Abstract
In the context of the mixed perception among scholars whether the Mahabharat is a pacifist or a militant text, this paper analyzes the rhetorical project of the epic to examine its position on violence. Highlighting the existence of two main arguments in the Mahabharat, this paper argues that the author has crafted a grand rhetorical project to question the dominant war ideology of the time that Krishna presents as the divine necessity. Historically, the emergence of Krishna—one of the major characters of the epic—as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu in Hindu tradition and the extraction and elevation of the Bhagavad Gita from the epic as an independent text have undermined the complexity of Vyas’ rhetoric. This paper places Krishna’s argument within the broad rhetorical scheme of the epic and demonstrates how Vyas has represented Krishna’s rhetoric of ‘just war’ only to illustrate its pitfalls. By directing his narrative lens to the devastating consequences of the war in the later parts of the epic, Vyas problematizes Krishna’s insistence on the need to suppress human emotions to attain a higher cognitive and ontological condition. What emerges is the difference between how Vyas and Krishna view the status of feeling: the scientist Krishna thinks that human emotions and individual lives are trivial, incidental instances in the cosmic game—something not worthy of a warrior’s concern; Vyas’ rhetoric, this paper argues, restores the significance of ordinary human emotions. It is a war—not human life and feeling—that arises as a futile enterprise in Vyas’ rhetoric.
Highlights
Foregrounding Vyas’s Rhetorical ProjectI argue that an analysis of the author’s rhetoric can elucidate the mixed reception highlighted in the previous paragraph. The different opinions, I contend, emanate from the fact that the Mahabharata has two separate major arguments about war—those of Krishna and Vyas. Their difference arises from where they place the emotion in the hierarchy of significance
In the context of the mixed perception among scholars whether the Mahabharat is a pacifist or a militant text, this paper analyzes the rhetorical project of the epic to examine its position on violence
As this article demonstrates, questioning the ideology of ‘just war’ imprinted in the collective human unconscious, something that is expressed through various religious and patriotic forms and fought for centuries after centuries, required the double eyes—the eyes that could feel the logical throbs of the charismatic leader like Krishna, and could render the subtlest of human emotions with an artist’s sensitivity
Summary
I argue that an analysis of the author’s rhetoric can elucidate the mixed reception highlighted in the previous paragraph. The different opinions, I contend, emanate from the fact that the Mahabharata has two separate major arguments about war—those of Krishna and Vyas. Their difference arises from where they place the emotion in the hierarchy of significance. As this article demonstrates, questioning the ideology of ‘just war’ imprinted in the collective human unconscious, something that is expressed through various religious and patriotic forms and fought for centuries after centuries, required the double eyes—the eyes that could feel the logical throbs of the charismatic leader like Krishna, and could render the subtlest of human emotions with an artist’s sensitivity. Vyas brings forth both of them by first creating the rhetoric of Krishna and by laying bare its devastating consequences. In these books, which I am arguing we should accord the same significance allotted to the Gita, Vyas juxtaposes the catastrophic consequences of the war with the amazing ideology that encouraged it
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