THE MAHĀBHĀRATA’S SOCIOCULTURAL
IMPACT IN INDIAMichel Danino
(micheldanino@gmail.com)
Presented at a seminar on “The Mahābhārata: Its Historicity,
Antiquity, Evolution & Impact on Civilization”, New Delhi, 26 &
The Mahābhārata is
not just a gripping
epic and a great
teaching of Dharma.
It is also a mine of
anthropological
information.
Left: Some of the
states mentioned in
the text.
(Source: K.S. Valdiya,
Geography, Peoples
and Geodynamics of
India in Puranas and
Epics, 2012)
1. Ethnographic data in the
Mahābhārata
• Socially, the Epic presents a mixed society: numerous
different languages, cultures, rulers and regions.
• 363 people are listed on different occasions, as janas or
jātis.
• Jana = people, especially those forming a state.
• Jāti = a community of people, basically a segment of a
jana (e.g., Kirātas, a jana, have several jātis).
• The Epic does not distinguish between caste and tribe,
in fact has no concept of a tribe in the usual sense, which
is a colonial construct. (Neither do the Purāṇas.) K.S.
Singh: “There is hardly any evidence to show that in the
collective consciousness of India there is any difference
between the two sets of janas.”
The janas appear in the Epic (after R. Shafer,
1954):
• as part of geographical lists — 231
• the digvijaya list (Yudhiṣṭhira’s victories won by
his four brothers in the four directions) — 212
• those paying tribute to the Pāṇḍavas — 296
• those part of army formations — 158
• other data — 108
The 363 janas are defined:
• in geographical terms (with reference to
“Jambudvīpa”). Some of the regions are regarded
as holier than others, for instance the Kuru-Pañcāla
and Matsya.
• in political terms, territorial units such as
janapadas, varṣas or rāṣṭras.
• In ecological terms: living in mountains (Khasas,
Haimavatas, Arbuadas, Vindhyamulakas...), near
rivers (Kausijakas, Saindhavas...), from deserts
(Marudhas...), from pastoral lands (Pasupas,
Govindas...).
• Janas in the East: Angas, Vangas, Kiratas, Chinas,
Pundras...
• Janas in the North (Himalayas): Trigartas, Khasas...
• Janas in the West: Daradas, Pisachas, Vahilkas,
Yadavas, Surashtras...
• Janas in the South: Cholas, Pandyas, Keralas,
Andhras, Dravidas, Karnatas, Mushakas...
• Janas in the Northwest: Pahlavas, Sakas, Hunas,
Yavanas, Kambojas ...
2. The Mahābhārata and the making of
India
“Everywhere I found a cultural background which had exerted
a powerful influence on their lives. This background was a
mixture of popular philosophy, tradition, history, myth, and
legend, and it was not possible to draw a line between any of
these. Even the entirely uneducated and illiterate shared this
background. The old epics of India, the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata and other books, in popular translations and
paraphrases, were widely known among the masses, and every
incident and story and moral in them was engraved on the
popular mind and gave a richness and content to it. Illiterate
villagers would know hundreds of verses by heart and their
conversation would be full of references to them or to some
story with a moral, enshrined in some old classic.”
Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, p. 67.
Mechanisms of integration
• Repeated attempts (in the Epic as in early history) to
build empires.
• Marriage alliances across janas.
• Storytelling (e.g. Harikatha) traditions often received
royal patronage.
• Complete freedom was given to local cultures to adopt,
adapt, transpose, translate, re-create the two Epics.
• Creation of a sacred geography related to the Epics.
• Overall, an organic process beyond the control of a
caste or political power. The result was the cultural entity
called India, and the thought and belief system called
Hinduism (which may be defined as the interface between
Vedic and regional folk and “tribal” cultures).
The Mahābhārata and the South
• In the Epic, Cholas, Pāṇḍyas, Dravidas are often
mentioned.
• Sarangadhwaja, king of the Pāṇḍyas, fights in the war
on the side of the Pāṇḍavas.
• In inscriptions, Chola and Chera kings proudly claim
descent from the lunar or the solar dynasties.
• An inscription records that a Pāṇḍya king led the
elephant force in the Great War on behalf of the
Pāṇḍavas, and that early Pāṇḍyas translated the
Mahābhārata into Tamil (the translation is lost).
• The first named Chera king, Udiyanjeral, is said to have
sumptuously fed the armies on both sides during the
Bhārata war.
“Pancha Pāndavar”
hero stone, Benagudi
Shola, Nilgiris (Tamil
Nadu), maintained by
Irula tribals to
commemorate the
Pāndavas’ passing
through the area.
• Near Kodaikanal, a few caves bear the name of “Pancha
Pāndavar Pārai”, “the rock where the five Pāndavas
[stayed]”.
• Numerous Draupadi shrines in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
• Folk traditions of the South generated numerous
retellings of the two northern epics in the form of popular
ballads, some of which have been preserved in
manuscripts.
• In Tamil Nadu alone, a recent survey (by A.A. Manavalan)
enumerated “about a hundred versions [of the
Mahābhārata] that have come down to us in folklore
forms”.
• From the ninth century at least, a few inscriptions record
the grants of “lands and revenue for poets and discourse
scholars on Mahābhārata.”
The Mahābhārata and the Northeast
• The two Epics have left numerous landmarks in the
region. The Kirātas correspond broadly to the IndoMongoloids of the Northeast.
• Prāgjyotiṣa: founded by Naraka and his son Bhagadatta
(who fights Arjuna in the Epic). Bhagadatta is a historical
figure: he is mentioned in inscriptions, such as the Nalanda
seal of Bhaskaravarman.
• After the war, Arjuna goes out to Manipura on a mission
to placate the Nāgas and marries Ulūpī.
• A tradition identifies Ghaṭotkacha, Bhīma’s son from
Hiḍimba, with the Kachhari kingdom in Assam (whose
capital Dimapur was a corruption of “Hiḍimbapur”).
• The Bodos have a tradition of having given Rukmini, a
Kirāta woman, to Krishna. They claim Bhagadatta and
Hiḍimba among their ancestors.
• K.S. Singh: “If the Bodos have a view of their
relationship with pan-Indian traditions, this cannot be
described as something imaginary, but has to be seen as
people’s efforts to link with historical traditions.”
• Ajay Mitra Shastri: “Ancient Pragjyotisha or the NorthEast had very intimate relations with the rest of India, of
which it was an integral component, geographically and
culturally, despite its own distinctive culture and physical
elements.”
The Mahābhārata and Kashmir
• Kalhana’s Rajatarangini traces the origin of Kashmir’s
kings to Gonand I, a contemporary of the Great War.
• Krishna is portrayed as helping the widow queen
Yaśovati ascend the throne after the king’s death in a
war.
• Jammu has numerous traditions related to the Epics
and a folk version of the Mahābhārata. There is a
tradition of Nāga worship which claims that a Nāga tribe
lived there; Arjuna came, married Ulūpī and lived there
for some time.
• Some of the tribals there worship the Pāṇḍavas and
Draupadī as ishtadevata.
Conclusions on the Epic’s
ethnography
• A rich human tapestry thriving on endless diversity, but
united through certain ethico-cultural concepts, such as
dharma, mutual respect.
• No separate status for “tribes”.
• K.S. Singh: “The Mahabharata notion of jana or people
of a territory still endures. ... People continue to identify
themselves with the epic traditions, associate places with
the visits of the epic heroes and to recall people’s own
role in the growing and developing epic traditions. This
may be bad history but it is good myth and therefore good
anthropology. ... Indians are reported to have relatively
large eyes. This may me because our eyes are popping all
the time; there is so much beauty, so much diversity to
behold!”
3. Can the Mahābhārata’s
ethnographic landscape help date
the Epic?
• In the 3rd / 4th millennium (a “traditional” date such
as 3100 BCE), the Northwest is in the Early Harappan
phase, which is hardly reconcilable with the Epic.
• As per current archaeological record, this phase is
free from weapons of war, armed conflicts and
military structures.
• It is a phase of convergence, not of disintegration
as reflected in the Epic.
In the 3rd / 4th
millennium, the
Ganges valley is in
the Neolithic, pre-iron
era, with rural
communities slowly
spreading and
establishing
networks. This
appears incompatible
with the listing of
numerous competing
sociopolitical units
with an advanced
material culture.
Map: First-millennium BCE sites in
north India: compatible with the Epic’s
sociopolitical context.
The 16 Mahajanapadas or "proto-republics"
This is true also of
central, east,
northeast and
south India, where
material cultures
are even more
rudimentary in the
3rd / 4th millennium.
Map:
first-millennium
BCE sites
elsewhere in India
• A date in the 3rd / 4th millennium BCE for the Epic’s
events would demand a massive amount of re-creation
and embellishment — so massive that those events might
as well be taken to be fiction.
• The Mahābhārata’s ethnographic map belongs either to
the late 2nd or the early 1st millennium BCE — more likely
the latter, if we consider the archaeology of east,
northeast and south India in particular.
• It bears repeating that the Epic’s ethnographic
landscape is intimately woven into its very fabric — the
lists of janas cannot be mere “interpolations”.
French historian Michelet on India’s
Epics
“India, closer than us to the creation, has better preserved
the tradition of universal brotherhood. She inscribed it at
the beginning and at the end of her two great sacred
poems, the Ramayan and the Mahabharat, gigantic
pyramids before which all our small occidental works must
stand humbly and respectfully. When you grow tired of this
quarrelsome West, please indulge in the sweet return to
your mother, to that majestic antiquity so noble and tender.
Love, humility, grandeur, you will find it all gathered there,
and with such simple feelings, so detached of all miserable
pride, that humility never even needs a mention.”
Le Peuple (in the 1860s)