
BHIMA’S END
Bhima was surprised, worried and pained at Yudhisthira’s words which were plain, unambiguous, unkind and harsh - the language that truth often uses. Yudhisthira had just condemned the dying Draupadi as the cause of the Great War that had destroyed the Kauravas, who were his brothers, and their relatives, who were the Pandavas’ relatives too. …
THE STORY OF ALAKSHMI
This story is not from Sarala Mahabharata. It is from a minor puranic work in Odia, entitled Kartika Mahatmya, which was composed by the eighteenth century poet Mahadeva Dasa. The concept of Alakshmi embodied here is creatively different from the same in the classical texts. Once, on being asked to compare between Lakshmi and Alakshmi, …
RESPONSES TO SOME OBSERVATIONS ON "INTRODUCING SAARALAA MAHAABHAARATA"
Some who have read Introducing Saaralaa Mahaabhaarata, have written or spoken to me about a few things concerning the book. I am rephrasing and organizing some of them and am responding to the same here:One: One misses a concluding essay or section or at least some concluding remarks. On that account one feels a sense …
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FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION
Jadavpur University (Department of Comparative Literature), Kolkata has just published (2013) the book Retelling As Interpretation: An Essay on Sarala Mahabharata (123 pages), which contains my essay with the same title, responses to it by Professor Pratap Bandyopadhyay (Literature), Professor Vrinda Dalmiya (Philosophy), Professor Syed A. Sayeed (Philosophy), my response to these, and the piece …
Sarala Mahabharata 