In Search of Vyāsa: the Use of Greco-Roman Sources in Book 4 of the Mahābhārata

1 IN SEARCH OF VYĀSA: THE USE OF GRECO-ROMAN SOURCES IN BOOK 4 OF THE MAHĀBHĀRATA F WULFF ALONSO 2 © Fernando WULFF ALONSO In Search of Vyāsa: The Use of Greco-Roman Sources in Book 4 of the Mahābhārata 2020. This book can be freely copied and distributed for no commercial uses. Licence Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) Cover: Jaime Wulff 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book* has greatly benefited from the patience and curiosity of several people. I am especially grateful to the scholars who participated in the seminars held at the Universities of Rome-La Sapienza, in particular Raffaele Torella, at Cardiff University James Hegarty, at the University of Seville Alberto Bernabé Pajares, and Greg Wolff at the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London. I would also like to thank Cardiff University and the Institute of Classical Studies for accepting me as a visiting researcher. Other people who have been essential to the production of this book are Alf Hiltebeitel, Andrew Morrow, Nick Trillwood and my colleagues at the University of Malaga. I would also like to express my gratitude for the anonymous and, so often, thankless labour carried out by countless colleagues who generously make our work possible by curating the collections found on several key online databases such as, GRETIL (Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages), University of Heidelberg’s DCS (Digital Corpus of Sanskrit) and Perseus Digital Library of Tufts University. And finally, there are two people who have been absolutely pivotal to this book. The first is Elena Ortuño and the second is my recently departed brother, Carlos, who worked diligently to smooth out my prose and make this book seem as though it were written by a native English speaker. His daughters, my dear nieces, know what an honour it is for me to personally dedicate this book to him and his memory. * The book is part of the Project “Las fuentes grecorromanas del Mahābhārata: metodos de utilización, fuentes y delimitación cronológica”, financed by the Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia, of the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad of Spain, HAR2016- 74930-P. 4 “…Well, good-bye: I have enjoyed our conversation very much, I assure you”,- ”Conversation, indeed!” said the Rocket. ”You have talked the whole time yourself. That is not conversation”. ”Somebody must listen,” answered the Frog”, and I like to do all the talk- ing myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments”. ”But I like arguments,” said the Rocket. ”I hope not,” said the Frog complacently. ”Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same opinions”. Oscar Wilde, “The Remarkable Rocket”, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, Ballantyne, Hanson and CO., London and Edinburgh, 1888, p. 108. “What do you say to the leading philosophers of the faculty here, to whom I have offered a thousand times of my own accord to show my studies, but who with the lazy obstinacy of a serpent who has eaten his fill have never consented to look at planets, to moon or to telescope? Verily, just as serpents close their ears, so do these men close their eyes to the light of truth. These are great matters; yet they do not occasion me any surprise”. Galileo Galilei, Letter to Kepler, August 19, 1610. Karl Von Gebler, Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia, London, C. K. Paul and Co., 1879, p. 26. “Here, again,” continued Goethe, “the Greeks were so great, that they regarded fidelity to historic facts less than the treatment of them by the poet. We have, fortunately, a fine exam- ple in Philoctetes, which subject has been treated by all three of the great tragedians… In this subject, the problem was very simple, namely, to bring Philoctetes, with his bow, from the island of Lemnos. But the manner of doing this was the business of the poet, and here each could show the power of his invention, and one could excel another. Ulysses must fetch him; but shall he be known by Philoctetes or not? And if not, how shall he be disguised? Shall Ulysses go alone, or shall he have companions, and who shall they be? In Aeschylus there is no companion; in Euripides, it is Diomed; in Sophocles, the son of Achilles. Then, in what situation is Philoctetes to be found? Shall the island be inhabited or not? And, if inhabited, shall any sympathetic soul have taken compassion on him or not? And so with a hundred other things, which are all at the discretion of the poet, and in the selection and omission of which one may show his superiority in wisdom to another. Here is the grand point, and our present poets should do like the ancients”. Johann Peter Eckermann Conver- sations with Goethe, London, Smith, Elder, & Co., 1906, vol 1, p. 353 (Wednedsday, 31 January, 1827). 5 Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................... 3 INTRODUCTION 9 1. A Strange and Fascinating Book and Its Greco-Roman Sources ........ 9 2. Methodological Perspectives .......................... 11 3. Fourteen criteria ................................ 18 4. Final Remarks and the Organization of this Book ............... 23 1 ONE YEAR IN THE COURT OF KING VIRĀṬA 27 1. Preparing One Year at the Court of King Virāṭa ................ 28 2. The Pāṇḍavas Go to the City of Virāṭa and Hide Their Weapons in a Tree by the Cremation Ground ............................ 31 3. The Pāṇḍavas Enter the City and Dwell There in Disguise ........... 33 4. Kīcaka is Killed by Bhīma ........................... 34 5. Arjuna Defeats the Kaurava Cattle Thieves and the Pāṇḍavas Free Virāṭa’s Herds 43 6. Virāṭa Gives Arjuna His Daughter for His Son, Abhimanyu .......... 50 7. Two Non Canonical Texts ........................... 53 8. Some Final Notes on Book 4 .......................... 54 2 THE STORY OF OMPHALE AND HERACLES 59 1. An Introduction on Sources and Transmission ................. 59 2. The Story of Omphale and Heracles: Context ................. 74 3. Omphale and Heracles: The Main Storyline .................. 78 4. Transvestism and Something More ....................... 80 5. Omphale and Heracles in Ovid ......................... 85 6. Some Stories within the Story ......................... 91 7. A Final Note .................................. 100 3 COMPARING TWO STORIES 102 1. Preparing for One Year in the Court of King Virāṭa .............. 103 2. The Pāṇḍavas Go to Virāṭa’s City and Hide Their Weapons in a Tree by the Cremation Ground .............................. 108 3. The Pāṇḍavas Enter the City and Dwell There in Disguise ........... 111 4. Kīcaka Is Killed by Bhīma ........................... 115 5. Arjuna Defeats the Cattle Raiding Kauravas and the Pāṇḍavas Retrieve Virāṭa’s Herds. .................................... 129 6 6. Virāṭa Gives His Daughter in Marriage to Arjuna, Who Accepts Her For His Son Abhimanyu. The End .......................... 131 7. Six Essential Traits of the Whole Story ..................... 133 4 EXPLORING METHODS, EXPLORING V. 138 1. Some Bizarre Traits ............................... 138 2. Towards V.’s Method. Textual Uses ...................... 142 3. Towards V.’s Method. A Whole Common Draft ................ 147 4. Towards V.’s Method. Concentration of Different Sources ........... 152 5. Towards V.’s Method. Use of a Given Source and Its Dissemination ...... 155 6. Towards V.’s Method. The Use of Different Works by a Specific Greco-Roman Author: Ovid ................................ 167 5 EXPLORING METHODS: USING CHARACTERS. THE DIRECTION OF THE BORROWING 169 1. Towards V.’s Method. Using Characters .................... 169 2. The Direction of the Borrowing ........................ 179 6 BOOK 4: A GLOBAL VIEW OF ITS CONSTRUCTION 193 Introduction .................................... 193 1. Preparing for One Year in the Court of King Virāṭa. The Story of the Deer- Dharma ................................... 198 2. The Pāṇḍavas Journey to Virāṭa’s City, Hiding Their Weapons in a Tree by the Cremation Ground .............................. 204 3. The Pāṇḍavas Enter the City and Dwell There in Disguise ........... 208 4. Kīcaka Is Killed by Bhīma ........................... 212 5. Arjuna Defeats the Cattle Raiding Kauravas and the Pāṇḍavas Recover Virāṭa’s Herds .................................... 224 6. Virāṭa Gives Arjuna His Daughter for Arjuna’s Son, Abhimanyu. The end .. 227 7. A Final Note .................................. 230 CONCLUSIONS 231 1. Some Conclusions ............................... 231 2. In Search of V. A Note on His Sources ..................... 242 3. In Search of V. Final notes ........................... 243 APPENDIX 1. REVISITING PREVIOUS INTERPRETATIONS. A SHORT OVERVIEW 251 1. The Dominant Paradigm ............................ 251 2. Unitarian Perspectives ............................. 256 APPENDIX 2. A FINAL NOTE ON TWO OTHER GRECO-ROMAN SOURCES 271 1. The Transvestite Achilles in Lycomedes’ Royal Court on Scyros ....... 271 2. Meeting People: Aphrodite and Anchises, Sudeṣṇā and Draupadī ....... 273 BIBLIOGRAPHY 277 7 List of Figures * 1 Omphale with Heracles’ lion skin. Coin of Phokaia. IV Century BCE. Cleveland Museum of Art .......................... 70 2 Omphale and Heracles. Marble statue. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. Roman copy of a Greek original .................. 81 3 Omphale and Heracles. Mosaic of Liria (Spain). Museo Arqueológico Na- cional, Madrid. III Century CE ....................... 83 4 Omphale and Heracles. Pompei wall painting. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. I Century CE ....................

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