PER-JOHAN NORELIUS
Uppsala University
per-johan.norelius@teol.uu.se
THE KING WHO FELL FROM THE SKY: ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE STORY OF VASU UPARICARA
The story of King Vasu Uparicara is related in the Ādi-, Śānti-, and Āśvamedhikaparvans of the Mahābhārata, with several later versions found in Jaina sources, and one in a Pāli Jātaka. The present study aims to trace the inception of the story and its development in Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical literature. Expanding on the close parallels between the Epic narrative and the Iranian legend of King Yima, first noted by Dumézil, it is argued that the Brahmanical tale owes its origins to borrowing from Iranian sources, with Zoroastrian themes and motifs being still detectable in the Indian narrative. One reason for the Brahmanical appropriation of the foreign legend may have been to provide the (probably) non-Vedic Indra festival with a respectably ancient pedigree. Perhaps more importantly, however, the motif of Yima’s fall through his encouragement of blood sacrifice lent itself to adaptation by renunciant circles in India, among whom the Pāñcarātras of the Kashmir area seem to have been the principal promoters of the Vasu story. In their hands, the story was given the form of a Viṣṇuite account of non-violence, the origin of blood sacrifice, and redemption through divine grace.