A Final Response to Philipp A. Maas, “Negotiating Efficiencies: Human Sacrifice, Karma and Asceticism in Jantu’s Tale of the Mahābhārata.”

Vishwa Adluri, Hunter College, New York

Interpretation of the narrative and using intertextual connections as evidence I disagree that “the occurrence of the word ‘jantu’ in the KU and in Shankara[’]s commentary” does not “help to understand the MBh passage under discussion.” On the contrary, it is highly relevant. The term jantu’s resonances in the Kaṭha Upaniṣad permit us to understand the philosophical dimension of the narrative. It suggests that an important philosophical argument is being worked out in the narrative rather than the kind of jostling for political authority between Brahmanism and śramaṇa traditions you see in the text.

Even if you are not interested in philosophical questions, it is disingenuous to suggest that “Shankara interpreted the Upanishads from the perspective of Advaita Vedanta many hundred years after these works were composed. His approach is not historical but philosophical, which is fully justified, but his testimony does not help to determine what the works he comments upon meant at the time and in the contexts of their composition.” Is it really credible that Śaṁkara, interpreting the Mahābhārata some centuries after it was composed, did not correctly understand the Mahābhārata, while you, writing two millennia later, do? Can you seriously claim that Śaṁkara is not aware of the history of the text (although you are), while being ignorant of the intertextual connections between this narrative and the Kaṭha Upaniṣad? Isn’t the real reason that you claim a long period of development that it is only on this premise that you can claim that Śaṁkara’s interpretation is not relevant, and that yours, on the contrary, has greater objectivity?

The notion that only the contemporary scholar, applying the historical-critical method, has access to the true or the most original meaning of the text is deeply rooted in

1 modernity. It is at the root of both Rudolf von Roth’s disparagement of the tradition1 and Heinrich von Stietencron’s claim to having exclusively attained pure objectivity.2 But it is erroneous all the same. Without looking at the narrative’s resonances in other sources, without considering the history of reception or interpretation of the text in question, and without being aware of the narrative’s function in an economy of meaning underwritten by the literary unity of the Mahābhārata, you will be unable to understand the Jantūpākhyāna. The narrative, as I have shown, is connected with the decision in the Sabhāparvan to perform the Rājasūya sacrifice. The Rājasūya is a pravṛtti rite, and the Mahābhārata is deeply skeptical of pravṛtti. This applies in a special way to the maximization of pravṛtti that is svarga. I also pointed out that the upākhyānas are connected with the main narrative as “mirror stories” or vantage points for reflecting on the fates of the protagonists of the Kuru narrative. The sacrifice of the one son to obtain a hundred sons obviously recalls the partitioning of a lump of flesh to produce the hundred Kauravas. At a minimum you would have to evaluate the debates over sacrifice versus action that continue on into the Udyogaparvan (e.g., at Mahābhārata 5.43).

1 “Thus, the holy books of the ancient peoples were clarified by later centuries according to the dominant systems of theology of the time and according to the higher or lower condition of science in general. Indeed, they were clarified in such a way that this interpretation pretended to be the tradition [itself], that is, it claimed an antiquity and a prestige for itself that it, in truth, did not always possess. Nor has it occurred to anyone, for example, to make our understanding of the Hebrew books of the Old Testament dependent upon the Talmud and the rabbis. In contrast, there is no lack of people who consider it the duty of a conscientious Veda interpreter to translate according to Sâjaṇa, Mahîdhara, and others. Thus, we do not hold as H. H. Wilson does, that Sâjaṇa understood the expressions of the Veda better than every European interpreter, [and] that we hence have nothing more to do than to repeat after him. Rather, we hold that a conscientious European interpreter can understand the Veda more accurately and much better than Sâjaṇa. We do not consider it our immediate task to attain that understanding of the Veda that was prevalent in India a few centuries ago; rather, we seek the meaning that the poets themselves placed in their hymns and sayings.” Rudolf von Roth, “Vorwort,” in Otto Böhtlingk and Rudolf von Roth, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg: Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1855), v, cited and translated in Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, The Nay Science: A History of German Indology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 394. 2 “The analytical thinking of Western scholars trained in historical and philological methodology stood in contrast to the traditional Indian commentators. The latter not only generously harmonized all the disjunctions in the text but, above all, attempted to recognise in particular passages of the text their own philosophical and theological concepts. This was done in order to secure for themselves the divine authority of Kṛṣṇa. In this manner, several philosophical schools developed Gītā interpretations of their own—a spectrum that has been further expanded through politically motivated, modern interpretations since the beginning of the Indian independence struggle.” Heinrich von Stietencron, “Editor’s Introduction,” in Angelika Malinar, Rājavidyā: Das königliche Wissen um Herrschaft und Verzicht (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1996), 6–7. See also Adluri and Bagchee, The Nay Science, 296–97 and 436.

2 Interpretation of the critical edition and using unproven assumptions as evidence I am puzzled by this remark: “In my view, the final redaction(s) of the MBh, which would be the archetype(s) of all manuscripts, is/are the result of a single authorial/redactorial intention. It is, however, improbable, in my view, that the comprehensive literary material was created anew for this occasion. I would rather assume that a lot of material (written and/ or oral) was reused, rearranged, and adapted to the intentions that guided the composition of the MBh.” What is the evidence for a “final redaction(s) of the MBh”? And what is your proof for identifying this supposed redaction with “the archetype(s) of all manuscripts”? The archetype is by definition the latest common ancestor of all the manuscripts collated for that edition. It has nothing to do with a “redaction,” final or otherwise. Merely because it occupies a prominent place on our stemma, as a singular exemplar that happens to have been the ancestor of all surviving copies, we cannot concede that it was particularly authoritative or that it was unique (i.e., that there were no other copies in circulation) or that the tradition was plural above the archetype (as it is below it). You assume all three to be the case, even declaring that “a lot of material (written and/ or oral) was reused, rearranged, and adapted to the intentions that guided the composition of the MBh?” But what is your evidence that there was all of this material and what is your evidence that all of this material emptied itself into one exemplar? What is your evidence that there was only one? Merely because the stemmatic method reconstructs a codex unicus? And if “reused” was this material also transformed? And if significantly transformed into a literary unity, what exactly is this “history” you are positing? A sort of bibliography of sources?

It would take too long to explain the numerous errors in your argument here. I have instead uploaded a document (a draft of the introduction to our new book, Philology and Criticism) here: http://tinyurl.com/PhilCrit. You will understand your error once you read it. It is a common enough mistake: it can also be found in the work of Georg von Simson, Johannes Bronkhorst, James L. Fitzgerald, and Andreas Bigger. But it is no less grave for that reason. You may wish to be more careful in future about making such claims of the critical edition.

3 Factual errors and reliance on non-existent authority I will not repeat the many other problems with your paper that I pointed out in the earlier responses. I do, however, want to note the reciprocal dependence of your thesis upon positing a long period of composition and of the hypothesis of a long period of composition upon reading the epic fragmentarily and without attention to either literary context or to intertextual references. By not paying attention to the meaningful connections between upaniṣadic and smṛti or purāṇic literature and by not paying attention to the meaningful connections between the different books and episodes of the Mahābhārata you are able to facilitate the impression of a lack of coherence and this, in turn, is used as evidence of the heterogeneous nature of “Brahmanism” and of the long period of composition or uncontrolled expansion of Indian texts. I have still not seen a single argument to justify the assumption of a long period of composition. I have also not seen any independent verification of Hopkins’s 400 BC to 400 AD dates. Please do look into the different secondary sources I highlighted in my responses. Biardeau as well as Heesterman have shown how crucial the question of the relationship between the sacrificial and renunciate paths is to Brahmanism—with or without Buddhism. The repeated occurrence of this question in the Mahābhārata reflects a tension interior to varṇāśramadharma. It is not completely solved until the formulation of the bhakti ideal, which requires a lot of philosophical work before it can emerge in the text.

I understand that these statements—a coherent intellectual project that, to be sure, works itself out in successive stages, but is always guided by internal problems or questions, and a coherent philosophical development that culminates in the ideal of purāṇic Hinduism— are at odds with what most German Indologists hold (Paul Hacker is a good example; a link to my article is here: http://tinyurl.com/Paul-Hacker). But I think you should appreciate that the problem here is not so much that the evidence gives rise to contradictory interpretations, but that historical criticism and philosophical interpretation have opposing aims. Historical criticism emerges from Protestant theology and carries forward the latter’s agenda of separating the text from its interpretive tradition and the spiritual meaning from the literal. The emphasis on the literal rather than the salvific meaning on the text is a consequence of Luther’s doctrine of sola fide (i.e., one is saved

4 by faith alone). The search for realia, which are supposed to hold the key to a correct (literal) interpretation of the text, is itself a consequence of this theological transformation. The search for layers in the text corresponds not only to Protestant literalism or to the need to dismantle the canon but also to the fundamentalism of Luther’s theology. There is a real dis-ease with acknowledging that there is a coherent intellectual development that can be traced from the Vedas and Brāhmaṇas through to the Purāṇas, and not some kind of degeneracy or corruption, especially when that development hints at the overturning of the sacrificial order.

I was distressed with your usage of historical-critical reconstruction for reasons that had nothing to do with the Mahābhārata. Historical criticism was anti-Judaic in its very inception. If you want to explore the history of the method, a good place is to look at Anders Gerdmar’s book, Roots of Theological Antisemitism. German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann (Leiden: Brill, 2009). If you would like to understand the methodological functioning of historical criticism and how, in all of its variations, it has been used to uphold Christian supersessionism, I recommend reading Jon Levenson’s The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993). The induction of this method into Indology and its continuing use to support a narrative of the replacement of native commentarial traditions by modern, “critical” scholarship are discussed in The Nay Science (see especially the introduction and chapter 4). If you would like to see understand how the anti-Judaism of historical criticism combined with the anti-Semitism of Indologists like Albrecht Weber and Christian Lassen, I have a brief outline here: http://tinyurl.com/German-Indology. A paper on the erroneous application of the historical-critical method in Bhagavadgītā Studies in the period after 1969 is forthcoming in the new year in the International Journal of Hindu Studies (“Paradigm Lost: The Application of the Historical-Critical Method to the Bhagavadgītā”). It is nearly impossible to use the method as naïvely as a past generation of Indologists has done.

5 Finally, a word regarding “scholarly consensus.” I found it troubling that you cited “scholarly consensus” when I asked why you believed in the existence of an oral epic, yet, when it came to making a case against the origins of karma in Brahmanism, you were willing to defy the scholarly consensus. Is it possible that this inconsistency is a reflection of the fact that in the one case the scholarly consensus aids your thesis and in the other is opposed to it?

In any case, merely appealing to the orthodoxy of scholarly consensus is no substitute for the responsibility to think for oneself. I give merely one example. In an article titled “Zur Klassifizierung von Mahābhārata-Handschriften,”3 Reinhold Grünendahl argued that the Mahābhārata manuscripts were classified by script, a view he designated by the term “Schriftartprämisse.” Grünendahl also claimed that the Mahābhārata critical edition was flawed and hence should be restarted (under his guidance, of course). The idea that the Mahābhārata manuscripts were classified by script, however, is completely false, as can be shown by looking at a simple example:

Verse 1.29.5 of the Mahābhārata in the critical edition reads: adhaś cakrasya caivātra dīptānalasamadyutī | vidyujjihvau mahāghorau dīptāsyau dīptalocanau ||. The word ghorau in the final pada (verse half) is marked as uncertain, because the witnesses contain different readings here: ŚK read ghorau (as in the constituted text); ÑVBD with the exception of D2 and D5 read vīryau; while the Malayālam recension breaks up into two groups of manuscripts, M2–4 reading mahākāyau while M1.5 read mahāghorau. The Telugu and Grantha recensions are evenly split: T1 features the reading of the central recension, while T2 features that of the Malayālam group M2–4; likewise, G2 features the reading of the central recension, while G1.4–6 features that of the Malayālam group M2–4. The one exception is G3, which concurs with the smaller Malayālam group M1.5 (and with ŚK). The constituted text is obviously based on the agreement of ŚK4 with M1.5, additionally supported by D2.5 and G3.

3 Reinhold Grünendahl, “Zur Klassifierung der Mahābhārata-Handschriften,” Indica et Tibetica 22 (1993): 101–30. 4 The manuscripts collated for this section of the text were Ś1 K0–4 Ñ1–3 V1 B1–5 Da Dn D1–7 T1.2 G1– 6 M1–5. K should therefore be taken as referring to only K0–4 and not K0–6 as elsewhere.

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This example illustrates perfectly that Grünendahl’s so-called “Schriftartprämisse” (i.e., the hypothesis that manuscripts were classified by script) plays no role in the reconstruction. In the present case, the readings of the manuscripts have been transcribed into a third, unrelated script (i.e., Roman script, though it could also have been any other) and yet the essential differences (i.e., the differences relevant for a reconstruction) are retained. We can still observe that the manuscripts differ and that they belong to different groups. The changes we are interested in are the changes that have occurred at the level of semantic and syntactical units and it is via a comparison of these (e.g., is the correct reading –ghorau, –vīryau, or –kāyau?) that we seek to reconstruct the reading of the archetype.

That this distinction was uppermost in the minds of the Bhandarkar Institute editors can be shown from the following table, which gives a partial overview of the manuscripts in the first six parvans that were classified—against the expectations evoked by their script—with their true agnates. In each case, the editor’s comments are given in full in the footnote to the manuscript.

Parvan Manuscript(s Sigla Script Expected True ) employe classificatio classificatio d n n Ādiparvan Raghunath Not Śāradā Ś D Temple collated (text of the Library, nos. for the vulgate) 3712–32 and critical nos. 3951–79 edition5 Sabhāparvan Melkote, T2–46 Telugu T BD

5 “[P]aper manuscripts, written in modern Śāradā characters, with Nīlakaṇṭha’s commentary […] They represent probably the Nīlakaṇṭha version.” Sukthankar, “Prolegomena,” v, n. 1. 6 T2: “Fundamentally the text belongs to the “E” (B and D) version, with all that version’s insertions, but it has been extensively contaminated by the insertion of many additional passages from a Southern source . [. . .] Yet contaminatory influence of the S version in original stanzas is rare”; T3: “The basic text agrees in general quite closely with T2. This MS. also contains some Southern insertions, but far fewer than T2”; T4:

7 Yadugiri (text of the E Yatiraj Math, type) no. 155; Madras, Govt. MSS. Library, no. 1922; Madras, Govt. MSS. Library, no. 1923 Nepal Darbar V27 Newārī Ñ V Library, no. 1 947 Adyar DG1 and Devanāgarī D G Library, XI C DG29 42 and XXXVI G 138 Virāṭaparvan Raghunath Not Śāradā Ś D Temple collated (text of the Library, nos. for the vulgate) 3712–32 and critical nos. 3951–79 edition10 Udyogaparva Tanjore, Not Devanāgarī D G n Saraswathi collated

“Also fundamentally an ‘E’ (B and D) text, with all the insertions characteristic of that version, and with readings of detail agreeing even more regularly therewith than is the case with T2 and T3.” Edgerton, “Introduction,” xx–xxi. 7 “Despite the alphabet [Newārī], it obviously belongs to the Maithilī, not the Nepalese, recension and goes quite closely in general with V1.” Edgerton, “Introduction,” xviii. 8 These manuscripts were fully collated, but are not included in the critical apparatus. Their readings are occasionally cited in the addenda. See Edgerton, “Introduction,” xxii. 9 DG1: “Devanāgarī, but text of the Grantha recension; clearly a recent copy of a Grantha original”; DG2: “Devanāgarī, but text of the Grantha recension, like the preceding. [. . . ] This and the preceding were fully collated, but they are not included in the Critical Apparatus. They are normal MSS. of the G recension, despite the use of the Devanāgarī alphabet.” Ibid., xxii. 10 “These [manuscripts] unfortunately turned out to be recent copies of Nīlakaṇṭha’s text, and hence of no value as Śāradā codices.” Raghu Vira, “Introduction,” x.

8 Mahal Library for the no. 1250 and critical no. 1297 edition11 Pudukottah Not Devanāgarī D S13 State collated Collection, for the Devanāgarī critical MS. (without edition12 number) Bhīṣmaparvan Dacca, K414 Bengali B K University Library, no. 669 Madras, K715 Devanāgarī D K and S16 Adyar Library, No. Xc7 Harivaṁśa Unnamed Not Nandināgar Nandināgari T collated i group

11 “[These manuscripts are] merely copies of Grantha MSS. in Devanāgarī, no. 6 [in De’s list = no. 1297] being, in addition, a composite paper MS. written by more than one hand.” S. K. De, “Introduction,” xii. 12 “[This manuscript is] a typical Devanāgarī misch-codex which, being copied probably in the South, contains such a large number of Southern passages that it may be regarded almost as a Southern MS.” Ibid. 13 The editor does not specify more closely which of the southern versions this manuscript resembles. 14 “This is the first time that a MS. written in Bengali characters has been classified with K, which normally designates Devanāgarī copies from a Śāradā original. But, à priori, there is no reason why direct copies from a Śāradā original should not be made in Bengali characters. The text would in course of transmission be contaminated with the Bengali version, just as, in the other case, it would be with the Devanāgarī version. But the MS. must certainly be classified as K if it possesses sufficient and distinctive charcteristics of that group.” Belvalkar, “Introduction,” xxix. 15 This manuscript does not form part of the regular critical apparatus, but readings from it are occasionally mentioned and commented upon in the Critical Notes to this parvan. Note that the siglum (K7) refers “only to the first part of the MS., the second part being altogether ignored.” Belvalkar, “Introduction to the Bhīṣmaparvan,” lv, and see next note. 16 The case of this manuscript is curious: Belvalkar notes that it is written in Devanāgarī characters, but is “a composite MS. consisting of two parts, separately paged, giving folios 43 +164 . . . . The handwriting of both parts appears similar, but the texts given by them differ, the first part being distinctly Kashmirian, while the second, mainly Southern.” Ibid. This manuscript illustrates as no other that the true basis of classification has to be the text contained in the manuscript.

9 for the (no siglum critical established) edition17 Scindia Not neo-Śāradā Ś? D Institute, collated (text of the Ujjain for the vulgate) critical edition18

There is, of course, much more to say on this issue and I could explain all the intricacies of the problem at great length, but you will have to wait for our new book to learn all about Grünendahl’s errors. But I hope that this table, the simplest diagram I could find from the book to make the point in a relatively short amount of time, shows clearly that the only person who is in any doubt about the true basis of classification is Grünendahl.

And yet, when we look at the list of people who have accepted the so-called “Schriftartprämisse,” we find a blue book of indological scholars. The following list gives you some idea of the value of “scholarly consensus,” when it is upheld only by convention and not scholarly probity:

1. Walter Slaje19 2. Oskar von Hinüber20

17 “One manuscript in Nandināgari script was collated, but it was found to give an identical text with that in Telugu script and was, therefore, not taken into account.” P. L. Vaidya, “Introduction,” x. 18 “It [the manuscript] is written in neo-Śāradā script on paper. The copyist was no doubt a Kashmir Brāhmaṇa, probably on a visit to Banaras, and seems to have prepared this Ms. there as a pastime. The text of the Harivaṁśa in it is the inflated text almost identical with the Vulgate, and what is important to note is that there is a commentary of Nīlakaṇṭha Caturdhara on the top as well as at the bottom of the page. It requires no argument to say [but perhaps Grünendahl does require an argument] to say that this Ms. was prepared much later than A.D. 1690, i.e., after Nīlakaṇṭha’s commentary on the whole of the Mahābhārata was completed. As this Ms. in neo-Śāradā script was prepared so late, and as it contained Nīlakaṇṭha’s commentary, its value as a Ms. of Śāradā version is nil.” Ibid., xvii. 19 Walter Slaje, “The Mokṣopāya Project,” Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 77, no. 1/4 (1996): 210, n. 7. 20 Oskar von Hinüber, “Der vernachlässigte Wortlaut. Die Problematik der Herausgabe buddhistischer Sanskrit-Texte, Zur Überlieferung, Kritik und Edition alter und neuerer Text,” in Kleine Schriften, Teil I,

10 3. Andreas Bigger.21 4. Georg von Simson.22 5. Johannes Bronkhorst.23 6. Sheldon I. Pollock.24 7. James L. Fitzgerald.25

With the exception of Andreas Bigger, all of these scholars are professors or professors emeriti at major universities. They are considered authorities on the transmission of Indian texts. Yet they were unable to detect an error as basic as the confusion of the text of a manuscript with its script, which is merely a system of signs and therefore can be converted from one system to another. As professors or professors emeriti, they are immune to criticism, but can you afford to make a similar mistake? I wanted to alert you to the dangers of your interpretation, to show that your reading of the Mahābhārata was reductive, a priori, and formulaic, and that a different method is required to understand the text and to trace the thread of the argument from one book to the next. Instead of taking the proffered hints, you responded with disdain and disrespect. I will let your remarks speak for themselves:

ed. Harry Falk and Walter Slaje (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), 435. And see also ibid., 435, n. 19 and ibid., 436. 21 Andreas Bigger, Balarāma im Mahābhārata: Seine Darstellung im Rahmen des Textes und seiner Entwicklung (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), 15. And see also ibid., 116, n. 24; 116, n. 25; 118; 119; 121; and 164. 22 Georg von Simson, Mahābhārata: Die Große Erzählung von den Bhāratas (Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen, 2011), 688. 23 Johannes Bronkhorst, “Archetypes and Bottlenecks: Reflections on the Textual History of the Mahābhārata,” in Pūrvāparaprajñābhinandam: East and West, Past and Present. Indological and Other Essays in Honour of Klaus Karttunen, ed. Bertil Tikkanen and Albion M. Butters, Studia Orientalia 110 (Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 2011), 47. 24 Sheldon Pollock, “Sanskrit Literary Culture from the Inside Out,” in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, ed. Sheldon Pollock (Berkeley and Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2003), 110–11; ibid. 111, n. 155; and see also Sheldon Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), 229; and ibid., 229, n. 11. 25 James L. Fitzgerald, “Mahābhārata,” in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism, ed. Knut A. Jacobsen, Helene Basu, Angelika Malinar, Vasudha Narayanan (Brill Online, 2015); http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-encyclopedia-of-hinduism/mahabharata- BEHCOM_2020040 (accessed October 10, 2015). And see also James L. Fitzgerald, “General Introduction: The Translation Resumed,” in The Mahābhārata: 11. The Book of the Women; 12. The Book of Peace, Part One (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), xvi.

11 • Dear Vishwa, I acknowledge that you eloquently criticise my work. However, by relocating the discussion to your own paper, you left the court before the game has started. Anyway, even if you would have stayed, we obviously don’t do the same sport. Your previous writing in the Nay Science, in which you claimed that “the application of the text-historical method is not scientific, … in the majority of cases, the textual histories German scholars came up with using this method were a projection of their fantasies” already indicated that as a bearer of a German passport and as an alumnus of a German University, I am, in your eyes, a Nay Scientist, whom you feel justified to insinuate anti-brāhmaṇa and worse attitudes. This is defaming nationalist nonsense that devaluates what might be scholarly aspects of your criticism. —Philipp

• Dear Vishwa, I appreciate the moderate tone of your latest comment. Before I address briefly the points you raise, please let me express that I do not at all have any anti-Brahmanical feelings, and I would have never thought that somebody would read my paper as an expression of such a state of mind. Honestly speaking, I still do not understand how came to this. We obviously disagree on a number of points, but unfortunately I am not in the position to discuss everything extensively. Other tasks are more urgent at the moment. As you can see from my paper, in which I refer to Hiltebeitel’s hypothesis of the creation of the Mahābhārata in a short time span, I did not find his arguments convincing. In my view, the fact that the Mahābhārata refers, for example to the Rāmāyaṇa, which is as such younger than the MBh, suggests that the MBh consists of different strata of literature. The reference to the Rāmāyana, for example, would then have been added into an already existing MBh. Whether this was an oral or a written work, I do not know. But maybe our positions are not as separate as you think. In my view, the final redaction(s) of the MBh, which would be the archetype(s) of all manuscripts, is/are the result of a single authorial/redactorial intention. It is, however, improbable, in my view, that the comprehensive literary material was created anew for this occasion. I would rather assume that a lot of material (written and/ or oral) was reused, rearranged, and adapted to the intentions that

12 guided the composition of the MBh. In any case, I shall rethink my paper in the light of your criticism as far as I can find it justified. Your outcry concerning the alleged circularity of my argument misrepresents a hermeneutical as a vicious circle. —Philipp

• Vishwa, I don’t think that the occurrence of the word “jantu” in the KU and in Shankara[’]s commentary helps to understand the MBh passage under discussion. The relevance of your contribution is not increased by the disrespectful conclusion of the remark. I designed this session as a democratic platform for the exchange of ideas in a world-wide scholarly community. Please comply to scholarly standards of communication, which is required in order to continue this session. —Philipp

I will let readers be the judge of these remarks. My task, dear Philipp, is to study hard and educate where I can. Notice that I put a dozen times more effort into your paper than you put into it yourself. Be nice.

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