Question

Read the excerpts from the Mahabharata included in “Kinship, Caste And Class: Early Societies” once more. For each of these, discuss whether they could have been literally true. What do these excerpts tell us about those who composed the text? What do they tell us about those who must have read or heard the epic?

Answer 1

The excerpts from the Mahabharata are not entirely literally true but are a blend of core historical realities, poetic exaggeration, and prescriptive social norms. Historians analyse these narratives not as literal news reports, but as complex windows into early Indian social structures.

1. The excerpts are literally true because:
   1. Poetic Exaggeration: Descriptions like cities looking like celestial palaces or armies fighting seamlessly for days are literary devices to emphasise grandeur and scale.
   2. Archaeological Gaps: Major urban descriptions do not completely align with simpler material remains discovered at sites like Hastinapura.
   3. Social Norm Realities: Domestic conflicts over patrilineal inheritance, property, and marital issues accurately reflect real historical social dilemmas of that era.
   4. Didactic Overlays: Portions like cosmic boons or divine justifications were added later to provide moral reasoning rather than literal historical fact.
2. These excerpts tell us about how the text was composed:
   1. Elite Brahmanical Perspective: Early bards (sutas) recorded oral battlefield ballads, but later Brahmanas reshaped the epic to firmly validate the Varna and Dharma systems.
   2. Expert Storytellers: They were highly skilled at integrating local folklore, tribal myths, and regional customs into a massive, cohesive framework.
   3. Social Arbiters: They intentionally crafted complex, multi-layered moral dilemmas to explore, defend, or subtly challenge prevailing social laws.
3. It tells the audience that:
   1. Familiarity with Social Norms: The audience understood the complex concepts of kinship, patriliny, and ritual boundaries being discussed.
   2. Shared Cultural Values: Listeners valued family honour, warrior codes (Kshatriya dharma), and scriptural authority as foundational ideals.
   3. Appreciation for Debate: They actively engaged with complex ethical crises, like Draupadi’s legal question or dynamic succession disputes, rather than expecting simplistic tales.