Yuganta: The End of An Epoch
A Book Review

To do a book review of what is essentially a book review is an interesting exercise. More so when the book being reviewed is not a typical story but is instead a series of critical essays on one of the most revered books of the subcontinent. “Yuganta: The End of An Epoch” by Irawati Karve is a series of critical essays on different characters in the subcontinent’s second oldest epic – Mahabharata. It was first published in Marathi in 1967 and it won the Sahitya

Academy Award in 1968. Reviewed here is the second edition of the English translation published by Orient Longman. The translation has been done by Karve herself. In this translation Karve takes for granted a certain familiarity with the Mahabharata and its cast of characters in her readers. Which is a fair assumption up to a certain generation. Many new readers today might, however, need to familiarise themselves with the Mahabharata before being able to enjoy these essays.

Through each character that she takes up for analysis Karve explores a different facet of the society, value systems and social framework of the world of Mahabharata, which she treats as a historical reality rather than mythology. To this end she approaches the text itself with scholarly rigour and takes us through the oral traditions of the bards of the Suta class (the illegitimate progeny of Kshatriyas) who for generations told and retold the story of Jaya (meaning Victory), which was the original name of the text we now know as Mahabharata. By the time the text was finally written down its storytelling had been passed down to a Brahman clan called Bhrigu. And then finally it was written down. Thus, there are later additions to the text, which are easily identifiable through linguistic and stylistic analysis. She herself has based her study of the Mahabharata on the critical edition published by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.

Each essay is an enclosed world in itself – exploring the life and actions of said character in detail and through that decoding an aspect of the society in which the Mahabharata plays out. Irawati Karve not only treats the Mahabharata as a historical tale – Itihasa (it happened thus) but also distinguishes it, in her essay on Draupadi, from the Ramayana, which she classifies as a Kayva (poem). But it is the critical lens through which she decodes the Mahabharata that is interesting and important to note. Those come from her training and career.

Born in 1905, she is widely regarded as one of the first, if not the very first female Indian Sociologist and Anthropologist. She went to do her PhD in Germany and from the 1930s onwards she taught Sociology and later Anthropology. For complete context, Sociology is defined as “the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behaviour, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life.” While Anthropology is “the study of the human race, its culture and society, and its physical development.” Another assumption that she treats as fact is the theory of the Aryans being migrants into the subcontinent. Today that theory is not taken as an established fact but rather as one theory among others. But in Karve’s time it was widely accepted and that is the premise she accepts.

Thus, the primary lens through which Karve studies the Mahabharata is that of Sociology and Anthropology. She does a very close textual reading and that becomes her secondary lens. Even while dismissing the mythological lens Karve does acknowledge in her essays that while some things can be decoded as metaphors and understood within prevalent social values and norms (for e.g., the essay titled “Father and Son?” or “The Palace of Maya”) many others cannot be decoded or made sense of so easily (the role of Ganga, the mother of Bhishma). These she then leaves as is. How we choose to read those incidents or stories is up to us. I admire the honesty of such an approach. And finally, in her last essay, which I found incredibly interesting she discusses both the philosophical and literary differences between the Mahabharata and the classical texts that came after it.

Whether you agree with the lens through which she decodes the Mahabharata or not does not take away from her very interesting and often thought-provoking analysis. The essay on Draupadi is particularly interesting because among other things it discusses the fact that Draupadi had five husbands. Her reasoning in this case is compelling from a sociological standpoint. The essay on Kunti is equally compelling because it asks to see Kunti in an entirely new light – as a supremely programmatic woman who did not flinch from making difficult choices. Many of her essays also venture into a discussion of the sophisticated philosophical values that come to light in the analysis of a character’s trajectory. The best example of this is the essay on Dronacharya, titled “Paradharmo Bhayavahah”, taken from the Bhagavad Gita, XVIII – “Taking over another’s dharma is dangerous.”

Through these essays one sees a vivid picture of the Kshatriya society; its norms, values, rules and even philosophy. And what an interesting philosophy it turns out to be – sparse, stoic and ultimately predicated upon doing one’s duty.  In that world, “nothing was done was done for the sake of happiness. If happiness was there, it was gained at the price of much sacrifice.” It was a world where “the limitations of life on earth are clearly stated; the Mahabharata did not create a dream-world where these could be transcended… One did one’s duty not because of any expected reward, but because one wanted to die with honour. This honour consisted in preserving the values inherited at birth.”

There is an admirably stark and unflinching acceptance of things – the limitations of life, of social values and norms and duty. But also, a deep well of philosophy that is equally firm. Karma (result of one’s actions) is accepted as a philosophical truth. And there is a constant discussion of, and through it, an illumination of what Dharma is and is not. For Karve it is this aspect of the Mahabharata, the “questions, answers and doubts regarding the nature of religion and human destiny”, that is the reason for this story being so timeless. According to her the text of Mahabharata also reflects this – it is hard, concise, precise and logically “tight” and ultimately thought provoking in a way that later Classical literature, with its insistence on rewards and happy endings, never is. As she puts it, “The pervading despair and frustration, hardiness and realism of the Mahabharata never again appeared in Indian literature.” She asks the question, “After the Mahabharata period why did all literature become so soggy with sentiment?” She has her own theories as to the answer, and for me, this one essay alone makes Yuganta more than worth reading. It is also in this context that she names her collections of essays “Yuganta: The End of An Epoch”. Yes, traditionally the aftermath of Mahabharata is seen as the end of third age – Dwapara, in Hindu philosophy and the start of the fourth and last age Kaliyuga. But for Karve, the Mahabharata is “Yuganta” because she sees it as the apotheosis of a philosophical and social worldview which soon after gave way to what she calls the idea of “kind-hearted gods, devotion, monotheism, escape from reality”. And thus, the Mahabharata, its cast of characters, for her signalled the end of an era or epoch.