and ritually humiliates him in front of Draupadi. It is this experience that drives Jayad·ratha to seek Rudra’s favour in order to withstand the Pandavas in battle, which in turn leads indirectly to Abhimanyu’s death. But there is a further parallel between Jayad·ratha and Arjuna: Abhimanyu’s mother Subhadra is “abducted” by Arjuna in much the same way as Jayad·ratha abducts Draupadi, although here it happens at the instigation of Subhadra’s brother Krishna. One wonders if the union between Arjuna and Subhadra remains in some way transgressive. After all, when Abhimanyu dies Arjuna despatches Krishna to comfort Subhadra rather than going to see her himself. For more on these abducted brides, see Jamison (1996: 22–35).

10 Though everyone takes Arjuna’s vow very seriously, Krishna’s response to it implies that he does not believe Arjuna can keep his word. He castigates him for what he considers a poorly-judged piece of bravado.

11 That Arjuna will set himself alight if he fails to make good his oath has explicitly Vedic connotations, fire being the primary medium through which a Vedic sacrifice is committed.

12 Yudhi·shthira has an important influence on Arjuna’s response to Abhimanyu’s death. He is careful about where to place the emphasis in his account of the events that led up to it: he glosses over Dauhshasani’s role and pointedly mentions that Jayad·ratha has received from Rudra the magical ability to restrain the Pandavas. What Yudhi·shthira has to explain is why the Pandavas failed to protect Abhimanyu, not who it was that actually killed him. Thus it is partly because his brother feels the need to excuse his own shortcomings that Arjuna in the end trains his anger almost entirely on Jayad·ratha.

13 Such commentators could learn a great deal from the second-century gnostic exegetes of the Old Testament who read with mordant irony Yahweh’s statement “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me” (Isaiah 45:5).