Mahābhārata, Part I: The big ... everything
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My favorite character so far (Dhritarāshtra, a king in one of the two family factions in the war that forms the work's core), starts to complain, and, this being the Mahābhārata, he goes on complaining for 60 verses, each ending with: O Sanjaya I had no hope of success. The song is a kind of reverse "Dayenu," and the rhythm induced by the repetition is beguiling. Complaints are a marvelous way to tell a story, invested each reported fact or incident with urgency.
What is the biggest number you know of in literature or science? (If it ends in -illion, it has so be a real number. No bajillions allowed.)
© Peter Rozovsky 2014
Labels: India, Mahābhārata
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 12:06 AM
14 Comments:
Manas, the Kyrgyz epic, is "two and a half times the length of the Indian epic Mahabharata," and is orally transmitted, sung, which seems impossible.
It depends upon what you mean by "biggest." Do you mean quantitative or qualitative? I could be a bit flippant and say that 40 -- given its recurrence in the Bible -- might be the biggest in terms of symbolic, qualitative significance. Of course, that evades and trivializes your question. Sorry.
And 7 has always some legs -- both in the Bible and at the crap table.
Tom: I had not heard of Manas. Thanks.
As for oral transmission, I suspect that repetition of the kind I mentioned in this post were aids to memory and oral transmission. I have read scholarly opinion that the standard epithets in Homer could have served a similar function. So oral transmission may not be as far-fetched as we think.
As for oral "texts" becoming written texts, who can say whether or not the written text faithfully represents the oral versions.
In the case of Homer, for example, I have long surmised that our written versions are different from the many oral versions that were circulating through the years prior to the writing of one version. The recitations of the oral versions were really improvisations upon the framework of themes and outlines.
R.T.: How all those lifespans in Genesis, men who are said to have lived hundreds and hundreds of years.
For whatever reason, other cultures just did not reach as far (or count as high) when striving to grasp the infinite as Indians did. What thus signifies, I have no idea.
As for craps, you have spoken with greeter relevance to the Mahābhārata than you may know.
R.T., I think we express similar thoughts about oral transmission and the multiplicity of versions this may imply. I wonder where the idea that authenticity inhered in word-for-word repetition and transmission originated.
Perhaps with this legend.
We have always been suckers for the inerrant written word. There is something in our DNA. We see something printed, we tend to believe it as gospel. (I intend the pun!) We hear people talk to us, we may be less committed to belief. We see something they have written, we are already on our way to being convinced. Argue any sacred text with a believer and you quickly discover the depth of the issue.
One can't say we have always been suckers for the inerrant written word, since words were not always written. I have read that the earliest examples of cuneiform that we have are of mundane business accounts, rather than of Gilgamesh or some law code. So the question is not when writing was invented, but when critical reading first appeared.
What translation of the Mahabharata are you reading? I have been curious to undertake it myself.
Amateur Reader's link to the excerpts from the Kirghiz epic Manas is much appreciated!
Patrick: I started reading the Ganguli translation, which is available free online. Then I bought the Penguin Classics version, selected and translated by John D. Smith, which has all kinds of good introductory and supplementary material.
Thanks! The Ganguli sounds good; I'm attracted to impossible projects that take forever.
Good luck with the project. Should we meet, I'll expect you to recite the Mahabharata. And no, before you ask, I will not do what Ganesha did and write it down as fast as you recite it.
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