Abstract
This study accounts for disparate portrayals of divine destroyer Śiva in the normative Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata as opposed to Kālidāsa’s amatory Kumārasaṃbhava and Raghuvaṃśa by contrasting the primary and secondary Sanskrit epic authors’ respective reliances on the Mānavadharmaśāstra and the Kāmasūtra. By arguing, per Richard Johnson’s postpoststructuralism, that these mythological and philosophical differences deliberately reflect those poets’ specific sociohistorical contexts, this inquiry accounts more accurately for Śiva’s classical-epic depictions than do Stella Kramrisch’s and Wendy Doniger [O’Flaherty]’s investigations informed by Claude Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism and Don Handelman and David Shulman’s researches influenced by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s poststructuralism. The present work, in revising such prevailing Indological notions as Romila Thapar’s traditional construal of the “classical,” Donald R. Davis Jr.’s anthropocentric definition of puruṣārtha (human aim), and Sheldon Pollock’s unvarying characterization of śāstras (treatises), models a historically aware approach that appreciates the interrelationship of mythological philosophy and philosophical mythology.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Given that “the practice of calling newly composed texts khaṇḍas of the Skandapurāṇa might have started in the 12th century” (Adriaensen, Bakker, and Isaacson 1994: 326), the sectioning of the Śrī Veṅkaṭeśvara Steam Press’s 1867–1910 Skandapurāṇa edition, which contains the section (or khaṇḍa) consulted by Handelman and Shulman, suggests that the edition reproduced Skandapurāṇa materials that had appeared after that text’s earliest available recension. The latter, localized to Nepal and dating from around 550 to around 800, does not “have much in common with the printed Skandapurāṇa” (Adriaensen, Bakker, and Isaacson 1994: 325).
All translations in this article are my own unless otherwise indicated.
Even the earlier meaning of “assumption” as celestial ascension (Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “assumption, n.,” accessed November 21, 2022, https://www-oed-com.proxyau.wrlc.org/view/Entry/12052?redirectedFrom=assumption) is relevant here, for the mythological authors of the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata—alteri nos to the actual epic-poetic collectivities—are connected to divinity indirectly and directly, respectively. On the Rāmāyaṇa’s Vālmīki’s productive colloquy with godly sage Nārāda, see Pathak 2014: 42–50, 58, 59, 64, 68–69, 71, 72, 75–79, 84–85, 140–44, 174. On the Mahābhārata’s Vyāsa’s creative identity as Viṣṇu’s oceanic reclining form, Nārāyaṇa, see Pathak 2014: 50–56, 58, 59, 68–69, 71, 72, 77, 78, 79, 148–49, 149–50.
I have adapted the following four paragraphs from Pathak 2015: 3–5.
This passage appears in all 20 Rāmāyaṇa 7 manuscripts corresponding to the epic’s older, more conservative Southern Recension.
These lines occur in 15 of the 20 Rāmāyaṇa 7 Southern Recension manuscripts.
These lines are found in 13 of the 20 Rāmāyaṇa 7 Southern Recension manuscripts.
This passage is contained in 17 of the 21 Rāmāyaṇa 7 Northern Recension manuscripts.
Versions of the next three paragraphs have appeared in Pathak 2015: 5–6.
V. S. Apte, The Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary, revised and enlarged edition, s.v. “Puraṃdara.” In confirmation of Apte’s contention that “Puraṃdara” is one of Śiva’s epithets as well as one of Indra’s names and one of Viṣṇu’s names, S. Sörensen sees this term as synonymous with “Indra” and “Viṣṇu” (1963: s.v. “Purandara”) and D. D. Kosambi notes the transfer of this designation “from Indra to Śiva” (2002: 385).
The four following paragraphs have been modified from Pathak 2015: 6–7.
This passage is included in all 23 Mahābhārata 7 manuscripts corresponding to the epic’s older, more conservative Northern Recension except 1 Kaśmīrī one, K5.
All 23 Mahābhārata 7 Northern Recension manuscripts except K5 incorporate this passage.
This passage appears in 16 of the 22 Mahābhārata 8 Northern Recension manuscripts—1 Kaśmīrī one (K4), all 5 Bengali ones, and all 10 Devanāgarī ones—and in all 10 of the Mahābhārata 8 Southern Recension manuscripts except 1 Grantha one (G3).
My translation reflects Indologist Patrick Olivelle’s observation (Mānavadharmaśāstra 3.202n) that, while “the Sanskrit ter[m] śraddadhāna…[is] often taken as referring to ‘faith[,]’ [i]n the early literature,…th[is] ter[m is] closely associated with hospitality and generous giving,” a remark to which Olivelle refers his readers while rendering Mānavadharmaśāstra 7.86.
This mention of the divine infant’s age is based on readings in three Kumārasaṃbhava texts that the poem’s critical editor, Suryakanta, cites in Kumārasaṃbhava 11.5n.
Earlier versions of the current paragraph and the one to follow occur in Pathak 2015: 8.
Both because of the respective resonances of Kālidāsa’s secondary epics with the historical forces shaping his society (resonances that I will discuss further below) and because of the conscious plot correspondences between the earlier and later parts of the Kumārasaṃbhava and the conscious plot contrasts between the Kumārasaṃbhava’s earlier part and the Raghuvaṃśa’s later part (correspondences and contrasts that I have treated above), I concur with Sanskritist T. G. Mainkar (1962: 70) that Kālidāsa composed all seventeen cantos of the Kumārasaṃbhava and with Mainkar (1962: 115) and Indologist Herman Tieken (1989: 154, 158) that the nineteen-canto Raghuvaṃśa is Kālidāsa’s complete composition. I am examining more extensively elsewhere additional issues bearing on Kālidāsa’s epic authorship, further discussion of which is beyond the scope of this particular article.
References
Adriaensen, R., H. T. Bakker, and H. Isaacson. 1994. “Towards a Critical Edition of the Skandapurāṇa.” Indo-Iranian Journal 37, 4: 325–31.
Allahābād Inscription. 1981 [1888]. “Allahābād Stone Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta.” In Devadatta Ramakrishna Bhandarkar, rev., and Bahadurchand Chhabra and Govind Swamirao Gai, eds., Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings, 203–20. Volume 3 of Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum. New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India.
Arthaśāstra. 1969–72 [1960–63]. The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra (ed. and trans. R. P. Kangle). 2nd edition in 2 parts. Bombay: University of Bombay.
Brockington, John. 1998. The Sanskrit Epics. Leiden: Brill.
Davis, Donald R., Jr. 2004. “Being Hindu or Being Human: A Reappraisal of the Puruṣārthas.” International Journal of Hindu Studies 8, 1–3: 1–27.
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. 1994 [1991]. What Is Philosophy? (trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell). New York: Columbia University Press.
Doniger, Wendy. 2011 [1998]. The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth. New York: Columbia University Press.
Fitzgerald, James L. 2006. “Negotiating the Shape of ‘Scripture’: New Perspectives on the Development and Growth of the Mahābhārata between the Empires.” In Patrick Olivelle, ed., Between the Empires: Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE, 257–86. New York: Oxford University Press.
Foucault, Michel. 1977. “What Is an Author?” [1969]. In Donald F. Bouchard, ed., Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews (trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon), 113–38. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Goldberg, Ellen. 2002. The Lord Who Is Half Woman: Ardhanārīśvara in Indian and Feminist Perspective. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Goldman, Robert P. and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman. 2017. “Introduction.” In Robert P. Goldman, gen. ed., The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki: An Epic of Ancient India. Volume 7: Uttarakāṇḍa (trans. Robert P. Goldman and Sally J. Sutherland Goldman), 1–222. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Handelman, Don and David Shulman. 1997. God Inside Out: Śiva’s Game of Dice. New York: Oxford University Press.
Handelman, Don and David Shulman. 2004. Śiva in the Forest of Pines: An Essay on Sorcery and Self-Knowledge. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Hawley, Nell Shapiro and Sohini Sarah Pillai. 2021. Many Mahābhāratas. Albany: SUNY Press.
Hiltebeitel, Alf. 1972. “The Mahābhārata and Hindu Eschatology.” History of Religions 12, 2: 95–135.
Hiltebeitel, Alf. 2005. “Weighting Orality and Writing in the Sanskrit Epics.” In Petteri Koskikallio, ed., Epics, Khilas, and Purāṇas: Continuities and Ruptures, 81–111. Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Ingalls, Daniel H. H. 1976. “Kālidāsa and the Attitudes of the Golden Age.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 96, 1: 15–26.
Johnson, Richard. 1986–87. “What Is Cultural Studies Anyway?” Social Text 16: 38–80.
Kale, M. R. 1995 [1894]. A Higher Sanskrit Grammar: For the Use of School and College Students. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Kāmasūtra. 2005. Kāmasūtra of Vātsyāyana (ed. and trans. Radhavallabh Tripathi). Delhi: Pratibha Prakashan.
Kangle, R. P. 1965. The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra. Part 3: A Study. Bombay: University of Bombay.
Katz, Ruth. 1985. “The Sauptika Episode in the Structure of the Mahābhārata.” Journal of South Asian Literature 20, 1: 109–24.
Katz, Ruth Cecily. 1989. Arjuna in the Mahabharata: Where Krishna Is, There Is Victory. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
Kosambi, D. D. 2002. Combined Methods in Indology and Other Writings (comp. and ed. Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Kramrisch, Stella. 1981. The Presence of Śiva. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kumārasaṃbhava. 1962. The Kumārasaṃbhava of Kālidāsa (ed. Suryakanta). New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1963 [1958]. Structural Anthropology (trans. Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf). New York: Basic Books.
Mahābhārata. 1933–71. The Mahābhārata for the First Time Critically Edited (gen. eds. Vishnu S. Sukthankar [1927–43], S. K. Belvalkar [1943–61], and P. L. Vaidya [1961–71], with the cooperation of other scholars). 19 volumes. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
Mainkar, T. G. 1962. Kālidāsa: His Art and Thought. Poona: Deshmukh Prakashan.
Mānavadharmaśāstra. 2005. Manu’s Code of Law: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra (ed. and trans. Patrick Olivelle, with the editorial assistance of Suman Olivelle). New York: Oxford University Press.
Mann, Richard D. 2012. The Rise of Mahāsena: The Transformation of Skanda-Kārttikeya in North India from the Kuṣāṇa to Gupta Empires. Leiden: Brill.
O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. 1971. “The Submarine Mare in the Mythology of Śiva.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1: 9–27.
O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. 1973. Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Śiva. London: Oxford University Press. [Reprinted as Śiva: The Erotic Ascetic (1981).]
O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. 1976. The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Pathak, Shubha. 2014. Divine Yet Human Epics: Reflections of Poetic Rulers from Ancient Greece and India. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University.
Pathak, Shubha. 2015. “Making Divine Love: Kālidāsa’s Creation of Śiva and Pārvatī’s Consummation in the Kumārasambhava.” Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, Atlanta, Georgia, November 21.
Pathak, Shubha. 2016. “Shubha Pathak on ‘What Does Philosophy of Religion Offer to the Modern University?’” Philosophy of Religion: Big Question Philosophy for Scholars and Students, March 15. Available at: http://philosophyofreligion.org/?p=459972 (accessed October 28, 2022).
Pathak, Shubha. 2017. “Response: Toward a More Inclusive Classical.” Paper Presented at the 148th Annual Meeting of the Society for Classical Studies, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, January 6.
Pollock, Sheldon. 1985. “The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 105, 3 (“Indological Studies Dedicated to Daniel H. H. Ingalls”): 499–519.
Pollock, Sheldon. 1989. “Playing by the Rules: Śāstra and Sanskrit Literature.” In Anna Libera Dallapiccola, ed., in collaboration with Christine Walter-Mendy and Stephanie Zingel-Avé Lallemant, Shastric Traditions in Indian Arts. Volume 1: Texts, 301–12. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Pollock, Sheldon. 2006. The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Raghuvaṃśa. 1982 [1897]. The Raghuvaṃśa of Kālidāsa, with the Commentary of Mallinātha (ed. and trans. Gopal Raghunath Nandargikar). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Rāmāyaṇa. 1960–75. The Vālmīki-Rāmāyaṇa: Critically Edited for the First Time (gen. eds. G. H. Bhatt and U. P. Shah). 7 volumes. Baroda: Oriental Institute.
Richman, Paula. 1991. Many Rāmāyaṇas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sathaye, Adheesh A. 2015. Crossing the Lines of Caste: Viśvāmitra and the Construction of Brahmin Power in Hindu Mythology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Scheuer, Jacques. 1982. Śiva dans le Mahābhārata. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Settis, Salvatore. 2006 [2004]. The Future of the “Classical” (trans. Allan Cameron). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Shulman, David Dean. 1985. The King and the Clown in South Indian Myth and Poetry. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Smith, Frederick M. 2006. The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sörensen, S. 1963 [1904]. An Index to the Names in the Mahābhārata. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2010. “‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ Revised Edition, from the ‘History’ Chapter of Critique of Postcolonial Reason.” In Rosalind C. Morris, ed., Can the Subaltern Speak?: Reflections on the History of an Idea, 21–78. New York: Columbia University Press.
Thapar, Romila. 2002. Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tieken, Herman. 1989. “The Structure of Kālidāsa’s Raghuvaṁśa.” Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 15: 151–58.
Tubb, Gary A. 1982. “The Relative Priority of the Wedding Passages in the Kumārasaṃbhava and the Raghuvaṃśa.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 102, 2: 309–21.
Vessey, Mark. 1996. “The Forging of Orthodoxy in Latin Christian Literature: A Case Study.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 4, 4: 495–513.
Whitmore, Luke. 2018. Mountain, Water, Rock, God: Understanding Kedarnath in the Twenty-First Century. Oakland: University of California Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Pathak, S. Shifting Śāstric Śiva: Co-operating Epic Mythology and Philosophy in India’s Classical Period. Hindu Studies 27, 173–212 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-022-09337-8
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11407-022-09337-8