This session responds to the Presidential Theme for this year, addressing the Mahābhārata’s depictions of serving or marginalized classes – the dāsīs, the sūtas, the hunters and butchers and fisher-folk – emphasizing their roles as exemplars of wisdom and dharma. Performance of one’s dharma is a major theme of the text and our session considers the significance of such performances of virtue. This session also addresses the literal and figurative "handcrafting" of Mahābhārata, by authors ancient or modern who contribute in original ways to leave their mark on retellings of epic narratives. Papers on Vidura and Ekalavya are complemented by a paper on the “Act of Truth” statements.
The Mahābhārata presents itself as a Veda for those excluded from privilege and as a dharmaśāstra. The wisest character is the author’s biological son Vidura, who is born from a śūdra woman. Because of his birth, Vidura is systematically excluded from having a say in dharma and from questioning his standing in life, even though he is the very incarnation of Dharma. Scholars (Kantawala 1995, Goldman 1985, Hiltebeitel 2001) have focused on the episode of Dharma being cursed to be born from a śūdrayoni (MBh 1.57.80d, 81b, and adhyāya 101), but in this paper, in keeping with this year’s Presidential Theme, I focus on the plight of Vidura, the paradigmatic political outsider. I trace the epic’s argument that privilege uses dharma in a legalistic, unethical way and delegitimates those who oppose its abusive power. Vidura the outsider is a witness to how Hāstinapura insiders conducted politics, but also Justice personified.
The Ekalavya episode in the Mahabharata occupies one short chapter in the lengthy epic. In this brief narrative, Ekalavya is the ambitious son of a Nishada chieftain, who is deeply wronged by the Brahmin Drona and the Kshatriya Arjuna. Like many portions of the epic, it is a living story that continues to speak in modern India, but it speaks to different audiences in very different ways. This paper explores the narrative first as it appears in the Sanskrit Mahabharata, and then how three contemporary groups of situated readers have portrayed the story: middle-class Hindus (represented by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar), Dalits, and members of the modern Nishad class.
The Act of Truth is a distinctive type of verbal expression performed in moments of crisis, and the Mahābhārata includes many instances of it. A consistent feature of the Act of Truth is the speaker’s citation of past actions performed well, and the imperative statement that based on that past performance a desired outcome must occur. The verbal formula is used to protect, to heal, to revive the dead, and even to kill. Comparison of the Act of Truth with other related speech acts (the curse, boon, and vow), and a few examples from Buddhist literature, reveals that they are all based on a shared ideology of the power of truthful speech. This paper draws on speech act theory, including its analysis of performative utterances, to examine the religious meanings and uses of the Act of Truth in the Mahābhārata as demonstrations of virtue and power.