INDIA. PART II. rival of the Pán padi at the house perversion of the manical inter According to the tradition as it appears in the HISTORY OF Mahá Bhárata, the Pándavas conducted Draupadí to the house of their mother Kuntí, and told Kuntí Scene on the arthat they had gained an acquisition; upon which davas and DrauKuntí desired the brethren to share the acquisition of Kunti. amongst themselves. Here an undue stress has been Brahmanical laid upon the words of Kuntí by the Brahmanical words of Kunti. compilers. Kuntí is said to have been under the impression that her sons had brought home a large stock of provisions, and therefore commanded them Proofs of Brahto share the food equally amongst them. It is also polation. added that when she discovered that they had brought home a damsel, she repented of her words, as being opposed to religion and morality; but that she could not recall her commands, because having once issued them her sons were bound to obey. This is palpably a Brahmanical interpolation. The brethren were not accustomed to divide provisions, for that duty was always performed by their mother. Moreover, they did not share the provisions, for one half went to Bhíma, and the remaining half sufficed for all the others. Again, Kuntí could scarcely have spoken to her sons without seeing Draupadí also; and, again, it is mere Brahmanical jesuitry to infer from the law that the commands of a mother are always to be obeyed, the childish fallacy that a mother cannot recall or modify her commands. It is, there- Natural interfore, safer to adopt the more natural interpretation, Kunti directed namely, that the Pándavas took Draupadí home to amongst them. their mother, and told her that Arjuna had won the damsel at her Swayamvara; and that Kuntí had then desired her sons to share the damsel amongst them as their joint wife, according to the institution of polyandry. pretation that Draupadi HISTORY OF INDIA. PART II. pretation confirmed by the sequel of the tradition. Acknowledg ment of the right ther to choose a wife for the family. The sequel of this tradition entirely bears out this interpretation. It can be reconciled with the Natural inter- theory that the marriage of one wife to many brothers was an existing institution, but not with the view which the Brahmanical compilers have endeavoured to convey, namely, that such a marriage was so exceptional as to be a shock to the social sentiments of the period. Arjuna took Draupadí by the of the elder bro- hand and laid her at the feet of Kuntí; and then plainly indicated the right of the eldest brother to choose a wife for the family by declaring that Draupadi was worthy of being espoused by Yudhishthira. It is also stated that every one of the brothers felt an equal desire to marry Draupadí; but remembering that her father Drupada had some Voice in the matter, they considered it advisable to delay the actual marriage until the Raja could be Draupadi treat- consulted. Accordingly, Draupadí seems to have Marriage rites deferred until Raja Drupada could be consulted. ed during the interval as a damsel betrothed to all five brothers. been treated during the interval as a damsel who was virtually betrothed to all the brothers, though Divides the vic- not actually married. Thus when the victuals were in the place of prepared for the evening meal, Kuntí resigned her tuals at supper, Kunti. duty of dividing the food to her new daughter-inlaw, according to the accustomed form; and Draupadí seems to have undertaken the duty with all the self-confidence of a lady who was henceforth to occupy the most important place in the household. She distributed the victuals to her husbands expectant, and smiled as she gave so large a proportion Arrangements to the voracious Bhíma. When the evening meal was over, Draupadí retired with her mother-in-law, and slept by her side all night; a natural arrangement which precisely coincided with the extraordinary relations in which she stood towards the for the night. INDIA. PART II. family. The careful delicacy of Hindú bards as HISTORY OF regards betrothed maidens is also exhibited in describing the next day. Yudhishthira and his brethren proceeded to the city of Kámpilya in one chariot, whilst Kuntí and Draupadí were conveyed in a chariot by themselves. The remainder of the story calls for no remark. The rights of Yudhishthira as the eldest brother were fully recognized by Raja Drupada; and with the exception of a few mythical objections, none of which were raised by Draupadí, the narrative of the marriage of one damsel to five brethren reaches a natural conclusion. the in connection troduced to wipe away the stain from the early Hindús. very of polyandry traditions of the Myth of the wofive times to man who prayed Siva for a good The Brahmanical myths which have been intro- Mythical stories duced in the Mahá Bhárata for the purpose of ex- with Vyasa in plaining away the polyandry may now be briefly indicated. When the Pándavas were on point of setting out for the Swayamvara, the mythical Vyása suddenly appeared to them, and told them a ridiculous story of a woman who prayed to the husband. great god Siva five times for a good husband; upon which the god said that as she had prayed five times, he would give her five husbands in a future birth. Vyása added that this woman had been born again as Draupadí, and that the five brethren were destined to marry her. Again, when Raja Drupada was conversing with Yudhishthira about the marriage, Vyása makes his appearance in a very abrupt manner; and the mythical reception accorded to the sage, the enthronement upon a golden seat with all the Chieftains standing round him with clasped hands in token of reverence, furnishes a significant contrast to the mortification which Raja Drupada had expressed in a previous portion of the more authentic tradition at seeing his daughter Draupadi led away INDIA. five Pandavas HISTORY OF by a Bráhman. On this occasion Vyása again rePART II. peated the divine story, and also related another Myth that the myth to the effect that the five Pándavas were in were five Indras. reality five Indras, or five incarnations of Indra, and consequently the same as one man. Raja Drupada and the Pandavas are of course represented as being perfectly satisfied with these absurd explanations. * Objection of Dhrishta-dyumthat the the winner One objection, however, was raised against the claim of Arjuna proposed marriage, which is more worthy of notice. the Swayamat Dhrishta-dyumna is said to have urged that Arjuna the right of Yud- had fairly won Draupadí at her Swayamvara, and eldest brother. that therefore Yudhishthira had no right to interfere vara, set aside hishthira as in the matter. This objection was answered by Yudhishthira himself, as it directly affected his rights as the eldest brother. Yudhishthira appealed to his mythical birth as being an incarnation of Dharma, or virtue; and declared that if the proposed marriage had been repugnant to religion it would have been Significance of equally repugnant to his own conscience. This strained defence made by Yudhishthira, although palpably mythical, seems to indicate that there was some force in the objection, and that there was some the objection. 2 The myths indicated in the text occupy a very considerable space in the Maha Bharata, but they are so wild and unmeaning, so palpably the depraved products of diseased imagination, that it would be worse than useless to reproduce them at length. Draupadi is said to have been an incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu; and she and her brother Dhrishta-dyumna were not born in the natural way, but were produced from a sacrificial fire kindled for the purpose by a holy Rishi. As for the myth of the five Pandavas being five Indras, it is simply trash. It is based upon the legend already referred to in the foot-note at page 70, which gives a divine origin to the Pandavas, and especially states that Indra was the father of Arjuna. By some untranslatable process a portion of Indra's energy becomes transfused into the fathers of the other four Pandavas, and thus all the five Pandavas are declared to be his incarnations. The myth, however, is not only absurd in itself, but fails of its intended object; for whether the Pandavas were the sons of Indra, or the sons of different gods, the fact still remains that three of the brothers were born of one mother, and two of them of another mother, and that all of them were married to one wife. 3 See ante, p. 126. INDIA. PART II. Question of whe ther the Sway belong to a later opposition between the institution of polyandry and HISTORY OF that of the Swayamvara. The question is certainly one of difficulty, for it is by no means impossible that the institution of the Swayamvara was of a more amvara did not modern origin than the institution of polyandry, and period. that the narrative of the Swayamvara might have been introduced at a later period to cover the polyandry. The question, however, is not an important one, and may be left in the uncertainty from which it cannot be cleared. who attended of Draupadi; its racter. Two remaining points in the tradition, as it ap- List of the Rajas pears in the Mahá Bhárata, are also deserving of the Swayamvara notice. A catalogue of all the Rajas present at the matchaSwayamvara has been preserved, but it is so palpably the product of a later age that it is useless for purposes of criticism. Sovereigns from the remotest quarters of India are said to have attended this little domestic festival; until it would seem as if the names of the ancestral heroes of every Raja throughout the Indian continent, real and mythical, had been inserted in the list of suitors by the Bráhmanical compilers. The task of interpolation was indeed easy, whilst every reigning Chieftain would be highly gratified at finding that his ancestor was associated with the heroes of the Mahá Bhárata, and had been a candidate for the hand of the heroine of the national Epic. Krishna; its racter. The interference of Krishna seems to be another Mediation of myth, which is connected with the later worship of mythical cha that hero. One object of the Brahmanical compilers was to promulgate the worship of Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu. Accordingly the rude and amorous warrior of the Yádava tribe is frequently introduced in the Mahá Bhárata as a |