Re-Ending the Mahabharata - The Rejection of Dharma in the Sanskrit Epic

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This book challenges two prevalent assumptions about the Mahabharata: that its narrative is inherently incapable of achieving a conclusion and that its ending, the Svargarohana parvan, is an extraneous part of the text. While the exegetic traditions have largely tended to suppress, ignore, or overlook the importance of this final section, Shalom argues that the moment of the condemnation of dharma that occurs in the Svargarohana parvan, expressed by the epic protagonist, Yudhisthira, against his father, Dharma, is of crucial importance. It sheds light on the incessant preoccupation and intrinsic dismay towards the concept of dharma (the cardinal theme around which the epic revolves) expressed by Mahabharata narrators throughout the epic, and is thus highly significant for understanding the Mahabharata narrative as a whole.

NAAMA SHALOM is Assistant Professor in the Humanities Department at Shalem College, Jerusalem.

In Sanskrit as in English, the word "anta" or "end" has two distinct sets of meaning. It connotes both "ending, conclusion, culmination" and also "aim, objective, purpose." Little wonder that humans have established a semantic connection between these meanings.

The end of a journey is in fact its farthest destination point as well as its objective. The end of a book or a movie often heightens one's impression of the composition as a whole. The crux of thrillers and related genres, for instance, is to withhold the resolution of the suspense until the very end, thereby imparting a memorable, at times riveting, visual experience to the viewers. And thoughts about the end of life, the climax of all climaxes, the ultimate destination, are generally repressed because awareness of one's own ending is terrifying while going about one's daily tasks. Knowing that the aim of life is its end necessitates a prolonged mindfulness to determine either its beauty or its wretchedness. Whether we acknowledge it or not, our own ending inherently shapes the course of our lives, our actions, choices, and the way we feel about the world. The idea of our own finality lurking in the back of our minds is probably the most crucial yet most suppressed aspect of our existence. Thus, the premise at the basis of aesthetic experience and of human life in general appears, simply, to be, that "endings matter." This same premise defines the larger issues with which this book is concerned.

Two fundamental claims recur in scholarship on the great Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, namely, (1) its narrative is inherently incapable of reaching a conclusion; and, (2) its ending is not an integral but rather an extraneous part of the text. In this book I challenge these prevalent assumptions by proposing an original path of inquiry into literary, philological, and semantic aspects of the epic, with particular emphasis on its closing book, the Svargarohana parvan.

The assertion that the Mahabharata narrative is innately incapable of reaching a conclusion, a claim often latently and at times openly advanced in epic scholarship,' is well reasoned. However, while the problematic nature of the epic's ending has led to its being perceived as "peripheral" or even "alien" to the narrative, there is reason to entertain the opposite view: the closing book of the MBh, the Svargarohana parvan, is its natural and organic resolution, and it is thematically consistent with the thematic structure of the epic as a whole. This supposition constitutes the main argument of this book.

**Contents and Sample Pages**