Laurie L. Patton
When Satyabhāmā, the wife of Kṛṣṇa, and Draupadī, wife of the Pāṇḍavas, retire to catch up in the forest, they have a confidential conversation (saṃvāda). Satyabhāmā asks Draupadī,
How do you conduct yourself towards the Pāṇḍavas, Draupadī? How are they obedient to you, and how are they never angry with you, lovely one? (kena draupadi vṛttena pāṇḍavān upatiṣṭhasi / . . . / Kaṭhaṃ ca vaśagās tubhyaṃ na kupyanti ca te śubhe //)
(3.222.4)
Satyabhāmā is convinced that Draupadī must be using a spell. Draupadī’s answer is a long, varied, and quite rich description of what she does as a wife, throughout which she is adamant that none of her wifely duties involves a spell or any form of deceit. As we will see, her wifely duties engage a surprising variety of roles.
We spend a large amount of time thinking about the topic of dharma in the Mahābhārata, occasionally forgetting that the issue of multiple dharmas is at the heart of the tragic nature of the story. While some might argue that this view is a truism almost not worth repeating, it does not translate into our interpretive frameworks in a very sophisticated way. While we are perfectly willing to admit Yudhiṣṭhira’s multiple dharmas as a king and a husband, or Arjuna’s as a warrior and a beloved cousin, we frequently still choose the singular theme, rather than the plural, when we conduct our studies (‘kingship in the epic’, ‘fate in the Mahābhārata’, and so on).1
Elsewhere I have argued against the singular hermeneutic of ‘gender’ in ancient India.2 Until recently we have tended to view ‘woman’ as a singular category, replete with queens, goddesses, maids, farmers, and courtesans, all joyfully lumped into a single hermeneutical pile. The last decade has seen a change in this approach, but it remains a challenge for us in terms of the study of the epic. The idea of ‘gender’ in the Mahābhārata tempts us to come up with a single ideology of gender in the epic, but it has become quite clear to me in my recent explorations that such a conclusion is impossible.
The clarity comes not only from the ideological commitment that all feminist hermeneutics must be plural. It also comes from the dialogical structure of the Mahābhārata itself. Many recent and not-so-recent studies3 have given us great insight into the nature of the frame tale – particularly how a switch in narrative voice gives us multiple perspectives from which to think about the unfolding scene. These frame switches involve temporal, narratological, and dramatic juggling of a mind-boggling complexity. And yet we very rarely think about the ways in which the actual characters – Mahābhārata ‘selves’ – are built through this narrative technique. We struggle with the idea of ‘character development’ in the epics, but we may have turned a blind eye to the ways in which selves might be constructed through dialogue itself.4
Yet we have, happily, a meeting of dialogical textual form and recent hermeneutical theory to help us think about the issue of multiply layered selves and multiple gender ideologies in the Mahābhārata. Recent theories of gender have argued that gender is constructed through social relationships – enacted hierarchy, speech acts and other forms of performance, conversation in which multiple selves are instantiated. Philosophers as well as feminist theorists in particular have come up with the term ‘the dialogical self’ to show the ways in which gender is constructed not only through the binary roles of male and female, but also through a series of multiple roles within both male and female repertoires.5 To put it succinctly, the dialogical, gendered self is a multiple self, with a variety of momentary roles to choose from.
Let us begin with a more general exploration of gender theory. Recently Judith Butler has argued for the idea that identity is performative and discursive, particularly when it comes to gender (1993: 2). She writes that the very idea of a ‘culturally intelligible subject’ is a result of rule-bound discourse, iterated throughout a series of performative instances (Butler 1999: 184ff.). And the idea of a gendered subject is no different. If Butler is right – and I think she is at least partly correct – then her theory can provide us with important insights into the nature of the epic. The idea of a knowing subject, constructed in this way, could well include any persuasive character in an epic, and Butler does include characters in novels and plays in her analyses. So the characters in the Mahābhārata are ‘constructed’ through performance, through a series of utterances that build our confidence in them as subjects. And thus we might read any given dialogue in the Mahābhārata as a building of characters – the creation of persuasive selves, and by implication, the building of gendered selves through performative speech acts (see also Butler 2001). Draupadī, Sudeṣṇā, and Satyabhāmā can be analysed in this light (as we shall see below), as could other characters.
Yet this self is not a simple self. Butler and other theorists are interacting with a recent turn in psychological and literary theory which proposes an idea called ‘the dialogical self’. Two of the founding figures in this field are H. Hermans and H. Kempen, who write that characters in a novel resist a singular description: ‘Different voices, often of a markedly different character and representing a multiplicity of relatively independent worlds, interact to create a self narrative’ (Hermans and Kempen 1993: 208).6
Here Hermans and Kempen are drawing upon Bakhtin’s notion of the polyphonic novel. Using the literary critic’s essay on Dostoyevsky’s poetics, they view the self as ‘voices in dialogical relation with each other’ (ibid.).7 In other words, the self is internally plural, and dialogical relationships between voices lend the self coherence. It is ‘only when an idea or thought is endowed with a voice and expressed as emanating from personal position in relation to others that dialogical relations emerge’ (ibid.; see also Hermans 2002: 74). Not surprisingly, a set of important ideas is developing about the South Asian dialogical self in relation to the diaspora, and the multiple worlds that such a self must contain.8
But surely these ideas are equally relevant, if not more so, to the characters – or selves – of an ancient text which is composed entirely of dialogue? Indeed, it strikes me that the Mahābhārata is the exemplar par excellence of Hermans’s, Kempen’s and Bakhtin’s ideas. For each character there are a series of dialogical positions, not all of them consistent, not all of them transparent, but each of them most clearly a voice taken in relationship to other voices within, as well as in relationship to other selves without. In fact, in the Mahābhārata one would be hard pressed to find character development outside of dialogue.
However, there are also very clearly specified dialogues – intensified exchanges – throughout the Mahābhārata. Many of these exchanges are designated as saṃvāda, generally translated as dialogue, but they can also be named as upadeśa, pradeśa, and anuvāda. There are also moments in the text when these dialogues are simply indicated by a change in metrical form.9 In many cases, the characters involved encounter each other in a specific moment of intensity, where some particular issue at stake is discussed and resolved. In the Mahābhārata all selves are dialogical selves, but some are even more dialogical than others.10
And yet such intense dialogical structure within the Mahābhārata has not been viewed against the background of a theory of the dialogical self. And so we might turn to significant exchanges in the Mahābhārata with this lens in mind. Although there are many fruitful paths that the hermeneutic approach of the dialogical self in the Mahābhārata could follow, I have chosen two particular dialogues in which gender ideology plays a significant role, and I discuss the multiply constructed self in gendered terms. I have preferred dialogues in which two women talk about gender roles, among many other topics: the dialogue of Draupadī and Satyabhāmā in the Āraṇyakaparvan (3.222–4, with particular reference to 3.222.1–57), and the dialogue of Draupadī and Sudeṣṇā in the Virāṭaparvan (4.8). I choose these same-sex dialogues because of their particular take on gender ideology. In these dialogues, the appropriate conduct and roles for women are discussed and emphasized as much as, if not more than, the difference between men and women.
This dialogue begins in the forest, during the Pāṇḍavas’ exile, right after the sage Mārkaṇḍeya has told them the stories of Skanda’s birth and demonkilling adventures. Satyabhāmā and Draupadī take a private seat inside, laughing because they have not seen each other in a long time. Satyabhāmā asks how Draupadī keeps the affection and obedience of her husbands, and suggests a variety of means, such as spells and sacrifices. Draupadī condemns the use of deceitful manipulations in marriage, and describes her own behaviour in relationship to her husbands, their retinue, and her mother-inlaw. She describes her duties in their former kingdom, and its vast wealth. She emphasizes that her actions are truthful, and not a ‘spell’ of any kind. Satyabhāmā apologizes, and suggests that such joking questions, as hers were, are common among friends. Draupadī then gives a versified description of her actions. Satyabhāmā reassures Draupadī that her wounded pride will be avenged, and that her sons are happy and well cared for, and then departs with Kṛṣṇa.
An initial reading of this passage would easily reveal a single gender ideology: Draupadī happily speaks of servitude, of treating one’s husband like a god – the classic pativratā devotion. As she puts it to Satyabhāmā early and often in their conversation, she serves her husbands without regard for her own likes and dislikes. Draupadī also speaks of her obedience; she never bathes nor eats nor sleeps until her husband has; she renounces what he renounces, eats and drinks what he does, and so on (3.222.23–4, 29–31). Later Draupadī declares that she never, in sleeping, eating, or talking, acts against the wishes of her Lord, and that she is always guided by her husbands (3.222.35–6).
In a sense, the rhetorical force – indeed, some might say sanctimoniousness – of such statements could overwhelm a subtler reading of Draupadī’s words. When we look for a single gender ideology in a tradition, we tend to find it. Yet there are some very intriguing ideas in this dialogue which would not be brought to light by such a reading: Draupadī’s awareness of the basic power dynamics between men and women, as well as her sense of her own power and agency within a given situation.11 Indeed, Draupadī is constructing a dialogical self – a loosely connected set of voices in dialogical relation to each other.
Let us first look more closely at what exactly is at stake in this saṃvāda. The two women are not just concerned with wifely behaviour per se, but the question of control and deceit – indeed, one might say, agency itself. When Satyabhāmā asks her question, she is particularly interested in the Pāṇḍavas’ inclination to do Draupadī’s bidding. It is not simply that she wants to know how they are never angry (na kupyanti) but also why they obey her (vaśagās tubhyaṃ 3.222.4). Satyabhāmā also uses the word ‘obedient’ again in verse 5 (tava vaśyā hi satataṃ pāṇḍavāh. . .). Her possible solutions to her own question are not unreasonable, and she gives us a long list of practices which, without the context of the dialogue, we would not be surprised to see in a yoga commentary, or even an Āgama or a Purāṇa. Satyabhāmā wonders about the practice of vows, or asceticism, or ablutions, or mantras, or herbs, or some special knowledge of roots, or recitation, or fire-sacrifice, or drugs.12 All of these are mentioned as efficacious means of action in the Vidhāna literature, and indeed, as auspicious forms of action. They are not spoken of as ‘black magic’ (abhicāra) of any kind. Nor is there any mention of an ari or śatru (enemy). And the Mahābhārata does not hold back from using this kind of terminology when necessary. Even Satyabhāmā calls the knowledge that she seeks yaśasyam (auspicious or glorious). So one can’t really blame Satyabhāmā for asking a straightforward question about family harmony. However, when Draupadī replies (3.222.9), she says that Satyabhāmā is asking her about conduct that is asat – that does not have the quality of truth. And she, Draupadī, must reply in truth (satye). She comments that the path of asat, non-truthful conduct (asadācarite), is a difficult one to praise.
Draupadī goes on to say something which displays her knowledge of the ‘balance of power’ in any given relationship between a husband and a wife – an element she will refer to again and again in the dialogue. As she puts it, if a man knows that his wife has begun the practice of mantra recitation and the application of magical roots, then the husband fears her as if she is a poisonous serpent in the house (3.222.11).13 And this state will lead to a permanent situation of unhappiness, for where will a man of fear find peace, and where will a man without peace find happiness?14 Here Draupadī is arguing that in a world where the gender roles of a female involve deceit, that deceit will give power to the woman and incite fear in the man. And she goes on to speak of these acts as a form of injury, using verbs such as upasṛjanti (for misfortune or calamity, oppressive action) to describe this behaviour. Draupadī, then, fully acknowledges that a wife can create fear in and oppress her husband. Indeed, at one point (3.222.13–16) she argues that such actions can and do cause disease and death.
Intriguingly, Draupadī then goes on in the next verses to state the kinds of pativratā behaviour we are all familiar with: the renunciation of that which her husbands renounce, the daily offerings to the gods, ancestors, and guests, the restraint of anger and jealousy, and the observance of patience and humility. But in the context of her initial strong awareness of the power dynamics within any given relationship, we might read these verses rather differently. Even the ‘quintessential statement’ of a pativratā might be read with some subtlety. At 3.222.35 Draupadī states, ‘The husband is a god, he is a path, and nothing else. What woman then would do injury?’ (sa devaḥ sā gatir nānyā tasya kā vipriyaṃ caret //). Draupadī may not simply be articulating the norm here, as a simpler, univocal reading might suggest. Rather, she could be articulating the actual state of affairs: a woman has no other option in life, so why would she act against her own self-interest in this regard? Again, if we read Draupadī as a sophisticated, thoughtful character, capable of many different approaches and containing many different voices, then this realistic voice – one that is knowledgeable about power dynamics – would indeed be consistent with voices of Draupadī that we have seen earlier.
In addition, Draupadī shows an understanding of the other side of the power equation: just as a manipulative wife is like a snake in the house, so too Draupadī uses a comparable simile in describing her protectiveness towards her husbands. Her statement is quite an elegant śloka in its use of contrasting images: ‘I serve my truthful, gentle husbands, who have the ethics and the dharma of truth, and watch over them as if they were poisonous angry snakes’ (mṛdūn sataḥ satyaśīlān satyadharmānupālinaḥ / āśīviṣān iva kruddhān patīn paricarāmy ahaṃ // 3.222.34). The contrast between the traditional interpretation of the Pāṇḍavas as gentle lords of dharma in the first part of the śloka, and the second interpretation of them as volatile and toxic reptiles, is striking indeed. The contrast is elegant, and on the surface it serves to illustrate the depth of Draupadī’s devotion. And yet we might also wonder about the force of iva here: is Draupadī speaking about the ludicrousness of the Pāṇḍavas’ behaving in this manner, as a contrastive or ironic simile might suggest? Or is she hinting at the fact that the Pāṇḍavas do actually act this way from time to time? Certainly there are enough episodes in the epic to give us reason to believe that the Pāṇḍavas, especially Bhīma, may well be prone to such behaviours. Moreover, there is no reason to think that Draupadī would be using one snake simile in a non-ironic way in verse 3.222.11 (women who use deceitful means of controlling their husbands are like snakes in the house), and later, another snake simile in an ironic way (the Pāṇḍavas can act like poisonous volatile snakes). While it is not entirely clear which way one might read the text, one thing is indeed clear: Draupadī understands the power dynamics involved. She could have chosen a simile of gentle animals such as rabbits or gazelles to describe the gentle Pāṇḍavas who need to be guarded so zealously. Indeed, the compound mṛduromakah – using the same word mṛdu (soft, gentle) – is a common epithet for a hare. And yet she did not. Instead she chose the opposite, as snakes imply danger and volatility from within a marriage as well as from without.
Draupadī shows another significant awareness of power dynamics in terms of her relations with other women. First we might take note of the fact – often glossed over – that Draupadī must serve the Pāṇḍavas’ other wives. At 3.222.18 Draupadī states, ‘I always serve the Pāṇḍavas with devotion, along with their wives’ (sadārān pāṇḍavān nityam prayatopacarāmy ahaṃ //). The compound sadārān is a common one to denote an entire household retinue that includes many wives.
And yet there is an even more significant dynamic that she is aware of – the forceful presence of Kuntī. Draupadī declares to Satyabhāmā in verse 3.222.38: ‘I always wait upon the worthy mother of heroes, truth-telling Kuntī’ (nityam āryām ahaṃ kuntīṃ vīrasūṃ satyavādinīm / . . . paricarāmy. . .). In addition to serving Kuntī, Draupadī never claims superiority over her in matters of food and dress, nor does she speak ill of that Pṛthā (Kuntī) who is equal to the earth itself.15 Here Draupadī again shows awareness of the need for acknowledging a power balance between two members of a household. Notice that she doesn’t simply speak of serving, or being subservient to, or honouring. She also states the negative possibility – that she could upstage or reprove her mother-in-law, but chooses not to. We see the same pattern of speech a little earlier, at 3.222.36, when she declares that, always guided by her husbands, she never speaks ill of her mother-in-law.16 Most intriguingly here, Draupadī suggests indirectly that her husbands’ gentle speech about their mother inspires her, but once again the subtle implication is also that their guidance is necessary, and she might not necessarily be so inclined if she were left to her own devices. In these subtle ways, then, and particularly by stating the negative possibility that she avoids, Draupadī shows an awareness of a domestic power balance.
Finally, Draupadī shows keen understanding of where her actual power does lie. She describes her former activities in the palace of Yudhiṣṭhira, before the banishment into the forest. Here Draupadī becomes very particular about numbers: she has served eight thousand brahmins, eighty-eight thousand snātakas, and ten thousand yatis, all eating their meals on plates of gold and each with a retinue of serving maids. The king himself, Draupadī reminds Satyabhāmā, had one hundred thousand serving maids and one hundred thousand horses and elephants (3.222.40–8). After she has enumerated all of these in Puranic fashion, she sums up the retinue and her responsibility for it in the following manner: ‘It was I who watched over the regulation and the number [of chores] among them, and I who listened to them’ (yesāṃ saṃkhyāvidhiṃ caiva pradiśāmi śṛṇomi ca // 3.222.49). Draupadī goes on to note in verse 3.222.50 that she alone knew the activities of the maids and the cowherds. And finally, in verse 51, she makes an ultimate power statement: ‘Among the renowned Pāṇḍavas I alone, good lady, knew the incomes and expenses of the king’s revenues’ (sarvaṃ rājñaḥ samudayam āyaṃ ca vyayam eva ca / ekāhaṃ vedmi kalyāṇi pāṇḍavānāṃ yaśasvinām //). Moreover, she alone supervised the treasury, which was inexhaustible like the hoards of Varuṇa.17 Here is the true power of Draupadī: her supervision of household affairs and her singlehanded financial mastery over the treasuries of the palace.
Such language of mastery (phrases such as ekāhaṃ vedmi) is not the only language that indicates Draupadī’s awareness of her own power. At two points in her reply to Satyabhāmā she actually speaks of her husbands’ obedience to her. Right after her use of the snake simile where she speaks of her guardianship of her husbands, Draupadī declares to Satyabhāmā: ‘O blessed lady, through constant care, continuous exertion and submission to (my) teachers, my husbands have become obedient’ (avadhānena subhage nityotthānatayaiva ca / bhartāro vaśagā mahyaṃ guruśuśrūṣaṇena ca // 3.222.37). The same sentiment is echoed at 3.222.56, when Draupadī sums up her long statement of her strength in the palace, their former place of residence, with how she uses this kind of model behaviour as her only charm (saṃvananam) to make her husbands obedient to her. In other words, obedient dutifulness begets obedience. In both passages the question of submission is understood as ‘two way’ in nature.
With this theoretical lens, then – the idea of a polyphonic ‘voice’ which builds a single character – we can read Draupadī’s speech in a new way: these are not simply the monochrome statements of a pativratā, but rather, various voices of Draupadī which alternate between fierceness and meekness, savvy and servitude, authority and submission. She is both the one who does not spend too much time in the privy, who does not laugh except at a jest (3.222.25–30), and the one who guards her husbands, oversees crores of personnel, and alone knows the amounts in the treasury. Indeed, in the various roles she assumes, we are tempted to think of Draupadī as the ādi-superwoman.
Most important for our analysis, though, is the fact that Draupadī does take on roles of strength and authority with clear knowledge of the particular power dynamics of a palace household. We learn from her something that most feminist analyses might not suggest: being a pativratā is a two-way street. And in the eyes of theorists of ‘the dialogical self’ such as Hermans and Kempen, this is exactly what the construction of a dialogical self might look like. There is a polyphonic voice and a set of multifaceted roles which make it impossible to think of a single woman’s voice embracing a single gender ideology. The Mahābhārata does not speak with a single voice when it comes to ‘women’ or even ‘gender ideology’. Moreover, it is clear that Draupadī’s speech lends support to Butler’s idea of gender as performative: when Satyabhāmā asks about instruments to make husbands obedient, Draupadī answers by narrating of a series of acts. By answering in this way, Draupadī emerges as a ‘culturally intelligible subject’ within a rule-bound discourse – a discourse which is polyphonic in nature.
For further ideas on this topic let us turn to another, somewhat smaller example – again a conversation between two women. At the beginning of the Virāṭaparvan, the Pāṇḍavas are thinking of how best to enter the kingdom of Virāṭa, and how to design their disguises.18 Draupadī decides to pose as a sairandhrī, a chambermaid, who is willing to do work for whoever will take her. When they have entered the royal court, Draupadī, in her disguise, has a dialogue with Sudeṣṇā, the chief wife and queen of Virāṭa. Again we see multiple voices at play in building a character, but here this takes place at a more intense level than in the earlier dialogue with Satyabhāmā.
Vaiśaṃpāyana begins narrating the story in anuṣṭubh verse. After the Pāṇḍavas have chosen their disguises and hidden their weapons in an old, distant tree near the cremation grounds, they enter the kingdom. Here Vaiśaṃpāyana switches into triṣṭubh verse. Yudhiṣṭhira puts on his glorious cloak, and when King Virāṭa sees him he asks his court who this could possibly be. There is then a saṃvāda between the king and Yudhiṣṭhira, who is asked to explain truthfully who he is and what his purposes are. Yudhiṣṭhira expounds his identity as a great brahmin who has lost all his wealth – a wise counsellor, a formidable gambler, once in the service of Yudhiṣṭhira himself (4.6).
The same occurs for Bhīma: Vaiśaṃpāyana narrates the warrior’s arrival, and the dialogue between Bhīma and the king ensues. Only this time, Virāṭa is more incredulous than he was with Yudhiṣṭhira. He says, ‘Pride giver, I cannot believe you are a cook, for you mirror the god of a thousand eyes’" He says, ‘Pride giver, I cannot believe you are a cook, for you mirror the god of a thousand eyes’19 (na sūdatāṃ mānada śraddadhāmi te sahasranetrapratimo hi dṛśyase / 4.7.6). Bhīma informs the king that he is especially good at sauces beloved long ago by Yudhiṣṭhira. We see the same pattern in the cases of Sahadeva, disguised as a cowherd (4.9), Arjuna, as a transvestite and maid versed in all the feminine arts (4.10), and Nakula, disguised as a horse groom (4.11).
Intriguingly, these saṃvādas of persuasion are all presented in triṣṭubh verse. The only negotiation that is not in triṣṭubh is the one between Sudeṣṇā and Draupadī, which occurs at 4.8, between Bhīma’s arrival and Sahadeva’s. One wonders at the reason for the change in metre – perhaps it is because Draupadī does not want to engage fully in a dialogue given her circumstances. We see a similar pattern at 4.13.1–21. Here Kīcaka approaches her in tristubh, and she responds in anuṣṭubh, until the very end of her response, where in her most emotional spurning of his advances, she breaks into triṣṭubh. It is on the anuṣṭubh saṃvāda between Draupadī and Sudeṣṇā that we will now focus.
Draupadī begins by dressing herself as a maid, concealing her hair, and wearing expensive yet dirty clothes. Townspeople query her, and she tells them that she seeks anyone who will hire her (4.8.1–4). Sudeṣṇā, the chief queen of Virāṭa, sees her from her terrace, and, impressed by her beauty and her forlorn state, asks her who she is. Draupadī replies as she has previously (4.8.6–8). But Sudeṣṇā asserts that she is too beautiful to be a chambermaid and that, if anything, she is the mistress of servants both male and female. Her physical appearance, comments Sudeṣṇā, is what gives her away: among many other physical attributes, Draupadī’s heels are not overly large, her palms, soles, bust and hips are well developed, her speech is sweet, her words are solemn, and her intelligence is great. In fact, in all of her attributes, thinks Sudeṣṇā, Draupadī is more like the goddess śrī. Might she be a yakṣī, or a gandharvī, or even a goddess herself (4.8.9–14)?
Here we see a compelling way in which status and gender combine to betray any attempt at disguise; the ‘signs’ of Draupadī’s high station in life are simply too numerous for her to fool anyone at first glance. Indeed, Sudeṣṇā speaks to her in part as a lover would to praise a beloved’s attributes – but Draupadī seems to be a lover who would exist in the heavens, rather than on earth. She must be divine or at least semi-divine. Thus it is impossible at the very beginning of this dialogue to avoid the polyphonic voices of social status and gender.
Moreover, Sudeṣṇā observes, Draupadī can oversee servants of both genders – a theme we have seen earlier in her description of her overseeing Yudhiṣṭhira’s palace. The text is very careful to mention both male and female servants in the Draupadī-Satyabhāmā dialogue (3.222.50) as well as in this one in the Virāṭaparvan (4.8.9). The earlier dialogue indicates Draupadī’s authority over both male and female genders; this one indicates her attractiveness to both genders.
Draupadī tries to reassure Sudeṣṇā that she is neither divine nor royal, and then provides an assertion of her appropriate class as a sairandhrī. She then goes on to describe the various labours of a chambermaid – the dressing of hair, the pounding of cosmetics, the making of garlands. In a delightful play of identities, Draupadī asserts that she has served both Draupadī and Satyabhāmā.20 She earned good food from Draupadī, and was given the name Mālinī, ‘garland girl’. But she also wanders about alone, looking for work – hence her presence in the Virāṭa kingdom.21
Sudeṣṇā replies that Draupadī, as Sairandhrī, will make her husband swoon over her. To justify this assertion, she points out that women are looking at her, attracted by her beauty. No male person will be able to resist her attractiveness either. 22 So too the king will surely leave Sudeṣṇā once he sees Draupadī, and turn to her with his whole heart.23 Here Sudeṣṇā utilizes a lovely metaphor for her own predicament in taking Draupadī in: ‘Just as a crab conceives an embryo which is her own death, so I think the same of giving you shelter, O Sweet-Smiling One’ (yathā karkaṭakī garbham ādhatte mṛtyum ātmanaḥ/ tathāvidham ahaṃ manye vāsaṃ tava śucismite // 4.8.26).24
Here there is a multiplicity of roles. Sudeṣṇā herself is clearly attracted to Draupadī, and wants to take her in for her own sake. But at the same time, she is aware of Draupadī’s potential attractions for the king, and states them outright. Sudeṣṇā is patron, friend, and rival, all in one single relationship. Notice here that for Sudeṣṇā it is not simply a matter of rivalry – frequently classed as ‘co-wifery’ (sapatnī) in epic and other early texts – or of blind friendship, but something much subtler and more multi-layered.
Draupadī replies to Sudeṣṇā very clearly and stridently that no man will touch her, and that her five husbands are gandharvas, sons of a powerful gandharva king, who will always protect her.25 Most importantly, and perhaps most reassuringly for Sudeṣṇā, Draupadī explains that anyone who attempts to take her as one might a common woman will meet with their death that very night.26 Draupadī’s gandharvas are always engaged in a form of secret protection.
Draupadī’s use of the image of the gandharvas is doubly meaningful here. First, we might note that in the earlier dialogue Draupadī mentions marriage to a gandharva in the context of those asat (deceitful) marriages which she decries to Satyabhāmā. As she puts it there, Draupadī’s heart belongs to her husbands, not to any other god, mortal, or gandharva (3.222.22). Thus it is both fitting and somewhat ironic that, from within her disguise, she refers now to her five husbands as gandharvas.27 Even though Draupadī’s own sense of loyalty to her husbands would prohibit such extra marriages to gandharvas, deceit is the name of the game in the Virāṭa kingdom. Thus, in that context, her choosing to have gandharva husbands is appropriate. And, while marriage to a gandharva is explicitly understood as a lack of protection and safety between husband and wife in the earlier dialogue,28 here it is indeed the best protection possible to guard against the (albeit friendly) jealousy of Sudeṣṇā and the potential sexual advances of Virāṭa.
Both Draupadī and Sudeṣṇā prove to be right in their forebodings. Draupadī’s discomfort after Kīcaka’s lewd advances is, of course, part of the motivation for the killing of Kīcaka (4.13–23), an episode which both oddly echoes the previous gambling scene and foreshadows the war to come.29 Yet the important point for us here is that both women express these forebodings in multiple voices, exploring multiple roles. Draupadī is at once temptress and chaste woman, chambermaid and goddess. Sudeṣṇā is at once protectress of the forlorn itinerant, sexual rival, and friend. And all of these very gendered roles are explicitly explored and discussed within the dialogue itself, through the use of imagery and clever repartee that allows the subtleties of the situation to emerge.
* * *
We have seen, then, two powerful instances of the multiplicity of gender roles within a single conversation (saṃvāda). I can only gesture here towards the possibility of exploring multiple gender roles, and the development of a dialogical self, in other famous saṃvādas in the epic. We might think of Agastya and Lopāmudrā, who alternately switch back and forth between the appropriateness of asceticism and householder life for both men and women, and who are in a multi-layered battle for the well-being of Agastya’s ancestors (3.94–7). We might also explore the dialogue of Sulabhā and Janaka (12.308), where the appropriateness of gender behaviour is explored in a wide variety of contexts: the roles of yogins; the conduct of kings, queens, and their courts; the influence of gotras; the teachings of various philosophical schools; the possibility of meditative union; the relationship between meditative union and sexual union.
This brief study suggests, then, that gender ideology is a multi-layered issue, even in the epic’s poetics of dharma. In their understandings of male and female roles these dialogues about gender are as complexly constructed as anything that Judith Butler might propose for our consideration. And this complexity comes about precisely through dialogue – not narrative summary, not paraphrase. If dialogical selves are the new models for thinking about gendered selfhood in the Euro-American academic tradition, we might do well to turn back to that master of dialogues, the Mahābhārata, for some sophisticated tutelage on the subject.
1 The issue of multiple voices has been aptly raised by James Fitzgerald (2003); see also A.K. Ramanujan (1989) on the subtlety and multiplicity of dharma.
2 For a longer discussion of this idea, and related references on the treatment of the ‘women’s issue’ in the singular, see Patton 2002a. For a discussion of this issue particularly in relation to the epic, I look forward to Arti Dhand’sWoman as Fire, Woman as Sage: sexual ideology in the Mahābhārata (in press); see also Dhand 2002; 2004.
3 See, among many others, Ramanujan 1991; Minkowski 1989; Reich 1998; and Hiltebeitel 2001a, esp. pp. 93-129. Emily Hudson’s dissertation (2006) also argues for the ontological and aesthetic as well as the literary value of the ‘frame’ structure of the epic; see also Chapter 2.
4 When I teach the Mahābhārata, I have often noted that Irawati Karve’s Yuganta (1969) is a favourite reference work amongst students. I believe this is because Karve very clearly begins from a perspective of the personal experience of each of the characters treated. Moreover, she assumes that such experience is multifaceted.
5 See in particular Hermans, Kempen and van Loon 1992; Scott 2001.
6 See also Hermans, Kempen and van Loon 1992; Hermans, Rijks and Kempen 1993; Barresi 2002.
7 See also Bakhtin 1973; 1990; Todorov 1988.
8 See for example Moya 1996; Bhatt 2002.
9 We have several examples of such a switch in metre in the passages describing each of the pāṇḍavas’ entry into the Virāṭa kingdom (see, for example, the dialogue between Virāṭa and Yudhiṣṭhira at 4.6.1-16; and the dialogue between Virāṭa and Bhīma at 4.7.1-11). It should be noted that the narrator, Vaiśaṃpāyana, also briefly switches metre in introducing his narration, in addition to representing the voices of the interlocutors.
10 I am grateful to Jim Fitzgerald and Angelika Malinar for their comments on the idea of saṃvāda here (Epic Constructions conference, SOAS, London, 8 July 2005). Although it is tempting to see ‘identity’ at stake for each of the dialogues, it may be better described as a salient but not universal characteristic.
11 For recent discussions of women’s agency in early India, see, among many others, H.-P. Schmidt 1987; Leslie 1991; Porter and Teich 1994; Jamison 1996; Leslie and McGee 2000; McGee 2002; Findly 2002; Patton 2002b; Jamison 2002; Patton 2004.
12 vratacaryā tapo vāpi snānamantrauṣadhāni vā / vidyāvīryaṃ mūlavīryaṃ˙japahomas tathāgadāḥ // 3.222.6.
13 udvijeta tadaivāsyāḥ sarpād veśmagatād iva //
14 udvignasya kutaḥ śāntir aśāntasya kutaḥ sukham / 3.222.12.
15 naitām atiśaye jātu vastrabhūṣaṇabhojanaiḥ / nāpi parivade cāhaṃ tāṃ pṛthāṃ pṛthivīsamām // 3.222.39.
16 nāpi parivade śvaśrūṃ sarvadā pariyantritā //
17 adhṛṣyam varuṇasyeva nidhipūrṇam ivodadhim / ekāhaṃ vedmi kośam vai patīnām dharmacāriṇām // 3.222.54.
18 According to the terms agreed at the dice match, the pāṇḍavas and Draupadī must spend the final year of their exile in society but in disguise.
19 Here I am following van Buitenen’s translation.
20 ārādhayaṃ satyabhāmāṃ kṛṣṇasya mahiṣīṃ priyām / krsnām ca bhāryāṃ pāṇḍūnāṃ kurūṇām ekasundarīm // 4.8.17.
21 tatra tatra carāmy evaṃ labhamānā suśobhanam / vāsāṃsi yāvac ca labhe tāvat tāvad rame tathā // mālinīty eva me nāma svayaṃ devī cakāra sā / 4.8.18-19.
22 striyo rājakule paśya yāś cemā mama veśmani / prasaktās tvāṃ nirīksante pumāṃsaṃ kaṃ na mohayeḥ // 4.8.21.
23 rājā virāṭaḥ suśroṇi drstvā vapur amānuṣam / vihāya māṃ varārohe tvāṃ gacchet sarvacetasā // 4.8.23.
24 On this simile van Buitenen has commented: ‘I find no folklore on the belief that the crab dies in giving birth’ (1978: 534).
25 nāsmi labhyā virāṭena na cānyena Kaṭhaṃ cana / gandharvāḥ patayo mahyaṃ yuvānaḥ ˙pañca bhāmini // putrā gandharvarājasya mahāsattvasya kasya cit / rakṣanti te ca māṃ nityam duḥkhācārā tathā nv ahaṃ // 4.8.27-8.
26 yo hi māṃ puruṣo gṛdhyed yathānyāḥ prākṛtastriyaḥ / tām eva sa tato rātriṃ praviśed aparāṃ tanum // 4.8.30.
27 Marriage to a gandharva should not be confused with the so-called ‘gandharva marriage’, in which two (human) lovers choose and marry each other independent of parental involvement or permission (see Chapter 8). However, in light of the facts here - that Draupadī seems to be personally attracted to the Pāṇḍavas, and Sairandhrī to her gandharva husbands - some kind of double entendre is no doubt intended.
28 Draupadī there compares the Pāṇḍavas to the sun, fire, and the moon, emphasizing that they are great, fierce, and fiery chariot-warriors who can kill just by looking (3.222.21). It is in light of the Pāṇḍavas’ consequent ability to protect her that she says in the next verse that no other husband would do, not even a god or gandharva.
29 In fact, after Kīcaka falls the Kauravas, seeing an opportunity for engagement, propose a raid. In the ensuing mock battle we have the occasion for another saṃvāda, introduced by Vaiśaṃpāyana and involving Arjuna and Uttara.