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THE MAHABHARATA OF VYASA
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The Complete Santi Parva (Part 1 : Rcya-Dhaima)
Trainscreated sloka-by-sloka from Sanskrit by P. Lai
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Two birds sit
on the golden bough
of the pippala tree.
One eats
the sweet fruit.
The other watches.
Both are happy.
One is happier.
Which?
Svetasvatara
Upanisad IV : 6
Limited Hardback : 99. §9KB Limited Flexiback : 99-
A special edition, limited to 50 copies, numbered and signed by the
transcreator, and with an original hand-painted frontispiece of Krishna,
Subhadra and Balau-ama in the Puri temple by am anonymous patua-
artist of the Puri Jagannatha temple in Orissa, is available for Rs. 2500.
The painting in each special edition is an original, not a reproduction.
ISBN 978-81-8157-776-4 (HB)
ISBN 978-81-8157-777-1 (FB)
© 2009 P. Lai
The transcreator asserts his moral right to be
identified as the owner of this intellectual property.
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P. Lai is honorary Professor of English in St. Xavier’s College,
Calcutta. He was Special Professor of Indian Studies at Hofstra
University, New York, 1962-63, and has lectured widely on Indian
literature at English, American, and Australian universities. He was
a delegate from India to the P. E. N. International Writers Conference
in New York injune 1966, and Visiting Professor in the University
of Illinois for the spring semester of 1968. Transcreated the
Brhadaranyaka and Mahanaranayana Upanisads on ajawaharlal
Nehru Fellowship award in 1969-70. Visiting Professor of
Comparative Literature, Hofstra University, spring 1971.
Distinguished Visiting Professor and Consultant, Albion College,
April-May 1972. Prentiss M. Brown Distinguished Visiting Professor,
Albion College, January-May 1973. Robert Norton Visiting
Professor, Ohio University, September 1973June 1974. Visiting
Professor of Indian Culture, Hartwick College, September-October
1975. EliLilly Visiting Professor, Berea College, February-May 1977.
Honorary Doctorate of Letters, Western Maryland College, 1977.
Currently at work on the complete English version of the
Mahabharata. Bom 1928, married Shyamcisree Devi 1955; has a son
Ananda, and a daughter Srimati. Recipient of the Padma Shri award
in 1970. Delegate to Asian Poets’ Conference, Bangkok, 1988;
Cambridge Literary Seminar, 1989; Harborfront Poetry Reading
Series, Toronto, Canada, 1989. Appointed Suniti Kumar Chatteiji
Lecturer of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata injune 2005. D. Litt. (Hon.
Course) of Calcutta University for his “transcreation of the
Mahabharata”, 2006. Distinguished Professor Award for Lifetime
Achievement, St. Xavier’s College, 2007. Seventy five cassettes (each
of 90 minutes’ duration) of P. Lai reading his transcreation of
Vyasa’s Mahabharata are available from writers workshop. In
October 1999 P. Lai began a sloka-by-sloka public reading of the
transcreated epic to a miscellaneous group every Sunday morning
for an hour at the Library of Dharma and Culture in Calcutta to
illustrate the importance of Vyasa’s work as an inspiring oral
experience and not just a print-culture masterpiece. 450 hour-long
CDs of this recording, taped live are available from WW. P. Lai reads
his Mahabharata transcreation daily on cable Tara TV Newz at 7:20
am & 7.20 pm. followed by a 6-segment repeat telecast on Sundays,
and twice weekly on TV Southasia network.
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The structure of the SantI Parva is simplicity itself. It is split into
two parts: R^ a-dharma and Moksa-dharma: Secular justice and
Spiritual justice. Is “justice” a satisfactory equivalent for “dharma”?
Since there is no word for “forgiveness” in Sanskrit, some insight
into the nature of crime and punishment is called for. Karma is
relentless and ruthless: there is no escape from cause and effect.
Good fruits will exactly come from good karma; evil fruits from
evil. The word ksama hcis a multiplicity of meanings, the Icist being
“forgiveness”, Izsama means endurance, fortitude, ability to
absorb, ability to accept and tolerate. Grace has no place in the
Mahabharata world-view. Even the gods are subject to the resistless
play of karma. These is no word for miracle either in Sanskrit.
How can there be violations in the play of cause and effect in a
universe mled by inescapable cosmic karma? Rod of punishment,
dispensation of justice - the root of dharma is indeed the concept
and implementation of secular justice.
So, in the S^ti Parva, Bhisma on his bed of arrows explores
and explains artha, kama, dharma and moksa. In the end of the
final par\^a, the Svarg^ohana, Vy^a almost despairingly declares:
“I lift Kiy arms and I shout, and no one listens: ‘From dharma
comes artha and kama - why is dharma then not practised?’”
Well, we hear - it is an oral epic - but we don’t listen. We read
- and we do not understand. Such a shame! Vy^a’s wisdom is
simple, like all true wisdom. The four goals of life - purusarthas-
are, of course, artha, kamci, dharma and moksa. Without artha,
meaning wealth, nothing happens. No progress, no prosperity,
no yajhas, no daksinas^ no financial bonanzas, no charities. But
money is the root of all evil - a warning explicitly given in one
scripture. How can the root of all evil be the goal of life? Vyasa is
simple, but he is not unsubtle. Look up any dictionary, and the
first meaning of artha is “meaning”; “wealth” is the secondary
meaning. What matters, cautions Vyasa, is not money but the
meaning of money. Wealth is to be pursued to benefit others, not
oneself. Only by benefiting others does one benefit oneself.
Preface 6
Kama is the name ofKandarpa, the god of passion and lust. But
it is also the name of the Hindu god of love who shoots fragrant
flowery arrows at his charmed human targets. What matters,
cautions Vy^a, is the transformation of lust into love. Sex is the
inescapable instinct, the root of all life; lust is the perversion, love
the sweet fruit. Both are four-letter words; it’s our disciplined
choice that changes one into the other.
Dharma means reUgion with all its complex institutionalisation
and rituals. But dharma also means the transcendental and
mystical experience of spiritual vision. The goal, therefore, is the
transformation of ritual into spiritual, the conventional into the
creative.
Moksa means escape, but it also means liberation. How many
so-called swamis and s^hus are escaping from life’s responsibilities,
how many getting liberated? Transform escape into liberation,
advises Vy^a, if you really desire to experience moksa.
o
^ ^ ^^11 (18:1:62)
All this is the sub-text of the Santi Parva. After all, isn’t one of
the fundamental messages of Hinduism that everything in this
world comes with its built-in opposite? Man-woman, night-day,
good-evil, sura-asura^ right-wrong, heads and tails... Even words
are “things”, even they have opposites.
