Reading the great Indian epic

A five-day session on Mahabharata readings by Sunil P Elayidom is going on at Koothambalam, Tripunithura.
Mahabharata readings by Sunil P Elayidom.
Mahabharata readings by Sunil P Elayidom.

KOCHI: The famed war of Mahabharata, thanks to the many versions on television, attains gigantic proportions in our imagination; massive armouries, shining weapons and thousands of hollering warriors displaying outstanding skills in archery.

But interestingly, writer and critic Sunil P Elayidom says that the oral traditions that formed the basis of Mahabharata were sung as early as the 9th century BC. “Going by which, it must have been a war that was fought between two smaller kingdoms, in the most primitive of fashion, as iron as a metal was just finding its use,” he said.

In his talks, which will go on till Friday, Sunil, a recipient of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award, will be touching upon various aspects of the great Indian epic.
“The Mahabharata, as we see it today, did not come about as one single text. It’s a ‘text in progress’ for 1200 years, as V S Sukthankar, the eminent Indologist and Mahabharata scholar put it,” said Sunil. “It has maintained a dynamic status, and has incorporated human history at every turn.”

It is this multiplicity that has been reduced to one single ‘national’ narrative. “There have been 1259 manuscripts, out of which only ten are complete stories, which stands to prove the plurality of this epic,” stated Sunil. “The many readings, its travel through discursive frames, historical background and the tradition of retellings are all part of my talk. There are many scholars, including Dr B R Ambedkar, who picked up counter discourses from the epic itself, trying to shield its secular nature, and not letting it slide into a rigid, regimented text.”

Essentially the story of humanity and human history, the Mahabharata engages in various topics. “Outside academic circles, there are hardly any discussions on aspects such as gender relations or bisexuality that emerge from the epic,” Sunil said. “It is the sole Indian epic that rises from the confines of religion to be discussed and re-read in literary, philosophical and social science centres.”

Meanwhile, when asked about the filming of M T Vasudevan Nair’s ‘Randaamoozham’, a movie with  a Rs 1000 crore budget, he said, “M T Vasudevan Nair had taken off the aura or godliness from the characters to give them a more human persona, which rendered the novel its brilliance. I hope the concept remains intact on celluloid as well. With the kind of open-ended stance, Mahabharata has many doors, and readers can find their entry or exit, and take away in parts what they were looking for. To each her/his own Mahabharata.”

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The New Indian Express
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