Towards a Non-Anthropocentric Vision of Dharma: Violence, Nonviolence, and the Non-Human World in Arun Kolatkar’s Sarpa Satra (Snake Sacrifice)

What is Arun Kolatkar’s reading of Janamejaya’s snake sacrifice and the burning of the Khandava forest, as depicted in the poem, Sarpa Satra (2004)?  If the poem describes the snake sacrifice as “cynical,” a “mockery”, and a “grotesque parody” of a yajna, what would constitute a true, proper yajna?  Why does Jaratkaru advise Astika to stop the sacrifice, not for the sake of the Nagas, but to save “the last vestige of humanity”?  In addressing these questions, I will argue that although Sarpa Satra seems to present an anthropocentric understanding of dharma (in which human beings should live and let other species live), there are materials in the poem that suggest the contours of a non-anthropocentric vision of dharma (as that which sustains and promotes all life and the earth), an ideal that is more fully developed in the critical edition of the Mahabharata.